You'll Not Feel the Drowning

I’ve been thinking a lot about my mind lately—about the hows and whys of it—exhausting introspection and I blame it on the general psychology course I’m taking because before now I never thought there was such a thing as knowing oneself too well.

Sometimes I’m afraid I’m crazy. Schizophrenic and narcissistic and psychotic and masochistic and all the other ‘ic’s one would find in my textbook. Martians are stealing my mail—my aunt said that—or the demons are breaking into my mind and planting seeds that grow and grow and grow, choking my brain and I couldn’t stop it if it was true. Sometimes I even suspect I might have my own howling Rabbit, like the one who cries for Truddi Chase.

I know it isn’t true; I am relatively sane. But I wonder sometimes why I’m afraid of it not being that way anymore. Crazy people never know they’re crazy, so what’s the difference?
I wonder why about lots of things, though.

Like, why is guilt an awful tumor inside of me? I don’t even know what for; its just there and there and there and I pray for forgiveness but I think maybe its my pider that feeds the disease.

Dead pets. They feed the guilt too, somehow. Mortality right before my eyes and I know decay will start and soon they will be nothing when they used to be my friend; my loyal charge.

I’ve seen lots of them—dead things—and just thinking about the empty eyes that were once so full of expression, and the stiff bodies that used to be so alive and warm…I remember and guilt wells up inside of me.

The stiffness—the perfect stillness on the table or in the coffin—is what disturbs me the most. Catatonic, strange and I know death is something God’s creatures were not meant for because, besides the sadness, it just feels wrong—a bizarre darkness.

And because I can’t fully see the stillness. I look and I know and that’s how I see it enough to be disturbing, but if I stare a moment too long I think I see it move—whatever, whoever it is—my eyes tell me I saw it breathe and the more I stare and say to myself ‘it is not moving’, the more my eyes play cruel tricks on my brain.

I saw my great-grandma in her coffin all surrounded by the white silk and pink lace, and the yellowish lights made her skin look like wax. I looked and waited to feel sad—cause sometimes proper feelings are elusive and you have to call them up—but before it came I stared in rapt shock because I could have sworn I saw her move. More than tricks, more than tricks and please don’t touch me I’m telling you she’s breathing!

Half my mind was screaming while some buffer reined in the aftershock and convinced me it was just my eyes playing pranks, so now let’s just go sit down and do not laugh—because I could feel hysteria rising in this strange room that was so white white white and smelled like mothballs…and I was wearing heels and I just felt dirty.

The room was so clean it felt dirty, and in the back of my mind I saw Grandma Pew waking up once she was covered in the earth because a part of me still believed I saw her breathing. I’ve always wondered why they do that to me—my eyes, that is.

Why they lie to me. My ears, too. Sometimes I hear someone call my name but I turn around and there’s no one.

And my mind lies, likes to taunt me. Go to sleep and dream and it says ‘here you go, here’s what you’ve wanted all these years. Look, your every prayer answered and everything you never thought would happen just look, it’s yours now’. In those sweet dreams I’m so happy I cry, and then the tear-salt on my lips wakes me up.

That is a profound sense of loss, you know, what dreams can create. I wake up from those happy dreams and my stomach hurts with it because in my mind I had it but its gone when I open my eyes.
I’ve dreamed of death, too—the deaths of people I love. And in the dream the feelings are real; I’ve experienced them. I know what it is like in that single moment, when you realize your mother died and there will be no more long talks in the passenger seat, or your best friend died or the lover you never had or both them and your whole family all at once.

The utter devastation. What you fear the very most. It puts rocks and gravel all in you and chokes your heart with barbed wire like a tacky tattoo. So heavy, you shatter bone as you fall to your knees. What else does that?

Nothing. Why?

And why, no matter how much I doubt I’ll be able to fall asleep, can’t I bring myself to take a full dose of Ambien? Because somehow it feels like suicide.

And I have too much to do before I die. Even though I feel purposeless sometimes there are things I need to do.

I need to go to Africa. I need to convince someone that God is real. I need to fall in love, shave my head in mourning and I have to walk barefoot over a bed of hot coals. I need to find out what I’m supposed to be doing; I need to wait and see if the choices I’m making right now are mistakes or not.
I need to see how things work out. I like books and movies with no resolution, all open-ended and real. I like them because they are honest and things don’t ever really end, don’t ever resolve.

But I can’t help wanting my life to resolve before it ends, however impossible that is. It isn’t possible because as long as one is alive there is a future, and as long as there is a future one needs to constantly preparing for it.

There is no ‘now’ anymore. There are just brief pit-stops on our way to whatever it is we’re getting ready for. Because even that, once it arrives, ceases to be the most important thing because already our minds have moved to whatever might be next.

It makes me tired, just thinking about the fact that there is no destination. There will never be a time for me to put away projects and goals and just rest, knowing that my work is done.

There’s a pendulum swinging from my heart, stirring stirring flipping my stomach and it seems that every thought I have gives the weight a push so there is never peace—just inner turmoil and something always dragging at my conscious. I’m starting to tremble from holding it up. A structure buckling, creaking boards and cracking windows and tired, tired, tired.

Think of a bird in a cage, by the window. Or the little brown mouse that scurried across my ratty dorm room carpet; my pet for a moment before re retreated down into the safety of the vents.

Think of all the poor bird can see, taunting him there beyond the bars. He sees today the sky is blue blue blue and clear and look, the breeze is nice; perfect for flying. He sees the rain, the puddles outside and how he can no longer splash in them before darting under some bush or into a tree—any one of his choice. He sees the stars at night when the moonlight casts ominous shadows over him and reveal to him what he really is—a prisoner.

No longer just a bird, now a prisoner, too, he realizes then that song is pointless—why go on pretending to be a beautiful, proud bird when his wings have been clipped and here he stays behind metal bars? Why be an enslaved entertainer to satisfy some rich exotic’s palate?

There are no friends here to call for; no lover to sing up to his branch. No branch. There is no warm sun on his back while soars through the air as he looks for berries or worms; no signal to stimulate his song simply for the sake of singing it. His freedom is gone, and with it, all of the reasons he ever had to sing.

So he doesn’t. An animal, not even aware that it is reasoning, acts logically. There is no reason to sing anymore. So don’t sing. Song was flight, song was the hunt, song was community.

