Travel Patterns

As I write this, I am sitting on a beautiful porch in the city of Albacete, Spain. This is the place I will live for the next month, which still sort of feels like a heat induced dream from the warmest temperatures I think I’ve ever encountered. It is very hot in southern Spain in August.

This is the view from my porch.

I’ve traveled to a fair number of places now, although the term ‘worldly traveler’ always feels like something other people use to describe me, rather than something I would boast about myself. Usually I am staying with friends, immersing myself in how they live and who they spend their time with- sort of just along for the ride.

This trip is different. This time, I have moved to a city where I know no one, and am starting an actual life. I’ll be doing the same thing in a month, when I move to the UK to start postgraduate studies at the University of Leeds. Right now I feel incredibly blessed to hear the sounds of traffic, and the voices of new people speaking a language I don’t fully understand. It’s terrifying and exhilarating, but I’m comforted at the familiarity of the trees in the park across the street. If you know me, this is not a surprise.

The last few travel experiences I’ve had have started to shed a light on a pattern of mine. All good psychologists love to identify patterns in human behavior, but I think pattern recognition is something that human beings inherently do well. It’s why overthinking is such a huge problem for so many of us! Patterns are important though. They help us understand why we do the things we do, and think the way we think.

For a few years now, I’ve been able to start putting a finger on the kind of traveler I am. Many people, when they travel, prefer to stay at hotels and visit national monuments and local tourist attractions. There are people who visit aquariums and take pictures of the signs to read later. Other people stay in hostels and visit as many museums as they can. There are people who eat street food and love local cuisine, and others who go clubbing and drink beer in beer gardens. I think every traveler is made up of some of these elements, and we are all intrinsically different.

I am a person who prefers homes to hotels, which is probably why I visit friends as often as I can. I want to experience the culture of a city, and live the way local people do. I like going to bars, and going dancing, and eating the most authentic food that is available. Immersive cultural experiences, rather than standing in line with other tourists to pay money to look at things I’ve seen in pictures.

Since coming to Spain, I’ve realized I have a pattern for growing comfortable in a new home. I think we all have them, these travel patterns. They remind me of migrating birds, how they use landmarks on the ground to navigate the path back to their winter homes. So, here are my landmarks:

• Step 1: Get to your home

I hate luggage. I hate traveling with more than a backpack on my back, something that I can easily navigate around other people. This trip, traveling with luggage has been the most excruciating experience, and because I packed for an entire year, I had a lot of it.

I am a person who nests, so as soon as I arrive, I like to get settled. I like to see where I am going to be sleeping, and feel what kind of home I am living in.

• Step 2: Go find food

Whether it’s buying groceries for a new flat, or going out and locating a sandwich to feed yourself, do it and do it alone. I find that the act of going and locating food is a really helpful way for me to feel comfortable in a new city. I think to myself, Okay, no matter what else happens here, at least you know you can provide for yourself. 

Also eating is an amazing experience, especially when you’re in a new city. There are always new foods to try, and eating activates dopamine reward in your brain. This is a simple way I use to create a positive experience in my new environment.

• Step 3: Figure out modes of transportation

As a middle class American, I have grown up using cars. Living in the suburbs of Michigan, cars are a principal form of transportation, which makes them very comfortable. When I first learned how to use the Tube in London, the subway in New York or the local bus system, it was a bit of a nerve wracking experience for me. Similarly to eating, I find this step helps me to feel like I can take care of myself. No matter what else happens, at least I know that I can figure out where I need to do.

And if you can figure out how to use the New York subway system, you can do anything, right?

• Step 4: Go for a walk

I find there’s nothing as immersive as going for a walk. Walking is my preferred mode of transportation, when possible. It’s the best way for serendipity to find you I think, walking down streets and looking at shops, you never know what you might find. You could stumble across a beautiful sculpture or a park. I spent two days in Venice and did nothing but walk around the city, and actually got a little lost! Getting lost and finding something amazing is one of my favorite parts of moving somewhere new.

• Step 4 1/2: Find a park

I consider this a half step, because parks are my preferred place to take walks in. No matter where I go, being around trees and plants always makes me feel at home.

• Step 5: Meet local people

This step is a little bit harder to manage, because people are a lot harder to navigate than buying food. Often times, I will already know someone where I am going, which makes it easier to then meet their friends, but I think it’s important to be open to chatting with people you don’t know. Whether it’s someone at a bar, or the person whose made your coffee, these tiny conversations are little bits of life. People are what make life exciting for me.

I always make a habit of reaching out to people I know in an area. Another trick of mine is asking any of my friends if they know anyone in the area I’m going, and then making connections that way- even if it’s just for a casual drink. The other option, which is much more variable, are dating apps like Tinder, and OkCupid. Even though these are principally dating apps, often they’re also good ways to meet people.

 

These are the ways I often end up finding my way to being comfortable in a new city. Identifying the pattern helps me, and I always feel more confident when I fully know myself and how best I function. One other piece of advice, is something a good friend said to me once and that I’ve never forgotten,

“Everything seems worse when you haven’t eaten, or slept well.”

