Compassion

So I read this article, "I Am Adam Lanza's Mother".

I know how mental illness can be inherited.  How your mom's dad had issues, was depressed in between the births of some of the children.  He wanted to die.

I strongly suspect it might be why Superman has never had any children.  He'd be the type not to have children because he wouldn't want to pass on the gene.  Or maybe not have kids who would have a father like him.

(I'm not having kids because I can't guarantee that I'll be around.  Not the issue of CS or depression, even if I was on an even keel, I'd be a victim of fate.  Like my own father.  Real life has enough to be sad about, even if your brain chemistry is fine.)

"20 is within the age of risk".

You are 8.  I pray that as you age, your own brain chemistry will remain clear.  Strange things happen as kids turn into teenagers.  I hope we always remain friends. That you can turn to me (or at least someone) when things go wrong.

Even now, I'm dreading the day when I'll move out or move away.  I hope we keep in touch.  (There was a roommate in my life, like an older sister, still)

I have no idea what will happen.  To us as people, to all these characters we have swirling around us in real life.  I hope that this blog will always exist somewhere on the internet.

I hope that you can always look this up and see the beautiful boy that is in the next room.  I'm trying to paint a portrait of you.  Of us and the world we are in right now.  I want to create a world of safety and Love and to make this moment in time as real as possible.  The 10th Sunday in Ordinary Time.

Maybe someday, if I can, I'll try to share this with Superman. And your Mom.  This is how I understand life.  And the only way I can express Love to everyone.

PS I'm writing this while listening to the 43rd Christmas Show of Jonathan Schwartz on WNYC.  The Pizzarellis, etc.  American Songbook type stuff.  Not your Daddy's Jazz.  Turn it on.  (The hourly news just came on, about more of the shootings in CT.  I'm leaving to get some coffee.  Maybe I'll hug you if I can.)

The Park by the River with the Dog

The Dog and I walk by the river.  40 blocks each way, from the bridge down to the big gym.

We saw a hawk. Who had seen a rat in the grass.  The Hawk saw us and posed, but he didn't attack the rat.  He flew around and his wings were bigger than you'd expect.  Like a giant feather hug.

This is what the river looked like.  The dog is looking at the bridge. And when he turned, this is what he saw.

It's good exercise for both of us.  We think a lot about life and the river.  And how the River is a lot like Love.  And also like Chocolate.

You can get lonely or sad.  You forget that the River exists.  And then you go for a walk, and wander.  And it makes you happy to see it, to experience it. To remember how close it is to you.  And like with chocolate, you remember there's a stash.  And it just simply makes you happy.

Sometimes you need someone else to bring you there. Because it is easy to forget unless it is right in front of you.

Your Desk

This is what your desk looked like as of 3 weeks ago.  The balloons are from my friend's surprise birthday party.  You put them to the best use.

There's a picture you printed out of a mushroom.  You and your father and your father's girlfriend (I don't want to use any names here at all, for any of us.  Not yet, at least) had gone for a walk in Inwood Hill Park.  You took a picture of a pink mushroom on her iPhone.  Then pressed "print"  (and used up a good chunk of your dad's expensive printer ink from his new printer.

So here's what it looks like, up close.

We sat down to draw.  I don't have what you drew that day.  You found a face in the mushroom.  I drew this:

It's on my wall.  I love it.  I love drawing with you.  It's the time of my day when I can stop judging myself or my output.  I don't think of you as a kid at all.  We are peers.  If anything, you are the one that teaches me. About drawing, about laughing, about life.

Thanks.

Invisible Woman on Sunday Morning

"Trees are poems that the earth writes upon the sky" a line from Khalil Gibran.  I wonder if I can teach this to you someday.

It's Sunday morning.

I woke up at 8, you were already up. Getting paper for drawing.

You turned the Xmas tree on and I plugged in the string of Santa head lights,

You pointed at their reflection in the glass and said how cool it was that the heads looked like they were floating in space.

We found a bag of balled up wrapping paper and taped some on a paper and added stickers.  Yours looks professional and abstract,  your father thought it was a new piece of wrapping paper.  But it's his Xmas card.

Then your dad and his girlfriend woke up and made breakfast.  BACON.  Like they do every weekend.  In fact, the apartment is usually suffused with the smell of bacon on many mornings, I have lost track.

You have discovered the word "humping" and "connection", which we think you think is the word "copulation".  the conversation turned "awkward!!", like you like to say.  (Rising intonation, singing it, to prolong the awkwardness of any moment).  But I was grateful to turn the conversation away from gun control and how we are so lucky for every day that you are not in the same room as someone who might pull out a semiautomatic.  Like in Newtown, CT.

You then played a Disney videogame about an alligator who wants nothing more than to take a bath.  You take your finger (or mine sometimes) and draw a path for the water to find its way to the right pipe.  Sometimes there are bonus duckies.  We are trying to get you to slow down and READ some of the words, which, by nature you are fighting.  Your father is good at coaching you to break down the words into sounds (something called "chunking").  

