A Journey of Encounters and Memories

I remember hitchhiking in the summer of '90 from my home in Southern Indiana to a town in Northern Indiana where I was attending college at the time.  It began with me sitting at my desk in my room on a Friday night listening to the music of Keith Green through headphones and thinking about my Grandpa, Poppy, who had been a wanderer of the West in his late teens/early twenties during the great Depression.  He had jumped freight cars and used the railroads to take him from Ohio to most every state in the American West.  I do not remember exactly what my thoughts were at the time, but I do remember my mood and the sense of a crushing melancholy that hit me while sitting in that largish closet I'd converted into my office, sucking all of the air out of it and making it hard to breathe.

It was some time after 11pm and my parents and sisters had gone to bed, the house completely dark.  I suddenly found myself sobbing while listening to that music that had always touched me so deeply and carried me through some dark times in high school.  It was a feeling that could not be contained in so small a space and with thoughts of Poppy on my mind I determined to take a journey into the wider world.

I wrote a note to my parents, gathered up a few dollars and some change, then found an old wool coat in a closet that had been my Dad's not worn since the 70's.  It was a kind of blue and white tartan pattern with a matching wide belt and buckle.  It was a bit preposterous and I considered it a costume of sorts for the road along with my holiest t-shirt.  The shoes I grabbed were cheap dock shoes that were half falling apart and completed the homeless look.  Finally, I put a couple of small tracts in my pocket that said something to the effect "Do you want to be a good person?"  In retrospect, this is something that Poppy would have done as he was known to leave these kind of small Christian pamphlets in public places for people to find.

***

I snuck out the back door and into the chilly night air of Mitchell, Indiana.  I had no idea where I would go or how I would get there.  I heard the sound of a train coming from the direction of the downtown area of our small town and set off in that direction.  When I arrived at the tracks the train was heading southward and moving much too fast to jump on.  I considered where it was headed, which was  likely Louisville through rural Southern Indiana, and decided that was not the path I would take this evening.

At that point I considered going back home and going to bed, but I still had that terrible itch to make an adventure of it and decided instead to hitchhike north on the main highway that was on the west side of town.  The next town north of us was about nine miles away and my plan was to thumb a ride to that town and then decide what to do from there.  About five miles into the trip with no rides to be found I was having some serious second thoughts.  My PayLess shoes were rubbing my toes raw and so I stopped and sat in the grass at the roadside to take them off and rip the toe of the shoe away from the sole to allow for some more room.  A few miles more and I was regretting it as gravel was finding its way into my shoe through the open front.

***

I was practically to Bedford and a fog was starting to set in.  Just when I was about to give up hope and head back home, a car pulled over to pick me up.  The guy was a twenty-something Caucasian male and looked a little rough around the edges.  With a kind of bewildered tone he enquired as to what I was doing walking this time of night and to where I was going.  That is the translated and abridged version.  In reality, every other word out of his mouth was a cuss word.  I had never heard anything like it or met anyone who laced their speech so densely with profanity.  No one in my family used cuss words.  I'll always remember the time my Dad hit his thumb while driving a nail into my bedroom wall when I was a kid.  He yelled out "Dadgummit!" and my Mom instantly appeared in the doorway and chided him for using such language.  He quickly calmed down and apologized.

I told this good Samaritan that I was headed into Bedford and joined him in the front seat.  We made small talk about how expensive driving had become in recent months as it was a time when the price of gas had started to make a precipitous climb.  He continued to show a tremendous amount of empathy for my plight while unknowingly burning my conservative Christian ears with his foul language.  It was quite a lesson for me as I had never before equated a "clean" heart with a "dirty" mouth.  In my limited experience and exposure I'd thought they were somehow mutually exclusive.  He dropped me off near Denny's and then sped off into the night, but not before I'd left a tract on the seat for him to find later.  His act of kindness and concern trumped my little paper pamphlet, but I only vaguely understood that at the time.

***

As I stood in the glow of the Denny's sign the thought occurred to me that it would be nice to go in and sit down with a cup of coffee and find someone to talk to or at the very least be able to chit chat with a friendly waitress.  I didn't have any money to spare if I wanted to eat later and I was eager to continue my journey.  It was at this point that I had the audacious idea to hitchhike to Marion, Indiana a hundred and fifty miles from where I stood.  It was home to the college I was attending at the time, Indiana Wesleyan University.  I had some friends who lived off campus and might be around over the summer.

Lost in these thoughts, a car pulled over and another guy offered me a ride.  This guy was probably in his early thirties and quiet.  He asked me where I was headed and I told him I wanted to head north on Highway 37.  At some point, after getting into his car, I shared that my ultimate destination was Marion.  Within a mile or two he propositioned me for a particular act that caught me by surprise and made me realize I was swimming in some strange and unfamiliar waters.  I did not let it show in my voice and simply told him I was not into that kind of thing.  He offered to take me all the way to Marion if I complied.  When he could not change my mind he pulled over to the side of the highway to let me off.  I discreetly fished another tract out of my pocket and placed it underneath me on the seat before exiting the car.

The fog was very thick by now as I walked somewhere between Bedford and Bloomington.  It would be almost impossible for a car to see me under these conditions and so I walked invisibly through the heavy mist for at least a few miles.  This kind of wandering while lost in thought is something I was prone to do after leaving home for college, mostly driven by a kind of uneasy angst.  In retrospect, I think it acted as a buffer against despair and included free floating prayers that I was sure were heard by a deity who listened to lonely people.

Having a destination made the wandering a little less aimless in my mind and gave me the motivation to keep going.  I passed between some sheer rock walls where the road had been cut through a very large hill.  On the other side of it a car came from behind me.  It was driving slow as if looking for something.  When it passed me it slowed further and then pulled over.  I jogged up to the car and opened the door.  It was the man who had propositioned me earlier and I said, "Oh, not you again" in a kind of mock exasperation.  He assured me he wouldn't bother me about anything this time, but was headed to Bloomington now and could give me a lift.  I hesitated, but then got in knowing that with the fog and at this time of night I would not likely get another ride for quite a long time if at all.  He was even quieter this time, but he did say a few things that made me think he'd found the tract and at least glanced through it a bit.

“Do you think I’m a bad person?” he asked.  His tone struck me as someone who is feeling a good deal of guilt and self-loathing.  I wasn’t sure how to respond, but finally told him that only God can judge him.  He dropped me off at one of the Bloomington exits and headed east into the city to look for something he couldn’t seem to find as I continued to head north.

***

The next ride came quicker than I expected.  I could hear it before I could see it.  The car was big and wide, pimped out a bit with some chrome hub caps and long vinyl bench seats with a  stereo designed to rattle the teeth in your head.  His windows were down and cigarette smoke wafted out, thickening as it hit the cool night air heavy with moisture.  He asked me where I was headed over the loud heavy metal music which he'd turned down only slightly.  When I told him he said he could take me as far as Muncie which is just south of Marion.  I could not believe my good fortune.  I had been worried about how I would navigate my way around the Indianapolis beltway with its myriad exits.  It would be the trickiest part of the journey, but now almost the entirety of the trip had been handed to me in one two-hour car ride.

