Memories falling from the sky when the rain comes down a certain way. Maybe it is the light filtering through the drops in a particular fashion. It serves up reminders of a day years ago, having lunch by the harbor, sitting next to the linchpin of my heart. An overcast sky casts pearly light through the window. It illuminates my daughter like a cherub. Her laughter makes my heartbeat skip. She is being silly, making faces and sticking at her tongue, with cheeks smudged with peanut butter from the sandwich she is not so much eating as she is molding into a makeshift toy. She knows she is being messy. She knows I know she is being messy. In response I stick out my tongue. We both crack up, grinning wide and laughing. This is pure joy.
We are complicit in each others’ breach of etiquette. She is unfamiliar with that word, etiquette, but someday she will know what it means. In the clarity of the moment it is unimportant, these rules that bind our lives as adults. They are unknown except to the extent that those much older often enjoin her to stop or be quiet when she engages in so-called uncouth behavior. Most of the time I do not exempt myself from those ranks. Yet that day, in that moment, I withheld admonishment in favor of playfulness. How could I not? Youth was the teacher, and experience can always learn something new. Our day would be better served by levity rather than solemnity. We laughed together, watching the gulls wheel about over the harbor.
Wind played the same trick on me years later. Winter breeze, to be exact. Whispering down the street bearing understated pungency of a wood smoke key that unlocked another room in the memory palace. I was crossing a side street that hunched cat-like in late afternoon winter sun. It was not the city of my birth but stepping out and breathing that scent of burning firewood transported me to a day most similar, sprung from a solitary adolescent interlude as I walked home. I recall walking through the door, into the warm hug of the kitchen. I made myself a toasted peanut butter sandwich. No memory of whether it included jelly, but it must have been good for me to recall after so many years.
Something else happened above and beyond the recall. Crossing the street I stepped over a boundary in time and space. Both of them wrinkled, folded, bringing two disparate points together to touch however briefly and remind me that as I once was, so was my daughter. Through the miracle of memory, we can be so young and free once again.
Showing posts with label fatherhood. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fatherhood. Show all posts
28 January 2019
08 July 2018
Living the Life Histological: A Sunday Biji
KEEPER OF LIGHT
Columba leaned back against the warmth of rough granite. Eyes closed, knobs of rock gently digging into his back, his sleepy mind wandered through a field of memory. It arrived empty handed. It was nearly lost to history, the last time a visitor had trod the sand and slate before the keeper’s house. In his head the visit had become myth. So began another sere summer in servitude to the light.
LIVING IN THE SUMMERWINTER
Heat begets the melancholy. The turning of the seasons has undergone an inversion from the naive days of adolescence into the bittersweet twilights of adulthood. This has never been more apparent than upon being ambushed by three chords in a summer song that the heart would be happy to never hear again. It is not that the song itself is bad, by some measures, but wistfulness and regret ring hard on ears already full of the same.
The full experience of summer brings understanding of the winter. Your heart understands. It knows the singular jolt to the soul induced by spasming with chill while swathed in the swelter of humid sunlight. It seems impossible, illogical, but there it is. The trigger can be a song, a sound, a smell. Any stimuli, almost. What matters is how such things are woven into the soul. Peculiar combinations of memory and emotion combusting into an incandescent fount of reaction.
LAUGHING AND DRINKING FROM THE CUP
Sitcoms and soccer and a little sun and sand. The order reversed itself from what I thought it would be, to become what it was meant to be. We watched the games, critiqued the teams, and then laughed ourselves silly over sitcoms of which she had seen more than I. Of course, it is I who has seen more of life. It is not untrue to say I wish the situation was reversed.
TRIPPIN’
No bones were broken during the fall. The same cannot be said of dignity. Dignity shattered like a glass Christmas ornament in the clutches of a deranged house cat. This sort of thing happens when attention lapses, or is allowed to lapse. Not surprising in this era of distractions, digital and otherwise. People convince themselves they can live without situational awareness, but that is the path to perdition. By our lack of care, we may find ourselves in Hell.
Columba leaned back against the warmth of rough granite. Eyes closed, knobs of rock gently digging into his back, his sleepy mind wandered through a field of memory. It arrived empty handed. It was nearly lost to history, the last time a visitor had trod the sand and slate before the keeper’s house. In his head the visit had become myth. So began another sere summer in servitude to the light.
LIVING IN THE SUMMERWINTER
Heat begets the melancholy. The turning of the seasons has undergone an inversion from the naive days of adolescence into the bittersweet twilights of adulthood. This has never been more apparent than upon being ambushed by three chords in a summer song that the heart would be happy to never hear again. It is not that the song itself is bad, by some measures, but wistfulness and regret ring hard on ears already full of the same.
The full experience of summer brings understanding of the winter. Your heart understands. It knows the singular jolt to the soul induced by spasming with chill while swathed in the swelter of humid sunlight. It seems impossible, illogical, but there it is. The trigger can be a song, a sound, a smell. Any stimuli, almost. What matters is how such things are woven into the soul. Peculiar combinations of memory and emotion combusting into an incandescent fount of reaction.
LAUGHING AND DRINKING FROM THE CUP
Sitcoms and soccer and a little sun and sand. The order reversed itself from what I thought it would be, to become what it was meant to be. We watched the games, critiqued the teams, and then laughed ourselves silly over sitcoms of which she had seen more than I. Of course, it is I who has seen more of life. It is not untrue to say I wish the situation was reversed.
TRIPPIN’
No bones were broken during the fall. The same cannot be said of dignity. Dignity shattered like a glass Christmas ornament in the clutches of a deranged house cat. This sort of thing happens when attention lapses, or is allowed to lapse. Not surprising in this era of distractions, digital and otherwise. People convince themselves they can live without situational awareness, but that is the path to perdition. By our lack of care, we may find ourselves in Hell.
10 June 2018
In the Quiet Box
Silence expands to fill the available volume regardless of the total. This is knowledge gained as a collateral effect of living. It could take decades before one notices what is happening. Different cities, different containers, different boxes all experiencing the same result. The silence is loudest in the night, in those moments before another bedtime. Silence haunts.
Amusingly enough the silence is not without a soundtrack. The noises heard tend to be generated in places other than the throat or head. The click of a kitchen light switch morphs into a rifle shot. An air conditioner fan takes on a near corporeal presence, a machine-age analogue of a waterfall coursing over a brim of rocks. Low hum punctuated by the pouring of rain outside the windows that surges in when the conditioner unit cuts off. The abrupt absence of a sound like that tricks the mind into thinking it is losing its balance. Living in a quiet box it is an easily acquired habit of leaning into sound because it offers support.
Support in the form of distractions from the vacuum of a life unrealized. Absences. Connections not formed, or frayed to the point of unviability. Projects uncompleted, or worse, never started because the attention was absorbed by some other thing in life and the mind failed to grasp the threads it should have followed. Funny how the hollow clattering of a butter knife into a sink (which was cleaned earlier in a fit of anxiety-induced housekeeping) can knock the mind from one track into another. A metallic thud serving as an accidental rin chime signaling the beginning of involuntary meditation in the temple of the head.
The knife lies still in the sink. Stillness broken by the hum and whirr of domestic machineries within, wind and rain without. The body reacts by pacing around the quiet box of its apartment. It cannot be helped that the mind is flooded with memories and regrets and the helplessness wrought by the realization that not enough has been done to find security in an unstable universe. In the stream of silences the head and the heart cannot escape the notion that so much potential appears to have been wasted or unrealized. Picture the tap on the barrel of water that was supposed to have enabled the successful crossing of a desert. Unbeknownst to all this tap was not secured before embarking. Miles of trudging through the heat and sand engendering thirst beyond measure, not to be slaked because the water dripped away.
