In the pre-dawn, I run past the men sleeping on benches and lighten my footsteps, smooth the edges of my breath–they need their sleep, and I need to feel alone here in the dark, music corralling my spiraling mind, each step forward a meditation on what I’m capable of doing, what I can return from, what I can fix through hard work and what I can’t, that the only direction now is forward, forward, forward, not looking back, not stopping, not waking what should remain in repose, not losing sight of where I’ll be when the sun finally rises.
Burn the ships
October 14, 2010One by one, I steered each ship to the open water, doused their decks with kerosene, and dropped sputtering matches onto the wood before swimming away.
You’re making a lot of changes all of a sudden, he said. What is that about?
I tried to explain how so much rigging distracts from what most needs focus. I have spent years hoisting unnecessary sails.
When I told this story to a friend, she shook her head and smiled. Doesn’t he get it? she asked. Doesn’t he see he’s as much a catalyst for you as you are for him?
Fortunate daughter*
October 12, 2010My father taught me to never turn down what hasn’t been offered. He taught me, too, that being offered something is sometimes as good as taking it—this lesson is harder for me to learn. Also: Choke up on the bat, make the new kid feel welcome, and call home if there’s any trouble.
He delivers these lessons through stories that meander like rivers, then oxbow in to where they started—tangents always return to their source. I listen carefully, grateful for each word. I am the most fortunate of daughters.
* To my father, on his 70th birthday
Story awaiting
October 10, 2010That night, she dreamed whispers and excerpts dispatched across the water that wrapped the city. As she slept, she saw singing and dancing, small flashes of bright light, a long car sliding up to a curb.
When she awoke, the story awaited her, laid out sentence by sentence on her nightstand. Somewhere in it, an untraditional girl wanted traditional things.
Small ship
October 8, 2010I sail a small ship, she said. I have only room for two.
He had been swimming for so much longer than he had ever expected, and the weight of it all threatened to pull him under the stony surface of the sea.
It’s just me, he said, releasing the seaweed-wrapped cables that trailed behind him.
Come aboard, then, she said, extending her hand. What are you waiting for?
Sorting
October 6, 2010Under the waned moon, she sorted small stones and buttons, setting them in piles on the ground in front of her. They disappeared into the gloom of the grass, but she trusted they would reappear by morning. The night above her sparkled like faith, and the wind skirted where she sat.
Though it was no longer summer, she saw fireflies in the trees. Though it was no longer summer, she heard someone talking through a far away open window. She emptied her hands, stone by stone, button by button, making way for the season to come.
Habit
October 4, 2010Light filtered in, and it was the worst kind of light, the kind that heralds an end to a beginning, the kind that eradicates the careful boundaries of an incautious night and lets the rest of the world bleed in.
This can’t become a habit, he said. And then, so quietly she could barely hear him, I really want this to become a habit.
100 Proof 