By Debbie Stampfli
When I was nine years old, my room fell apart. Literally.
In one moment on a cold January morning in 1994, my drawers full of books flew out onto the carpet, my glass figurines tumbled from their shelves, and my furniture fell over onto the floor and on top of my bed.
It wasn’t just my room though. The Northridge Earthquake hit our entire neighborhood in a severe way — mainly because my family lived only a few miles from the epicenter. Some chimneys collapsed, and most incredibly, nearly every single one of our neighbor’s fences and walls were knocked down, including ours.
As a result, if you looked outside through our backyard, you could see into nearly every other backyard in the neighborhood. We were suddenly taken away from our comfortable, fenced-in environment, and forced to see into the backyards of people we barely knew. Stranger still, when the boundaries of our backyard opened, we suddenly became host to a number of animals. We began to regularly see squirrels, possums and mice in the days that followed. Our patio table even became home to a pure white dove that we affectionately named “Snowshoe.” After a while, he knew us so well that he would eat Saltine crackers right from our hands.
Although our world was shaken in a terrible way, it was also opened in a strange and beautiful way. After the earthquake, the busy main street we lived on became an unconventional neighborhood. Everyone had to come out of their homes eventually that day, and the most common phrase spoken that morning became, “Are you guys okay?” I wondered if those words would have escaped anyone’s lips if our “worlds” had not been tangibly broken.
In the same sense, I wish we would all become this shaken. It is a terrible thing to go through life in the center of a busy world with fences and walls and barriers keeping us apart from it. We become trapped behind our own fences, unaware of the world that is just next door, full of broken people and even beautiful white doves.
I’ve come to the point where I’ve realized that this is one of the defining marks of our culture. We live for ourselves and rarely see what is going on outside what interests us. When I was driving past a bus stop the other day, I saw an older woman with frazzled dark hair and disappointed eyes, holding her face in her hands. I knew she had grief that this world would categorize as unfixable. And I knew I would never see her again. Granted, it is impossible to take into consideration every pained person we come across. Yet, to ignore them altogether and dissolve into our own self-centered worlds is a tragedy. Some might call this condition apathy, but I think they are being far too kind. It is merely a symptom of our self-consumed culture: egoism, to be sure. Moreover, it demonstrates the complete lack of compassion that has taken us all captive. Instead of being aware and concerned for others, we are exclusively centered on ourselves. And by shutting out the world around us with a frame of indifference, we lose a whole world of unexpected beauty as well. Instead of building taller fences and thicker walls, we should long for earthquakes that take us into worlds we would have nothing to do with otherwise.
In spite of the destructive effect of the earthquake, my family gained a wonderful pet dove and a few new neighbors — things I wouldn’t have noticed in any other circumstance. Likewise, oftentimes when we lock ourselves behind fences instead of letting our walls fall down, we miss the important things, the simplistically beautiful things, and the imperfectly lovely things. But even more so, we need to desire “earthquakes” in order to get out of ourselves and observe those around us. If our worlds have to be shaken in order to transform us into observant and sensitive individuals, then so be it. Better a world of fallen fences than apathetic egomaniacs.
Showing posts with label issue 3. Show all posts
Showing posts with label issue 3. Show all posts
Friday, May 4, 2007
In the Middle of Somewhere: An Adventure in the Arizona Desert pt. 3
by Joe Barnes
By this time, I had been at the house for five hours. It was 3 p.m. We got in the Jeep and drove away, glad to be moving on. We pulled up to the auto store 30 minutes later, shocked that a Napa existed out here in the middle of nowhere. We went in, and Luke called Dad to explain what had happened. I bought a soda and took a seat on the bar stool at the long checkout counter.
As the two middle-aged women standing behind the counter listened to Luke, they showed a growing curiosity as to how we had arrived there with car trouble. Noticing this, I began to satisfy them with the story. After hearing everything I said, one of the ladies brought a man from the warehouse to take a look at the car. Luke hung up the phone and followed us to the Jeep. The big fat guy lay on the cement and looked at the engine. “Your water pump is shot. You see it leaking here?” He pointed up into the engine and then to the ground where the drips of water fell. “You need a new water pump. There’s not enough water getting to your engine to keep it cool.” “Are you sure?” Luke asked. “Positive,” the man replied.
Luke went back in the store and got on the phone to tell Dad the real problem. As Luke and Dad spoke, it became apparent that we needed to find a mechanic to put the pump on. One of the women interrupted Luke. “My husband is a part-time mechanic. He can do it. We live right down the street.” She had thin, light brown hair reaching to her waist. Her face was round with a double chin and a sincere smile. Luke paused from his conversation. We stared silently at her. The other woman chimed in, sensing our hesitation. “He’s a good mechanic — and a preacher. He won’t overcharge you. You can trust him.”
Luke ran it by my dad and got the okay. We bought two new hoses and a water pump. It was 4 p.m. as we followed the woman to her house. The medium-sized, tan and brown brick houses were much nicer than those in Greg’s town. We turned off the main road. The woman parked along the curb in front of a house, got out and ran to the edge of the driveway, motioning like an air-traffic controller. We parked under the carport over the driveway and got out of the car.
The woman, Shirley James, introduced us to her husband, Hosea James. Hosea stood just short of six feet. He was fit for a man in his 50s and had bristly brown hair cut high-top style. His tan skin showed the effects of long, blue-collar days in the sun. We also met an older couple, Dan and Marie, in the yard. When we pulled up, they were complimenting “Preacher James” on the message he had delivered the day before. Marie had shoulder-length, white hair. Dan’s head was bald with short white hair around the sides. It seemed that his age had caused his posture to slump.
Luke handed the water pump to Hosea. He immediately opened the hood and began to work. Shirley and Marie conversed while Luke and I petted the Black Labrador Dan held on a leash. “So Dan, what do you do out here? Are you retired?” I asked. “Well, I did work, until I fell off the ladder on the job and hurt myself real bad. I spent three months in the hospital. I’m still recovering. I got out in March.” His voice shook, and his words came out slowly.
Though his head slanted towards the ground, he made sure to look me in the eyes while he spoke. “Tell them Dan! Tell them what happened!” Marie said. Luke took a step closer to Dan and folded his arms to show interest. “Like I said, I hurt myself real bad. I broke three ribs, punctured my kidney, dislocated my hip and shoulder, and I had stitches all over my head.” He touched the side of his head. “I haven’t always stood this way, just since the accident.” “He’s always been real healthy,” his wife interjected.
Dan continued. “I was in a coma for two and a half months. While I was lying there one day, two tall young men dressed in black striped suits came in. They said, ‘Do you want to live through this, Dan?’ ‘Yes,’ I said. They told me they would only let me live if I denied Christ. If not, I would die.” By this time, Shirley and Marie had moved closer to Luke and me, listening as if it was the first time they had heard the story. “Now I gotta tell you, I had never been a Christian. She always wanted me to be, but I just didn’t care.” He pointed at Marie. “I’d been praying for him for 30 years,” she said. “For some reason, I knew this was not the time to deny Christ. So I said, ‘No, get out of here!’ They left. Then they came again. They said the same thing. I said no again, only this time, I got real mad and cursed and yelled at them. One of the men walked towards me, and I started swinging at him.”
Astonished, Luke and I looked over at the ladies. “It’s true!” Marie said. “The nurses had to strap his legs and arms to the bed. They even called me in to see.” I thought it peculiar that an injured man could be so rambunctious while he was unconscious. We looked back at Dan. “Right when I swung at him, a lion’s head lunged at me roaring.” He spread his hand wide and quickly moved it toward us to show the thrust. “It came out of his arm. I swung at it. Then it ended, and they were gone.” “It came out of his arm?” I asked, grabbing my arm and furrowing my brow. “Yes.” Dan raised his right forearm and touched the middle of it. “It came out right here.” “Wow,” I said, turning my head to Luke. We looked at each other wide-eyed. “Anyway, they came back a couple more times. When they were there, I felt like I was in hell. It smelled bad — and the heat. I could hear cries.” Dan paused to gather himself. “It put the fear of God in me,” he said in a severe tone. “I got out of there and gave my life to the Lord. I’ve read my Bible every day since.” “Thanks for telling us about that,” Luke said. I nodded my head to agree.
