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plasticities

I would go to his concerts and think about how I loved you: the intensity of it, and the clarity, how I knew that no one else who was there that night was there because this was the music they listened to when they were falling in love for the first time in a way that felt like stepping off a cliff.

I would listen to the lonely echoing tone of his whistle, hear my own melancholy and longing vibrating through the air between the stage and me. He didn’t need any of us to be there – he was just layers of sounds reaching through emptiness and filling everything, and he at the center conducting.

I sat there and I thought of you and I knew that everything about myself was wrong, nothing I said could possibly be true because I had secrets to keep now and no words for how to tell them.

There was no need for possibilities; I loved you deeply and the purity of that knowing was enough, the way it told me that I knew nothing about myself, about desire. And if it had not been you, would it have been someone else, later?

Or is every feeling of possibility now only there because you forced this reckoning? Have I always wanted, needed to long for the dark-haired girl next door, the scrappy, loyal tomboy underdog I could never really become? Wanting to pass, wanting to be that heroine, the plainly beautiful, courageous, all-American girl, wading in cool creeks in summer, drinking lemonade on porches, and three generations back on both sides, all those stories you could tell about your aunts and uncles and your parents’ childhoods, all the silences and gaps you never knew you didn’t have.

How could I not? Have fallen for every popular-in-high-school white girl who wanted to be friends with me now. When did I learn anything to replace a longing to be cool, to be the one who could decide when I did and did not blend? To replace the heady rush of being wanted, admired, desired.

It is still a weakness now. Give me the validation my teenage self never knew to consciously crave, and I am yours. Drawn to praise, to that better version of self reflected in your eyes, I will leap into that role.

I have known, of course, how to be the subject of generic man-based lust, desired, pursued. How long has it taken to learn only passivity, only subject, never object? And how will I learn not to crave the upper hand, the agency in one direction only, the drive to never be the one who fell faster or harder.

How exhausted I already am, to never see myself except through the eyes of someone else.

triage

Over the sounds of sirens, moans and screams. So many voices, pain, garbled words and desperate cries for help. Fifteen seconds each, max. Twenty-five to thirty people, four minutes without air is too long. Nine seconds each is already too slow.

Check for breathing, less than 30 breaths per minute. That one, too many, too fast. Tag ’em. That one, none at all. Adjust the chin, tilt the head back. Press the nail bed, release, one-two, nothing. Tag ’em.

That one, the child. There’s a heartbeat, but no breaths, a woman leaning over her. Help her, you need to help her! Tag ’em, just tag ’em and keep going.

Keep moving, keep moving. Hazy air, more moans. The smoke is going to be a problem real quick. Anyone who can get up and leave, please do that now. Sit on that curb and wait. You, I need you to press down here, OK? Press down hard.

Ruby liquid, spreading in a pool. The floor of the bus slick with it.

What’s your name? Can you tell me what happened? James, some kind of accident, I don’t … Tag ’em.

Keep moving, keep moving. It’s your job to finish. Once you start, you keep going. Pulsing drumbeat, boom boom. It hurts, it hurts, it hurts. 

[random word generator: accident, heartbeat, hazy, ruby]

overflow

At first the joy was a benediction, the feeling flowing forth into the stagnant emptiness, offering, at last, some kind of change. Into the nothing poured the first tinkle of laughter, floating gently to rest atop a bottom that had seemed not to exist. Suddenly the void was revealed to be not a tunnel into forever but a deep, deep well — one with a bottom, at that. A wisp of golden sound floated down, tracing lazy spirals, curling in upon itself as a next for the giggles that poured in next, then the chuckles, larger, booming against the walls in sound.

The echoes bubbled up, resonating, ricocheting off the cool moss-covered walls. More and more, reverberating, expanding, doubling back. As the laughter grew, the light glowed brighter, at first casting long shadows, then wiping them out completely as the light overtook the dark. Soon there was nothing left of the darkness, only the memory of its vastness, the rich depths and banality of its ubiquity.

So quickly, we doubted our memories. Could the darkness have ever been so total? Never! We must be telling ourselves a story to amplify our own bravery, for how else could we have survived such a thing but because we were the ones who dared stare into the depths of the totality of the bleakness?

Already the joy wiped clean anything we had been before, made us wonder what could possibly have existed besides this overflowing energy, these unending depths of joy that would go on and on forever, no way out. We knew joy as the oblivion, nothing else to know, no other ways of remembering, no alternatives in sight.

There had been darkness, we think — there must have been. For a while there had been shadows, but now there was joy, and so much of it, and it was hard to believe we might ever be without it again.

northward

As the car pushes northward, our belongings nestle together in all of the available space our bodies do not occupy. We tell each other stories, as if we must ensure that our things are no longer strangers, pushed together into such close quarters. Our books are stacked in crates in the backseat, our clothing rolled into cloth bags and tucked in among the hard edges.

This morning we played Tetris with our possessions, fitting the evidence of our lives together. How odd to think that we still have so much to learn about each other, after years of conversations and drinks shared with each other or in larger groups surrounded by our friends.

Something about the way we face forward, both watching the road, freed our tongues. And here we are revealing secrets. I for one would could not have imagined myself telling some of the stories of my family. Her words stir memories I did not know had been buried, and I find that I feel compelled to speak them, that my acts of utterance will cement the moments in my mind, and they will be mine again.

