Out of Context

Someone asked me what I would do if I could do exactly what I wanted right now, erasing everything else, just the thing I want most.

My answer: No.

Because even erasing all other commitments and obstacles, it's not possible. And saying it out loud would just be... Painful.

I'm walking a fine line between what is real and what isn't, and I'm not sure I can entirely tell the difference. On one side is logic, rationale, and all those good, tangible things modern society says are all things we should pay attention to. That side is telling me very definite, good, tangible facts. Well, maybe not good, necessarily, but definite and tangible.

And then there is the rest. Unverifiable, illogical, irrational, potentially delusional but Jesus Christ is it strong and it's pulling me in the complete opposite direction.

I have generational Catholics on both sides of the family, but the one I was raised in had a slightly more open-minded bent to the typical Christian interpretation of how the world works. Strange occurrences, ghosts, visions, mysterious creatures, things moving and disappearing or appearing - that was all standard fare among my maternal extended family. I learned about a much more spiritual, raw, earthy side to the world with those people, and then learned to keep those things secret because people look at you funny.

When I was younger, it was easy to tell the difference between my intuition and things my brain just made up and figure out how to integrate them with the "real" world. Basically, I used to know what the universe was telling me.

These days I spend more time second-guessing myself than actually listening.

The fact is, though, either way, for the next five years I am on a very firm, set course with no diversions, no turn-offs, not variations. I'm living in a holding pattern waiting for my life to start again. It's not the first time I've been here, but that doesn't make it any more comfortable, or me any more patient about seeing what happens when I finally get to come in for a landing.

Sometimes I think if I could just say all these things and hear them out loud I would be able to figure it out again, but it is so damn hard to get the words out and there are so few people who truly understand the language of the universe. Particularly, in my case, people who can understand it and wouldn't have some personal bias one way or the other.

I have learned, though, over the years, that if the universe tells me to do something, I better damn well do it or it will drop me into the deep end without a life vest. So I guess the real question is whether or not it's calling the shots, or I'm just pretending it is. 

Day 8: Challenge

Challenge #4

Write a story that incorporates the themes of change and forgiveness.

Note: This ties into the Never-Ending Epic of Woe that's consumed the past few years of my life. I never knew how these two first encountered each other, or what the connection between them was, until now, but it makes sense. 


A few points that probably aren't clear in this excerpt: 

• Destiny can predict people's deaths, and later becomes a fortune-teller.
• Caleb is the name of the mystery man who comes to fetch her. 
• He's a little bit immortal (but not completely). 
• He's also her great-uncle and his grandfather was an angel of death.
• The man she sees in her premonition of Caleb's death is his grandson.
• He's trying to absolve his guilt for letting his family die, hence the reference to an act of contrition.
  

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Destiny was preoccupied with the future. Lately it was this constant drone in the back of her mind, like a mosquito she just couldn’t hit.

          She picked at the frayed cuff of her jeans and glared at thrown-together buildings that were never meant to house anyone for more than a few months, let alone a few generations. It wasn’t even like the future was worth thinking about. The fact that she didn’t have at least one screaming brat attached to her at sixteen was considered damn near a miracle around here.

          But she couldn’t shake it. The future wanted her to see something and Destiny knew, sooner or later, she was going to have to take a look.

          A commotion started up down the way, and kids started flocking out of corners to hang off porches, all staring down the little dirt road. Destiny craned her neck trying to see; she was too old to just run down with the other kids, but not old enough she wasn’t curious about the low rumble surrounded in plumes of dust.

          Then she saw it, crunching over loose stones and dried mud. Even the dirt didn’t do much to dull its shine. It was painted a deep, dark red that was almost black with sparkling silver on the wheels and around the windows. Destiny felt her spine straighten and her ears twitch.

          No one drove down here. No one who lived there, first of all, ever dreamt of having a car, and anyone else took one look at the road and the gaggle of grubby children staring at them and turned right back around again.

          She knew before it even started to slow that whoever was in that car was there for her. Her skin tingled and heat rushed through her scalp. The buzzing mosquito droned so loud she nearly couldn’t hear anything else.

          The car stopped and everyone waited while the dust drifted in slow clouds back to the ground. Whether they knew exactly why or not, the others all kept their distance from whatever the car represented. Destiny wanted to, as well, but she couldn’t seem to make herself move from her spot. More than that, she was excited.

          Finally, he stepped out. Slow and sure of himself, like nothing in this world could touch him. And God, he was like no one she’d ever seen before. Even the air around him couldn’t keep itself still. He was so clean. Skin a deep honey-brown with just that hint of gold, and straight, fine hair like wet ink. His clothes looked like they’d been made just for him, and hadn’t ever been worn more than once. He was magic personified, and he was here for her.

          He took his time looking her over, and she couldn’t help thinking his eyes were the same colour as his car, only alive. Like the last coals in a fire. ‘I knew your mother,’ he said, his voice just as silky and sweet as his skin looked. He cocked his head to one side and looked at her harder. No, in her. She could feel his eyes reaching right through to the deepest parts of her. ‘Your grandmother,’ he corrected. ‘Time gets away from me sometimes. I need to find her.’

          ‘They’re both dead,’ she said, not even pausing to consider how someone who looked barely older than her could know a woman who’d died well before she’d been born.

          ‘That tends to be the case with people I need to find.’ He nodded. ‘I was looking for her a long time ago, but… Something happened.’ He looked confused for a moment, as if trying to chase down something in his own mind. ‘I don’t remember why I stopped, and time just… Went. So I found you instead.’

