I am about to become the sole patron at the TeaSource on a cold, windy Friday night. From just a few yards down the sidewalk, a movie house expels crowds of couples at various stages of dating, families catching the latest Pixar animation, teenagers squawking in little flocks that quickly form, break apart, and just as quickly gather again.
Here I am, sitting alone at a side table in this quiet, warm little tea shop. Somber music plays faintly over the room. A college-aged shop girl ignores me from behind the counter. Or is she wondering what the hell I am doing here on a Friday night, the only customer that remains? This is how I choose to live my life, peacefully, cognizant, introspective, and solitary. There it is, that word that holds such allure for me; the solitarian.
A second employee appears. They rotate taking their breaks in the back room or skirting outside with a cell phone held to the ear. This new tea-girl packs up boxes for catalog orders. She pours looseleaf tea into tinfoil bags, seals them, slaps labels onto boxes, all of the while chewing on her gum and sniffling. Tea powder gets in the nasal passages, causes a tickle you can’t scratch.
People shuffle past the shop window, shoulders hunched against the wind. Maybe it is the cold wind outside, or the fact that I am alone in a teashop on a Friday night, but the Feist song playing over the speakers has never sounded so solemn. I think of going home and playing her CD in its entirety, but I know that it won’t hold the same spell for me that it does here, in a warmly lit shop on Cleveland Avenue on a Friday night, out among people, watching them without interacting.
New customers arrive, families coming out of the cold for a cup of non-caffeinated herbal teas and lemon cakes for their children, newlyweds with their magazines or laptops, occasionally looking dejectedly at one another.
I eavesdrop on a young couple pitched forward on their chairs. It must be their first date; I can tell by how interested and happy they are with one another. I am glad that I can still feel happiness for them, being a divorcee that could instead be thinking jadedly of their naïveté. I feel their optimism warming the back of my neck. It wasn't so long ago that I felt the same thing, right? I feel it again through them.
I stay until the customers slowly filter out, and I’m once again the last customer. It’s time to close up shop, to finish my writing, but I want to end with something else, anything besides what is directly in front of me. I want to block out music in the teashop with the rhythm of words. Words that ring with their own music on the tongue, the harmony of vowels, the sharp staccato of consonants.
What do I see? Foothills flicker in the light of a campfire. Orange and yellow shadows play like silent films on the sand and brush. Burning logs collapse upon themselves, letting loose a spray of sparks like a burst of confetti falling skyward.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Sunday, August 30, 2009
"The Song Is You" by Arthur Phillips
I was looking for an entertaining read from a modern writer, something with some hype around it, and maybe a love story from a man's point of view. This one fit the profile, and was about inrequited love; even better.
Though it involved a middle-aged man and the mutual attraction with an Irish vocalist/songwriter on the brink of making it big, I think it was really about a man and his love for music. The way it takes just the right song at the right moment to bring out the strongest flavors of life. The way songs of our past can be a more potent memoir than photographs or diaries could ever be. The way "shuffle" on an iPod can be a direct line of communication with the fates.
It was good, not great. I found myself frequently being hit over the head with Phillips's wit, kind of like I felt with Wilde. I liked how well he showed us the passion and perfection-seeking of the audiophile. It also explored the pursuit of art under commercial influences. Our hunger for acceptance and praise, the need for accolades, but not at any price.
Saturday, August 22, 2009
What the Cicadas Showed Me
Listen to those Cicadas wailing away. There’s something distinctly electronic in their song, something strung out taut like a piano string wound too tight, something otherworldly. It is as though the circuitry of the planet is rewiring itself in preparation for the change of winter, only there is a cross-circuit somewhere nearby, a blip in the grid and the cicadas sound the alarm.
You become aware, through certain words, certain thoughts tuned to just the right frequency, that there is a thin curtain concealing mysteries from you and everyone else. Once in a great while, you catch a mere glimpse of what lies behind, but just enough to know that it is there. Despite the split second exposure of this secret, you know with absolute certainty of its substance, its fact, its truth, but how can you be so confident? Maybe within the brain there is a buried sensitivity, a sensory gland that you have done everything in your power to turn off, but at certain times, something triggers it. Like the sound of cicadas. Synapses fire up, microscopic lightning bolts light up the darkness of your subconscious: “Oh yeah. That’s right. I remember now.”
Then it’s gone. A soothing voice like that of a loving parent leaning over the bars of your crib says, “Ssssshhhh. It’s only cicadas. It’s late summer, and fall is coming. That’s all. You’ve heard them thirty seven times now, remember? Go to sleep. Fall back to sleep now…”
But the curtain stirs restlessly now, and what lies behind peeks out with increased frequency. You wait with impatient excitement for the curtain to be drawn and the show to begin.
You become aware, through certain words, certain thoughts tuned to just the right frequency, that there is a thin curtain concealing mysteries from you and everyone else. Once in a great while, you catch a mere glimpse of what lies behind, but just enough to know that it is there. Despite the split second exposure of this secret, you know with absolute certainty of its substance, its fact, its truth, but how can you be so confident? Maybe within the brain there is a buried sensitivity, a sensory gland that you have done everything in your power to turn off, but at certain times, something triggers it. Like the sound of cicadas. Synapses fire up, microscopic lightning bolts light up the darkness of your subconscious: “Oh yeah. That’s right. I remember now.”
Then it’s gone. A soothing voice like that of a loving parent leaning over the bars of your crib says, “Ssssshhhh. It’s only cicadas. It’s late summer, and fall is coming. That’s all. You’ve heard them thirty seven times now, remember? Go to sleep. Fall back to sleep now…”
But the curtain stirs restlessly now, and what lies behind peeks out with increased frequency. You wait with impatient excitement for the curtain to be drawn and the show to begin.
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Dream With Eyes Awake
There was this guy once who could begin to dream while he was still awake. He would stare at a certain spot in the room with unfocused eyes, begin breathing deep and regular, and then wait for the curtain to fall. Or rise, depending on which side you’re standing on. Once his thoughts took the form of images that began moving on their own, it was all he could do to hold back his excitement and maintain the balance of dream and wakefulness, like cupping his hand around a sputtering flame to shed just enough light on his subconscious.
What did he dream about in those moments between hemispheres? He dreamt of the cars he had stolen in his youth, submerged at the bottom of a lake after the wild rides across town had come to an end. He dreamt of beachfront mansions flooded by the tide, hallways filling with sand, water crashing at the base of a staircase, escape routes cut off, the foundation sliding into the sea. He dreamt of fishing in pools of water so clear that he could see the shadows of fish curling among the rocks, the glint of green scales. The line tugged as he caught a big one, but as he dragged it to shore he saw that the fish had long been dead.
All the while he dreamt, his eyes were open, scanning back and forth, up and down, fingertips twitching until, without reason, his eyes stopped their rhythmic movement and drew their focus back to the room at hand. He would start to laugh, or look sad, or still afraid as the dream wavered like drapes in an open window, dissolve away like cotton candy on the tongue.
What did he dream about in those moments between hemispheres? He dreamt of the cars he had stolen in his youth, submerged at the bottom of a lake after the wild rides across town had come to an end. He dreamt of beachfront mansions flooded by the tide, hallways filling with sand, water crashing at the base of a staircase, escape routes cut off, the foundation sliding into the sea. He dreamt of fishing in pools of water so clear that he could see the shadows of fish curling among the rocks, the glint of green scales. The line tugged as he caught a big one, but as he dragged it to shore he saw that the fish had long been dead.
All the while he dreamt, his eyes were open, scanning back and forth, up and down, fingertips twitching until, without reason, his eyes stopped their rhythmic movement and drew their focus back to the room at hand. He would start to laugh, or look sad, or still afraid as the dream wavered like drapes in an open window, dissolve away like cotton candy on the tongue.
Sunday, August 02, 2009
Look What The Tide Brought In
The bum washed up on shore on a beautiful May morning, seaweed chained to his legs, a bottle of bourbon half drunk in his pocket, no message inside. Was his death a message to the town? The bay was a killer, and she was just getting warmed up for summer, waiting to claim unwary swimmers, fisherman that stayed out in the storms, the occasional suicide from a Bay Bridge leap. The bum was her calling card that the drowning season was just getting in gear.
The bum smelled badly. The woman who had discovered the body, taking her dog for an early morning jog, held her shirt-sleeve up to her nose and mouth when she brought over the police for introductions. Unwashed, sweaty, oily, and that was back when he was alive. The police recognized him, remembered his slight lisp, bags under his eyes, the way he wiped his nose nervously on a sleeve when children would point him out to their mothers. The bay had bathed him, but that didn’t help the smell. Instead of the stink of life it was the stink of death, the simple fact of how quickly we become so much meat the moment the spirit leaves the body.
They photographed, bagged and tagged him while the sun glinted off the water, and a cool breeze blew leeward. Seagulls dipped and weaved over the waves. Teenagers clambered into sailboats for a morning lesson, ropes clanging against the rigging like bells.
The bum smelled badly. The woman who had discovered the body, taking her dog for an early morning jog, held her shirt-sleeve up to her nose and mouth when she brought over the police for introductions. Unwashed, sweaty, oily, and that was back when he was alive. The police recognized him, remembered his slight lisp, bags under his eyes, the way he wiped his nose nervously on a sleeve when children would point him out to their mothers. The bay had bathed him, but that didn’t help the smell. Instead of the stink of life it was the stink of death, the simple fact of how quickly we become so much meat the moment the spirit leaves the body.
They photographed, bagged and tagged him while the sun glinted off the water, and a cool breeze blew leeward. Seagulls dipped and weaved over the waves. Teenagers clambered into sailboats for a morning lesson, ropes clanging against the rigging like bells.
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Chelsea's Violin
He was discharged from the army after the battle of Amiens, where he’d been hit by a shell on a Frenchman’s pockmarked dairy field. He left his leg beside a creek that looked like it would have been good for brook trout. What happened to brook trout during a war? he wondered from a hospital bed to pass the time. They sent him back home to Dover, England. His aunt had passed while he was at the Front, so now he returned to an empty cottage by the coast.
