They drove in the rain, in the quiet, through slickened dark green forests, the sky tired steely grey above them. He held the wheel loosely, happy but not satisfied, awake but tired, free but worried. The shadows danced under his eyes, their depths at once near and far. The ring on his finger glimmered dully in the silver half-light.
Next to him, she looked vacantly and intently out the window, eyes flashing over tall, brooding trees, streaming with the rain, and dark, sable-colored ground littered with snake-colored foliage. Her blue eyes were faded and tired, worn from use and heavy with thought. She was young, but her weight was old, beyond her years. Her edges were blurred, like she could slip out of sight at any moment.
The car climbed steadily up the worn asphalt road with its golden stripe now faded and cracked, rutted slightly with use. It plashed through puddles and hushed under the tunnel of spiderwebbing tree branches, up in those distant, ancient mountains. Everything was sacred there because so little is sacred elsewhere, and the quiet seemed the only natural thing. It was a place to hide in and a place to mourn; an escape both welcoming and forbidding. It humbled and ignored, its life going on regardless of human comings and goings. Fragile and timeless; a place that did not look back or stop for anything, even disaster.
They hummed through it, the wilderness ill-defeated by a skinny road, the patter of the rain their only punctuation.
He reached for her hand, but she pulled it away to stare out the rain-dashed window instead, her sea-blue eyes a million miles away.
Monday, December 28, 2009
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Chicago
I fell in love again
All things go, all things go
We sang a duet, just loud enough for either of us to hear. Your voice, my voice. Rising and falling, for all the world like two breaths, a heartbeat, a mindset in sync. I didn't look at you; I didn't have to. It was all there anyway, in the song and air and things unsaid.
You came to take us
All things go, all things go
To recreate us
All things grow, all things grow
We laughed together, at our own jokes, at each other, at the funny nothing. You smiled at me just because, held my hand because you can, let your touch linger on my back and waist just for the joy and freedom of it. Because we are young. Because you like me, a lot. In your eyes, in your face, in the sly touches and hidden looks. Because it gets a little better each time we're together.
I made a lot of mistakes
In my mind, in my mind
We forgot together. The ones before.
They don't leave, but you can grow around them.
We grew together.
If I was crying
In the van, with my friend
It was for freedom
From myself, and from the land
There isn't always something to say when someone crashes. Then what is left is quiet. What is left is a gentle look and a tight hug, as tight as you can make it, big enough to eat up the sadness and worry and exhaustion and stress and bad feelings. Warm enough to chase away the chill of a clear December evening when the moon lays shrouded in fog. Long enough to make it clear that you'd take on that sorrow if only you could. Close enough to feel your heart on mine.
When there is nothing left to say out loud, we fold together.
And then you can see it--Chicago.
All things go, all things go
We sang a duet, just loud enough for either of us to hear. Your voice, my voice. Rising and falling, for all the world like two breaths, a heartbeat, a mindset in sync. I didn't look at you; I didn't have to. It was all there anyway, in the song and air and things unsaid.
You came to take us
All things go, all things go
To recreate us
All things grow, all things grow
We laughed together, at our own jokes, at each other, at the funny nothing. You smiled at me just because, held my hand because you can, let your touch linger on my back and waist just for the joy and freedom of it. Because we are young. Because you like me, a lot. In your eyes, in your face, in the sly touches and hidden looks. Because it gets a little better each time we're together.
I made a lot of mistakes
In my mind, in my mind
We forgot together. The ones before.
They don't leave, but you can grow around them.
We grew together.
If I was crying
In the van, with my friend
It was for freedom
From myself, and from the land
There isn't always something to say when someone crashes. Then what is left is quiet. What is left is a gentle look and a tight hug, as tight as you can make it, big enough to eat up the sadness and worry and exhaustion and stress and bad feelings. Warm enough to chase away the chill of a clear December evening when the moon lays shrouded in fog. Long enough to make it clear that you'd take on that sorrow if only you could. Close enough to feel your heart on mine.
When there is nothing left to say out loud, we fold together.
And then you can see it--Chicago.
Monday, November 9, 2009
No Response
It is in that crowded, noisy place, full of hustle and bustle and purpose, that you can know lonely. To watch your closest friend walk away, suddenly and with little real fanfare, and to smile bravely one last time before they are through the gate and away, that is lonely. To wait around aimlessly for their flight to leave, just to be sure, that is lonely. Children play around you, families huddle together, single travelers look around in patient boredom. You stand at the windows, looking out into the grey evening. Think of anything for distraction. Anything at all.
It doesn't work so well. You miss them already, because it's too quiet. Lonely.
And in the car back, one person short, you can't keep your face from being long, can't save your eyes from being lifeless under a furrowed brow. That is lonely, because it's always easier to leave than to be left.
The silence after a phone call clicks to an end--that, too, is lonely. It's the absence of sound, the empty rush in your ear, the things you now want to say echoing in your head. You'd sit there for many seconds longer than you need to, just wishing, thinking, hoping, longing. Searching for something you can't find anymore, but it used to be right there.
The missing. The old memories you can't recreate or relive or even recall so clearly anymore. The things that go unsaid, the comments you wish so badly you could make, but can't anymore. The empty hiding spots. The deserted hang out places.
They are all lonely.
It doesn't work so well. You miss them already, because it's too quiet. Lonely.
And in the car back, one person short, you can't keep your face from being long, can't save your eyes from being lifeless under a furrowed brow. That is lonely, because it's always easier to leave than to be left.
The silence after a phone call clicks to an end--that, too, is lonely. It's the absence of sound, the empty rush in your ear, the things you now want to say echoing in your head. You'd sit there for many seconds longer than you need to, just wishing, thinking, hoping, longing. Searching for something you can't find anymore, but it used to be right there.
The missing. The old memories you can't recreate or relive or even recall so clearly anymore. The things that go unsaid, the comments you wish so badly you could make, but can't anymore. The empty hiding spots. The deserted hang out places.
They are all lonely.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Hampshire
When I found you, there was nothing to hold onto.
You left me adrift.
The stars always look bleak, cold, and remote, but they were even more removed than usual the night I went out to the boonies, out to the kind of place that gives Tennessee its reputation for hicks and backwoods hillbillies. We rode out in awkward half-silence, broken only by repeated stabs at conversation and subsequent verbal fire.
I wasn't supposed to be there, really. It wasn't my place. But morality is a funny thing, and it leads us to do things for our better judgment, even if the actions are committed in spite of that same judgment.
I have rarely heard such acidity from a single tongue. I sat in the back seat and marveled at such spite, such open malice, jealousy, and insecurity. I wondered why I was there, why I had come, if I wouldn't have been better off staying downtown--an action ironic in and of itself. I had left my previous companion, with whom things were awkward enough, in order to spend time with you and your own companion, and that was ten times worse.
But more than wondering why I was there, I wondered why you were. I wondered what had brought the two of you together and what kept you here, despite the unhappiness I could see blooming all around the two of you.
She didn't even notice the glorious and flaming sunset, half hidden behind heavy grey banks of clouds and framed by the famous rolling hills of Tennessee. The weighty clouds were a fitting portent of the storm that was to come.
An hour on that dark, wooded road, one that was so familiar yet strange to me. I could hear echoes of Preston somewhere beyond the oaks and maples, in the patter of deer hooves and peep of frogs. I pressed close to the window to see the stars, my stars, the most remote, fantastic, and somehow real things to me. The dancing, pregnant moon flashed in and out of sight, lost among tree branches and a heavenly blanket of clouds. I wished for rain.
