Jake and Caleb

This is the story of two students who may not have ever met, nor will they ever meet now. But they will always be together in my memory. This is the story of Jake and Caleb.

This past summer, for the first time, I dealt with the death of one of my students. Jake died in a horrible single-plane accident that killed him, a classmate, and his classmate’s father. Just weeks before the accident, Jake sat in my classroom, patiently raising his hand or emailing me for missed work when he was out sick. He was a good kid, a strapping 15-year-old that seemed to have his head on straight and an attractive, throwback spirit about him. I remember giving Jake a B+ for the spring semester. I was upset about this at the time, because I liked him so much and I felt a little angry that I wasn’t giving him an A, a grade that on a handful of occasions I gave to students who seemed much less respectful and honest than Jake. I know this is petty in the grand scheme of life (and in this case, death), but it was real to how I felt.

But on June 29th, it was my turn to be patient. I stood in line at Collier’s Funeral Home in Bridgeton, waiting to see Jake one final time. His parents stood at the head of the casket, his mother’s hand vacillating between her reddened eyes and her youngest boy’s cold forehead. I didn’t know what to say to them. I still don’t. Young deaths just don’t seem fair, and I’m sorry for your loss. I’m sorry for our loss. Jake was such a joy to have in class.

This is Caleb. To preface this, for those of you who don’t know, I coach cross country at my high school. Driving home from an out-of-town cross country meet has to be one of the crummiest parts of coaching. The ride to the meet is filled with excitement and energetic conversations, the time cart-wheeling by as the caravan of cars glides down the interstate. The ride home? No matter how successful the meet, typically it’s just dozing, stinky runners, with little white pods in their ears and one tired coach at the wheel. Bathroom stops and caffeine breaks become the norm, even on the shortest of trips. But driving home from Jefferson City after the State meet this past November, I was treated to something different.

Only a few hours earlier, Caleb, a senior on our team, had finished in second place in the large school race, leading our team to a second state championship in three seasons and cementing his own place as an iconic figure in our team’s history. It was a fitting end to a decorated high school career for Caleb, a remarkably astute, soft-spoken workhorse who burst onto the Top Seven as a freshman and had improved steadily every year, on top of maintaining an A+ average in his classes. But the best runners are often the ones who have hurt the most, and Caleb’s career was no different, having to peel back layers of self-doubt and questioning along his large ascent.

After a post-race pizza celebration, we were on the road. Caleb wanted to ride shotgun in my car, and not long after we hit the interstate, my two other passengers were already asleep in the backseat. Caleb, though, wanted to talk. We talked about his State race—“I shouldn’t have taken the tangent in the bunny ears, separating from [eventual individual champion] Danny Thater and exposing myself to the winds,” he says of his only regret, though deep down he admitted satisfaction with second place. We also talked about how satisfying it was to have the team end on such a high note, when most people around the state picked us to finish second or third. Always the concerned teammate, Caleb lamented how one of the juniors in the race ended a strong season with a less-than-ideal State performance, wishing that his teammate would have had a better taste in his mouth as he headed into his offseason training. The normally tough drive home was going by smoothly with Caleb in my ear.

After our talk about running tailed off, a silence fell over Caleb. He turned his head and looked out his window. I gulped, thinking that this would be the beginning of the slog home, the dreaded grind. I knew there was no time for excessive stopping, though, as a surprise party for our head coach awaited us back at school. I prayed this would provide the necessary bolt of adrenaline needed to hurtle me along the dark mid-Missouri interstate. But the silence didn’t last long. Caleb turned back to me and hesitantly asked a question, prefacing it with the fact that I’d probably say no. I couldn’t help but hope he didn’t want a career in sales.

“Coach, can we pull off at some random exit? I just noticed how beautiful the sky is tonight. There are stars everywhere.”

“I’m sorry, Caleb. We really need to get back to make it to Coach’s party.” Damn, I suddenly felt old. But Caleb’s excitement only grew.

“I know all that, but I’ve always wanted to stop in the middle of nowhere and look at the stars. I’ve asked my parents on our road trips so many times, but they always say no.” He looked to the backseat, one guy asleep and the other staring off into the darkness, paying no apparent attention to our conversation. “And Coach, I think Tyler and Emmett want to see the stars, too.”