The quiet of the cottage wears on his nerves, as does the drone of fighter planes patrolling high above the cliffs of Dover at night. He tries to labor in the vegetable garden outside, but the lack of leg leaves him off-kilter. He waits by the fence for someone to come by, a chance to say hello. Scarved old ladies on their way to market. Trucks loaded with bleating sheep. After a while, a young woman comes by on her bicycle and smiles to him. He watches for her each morning but sees her only on Tuesdays, pedaling by with a violin case strung over her shoulder. He finds excuses to be by the fence, and one morning he asks her name and about the violin case.
“It’s actually a viola. Slightly bigger than a violin, a deeper sound.”
“They’re all just fiddles to me,” he jokes. “Would you play for me sometime?”
“I can’t,” she shakes her head. “It wouldn’t be proper.”
“Bollocks with proper. During these times?”
“Precisely during these times,” she says. She pulls her wrap around her shoulders, gives him a nod good-day and pedals away.
Maybe she feels as though she behaved too harshly to the maimed solider, for the next week she stops along the fence to play some notes for him, still sitting on her bicycle seat. She plays again the next week from within the garden gate, and she eventually joins him inside for tea in his aunt’s parlor. Their Tuesdays form a regular pattern where Chelsea joins him for a cup of tea and to play for him the latest pieces that she has been practicing. Also in the parlor is an old upright piano that has fallen out of tune. He says he could get a boy to come tune it if she would play. She says she can’t play, so there’s no use.
He almost loves watching her preparations as much as he loves the sound of the viola. He gazes on the curves and rich colors of the varnished wood so delicate that it could easily crush beneath his hands, but its beauty is such that he is compelled to corral his strength. He cannot refrain from running his fingertips along the grain. Its bridge is crooked, years of tension bending it forward. Rosin on the bow. The body cupped below her chin, then the stroking of the bow across the strings. Vibration deep in her belly. The moan of diminished F sharp, the cry of high C, the wavering vibrato along her neck.
The quiet of the cottage wears on his nerves, as does the drone of fighter planes patrolling high above the cliffs of Dover at night. He tries to labor in the vegetable garden outside, but the lack of leg leaves him off-kilter. He waits by the fence for someone to come by, a chance to say hello. Scarved old ladies on their way to market. Trucks loaded with bleating sheep. After a while, a young woman comes by on her bicycle and smiles to him. He watches for her each morning but sees her only on Tuesdays, pedaling by with a violin case strung over her shoulder. He finds excuses to be by the fence, and one morning he asks her name and about the violin case.
“It’s actually a viola. Slightly bigger than a violin, a deeper sound.”
“They’re all just fiddles to me,” he jokes. “Would you play for me sometime?”
“I can’t,” she shakes her head. “It wouldn’t be proper.”
“Bollocks with proper. During these times?”
“Precisely during these times,” she says. She pulls her wrap around her shoulders, gives him a nod good-day and pedals away.
Maybe she feels as though she behaved too harshly to the maimed solider, for the next week she stops along the fence to play some notes for him, still sitting on her bicycle seat. She plays again the next week from within the garden gate, and she eventually joins him inside for tea in his aunt’s parlor. Their Tuesdays form a regular pattern where Chelsea joins him for a cup of tea and to play for him the latest pieces that she has been practicing. Also in the parlor is an old upright piano that has fallen out of tune. He says he could get a boy to come tune it if she would play. She says she can’t play, so there’s no use.
He almost loves watching her preparations as much as he loves the sound of the viola. He gazes on the curves and rich colors of the varnished wood so delicate that it could easily crush beneath his hands, but its beauty is such that he is compelled to corral his strength. He cannot refrain from running his fingertips along the grain. Its bridge is crooked, years of tension bending it forward. Rosin on the bow. The body cupped below her chin, then the stroking of the bow across the strings. Vibration deep in her belly. The moan of diminished F sharp, the cry of high C, the wavering vibrato along her neck.
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Waiting for Something to Happen
It is Friday night and I’m sitting in the tea shop with my laptop and trying to think of something to write. At this point, I would even settle for something to retool from the thousand-plus pages of my journal, but nothing appeals to me. Hundreds of possibilities, but they are all dead to me.
There’s nothing in my head, either. How could I be so empty? I’m calm and relaxed in the humid air of mid June. My limbs are heavy after having been worked to exhaustion during my morning chores around the house. What am I saying; I did a load of laundry and unloaded the dishwasher.
Maybe I don’t want to write because I have found myself in one of those down times, caught in a doldrum at sea with all of my sails whithering on the mast. I don’t want to write. Reading is fine, movies better. Even staring off into space or at the people filing down the sidewalk is better than writing. I soak everything up but give nothing back. How long will this last? Writing teachers say I should respect this time of incubation, or is it a convenient rationale for laziness? I don’t know, I won’t worry about it. I’m reading the Pen/O. Henry Prize stories of 2009. I’m watching Revoltionary Road and True Blood. I’m watching the leaves of the crab apple tree in my back yard turn yellow and fall to the ground with apple scab. I’m waiting for something to happen.
There’s nothing in my head, either. How could I be so empty? I’m calm and relaxed in the humid air of mid June. My limbs are heavy after having been worked to exhaustion during my morning chores around the house. What am I saying; I did a load of laundry and unloaded the dishwasher.
Maybe I don’t want to write because I have found myself in one of those down times, caught in a doldrum at sea with all of my sails whithering on the mast. I don’t want to write. Reading is fine, movies better. Even staring off into space or at the people filing down the sidewalk is better than writing. I soak everything up but give nothing back. How long will this last? Writing teachers say I should respect this time of incubation, or is it a convenient rationale for laziness? I don’t know, I won’t worry about it. I’m reading the Pen/O. Henry Prize stories of 2009. I’m watching Revoltionary Road and True Blood. I’m watching the leaves of the crab apple tree in my back yard turn yellow and fall to the ground with apple scab. I’m waiting for something to happen.
Sunday, June 07, 2009
Stranger at the Door
If I was to draw a character right now, and I mean bring him right through the front door and into the living room, who would he be? Let’s choose a villain. A man of moderate height, stocky, with a flattened nose like a boxer. Coarse whiskers grizzled black and gray. He wears a thick sweater of itchy wool the color of coal. Faded jeans. Black work boots. He looks like he works on a ship. The ledge of his brow darkens his eyes. He comes into the room, stomps the snow off his boots and onto my hardwood floors. He’s got a few flakes of snow in his hair that start to melt the moment he steps inside.
“What’s your name?” I ask.
“Does it matter?”
“Yeah, I think it does. It helps me see you as real.”
“Real, huh? I’m talking to you right now. Doesn’t that make me real?”
“That helps. Helps a lot, but give me your name. Seriously.”
“Okay, it’s Kurt.”
“Interesting.”
“Why do you say that?” he asks. “Is it because it is the name of your childhood friend, the bad kid down the street who latched onto you that one summer? Kurt the bully.”
“Hey now, that’s not fair,” I reply, a little unsettled. “I’m the writer here. I get to know everything about you, but you’re not supposed to know about me. How did you know about him?”
“Because I come from the same place as your memories of Kurt. Kurt and I are from the same neighborhood, so to speak. I know all about him, how you used to play boot hockey at Meadow Lake rink, and about how he took a shit over the side of the boards once. You looked over the boards. It was steaming in the snow.”
“Gross! I don’t want to think about that.”
“And remember how he told you he walked in on his mom and dad having sex once? How did that go exactly? She was standing in front of him with her robe opened. Or was it that she was giving him a blowjob? That’s right, you learned the word blow job from Kurt. When you first heard it, you thought it must be like a “snow job,” where you rub snow in somebody’s face, so a blow job must be when you pin somebody down and blow in their face.” He snickers.
“Okay, I’ve had about enough of that. Are you him, only older now?”
“No. Kurt was just a troubled kid, a bad influence that your parents didn’t want hanging around. I’m a little more damaged than he was, a little more dangerous. I’ve still got some good in me, but something happened that made me turn.”
“Something about your sister?” I ask.
“Or was it my wife? Or did I lose a child? I don’t know, you tell me. You’re the writer.”
“You watched one of your buddies drown on a fishing boat in Alaska,” I decide. “What’s your favorite color?”
“Silver. It was the color of my dad’s fishing boat, the color of a Mercedes Benz, the color of bullets that kill werewolves, the color of the coins that bought chocolate ice cream cones for me and my big sister.”
“So we’re back to your older sister.”
He looks at me pensively. “Leave her alone, okay?”
“Don’t worry, she’s still around. But I think we have to do something with her. You know; plot-wise. But let’s get back to your buddy drowning in Alaska. Was it an accident?”
“Yeah,” he answers.
“Good, I don’t want this to be some TV drama about a murder on rough seas. So if it was an accident, what’s the problem?”
“It was my fault. I let the line go. It snapped tight, caught him by the legs, swept him overboard. I even had him by the arm for a few seconds, but my hands were slick with chum. He slipped away.”
“Sorry. So how does guilt turn you into a villain?”
“It wasn’t what happened on the boat. It was what came afterwards, when I got on land.”
We continued talking like this, sitting across from each other at the kitchen table. I offered him tea, but he took coffee; strong, black, with a sprinkle of cocoa powder in it. The cocoa powder showed me that there was still a soft spot inside of him, and that he did not want to degrade into some tough guy, thug stereotype. We went back and forth until it got late, trying to figure out what had happened with him before finding his way to my house. Had he run into some trouble while hitching down from Alaska? Did he have a drinking problem, beat up a woman, or did he somehow get wrapped up in his older sister’s problems? He wanted to turn his life around; I could see that, but I could also see him fighting the compulsion to knock me unconscious, steal my ATM card and my car keys and go on the run.
For my own safety, I had to find a part for him, and fast. Trouble was, I had lied when I told him that I was not going to kill off his sister. She was already dead, and he had something to do with it. I had no proof of any of this, and I hadn’t written about any of it yet, but I saw it the moment he walked through the door and stomped snow all over my hardwood floors. To figure it out, I had to get him to tell me. It was a part of the process.
