I Survived
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=953o5iD688Q]
Aftermath of Irma, Part 3
Chapter 4:
Our Feeble Hands
“In everybody’s life there’s a point of no return. And in very few cases, a point where you can’t go forward anymore. And when we reach that point, all we can do is quietly accept the fact. That’s how we survive.” Haruki Murakami, [i]Kafka on the Shore[/i]
Woken by the children about 8am. I talk with mom and the kids a while, then retire to the bedroom to read and relax til after 1pm.
Head to Taco Bell for lunch, then to the library, which has reopened, but the computer systems are still down.
A family comes in, charging devices at the library. I feel compassion for them. Even my mother and I, poor and solitary, had one place that offered safe harbor.
I pick up [i]Kafka on the Shore[/i] by Haruki Murakami and I read until close at 5pm.
~
Lights stands on the earth
Darkness upon its shoulders
River waters churn
~
Return to Jamie’s house. Read a while. Mom’s friend Lee has sent us dinner. An enormous tray of delicious yellow rice and chicken. Everyone has some. Glad to share.
How much and how little. How much of who and what we are is owed to others. To their contributions to our wellbeing. To their walking out on us, leaving us to stand, or fall, on our own. To reconcile that there is no closure in the story of life. A hazy recollection of past, which, once lived, becomes illusory. A continually shifting present that can only be experienced, never understood, grasped or captured. An unknowable future and end at which we are not present. We are, then we are gone. How little do we appreciate all of this. How little do we appreciate time and those with which we share it as it falls through our feeble hands.
Reminisced about childhood with Jamie a couple hours, had some laughs. Mom is eager to agree with anything said, about anything. This house, like the earth which houses us as we hurtle through space, is a different animal from day to night and night to day. Quiet, now. I read a while longer.
On the laptop, in the kitchen. Jamie’s wife Tiffany emerges. I thank her for sheltering us. She says we are welcome to stay as long as we need, adds that our watching the kids is saving her 80 dollars a day in childcare. I smile, moved by her magnanimous words, but say nothing.
I return home to take my evening meds, check to see if power is restored, but no luck. Apparently the winds of this storm were particularly hellacious, more so than Matthew the year prior, destroying power grids.
I take my meds, shine the flashlight around. Darkness has swallowed the womb that held me for 16 years. I sit in the tepid shadows of what was once my home.
And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day.
..
Chapter 5:
A Labyrinth of Hours
“[i]You sit at the edge of the world,
I am in a crater that is no more.
Words without letters
Standing in the shadow of the door.
The moon shines down on a sleeping lizard,
Little fish rain down from the sky.
Outside the window there are soldiers,
Steeling themselves to die.
Kafka sits in a chair by the shore,
Thinking of the pendulum that moves the world, it seems.
When your heart is closed,
The shadow of the unmoving Sphinx,
Becomes a knife that pierces your dreams.
The drowning girl’s fingers
Search for the entrance stone, and more.
Lifting the hem of her azure dress,
She gazes—
at Kafka on the shore[/i].”
Haruki Murakami
I have commandeered the bedroom shared by Connor and Graedin. Connor is staying with his work friends, Graedin comes in during the day to get his toys and clothes, but mostly stays in the living room and sleeps with his parents or in his sister’s room, which has two beds.
Sleep has trouble finding me. We search for each other in a labyrinth of hours. Still minutes pass over one another, like fish gliding in a moonlit basin, sliding across mounting seconds that produce no sound, only silent circuits of sinuous rhythm.
I am filled with a dream.
For hours that bear the verisimilitude of aeons, it assails me, with curious intensity.
Moments of half remembered lifetimes emerge. Rippling before my mind’s eye like raindrops in a sea.
Struggles, against friends. Struggles, against foes. Struggles against the great vasting expanse, where stars and myself are all consumed by ekpyrosis, by the eternal wheel of fire.
I feel something within tense and then release, because I knew these were all the same. Friends, foes, stars and self.
Across shifting backdrops, we make constant love, we do endless battle.
Wars of words, wars of wills, wars of might against might. Wars of silence and vanities.