When I first landed in Madrid, I was so exhausted, and I hadn’t eaten, and I really seriously thought I had made a terrible decision. Then I fed myself and slept for a solid 13 hours, and I woke up the next day feeling much more optimistic. So, if you’re in the midst of traveling, or even just at home and having a terrible day, take a minute to think about the last time you ate, and whether you slept well last night. This is self care 101!

Thank you for reading! I hope my travel patterns have started getting you thinking of some of your own, and if you’d like to, share them in the comments and we can chat about them!

 

 

Diamond Hill, Ireland

In 2003, two social psychologists by the name of Emmons and McCullough did an experiment that involved counting blessings vs. burdens. Their results found that participants who practiced exercising gratitude (over the course of the ten week study) reported better emotional and physical health than their control experiment counterparts.

For many people, gratitude is thought to be an essential and powerful part of well-being, because it has the ability to shift perspective and attitude. I believe that practicing gratitude not only makes you a better person, but keeps you open to happen upon more wonderful things.

In my own pursuits to practice gratitude, I want to acknowledge a gift I will never stop being grateful for, the many different places I’ve explored.

So today, I want to share my gratitude for the Connemara National Park in Ireland, specifically the hike up Diamond Hill.

“When anyone asks about the Irish character, I say look at the trees. Maimed, stark and misshapen, but ferociously tenacious.” -Edna O’Brien, author of The Country Girls 

My sister and I had talked about traveling to Ireland for a long time. I can’t remember exactly when the plan was hatched, or whose idea it was. It occured somewhere between age 14, ripe with teenage angst and newly claimed emotion, and my final year of high school. I just know that Ireland existed for us as a place that we must go.

For us, going took the shape of ten days of backpacking at the end of August. We met at the Dublin Airport, having flown in from different directions of the world. My sister was living in Switzerland at the time, and I’d come all the way from Michigan. We rented a car, and spent the first few days stressfully adjusting to driving on the ‘wrong’ side of the road, inhabiting cute little bed & breakfasts dotted along the countryside, and laughing about how I’d managed to get poison ivy on my back (from a particularly comical sexual experience).

This trip was important because it marked the beginning of becoming an adult for me. Maybe that’s why Ireland remains one of the most beautiful places in the world to me, a place that I still hope to return to. It’s landscape is rough and ragged, with hills of rolling green and yellow grass that move in the wind the way the ocean does on a stormy day. Boulders rise up out from the hillsides and mountains like jagged teeth. It’s wild- which is sort of my impression of adulthood as well.

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Tucked away within the Connemara National Park is Diamond Hill, consisting of four loop hikes in the park. We did the Upper Diamond Hill Walk that runs about 7km long and rises 400m high. This is my favorite memory of this trip, and to this day, one of my favorite hikes.

It’s slow to start, like all good things. The path meanders its way lazily up boardwalks and around boulders, some larger than I was and some smaller; all left behind in a golden field that knelt at the foot of the mountain. The trail becomes a tiny, one person, single file sort of trail, edged by rocks that guide you up the steep side of the mountain. We climbed, and climbed, and climbed, and just when I thought we could reach the heavens because of how close we were to the sky, we had to climb a little more.

I’m a heavy breather. I inherited my mother’s exercise induced asthma. So when I climb up a hill, I pant, and wheeze, and generally sound like I’m about to die. I used to be embarrassed by this. I was embarrassed at how many times my sister asked me if I was okay on this climb. Now, I try to love the way my lungs show me how far I’ve come.

The thrill in mountain climbing isn’t just being at the top. Yes, there’s joy in the adrenaline pulsing through your veins, in the thin air pushing your lungs and making you feel a little light-headed, a little giddy. There’s joy in the pride in yourself that you feel at the top. These are all good things.

But I’ve come to realize, there’s also joy in the struggle.

The struggle is putting one foot in front of the other on that tiny path. The struggle is keeping my calves from cramping up on the climb. It’s keeping my mind motivated enough that it doesn’t inhibit my body and tell it to stop. It’s breaking that mental wall that loves telling me I can’t do it, that I’ll never make it to the top, that I’m not strong enough, or fit enough, or good enough. There is so much joy in proving that voice wrong.

Adulthood embodies much of this struggle. We reach goals, only to realize there are more goals still to be met. Sometimes they don’t get met at all. Sometimes, we lose sight of the top. I have reached peaks, only to realize that most of the mountain is still before me. That doesn’t stop the view from this point here being any less beautiful.

However, I did make it to the top of Diamond Hill that day. It was awe inspiring. I stared down at the place I used to stand, and marveled at the place I was now. The wind whipped our hair around our faces uncontrollably, and it was so loud that my sister and I had to shout to hear each other speaking. I remember laughing, screaming and cheering jubilantly. We took videos to document how we were feeling, and what it looked like to be here, to be us in that moment. I could look out and see an ocean that was miles and miles away.

If you do get the chance, do the hike.

Be grateful for the struggle.