I had a feeling this one would be tough to duck. We wrestled for a few more minutes, but eventually I relented. I pulled off at the loneliest looking exit I could find, took a left, driving away from he gas stations and convenience stores. The well-trained runner that he is, Caleb started his stopwatch precisely at the moment we hit the off-ramp, promising we’d be back on the interstate within ten minutes. I had no doubt we’d hit his mark.

Within a few hundred yards, the paved road turned to gravel, and the lights were immediately few and far between. Scenes of a bad movie shot through my head, but I reminded myself we were only going to look for some stars and would be back on the road soon enough. We quickly found a deserted driveway and I killed the engine. Caleb ran out of the car and lay on the gravel. I got out and reclined on the hood of the car. The amount of stars we could see was pretty staggering, and for a moment no one said a word.

But Caleb wasn’t silent for long. “The Big Dipper! The Milky Way! Coach, I’ve never seen the Milky Way before.”

After taking it in a few more moments, Caleb said he was getting cold and picked himself up. He walked toward me. I sat up on the hood in time to receive a big hug and a quiet thank you. We got back into the car, turned around, and headed back toward the highway. As we drove down the on-ramp, Caleb had one more thing to say.

“Eight minutes and 48 seconds,” he said, the biggest smile on his face. “Coach, we did it.”

We did miss the surprise moment at the party, but as we walked into the gym back at school an hour or so later and looked around at the bustling conversations and smiles, it seemed that no one there was really bothered by our delayed arrival. The party had only just begun, and I had just helped a 17-year-old realize a dream of soaking in the stars.

Maybe, just maybe, Jake was there, smiling along beside us.

Man’s Best Friend?

People may ask: are you a cat or dog person? I don’t think I’m either.  

I used to think I wanted a dog. My sister had this gentle, beautiful border collie named Gulliver. Gulliver got his name because they had to travel to Illinois, I think, to get him from the litter. He was the runt of the litter, his fur part light brown, not the typical collie black and white. He had these gorgeous blue eyes that you couldn’t help but fall in love with, a patch of brown fur around one and white the other. He would play ball with you all day. Literally. It was a contest of wills, Gulliver never ceasing to nudge that fuzzy ball a little closer with his big, brown, wet nose. I remember sitting on my parents’ black, leather couch when I was, oh, 13 years old I guess, seeing Anne walk around the side of the house with this brown ball of fur in her arms. Twelve years later, Anne and Jon had to put Gulliver to sleep.

But as I grow a little older now, I’m not sure I want to deal with one of my own. Some couples say that they get a dog first, to prepare for having a child later on. I’m not sure I need to deal with puppies to know how to love my son or daughter.

What’s the advantage, companionship? At times, I get on board with this, but then I lose a little support when I see my so-called best friend licking himself. 

*Note: this post is written as I sit at my principal’s house dog-sitting his two co-dependent canines who confuse the living room carpet for a fire hydrant and bark at their own shadows.

A Scary Proposition

I’m about to find myself in a new position. Next week, once Spring Break ends and I go back to school, I’ll probably be handed a contract that says some scary things, most notably: full-time teacher, campus minister, and head coach of the largest sports team in the school. Yikes. For the first time since I graduated from college, I’m about to end an academic year with concrete knowledge of where I’ll be 12 months later. And probably even beyond. No longer will there be a hint of possibility that I could be entering the Great Unknown, moving across the country or world to a city that right now I might not even know exists.

But I don’t want to give the impression that I think life will suddenly be predictable. It never is. I’ll just be encountering my surprises and new possibilities in relatively established parameters. You know how when you’re young, the world and your own place in it seems so limitless? Well, my own place is about to grow a little more defined. And though I feel great about the life I’ve found, part of me is scared about this movement.

Then again, I’m a guy. Struggling with commitment issues. Go figure.

“For Angela” – Short fiction, excerpt

Ever since she was a young girl, Angela was fascinated with the night. One particular night at bedtime, when she was four, Angela asked her mother a question that she would ask again and again until her mother would become worried the day Angela stopped asking.