Within the first mile or two I realized why he had his windows down and his music blasting.  He kept drifting over the lines and was trying to keep himself awake with the cold air and vibrations of his subwoofers.  The second or third time he'd swerved back onto the road after his head nodded, I proposed to him that I could drive and knew how to get to Muncie.  He thought about it for a minute or two and then pulled off the side of the road and we switched places.  He fell asleep almost immediately and I quieted the radio and rolled up the windows.  I watched the white hash marks flicker by in the darkness and felt my place in the oddness of the universe, cruising up Highway 37 in the middle of the night in a stranger's car.

We made our way up through Martinsville, a boy wearing his father's coat and a snoring headbanger, then hit the ramp to the 465 beltway around Indianapolis.  I would hitchhike my way back down to Mitchell through this stretch from the Indianapolis airport four years later in 1994.  The intervening years would include a two year stent in the Army, finishing my last year of college, and then spending a few months in Europe.  I flew from Frankfort, Germany to Chicago and then to Indianapolis.  I had not told anyone I was coming home and wanted to surprise them.  At the airport I bought a newspaper, a black marker and some tape.  I wrote "37 South" in large script and taped it to my tattered army surplus backpack that had carried my worldly possessions the past few months across Europe.  A scraggly looking man in a rusty red pickup truck picked me up and ended up taking me all the way to the doorstep of my sister's house.  It was once again an exercise in learning not to judge a book by its cover as I talked with this man and got to appreciate his struggles and good heart.

Back to 1990, I circled Indianapolis on its east side and then took Interstate 69 heading northwest.  The Muncie exit came up about 45 minutes later and I pulled into the gravel of an abandoned gas station and left the car running.  My passenger was still sleeping and so I poked him to wake him up.  "We're here", I said and exited the car.  He groggily scooted over to the get behind the wheel and lit a cigarette.  "Thanks for the ride," I said.  He nodded, then drove away.

***

I made my way back up the ramp to I-69 and headed northwards again to continue my hitchhiking  journey.  It was now twilight and the birds were singing their morning songs.  I felt tired, cold and hungry, but also thankful to be able to experience this moment of peace on a quiet stretch of road at sunrise.

A car pulled over in front of me and as I opened the passenger side door some familiar music greeted me.  Even more inviting was the heat coming out of the vents.  It was the first bit of comfort to be had on this all-nighter.  The driver was a middle-aged man in shirt and tie.  He asked me where I was going and I told him Marion.  He told me he could get me to a Marion exit, but would not be able to take me into town.  As we drove up the interstate I made comment about his music and named the artist.  I could tell by his expression that he had not expected me to know that he was playing a song by a Contemporary Christian singer.  It was that book and cover thing again, but with me as the object of scrutiny this time.

I shared with him some bits of my life, being a student at Indiana Wesleyan University, and other such information as the conversation unfolded over about a twenty minute period.  He was the first person to fully engage me in this way and it was obvious that he had not expected this particular encounter when he offered me a ride.  I seem to remember him saying a prayer with me when he stopped to drop me off at the exit on the outskirts of Marion.

***

The last leg in my northward journey was spent in the pickup truck of an elderly farmer who dropped me off at the corner of campus.  I made my way into a gas station convenience mart and rummaged in my pockets to find the two dollars and some odd cents that I'd stashed there. The donuts looked tempting, but I did not know how much longer this journey would last and so I went for the sausage and cheese biscuit breakfast sandwich sealed in plastic.  The microwave melted the cheese in a way that made it difficult to get out of the wrapper.  It tasted bland and artificial, but it was a warm and welcome visitor to my stomach nonetheless.

I sat at a booth by the window and looked out towards the college campus planning my next move.  There was no itinerary.  First it was Bedford, then Bloomington, then Marion frickin' Indiana for goodness' sake.  Who knows why I did what I did at that time in my life?  My mother certainly didn't know and my father and I might as well have been living on different planets by the time I hit college.

I spent an hour or so roaming the campus and may have even wandered into the Christian Ministries building where Art Professor Rod Crossman was painting a magnificent mural of the Apocalypse of John while suspended on some scaffolding.  The center of the massive canvas was commanded by a giant lion's face, probably ten feet tall or so.  There was also a woman with a crown of stars holding a newborn baby while a serpentine dragon loomed over her, waiting.  The four horseman may have been in it too, but I cannot see them clearly in my mind's eye and they may simply be a product of my imagination and fractured memory.  Under the lion's head was the silhouette of a shepherd holding a staff on a hill overlooking a modern city of gridded street lights that stretch out underneath these apocalyptic scenes suspended in a starry sky.  He is pointing them out to a modern figure next to him who is also in silhouette.

He took a break from his work and we talked for awhile.  I told him I was a fan of C.S. Lewis's stories and wanted to write things like that some day, and by "that" I meant fantasy-style fiction that would have a deeper layer of meaning glimpsed only by the sincere and attentive reader.  He was very gracious to spend that time with me and he encouraged me to follow that dream.  It sounds cliche now, but at that time in my life it was very meaningful to me.  And now that I have written out this memory I realize this meeting happened the previous summer, when I was traveling with a recruiting team for the university.  At that time we had occasion to stay on campus a few weekends of the summer while traveling all over the Midwest.  During those few weekends on campus we had stayed in an old house with white pealing paint that had a kitchen, common room, and a few bedrooms.  It was used by a variety of student groups that traveled for the university in various capacities.

It was that house that I found vacant and locked.  I walked around trying the windows and found one that had not been locked or could be jimmied in some way to get it open.  I crawled in conscious of the fact if campus security caught sight of me I could be in some serious doo-doo.  It was uncomfortably warm inside, but I was so exhausted I didn't care and laid down on the worn couch to take a nap.  I probably slept an hour or so before the heat got unbearable and I could no longer sleep.  I got up and went through the cabinets in the kitchen looking for food.  I found some packets of ramen and ate them raw like a cow munching on dry straw.  I lapped up water from the faucet with my hand.  I noticed a phone on the wall and thought to call my parents and let them know my whereabouts.  My Dad answered and asked where I was.  I told him I was in Marion and that I would be spending the day hitchhiking back to Mitchell.  He told me to stay put and he would come and pick me up.  I convinced him instead to meet me at my Grandma's house in Anderson which was about a 45 minute drive from Marion.  I walked to Highway 9 to extend my thumb one last time on this journey.

***

A man who looked to be in his fifties picked me up just outside of town and agreed to take me into Anderson.  He asked a few perfunctory questions and then commenced to bitch about his ungrateful daughter for the entire 45 minute ride.  He went on and on about how he'd been wronged, taken advantage of, mistreated and misused.  It was a torrent of toxicity and self-justification that was absolutely nauseating.  He had his captive audience and was going to exact his pound of flesh as the cost for the ride.

