One Pale Fire

angle sharp heart

Is there anything so clean and sharp as the point at the bottom of your heart? Angle it steep and cut your way through every day. Don't dream it just hangs there, a tiny red bird in your rib cage. Feel the wings beating, hear it sing and follow it free wherever it goes.

1998

home free

Another day, another half dollar I would think as I washed my face... I would wake around
7:30 a.m. brush my teeth scoop my hair up into a tight pony tail, get dressed - shorts,
a presentable but dirtiable t-shirt and flip flops (if I could find them) - I left my room via
the hall through the old glass jalousie door which joined the garage, around the old black
Daimler collecting dust and passed the new burgundy Volvo that needed a wash and up 5
steps to the house door which after peeering through the window to survey the interior I
would then unlock and enter - quietly - around to my left passing the stair well to the
second floor pausing to listen for signs the Boss was up. None yet.
I'd often take a glancing pause mid-walk into the kitchen and squint toward the large
picture windows that faced the beach just to gauge the weather - usually it was another
perfect day in paradise (too bright without coffee) but occasionally there'd be dark blue-
black clouds against the green sea and the sand would be a rusty wet tone from the rain
during the night. That day it was pretty fair - or at least I imagine it was because truthfully
it was almost 19 years ago and I was in a utter funk, the sand could have been neon pink it
still would have registered as gray to me. That morning I was particularly foggy because I
was bugged out by a dream I had had which I didn't want to think about and quite avidly
clung to the routine which had been established some months before when Sam hired me
to be his live-in house keeper.

I met him some year and change before when I lived next door to the retirement home he
was helping his mother renovate. He was an educated, skilled Architect but he used his GC
license and gave the place the attention it deserved on his mother's behalf and got sucked
into running it. Back then I was just visiting a friend for the summer between roommates
and when I wasn't partying he paid me a fair hourly wage to repaint the place. It stank like
old people and I always had Mint Green and Coral Orange in my hair or on my elbows but
it was handy as hell to work whenever I needed a few bucks and then be gone for a week
unexplained.... I left to go back to Tampa temporarily and returned in the winter to begin
Art School, at first I worked as a yacht detailer but after a while when the boat was put in
dry dock for repairs the indecent proposals from the captain became too much and my
roommate situation wasn't working out so I took the leap of faith in this job because not
only did it came with a private entrance and a room of my own but the utilities were free
and I was allowed full access and use of the house when he wasn't home... and most
importantly full beach access.

Sam had given me no reason to distrust him before and I desperately needed the security
and convenience of a package deal - it had been a rough adjustment to living on my own -
after leaving home for school my father died just before my 19th birthday and I was
having a hard enough time just keeping my head together and getting my ass to school.
Going back home was just not an option any more, there was nothing to go back too.
Besides Sam was sort of like a big teddy bear of an uncle who used to lecture me about
keeping my attendance up... " I mean it!" he'd say "this is not going to work out if you are
screwing around all day on the beach"... and half the time he might even do this with a
straight face and a joint in one hand as he admonished me pointedly with the other before
taking another hit, asking if I was sure I didn't want any and telling me if my homework
was done to come have a drink down at the Tiki Bar... yeah that's right, the Tiki Bar... it
was sand side of the hotel about a 5 block walk down the beach from our house and we'd
occasionally have Rum Runners on the weekends when he didn't have 4 dates with 3
different women (btw part of my job description included occasionally covering for him or
running incidental interference to keep his life simple).... it was sweet deal and would have
been easy to fall into the Coke scene or become a drunk beach bunny but I had my head
about me, I was approaching 21 and school was about the only thing I had going for me at
that point. The responsible choices really weren't a problem most of the time cause even if
had a hard enough time just keeping it all together, going back to Tampa was not an
option anymore.

