She stared at the envelope lying on the counter. She knew she should open it. she knew that eventually she would have to open it. The answer was inside.
In a way it felt like the key to her future was inside that envelope. Decided by someone else. Someone who didn't even know her. But isn't that just the way this life runs? Someone outside yourself holds all the power.
She knew it wasn't true. What ever was inside that envelope had no real power over her. It just felt that way.
In her mind she knew that this envelope was just a step on the journey or maybe a stop on the journey, but the journey would continue either way. She wasn't going to stand still and stop living if the answer inside the evelope was no. She had made that promise to herself long ago.
She did know, though, that if the answer was no, there was a lot harder road to travel in front of her than if it said yes.
Yes was power. Yes would open doors to opportunities she had only day dreamed about.
No meant climbing all those hurdles again. Walking that rough road.
Yes meant a step in the right direction. It meant she would be able to stop doubting herself for a few moments. She would be able to start believing that it was a valid dream to chase. Yes meant she could secretly say "I told you so." to all those people in her life that laughed in her face when she got brave enough to reveal her dream.
No was a slap in the face. It was the ringing laughter in her ears of all those long forgotten people who told her she'd never be anything in this life. It was a confirmation of the drudgery of the daily grind she was living and the statement that she really should never be expecting anything but the average out of her own life. No meant that there would be no extraordinary moments in her life. No one would ever marvel at her or her life in a good way. They would marvel, to be sure, but in the same way that a person of wealth marvels at squalor.
Yes would be the kick in the pants to begin the process of full out pursuit of a dream long ago hung out to dry in the summer sun on the back portch, forgotten like old flowers and rusted tractors. Yes would mean a justification of all that time wasted over the years. Yes would mean someday she would be someone.
She knew she was someone with out the dream come true in her life, she did, but still, somewhere in her heart, she really wanted that envelope to hold a yes. She just didn't feel as valid without someone, the world really, validating her. Greedy, she knew it. But that's just the truth of what was in her heart, but at the same time, she wasn't really willing to sell her soul to gain that validation.
Monday, March 8, 2010
Friday, March 5, 2010
#158
The beginning went like this...in the darkest moment of the night, they heard a noise. At first it was quiet. So quiet they almost didn't recognize it as a noise.
But just as the edge of recognition began the sound increased. Soon it was clear. It was song. Playing over and over. It got louder and louder, but then stopped at a volume just below what they could make out clearly. The melody was foggy and the words slightly muffled, but it was playing over and over. It was clear that it was the same song, repeating.
But why?
And how did it get there?
Now both sitting up in bed, they were silent but looking at each other, looking around the room, trying to decide what to do next, but not wanting to speak for fear the spell would be broken. Because that's what it felt like. Like there in their bed, in the dark of night, they had some how mysteriously been placed under a spell.
Just as Alex was getting ready to get out of the bed and see what exactly was going on, it stopped. Almost as if someone could see him about to place a foot on the floor and than in that instant cutting off the music.
By now, the spell had lifted. Claire was looking around, fear teasing the edges of her eyes. Her mouth was beginning to frown and her breathing was quick. She knew something was wrong. Very wrong.
That song. She'd heard it before. But where? She couldn't quite bring it up in her mind, but she knew she knew it.
Alex was tempted to swing his feet back into bed, pull up the covers and roll over, that is, until he saw Claire's face. Then he realized this was one of those moments. A be the man moment. Just like catching a spider he thought.
"Relax Claire, I'm sure it's nothing. I'll go check it out."
With that he grabbed his jeans from the back of the chair and stepped into them. He walked the two steps across the room to the door while zipping up. He reached out, firmly took the door knob in his hand and gave it a turn. The door swung open easily, just like it always had.
He stepped through into the hall way and quickly shut the door behind him. Snapping on the hall light he was thinking, I'll do a little walk around the main floor, grab a glass of water and head right back to bed.
The hall showed no signs of anything other than their normal everyday life. As he drew near the entry to the kitchen, the hairs on his arms began to stand up. His heart began to pound. His mind tried to keep up with what he was seeing.
