Time and Tide

It seemed that as the water receded, so too did my angst.

 

I needed an excuse to paddle, to get out in my kayak in the center of the bay and just float. As the tide began to move out I knew that I would have to be quick about it. Gathering my gear, getting into the shorty one size too small, PFD over a shoulder, grabbing the yak, paddle in the other hand and humping it down to the inlet would find me chasing the last of the ebbing current. Why is it in these moments the gremlins are out, knocking things about, slowing me down, damaging my calm? Always keeping my rescue gear in the boat saves me time and frustration of not leaving it mindlessly behind, but everything else seems a deliberate effort because I am in a hurry. Once on the waters edge, I set the 17 footer down into the salty marsh, climb in with the grace of a landed hippopotamus, squinch into the cockpit, do the shimmy into the seat, and set my feet against the pegs. Its calm, no spray skirt today, besides, at my age I have no business rolling. A little sculling pulls the boat away from the shore, and I am underway.

 

It is incredible how efficient long pulling strokes in a sea kayak carve the stress and agita out of me. I enter my practiced form, borne of long years of paddling, a half twist at the hip, dipping forward clean and deep, driving back gently and smoothly, lifting with a twist and moving now to the other side. Again and again, the smooth patterned motion takes over my conscious, and I forget, why I am here, what I was worried about, what else I should be doing. I just am.

 

The sun is setting as I come out of the small fingerlet, the moon rising in the east over the end of the world outside the bay. The breeze is gentle, the tide carries me effortlessly. The rec boats with their bikinied babes and manly men at the helm, beer in hand, doing 20 knots in the no-wake zone don't bother me, as I drift lazily over the steep series of waves that spill off their hulls. In half an hour I am drifting in the center of the bay. Its silent here, warm. I can see nothing forever towards the rising moon. I switch on my nav light over my right shoulder, open the Chem-Lume on my chest, and I rest. I can see the bridge to Ocean City to my south, the piers of Somers Point behind me, and if I believe, I can see the lights of the casinos in Atlantic City. The moonlight fills the shadows, and the contrasting shore takes on a new form, the soft rollers lulling me a bye. A cigar, I think, and enjoy it watching moonrise and sun set. After a short lifetime I toss the last dreg of my Hemingway into the sea, and paddle through the smaller waterways off the inlet, watching the sea birds, seeing fish jump near the weeds. In, around, back out to the bay.

 

Its getting dark now, and the tide has ebbed. Work tomorrow, and I am convinced the cats miss me, so I turn the boat leeward towards home. I have renewed, if only for the moment, but its all I needed. I am the long, smooth, clean rhythm. The shore comes upon me, scull in, and once again lock myself back onto the muddy shore. The weight of being me slowly sets down on me again. But I have strength now, of knowing tomorrow, we paddle again.

 

 

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I am weary...

“I am weary, Craysis…”

The war horses were magnificent, stoic and awe inspiring for their calm in the sea of tension swirling below.  Astride, the generals surveyed the ordered gathering of leashed hellions, alight in morning sun off polished metal and waxed leather, the majesty of the crimson plumage of the Guardian Legion out of place here. Behind the two warriors a wall of Guardians waited motionless upon equally massive steeds, the heralds fluttering above in the autumn breeze.

Pretorius was the elder, a veteran of wars too numerous to count, remembered by the place and the dead. Time has no meaning in these days, measured by battle won, battle lost, and the endless tally of those who had died. These legends had weathered Pretorius to the weary man he had found himself to be on this cold foggy morning.

Craysis had been with Pretorius for over a hundred battles, ceaselessly at his side. He was known with great respect as Pretorius the Younger as in manner and thought the two had become indistinguishable. He turned to his friend saying nothing, thinking only that this weariness had found itself deep in his bones as well.

The warriors were ageless. Both men stood over 18 hands tall in their bare feet, muscle and sinew, strong enough it is said, that they have been known to carry their injured horses from the field. Resplendent in his battle dress, Pretorius looked away from the mounting terror, closed his eyes and faced into the sun.

“Things never change, Craysis, when the same thoughtless sword is used to solve every problem.”

Pretorius opened his eyes and let the sun burn the darkness in his soul. After a moment, he looked back unblinking to the field.

