"I am here because I feel comfortable. This is a need. It is here that I am able to be. No more faking. Here dwells intimacy, honesty, and pain. Nothing here is easy, but it is right. It is pure. It is adoration for the inexplicable emotions, the twisted confusion, the unbearable realities. I ask for no acceptance and expect no agreement. This is for me and those who see what I see."
--ns
The Spring: 11 June 2007
I don't see Dave often. We meet up a few times a year, sharing dinner or maybe a relaxing movie at his parents' country home. He's four hours from my home, bulldozing his way through dental school. He'll finish next year, only to commence the process once more. Dave wants to specialize, and this requires additional years of care and diligence.
Dave and I met up today. The weather was gorgeous, and I decided to make the trek to my childhood home. The sky was a calm blue, and there wasn't a single cloud in view. I searched hard, too, anxiously anticipating small wisps, yet hoping I failed so as not to destroy such a perfect day. I passed by countless bikers during the northward journey along the lake's western edge. It's a beautiful journey. One of my favorites, actually, and I've made it all my life - first as a child on my summer trips to visit Grandma and Grandpa, and then as a young adult on my way to the university. From diaper to dormroom, that road had become a very good friend. Never quick to judge, always welcoming; she was an outstanding listener as well.
Dave was back home too, and that's why I decided to head north in the first place. The grass needed cutting and the dishes needed washing, but they didn't matter. I have always enjoyed happening upon a chance occurrence to steal me away from life's duller moments. I know I'm not alone.
After a brief respite at my parents' house, I drove to Dave's childhood home. It's a three-mile journey I could complete with my eyes closed. I always comfort myself with this little-known fact. No matter how our lives may change or how other people may change, we could always make that journey. I never actually drive to Dave's house with my eyes closed, because then the dream would be destroyed. I think it's better left as an uneaten morsel in my mind's eye. But it's always there - just in case - and that's all I really need.
After a handshake and a hug, we began our ceremonial walk, first along the winding country road, and then along the vast expanse of his parent's estate. We greeted the cherry trees and pines that his dad had planted a few years back. I was so proud of them; they had grown to be strong and mighty. Little soldiers in a row, receiving commands from two young men who weren't so young anymore.
After a quick nod, the soldiers responded in kind with a dignified bow, submitting gracefully to the gentle breeze. I can't be sure they remembered my name. After all, it had been so long since we last spoke. Perhaps they could see in my eyes a familiar spark, or maybe a reassuring laugh that served as kindling for their fading collective memory. I will never be sure. But I welcome the uncertainty, because if they ever told me I was a stranger to them, the dream would be destroyed, and my weakening grip on youth would grow even weaker.
We continued our solemn walk down the meandering country road, passing by familiar houses and barking dogs that - for all I knew - had never abandoned their posts. We kicked a few stones around and walked at a pace that was quick enough to escape the grip of country tar baking beneath our feet. Each familiar landmark would ignite a new memory, and laughter would erupt soon after. And then a sigh. We both looked down at the road and marched forward, receiving our cue from the dignified soldiers we had left behind.
At long last we reached the spring, a small alcove on the road's edge from which a continuous stream of water had been flowing all our lives. This, of course, meant forever. The spring was the one steady and relentless force in spite of everything else. When all had failed, we could count on it to sustain us. Like the strong and mighty soldiers we had greeted earlier that day, the spring was a silent partner. "Rest here for a while," she told us. "You look tired." And indeed we were. Sometimes I grow sad when I begin to think about what forever really means. I never ask the spring, though. It's not that I'm afraid of the answer. It's just that if I knew the answer - whatever the answer may be - the dream would be destroyed. And that, of course, would be the greatest tragedy of all.
Dave and I had both grown up wanting to attend Harvard Medical School together. We were naive to the notion, and Dave's father would joke with us and tell us to get going on our medical school applications. Time was running out, he told us. The earlier the better. We were only twelve years old.
During the countless summer nights I spent at Dave's country home, we would stay up until the early hours of the morning, confessing our sins and receiving absolution through the one dream that sustained us. Like the tireless spring, it was something real to which we could cling. We never did get a head start on those applications. Maybe it's because we were too busy dreaming. But Dave and I didn't mind, because if we had spent those summers painstakingly completing those Harvard applications, there would have been no time to dream.
