The room was dark and damp. A faint smell of mildew tickled her nose,
caused her to remember that her inhaler was at home. She hadn’t needed it the
last several urban adventures and she didn’t want to need it now. She vowed to
be careful, to breathe shallowly. It wouldn’t do to have an asthma attack here.
Urban exploring had become her secret passion. Early in the
morning, at least an hour before the sun came up, she was out walking across
deserted fields to abandoned buildings, her car parked a mile away to avoid
attention. She was always back home in time to wash up before going to work.
Nobody knew this was how she spent her time. Nobody would have suspected, and
this was how she preferred it. Left alone, a silent life, away from the masses
who didn’t think, who let their computers think for them.
This was her version of a video game – places to explore,
rooms to discover. Who needs virtual reality when actual reality was so much
better? Of course, this reality came with real dangers – loose flooring, rusty
nails. You could land a trip to the hospital, or the jail, or the morgue.
She wandered alone. Plausible deniability. Nobody could rat
her out if they didn’t know. Nobody had to lie for her. She was on her own for
everyone’s benefit. She preferred not having to make arrangements to meet or
what to bring to the site. If she didn’t have something or was late, it was her
fault. She’d rather not have to be mad at anybody for letting her down.
She thought back to her family, her friends. They all had
failed her. They all had lied, intentionally or not. She was done with it.
Maybe it was true that no man is an island, but this woman was.
To everyone she was a girl, but she knew better. They called
her a girl to keep her small, to take away her power. Maybe even to keep her
from ever getting power in the first place. What they didn’t know wouldn’t hurt
them.
She lived two lives, the public one and the private one.
Maybe it was more than that. Her life was divided at home too – the life her
husband saw, and the one she lived when he wasn’t around.
When she first got married she would cry when he had to leave
– to work for the day, or away for the weekend on a project. But that was when
she wasn’t sober. She feared sobriety at the time – that it would mean she’d
feel too much, too often. How would she function?
But now she was sober, she’d learned how to feel and move and
be alive multi-dimensionally. All those who looked down their noses, those who
thought themselves as sober because they didn’t do drugs, they were fooling
themselves. It was like people who weighed 200 pounds thinking they weren’t
obese because that was normal, even svelte in comparison with others around
them. Why change?
Over eating, over drinking – too much TV or social media,
whatever. Fill in the blank – the thing they used to avoid life as it is was their drug. Legal or not,
it is that which draws away from life, the path that leads to destruction, to
being asleep.
Being awake was like riding a wave. So many changes, shifts.
So hard, and yet so essential.
This skill was what she honed on her walks into unattended
buildings. Fully present was the only option. Anything else meant death.
And death was the last thing she could afford right now.
She had 15 more years of time to do at work, 15 more years of
wearing a mask, of faking it. It was still better than what others did. She
couldn’t call them friends – more like acquaintances. They weren’t even friends
of friends. Just people she knew. Maybe it was time to have better friends. But
then again, why?
People thought she needed to read this book, watch this film,
listen to that album. She never liked those things. It all felt fake, like they
were just talking to themselves. Maybe they were. So maybe “you need to have
friends” wasn’t for her, just like all of their other suggestions. Why force
herself into their mold? The same people would turn their nose up to taking
welfare but were OK with begging from friends to support their habits – namely
not working a full-time job. Her take on it was that if you don’t work, you
shouldn’t expect those who do to pay your way.
So her way was not their way. Yet she remembered – she used
to be like them. It was grace that knocked her out of that groove, that
horrible broken record. Perhaps the same grace would come to them. In the
meantime, she stayed away from them. She had to. Their ways drew her back into
bad habits and new ones. She tried to help them, fix them, and then realized
that too was an addiction.
So here she was, alone in an abandoned warehouse. The more
she thought about it, it seemed apropos. The building had housed a thriving
industry, hundreds of people had worked here, made their lives here. And now it
was crumbling away. Now only thrill seekers and transients came here. Perhaps
she was a little of both, prowling around these dusty rooms with their peeling
paint. Perhaps she too was near the end, but of what? Did the workers here know
they’d never get a pension because this “sure thing” wasn’t?
