"I remember the night clearly, as clear as if it were yesterday; and I said the same thing ten years ago. The door opened and a shaft of light, first narrow, then wider, planked into my room and across the foot of my bed. And then it was gone. The door shut. My father, thinking I'm asleep, starring at me from the distance as one might stare at a rabbit, fearful that the slightest move will frighten it away. To this day I do not know if he meant to say goodbye or just to gaze upon his only daughter one last time. Truth be known, I felt like the rabbit. He was not dressed as he normally would be when tucking me in. His suit, as I recall, was military issue, dark, with dials and knobs and all sorts of things that fascinate the young. But I knew. I knew from the suit he was not coming to say good night. And I thought if I pretended to be asleep, he could not, would not leave."
"Why are you smiling?"
"The power of innocence. Thinking I could shape fate by pretending. I'd like to have that belief back. I'd like to live in a world where everything ends right, a world where good triumphs and dreams come true. I was in that world. I had, with Kyra's help, touched the unknown. I was the jewel of the ship. And I thought I could bend reality to my wishes. They say there are times in a life where there is a before and an after, that there are events, however subtle, that forever change the way we see and act and think and relate. That night was one of those nights. Of course, I didn't know it at the time. I mean, who does? What is clear now, was not at all clear then. But I do know this. The innocence that gave birth to the belief in all things good--died that night. I just didn't know it."
"But it didn't quite happen that way?"
"No."
"Please continue."
"After what seemed like forever, I sneezed. And he came over, to say 'good night.' I still remember the sound of his suit, a squishy sound, as he sat on the bed beside me, his weight throwing me off balance. I remember him looking at me as if he were looking through me, as if my eyes were in my forehead, as if he couldn't look me in the eye. And I remember his hand, looking ghostly in the pale starlight, as he reached out to brush the hair from my forehead. And then that squishy suit, that suit that wasn't suppose to be there. I hated that sound. I hated that suit. Like an intruder into our private affair, branding a memory into my brain. I own no rubber--to this day--the sound is too similar. I'd sooner drive splinters under my nails."
"What did he say?"
"To be honest, I don't remember. I just remember he didn't look like my dad. And I kept thinking he sounded odd and I thought, when I wake up, he'll be there."
"But he was, wasn't he?"
"Yeah. But it wasn't the same. I just didn't know it then.
---
Postscript:
"Can I add one more thing?"
"Sure."
"I love my dad. As much now as then and as much at all points in between."
"Noted."
"Thank you."
30 comments:
Borderline outtake chapter. I sat down to write something very different than what you see here. And yes, this chapter will make a little more sense when I write the next one, which explains somewhat what she meant at the end of this one. Peace.
Tears began welling in my eyes when I realized who was speaking. Loved this chapter and all that it evokes, the wonder and the wondering and the patient curiosity, something this story not only taught but demands and the immense pleasure that there is in that. From the side was this chapter and even more for it. Back later. Quick version: Fabulous stuff!
Sunshine, your comments are the sugar in my tea. Patience in this story is not just a virtue but a necessity. Hang on. Although work (and travel) is getting really hectic for me this week and next, the ideas for the next few chapters are in my head and ready to be written. :-)
I leave for Phoenix on Tuesday. Get back on Friday and then leave for Phoenix again on Monday. Maybe the time on the plane will be fruitful. Could depend on who sits next to me. :-D
Wish it were me. :-D
Just have to say, before I re-read the chapter and comment that the header image is another wonderful choice. These could so easily be yours in as much as quality of course, but more so they are, or rather become very quickly, who you say they are. :-) This was Sal, but I must tell you that my initial impressions of Sal were not as pretty, not sure why, but I had her down as butch/frumpy, two very derogatory terms, but hey, what she did to Trev was as unforgivable as it was cruel and so that she should be so gorgeous instead, is almost unfair. :-D
Back in a bit, been looking forward to this all day, been thinking about this chapter and Ariel grown, Ariel with memories of times long passed all day.
