Groceries

When shopping at the grocery store last week an elderly woman approached my wife who had our baby boy wrapped against her chest. His bulbous head bobbed out of the green cloth and he curled his top lip over it chewing persistently. The older woman wore a candy-striped polyester button-down shirt and her silver hair fell in a wiry pony tail in front of her right shoulder. She gestured a pronated palm with bony fingers toward the bump of a baby under the wrap. I chose a pasta for dinner. The linguine is little tongues. The farfalle is butterflies. The capellini is little hairs. I love when the butter melts on the noodles after you strain them. I smelled the staleness of the older woman and turned fully toward her now to see her nearing my baby and wife. Her finger finally pressed against his tender cheek. I felt no sense of alarm. I looked to her face and watched the lines change. She said something about not ever having "one of her own." My wife and I didn't say anything to her but we smiled while she stood there stroking his cheek for some time. Sometimes there isn't anything to be said. It felt like listening to a Christmas carol, the mix of joy and despair I held in my gut. But it is a feeling I'm sensing more and more often; a strained circumstantial guilt and gratitude. A friend of ours had a baby die at two weeks. A family member found out about a pregnancy and loss at the same appointment. A coworker wants so badly to have a family. She has been reshaped from broken pieces of clay. In the same way that one delights in a cold front as the holidays approach another someone is fearing having no where warm to call home. It can be so hard to sleep when you are cold.

With one hand on the grocery cart I reached down and pulled up on my foot to see the unevenly worn black sole of my sneaker and holding the top of my foot I felt the stretch of my sartorius. It's the longest muscle in my body. I don't want anyone to hurt. I don't.

Graceland

My friend told me about visiting a restaurant on its last day of business. The waitress handed him a drink and reaching into her apron she said, "This is my last straw."

It seems like the words will speak themselves. I'm not even writing this. There is a cascading domino line of neurons switching on and off. My soul is written in binary. For this reason I can't comprehend accountability and choices at the moment.  

I have reason to believe we all will be received.

Ersatz Tears

It’s raining on my day off. A while back I had read a short story about a group of young boys who found a dead body in the woods. When they stumbled upon the corpse after their hike the sky was opaque and it was drizzling. The drops hit their faces in the sanctimonious moment of the reveal. The author described the reflective moisture on their faces as a misleading expression of the sadness they should be feeling. The rain was circumstance. Maybe they felt something different than sadness. We expected tears. The weather blanketed them in the safety of feeling genuinely toward death. 

It never rained as I retreated into nature last week which is odd for a Florida summer afternoon. I embarked on my first backpacking hike. My pack could not zip entirely around my tent and I would frequently be forced to stop as it gaped open and my solitary orange would bowl down the trail. Spiders greeted me with open arms. Why are you going alone? Make sure you bring enough water. You’re leaving your son and wife home by themselves? Are you trying to find yourself? I urinated on a tree and watched a tiny mosquito bite me below my belly button. I clasped my pants hiding the newly red bump it left. 

When I came to the primitive camping site I felt no sense of relief. Unpacking I watched ants crawl on my belongings. The tent was erected quickly. The tall trees obscured my view of an orange sky. I felt anxiety for the impending night. Settling in seems like a stretch of the words’ good meanings but I did my best. I sprayed my exposed skin with bug repellant feeling my flesh warm from the chemicals. I tinkered with some writing, ate beef jerky, and thought about civilization. I retired to the tent, shed my clothes and continued to think about civilization. It is amazing how many thoughts are just fed to you by your phone, your tv, your spouse. When the whole world shut up and I was just on my back in my underwear looking up at the flickering heat lightning I can’t say I had one single original thought. My brain was strictly functioning for sensations. The incessant roar of hissing bugs became deafening. I swore I saw a firefly. My sweaty skin from head to toe just had a chill to it. I felt amphibian. I smelled my own doughy sweat and the synthetic material of the tent. I couldn’t sleep. I held my self accountable for the lack of complex thoughts. My trip into the heart of nature showed how simple and boring I am. I found myself and didn’t like it. 

