The Waiting

Her hands
Unblemished
compelling mastery of finger
And touch

Lacy veins trace
Pale white skin
Caress
Respond

Palpitating silence
Desire coursing
Electric path's glow

Only once grasped
Are the callouses felt
The cuts and abrasions
Chafing and worrying
Palm touching palm

I was looking for the hilltop lookout just outside of town, telling myself I wanted to watch the stars. To relax and take in the moon. Of course, all I really wanted was a smoke. After half an hour on backroads, I passed a sign pointing to a remote cemetery, Lady of Lourdes. Somehow, spending the night near the dead suddenly seemed more perfect than continuing my search for the overlook. The trees hugged the roadside, canopying tightly overhead. Lacy branches thickly interwoven, allowing no light to filter through. Finally, I broke through the tunnel to my destination: a weed entangled outpost for the deceased. I pulled in, hoping not to attract the attention of the scattered neighbors of this place I had seen on my way in. Extinguishing my headlights, the vastness of the sky drew me out of my car. The air was laced with the acridness of country farm and pasture land; only adding to the fullness of the night embracing me. I lit one of my precious clove cigarettes, breathing the smoke and silence to the depth of need.

Black Hills Summer 2001:

I listen to their music and I'm soothed. Their land is now my land but the secrets they know of it are lost to me. A lonely wooden flute played by some unseen hand filters through the stereo across the street to the dilapidated houses and forgotten people. I would feel better if someone told me I don't belong here, but they hide behind their souvenir counters as if they are the ones who don't belong. The flute dies away to be replaced by an Indian chant: a wailing, a mourning. One voice alone.

The hands of temptation
Unblemished palms
Compelling mastery of finger
And touch

Only once grasped
Are the callouses felt
The cuts and abrasions
Chafing and worrying
Palm touching palm

Like a drunken rambler, stumbling from one curbside to the next. Intention only half perceived in the confused haze.

Gathering myself for the final plunge in this virtual non-existence. All for communion with dead musicians and widely irrelevant musical language. This should be where I regret my decision; where I finally realize it was not worth the consequences. Elsewhere I could have had a chance at living the valuable life within community. Friends here, arms to touch. A church to look for my elusive salvation. Yet I cannot claim regret as mine. My soul is alive as it never was before just to touch these cold white and black keys. The thrill of beauty destroying silence.

I feel the craziness of summer waking in my veins. (Going from days in the snow in chitown to 80 in the deep South might explain that). Desire unbridled and unfocused and pervading everything. Everything but the matters of the moment. My daily tasks fading in the haze of feverish anticipation. Of what? Never have I had so little reality to look to in my tomorrows. Applications and interviews sent out like impotent feelers in every corner imaginable; little hope substantial in any of these unlikelies. All the rushing passion streaking unchecked towards the precipitous falls of the future.

Remember you are dust
And to dust you shall return

Words spoken in haste
Futile wishes scenting the air
Item cluttered lists
Empty satisfaction
Eros, Filios, Veritas

Dust
to
Dust

What I know is not what I have been taught. What I know is only what I have gleaned from casual conversations, magazine covers, the facadical constructions of television. How then can I feel confident in defining my heritage, what it means to be American? Southern? Female? Perhaps I would not even consider this an awful occurence did I not have a suspicion that there are others in other places that at least know what they are supposed to be. From birth, they know what rites they must pass through in reaching adulthood, whereas I still find myself floundering through the muck of post-pubescent chaos. There is no ritual or cultural marker saying "I have arrived. Now begins something new." In an existence where supposedly anything is possible for me, I still find barriers in my context with no explanation in my known tradition or culture; there for reasons forgotten and lost to me. How then can I hope to combat what I cannot even adequately see and define? There are rules, that is certain, but only discovered when violated. I can't help desiring the rules to be laid out clearly before me, so I at least have a choice in violating or obeying. Somehow I would prefer the strictness of generations of custom to the infathomable white void called "America".

