I live in a world of lyrics.
Conversations. People speak, and a word, a phrase, some key unlocks the memory in my mind, and the sentence finishes in my mind with the song. Thoughts are fleeting, touches of memory interlaced with present (or is it the other way 'round?).
... just follow your eyes... just follow your eyes...
They say I'm haunted. I say everyone is, I just don't bother hiding it. The voices in my head won't shut up. You have them too, I can see it in your eyes. They whisper to you in the darkness, your self doubts, your sins, your rage telling you to just... let... go...
I get into the car, iPod on, and hit random. Boys of Summer. Clear as crystal, the association ignites a fire of thought. (Your face is always there... [never forget...]) Immediately, I pass some unfortunate creature on the side of the road (this time it's a possum) and the scent of death hits my senses. It's sharp, but old. I know the scent of dead things. It's the blood that does it - a cadaver without blood is mostly dry and barely carries a scent at all. No, it's the blood. (... he had no blood left when I saw him... none of them did [they did that on purpose.])
The faces come unbidden, the words unwanted. The Litany remains in blood and tears, even though I tried to put it down. Bricks. So many bricks in a giant burlap sack that I carry like a cross down an old dusty road. But I hide it, see? Nobody wants to see what's in the bag. Everyone has a bag. Some big. Some small. Everyone hides it. If you don't, you're a "complainer" or "just looking for attention". Sure, some people wear their suffering on their sleeve like they're a martyr. But then the ones with legitimate pain can't come forward, for fear of being branded. Mine? Mine is survivor's guilt. I know it well. It's an old friend, like that neighbor that keeps borrowing your things and then never giving them back. I don't like it much, and it keeps reciting the Litany to me, but it's a part of my life. I put on a nice smile and deal with it. It's either that or fight it, and fighting it accomplished nothing.
What's the Litany?
... what if everything around you... isn't quite what it seems...
The names of the dead. The faces. The ages. How they died. The story. (... the story [a man is never truly dead...]) I heard once that a man is never truly dead until he is forgotten. I remember. I feel like I have to. Like someone must. That if I bear witness, they won't really be dead. Not really. Not gone. Not entirely. (These burdens aren't MINE! [stop fighting it, struggling makes it worse] It's not fair!) I tried to put it down. But it's a scar. You can't put scars down. They'll heal over, you can nurse them until they get better, but they never really go entirely away.
...what if all the world you think you know... is an elaborate dream...
I think the hardest job in the world has to be a military doctor. I used to think it was being an ER doc, dealing with the absolute worst of humanity in the most feral state of pain, bleeding, dying, pus and vomit and bile and insides on the outside. Bones poking through the skin. And at the same time, half the people are crazed, drugged, just insane - and may try to actually hurt you. The stories. The stories make my hair stand on end. THIS is humanity? Then I thought being a soldier was worse, being far from home and under fire, far from help, watching your friend die beside you from a gut shot. But what about the field docs? The ones handling both the screaming bloody death and the gunfire?
How do you survive that?
Ever stop to think about how difficult it is for a doctor to tell a mother her child's dead, or a husband his wife was DOA? And it's somehow their fault, for not trying hard enough to save them, for being incompetent, they get the blame... but they're human. They don't want the patient to die. They don't give up just because it's too hard. And then they get blamed. Can you imagine that? How do you wake up the next day and go into the same damn room the next damn day (all cleaned up, of course [the blood washes away, but not the memory]) with a new smiling patient with stomach cramps.... every day, you keep getting up and going back... over and over... and over... (to repeat the same steps [and expect different results] is madness...)
Madness is tempting.
... wish I was too dead to cry...
I've brushed it. Tasted it. The dance down that path is dark and close; it seems comforting enough at first (how hard could it really be? [it's so much easier to just let go... let go...])... easier, lighter. That's how it captures you. But too far and it becomes hell. You're no longer in control. What you're saying comes out differently than what you thought. Soon you question reality. Sleep and wakefulness blur, nightmares follow you into daylight. No. Madness is not easier. But once it sinks its claws in... (I want out! [stay with us, precious one... you cannot leave] LET ME OUT!)
...wish I was too dead to care... if indeed I cared at all...
But that is not here. Neither here nor there. Yet everywhere. They say I am haunted. My thoughts are fleeting and indistinct, more peripheral glimpses of sensory perception than actually fully-formed beings of their own right. I write, and they manifest. I float from one to the next.
I hit the treeline. A Forest, by The Cure. A particular mix. Instant recognition. Faces. Scents. I live in a world of senses, like I live in a world of lyrics. I taste the words, I feel the sounds. Sights invoke a scent. Criscrossed like so much wiring gone awry to make strangely beautiful music. The melody hums in my ears as I focus on harmony, I catch what others don't. The deer in the pasture. The hawk in the tree. The fish in the stream. "Good eye," they say. But it wasn't my faulty eyes that caught it. I heard the heartbeat through the ground. I smelled it before I saw it. Except motion. I'm all instinct then. Motion - just a flash from the corner of my eye - and I've caught a snake in my hands. (not terribly smart [just a racer snake]... what if it had been a rattler?) Emotions mix with music like water and wine and I'm near to tears. They've started to not ask why.
... mad world...
But you'll read this and think I'm crazy, or sad, or angry. Depressed, a danger to myself. None of these things are true.
Every day a thousand thoughts run in rapid succession through my distracted mind. Triggered by a thousand little associations, linked irrevocably to the faces of loved ones and times gone by, I cannot help it. A river is full of water it gains from a thousand little rivulets, as I am full of memories from a thousand little events. Each one carries with it the scents and emotions and thoughts and fears and melodies from a million seconds I can't recall with any clarity but come rushing back where the river meets the sea.
This world that I live in, the world of lyrics, the world of senses, the world where thoughts emotions collide as violently yet beautifully as galaxies crossing paths... they tell me no one else sees this world like I do. ("That's one of the reasons I like hanging out with you".) My perspective may be through a stain glass window, but sometimes the colors bleed together and become a mosaic of beauty where others only see the broken glass.
... I'd like to make myself believe that planet Earth turns slowly...
Perhaps you think I AM mad. But I know better. Only those who have gotten lost and found the path back know what it looks like. Sounds overproud, maybe? True. Some have travelled much further down the path, seen things I haven't, known horrors I can't even imagine. But they know I am not mad. Haunted, yes. But not mad. (The voices are real [you have them too] I'm not imagining this [you never were] but that's okay, they're my friends [with friends like that...]) And the inspiring thing is that someone ordinary, like myself, can GET lost, and MAKE it back alive, covered in thorns and burrs and scratches and dirt, but knowing the way out of the dark hole they fell into. Because now not only will they not fall in again, they can help others out of it, too.
... by the hallways in this dining-room, the echo there of me and you, the voices that are carrying this tune...
So when we speak, and my eyes skirt the edges of the room, if I mutter a strange phrase under my breath far removed from my normal way of speaking, if we're out in the sunlight and I stare at something overlong, if I talk to an inanimate object like an injured child or greet some strange little animal like a friend, it's not because I'm insane. It's because I'm dancing through the thoughts in my head, trying to see the world around the filters, hearing a constant stream of music accompanying me even as I try to listen to what you're saying. I'm trying to recall the memories without associating them with your face (the faces always come unbidden) and trying not to see the look of shock when I blurt out something I probably ought not to have said aloud.
... I want to exorcise the demons from your past...
I'll be okay, I promise. I've made it this far. A seed, planted in a crevasse, will be battered by the elements, starve for nutrients, yet manage to eke out enough to survive. My cliff wasn't as steep as some, my crevasse wider than some, the wind perhaps not as persistent. Yet challenges came, and I surmounted them, many and more and those coming I face down with teeth bared. The tree that takes root and survives becomes a bonsai, twisted by the elements into something other than its intended shape, but beautiful nonetheless, hardy, persistent in its own right. I am tenacious, capricious, and nothing if not absolutely resilient.
I live in a world that is not like yours. But yet I live in your world.
Be patient with me.
Nightmares come, but the morning always follows.
... it's hard to say that I'd rather stay awake when I'm asleep, because my dreams are bursting at the seams.
(You think I'll cry? I won't cry. My heart will break before I cry...)
(... I will go MAD.)
... Tilt your head back, and howl.
September 22, 2012
August 27, 2012
The Length of the Road
Sometimes, I wander.
Often as not, it's for no reason. I don't need one, usually. The redwoods are welcoming enough in their own right to not need a purpose. Sometimes the sunlight just beckons, whether or not there's a chill in the air, and sometimes the crashing surf is less like a pounding froth and more like a waving hand. Sometimes the hill looks just inviting enough to climb to the top, the curiosity strong enough to see... exactly what's over there, anyway?
But this time - as occasionally does happen - it was with a purpose.
I have worn many mantles; of late, I have found myself very comfortably wearing the moniker Vagabond like a well-worn coat. It keeps the weather out, though it may be shabby, and it certainly has a few stories to tell. This time, the Vagabond had a mission. No other sane person would undertake it - leastways, nobody I know - for surely there were better, more efficient ways of accomplishing what I had my mind set on. Truth is, I had plenty of reasons to do it the way I chose... but nobody else would understand.
So with plans that only reached so far - and got more than slightly tentative as the map reached its mark - at least two places to stay set as waypoints, and a fast-and-loose schedule, I packed my bags, emptied my trunk, and got enough money to get me there and back again, plus a little extra. Just in case.
A Vagabond ALWAYS plans for Just In Case. Hell, that's why I packed enough fluid and food to sustain me a week (not happily, nor nutritionally, but enough), as well as a warm blanket and a pillow. You never know. Point in fact, you come to count on it. The unexpected - while nebulous - is a certainty. Something inevitably comes up. Nothing ever goes perfectly to plan (if plans were ever perfect in the first place). A true Vagabond comes to count on it, almost rely on it. Countless unknowns and variables become just a matter of what's on today's menu, what kind of condition the road's in, who you meet in the supermarket. Pretty soon, roadwork, delays, traffic, the occasional attempted robbery, roadkill, flat tire, or random screaming guy down the block become as familiar as faces in a local supermarket. A trip isn't complete without a Wrong Turn, at least one Douchebag Driver, and a Forgotten Item. They become markers. Road signs. Little stones on the path.
I went about the start of it in a most peculiar manner. I had directions printed, a few contingencies planned, and an extra set of clothes. Just in case. But I bid goodbye to my cat that morning not as I hit the road, but rather as I left for work. I wouldn't depart 'till late afternoon, during what this town calls "rush hour". I always half-smile when I even think on it, because "rush hour" here is considered a smooth weekend where I had been living the past several years. But with several hours left of daylight to burn, I aimed to be out of the mountains by dark. Set my teeth, turned on my music... and the journey began as the wee sleepy town I call my residence slipped from view, and the 101 became my new home.
