caveat emptor

Tea with the Folks

If I could have tea with anyone in the universe, I think I would have tea with one of the primitive living organisms that was among the original eukaryotes, the common ancestor of both animals and plants. I’m not sure what we would talk about, or even what mechanism we would use to communicate. What a strange creature it would be, not animal, not plant, not visible to the naked eye (I assume). I guess we’d have very little in common, just a few genes. Talk about your generation gap. I wonder if you’d even be able to see the family resemblance? “I’m your descendant,” I would try to say. “You have so many, many descendants, all very different, and I’m one of them.” I wonder if he/she would be proud of me. I mean, I know I’m no giant redwood or cheetah, nothing cool like a baobab tree or a whale shark, but I’m okay. I come from a species that’s interesting in its own way.  “I didn’t come have tea with you because I need your approval or anything. I mean, no offense, but I’m orders of magnitude more advanced than you are.” I hope I wouldn’t start crying. “Can’t you just say you love me? Can’t you just say something?” On second thought, it’s probably not a good idea. I’m just feeling too needy right now for new relationships.

Hello, friends. I don’t need your approval.

Later. Love.

My Susan's Interment

Today we interred Susan's ashes, which is to say we buried them. It was a small gathering, just the kids and me, Susan's mother, Susan's sisters Katie and Patty, Patty's husband Michael and daughter Heather, Katie's son Josh, my mother and my mother's long-time boyfriend Jerry. When we arrived there was a small tent with chairs and a small pedestal where we placed Susan's ashes and the red roses we brought for her.

I was feeling pretty emotional about the whole thing, so I wrote down everything I was going to say. Here is the text:

Thank you for coming to honor Susan this morning. This is going to be brief. I’ve prepared a little something to say, and I’m going to read it so I don’t get too emotional. After that, I’m going to sing one of the songs Susan wanted me to sing at the funeral if I thought I’d be up to it. I wasn’t then, and I’m not sure I am now, but I will try. After I sing, I was thinking I would say something brief directly to Susan, as if she were here. Then any of you who would like to can say something to her as well, or something to the rest of us if you prefer, share a memory, say goodbye, anything at all. I know a lot of people aren’t comfortable talking in front of a group, and emotions might make it difficult, so I don’t want anyone to feel pressured about it. Again, thank you for coming.

What happens to us after we die? What we believe about that question shapes what we do for our loved ones who have passed away. The subject has been one of the primary preoccupations of humanity for as far back as we have written record. We have wondered about it, feared it, imagined answers, received revelations, formulated doctrines, doubted and believed too many different things to enumerate. For my part, I do not claim to know what happens to us after we die. At this point in my life I do not believe anything in particular about it. I don’t know if we go on in some form or if we end with our last breath. I know some of you may believe certain things about it, and I respect that. Susan believed in an afterlife, in a better place where you meet everyone who has gone before you and wait for everyone coming after. If there is such a place, Susan is there. No matter how good you might have to be to get in, if it exists, some part of her, her spirit or her soul, is there. Her body is gone. She was quite finished with it and she didn’t leave it in very good shape. And she didn’t want to lay that spent body forever in a pretty dress in a wooden box inside of a concrete vault. She wanted to be done with it, to be cremated. Ashes to ashes and dust to dust. But, even so, Susan is also not in this box of ashes. And if we bury this box here, as she wished, she will still not be here. If some part of her is still anywhere, she will not be here, in this ground. I think it is fitting, nevertheless, that we set aside this spot for her. For one thing, it was her wish. Although she chose cremation, she was very deliberate in wanting place where we could come visit and remember her. And why would we come to this place if, as I have said, she is not here? It is for the same reason many people who believe in a god who is everywhere go to a church. A church is a place dedicated to thinking about and meditating on god, even if god is everywhere. There is a word for it: sacred. Sacred means “set apart,” “dedicated for a purpose,” “inviolable and venerated.” And so, although we could remember Susan anywhere at any time, this place will be sacred for us. This place will be dedicated to her memory. And, even though I do not know what happens to us after we die, I will come here and I will visit and remember Susan. I will come here and talk to her as though she can hear me. Here, where her ashes are buried, I will bring her flowers and I will honor years of love and joy and pain and comfort and growth we spent together. I’ve already wished for a place like this. I look forward to them placing her marker – which shall take a couple of months to complete and install. I tried to design it to honor exactly who she was for all of us. It will say, “Susan Faye White, July 12, 1970 to April 15, 2012. Beloved Daughter, Sister, Wife, Mother, Friend.” And then, in the corner, it will say, “I love you, my Susan.” That’s a message from me, but it can be from you too if you’d like. I’m glad you’re all here to see where Susan’s sacred place is. I hope you will remember and visit her here if you can, on the side of this little hill, under this tree that is little today but will grow over the years. The vase installed here is permanent. It fits into a base but you can twist it and turn it over and put flowers here for Susan. The caretakers will replace it in the base after the flowers have withered. If she is still out there somewhere, I cannot help but believe that any love we show to her memory will reach her somehow. Again, thank you for coming.

