Birthday Field of Dreams

After I graduated from college, I moved in temporarily with my parents in Petaluma, California. For awhile I worked nights as a security guard, of all things. I thought I’d make a go at trying to establish myself in Sonoma County, where I grew up.

So one day that was a day off for me, I woke up at 2.30 AM and I had nothing much to do, because Petaluma closes shop at about 10 PM and all my friends were asleep. It also happened to be my birthday. So I decided to watch “Field of Dreams” for an extra special happy birthday to me.

For some reason this night I kept on wanting to cry in certain parts of the movie, but I also kept remembering that this was, after all, just a movie – these people I was on the verge of crying over were actors who delivered lines convincingly.

Still, when the movie was over, I rewound it and watched it a second time – playing the good parts over and over again. When the sky had the faintest suggestion of light in the east, I decided to take the dog for a walk.

We walked a few blocks down to the main drag. As the dog crapped in a newly ploughed field that was the empty lot next to an ice-cream shop, I saw legions of commuters zipping down the boulevard, going to god-knows-what jobs where they probably got pencils grinded up their asses day-in and day-out.

I watched them and I was bored to death, completely alone with nowhere to go, and I am sure they wondered why I stood there on the corner, by the ice-cream shop with a Dalmatian watching them all zip along.

~

Later that morning after the dog had gone back to bed, my father gets up, drinks a V8 and reads the newspaper in the bathroom. He’s gone by 7.30. Then my mother gets up.

It’s funny that I think about this on today of all days, but it’s been about 12 or 13 years since my old man and I really got along, or had any kind of feeling, or relationship.

High School just about killed him and me. I don’t ask him the questions I want to ask because there is no way to ask the questions that could get at the root of the matter.

I think about this as I read the weather forecast.


July 11, 1990