And then we were there, outside a high school that bore a strong resemblance to Preston Plains, the school I'll forever consider my true middle school. I looked up and breathed deep, finally free from the fumes of suburbia, that false freshness that has never suited me. It wasn't the summer air tinged with swamp and peat and woodsmoke that I pined for, but it was summer air nonetheless. I could hear summer frogs and crickets and owls, and that was enough for me.
The dance of discomfort began. I felt a heavy, pressing need not to crowd you or her, especially not you and her, so I drifted. You bounced back and forth, a pendulum caught between a rock and a very hard place. I waved your apologies off, since I felt more than a slight guilt for being there in the first place. You hemmed and hawed and made excuses, and I wondered who you were trying to cover up for--you or her. I wasn't going to ask.
The quiet summer air was a salve to me. I had felt locked up for so long. The slight illicitness of being here, so far away from home, gave me a thrill. I felt like we could have kept going, damn the awkward, until we were out of state, out of sight, out of obligations and stress and suburbia, and that awful thrill of wanderlust overtook me.
It was bittersweet. The two of you lying there made me miss what I lacked, even if what you had looked troubled and poisoned from my outside perspective. I thought of my own lost partner, what it might have been like if he had accompanied me the way I had planned. I missed him then, with that aching loss that can't ever be healed as quickly or completely as you wish it would. The fact that it would have been a year and one month that night didn't help. I paced with my eyes cast heavenward, asking questions that I still can't answer of a god who doesn't seem to like overt responses.
We frittered away an hour there, spaced out in the baseball field of the teamless school, the decrepit and forlorn concessions stand, the dark ribbon of road, and the tiny, orange-lit park adjacent to the school. I spent my time walking, stargazing, swinging, sitting, and musing, always musing. Ribbons of steely gray streaked the sky and blotted out the stars. I didn't miss the irony of the fact that we had picked a cloudy night to stargaze.
The ride back was quiet and tired. I came close to the window again as we drove on Miller Road's doppelganger towards the shell of a home I lived in, looking for the stars, always the stars, sometimes the only thing I recognize.
You left me adrift.
The stars always look bleak, cold, and remote, but they were even more removed than usual the night I went out to the boonies, out to the kind of place that gives Tennessee its reputation for hicks and backwoods hillbillies. We rode out in awkward half-silence, broken only by repeated stabs at conversation and subsequent verbal fire.
I wasn't supposed to be there, really. It wasn't my place. But morality is a funny thing, and it leads us to do things for our better judgment, even if the actions are committed in spite of that same judgment.
I have rarely heard such acidity from a single tongue. I sat in the back seat and marveled at such spite, such open malice, jealousy, and insecurity. I wondered why I was there, why I had come, if I wouldn't have been better off staying downtown--an action ironic in and of itself. I had left my previous companion, with whom things were awkward enough, in order to spend time with you and your own companion, and that was ten times worse.
But more than wondering why I was there, I wondered why you were. I wondered what had brought the two of you together and what kept you here, despite the unhappiness I could see blooming all around the two of you.
She didn't even notice the glorious and flaming sunset, half hidden behind heavy grey banks of clouds and framed by the famous rolling hills of Tennessee. The weighty clouds were a fitting portent of the storm that was to come.
An hour on that dark, wooded road, one that was so familiar yet strange to me. I could hear echoes of Preston somewhere beyond the oaks and maples, in the patter of deer hooves and peep of frogs. I pressed close to the window to see the stars, my stars, the most remote, fantastic, and somehow real things to me. The dancing, pregnant moon flashed in and out of sight, lost among tree branches and a heavenly blanket of clouds. I wished for rain.
And then we were there, outside a high school that bore a strong resemblance to Preston Plains, the school I'll forever consider my true middle school. I looked up and breathed deep, finally free from the fumes of suburbia, that false freshness that has never suited me. It wasn't the summer air tinged with swamp and peat and woodsmoke that I pined for, but it was summer air nonetheless. I could hear summer frogs and crickets and owls, and that was enough for me.
The dance of discomfort began. I felt a heavy, pressing need not to crowd you or her, especially not you and her, so I drifted. You bounced back and forth, a pendulum caught between a rock and a very hard place. I waved your apologies off, since I felt more than a slight guilt for being there in the first place. You hemmed and hawed and made excuses, and I wondered who you were trying to cover up for--you or her. I wasn't going to ask.
The quiet summer air was a salve to me. I had felt locked up for so long. The slight illicitness of being here, so far away from home, gave me a thrill. I felt like we could have kept going, damn the awkward, until we were out of state, out of sight, out of obligations and stress and suburbia, and that awful thrill of wanderlust overtook me.
It was bittersweet. The two of you lying there made me miss what I lacked, even if what you had looked troubled and poisoned from my outside perspective. I thought of my own lost partner, what it might have been like if he had accompanied me the way I had planned. I missed him then, with that aching loss that can't ever be healed as quickly or completely as you wish it would. The fact that it would have been a year and one month that night didn't help. I paced with my eyes cast heavenward, asking questions that I still can't answer of a god who doesn't seem to like overt responses.
We frittered away an hour there, spaced out in the baseball field of the teamless school, the decrepit and forlorn concessions stand, the dark ribbon of road, and the tiny, orange-lit park adjacent to the school. I spent my time walking, stargazing, swinging, sitting, and musing, always musing. Ribbons of steely gray streaked the sky and blotted out the stars. I didn't miss the irony of the fact that we had picked a cloudy night to stargaze.
The ride back was quiet and tired. I came close to the window again as we drove on Miller Road's doppelganger towards the shell of a home I lived in, looking for the stars, always the stars, sometimes the only thing I recognize.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Break
Busted knee, broken sigh, and it's amazing that I'm here again.
They teach you about plasticity of the brain in psychology. It's the brain's way of adapting for something that goes missing. A blind person's brain still has that blank space where sight should be, but the longer it goes unfilled, the more the areas around it begin to filter in, stealing the grey matter to do their own jobs even better. They can hear better, distinguish voices in the way a sighted person never could, and detect even the faintest touch on their body. They are blind, yes, but the body overcompensates in other areas to account for this misfortune. It bounces back.
What I'm interested in is the plasticity of the human spirit.
You've all experienced it. One moment you're happy, spirited, content with where you are and what's going on around you. You're in control, or if you're not, you're comfortable with whoever's in charge. Life is good at best, bearable at worst.
But the next second, it's gone, you're gone, you're falling. How could things ever have been better? How could things ever have been the way they used to, how could you ever have been happy with who you were and what was going on?
How were you okay?
Think of the little boy with a heaping ice cream cone. He's gloriously happy with his lot, burying his face in the sweet delight of summer. And then, with a sick sliding motion, the cone is gone, on the ground, lost to dirt and ants and hot sidewalk. His face crumples, and he sobs. The loss of that ice cream cone, something small and unimportant to others, is so massive to him that it's nearly apocalyptic.
But not 2 minutes later, he has another cone in hand, bought by a consoling parent or an exasperated older sibling, and life is good again. The old hurt is mostly forgotten, yet the tears haven't even dried on his face.