7:45a.m. and I had made my first sweep through the living room while the Espresso was
coming to a head on the stove. Empty the ash trays, clear a few dishes from the dining
room table, glasses into the dish washer and wipe whatever the dust was from the glass
coffee table and open the blinds. I had come to adjust my routine to the sounds of the
shower running upstairs and eventually I had it timed so that I could practically meet him
at the base of the Stairs with his cafe con leche, sometimes I even had the dog food
poured for the 2 chow chows. He used to say stupid things like I'd make a wonderful wife
one day but I stilled liked being good at my job anyway.... that day however I was a little
out of step and he was grumpy from staying up too late the night before with bachelorette
#2. He got off to work after pausing at the door without making eye contact to tell me I
needed to bath the dogs today and make sure they were brushed tomorrow cause the fur
was all over the place again in one of the spare bedrooms. I took it in stride because like I
said I was in a funk that day and nothing touched me - not his terse hung over demeanor
or even that is made no sense to bath them and then brush them - it was more efficient
the other way around. I usually enjoyed the quiet solitude after he left when I would do my
rounds upstairs before returning to the final sweep downstairs with MTV at full blast so I
could hear it over the vacuum cleaner "Money For Nothin'" was still the most common
refrain which seemed fitting cause I went through the motions mechanically and oh-so
half heartedly as I Windexed the picture windows of the half-million dollar home - fluff the
pillow mattress, make the King sized bed, rehang the towels in the bathroom, wipe off the
floor and don't cry... go downstairs unload the dishwasher polish the Mahogany dining
room table, pause to stare out the window thinking of absolutely nothing for 20 seconds
before checking my time for school and still don't cry... but it was just one of those days
cry or not I couldn't get myself together for school, the steam of the shower seemed like
too much, drying impossible, dressing worse still and it had nothing to do with the lure of
the hot yellow sand and the salty bluegreen waters that were supposed to be healing me, I
just kept thinking about the dream and feeling tired and distain for all the fluff but so sick
of crying that year after my Dad was gone - it was so useless.

I was not even half way through the survivors guilt and I was still hopped up on anger
when I talked to myself - "look I get this so stop rethinking (re-morsing, re-feeling), they
did everything they could (yeah right) - the insufferable blood transfusions, tests and
surgery (like it made any difference), it was no body's fault (the hell it wasn't), he lingered
for as long as he did for a (no) reason and there was nothing to be done about it (now). All
he wanted to see us grow up - so grow-up already! It's plain and simple - I have to live my
life to lead (thanks for nothing) and he would want that (so what)... and (so what)...if I
wanted more (for him), well, it wasn't about me (too damn bad)"... I was brushing the dogs
angrily by this point determined not to give in and Cheena hated the rough treatment on
the shallow patch of her belly so she snapped at me while Yogi was breathing down my
neck, so I reasoned brushing them was enough for today and I'd take them for a run and a
bath tomorrow because I still needed to clean whatever exploded in the microwave before
I went back down to my apartment to finish the homework I didn't do the night before. I
stomped into the kitchen throwing the brush in the cabinet and slamming the door - I
dreaded the time chained to the sink without enough distraction of movement and the
numbing of repetition. I was standing at the basin scrubbing the glass turn table just as
angrily when the hot water and the clinking reminded me... then for a moment it was clear
as day... in the furrows of sleep it was my Dad with a stubbled gray chin and
expressionless face who had asked me to make him a cup of hot tea. I made it wondering
as I always did what kind of day this made it for him... did hot with lemon or cold/sweet
signify some turn of comfort, change of weather or did it just make that day slightly
different from the day before?... I brought it to him hot enough to leave my hands red
from cuddling it as I walked into the living room - I watched it tremble as I stepped
expectant of the next worn wooden floor creek but when I looked to hand it over the
steaming cup his face was entirely different, his color was good, he was shaven, his eyes
were the rare bright blue instead of pale gray and he said "thanks Dear" with a placid easy
half-smile and relaxed forehead.

It stopped me with a hard pang in my chest and a choking feeling in my throat but I was afraid to let it be - he really was perfectly fine for once. safe, dry, comfortable, pain-stitch-scab-on-belly-bandage-hospital-food-sterile-linoleum-floor-beige-waiting-room and IV-tube free... he was home and resting in peace in his lazyboy with hot tea... and there was nothing to be angry about any more.

