Perfect Cleverness

I once worried, if I understood how to control my approach to Life, Life would lose its mystery. On the contrary, it has made Life that much more mysterious to me. In honor of Its magic, I continue to trust in what I call The Perfect Cleverness of the Universe.

Making plans to head to L.A., my childcare falls through so I begin filing through my Rolodex of Plan Bs. As I am calculating various numbers, I get this really strong urge to call a couple just as an aside. You know, a Hey, just checking in! The first call is happy news. One set of the kid's favorite aunts and uncles is moving back from more than a thousand miles away. The kids are thrilled to reunite with their awesome cousins and look forward to meeting the second to the latest addition in this paternal clan. Of course, there is a moment when I consider that upon returning from the West, we can reunite but that is before I dialed in a second call. An unanswered call of unhappy news.

First, I am compelled to say, my real awareness of life starts in the 4th grade. It is the time where my memories are more sequential or fluid. Before that, life is fragments. Visual moments. Sounds. I am all over the place in my thoughts. In the 4th grade, I begin to focus. I remember vividly looking around the classroom during our reading time and wondering what everyone else is thinking. I wonder why we think at all. It has always been one of my greatest desires to know. Such a Clever Universe. Anyway, I remember catching the eyes of my friend. I can tell he is wondering what I am wondering. We will laugh about it in the years that follow Mrs. Osbourne's class.

We were thinking the same things.

We call my friend The Bod because he does not really have one. Even in 4th grade it is evident that he will be a shrimp for life. But what he lacks in muscle mass he makes up for in wit and intelligence. He is my best friend. Maybe I should be speaking of him in past tense. He's still here. Only he's not here. I tried to call him and because that phone call did not go through I began thinking of him: Why didn't he answer. He always answers. Within the day, I receive an email from my girlfriend who is worried and wants me to join her in visiting him very soon. In her letter, she tells me his drinking has destroyed him. She is preparing me for the shock of him not knowing us. As I read, I am thinking that kind of lightening never strikes twice. There is a place in you that gets grounded.

He won't remember our last conversation. The one where I tried to discuss his drinking. The conversation that made me into everyone else who didn't understand him. The one that almost ended our friendship. He also won't remember the Charlie's Angels scripts we wrote together or playing bass in his old band. No, he won't remember me. But he might wonder who I am. He might wonder what I'm thinking. Maybe there will be a visual moment or a sound that gives him a clue. He was always so clever.


Dear Grandma,
So much love to you for preparing me
for the fragments of whom I'm about to meet.
I Love You,
Me

P.S. Mom and Dad love you & everyone's fine.

Everything

E= _______

Morning

I don't know if I have the details of this memory correct. I could ask my mother but I'd rather not. I'll just tell it the best way a first grader might.

It's almost Christmas. The postman rings the bell. He has packages for my little sister, me and my brothers. There is a card for my mother. She hands me our box and my sister and I devour it. Inside, there are ceramic Raggedy Ann and Andy happy faces that we'll hang on the wall when my mother can finally collect herself. She's falling apart. I am thinking the postman will come again tomorrow morning but there won't be any more gifts. My aunt mailed these the day of her suicide.

This memory is present in mind because last week, in this small rural hole-in-the-wall, a mother of three, like my aunt, took her life. And like my aunt, there were many failed attempts. I'll detail neither account except to say, in the end, each woman was fully committed to success. Period.

Over the years, my mother has recounted my aunt's life to me. And in each story, there is always the underlying awareness that my mother's own survival had a great deal to do with her ability to restrain herself, her ability to stay within the lines even when the lines were drawn by corrupt and abusive adults. She knew when to keep her mouth shut. She knew when to hide. Through it all, she had the ability to laugh at her world. Sarcasm would become her art form. It was her weapon of choice. I realize now she had found a way to stay connected to her larger Her.

Not my aunt. To restrain was self abuse. To stay within the lines an act of torture. She was vibrant and beautiful. Voluptuous and untamed. And, Christ, she could sing. She was born for vivid self-expression that was never actualized. Her dreams were high and her disappointments low. One day, she just stopped dreaming. Low kept getting lower. Had she ever been connected to the larger Her? If she had never looked inside, she had certainly looked outside of herself for connection. Too much, too often...maybe.

After the funeral (another one I did not attend), my mother found her diary. Like a farewell letter, my aunt shared her darkest thoughts and secrets. I'll not detail those either except to say she was living in a world so dark there could be no other energy flowing to her but more darkness. That is when my mother made peace with her death. She knew my aunt had found a route back to Light.

Here, people are still talking about the beautiful woman I met only once. She was vibrant. I would not have thought she had attempted anything unkind towards herself when talking to her. She had a loving husband and amazing children. A husband who says he would do each moment over again. He makes me wish I would have known her.

To aid my mourning, I have to sow thoughts. Unclear ones but some stream of consciousness that says the world will turn its axis towards compassion for those so different that we're all, eventually, allowed to be who we really are...with ease.