“Will the sun come back tomorrow?” she asked, gazing out her second-story bedroom window. Over the leaves of an elm she could see that the night was clear and a string of stars dotted the sky.

“Of course, honey. It always does.” Her mother pulled the covers up to Angela’s chin.

Angela turned her gaze to her mother. “Why does it go away then?”

“The sun needs to sleep. Just like little girls.” She brushed Angela’s frizzy brown hair out of her eyes.

“Why does the sky turn purple and orange and green when the sun goes to sleep?”

“That’s called dusk.”

“What’s dusk?”

“It’s when night and day touch hands and, just for a moment, dance together and light up the sky.”

“Do you think one of those stars is Susan?” Angela pointed out the window.

“Yes, honey.” Her mother gulped, looking away from Angela, toward the window. “Yes. I do.”

Angela squinted her eyes at her mother. “Then where does Susan go during the day?”

Though Angela couldn’t see it, tears welled in her mother’s eyes. “Flies around the world and makes sure that all little girls stay safe.”

Angela crawled out of bed and grabbed a lone purple candle from the Advent wreath on her dresser across the room. She brought it over to the bed and laid it next to her mother.

“Can we put this in the window, Mom?”

“For what, Ang?

“Just so Susan knows which house is ours.”

Her mother nodded. She walked over to a drawer and pulled out a pink-tinted glass candle holder. Arranging the candle on the sill, she lit the candle and sat back on Angela’s bed. Angela smiled and crawled back into bed, pulling the covers up to her head.

“Goodnight, Mom.”

“For Angela” – Short Fiction, Pt. 1

A woman, Angela, lies sedated on a hospital bed, her eyes closed. Her frizzy, gray hair lays greased and flaccid on her head. A man, Richard, sits on a metal folding chair at Angela’s side, his balmy hands clutching her left, a hand hanging loosely like a strung fish. A silver, unadorned rosary hangs from the clump of hands on the edge of the bed. His eyes are splotched and red, but even if he felt tempted to look anywhere but her wrinkled face, nothing else in the room would hold his attention for long. The room’s plain beige walls do little to make the room feel any bigger than it is. Other than a tan overnight bag on the floor near the bed, the room is spartan and the air smells of disinfectant. Blue sky filters in through the window, but the day is cold. The season’s first batch of sub-freezing temperatures has frozen over Lake Towhee, a body of water that rests within view of Angela’s tenth floor window. During the summer, the lake is home to tubers, skiers, and other water adventurers. But now, fishermen, bundled up in black, knee-length parkas and red stocking caps, tempt fate by dragging their sleds and tools out onto the lake for the first time this season. From the window, they look like miniature figurines moving in half motion, figurines unaware of the blitzkrieg underway in this tenth floor hospital room.

In what to Richard seems to have been only yesterday, the scourge sprouted from her colon and stomped its way through the rest of her body. It all happened so quickly that the scourge had penetrated so deeply and launched into the lymph nodes to metastasize the pancreas before she could even begin to think about the Christmas cards she would not be sending out that year. Though the two are in their early eighties and have each lived in ways most people could only dream about, the man cannot help but silently curse God because he feels she has been taken too early. Not again, he thinks.

“Delicate” – Short Fiction

Delicate

Brian Gilmore

The rain falls in torrents, but weather can’t derail me from my quest tonight. I enter the pub and brush the rain off my jacket. Disinterested pairs of eyes slowly rise before settling back down to the emptiness before them. Thunder rolls gently in the distance, enough to provide extra cover for hushed conversations but not enough to scare anyone away. Flickering tabletop candles cast shadows that danced around the booth, bouncing off dark wood paneling and exposed timbers that exude warmth. I order a pint and take a seat at the empty booth along the far wall, third from the window, the booth we’d sat at for years. It was comfortable.

I reach into my pocket and brush up against the small, square box, making sure it’s still there. Still real. I run my hands through my hair, eyes trained on the door.

