The Mushroom Life (revised)

The morning was naked and shivered with the cold of itself, in the same way it made Margaret shiver as she dressed and forgot which colors match. Blue isn’t like black or white, she thought. It isn’t a color that they say matches everything. But then they say that everything goes with blue jeans… Then she remembered that it didn’t matter. She didn’t care to impress the one person she would see today. She made a face and donned camouflage lounge pants under the tie-dye shirt she was already wearing. She looked at the clock. Nine AM. There’s no way he’s awake yet. She thought. Why should I be? She could find no motivating answer to her own question, but felt unable to fall asleep again. So she shuffled about the apartment, absentmindedly poking at menial tasks in attempt to feel productive.

She peeked in the doorway of the kitchen and thought it seemed darker beyond the threshold, though she’d flipped the light switch. Breakfast—yes, that’s what she came for. Her hand brushed over her stomach, a bit flatter with emptiness. Well, I might as well not. She wasn’t really hungry anyway. At least she didn’t want to be. What a paradox. She walked to the coffee pot. She didn’t really need breakfast. She didn’t feel like she needed much of anything these days. Food, conversation, new things or even some of the old ones. Of course, she didn’t realize that until she noticed that lately she hadn’t had any of those very often and yet she was still alive, still waking up every morning. And I only miss them a little bit. She thought. Sleep. She realized, forming in her mind a list to sum up her minimalist survival, I still need sleep. She seemed to sleep an awful lot these days. As she pondered why this could be, she forgot that time existed.

Suddenly it was noon and she was still standing by the coffee pot, staring into the neon numbers on its clock as if hypnotized.
Shaking herself from her stupor, Margaret completed her morning routine and returned to her bedroom. She sat on her bed amidst rumpled sheets, rallying her anger so she could have a good stew before he arrived. But he was late, of course, and after she decided on a properly self-righteous speech her mind began to wander again as she stared at the splintered wooden floor. The grain drew her eyes into its flow, interrupted occasionally by discolored patches left behind by previous tenants. The pattern is kind of pretty, she thought, trying not to think of exactly what might have caused the stains. Swirls and colors, like Picasso on the floor. Picasso on the floor, she thought, but Warhol in the pantry: everything organized in patches of sameness; neat lines of consistency and soup. Alpo, too, which she had micro-waved and eaten for dinner last night, too consumed with angry distraction to notice that the Campbell’s beef stew ended up in the dog’s bowl instead of her own. Oh well. She thought when she went to wash the dishes, realizing her mistake. Casper’s food is more expensive than mine anyway.

The Labrador lay curled beside her on the bed now, heat radiating from his black fur that always carried a bit of summer with it when he came in from the sunshine. Margaret felt overheated, with the dog’s warmth by her side and the sun pounding in through the window beside the bed, but she enjoyed Casper’s company too much to change the seating arrangement. She smiled, running her hand over the velvety fur of his face. She had often been teased about her close attachment to the dog, and she knew it was her own fault that the Labrador had been her only constant companion during the last few years; her only devoted source of the loyalty and unconditional love so well mimicked in the famous connection between master and beast. “He’s the Lassie to your Timmy.” Her friend Colin had once said. “The irresistible Old Yeller to your cranky, brooding hermit.”

Her hand was knocked away as Casper suddenly sat up, ears perked. The bed shook as he leapt to the floor, barks accompanying the clicks and scrapes of his claws as he skidded around the corner.

“Margie? It’s Colin. Margie, where are you?” The call came from across the apartment in a low but smooth masculine tone. Margaret stiffened, a fresh scowl puckering her pale face. This time it took no effort to rally anger. “Margaret, come on.” Uneven footsteps clunked down the hallway. “You know I know you’re in here.” Margaret didn’t answer; she knew he would appear in her bedroom doorway in a moment no matter what she said.

“Welcome back, asshole.” She ground the words from her throat the second she spied his scruffy form, Casper snuffling eagerly at his heels.

“What’s wrong with you?” Colin replied as he shrugged his threadbare jacket from his shoulders and began picking at the rough brown stitching near the collar.

“Aren’t you going to apologize for the other night?” Margaret asked with a glare befitting some heated juvenile rivalry.

“Why? What’d I do?” He tossed his jacket on the bed. Margaret kicked it onto the floor.

“You shouldn’t have brought her here.” She said flatly.

“You said I could always come here.”

“I said you could always come here, not your friends, or your girlfriends, or whatever.”

“She wasn’t my friend or my girlfriend.” Colin’s face was a mixture of defense and apology. “I was really drunk—“

“You’re drunk right now.”

“I’m not drunk. I’m hung over. There’s a big difference. Anyway, my DD ditched me so a barista gave me a lift.”

Margaret scoffed. “Yeah, a lift and a—“

Colin tossed his hand up, as if to wave away Margaret’s verbal darts. “Yeah, she came in. I know. I was drunk. I’m sorry, ok? It’ll never happen again.”

“No, it won’t. Give me my key back.” Margaret demanded.

“Margie, come on; you don’t really want that. Besides, you don’t want me driving all the way into the city when I’m hammered, do you? You know I need a place to crash. You’ve always been ok with that; why are you so pissy now?” The apology was disappearing from his face.

“Because now you’re bringing skanks into my home.”

Colin rolled his bloodshot eyes. “Just cause you’re a prude doesn’t mean everyone else has to be.”

“Having some kind of moral standard doesn’t make me a prude!” Margaret said smugly.