04.16.07

amber shores

[quote]I was trying to put this in words earlier tonight.... it's almost light out and I wish I could
get it right, I wish I had more solace, more light to offer but I will give you myself like this
if you can use it...

what little I know of loss:
please know it grief comes in waves both unexpectedly and unavoidably - the water rises,
you feel swept away in it whether you are ready to feel more or not... keep your head
above water when you can and point your nose to heaven when you think you can't and
just breath some more - pray, ride it out, write it out, scream - try each and every
combo... like rip currents sometimes there simply is no "sense" to make or choice but to
swim parallel to land... but if you just manage to trust and flow you ALWAYS end up back
on shore.

Your cheeks will be salt water tightened when you wake up, your head may still
hurt and you may never be completely dry... but you WILL be safe again.

And we will be here even when you can't see us - the coast guard, the night watch, the
lighthouse beacon, the shells and me, another grain of sand... waiting for you.
[/quote]

I felt compelled to repeat a past post not because the support was required or because I wanted to draw attention to myself I just could feel her out there during another surge of grief or more aptly put the processing of shock that can accompany her particular loss and having some experience now with shock I am starting to understand how difficult it can be.

She was soothed by my just reminding her I am here and I hear her and I am happy for that... I'm just so struck by how intensely difficult it can be to process shock. When my Dad died it was hardly a shock we had years to get used to idea (in as much as one gets used to the idea of such a thing) but when he finally did die two weeks before my birthday just after I started college I had had a dream about him and it was abundantly clear he was gone. So much so the only think I could think was "so, it starts today" (and "how the hell am I gonna do this?"). It was just another day on a calendar that marked the beginning of grief like I was beginning a diet or something... I mean I was just so numbed out, but I was also so immensely resigned to it.

Shock is a little different - not only do you have the significant grief to deal with and somehow process but the shock just forever changes you cause there is no more complacency or deluded safety that tomorrow will just be another day filled with the usual stuff because you can't unknow the moments it all changed...with my dad it took him 18 years to raise a daughter but 9 of those I was already losing him... It took her 24 years to raise this fabulous human being she called "daughter" and it only took 10 minutes to extinguish that life - there is just no mathematics that can explain that in terms a heart can understand....

tigger tigger burning bright

Today upon visiting the overstuffed mailbox of my psyche a curious postcard leapt from copious stack as though it could not wait to be dually noted. As I bent closer and strained to see what picturesque venue was depicted, what came into view in the deep dappled light of late afternoon under the Banyans outside my front door was a cold glistening landscape of lacy glass trees and vast white banks of snow. It contrasted so well with the dark brown soil and was framed so nicely with fiddleheads where it landed I was tempted to study it a while but I had to know who it came from and what it said. Hastily plucking it from it's resting place I flipped it over to read: "frolicking on the silent tundra amid permafrost and icy Larch in the sleeping land that is Siberia was fun but we've decided it's time to go back to burning brightly in the more temperate forests of the night. We're coming home - love, Tigger.

It is always nice to here from Tigger, I just wondered who "we" is?

The Tiger

TIGER, tiger, burning bright
 
In the forests of the night,
 
What immortal hand or eye
 
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
 
 
In what distant deeps or skies

Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
 
On what wings dare he aspire?
 
What the hand dare seize the fire?
 
 
And what shoulder and what art
 
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?

And when thy heart began to beat,
 
What dread hand and what dread feet?
 
 
What the hammer? what the chain?
 
In what furnace was thy brain?
 
What the anvil? What dread grasp
 
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
 
 
When the stars threw down their spears,
 
And water'd heaven with their tears,
 
Did He smile His work to see?
 
Did He who made the lamb make thee?