That feeling, the awful crashing, collapsing feeling of things falling apart, is unmistakable. It twists your gut and contorts your face while your heart seems to burst, and it is misery. I felt it the June evening my parents announced their divorce. I felt it the night my family pulled into a motel the morning before we would leave Preston. I felt it 10 months ago on a cold winter night not unlike those outside right now. And at the time, I was sure that things could never go back. I was sure that I'd have to stay this miserable, at least for the foreseeable future, because there was no way that this would ever be okay. There was no way I'd ever be able to escape from under the shadow such momentous moments cast on my life. It is dramatic, but in times of stress, we all turn to drama.
I was wrong.
I moved on, grew up, learned lessons, fought through. I discovered strength I didn't knew I had and friends I never would have found if not for my troubles. I found empathy. I found forgiveness. I found appreciation for things I had overlooked in the past: a hug from a friend, a good book to escape in, a walk in the park. I redefined my faith, stretching it to fit my new demands, and tested my God. I broke. I healed. I am still healing today, and will be for as long as I live.
The trick, however, is to push forward without disregarding the past. Where do our lessons come from if not our personal history? The small boy with the ice cream cone soon forgets his loss, but the new cone could still topple if he isn't careful. But even more important is maintaining hope and optimism and not falling to cynicism and harshness. It is easier to be hurt when hoping, but it is easier to love, too.
I'm not here to preach; that's my last intention. I'm searching for answers and ways to grow, like many of us are. And this is just what I have learned so far: The fall is shattering, but rebuilding is always possible.
They teach you about plasticity of the brain in psychology. It's the brain's way of adapting for something that goes missing. A blind person's brain still has that blank space where sight should be, but the longer it goes unfilled, the more the areas around it begin to filter in, stealing the grey matter to do their own jobs even better. They can hear better, distinguish voices in the way a sighted person never could, and detect even the faintest touch on their body. They are blind, yes, but the body overcompensates in other areas to account for this misfortune. It bounces back.
What I'm interested in is the plasticity of the human spirit.
You've all experienced it. One moment you're happy, spirited, content with where you are and what's going on around you. You're in control, or if you're not, you're comfortable with whoever's in charge. Life is good at best, bearable at worst.
But the next second, it's gone, you're gone, you're falling. How could things ever have been better? How could things ever have been the way they used to, how could you ever have been happy with who you were and what was going on?
How were you okay?
Think of the little boy with a heaping ice cream cone. He's gloriously happy with his lot, burying his face in the sweet delight of summer. And then, with a sick sliding motion, the cone is gone, on the ground, lost to dirt and ants and hot sidewalk. His face crumples, and he sobs. The loss of that ice cream cone, something small and unimportant to others, is so massive to him that it's nearly apocalyptic.
But not 2 minutes later, he has another cone in hand, bought by a consoling parent or an exasperated older sibling, and life is good again. The old hurt is mostly forgotten, yet the tears haven't even dried on his face.
That feeling, the awful crashing, collapsing feeling of things falling apart, is unmistakable. It twists your gut and contorts your face while your heart seems to burst, and it is misery. I felt it the June evening my parents announced their divorce. I felt it the night my family pulled into a motel the morning before we would leave Preston. I felt it 10 months ago on a cold winter night not unlike those outside right now. And at the time, I was sure that things could never go back. I was sure that I'd have to stay this miserable, at least for the foreseeable future, because there was no way that this would ever be okay. There was no way I'd ever be able to escape from under the shadow such momentous moments cast on my life. It is dramatic, but in times of stress, we all turn to drama.
I was wrong.
I moved on, grew up, learned lessons, fought through. I discovered strength I didn't knew I had and friends I never would have found if not for my troubles. I found empathy. I found forgiveness. I found appreciation for things I had overlooked in the past: a hug from a friend, a good book to escape in, a walk in the park. I redefined my faith, stretching it to fit my new demands, and tested my God. I broke. I healed. I am still healing today, and will be for as long as I live.
The trick, however, is to push forward without disregarding the past. Where do our lessons come from if not our personal history? The small boy with the ice cream cone soon forgets his loss, but the new cone could still topple if he isn't careful. But even more important is maintaining hope and optimism and not falling to cynicism and harshness. It is easier to be hurt when hoping, but it is easier to love, too.
I'm not here to preach; that's my last intention. I'm searching for answers and ways to grow, like many of us are. And this is just what I have learned so far: The fall is shattering, but rebuilding is always possible.
Monday, September 14, 2009
Ball and Chain
It's amazing, all the things you've said about us
It's amazing, and true.
And it's amazing that I can still sing this song so simply about you.
Because, after all, it is just one of those things.
I remember the snapping feeling and the flood of understanding. I remember the bitter and cynical power it afforded me, the power to look back and scorn my own actions and yours. For a few days, I stayed that way, confident that this was the new me and that I'd finally struggled off of the plateau I'd been bogged down on for so long.
And all it took was one song and one sermon to shake me, one song and one sermon to call attention to the beautiful flaw in my reasoning: I am not that person. I am not that cold, I am not that harsh.
If you are like me, admitting that you were mistaken is no easy task. I admit that I fight against it at times, struggling to retain some sense of right even if I'm proven wrong. And so I struggled against myself, saying that I was reverting and I couldn't go back to this. But the seed was planted, and I couldn't ignore what grew from it.
I realized this: anybody can be a cynic. Anybody can harden themselves to others and scoff at cliched and gooey memories, thoughts, and actions. Anybody can criticize, anybody can hurt. There's no challenge in that for many of us.
The challenge lies instead in knowing our mistakes and accepting ourselves and each other anyway. The challenge comes in letting go without burning what's behind you. The challenge is not to hurt, but to heal.
"You are afraid you might forget, but you never will. You will forgive and remember. Think of the vine that curls from the small square plot that was once my heart. That is the only marker you need. Move on. Walk on into the light."
Because, after all, it is just one of those things.
It's amazing, and true.
And it's amazing that I can still sing this song so simply about you.
Because, after all, it is just one of those things.
I remember the snapping feeling and the flood of understanding. I remember the bitter and cynical power it afforded me, the power to look back and scorn my own actions and yours. For a few days, I stayed that way, confident that this was the new me and that I'd finally struggled off of the plateau I'd been bogged down on for so long.
And all it took was one song and one sermon to shake me, one song and one sermon to call attention to the beautiful flaw in my reasoning: I am not that person. I am not that cold, I am not that harsh.
If you are like me, admitting that you were mistaken is no easy task. I admit that I fight against it at times, struggling to retain some sense of right even if I'm proven wrong. And so I struggled against myself, saying that I was reverting and I couldn't go back to this. But the seed was planted, and I couldn't ignore what grew from it.
I realized this: anybody can be a cynic. Anybody can harden themselves to others and scoff at cliched and gooey memories, thoughts, and actions. Anybody can criticize, anybody can hurt. There's no challenge in that for many of us.
The challenge lies instead in knowing our mistakes and accepting ourselves and each other anyway. The challenge comes in letting go without burning what's behind you. The challenge is not to hurt, but to heal.
"You are afraid you might forget, but you never will. You will forgive and remember. Think of the vine that curls from the small square plot that was once my heart. That is the only marker you need. Move on. Walk on into the light."
Because, after all, it is just one of those things.
Friday, September 11, 2009
For our musicians
I wrote this about a year ago, on a random spur of energy. I rediscovered it earlier this afternoon and thought, what the heck, why not post it. Hope you enjoy.