A friend of ours had set us up, a few years ago, and after a nice dinner at a little Italian place in town, I lost it. I really did. Screw jarred loose. After dinner, taking advantage of the warm summer evening, we went for a walk through the city. We found a little park and stretched out on the grass for a bit. There we were, lying next to each other, gazing at the quarter moon, and I decided to rattle off the reasons why she absolutely amazed me. You’re unlike any other woman I’ve met. You’re beautiful. You’re modest, taking nothing you have for granted in this world. You value and cherish a sense of something greater than yourself, a humility that is too often lost among people today. That kind of stuff. Nothing like a little first-date honesty, huh? But as ridiculous as I felt that night (and what stopped her from putting my number on her block list after she got home that night, I’ll never know) it’s even more incredible to see how things have turned out. That night, I think a part of me saw through the twists of time and pictured us at this moment. At this very threshold.

I glance down at my watch. Any minute now. Lightning momentarily illuminates the bar before it darkens again after a low, sustained growl. The door opens and in walks a man carrying a guitar case. He mutters something to the bartender and makes his way over to the corner table by the fireplace. The man sits down, removes his guitar, and for a moment is content to quietly strum and tune up. None of the handful of people in the bar takes more than a casual notice of this man before going back to their own moments. After a minute, the bartender brings the man a dark pint and joins him at the table. From under the table the bartender pulls out a smaller case and deftly assembles a penny whistle. After pausing for a moment to catch the guitarist’s tune, the bartender put the whistle to his mouth and joins in, playing a slow, yearning melody that I don’t recognize. A couple on the other side of the room quietly turns their chairs to watch the two harmonize, communicating only through the ebb and flow of the music. They respond and feed off each other, seemingly taking turns completing the thought that the other had begun.  I smile and take a long sip.

My butterflies have little baby butterflies of their own. I think it’s the right thing to do, though. At the end of the next tune —“Fields of Athenry,” I knew that one— the bartender puts the penny whistle down and makes his way behind the bar to draw some rounds. The guitarist pauses and takes a long, relaxed swig from his pint before continuing on to the next song, hardly missing a beat.

The relationship hasn’t always been easy, though, I’ll tell you that much. In fact, there was a time when I wasn’t even sure if we’d make it to this point. We broke up for awhile and I started seeing some other girls. And I had a nice enough time with these girls, but at the end of any night with them, the only thing I really wanted to do was ring Mary and talk about how this one ate her pizza with a fork, or how she wouldn’t drink wine because it gave her the hiccups. She finds stuff like that pretty funny.

Mary dated some other guys, I think, but I don’t really want to talk about that. It was hard enough just imagining it. We managed to stay friends, though, bruises and all.

One day we started talking—you know, really talking, like we had before—over a bottle of wine, an Argentinian Malbec, I think, and, well, one topic led to another until she looked me in the eye, letting that gaze sit there for what felt like an eternity.

“Why aren’t we together?” she said.

Wow. Hands down, way-the–hell-out-of-the-park, no-brainer numero uno question on my all-time top ten questions asked list. Spoken to or from. Trust me, I knew how to take it from there, and here we are today, box ready in my pocket. Except, I’m not sure where she is. She’s usually not late for anything.

The phone in my pocket buzzes to life. A text flashes across the screen: RUNNING LATE. SORRY. She’s coming. I signal the bartender for a fresh pint. Maybe she knows what awaits her and can’t decide what to wear. That’s probably it. Ten bucks and my right nut says she’s even more gorgeous than she was the last time I saw her. That’s just usually how it works with her.

Outside the storm has started to rage, but inside the soulful yearnings of the guitar maintains the tranquil mood, if just for another moment. My palms trickle sweat. A gust of wind blows open the door just as a lightning bolt incinerates the night sky, disappearing as quickly as it came, leaving a faint trail of white in my eyes. Through the open door rushes a figure cloaked under a black jacket. The form looks feminine, but this woman has a yellow umbrella. Mary hates yellow. The woman removes her hood. My eyes widen.

