Sleep

 

Sleep is like putting yourself in a timeout 

when 

the world wants to take more than it should.

Maybe that is why I love it so much.

Not to mention the mystical powers it 

bestows

allowing me to play music I otherwise

can’t or float and then fly into a dark sky.

Sleep is sometimes called “the little death”

whereby

you escape an overwhelming world but

only for a very short period of time.

“To die, to sleep - to sleep perchance to 

dream. 

Ay, there's the rub, for in this sleep 

of death what dreams may come.”

(Shakespeare always says it best)

***

Me & Vadim

 

Me and Vadim 

American and Frenchman 

somewhere in Bratislava.

Steely stare.

So much hair!

Self aware.

Young and tireless

rolling cigarettes as

is the European way.

At a Peter Gabriel concert

(ten dollars for a ticket!)

in the summer of 1994.

***

Throwing Shade

 

Something I’ve noticed in these recent weeks of Spring as my hostas have emerged and flowers bloomed is that something has fundamentally changed with my five decorative bushes that line the space between my front porch and short sidewalk.  

I planted them five years ago when we first moved here and they have remained a faded bluish green with no change in size.  Some years there have been troubling beigey-brown patches where some of the bristles had dried up and died, or nearly so.

This year about early to mid-May I saw something that surprised me.  They were actually a bit bigger this year and more startling was the fact that there was new growth around the tops sprigging out in new directions with a light yellowish-green tint.

It’s Jennifer who figured out the huge oak tree had been shading so much of the front yard that not enough sun was getting to them.  And now that I look around I see other plants are benefiting from the lack of the large shadow canopy of the oak.

And boy did I mourn the loss of that magnificent tree!  But now I’m wondering if I’m overly shadowing my children in my need to soak in the sun and somehow depriving them of sustenance by way of being over-directive?  It’s a thought.

***

Mr. Squirrel & the Apocalypse

Oh Mr. Squirrel, perched on the ledge
eyeing me as my dog is going potty.
You’re surely braver than you should be
but maybe you’ve seen this ritual before.

Charming chartreuse chair, I’ll sit in this
unlikely nook thinking my quiet thoughts
about what was, what is, and is to come
(apocalyptic, but in the restorative sense).

A new Heaven and a new Earth as I was
told as a child by my well meaning parents
on the edge of a small town by a corn field
that stretched out into a fecund forever.

***

The Orange Bracelet

 

It had been on my wrist for a solid four to five months, but today it finally gave up the ghost at the gym, completely worn through.

It was an orange braided bracelet about the circumference of a thin spaghetti noodle, or “pasghetti” as she used to call it.

She made it by weaving colored thread in a technique that gave it evenly spaced stylized knots, a lovely bit of spontaneity.

I wore it in the sun and in the rain, in the shower and while planting flowers.  Time and wear wore it out, faded and tattered.

But I couldn’t bring myself to take it off until it fell off of its own frazzled accord.  It was her’s to give but mine to cherish and protect.

Now I am no longer bound by the bracelet.  I miss the connecting thread beautifully spun between our hearts, father and daughter.

***

I am a Mountain to Some

 

I am a mountain to some.  Towering over the landscape as they look up at my craggy nose and elongated face.  Never mind I am not talking about people, awed or not.  I am sitting under a tree in a foldable chair at my daughter’s field hockey practice on a Monday night.

I felt self-important for nearly a moment.  What I did not tell you was that those to whom I am a mountain are the bugs that suddenly found my appearance baffling but not unwelcome.  There were several of the same kind, tiny and green, but then an ant and others as well.

I swept them all off with an initial burst of disdain.  But now I feel bad.  They are just curious about this outsized interloper who has set himself in the place where they live and strive to survive.  Oh, now one is crawling straight down my screen.  I’ll try to ignore him.

And a bird is pecking around not five feet away.  It is ignoring me if I remain still and hill-like.  I am not quite mountainous to this significantly larger creature who eats bugs.  Maybe it is envious its meal has chosen me as a refuge.  It’s nice to feel the breeze blowing.

***

TO YOUR SCATTERED BODIES GO

 

I bought this book at our local library’s used book sale in a state of pure nostalgia for my childhood in the 70’s and early 80’s.  Comic books and SciFi/Fantasy paperbacks were my primary source of entertainment as a kid.  They telescoped me out to the far reaches of the universe and then microscoped me in to the equally wondrous innerverse as I stood between the two in a kind of nexus of awe and wonder.

In was an active process of the imagination and required some work on the front end when I first started reading and I had to have a dictionary at my elbow to learn new words I’d never heard spoken or seen written on a page before.  I was exercising my brain muscle in the most thrilling of ways, eventually becoming all gain and no pain.

In this regard I do feel a bit sorry for kids these days who have had these stories heaped upon them but in a passive mode of taking in an image that is already created for them and spoon fed through a TV, laptop, iPad, or smart phone.  It appears the phones have been the ones to become “smarter” in this context.

But here is “To Your Scattered Bodies Go” by Philip Jose Farmer.  What a title!  I’d read some of his books as a kid but not this particular one or any of them in his Riverworld series for that matter, though that series was definitely on my TBR list before my interests began to change in my late teens.  This copy was $1.25!  That was money a kid could get his hands on by scouring ditches and dumpsters for empty coke bottles the grocery store would give you a dime a piece for.  And that back page with books listed for sale as low as 75 cents!  It even gives you the publisher’s address at the bottom in case you can’t find it locally and they will mail you a copy from New York City if you add 25 extra cents.  