After reading that and managing to mostly control my emotions, I sang Rock of Ages. Then I said a few personal words to Susan during which I completely failed to control my emotions, but it was okay. Then Katie read a beautiful letter she had written to Susan. Then Patty shared a story about two baby birds outside her house this week and how they reminded her of Susan and Katie. And then, one at a time, almost everyone there shared something. There were tears and laughter. It was a beautiful time. We went back later and they had closed the grave and placed the roses into her vase. I'll post a picture of her marker when it is etched and installed.

For those of you who are local, know Susan personally and might want to visit her grave at some point, she is at Greenwood Memorial Park at University Drive and White Settlement Road. The map below will help you find her grave. (Click to enlarge.)

Hello, friends. I hope you're well.

Later. Love.

Often Small

Most of life is light, small, simple. A good meal or a brief conversation can define a day. Once in a while someone heaves a great stone into our tiny pond and we are reminded of profundity and depth until the waves settle back to ripples and the the ripples radiate out, smoothing back into calm. On rare occasion something changes us forever, but then that energy diffuses and momentum gives way to inertia as we slip back into a groove of small duties, minor inconveniences, little triumphs, the quiet pulsating of this rhythm of joy and sorrow, coming and going, eating and sleeping, talking and watching. Life is so slight most days that if you don't pay careful attention you might miss it.

Hello, friends. I hope you're well.

Later. Love.

Touching Each Other, Even When We Don’t

Maybe it’s a finishing touch that is evident, all your everything in place. So many different paths to attraction. Hours at the gym show round or flat firmly under fitting clothes and a deft sway, tone shaped beautifully under the influence of skilled motion. We like the way you move. That symmetry of face that stirs the mind which showers the heart and loins in chemicals, flushing red as the pulse quickens, the breath comes faster. “Is it warm in here?” we wonder and we adjust in our chairs. That voice, deep or bright. Teeth straight and white. Hair long, full, short, cute, dark or soft. That humor that touches you in surprising places. A seductive generosity of spirit. Refreshing encouragement with a lusty smile, warm and inviting. We are moved by your various aspects, static and dynamic. There is sex in the way our lives intersect. Even when we do our best to ignore it, there it is, prickling just below our skin, wanting to reach out and show you what we mean.

Hello, friends. I hope you’re well.

Later. Love.

Walking on Water

The first step from the shore is the most difficult. If you break the surface then you’ll not be able to rise back up and stroll thereupon until you walk away for a while, dry off and wait for the water to forget what happened. The key, in my experience, is to imagine the fullness of the sea, the total volume of all that water, the wholeness of the mass of so much liquid. It’s far larger than you, billions and billions of tons. You could never hope to displace it. You’re nothing. You’re insignificant. The sea hasn’t got time to notice you. Try to be subtle, subliminal even. The wind passes over the surface, and you’re smaller by far. Think upward thoughts, dry thoughts. Imagine the impossibility of your foot punching through. How could you break the surface? Who do you think you are? And then there you are, one step out onto the water. The next are easier and easier still. After the first, it just comes naturally. If you make a habit of it, perambulate too far out from the shore, you’ll find yourself hopelessly buoyant, never again able to dive in and swim down below in the cool, dim depths. The water will have forgotten you, learned to ignore you, decided that you are irrelevant. This might be more than you want, so be careful. Walk a little while, and then make yourself plunge through. Force the sea to remember you. Dive down and claim your place among the sinkers and swimmers of the world. Plummet feet first into the depths, your eyes open and cast upward at the quickly fading light of the sun disappearing far above as the dark sea welcomes you down.

Hello, friends. I hope you’re well. I do.

Later. Love.

A Slow Leak of Potential

Morning arrives like a reliable friend that you don’t always enjoy as much as you once did but you still appreciate out of a sense of loyalty and the soft, easy comfort of familiarity. I’ve always, however, been suspicious of comfort and anxious about routine. What if some other way is the better way? What if I’m wasting the little time I have? I’m not sure why I worry so about it. I doubt it is given to me to save the world. Surely you’d know it if you were the Messiah. If not, then the system is too flawed, doomed. Thoughts like these, fitful but shallow, bedevil my coffee and oatmeal time. Sitting alone with my thoughts, my breakfast, and this blinking cursor cursing at me. I love to be alone, though the word looks sinister these days in a way I never noticed before. A lone man sits alone, typing “alone” into his word processor. Solitude has always represented for me the potential to squander the opportunity to be productive, and I am, above all things, interested in being a producer more than in being a consumer. (No offense intended to everyone else’s products.) These days production has slowed, however. Being alone has mostly been an exercise in breathing, in blinking, in expecting to get started soon. It’s alright, though. I won’t worry too much about it. I have solitude to spare, to burn, to squander. There’s always tomorrow and the promise of newfound resolve, time well spent, productivity. In the movies they represent silence with crickets. That’s not silence, though. That’s crickets. Silence is much quieter.

Hello, friends. I trust you’re well.

Later. Love.

