Forevermore

You got it all wrong, didn't you?

Piano played on your skin, no keys to be found. The braille you wrote was seen, not felt. The silent gestures heard, not seen.

Back to the river, you scrape your hand along the bed, dig your fingers in, see what you can pull up.

The cold water feels so good, a memory your palms bring to your surface. Down below you expect to find ground rocks, sand, dirt - you do not. Only smooth stones are left, black, white, and 27 shades in between - shades whose existence you've never admitted.

Your waters will never be muddied again. Freedom feels nothing like you thought it would.

Bénéfices secondaires

The nights are cold, colder than you remember. You usually like nights, you still do, these are just different. You add a layer. Maybe two. That makes a difference but not really the kind of difference you were looking for.

You're warmer now, closer to comfortable. But that's just a secondary benefit.

You realize it's not the warmth they provide, but the weight. The feeling that you are grounded from above.

Minor crisis

Of the blog variety.

Just meandering out loud. What to do with the blog.

Having come up with no answer, I'll ask you.

What to do with the blog?

Crossroads

Time has been on your mind lately, you cannot say why.

Traditionally neutral in your life, time has now taken a stance.

September is given to stances, it's that kind of month, it always has been.

Your life will be so different in one month. Because in this month of stances, time meets justice, her best friend. Not justice in the punitive sense. Justice in the harmonious sense.

Time and justice will do their work and your life will never be the same.

Hmm

Days after the twelfth anniversary of my arrival to stay in France - which was marked by twelve white roses quietly left at my door - I received a reminder that no matter how long I've been here, I'll always be a foreigner. Which is how it should be, shouldn't it? I mean, I'm not French, I was raised by American parents in a monocultural household. Well, relatively speaking. My mother is from the South and that did have its influence on my life.

Anyway, Saturday evening at a lovely dinner hosted by a lovely friend in a lovely setting, surrounded by interesting people of all nationalities and varieties, I was told I was, "so very American."

I started laughing, at least on the inside, although I may have worn a look of WTF irritation on my face. That is the one thing I never hear, have never heard once during the past twelve years. I took slight offense, I admit it. Not because being perceived as very American is always a bad thing, but that such a judgment could be delivered after ten minutes of conversation.

Having said that, I'm sure he was quite right.

Hide

It has been your nature to avoid endings. Too final, too hard, too permanent, although you do realize the finality, the hardness, and the permanence are yours - not inherent to every ending.

You've decided to be willing to let an ending be otherwise. To let yourself be otherwise.

It has been promised - everything outside that door is good.

And promises mean the world to you. Literally. Neither words nor intentions, promises are diamonds to you. The clear, sparkling, hard, future truths of your world. Anyone who doesn't know that about you doesn't really know you.

Whiplash

You stand, still for once, watching the ground that has been covered. Distance and ash evidence of your trail. You see an elaborate labyrinth. Cleverly made, brilliantly even, you can see neither beginning nor end, just its heartbreaking beauty and integrity.

Convinced this was your lesson, you've navigated this adventure like the student you've always been, good overall performance with your tendency to procrastinate still intact.

The possibility that the lesson might be someone else's to learn never occurred to you. Not because you're egocentric but because you're chronically hard on yourself, you just assumed this was your river to cross. In fact, you may just be a supporting character.

Another incidence, although some say occurrence, at a different Owl Creek Bridge, how many miles will be covered in the inch you've been asked to give? Years in the seconds you've been asked to yield?

A place for you

You've been in this place longer than you've ever been anywhere. This one place that has never really felt like home is the place you've spent more time than any other. You cannot explain this.

You could detail how ready you've been for a change. You could describe the goodbye you've already said, the thanks you've already given. The nod of acknowledgment you received.

What were you being being told? That change, as ready as you may be for it, is not ready for you? That there is something you still have to do here or perhaps something that must be done to you?

As is always the case, time knows better than you which page is really the last.

Timing

It began with once upon a time. Hmm, you say. In good time. Ok, you say. You think you can live with that. Time heals all wounds. Yes, you say. Time will take care of the things that you cannot. Fine, you say.

You breathe differently. Just in time. How does your body know that times are changing?

Everything there is outside that door is good.

