the pelican

once more with feeling

just difficult stuff

ok truth is i can't concentrate. or won't. maybe that's really more like it.

just won't.

too much to process. too much to feel. it's all too much.

see a close friend of the family died on monday. very very suddenly of a heart attack. completely unexpected. out of the blue. 47-48 years old. grew up with him as almost a big brother. as a baby right through high school. just poof gone wham.

a sudden blip.

and it's bringing up all sorts of things. as death does. the great teacher. how could it not?

here death comes. ready or not.

and what's in order what have i done am i prepared have i really done the work have i even considered it that closely do i could i what if when and how and why?

and oh just never mind the grief thing.

yeah and it's real, but yet removed. there is shock and grief maybe. and time and distance removed, and just removed. detached. my big brother then but a semi-stranger now. linked into an intimate complex childhood past but little to actual adult contact. last time i saw him was at my sister's wedding i think, about 13 years ago.

though i'd hear of his exploits through my mother.

see, my dad was a newspaperman. and his dad, my godfather, was dad's closest friend and partner. they owned a triumverate of small town independent newspapers. and the dads, the partners, sort of combined our two families together. we were one big happy conglomeration. all major holidays were spent both families together. most weekends. lots of extra ciricular activities. picnics. dinners. events. the moms became best and closest friends. all things done as one extended family. when the dads sold the newspapers, our family moved back to colorado where i was born, my mother was born, her father was born, etc. and so they came with us. just kind of had to. we were one unit, after all. and the dads bought a newspaper together here too. and so it continued. it was expected. it was the way it was. we were all family.

and then, the year i graduated from high school, my dad's partner, my god-father passed away very suddenly. completely unexpectedly of a heart attack. here one day and gone the next. he was 47.

and then, three years later, my father died. after a motorcycle accident, some in and out hospitalization due to blood clots and then ultimately a heart attack. at 51.

after that, the moms tried to keep the newspaper going for a couple years but they just weren't into it. they sold it not long after. meanwhile the kids have all gone fairly separate ways. none of us have really stayed in contact with each other. the moms have stayed good friends and have a regular standing lunch appointment every saturday. in this way, we remain connected without actual contact. and so we hear about them and we assume they hear about us but the kids don't really communicate with each other any more.

and so now it's 28 years after my 47 year-old god-father was yanked suddenly out of this realm and now it's some kind of mirror repeat performance as his son, one year older at 48, is gone.

just like that.

and so.

what to make of all this.

and i guess maybe in that it's-all-about-me ego trip i'm sort of suffering from childhood reflux. there is some grief for everything, some sense of loss of the present and the past but it is all connected. everything linked back in time. how things were. childhood. the dads the partners the newspapers the families the functions the holidays. the whole thing is sort of regurgitating up in my body and mind in sweet and sour chunks of imprinted and crystalized and reinvented and idealized memories. old old super 8 home movies and snapshots. if this were a film, i'd be having a lot of flashbacks and dream sequences. shifting in and out of time. swingsets to riding bikes to christmas to functions to weddings and funerals and babies and high school and home and the newspapers and all of it. the whole mess makes me feel kind of dizzy. the time travel is making me motion sick. gripped in bouts of emotional nausea.

oh it isn't all good or bad memory. it is the pull, the grip that creates the nausea. the connection. the grasping. the grief. it tugs and yanks and jerks the tears and flops the stomach and shakes the head and churns the brain.

and there is some great sentimental softness to it. and a gaping loss of innocence. and an awareness of what was how we saw the future then and what the present is to us now.

and when i can put aside my own stuff long enough, ultimately in my heart i suppose my main concern is for my sweet old fairy god-mother. to lose a husband so young and so suddenly and now to lose her son the same way. i have nothing in my life to compare the depth of grief she must feel. i've lost my father, a god-father, dogs and cats, a very close friend, a grandfather, a great uncle, an aunt, and now a semi-estranged big brother. but a spouse and a son. well that's something else entirely on the grief scale. that's just off the charts. and oh but my heart breaks for her. and her other kids too, his brother and sister. i can feel their hurt and confusion and shock and guilt and worry and regrets and concern and pain and loss and loss and loss and love and tears and and and. some kind of psychic reconnection going on. and an awareness of the depth of our disconnect too. and so i hope they will all be ok. i wish them all well. and i suppose i will see them soon.

oh grief. it is a gaping hole in the chest.

a loud presence of silent absence.

there will be a cremation and a memorial service where he lived out of state and then a return home to colorado to bury his ashes and a family gathering of sorts perhaps although the details are being arranged. for there is always the ceremonial mourning schedule of events and then there is the personal process. cremation and burial, paper or plastic, public and private. they must deal with the arrangements. and what to do with his stuff and was there a will and who's going to take care of his cats.

this is all being done at a distance.

back in the state where our families lived when we were small. before the move back to colorado. he had moved back to idaho. he had been divorced. lonely perhaps. a difficult time. maybe he tried to move back into the past. back into our childhood.

