718. what he needs

Ariel and Kyra found a bench, by the river, one sitting with feet on the ground, the other dangling as young legs dangle of energy, of the natural need to move, as all things move and as the one looked upon the other, from oldest to youngest, Kyra knew that what moved was no different than the river down the vale or the sun arcing the sky, or even Bravo in orbit, mimicking the moon.

He's not alright. I know this, she said. He was whole with mom as she was with him and without her he is not himself for how could he when she is gone and with her, a part of him.

Kyra looked at Ariel as one looks upon the familiar as something strange. Ariel continued to stare at the river and added, He thinks I don't know, can't know. He believes I cannot understand what has happened or know of loss as he knows of loss; so, he doesn't share and what he gives me is not what he is and not what I need.

What do you need? said Kyra, placing her hand on Ariel's shoulder.

No more than the flower rooted. I need sun and soil and water. Not the idea of sun and soil and water, not talk of sun and soil and water, not the promise of sun and soil and water.

Does he know this?

Not yet.

You should tell him.

He's not ready. His heart and his ears are full, full of the past and until he can dig himself out, nothing I say will be heard, nothing I do will be felt.

Is that right?

You know the universe is mainly space. Even the smallest particle is but a few bits and a lot of space. Remove the space and what lives, dies, and what is light becomes dark. What would a letter be if there were no spaces between the words or music or even our meals. Life is the same way. My dad is no different. He needs space.

I think he needs you.

Maybe what he needs, said Ariel rotating her head to Kyra, is you.

717. why, here, now

They walked the path walked many times before, bare of foot before skirted daffodils and a bevy of dewy chickweed winking light and breeze.

The stream flowed of sacrificed snow, pure as light, clear as dawn in a doe's eye. With hands held, he led, her oculars left behind and what she felt and what she heard seemed a universe of life, of sensation, as mysterious as the bloom, breaking ground, stems stout as standards won, reaching forth victorious, bright of blooded hue, proudly raised in defiance of winter, rock and bird.

Sat, they did, side by side among the clover lush where boulders looked as glass and the stream whispered like wind down the mountain, over their toes and past the cottage. And in his hand, his heart, beat, what need not be said, could not be spoken for the word is never the act and the act bears no word of sacrilege.

And this is how it was for a long time. Hands held, faces to the sun, the tickle of hair in the breeze. There were sighs. And still, he spoke not.

Tell me, she asked, tell me why, here, now.

Because, he said, what flows eternal from the mountain, what flows pristine before our toes is as the language I find not of the tongue, nor the hand, but a language of sun, of water, of the season that stands not still, as neither the day nor this stream. It is, he said, all that I have not the ability to say, of me, for you.

Em tilted her head in that way of the blind when moved of divine force, divine as sun and wind and rain. And as rain, her cheeks shown in love such to make flowers weep and birds cry and Trev lean.

As he did, as did she. And what parted, closed, and where there was light, only love.

Japanese Magnolia (my backyard)

New Blogger Templates (from Blogger)

Will be experimenting over the next few days. Blogger has finally addressed one of it's most damning defects. I like what I see so far. And never fear, the final resting place will be somewhere in black. ;-)

716. sketches of John

No one was coming.

No voices. Or apparitions. Just the silence of ship and space, of a metal shell vacated of pods. Seeds upon the world below. (. . . pods seeding the world below.)

With a shift of weight, of palm to chin and eyes that hung loose in baggy sockets, the sound of leather, of chair, boot, pant. Nothing more. Not even the tick of clock. (inspiration here from the movie Bright Star--the scene where Mr Brown is in the study watching Ms Brawne outside and there is no soundtrack, no score, just the sound of his moving in his chair)

Thought could flow, as it did in loop, and the movie could play, as it did, day and night, week upon week, stacked in years. Still, he knew.

No one was coming.

