8 is a lucky number in Asia, Part 1

I find I think of her more often now. There is time and space between the reality and the memory. Brushing her hair from her face so I could see her eyes and touch her neck will always be with me, a part of me.

I don’t remember any sounds. Most remarkably, I don’t remember the heat; it seems I am always aware of the heat. It was August and I was alone with her in a car. I am unsure of the exact time of day, but it was mid day.

Her father had told me he didn’t know where she was, didn’t know where any of them were. I had already found his wife and mother in law, that was easy, alarmingly easy.

I looked around and I knew where she was. I had already walked right past her once and hadn’t even known it. I took the heavy steps toward her, each step taking me out of time and myself; each step steeling me for the discovery.

When I got to the car I couldn’t see in. The windshield was broken and the car was on its side, passenger side down. I don’t know how I climbed up, but there I was, lowering myself down into the car. She had been hiding in the front seat, buckled in to be safe. Her skin was so smooth on my hand as I lifted her chin.

I brushed the hair away from her face and I knew. Her eyes were fixed and saw nothing. Her neck revealed no pulse. I had no feeling in that moment, there was more to be done back out there, 3 others still alive and needing to be tended to. It took some time for me to get out of the car and I was eerily calm.

My daughters in some way have brought this back to me. She was 9 and I was 20. I have a 9 year old now. We shared an odd and very peaceful moment. She was so sweet and quiet; a peaceful island, literally suspended, in eternity; a peaceful island in a day of unbelievable violence and loss. For a moment we were connected by fate and seemingly random events.

I wish I knew her name.

One Sentence

Somebody answer the damn phone! It was too loud, too annoying. He got out of bed, cold feet on a cold floor.

"But are you sure, are you absolutely sure?"

And there it was. Written on that stupid blue paper. He hated that damned blue paper, probably always had. It carried messages too clearly, as if they were written in the sky for all to read, no privacy, no tact. Just letters, forming words, forming one sentence, with one period. That sky, that blue sky, had been teetering, barely suspended above his head for so many years, perfectly balanced.
Perhaps it was that period, so final, that must have been the straw that broke the camel's back. Anyway it all came tumbling down, forget what did it, that doesn't matter now. All he knew was that he had been buried under eternity. Maybe not buried, no cliches, not "the weight of the world on his shoulders." That's too easy, too trite. It's much more like he was on the world, using all of his energy to keep it down, to keep it from spinning out of control. It was just a matter of survival. Happiness, sadness, all of that had to be choked off so that all of his energy and concentration could be used to stop the world that had jumped inside the hollow gray space in his soul. It was his world now, he had everything to do with it, but no time to appreciate it. His life passed away and all of his memories stood back in the shadows, if they could be seen at all, and watched as he applied all his strength to making his world stand still. The world that was the sky that was the paper that collapsed in on itself and into him and consumed his life. He was made useless in a sense, because of his inability to do anything but fight nature and stomp his world into submission, or die trying.

Some Thoughts

The thrill of independence, experienced for the first time was like a drug to me. From that day forward, for some time, my childhood was lived outside, away from rules and scrutiny and pressure.

Memories haunted me, and still do. But there, in that time, in that place, they did not torture me like they would later. Then, they were hauntings and ghosts, later they would become torturers and demons, imprisoning me in the deepest darkest recesses of my past.

But in those early, heady days of new found independence I was unaware of the impact the recent past would have on me, unaware of the madness lurking so close to the surface. Unaware too of how little I knew of light and dark and freedom and bondage, of madness and peace. And, most disturbing of all, how little I knew of myself. How ignorant I was of the damage, the internal divorce, the compartmentalization of everything. It took many more years of living before I would discover how young I was when I died.

I WOKE UP AND I WAS 40

There is a high cheek boned beauty who has been a part of my life for longer than I have ever known.

When I sailed I could feel her kiss my face on the breeze

Feel her in the ocean swells

See her in the sunsets

All of it bringing me to her, healing me.



I can hear the wishes and and fears and dreams of all those around me

Pressing in and surrounded by the noise of other peoples lives

To not live my own



Seeking the quiet and stillness

Away from the cacophony of my mind

Still-dark-quiet, hiding and haunted

Screaming silently, surrounded and alone

Dying to have love, but living to have none



A life stolen in a thousand little cold crimes

A thousand little acts of blind ignorance



Denial



Hiding-haunted-buried in the black snow

Walking/stumbling through the winter of my life



Numb- cold- dead



I don’t know when I went to sleep

3, 4, 5 ?

I woke up and I was 40.



Feeling for the first time

Knowing for the first time

Believing for the first time

In life

Life peeled back and raw

Lived close to the bone

With others



In my sleepless nights I heard her, voice soothing

In my childhood I felt her, hair smoothing

A God-given pillow for my spinning head

I searched for her in my toy box, dark and small

Seeking her in the woods and streams and rivers of my youth

I tried to take her from others, who did not have her to give

Always looking, in the pages of magazines and in the frames of movies

Never satisfied



When I woke up I was 40

And I was married to her.

I Notice

I notice, I just haven’t said.

I notice every freckle on your porcelain skin.
I notice how your neck curves just so…
I notice how one calf flexes differently than the other
I notice how your hand shakes when you forget to eat

So many notices…
Your forehead when you concentrate
The way you never finish your tea or coffee
How animated you get
How you talk in your sleep

I notice a little too much champagne…

How your amazing eyes get even brighter when you talk about your art

How you hear things I don’t
How I hear things you don’t

The way you stand on your toes all the time
The way you hold your mouth when you put make-up on

I notice the way you stand when you stare into your closet

I notice how you hold your pen differently when you sign your name

I notice…I do…and I have…and I will

The way your eyes water when you are about to cry…but they never turn red…

I notice the weight of you in the bed next to me
I notice the curve of you under the covers

You read in bed sitting upright
You look at every page of a magazine
How you get immersed in what you do
You war against the lies in your head

I notice – you need and want beauty all around you
I notice…you are beauty

I notice when you are mad and I want to run, I know you are begging for me

I notice how my withholding from you has left you confused and hurt

I notice how my unwillingness to give you my heart built a wall around yours

I notice how you respond when I show up

I notice you in a crowd
how we share thoughts without speaking
when you are standing behind me (I feel safe)
the sounds you make when I rub your feet
your earrings, the way you wear your jewelry
how you adjust your wedding ring with your other fingers
how you sit when you wear a dress
how you use your laptop in bed
how you fold the covers when you get in bed

I notice I just haven’t said
And now I notice that that makes me sad…