The Apple Picking Bag

One of the best purchases I’ve made recently was my online purchase of a harvesting bag, specifically a bag made for apple picking. I looked around local feed stores, farming supply stores, and big home & garden warehouses for such a bag, but to no avail. So, I searched online and finally ordered one from, of all places, Amazon. It took about a week for it to arrive, and I was probably disproportionately excited when it did. I’ve wanted such a bag for a while, and it’s perfect. It has a strong, thick, padded shoulder strap and the bag itself is of sturdy canvas and nylon. It’s like a big, tube of fabric with a shoulder strap, open on the top and the bottom, with a rigid, crescent-moon-shaped frame in the lining around the top to hold it open for easy apple depositing. You fold up the bottom of the bag and clip two metal rings attached thereupon to a couple of locking hooks about a foot and a half from the bottom, closing the bottom so the apples don’t fall right through. Then, when your bag is full of apples, you walk over to some larger apple-receiving receptacle, unclip the rings from the hooks, and the bottom falls open, easily delivering the apples and emptying the bag. I love it. I don’t have any apples to harvest, but I use it when I’m pulling weeds or pruning small trees or trimming shrubs. I prefer to work quietly and slowly, without loud power tools. To trim the shrubs on Saturday, for example, I donned the bag, took the small hand clippers, grasped overlong branches one or two at a time, clipped them and deposited them into the bag as I went. If I saw a weed as I worked, it went into the bag. It was peaceful and strenuous in a pleasant way. There was no loud, vibrating motor. There was no power cord or gas can. There was no cleanup when I was done. Just the quiet snip of the clippers and the sigh of the clipping sliding into the bag. I filled the bag once and then about two-thirds again, emptying it into one of the large, brown, recycled paper bags the city uses for yard and garden clipping collection. It took a while, but I loved both the finished result and the process. I think the apple picking bag might be my favorite thing I own.

Hello, friends. I hope you’re well.

Later. Love.

Something. Something. I Don't Know.

Maybe I should go back to school, something to fill my time. I could study math. Math has always been a weakness of mine. I wonder if knowing math would change my personality in some way. Maybe I'm not meant to know math. Maybe knowing math would drive me insane. I don't want to play games. I know that. I cannot stand the wasted potential and energy that games represent to me. I want to produce something or to learn something. I don't want to get into television shows or play games or take up some crafty hobby that produces things no one needs. Maybe I could get really into fitness, with abs and whatnot. I could spend all my time jogging or biking or climbing to the top of things the hard way. I'm done with romance and intimacy of the sexual sort. It's just so complicated and fraught with stress, insecurity and compromise. I've had the love of my life and it was enough, I think. Also I don't want religion or empty socializing. I'm not interested in traveling, all that time and money just to see things and places that are so far away from your life and your people and then you come home and here you are again. I want to write, but I have no inspiration right now. Maybe I could throw myself into art or Do-It-Yourself home improvement. If I take up cooking I'll get fatter and my diabetes will kill me, unless I took up really healthy cooking, which doesn't sound like fun. Maybe I could secrete thin strands of silk from glands around my mouth and wrap myself into a tight, giant cocoon and wait patiently to see what comes out after all the metamorphosis and whatnot. It might be a monster, though, like something from a bad Gojira movie. I don't know. Something. Something else. Something. Maybe I'll study math. Maybe I'll grow wings and learn to fly. That would be fun. For a while.

Hello, friends. I hope you're well.

Later. Love.

Resting Place

On the eastern rise of a low, green hill, facing dawn across the gardens, with an oak just over your shoulder to shade you from afternoon's heat, I bought a place for you. I feel certain you would like it. I love you. I miss you.

My Susan's Death

I'm recording this while I still remember it. It's not eloquent or edited. It contains some indelicate details. It's long and overly specific but, such as it is, here it is. Feel free to read it if you'd like. Hello, friends.

Update: I came back and edited it a little the morning after I posted it. Too many typos. I couldn't abide them.

---

At UTA, after the scholarship banquet was over at about 9:00 PM on Saturday night, April 14, 2012, we were waiting outside in the cool evening for the valet to bring my car. Although we weren't the last in line, everyone else was gone for several minutes before they brought mine and I was starting to get worried that there was some problem. Then, to my relief, my green Prius pulled up. Robyn climbed in the back, I helped Susan into the car, tipped the valet, got in and drove away. Susan loved UTA and she wanted to drive by a couple of buildings on campus to show Robyn and tell her about them. Susan was always more enthusiastic about things than the rest of us. Robyn and I wanted to head home, but we humored Susan and drove by the buildings with a passably good attitude and only the slightest tone of impatience.

I don't really remember anything about the drive home after that.

When we arrived home at almost eleven, Susan called River downstairs, upset because he hadn't done some chores he agreed to do. She got a bit too angry about it, as she did occasionally when she was on so much medication, but she got over it quickly too. At 11:36 PM I sent River a text that said, "Sorry mom got so upset. Just try to overlook her behavior. She's not exactly herself. Love you. Good night."

I don't remember what happened after that. The next thing I remember was Susan waking me up some time between 1:00 AM and 2:00 AM. She was nauseated and vomiting. She always kept two emesis basins beside the bed. One, already full, was sitting on her desk beside the bed and she was holding the other, mostly full. She needed me to empty them. Groggily I rose and carried the one from the desk into the bathroom. Looking into it before I dumped it, I saw that the contents were bright red. "Susan? Are you coughing up blood?" I asked.

"No, I had three red popsicles before I went to bed."

It made sense to me. I dumped and cleaned the basin, took it to her, got the other (also bright red), dumped and cleaned it, took it back to the table and went to bed.