I did not know the exact location of my Grandma's house, but I knew it was on Main Street.  We passed Mounds Mall and my mind dove deep into memories from when I was probably four or five and we would visit Grandma and "Grampy John," as we called our step-grandpa.  She would take us to this mall where there was a play area with huge concrete turtles that we could crawl over and under.  It was a very simple set up, but thrilling to me nonetheless.  The less-than-thrilling memory from that mall was when my Mom did not have a dime to open the stall door in the lady's restroom and made me crawl under the door to open it from the inside.  These memories helped me detach from the man droning on in self-consuming anger and find a much needed mental respite.

I saw the sign for Main Street and latched onto it like a drowning person grabbing at a life preserver.  "Here, let me off here," I gestured to the side of the road a little too enthusiastically.  He pulled over and I thanked him for the ride, though I would have almost preferred to have walked the entire distance if I'd known what I was getting myself into.  I headed south on Main Street knowing that I'd eventually run into my Grandma's house.  It was an odd perspective kind of thing because we had always approached her house from the south and turned before the house itself to access the shared driveway in the back.  I was practically in front of it before I recognized her front porch and made my way around back.

The back yard was small and surrounded by a waist high chainlink fence.  I entered the covered back porch through the screen door and knocked on the back door of the house proper that opened into her kitchen.  No one was home so I rummaged through a sack of wooden clothespins that hung on the wall where I knew she sometimes hid their house key that looked like those old skeleton keys from a bygone era.  It was not there and I wondered where they were and how long it would be before they returned this hot Saturday morning.  I tried to catch a nap under their picnic table, lying on the grass in the shade, avoiding the direct heat of the sun.

They did not seem wholly surprised to see me when they arrived and they asked no questions as to how I'd come to be there.  In retrospect, my Dad must have called them and told them I'd be coming.  I seem to remember she had some groceries with her and maybe she'd gone out with Grampy John to get some food for my arrival.  None of this was mentioned at the time and we simply went inside together and she made some lunch while we chit-chatted waiting for Dad to arrive.  When he got there he joined us for lunch and we talked a bit more, the four of us around her metal kitchen table.  The fact that we were all together because of my impromptu journeying was the elephant in the room that remained unacknowledged and unspoken.

***

We said our goodbyes and gave our hugs and kisses before getting back on the road.  It was a very long drive home with almost no talking, both of us just staring out at the houses and cornfields whipping by as we progressed southward.  I guess at that time I just took my parents for granted in my solipsistic way of viewing the world and had no real understanding of how this might affect them.  I had had my adventure at their expense and six months later I would once again blindside them with my decision to join the Army at the outset of the first Gulf War, dropping out of my senior year of college and ending up in Korea for two years as an infantryman.

As is the case with many of the memories I've written about in the past few years, whether in poems or prose, I only seem to really appreciate these things now because I have a son of my own and can finally relate to what it might have been like for them.  All of those times I thought they'd been impatient with me growing up when, in reality, they'd been long suffering.  It's the difference between looking through the eyes of a kid and the eyes of an adult.

Rider of Chariots

Rider of Chariots,

Bringer of Light,

Farseer with Spectacles,

and 

Giver of Hugs.

He is Simeon.

Watch him roll.


***

Seeing Myself in My Son

It's like being given the opportunity to go back in time,

but instead of getting a do over, I am an observer.

I see him lying on his stomach in his bed with a book.

He is warming up at a baseball game in his uniform.

I watch him fly out of the garage on his bike, not even

looking back, escaping to a friend's house after school.

I watch him stand at the dinner table, unwilling to sit,

afraid that if he does he will be trapped or impeded.

Everything he does is to avoid pain and struggle until

inspired by seeing an athlete training hard and then

he is running, doing pushups, and punching at the wind.

There are intense ongoing negotiations with his mother.

There are frequent opportunities to annoy his sister.

There are the doodles and stories in a spiral notebook.

And, mostly, there are the attempts to make you laugh.

I am seeing myself in my son almost every day and

as I extrapolate his behavior out into the future I am

exhilarated and terrified for him at the same time.

***

Thoughts About Writing

Every morning I try to write a little while sipping coffee in the cafeteria of my hospital.  If I am not careful, I find myself instead scrolling through my facebook page or get sidelined into manipulating photos with a variety of apps.  Three years now into this writing experiment I think I am starting to more clearly understand what clicks and what does not click.

I am also being drawn more and more into wanting to write in a hybrid style that combines prose and poetry.  By that I mean I want to write in paragraphs, but of a uniform (smallish) size and with lots of commas and metaphors.  I first ran across this idea when I read some prose poems by Alexander Solzhenitsyn several years ago.  I guess that is what I am trying to get at, "prose poems."  I really should take a writing course or read a book about the different kinds of writing to learn what possibilities are out there.

I imagine more people would write if they could find the right vehicle to support and guide their words.  This approach, as explained above, seems to work best for me because my brain does not work well with indeterminate distances or anything resembling a kind of extended or rambling style.  My brain regularly yells "get to the point!" or "don't get carried away!" when I am trying to write.

These ideas came most clearly into focus for me recently when I revisited a story that started out as just a writing exercise.  As sometimes happens, I did not know if I was going to approach it as a poem or as prose.  Because I was stuck I left it alone for several months, but then found it again when trying to herd the proliferation of unassigned writings into their proper electronic folders.  The idea intrigued me anew and some new ideas popped up so I started writing again, but started confining it to paragraphs of a uniform number of lines almost arbitrarily.  If the paragraph was too short, I added to it.  If it was too long, I took something away.  If I did not want to take away any of the ideas I would simply find a way to transfer that idea downward to a new paragraph and develop it that way.

The story is "The Hovel" and I would consider it a successful experiment.  The original idea came from visualizing a "happy place" several years ago that I could go to in my mind as a way to de-stress.  It is a technique I'd used in residency to help soldiers on the inpatient psychiatric unit at Walter Reed.  I sent a copy to my parents and I got a surprise call from my Dad who loved it and my Mom who thought I'd really had a seizure.  I think they are too easily pleased (or frightened, whichever the case may be), but it was worth it just to get an excited call from someone I love and do not see very often.


***

Godzilla Returns

Since when did the world get so complicated?  Since I left home I would guess, though it was complicated then too, the difference being I could foist my failures off on my parents who had not raised me right, who had zigged when they should have zagged, while I wallowed in self-pity and dangled on the rope of their subsidies, kicking and swinging to avoid the undertow of worldly responsibilities swirling below me like a massive whirlpool.

I am fully an adult now, or so I imagine.  I have a good job that is secure and satisfying.  I took so many detours to get here that I am not exactly sure where "here" is.  I frequently have dreams about all of those detours and missteps which drown me in a sea of despair.  It is only when I am ascending from the depths of sleep that I slowly realize... I have a job!  I have a family!  I pop up on the surface and take in a huge breath of relief!  In my choose-your-own-adventure-of-a-life I somehow found the right page and the right path in spite of myself.