“What’s your name?” I ask.
“Does it matter?”
“Yeah, I think it does. It helps me see you as real.”
“Real, huh? I’m talking to you right now. Doesn’t that make me real?”
“That helps. Helps a lot, but give me your name. Seriously.”
“Okay, it’s Kurt.”
“Interesting.”
“Why do you say that?” he asks. “Is it because it is the name of your childhood friend, the bad kid down the street who latched onto you that one summer? Kurt the bully.”
“Hey now, that’s not fair,” I reply, a little unsettled. “I’m the writer here. I get to know everything about you, but you’re not supposed to know about me. How did you know about him?”
“Because I come from the same place as your memories of Kurt. Kurt and I are from the same neighborhood, so to speak. I know all about him, how you used to play boot hockey at Meadow Lake rink, and about how he took a shit over the side of the boards once. You looked over the boards. It was steaming in the snow.”
“Gross! I don’t want to think about that.”
“And remember how he told you he walked in on his mom and dad having sex once? How did that go exactly? She was standing in front of him with her robe opened. Or was it that she was giving him a blowjob? That’s right, you learned the word blow job from Kurt. When you first heard it, you thought it must be like a “snow job,” where you rub snow in somebody’s face, so a blow job must be when you pin somebody down and blow in their face.” He snickers.
“Okay, I’ve had about enough of that. Are you him, only older now?”
“No. Kurt was just a troubled kid, a bad influence that your parents didn’t want hanging around. I’m a little more damaged than he was, a little more dangerous. I’ve still got some good in me, but something happened that made me turn.”
“Something about your sister?” I ask.
“Or was it my wife? Or did I lose a child? I don’t know, you tell me. You’re the writer.”
“You watched one of your buddies drown on a fishing boat in Alaska,” I decide. “What’s your favorite color?”
“Silver. It was the color of my dad’s fishing boat, the color of a Mercedes Benz, the color of bullets that kill werewolves, the color of the coins that bought chocolate ice cream cones for me and my big sister.”
“So we’re back to your older sister.”
He looks at me pensively. “Leave her alone, okay?”
“Don’t worry, she’s still around. But I think we have to do something with her. You know; plot-wise. But let’s get back to your buddy drowning in Alaska. Was it an accident?”
“Yeah,” he answers.
“Good, I don’t want this to be some TV drama about a murder on rough seas. So if it was an accident, what’s the problem?”
“It was my fault. I let the line go. It snapped tight, caught him by the legs, swept him overboard. I even had him by the arm for a few seconds, but my hands were slick with chum. He slipped away.”
“Sorry. So how does guilt turn you into a villain?”
“It wasn’t what happened on the boat. It was what came afterwards, when I got on land.”
We continued talking like this, sitting across from each other at the kitchen table. I offered him tea, but he took coffee; strong, black, with a sprinkle of cocoa powder in it. The cocoa powder showed me that there was still a soft spot inside of him, and that he did not want to degrade into some tough guy, thug stereotype. We went back and forth until it got late, trying to figure out what had happened with him before finding his way to my house. Had he run into some trouble while hitching down from Alaska? Did he have a drinking problem, beat up a woman, or did he somehow get wrapped up in his older sister’s problems? He wanted to turn his life around; I could see that, but I could also see him fighting the compulsion to knock me unconscious, steal my ATM card and my car keys and go on the run.
For my own safety, I had to find a part for him, and fast. Trouble was, I had lied when I told him that I was not going to kill off his sister. She was already dead, and he had something to do with it. I had no proof of any of this, and I hadn’t written about any of it yet, but I saw it the moment he walked through the door and stomped snow all over my hardwood floors. To figure it out, I had to get him to tell me. It was a part of the process.
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Death and Cats
A guy at work recently experienced the unfortunate loss of his mom, who died of cancer after a year-long series of misdiagnoses, chemotherapy, and pain management. “Pain management” sounds so abstract and antiseptic. We are not in the doctor’s office now, so let’s drop this façade of decorum and speak truly. It is more accurate to say “…a year of doctors making mistakes, of injecting poison into her body, of puking out her guts and watching herself slowly waste away in the mirror until becoming unrecognizable.” In the end, we greedily take the pills that deliver us from pain, even at the cost of losing our awareness. For most of us, it is even better to lose that awareness, because all thoughts are focused on the fact that death is real and it has finally arrived. It is no longer a concept, and we can’t stop wondering what is going to happen the moment the lights go out.
Westerners don’t deal with death gracefully, as we know. Our culture is wired more towards the here and now, and any thoughts about when we are gone gravitate immediately to the lives of our children, and often times for some odd reason, to how high their taxes are going to be. Spirituality is left to the mysterious meetings my neighbors and coworkers attend in dark, musty churches around the metro. I don’t know what they talk about in there--aside from the odd Christmas service, I have never attended church--but whatever is said, it doesn’t appear to prepare us to confront, or better yet “embrace,” our mortality.
Anyway, this is getting way heavier than I intended. I meant to tell you about the more curious episode of my coworker’s Mom and her pet cats. It was her wish that when she dies, her cats get put down. Upon hearing this, my first thought flashed to the ancient Hindu practice of the recently widowed wife leaping into her husband’s funeral pyre to accompany him into the afterlife. Yeah, that was a real thing, and you can read up about Sati on Wikipedia.
Why did his Mom want the cats put down? Probably to bring something loved and familiar with her into the unknown. If she didn’t believe in the afterlife, then maybe she was afraid nobody would take care of the cats and they would suffer. She knew that her surviving husband never liked cats.
During her last days, the kids tried to talk her out of it. There were other options, like the humane society and pet adoption. It raised ethical questions, particularly for those of us who consider an animal’s life as precious as human life. They were unable to change her mind.
The mom died. Debates started among the family. Emails shot back and forth about honoring their mother’s wish or finding a home for the cats.
The story gets fuzzy here, but there was some kind of miscommunication among the family members that voted to save the cats versus those that wanted to carry out their mother’s wish. My coworker’s brother was particularly passionate about honoring his mother’s memory. I think a decision had been reached to save the cats, but my coworker and his brother had not yet heard on the day they showed up at her house to gather up the cats. When they get to the house, the smarter of the two cats is tucked away behind the furnace. The dumber of the two was lying on the floor, watching these two men trying to catch the other cat. The brothers knew that if they put the dumber cat into a carrier first, the other cat would know something was up and would never come out. But like I said, it was a smart cat and already seemed to know what was going on.
So they caught the cats, brought them to the vet, and had them put down. I know, it is a sad ending. I was rooting for the cats too. I think it is wrong to proclaim a death sentence to a loved pet when we die, but I also know there’s enough fuel here to debate either side. Debates about right and wrong are not my thing. Instead what intrigues me about this is the parallel with Cancer coming out of nowhere, chasing after the mother during the months of her treatment, and finally putting her down. Maybe the brother that was passionate about honoring her memory found some kind of comfort in assuming the role of grim reaper and reenacting the ruthlessness of mortality.
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Soft or Hard G
I actually wrote this a couple of years ago, but it fits with my recent Tea theme:
She was brewing a pot of green tea with mango behind the counter when Eric walked into the tea shop. Eric of the Earl Grey White Tip, Eric of the soft brown eyes and books tucked under his arm like "Madam Bovary" or "Pride and Prejudice" or "Interview with the Vampire." Eric of the occasional female friend that none of the girls behind the counter could figure out if he was married to, dating, or divorcing, but the woman had not been with him for the past few months.
She hurried to get the green tea brewed for the other customer so she could move on to Eric. She felt a stirring in her body as she prepared the tea with a honed awareness of Eric standing next in line, a stirring not unlike the warm water in the pot, the swirl of green tea leaves and yellow flakes of mango, the sensuous smells carried on the curls of steam. As she watched the slow unfurling of the leaves in the hot water, she remembered that this motion was called the “agony of the leaves.”
Finally, she finished with her customer and he stepped up to the counter. She did her best to sound composed, "Good morning, would you like the usual Earl Grey with White Tip?"
Eric scanned the board for today’s specials. "How about Rose Congou. Or is it pronounced Conjou? Is the G soft or hard?"
Why was the pronunciation of the soft or hard G the most erotic experience she had had in weeks? She felt her cheeks burning as she considered various responses: "You can have it either soft or hard, depending on your mood," or "The G is hard, like orgasm." But instead she replied, "It depends, I hear it pronounced both ways. I think the owner says "Congou" with a hard G.”
"I'll have a pot of that, and a ginger cookie, or should I say GinGer?" Eric said, smiling. She laughed a little too loudly and tipped over the canister of tea, dried rose petals and dark leaves spilling across the counter. As she wiped them off with the palm of her hand, she thought about knocking everything off of the counter in one passionate motion, hopping up and pulling him atop her, “Take me here, take me now!” But instead, she only managed a chipper, “Anything else for you today?”
“No thanks,” he replied, and she punched his frequent drinker’s card. One more and he’d get a freebie.
She hurried to get the green tea brewed for the other customer so she could move on to Eric. She felt a stirring in her body as she prepared the tea with a honed awareness of Eric standing next in line, a stirring not unlike the warm water in the pot, the swirl of green tea leaves and yellow flakes of mango, the sensuous smells carried on the curls of steam. As she watched the slow unfurling of the leaves in the hot water, she remembered that this motion was called the “agony of the leaves.”
Finally, she finished with her customer and he stepped up to the counter. She did her best to sound composed, "Good morning, would you like the usual Earl Grey with White Tip?"
Eric scanned the board for today’s specials. "How about Rose Congou. Or is it pronounced Conjou? Is the G soft or hard?"
Why was the pronunciation of the soft or hard G the most erotic experience she had had in weeks? She felt her cheeks burning as she considered various responses: "You can have it either soft or hard, depending on your mood," or "The G is hard, like orgasm." But instead she replied, "It depends, I hear it pronounced both ways. I think the owner says "Congou" with a hard G.”
