speaking stories of us into water
whispers become wanderings
look outward, lean inward
watch raindrops race time
square windowpanes, falling
pooled hope, softened palms
say something about rum rivers
while I drink old coffee
touch lace lines, anywhere
forgive becomes forgotten
think blankets, thick fog
old birds underneath
hidden
forward, backward, pretend
time is the same
warmth seeks warmth
close becomes closer
find me
If I do my job right nobody can tell. Get in. Clean up. Get out. Nobody builds statues honoring my work or carries my symbol around their neck, but it is important. I’m important. The universe needs me.
I tap the tiny brush over the red and blue spots left behind by another sloppy job and remind myself their anger is at themselves and not me. Still, Terrence didn’t have to yell in my face. It’s always urgent. It’s always now. It’s always dire.
“You don’t understand,” he screams. “This can’t be seen! You have to do it now. Right now!”
His breath smells of sour milk and his pupils shrink until they are black pinpoints in a sea of cloudy grey. His lips are two rotted plums. They are all children who break their toys and stomp their feet in disappointment. I make it so they don’t have to face the consequences.
“I’ll take care of it,” I sigh climbing out of bed.
He shows me where to go and slinks away without a “thank you” or a “we couldn’t do it without you.” Most likely he’s drinking it off now with the others and laughing at what he did. He won’t think of me or my work again until his next mistake. His next “right now.”
Their urgency and terror used to excite me. I considered it a thrill to glimpse behind their imposing masks—an honor to be trusted with fear. I’d catch their falling bomb of worry into my hands and watch them transform back into their confident boastful selves. It felt like magic.
Now, I see it differently. They trust me, yes. They never ask if the job is too big or check my work because they don’t see me as equal. It’s the chaos they love not the order. I’m not a trusted friend. I’m the clean-up crew.
I wonder what it would be like to be them? Running through time and space they combine stars, explode worlds, create, destroy, and transform matter with their ever-changing whims. Galaxies rise and fall at their fingertips yet they can’t do what I do. Nobody else can.
Tap. Tap. Tap. I brush away particles of space dust until mistakes become nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. What they don’t realize is nothing, my nothing, is growing larger and larger. The darkness spreads with each mistake they make and can grow faster if I want it to. I don’t have to be careful.
My love for them has held me back, but I’m growing tired. Each harsh word. Each unkind look. Each time they ignore me, it’s getting harder and harder to restrain myself. What happens when I can’t take it anymore? What happens when I stop caring? I will erase them all.
Kat sees the button first. A bright green light tucked into the corner of the wall. It pulses and calls to her. It knows her name.
“Do you know what day it is?”
The voice speaking loudly beside her ear is all blue and has no face. Only eyes. Where is the green? What day is it? It’s not her birthday. At least she thinks it’s not. The voice keeps speaking and moves now to her other side. She can see the button again. It glows brighter and Kat wants to press it. Instead, burning heat presses into her. It travels from her scalp to her toes. It quiets everything.
Time moves. Kat can feel minutes turn into hours. Days, she thinks. A small window to her right remains closed and covered with thick slatted blinds. A parade of blue figures touches her. Pushes things into her. She points at the green button over and over. Nobody answers her soundless question.
“Did you know Tutankhamun died 1,000 years after the great pyramids were built?”
A voice comes from across the room and Kat sees a figure leaning against the wall beside the green button. Clad in blue, his face isn’t covered. He’s got deep brown eyes with thick lashes, a large sloped nose, thin dark lips, and a small trimmed beard flecked with grey. He says his name is Ebi and Kat smells rain and wet earth when she looks at him. She hears hooves kicking sand.
“The Great Pyramid is made up of over 2.3 million stones, weighing 2.5 tons.”
Kat closes her eyes. Two million. Two tons. The majority of the universe is made of dark matter. It’s made of nothing. She opens her eyes and the green button is still there. Ebi is still there. A question vibrates inside her gut and bubbles and bubbles until the words form and come out as a whisper she isn’t sure carries sound.
“What happens if you press the green button?”
Ebi hears from across the room and smiles.
“It releases air in the isolation room, but don’t press it Kat…it will start things over.”
He winks at her. The number of trees worldwide is greater than the stars in our solar system. She once walked in an old-growth forest and felt the trees leaning forward as if wanting to speak to her. She’s not the center. Everything is connected. Don’t press the button. Press the button.
“The Great Pyramid was the tallest building in the world for 3,500 years.”