Flight is gone. The hunt is gone. Community is gone. Because he’s caged up and he doesn’t realize that he is sad because those things are missing, but he is.

And after a few months of a cage and the bird has stopped calling to his friends and mate because he’s realized they can’t hear him. He’s stopped singing at the slightest hint of sunlight penetrating dusty windows because he’s realized that it is a ray of sunshine that is not for him. It will beam down on the ragged carpet and the bird will watch dust motes dance in the golden haze and they’ll remind him of the bugs he used to chase as he sang, but when he realizes it is all an illusion and that now it all happens still but outside of him somewhere—then he stops singing for good.

Animal realizations, foggy ones; but ones that do indeed happen even if the bird isn’t conscious of them at the time. He still displays the symptoms, though. He stops singing.

There is nothing more sobering than the sight of any creature resigned to its fate.

A bird who as stopped singing.

A mouse caught in a trap, still alive but given up struggling, just staring at you with eyes hard like jet stone; stoic. As if he knows that you are at this moment on your way to finish him off and there is nothing the animal can do about it. So he lets you.

A lamb to the slaughter.

A man at a desk stacked with papers, his shoulders hunched with burdens. Clocking out at six, his mind is on nothing but what needs to be done the next morning when he clocks back in at seven. Aware of that repeating pattern stretched out behind and before as far as the eye can see and he follows it unquestioningly because that’s just how it is.

I’m tired of being resigned. Sometimes I have to be and I can never escape it on days when I am just too tired and my head is full of cotton and there’s pressure building and building and just go to sleep…but when I can, I’ll fight it.

But when thoughts pile pile pile up until they run out my eyes I need something. I need to run across the highway at rush hour or chop at my hair with giant scissors or jump somewhere, off of something not high enough to die but high enough that if I don’t land just right I risk injury…I need to feel as chaotic outside as I do inside.

Because fear is like bleach in a high-pressure hose in my mind, acid to burn away everything else. Exhilaratingly painful; scrubbing raw and bleeding but afterward I feel clean.

Those things aren’t practical, though; aren’t considered healthy ways of dealing with stress.
A hot shower will suffice; will leave me clean enough to function another day, inside and out.
Not just warm; not just steaming. Hot, to a degree just before the point of unbearable.

I stand right beneath the faucet, fifty thin jets of water stabbing into my scalp. I can almost feel blood rushing in to flush my cheeks as I scrunch my eyelids shut tight. The lava spreads through my hair, fills up every tangle until it spills down my forehead and my neck and over my ears, burning burning burning and I can feel every place the liquid fire touches as it swiftly engulfs me.

Streams run continually down through my bangs, heavy and feathered smooth against my face from the water pulling them down. I cringe as I wait for my sensitive face to grow numb to the heat engraving rivers around my eyes and dripping from the tip of my nose, rolling over my cheek bones and between my swollen, parted lips.

It hurts but I don’t move. My fists are clenched, knuckles pressing against my hipbones but I don’t feel the dull throb the pinching creates because the burn is still too fresh, cascading from my head and neck to scald my shoulders all the way to my toes; to purge me of the thoughts threatening to swallow me up.

I imagine the water burning every germ from the surface of my skin as it flows down, then the steam penetrating through pores to flush out the impurities inside. I imagine being clean and sing in my head nonsensical lyrics, eerily happy like Alice in Wonderland.

I play the music forcefully in my mind, filling it up until there is room for nothing but all the king’s horses and all the king’s men, sewing Humpty-Dumpty’s wounds shut again.

And burning.

I lose all sense of time. A nursery-rhyme trance, an escapism hypnosis.

It doesn’t satisfy like some vices but usually by the time the hot water’s run out and Humpty’s bleeding has stopped, I feel like I can step out again and leave my demons to run down the drain.

Usually.

Sometimes it isn’t enough. Sometimes something in me needs to scream; alarm bells need to sound and say Do something Anything Life is Leaking away can’t you feel it?!

When I plug up the drain, lie down submerge as liquid fills every hollow—air is pushed from my ears and nostrils; water weaves itself between my eye lashes and threatens to sting.

Hush.

Muffled vibrations engulfing my head pulse rapidly over the surface of my skin.

Quiet reigns for moments, the silence working with the feeling of floating suspension and it is timeless. I am timeless.

Until the screaming begins. The screaming of my lungs for air—air and there are the bells in my brain screeching and after a few seconds of endurance the water rolls back in a single wave from my face and down through my hair and with a gasp of oxygen—the ultimate drug; the addictive gas whose withdraw no one can survive—I am satisfied.

I step out and my skin is bright red; looks raw as if I’ve passed through fire and left my old skin behind, blistered and melted away so I can feel fresh and be clean again.

The red makes scars stand out brighter, though—a few darker but mostly they are pale lines and once again I wonder fleetingly if they’ll fade as the years pass; how much various ones have already faded since I sustained them.

Some of them still sting when I’m cold. Those are the ones I know I’ll still see after a hot shower when I’m forty.

A reminder of burning submersion remains with me, the sting in my eyes, red-rimmed and blood-shot. It gives me the feeling of having had a good cry, the kind I crave but cannot seem to accomplish.

I’m full of screams—happy, angry, excited, anguished—but I’ve forgotten how to shout. This is all I have, my fingers on the keys or wrapped around a pen or picking the strings of my guitar; all that keeps the pressure from causing me to explode.

I want so much to feel clean and fresh again—without blemish.

Purification. Refinement by fire.

I haven’t achieved it yet.

I took out pen and paper a moment ago--I was going to write a poem. My mind is too full for that though.



Maybe not overflowing so much as disorganized; full of things I should've thrown out long ago. That's the mess that keeps me up at night. Some people say they can't sleep in a messy room. I can. There's laundry on the floor and ribbon and books, and I think that's a knitting needle under the pile of guitar music in the corner--the dog's corner so now he has to sleep somewhere else. But at least I know exactly which pair of jeans I left that ten dollar bill in: the stonewashed pair with barn-dirt on the hem. They're crumpled up near the ferret cage.



But in my cluttered mind I can't find Rest, and Simplicity is buried deep in there. If I could find that I'd remember where I left Freedom. Somewhere near Self-Forgetfulness--I've been looking for that for awhile now.



It keeps me awake--the looking--and some nights I wish I had someone to sing to me.



