THERE IS A WORD FOR IT

When I woke up this morning, everything was crooked. The roof was crooked; the light was crooked; even the bed was crooked. So, I was holding onto the side of the bed so as not to fall off, when I noticed the tiger that sleeps in the corner was not having any trouble at all staying on the bed. ‘What is going on?’ I asked him anxiously. He yawned. I think I had just awoken him. He stretched his forepaws and extended his nails like cats do. They made yet another large tear in my sheets. ‘You are crooked, of course,’ he replied when he was good and ready, and not a moment before. ‘Yes, and I am falling off the bed…won’t you help me?’ I said. ‘Well, I don’t think there is much I can do,’ he yawned. ‘It is only a little fall off the edge of the bed, after all.’ I looked over the edge and the floor was crooked and it went down, down, down. I tried to scramble higher on the bed, but I kept getting caught in all the tears in the sheets. ‘Why did you have to put all these tears in the sheets!’ I yelled at the tiger; I didn’t mean to be angry with him, but I was frightened. ‘I don’t think they would be there, if they were not supposed to be there,’ he said. ‘So, you were supposed to be sleeping here on my bed, wake every morning and stretch like you do, and make all these horrible tears in my sheets just so that I could get caught in them and fall to my death?’ ‘Perhaps…it sounds reasonable, doesn’t it?’ said the tiger. ‘No! it does not sound reasonable!’ ‘Perhaps you should just let go,’ he said. ‘Let go! It is a million miles to the bottom!’ ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘That doesn’t alarm you?’ I asked the tiger. ‘No. I figure if you were supposed to die, you would be dead already and such strange things wouldn’t be happening as this…Seems like a bit too much trouble, if you ask me.’ ‘Well, no one is asking you, so get up and help me.’ ‘I really don’t think there is anything I can do,’ he said again. ‘Why not!’ ‘Well, because if you were not crooked in the first place, you wouldn’t be having this problem,’ he said. ‘I don’t understand…I just woke up, and everything was crooked,’ I said. He shook his head. ‘Can’t you see, my dear friend, you are the only one who is crooked.’ ‘That is impossible!’ I shouted. But nothing else seemed to make sense. ‘I think you should let go,’ said the tiger again. I loved him dearly, my friend, but I had no faith in any of this. Everything looked so crooked to me. And it was such a long fall. ‘Just let go,’ said that tiger. ‘Just let go.’ I kept looking down at the crooked floor and the deep abyss it ushered into. I called down into the pit. There was no answer but the echo of my voice; no one was down there. I would be all alone. ‘Do you know what it’s like,’ I asked the tiger, ‘to be all alone?’ He looked me in the eyes, and he said, ‘And what are you now, my friend, if not alone?’ My heart sank. ‘But if you would only help me…’ I said. ‘I am just the tiger who sleeps on the side of your bed. I can’t help you.’ ‘No!’ I shouted. And then he lay back down and went to sleep. I cried for a moment, but no one was there and I felt like the tree that falls in the forest and never makes a sound—no one was there to hear it. I looked down at the pit again. Someone was still saying, ‘Just let go…Have faith…Just let go.’ But when I looked back at the tiger, he was sound asleep. I closed my eyes, and I let go. I started falling down, down, down. I felt every piece of me fly off into the wind. The extremities of my limbs were the easiest to give away. It was so cold, I could not feel them anyway. Then my arms and my legs; it just hurt to have them bumping around, anyway. And I couldn’t see or hear, so my eyes and ears were not much to consider. And I wasn’t screaming, so my mouth was easy to give away, too. Finally, I was just a torso. A torso is pretty useless all by itself, except, it holds the heart. And I was holding onto my heart. But it was such a weight—so big and heavy—and I started thinking, what use is it to keep a heart if it is broken? And I gave it away, too, finally and without remedy. Then I woke up in my bed; the sheets were slightly askew, but nothing out of the ordinary otherwise; and there was a tiger sleeping soundly in the corner. I looked around, and I smiled.