The familiarity of the drive was ever-present. Hills gave way to views of the bay, and those were swept aside by curtains of forest. Shades upon shades of greens and browns - pastures dotted with cattle, rickety houses standing lonesome by the stands of berry vines. Soon even the pasture land faded, and the Mountains began. I know the turns, I could do them in my sleep, but I dare not take them lightly. Especially as I passed Confusion Hill.
There are ghosts that never die. Echoes that never fade. One of those lives on the 101, near that place. It's a little slip of a curve, so slight you might not even notice it with the beauty of the river beside you. But you see, that's the terror of it. My brother and his wife were very nearly killed there. And whether or not I was there made no difference: that curve carries with it a gray image of high-impact twisted metal, screaming tires and wet asphalt and broken glass. Into the curve... and out of it. When one wanders, one must be prepared to face the ghosts of the places they wander through.
I still love the smell of the California Redwoods in the summer...
Even in the dead of winter, even in the rain, I roll down my windows through Richardson Grove to inhale the scent of the loamy earth, the damp redwood bark, the sweet leaves of the giant sequoias. Massive, imposing, sturdy guardians so close to the road you could reach out and touch them.
And then the deep, rocky descent of the Mountains. Into the region they call Wine Country. Vineyards as far as the eye can see, nestled in valleys and cresting hills, broken by stands of oak and dry golden grasses. Just outside of my first stop for gas and I catch a glimpse of Old Uncle Yellowsides. He and his harem are grazing in the same place as always. He's in no danger this out in the open... yet. Not 'till autumn. For now he gets fat on the rancher's lands. Perhaps in the fall his rack will adorn someone's hearth. But not this day.
Through cattle lands, and the cities are getting bigger, coming on faster, the traffic getting thicker. By Marin it becomes a race -
... packed like lemmings into shiney metal boxes...
- and I veer left to take the Richmond Bridge. MY thoughts wander off to my left, and I send out love to my family nearby. I cannot stop, not yet. Many miles to go before I sleep. Night is falling fast and hard. Through Oakland, past the blinding lights of the Stadium where the Raiders rule, and the blur of cities after. I've already broken into my granola bars, the Doritos, and a Poweraide besides. I have plenty to last me through the trip; I've no need to conserve too stingily. I drive through cities better at night.
I find that techno makes cities zip by, where only Alice in Chains makes the forests fly...
Familiar territory. Good thing, too, I'm about out of energy. I arrive at the first waypoint, check in with loved ones, and sleep. The next day brings a drive twice as long.
I wake early, and my host sends me off with breakfast. It is by the kindness of strangers and grace of friends that a Vagabond thrives. Rested enough, I snake my way through the morning drive, managing to somehow miraculously NOT be going the same direction as the commuter traffic.
I love mornings. I wish they weren't so early.
I know the way. The 85 to the 101 to the 152. Into the valley where the air is thick with the scent of garlic. Here, too, I roll down the windows to revel in the smell, and I salivate unashamed. But my enjoyment here does not last. Past the little city known as Gilroy, there is a terrifying road known to the old locals as Blood Alley.
It's still a good idea to drive carefully through Blood Alley.
Next stop: Casa de Fruta. Midmorning, I'm in no hurry. I'll be in the car all day anyway - why rush? Take a moment to savor the kitschy little novelty place, and cock my head at the echoes of memory, how the road that runs along side used to be the actual freeway until they decided entirely too many truckers were being killed trying to cross the road. With two bottles of wine, I ride on to meet the Pass, and weep at the shallow San Luis. Truly, never before have I seen it this bad. In all my time as a little girl, I would cheer the deep waters, hoping somehow it would fill more if I loved it. Perhaps, in my absence, the lack of love caused it to wither and dry up... for now there are stands of trees where even the shallowest water marks once were.
I reach the true beast of the expedition - I5. It's a cool day, only 84 degrees. But alas, I spoke too soon. By midday it's 98. The long, flat, bland expanse of the Valley shimmers in the heat, and I pass the time by singing constantly and counting the dead coyotes. So many. Raccoons, also, and skunks. But mostly Coyote's children. I guess their luck really is running out after all.
Hours bleed onward. A stop in Lost Hills, and I find that the old Arco I knew so well is gone. I shrug. Times change. Places change. Many things stay the same, but not everything. It can't. A little further, and the Grapevine swells into view. A last stop before I head up, and I casually mention my mission to the cashier. She's shocked. I smile. Nobody understands.
All fires heal with time. All snows melt.
The scars of old fires I once knew are faded and gone. The grass has regrown. There are no traces left. Up and over the wild race, and I descend into flatlands again. But here my hackles rise, for I'm approaching L.A., a place as much an antithesis to myself as ever a place could be. Here they maddened herd bumps and shoves and curses, falling upon itself like a rabid pack. But fortune favors me: I have hit the narrowest of windows and manage to miss both the lunch-rush and the afternoon traffic. By early afternoon, I catch my breath just south of San Onofre. I'm there before dark: a place I once called home.
... inside - you'll never hurt me...
My mission accomplished, mostly. It takes a bit of wrestling. Apparently I'm more of a packrat than I remember. But at last, all of my possessions are my own again.
... we're hidden by the moonlight - we shift between the shadows...
I KNOW THIS PLACE.
It's muggy, and overcast. I might as well be back at the house, for all the sky shines gray. But there at least I can step out of the shower and not feel sticky. It's awkward to be in a place where I'm no longer welcome, that so very obviously did not fit me, no matter how hard I tried to force it. I didn't belong in the first place. I feel like an interloper, a thief.
But I am a Vagabond. A wanderer that means no harm. I help a little old lady with her cell phone, and we chat about knitting. Strangers have the most interesting stories, even in the heart of a hot-tempered and cold-mannered city. I am tolerated at best, and sent on my way.
I like this city better at night. It hides the ugly parts...
Left in my rear-view mirror, with memories and gifts that cannot be measured nor bought, there is a tiny part of my that is sad to see it go, but the greater part of me rejoices that I am that much closer now to Home.
... I've been searching the planet to find Sacred Love...
The city melts and I am over the Grapevine before I know it. I have eaten all my pudding (hard to eat pudding in a moving car, while driving; applesauce too, for that matter), drank half my Poweraide, and three of my six pack of Coke. Most of the Doritos are gone, the granola too. But I still have plenty. I burst into the Valley, confident, bored, and wishing I was Home.
I can still tell how long something has been dead by the smell...
The slaughter is on. I can smell it passing Coalinga. The wet smell of warm raw meat, like hamburger left out too long. It isn't pleasant, it's too warm to be right. The roadkill, too. It's the blood, that makes the scent. Blood makes the cadavers smell.
I see the wing catch the air, and I'm pulling over before I'm even thinking. Part of me feels sick, like I'm wrong to do this. But part of me realizes I am right, for one cannot take pleasure in death. Even so, in death, a thing can be useful. I feel like I am in violation of respect, that I will be seen as grave-robber. I am repelled. But even so, what I am doing is for Sacred Work. It is Wakan. I wait until there are the fewest to see, and I apologize to the hawk as I harvest its wings. Would that I could give it a sky-burial, but that would likely set the Valley ablaze, as dry as it is. So I give the poor animal - headless from its demise, shamefully left on the scorching pavement, killed for no reason and left dead in vain - a proper respectful burial. I take no pleasure in the work, but it is not an Evil. Better for his wings to serve Wakan Tanka in death than to be left to dry shamefully on the asphalt, killed to no purpose or end.
I despise grave-robbing, but am apparently not above corpse mutilation.
The difference between the Valley and the Coast is immediate and drastic. Buffeted by the winds, I make my way back to the Bay, where the Mist Dragons still live on the ridgeline between the San Andreas fault and Half Moon Bay, and take my last repose before the last journey home. Grey follows me; the only sun I have seen has been in the sun-baked Valley. I wind my way up the gloomy coast over Devil's Slide, into the heart of the fog-laden city, but I still manage to catch my breath when the sun catches the Golden Gate. Over the bridge, through the tunnel, and I speed my way through Marin as quickly as possible.
... haunted... by the hallways in this dining room, the echo there of me and you - the voices that are carrying this tune...
I know California.
... pretty pretty please, don't you ever ever feel like you're less than fucking perfect...
And California knows me.
... what if everything around you isn't quite as is seems...
In Willits I helped a little old lady figure out how to put cash in the little gas-station kiosk. She blessed me for my troubles. I sharpened a pencil with my skinning knife and poured the last Poweraide into my water bottle. My supplies weren't even close to spent, but I wasn't hungry. My metabolism changes when I travel that much, and I find myself needing less food but more sleep. I'd written my thoughts with a broken pencil on the directions I'd printed out, the little things that changed, the unexpected obstacles, the delightful surprises, the strange and eerie moments. I couldn't help but lament that many were lost, despite my notations, and wished that I could have shared them more vividly.
That's where the true sadness comes from. Being a Vagabond has its perks, sure. Taken in as a wastrel, being high-fived by a gas-station attendant for declaring that nothing of my old life now remained to collect, the random conversations that lead me to believe someone had tried to rob my hotel room. But there is a deep abiding sadness, a loneliness that eats away in the quiet moments between songs -
... look closer and see... see into the trees - find the girl, while you can...
- and makes sleep seem uninviting.
The redwood curtain parted without much to say, no welcoming embrace from the land, no sigh of relief. But I am glad of the journey, and the things I learned, and the things I gave away, and the things I took. I would do it again if I had to.
Why?
You wouldn't understand.
Often as not, it's for no reason. I don't need one, usually. The redwoods are welcoming enough in their own right to not need a purpose. Sometimes the sunlight just beckons, whether or not there's a chill in the air, and sometimes the crashing surf is less like a pounding froth and more like a waving hand. Sometimes the hill looks just inviting enough to climb to the top, the curiosity strong enough to see... exactly what's over there, anyway?
But this time - as occasionally does happen - it was with a purpose.
I have worn many mantles; of late, I have found myself very comfortably wearing the moniker Vagabond like a well-worn coat. It keeps the weather out, though it may be shabby, and it certainly has a few stories to tell. This time, the Vagabond had a mission. No other sane person would undertake it - leastways, nobody I know - for surely there were better, more efficient ways of accomplishing what I had my mind set on. Truth is, I had plenty of reasons to do it the way I chose... but nobody else would understand.
So with plans that only reached so far - and got more than slightly tentative as the map reached its mark - at least two places to stay set as waypoints, and a fast-and-loose schedule, I packed my bags, emptied my trunk, and got enough money to get me there and back again, plus a little extra. Just in case.