          ‘Why were you looking for her?’

          ‘A feeble attempt at contrition,’ he said. Those eyes ran over her again and she felt a rush of warmth skip through her. ‘I guess you’ll have to be my mea culpa instead.’

          ‘I’ll be your what?’

          ‘It’s a long story.’ He ran a hand back through his hair, leaving one lone strand sticking straight out. ‘How did your mother die?’

          ‘Fire.’ She watched the hair, wondering how long before it fell in line with the others.

          ‘I didn’t see that coming.’

          ‘I did.’

          ‘I bet.’ He grinned, a crookedly mischievous expression. ‘I need you.’

          For the first time in longer than she could remember, the buzzing in her mind stopped. ‘For what?’

          ‘I have a house that needs looking after.’

          ‘Why me?’

          ‘It’s a special house,’ he said. He looked around the street for the first time. ‘Would you rather stay here?’

          ‘No, but…’ She tried to pinpoint the question she needed to ask. ‘They don’t have house-sitters where you come from?’

          ‘Oh, not like you, little girl.’ He gave her that grin again, and she decided she liked the imperfection on him. ‘Let’s just say I prefer to keep things in the family.’ He held out his hand. ‘What do you say?’

          There were a million reasons to say no to a stranger with an offer too good to be true, but in all honesty, what did she really have to lose? ‘What about my brother?’

          ‘Does he matter?’

          ‘Yes.’

          ‘I can work with that.’

          She slid her hand into his, and almost pulled it back it was so hot. Then she saw fire – no, just light – white, hot light consuming everything, and faces swarming out of it, then nothing but a dark street and a tired, bloody man staring back. A twin of the one actually in front of her, if the eyes weren’t so different. ‘I know how you die,’ she said before she had the sense to stop herself. She hadn’t slipped like that since… Well, since her mother.

          ‘That’s reassuring,’ he said, and he sounded like he meant it. 

The Ocean

There is nothing in this world but hope:
a threadbare life vest ping-ponged between us.
Hold your breath and hold my hand –
                       [just another small wave crashing through, dear]
– I can breathe well enough for two.

                                       Today I listened to every song you ever gave me,
                                       and tried to conjure nights spent prowling
                                       for whatever came our way
                                       aching lungs from all the smoke
                                       all the talk
                                       all the things we never have to say
                                       (but sometimes do anyway).

What if we can never be free? you ask,
the salt on our lips. fish nibbling our toes.
What if this is all there ever is?

                                        Twenty years ago a man I never met
                                        pressed my soul between the pages of a book
                                        and twenty years later I drank his voice
                                        with cinnamon tea until it became my own.
                                        I would read to you the language
                                        he carved into my bones:
                                        because I love the taste of his words
                                        because he writes between the lines
                                        like you.

We can float here – you and I –
and if the ocean swallows us whole –
well, we’ll still be whole, won’t we?
And the ocean will still be changed.

There's always that one that gets under your skin...

House-sitting for my parents means knocking around a too-big house with just myself, some cats and a dog for company, with the added curious discovery of how ill at ease and oddly reassured a born-and-raised country boy can be plopped back in the middle of nowhere. 

No matter where I've lived, though, it's always the lights that keep me.

There's a man I know who has this way with words so they dig right through your soul. And maybe the real power is he knows when not to use them, so when he does, you can't escape the meaning. 

Every time he does it my typically unflappable self is quite thoroughly flapped and I spend at least a day or so rolling them over my tongue and shifting the weight on my shoulders to see how they feel. Every time I realise too late I didn't say the right thing back. I would worry about that more, except I know for the most part I don't have to, because he knows what the coded statements mean, but just once, I think, he deserves to hear what should be said and not just what my fear produces. 

I've developed this practice of keeping relationships just far enough away I can cut the tethers if the ship starts sinking and just close enough they never know.  Because I leave places (and consequently the people in those places) behind too much and there really are only so many times your heart can break before you start losing pieces. Because once upon a time I was far too trusting and fought with everything I had for all the wrong people. Because I suppose to a certain extent I'm just wired that way. The reasons don't really matter (this is going to be a recurring theme, children: knowing the reason doesn't necessarily fix the problem). The point is: I do. 

Except this one. The man with the words.  He is and probably always will be the most important person in my life. I can't cut him loose. I've tried. He's tried. We always swing right back into orbit, and there's something reassuring about that. The constancy of him as a feature in my life. But the missing... The missing sometimes can be too much. Because I can only listen to him hurt over choppy connections and try to describe the world I'm in with useless language and wonder if we'll ever see each other face to face again. 

The connections are interesting. People. I could say we have x things in common, and y, q and r traits  but that doesn't really explain what draws certain people together, or makes certain relationships survive hurricanes while others crumble at a light breeze. Out of everything in life, relationships are the things that tug me toward the idea of some sort of destiny. 

I know there's that argument that with hindsight you can add significance to even the most insignificant moment, and randomness probabilities and names for things I never remember but all my science-y friends like to throw at me. Half the time I see the world that way, too. The rest of the time, logic and reason just don't seem to cover all the bases. I still think there's a logic behind it all, but don't discount the possibility that it's a logic we haven't discovered, or won't discover, or just can't understand yet. 

All of this from the fact that a man as squeamish with emotions as I am managed the words 'I miss you,' and wrote a poem that punched me in chest, which left me very, very homesick for the closest thing to a home I've got.