A little later - I'm not sure when - she woke me again. Once more I emptied the basins of something bright red and cleaned them.

At a little after 4:00 AM she woke me a third time. Yet again I emptied the basins of something bright red and cleaned them. I was a bit more awake and became concerned. "Susan," I said, "this looks like blood. I think we should go to the hospital."

"No," she said. "I had popsicles. I don't want to go to the hospital."

I came and sat beside her on her side of the bed. Her eyes were closed and face was bowed, hovering over an emesis basin she was holding in front of her. "I think we should go to the hospital."

"No."

Then I heard a faint gurgling sound coming from under the blanket. So I lifted the blanket. There was a shocking amount of blood coming from between her legs. I felt a jolt of panic and I jumped up and rushed to the phone to call 911. I told the woman who answered that my wife was bleeding badly and she told me within seconds that an ambulance was on the way. I stumbled to put on some clothes while I talked to the operator. Susan hardly reacted to any of this, and that's when I realized that she was mentally foggier than usual, something I hadn't recognized earlier.

I woke up River and let him know what was happening. I told him to listen for the door while I dressed. Robyn woke up too and came downstairs.

The firemen showed up first. I worked with them to unhook her TPN from her IV port, answered questions and signed paperwork. Then the ambulance showed up. I told them which hospital we should go. I picked Baylor All Saints because she'd had a procedure there on Friday and I thought the bleeding might be related to that. They picked her up with the sheets still wrapped around her, put her on the stretcher/gurney and wheeled her away, telling me not to try to follow them, just to come at a safe pace.

The ambulance left. I finished some paperwork with the firemen and they left. I gathered Susan's normal hospital supplies and papers and gave the kids some instructions. "This is not the end," I said to River and Robyn. "This is just something we have to get through." I left for the hospital. It was almost 6:00 AM at this point. I drove to the hospital. On the way I called Katie, Susan's twin sister, and told her what happened. She said she would come up to the hospital later. I got to the hospital, parked, followed the signs to the ER, and was directed to the room where Susan was being cared for.

They were cleaning her up. "Do you want these sheets back, sir?"

"No. Just throw them away."

"What about this pillow?" The EMTs had brought her pillow. She loved that pillow.

"Yes," I said, and I took it from them.

Her blood pressure was dangerously low. (I don't remember the actual numbers.) She was mildly hypothermic. They got her clean. She was foggy, but she was talking. She said she was cold. They put this plastic bag thing over everything but her face and inflated it with hot air to get her temperature up. They wrapped warm blankets around her head. Soon she was complaining that she was too hot, but they said she still needed the warmth.

A doctor - I don't remember her name - came to me and asked me what had happened. I told her everything I described above. I told her Susan had been in this hospital on Friday (it was early Sunday morning at that point) for an EGD to try and put a stent in her liver but that they couldn't complete the procedure.

"Why?"

"There was too much cancer. The doctor said it was 'encasing' her liver. There was no approach."

She made notes and told me they were admitting Susan to the ICU, Room 10. Soon we were on our way up there. It was probably about 7:30 AM. They told me to wait in the waiting room while they got her settled in. I sat there for a while, then someone came to get me.

"We're giving her blood," she said. "The doctor is on the way in. Once the transfusion is done and she's stabilized, we're going to do an EGD and try to find the bleeding."

"Ok," I said. They led me into ICU room 10. I greeted Susan when I came in. She responded but she was very groggy. I sat in the chair in the corner of the room and tried to stay out of the way. Susan seemed to be sleeping. Everything was calm.

After a few minutes, probably a bit after 8:00 AM, the doctor came in and asked me when Susan last ate.

"She had some popsicles late last night," I said.

"What time?"

"I don't know. I was asleep."

"It was midnight," Susan said from across the room. Those were her last words.

At this point I just sat in the chair and waited. At one point I asked if there would be time for me to go get my insulin from the car and eat something before the EGD.

"Sure," the nurse said. "There's no hurry. It will take a while for this blood to infuse."

A few minutes later, the monitor started to beep. I was not concerned. They do that all the time, and the nurse came in immediately to check on it. A couple other nurses came in. They talked softly and seemed perfectly calm to me. I thought everything was fine. I just sat there in my chair.

Then, after a few more minutes, the nurse turned to me and said, "This heart rate is not sustainable."

"Ok," I said. I didn't get it.

"And she's a DNR, right?" the nurse asked. (DNR stands for "Do Not Resuscitate," meaning Susan wanted no invasive or heroic measures to bring her back if her heart stopped. She didn't want to end up on life support machines.)

"Yes. She is," I said. "That's what she wants." I still didn't get it. It's not unusual for them to ask about her DNR status in the hospital.

After another minute or two, the nurse said, "Her breathing is very shallow. Would you like to spend a minute with her alone?"

At that point my heart skipped a beat. That's literally how it felt. It dawned on me what was happening. "What?" I said. "What do you mean?"

"Would you like us to go out so you can be alone with her?"

"Is she...?" I didn't finish the sentence.

"Probably," she said, but that wasn't what she meant. She meant, "Yes."

I was shocked. "Is it pretty certain? Should I call people?"

"Yes, you should call people."

I stepped over to Susan and took her hand, but she didn't respond at all. I put my hand on her face and in her hair, but she didn't react. I reached down and opened her eyelid and leaned in close. "Susan?" I said, but she didn't seem to be aware at all.

