Category Archives: Writing

~ from OCTOBER 2004 ~

Once upon a time I threw a heavy metal toy truck at my brother’s head. It hit him and left a mark. I think there’s still a scar.

~SHADES OF GRAY~

Midway Through Life

Gray Ghost 1

A Bagel in Boston

At the Mall

Gray Ghost 2

Squirrelly

Brother 1

Andy’s Mom

Gray Ghost 3

Change

Idle

   ~ ~ ~  f r o m   O C T O B E R    2 0 0 4 ~ ~ ~

“OBJECTS IN MIRROR ARE CLOSER THAN THEY APPEAR.”

Inside the car, the rain does not matter. Sitting in a parking lot, I watch the drops land on the windshield, rivulets running down the windowpane. There is a sad sense of peace in this moment. I am alone. 

A sign hangs from the rear-view mirror: “IMPORTANT: REMOVE TAG BEFORE VEHICLE IS IN MOTION.”

A parking pass for work. Green and white and checked off (by hand) to the date it expires. As if anyone would ever know. In the seat of the car I let out a sigh. Safe in a mechanical sanctuary as the neon lights blur and bleed.

“DEATH OR SERIOUS INJURY CAN OCCUR.”

This spelled out on a visor. Pennies, dark and discolored, are mired in the sticky syrup of soda spilled long ago. A ghostly shoe-mark of light tan fades gently on the glove compartment. And a brown paper bag hides my poison.

~SHADES OF GRAY~

Midway Through Life

Gray Ghost 1

A Bagel in Boston

At the Mall

Gray Ghost 2

Squirrelly

Brother 1

Andy’s Mom

Gray Ghost 3

Change

   ~ ~ ~  f r o m   O C T O B E R    2 0 0 4 ~ ~ ~

The wind is changing. Fall will be here soon. And winter. A shift of seasons is in the air, always foreboding. It is the time for Night. Even the days, heavy and crisp, imbued with gray, darken and take on the aspects of eternal evening. The sun is somewhere though.

~SHADES OF GRAY~

Midway Through Life

Gray Ghost 1

A Bagel in Boston

At the Mall

Gray Ghost 2

Squirrelly

Brother 1

Andy’s Mom

Gray Ghost 3

   ~ ~ ~  f r o m   O C T O B E R    2 0 0 4 ~ ~ ~

What are you doing here? The fifth floor of a parking garage, caged in with the filth of pigeons and the butts of cigarettes, is no place for you. Get. Go on. 

It’s a silly thing. Sluggish. Get out of here. 

Someone will run over it. A small bump in the pavement, a tiny crushed skull. Get now. Find your friends. 

~SHADES OF GRAY~

Midway Through Life

Gray Ghost 1

A Bagel in Boston

At the Mall

Gray Ghost 2

Squirrelly

Brother 1

Andy’s Mom

   ~ ~ ~  f r o m   O C T O B E R    2 0 0 4 ~ ~ ~

Most of my childhood memories involve my brother Paul. He had a rather serious case of pneumonia when he was very young and spent a few days in the hospital. I was left alone with the cleaning lady, Deppy, a woman who rarely spoke, and when she did it was in a thick accent, or so my parents told me years later. I was only about four or five myself. I remember lying on the floor of my bedroom and holding a blanket or stuffed animal out of loneliness.

Did I miss my brother, or my Mommy? I didn’t know. I do remember being on the verge of crying at that moment, and then holding it in when I thought Deppy was coming into the room. Or did I let it go and did she hold me? 

When my brother finally came home he had to stay in a plastic tent for a couple of days. I wanted to join him there, and once or twice my parents let me climb in through the flap and peer out of the blurry plastic. It wasn’t fun to watch TV from there though – the images were hazy, and if you stared too long they blurred into oblivion – the plastic tent coming into focus and evicting all outside visions – a vague shadow of our faces, dim and nondescript. But we were together in that fuzzy world, me and my brother, in sickness and in health, bound by blood and joined in familial history.

~SHADES OF GRAY~

Midway Through Life

Gray Ghost 1

A Bagel in Boston

At the Mall

Gray Ghost 2

Squirrelly

   ~ ~ ~  f r o m   O C T O B E R    2 0 0 4 ~ ~ ~

Jeff Johnson is chasing me off the stage at McNulty Elementary School. It is the end of a rehearsal for a class play. We are about eleven or twelve years old and just beginning to think we know it all. Jeff is taller and bigger than me; I am a small child.

Barreling into the hallway, thinking Jeff was right behind me, I run into Mr. McKnight, slamming into his torso and laughing out of embarrassment. He is not pleased. Later in the day I get in trouble with my homeroom teacher who backs up her case proclaiming, “Mr. McKnight said you had been acting squirrelly lately.” So there it was, and here I am. 

