We Were Not the Center of the World, But It Revolved Around Us Anyway (A Memoir)

             The tire spun around and around, its thick rubber kicking up the dust of the soccer field as it rolled down the hill with me inside. The vertigo was…overwhelming. I tried to see the world.  It tumbled incoherently outside of the little portal of my vision. It was impossible to tell whether it was I or it that had lost control. I coughed and tried to blink the dust out of my eyes.

             It was Jack who came up with the idea. Of course it was Jack. The man was an idiot, always pulling crazy stunts and doing random shit. He always pulled them off; he had the strength, coordination, and stamina to do so. He was an avid cross-country runner and skier, but he was built more like a football player, with massive strength and speed. Jack could run for hours, and he biked everywhere, even in the middle of our -40 winters. He looked as crazy as he acted. He was this white dude with dreads and a kilt held up by Rasta suspenders over a filthy tank top. So the dude goes and hurls himself off a hill (with a little of our help pushing him along) inside of a tire, holding on only by the strength of his feet and back as he braced himself and the world spun.

            It was a logical step, then, that this would happen when Jack was paired with an empty construction-size tire, a hill, and a bunch of the rest of us. We were graduating high school the next day, and we were on a campout. This was bound to happen. We were…excitingly saddened, high off of our grief, drunk of our nostalgia. We stood on the treadmill of life, for one night, and were thrilled by the prospect of tumbling slowly off.

           

            “Brace yourself, your back against one wall, your feet against the other, knees bent. You’re gonna wanna brace yourself really, really well.”

            “Shit.”

It was all I could say. Then they pushed me off, and the world started upheaving.

Graduation was…something I had never looked forward to.

            I had never envisioned a future in which I would be the one in the gown and cap. I had never envisioned a future with a diploma, a future with college, a future in which I would leave this reality. To be honest, I don’t envision. I had never. My eyes were on my work, my head, simply wishing for respite, but never an end. It’s not that I would have never looked forward to it; it’s that I never did. I never looked forward, or back, my eyes on my work and on the present. Looking straight, looking down, ahead, but never around.

            So the reality of the gown and cap has not—has never—sunk in. Even as I stood in the line, all dressed up and waiting for my fellow classmates to move through the door, teachers directing us into the arena. It was never…real. Why should I describe it, those red, shining gowns, the yellow stoles, the smiling faces, the sweaty necks as we paraded onto the red carpet, the seats so comfortable after a long four years walk. We were unprepared, our faces blank, our eyes unfocused for the flashing cameras. We, sitting in our seats and listening to the speeches of those that we loved, still had it in our heads that we would see them again.

It is not that I hate endings. It is that I cannot encompass the idea of moving on.

            I couldn’t brace myself. The tire moved too quick, the rubber too smooth, but most essentially, I was unprepared. Ha, I thought. This is going to be easy because there is no reality in which the tire will upheave so. There is no reality in which my feeble attempts will not be enough. There is no reality in which I am not accustomed to.

            I came loose, the wrench finally free of the gears which finally bear down upon the lives of men. My strength was met by gravity, and gravity was met with my failure. I felt the hard rubber burn against my back as it rolled beneath my feet and beneath my head, or beneath my heart—I could not tell. I tumbled head over heels, end over end in that dusty old tire, both surprised by the movement and by my failure to conquer it. The world was right side up. Of course it was. But I knew it was only a matter of time before the end, or before I was upside down, upheaval like destiny in its ruthlessness.

            It was an embarrassed laugh that greeted my friends from inside that tire. It was a simple thing that I had to do, and I could have done it. And it was not that I could not do it, or I would not do it, but that I found myself dusty and embarrassed, unmanned, for—not simply being unprepared—but an inability to comprehend the reality of the upheaval of my world. I had been convinced that—provided the world was as solid as I knew it to be—I would remain solid with it. But I failed to accept the world as it was: upheaved. As I stared out that three-foot hole in the axis of that dusty old tire, the world appeared upheaved. And if that fact was accepted, then the stability of the one, the stability of the insane son of a bitch tire-rider, then—and only then—could be assured.

           

            As I roll down the hill, I am going crazy; the world that was so stable only appears to upheave.

            As Jack rolls down the hill, the world is going crazy. He, who is so stable, only appears to upheave.

            And that is why I fall, and he endures. That is what I couldn’t get. That is why I have lost control in a reality which I thought so stable, so trustable to remain constant. But it never does, stabbing my trusting self in the back as I realize the world turns in more than one circle, cycling so enticingly ever farther in orbit upon orbits. The world, the sun shining, the sun not shining, it does not matter. It all goes on, ending and beginning and never in the same ways. 

A Goodbye to My AP Lit Class (A Memoir)

I once had a dream that I was martyred.

