The Best Day of My Life

I can say that the sky was bluebird and bright, punctuated by one-dimensional, cartoony clouds. But if my memory speaks correctly, the sky was gray like the underside of a pigeon’s wing. Walking home from school, I descended steep Richmond Street, all the way down to the retired railroad tracks that stretched north and south behind the high-rises. I stopped on the tracks and looked north, the direction my spirit always went when I lived in that dreary, industrial, riverside town of Arnold, Pennsylvania. That landscape, brushed up against the meandering Allegheny River, raised me.

I can say that the sun peeled all the light from itself and wrapped me in that light, because that is how I suddenly felt. I can say that the limestone rocks under my feet glimmered a bright message meant only for me, because that is how it felt. I can say that the valley in which I stood trembled in an affection for little twelve-year-old me, because that is what I felt. I can say that the landscape came alive, and beckoned me to also do so, but alas, it was only a cold, dreary Friday—January 22nd, 1999. My white house with the garage in the front was right there to my left, across the street. No one was home yet.

So, I listened to the limestone and didn’t go home. Something unlike anything else overcame me. Some kind of energy unlike anything. And as it happened, I promised myself that I would never forget whatever feeling it was in my belly, my chest, unraveling inside my brain. I promised myself to always remember—always come back to—this feeling.

I hid my bookbag under a bush. Feeling much lighter, I took to the dirt path next to the railroad tracks, and I started to run. I ran parallel to the tracks, past the steep slopes of earth I rode my sled down throughout my childhood winters. I didn’t feel twelve anymore. I felt older. Not 16, not 18, not 25, not my current age of 37. I felt ancient. I felt like some sort of elder wisdom clutched my chest and sent me. I didn’t feel like I was running, but more like I was being pulled. Eventually I reached the cement block wall that bordered a road. With a strength I did not know I had, I slipped my toes and fingers into the cracks between the blocks and climbed up the wall like a spider. Once at the top, I did not marvel at what I had done but kept running along the spine of the wall, driven by my ancient force. Eventually I was on sidewalk, running, running. I ran to where Horne Boulevard ended and the police station began. It would not be until I was older that I would explore the abandoned ruins of a glass factory behind that police station. I ran down 5th Avenue and its dilapidated buildings. The storefronts reflected a child but I felt as old as a boulder, as strong as an oak, as ancient as the first traces of movement captured in sediment. I felt like a mystic, a twirling dervish. All the while, the promise to myself to remember this cycled through my head. I was buzzing and necessary and a relic of something. The cold air ripened my face. My breath was important dialogue that even I couldn’t translate. A vessel with two legs, I continued on, rounding my block and circling back to my book bag. Pink of cheek, I walked home.

Stepping over the threshold and into my childhood home, I became a child again before my parents came home. I still don’t know what turned me into a wild sage. My parents never got to witness their ancient vessel of a daughter that contained relic energies and ancient wisdoms. Some strangers did, though, when they saw some strange little girl running down 5th Avenue, no little school friend chasing her, eyes wide like orbits around stars. Later when my parents got home, they told me that we were going to Monroeville, which meant that we were going out to eat and possibly to Elmer’s, a mom-and-pop pet store. Like a child who wasn’t a relic or a dervish, I got excited and might have even told my stuffed animals about it.

I came home from Elmer’s that evening with a pet Guinea pig. His hair was wild, windswept, unruly. I named him Buzz.