Plastic Tags

"You were right about these bagels."

"I told you they are awesome."

Vic and I sat at the kitchen table. I'd been hanging with him for awhile at this point, and was still in awe that I had actually made a friend in college. A friend who shared many similarities with me emotionally and could actually keep up. But there were also some odd things we had in common, too, like our bagel order (everything with cream cheese).

At this moment, Vic was playing with a plastic tag on a new placemat I got for the apartment. It was driving me insane. I hate those plastic tags. I can never get them off without using a knife or a pair of scissors, and begrudgingly watched as Vic calmly pulled it off with just his hands.

"What the fuck? How did you do that?"

"Do what?"

"You pulled that plastic tag off with just your hands."

"Yeah, it's easy."

Vic took another tag on a bowl on the table and demonstrated slowly. Once again, he pulled it apart with ease. If I were attempting the same feat, my fingers would be pulling desperately and having their blood supply cut off. It's a feeling that's all too familiar, but not for Vic. And so that became a little thing I admire about him now.

"So do you just have these plastic tags everywhere?"

"Well, usually I cut them off. I don't know." But did I really?

And sure enough, the next few days, I felt like I was seeing them everywhere.

Childhood’s Retreat by Robert Duncan

It’s in the perilous boughs of the tree
out of blue sky the wind
sings loudest surrounding me.

And solitude, a wild solitude
’s reveald, fearfully, high I’d climb
into the shaking uncertainties,

part out of longing, part daring my self,
part to see that
widening of the world, part

to find my own, my secret
hiding sense and place, where from afar
all voices and scenes come back

—the barking of a dog, autumnal burnings,
far calls, close calls— the boy I was
calls out to me
here the man where I am “Look!

I’ve been where you

most fear to be.”