But just as the edge of recognition began the sound increased. Soon it was clear. It was song. Playing over and over. It got louder and louder, but then stopped at a volume just below what they could make out clearly. The melody was foggy and the words slightly muffled, but it was playing over and over. It was clear that it was the same song, repeating.
But why?
And how did it get there?
Now both sitting up in bed, they were silent but looking at each other, looking around the room, trying to decide what to do next, but not wanting to speak for fear the spell would be broken. Because that's what it felt like. Like there in their bed, in the dark of night, they had some how mysteriously been placed under a spell.
Just as Alex was getting ready to get out of the bed and see what exactly was going on, it stopped. Almost as if someone could see him about to place a foot on the floor and than in that instant cutting off the music.
By now, the spell had lifted. Claire was looking around, fear teasing the edges of her eyes. Her mouth was beginning to frown and her breathing was quick. She knew something was wrong. Very wrong.
That song. She'd heard it before. But where? She couldn't quite bring it up in her mind, but she knew she knew it.
Alex was tempted to swing his feet back into bed, pull up the covers and roll over, that is, until he saw Claire's face. Then he realized this was one of those moments. A be the man moment. Just like catching a spider he thought.
"Relax Claire, I'm sure it's nothing. I'll go check it out."
With that he grabbed his jeans from the back of the chair and stepped into them. He walked the two steps across the room to the door while zipping up. He reached out, firmly took the door knob in his hand and gave it a turn. The door swung open easily, just like it always had.
He stepped through into the hall way and quickly shut the door behind him. Snapping on the hall light he was thinking, I'll do a little walk around the main floor, grab a glass of water and head right back to bed.
The hall showed no signs of anything other than their normal everyday life. As he drew near the entry to the kitchen, the hairs on his arms began to stand up. His heart began to pound. His mind tried to keep up with what he was seeing.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Lucky #13
She believed in mystery.
Every little while in her life she just expected that something reeking of mystery would happen. About once a months she would begin to search for it in her every day life.
Mystery, after all, kept it from being the dull life that it really was.
After all, there isn't anything interesting about her life at all. She had to create mystery of her own.
Dull is the word of the day when it comes to describing her life. Mom, wife, middle age, middle class, middle America...blah, blah, blah. She may as well be beige like her walls and carpets and cars. She's living in mom jeans and pony tails. Hasn't done her nails in years.
She knows as well as everyone else that there's nothing even interesting about being a wife or being a mom. At least not in her world. There's no one famous or rich. There's no one even noticing if she's coming or going.
Now, she's not a loner or a recluse, but just your typical mom. Going back and forth to the markets to complete the errands. Back and forth to the schools and lessons and practice fields. People notice if she stays away too long or if she somehow calls too much attention to herself, but she's learned her lessons and doesn't play that game anymore.
She's committed to being dull. Playing along and not rocking the boat.
But it gets to her.
The staggering weight of being dull.
So in her mind, when she's traveling down the road, music just a little bit too loud on the car stereo, she's creating a mystery.
Maybe it begins while she's at the gas station buying some cigs, cause you know she doesn't smoke. Good girls don't play like that. Nice girls don't smoke. Especially not her. She would never be "caught" being bad.
But I tell you, there are days she longs for nothing more than to shock the neighbors by standing out on her front porch and lighting up. She wants to take the one long drag and feel it release the stress of the boredom of her days.
She lets her mind wander again. This time someone, a known stranger from her past arrives unexpectedly at her door. She is greeted with a warmth that only exists in her fantasy. No one in real life cherishes her like that.
Again her mind goes off. This time she is free. She doesn't know how it happened, but she is free. She is beautiful. She likes how she looks. She is happy with who she is. The details are fuzzy, but yet the feeling is so very real.
Every little while in her life she just expected that something reeking of mystery would happen. About once a months she would begin to search for it in her every day life.
Mystery, after all, kept it from being the dull life that it really was.