Words irrelevant
To the ensuing demise
Of hope
Of desire
Arms wrapped around your frame
Praying sleep for the night
To wake again tomorrow
Breathing another day
Again and again
Reaching a day
You no longer
Find the darkness
Consuming
Reaching
Icy waters
Stinging
Sleep now
Tomorrow will come
Someday

Two guy from the West side
Brothers from the conversation
Diametrics to look at them
Picture: stalky kid, pale side of tan
White sox hoody and coveted sneakers of the month
The other: bittersweet darkness
Shoulder bag from Gap
Skull cap from Gap
Shoes from somewhere too nice
For me to even know about

The leatherclad settled a 2.5 million case today
The lean city kid
Interjecting his own lawyer difficulties:
Caught (allegedly) with illegal substances
Settling for a deal he can't
Afford to negotiate
Hanging on to his job
On a wisp of held breath

The downtown lawyer
Gradually melted to his
Old West side self
Only glimmerings of the Loop
Tainting his drawled slang

The effort well-rewarded
As the two became brothers
Reunited regardless
Of the economic excuse
Used so often to explain
The inexcusable

It should not be: country born and raised but hopelessly in love with this city. Yet how else could I, sleep deprived beyond my limits, find such rest and wakefulness simply riding the train and wandering the streets of Chicago? Whatever future I might have here is vague at best, but this does not seem to matter. Just let me be here, existing with these people and in these neighborhoods, and it is enough.

Incense saturated the air. Lingering long after in my hair and skin. The five of us gathered there struggled hopelessly with the ancient chants of the church; no voice strong enough to drown out the weaker. I could hear startlingly clear one voice I've spent endless nights trying to forget. Here in this place with no escape. Finally not desiring one. We gathered in a circle for the Sacrament; each passing the bread and wine to the next. With such a small gathering, the communion of this act was somehow more stark. Seeing every mouth that touched the cup distinct and unique; feeling the connection as I also received the wine. We had all been in the congregation the day before, all taken the Sacrament then. But now, the communion was a personal act. A will to connect with these particular people. Maybe I will not process any further in a direct manner with John, but it is enough to share in this rite.

To find healing in such blandness is a strange thing. Small talk, usually the bane of relational growth, suddenly the source of comfort. I decided before I saw him that I would not ignore him this time. Eye contact a pivotal decision. It was mere seconds and very little actual content, but peace on the other side. There is very little chance that there will be more in the future with the physical and emotional distance. Yet, I feel conclusion. Perhaps the night has finally found its dawn.

Past exhaustion dazed, I wandered through Borders tonight with no motive but to spend passing moments with the friend I never get to see. Thwarted, I found my way to the cd racks and found relief in the album samplers over the headphones. I listened to a soundtrack from a movie about miscommunication and lost people and let the sound envelope me and my tiredness. In a disconcerting fashion, I began to see the other store wanderers moving in sync with the music only I could hear. The ambiance of the piece in my headphones taking control of the entire environment. Of course, none of them realized that they had become part of my soundtrack. In fact, they had become inconsequential in my private listening, providing mere embodiment to the reality I heard. This is the precise experience I have every time I touch the keys, audience or not. The music becomes the only valid reality as all else is reduced to nothingness.

"...But it was the singing that pulled me in and split me wide open. I could sing better here than i ever had before. As part of these people, even though I stayed in the doorway, I did not recognize my voice or know where it was coming from, but sometimes i felt like I could sing forever....I took a seat in one of the folding chairs, off by myself. Then the singing enveloped me. It was furry and resonant, coming from everyone's very heart. There was no sense of performance or judgement, only that the music was breath and food..."

Anne Lamott - _Traveling Mercies_ excerpt

On a good day.

It seems possible to me that loneliness might be the single greatest factor in any of our actions. Willing to forfeit everything we theoretically value in our lives and in ourselves just to have another to be with. How unfortunate then that even gaining such companionship, we should still find ourselves alone. Daily, I am surrounded by a host of people; most of whom actually know more than my name. We chat. We discuss. And for those times in my day, I forget somewhat. Once away from their voices though, my own voices scream out in rage at being alone once again. Alone with the thoughts I cannot silence and the pain I cannot diminish. It is in these times that I feel the peril of loneliness. That I know such insatiable demands can do nothing but drive me to even more destruction than I have already known. One voice states through clenched teeth that I will not be dominated by this. Somehow, I will live as if I am normal. Happy. Another shrieks above the rest: give me rest! No matter what the penalty.

Beware.

Road out Ahead.

