753. just breathe

What do you want to do today?

Just breathe.

Don't we do that everyday?

Nope.

OK. So how do we do this?

We let go of everything but the breathing.

Easy enough.

Simple, yes. Easy, no.

Will you teach me?

I was hoping you'd ask.

752. in your arms

"Baby, what are you thinking?" asked Em.

"Just about us."

"Yea?"

"Yeah."

"Well?"

"Well what?"

"You wanna share?"

"Nope."

(after much tickling, Em on top of Trev, his arms pinned down)

"I'm giving you one more chance."

"You really want to know?"

"YES!"

"Well, I was thinking--"

"Yea?"

"When I'm in your arms . . ."

(Em smiles)

"Everything seems possible."

1944 (Tuesdays)

You are still young. There will be someone else for you. Just give this some time. And then the words would trail off. And Mary would sit alone.

Some said after the failed pregnancy, she was unconsolable. The last connection to Vigil gone, as was he, in the mud of a hospital tent, of eyes uncomprehending, of the flow of death and destruction pushing her from bed to street and that is when she thought of his arms that night, of having come home, if but for a night, of his arms the next day, limp, of no time to mourn, of no shoulder to lean, and, now, of the streets, of how they had no arms, as she had no arms, to hold or be held. No one was coming. She had touched the hand of God in a night. And said goodbye to it in the morning. And in her own crazy way, knew she had had more than most.

"Would you like another cup of coffee?"

"Yes please."

It was Tuesday. And down the street was the museum. She managed a smile as it rained, as if the sky weeped of sympathy, a nod from above to keep questions unasked as she greeted the docent, her face wet, her purse unwelcome, as it had been for years, on Tuesday.

plot/lyrics

I don't read books for plot and I rarely ever listen to music for the lyrics. Yet, I enjoy both, books and music, as much as food and water, and if you were to ask me to explain the plot/lyrics issue, I couldn't. Sometimes you just have to stop looking for explanations and just breathe in the meadows and turn your face to the sun.

Now, if you want to stand with me in the sun, and breathe deep of the meadows, I'll hold your hand. But I have to warn you, if you lace your fingers in mine, I'm not ever letting go. Just saying. :-)

One of my all time favorites (Free Hugs)

751. storms and trees

Only in the storm do you know the roots of the tree

quote attributed to Papa

poor soil

I once read the greatest wine comes from grapes grown in poor soil. That the effort of the vine to extract nutriments from the ground somehow lends itself to the sweetest and most complex of bouquets--in time; for in the pain of barren soil, those days of broiling sun, of cloudless skies and withered leaves, the promise of greatness seems but a dying man's dream.

750. etiolated: Stagecraft (2)

ed note: every once in a while, I just want to say what happened rather than write it--today is such a day:

Trev is writing in his journal and Em is looking over his shoulder--he writes this line, I look out my window to green grass and blue skies, pauses, and before he can write the next, hears a single sniffle and feels a drop of tear on his shoulder--he turns around, Em is crying, and he asks her why--she says because what he wrote is so beautiful--he seems puzzled--the simple observation of green grass and blue sky seems nothing at all--she sniffles again, wipes her eyes, and says: before I lost my sight, those words would have just been nice, but now, well, I can't explain it--he stands and without saying anything takes her into his arms, his back to the window, her face illuminated by the light of those blue skies; and the tears just flow and he just holds her--no musical score, just the sound of her sniffles, the creak of the floor when he stands and the wooden legs of the chair sliding against the floor--the camera pans around them 360 before fading to black--a short period of black screen remains before the credits roll

__________

post note: right before the scene fades to black, Trev is seen whispering something into Em's ear--the viewer is not privy to what is said. In the days after viewing, fan pressure becomes so intense, the writers of the show post to the story blog what was whispered:

love, how else can I say it, but love, all of it, my love, I give to you

fresh plums

fiery plum lips ripe
lustful flesh exposed
of
aubergine
dress
torn


held


between
the
ache
of
my
teeth


the
suckling
succor
of
tongue
wet


quenching
need
want
desire
painted
clear


as
the
glint
of
eye
half
closed

distant echos

I cannot tell
where the blurriness
of eye
ends
and the blurriness
of the world
begins


as emotions swirl
and twirl
the very hues,
and colors blend
and brighten
and fade.


the ground itself
seems
another
world


and sounds,
but distant
echos


in the way
of dreams
of falling

749. of night's blue eyes

withered petal brown
in thirst
and stem bent
in want
weary of lack
withdrawn to glories
of auld lang syne

till upon a cup
of kindness
did pour
a love aged
of golden
sunset
before the cooling
kiss
of night's
blue eyes

as within the trees
did a whisper
say
hold on
just a little longer
hold on

poem found tucked in Trev's Journal

748. halos

ed note: Kyra and Ariel sitting on a blanket watching Trev and Em together in the shallow part of the lake. Ariel is drawing imaginary circles with her hands. (for those new to The Story, Ariel is John's daughter and is about eight years old--when her mother, Cait, died, it seemed that Ariel was bestowed with a very similar ability as Kyra)

Kyra: What are you doing?

