Thursday, June 29, 2006

i remember you

i woke up this morning feeling sad, bad, and a little like suicide. but i wasn't going to do it. i'm stronger than that. it felt very much like just a reminder from something darker that whether or not i have strength and courage to endure, whether or not i have the will to survive, i am not ever fully out of danger, i must always be vigilant because i can get stupid in a second and there will be no taking it back.

so i did some of my packing today, but otherwise i sat and played cards online, figuring that my one job for the day was simply to survive. i even won a couple games; i had a granny hand in the tenth and went alone, and in the other game a guy who otherwise had the game sewed up went on a bad pick and got taken for everything.

if you are from wisconsin you already know that i was playing sheepshead.

anyway, i got suited up and went to my race, only i couldn't remember how to get there. except i actually got there, but i didn't see evidence of the race happening; maybe the storm came through there and they cancelled? but i didn't know i was there while i was there (looked it up when i got home) so i drove around a while looking.

but then i figured i'd have time to go to staples and get the thing i was supposed to get today but didn't, and as long as i was up there i took my bike down and i rode from the strip mall into downtown swanton and back, just to have gotten a ride.

i love my road bike.

so then i went back into staples to use their rest room and change into clean-ish clothes and i got on the interstate to go home thereby avoiding traffic in st. albans, which has the third stupidest traffic pattern in the world and i was going to just stay on the interstate all the way down to exit 11, but i know full well that the trip is much shorter if you get off at exit 19 and go by route 104 through fairfax.

i work in fairfax. and i have not been in fairfax since 21 december, so that was a little hard. but i am insisting lately on taking my life back. i have a limited amount of time in which to regain my strength and be fit to work again. and parenthetically, i want to lose about sixty pounds.

anyway, st. lukes's cemetery is on the way out of fairfax. sometimes i go to visit the graves of people i know who are buried there and tonight i needed to go, really bad. it wasn't even like a choice.

a long time ago i was on my way to work in the morning and traffic was all tied up with emergency vehicles; a man i knew had thrown himself off of the dam at the falls. i didn't know him very well, but i knew his wife and children. i am fond of the wife and i love the children. i was standing just behind the boy when they came to tell him. i will never forget it.

the man had what i have; he did what i was going to do. he died of of it, and i wanted to go and kneel at his grave and pray. and i wanted to ask him to talk to me; to tell me in retrospect what a terrible mistake it had been. i wanted him to come and tell me something important, something i can take and use to make myself strong, to help me survive.

near where he's buried are graves of other people i knew: a boy who died young; he had the cynicism of a child who knows he is dying and has no time for the silly pretenses we go through with children.

and i don't know if you remember that plane that went down in an iowa cornfield in july 1989, but i lost two children i cared about and their parents in that crash. that was a hard, hard funeral to be at. four matching coffins are wheeled in and a visible wave of visceral pain washes across the room.

but i was kneeling at that one grave, hoping for something to hold on to.

tell me it was a mistake. tell me to keep going.

and then i was crying and i couldn't stop. i called rumblestrip, but i had to get on the road. and you know, i'm not such a good driver when i'm crying. and every fifteen minutes or so i had to pull over and call rumblestrip to tell her i was all right.

and somewhere on the road, i found myself shouting: "you cannot have me. i do not belong to you. i belong with the living. i am going to live."

and i made it home. put my bike away. i didn't really feel like talking to rumblestrip, but i had to call and tell her i was in. i didn't call her right away, but instead came right upstairs to light a candle and beg:

bob, please make me yours and yours alone. if i did not belong wholly to you before, take me up now. let me be yours and yours only. please.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

dear flask,

i'm so sorry you had such a rough day. so very grateful you got through it. i can feel your ache in this post. i wish i had the power to take away your pain. but all i can do is what you've already done...commit you into his hands. well, and keep bugging him about it.

you didn't come this far to end your race early. you are the type to finish strong.
please.
plus i need to hear you sing someday.

still working on the iTunes. hey, could this possibly be my beloved old friend Cat? Asthmatic Kitty...Sufjan... as soon as i hear the voice of course i'll know. getting halfway there has been a great adventure in gratitude today. i am still so excited about the gifts!!! you're so cool.

so when do you leave?

my candle for your peace burns bright tonight.

stick around. people need you to be here being you. i mean it.
love
d

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