rough draft for creative writing assignment

Water breath

I live under water now. The thought a couple of years ago horrified me. I walked around slowly with the great weight of the sea holding me back for a couple hours. I remember the salt water stinging my eyes, and then as if they came into focus, the pain went away. The sand I kicked up from the floor was in slow stop frames at my feet. As I tried to get my bearings, a school of fish had gone by with flashes of silvery scales and gave a startled look or two as they moved in tandem around an underground rocky cliff and into the darkness.
Let’s get back to my awakening. When my eyes opened I saw gray sand and felt cold nudges on my cheek, a fish was pecking at me. A fish! I tried to scream into the silence and my heart dropped into my guts. As I inhaled I felt cold water run through my body and I back peddled sending me into the air, or rather up off of the ocean floor. A mass of seaweed wrapped around my ankles in the process and I looked right and left as if that would help anything. I don’t know how long I argued with reason, I just found myself sitting on the ocean floor. I must be dead. I looked down at the ocean floor and saw one of my bootlaces waving slowly about and looked at my hands. They were not wrinkled and I did not know how long I had been under the water. The only panic was settling down and I found myself grasping the unreality that was unfolding before me. It was a dream. I pinched myself and felt the pain, surely if I was in a deep sleep I would have awoken for that. I was breathing, I felt the water initially cold and salty was now just a slow warm reassuring flow. It sustained me and maybe even kept me warm and alive. The breathing was disturbing, I found myself looking for air and anything that would rid me of this surreal phantom limb feeling in regards to surviving without the air. I followed the fish or at least in the direction they had gone. I found that movement was slower, as the pressure of the water held me back as far as speed and agility was concerned it also added many dimensions. No longer constricted to walking, I could pump my legs and stroke my arms and be free from the ground. It is like flying in a way, like being a fish in another way. I rounded the cliff and sensed that the waters depths were very deep at that point as the landscape immediately blurred below me and there was a large blackness with rocks poking out of the nothing like soft gray painted polka dots that had been rained on.
So I stopped. I swayed in the currents and I listened, not much in the way of hearing underwater. Everything is sort of muffled and I felt later that my hearing had adjusted. But if you will, back then it was like being blind. I could not identify the sounds; sound travels very well under water, you just have to know what you are hearing. If you do not and it is completely new to you, it means and stands for nothing. It took me a lot of time. Now I can hear fish long before I see them. I can orient myself at depths and understand landscapes long before they come into focus. In the distant surface I can hear birds, oars, ships, planes, music, and even little feet running on the sand. While I swayed to and fro on the current I recalled the last thing I remembered prior to awakening with a fish pecking at me. I was on a charter and I had just caught a fish, I stood up and yelled in my excitement, I stepped back. Something had yanked at my ankle and pulled me through the air with such violence and sudden force I had only a second to look down in disbelief. The deck was just a blur and I heard someone shouting or screaming, wrapped around my foot was a rope. How it got there, I will never know. I just registered that I must be in the air, by the time I looked up from the rope I saw a flash of decking come at me like someone had swung an iron skillet at my face. There was a tremendous thump and like a rag doll I sailed into the air again. My world went into a blur of silent fireworks and spongy blacks and grays. I felt my body hit the water and again with great force, I was pulled under. All was silent and I was sinking and I blinked out. Like a large light switch to my world was cast out. That event coupled with the idea I was under water, led me to believe it was death or dreaming. So I floated for a long time, a fish would swim by periodically. Eventually I made my way to the ocean floor and began to trudge. I was just walking aimlessly and thinking to myself. Adjusting to the predicament and coming pretty close to losing it. I sang out loud a Beatles song about “an Octopuses Garden”, and laughed now and again. What else was there to do?
I recall the hunger. I found that a great amount of energy had been expended and I was starving. I tried in vain to grab a fish. I settled on seaweed and barnacles. There is something to be said about urchins. I even ate a sea anemone. I can’t recommend it, eating an anemone. Everything appears to be messy as you eat it raw. Rinsing barnacle parts out of my mouth was rather convenient! There is ample water as you would guess by now, and bits and pieces floated and dissipated right way. Today I take great pride in my fishing skills. Back then, not so much. I steal your fish. I laugh at myself and think maybe the sock fairy is now a distant cousin. Somehow, somewhere I became content living where I live and doing what I do.
After years without a haircut and with out a change of clothes I would cause great alarm should you spot me underwater. I take great pleasure in the thought of it happening, but know it is wrong so I don’t allow for it to happen. Back to the fish, I was screaming in frustration as I lunged and grabbed for them. I felt them mocking me, was I to become some sort of sea cow eating and grazing the barnacles and seaweed and the occasional anemone? I was completely out of my head like someone dangling a baggie in front of a junkie.