“Of course it’s easy for you.” The nastiness of Colin’s tone began to measure up to that of Margaret’s. “You’re not any better than me, you just never have the opportunity to show it. It’s pretty simple to maintain standards when you’re locked up here alone in your room all day, day after day after day after day—“

“Stop it, Colin!” Angry hurt registered itself on her face. “Agoraphobia is a real and debilitating psychological condition. Which you’d know if you cared enough to crack the cover of that book I gave you.”

“I didn’t have to read it.” Colin countered. “Psychological condition. You know that means its all in your head, right?”

“That doesn’t mean I can control it!”

“Maybe you could if you weren’t too proud to ask for help. Or is it just because you’re too scared to leave your apartment? Sorry, I get confused trying to figure out what’s just a personality flaw and what’s some weird tick in your brain.”

“I’m too proud? Have you ever set foot in an AA meeting?” Margaret asked as if she already knew the answer.

Colin’s head drew up in indignation. “Of course not. I’m not an alcoholic.”

A pause followed, thick with Margaret’s astonishment. “You really think you’re not an alcoholic?” She finally asked, now more concerned than sarcastic.

Colin’s eyebrows crawled toward his uneven hairline. “You really think I am?”

Margaret’s concern turned back into anger as memories of evidence supporting her accusation flooded her mind. “What?!” Her eyes narrowed. “I haven’t seen you completely sober since before we broke up junior year! You know that’s what ruined our relationship; you're always drunk or hung over!”

Colin winced.

Margaret continued without skipping a beat. “And for the past year you’ve been sulking around here all the time. When was the last time you held onto a job for more than a week? You dropped out of college, drank yourself broke, got evicted from your apartment, and now I have to tuck you into my couch almost every night! Why do you think I don’t have any booze around? I didn’t want to enable you!”

“’Enable’ me? Fine.” Colin spat. “I’ll stop cleaning your dog’s shit out of the lawn. Maybe once I quit enabling you, you’ll get evicted too!”

A moment of silence passed. “…You clean up after Casper?” Margaret’s voice was suddenly small.

“Well someone has to, and you won’t go outside. Why do you think you haven’t heard complaints from your landlord?” Colin replied, his voice still sharp.

“Why didn’t you tell me about it before?”

“Cause you never threw a fit about me crashing here before.”

Margaret looked down at folds of the off-white cotton sheets she’d wound her fingers in, her long dark hair making a curtain that blocked her profile. “Oh. Well. Thanks. Sorry.”

“Whatever.” Colin sighed. “I’m keeping the key.”

“Yeah, ok.”

In the silence that followed, Colin shuffled across the room to sit on the edge of Margaret’s bed. They sat together for several minutes in the awkward way of two shamefully prideful people who realize everything, but will admit to nothing. Margaret’s gaze got lost in the sheet’s tiny, cream-colored weave. Her gaze followed one thread in particular as it made its way through the others and out, into the rest of the fabric.

Colin broke the silence. “You really should try to get over that agora-thing.”

“Phobia.” Margaret clarified without looking up from the sheets.

“Whatever.” Colin waved away the explanation. “You should try to get it fixed. You’re missing a lot of life, festering in here.”

“I’m not festering.” Margaret groaned in exasperation and threw her head back, eyes closed. “Look, can we please not talk about this anymore?”

Colin studied Margaret for a moment before answering, his face grimly contemplative. “Ok.” He said softly. “I’m going to walk down to the general store; do you need anything?”

“I’m not an invalid.” Margaret stated shortly.

“I know, that’s not—“ Colin stopped, then sighed and shoved his fingers through his shaggy brown hair. “I was just trying to help. Bye, Margie.” He said, rising from the bed to retrieve his jacket.

“Bye.” Margaret said. A moment later, in a quiet voice, she called, “Thanks.” But Colin didn’t hear her; he had already disappeared down the hallway.

After some minutes Margaret rose from her bed to open the window. She wasn’t afraid of the world through the window. The screen blocked what would otherwise have been a hole in the wall; it held at bay those wide-open spaces that threatened to swallow her. The only time the screen was removed was when Margaret tended the flowers in the window-box, but she hadn’t done that in quite a while. Mushrooms had pushed up through the wilted flowers, boasting their creamy caps and graceful stems. They made her feel guilty when she opened the window, this fungal evidence of her neglect. She left the window open, though; she liked the sounds and the feel of fresh air on her skin. She disliked, however, the smell of sweltering July that oozed through the mesh. Humidity and heat: a recipe for decay. It put a bad taste in her mouth, like stale salt and mistakes constructed by things she didn’t do. So many things. She sighed, then called Casper down from his blanket-den on the bed, to which he’d returned during the argument.

“Come on,” Margaret said wearily. “Let’s get you some fresh air.”

~*~

When Colin let himself into Margaret’s apartment later that day, he found her at her kitchen table, crying and scribbling frantically on sheets of white paper.

“Margie, what is it?” Colin asked, rushing to her. He picked up one of the papers she seemed to be finished with. “What’s this?”

“Casper ran away!” Margaret sobbed.

“What? How?”

“I let him outside just like always but he saw another dog and ran off after it.” Margaret took a breath. “I tried to go after him but…it smelled like exhaust and I couldn’t make myself go outside so I just called and called but he didn’t come back.” She sniffed and brushed her wrist across her eyes.

“How long ago?” Colin asked.