A Vagabond ALWAYS plans for Just In Case. Hell, that's why I packed enough fluid and food to sustain me a week (not happily, nor nutritionally, but enough), as well as a warm blanket and a pillow. You never know. Point in fact, you come to count on it. The unexpected - while nebulous - is a certainty. Something inevitably comes up. Nothing ever goes perfectly to plan (if plans were ever perfect in the first place). A true Vagabond comes to count on it, almost rely on it. Countless unknowns and variables become just a matter of what's on today's menu, what kind of condition the road's in, who you meet in the supermarket. Pretty soon, roadwork, delays, traffic, the occasional attempted robbery, roadkill, flat tire, or random screaming guy down the block become as familiar as faces in a local supermarket. A trip isn't complete without a Wrong Turn, at least one Douchebag Driver, and a Forgotten Item. They become markers. Road signs. Little stones on the path.
I went about the start of it in a most peculiar manner. I had directions printed, a few contingencies planned, and an extra set of clothes. Just in case. But I bid goodbye to my cat that morning not as I hit the road, but rather as I left for work. I wouldn't depart 'till late afternoon, during what this town calls "rush hour". I always half-smile when I even think on it, because "rush hour" here is considered a smooth weekend where I had been living the past several years. But with several hours left of daylight to burn, I aimed to be out of the mountains by dark. Set my teeth, turned on my music... and the journey began as the wee sleepy town I call my residence slipped from view, and the 101 became my new home.
The familiarity of the drive was ever-present. Hills gave way to views of the bay, and those were swept aside by curtains of forest. Shades upon shades of greens and browns - pastures dotted with cattle, rickety houses standing lonesome by the stands of berry vines. Soon even the pasture land faded, and the Mountains began. I know the turns, I could do them in my sleep, but I dare not take them lightly. Especially as I passed Confusion Hill.
There are ghosts that never die. Echoes that never fade. One of those lives on the 101, near that place. It's a little slip of a curve, so slight you might not even notice it with the beauty of the river beside you. But you see, that's the terror of it. My brother and his wife were very nearly killed there. And whether or not I was there made no difference: that curve carries with it a gray image of high-impact twisted metal, screaming tires and wet asphalt and broken glass. Into the curve... and out of it. When one wanders, one must be prepared to face the ghosts of the places they wander through.
I still love the smell of the California Redwoods in the summer...
Even in the dead of winter, even in the rain, I roll down my windows through Richardson Grove to inhale the scent of the loamy earth, the damp redwood bark, the sweet leaves of the giant sequoias. Massive, imposing, sturdy guardians so close to the road you could reach out and touch them.
And then the deep, rocky descent of the Mountains. Into the region they call Wine Country. Vineyards as far as the eye can see, nestled in valleys and cresting hills, broken by stands of oak and dry golden grasses. Just outside of my first stop for gas and I catch a glimpse of Old Uncle Yellowsides. He and his harem are grazing in the same place as always. He's in no danger this out in the open... yet. Not 'till autumn. For now he gets fat on the rancher's lands. Perhaps in the fall his rack will adorn someone's hearth. But not this day.
Through cattle lands, and the cities are getting bigger, coming on faster, the traffic getting thicker. By Marin it becomes a race -
... packed like lemmings into shiney metal boxes...
- and I veer left to take the Richmond Bridge. MY thoughts wander off to my left, and I send out love to my family nearby. I cannot stop, not yet. Many miles to go before I sleep. Night is falling fast and hard. Through Oakland, past the blinding lights of the Stadium where the Raiders rule, and the blur of cities after. I've already broken into my granola bars, the Doritos, and a Poweraide besides. I have plenty to last me through the trip; I've no need to conserve too stingily. I drive through cities better at night.
I find that techno makes cities zip by, where only Alice in Chains makes the forests fly...
Familiar territory. Good thing, too, I'm about out of energy. I arrive at the first waypoint, check in with loved ones, and sleep. The next day brings a drive twice as long.
I wake early, and my host sends me off with breakfast. It is by the kindness of strangers and grace of friends that a Vagabond thrives. Rested enough, I snake my way through the morning drive, managing to somehow miraculously NOT be going the same direction as the commuter traffic.
I love mornings. I wish they weren't so early.
I know the way. The 85 to the 101 to the 152. Into the valley where the air is thick with the scent of garlic. Here, too, I roll down the windows to revel in the smell, and I salivate unashamed. But my enjoyment here does not last. Past the little city known as Gilroy, there is a terrifying road known to the old locals as Blood Alley.
It's still a good idea to drive carefully through Blood Alley.
Next stop: Casa de Fruta. Midmorning, I'm in no hurry. I'll be in the car all day anyway - why rush? Take a moment to savor the kitschy little novelty place, and cock my head at the echoes of memory, how the road that runs along side used to be the actual freeway until they decided entirely too many truckers were being killed trying to cross the road. With two bottles of wine, I ride on to meet the Pass, and weep at the shallow San Luis. Truly, never before have I seen it this bad. In all my time as a little girl, I would cheer the deep waters, hoping somehow it would fill more if I loved it. Perhaps, in my absence, the lack of love caused it to wither and dry up... for now there are stands of trees where even the shallowest water marks once were.
I reach the true beast of the expedition - I5. It's a cool day, only 84 degrees. But alas, I spoke too soon. By midday it's 98. The long, flat, bland expanse of the Valley shimmers in the heat, and I pass the time by singing constantly and counting the dead coyotes. So many. Raccoons, also, and skunks. But mostly Coyote's children. I guess their luck really is running out after all.
Hours bleed onward. A stop in Lost Hills, and I find that the old Arco I knew so well is gone. I shrug. Times change. Places change. Many things stay the same, but not everything. It can't. A little further, and the Grapevine swells into view. A last stop before I head up, and I casually mention my mission to the cashier. She's shocked. I smile. Nobody understands.
All fires heal with time. All snows melt.
The scars of old fires I once knew are faded and gone. The grass has regrown. There are no traces left. Up and over the wild race, and I descend into flatlands again. But here my hackles rise, for I'm approaching L.A., a place as much an antithesis to myself as ever a place could be. Here they maddened herd bumps and shoves and curses, falling upon itself like a rabid pack. But fortune favors me: I have hit the narrowest of windows and manage to miss both the lunch-rush and the afternoon traffic. By early afternoon, I catch my breath just south of San Onofre. I'm there before dark: a place I once called home.
... inside - you'll never hurt me...
My mission accomplished, mostly. It takes a bit of wrestling. Apparently I'm more of a packrat than I remember. But at last, all of my possessions are my own again.
... we're hidden by the moonlight - we shift between the shadows...
I KNOW THIS PLACE.
It's muggy, and overcast. I might as well be back at the house, for all the sky shines gray. But there at least I can step out of the shower and not feel sticky. It's awkward to be in a place where I'm no longer welcome, that so very obviously did not fit me, no matter how hard I tried to force it. I didn't belong in the first place. I feel like an interloper, a thief.
But I am a Vagabond. A wanderer that means no harm. I help a little old lady with her cell phone, and we chat about knitting. Strangers have the most interesting stories, even in the heart of a hot-tempered and cold-mannered city. I am tolerated at best, and sent on my way.
I like this city better at night. It hides the ugly parts...
Left in my rear-view mirror, with memories and gifts that cannot be measured nor bought, there is a tiny part of my that is sad to see it go, but the greater part of me rejoices that I am that much closer now to Home.
... I've been searching the planet to find Sacred Love...
The city melts and I am over the Grapevine before I know it. I have eaten all my pudding (hard to eat pudding in a moving car, while driving; applesauce too, for that matter), drank half my Poweraide, and three of my six pack of Coke. Most of the Doritos are gone, the granola too. But I still have plenty. I burst into the Valley, confident, bored, and wishing I was Home.
I can still tell how long something has been dead by the smell...
The slaughter is on. I can smell it passing Coalinga. The wet smell of warm raw meat, like hamburger left out too long. It isn't pleasant, it's too warm to be right. The roadkill, too. It's the blood, that makes the scent. Blood makes the cadavers smell.
I see the wing catch the air, and I'm pulling over before I'm even thinking. Part of me feels sick, like I'm wrong to do this. But part of me realizes I am right, for one cannot take pleasure in death. Even so, in death, a thing can be useful. I feel like I am in violation of respect, that I will be seen as grave-robber. I am repelled. But even so, what I am doing is for Sacred Work. It is Wakan. I wait until there are the fewest to see, and I apologize to the hawk as I harvest its wings. Would that I could give it a sky-burial, but that would likely set the Valley ablaze, as dry as it is. So I give the poor animal - headless from its demise, shamefully left on the scorching pavement, killed for no reason and left dead in vain - a proper respectful burial. I take no pleasure in the work, but it is not an Evil. Better for his wings to serve Wakan Tanka in death than to be left to dry shamefully on the asphalt, killed to no purpose or end.
I despise grave-robbing, but am apparently not above corpse mutilation.
The difference between the Valley and the Coast is immediate and drastic. Buffeted by the winds, I make my way back to the Bay, where the Mist Dragons still live on the ridgeline between the San Andreas fault and Half Moon Bay, and take my last repose before the last journey home. Grey follows me; the only sun I have seen has been in the sun-baked Valley. I wind my way up the gloomy coast over Devil's Slide, into the heart of the fog-laden city, but I still manage to catch my breath when the sun catches the Golden Gate. Over the bridge, through the tunnel, and I speed my way through Marin as quickly as possible.
... haunted... by the hallways in this dining room, the echo there of me and you - the voices that are carrying this tune...
I know California.
... pretty pretty please, don't you ever ever feel like you're less than fucking perfect...
And California knows me.
... what if everything around you isn't quite as is seems...
In Willits I helped a little old lady figure out how to put cash in the little gas-station kiosk. She blessed me for my troubles. I sharpened a pencil with my skinning knife and poured the last Poweraide into my water bottle. My supplies weren't even close to spent, but I wasn't hungry. My metabolism changes when I travel that much, and I find myself needing less food but more sleep. I'd written my thoughts with a broken pencil on the directions I'd printed out, the little things that changed, the unexpected obstacles, the delightful surprises, the strange and eerie moments. I couldn't help but lament that many were lost, despite my notations, and wished that I could have shared them more vividly.
That's where the true sadness comes from. Being a Vagabond has its perks, sure. Taken in as a wastrel, being high-fived by a gas-station attendant for declaring that nothing of my old life now remained to collect, the random conversations that lead me to believe someone had tried to rob my hotel room. But there is a deep abiding sadness, a loneliness that eats away in the quiet moments between songs -
... look closer and see... see into the trees - find the girl, while you can...
- and makes sleep seem uninviting.
The redwood curtain parted without much to say, no welcoming embrace from the land, no sigh of relief. But I am glad of the journey, and the things I learned, and the things I gave away, and the things I took. I would do it again if I had to.
Why?
You wouldn't understand.
June 20, 2012
Oh Rats!
Classes are winding down. It's Hell Week, and we're clearing through the inexorable schedule of exams, one at a time, quiz after final after practical. Notebooks are turned in, the last finishing touches placed, the last-minute cramming has already started. The summer is hot, the sunlight bakes the air and makes the cool grass smell like the most inviting place to nap that ever was.