 
Tiger, tiger, burning bright
 
In the forests of the night,
 
What immortal hand or eye
 
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

~~ William Blake

baby steps

I haven't yet mastered that thing you do when a child falls down - not react. Don't gasp, bug out your eyes or contort your face - wait for them to tell you if something is wrong or cry out in bobodoom. It's such a tricky thing and I just can't seem to stop myself. I wonder if it requires a certain stepping outside of yourself or the situation or just patience and comfort with uncertainty. It's not really insensitivity but I guess there is some detachment - watch, wait and then react accordingly. Otherwise the child learns to act out for attention or for approval... negative or otherwise.

She's a blonde blue eyed wonder with a quick giggle face - that silent one babies do, love that face - I'm thinking she'll never have to look very far for who watching her. As I watched her stand and steady herself on my tile floors - wafting like a little sail in lagging wind and not yet so deft in balance - it became clear to me I may never totally be the sort that masters the art of not reacting, because all I could think was "OMG, cursed cold hard un-yielding floors... if she falls backward...!!!". I guess there in lies the other lesson - don't be so ready for the bad things - watch, wait and then act accordingly... (oh, and baby proof your house if you want them to visit more often... and clean... a lot).

I'd take it more to heart if it wasn't so hard to practice the suspension. I was never good with wafting in suspension. I need baby steps and little bites in baby spoons to remind me..

06.08.06

a prayer forwhoever feels it

A stoney expressionless face and I search the surface with blunt, useless tiny fingertips in the darker dimmer hours. How much was sheer face, how much thicker facade, and what measure a corner stone? I found a crevice and seemed to know it by touch and a trace of something well out of reach which I understood deeper then flesh or grey matter. I felt a crevasse and I filled it with prayer.

True prayer - finer then wish, founder then desire, hardened against all reason, peerless to all but the beauty of pure hope... And although I know my life isn't dependent on it's delivery method or how you greet it, trust me when I tell you a little piece of my soul will be lost forever if this doesn't get through to you - in all your lives there was at least this one person who cared beyond bond of blood, honor or marriage just to know you.

You'll spare me all conciliatory graces for to know it well is an oath of humility that can not be simply conveyed - you must take it upon yourself and make whatever you will worthy of it by finding a crevice, a crack, a crevasse, and filling it anew with this your own prayer.

06.15.06

of clouds and honor, of accidents and moons

of clouds and honor, of accidents and moons
He knew that then. He was intelligent
and besides she was not the first
woman he wanted to love and make
promises to, promises he could keep well.
And, had he thought it would do any good,
he might have read her Of Husbanding The Will.
But he didn't and besides it made him
feel more important to promise her things
like Blue Claw Crab out of season, a Sunday mass
in Paris, anything that no one could give her.
And she loved him more when he made
promises like that. He should have promised
simple things, things that anyone could promise.
He was someone. But he was anyone too,
and he knew that. He knew he should have
promised to take her where Japonica blooms
in his father's garden; promised to show her
the Firethorn and the Bridal Wreath
that blossom there; and how to tell the difference.
Had he told her that change is the only stability
one can count on, things might have
been much different. Last night they might
have stayed up late with nothing more
between them than tea and light
enough to see each other and the few fresh flowers
that stood in a small blue vase.
They might have spoken of clouds and honor,
of accidents and moons, and of nights
like that one. And, once again in deep sincerity,
of keeping one's word and how difficult that is.

I have no idea who wrote this - I have one clipped down, dog-earred, yellowing sheet of type written/photo copied paper on which it rests and nothing more to go on. I know just where & when I acquired this leaflet though - my friend Jennifer's house in... ugh... somewhere between 1987-1988. I remember her standing in the living room looking at it reading it over again for herself and putting it down - there were a couple of copies and she said go ahead and take one. I knew it meant something to her that she couldn't explain in one sitting, and I didn't really need to know unless she was in a generous mood and cared to re-live it (she didn't and it took me another year to come to the story itself), but I was struck by the clearest poignancy in reading it - almost as if she didn't even have to explain it.