Margaret looked at her watch. “An hour and twelve minutes.”

“I’ll go find him.” Colin stated resolutely, snatching up the “Lost Dog” flyers and turning toward the door, staggering just a little. Margaret could see the buzz he’d acquired while he’d been out.

“No, Colin.” She protested. “I’ll make some calls. You shouldn’t be wandering the streets.”

“Chill, Margie. I’m fine. I’ll find him and be back asap, you’ll see.” He insisted. “I’ll call you later.” He gave her shoulder a quick squeeze and left her staring after him, unintentionally studying the tacky taupe paint peeling from the door which he’d slammed shut, the sound knocking back her feeble “Thank you.”

~*~

Through pacing and praying, Margaret managed to calm herself somewhat in the three hours that followed. She knew she was reacting rather severely to the flight of a pet, but it was her pet, her Casper. She thought of his black form bounding over ten years of memories. From his sharp puppy teeth to a frost of gray around his snuffling muzzle; from her awkward girlhood to reserved young adult life; from hours of fetch to arthritic hips; from walks in the woods to afternoons in easy chairs. From place to place, adventure to fear, one year to the next; from sorrow to song and back again. A warm black softness always at her feet; her puppy who trusted her unfailingly.

She remembered the day he became hers. “You watch this little guy, sweetie.” Her father had said the day the cancer finally took him. He winked, weakly bundling the clumsy puppy into Margaret’s chubby child arms. “That there’s my prize pup, from the best hunting stock in all the Midwest. I need you to take real good care of him for me, ok sugar? I might not be around to make sure he’s cuddled real good, or got a good bed to sleep on and a playmate, and plenty of biscuits. You’ll do that for me, won’t you Margie?”

Tears began to well up in Margaret’s eyes again as she thought of how she’d failed both of them now; where Casper was and what is he doing, and is he scared and why suddenly in his absence did she feel claustrophobic when normally small spaces were what she craved? If only she’d brought herself to run outside after him…

She jumped at the intrusive ring of the telephone.

“Margie…” Colin rasped over the line. She could hear traffic noise in the background; sirens and honking car horns. He must be calling from that old crusty payphone by the intersection, all the way downtown. “I’m sorry Margie, I’ve looked everywhere. I’m so sorry. I’ll keep looking but—“

“No,” Margaret cut him off, condensing her voice into a reasonably stable stream. “No, it’s ok. Don’t apologize; it’s not your fault. Go flirt with a waitress; I’ll look into putting an ad in the paper.”

The traffic babbled to her during Colin’s pause. Then he chuckled dryly. “You know me well.” He said, a head-shake in his voice. “See ya.” He hung up before Margaret could reply.

“Thank you.” She murmured to the now-deaf receiver, wondering why she was never quite quick enough with those two words.

~*~

The bump on the other side of the wall might not have woken Margaret if Casper had been there to fill the room with the comforting sound of his breathing, but in this new silence the noise jerked her from the depths of REM. She sat up in bed and then froze, listening. There it was again, like a tumbling against the wall just outside the apartment. Her heart pounding, Margaret rose from her bed and crept to her door. Closing one eye and standing on her tip-toes, Margaret pushed her open eye close to the peephole. There was Colin, his sprawled body warped by the fish-eye lens, his hand clasped around the neck of a bottle covered in a brown paper bag. A cough expelled itself, followed by shallow breaths.

Margaret’s jaw clenched. Frustration and disgust welled up in her chest and threatened to fill her, until she saw two more bottles and an empty sandwich wrapper on the ground. He’d been sitting out there for a while, she realized, waiting for her to wake with the morning. The anger seemed to seep out of her toes then, deflating her. She opened the door and looked at him, there against the wall in the corridor, and she ached. Her body ached, her heart ached; he looked so, so tired. He was only twenty-three and already worry-lines were beginning to settle themselves along his brow, just visible through the thatch of hair that had fallen over his face. Silently Margaret bent down and helped the semi-conscious Colin to his feet, and they stumbled inside where he fell forward across her bed.

“I didn’t flirt with any waitresses, Margie.” He slurred into the covers.

“Shh, I know.” Margaret said soothingly.

“I kept looking…then I bought some…some stuff…then I came here…” His mumbling was barely distinguishable. “Sorry, Margie…”

“Hush, it’s ok.” She said as the ache in her heart increased. She busied herself repositioning her friend’s limbs to fit his entire lanky form on the bed. “Thank you.” She tried to say it in time, but Colin was already snoring.

~*~

Moonlight spilled cool and white through the window, illuminating Colin as he finally began to wake up. He groaned and dragged himself up onto one elbow, disoriented. He glanced around trying to figure out where he was. He wasn’t too worried, though; he’d woken up in far worse places than a soft bed. He heard Margaret before he saw her, sitting on the floor, her back against the dresser next to the bed. She was humming quietly, some tune Colin didn’t recognize. She appeared to be staring out the window, but her gaze was absently focused on the space in between; some nothingness in the middle-distance.

“This sucks.” She said flatly, having heard him shifting on the bed. “And it’s going to keep sucking because I never change anything and nothing is changing around me.” Then she thought of her missing Casper. “Nothing good, at least.” She amended.

“Yeah, looks that way.” Colin grunted, pushing himself into a seated position. Margaret looked around at him, mildly surprised that he didn’t try to talk her out of this cynicism.

“Thanks.” She finally managed to say to him, looking back toward the window.

“For what?” Colin asked.