Yes, that odd underutilized institution known as “The Post Office”.  Nothing electronic about it.  Just pen, paper, and stamps to buy these things along with pranks, gag gifts, and magic tricks that I loved (like fake doggy doo, X-ray glasses, the fly in an ice cube, a dog whistle, “snappy” gum that actually snaps unsuspecting fingers, etc).  As I made more money going into my early to mid-teen years I had to become familiar with where to get money orders and how to fill them out.  The days of sending cash had passed and I was growing up with more expensive interests, even if that mostly just meant buying hardback books instead of paperback books or comics.

A legacy of all of this is that even now when I visit a website I am not interested in playing the video to see what information is being conveyed.  I prefer to read it in the article itself or as the transcription.  My brain wants to see the words and actively work out the meaning at its own pace and leisure.  It shows my age perhaps but I am at an age where that doesn’t matter to me anymore.

***

Melancholy in the Multiverse

 

It was late afternoon when the shimmer occurred, walking down my favorite fiction aisle in our local library, framed by rows and rows of books.

My head was down and my thoughts were exploring various possibilities that only existed between my two ears.  I suddenly felt very wobbly.

My perception was that the bookshelves on either side of me were extending in either direction an absurdly long distance.  I was utterly alone.

But not quite alone.  I sensed movement in the two aisles adjacent to me, one to the left and one to the right.  It took me a moment to reorient.

Peering to the left I saw myself or someone nearly identically so with his head down and a pained somber look, prematurely aged, defeated almost.

I turned away to my right and peered through the books on that side.  Again, a doppelgänger but this one with a bright and cheery countenance.

What decisions had they made to be here?  More importantly, what decisions had I made?  I seemed to be literally and figuratively between the two.

To myself on the left I felt compelled to reach through the stacks and give him a reassuring pat on the shoulder, maybe a squeeze of encouragement.

To myself on the right I wanted to crawl through the space and sit at his feet to learn how he had found his peace, his joy, his apparent contentment.

The shimmer returned but this time it was the from the welling up of tears.  I rubbed my eyes vigorously and then the crown of my head to self soothe.

I once again found myself alone in the finite space of books which tell tales of struggles and triumphs in a life of things both chosen and unchosen.  

***

The Longing

The days are long,
longer than they should be.

The nights are strong,
stronger than they would be

if only I could see you.

A deep depression.
A severe regression.

Scorn for myself 
stuck on a shelf.

My heart an in-
animate object.

A block of wood
if only I could…

get beyond the thing
that has ceased to be.

***

Truly Timeless

 

The beauty of the Divine Liturgy and the sacred architecture/iconography of an Orthodox Church is such that no matter where I am in the world my immediate feeling upon seeing one or entering one is “I know this place!”  

And I had just such an experience when I saw this photo.  I got excited because I mistakenly thought it was the parish where my wife and I were married and our son was baptized almost twenty years ago in Indianapolis, Indiana.

On closer inspection it is a photo from a parish in Tennessee.  To me, this phenomenon is indicative of a Faith that connects through time and space reaching back 2000 years.  It’s like a time machine because it is truly timeless.

***

Pascha 2024

It is May 4th and on this particular day in this particular year in the Orthodox Church we are approaching the great feast of Pascha.

At the present moment it is 9:30pm and the paschal service begins in two hours, so the waiting begins.  I typically would be preparing to go to bed in the next hour or so but sleep will not come until early tomorrow morning for me.

Between then and now something wondrously peculiar happens with everyone meeting in what will become a darkened church just prior to the midnight hour.  All the lights will be extinguished and we will capture glimpses of our fellow shadows that breathe and sway in place, like being in a mass grave that is expectant rather than morose or morbid.

Inside the altar a candle is lit and flickers as the priest begins to chant and the royal doors are opened so the light can come out to meet us.  The shadows become faces of people we know that illuminate one by one as the flame is passed from the priest to others and moves person to person.  

When all the candles are lit we exit the side door and process singing solemnly around the outside of the church and to the back doors that are closed to us.  There is meaning in everything.  I sometimes wonder what it looks like or how it is experienced by those out and about on this Saturday evening coming from or going to campus parties in the area when they stumble upon such a scene.

At the stroke of midnight the doors to the church are thrown open and all of the lights are on inside as we re-enter the church and begin exclaiming for the next few hours “Christ is Risen!  Indeed He is Risen!” Throughout the course of the service it is repeated in a fashion that I can only describe as “exuberant”.  And at the end of all of this processing, singing, and proclaiming we go upstairs for a feast of the bleary-eyed but satisfied.  

The drive home in and of itself is a surreal experience as the streets and roads are empty but we are full.

***

NO EXIT

 

Find the room with the black door.  There you will find a man posing as a psychiatrist.  Do not make eye contact with him.  He will be breathing but otherwise motionless.  He will ask “What is your business here?” but his lips will not move.  His eyes will not blink. 

You will respond “I need grease for my gray cells”.  

Turn in place thrice and he will then proffer a pill in either hand.  “You must choose one.”  You will see a white pill in his right hand and a black pill in his left hand.  The right choice is on the right which will be his left hand.  The pill color should match the door.

If at any time his lips move or his eyes blink you must immediately leave the room even if you do not have a pill.  Failure to do so within three seconds time will result in the black door disappearing and you will find yourself alone in a room with no exit.  

***