Ariel: Tracing their halos.

Kyra: Who's?

Ariel: Trev and Em, silly.

Kyra: You see halos?

Ariel: Don't you?

Kyra: Tell me what you see?

Ariel: Well, when they hold hands and their halos touch, the light becomes so bright I have to squint my eyes.

Kyra: And when they kiss?

Ariel: (giggles) I don't know.

Kyra: (gives her a questioning look)

Ariel: (sighs) Because the light gets so bright you have to close your eyes.

Kyra: Oh.

Reading and Commentary of 738. with and without (and 746. she is)

Multiple readings of each post, both verbatim and enhanced. Quite a bit of commentary on both also included. If you enjoy the audio, let me know. Feedback always warmly embraced.


Click for the Reading and Commentary.

747. Interview with Kyra (on John)

T: So when did you know?

K: That it was over?

T: Yes.

K: At the cottage.

T: What happened at the cottage?

K: Saw Trev and Em.

T: Can you expound a bit on that?

K: When two people are in love, everyone around them knows. Love is not something that can be hidden. Even Rog could see it. And so what happened is this, that light, that love, shined so bright, shadows formed everywhere.

T: So--

K: So what Trev and Em had I knew, I knew the second I saw it, was not what John and I had.

T: And that was it?

K: Yep. That was it.

746. she is

She is the air that I breathe

I simply cannot say it more clearly

And when I weep, I have no doubt

my soul is seeking hers

found on a scrap of paper within Trev's journal

Reading and Commentary (743. washing dishes)

Reading and Commentary (743. washing dishes)

745: Von's Journal #10

ed note: this scene takes place just prior to Rog and Yul arriving at the cabin. How much snoot was imbibed is unknown.

Von read from his journal: When the flower opens its petals toward the sun, no words are exchanged, but everything is understood.

Yul noticed Rog grinning. Don't say it. Don't even think it.

Whaaaa--? said Rog, finger twisted, an awkward grimace replacing his quaidesque smile.

Von, said Yul, please continue.

744. a world unseen

Em: (with Trev, in bed) You're awful quiet tonight.

Trev: Kinda quiet most nights, don't you think?

Em: Yeah . . . but not like this.

Trev: What does that mean, not like this?

Em: Like a storm on the horizon quiet. I can't hear it, but the restlessness is there. I see it in your eyes, the way your arm is resting behind your head, even in the rising and falling of your chest.

Trev: Wow, maybe I need some oculars like that.

Em: Baby, it's not what I see. It's what I feel, the energy, tone, ambience of your aura.

Trev: How so?

Em: Well, you're just lying there.

Trev: Yeah?

Em: Well, I'm right here.

Trev: (sighs)

Em: And you are right there.

Trev: (closes eyes)

Em: And I feel as if between us, a world unseen.

Trev: Oh baby--

Em: Talk to me.

743. washing dishes

Trev stood washing dishes, looking, she thought, like a thoroughbred in the gate, lathered of an energy usually reserved for more quiet places, where each moment was seen in muscle taut and the dance of shadow and light from shoulder to glute. She watched  his movement of hand on dish as of breath releasing, from above, and the tightening of triceps were of the edge approaching,  and his short hair bristling with the dew of creation creating. With an involuntary intake of breath, her curves seemed to announce themselves as curves to be handled, and seen and taken with the verve of Spring rising, of curves flush with need, want, desire.

Rog: (walks into the kitchen) Whacha doing Yul?

Yul: Nothing.

742. just a little knocking

Rog and Yul looked across the bed, to the dresser, to that small little vial. Do we need it? he asked. Licking her lips, she replied: Frail no! About thirty minutes later the management was knocking on the door but the knocking without could not be heard over the knocking within and this is how Rog and Yul ended up at the cottage, rather late is seemed, to the owlish eyes of Em and Trev.

What in the jackassary are you guys doing? asked Trev.

Well, little brother, it's like this. I told Yul, Baby, if you wanna fly, your feet are gonna have to leave the ground. About this time a rather loud smack was heard, and Yul smiled, and Em told them to come on in.

741. for dad

Em: Why the tears?

Trev: I never had this conversation, with my dad.

Em: What conversation?

Trev: The one in this song.

740. of maps and people

Em: Baby, where do you want to go today?

Trev: Wherever you want.

Em: I know, but I want to know where you want to go.

Trev: You are my location, my longitude and latitude. So you see, no matter where we go, no matter what we do, if we are doing it together, I'm home.

Em: So sweet.