We all had blisters by the end of the first week. One girl had wrapped her feet completely in duct tape hoping only to kill all sensation whatsoever. We were all huddled around our breakfast fire hoping the dwindling pile of sticks would be enough to get our water boiling. Upon waking, our two guides had informed us we would have to hike farther today than we had previously attempted in order to reach our destination. They did not tell us that we were making a complete circuit through the woods rather than heading straight for the ultimate goal of Lake Superior. We did have to spend eighteen days on this trip after all. And we only got a map of one square mile at a time. As yet, Lake Superior had made no appearance. I felt the emptiness in my own eyes catching the exhausted emptiness in each person I looked at across the fire. We would not be having a pleasant walk today. I should also ammend the implication that "guide" gave to the two with us. More like dispassionate guardians. It became evident that their self-designated task was philosophical interpretation of our experiences in the wilderness. I marveled that one of them would be attempting one of her explications in the face of our present apathy. She began talking about the trees around us, the fallen logs some of us sat on. Point: analogy. Left as found, a log or a tree has no capacity for anything but its own fibers. Flesh. But with the heat of a fire or the sharp edge of a knife, it is possible to carve the pieces into vessels. Emptier in itself, but potential for containment. The greater the carving, the greater the capacity.

I remember very well sitting there and wishing I could desire such a thing. Meeting apathy where I sought ardor. Between then and now, I have known moments where the apathy receded. Praying for the scoring that might leave a greater space within me to be filled. Exhausted in this moment, all I see is the emptiness left in the blade's wake. What is to fill this? Where is the comforting promise in the moral of my leader's tale?

"No worst, there is none. Pitched past pitch of grief,
More pangs will, schooled at forepangs, wilder wring.
Comforter, where, where is your comforting?
Mary, mother of us, where is your relief?
My cries heave, herds-.ong; huddle in a main, a chief
Woe, world-sorrow; on an age-old anvil wince and sing-
Then lull, then leave off. Fury had shrieked 'No ling-
ering! Let me be fell: force I must be brief'.

O the mind, mind has mountains; cliffs of fall
Frightful, sheer, no-man-fathomed. Hold them cheap
May who ne'er hung there. Nor does long our small
Durance deal with that steep or deep. Here! creep,
Wretch, under a comfort serves in a whirlwind: all
Life death does end and each day dies with sleep."

-Gerard Manley Hopkins

It was a strange dream; a dream of a dream. Waking within the dream, I felt the ghost of the man I had dreamt lying down beside me. His invisible weight pressing down the mattress; electric fear crawling my skin and paralyzing. The dreams used to be more explicit. I could feel his skin, the ridges of his fingertips against mine. I knew the face and the reason. Only after much unraveling of these nighttime mysteries am I now able to discover his persistent presence. Where shall I find the means of exorcism at last? Shall I travel across this country in an attempt to cleanse the various places of most concentrated memory? Of course, why should such a journey provide what two years of entirely removed experience have not? Perhaps there comes a time when the memories and the spirits of the past must finally be accepted as integral. As much a part of me as my skin. Perhaps healing does not allow forgetting after all.

Skin deep the extent of our potential
Intimacy guilding the edge of hope
The Other a creation of the imagination
Never known away from Self

Known as true
I still choose to touch you
To know what I can
To imagine your imaginings

On too little sleep and incapacitating stress, the crisis should be expected. Perhaps even disregarded. Yet currently, it may only be outwaited. Sitting heavy in my chest, reluctant to leave with my hasty arguments. Walking down the stairs outside, I avoided the glare of the full moon's direct gaze. Looking down, I found a miniature of Her perfect orb in the rainwater left from the recent torrents. This has reminded me of something. Not the solution, but the courage to say I am waiting this one out...

"Insight held her tongue for months, leaving me breathless in blank apathy. The vision of an inscape now full-formed faced me one night in a church. Incense creeping from pew to pew, wafting incarnate holiness. My body reflected the satiated stillness of the place, only my eyelids giving their quivering betrayal. The hushed calm seductive and lethal. A Sunday school tale brought to horrifying reality: Lit evanescently, no more than by a splash of stars and shots of lightning, my body hung between surfacing breath and peaceful surrender. The sea my placenta of death. Only perceiving a gentle swaying led my eyes to the pock-marked thrashing of the surface. Surrounded by a cacophony of waves, two feet stood solidly planted above. A hand I recognized penetrated the surface, reaching toward my suspended frame. What He asked was intolerable. Grasp, breathe, fight. No. Here is quiet. Here is rest...Again, I went to the church where I had seen myself submerged in death. Just as before, the silence pounded my body as the scene opened before me. Still walking in boundless night. Yet not alone. I first caught a glimpse of them in the now glassy waters at my feet. Stars as limitless as the sea that bore them. The limitation of despair is that only one thing may be seen at a time. My mistake had been forgetting the hint of light necessary for the existence of my night. A marriage of colors that must be forever true. Now it stood arrayed before me as it had always stood. My eyes opening to take it in."