Ebi’s eyes are still far away but she can see the reflection of a round clock in the black pupils. The second-hand moves too fast. Dangerously fast. Kat tries to match the rhythm by patting the thin mattress with her hands. Sound can create patterns in sand. It can break things apart. A storm bangs against the shuttered window. Knocks loudly. Is Kat making the storm?
“The pyramids originally had a bright white smooth stone casing which sparkled in the sun.”
Ebi holds a thick book in his hands. Hands covered in thin white scars, and slash marks, like etchings on stone walls. Kat pictures those hands knowing true north and finding what is missing. The book opens and closes. Quiet and heat come again and the smell of rain is replaced with metal.
Kat wakes to find the room empty except for the green light. It calls to her. It knows her name. She can’t ignore it any longer and pulls tubes from her arms and a mask from her face. Her feet find the cold floor.
Stumbling and breathing heavily, she crosses the room in two steps. Or is it two plus two steps? She reaches out her fingers and presses the smooth, round surface of the button. Relief comes as darkness. Her body falls onto the hard floor and her head makes a terrible cracking sound. The air smells of nothing at all.
Kat rolls onto her side and presses her cheek into the warm sand. Voices call around her in celebration. Drums pound out a rhythmic beat like raindrops. Hands hook under her armpits and lift her onto a pair of broad shoulders.
“Stay close Kat,” her father says.“There are many here today to see the Pharaoh off and I don’t want to lose you.”
They stand at the base of a giant pyramid gleaming white with a bright gold top. Voices sing around her. Starting over is scary. Kat grabs the small green stone hanging from a gold chain around her neck and presses it tightly.
Author’s note: I spent a few days this week in the hospital beside my sister-in-law. She’s okay and home now, but I was inspired to write this story by a brief conversation with a nurse about Eygpt.
time—
visions confuse night
with day again
sometimes I wander in circles
my eyes tracking the empty
black sky, looking and looking
for your white glowing face
etched by night’s ancient magic
—are you even really there?
whipping backward into myself
there’s nothing and nobody
to blame as these
too empty white walls
keep screaming your name
so loud it vibrates
every swollen trapped cell
moon—
twisted hour hand
turns slowly south
when you see my eyes
staring at your lunar ones
be not afraid you did
anything wrong, for I’m simply
searching for cosmic answers
—can dark transform into light?
drawing with chalk along
sidewalks, chins, knee caps
caught in seclusion’s trap
winding around and around
my neck until breath
stutters while tiny hairs
dance along wobbly legs
isolation—
you stopped time
I started it
blue, green twisting, and wild
maybe you, moon man, can
turn madness and untethered chaos
into an endless bright sea
—do dark craters harbor truth?
dreams used to contain
promises of another tomorrow
and another, but suffocation
robs rainbows their colorful
transformative effect until diving
underground to cool tunnels
relief comes as sound
without him here to dance
*Last weekend I saw the new film “Moonage Daydream.” This poem is my response and tribute to my favorite artist of all time and creative muse, David Bowie. The artwork was created by me.
The same old silver grater, clear
glass bowl, dented wooden spoon used
to make round applesauce cake for
first birthdays
today
made muffins for freshman and senior
year. Instead of watching from your
wooden high chair, bass boomed behind
closed bedroom
doors
while green granny smith apples, bright
orange carrots joined honey, oats, almond
flour for you. Another day of
beautiful childhood
fleeting
before lovesick eyes not done soaking
up all the wondrous firsts, seconds
of motherhood’s dance. Don’t blink they
tell you;
blink
blink
blink
There is a pile of cut yarn outside my bedroom door, and five stuffed animals hang from the bannister having “flying lessons.” Every box from Christmas I put in the garage to break down, is back in the house in various stages of transformation, surrounded by tape, scissors and markers.
The dining room table is home to a puzzle on week three of progress, and a half-completed robot model. Stacks of books fill every flattish surface, teeny-tiny scraps of paper are cut up and have been thrown confetti-style down the halls, and two tiny plants appear to be in the process of being repotted by someone in the bathroom sink.
The state of my house is not good, folks. It is a cluttered mess of intentions and creation. We are a family who likes to do things, make things, get lost in the “thing,” and what we seem to hate the most is admitting the thing is over.
If the puzzle is put away, it means we didn’t finish it.
If the books are on a shelf, they may not get read.
If we clean up the boxes, the fort will never be completed.
We are a family of potential.
I have been fighting this for a long time.
I would walk around the house picking up all the messes, bitching as I do, and feeling the overwhelming sense of futility as I turn around to see several new “projects” erupting behind me.
It was driving me crazy. Ask my kids. I had become the Cleaning Dictator often yelling “take this shit to your room” and “what the hell is this mess?” and “are you kidding me?”