August, 2012

The Physics of the Quest

I know, sometimes, it is all too easy to get caught up in passing trends. I know my mother thought this way about Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love. I remember picking it up off her shelf before I was old enough to understand it, and asking her what she thought about it. My mother, even though she was a wise woman in so many ways, shrugged her shoulders and called it a bit ‘self-indulgent’.

Yet here I am, somewhere about eight years later, having read it countless times. I’ve dog-eared pages, highlighted passages. I’ve studied this book the way I studied neuroscience textbooks in college. There’s something about it that speaks to me, even though every time I read it, that something seems to have changed.

Today, I have realized that right now, my something is what Liz Gilbert calls the Physics of the Quest. 

She writes, I’ve come to believe that there exists in the universe something I call ‘the Physics of the Quest’ — a force of nature governed by laws as real as the laws of gravity or momentum. And the rule of Quest Physics my go like this: if you are brave enough to leave behind everything familiar and comfortable (which can be anything from your house, to your old bitter resentments) and set out on a truth-seeking journey (either externally or internally), and if you are truly willing to regard everything that happens to you on that journey as a clue, and if you accept everyone you meet along the way as a teacher, and if you are prepared – most of all- to face (and forgive) some very difficult realities about yourself …then truth with not be withheld from you. 

I have come to believe that I am smack dab in the middle of my quest. Which, I suppose, isn’t saying much about a young twenty something post-graduate, scrambling in our failing economic and cultural climate to find something marginally resembling stability, something marginally resembling structure or success. We could all be in search of something, and in many ways I think we are searching, for what life is supposed to be like as far as making it fulfilling and meaningful.

But I think I’ve been delivered my first clue.

I’ve been in the United Kingdom for about a month now, lounging around, watching movies, wrapping chocolates and basically being a bum. It’s been great. In the beginning, I was worried that I wasn’t doing enough with my time, that I wasn’t pushing myself to be adventurous enough. I must be adventurous, I told myself. Then I started looking back over the past four years of undergraduate work, and realized I could afford to give myself the luxury of doing nothing. If nothing else, this past year has been one of the most difficult years of my life, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, if not also physically.

A year ago today, I was just beginning to come to terms with my assault. Terms I still haven’t completely come to grips with. A year ago today, I was ravenously applying for jobs that I didn’t really know if I wanted, terrified that I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. My relationships were in shambles, both with myself and others. I was so terrified of being alone, but couldn’t bare the thought of being touched.

My relaxation was interrupted by one of the worst stomach flues I’ve ever experienced, quite possibly one of the worst that the world has ever experienced (that’s an exaggeration, I know). I was sick for days on end, just over a week in total. I was blinded by migraines, wracked with vomiting and abdominal pain. Crippled by anxiety, curled up on the carpeted floor struggling to breathe while my friend sat by me, constantly reaffirming me that I was going to be okay. I was doubled over in pain more nights than not, scared and lost in this foreign country.

I went to the hospital, and the doctor asked me, “Why didn’t you ask for any pain medications if you are in such agony?”. I didn’t know how to answer her, honestly.

Native American spiritually has become quite popular in the recent years, but I can’t help comparing my experience to a vision quest. Young men go up into the mountains to find themselves. They sit for days, watching the sun rise and fall as the days pass. They fast.

When you are fasting, Eagle Man says, your mind becomes more alert. You simply contemplate your life. And when you fall asleep, your dreams become more vivid. 

In essence, this is what I was doing. I had been so sick that I couldn’t keep a meal down for days. I can’t describe to you how I would watch the night, waiting for the sun to rise in the morning and feel so grateful for the day, only to watch it set again a few hours later, unable to move from my bed. I prayed to a God I don’t wholly believe in to release me from the pain I was in… but I think now there’s something to pain that helps us see deeper into ourselves. As though all the walls, all the cognitive distortions that I have built up over the years were corroded away, and I was left at the end of the day with my own raw self.

It brought me to tears.

I was given a vision of my life, how I wanted it to look, and how far I still have to go to get there. Yet, there was a calmness to the experience. I was not anxious or anticipatory. I was not drowning in sorrow. It was just, this is who I want to be, and this is how I get there. 

This may not be my very first clue, and it’s most certainly not my last- but I can’t help seeing it like a lesson. I am working the muscles required to be brave, to abandon all comforts and face some difficult realities about myself, as Liz says, in order to seek a truth about myself. Perhaps it is just one stepping stone on my greater quest.

35 feet in the air

“I’ve come very close to death, many times. And you know me, I’m really open with talking about my issues. Today though, being up there, even though I  was strapped in, and I had all this equipment on… even though I was safer than I have been in a lot of situations, I was so much more scared. It’s the fear that gets to you.”

Today was a beautiful day. It was warm, much warmer than it should be in Michigan this time of year, which is both a blessing and a curse. The trees have all but lost their leaves, so the remaining few are a perfect golden brown. The hillsides are speckled with pine trees, and I am surrounded by champions.

The last few days, I’ve been working with women in recovery from substance abuse. They drink boatloads of coffee, they smoke like chimneys, and they have some of the largest hearts I’ve ever seen. They spend all their time smiling. They hug each other often, and sometimes even complete strangers like me.