Outtake chapter, but not for the reasons that you have listed that are why some chapters come to be known as such. Outtake for the fact that here is something completely unexpected and utterly delightful at the same time. Imagine. Ariel grown. Now, it isn't that we have not visited the future before, or the past for that matter, just one beloved aspect of this story is that the story jumps through time, but an adult older and a child and adult are two very different things. Also, for whatever reasons, perhaps because they were not there from the beginning, that they are not Hynerians nor original Bravo crew, that we should still be acquainted with Ariel in the future was not something that I personally had consciously considered. I think that I always and only expected to know her as she is now, a small child, at a temporary stage and that at some point she would either fade from the story or as would be much less original simply watching her grow and develop as time, now, on Bravo, passes on. It is moments like this, reading a chapter like this, where the well and the awareness of the magnitude come to the forefront. So many ingredients stirring in the pot already and here we have another large dollop of something that one just knows is going to add the most incredible flavour and intensity.
My heart goes out to John, in this moment too, the past moment, as he sits on his daughter's bed, unable to look at her. I think, in so many recent chapters, of the portrait of him, that easy grin, of the chapters where he and Rog were on their way to rescue Kyra, Von and Em, of his position, the daring, dashing captain so to speak and the surgeon of course, the family man content and secure, at times at least and up until he met Kyra, in his place in the world and within his homelife. He is but a shadow of his former self and I cannot help but wonder whether he will ever smile that easily again. Loss of a loved one. And the circumstances surrounding. Still I hope so.
To listen to Ariel now, to listen to her speaking of herself in another time, almost as though she were speaking of another person, which I suppose in many respects but the obvious she was. Imagining what she does not say from what she does, beautifully you did this, detail and yet there seems to be so much held back also, reinforced by the addition/amendment at the end. You have, sometimes through being able to relate, sometimes just a knowledge deep inside, such a touch, such credibility, somehow to put it simply you have been able to take a child and turn her into an adult with memories of her past. I mean, wow, the idea itself, inspired, how you accomplished it, brilliant. Simply said.
And we all do this, do we not, remember times, remember thoughts, thoughts and memories and feelings that seem out of place for one so young, as we look at them now, and yet that it is so is known, that what is remembered is right, and now looking back one can watch not only with hindsight but with experience and knowledge and maturity and all those things that were passed and picked up on the way. As she tells, that night was a turning point for her, only realized later, the end of a time. Two things, the first, it is interesting that after all that has happened in recent months, the upheaval from Kulmyk and all the changes, that it is this point that changes her. Not saying that it should have been any other way, going back also to the comments written by you, I and others at the time of those chapters in so far as attempting to understand why these things did not faze Ariel very much, I think we reached understanding all of us what those reasons, some of them at least, could be, also her mother's passing, such a huge thing to happen in a little girl's life, but again through Kyra and the chapters with Em the threads were weaved, and so here it is - apologies if this comment starts not making sense, what I have noticed myself is that I often start a sentence with a couple of points and forget to finish some of them, plus continuous interruptions - the event, tags either end no doubt, but this memory, this one night, watching her father sitting there, in his suit, looking through her, was the line that once crossed there was no going back. Lost my train somewhat there, but secondly, it will be very interesting to observe Ariel from here on out, to watch her in chapters up ahead as she is now, a child, knowing what we know, having been granted that look into her future and what her future self had to say about the effect of those times.
Such a smooth, well-written piece. And deeply intriguing. How she changes from my father to my dad, how she looks upon him then not only as Ariel then, but Ariel now, that knowing smile, the one that could be discussed forever whether there should be more shades of grey, of adult knowing what the child did not. Cannot help but want to reassure her, though her world is not mine, though her experiences are not mine, and though mine are not all that clear sometimes either, that her younger self was right, that in the end things turn out right, or at least that there is balance in the world, which one could argue also is better. Very evocative piece, not just in regards to Ariel and her experiences, but there are several general things that I am sure all are able to relate to in one way or another, times in life, befores and afters, events that forever changed us, and this is a very special quality that your writing here embodies, her words evoke memories, thoughts, times and what happens then is that one of your characters not only reaches out to share her story with us, but that the reader in turn shares.
So very excited to see where the story goes from this point, as it joins all the other lines moving. Ever increasing rings from that single CC pebble :-), each and every time, in all honesty, the magnitude and the wonder of it. So special.