Desperate discoveries occur in the silences of the quiet box. The stomach knows because it drops. No amount of pacing truly eradicates the gnawing sensation, but the motion can ease some of the discomfort. Discomfort? Do we really mean fear? Fear of having missed out on a cosmic scale and now not understanding how to get something back? Ah, this is it. Of course it is fear. A nipping at the heels brought about by a late-night revelation that you may not know what you are doing. Ever.
But you should know this by now. If you do not, surely that would be irrefutable evidence of the ineffectuality that you believe to be your shackles. It is this ineffectuality that howls the loudest in the midnight of the quiet box. Ineffectuality is the diamond-eyed beast that prowls the undergrowth just outside the dying circle of light. Growl and moan, rustle and snort, the impression is one of power that does not care how bright the fire you build. It will get what it wants. It will feed.
Living a life of balance is draining, in the face of knowing the universe does not need an excuse to eat you alive. The prime directive of that life is to find something, or better yet, someone with whom to share the quiet box of life. By such good fortune the beast will be kept at bay.
Amusingly enough the silence is not without a soundtrack. The noises heard tend to be generated in places other than the throat or head. The click of a kitchen light switch morphs into a rifle shot. An air conditioner fan takes on a near corporeal presence, a machine-age analogue of a waterfall coursing over a brim of rocks. Low hum punctuated by the pouring of rain outside the windows that surges in when the conditioner unit cuts off. The abrupt absence of a sound like that tricks the mind into thinking it is losing its balance. Living in a quiet box it is an easily acquired habit of leaning into sound because it offers support.
Support in the form of distractions from the vacuum of a life unrealized. Absences. Connections not formed, or frayed to the point of unviability. Projects uncompleted, or worse, never started because the attention was absorbed by some other thing in life and the mind failed to grasp the threads it should have followed. Funny how the hollow clattering of a butter knife into a sink (which was cleaned earlier in a fit of anxiety-induced housekeeping) can knock the mind from one track into another. A metallic thud serving as an accidental rin chime signaling the beginning of involuntary meditation in the temple of the head.
The knife lies still in the sink. Stillness broken by the hum and whirr of domestic machineries within, wind and rain without. The body reacts by pacing around the quiet box of its apartment. It cannot be helped that the mind is flooded with memories and regrets and the helplessness wrought by the realization that not enough has been done to find security in an unstable universe. In the stream of silences the head and the heart cannot escape the notion that so much potential appears to have been wasted or unrealized. Picture the tap on the barrel of water that was supposed to have enabled the successful crossing of a desert. Unbeknownst to all this tap was not secured before embarking. Miles of trudging through the heat and sand engendering thirst beyond measure, not to be slaked because the water dripped away.
Desperate discoveries occur in the silences of the quiet box. The stomach knows because it drops. No amount of pacing truly eradicates the gnawing sensation, but the motion can ease some of the discomfort. Discomfort? Do we really mean fear? Fear of having missed out on a cosmic scale and now not understanding how to get something back? Ah, this is it. Of course it is fear. A nipping at the heels brought about by a late-night revelation that you may not know what you are doing. Ever.
But you should know this by now. If you do not, surely that would be irrefutable evidence of the ineffectuality that you believe to be your shackles. It is this ineffectuality that howls the loudest in the midnight of the quiet box. Ineffectuality is the diamond-eyed beast that prowls the undergrowth just outside the dying circle of light. Growl and moan, rustle and snort, the impression is one of power that does not care how bright the fire you build. It will get what it wants. It will feed.
Living a life of balance is draining, in the face of knowing the universe does not need an excuse to eat you alive. The prime directive of that life is to find something, or better yet, someone with whom to share the quiet box of life. By such good fortune the beast will be kept at bay.
22 April 2018
Swift on Her Feet, Light on My heart
Emerald pitch, sprinting,
She blooms the tulip poplars
wakes the sleepy heart
She blooms the tulip poplars
wakes the sleepy heart
15 April 2018
You Are Born of Dark Matter
Notes from the desk. The evening is cool and comfortable here in this cottage by the sea. Something from the archives unearthed this weekend. It would have been better written in ink on scratchy paper, but here it is. A missive written for someone else by someone else (figuratively speaking). It was strangely comforting, and surprisingly illuminatory in perspective for the person who read it today. Text has been altered slightly from the original.
Mothers, fathers, they all know the singular anguish of their offspring crying out in a time of hurt. It is in the bones, the blood, the DNA. We cannot help but feel we must do something, knowing full well that in some events, the pain is not ours to assume but only for the child to endure. It is an unavoidable fact of existence in this universe.
To watch the suffering of a child is a most peculiar pain. The burden is magnified in knowing some of that hurt arises from the interior of the mind. We can see the distress, we can perhaps imagine a bit of it, but we cannot simply find a switch to turn it off.
We grieve for your struggle to cast off a past that has been unkind to your inner peace. Thoughts of unworthiness, of blackness, circling in the mind like hamsters caught in an iron wheel. We see the thorn bushes of anxiety prick and tear at the skin of your soul. We understand and hold our breath, wishing fervently for the thicket to part and for you to stumble free.
On those days when the curtain descends and the voices inside hiss and moan to defame you, slander your self-worth, we have heard you call out. You have shown us your pain. You have told of your fears that you are nothing and undeserving of the kindnesses you have been offered. It is as if gravity itself has reached inside of us all and wrapped our hearts in a crushing grip.
But know this, child. You are not unworthy. You are not unloved. The demons that seek to lead you astray are woefully misguided in their attempts to make you believe such lies. What you face may affect your personhood, but it does not define your personhood. To deal with a mind bent on eating you alive along with a body that rebels against you does not disqualify you from being a human worthy of love.
Never forget that you are loved. You are you, and what you are is beautiful. You are born of dark matter, child, without which the universe cannot exist. Remember too that the universe exists in light.
Mothers, fathers, they all know the singular anguish of their offspring crying out in a time of hurt. It is in the bones, the blood, the DNA. We cannot help but feel we must do something, knowing full well that in some events, the pain is not ours to assume but only for the child to endure. It is an unavoidable fact of existence in this universe.
To watch the suffering of a child is a most peculiar pain. The burden is magnified in knowing some of that hurt arises from the interior of the mind. We can see the distress, we can perhaps imagine a bit of it, but we cannot simply find a switch to turn it off.
We grieve for your struggle to cast off a past that has been unkind to your inner peace. Thoughts of unworthiness, of blackness, circling in the mind like hamsters caught in an iron wheel. We see the thorn bushes of anxiety prick and tear at the skin of your soul. We understand and hold our breath, wishing fervently for the thicket to part and for you to stumble free.
On those days when the curtain descends and the voices inside hiss and moan to defame you, slander your self-worth, we have heard you call out. You have shown us your pain. You have told of your fears that you are nothing and undeserving of the kindnesses you have been offered. It is as if gravity itself has reached inside of us all and wrapped our hearts in a crushing grip.
But know this, child. You are not unworthy. You are not unloved. The demons that seek to lead you astray are woefully misguided in their attempts to make you believe such lies. What you face may affect your personhood, but it does not define your personhood. To deal with a mind bent on eating you alive along with a body that rebels against you does not disqualify you from being a human worthy of love.
Never forget that you are loved. You are you, and what you are is beautiful. You are born of dark matter, child, without which the universe cannot exist. Remember too that the universe exists in light.
08 October 2017
Colts
They run under the sun, chasing dreams of the beautiful game. An impossibly blue sky dusted with wisps of clouds sprays silver-white light over the antics on the field below. These girls carry with them the charming unawareness of their ability to slow down time. My daughter is among them. She tugs my old man heart hither and yon with each run she makes. It is she alone that may be able to stop time, not just slow it down.
There is no sitting for me while they play. I am too excited, too nervous. We are not watching Premier League, La Liga, or even Major League Soccer. We do not have to be. The kids are in the moment without thoughts of million dollar contracts or shoe endorsements. I for one am glad such grown-up concerns are nowhere near the playing field. The lack of polish is more than outweighed by their enthusiasm and concentration. Harried adults such as myself have much to learn from the scampering.