There is no apologizing for who they are, here in this safe space that has been held by women, and only women, for the last century.

Today, we took them on our high ropes course. Up amongst the trees and the cool November air, we encouraged them to push themselves, to step outside their comfort zones, as we always do. The ropes course is a powerful experiential tool for the reclaiming of one’s bodily autonomy. It requires the loss of control in some ways, for the regaining of control in other much more personal ways. As a facilitator, a psychology graduate, and a survivor of sexual assault, these are the things I find myself thinking about.

Yet, amidst all my thoughts, there were real tears, and there was real laughter. There was the physical and mental conquering of fear. There was support. There was love. And there was this comment.

“…It’s the fear that gets to you.”

This week has been a lot about fear for me too.

And when I learned that the statistic is something like 80% of women who have substance abuse problems have been sexually assaulted, I realized I was surrounded by women who have experiences that mirror my own.

I was just one more woman finding solace in this women only space.

And I realize how much fear I still hold inside my body, even now a year later. I realize how often I struggle with the fact that my assault was not conventional.

Not that there is any sort of conventional sexual assault, especially now as we are stepping further away from the narrative of strangers and dark alleys, and accepting the fact that we are more likely to be harmed by someone we know.

But I was assaulted by someone I thought I loved. There’s something damaging to the soul about that.

We are often warned that the people we love will also break our hearts, but I never thought they meant in such an ugly, volatile manner. A manner that leaves us skinny and desperate, shaking in dark corners, wondering when it all went wrong. A wound that cripples us, and makes us wonder if it’s actually possible to love someone and also trust them.

Our beginning was easy. It was a whirlwind. We learned our way around each other with the help of early morning intimacy. Staying up till 4:00 am, bonding over the fact that we’d both lost a mother. Falling for the fact that he thought I was cool for talking about it on stage. Falling even harder for the fact that he told me I was brave.

I thought I knew him. I met his friends, and listened to his stories, but I didn’t really know a damn thing. I only knew the person he pretended to be. Even when he took me to his childhood home, and we stood holding each other in his garage, he was a stranger.

He knew me though. At least, well enough to play me like the strings on his dad’s guitar that he spent a few months trying so hard to learn.

“We’re not compatible.” He said, “We’re not compatible because you’re emotionally manipulative. You’re overly friendly with your male friends, because you’re trying to hurt me.”

The conversations we had are burned into my subconscious memory. Conversations where we talked about the consent I revoked, and you so willingly violated, once. Almost twice.

I guess I was lucky not to be too drunk the second time.

How do you talk about rape when it’s so intertwined with intimacy?

How do you talk about rape when it’s so intertwined with trust?

I’m only beginning to find out.

But the more I watch these women, who have climbed physical ropes courses and metaphorical mountains, who are survivors and warriors, who are strength, and resilience, and grace, and kindness embodied in the female form,

the more I am beginning to realize that 35 feet in the air is a good place to start.

#ThisIsMyStory

Today, I have won these battle scars.

Yesterday, I spent a whole day doing something I’d talked about doing with him, my abuser. I took some beloved people on a three hour ride north to one of the very few places I call home, a geographic location where I can stand and say, “Right here, this is where I became me.” Among the trees and the beach, this beautiful blue water runs through my veins, and these winds tousles my hair. I see this sky when I close my eyes. This place is so much of who I am, and I am so happy to get to share that with you.

I’d wanted to share this place with him, when I was still under the impression that we cared for each other in the same type of way. Yet, being there with people who really, truly, and honestly care for me in a way he never did, it felt so good to not have him there. In so many ways, it was powerful. In so many other ways, it did feel strange.

It can be so confusing for our heart, when the same person telling us they love us is the one who also hurts us. It can be hard when love and affection is used as a mask to cover something uglier, instead of what you discover at the center of a person when you finally earn the right to know them.

I suppose, what I aim for in writing this, is to tell a small part of my very long, complicated story. I am a survivor of sexual and emotional abuse from someone I cared very deeply for. I am still digging myself out of that whole he left for me, struggling to accept that none of it was real, because it had felt like everything I’d been looking for. I struggle to understand that that isn’t what real love is. But there is an end to that hole, and I am fucking digging my way out.

Recently, there’s been a change in the tides for him and I. We’ve come to some sort of twisted understanding, where I know what he did to me, and now he knows that I know. I hosted a discussion on sexual assault, and he came, and we stared each other down.

I’ve seen him more in the last two weeks since, than I have in the last four months. He’s seemingly ever present. He lurks around the perimeter of my life as though to say, “I know you know, and I want to make sure you don’t tell anyone.”

So, I suppose that’s why I’m writing this. Because I want to tell anyone and everyone who will listen. Not necessarily his name, not necessarily the specifics of our story. But this: as a writer, I often see the world through metaphor. Here, there are dragons, and unicorns, and ghosts. There are abusers, and best friends, and people who never recover from hurt. But survivors, we are phoenixes. We have been hurt, beaten, betrayed, been afraid to leave the house or fall asleep at night. We’ve been sick with loneliness and fear. We have questioned love, trust, humanity, and yet in spite of all of that, from the ashes of those experiences, we burn brighter. Hotter. More beautifully. The fire he lit is nothing compared to the fire within.

