Writing
I could feel the rain on my back as I biked down the bike paths and up the streets. The trees whistled by and not a soul in sight. The tears mingled with the rain, a strange salty sweet in my mouth.
I was biking only for myself and no one else. It was unnatural and good all at once. Biking in the cold reminded me I'm alive. I used to think it numbed something inside of me, but the cold is like a wake up call reminding me who I am and where I've been.
When I reached the plateau of a hill I was facing my middle school, a stark brown brick building of rectangular shapes rising over an array of smooth green hills with a super market as a backdrop. The usual blue sky marred by black swirls and grays with a light dusting of dark violet. I hadn't arrived here on purpose but here I was, my breath misting in the rain, emotions exhausted.
This was usually the time I wanted to scream. But I couldn't, I choked on the emotion, I held it all in. I could feel the lump in my throat like a stone. She had died and I would never again know anyone like her. Who had loved books of many shapes and sizes, and the colors of seashells and the tall green trees.
- - -
I find myself again in her room, and I am seven and crawling into bed next to her and I wake her. And I can see the morning light shining through the blinds, orange gold on the long dresser, the collections of seashells and oddments, much of which I collected myself.
And then we are standing near the stairs and she presses a book into my hand. And I am staring at the man on the cover with beard and carven axe.
I was eighteen when she was dying in the hospital. And she wanted so much to say I love you. Such intelligence stricken from one who cannot speak, cannot utter a word. And part of me wanted to sob and hug her, but I held back, or I think I did, and I did nothing. At eighteen and so aloof and so full of ego, what could one do but hold back the flood from coming?
And I am back again with the television in my Grandmother's living room, with a chocolate float and my sister. And I cared for her, too, and loved her, too, but I felt held back by fear and anger and pride and resentment that a thirteen year old does not understand.
And then I am on the street, asking my sister what to do. I am in the city again and alone and desperate and confused and angry and filled with voices in my head that will not and cannot stop screaming. But she isn't talking to me, she is talking for me, or at least I want her to. To tell me the answer. Yet now I wish she would see and know and understand that I am more alive then ever I was before.
The flow of the city sweeps around me, the ebb and flow continues regardless if I want to be in it. And now I am swept in, no longer challenging the waves but ebbing and flowing with them. And I can feel their flow, and taste the salt and smell the sea gulls without fear of being nipped at.
I see the three of me, the one who was, the one who is, the child from before. And I feel all three merging and changing and transforming like the flow of waves in an ocean. And yet I cross paths continuously with the former, and the latter I am finding inside of me.
There I am again on the bike paths. I was always outside, how could I have forgotten? Like waking up from a bad dream. I was always outside and active and outside of myself and my anger and my resentment. Sometimes in the rain or in the snow even. On a bike or rollerblades or running in the streets. Popsicles in the 90s, walkman radio, 99.1 97.9, ouiji boards and legos, lying in a field, sleeping soundly. My yellow blanket, my Dad and I watching a movie, Dad telling me stories, him with a beard, a moustache, clean shaven.
This feeling of overwhelming peace and soft quiet and the subtle eddies of streams that cannot be formed correctly into English in an intelligible fashion. A quality that cannot be explained even elegantly to people in the city. Crawfish, prickle bushes, clearings, slow streams, rushing streams after rain, blood brothers, walking in the darkness.
And now the memories come on me like a flood. Loving and not loving and hating without motive. I feel like I am waking to reality and wondering: 'how did I get to this place?' 'What have I been doing this whole time?'
I was biking only for myself and no one else. It was unnatural and good all at once. Biking in the cold reminded me I'm alive. I used to think it numbed something inside of me, but the cold is like a wake up call reminding me who I am and where I've been.
When I reached the plateau of a hill I was facing my middle school, a stark brown brick building of rectangular shapes rising over an array of smooth green hills with a super market as a backdrop. The usual blue sky marred by black swirls and grays with a light dusting of dark violet. I hadn't arrived here on purpose but here I was, my breath misting in the rain, emotions exhausted.
This was usually the time I wanted to scream. But I couldn't, I choked on the emotion, I held it all in. I could feel the lump in my throat like a stone. She had died and I would never again know anyone like her. Who had loved books of many shapes and sizes, and the colors of seashells and the tall green trees.
- - -
I find myself again in her room, and I am seven and crawling into bed next to her and I wake her. And I can see the morning light shining through the blinds, orange gold on the long dresser, the collections of seashells and oddments, much of which I collected myself.
And then we are standing near the stairs and she presses a book into my hand. And I am staring at the man on the cover with beard and carven axe.
I was eighteen when she was dying in the hospital. And she wanted so much to say I love you. Such intelligence stricken from one who cannot speak, cannot utter a word. And part of me wanted to sob and hug her, but I held back, or I think I did, and I did nothing. At eighteen and so aloof and so full of ego, what could one do but hold back the flood from coming?
And I am back again with the television in my Grandmother's living room, with a chocolate float and my sister. And I cared for her, too, and loved her, too, but I felt held back by fear and anger and pride and resentment that a thirteen year old does not understand.
And then I am on the street, asking my sister what to do. I am in the city again and alone and desperate and confused and angry and filled with voices in my head that will not and cannot stop screaming. But she isn't talking to me, she is talking for me, or at least I want her to. To tell me the answer. Yet now I wish she would see and know and understand that I am more alive then ever I was before.
The flow of the city sweeps around me, the ebb and flow continues regardless if I want to be in it. And now I am swept in, no longer challenging the waves but ebbing and flowing with them. And I can feel their flow, and taste the salt and smell the sea gulls without fear of being nipped at.
I see the three of me, the one who was, the one who is, the child from before. And I feel all three merging and changing and transforming like the flow of waves in an ocean. And yet I cross paths continuously with the former, and the latter I am finding inside of me.
There I am again on the bike paths. I was always outside, how could I have forgotten? Like waking up from a bad dream. I was always outside and active and outside of myself and my anger and my resentment. Sometimes in the rain or in the snow even. On a bike or rollerblades or running in the streets. Popsicles in the 90s, walkman radio, 99.1 97.9, ouiji boards and legos, lying in a field, sleeping soundly. My yellow blanket, my Dad and I watching a movie, Dad telling me stories, him with a beard, a moustache, clean shaven.
This feeling of overwhelming peace and soft quiet and the subtle eddies of streams that cannot be formed correctly into English in an intelligible fashion. A quality that cannot be explained even elegantly to people in the city. Crawfish, prickle bushes, clearings, slow streams, rushing streams after rain, blood brothers, walking in the darkness.
And now the memories come on me like a flood. Loving and not loving and hating without motive. I feel like I am waking to reality and wondering: 'how did I get to this place?' 'What have I been doing this whole time?'