I am going to see Norah Jones at the Ryman Auditorium. Want to get tickets and join me? Here is my event info: sec: BAL-11, row: P, seats: 1

I am going to see Norah Jones at the Ryman Auditorium. Want to get tickets and join me? Here is my event info: sec: BAL-11, row: P, seats: 1

715. the watered root

Outside his window, a nightingale sung, of lover or dusk, desire or need, matter not in the hearing as art matters not in the eye but of the mind, the heart, the sensitivities of form and line, hue and value. Upon his desk, a candle, silent in flickering dance, reflecting amber glow in glass. And then the rain. Soft at first, a tapping on the windowsill; and then louder as if rushing, as if spring flowing down the mountain.

Across the room she slept and from where he sat, he wrote, wrote with pen and parchment, slowly looping loops of thought and lines of passion as if needle and thread he held and what was weaved was not of wool or cotton but of tenderness and tears, which fell, as the rain, as she slept, as a nightingale sung.

Her naked knees bronzed of walks among the flowers were bent and sheets lay like snowy canvas around her form. She slept the sleep of contentment wearing only the smileless smile of cheeks risen in dreams as they had risen in lust, or love, as he would write, as his pen would bleed what his heart could not, as his eyes danced of the flickering candle, into the night of bird and rain and the lover reposed in peace upon their bed, breathing softly as once she did, as once she would again, when he came to bed.

He stopped and drew breath. A sigh released, she would have asked, but she slept and his sigh rose to the timbers like the song sung. Every muscle hung as it should with neither tension nor release and he felt a lightness of balance, of health in the one of fitting, when one thing fits as it should, neither too tight nor too loose, but just fits in that way that one knows without need of the thought to say it so. And therein lay the fear. Is this it? Is this as good as it gets? Has the mountain been climbed, the vista seen, and now we sigh as the journey down is what waits.

She would have asked, of the sigh. And he would have avoided the query. And he knew. He knew she knew, he was avoiding, withholding. Therein was the relationship. She let him withhold and in the letting, in the tender embrace of acceptance, upon the fertile soil of her smile, he grew into her as surely as the watered root.

About 5 miles into the 18 mile hike . . .

Tetons: the trail before elevation

Tetons: 10am

Maria: In Coffee

Daffodils

Day 132: (96+36)

Here is what I know, which isn't much, but you got to start from somewhere. My memory of being perfectly normal is still intact, as in my memory of a few years ago and all the years prior. Currently, I have moments, like the calm between the storm, in which I experience life in an absolutely, perfectly, normal state in every way, shape and form. These are the moments, ironically, that bring the greatest fear, for it is only in these moments that I know just how abnormal the other times are.

Note: On these journal updates, I have turned off comments.

131-35

I'll keep this short. The darkness has not returned. There is a healthy concern over my life situation with the corresponding stress and anxiety--all of which I would label normal and healthy. However, and I observed this same phenomenon prior to meds: the nuts and bolts of my emotional machinery are simply not secure. The emotion flows both ways, which is to say good and bad, joy and sadness, but the intensity of the emotion is as it was in the days leading up to the meds. I've always felt strongly and emotion has always been an important part of my life, but what I am experiencing now, as what I experienced before, is not as it should be. Metaphorically speaking, the knob of my emotional life has been dialed as high as it can go. The ride is unlike anything I can describe. Everything is felt with a blinding intensity and on the edge of that knife cuts a creativity not known otherwise. Not looking for comments on this post. Simply documenting.

__________

As a side note: Zoloft has a half-life of 24 hours. That is, upon stopping, which I did cold-turkey 35 days ago, only 50% of the drug remains in the body after 24 hours, 25% after 48 hours and so forth. I experienced no side-effects upon stopping. In fact, as I've written, in the first month of stopping Zoloft, I've felt better than I have in years in every way.

