Aloft and Adrift Over Linoleum

Tendrils of light curled around my toes as I was lifted above the linoleum. Was I ill with a fever? I don’t think so. Was this a true memory or another idea planted over time to bloom when I looked back at my childhood? Not sure. But there it lingers.

Waiting to introduce the next performer in my homemade talent show, I tried to hold on to the refrigerator handle but ended up only grasping air. Pockets of panic were swallowed, making unmistakable bubbles of joy in their wake. I couldn’t breathe normally; it was like how I imagine breathing through gills would be. My body took in air as I took flight but my mouth was frozen in an open “aaahhh.” Not “argh” like a pirate, but more of a doctor asking you to say “ah.”

I digress. I probably will again.

The incandescence of that early afternoon still dwells on the tip of my memory like a morsel to be savored, rolled around in the mind until it makes sense and is palatable. It was spring, when trees shared their early greens and when flowers first peeked out of the ground. The smells of baking cookies and musty books pervaded my childhood. Mine was a theatre bedecked with scratched mirrors, cracked paint, hand-me-down clothes, crayons, dancing, and tooth fairies. There was laughter through the dust my toes kicked up under the swing. On this day, there was a smile and real wonder on my face as I floated in the kitchen.

I remember trying to blink repeatedly to even out the optical illusory effect of the floor’s pattern so my eyes wouldn’t lie to my brain about being four feet off the ground. But there was nothing for it except to accept I was hovering with my family ensconced with their feet firmly on the ground in the next room.

I could hear their happy murmuring. I wanted to fly to them but I seemed to be stuck there in mid-air with my fingertips grazing the dusty top of the fridge. I couldn’t, wouldn’t call out. I was afraid I would fall if I upset the balance by speaking and shifting the air around me. Or something like that. I was very young. I recall not wanting to come down, looking down and getting dizzy. But I realized I couldn’t stay in the air, in limbo. Nothing I needed was there. But the people in the next room didn’t miss me or come looking for me even though it felt alarmingly like I had been floating for hours (of course, in a child-like mixture of terror and curious joy, it was probably only minutes or even seconds).

I was left adrift.

Everyone had gone to the living room to watch TV while I prepared the next act. There had been laughter and joking and role-playing and singing as I emceed my show. All that faded as my family left the room and I felt myself leave the ground. As I spent a lot of time alone as a child, there were plenty flights-of-fancy to be found. So many of my stories and songs and pictures and creations littered my room, I can still recall the pride I felt when something I made was selected to be hung on the fridge. But this day burns in my memory like something real and not a dream.

Though I have always had very vivid daydreams. With castles and fairies and talking trees. My dreams have not diminished in my middle age. I just find fewer people find them endearing so I keep them mostly to myself.

I was left with my toes being kissed by sunlight streaming in the kitchen window. I landed very gently back on my feet, falling wobbly and confused but oh so happy.

“When I was a child, I had a fever. My hands felt just like two balloons. Now I’ve got that feeling once again, I can’t explain, you would not understand this is not how I am. I have become comfortably numb.” — Pink Floyd

May 20, 2013 0

Breathing Deep on a High Wire

She adjusted the strap of her bodysuit. The sequins were digging into her shoulder again. She glanced down at her cleavage, making sure everything was securely tucked away into the costume with just enough of the creamy swell rising above to be enticing but not indecent. Men would inevitably take notice but children of all ages would be mesmerized as she juggled flaming batons atop the high-wire.

As she sat in front of the mirror, she looked at her overly made-up face, resplendent with hues only found in nature on the tails of peacocks. She slicked on one more dab of lip gloss and smiled; teeth were all clear. She ran her fingers down her long, dark ponytail, thankful for the return of her natural color. He had always hated her dark hair so she had bleached it for years. Funny how the light hair made her world seem dark and her dark hair was comforting and made her feel light as a feather. That feeling helped when she had to concentrate on her balance on a thin wire over 100 feet above the ground.
She checked her smartphone for the dozenth time in less than an hour. No message yet. How much longer would she have to wait? The friend that worked for the lawyer was to let her know as soon as the sentencing was handed down. It should have been over long ago. She looked at herself in the mirror again carefully. The makeup covered the smudges under her eyes that betrayed her sleepless nights. As shaky as she felt though, once she climbed that ladder and lit the batons, her nerves were always steady. She woke with a purpose each day: to hear the gasps and claps that let her know her efforts were appreciated. It was something that gave her joy.

BUZZZZ! She jumped involuntarily and checked her phone. “Jury and judge coming back now,” she read.

She closed her eyes, tried to take a deep breath but it got stuck somewhere in her throat. Her mind took her against her will, much as he had done in that cabin, to dark places in the past. Why hadn’t she fought harder or tried to get away earlier? She mentally berated herself again for blaming the wrong person. HE was the bastard who had done this to several other women before her. He had pushed her into believing all sorts of lies including how she was nothing and could never escape. But she had.