"I'll have a pot of that, and a ginger cookie, or should I say GinGer?" Eric said, smiling. She laughed a little too loudly and tipped over the canister of tea, dried rose petals and dark leaves spilling across the counter. As she wiped them off with the palm of her hand, she thought about knocking everything off of the counter in one passionate motion, hopping up and pulling him atop her, “Take me here, take me now!” But instead, she only managed a chipper, “Anything else for you today?”
“No thanks,” he replied, and she punched his frequent drinker’s card. One more and he’d get a freebie.
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Molly on the Far Shore
A young woman wore a summer dress and danced in the sun on the far side of the river. Her name was Molly, a redheaded Irish girl with green, green eyes like pale green tea. Her large family of redheaded siblings and redheaded parents and aunts and uncles picnicked on a nearby knoll. On the other side of the river, a young boy stood on a sandbar and watched her dance. Even from across the water, he could see the green of her eyes and her red, red hair. He concentrated on ways to get across; surely he could beat the currents, he thought. Maybe with enough longing, he could overlook the fact that he never learned to swim. Maybe he could hold open his coat like sails and catch a strong wind gusting down the valley. He watched her twirl and felt his spirit grow light enough to lift him up, but his feet remained anchored to the shore. He scrambled twenty yards up the shoreline to a small boat pulled onto the sand, tied to a willow tree. He fumbled with the rope, but he couldn’t figure out the secrets of the knot.
A young boy sat in a wooden boat tied to a tree. Molly danced on the far shore.
A young boy sat in a wooden boat tied to a tree. Molly danced on the far shore.
Monday, May 11, 2009
Giving Dad a Shave
William was sitting on his mother’s lap, leaning back into the crook of her shoulder while the family watched television, only his father wasn’t looking at the screen. He was scowling at William. “Boy, you’re eleven now. You shouldn’t still be sitting in your Momma’s lap.”
“Leave the boy alone,” she said. “You’re still my baby, aren’t you?” she teased, hugging him close, but William started to squirm away as he watched his father. He had always been intimidated by the cigar smoking, gruff man, but now he studied him closer. He felt that inevitable tug as a boy starts to cross the threshold of boy to man, the trepidation of leaving the protective wing of his mom, and yet drawn to those masculine instincts just starting to form. He noted the way his father chewed on the cigar at the corner of his mouth, the casual tilt of the whiskey glass in his hand. That night he heard his mother and father arguing in their room. William tucked his head under the pillow, buried himself beneath the sheets and tried to become invisible.
Each night his father came home from work, his mother needed to give William a push to go hug him. His whiskers scratched the boy’s cheek. When he slipped off his shoes, his black stocking feet stank. William had the job of putting his shoes in the closet, and hanging his father’s hat on a peg. He ran his fingers over the felt brim, smoothed the brown feather tucked into the sweat stained band.
He turned twelve that summer, the last summer vacation before he would have to start working, and he spent his days secretly trailing after his father from twenty yards back, to and from the plant, in the evenings when he’d stumble out of the bars, on the weekends when he would run his errands. He adopted the way his father would lean against a wall or a tree with one leg cross over the other and propped on a toe. He carried change in his pockets and jingled the coins when he’d walk down the sidewalk. He learned to spit into the sand without getting any on his chin. He substituted a toothpick for the cigar and sucked on it all day, shifting it from one side to the other using only his mouth.
Now when his dad came home from work, there were no more hugs, but his dad grinned proudly, ruffled the boy’s hair, slapped him on the shoulder and told him to go get him a glass of whiskey, “two fingers high, no ice. And no sipping,” he chided, shaking a finger at his son. When the boy returned with the glass, he said, “Okay, you can have a little sip,” as though relenting, but William hadn’t asked. He took a small taste anyway, just enough to wet his lips. It burned.
That weekend, he tailed his father as he went on another of his errands, this time to the barber shop for a cut and shave. William’s mom still cut his hair, but something about the barber shop drew him. He had only been there once a few years ago, but remembered the checkered tile floor, the smell of pipes and cigars, and a baseball game playing on the radio. His dad never wanted him to come along, for some reason, so he followed him in secret and waited from behind a tree across the street. After twenty minutes, his dad came out with a clean shave, trimmed hair, and his arm slung around the barber’s sister. They disappeared up the stairs leading to a small apartment above the shop. The blinds dropped shut. Half an hour later, his father came slinking out of the building and around the coiled barber pole and swaggered toward home.
Back at the dinner table, he watched this man accept food from his mom without a hint of guilt or regret, watched him tell her the pork was overcooked and the peas too cold. The next time he announced that he was going for a cut and a shave, William followed. Once again, his father came out of the shop with the barber’s sister and disappeared upstairs to the apartment. William balled up all of the fury a boy of twelve can muster, ran into the barber shop, grabbed the straight razor off the sink, and stomped up the stairs with a man’s bearing instead of a boy’s. He slashed his father forty times and left the barber’s sister untouched but soaked in the blood of his father. “That’s for momma. It’s you that was never good enough.” He dropped the razor, walked out of the apartment, and disappeared into the streets.
“Leave the boy alone,” she said. “You’re still my baby, aren’t you?” she teased, hugging him close, but William started to squirm away as he watched his father. He had always been intimidated by the cigar smoking, gruff man, but now he studied him closer. He felt that inevitable tug as a boy starts to cross the threshold of boy to man, the trepidation of leaving the protective wing of his mom, and yet drawn to those masculine instincts just starting to form. He noted the way his father chewed on the cigar at the corner of his mouth, the casual tilt of the whiskey glass in his hand. That night he heard his mother and father arguing in their room. William tucked his head under the pillow, buried himself beneath the sheets and tried to become invisible.
Each night his father came home from work, his mother needed to give William a push to go hug him. His whiskers scratched the boy’s cheek. When he slipped off his shoes, his black stocking feet stank. William had the job of putting his shoes in the closet, and hanging his father’s hat on a peg. He ran his fingers over the felt brim, smoothed the brown feather tucked into the sweat stained band.
He turned twelve that summer, the last summer vacation before he would have to start working, and he spent his days secretly trailing after his father from twenty yards back, to and from the plant, in the evenings when he’d stumble out of the bars, on the weekends when he would run his errands. He adopted the way his father would lean against a wall or a tree with one leg cross over the other and propped on a toe. He carried change in his pockets and jingled the coins when he’d walk down the sidewalk. He learned to spit into the sand without getting any on his chin. He substituted a toothpick for the cigar and sucked on it all day, shifting it from one side to the other using only his mouth.
Now when his dad came home from work, there were no more hugs, but his dad grinned proudly, ruffled the boy’s hair, slapped him on the shoulder and told him to go get him a glass of whiskey, “two fingers high, no ice. And no sipping,” he chided, shaking a finger at his son. When the boy returned with the glass, he said, “Okay, you can have a little sip,” as though relenting, but William hadn’t asked. He took a small taste anyway, just enough to wet his lips. It burned.
That weekend, he tailed his father as he went on another of his errands, this time to the barber shop for a cut and shave. William’s mom still cut his hair, but something about the barber shop drew him. He had only been there once a few years ago, but remembered the checkered tile floor, the smell of pipes and cigars, and a baseball game playing on the radio. His dad never wanted him to come along, for some reason, so he followed him in secret and waited from behind a tree across the street. After twenty minutes, his dad came out with a clean shave, trimmed hair, and his arm slung around the barber’s sister. They disappeared up the stairs leading to a small apartment above the shop. The blinds dropped shut. Half an hour later, his father came slinking out of the building and around the coiled barber pole and swaggered toward home.
Back at the dinner table, he watched this man accept food from his mom without a hint of guilt or regret, watched him tell her the pork was overcooked and the peas too cold. The next time he announced that he was going for a cut and a shave, William followed. Once again, his father came out of the shop with the barber’s sister and disappeared upstairs to the apartment. William balled up all of the fury a boy of twelve can muster, ran into the barber shop, grabbed the straight razor off the sink, and stomped up the stairs with a man’s bearing instead of a boy’s. He slashed his father forty times and left the barber’s sister untouched but soaked in the blood of his father. “That’s for momma. It’s you that was never good enough.” He dropped the razor, walked out of the apartment, and disappeared into the streets.
Sunday, May 03, 2009
Divine the Right Tea
Two tea girls work behind the counter in a nearly empty store. It is a beautiful Spring day. Who would want to be inside, drinking a hot cup of tea? Besides me. I’m here, drinking tea, thinking, writing. The tea girls are conscious of me, the sole customer sitting at a table and tapping away on a laptop. They seem to know that I'm writing about them, that maybe at this moment they are becoming characters in a story, novel, or poem. As they wipe down the counter, they laugh and whisper to each other, stealing glances to see if I’m watching. One of them laughs as she wipes the counter, “Here’s me cleaning. I wonder if I’ll become a Grecian maid wiping down the sculptures in a garden.” How self-conscious they must feel, like at a family gathering when somebody pulls out a video recorder. Or is it fun? I wouldn’t know. I’m usually on this side of the keyboard, this side of the camera, of the action, of the friends and family and lovers. I don’t like to be the subject of anything.
Steam rises from the pots of water, creating clouds of mist that they have to swim through. Oh come on; this begs to be captured in art, in poetry, but I’ll resist. I have never been good at poetry anyway. I am here to think about my next short story, the Tea House. Research, so to speak. What are the questions customers ask? What kind of people wander in off the sidewalk without a clue of what they want, while others march in with an order scribbled on lined notepaper? I’ve brought along my writing tools; post-it pads and bright yellow file folders to storyboard the characters and conflicts, jot down the many blends of tea that can be entwined into subplots as metaphors. How much can you tell about a character by the kind of tea they drink?
Most customers have no clue what they are looking for, other than a specific something or other that they can’t seem to describe without sweeping generalizations. “I had this great cup of tea at a restaurant once, you know, a Chinese restaurant, or was it Mongolian? something sweet? kind of flowery? or grassy? with a kind of astringent aftertaste?”