After all, there isn't anything interesting about her life at all. She had to create mystery of her own.
Dull is the word of the day when it comes to describing her life. Mom, wife, middle age, middle class, middle America...blah, blah, blah. She may as well be beige like her walls and carpets and cars. She's living in mom jeans and pony tails. Hasn't done her nails in years.
She knows as well as everyone else that there's nothing even interesting about being a wife or being a mom. At least not in her world. There's no one famous or rich. There's no one even noticing if she's coming or going.
Now, she's not a loner or a recluse, but just your typical mom. Going back and forth to the markets to complete the errands. Back and forth to the schools and lessons and practice fields. People notice if she stays away too long or if she somehow calls too much attention to herself, but she's learned her lessons and doesn't play that game anymore.
She's committed to being dull. Playing along and not rocking the boat.
But it gets to her.
The staggering weight of being dull.
So in her mind, when she's traveling down the road, music just a little bit too loud on the car stereo, she's creating a mystery.
Maybe it begins while she's at the gas station buying some cigs, cause you know she doesn't smoke. Good girls don't play like that. Nice girls don't smoke. Especially not her. She would never be "caught" being bad.
But I tell you, there are days she longs for nothing more than to shock the neighbors by standing out on her front porch and lighting up. She wants to take the one long drag and feel it release the stress of the boredom of her days.
She lets her mind wander again. This time someone, a known stranger from her past arrives unexpectedly at her door. She is greeted with a warmth that only exists in her fantasy. No one in real life cherishes her like that.
Again her mind goes off. This time she is free. She doesn't know how it happened, but she is free. She is beautiful. She likes how she looks. She is happy with who she is. The details are fuzzy, but yet the feeling is so very real.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
#230
But from the moment he put pen to paper he knew he was changing a life, maybe many lives. He knew telling his story, even bit by bit would save someone. It would help.
Maybe it would simply be helping him. Feeding his need for his story to become truth. It was truth after all, his truth, but something about putting black words down on white paper made it seem more permanent.
He also knew telling his story would not be easy. There were parts of the tale he wrote and crossed out, not yet ready for the whole world to see. He, himself, not yet ready to read those words poured out from his heart, spilled on the page. Some things even he cannot look in the eye yet. The day will come, but today is not now.
There were pages that made him shake, pages that brought smiles. There were pages that brought back all the warmth of a beautiful life moment. There were words that tore and ripped like glass on skin. There were pieces of his story that brought tears. Parts that made his hands sweat and shake.
There were words that drove him from the table, from the task. He would be forced to put his pen down and walk away from it all for a while.
Standing at the kitchen counter, pouring a glass in the fading light of spring evenings, he knows it's time.
Time to tell the tale.
He swallows. Holds the glass close to his chest, stares out the window, seeing the past, a memory.
In his mind she is standing before him. She held the key. Or at least part of the key. She was the beginning of the end and the beginning of the beginning.
He loved her as much as he was ever able to do. But it wasn't enough. For either of them.
He knew it long before she did. If he's truly honest, he knew before it even began with her.
They met through mutual friends. They dated. All the standard dates. Dancing. Dinner. Sweet notes. Walks. Movies. Beautiful conversations.
She had gentle but deep eyes. They were always searching. Trying to pull out a part of his soul. The thing was, he wasn't going to give that to her. It wasn't her fault. Or his. He just wasn't going to be giving it over.
Her heart was young, naive. She was falling in love with him. He could see it. He couldn't stop it. She kept falling deeper and deeper.
There had to be a way out. But so much of them, of the couple that was them, wasn't really love, but a true, deep and pure friendship. She was getting it all confused though.
In spite of the signs he thought he was giving, she was falling.
He desperately wanted her to pull the plug. He wanted her to suddenly realize that it wasn't going to work out between them. But he wanted it to be in a way that wouldn't hurt her.
Although he wasn't in love with her, he loved her. She was special in his life, close to him, even though he would not share everything with her. Even though she would wonder what he was holding back.
Between them it came to be too close to truth.
