Kildare

The sensation of home can only be impossible.
It holds no meaning but for one.
Each individual open to no closure
and as the pavement changes
from a dark charcoal gray to a sparkling
gem dotted street paved with golden skin
as wheels still turn
wearing the ground thin
as my patience for prompt responses
disintegrate as fast as the children
fly.

Lake Michigan Pt. 1

Somewhere in the overflowing bins of photographs, there is one image of myself, at age seven, standing in front of a portal to another world. The entrance is dim but filled with creatures who allowed me to escape my own reality for a few hours. Somehow my eternally fleeting attention was captured by them, I stood at that portal for the entire length of a school field trip. While my classmates dashed like refracted light around the aquarium, bouncing from each glass casing to the next, I stood in the same spot, watching these magical orbs glow.
Thy would float in all directions, the only motion that could be detected was a silent swoosh of their gooey exterior. Their rings would shift colors, blending with the blue background of the container until there was a fluorescent explosion of any and all imaginable colors. I still have no idea why it was these animals that made me want to take notice of their every movement or breath, well they couldn’t breath really. They had no mouths. Or heads, for that matter. Just fragile orbs with no resemblance to me, but there I stood, impatiently fiddling with my instant camera, reading their description over and over again.

Aurelia aurita (Moon Jelly)
Thailand
NO FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY ALLOWED

My inner voice of reason tried to convince me that I wouldn’t have any photographic evidence of this new world, it probably wouldn’t even come out with the only light source being their outer membranes, only a dull glow. But another voice kept piping up, this voice just wouldn’t let it go. It kept harping on me to just do it, no one was even paying attention to these guys except me. They deserved to be immortalized through film, their phosphorous qualities would live on through the magic of my three dollar camera.
This battle went on for some time. My two selves were both determined to get their way so much so that I didn’t even notice the woman standing next to me until she tapped me on the shoulder.
“Would you like a picture with the Moon Jellies?”
“Yes, but – the sign. It said, no pictures.”
I could barely form words, which happened often to me as a child. I’d flush, my face turning as red as the lobsters in the previous display and hide, mumbling a requisite answer to whoever was talking to me until they went away, leaving me to wait for the blood to stop filling my cheeks and allow my body to function normally once more. She was pretty though, I remember that. Her chestnut hair seemed to reflect the marine world where we stood in perfect harmony, even more so then her aquamarine polo did. Then I saw the name tag.
“Oh, you work here.”
“Yes, I do.” She laughed, almost too loud, the jellies floated to the right side of the portal. She was watching me, I could tell. Even though I was staring so intensely at my own two hands, I knew that she was waiting for me to do something. Yet all I could do was stare at my hands, trying to hide the camera, trying to hide away my thoughts of disobeying the rules.
“I love these guys too. I actually got to go get them from their original home, in Thailand.”
“NO WAY!”
I realized that I was shrieking, like a little girl, which no doubt about it I was but I never behaved that way. I was what most adults would call a “creepy” child, keeping to myself more often then not, busy with my own plans and ideas that engrossed my attention for hours upon hours.
“Yep. It was pretty neat, lots of unique sea life that lives near there, much different then this Lake.”
She pointed out the window at Lake Michigan, a navy pool with patches of earth green underneath the cold water.
“Here, let me take your picture.”
She placed her hand on mine, slipping the camera from my grip into her own. I tried to stammer out a reply but instead just turned to face her, all teeth, and a little gum while standing on my tip toes.

Mom

Another Saturday in the world of a seven year old, finally free from all the stress the second grade classroom. I would grab the overstuffed green chair in our living room with s’mores pop-tarts, fresh from the toaster, and watch my Saturday morning line-up. It started off with Doug leading to Darkwing Duck and ending with Captain Planet. Feeling inspired by the environmental message of the Planeteers, I decided to wander outside to ride my bike. I grabbed my hand me down bike with the wobbly back wheel and began my adventure up and down the 64th block of Western Kildare Avenue.
My block doesn’t have many interesting features to it. It’s covered in bungalows with their eight by ten foot patches of grass for their front yard. There are a few trees scattered, one distinct elm at the south end and in the middle is a giant tree with tiny leaves that would follow me whenever I would ride past. One interesting feature of my block is the direction that it faces. There is Lee School, a public elementary school and then half of the block is just an empty field. For some reason the kids from the neighborhood would always seem to congregate there, even though there were four perfectly fine baseball fields at the park one block away. The game was always baseball but I could never join in since it wasn’t allowed for me to cross the street. So I would just sit and watch from my porch while my dog Barney would wander and sniff the grass in our front yard. But before I could hang out with the dog for the afternoon, I heard my name being called from across the street.
The most astonishing thing about it was who was calling my name. I screeched to a halt to see Mary Eileen Dalton (Marsie as her friends called her) to be waving at me. She was one of the prettiest, nicest, most popular girls in our whole second grade. It was a really big deal that she even knew my name. I would’ve given anything for her just to talk about me but here she was actually waving at me and talking to me. She told me to come join them to go sit and hang out. I didn’t even process what was going on because my feet took action for me. I think they were tired of spending their Saturdays doing nothing but riding up and down the block. I had barely crossed the street before I realized what I had done. I froze in horror at the screeching sound of my name from behind me.
“Maureen! Maureen Therese Foody!”
My Mom marched up to me, ignoring my silent pleading to have mercy on my social life. She snatched the handle of my bike and grasped my right shoulder. She dragged me back across the asphalt and back onto our bland eggshell covered sidewalk. She was lecturing me the whole time but I was elsewhere. I kept trying to glance back and see what was going on across the street. Were they watching me? Were they on the floor laughing at how pathetic I was? I couldn’t get a glimpse until we reached the top of the stairs at the platform of our stairs. They were all laughing. I would later learn that this was not because of my incident but at the very same time Kevin Schumacher split his pants, exposing his batman underoos for all to see. From then on his presence always greeted by a chorus of, “Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na, Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na, Batman!” But since I didn’t know this hilarity had occurred, I assumed everyone was laughing at me, forcing me to utter one single word.
“Damn.”
“MAUREEN!”