I could never know that somewhere outside my tent two breathless bodies were decomposing waiting to be found. My twin cousins Dan and Josh were both found dead that weekend. They shared a womb and they would share the dirt. I wasn’t thinking of them or anything because I didn't know yet. I was fighting reaching for my phone without a thought in my head. With the sweat pooling under my eyes, though, someone might think I had been crying. It was misleading.

Common Divisors

Life has changed undoubtedly. My wife and I were subtly sparring all Saturday long. I helped a friend grout his bedroom. She was with the baby nearly all day. This day could be added to every other day of the week. They have common divisors. We sought the salt of the sea for healing. Some got in her wounds. I told her what she had to be grateful for. I never unlaced my sneakers in the sand. Pink sun coated my wife as she smelled our son's scalp.

I just wanted to see her smile. I told her why she should. Seagulls cawed to about the same effect. As we walked the beach a bride in white posed nearby smiling hand in hand with a barefoot groom in the sand. Today was their special day. Today was any other day.

The photographer lined up the photo with the colorful soup of clouds and sun as a backdrop. We stood in their long shadows with gas station cheese crackers, soda, and a beer in a plastic bag. Our baby was kicking in his dream.  My wife crunched a snack. I just wanted to be with her for miles.

Cars

Do you think Henry Ford considered that our cars would become our churches? That people would worship on a highway above the steeples? Green and yellow tangrams of growing grass would become our pews? The reds of the 5 o'clock traffic jam can't be altered. New teen drivers sing to glass and grown men growl, gripping their circular reasoning. I read that a comedian once said that in your car anyone who drives slower than you is an idiot and anyone who drives faster than you is a maniac. Is this some kind of accident?

Paperback Novel

When is now? I remember. I foresee. I love the line of your spine. I love running my fingers up and down your tiny and delicate spine. Your squeaks and screams stir a deep curiosity in me. Your future is promising and written in such fine print. Turn the page. When is now.

Chocolates

Easter is a time of great surprise. I find myself still surprised by it each year. Christians attend services. We nestle eggs in baskets of translucent neon-green grass. The one who bore the yoke appears after being hidden in death for three days. Children search for candy. People search their whole life for someone that looks into both eyes and won't look away. I think this can be found, too. Then there's the egg that is never found, hidden too well, filled with foil and melted chocolate for who knows how long. That runs through my mind at Easter. The bunny brings candy. He lays eggs? I think this all has its symbolism. There is a meaning to your search. There is a sweetness in the finding.

Faster than a merry-go-round our planet spins. Ten years have passed since Theresa Marie starved. We watched Terry die on our televisions while we moved our glazed carrots around with a fork. Did her smile mean anything? Did it have a price? My friend asked me what the price of a human life is. He wrote it on notebook paper and folded it up and left it in my car. This was his way of hiding the question in my head like a pastel plastic egg. He wanted to justify fighting crime like a super hero. I questioned his mental state, but is this a question you can ever ask frivolously? I almost forgot that happened. I remember Terry's drool made me uncomfortable. I can only imagine the Schindlers' listless helplessness that day when she was unplugged like a lamp. And I say day, but shit, it was days. She lived for days. The perpetual sunshine is a promise that they continue to hunt for behind clouds, the infinitesimal particles of moisture that keep her from them. They didn't have to make a decision. They just had to wait and then continue to do so.

Easier times will come, you just wait. Your bad haircut will grow, I promise, but my balding won't. They still can't seem to figure out a scientific solution. Isn't science just waiting after all? When I look at my wife I wonder if she knows sometimes I'm just looking an the small bridge of her nose between her eyes. You can't look in both eyes at the same time. Even one is enough for me for now, though.  My (pregnant) wife said the weight of the world is on her bladder as she laughs at what I write. Laughter is a hope that maybe tomorrow will be better. I've cried myself to sleep so many nights in bed with my wife, crying tears of hysterical laughter. 

