Tuesday

I find myself bouncing around locations like a pinball hitting a bumper. NYC, Fire Island, NYC (reprise) and now NJ for a few days. I figure I should spend the extra time I have off with my parents. I don't spend "city" money or keep "city" schedules when out here with Mom, Dad, a full fridge and the crickets of a suburban summer.

Life, a little less slower. A vacation from vacation. I'm sitting down to 6:30 dinners of London broil, spinach and corn on the cob. The big debate my mother and I had this evening was nothing more painstaking than choosing between ice cream or iced coffee.

There are stars out here. Slight punctures of darkness so easily forgotten in the city yet so commonplace here that their brightness goes unnoticed, as does the incessant chirp of cicadas and the rustling of lush leaves in the heavy-humid breeze.

Right now, the room is lit only by the blue-black flicker of the television airing the Olympics and my father snoring through the commercials. The hum of central air conditioning lingers above me and the couch is cotton-like and welcoming.

Tomorrow as part of my vacation fueled, aimless, do-what-ever coup de etat I'll go to Sandy Hook beach and re submerge myself within the with-it culture. I'll leave behind the sticky air and quiet hardly traveled pavement and trade it in for sand and noise and jelly fish and trash.

It'll be around 6 when I get home. The time of day when yellow touches upon gold and Mom walks in the door sweating and pink from a brisk walk or game of tennis. She will prepare dinner after taking a shower and Dad will leave the computer or his sport's scores to come to the table. We'll sit down and pass the salad with stories of the day and flick the salt shaker in between anecdotes. When we finish mom will clear the plates and Dad will return to television. I'll curl up on the couch, let the cushions take my form, and try just for a moment, to lie as still as this house, which stands in the grass under the suburban stars.