“We better get going!” Marie said to Shirley. “Nice to meet you boys. If you need a place to stay tonight, we have an extra bedroom.” “We’d appreciate that, but we should be out of here pretty soon,” Luke said. The old couple walked away. Shirley pulled out some chairs and began to tell us how Hosea and she had met, got married, become Christians and gotten very involved in their charismatic church. “The real preacher died, and they asked Hosea to fill in. He just kinda never stopped. He’s only been doing it a couple of years. Everyone loves him.”
Hosea walked over with the water pump and interrupted, telling us we had bought the wrong kind of pump. He said he had ordered the right one from Napa, but it wouldn’t be in until tomorrow morning. Also, he had found a crack in one of our cylinders, which he said he would fill with liquid glass. “I’m guessing you won’t be out of here until three or four tomorrow,” he said. Luke and I walked down the sidewalk towards Dan and Marie’s around 6 p.m., Luke with a duffle bag on his shoulder and me rolling a small suitcase. We laughed as people stared and gave us strange looks. Dan and Marie were happy to have us. Marie insisted on cooking us dinner. She made chicken and vegetable stir-fry with egg rolls.
After cleaning up, Luke and I walked through the living room and peered out the glass door. There Dan sat, shoulders hunched over and head down, holding a book very close to his face. Marie walked up behind us. “He reads his Bible there every evening,” she said. Luke slid the door open, and the four of us talked on the patio for a couple of hours. We headed back to the Jeep about 11 the next morning. Hosea had been working on it since nine. “I got the water pump on and the crack filled,” he said. “It needs another three or four hours to dry. It’s risky, but I think it should get you home.”
Once again, we sat underneath the carport and talked to Hosea and Shirley for three hours. They captivated us with interesting stories, telling us about the 10 years they had spent ministering on Indian reservations in northern Arizona. Time went by unnoticed. “Can we pray for ya’ll before you leave?” Shirley asked. “Of course,” Luke said. Holding hands, we formed a circle in the driveway. It was a solid, five-minute prayer. They agreed with each other’s requests and repeatedly said, “Yes, Jesus.” Their body movement caused Luke and me to open our eyes and watch them. They nodded and looked up to the sky and shook their heads. I looked at Luke, turned my nose up, and raised my eyebrows. He smiled.
We gave hugs and got into the Jeep. I drove out of Carney, Arizona on Tuesday afternoon at 4 p.m. I constantly checked the engine temperature, knowing that the engine could die at any moment. The mental video of driving down my street and pulling into my driveway played over and over. Luke asked if I wanted to listen to Mere Christianity on CD. Normally I’d say no, but I wanted distraction from looking at the clock every 20 minutes. I listened for 10 minutes.
My mind switched from dreading the remaining length of time in the car to worrying about the problems I would face at home. Milling them over, I began to speed. “Joe, did you hear that?” “No! What?” “What he just said.” “Yeah, I did. What was it, though?” He explained C.S. Lewis’ breakdown on the issue of hypocrisy in Christianity and then posed the same simple question Lewis asked. “Joe, are you a hypocrite? Think about it. Don’t be.” I drove in silence. Naturally, I wanted to ignore the difficult question. However, I fought my tendency and began to evaluate. Clearly, for me the question was not, “Are you a hypocrite?” but, “Will you be a hypocrite?” The only way to find authenticity at home would be the same way I had found it in Carney: by relying on and trusting in God. I drove until stopping for gas around 1 a.m. We were finally in Texas: time for Luke’s shift and my sleep.
Two hours later, I jolted up at a loud noise. It sounded and felt like we had just hit a car. “What in the —” I didn’t have a chance to finish. “I just ran over a deer!” Luke said. “He ran out in front of me, and I ran straight over him!” “Did it do any damage?” I asked. Luke leaned forward in the seat, trying to get a look at the front end. “I don’t know. I think it’s all right. I’m not stopping. I don’t care!” “You’re not gonna stop?” I said. “Whatever, just don’t hit any more deer.” I laughed and went back to sleep.
Thirty minutes later, I woke to the sounds of sirens. “Oh great, Luke! A cop! First the deer, now--” “Shut up, Joe!” Luke yelled. The Texas Highway Patrolman came to the window, giving the by-the-book statement. “Officer, I hit a deer a little bit ago. Can I get out and check the front?” “Sure, sure,” the officer answered. Luke and I got out and met him at the bumper. He shined his flashlight on it. “Yup, looks like it,” he said. “You can see some of the hair and the blood.” Luke gripped part of the plastic bumper, trying to force it back to the right position. Then he squatted to inspect the damage. “Is there any reason you were speeding back there, son?” Luke stood up and slowly turned to face him. “Actually, yeah, there is. I just graduated college, my car broke down in the middle of nowhere in Arizona for two days, and I just want to get home.” He pushed out a deep breath. “Be careful out there,” the officer said. He walked away.
We looked at each other, shocked. “Nice Luke!” I said. “Your tact worked!” We arrived home at 5 a.m. on Wednesday morning. I failed miserably that summer at being a Christian, and at the end, I was shamefully aware of it. Only now can I look back and see what God taught me through that experience and know that Hosea, Shirley, Dan and Marie would be proud of who I am today.
By this time, I had been at the house for five hours. It was 3 p.m. We got in the Jeep and drove away, glad to be moving on. We pulled up to the auto store 30 minutes later, shocked that a Napa existed out here in the middle of nowhere. We went in, and Luke called Dad to explain what had happened. I bought a soda and took a seat on the bar stool at the long checkout counter.
As the two middle-aged women standing behind the counter listened to Luke, they showed a growing curiosity as to how we had arrived there with car trouble. Noticing this, I began to satisfy them with the story. After hearing everything I said, one of the ladies brought a man from the warehouse to take a look at the car. Luke hung up the phone and followed us to the Jeep. The big fat guy lay on the cement and looked at the engine. “Your water pump is shot. You see it leaking here?” He pointed up into the engine and then to the ground where the drips of water fell. “You need a new water pump. There’s not enough water getting to your engine to keep it cool.” “Are you sure?” Luke asked. “Positive,” the man replied.
Luke went back in the store and got on the phone to tell Dad the real problem. As Luke and Dad spoke, it became apparent that we needed to find a mechanic to put the pump on. One of the women interrupted Luke. “My husband is a part-time mechanic. He can do it. We live right down the street.” She had thin, light brown hair reaching to her waist. Her face was round with a double chin and a sincere smile. Luke paused from his conversation. We stared silently at her. The other woman chimed in, sensing our hesitation. “He’s a good mechanic — and a preacher. He won’t overcharge you. You can trust him.”
Luke ran it by my dad and got the okay. We bought two new hoses and a water pump. It was 4 p.m. as we followed the woman to her house. The medium-sized, tan and brown brick houses were much nicer than those in Greg’s town. We turned off the main road. The woman parked along the curb in front of a house, got out and ran to the edge of the driveway, motioning like an air-traffic controller. We parked under the carport over the driveway and got out of the car.
The woman, Shirley James, introduced us to her husband, Hosea James. Hosea stood just short of six feet. He was fit for a man in his 50s and had bristly brown hair cut high-top style. His tan skin showed the effects of long, blue-collar days in the sun. We also met an older couple, Dan and Marie, in the yard. When we pulled up, they were complimenting “Preacher James” on the message he had delivered the day before. Marie had shoulder-length, white hair. Dan’s head was bald with short white hair around the sides. It seemed that his age had caused his posture to slump.