The great pacific beast hulked blackly in the center of the room, gleaming superficially. Regality permeated the air around it, causing visitors to the room to fall into a hushed reverence upon setting foot on the highly polished ash floor. The beast bore a hunchback; its smooth lid was held in the air by a single, delicate stalk. Its veins and spine were visible below this sloped cover. The brass on them twinkled in anticipation for what was to come. Its teeth glittered in the bright sunlight, ebony glimmering faintly and ivory shining gaily. Three solid legs, two at the front and one at the back, held the beast up to stand proud. In front of the teeth sat a plain black stool, expectant for its master.
A young man entered the room and walked slowly to the beast. He was tall and slender, with long arms and large, slim-fingered hands. His dark brown hair was untidy and looked slightly damp, like he had just taken a shower. His face betrayed his youth; it was the face of 17-year-old, close to manhood but not quite. He had a roughly oval face with a high brow, straight nose, and almost pointed chin. The teen’s wide eyes were a dark peat brown. His gaze was thoughtful and distant but became more focused as he approached the great being and ran a single, gentle hand along its teeth, preparing himself. He sat on the bench and centered himself before the beast, closing his eyes to take a preparatory breath.
He bent his head toward the keys and began to play.
He began quietly, his notes and chords soft and gentle. But after only a moment of peaceful build-up, his playing began to escalate. Slowly, his hands moved faster and faster, arpeggios and crescendos rolling off of the keys like rain off a leaf. Below his capable hands, the beast trembled and shook, its inner hammers beating upon the veins like so many hearts. The bass notes thundered like the steps of an oncoming army, the treble notes quivered in the air to be quickly overcome by more. His quick hands flashed from one end of the piano to the other, and his knees shifted subtly below the keys as he pressed the pedals expertly.
The song he played was fast and fierce, anger swelling and ebbing within it like a storm-tossed ship. It alternately calmed and infuriated itself, one second full of pounding chords and notes and the next ambling along sweetly with a few simple presses of a key. But the overall impression of the song was one of power and beauty. Perhaps a fuming beauty, but a beauty nonetheless. The power within it was unconcealed; it even lurked behind the slower, softer parts.
Above the keys, he moved back and forth with the music, his shoulders hunching during times of tension and slumping during times of release. His face showed hints of concentration and focus, but at times it was impassive. Only his eyes belayed any sense of feeling during these random periods, sometimes staring blankly at the piano in front of him and sometimes looking down to the keys for confirmation.
An indeterminate amount of time later, the youth’s hands slowed, bringing the music to a soft, near-reluctant halt. He held the last note until it had nearly faded away completely, then pressed a pedal and pulled his hands from the piano. His previously slumped shoulders straightened, and he passed a pale hand over a face that looked more tired than it had before playing. He stood up slowly from the bench and shuffled sideways to be free of it, exiting the room without a backwards glance.
Behind him, the great black beast seemed to sit forlornly in the middle of the room, its booming voice silenced. It gradually drew its stately cover over itself again to sit in cold glory.
The great pacific beast hulked blackly in the center of the room, gleaming superficially. Regality permeated the air around it, causing visitors to the room to fall into a hushed reverence upon setting foot on the highly polished ash floor. The beast bore a hunchback; its smooth lid was held in the air by a single, delicate stalk. Its veins and spine were visible below this sloped cover. The brass on them twinkled in anticipation for what was to come. Its teeth glittered in the bright sunlight, ebony glimmering faintly and ivory shining gaily. Three solid legs, two at the front and one at the back, held the beast up to stand proud. In front of the teeth sat a plain black stool, expectant for its master.
A young man entered the room and walked slowly to the beast. He was tall and slender, with long arms and large, slim-fingered hands. His dark brown hair was untidy and looked slightly damp, like he had just taken a shower. His face betrayed his youth; it was the face of 17-year-old, close to manhood but not quite. He had a roughly oval face with a high brow, straight nose, and almost pointed chin. The teen’s wide eyes were a dark peat brown. His gaze was thoughtful and distant but became more focused as he approached the great being and ran a single, gentle hand along its teeth, preparing himself. He sat on the bench and centered himself before the beast, closing his eyes to take a preparatory breath.
He bent his head toward the keys and began to play.
He began quietly, his notes and chords soft and gentle. But after only a moment of peaceful build-up, his playing began to escalate. Slowly, his hands moved faster and faster, arpeggios and crescendos rolling off of the keys like rain off a leaf. Below his capable hands, the beast trembled and shook, its inner hammers beating upon the veins like so many hearts. The bass notes thundered like the steps of an oncoming army, the treble notes quivered in the air to be quickly overcome by more. His quick hands flashed from one end of the piano to the other, and his knees shifted subtly below the keys as he pressed the pedals expertly.
The song he played was fast and fierce, anger swelling and ebbing within it like a storm-tossed ship. It alternately calmed and infuriated itself, one second full of pounding chords and notes and the next ambling along sweetly with a few simple presses of a key. But the overall impression of the song was one of power and beauty. Perhaps a fuming beauty, but a beauty nonetheless. The power within it was unconcealed; it even lurked behind the slower, softer parts.
Above the keys, he moved back and forth with the music, his shoulders hunching during times of tension and slumping during times of release. His face showed hints of concentration and focus, but at times it was impassive. Only his eyes belayed any sense of feeling during these random periods, sometimes staring blankly at the piano in front of him and sometimes looking down to the keys for confirmation.
An indeterminate amount of time later, the youth’s hands slowed, bringing the music to a soft, near-reluctant halt. He held the last note until it had nearly faded away completely, then pressed a pedal and pulled his hands from the piano. His previously slumped shoulders straightened, and he passed a pale hand over a face that looked more tired than it had before playing. He stood up slowly from the bench and shuffled sideways to be free of it, exiting the room without a backwards glance.
Behind him, the great black beast seemed to sit forlornly in the middle of the room, its booming voice silenced. It gradually drew its stately cover over itself again to sit in cold glory.
Friday, September 4, 2009
Selective Hearing
When I found you, there was nothing to hold tight to. You left me adrift.
You'll only bleed me dry, so I'll ask you kindly to make your way.
You think it's alright--can't you feel the knife?
Pressing matters bear
If it's all or nothing, then let me go.
There is time, so much time
When push comes to shove, this is getting old.
You pray for rain, I pray for blindness
But now he lives inside someone he doesn't recognize,
We say goodnight from our own separate sides
and I'm not who I used to be.
Just because you've forgotten, that don't mean you're forgiven
I'm living in an age that calls darkness light--
Though my language is dead, still the shapes fill my head
Now that I'm older, my heart's colder,
I guess we'll just have to adjust
And I can see that it's a lie.
I try to write, but it's wrong
No one to leave the lights on
No answer
Search my face
A hopeless embrace
Let's start over again
Why can't we start it over again?
This time, we'll get it right.
I can't talk to you anymore,
and I miss you.
Set my spirit free
Set my body free
You'll only bleed me dry, so I'll ask you kindly to make your way.
You think it's alright--can't you feel the knife?
Pressing matters bear
If it's all or nothing, then let me go.
There is time, so much time
When push comes to shove, this is getting old.
You pray for rain, I pray for blindness
But now he lives inside someone he doesn't recognize,
We say goodnight from our own separate sides
and I'm not who I used to be.