“To the south we have these religious, who swarm in upon us because their imagined god demands it. To the barren east, the weak raid us for food as they are hungry. The west bleeds from the barbarian whose greed drives them to murder and rape our people, steal our resources for no other reason than they want to. It rains in the northwest with the tears of the driven, whose mad king has feuded them into deep poverty and despair, driven by swords behind them into spears before them for no other reason than senseless pride.  There is peace only in the northeast borne of decades of respect, sharing of knowledge and fair trade. And even there tensions rise as these forces press upon our two empires.”

Craysis nodded, insight dripping with the blood on his own hands, replying, “The answer is always the sword. There is no reckoning when the anger and hate cloud judgment, making even the most learned base spittle and venom…”

The ensuing quiet was interrupted by an approaching messenger, dusty and sweaty from a brisk ride up the hill.

“My Lord,” he breathlessly addressed Pretorius, “The Legion is ready!” He turned his excited horse just short of the two men, whose horses moved not a hair before the smaller steed and its snorting aggressiveness born of the tempest around it.

Pretorius nodded, turned to Craysis with the wretchedness that filled both men, and replied so softly that the messenger behind them knew the words only because they had been said too many times before.

“Kill them… kill them all.”

An Awkward Situation

The house smelled of wood, of smoke, and of fresh tobacco. It laid down a layer of calm, freshened by the air cascading through the window opened but a crack against the wind and rain. The sounds of the squall pouring off the roof and the balconey outside, against the windows and on the street below was reverberant. He poked the fire, low lit, and sat back in his chair, relieved that the Grand Marnier had not lost its pleasantness for him. A long pull on his cigar, he exhaled, the smoke trailed along with the cool air towards the fire.

Henri had lived here but several weeks, and had filled the house with things, but things don't replace people, no matter how many things one collected. Nor did it replace his cat, he thought, staring into the flicker. He missed his cat, and took no comfort knowing his cat, of course, did not miss him. The loneliness was magnified by the realization some time ago that he had grown weary of his own company.

The bell of the phone on the table between the fireplace chairs startled him. He let it ring a few times before he lifted the receiver, to spite it.

 

"Hello?"

 

"Yes, hello, Inspector Levant. I am Lieutenant Francois Bellavue of the Gendarmerie. It seems there's been a murder."

 

The Lieutenant paused as if he awaited some expression from Henri. Henri was not in the mood.

 

"So you say..."

 

"Well, actually, the dead man with the note attached to his chest with a rather long knife says so, Monsieur. I am but painting the picture as it lays before me."

 

"I see. And what is of it to me?"

 

"The dead man is Inspector Henri Levant, Monsieur. This makes something of an awkward situation."

 

Henri was intrigued. "Ah. Yes, I suppose it is."

 

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A Tale of Two Men

He’d waited for over an hour before the old red Ford pulled into the driveway. He looked at his watch, shook his head and watched for a moment as it made its way noisily up the gravel drive, stopping just short of the house. He put his hands on the armrests, paused a moment, then pushed himself up out of the deep soft chair, a labor born of weariness, not infirmity. He could hear Jorge stepping up onto the porch as he approached the door, and opened it.

“Hello, Jorge. Here, let me give you a hand with those.”

Jorge nodded and grimaced as he lifted the box a bit higher for Wayne to take from him, and then picked up the small gray Samsonite at his feet. He came into the house, removing his straw fedora, and glancing about.

“Wayne, its not changed much. But you, you got old.”

Wayne smiled and grunted, waving Jorge to a seat on the couch next to the chair from which his story began. Wayne had met Jorge some 34 years before, when he visited this same house and sat in another version of that couch in which he now sat. Things were different then, a bit more tense. And there was a gun involved. But that’s another story.

Jorge pulled out a fresh Romeo et Juliet cigar, and passed another to Wayne, who had already pulled the cutter from his cigar table. Wayne cut his cigar, passed the cutter to Jorge, who worked his cigar in his hands as Wayne lit his, sat back, and took a long draw.

“You saw me here last week, you stupid shit.”

Jorge smiled, cutting his cigar, then giving it a cold draw, sat back and turned the lighter in his hands. It bore the markings of a naval ship, a frigate, USS Halyburton (FFG 40), its herald behind it as the engraved ship seemed to come forth from the aged unpolished brass.

“Yup.”

Jorge smiled at Wayne, lit his cigar, and the two men sat in silence. 