We stand in regard, probe each other’s weakness, cup a hand over, to conceal our own. Faces and forms change, but the spirits within are the same.
How many times have we known each other, how many times have we loved, have we hated.
How many times have you birthed me, phantom friends, and how many have I you.
Come closer, embrace me, burn to cinders in my hands. My love, no fear has. I was not made, was not fashioned to fear, but to burn.
And burn
And burn
We cross through many pillared chambers, like lungs of the earth, columns rising to heights swathed in shadows.
We surge through tides of snowdrifts, where mountains pierce the veil of sky and clouds drift beneath our feet, merging with ice and air.
There are crumbling stones, worked and smoothed by hand and chisel, swallowed in seas of reed and coral.
There are the gaping maws of thrown down gates, the silent mouths of doorways, with a blasted and charnel blackness within their womb, whispers of gutting fires in tongues that rasp and chitter like chains, like the mandibles and exoskeletal limbs of insects, clicking across shattered, abandoned floors.
I wake.
Sunlight filters through the large window. Concrete and plaster walls around me for a change, but it doesn’t feel much different than home. Only in a gale do our walls buckle as they did on Monday. Feels like a month ago.
No internet nor television, service has been interrupted by the storm. I don’t miss it, either. I read and spend time with the family or explore the town.
Make pancakes for the kids. Cut them up for the five year old. He has a second one.
Assist Jamie as he cuts some sheet metal to replace his damaged shed roof. Hot sparks reflect off my skin, somewhat hardened by the sun.
The family leaves for a child’s birthday party. I read in the bedroom, make some lunch for mom and I. Mozzarella sticks and chicken nuggets that Tiffany no longer wants.
It’s interesting to move in the distinct society of another family.
Sometimes you’re dodging traffic, trying not to get in the way. This, inevitably, fails, but the awareness is what counts, the conscious effort.
Mom is loud, she wades into the family, a bright bell of loquacious conversation, continually chiming.
I am a shadow, upright of posture, but relaxed, in a chair or standing with arms behind, still and straight as a monolith, hands folded together.
The family returns. I ask the children questions about their day.
They are startled as I transfer seamlessly from obfuse to manifest. They brighten to be asked their reflections and opinions.
They speak to me, rushing over one another, I turn to each and fix them with the depth of my gentle gaze and warm smile. Slowly, they are enervated.
Calm washes over them, for bed. I lead the boy by the hand and carry the girl to the bedroom they are sharing, then retreat to the one I have borrowed, for the time being.
~
Sphinx asking questions
Sand smooths away his features
Stone answers nothing
~
And there is evening and there is morning, the sixth day.
..
Epilogue:
A Final Perspective
“And once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, in fact, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm is all about.” Haruki Murakami, [i]Kafka on the Shore[/i]
Yet again, I dream. A dream within a dream.
Waters run between the stones at the seashore. They rush and retreat, like breath. Ships are departing, sails tattered and billowing. Each silent ripple waves hello, simultaneously, waves goodbye.
I stand there, waist deep in waters, toes grasping round stones below. I gaze at the ships, filled with wonder, so far away and unreachable, unknowable, as if they were stars.
I also stand upon the deck, gazing back. My perspective rises and falls. Longing fills me, draining away as the mists slowly envelop the hulls, as the mists slowly envelop the seashore.
Shadows slide across the surface of the waters. Ennui creeps in. I sag, I sink. I also witness this from somewhere beyond.
A third perspective, a final perspective, taking everything in: seashore, waters, mists and departing ships, as if I stood gazing from a window in a tall building or tower.
Darkness rushes over me, over everything.
I wake in the bosom of this temporary haven. The house is quiet. The family has departed, mom is resting. I have slept late. I follow the slant of midmorning light across the house with my eyes. I pick up the various items scattered about: mismatched shoes, children’s and dog’s toys, then set about sweeping the floors.
I locate the mop and give them a nice once over. I wash and dry the dishes, depositing them where they seem to belong. I wipe down the cabinets and appliances in the kitchen. I fold children’s clothes lying half out of dresser drawers and close them. I make beds.