I’ve never believed much in love at first sight. I like to be just as romantic as any other sap, but I just don’t see how one sweaty, pulse-racing moment can possibly tell you she’ll never rinse the peanut butter off her knife before leaving it in the sink for three days, or that she’ll always drink a little too much red wine when you have people over because she’s afraid of coming over as quiet and uninteresting, or that she’ll snore in bed after she’s eaten pepperoni pizza.

But you know that scene in Casablanca where Ingrid Bergman stares wistfully off to the side of the camera? It’s the shot where every dude on this planet can’t help but wish he was not only alive in the 40s, but that she was really gazing at him? I can’t remember the context of the scene—she’s probably talking to that lucky S.O.B. Bogart—but my God, what a look and what a woman. Well, that’s the look I’m getting from the woman at the door. Except, this look is in full color.

Shaking the renegade water off her wavy blond hair, she gives me a slight, coy smile. She walks toward my table and takes the empty seat across the booth. Mary’s seat.

I offer her a drink. She declines. I offer her a smoke.

“Nasty habit to start,” she says.

I offer my name. She accepts.

“Pleased to meet you,” she says. She pauses, as if waiting for something, then goes on. “Do you believe in love at first sight?”

I sip on my pint and gaze out the window. Mary will be here any minute. She persists, the weight of her stare penetrating deeply, softly.

“Well, do you?”

I change the subject for a moment. “Are you meeting anyone?”

“I just moved into town,” she says. “I don’t know a soul. Mind if I sit and talk with you?” Again she smiles.

Mary’s on her way. Any minute.

“Tell me about yourself,” she says.

We sit together in that booth—our booth—and I find myself unraveling my story, piece by piece, to this mysterious woman.

She asks about things like my relationship with my parents. How am I supposed to tell her how every time I watch Field of Dreams I cry because the scene with Kevin Costner and his dad reminds me of my own insecurities and fears about my own father? She asks about my biggest regrets in life. Do I want to tell her about the time cheated on Mary after I went out and got loaded, pissed that she blew me off for her girlfriends? How do you communicate demons to a perfect stranger?

Just when I think I have things charted out, the legend made and the map color-coded…. No. No—the only thing that needs to happen is for Mary to walk through that door.

But then she asks me what I’m most afraid of.

“Got anyone you’re waiting for tonight?”

My hand reflexively shoots into my pocket. “She’s everything I could hope for,” I say, slowly. “She makes me happy.”

She nods. I crack. For the next stretch of blurred time, I spill everything about Mary—my hopes, my questions, my fears … my sudden doubts. Tears welling, I pull back into silence and gaze beyond the woman toward the musician lazily picking at the strings of his guitar.

“Excuse me for a minute,” I say. I stand up, walk toward the window, composing myself, and call Mary. After three rings, she picks up, her voice sounding more anxious than usual. Maybe she knew.

“Mary,” I say, “what’s your story? You’re over an hour and a half late.”

“I know, I know,” she says. “Something came up that I just had to take care of, I’m so sorry.”

“Are you okay?” I say.

“I’m fine, it’s just something that can’t really wait right now. I’ll explain when I get there. I love you, honey. I’m almost there.”

I run my hands through my hair and walk back over to the booth. She sips her pint and looks at me with a playful, knowing smile.

“Night not going as you planned?”

“You could say that.” God, she unsettles me. No one, not even Mary, has done that to me. Not like this.

“You know,” I say, “I don’t know a damn thing about you.”

She nods. She grabs my hand with one hand and places her other onto my cheek.

“Listen,” she says, “I don’t know how things with this Mary are going to work out. You seem like a good guy who deserves the best. But here, take this. Just in case.” She removes her hand from my cheek and moves my pint from its coaster. She grabs the coaster, scribbles a phone number on the back, turns it over, and slides it across the table. 

Without another word or gesture, she rises from the table, puts on her coat, and walks out the door. A cold gust of air blows through the pub, the storm showing no signs of subsiding. I stare blankly at the coaster and put my pint back on top of it.

Then Mary walks into the pub. She sees me sitting in our booth and rushes over, a giant smile on her face.

“I’m not feeling so well anymore, Mary. Can we just call it a night?” I say. “We’ll do it another night, I promise,” I say. “Let’s just rent a movie or something.”