But even now, in my middle years, things seem shaky, like I will wake up one day and the dream will have been the reality and not just the torment of my aimless twenties.  I've seen movies like this and they are some of my favorites, maybe because they are not me and I have avoided such a fate, or so I imagine.  And what does all of this underground angst gain me?  It fuels a powerful underflow of empathy that surfaces when I need it to, especially when dealing with my colleagues and patients at the hospital.

But what about home?  Where is that understanding and empathy when it comes to those I am actually related to by blood and marriage?  It is harder and I don't know why it should be harder.  Maybe because we are more clearly connected, our fates intertwined.  It is much scarier to have to fulfill those obligations first and foremost without fail or foisting.  There is no escape route when things seem overwhelming and it becomes a matter of hunkering down even as the Sirens circle and attempt to call me away.

Maybe this is at the core of what it means to be an adult, a healthy human being, an agent of stability in a chaotic world where the monster of SELF rages and destroys like Godzilla leveling cities, looking down his snout at others, exhaling a withering blast of condescension and sarcasm.  And how did I end up with a Japanese B-movie metaphor?  It's complicated, I guess, and so I am back where I began.


***

When Your Daughter is a Girl

When your daughter
is a girl
like a candy stripe
'round a swirl
there is nothing to be done
but hold on tight
and have some fun.


***

I Will Walk into the Storm

I will walk into the storm with hope

that it beats me to the ground, then

whips me skyward in a mad frenzy.

I will walk into the storm because I

know that my soul needs violence

to awaken from the sleep of death.

I will walk into the storm of my own

free will, otherwise its terrible power

will have no positive affect on me.

I will walk into the storm expecting to

walk out the other side, by grace, made

capable of love through brokenness.

I will walk into the storm for no other

reason than to be worthy of those

who depend on me to be true.

***

The Lonely Walker

It was a beautiful day with white fluffy clouds
floating in a deep blue sky full of breezes,
but the walker knew nothing of this, his head
slumped down, chin to chest, a jaundiced eye
watching the railroad ties so as not to stumble.
He'd been walking for god knows how long,
day and night, night and day, feeling crummy
and hungry, always hungry, with no sleep and
no need for sleep, manic but with no energy.
It was not a healthy lifestyle despite all of the
miles he'd logged with his unnatural stamina.
The crows eyed him warily from the dead wires,
wanting carrion and wondering how he carried on.
He was the saddest thing imaginable, a man driven
by passions with no possibility of stillness or satiety,
a lonely walker on the tracks under a lovely sky.


***

The Hovel

I could feel a warm rain falling about me in the darkness.  Points of brightness winked at indeterminate distances, like light coming through holes in black velvet.  I felt unencumbered by gravity and the downward flexing of my feet met no resistance.  I became aware that air was rustling up through what appeared to be a coarse black cassock that I did not remember putting on.

Something was beating about my face, tickling my nose and triggering fears of suffocation.  My hands grabbed hold of thread-like tangles and tugged them sharply away from my face.  A sudden pain from my chin and neck brought tears to my eyes.  Further pulling and grabbing brought on the painful realization that it was hair, my hair, and growing from my face.

Despite these strange sensations and an inexplicable predicament, the overall feeling quickly morphed into one of peaceful resignation, to fall as far and as long as circumstances would allow.  It occurred to me that I'd always wanted a long hoary beard that social propriety had discouraged and my wife had forbidden.  I sensed a slowing of my apparent descent as my beard settled back onto my chest.

Below me the faintest spot of light appeared in the darkness through wisps of clouds and grew in size as I fell to meet it.  By this point I felt I was floating downward as much as falling, wondering if the cassock was somehow functioning as a parachute.  I perceived dark and irregular shapes beginning to form on the ground below, spreading out from around a singular light source.  The sound of waves could be heard crashing in the distance.

The rain continued to fall, but there were no signs of dampness.  The descent slowed to almost a halt, though still not on terra firma.  From a vantage point of about fifty feet in the air I could see a scattering of dilapidated stone buildings visible in outline only, flickering in and out of shadow.  The light source appeared to be a small flame swaying above the floorboards of a devastated hovel directly below me.

I closed my eyes and allowed my body to relax, limp like a rag doll in a child's hand.  I eventually felt my feet touch a floor, but I offered no resistance or pushback, legs folding, waist bending, torso laid out flat.  So deposited, my eyes remained closed.  The patter of rain and distant sounds of the sea lulled me to sleep.  Thoughts washed over me, "How can one fall asleep in a dream?  Where am I..."

***

I felt my cheek pressed against a hard flat surface.  A pale light was creeping in under partially closed lids.  It came into my awareness that the rain had stopped and left me curiously dry.  I thought I must have slept a good while for this to happen, but then remembered falling with it in the darkness and not getting wet.  Eyes still closed, I rolled over onto my back and lay there for a moment, drinking in the strangeness of my situation.

It was quiet and I tried to pull in as much information about my surroundings without using my eyes.  I caught the smell of burning incense and my ears detected the sound of surf hitting a beach a good way's off.   The rough grain of wooden floorboards could be felt under my palms.  I opened my eyes and looked up at the light gray sky of a high cloud cover.

The hovel had no roof and no wall on the front side where a door should be.  The two side walls were partially collapsed, but connected to the back wall which was still intact.  In one corner was a scattering of straw next to a stone fireplace and on the other side of the fireplace was a glassless window.  Between the window and the side wall hung a large icon of Christ with a golden lampada suspended in front of it with a burning taper.

The icon waited patiently for me to fully awaken and approach it.  The flame flickered a greeting, inviting me to gaze upon the holy image as I took my place in front of it.  The eyes of the Savior were calm and dispassionate, drawing me into a sense of timeless presence.  The mouth was small and full of silence.  My eyes continued downward over the elongated form and lit on a small weathered prayer book next to a brass bowl of burning incense perched on a narrow wooden shelf below the icon.

The book fit expertly into my hand, opening to the Morning Prayers... "Glory to you, oh God, glory to you.  Heavenly King, Comforter, Spirit of Truth who are present everywhere and filling all things.  Treasury of blessings and source of life, come and abide in us, cleanse us of all stain, and save our souls oh Good One."  Prostrations were made in multiples of three, forehead pressed to the floorboards, and the sign of the cross made repeatedly from head to belly, arm to arm.

***

Prayers finished, I stepped to the window and peered off into the distance.  A breeze filtered through my long facial hair and brought with it the smell of the sea.  I raised my hands to adjust a simple black skull cap and pull it down snugly to the tops of my ears.  It was cool, but not cold.  It seemed an appropriate time to explore this place and figure out where I had been deposited so gingerly the night before.  It was likely a dream, an exceedingly pleasant hallucination in all aspects, though quite melancholy.

I was missing my glasses, but could see with a startling clarity.  My hovel was surrounded by other crumbling stone structures on what appeared to be a wide grassy plain that sloped off to the sea on one side.  The other three directions led to rolling hills, then mountains with a few peaks lost in the clouds.  Grass was growing up and around the rubble making it difficult at times to walk without stumbling.  I began clearing a path seaward, piling rocks to either side.