Good lord! I apologize, I must explain myself. It may sound grotesque to eat such things. I forget, I have been doing this for years, eating what I can and I imagine the thought does nothing for your palette. It's quite agreeable now, and I even look forward to it. I suppose I may even salivate with apprehension, but how would I know? It is just a part of who I am today and as normal as your meatball marinara dish. Yes, in the beginning it was wrong to me on many levels. Slimy and cold causing gag reflex. But dang, I had to eat right? There was a hunger eating the hunger inside myself. So I ate. You would too.
It was a normal day, as normal as normal was that day. I was grazing and glaring at the juicy fish that darted by, they seemed to know to stay away. But it was that time of day, and they were eating too. I watched one open its mouth and snap down on a bug, it was like lightning when it dove. Upon it’s decent it jerked to a sudden stop, and seemed to be fighting a great current. Flashing in the water and struggling with all of its might it changed direction. I couldn’t be seeing this. What the hell was happening? The other fish darted away; there was something not right. And then I heard the shouting. Excited cursing and shouting. It was I not too long ago, I thought to myself, that was shouting and dancing on the deck. I mean not really, but really. It was a man yelling from the deck of his boat. He had caught a fish, and at the end of the line it was struggling right in front of me. So I snapped the line with a loud underwater twang and bit off its head. A cloud of crimson erupted around my face and there was a burst of flavor in my mouth. I have never been a huge fan of fish until now. Uh-may-zing. The body of the fish flicked in my clutches and I heard protests and colorful profanity exploding from the surface and into the murky depths of my world. There was a brief silence, and then a tremendous explosion. What appeared to be icy lines appeared in my line of sight and spread in lazy fingers and then stopped. The fisherman was having a ninth degree tantrum and had apparently fired his gun into the water. What a baby. Another bite, more crimson cloudiness. More flavor and without the crunchy consistency as was present in the head bite, this one had meat and intestines. I loved it. I could feel it’s energy course through my veins and my body rejuvenate and repair mental fatigue. This was home for me now. Eating fish off of your line. A tinny splash, he was throwing beer cans at the water like it would bring his fish back. I highly dislike people like that. I mean I get riled when I don’t get my way, don’t get me wrong. But a blatant display of child like spoiled ignorance is enough to piss me off. Shoot at me, go ahead and shoot at me. But throwing beer cans? Uh-uh. Not on my watch. Granted I stole your fish, but the hell if I’ll stand…or float around while you litter and not do anything about it. I stuffed the two cans into my shirt. I followed his vessel, I ate two more of his fish and put three more discarded cans into my shirt in addition to watching twelve more shots get discharged into the water. I laughed and laughed as I listened to him get riled up on the surface. But dude, what’s with the littering? It’s my home; do I walk up to your door and throw garbage into your house? I mean seriously, it’s beautiful down here and I…reached into my shirt and pulled out a can. I am telling you right now, the can idea was brilliant. The cans were now of course full of water and heavy. I was beside myself and swam a circle in celebration. I launched the discarded water logged cans onto the deck of the boat, opposite the fisherman. The cabin blocked his line of sight, but I heard each one crash on the deck. It was a satisfying and necessary mischief. He’s lucky I didn’t rip out his fuel lines, which I learned later can be a fun activity for deserving disrespectful fisher people on hot sunny days, but that’s another story altogether. Back to douche bag. He drank a lot. I gave him back his empties. I think one hit him, but I can’t exaggerate. I mean I didn’t see it happen, I just heard a yelp. Perhaps he saw a can fly out of the water. The cans flying out of the water could cause a yelp, I do not know. I expected more cursing and cans returning to the water. I got the yelp, I got silence and he left. Looking back on it, he lost three fish. He drank a lot and threw a lot of cans into the water. They were all returned to his deck. For whatever reason he called it a day. I can’t imagine him trying to tell anyone what had happened.
I suppose I could protest, and I could get down on myself for finding myself in this predicament. I could try to seek help, but the time for help had passed me by a long time ago. As I settled into my daily activities, I found myself in total comfort. No loneliness, no need for human interaction. I was by this time adept at surviving in the deep blue sea. My senses had adapted quite nicely. I slept in a sea cave for protection from predators. My sight adjusted as well as my hearing. I explored far away places, deep and far. Pardon the pun, but I had become a drifter.
I have saved the lives of four people over the years and hunger for no glory nor do I feel the need for recognition. One person that I rescued saw me, and I imagine they insisted that they had been saved from the ocean by a merman. I’ll never know, but who would believe them? So the days go by and I swim and trudge and eat. I have not attempted to return to land, I get curious; I mean I daydream about it like I used to daydream about having great powers like flight. But it concerns me. What if I do get on land and forget where I came from? What would happen if this were all but a dream? My world would shatter yet again and I could not stand it. What if I landed on land and was then capable of flight like I used to dream of as a great power? How then to conceal myself while in the air? No, the sea is where I belong. Tormenting the disrespectful, eating fish and saving the lost and drowning. Should I someday come across you on one of your journeys, the sight may be so fantastic that your mind will disregard it as an unreality and erase it from your memory. I am not possible. I live under water now.