This was the year I discovered podcasts, and all of a sudden I find my every unoccupied moment filled with recorded voices. My ears are thirsty for stories, and the earbuds I nestle within them provide a constant stream. Stories of other lives provide the background to so many of my once mundane activities. (Or were they mundane? Perhaps I had just grown tired of hearing the drone of my own constantly whirring thoughts.)

Now, in the car, I feel my attention sharpening, as it does when I find my favorite voices, the most important stories. Her life washes over me, and I feel warm, surrounded. My own voice stirs to action during her pauses, and our stories fit around each other, tucking threads and themes into empty spaces, packing in what we can to fill the gaps we have inherited from our families.

We keep driving, miles ticking up on the odometer. For once, I wish we never had to stop.

flour sacks

The weight bows our backs, all of us grunting as we heave them across the room. The bakers shout at us, urging us to move faster. “We need more bread!” they scream, all day long, screaming for more flour, demanding that we keep mixing gigantic batches of poolish by hand. At the end of the day, we all smell deeply yeasty, a faint hint of salt from our sweat mixing in with the aromas. We smell, to be sure, like a perfectly seasoned loaf as it proofs. People may well be what they eat, but we are what you eat.

searching

Water surrounds me, covers everything I have come to take for granted. All I can see is this murky expanse, impenetrable wet darkness. I know that I am somewhere inside here, that my body must still exist because I can feel the vibration of my heartbeats stirring the water around me. Somewhere in this endless collection of rain, there I am. I should search for myself in earnest, but I cannot find the energy. All that I had has been washed away, but I, for now, am forced to remain.

9 to 5

She tells me that nothing is perfect and that it’s childish to believe I am somehow exempt from suffering through the monotony that everyone else around me endures. Life, she reminds me, is not a circus. The abundance of small, extremely well-trained animals notwithstanding, I am inclined to agree. To be honest, the colorful wallpaper and her ringmaster-like style of leading meetings also tend to lend a festive air to our work environment. Add to that the caramel popcorn factory next door, with its constant aroma of warm, salty-sweet air, and I’m starting to think she needs a better expression.

My giggling does not go unnoticed, and she stops mid-sentence. “Is there something funny to you about your performance review, Jenkins?”

“No, ma’am, I was just thinking about that great joke you made at the meeting earlier. Always good for a chuckle.”

She eyed me suspiciously and went back to her notes. “Where was I? Oh yes, I know you don’t love filling out reports, but we all have to be team players. The show must go on!”

She takes in a deep breath, and I can tell she’s ready to inspire me.

“You could be the greatest saleswoman we have, Jenkins! Leadership opportunities are right I front of you, and all you have to do is step right up!”

We both studiously avoid the elephant in the room, my past failed attempts at taking the helm of projects large and small. Somehow, I always think I’m ready to take on a few staff, but then she crams people onto my teams like, well, like she’s filling a clown car with the least competent staff we have on hand.

I understand it’s just widget sales and we’re not walking the high-wire here, but after a few bad quarters, there just isn’t a safety net anymore, and I’m not ready to be the big flop. The tent stakes are too high.

“Yes ma’am,” I hear myself saying. “I’m ready.”

I loop a finger through the preferred three-ring binder and pull it towards me.

“It’s time I stepped into the spotlight.”

“Thatta girl, Jenkins. Straight into the lions’ den, am I right? You’re gonna be a star.”

potatoes

The glowing embers peer out at us, countless red eyes watching as we roll our potatoes in foil. We present our packages to the flames, inviting them to taste our offerings with hot tongues. In the reflected glow, our eyes shine, too, a glint of metal shading once-familiar expressions. All of us are entranced by the transformations before us, staring inward as the licks of fire paint faint black lines across the silver. An hour passes wordless, we are rapt in our attention to cracks, pops, hisses. The coals return to us our offering, forged and changed and presented for us to consume in turn.

snack attack, ii

We hear the sirens growing slowly louder from behind our station wagon. Mary Elizabeth checks her rearview mirror nervously, one hand still gripping a half-eaten burger.

“Be cool, sisters. Everyone be cool.” She repeats “be cool” several more times while pulling us over to the right lane.

Now she is chanting it to herself, a benediction of “be cools” as she stares straight ahead in what I can only assume is her attempt to look natural and relaxed — even saintly, perhaps.

Next to me, Sister Mary Jane, oblivious as always, flicks a lighter over the pipe, swallowing a lungful of smoke.

“Holy Father in heaven, do you not hear the sirens coming?” I elbow her sharply in the ribs and point to the flashing lights. Because of her skills in lip-reading, we all forget sometimes that her hearing is going.

Mary Jane’s eyes perk up ever-so-slightly, finally alarmed at the potential seriousness of the situation. As the first cop car pulls past, she is forced to hold the lungful of smoke in her mouth. Mary Josephine, caught in a fit of giggles, reaches over me to tickle Mary Jane in the ribs, hoping to elicit a laugh and a puff of smoke.

I sigh and make a sign of the cross. Briefly I consider the fact that it may not be right for us to pray for help in a situation like this, one of our own making, but we are, in fact, picking up supplies for the other sisters, and even the apostles could not be blamed for making detours for sustenance.

Thankfully, the cop car passes just as Mary Jane releases a small burst of laughter and a billow of white smoke. She clamps her mouth shut again as another car approaches and passes, then slowly exhales into the wide sleeve of her habit.

Finally, a third car passes and we are all laughing, everyone except Mary Elizabeth in the front seat, still repeating “be cool,” again and again, until Mary Teresa finally reaches over to pinch her.

“We’re cool, Mary Elizabeth. Everything is totally cool.”