It was wonderful to see Dave today, and I couldn't have asked for a more beautiful day to complete our solemn march. After wetting our lips in the cool water, we said goodbye to our one true friend and began our trek back home. We continued to reminisce together, eternal companions on an old country road that faded off in the distance. We stopped, of course, before reaching its end. I had always imagined the asphalt as a vast expanse that continued on forever. This was a little-known fact that Dave and I silently shared.
We no longer have Harvard, but we still have the spring. And the pines, too. They'll always be our silent partners. But upon our return to Dave's house, I noticed a few older trees that were missing. We used to hide behind them during our childhood games of hide-and-seek. They had stopped blossoming and died. Dave told me how odd this idea seemed to him: a tree dying. It felt odd to me, too.
I left Dave's house that evening and departed on that old country road. I teased her a little, driving onward and laughing to myself. I kept on driving and listened to her giggle as my wheels tickled her backside. We both knew exactly what I was doing. It was ok, though, because my eyes had been closed long enough, and we didn't need to keep our little secret anymore.
I don't see my buddy much. But we march on with the dreams that sustain us. We're soldiers, you know. The trees taught us that. And even if they wither away, we'll always have the spring.
dja
The following piece is a contribution from Chris Custer, a good friend of mine and fellow Cornell graduate. I enjoyed his insightful prose on Facebook and thought I would post his work on this site. I hope you enjoy it as well.
Point Pleasant: 13 May 2007
Dear Journal,
I woke up today and realized that it’s been way too long since I’ve been to the beach. So I got in my car and drove to Jersey. All the way to Point Pleasant, the place where I grew up. Supposedly, it’s also where Kirsten Dunst grew up, but I don’t remember ever seeing her there. I drove to the lagoon where my grandparents used to have a house, and I sat and stared at the water. I remembered being a child and watching a giant ferry pass by there at night – lit up like a floating birthday cake. It didn’t come by this time. I doubt it comes by at all anymore. I finally stood up and walked back to my car. I wanted to see if Sal’s Pizza was still there, the place where I had met Katie. It wasn’t. Instead, there was a Hollywood Tans in its place. Isn’t that a bunch of shit – a tanning salon at the beach? I began to realize that I didn’t belong here anymore. It was as if this town no longer had room for me. So I got back in my car and drove all the way home and hit my bed, hard. I decided that tomorrow I will buy a puppy and name it Rex and forget about all the mistakes I’ve ever made.
cs
Entropy: 7 October 2006
The mornings are quiet and predictable now. The evenings are slow and calculated at best. And the alcohol is more or less a means of pensive auto-reflection. These are the days I once mocked derisively. Now I live them.
The routine is numbing. The workdays are oddly disconcerting. The carefully contrived world I have created is mere illusion. The maturation process is a sneaky little bitch, slowly tearing away our childhood veneer in exchange for a fading afterglow. Some hide behind their offspring in a desperate attempt to stave off the inevitable. Others hide behind the bottle.
And some hide in houses with oaken floors bathed in the blood and tears of beloved progenitors. I am intimately familiar with their story, for I am one of them.
I entered my humble abode on Halstead Avenue on the wings of a tragedy. And for my first month at the residence, I watched my grandmother die. Over an evening meal at a local restaurant she informed me that the ovarian cancer she was battling had reached stage four. With merely a week of experience in radiation oncology, I lacked the sophisticated appreciation of such a monster. But I knew. I knew I had arrived just in time to calmly tell my grandmother it was all right. I wanted her to know it was ok to die.
I remember my first day on the job. I awoke before the heavy Halstead fog had a chance to settle among the pines. I pushed my way through the dark halls of my grandparents’ home, expecting the palpable stillness to suffocate me before I had a chance to make sure my grandmother was still breathing in her room nearby. I opened the door a crack and heard her quiet voice greet me with a softness I tried so hard to commit to memory. It was the voice I heard every Christmas morning. Every Thanksgiving. Every summer on my yearly trips to their magical home on the hill.
But there was nothing magical about this painfully shared moment. I paused briefly and threw her a smile. I could see her bloated stomach creeping up from underneath the sheets. She was pregnant with a beast attacking her from the inside. Only this time, birth would mean death, and the circle would be complete.
It was so horrible, this death thing. Before tucking myself neatly into bed, I would constantly wonder if this night would be the last. Each morning I would walk toward her door with the odd expectation that there would be no sweet voice on the other end to bid me farewell.
