Smoke

I can’t remember the first time I saw her. Mama says I screamed and fussed when she tried to pick me up. Looking at photos of her then, I can’t justify my reaction. A svelte figure clothed in the latest fashions with honey blond hair dancing in ringlets around her waist. She looked like a movie star. I only saw her once without makeup. It was as if a mask had been removed and I was left staring. Thousands of lines spidered their way around her face, some pencil fine, some engraved by chisel. Her eyes were tired, her face old and haggard, looking all of her seventy-two years, not the thirty-some she pretended to be.

She gave me my first cigarette when I was ten. Lady Eleanor, those were her brand. Always there, long and white between her lips. She asked me once whether anyone had taught me that smoking was bad for me. I nodded. Mama was always saying that. “Did they ever tell you why?” I nodded. Mama said that smoking killed you. “Come here, boy.” I scooted closer. Her long red nails took the cigarette from her mouth, flicked the ashes in the tray, then handed it to me. “Here.” I held it uncertainly before placing it in my own mouth and taking a breath like she had always done. A taste of lipstick and smoke filled me. I coughed until I nearly choked. “See now? That’s why you don’t smoke.” Her nails took the cigarette back from my trembling hands and replaced it to her lips. Taking a long drag, she blew an elegant line of smoke in my direction. I coughed. She only smiled.

She taught me my first swear words later that year. Shit. “Every boy needs a good vocabulary.” I fell in the icy lot after church that Sunday. Goddammit. Mama spanked me. I told her she had taught it to me. Mama’s eyes flamed the whole drive and she marched up the stairs the minute we got home. I could hear them talking, mama’s voice angry, hers calm, almost careless. “Every boy his age knows those words, Nadine.” “Not my boy.” She came downstairs, circled in her widows’ veil of smoke.

There’s no veil for her now, only a cold mint gown and the smell of latex and antiseptics, of approaching death. The spunk has gone out of her eyes, the sass out of her voice. She sleeps all of the time, her breath rattling in her chest, dry and labored. A dozen tubes and wires protrude from her, prolonging life, postponing the inevitable. Sometimes I wonder why they bother to draw out her pain. It’s silent. Silent save for the constant hum and whir of the machinery surrounding her. Mama cries in the waiting room. I sit by her bedside. I wonder if she can feel me holding her hand.

All of the guests are downstairs. I don’t feel like talking. I lock my suitcase shut and lay the garment bag on top of it. My good suit is in there, worn only for weddings and funerals. Three days ago, mama hung up the phone. She didn’t cry, just bundled up in her overcoat and braved the icy street to say goodbye one last time. We lowered her casket today. It was surprisingly heavy for the wisp of a woman they laid in it. I’ll return to college tomorrow. Mama will go back to work. Life will go on. But not for her. Never for her. Slowly I climb the stairs to her room. Smoke and perfume hang heavy and stale in the air. A strangely comforting combination. Kneeling by her bed, I’m finally able to say the goodbye that had choked in the hospital; my goodbye to the woman that frightened me, yet loved me as completely as her own son. My goodbye to grandma.

 

[also on my DA.  let me know what you think.]

Phantasmic

Quietly there it sits, passed by daily, each mind absorbed in its own tiny thought. Little they think of it, little they care to know its secrets. But I know. I have been there. I, gripped by insatiable thirst of curiosity, I have opened its doors, descended its rough hewn steps, discovered what lies therein. Naught but a supply closet to they that pass in ignorance. I know it better, for I know its truth.

Driv’n by curiosity, come with me. Grip steel handle with tentative hand. With fugitive eye yet resolute, with sharp twist as yet with dread, throw wide its door. Glance with apprehension at the darkness descending. Descend then yourself. Fear not the gentle click of the heavy door behind you. The way is not shut. Take each stair with falt’ring step; see the dim glow before you. Reach then level ground, wond’ring at the narrow corridor before your. Note the soft light, alternating pockets of glowstones, a wonder to behold. See with some fear the darkened passages branching away, but stay your lighted course. Walk on. Walk on many a step. Become lost in the confusion of the twisting line. Now left, now right. Now circling back on itself as would appear, yet moving ever forward. Pause to feel the draft, cold and dry, whisp’ring your fears to you, “turn back. Return to the safety of daylight. Turn back.” Press on. Approach the source. Now stand in awe of the cavern before you. Stand in awe of its vastness, its expanse, its glitt’ring walls where embedded lie the riches of empires, long forgotten. Wonder at its beauty. Let your eyes be slowly drawn to the far end of the cavern where stand two pillars, twin and massive in design. See the light stretched between, purest sapphire. Touch it. Hard and cool, transparent as glass. See the shapes that move beyond. Forms as air, white, transparent as ethereal spirit. Shapes of time and place long forgotten, distant past and far thrown future. Kings and princes, empires lost, the elect and lowly thrown together, reflected shadows of time. Stand entranced. Be not aware as the self is slowly drawn through the light. Blink in surprise. A new world.