It's underestimated, the theraputic effects of a lullaby. At least I imagine so. I honestly can't remember ever having one sung to me, though I know my mom sang them when I was a baby.



Regression, most modern psychologists would say, but Freud would probably tell me that I never completely progressed past the Oral stage to begin with.



In a way, I think that would be right: lack of progression, as opposed to regression. It's not so much regressing as it is never having let go of the Simplicity of childhood. Or the longing for it. It is definitely gone now.



But it seems to me that it would come back a little, with being sung to.



When you've spent a long day waiting for words that will never be said--and maybe they're not supposed to be said--it seems a nice thought that one could curl up in bed with sheets that smell of the same fabric softener your mom used when you were a kid, face the wall close my eyes and hear a sweet but tired voice sing some sad-tuned lullaby; melancholy breaks and a little off-key. Human.



I know I've done it to myself in part, caused this lack of contact. I'm quite a hermit and that's alright with me, usually. Sometimes its not enough, though.



Like when I remember rediculous promises made as a littel girl and I wish I'd kept them.



'Let's never cut our hair; not till we're thirty! I'll swear if you will.'



'Next summer you can come back and we'll build a huge tree house, and it'll have a secret password and a rope ladder and we'll never let the stupid boys come up!'



'Let's promise to always tell each other everything, no matter what.'



'I'll never take this bracelet off; not even when I'm a grown-up.'



'Let's swear that both of us our favorite color will always be purple.'



Let's swear that things will always be this easy. Let's promise we won't ever lose this innocence, and we'll always believe that band-aids make the pain go away.



Even the unspoken promises, broken.



We had such big plans, didn't we--all of us? We really believed in them, too. Sometimes that's enough; just being sure you'll do something even if you never really do. Plans for the future, when you believe them, can be the bridge that gets you over those rifts that are just too wide to jump.



But I'm not sure of anything anymore.



I know I echo the sentaments of so many people. I know I'm not the only one. I don't presume to think that I've felt things no one else has; that I'm at all original in my words.



This is just laying it all out for me, sort my thoughts like sorting dresser drawers:



That goes there, that's for that, I'll keep this but this doesn't fit anymore so I'll throw it away with the one that's full of holes and--what the hell is that?! I didn't even know I had that. No, it isn't mine; someone must've left it. Oh well. Looks like I have to deal with it now.



The only difference is my brain recycles, so its all there forever and even if things change there will always be that vague essence attached to whatever--to a name, a campsite or a city, a certain food or book or a green guitar pick.



Some Tibetan Buddhist Lamas are able to reach a higher mental plane, one so far above forefrontal consciousness that the clamour fades and not only can he escape the anguished conflict his own thoughts create, but he evades physical pain as well.





The secret was taught to some outside the religion and they used it to be completely silent under torture. Their minds were at peace, and the pain was nowhere--just vague pressure, and the comforting warmth of blood as it flowed over cold, bare skin.





Because the body is only a body; just a dirty, tangible thing that rots in the earth when it stops working. A vessel. A windowed litter for the soul. To detach mind from body once in a while seems only right; to allow the mind some escape from the sinew-and-bone cage that can cause so much trauma, depending on what happens to it.



It sounds so safe, to exist in that kind of world where your body can be broken or abused or diseased and it doesn't affect the mind. When you've gathered your soul up from your toes and back from your fingers, pulled the residue from between muscle fibers, out of porous bones; when your soul is all together in one place high up, then it won't matter what the body feels because it is only a thing.



And then to take the next step--to escape not only one's body but one's own relentless thoughts as well--that would be the greatest reward.



I like the idea of Buddhism, or Hinduism. Religions of cerimony and dedication, of stillness and peace and contemplation--hush. Low chants in dead languages, temples with ceilings so high it doesn't feel like a stretch to imagine that God might reside there.





I know it is beautiful that God doesn't really require swaths of gauzy fabric and marble pillars and inscence and sacrifices. I do see the wonder of the fact that it is in Christianity I can find the Simplicity I crave: I already have all I need to come to Him.





My body is His grand temple--my bones the pillars, wrapped in the intricately-woven fabric that is flesh (1 Corinthians 6:19).


My prayers are the incense; all I need to set the atmoshpere for Him (Psalm 141:2).


And I don't even need to bring anything to sacrifice. All He asks is that I soften my heart toward Him; tell Him that I am tired and broken and I need Him because I just can't do it anymore--was never really getting along to begin with (Psalm 51:17).





It is hard to comprehend that that's all it takes. Just As I Am; that coming to Him is the important part--not what I do or what I have.


Especially because I've always been one for cerimonies; for grand, complex recognitions.


When I was eleven years old, a friend and I indulged in this romanticism.


It ocurred, of course, at midnight--as those things always do. From the kitchen we'd sneaked a package of cold-cut turkey from Price Chopper and a large metal strainer. We already had the candles--we were experienced enough at cerimonies that both of our rooms were always full of them.


This particular night, we were in my bedroom, surrounded by all of our traditional cerimonial ware: a pale-gold blanket, journals, favorite stuffed animals, pictures. And of course, we were dressed for the occasion in tacky hand-me-down negligees; the classic little-girl formal wear of basement boxes and grandmothers' attics.



We scripted flowery--and misspelled--prayers to send up with the smoke of our burnt sacrifice. While we held the turkey-filled strainer over a candle-flame, we prayed that one day we would be granted artistic abilities.



We gave up eventually. The meat refused to burn and only bubbled a little at the bottom, and mom's good strainer already had a dark smoke-stain flowering from where the fire touched it. With a last quick prayer that we wouldn't get in too much trouble for the discolored colendar, we went to sleep.



Now we are aware of how odd our cerimony was, considering how, under the New Covenant, God no longer desires those kinds of sacrifices. So we laugh about that story, Abby and I, like we laugh at how I used to pray every night for a giraffe when I was six.



But the fact is that Abby and I didn't get in trouble over the strainer, or even over the entire package of meat we ruined by forgetting to put back in the fridge.



The fact is that we did indeed become somewhat skilled artistically.



Of course, those things could easily be seen as coinsidence. Mom was probably too overcome with silent laughter to punish her silly, Old-Testament-minded charges. And we obviously wanted to be artists--that might have been accomplished to an extent whether or not we prayed for it.



But here is another fact: nearly two years ago, I was presented with the opprotunity to get my own real live giraffe.