So how had it come to be – for them and for her? How had the
tried-and-true, the solid path, become unsure? How had their jobs ended? How
had her life moved into one where she felt she had to put on a mask in front of
everyone? Perhaps that sort of dishonesty, that lack of being truly present, as
is, with no hedging and no apologies, is what finally closed down this business
too.
She was going to have to watch her step, in more than one
way. Being less than honest is a guaranteed way to get tripped up. And yet,
there was this – she’d never lied. She just hadn’t revealed all of her truth.
Was that being polite or politically correct? Who was she protecting with her
silence? Them, or herself? Did it matter?
Soon it would be time to leave. Soon she would put on her
uniform, put on her face for the world. Or maybe she wouldn’t this time. Maybe
she’d just simply be herself, unedited. Could they handle it? Could she? The
last time she was fully herself they thought she was sick, or crazy. Many’s the
time that she did not fully put on her happy mask and the customers or her
family accused her of being a bitch, or worse.
But she was tired of shoehorning her extra large personality
into an extra small world. They were just going to have to make space for her.
Maybe they’d be inspired to follow her example. Or maybe they’d try to commit
her again.
(Started early June 2018
Completed late January 2019)
Missing Rowley
He was one of the missing children, one of the many thousands who
disappeared every year. But Rowley (if that was his real name) wasn’t like
those children. Nobody was looking for him.
He’d disappeared that Wednesday afternoon, one of those wet
and blustery days so common in January. The sun had been gone for so long that
people simply forgot about it, simply forgot it was something to miss.
The same is true of Rowley, a boy who was shorter than
average, surlier than average. If people didn’t overlook him unintentionally,
they overlooked him on purpose. He wasn’t a pleasant child to deal with, and
there was little hope he’d grow out of it.
He’d been a latchkey kid, a forgotten child. He could go
missing for days and nobody noticed or cared. His parents (if that’s what they
were) neither spoke to him or about him. He might as well have been a piece of
furniture handed down from an eccentric aunt. He wasn’t wanted, and he knew it.
But then the circus came to town. It wasn’t like he ran away,
so much as he was recognized. The high wire performers noticed him at the
corner café, quietly pocketing leftovers from the tables about to be cleared
away. It wasn’t like he was stealing, not exactly. The food had been paid for,
just not eaten. It was headed for the garbage. He figured he was doing
everybody a service, mostly himself.
The aerialists followed him out, not so close as to spook
him, but not so far as to lose him. He knew they were behind him, how could he
not? That sense was well honed in him. It kept him safe all these many years.
If necessary he could make himself invisible without even leaving the area. It
wasn’t running away. He knew that didn’t work – that just called more attention.
It was more like he imagined himself invisible, made himself see-through to
anybody who was looking. He’d had plenty of practice at the sad excuse of a
home he had.
But turning invisible didn’t work this time, because the
circus performers knew how to do that trick too. It was the opposite of
performing. The bright light they shone from themselves when they were in the
ring could be switched off just as easily. It was second nature to them. It was
a skill that bonded them all into a strange sort of family, a wandering caravan
of vagabonds and misfits, who somehow discovered how to jigsaw themselves
together into this unexpected troupe.
The lack of a fixed address wasn’t a problem for them. They
were traveling entertainers after all. It was expected, necessary even.
Everybody in the circus was legitimately homeless. They’d discovered the one
way it was socially acceptable. Perhaps it worked because they sang for their
supper. They performed and sold tickets instead of begging. When they held a
hand out, there was a top hat at the end of it. Somehow that made it OK. The
public doesn’t like to think it has been deceived, but it does like to be
entertained. And so they gratefully gave money to them, rather than
grumbling about charity.
The two called out to Rowley, gently enough, to let him know they
meant him no harm. They knew what was going through his mind. They knew because
the same thing had happened to them all those years ago. This is how many of
them came to the circus.
Many if not all had gone missing on purpose, because they
were never noticed it home. Joining up with the other invisibles made sense.
Together, they created a new sort of family, where all the rules went out of
the window. Maybe it was because there were no windows in the circus. Trailers
and tents were the order of the day, and even if they did have windows they
were covered up with curtains or aluminum foil. This was one group that
understood the value of privacy.