Last class of VT51 - the Intro to Vet Tech class I'm in - they brought out rats. The week before, they'd introduced us to a couple snakes. Beautiful beasties: a Rainbow Boa, a couple of California King Snakes, a Burmese Python, even a little Eastern Hognose which - up until halfway through the explanation - the professor did not know was classified as venomous. The entire class laughed as she blanched a little, given that she was suddenly aware of the fact that she was holding this potentially deadly creature. Safely enough, it turns out - Hognoses are rear-fanged, and it's VERY difficult for them to envenomate humans. Beautiful animals, and they let us come up, hold them, say hello... it was fantastic.
I knew people had problems with snakes. I do not. I love them. The feel of them, the look of them, the softness of scale and the coolness to touch. The patterns and brightness and fluid grace. Some people, however, could not stand to be near them. I shrugged, knowing a fear of snakes was pervasive.
For some reason, however, it surprised me when girls actually had to excuse themselves from the room entirely when the rats were brought out.
I know, peripherally, that some people dislike rodents. Again, I do not. I find them to be adorable little beasties with fantastic personalities and curious natures. Friendly, social, intelligent... what's not to like? But, like snakes, these creatures are terribly misunderstood and often maligned because of their wilder cousins. The misconceptions - perpetuated by Hollywood in its worst cases - leave us believing that rats will gnaw your face off as you sleep, carry every disease under the sun, and are vicious, vindictive monsters that have a taste for human blood. Nothing could be further from the truth. (Special effects guys have to coat actors with peanut butter to get the rats to even consider licking them. Rats LOVE peanut butter.)
I'm not sure why I found it more strange that people were weirded out by rats. Snakes, sure, I understand. Many are venomous, and if you don't know how to tell the difference, it's best to just avoid them altogether. But rats? Rats are usually just pests at the most, and on their worst wild days they can be vectors for disease. But then, so can cats, dogs, foxes, guinea pigs, and half a dozen other things people almost universally find "cute". There are people who absolutely cringe when they think of bats who think foxes are cuddly, when the truth is that there are more reported cases of foxes transmitting rabies to humans than any bat or rat could ever manage.
I've heard people say it's the tail. What about it, really? Many of these rat-haters still think mice are cute. They look nearly identical to the untrained eye, with the obvious difference in size, which has led to - I'm not kidding - the perpetuated belief that mice grow into rats eventually. So how can you adore one but despise the other?
I watched the girls leave. If anyone had departed when the snakes were out the week before, I never noticed it, and they were exceptionally discreet, and never came back. It's hard to leave the classroom without being noticed. But several girls - all girls, to my shame - left the room when the rats were introduced.
Apart from my shock and confusion ("really? you can't tolerate rats?"), I felt a pang of scorn. Here were were, in a class - the last WEEK of this class, mind you - where we were purposefully staring down the career wherin we would take in every variety of pet for medical care... and they were grossed out by a common domestic species. How on EARTH did they expect to pass the course? Just conveniently skip all the rodent classes? All the small-animal nursing labs? Or perhaps the Animal Care Course, where we're supposed to take care of the facilities rescued dogs, cats, horse, sheep, goats, rabbits, and - yes - rats and mice? You know, those little absolutely critical classes to passing the course? How on EARTH did they think this career was appropriate for them?
I'm not sure why I found it more strange that people were weirded out by rats. Snakes, sure, I understand. Many are venomous, and if you don't know how to tell the difference, it's best to just avoid them altogether. But rats? Rats are usually just pests at the most, and on their worst wild days they can be vectors for disease. But then, so can cats, dogs, foxes, guinea pigs, and half a dozen other things people almost universally find "cute". There are people who absolutely cringe when they think of bats who think foxes are cuddly, when the truth is that there are more reported cases of foxes transmitting rabies to humans than any bat or rat could ever manage.
I've heard people say it's the tail. What about it, really? Many of these rat-haters still think mice are cute. They look nearly identical to the untrained eye, with the obvious difference in size, which has led to - I'm not kidding - the perpetuated belief that mice grow into rats eventually. So how can you adore one but despise the other?
I watched the girls leave. If anyone had departed when the snakes were out the week before, I never noticed it, and they were exceptionally discreet, and never came back. It's hard to leave the classroom without being noticed. But several girls - all girls, to my shame - left the room when the rats were introduced.
Apart from my shock and confusion ("really? you can't tolerate rats?"), I felt a pang of scorn. Here were were, in a class - the last WEEK of this class, mind you - where we were purposefully staring down the career wherin we would take in every variety of pet for medical care... and they were grossed out by a common domestic species. How on EARTH did they expect to pass the course? Just conveniently skip all the rodent classes? All the small-animal nursing labs? Or perhaps the Animal Care Course, where we're supposed to take care of the facilities rescued dogs, cats, horse, sheep, goats, rabbits, and - yes - rats and mice? You know, those little absolutely critical classes to passing the course? How on EARTH did they think this career was appropriate for them?
The professor had stated at the beginning of the course that this was not a "pet the kitty" career, and yet every year she had applicants who couldn't stomach surgeries, had objections to euthanasia, and yes, could not deal with certain species. Being a vet tech isn't all about Little Timmy and his new puppy coming in for boosters. Sometimes it's about Ms. Jane with her aged Guatamalan Monitor with a prolapsed colon, or Mr. Smith with the family cat half mangled from being struck by a car. There will be limbs that cannot be saved, insides conspicuously outside, rotting flesh and smells that will turn the stomach of even the strongest tech, pus, blood, and feces ALL the time. Hell, my second day as an extern as a vet assistant, we lost a patient who was constantly vomiting, evacuating his bowels, his bladder, and salivating all over himself. If you can't handle a healthy rat being in the room, what the hell are you doing in the course?
We didn't get to handle the rats, sadly. The assistant professor walked around the room, showing off various points of anatomy, explaining how social they are, how to train them, and so on. The males were Kraven, King, and Koontz, where the females were Godiva and Hershey. They rode comfortably on her shoulder, venturing an inquisitive nose into the air as they passed by.
I shake my head sadly, and hope dearly that the professor noted the people who couldn't handle the species we'd been introduced to. I would hate to think that the class would be too full to give me a spot with folk like that getting a place. I don't begrudge people their phobias, even if they ARE misplaced (a phobia being an "irrational fear" to begin with), hell, I have a few of my own. But I'm never going to be asked to do a physical on a spider (and yes, I asked). If you can't handle what the job WILL entail, you shouldn't even be in the class. Go be a groomer, or a trainer, or a breeder, or a sitter, or a walker, or whatever you like. But you cannot reasonably expect to be successful in this field with that kind of block.
Last class of VT51 - the Intro to Vet Tech class I'm in - they brought out rats. The week before, they'd introduced us to a couple snakes. Beautiful beasties: a Rainbow Boa, a couple of California King Snakes, a Burmese Python, even a little Eastern Hognose which - up until halfway through the explanation - the professor did not know was classified as venomous. The entire class laughed as she blanched a little, given that she was suddenly aware of the fact that she was holding this potentially deadly creature. Safely enough, it turns out - Hognoses are rear-fanged, and it's VERY difficult for them to envenomate humans. Beautiful animals, and they let us come up, hold them, say hello... it was fantastic.
I knew people had problems with snakes. I do not. I love them. The feel of them, the look of them, the softness of scale and the coolness to touch. The patterns and brightness and fluid grace. Some people, however, could not stand to be near them. I shrugged, knowing a fear of snakes was pervasive.
For some reason, however, it surprised me when girls actually had to excuse themselves from the room entirely when the rats were brought out.
I know, peripherally, that some people dislike rodents. Again, I do not. I find them to be adorable little beasties with fantastic personalities and curious natures. Friendly, social, intelligent... what's not to like? But, like snakes, these creatures are terribly misunderstood and often maligned because of their wilder cousins. The misconceptions - perpetuated by Hollywood in its worst cases - leave us believing that rats will gnaw your face off as you sleep, carry every disease under the sun, and are vicious, vindictive monsters that have a taste for human blood. Nothing could be further from the truth. (Special effects guys have to coat actors with peanut butter to get the rats to even consider licking them. Rats LOVE peanut butter.)
I'm not sure why I found it more strange that people were weirded out by rats. Snakes, sure, I understand. Many are venomous, and if you don't know how to tell the difference, it's best to just avoid them altogether. But rats? Rats are usually just pests at the most, and on their worst wild days they can be vectors for disease. But then, so can cats, dogs, foxes, guinea pigs, and half a dozen other things people almost universally find "cute". There are people who absolutely cringe when they think of bats who think foxes are cuddly, when the truth is that there are more reported cases of foxes transmitting rabies to humans than any bat or rat could ever manage.
I've heard people say it's the tail. What about it, really? Many of these rat-haters still think mice are cute. They look nearly identical to the untrained eye, with the obvious difference in size, which has led to - I'm not kidding - the perpetuated belief that mice grow into rats eventually. So how can you adore one but despise the other?
I watched the girls leave. If anyone had departed when the snakes were out the week before, I never noticed it, and they were exceptionally discreet, and never came back. It's hard to leave the classroom without being noticed. But several girls - all girls, to my shame - left the room when the rats were introduced.
Apart from my shock and confusion ("really? you can't tolerate rats?"), I felt a pang of scorn. Here were were, in a class - the last WEEK of this class, mind you - where we were purposefully staring down the career wherin we would take in every variety of pet for medical care... and they were grossed out by a common domestic species. How on EARTH did they expect to pass the course? Just conveniently skip all the rodent classes? All the small-animal nursing labs? Or perhaps the Animal Care Course, where we're supposed to take care of the facilities rescued dogs, cats, horse, sheep, goats, rabbits, and - yes - rats and mice? You know, those little absolutely critical classes to passing the course? How on EARTH did they think this career was appropriate for them?
I'm not sure why I found it more strange that people were weirded out by rats. Snakes, sure, I understand. Many are venomous, and if you don't know how to tell the difference, it's best to just avoid them altogether. But rats? Rats are usually just pests at the most, and on their worst wild days they can be vectors for disease. But then, so can cats, dogs, foxes, guinea pigs, and half a dozen other things people almost universally find "cute". There are people who absolutely cringe when they think of bats who think foxes are cuddly, when the truth is that there are more reported cases of foxes transmitting rabies to humans than any bat or rat could ever manage.
I've heard people say it's the tail. What about it, really? Many of these rat-haters still think mice are cute. They look nearly identical to the untrained eye, with the obvious difference in size, which has led to - I'm not kidding - the perpetuated belief that mice grow into rats eventually. So how can you adore one but despise the other?