The coal in you

The darkest black, mined from the strata. A network of shadowed veins. Metamorphic rock, your gloss speaks of your purity and the rivers of time dedicated to making you shine like that.

Were you to be picked up and put to paper, your traces would be indentations, not smudges. You do not color, you mark and engrave on the archives of this tale. Lines drawn can be smeared, the truth of your path cannot.

You are used, transformed, exploited for purposes that are not your own. The blue of your involuntary flame burns hotter than you can help. A smokeless fire you did not set.

Essence

It's your favorite flower, delicate. It's your favorite perfume, mesmerizing. Sometimes it smells like something you want to eat and other times like something you want to do. Although elsewhere too, it is in you, an essential organ you did not know you had, transplanted in one innocent moment when you answered the call of an instinct smarter than yours. But this is a secret you do not know. You search without, never within. You've pursued it through an elaborate labyrinth - your own wrong turns, dead ends, accidents, and shortcuts have left you lost and more alone than you've ever been. Your only comfort is your blurred certainty that you are neither. It is the cold comfort of a lie that keeps everything in place.

You found its presence one day, at the end of the ocean that keeps you from it, an ocean of time and truths, all denied. You hold it gently and sweetly in your hand. You don't want to crush it, you want to keep it with you forever, hidden in your pocket. But you can't, not like this. If you carry it with you on your travels, years and lives from now, you will have stripped the petals off, painfully one by one. Its fragrance changed - the bitterness of what you would not eat and the disappointment of what you would not do. Search and rescue was meant to be your mission. Not search and destroy.

This day

There is something you should know about today.

So many things can mark a day, but you know this, of course. Tone. Mood. Play. Work. Weather.

Unmarked by anything memorable, they pass. Enjoyed or tolerated or endured. Whatever.

And then there are days like today. Hopefully, at the end of your life, you will be able to count their number and it will be mercifully small. A day that n'a pas lieu d'être. A day that does not have the place to be, the room to exist. Which is exactly why you will remember it so clearly. Despite its dissonance and impossibility, it is here. Bookmarked for life.

A day when you can only accept all or nothing but are not allowed that luxury. Never before have you understood the privilege and comfort of extremes like you do today. Because they have never been further from what is available to you.

Wild kingdom

You knew a woman once. She had animal in there, you could see it from a mile away.  If you actually saw her.  Most people didn't.  Mercifully blind to that kind of person, most people barely noticed her on the street.  Not because she was nondescript, but because they somehow knew they would be safer if they did not.  Brave or naive were those who saw that blackness and approached uninvited anyway.  A few times you actually saw her back away from people who got too close - compassion lightened her eyes and she gave them back the distance they were not wise enough to maintain.  They left the encounters feeling odd and not knowing why.  

You weren't really safe with her either.  But you knew that.  So she let you take your chances.  

It was out of compassion when she left you.  In pieces, yes, but also in peace.

How far would you go?

Did you know there is a veil in front of your eyes?  Not really over them and not exactly a veil, it looks more like a fine net attached to the safari hat you're wearing.  Which suits you perfectly.  A veil is for maintaining mystery - your net is pure survival function.  You could not live in this world of yours without it.  Things that bite are kept at bay and the grid of wires frames every vision you have.  Times are changing though.  

Your eyes have begun to focus differently, more slowly.  Shifting focus is harder with time.  You can no longer see the net - it's too close for you to focus on it.  You find yourself having to adjust distances if you want to be able to trust your perception.  So let's talk about distances.  Let's talk about the one between you and what you want. 

Don't think of it in terms of miles, think of it in terms of years.  Chunks of lifetime.   

Net or no, you've been bitten.   

Your path

You had an uncanny ability to see the worst, quickly. No judgment, you were just fluent in the language of evil. An interpreter's gift. You spoke it with ease and detachment and indifference. But you did wash your hands when you were finished.

Put your hands there, you said. Obedience followed, but not well. Hands on the flame and the fire, the red and the orange. Black dots, bad ones, formed the outline of the deadliest triangle, a personalized Bermuda triangle where everything gets lost in a silent, swirling vortex whose origin no one can explain. Not even you.

And then you blithely ask for words to describe it. You talk about it like it's an ice cream flavor you're considering having for dessert, not a carnivorous natural disaster that's been eating its own way through this history.