Gold mining – poem
I keep writing these things
and maybe one day
there will be a piece of gold.
Like a miner with a pan,
I keep coming to the river,
sifting rocks, hunched over.
It is lonely work.
Will I ever strike it rich?
Am I asking the wrong question?
Because really, the treasure
is the doing. The daily
coming to the river, doing
the work. Even if nothing
amazing appears, I’ve put
in the time, I’ve gotten the
practice.
Writing is a skill, after all.
Being born into the language
is no excuse for not
practicing it
Fear of love – poem
Soon we will know
what it is to be free
really free
of our fear.
But not yet.
We aren’t ready
while we still teach
fear of God
in our churches.
Maybe that is why
so many people have left the church
or never joined.
Maybe that is why so many people
suffer from
addictions or compulsions or perversions,
interacting too much or too little
with the world and people that God created
for us to love.
Lack of love is a terrible thing.
Misplaced love is possibly worse.
For God is love, after all.
God is or should be
our first and last love
and everything in between.
That word “fear” isn’t the original.
The word that the Christian church
translated as fear
means something more like
awe, or respect, or reverence.
But not fear.
Because “perfect love casts out all fear.”
Because how many times did Angels say “fear not” (once for every day).
Fear never healed anybody
but love will do the trick
every time.
The Church chose “fear”
because it leads to control.
Forgive them for they were mistaken.
It isn’t that “they know not what they do”
– they knew.
It was fear of love that made them do it.
Lovers are illogical.
Lovers of God even more so.
Jesus didn’t come to control people
– but to love them so much
that they were healed,
were whole
again.
I mean, really – poem
It seems I should start the day
With thankfulness,
checking off the boxes on my gratitude list.
House. Central heat. Water. Flannel sheets.
Etcetera. But all I really want
is to grumble about how my brain kept me up
last night with
all those songs and craft ideas and book projects
and wondering if I would even have the strength to
get up on time because
did I
even get enough sleep at all?
It is a greedy and immature bastard,
my brain, being the cause of
my own worry
so often.
I mean, really
if it had only had these ideas
just two hours earlier
I could’ve done something about them
instead of wasting my time
reading a magazine
or Facebook.
But instead, like a needy child
it chooses
to keep me awake
with its litany of requests
that can’t wait until morning.
Should I write that idea down?
What if I forget that chore, that connection?
Will it all fall apart
if I don’t
do it all
myself?
These ideas are like rare butterflies
that if not caught and pinned down
will fly away
never to be seen again
by me
and will probably alight upon
someone
else’s head.
Or so they try to tell me.
Maybe they are just a bit of
sausage and scallop pizza eaten
just a little too late at night
as usual.
Mayo Clinic
In the past month I’ve seen two people who say
they need to go to the Mayo Clinic. They say the name like it can work
miracles. Their illnesses aren’t accidents. They are self-imposed addictions,
possessions, where they are holding their own bodies hostage because they find
themselves bringing up to their mouths another cigarette or can of beer or forkfull
of chemicals that are in the guise of food. It is all an illusion, a mirage
they can’t see through.
There was a patron I knew who was named Mr. Mayo. He used to
say “The past is history, the future is a mystery, but today is a gift. That is
why it is called the present.” He said it over and over – every time I saw him.
He probably said it to everyone he saw. He said it like it was a divine
revelation.
Maybe that is the true Mayo Clinic. Maybe that is our miracle
cure. That idea, corny as it is.
Not a 10 hour bus trip to a hospital that may or may not have
a cure. But right here, right now, to be here as is, painful as that is, to not
run away from who we are, as individuals, as a nation.
A surprise the first time – poem
And who’s to say
that Christ won’t come again
in a body
in that body
the one we’ve gotten used to
the one we have seen in paintings
and pictures
but not photographs
but instead of being born again unto a virgin
in a cowshed
or descending out of the sky
the Christ
the anointed one
comes again
for the first time
into your heart?
I mean
it was a surprise the first time
even then,
over 2000 years ago.
They expected a king.