Trev: When we are sitting at a table, in town, and all about us the village is bustling, life living in all its wonderful cacophony of voice and cobble, of leather and glass, all I see, all I hear, is you. But even that is not it. What I see entire, is us. As the little boy responded to his father when he had put the map back together so quickly (on the other side of the map his father had given him was the picture of a person, a map his father had torn from a magazine and then torn into puzzle pieces for his son to put back together so he could have a few more minutes to finish his own work), when the person is right, the world is right.

Em: So is your world right?

Trev: (smiles) What do you think?

739. you know how I know

Trev: You know how I know?

Em: Tell me.

Trev: When I wake, and you are there . . .

Em: Yes?

Trev: I find no separation between dreams.

Em: (smiles)

Trev: I'm serious.

Em: Baby I know.

Trev: There are times, in my dreams where I know I'm dreaming.

Em: (listening with doe eyes)

Trev: Lucid dreaming. And you know what?

Em: What baby?

Trev: I know then, I know. (pause, looking down)

Em: (hand on his shoulder) What do you know?

Trev: That the dream I want, is the waking dream, the one I see when my eyes open and you are the first thing I see. (looks up, his eyes to hers) And what I see is a dream.

Em: (smiles of cheek and eye)

Trev: So beautiful, you are in the quiet of the morning. Watching you sleep, memorizing every curve from hair to eye to cheek, of your tender shoulder half clothed of cotton, the dune like shape of your legs under the sheets, of how your head rests like a jewel upon the pillow. And in that quiet, of just breath, my eyes water in the waking dream of you, of us, of living in a divine light. A place where heaven can wait and it is then that I know why there is pain in the world.

Em: Pain?

Trev: Because if everyone felt as I do with you, no one would ever believe in heaven, that it was any place other than in the eternity of moments present of love such that there is nothing else. And in those moments, pain becomes not a thing, but the absence of a thing.

Em: You know what?

Trev? What

Em: Sometimes when you talk, I don't hear the words.

Trev: You--

Em: (places a finger to his lips) Trust me. It's a good thing.

738. with and without

With her, the moments slip by, my mind a whirl, my fingers aching to touch a smile so bright I'd gladly be blinded to stare upon her divinity, for how else to explain. Yet, when she is gone, it is as if the oxygen has been sucked from the air and breathing becomes difficult and everywhere I hear clocks ticking, of seconds falling, away; and I watch them go, flowing into minutes, into hours as one watches the river from the bank. If she is not the hand of God in my life, then there is no God and what moves is but cruelty. And the question of love, can it persist, does it live beyond the moment of emotional butterflying? And I think: I know of hell and I know the persistence of hell and if hell can persist, why not love? And I know, without the limits of logic and beyond the power of nouns, as a child knows of joy and a boy knows of a girl and the sun of the sky. So I say, let it rain and with tongues outstretched, we touch the sky and with feet unshod dance in puddles and with smiles wet of tear or rain or both, we fall into each as surely as cardinals into spruce, of red and green, of her and I.

from Trev's journal

737. forever amber

Em hears music coming from the living room. She approaches and sees Trev sitting, in the dark, eyes closed, tear stained cheeks highlighted with a single spotlight.

Em: Baby, what's wrong?

Trev: Nothing.

Em: You don't cry for nothing. Talk to me.

Trev: It's the music.

Em: What about it? You've played this song a thousand times.

Trev: I know.

Em: Well?

Trev: It's different.

Em: The music?

Trev: Yeah.

Em: How?

Trev: If you were to ask me, I'd tell you I've never heard it before.

Em: But--

Trev: I know.

Em: Baby, I don't understand.

Trev: It's you.

Em: What?

Trev: Don't you see?

Em: I have no idea what the frail you are talking about.

Trev: There are moments.

Em: What kind of moments?

Trev: Moments where my heart is pierced with, for lack of a better term, light, maybe insight, but the piercing is such that everything is changed.

Em: How? How is it changed. Talk to me baby.

Trev: Changed like night changes to day.

Em: (stares at him)

Trev: And you know what?

Em: What baby?

Trev: You are my dawn. And in your light, I see as if all before was dark. And this music, with you, is like that. Like I've never heard it before.

Em: (snuggles next to him, leans over, kissing his tears)

With each kiss, another tear fell and this is how they sat, just listening, and crying and kissing--not a word, each lost in the other, lost in the air of angels divine, of an air so pristine to make lungs burn and hearts ache to stop time itself, to be amber, forever amber.

heaven . . .