“For not trying to convince me that things will get better. I hate that; people making guarantees that don’t exist and making predictions they know nothing about. I mean, no one can make promises like that. Why do they keep saying it?”

“I dunno.” Colin shrugged. “I’ve always thought that was just a band-aid myself.” He rolled onto his stomach, propping his aching head up on his hands. “But I have to say Margie, you think this stuff is so big, and it doesn’t have to be. Not if you don’t make such a huge deal out of it. So I drink too much. So you stay inside. So what? We’re only hurting ourselves, so what does it matter, if that’s how we want to live? Besides, I’m too tired to change things up. It’s just not in me, Margie. This stuff is home, you know? Crappy as it may be, it’s home.”

“But this isn’t how I want to live.” Margaret sighed. “Well, it is I guess. But it’s not how I want to want to live. I need things, and I hate that. I wouldn’t mind having nothing, if I didn’t need things. I don’t want to live like that, needing so much and only having half.” She thought of all the things she hadn’t realized she truly needed until now, so much more than only sleep: Casper, small spaces, help…and Colin. “I don’t want that for me.” She took a breath. “And I don’t want it for you, either.” She looked down at her hands, clasped in her lap. “I know all we ever do is fight, but I don’t like seeing you like this.”

“You think I like seeing you how you are?” Colin chuckled dryly. “I bet it hurts me more than it hurts you, kid.”

“So we’re not just hurting ourselves?” Margaret asked with a wry smile.

“No.” Colin wasn’t smiling. “No, I guess not.”

Silence stretched for a long while then, and soon Colin’s snoring began to punctuate the air. Margaret’s thoughts unwound like kite string. The moon was high, it’s angle causing the silvery light from her window to stretch in warped rectangles across her floor. She sat for a while, just breathing. Her eyes followed the ribbon-like shadow of a pane, her focus dipping up and down with it as it trickled over the wrinkles in the dirty laundry she’d neglected to put in the hamper. It led her gaze to the base of the window, where she again spied the flowerbox just outside. She couldn’t decide if the dim lighting made dead flowers look better or worse. The mushrooms in the window box seemed to glow in the moonlight, though.

I never wanted this. She thought, glancing back toward Colin and then down at her own hands. Who would want this?

On sudden impulse, she rose and walked to the open window. She pressed her palm to the screen, feeling the night air through the mesh. Would it really be so bad to expose her hand—just her hand—to the outside? After all, she still had the walls all around and the ceiling above, the floor below. Margaret focused on these defenses, anchoring herself in the safety of the small space. She took a breath and wrestled the screen from the sill. Reaching her hand out into the still air, Margaret slowly spread her fingers, then let the moonlight slip between them as they curled into a fist then opened again.

She plucked one of the fungi from the flower box, holding it up for her eyes to slide in and out of the feather-like grooves on the underside of the cap. Accidents. She thought, wondering at how anything at all could grow in that box she never touched. They’re accidents. They weren’t cared for, pruned or watered. They weren’t purposefully planted in tilled, nourished soil. They just grew; they are just growing. What do they need but a surface to stand on? She wondered. What helps them live except to be left alone? They grew in her pitiful excuse for a garden when nothing else would. How convenient. She thought. It’s when they’re neglected that they thrive. She popped the cap from the stem with her thumb and crushed it’s foamy flesh between her fingers. That’s what I need. Margaret sighed. A mushroom life.

She replaced the screen—-she couldn’t bear the thought of leaving that hole gaping in the wall—-and curled up on the foot of her bed, next to Colin but not touching him. He smelled like scotch and gasoline, and a little like wet dog. The latter scent made Margaret’s heart plunge, thinking of her Casper alone somewhere in the shadows of the city. Tears began to trickle from her eyes, increasing to a steady flow over the bridge of her nose and across her face to her temple. They dripped onto the sheets, wetly beating the guilty rhythm of her powerlessness.

.

Moonfire

I have many stories from ages three to fourteen that make me want to cover my face with my hands and groan, “What was wrong with me?”. The only comforting word in there is “was”, which I suppose is a perk of growing up. Not that I don’t have things wrong with me now, but at least they’re different things than when I was younger.

There are a lot of things I secretly wish I could have carried over from those days, though, such as the ability to be swept up in laughably romantic notions. For example, I was once convinced that there was a supernatural aura surrounding a stray cat that showed up in my yard. I thought he was magical, like the totem animals spoken of in ancient Native American legends; the Spirit Helpers. I was more than old enough to know better, but my head was so far up in the clouds I didn’t care what was logical or what was completely insane. I was thirteen years old, full of angst, unrequited infatuation, and silly trouble; grounded for six months and bursting with drama.

I named him Moonfire. The first time he came was on a winter night, so cold, cold, shivering cold but the ground was snowless. The stars seemed especially clear; I could see the silken folds of the Milky Way flowing across the sky, as if an angel had dropped her gauzy scarf and there it lay for me to take if I could just reach high enough.

I would wait on the porch for him every night, armed with a bowl of Fancy Feast to entice the feral tomcat. He was mostly black, with a white stripe down his nose like the trail of a meteor that continued down his chest and belly, all the way to his paws. I could always make out his eyes first—huge green eyes like emeralds set deep in jet. It was a full week of cold nights on the porch before he would let me stroke his back while he set hungrily upon the canned cat food. He had an exceptionally large bone structure for a cat, but he was too thin and I could see the slight shadows of his ribcage in the porch light. He wore a pink flee collar; he belonged to someone. Someone who wasn’t taking proper care of him, I decided, and was filled with righteous anger at the negligent owners.