Grandma received her weekly chemo treatments at the hospital in which I worked, and I was able to take short breaks to visit her on the main floor. She always greeted me with her characteristically reserved smile. Both devilish and charming, it was a smile I had grown to love over the years. These short moments were sad moments, and they fade a little more with each passing day.
Then the hardest part of our journey began. Grandma became too weak to leave her bed for more than a fleeting moment. And her daily diet consisted of broth I would buy for her at the supermarket. Nothing would stay down, and it broke my heart to hear her puking her brains out in the bathroom down the hall. She was too weak to balance herself. Her frail body could barely withstand the weight of the fluid building up in her gut. And there was no need to hold her hair back. The chemo had already taken care of that.
She was drained and dehydrated. Her courageous battle was coming to a close, and all I could do was stare into my cupped hands like a fucking idiot. The experience was powerful and humbling. And oddly, I felt very fortunate to be a firsthand viewer of this horrible train crash. There is nothing more visceral than watching a cherished companion fade away right in front of your fucking eyes.
Grandma stoically endured a painfully uphill battle to the bitter end. And it was during her final week with us that she entered the hospital. My father, sick himself for the past three years, mustered up the energy to visit his dying mother. I remember the shakiness in his voice and the heaviness in his eyes. Our spoken words were an exercise in futility. They had no chance of piercing through the confusion. No chance whatsoever.
On a rainy Friday night I received a call from the shift nurse on 1 Ross. She informed me that Alice was not doing well, and perhaps it would be a good idea if I took a drive to the hospital. I’m not sure if it was the pouring rain or the tears that blinded me more. It doesn’t matter, really. My body was on autopilot, and I stared blankly through the windshield wondering if I would make it in time.
By the time I reached her bedside that evening, she was already slipping into unconsciousness. Her breathing was a painfully laborious process, decreasing in frequency until a pronounced gasp would repeat the cycle. I held her hand and kept telling her over and over that I loved her. Underneath the torrent of raspy air I’m quite sure I heard her respond in kind. That night I wept like a little four-year-old by her side.
I kept vigil in a reclining hospital chair whose cold vinyl prevented me from enjoying anything more than a brief snooze. It was one of those rare instances in life in which I actually welcomed the discomfort. I would periodically awaken to see Grandma’s face bathed in the eerie glow of the lamp behind her hospital bed. It’s a nightmarish image I will never forget.
Early in the morning I called my parents. The time had come for them to see Grandma one last time. I paced through the bright sterile halls on my cell phone, stumbling over words received by a mother half asleep on the other end.
My parents arrived the following day, and they picked up my grandfather on the way so he could say goodbye to his darling wife.
We gathered in Room 1406 to be together as a family one last time. But there was no turkey for my grandfather to slice, no presents to open, no Easter eggs to find. The years of laughs and carefully crafted memories retreated into the 1 Ross afterglow, suffocating us within the narrow confines of a room too small to contain them.
My brother and I helped our grandfather from his wheelchair. We propped his weak body up as he strained to maneuver his chest over the bedrail. He leaned over and landed a flurry of kisses on Grandma’s forehead. We watched as he whispered a few words into Grandma’s ear. He stroked her face, paused, and struggled once again to prevent his own weight from tearing him away from the bedside. This was my grandfather’s goodbye. I lowered my eyes and wept.
I stayed with my grandmother that night to keep vigil over her dying body. Between brief snoozes I would awaken and listen for the torrent of raspy air. At times I would make my way over to the bedside and stare at her face. I wanted to remember exactly what she looked like. All too often we forget these things, and I didn’t want to forget. The optimistic part of me believed that maybe it wasn’t so bad. Maybe I could rest here indefinitely in this vinyl chair with my grandmother, and everything would be fine.
At 5:30 AM, I opened my eyes and listened. I couldn’t hear anything. I stared at her chest, forcing myself to believe it was rising and falling with each breath. For the last twenty-two years of my life, this was all I had known. I fought against my mind’s urge to construct these images and sounds on my behalf. The room fell silent. With her grandson by her side, Grandma knew it was ok to let go. She didn’t have to fight anymore.
I always keep Grandma’s door closed for some reason. It’s a weakness I have. Once in a while I’ll open it, oddly hoping I’ll see her with her morning coffee (with milk, certainly) and her morning newspaper jumble (she loves those silly things). She’s not there, of course.