Once she had gotten away, she realized she had acquired a set of balls that he seemed to have no use for; in her mind, only an impotent eunuch preys upon those he sees as weak. She sort of laughed to herself and thought, I took his balls as he wasn’t using them, the coward. She had shown bravery as she recounted to police all the details she could recall. She had gone back to the circus as soon as her body had healed, intuitively knowing it would also help heal her soul as well.
She stood and walked to a small flap in the tent. She peeked through and saw the man with the tigers, using a whip to guide them to their spots in the cage. Like a carefully choreographed dance, the powerful yet seemingly languid beasts circled the man and took their spots atop some stacked chairs. So much strength constrained by some bars of a cage! Hopefully soon he too would be held at bay in a cage.

She glanced into the stands and noticed a group of children. A school group, by the looks of the matching bright red shirts they all wore. They were laughing. She craned her neck and saw the object of their mirth: three clowns were chasing and tripping each other in the next ring. She looked back at the children. Their faces were almost glowing. She couldn’t remember feeling a joy that could and should be taken for granted. If not for her friends, she knew she wouldn’t even have the hope of finding that joy again. But as she shed her pain and shared her trials, she connected with others and found everyone had their own tales of woe.

One of the clowns’ wives died last year after a three-year battle with cancer. An animal trainer just found out last week that her husband was leaving her for a bank teller back home. A backup dancer who needs to have knee surgery is worried about insurance. The couple who get shot out of matching cannons together just suffered a miscarriage. So trite but true, friends sharing makes burdens lighter.

Buzzz… Buzzz… She had been daydreaming about her first job as a high-wire act for the circus when her phone buzzed and vibrated on the table.

“Guilty. 99 Years. No parole. Breathe!”

Whoooosh! She could finally release the breath she had been holding. She felt so light she thought maybe she’d float to the very top of the Big Top. Two Years. Over 2,000 miles. Lots of trips up the ladder. Lots of balancing on a thin high-wire.

April 27, 2013 0

Plaid Thoughts

She opened her little plaid journal and positioned her pen carefully. This had fast become one of the favorite parts of her day. A brand new page lay blank in wait for her imagination. She could do and be anything in just a few words! Drawing, writing, doodling. Collecting clippings that she found interesting. The journal had become her friend, a repository for her most private thoughts. It was of course to mean so much more later.

She felt a whole world of her own making could be conveyed if she could just figure out what her inner voice had to say. It spoke to her all the time; would it speak to others as well?

She sighed, shifted in her chair, leaned her elbows on the desk and began to write.

She wrote about what she saw, how she felt. She wrote things she hoped to see, hoped to someday feel. Since she was so young, she knew people might not take her seriously. After all, who would want to read the musings of a teenage girl?

Big thoughts about life and love and little thoughts about clothes and hairstyles all found their way into the book. She grew. And grew. Her body, her mind, her imagination. She felt she would outgrow the confines of her small space if not for her journal. Somehow some paper and ink kept her grounded; reminding her of what she felt mattered. Her writing touched on a newfound interest in boys as well as more philosophical matters like the good and evil she saw in the world. She had dreams of her stories being published. She wrote about things and people she knew; cleverly changing names so as not to risk anyone thinking her work too personal. From the real in all its grit came some beauty in fantasy.

After filling up many pages, she began to look them over, making subtle changes in case someone someday did indeed decide her thoughts were indeed fit for public consumption. She crinkled her nose in disgust at some sections, laughed aloud at others, felt embarrassed at some passages, elated that her imagination had shown through it all.

The tenor of her writing changed over time. The darkness that had remained a distant threat for so long was edging closer to her world. She could find solace in her plaid notebook for a short while but could only hold evil at bay for so long. Before the end, she wrote as any teen would, of making friends, loving boys, arguing with mothers, finding no wrong with fathers. She wrote of the good that she saw every day even as things were falling apart all around her. She wrote as though she was pressed for time to get out all her dreams and thoughts quickly before she forgot them or before she was forgotten.

She was not forgotten. Her journal was discovered, shared. As with any plaid pattern, such as the one of her notebook, the lines of several people’s lives and experiences intersected and meshed and coordinated to form a patterned story of hope amidst horror. Her story has been shared with the world so broadly that children hearing of her think of her as a character, not a real person. But look closely at some of the photographs. She was awkward but beautiful. Read carefully. She was young but intuitively adroit at expression and description.

I was recently given a small plaid notebook from someone who doesn’t know how Anne Frank touched me as a child. Reading thoughts so similar to my own from someone who existed thirty years before I was born was a revelation. Maybe I felt a connection because I was an awkward youth. Maybe it was the odd fact that stuck with me that she and I share a birthday. Whatever sparked my interest in her and her writing, I learned as a youngster that storytelling was important. I use my notebook to take notes for future stories and to jot down quotes I like. We can all find some means of expression no matter what the swirling activity of the world exists around us. Like Anne, I want to be hopeful and share my thoughts and dreams instead of being brought down by darkness.