Your dad stopped you after too long, and told you that it was time to read.  You countered that all your books were boring.  I suggested you write a book of your own. Something good.  You had a minor misunderstanding with your father  about whether this was a justifiable replacement.  You got a little whiny and your father got into his grownup voice and I escaped to my room while you guys hashed it out.

You wrote a great story about Rob the goldfish turning into a Rudolph figure and saving Christmas.
I wrote a story about a tree knocking on our door and you turning it into our Christmas tree.

When your cousins from Vermont arrived, you asked me to make an announcement so everyone could be quiet and you could read your story out loud.  You did and it went over quite well.  Even your dad was pleased.  (I think it made you happy too!)

Just a note about myself.  This is the only place where my stories will go.  I've been very depressed lately.  (No work, no money, few friends, our neighbor who is depressed and not available to be the friend I need-someone to cheer me up). Thank goodness I can write!  Your mother was astonished everytime I told her about any of my art projects, "At least you can do that!"  The Mousetraps, the ink doodles, the watercolors, everything.  She didn't have any of that.  No outlet.

While you were doing the video game, I read a story in the section of the NYTimes, about a sister who gave up trying to deal with the Mental Health system and has learned to just exist with her mentally ill brother.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/16/fashion/modern-love-providing-comfort-when-a-cure-is-out-of-reach.html

It hit me close to "home", I would love to just exist with your mother and with Superman down the hallway.   But the BiPolar Dragon rears its ugly head. She will never forgive me for forcing her to get help during her whirlwind.  And Superman doesn't like to talk to people.  At least not me.  Even though he has written HUNDREDS if not thousands of emails to me.  I expect him to write to me today, "a note just to say hi".  Sometimes, it is hard for him "to even communicate in such a light form as writing".

I take him at his word, but it is lonely & painful for me.

And so your family came and went, crazy with children and your father trying to relate to his brother whom he rarely sees.  This was me meeting them for the first time, or at least the first time to have a conversation.  I tried to feel out the situation; your father hadn't invited me to brunch.  And the conversation turned into itself like a Bey Blade battle, words sparking off each other.  But I was as useless as a Lego character, off to the side.  I went into my room, but kept the door open, just in case.  

(If this was your mother, she would have made sure to invite me.  To have me meet everyone.  To bring me along.  She did when her sister & family came by this summer, a week before her Whirlwind.  We all sat together around the big table at 181, by the window.  I crawled under it to sit next to you in the windowseat, remember how funny?  Even your father was there, and we were all nice to each other.  Genuinely nice.  The last time.)  

Cody kept coming in to my room when everyone was running around.  Keeping me company.   Rubbing me with his nose, looking pleadingly into my eyes. Knowing that we would be the ones left home alone.  

I know now, how my grandmother must've felt.  Ignored for not speaking English.  An old woman.  People see me, but I don't get a seat at the table.  I used to tell this to your father, and he mentioned how I reminded him of your mother.  Of her own loneliness.  Her living across the street from her previous life.  So I don't fight for attention anymore.  I only talk to my computer.

I'm useful in helping you turn your reluctance of reading into something you can be proud of.  My quiet little pieces of art, that even your aunt seemed amazed by.  But here I sit, with tears in my eyes.  Lonely and useless and wondering where my place in this world is.  Still trying to figure it out.

What I Wish I Had from You

Dear W,

I wish you could call me.

When you see you have too much food in your fridge, and invite me over for a bite.

That French Press you have?  2 cups of coffee, huh?  How about you make two batches and we talk over our coffeecups?  Measure our lives in coffeespoons?

I wish that on nights after the great tragedies of life, shootings and horrors, that you'd come to knock on my door.  To see if I'm alright.  I wish I could do the same for you.

Because this is the "stuff of life".  Not just music and food, as you say.  Contact.  You run back to your cave.  Or you are a social animal, as you keep telling me-I only know what I see.  I'm a good person to talk to or I'm someone who needs to be put through some kind of impossibly long series of tests in order to be casual friends with you.

You tell me to have Patience (I think you are hoping I will wait out your depression,  But NOW is when I need someone to help me out of mine.  And I need so little.  But you can't offer anything now.  And I don't care if you are Mr. Popularity in your manic phases.  I want a few words now.  I know you can.  I want you to try harder.

I want you as a friend.  (And you seem to want me) Because when we talk, I'm honest with you.  And I think you are honest with me.  Maybe that scares you.  Or maybe you can afford to throw away friends.  Maybe I come off as pitiful or desperate or lonely, as the one person you think you can look down on as being even more crazy than you are.

But I know that nobody called you for your birthday.

I know you feel like an orphan in the storm.

I know you think of yourself as "very social".  And I'm glad for you when I hear that you've invited people over for pizza.  Or a grand party for Thanksgiving.  Good for you. (I just wish you could be more sensitive to me, as I've tried to be to you)

Because you are not the only one who gets depressed.  Because it is hard (REALLY HARD) for me to write to you, or smile everytime I see you.  Especially when I feel like crying.  Because sometimes trying to be friends with you makes me feel even lonelier.

