It was a story about the white-hot sunset, strong colorless liquor hitting the copper cymbals on my brother’s drum set – their hammered rosy blush, and how the whole drifter’s romance moved on quickly and was seen and recorded by the large mirror in our hallway –
It was about taking in all the keyboard, circular notes fanned open to appreciate the energy moving in an uncommon finish to the day; the powerful and passionate exchange of beauty in a few moments. How the girl with wet hair had passed the mirror, and how her pink shirt had pressed up with the copper transmitting the pure light;
how she was scrambling around, cradling precious many feelings and how they tumbled together like early summer beach glass as she stood there in the hallway –
Popping a dark-chocolate-covered coffee bean in my mouth and chewing it hard, cracking the bitter morsel after giving the sun’s cymbals a final glance and finding them blazing in a private embrace that almost rang to my ears – a little part of me stayed for awhile in the hallway,
the part that doesn’t live without sun-shots and blush to gossip to my fingers about, and the part of me with fingers hung around in the container of chocolate coffee beans waiting for the gossip to come in without her shirt. The rest of me is involved in the feelings behind the story, the most important part I didn’t get to tell before everything froze.
Speeding out of the city today with a fishing license I was making lists in my head of whom I could trust alone in the woods with a large gun and whom I would not accompany if they asked. Picturing the names and faces of so many people I know and trusted, and did not trust, and those I wasn’t sure about … after that I ended up in the haircutting parlor, four minutes late, where my mother’s favorite stylist who barely speaks English set about getting my hair wet and smearing conditioner into it. I thought it was good conditioner, the kind that rinses out, until she sat me upright and pointed me towards the chair without ever rinsing it out. As the stylist trimmed, she asked me in foreign diction why so much of my hair was falling out, and I wasn’t really sure what to tell her – the stress of school? The fact that it’s very thin and has a generally high shedding rate already? – so I lied conveniently and said it got like that in the spring, after winter. Actually, it’s shedding a lot less now than it did last year. What, are there new bald spots back there or something? I only know of one, and another that’s a cowlick, but she may have discovered one I can’t really see. All I did was sit there thinking grimly that God had definitely given me more than enough hair to get by, and how I was grateful to Him for that whether or not the stylist thought I should be concerned.
And since the bathroom is right across from the large mirror in the hallway, I got out of there after brushing my hair down the way I usually do, feeling somewhat scrambled from pulling such a bizarre cocktail of thoughts through the kitchen – it had smelled of beef stroganoff and homework and family, and I tasted the velvety butter pound cake sitting fresh on the counter from last night – and jangling it up the steps.
Across from my finger-combing and unlacing a single hair from those fingers, I stepped into the crossfire from the knowing gaze of the reflective panel as it watched that sudden exchange of the sunset; with wisdom, almost, and a patient clear enjoyment as it recorded the scene. The mirror sighed – or was it the girl in the mirror, the one who was a part of the story? – and I moved on to write it down, to hear the gossip and later to lose the beauty just as it was all coming together.
Some things have to be given up – maybe be thrown into a light-filled room and unexpectedly taken up in flame – maybe be purposefully destroyed, once in awhile. This piece disappeared suddenly, but I wouldn’t have shared it if it had lived – insecurely beautiful portions of work are things that don’t take kindly to flat review, and I hesitate to press their tender features against the sting of reality.
This here, on the other hand? This is in memoriam, a slow and factual description of something I lost that was full of a quick, intense moment. That moment isn’t portrayed here – it’s paid tribute to, with little attempt at re-creation. I can’t write it again.
I can appreciate these times for what they are, whether or not they’re taken from me. I can give thanks every day for the opportunity to notice things like that moment; I can keep stepping unknowingly into beauty, playing it like I’d lose a shot drinking game – but this stuff stays down. Not only does it stay down, it permeates my fingers and laces my skin back up around this open body prone to feeling raw. And God gives me this. Outta the blue. Just for a short while, then me left with open palms facing upward and chin sinking into my shirt.
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