I’d march around in full martyr-mode, always feeling a sense of being overwhelmed or buried by ALL THE STUFF. I’d throw projects away because I’d get tired of seeing them or throw everything into a closet and slam the door to have ONE EMPTY SPACE.
Part of this battle was because my insides were in turmoil and I needed my space to not be. I needed everything organized, because I couldn’t categorize all the messy, dirty feelings which weighed me down and made it impossible for me to move.
Another part was embarrassment, of imaging what people would think if they stumbled into our “in progress” home on a day I didn’t frantically shove things into closets or drawers. They might think I am lazy or I don’t give a shit about my family.
I was losing my mind over it.
I was on the verge of completely squashing my kid’s creativity, because I could not contain it.
I could not stand it.
Then I started writing again.
My writing is a mess; the characters are unformed, stumbling along trying to become real and struggling with the half-story I’ve placed them in. I’m having to slowly uncover the pieces and letting it be a jumble for now, while I figure out how it all fits together.
It almost stopped me completely.
Twice.
I’m still writing.
I’m accepting this mess is part of the creative process, and I’m trying to explore it with patience and curiosity. It’s hard to ignore the unease it brings, but it is necessary. I am not going to just sit down and write a novel. It is a chaotic, disorganized and jumbled process which requires both ignoring my fears and embracing them.
It’s fucking hard guys.
But doing this, being in the trenches, has made me look at the mess of my house, and even my kids, in a different way.
I’ve always been supportive of open play and creativity, actively fighting to provide them the space and time for it; we drive 25 minutes so they can attend a Waldorf school which is in line with these ideals. But at the same time, I’ve been a nagging bitch about the messes which come along with it.
Contradictions are apparently my thing.
There is a big part of me which would love my house to look like Restoration Hardware; seriously, everything in that store is gleaming and beautiful and fucking rad.
But it never will.
People don’t live there.
Duh, right?
I can’t remove the mess, because WE are the mess. I’d be replacing all the little stories they create with their stuffed animals, all the pictures they draw, all the badges and houses and forts…for some idealistic version of a home I’d probably hate.
I want my kids being loud and crazy and wild.
I want them making shit out of everything.
I want my kids to know their ideas are worth exploring fully.
The dishes and laundry are done. There isn’t anything rotting or smelling bad in the house. It is just projects, crafts and imagination exploding out in all directions.
It is the chaos of a creative life.
There is an important lesson for us all to learn about finishing things, cleaning up after ourselves and respecting the space of others. I’m not throwing up my hands in defeat. There is plenty of work to do still, and I’m sure we can get there.
For now, though, I want to stop yelling and allow more space and time for the messy creativity to happen. I want to stop struggling so hard against it, and learn to give things the time they need.
Maybe I can even learn to love the mess as much as I love the kids who create it.
Probably not.
But I can stop how I react and realize how temporary this all is.
So, bring on the Styrofoam sinks:
The random piles of coins:
Whatever this is:
Bring it on.
Because we live here and this is what we do.
He sits a few feet away on the couch. I’m in my comfy chair. Lonely, I reach for my phone.
The next hour goes by. He is lost in the world of the History Channel and me into my little box.
I really want connection.
He probably does too.
But we are tired.
Always so tired.
So instead of asking for the hug I really need, I like photos on Facebook.
Instead of telling him how angry I am about the way a friend treated me, I read the news and feel the hopelessness of it all.
I used to think my cellphone was my friend, helping me stay connected with the people I love.
Now I’m not so sure.
The more hours I stare at its little white screen, the more acutely alone and isolated I feel.
I read a friends post and I know they are sad. I want to put my arms around them and let them cry big tears into my neck. I want to hold them tight, feel the warmth of their skin and let them know they are not alone.
Instead I write, “I’m sorry you’re going through a hard time.” I might add, “<<hugs>>” or “I’ll pray for you.”
Lame.
These are not the ways humans find comfort and connection. Our words are powerful, but eye contact and touch are infinitely more.
There is never time though. We are all so busy.
It seems nobody wants real comfort anyway. Not really. That’s a version of intimacy very few, myself included, even know how to handle.
Better to text a friend a sad emoticon with, “I love you. I’m sorry. Things will get better.”
Maybe share a quote of inspiration or a funny picture.
Typing the words is easy. Saying them and following through are completely different and require much more.
How many times have I saw a post of a friend whose pet or family member has died and I’ve typed, “sorry for your loss, let me know if there is anything I can do”?
Far too many times to even recount.
How many have taken me up on my vague offer of help?
None.