Once, I was very sad and I saw you in the hallway.  I asked if I could come shopping with you.  And you shrugged and said, "Sure," in such a sweet and easy way.  So simple for you to be generous.  And, as you have said so many times since then, it never took you out of your way.  I used to think that was just a phrase.  But coupled with, "Nobody is telling you to go away," it is a phrase of lost opportunity.  You have the ability to reach out to me in these moments when I am asking, actively fishing for a suggestion that this is a Friendship.  And yet you do nothing.

Maybe I will stop writing.

Who knows how long I can afford to live in this building?  I'm good at disappearing.  Even now, I have begun to stop writing to you.  Since Thanksgiving.  Since I realized how much you can't reach out to me.  When I need it most.  I am pulling away, and you don't seem to notice.  (Maybe because I'm not pulling away completely, because I break down and reach out)

You live right down the hall and except for that Whirlwind, you have never knocked on my door.  You live right down the hall.  And you make me feel so lonely.

I was trying not to write. But I sent a message of Peace to you.  You sent something back.  In the middle of the night, you agreed with me.

I wish I could hear your voice, or that we could talk.  But it is nice to have something when I wake up at 4:30 in the morning.  A little gift.

A Different Kid on Lined Paper

From the Sandy Hook School, a kid in his last moments.  On lined paper, not a strange and terrific sea creature, but a message of Love in the moments before the bullets came for him.  

(I was so happy to see you coming home w/your friend D on a Friday afternoon.  She was wearing a red Christmas dress and you watched Rudolph on DVD.  And were giggling.)

The Definition of Love

Dear Grown Man,

I remember when I was a young teen, after my Father passed away.  Trying to figure out a definition of Love.  Magazines and girls at school were going on about it, romance and sex and “the right one”.  There was also friends and family and my 8th grade teacher, who merited a special place in my heart.  But what was the common denominator?  Somehow I arrived at something so perfect, I’ve never been able to let it go.
If someone dies, and your world is shattered.

That is Love.

I have been lucky that many people have fit into that category in my life.  My best friend Julie, my Mom, the old neighbor lady Gladys with the 300 dolls.  
Love to me has always been measured in potential loss.
Not what I have at the moment, but what I am afraid to lose.

When she had her “whirlwind”, you referred to her as “a really messed up chick”.   No compassion. I saw her posting something on FB, “It’s disgusting” about the school shooting.  Maybe it’s a kind of amnesia, but definitely a lack of empathy and compassion.
You see, life is impossibly difficult for people.  And we are all pushed to extremes.  How we ultimately react is within our control (we hope), but there is unlimited rage out there.  

We need to be compassionate beforehand, before it gets to that stage.  We need to be kind.

After the whirlwind, when I went to Massachusetts and wasn’t going to come back, I thought about you. I thought about you constantly.  What if someday . . .

By then you had mentioned things to me.  We had brought up the subject.

Parking your car at Fairway, I said the word “S-------” out loud for the first time in 25 years.  I thought to myself, “You’re a grownup. You can say it out loud, just like anyone else, and it won’t mean anything.  It doesn’t mean anything to him,”

And you wrote me about the singer, who had written a song (maybe an album?) in a hotel room.  The lowest point in his life.  And I wrote back, “The next time you think about it, I have just one word for you.  DON’T”  And you responded with a line of question marks.  I reminded you how you had brought it up before, it was something you struggle with, correct?  “It turns out that it is very good to know you, Miss ____ ____.  Very good,”

And I have held those words as sacred.

Everytime I doubt you.  Everytime you run and hide in your cave and I am lonely and want someone to talk to, but instead I have to go back to my room and cry, I think of those words.

And so in Massachusetts, after you had stopped writing to me and I to you.  After I thought you had deserted me.  Before you told me that you had your worst episode in 25 years.  I thought about you.

I thought of you there, alone, in an apartment.  With real metal in your hands, not just the pantomime of a gun.  I thought about what it would be to know you were there, alone.  And hearing about it afterwards.

And then I thought about you calling me.  What if I had to do it all again?  To be the one to read the words that told me that everything was in place right in front of you?

(The horrible echo: “The antifreeze that I had bought to drink.  You wouldn’t have been able to stop me if I had drunk the antifreeze I bought”  Where is it now?  “Next To Me,” )

And this terrible horrible awful scene played out further in my mind.  Because you are taller and obviously stronger than me,  I could never wrestle it out of your hands.  The cops couldn’t break in.  But maybe I could talk to you.  Get you to put it down.  Get you to not feel alone. Diffuse the bomb.  Starting it all now.  As if anyone can save anyone else.  (At least I can try)

And then I thought back to not being there for you.  I had been planning to cut off all contact with anyone who had a hint of mental illness (diagnosed or not). Granted, with all my crazy artist friends, this would leave me tremendously lonely.  But I couldn’t take being that close to death. So what if we never spoke again? Life would be easier for us both, right?

