Skateboard Leaps

Anna sat herself down at the edge of the creek and studied the swirls in the water, the leaf patterns as leaves moved with the current, then caught on rocks, twigs, at angles. As she sat she felt the whole world within her. What did it mean to have landed her, in this spot, as if she were from some alien ship? Of course, she wasn’t. Why would the thought even come? Weren’t there lights and ramps and whirs and bells that she heard sometimes that seemed to signify other launches, other exits? Then again, wasn’t the curl and urge and nudge and stretch and suck from her mother’s canals a practically indescribable ride full of lights and ramps and whirs, liquids, smells, all manner of earth coming alive and pulsating with life? With the palms of her hands she can feel the ends of the earth? Are there ends of the earth? With the palms of her hands she can feel the rings of Saturn? With the palms of her hands and tips of her finger she can sense the inside of every cell, every course and flow, every organ, every signal? If not yet, then why not? Isn’t it because this nerve language is one that grows and changes like the grass, the sky, the water, only individual in its expression of its collection of the moment, and she has always been attached to anchors, to alphabets, to some root she thought might mean forever, unchanging?

When her son, Daniel, approached, she closed her eyes and felt him walking toward her. Every step was an earthquake, his stare a laser, a rope swing, his sloping shoulders a ready range for the weight of the world. He was 13, big, and his eyes were still that innocent blue, with just a bit of a shadow in them, a sadness. He had felt a lot of sadness in his young life. His father, Anna’s husband Carter, shot himself the day before their 8th anniversary, when Carter was 7. Carter’s is another story, yet part of mine, ours, and I feel the weight and the waste, and the eternal love within it, now, she told me. Her eyes, when she says this, are closed just for a second, then back open and blue-grey, clear.

This was a day by the creek not far from her house, when she sat on cold smooth stones and studied the water and its artifacts. She told me some of this later, how this is her way of following the flow of the world and knowing her place in it. There are no true stops and starts, only knowing the place where thought makes itself known, and the way leaves flow, twigs catch, temperatures change, water levels rise. There is knowing how and why this happens, which becomes in itself a study of life, and an easing of the pain that comes with blocking each thought and then letting it go.

I never had children in this life, and when I hear their voices in my sleep sometimes, it is my own playground. Anna and I talk about this sometimes, she telling me how she dreamed of Daniel before he was born, Carter’s terror at moments of knowing such life was in his hands, such joy, and I coming to know all things that make such nurturing known in other ways, finding that flow. This is mother’s milk of love, I think, this sweetness which lets us know that what we create is what we know, the endless, boundless joy of life itself, a constant creation of goals, spin-offs, thoughts, fantasies, the roots and anchors the creations themselves.

Sometimes when I hear music which reverberates and warbles in notes that drown these whispers, I know the cacophony that happens inside always when confusion reigns, when signals are missed, train wrecks happen. It takes time to clean up the debris, and this is with the most dedicated workers imaginable. Tonight at the restaurant earlier the music resounded and I remembered this. I remembered ropes, mist, smoke, loud clanging, dark night, fog. Those strings do not call forth morning. Yet it is easy – remember the stars that appeared as the sky cleared, the silence and sense of the breeze.

Anna loves Daniel. Daniel loves his mother. His innocent blue eyes with that dark shadow flitting through show his need to be with her, not to fear her disappearance or death. I watch his face when I can, and I see the placid lake of a cool Fall day, the heat of summer underneath. He questions, likes the prompts alright. I remember my own questioning, the shadows in my eyes as a child, and I remember swinging on vines of the thoughts in my mind. This way of energy I did not know. Obviously, we are falling.

The roots and anchors are also the creations themselves, each step, each skateboard leap, each goal achieved. As love takes roots in a mind, the sky inside lights up. Daniel, take my hand. As you remember you, I will remember too.

"You have created your life in the exact design that will allow you to learn the lessons that you have come here to learn. It is your design and you should love it. You first need to understand that you are more than you can see on the surface. You are not blown back and forthby the winds of events. You are an integrated being. You are body, mind, and spirit." Kathy Oddenino, Sharing, 66.