The first goal comes about from an astonishing web of cooperation. I bounce up and down in the bleachers. My daughter’s team has scored. They clap their hands and a few fists are pumped. This is the glory of soccer. Those shining moments when intention and skill come together producing a little magic, lighting up a world desperate for more such low-key miracles. By the end of the game, they will have sent four more shots into the back of the ol’ onion bag, surrendering only one.
This is what constitutes a great game, sometimes. But the goal count has little to do with racing of my heart and the contentment on my brow.
For a small slice of infinity I watched them run free, these spirits on a patch of green. Wildness tempered by team spirit was the order of the day. To witness such beauty is a pure tonic for the heart. The weary oldster that sometimes looks from behind my eyes has found some respite from the world outside, manifest in the quietly majestic youngsters enjoying the game.
Youngsters, I say. But the truth is, they are youngsters because Time is still kind to them. Adolescence is around the corner, young adulthood glimmering on the horizon. I will not speak to them, to my progeny, of such things. I will hug my daughter. She will know that I am proud of her.
What I cannot say, because the words are too big to get out of my mouth, is how grateful I am to my daughter and her friends for stopping time. How thankful this old man is for the gift of bearing witness to spirits running free, out on the range, beyond the reach of resigned endurance. For a few arc minutes of the sun, I was a colt too. It was glorious. It was real. It was life.
There is no sitting for me while they play. I am too excited, too nervous. We are not watching Premier League, La Liga, or even Major League Soccer. We do not have to be. The kids are in the moment without thoughts of million dollar contracts or shoe endorsements. I for one am glad such grown-up concerns are nowhere near the playing field. The lack of polish is more than outweighed by their enthusiasm and concentration. Harried adults such as myself have much to learn from the scampering.
The first goal comes about from an astonishing web of cooperation. I bounce up and down in the bleachers. My daughter’s team has scored. They clap their hands and a few fists are pumped. This is the glory of soccer. Those shining moments when intention and skill come together producing a little magic, lighting up a world desperate for more such low-key miracles. By the end of the game, they will have sent four more shots into the back of the ol’ onion bag, surrendering only one.
This is what constitutes a great game, sometimes. But the goal count has little to do with racing of my heart and the contentment on my brow.
For a small slice of infinity I watched them run free, these spirits on a patch of green. Wildness tempered by team spirit was the order of the day. To witness such beauty is a pure tonic for the heart. The weary oldster that sometimes looks from behind my eyes has found some respite from the world outside, manifest in the quietly majestic youngsters enjoying the game.
Youngsters, I say. But the truth is, they are youngsters because Time is still kind to them. Adolescence is around the corner, young adulthood glimmering on the horizon. I will not speak to them, to my progeny, of such things. I will hug my daughter. She will know that I am proud of her.
What I cannot say, because the words are too big to get out of my mouth, is how grateful I am to my daughter and her friends for stopping time. How thankful this old man is for the gift of bearing witness to spirits running free, out on the range, beyond the reach of resigned endurance. For a few arc minutes of the sun, I was a colt too. It was glorious. It was real. It was life.
02 October 2016
Movie and a Dinner
Quiet out here on the headland tonight. Slow breeze, barely moving the dry grass so no whispers there. The crickets and katydids are up to their usual hijinks, but they sound restrained. Even the sea is subdued. It undulates sluggishly with waves that caress the shore rather than pound it. The seething of the tide laps faintly over me as I sit by the open window, absently rubbing the sore spot on my right calf, a remnant of an agitated dream that gripped me before dawn. I never knew phantom kicks could be so painful.
The light fades from the sky. The clouds hovered most of the day, but it never felt gloomy. Nice for this time of year. Such a welcome relief from a stubborn summer heat so oppressive it felt fascist. the morning felt so good I walked the shore, out to the lighthouse and back. A few shards of sea glass ended up in my pockets, and now adorn the mantel above the hearth. There was the serendipitous find, too, of a wayward lobster trap caught on the jetty. To my surprise it still had a lobster and some crabs stuck in it. There was no buoy attached so no way for me to tell who it belonged to. I lugged it back to the cottage, extracted the lobster and the crabs to a pair of rusty buckets filled with seawater. The trap I left on the porch to dry. Dinner was halfway made.
My leg ached. The dream had knotted it up. The walk could not quite untie it. The same was true for my head. Damn that dream. A familiar theme in an unfamiliar setting. You know a place that you think you have never seen but somehow you know it is there? Yeah, like that. I woke up nearly screaming and kicking at something with my right leg. My eyes were barely open when my calf cramped up. I curled up under the covers and hurriedly beat on my leg to loosen the knot, but not before my foot had bent downward from the tension. The muscle felt like a steel ball under the skin. Hurt like a sonofabitch. My heart was pounding from the dream, and I shook.
Slow march of the waves is hypnotic. Not nearly the battle anthem of heavy surf. I am fidgeting with the lighter on my desk, willing myself not to fire up a smoke. One side effect of the hell-hot summer is that the urge to smoke has nearly died down. Been a week or more since I last had one. All to the good, I think.
The cottage smells good. It is home tonight. The mixture of salt air and seafood gumbo simmering away is one of the finest scents a man could ever draw into himself. Something about the tang and savor of the two makes me wonder if that is what the kitchens in heaven smell of. Maybe someday I'll find out. But not now. Not tonight. The gumbo is near ready, a sublime mix of found and foraged foodstuffs I discovered while cleaning the fridge and pantry. Lucky is the man who can bring home eats from the sea.
Time to dish up. Sipping a beer while giving the gumbo a few last, slow stirs, I like I had company for the evening. Friends and family, flitting around just outside the edges of my vision. People I treasure, people I miss, a few ghosts. The feeling surges when I sit down at the table with my heavy white bowl filled with goodness. The dream comes back to me, a movie before my mind. I am running, running, somewhere in the labyrinthine tunnels of a building I cannot name. Heavyset men in dark uniforms are chasing me, I'm running towards some sound and light. Voices call out to me, urging me on even as faint cries behind me try to drag me back to a coal-black night. I lash out flailing, kicking, as something brushes my ankle. I wake up or come to, the aroma of the gumbo gently bathing my face.
Grief is a peculiar beast, and tricky. It nearly got me there, in those tunnels far from the sea. But I made it out this night. Silver threads stretching from some humans here on earth and from some who are no longer of this mortal coil made sure that I did. Breathing deep, I wipe my eyes and take up a spoonful of goodness. The warmth on my tongue meets the warmth flowing into my heart while the waves outside the window offer up quiet acclaim. I raise my glass to the spirits at my table, come to join me for dinner.
The light fades from the sky. The clouds hovered most of the day, but it never felt gloomy. Nice for this time of year. Such a welcome relief from a stubborn summer heat so oppressive it felt fascist. the morning felt so good I walked the shore, out to the lighthouse and back. A few shards of sea glass ended up in my pockets, and now adorn the mantel above the hearth. There was the serendipitous find, too, of a wayward lobster trap caught on the jetty. To my surprise it still had a lobster and some crabs stuck in it. There was no buoy attached so no way for me to tell who it belonged to. I lugged it back to the cottage, extracted the lobster and the crabs to a pair of rusty buckets filled with seawater. The trap I left on the porch to dry. Dinner was halfway made.
My leg ached. The dream had knotted it up. The walk could not quite untie it. The same was true for my head. Damn that dream. A familiar theme in an unfamiliar setting. You know a place that you think you have never seen but somehow you know it is there? Yeah, like that. I woke up nearly screaming and kicking at something with my right leg. My eyes were barely open when my calf cramped up. I curled up under the covers and hurriedly beat on my leg to loosen the knot, but not before my foot had bent downward from the tension. The muscle felt like a steel ball under the skin. Hurt like a sonofabitch. My heart was pounding from the dream, and I shook.