Then I stepped to the window and got out my phone. I called Katie and told her to get up there. I called Billie, Susan's mom, and told her she needed to come up there. I didn't tell either of them what the nurse said, but I assumed they understood. I called Susan's older sister, Patty, and spoke with her husband, Michael, and told him what was happening. I called River and told him to get the girls and come up there immediately. I tried to call my mother but I couldn't reach her. At this point it was probably 9:20 AM.

After I hung up I went to sit by Susan. I tried to stimulate her or elicit a reaction, but she was not at all aware. I sat watching a number on the monitor - I don't know what it was measuring - as it fluctuated and got slowly lower and lower. In my mind, it would go to zero when she was gone. It hovered in the fifties and then the forties. I struggled to believe this was really happening. Turning to the nurse, I said, "Is this for sure? Could she still come out of this?"

It was 9:29 AM on Sunday, April 15, 2012. The nurse looked at the monitor and then put her hand on my shoulder and said, "Honey, she's already gone. I'm so sorry. I'll leave you with her."

A sob started to come, but I held it back because the nurse didn't leave. She was fussing around with tubes and needles, trying to clean Susan up for the people on the way. In my mind I was thinking, "Would you get the hell out of here, please?" but I didn't say anything.

Then, after what seemed like a long time, she left. I pressed my face to Susan's and sobbed for several minutes. I told her I loved her and that I was sorry. I felt bad then and several times later, for just sitting in that damned chair trying to stay out of the way while she slipped away. By the time I engaged with her it was too late. She was gone. I was pretty torn up, but I pulled myself together after a bit and started thinking about the people on the way. I stood up and stepped over to the window. I got in touch with my mother and told her Susan was gone. She said she was coming up there. Then stepped just outside the door to meet people as they arrived.

Katie arrived first. I didn't say anything, but she could see in my face as she got close what had happened. She was tearing up before she walked through the door and went over to see Susan.

Then Billie, Susan's mother arrived with a friend she had brought along. She asked me how Susan was and I told her, "She passed away." Billie was inconsolable and loudly distraught for several minutes. Katie tried to comfort and calm her, then Billie went over to sit with Susan.

Now I was waiting for my kids. I called River and he said they were in the parking garage. I stepped out of the room and went into the lobby by the elevators to meet them. I saw them walking across the rotunda below to the elevators. Then they got off on the second floor and walked over to me. I told them, "Guys, Mom died." Robyn and Rayn started to cry. River was more stoic. We all hugged for a long time, and then we walked to ICU room 10. The nurses watched us walking in and I'm could tell they realized these were Susan's children. We got to the room. Katie and Billie hugged the kids and then Robyn and Rayn each sat beside Susan and cried and held her hands and said goodbye to her. River pulled another chair up nearby and sat quietly.

After a few minutes my mom arrived. She hugged everyone and then said goodbye to Susan.

That was it. I started calling the funeral home. Eventually Billie went with her friend to have a cup of coffee and calm down. My mom and River went for a walk. A nice, well-meaning chaplain hung around awkwardly for too long. I finally told him Susan was a Christian and would appreciate a prayer. He gladly led us in a prayer and soon after left, much to our relief. Billie came back, said goodbye to Susan and left. My mom left. The kids left. Katie and I stayed until the funeral director arrived with his gurney. We wanted to wait until he took Susan away, but he gently insisted that it would be better for us to leave before he began to move her. So, we left.

I loaded Susan's things into the car and thought for the first of many times, "These papers and medications were so important and now they don't matter at all. The person that gave them meaning is gone." So strange, for a person to be gone. She was a part of so many systems and groups and plans and she was gone. I still don't fully comprehend all the ramifications.

Forest

The land sloped generally downward toward the river, though that was almost a mile away so that you could neither see it nor hear its gurgling passage through these densely forested foothills. The terrain was challenging and complicated, a diverse chaos of uncontrolled nature, but it could be understood by organizing it into layers with distinct histories. Oldest were the rocks, massive domed boulders, jagged but smoothed by ages of rain and wind, protruding from the old ground from which they had erupted and the new ground that had settled over them, strewn rough and tumble all about in ancient broken bits that told the tale of tumult after tumult of geological shift and change. Then there were the trees, old in their own right, jutting out among the ancient stone in whose company they were as newcomers. There were the upright giants that rose tall and straight, branching out only far overhead into a sparse canopy that let in plenty of light. And there were the gnarled and warty squat trees, giants too, but spending their growth energy more horizontally, casting about invisibly slowly in every direction with a vitality belied by their apparent stillness. Then, scattering in among the contrast of these, there were saplings, shrubs and young flora of innumerable shapes and types, thriving briefly in the shade of larger cousins as they burned away their brief spans or grew to join their elders above. Last of all was the top layer of covering growth, the vines, mosses and lichens carpeting and draping all these older, larger landmarks with ambitious ubiquity of greens, browns, yellows and reds. Nearby, before the shadows closed in, sunlight filtered down in straight, visible beams through clearings and gaps in the foliage, made semi-opaque by the particulate forest air, afloat with pollen, dust, motes and vapors of various forms. The sky above the treetop horizon was grey and excited with the threat of interesting weather, and this lay heavy over the woods like a muffling silence broken only by the scattered, occasional calls of unseen birds, anxious in the looming tempest. The afternoon and environment were coincidences of time and space, not there for any reason, not engaged any the act of any will, not positing any positions, justifications or explanations. This was pure location, pure afternoon, being what it was in the hour at hand. Even its long, visible history was not its fault or concern, and it denied any entanglement with the past, all obvious evidence to the contrary notwithstanding.