Just because you've forgotten, that don't mean you're forgiven
I'm living in an age that calls darkness light--
Though my language is dead, still the shapes fill my head
Now that I'm older, my heart's colder,
I guess we'll just have to adjust
And I can see that it's a lie.
I try to write, but it's wrong
No one to leave the lights on
No answer
Search my face
A hopeless embrace
Let's start over again
Why can't we start it over again?
This time, we'll get it right.
I can't talk to you anymore,
and I miss you.
Set my spirit free
Set my body free
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Quentin
The stopgap thinking has me going again, and I'm jumping from scene to scene, skipping like a perfectly pitched stone over the smooth surface tumbled underneath pool of memory.
Sometimes, the divided walls of order fall down in my mind. Thoughts carry me from association to association suddenly, easily, and then I'm reeling back, falling in, lost again.
It was dark and humid in that room. You could smell the summer, warm and heavy, making you sticky with sweat and giving everything a damp feel. Outside, the frogs were peeping and bellowing and trumpeting in competition with the whirs of crickets and the whisper of the wind. I laid there in my bed, watching the stars from my window, waiting for the blessed breeze, and I was perfectly content, filled with a deep, quiet happiness that didn't seem to gel with the mind of a 12-year-old.
We buried her out in the back corner of my yard, right between the blackberry and blueberry bushes. Dad dug the hole deep so nothing could get at her after, and he laid her down in it wrapped in the towel she had died in. At 8 years old, death means nothing to a little girl. I knew only that she wasn't moving and her body was stiff, unnatural, all of the spark gone out of her. I wasn't crying, but my parents were. Dad loved that cat. We put lime, white lyme, on top of her first. I still don't know why. And then she was gone, only a brown dent in the ground to show anything had happened at all. I swore I could see her out my window for days after that.
I woke up in the middle of the night, my breath misting in front of me. I could feel it in the air; the charged atmosphere revealing that something had happened. I didn't have to look far. Snow hung heavy on the tree branches outside my window, frost forming lacy outlines on the glass. I didn't care that the floors were freezing on my warm bare feet. I crept downstairs and, trembling a little, opened the back door. There is no silence like the silence of snowfall. Everything was cast in blue light outside, and I caught my breath at the beauty. Only the distant voice of the wind and the soft hissing patter of snowflakes could be heard around me, and it was beautiful, the most beautiful thing I have seen yet.
We had walked for over an hour, up and down hills, pushing through bushes and around trees on the little-used path Dad had somehow found. For once, it was just the two of us. Skeleton trees danced around us, their dead orange and brown bounty crunching underfoot. The forest has a kind of noisy quiet. It feels muffled, like you're removed from the outside world. When I was younger, I would always think of the Native Americans and how they used to creep through these very woods. Echoes of that sounded now. We climbed a rise, and then we were finally there. An open field of cattails stretched the length of a football field in front of us, all two or more feet taller than I was. In a twist of picturesque fate, the sun had just begun to sink below the horizon to the west of the field, and the sky was brilliant pinks, oranges, golds, and purples. A chill in the air heralded the winter that was to come. The two of us stood there without speaking, taking in the sight of the field. "Look," my father breathed, and I followed the tip of his finger to see the arched antlers of a buck, zigzagging wildly across the field and away from us. We didn't stay long enough. I took a cattail home to show my mom, a proud trophy of what felt like an unreal adventure.
Happy trails.
Sometimes, the divided walls of order fall down in my mind. Thoughts carry me from association to association suddenly, easily, and then I'm reeling back, falling in, lost again.
It was dark and humid in that room. You could smell the summer, warm and heavy, making you sticky with sweat and giving everything a damp feel. Outside, the frogs were peeping and bellowing and trumpeting in competition with the whirs of crickets and the whisper of the wind. I laid there in my bed, watching the stars from my window, waiting for the blessed breeze, and I was perfectly content, filled with a deep, quiet happiness that didn't seem to gel with the mind of a 12-year-old.
We buried her out in the back corner of my yard, right between the blackberry and blueberry bushes. Dad dug the hole deep so nothing could get at her after, and he laid her down in it wrapped in the towel she had died in. At 8 years old, death means nothing to a little girl. I knew only that she wasn't moving and her body was stiff, unnatural, all of the spark gone out of her. I wasn't crying, but my parents were. Dad loved that cat. We put lime, white lyme, on top of her first. I still don't know why. And then she was gone, only a brown dent in the ground to show anything had happened at all. I swore I could see her out my window for days after that.
I woke up in the middle of the night, my breath misting in front of me. I could feel it in the air; the charged atmosphere revealing that something had happened. I didn't have to look far. Snow hung heavy on the tree branches outside my window, frost forming lacy outlines on the glass. I didn't care that the floors were freezing on my warm bare feet. I crept downstairs and, trembling a little, opened the back door. There is no silence like the silence of snowfall. Everything was cast in blue light outside, and I caught my breath at the beauty. Only the distant voice of the wind and the soft hissing patter of snowflakes could be heard around me, and it was beautiful, the most beautiful thing I have seen yet.
We had walked for over an hour, up and down hills, pushing through bushes and around trees on the little-used path Dad had somehow found. For once, it was just the two of us. Skeleton trees danced around us, their dead orange and brown bounty crunching underfoot. The forest has a kind of noisy quiet. It feels muffled, like you're removed from the outside world. When I was younger, I would always think of the Native Americans and how they used to creep through these very woods. Echoes of that sounded now. We climbed a rise, and then we were finally there. An open field of cattails stretched the length of a football field in front of us, all two or more feet taller than I was. In a twist of picturesque fate, the sun had just begun to sink below the horizon to the west of the field, and the sky was brilliant pinks, oranges, golds, and purples. A chill in the air heralded the winter that was to come. The two of us stood there without speaking, taking in the sight of the field. "Look," my father breathed, and I followed the tip of his finger to see the arched antlers of a buck, zigzagging wildly across the field and away from us. We didn't stay long enough. I took a cattail home to show my mom, a proud trophy of what felt like an unreal adventure.
Happy trails.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
(Untitled)
I rang, but you were not there, so I walked. Before I knew it, I settled into an easy cadence: left, left, left right left. The 5 count step I've known for years now.
The cadence was natural. It echoed effortlessly in back of my thoughts, ordering them, keeping them as short and simple as the sound of my feet on the sidewalk. 1, 2, 1 2 3. Trees, sky, green wet grass. Kids, bikes, happy young shouts.
When I walk that way, I feel like I can go on forever. My mind shies away from setting a destination--do not pass--or thinking how far I have left to go--you're always going home. I ache for the tunneled backroads of my old home, silent trees pressing in on both sides, faded yellow stripe. They gave the illusion that escape was at least possible. Here, among the identical houses and manicured lawns, I don't even try to pretend I can get away. I just count cadence.
Left
left
left right left
I pass over drain covers (Russco--cruel joke) and through puddles, my feet slapping solidly against the wet ground. 1, 2, 3 4 your left. The frown is between my eyes again, my brow drawn low. Brooding, it would seem. But the cadence keeps me from dwelling, keeps me moving straight ahead. I turn the plastic rectangle in my hand off so its silence doesn't bother me so.
Somewhere around halfway through my aimless walk, I realize that the steady cadence is a trick to keep me from thinking too hard. To wonder what I'm hiding from runs me up against a steel wall in my head, my own mind pushing back my probing conscience.
So this is denial.
