We are citizens of the Universe. Feeling like we’ve been
here before.
Energy waves. Vibration. Attracting and repelling other
energy.
It’s difficult to remain connected—centered, but even more challenging
to rediscover connection once it’s been lost because this existence requires a
measured amount of disconnect to function.
The great trick is learning how to disconnect without
becoming desensitized. To take that leap of faith that propels you beyond what
you know.
Maybe it’s a new job.
Taking a different route to work.
Or forcing yourself into an uncomfortable situation.
Whatever it is, you’re never sure in the moment, but recognize
it once it has passed because you feel regret for not letting go and allowing
the Universe to take control.
Why are we so afraid of giving up?
So content with comfort?
Stuck in this perpetual return. Die. Come back. Die. Come
back. We die again and again and again. So tied to the fears of this physical
world that we’re unable to break free and simply be.
And so, we are left with fleeting instances of déjà vu.
We walk past the boat harbor. Sailboats bob in the bay.
Purple and yellow flowers line the sidewalk as we pass the water treatment
plant. They are not enough to take the mind and nose away from the stench, but
the smell doesn’t bother us. It’s something we have come to know as home. I
think of the waste—from people and pets, from all that we consume—running through
pipes and filters. Water getting clean again, running back through more filters
and pipes. Running out of hoses. Filling glasses, bathtubs, and ice cube trays.
Drip, drip, dripping from leaky faucets and seeping into our dreams at night.
“Look! Look!” Oogie shouts, pointing toward a flock of
herring gulls soaring overhead. They move over the harbor and the playground,
past the bandshell toward Lake Huron.
“Pretty,” my wife says.
And it is.
All of it is.
The shimmering waves. The squeaky swings as kids sway back
and forth, laughing and shrieking. The big ugly mountain of salt kept near the
river for the winter that’s months out but getting closer every day. The
crumbling armory that’s been turned into a place for laser tag. And my wife and
daughter searching every milkweed along the river for caterpillars on the edge
of the city mowing line.
They find four tonight.
“We need fresh stuff to eat,” my wife says. Not to me, but to
the two fat colorful creatures she has on a leaf in her hand.
“Yes!” Oogie cheers. “These guys are hungry!” She is beaming,
carrying two caterpillars in her small hands.
A monarch butterfly rises from a lilac bush when we are
about three blocks from home. We are silent but happy as it follows us as if
watching to make sure that we’ll do good. When it is satisfied that we mean
well, it flies off toward our neighbor’s garden.
When we get home, I mix a drink. It’s time to unwind. I will
sit on the front porch and listen to this small town settle its way to sleep.
But first, I look into the world my wife and daughter have worked so hard to
create. Their butterfly house. The place where caterpillars eat and poop and
eat and poop and grow and grow until they know it’s time to climb to the top,
form a J, then tremble and shake themselves into a smooth, shiny chrysalis.
Last year, it gave birth to nineteen monarchs. My wife and
daughter named them all. We only lost one. I’m not sure of the name. Something like
Stan or Earl. Definitely a male. He rose up to fly away, made a wide loop out over
the yard then came right back and landed on the porch in front of our dog. Our
cute, harmless Buggle that apparently thought it was some sort of treat. She
chomped little Stan or Earl up into bits, spit him out, then cowered between my
legs. I moved quickly to pick up the pieces, sure that my daughter would be
devasted.
“Aw,” she said. “It’s okay, Dad. He probably wouldn’t have
made it far anyway.”
“Survival of the fittest,” my wife added.
So far this year, there are fifteen waiting to make the
change. Nine chrysalises and six caterpillars. They haven’t given them official
names yet, but they have a list. Like parents choosing possible names for their
unborn baby. Waiting as patiently as possible for that new and incredible life to
have its one chance to wake this world to color again.
Even though she’s shit on our bedroom floor and I stepped in it twice.
Barefoot.
Once, as I clomped my way to the john in the dark. Bladder so full of vodka, Sprite, and water that I thought I’d never go back to bed.
The other, a weird moment when I was here, but there–a man dead, but alive–dreaming but awake. It woke me, but instead of cleaning it up I sat on the floor listening to my wife snore.
And I loved her more than I did the day I said I do.
There are more moments like this than I like to admit.
Broken plans.
Wayward dreams.
An intense belief that ghosts do not only exist but push day-after-day to remind us of how quickly this life ends.
But I don’t believe them.
I can’t.
There are cats to hug.
There’s shit to clean up.
And those hands sweeping round silently never ever end.
Everyone suddenly knows what it is that drives a young man to arm himself with a weapon and extinguish light.
Driven by their own beliefs, agendas, and experience, they label, pigeon-hole, and validate. Nobody seems to consider that perhaps all of it is more complicated than what we read and hear and see. We want so much to make sense of it, to understand and control it, that we do all that we can to simplify it.
After all, we have kids. We want them safe. We are good, God-fearing folks, and we believe most definitely that there’s a right and a wrong. That it is good or evil, black or white, left or right.
But maybe that’s the problem.
We spend so much time pushing people into places we think they belong that we forget.
We’re animals.
Sleeping and waking and working and faking. Doing whatever it takes to survive.
And when we are cornered, afraid of what may become of us and everything we believe to be true and right and just, we bite. We fight. We lie and cheat and steal and walk into schools with weapons wanting to kill those sacred, beautiful things we once had—innocence, possibility, dreams—all because we’re afraid that life as we know it is being destroyed by the OTHERS. The liberals, the conservatives, the waffling wimps in the middle, the whites, the aliens, the blacks.
It’s always somebody else’s fault.
The immigrants. The corporations. The lazy bastards at home milking the system.
