Lost

Lost -a reading (on YouTube)

Some weeks seem so full of problems, plans and appointments piled one atop another day after day that when they are all resolved, I'm uncertain what to do next. I feel like a child searching for direction, striving toward a goal that he has lost sight of or never completely understood. I'm not sure if it's the pollen, the weather, or some other internal or external factor. The feeling just envelops me like a fog until my world becomes unclear and indistinct. I feel as though I'm still waiting, stuck circling in an endless holding pattern. The runway lights are visible but I never receive clearance to land.

On days like this, it is hard not to feel completely isolated and alone. I belong to no pack, embrace no herd, have no clan to call my own. I feel like a one-man play with no supporting cast, no Greek chorus to warn me of my folly, no social safety net to catch me if I fall. Instead of exploring new or undiscovered countries, I circle back along the fringes of familiar places, uncertain whether to stay or go.

On Sunday I had an unexpected visitor. A young, gray tiger came knocking at my front door. When he saw me through the window, he immediately started crying as if I had been remiss and left him out all night. It was cold outside that morning, at least for a cat born in Florida. I thought to offer him a little food, something to warm him a bit until the sun could take over. As soon as he heard the cabinet open, his ears perked. He sat up on his hind legs when he heard kibble rattle against the ceramic bowl.

When I joined him on the front porch, he was friendly but cautious. He had obviously been around people and knew what he was missing in regular meals and a warm bed. His fur, thick, rough and a little gritty, gave him away as spending most of his time outdoors. His white socks were just an off color of gray. He had scratches along his nose from defending his territory. He was comfortable at being petted, though somewhat skittish of any sudden movement. When he turned his attention to the bowl I set before him, I could see he was an unneutered male.

He dove into the dish like a man just rescued from a deserted island. He finished every morsel, sniffing along the ground for any crumb he'd left behind. When I retreated back inside after he'd eaten and washed, he sat staring at the front door, waiting for it to reopen, waiting for an invitation to follow me inside. After several minutes of disappointment, he trotted behind the house to stalk the top of the ditch in the now bright morning sun.

I don't know his story, don't know whether he was a stray abandoned by his owner, a wildling raised around people, or simply a semi-neglected pet forced to spend his life outside. He comes around some nights and cries at the back door as if surprised to find it closed. It's heartbreaking not to be able to open it and let him in. The other two just wouldn't understand.

Many days I know how he feels. I've been outside polite company for so long that I am cautious when the opportunity presents itself. But I haven't turned completely feral. Some instinct drives me back toward the door and longs to be allowed back inside, despite my uncertainty at what I might find within. Despite my reluctance to enter lest someone raise a hand to me again.

In that way, perhaps we are both lost, caught in the twilight between a shadowed world of solitude and self-reliance, and a brighter one of constant warmth and companionship. We beg at the door, accepting any scraps laid out before us. Perhaps, if we are friendly enough or gentle enough, if we purr loudly enough, someone will accept us and let us in. Or perhaps we are merely trying to convince ourselves that inside is where we belong.

So we linger beside the door, hesitating at the threshold when it opens. Afraid that if we enter we will become trapped inside, losing our identity or our independence. Afraid that such a prison within is worse than the one we've already constructed for ourselves without.

Gripped by indecision, we wait in the fog, gray and indistinct, until the sunlight burns through to warm our spirits, and we wander off to hunt or play alone.

© 2009 Edward P. Morgan III

The Gift

The Gift - a reading (on YouTube)

I believe that everyone receives a gift, a talent or a passion they enjoy far more than anything they attempt. For the luckiest, it becomes their profession. For the rest, an avocation or maybe just a dream.

For me, my words are my gift. I'm not saying they are literary or masterful; the wall of rejections behind me says the best I can hope to be is competent or adequate.

Writing is an addiction that I can't stop myself from relapsing into. Thoughts and phrases echo through my mind until I jot them down. The compositions haunt me. They possess me in ordinary moments, walking, driving, watching television, showering. They stalk me into sleep and wake me in the night.

Some messages begin with a reflection that strikes me as significant, or an encounter from my memory that I'm still trying to sort out. It's not that I think my life is unique or even particularly special; it's just the only one I have to reflect on and discuss.

Other messages ignite my imagination with a spark that burns until all its fuel is spent. I record them like a court stenographer then read them back to myself, adjusting and readjusting each word and phrase until my mind is content. Sometimes that takes hours, sometimes days.

A few I play with like a child building sandcastles out of words just to see how they might sound piled one atop of the other. In some I am trying to capture scenes of light and shadow, the beauty that pierces my eye like an ice pick on the days when colors ache and make me want to cry. They emerge in migraine-muddled complexity with strange, almost Lovecraftian references, religious and mythological, the natural symbols that form the currents of my thoughts. Capturing them is almost meditative though I'm sure few people understand their meaning. They are an expression more than a communication.

Then there are the stories, the worlds I become immersed in as I allow myself to explore them. I drown in the character's experiences like an overdose of narcotics. I know their dreams and motivations better than I know my friends. I remember their histories and can feel the events that interrupt their lives. While I'm typing, I can see the places they travel through in vivid detail. When I listen, I can hear their conversation deep inside my head.

But many days, writing is like thinking through cold molasses. A headache pounds or doubts and distractions pile up until each thought becomes an exhausting weight and all I want to do is sleep. On such days, I am lucky to stay positive, lucky to keep shambling forward in something resembling progress. On such days, I have to embrace simple pleasures like remembering to breathe. I have to remind myself that each day is its own gift, its own experience added to the stockpile we call memory with no guarantee that another one will follow.

When I was fifteen, I learned to rappel. That summer, my Boy Scout troop was camped in the mountains of North Carolina. One day, our adult leaders took us over the ridge to the top of a sheer cliff face, maybe sixty feet up.

There, instructors taught us what we needed to know step by step: how to tie our own harness, how to attach the karabiner, how to grasp the rope with one hand and loop it behind our back, how to pull it tight across one hip as a brake, how to set our feet against the rock face. All very simple and exciting to fearless adolescents. After one instructor descended to the bottom in three or four quick leaps, the other asked, "Who's next?"

Like any group of boys, we stood around and shuffled our feet. All of us wanted the opportunity, but none of us want to be the first to make a mistake or look foolish. Since I was the senior juvenile leader at the time, I figured it was my responsibility to step forward. So I did.

The instructor checked my harness and hand positions then sent me to the edge. As with any new experience, the first step was the hardest, the one where you lean backwards over empty air then push off, trusting that everything you've learned is right. After a few tentative hops away from the wall, I jumped out farther and farther, leading to longer and longer drops. All too soon I was at the bottom staring back up, wanting to scramble up the path and take another turn.

But there wouldn't be time. My example was all it took for the line to form at the top of the cliff. Now everyone wanted to try.

While I was waiting for the next of my friends to arrive, I glanced down at my harness. The extra six inches of webbing feeding into the knot had shrunk to between one half and one quarter inch. One good pull and it looked like the knot would come undone completely. In fact it did when I gave it another strong tug. My blood still freezes when I think how close I came that day to a quick, unplanned descent onto the rocky platform where I stood.

I believe that everyone receives a gift. Remember to enjoy the gift today brings, whatever it may be, however hard you have to struggle to embrace it. You never know when the knot might come untied and all your plans will change.

© 2009 Edward P. Morgan III