Slow march of the waves is hypnotic. Not nearly the battle anthem of heavy surf. I am fidgeting with the lighter on my desk, willing myself not to fire up a smoke. One side effect of the hell-hot summer is that the urge to smoke has nearly died down. Been a week or more since I last had one. All to the good, I think.
The cottage smells good. It is home tonight. The mixture of salt air and seafood gumbo simmering away is one of the finest scents a man could ever draw into himself. Something about the tang and savor of the two makes me wonder if that is what the kitchens in heaven smell of. Maybe someday I'll find out. But not now. Not tonight. The gumbo is near ready, a sublime mix of found and foraged foodstuffs I discovered while cleaning the fridge and pantry. Lucky is the man who can bring home eats from the sea.
Time to dish up. Sipping a beer while giving the gumbo a few last, slow stirs, I like I had company for the evening. Friends and family, flitting around just outside the edges of my vision. People I treasure, people I miss, a few ghosts. The feeling surges when I sit down at the table with my heavy white bowl filled with goodness. The dream comes back to me, a movie before my mind. I am running, running, somewhere in the labyrinthine tunnels of a building I cannot name. Heavyset men in dark uniforms are chasing me, I'm running towards some sound and light. Voices call out to me, urging me on even as faint cries behind me try to drag me back to a coal-black night. I lash out flailing, kicking, as something brushes my ankle. I wake up or come to, the aroma of the gumbo gently bathing my face.
Grief is a peculiar beast, and tricky. It nearly got me there, in those tunnels far from the sea. But I made it out this night. Silver threads stretching from some humans here on earth and from some who are no longer of this mortal coil made sure that I did. Breathing deep, I wipe my eyes and take up a spoonful of goodness. The warmth on my tongue meets the warmth flowing into my heart while the waves outside the window offer up quiet acclaim. I raise my glass to the spirits at my table, come to join me for dinner.
10 February 2016
Now She Rides Shotgun (The Passenger)
The front passenger door opens and she slides into the seat. Not until the car is on the highway does it register what happened. Subtle and not subtle, like being caressed on the shoulder by an iron hand in a velvet glove. This new thing is not puberty, no. It is unmistakably, however, a threshold crossed.
Sunlight bounces diamonds off the snow piles, makes you dizzy. You were unprepared for that door to be opened. How did it get so far, so fast? This wee bundle you once carried like a little Easter ham through the hospital doors and into an astounding new life, now sits in the front next to you. When she sits up straight her head is not that far below the top of yours. It freaks you out.
This is not happening. Wait, it is. The evidence of your senses tells you in no uncertain terms. There will be no ignoring this little earthquake.
It crosses your mind that perhaps you have been out in the interstellar black for some time. Crossing the gulf at the speed of light and time passing so swiftly back on earth. Dilation. Relativity. Distances traveled beyond your comprehension so fast the disorientation upon arrival makes you feel as if you caught up with the self that was running away from you. Maybe this is the explanation for why you feel so old and new born simultaneously.
She makes you feel this way. Often. It is the way of your shared universe. To have played a role in the creation of her is both supreme accomplishment and fount of anxiety. You want the best for her. Your fear is that between you and the world, neither will deliver on that promise. The fishhooks of that fear spike your heart. The pain lends a frisson of urgency to the time you spend in her presence. "Will you get it right?" the imps ask at night as you fall asleep.
The door opened, she sat in the front seat. The pins rolled out from under you as the mass of years bore down on you in one brilliant and blinding moment. No longer is she the beautiful baby who had no comprehension of car seats and safe travels. No longer is she the luminescent toddler who chattered from the back seat. Probably never again will the rear view mirror reflect that quizzical look she gave you when you sang badly along with the stereo. Watching her now in the watery sunlight of a chilly February you rub with a trembling hand that certain spot over your heart. The warmth there tells you it will be okay. She is there. She is a blessing. She rides shotgun.
Sunlight bounces diamonds off the snow piles, makes you dizzy. You were unprepared for that door to be opened. How did it get so far, so fast? This wee bundle you once carried like a little Easter ham through the hospital doors and into an astounding new life, now sits in the front next to you. When she sits up straight her head is not that far below the top of yours. It freaks you out.
This is not happening. Wait, it is. The evidence of your senses tells you in no uncertain terms. There will be no ignoring this little earthquake.
It crosses your mind that perhaps you have been out in the interstellar black for some time. Crossing the gulf at the speed of light and time passing so swiftly back on earth. Dilation. Relativity. Distances traveled beyond your comprehension so fast the disorientation upon arrival makes you feel as if you caught up with the self that was running away from you. Maybe this is the explanation for why you feel so old and new born simultaneously.
She makes you feel this way. Often. It is the way of your shared universe. To have played a role in the creation of her is both supreme accomplishment and fount of anxiety. You want the best for her. Your fear is that between you and the world, neither will deliver on that promise. The fishhooks of that fear spike your heart. The pain lends a frisson of urgency to the time you spend in her presence. "Will you get it right?" the imps ask at night as you fall asleep.
The door opened, she sat in the front seat. The pins rolled out from under you as the mass of years bore down on you in one brilliant and blinding moment. No longer is she the beautiful baby who had no comprehension of car seats and safe travels. No longer is she the luminescent toddler who chattered from the back seat. Probably never again will the rear view mirror reflect that quizzical look she gave you when you sang badly along with the stereo. Watching her now in the watery sunlight of a chilly February you rub with a trembling hand that certain spot over your heart. The warmth there tells you it will be okay. She is there. She is a blessing. She rides shotgun.
21 January 2015
Swan in Winter
A dozen spans or thereabouts she stood offshore, this wistful cygnet with my eyes and her mother's hair. Her shadow lay lightly on the ice. Ice which I studied closely for the first signs of cracks. My belly tightened at the thought of her in the freezing green-black water of the pond. My anxiety served as reinforcement for its frozen surface. She sensed my discomfort, I think, looking up at me with grin as antidote to fear. I smiled in return. Sunshine like white gold broke through a mottled pewter sky to illuminate us, a living page from our own Book of Hours.
The sky returned to a sullen indifference. The slow clouds of midwinter marbled like bruises over a snippets of bright blue. A hush was over the pond, disturbed now and then by the barking of dogs, children frolicking or ragged chevrons of Canadian geese knifing through the cold air above. Water oozed through the grass from soil still reeling from a few hard freezes. My thoughts drifted briefly to permafrost, and what happens when it thaws. I needed to know if similar processes affected the heart in the same manner. I must know, as something seemed to be cracking in my chest.
"Daddy, what's that?"
Her question a soft whipcrack snapping me out of arctic ruminations. She was standing on a dark patch shaped like a lumpy oval. My first thought was it was weak ice, but she stood firm. The shape crystallized in my mind.
"It looks like a tree stump, sweet pea." I hoped that it was. Weird that it was a level cut stump only a fraction of an inch below the ice line.
"I wonder if that's it," she said. She bent down to pick up one of the many small rocks littering the ice. The impacts of the stones a webbed chiaroscuro crazing the frozen pond. Kneeling, my daughter began to dig at the ice over the stump. It cracked a little but did not move. She knitted her brow, lips scrunched in vexation. I could not help but smile to know that by such gestures she was indeed of my blood. Sometimes she is driven by a compulsion to know that which is beneath the surface, to firmly possess certainty. In the space of a few fluttery heartbeats, I prayed that she would not be as destructive in pursuit of that certainty as I had sometimes been in the past. The past when I was young and needed to know everything, but knew nothing.
Her mittened hands rested briefly on the ice. She studied the shape, cocking her head. Her gaze and posture reminded me so much of a heron stalking a frog I nearly burst out laughing. She must have decided that it was not important enough to continue, as she levered herself up to stand on the stump. I heard the clicking of pebbles and ice as she nudged the fragments with the toe of her right boot. She moved as if skating for a few more minutes. I stifled my urge to tell her again she was far enough out on the ice. With an avian hop, she came back to shore.