We have these great beautiful minds and souls to explore and a whole life to do it. And yet, we shy away or flat out refuse opportunities to open up and learn. We subscribe to someone else’s beliefs. We fulfill expectations that aren’t our own. We pull away, opt for comfort and safety, and slowly lose the ability to think and feel and understand our parts in this spectacular experience.
Rise up. Move beyond boundaries.
Question everything, especially that which you’ve learned.
Maybe you’re not right after all.
A man stands outside in pajama pants and a hoodie, while the yellow dog sniffs undisturbed snow under the weighty boughs of the sleeping evergreens. And the fuzzy stars shine. Stuck in the middle of fading in, or fading out, and it’s another night of unsettling silence in a Michigan winter that shows no sign of mercy.
Invisible fingers are reaching—touching deep—penetrating his skin. Squeezing with all their icy might to grip, hold tight, and shatter the bones within.
He feels the crack coming. Is aware that this reckless life has filled his fibers with fissures that cannot be repaired. But he believes enough in silly things—like true love, grace under pressure, and finding god on his own—that he musters enough strength each night to fight for dreams that leave him hopeful each morning. And so, he is able to swing his feet over the edge of the bed, put one foot in front of the other, and create meaning in his messy existence and he is able to savor the sweetest things.
Like staring up into the dark blue sky. Getting lost in an instant of bright movement. Brilliant motion that shifts the plates and shakes the core. Makes the warmth rise up inside so that the spirit tingles, and the touch of the dog’s cold nose on his hand gives him the sensation that he’s taking his first breath. That he has been given another chance. To be better and stronger. To live again as if all of this is unfamiliar and new.
Poem’s audio below…honey, I even got a little throat clearing in for you at the end.;-)
I don’t post as much as some people do. That’s for good reason. There are too many dummies doing so already. People posting too much shit that is selfish, mean, hurtful, and downright stupid. For instance, I am happy that so-and-so helped a homeless person today, or saved a duck, or paid it forward in some way or the other, but the point of doing good deeds is to simply do them and not draw recognition to oneself. And yet, everyone is look at me. You, S.B., are not like that. Even at our wedding you insisted that all eyes NOT be on you. You just wanted to get married, to be together, and for everyone to have a good time. And that’s why sometimes you’ll catch me just looking at you. I’m amazed.
And then there are the religious geniuses—most of them blinded instead of enlightened—damning people because they are different, spewing evil, nastiness and ignorance. God hates this type of person. This group is going to hell. I follow my husband blindly. I am obedient. His servant. Blah, blah, blah. If they had any inkling of what it’s like to live a good life, they’d be living like you, S.B. You are the definition of kindness. You bring hope. You are the embodiment of strength and independence. And you make me and our kids believe that there are much greater things going on behind the scenes than what we engage on the surface. If people were as selfless and sensible as you are, they’d take more time out of their day to focus on others. The world would be a better place if it followed you.
There are the sickies, always posting how miserable they feel. I saw you give birth to a child, naturally, without shedding a tear. When you are sick, we never know it. You may take an ibuprofen if the pain starts to slow you down. But you’re never asking for attention. Posting about your sniffles or ever mentioning an ache.
There are the titsies—women that apparently can’t refrain from showing their cleavage. Oh, look at the new toaster I got with their boobies all squished together and most likely sharing their best set of duck lips. You, S.B., draw a crowd with your beautiful wide smile, your confidence, and warmth.
And finally, though there are more I could mention, there are the political gurus. We don’t have to go much into that, I suppose. I think most of us should probably follow your politics. Treat people with respect. Help everyone. Act, every day, as if there is an end that’s fast approaching. And that when it’s all said and done every single deed and every word we’ve ever written or spoken—good and bad—will be judged. Maybe not by God, but by everyone we’ve known. And that the tiny ripples of our life make big, big waves.
In summation, Happy Birthday, S.B. I thought I should post this and put it on your page because in the whole scheme of things maybe one person’s love for another will help balance out, and even defeat the shit—all the selfish, mean, hurtful, and downright stupid things—that so many others are putting into this world wide tangled web.
It is all here. Somewhere. In between my nine-year-old boy pounding drums in the basement and my daughter watching Scooby Doo on TV. It is out there in the cold night. Crunching under my wife’s feet as she walks home from work. It is in the sky affecting the earth’s gravitational pull. And it is in my right eye—the one that’s been twitching on and off for a week.
I am not even sure what it is, but I know that it is big and small and knowing and forgetful, and that it makes up everything and nothing all the same. Hemingway and Fitzgerald knew about it. Francis Ford Coppola knew about it. Elvis and Robin Williams and my grandparents and my dead aunts and uncles and all the ghosts that make up the past—they knew about it. And I like to think that we know about it too.
Me and you and us and them.
It is in the stories I have started but did not end. In every good intention that’s never received its due follow through.
It is in profanity and love and hatred and bullying and hugs.
It is everywhere.
In damning God and falling to our knees at night, drunk again, to pray.
It is in the soap bubbles, on the sidewalk, on your toothbrush, and wedged into the bark of a tree.
There is so much of it around it’s hard to gather all of it up and turn it into pictures that make sense. Or, at the very least, to make bits into pieces that will wake the few believers that have fallen asleep and become comfortably imprisoned by the suffocating, silencing routine of the day. And because the task is so daunting, the reality of it so haunting, it is much easier to ignore it and carry on instead of dig deep and make differences.
In the way boys beat drums without rhythm, the girls giggle at the flickering TV, and how wives take slow, measured strides as they move through the dark and the cold toward home under a sky trembling with gravity.
The Crooked Steeple 