Nine Mile Run, Pittsburgh, PA
It is surprising when our class gets there how decrepit it looks as we walk through the beginning. It feels static with its concrete and unnatural blue-green water running through. As we walk further through, as the concrete disappears and the creek shrinks and winds, rocks lining its bones, I feel more like I am in New York, specially Harriman State Park.
I want to ask the lady leading us around about weeping willows. I have heard throughout my childhood that willows are “water-hoggers.” But I keep quiet.
I am used to the quiet. As we walk, I lean towards the trees and want to wander off the path, but I keep to the class. I keep quiet. I follow and watch the ground as I pass the pebbles by.
April 6th, 4:35 p.m.
On my way home from work this morning at 10 a.m., I saw what looked like the beginnings of daffodils. Long, lean, yet sturdy stalks and bright green like new growth. No yellow peeked through.
I am tired. This is the third 4 a.m. morning shift, and I want to drift into the other lane as I drive around curves. But I can’t take that risk. Not after totaling my previous car this past month. A fact I wanted to bury; I didn’t want anyone to know, to be another privileged white grad school kid whose parents do all they can to set me up with a new car.
The one opossum (in the opposing lane) on Crafton Blvd has been hit again so that he now tilted on his side. One paw points towards the sky. I wonder how dry the pads on his feet are. If it had been colder this past year and it had snowed, would the salt spread on the roads had coated its paws and dried out what was already dead? Or would the plows have shoved his body aside, negated any future thought I would have had, since out of sight, out of mind?
I sleep the rest of the day and work on my publishing class work. Mark works on his truck, and we get ready to visit his mother’s apartment for pizza and internet. Since Mark has yet to get his pay raise, we have held off on getting internet.
Outside now I can see the green grass poking through the layer of grass. It is a startling green, bright and alive compared to the nearby ivy that is dark green, which blends in with the background unless I stare hard and look for it.
It is warm outside, and all I hear is Mark working on his car underneath the hood and a small dog breaking its high-not bark. I think as I step outside how sometimes when I take in a huge inhaled breath, I smell spring. Spring smells like grass and wet and life and all of these I believe help us all get through the mental depression, the oppressive weather of winter.
279 North reminds me of Nine Mile Run the way that cars funnel through these concrete walls and asphalt road. I feel unnatural as Mark drives. I feel unnatural as the road curves in a jerky way.
As I sit here and try to figure out what to say, what to end on, I decide there is no need to end. Spring is a beginning. That should be enough.