About a year after I was diagnosed with lupus, my parents and doctors conspired to have the Make A Wish Association--a volunteer organization benefitting children under eighteen who suffer from chronic illnesses--grant a wish for me.



To pass the months until I would be able to meet with a MAW team, I researched them extensively and read as many wish-stories as I could find. I discovered that Make A Wish could, and would, do very nearly anything a child--or wildly imaginitive teen--could think of.



One boy wished for an elephant. The Make A Wish team located a willing zoo-like facility near the boy's home and secured a tame elephant for their purposes. They were able to make the boy the honorary owner of the elephant, and after throwing a party during which he rode his new pet all around the outdoor location, they informed him that he could not only go and visit his elephant whenever he liked, but also pet, feed, and ride it, providing there was a staff member available to supervise.



For several minutes after reading that story, I sat frozen and stared unblinking at the picture of the boy on the back of his elephant that glowed on the desktop monitor. I couldn't believe it.



Even as a child when I began praying for a giraffe, there was a subtle challenge in my mind. I had grown up hearing that God could do anything, and that He answered prayers (of course, to a six-year-old, 'He answers prayers' means 'He always gives you everything you pray for'). I didn't even particularly want a giraffe. What in the world was I going to do with it? I had no idea. It would be amazing, of course, to have such an exotic pet, but I knew that in reality I would rather have a horse to ride. I was really just experimenting, trying to find out exactly what insane things God would do for me if I asked.



Over the years I had forgotten about that childish challenge. I'd thought about it a few times, when thinking about how at that time I also prayed for a lizard (of which I eventually aquired four), a cat (God gave me twelve), a turtle (I was granted three of those), and a horse (and I was given two of my very own, and surrounded with dozens of others to pet and ride at my whim). I would remember that and think to myself, "He gave me everything I asked for except a giraffe", and I would smile in a wave of faith because in my mind the giraffe didn't really count. I knew that, though I would have loved one, I wasn't truly asking for it like I was all of the other animals.



And the story of the boy and his elephant caused me to recall everything once again. I was absolutly stunned as one thought ran on a loop in my mind: I could get a giraffe. The elephant story wasn't even close to the most complicated wish the association had granted. If I asked for a giraffe, they could make it happen. Eleven years later, God presented me with the opprotunity to recieve the most rediculous thing I'd ever asked for. He had answered my forgotten challenge, and not with an iron fist to remind me of how I am less than dust compared with Him and how dare I challenge the God of the universe, but to remind me of His love and faithfulness with this exciting blessing that made me feel as if I had the world laid out at my feet.



I didn't use the opprotunity to get a giraffe. I considered it, but ended up going to Hawaii to swim with dolphins (originally I requested to go to Africa, but due to political unrest their resources there were disabled). It was utterly amazing, and I'll never forget it. But I have a feeling I'll remember the weird and wonderful faith-story just a little bit better.

I've been losing weight; not trying to but its happening anyway. I'm by no means too thin, but I don't recognize myself--my reflection, my body.


I feel sixteen again, and at that time I wasn't myself--removed, tormented--so I feel like I'm in someone else's skin with someone else's bones.


Hip bones that press against the waistband of my jeans when I bend, pinching a thinned layer of flesh between denim and bone.


Shadows beneath newly-defined cheekbones reveal a more solumn, weathered face in the mirror; one that seems to once again have lost the scraps of childlike innocence I've been fighting so hard to regain.


Even my scars look different, standing out, pale against skin slightly darkened by renewed density.


My clothes hang more loosely and I check my right hand a dozen times to make sure my ring hasn't fallen off, because sometimes when its cold I can feel it sliding back and forth between white knuckles.


It isn't bad yet, the shrinking; isn't worrysome besides being further evidence of the physical manifestation of stress.


But it is different and unexpected, causes tension and suspicion of past demons rearing their heads once more even though for my part I know I defeated them years ago.


But food is ash on my tongue sometimes, and I eat to quell the icy emptiness in my stomach though the thought of another bite makes me feel sick.


Occasionally my appetite will resurface and I can enjoy food again, but mostly I swallow for health's sake only and I miss the solace that chocolate once brought me.


Someone once told me that I was full of inspiration--that my eyes shone with it. I believed him then. And maybe it was true, but if it was, if my eyes did shine months ago, they don't anymore.


They're missing whatever it is they once had. As if my fire is dwindling with the rest of me.


Once upon a time, my eyes were alive. I look at pictures, from when I knew how to smile.


I've forgotten now. I have to do it consciously, carefully considering how my muscles move to make sure they aren't doing anything I don't want them to. I have to think about my eyes, about how the tightening of my face frames them.



I learned the necessities from seeing more recent pictures, ones from the past year or two. In most of them, before I learned how to smile, I look frightened. In others, I look dead--a cadavour whose mouth has been stretched before rigor mortus--a wide grin beneath two spots of blank where human eyes used to be.



I'm still learning this art, this paper-way of the smile. But in some pictures I've got it--I look spirited and alive like I was all the time, years ago.



I still look tentative in some though; awkward, unsure of what to do, head pushed down and forward like a submissive dog, folding in on myself to avoid touching others.



Because I just don't touch people. It just doesn't occur to me. A hug is fine--intentional and brief, to-the-point. But it isn't something I initiate, mostly because I just don't think to, but also because of the same awkwardness that ruins my smile.

Sometimes its my idea--a hug--with people I'm very close to like Valeri or Melissa or Abby, or my family. But even then, sometimes I just forget how to be in my own skin. My movements are stiff and puppet-like, because I just don't remember how.



Even growing up, I didn't touch people except to accept a hug that I didn't initaite. I didn't mind that, but holding hands or even a pat or a poke during animated conversation just felt invasive, like staring into someone's eyes too long. Like they're setting foot somewhere that is mine only.



It probably isn't really as dramatic as all that. I have always thought of personal space as a thing to be respected. My lack of physical contact has always been for other people just as much as for myself--touching someone without being asked just never seemed appropriate.



I never really thought about it in my early years. Until I was thirteen, it just didn't occur to me to hug or poke or take a hand. I was slightly taken aback when others would touch me, but I never really minded. I still don't. It seems something like drinking filtered water after years of drinking tap: it is strange and different and given the choice you would have picked what you're used to, but it doesn't really matter.



