stillness

It is only in the stillness and in the quiet that you can hear your heart beating.

If you are quiet. And if you listen. You hear blood rushing. To a pulse. Your pulse.

Rush. Pause. Pulse, rush, pause.

In the quiet it is as calamitous as waves crashing on shore.

When it is the only sound you can hear, it is deafening.

And yet. It is proof of life. Proof that you are alive.

Sometimes...sometimes, it is the only proof in the world.

Redemption

Three days. That was all that was required.

Actually, that is a lie. I cried the first day.

I don’t know what it is about you. I never knew. Truth be told, maybe if I saw you again, maybe there would no longer be anything there.

But sitting here and imagining. Sitting here and remembering...

I am so different now. I was stunned to discover that I still felt anything for you at all. I like to think that I was just a kid then. And that I had no idea about what was important, about what mattered. I had so much less experience. And the things that I thought were so awe-inspiring and impressive back then, I thought, would hold no more wonder or magic for me now.

And maybe if I were to meet you again, maybe that would be true. Maybe if I searched your tourmaline eyes, that electricity—that connection, that inexorable draw—would be gone.

I think to wonder why you want to see me again after all these years. Is it only as simple as a genuine, guileless desire to catch up with someone with whom you once shared several months of your life? Is there some part of you that also needs closure? Is there residual feeling there demanding an answer after all this time? Did a part of you never stop wanting me? Or are you just bored and middle-aged and looking to briefly recapture the passion and excitement of your youth?

Am I your mid-life crisis?

You left so easily. You decided you were done, and then you were gone. Utterly. Finally. Effortlessly...

Do you remember the night I materialized at your apartment unannounced and she was there?

You never knew that I wanted to die. I stopped eating. I lost so much weight that bones protruded where smooth curves should have been. I thought my heart would pound out of my chest, crawl onto the floor and seize from brokenness.

And you married her less than a year later. Just like that. Like I never meant anything to you. Like I had been so wrong for you. So wrong that any other person on the planet was a superior alternative to the mess that was me.

I loved you desperately. Desperately.

So desperately, that twelve years later I drew back a veil, believing I would find a well-calloused scar of jagged, but dead and numb tissue. Nerve endings destroyed by pain and time. So much pain and so very much time. I thought I had felt all that I could feel about us. I thought everything I had available to feel for us had been used up and spent. That there was no more to feel.

But I drew back that veil to find not a callous, not a scar, but a fragile scab. So thin and so delicate that the softest breath disturbed its seal and blood began again to flow.

That is not to say that there has not been healing too. Even in three days. I have learned some things that have assuaged old cuts and bruises. And, I have been forgiven.

I cannot question your motives for wanting to see me without also questioning my own. But I already know what my motives are. It did not take me long to find them.

I want to see you because I want to know what I really was to you. I want to look you in the eye and see if the electricity, the connection, is still there—too powerful to be ignored. I want to know if what we had was as compelling and rare a thing as I always believed it was. And I am hoping that in the knowing, in the finding, I will find peace also.

I would be lying if I said that I did not hope that I have not been wrong all these years. But what I hope for does not matter. What I hope for is not the goal. The goal is to know. Whether I was something, or whether I was nothing, or whether I am either of these things now…does not matter. The knowing matters. The knowing settles. The knowing permits rest. Closure. A setting-aside. A settling. A staunching. A healing. A moving on. A moving forward.

And maybe—if I am lucky—a vindication. A validation. A redemption.

Embrace

Their bodies engaged.

He pulled her to him with as much longing as he dared—afraid to consume her slight frame in his strength.

She clasped him to her. Keenly aware of the tension in their arms. “Am I holding on too tightly? Am I holding on too long?”

A slim slackening—only to allow for a breath—had them instantly terrified that the other were receding.

She thought, “If I could just stay in this moment the tiniest whisper longer...”

In his racing thoughts, Time did not exist.

Each clung to the other. Clung. And breathed.

Until, at last, she thought, “If I linger, I am lost.”

She exhaled and permitted her muscles to ease with the rhythm of her breath.

They disengaged in slow motion—the reluctance palpable between them.

She raised her eyes to his and held his gaze for a heart beat. She smiled.

He smiled.

She turned and walked away.

Joy Ride

But there was a night in the spring that a 1976 Gran Torino pulled into my front yard when the world was ours. Ours and mine. And we went for a joy ride.

I would wager that the rest of the world doesn’t know it yet, but I learned how to love that night. Or perhaps I merely remembered.

Suddenly I was a little girl again. In the back on the bench seat with the wind whipping through my hair. The open road, the night sky. The roar of a mean engine. And a giggling Red there beside me.

And what could I do but revel in El’s joy? In Red’s joy? In my own joy...

