Going into Life

I can’t tell you everything. No one can. This world was never meant to be put into simple words. You cannot summarize it. You cannot teach it. The only way to learn is to live. I give you only the few things I have gathered along the way in my life. Only the things which I see now belong to you. There are things which I cannot give you. You would never understand them; I understand them only through the lens of my own life.

I can’t take you there. I can only tell you to go. To listen. To trust and to leap and to let yourself fall. You have been told that falling is a bad thing. A sign of weakness maybe or of failure. Do not listen to the wisdom of the world. They advertise it in flashing lights and shout it from the rooftops over the busy streets True wisdom is quiet and yours alone. You cannot take the wisdom flung out to the masses. Only that which finds you alone in the silence.

To fall is not bad. It is like being lost. Terrifying, yes. But on the other side, when you find yourself on your feet again, you understand things you could never learn from mere words.

So when you hear it whisper in the silence, or feel it tugging gently at your heart, follow. Do not ask whether “this is it”. Do not ask where you are going.

Do not ask others if they feel it. All the world doesn’t find it at once.

When you feel it, it will be yours. So follow and see where it leads you.

I wish you the best in your life.

Forgetting How to Breathe

Sometimes I think I am forgetting how to breathe.

I’m still breathing. I haven’t forgotten so much that I’ve actually stopped, but I don’t breathe like I used to. I’m not quite sure what has changed or how to say it. That it has gotten harder to breathe? I suppose so. But not exactly. Every breath doesn’t take a conscious effort or anything like that. I don’t always notice how hard it is.

I think my breathing has gotten smaller. Maybe that is the difference. Every once in a while I suddenly become aware of the way I’m breathing, and realize that it’s only small wisps of air that I am taking in. My lungs don’t expand fully. When I don’t think about my breathing, I hardly breathe at all. No more than I have to. I’m just barely clinging to the air, not letting it fill me up. My lungs are always half empty.

When I do realize how I am breathing, I try to change it. I try to take deep breaths and let my lungs swell with oxygen. These breaths are deeper, but they’re still not normal. Not the way I used to breathe. I try to let each breath fill me up, but they never quite can. I can’t feel relaxed and breathe in as much as I should. Half way through inhaling I stop taking in air and just hold my breath without meaning to. I try to exhale slowly like I’ve been taught, but the moment I start to exhale, I need to breathe again.

Sometimes I think my lungs have shrunk or collapsed in on themselves.

Sometimes I feel like I can’t really breathe. Not enough.

But it always is enough. Maybe just barely, but it’s enough to keep me going. Enough to carry me to my next shallow breath.

Silent

Maybe someday I will wake up and the words will be there.

They will come easily. I will open my mouth and I will speak the things I see and feel and wish for.

My thoughts are loud whispers in my head. I do not know how to not hear them, but they are silent to the rest of the world.

Maybe someday my thoughts will learn how to reach my mouth. I will talk and people will hear. I will become audible.

Someday I will become used to the sound of my own voice.

 

But until then…

I will write.

 

Small Town

A gap in the chain link fence serves as the gate to the park. Five swings hang slack from a sturdy metal pipe structure.  The merry-go-round is on a slight slant. When it spins it scrapes gashes in a bald patch of ground. The slide is a long, narrow, metal chute, the sort that quickly gets too hot to touch when the sun comes out. The peak is scarily high. A large old tire, probably from a tractor, lies flat on the ground. Some attempt at a climbing structure, though the tall grass growing out of its center makes it look more like an oversized potted plant. Just on the other side of the chain link fence stands the water tower- its squashed gum drop of a body held up by six spindly legs. On top of the water tower is a star made of Christmas lights.

Outside the old gas station, a black tarp covers the ‘Gas’ sign. They don’t sell gas here anymore. The Marlboro sign beside it still stands uncovered, proud and self-satisfied. There are more signs lining the windows of the convenience store, advertising different brands of cigarettes and beer.

