The Dinosaur House, he calls it.
The weekends are full of families, and after an hour or so of exhibits, everybody typically ends up at the children’s play area. It is here where Jones’ transformations begin. He becomes a knight in chain mail. A dragon. A Sultan from mysterious desert lands.
A prism changing colour with the light, he is all glittering potential here. The rest of us, the parents, we sit down and exhale, ring the children like a campfire. Try to remember the plots of the lives we’ve been living.
We were meeting a couple and their children there, and I asked the tired-looking husband, who I hadn’t seen in over a year, how he was doing. He sighed, explaining that he no longer worked downtown, but had been moved to an office on a loveless fringe of the city. He couldn’t ride his bike in to work anymore, and found himself transformed into somebody he did not recognize–just another dad commuting to an unremarkable job in an unremarkable corner of the world. All of us now, softly closing doors we will never open again, watching our children begin the future we once lived.
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Last night was Pub Night at the rehab centre.
It took place in the same generic, over-lit space that all our social events take place, and the “bar” itself was a few cafeteria tables that had been pushed together, upon which was a scattering of paper plates with a few potato chips and cheesies on them. If you had gotten a note from the doctor you were allowed to get half a glass of wine or beer, but most of us had forgotten to do so, and settled for a ginger ale.
More cafeteria tables, also pushed together, formed a U in front of a small stage upon which a band was playing. Many of the men watching, arms crossed as if judging the music, perhaps even their circumstance, sat as far away as possible. It was as if their bodies were clenched, resisting both the music and all that lay before them. Meanwhile, the women seemed entirely receptive and accepting. Happily fanned out to the side tables, closer to the band, they sat swaying to the music and singing along together. It was beautiful to see, and it was hard not to imagine them all fifty years earlier out on a Saturday night in some smokey dance hall, each one of them a vibrant and glowing presence, each one desired– their entire lives still waiting to unfold mysteriously before them.