The animals recline or follow me about, tails wagging. Braxton mewls for some attention, I stroke his head and smile at his obvious pleasure.
I read into the afternoon, before having a long talk with my friend Ebru. I close my eyes when she speaks and drink in her voice, which fills me with a calm pleasure. I am charmed by the sleepiness that creeps over her. I bid her goodnight.
At 7, I get dinner for mom and I at Publix. I run across Miss Destinee from my computer class in February. She embraces me warmly and we talk while I wait my turn to order sandwiches.
At 8pm, I get an automated call from Florida Power and Light, telling me that our services have been restored. About 10pm, everyone returns. I wait until each has had their fill of telling me about their day, before giving them the news. My mother weeps with gratitude, hugs and kisses everyone. We say our thanks. I load up the car and we return home.
~
Hair of silken night
Still eyes of melancholy
Memory holds her
~
Lights on in neighbors’ windows. Our porch light, finally illuminated and welcoming with its familiar radiance. Almost reminds me of the dogs’ eagerly wagging tails or the cat’s cries for attention and silent appreciation upon reception.
Mom goes inside, the air conditioners had been left on, and the swelter of recent days has been banished by an exorcism of the electrically cooled atmosphere.
We set about to cleaning and reordering our home. I mix a solution of water, soap, baking soda and a bit of bleach and wipe down every surface of the refrigerator. I wash and dry the containers that had been emptied of spoiled food. I plug in the vacuum cleaner/steamer and give the floors a good once over. I make the beds.
Midnight. I lie down, close my eyes and rest.
And there was evening and there was morning, the seventh day. And it was good.
..
Aftermath of Irma
The small and insignificant events of a small and insignificant life
By
Daniel Christensen
Sometimes writing as
The Fire Elemental
..
“A revelation leaps over the borders of everyday. A life without revelation is no life at all. What you need to do is leap from reason that [i]observes[/i] to reason that [i]acts[/i]. That’s what’s critical.” Haruki Murakami, [i]Kafka on the Shore[/i]
Copyright © 2017 by Daniel Christensen. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
[image]
Aftermath of Irma, Part 3
Chapter 4:
Our Feeble Hands
“In everybody’s life there’s a point of no return. And in very few cases, a point where you can’t go forward anymore. And when we reach that point, all we can do is quietly accept the fact. That’s how we survive.” Haruki Murakami, [i]Kafka on the Shore[/i]
Woken by the children about 8am. I talk with mom and the kids a while, then retire to the bedroom to read and relax til after 1pm.
Head to Taco Bell for lunch, then to the library, which has reopened, but the computer systems are still down.
A family comes in, charging devices at the library. I feel compassion for them. Even my mother and I, poor and solitary, had one place that offered safe harbor.
I pick up [i]Kafka on the Shore[/i] by Haruki Murakami and I read until close at 5pm.
~
Lights stands on the earth
Darkness upon its shoulders
River waters churn
~
Return to Jamie’s house. Read a while. Mom’s friend Lee has sent us dinner. An enormous tray of delicious yellow rice and chicken. Everyone has some. Glad to share.
How much and how little. How much of who and what we are is owed to others. To their contributions to our wellbeing. To their walking out on us, leaving us to stand, or fall, on our own. To reconcile that there is no closure in the story of life. A hazy recollection of past, which, once lived, becomes illusory. A continually shifting present that can only be experienced, never understood, grasped or captured. An unknowable future and end at which we are not present. We are, then we are gone. How little do we appreciate all of this. How little do we appreciate time and those with which we share it as it falls through our feeble hands.
Reminisced about childhood with Jamie a couple hours, had some laughs. Mom is eager to agree with anything said, about anything. This house, like the earth which houses us as we hurtle through space, is a different animal from day to night and night to day. Quiet, now. I read a while longer.
On the laptop, in the kitchen. Jamie’s wife Tiffany emerges. I thank her for sheltering us. She says we are welcome to stay as long as we need, adds that our watching the kids is saving her 80 dollars a day in childcare. I smile, moved by her magnanimous words, but say nothing.