            There are only a few things I remember about that dream: the small details. The first thing that comes to mind is how my own brother took a knife and carved three long gashes into my face. I remember screaming for him to martyr me; I remember yelling at him to give me more. I remember that I wanted welts on my back from whips, and gashes on my face from knives before I died. I wanted to be martyred, that was easy to remember.

            But for the life of me, I cannot remember what his faced looked like, what kind of expression he had, holding that knife. I remember the exact feeling of deadness in my limbs: It’s the same feeling I have when I wake up each day. I remember how weak I was. But for the life of me, I cannot remember what my brother’s expression was while I dreamt of martyrdom. It is this that probably disturbs me the most.

One of the many things that I have discovered while studying this art of expression—what we falsely call an English Class—is a rather simple observation. My favorite word in the English language is the word “rather”. I’ve found that I use it constantly in essays, just instinctually. Allow me to provide an illustration: It’s not that I simply like how it sounds, but rather, it’s what the word does that is important. The word “rather” highlights the ability to make distinctions and to recognize detail. The root of the word means “more readily”, “more willingly”, or “more truly”. This small word not only allows us to parse out those small distinctions, to comb out those small details, but enables and furthers the search for truth.

            When I tell people that Wednesday was my last normal day of school, and Monday is my last day… like… forever, they ask me if I’m excited. “OOoo, are you excited?” they say. My first reaction is to yell out “No!...I’m not excited… Rather, it makes me sad to know that not only is this the end of an era, but I have not made the era into what it could have been”. Of course, to avoid strange looks, I lie through my teeth to admit that yes, it is a little exciting. But what I have realized that it is not for the fun of it that I would do this whole thing again (for some parts were distinctly not-fun). Rather, I feel the obligation to learn, to get that sentence just right, to state the truth just as it is, precisely as it is. And I know I have not. I, like Oskar Schell from Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, find myself surrounded by detail and simply trying to take, keep, and make sense of those that I can.

            Do you know what’s funny? The word “detail” doesn’t mean what we think it means. We think that it means the little things that are set apart from the whole. The root of the word, however, is this: the combination of the prefix de, which means “entirely” with the suffix taillier, which means “to cut in pieces”. This origin of the word creates a meaning that is more along the lines of metaphorical puzzle pieces. Pieces that we weep over when we’ve finally managed to put together two or three out of the pile.

What I have found is this: that the origin and heart of all our bitter-sweetness—especially about endings, like this one—is that we are, and have been, awash in a sea of detail, and we only have the capacity to take in

a mugful or so

each day with our morning coffee.

And although we may always cry out for more, we always find comfort in those we hold in the silence of our minds, though they be at 2 in the morning, found in the sock drawer—all forgotten, or flitting about a rare hum of a woman whom you thought you knew.

The only thing I can say is seek these out, and join me in the great puzzle as we put the shattered beauty of our lives back together.

My Rose (A Memoir)

Abba…Abba, Father. You are the potter. We are the clay.

            I started with an ugly lump of clay, devoid of shape or form. It was a slimy, disgusting thing to hold, yet bursting with potential. So when it was gently placed in my hand that afternoon in March, I could not help but wonder what I was going to make. It was my first time being a potter, after all.

            “I want you to make something with this clay. I want you to make a gift to God. This is what this is: this is your life. Allow God to shape it.”

            Everybody makes a pot, or barrel, or something. This is the Confirmation Retreat, Confirmation class of 2011: it is filled with people who don’t want to be there, and furthermore, who don’t know what to make of this whole clay activity. The retreat had been interesting, to be polite, thus far. To be honest, most of it has blurred in my mind. I remember a recorded testimonial from an old lady who had survived World War II, which I found quite interesting, if a bit long. The tape put most of the others to sleep. I remember going to Confession and bawling my eyes out, and then trying to hide the tears. I remember singing the Divine Mercy Chaplet with all of my heart, even though I characteristically don’t sing. Everybody makes a pot, or barrel, or something. I was intent on making something meaningful.

            And I had no ideas.

            I resigned myself to making a barrel. It was what everyone else was making, and I was fine with that. But I wanted deeply to make something that meant something, to make something that spoke to me. I knew that this barrel symbolized something along the lines of my being open to God’s will, or God filling me up, or some cheesy thing like that. I knew that it was cheesy. I knew that it was a cop-out, that it was a poor substitute for what was supposed to be a prayer. But I resigned myself to it, and started. What else could I do?

            I was folding the edges in to make a barrel shape, when I saw a shape in the clay, or the possibility of a shape. Perhaps I have an artist’s eye, but as I never have been able to duplicate the feat, I find this proposition unlikely. Perhaps it was something more that showed me this possibility. I am convinced that it God who showed me this possibility for my poor clay, my life.

