The Trash Bags That Cover My Body

Today I posted two pieces of writing I did when I was a sophomore at Chandler-Gilbert. I found them while cleaning my room and I wanted to put them up here for anyone who wants to read them. I am very happy with them as they mark a time in my life where I was first understanding what it means to write and what it means to live for Jesus. I hope that you enjoy them...

Michael Roth

ENG 217

The Place

4/13/10

The Trash Bags That Cover My Body

The backdoor shuts. People approach. A basketball dribbles in my hand. A bead of sweat tickles the end of my nose and loses its will to cling. I look up to see the faces of my loving family, tenderhearted individuals who have painted my past with radiant colors. The colors of infant bliss dashed across the canvas of my childhood experience. It’s funny how we have these places. We think about them so much too, it’s the memories we miss most. Playing basketball with my father, brother, and grandfather. My grandmother would sit by the back door, interested in my confidence to shoot 3 pointers (which were merely 15 feet away in a patch of clovers). Sitting and talking with my mother, she would get up at some point to bring us root beers and ice cream. This was, of course, after we received our portion of cheezits, a very common childhood snack of mine. I remember this scene, it’s not a specific day, or even that this scene happened once, but it was a recurring setting, like a template for my childhood. Every Sunday my family and I went to church. Every Sunday we would leave church for Scottsdale Fashion Square, and we were sure to be greeted by Grandma and Grandpa (who were happy to buy us meals and toys). Everything I loved about life back then is represented here.

So when I want to get away from the immediate surrounding of my day-to-day life I start with this location. Where I would play basketball on the back porch. It’s as if I only go back to my grandparents house on days that I have epiphanies, and I’m thinking a lot of the time it’s vice versa as well. Something relaxes the search, the doubt, the struggle that I can have with life at times. When I get too wrapped up in the world this is the place I turn to. It’s clear and crisp in my mind; the smell gets me every time. Not overtly musty but you feel as if the scent is sticking to you. So incredibly intoxicating; all sorts of memories and emotions swirl about my mind like a chocolate sundae. The cherry on top is that everything is the same. I can walk into the room in this house that was set-aside for my brother and I like some sort of toy store that was abandoned. I see character all around me. My grandmother turned every wall in her house into a canvas of her own artistry. Waterfalls, green pastures, cows, cabins, snow. Each season represented like a full range of the colors of life (she poured much of the creativity and imagination I have into my mind, without her influence there wouldn’t be too much right brain in me). These walls begin to overpower the questions I have, the things that I think are a big deal aren’t so much anymore. I remember what it was like to be a child and I realize I am still here. I don’t want to fool myself though; it is not these walls that deserve the whole hearted thankfulness I portray.

See I don’t think we ever mean things to go the way they do. When my grandma died I asked a lot of questions I didn’t think I needed to ask. I finally had to deal with experiencing death first hand. We do this: we think we’ve formulated great answers until the weight of the waves crash atop our postulations and strike our foundation so hard we wonder whether it can hold up. But somehow, when I feel like I have no direction, I can come here and feel like a child again. It’s a connection back to God, the central character to all this. I can flip through family photo albums to refresh my mind on what I know about myself, since I come here when I am feeling lost. I see hundreds of photos of childhood faith and love and everything I know about me. I try to reconcile the decisions I make now to who I know I have been. One photo gets caught in my head. It is of me in the backyard of my grandparent’s house in the autumn, it’s definitely early 90’s. I have a popcorn bowl on my head and white trash bags cover my body, taped up to make me airtight. My grandma quite obviously the head of NASA, and I, the first man on mars. From the edge of the twin size bed that adorns my childhood toy store, I begin let go of what I fear to lose today. And as I stare into the eyes of the child I was, he reaches out and brushes the dust out of my eyes. I see the part of me I am glad to be, and he is glad to see me.