I return home to take my evening meds, check to see if power is restored, but no luck. Apparently the winds of this storm were particularly hellacious, more so than Matthew the year prior, destroying power grids.
I take my meds, shine the flashlight around. Darkness has swallowed the womb that held me for 16 years. I sit in the tepid shadows of what was once my home.
And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day.
..
Chapter 5:
A Labyrinth of Hours
“[i]You sit at the edge of the world,
I am in a crater that is no more.
Words without letters
Standing in the shadow of the door.
The moon shines down on a sleeping lizard,
Little fish rain down from the sky.
Outside the window there are soldiers,
Steeling themselves to die.
Kafka sits in a chair by the shore,
Thinking of the pendulum that moves the world, it seems.
When your heart is closed,
The shadow of the unmoving Sphinx,
Becomes a knife that pierces your dreams.
The drowning girl’s fingers
Search for the entrance stone, and more.
Lifting the hem of her azure dress,
She gazes—
at Kafka on the shore[/i].”
Haruki Murakami
I have commandeered the bedroom shared by Connor and Graedin. Connor is staying with his work friends, Graedin comes in during the day to get his toys and clothes, but mostly stays in the living room and sleeps with his parents or in his sister’s room, which has two beds.
Sleep has trouble finding me. We search for each other in a labyrinth of hours. Still minutes pass over one another, like fish gliding in a moonlit basin, sliding across mounting seconds that produce no sound, only silent circuits of sinuous rhythm.
I am filled with a dream.
For hours that bear the verisimilitude of aeons, it assails me, with curious intensity.
Moments of half remembered lifetimes emerge. Rippling before my mind’s eye like raindrops in a sea.
Struggles, against friends. Struggles, against foes. Struggles against the great vasting expanse, where stars and myself are all consumed by ekpyrosis, by the eternal wheel of fire.
I feel something within tense and then release, because I knew these were all the same. Friends, foes, stars and self.
Across shifting backdrops, we make constant love, we do endless battle.
Wars of words, wars of wills, wars of might against might. Wars of silence and vanities.
We stand in regard, probe each other’s weakness, cup a hand over, to conceal our own. Faces and forms change, but the spirits within are the same.
How many times have we known each other, how many times have we loved, have we hated.
How many times have you birthed me, phantom friends, and how many have I you.
Come closer, embrace me, burn to cinders in my hands. My love, no fear has. I was not made, was not fashioned to fear, but to burn.
And burn
And burn
We cross through many pillared chambers, like lungs of the earth, columns rising to heights swathed in shadows.
We surge through tides of snowdrifts, where mountains pierce the veil of sky and clouds drift beneath our feet, merging with ice and air.
There are crumbling stones, worked and smoothed by hand and chisel, swallowed in seas of reed and coral.
There are the gaping maws of thrown down gates, the silent mouths of doorways, with a blasted and charnel blackness within their womb, whispers of gutting fires in tongues that rasp and chitter like chains, like the mandibles and exoskeletal limbs of insects, clicking across shattered, abandoned floors.
I wake.
Sunlight filters through the large window. Concrete and plaster walls around me for a change, but it doesn’t feel much different than home. Only in a gale do our walls buckle as they did on Monday. Feels like a month ago.
No internet nor television, service has been interrupted by the storm. I don’t miss it, either. I read and spend time with the family or explore the town.
Make pancakes for the kids. Cut them up for the five year old. He has a second one.
Assist Jamie as he cuts some sheet metal to replace his damaged shed roof. Hot sparks reflect off my skin, somewhat hardened by the sun.
The family leaves for a child’s birthday party. I read in the bedroom, make some lunch for mom and I. Mozzarella sticks and chicken nuggets that Tiffany no longer wants.
It’s interesting to move in the distinct society of another family.
Sometimes you’re dodging traffic, trying not to get in the way. This, inevitably, fails, but the awareness is what counts, the conscious effort.
Mom is loud, she wades into the family, a bright bell of loquacious conversation, continually chiming.
I am a shadow, upright of posture, but relaxed, in a chair or standing with arms behind, still and straight as a monolith, hands folded together.
The family returns. I ask the children questions about their day.