One particular rock was lighter in shade than the others and smoother in its roundedness.  It was partially buried and required some loosening of the grass and dirt surrounding it in order to pry it free.  It suddenly popped loose and I found it to be light and hollow with two symmetrical holes staring at me.  It was a skull that I held in my hand.  I felt strangely comforted by this find and understood it to be someone very much like myself who had come to this place.  I placed it in my prayer corner.

Once the path reached the edge of the sloping grassy plain, I continued onward and downward towards the sea.  In the distance I could see the water lapping up onto a sandy beach.  Wind swept in bending the grass in waves, an extension of energy from the great expanse of water.  The cassock shuddered and snapped while I held down the black cap with my hand.  It felt to lift me back up into the air on a reverse journey, but instead forced a weaving path as I stumbled back and forth fighting it.

The sound of a massive bell being struck rung out and stilled the wind and waves.  I stopped in astonishment as its reverberations set my bones to vibrating.  There was no  visible source for this phenomenon, but my attention became focused on the complete flatness of the sea, like a sheet of glass was laid over it.  As the ring diminished, the wind began to pick up again and the water sparkled once more with shining wavelets disappearing into the distance.

***

The clouds had started to become patchy and disperse as the sun set on the water.  It was an epic tapestry of intense pinks, oranges and pale blues covering the horizon and spreading to just above my head as the light skipped playfully from cloud to cloud.  I turned to head back up the slope as the light continued to fade.  Just above the mountains a scattered line of brilliant stars marked the edge of a galaxy spinning in its immense silence.

Out of the corner of my eye I caught glimpses of stooped and shadowy figures also headed up the slope.  I fought the temptation to turn and try to take them in more directly.  We crossed the border of the ancient village together.  The darkness swallowed them up one by one so that I quickly found myself alone again, though I knew that not to be wholly accurate.  The flickering light from the lampada marked my abode and greeted me with its warm glow.

I found some wood pieces along the outside wall and arranged them in the fireplace.  This was followed by gathering up all the straw scattered over the floor and piling it in the corner.  I chose a strand with a splayed end and lit it at the lampada, then lit some kindling with it.  Once a nice crackling fire was going I stood once again in front of the icon and read the evening prayers, "Into Thy hands, O Lord Jesus Christ my God, I commit my spirit..."  The straw pile became a nest for sleep and I settled in for the night.

***

I awoke to the distant sound of thunder.  Some straw had worked its way into the neck of my cassock and I stood to shake it out in the flickering light of the lampada.  At the window I could see clouds gathering out over the water with flashes of lightning illuminating their insides.  A wall of wind that preceded it hit the small hovel and threatened to further loosen its ancient stones.  The lampada remained lit despite the fact it was swinging vigorously on its three thin chains.  "Most holy Theotokos save us," I whispered.

I abandoned the hovel to set out across the sprawling grasslands that stretched out behind the ruins.  A half ring of hills in the distance set the boundaries for this plain and formed a circle with the ruins forming the seaward side.  I could feel the clouds rolling in at my back, like a tremendous stampede of mythical creatures jumping over each other in a manic race to the mountains.  I raced in front of them, falling frequently and feeling some urgency from an unknown source somewhere deep inside my chest.

Nearing the center of this wide open space, a swirl of wind seemed to whip around the inside of the natural bowl and come at me head on.  My forward progress was brought to an abrupt halt and my cap was swept up off of my head.  I turned to watch it fly up into the sky and my eyes were drawn to the clouds that had been pursuing me.  They filled the circle of sky forming an upwardly curving canopy while flashes of lightning revealed elongated figures leaning centerward to a point directly above my head.

I extended my arms and rotated in place to take in the spectacle, half in terror, wholly in awe.  As if in response, clouds at the four points of the compass began to swirl and extend fingers earthward from the edges of what I now recognized as a dome.  The sound of fluttering wings filled the air as the tornado-like funnels extended to the ground, thickened, and formed pillars.  The flashes of lightning were coming more frequently, almost one on top of the other, with faces all around looking on dispassionately.

The sound of a massive bell rung out as before and all motion ceased.  The pillars turned to granite and the roof of the sky became a golden dome ringed with icons.  At its apex was Christ the All Powerful, his halo crackling with energy.  I felt the hairs on my arms and the nape of my neck begin to rise as a prickling sensation covered my entire body to the point it became unbearable.  A deafening crash knocked me off of my feet as a lightning bolt struck and left me on my back staring up at the face looking down...

***

And blackness once again, falling in some unknown direction, points of light twinkling.  I sensed someone leaning over me and heard a concerned voice asking questions.  The lights consolidated into a single circle which grew in size, like coming up from a deep well.  A face above me was talking and slowly came into focus.  It was Deacon Paul and around him stood some of the parishioners leaning in and forming a circle around my head. I was back in the church, but still somewhat disoriented and could not speak.

"Aaron, we think you had a seizure.  You're going to be OK.  You’ve been out for a few minutes and we called an ambulance.  Squeeze my hand if you understand what I'm saying."  I squeezed his hand, then closed my eyes again and wondered if there was a way back to that place.  The smell of incense and burning beeswax candles was thick in the air and comforted me.  The prayers were still there in my head and heart, “heal our infirmities to the glory of Your name, amen.”

The Empty Town

With eyes closed I feel the air moving past me and hear the drone of the box fan perched in the window beside my bed.  My mind is clear, expectant, poised between worlds.  I feel myself bobbing on the surface of time, a small boy at its base, a man at the crest, growing, shrinking, growing, shrinking, like a human accordion.  There is music above the drone, or so I imagine, reminding me of a candle lit Vespers where psalms are sung.

"...as for man, his days are like grass; he flourishes like a flower of the field; for the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no more..."

***

The boy's head is bowed and his eyes are closed as the swing rocks him gently back and forth.  He is alone on this playground, alone in this small town, alone in this world.

[My God.  It's me as a child, maybe ten or eleven, the same age as my son.  He looks so small and thin, so vulnerable.]

He looks up when he realizes the world has gone completely silent.  The cars that had just been circling the town square are gone.  He looks around for the kids riding their skateboards on the basketball court, for the teen smoking at the empty fountain, but no one is there.

[Look at those bangs, the freckles, the sunburned cheeks, "Hey!  Aaron!  Buddy!"  He cannot hear me.  I know he is me, but I can't help feeling like he is my son as well.]

He drags his feet in the dirt to stop the swing, then rotates himself on the chains in a full circle, releasing, spinning back and forth.  The birds are gone, the wind is gone, the ants on the anthill are gone, and the sky is a uniform gray.

[This is the town I grew up in and everything is just as I remember it.]

The look of confusion on his face transforms into a curious smile as he heads over to the small circular bandstand on the East side of the square.  It sits next to the main street that cuts the town in half.  A windowed door is in its base, slightly below ground level with steps leading down to it.  This is the police station and he finds the door unlocked.  Inside is a desk, a few chairs, filing cabinets, and a rack of radio equipment.  He plays with the knobs and switches, turning it on with a crackle and buzz.  Keying the hand mic he whispers, "Break one nine, break one nine, this is the Karate Kid.  What's your ten twenty, over?"