Admonition and Assumption

Toshizou's reservations on receiving Genen's first request to review the legislation were obvious. He was not there at the moment and had only visited briefly while all were wearing their finest smiles as they went about their business. They always do when he visited. He did not know the political and process landscape in which this ruling would settle and take life. He was also aware that he could not communicate as dynamically as he would like by static letter, not knowing anyone at the table, and understanding that change was always a difficult thing for those who lived dogmatically and had change brought upon them from outside. But the first request was a simple one, and the process progressed simply, if not somewhat abruptly without feedback from Genen. He wrote it, and it suddenly was. The second request was more complex, but went as quickly, again without a word, it suddenly, with minor changes, was. This time there was a strain to it that reminded him he knew this method to be a bad idea. These things should wait until he arrived to stay, but perhaps Genen was in a position that might require expediency. Genen wasn't one to write home much, so how was one to know?

 

It was the inevitable end of a series of assumptions. It started with a mindset that Toshizou had gathered together and refined over the years, shaped hard by recent events, and it was this filter that gave credence to his apparently mistaken assumptions. The third letter from Genen, the admonition as Toshizou called it, followed Toshizou's response to the second request. As seen through this filter, it was terse. It didn't so much as nod to the work they had done. In fact, it didn't mention it at all, so Toshizou was left without knowing its impact. He left the words of the admonition with a feeling Genen didn't like what they had done with the second request under Toshizou's guidance, and that what Genen wanted from them was nothing at all, just their approval of what already existed. This wasn't what he understood from the man's request to "review and revise to fit your plans", but it was clear from the second line of the admonition that, "my goal for you was to implement what is here now and that won't change when you get here." Well... a challenging requirement, being that he did not know what was there now, and he didn't know what would need changing. These were his initial reservations about doing this, incarnate. He had decided he needed to respond to Genen with his concerns that these things should wait until Toshizou arrived. At first he wrote long and explaining, but decided to be brief and discarded most of what he had written. In this crude tailoring he realizes now his message was lost and he might seem to be upset and pouting. While this was true to some extent, it wasn't the message he had wanted to convey to Genen. He had made a mistake. He simply wanted Genen to wait until he got there, and to make it clear to Genen he should not be toyed with. Genen wrote back that the ruling was put in place, and ended with a note that he would call on Toshizou to appear about this, and that he hoped Toshizou was well. What, Toshizou mused, might this mean?

 

His coffee, hot still, but more bitter than he had intended since he was shaving off his sugar intake, washed down his quickly mixing feelings. On one hand he felt dismissed, and on the other he was confused over expectations, and add to that he was the one feeling a bit contrite; Genen's words may seem harsh but it was clear on re-reading his tone was purposefully not. Toshizou had made the assumption that the man meant for them to review and revise, for that is what Genen had written. The second assumption is that he didn't understand what was happening, which was less of an assumption and more of an observation, but he had a feeling he understood better than he allowed. A third assumption was that Genen was very upset, for how Toshizou had written the second ruling and that he had included others in his counsel (Genen, in the admonition, stated he thought it unwarranted at this stage. This confused Toshizou, since he was not aware of what other stages might be and when others might contribute to what would ultimately affect them, for as he had worried, he was not there).

 

The expected call to appear over his childish response to Genen's admontion had yet to ring through, and he was variably nervous and defiant: one did not encourage the wrath of a royal unless one was wanton with one's peril. He had not intended to upset Genen, but the prince had to understand that he was not a pawn, otherwise he could be easily and ill used. He could have softened his tone, Toshizou thought, had he not allowed his filter to be quite so porous, and had instead simply nodded. But he had felt he had a duty to stand up for himself, and so set himself upon his sword.

 

The other set of assumptions revolved around the notion that Genen was actually upset. Genen did not know him any more than he knew Genen. It could well be that Genen, stressed as he surely was in this situation, somewhat out of his element, had written the admonition without implication, had now seen his own mistake and was contrite. This wasn't, however, in Toshizou's experience, not so much with Genen, but with leaders in general. So he awaited the call, and drilled painful holes in his stomach with bitter coffee. The pain of waiting made harsher in that the two notes from Genen to follow made no mention of the meeting to come.