Luke handed the water pump to Hosea. He immediately opened the hood and began to work. Shirley and Marie conversed while Luke and I petted the Black Labrador Dan held on a leash. “So Dan, what do you do out here? Are you retired?” I asked. “Well, I did work, until I fell off the ladder on the job and hurt myself real bad. I spent three months in the hospital. I’m still recovering. I got out in March.” His voice shook, and his words came out slowly.
Though his head slanted towards the ground, he made sure to look me in the eyes while he spoke. “Tell them Dan! Tell them what happened!” Marie said. Luke took a step closer to Dan and folded his arms to show interest. “Like I said, I hurt myself real bad. I broke three ribs, punctured my kidney, dislocated my hip and shoulder, and I had stitches all over my head.” He touched the side of his head. “I haven’t always stood this way, just since the accident.” “He’s always been real healthy,” his wife interjected.
Dan continued. “I was in a coma for two and a half months. While I was lying there one day, two tall young men dressed in black striped suits came in. They said, ‘Do you want to live through this, Dan?’ ‘Yes,’ I said. They told me they would only let me live if I denied Christ. If not, I would die.” By this time, Shirley and Marie had moved closer to Luke and me, listening as if it was the first time they had heard the story. “Now I gotta tell you, I had never been a Christian. She always wanted me to be, but I just didn’t care.” He pointed at Marie. “I’d been praying for him for 30 years,” she said. “For some reason, I knew this was not the time to deny Christ. So I said, ‘No, get out of here!’ They left. Then they came again. They said the same thing. I said no again, only this time, I got real mad and cursed and yelled at them. One of the men walked towards me, and I started swinging at him.”
Astonished, Luke and I looked over at the ladies. “It’s true!” Marie said. “The nurses had to strap his legs and arms to the bed. They even called me in to see.” I thought it peculiar that an injured man could be so rambunctious while he was unconscious. We looked back at Dan. “Right when I swung at him, a lion’s head lunged at me roaring.” He spread his hand wide and quickly moved it toward us to show the thrust. “It came out of his arm. I swung at it. Then it ended, and they were gone.” “It came out of his arm?” I asked, grabbing my arm and furrowing my brow. “Yes.” Dan raised his right forearm and touched the middle of it. “It came out right here.” “Wow,” I said, turning my head to Luke. We looked at each other wide-eyed. “Anyway, they came back a couple more times. When they were there, I felt like I was in hell. It smelled bad — and the heat. I could hear cries.” Dan paused to gather himself. “It put the fear of God in me,” he said in a severe tone. “I got out of there and gave my life to the Lord. I’ve read my Bible every day since.” “Thanks for telling us about that,” Luke said. I nodded my head to agree.
“We better get going!” Marie said to Shirley. “Nice to meet you boys. If you need a place to stay tonight, we have an extra bedroom.” “We’d appreciate that, but we should be out of here pretty soon,” Luke said. The old couple walked away. Shirley pulled out some chairs and began to tell us how Hosea and she had met, got married, become Christians and gotten very involved in their charismatic church. “The real preacher died, and they asked Hosea to fill in. He just kinda never stopped. He’s only been doing it a couple of years. Everyone loves him.”
Hosea walked over with the water pump and interrupted, telling us we had bought the wrong kind of pump. He said he had ordered the right one from Napa, but it wouldn’t be in until tomorrow morning. Also, he had found a crack in one of our cylinders, which he said he would fill with liquid glass. “I’m guessing you won’t be out of here until three or four tomorrow,” he said. Luke and I walked down the sidewalk towards Dan and Marie’s around 6 p.m., Luke with a duffle bag on his shoulder and me rolling a small suitcase. We laughed as people stared and gave us strange looks. Dan and Marie were happy to have us. Marie insisted on cooking us dinner. She made chicken and vegetable stir-fry with egg rolls.
After cleaning up, Luke and I walked through the living room and peered out the glass door. There Dan sat, shoulders hunched over and head down, holding a book very close to his face. Marie walked up behind us. “He reads his Bible there every evening,” she said. Luke slid the door open, and the four of us talked on the patio for a couple of hours. We headed back to the Jeep about 11 the next morning. Hosea had been working on it since nine. “I got the water pump on and the crack filled,” he said. “It needs another three or four hours to dry. It’s risky, but I think it should get you home.”
Once again, we sat underneath the carport and talked to Hosea and Shirley for three hours. They captivated us with interesting stories, telling us about the 10 years they had spent ministering on Indian reservations in northern Arizona. Time went by unnoticed. “Can we pray for ya’ll before you leave?” Shirley asked. “Of course,” Luke said. Holding hands, we formed a circle in the driveway. It was a solid, five-minute prayer. They agreed with each other’s requests and repeatedly said, “Yes, Jesus.” Their body movement caused Luke and me to open our eyes and watch them. They nodded and looked up to the sky and shook their heads. I looked at Luke, turned my nose up, and raised my eyebrows. He smiled.
We gave hugs and got into the Jeep. I drove out of Carney, Arizona on Tuesday afternoon at 4 p.m. I constantly checked the engine temperature, knowing that the engine could die at any moment. The mental video of driving down my street and pulling into my driveway played over and over. Luke asked if I wanted to listen to Mere Christianity on CD. Normally I’d say no, but I wanted distraction from looking at the clock every 20 minutes. I listened for 10 minutes.
My mind switched from dreading the remaining length of time in the car to worrying about the problems I would face at home. Milling them over, I began to speed. “Joe, did you hear that?” “No! What?” “What he just said.” “Yeah, I did. What was it, though?” He explained C.S. Lewis’ breakdown on the issue of hypocrisy in Christianity and then posed the same simple question Lewis asked. “Joe, are you a hypocrite? Think about it. Don’t be.” I drove in silence. Naturally, I wanted to ignore the difficult question. However, I fought my tendency and began to evaluate. Clearly, for me the question was not, “Are you a hypocrite?” but, “Will you be a hypocrite?” The only way to find authenticity at home would be the same way I had found it in Carney: by relying on and trusting in God. I drove until stopping for gas around 1 a.m. We were finally in Texas: time for Luke’s shift and my sleep.
Two hours later, I jolted up at a loud noise. It sounded and felt like we had just hit a car. “What in the —” I didn’t have a chance to finish. “I just ran over a deer!” Luke said. “He ran out in front of me, and I ran straight over him!” “Did it do any damage?” I asked. Luke leaned forward in the seat, trying to get a look at the front end. “I don’t know. I think it’s all right. I’m not stopping. I don’t care!” “You’re not gonna stop?” I said. “Whatever, just don’t hit any more deer.” I laughed and went back to sleep.
Thirty minutes later, I woke to the sounds of sirens. “Oh great, Luke! A cop! First the deer, now--” “Shut up, Joe!” Luke yelled. The Texas Highway Patrolman came to the window, giving the by-the-book statement. “Officer, I hit a deer a little bit ago. Can I get out and check the front?” “Sure, sure,” the officer answered. Luke and I got out and met him at the bumper. He shined his flashlight on it. “Yup, looks like it,” he said. “You can see some of the hair and the blood.” Luke gripped part of the plastic bumper, trying to force it back to the right position. Then he squatted to inspect the damage. “Is there any reason you were speeding back there, son?” Luke stood up and slowly turned to face him. “Actually, yeah, there is. I just graduated college, my car broke down in the middle of nowhere in Arizona for two days, and I just want to get home.” He pushed out a deep breath. “Be careful out there,” the officer said. He walked away.
We looked at each other, shocked. “Nice Luke!” I said. “Your tact worked!” We arrived home at 5 a.m. on Wednesday morning. I failed miserably that summer at being a Christian, and at the end, I was shamefully aware of it. Only now can I look back and see what God taught me through that experience and know that Hosea, Shirley, Dan and Marie would be proud of who I am today.