"Walk some more, kiddo?" I asked with a raspy warble in my voice making me cough. She turned her face to me, cheeks rosy in the cool breeze.
"Sure, Daddy." Hop. Skip. Away she fluttered ahead of me, down the trail that ran along the river. Clouds mimed a slow semaphore shining on her performance while she gleefully leaped into a pile of slush on the trail side.
She grows, this nascent swan of my heart. Taller, more winsome, as months and years fall like leaves. Winter has its hold on my brittle heart, enrobed in a thin glaze of frost that I begin to feel melt in the innocent warmth of her presence. The old man of my soul knows this is the progress of life. He knows that growth is inevitable, as is love and the thaw. We watch her amble and cavort under a nave of trees, wondering when she will break the ice. Hoping that we witness the glorious transformation when the swan makes it back to shore, to fly into spring.
21 September 2014
This Child Who is My Mirror
This child who is my mirror
Reflecting starlight and suns
Brighter than mine
Who am I to comprehend her?
Double helix uncoiled, split
Heart beating in two places
Daughter's shadow has more grace
Than my substance, I fear
To make her laugh
Is grace for a lifetime
See her smiling
Is a thousand suns
Warmth and light, radiance,
In her coltish presence
My heart a sunflower
Ringing like a bell
Reflecting starlight and suns
Brighter than mine
Who am I to comprehend her?
Double helix uncoiled, split
Heart beating in two places
Daughter's shadow has more grace
Than my substance, I fear
To make her laugh
Is grace for a lifetime
See her smiling
Is a thousand suns
Warmth and light, radiance,
In her coltish presence
My heart a sunflower
Ringing like a bell
23 August 2014
The Little Boy Who Mattered
The little boy was found on a beach, naked, alone and sick. So sick he just sat there and panted. He was surrounded by a group of onlookers, none of whom wanted to take him home. To touch him could mean signing one's own death warrant. No one wanted to risk it.
To live in a poor part of town in the capital of a country, Liberia, that by many measures is also poor, is perhaps difficulty enough to forge a life. To be placed in a "holding" facility because you are sick, that is doubly difficult. To know that the "holding" facility is not really a care facility, it is to get you off the streets because no one knows what to do with you, is an exercise in cruelty.
It was a miracle and a mystery that the little boy, ten years old by local accounts, managed to get out of the facility the night before it was attacked by an agitated mob who forced a number of the victims to flee the facility. The little boy ended up on the beach where he was found last Wednesday, and witnessed by a pair of photographers covering the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. He had no clothes. He was deathly ill. No one wanted to touch him.
Someone brought the little boy some clothes, but he was so weak he could not get the shirt over his head. The photographers gave some local women pairs of latex gloves, and the women helped the boy get the shirt on. But still, no one knew what to do with him. Understandably, they did not want to risk catching Ebola, assuming that was the affliction upon the boy.
Later, he was somehow moved to a nearby alleyway. He lay upon a sheet of cast-off cardboard, crumpled in a heap. So ill he could not move. People apparently walked by, eyeing the boy, but for a long time no one moved to help. Under the circumstances, maybe they felt all had been done that could be done.
The boy lay dying. One of the photographers, David Gilkey, took the boy's picture, later saying that the situation was an "evil Catch-22". A better phrase perhaps cannot be found to describe what they witnessed there in that alley. People want to help but they don't know what to do. They do not want to risk getting sick themselves.
By some turn of events, a neighbor took the boy to a local hospital where they had some facility to care for a person sick with Ebola. Fortune turned slightly. There was word that the boy was improving, news that was of no small import in a region so hard hit by a modern plague. Maybe the universe was not such a hard case after all.
But we know different. On August 21st the other photographer, John Moore, spoke with the boy's aunt. She herself and her children were checking into a clinic because they suspected they had contracted the Ebola virus. She told the photographer that the little boy had died of Ebola, as had his mother before him. An unsurprising outcome given the circumstances, we tell ourselves and shrug.
I told myself the same thing. I could not insulate myself from the effects. I heard the news while driving down the highway in air-conditioned comfort, thousands of miles away from a lonely and sick little boy who died because no one could do enough. I tightened my grip on the steering wheel, choking down the lump in my throat. It is not hard to imagine that he perhaps had no one to mourn his passing. I did not curse the universe, because I know better. I know the futility of such endeavors from direct experience of the worst it has to offer.
Later, I saw the picture of him in the alley. He had on the red shirt someone had brought him. He was sick, so sick, and I hope he did not die alone. His name was Saah Exco, and he was a little boy who mattered.
To live in a poor part of town in the capital of a country, Liberia, that by many measures is also poor, is perhaps difficulty enough to forge a life. To be placed in a "holding" facility because you are sick, that is doubly difficult. To know that the "holding" facility is not really a care facility, it is to get you off the streets because no one knows what to do with you, is an exercise in cruelty.
It was a miracle and a mystery that the little boy, ten years old by local accounts, managed to get out of the facility the night before it was attacked by an agitated mob who forced a number of the victims to flee the facility. The little boy ended up on the beach where he was found last Wednesday, and witnessed by a pair of photographers covering the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. He had no clothes. He was deathly ill. No one wanted to touch him.
Someone brought the little boy some clothes, but he was so weak he could not get the shirt over his head. The photographers gave some local women pairs of latex gloves, and the women helped the boy get the shirt on. But still, no one knew what to do with him. Understandably, they did not want to risk catching Ebola, assuming that was the affliction upon the boy.
Later, he was somehow moved to a nearby alleyway. He lay upon a sheet of cast-off cardboard, crumpled in a heap. So ill he could not move. People apparently walked by, eyeing the boy, but for a long time no one moved to help. Under the circumstances, maybe they felt all had been done that could be done.
The boy lay dying. One of the photographers, David Gilkey, took the boy's picture, later saying that the situation was an "evil Catch-22". A better phrase perhaps cannot be found to describe what they witnessed there in that alley. People want to help but they don't know what to do. They do not want to risk getting sick themselves.
By some turn of events, a neighbor took the boy to a local hospital where they had some facility to care for a person sick with Ebola. Fortune turned slightly. There was word that the boy was improving, news that was of no small import in a region so hard hit by a modern plague. Maybe the universe was not such a hard case after all.
But we know different. On August 21st the other photographer, John Moore, spoke with the boy's aunt. She herself and her children were checking into a clinic because they suspected they had contracted the Ebola virus. She told the photographer that the little boy had died of Ebola, as had his mother before him. An unsurprising outcome given the circumstances, we tell ourselves and shrug.
I told myself the same thing. I could not insulate myself from the effects. I heard the news while driving down the highway in air-conditioned comfort, thousands of miles away from a lonely and sick little boy who died because no one could do enough. I tightened my grip on the steering wheel, choking down the lump in my throat. It is not hard to imagine that he perhaps had no one to mourn his passing. I did not curse the universe, because I know better. I know the futility of such endeavors from direct experience of the worst it has to offer.
Later, I saw the picture of him in the alley. He had on the red shirt someone had brought him. He was sick, so sick, and I hope he did not die alone. His name was Saah Exco, and he was a little boy who mattered.
30 May 2014
This is the Hard Part
There is nothing like being a parent to make you feel like you might amount to something in this life. And nothing like the same condition to make you wonder if you will ever live up to the promise shining in the eyes of your child.
This is the hard part. Overcoming the limitations of yourself. Overpowering the weaknesses in your character. Learning that love is more important than ego.
Trying not to be swallowed up by the black hole of worthlessness that lurks in the bottom of an insecure soul.
This is the hard part. Staring in shock at that human bent on the mirror and realizing how great the task that lies before it, that of being a better person.
Better, for the sake of love: the imperative of life.
06 April 2014
On Not Being Able to Tie a Bowtie (Sunday Meditation #38)
Field notes, April 4th, 2014 at around 6:30 PM. Department store blues.