 

He was aware that so much angst followed assumptions made as a matter of course. We make these assumptions, he knew, in order to remain alive, to see and avoid danger. Unfortunately enough prove true, enough to make the process remain in the quiver. But it also caused, as it was now, unwanted grief and stress. Unlike canvas, the matter would not become softer by worrying it. This was far easier to accept and understand than to practice. This is why, while it was one of his delineated rules with a number of its own: don't make assumptions, he made them constantly. All of this made him weary, trying to stay alive in the world of rather unpredictable and vicarious people with power over him, contrasting with doing what they asked him to do, or, he shrugged, at least trying to do what he thinks they are asking of him. The thing, he knew, was to do it without making them look less than.

 

There is no pleasing some people, he thought as he shuffled through the pastries on the plate, ignoring the fruit he knew to be better for him. He found one with a cream cheese center, took a generous bite, and softened his next sip of coffee with its sweetness. Perhaps that what was called for here. Some sweet with the bitter. It depended on how bitter the bitter was to be... This might be another time to simply nod, he smirked.

 

The problem, really, is that simply nodding wasn't his nature. He was going to need more cream cheese pastries if he was going to survive this. And, rubbing his sharply pained stomach, less bitter coffee.

 

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Storyteller, write me a good story

We are extraordinary storytellers.
 
In our minds we create stories, dozens, hundreds of times a day. We create these stories to give the random facts and not so random events in our lives context. Most are created and lost before we know we've been there, but their meaning impacts us, consciously, some unconsciously. Some are mundane explanations for this or that, but many of our stories protect our ego, make us the hero, the other a villain. This justifies our decisions, our thoughts, our actions. Most are built around a single, simple observation, built into a tome, chapter and verse, one thought built upon the last, until in the end we have given context to an emotion, an opinion, an action. We tell ourselves these stories to protect ourselves. We do it all the time. Every moment, every day. Whether we want to or not.
 
Our fears, our anger, fuels our stories. A discussion goes badly. You are sure to hear about it in the morning. All night you lay awake writing a story. What about it that frightens you? You conjure lines for what you did, why you did it, what you add that wasn't there, what you remove that was. You describe the characters in your story, their motives behind their part in your play become chapters in their own right, and why you were right to do what you did, why they were wrong, or how they ally to you. You rewrite, discard whole parts, edit, and by morning in fits and starts you have written a book. You overhear a few negative words of a conversation that mentions no names, and fearful, you start to write a story that raises your anxiety for surely it was about you; you have been found out and struggle to verse your reason. A wife finds a charge for flowers she never received on her husband's card statement, and by the time he gets home she has written an entire tragedy based on that one isolated fact. Sometimes stories take but an unconscious moment. A car cuts us off and we find ourselves confronting a villain who was actually a noble person who for a moment wasn't paying attention. A nefarious device thwarts us, and we personify its intent. We enter the elevator with a disheveled man and by the third floor have given him a story. Other times a few real facts, real situations, are the foundation for a moments panic when our fear becomes realized, already played out in our minds storybook factory. We saw this coming in our story, we know how it will end. Our stories sometimes are there to give us courage, sometimes for anxieties, slights, threats, imagined and real, sometimes for imaginary and real epochs patched together to give meaning where separately there is none. Our stories explain our experience in a way favorable to us. They protect us.
 
All of these stories, these manifest molehills made into mountains, are built with assumptions. They are almost always negative, scary, fear and stress heightening. Its how we protect ourselves, getting ahead of the issue we imagine about to befall us, creating evil to counter our noble self. And we are almost always wrong.
 
From this moment on, whenever you can, write only good stories, make only good assumptions if you make any at all. See what happens. I offer you will find peace, possibly happiness. At the very least, you shall enjoy a good story.
 

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Being human

Finding hope. Not the happy me kind, but the kind that goes deeper into what we are struggling with in our selves. Without struggle there is no need for hope.
 
We build places for ourselves that tell us what we want to hear, and we share with others only those things that make us feel good about ourselves. We create stories for others to paint a picture of who we want them to think we are. Sometimes we craft them carefully, sometimes we are raw and open. The truth is that things happen in our lives, some good, some not so much. Some we are proud of, some not so much. Those who tell the stories with no sadness, no difficulty haven't yet told themselves the truth, since no life is lived without these things. A perfect life is not a life lived, but one painted over. The sadness is what the paint covers means the most to our being human. Hope is being able to peel the paint, and having the notion that you will still be okay. Needing hope is being human. So is giving hope. Giving hope is letting others know that removing that paint is okay. Being human is not in the covering, but in the uncovering.
 
Being human is needing, and giving hope. My plan for 2013 is to be human.
 

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