The Loosing of Words: An Essay
By Jamie Lundsberg
I wouldn’t call myself a writer, or at least not a good one. I don’t consider my writing something that William Shakespeare, George Orwell or even you would take the time to read. But I can say that I am faithful to dedicate portions of each day to the smooth, buttermilk paper in my papyrus journal. It deserves that much at least, for even when I miss my scheduled times to write, it still waits for me to pick up my yellow Number Two and chat away with it.
No, I am not a writer — not yet anyway. But I set aside time for the use of words because I am fascinated, even captivated, by the rhythmic hum of their lullabies. Words don’t mind when I manipulate and contort them to my liking. I can make them say whatever I want them to say, and they are faithful to keep my secrets in the safety of their shadows.
There was a time in my life when words rescued me from a pit of deadly silence. When my world was failing, words, like faithful friends, did not neglect me. Words were the glue that kept my sanity intact. I remember the specific moment in which words became something personal to me. But not just any words: my words.
My hero, my older sister Danielle, was severely poisoned by methyl bromide, a pesticide used to spray crops, when she was 16. To this day, we don’t know how it happened. Some have concluded that it was done intentionally; others have said it was an accident. But have you ever watched someone die, someone wilt away like the petals on a fallen rose? It is one thing to strip all life from a flower, to rob it of its beauty in one lethal sweep. But to mutilate it, bit by bit, until nothing but its shell remains, is heart-breaking. Danielle was that flower, a rare beauty, growing and flourishing, until one day her life was demanded from her. It was as if some greedy child happened on a daisy, and instead of gently stroking its petals and enjoying it, plucked it out of the ground, roots and all, and tore off the petals one by one.
Each day, a bit of Danielle’s strength was stolen away, a bit of her life taken captive by the poison that ravaged her body. She was dying, and there was nothing anyone could do. Even the doctors did nothing. They told my weeping parents to take their child home to let her die peacefully. How does one communicate such pain? I didn’t know how, but I was desperate to find a way to release the tension within me. I did not want to pray since I was angry with God. My thoughts were whirling about in chaos, and no matter where I turned, I was faced with the ugliness of reality with no way to escape.
So I went into my white oak desk, a hand-me-down from Danielle, and took out a piece of college-ruled binder paper. I sat in front of my window, pencil in hand, and proceeded to write an angry letter to the doctors who, I thought, were not doing their jobs properly. My sister had a problem, and I demanded that they and their so-called “expertise” fix it. Finally, I had put my thoughts into words, and it felt good.
From that point on, I made it a ritual to write throughout each day. Sometimes I would scribble out a few sentences of a story I had made up in my head while riding to the doctor’s office with my mom and Danielle. The stories and poems I wrote were my way of escaping from the reality I wished could be make-believe. Why couldn’t my life be a tragedy that I had formed? Why did it have to be real?
I daily fought with God over these questions. I demanded answers, reasons as to why He was allowing this to happen to my family. His only response was “wait.” So I did, quite begrudgingly in fact.
And then one day it hit me. My mom, Danielle and I were in the checkout line in the grocery store when a little boy came up to my sister and innocently asked, “Are you an angel?” She smiled and told him no and watched him walk away with a skeptical look on his face. I took a long, hard look at my sister and realized that if she did die, if this poison did claim her life, she was going to go to heaven and live forever with the God she loved and placed so much faith in. God was in control, no matter what.
Fortunately, Danielle’s new treatments of homeopathic medicine came through. Within months of her first dose, she began to show improvement. And it is by the grace of God that she was completely healed. Though she has a weak immune system, she now lives a normal life and graduates from college in June. I seldom talked about my sister’s illness and the effects it had on me and my family, but my binder paper knew, my composition books knew, my secret stash of scribble-covered Post-it notes knew. Writing became my catalyst, and words became the dearest of friends.
My hope was in knowing that words would not die, they would not fade with time, and they would never leave me. As long as I was able to think and contemplate, I would have them with me. Even though the past nine years have changed me, have shown what time is capable of, my words have not aged, nor have I grown tired of writing them. If anything, I have fallen more in love with them because I have learned the beauty of the 26 letters that roll like die in a magician’s cup until they are ready to be spilled out and moved around to form words. One could even say that they hold me spellbound.
I carry my journal with me virtually everywhere I go. Who knows when a thought will come into my mind that must be put down on paper? My boyfriend, Jonn, frequently remarks how much he enjoys watching me suddenly grab my journal and write something in a frantic manner. He finds my writing quirk charming. There is a persistent desire within me to get my thoughts out, even if those thoughts are meaningless.
I feel that if I don’t put my thoughts into words, I have betrayed them. The thought of betrayal saddens me. That is why I always keep a pencil in my purse to pull out whenever I need it, to show my thoughts and words that I am thankful for them, for all that they have done for me. But more specifically to show my thankfulness to God for allowing me to think and to write, for forming my body in such a perfect way that my mind is able to tell the muscles in my hands and wrists to pick up that yellow Number Two and write.
At a time in my life when I struggled most, God showed me His grace and faithfulness in the strangest of ways. He opened my eyes to the beauty and freedom that are found in words. I am forever indebted to Him for saving me, not just from hell, but from wanting to keep my thoughts in a cellblock. Words are important to God. He gave us the Word, so words are important to me as well. The least I can do is say thank you by putting them to use, even if they are just words shrouded in Number Two lead in the safety of my journal.
I wouldn’t call myself a writer, or at least not a good one. I don’t consider my writing something that William Shakespeare, George Orwell or even you would take the time to read. But I can say that I am faithful to dedicate portions of each day to the smooth, buttermilk paper in my papyrus journal. It deserves that much at least, for even when I miss my scheduled times to write, it still waits for me to pick up my yellow Number Two and chat away with it.
No, I am not a writer — not yet anyway. But I set aside time for the use of words because I am fascinated, even captivated, by the rhythmic hum of their lullabies. Words don’t mind when I manipulate and contort them to my liking. I can make them say whatever I want them to say, and they are faithful to keep my secrets in the safety of their shadows.
There was a time in my life when words rescued me from a pit of deadly silence. When my world was failing, words, like faithful friends, did not neglect me. Words were the glue that kept my sanity intact. I remember the specific moment in which words became something personal to me. But not just any words: my words.
My hero, my older sister Danielle, was severely poisoned by methyl bromide, a pesticide used to spray crops, when she was 16. To this day, we don’t know how it happened. Some have concluded that it was done intentionally; others have said it was an accident. But have you ever watched someone die, someone wilt away like the petals on a fallen rose? It is one thing to strip all life from a flower, to rob it of its beauty in one lethal sweep. But to mutilate it, bit by bit, until nothing but its shell remains, is heart-breaking. Danielle was that flower, a rare beauty, growing and flourishing, until one day her life was demanded from her. It was as if some greedy child happened on a daisy, and instead of gently stroking its petals and enjoying it, plucked it out of the ground, roots and all, and tore off the petals one by one.
Each day, a bit of Danielle’s strength was stolen away, a bit of her life taken captive by the poison that ravaged her body. She was dying, and there was nothing anyone could do. Even the doctors did nothing. They told my weeping parents to take their child home to let her die peacefully. How does one communicate such pain? I didn’t know how, but I was desperate to find a way to release the tension within me. I did not want to pray since I was angry with God. My thoughts were whirling about in chaos, and no matter where I turned, I was faced with the ugliness of reality with no way to escape.
So I went into my white oak desk, a hand-me-down from Danielle, and took out a piece of college-ruled binder paper. I sat in front of my window, pencil in hand, and proceeded to write an angry letter to the doctors who, I thought, were not doing their jobs properly. My sister had a problem, and I demanded that they and their so-called “expertise” fix it. Finally, I had put my thoughts into words, and it felt good.
From that point on, I made it a ritual to write throughout each day. Sometimes I would scribble out a few sentences of a story I had made up in my head while riding to the doctor’s office with my mom and Danielle. The stories and poems I wrote were my way of escaping from the reality I wished could be make-believe. Why couldn’t my life be a tragedy that I had formed? Why did it have to be real?