And I realized, even if there was nothing I could do, that I already cared too much about you. (And about A. for that matter)  I couldn’t stop being friends (or trying anyway).  I would not be able to ignore you in the hallway, or turn my face away from your beautiful smile.

I don’t know what my role will be, or if it will cause me pain (or how much).  I love you too much to lose you.  And I will do everything in my power to keep you alive on this earth and in my life.

So I know that I email you sometimes in the middle of a workday, and you respond “Very Busy”.  But I wish you could figure out your other issues, so that you can respond to me when you are NOT busy.  And do some "work" from your side.  Because choosing to keep you in my life was a very difficult decision, and everyday your Depression makes it harder.  

And not having you as a friend is like not breathing.  It’s not something that I can do.  “You gotta go where your heart says go, isn’t that so?” said the great philosopher, Lyle Lovett.  And believe me, in Massachusetts, I was ready to let you go.  Speeding down a country road, trying to shake you from my mind.  But I couldn’t do it.  I wrote to you, saying how much I missed you.  And you wrote back immediately, saying you were just about to write to me.

I haven’t told you, but it was then that I accepted everything. Whatever your future holds, I’m there and I want to support you to be the best person you can be.  So I really don’t know what you are afraid of.  I think there may be a little agoraphobia, or you hesitate to “socialize” with people when you are feeling down.  You have darkness, I know.  

You asked me if I know, if I really know what it feels like to want to destroy yourself.  Trust me, I know.  (Someday, I’ll tell you my story) It’s all terrifying.  

And there is only one thing that can destroy it.

Invisible Magic. (i.e.Love)  The kind that will persist beyond all the petty annoyances and will remind us that we are not alone, no matter how crazy we think we are.

I still Love A.  I love you. I wish someone had been able to communicate Love to that boy who shot those 20 children and 6 adults.

And I cannot lose you.

This Too Shall Pass

Dear E,

I'm so sorry that you will grow up with the phrase "school shooting" as part of your vocabulary.

Just heard on the radio that they are reporting that there are 27 dead in Connecticut, 18 of them being children.  (I'm crying as I write this).

The first time I heard about this, I think I was in college.  It was such a shock, that anyone would be so frustrated and think that this is a way to get some kind of a revenge or whatever they think it would solve.

I wish I could teach you how to deal with all sorts of negative feelings.

The only advice I can give, is something that was give to me by one of my personal heroes.  (PT, that blonde guy on my favorite tv show.  He wrote it in my writing notebook.  I have it framed.)

THIS TOO SHALL PASS.

When you are sad, angry, upset, terrified, worried, stressed or whatever else will come to you in the course of becoming a human-just know that it is all temporary.

Don't do anything you can't take back.  Don't try to hurt yourself or others (more on this later!) and mostly, DON'T GIVE UP.

(Of course, you may realize that this means that all the good stuff will pass too.  Hold the good stuff in your heart.  Take pictures with your mind of the smiles of all of your friends.  Keep them with you at all times.  Work hard to make the Happy Moments as real as the Sad ones.  The sad ones won't need your help, they are strong enough)

I feel sometimes like I am responsible for you.  There are some cultures that say if you save someone's life, you are forever responsible for them. I don't know how I can help you, I can't protect anyone-least of all, myself.  This is why I'm collecting all these pictures of life in these moments.

These Happy Moments.  (They've helped me to get centered.  Hopefully they can help you too.)

The view of the River

This is what it looks like from my friend's apartment.  This is what I look at when I am babysitting her dog & cats.  All we see is New Jersey and Sky.

My Pictures of Birds

This is what I did from a Bey Blade Face Bolt.  It's supposed to be some sort of a Peacock.

Here is what I did from a Pokemon card when you and I and your 8 year old girlfriend, D were sketching in my room after school on Friday.

I still have to look for your pictures.

Donde Viven Los Monstruos

Here is what you wrote:

All abou this sea monsters

This is a sea monster.  It has 6 seds.  I has razor sharp teeth. I like sea monsters becase there cool.  Theas sea monsters are fast swimers. then are 6 sea monsters one oreng, and one green, and one wight and blak stayps, and one that is tercoys (turquoise) with perpal pocae dotses, and one that has littale santas on it, and one with Dragen fies on it.  Sometimes they tacal each-other. (try to kill)

I did that.  One monster from your Spanish version of "Where the Wild Things Are".  One of your dragon toys.  And the camel that comes with his own piece of desert.  From your family creche.

Here is your Turquoise Sea Creature, with the Purple Polka Dots.

Here is your Black & White Striped Sea Monster.  I love how you gave it it's own stripes and weren't lazy and used the lines from the paper (that's what I would have done).  

I like how you always surprise me by coming up with new ways to do & see things.

