Staying

While browsing NPR the other day I came across a review for a book called If I Stay (Forman). The concept was intriguing to me, so I picked it up from the library yesterday, and before bed I cracked it open to read a few chapters before going to sleep.

Um, yeah. Definitely stayed up waaaaay too late because I couldn't put it down. Definitely finished it in one sitting, which granted is not that difficult with a 200 page book, but is not what I was expecting to do at fifteen minutes 'til sleepy-times. I think that is a pretty good recommendation for a book, personally. (Also it is quite possible I cried.)

But back to the intriguing concept. To quote Publisher's Weekly: The last normal moment that Mia, a talented cellist, can remember is being in the car with her family. Then she is standing outside her body beside their mangled Buick and her parents' corpses, watching herself and her little brother being tended by paramedics. As she ponders her state (Am I dead? I actually have to ask myself this), Mia is whisked away to a hospital, where, her body in a coma, she reflects on the past and tries to decide whether to fight to live.

I will not give away what Mia chooses, or why, but I will say that it made me think long and hard about what my choice would be in similar circumstances. There was a time (my early/mid teens) where I was utterly unafraid of death. It's not that I thought I was immortal or invincible, or that I had a free pass to heaven (I wasn't really a Christian even then), or anything like that- it's more like I just... didn't care. I didn't care one way or the other whether I was alive or dead. I wasn't going around looking for death, but I wasn't going out of my way to prevent it, either. (I remember one time looking over an edge and thinking that the only reason to be careful was that the drop wouldn't kill me.) As far as I was concerned, there was pretty much an equal draw to both- Mom on one side of Existence, Dad on the other (at that point in my development my brother didn't count as much as his own entity- which just goes to further illustrate how deeply stupid I was at that stage.)

I have things to live for, now, which I have to say is pretty nice. Of course the downside to that is that I now feel something akin to a fear of death. Although it's not really a fear of death per se- it's more like a sadness at leaving behind what I love. My Afterlife beliefs aren't exactly fixed (that's a subject for another post entirely), so I guess you could say there is a certain fear of the unknown... not that it will be bad (I really don't believe it will) just that I don't know what it will be. And I'm anal retentive and I like to have a plan, damn it

Anyway, in light of the fact that I now have this wonderful abundance of people and things to live for, reading If I Stay made me wonder how much of it I'd have to lose before I'd go back to that lack-of-fear. Obviously I have my mother's example that you can survive a life-mate's death, even be happen again. But then I think- she had children. She had responsibility. Would I bother, if I didn't have that responsibility? I think I probably would but... until you're faced with it, I guess you don't know. And if I were to lose him, and my mom, and my brother, and my best friends, etc. etc., all in one bizarre fell swoop- how much loss could I survive?

I sincerely hope I never have to find out the answer to that question.

Of course it helps that I have a certain amount of derision for suicide as the easy way out. It's quite possible that even if everyone I ever loved suddenly dropped dead I'd keep going from sheer stubborn pride.

(Here, have another photo of Chicago from my wandering life-mate.)


EDIT: You know what, after giving it even more thought, I'd have to say it's not a fear of death so much as a love of life. Yeah, that's what I meant.

The Worth of Beans

Everyone knows Jack's story- how he traded the family cow for some magic beans, and they grew into a stalk that carried him to the cloud kingdom and riches and gianticide. But did you ever stop to think about the hidden half of that story? Of who the peddler was with such incredible wares, and of what happened to the family cow?

The peddler, as it happened, was something of an alchemist- that is, a man obsessed with the changing of the essence of things. He had imbued beans with the essence of a ladder, and was quite pleased with the results- although a bit taken aback at the size. The day he met Jack he was actually in the market for an apprentice- and I hope you will not think too poorly of Jack when I say that, between the two, the old alchemist preferred the look of the cow. Let us tell ourselves it is because he could not be certain the cow would carry home the payment of ladder-beans. (Whatever else he may have been, the alchemist was very honest.)

So he brought the cow home, and a few experiments (and only two explosions) later, he transformed her into a middle-aged human woman with beautiful brown eyes and the longest lashes the land had ever seen. The alchemist did not notice that so much, however- mostly he was concerned with her ability to fetch, carry, and measure properly.

Bovinouveau (so dubbed by the alchemist and his rather dubious sense of humor) was quite capable of all these tasks. Moreover she had a calm, patient temperament, and a surprisingly quick mind. She watched carefully everything her Master did, and in time she began little experiments of her own in her spare time. Generally they were of a more practical bent than imbuing beans with ladders (for instance, she imbued a hen with a rabbit to up its laying capabilities) but they also tended to be more consistently successful.