Excerpt from "Blue"

Maybe it's been the rain, but I feel like I haven't smiled in weeks. Yet at the moment I find myself settling into a nice tired haze with feet sore as hell. This afternoon, I danced for the first time in...years? Dance used to consume me; ballet some of my earliest memories. It still does consume I think, just in a different way. There is simply some need in me to feel the fluidity of bone and muscle; the touch of a partner's hand at the waist. For whatever time the music is playing and my feet are moving, I love this body that I usually hate. Emboldened by beauty. Grace in the Ramba.

Driving down my street tonight, I found myself taking notice of a house that holds memories I have held deep in the recesses. Memories of my childhood that I don't make habit of speaking about. Or writing about. The garage door was open to the dark rainy night, with a fluorescent light illuminating the inside. I could smell my memory of that place as I drove past, and I could see her face. She lived on this street for such a short time, yet those are the days that come so vivid to me now. There was a dartboard on the wall of the garage, oily carpet pieces on the floor. She was telling me about the boy on the block who had french kissed her. We were nine? Ten? He was like that I remember. Wearing condoms to hide and seek games on the block...just in case. One time in my room, she shoved her shorts' leg up to show me the hand print burned on her thigh by her mother's spanking earlier that day. I saw in her eyes, this was not the first. But more. We stayed up nights giggling together, playing dress-up. Even still, my best friend on the block and I decided she was clingy. Decided we as "us" did not want to be with her anymore. Let her deal with her shit; we had had enough. And we wrote her a letter to tell her so with the excruciating cruelty that only children possess in such a pure state.

My parents saw her recently: a pretty, young waitress in a nice country cafe. Married. Radiant they said. And I know none of us can dredge up all the terrible things we have hidden in the unreachable realm of our childhoods, but tonight, I wished for a moment that I had not been that child. Knowing apathy and callousness in the raw stages of my development. Knowing tonight that these things had always been and will always be in my essence.

I have often left the Bible from my frustration with the endless riddles. Stories and images with no apparent solution, though obviously intended to mean something. From a 21st century perspective, I suppose I expect such a thing when reading through the Old Testament of course, but to find it most prominently in the recorded words of Christ is maddening. The one chance that God decides to give us to interact directly with at least some part of Him, and still we get metaphor and simile. Yet, what if even Christ was only able to perceive the words of God in these endless parables. Theologians maintain that Christ was fully human, so is it possible that His vision was obscured by these physical limitations? In point of fact, how could it not be obscured if He was indeed Man. Certainly there would be no sense of suffering or empathy if He was consistently immersed in the knowledge and experience of the eternal. The question then becomes, just how much was He explicitly aware of. Perhaps, He revealed simply what He saw, discerning only vague images of the destiny He was born to. Could it be possible that He shared in our humanity to the point that He was only able to see His eternal reality in the fleeting images given in the stories He told? Even as He said "I will destroy this temple and raise it again in three days", did He really know the temporal reality of those words? Knowing He was born to sacrifice Himself somehow, did He know what kind of death that would mean? Surely His struggle in the night was made so unbearable by the not knowing. Steeled to face whatever these prophecies and piecemeal revelations must mean for Him, yet driven to the point of madness with nothing yet clear enough to grasp. Later, standing in front of the boiling crowd, what despair must He have experienced with the first utterance of "crucify him!". Already commited, yet for a moment almost willing to abandon it all for escape and peace. And the utterances on the cross, a verse from Isaiah, another from Psalms: these always seemed contrivances somehow. But maybe he discovered them in His mind as He battled for meaning in His pain, only in those moments understanding His part in the riddle. Only then seeing that David's pen had captured centries before words for this moment, this moment when He discovered even the meagre glances of His Father completely removed from Him. Probably not even such a full-formed conception as he hung there, but words rising from the depths that He suddenly knew to be His words in that moment.