wise silence - a preview

Her phone vibrated several times a day.  As it buzzed against her hip in the front pocket of her jeans, Rosemary would move her hand slowly down and press the vibration into her thigh until it stopped.  Startling at first, the movement slid into a softening; there was never a message and Rosemary was relieved.  What could her father possibly say and in what language?  Just as there were only inadequate words for love, there were no sentiments that would console her now.  He knew, she knew, and somehow that thread was all that held them together. 

Jay walked around her, trying to make eye contact and sometimes she let him catch her.  He placed his hand in the small of her back and pressed gently.  His eyes begged for a word, but she had none.  He would stare into her, his eyes welling, and she would stare back.  A part of her longed for the message; yet locked in her silent cell, she could not reply.  She supposed he was lonely now, and scared.  She supposed people were speaking of her meanness and coldness.  So much for her previous pronouncements about forgiveness and letting go and blowing it all away.  But when you are drowning in the middle of the river and your head is under water, how do you scream?  When you are frozen in the middle of a bad dream, your jaw locked and panic and a vice around your heart, how do you wake up? 

She could see that she was awake.  She could see Jay’s eyes calling, but only the tiniest corner of her was moved, and it wasn’t enough. 

For weeks, she had fought the current of her rage, thrashing at any hand that reached out.  She flinched at any touch and rejected any kind word.  In her rawness, they all burned her flesh anew.  Each movement seared away the calm pain and sent her synapses into chaos.  To touch a burn, no matter how softly, was to ignite a new fire.  Nerve endings exposed do not differentiate intent.  They respond only to the threat, and shrivel hard against the terrible intrusion. 

Like a dog with a bone, she held on angrily, hungrily, as if these thoughts of anger and distrust, this silence, meant the difference between living and dying, between starvation and sated comfort.  Shane imagined letting go.  She was tired.  But her dog mind said no.  Instinct, guttural and mean, held on tightly with no pull of loyalty, with no inkling of forgiveness.  She wanted to bite the hands that had fed her life.  She wanted to protect the rotted, maggot filled thoughts with every muscle in her drained body.  In the Sophie’s choice between her father and her son, there was no contest.  She gave in easily to the seeming clarity of the decision.  It was the boy and always would be. 

They tried gently at first to ease her away from that bone thought.  Distracting her with shiny objects of food, stroking her hair from behind and softly whispering, “it’s okay.”  And there was only silent moaning from within her.  They tried stern words:  “Rosemary you’ve got to let it go, just for a minute.  Your father is suffering so.”  Rosemary could stop momentarily and listen, but her jaw never loosened its grip. 

If it had, the murky mess at the bottom of her mind would kill them all.  The gangrenous, vile words could never be taken back.  Didn’t they know that the bone in her mouth kept her from biting?  As long as she was occupied quietly with her gnawing, she would resist mauling them all.  Especially her father.  Especially that hand that had raised her, fed her, held her, taught her. 

She’d rather die than give up the bone.  She sat in autistic silence, no response on her lips or in her eyes, no contact with their faces.  Holding on. 
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Rosemary sat silently in the kitchen watching as the ham drippings congealed.  Time lapse, is that what they called it?  When minutes move by our eyes so slowly we can observe the molecular changes.  We can see the precise moment when a caterpillar breaks through to butterfly, when a rosebud unfolds into a dazzling, open, vulnerable flower, or when warm ham drippings chill just enough to form a congealed, disgusting mass that nauseates the onlooker. 

Time lapse, memory lapse, lapse in judgment.

Lapse- a slight error or termination of a right or privilege.  An interval.

            To slip, subside, cease.

Lapse- to cease to have validity, expire, run out.

Lapse- an erroneous action, error, blunder, miscue, misstep, mistake, a faux pas, false move

Lapse- failure to do a thing, an omission, an oversight.

As Rosemary glanced from object to object in that cool kitchen, it was all a lapse.  Everything- from three weeks ago today until now, and it would all be a lapse until the end of her own existence.  But if she had to watch it all in slow motion for much longer, she would have to engage in her own lapse and cut her eyes out. 

