Manifest Destiny II

I saw things differently today. I kept getting caught on ideas like a tumbleweed on a barbed wire fence, snagged and eager. I wondered whys and wheres and whens and talked to a lot of strangers, which may have kicked it all off. I got to the heart of things, found the base of thoughts, like tracing the bright vein at the center of a neon sign until you have the outline of it carved into the fogged glass of a car window in winter. Cold out there, warm in here. My AC might not work, but the heater sure works fine. Extremeties belong to this state. Thursday night the low was 45, Friday it reached 80 something. Today I spent a grueling eight hours in the badly-ventilated, crowded machine shop, in front of a south window, each facet of which seemed to magnify the sunlight melting onto my back. I sweated under my smock, decided I liked the punishment and kept it on. I've decided I operate better under duresses of sorts, under physical discomfort and mental fatigue. I watched women walk around in inappropriately high heels and was glad I had on flip-flops (my favorites, the Reefs with the silver straps) when I had to kill a hobo spider along the brick wall. (They seem to be following me around; that's five this week. I wonder what I did wrong.) Those women were walking around a blighted historical landmark, navigating broken brick floors, riding an operational turntable into weedy history. Heels get caught in the spaces between rotting wood planks. What did they think they were dressing for? Today I forgot what I look like. Pink t-shirt, baby blue corderoys rolled up to the knees. I explained the railyard rehabilitation efforts and process to a very intelligent gentleman from Ogden in language that must have shocked him. Words flowed smoothly, authoritatively from tortured Me today; he looked at the smudged paint on my grubby face ("but Mariah, ladybugs aren't green. What are you doing to me?" "That looks like a booger!", says Monty), paused, and asked how old I was. Twenty-five in two weeks, Sir. "I'm glad to have met you," he says. He asks about the possibility of my coming to Ogden to talk about historic preservation to the members of some train-related organization he's involved in. I think about telling him he should have Jim come, instead, then think again and give him my number at City Hall. Haven't I earned this? Aren't Jim's presentations my good words, anyhow? Yes, I learned from him. But still, those are my words, my images. My passion and earnestness. Maybe I should go for that degree, after all. But then again, how much do I really care about this? If somebody asks me tomorrow, I'll be gone. Tomorrow a lot of things might be gone. Maybe it is all worth the effort.