The Dropoff

There's that scene in Finding Nemo where Marlin and Coral find themselves face-to-face with a huge badmutha of a barracuda.  The barracuda is hovering there in open water like a demon.  This image hasn't left my head since I saw it for the first time years ago.  I tell myself its only a movie, but my subconscious says otherwise.  This time of year, the demons hang close, reaching out to pull me into the deep.

As many long-time readers already know, it was in August seven years ago that my preemie infant son died, about 2-1/2 weeks after his twin sister had passed away.  The road out of the badlands of grief has been long and difficult.  The heart of summer has never been easy for me since that time, although I had begun to achieve some balance.  It had been a delicate balance with constant adjustment.  This balance was lost and any peace of mind was lost last year.

Also as many readers already know,  my Big Bro suddenly passed away last August just one day after my son's date.  So the dog days of summer began then, and continued this year, with a horrific 1-2 punch to the heart and soul of me and others.  Suffice to say it is understatement to call August a 'difficult' month, emotionally. This August has been particularly bad.  Well, this summer in general has been bad. I've been brittle and melancholy and snappish and exhausted and out of it.  Now I know why, although I'm always surprised now at how I'm surprised by these feelings.

I feel as if the road out of the badlands has been a steep climb up with a sudden plunge into the abyss.  I find myself clinging to the precipice as tightly as I can, but my legs are dangling out over depths that fade from violet to purple to black.  Over my shoulder, I can see that barracuda hovering above the inky black, eyes and teeth aglitter in the pale light from above.  He darts in now and again to test my defenses but hasn't gone in for the kill.  I flail and swing, hoping to fend it off for another day.

I'm not sure how long this state of affairs will last.  Part of me keeps fighting, and that part is exhausted.  Another part just wants to let go and get it over with.  All of me wants to get away from the dropoff.  It is mighty cold and lonely when you miss your blood, so much.

(She is my) Firefly

Evening light falls through the windows in gauzy shades of salmon and peach. It shines infrequently and never fails to get my attention.  My imagination fancies it to be the color of her mind and heart, when she thinks of me.

I stood transfixed before the accidental rose windows of my dining room.  It was a soft mackerel sky so beautiful I wished it would last forever.  I do not recall how long I stood there.  Eventually the crick in my neck persuaded me to move.  I walked into the kitchen.

The kitchen, like the dining room, is on the northerly side of the house.  The quality of light is almost always good.  Perfect light for an artist,  or a chef,  or maybe even a photographer.  This is what I tell myself when I cook and eat and read,  standing at the stove or hunched over my laptop keyboard while sitting at the dining table.  Tonight, my humble kitchen finally looked like it really belonged to me.  Just a feeling I had basking there in the light.

I digress.  This wasn't to be about my navel-gazing ways.  It was to be about my daughter,  and something she said earlier in the day.  My reminder was a jar I had resting on the windowsill.  The jar is about quart-sized.  It once was packed full of banana pepper rings soaking in vinegar brine.  I have a weakness for peppers matured in a liquid acetylhalide* matrix, so the jars are no stranger to my household.  I had kept this one thinking I could do something else with it.  Turns out I was right.

My daughter and I had spent a fine day together.  We visited a nature center, watched some television and played card games.  Before I took her back home,  we were discussing what we had seen: geese, ducks, a fine display on wolves.  She was sitting on the couch awash in the north light.  Suddenly she looks at me and says:

"Daddy, this weekend night can we catch some fireflies?"
"Of course we can, sweetie, I already have a jar" I replied.
"Yay! I want to see the glow!"  She seemed quite pleased.

So I am standing in the kitchen, running my hands over the cool glass.  Visions of me and her running around in the backyard, giggles and delight unbound.  I was daydreaming about love and fireflies, and the fragile vessels in which we contain them.  The fireflies were swirling languidly about in the jar.  Their warm glow suffused the room with golden radiance.  

My heart was in my hands, filling up with love spilling over from her.  In that moment of grace was everything I had been chasing for months.  I smiled.  I set the jar down carefully on the sill, reminding myself to do the same with my heart.  The holes it carries, like those in the lid on the jar, will let love breathe along with the fireflies.

We will catch them, and know love. 

*I totally made up the word "acetylhalide".  I'm such a dork.

Mirror, Cracked

My eyes rove the terrain
of you, my home country
discovered when the world was new
and we celebrated our founding

I cannot look at your hands
without feeling them on my skin,
a violin played by a master
pulling notes from the void

I breathe your scent
and think of orchids,
I hold your hands
knowing the souls of roots

That was then, this is now,
in the evening of our days,
I kiss your neck, the taste
of tricyclics in your sweat

And your eyes, blankness
on and off like a switch,
Ghosts in the mirror
pleading for your return.

God, Stephen King and Irish Gumbo Walk into a Bar...

Not really. We did enjoy a bike ride together, in a sense.

For the first time in months, I am reading a book for more than five minutes at a time.  The book is On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King.  Stop rolling your eyes and sighing, I know, I know, I was supposed to have read this long ago.  Cut me some slack, I've been busy. Lazy, as well, but let's not discuss that, shall we?

It was Mr. King who roused me off my lazy arse this day. I refer to him as Mr. because writing 'It was Stephen who...' seemed wrong, somehow. I do not know him personally, although that has rarely restrained my informality in these posts of mine. No, it had more to do with that he's Stephen King, an author of accomplishments so well known the lower reaches of I have yet to even touch.  I'm not in that league.*

While there is much to like in On Writing, he wrote two things in particular that grabbed my attention.  I'm going to take them in reverse order. The second one shamed me into heading out the door, but it was the first one that garnered more think time.