I watched the girls leave. If anyone had departed when the snakes were out the week before, I never noticed it, and they were exceptionally discreet, and never came back. It's hard to leave the classroom without being noticed. But several girls - all girls, to my shame - left the room when the rats were introduced.
Apart from my shock and confusion ("really? you can't tolerate rats?"), I felt a pang of scorn. Here were were, in a class - the last WEEK of this class, mind you - where we were purposefully staring down the career wherin we would take in every variety of pet for medical care... and they were grossed out by a common domestic species. How on EARTH did they expect to pass the course? Just conveniently skip all the rodent classes? All the small-animal nursing labs? Or perhaps the Animal Care Course, where we're supposed to take care of the facilities rescued dogs, cats, horse, sheep, goats, rabbits, and - yes - rats and mice? You know, those little absolutely critical classes to passing the course? How on EARTH did they think this career was appropriate for them?
The professor had stated at the beginning of the course that this was not a "pet the kitty" career, and yet every year she had applicants who couldn't stomach surgeries, had objections to euthanasia, and yes, could not deal with certain species. Being a vet tech isn't all about Little Timmy and his new puppy coming in for boosters. Sometimes it's about Ms. Jane with her aged Guatamalan Monitor with a prolapsed colon, or Mr. Smith with the family cat half mangled from being struck by a car. There will be limbs that cannot be saved, insides conspicuously outside, rotting flesh and smells that will turn the stomach of even the strongest tech, pus, blood, and feces ALL the time. Hell, my second day as an extern as a vet assistant, we lost a patient who was constantly vomiting, evacuating his bowels, his bladder, and salivating all over himself. If you can't handle a healthy rat being in the room, what the hell are you doing in the course?
We didn't get to handle the rats, sadly. The assistant professor walked around the room, showing off various points of anatomy, explaining how social they are, how to train them, and so on. The males were Kraven, King, and Koontz, where the females were Godiva and Hershey. They rode comfortably on her shoulder, venturing an inquisitive nose into the air as they passed by.
I shake my head sadly, and hope dearly that the professor noted the people who couldn't handle the species we'd been introduced to. I would hate to think that the class would be too full to give me a spot with folk like that getting a place. I don't begrudge people their phobias, even if they ARE misplaced (a phobia being an "irrational fear" to begin with), hell, I have a few of my own. But I'm never going to be asked to do a physical on a spider (and yes, I asked). If you can't handle what the job WILL entail, you shouldn't even be in the class. Go be a groomer, or a trainer, or a breeder, or a sitter, or a walker, or whatever you like. But you cannot reasonably expect to be successful in this field with that kind of block.
June 08, 2012
Memories: Installment 6
Final installment for now. But I thought I'd part with one of my absolute favorites.
Try to read it along with "Good Life" by OneRepublic.
-----------------
When I was a kid, we had two sets of neighbors, one on each side of our house. In front of us was a wide yard, then an irrigation canal, then a bit more land, then the road, then a huge creek. Behind us was an expansive back yard, a fence, and then a wide open field that was the park. Surrounded by trees and gardens and water, my home might as well have been what heaven looked like to my young eyes.
The creek was wide and mysterious, deep and fast, and its banks were the home of huge snakes and mischievous raccoons, blue-bellied Western Fence Lizards, bold possums and countless rats and mice. The air was positively filled with the sounds of birds, everything from Scrub Jays to Red Tails, Common Crows to Cedar Waxwings, Sparrows and Starlings and half a dozen more. In the canal were the bright-red crayfish, the absurdly loud bullfrogs - half as big as a dinner plate, and thousands upon thousands of tiny singing Tree Frogs. Tadpoles every year numbered beyond count. Dragonflies as wide and as long as my hand darted through the air, along with the honeybees, ladybugs, Tiger Swallowtail and Monarch Butterflies, and even the incredibly beautiful Gypsy Moths at dusk. They bobbed in and out of mom's garden, the dancing heads of crocus, freesia, flox, lantenna, and roses, half-hidden in the soft light of the birch forest mom had planted, all protected by the enormous guardian White Ash tree in the center of it all.
Summer, and everything green and bright. I was twelve.
I'd spend half the morning lying on my back in the front yard, staring at the deep-blue sky through the leaves of the guardian Ash, watching it dance with the blessedly cool summer breeze. It was hot, just the way I loved it. Mid nineties, I think. There would be swimming later, and I'd spend a ridiculous amount of time in the pool, until my fingers and toes were pink-white prunes and my voice cracked from the chlorine. But it was still mid-morning. Dad was working on his brand-new bike in front of the garage. Beyond him, our neighbors' apricot tree hung over our seven-foot redwood fence, bobbing in the wind with its heavy burden of overripe fruit.
The S family had this tree, but never tended it. Didn't care to, I suppose. It was enormous, far bigger than a stone fruit tree should ever get, and it seemed perfectly happy to grow wild. It produced fruit like nobody's business, and the ripe golden orbs would drop to the ground, spent. I don't know what possessed me on this day... but I have never regretted it.
I went inside, and grabbed an old costume from a ballet recital some time prior. I'd been a Pastoral Girl/Maypole Dancer in "La Fille Mal Guarde", and the costume was simply a blue dress with a green apron. I put it on and ran outside barefoot... across the cool grass, the searing pavement in front of the garage, and - true to my tomboy nature - proceeded to climb the fence in a dress. Like the cats often did, I scampered along the top of it like a highway. I often used it to climb up on the roof, or into trees, or really just for whatever reason felt right at the time. This time, it was to the apricot tree.
I know now that I probably should have asked first. But to my twelve-year-old mind, if they'd wanted the fruit, they wouldn't be letting it drop to the ground to rot.
I reached the tree, its burdened branches stooped like old men over the fence. Without a worry of falling whatsoever, I kicked my legs over, and sat on the top of the fence like a normal person would sit on a park bench... and picked an apricot. Without so much as a moment's hesitation, I bit into it, and instantly the juices ran down my fingers, wrists, arms, to drip from my elbows like liquid gold. The sun shone brightly through the leaves as the wind stirred them, and a hawk cried overhead. I finished that one, and had another.
That moment - the warm air, the cool breeze, the hot sun, the sound of life all around me, in the welcoming green embrace of the apricot's leaves, my hard-as-horn bare feet dangling off the side of the fence, dressed in a tattered blue dress with a little green apron, pale and skinny and all arms and legs, covered in apricot juice as I stole the fruits right from the trees - that moment is frozen in time for me. In a strange sense, it felt like I was tasting the very heart of Summer itself, with all the innocence and wonder and fearlessness a child alone can have.
For the record, no - I never got sick.
A part of me clings to that moment in time, when everything was perfect, and worries were for other people. That moment in the summertime is as sacred to me as my own body, and I hold it truly dear. Even now, when I can, I eat apricots - nectarines will do in a pinch - and think of that day.
If you ask me why I'm smiling, I'll tell you it's because apricots taste like summer.
Try to read it along with "Good Life" by OneRepublic.
-----------------
When I was a kid, we had two sets of neighbors, one on each side of our house. In front of us was a wide yard, then an irrigation canal, then a bit more land, then the road, then a huge creek. Behind us was an expansive back yard, a fence, and then a wide open field that was the park. Surrounded by trees and gardens and water, my home might as well have been what heaven looked like to my young eyes.
The creek was wide and mysterious, deep and fast, and its banks were the home of huge snakes and mischievous raccoons, blue-bellied Western Fence Lizards, bold possums and countless rats and mice. The air was positively filled with the sounds of birds, everything from Scrub Jays to Red Tails, Common Crows to Cedar Waxwings, Sparrows and Starlings and half a dozen more. In the canal were the bright-red crayfish, the absurdly loud bullfrogs - half as big as a dinner plate, and thousands upon thousands of tiny singing Tree Frogs. Tadpoles every year numbered beyond count. Dragonflies as wide and as long as my hand darted through the air, along with the honeybees, ladybugs, Tiger Swallowtail and Monarch Butterflies, and even the incredibly beautiful Gypsy Moths at dusk. They bobbed in and out of mom's garden, the dancing heads of crocus, freesia, flox, lantenna, and roses, half-hidden in the soft light of the birch forest mom had planted, all protected by the enormous guardian White Ash tree in the center of it all.
Summer, and everything green and bright. I was twelve.
I'd spend half the morning lying on my back in the front yard, staring at the deep-blue sky through the leaves of the guardian Ash, watching it dance with the blessedly cool summer breeze. It was hot, just the way I loved it. Mid nineties, I think. There would be swimming later, and I'd spend a ridiculous amount of time in the pool, until my fingers and toes were pink-white prunes and my voice cracked from the chlorine. But it was still mid-morning. Dad was working on his brand-new bike in front of the garage. Beyond him, our neighbors' apricot tree hung over our seven-foot redwood fence, bobbing in the wind with its heavy burden of overripe fruit.
The S family had this tree, but never tended it. Didn't care to, I suppose. It was enormous, far bigger than a stone fruit tree should ever get, and it seemed perfectly happy to grow wild. It produced fruit like nobody's business, and the ripe golden orbs would drop to the ground, spent. I don't know what possessed me on this day... but I have never regretted it.
I went inside, and grabbed an old costume from a ballet recital some time prior. I'd been a Pastoral Girl/Maypole Dancer in "La Fille Mal Guarde", and the costume was simply a blue dress with a green apron. I put it on and ran outside barefoot... across the cool grass, the searing pavement in front of the garage, and - true to my tomboy nature - proceeded to climb the fence in a dress. Like the cats often did, I scampered along the top of it like a highway. I often used it to climb up on the roof, or into trees, or really just for whatever reason felt right at the time. This time, it was to the apricot tree.
I know now that I probably should have asked first. But to my twelve-year-old mind, if they'd wanted the fruit, they wouldn't be letting it drop to the ground to rot.
I reached the tree, its burdened branches stooped like old men over the fence. Without a worry of falling whatsoever, I kicked my legs over, and sat on the top of the fence like a normal person would sit on a park bench... and picked an apricot. Without so much as a moment's hesitation, I bit into it, and instantly the juices ran down my fingers, wrists, arms, to drip from my elbows like liquid gold. The sun shone brightly through the leaves as the wind stirred them, and a hawk cried overhead. I finished that one, and had another.
That moment - the warm air, the cool breeze, the hot sun, the sound of life all around me, in the welcoming green embrace of the apricot's leaves, my hard-as-horn bare feet dangling off the side of the fence, dressed in a tattered blue dress with a little green apron, pale and skinny and all arms and legs, covered in apricot juice as I stole the fruits right from the trees - that moment is frozen in time for me. In a strange sense, it felt like I was tasting the very heart of Summer itself, with all the innocence and wonder and fearlessness a child alone can have.
For the record, no - I never got sick.
A part of me clings to that moment in time, when everything was perfect, and worries were for other people. That moment in the summertime is as sacred to me as my own body, and I hold it truly dear. Even now, when I can, I eat apricots - nectarines will do in a pinch - and think of that day.
