Interlude
שְׁבֹּת
By his words, Grace was seated, on what, she had no idea. It seemed that a force equal and opposite to every angle of her seated body was holding her suspended in space. She felt like she was floating in a swimming pool filled with jello.
Not really jello, there’s nothing there. But I can feel something like the soft supportive density of jello.
This confused and woefully inadequate description confirmed that Grace really didn’t have the vocabulary to describe the grandeur of the unknown. Maybe somebody better with physics and concepts of force and matter could have explained it. On the flip side a poet might have lent some insight. Grace, regular plain Grace, had to rely on a trite phrase,
Floating on a cloud.
As if floating on a cloud wasn’t lovely enough, her friend–
Hmmm friend, this is what the word friend is supposed to mean.
Grace became lost in the recognition of a friendship so unexpected.
Her friend sat down on the cloud right next to her. He still hadn’t let go of her hand. As they rested, an image appeared before them. The sudden picture had the feeling of an eight millimeter film projection. Different from old home movies which are characterized by graininess and randomly occurring marring scratches, this picture had the pristine crispness of sharper-than-life clarity. As a scene began to unfold, Grace understood that her initial identification with a home movie was provoked by the oddly stuttering articulation of the progressing story, as if every individual and object had been rendered slightly robotic when translated to film. It was like a flip book of incredibly clear pictures.
Not that I would know anything about home movies. Nobody ever bothered taking any of me.
“I know,” his voice interrupted her silent self-pity, “that’s why I want to show you this. I know the desires of your heart. This is my gift to you.”
As they watched, a girl walked up a beach boardwalk. Her Shirley Temple curls bobbed as she made her way up the meandering path. The grey weathered boards nestled between hillocks of sand. Tufts of dune grass sprouted to break the pristine cleanliness with sprays of green, yellow and brown. The fronds whispered in the breeze mimicking the more distant sound of ocean waves whooshing onto the beach. The girl was skipping barefoot on dry wood, summer tough soles impervious to the daggers of splintered silver cedar that threatened each footfall. Her skin was carefree gold against the red terry cloth of her two-piece. Her fingers worried the frayed edges of an embroidered whale on the left breast of her bathing top. In the right hand, she held a piece of red stained-glass shaped like a school kid’s plastic ruler, three inches long and shrinking with its every trip to her artificially rosy mouth.
“Did she get that at the old snack shack? Gosh I loved that place. Didn’t they tear it down because of dry rot or something? The new snack shack was never the same. Can you show me the old one?” She interrupted one thought with the next, “Jolly Ranchers! Watermelon! You can’t find them in those long sticks anymore, only the little suckers or sometimes a stubbier version of the original if you look hard. What is it with me and the candy? You know I don’t even like candy that much. This must have been before the candy embargo. Or am I sneaking again? I thought this was supposed to be a gift”
His laughter interrupted her onslaught of words and he nudged her.
“Look at you. So happy and worry free. No guilt, no skulking. This was definitely pre- or post-embargo. Even though it seemed like forever to you, candy prohibition didn’t last as long as you remember.”
“It did seem like forever.” She didn’t pause, catching up quickly with her own meandering thoughts. “I loved that bathing suit, so soft and comfy. I wore it every day, I think I might even have slept in it. It would be lovely to be her again; smile on my face, sand in my bed. Unmitigated happiness.”
The girl reached the end of the boardwalk. She stood at the head of tall stairs that led down to the beach. Tucking the whole candy into her mouth for safekeeping, she unceremoniously hurled her body off the edge of the top step. Her hair lifted in the breeze as her arms and legs splayed out in star formation. A pink grin of untarnished delight spread across her face, suffusing the air around her with joy. The happiest flying starfish. Grace held her breath for that suspended moment of flight. Her self hit the sand with a dull thud and continued to roll down the hill of alabaster grit until she was completely breaded in sand. Losing the momentum of her roll, young Grace leapt to her feet and headed toward the ocean in an all-out downhill sprint. She whizzed by an older lady, distracting her from snapping the chinstrap of her blue hydrangea-flowered bathing cap under the left ear, kicking up sand and drawing a furious glare. Oblivious, the wild girl reached the shallow water, slowing slightly only with the hindrance of water. She dove headlong with complete abandon into the first curling wave her small body could fit under.