Today, I am alive, despite everything else. That, in itself, makes me a warrior. A victor. I have won these battle scars.

Fiction 440: the performance

Tonight was such an exciting night. This was the first time that I’ve actually read a piece of work I’ve written to an audience of more than my closest friends, who I more or less often pester into listening to me read to them. While this was not my first time talking about my work in front of a bunch of strangers (I did a TEDx talk last spring, in front of more than 2,000 talking about my novels, and my personal analysis of them as a collective), it was the first time I was reading something that came from the creative hole inside of me. And it was an amazing experience. Everyone was so kind, and so welcoming. They clapped for me because it was my first night reading, they laughed at my jokes, and people came up to congratulate me on my work. The community of writers, whose ages spanned the entire spectrum of the human existence, was so warm and wonderful. They were welcoming, and really made me feel comfortable sharing my work. I encourage everyone who writes to share their work at an open mic like this! And if you’re not a writer, I would still encourage you to find a community that embodies your passion, and participate in it relentlessly.

With that, let me apologize for the video quality. But yay for catching it on camera!

 

 

Let Them Eat Trout

Jan 25

Keywords: Trout, Shiv, Ankle bracelet

It was somewhere between the beginning of summer, and the end. Between the north side of the river that ran through their tiny tourist town, and the mouth of the lake that it fed itself into. Somewhere between the ages of 9 and 13, before ankle-bracelets were traded in for apple watches, before imagination was outdone by Angry Birds, she was a panther. And the mighty jungle cat was stalking her prey.

She crept through the deciduous, midwestern jungle, her face streaked with mud stains that she wore like victory medals. Her hair adorn with orange autumn leaves, she waded through the river waters to wait for him. Her brothers never took her fishing. They always said that fishing wasn’t something girls should do.

She clutched her weapon, the carefully constructed shiv on a stick that was to be her warrior spear. It felt like an extension of her arm because of how long she’d spent throwing it into the ground, watching it more or less hit her intended targets. Sometimes more, often less. Her toes grew chilly as the waters rushed around her.

Today was the day she proved them wrong. Today, she was the hunter. She was the fierce, Amazonian warrior woman. Today, she was Joan of Arc, waiting to take down her final enemy– trout.

Trout was all that stood between her and redemption. He was the answer to her injustice, the key to her inclusion, and all she could think was how sweet it would taste, like victory and river water.

She spent all afternoon waiting for him. Time and again, he evaded capture. He was more skilled on these battlegrounds than she. He commanded more troops than she, more speed. But she was relentless. She was determined. She heard her parents calling her from a distance, asking her what she wanted for dinner, and all she could think was trout.

Suddenly, in a flash, the battle was upon her. His scales shimmered in the dying sunlight,  he was aiming for the heavens with this jump. She pounced upon him. She corralling him in a corner of the river. He thrashed. She thrashed. He thrashed again, as she let out an inhuman howl. She plunged her spear down. It bit into flesh, and she had won…

Somewhere between now and then, irony worked its way into her vocabulary. She took a life to claim her own, as though it could protect her from feeling hurt, and betrayal, and rejection. But to prove someone wrong, and to be proven wrong are really two sides of the same river bank, and it doesn’t really matter where you’re standing. And it didn’t really matter so much that her brothers told her she was good enough, as long as she was good enough for herself. She didn’t need them to tell her to know that it is true. To know that she was a champion, and had been all along. Champion, of all the trout.

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This is a submission for a local event called Fiction 440! Every month they select three random words to be used in a story, and then people write, and share their stories. This is my submission, and I’m actually so excited to share it with a bunch of strangers. Then again, I suppose that’s what I’m doing here. I’ve very rarely read my work aloud, on a stage, in a presentation format. I think this story is a good place to start learning how. It’s funny, and silly, and I find myself just wanting to read it to everyone, so that’s good right? Haha, I hope you enjoyed! Wish me luck!

 

Thaddeus Jackson’s Daughter

At this point, I am overcome with hesitation in sharing a story that doesn’t belong to me. It isn’t mine to tell, but as part of a running investigation, I felt obligated not to conceal the facts of such an intimate story.

Regardless of who it might condemn.

Without further digression, I will present my testimony of Thaddeus Jackson’s daughter, Alexandra, who was not a young woman, and not a child, but caught somewhere in between. There was a time when she didn’t resemble a human being, but was more of a ghost, and crept around the house on silent toes, as not to disturb her father at any given point of the day, torn between her fear of anything louder than a whisper, and saying the wrong things to him. I spent many an afternoon in their dining room, indulging in drunken pleasantries and merriment with Thaddeus, and only once did I hear her speak.