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While sitting in the science center yesterday, waiting between classes, I noticed a closet that had escaped my notice before then. And thus my imagination sprinted off on an adventure.
The funny thing is, as I was writing it down, one of the profs came and opened it and stuck something inside. So I have seen the insides…. and it’s not what I thought it was.
Comments are strongly encouraged. I’ve never written in this style before, so I’m interested to know if it “works”.

also on my DA

Now I Become Myself

So the following is something I wrote first semester of my freshman year and posted on Facebook. Since then, a couple of my friends have read it and left comments expressing great confusion over what I was saying.

What do you think?

Well, call me a traitor if that you will, but I have found a reading from the Intersections book that I like and that makes sense. It’s “Now I Become Myself” by Parker J. Palmer. And so I muse upon it:

That is quite a bit to chew on. Yet it makes perfect sense. It makes sense that we were not created to become, but that we were created as we are to be. If God is outside of time, then he can see the entire continuum of human existence. We are contained in time; therefore, we see things as past, present, and future. What we see as broken by time, God sees as one large present. I AM. It is all happening now. It is difficult for our time-constrained minds to grasp this, but I think it is true. To God, we do not become, we are. To use Palmer’s example, one is not created to become a writer, one is a writer. The fact that we are contained by time makes it seem as though we are becoming. Therefore, we spend so much time focusing on what we will be, that we neglect who we are. We are so buried under the will and needs of the world, allowing the world to dictate to us who we “are” and who the world wants us to be, that we lose sight of who we truly are, and indeed, whose we are.

“Now I become myself. It’s taken
Time, many years and places;
I have been dissolved and shaken,
Worn other people’s faces…”

Worn other people’s faces….. I can identify with that. How many times do I feel like I am wearing a mask, someone else’s face? Take a good look. Is that really me, or someone that I am trying to be? And yet that mask is so hard to peel away. Peel away like an orange to reveal the fragile center. Or perhaps an onion, to reveal one more layer of the world that I’ve clung to. When you’ve finished, will there be anything left? Perhaps, perhaps like a peach, peeled away to reveal the hard seed at the core of its being. The seed that must die to live. The seed that must die to the notion that it is a seed and become what it is. A tree.

NOW I become myself.

Maybe I shall muse upon it some and attempt to write a rationale of my thought process. I admit, I only know what it means because I know what I’m trying to say. So now my challenge is to put it into words that others can follow and understand. A great challenge indeed.

Apple Tree Writings

‘Tis a gorgeous day out, don’t know if you’d noticed. It’s warm, but there’s a deliciously cool breeze running over all the world. It whips the corn about so that it sounds like a faint echo of the ocean. The apple tree rustles delightfully as though it were as glad as I am to be alive, even if it has no apples to bear. The cold snap we had a while back saw to that. Pardon me, I lied. There is one little round, green apple hanging from a branch not far from where I perch. It probably won’t amount to much, but it does have such nice potential.

Summertime is my favorite time. There’s so much color and life to be found in the world. While riding my bike this morning, I caught the most brilliant flash of blue out of the corner of my eye. There, winging its way across the field, was a pretty little blue bird. It may well have been a Jay (I couldn’t see much in the way of markings at that distance), but I would rather think of it as a blue bird. It’s more poetical and fit the morning better.

You know, as much as I detest the cold and am one for the warm sunshine I’m enjoying my sit in the shade. Even if this tree branch is getting a bit hard, and even if I do keep having to flick spiders off of me. I’ve not been here but twenty minutes and that’s the third I’ve sent careening to the ground. I do like spiders, but they’ve a nasty habit of dropping on me from nowhere and startling me, such that my first, last, and only reaction is to swat them into next Tuesday. “Act in haste, repent at leisure”. Sigh.

Running

Look.

Do you see her?

That girl over there, running alone.

The lone she-wolf, lithe and sleek, with no care in the world. No thought but the steady rhythm of her run. Her motion in time.

Do you know why she runs?

For the steady pulse of the ground beneath her feet.

For the adrenaline rush; the endorphin kick. “Endorphins are hormones secreted by the pituitary gland in response to physical stress. These hormones are known to block pain, decrease appetite, decrease anxiety and induce feelings of euphoria. ” She is high.

For the pain. The physical pain blocks all the emotions she has been holding inside. It reminds her she is alive, she can feel. Others cut. She runs.

Do you know why she runs alone?

She has no pack. On a campus of 1600 and in a city of 9832, she is alone.

Do you see her?

That girl in the mirror.

She looks nothing like me.

Her smile shows no pain.

Her eyes are beautiful and clear. There is no tension.

See how she walks. So confident and sure of herself.