I begged my parents to let me keep him—to make him an “official” pet—but my mother said, “No, he has a collar. He’s someone else’s cat.”

So one night as ran my hand softly over the back of Moonfire’s neck, I very slowly removed the collar. If it was absent and his owners didn’t get him a new one, I figured, I could talk Mom into letting him join the furry portion of our family. I hid the collar upstairs in my bag of treasures, where I kept knick-knacks I felt like I probably wasn’t supposed to have. Just harmless things, really: a list of current crushes, manga comic books that contained cusswords, a burned copy of an Evanescence album that my parents had told me not to buy.

And now the stolen flee collar of a maybe, somewhat “stolen” cat. This is a confession that I have, up until now, only made to two people. Eight years later I still feel quite guilty about it. He stayed around my house of his own accord though, so I suppose it wasn’t technically “theft”. And maybe the owners simply dumped him out here in the country and didn’t want him anymore anyway. (Please allow me these rationalizations to ease my shame).

A few weeks passed and he would curl up in my lap, but only if I stayed very still. Determined to make him adore me, I tirelessly continued porch-sitting.

Then one day, I saw bloody paw prints in the fresh snow. I followed them and found Moonfire huddled in a corner between two walls of the house, a pitiful bundle of fuzz, ears flat and tense with pain. Though I hated to scare him, and though I subjected my arms to a thatch of scratches, I caught him and convinced my parents to take him to the vet. The doctor said it appeared as if his paws—all four of them—had somehow been badly burned. After having the peeled-away skin stitched over the wounds, he was sent home with us, wrapped in bandages like little purple boots.

Every day for the following weeks, with my mother’s help, I bathed his paws in iodine and replaced the bandages. Moonfire struggled, complaining loudly and scratching, as if determined to make us bleed as much as he had.

I thought surely he would run away after this ordeal, but to my surprise he not only ventured more frequently near the house, but also he was no longer afraid of me. He would come running to the porch for his dinner and purr as I held him wrapped in my arms.

Eventually he grew to love my whole family and any guests that happened by, becoming our most annoyingly social cat. He was introduced to the inside of the house and became accustomed to sofas, pillows, and warm laps. I loved holding him when I lay on the couch, his big paws settled on my chest and his wide head pushing up under my chin. He purred like a motorboat, stole food from our forks, and stuck like glue to the nearest warm body.

My magic cat died about a month ago, a brain tumor that slowly paralyzed him. I held him in my lap as long as I could and cried into his soft black fur, though it made my nose itch. His big green eyes were as bright as ever, and his purr still rumbled when anyone petted him. But when he could no longer walk I had to let him go, and I whispered to him in the vet’s office as he was put to sleep.

That night I unzipped my dusty bag of mischief and retrieved the stolen flee collar. I held it for awhile, smiling just a little. Tucking the collar back into its pouch, I realized I now had another rather shameful confession: as I weighed in my mind the insane, criminal acquisition of my magic Moonfire against the years enriched by his endearing presence, I knew it was worth it to me.

.

To Feed a Snake

.
It's time to cry

About anything

At all.

About the dead rat

Resting

In my hands.

Once-bright eyes,

Once-twitching nose;

Now eerie stillness...

Poor little rat.


.

Lines, Diffused

I love the smell of mediocre hotels. The chlorine and second-hand smoke seeping from the carpet; cleaning solvent and cheap coffee. It’s limbo, it’s suspension. It’s nowhere-home. It makes you like a turtle: you are forced to be your own home.
I wonder if turtles get tired though, having to carry their shelter everywhere so predators can’t get at their soft underbellies; their long, fragile throats. Though I know it is ridiculous, it seems to me that they might also get claustrophobic, with that cumbersome defense mechanism always surrounding them. It keeps them safe, though, and I suppose that’s all that matters.

When you shake it down, isn’t that all that matters to anyone? Seeking protection from something. Even the daredevils, the show-offs, the adrenaline junkies—all those who appear to be looking for danger. Even they have something that drives them, something beyond desire. Whether they are conscious of it or not, they’re afraid of what it might be like if the fulfillment of that desire remained absent. Those far from their shell are running from a life trapped inside; those closed up between the walls have run from exposure to the wide world. I know—I’ve been both places.

No matter what you pursue, you must admit you’re fleeing the opposite.

Sometimes they feel like the same thing to me—the pursuit and its opposing force—or so nearly the same that I am running toward and away from both of them simultaneously. It’s hard not to lose myself in all the floating; all the in-between. Often it seems that someone extracted my brain and wrapped it in cotton before stuffing it back down into my skull. It’s hard to focus, to make decisions, to form coherent thought, to remember.

I crave clarity; a bright image, a sharp thought. I give myself headaches sometimes, because I unconsciously clench my jaw as I attempt to decipher the wrinkles in my brain. But my thoughts come like static shocks from a hot, heavy blanket just out of the dryer. My mind feels thick and overheated, while little random thoughts shoot off, there and gone again before I can identify them and they keep going from all directions until I can hardly tell the practical from the naïve.

I crave a moment like the crack of a gun: startling, indisputable and confident of some result. I want to slam into the destination along with the bullet discharged—the sure, hard-edged bullet that sparkles in the sun, so bright you’d hardly mind dying by it if it meant that that glittering shard could become part of you. Like it would shine out from inside you, and by it’s glory you too would become glorious.