What I am experiencing now has nothing to do with depression or darkness, neither of which is present as it was prior to meds. I feel perfectly aware and fully functional in every regard and enjoy the arts as I did before (reading, writing, music, art, beauty, etc.) Two things are present, one of which is new and one is not. What is not new is this extreme acceleration and intensification of emotion--almost an exponential unfolding. Music in particular, moves me, as it should, only times ten or twenty. I have not words to describe the intensity. Keep in mind, I have nothing unnatural in my body. My last sip of alcohol of any kind was more than 145 days ago. I am on no medication. Prior to meds, I felt this same exponential emotional acceleration. Now, what is new is this: I have never, ever been what one might call a manic person. I have never exhibited that kind of energy and no one would ever use that term to describe me. Having said that, in the last few weeks, I've felt at times a manic sense of energy of an order that is completely foreign to me, as in, something never before experienced, not even in the worst premed days. Along with this "manic-ness," if I can call it that is what I would called the tremors. These tremors are not always present, and prior to the last few weeks, I've never experienced anything like this, ever. In short, my hand is not steady. Visibly not steady. Not out of control, but I wouldn't want to be holding a knife. During these tremors, which come and go without rhyme or reason, there is a feeling of complete helplessness in that what is occurring is beyond one's ability to do anything about it.

Tetons, July 1999: 9000 feet elevation looking back on the trail hiked

Tetons, July 1999: Just off the trailhead, 7am

Wildflowers in the Tetons (July 1999)

714. of flowers and rivers

Along a river they walked, sometimes holding hands, sometimes not. In the distance, children's voices carried on the warm spring breeze as Ariel's primrose hair shimmered in the Arc'teryxian sun, reflecting light as the river, as one reflects and mirrors the greater brilliance. She had asked about her father, if he was okay. The kinds of questions a normal seven-year-old doesn't ask, doesn't think to ask; the sort of questions that were unanswerable. So they walked, sometimes skipped, stuck their toes in the water and picked flowers as if they had never seen flowers before. And it was true. They had never seen flowers like these. And it was also true, the joy and happiness and love Kyra saw on Ariel's face was almost more than she could bare. A thought, a feeling, not of lightness or of love, but of something other, something that once, sometime ago, was not there; and, at one time, perhaps a time when she walked and skipped and laughed like Ariel, perhaps a time where Papa walked the beaches of Valla with her as she did now with Ariel, she knew not of this heaviness, this weight felt in the shoulders and down the back, this weight that furrow brows and turned lips down, this weight that pulled bone and muscle downward, toward the ground, and one could not help but think the body was ready to go, to go where it knew it would, where dirt would be tossed below shinny feet and flowers, like these flowers, would give of themselves, a final act, a final brilliance above ground, in the shimmering light, as they were now, just the two of them, along the river, among the flowers.

713. morning sketches

Dawn rose to breath and touch and soft cotton sheets warmed in the night. Flesh sought flesh, vines twining fruited limbs, of the hoarfrost whispers on the open plain, of a caravan of fingers wandering the desert. What was closed, opened, and what was open, closed. And where there were two, but one could be seen. And in the embrace, but one known, to the two. As the fish knows the river, as the bird the sky, as a child but joy.

Chloe: May 2000

712. of rope and wind

John sat in his quarters starring at the marble of Arc'teryx, spinning blues and greens, of life living, breathing as dawn and dusk, rain and shine. More than two years had passed since he turned that corner, since his eyes had met Cait's, and forever, forever that singular drop of blood fell, as it had a thousand time since, as it would a thousand times more. In the drop her life passed, without ceremony, not to his hands or lips, but to the ground, the sacred to the profane, and what gleamed of steal in her attackers hands was as lightning to his heart, her eyes wide, not in the begging, for the moment was passed begging, but wide in the violation, shared. To bear her rape and murder she could. To share that burden, as now, to know in the last moment, the last thought, that her pain would now live, live in him, in his mind and memory, live a thousand days time a thousand days . . .

He stood. Walked. As if in the walking, the movement, he could escape what could not be run from, could not be evaded or avoided, but there was something in the trying, something in doing, some thing other than the morass of memory, of thought, of the infinite loop of a memory, two years hence, clear as yesterday. And somewhere down below, somewhere on that glorious planet was Ariel. And Kyra. And he wondered where they were. What they were doing. Of their conversation and whether they walked hand in hand or side by side. A tether, these thoughts, these thoughts of a future, of Ariel, of Kyra. A future that needed, demanded he let go.