Oceans

I close my eyes and breathe in a steady sweet smell. The air is crisp, all of my senses are alive. The water crashing on the rocks below me catches a breeze and tickles my face, sweet salt from the sea. It lands on my lips, I smile to myself thing perhaps in a past life I was a fish. Or a bird.
I squint as I open my eyes, it was open to the sky. I feel the winds fingers run through my hair, I look out on the water and the broken sunlight bounces off the waves. The waves are hungry and chomping on the rocks below the grass below my feet.
There are birds screaming to each other, fish! A whole school of them, right below me! As if to verify, a flash of a fish breaking the surface, and a half a second later a splash report as it re-enters the water.
Perched above the ocean and high above the fish, I sit down on a rock jutting through the earth on my seaside cliff. This is the most beautiful place in the world. I know that in moments out there, I close my eyes, or explore my mind and imagination...I find myself here. I never wonder if this is actual, there is too much 'no words for it.' It clears my mind and reminds me to appreciate you, them, me, us. It.
Take a drive, a song comes on that makes you want to drop the top, turn it up, sing along, or Christmas morning...when you were young enough to believe. Remember every adult around you allowed you that? You helped them believe. And it was. It is.
Each of us has a retreat, each of you has a christmas morning, or a moment that you promise you will never forget. It's a warm nest that I return to often, or the moment is there and it is golden light from a treasure box.

Checking in

So here I am after no blog entry for god knows how long. I have been busy getting things together to embark on my new journey, the return to school. I have found I have an entirely different attitude towards it. I drink it like cold water on a thirsty day. I can get caught up in my studies until early in the morning sometimes. I look up at the clock and realize I will be getting less than the required eight hours of sleep tonight. But that's okay, I know I will nap in my car, my assignments will be tucked neatly into my notebook and copied to my thumb drive. I will be ready for the day.
Right off hand I think that my return to school came in three parts. Both of my parents have a focus on education. Between the two of them they had achieved three Bachelors. I am working on my Associates in Arts and plan on continuing on for my Bachelors. It will take time and I am ready, I know it will be a piece completed in my life when I have accomplished it. So with my parents planting the seeds I did go to two different colleges and failed miserably. I went on to what I knew which was restaurant. I met a man named Dr. Crawshaw who found out I was interested in writing. He gave me writing assignments. I ate them up and listened to his feedback. I appreciate him for that today. I knew I wanted to go back to school in the deep recesses of my mind. I was laid off from my job at an amazing restaurant. It was the top of the ladder in Portland Oregon as far as I was concerned. My father recommended I return to school. Bless him for the suggestion. My girlfriend Joy has supported and encouraged the notion since it came to light. All three of them are amazing and I owe a debt of gratitude to each of them.
I am taking my second writing class and I am enjoying it as much as I can. We are learning a lot about tools and composition. Works cited, etc. I have not written freely for months now, although I constantly think about it. I read a lot, between school assignments and my novels. I am amazed at some authors writing powers. Ken Follet comes to mind, I am working my way through all of his novels as I have completed all of Gresham's novels. Stuart Anderson provides me with very light reading, although they are reading like comic books lately.
We have completed painting our third room and our bedroom bathroom in the house. I am contending with Joy it makes our house feel more like a home. There is no argument there. It now has a personal touch.
That's all I have for now. This is reading like a letter! So good day to you and your own. May it be full of smiles and keep your faces pointed to the sun. Do a good deed today.

past work experience

(This is draft two of assignment two for English Comp, week two)
Looking out over the brand new dining room in the four star hotel I quietly thought to myself I had arrived. For that matter, on the ride into work I felt full of electricity and anticipation about how the day would unfold. I had to get my thoughts in order. I had a dining room to run, I had reports to be sent and a bank run to do. Louie would be calling from corporate any minute and I felt like he would go through the usual questions about covers we did the night prior and the daily reports sent from the other management team members about the activities in front of the house and the back of the house. My servers were on time; I had to send Bill downstairs as usual to iron his shirt. First impressions are everything, the more ready we are as a team to tackle any issues, the better. Putting the teams mind on crispness and professionalism started the shift out in the right direction.