I used this song in The Story of Mary (1944 series, which in rereading is really pretty good stuff) but as I came upon this video my eyes welled of want. The song is one of my favorites, but it is this image, of Brett writing and Natalie, sitting beside, her hand on his shoulder, smiling, laughing. And he looks so much at peace and the light looks so natural and the two of them, in this moment seem cocooned in their own private joy, flowing the moments with the natural ease of a quiet river. I want this. The smile. The hand. The laughter. And the creating. The giving birth to songs of the heart, to the melody of a soul wanting to dive, head first, into love. So listen to the song, but more so, look at the image and if you can see what I see, you'll know me as I am and I hope, you'll come along for the ride. :-)

736. home

Trev: Have you ever lived completely? Maybe just a moment, maybe longer, but so completely there was no separation between you and the moment, as if you had entered inside of time, inside the watch and now were beyond time.

Em: Mmmmm, tell me more.

Trev: A place of no compromise, where everything is binary, yes or no, black or white, on or off--clear as that. And you know of which. Never a question.

Em: Keep going.

Trev: I always had a fear of heights. Kids used to tease me, especially at the swimming pool because I would never dive from the high board, always feet first. The fear was so great and the agony too, of watching others leap, dive, so beautiful the human form, in dive, from above. And I felt grounded, as if I had clipped wings, clipped before I even knew I had wings. And I would hear laughter as if underwater, not the pleasant kind of laughter, but the laughter of separation, the kind that communicates a this and a that and everyone else is a this and you are a that. Do you know what I mean?

Em: Somehow I think you're about to tell me.

Trev: I am.

Em: Well?

Trev: Well, one day, I climbed the high board and I walked to the end, toes hanging over the edge. I put my hands together, over my head, as if in prayer and focused on releasing the tension along my spine where the muscles were dolphin tight. And then I released. Something just let go and I saw my body bend and my hands go forward and when I came up for air I knew there was no going back.

Em: (smiled)

Trev: And you know what?

Em: What?

Trev: That moment of triumph, of letting go of the fear, of finding my wings, that rebirth into the world, that moment so divine, so complete in and of itself, is how I feel, when I am with you.

Em: (sitting silently, just looking at Trev)

Trev: And you know what else?

Em: What baby?

Trev: There is no fear. I thought there would be, but there isn't. And you know what it feels like?

Em: What does it feel like?

Trev: Like home.

735. of joy and fear

With each morning there is joy and fear. The joy of watching her wake and the fear that all we had just the night before, will be gone. The moment seems magical, when her eyes first open and I wait, just a moment, but in that moment, between eye and smile, an eternity, of my life in the balance. And so each day, I feel reborn. With a smile lost in sheets of white, framed of golden hair and blue eyes. And then the joy and maybe a little coffee and the rubbing of sleep and the sharing of dreams and the overwhelming sense of nature, of the unhued face, of knees pulled into the chest and the steam of a mug rising as mist, as dawn, as the day outside our window. And again, everything seems brighter.

from Trev's journal

734. lightning in a fallow field

She placed her hands on his shoulders and looked over his shoulder, to the parchment, to his pen moving faster and faster, words appearing where before was canvas, as the field not sowed.

Her fingers touch me like fire, like lightning striking fallow field, and from that divine touch, an energy flows from her to me and I can't help but feel alive like Spring. How she does this, with just a look, a touch, sometimes a word, I can't explain. As if she has an aura, some unseen mystical energy that changes my world every time I hear her voice, every time she enters a room and across that room, looks my way, but not just looks, there is a look to the look I cannot explain, the kind of look, no matter the number in the room, that parts the wave of humanity and everything drops away, all the sound, the faces, even the music fades, and with that look, there is just her and me, but it is really not like that. There is not the separation of a her and a me. Instead, there is an us.

Is that what we are? An Us she asked.

I'm afraid language fails me, he said. More than an us. When I think of heaven and I think of how being in heaven would change how I see, how I feel, about everything, when you are here, it feels like that.

Like an angel has appeared?

More than that, he said, turning to face her as his eyes found her eyes, and glinted rims shown bright and then brighter and her hands took his head as if holding the world, her world, and slowly, in the way one starts a dive, lowered her lips to his.

The kisses were not like kisses, not a prelude, or even desire manifesting. They were as water to fish or sky to bird or even breath to a newborn, a union of souls, tongues as vine growing from the same root. And where before there was clock and watch, not here, never here, this place of no time, of no space, of no separation; this place where with closed eyes there was more light than noon and breath, warm, nourished as waves, pregnant, as love is pregnant eternal. They kissed like this.

733. I want her

I wake up and I want her. As the day blooms and the beauty of spring is manifest, I want her. The tick of the clock is as the tick of my heart, steady, forever falling and raising the seconds till, the minutes lost, the hours unforgiven in the pain of separation. And this is how I know, from the dry soil of ache, where desire and need mix within the hollowness of my chest, the echo of my heart longing for that moment, of reunion, of kneeling before the alter of all that is beautiful as if without her, nothing makes sense and nothing is significant and the colors fade of hue from everything. She is color in my world; and music, ethereal tones, peaceful as footsteps in the morning, of coffee in hand, of sheets pulled back and pillows propped up and a smile that snuggles beside as her golden head halos my shoulder and what is written is read and what is read feels as spring showers, bringing forth bloom from the light of two souls swimming the eternal stream of each other.