For Red

Come lay your head down
Let your autumn hair fall
Let the sun kiss your face
And set your silken tresses ablaze

Close your eyes
And drift away
Melt. Flow. Breathe.

I will soothe away your sorrow
I will wipe away your tears

My fingertips the faintest caress
The brush in my hands
Tickling. Stroking. Smoothing.

I will sing for you a song
Of love and life and laughter

And together we will dream

And with each sigh, each breath
Happily-ever-after
Is one more moment closer

Where Are You, Larry Salt?

One evening I was attending a professional networking event on the posh patio of a swanky Scottsdale restaurant. I didn’t know anyone there, and the specific set of people in attendance was not strictly within my field of work, so finding common ground with which to make the prescribed small-talk was certainly nontrivial.

A glass of wine in, and I’d finally managed to insert myself into the circle of folks chatting with the host of the event, when a darling man in his early seventies approached.

“Excuse me. I don’t mean to interrupt. But might anyone here happen to have some Allen wrenches with them?” the man asked, clearly skeptical that he would receive the response he was hoping for.

Blanks stares from my circle-mates ensued.

“I do,” I said. “They’re in my Jeep, but I have them.”

A woman, the eldest in the group, cranked her head ‘round at me in surprise. “He asked for Allen wrenches,” she said—strong emphasis on the “Allen’, as though I perhaps had heard the man incorrectly, or otherwise did not know what Allen wrenches were.

“I know,” I said with a smile. I turned to the man, “Shall we?”

He grinned back in relief. “Let’s.”

We excused ourselves and made off for the Jeep.

The man’s name, he said, was Larry Salt. He was delightful and quirky. He told corny jokes the entire walk. You couldn’t stop him, really—he was a veritable fount.

“What did the anaesthesiologist say to the woman he was trying to cajole into going on a date with him?” Dramatic pause and I waited obligingly. “I’m a real knockout.”

I laughed. He laughed. In between the barrage of cheese, he slipped in nuggets of other details. He, himself, was a retired anaesthesiologist.

“You might think it’s strange to be my age and be driving around on a Harley,” he said. “I always wanted one, but my wife wouldn’t let me have one.” He paused for a moment, and the mood quieted. “She died about a month ago.”

“I am so very sorry to hear that, Larry.”

“Yes. It’s been difficult. I miss her very much. But,” and the smile returned to his beaming face, “I finally got my Harley. I’ve only had it a few weeks.”

By then we’d made it to the Jeep. I unlocked the driver-side door and reached for my Leatherman Charge-Ti and plucked it from its perch between the center console and the floor—just forward of my gear shift. I opened the leather case, and slid the bit clip from its sleeve.

I turned to Larry. “I’m not sure what size you need. Will any of these work?”

“Hmmm,” he considered. “I’m not sure. The bolt is quite large...”

“Well let’s go find out. If not, I’m sure we can find something else. This thing has just about every tool imaginable. We’ll improvise.” I grinned. He grinned. And we walked to the bike.

“My foot rest fell off. I can’t drive it home this way—no place to put my foot.” He had my Leatherman in his hand, and had pulled out the largest of the Allen bits. It was too small and would not gain purchase in the bolt head.

“Hmmm. Let me see.” He handed me back the tool. “There’s got to be some gadget in here that will do the trick.”

I knelt on the concrete to examine the bolt, and then looked back at the Leatherman, mentality considering and then dismissing each miniature tool. I came to a broad, flat tool that could have passed for a very large flat head screwdriver. In truth, I am still not sure what the intended purpose of the piece actually was, but eyeballing it, it looked broad enough to catch the interior corners of the carved-out hex in the head of the bolt.

“Let’s give this a try.” I handed the tool back to Larry, who inserted the flat head into the bolt and cranked. Sure enough, the head caught. Larry tightened the bolt, securing his foot rest.

I could see his grin from where I was standing. “That ought to get me home,” he said, once again beaming up at me.

“I really cannot thank you enough. I hadn’t expected anyone at the event to have anything with them that would help—and certainly not a young woman with a Jeep.”

I laughed. “Never underestimate a Jeep owner,” I said. “Let alone well-prepared young women.”

His eyes sparkled in laughter. He handed me back my Leatherman, thanked me again and we said good night.

I was shocked when, several weeks later, I received a bulky parcel in the mail at work. The inky-black, hand-written return address on the outside of the padded envelop indicated that it was from Larry Salt. I smiled immediately, and wondered what on earth he might have sent me.

Inside I found a painstakingly handcrafted thank you card. Larry had hand drawn and written the entire card himself—from the Gothic-style calligraphy-ed “Thank You” on the front, to a multi-paragraph note on the inside.

He had included two small, additional gifts.