“We can’t abandon a good soldier, though,” she says, still smiling, pointing to the pint. She picks it up, the coaster sticking to the condensation on the bottom of the glass. After clinging to the glass for a brief moment, the coaster flutters to the table, underside up, and she downs the rest of the pint. Startled, I notice that the coaster is blank. I pick up the coaster, and place it in my pocket.

I stand and walk out of the pub and into the rainy night, Mary a step behind me. The guitarist continues to play, delicately picking at the strings. 

This is the New Year

Yesterday, I sat at my desk and looked out over a bright, sunny afternoon. The air was crisp, but earlier that day the sun urged me to drive with the windows down—though to be honest, I also fired up my seat warmer. You know, just to be sure.

But a few days ago was a different story. It was a very mild December day, odd for Christmastime in St. Louis, the kind of day about which Al Gore might laugh all the way to the bank. Art Hill sled-hounds mustn’t have been happy to see temperatures soaring well above the critical mass for the white Christmases so many people dream about. Too bad, too, because strong storms lingered over the area all day. We would have been knee-deep in the white stuff.

But for as good as I felt driving down the road that day, sailing along in my car with my coat bundled and eyes wide open, the other day I couldn’t help but feel scared. The mild temperatures were nice, but no part of me wanted anything to do with the outside. I sat in my room and, for the first time this Christmas break, wished school would just go ahead and start, putting me out of this sudden misery where even the most innocent of question about my future sent me into a tailspin of self-doubt and anxiety.

In some ways, I feel my life these past few years has been similar to these St. Louis weather patterns. I’ve been doing some hardcore head-scratching. I’ve been given much and have worked hard for where I have gotten, but what the hell am I doing now? Some days now I find myself staring down something I feel to be a vocation – where my deepest sense of happiness and desire really does seem to grab hands with something helpful and positive for the world – but other days I find myself curled up and throwing around the what if questions. I should be doing something more. At these times I usually just grow frustrated and with a whimper concede that this is just what it’s like to be twenty-five. At these times I also take a look around me and see the very real pain of so many.

In a book I’m reading right now, Chris Lowney uses the point of view of a CEO or Fortune 500 president to describe how the Jesuits have seen exceptional leadership create a “company” atmosphere that has led to its enduring success over the past 450 years. Each chapter is dedicated to different qualities of successful leaders, which in the case of the Jesuits Lowney says boils down to four traits: self-aware, creative, loving, and ambitious. His contention is that this four-pronged head of effective leadership not only molds men in a particular Catholic religious order, but it also can create more effective leaders in all parts of life and work.

As most of you know, I’m now in my second year of teaching high school in St. Louis. Life has been unfolding itself to me, sometimes too slowly for my taste, but all too often incredibly generously—as if to say, the bright days are never far off. I am abundantly blessed with health, my family, and an array of friends over the world that I don’t always keep up with in a way that matches my love for them. These things I know. But, am I doing my life as I should? This is my only shot at it, right?

Just as the Jesuits hold the Spiritual Exercises—an exercise in self-awareness that culminates in specific actions that is akin to the Socratic condemnation of the unexamined life—as one of the foundations for all they do, whether as novitiates or priests celebrating their 30, 40, or 50-year anniversaries after ordination, so, too, have I been becoming more self-aware these recent years.

Having a job right out of college that I absolutely hated better taught me how and in what capacity I want to spend my working years.

Seeing former friends and relationships drift away spoke to me about the need to sometimes just accept the fact that there’s no one I can control but myself—and even that can be a dubious feat at times. But you know what, I say with a quiet laugh, next time I know what I might be able to do a little better.

Being connected with the retreat experiences that can help shape the lives of at least 750 young men at my high school has forced me to reconsider my own experience as a spiritual seeker. So, too, did suddenly blanking on the words of the Our Father in my daily PA-prayer to the school community.

Being embraced into a resident community of students, staff, religious, and other warm and friendly faces at Washington University’s Newman Center this year has taught me about the overwhelming effects of true hospitality.

Getting my hands dirty with some of the less glamorous behind-the-scenes aspects of coaching has taught me more about humility and my gifts as a patient organizer.