[My Dad had a CB radio in his custom van and I liked to call up truckers when we were out and about, asking their location and inquiring about the time using the number codes I'd learned from the back cover of a semi-truck themed coloring book.  Everyone that used a CB had a "handle" they used instead of their name.  Mine was "Karate Kid" which referred to the classes I was taking in a church basement in the town just south of ours.  My older cousin, who was very serious about his handle, came up with "Lost Coin."  Even as a little kid I knew this was an impressive choice and had some flair to it.  The handles I had come up with were prosaic in comparison.]    

There is no reply on the radio, so he heads out of the office and across the street to the corner drug store.  His bike is leaning against the front plate glass window and just inside the front door and to the left sits a rotating rack of comic books.  Every Wednesday the new ones come in which gives him some time to collect empty pop bottles and exchange them for a dime a piece at his local grocery store.  His favorites are the X-men and Daredevil.  He has seen the rise of the Dark Phoenix and the destruction of an entire planetary system.  He has seen Bullseye proclaim that he is "magic" and defeat Elektra with the flick of a playing card.  And at this very moment he is riveted by a panel from the Swamp Thing where a little boy is swimming with friends in a lake.  His head bobs on the surface, a look of frozen terror on his face.  His friends are asking him what is wrong.  Below the murky water a vampire has latched onto his leg, sucking his blood, like a human leech.  The boy shudders and puts the comic book back in the rack.

Outside again, he hops on his bike and heads for the curb, pulling up the front wheel to fly off of the sidewalk and down onto the street.  Just north of the square he catches something moving out of the corner of his eye and slams on his brakes causing the bike to swing around to face it.  The street in front of the library is completely in shadow and the shadow appears to be moving directly towards him.  It is creeping along at a slow pace and he is mesmerized by it as his heart begins to race.  His eyes climb to the sky and he can just make out the outline of a massive dirigible.  It appears to have a reflective surface that is mirroring the grayness around it rendering it nearly invisible.  He does not know what it is or what it is for, but he has no plans to come anywhere near it.

He turns his bike and heads east, over some railroad tracks, and eventually reaches his elementary school.  The parking lot is empty except for one car.  It is a Firebird Trans Am, brown with an orange-red flaming bird emblazoned on its hood.  The driver's door is unlocked, so he opens it and climbs in.

[This is a second grade teacher's car, Miss McClure.  I did not have her as a teacher, but I was in her classroom during our "famous person" project as Astronaut Gus Grissom.  I wore dark green coveralls, black snow boots, and sported an aluminum foil covered motorcycle helmet with matching box on my back to represent the astronaut's life support pack.  I was there to read the report I'd done on the life of Virgil "Gus" Grissom.  I was told, though I don't remember by whom, that I'd been one of the few chosen to present because Gus Grissom grew up in the town just north of us and not because of the quality of my report.  It must have been Miss McClure who told me that and, in retrospect, seems a cruel thing to tell a little boy.]

He sits in the seat and stares out through the space between the dash and the top of the steering wheel thinking about the disappointments and frustrations of his time here that came from teachers who did not know what to do with his energy and inconvenient curiosity.  Almost in a trance he leans forward and turns the key and nothing happens.  Then he remembers the clutch, that odd third pedal that requires coordination with the shifter to make a car go.  He depresses the clutch and turns the key.  The car roars to life and he guns it a couple of times, being careful to keep the clutch down.  He releases the clutch a bit too quickly before the engine can wind down and the car lurches forward, nearly taking his head off of his shoulders, and stalls.

He has seen his Dad drive a shifter and tries to remember the movements.  After several failed tries he gets the car to moving around the parking lot and then out onto the road headed back to the square.  By the time he hits the railroad tracks he has found second gear.  The radio is blaring through the open window as the car catches some air, "Hey!  Teacher!  Leave them kids alone..."  The landing is a bit harder than he anticipates and dampens some of his enthusiasm for carjacking.  Foot off the pedals, it slows, bucks a few times, and dies.  "All and all, you're just another brick in the wall..."

It takes him a few minutes to jog back to the school and reclaim his bike.  Instead of heading back to the town square he skirts the school, heading south, and passes the baseball diamond where he plays third base for the Holland Dairy Cardinals.  

[Boy, what a team that was.  We had the best pitcher of our Little League (the Coach's son) and two back up pitchers that were good as well.  It was an embarrassment of riches.  We won the league championship two years in a row and a few travel tourneys that added some  trophies to my book shelf, trophies that have been lost to time and too many moves.  Also lost were my wooden Louisville Slugger wrapped with black electrical tape for grip and a red leather mitt.]

Looking west he sees that the massive dirigible has reached the square and continues its slow plod southward.  A sense of urgency floods him with adrenalin as he stands to pump the pedals harder.

[Now I am seeing him from a high above, like a bird, and following his progress.  He is paralleling the path of the dirigible and once he is considerably farther ahead of it he turns to head westward again and snakes his way south and west until crossing the main road several blocks below the square near the southern edge of town.  This is my old neighborhood.  The street leading into it is Haney Street, a peculiar coincidence considering that that is our family name.  I always thought it a shame we didn't buy a house on that street.]

Turning the corner onto his street he slows and stops in his friend's driveway.  There is a staccato-type sound coming from up ahead that he can't quite place.  He can see the front of his house a few houses farther down the street.  Movement once again draws his eyes northward to see the tip of that massive structure just starting to  come into view over the trees.  He feels a chill run up and down his spine and begins rapidly patting his thigh in a nervous gesture.

[Our old house sits on a hill with another street splitting off to head south, forming a Y around it.  This street curves around the back of the house and constitutes the southern border of the town.  Beyond it are cornfields and patches of forest.  The driveway descends from behind the house to connect with this side street.  Hidden from view in the back is a concrete pad with a basketball goal that we acquired from the church we used to attend two towns north of us when we first moved here.  There had been a problem with local kids playing on it during church services and so my Dad had agreed to remove it with the help of the pastor and some other men and permanently install it behind our newly built house.]

As he approaches his house, the boy recognizes the sound as a bouncing basketball.  It is his first indication that someone else is around since opening his eyes on the swing.  He stops at the corner where the road splits and tries to stare through his house to see who is shooting hoops there.  He is hesitant to go any further but feels the inexorable crawl of the shadow at his back.

"Hello?"  No one answers.  Just the sound of the ball.  He rolls his bike forward and finally commits to the decline of the side road and whips it up into his gravel driveway.  A backwards punch of the right pedal puts his back tire into a skid and then an abrupt stop, throwing gravel and raising a small cloud of dust.