Wonderful chapter Poppet. Safe journey Tuesday, I've already started missing you just so I can get used to you not being here - doesn't really work, miss you as much anyway, but what else to do. :-D Love and hugs, x
Sweetest, thanks for the paragraphs. :-D
I don't have much time so let me lay this thought(s) at your feet. Life is told in the little details rather than the broad brush of major events. Nothing is more powerful than loving and being loved and nothing is more devastating than the opposite. Ariel always knew her mother loved her and the death of her mother meant nothing in comparison to knowing that love. Her father, however, sowed a seed of doubt, one that many years later she still struggles to compensate. Did he love her or did he not? Did he love her in degrees and is that even possible? I sense she never really got or accepted the answer. Little things make all the difference. Big things, not so important. ;-)
As for Sal, well, almost exactly like I pictured her. I have this overwhelming desire to say "I've been a very bad boy." :-D
I can echo Miss Storm's sentiment -that my own eyes welled with tears when I realized that it was Ariel speaking of her father. I would like to read this chapter again before I really comment. I will say that her description of childlike innocence being slowly lost struck a chord. Her attempts to pretend it away were an emotional slap. I have often tried to see into my past and decipher what I knew and when, about all the things going on around me. That door seems to be stubbornly stuck and will not open to examination. A protective measure I believe. I have been observed by others to have a childlike innocence or naivete. It could better be descibed as a stubborn streak to not be corrupted by certain ugly truths. I wonder would Ariel identify with me this way?
I hope you have inspiration like never before on your plane ride. Hair, nails, bod, face.....the total "muse" package. :^D It would only benefit those of us waiting for MORE. Be safe as you travel.
Jen
Jen, I think Ariel would and I think the two of you would enjoy each others company. :-)
I remember as a child, and even into young adulthood, thinking that I was special, that I was destined to do something great, that my life could simply be no other way. I still remember that feeling strongly. Quite frankly, however, all that remains of that idea is, well, the idea of it, the memory of it. I no longer harbor such thoughts, and truth be known, often wonder if my life has meant anything to anyone. I know that is not true, but it doesn't remove the thought and there are times when the thought itself seems to haunt me.
Indeed. Realizing that the world is not actually our stage, that we are "but a vapor". I could argue against the voice of the inner Tree to a point that your head would swell. I believe that Strumper, and Miss Storm, and Snow Elf, and Wamblings.....members of your fan base, would say the same things as I. Your art is mesmerizing, your Story is consuming, you have a gift. You have created.
But most importantly, the part that we don't see about you very often, is that you are a Father. THAT is, in my eyes, a great calling. And regardless of how much your son will let you in at this point in his life, you are there. Waiting to be what he needs for you to be. We are great when we over come and ascend to greater than we were shown how to be. You have arrived Tree.
Your friend and fan, Jen!
Hmmmm...
Something in me, made me read this aloud from the very beginning.
And very shortly into it, I was crying.
I read it soooo slow and feeling every word resonate within my being.
This was amazingly written, Tree.
I do not lie.
I was moved.
And I'm still moving.
I have no better way to say it as that.
May you have happy travels.
You will be missed.
xoxo
:-D
Strumper, I'm amazed that three for three have read this chapter with eyes full. It never occurred to me that this chapter might elicit that reaction. Sometimes I feel that the story I write and the story people read are two different stories. Just flat amazes me. Maybe I'm numb to the sadness in my own heart and I can't feel like I once did. Now how sad would that be. Sigh.
Jen, on Saturday night, C and I went to dinner (he is fourteen), discussed politics at a level few of my friends could match (and he claimed he wasn't following the race) and then went and saw the best movie of the year--Ironman. Something tells me that ten years from now, I will remember that dinner and that discussion and that movie and I will wonder where all the time went. They (his soccer team) played and lost in the semi-finals of their tournament tonight. I think I might have witnessed the last time I see him in a sporting uniform. I've taken several thousand pictures of him over the years playing sports--he even has his own blog with a lot of those pics--and yet tonight, in what could have been his last game, he didn't play and although I have around fifty pics from the game, he is not in any of them. And I feel a sadness I can't describe and wouldn't wish upon anyone. At the end of the game, as usual in these matters when your child does not live with you, I got in my car and he got in his with his mom and I drove away, for the thousandth time, alone, wondering about a life that never was, about, well, just about . . .
Trée, you are traveling. We are traveling. I beg you to keep me on as an invite, a guest, despite long absences and irregular visits.
"One Night" reiterates the holographic immersion. Every chapter regardless of thread or length stands on its own. I'm constantly catching my breath with emotion and awe. Are you not this 'hollow reed' through which the creators compose melody and shape and color?