Stars

I'm on my knees. I am in need. I want to pray for my son. Stars dot the sky as freckles may dot his face. You count them. You see possibilities. I see deaths. Thousands of ways and not just physical. Can this mind you gave me explain you away? So many diseases and pleases and thank yous. I receive the images of stars but my eyes mislead me. Those stars have burnt out a million years before I ever saw them.

Oh, make sure you fight, baby boy. May you fight sincerely like the cells of your namesake.

Part II

There is a glorious resurrection in sequels. I have been listening to a new album all week. I have been rolling my eyes reading reviewers who have a better insight on the Black community than the Black community. I think everything is maddening right now. I want peace so badly but I can't make magic. That isn't to say problems only drive police cars. It isn't so simple. You have to be okay with that. You are not the savior.

I'm sorry; that thought was holding hands with so many others. In one song on the new album the artist asks when things go sour will you stay? When he makes a mistake will you still associate? We are mortal men after all and mortality is really a state of need that we share rather than an appearance that may differ. But still, will we continue to combat?

There is a forgiveness that is required for sequels. The artist's words made me think of bitterness I've bottled. Hurt I've held. Maybe I ran too far? I have an app for that. Friends start with forgiveness.

I've hiked through another week on pins and needles and blades of grass. My wife is greatly expecting and our baby hasn't fully experienced gravity yet. The weight of the world has become the wait of the world to me. In my joy walking to the front door the high school football field is cheering for me, cheering for hope, and cheering for life.

Dude Lake

 I can tend to slip into the background like that level on Super Mario Bros. There are so many trees in the fog, probably. There are so many ways a friendship can suffer (alcohol). Shall I be more like you? Shall I be less like me?

Camping starts with so many colors. They seem to buzz. You can smell them. One by one the colors countdown. Orange is last to go and we watch as it smolders but then, yeah, it's gone.

Creatures

Well, aren't humans just disgusting, slimy creatures!

I was vomiting last week, trapped in the center of my mind. A genie in a lamp sounds magical but is ultimately a purgatorical prison. I couldn't stomach thoughts of cheesecake. I think it was a bug that had left me in this centripetal toilet bowl. I had the smell of my digestive enzymes in my nostrils and I was reading about the mystery of the Dyatlov Pass. Russians frozen dead in the snow from aliens testing weaponry for the Soviet government in a sexual rage (No one knows, just a theory). I stared at white, saprogenic faces. No one said "cheese" before snapping the photo.

Friday I gathered myself because I had to attend an awards luncheon for social services in the county I work. I wasn't thrilled. Awards were given to four quarterly employees who seemed to like their job. I smiled at the thought of how we will give you a damn award if you simply like your job because to most of us, isn't our job just a place where we complain about our job?

We clawed at our food, tables filled with an offensive amount of unnecessary flatware, (cheesecake for dessert). Everyone clapped after each nominee, NOT at the end of the list as instructed, an unavoidable phenomenon.

The final bullet of the program was awards for successful children who've aged out of foster care, a shadow-people really. Some grabbed the award with a quick thank-you while the final shuffled a few pages of a prepared speech when granted her award. Her GPA was read to clapping hands but mostly she spoke about bullying.

The sound of her voice wasn't pleasant, like a grunt with meanings. I strained to hear her thoughts. She was shorter than the podium, a high school senior. From where I sat she was unkempt hair and glasses returning two lights. She read pages about living in a group home in a life that was like hell. Hell on the bus. Hell at school. Hell surrounded by her peers who told her how different she was. She spoke with finality in the knowledge that she will never find a place within her peers but how that didn't change how she will seek success in a life that is her own. She said more; she was difficult to understand.

I struggled. The beauty in resilience contrasts the ugliness of its catalyst. A flower grows in the cracked asphalt. Beauty because of ugliness?

Well, aren't humans such blossoming, beautiful creatures!