I pass the street she always stopped at--left--the spot we saw a hot air balloon--left--the gazebo I cried in--left right--the gorged and rushing creek--left.
And I wonder if this looks more like sanity or insanity, dementia or control.
Still I count cadence. Still I walk forward.
The cadence was natural. It echoed effortlessly in back of my thoughts, ordering them, keeping them as short and simple as the sound of my feet on the sidewalk. 1, 2, 1 2 3. Trees, sky, green wet grass. Kids, bikes, happy young shouts.
When I walk that way, I feel like I can go on forever. My mind shies away from setting a destination--do not pass--or thinking how far I have left to go--you're always going home. I ache for the tunneled backroads of my old home, silent trees pressing in on both sides, faded yellow stripe. They gave the illusion that escape was at least possible. Here, among the identical houses and manicured lawns, I don't even try to pretend I can get away. I just count cadence.
Left
left
left right left
I pass over drain covers (Russco--cruel joke) and through puddles, my feet slapping solidly against the wet ground. 1, 2, 3 4 your left. The frown is between my eyes again, my brow drawn low. Brooding, it would seem. But the cadence keeps me from dwelling, keeps me moving straight ahead. I turn the plastic rectangle in my hand off so its silence doesn't bother me so.
Somewhere around halfway through my aimless walk, I realize that the steady cadence is a trick to keep me from thinking too hard. To wonder what I'm hiding from runs me up against a steel wall in my head, my own mind pushing back my probing conscience.
So this is denial.
I pass the street she always stopped at--left--the spot we saw a hot air balloon--left--the gazebo I cried in--left right--the gorged and rushing creek--left.
And I wonder if this looks more like sanity or insanity, dementia or control.
Still I count cadence. Still I walk forward.
Saturday, July 18, 2009
It's not retreat, it's walking away.
We are here again, and this time, it's dark. That awful wind tears and claws at my skin and clothes, invisible whips lashing us mercilessly. Overhead, the moon is sickly and thin, but it casts an unnatural light, pallid and stark. There are no stars. The sky is the color of blackest charcoal ink, the eerie moonlight my only illumination.
The surface we stand on is solid shale, slate-blue and unyielding. The precipice hangs suspended over a yawning canyon, as dark as the sky overhead. There is no returning from a drop so final. Your heels are only an arm's length away from the edge, your back to the gaping abyss. The wind shrieks and howls, furious at everything and nothing.
Your eyes are lifeless. You do not look at me, but through me, as if I do not exist. Your face is blank, not written with anger, sadness, sobriety, or anything else at all. It is the face of a dead man.
And I'm screaming I'm yelling I'm shouting at you, waving my arms and shaking my fists and contorting my face, rooted firmly to the spot but aching to move anyway and shaking from the strain of holding still. The wind, the angry, hate-filled wind, snatches the words from my mouth as soon as they're formed, scattering them everywhere to rest in pieces at the bottom of the trench you balance so precariously on. My words fall like so many useless matches, meant to ignite an argument or a discussion or anything, but burned out before they even get going. They fall as if they mean nothing, for, truly, they do. You do not hear.
My anger gives way to a sadness so deep and complete that I don't know what to call it, much less where it came from or what I should do. I cannot bear this, not anymore. I bury my head in burning hands as my shoulders shake, and I am lost. You're still unmoving, though I am gone for many long moments. I mourn the past, the present, and what I now know cannot be. I mourn the future I can't have and all the effort I spent trying to reach it. I mourn you, even though you're a yard away. The wind buffets my immobile body. The moon looks on in cold disregard. And still, you look through me.
When I finally look up again, it is to see that you haven't changed, and now, at last, resolve hardens within me. I say your name a final time, and now you're moving. A single step back.
We lock eyes in the final instant, and in that split second, I think I see a flicker of something--remorse? anger? relief? guilt?--but then you are gone, disappeared, swallowed by the gaping maw of the abyss.
The wind suddenly halts, the newfound silence complete, broken only by the sound of footsteps as I leave the jagged point and unsettling night behind.
The surface we stand on is solid shale, slate-blue and unyielding. The precipice hangs suspended over a yawning canyon, as dark as the sky overhead. There is no returning from a drop so final. Your heels are only an arm's length away from the edge, your back to the gaping abyss. The wind shrieks and howls, furious at everything and nothing.
Your eyes are lifeless. You do not look at me, but through me, as if I do not exist. Your face is blank, not written with anger, sadness, sobriety, or anything else at all. It is the face of a dead man.
And I'm screaming I'm yelling I'm shouting at you, waving my arms and shaking my fists and contorting my face, rooted firmly to the spot but aching to move anyway and shaking from the strain of holding still. The wind, the angry, hate-filled wind, snatches the words from my mouth as soon as they're formed, scattering them everywhere to rest in pieces at the bottom of the trench you balance so precariously on. My words fall like so many useless matches, meant to ignite an argument or a discussion or anything, but burned out before they even get going. They fall as if they mean nothing, for, truly, they do. You do not hear.
My anger gives way to a sadness so deep and complete that I don't know what to call it, much less where it came from or what I should do. I cannot bear this, not anymore. I bury my head in burning hands as my shoulders shake, and I am lost. You're still unmoving, though I am gone for many long moments. I mourn the past, the present, and what I now know cannot be. I mourn the future I can't have and all the effort I spent trying to reach it. I mourn you, even though you're a yard away. The wind buffets my immobile body. The moon looks on in cold disregard. And still, you look through me.
When I finally look up again, it is to see that you haven't changed, and now, at last, resolve hardens within me. I say your name a final time, and now you're moving. A single step back.
We lock eyes in the final instant, and in that split second, I think I see a flicker of something--remorse? anger? relief? guilt?--but then you are gone, disappeared, swallowed by the gaping maw of the abyss.
The wind suddenly halts, the newfound silence complete, broken only by the sound of footsteps as I leave the jagged point and unsettling night behind.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Stolen Memory
I have this picture that I found a few weeks ago that feels important to me, even though it doesn't have anybody I know in it, even though I had never seen it before I set eyes on it under the humming florescent lights of a Wal-Mart in Lisbon, Connecticut. I wasn't even alive when it was taken.
It's a clumsy, all-American Christmas shot in black and white, three little girls and their teenage brother next to a squat, heavily tinseled tree. The boy is the only one not looking at the camera, his head tilted at an angle, his eyes not fully open. Judging by the half a smirk on his face, he wasn't completely ready for the shot. He looks awkwardly sincere in his plaid button down and crew cut. The martyred expression on his face is one I've seen a thousand other times in a thousand other family shots, almost always worn by the oldest child. I wonder whether he was exasperated by his parent's insistent behests--"Put your arm around your sister, there we go. Now smile and say 'Merry Christmas!'" I can almost hear them in the background, timeless.
Right below him is the smallest of the sisters, her face split by a huge grin and her brown hair in a bob. She holds a baby doll in her lap, maybe her first present of the morning, maybe her treasured companion. She looks like she could be someone's kid cousin; that innocent cuteness and infectious smile.
In the middle is the oldest of the sisters, but she looks the least like the others. The lower half of her face is obscured by a small doll, only the slightest corner of her Mona Lisa smile showing. She's pale in the eye of the camera, and her hair looks like it could have been light brown or dark blond. She's wearing some sort of shawl over her head, white to match her simple dress. She fits and yet doesn't fit in the picture, different from the others but still part of the family.
