Beyond the Picket Fences

I got tired of watching people sit on their rooftops in movies. So I climbed to the top of mine. I am wondering now, as my feet are trying to find a secure hold on the sill of my window if it was worth it. I mean, how do people always end up on rooftops? The movies never show it. It is always just BAM! Rooftop. Sweet nothings. Youth discovery. Luckily, I did not BAM fall on the concrete below me. I hoisted myself onto the creaky roof with what little upper body strength I could muster. I shakily lifted my legs completely out of the open air and lay flat, my body breathing in the atmosphere laid before me in a cluster of stars.

Monotony.

The first word to my mind. Stars, they all look so close together but in reality, they are just monotonous specs to each other as well. They all look the same from a distance. Like people too. They blur into outlines and cannot be seen as flawed until closer inspection. We don’t criticize until we become close. It’s fatal.

I sat up and rolled over, climbing further up the roof, just so I could sit more towards the front of my house, so I could gape at my whole neighborhood from a good angle. It must have been sometime after midnight. I found a perfect space in the middle. I sat with my legs outstretched and my palms bracing my sides.

My town unfolded before me. It was a quiet night. All the nights are quiet here. If someone was screaming, it would be heard with no mistake. If there was a party, there would be a complaint. Silence fell when the sun fell. Save for the animals and the wind. My friends and I, when we creep out and lurk we even whisper. It is nothing secretive, nothing scary. Something about suburbia does make you want to scream but usually you don’t. It is the unspoken truth of our sheltered minds. Skyscraper cities that exist loom over the mountains and thus our views of anything abstract is hindered. Dystopian societies build on this kind of thing.

Ahead of me is house after house. I think of the Lorde song where she sings I love these roads where the houses don’t change. I hum quietly. Light is scattered and decadent. Street lamps shine dimly. I can point out which houses belong to my friends. I see Luna’s room a few blocks over. It blares blue from her LED lights. I had been with her earlier, we crafted a picnic with homemade sandwiches and slushies from 7/11. I could call it a perfect day. We biked to the highschool and home. The stadium lights on the other side of town near the highschool seem brighter tonight. Field goals standing taller than most of the buildings, I am reminded of countless nights spent circling that field. It is quiet now, like most things.

I hear a dog bark a few houses over. I wonder whose it is. I draw my legs back and hug my knees, resting my head on the caps. What am I supposed to be feeling right now? Enlightened? Caught in the midst of some grand epiphany? In the fever dream of my future? I gaze sleepily over my town, tilting my head back and forth. I think of the people who reside here with me. How we have all woven together, a story with countless perspectives. Surrounded by these picket fences. White picket fences line each house and it looks like a crosshatch map from my view, outlining each life that is tied to their box of property. Those damn picket fences.

When I move out I never want to see another picket fence in my life. I promise. I don’t think anyone here does. I think of everything that comes with a white picket fence - stability, rules, isolation, privacy. I could never settle behind one for I would grow stale and monotonous like those specs in the sky. I would grow up. I think about my generation and how we might all never grow up. I feel as if we will all simply just grow. I cannot picture anyone I know wishing they would grow up just to settle in our suburban town. We have been molded here, but not shaped. Our existence is round and malleable, waiting for the world to sharpen us. I am not here to run a full circle back to the place I felt stagnant. We are comfortable and safe, for certain. Yet so shallow have our feet traced the waters.

I climb up to the centerpoint of my roof and stand, arms outstretched. I think of that scene in Almost Famous where Russel stands similarly on a roof, drunken and surrounded by people. He screams “I am a golden god.” I do the same pose as him but do not dare to yell. And there it is. That small gust of wind. That jump in the record. A perfect moment unasked for. A quiver of hope squeals up my spine and I find meaning to why I climbed onto the roof. I looked out on my small town. What a nice thing it was to be near an edge and not want to fall off. Instead I teeter where I am safe for a while longer. But I know for certain, when that hope sends me flying off the edge, I promise to never see another one of these white picket fences again.

“I am a golden god,” I laugh to myself. A different dog barks somewhere further in the distance. Luna’s blue lights shut off. I climb back inside.

For now.