It really sucks not having her around anymore.
dja
Notes on Graduation: 26 May 2004
I am the handshake after twenty long years of separation. Greeting you with a smile, I turn away after our brief exchange and laugh to myself. You thought things would be quite different? I knew they had to be this way, and I do not apologize.
I am the phone call in the middle of the night, awakening you from peaceful slumber to say hello. But our conversation is swallowed by the distance between us. There is no way for our words to break through the static. But isn’t this how it was from the beginning? I believe the answer is yes, and will accept that fact.
I am the fire inside of you that continues to burn, hoping that one day this masquerade will be over. But there is no room for feeling on this day. That notion left you long ago. And it’s just as well. There was never room for anything in our lives, and I will admit that.
I am the steady hand that guided you while everyone else laughed and pointed and mocked us. Do you remember? I don’t expect you would. The years passed by so quickly, and our time became so precious. We somehow lost touch and allowed everything unholy to rip us apart. And now I’m finally realizing the laughs and smiles were nothing more than a delicately crafted ruse I inflicted upon myself. I will deal with this.
I am the beautiful day you waited for. At least that’s what you always told me. But I never came. There were times I teased you a little - the glimpse of sunshine creeping around behind the clouds, the moment of clarity after the storm’s passing. Perhaps you simply expected too much. Please don’t hold yourself accountable. It could be no other way.
I am those love letters you hid beneath your bed and quietly read in the early hours of the morning, after the lights went down and you were all alone in your little cocoon of contrived safety. Don’t lie to me again. Those letters were nothing more than sheets of blank paper stained yellow with the passage of time. No words were written on them. The charades are over. Those letters never meant anything.
I am the long car ride home, the return to the beginning, the uphill journey toward nothing. What did you expect? Perhaps you were paralyzed by the emptiness you never quite escaped from. You’ll get used to this feeling. You’ll also grow content with it and possibly even embrace it. Loneliness. Emptiness. Disappointment. These are the three elements upon which success is based. Refuse to accept them, and you will crumble.
Perhaps we’ll meet again someday, two lonely characters in humankind’s greatest tragedy. We’ll sit down over a pint and talk for hours without saying anything at all. I’ll tell you how amazing my job is. You’ll speak of your family and three brilliant children with respect and adoration. Then we’ll laugh together and confess to each other how stupid we were to allow everything wonderful in our lives to dissolve away.
I must admit I do miss what we never had, and I’m sure there will be times when I sit down and look back on everything we never shared. These will be memories I speak of fondly, little soldiers marching across the synapses. But they will lose strength with time, decaying gradually as the years pass. And there will come a time when everything that meant nothing loses all meaning, and all those perfect moments we never shared fail to exist at all.
dja
Underneath It All: 5 April 2004
One passing glance and the strong arms of Fate took hold. One playful giggle. One momentary flirtation and their solitary paths converged. That was it. That was all. Two lovers staring in each other's eyes and the cold world returning the favor.
His bony hand touches her soft skin - gently and gently once again. He does his best to quell the tactile urge so as not to reveal what can never be revealed, to prevent himself from seeing what can never be seen, to cover up the hidden scars that are
trying desperately to break free.
She returns his affection with delicate fingertips careening across the curves of his rough skin. Her eyelashes brush against his cheek, and they erupt in laughter. Neither one knows why, and neither one
cares. They are wrapped in a blanket of complete serenity and bathed in butterfly kisses.
God has been so good to them, they think to themselves. The missing puzzle pieces hiding beneath the coffee table have been found. There is nothing left for which to yearn.
They speak to each other in flowery metaphors, carefully tiptoeing around the ugliness and disharmony that surround them. Their loving embraces, suffocated and contrived in their execution, serve as painful acknowledgements of each other's mortality rather than mutual displays of unconditional trust.
And thus they retreat. No words. No soft gestures. Nothing. The blanket is undone, its fragile fibers torn apart from the weight of genuine longing.
The passing glance was a passing glance. The playful giggle was nothing more than playful. And the momentary flirtation was just that.
But they were not treated as such. And even so, the scars remain hidden. They will continue to yearn, and they will continue to suffer. This pointless carnival ride is humanity's neverending failure, and for this we all pay.
There are no words spoken here. Just ellipses. Little gaps in spacetime we all fill in ourselves, lending credence to the somber possibility that reality is not what lies without, but what lies within.
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