I THOUGHT YOU MIGHT KNOW SOMEONE

The moon was half full tonight. I kept looking at her, wondering how many other people around the world were doing the very same thing at the very same time. It is hard to feel lonely with a thought like that. I wondered, too, how many people could see the man on the moon. And how many people like to say hi to him, like me. Or maybe, to some people, he is not a man on the moon at all. Maybe he is a woman or a child. Maybe he is Chinese or Japanese or African or American. I know to me he is just a face. He looks no more like one person than another. (Well, that is because he looks like him.) Sometimes, he is happy, just like everyone else; and sometimes, he is sad. I have even seen him looking surly and grumpy. But in general, he is either happy or sad. I imagine he must be lonely up there, that old man. Most old people are lonely anywhere, though. I have decided I don’t want to get old. I haven’t decided what age is old and what age is not yet though. The man on the moon is who made me decide that I don’t want to get old; because even when he is happy, he is still lonely. You don’t have to be old to be lonely, but it helps. I have been lonely for far too long to not fear getting old. I think most people, they get old alone, even if they are with someone. But I don’t think the man on the moon has ever been with anyone at all. I am not even sure he got old, he just, was old. Sometimes I wish I was the man on the moon. It must be nice, if one has to be alone, to be able to sit up there in the sky and look down at the busy scene. People going here and there, some lonely, some not. Children running here to there, never lonely. How I tried to stay a child forever.  But the moon went through her phases, and I always grew another month older, and another month lonelier. The more lonely you get, the more you talk to old men like the man on the moon, and he knows me well. He has invited me up there on many occasion. I don’t know how many other people he has invited up there. I could see the moon getting pretty crowded. Maybe one day we will all be old and we will be so lonely we will all join the man on the moon. No one would be lonely then. I know you or I, we wouldn’t be lonely then. You know that big smile he gets on his face sometimes, the man on the moon? I think that is when he is thinking about when we will all join him up there. Until then, I am trying to figure out a way to fly up there.  But the creatures that can fly are not lonely enough to fly all the way to the moon. If I was on the moon with the man on the moon, I could see you every day. Sometimes, I know, if you were lonely, you would talk to me. I would get to know you well, especially, as you got old. Wouldn’t it be nice, if when we got old things reversed and it was a lot more like being children again, when we were never lonely? But then, the man on the moon will always be lonely. And I am still trying to find some lonely creature who knows how to fly. You wouldn’t happen to know any, would you?

BIG BLUE WHALE

He said, ‘I’d like to live like the whales.’ Then he dove into the water and I never saw him again. I think of him sometimes, swimming out there in the wide wide blue, much like a whale. I wonder if he ever got to swim with a blue whale? He loved them the most. He said they made the whole world seem a bit smaller and a little more manageable. Like the tide and the waves that come in too strong for low tide and too weak for high tide, he said blue whales made him happy. If you ever see one, say hello, because surely he is one by now, that is, a big blue whale. He had a bad voice, too, so if you hear a blue whale sounding slightly off pitch, that’s because he is off pitch; and say hello. And if you ever see one, say hello, because sometimes it is lonely, being a big blue whale in the big blue sea. If you ever see one, remember he is rather like a human in every way, only lonelier, and with a much bigger heart. Remember to say hello, because he will say hello, anyway. Say hello, and he will sing for you; a little off pitch, of course.

A CONVERSATION ABOUT LEAVES

‘It amazes me to know that some leaves will never see direct sunlight, yet they are still there,’ he said. ‘Yes,’ his friend agreed after a while; though he really wasn’t quite sure what to say. ‘They remind me of you, a little,’ he said. ‘What, the ones without any sunlight?’ his friend asked. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Why?’ ‘Well, they must be very sick and lonely up there, without any sunlight, and somehow they survive,’ he said. ‘How do you suppose they survive?’ his friend asked. ‘I suppose they are happier than any other leaf, in even the most trace amounts of light,’ he said, ‘and cherish every ray of warmth, knowing them more fondly than any other leaf.’ ‘Is that all?’ his friend asked. ‘No, there is so much more to it than that,’ he said. ‘Like what?’ He looked up at the bundles of leaves in the tree they were sitting under, and watched one as it fell gently in the breeze. He picked it up and looked it over; it wasn’t perfect, of course; it had some holes from where the bugs had eaten it, and it was a little brown on the edges and curling too. He put it back down on the ground with all the other leaves and his friend picked it up and placed it carefully in his book. ‘I am going to keep this one,’ his friend said. ‘Why?’ ‘Because it is beautiful.’ ‘Ah, you see, that is how a leaf survives with no direct sunlight.’ ‘How?’ his friend asked. ‘Love.’

