This thing fills me with pleasure. I don't know why, I can see it in the smallest detail. I find myself recalling it again and again, each time bringing more detail out of sunken memory, remembering brings the curious warm pleasure.
It was very early in the morning. The eastern mountains were blue-black, but behind them the light stood up faintly colored at the mountain rims with a washed red, growing colder, greyer and darker as it went up and overhead until, at a place near the west, it merged with pure night.
--John Steinbeck, "Breakfast," The Long Valley, 1938
April 9, 2022
1. Being in the News
Where you stand there is lawn, probably in a park. You look towards a red brick building that has clean, white concrete arches and a thirty-degree pitched gabled roof. The structure looks like any number of 1980s suburban churches in an any number of suburbs in the United States. At first you assume that's where you are. The spruce in the park suggest you're in a northern city, or perhaps a high western city, like Denver.
Something is amiss, though. Right in front of you is a tangled heap of metal-something. There are two incredibly sharp spikes sticking up near a lamp post that is unscathed. Except for the hunk of tormented metal, all before you appears normal. Yet, because the twisted, torn, steely corpse is there, nothing is normal.
For instance, the white SUV coming into your line of sight from the left would normally go unnoticed. But it doesn't. It appears to be a government vehicle. It doesn't look American. You're not sure why. It heads towards the church-like building.
All of the sudden, you are in a building, flying low, about five feet above a concrete floor. You are looking mostly down, as if you're Superman, swooping in to pick up a bracelet Lois Lane dropped unknowingly. There are two chrome poles like you see in banks and government offices to keep people in line. To the right, there are seven or eight large suitcases left by people packing for more than a weekend get-away. You are probably in a bus or train station. There's blood and what appears to be bits of flesh splattered about. A crisp, clean light floods through glass-windowed stainless-steel doors as a car rushes by. The way the light reflects off the polished concrete would be soothing, almost serene, if not for the blood and bits of flesh.
All of the sudden you're outside. There's a young woman facing you. Light touches her face, a soft shadow from a tree falling gently on her right cheek. She squints at the sun, looking at you, smiling shyly. The light sculpts her fine features and soft lips. She speaks what must be Ukrainian. Behind her is a wall of sandbags protecting a building. You are not in Denver after all.
A woman's voice-over, translating for the woman, says, "I remember a really loud noise and there was something landing, shells or rockets. Everyone hit the ground. That's all, a nightmare. Everything starts to burn. Everyone was panicking".
You are now flying down a long, narrow hall in a hospital--too narrow to be an American one. There is a woman in a wheel chair. Her left shoe rest on the third white tile of a hall only four-tiles wide. Polished stone along the bottom half of the wall opposite of her picks up her reflection up to her neck. There is a heap of clothes beside her, as if someone quickly grabbed what she'd need for an overnight stay without having time to pack. There is a glass and stainless steel door open to the left. White light gently disperses from another room. The media voice says, "The strike killed at least fifty people, with many more still wounded in the hospital."
2. Grappling
What is there to comprehend? One man with power can do a lot evil? Life is short; live it while you can? Life is unpredictable; why have dreams, why have plans?
Maybe what is most important is to simply notice light still shines magnificently even on train-station floors splattered with bits of flesh and blood; that shadows still caress a young woman's face as she squints towards the sun and smiles shyly towards a camera even after the trauma of being bombed in a train station; or simply that a park hosting a metal-something that must have fallen unpredictably from the sky after some enormous blast can still feel normal enough in sunlight to be mistaken for a park familiar to you, wherever you are.
Maybe surviving sanely through hard times comes down to something as simple as noticing light and beauty always, no matter what fear is driving through your veins like the panicked innocent fleeing before the cold, calculating eye of a powerful madman sitting all alone at the far end of table determined to conquer the world because he knows not who he himself is.
3. Narrative
The deep darkness of the basement made my world shallow. I knew there had to be a wall very close. But blackness is all I saw. I carefully crawled over Marci, lowered my feet to the floor. Once standing, I slowly moved my hands around until I found the dresser. I somehow not only located my phone but also turned on its light and found my pants.
I made my way to the door, opened it. The hallway was bathed in a soft, defused light coming through the bathroom window. The bathroom was deep with a large frosted window at far end, a corrugated metal window-well slightly visible through the white thinness. I emptied my bladder.
I made my way back into the bedroom and read from Cannery Row by flashlight. Then I texted my friend Marsh who had recently lost his wife. Oddly, I went on about how great life is:
Hey, just thought I'd check in and see how you're doing. Marci and I are in St. George at her brother's house, headed to California to redo our honeymoon trip almost 25 years later. Today we go to Death Valley and stay tonight at a B & B called the Shady Lady that used to be a brothel. Yesterday, on my home from work, it was a gorgeous day, and when I got to town, some high school girl wearing shorts was getting something out of her car, and the way the sun hit her legs was so amazing, and even though I'm getting to be an old man, I thought, "Damn, that's beautiful." On Wednesday I had it confirmed that I do have kidney disease. When we get back from vacation, I'll have a biopsy. Hopefully, that will help them know why so they can provide the best treatment. Here's what I know for sure: it's important to feel what you feel and to not lose sight of how beautiful life is in the process. Life is so ridiculously rich with things to see and do and feel. Numbness is one of those experiences. It's necessary to feel numb sometimes, but if that's where you're at, don't stay there longer than you need to. Life is waiting for you to get out your camera. Have a great day.
Marsh is very patient because he still considers me a friend. I don't think I'd normally be that insensitive. Who wants to hear how great life is a couple months after losing your wife? But, I just couldn't help it. I had good news that refused to stay rolled up and tied with a rubber band. I felt compelled to stand on a high wall and yell, "Live!--no matter what, live!"
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