I daily fought with God over these questions. I demanded answers, reasons as to why He was allowing this to happen to my family. His only response was “wait.” So I did, quite begrudgingly in fact.
And then one day it hit me. My mom, Danielle and I were in the checkout line in the grocery store when a little boy came up to my sister and innocently asked, “Are you an angel?” She smiled and told him no and watched him walk away with a skeptical look on his face. I took a long, hard look at my sister and realized that if she did die, if this poison did claim her life, she was going to go to heaven and live forever with the God she loved and placed so much faith in. God was in control, no matter what.
Fortunately, Danielle’s new treatments of homeopathic medicine came through. Within months of her first dose, she began to show improvement. And it is by the grace of God that she was completely healed. Though she has a weak immune system, she now lives a normal life and graduates from college in June. I seldom talked about my sister’s illness and the effects it had on me and my family, but my binder paper knew, my composition books knew, my secret stash of scribble-covered Post-it notes knew. Writing became my catalyst, and words became the dearest of friends.
My hope was in knowing that words would not die, they would not fade with time, and they would never leave me. As long as I was able to think and contemplate, I would have them with me. Even though the past nine years have changed me, have shown what time is capable of, my words have not aged, nor have I grown tired of writing them. If anything, I have fallen more in love with them because I have learned the beauty of the 26 letters that roll like die in a magician’s cup until they are ready to be spilled out and moved around to form words. One could even say that they hold me spellbound.
I carry my journal with me virtually everywhere I go. Who knows when a thought will come into my mind that must be put down on paper? My boyfriend, Jonn, frequently remarks how much he enjoys watching me suddenly grab my journal and write something in a frantic manner. He finds my writing quirk charming. There is a persistent desire within me to get my thoughts out, even if those thoughts are meaningless.
I feel that if I don’t put my thoughts into words, I have betrayed them. The thought of betrayal saddens me. That is why I always keep a pencil in my purse to pull out whenever I need it, to show my thoughts and words that I am thankful for them, for all that they have done for me. But more specifically to show my thankfulness to God for allowing me to think and to write, for forming my body in such a perfect way that my mind is able to tell the muscles in my hands and wrists to pick up that yellow Number Two and write.
At a time in my life when I struggled most, God showed me His grace and faithfulness in the strangest of ways. He opened my eyes to the beauty and freedom that are found in words. I am forever indebted to Him for saving me, not just from hell, but from wanting to keep my thoughts in a cellblock. Words are important to God. He gave us the Word, so words are important to me as well. The least I can do is say thank you by putting them to use, even if they are just words shrouded in Number Two lead in the safety of my journal.
I'm Doin' All Right: A Short Story
By D. Eric Durso
It was a large, dark room. The lights on the wall were dim; the faint glow of the sconces around the room left many shadows. Only a few people were left. Most of them were the usual old, drunk, haggard men by which The Big Barnacle stayed in business.
The Big Barnacle was a low profile bar on the ocean front, near a long wooden pier where most fishermen try their luck at catching the “big one.” Wealthier visitors looked at The Big Barnacle as a lower class, second-rate bar that served no purpose apart from getting old men drunk. That was only partially true. It was lower class, and it was second-rate, but it wasn’t only for getting people drunk.
The bar’s walls were decorated with pictures of people in cities all around the world. The founding owner painted the words, “A piece of every part of the world” in black above the bar so that it was the first thing you saw when you entered. His goal was to fill the walls with artifacts from peoples’ adventures all over the world. The sailors in the community were travelers to begin with, so whenever they went anywhere, they’d bring something back for the bar — a piece of the Great Wall of China or the nets hanging from the ceiling that were taken from a Korean fishing boat. An Australian had even left a sanitized kangaroo foot hanging from the ceiling. If travelers didn’t have an artifact, they brought a framed picture of the place they had been. Anyone stopping by the pier to fish would stop at The Big Barnacle to see the latest artifacts.
When the excitement eventually died down, all that was left were multitudes of stories, memories and pictures on the walls. There were stories of love and hate, of adventure and disaster. There were stories of discovery and failure, each of them encapsulated in an artifact that was placed on the wall. Sam, upon entering the bar, had seen the words in black: A piece of every part of the world. He had seen the nets and the pictures. Now he was looking at a picture of a man standing in front of the ruins of the Areopagus in Greece with a smile of satisfaction on his face. Sam sighed. He sat hunched over in one of the stools, not drunk, but hardly sober.
He was deep in thought when the bartender approached him. “You all right, bud? You haven’t even had a drink yet, and you look worse than the regulars.” “You want the short answer or the long one?” The bartender smiled a grisly, but friendly smile. He had the beginning traces of a black beard and wore a stained, white button-up shirt. “I’ve got all night. And I became a bartender for this very reason.” He winked, “I love love stories.” Sam looked up from the bar. “It’s hardly a love story.” “Tell,” he said. “You need to talk.”
The bartender had dealt with plenty of Sam-like people. They’d come into the bar after a heartache or a long day at work. He had been in the business so long he could tell exactly who was feeling the heartbreak and who was just bored. He could tell which ones just wanted a good time and which ones just wanted to be alone. Some needed to talk. Some people just needed silence. The bartender could tell that Sam needed to talk. Plus, he really did enjoy the stories. Sam was silent for a while, contemplating where he would begin. After all, he did need to talk, if only to sort out his thoughts about the whole situation.
“She’s gone.”
“Who’s she?”
“She was supposed to be my wife,” Sam said bitterly. “Toward the end of our relationship she started having second thoughts about it all. We started fighting about it more. She says she isn’t ready to settle down yet.” The bartender was silent, waiting to see if he would say more.
When he didn’t, the bartender said, “Go back further. Tell me about this girl.” “Well,” he began, “we met on an Alaskan cruise. My uncle — he’s a lawyer — had just won a huge case and decided he wanted to celebrate it by taking his extended family on a seven-day cruise in Alaska. Anyway, on the first day of the cruise, I decided to wake up before my family and get some breakfast. I was eating alone and reading The Royal Road to Romance. It’s a book about this guy who can’t stand college life anymore and takes off to travel the world. Good book. Anyway, while I was eating she sat down at my table and said, ‘How do you like it?’ I didn’t know what to say; I thought she was talking about my food at first. Then she said, ‘Sorry, but I love that book, and I’ve never seen anyone reading it before. What part are you at?’”
Sam paused and looked up at the bartender who was listening to every word. “No lie — she was beautiful,” he laughed. “I’ll be honest, I probably wouldn’t have talked to her if she wasn’t!” The bartender laughed, and Sam continued. “She was just naturally pretty. Blonde hair, big brown eyes, slender. Anyway, we ended up talking about the book for at least a half hour, and then we talked about ourselves for another hour or so. She was so perky, so smart yet humble, independent, but not a feminist.
“After that we kept running into each other. At dinner I’d see her three tables away and wave, and she’d smile and wave back. My family kept asking me who she was and all I’d say was,‘She’s just a girl I met.’ After that they’d all say, ‘She sure is a looker!’ or something stupid like that. You know how family is.” The bartender laughed and nodded in agreement. “That’s how it was for the first couple days at sea. I swear I ran into her at least three times a day! Every time we’d stop and talk to each other, and I’m not the most outgoing guy. She just came up and talked to me. She was so comfortable, so confident. Not to mention that she loved to travel, loved to sing (not that she was good at it!), and loved to enjoy life. Every time we talked, I felt like I was getting to know her more and more. We even went on some excursions together. Anyway, by the end of the cruise, I was spending more time with her than I was with my family.
