Fate

I knew when I saw the machine at the end of the hallway that I would be getting mini Oreos. Some things are just like that.

Memory Loop

When we returned from the tour, and passed by the airport wall with all of the planets and other galactic photos, I thought of how we had stared at them on the way out of Chicago, Tim so open and both of us so wowed by them. I couldn’t stop comparing the images, “That one looks like an eyeball” or “That one looks like it could be under water.” The same thing happened once we got to Muir woods. The tall trees with all their legs and knots and growths. “That one looks like a collapsed umbrella” or “That one looks like a woman lifting her skirt to walk through a puddle.” On the way back all of the galaxy photos looked like Muir woods or the hair of an audience member filtered through the lights over the stage. And it was strange to me – that I had to pass through this week in order to see these new things. They feel so much a part of me that I should have been able to see all of them from the start, before ever boarding the airplane at all. Where was Muir woods before we left Chicago?

Coming Home From Tour

When I got off the plane and discovered Laura’s rubber stamped business card in my pocket – I felt much like the girl in the movie who wakes up from the dream and discovers some physical evidence (a scratch on her arm, a matchbook) that none of it was a dream after all.

Loving and Walking

To him she was always the last day of his favorite season. He grabbed hold of the urgency to make it all count and the anxiety of it held him together and broke him apart simultaneously until he walked around with joints made out of flimsy paperclips. The threat of her leaving pumped in his chest and when she finally saw him as he was – shambling toward her, rickety arms outstretched – she left him for good and he floated up into the ether, bewildered and looking for a heavy part to weigh him down.

Born

He went from fifteen years on the high wire to ten in the mines. When he finally came out his eyes had lost all moisture and rolled around in his head making a sound like sneakers on dry leaves. He could only see that which was directly in front of him – so when his baby girl was finally born he held her close close to his face. From the outside he appeared a kind of ogre and made some people nervous, the way his pale fingers laced under her tiny frame. But when he tried to pull her ever closer and his full lips brushed against her soft plump cheeks and her perfect skin, his eyes switch swished back and forth and then rolled skyward while he thought, “Finally. I am alive.”