Squirrelly. Is that even a proper word? At the time I didn’t quite grasp what it meant. Mischievous, troublesome, playful, excitable, energetic… I chatter, I chew, I run, I leap. I make far too much noise on some days and no sound at all on others. I’m just a kid. 

There are worse things than being considered squirrelly.

(It turns out that it is indeed a proper word. I looked it up.)

~SHADES OF GRAY~

Midway Through Life

Gray Ghost 1

A Bagel in Boston

At the Mall

Gray Ghost 2

   ~ ~ ~  f r o m   O C T O B E R    2 0 0 4 ~ ~ ~

A rustling in the trees signals they are near. One small gray ghost lands on the fence, padding stealthily from post to post and then leaping into a pine tree. From limb to limb, sharp claws tenaciously hold the creature high in its aerial pursuit. 

Another drops to the ground, this little gray ghost not much more than a puff of smoke and gone just as quickly. A bouncing tail retreats Ito the leaves and an acorn falls from the sky.

Silence.

~SHADES OF GRAY~

Midway Through Life

Gray Ghost 1

A Bagel in Boston

At the Mall

   ~ ~ ~  f r o m   O C T O B E R    2 0 0 4 ~ ~ ~

Buying chocolates. A whim purchase Annoying child ahead of me, and two smiling parents. I do not like children. The kid is clearly not in need of another chocolate, but the cashier behind the counter knows the family and gives one away for free. What about me? Insult to injury, they strike up a conversation as I thrust my bag of chocolates onto the counter with an agitated sigh. Is this a store or a social hour?

“How is your summer going?” the mother asks the cashier. She is blond, with dark streaks showing through. Her husband wears glasses and smiles kindly, occupied slightly by the child and her free chocolate truffle. 

“It’s going all right now,” the dark-haired cashier answers with a broad retail smile. “I had a rough couple of months,” she continues, and then in a half-whisper, “I had a miscarriage.”

Two feet from me, and not trying to hide it, she blurts this out. 

“But I am over it. now.” She forces out another smile. “So what brings you to the mall tonight?”

The blonde mother pauses. “The maternity store.” It seems an odd moment to reveal a new pregnancy, but she does anyway. 

The cashier’s smile doesn’t waver. I watch closely to see if it does. It still looks forced, but it doesn’t break. She hands me my change and I start walking toward the door. Out of the corner of my eye I see her walk around and give the blonde woman a hug. 

In the mall I wonder which is more obscene – the cashiers rudimentary confession – so casual, so flippant (but who is anyone to say?) or the blonde woman’s maternity admission – should she have waited until a more appropriate moment? Of course none of it was any of my business, and even if it was I probably wouldn’t have known what to say.

~SHADES OF GRAY~

Midway Through Life

Gray Ghost

A Bagel in Boston

   ~ ~ ~  f r o m   O C T O B E R    2 0 0 4 ~ ~ ~

In the bagel shop there is an Asian woman and a young child sitting at a table across from me. ‘Elizabeth’ is spelled out on the back of the girl’s jacket, and she is eating a bagel with the woman who I presume is her mother. Before eating, the woman makes a sign of the cross while looking around furtively. It is a gesture of pride and shame – probably just superstition anyway. I avert my eyes, shame bred from shame, embarrassed at such a show of faith. The woman and the child speak quietly. I strain to hear what they’re saying. It’s a mid-morning hour when most people are at work or school, and it is peaceful.

They were there before me, but I finish my bagel first, and leave.

~SHADES OF GRAY~

Midway Through Life

Gray Ghost

~ ~ ~  f r o m   O C T O B E R    2 0 0 4 ~ ~ ~

It is quiet when it first comes. Too quiet to be safe. The trees shiver, their uppermost branches tremble as the breeze arrives. The birds have fallen silent – where did they go? What do the birds do in times like this?

…Riding the crests of wind…

There is dread in the silence. Let it come and be done. Wreak your havoc and move on.

A low growl is heard – maybe a dog or a hungry human. Then the first flash, at a far-off distance.

The rustling begins. Another flash, but closer. It is coming. The definitive sound of thunder, no longer to be imagined away. More flashes of light, followed by an anticipatory intake of breath – held… held… before the low rumble of thunder again. A long, rolling wake of guttural moaning is heard – a nauseating sound, but exciting too. 

Exhilaration and awe, far greater than any human creation, and then strike upon strike of lightning. 

It happens quickly now, the explosive cadence of blinding light and deafening roar, a fury of nature set loose upon the land, and the rain, released at last. Sheets of it, speeding downward, descending from a dark sky. The wind is fierce and the water doesn’t know where to go.