Thank you, again, he said, for your assistance with my Harley, and for so graciously and politely tolerating my corny jokes. To show my appreciation, I have enclosed a copy of Terry Fator’s ‘Live From Las Vegas’ DVD. He is, you will find (and quite unlike myself), a true comedian. I hope you enjoy him as much as I have.

I have also enclosed a genuine Harley key-chain. We Harley owners can be a bit snobbish when it comes to Harley paraphernalia—we don’t think highly of non-owners brandishing it about. However, it is my firm conviction that a young woman with the foresight and presence of mind to carry a tool as useful as your Leatherman around in her Jeep is entirely worthy of the honor.

l was so touched by his thoughtfulness that tears welled in my eyes. It is not every ordinary day that we have the opportunity to encounter such gratefulness in our fellow humans, and rarer still that those who are grateful take the time and clear effort to express their thanks. Larry’s was, by far and away, the most endearing “Thank you” I had ever been blessed to receive. That it had been inspired by such a trivial expenditure of effort on my part* made it that much more humbling.

Larry Salt was a rare breed indeed.

I carefully reassembled my bundle, and I brought it home with me and set it on the counter in the kitchen (minus the key chain and the DVD, which I watched that very evening). My intent was to handcraft and send a reply worthy of the thought and care he had put into his expression of gratitude. More than anything, I wanted him to know that I had received his gifts, and perhaps more importantly, how much his gesture had meant to me.

Sadly, I had also left on the counter some plastic containers full of spoiled food that I had taken from the refrigerator. I had left them there (rather than emptying them into the garbage) because the bag was not nearly full, and I didn’t want the odor of spoiled food to dominate my kitchen while the bag filled over the next few days. So I set them there to await the bag being full enough to empty them and then immediately take out.

At the time I lived with a house full of boys with healthy appetites for beer. And a night later—long after I had gone to sleep—one of them (a little sloppy from a tad too much of noted beer) accidentally knocked the containers over. Some tumbled this way and some that. Most, I am told, landed on the floor. But at least one toppled and broke open on the counter, and spilled all over my precious card (and its envelope with its return address) from Larry Salt.

Spoiled food smelling as it does, the inebriated boys’ priority was to do whatever necessary to rid the kitchen of the foul stench, and to do so as quickly as possible. No-one thought to jot down Mr. Salt’s return address before they tossed the mess into the garbage. And of course, the garbage was immediately taken out.

I tried everything within my power to find an address for Larry. I contacted the folks from the circle I was conversing with at the networking event. I Googled him every which way I could think of—in this day and age, it is easier than ever to track someone down. How hard could it be to find a retired anaesthesiologist in the Phoenix valley named Larry Salt?

But my efforts yielded no results.

To this day, I would still burst at the chance to let Larry know that he touched my life and to wish him well. To let him know that I did enjoy his DVD, and that I still carry the Harley key chain attached to the zipper of my purse. And every time I see it, I think of him and I smile.

Where are you, Larry Salt?


*This fittingly reinforces the notion I attempted to express in one of my Musings entries: “We touch others' lives every day. Sometimes in what seems the smallest ways. So tread lightly, and with a smile.”

Eternal Fleeting

An eternity had forged this moment. Scant years had forged this moment.

The night was a night of contrasts. The ancient and the timeless. The ephemeral and the fleeting. The things which have persisted from the time before the birth of human memory. And the things which had only just begun.

And everywhere there was unmitigated Beauty. Beauty so great and so vast that it dwarfed the word. It found the word impotent and comical. It existed there, unapologetic and towering. It demanded more powerful words.

“Make me a word. A word capable of capturing the essence of me,” it breathed.

There was the raw ruggedness of the mountain beneath their feet. The shadow-forms of its comrades, shoulder upon shoulder, rising to stand together. Sentries of the horizon.

There was the veil of stars, cascading in the night sky. Scattered to the corners of the earth on the drapes of heaven. Like spilled sugar on black velvet.

There was her companion, his features perfect and ethereal, awash in crackling firelight.

Cadán.

To be sure, the mountain’s raw ruggedness was mirrored in him. In the chiseled lines of his face, in his strong, sculpted jaw. In the unyeilding planes and curves of his musculature (which memory recalled as reflexively as her own name).

But the contrast was in the softness. The way his smile dawned upon his face with the brilliance of sunrise. The way the scent of him conjured mini-dreams of laying down with him on beds of wild flowers. It was in the melting of her insides. In his slow steady heartbeat. In the heartbeat that quickens. In his eyes. In his touch.

And there was contrast in measures of Time. The mountains, indifferent and impervious to Time. The timelessness of the moment itself.

And there was the evanescence of the lives of mortal men.

She watched Cadán watch the fire. The moments passed, and she looked on. He looked on. Neither spoke. What needed to be said? It was a time for contemplation. A time for discovery and learning. For thinking new thoughts.

