Carpet Squares, Red Balloons, and Other Things That Don't Really Go Together

The Red Balloon never made much sense to me, even then, sitting on a carpet square in Mrs. Seeger’s second grade classroom, behind Ben Daugherty and his pointy elf ear, lifting our chubby first two fingers up in the air as high as we could to quiet our peers. The tile floor would be a mosaic of carpet squares in baby blues and camels and the lone hunter green square that everyone fought over. When the carpet squares came out, that’s when the fun began: room switch.

That movie always depressed me—why did we watch it so often?? It left me feeling empty, scolded, and tired. Could this have just been the effect of sitting on a hard floor with only an 18” x 27” carpet square for nearly forty minutes in the midst of other mouth-breathing second graders? Or did the silent French film really have some profound effect on my tiny psyche? Or…not so tiny psyche after all…? For me there was something evil about it, something sacrificial maybe. That’s what I couldn’t get past, every time I watched it. Was I too sensitive? Or was I just too…old…for a second grader?

(Little boys can’t be lifted off the ground by balloons; I don’t care how many there are.)

Oh the joy of writing! I remember how easy it was for me and how fulfilled I felt after finishing a story (though I started countless more than I ever finished). My first story was an explanation as to why mice have long tails. My take? An elephant stepped on the mouse’s stubby tail just as he was trying to run away from the elephant, and his tail suffered the stretch. It was a fantastically neat and simple explanation, one I remember being proud of, most likely because it was so practical. Always a perfectionist, even first-grade Rebecca kept things nice and tidy without too much imaginative distraction.

I was so proud to see my story (with illustrations!) tacked up on the cork board tract outside Room 2 along with my classmates’. I eyed it with pride—my own cover drawing of the fleeing mouse waving at me, “Hello! Hello!”—either during bathroom breaks or on walks down to the office—but only when I was on mail duty, the most coveted job on the list. I loved school, still do I guess (or maybe just the idea of it). I loved how the last breezes of the summer would rush through the open doors and how the assignments and construction paper artwork on the cork board runners would flap like autumn leaves. I loved the look and smell of a brand new box of crayons and just how bright my white tennis shoes would be for the whole first week.

Kristen Miller lived up the street from us, and she and Andy were in the same grade. She gave me her clear jelly sandals, the ones with the little fruits appliquéd on the instep. They hurt like hell, even on my summer feet, but I was so proud of them. She showed me how to take out a lightening bug’s glowing bulb and stick it to my finger where it would continue to pulse. Even as a kid, I was slightly disturbed by such destruction of property. Kristen had a cousin named Tyler who was a year younger than I. She wanted us to be friends. I pictured a tire swing every time I heard his name.

I was a flower child growing up, whether I knew it or not. I remember spending summer afternoons with my dad, playing with the tadpoles in the puddle at the edge of the rocks. He showed me how to cup my two chubby fists around enough water for one to swim in my hands. Or I would dig up dandelions with my mom in the backyard, being careful to get all the roots out.

How strange it was to live a precocious childhood, to have been serious and shy, knowing that someday I'd make friends my own age.

(If I had a bunch of balloons, I would fly away too.)

Dante and Boccaccio Walk in to a Bar...

“Cin, cin!” Dante Alighieri and Giovanni Boccaccio exchanged as they clink their raised glasses of beer. Dante looked down into his mug before he stated:

“You know, Boccaccio, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about this country of ours’. It seems like things are always changing; sometimes I think we have a new foreign king just about every week! First we had the Normans, then the French. When will Italy be Italian?! In my opinion, we all need to get behind the Pope. He is the one who should have all the power. Besides, a country is only as good and prosperous as it is virtuous; if we all practiced religious virtuosity we wouldn’t have so many problems.”

“Easy for you to say, Dante. You were born into nobility and always had it easy. I, on the other hand, am the illegitimate son of a merchant! I have always been looked down upon. I studied in Napoli, but my life wasn’t easy. I got ahead in life on my wit and intellect. If you ask me, that’s what will keep Italy together, even while this Black Death wreaks complete havoc on our cities. And you know what I think? I think maybe the Church is part of the problem. There’s so much hypocrisy, what with all these wealthy friars who have supposedly given their lives to charity and chastity. Why do you think I set the Decameron in the Tuscan countryside? The cities are just outposts of religious hypocrisy,” Boccaccio stated. “I wanted my characters to get out where they could breathe clean air, literally and figuratively.”

“Boccaccio! What you speak of is heresy! How can you go against the Church? Maybe the problem is that we were writing almost 30 years apart, and times were different. But we must live our lives for God. Otherwise you will descend into Hell! Don’t you remember what I said about the time I visited Hell? ‘…the grim terrain shook violently; and the fright it gave me even now in recollection makes me sweat. Out of the tear-drenched land a wind arose which blasted forth into a reddish light, knocking my senses out of me completely, and I fell as one falls tired into sleep.’”

“As terrifying as Hell sounds, I think this pestilence is hell enough. I prefer to enjoy life now, while I know that I still have life. Besides, there are many reasons for a man to fall to the ground, as you did in Hell. Why, take Ser Ciapelletto from my own opera. ‘He was a great glutton and phenomenal drinker, so much so, in fact, that sometimes he suffered in a, well, less than polite way.’ He had a great many other vices, but in the end, his wit got the best of everyone, and he became a saint! He’s not so unlike some of the saints and friars I know of these days,” Boccaccio declared before gulping down the last of his beer.

“Giovanni Boccaccio! You are a lost cause! I’ve lost my taste for this drink now, not only because of the way you gluttonously slurped yours down but also for all the blasphemy you’re preaching,” said Dante with a huff.

“So, uh…I guess you won’t be finishing that…?” And with that, Boccaccio reached across the table for Dante’s beer and finished it in one swallow.