If you ask me why I'm smiling, I'll tell you it's because apricots taste like summer.
June 02, 2012
Memories: Installment 5
This is the second to last installment of this series. I have to put a stop to it eventually, or this place will become nothing more than a collection of anecdotes and cease to be a part of my forward momentum. It's good to reminisce, but it's important to acknowledge that the past is over, and we move on from there.
Today I made a comment about my eldest nephew growing quite so tall that reminded me of something a important to me, which is the moment that I realized that - even though he wasn't necessarily related to me by blood - he might as well be. I knew in that moment I was willing to offer my life for him.
---------------------------------------
There is a sacred place in the mountains. Few ever travel there. It is nested deep in the wilderness, inaccessible to vehicles even if motors weren't forbidden. It sits quietly along the length of the South Fork of the Stanislaus River, several miles in on horseback. It is peaceful, quiet, pristine. The grass grows a deep green, the trees surround it like guardians, and the water runs as clear as crystal. In mid-June, there is often still snow clinging to the nearby peaks. It is, in my mind, what heaven truly looks like. This place is called Hiram Meadow.
I went with my family there a few times. We would camp at the mouth of the river where it meets the reservoir, and wrestle the gleaming trout from the snowmelt-waters as they raced and jockied to get upstream. We tossed the females back... we would want fish in the next years too, after all. But those fish bite anything. ANYTHING. I've seen people catch a trout with a bass lure. Bait. Dry fly. Wet fly. Salmon eggs. Worms. And bless his heart, my nephew caught one using nothing for bait at all. Just a hook. Those fish were starving on their route upstream, and we'd cheer them on when one lept the eight-foot waterfall.
Every trip, we would venture at least once to Hiram Meadow to let the horses graze a little and to bask in the sacred beauty. This trip was no exception. We had more people with us than most times, including a lady I didn't know hardly at all, but she claimed to know horses, and so she came with. I was on Cloudy, the soft-mouthed snaffle-trained plush-coated quarter horse that somehow decided I was worthy to ride her. (Snaffle-bits are used on horses with VERY sensitive mouths, and using it wrong is a big problem. Her owner trusted my reputation in horsemanship to not harm her, and I did not disappoint. Ever since then, Cloudy was my steed on these trips. She developed this weird kind of kinship with me, but I did NOT complain.) My nephew - being still quite wee at the time - rode with the lady I didn't know on a strawberry leopard-appaloosa.
I rode behind her, keeping an eye on the wee one, and pointing out things to him as we rode past them, like a set of fresh cougar-tracks at the edge of the river in the soft wet sand, or a hawk soaring overhead. I wanted him to come to know and love nature as my father and brother did, as I and my mother do, to really bring him into the family. My brother and his future wife were very serious about one another, and I had this strange need to pull her son into the family and envelop him in a way. I needed to make it known that - blood or not - if he was to be a part of the family, then we would accept him with everything we could offer. And so I hovered a little, I'll admit. Needing to include him. Wanting to show him things. Hoping to make him see, so that he would never doubt.
Hiram Meadow was beautiful as always. It was a sunny day and clear, and the air was that perfect temperature to counter to warmth of the sun so you couldn't get too hot. The water was running swift and glassy over the well-worn stones.
I don't remember all of the details of when it happened, but I remember it happening, I don't remember if it was before we let the horses graze, or after, or during, or which. But I do remember it vividly.
I was on Cloudy, and facing the river, about 20 feet away from the bank. The river ran swift enough through the semi-granite-clay that it had etched the banks into the earth a good three or four feet before hitting water. The water itself was at least three feet of freezing-cold snowmelt, and travelling at a good clip. And that's all I could think about when the strawberry appaloosa decided she wanted to go into the river.
All I could see was the woman's back as she yanked ineffectually on the reins, and my nephew's little legs dangling off either side of the saddle. I didn't have time to think of anything else. All it would take would be a stumble and he would go plunging into the icy water. I don't remember doing it, but somehow I got Cloudy to understand the urgency. She doesn't like to go fast normally (the one time I spurred her into a gallop we were halfway across the meadow before she complied), but as a pair we sprang into action. We came up on the other horse's left side just as its front feet splashed into the water, and gripping the reins in my right hand I reached out with my left to grab the stunned (and now slightly damp) little boy by the ribs and pulled him bodily onto my saddle before turning Cloudy away from the splashing ruckus that was the appaloosa.
In retrospect, I realize now I hardly gave a thought to the woman on the horse. She was kind of one of those "Gee, My, Ain't Nature Grand" kind of people my dad dislikes so much. She had no respect for how deadly even the simplest things could be. No concept of how fast hypothermia can set in, how cold snowmelt really is, and how easy it is for little boys to be swept downriver. Three feet of fast-moving water is nothing to sneeze at. It can kill a grown man, to say nothing of little boys. Hell, I was in danger getting that close.
But I didn't care how dangerous it was to me. It didn't matter. What mattered was the boy, helpless and unaware. He didn't come out of it completely unscathed - his pants were soaked through. But I shudder to think of the misery he might have suffered if he'd gotten completely engulfed by the river, or what might have happened if he'd come loose. In that moment, I didn't give a damn about whether I was risking myself. I needed to get my nephew out of there.
I wouldn't let anyone else take him from me. He rode with me the whole way back to camp, a good solid hour in his little soaked jeans. I kept him tucked into my core to keep him warm; even the warm sunlight couldn't dispel the chill of the water when the breeze kicked up, or when we passed under the shady canopy. All I could think of was how close a call that had been, and how I didn't trust anyone else - anyone else - to keep him safe. And then it hit me.
Blood or no, I'd give my life for this kid.
Scrawny, feisty, full of sass and imagination, wonder and curiosity, this wee lad was Family already. I didn't have to try to welcome him in - he was already there. Protect the young, safeguard the weak. Watch each other's backs. Pick each other up when we fall. "I've got your Six." I'd done it without hesitation. And I'd do it again in a heartbeat, probably without thinking about it.
I'm not sure if he remembers it, though I'm sure he remembers parts of those trips. He'd been on a few of them, riding horses, catching fish, building fires, taking the boat out with dad. It doesn't ultimately matter, I suppose. All that matters is that he's one of us.
Today I made a comment about my eldest nephew growing quite so tall that reminded me of something a important to me, which is the moment that I realized that - even though he wasn't necessarily related to me by blood - he might as well be. I knew in that moment I was willing to offer my life for him.
---------------------------------------
There is a sacred place in the mountains. Few ever travel there. It is nested deep in the wilderness, inaccessible to vehicles even if motors weren't forbidden. It sits quietly along the length of the South Fork of the Stanislaus River, several miles in on horseback. It is peaceful, quiet, pristine. The grass grows a deep green, the trees surround it like guardians, and the water runs as clear as crystal. In mid-June, there is often still snow clinging to the nearby peaks. It is, in my mind, what heaven truly looks like. This place is called Hiram Meadow.
I went with my family there a few times. We would camp at the mouth of the river where it meets the reservoir, and wrestle the gleaming trout from the snowmelt-waters as they raced and jockied to get upstream. We tossed the females back... we would want fish in the next years too, after all. But those fish bite anything. ANYTHING. I've seen people catch a trout with a bass lure. Bait. Dry fly. Wet fly. Salmon eggs. Worms. And bless his heart, my nephew caught one using nothing for bait at all. Just a hook. Those fish were starving on their route upstream, and we'd cheer them on when one lept the eight-foot waterfall.
Every trip, we would venture at least once to Hiram Meadow to let the horses graze a little and to bask in the sacred beauty. This trip was no exception. We had more people with us than most times, including a lady I didn't know hardly at all, but she claimed to know horses, and so she came with. I was on Cloudy, the soft-mouthed snaffle-trained plush-coated quarter horse that somehow decided I was worthy to ride her. (Snaffle-bits are used on horses with VERY sensitive mouths, and using it wrong is a big problem. Her owner trusted my reputation in horsemanship to not harm her, and I did not disappoint. Ever since then, Cloudy was my steed on these trips. She developed this weird kind of kinship with me, but I did NOT complain.) My nephew - being still quite wee at the time - rode with the lady I didn't know on a strawberry leopard-appaloosa.
I rode behind her, keeping an eye on the wee one, and pointing out things to him as we rode past them, like a set of fresh cougar-tracks at the edge of the river in the soft wet sand, or a hawk soaring overhead. I wanted him to come to know and love nature as my father and brother did, as I and my mother do, to really bring him into the family. My brother and his future wife were very serious about one another, and I had this strange need to pull her son into the family and envelop him in a way. I needed to make it known that - blood or not - if he was to be a part of the family, then we would accept him with everything we could offer. And so I hovered a little, I'll admit. Needing to include him. Wanting to show him things. Hoping to make him see, so that he would never doubt.
Hiram Meadow was beautiful as always. It was a sunny day and clear, and the air was that perfect temperature to counter to warmth of the sun so you couldn't get too hot. The water was running swift and glassy over the well-worn stones.
I don't remember all of the details of when it happened, but I remember it happening, I don't remember if it was before we let the horses graze, or after, or during, or which. But I do remember it vividly.
I was on Cloudy, and facing the river, about 20 feet away from the bank. The river ran swift enough through the semi-granite-clay that it had etched the banks into the earth a good three or four feet before hitting water. The water itself was at least three feet of freezing-cold snowmelt, and travelling at a good clip. And that's all I could think about when the strawberry appaloosa decided she wanted to go into the river.
All I could see was the woman's back as she yanked ineffectually on the reins, and my nephew's little legs dangling off either side of the saddle. I didn't have time to think of anything else. All it would take would be a stumble and he would go plunging into the icy water. I don't remember doing it, but somehow I got Cloudy to understand the urgency. She doesn't like to go fast normally (the one time I spurred her into a gallop we were halfway across the meadow before she complied), but as a pair we sprang into action. We came up on the other horse's left side just as its front feet splashed into the water, and gripping the reins in my right hand I reached out with my left to grab the stunned (and now slightly damp) little boy by the ribs and pulled him bodily onto my saddle before turning Cloudy away from the splashing ruckus that was the appaloosa.
In retrospect, I realize now I hardly gave a thought to the woman on the horse. She was kind of one of those "Gee, My, Ain't Nature Grand" kind of people my dad dislikes so much. She had no respect for how deadly even the simplest things could be. No concept of how fast hypothermia can set in, how cold snowmelt really is, and how easy it is for little boys to be swept downriver. Three feet of fast-moving water is nothing to sneeze at. It can kill a grown man, to say nothing of little boys. Hell, I was in danger getting that close.
But I didn't care how dangerous it was to me. It didn't matter. What mattered was the boy, helpless and unaware. He didn't come out of it completely unscathed - his pants were soaked through. But I shudder to think of the misery he might have suffered if he'd gotten completely engulfed by the river, or what might have happened if he'd come loose. In that moment, I didn't give a damn about whether I was risking myself. I needed to get my nephew out of there.