293 DAYS YOUNGER

Children were playing and laughing all day outside. I would have joined them, too, had I not passed the mirror on my way out and realized how I had aged since yesterday. A man once told me, we are all growing younger one day at a time, problem is, we all grow older one year at a time. I did not believe him or even understand him then, but it made more sense to me when I saw my own reflection in the warped depths of the mirror. Two faces were staring back at me, contemplating me. One was a young boy, and the other an old man. And I tried how I could figure out which one looked more like me. With no one else around to tell me the truth, I just stood at my window all day, looking out, listening to the children laugh and play. I guess I am one day younger now. One more day makes 293. 293 days younger; but I am wondering when my year will be up. If only the days would come quicker, I could laugh, too. But I don’t think I need them, not one day. Because the boy in the mirror was still laughing.

QUESTION OF SUCCEEDING

The question is: Can a person only succeed through failure?

There are here before me two children. There is a block in front of them at the end of the room. A delicious, colorful block. One child stands, walks, and retrieves the block. The other struggles and never makes it. Neither child has ever walked or tried to walk before. So we can conclude that child number one never failed in his attempt to walk. He simply stood and walked. Whereas child number two has begun a long line of failure as he learns how to walk. In further case studies, using the same two children, child number one continues to walk when he desires, but loses interest in the block. Whereas child number two continues his attempts to stand and walk and retrieve the block. Finally, he succeeds.

So, there it is from my own lips: the word, succeed. Perhaps it is simply point of view, vantage point, where one is standing which determines the grounds of succeeding and failure. In thought, I have only given due credit to child number two, who failed and then succeeded to walk. I identify with child number two; how many times I have failed in order to succeed in my life. Whereas child number one…yes, what happened to him? On paper, in the case study, both children will have the word ‘SUCCEEDED’ by their numbers; for each child did stand, walk, and retrieve the block. But I have to wonder, did child number one feel as though he succeeded? Perhaps, in retrieving the block, but what about walking? If he did not have to fail in order to succeed in walking, does it mean anything to him at all that he stood and walked?…Or is it simply like, breathing? When I wake up breathing every morning I do not think, hey, I succeeded in breathing today. No, it just comes naturally. For child number one, walking came naturally. He tired of the block in which he succeeded in retrieving and tired of walking to retrieve it. Whereas child number two shows excitement every time he has another chance to walk to and retrieve the block, and shows frustration when he fails, elation when he succeeds.

At the end of the case study, the children were returned to their parents. Both sets of parents saw that their children had succeeded walking; for both child number one and child number two were walking, after all. And is this not the premise of succeeding?…Or is it something more?

MONSTERS UNDER THE BED

It has eyes, that horrid thing. It has arms and it has wings. Oh, yes, it has a mouth too, and twelve rounded off teeth. A moment ago it was trying to eat me. Now, I think it is very sad. Never so sad, a monster. Its eyes sad like a human. I think it is because I did not sing to her. I think it is because flowers only sing in dreams and monsters cannot dream, like me. I gave her flowers but they did not sing and they did not make her happy. If only monsters still came in the same packaging as they did when we were kids, when at nighttime they would take off their big scary suits and their masks and their teeth, go to bed and dream sweet dreams. Sweet dreams tonight, my friend.

YESTERDAYS CHILD

You said it was a lovely song. Then you simply smiled and turned your head away again. And all the time you were gone, I wondered why you had said what you said. Why suddenly you had turned as if surprised and excited to see me and said, ‘This is a lovely song,’ when there was no song playing. I must have looked around for a moment in my own surprise, because next I saw you, your head was turned away again. I hummed around you in the following days to see if perhaps I could find the tune in your head, the one of which you spoke. When you died, I still hadn’t found it. I guess I gave up trying to find it after that. I just didn’t see the point anymore. It was never really the tune that I cared about. You know, those were the last words you ever spoke: ‘This is a lovely song.’

Yesterday I sat against the window and watched the moon come and go and the sun do the same. I watched children grow and adults become children again, laugh and cry and hope all in that short amount of time. Then when it was all over, I said, ‘That was a lovely song.’ And then you met me in the sunrise so we could sing together, for I had finally found the tune.