Somehow the tea girls divine what they are looking for, or make something up that sounds convincing. Some people just want to be assured and guided, and when she holds open a container for the customer to study and smell the leaves, they latch onto it right away: “Yes, that looks right. I’m betting that’s the one.” Others will never be satisfied, almost like they are intent on finding reasons why “no, that’s not quite right.”
I drink Magnolia Oolong, (catalog description: gently scented with magnolia blossoms so that the cup is light, sweet, floral and invigorating), but only when I’m at the shop. At home, I’m a completely different person. I am Imperial Gold Yunnan (…composed almost entirely of golden tips. It is stunning to behold. It steeps up thick, rich, velvety, sweet, and bold with a long lingering aftertaste and an almost tactile silkiness) or China Black Special (brews up very hearty, rich, and smooth with a pronounced sweet note, almost caramel like). Previously, there were phases of Earl Grey White Tip (…a large portion of white tips--the most prized leaf of the plant--and blended with the finest oil of bergamot available. Incredibly aromatic and flavorful.). There was a time when I was irrationally enamored with Blue Beauty (…brews up very aromatic, sweet, floral, and slightly spicy with a pronounced silky texture. The leaf is sprinkled with ginseng and licorice root, and then folded many times so you will get many steepings from the same leaf), until later I wondered, “what was I thinking?” like when you wake up beside someone you only barely remember from the night before. Early on, one of my first loves was Rose Congou. It’s gone now. There’s a story behind that one, but not for today. I need to do research. I need to eavesdrop on the family that has sat at a table beside me. I need to spy the titles of the books stacked beside an older woman who sits alone.
Steam rises from the pots of water, creating clouds of mist that they have to swim through. Oh come on; this begs to be captured in art, in poetry, but I’ll resist. I have never been good at poetry anyway. I am here to think about my next short story, the Tea House. Research, so to speak. What are the questions customers ask? What kind of people wander in off the sidewalk without a clue of what they want, while others march in with an order scribbled on lined notepaper? I’ve brought along my writing tools; post-it pads and bright yellow file folders to storyboard the characters and conflicts, jot down the many blends of tea that can be entwined into subplots as metaphors. How much can you tell about a character by the kind of tea they drink?
Most customers have no clue what they are looking for, other than a specific something or other that they can’t seem to describe without sweeping generalizations. “I had this great cup of tea at a restaurant once, you know, a Chinese restaurant, or was it Mongolian? something sweet? kind of flowery? or grassy? with a kind of astringent aftertaste?”
Somehow the tea girls divine what they are looking for, or make something up that sounds convincing. Some people just want to be assured and guided, and when she holds open a container for the customer to study and smell the leaves, they latch onto it right away: “Yes, that looks right. I’m betting that’s the one.” Others will never be satisfied, almost like they are intent on finding reasons why “no, that’s not quite right.”
I drink Magnolia Oolong, (catalog description: gently scented with magnolia blossoms so that the cup is light, sweet, floral and invigorating), but only when I’m at the shop. At home, I’m a completely different person. I am Imperial Gold Yunnan (…composed almost entirely of golden tips. It is stunning to behold. It steeps up thick, rich, velvety, sweet, and bold with a long lingering aftertaste and an almost tactile silkiness) or China Black Special (brews up very hearty, rich, and smooth with a pronounced sweet note, almost caramel like). Previously, there were phases of Earl Grey White Tip (…a large portion of white tips--the most prized leaf of the plant--and blended with the finest oil of bergamot available. Incredibly aromatic and flavorful.). There was a time when I was irrationally enamored with Blue Beauty (…brews up very aromatic, sweet, floral, and slightly spicy with a pronounced silky texture. The leaf is sprinkled with ginseng and licorice root, and then folded many times so you will get many steepings from the same leaf), until later I wondered, “what was I thinking?” like when you wake up beside someone you only barely remember from the night before. Early on, one of my first loves was Rose Congou. It’s gone now. There’s a story behind that one, but not for today. I need to do research. I need to eavesdrop on the family that has sat at a table beside me. I need to spy the titles of the books stacked beside an older woman who sits alone.
Hasn’t nine years in this tea shop gathered for me enough story material? I’m only stalling, now. I’ve drained the dregs of the pot. Time to go.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Figurines
Once in a grand ol’ while, I see flowers burst from the carpet, blue skies wash across the ceiling, birds alight on the stems of reading lamps. Grasses, fields, clover, goldfish swimming in the candle pillars. Light the candle. The goldfish flicker and flutter. Dream of angels, devils, the wash of sacred water between my toes. I grew jungles out of potted palms, bayous in the turtle tank. The turtle spoke to me, “Mr. Wood, you’ve neglected me for a while. Don’t get me wrong, I can live off of two meals a week, but look at my paltry legs. Look at the thin reed of my neck. Where once there was strength, now there is decrepitude. The Barrister is coming today to have a word with you. I’ve asked him to be kind, as you have been to me over these last dozen years or so. But today is a day of reckoning, and the balance of owner vs. tenant, pet vs. man, slave vs. master will be pitched on its head. So I leave you with that forewarning, and for now, good bye.” The turtle withdrew his head into his shell, tucked in his legs so that only the tips of his claws peaked out, and curled his tail against is hind leg. How I wished I could have a shell.
So now I must wait for my visit from the Barrister; how shall I waste my time? Books wait on the shelves; Plato’s Republic, Machiavelli’s Prince, Winnie the Pooh, but instead I reached for the etch-a-sketch. Such confines of control, only left or right, up or down, and the illusion of a curved line which is really only miniscule right angles traded off, one for the other. I drew a mountain, a palm tree, and a little house in the foothills. Then I turned it upside down, gave it a good shake, and it was all gone, mostly, swept by a sand storm.
How many figurines do I have in my room? Not pictures, but actual shapes? They come out of the woodwork, stretch their heads, blaze their colors and shake free their loose feathers to drift upon the floor. The parrot of the golden breast and fiery wings. I’ve waited a year for him to utter a word, but he only sits deep in thought. Across the way from him, the sullen Eeyore with droopy ears and eyes, a little tuft of black hair perched on the peak of his head like a bird’s nest, though surely not the parrot’s; he would require a more noble homestead to prop up those heavy thoughts that plague him. Then across the way, a naked man sitting on a rock, pitch black skin, great strength of limbs but weak of mind. We move on to the upper bookshelf, with no books displayed but only the artifacts I’ve gathered over the years, like my Grandmother’s English tea pot, two Japanese tea cups, a pipe that was a gift when I turned thirty—but back now to figurines; floating above these artifacts is a porcelain fairy with delicate lace wings, a halo of golden curls, with delicate and breakable features still intact.
There are more figures coming out of the fog. Three Grecian women with clasped hands encircle a pot, with no plants inside, only empty space. The bronzed faces of a man and woman, pitted at opposite sides of the room. And lastly, a rubber iguana perched on the window sill; I stare at him for hours to catch him moving, but he doesn’t even blink. Until I look away, at which time he scurries across the room into the palm fronds.
There's a knock at the door, and the turtle comes out of his shell. It must be the Barrister.
So now I must wait for my visit from the Barrister; how shall I waste my time? Books wait on the shelves; Plato’s Republic, Machiavelli’s Prince, Winnie the Pooh, but instead I reached for the etch-a-sketch. Such confines of control, only left or right, up or down, and the illusion of a curved line which is really only miniscule right angles traded off, one for the other. I drew a mountain, a palm tree, and a little house in the foothills. Then I turned it upside down, gave it a good shake, and it was all gone, mostly, swept by a sand storm.
How many figurines do I have in my room? Not pictures, but actual shapes? They come out of the woodwork, stretch their heads, blaze their colors and shake free their loose feathers to drift upon the floor. The parrot of the golden breast and fiery wings. I’ve waited a year for him to utter a word, but he only sits deep in thought. Across the way from him, the sullen Eeyore with droopy ears and eyes, a little tuft of black hair perched on the peak of his head like a bird’s nest, though surely not the parrot’s; he would require a more noble homestead to prop up those heavy thoughts that plague him. Then across the way, a naked man sitting on a rock, pitch black skin, great strength of limbs but weak of mind. We move on to the upper bookshelf, with no books displayed but only the artifacts I’ve gathered over the years, like my Grandmother’s English tea pot, two Japanese tea cups, a pipe that was a gift when I turned thirty—but back now to figurines; floating above these artifacts is a porcelain fairy with delicate lace wings, a halo of golden curls, with delicate and breakable features still intact.
There are more figures coming out of the fog. Three Grecian women with clasped hands encircle a pot, with no plants inside, only empty space. The bronzed faces of a man and woman, pitted at opposite sides of the room. And lastly, a rubber iguana perched on the window sill; I stare at him for hours to catch him moving, but he doesn’t even blink. Until I look away, at which time he scurries across the room into the palm fronds.
There's a knock at the door, and the turtle comes out of his shell. It must be the Barrister.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
"Postcards" by E. Annie Proulx
Just finished the novel “Postcards,” by E. Annie Proulx, author of “Shipping News.” From the back cover: “…the tale of the Blood family, New England farmers who must confront the twentieth century – and their own extinction. As the family slowly disintegrates, its members struggle valiantly against the powerful forces of loneliness and necessity, seeking a sense of home and place forever lost.”
It fell short of “Shipping News,” and was her first novel, I believe. It’s one of those storylines that traces the slow depressing decline of its characters. She has the same powerful sense of character dialect like she had in “Shipping News,” authentic but at times distracting. I like the way her stories operate on two levels, one very grounded in reality that leaves dirt under your nails, and another in a grand sweeping mythology, with names like Loyal Blood, Mink, Mrs. Nipple, Starr, and a hitchhiking Indian that leaves with the main character a journal that he will carry along with him for the rest of his life, jotting down the fragments of his years on the road.