I don't know if its a bad thing that I've never really 'needed a hug'. Most people I know need physical contact, but I am perfectly fine sitting in seperate chairs while we talk, a brief handshake when we greet, foldout our own respective hands together for prayer.



The only occasion in which I've ever thought I would need physical contact is in a romantic context. If I was with someone and he didn't want to be touching me in someway nearly every moment we were together--holding my hand as we walk, feet intertwined under the table, cuddled close on the sofa--I'd feel as if he didn't really want me.



I suppose, in friendship and family, I do enjoy the bond that physical contact represents. But in all cases, platonic or romantic, my touch is purely responsive--never initiative. Platonically, because it is my general tendency to keep to myself. Romantically, because I am shy. Painfully, awkwardly, debilitatingly shy.



I have always been a private person of sorts. I kind of think of myself as a room with one of those doors that swings closed on its own. It isn't locked; you can come in if you like. But hardly ever does it stand open, actually inviting you in. I post these notes, yes. But I don't tag anyone. They are there for you to read if you want to get to know me, because I do want to be known, but only by people who really want to know. So you can open the door, but I won't ask you to do it. And there is a closet in this room of mine that is locked, that won't open even if you try.



There are a select few who have keys. But in the cieling of the closet, there is a door leading to an attic. Locked, and painted the same color as the walls--camoflaged. There isn't a key for that one. In the attic there are dusty corners that not even I will truly look at. I know what is in them. The vague knowledge of their contents haunts me as I crawl around, looking for something to turn into art or a prayer. But I will not define them, the things hidden there beneath cobwebs. Not even in my mind will I dress them in words, let them stand before me in the bright, undeniable garments of truth.



The Devil can have his way with those things, take temporary delight in the fact that there are things in me that are shameful. I know God will not let the infection spread, as miserable as it is to endure while I terry in this waiting room that is earth, waiting for His sanctifying amputation.



I've written before about a certain tree, one I would gaze at through the kitchen window every morning while I ate breakfast, beginning when I was thirteen.



It started that winter, that Red December that burned.



The smoldering embers tormented me, like laughing cigarettes snuffed out on the raw flesh of my heart. But mornings on the edge of the kitchen table were cool, chilly white tile and dawn-fog soothing the burns.



I was restless, and searching for courage within myself. Not for anything in particular; just to prove to myself that it was there.
So I thought I'd run away.

I had a pillowcase of stuff and I was walking away, out in the woods, but I knew I wasn't really going anywhere. I was going to, but not really. I told my friends that I was really going to do it if Dad hadn't found me and I thought I really would, but I wasn't.

There was the tree, a few acres away from my house. It was on a hill, so I could always see it, and once I packed a bag with some food and blankets and my stuffed tiger and a book or two, and I went to that tree. I spread a blanket out under it and I stayed there for a few days. No one looked for me there. It was too obvious, too close. I even sneaked into my own house sometimes when my family was gone, to get stuff or to watch TV.

The whole time, I was sitting at my kitchen table, waiting for my toast, looking through the window at the far-off tree. Every time I looked at the tree for six years, I went there and was brave, but not too brave; run away but not far. Sitting above white tile, eating toast and running away in my mind to my tree where no one would find me but they really would; where I'd sleep under the stars but really I'd get chased back inside by the ghosts that are out there, cause they really are out there.

And I'd be so brave but I'm not, so I spread the marshmallow fluff on my toast and pretend it was marmalade or butter or something else more mature; something my brother would put on his toast. I tried, but I didn't like the butter, cinnamon, and sugar that he used. Salty and wet and sweet and soggy and spicy and crunch.
So I was filled with me and my toast was covered in fluffy, insubstantial sweet; no room for refined flavor combinations.

But on those mornings, I could imagine myself to be something bigger, something braver than I was. I don't know why I fixated on that particular tree and that particular fantasy. I was full of adolescent angst and thoroughly maddened by drama. Absolutely nothing I did or said or thought in my thirteenth year of life can be logically explained.

And even though I realize the legitimacy of this early-teen insanity--I realized it a little even then--that tree has always represented some particular inexplicable melancholy that lies dormant, raising its groggy head only occasionally to remind me that pain is relative, and be kind to my past self because if it hurts it hurts, and it doesn't matter why.

It represents the courage I've always longed to have--the courage to just go; to make some big decision that is thoroughly my own because too often I use 'seeking wise counsel' as an excuse to make sure that, in the event that I make the wrong choice, the blame won't rest only on my shoulders.

The courage to take risks. Voluntarily. Sometimes, when I'm warm and at home in my green, familiar room, I think that if an opportunity for risk presented itself right now I'd take it. But those opportunities really only come when I'm unprepared, in some strange place surrounded by strange people I don't trust yet and so I back down.

I know, I know--if one was prepared and confident it would not really be a risk. But that's what I mean. I wish with all my heart I had the courage for real risk. The tree stands like Avalon in my mind, whispering that maybe next time I'll get it right. Maybe next time I'll be brave and run away from what is safe, what is solid--and what will ultimately get me nowhere.

Six years have passed since that tree's roots twisted themselves into my ventricles, and I have not even attempted transplanting. Why would I? Its part of me, memories whispering in the leaves and bark rough to match me, scar for scar.

I've loved it for a long time. For more than 2,190 days it's been mine. And I had never gone to visit it until a few weeks ago.

Something determined tugged, telling me that if I didn't go now--right now--I would never really do it. That I needed to stop saying 'someday' and start saying 'today'. And then keep my word.

I was tired, but I tried not to listen to the protests of my muscles and my dizzy head. Plugging my ears with headphones, I let Roy sing to me about robin's jars and cinnamon as I paced up and down the bank of Pony Creek like a panther, looking for a place to cross.

Finding none, I ducked my head and plowed through the dense brush that lines the edge of the woods like a moat of foliage. Cracksnap crunch and it tore my coat but I came out the other side before drowning in the loam.

The sun was bright like the crack of a gun and the shadows it cast were stark; black construction-paper cutouts that satisfied my perpetual craving for definition.

Bob's fence stood a ways ahead of me, and beyond it I could see a shallow section of the creek. I snagged every piece of clothing I wore on the barbed wire and my calves and forearms sustained dense thatches of tiny shallow cuts--from the wire or the thorny vines twisted around it, I'm not sure-- but soon I was on the other side.