It had been quite a journey landing in Portland, Oregon and knowing only three people. All of them are family so that hardly counted as a local reference. So I kept an eye on the classifieds, Craigslist and the unemployment department. I had several interviews set up for the day as a server for a restaurant. I recall it was sunny outside as I searched the streets of downtown for the address of the restaurant that I was interviewing for. When I found the restaurant, I saw two men standing out in front of it. I heard one of them say, “That’s him.” He then turned around and went inside. I was apprehensive to say the least. I craned my neck up to a very nice Hotel. The Westin Portland is located in the heart of downtown Portland. The clientele are pretty much the crème de la crème of travelers. I was later going to find out in the state of Oregon there are fewer than ten four star hotels and no five star hotels.

“Oritalia” had a set of stairs that led to the lush, dimly lit dining room. There were custom chandeliers hanging from the ceiling and a funky, swanky décor about the place. When I interviewed, I was intimidated a bit by the atmosphere. I had never worked in an environment quite like that. I somehow managed to impress and was offered the job as a server. I had no idea what was in store for me when I accepted the job.

“Oritalia” was having some serious management issues. They could simply not hang on to there teams of managers. I saw them come and go and kept on doing my job. That’s when I met Shannon. She was a young woman about my age who was delighted to be hired on as an assistant manager. She was impressionable, positive and excited to be in the position that she had. Sadly, we went through another manager. He quit or didn’t show up. Shannon was devastated. She was asked to run the restaurant, acting as manager. I recall the announcement that she made and how terrified she looked. Later as the stress of the position settled in she got worse. I could see that she was exhausted and getting thinner. I finally went to her office and said ” Shannon, I see that you are under a lot of pressure. I am here to tell you if there is anything at all that you need at any time, I’m your guy.” I could tell she appreciated what I had to say because the next morning she offered me a job as the dining room supervisor.

When it was all said and done, she also decided not to call or show up for her job one day. This made for some serious stepping up from the front of the house and the back of the house. The restaurant was in its final days as it had been up for sale and had been purchased by a company called Grill Concepts. It still needed to be run till the day the doors were to be locked forever. With the help of a head chef and two souse chefs we got it to that point. We had many a mountain to climb and many a river to cross to get it there in one piece. Just to give you an idea of the stress and expectations that are involved in this unique situation, I will tell you this. The head chef also quit. We went through the management team down to two souse chefs and me.

I was offered an extension of my job when the final day of “Oritalia” arrived and renovation for “The Daily Grill” ensued. The hotel needed a room to serve their guests breakfast. They needed three servers, a cook and someone to run it. They asked if I would do the job. I accepted. At this point there was a definite bond that had been built for the team. Now there is normal damage control between a guest and a restaurant in every day restaurant life. If you add a jackhammer, drilling and pounding to a breakfast shift, it’s something else all together. We had been set up in a banquet room upstairs while the dining room downstairs was to be rebuilt. We were tired and broken. I had little or no time to worry about how I was performing my duties. The compensation was having satisfied guests under difficult and challenging circumstances. The pay off was a change in my surroundings and myself. Literally.

When “The Daily Grill” had completed construction downstairs it was ready to open. There was a new restaurant and a new management team. When they offered me the job of Dining Room Supervisor, I accepted. I had been through a lot and I was waiting for the pay off. I think this was part of it. I will never forget what it had been like to be a server and the hell they are put through by a guest. How hard they work to bring you a hot and perfect meal as well as entertain you. There are inner workings of an establishment you as a guest will never be aware of. When my water glass is not filled right away, I understand. When I see a supervisor standing with their hands comfortably behind their backs and a slight smile on their face, I’ll know everything is the way they would have it. This is a rarity and the feeling is priceless. When I found myself looking with pride out onto the dining room and imagine I looked the same way. I also quietly promise myself the next meal I have out on the town, I will over tip and be over courteous. The restaurant team deserves it. You can never know what it took to get the service executed to perfection, or even close to it.

wishing well

Hi. Sometimes I like to share correspondence I have with other people. Enjoy.