Hello, friends. I trust you're well.

Later. Love.

Maniphisto

Small things, things that might take only a few minutes, easy things are left undone for weeks. Months. Coffee and oatmeal in the morning and a few minutes without demands feel like too much to ask, and like they shouldn’t be too much to ask. Sometimes I close my eyes and inhale deeply and then purse my lips slightly and blow, a mannerism like a sigh, but the drawn out mild exertion provided by the labial resistance gives a comforting sensory feedback that calms me. I have developed new skills. I can smile and banter with anxiety like a blade in my throat, sweat building in the hair on the back of my head. “What’s bothering you?” “Nothing.” And it’s true. It’s bothering the hell out of me, nothing is. “It’s this feeling that it’s going to be alright, but not yet.” Did you ever wish you could close your eyes in the morning and not wake up until you’re going to sleep again that night? Every early morning appointment feels like another betrayal, trying to swallow hot coffee too quickly, your mouth pulsing from the heat, dragon breath and fire in your belly. Every blink on your long commute is ten miles gone, no memory of all that road, all those passing, metal monsters with their audacious proximity of well-behaved potential death and destruction controlled only by the voluntary constraints of fading lines of paint on the pockmarked pavement, distracted manslaughterers trying to get somewhere else around the obstacle that is us. Passing afternoons spent sitting in conference rooms afraid that people might realize that I’m naked under these thin clothes, aging and unattractive, flawed and unpleasant, all of us talking robotically about work issues, things that matter but only inside these walls. Did I drown that baby turtle, the second one that seemed lethargic? Did he kick off the bottom and swim up for air after I walked away with a sick feeling in my gut of a good deed gone awry? Should I have doffed all my business casual attire onto the lawn and jumped in to save him? Would that have been more or less human? And I know summer is coming, the long, cruel heat that doesn’t relent, even at night. Somewhere in the future I hope to dive into a deep pool of clear, cool water and swim down, down, down until I cannot hold my breath any longer and I have to rush urgently for the surface. I hope to lie in soft grass and stare up into the stars in a place so dark that you can see them all. I hope to wake up rested and ask myself, “What shall we do today?” Until then I just have to remember to stay here, to discharge my duties, to resist evaporating in this glaring sun of struggle. I love you so much I don’t know what to do next. Thank you for that.

Hello, friends. I trust you're well.

Later. Love.

Kill That Noise

You cannot just stack words up in interesting shapes. People will say, "What is this bullshit? Is this supposed to be cool or deep? It makes no sense." You have to put your words together in ways that work, ways that express ideas. Ain't no damned Picasso in writing, noses up on foreheads and square eyed cheek mouths. Writing has to work. You don't just look at it. Get over yourself. Keep your creativity in check. One day you might feel inclined to write, "brick bat train baby tiger monkeys, wet hype top on bottom fire," or somesuch, but let that junk go brother man, sister friend. That's not writing, it's just wording. Say it out loud and its just noise, so much crazy sound. Nobody understands "clap dog comet lobsters" or "sky bed chocolate ennui." It's like nothing. You might as well save your time, store up your words until you have something real to say. Go for a walk. Fly a kite. Pet the dog. Paint life falling kiss lady ocean butterfly.

Hello, friends. I trust you're doing all you can, and everyone appreciates your efforts.

Later. Love.

All Downhill From Here

Somewhere in this hulky, bulky body with all its dangly, gangly parts is a soul that is neither man nor woman, old nor young, thin nor fat, native nor foreign, beautiful nor ugly. Maybe not literally, for you materialist debaters, but certainly and really. Sometimes the metaphor is all there is, the words we use to describe an idea are the fullness of its noumenon. I want to explain that to these young, energetic, beautiful people laughing and smiling all around me as the wind howls by more loudly than you can imagine. "We're not that different, really. Not on the inside." They'd never hear me in all this noise, though. "I'm not just an aging, overweight computer programmer. There's more to me."  But I'm self-aware enough to imagine how it would seem. It sounds pathetic in my head. And suddenly the opportunity is gone as they all disappear, shooting inexplicably upward into the sky, defying all reasonable explanation. My startle passes when I realize that it's me, not them. I'm still plummeting toward the ground and they've all pulled their chutes. I should probably pull mine. I wonder if they conspired to pull their chutes without me, trying to ditch the old dude. Man, the ground is coming up quickly. Where is that ripcord? I wasn't really listening when the young lady was explaining. I was too busy wondering if she was wondering what I was doing there, imagining that she was judging me. Was she? I mean, it seemed like she made eye contact with everyone else more than with me. Why did I even sign up for this thing? I'm so obviously out of place. And now they're all way up there and here I am, dropping like an old, dorky stone. Is this the cord? I'm pulling it but nothing is happening. Maybe they just gave me a backpack and not a parachute. No, they wouldn't do that. They seem like cool kids. I'm just imagining things again. Insecurity, that's all. What was I doing? Was there something important I was looking for?

