Image One

It is pouring rain, all through the image. Hold on to the rain, since you will read the following words and easily forget about it. It is pouring rain, and it never stops.

A school playground, before asphalt became the default. It is Fairmount Park Elementary School in West Seattle. The eyes of this image belong to an imaginary person with their back to the gym, looking north. Perhaps a quarter-length into the concrete expanse, since the monkey bars are not in the image. But still, a concrete expanse: painted on it’s tableau are multiple hopscotch squares and the United States broken into all 50 states. But these details are lost in the unrelenting rain. The rain is so dense, everything has filtered to a silvery gray. There is no sound save the rain, maintaining its dull static.

At the far end, perhaps 50 yards from these eyes, the concrete gives away to aged beauty bark and a first generation Big Toy. To complete the picture, a baseball cage and grass field lie beyond, a busy main street runs to the left, an acre forest to the right. But the center piece of this is off-center at the end of the concrete: a tiny mass on his back at the base of a basketball hoop, looking up at the rain. The field is empty of children, except for this lone boy. It is me.

I know it is me because I can take some cues from the image. He is wearing a large jacket that is dark brown with an orange arm stripe. Incidentally Cleveland Brown. I’ve seen pictures of myself in a similar jacket. I also cannot shake a feeling of empathy. Despite the bell having rung, despite all the children having returned to class following lunch, I share his need to simply not move. Despite the rain.

I think we all carry with us a handful of images that play over and over in our heads. This one never came out in my brief flirting with therapy: we were always working backwards from what was bugging me at the time, finding images to associate with it. But this is a strong, primary image that pops up infrequently. This one, and the strange clinking of glasses at the New Luck Toy, with it’s blood red interior, as an eleven month old me is caboosed in a bar chair. They are strong, they are recurring, and I’ve never dug at them.

The problem is, I don’t remember the context or whether it ever happened. If I judge by feel, I’m in the first grade, age five, and I’ve been at the wrong end of a fight. Or I’ve given up on a fight, it is hard to say. There is a sense of failure, of giving up.

There are other feelings I get from the image. Sense of urgency is obliterated: I do not want to move. I don’t care that I’m late returning to class; I don’t care that the elements are having their way with me. I just want to hold my position. I want everything to stop, to pause, while I get my bearings. The only way for me to retain control is for me to stop and make the rest of the world wait.

I just want the sound of the rain to drown out all the other sound. I want to become so thoroughly drenched, I have no choice but to start anew. It is a deletion. I want all of it to recede into the fuzzy grey, become nothing. Only then can I contemplate my next move.