Changes

I sit on my porch and stare at the running water in the little brook outside my house. I find myself wanting a cigarette. It isn't the nicotine so much. Don't think that was ever it. What I fell in love with was the ritual. Fish in a pocket, shake out a smoke (I adamantly avoided hard packs), fumble a lighter (always an old bronzed zippo-an homage to the first person I ever wanted to be), and quietly enjoy the flare as the flame danced amongst the tobacco, creating a unique little performance with every breath.

The tea ritual for someone without enough sense to drink tea.

Those were the younger days, the more deluded days... sometimes the memories get hazy, like a dream I can't quite remember.

As I sit on the tidy little porch that is attached to my responsible house and want a cigarette, I think about changes. A man threatened to stab me today. I remember my weight shifting to the balls of my feet. I remember taking care not to let my intentions show on my face. I remember what I said to disarm him with my words, and what I'd been willing to do with my hands if the need arose. I remember being scared shitless, but not going anywhere. Honestly couldn't say whether I used the words because it was the right thing or because I was scared of the alternative.

The condensation from the beer in my hand glints in the faint lamp light. I take a long sip and enjoy its taste. It tastes like fall, even though the hot, wet evening air doesn't. That peculiar restlessness creeps into me... my body starts to strain for the first feelings of cool air that have not yet arrived to herald my favorite season. Comes late in wet, sticky Florida... if it comes at all.

At one point in my life, I harbored fantasies about being in dangerous places and doing dangerous, maybe exciting things. I created scenarios in my mind where the training I did in a little padded room was validated by my demonstrated, always witnessed prowess in the face of threats. It was an adolescent power fantasy that afflicted someone old enough to know better.

Now I just want to get home and play on the floor with my kid. Don't over much care about how I get there. Don't really want a war story. Not good at telling them; most everyone I am surrounded with has better ones about real wars.

Victory was sharing the incident with my wife, and if I needed any vindication, I got it when she joked about it and handed me the beer and gave me some space. Proof that I chose the right woman. I guess that means a hell of a lot more to me these days than impressing people by throwing some poor bastard on his can. Takes a lot more intelligence to choose the right woman. More guts to stay with her as time passes.

As I grab the laptop and start clacking away at the keys, I can't help but chuckle. I've since learned how to talk to people when I feel isolated like this, but somehow putting these thoughts and feelings onto a glowing terminal is comforting... a ritual older than the cigarettes and infinitely more meaningful.

I slowly get up. There's dishes to do, bottles to make... the laundry won't do itself. Not terribly exciting, but I'm at peace with it.