The point being, I think, is that these are the years which are forming me exponentially. I couldn’t quite do it yet, but I’ve considered what it’d be like to draft my own mission statement. What do I stand for? What are the pillars that I fall back on to make all my choices? What are the non-negotiables? I am my own president, and this is the impact that I hope to make on the world. This is my legacy.

So this coming year, I’m just hoping to continue finding happiness in my work, family, and friends. I’m hoping to seek out the idea of magis, the more, in all that I do—and hopefully maintain my beauty sleep on top of that. I’m hoping to cut down the mindless preoccupations that lead me to glide along so superficially and blissfully unaware of the rumblings of my heart. I’m hoping to find new, fresh ways to adapt and seize the opportunities I’m given. I’m hoping to learn how to better deal with and love those around me. I’m hoping to become even more ambitious to motivate myself and others.

It is my prayer that in 2009 you may better realize the things in your life, work, and family that you most care about. It is my prayer that you, too, may see the number of ways that you touch and inspire others. I know this email is going to areas far and wide, so whether I last talked with you earlier today or if we made it all the way through 2008 without talking, know that you are loved and have been in my thoughts. I wish you the deepest sense of peace and joy.

I’m sure the weather will go south again sometime soon, but why do I worry? It’s not like my fair Irish skin would carry any sort of tan anyway. I’m ready.

Yours,

Brian

New story, Pt. 1

How do you properly grieve when to do so would be to give nod to a part of yourself that you don’t know how to deal with? That’s what a buddy of mine faced a while back. It tore him up. It nearly tore all of us up. Thinking about it all still makes me scratch my head and cringe. And this all happened over ten years ago now, our baptism into post-college life.

When we heard the news about James, of course we were devastated, but no one was particularly surprised. You hate to admit it, but as we huddled and talked around Dick’s basement the night we found out, most of us agreed he’d dodged so many bullets already. His luck just ran out. James had a great heart, but he was the kind of guy who played his chips a bit too fast and loose for this town’s liking.

We were friends with the guy, but it was Davey who first brought James to our group. The two of them met in college. But since long before James came around, Davey had been my best friend. He and I grew up on the same street: a sleepy, wooded avenue whose inactivity extended our wiffleball diamond from the yard onto the road. During the summer his mom would call us in for dinner during the seventh-inning stretch, and as long as the late sun of June hadn’t bled too far toward the darker nights of August, after dinner we’d go back out and finish the game. If we were lucky we’d even be able to squeeze in part of another before it got too dark to see the ball. By the time we were older, Davey had figured out how to make the wiffle ball dance, so I needed all the light I could get.

We both went to the high school less than a mile away from our homes, the school where everyone in town went. Davey and I both started for the baseball team, him at pitcher and me in right field. We were a good duo, Davey and I. Over one late-night, beer-drenched bonfire our senior year, the two of us vowed to go to the same college and be together for four more years. Thing is, while I was sending in my deposit to State, Davey was writing essays to some architecture program in Boston. I guess they were good essays, because one day Davey packed his bags and left for New England. I never really said how it all hurt me a bit, although I think he probably knew.

It was while I visited Davey freshman year that I first met James. James lived on Davey’s dorm floor, and he seemed to be a good enough guy. He was from the city, and he had a different way of dressing than most of us were used to. Davey and I had never seen much reason to wear more than a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, unless it was Sunday morning, and then Mom always made me put on slacks and a collared shirt. James seemed to always be dressed like it was Sunday morning, and he even wore cologne to the canteen. I didn’t quite understand that.

During the summer after freshman year, James came to town to visit Davey. He came off to our group as friendly, although in this awkward sort of way. He would stand before you, hands jammed in his pockets, real hang-doggish sort of look in his eyes, and he’d just wait for you to say something to him. We couldn’t help but like him, though. He was the kind of guy who really had your back. And once you got a brew or two in him, he got a lot more interesting. He’d tell us stories about what it was like sneaking out of the apartment, down the fire escape at night without slipping in sight of his parents’ balcony. And then once he was out, what kind of people and places the city held—even late at night. He was the kind of guy who would fill your glass and slide you a cigarette without expecting you to turn around and do it for him five minutes later. He just seemed happy to be hanging out with a fun group of people.