My wishing well is overflowing and the desires are just as easy to wish for as they were when I was thirty. Except when I was thirty I had different desires and bounty would have been piled at my feet for me and only me.
When I was twenty the wishes were the same I think as when I was thirty. I would have been a king.
When I was ten I think I would have been a superhero with many powers.
When I was five it probably would have had something to do with ice cream and maybe lots of mud.
When I was two I bet it had something to do with more and more of the many hugs and kisses.
When I was one...well someone else may have been making those wishes for me...and I believe I can say that some of them are now coming true.
Today I see the well in a different light, you see someone has told me they wish for someone else....so, I tried it. Now I'm getting the riches. Now I'm getting the happiness. The riches are different.


I wrote that with you in mind Joy. Thanks.
Love,
Aaron

inauguration

So today we elected the first black president into office. I have a semblance of a lump in my throat, it's overwhelming what this means to me and countless others. It makes an enormous statement to us as a nation and us as a nation to the world. They are saying a large, large percentage of the voters that made this happen were young voters, that the margins were raised and we got out there and changed the face of history. I say "we" like I still might fit into the younger generation. But I must stand on the roof and shout to the heavens I AM PROUD TO BE ALIVE TODAY! Breathe Aaron.
So where were you when it happened? I was sitting in the coffee shop in Vancouver Washington. "Java House" on Columbia, across from 209 Riverview. I was sitting enjoying a cup of hot coffee as it is sunny and chilly outside this morning. I want you to know the exact time too. It is 10:18 a.m. I am on a barstool by the window and I hear a cappuccino being foamed behind me. I started outside in the mall area with my coffee and was checking my Facebook. I saw that a friend of mine was watching a live feed on CNN of the inauguration. So I clicked the link. Never before in my life would I have thought a lousy buffer of a live feed would take my breath away. I saw a sea of people in the mall at Washington. All of them there to listen. I saw a live feed on the right hand side of my screen, my Facebook friends that were watching the feed were able to type in comments. Part of me was stunned at the magnitude of the event, the amount of people in D.C, the feeling that my friends were there with me...online.
Shortly after the feed started on my Macbook I found two guys wanting to share the feed. Perfect strangers walked over and chatted and watched the feed of the 44th President making a speech. Eventually I closed up the laptop and wandered inside the coffee shop and watched the little tv set up inside. There was a group of people doing the same. We watched in happy silence with two men muttering to each other.
Today January 20, 2009 is the day. I love that it will be taught to our children in their classrooms. I love that it's going to go in books. I love that the media is going to eat it up and feed and re-feed it to the public. Because we each have our own reasons for how great it is to be alive today. We each see why this means so much and opens so many doors for various reasons. Because he's black. Because America voted for him. Because a large voting margin was younger than usual. It means that many "minorities" will get more involved without limitations or pause. Remember what Rosa Parks did?
I was here. I saw it happen. I saw Barack Obama address a nation. My heart is happy and full of pride.

Pepino's

What's better than people watching? A good spot on Hawthorne with good food, personality and location. Pepino's delivers this for me and I sat there this afternoon. Eating my Thai Chicken wrap with tortilla chips. I squeezed lime over the orange colored wrap, then poured a brown sauce over the top of that. I settled into a booth and placed my Grisham novel on the table next to my meal with good intentions of finishing my reading. The best part of a book? The beginning, the middle and the end. I never got there. I took my first bite of a meal I used to have from Pepino's once a week. I figured my endurance to spicy food must have worn thin as I felt my head get warm, my lips start to get warm and some mild perspiring began to settle in with my chewing. Maybe I got the wrong sauce, but it was hitting the spot on this rainy afternoon. The booth was situated facing the window and I watched in wonder as the people trudged up and down Hawthorn. Not many, maybe just a smattering but enough to keep my curious eyes occupied. Sometimes the best companion for a meal is a good book. It was. It sat there quietly on the table taking in the same sights I was taking in. We saw a man sitting behind and above us in those big thick Buddy Holly glasses, his face unshaven, wearing a v-neck sweater with a hoody underneath it. I think I could guess his overcoat would be plaid and probably green. Another man outside caught my eye because he had a funky umbrella that was probably a kids umbrella. I realize that you may be waiting for the food report, but the sights were as catching and as fetching as the food. I am thinking to myself Gypsies! Gypsies are walking the streets of Hawthorne. I love them. They are a mix of hipsters who buy clothes from second hand stores or possibly from a high end store all in the interest of sticking out in a crowd? Expressing their individuality? You tell me. I do not know but it's a piece of Portland I hope never changes. Beyond that? Go try one of their wraps. It's on Hawthorne by the theatre and across from Freddies. Oh and if you need a Freddies with the best people ever? It's on Glisan. Even better, if you need electronics from a Freddies? Go to the one on Glisan and look for a lady named Eileen. She is amazing and defines what good service is. I guarantee it. Bye for now.