On When to Grow Old (#1)

On When to Grow Old

            Back when I was seven, we used to go to this place called Beaver Lake in Baldwinsville, New York. The very sound of that name coming from my dad’s mouth sent shivers down my spine. The raised wooden walkways that cut through the thick forest had a mysterious feel to them that appealed to my little mind. Each time we went I felt as though I was transported to some fantastical world that seemed separate from the everyday noise of home in Syracuse. I’d watch the cattails sway in thick clumps as we crossed a wooden bridge over a boggy runoff some ways into the path around the lake. I’d listen to the frogs sing to one another deep inside this little hidden kingdom and wonder what sort of lives they lived. I’d wonder if they climbed the stalks of the cattails to eat the “hot dogs” that grew at the very tip. Far too quickly I’d get pulled along before I could climb in and seek out the answers to my questions; the tall people seemed preoccupied with just moving forward. It didn’t matter much. I knew that there was a little wooden castle that awaited us down the path, and this is where we would stop and eat before turning back around. We’d look for beavers every time, but despite the park’s namesake, we never saw one.

Once the adults decided it was time, a stone would sink into my stomach, and I’d fight back the tears. I didn’t ever want to leave. There was never enough time to search every corner of the park for the little worlds I just knew were there. I knew at the very least we would pass by the cattail forest one more time, and that the sound our boots made while walking across the planks would last until we reached the parking lot. Then, and only then, would I begin to weep; the little obscure worlds needed me to find them. The frogs needed me to decode their sleepy odes to the forest. The wooden castle needed its nighttime guard so that whatever was keeping the beavers away could finally be caught and punished to the highest degree. None of this would happen if I was dragged off by those who always sought the sounds of the city.

            “One day!” I had screamed in a fit of rage once. “I am going to live here!”

            “Grow up!” My Mom would yell. My Dad and Uncles would laugh. Maybe they understood? Or maybe they just thought I was a ridiculous kid. They loved Beaver Lake just as much as me, yet they saw it in a different light. My pain was funny enough to laugh about all the way home.

Now, I am nearly thirty years old. I’m told to sit by a pond and write down what it makes me think of. What it makes me feel. I find that I was struggling to find something good in an otherwise ordinary pond. The stone bridge that crosses over it didn’t interest me much. Its shimmering reflection on surface made more sense: mixed with the little islands of floating algae and the healing brown waters of fading winter, it seems more like a memory than a realized thing. Its features are faded and blend with the water much the same as my memories blend with emotion in my mind. Find the details I had told myself. Where are the worlds?  There are two turtles sitting on a rock, caked in dried mud. It looks like their little Jurassic eyes are squinting. The sun wasn’t shining down on them at that moment, but maybe their primitive brains were thinking of when it had been just a moment before. Would they wait patiently for its rays to pierce through the clouds once more or would they move on? Just an hour before this task, I had been watching a turtle struggle to climb up on a floating piece of wood while waiting to attend class. For ten minutes this creature fought for what it thought it could achieve. Its weight would send the log spinning and it would fall shell first into the water. Eventually, it climbed up and the log remained still. Tenacity.

  Why did I feel a sense of dread when I was given this task of observation? Looking for nuance had been my genetic predisposition. Beaver lake came to my mind, and I was quick to think that it was probably “just another pond like this one”. It was likely not as mystical as I remembered. It was also probably renamed Beaver Lake Nature Center to sound more appealing than “Mud Lake”—which is the lake’s actual name. Why the cold cynicism? The struggling turtle likely felt no real frustration, yet I had been rooting for it.. Part of me wonders if it would have given up, or if it would have just kept going indefinitely, maybe until it realized it was hungry. More food, more energy to get onto that log. Am I any different?

     That stubborn turtle makes me think of staring out the front door window of the restaurant I worked at back in 2016. My friend Tony would call me “crazy eyes”—it was less of a pensive gaze and more of a thousand-yard stare according to him. I was always looking out the window. My head would pound from the 10 shots of tequila the night before and I would imagine ripping my apron off only to run into the street shouting profanities while flipping off every hungry hack I could see waiting to come in to get a burger. Instead, I’d slip deeper into my mind and think of false worlds and fantastic stories which served as a filter for my regrets and frustrations. You gotta grow up I’d hear my Boss say in my head every time I fucked something up during a shift. Back then, Beaver Lake wouldn’t pop into my head during moments of doubt, just the vague feeling of dreadful relief knowing I’d get to sit at the bar at the end of the day.

Years burned by at that window until my brother passed, and it was then I stuck my hand out in front of my inner reflection for a proper introduction. The lights turned on. In the confusing emotional wake of chaos and tragedy, there was only one clear thing: living for my brother. Was this growing up? I didn’t know. Nor did I really stop to think about it. Everything I’ve done in the four years since has led up to me watching that Turtle struggle just an hour before I would be assigned a task of observation. And only then did I remember Beaver Lake and what it used to mean to me. Why does a part of me still yearn for it when I’m supposed to be “growing up?” Why did I not question my goals in wake of my brother’s passing, when I question them every day now? Was there a transition I was blind to even through the shutters are wide open, or am I just tired from trying to climb up onto that damn log?  Does somebody else have to die for me to get fully back on board?  At what point do I toss aside my ambitious endeavors of seeing my stories on the big screen? When do I stop thinking about my brother, and how he will never come home from Thailand to dive back into college? Why couldn’t I just be interested in rocks or something?? Maybe I just want to sit naked on a rock and sunbathe with turtles?? What’s that bastard turtle doing right now? Is it going to “grow up” and stop trying to get on logs not meant for its shape and weight? Are there really beavers at Beaver Lake? Should I go and find them? Since when are cattails not hot dogs??

When, fucking when, am I supposed to just grow old?