Here is one of the pages that I dogeared, where she writes in bold type, a kind of prose poetry that channels all of the senses: “He passed old trucks humping along on bald treads. He is worried about his own tires. He turns off onto a gravel road but the stones fly up, dust chokes him. Grit in his mouth. When he rubs his fingers against the ball of his thumb he feels hard grit. And turns back onto the concrete. Miles of snow fence. A peregrine falcon balances on a forgotten hay bale. The flatness changes, the earth’s color changes, darker, darker. Prayers and long silences out of the dusty radio. In the autumn rain the houses become trailers among the trees. Oaks come at him, flash, burst into thickets, into woods. H&C Café, EATS, Amoco, GAS 3 MI. AHEAD. Fog. A little night fog. The soil in Indiana a deep brown-black. The cattle sink into its blackness. Southering geese spring up from the sloughs and ponds, scissor over him in the hundreds. The water is streaked with the lines of their angular necks, fractioned by dipping heads and beaks. In the diner hunched over the cup of coffee he wonders how far he is going.”
It fell short of “Shipping News,” and was her first novel, I believe. It’s one of those storylines that traces the slow depressing decline of its characters. She has the same powerful sense of character dialect like she had in “Shipping News,” authentic but at times distracting. I like the way her stories operate on two levels, one very grounded in reality that leaves dirt under your nails, and another in a grand sweeping mythology, with names like Loyal Blood, Mink, Mrs. Nipple, Starr, and a hitchhiking Indian that leaves with the main character a journal that he will carry along with him for the rest of his life, jotting down the fragments of his years on the road.
Here is one of the pages that I dogeared, where she writes in bold type, a kind of prose poetry that channels all of the senses: “He passed old trucks humping along on bald treads. He is worried about his own tires. He turns off onto a gravel road but the stones fly up, dust chokes him. Grit in his mouth. When he rubs his fingers against the ball of his thumb he feels hard grit. And turns back onto the concrete. Miles of snow fence. A peregrine falcon balances on a forgotten hay bale. The flatness changes, the earth’s color changes, darker, darker. Prayers and long silences out of the dusty radio. In the autumn rain the houses become trailers among the trees. Oaks come at him, flash, burst into thickets, into woods. H&C Café, EATS, Amoco, GAS 3 MI. AHEAD. Fog. A little night fog. The soil in Indiana a deep brown-black. The cattle sink into its blackness. Southering geese spring up from the sloughs and ponds, scissor over him in the hundreds. The water is streaked with the lines of their angular necks, fractioned by dipping heads and beaks. In the diner hunched over the cup of coffee he wonders how far he is going.”
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Anguish and Reward
He comes home in the evening after a long day at the office, settles into his den, turns on his laptop, and in the cool glow of the screen he starts to make-believe. Interesting phrase: he makes believe. His fingers lightly tap on the keys, and a world begins to appear. He smiles, at times chuckles, at other times frowns and drags his fingers across his scalp. Creating worlds—bringing people out of the mortal soup into living breathing flesh—takes a lot of effort, mixed with pleasure, thrill, anguish, uncertainty. With the effort comes reward; these characters start to speak, at first only with hollow words that are obviously coming from himself, but within moments, their words start to stray from what he intended. Soon, they are jabbering away in their own tone of voice about their own cares. They say things he wasn’t expecting, and he doesn’t quite know how to reply to them, so then invents another character, and soon that character is refuting the first, and now the writer feels like he is just watching from a corner while these two people play out the scene. This is when he starts to smile, when his eyes catch fire with interest and wonder. What is going on here? He feels a little guilty for eavesdropping, but not enough to make him stop, for it is the guilty pleasure of the voyeur.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Mantra of Leaves
She moves behind the counter, shaking tea leaves out of ceramic containers onto metal scales, weighing out the orders, pouring the dried leaves into shiny gold tinfoil bags, nose tickled by tea dust. Her hair is pulled back into a pony tail, lifted off of that long slim neck. She has a profile with the curve of forehead and cheekbone that begs to be captured in oils on canvas and aged for three hundred years in a clandestine gallery. There’s something solemn about her bearing, until a customer steps to the counter and her smile lights up, but when they leave the flame just as quickly smolders out. Back to the rhythm of pouring out the leaves, balancing the scales, pressing closed the bags, a mantra that clears the mind.
Saturday, April 04, 2009
Get It In Writing
Writing creates a world totally within my control. There is something comforting in that, even though I never considered myself a control freak. As I write, the pace of life slows down and falls into a rhythm, each word moving in concert with that which it describes. Sometimes I think I am more wholly in the world of my imagination than in the world around us. If I was not describing it with these words, how much would I have noticed the sound of the wind outside, the smell of mellon coming from the kitchen, or the stillness of all the objects in my den except for the movement of my fingers and my thoughts? Get it in writing, they say. How true.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Dear Mignon
Dear Mignon,
How could you grant a mere boy of fifteen a fantasy for two weeks at the end of summer, and then leave him for school in California? You were eighteen and had all of the big men on campus after you; the jock down the street, the man with a handlebar mustache at the club, and even my twenty-two year old brother who asked you to go away to a cabin with him for a weekend. But you picked me. I was so naïve I didn’t even consider that you were coming on to me; I thought you were just being nice. When did we first kiss? I remember it took a long time to get to that point, and you must have been wondering what I was waiting for, how I could be so dumb to miss all of the signals. You were house sitting for your uncle across the street from me, and invited me in when he was away on a trip. We sat on the large puffy sofa in the dark cool of his basement. You offered me a beer. I said yes. I had never drunk a beer before that, only sips of my Dad’s when I would get him another can of Pabst Blue Ribbon. Then you gave me a massage. I laugh now, thinking about that. How did you maneuver us from sitting on the sofa to a massage? I wonder what you thought when I didn’t kiss you, or offer to return the massage, or anything beyond my thanking you for the beer, and the massage, and crossing back over the street to my house.
We played tennis. Some boys from a baseball tournament sat along the fence to watch you running for the ball and the way your breasts bounced when you ran. They asked if you were my girlfriend, and I said no. They started catcalling, but I didn’t know what to do about it. You glowered and turned red. They eventually went away.
I remember now the first time you finally broke through to me and left no doubt as to whether you were interested in me as more than a friend. We were at the movie “Fright Night”, and you leaned your leg against mine. You held my hand for a while, and pulled my hand closer to you so the back of my hand rested against your bare thigh. I wasn’t watching the movie at all anymore, only your thigh and my hand. Then there in the dark you let go of my hand and slid your palm across my leg, and felt me getting hard. I remember walking out of the movie theater with a raging erection and thinking everybody could see it, but I couldn’t stop smiling.
You taught me to always open a door for a girl, and to always be gentle. You used to press your nose against mine and look right into my eyes; you were just a blur except for your eyes and smile, and you would flutter your eyelids like butterflies. Your uncle’s red Camero and a church parking lot. I didn’t have a clue where kids went to park and that seemed as good a place as any.
That last night we were to spend together before you moved out to LA to chase your dreams of becoming an actress, you told me that a person never forgets their first. As you drove me home the radio was playing Phil Collins “Against All Odds,” a very fitting soundtrack to my night. I remember thinking how every time I would hear that song, I’d think of this night. Phil Collins. Jesus.
Then you were gone. I remember feeling how lucky I was to have spent those last two weeks of summer with you, and that’s what made me angriest later, after it hurt to read your letters about your part-time job in a shoe store while you waited for callbacks from your latest auditions, and then letters asking why I wasn’t writing you back. I had to convince myself that I didn’t feel anything at all. Another lesson you taught me.
How could you grant a mere boy of fifteen a fantasy for two weeks at the end of summer, and then leave him for school in California? You were eighteen and had all of the big men on campus after you; the jock down the street, the man with a handlebar mustache at the club, and even my twenty-two year old brother who asked you to go away to a cabin with him for a weekend. But you picked me. I was so naïve I didn’t even consider that you were coming on to me; I thought you were just being nice. When did we first kiss? I remember it took a long time to get to that point, and you must have been wondering what I was waiting for, how I could be so dumb to miss all of the signals. You were house sitting for your uncle across the street from me, and invited me in when he was away on a trip. We sat on the large puffy sofa in the dark cool of his basement. You offered me a beer. I said yes. I had never drunk a beer before that, only sips of my Dad’s when I would get him another can of Pabst Blue Ribbon. Then you gave me a massage. I laugh now, thinking about that. How did you maneuver us from sitting on the sofa to a massage? I wonder what you thought when I didn’t kiss you, or offer to return the massage, or anything beyond my thanking you for the beer, and the massage, and crossing back over the street to my house.
We played tennis. Some boys from a baseball tournament sat along the fence to watch you running for the ball and the way your breasts bounced when you ran. They asked if you were my girlfriend, and I said no. They started catcalling, but I didn’t know what to do about it. You glowered and turned red. They eventually went away.
I remember now the first time you finally broke through to me and left no doubt as to whether you were interested in me as more than a friend. We were at the movie “Fright Night”, and you leaned your leg against mine. You held my hand for a while, and pulled my hand closer to you so the back of my hand rested against your bare thigh. I wasn’t watching the movie at all anymore, only your thigh and my hand. Then there in the dark you let go of my hand and slid your palm across my leg, and felt me getting hard. I remember walking out of the movie theater with a raging erection and thinking everybody could see it, but I couldn’t stop smiling.
You taught me to always open a door for a girl, and to always be gentle. You used to press your nose against mine and look right into my eyes; you were just a blur except for your eyes and smile, and you would flutter your eyelids like butterflies. Your uncle’s red Camero and a church parking lot. I didn’t have a clue where kids went to park and that seemed as good a place as any.
That last night we were to spend together before you moved out to LA to chase your dreams of becoming an actress, you told me that a person never forgets their first. As you drove me home the radio was playing Phil Collins “Against All Odds,” a very fitting soundtrack to my night. I remember thinking how every time I would hear that song, I’d think of this night. Phil Collins. Jesus.