I'd seen Bob's land hundreds of times. I've seen this very part, every time I walk into my front yard. But it felt very unfamiliar, this side of the fence, as if by stepping over it into a pasture where I'd never set foot I had passed through a portal and everything around me seemed open and wide--far away.

My insides felt spread out too, like I suddenly had more room to breathe; my heart more relaxed in its beating.

I don't usually smile when I'm alone. Usually in solitude I just feel it, an inside-smile. There are special alone-times when my face smiles too,though--like when Caspian's fallen asleep on my pillows or I'm curled in the corner of Spirit's stall with his curious nose snuffling my hair or when I feel Gypsy's glass-smooth coils wrap me in a reptilian embrace. I smile alone then. And when I feel free.

On that side of the fence, with more room inside me and all around, living out a six-year-old dream in weather so cold it woke every sleeping fiber of my being, I felt the fleeting freedom and I smiled.

As I walked I hoped vaguely that Bob wouldn't shoot at my distant figure in a fit of old-farmer's paranoia, but I was more concerned with how to cross the creek without drenching my feet in the icy flow. I had part of a tree branch and a few slimy rocks for assistance, but mostly it was up to my balance and God's grace.

Utilizing every resource to the full, I made my unsteady way to the opposite bank and began ascent--the bank was steep. By digging my toes into deep furrows carved by the cloven hooves of cattle, I made a stair case of the cow-trail and hopped the last foot to level ground.

I could see it, my tree, now below the horizon line, standing alone in the pasture with acres and acres of field between it and the woods. I smiled again as I closed the distance between us, feeling my heart swell and fill up some of the extra room with dramatic, sentimental indulgence. Hello, old friend.

It was exactly as I'd always imagined. No, better. The branches drooped low around the edges, many even touching the ground. But they met the trunk of the evergreen higher up--maybe to my waist--so the tree formed a kind of tepee: Its trunk the center pole, and the branches with their fregrant needles weaving themselves together at their ends to form a sheltered hollow inside.

The ground beneath the branches was less grassy than the rest of the pasture, with large, flat rocks dotting the tepee floor. The roots, instead of protruding all around the tree's base, reared up from the dirt in only a few places as if to form specific areas for sitting or curling up to sleep. As if God molded it for me, just to fulfill my fanciful 6-year daydream.

Hearing a footstep, my head snapped up and I turned to confront the intruder. And smiled again. The cattle had gathered and formed a half-circle around me. Their heads were low as they snuffled my scent in the air with their huge wet noses. They looked very interested in me, with their ears perked and dewy eyes bright, but ready to run at any second. All legs stiff and pushed forward, a muscle twitched here and there.

But their faces were full of niave sweetness--adult versions of the little orphaned calves I bottle-fed and raised for Bob. Oliver, Nairobi, and Kenya when I was fourteen; Seto and Dodger a year later. They left me with good memories, my calves did, chewing on my socks and dashing around the paddock; delighted confusion when first presented with fresh-baked molasses muffins, followed soon by excited calls the second I could be seen walking up the driveway with a batch.

I was caught between my tree and Bob's cattle; caught between memories of things wished for and memories of things missed.

Slowly, I raised my camera to capture the sight of these poor confused cows, but some movement or scent brought by the wind spooked them. I watched them scatter across the pasture, then ducked back inside my tree-hollow.

I had already taken several pictures of it, but the roots there below my tree called to me. I wanted to see what it would have felt like, if I had really run away and slept here when I was younger. I had to walk about stooped beneath the branches as I looked for a suitable place to nap.

Pulling my coat more tightly about my shoulders, I bunched my scarf up around my neck and circled my spot like a dog before finally curling up against the curve where a thick root and the trunk of the tree.

I closed my eyes. I don't remember what Roy was playing; I think it was something soft, something light. Maybe The Beatle's "I Will". Whatever it was, the music sent over me a fresh wave of space and openness, as if everything in me and outside of me was spread so far, so scattered, that I was both completely safe and totally free, all at the same time.

So once more I smiled in complete solitude, this time without even any animals to witness.
Since then, another such solitary smile has yet to break on my lips.

Naked, the Judas in Me Fell by the Tracks but He Lifted Me High

Lately I've been thinking about Judas. Judas in the Bible who betrayed Jesus for thirty pieces of silver. Was it thirty? I can't quite remember. But with blood money it hardly matters. Anyway, I've been thinking about him and wondering if he made it to heaven.



I'm inclined to think that he did. Yes, he made money his master. He betrayed the Son of God with a kill on His cheek. And afterwards, when the regret became too much, he killed himself. Yes, Judas made several mistakes that still echo in the hearts of the saints.



But am I any better? The Word says that a sin is a sin; they are all every one a betrayal to our Lord and not one is worse than another. Lust is as bad as adultry; hate as evil as murder in God's eyes. A prideful heart is an abomination to Him, as is a lying tongue.



Yes, Judas' mistakes changed history, but according to God's Word, his sins are no worse than mine.



How many times have I 'edited the truth'? How many times has my heart been grossly prideful and I didn't even care? How many times have I dishonored my parents? I still wear scars of dishonoring my body--His temple--like a pegan.

Direct disobedience. Is that not a form of betrayal?



No, I am no better than Judas. He is remembered as a shameful traitor, but he must have had good in him. He must have loved Christ. He was one of The Twelve; selected by God to represent one of the precious tribes of His chosen people. Jesus thought that Judas deserved that honor, and because of a few weak moments--with catastrophic consequences, I admit--he is shamed forever.

I wonder if he would consider this tarnished legacy's fate worse than being completely forgotten? Probably. His guilt and regreat was so great that it drove him to suicide. He loved Christ. Isn't that the bottom line for salvation?



The only unforgiveable sin is written as 'blaspheming the Lord'. I've heard it interpreted as 'continually denying Christ until death'. That interpretation makes sense to me, when cross-referencing it with scripture that speaks about mercy and forgiveness; about all of our sins being washed clean by the Lamb if we let Him. Not ‘all sin except for one’. All sins. And so, it makes sense that the only sin He doesn’t forgive would be ‘denial until death’, because that would mean the sinner never allowed Christ to give him the fullest extent of forgiveness.

Judas loved Jesus. Judas let Him in. Judas was repentant. Judas was a sinner. Christ came to save the sinners, if they will believe in Him. Judas believed. I believe. If Judas is doomed, then so am I, because a sin is a sin and not one of us is righteous—“No, not one.”

