Glockenspiel
Have you ever wanted to climb through a small door just to see what’s on the other side? Maybe just four walls and a long mat. Maybe one issue of the New Yorker, so you know you will be there a while. A soft light. Cedarwood in the air. Ambient noise, but indistinguishable from white noise.
A small flower sits uprooted on a city sidewalk next to a three-year-old piece of Bazooka and what could be an early afternoon Mint Chocolate Chip drip. The water can’t wash it away. Someone will make a postage stamp out of this one day.
The first time I had ranch dressing, it felt like the world opened up to me. I still pick up change off the sidewalk, even if they banned pennies. I wonder what pennies ever did to anyone. They are such a better size than a dime.
When you get older, you will be surprised how hard jumping jacks are on the body. The texture of a perfectly cooked scallop is like having your hair brushed by your mom after a shower when you are four and three-quarters.
I know what type of person you are solely by whether or not you hold the door for others. This is the only thing that is truly black and white in the world. I used to think Missed Connections would work. Everyone who rode the subway in New York City did.
We once drove up the coast of Northern California as a family in a station wagon. I was in the way back. It was comfortable, but not when you are looking over the rail into the ether. We had to stop for me to almost throw up.
I wish my mom were an old lady and living with me. My dad never wanted to go into a nursing home. He never had the chance to anyway. But I would never have let that man go into a nursing home. I wonder if my kids think of me as I think of them.
A Hot Toddy is very unexpected in all the right ways. Kind of like a Corgi. Also, like corduroy pants in thirty-nine-degree weather. Everything we wear every day should have a front hoodie pocket.
I watched Guiding Light in college and was very into it. Maybe I was escaping from something else. It was hard to sit awake wondering every night if someone was going to call me to tell me my mom was dead. Calling the hospital to talk to your mom from 3,000 miles away is the sourest of milk.
Tonight, I am going to dream about Manute Bol playing a glockenspiel while riding a tricycle.
© Jonathan Greene, August 10, 2026