There is a bespectacled man playing basketball on the court.  His long pants and short sleeved shirt flutter on a thin frame as he makes jump shots that look like hiccups.  Black canvas Chuck Taylor hi-tops finish out the outfit as his sole piece of athletic apparel.  He does not notice the boy at his back as he makes a Cousy-esque running hook shot that banks in smartly.

[The boy's thoughts and my own are starting to meld as I am sure he does not know who Bob Cousy is.  This is his Dad.  Our Dad.  I feel his awe at seeing our Dad playing basketball so enthusiastically.  I feel some of my stubborn disappointments and bitterness melting away in the child's mind, love crowding out judgement.]

A shadow moves over the boy and then covers the man as well.  They look up simultaneously to see the dirigible coming in to hover over them, lower in the sky.  A deck is suspended below it and I recognize my Grandpa Haney in his overalls leaning over the edge unfurling something that is inching its way down towards us.  There are countless faces peering over the sides watching us and I recognize some of them.  They are people I have loved like Caroldine, Roy, and Dorcas along with others that look familiar but whom I can't quite place.  The something is a rope ladder that is now hanging suspended beside my Dad.  He grabs hold of it with his free hand and gives it a tug.

He then turns to me and makes a crisp one-handed bounce pass that I instinctively grab with both hands.  He smiles and nods, then turns to ascend the ladder.  Its swinging motion takes me in and lulls me as I watch him climb. The dirigible emits a swelling drone as it surges to gain altitude...

***

I once again feel the air from the box fan moving past me and smell the scent of flowers and cut grass being pulled in from the outside.  The stars are winking in the night sky as the crickets chirp in synchrony.  In the distance I see the gray outline of a large cloud making its way over the town and hear the distant roll of thunder.  Within minutes raindrops begin to lightly pat at the window.

***

The Bike with Flowers on the Seat

It was a banana seat bike that belonged to my sister in the 70's, and I loved it.  It was blue with big U-shaped handlebars that curved up to meet you sitting high on the flower-patterned seat.  That seat was wide, padded, and curved down at the edges to provide comfort and a feeling of stability.  I had my own bike that was more easily identified as a boy's bike but in almost all ways I preferred the bike with flowers on its seat.  It was lighter and fit my skinny frame like something custom designed.  I could pop wheelies effortlessly and fly over ramps with good air, landing expertly on the back wheel and then smoothly dropping the front tire to the ground like a fighter pilot, usually.  On the back of the seat was a looped bar that passengers could grasp behind their back when getting a ride.  This was the bike I kept close to home, not venturing out more than a block or two.

My sister had gotten a new green bike with a beige sparkly banana seat and three speed shifter with large knob on the end that protruded upward from the main bar connecting the seat to the handlebars.  It was flashy but clunky, not like the beat up flower bike that handled like a sleek Arabian stallion.  The reason I did not ride this bike far and wide as I did my other bike had to do with an incident that happened the summer between first and second grade.  I was riding that bike several blocks from home and I saw a boy who was in my class, Chris Mumaw.  He was short, a little on the chubby side, and had an infectious laugh.  When we started second grade the teacher had us all share what we did for the summer.  When it was Chris's turn he broke out into a huge grin as he reported seeing me riding on a bike with flowers on the seat.

The risks of being seen riding such a bike eventually became too great and riding it stopped altogether when I got a dirt bike for Christmas that was beyond my wildest dreams.  This bike was all black, had large shiny chrome shocks in the back and smaller shocks on the front fork with a thin rubber covering to keep dirt and mud out of them.  The seat had a motorcycle styling to it and hand grips to match.  I was well aware that no one else in our town of 2000 souls owned such a thing.  For years it was my prized possession, but in the back of my mind I knew it was too heavy, that it was almost impossible to pop a wheelie on it, that you had to slouch forward to grasp the handlebars and pump too hard to really get it going.  I imagine my younger sister who came along six years after me eventually acquired the bike with flowers on the seat.  Only now, in my forties, do I truly appreciate it for what it was and can pay due homage.



***

Aaroneous Monk - opening scene

And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
                                                                    -Genesis 1:2





He had seen it hundreds of times before, yet it fascinated him anew each and every time.

It was a burbling sea of pure white and from above it looked like a bowl of milk tremoring on a cherry table top.  Wisps of the soupy fog flicked skyward and dissolved in the warmer air above, the rising sun reflecting brilliantly off of the milky surface forcing it down layer by layer in the climbing heat.

A spire poked through the surface and grew steeple-like as the fog fell.  Next to appear, the stubble of treetops dotting the whiteness and outlining a large circular area within which the spire continued to grow and take the shape of a simple rocket with a port window, widening out in the middle then thinning at the bottom where wide fins flared outward and held the ship aloft.

The forest continued to fill out and spread in all directions as other structures began to appear within the treeless circle: a cluster of evenly spaced boulders, a bulbous headed alien with large eyes and small mouth, a silver saucer with spindly legs, and, at the dead center, a red dome that appeared to be a sphere half planted in the ground.  The last bit of fog flowed around these structures licking at their bases before dissipating to reveal the artificially greened fairways of a putt putt golf course.

***

Nothing stirred within the circle.  Thin red-bricked paths formed concentric circles around the painted dome to give the appearance of Saturn-like rings.  The circular paths interconnected the putting greens to funnel the flow from the outer entrance to the final green near the center.

A creaking sound disturbed the silence as the smooth surface of the dome was interrupted by the opening of a hidden door.  Out stepped a peculiar fellow who had to stoop slightly to get through the doorway.  He was tall and lanky with a red beard speckled gray, his hair in a pony tail poking out from under a faded black brimless cap.  A matching cassock flapped around his legs as he limped briskly to the head of the inner most green, using a putter as a cane.

A small painted sign marked this green as "The Shooting Star" and in smaller print reminded putters that this was the last hole.  He reached into his cassock and pulled out a golden ball which he placed on the designated spot.  It sparkled in the sun and absorbed his attention.  White lines on the green ran from the ball to a starburst pattern that surrounded the hole.  He used these to line up his shot, glancing repeatedly at the hole and then back to the ball.  He took a few practices swings, then scratched at his beard and adjusted his cassock.

He had made this shot innumerable times as a morning ritual, the swing more of a reflex than a thought-through thing.  As the putter moved downward to the ball a high hooting call escaped from the forest and disconnected the reflex.  He hit the ball in a slightly different spot than he'd intended and watched it roll down the long green.  The flow of his routine had been interrupted and his thoughts seemed to become more disorganized as the ball approached the hole slightly off-center.

He felt tears begin to burn in his eyes along with a rising sense of panic in his chest.  The golden ball blurred as it continued towards the hole, unaware of its role in the ritual.  It rolled right up to the rim of the bottomless cup and stopped, balanced between the sun and the black hole.  His mind touched the abyss inside himself and tottered.  A violent shudder seized him as a cold wind swept in out of the forest and up through his cassock.  It was enough to give the ball a gentle push, sending it down into the darkness.

