Alone on a Levee

It was the summer of 1994. I do not remember the month. It was probably July.

I woke up and slid out of my room. I cut through the living room and dining room and went into the kitchen. I grabbed the biggest bowl I could find, a gallon of milk, and a box of Corn Flakes. My brothers were in the living room watching some cartoon I did not like. It was Saturday morning, which meant cartoons were the law of the land. As the oldest brother, I exercised my rightful authority and made them change it. I do not remember everything we watched. X-Men was probably on.

By 11:00, there was not much worth watching. I called my friend Quinn’s house. His mom answered. I called Aunt Terri, as I also hung out with Quinn's cousins, and I just mimicked them. She told me he was out somewhere with them and would not be back until Sunday.

I got dressed and walked over to Durbin Bowl. No one was there. I spent a few quarters on an arcade game. Then I headed to the elementary school playground with the field and the basketball hoops. No one was there either. I knocked on a few doors, but no one wanted to come out. It was just hot. It was shaping up to be a boring Saturday.

I stopped at the corner store and bought an orange soda and a Nutty Buddy. That cost eighty-five cents back then. Then I crossed over to the parking lot of the high school. I grew up in Lawrenceburg, on the Ohio River. We had levees to protect us. There was one behind the high school and middle school. I climbed to the top and looked both ways.

On one side were the schools. On the other were the fairgrounds. From there I could see all the way to the 275 exit on Highway 50. Cars went by, but there was not a kid in sight. I sat down. I thought. I picked at clover. I studied the groundhog holes in the side of the levee. I watched the clouds. I counted how many red trucks passed in a minute.

Mostly, I wished there was something fun to do.

The boredom was good for me. It forced me to imagine and to study. It created space for my thoughts to percolate and take shape. It trained me how to think. Though I was not a Christian yet, it was creating the habit of meditation. That ability to soak my mind in a truth and turn it over from different angles. To let it settle in and work on me.

It also connected me to my city, Lawrenceburg. Sitting on that levee, I came to know the personality of the place. I studied its contours. I felt the wind. I breathed in those summer smells. I listened to the sounds of traffic in the distance. The ordinary noises of a place simply being itself.

In that boredom, I was learning what it meant to belong.

Boredom that goes unfilled becomes imagination. If each quiet moment is immediately filled with noise, there is no room left for contemplation. No room for a child to wander. To wonder. To become acquainted with the texture of his place in the world.

If you never learn to sit still long enough to notice a place, you will never really belong to it.

Painting of Lawrenceburg by Michael Blaser