Her son’s life history moved past her mind’s eye slowly, not in a flash as told in trauma stories, but a slow video, looping end to beginning to end.  His fifth birthday party, bowling with friends.  His first girlfriend in stretch shorts and curled hair smiling at him as his gutter ball clangs and he sticks his tongue out in disgust.  A bike ride at seven, his legs unable to control the speed, his mind moving faster than the machine.  He crashes through obstacles, falling, but always getting up, surprised.  He never saw the fall coming, never. 

Rosemary imagined him in the moments before the end.  His eyes would have been full of innocence and joy, sparkling like the water around him.  He would have, perhaps, been singing aloud in the sun, dreaming he was a nomad sailor in that little raft, drifting on the ocean towards his next adventure.  As his grandfather’s trawler motored up the causeway, he would have believed that the rope would hold forever, that there was no danger, no threat, no event that could ever have separated them.  He could not have imagined, could he, that moments later he would be torn away, alone and dying?  The infinite beauty of the previous hours could not have prepared him for what was to come.  Rosemary had to stay in that shiny memory.  She too could not imagine the end, but for an entirely different reason.  Her son’s innocence could not yet create a picture of his own mortality.  Rosemary’s life had prepared her well, she had thought, for the image of destruction and she knew that if she allowed it, she could create a vivid, intricate picture filled with so much devastating detail that her head would explode from the vision.

She would stay in the pre moments then, the shiny moments of light and freedom and believing, ridiculously, that he had not suffered.  

the last time

She pulled out of the driveway yesterday morning, headed for Kansas, then back to Minnesota.  She was so ready to get back to her life after this long winter break.  I stood in the biting cold on the front porch and waved, trying not to think too hard about what this leaving stood for, but I could not resist letting go and telling myself the sad story.
     She is leaving as a girl, as a student, as someone whom I still support and as a partial kid.  This will be the last time for that.  She returns to St. Paul to finish her last semester of college.  She spent break looking for jobs, internships, trying to plan a life beyond school.  She will return home next as a "grown-up", self supporting, only a few days off at holiday adult.  We will not have the three week long visits or the mom- daughter road trips.  I know every parent goes through this and it is what we all want.  I'm not sad so much as nostalgic.  I love sifting through the memories of my life with my children.  They were fabulous at every age, through every phase.  Seriously.  And now, another phase has ended and I want to remember.  I want to burn the pictures of the past weeks onto a permanent portion of my mind and hold them there, precious and changeless. Sure, time moves forward and the girl who arrives home next will be more wonderful.  Yet I will silently mourn for a few days.  From where I'm standing, it is important to stop and rest, to look behind and treasure the road you came on once in awhile, before looking forward to the next journey.
 The view from here is lovely.

sometimes...

Sometimes, i get caught up in the notion that I know people.  I think I can predict, based on past observations, how people will behave, how they will respond, who they are.  Perhaps this has given me a comforting sense of predictability, or perhaps it boosts my ego to think that I have an ability to read people in a way that others cannot.
In spite of that, I continue to observe and people continually amaze me in the most delightful ways.
The brother, whom thirty years ago, I thought did not really know I was alive, has turned out to be an amazing man that I count on in so many ways and who does not let me down - ever.
The daughter, who at five and six and seven was so shy and hesitant has turned out to be a daring, confident, world traveler who constantly goes forth bravely into uncharted territory and makes a new path.
The son, whom, to the careless eye, might appear undisciplined, is truly contemplative, highly intelligent, and caring.
Then there are the patients, who handle heart breaking, mind shattering, life altering events with a grace and tenacity that I am in awe of.  They survive beyond all predictions or expectations and sometimes  small miracles occur with them.  They thank me, yet I know it is them that allow such marvelous mysteries to materialize.
Finally, there is the couple who has come to the rescue for my father.  Dad recently suffered a minor stroke which has landed him in the long dreaded nursing home.  My brother and I were celebrating the holidays far away when this took place.  As Dad spent time in the hospital and then moved to the home, one couple visited, cared for him, communicated to us, and put up with dad's complaining, confusion, and sadness.  I knew the man when I was very young and back then he was a wild dude.  Living fast and hard, playing life for all it was worth.  I would not have anticipated that he would turn out to be the friend that would spend hours tending to and comforting my father.  I could not have foreseen, from the vantage point of my limited mind, that he and his wife would be constant and rock solid support for my father.
Perhaps my father did.  As I look at his life, he always knew how to pick 'em.  I think I'll take a lesson from him.