A siren wails somewhere. Someone is in trouble.

~SHADES OF GRAY~

Midway Through Life

Gray Ghost

~ ~ ~ f r o m   O C T O B E R    2 0 0 4 ~ ~ ~

A squirrel sits on its haunches, nibbling a small, wild apple. The grass is high and the squirrel is half obscured. Its head rises above the blades, eyes glinting and ever-watchful.

There are hawks about.

~SHADES OF GRAY~

Midway Through Life

~ ~ ~ O C T O B E R   2 0 0 4 ~ ~ ~

“Perhaps you enjoy chasing squirrels, there is great pleasure in the quest of the unattainable. You and I know that wonder is the secret of bliss and that with reason comes the death of the beautiful.” – Okakura Kakuzo, in a letter to Isabella Stewart Gardner

Is this the very beginning or the very end?

Has the story been told, or is this the start of the telling?

It is the indefinable in-between – the latest of winter and the earliest of spring – the dying days of summer melded with the first flush of fall. 

   the shaded region between right and wrong

   the gray area

   in the middle

   where artists dwell, and some intellectuals too.

There is no beginning.

There is no end.

There is just.

~SHADES OF GRAY~

This year marks the 20th anniversary of my ‘shades of gray‘ project. Written way back in 2004, I’ve been waiting for the right moment to post it online, as it currently only exists in printed form – in an ancient three-ring-binder, the way my projects used to be housed and presented. Nostalgia works in strange ways… and like most remembrances, when examined up close, it feels slimmer and less substantial than it felt at the time. Quite possibly, I’ve simply become more long-winded. This may be a welcome reminder of how tight things used to be. 

‘shades of gray’ was a collection of written vignettes – some just a few short sentences – that were held together by the notion of visiting ghosts, fueled by those whom we had lost. The featured pic here is the painting of ‘Charon Ferrying the Shades’ by Pierre Subleyras, which formed an introduction and inspiration for the project, which was dedicated to ‘all of the visiting ghosts ~ Uncle Roberto, Jeff Johnson, Lee Bailey, Nathan, Diane, and Andy’s Mom‘. 

Toying with the idea of putting it up on ‘The Projects’ page, I originally planned to post it in its entirety, but with a lack of inspiration lately, and a desire for slumber over writing new blog posts, I’m spacing it out in individual posts – shorter and lighter, but more frequent. Such as today: following this introductory post, I’ll put up the first three entries – so you’ll get a four-post day. 

I haven’t read this in about twenty years, since I don’t usually like to revisit previous work, and I’m a little afraid of what I might find. Bear that in mind when sharpening your critiquing shears – I don’t intend to edit or improve anything, much as it may be tempting; how lovely it would be to edit the past so easily. Alas, you, and I, will have to trudge through whatever nonsense I found invigorating two decades ago. A few hints of what is to come, courtesy of Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary:

shade – 6. The soul after its separation from the body; — so called because the ancients it to be perceptible to the sight, tough not to the touch; a spirit; a ghost; as, the shades of departed heroes.

 7. The darker portions of a picture; a less illuminated part.

 9. A minute difference or variation, as of thought, belief, expression, etc.; also, the quality or degree of anything which is distinguished from others similar by slight differences; as, the shades of meaning in synonyms.

The Shades, the Nether World; the supposed abode of souls after leaving the body.

Note: Shade differs from shadow as it implies no particular form or definite limit; whereas a shadow represents in form the object which intercepts the light. When we speak of the shade of a tree, we have no reference to its form; but when we speak of measuring a pyramid or other object by its shadow, we have reference to its form and extent.

Sometimes the best way to make it through the winter is in the planning and contemplation.

The thought of the once and future garden.

The curling and unfurling of smoke from a stick of incense.

The notion of a trip South where spring is already seeping into the promise of camellia blooms.

The gentle words of a poet.

Winter-Eyes

By Mary Oliver

In winter

all the singing is in

the tops of trees

where the wind-bird

With its white eyes

shoves and pushes

among the branches.

Like any of us

he wants to go to sleep,

but he’s restless –

he has an idea,

and slowly it unfolds

from under his beating wings

as long as he stays awake.

But his big, round music, after all,

is too breathy to last.

So, it’s over,

In the pine-crown

he makes his nest,

he’s done all he can.

I don’t know the name of this bird,

I only imagine his glittering beak

tucked in a white wing

while the clouds –

which he has summoned

from the north –

which he has taught

to be mild, and silent –

thicken, and begin to fall

into the world below

like stars, or the feathers

of some unimaginable bird

that loves us,

that is asleep now, and silent –

that has turned itself

into snow.