“The field was on fire. I’d left my friend’s house at twilight, heading out across the smooth lands of the valley, normally an uneventful ride. I hadn’t expected to see this. The farmer, still riding his tractor, and tilling nearby, seemed nonplussed. A controlled fire. Something reset inside me, with the understanding of it. Yet, I gawked, slowed the truck to a stop on the road, and opened the window. Another car to the rear of me, pulled wide, passing around me. Maybe my processing speed required an extra moment, to absorb the sight. An imagining place in my mind, already on alert, was entering what it thought might be a war zone. The complex layers of what we perceive as real, and what is real, are easily blurred. I felt what it was, to watch crops burn. Though here, of course, it was too early for crops. It was merely a weed burn. I couldn’t help but be confused, at the edges of my own fear, a mixture, perhaps, including remnants of actual disaster in my subconscious, trying to size up actual danger, or lack thereof. This is the odd marriage we live in, caught between our own genetic memory, and the now. Without being grandiose, I would not dismiss a history belonging to my forebearers, being driven from Turkey. But it had been a wonderful evening, of laughter, and commiseration. Nothing to do with world domination, or exile. Gripping something akin to a bouzouki, I had played along with Hank Williams songs, and sipped beers, and swapped tall tales. The wide, welcoming veranda hosting pots of colorful annual flowers, thoughtfully, and tastefully arranged, had seemed a bulwark against all things evil. I had let down my guard. I was overdue, any kind of reprieve. Some of us live in hyper-vigilance, waiting for the other shoe to drop, as a way of life. The smouldering subtext of who we are, is hardly ever given this type of permission, to relax. I’d made a point of examining the topography, leading up to and including the location of my very good friend. A reflex: to record, and remember, and replay every twist and turn that brought me anywhere. As if at any moment, it all might ignite, and be disappeared. At least I would not be caught unawares. Several times, he went back into the house, to put the pizza in the oven. It was a point of much hilarity. Whether or not the pizza had actually made it, into the oven. I’m not sure why the same questions can come back around, again and again, but I can tell you that when you’re having fun, almost nothing is for certain. Here it is 2024, and all the pets are dead, spouses deposed, parents gone heavenward, yet I can’t stop from doubling over, feeling joyful, and triumphant. I can clearly see my Italian grandmother chuckling with some funny roll of her eyes, or perhaps, a blast off her piano accordion. “Finally, you’re lightening up, darling girl!” she remarks. I know I’m still carrying the dead weight of several absurd partnerships, but if she has any say in the matter, I’ll be sloughing it all off before you can say, “Jack Robinson”. What the hell is that? Talk about genetic transference: I guess the dang thing is real.”
