3.3.07

i used to drink water out of hoses when i was little; up in the mountains where hose-water tastes like aquafina. i'd do it after pulling starthistles that my dad asked me to uproot, using huge oversized leather work-gloves that had thistles inside of them buried deep in the leather from the summer before; or when returning home to my mom's house in the scorching sun after spending a summer day downtown, or at campsites or outdoor festivals that took place on pieces of land without conventional sinks. there's something about hose-water that is unlike anything else. you can taste the metal and rubber of the hose when you drink the water. you run the risk or soaking the entire front of your shirt or swimsuit if you don't time it carefully. you can hear the water approaching as you turn on the faucet, and the first drinks of water are warm from sitting mid-hose in the heat of the sun for so long.

the garden-hose is something that i used to know, but no longer know. i used to understand hose-kinks, and why it was that they stopped the water and how easy it was to unkink them. i used to know how easy it was to create another kink while unkinking the first, and i used to take extra effort to avoid doing this. but the last time i picked up a garden hose was when my friend mindy and i were borrowing our friend jon's van and she drove with the emergency brake on. we had to stop the car in front of a large frat house and use their hose in order to spray four smoking tires with it, all in vain. we didn't know what to do so we, being sophomores in college at the time, called 911. then i called my father. he heard the sirens in the background as the fire trucks approached and he said, "what's that sound?". i told him, and he said a long, drawn-out "alllllllright", followed by, "have fun with that," and a hasty goodbye.

it's odd to think about all the tools that you utilize throughout your years, and it's odd to think that the same tool can be used in a situation completely different from any other situation in which the same tool has been used.

my grandfather collected tools, and my father still does. i equate the smell of wood-shavings to both of them. my grandfather made me a wooden chest one year for christmas, when i was probably around ten. it was made of cedar, with a little shelving piece inside of it and with a key with which to lock it. it's nice that my grandpa understood the idea of privacy, even for children, and the importance of a lock and key. i hid many-a-treasure in that box and locked it up. notes from friends and drawings and lyrics and poetry. all the things one can never have enough of or make enough of.

my grandpa's tool "shop" was one room out of many, in the barn at the place where he used to live with my grandmother. country road 96. he had drawers and drawers of different tools of different sizes. different projects that he'd started. science impliments or gifts for his sons or his grandkids, or pieces of furniture. he was careful about who he let in there, and i know that i spent some time with him there when i was young, but only accompanied. the longest time i spent in there was after his death, with my dad. we went there and looked through all the drawers and in all the little boxes, seeking out tools we might want to claim and keep ourselves. it felt like it had been kept untouched, as it had been left, and it seemed to embody my grandpa's entire character in its walls. it's an odd feeling when you walk into a room and realize that something in that room - a chair, or a bit of floor-space, or a tool, or any number of tools - was last touched by someone you love who is no longer there, and since then touched by no one else. to go into a room full of that kind of sanctity felt odd. and thinking about it makes me sad. it's been almost six years since my grandpa's death, and it's still a deep wound. it's deep enough to be hidden some of the time and yet to have the ability to catch me off-guard.

a year after his death, it was the mention of a jar of pickles that drove me to tears. he'd had a liking of pickles and had made it one of his hobbies to make pickles, to pickle things, and to eat pickles. how can an object as ridiculous as a pickle conjure up such a kind of bold and majestic grief? sometimes grief feels like full connection to one's memories. it is when i am best able to remember something lost, or something that has passed, that i most grieve. i think maybe we're all grieving on a daily basis when we think about the past, but i don't think this is a bad thing. i wish there was a better way to put it, because thinking about the past in such a way, although difficult, is also what allows the individual to better understand the scope of his own life. remembering a person, even if difficult, reminds the rememberER of how meaningful a person can be in another's life. and this is not something to grieve about, but rather something to live for.