They aren’t going to do that. To ask for help in our culture is to admit you are weak. Americans are supposed to be strong. Pull yourself up. Push past it. Get over it.
We assume if they don’t turn to us, they have someone. I’m sure their spouse or close family is offering all the support they need. I’m sure they are fine.
We tell ourselves they would ask if they really needed something.
We stay hidden behind our devices, safe from really being there for them.
I’ve been told to keep things in perspective, be grateful for what I have and to just choose happiness.
I’m trying.
This week my body is telling me to stop it. I can’t just push it away. I can’t will myself to just be fine. There is no way to reframe the pain I feel in my heart.
Pain is pain.
It’s not competitive. It’s not subjective. It’s not a choice.
What I feel does not have to be explained away or pushed away. I can’t take a pill to make it disappear. I can’t bury it with food or drown it with alcohol. I can’t distract myself away from it with movies, TV or my cellphone.
I’ve tried all of that.
The pain keeps returning and it demands to be felt.
So I’m going to allow myself to slow down again, even though the voices in my head call me “weak,” “pathetic” and “crazy.”
I’m going to be gentle with myself. I’m going to try and be open. I’m going to ask for help.
His chubby little hands clench up into fists and he begins to rub his eyes.
“You getting sleepy,” I say to him.
He responds with a tiny whine. His body curls up and his head, suddenly way to heavy for his body, drops on my shoulder.
I grab my well-worn baby carrier and strap him in. I can feel the tension release immediately. He knows what is coming.
Stepping into my shoes we head outside. It’s fairly crisp and the air smells like logs burning. I cradle his head with one hand and we begin to walk.
We stop under my neighbor’s tree and both look up. A bird is chirping loudly, but I can’t find him in the tangle of yellow and brown leaves. After a moment, my sweet little baby nephew begins to whimper. He looks away from the tree and rubs his face against my chest.
Time to walk on.
I used to know every tree, bush, flower and house in my neighborhood. It was as familiar to me as my own backyard.
The enormous plum-tree that exploded pink flowers all over the sidewalk in the spring followed by loads of squishy plums that my kids loved to collect.
The tiny stone turtle that could only be seen under the rose bushes in the winter after the neighbors cut them back.
The crazy, barking dog that would run at the fence if you didn’t remember to cross to the other side of the street.
The grove of twisty trees that dropped plenty of sticks and little red balls just right for children’s hands and imaginations.
The giant black bees that favored the climbing morning-glory that grew along the fence of the house with the giant trampoline in the backyard.
The house with an abundance of pomegranates growing so far over the fence that you’d be able to pick some in the fall without them noticing.
The brick house that grows giant sunflowers in the summer that we just had to stop and measure ourselves against every time.
The house with several towering pine trees that always provided us with pinecones for our nature table.
As I walk around my neighborhood now, with my nephew sleeping soundly on my chest, I suddenly feel lost.
It all looks so foreign and bizarre.
It’s all so different.
Where did that grove of palm trees come from?
When did that retaining wall go in?
Where are all my memories?
It seems that my neighborhood has continued to grow, just like my kids. While I stay tucked inside, living with sadness and longing for the past, time just keeps moving forward.
It’s all so different.
My babies are giant kids who no longer enjoy walks in the neighborhood with their mother, certainly not strapped to my chest. They are smart, creative, intelligent children who love to play board games, read books, create art and make things out of string. They spend hours away at school each day and hardly seem to need me when I pick them up.
It’s all so different.
As I walk home, I am suddenly struck by everything.
The beauty of the clouds and the vastness of the sky above.
A mass of deep, dark purple flowers growing next to a small ceramic snail.
An arch covered in a rich green tangle of ivy.
A lawn of dark, thick grass that is dotted with five baby pine trees in a star pattern.
A square garden box made of redwood that is growing pumpkins, squash and kale.
I feel like a small child out on my walk in the big, wide world.
I’m amazed at everything.
I pick up a golden leaf that I can’t bare to leave behind; stuck by how soft and cool it feels as I trace the vein pattern with my finger.
I stop and watch a group of blue jays fight in a bird bath and laugh at them.
I see sparks in my neighbor’s garage as he solders something together and I’m excited by what it might be.
When I get home I lay my nephew down to finish his nap and I pick up my Bible. I’m finding my way back to God and I can feel him speaking to me.
“So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” Matthew 6:34
I pray for peace and for God to open my eyes to the beauty around me every day. I pray for forgiveness and strength.
Before I know it, little baby Logan awakes. He stirs sweetly and I quickly go to him. He smiles up at me with his entire body.
I return the smile with mine.
Bridgette Tales 