But I’ll never forget the night Davey made the truth known. No one will. 

Ozymandias: a sandy warning through time

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
-”Ozymandias” by P.B. Shelley

This gem nearly got lost amidst the theme of this week for my students: Christmas break starts Thursday and I’m not gonna listen to anything you have to say. It’s okay, I pretty much felt the same way about anything they were telling me. But, despite all their groaning and my own sluggishness, let it not be missed that this is a pretty amazing piece of short poetry.

Take one look around you. How many people spend effort on inflating, bottling, controlling, and repairing their self-image? Take one look inside you. We do it, too. The amount of time and energy we spend on making ourselves look good is quite considerable, and this poem I think talks about pride taken to the extreme. Pride taken to an extreme, but this extreme is not unrecognizable.

For Ozymandias, or Ramses the Great to his ancient Egyptian homies, his ultimate sense of hubris paves the way for his ironic undoing. He commissioned a sculptor to memorialize his face and his power. Over three thousand years later, all that remains of the once-great king and his glory and civilization is a battered, crumbling memorial surrounding by nothing but blowing, endless sand. Time conquers even the most powerful. But despite the statue’s state of disarray, the arrogant sneer of Ozymandias remains visible. As once-pharaoh of one of the great world civilizations, Ozymandias’s sense of pride and power (“Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair”) is underpinned by the isolation it finds itself in now, yet the spirit of his commission remains. Nothing of the king’s glory remains, but the sculptor’s ironic message is still alive.

What’s lasting in this world aren’t achievements or physical conquests. What’s lasting is the spirit of our actions. People won’t remember all your accomplishments, but they might remember the kind of person you were along the way. What catalyzes our lives? A constant desire to establish permanence or a desire to make the most of the time we have?

“The Story We Know” (Martha Collins)

The way to begin is always the same. Hello,
Hello. Your hand, your name. So glad, just fine,
and Good bye at the end. That’s every story we know,

and why pretend? But lunch tomorrow? No?
Yes? An omelette, salad, chilled white wine?
The way to begin is simple, sane, Hello,

and then it’s Sunday, coffee, the Times, a slow
day by the fire, dinner at eight or nine
and Good bye. In the end, this is a story we know

so well we don’t turn the page, or look below
the picture, or follow the words to the next line:
The way to begin is always the same Hello.

But one night, through the latticed window, snow
begins to whiten the air, and the tall white pine.
Good bye is the end of every story we know

that night, and when we dose the curtains, oh,
we hold each other against that cold white sign
of the way we all begin and end. Hello,
Good bye is the only story. We know, we know.

Hello, it’s wonderful to meet you. But goodbye, big day at work tomorrow, I really should be going. Sometimes it’s forced. Hello, I’m trying to find someone, a certain someone. Have you seen her? I believe she was wearing brown shoes with a crystal snowflake. Goodbye, I can’t believe he died this young, so shocking. I just had a beer with him three weeks ago. Hadn’t heard from him since.

Most of the time, this is the story we know. A story of transience, a story of prophylactic hesitation, a story which scoffs vulnerability. But this story is sane; it protects us. Yet, once the end arrives, where are we?

One day, perhaps a night, we will become confronted by our goodbye, our ultimate goodbye. Hello, it’s lovely to be here. Goodbye, my time looks like it might be up. What have we gained? What have we given? What difference have we made? What have we touched beyond ourself?

Tonight, we block out all the distractions, all the surface dives. We know we will have to leave in the morning. Suddenly, all the ritual, all the tap dancing, all the game playing, it all fades together, converging on oblivion. Nothing we have guarded can be taken with us.

Tonight, we embrace each other, holding each other tight. We turn toward each other, speaking of our humanity, our flaws, our fears. Tonight, as we gaze toward each other, we find out more about what we were sent here to do. We find out more about meaning itself. This is our reality.

Hello goodbye. This we know. But about the space in the middle of the two? Grab my hand and we’ll find out.