Thaddeus’s daughter was an ordinary girl, and when I first met her, it was at the age of six, when she peered around the corner of the door frame to put a face to my unfamiliar voice. Her skin was a beautiful, pale fleshy color, but unlike most children in the middle of summer, her complexion was almost white. It lacked the sun-kissed freckles that frequented the faces of July-happy children. Perhaps I should emphasize the fact that even from a young age, she was capable of vast changes in personality and form. As a child, she was often sweet and cheerful, but as she aged, could sometimes appear to be an ungrateful girl, who often broke dishes and dropped plates simply to irritate her father. There were ugly nights where she would appear in the hallway outside the living room, thin and skeletal, with eyes sunken deep into her cheeks, but just as many other nights, beautiful nights, where she would parade around in her newest dresses, kissing her father happily on the cheek. Her face was flushed, and her hips had grown rounded and womanly in adolescence. She was a girl who, on some occasions, looked too little like her late mother, and on others, too much. One might say it was difficult to believe she was the same girl, one week to the next.

The causes of these changes were due to none other than the force of Thaddeus Jackson himself. He would praise her or demean her to greater or lesser degrees of self-worth, depending upon what suited him after his fifth or sixth glass of scotch, and by the end of the night, she had a fair chance of being either the best daughter, or the worst. Following his impulses there were nights that Thaddeus Jackson would really look at her, his eyes would fill with tears and he would tell her he was a lifetime’s worth of proud. There were just as many nights where she didn’t dare come down the stairs.

It seemed to me that things had gone well for the pair at the beginning of their life together. She had been a child plagued with nightmares, and Thaddeus, content with her need for him, would allow her to sleep in the same bed on the nights they did occur. She would close her eyes, her breathing would slow, and within minutes, she had drifted into a restful, undisturbed sleep. It was after nights like this, sitting in the dining room and nursing our drinks, that Thaddeus would tell me the wonders of having a daughter.

Then, after several years, their relationship began to degrade. It was about this time that the girl actually began showing signs of adolescent independence, and the development of a personality that, while as enigmatic, differed from his own.

Thaddeus fell ill to a shameful disease, a subtle monster that devoured his days, hour by hour. It started with one drink in the morning, just after he woke up. Then another drink at twelve, when the air was hot enough that anything on the rocks was an appealing notion. That hours between one and six would hold as many as ten drinks, depending upon his mood that day, and of course there had to be wine with dinner. We would sit in the dining room, as he poured himself another scotch and would lean towards me to say, “So, my friend, you see what lay at the hearts of young women; driving a man to the bottle, time and time again, as to have enough calm to know what to do with them.”

I’ll make this quick, in part because I know we all have places to be, but also because the details of the period before that final night are slowly blurring together, their lines not nearly as distinct and defined as they once may have been.

The years went by, and Thaddeus Jackson’s distaste for Alexandra became palatable, although his love for his daughter did not show any signs of faltering. It was as though he much preferred the idea of his daughter to the woman she could, or was becoming. It was on that final night that the war in his heart between affection and aversion for her seemed to tear him apart, so much so that he had become quite emotional. His eyes scanned the room, as though Alexandra might appear from out of thin air, the way she use to do as a child, shouting at him to put down his drink, or worse to try to take care of him—as though he weren’t still enough of a man to do it himself. The strangest impulses appeared that night, accompanied by the most irrational fears. He spoke to me of Alexandra more and more often as the night progressed, worried that she would leave him, worried that she would suddenly disappear right in front of him, accusing her of unthinkably cruel things. In this I could not follow him, nor reassure him in any way, as my time spent with his daughter was limited to short sightings in the hall way.

“Believe it or not, my friend, she’s aging.” He would say to me, over and over again throughout the duration of the evening, taking my hand as if my presence alone was enough to move him to tears. “Do you know where my daughter has gone?”

The tragic climax came rather suddenly; it was the last night I spent in the living room of their house, Thaddeus Jackson poured me another glass and made a toast. He became rather agitated unexpectedly, his state of mind clearly not in its best of forms. His physical condition was even more upsetting, his body seemed weak and sickly, his stomach distended and his face had become a little grey. He stood up once, only to sit down in his chair again, only then to stand once more and pace around the room. He twisted his hands together anxiously, wiping sweat from his brow and stopping only to take another drink. Suddenly he called Alexandra into the room, and returned to his chair.

She came like a vision, standing just to the inside of the door frame and immediately he began to nudge me, bragging like a child with a new toy, “Look at her, my friend, there she is!” He pestered me with questions about her eyes, her face, her lips, as though he could point out something to me that would make her beauty more recognizable. He asked me if I wanted a wife, asked me if I wanted to marry his daughter. As well-intentioned as he may have been, behind it all one could feel his repugnance, his disrespect for his daughter. She disappeared into the kitchen, tears playing on the edges of her eyelashes.

There was silence in the living room for a moment, before Thaddeus Jackson too, burst into tears. He took my hand for a second time, and begged me to put an end to it all, muttering: “How can such a thing be happening to me? I can’t take it; I can’t take losing my little girl. How much of this is a man expected to take?”

The splintering of fine china rang out from the kitchen, and Thaddeus Jackson leapt up furiously, letting go of my hands and disappearing from his seat, disappearing from the living room all together. I heard his angry shouts through the door as though they were my own thoughts, and then I heard it: her voice, so beautiful, so foreign to me.