Getting out All The Toys To Battle

Babysitting session 12/11/12, 5-7:15pm

There are several teams.

The teams you judged weakest will be fighting first.   The first round consists of 1 “Abdominal”/ AbominaBable Snowman who came as part of a Lego set, a single white baby Tiger and a series of 8 Elephants on keychains, each painted slightly differently.  The Elephants form a circular blockade, all facing inwards, around the Tiger, who is their King.  The Snowman is the strongest and is generally sent out to do the gruntwork. The Elephants and Tiger came from their perch on my windowsill. I think this game started when you asked me what animal I could be if I could be any animal at all. I said a horse, and you seemed disappointed. You said a White Tiger and I told you to close your eyes while I ran to get it and make it appear magically before your very eyes, when they opened again.

The team they are fighting includes a Bear, a Rhinoceros (song:" I want a hippopotamus for xmas"!) and a Lion, all made out of paper cardboard cutouts which fit into slots to create a 3D effect.  You have colored the bear brown, but I see that his feet are on backwards, so I take his sides off and now he looks like he is wearing a funny coat.

The animals take turns fighting the Snowman, and since you are in charge of the Snowman team, the Snowman will end up always being stronger.  Today’s fight seems to take awhile.  The Elephants begin to get restless and joke with each other about how dull the fight is.  One animal gets knocked into the couch, and because of his small stature, takes an absurd amount of time to reach the cushion.  60,000 years later, while the flying cry is still being heard, a large bouncing sound is heard.  The Elephants begin to reminisce about stories they had heard from their great-great-grand elephant fathers about the legendary fight between the Snowman and the paper Lion, when all of a sudden the Lion lands in their midst!!  The Snowman wins anyway.

There is a Hulk of normal colors with a button on back that can bring his fists together to smash someone or to pinch their nose (which is what we do), and a Hulk of clear green plastic, a Batman figure who is somehow disqualified from the game and a Claw guy who falls down alot.  You tell me to write his name down as “Weird Aliens Combined”, which I think is a much better name anyway.  Somehow, they might get matched up with my team of 3 larger-than-a-matchbox cars, convertible style, from the 1950’s.

There is also a jungle team.  1 giant rubber snake, 1 articulated salamander of wood, 1 steel salamander, (just like one my friend got in Venezuela) 1 tarantula spider, 1 tiny blue frog, and a 2 humped camel who comes with his own desert ground.  There is also a supporting green Lego dragon named Scroth [your spelling is Sckoth] who has a guy in white riding on his back.
There are 4 sets of plastic dragons with baby dragons which can somehow fit onto their backs.  There is a niche between their wings, and somehow the baby dragon wings expand just enough to fit into the moulded space between the bigger shoulders. I imagine you imagine they are Daddy and Son, and how it must fit into your mind as neatly as your father and you.  

1 set is blue with yellow wings, 1 is black with silver wings, 1 is salmon with yellow wings and 1 is silver blue with orangey-gold wings.  You tell me that “They are good dragons, but they need to bruch their teeth. Really, look, they are all brown!  And tat one with fire coming out of his mouth needs a drink of water so his teeth won’t get burned.

At some point, I make sure we transition into your writing homework. I decide I have writing homework too, (you have no idea that I carry a notebook around with me everywhere I go and that I love to read and write, and I hope you will too someday). When you hear that I have written down my list, you have to have a list of your own for the story about Sea Creatures that you are doing for your writing homework (which is usually a “Yuck!”, but again, I have tricked you into realizing that writing can be a way to be creative. Ha HA!).  

You have 6 sea monsters, one with fire scales, one with turquoise and purple polka dots, one with black and white stripes, one green, one orange and one with little santas on him. (!!)  When I ask if you have spelled “turquoise” like I have spelled it, you say yes.  I do not question you further. 

There is a string of plastic silver Christmas beads which are meant to go on the tree, but you have realized (as I did) that they are much more fun to play with when they are off the tree.  As you read to me what you have written, you play with these beads with your feet. They make a rich sound, almost as if they are made of real silver, and you are a rich prince, playing idly with your precious metals.

When you ask me what I have written, I read this to you and you smile at me in recognition of all the words you have just uttered.  I think I got it right.

We draw monsters. I do one from "Where the Wild Things Are", one of the dragons and the camel.  

You do your turquoise polka dotted sea creature and the black and white striped one. You even write down a checklist, so you'll know which ones you did.

After you brush your teeth, you ask to see a picture of me as a child. In it, I am your age. 8. I have my arms folded and you think I look mad, but I think I look satisfied and as if I take everything for granted as an only child. Your father gives me a look, he knows you are trying to avoid going to bed.

I wish I could tell you bedtime stories like my father told me. (Instead I'll write them here).

Wrecking Ball

There is a tremendous film trailer to be shot & cut to the song “Wrecking Ball”. For that matter, a whole movie.

About a man, a normal guy, who gets overwhelmed by exterior forces.  