What is a pen without ink. This is how it feels, empty, without her. And what could be written is written as upon water, as vapor, or clouds held in a blue sky. My pen aches for release, to bled the page with crimson dye to make eyes wide and fingers grasp and lips part and words whisper lobes warm, breath gentle as waves, soft as the bosom pressing my arm.

The mornings, days, weeks flow when I am with her. There is no effort, no more than the bud blooming and there is no judgment or opinion of this or that: there just is. So how do I explain or put into words an 'effortless just is.' She is I suppose the glove that fit from the first day, the one I would if I could wear beyond the wearing, would not trade for any treasure or jewel, position or power. She is as sun warming my days, giving forth life as if before her nothing lived. With just a look, she stirs within me what no one has ever stirred before and what I feel is beyond words, metaphor or simile. Still, there is the ache to try, to explain what cannot be explained, to reflect back, somehow the depth of the ocean unseen.

There were days I never spoke of, days before the ocean, before a coming storm, where the winds were savage as my hair horizontal in defiance of fate or destiny or Janus knows what. But into this sea, into the howling wind I would yell it, yell it till my voice was hoarse and then yell it some more until the salt burned my eyes blurry and the wind chapped my face a bitter blush and from a distance what looked like naught or even insanity, I knew what only lovers know. So I yelled it again. How now to tell of these days other than to say, again I would do it. All of it but to hear your voice in my ear, to feel your hand holding mine, all of it, for just those moments, again.

from Trev's journal

__________

alt version:

732. of divine light

She breathes life into me; where before, death held no fear, now I fear the day, the years not lived, where a kiss is not a kiss, but the fount of grace itself, as her breath flows of spirit into my lungs and my day animates around that tender touch as if with brush her lips paint me alive. I don't know how to explain it other than if God has a hand, if upon this earth he placed an angel and whispered her to my path, then I would know what can't be known and could give voice to what can't be said and before me stone would kneel and wood would rise. And pass even a hundred years, still my heart would grow, as love grows, as once in divine light, never the same is any thing, every thing more than it was before, and where stood two, as hands held tight, and the hearts beat as one, the falsehood of separation gives way.

Taken from Trev's journal

731. a waking dream

Trev sat the desk before the bedroom window overlooking the stream that flowed from the meadows and past the cottage. He wore just his pajama bottoms, his back catching morning light, skin smooth, tight, porcelain. His hair tussled, thick with sleep and love and fingers. And in his right hand, a pen.

Em propped a pillow and leaned as a mermaid might from the sea, her sea of sheet and cloth, of cotton still warm of the two. Sensing her movements he spoke without turning, words soft as the dew outside the window. Most important, he said, was not the act or the moment but what came after. Like right now, in this quiet of dawn, of coffee to come and sleep to rub from wide eyes, of the tender kisses that kiss to kiss and no more, of hands that hold and trace the curves of smiles bright as the sun rising, of flesh that aches to be nowhere but in this moment. These moments, he continued as if talking to himself, are the ones we will remember, the ones that define all the comes before and after; and it is these moments, of stillness, of needing no words, just the sitting, and watching, where what is breathed is not air but life, where what is held is not each other, but a waking dream.

From the bed, Em pulled the sheets to her chin to catch the tears, of joy, of happiness, of an experience she could not define, that somehow eluded thought and boxes of this and that. He stopped talking and began to write and what was heard was not pen to parchment as much as the moment defined, of the space between the notes, of hearts in dance, souls in swim, of lips aching to touch, to reunite, to feel the pulse between the thin membranes, warm and wet. When they spoke next, it was afternoon.

__________

The night came and too dinner. Silent bowls of soup, mirror smooth of reflected faces trembling, as he looked upon her, as the first rays of light upon the day, giving rise to flowers and bees and a gentle wind to wake dewy eyes clear. From his cheek a single tear fell, then another from unblinking eyes and she took his hand in hers and for the longest time they sat, hands held, tears falling.

730. the fear of swimming

The Papa/Kyra portion of this chapter is a remembrance that occurred shortly after the episode with the fireflies: 93. Dance of the Fireflies

__________


Kyra: Papa, what do I do with Love?

Papa: Swim.

Kyra: Swim?

Papa: If I threw you in the lake, what would you do?


__________

John: Where are you?

Kyra: Right here silly.

John: I know that look. You're anywhere but here.

Kyra: Was thinking about Papa and swimming.

John: So why the furrow?

Kyra: Fear.

John: Of what?

Kyra: Swimming.

John: Really?

Kyra: Not that kind of swimming.

John: What are you talking about?

Kyra: The swimming in the soul of another. That's the fear.

John: You know what.