so it's a reminder. maybe a bit of wake-up call. yeah. need to live life. enjoy self. do good work. take care of things. be of use. love.

so temporal this life. so brief. so quick. so sudden. so precious.

we are like fruit flies, living for just a few days.

the edge between the worlds is so close. so very very close. all of this reality that we hold so dear and consider so real so important so all consuming. this suffering we believe to be our identity. this grasping this clinging this game this show this demonstration this body these feelings these thoughts these opinions and preferences this perception this moment this now. now is gone the word is typed and all around us everything is popping into and out of existence.

transformations. incarnations. journeys.

and what have i done and what am i doing and where have i been and where am i going?

and so i have to breathe.

and i breathe in life and breathe out death and in between in between the breaths in between the moments in between this constant coming and going and rising and falling birth and death in between in the midst in the center and all around in between and through it all at the heart of it in the now there remains this stillness this pause this now this tranquility in the movement this peace in the chaos in between in the midst at the heart.

there is always this love.

posted by: limine at 09:23 | link | comments (8) |

herding cats and broken trails

strange thing about photographs. captured time. materialized pieces of perspective. how pictures taken are so rarely what is given. pictures taken.
 
watched a good little cowboy flick last couple nights. a tv type special but saw it through netflix. robert duvall. thomas haden church. a 2-disc deal. beautiful filming and scenery. though not at all right for crossing utah and wyoming. not near enough dust and desert and way too lush -- no sage brush. oh but it was glorious and gorgeous nevertheless. corny as all get-out of course but with such compassion and honor folded into it. beauty in the midst of the violence. how the west was won and lost and taken and stolen and lost and found. “broken trail.” yeah i gave it the full five stars.
 
last night while the flick was paused and i was outside herding cats, a neighbor emerged and started chatting at me. chatting gabbing yacking emoting gossiping spewing essentially. just spewing. yeah she’d had a little wine. she’d fallen off again after eighteen days. eighteen count ‘em eighteen days she had gone. stress at work. prescriptions too expensive on the “new” more expensive health insurance with fewer benefits. freaking out a little. working as a hostess in a restaurant in town. corporate took away the table chart and she felt like the rug had been pulled out from under her. she’d been holding it together under intense pressure and when they just yanked her chain so hard she lost her balance and fell back into a cardboard box of wine. a smart sweet funny lady with smart good kids. well read all of them. verbal. clever. silly. good neighbors one hundred percent. good kids. kids who treat cats with kindness and ask permission to come into the yard and say please and thank you. she needed to talk. she needed a hug. she needed a friend. she needed a sympathetic heart. she was not popular at home tonight. she picked up a glass of wine just today. eighteen days she had made it before. eighteen days she’d gone. eighteen days and they took away her table diagram board. and that was all it took.
 
well we talked for quite a while. i had to get one last kitty in who was not responding to the call. bono buddy was down the back of the park, halfway down the block creeping slowly in the grass. normally he runs when i call but he was hanging back poking at the grass. he’d brought home a pork chop earlier in the evening. recently grilled too, still warm. how he managed that maneuver will remain a mystery though i do have a few theories.

see the cats get to go out and stretch their legs in the evening. home from work, door opens and the beasties are released into the summer evening. have to open doors and a couple windows anyway just to get the breeze going. and every night just before dark it’s time to gather the children in and close the doors. this is why i am known in my neighborhood as the gato mamasita. i call them in jack jack jackman and sweet bono buddy and dante orange and pepe mac dude and izzy wizzy wizard. pretty much for the most part they respond. izzy lags last most nights, shows me where he is but won’t come in until everybody else has responded. jack and bono run and gallop in. dante responds slowly and carefully in his tired old orange cat way winding his way back into his house in his compliant though unhurried way. pepe might need to be airlifted in, sometimes a snatching maneuver, sometimes a scoot or a grab. sometimes he’s already in looking at me waiting for me to start the call in. but izzy lurks around outside taking one last patrol around the yard. one last check. one last glimpse at the sunset. if anybody happens to be dawdling, he will help me walk the park and the block a bit and chase down the straggler who when found will have to be carried back. so undignified and embarrassing for a cat outside where the rest of the world can see. and he scrurries around and follows me back into the house, but will only enter by himself and will not be picked up.
 
well last night bono was down the block a bit at the back on the park. a natural backdoor man he is you see. goes through a broken slot in a backyard fence between a couple bushes. and last night the neighbor is chattering away and i head down towards the secret fence slat and there is the most distinct and undeniable smell of a barbeque apparently negligently unmanned long enough for a single pork chop to slide through a trap door.