There’s another playground, a wooden structure with a faded green plastic slide. The blue and red and yellow paint is peeling off the wood. My older sister helped paint it years ago as a community service project. There’s a cement court with a single basketball hoop. The backboard is a square of unpainted plywood. A half deflated ball lies beneath it, abandoned. This is where they do the fireworks on Fourth of July. We all sit on blankets or camp chairs back by the playground and watch crouching silhouettes set them off over the cement slab. My dad thinks we’re too close. Maybe. My sister had a blackened sphere the size of a pea hit her on the head once. An unexploded star. She says she felt it. Just a little tap. I don’t know. Maybe we are too close.

Sneakers in the Rain

It’s raining. Really raining. There’s an inch of standing water in the parking lot. The gutters are swollen to overflowing. When a car passes, pedestrians standing too close to the edge of the sidewalk are doused by a spray of water as big as the splash at the end of any big theme park water ride. Torrents of water slide down the car windows while the windshield wipers flap furiously, squeaking from exertion.

Stopped at an intersection, waiting for a green light, I look out the window. There on the sidewalk where pedestrians stand, waiting to cross the street, I see something on the pavement. Two somethings.

Two sneakers, sitting in the rain. There is no one in sight to claim them. They are alone. Waiting. Waiting for what I wonder?

The light changes. I see a blur of green though the rain streaked windshield.

I leave the lonely sneakers. Though in my head I can still see them, waiting at the cross walk in the rain. Waiting for what? Waiting for who?

Just waiting.

Waiting.

City of Movement

The view is ever shifting.

Faces.

Coats.

Taxis.

Cars.

They scramble around,

a perpetual scene change.

Hands swing.

Feet step.

Wheels spin.

Lights change.

Walk.

Don’t walk.

Walk faster.

Move.

A black grocery bag sails on the wind above it all.

Advertisements are on screens, not billboards.

They demand attention.

Flashing.

Glowing.

Moving.

Always moving.

Subways shoot through tunnels,

moving people faster.

The ferry rocks,

riding the movement of the waves.

Water slaps the sides of boat.

Wind hurries past, slapping my ears.

People shift.

Stand

Step.

Move.

Always move.

 

Maybe I am unsteady from the ferry.

Maybe I am dizzy from the subway.

But when I stand still on the sidewalk,

it is not still.

It moves.

It trembles,

bouncing ever so slightly.

The whole city is built on a trampoline.

A water bed.

A spring board.

The whole city cannot stay still.

The whole city moves.

Reasons to be Happy

Pink lemonade skies at dawn and dusk

Stupid jokes

Dorky laughter

Blocks of light that fall through windows at night and land on the grass outside

Crisp paper and smooth ink

Long hard hugs

Billions of nightlights plugged into the sky

People who see you

Words that mean something

 

 

 

Beginning

The refrigerator is humming, harmonizing with the faint droning of a bee outside the window. The clock ticks sharply, keeping time.

Time.

I’m wasting it. It is so precious to me, yet I just sit and let it pass. I do nothing.

Someone walks into the room. They glance at the two small stacks of graham cracker fragments standing on the table beside me.

Don’t you dare touch my graham crackers.

There were two full crackers to begin with. I halfheartedly told myself I would eat a quarter of one every time I wrote… A page? A paragraph? A sentence?

The first cracker is gone and the page is still blank.

What remains on the table is one cracker broken into eight pieces, as if for a small child. I am acting childish, aren’t I? Just like when you’re told to clean your room and you go stand int he doorway and stare at the mess in bitter despair and think about how difficult it will be and wonder where to begin.

But what matters isn’t where you begin. It’s just beginning.

I am too old now to be told to clean my room. I am old enough to know that just beginning is the important part. But no matter how much I remind myself of it, I still waste precious hours staring at my mess of ink and paper and wonder where I ought to begin.

Just begin.

 

 

 

Nocturnal

I go to sleep when it gets dark. Like a normal person. But I’ve always hated it. I get claustrophobic watching the light go, knowing there is no way I can stop it. Darkness creeps up under my skin and I can already feel the nightmares writhing in my chest, just waiting for me to sleep and let them loose. So I’ve been thinking I should try being nocturnal for a change. Maybe going to sleep when it’s light out wouldn’t make me panic so much. Of course that would mean waking in the dark. Which might be even worse.