Years passed, and the old alchemist eventually promoted Bovinouveau to journeywoman, and finally the time came for her to produce her own Master work (never mind that it was her work that now brought in the majority of their wealth). The old alchemist was adamant that Bovinouveau produce, as he called it, a "true work of art". He wanted her to prove that she understood the soul of alchemy. And so, with a sigh, Bovinouveau set about crafting the most impractical thing she could think of.

Seven days into the seventh month after she had begun, Bovinouveau presented her Master with seven silvery beans. The old alchemist raised his shaggy brows at her, and she smiled sweetly.

"I was inspired by the day we met, Master."

"Humph," he said, and went to plant one- but Bovinouveau laid a gentle but restraining hand on his arm.

"I think maybe you'd better plant it somewhere with a little more room. Well away from town, I would say. At least seventy-seven leagues."

So the two of them packed up provisions and set out for the middle of nowhere. Finally they came to the edge of a huge lake and Bovinouveau nodded.

"This should be fine."

So the old alchemist, who was beginning to think maybe he should have let Bovinouveau slide with another practical experiment, gingerly planted a bean...

(The City in the Bean)

City Passage

I went looking for you today.

I know you expect me to say that I did not find you, since you are not here, since you went away to that other place and will never, ever come back to this one.

But I did find you. You were everywhere.

I never quite caught a glimpse of your face, but that doesn't matter- I will never not know you, when you are near. I know how you dress, how you move- I know the echo of your voice, and the pause that precedes it. I know your scent, your shape... and I saw you a dozen dozen times today. Your reflection kept pace with mine through the shop windows, and your shadow flitted from one bronze statue to the next. The memory of you held hands with the anticipation of you, and they danced round and round under that silvery gateway to the sky, weaving in and out of the dozens of strangers staring up so intently at nothing at all.

(We are nothing without you.)

And sometimes you came quite close to me, but you did not hover- you brushed by so quickly that my hair moved, so quickly that I suddenly understood the name of our city: it is the wind of a thousand rushing ghosts, followed close by the sighs of those of us you've left behind.

(Passage)

Listening to a Long Distance Friend

Once upon a time I was a dj for my college station ("KUPS Tacoma! 90.1 fm The Sound!"). I had a lot of fun doing it, and made a lot of good memories (Adam I am looking at you remembering our Safe Harbor shenanigans). I loved making my play lists, and my anal retention tended to serve me well in said endeavors (you can see traces of it when I make mixed cds, which I don't seem to do very often these days). It was fun, it indulged my exhibitionist tendencies, and it meant that I knew a crap-ton about emerging music, which always ups one's status in college. All in all, an excellent experience.

At this very second, I am listening to my friend Kat's show (on KZUU), and it's just making me all warm and fuzzy. For starters, it's wonderful to hear her voice again after so many (three?) years. For seconders, she has impeccable taste in music, so it's not like I'm having to suffer in between hearing her talk. And finally- well, the nostalgia factor. The remembering my own time in a booth, with headphones and a mic of my own.

Which brings me to the time I got caught in my headphones. Yes, you read that correctly- I got caught in my friggin' headphones. I was wearing a faux-diamond stud in my upper cartilage, and the prongs managed to work their way into the mesh of the earpiece. And I was stuck. I was so very, very stuck, and utterly unable to free myself. And so I got on air and said, "Hey listeners- if any of you are near the station right now, I'd sincerely appreciate it if you'd come over and free me from my headphones. No I am not kidding- I am stuck and I need your help."

Fortunately I actually had listeners, and this wide-eyed guy wandered in and unhooked me. And then he laughed, like, a lot ("I thought there was no way you were serious!"). But so did I, so that's okay.

It's good that I'm amused by my own haplessness. I'd lead a pretty miserable existence, otherwise.

Clinging

All we have is each other.

There are only four of us now, although I suspect we will soon be three. Grandfather stays to the shadows all the time, and he has not spoken in weeks. He does not seem ill, or weak- just... gone. As though his spirit has gone walking and left his body as a place-holder in our diminished tribe.

But at least his body is warm: we need that warmth through the long cold nights.

We still don't know what happened, or if there are any other survivors hiding somewhere in this now blighted landscape. Whatever it was that did this- whatever alien thinking was behind this destruction- it (or they) apparently did not feel we were worth explaining things to. Maybe it (or they) didn't even realize we were here... or maybe they did but saw us like we see crawling ants. There, but not really counting.