I’m not a biblical scholar. I haven’t done research or consulted with anyone wiser than I. But from my limited knowledge of scripture and the mercy and grace He has shown me, I think Judas will be in the community of Paradise. Stripped of guilt and his own humanity, as Christ does for every believer, all that’s left is love and praise for the Savior. If God is truly as loving and merciful as scripture claims—and I believe He is—it would be just like Him to forgive Judas and I and welcome us into Paradise with open arms.

Maybe you don't think its ok that I relate to Judas here. Maybe you aren't as messed up as I am (or have been before). But I'm getting tired of pretending that I'm any better than this; any better than I am.

Sometimes doing the right thing really, really sucks.

A restlessness haunts me, even when I have so many things to do my stomach is knotting knotting and twisting with dread that only feeds my procrastination.
I had the antidote before me—text and statistics and class notes—but some irresponsible inner force kept me from reaching for it.
No, out into the chilly evening, damp sidewalks, I went to shake the feelings out. My skin tingled in anticipation of raindrops, but none came. The shower had ended, leaving behind its shining signature smeared on the ground—making the concrete to sparkle in the lamplight.
I searched for new campus scenery, by the tack behind the library. The same old paths seemed used and jaded, stony-cold to my thin-soled shoes from all the walking I’d done on their granite faces.
Escaping their bitter solidity, I stepped out onto a new sidewalk, thinking I might be brave enough to take it tonight. I walked further than I had before, halfway down the side of the soccer field. A shed loomed in the darkness, creating a dark tunnel with the tarp-covered fence on the opposite side of the path. The shadows there shifted and moved; ominous warning, trust your primal fear. I stood frozen for a moment, too afraid of the black passage to turn my back on whatever lurked there.
I turned the volume down on Roy (my iPod) as I turned, throwing frequent glances over my shoulder. I pulled a headphone from my ear, listening for footsteps my logical mind knew I wouldn’t hear. But still I kept up an urgent pace until I was safe in the heart of the campus again, where golden light cast small, comfortable shadows.
The nervous fear had dispelled my earlier dread, like acid dissolving clumpy rubber.
I’ve read about how things like that work—how more illogical fear can help soothe legitimate stress. I’ve felt it other times too—like being exceptionally relaxed after watching a good horror flick. It’s hard to describe, though; how those adrenaline-fueled rushes of fear can make everything else seem more manageable after they’re over. The conceptual idea, the physical practice; ambiguous psychology pretending to be a science. Only vague descriptions for those who haven’t witnessed. They are inaccurate, word-pictures as confusing as Picasso’s work to some logical thinker. Indescribable.
There are some things—sounds and feelings, mostly—that words can’t describe. It’s often times the little things that no one’s really tried to give a clear word-picture of. At least, I don’t think so. But there have been so many writers and are and will be that are not me, and so I suppose my words are not unique. There is indeed nothing new under the sun.
But apples are one of the things I’ve never read about. The way, after you hook your teeth, pop the peel into the flesh, pull back--the crack-tear of the piece coming away from the rest; moist and tart with scandalous reminders in the pulp of what it was to be Eve.
Eve in her last moments of innocence. I wonder if she truly believed every word of the serpent—if she was absolutely certain the fruit would bring her good fortune? Or was she even a little scared? Maybe, as the perfect lips of the First Woman parted, her heart leapt into her stomach and she felt for the first time the biting grasp of fear...but it was too late—she had made her decision and now must follow through. And as her teeth sank into the seductive flesh she felt the first dull pang of dread—the first anguish of regret.
When did she realize the weight of what she’d done? Did she ever? Did she realize that, thousands of years later, her descendent daughters would resent her?
You cursed us with this pain, Mother. You cursed us with this loneliness. Adam stood by passively and watched, refused to rescue you, but it wasn’t only you he left to fall. You set the example for all of us; you passed down this addiction of choosing our own ruin.
Sometimes I think we have it worse even than Eve. At least she spent awhile basking in the pure glory of God; unfiltered, undiluted. At least she knew what it was that she would spend forever seeking. Though the memory of what she once had must have been painful, at least it may have held her true. Kept her from becoming lukewarm.
But, maybe ignorance is indeed bliss, and we daughters are blessed in the absence of this knowledge. No paradise torn from our horrified grasp; no being forced to our knees under the first crushing, puzzling weight of shame.
When we are born and experience things for the first time—cold, hunger, fear, loneliness, abandonment, shame, pain, loss—at least our awareness isn’t complete. We grow up with these feelings, never remembering a time without them, and when we realize what they are and why they are, at least we are somewhat used to them. Early conditioning; we are accustomed.
But for Eve it was all new. And she was fully aware—conscious of its legitimacy. Would the shock make it even worse? Would her soft, uncaloused soul be even more vulnerable to the rough claws of sin’s consequences? Or would her past bliss, like a balm, provide some soothing escape; take the edge off the sting?
Eve is nothing like her daughters. A distant mother to whom we can’t relate; resented for her closeness to God, blamed for the sin that cursed us all.
Are we supposed to love her? Is she a mother we must honor?
How could she possibly have disobeyed God? If she really did experience His ultimate love, untainted by the separation of sin, how could she possibly have wanted more? How could she have been tempted by anything? Was He so unfulfilling? It seems blasphemous even to consider such a thing, but if she had the fullness of what every believer is searching for, what every human soul longs for, why would she go looking for more?
I have to be honest, it makes me wonder. She had it all—all of Him and what else is there? And still she was not content. If Eve was so close to Him and still so easily made to feel dissatisfied, what chance do I have? What chance do I have of finding a place in me where obeying Him is truly more important than anything else, when innocent, untainted Eve herself was so quickly enamored with the black tongue of a snake?