I wouldn't let anyone else take him from me. He rode with me the whole way back to camp, a good solid hour in his little soaked jeans. I kept him tucked into my core to keep him warm; even the warm sunlight couldn't dispel the chill of the water when the breeze kicked up, or when we passed under the shady canopy. All I could think of was how close a call that had been, and how I didn't trust anyone else - anyone else - to keep him safe. And then it hit me.
Blood or no, I'd give my life for this kid.
Scrawny, feisty, full of sass and imagination, wonder and curiosity, this wee lad was Family already. I didn't have to try to welcome him in - he was already there. Protect the young, safeguard the weak. Watch each other's backs. Pick each other up when we fall. "I've got your Six." I'd done it without hesitation. And I'd do it again in a heartbeat, probably without thinking about it.
I'm not sure if he remembers it, though I'm sure he remembers parts of those trips. He'd been on a few of them, riding horses, catching fish, building fires, taking the boat out with dad. It doesn't ultimately matter, I suppose. All that matters is that he's one of us.
May 17, 2012
Memories: Installment 4
This is one from the vaults. It was something I wrote several years ago when I was in college. I had been to too many funerals in too short a time, too many of them for people my age and younger. I began to suffer from terrible, mind-consuming panic attacks.
Not all my memories are pleasant recollections of starry nights.
I'm happy to say the panic attacks are nowhere near as bad as they were, and come infrequently at best. My faith has become much stronger. That said, the scars remain.
If you have the stomach, I give you this memory.
--------------------------
What the hell?
No seriously. What. The. Hell.
Death didn't use to bother me.
Now it causes me mental anguish every time I even think about it.
I'm used to death. I really am. I mean, anybody who knows me at all knows how many frikkin' funerals I've had to attend. Uncle Cecil's when I was eight, that was my first one. At least, the first I can remember. I don't know whether or not dad brought me to Gramma's funeral. I was really too young then. I do remember him sitting in a chair and when I asked him what was wrong, he said, "Well, sweetheart... my mommy just died."
But I really recall Jonathan's. I remember mom coming down the hallway to tell me that the eleven o'clock news had revealed the second drowning victim's name. I remember crawling, shakingly, out of bed, and walking down the hallway to confirm it for myself. I remember how trance like it felt. I remember the way his face looked swollen, having drowned, at the funeral home. I remember all of it.
I was sixteen.
Kids shouldn't die that young.
In fact, kids shouldn't die. Michelle shouldn't have died. She was only four for fuck's sake. A four-year-old shouldn't have to be buried.
But they do.
I will, someday.
And even though I was "Fearless" when I was three, I am older now, and know better. I know I am mortal, and will die.
And that thought, the thought that someday, my life will end, scares the living piss out of me. Not because I'm afraid of the pain. Not because I'm afraid I'll have lived an incomplete life. But because of what happens after that.
Nobody really knows what happens after that, you know? A lot of people THINK they do, but nobody can agree on it. Ask any Catholic and God is sitting in the Heavens upon his great Throne. Ask a Hindu and he'll tell you that you'll wake up in a whole new body. A Jew will tell you that Abraham will hold you to his bosom, and a Muslim will tell you that Allah will grant you a great reward. Some of the zealots believe you'll have a harem of virgins. Everybody's got their own idea.
But we can't reconcile them all.
I mean, I used to believe that all religions stemmed from the same Source and thus we would all end up going to the same Place afterward. But we just can't. We can't. There are too many stipulations and secret handshakes and hoops to jump through to get to "the Right Place", which differs depending on who you ask. What if we've just made it all up? What if we, as a species, when we discovered our own mortality, had to adapt a means of understanding and justifying life so as not to instantly lose our minds?
What if there is no Heaven, no Hell, no Valhalla, no Happy Hunting Grounds, no rebirth? What if, when you die... that's just... it?
THAT'S what scares me, and keeps me awake at night. It's what gave me a mental breakdown when I was fourteen and has reared its ugly head again to tear at my psyche. It's what has made me look over my shoulder every hour for the past six months, and why I've gotten so short with people. I'm scared. Plain and simple.
I'm scared that I'm not even real at this very moment. I'm so very, very afraid that what I am right now is nothing more than someone else's dream, and that when they wake, I will be gone. As though, and for all intents correctly, I was never here. I can't distinguish reality and dream anymore. Sleep brings dreams that are so real I forget they were dreams WELL on into the day. I'll dream that I talked to someone on the phone, or perhaps bought cereal, and later that day I will be shocked to learn that no, in fact, we are out of cereal or that conversation never took place.
And reality itself has become a dream. I no longer really taste my food, nor my drink. Sensation is so fleeting I can barely call it real. A moment passes and I wonder: was that a moment in which I created a memory, or am I simply dreaming, and that memory that I think I have made is simply made up? What if there is no future to this exact second, and the only reason I'm sitting here RIGHT NOW is because somebody's dreaming that a girl my age, my height and my nature is sitting in front of a computer having a mental meltdown and all of her memories leading up to that point are just filler?
What if that's the case?
Why can't I feel real anymore?
I know I used to. I know I used to smell the grass and taste the popcicles and feel the sunlight and hear the leaves and see... gods, the things I used to see! I cannot see anymore, I have grown blind. And no matter how I strive, I still cannot see. I can't look people in the eye because, in my mind, somehow, they aren't there. They are no more real than I. I am related to dreams, friends with figments, and in love with a phantom. None of the people or things I know and love are real, nor am I.
This is what frightens me.
This is what has cast me on my downward spiral of late.
If you know the way out... throw me a rope.
Not all my memories are pleasant recollections of starry nights.
I'm happy to say the panic attacks are nowhere near as bad as they were, and come infrequently at best. My faith has become much stronger. That said, the scars remain.
If you have the stomach, I give you this memory.
--------------------------
What the hell?
No seriously. What. The. Hell.
Death didn't use to bother me.
Now it causes me mental anguish every time I even think about it.
I'm used to death. I really am. I mean, anybody who knows me at all knows how many frikkin' funerals I've had to attend. Uncle Cecil's when I was eight, that was my first one. At least, the first I can remember. I don't know whether or not dad brought me to Gramma's funeral. I was really too young then. I do remember him sitting in a chair and when I asked him what was wrong, he said, "Well, sweetheart... my mommy just died."
But I really recall Jonathan's. I remember mom coming down the hallway to tell me that the eleven o'clock news had revealed the second drowning victim's name. I remember crawling, shakingly, out of bed, and walking down the hallway to confirm it for myself. I remember how trance like it felt. I remember the way his face looked swollen, having drowned, at the funeral home. I remember all of it.
I was sixteen.
Kids shouldn't die that young.
In fact, kids shouldn't die. Michelle shouldn't have died. She was only four for fuck's sake. A four-year-old shouldn't have to be buried.
But they do.
I will, someday.
And even though I was "Fearless" when I was three, I am older now, and know better. I know I am mortal, and will die.
And that thought, the thought that someday, my life will end, scares the living piss out of me. Not because I'm afraid of the pain. Not because I'm afraid I'll have lived an incomplete life. But because of what happens after that.
Nobody really knows what happens after that, you know? A lot of people THINK they do, but nobody can agree on it. Ask any Catholic and God is sitting in the Heavens upon his great Throne. Ask a Hindu and he'll tell you that you'll wake up in a whole new body. A Jew will tell you that Abraham will hold you to his bosom, and a Muslim will tell you that Allah will grant you a great reward. Some of the zealots believe you'll have a harem of virgins. Everybody's got their own idea.
But we can't reconcile them all.
I mean, I used to believe that all religions stemmed from the same Source and thus we would all end up going to the same Place afterward. But we just can't. We can't. There are too many stipulations and secret handshakes and hoops to jump through to get to "the Right Place", which differs depending on who you ask. What if we've just made it all up? What if we, as a species, when we discovered our own mortality, had to adapt a means of understanding and justifying life so as not to instantly lose our minds?
What if there is no Heaven, no Hell, no Valhalla, no Happy Hunting Grounds, no rebirth? What if, when you die... that's just... it?
THAT'S what scares me, and keeps me awake at night. It's what gave me a mental breakdown when I was fourteen and has reared its ugly head again to tear at my psyche. It's what has made me look over my shoulder every hour for the past six months, and why I've gotten so short with people. I'm scared. Plain and simple.
I'm scared that I'm not even real at this very moment. I'm so very, very afraid that what I am right now is nothing more than someone else's dream, and that when they wake, I will be gone. As though, and for all intents correctly, I was never here. I can't distinguish reality and dream anymore. Sleep brings dreams that are so real I forget they were dreams WELL on into the day. I'll dream that I talked to someone on the phone, or perhaps bought cereal, and later that day I will be shocked to learn that no, in fact, we are out of cereal or that conversation never took place.
And reality itself has become a dream. I no longer really taste my food, nor my drink. Sensation is so fleeting I can barely call it real. A moment passes and I wonder: was that a moment in which I created a memory, or am I simply dreaming, and that memory that I think I have made is simply made up? What if there is no future to this exact second, and the only reason I'm sitting here RIGHT NOW is because somebody's dreaming that a girl my age, my height and my nature is sitting in front of a computer having a mental meltdown and all of her memories leading up to that point are just filler?
What if that's the case?
Why can't I feel real anymore?
I know I used to. I know I used to smell the grass and taste the popcicles and feel the sunlight and hear the leaves and see... gods, the things I used to see! I cannot see anymore, I have grown blind. And no matter how I strive, I still cannot see. I can't look people in the eye because, in my mind, somehow, they aren't there. They are no more real than I. I am related to dreams, friends with figments, and in love with a phantom. None of the people or things I know and love are real, nor am I.
This is what frightens me.
This is what has cast me on my downward spiral of late.
If you know the way out... throw me a rope.
May 08, 2012
Memories: Installment 3
Given that my last post centred around my animal-affinities, I might as well continue the trend. I'll take you back a bit further, so you can see why my dad sort of gave up on arguing with me about the "can we keep it!?" argument.
I was in 5th grade, and it was May. I know this because the school uniforms allowed us to switch to our "summer" outfits, which is to say the particular navy-blue shorts and usual collared shirt. Normally we girls had to wear these - well, very typical for Catholic school - plaid pleated skirts. Skirts suck for kids, unless you like feeling girly, or play a lot in the sandbox. (No seriously. We used our skirts as giant sand-carrying implements. My mother never said a word about the stains, either. I figure because she probably did the same thing, being a tombody herself and all.) Boys were stuck with corderoy pants. In the summer of the Central Valley? They melted. In the winter? We froze. Nobody won. Unless it was the shorts. They were ugly, but we loved them.