It was a jacket for which I was searching, not a blow to the heart. Then again, it was a department store and they are supposed to have everything you need along with a lot for which you have no use. Who knew that a bowtie could hurt so much, cut so deep.
The table was strewn with brightly colored swatches of fabric that glowed like jewels and cut like diamonds. Bowties! I have little to do with regular neckties, much less with old fashioned (yet cool) neckwear that requires a different approach to tie right and wear well.
That I do not know how to properly tie a bowtie was much less upsetting than the realization that followed: the chances that I will teach my legacy how to tie a bowtie are slim to none. It is true that I have a daughter, and it is not outside the realm of possibilities that someday she will want or need to know how to tie such a thing. Yes, my head gets it.
But. There are always conditions to most things in life. The condition in this case of an accidental encounter with bowties is that I will not teach my son how to tie them. It is a ritual I most likely will not experience, this handing down of traditionally masculine knowledge and experience.
It is not their fault, those bright scraps adorning the table, that as my eye was caught so was my heart, knowing that I don't know how to tie a bowtie. And I had not much incentive to learn since the death of my son so long ago.
Truly it has been over ten years since he slipped away from us, which may not be long in the scheme of things. Yet time and ties have ways to bind, even in an innocuous aisle of an ordinary store, when we realize what we miss.
It was a jacket for which I was searching, not a blow to the heart. Then again, it was a department store and they are supposed to have everything you need along with a lot for which you have no use. Who knew that a bowtie could hurt so much, cut so deep.
The table was strewn with brightly colored swatches of fabric that glowed like jewels and cut like diamonds. Bowties! I have little to do with regular neckties, much less with old fashioned (yet cool) neckwear that requires a different approach to tie right and wear well.
That I do not know how to properly tie a bowtie was much less upsetting than the realization that followed: the chances that I will teach my legacy how to tie a bowtie are slim to none. It is true that I have a daughter, and it is not outside the realm of possibilities that someday she will want or need to know how to tie such a thing. Yes, my head gets it.
But. There are always conditions to most things in life. The condition in this case of an accidental encounter with bowties is that I will not teach my son how to tie them. It is a ritual I most likely will not experience, this handing down of traditionally masculine knowledge and experience.
It is not their fault, those bright scraps adorning the table, that as my eye was caught so was my heart, knowing that I don't know how to tie a bowtie. And I had not much incentive to learn since the death of my son so long ago.
Truly it has been over ten years since he slipped away from us, which may not be long in the scheme of things. Yet time and ties have ways to bind, even in an innocuous aisle of an ordinary store, when we realize what we miss.
02 March 2014
Genius of Winter (Sunday Meditation #34)
Nothing is so sharp as the voice of love sliding its razor edge into the muscle of the heart. It can be confused with the crystal cold air sucked into lungs gasping in shock, stepping through the thermocline of the doorway into winter light like old lead. The walls do not keep out the voice. They cannot. The voice is love.
Acoustics are strange out there along the edge of winter and spring, between dark and light that speckles the caves of the heart. Echoes last long. One may come to believe that the voice has died out, faded away, is mute. Then it comes back loud and clear, in the guise of sleet stinging the face or cold biting the hands. The voice demands, and gets, your attention.
Distance seems not to matter. The laugh of a child can be heard in the skitter of snow dancing across the wind-scoured pavement. Confusing, yes, as the scene is otherwise dreary. But there is no denying the laughter. Sleet drips out of the nacreous cotton of the sky to freeze on the skin. The sharpness of pain brings focus, tripping a switch as doors open wide in the heart and head.
There are visions, brief, and luminescent like lightning striking on top of the head.
The faces of love, radiant and welcoming. Their voices ignoring time and distance to remind the heart of its home. To see in the swirl of the sky eyes that look like one's own is a miracle, plain and true, no matter how small it seems to the exterior world.
What matters is that those eyes can be seen. If they can be seen, they cannot be forgotten. There are unbreakable threads spun of blood and love stitched into the soul, yes, it is true. But one has to hold onto them, no matter that a gap of a thousand miles lies between ends in the physical world.
Ice, snow, grey light all dull the senses. It is easy to slip into numbness, to suffer amnesia of the heart. A freezing breath lancing the lungs or numb fingers sticking to the door handle serve up reminders to be present in the world. To be present in love. This is the genius of winter.
16 February 2014
Her Number (Sunday Meditation #32)
11.
There it is, on my daughter's back, as big as day. Arctic white numerals against royal blue. The color is not the same as the kit I wore.
The pitch comes back in a rush. My legs root me to a ground far away from my teens while my mind lands back in high school. The number on my back is arctic white against deep maroon. Coach didn't put much stock in names on the jersey, the '11' stark and alone.
She wears my number now, a strange and wonderful weft through the warp on the loom of my life. The number turns back the clock, opening the door on a glimpse, however brief, of the boy I used to be looking up at the man I have become.
It seems only possible through her, on days like this one where we run ourselves breathless under a pewter sky. She chasing the ball, me chasing a better man I hope someday to catch.
She wears my number on her back. The honor is mine, though she knows it not. I watch her run the field, I am breathless, I am blessed to wear her number on my heart.
Field notes, October 2013. Gracing an emerald field, she plays the beautiful game.
There it is, on my daughter's back, as big as day. Arctic white numerals against royal blue. The color is not the same as the kit I wore.
The pitch comes back in a rush. My legs root me to a ground far away from my teens while my mind lands back in high school. The number on my back is arctic white against deep maroon. Coach didn't put much stock in names on the jersey, the '11' stark and alone.
She wears my number now, a strange and wonderful weft through the warp on the loom of my life. The number turns back the clock, opening the door on a glimpse, however brief, of the boy I used to be looking up at the man I have become.
It seems only possible through her, on days like this one where we run ourselves breathless under a pewter sky. She chasing the ball, me chasing a better man I hope someday to catch.
She wears my number on her back. The honor is mine, though she knows it not. I watch her run the field, I am breathless, I am blessed to wear her number on my heart.
Field notes, October 2013. Gracing an emerald field, she plays the beautiful game.
25 January 2014
Tour Guide
From my field notes, October 2013. A glorious day with the Wee Lass.
She told me a story that October day as we walked in the woods. It was a magical tale, complete with a fantasy landscape.
We walked the trail above the Chasm of Death, its banks littered with fallen leaves. A stream burbled along the bottom, which I was informed was called the Stream of Happiness. It flowed down the valley past an orphanage, where it provided drinking water to the children.
We climbed a little higher. Mossy boulders guarded the stream. They grew larger as we climbed. Trees had fallen across the trail and the watercourse. One particularly large trunk was dubbed the Native American Log of Electrocution. I asked why that name. She looked at me with that expression reserved for askers of truly stupid questions.
"Because it electrocutes people."
Ah, of course. Silly me.
We arrived at the Magic Waterfall. It was here that she confessed to me that she was not a full tour guide yet, only a backup. Ordinarily she was a dishwasher at the company HQ, but they were so busy today she was put on duty as a guide. She casually mentioned that if she completed the tour without a customer getting injured or killed, she would get a promotion. Or a raise. She seemed a little confused as to which one.
I looked down the ravine. In light of her remarks on injury and death, the steepness took on a whole new cast. I wondered if there was a connection to the orphanage she had mentioned.
The climb continued. We crossed the stream in front of the Magic Waterfall. Climbing up a set of stones that served as steps, we came upon an arrangement of boulders reminiscent of an oversized club chair.
"Ah! This is the Chair of Healing!" my guide exclaimed. Travelers could rest here and have their aches and pains taken away. Handy to have, especially if one might have fallen into the Chasm of Death.
We made our way over to a widening in the stream. It became a pool in the woods, fed by a small but picturesque waterfall at the upstream end. It was here that my guide declared "If you will put your camera away, we will now go fishing!" Her tone and commanding demeanor left no doubt as to what I was going to do.