I cannot give you anything that requires conscious thought. I swallow it whole, incapable of reason until the drug abates. Emma Jung wrote a discrete and genius essay on the instinctual power of The Masculine and The Word upon the feminine. However The Word is uttered -- from Shakespear's pen to yours to Mel Tormé's velvet to Freddie Flintstone's grunt to God's -- the feminine in all of us melts in a swoon. And so it is with One Night(and so many more).
"... did he love her in degrees and is that even possible?" What an important question. Is it possible to love in degrees? If I love in degrees can I call it love? When the Lover was half a lover, loving was in degrees and conditions. Now she quietly opens cellular windows and doors, sometimes glancing backward at the illusion of degrees sloughing off, sometimes pounding on still-locked windows and doors, impatient with herself.
I l00-percent love what Jen says about you and your thoughts on greatness & musings on your incomparable life.
Maybe not numbness to the sadness in your own heart, just not taken by surprise by it. Surprise is a well-spring for tears. Could that be?
I toadally love what you say about the little things, Ge-MINI! so simply utterly and forever true, and no one writes them as you do.
It's our birthday soon.
Crying again at your words, not in the Story, but your own story. You were THERE, at the soccer game.......... being there is huge. I am sorry for the sadness in your heart this evening.
I'm going to get some sleep now. Can't believe how late I have stayed up, as usual. Hope the skys are friendly!
*Cause I'm leavin' on a jet plane
Don't know when I'll be.......*
You are not numb, Mr. Tree.
You write the shit, after all.
We all react to our emotions in different ways.
This Story...it is your way.
And it's frailing beautiful to behold.
Strumper, sometimes I feel the opposite of numb. I have an ingrained sensitivity I wish at times I could turn off. I cannot bear to watch any living thing suffer to the point that I will work overtime to shoo a fly out an open window rather than swat it. I can't watch movies with senseless violence or hate, I abhor the raising of voices. My intuition, especially for reading body language and tone of voice is off the chart. Being this sensitive is a double edged sword. I enjoy and experience many wonderful things but I pay a price on the other side and suffer in ways and times that leave others puzzled. So, many times, I feel alone. Imagine finding it difficult to find someone who can share your joy and your pain because they can see it, and feel it and understand it. Then again, imagine if others simply looked at you like something was wrong with you, implying that your feelings and thoughts were wrong, that you were wrong and by implication that you must conform or change or be something other than what you are. Sometimes I wonder if I live in the same world as everyone else. And those are dark days. What I remember most is having days like that when the weather is perfect, the sky blue, the grass green, neither too hot nor too cold, birds warbling and owls hooting and only the caress of the breeze in my hair. And in that day, a darkness prevails as if I were a bubble looking upon the world but not allowed to touch it, to be in it, to participate. Imagine being in a room full of people and feeling invisible, where people look past you, through you and talk around you and you are standing right there and when you do talk, it is as if no one hears you because no one responds and they go on with their own conversations, as if you are not there, as if you never were and you have the very real and strong sense that if you left, no one would notice, that your presence was less than a drop in the ocean. Okay, time for more coffee. :-D
Jen, not my intention to make you cry. Please accept my apologies. As for being there, I've spend fourteen years overcompensating on being there, because I am not there. C's mother and I divorced when he was less than six months old (long story). As the old spanish proverb says, 'take what you want and then pay for it,' I've paid for it and will continue to pay for it in ways that few care to understand. You see, judging someone is so much easier and quicker and, it seems, so much more fun. Unless, of course, you are on the receiving end and you are the one judged, sized and found wanting--the object of deceitful gossip, a gossip that boarders on a perverse pleasure taken at your expense in a way as petty as a puddle is shallow. Petty or shallow nonetheless, hurt and pain know no such distinctions and you realize that the only thing that stands between you and some of your 'friends' is a word or idea. To think that a single misconception, born in the swirl of idle gossip, can destroy a friendship, and like a wildfire, take on a life of its own and consume others in its uncontrollable hunger. When I was a small boy, my grandfather had a farm and on that farm he had bought me a pony. One year I was visiting my pony and he had burned the fields for reasons I forget. But the image of me, as a small boy, standing at the edge of that burnt field, all before me blacken soot where once crops green and gold had stood, the starkness of that image, no one else in the picture, just me and my pony and that endless black field, as fields look when you are six or seven--well, there was a time when my life later looked like that. And when I tried to explain to others what I was seeing they were too busy with their own lives to effort the energy to look.
