Every once in awhile, I come across something that rings so loudly as a One True Thing that I am made slightly ill by the reverberations.
In choosing my life in print, I tend to skew toward YA stuff, of course, and it’s easy enough to target that I am reliving, relieving, regretting, wishing. And of course, it’s also the writing/literature I choose because I just like it, it’s a funny, quirky time of life when one is free to do just about anything and go any direction without fear.
But.
Shouldn’t every time of life be like that? And so, I found this latest Flickr/Ficktion.ning to be one of those queasy reverb times when I am sort of wall-eyed and nauseas from a good clock on the head. This is me: this is the me on the chasm, on the lip of a great big crack in the earth. This is me, for the nine millioneth time, drawing back from the crack because I’m not sure whether I would fall in or up or down.
Please, God, this is me for once taking a great big leap.
Sandstone
6.9.07
“I have not ceased being fearful, but I have ceased to let fear control me. I have accepted fear as a part of life, specifically the fear of change, the fear of the unknown, and I have gone ahead despite the pounding in the heart that says: turn back, turn back, you’ll die if you venture too far. “ — Erica Jong
Safe upon the solid rock the ugly houses stand:
Come and see my shining palace built upon the sand!
“Second Fig,” 1922 – Edna St. Vincent Millay
I am muted by desire, wavering here, on this freeway overpass. If I took just a few steps up, grasped the edge of the cyclone fence, I could be right out over the traffic, at the end of my world. The wind, which teases soundlessly, would shrill in my ears, making a malevolent tangle of my hair. If, If. I won’t do it, though. I’m only here for symbolic reasons. My therapist friend, Bev, says I need to be “in the wind” more often, and learn to enjoy it. Bev says I should play with blocks of sandstone, holding them and carving at them, letting them crumble and shatter beneath my hands. Bev says that art should learn to live with impermanence. Bev should’ve been a Buddhist.
It is windy today, and the poisonous clouds of oleander along the freeway are thrashing wildly. I squint down at the ribbons of hazy asphalt, then squeeze my eyes shut to block out the endless rush of cars. This is a stupid place to stand. If it weren’t for Bev, I wouldn’t be here.
Bev says that my random destructive tendencies are a result of my inability to cope with chaos. Bev says I have to “face my fears,” and let go of my death grip on my life. Bev says that once I see that every life is at the mercy of the Fates, at the mercy of the winds of change, I’ll be better able to understand my place in the universe.
Of course, Bev could be wrong.
What could happen is that I will stand here in the wind, and realize that I am a speck of dust in the universe, and that is my place. What could happen is that I will realize that nothing I plan may happen, that I spend too much of my life making lists of things marked ‘Eventually’ and ‘Someday’ and that I wrestle each day to convince myself that eventually and someday are guaranteed. What could happen is that I may realize that everything I do doesn’t matter, that chaos is the way of the world. What may happen is that I come down from this perch, screaming.
Instead, I think I will just tear up my university applications.
They will take longer to fall than I would.
He wandered off the Interstate in search of a cold drink and a clean restroom when he passed the brown clapboard building with the words “Friends of Bill, Meet 7:30 Weeknights,” in faded letters on the marquee.
Friends of Bill. He could be a friend, too, though he held none of the requisite addictions to qualify. Decisively, he circled back, found a diner that served hearty portions of meatloaf and plain brown bread, then, finishing, strolled slowly through tree-lined streets, looking up through gold dusted air, listening to the quiescent sounds of a small town settling in for the evening.
The building smelled faintly of spaghetti dinners and mothballed clothing; an old Elks Lodge or community hall. The “NO SMOKING” sign predicted the air filled with the familiar blue haze in the corridor, as desperate lungs took in their last tar-laden breaths. Anonymous faces old and young drifted in from the gold touched evening. A coffee urn dispensed a blackish, brackish brew, a liquid replacement for the courage so many needed to attend each night, and he took a bracing sip.
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
The words to the Thomas Simmons prayer, murmured in soft cadence with the man beside him, relaxed him. A feeling of relief swept over him as the meeting slid through the familiar paces – he had been here before, and done this before. He had never stayed so long, and friendly eyes turned to him as introductions were made.
I’m Mitch, he thought, choosing a name at random. Or Jason. Gordon. The names stuck in his throat, and he averted his face as the Anonymous began to speak. They would not withdraw compassion for his pseudonym he knew. That travesty a hundred thousand others had already taken up and worn as a mask, the real Mitches, Jasons and Gordons caped in opaqueness as Bobs, Mikes and Dans. Only when they were able to discard their falsehoods – it was their addiction to that which held them – could they reclaim a real identity. He would not suffer for that untruth, but from others, worse ones. His presence here was the greatest lie of all – he had the courage to change nothing.
It was easier, with a razor, than she had expected.
After all, it was a word already branded in pain on her soul.
‘If,’ always followed closely by ‘only.’
Enough of regret. She would make a bit of ink when she had finished, out of walnut hulls, charcoal and the like and rub it into the narrow chasms of opened flesh. The red weals would heal, but the scar would remain. Like a prayer on her skin, she would be reminded, and throw her dreams out further, to arc beyond the gravity of the reality of her life. And, if she breathed the word, and lived it, and dreamed it long enough, she would break free of her little orbit, and maybe her own wobbling star would shoot out into a new trajectory.
She needed to feel the weight of a new gravity, if only she were not afraid.
If.
So. IF is now the property of The Skin Project and was taken by Flickr photographer Miss Hagg. This evocative photo will likely be the Ficktion.ning subject of a number of other stories found with: The Gurrier, Ms. Teaandcakes, Elimare, Chris, Aquafortis, Valshamerlyn, and Miss Mari.
Every once in awhile I write a story that seems like a bit too little like fiction, and a bit more like throwing up. I think I need a good lie down now. If this has been more information than you needed, that’s what you get for reading the fine print.