Free Fall Writing Prompt- Prove them wrong
At my age, complete with straw fedora, I really shouldn’t be worried about “proving them wrong.” But of course, when I am half consciously whooshing my car along highway 9, that can be one of the things I think about.
It’s a human thing. A young human thing. There’s a rock song about someone learning to be a good dancer to finally get someone’s approval, there’s an even older rock song about someone who doesn’t know what a slide rule is for, saying that maybe if he could be an A student he could win a love to him. And of course, on the street, people who can master the intricacies of boot camp, and the health and fitness requirements, will relish coming home on leave in their marine dress blues. “See? I’m not stuck in this ghetto.”
If I stop to think of the US marines, so sadly out of reach of many young men and women, it’s because at my age I am more concerned with “being all I can be” than with “showing them.”
Want to hear something crazy? As a child I somehow knew that my older and wiser siblings and parents were wrong, and filed away at least a score of such instances. But I deleted them, one by one down the years, just as soon as I could privately say, “Ah ha! I was right!” But as a child, how did I know to “file”? My subconscious, or God, is wise beyond measure. Perhaps I sensed I was being “gas lighted.”
Just yesterday, whooshing down highway 9, I reflected on how my boss said she could put me with even the hardest clients. This was, a peer told me, because I would “lean in” to any difficulty. My old peers who judged me, family peers I mean, were too wimpy to lean in very much. Certainly I knew never to ask for help. At the time, when I was stupid, I might have blamed myself. The truth is that even after I became a “man of the world,” with all sorts of experiences and executive functioning, as they say, not to mention learning to be centred and grounded and face all problems calmly… I could still become instantly stupid if I was very afraid. This happened once in middle age, but only once. And after I was back to normal I went, “Holy cow! I remember: That is how I functioned every day of my life as a child and young man: Afraid every minute, extra afraid of every problem or obstacle, and stupid. My brain was squished into stupidity.”
I guess I’ve proved them wrong. I function just fine. But I can’t tell them so. Too long ago, and, gosh, they are still too stupid.
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Writing Prompt- The Secret Garden
There is a secret garden in my mind. In these sunset years I lounge on my cement patio wearing my straw fedora—kids these days think a fedora is so adorably retro, except maybe when someone my age wears one. But nobody seems to mind. Did I say I lounge? Not quite. I sit on an acrylic chair with swivelling lumbar support, sitting prim and proper: These old bones won’t slouch for long, not without grim consequences.
But you don’t want to hear about my health. I answer the young people, “Still naught but the usual aches and pains.” It’s not that I fear they don’t care to hear, rather I know that they don’t want to contemplate time, not yet. It takes years to toughen up enough to face the truth. How amusing when youngsters think they need to shelter us from news of someone’s health, or news of someone’s sinning. I know sin.
I speak not of evil because I am my brother’s keeper, and keeping a good example is a duty and a common neighbourliness. At least, that’s how we felt in my day, coming home with dried blood on our faces, or gossiping furiously in alleyways. Next morning, faces clean, all was forgotten. And in my day, all was forgiven. In my day, no giant churches, and no mingling of church and senate. I suppose we all want salvation, but there are better and worser ways to go about it.
The kids pass by me and I am again looking at stone sundial, following a nice earth path around to—what? Today it’s a monster rose bush, red of course, with blossoms cascading up and over and around. Let’s add some bees too. Oh, and the smell of colitas, as I think about the pompetis of love. The ginkgo tree branches sway overhead, not too thick, not too thin, with just enough sunlight. Something with a claw on the wingtip glides by—now where did that come from? Life is good.
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Sean Crawford
Alexandra Writers Centre Society
At Free Fall Friday drop in,
September
2025
FF Friday note: Weekly groups are on-line and in person, both at 10 a.m. mountain time,
with no critiquing, because we don’t do improvement—Just writing. Real fast. Like theatre improvisation, flying, writing before we hit the ground. Great fun!