My dear Lacey, I could no longer keep you from my blog than I could fail to take the next breath. My blog remains public, but if the need is forced upon me to go private I will send you another invite. Although your visits and comments may be infrequent and few, what you do leave is as precious to me as treasure washed upon the beach. May our travels be fruitful. Take care and I'll see you when I see you. :-)
And yes, Happy Birthday to us! :-D
Desolate. Destroyed. Unyielding. Wanting. Parched. Offense to the senses.
I can picture the image and I can understand the emotion.
There is no pat answer. Nothing clean and tidy about life unless it is lived without emotion. You are full of emotion so you will continue to live facing some shocking fields.....
BUT - do you remember ever returning to that field and seeing it bloom again? Whether you saw it or not, you know it did. Nature has a way of rectifying wrongs, growing vines and flowers over rotting logs. There was a reason for your Grandfather to burn off that field - a pruning of sorts. Pruning hurts and we are to be mindful of the pain that others are experiencing when they are being pruned in their lives. But it brings forth fruit. Then we rejoice with them.... or ask their compassion if we ourselves are being pruned.
Tears of compassion come quite naturally to me so no need for apologies. Sometimes I think that if I feel the hurts of others, maybe I can avoid painful experiences in my own life. Very Ariel-esque I think.
And a BIRTHDAY? Soon?
Do Tell......
Will someone in the Story get to celebrate the day for you? Have a sip of snoot? Share a warm caress? Get a sweet hug from Ariel? Linger in a memory?
Whenever it is, I hope it is HAPPY! for both you and lovely Conartisse.
Jen
Hey Tree,
All caught up again. That's a lot of emotion to read in one sitting!! :) So much good stuff, I'll have to comment when I have more time as I am being all ninja-like at work here. ;)
ttys!
--snow
This was amazing. I was slow to catch on to the who. Well you know. Sometimes I'm just slow. I was also still a little distracted. You posted todays picture just for me, didn't you. *grins* I eagerly await the next chapter. I wonder how many can look back at one event and say "there was where I lost my innocence." I think mine went in stages, yet there is the repressed memory that haunts my dreams. Perhaps there was a moment ...
Oh my. Trée, I think the tissue box needs to be passed around. Your personal story is so touching; I can't find meaningful words to reply.
Safe travels, the temps haven't skyrocketed yet, at least not here in Tucson.
Listening with all that I am and as Jennifer wrote the words you spoke here of C were deeply moving. There is the fly that gets shooed out of the window and there is knowing what another is feeling, hearing of it, seeing it and having a physical reaction to it. That ache as you get into your car, I ache for you. So aware of each moment as it draws to a close both allows you to live it fully as they say and with burden understand that it is not to be redone only remembered. After CNN, on returning, C's blog is where I came to first, have told you this before I remember now, sold me once, VG2 as it was then twice and it's been a done deal ever since. I think there are whoms when we talk about mattering, the equalizer of long since, if every one fills a place in this world it matters not whether those people are near or far, known or strangers, personally yes, but not in the greater scheme of things. I'm not sure that you will ever really realize how far you reach, the touch that your words written through almost 500 chapters have. Far and relatively unknown, but greatly influenced and fuller for entering into your orbit. Love to hear of you and C, to hear the pride and love that is wrapped securely and unchangingly around every word you say of him. So seldom do we get to hear a person say what they feel, honestly and completely, even a parent. As I mentioned recently the one comment that I will forget last was the one that spoke of imagining the day where C having read (and seen a clear, continuous and black on white accessible portrayal of the essence, the beauty, of you) your story leant across and spoke words of love and pride.
So many words (of mine) never get spoken. Laters.
Safe journey, Poppet, x
Cute. Anyway, just visiting! hope to see you around. *blog hop*
http://simpleyesa.blogspot.com
i love the lsatest chapter, keep it up!
Hurry home, sweet stuff, missing you way to much to be able to keep my sanity for much longer. H
Sunshine, home for 48 hours then back to Phoenix. Safe but tired and quite frustrated with work. Such is life. Always nice to know you are thinking about me. :-)
Deb, W and Snow, thanks for stopping by. :-)
Jen, not till the middle of June. Constance and I are Gemini's and this is what she is referencing.
Always am. :-)
Post a Comment