Then you were gone. I remember feeling how lucky I was to have spent those last two weeks of summer with you, and that’s what made me angriest later, after it hurt to read your letters about your part-time job in a shoe store while you waited for callbacks from your latest auditions, and then letters asking why I wasn’t writing you back. I had to convince myself that I didn’t feel anything at all. Another lesson you taught me.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
A Night in Birmingham
He was driving all night from North Dakota to someplace south, maybe the gulf. He wasn’t sure exactly where, but the main thing was to feel the thrum of the road passing beneath the wheels, an unraveling ribbon of tar with no end, no beginning. It was midnight by the time he crossed into Alabama, but he didn’t want to stop. He was in a zone, tired brilliant and half mesmerized by the highway. Trees loomed out of the dark into the headlights. He struck a deer just past Birmingham, and his clothes were splattered with blood because he had stopped the car, walked back, and dragged the carcass to the ditch.
Got to wash up at a motel or something, but none of them would take in a man at 2:00 am covered in blood. From a travel guide in his glove box, he started calling B&Bs. An old lady named Ms. Sandy answered on the third phone number, at a place called the Fox Trot. Said all of her rooms were open, and that she’d be happy to take in a boarder. She gave him directions, a ways off the highway, but he was desperate.
When he pulled up to her home, she was standing on the porch wrapped in a shawl. He grabbed his duffel bag from the trunk and asked why an old lady was answering her phone at 2:30 in the morning. Couldn’t sleep, she said. Seemed like the older she got, the less sleep she needed. Hardly knew what to do with all of that time on her hands, especially at night with nobody staying with her to talk to.
He started to explain the blood, but she waved it off. Doesn’t matter, come on in.
He remembered, later that night after having showered and had a cup of tea in her kitchen, what it was like staying at his grandmother’s. That feeling of being taken care of, being safe, and the odd way that time hung suspended in her kitchen in those purgatorial hours between night and morning. They talked of the kinds of things that, later on, he couldn’t remember. All he would be able to recall was that feeling of kindness, acceptance, of being made to feel completely at home. That’s how it felt being in Ms. Sandy’s presence, even more so than any particular thing she said or did.
Who was she? Maybe it was just her name, but he imagined her to be the Sandman’s widow, grown old now and abandoned, left to lord over this home in the Alabama woods, wiling away the insomniac nights with guests that needed a place to rest.
I wish I knew what they talked about, or what he was running from in North Dakota, or what he was running towards, but it seems that Ms. Sandy doesn’t gossip about her boarders. Your sins are safe with her.
Got to wash up at a motel or something, but none of them would take in a man at 2:00 am covered in blood. From a travel guide in his glove box, he started calling B&Bs. An old lady named Ms. Sandy answered on the third phone number, at a place called the Fox Trot. Said all of her rooms were open, and that she’d be happy to take in a boarder. She gave him directions, a ways off the highway, but he was desperate.
When he pulled up to her home, she was standing on the porch wrapped in a shawl. He grabbed his duffel bag from the trunk and asked why an old lady was answering her phone at 2:30 in the morning. Couldn’t sleep, she said. Seemed like the older she got, the less sleep she needed. Hardly knew what to do with all of that time on her hands, especially at night with nobody staying with her to talk to.
He started to explain the blood, but she waved it off. Doesn’t matter, come on in.
He remembered, later that night after having showered and had a cup of tea in her kitchen, what it was like staying at his grandmother’s. That feeling of being taken care of, being safe, and the odd way that time hung suspended in her kitchen in those purgatorial hours between night and morning. They talked of the kinds of things that, later on, he couldn’t remember. All he would be able to recall was that feeling of kindness, acceptance, of being made to feel completely at home. That’s how it felt being in Ms. Sandy’s presence, even more so than any particular thing she said or did.
Who was she? Maybe it was just her name, but he imagined her to be the Sandman’s widow, grown old now and abandoned, left to lord over this home in the Alabama woods, wiling away the insomniac nights with guests that needed a place to rest.
I wish I knew what they talked about, or what he was running from in North Dakota, or what he was running towards, but it seems that Ms. Sandy doesn’t gossip about her boarders. Your sins are safe with her.
Saturday, March 07, 2009
Have You Seen My Tree?
The tree was gone when I got up in the morning. For one hundred years it had stood to the left of my front step, and on the morning of July 28th I stuck my head out the door to pick up the paper from the front step and saw that the tree was gone. No jagged broken stump, no charred remains. The grass was smooth, as though a tree had never grown there. I drove around town, looking for it. I hung signs:
Have You Seen My Tree??
60 ft. black walnut
5 ft. trunk cir.
Last seen on the evening of the 27th
on the 3100 block of Manor Dr.
Call 612.366.1477 with information
$500 REWARD!
I got a few leads, but most were dead ends. Many were pranks. Some people called with real concern and compassion in their voices. Long after the signs came down and the calls stopped coming in, neighbors would mention to me that they might have seen it, on their last vacation out west, or the other day when they took their kids to a wildlife preserve in Washington County. It looked happy out there in the woods, they said. Maybe it was for the best.
I have picnics now and then on my lawn, right over the spot where it should be. Maybe I’ll plant something new over the spot next spring. It’s a shame. It really balanced the front yard.
Friday, February 27, 2009
Solace of a Bad Man
They drove up the North shore for a weekend away at a small cabin. Back in the Twin Cities, her new boyfriend was the perfect gentleman she new him to be, but with each passing mile his civility towards her gradually peeled away, like the trappings of the city slipping away as they drove further north. The trees grew taller, the woods deeper as his temper flared over petty things, like where they would go for Thanksgiving, and who would pay for the gas, and how fast he was driving.
On they drove, up past Duluth, the roads growing narrower as they passed hulking ships rusting in dry dock. The winds picked up near Two Harbors, fueled by drought, gusts coming from every which direction, and he struggled to keep the car on the road.
Civilization dropped away by the time they reached Grand Marais. The interstate trickled down to a county road, then to a gravel road, then to a dirt path with weeds growing down the center, winding among the birch trees, until they finally coasted to a stop in the deep woods of the Gunflint Trail and their cabin for the weekend.
It took them much of the day to get there. The sun was already setting. Inside the cabin, his gentler side came out again; he prepared a quick spaghetti dinner, and they talked about friends and family. She couldn’t explain, even to herself, what made her shut down his advances that night. She felt that things were not as they appeared.
Her nightmares didn’t help matters: she dreamed of wolves circling the cabin, staying just out of sight behind the trees. The next day it was her turn to become unhinged, picking fights over whatever was convenient. She got into an argument with him about hunting: he was for it, she against. He claimed it was natural and necessary for thinning out the herd, but she said only Native Americans should have the right to hunt. He claimed Native American’s weren’t good sportsmen when it came to hunting, using lights for spear fishing to attract the fish, or setting fires in the woods to scare wild game toward their hunters waiting in ambush.
She started to hate him. Maybe hate is too strong of a word: he dropped in her esteem. She lost respect for his ideas. He must have picked up on her change of heart, because he looked like a trapped animal, eyes darting around the room, mouth tense like a snarl.
She wanted to get out of there. She grabbed her things and marched out to the car, waiting for him to come drive her home. He didn’t. She crossed over to the driver’s seat. No keys. Stupid idea anyway, she couldn’t just abandon him out here. She decided that a walk through the woods might help cool her off. She happened upon a deer trail and followed it around the pond, down a ravine and beyond the surrounding poplars and birch into the deep woods of evergreens.
Windfalls crossed the trail, forcing her off the path. She lost her way among dead trees felled during the severe storms of last summer. She lost all sense of direction and began to panic. She smelled something in the air; soot, cinders, smoke?
The tree canopy rose too high to get a good view of the sky, but among the undergrowth and the tree trunks drifted a haze, like morning mist, only dirtier. The heat sucked all moisture out of the air. Within seconds the wind came rushing in with a smell that burned in her lungs. Fire.
Fir trees on fire. Great plume of sparks. In the strong winds, flames leapt from tree to tree. She ran beneath the arches of burning limbs, bolting through the woods alongside panicked deer and rabbits. Birds dropped from the sky like meteors. She fell out of the burning bramble to an open clearing where, beside the pond, sat the cabin: the one thing not burning in this world on fire. Inside, standing at the window, she saw him. Waiting for her. She stumbled inside, into his arms, and smelled the gasoline, the sulfur, the stench of a bad man who just got what he wanted.
On they drove, up past Duluth, the roads growing narrower as they passed hulking ships rusting in dry dock. The winds picked up near Two Harbors, fueled by drought, gusts coming from every which direction, and he struggled to keep the car on the road.
Civilization dropped away by the time they reached Grand Marais. The interstate trickled down to a county road, then to a gravel road, then to a dirt path with weeds growing down the center, winding among the birch trees, until they finally coasted to a stop in the deep woods of the Gunflint Trail and their cabin for the weekend.
It took them much of the day to get there. The sun was already setting. Inside the cabin, his gentler side came out again; he prepared a quick spaghetti dinner, and they talked about friends and family. She couldn’t explain, even to herself, what made her shut down his advances that night. She felt that things were not as they appeared.
Her nightmares didn’t help matters: she dreamed of wolves circling the cabin, staying just out of sight behind the trees. The next day it was her turn to become unhinged, picking fights over whatever was convenient. She got into an argument with him about hunting: he was for it, she against. He claimed it was natural and necessary for thinning out the herd, but she said only Native Americans should have the right to hunt. He claimed Native American’s weren’t good sportsmen when it came to hunting, using lights for spear fishing to attract the fish, or setting fires in the woods to scare wild game toward their hunters waiting in ambush.
She started to hate him. Maybe hate is too strong of a word: he dropped in her esteem. She lost respect for his ideas. He must have picked up on her change of heart, because he looked like a trapped animal, eyes darting around the room, mouth tense like a snarl.
She wanted to get out of there. She grabbed her things and marched out to the car, waiting for him to come drive her home. He didn’t. She crossed over to the driver’s seat. No keys. Stupid idea anyway, she couldn’t just abandon him out here. She decided that a walk through the woods might help cool her off. She happened upon a deer trail and followed it around the pond, down a ravine and beyond the surrounding poplars and birch into the deep woods of evergreens.
Windfalls crossed the trail, forcing her off the path. She lost her way among dead trees felled during the severe storms of last summer. She lost all sense of direction and began to panic. She smelled something in the air; soot, cinders, smoke?