She fashioned a pole out of a smallish stick, stripping off the little twigs along its length. The bait was conjured up from a leaf she found on the stream bank. A leaf without holes, mind you, because a holey leaf was "not proper bait" as I was solemnly informed.
She directed me to make my own fishing pole, out of the same materials. She handed me a stick while showing me which twigs to remove. I fetched a nice leaf, coppery brown, and adorned the end of the stick. A glance of approval from my guide, and we set to in the pool.
The fish, I am sorry to report, were not biting. My guide chewed her lip, inspected the bait, and declared that the fish must not be hungry. I suggested that, perhaps, there were no fish in the pool. With a furrowed brow, she said that they must be the famous Air Fish, invisible and difficult to detect. She sighed and announced it was time to go back in hopes of seeing a train along the rail bed across the river.
The afternoon sun warming our backs, we thereupon we cast our sticks into the water, and set off back down the trail. Further adventures awaited us through the woods and across the river. It would not do to be late.
She told me a story that October day as we walked in the woods. It was a magical tale, complete with a fantasy landscape.
We walked the trail above the Chasm of Death, its banks littered with fallen leaves. A stream burbled along the bottom, which I was informed was called the Stream of Happiness. It flowed down the valley past an orphanage, where it provided drinking water to the children.
We climbed a little higher. Mossy boulders guarded the stream. They grew larger as we climbed. Trees had fallen across the trail and the watercourse. One particularly large trunk was dubbed the Native American Log of Electrocution. I asked why that name. She looked at me with that expression reserved for askers of truly stupid questions.
"Because it electrocutes people."
Ah, of course. Silly me.
We arrived at the Magic Waterfall. It was here that she confessed to me that she was not a full tour guide yet, only a backup. Ordinarily she was a dishwasher at the company HQ, but they were so busy today she was put on duty as a guide. She casually mentioned that if she completed the tour without a customer getting injured or killed, she would get a promotion. Or a raise. She seemed a little confused as to which one.
I looked down the ravine. In light of her remarks on injury and death, the steepness took on a whole new cast. I wondered if there was a connection to the orphanage she had mentioned.
The climb continued. We crossed the stream in front of the Magic Waterfall. Climbing up a set of stones that served as steps, we came upon an arrangement of boulders reminiscent of an oversized club chair.
"Ah! This is the Chair of Healing!" my guide exclaimed. Travelers could rest here and have their aches and pains taken away. Handy to have, especially if one might have fallen into the Chasm of Death.
We made our way over to a widening in the stream. It became a pool in the woods, fed by a small but picturesque waterfall at the upstream end. It was here that my guide declared "If you will put your camera away, we will now go fishing!" Her tone and commanding demeanor left no doubt as to what I was going to do.
She fashioned a pole out of a smallish stick, stripping off the little twigs along its length. The bait was conjured up from a leaf she found on the stream bank. A leaf without holes, mind you, because a holey leaf was "not proper bait" as I was solemnly informed.
She directed me to make my own fishing pole, out of the same materials. She handed me a stick while showing me which twigs to remove. I fetched a nice leaf, coppery brown, and adorned the end of the stick. A glance of approval from my guide, and we set to in the pool.
The fish, I am sorry to report, were not biting. My guide chewed her lip, inspected the bait, and declared that the fish must not be hungry. I suggested that, perhaps, there were no fish in the pool. With a furrowed brow, she said that they must be the famous Air Fish, invisible and difficult to detect. She sighed and announced it was time to go back in hopes of seeing a train along the rail bed across the river.
The afternoon sun warming our backs, we thereupon we cast our sticks into the water, and set off back down the trail. Further adventures awaited us through the woods and across the river. It would not do to be late.
20 December 2013
Missing Blood
She looked at me and said "I have a sad thing in my life, too."
Cards for a game lay crooked upon the hotel bed. The television muttered in the background. A man on the screen had just finished telling us that, at a young age, he had lost his father.
"What's that, sweetie?"
Her eyes were shining, diamonds of liquid blue. "My brother and sister. When people ask me if I have any brothers or sisters, I get sad because I miss them."
My heart hollowed itself out. I reached out a shaky hand, touching her gently upon her knee. She covered her mouth with her hand, stifling a tiny sob.
"It's okay to feel that way." Long pause.
"I know, but it makes me upset. That's why I have to say I don't want to talk about it ."
"It's okay to feel that way, too, sweet pea."
I swallowed the slight bitterness of telling myself it was okay. I sat there thinking "There are days, my girl, so many days where I don't want to talk about it, either. Yet every chamber of my heart echoes with plaintive cries that refuse to be unheard." I smiled, wanly, silent.
She nodded her head. I squeezed her hand. We went back to our game, shrouded in echoes.
Cards for a game lay crooked upon the hotel bed. The television muttered in the background. A man on the screen had just finished telling us that, at a young age, he had lost his father.
"What's that, sweetie?"
Her eyes were shining, diamonds of liquid blue. "My brother and sister. When people ask me if I have any brothers or sisters, I get sad because I miss them."
My heart hollowed itself out. I reached out a shaky hand, touching her gently upon her knee. She covered her mouth with her hand, stifling a tiny sob.
"It's okay to feel that way." Long pause.
"I know, but it makes me upset. That's why I have to say I don't want to talk about it ."
"It's okay to feel that way, too, sweet pea."
I swallowed the slight bitterness of telling myself it was okay. I sat there thinking "There are days, my girl, so many days where I don't want to talk about it, either. Yet every chamber of my heart echoes with plaintive cries that refuse to be unheard." I smiled, wanly, silent.
She nodded her head. I squeezed her hand. We went back to our game, shrouded in echoes.
25 September 2013
Bed of Moss (Memento Mori)
May I stay awhile with you,
as you lay upon that bed of moss?
Picture frame of a decades' rest
among the hush of the departed
(see, it will be just like that when you are dead)
I kneel, dappled with sun,
Tears and sweat my only choices
for caressing the stones, cleansing them
of desecration by leaf and mud
(you'll be over there, I'll be over here)
On the bad days,
your silences louder than hell
On the good days,
memories ringing of peace
(we just can't see each other)
as you lay upon that bed of moss?
Picture frame of a decades' rest
among the hush of the departed
(see, it will be just like that when you are dead)
I kneel, dappled with sun,
Tears and sweat my only choices
for caressing the stones, cleansing them
of desecration by leaf and mud
(you'll be over there, I'll be over here)
On the bad days,
your silences louder than hell
On the good days,
memories ringing of peace
(we just can't see each other)
15 August 2013
Drift
July 14, 2013. 10:54 PM.
We ripen in different fields yet there is no mistaking of the lineage. The wind blows on she and I together. We deflect with indignation that the universe would dare impose on us so. That she frequently interjects is all the proof I need.It's funny, the notes I leave myself. Often in obvious places but upon rediscovering them I almost invariably surprised. Also, by funny, I mean 'peculiar' not laugh-inducing. Okay, perhaps a chuckle or two. It can be rather silly.
Apples and trees, to borrow from the old saying. She fell not far from me. I pray that she fell far enough.
Ah, I digress.
"We ripen..." I wrote that late in the evening, long after Wee Lass had been put to bed, with her words ringing in my ears. Not discouraging words, mind you. Far from it. Our nightie-night conversations range from dead serious to thoughtful to slapstick. Such variations are further earmarks of my legacy.
I do not recall in specific what we talked about that night. I do know that it must have affected me deeply, to compel me to tap out a quick note on my smart phone before I attempted another descent into the Challenger Deep that is my sleep time.
Gahhh. She sounds like me sometimes, and that is a two-edged blade. There are no easy answers here, being a father without (mostly) a clue. The incentive to do the best, be the best I can be, is right there in front of me. She said goodnight.
"Goodnight. I love you, daddy."
Yes, she does. She did not fall too far, this I know.