They are startled as I transfer seamlessly from obfuse to manifest. They brighten to be asked their reflections and opinions.
They speak to me, rushing over one another, I turn to each and fix them with the depth of my gentle gaze and warm smile. Slowly, they are enervated.
Calm washes over them, for bed. I lead the boy by the hand and carry the girl to the bedroom they are sharing, then retreat to the one I have borrowed, for the time being.
~
Sphinx asking questions
Sand smooths away his features
Stone answers nothing
~
And there is evening and there is morning, the sixth day.
..
Epilogue:
A Final Perspective
“And once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, in fact, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm is all about.” Haruki Murakami, [i]Kafka on the Shore[/i]
Yet again, I dream. A dream within a dream.
Waters run between the stones at the seashore. They rush and retreat, like breath. Ships are departing, sails tattered and billowing. Each silent ripple waves hello, simultaneously, waves goodbye.
I stand there, waist deep in waters, toes grasping round stones below. I gaze at the ships, filled with wonder, so far away and unreachable, unknowable, as if they were stars.
I also stand upon the deck, gazing back. My perspective rises and falls. Longing fills me, draining away as the mists slowly envelop the hulls, as the mists slowly envelop the seashore.
Shadows slide across the surface of the waters. Ennui creeps in. I sag, I sink. I also witness this from somewhere beyond.
A third perspective, a final perspective, taking everything in: seashore, waters, mists and departing ships, as if I stood gazing from a window in a tall building or tower.
Darkness rushes over me, over everything.
I wake in the bosom of this temporary haven. The house is quiet. The family has departed, mom is resting. I have slept late. I follow the slant of midmorning light across the house with my eyes. I pick up the various items scattered about: mismatched shoes, children’s and dog’s toys, then set about sweeping the floors.
I locate the mop and give them a nice once over. I wash and dry the dishes, depositing them where they seem to belong. I wipe down the cabinets and appliances in the kitchen. I fold children’s clothes lying half out of dresser drawers and close them. I make beds.
The animals recline or follow me about, tails wagging. Braxton mewls for some attention, I stroke his head and smile at his obvious pleasure.
I read into the afternoon, before having a long talk with my friend Ebru. I close my eyes when she speaks and drink in her voice, which fills me with a calm pleasure. I am charmed by the sleepiness that creeps over her. I bid her goodnight.
At 7, I get dinner for mom and I at Publix. I run across Miss Destinee from my computer class in February. She embraces me warmly and we talk while I wait my turn to order sandwiches.
At 8pm, I get an automated call from Florida Power and Light, telling me that our services have been restored. About 10pm, everyone returns. I wait until each has had their fill of telling me about their day, before giving them the news. My mother weeps with gratitude, hugs and kisses everyone. We say our thanks. I load up the car and we return home.
~
Hair of silken night
Still eyes of melancholy
Memory holds her
~
Lights on in neighbors’ windows. Our porch light, finally illuminated and welcoming with its familiar radiance. Almost reminds me of the dogs’ eagerly wagging tails or the cat’s cries for attention and silent appreciation upon reception.
Mom goes inside, the air conditioners had been left on, and the swelter of recent days has been banished by an exorcism of the electrically cooled atmosphere.
We set about to cleaning and reordering our home. I mix a solution of water, soap, baking soda and a bit of bleach and wipe down every surface of the refrigerator. I wash and dry the containers that had been emptied of spoiled food. I plug in the vacuum cleaner/steamer and give the floors a good once over. I make the beds.
Midnight. I lie down, close my eyes and rest.
And there was evening and there was morning, the seventh day. And it was good.
..
Aftermath of Irma
The small and insignificant events of a small and insignificant life
By
Daniel Christensen
Sometimes writing as
The Fire Elemental
..
“A revelation leaps over the borders of everyday. A life without revelation is no life at all. What you need to do is leap from reason that [i]observes[/i] to reason that [i]acts[/i]. That’s what’s critical.” Haruki Murakami, [i]Kafka on the Shore[/i]
Copyright © 2017 by Daniel Christensen. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
[image]
46-50, M
