1988 Dream

I kept encountering an error message. Sometimes it was written on a printout: [Error 1988: Michael does not exist]. I saw it in emails and text messages. Sometimes it was also spoken in the same voice my Roomba makes an announcement: “Error 1988: Michael does not exist.” As this happened, I was hurrying down hallways, looking over my shoulder, and pushing on doors, trying to find one that opens, hunting for an exit.

But, in one sense, it was understandable. On vacation, a person who needs isolation and solitude, who enjoys writing as their escape and therapy, who is forced to spend almost eighty percent of their time with other people, will end up dreaming about escape.

Right?

The question is, why those numbers?

August 19, 2022 0

Crossroads

Looking out

And up

Listening

Thinking

Speaking

And singing

Going to weddings

Graduating school

Walking the dog

Meeting friends

And lovers

Embarking on trips

Returning home

Cooking meals

Cleaning the house

And car

Speaking on phones

Disconnecting

Eating food

Drinking coffee

Or tea

Trying to decide

What to do

Where to go

What to say

Or wear

Wondering how to respond

Questioning

When to surrender

Make a stand

Or walk away

It’s such a crossroads

This day

This time

This moment

And year

Here comes another

June 17, 2022 3

April 12, 2022 0

Space and Time

He sits in a chair and closes his eyes

With the space of a breath

He becomes another guy

Living in another place and time

Where he sits in a chair and closes his eyes

Ever becoming another guy

Living in another space and time

Nothing is done

Everything’s changed

And all is the same

Never rearranged

Except he sits in his chair

And closes his eyes

And becomes another guy

In another space and time

October 21, 2021 0

Her Life

Her life. She had such a life. All centered on her children. Now. Had been different. Career. Charity work. Volunteering at the Guild and the Food Bank, delivering meals to shut-ins, meeting with the garden club and the book club.

All gone with her macular degeneration. Reducing her life to her children. No, her grandchildren. She and her daughter ‘did not get along’. Saw politics differently. Education. Fashion. Manners. Daughter blamed her for – “Whatever,” she usually explained, too limp to delve deeper into words and emotions, too worn to extricate and untangle the relationship to the satisfaction of anyone outside of it.

The grandchildren, though – twins. He, dyslexic. Energetic. Masculine but wary. She, in the forefront. Quick-minded, always watching, pausing to see. Cowboy boots – red – and sparkling tutus. She, ordering him on what to do, when to do it. How. Correcting him. He, obeying, sometimes with frustration, which the girl child – they were only eight, miniature people, perfect little unblemished slender human replicas – soothed with whispers and touches. She could not see their future. That worried her.

Then him. His life. No life. Writing. Living to write. Brooding, apparently writing in his head. Reading. Walking around, sipping coffee, staring at walls, floors, windows, always there but never there. Her son. She could no longer connect with him at all. He was a house that couldn’t be entered. Curtains on the windows. No doors in nor out.

Phone rang with an old-fashioned tinny sound reminding her of the happy times at her grandmother’s home. Her daughter was calling. She didn’t want to answer. Probably about money. Usually was, when she called. She put a smile into her voice. Shook off her weariness. Must not upset the princess lest she cut off access to the grandchildren. But she would not do that, would she?

Not a chance to be taken. “Hello, honey,” she said, fake happiness in her voice, pressing forward with her life.

July 13, 2021 0

Mae Said

February 24, 2021 0

The End

The world won’t end in a whimper,

and not with a bang,

and probably not with fire and ice.

It’ll end with them shouting, “You lie,”

and others shouting back,

oblivious to the death and dying,

that’s rendering life a wreck.

November 16, 2020 0

Just Another

My friend passed away this week. It’s the polite way of saying he died, an easy way to express and digest it without harsher emotions and pain attached to it. He passed away. It’s like a boat sailing into a sunset, going on a journey, out of sight beyond an horizon, but really still there.

Ed was eighty-nine. He had a brain tumor. Actions were taken, but the body is the body.

He had a spectacular intelligence and a sharp sense of humor. I was flattered to know him and pleased that he sought my company. We always had lively conversations. Since I’ve known him, he’s had white and gray hair, with a receding hair line, and a gray and white riotous beard. His daughter included a photo of him from his youth. Turned out he used to be a blond, handsome man, a far reach from the fellow I knew in appearance. Yet, the resemblance beyond the superficialities of hair and beard was clearly there.

After gaining his PhD from Stanford, he joined NASA in the mid 1960s and was with them until he retired a few decades later. He was less involved with manned space exploration and more engaged with sending satellites out to find information and send it back.

In one sense, we’ve been expecting Ed’s death, in one form or another, since he was born. In another, it took him sooner than we hoped, and we wonder if it’s the curse of 2020.

I know that he’s not the only one who died this week, and that his life and death was much better than what many experience. His daughter informed us of Ed’s death on Wednesday.

“So last night mom went in to chat with dad. His breathing for 48 hours had been in the labored, raggedy stage. But he opened his eyes and they sparkled and he smiled. Mom chattered to him and told him it was ok if it was time for him to go. They had walked a lifetime together. She loved him but could let him go. I came in after to sit the rest of the evening not realizing what mom had said and told him “You’ve climbed a lot of mountains, and this has been a grand adventure of a life, it’s time to finish this final climb. We will walk it all the way to the end with you.” One tear rolled down his eye and about two minutes later I watched him hold his breath, carrying what had become a common pause in breathing, just a little further, and he was gone. He took it before it took him. And that’s the way he wanted it.He set the tone for all of us all the way along this last one year+. And I promise you he spent a lot of time over those 6 days, mostly pain free, sitting as an observer to this final unfolding, with his always enthusiastic and curious mind. He showed no struggle, no despair, no sadness. He fully leaned in to the enitre journey. I think he just would have liked it to go a little longer. But no regrets.”

I always wonder what happens after death, spiritually, but also along the lines of quantum existence. If there is something more, I’m sure Ed will make the most of it. If not, he led a life here worthy of being emulated and celebrated.

Either way, damn, I will miss him.