***

Visibly shaken, he rubbed his eyes and smoothed out his beard, then made the sign of the cross over himself three times.  He rotated his putter and firmly grasped its head, making  his way over to the innermost bricked path.  A black knotted prayer rope appeared in his free hand as he followed the circular path and whispered softly to the still morning air, "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner."  It was repeated carefully with each slip to the next knot, finding a rhythm with his steps, the tap of the putter-cane, and his breathing.  These words calmed him as he circled his domed home.  His eyes remained focussed on the path as he resisted the urge to look up, wrapping himself in the protection of his prayer.

The Paddle Boards

My son and I are
finding our legs
on paddle boards
in the choppy waters
of Lake Michigan.

We start on our knees,
too wobbly to stand,
and oar our way
farther and farther
from the sandy shore.

Initial attempts to stand
meet with comical
falls into the cold water,
coming up with a gasp
and barking laughter.

After half an hour or so
we are standing more
confidently in defiance
of the rise and fall of waves,
a test of our newfound balance.

Several minutes go by
without incident or accident,
feeling like we are kings
from shore to horizon, until
an unexpected shift

humbles us once more.


***

Limitations

Limitations, always limitations.  They can break your back.  With limited time and resources to pursue all the possible things I enjoy or feel are worthwhile to pursue, so many things in my life just end up being shut down.  And along with this there is the fear that I will reach my limits too quickly and may need to mete out certain aspects of myself in miserly ways.

Part of it has been my lack of focussed discipline and a tendency to daydream.  Medical School was a major challenge to these personal attributes and, as a byproduct, I believe it also shut down some of the most vital parts of who I am; parts that have taken me years to recover.  I was not that person who had massive cognitive reserves and the intensity to handle the avalanche of material to learn and have time left over to pursue other interests.  My one trick to continue reading non-medical books was to use my time in the bathroom as a kind of time bubble.  I read The Brothers Karamazov in its entirety from a porcelain chair in this way.  It was my soul crying out for sustenance.

My interest in sports also took a major hit.  I was not playing basketball.  I was not running as I had in High School Cross Country.  Medical School was all consuming and it consumed me body and soul.  The long slog left me a bit lost and bewildered when my time as a student and student-doctor came to an end.  Unaccounted for time suddenly became available but then went away again with a second child.  It wasn't until Elias got old enough to become seriously interested in sports that I rediscovered my love for basketball.  I even had the opportunity to coach his third grade basketball team which is something I'll always treasure.

And above all of this has been my desire to write since sixth grade Composition when I first had the opportunity to create an actual story or two.  These were stories that I also illustrated and received a good deal of praise for from the teacher.  I was eleven, which is my son's age now, and it wasn't until about three years ago at the age of 43 that I started writing with any kind of regularity.  This was sparked by an idea for a novel and the realization that it was now or never.  I still hardly read books, but I can thank the internet for that.

This idea in my head of limitations, both outwardly and inwardly imposed, also extended to love, or the ability to give of one's self.  I still limit myself in a multitude of ways due to obligations at home and at work, but something about love has been creeping into my awareness.  It has manifested in a joy of interacting with others and appreciating their uniqueness and essential place in the grand scheme of things.   It seems that the more I pour it out, the deeper the bottom of the cup grows.  And for the first time in my life I am learning not to fear limitations because in what is most essential, limitations do not exist.

***

The Therapist's Timepiece

He saw her outline through an open fogged-over glass door in the frozen foods section of the grocery store.  Like a restless ghost she rummaged through pizzas and hot pockets mumbling to herself while her two small children stood guard at the cart.  Hidden within layers of winter clothes they waited for their mother to finish adding to the pile of processed foods as quiet counterpoints to her frenetic energy.

The little girl grasped the lip of the cart to steady it while the smaller boy stuck his finger through the metal lattice to touch the cold boxes and scrape off some frost with his fingernail.  The door to the freezer slammed shut causing the boy to jump and pull his finger back quickly.

Locks of bleached blonde hair dangled from under a hand-knit cap framing a face that had once been quite beautiful before time and the cares of the world had taken their toll.  He could read in her careworn features that she was alone and that the father of her children had decided he wasn't ready to grow up and assume the responsibilities he'd created. 

He looked down at an ornate pocket watch that he had produced from his vest pocket and watched the second hand tick along its circular path.  The hour hand stood at three and the minute hand was just a sliver shy of twelve.  When the thread-thin piece of metal aligned with the minute hand he pulled the crown.  A popping sensation jarred the scene like an earthquake lasting only a millisecond and the little girl froze mid-sneeze.  

The outline of his form untethered from his corporal self which remained perfectly still in the aisle. 

He stepped forward, his ethereal self now separated from his motionless and more cumbersome twin, and made his way over to the three.  The little girl's eyes were tightly shut and tiny droplets suspended in space formed a funnel from her pursed lips.  The boy was flinching as if expecting a blow.  The mother's eyes were focussed far away from where they stood.

It was the mother he'd come to see.  The point of interest for him was the contours of her forehead.  A V-shape was seemingly chiseled there in her brow.  It had deepened over time and become an intrinsic feature of her face.  He took it in from different angles, judging its depth and intensity.  Its point was sharp and pricked him hard when he touched it with his finger.  It would not come out easily.

He brought the thumb and first two fingers of his right hand together placing the point on her forehead, then belly, right shoulder, then left shoulder to loosen it.  Pincher-like his fingers snatched hold of the V-thing and pulled out and away from her head.  It pierced his fingers with a terrible ferocity but he continued to pull slow and steady.  This measured application of force allowed the tendrils deeply anchored within her to unwind without breaking off to regrow anew.  A lifetime of disappointments and poor choices came flowing out of her in damp and dripping threads.  The slowness of the process protracted his pain, filling him with a cold and desolate fire.

Time passed without time passing, an eternal nowness that had him feeling a little disoriented.  When he felt he could take no more, it pulled free and her features visibly relaxed.  It was astounding how much younger she looked and he quickly forgot the pain that had just been threatening to overwhelm him.  The troublesome creature pricked at him and fought to free itself, but he held firm.

A few aisles over he found a large jug of bleach that he opened and forced the prickly thing into it, sealing it up with a turn of the cap.  He shook the jug until there was no further movement coming from it, placed it back on the shelf, and returned to where his body stood.  The split selves reunited and he found himself once more looking down at his pocket watch frozen at three.  With a push of the crown, time resumed once again without a hitch.

The mother's focus retracted and fell to her daughter who was just finishing her sneeze.  She knelt down and cleared a strand of hair from the small face.  "Are you OK, sweetie?"  The girl, unaccustomed to such attention, simply nodded her head "yes."  The mother then turned her face to her son, "How are you, little man?"  His lower lip began to quiver as his emotions found release in her sudden kindness.  She pulled him into a hug as the therapist shut the cover of his watch, tucked it back into his pocket, and left the store.  

***

shadows & sighs

Shooting hoops with my son as
the sun sets on our cul-de-sac

suddenly realizing that even
before I can pivot and shoot

not even his shadow will remain
and I will be left alone in the street

with the basketball on my hip
wondering where the time has

gone.


***