“I miss that so much.”
“The beach is only ten minutes away. Why should you miss it?’
She was sad with inexplicable loss, “I am not the same. I can’t be her anymore. She was fearless, wild, fun, free, adventurous. Not ruined”
“You’re right. She was fearfully and wonderfully made. You’re also wrong. She isn’t lost forever. You can find that pure girl again. Every morning there are new mercies waiting for you. I can make all things new for you.”
Grace wanted to believe him. What he said was so tempting. Unfortunately she knew there were things she could never recover, never recover from, never rediscover.
He doesn’t understand.
A perfectly synchronized pause and the scene switched abruptly, as home movies like to do, to the next vignette. The smell of diesel fumes mixed with briny bay wind wafted into Grace’s brain, calling her, Oh little playmate, into the apple tree of recollection. She jerked her head sharply to see the sun and sea twisted mop of her own childish hair whipping against the force of wind generated by a ferry cutting across the water. The toasty sand waif was huddled at the back of the boat, in the coveted corner seat of the bench where one lucky passenger could lean a head back and be exposed to the full expanse of late afternoon summer sky.
Again, the hand of loss reached and wrung another twist in Grace’s heart, squeezing out salty tears. With limbs gathered to her chest, the child nestled into the corner and lay her head on the cheek height ledge, feeling the vibration of the motor buzzing her head, soothingly irritating. A huge green-headed horsefly landed on an exposed ankle not covered by the tattered gray sweatshirt pulled over her knees. A guerilla hand eased out and hovered over the biting fly, waiting for the perfect time to slam a punishing assault down on the offending intruder. Crack! Precision strike, the corpse fell to the greasy grey painted floor of the boat, joining a mass grave of his compatriots.
“Nice shot. How many is that?” A voice inquired.
Grace quickly counted the round and raised, red bite marks on her legs and subtracted the number she had failed to kill.
“”I’ve gotten eight so far. How ‘bout you?” She lifted her cheek off the buzzing ledge to hear the answer, hoping she was ahead. The inquisitive neighbor could have lied about her kill count but there is an honor code generally hallowed among ferry riders.
“Only six, they’re really fast today.” Grace nodded in agreement. Some days the winged enemy just sat there, dull and bloated, seemingly suicidal. The afternoon had sent a brisk breeze, sweeping away the muggy and turgid, adding a spring to the step of each horsefly and making combat a little more challenging.
“Why can’t I think of her name? I’ve known her all my life. I just saw her at the deli the other day when I was grabbing a breakfast sandwich.”
“A strange thing has been happening to you lately Grace. If you haven’t noticed, it seems like you have been relinquishing all the good things in your life— just letting them go like so much dead weight. You have taken on heavy ballast with your recent activities and you have to make room. Sadly you have let go, one by one, all the sweetest memories, even names of the nicest people you’ve known.”
“Yeah, I noticed. It’s like the Nothing in The Neverending Story. Have you ever seen that movie?” Despite the question seeming ludicrous, he nodded his head. “It’s taking me over. Chunks of me are just falling by the wayside. And I feel numbly powerless to do anything but watch. It’s horrible”
“Yes, it is horrible.”
“How is this supposed to be a gift?”
“I just gave this memory back to you. By the way, her name is Lauren. Remember?”
As if his question were a command, a flood of memories came back: bike riding, roller-skating, heads up seven up, HORSE in a driveway basketball court, crack-the-whip ice-skating, sucking nectar out of the back of countless honeysuckles, crabbing on the dock at night armed only with raw chicken legs on a string, a flashlight and expert net scooping skills.