But instead I feel spread out, like milk spilled on the living room floor. Just a thin layer soaking into the carpet, existing in a big, inconvenient space yet barely existing at all. And no longer full of the potential it once had to be useful; to nourish someone’s bones, to help make someone—anyone—a little stronger.

I feel as if I once had a shape, some detailed definition, and maybe I still vaguely resemble it but it’s bled out of and into itself, like ink on wet paper.

I feel like a series of lines, diffused.

When I don’t know what else to do-—directionless and dazed-—I go out by the pond, even now in this heat that pounds pounds pounds my head and sticks my clothes to me with sweat; even fogs my glasses. Still, I go, and on the way there are wildflowers. I pick them—-because I can’t seem to be able to simply leave beauty alone; I must capture it, be in it, do something with it—-and lay them beside me as I sit on the bank. I am thinking about God, I think, and His grace versus my unworthiness; the constant battle in my heart to come joyously into His presence when I know I don’t deserve to be there. It is a classic debate for me; ironically my pride will not let me shed the shame. I try for the millionth time to rearrange my thoughts or soul or heart or whatever needs to be reordered, and I slowly toss the flowers, one by one, into the pond. Most of them are the white and purple clover blooms, but some are dainty sprays of tiny yellow blossoms and occasionally one or two of those limp, lovely flowers—blue and white—that I find crawling across the ground sometimes. They land lightly on the water, seeming to both glide on and stick to the surface at the same time. Brief, swift little ripples thrum out from each sprig as it alights softly on the water. They’ve all gone voyaging now, and as the wind blows them slowly towards the opposite bank I expected them to look like a fleet of little petal-boats. But instead they seem more like a group of living creatures clustered close to one another for protection; floral herds gone to mingle with the cattails.

It isn’t quite elegant, the sight of this colored foliage-circle floating over the water. If they were all the same color-—white, maybe-—or if they made a different shape, perhaps then they could lend a graceful air to my common backyard pond. But something about their bright span of colors and varying shapes, all arranged in what is really more of an oval, they seem more ‘playful’ than ‘elegant’; more whimsical than beautiful.
But in the playful whimsy there is indeed beauty, just not the same kind as is usually labeled with the term. Then sun has begun set and the water beneath the blossoms is orange, pink and gold; it is all very surreal and it makes this feeling well up inside me; a feeling that if I were to call my dog and run away into the woods we could find Narnia, or someplace where the snow isn’t cold. The feeling—and the sight that gives me the feeling—is so overpowering, like magic is about to happen. I am mesmerized, just watching colors sailing over more colors, blue pushing orange out of its way, the orange turning from pink to red to yellow; green reflections from stems and leaves.

I wish I had my camera, or paints and a canvass, and I want to run inside and get them but I don’t want to stop watching. I feel vaguely panicked, knowing that these moments will end without me having captured them, but I make myself relax; let myself be drawn in. Right here, right now; nowhere else, and it’s ok that this won’t be preserved; that I didn’t get the perfect photograph.
Sometimes it needs to be enough just that it happened, just that it was.

In those moments, it doesn’t seem to matter that I am spread out and shapeless. I’m neither pursuing nor fleeing; I’m taken out of myself.

Thank God for that, because “I” can become an exhausting word.


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Futile Defenses

We, barefooted little girls,
One with straight locks, one with curls,
Wandered gravel roads so long
Thinking it would make us strong.

We calloused soft skin of our feet
So nothing hurt from underneath,
As if the worst in store for us
Was rock and bramble, thorny brush.

Now pebbles stuck inside my shoe
Always make me think of you.
Perhaps we should have tried as hard
To toughen up our childish hearts.

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Purple Prose of Horses

The literary greats have contended—-God Himself contends—-the exceptional combination of majestic grace, fire, and power that resides in the sinews of a horse; pulses through his veins and burns in his eyes. In Homer’s Iliad, they are said to be “immortal…of divine stock.” Indeed, the black stallion Bucephalus lives on in the city Alexander the Great named for him.

Muslims honor the equine species many times in the Qu’ran, once quoting Allah’s words, “When God created the horse, he said to the magnificent creature: ‘I have made thee as no other. All the treasures of the earth lie between thy eyes. Thou shalt carry my friends upon thy back. Thy saddle shall be the seat of prayers to me.’”

People of all histories and faiths can agree that there is something special-—almost sacred or mystical-—about these animals that have caused humans to honor them all throughout history, in reality and in myth.
The mighty Prince Hector of Troy was reverently referred to in The Iliad as “Tamer of Horses”, and only those who have spent enough years mingling with these magnificent creatures know how high such a title is; how rare and fierce and kingly.

“A man on a horse is spiritually as well as physically bigger than a man on foot.” Said John Steinback, trying to put into words the empowering ecstasy one instantly finds upon mounting one of these creatures. In another attempt to capture the feeling, William Faulkner wrote, “There is something about jumping a horse over a fence, something that makes you feel good. Perhaps it’s the risk, the gamble. In any event it’s a thing I need.”

It’s a thing I need.

You do not know a certain kind of “raw power” until you have ridden bareback on a partially-green horse as he thunders over the ground, rhythmically surging beneath you, lounging violently with every stride in rebellion against the bridle. He launches his hind hooves up into the air in a buck bursting forth from pent-up energy and you have to throw your body backwards while keeping your fingers tightly entwined in his mane, the locks of coarse hair constricting your fingers. You must lock your legs around his middle until your inner thighs burn; heels down, toes up and feel the jerk of his movements rack your body, threatening balance to the last.