And finally, the 4th sibling half kneels to the right, her mouth puckered as if in speech and a Ponytail Sewing Kit held out proudly in front of her. She is my favorite part of the photo. Her eyes are alive and excited, her pose as if she's about to jump up and show Mommy--look! look!--her new sewing kit. She looks like the pictures of my mom I've seen from when she was younger. Maybe that's why I was drawn to this snapshot.
Or maybe it was its crinkled, soft edges and uneven cut, or the fact that all four family members sit off-center, slightly to the left of the frame. Maybe it was the faded 1960 penciled on the back, without any other names or a place or a date. No "Mark, Suzie, Karen, and Joy, Columbus, OH." Just 1960. The carpet they kneel on attests to this date.
Maybe it was just impulse that led me to pick it up in the first place, but the harder I looked at it, the more I loved this picture. It recalls countless Christmases I've experienced from more than one angle. I was once the little girl holding my favorite present out like a trophy, satisfied and triumphant. I was once the littlest person there, bottomless glee overtaking me just at the sight of the colored packages under the tree. And now I look on in an amused way as my brothers (really only Will anymore) tear through their presents, intent on opening the biggest first, then the smallest.
Over it all--the nostalgia, the curiosity--was an overwhelming sense that I had just gotten a glimpse into the past lives of these people; people who, in all likelihood, I would never meet or see as they are now. People who had gone on to grow up and get married and have children, to fulfill their dreams and meet their own failures. But I would and will never know.
And so I slid the picture from its place in the Lost and Found Photos album and into my pocket. Maybe I should have felt guilty, but instead I just felt pensive, like something greater than me had just brushed past and I missed it.
It's a clumsy, all-American Christmas shot in black and white, three little girls and their teenage brother next to a squat, heavily tinseled tree. The boy is the only one not looking at the camera, his head tilted at an angle, his eyes not fully open. Judging by the half a smirk on his face, he wasn't completely ready for the shot. He looks awkwardly sincere in his plaid button down and crew cut. The martyred expression on his face is one I've seen a thousand other times in a thousand other family shots, almost always worn by the oldest child. I wonder whether he was exasperated by his parent's insistent behests--"Put your arm around your sister, there we go. Now smile and say 'Merry Christmas!'" I can almost hear them in the background, timeless.
Right below him is the smallest of the sisters, her face split by a huge grin and her brown hair in a bob. She holds a baby doll in her lap, maybe her first present of the morning, maybe her treasured companion. She looks like she could be someone's kid cousin; that innocent cuteness and infectious smile.
In the middle is the oldest of the sisters, but she looks the least like the others. The lower half of her face is obscured by a small doll, only the slightest corner of her Mona Lisa smile showing. She's pale in the eye of the camera, and her hair looks like it could have been light brown or dark blond. She's wearing some sort of shawl over her head, white to match her simple dress. She fits and yet doesn't fit in the picture, different from the others but still part of the family.
And finally, the 4th sibling half kneels to the right, her mouth puckered as if in speech and a Ponytail Sewing Kit held out proudly in front of her. She is my favorite part of the photo. Her eyes are alive and excited, her pose as if she's about to jump up and show Mommy--look! look!--her new sewing kit. She looks like the pictures of my mom I've seen from when she was younger. Maybe that's why I was drawn to this snapshot.
Or maybe it was its crinkled, soft edges and uneven cut, or the fact that all four family members sit off-center, slightly to the left of the frame. Maybe it was the faded 1960 penciled on the back, without any other names or a place or a date. No "Mark, Suzie, Karen, and Joy, Columbus, OH." Just 1960. The carpet they kneel on attests to this date.
Maybe it was just impulse that led me to pick it up in the first place, but the harder I looked at it, the more I loved this picture. It recalls countless Christmases I've experienced from more than one angle. I was once the little girl holding my favorite present out like a trophy, satisfied and triumphant. I was once the littlest person there, bottomless glee overtaking me just at the sight of the colored packages under the tree. And now I look on in an amused way as my brothers (really only Will anymore) tear through their presents, intent on opening the biggest first, then the smallest.
Over it all--the nostalgia, the curiosity--was an overwhelming sense that I had just gotten a glimpse into the past lives of these people; people who, in all likelihood, I would never meet or see as they are now. People who had gone on to grow up and get married and have children, to fulfill their dreams and meet their own failures. But I would and will never know.
And so I slid the picture from its place in the Lost and Found Photos album and into my pocket. Maybe I should have felt guilty, but instead I just felt pensive, like something greater than me had just brushed past and I missed it.
In Memoriam
If you follow me on Facebook, you may have read this already, but I wanted to post it here just so it's easier to find next time.
----------
You are there, but you aren't. "There" is no longer where it used to be.
The woods are quiet, only the sound of birds and the wind accompanying you. The light is grey, dank and cool, leaching the greens out of the foliage around you until the color doesn't seem real. None of this does.
We stood there, in that clearing that wasn't always a clearing, and we were lost. Lost on soil that used to be more familiar than anything else. Lost on our own damn turf.
Nature defies your wishes, scorns your attempts to keep it down and defeat its inexorable will. It had boldly reclaimed the land I once delcared mine, ferns growing where before only dead leaves had lain, saplings standing bravely in what used to be the highway of my forest. The old outlines had blurred until I couldn't place them anymore, and you led me, just as you occasionally had before. But this time, we were both guessing. You were just a better guesser than me.
When you stand in a place like that, where the old is new, the memorized forgotten, and the certainty has crumbled to hesitancy, you are forced to face that time moves on, even if you try not to. The what ifs return with a vengeance. They tease you with ideal scenarios that can never be. You are here, and cannot possibly change the past now. I could not have saved this, no more than I could have predicted the fact I'd be here in the first place. It is a painful release to come to terms with that. A part of you mourns and reminisces.
And in the silence, we locked eyes. "It's sad," I said. A helpless gesture out at the wet green, at the trees that had moved and the soggy earth that hadn't. "All of this." It was a futile attempt to sum up 3 years' worth of change, both physical and otherwise.
A tacit nod, a gentle hug. You knew my pain. This had been ours, of course. We both missed how things used to be. We both missed the lazy summers, the shared snow days, the ease of seeing each other. We both loved that big blue house and these tangled, endless woods.
You leave with a double image imprinted in your mind: the place you knew--lighter, earthier, familiar and friendly--and the place you see: wild, neglected, natural and changed. They seem so different that it's hard to imagine they're even the same place. And it's closure, in a way. A final stamp that says you are not unwelcome, but you no longer truly belong. Life has moved on here without you, churning, relentless. You are wanted elsewhere now. It's an unsettling realization.
The quiet after you are gone is peaceful. Timeless. It, at least, has always sounded the same.
In the darkening evening, another tree gives into old age and rot and rumbles to the ground.
----------
You are there, but you aren't. "There" is no longer where it used to be.
The woods are quiet, only the sound of birds and the wind accompanying you. The light is grey, dank and cool, leaching the greens out of the foliage around you until the color doesn't seem real. None of this does.
We stood there, in that clearing that wasn't always a clearing, and we were lost. Lost on soil that used to be more familiar than anything else. Lost on our own damn turf.