Maybe he’s an overachiever type, a Superman/Prince Charming out of Central Casting.  To all appearances, he looks normal and seems to have a happy, healthy life.  Approaching 50, which probably surprises him.

As life will do, the cycles begin to come to an end. Unfortunately for him, they seem to happen in one traumatic way one after the other.  His Mum dies, maybe his childhood home gets washed away in Hurricane Sandy (dramatic visuals standing in for emotional upheaval).

He’s a likable guy, a sympathetic character.  A real man.  A real man, who cries.  

Maybe he jogs too.  Maybe the initial shots show him only in silhouette, we see his life & surroundings at sunrise.  His breath coming out in clouds, mists over fields, all is beautiful and serene.  Contrast with later scenes of storms and waves crashing all around him.

Voice over: “In a world where nothing is permanent . . .”

The real questions are: how does the movie end?  How do you make the existential crisis that is Life into something that is dramaturgically satisfying?

How to turn a metaphorical wrecking ball into a series of scenes that will give the audience faith in looking forward to end of the story? How to turn daily living into the "Happily-ever-after Hollywood-Ending"?

Maybe poetry is a better medium than film. There is more beauty in everyday details than in the climactic happy ending of a story.

A Place Where There's No Space or Time

Prince Charming would go into hibernation.  The Girl Tinkerer would go for months without seeing him or any evidence of his presence.  She imagined him as having encountered the same thistle needle as Sleeping Beauty or Rip van Winkle.  He seemed to sleep through the entire winter, like a bear in his cave.

Sometimes she would get messages on her scroll from him.  Or at least, they were signed with his name.  But she was never really sure.  It sounded more like a bear.

A week would go by, and then:“Just a note to say hi,”and she’d respond.  And somehow he’d  get mad and stop writing.  She eventually made sure not to take offense if it was a Friday, Saturday or Sunday.  She wasn’t sure why, but those days he sounded less like himself.  Whatever she thought the idea of “him” was.  

And sadly, those dark nights of winter, when the sun set in the middle of the day and made everyne sadder than usual, those were the times when she needed a friend most.  Luckily, she had her laboratory, and a voice to sing with. Looking back, she always wished she had spent less time worrying and crying, and more time creating and singing.

She had even figured out a recipe for Love.  Creating Love is actually easier than anyone thinks.  But like a good sourdough, it requires a tiny piece of the past to build on, and LOTS of patience to let it rise as it needs to.

And so, she collected a phrase he had spoken to her when he was about to cry, his heart-shaped smile when she was in trouble, the music of a casual joke he had made and spun them together, like fine and delicate sugar into cotton candy.

She tossed out all the inedible bits, the sadness, all the doubts he had, all his silences.  She picked out all the bits of inappropriate temper, all the words he said to her that came out as a snarl.  Like garlic and onions, she peeled away anger and sadness in his words, and
tossed away all that thin clinging outer layer.

Even though she was trying to be a Tinkerer, it wasn't her natural calling. Sometimes she'd be lucky or clever. Sometimes everything would just blow up in her face. But she kept persisting, because she could see things that others couldn't.

She knew that she was both cursed and blessed as a Seer. She could see him as a brother, as an ally.  Clearer than she could see the sun.  And she also knew that he couldn’t see it.  That he was trapped in a world haunted by a dragon.  That was all he was looking for, and so it was all he saw.  She didn’t have faith that she could help him, and had no hopes of “saving” him.  

But she knew he would be pivotal in her life.  That there was something that he could teach her, and maybe if she was lucky, she could return the favor.

She imagined her life as being stuck in a video game.  He held some power, some tool, some kind of life-experience points she needed to access.    Only he often refused to play the game.  

She wanted to Rage Quit, to shut it all off, try another game with characters who wanted to play.  And she did.  It was refreshing.  But none of those characters held the kind of magic she needed.  She just found herself stuck in someone else’s game.  She had absolutely zero interest in hearing how fast someone could make his new expensive car go.  Racing games only interested her if she was the driver.

So she spent a lot of her time waiting around for him.  Trying not to get sucked into the Sorrows of Despair herself.  She had looked into the Abyss and found It looking back at her.  

She tried to stay away from the Abyss.  

But some days it was hard.  Especially knowing that he spent his days at its edge. She was never sure if he was sucked in.

Hands

What Happy Sounds Like

He awoke that morning to a Dark Place.  So Dark that any light hurt.  So he decided to stay inside as much as he could. Even Prince Charming had difficult days, and these were some of the worst.  His home was a familiar trap to him. The bed was his only place of refuge, but even that was a trap. He couldn't move inside his own body, and even if he did get up, he knew the Dragon would be waiting for him. So he pulled the covers up over his head as much as he could. But even children know this is not a way to hide from monsters.

He had to leave the apartment sometimes.  Briefly, for food. Or to move his Chariot twice a week for Alternate-Side Street Cleaning. The Enchanted Island had all sorts of magic, but not even the streets could keep themselves clean. You had to obey certain rules or you'd get a ticket. So, he got his car out of the way twice a week, and sometimes that was the only time he left his cave.