Bodies

"Strengthen me with raisin cakes,
refresh me with apples,
for I am weak with love."
Song of Songs 2:5

Valentine's day approaches us with its familiar presence at Walgreens. The aisle is pink. I'll be there with some of you.

I keep a blanket folded in the backseat of my car to sleep when I need to. I tell you this to set the scene: me in the car at twilight. It smells like chicken in my car.

The radio is on. A woman speaks about her dying husband and I am paralyzed, cold, blanket over my legs. I could go in the house to greet my awaiting wife but I'm sitting in the car listening to the radio in the dark. It has become nighttime since the last paragraph.

The woman on the radio seems composed as she describes the difficulty of watching your spouse die. I can hear that she has nice teeth. Her husband is granted a statistical probability prior to each surgery. Depending upon this number, he stipulates that he would like to have a conversation with his wife and their children with certain things he would like to say to each. She intimates that there is a level of reluctance on her part in participating in these conversations. Understandable. I nod. I think she must talk about this a lot because she seems unshaken. I think he's not dead yet. I smile.

Just then, the host asks a question that sounded unplanned. He says, "Approximately 2 million people are listening to us right now. And your husband. What would you say to them? And him?" She audibly inhales. It was quiet for a second and in her pause I'm imagining her forming her thoughts. Silence on the radio seems longer than it really is. After her pause she says, "My husband is still the strongest man in any room."

My wife is now standing in the passenger window to my left. She must have heard my car pull up. She looks at me and smiles knowingly.

Occhi Bruni

Almost twenty years ago now my sister made a difficult decision. It wasn't difficult in a moment but in a lifetime. She was pregnant with a baby boy and a gold ring circled her head. Whenever I think I've dived to the depths of her decision I find there is so much more water below me. To the center of the earth this well was dug. I see the weird deep sea creatures swimming at the great rift. The pressure is heavy and soul-crushing.

Her body was still wet with love, salty. No dramatic score swelled when it should. She was silent in her strength and in her decision. For nine months she built a bond that would be stymied but never eradicated. I can still see the love in the reflection of her watery brown eyes. It will never leave. I think I had mistaken it for fear but I was young.

Now we live in that reflection. The image of life has flipped in light of her magnanimous gift, a gift she physically wrapped. It's given me new perspective. Life can't be the same after something like that.

I will never understand the breadth of her love in this decision. So much of everyday of my life has been absent of decisions. Life has happened without me reaching for the rudder. With my own son being formed (as we are speaking) I see now the units that that  love was and is measured in. "Your son is alive as is hope! You gave me hope when you chose adoption even if it hurt(s). Hope is something that benefits us all. It's what we breathe really. You are still the mother of the heart of the world, my sister."

Names

Your name. Do you ever say it aloud? Feel inextricably tied to it? Maybe you like it. Does it feel like you?

I went to an informative presentation on through-hiking last night at a local "adventure store." The speaker was the esteemed Karen O'Hara who goes by "Cozy" and constantly quotes her catchphrase: "Cozy likes to be Cozy." She spoke on trail names for a portion of her time. Hers was self-given but others are bestowed a name at the whim of others. One over-packed hiker was called "Pantry" and we can only hope she had no insecurities about her weight. She said the names were for fun but somehow you came to embody this moniker.

I have the grandiose task of naming a child. Like Adam in the garden. I place my hand on my wife's ever-bulging bump and try to tangibly communicate with my son. I talk to him and think of what he is like. Because he already is. That's what makes it feel so difficult because I don't even feel like I am naming him but rather discovering what he is called. It isn't a name for a cat that you call to inform of replenished kibble. It's who he is. It has become a task of archaeology: to excavate my son's name that has always been.

His bones have been imbued with a spirit, a soul.  Life breathed into the dust. And I wonder why this chokes me up! What is a name but a voice called by the one who loves you? People will love him. I will love him. What should I name him? Give me lists, family trees, boring chapters of the Bible.

I will call him mine.