Be Real Magazine

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In Issue 13:
Scintillations
Eight Legged Freaks
Cliff Jumping To Freedom
Princess of Crooked Lake
Easy Delivery
Transiting Venus
Different Things
Gateway To Middle Age
Letters to
My Younger Self

Featured Artist:
Andrea Scher
Superhero Guide
to Designing a
Creative Business
Photography
Belly
Funny
Grasses
Liam
Origami
Red Flower
Distance

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Transiting Venus on the Number Seven
peter prato

In the morning, the sun does not rise, but rather comes into view. Its spectrum melts our skies in a watercolor dawn that is eternally taking place, sweeping off the dust of sleep in one consistent stroke. And, chasing behind the light is the thin sheet of dusk, floating down upon our bed, the comforter of night not far behind. These days and nights of our lives and those lives before us swing palm in palm. Venus waves goodbye in her approach. Heads tilt skyward. The universe is all a waltz.

Growing up in Cogan Station , Pennsylvania , I got to know the seasons intimately. Fall exploded all around us in the Appalachians like a Viking funeral, the countryside set aflame upon the embers of death. Hikes across the forest floor were muted by the blanket of leaves cascading off oak and maple. In the days that passed, it was as if the earth beneath was rising, climbing into stratosphere, where the air grew thin and felt as brittle as ground beneath our feet, which now cracked and snapped; sent shy and silent doe to leaping.

Summer was escape from the shackles of homework and strict bedtimes. It was freedom to live effortlessly and entirely; to get up early for no reason and to exhaust oneself on a jungle gym of trees. It was the only season in which I was completely allowed to be a little boy, and not made to feel the pressures inherent in the multiplication tables that were supposed teach me to be a man. I chased rainbows and lost myself in warm rains. I dug holes in my back yard and watched my friends spray-paint the number 7 on a turtle’s shell and set him free.

Winter came as a whisper, like traveling, which later in life I would take to with great fervor. The snow sent the black bear and her cubs down to sleep; it calmed the Thrush, and turned rivers into echoes. Underneath my boots the snow was Styrofoam, packed closely against our home for shipment into Spring.

Spring was the most wonderful of all; the most humble. She thawed the earth, my hands and heart with a loving embrace. She brought the sun home to us and breathed life back into bark and bud. The snow would start to melt, and we knew that she was on her way. Spring was a painter; a dancer; a doctor. Upon the tips of her toes she would sneak into our lives and coax color back into the canvas; blood back into our veins. And we took her for granted. While I gossiped with winter and sent letters to summer, Spring gave me everything that I believe I deserved. She was my first love, but my mistress was transition.

Such were the years that passed. I put nails in trees and climbed higher with each season. My legs grew longer and my arms grew stronger. My father took the training wheels off of my bicycle, and soon I was working on long division. Books became the grout that held the tiles of my life together. I read, and when the Summer’s thunder smashed apart the calm, I’d lay the words upon my chest and trace the path of my next adventure in my mind. Fall pruned and Winter sang everything to sleep, but Spring would slide her fingers through my hair to wake me up, and she would sing to me songs that I know but cannot remember.

My father took a job in Maryland . Six months later my parents sold the house they had built and I closed my kingdom for business. That summer I took inventory of what my life wouldn’t be, of those things I’d no longer have. The future was a black hole into which disappeared the solidity and permanence of the only life I’d ever known. I rallied friends, and ran through rivers. I snagged and threw back Blue Gale in the pond on which I’d first gone ice-skating. I chased that shy doe to try to explain to her that I would miss her, and when she ran away I wondered if deer have difficulty with goodbye too. In a corner of the forest, I watched in awe as the number 7 crept from out of brush and into the light dripping off the leaves. But it was summer, and my chance to kiss the love of my life goodbye had passed without me even having realized it. She would return, but by then, I would be gone from this place.

I left notes for her carved in the trunks of oaks, telling her that I would miss her, telling her that I hoped she would not forget me, but we were packed, my mother said. We had to go. But no…mom…I haven’t said goodbye. Come on, honey. It’s going to be okay was all I heard as we drove away, my ten years packed and parceled into trucks but my heart and soul resting on the number 7. How could she ever find me? I hadn’t said goodbye. How could she ever forgive me, when I hadn’t told her how I felt?

In the months that followed, I made new friends, and tried to find new trees to climb. But in their heights I found less forest, replaced by endless tracts of housing. I wondered how long it would take a turtle to crawl across a state and carved my name into my windowsill. Instead of rivers and creeks, I jumped and splashed in a community pool, Ph balanced and thoroughly tested to be safe and healthy. No muddy bank. No swampy bottom. My mother bought me goggles but instead of Blue Gale I found only feet.

Decades passed in the pages of my books. I found solace in people I could never meet, to whom I would never have to say goodbye. I placed them with care on shelf after shelf, and asked my mom for a rag and solvent to dust these spaces regularly. When winter came, my shelves were clean. I kept them seasonless. When we moved from Maryland a year later, I took one last look and then faced forward as we drove away.

In this way, the years passed. I chased the desert into the ocean. I kissed the lips of waves and fell in love again. From tide pool to tide pool I searched in childish fascination with the hope that someone somewhere had spray painted numbers on a seashell. My lust for wandering returned, and in time, after reading for so long, I picked up a pen, and began to write myself. In a moment, life was as fall, and a dozen years lay at my feet like fallen leaves from a maple.

So it is that on this night I write of change and love. Those pursuits, some inadvertent, that lead us from one experience to the next and make us into the people that we become. I pin these words to page, and staring back at me is the love letter that I’d never written, the goodbye I never gave. Then I find Spring tucked inside the envelope of my mind. What a wonderful place for her to have hidden; my favorite stowaway of all.

This spring is coming to a close and we’re soon on to another summer. After a year in New York City , I’ve returned to the west coast and scan the sands for new shells and stories. Friends previously unknown are family now. We’re here together, clearing the path ahead of us, pushing back the brush that hides our future, creating something new. I’m even playing adult kickball. All childhood is not lost.

Venus threads her needle; all the heads have arced. We held our breath and for now, this is good, and we are here. We are all right here. We scurry with excitement and run to Summer but I pause, and glance back. Time bows and grants me passage and into her arms I run, I sail, I say goodbye until we meet again.