For me I always loved it I suppose for the sadness of it, the regret in it, the sweet but misguided & futile ernest... the longing. Longing for intensity and the perfection that rivals sublime dream... and the perplexing needlessness of that "perfection". There is the finest hour and then there is the rest of your life and it always seemed to me to a certain flawed inequity to view the slither as superior to the substance of the whole. Do I just want the safety of a homogenized life, forever mediating disappointments with peeks of exuberance? No. Is it the relative enjoyment of lowered expectations overall? Well, not exactly but the exalted perfection is still somewhat lost on me. Nothing with a soul is perfect.... and see I would be more curious and desirous of learning to tell the difference between Firethorn and Bridal Wreath anyway so there is just a different palette of enjoyment, relaxed expectation and more room for surprise in the moment than the grandeur of Sunday mass in Paris or the delicacy of Blue Claw Crab out of season.

I guess what I loved most about the piece is just the deep sincerity of clouds and honor,of accidents and moons, and of nights like that one. Not that dreaming isn't fabulous fun & beautiful, but I admire the simple honesty of promises you can keep...

03.18.06

draw

today wasn't a win or a lose it was a draw... well, check in after I finish my mocha maybe the scales will have tipped. I woke up late but on the plus side the stye on my eye lid is much better, didn't even bother with the doctor. I flip on the computer and sip on a yogurt smoothie while I wait for the programs to boot up and I think about my x for a moment - I guess I must have had another incident in my dreams cause I feel kinda irked just thinking of him. I get mad at myself that I ever wanted so much to be with him and I shake my head at myself trying not to get angry cause after all it's nothing I have to deal with ever again. Will he won't he bullshit, dilly-dally, mamby-pamby - angry I just get angry at him even as idiotic as retroactive anger can be, because it's so much easier to understand that then this fight I have with my self sometimes. If the heart and head could actually talk like 2 separate people I have a feeling I'd be pulling them off one another like a Jerry Springer show and I'd still be the only one to end up with a black eye. Somedays I wonder if it is ever worth it to try again with someone new or whether you just always end up feeling like a fool whenever the L word is afoot. I don't know why I am so hard on myself for how hard I tried, but then I also don't know why I didn't give up sooner. See - no win, no lose, just draw.

Sometimes it's hard to think about pleasing someone again, I loved the feeling immensely and I know I was good at it, but I had such a disabling disastrous disappointment after burning myself out trying the last time I still feel rusty & sore... I'm no even sure I can do it anymore, but then I also miss it so much it hurts sometimes - again - no win, no lose, just draw. I draw another breath, take another sip and I accept I will never understand how knowing you did everything you could just doesn't make it feel especially better sometimes - I mean even he would agree (after not talking to me for months that is) that I did everything I could and yet every couple of weeks or months I just wake up with this barely break even feeling I can't shake for a day or so. It's just a low aggravating sensation most of the time if I can even locate it - if it was a sound it would be gray noise instead of white.

The thing I can't figure out is how the feeling leaks into some many other things - how my hair looks or jeans fit, someone telling me I'm sexy, I get my nails done and get new tires for the car and it just seems like I can never get things polished up just right... and every time this one client compliments me, in fact nearly squeals with pure delight at something I created and I catch myself saying, a very hollow "I'm glad you like it" while I am thinking "it's not enough, it's so average"... I have no idea why I do it cause I had frankly thought I had long ago grown out of such negative self-talk. Hell, I've always been a little arrogant & cocky where my work was concerned. I nail interviews, I "handle" my clients, I put up and rarely shut-up and I used to get a kick out of getting paid for it. I mean I don't even get the same cheap thrill out of invoicing for stuff that wasn't even that hard. I used to love that feeling - She shoots, she scores, she goes to the mall to buy more shoes!!! Now it's more like rent, electricity - sigh - phone, taxes and what about the dental thing - whatever - I feel tired I think I'll call it a night.

03.13.06

careless night

I have learned to love the safe distance and I breath deeply now not worrying so much myself. I feel stretched out in warm warm air with a cooling breeze all around and the russle of palm trees - on a wide crocheted hammock over looking Ram's Head in St. Thomas. I am watching that last light fade from the horizon as the dogs that were rough housing under me settle down and the swing of being knocked around slows to a comforting lulling sway. Stars take their cue and the moon is a little more then half full - the water is a vast shimmering field and there is plenty of wine left in my glass. I could sit here and think less with out caring less all night.