When we were about to get off the ship, I got her number and told her I’d call her. After that, it just blossomed.” The bartender was smiling when Sam looked up at him. “What was her name?” “Mindy.” Sam was staring down at the bar again. The bartender let him be silent for a while and then spoke: “Go on.” Without hesitation, Sam went on. “We’d have so much fun together. It turned out that she only lived two hours from my house, so for the next year we got to see each other. Sometimes I’d surprise her and we’d go kayaking in the ocean; or she’d surprise me and we’d go horseback riding through the forest by my house.
One time, we sat next to each other under a pine tree — gosh it sounds like the movies — and we said that we were never going to leave each other. Sappy, I know. But everybody’s sappy sometimes, right?” The bartender solemnly nodded his head. “Of course.” This caused him to think about the love that he had lost. Now, looking back on it, it didn’t seem so painful.
At the time however, he would have claimed to be in a worse predicament than Sam. The girl that he loved had left him for another man when he was studying abroad in Spain. The whole three months he never went a week without writing her at least one letter. Some were sappy, some serious. Every single one of them ended with the words, “I love you. Please write back.” She responded twice. Neither of those letters told him that she was moving on. Coming home was not the way he expected it to be. She wasn’t waiting for him at the port, and she wouldn’t answer his calls. Finally, he got a letter explaining where she’d been and how she’d moved on. After a week of mourning, he had left his hometown and never gone back.
“Anyway, as time went on I began to tell her that I wanted to settle down eventually. Get married, start a family, you know. It just seemed natural to take that step. I mean, we could see each other, at the most, twice a week. We did that for a year! Yeah, we talked on the phone every day, but I didn’t feel like it was going anywhere. I wanted to marry her. I told her over the phone that I loved her, and she told me she loved me. Then I said we should get married. But whenever I brought that up, she would either laugh at me and pretend I was joking, or she would get mad and say, ‘Be realistic, Sam.’ Whenever I stood up for myself, she would get mad, and you know how girls get when they’re mad. They don’t want to talk, but they don’t want to hang up the phone. They say they’re fine when really they’re ticked off. Then when you try to talk to them, they’ll answer you with one word answers. Gosh, I hated that.”
The bartender laughed. “That made me never want to bring up marriage. “After a while it only became harder not to bring it up. I wanted her to marry me. After a while, I decided that I couldn’t take her indecision any longer, so I bought a ring and proposed.” The bartender looked almost shocked. “How’d you do it?” he said.
“We were on a small sailboat, kind of like the ones that are outside in this dock. It was a beautiful day, not a cloud in the sky. We were having a great time talking about where we wanted to go. We always played a game where we’d ask each other if you could go anywhere in the world, all expenses paid, where would you go? We were talking about the Great Wall of China and laughing about a Far Side cartoon we had seen about it. A breeze picked up, and she let her hair out, and while she was looking at the expanse of the ocean, I got to my knee. It was really awkward, but I didn’t care. I said something like, ‘Mindy, I love you, and I can’t stand you not being mine. Marry me.’” Sam’s whole posture changed after he said this.
The bartender knew exactly how the story would end. The same thing had happened to him. After he came home from Barcelona, he found his girl and begged her to marry him. He didn’t have a ring, he didn’t have any money, but he swore that he’d live the rest of his life making her dreams come true. There are not many men who hear the woman they love say “no” when they ask for their hand in marriage. When she told him that it was over and that they would never get married, he flew to Italy with the last of his money.
Sam continued. “Well, it’s obvious what her answer was. She said no. Gosh, that killed me. The whole trip back to the dock we argued. She said she wanted to be free; I said we could be free together. She said she wanted to see the world before she settled down; I said we’d do it together. She thought that whole idea was unrealistic. When we got back to the dock she said, ‘Sam, I can’t do this anymore. I can’t get married. I can’t see you anymore.’ When she drove away that day, I was crushed. I felt completely broken. I think I threw up at least three times.” The bartender was not satisfied. “Where’d she go?” Sam, feeling weary of the conversation, went on. “She wrote me a letter about a week ago, and I got it today.” He pulled out a folded and refolded piece of paper that looked like it had been read a hundred times. “Here, I’ll read it to you:
“Dear Sam, I am on a sailboat called Freedom sailing through the Greek Isles. Remember how we talked about the wind that blows across your face and how it makes you feel free? How it makes you feel fresh and alive and meaningful? Well, that’s how I feel right now. I’ve never felt more alive than I do right at this moment. Anyway, I just wanted you to know that I’ve got what I wanted. I hate knowing that I’ve hurt you, but maybe, if it’s any consolation to you, at least you know that I’m living my dream. I’m going to see the world, Sam! Isn’t that exciting? It’s what I’ve always wanted to do. Maybe someday I’ll come back, and you’ll be right there waiting. I know that I can’t ask that of you, but at least I can hope it. At this point, that hope is all I’ve got. I’m on my road to romance, Sam. I needed this in my life. I needed to do this. For what it’s worth Sam, I love you. Mindy.”
The bartender’s favorite picture hung in the back of the bar. It was a picture of him on a large sailboat. He wasn’t smiling; in fact, he looked tired and beaten. His brown coarse hair was sticking up from the wind, his beard unkempt. In the background, the afternoon sun was hanging low over the coast of Sicily, and every cloud was wreathed in gold. He had taken it of himself about a week after he had left his girl. Although he looked wearied, there was a glint in his eyes that said he was doing all right. On the bottom of the picture he had written, “Now I’m doing just fine.”
When Sam looked back up at him after he had finished reading the letter, the bartender looked concerned, but not sympathetic. “I’m sorry.” “It’s okay,” Sam replied, softly. “I’ll be right here waiting.”
There was a pause. The bartender was uneasy. He knew that would be a mistake, but he remembered wanting to do the same thing. He had wanted to let his girl see him in pain. Perhaps it would make her feel just a little slice of the pain he was feeling. Two sleepless nights had cured him of that diseased thought. He had realized that life goes on. Though exhausted, beaten, bruised and broken, the only way to heal was to move forward.
Finally he spoke. “It doesn’t have to be that way. Live, Sam!” the bartender said emphatically. He slammed his fist on the bar and silverware rattled. “Live!”
Sam was startled by the bartender’s reaction. He didn’t know what to think. “Sam, you need to forget about her and find your life again. Why should you wait here in misery? There is hope in this life! You just have to find it. Get out there and do something!”
Sam’s eyes widened. It was almost like he was beginning to question himself. “You should be sailing in the Greek Isles! You should be hiking through the cold Rocky Mountains. You should be on your way to Scotland! This life is your last life! Do everything you possibly can before it’s too late. What are you doing here?”
Maybe it was the bartender’s imagination, but a faint smile passed over Sam’s stone face. He recognized the glint in his eyes. He stood up from his stool and turned around to leave the bar. He paused. From behind, the bartender could tell he was looking at the pictures on the walls. He was looking at the foreign artifacts that decorated the room. When Sam looked back to see the bartender, he saw the smug contentment on his face. The kind of face that says, “Atta boy!” One week later, Sam was on his way out to sea. He didn’t care where he was in the great ocean; he had his compass and the stars at night. The boat was big enough for him to live on, and he was alone and free. The first few nights at sea were lonely. He looked at the stars and thought about Mindy. He’d spend all day tending the sails or writing. Writing always helped him vent his feelings. It wasn’t comfortable, but the freedom that he had was worth it. He had neglected to write a response to Mindy’s letter because he knew that he wasn’t ready to yet. He didn’t want to write her a letter saying that he was sad that she had left and he was lonely now. He wanted to wait it out.
He wanted freedom to run its course through him so that eventually he would forget about her. He’d forget about the dimple on her left cheek. He’d forget about the way she rubbed her eyes when she was tired. He’d forget about the way her toes curled up when they touched cold water. She would be reduced to whatever picture he had of her; whatever memory he could maintain of her. While sailing the mighty sea, he thought of her often, but more and more, he felt free of her. When he was at that point, he began to write his letter.