            I made a Rose.

And it brought my soul to its knees with awe. How could I have fully understood that I was crafting the petals of my life? My life. My identity. It was imperfect, but it was beautiful. The rose was absolutely beautiful. I had never made anything so beautiful before. It was the first really beautiful thing I had made in my life.

That Rose shattered my world. It broke it into little tiny pieces, and formed those pieces into its petals. I cannot say how; I am at a loss. All I can say is that before that retreat, my life was different than it is now. Before, I was doing fine, but I was missing something. I lacked conviction, purpose. Sure, in my life, I had packed a parachute. I had a good job all planned for. I had it all figured out. Then to see this, what God wanted me to do, what God wanted me to be: A Rose, not a barrel; A living thing, not a dead one; A beautiful thing, not merely a useful one; A Saint, not merely a man.

That is my purpose: that He help my take each petal, each piece of my life, and shape it, refine it into a Rose, something worth keeping. It is my job, now, to forge my life with His fire, to grow and live and love. To shape my life in the same beautiful, unique, and special way: His way.

Starlight (A Memoir)

Photo by: soundzgreg.blogspot.com

I remember the dark street, lit by the orange glow of streetlights. The snow squeaks and groans under my feet. With my hands thrust into my inadequate pockets, I look down, because looking up makes me cold. I am alone, too tired to hurry, too cold to stop.

            I remember, tiredly daydreaming here on my bed. Sometimes I get up and stretch, bent, bowed over my pillow, eyes covered by my hands. There are times when I could cry. My body is weary, my mind even more so. My every move is marked with it, drawn out with my want of rest. It is a deep, bone-drained weariness that grips my soul as I sit here, head leaned back against the wall. I tell myself that I cannot go on much longer.

            I work on sporadically, I suppose, listening to the same stale music, staring at a blank page. How I would love to give in to the mindless amusement of Facebook, or Youtube. My smiles would be tired ones, but they would be smiles. But then the weight of my work would descend even harder than before, crashing through my mind, dulling it.

Writer’s block.

I do it anyway.

            Walking, I dare to look up. The cold, infinite blackness of space looks back. I sometimes feel the sucking of space as it steals the warmth from my body. Our pitiful attempts, our stampings and our wrappings, to stay warm are met with ultimate entropy, the cold, dark emptiness that surrounds us. I sometimes wonder that I don’t get sucked out into space with along with the heat, dispersed into nothingness.

            The music on my laptop plays on, filling my mind with something that it can hold onto. It runs and reruns in my mind thoughtlessly, wearily. I don’t know why I listen to music while working. My thoughts are pushed away by lyrics, fading out into lost memory. Coherence is almost impossible to maintain. But I am so tired, so bone-dead. I need something to keep me alive.

            I see the stars. One by one, they come back to me.

            “Look, there’s the Big Dipper” I say to myself, thoughts connecting in a linear fashion. “And there’s the North Star, because the two last stars that make the Dipper’s dipper point towards it”. Perhaps I turn around and say to myself “There’s Orion, and there’s Taurus, because the three stars of Orion’s belt point towards Taurus’ eye. Wow, look how bright Taurus’ eye is. And there are the Pleiades on his back.” Taurus simply leers at me with his bright eye. I realize I don’t like him, and that I am cold. I look back down, and wonder why I don’t feel comforted.

            There is no comfort for me in my bed. There is simply the realization that it’s 11 PM already, and I need to sleep, and there is the apprehension of another dark morning at 6:30 AM. Sleep is a comfort to me, but it is one that is so little used, so little profitable. It offers the opportunity to fade into nothingness, into warmth, glorious warmth; glorious oblivion. But then I am brought back to the reality of the black sky in the morning, the cold, the weariness. Another morning and no sight of dawn. Another cold stamping and wrapping.

There is no star that shines on me, with a tail like a kite.

There is no star both warm and bright.

Not a star in sight.

No warmth. No light.

Twisting and turning, I search for that star, growing colder, hands out of my pockets. Is it anywhere to be found? Where are you?

Light pollution.

Here on my bed, I am splayed. I lean against the wall, head weakly turned towards my crucifix, bleeding out my last Hail Marys while I drift off. I will fall asleep after the first decade or so. The Rosary will fall from my hand, my prayers will end, my eyes will shut, my body fall.

Tomorrow I will wake again. Tomorrow, I will find my precious Rosary underneath my chest where I had fallen the night before. I will pick it up again, loth to be parted from it. Weariness will set in, again. Tomorrow, I will again venture into the cold to search the stars. Tomorrow, I will look for the star with the tail like a kite. Tomorrow, I will look for the light; Tomorrow, I will strive to keep the warmth. Again.

For I cannot help but hope for that star, the heralding of dawn.