“Who are you to be yelling at me?” She demanded.

“Damnit girl, I am your father!”

“You have never been my father! You have only been my agony!”

The crash of more china came as a surprise, and I heard her scream. I rushed into the kitchen as a second plate hit the floor, narrowly missing his face, but the palm of his hand did not miss hers. I wished to stop him, wished to put an end to this cruelty but, and I do not know why, I didn’t have the courage to speak up. Outraged, he grabbed her wrists and pulled her towards him, struggling with her tiny limbs as she fought against him until she bit his forearm, and he let her go. She scurried to the cupboard like a wounded animal; only to retaliate with plate after plate throw in his direction until he’d had enough, grabbed an empty wine bottle from the counter and brought it down upon her head. She fell, cracking her head on the corner of the counter on the way down, and her body lay limp on the linoleum floor, sickening silent and still.

I don’t know exactly how long Thaddeus Jackson and I stood there, waiting for her to get back up until we realized that she never would.

I thought I heard him whisper. He crossed himself, with his left hand of course, before picking her body up gently and exiting the kitchen. I couldn’t help but follow him, dragged forward by some morbid fascination that I hadn’t known existed in me, until we reached his bedroom and by some moral reasoning I stopped, just inside the door frame. He placed her in his bed, pushing the hair out of her face and closing her eyes, as though she had only fallen into a blissful, exhaustive state, the way she used to when she had nightmares—as though all of this had only been her nightmare.

Analysis of a Free Falling Body

The shoot chimed its same annoying, but familiar cry as a new someone else entered the room. Malkin looked up briefly from the daily paper, took off his glasses and placed them on the desk where his feet had been only moments before. He leaned forward in his chair, stretching his back before getting up to walk over and greet her.

He could tell she use to be pretty, with short, cropped blonde hair and bright red lips. There were some notably unusual birthmarks on her left shoulder, and a watch on her right wrist. All business, he mused to himself.

“Well, how are we doing today?” He asked, more to the empty room than to her directly. He washed his hands and threw on a pair of gloves. He chuckled to himself, and turned back to her with a shrug. He brushed a loose strand of pale hair away from her face. “That’s alright,” he said softly, “not the best circumstances for a conversation, is it.” He imagined she’d have brown eyes.

He made a short job of examining the rest of her, the black dress, the bouquet of flowers in her hand pressed against her chest as though it were a lifeline that hadn’t done it’s job properly. Her earrings were pearls; their milky white color matched the complexion of her face. The skin around her fingers was worn, and deep purple from a lack of blood circulation. Heart disease was the reason she was with him here today.

After the laser tool cut the death date into the glass above her face, he turned to his desk and flipped open a notebook. He watched her for a moment with a scrutinizing eye, scribbled something in the book and shut it. He only knew the common scripture for blessing the dead, but he said it anyway. Then she was gone, with only the loud thunk of the shoot behind her.

He was alone again, something he was use to. The company around these parts didn’t stay long.

A man came in, a few minutes later, following the sound of the shoot signalling someone new. Malkin looked up from the daily paper, and took off his glasses. Flipping the light switch on the whole way, the small room became bright and sanitary like the inside of a hospital. Usually he kept the lights low, and he burnt a candle to keep the smell of lilac in the air.

The man was smartly dressed, with a red tie and an ironed black suit. His black hair had been recently cut, and it curled only slightly around his ears. His facial hair had been trimmed and cleaned up around the same time as his hair. It was probably the last haircut he’d ever need. He reminded Malkin of a man who would carry a brief case, with important papers inside. He had a watch on that only reiterated his rather expensive lifestyle, and Malkin would bet his first heart that this man would have been a popular one with the ladies.

That was, until he saw his left hand and the simple gold band around the ring finger. Malkin smiled at this, picking up the hand gently to look at the ring. There was nothing inscribed, which meant his wife was probably a sensible woman. That seemed to suit the man. The shirt puckered above the wound that left his stomach distended, and his feet were bare without shoes. His eyes were closed, but Malkin supposed they were green.

The man’s name could have been Derek, or Mark. It was very possible that he graduated high school, and married his girlfriend three years later. He could have worked as a lawyer, or a cop and was killed in action by protecting his parner. Malkin imagined that he would have been brave.

He could have had one daughter, and an older son who he played baseball with every Tuesday night. He could have been the type of man that listened to his daugther’s tea party stories, as her mother braided her hair. Malkin bet his wife’s name was Sara, and that they would sit together and whisper sweet nothings to each other in front of the fireplace of the two story house after the children went to sleep. They could have had a big black dog that would have groaned happily at their feet, exposing his belly to the warmth of the fire.

At least, that is what Malkin imagined the man’s life had been. Being a galactic undertaker allowed Malkin the ability to idealize whatever he wanted in people. Their lives were his story books, where he read the ending chapter and pieced together the rest of the story.