You are very good at what you do.

Unknown to you

You're a brave soul, or maybe we mistake arrogance for bravery. If that is the case, it is not the worst kind of arrogance, it comes from long held habits of yours - ease and success. Not that you didn't work for either - you did - but your life is more charmed than you think. In a moment of both weakness and strength - and those are rare, magical moments - you invited darkness into your house. But like your arrogance - if that is indeed what it is - this is not the worst kind of darkness. Neither evil nor harmful, it is dark only in color, not in essence. And so, for all of these reasons, you are not afraid to let it stay with you for a while.

Because, if there's one thing you know, it's how to clean a house. You carry the supplies - a full range of products and equipment - from room to room. Darkness gone, you will remove every trace, every scent, every remnant, every hint of anything not inherent to this home. Bright light returns and the shadows disappear. Which is how you like it, right?

This helps, for a time. You do not understand why it doesn't help more.

Didn't anyone tell you? Even clean, your house will be haunted. The whisper of memories will swirl around you, hidden behind the smell of pine and vinegar and bleach. You will be frustrated at every corner you turn, a secret wish - unknown to your mind that masters - to see, to feel what is no longer there, no longer yours - a wish that will never leave you alone.

There is no cure for this.

The tourist

I live in a land of unofficial laws, you said, your feet up on the table.

You can come and stay with me, for a time. I'll show you the lay of the land, you said.

I had pretty pictures in my mind of colorful maps and flow charts.

And so I did. Stay with you. But I left again without ever having learned them, those unofficial laws. Compliance does not imply understanding. And there were no maps. Just thick walls. And no colors, just the gray of black and white pictures. And of course no flow charts. Just endless check lists. It was all very slick.

You gave it your best though. You gave it everything you had. It, not me.

One day, you will have to be forgiven for your generosity.

One fine day

Observe this, you say. Watch and learn.

Oh, I will.

I will watch you play this round like you know how it's going to end.

I will laugh, gently, when your shadow jumps out and scares the patterned breath out of you.

I will watch you as you stand at your fork in the road, not believing in road signs.

I will laugh, quietly, when you realize where the burden falls.

I will watch you do what you have never done before. Lose.

I will laugh, with you, when loss becomes gain.

The hunter's woman

We say woman because that's what she is. She may have been your daughter, your wife, or your mistress, but that's just the name of the box she lived in.

She's got quite an education this one. Don't be fooled by all her comings and goings, she's observed and learned during those travels, things of both herself and you.

She doesn't touch your knives, they inspire nothing in her personally, or rather they inspire her far too personally, she's been too close to knives all her life. She does like to watch you work with them though. Just tools to you, she trusts you with knives. And she loves it that you assume your kill completely. She knows the hunt starts early in the morning for you, it's not your sport - it's your experience. She knows you apply the same patience to the watch as you do to the skinning, gutting and cleaning. She likes it that you are skilled at each step. A true hunter, not just a killer, you clean up your mess.

Your guns do not impress her, although she recognizes your skill and ease with them. She notices how they look in your hands. You make it look effortless.

Her preference? The crossbow. She takes it out at night when you're sleeping. She spent weeks in the dark with it, reading it like braille, her fingers seeing for her. It's almost like touching herself. Internal sear, metal. Integral plates, ivory. Wood and sinew, bound with animal tendon.

Whether you know it or not, this weapon you share.

Too close and not close enough

I suppose what really changes is perspective.

You've been way off on this - you realize that now. Your face right up against it, you have found safety in the detail, or so you thought.

This is not the first time you've been confronted with this. Nor, I suppose, the last.

The most recent case? Edges you thought you had known, named. Ridged teeth on a carbon steel knife. Sometimes too far, this time you were too close. You've been staring at it in your hand for months, years now, convinced you knew what you were gazing at. Yes, gaze.

You backed up. A gentle hand yanked you, way back. You saw it was not the jagged edge of a knife, but stairs. Black stairs you've spent your life trying to climb. Hard work - the edge of each step is a blade. You know when you reach the top that the soles of your feet will be mapped with cuts, bloody and painful. You're not concerned though, you're not meant to walk there. There, you are meant to never touch the ground.