meanwhile neighbor heads home and all the cats have been rounded up and herded back into the dwelling for their evening meal. the water is running and the cans are being opened when the neighbor comes in the front door with a bleeding gash in the middle of her hand. tripped going up the stairs into her house and fell into her broken wineglass. two plus hours later at the emergency room she’s belligerently arguing with the doctor. she refuses the tetanus shot. she has stopped bleeding. she may need stitches. she’s ready to go home now, she’s tired of waiting. i’m wiped. it had been a typically semi-hellish monday at work with initial disclosures and messy discovery responses and investigative reports and videos to be sent out for copying and clients wanting their lawsuit to compensate them for all the wrongs that have ever been done to them and my neighbor she’s yelling at the doctor she’s still in her slippers and shorts she brought puzzle books for me she’s arguing with the doctor the jell she says i want the jell not the shot no no put that down i’m not having the shot i want the jell the numbing jell i want the jell. i tell him i think there may well be some glass still in there and he nods and looks at her hand and she wants the jell she wants the jell but no she’s getting the shot. oh you’re a big help she says that’s just great and she gets another shot and she bites the side of her other hand and i watch this time i watch it all from a distance. she wants the jell but she gets two shots. i know it’s wrong she says i know i should quit i know i shouldn’t be drinking again but the thing is see the thing is i like it. it works for me. they took the board away at work. i have no reference point. the dining room will shift into chaos. i know i shouldn’t be drinking. i have no choice. i like it. it works for me. the kids are so mad at me. so mad. so disappointed. eighteen days i had gone. eighteen days.

the room is so bright so white full of hospital white and she’s back on about the board the restaurant table diagram chart the system the reference point the map the map she needs a map she needs directions she needs order she can’t work in the chaos but corporate doesn’t want the hostesses looking down at the board they want them smiling and greeting and seating but it’s going to be chaos it’s all going to go willy-nilly it won’t be fair the wait staff will hate it without the board without a map well anything could happen just anything and it’s a dangerous thing to lose control in a busy restaurant a dangerous thing.
they take her for xrays. i stand up i stretch it is so white so bright and everything sparkles and glows shiny silver metal sink and counter and white floors and walls and cabinets and there are all sorts of high tech scary looking emergency gadgets and packets and tubes and tanks and long scissors and sharp pokey bright things and she squirts back into the room opening the door almost whacking me in the forehead and she says they’ve taken my pictures and it should only take about ten minutes for them to develop she says she knows the drill she knows about the jell and how to take out her own stitches and she’s been there so so many times she tells me she was there once and her alcohol level was so high they couldn’t believe she wasn’t dead but she was lucid and loud and talking about her theories about the new harry potter book. she is impatient she says it’s all taking way too long and that i should go home and her husband will come get her and she says her daughters are so mad at her so mad it has been eighteen days.

yes i remember i said i remember when i was a kid. it was my father mostly but both parents at times mostly him though mostly dad and i never felt safe never felt safe never felt at ease always worried always stressed always feeling the need to take care of things the way an oldest child must and she said she was never angry or violent just loud and she doesn’t ever drive she just has her daughter pick up the slack yes her older daughter she says is her enabler and she asks me what to do she has seen a therapist and she has spoken to her pastor different pastors and priests and she has a prescription and she says what should she do but i know this is a rhetorical question i know i don’t have the answer i say honey you are asking the wrong person i have had my addictions my issues my problems i could slide into oblivious i could go insane oh anything could happen you just don’t want to ask me for advice and she says my daughter is my enabler now and she is my partner and leaving she got accepted she’s going to college she is so smart and so capable and i’ll be there for her when she falls i’ll pick her up and dust her off and put bandaids on her i will always be her mother she is going to leave and what do i do and it has been eighteen days and they took away the board at work. and i love her but i have nothing to say.

and i wonder what does it mean why is it how come how come how does that happen how did i come to be at odds with my desire and somehow i think i think maybe desire can never be fully squelched will always burn on karma karma the spinning the wheel of samsara the karma the desire for release the fall from grace the guilt the low self image the desire the need the fear the grasping the groping in the dark oh the suffering the suffering the suffering and will i ever make peace with my own desires?
 
pictures taken. and her husband comes. and i drive home and the movie is still paused in the player and i take a shower a long shower and i think about her daughter and i think about my dad and i remember how i tried to control it all i remember his promises i remember monitoring and monitoring i remember when he would lose control and be so sad so defeated so worthless and hopeless and sad and angry and paranoid and unhappy and i wonder about addictions and i feel distant and removed from it all detached and removed and present yet shifting through time and space and cowboys and indians and robert duvall and how in the movie in the movie in the movie he saved the women and children he saved them there was redemption and broken hearts and riding horses and riding through wyoming wild and free running with the horses running with the horses wild horses wild horses and hawks flying overhead and rolling hills and the stars above.

and all the cats were snugly tucked away in the house.

and i found the remains of bono’s pork chop in the backyard.

and she got two stitches in her palm.

picture taken. so rarely what is given.

so rarely.

and it had been eighteen days.

posted by: limine at 22:50 | link | comments (5) |

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