His co-worker received all the paperwork, the I.D. and death certificates. The stories behind the conclusions he saw every day practically offered themselves to him, yet he refused. He wanted to see the good in people. Optimism was an occupational hazard, with death specifically written into the bi-lines. There had been a reason they’d put such a big emphasis on life in his interview. He’d been expected to be jovial and smile often. As if any of that were really important, because bodies aren’t expecting to be greeted with a smile. Once being given the job, he could see how it might be necessary to hire someone with a good handle on the living. People easily depressed or flustered from long nights alone should look for other employment. After awhile he realized he’d taken the job so he could feel good about the fact that he was still breathing.

He configured the laser for the man’s death date, and finished his examinations. Afterwards, he opened the combination lock on the shoot, and transferred the glass casket. Returning to his desk, he scribbled words down in the notebook, and spoke the same scripture over the body of Derek, or Mark, before the wife, the kids and the dog, the brief case job and the expensive watch, as well as the man, all disappeared.

He returned to his desk, dimmed the lights and leaned back in his chair. He placed his feet on the table top, and put his glasses back on his face. He didn’t reach for the paper this time. He sat motionless in the dark, listening to the whirling machines underneath the floor, and finally he heard the quiet click of the springs being shut, and the titanium shoot being emptied into space.

He let out a soft sigh, and closed his eyes. The best post-mortem disposal services in the sector, for prices lower than the cost of your living room furniture. He checked the clock; fourty-five minutes had gone by. The candle on his desk finally burnt out, leaving him in complete darkness. It had been a gift from his mother-in-law, so pleased to have had her only daughter married once, the circumstances of drunken eloping or their mutual divorse a week later didn’t stop her from sending him a candle once a year for his birthday. It dumbfounded him how she always managed to find his address, year after year.

London Studies #1

I built forts as a kid. I would go out into the woods that were my back yard and spend hours of the day constructing a home out of sticks and leaves, sweat and tears, even though I had a perfectly good home a few feet away from me. Now, I use my job to explain away a lot of my quirky behavior.

Being caught in a rainstorm is just as good as a shower in my opinion. I spend a quarter of my year living in the woods, and being sunburned and mosquito bitten is basically a constant state for me at this point. I am most at home with my bare feet on dirt paths, staring into woods that disappear around the closest bend in the hillside. Yet here I am, living among concrete structures that long ago challenged the trees for their height, breadth, and elegance. The buildings here stretch farther into the heavens and with more frequency than what I’m use to, and claustrophobia often encroaches on me if I’m not being careful. It’s a point of personal pride to be able to make a home wherever I am, and this does feel like home. It really does, except that I would never walk barefoot here.

I am a long distance hiker. So, by nature, traversing central London on foot is a thrill for me. Strolling through it’s streets in the morning, I have fallen in love with this historical architecture, and how superimposed into the city it is. It is an intoxicating combination of old and new, ancient and innovative, and it is as essential to this city’s culture as the intertwining system of roots in a forest. They are inseparable. These mighty buildings have withstood the heaviest rains and coldest snows, the most debilitating heat, all of history, and of course, humans. Their red and yellow brick faces have faded in vibrancy, and their white trimming might need to be repainted, but they loom protectively over the people in their streets, who come and go without as much as a second glance at the beauty around them. It is as though they are some equivalent to the majestic forests I have left at home. They span miles and years into the past, and to walk amidst them is as good as strolling through history itself.

There are other parts of London that remind me of home. For a city its size, it doesn’t squander its parks the way other cities seem to. It doesn’t take me more than a few blocks to find one, snuggled up between the crevices the building have left them, each one different and unique in their own ways. There are parks with gates, and parks with playgrounds, and this morning I even found one that had been created out of an old cemetery.

Similarly, coming off the Tube is like finding a break in the tree line, when I come upon a sunlit field in the early morning, and I know exactly where I are again. The cool air hits my cheek, and it’s refreshing rather than stifling the way the air in the underground is. I enjoy the momentary feelings of being lost before I find my bearings, eventually recognizing St. Pancras, with its unmistakably castle-like quality and high rising steeples, the Starbucks across the road, or the corners of streets I’ve walked on before. There are people, so many people everywhere, and each one of them is rushing to get to where they need to be. They flit from station to station, like birds from one branch to another, except birdsong has never sounded alien to me, the way these people do. I listen to a pair of them as they pass me, and although they are speaking English, their conversation is filled with Northern accents, and British slang that make me feel as though I’m listening to another language entirely.

Yet, as familiar as London is to me in these instances, I am homesick for a wind on my face that isn’t from a passing bus. These buildings don’t hug silence against them the way a forest does. Instead, each and every noise seems to reverberate out from them. The skies above my head are empty of stars at night, and there seem to be just as many people as there are pigeons here. I am yearning for a breath free of city air and other people’s conversations. When I feel lost amidst the overwhelming sea of people and expectation in my life, I look for myself in the uninterrupted horizon, where the ground reaches up towards the sun to kiss it twice a day, once for good morning and once for goodnight. I look for myself in the spaces between sea and sky, but there is no ocean here. My uninterrupted horizon is dotted with buildings that look beautiful as silhouettes in the setting sun.