| 5.9.99 |
From last Monday:A friend of the family has died, I just learned. It was Saturday, my g-ma said. Saturday, when I was with Tom, maybe while I was driving home. I felt nothing. I would think some kind of ripple in the energy connecting us all would roll through me, knowledge of it gently alighting. But nothing. I'm saddened that I couldn't feel her passing, that her link to us was broken without even the ripple. Every time that happens, I think it is further proof of meaninglessness. Ophelia. Remember this perfect day? I must have played the CD the entire trip. A week of going toward an end. My body lives on stronger, but worn and torn. (Forlorn?) Thursday, my cousin Bob and I ascended Mt. Ellinor. We dared approach the roaring heavens, in armor wrought from plastic and Gore-Tex and leather, while the rest of you cowered behind impenetrable glass and concrete. Turned upward our round and smiling faces till they spat ice at us, then we got the hell out of Dodge. Saturday, I hooked up with Angela for a bike ride around Mercer Island. Thirty-four miles in all. It rained everywhere we weren't, I think. Spectacular skies passing through. We rode across the I-90 bridge, pedaling fast and leaning forward into the wind, freeway to one side and elastic water to the other. Black lake, ink, slicks of blue and the reds and oranges of sunlight. Greens from somewhere -- maybe the trees, maybe refracted light, maybe mis-sight. Seventeen years ago today my mother died, on Mother's Day. I had a card for her she never got to open. Remember that? It's the first thing I remember. Work yesterday and this morning. Raced from there to a ferry that I was destined to miss. I parked there on the pier and slept curled into the reclined seat until another came that would take me. I slept then too -- cradled on the currents -- while it carried me home to a late brunch with my g-ma. Then I went to visit mom. Too many people visiting their moms today; so I only stayed long enough to utter the cold hard truth and to check that she doesn't need a fresh coat of paint. (Not yet.) When I was done, I looked up to see a small boy capped in blonde, now vessel for my secrets. Afterward I detoured by the house of my estranged uncle. What is he doing for sex these days? The house is immaculate, the yard trimmed to plastic perfection. I hope he's seeing someone. What I want to say I drank away in a glass of beer. Of cheer. I only want not the numbness but unadulterated sensation. No, more like direction: Sensory propulsion. I want future within my grasp. I'm bursting with emptiness, my arms outstretched for receiving (but it looks too much like letting go). Trapped between in indecision. I'm only good at fluff; pretty doesn't cut it. It's late now. Darkness but candlelight. I've got Ophelia reeling frames of that day and my body is reverberating with the energy the man in the gym sees -- seize -- he wants a piece of me. |
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