maybe She's right

I lay on the mat after yoga class-savasana, attempting to release all control of the breath, mind and body.  The room is quiet and still. I hear only the occasional breath of the woman laying beside me and the soft footsteps of teacher as she moves around the room.  The smell of lavender scented oil floats behind my head.  My own breath is slowing and my body is relaxing, my back is slowly loosening.  Teacher kneels behind my head, gently pressing my shoulders towards the floor, moving to my neck and head, supporting and holding me.  As always, my heart softens and tears form in my eyes.  Is it possible that I do not have to carry it all?  Is it possible that I do not have to be so tough and strong?  Is it possible that the world could hold me in its arms for even a moment and I could let go?
Maybe She's right.  I lay in the hands of a soft and strong Mother who can protect and guide me, who can cry with me without fear, who will help me up, who I do not have to fear.
Teacher moves on to other students and I lay still, soft, warm.  I do not want to move .  I do not want to break the spell. The bell rings.  The namaste is spoken.  I am alone again.  But each time, a little part of me remains soft, hopeful, less afraid, more open to the possibilty.  

Her hands

At 21, my hands were my favorite part of my body.  Long, lean fingers, strong nails, and unblemished skin, capable of anything from opening jars to holding a pen for hours, these hands were my pride.  Today, from where I'm standing, these hands strike me as belonging to someone old.  Age spots dot the surface and knuckles are swollen from arthritis.  Wrinkles have claimed the terrain where smoothness once shone and opening even a child safe cap can bring an ache.  I want to be one of those who can look at such a change and be proud of all these hands have been through, all that they have touched, all that they have carried.  I'm not there yet.  It feels like a loss to me, my beautiful graceful hands gone.  I still buy rings to adorn them yet catch a glance at them during the day and wonder whose they are...oh, yes, mine.  The body of age I am coming to accept, but oh the hands.  I miss them.

the day

its the day........so far, bright and sunny.

Inside her home were secrets.  Hiding in the open were all the clues to her plan.  Daily, visitors walked through and around, laughing and smiling, eating and drinking, chatting about the cold, the heat, the economy, dish soap and Sarah Palin.  If a quiet observance was made at any point, she would have been discovered and perhaps someone would have attempted to intervene. A year passed with no comment on the collections accumulating, and finally the day came.  She woke, calm and prepared; she had spent at least a lifetime formualting, conjuring, provisioning and she was clear and ready.  Today, the plan would softly commence and the world would never be the same.  Funny, no one would notice that either.......

the day before

from where i'm standing.....new year's eve........
this morning is full of possibilities.  all of the approximately 24 new year's resolutions I have made seem completely doable, utterly possible, and happily life changing.  The year ahead looks bright.  I love these moments, the anticipatory hours when all things can occur in the future.  The days before a party when one can still imagine that one will be pretty and witty and drink exactly the right amount and come home with a glow.  The weeks before a vacation planning and dreaming, pictures streaming of happy children running and playing, of family fun, sunshine, and bonding.  Today, when I can see myself calmly and sweetly engaged in all my resolutions.  I will wake up each day and post to my blog.  I will go to the pool and swim for 30 minutes, come home and have a healthy bowl of oatmeal and only 2 cups of coffee.  I will go to work and finish paperwork immediately each day.  I will be kind to all and speak only that which is helpful, sincere, and kind.  I will make doctors appointments to check out all the current aches and pains and I will do exactly what the doctor tells me to do, including: take vitamin d and glucosamine, do daily stretching and strength exercises, and stop all activity that inflames my joints, like drinking red wine and eating dark chocolate............In the evenings I will eat a healthy meal with a tiny dessert, I will write, read, make art with no t.v. and I will rest my head calmly, completely ready for the next day.
Seriously, this morning I can picture this so clearly it seems as if it is already happening.
From where I'm standing, anything is possible, and it is a beautiful view.......