Amphibuous

     How do I love the Kate Zambreno voice: brave yet probably not saying much, just brave. And somehow not alone. Alone but not. Elegiac, after all, just floating. And always fresh, every word, even if its about the stale and empty. After all, how much can a writer do about the modern and postmodern world? Write like Wordsworth? I remember a phase for me when I was very attracted to Wordsworth but I never actually read that much of it. I just needed the sense of someone having been sincerely in awe and wonder for a lifetime. I assumed anyway, -don't know that he was for a fact.

Been thinking about Richard recently a bit. A feeling of having not risen to the occasion, when he lay dying. He gave me a house key, after all, and I didn't get the significance of that. I visited as much as I could, probably about once every three weeks. But one visit he's laying in bed and I think I felt, in the air, that he was not talking to me, on purpose. He was mad at me. So I tried to just ignore that and give as much as I could, even through the silence, with the tv blaring on. Some soapy show about a rebellion in ancient Rome. A bit of gratuitous sex and violence. And I thought about maybe this was a perfect show for him and for the day and for our era. Though I still don't know the name of that show and probably wouldn't be able to get through more than twenty minutes of it for his sake. 

But the truth of it is, he was there for me, always. And then I hadn't been there for him when he'd been lonely for me actually. After all, we'd set out into the world together. As a team. (Just like Jeb and I had always been gallivanting around Old Chatham in an earlier teenaged phase.) That team feeling, like the scouts or a secret club or something, a mini-army. Assemblage, as D&G talk about. The one where you can find your mental health in it, through thick and thin etc. That feeling we, who have kids, try to give to them, instead of that all alone feeling. Its supposed to be part of families too, isn't it? Instead of that all alone feeling, all alone in the universe, which is what Jeb had to deal with - I've been thinking alot about that recently. As well as myself, after all. It can result in the cursed dark clouds of suicidal ideation, don't forget. (Is that what our mom was facing as she screamed to the sky that time, in the back yard at Hartford? Fathomless.)

I do think Richard thought it over after that, at some point and decided to forgive me. That that's just the way I am, a bit irresponsible. Full of love, but just not always there. Always going off in a direction, coming back. Flying off suddenly. Like Jeb, in a way, needing the alone, traveling time, to clear my head. The stars, even if they're in my head. Little chimeras of artistic goals. And meanwhile, he had managed to settle down and find that grounded feeling that allows for true magnaminousness. Is that a word? I mean a truly graceful and everlasting giving. Generosity to the nth degree.

That's what I found when I visited him at Jefferson, a busy place, and many machines and lights and the tv blaring. His kids were there and he obviously didn't want to talk about important deep stuff. But I wish we could've or maybe I don't need to wish that. He was ebullient, is the word that jumps to mind. He was transcendent. I've never been in the presence of someone like that before, he was like one of those gurus, and amongst all those machines and people. He was and was being all accepting, glad to be alive, truly happy it seems. Letting go. Wanting to give this gift of life to me, wanting me to feel it, be happy. And so I was. We didn't say much, I'd like to think I actually held his hand for a minute perhaps while he lay in the bed with the mattress half tilted up towards us all. I think he was up though when I left and I hugged him and I did say out loud, I love you bro, and he returned the favor - just like that damned commercial, I can hear that too from the 80's, which I won't even go on about. I said I love you and hugged him and left the room full of blinking lights, and he went on his way to the bathroom pulling the IV along.

The next day I felt strange and uncomfortable at work, and I know I should've left work and gone down to the hospice where he'd been moved. But I'm paralyzed in that way and even today. 

The next morning I do go down though, first thing, it's the old Graduate Hospital building which sits alone on a center city block. The corridors are wide and nearly empty. Large sitting rooms with potted plants, an available coffee station with a fridge. I walk into his room and he's sleeping, stiff and grey. I think he's sleeping and sit there for quite a while, nearby looking at him, so still.

His kids come in a half hour later and tell me it's ok if I take a picture. So do have that in the digital realm somewhere. Aaah my neck hurts today, this rainy mid March morning. Hang your head and cry dear boy, like one of those old cowboy songs. I never could stick with the folk music regime though, but maybe I should get back to it. It's where I started.

It would be a relief actually to not write the memoir with that LA Writers workshop online and just redouble my efforts to connect with and work with those who are nearby, and wanting to just get going on things. Because you never know when the curtains will start closing. Maybe writing little pieces about people, like this piece, will be good enough for now.

Perhaps this morning, writing this one, remembering Richard, my old buddy, best friend - the good times and not so good - even if deeply and forever, unchangeably not so good - perhaps this morning I'm getting the clearest feeling in a long time of what I do want to do. After such a long phase of revisiting the past and precious people back there. And its not yet time to spend hours rehashing every old memory yet again and trying to synthesize in order to, well, to synthesize. Maybe it's ok to remain fragmented and partial. Broken into parts. Unforgiven, in my own heart, for not having given back to him what he, without fail, gave to me. I don't think he once failed to aid me when I asked. And many a time when I couldn't find the words. Indeed, I find myself not getting back to many people right now to whom I feel obliged. The paralyzing feeling has been setting in to a larger degree, like a swamp that is spreading, the water is rising. 

Time to become amphibious. Which I have been before, long ago, back in the beginning. In Old Chatham, running down to the pond at Powell House, diving in and letting myself glide. Holding my breath, take a stroke and then glide further, further. I found that I was using almost no energy on the glide, I could feel that specifically. And there was a sense of glory and freedom in that, just gliding underwater without air, through that murky pond sitting out next to nowhere, upstate N.Y. Gliding, gliding then one big stroke, and more gliding towards the end, in the darkness, eyes open underwater, green light far above. I found I could go really astonishing far in this way.

 

PS, I found the show: Spartacus, Blood and Sand; 2010- 2013