This provoked one particularly clear memory of a night on the dock under the full moon. Unable to sleep in the heat, her parents had let her stay out late. She and Lauren had raced their banana seated Schwinns down to the bay. Flying down the hill at obscene speeds, the night wind blessed their sweaty brows. Round the bend and down the straightaway, Grace had arrived first at the end of the bulkhead. Deftly tying the string to a raw chicken leg pulled out of the white plastic bucket, she let it plop softly into the inky water illuminated beneath a yellow street light. Another race ensued in which she and Lauren fought to see who could tie the most lines before all the chicken parts had disappeared. Grace secretly let Lauren win this time, already satisfied with her biking triumph. By the time they returned to the first line, it was taut, indicating a crab had taken the bait. Together they shone their flashlights on the chicken. There was nothing more exciting than watching a blue claw try and drag a monstrous chicken leg through murky waters. Grace giggled at the furiously industrious delicate paddles located behind the claws and legs at the back of the razored oval body. As Grace slowly, slowly, slow-ly lifted the line, Lauren readied her net. Grace pulled, Lauren lowered the boom with stealth; the two girls moved in the perfectly synchronized ballet of practiced understanding. Swoosh, the crab was netted, still trying to tear chunks from its prey, unwitting that he had now become the prey. Whispered whoops issued from the two huntresses over the first catch of the night.
Grace was washed in the thrill of finding lost treasure. Backing out of her mind’s eye, she recommenced watching the fantastical ‘home movie’ of her young self and her recaptured playmate enjoying a round of cat’s cradle with a chinese jumprope that magically appeared out of someone’s pocket. They collapsed on each other, laughing hysterically as their hands became hopelessly entwined in a kaleidoscope of geometric designs.
“Thank you, that was fun. I had almost forgotten how great my childhood could be.”
“You’re welcome. Only be careful, and watch yourself closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them slip from your heart for as long as you live.”
Despite this momentary reprieve, she could feel the inexorable tug of the quicksand haunting her, waiting for her. The sinking mud offered no support. Instead, it seemed to want to suck her down into its vortex, covering over her head just like that horse in the movie.
Artax.
The last three months were only the culmination of a thousand poor choices that chipped away at the integrity of her life. Why had she made so many bad choices? There must be something intrinsically wrong with her that she had fallen into the pit so easily. Why hadn’t she been looking where she was going? Why hadn’t she gone the other way? Why had she dived headlong into the most abominable looking mudpile she could find? Wallowing in the Pit of Despair, she had walked into the nightmare of epic fable.
But who will come to save me with a name?
“Grace.” His word interrupted her tailspin. Completely engrossed, irritation buzzed her like a one of those nasty horseflies.
“You should check that tendency. I have known too many people so enamored of their own tragic grandeur that they choose to stay broken, refusing to get better.” Grace knew he was generalizing to soften the blow. His light pierced the truth of who she was. She loved to roll her sadness over her tongue, savoring its taste. She didn’t mind using props to enhance the experience: sad songs, tragic poetry, verse in a foreign language—a particular indulgence—facilitated a specific brand of anonymous self-pity. Having sufficiently worked herself into an emotional frenzy she would then enjoy the fruits of her labor by watching herself cry in the mirror until the redness made her eyes shine green. He continued with searing insight,
“There are people who choose to remain ill when there is a great physician waiting to heal. Even worse than refusing treatment, the longing for the intoxication of drama becomes so great that some individuals will deliberately and continually sabotage themselves in a sort of spiritual Munchausen’s syndrome, perpetuating the agony, the madness, the sickness.”
He doesn’t understand.
The scene changed one more time. Deposited onto the mainland by the five o’clock ferry, beachspent Grace ambled, alone again, up the patchy asphalt of road. Suddenly energized by a spurt of youth, she broke into the padded run of calloused bare feet, catching the faded stripes of the towel tied around her neck on the wind of her speed. She put her arms out wide in front of her, waiting to be taken onto the wings of the air. Ten seconds later, unsuccessful in flight, she slowed down and then quit altogether. Pooped by attempting Icarus, she took a sharp right and hopped over the split rail fence that bordered the road because using the opening a foot away from her vaulting point would have defeated the purpose of the steeplechase. Grace hit the grass and stopped to assess the small orchard of five trees.
She stood staring at the trees for a considerable amount of time, swaying almost imperceptibly to the rhythm of the slightest movement of branches. Grace knew what was happening. Having done this so many times, she immediately fell into the familiar ritual along with little Grace. She let her eyes go loose, unfocussed like searching for a Magic 3-D picture. Under her near cross-eyed gaze, the trees began to transform. Holes, knots and swirling bark clarified themselves into eyes and a variety of features whose placement would have made Picasso proud. The gnarled and twisted branches morphed into beckoning arms with many jointed fingers. The shoulders, elbows, wrists bent again and again at broken angles with arthritic swelling at the joints. Slow fingers crooked, calling Grace to come taste their wares. Each tree had become a tiny wizened ancient person, welcoming and familiar, vying for Grace to pick his shoulders to sit on and taste of his fruit.