I vow to take more care for the ants, in the future.

(Clinging)

Jet Plane Related Verbs

This has been a supremely crappy week.

Nathan left early Sunday morning for Seattle, and less than four hours later I was hit by another car while I was merging onto the highway. Obviously I am fine, but it just made everything about this week rotten (dealing with insurance and police reports, etc), especially since I opted not to further stress him out by telling him about it. You may have noticed that I am not a secret-keeper by nature, and keeping this little incident under wraps until he was home and could see for himself that I'm fine was just... well, one of the hardest things I've ever done.

But he came home this morning, and it's been a pretty great day. We get almost twenty hours together before he takes off again (this time for Chicago), and we've been doing our best to spend as much of it touching as possible. We both are very aware of the fact that love is like a drug addiction (and NPR totally agrees with us) and we are trying to store up as much of our chemical fix as we can.

That being said... end of entry.


(Returning to Leave)

Rebel Red

There once was a girl who loved her older brother very much. When he went off to fight the war of Northern Aggression, to keep her and her family safe from the tyranny of a government too remote to understand them or their lives, she was so proud she thought she’d bust. When he sent her an authentic artillery kepi, just like the one he wore while fighting the damn Yankees, she treasured it more than her little china doll. She wore it every day, in spite of her mother’s protestations, and was secretly delighted when she overheard herself being referred to as “that little red-cap girl”.

The war did not end as quickly as everyone had thought it would. Years passed, and during those years Little Red-Cap did a lot of growing up. When word came down that her brave older brother was missing and presumed dead, she did not join her family in mourning. No, indeed she did not. Instead she cut off her hair, packed up some vittles, and set off to find the Confederate Army wearing her regulation kepi. She knew that the other soldiers were too busy fighting the war to look for one who was lost, so she figured she’d just have to track him down herself.

As it turns out, she didn’t have much of a chance to look for him at first, being too busy learning to fight and then actually fighting alongside her fellow artillerymen. But eventually all her looking and listening paid off, and she heard tell of a man matching her brother’s descriptions being held in an enemy camp not sixty miles off. So off she went through the woods to find him.

She had not been traveling more than two days when she came across a young man who, unbeknownst to her, was actually a deserter. He began to chat with her, and when he discovered that she was on a rescue mission he thought to himself, Well now I don’t think this boy is a boy at all. But he did not dare do anything while she carried her rifle. So he acted amazed and said he knew about a soldier looking like the one she’d described, who had escaped from the Union and was making his way back to his comrades. The deserter said he’d encountered him not long ago, holed up in a little abandoned shack and regaining his strength. Then he gave Little Red-Cap a set of convoluted directions, and said he must be on his way, himself.

Now of course the deserted had never met anyone at all like Little Red-Cap’s brother, but he got himself as quick as he could to the shack he’d told her about, smeared his face with some ash, and hid all of himself but his eyes beneath some old rags. Soon enough Little Red Cap came along, calling out for her brother.

“I’m here,” said the deserter, making his voice weak. Little Red Cap put down her gun and rushed to his side.

“Oh brother, I knew you weren’t dead!”

“Is it an angel?” said the deserter. “Have you come to take me to heaven? Come closer, angel- I’m ready for you.”

Now, Little Red Cap did not entirely know what to make of this. Her brother had never been particularly religious (much to their mother’s despair) but she reckoned that war changed a man. Hell, it had changed her, hadn’t it? So she moved a little closer to him and said,

“I’m not an angel, brother. I’m your sister, come to take you home.” She laid a hand on his arm and said, “My, brother, the war has made your arms so big.”

“The better to hold you again, sweet sister,” said the deserter, and slipped them around her.

“And my, brother, the war seems to have sweetened your voice some.”

“The better to tell you how much I love you,” and he smiled at her. Little Red-Cap felt her blood turn to ice.

“And… and brother, it seems the war has replaced the tooth I knocked out when we were little.”

“The better- what?”

At which point Little Red-Cap jerked her knee into a most sensitive area of the deserter’s anatomy.

He howled in pain and anger, but did not release her, for he knew the moment he did she would make straight for the rifle. The two wrestled, but the unfortunate truth is that a man is generally stronger than a woman, even if she has spent the past few months marching as one. Just when it seemed as though things might go the absolute worst for Little Red-Cap, a rough drawl came from behind them.

“I’ll thank you to take your hands off my sister,” and the deserter found a revolver pressed firmly against his temple.

“Well I’ll be God da-” said the deserter, but he did not finish his blasphemy before Little Red-Cap’s brother blew his brains out.