See how she tilts her head. So inviting. Get to know her, she’s like nothing else.

So why does she walk alone in her confidence? Could it be that this is just a mask to hide herself? To blind others to her pain? Could it be that underneath she is just as insecure as you?

A Moment of Understanding

So a while back I ranted about how I hated being forced to write in the styles of other people, but I think I understand it now. The way I understand it may not quite be the way others do, but here goes: Why do I never complain that I have to do mathematics a certain way? Why do I never complain that I’m having to copy the “styles” of Euler or Newton? Because it’s accepted fact that that’s just the way you do it. You can’t very well learn to do math by any other means. In a way, the same is true of writing. How else will you discover how to write if you don’t first emulate the writings of others? Oh, but in writing there is supposed to be a freedom to write what is on one’s heart and mind. Just because I am taking Interstate 218 in the same direction as 50 other people, does that mean that our destination is the same? No. I have my business in one town, they have theirs in 50 others. What I’m trying to say is that, even though I may be traveling the same path as another writer, it doesn’t mean that I’m not free to have my own destination, my own end in mind. Instead of viewing the template of another’s writing as a tight confining box, I should view it as a large fenced meadow. I am free to explore and play and have my fun within that meadow. After all, is not “my style” just those bits and pieces I’ve borrowed from others? I think the way to get around it would be to incorporate “my style” into the style that I’m being asked to write in. That way, it’s completely mine yet I’m still fulfilling the assignment. So there’s my “eureka!” moment for the day.

Hope?

Well. I haven’t posted on here in a few days. 12 to be exact. I really haven’t had anything to write about. Life is a bore and my creativity in the writing department has been at a minimum. That, and a recent comment on here has made me question whether I really have anything to say that others would like to read.

It’s interesting, in a way. Somehow a little sad.

Which made me wonder if people are really all that interested in reading a sad blog. I don’t try to be sad. I try to write happy thoughts, though I know a couple haven’t really been what I would consider happy. I guess my blog is a reflection of me. I was happy before I came to college. I had my First Boyfriend Ever, I had the World’s Greatest Job (umpiring little league baseball), and I was über pumped for my Exciting Freshman Year of College. Well, I still have FBE (who is the most wonderful guy on the face of the planet!), my job ended with the baseball season, and college is not what I thought it would be. Everybody says that they’re the “best years of your life”. HAH! By whose thinking? This year has most certainly not been the best of my brief nineteen years on this planet. I have learned things about myself that are good things to know, but are rather depressing :

#1. Music Theory is not my forte (pardon the pun). Which is sad, cause I wanted to be a band director.

#2. “When the going gets tough”…. I drop out. I quit. I throw up my hands and say “I can’t do it!”

#3. I am a loner. If no one approaches me, I will remain alone. Most of the time I’m quite content to be alone, but sometimes it gets rather depressing to think about the fact that I’ve been at college for nearly a “year”, and I’ve made no real friends. I’ve got a list of people who I’d like to be friends with. People who seem cool and nice and intelligent, but who I don’t know how to approach, how to talk to.

#4. I don’t know what I want in life, I don’t know where I’m going.

Jeremiah 29:11 is a small comfort :

“For I know the plans I have for you”, says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope”.

“…for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.” Those are happy, hopeful words right there. Those are words of promise, words I can cling to and know that no matter what else may occur in my life, God will come through. And I do cling to them. It’s just that sometimes my grip is a little looser, my faith a little weaker.

The Bible is filled with such verses to cling to :

We were crushed and overwhelmed beyond our ability to endure, and we thought we would never live through it… but as a result, we stopped relying on ourselves and learned to rely only on God.

- 2 Corinthians 1:8-9 NLT

Because I, your God, have a firm grip on you and I’m not letting go. I’m telling you, “Don’t panic. I’m right here to help you”. Do you feel like a lowly worm, Jacob? Don’t be afraid. Feel like a fragile insect, Israel? I’ll help you. I, God, want to reassure you. The God who buys you back, the Holy of Israel. I’m transforming you from worm to harrow, from insect to iron. As a sharp-toothed harrow you’ll smooth out the mountains, turn those tough old hills into loamy soil. You’ll open the rough ground to the weather, to the blasts of sun and wind and rain. But you’ll be confident and exuberant, expansive in the Holy of Israel.

- Isaiah 41:13-16 MSG

Do you feel like a lowly worm, Emily? Don’t be afraid.

Feel like a fragile insect, Emily? I’ll help you.

The God who buys you back. Those are such powerful words. For each time that I’ve sold myself as a slave to sin, God buys me back. He buys me back. ME. This lowly worm, this fragile insect. Such love. Such amazing love. Amazing grace, amazing love, amazing God, that saved a wretch. ME. Thank God, He never lets go.

It’s Friday, but Sunday’s a comin’.