This was a strange realm that Grace’s mind entered on many a lazy summer afternoon. Usually able to work herself into a tizzy of fear over an elaboration of her imagination— an anonymous hand shooting out between the slats of the cellar stairs, sinister eyes lurking from the crack in the bulkhead that keeps the bay from washing the shore away, the muscular arm of late summer’s swirling undertow holding Grace down indefinitely—oddly, the tiny grove of wrinkled mutated treemen seemed friendly, not frightening.
Today, she chose the nearest tree whose lowest branch was just the right height for a limber kid to swing up with agility born of desire. She straddled the branch and shimmied backward into the crook, where trunk meets branch. Settled in safe and snug on a favorite set of strong shoulders, Grace lifted her legs up into a balanced lotus pose that comes naturally only to children, Gumby or Ghandi. Finally and perfectly comfortable, she fell to her task of picking and eating mulberries.
“Don’t you think it’s weird that she’s all by herself? You’d think everybody in the neighborhood would have been in those trees. A murder of crows swarming and devouring.”
“Not weird. I would just say it must have been nice for you to have time alone to look at the water, watch the sunset and enjoy the fruit.”
“Yeah, that’s a much better way of putting it. Still, it seems like I’m always alone.”
“Grace, you were never alone.”
The mulberries were perfect. Deep crimsony-aubergine mounds comprised of smaller globelets of juiciness. All of the fruits were not fully ripened; there was a rainbow of readiness ranging from tartest green, sungold, fire-orange, almost luscious scarlet, not quite burgundy, perfected purple. You definitely had to be a pro to pick the perfect mulberry, careful and patient. Still, there seemed to be an endless supply. Every day that she climbed up the tree, she would climb back down sated, fingers, mouth and (who knows why) soles washed in purple berry. Grace watched herself, sitting and munching, enjoying the end of the day, oblivious to anything but the goodness of it all. Knowledge loomed that she could not go back and climb into that tree and enjoy the simple act of picking berries. The void was an unbearable hollow ache inside her. She poked at it absently, relishing the pain of the wound.
“Stop Grace, this is supposed to remind you of the goodness in your life-- not cause you an endless reverie of the bitterness of loss. Remember the good things that will give you joy and bring gladness to your heart.”
He doesn’t understand.
This betraying thought, voiced internally a third time, provoked a dawning somewhere. Words crowed:
That’s a lie. He does understand.
He understood her better than anyone else, probably better than she ventured to understand herself. Could she trust him? Could she believe him? Did she dare to hope? At that moment, Grace noticed that, as they watched the movie, she had reclined against his chest. She felt secure, safe, comfortable.
I am falling in love.
This startling recognition made her sit upright. Repose abruptly ended, she noted with bittersweet longing that her show had ended also. The reel was over, a non-existent tape slapping in an endless circular rotation and they sat watching nothing but the stars. Grace didn’t know much about constellations but she was almost sure this was a different sky than she was used to seeing.
“The past is over. It is time to move on.”
Grace had a moment of panic in which she thought he might leave her. She clutched hard at his arm, marveling that this was the same arm she had refused to touch such an endlessly short time ago. Where she once feared intimacy she was now terrified of losing it.
“I don’t think I’m ready for this to be over yet. I know there’s more.”
She couldn’t articulate her desperation to know him better and find out what this night was all about. She couldn’t express her fear at returning to the street, alone, full of drugs with nowhere to turn. She didn’t want to be back in her own bed if she was just going to wake up and go back to that street at the end of the day.
“Don’t worry Grace, I’m not finished with you yet.”
A hiccuping sob noise of relief popped out of her mouth before she could cover it over with her hand. Leaning back into his arm, she barely heard his voice recede into the muffled folds of her consciousness,
“Don’t forget how you trust me right now Grace. We are moving into ugly territory. You’re going to feel ashamed. Know that I love you.”
so funny, i was just reading a wrinkle in time to the kids last night...the beginning of this chapitre reminds me of how she describes the first time meg travels with the three ladies
ReplyDeleteprob stolt it without remembering!
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