Entry 810 – Swan Gazing And Skating Wonder

Bring Me To Life

How can you see into my eyes
Like open doors.
Leading you down into my core
Where I’ve become so numb.
Without a soul
My spirit’s sleeping somewhere cold
Until you find it there and lead it back home.

(wake me up.
Wake me up inside.
I can’t wake up.
Wake me up inside.
Save me.
Call my name and save me from the dark.
Wake me up.
Bid my blood to run.
I can’t wake up.
Before I come undone.
Save me.)
Save me from the nothing I’ve become.

Now that I know what I’m without
You can’t just leave me.
Breathe into me and make me real
Bring me to life.

(wake me up.
Wake me up inside.
I can’t wake up.
Wake me up inside.
Save me.
Call my name and save me from the dark.
Wake me up.
Bid my blood to run.
I can’t wake up.
Before I come undone.
Save me.)
Save me from the nothing I’ve become.

Bring me to life.
I’ve been living a lie
There’s nothing inside.
Bring me to life.

Frozen inside without your touch,
Without your love, darling.
Only you are the life among the dead.

All of this sight
I can’t believe I couldn’t see
Kept in the dark
But you were there in front of me

I’ve been sleeping a thousand years it seems.
I’ve got to open my eyes to everything.

Without a thought
Without a voice
Without a soul

Don’t let me die here
There must be something wrong.
Bring me to life.

(wake me up.
Wake me up inside.
I can’t wake up.
Wake me up inside.
Save me.
Call my name and save me from the dark.
Wake me up.
Bid my blood to run.
I can’t wake up.
Before I come undone.
Save me.)
Save me from the nothing I’ve become.

Bring me to life.
I’ve been living a lie
There’s nothing inside.

Bring me to life

 

On Thursday, the 2nd, Rob and I once again hung out.  We’d gone skating the previous night at the outdoor rink in Union Beach.  Me on my skates and him on that pair of rollerblades.  He’s getting better.  He actually managed crisscrossing his feet in order to turn, as well as doing a 180 a few different times.

At the outdoor rink that night, he still fell a few times, but he’s improving.  Anyway, on Thursday, I’d’ve sworn there was a session from 1:30 to 4:30, so I picked him up in time for us to get there for that.  Well, it turns out no, there wasn’t a session then, but there was one that night from seven to nine-thirty.  So I figured we’d just come back then.

He asked what we should do and I suggested going to the lake in Matawan off Ravine Dr.  I’d shown it to him the night before when I was dropping him off, but he only saw a bit of it from the light of the headlights.  We drove down there and it was adorable, he’s like, afraid of water, so I had to practically pull him out on the dock/pier thing they have that goes out over the water.  It’s sort of shaped like a U, cuz there’s a wooden dock and then two sort of arms that stretch out over the water.  Well, we were standing on the wooden part, my arm around his waist so he wouldn’t try to back up and get to the "safety" of the concrete, and he said something about "Oh, great.  And I bet you’ll wanna go out there to get a closer look at those geese.  Or swans.  Or whatever they are."  I hadn’t even seen them, so when I looked around, I had a very pleasant surprise.  Two swans were swimming over near the left arm thingy over the water.  So, still holding onto Rob’s hand, I wandered over to the edge of the dock to get a closer look.

Lol, Rob was so paranoid!  And I would purposely make the thing rock slightly to goad him.    He basically wouldn’t let go of me while we were standing there, but it was just so nce to be able to stare out at the lake and see those swans and the two Canadian geese that swam by.  And I pointed out different places I’d rowed to and what I’d seen there.

We left soon after and he suggested going to Wa-wa’s.  So we stopped by a bank on Main Street and he got a twenty from the ATM.  We got subs and then went to Holmdel Park.  See, we’d been there a few days before that and you know those things that look like ladders, but they’re curved over so both ends touch the ground?  Well, he climbed one of them, (coming down head first instead of turning around in the middle,) and basically fell on me when he got to the end, lol.  But he was saying since he climbed that thing, I should, too.  That considering all the stuff I do, I shouldn’t have any problem with it.