And on very lucky days, he heard singing.

It was a Lovely Sound.

One couldn’t tell exactly where it came from, the echo bounced around so that, even though it seemed crystal clear, it seemed to bounce all around.  Until you weren’t even sure if it was or was NOT coming from inside your own body.

There were notes as sweet as berries.  Words like “Love” came out sounding as if the singer were smiling.  A beautiful smile.  You could picture a locked-away princess, with only her echo to keep her company. Fragments of song were heard in the stairwell, in the hallway. He heard her songs coming out of windows. The sound was Happiness itself.

One day, when it hurt too much to move, he found himself drawn to his cave door, opening onto the hallway. She was singing, a beautiful, endless song.  Clearly this time, coming from the other end of the hallway. Never such a beautiful song before.  The kind that hurts your heart when it comes to an end. Enchanted by this sound; his curiosity overcame him.  

All he wanted to do was to touch The Happy Sound. He wanted to hold it in his hand, like a bird. Or to eat it, like an ice cream. He wanted it to hold him like a hug, or reassure him like a summer breeze.

He opened the door and began to walk down the hallway, to the unknown side, where light always seemed to be spilling in from outside, even at night.  His cave apartment was dark and damp, and every time he entered the building, he could feel himself turning away from the sun.  But this time, he walked towards the light.  Most of the apartment doors looked normal, quotidian & everyday-looking, even.  Much like his own.  When he got to the last one in the hallway, it was cracked open just a little bit, as if the sunlight itself had fingers and eyes and was wanting to peek out.

He was afraid and his heart was pounding.  The golden notes seemed to be coming from inside, but if he pushed the door open, would they stop?

The song seemed to be coming to an end.  And it stopped on its own.  Somehow, it had always started up again, as if it were a sound with a million verses.  Now his hand moved to open the door, if only to start the music up again, like a record player whose needle needs to touch down on the outside edge again.

The door moved a few inches open. There was a Girl, scrunched down, hugging her knees. On the floor of a long hallway in an apartment, much like his own, yet completely different.  If he hadn't seen her, he wouldn't have believed that she was the source. The way she looked didn't match the sound at all.


The Girl had long hair and big eyes.  In some lights and at some angles, certain times of the day, she could be considered beautiful.  But not here and not now.  Here she looked like a cleaning lady, or a babysitter. She seemed too tiny.  So weak.  As if all her breath were in the song, and without the sound, she was empty. 

Her eyes were focused away from him and looked even larger than they would normally appear, because they were shimmering with tears.  And to his surprise, she began singing again, without even noticing him.

He slowly backed away and went back to his own cave.

He wanted to talk to her.  He wanted to ask her why she was crying, but the whole idea only made him sadder.  And he was afraid to get more sad than he was already.   It was a swamp full of quicksand for him.  

He was afraid to find out that this beautiful pure thing, this lovely song, had come from a place of sadness.  A song as beautiful as that should only make people happy.  Especially someone who can sing it so well.  He wanted only  to know that the song made her happier, not sadder.

He wanted a song for himself.  That would only make people happy when they heard it.  He wanted to make a song that would make him happy.  But he knew his destiny was to fight his dragon and not make things like a tinkerer.

“Besides”, he thought, “there is no song in this world which could make me happy”.

“That’s what you think,” she thought, as the sound of his door closing echoed down the hall.