STRANGE AND WONDERFUL DAY

In order to accurately translate the strange sort of day I have had, I will list, to the best of my ability, the circumstances as they unfolded. I suppose it was the chair that particularly struck me first. It was a small chair that one would likely assume was a child’s chair except it was an old wooden rocking chair more fit for a crippled old maid than a child. As well, there was a throw thrown neatly across the chair. It was green, a plain deep green but with the specially tied ends on all four sides so it looked like a young girl’s braided hair. Most importantly, however, that I knew it was not a child’s chair, nor had a child been sitting there previously, was the open Bible and the bookmark—a hundred year old Bible with notes on every page. The notes were in pencil for the most part, but the lead markings were so aged that they were engrained into the paper and even more permanent than pen. The flowers also were still red and fresh, potted and perfect. However they had no apparent scent on account of they were painted plastic. And now standing there so close to her chair, towering over it in fact, I could almost see her still crouched over the Bible reading the old notes, too old to write new notes. And I thought, I think she only meant to leave for a minute or two. The old yellow lamp was off, but only because it must have been day when she was there last. I long considered turning the lamp on. I could have grown fond of a shadow in the space where my grandmother used to sit. But then the storm started to come in over the ocean and the chair floated back out to sea like a sail boat with the pages of the Bible for sails. But I wouldn’t consider any of this particularly strange. What was particularly strange about my day was when the storm brought in another chair. And this one was a little larger, a little newer and a little straighter. It was a plain wood chair straight up and down with nothing about it but wood and the sailing system. It came up onto the shore and sat at my feet. I looked down at it. I sat in it. I got up. It moved in a wave, moved back, did a half twist and twisted back as though taking a second glance at me before the next wave came and swept it away. And I sat back down and we drifted out to sea. But that didn’t particularly strike me as strange either, in and of itself. But it was all the other chairs out there on the ocean, floating on the swells in the middle of the storm. Some were empty and never used, others were used but empty, and then many were just like mine with people sitting in them and floating around wondering where they were going. And we all looked at each other when we passed. We said hello in our normal voices with a normal sense of calm and we kept on floating by as if walking on a moderately busy street in the middle of the afternoon. It was a strange and wonderful day.

And boy was it a long swim back!

 

 

DO ANTS HAVE NAMES?

When he died it was my name he spoke last, and what he said to me was this: ‘One day the complexity of nature will dwarf the complexity of man.’ And he lay contented as would an ant, invading a picnic. And though I have cared little for their sake, I was suddenly more aware of my own six legs and the antenna I carry on my head. And when he died, just one of thousands more that day, I wondered what name he would be called by when he was called home.

For the grass, it was long, and the leaves were like skyscrapers and I couldn’t even see all the way up the tree I knew I was going to climb. Not even alone, but with him on my back. And when I took that first step, and the second, I can say I was happy to be an ant for the first time in my life; for like they say of ants, they can carry ten to twenty times their body weight. And the first hundred, maybe thousand steps, they were easy when I could still see the ground. And then the ground disappeared beneath me and the top was still some dream of an image in my head and how hard then I would have cried, could an ant cry, that is, as if they had feelings, those strange and undesirable creatures. But I kept moving, kept breathing, and the sun rose and set and suddenly I was at peace. And although I could see only bark from all directions, I knew the top of the tree was there and that I was making my way toward it no faster or slower than I went. And I could smile in such simple things as the wind or such simple things as a leaf falling in my direction or the birds in formation migrating so close I could hear the wind churn beneath their wings or the reflection of the clouds and stars on the brightest bark or my hard shell animated with jewels at sunrise and sunset or the ants that passed, some who did not notice me, others who did eventually and were either horrified or amazed or the ants also who seemed to notice me before they even saw me and were not in the least bit amazed or horrified, but went undisturbed as though I was a bug of the small nature and nothing to second glance or those who returned and returned to me with a smile as if they had never seen anything so great in all their many years and stayed and talked to me, giving me the distinct impression they thought I either lived high up in that tree or flew up there and was on my way to heaven or some such marvelous place and they wished to say hello and goodbye before I took off again as any other bird, angel, or fantastical creature, and all the while how they seemed so much more like angels to me, just in the way they smiled, like children happening upon their first picnic.

And so now I am still climbing to the very top of the tree, to the canopy, though I don’t know what it will look like exactly and I don’t know what I will do when I get there. And you make think I am crazy when I really have no way of telling if I am walking up or down or round and round and round…

You see, it is not the canopy that is my home, nor the place I came from, but the place I am going by getting there one step at a time. And what could you say is as peaceful? For who can reach you in a tree, but the stars and the sky? And who then can you reach, but the same stars and sky? For the canopy is not my peace, nor his, but the walk when the complexity of nature dwarfs the complexity of man.