Perhaps he would burn the pages and never tell this tale after all.
Maybe it would simply be helping him. Feeding his need for his story to become truth. It was truth after all, his truth, but something about putting black words down on white paper made it seem more permanent.
He also knew telling his story would not be easy. There were parts of the tale he wrote and crossed out, not yet ready for the whole world to see. He, himself, not yet ready to read those words poured out from his heart, spilled on the page. Some things even he cannot look in the eye yet. The day will come, but today is not now.
There were pages that made him shake, pages that brought smiles. There were pages that brought back all the warmth of a beautiful life moment. There were words that tore and ripped like glass on skin. There were pieces of his story that brought tears. Parts that made his hands sweat and shake.
There were words that drove him from the table, from the task. He would be forced to put his pen down and walk away from it all for a while.
Standing at the kitchen counter, pouring a glass in the fading light of spring evenings, he knows it's time.
Time to tell the tale.
He swallows. Holds the glass close to his chest, stares out the window, seeing the past, a memory.
In his mind she is standing before him. She held the key. Or at least part of the key. She was the beginning of the end and the beginning of the beginning.
He loved her as much as he was ever able to do. But it wasn't enough. For either of them.
He knew it long before she did. If he's truly honest, he knew before it even began with her.
They met through mutual friends. They dated. All the standard dates. Dancing. Dinner. Sweet notes. Walks. Movies. Beautiful conversations.
She had gentle but deep eyes. They were always searching. Trying to pull out a part of his soul. The thing was, he wasn't going to give that to her. It wasn't her fault. Or his. He just wasn't going to be giving it over.
Her heart was young, naive. She was falling in love with him. He could see it. He couldn't stop it. She kept falling deeper and deeper.
There had to be a way out. But so much of them, of the couple that was them, wasn't really love, but a true, deep and pure friendship. She was getting it all confused though.
In spite of the signs he thought he was giving, she was falling.
He desperately wanted her to pull the plug. He wanted her to suddenly realize that it wasn't going to work out between them. But he wanted it to be in a way that wouldn't hurt her.
Although he wasn't in love with her, he loved her. She was special in his life, close to him, even though he would not share everything with her. Even though she would wonder what he was holding back.
Between them it came to be too close to truth.
Perhaps he would burn the pages and never tell this tale after all.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
#249
Anyway, you're a hero with a tragic story.
Or at least that's what we're all supposed to believe.
You.
You're the hero.
It's all about you and you are the one who makes it all happen.
Never mind that there are all those "little people" all around you making the magic on your behalf. Never mind that we're all around you fluffing it all up so you look so much better than you really are.
Oh. Wait. Tragic story.
Here's where it begins.
A man, simple, somewhat pure in sensibility, slightly dull, exactly ordinary becomes a hero.
But only because of the tragic.
Without the back story, the flash back, he would seem to be nothing. Just like the rest of us.
But.
He was not. Not exactly like us. When the tragic thing came to pass in his life he rose to meet it in a way that birthed a hero like no other known in our modern day.
His life was utterly demolished by a twisted vicious woman.
She seemingly came out of no where, but that wasn't the case at all. There was a history there.
Decades ago they were friends.
Or at least that's what we're all supposed to believe.
You.
You're the hero.
It's all about you and you are the one who makes it all happen.
Never mind that there are all those "little people" all around you making the magic on your behalf. Never mind that we're all around you fluffing it all up so you look so much better than you really are.
Oh. Wait. Tragic story.
Here's where it begins.
A man, simple, somewhat pure in sensibility, slightly dull, exactly ordinary becomes a hero.
But only because of the tragic.
Without the back story, the flash back, he would seem to be nothing. Just like the rest of us.
But.
He was not. Not exactly like us. When the tragic thing came to pass in his life he rose to meet it in a way that birthed a hero like no other known in our modern day.
His life was utterly demolished by a twisted vicious woman.
She seemingly came out of no where, but that wasn't the case at all. There was a history there.
Decades ago they were friends.