You don’t know an enthralling meaning of the word “thrill” until you’ve barreled over a distance, thighs aching from their grip on a horse’s ribcage and muscles as they swell and retract, flexing and sliding beneath his thin skin and silky coat; the vibrations as each hoof pounds the ground. The speed whips back your hair; it makes your eyes water. Your fingers may grip reins, but it is only an illusion of control. Because, at any moment this powerful beast-—this 1500lbs of compact muscle—-could send you flying from his back if he chooses, in a single movement: a buck or a swift turn; a sudden spook at the way the light reflects on a piece of plastic, or shying at his own shadow like the untamed Bucephalus.

“Have you given the horse his strength? Have you clothed his neck with thunder? Can you frighten him like a locust? His majestic snorting strikes terror. He paws the valley, and rejoices in his strength. He gallops into the clash of arms. He mocks fear, and is not frightened; nor does he turn back from the sword. The quiver rattles against him, the glittering spear and the javelin. He devours the distance with fierceness and rage; nor does he come to a halt because the trumpet has sounded.” –Job 39:19-24

You are riding the static shock from God’s finger that crackles when He touches the earth. That is what it’s like to ride a horse; a huge animal with a wild nature and a mind of its own, allowing you to cling to its back as it runs.

“A gigantic beauty of a stallion,” Says Walt Whitman in Leaves of Grass, “fresh and responsive to my caresses, head high in the forehead, wide between the ears, limbs glossy and supple, tail dusting the ground, eyes full of sparkling wickedness, ears finely cut, flexibly moving. His nostrils dilate as my heels embrace him, his well-built limbs tremble with pleasure as we race around and return.”

To ride a horse is to play with a loaded gun; to risk catching on the bullet that discharges. The beautiful, majestic bullet that sparkles in the sun, so bright you’d hardly mind dying by it if it meant that glittering shard could become part of you. Like it would shine out from inside you, and by it’s glory you too would become glorious. Herman Melville saw this and said, “Honor lies in the mane of a horse.”

You feel as if your heart might swell too large for your chest in those moments as you straddle Chaos itself. In fear—-there is some—-and in determination; in pride half borrowed from the creature, half provided by the courage you know it takes to even try wrestling the beast into submission. In admiration of the animal, and in love for the bond between you; the titanium comradery when your natures have finally synced and you find your jigsaw-fit. Like a puzzle, and every fiber of your being can tell this was what you were meant for. Anything could come and the two of you would face it unflinching—you emboldened by the horse’s strength, and him made confident by having learned to trust in your superior wisdom. And if nothing comes—if the ride goes as expected—there is such sweet harmony in bodies and in consciences, as if both your veins and his have poked through skin and entwined together; as if you share the same blood.

Astride such a comrade as this, how can all the world be anything but a vast, conquerable beauty, visible there between the ears of your friend? How can a breeze sound like anything but sweet whispers ghosting through his flowing mane and tail?

“When I bestride him, I soar; I am a hawk: he trots the air, the earth sings when he touches it; the basest horn of his hoof is more musical than the pipe of Hermes.” –William Shakespeare.


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Something About Airplanes...

I’ve said before that, if I were brave enough to be a stranger person, I would spend more time in airports. I would be content to just wander them, people-watching. The smell of cheap coffee, the bustle, and there's something about those automated loudspeaker announcements I find so industrial yet somehow comforting. I love to fly in the airplanes, too; I love the whole process of travel, as exhausting as it is. When I travel I wear my “alone-smile”, an expression so rare that no one has ever seen it but whatever passing stranger happens to glimpse me. Not even I have seen that smile; I’ve never been able to catch it in the mirror.


My dad had adamantly insisted that I choose an aisle seat, and usually I would follow his advice but this time I timidly rely on my own judgment: a window seat. Why doesn’t everyone stare rapt out their windows for the entire flight? I love the view below, no matter if it’s clouds or the camouflage-like patches of land viewed from above. Take-off is the best part, rushing rushing fasterfasterfaster and whoosh as resistance changes from cement to air and the upward tilt of the plane that pushes you to the back of your seat. Then, in a window seat, you can watch things get smaller and smaller; buildings, city blocks, interwoven highways. It goes from an engulfing, inhabited reality to a child’s model in the space of minutes, finally ending with nothing but flat shapes that make it seem as if the plane flies over some intricately painted floor only yards below. It’s funny, that trick on the vision. Even though I know the world down there is three-dimensional—with depth and volume and contents—from this high up all I see is a flat patchwork floor cluttered with clouds that seem to rest on it like celestial dust-bunnies. I try but I just can’t see the jagged lines of my earth from such great heights. I love it, the change in perception. I imagine myself walking on that flat floor, changing dimensions and becoming flat myself; a paper-girl whose heart is forced to beat sideways like A Wrinkle in Time. Why aren’t people fighting for window seats? I hope I never stop smiling like a child as I stare outside.

My lovely window seat is by an emergency exit. A stewardess approaches; apparently a little extra leg-room comes with a solemn responsibility. She starts explaining, then requiring a response; a promise. To sit here I must agree to assist passengers as they exit the plane in case of emergency. Am I willing and able to assist? I want to say, “I’m not sure; ask me when we’re plummeting from 50,000 feet,” but I just say “yes” along with the people near me and stare at the doors, trying to figure out how to open them. I wish I’d asked to be reseated; this is too much responsibility. It’s too late now, though; she’s a long way down the aisle.