Kyra: What?

John: It's a chance I'm willing to take.

Kyra: Just so you know, once we take that step, there is no going back.

John: Don't want to go back. I see a horizon, a dawn and I want to know that day; not the days that have come and gone.

Steve Vai

729. of cliffs and angels

Draft of a note written by John to Kyra. Not yet delivered.


The image is of dinner, fine dining, white table cloth, sparkling silver. Crystal in your hand, quarter full of cabernet, the color of blood, full-bodied, oak aged. The bouquet, as flowers distilled within glass and the contrast of the oxblood wine with your golden hair seems of a princess fair, of a queen wise, of a vision dreamed. Your eyes are alive, blue shards glossy of the night, of candle light, of the evening come, of what is not yet done. And in the holding I watch, a simple act, to hold a glass, to bring it to lip, to taste not the hand of time or the sacrifice of vine and soil, sun and rain, but of history, of sunlight past and clouds nevermore, to take upon tongue the mysteries of man, to take of fruit once sought and now given.

You wear a white stole as snow down the vale, of skin white to match, of shadow and light, Ansel Adams graceful. A glimmer of cheek, but not too much, perhaps a quarter moon of light, of dimple blush of smile, of skin smooth as milk, or cream, or as butter warmed in midday sun. Words are shared and across the table hands are held and from a distance others look without staring and what is known need not be said, for how does one say love but in the knowing beyond lip or language, someplace higher than mind, where perhaps souls swim with hearts and angels watch from cliffs. I have this vision. Clear as memory. And I feel the attraction, the gravitational pull to your orbit, the swish of life, of infinity drawn complete. Tell me my dear, you don't feel it too. Tell me what swirls is not your heart and what moves is not the earth but of a soul shimmering in reflection.
__________

Here is the first version simplified from the original. Almost went with it for it seems to fit the sense of dining at night and I like the blues as they reflect the eyes. I better stop before I change my mind. :-D

728. Outtake #10 Morning Light

When the night was over and Rog and Yul, Von too, had returned to their rooms, she sat next to him, head on his shoulder watching the kaleidoscope of dawn, of mauve to pink to the fuzzy primrose yearning of day wheeling forth its light. His arm was around her shoulder and her hands in his lap and between them in the early morning, a warmth of wool held tight, of cheek on chest and the gentle beat felt of ear as much as heard.

She twirled circles on his thigh and his sighs were as rings in a pond, expanding toward shore, toward her, of her. Glasses were heard as cafe doors opened to brooms sweeping cobble clean, of placards placed by aprons still white of the day. 

I am going to see The Swell Season at the Ryman Auditorium. Want to get tickets and join me? Here is my event info: sec: BAL-10, row: J, seats: 3

I am going to see The Swell Season at the Ryman Auditorium. Want to get tickets and join me? Here is my event info: sec: BAL-10, row: J, seats: 3

727. John, Rog, Yul and a Vial

John: How does it feel to be a grandfather?

Von: Life begets life. Feels like that. And of Kyra?

John: Perhaps the same. She is handmade, of lavender with a touch of bergamot.

Von: Soothing.

John: Stimulating.

Von: A glass of amber?

John: Like old times.


Von poured, glasses clinked and again with the pouring and again with the clinking until each toast rose as candlelight into the night and tongues painted stories amongst the stars and all that was missing they decided, was Rog


John: Hey Rog, where are you?

Rog: In bed.

John: Well get your arse down here.

Rog: (Looks at Yul who can overhear the conversation) Don't think that's such a good idea.

John: What?

Rog: I said--

John: I heard what you said. Put Yullie on the phone. (Rog hands phone to Yul) Hey Yullie.

Yul: Frail you.

John: You had your chance.

Yul: Whatever. Rog ain't coming.

John: Sounds personal.

Yul: Yeah. Frail you. Rog ain't leaving this room.

John: Even if I told you I had a vial?

726. rain and pain

Papa: The fact that it might rain is no reason not to water the flowers.

Kyra: Is that right?

Papa: Right as rain.

Kyra: Or pain.

Papa: Pain? Why would you say pain?

Kyra: Why would you question what you know to be true?

Papa: Fair enough. Want to help me water the flowers?

Kyra: Only if we water the flowers to water the flowers.

Papa: Is there any other way?

Kyra: Nope.

Papa: Good. Let's do it.

Kyra: Yeah. Let's.

just scribbles

They sat across a table on a patio, overlooking the sea. Salads were untouched and glasses of wine full, bearing neither smudge nor print. A warm breeze fluttered the tablecloth and the sound of distant conversations drifted with the wind, sometimes clear, sometimes not. He looked toward the ocean. She toward him. Minds spinning where lips were not, fingers dancing of their own accord. Movement, they would say later, seemed difficult, as if underwater. Even the waiter, always attentive, kept his distance, as salads wilted.