Except I’m afraid of heights.  And that thing’s at least ten feet off the ground.  Ten feet.  Geez, I’m pathetic, aren’t I?

We ate our subs at one of the picnic tables near the playground where this thing was.  When we were done, we went back down to the building where the bathrooms are, then drove back up to where we were.  Well, I started climbing that wretched thing and made it further than I usually do, but chickened out and started climbing back own the same side I went up.  But a few minutes later, I rehanded Rob my keys and Skittles and decided ‘You know what?  He comes with me to all these different places, (like Union Beach, the outdoor rink, the Spy House, etc.,) so the least I can do is climb over that thing and if nothing else, prove to m

yself that I can do it.

So I started climbing the damned thing again and made it a little over halfway when I started lightly spazzing.  But I’d come too far to go backwards.  So slowly, I kept pushing myself forward and finally, my hands were on the last rung of the thing down at the other side and I was trying to figure out how I was gonna get down when Rob said that I could probably just let go and fall.  (I think he expected me to catch myself with my hands or some such.)  Well, that’s exactly what I did.  Let go, I mean.  Unfortunately, while I caught myself with more or less my left shoulder, my right hand also made major contact with the ground, and they’ve got those wooden chip things instead of something like sand or grass on the ground.  My knuckles hit and I ended up getting a small scrape and bruise on my right hand near my high school ring.

Lol.  After falling in said heap, I pulled myself to a sitting position and nursed my hand.  I was surprised to see blood, but I still looked up, not sure if it was at Rob, or the stupid inanimate thing, and said, "There.  I did it."

A few minutes later, he helped me up and we left so I could go back and doctor my hand.  It was only a couple little cuts, but damn, this thing hurt!  We came back to the house and I went upstairs, (it sucked, cuz I could barely use my right hand and I couldn’t make a fist without it really freakin’ hurting!) asking Rob to come with me.  I knew I had to clean my hand, I was gonna use hydrogen peroxide, and I knew it was gonna hurt.  I soaked a tissue, set it on the counter, asked for Rob’s hand, and told him to put the tissue on my wounds and press down with his other hand.  So he did.  Lol.  He has a better grip than I thought, cuz amazingly, I didn’t crush his fingers.

It was funny, at one point, he took the tissue off and I told him, "No, leave it on, just press down on it."  And he said he felt bad about doing that cuz I looked like I was being tortured or something.  (I admit, I felt like I was, but you gotta do what you gotta do, you know?)

After that was over, we were downstairs playing around on my laptop and listening to music while I tried to ignore the throbbing in my hand.  At one point, I said that I would have to hold Rob’s hand with my left one, so he couldn’t be near the wall at the rink.  When he asked why, I held up my right hand and said, "Battle scars, remember?"

That was when he started making half-jokes, (or I think they were half-jokes,) about not going to the rink because I was all injured.  Cuz not only had I done a number on my hand, but a couple days before . . .  Okay, this requires an entry within an entry.

A couple days before the rink venture, Rob and I had been at Union Beach.  Or should I say a couple nights before, cuz we went around nine or ten.  Anyway, there’s this one spot at Union Beach that’s this little secluded area where there are a bunch of rocks that overlook this little island sandbar thingy, but you can only see that at low tide.  It was high tide when we went, which was what made it so interesting.  The water crashing on the rocks and all of that.  Anyway, we were out at that place where the sandbar type thing is, but of course we couldn’t see it.  I was looking out at the rocks in front of us and saw this big stick/log looking thing.  First thing that comes to my mind?  "Ooo!  Frodo staff!"  Cuz at one point in Fellowship, both he and Sam had these walking sticks.  So I wanted to climb down and go get it, but Rob kept saying not to, it was too dangerous, and stuff like that.  He worries about me way too much.

We sat on the rocks there for a bit, both of us trying to warm up by hugging the other, but that damn stick kept calling me.  So finally I said I was gonna climb down there and get it.  But Rob was trying not to let me, saying he was worried about what could happen to me and all that.  I kept assuring him I’d be okay, nothing bad would happen.  Come to think of it, I felt like Dori when her and Marlin are in the whale’s mouth.