03.08.06

emo-unavilable, they got it bad

There's a slave who "needs" the beaten regularly and wants to be chained up all day and debased all night and wonders why his owner will never prize him for the perfect compliment to their darkest sadistic desires that he is. There's a bachelor past marrying age who has a revelation to embark on a life committed to the lack of monogamy or poly-fidelity for that matter and as he exalts in the adventure and the honor of an honest life without boundaries he is all too prepared - expectant even of a life of resistance to his brave new way and he wonders why no one loves him for his bravery and honesty in the face of such difficulty. There is a sub who is abidingly attracted to an unobtainable dream-Dom she finds online and she decides she must send the best pictures she has of herself in hopes of winning his fervent favor... except she has no photos that do her depth of loyalty and service justice so she sends pictures of herself on vacation 7 years ago. There is a Dom who professes the deepest truest part of him is one to control and be in charge of others yet he consistently chooses vanilla partners who will never understand or accept his core and he goes about his life pretending that little voice of need is just white noise in his life - everybody has it - except late at night while he downloads porn before his latest business trip in the morning and fantasizes about when he has the perfect slut writhing for his every command wearing nothing but rope.Who said any of these people are real? Who said they are members of this site? I didn't and they aren't - although I suppose they certainly could be and they are part remnants of stories and composites of several characters I brush across now & then... it occurs to me they have something in common - you know that saying "I wouldn't want to be a party to any club that would have me as a member"? Well they are looking specifically for and will never accept an invitation to be party to clubs that would have them as members. There is a different level of illusion to every story but it is there. There is a different delicate intricate dance that goes on in each situation and they are all in their own ways sad masterpieces of struggle and almost fruition.

Okay one of them I knew and he is real - my ex, but he is not so unlike a few others i have met. Deep abiding sense of the need to control, sometimes manipulate and at times inflict pain & pleasure on a willing 'nother and yet for some reason he has settled into a commitment to someone who knows nothing of his fondest truest nature. How typical I realize it is now - he wouldn't want to be a party to any club that would have him as a member so he feels safest with someone who could never fully know or accept him "have him as a member". I guess there is something to be said for the tension that gets mistaken for cohesion, but it's always either a risky or a ho-hum lose/lose proposition. It could blow-up in his face, skip along barely touching that third rail, or fizzle out in some brand of disillusionment... or worse she could find out accept him. I never understand the certain death of that option but there it is the mother-of-all hidden fears wrapped up to look like a enchanted fairy tale... I guess another haunted brand of the fairy tale is that he finds the perfect vanilla mate and she redeems him, makes all the nasty little gremlins of ugly desires go away - she will see only the good thereby washing him clean of all sins and finally make him the whole perfect him he was always imagined he could be if only...

Ah, the if onlys... they are the worst little sister of the family fatal flaws. She's almost so sexy-ulgy sometimes it's irksome and other times she is the most seductive beguiling come-hither siren song of all time.

Oh finally everything is perfect if only... he is the perfect guy for me if only... I could be happy if only...

You know what I never totally understood is my own attraction to men who were unavailable in some fundamental and perhaps hidden (though perhaps not so vague) form. I understand why in some ways but I don't get the win or reward in it. I mean I guess I am in the process of outgrowing it if I can't see and explore the different levels of "what's in it for me?" I thought I had outgrown it I feel outgrown right now but part of me has been stymied into dating inertia because I am afraid I am smart enough to out-smart myself by innately becoming attracted to some as yet un-cataloged form of unavailability.

Although I really have to say what is going on in the life of someone who IS all emotionally available? I mean wouldn't the laws of supply & demand beckon them to those who are not emotionally available? And who the hell ever is really perfectly available anyway? Then I realize the unknown/unperdictable element in the chemical compound of relationships is timing.

02.11.06