Hello, friends. I hope you're well.

Later. Love.

For My Susan on Our 21st Anniversary

Today our marriage is old enough to have a drink. It's getting so mature, growing into such a responsible, adult marriage. I'm very proud of it. People want to define marriage narrowly these days. It's a widely held position, narrowness. People want to act as though marriage is something that never changes. But marriage changes, and not just the institution. Each marriage changes as it grows up with the participants. I remember our young marriage, so much energy but so unsure and immature. It was the marriage of two kids alone together in the world. Then came the children and work and school, a busy marriage of people learning to be responsible by being buried in responsibilities. Then the kids got older and things got a little easier. Then came your school, your career. Then your cancer, when marriage became caring for you, a different physical intimacy, less sexy but no less intimate or passionate. And here we find ourselves today, children growing up, money more plentiful, everything more familiar and more comfortable as we arrive here at our twenty-first year of marriage. They tell us it will probably be our last, though they've been wrong before. I don't want it to be our last. I want our marriage to grow old with us. Even so, what we've had and what we have are enough for me. I'm eternally satisfied with my life and any more joy I know is just a bonus. Let's celebrate. Let's take our marriage out for a drink, now that it's old enough. I love you, my Susan. Happy anniversary.

All of us that live here are me

When you become pure rage you might unplug your outside from your inside, disengage your person from your body in such a way that you can still blink and nod, smile and answer questions, drive calmly through traffic, waiting patiently in the hope that you might eventually burn out and someone else will rise again from your own inner ashes. Until then, you might bide your time keeping busy with the mundane shuffling and sorting of the memos and receipts of smaller duties, putting them all into neat stacks, reorganizing and combining, culling and separating, ordering and shredding. Avoid matters of the spirit or soul, aspirations and dreams, reminders of too little time and too few resources, of the galling silence of gods who couldn't be bothered to exist. While you are distracted, throw everything you love and believe into the fire. Paint over the blackened places with forgetfulness and denial. Tell yourself you are other than you were. Make it as true as you can. One night you might go to sleep and someone else will wake up the next morning, blinking away the dissolving dream that was you from the sleep that you shared. Don't weep for the loss of yourself. Dry your eyes and say instead, "This body is just a house where people live and all of us that live here are me."

Hello, friend. I hope you're well.

Later. Love.

Dream Follower Dream

All around town every day, even on the crowded train, never far away, he follows her and she knows it. Over to the street where the affordable lunch places are teeming with middle income people he stays cautiously behind her, eating at a sidewalk table in front of the place next door. To a sad bar at night where they sit alone together across the room, trying not to be obvious. Rainy days or sunny, cold, windy or warm she can always catch a glimpse of him, he never loses sight of her, the sound of footsteps softly in slow pursuit. They love each other by now, though they've never met, and even though only one of them is real and neither can remember which.

Hello, friends. I trust you're well.

Later. Love.

Erzurum

The sun through the front window of the bus blinded me awake as we jostled over the rough street heading into Erzurum. Somewhere nearby I had, or so I had been assured, a hotel room reserved. Presumably there would be a bed there where I could stretch out this stiffness for a few hours – two days tops – without the onslaught of knees, elbows, voices or the ubiquitous stench of people who smelled as bad as I almost certainly did. I shifted slightly to relieve my throbbing side from the lump of the boots in my duffle and turned to stare out of the side window where there was no morning star trying to enkindle my brain. On the outskirts of town the buildings were sparse and dingy without the prickly stabbing of minarets mingling among the crowd of swollen Byzantine domes that marked the cities of the region. My mouth was thick with the pasty memory of bad food and burnt coffee and I closed my eyes again as we churned along. Her face filled the eyes of my daydreams.

"I want the song to be a cloud, to evoke the feeling that a cloud is talking to you, telling you what it's like." She is hugging her guitar on the blanket where we sat that Wednesday in the field just outside Elsdon, the only day the sun came out for those two weeks.

"Telling you what what's like?" I ask her.

"To be a cloud," she says, furrowing her brow. "What else would a cloud know to say?"

She had been right, of course. What the hell else would a cloud know? It was clear to me now, bouncing along the road in Erzurum, like it hadn't been back in Elsdon. I winced to think that we'd probably have made love one last time if I'd only seen it clearly that day, but instead I had droned on sourly, darkening her one sunny day, and, inventing some commitment, she had taken her guitar and her beautiful, soft blanket and her wonderful, generous breasts off to her cousins' house for the evening. Suddenly the bus driver blazed his horn at a bicycle and I jerked upright, startled. The cyclist, an old man, took his time moving aside and then we lurched and shambled forward. My heartbeat faded slowly back to normal and I settled back, closing my eyes.

"Be safe, then," she says to me, leaning in to kiss my cheek with a chaste innocence that burns like an accusation. It's the day I'm leaving for London and then on to the Continent and she's standing outside the car. I want to get out and wrap her up in arms and legs and pack her away and bring her with me, but she's keeping a distance that subtly but clearly tells me to stay in the car. She's a wonder like that with communication, knowing every way to say everything. I envy that.

