colors that flicker in water
There are certain things you never want to hear at work. One of them is an employee handing you the phone, saying, “It’s J., D’s ex, and he’s taking D to the hospital.” D being one of your employees who, at that moment in time, is about twenty minutes late. And now you know why. Not the D hasn’t called in sick before, and you were aware that she has long-standing health issues—the cane and limp would have tipped you off to that even if you hadn’t been told previous to your hiring. No, all that you knew, but you weren’t prepared for taking that call, for the bad cell phone reception and J sounding pretty freaked out (though you don’t know J; perhaps he sounds like this all time) and saying that he’d call and let you know when they knew something. Nor were you prepared to find out the real story about D’s health later that day, that she’s already lost a foot and hip to cancer and that she’s on a lot of medication and knows that at any day, the cancer could really strike, and you’re definitely not prepared for the possibility that today may have been that day. You’re just a manager, just a guy, you don’t know much, much of anything, really. And now the day is winding down and you still don’t know, how serious it is but you definitely didn’t like the sound of J’s voice. So you are restless, and thinking about a lot of things, and none of them are really coherent, just fragments.

It has been a day of clouds.

Sometimes I have an urge to turn myself into a bargain basement Howard Hughes, lock myself away in a basement of my own design, writing things, punching holes into drywall until I create a work which transforms God. Or forces answers. Or silences the voices.

I would be better served to be in the woods. Talking to the gods and goddesses.

Isn’t there a silly old song that goes something along the lines of “sad songs say so much?” Why is it that the sad songs are the ones so loaded with meaning? I tried to explain what I think about this in a letter to my sister and I fear it just came out as semi-pretentious mush. Which is why I’ve spent a lot of my years on this planet never saying anything. Because I know I sound like an idiot. And words are so cheap…the concepts aren’t devoid of meaning but the words are overexposed and jaded eyes are jaded eyes. In the same letter I made the even greater mistake of trying to explain what art means to me, what the beautiful songs and books and movies and meals do, and I cringe to think of how that must read, but I sent the letter anyway.

I’m not sure there’s ever a moment that I’m not aware that I won’t be here at some point. It makes things feel urgent, like there just isn’t time to waste. Maybe it’s because I’ve gotten a couple of second chances I don’t think I’ve earned, and I need to make them count. Meditating on mortality—on real mortality, not the fake death and drama that’s around us everywhere we turn, but real mortality, real loss—it’s illuminating but some days I’d be happier if my brain would just shut up. Perhaps more than anything I fear dying without having said anything meaningful. That everything locked inside me goes to the grave with me. Maybe that’s the way it is meant to be. You can’t live in the extremes of emotion and expression all the time, it’s exhausting, you’d lose all perspective, and you’d really drive people away.

I’m concerned about my employee, about D. I worry about shit far more than I reveal because life is meaningful, every battle counts, and I can’t even imagine the inner strength it takes to fight something like cancer while living in near constant pain. Did I mention she has a teenager? Yeah. See, the shit we think is the drama of our daily lives isn’t really much. All around me there are big battles going on that I never see, people facing things with tremendous courage that I can’t even fathom.

I light a candle tonight and pray to whatever spirits are out there for her. I hope they are listening.