Dear Mindy, I have decided to take my chances out on the great sea. It’ll be hard at first, but it’s something I must do. I’ll be lonely at first. I will feel out of place. People and places will be different. But eventually everything will change. I’ll feel at home on the ocean. I’ll give up my insecurities, and I will live for the sake of life. Soon, I’ll feel at home. Now, when I’m out here on the ocean, I get a little lonely sometimes. Lord knows how much I could use a warm kiss. But still, I begin to think twice about whether or not I ever want to come back. But maybe if I did come back I could do things differently. I would make better use of my time. I’d drink less than I do out here. Without me you’ll slowly begin to see that things will change. What you left me for will eventually lose its taste. Things will change. All that will be left are the things that you hold on to. You have to hold on to something. But every once in a while the wind will blow through my hair and I’ll be reminded of you. The smell will take me away from the ocean, and I’ll be right there with you. I’ll be honest when I say that I’m okay with that. I guess I’m writing you to say I’m doing all right. I’m free like you are. So, when you turn around to find me one day, I’ll be sailing the big blue ocean with freedom blowing through my hair and chills running down my back. Freedom is a precious thing, I’ve found. Sam
After Sam wrote the letter, he got out his Polaroid and took a picture of himself. On the bottom, in the white part, he wrote, “Hey. I’m doin’ all right.” He didn’t put the picture in with the note. Instead, he saved it for the next time he would be passing through The Big Barnacle, so he could hang it on the wall.
It was a large, dark room. The lights on the wall were dim; the faint glow of the sconces around the room left many shadows. Only a few people were left. Most of them were the usual old, drunk, haggard men by which The Big Barnacle stayed in business.
The Big Barnacle was a low profile bar on the ocean front, near a long wooden pier where most fishermen try their luck at catching the “big one.” Wealthier visitors looked at The Big Barnacle as a lower class, second-rate bar that served no purpose apart from getting old men drunk. That was only partially true. It was lower class, and it was second-rate, but it wasn’t only for getting people drunk.
The bar’s walls were decorated with pictures of people in cities all around the world. The founding owner painted the words, “A piece of every part of the world” in black above the bar so that it was the first thing you saw when you entered. His goal was to fill the walls with artifacts from peoples’ adventures all over the world. The sailors in the community were travelers to begin with, so whenever they went anywhere, they’d bring something back for the bar — a piece of the Great Wall of China or the nets hanging from the ceiling that were taken from a Korean fishing boat. An Australian had even left a sanitized kangaroo foot hanging from the ceiling. If travelers didn’t have an artifact, they brought a framed picture of the place they had been. Anyone stopping by the pier to fish would stop at The Big Barnacle to see the latest artifacts.
When the excitement eventually died down, all that was left were multitudes of stories, memories and pictures on the walls. There were stories of love and hate, of adventure and disaster. There were stories of discovery and failure, each of them encapsulated in an artifact that was placed on the wall. Sam, upon entering the bar, had seen the words in black: A piece of every part of the world. He had seen the nets and the pictures. Now he was looking at a picture of a man standing in front of the ruins of the Areopagus in Greece with a smile of satisfaction on his face. Sam sighed. He sat hunched over in one of the stools, not drunk, but hardly sober.
He was deep in thought when the bartender approached him. “You all right, bud? You haven’t even had a drink yet, and you look worse than the regulars.” “You want the short answer or the long one?” The bartender smiled a grisly, but friendly smile. He had the beginning traces of a black beard and wore a stained, white button-up shirt. “I’ve got all night. And I became a bartender for this very reason.” He winked, “I love love stories.” Sam looked up from the bar. “It’s hardly a love story.” “Tell,” he said. “You need to talk.”
The bartender had dealt with plenty of Sam-like people. They’d come into the bar after a heartache or a long day at work. He had been in the business so long he could tell exactly who was feeling the heartbreak and who was just bored. He could tell which ones just wanted a good time and which ones just wanted to be alone. Some needed to talk. Some people just needed silence. The bartender could tell that Sam needed to talk. Plus, he really did enjoy the stories. Sam was silent for a while, contemplating where he would begin. After all, he did need to talk, if only to sort out his thoughts about the whole situation.
“She’s gone.”
“Who’s she?”
“She was supposed to be my wife,” Sam said bitterly. “Toward the end of our relationship she started having second thoughts about it all. We started fighting about it more. She says she isn’t ready to settle down yet.” The bartender was silent, waiting to see if he would say more.
When he didn’t, the bartender said, “Go back further. Tell me about this girl.” “Well,” he began, “we met on an Alaskan cruise. My uncle — he’s a lawyer — had just won a huge case and decided he wanted to celebrate it by taking his extended family on a seven-day cruise in Alaska. Anyway, on the first day of the cruise, I decided to wake up before my family and get some breakfast. I was eating alone and reading The Royal Road to Romance. It’s a book about this guy who can’t stand college life anymore and takes off to travel the world. Good book. Anyway, while I was eating she sat down at my table and said, ‘How do you like it?’ I didn’t know what to say; I thought she was talking about my food at first. Then she said, ‘Sorry, but I love that book, and I’ve never seen anyone reading it before. What part are you at?’”
Sam paused and looked up at the bartender who was listening to every word. “No lie — she was beautiful,” he laughed. “I’ll be honest, I probably wouldn’t have talked to her if she wasn’t!” The bartender laughed, and Sam continued. “She was just naturally pretty. Blonde hair, big brown eyes, slender. Anyway, we ended up talking about the book for at least a half hour, and then we talked about ourselves for another hour or so. She was so perky, so smart yet humble, independent, but not a feminist.
“After that we kept running into each other. At dinner I’d see her three tables away and wave, and she’d smile and wave back. My family kept asking me who she was and all I’d say was,‘She’s just a girl I met.’ After that they’d all say, ‘She sure is a looker!’ or something stupid like that. You know how family is.” The bartender laughed and nodded in agreement. “That’s how it was for the first couple days at sea. I swear I ran into her at least three times a day! Every time we’d stop and talk to each other, and I’m not the most outgoing guy. She just came up and talked to me. She was so comfortable, so confident. Not to mention that she loved to travel, loved to sing (not that she was good at it!), and loved to enjoy life. Every time we talked, I felt like I was getting to know her more and more. We even went on some excursions together. Anyway, by the end of the cruise, I was spending more time with her than I was with my family.
When we were about to get off the ship, I got her number and told her I’d call her. After that, it just blossomed.” The bartender was smiling when Sam looked up at him. “What was her name?” “Mindy.” Sam was staring down at the bar again. The bartender let him be silent for a while and then spoke: “Go on.” Without hesitation, Sam went on. “We’d have so much fun together. It turned out that she only lived two hours from my house, so for the next year we got to see each other. Sometimes I’d surprise her and we’d go kayaking in the ocean; or she’d surprise me and we’d go horseback riding through the forest by my house.
One time, we sat next to each other under a pine tree — gosh it sounds like the movies — and we said that we were never going to leave each other. Sappy, I know. But everybody’s sappy sometimes, right?” The bartender solemnly nodded his head. “Of course.” This caused him to think about the love that he had lost. Now, looking back on it, it didn’t seem so painful.
At the time however, he would have claimed to be in a worse predicament than Sam. The girl that he loved had left him for another man when he was studying abroad in Spain. The whole three months he never went a week without writing her at least one letter. Some were sappy, some serious. Every single one of them ended with the words, “I love you. Please write back.” She responded twice. Neither of those letters told him that she was moving on. Coming home was not the way he expected it to be. She wasn’t waiting for him at the port, and she wouldn’t answer his calls. Finally, he got a letter explaining where she’d been and how she’d moved on. After a week of mourning, he had left his hometown and never gone back.