"If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others:  read a lot and write a lot."  This was the second thing, the firestarter if you will.  I quote him here because of its brevity and its power.  Yes, it may seem obvious,  but how many of us do those things?  By reading, he didn't mean the backs of cereal boxes or five minutes skimming paragraphs in a book on top of a stack of books, destined to be half-ignored.  By writing, he didn't mean a paragraph of hastily scribbled ideas on a torn sheet of notepad paper and cryptic words in the margins of an impromptu day planner.

He meant reading books,  many books.  He meant paragraphs and word counts reaching into the thousands.

I hung my head a bit.  I don't recall having read a book to completion in maybe two years now.  My writing output used to be,  as many of you probably already know, within the range of the professional.  I know I have not written everyday in so long I can vaguely recall ever having done so.  Somewhere back there, the wheels fell off the bus.

I became restless at this revelation.  Action was needed, but desire to write was lacking.  I resolved to go for a long bike ride.  I put the rack on the car, put my bike on the rack and headed off to one of my favorite parks,  one with plenty of paved trails that I could easily ride with my hybrid tires and sore butt.  I was hoping for some solitude.

I must have missed the memo,  because it seemed to be "Large groups of people picnic and party day" at the park.  There was a Baltimore Ravens fan club and a very large church group,  packs of mountain bikers and at least two separate birthday parties.  Fortunately, it is a big park,  and the trails were surprisingly empty.  That did not mean there was no one to see.  On the contrary, everywhere I looked I kept seeing the one grouping of people I was least in a mood to see: happy couples.  The place was lousy with them, walking on the road, in picnic shelters, wading in the river.

Call me a curmudgeon, but all that togetherness was mildly irritating.

This was in large part due to the first thing in On Writing which I mentioned above.  Let me quote it in full:

 Writing is a lonely job. Having someone who believes in you makes a lot of difference.  They don't have to make speeches.  Just believing is usually enough.

I was taken aback by this because I understood it, deeply and in a way almost painful.  The quote is in reference to the support he received from his wife,  but it spoke to a broader idea that whacked me in the head like a rubber bullet.  Seeing all the couples strolling together,  some hand in hand, only hardened an already painful truth:  I lack that kind of support.

I've been fortunate to have known that belief more than once in my life, but things change, they always do.  Waves from the ocean of life keep pounding our shores and the edges begin abrading, pieces fall and get swept into the undertow, never to be seen again.  It is true that some things don't seem to change much, but nothing and no one is invulnerable.  Certainly not I.  My ego has finally admitted it.  My pride continues to choke on it.

I attempted to put the notion aside to concentrate on the bike ride.  I was successful for some time as I dug in and pedaled my way up false flats, admired the gently flowing river and the butterflies amongst the leaves.  I felt so good just being in action without having to consider every move I made.  Blue patches of sky mingled with green leaves in the sunlight, lulling me into a peaceful mood.

Then God showed up.  A big rock smack in the middle of the pond.

He wasn't there in the sense of poof! suddenly He is riding alongside me on a bike.  God arrived, as He often does, in the guise of a question posed by my subconscious.

Why is it, the little voice said,  that so many other people get to be with someone, but not me?  Why, God, is it so?

I refrained from yelling an epithet and kept on pedaling.  Now was really not the time to get into another running argument between me and Him.  It was such a beautiful day, and I was enjoying myself.  This pretty much guaranteed at least there would be a brisk dialogue. 

In my head, I couldn't see a face, just a presence.  The presence appeared to be sitting in a leather club chair.  The faint aroma of cigars was in the air.  I heard the tinkle of ice in a glass, followed by a sigh.  God spoke.

"Who says you are alone?" the voice said.
"I do.  Because I am.  You of all...beings...should know that."  I murmured without turning my head.
"Ah, yes, I do know that. Omniscience has its uses."  

A pause, more ice hitting the glass.  I think I even heard crunching noises.  I stifled a giggle at the notion of the Creator of the Universe chewing ice just like my daughter.  The presence spoke again.

"My addled son, you may be alone right now, this is true.  But you know how I work.  Mysterious ways and all that.  You really believe it is hopeless?"

I gritted my teeth before responding, "Do you really want me to answer that?  Nothing seems to be working according to any plan I have ever had.  I've been wrong or misguided so many times now I've effectively given up on wanting to want anything." 

The professional pessimist in me was taking over. 

"Surely you've noticed all that bitching I do about being lonely."  It was true.  I was irritated at myself for opening that door again. God or whatever it was just chuckled, stood up and made to leave. He said "Will you do something for Me?"  I heard a the faint squeak of an old wood door being opened.

Who says no to God, especially when He is being polite? "What?" I muttered.
"Be patient...Don't give up on the things you love, just because you think love has given up on you."  The door creaked shut, and then He was gone.

By now, I was approaching a narrow footbridge, so I halted the bike and dismounted to get some water before I walked my bike across.  A set of park service historical signs was opposite me on the other side of the path.  Next to the signs was a young couple on bikes,  talking softly to each other while they read the displays.  I sighed.  I twisted the cap from the water bottle and drank.  The tepid water was faintly bitter in my mouth, or so it seemed.  The couple rode off down the path in the opposite direction.

It wasn't the water in my mouth that tasted bitter,  it was the joke I had just heard.  A joke with a punchline I didn't exactly get, swirling around in a jaded mouth.

*In comparison, I may as well be on another planet.  Maybe the Pluto of planets in the Solar System of Writing.  Except Pluto is no longer a planet. Jeez, that made it worse, didn't it?