And then, finally, for saying new things.

“You know, Cadán. I love you.” Startled at her own voice, the words had been uttered and were gone before she could forestall them. It wasn’t that her statement had been false. She just hadn't intended to speak aloud. Not with their history. It was a private truth.

Cadán looked up from the fire in surprise. He was not certain he had heard her correctly. He looked at her and he waited.

Silence lingered.

“Oh, don’t look at me like that. I hadn't meant to say that out loud. I’m not sure where it came from,” she paused. “I mean, I know where it came from, I just...” she trailed off. She looked back to the fire, gathered her thoughts into baskets of neat sentences, and began again.

“Yes. I love you. But it doesn’t mean anything. Not like what you think. It doesn’t change anything. Not time-lines, or futures. Not the past or the present. It just is. It is a matter of fact, of existence. Like if I had said ‘I breathe,’ or ‘The sky is blue.’ It is a statement which demands no action.”

She stole a glance at Cadán, who had returned to studying the fire. He was listening, his brow slightly furrowed in thought. She went on.

“It shocked me to discover it. I mean, you have always been a unique phenomenon to me. You affect me in ways I cannot explain, or wrap my brain around. And when I first formed the thought, when I imagined us here, in front of this fire, and I saw the imagined me form the words on her lips... That was when I knew it was true. I mean, I still hadn’t meant to say it out loud. But the moment I had imagined saying it, I knew it was true.” She paused again to breathe.

“And to be honest, I’m not sure why it was a truth that I resisted for so long. I’ve known you how many years now? And looking back, I’ve always loved you. From the moment we met. The first time we danced.”

Cadán looked up at her again, attempting to gauge if there was more, if she would continue. She was back to staring-down the fire. He willed her to look at him, to share the turmoil he knew he would find there. But when she finally did, her glance was furtive and uncertain, quick and fleeting. She was not yet ready to grapple with Consequences.

“But it makes no difference. I mean, I expect it to make no difference. It is merely what has always been, whether or not the words had been given voice, whether or not I had named the Unnamed. Now we know its name. Now I know what to call it."

Time held its breath. "And it’s a relief, actually. Even though I hadn’t meant to say it. I’m glad I did.”

She looked again at Cadán, who had resumed watching the fire.

“Honestly, I think you love me too. I don’t think you name it. I think it’s something you don’t like to look at. The word, the Label makes you squirm. Makes you uncomfortable. You think the presence of that word demands action. Requires commitment. Or requires something. You think if you love someone, or someone loves you, that there is Expectation. You think people don’t just love just to love. For the joy of it. For the feel of it. Because they can. Because they can’t help it. Because it is what we were built for, made for.” She self-consciously picked at her pinkie nail. Fidgeting.

“I don’t need anything to happen. I don’t need anything to change. Just know it. Accept it. Tuck it away somewhere, where it won’t bother you. Where you can take it out and dust it off when you need the knowledge of it. Where it will keep you warm on a lonely night. Know that someone in this world thinks that you are a wonderful, incredible anomaly. And that she loves you. Will always love you. Boundlessly. Without reservation. Without judgement. My love for you is a celebration of all that you are. It is entirely, helplessly involuntary. Like a reflex. A natural response to beauty that is too big for the world.”

The fire hissed and spat, dancing, and long moments drew on. They inhaled, held breaths, and then exhaled. Each swimming in thoughts, wading through tides of emotion. Each trying to navigate the tumult and find solid ground.

“I don’t know what to say,” Cadán said at last, his voice breathy and soft, the words nearly catching in his throat. Barely a whisper. It could have been a caress.

She knew him well enough to recognize the emotion clinging like dew to each syllable he breathed. He may not know what to say, or even know yet how he wanted to react, would react, but he was feeling. Something. He was on a journey. Forging new paths. Thinking new thoughts.

“You don’t have to say anything. Like I said. I didn’t tell you so that you would reciprocate. Or say anything back. Or change anything. Or change us.”

“I feel like I should say something.”

She smiled and realized she was meeting his eyes again. And for the first time since she had spoken, she didn’t feel too naked, too exposed.

“I know you do. But you don’t. If you really feel like you need to do something, you could kiss me. We’re sitting here wasting a beautiful night on non...” The first tugs of a smile snagged the corners of his lips.

He leaned in and he covered her mouth with his, swallowing her words before they could escape.

The kiss was fervent. Demanding. It dipped in and out of Time. It stopped Time.

He moved his hand to cradle her head. He placed his other in the gritty earth beside her, and he lowered them both down.

Urgency blossomed. Lingered.

The night wrapped them. Cloaked them. Washed them.

Beauty stood watching. Jealous.