The tree canopy rose too high to get a good view of the sky, but among the undergrowth and the tree trunks drifted a haze, like morning mist, only dirtier. The heat sucked all moisture out of the air. Within seconds the wind came rushing in with a smell that burned in her lungs. Fire.
Fir trees on fire. Great plume of sparks. In the strong winds, flames leapt from tree to tree. She ran beneath the arches of burning limbs, bolting through the woods alongside panicked deer and rabbits. Birds dropped from the sky like meteors. She fell out of the burning bramble to an open clearing where, beside the pond, sat the cabin: the one thing not burning in this world on fire. Inside, standing at the window, she saw him. Waiting for her. She stumbled inside, into his arms, and smelled the gasoline, the sulfur, the stench of a bad man who just got what he wanted.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Little Bird
Sunday morning in the family room. I love my wife and kids dearly, but all I can think to myself right now is “Leave me alone.” I announce that I am going to my den now to write, and I slip away to that corner of the house where the windows are small, where potted palms sit on the floor in what little pools of light gather in this corner of the house. At first, I avoid the typewriter perched on the desk. I still use a typewriter. I am a walking cliché. I smoke a pipe, leaf through nineteenth century novels, scratch notes on scraps of paper, and eventually sneak up on my type writer and settle slowly into the wooden desk chair, careful not to spook it. I stare at the keys for a moment, afraid it is going to burst into a flapping of wings and escape out a window. That’s it. My typewriter on the desk is like a bird trapped in a room, panicked, breast thumping, trying to find a way out. My fingers must be gentle with it. Once it least expects it, I clamp my hands around it so that it can’t get away. I stop typing to scribble this metaphor on another piece of scratch paper for later.
There’s a quiet knock at the door. Must be my son. “Come in.”
“Dad, will you play Chutes and Ladders with me?”
“Not now, Sam. Your Dad’s working. Didn’t Mommy tell you not to bother me when I’m up here?”
“Yes,” he says in that little mouse voice that usually allows him to get his way.
“Why don’t you go play with Elizabeth?”
“She’s over at Jacqueline’s house jumping on the trampoline.”
I pull him up into my lap. He’s still in his pajamas. What time is it, I wonder? Why hasn’t Susan gotten him dressed yet? She’s probably down at the computer, chatting with her sister or with her friends from work. Jesus, she sees them all day during the week; why can’t she give it a break on the weekends to get her children dressed? “Why don’t you go get your big boy clothes on and we’ll play in a little bit. I’ve got to do some stuff yet, and then I’ll come out. Don’t knock though. I’ll come out when I’m ready.”
“Okay,” and he slides off my knee, leaves the room and gently closes the door behind him. I smile at this gesture of his, so careful around me, but then I see how like an invalid I have become, tucked away in a closed room, not to be disturbed. How long have they been tiptoeing around me?
I try to get back to my story, but the characters have wandered off, the backdrops faded, and in the world of my imagination I am losing the light. Damn it. But if it hadn’t been Sam, it would have been something else. A loud truck out in the street. A blue jay flashing by the window. I was able to finish three sentences, though, before the little bird died in my hands. I guess I clutched I clutched it too tightly.
There’s a quiet knock at the door. Must be my son. “Come in.”
“Dad, will you play Chutes and Ladders with me?”
“Not now, Sam. Your Dad’s working. Didn’t Mommy tell you not to bother me when I’m up here?”
“Yes,” he says in that little mouse voice that usually allows him to get his way.
“Why don’t you go play with Elizabeth?”
“She’s over at Jacqueline’s house jumping on the trampoline.”
I pull him up into my lap. He’s still in his pajamas. What time is it, I wonder? Why hasn’t Susan gotten him dressed yet? She’s probably down at the computer, chatting with her sister or with her friends from work. Jesus, she sees them all day during the week; why can’t she give it a break on the weekends to get her children dressed? “Why don’t you go get your big boy clothes on and we’ll play in a little bit. I’ve got to do some stuff yet, and then I’ll come out. Don’t knock though. I’ll come out when I’m ready.”
“Okay,” and he slides off my knee, leaves the room and gently closes the door behind him. I smile at this gesture of his, so careful around me, but then I see how like an invalid I have become, tucked away in a closed room, not to be disturbed. How long have they been tiptoeing around me?
I try to get back to my story, but the characters have wandered off, the backdrops faded, and in the world of my imagination I am losing the light. Damn it. But if it hadn’t been Sam, it would have been something else. A loud truck out in the street. A blue jay flashing by the window. I was able to finish three sentences, though, before the little bird died in my hands. I guess I clutched I clutched it too tightly.
It began with a letter. Ever since I received the envelope addressed to me in a hand faintly familiar, I could never return to the old life I knew. I have since burned that first letter, but it went something like this…
Friday, January 02, 2009
The Sacrosanct Flamingo of Christmas Past - 2003
Christmas day in the year of our lord, what’s his name, 2003. December 25th marks the Birth of the Unconquered Sun, Sol Invictus, per Aurelius the Greek, heralding the first day upon which the sun hangs in the sky a little bit longer than the day before. What better place to celebrate the sun than in Florida, in my mother’s villa in her gated retirement community in Lake Wales? Her back yard butts up to the ninth tee of their country club golf course. The day rang in with the ping of fat-headed titanium drivers and Titleist golf balls soaring towards the immaculate green.
Leave it up to a mother to take in her wayward son on Christmas, so soon after my divorce and I have no place to go.
I sit in the sunroom waiting for sunset, palm trees silhouetted against a pink sky. For twenty minutes I watch the shifting reflections on the windows, revealing a sallow middle-aged man from the north. Despite the tropical surroundings, I know just where I’m from. But reflections can be deceptive in the shifting light of sunset. The glass reflects what is happening here and now, but I choose not to see it clearly. Instead I see what might have been; Christmas by the fireside with the wife and child that never were. I don’t blame myself for filling the vacancy in the glass with imaginary things.
Reflections are not limited by time or place. This dayroom is now an atrium in a Roman hall, and I see in the glass a woman reclined against my arm. She smells like Gardenias. Dark hair falls in ringlets down her back. Face pale, lips like ripe plums. We lean comfortably into each other, eyes heavy, smiles of contentment just starting to creep into our faces when the sun dips a little further below the horizon, and she’s gone. The window shows the dark outside.
Time for a walk. I pass down Tumescent Lane, dodging the mass exodus of golfers in their cavalry of golf carts, beating a retreat from the fairways to their homes, barbarians of social security waving their clubs, drug induced disciples of the goddess Medica. I walk long and far, out to the edges of Phase 2 waiting to be transformed from swampland into villas, out where the sky opens up like a great black cavern and stars ricochet off the road. This swamp is my church, these stars my epistolary, far more so than the dismal Lutheran church we attended earlier in the evening for Christmas service. The congregation sang boastful praise of the strength and awe of Jesus. I didn’t know the words to sing along, but they sounded too much like rap music, a cocky gang banger adorned with gold and bling, slinging rhymes of his fame, strength, power, and riches.
I turn back towards my mother’s house. How can I question where He is leading me when I don’t believe in Him? But I do believe in something. Something expansive. Something all knowing. Something that scattered the stars into the sky, that programmed the cells of the human body, that molded the brain and left it as vast and unknown as the ocean floor. Maybe I believe in the Roman’s Saturnalia and a topsy-turvy world where I’m 36 and sleeping in a pull out cot in my mother’s spare bedroom. Maybe I believe in the imaginary characters I cast as understudies for the people I’ve chased off the stage, and maybe I care more for reflections of the sun rather than staring directly into it.
I do believe in fairies. I do believe in fairies. I do believe in fairies. I do . . .
Leave it up to a mother to take in her wayward son on Christmas, so soon after my divorce and I have no place to go.
I sit in the sunroom waiting for sunset, palm trees silhouetted against a pink sky. For twenty minutes I watch the shifting reflections on the windows, revealing a sallow middle-aged man from the north. Despite the tropical surroundings, I know just where I’m from. But reflections can be deceptive in the shifting light of sunset. The glass reflects what is happening here and now, but I choose not to see it clearly. Instead I see what might have been; Christmas by the fireside with the wife and child that never were. I don’t blame myself for filling the vacancy in the glass with imaginary things.
Reflections are not limited by time or place. This dayroom is now an atrium in a Roman hall, and I see in the glass a woman reclined against my arm. She smells like Gardenias. Dark hair falls in ringlets down her back. Face pale, lips like ripe plums. We lean comfortably into each other, eyes heavy, smiles of contentment just starting to creep into our faces when the sun dips a little further below the horizon, and she’s gone. The window shows the dark outside.
Time for a walk. I pass down Tumescent Lane, dodging the mass exodus of golfers in their cavalry of golf carts, beating a retreat from the fairways to their homes, barbarians of social security waving their clubs, drug induced disciples of the goddess Medica. I walk long and far, out to the edges of Phase 2 waiting to be transformed from swampland into villas, out where the sky opens up like a great black cavern and stars ricochet off the road. This swamp is my church, these stars my epistolary, far more so than the dismal Lutheran church we attended earlier in the evening for Christmas service. The congregation sang boastful praise of the strength and awe of Jesus. I didn’t know the words to sing along, but they sounded too much like rap music, a cocky gang banger adorned with gold and bling, slinging rhymes of his fame, strength, power, and riches.
I turn back towards my mother’s house. How can I question where He is leading me when I don’t believe in Him? But I do believe in something. Something expansive. Something all knowing. Something that scattered the stars into the sky, that programmed the cells of the human body, that molded the brain and left it as vast and unknown as the ocean floor. Maybe I believe in the Roman’s Saturnalia and a topsy-turvy world where I’m 36 and sleeping in a pull out cot in my mother’s spare bedroom. Maybe I believe in the imaginary characters I cast as understudies for the people I’ve chased off the stage, and maybe I care more for reflections of the sun rather than staring directly into it.
I do believe in fairies. I do believe in fairies. I do believe in fairies. I do . . .
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