“Anyway, as time went on I began to tell her that I wanted to settle down eventually. Get married, start a family, you know. It just seemed natural to take that step. I mean, we could see each other, at the most, twice a week. We did that for a year! Yeah, we talked on the phone every day, but I didn’t feel like it was going anywhere. I wanted to marry her. I told her over the phone that I loved her, and she told me she loved me. Then I said we should get married. But whenever I brought that up, she would either laugh at me and pretend I was joking, or she would get mad and say, ‘Be realistic, Sam.’ Whenever I stood up for myself, she would get mad, and you know how girls get when they’re mad. They don’t want to talk, but they don’t want to hang up the phone. They say they’re fine when really they’re ticked off. Then when you try to talk to them, they’ll answer you with one word answers. Gosh, I hated that.”
The bartender laughed. “That made me never want to bring up marriage. “After a while it only became harder not to bring it up. I wanted her to marry me. After a while, I decided that I couldn’t take her indecision any longer, so I bought a ring and proposed.” The bartender looked almost shocked. “How’d you do it?” he said.
“We were on a small sailboat, kind of like the ones that are outside in this dock. It was a beautiful day, not a cloud in the sky. We were having a great time talking about where we wanted to go. We always played a game where we’d ask each other if you could go anywhere in the world, all expenses paid, where would you go? We were talking about the Great Wall of China and laughing about a Far Side cartoon we had seen about it. A breeze picked up, and she let her hair out, and while she was looking at the expanse of the ocean, I got to my knee. It was really awkward, but I didn’t care. I said something like, ‘Mindy, I love you, and I can’t stand you not being mine. Marry me.’” Sam’s whole posture changed after he said this.
The bartender knew exactly how the story would end. The same thing had happened to him. After he came home from Barcelona, he found his girl and begged her to marry him. He didn’t have a ring, he didn’t have any money, but he swore that he’d live the rest of his life making her dreams come true. There are not many men who hear the woman they love say “no” when they ask for their hand in marriage. When she told him that it was over and that they would never get married, he flew to Italy with the last of his money.
Sam continued. “Well, it’s obvious what her answer was. She said no. Gosh, that killed me. The whole trip back to the dock we argued. She said she wanted to be free; I said we could be free together. She said she wanted to see the world before she settled down; I said we’d do it together. She thought that whole idea was unrealistic. When we got back to the dock she said, ‘Sam, I can’t do this anymore. I can’t get married. I can’t see you anymore.’ When she drove away that day, I was crushed. I felt completely broken. I think I threw up at least three times.” The bartender was not satisfied. “Where’d she go?” Sam, feeling weary of the conversation, went on. “She wrote me a letter about a week ago, and I got it today.” He pulled out a folded and refolded piece of paper that looked like it had been read a hundred times. “Here, I’ll read it to you:
“Dear Sam, I am on a sailboat called Freedom sailing through the Greek Isles. Remember how we talked about the wind that blows across your face and how it makes you feel free? How it makes you feel fresh and alive and meaningful? Well, that’s how I feel right now. I’ve never felt more alive than I do right at this moment. Anyway, I just wanted you to know that I’ve got what I wanted. I hate knowing that I’ve hurt you, but maybe, if it’s any consolation to you, at least you know that I’m living my dream. I’m going to see the world, Sam! Isn’t that exciting? It’s what I’ve always wanted to do. Maybe someday I’ll come back, and you’ll be right there waiting. I know that I can’t ask that of you, but at least I can hope it. At this point, that hope is all I’ve got. I’m on my road to romance, Sam. I needed this in my life. I needed to do this. For what it’s worth Sam, I love you. Mindy.”
The bartender’s favorite picture hung in the back of the bar. It was a picture of him on a large sailboat. He wasn’t smiling; in fact, he looked tired and beaten. His brown coarse hair was sticking up from the wind, his beard unkempt. In the background, the afternoon sun was hanging low over the coast of Sicily, and every cloud was wreathed in gold. He had taken it of himself about a week after he had left his girl. Although he looked wearied, there was a glint in his eyes that said he was doing all right. On the bottom of the picture he had written, “Now I’m doing just fine.”
When Sam looked back up at him after he had finished reading the letter, the bartender looked concerned, but not sympathetic. “I’m sorry.” “It’s okay,” Sam replied, softly. “I’ll be right here waiting.”
There was a pause. The bartender was uneasy. He knew that would be a mistake, but he remembered wanting to do the same thing. He had wanted to let his girl see him in pain. Perhaps it would make her feel just a little slice of the pain he was feeling. Two sleepless nights had cured him of that diseased thought. He had realized that life goes on. Though exhausted, beaten, bruised and broken, the only way to heal was to move forward.
Finally he spoke. “It doesn’t have to be that way. Live, Sam!” the bartender said emphatically. He slammed his fist on the bar and silverware rattled. “Live!”
Sam was startled by the bartender’s reaction. He didn’t know what to think. “Sam, you need to forget about her and find your life again. Why should you wait here in misery? There is hope in this life! You just have to find it. Get out there and do something!”
Sam’s eyes widened. It was almost like he was beginning to question himself. “You should be sailing in the Greek Isles! You should be hiking through the cold Rocky Mountains. You should be on your way to Scotland! This life is your last life! Do everything you possibly can before it’s too late. What are you doing here?”
Maybe it was the bartender’s imagination, but a faint smile passed over Sam’s stone face. He recognized the glint in his eyes. He stood up from his stool and turned around to leave the bar. He paused. From behind, the bartender could tell he was looking at the pictures on the walls. He was looking at the foreign artifacts that decorated the room. When Sam looked back to see the bartender, he saw the smug contentment on his face. The kind of face that says, “Atta boy!” One week later, Sam was on his way out to sea. He didn’t care where he was in the great ocean; he had his compass and the stars at night. The boat was big enough for him to live on, and he was alone and free. The first few nights at sea were lonely. He looked at the stars and thought about Mindy. He’d spend all day tending the sails or writing. Writing always helped him vent his feelings. It wasn’t comfortable, but the freedom that he had was worth it. He had neglected to write a response to Mindy’s letter because he knew that he wasn’t ready to yet. He didn’t want to write her a letter saying that he was sad that she had left and he was lonely now. He wanted to wait it out.
He wanted freedom to run its course through him so that eventually he would forget about her. He’d forget about the dimple on her left cheek. He’d forget about the way she rubbed her eyes when she was tired. He’d forget about the way her toes curled up when they touched cold water. She would be reduced to whatever picture he had of her; whatever memory he could maintain of her. While sailing the mighty sea, he thought of her often, but more and more, he felt free of her. When he was at that point, he began to write his letter.
Dear Mindy, I have decided to take my chances out on the great sea. It’ll be hard at first, but it’s something I must do. I’ll be lonely at first. I will feel out of place. People and places will be different. But eventually everything will change. I’ll feel at home on the ocean. I’ll give up my insecurities, and I will live for the sake of life. Soon, I’ll feel at home. Now, when I’m out here on the ocean, I get a little lonely sometimes. Lord knows how much I could use a warm kiss. But still, I begin to think twice about whether or not I ever want to come back. But maybe if I did come back I could do things differently. I would make better use of my time. I’d drink less than I do out here. Without me you’ll slowly begin to see that things will change. What you left me for will eventually lose its taste. Things will change. All that will be left are the things that you hold on to. You have to hold on to something. But every once in a while the wind will blow through my hair and I’ll be reminded of you. The smell will take me away from the ocean, and I’ll be right there with you. I’ll be honest when I say that I’m okay with that. I guess I’m writing you to say I’m doing all right. I’m free like you are. So, when you turn around to find me one day, I’ll be sailing the big blue ocean with freedom blowing through my hair and chills running down my back. Freedom is a precious thing, I’ve found. Sam
After Sam wrote the letter, he got out his Polaroid and took a picture of himself. On the bottom, in the white part, he wrote, “Hey. I’m doin’ all right.” He didn’t put the picture in with the note. Instead, he saved it for the next time he would be passing through The Big Barnacle, so he could hang it on the wall.
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