I had a bad habit of not changing out of my uniform, either right away or at all. I was just so happy to be home I'd immediately go play in the dirt without changing, which wasn't the easiest for the clothes. On this particular day, I was more focused on my new kitten than I was my clothes. Our cat Tigger had a litter earlier that year, and the kittens were all weaned and most of them adopted out... except the one I kept. Because... well, see previous "can I keep it?!" argument. (I had this discussion a LOT with my father.) Tigger had stayed long enough to wean her kittens, get spayed, and then took off. So all my attention was on my new pride and joy, my kitten, Callie. She was only like eight weeks at this point, but our cats were indoor-outdoor, and, well... she was outdoors at this time.
I came home, dropped my backpack on the floor, and immediately went in search of my fuzzy friend.
There was a creek across the street, and the cats LOVED to hang out there. The banks were steep and pretty deep. I'm terrible at estimating distance, but I'd say a good 30 feet to the water most summers, with slightly more than 45-degree incline in some places. In some, it was a sheer drop. And this was to a creek that was about 30-feet wide as well, and goodness knows how deep. It moved fast, too. But there were frogs and bugs and snakes and berry vines down there, so of course I went down there a fair bit myself. I had no fear of sliding down that steep embankment, and so my search took me to the water's swift-moving edge, calling for my kitten.
Suddenly, unexpectedly, I heard an answering meow.
I kept calling, louder, and got the same echo-location response. I couldn't place it. It was far off, but definitely responding, so I wasn't going to give up. Just then, mom popped her head over the egd of the cliff above me. Ostensibly to make sure I hadn't drowned or done something stupid.
Which I was about to do.
See, as though on cue, in that precise moment, a tiny fuzzy object lept from the berry vines on the other side of the creek. It was a kitten, all right, but not mine. My kitten was a marble-fudge tabby-tortoiseshell. This one was a white ball of fluff with grey splotches. And she was making the heroic swim across this enormous, fast... moving... um...
Mom saw her too. She called down to me, "E, she's trying to swim to you! Can you get her?!"
Some people hear what they want to hear, you know that? I heard "can you" as "go". "Go get her." So I said, "OKAY!!" and lept into the water - still in my school uniform - to swim out and retrieve this tiny kitten, who was travelling dangerously fast downstream.
I say "dangerously" because this area of the creek was just upstream from a bridge. Fun Fact: cities will dump lots of rip-rap (broken cement chunks) under bridges to keep them from eroding too much near the pillars keeping the bridge up. Rip-rap is no fun to go over. At all. Ever. Even in an inflatable raft. And it was only maybe a minute's distance from us to being drawn forcibly over tumbling rapids and very sharp rocks. So I swam like hell to get to this kitten, which was actually pretty easy. We had a pool, you see, and in the searing summer heat, you had to drag me out of the water. I was practically part fish. Swimming out to get her was no problem.
I grabbed onto the soggy furball, clutched her to me, and swam back to... hey, where'd the bank go?
I knew enough to get to the side of the creek, regardless of what the side looked like. But the bank I'd been standing on was far away now. I'd drifted downstream enough to have reached past the point of no return. This was sheer cliff all the way. Mom called to me in a strained voice, telling me to stay put, and ran for help. I clutched some weeds, clinging to the side of the creek like driftwood. I looked around, finally assessing the situation I had bounded gleefully into, found myself in a fast-moving river with no escape route and really nasty rapids not far away.
But also, I found myself cradling a tiny, helpless, 5-week-old-at-best, totally calm kitten. She was only barely applying pressure with her claws, just enough to velcro to my shirt, but not enough to hurt me. She didn't meow, didn't fuss, didn't struggle. It was as though she trusted me to get us out of this mess, that this was the worst it could possibly get and nothing could make it any less appealing than it currently was. And it was looking pretty unappealing. But there, clinging to muddy weeds in muddy water, we were together at least. She looked at me with those violet-blue eyes that kittens have when they're not old enough to be on their own, and she trusted me.
So I sang to her.
What else could I do? I couldn't go anywhere, so I figured I might as well just sing. Nothing in particular, just a little nameless made-up melody. Just me, her, the sound of the river, and a wandering song.
My brother poked his head over the edge of the cliff and said he and mom would try and catch me just before the rapids. The bank scoops down at the bridge and for a couple yards before the sharp rocks; there was just enough room to pull me out. If they could catch me. So I waited until they positioned themselves downstream - one grabbing the bridge support, one holding their hand and reaching out. And slowly, slowly, I bobbed downstream to meet them, arresting my momentum with the cliff wall as I could.
I was successfully hauled out of the water without being dashed against the rocks, and mom wrapped me in a towel as my brother held the kitten. He held it by the scruff, a dripping, sorry, sodden creature, and said, "... you risked your life, for this?!"
I did. And I'd do it again, too. I regret nothing. And I don't say that because it's an awesome story or even because I feel awesome about being a hero or something silly like that.
I say it because a year later, I got a picture from the nurse who adopted that kitten, whose name became Cleopatra. There she was, a big, sleek, beautiful cat, with ice blue eyes and smooth coat. She lived for many, many years in a happy, loving home. I made a difference. And that is reason enough.
I was in 5th grade, and it was May. I know this because the school uniforms allowed us to switch to our "summer" outfits, which is to say the particular navy-blue shorts and usual collared shirt. Normally we girls had to wear these - well, very typical for Catholic school - plaid pleated skirts. Skirts suck for kids, unless you like feeling girly, or play a lot in the sandbox. (No seriously. We used our skirts as giant sand-carrying implements. My mother never said a word about the stains, either. I figure because she probably did the same thing, being a tombody herself and all.) Boys were stuck with corderoy pants. In the summer of the Central Valley? They melted. In the winter? We froze. Nobody won. Unless it was the shorts. They were ugly, but we loved them.
I had a bad habit of not changing out of my uniform, either right away or at all. I was just so happy to be home I'd immediately go play in the dirt without changing, which wasn't the easiest for the clothes. On this particular day, I was more focused on my new kitten than I was my clothes. Our cat Tigger had a litter earlier that year, and the kittens were all weaned and most of them adopted out... except the one I kept. Because... well, see previous "can I keep it?!" argument. (I had this discussion a LOT with my father.) Tigger had stayed long enough to wean her kittens, get spayed, and then took off. So all my attention was on my new pride and joy, my kitten, Callie. She was only like eight weeks at this point, but our cats were indoor-outdoor, and, well... she was outdoors at this time.
I came home, dropped my backpack on the floor, and immediately went in search of my fuzzy friend.
There was a creek across the street, and the cats LOVED to hang out there. The banks were steep and pretty deep. I'm terrible at estimating distance, but I'd say a good 30 feet to the water most summers, with slightly more than 45-degree incline in some places. In some, it was a sheer drop. And this was to a creek that was about 30-feet wide as well, and goodness knows how deep. It moved fast, too. But there were frogs and bugs and snakes and berry vines down there, so of course I went down there a fair bit myself. I had no fear of sliding down that steep embankment, and so my search took me to the water's swift-moving edge, calling for my kitten.
Suddenly, unexpectedly, I heard an answering meow.
I kept calling, louder, and got the same echo-location response. I couldn't place it. It was far off, but definitely responding, so I wasn't going to give up. Just then, mom popped her head over the egd of the cliff above me. Ostensibly to make sure I hadn't drowned or done something stupid.
Which I was about to do.
See, as though on cue, in that precise moment, a tiny fuzzy object lept from the berry vines on the other side of the creek. It was a kitten, all right, but not mine. My kitten was a marble-fudge tabby-tortoiseshell. This one was a white ball of fluff with grey splotches. And she was making the heroic swim across this enormous, fast... moving... um...
Mom saw her too. She called down to me, "E, she's trying to swim to you! Can you get her?!"
Some people hear what they want to hear, you know that? I heard "can you" as "go". "Go get her." So I said, "OKAY!!" and lept into the water - still in my school uniform - to swim out and retrieve this tiny kitten, who was travelling dangerously fast downstream.
I say "dangerously" because this area of the creek was just upstream from a bridge. Fun Fact: cities will dump lots of rip-rap (broken cement chunks) under bridges to keep them from eroding too much near the pillars keeping the bridge up. Rip-rap is no fun to go over. At all. Ever. Even in an inflatable raft. And it was only maybe a minute's distance from us to being drawn forcibly over tumbling rapids and very sharp rocks. So I swam like hell to get to this kitten, which was actually pretty easy. We had a pool, you see, and in the searing summer heat, you had to drag me out of the water. I was practically part fish. Swimming out to get her was no problem.
I grabbed onto the soggy furball, clutched her to me, and swam back to... hey, where'd the bank go?
I knew enough to get to the side of the creek, regardless of what the side looked like. But the bank I'd been standing on was far away now. I'd drifted downstream enough to have reached past the point of no return. This was sheer cliff all the way. Mom called to me in a strained voice, telling me to stay put, and ran for help. I clutched some weeds, clinging to the side of the creek like driftwood. I looked around, finally assessing the situation I had bounded gleefully into, found myself in a fast-moving river with no escape route and really nasty rapids not far away.
But also, I found myself cradling a tiny, helpless, 5-week-old-at-best, totally calm kitten. She was only barely applying pressure with her claws, just enough to velcro to my shirt, but not enough to hurt me. She didn't meow, didn't fuss, didn't struggle. It was as though she trusted me to get us out of this mess, that this was the worst it could possibly get and nothing could make it any less appealing than it currently was. And it was looking pretty unappealing. But there, clinging to muddy weeds in muddy water, we were together at least. She looked at me with those violet-blue eyes that kittens have when they're not old enough to be on their own, and she trusted me.
So I sang to her.
What else could I do? I couldn't go anywhere, so I figured I might as well just sing. Nothing in particular, just a little nameless made-up melody. Just me, her, the sound of the river, and a wandering song.
My brother poked his head over the edge of the cliff and said he and mom would try and catch me just before the rapids. The bank scoops down at the bridge and for a couple yards before the sharp rocks; there was just enough room to pull me out. If they could catch me. So I waited until they positioned themselves downstream - one grabbing the bridge support, one holding their hand and reaching out. And slowly, slowly, I bobbed downstream to meet them, arresting my momentum with the cliff wall as I could.
I was successfully hauled out of the water without being dashed against the rocks, and mom wrapped me in a towel as my brother held the kitten. He held it by the scruff, a dripping, sorry, sodden creature, and said, "... you risked your life, for this?!"
I did. And I'd do it again, too. I regret nothing. And I don't say that because it's an awesome story or even because I feel awesome about being a hero or something silly like that.
I say it because a year later, I got a picture from the nurse who adopted that kitten, whose name became Cleopatra. There she was, a big, sleek, beautiful cat, with ice blue eyes and smooth coat. She lived for many, many years in a happy, loving home. I made a difference. And that is reason enough.
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