They expected someone to lead them out
of slavery to the foreign army
to lead them back
to who they really were
as people
chosen by God.
Instead they got this guy
born illegitimately
born in poverty
raised in a nowhere backward town
who spoke of a different kind of
freedom, a different kind of return
to who they were.
It wasn’t a revolution
it wasn’t a rebellion.
He didn’t come to be a king
but to point them back
to the only King
they ever needed.
He wanted to lead them out
of slavery
not to the Romans
but thinking anybody
was over them
other than God.
Why can’t it be that
surprising again?
Why can’t it be that
the second coming
doesn’t happen
in the Holy Land
but in your heart
right where you are
right as you are
right now?
The best gift – poem
If I had my way I’d be getting up around 10 with no alarm clock having drifted awake
resurfaced, like a deep-sea diver.
But instead I’ve pulled myself up (if not out) of bed sitting here, writing to clear my head to return me to the world of words, of thought, of physicality and away from the dreams that seem so real.
Maybe that is why I write after all not just in the morning not just in the mode of poems but everything, all the time.
Putting pen to paper, pulling words down from the air and making them sit and stay like dogs doing tricks is how I wake up every moment is how I come back into the present, the best gift of all.
Morning walk or not – poem
In this morning
this cold morning
the sky touched with the pink the color of rose petals,
of Magnolia blossoms just beginning
I wonder how long it will be
until the sun is awake before quarter till seven
the sky aglow with the sure quiet joy
of awakening.
Because until then
I will wonder how I could possibly have dragged myself out of bed
with time enough to go for a walk
before work,
even on a Saturday
those many months ago,
or so my journal says.
Because right now,
I can’t even imagine getting out of bed
at all
it is so cold and cave-like.
And so I sit here
and write a poem
instead.
And I think maybe this is a kind of walk,
too. Or maybe
I am fooling myself,
again.
Negative Role Model
NHe was walking away from it all. Walking away from the world that no longer even pretended to understand him.
He didn’t need them to agree. He wasn’t that vain. But he did need, (we all need), to be around people who at least understood what he said. For years they acted like they did, and it was enough. Years of acting added up, until he realized they were just faking it, just humoring him. Maybe they thought he was a genius and they didn’t want to let on how far behind they were. Maybe they didn’t care at all and were simply rude to everyone.
He didn’t know, or care, anymore. Wolfgang had been told he was special for years by his mother, but what did she know? She was his mother, so she was hardly objective. He was to fulfill all of her waylaid of plans, be all of who she was supposed to be but didn’t, or couldn’t, because of a myriad of reasons, some of which were probably valid.
Some probably weren’t, though. Some were very likely excuses fabricated to cover her own feelings, to blame others for things she chose not to admit were her own responsibility. She taught him well, but in reverse. He learned all of his skills by doing the opposite of her, since it hadn’t worked out for her. She was his negative role model.
His mother wasn’t bad, she just wasn’t great. She was a perfect example of what she was taught to be, overtly and covertly. She was submissive and passive. She bit her tongue. She never spoke up. She grinned and bared it until it ate her up from the inside, the slow ramshackle illness that manifested as high blood pressure and fibromyalgia for years. She rode that pity train for as long as she could, as far as it could go. Until one day she decided it wasn’t enough so she woke up with cancer. You always get what you want, especially if it is bad.
He was walking away from her madness, the madness of the culture he found himself in. It was time to retreat to the mountains, to the tower he’d read about in his studies. It was far enough away that he knew he wouldn’t be bothered unless he wanted to,. There were no roads, so all approach had to be by foot. There was a gate, but it was unguarded by anything he could see. This did not mean it was undefended, or vulnerable to entry from just anyone. A strong psi-wave push emanated from the moss green stones as he approached the gate. A lesser person would have turned aside, deeming the approach unworthy of attention.
The ramshackle tumble-down stones and the rusty dark gate spoke of inattention and lack of care. No treasures could be within. Yet he knew he was to push onward. This unassuming gate was a façade. It was real, of course, not an illusion. But he knew that it shielded what would lie beyond.
(Written mid June 2018)
betsybeadhead 
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