Of course, after awhile, his protestations weren’t working, me being the headstrong hedgehog that I am.  After promising him I’d be all right and I would come back in one piece, I climbed down and reached the stupid branch, but when I tried to pick it up, it was a lot heavier than I’d expected.  I got my feet situated and tried to catapult the branch up towards where Rob was standing.  However, it hit me in the shin and I almost fell backwards.  I caught myself, though, and just stayed there, holding onto my shin for a few minutes, cuz damn, that hurt!

I started limping my way back over the rocks, but it was slower going since I’d have to stop and hold my leg for a bit and couldn’t really lean on it immediately.  I wasn’t looking up because I was trying to find hand- and foot-holds, not to mention my hair was in my face.  But when I did look up, I saw Rob reaching towards me, and not standing on the rock back where there was solid boulder.  He was climbing out closer to me, despite the fact that he was iffy (at best) for his own balance.

I reached up and took his hand, hoping I could help him get steadier on his feet.  I didn’t want him to fall on my account.  He got back to the first rock we’d been on and I jumped there second and just hugged him.

I’m smiling just thinking about that now.  Just that he was concerned enough about me that his own lack of finesse with balance/coordination took a backseat.  Cuz he was afraid of climbig out over those rocks.  Yet he was worried enough about me to not let that stop him.

There were times throughout the rest of that night when I would catch myself just staring at him and smiling.  Because put simply, it takes somebody really special to put his own fears/worries/whatever aside because someone they care about might be in trouble.

Okay, anyway, the point of all that was to say that I had a pretty major hurting bruise on my shin.  That climb at Holmdel Park didn’t exactly help things there.  In fact, it hindered me.  But not from wanting to go skating. 

At about six thirty we left for the rink.  On the way there,I remembered this alphabet game that my mom had taught me years ago, more than likely as a way to keep me occupied on trips to Staten Island.  Basically, you look for the letters of the alphabet on signs, buildings, license plates, anything with letters, but you have to find them in consecutive order.  No being like, "Hey, I saw a Q five minutes ago, okay on to R!"  It’s fun, and Rob had never played it, so we were looking for letters on the way.  We were almost there and up to Z.  Ironically, we were finding X’s up the wazoo on license plates, and just when I was about to comment on the two cars in a row with X’s on the plates, we both saw the Z next to one of the X

‘s.

Lol, okay so we still play kid games.  So what?  Anyway, we got to the rink, and I honestly don’t think that the people who were working there expected anyone to come to that session.  Heck, for a good half hour or so, we were the only ones there.

I will say one thing.  Rob told me he hadn’t been on regular skates in about ten years.  Yet he was still pretty good.  Lol, yeah, his feet still decided they had a mind of their own at times, but still.  Heck, I was holding his hand, (with my right one, despite it hurting at times,) and just letting him go his own speed and though it my have been the floor, he was going pretty fast.  As I told him that night, any speed he got up was his own doing.  I was just keeping up with him.

He did take a fall at one point where he banged his knee, so he wanted to sit out for a while.  We were sitting at a table just hanging out when this guy comes in and starts skating.  My GOD, this guy was incredible.  He was obviously a figure skater because the way he held himself and moved his arms, and the footwork he did, not to mention that he moved across the rink like it was nothing.  He crisscrossed his feet more cleanly than I’ve ever seen, and he would travel forward on one foot, then without putting his other foot down, would switch so he was going backwards.  And he never lost that lazy sort of soeed that he had going.  He never lost his momentum.  It was absolutely incredible to watch.  He just skated with so much ease and made every movement he executed look so easy and graceful.  Rob and I were both in awe.

I don’t remember when, but Rob said he wanted to get the guy’s autograph before he left.  And we actually did.  I think his name was Tom Cato or something like that.  Or at least that’s what his signature looked like.

Oh, I put Bring Me To Life as the song in the box because that’s one of the ones I requested they play.  The other was Almost, by Bowling for Soup.  I was just having so much fun flying around the rink to those two.

It was funny.  Whenver I would say that line to Rob, about loving being able to just fly around the rink, he’d say, "Yeah, you can do that.  I don’t wanna fly."

With any luck, though, he’ll join me in doing it eventually.