Inverted and Simplified

725. Limen

Limen, the point at which a stimulus is of sufficient intensity to generate a response 


__________


After a period of grass twirling and glances to the horizon, Kyra spoke: "What are we doing here?"

"Literally?"

"No not literally. We are lightyears from our homes, on this foreign planet, in some Janus forsaken field, mere inches between us, but it is more than that, isn't it?"

John's chest rose as if he had been holding his breath. "I--"

"It's not Cait, is it?"

"No."

"Then why are we just sitting here like two school kids?"

"Fear."

"Of what? You've kissed me before and you were married at the time. Or have you forgotten?"

"That's just it." John hesitated. 

"My Janus John, how did you ever lead men. Say it. I cannot get my hands around your imaginary imagination."

"Imaginary imagination?"

"You know what I meant."

Looking at the ground, he sighed again. "Yeah, I do."

"Tell me the fear."

"That it won't be the same."

"The kiss?"

"Everything."

"Wow."

"Wow what?"

"You sound like a little boy."

"Really."

"A little boy not ready to kiss a girl."

John smiled.

"A little boy unsure of how to kiss a girl."

"Or maybe a little girl--" Kyra stopped the sentence with her finger, upon his lips, feeling the warmth, the firmness, his breath like waves rushing and receding. John closed his eyes, her lavender scent, swirling, his head, swirling, his lips, slowly, parting, in what would become known as the second kiss, of finger and lip, a place of its own, in memory and heart and mind, of clover and sun, of bird and sky, of the river finding a way. 

One of my favorite images from The Story

Originally published as chapter 202. Grace and Beauty

724. of Cait and Fall

"Tell me about the first time, the first date?" asked Kyra.

"What do you want to know?"

"I want to get lost in your experience like a reader in a book. I want you to take me places I only imagine. I want you to give me hope, to plant seeds in my barren soil, to water my dreams."

"You don't want much."

"I believe in high expectations. And I want every detail, no matter how small."

He smiled. "Is this for you or for me?"

"John, I can't help you and I would never try to manipulate your heart. Love doesn't work that way. It is, as Papa would say, a force beyond the machinations of man. To be plain, as cold as I may seem at times, I ache to know things I may never know, to think that they may be possible, to keep the small ember alive, if only for the many cold nights I spend alone. There is a warmth to memory, to hope, to dreams."

"Well, I suppose like all things, the first of anything retains a vividness out of proportion to the event, almost a timelessness as if hermetically sealed, where colors never fade and sounds remain as dulcet as they were, even if they never were in the first place. And you remember everything and everything is forever changed, touched, influenced."

"Such as?"

"Such as Fall."

"Explain."

"As in the season. Our first date was in the Fall, a glorious day of autumn come, the landscape bursting of summer passed, a kaleidoscope of orange and yellow and red. Leaves scampered to final resting places with the breeze of winter to come, almost giggling, the way school children giggle, the way I felt the first time we held hands and I felt her fingers curl into mine, slowly, firmly. Her hands were white and her nails a light shade of pink and I couldn't tell if the sparkle was in the polish or just in my mind for everything seemed brighter that night. She wore a baby blue sweater, soft as lamb's wool; and upon her shoulders, her golden hair came down like waves, my heart the shore and as the shore, I was helpless not to be taken, wave after wave." John sighed. "Ariel has her primrose hair. And her blue eyes."

"I know."

"Yeah."

"Please continue."

"Fall was, is, has never been the same. She is there, always with the first cool breeze of autumn, the first turning of leaf. I see her smile, the way she walked when she didn't know I was looking, the way she sat next to me the first time we sat together and I felt the warmth of her leg press into mine and her hand tighten around my fingers. I suppose if there is any comfort in space, we have no seasons and therefore no cause to remember what now--"

Kyra reached over and placed her hand on his. "You don't have to say anymore. I had no right to ask."

"Give me a moment. I want to remember. Besides, talking to one's self in the mirror gets old."

__________

"You know this is uncomfortable," said John.

"I didn't mean--"

"But you know why it is uncomfortable, right?"

"The memory of a loved one taken."

"Nope."

"Then what?"

John laughed. "The mixing of what should not be mixed."

"Oh."

723. trembled of memory

"How did you meet Cait?" asked Kyra.

"One day, she was there. At the academy. And I knew. From the first glance. With not a word or a hand held between us, I knew."

"Tell me."

"Not sure how to explain it. She was younger than I, never even looked my way, or so she said later, but I knew. From the way she walked, the curve of her cheek, the motion of her hand in making a point, eyes so dreamy they seemed not real. Demure in an educated, graceful way. An intelligence beyond her years, but more than that, she had a strength of character that always made me feel just a little lacking. I had all the honors, all the awards. But I knew she was the stronger, as I know Ariel too, is the stronger."

"But how did you know?"