The Wand of Invisible Magic

Once upon a time, there was a Boy locked in an Impossibly Tall Tall Tower.
There was also a Girl in this story.  And she begged him to unravel his hair, to lower it down to her.  He was completely puzzled as to how he was intended to escape his imprisonment, as anything lowered down to the ground would only seem to only allow for access up.  And his hair wasn’t THAT long, after all.
But he Shrugged.  And let it fall where it may.
And was astonished to find that his locks reached the ground and made a perfect hair-ladder for her to climb.
In a flash, she was next to him.
“Here”, she said, “take this Invisible Magic Wand”
“Is this for Invisible Magic?” he asked, trying to be funny under the bleak circumstances.
“It’s for everything,” she said.  “It’s better than potions and magic spells and all the evil powers in the universe.  It can be used against all Dragons, everywhere.”
But he knew how strong his Dragons were.
He looked at her doubtfully.
“How is this supposed to help?”
“How can it not?  Look, you don’t think I climbed up to this Impossibly Tall Tall Tower on your bangs, do you?”
He shook his head and realized that his hair wasn’t really THAT long after all.  And that he was probably stuck in a dream or prolonged metaphor of some kind.
“So, all I have to do is wave this invisible stick and everything will be better?”
“Um, it doesn’t really work like that,” she said,
“Where’d it go?” he was suddenly annoyed that he had already lost his one magic tool, even though he knew that invisible things were especially easy to misplace.
“First of all, you can’t lose it.  It follows you around somehow.  IT waves at YOU.”
“Oh.”  He was still confused.  “And THEN everything will get better?”
“The Good News is that is protects you somehow.  Grants you a magic power you didn’t realize you had.  Or that you needed,”
“And the Bad News?”  For he knew there was always Bad News to counteract the Good.
“Duh!  The Bad News is that it’s Invisible!  So you forget that it’s there.  And it’s really hard to notice that any Magic power has been created or destroyed or whatever.  It’s not like there will be any fireworks,”
“So how do I know that it’s working?”  he asked, getting impatient and incredulous.
“Um, more Bad News.  You don’t.  You might be able to figure it out in hindsight, but, yeah, at the time, it’s pretty much gonna feel useless.”
“Oh brother!” he rolled his eyes. “Look, can’t you give me like a potion or something?”
She heaved a big sigh.  “Yeah, the Psychopharmacologists are working on that.  Their magic isn’t perfect either.  But maybe all these things in combination . . .” her rising intonation did little to appease his worries.  But, her magic had appeared out of nowhere, and that was better than the lack of magic.
Suddenly, he could hear his Dragon approaching.  Huge sounds of everything evil reached their ears and made them both wince.
“Uh-oh, gotta go!”  the girl said as she looked out of the window.
“You’re leaving me now??” he asked, now completely impatient and frustrated at the Girl’s well intentioned but utterly useless visit.  The Dragon’s footsteps were getting closer and closer, shaking the brick walls of the Impossibly Tall Tall Tower.  He felt the familiar shadow of Dread as the monster came nearer and nearer.
“Exactly the opposite,” she said as she looked deep into his eyes.  Suddenly he saw her shatter and burst into a million tiny words, like the firecracker she had said the Invisible Magic Wand wouldn’t turn into.  They swirled everywhere around him until they melted like magnets and formed a suit of armor, thicker than any Dragon’s tooth. Somehow the suit was still pliable and comfy, which was quite a relief to him as the Impossibly Tall Tall Tower began to crumble and he rode the wave of broken bricks and mortar into the valley.
He was wondering why that ride suddenly felt so familiar, and why the suit repelled dust so quickly and efficiently when he heard the Dragon’s growl ending in a coherent sentence.
“You are stuck with me!”  The Dragon roared, looking as mean as ever.
The Boy could take it no longer.  All the years of running and dreading finally got to him.  He decided to fight back in the most evil and fiercest persona he could conjure up. The universally dreaded Common American Teenager.
“So what?” the Boy roared back.
“Uh, so don’t think you can run away.  Because, um, you can’t!”  The Dragon stammered.
“Yeah, so?”  His newfound frustration reached a breaking point. “So, you’re just gonna keep chasing me?  Is that the idea?”
“That’s what my contract says, yeah,” The Dragon rested his fist on his hip.
“Can’t we like, come to an agreement about this, or something?  Work in a vacation or two?”  The Boy looked up through the visor on his suit of armor, still slightly afraid to raise it completely.  Not for fear of injury, but he knew the Dragon’s breath always stank to high heaven.
“Look, kid, you know we aren’t supposed to discuss the terms of The Curse!” Now the Dragon tried to fold his puny little arms in front of him.  
The Knight-Boy stifled a giggle.  “But what if we did?  I mean, this can’t be any fun for you.”
“Well, this is the only job I can get and still be a Dragon.  I’m not cute enough for the cartoons,” the giant Dragon began tearing up.  He knew that he himself was cursed on many levels. Not only did Kleenex not exist in this version of reality, but his teeny arms could not reach up past his shoulders.
Our hero suddenly summoned up even more courage than he realized he possessed.  As nonchalantly as he could, he leaned over some of the rubble and decided to ask the Scary Question.
“Hey.  Have you ever heard of an Invisible Magic Wand?”
“Shit!”  The Dragon snapped his fingers. “You got one of those?”
“Hand delivered not 10 minutes ago!”
The Dragon rolled his head back and sighed a giant sigh of exasperation.  The clouds above his head turned green from the fumes.  It was bad enough that the Boy had a new magic weapon, but the Dragon had no idea what it could be used for.  It’s kinda bad for your opponent to draw his secret weapon in the midst of battle, but WAY more embarrassing if he knows you failed the Secret Weapon Exam and calls you on it.
“Let me get back to you on that.  Okay, I don’t know what it means, but I know it’s gonna cause me a shitload of paperwork.  Can we meet back here again in another couple of weeks?”

This dance was the part of the negotiation they both knew they were lying about.  They never kept their appointments.  Which was one of the excuses the Dragon used for his anger.  He always had to chase the Boy, find him wherever he was and take him by surprise.  

But the Boy had been getting bigger and stronger.  And every time, he had been getting better and stronger tools.  And every time, the Dragon was just a little more injured, a little weaker, even though he would never let the Boy know.  But every time, the Boy had a just a little bit more Magic on his side.

9/4/12