The mornings were still the worst. The shaking uncontrollable. As if his body, his trained, lean, lithe body was no longer his, chained as it were, to the lash of memory, of pearls and blood, of it all being his fault, to put her in danger, to live the life of glory and consequence. And for what? To what end? The nights were not so bad. Sleep came as a reprieve, as that moment when there was nothing left to do. But the mornings were another matter. For in the morning, the day sat, waiting, for action, waiting for motion, just waiting. And with the waiting, came the weight. And the shaking.

These vivid memories were as rope, anchored in the past, as rope around his neck, anchored in that singular vision of Cait, bent, violated, bloody above and below, taken of steel and shaft, impaled in malice, hatred, a brutality that takes what cannot be given back, but can only be released, as flowers in a river, carried someplace other than from the hand of the releaser, this parting of living and dead, of what breathes and only what now fades.

The Smile

Morning Ride

Father and Son: On Bikes

Mario

Father and Son

Christopher: In Candle Light (about 10 years ago)

Mario: The Patriarch of our Yorkie Family

Springtime (in my front yard)

Testing Blogger image sizes

Testing a Bing Image of the Day (capture)

Mickey Mouse

me again

Uploading a few pics from my old computer

711. bejeweled of cardinal

(first draft)

Trev stood before the bedroom window and watched the snow fall, watched as branch and bough grew heavy and the ground wore its white cloak, bejeweled of cardinal brilliant. Why the smile, she asked, standing behind him, the softness of bosom nestled against the warmth of a back she had known only moments before by sweat and nail, by the curve of desire, as the wave above her shore gently lapping, of a warmness that comes only from the eyes, only from a touch, of fingers on fire in the mind with the lyrical parting of lips divine.

He reached behind, letting his hand trace the small of her back with a leisure afforded by lovers. And with eyes still fixed on the winter landscape sparkling of dawn rising, he said: because you are spring eternal in my eyes and autumn ripe in my hands. She pulled him tight, arms as rope mooring her vessel.

Come back to bed baby, said Em. Come walk my orchard. Pick my fruit. And then tell the gods they know not of nectar nor wine, that what is held in your eye with every breath of dewy sunrise is as heaven before the aged.

Several hours passed before words again were spoken.

__________

(second draft)

Trev stood before the bedroom window watching the snow fall, watching as branch and bough grew heavy, as pail laden arms and rounded shoulders bend toward the earth. Snow cloaked the ground in pristine white, the clean, pure whiteness of fresh snow, of flakes looking more like feathers than nature's crystalline tears. And as jewels, cardinals appeared, cold and hungry, by twos, it always seemed, like rubies on a king's ermine, their brilliant hue as red and alive as the blood coursing, of his and hers, of hearts called to the ear upon chest.

Why the smile, she asked, standing behind him, the softness of her mature bosom nestled against the warmth of his back, damp still as she had known only moments before by sweat and nail, by the curve of desire, as the wave above her shore gently lapping, of a warmness that comes only from the eyes, only from a touch, of fingers that dance in the mind with the lyrical parting of lips divine.

He reached behind, letting his hand trace the small of her back with the leisure of lovers lost in each other. And with eyes still fixed on the winter landscape sparkling of dawn rising, he said: because you are spring eternal in my eyes and autumn ripe in my hands.

She pulled him tight, arms as rope mooring his vessel. Come back to bed baby. Come walk my orchard. Pick my fruit. And then tell the gods they know not of nectar nor wine, that what is held in your eye with every breath of dewy sunrise is as heaven before the aged, as spring meadows before the bees.

Several hours passed before words again were spoken and what was spoken then was not of word or even of hand as much as eye full and bright and shinning with the urgency known only in love, when life itself feels alive in a way beyond parchment and letter, beyond even lyric and note--a language sui generis, a language of hearts, not of tongues.

Scorching | WritersCafe.org

Scorching | WritersCafe.org

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