Saturday
just a person walking their dog
On Saturday we took Jesse to a class at a game store so we could learn how to play Pokémon as a family. We’d been trying to make it happen for a while and now we were finally going to and he was super excited, but on the way there my mom called to say that my dad wasn’t feeling well. I was worried and wanted to go check on him but that would mean missing the class and I didn’t want to disappoint Jesse again. I felt torn and like there wasn’t a right choice or maybe I just didn’t know what it was. I ended up going to the class, where I sat—worried and pretending to learn about Pokémon.
After the class we went over to my parents house. My dad was feeling much better. I decided to take Jesse down to the park. This is all hard on him too; maybe it would help to run it off. We got to the park and started running around. We spun on the grass. We climbed a tree. We came upon a group of people playing old-time fiddle music near the duck pond.
“I used to play with that group sometimes,” I said, “and I used to go swimming in there when I was little, before the water turned green.”
“And before the policeman gave Grandpa Max a ticket for letting you!” said Jesse, who had heard it all before.
We went back to my parents house for dinner, and after dinner I went out on my own to wander around the neighborhood—alone but with my dog Marvin, who is good company and lets me think my thoughts uninterrupted. I walked and remembered walking with my dad as a kid. We’d go to the park and the duck pond. Sometimes we’d go downtown to the Copper Coffeepot cafeteria, where we’d get popovers and play checkers at a small table upstairs, stopping to talk to the old regulars who sat in high booths eating flan or rice pudding.
It was a beautiful evening. I walked and looked at everything. It was as if I was seeing it all from a distance—the bougainvillea was bright and the houses were pretty and the trees were old and wonderful as always, but I had that sense of removal or dissociation that you feel when you’re looking back.
After a while I stopped thinking about anything in particular, and walked. For a moment I felt totally free—just a person walking their dog in the sun. Then, with sinking feeling, I remembered that I had promised to play Pokémon when I got home.
Lovely, Anna. We missed the Pokemon era, but I remember having to play endless games of Chutes and Ladders, and I'd be trying to let my daughter win so the game would end, and she'd always hit that chute right near the end that brought her back to the beginning.
This is such beautiful writing: "It was as if I was seeing it all from a distance—the bougainvillea was bright and the houses were pretty and the trees were old and wonderful as always, but I had that sense of removal or dissociation that you feel when you’re looking back."
Sending my best to you and your dad. Hope Pokemon didn't drag on too long!
You raise a high parenting bar by attending a Pokemon class! Our boys have been obsessed with the cards for the past 6 months and I still have so little clue what they’re on about.
Hope your dad is doing ok.