Snakes are entrancing. I can see how Eve, upon seeing the chorded muscles undulating beneath smooth scales that sparkled in Eden’s sun like liquid silk, might have been hypnotized by its cloying beauty. Moving so alive, yet cold like death. A fluently twisting, elegant corpse: darkly captivating; luscious macabre. The hint of tantalizing sin would stand out especially lustrous amidst the righteousness of Eden, successfully luring the first naive girl’s soul to those sparkling stygian things that so easily steal precious innocence. Innocence that can never be reclaimed.
I have my own Eden—a make-believe Eden—in the woods behind my house, just past the pond and into the trees. No fruit grows there, except for the walnuts that feed this town’s red-furred squirrels and irritate its red-skinned farmers. But my dad only mows out here occasionally, so he doesn’t mind; he lets the squirrels keep sustenance within easy reach.
They—the squirrels—have gathered most of the walnuts up now, though; I noticed their absence while walking there today. And well they should—it is growing so cold so, so quickly, and the minute the wonderful pungent scent of fall flees my nostrils my heart aches with a thousand things I forgot to do in the summer sun.
I couldn’t stand the outdoors being snatched away from me so suddenly. That’s why I went walking in the woods today. That, and I was filled with a restless, impatient inspiration.
I knew what I wanted to do and my heart quickened with the thought of it. Something so small, blurring the line between innocence and sultry so thoroughly that I still am not sure whether my blushes were really called for. Probably not. I know I tend to be more shy than most. Regardless, they happened and the heat my body generated in the personal excitement caused my skin to dampen slightly as I gathered a robe and flashlights, a coat and my camera. I cast a glance over my shoulder at Caspian, a furry black lump on my bed. I’d leave him behind this time; I needed to focus.
My feet sunk slightly into the cold mud as I tried to envision myself doing what I had in mind. Such a small thing, an amateur thing. Laughable, even, I was sure. But why, as I set my camera on the concrete ledge of an old well, did I feel like Eve must have as she reached toward original temptation?
But it didn’t make any difference--no one would see this. This was mine. Secret art for me; pictures to make me feel beautiful as I am—real and imperfect—and using my real self to give this sequestered piece of art something beautifully flawed and immaculately scandalous.
I stopped when I reached the woods. Paused. I almost went back. The living room sounded nice; snuggled into the leather sofa with a dog and a book, hot tea on the table beside me. But I had to do this. So simple, so small, but to me it meant I was brave. To me it meant I was an artist in my heart, because no one would see these pictures. An artist for myself, not for an audience. It simply meant I could. I would. I could do things contrived of myself; I would do things that some others wouldn’t. I could suffer the cold—purposely put myself in discomfort and try to make it lovely. I don’t know why this humble project mattered so much to me. But it mattered and so I began.
I took off my shoes and socks, my feet immediately turning blotchy and purple thanks to my circulatory disorder. I stood on the concrete that spread about a foot from the base of the well, and its tiny peaks pressed into my bloodless soles; scratched my toes as I curled them against the chill autumn air.
For a second I studied the red nail polish, months-old remnants of a last tribute to the Golden Years. It looked sad and empty now, chipped and dull against the orange of the fallen leaves in spite of valiant attempts to maintain its bold, symbolic scarlet.
I hunched under the thick green robe I’d brought with me, fixing the auto settings on my camera as cold wind sliced through the gaps of my skin-warmed shelter.
I looked over my shoulder, back into the woods. Listened for sounds; approaching footsteps, voices. Nothing. Silence but for the tree branches above, tapping and scraping against one another like overcrowded children.
Tentative, I pressed the silver button on my camera and waited until the last possible minute to step away from the patches of ground that had been heated slightly by my presence.
Cold cold cold and I felt my skin tighten as goose bumps formed while I stepped in front of the camera. Shyly, I tried to make my body graceful and waited to hear my camera’s satisfying click.
Click. Second shot is coming. Shift my body; different angle. Be strong like the trees, hands in fists—no, too tight, too masculine. Too late. Click and I trot back to where my miss-matched socks lay in the grass, stuffing the tips of my icy toes into their tepid folds.
I squinted at the camera’s playback, mentally critiquing the pictures I’d taken. Looking at myself on that screen, appearing so foreign amidst the trees, I felt myself shrink with embarrassment. That surprised me. I thought I was brave. I thought I was liberal and spirited, artistic and uninhibited, capable of self-assurance in my ideas.
I was. I was or I would make myself. Right now. I would be, and be free and proud and brave in my being.
Push the button, kick away the comfort of socks and with my head high I mingle with the trees as the camera beep beep beeps and clicks. A few more seconds—I face the camera, bold and open in my stance.
With the second click, I knew I could and for a brief moment I felt empowered—like someone proud of the way they occupy space.
But my feet were numb, and my fingers had grown cold and sore under the nails. They fumbled clumsily as I changed clothes and gathered my things, tripping over my faltering feet.
After a walk in the cold that felt longer than it was, I stumbled back into the warm house, satisfied. I caught a glimpse of my eyes in the hall mirror and saw a smile playing there; a secretive smile, the knowledge of a simple but beautiful mystery that was mine.

I’m tired. Not just tired, but desperately exhausted. Don’t tell me to take a nap. It isn’t that easy. Sleep is a fickle friend of mine; won’t always do business with me. It’s a commodity I continually chase with spotty success, and there’s no end in sight to the insomnia.
I’m tired for more than just sleep, though more sleep would help tremendously. I don’t just need a good night’s rest, though. I need days of sleep; days and days swimming in the murky depths with no dreams to show their wide-eyed faces, begging me to follow. I can’t; not now. I want to, I really do, but I can’t.
I’ve been saying that a lot lately: ‘I can’t’. I can’t because I’m tired and I have to prioritize, but here is new and they don’t know me, so some of them are offended, I think. There are voices out my window—laughing voices and running footsteps and I want to add my own because I want to make it here; make a life here that is more than resting alone in my dorm. I know that, and I know it usually makes me sad, but tonight I’m too tired to care.
I’m so tired, my eyes are literally sinking deeper into my face. There are hollows by them that haven’t been there before; dips and crevasses I’ve only seen bordering the eyes of women much older than myself.
I’ve been losing lots of things lately, and forgetting things too. For awhile now I’ve felt older than my age, but lately even more so. It would be easier, I think, if I looked as old as I felt. Maybe thirty. Some days, more like sixty or eighty. Then people wouldn’t expect these things of me—these things when I just can’t do them. I’m sorry, I say, but I can’t, and they say alright but it isn’t really because their faces go all closed and flat when they turn to walk away.
I don’t want to explain myself anymore. I’m tired of these complications. A few relationships have even been ruined because I discovered non-understanding sides of people that never would have had anything to do with me if I wasn’t sick. But then those sides became colossal walls between us, proportionate to the amount of my life that is affected by my disease. Which is all of it.