Nature defies your wishes, scorns your attempts to keep it down and defeat its inexorable will. It had boldly reclaimed the land I once delcared mine, ferns growing where before only dead leaves had lain, saplings standing bravely in what used to be the highway of my forest. The old outlines had blurred until I couldn't place them anymore, and you led me, just as you occasionally had before. But this time, we were both guessing. You were just a better guesser than me.
When you stand in a place like that, where the old is new, the memorized forgotten, and the certainty has crumbled to hesitancy, you are forced to face that time moves on, even if you try not to. The what ifs return with a vengeance. They tease you with ideal scenarios that can never be. You are here, and cannot possibly change the past now. I could not have saved this, no more than I could have predicted the fact I'd be here in the first place. It is a painful release to come to terms with that. A part of you mourns and reminisces.
And in the silence, we locked eyes. "It's sad," I said. A helpless gesture out at the wet green, at the trees that had moved and the soggy earth that hadn't. "All of this." It was a futile attempt to sum up 3 years' worth of change, both physical and otherwise.
A tacit nod, a gentle hug. You knew my pain. This had been ours, of course. We both missed how things used to be. We both missed the lazy summers, the shared snow days, the ease of seeing each other. We both loved that big blue house and these tangled, endless woods.
You leave with a double image imprinted in your mind: the place you knew--lighter, earthier, familiar and friendly--and the place you see: wild, neglected, natural and changed. They seem so different that it's hard to imagine they're even the same place. And it's closure, in a way. A final stamp that says you are not unwelcome, but you no longer truly belong. Life has moved on here without you, churning, relentless. You are wanted elsewhere now. It's an unsettling realization.
The quiet after you are gone is peaceful. Timeless. It, at least, has always sounded the same.
In the darkening evening, another tree gives into old age and rot and rumbles to the ground.
Toss it away into the fire.
What we're left with are memories.
My earliest memories are disjointed, jumping from place to place and person to person. They make it seem like I grew up in fits and starts, jerking from 2 years to 4 years to 5 to 7 to 9. The earliest one I have is of a plane--is it any wonder, then, that I love them so much now? I was standing at the window, looking at the clouds quietly. I couldn't have been older than 2 or 3.
Another favorite of mine was one of the first days I spent in Connecticut. It was summer, the sky a brilliant, endless blue punctuated with lazy white clouds. The soccer field back then was near the elementary school, once that has since been leveled to make way for a newer, bigger elementary school. I stood there awkwardly, too proud to hide behind my mom, but too nervous to walk out by myself and meet the other girls and boys. Lucky for me, I didn't have to worry. The best friend I've ever had charged right up to me, short, freckled, fiery. "Are you new here?" For an 8 year old, she seemed to possess an awful lot of authority. I nodded timidly.
And then she said the five words that made all the difference in the world to me: "Wanna be my soccer buddy?" Samm and I have been inseparable ever since.
The moment that everything changed the first time has an innocent memory attached to it. I had just come home from school. It was one of the last days of 7th grade, and I made a beeline for the kitchen the way I always did. Dad intercepted me, coming up out of the basement to ask how my day was. We talked idly for a moment, and I made some kind of joke about the move we'd been worrying about for so long. Dad laughed, and then he looked me in the eye. "You do know we're moving, right? It's final. They want us there by August." I nodded and shrugged it off, raiding the pantry rather than considering the implications of what he had just said. I wonder what my dad expected me to do, if I surprised him by taking it so well. But when you're 12, the phrase long-term impact is a foreign one.
The goodbye--that one is still vivid. All four of my best friends showed up, even the one I wasn't sure would come. We all congregated in my driveway, laughing nervously and making small talk about meaningless things. The white SUV loomed behind us, crammed to bursting with suitcases, snacks, and entertainment. My mom was already crying but trying to laugh it off with her own friends while my brothers were in the car, whining about wanting to get a move on.
What sticks out most in that memory is the gap. The four of us--Kendall, Sam (there was only one m then), Maggie, and I--formed up one last time in a row for the final photo op, all of us smiling boldly, the picture of youthful friendship. And then I was walking to the car and getting in, but the other three still stood there, a hole in the middle where I should have been.
That hole has changed since then. My friend summed it up best: When I left, it was like I left a round hole. But since then, the hole has turned to a square, only I'm still a round peg. Yeah, I fit in some ways, but in the end, you can't fully get over so much time apart.
And since then, I've made new memories. So many that I don't know where to start. I can't imagine how it will be when I'm 80, what kind of state I'll be in then. Maybe that's why God graces us with forgetfulness by then, just so we can stay sane.
I think I'll be ready for that twisted sanity.
My earliest memories are disjointed, jumping from place to place and person to person. They make it seem like I grew up in fits and starts, jerking from 2 years to 4 years to 5 to 7 to 9. The earliest one I have is of a plane--is it any wonder, then, that I love them so much now? I was standing at the window, looking at the clouds quietly. I couldn't have been older than 2 or 3.
Another favorite of mine was one of the first days I spent in Connecticut. It was summer, the sky a brilliant, endless blue punctuated with lazy white clouds. The soccer field back then was near the elementary school, once that has since been leveled to make way for a newer, bigger elementary school. I stood there awkwardly, too proud to hide behind my mom, but too nervous to walk out by myself and meet the other girls and boys. Lucky for me, I didn't have to worry. The best friend I've ever had charged right up to me, short, freckled, fiery. "Are you new here?" For an 8 year old, she seemed to possess an awful lot of authority. I nodded timidly.
And then she said the five words that made all the difference in the world to me: "Wanna be my soccer buddy?" Samm and I have been inseparable ever since.
The moment that everything changed the first time has an innocent memory attached to it. I had just come home from school. It was one of the last days of 7th grade, and I made a beeline for the kitchen the way I always did. Dad intercepted me, coming up out of the basement to ask how my day was. We talked idly for a moment, and I made some kind of joke about the move we'd been worrying about for so long. Dad laughed, and then he looked me in the eye. "You do know we're moving, right? It's final. They want us there by August." I nodded and shrugged it off, raiding the pantry rather than considering the implications of what he had just said. I wonder what my dad expected me to do, if I surprised him by taking it so well. But when you're 12, the phrase long-term impact is a foreign one.
The goodbye--that one is still vivid. All four of my best friends showed up, even the one I wasn't sure would come. We all congregated in my driveway, laughing nervously and making small talk about meaningless things. The white SUV loomed behind us, crammed to bursting with suitcases, snacks, and entertainment. My mom was already crying but trying to laugh it off with her own friends while my brothers were in the car, whining about wanting to get a move on.
What sticks out most in that memory is the gap. The four of us--Kendall, Sam (there was only one m then), Maggie, and I--formed up one last time in a row for the final photo op, all of us smiling boldly, the picture of youthful friendship. And then I was walking to the car and getting in, but the other three still stood there, a hole in the middle where I should have been.
That hole has changed since then. My friend summed it up best: When I left, it was like I left a round hole. But since then, the hole has turned to a square, only I'm still a round peg. Yeah, I fit in some ways, but in the end, you can't fully get over so much time apart.
And since then, I've made new memories. So many that I don't know where to start. I can't imagine how it will be when I'm 80, what kind of state I'll be in then. Maybe that's why God graces us with forgetfulness by then, just so we can stay sane.
I think I'll be ready for that twisted sanity.
An Introduction.
This is where the sidewalk ends, where conventional stops and eccentric begins. It won't always be direct, but it will always be honest and original.
Welcome.
Welcome.
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