In case of emergency. What would I do in the case of emergency? I can see it happening, the crash. I can see myself actually being rather calm. I’m alone, here on this plane bound from Kansas City to Dallas; no one I love is nearby. So I don’t think I’d scream. What would be the use of screaming? Of that sharp dread in my stomach? What would be the use in doing anything but letting the plane fall? In the rumbling tumbling turbulence I think the only thing I would do is stare at the gas masks falling from the ceiling, the beeping noises signaling emergency fading into the back of my dissociated mind.
It isn’t that I wouldn’t care; it would mean I am in the company of the dying. It isn’t only my life. And I do have many things I want to do before I die. But absent from the body is present with my Lord, and death-by-plane-crash would be quick so I suppose I’d be alright with it. Except for everyone else’s panic; their crying and screaming. I think my attitude would be, “Can’t you just be quiet and let me process this?” I would want quiet so that I could think. To give myself a chance to really know that I am in an airplane about to crash, and figure out how exactly that makes me feel. To mentally prepare myself for the impact. To exchange a few quick words with God. To appreciate the novelty of the event.


Soon, I’m distracted from these speculations by my fellow passengers. Planes are wonderful for people watching. Better than airports or malls even, because you have extended periods of time to make observations. There’s a bald man in front of me. I want to draw on his head. Somehow it vaguely annoys me, his shiny scalp beneath the artificial lighting. Skin shouldn’t be so shiny; it isn’t natural.

Next to me is a fat lady reading a drama novel. Her hair is short and curly, but the ringlets are too perfectly uniform—-she must have had a perm. Her pale skin is freckled, and the freckles match the brown scrubs she’s wearing. Wedding rings sit nestled in flesh around her chubby finger. Her double chin jiggles in the turbulence. The title of her book, “Poor Little Bitch Girl”, features the petite nose and florescent pink lips of a blond woman licking caviar from the tip of her long, perfectly manicured fingernail. The cover is all bright pink and green. One of those soap opera-esque drama novels, those books that are like cotton candy: insubstantially sweet and easy to finish, but ultimately unfulfilling.

There is also an elderly Indian gentleman nearby, staring at me. I smile at him when I meet his gaze. I see that it isn’t a “creepy” sort of stare. It is soft and wistful, not fully present; as if I remind him of a granddaughter he hasn’t seen in a long time and he’s remembering her—missing her. Then the stewardess mistakes my coffee order for his, and we exchange drinks. I smile warmly at him—far more friendliness than a complete stranger usually gets from me—as we make a joke or two about cream, sugar or black.


Yes, I do love to people-watch on airplanes. There are other things too, though; things besides the people and the window seats. I love the knowledge of such swift motion, while it feels as though we are still. We are going somewhere; we have a purpose. A destination, albeit temporary. Flying into a different time zone—one that is an hour later—is even better. It’s as if we’ve flown through some portal in the atmosphere and suddenly, time has passed.


I like when time passes quickly, in general. I like forgetting time and then realizing much more of it is gone than I’d thought. There are times I wish that it would slow down or even stop, but those instances are few and far between. Mostly I want time to pass so that I can get on with it; get going so I can feel as though I’m moving on.

I like sleeping late because it makes the days go by faster. It’s not that I don’t want to live in the days—I do. There is so much to do and love and see and learn and feel; to say, to pray, and even to hate sometimes. It’s not that I don’t want to experience the richness each day has potential for. I just like the feeling of motion; of the passage of time toward something. I’ve not been fond of sitting still lately, nor am I fond of Time sitting still around me, growing fat and bloated with seconds and minutes and hours that keep coming but then stay just to hang stale in the air and it’s only Wednesday.

But, oh, it’s already Wednesday. I suppose I have mixed feelings about the passage of time. It passes though, no matter how I feel about it. None of us can help it that every second of our existence is a step toward the end of our time—our time passing through us. We hurry up and live, and do things, all the while knowing. Maybe that’s why weddings and funerals share a number of similarities. Both are so sacred, so final; and you aren’t supposed to wear white to either event.


No matter what time brings, at least it is moving. It is moving through me, and in it I live and breathe and move move move forward. Because as much as I hate it when time stands still around me, I also hate being still myself.

I was in this rich lady’s house once, and my mother told me that the woman who lived there only had a job because she was bored; that they already had all the money they needed and more. I wouldn’t want to live like that; I wouldn’t want to have reached the destination. I want to always be working towards something; always moving forward. For this reason…ultimately I’m not sure I want a place to call home.


I’m sure this is a prominent way of explaining my fondness for airports and airplanes. They are for going places; they are for forward motion and procedure. They are for flight at breakneck speeds. They are for leaving one place, and arriving at another. They are for journeys of purpose; they are the means to an end.

As of now, I hope to never reach that end. I hope to fly always, only alighting long enough get all I can out of one place. Then I would leave again, flying always to somewhere that is not where I will stay. I’m afraid that if I do reach somewhere to stay—if I do reach that end and cease to make use of the means that so intrigue me—I will just look around and think, “This is it, I guess.” Maybe after a silent spell I would stand there and say, “Now what?”

And hopefully, my answer to myself would be, “To the airport”.


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