"I don't know. Some sort of intuition, a whisper of fate, a chemical reaction that enters the eye and threatens to explode the heart, a sense of falling, not in love, but falling in life, into life--"

"Into life? What does that mean?"

"I'm trying to avoid all the usual clichés. But I'll say this. My life has always been divided in two. Before and after. Life before Cait was faded in discipline, honor, duty. Results boy my dad would always say; and so that was my life, exceling, on every level. And I did, although my father would never give me the pleasure of my accomplishments, assuming, of course, he was around to celebrate them."

"And after?"

"Nothing was ever faded again. Life was never the same. As if I could see things I could never see before, feel things never felt before and a future came forth, with Cait, of us, that changed everything. The feeling was of a foundation under my feet that made everything meaningful, significant, and the accomplishments, well, let's just say that with Cait, there was a grounding, a widening of perspective and life went from pencil to pen, from grey to any hue and color one could imagine. Even crimson."

The conversation stopped with blurry eyes and cheeks that trembled of memory, of loss, of what was and of what would never be again.

After some time, Kyra spoke. "Still want to kiss me?"

"Would you be upset if I said no?"

"I'd be honored."

"Honored?"

"One never mixes two women."

"Really? Another Papaism?"

"Nope. A Kyraism."

722. eucalyptus

Em laid chest down upon sheets clean and white, the room quiet but for his movements of leaf and oil; and from the window, a gentle warm breeze carried the throated song, melodic. Wind chimes chimed of wood and metal hollow of flute, and among it all, eucalyptus oil warmed of candle, warmed of hand, his hands, glistening firm in intent, desire, of natural education, natural as the song of bough and branch, as bamboo calling, as the plying of his fingers into her flesh.

With practiced care, he laid deflowered leaves upon her swimming back, the warmth radiating tired muscles pliable. The sharp aroma of leaf laid and oil heated rose clean as sincerity enlarging nostril and nape, expanding time and peace with each enlarging breath. And so she laid and so he worked, each stroke a poem speaking what could not be said.

The dross of the day, sighed, released, squeezed from muscle by muscle, limb by limb as fingers replaced leaf and the heat of ply weaved verse to stop the bee, pause the flower and make stars fall of dying light.

721. like ice

She came of black boot across damp clover, her melanic hair a waterfall of shade across his face. Moved not of word, she took bandage to hand and lip to purse and eye to brim. And he watched the winding of gauze, his hands those of a boxer, bloodied as cardinals upon the snowy mitts.

"You know," said Kyra, "you have a remarkable daughter."

"I know."

"She loves you very much."

"I know."

"Although she won't say it, she needs you."

"Did she tell you that?"

"We are all water to ice John."

John smiled. "You gonna tell me what that means?"

"A Papaism."

"A what?"

"One of Papa's sayings. Same message as Yellow. You see, whatever ice touches, it influences."

"I see . . ."

"But it is more than that. You see, ice doesn't just influence. It gives, wholly, of itself."

John sighed.

"I not preaching.

"Kiss me."

"No."

"Kiss me," repeated John.

"I like the heat . . . and, well, right now, you're like ice."

720. of open wounds

Hands bloodied, he sat, the handle of the hammer growing darker in the dying and he wondered of their death, those red blood cells forced from his hands and he wondered of Tom, of the lash, of his son, forced to watch.

To the sun or the river, in either direction, pain. The sun burrowed rays in his forehead and his pulpy hands ached in the stitching of lacerations, but everywhere, pain. There was a breeze. It stung like bees, a howling of open wound, company perhaps, for the wounds not seen, not healed, forever unknown by any other than he who carries the burden in a pair of shoes made for one. 

Out here, under the sun, among eddies of breeze and the scent of hued whores of petal and leaf, was the peace of pain not judged, of wounds allowed to flow, as the river, without question. And he thought that maybe, if he could just stay here, in the blistering heat, of sweat and blood and wood and nail, of thought layering thought, that maybe time could erode the edges of his memory, bring some ablution unseen, as his pain, unseen, as his vision these last two years, unseen. 

But he knew better. And they would come and he would go and nothing would be changed.

Extended commentary (and a reading)

719. nails of no regard

And to the sun, silver rose, returning with report, the crack of lightning in a blue sky. Sweat poured from angry muscle red of surge and wood warmed in hands known of life given and death taken. Into this sapphire sky his fist rose, blooming an energy of darkness known not of man or earth. And again, what rose, fell, and what was heard echoed on the wind like distant thunder. And try as he might, as he did, as his breath ran like steam and his chest boiled of iron heated, the memory could not be purged or expunged or beaten into submission. Still, to hammer under a wilting sun nails of no regard, fences of no keep, felt good, good in the way of labor, and sweat, the kind no man pauses, no man questions.

First reading of 2010. Enjoy

A Reading: 717. why, here, now