08 August 2013
Beseech the Stars
Aislinge sat still as stone while the gale blew itself out around him. Waves pounded the dark basalt at the base of high cliff, liquid iron hammering out the fury of Manannán. The cold and the wet troubled Aislinge little. It was the vision dissolving into foggy memory that concerned him. Never in his life had he conceived of something so terrible as what had woken him up, crying out. He leaned slightly into the wind, wondering at what had brought him here to pray for starlight.
He had sat upright, leaping like a stag and yelping. Sweat runneled his face, mixing with the cool rain that was seeping in through the tiny opening in the wall that served as window. The weather beaten board that was meant to cover the hole at night had fallen out, blown away by the violence of the wind. Aislinge had bellowed an oath wrought by fear and his pounding heart. The dream-vision still blazed in his mind, filling him with sadness and dread. He had been walking by the sea watching the sun dip to the horizon.
Then the stars went out, one by one. Candles in the wind gone swiftly. The sky had gone deep blue, then black, leaving him stranded amongst the gorse. His limbs were locked in fear brought on by his inability to see anything except a faint glow where the sun might have gone down. He marveled at the black, shaking with terror yet unable to move.
Move he must, the shaman told himself. Wind was blowing strong from the sea. Its howl was unearthly, overlaid with what Aislinge's panic stricken mind took to be the doleful moan of banshees or dire wolves. The sound turned his bowels to ice water, and he forced his limbs to move. He turned into the wind with its mineral tang filling his lungs. He reckoned if he could make it to the sea, he could follow the cliff back to his stone hut to await the morning.
The wolf-wind raised its pitch, bringing with it stinging rain that felt like pebbles on his skin. The blackness wrapped itself around him. He could not shake the feeling that the night had replaced the tattered cloak he wore. The sodden fabric was gelatinous on his leaden limbs. The sound of the waves reached his ears while the salt aroma intensified. He reckoned it would not be far now.
Howls. The hiss of rain and breakers. Aislinge imagined he saw a glimmer of phosphorescence where the sea should be. He smiled, a bolus of hope bubbling up in his heart. There it was, he just knew it. He moved forward with a prayer of thanks on his lips, and stepped out into nothingness. Plummeting through the wet obsidian night, at first he was too shocked to scream. But he sensed the wet rocks below, and the knowledge of what was surely violent death flayed open his throat with a scream that pierced the earth.
Aislinge sat upright on the side of the slab he called a bed. The memory of impact was bleeding away. He looked about the hut. The storm cursed and growled still. By the light of dying embers, he could see that the board was missing from his window. The hole itself a darker black smudge in the stone wall, through which no light could be seen. He gasped. Surely his dream could not be true The stars, they could not have gone out. This could not be.
Still, he knew what he must do. He fumbled about in the dim hut, finding a small clay lantern and his walking stick. He filled the lantern with warmstone and the greenish fungus he had discovered, the kind that gave light but no warmth. He decided to leave his fire box behind. It would not last long and its meager warmth would be no match for the force of the gale. Wrapping his cloak up tight, he stepped from the hut with a deep breath to scent the sea. The wind seemed to lessen its force, perhaps a good sign as he walked.
The sound of breakers. Sea spray he could taste. The wind curled about him, caressing and cajoling. To his tortured imagination the hiss and groan of the waves sounded like selkies calling out from the water. The voices and the waves grew louder as he neared the cliff edge. This time he would not fall.
One step. Two steps. Three steps, his aching foot hovering over a blackness that differed in texture from the sod over which had walked. Ailsinge stopped and knelt down. He could feel a hard edge of stone where the cliff met the sky. The sky itself appeared to be mottled black. The rain had slowed to almost nothing, and even the wind seemed to be cooperating. Below, the waves continued their assault on the rocks. In his mind's eye he could see the breakers curl to fling up their manes of spray. He smiled at the memory.
Aislinge pulled himself forward to the cliff edge. The wet stone prodded him hard in the haunches even through the wool. The lantern he set down carefully. It cast a small pool of greenish light, feeble against the night, but giving him a measure of hope as he began his vigil. He looked up at the sky and emptied his mind to wait.
The stars, they would come back. He would wait for their glow.
In memory of the Bear and the Butterfly
He had sat upright, leaping like a stag and yelping. Sweat runneled his face, mixing with the cool rain that was seeping in through the tiny opening in the wall that served as window. The weather beaten board that was meant to cover the hole at night had fallen out, blown away by the violence of the wind. Aislinge had bellowed an oath wrought by fear and his pounding heart. The dream-vision still blazed in his mind, filling him with sadness and dread. He had been walking by the sea watching the sun dip to the horizon.
Then the stars went out, one by one. Candles in the wind gone swiftly. The sky had gone deep blue, then black, leaving him stranded amongst the gorse. His limbs were locked in fear brought on by his inability to see anything except a faint glow where the sun might have gone down. He marveled at the black, shaking with terror yet unable to move.
Move he must, the shaman told himself. Wind was blowing strong from the sea. Its howl was unearthly, overlaid with what Aislinge's panic stricken mind took to be the doleful moan of banshees or dire wolves. The sound turned his bowels to ice water, and he forced his limbs to move. He turned into the wind with its mineral tang filling his lungs. He reckoned if he could make it to the sea, he could follow the cliff back to his stone hut to await the morning.
The wolf-wind raised its pitch, bringing with it stinging rain that felt like pebbles on his skin. The blackness wrapped itself around him. He could not shake the feeling that the night had replaced the tattered cloak he wore. The sodden fabric was gelatinous on his leaden limbs. The sound of the waves reached his ears while the salt aroma intensified. He reckoned it would not be far now.
Howls. The hiss of rain and breakers. Aislinge imagined he saw a glimmer of phosphorescence where the sea should be. He smiled, a bolus of hope bubbling up in his heart. There it was, he just knew it. He moved forward with a prayer of thanks on his lips, and stepped out into nothingness. Plummeting through the wet obsidian night, at first he was too shocked to scream. But he sensed the wet rocks below, and the knowledge of what was surely violent death flayed open his throat with a scream that pierced the earth.
Aislinge sat upright on the side of the slab he called a bed. The memory of impact was bleeding away. He looked about the hut. The storm cursed and growled still. By the light of dying embers, he could see that the board was missing from his window. The hole itself a darker black smudge in the stone wall, through which no light could be seen. He gasped. Surely his dream could not be true The stars, they could not have gone out. This could not be.
Still, he knew what he must do. He fumbled about in the dim hut, finding a small clay lantern and his walking stick. He filled the lantern with warmstone and the greenish fungus he had discovered, the kind that gave light but no warmth. He decided to leave his fire box behind. It would not last long and its meager warmth would be no match for the force of the gale. Wrapping his cloak up tight, he stepped from the hut with a deep breath to scent the sea. The wind seemed to lessen its force, perhaps a good sign as he walked.
The sound of breakers. Sea spray he could taste. The wind curled about him, caressing and cajoling. To his tortured imagination the hiss and groan of the waves sounded like selkies calling out from the water. The voices and the waves grew louder as he neared the cliff edge. This time he would not fall.
One step. Two steps. Three steps, his aching foot hovering over a blackness that differed in texture from the sod over which had walked. Ailsinge stopped and knelt down. He could feel a hard edge of stone where the cliff met the sky. The sky itself appeared to be mottled black. The rain had slowed to almost nothing, and even the wind seemed to be cooperating. Below, the waves continued their assault on the rocks. In his mind's eye he could see the breakers curl to fling up their manes of spray. He smiled at the memory.
Aislinge pulled himself forward to the cliff edge. The wet stone prodded him hard in the haunches even through the wool. The lantern he set down carefully. It cast a small pool of greenish light, feeble against the night, but giving him a measure of hope as he began his vigil. He looked up at the sky and emptied his mind to wait.
The stars, they would come back. He would wait for their glow.
In memory of the Bear and the Butterfly
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