The bus window was open and I could hear a muezzin calling adhan nearby as we burrowed into the city, walls pressing closer and climbing higher on all sides. The familiar feeling of being far away had, for a long time, been like a hum in ears that accompanied me unceasingly, and that place was no different. A baby girl with a dirty face but bright eyes, naked except for a diaper, stood in the bus aisle holding onto the seat in front of me to keep from stumbling. Her stare was intense and unwavering, right through my bloodshot eyes and into my soul. I smiled at her, but she was unmoved like stone. I wanted to pick her up and hug her, maybe sing her a song. I wanted to sing her a song to make her understand a cloud, but I didn't know how to say everything like that. Not many do.

Hello, friends. I trust you're well.

Later. Love.

Boy

A sufficiently old boy who is still sufficiently young, maybe nine or eleven, and has woken up just after sunup when the light is still coming in sideways so all the shadows are different and everything is a little golden, has no objection to yesterday's underwear or to the jeans and T-shirt rumpled on the floor at the foot of the bed. If you throw the pajamas on the bed it’s going to work out perfectly tonight when you need them again. Socks already properly utilized, however, are stiff and feel wrong. Even a boy will don clean socks if there are any, new, clean socks under old, dirty sneakers and then off to the day. There are seasons of gaming days, sitting for hours in front of the television honing reflexes and problem solving skills with deft fingers and thumbs that wield pretend massacre in passionless pursuit of some invented objective. Then there are seasons, like now, of outside play, late summer and spring with no jacket, otherwise with this year’s jacket, or maybe last year’s if it still fits. There are toys in the dirt, balls in the fields, thickets, ponds and creeks to explore, or, with good fortune, real woods, rivers and lakes. There are seasons with friends, maybe even a gang, other boys or, if a boy’s lucky, some girls. Then there are solitary seasons, just one other person or not even, just a boy and his survival gear alone in the fauna and flora. These are years for honing mechanical aptitudes, learning to control the large muscles and the fine, learning how humans interact in conflict and cooperation. Subtleties might still befuddle a boy of ten, flushing in anger or embarrassment, confused at the brush of another’s hand that tingles like most things haven’t before, the seeds of things that will grow to awful, wonderful fruition in more complicated times to come. Sometimes that howling longing, that disconnected wind of restless despair or desire might stir briefly in the heart of a boy this young, and he’ll feel the echo of it in the vast cavern inside his chest even though he won’t understand it. He’ll stop digging and look over the tops of the trees and wonder how far a person can go from home, what they’ll find if they do, whether they’ll ever come back. It’s fleeting, though, shaken off and washed away in the torrent of young questions and ideas, the maelstrom of learning and growing. Youth burns away fast, but not when you’re in it and every hour feels like a day, every day like a week. How can we wait until tomorrow? It’s so far away. Let’s do it now. Everything. Let’s do it before we have to shed these stiffening socks in the sleepy, darkling decline of today strewn across the carpet and up into the warm, soft, unmade bed.

Hello, friends. I hope you're well.

Later. Love.

Another Day is Done

Day is drawing to a sleepy close here at the coffee shop where I sit at this computer and work for hours every day, morning till night. My top and bottom eyelids are trying to snuggle and spoon, but I’m resisting them because they block my looky holes when they do that, and my other senses aren’t sharp enough to see the screen. I’m punctuating sentences and making a few last minute edits on a software specification document, the same one I’ve been working on for weeks. It’s a beast. I’m saving files and shutting windows. I’m packing up this morning’s goals carefully because, as it turns out, they’re still going to be tomorrow’s goals, so I cannot be too rough with them. I still need them. I’ve been using them for many days and they’re getting a little ragged around the edges, a little torn at the creases, a little soiled with coffee stains, grease and barbecue sauce. In a minute I’ll start disconnecting cords, shutting down peripherals and packing everything into the sixty pound bag of junk I carry around on my sore shoulder. One shoulder, my fingers, my eyes, my ears and my ass, these are the parts I use every day. Sometimes I use my talk hole, but I’ve been doing a lot of remote solitary work lately. When I go back to the office it’s going to take me a few days to remember how to look at people and listen to the word sounds they make. This is what I do lately. It’s work, you know. It pays the bills. (Actually, Susan pays the bills, but the job is where we get the money.) One day I’m going to change into a butterfly. People will come to my office and they’ll see a giant, empty cocoon and they’ll ask, “Where is Scott? I need him to sign this expense report,” but I’ll be gone. Not sure how I’ll get out of the building, though. I’ll have to wait for someone else to call the elevator and open the front door, I guess. Will anyone do it? I mean, a giant butterfly with a sixty pound laptop bag will probably scare them, right? I’ll just have to try and be cool and nonchalant. Most of them never look up from their smart phones anyway. That reminds me of how annoyed I was that SNL stole my idea about a car that sends you a text message when you’re about to crash into something. I wish those guys would leave me alone and quit stealing all my ideas. Have you noticed that they do that to me? I have. Aaaaaanypoop, I guess I’m going to pack up and go home. My iPod Shuffle, Señor Tinybop, is fully charged. I always charge him when I think about going back to the gym to get in shape. Who’s ever heard of a fat butterfly, after all?

Hello, friends. I hope you’re well.

Later. Love.