Monday, March 1, 2010
#299
He swallows with some difficulty. As if his drink were not the smoothest scotch in the bar, but a torrent of poison.
It was the words he was having difficulty swallowing, not the drink. The drinks would go down with more and more ease and speed as the night wore into morning. As the words began digesting in the bile he felt rising in his throat.
They would breed a bitterness in his soul that would alter the very course of his life for years to come. Sunlight would cease to shine in his world.
It seared into his mind, never to be erased, only endured as days turned into weeks turned into years.
"I love you, but..."
It's classic. The end always begins that way. And this wasn't new to him. He'd been broken up with before, but this time, this one...he had been so sure of it that he'd given himself away to his lover. Given away his very core. Everything that he had within himself, he'd given. For the first time in his life, he had not held back any part of himself and now, this.
It was done.
He heard the words. He was there at the table, drink in hand, looking at the face and hearing the words, but it wasn't real. It couldn't be.
And then the face was gone.
Simply gone.
No farewell touch. No kiss. No embrace. No note. No photos.
Just gone.
A key left on the table by his hand.
Over.
He kept trying to choke it down, but it wouldn't go.
At last call the lights came up and he had to leave, not because of the closing, but because of the light. Light would make it more real. He had to run, run far into the darkness. Escaping down the street, walking through darkness to his condo, entering but never, never turning on the lights.
Another drink to find more darkness, then motionless, lying in his bed only to get up and move to the sofa. The bed would never be his again. It would have to go. It was full. There was no room for him there now. The memories filled it up and left him no room to stretch out and find the sleep he was longing for.
But sleep was only an illusion. There was no relief there, only dreams. Dreams that woke him bathed in bitterness.
He would shower, but not shave. He would work, but not succeed. He would feed himself, but barely stay alive.
Shame is suffocating. Shame that he gave it all and was left. Shame that he really must be his worst fears of himself. Shame that would bring him to the very brink of his life. Knowing that some day a powerful anger would come. A hate that would drive him in a new destructive direction.
A sick bitter realization that one instant of reaching for a life long love would bring him a decade of trying to become a human again.
It was the words he was having difficulty swallowing, not the drink. The drinks would go down with more and more ease and speed as the night wore into morning. As the words began digesting in the bile he felt rising in his throat.
They would breed a bitterness in his soul that would alter the very course of his life for years to come. Sunlight would cease to shine in his world.
It seared into his mind, never to be erased, only endured as days turned into weeks turned into years.
"I love you, but..."
It's classic. The end always begins that way. And this wasn't new to him. He'd been broken up with before, but this time, this one...he had been so sure of it that he'd given himself away to his lover. Given away his very core. Everything that he had within himself, he'd given. For the first time in his life, he had not held back any part of himself and now, this.
It was done.
He heard the words. He was there at the table, drink in hand, looking at the face and hearing the words, but it wasn't real. It couldn't be.
And then the face was gone.
Simply gone.
No farewell touch. No kiss. No embrace. No note. No photos.
Just gone.
A key left on the table by his hand.
Over.
He kept trying to choke it down, but it wouldn't go.
At last call the lights came up and he had to leave, not because of the closing, but because of the light. Light would make it more real. He had to run, run far into the darkness. Escaping down the street, walking through darkness to his condo, entering but never, never turning on the lights.
Another drink to find more darkness, then motionless, lying in his bed only to get up and move to the sofa. The bed would never be his again. It would have to go. It was full. There was no room for him there now. The memories filled it up and left him no room to stretch out and find the sleep he was longing for.
But sleep was only an illusion. There was no relief there, only dreams. Dreams that woke him bathed in bitterness.
He would shower, but not shave. He would work, but not succeed. He would feed himself, but barely stay alive.
Shame is suffocating. Shame that he gave it all and was left. Shame that he really must be his worst fears of himself. Shame that would bring him to the very brink of his life. Knowing that some day a powerful anger would come. A hate that would drive him in a new destructive direction.
A sick bitter realization that one instant of reaching for a life long love would bring him a decade of trying to become a human again.
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