Ends

You see it begin to crumble, watch the edges burn around you and the flame draw closer. The fever rages around my belly and all I can think is let it burn. I dream of getting rid of it all, again, of new horizons and fresh clean pages. There’s a disease in that madness, surely, but there is life too, and you never quite know who’s to win your battles.

Images of sunshine stream before me, of palm trees and blue oceans, of strange languages and foreign foods. Of mad souls who may understand this fever, who will not try to temper it to fit the mold. I know this feeling, I know this person. Deadlines draw themselves on my calendar, the hurricane gathers strength. The answer is closer now than ever before.

Get ready to grab it.

of What You Could Do

You return home to curated air conditioned air and spill sand all over your clean room. Nothing looks the same, and you think perhaps your eyes have changed. I took a long shower to wash civilization back onto my skin but stepped out unsatisfied, dull. She writes from under a palm tree and you try to feel the waves in your muscles again but they have left you.

If the itch teased you through spring it has turned to a fullblown fever now, sweating your brow and haunting you at night. You think of California in the fall, of Bali in January and simple writers cabins in the mountains, you look around your room and see only things you can live without. You stayed so long in this sanctuary, slept so well and spoiled yourself rotten with security. But whose life have you been living?

A typewriter stands in my window, its portable case locked around it and the handle pulled out towards me. The word never needed a lease, it thrives on new horizons and magic, and I know that’s what it whispers to me in the night.

At some point you’ve started the getaway car.
That’s when it’s too late to get out.

Mamajuana

Do you want a mango? I’ll pick one for you, he says and leaps out of the car. Your childhood dreams of tropical islands swim before your eyes and take root in your spine, as rainforest mountains rise around you and you think how you need more time, always more time you are never sated. The mango tastes sweet, warm and unlike anything you know. He laughs at your joy, and that is all.

Every morning we rise at dawn, ride the dilapidated old van out to the swells, and make our way to the lineup. It is early, too early, and yet it is all perfect, you forget your tired eyes, your heavy muscles, your body browns and you forget to look in the mirror, it doesn’t matter. On my last morning, the waves beat and beat me, I never seem to make it anywhere. Anger rises is my chest, I yell at the ocean to give me a break, show me a kindness, but at last I relent and ride to shore, sitting on the cool sand and staring at the sea with a scowl. But as I sit, and watch each wave roll toward me, on and on again in a steady rhythm all its own, a calm comes over me. The ocean does not owe me anything. The ocean is there, steady, reliable, ever changing and yet perpetually the same. I owe it to myself to meet it, every day, as best I can, better even than I know how. Take the punches, earn the rides, let the current sink into my blood stream until we are one and the same. Tomorrow the sun will rise, the ocean will move, and I will too.

I do not get a beautiful last ride. I get a beat up body and a lesson in humility. I return to land. But I am not the same as I was before the wave. And that gift may be sweeter still.

6:12

Six a. m., wake before sunrise and shoo the cockroaches out of the bathroom before we’ve even opened our eyes. I climb up the rickety structure and sit down at the edge of the roof, palm trees and birdsong in every direction. As I close my eyes and begin to breathe, a quiet, soft sun rises and washes me in smiles. The air is still. When I open my eyes, I don’t know how much later, it seems I am floating, a heart beats in my chest:  it bleeds and it bleeds but only for all the love it must share before it is done, it bleeds and bleeds but never runs dry.

I stood in the sea one day and let it run me over, let it drain me and restore me all in the same breath. This water which moves us forward, which always changes but only ever remains the same, it is unmovable, unbreakable, and always returns to itself. We dream of being the wave, of moving everything forward. But I am not content to be the wave.

I want to be the whole fucking ocean.

Bodhi

The days continue, each one so like the next and yet completely different, you roll the island accent on your tongue and try its melody on for size but your ever whitening hair gives you away before your lips are parted. I wake early every morning, a soft breeze, a quiet sunrise, it’s a short respite before the tropics pummel our poor northern sensibilities. Every tumble off the board is a lesson in humility; every breath watching coconuts sway in the breeze is a lesson in mindfulness: I take careful notes and breathe without reminders. I think again a life on the sea would heal my every wound; how many times must the ocean tell me before I listen? We make plans for tattoos, and returns, before we’ve barely landed, such is the dream of escapes, you are a cliché, I forgive you.

I know it’s only the magic of vacation, but I am at peace. My heart is beaten and bruised, it weeps and bleeds still and I want it to. Such tenderness arises when we know how frail we are, how much we can love, I believe the soft people will win in the end and this is not a competition it’s a blessing, if you want a trophy take whatever comes out of my heart
it
is
yours.

Goofy

Wake in the middle of the night, a fan above the mosquito net beats a steady rhythm, the cicadas outside like a lullaby. When dawn comes, we drag heavy limbs through a quiet camp and stumble into the old van to catch the swell. Everything is palm trees and persistent dreams, the first time I stand on the beat up board and surf to shore, it feels like nothing else has ever existed, I am weightless and grounded all at once. Hours later, how many it’s impossible to tell, my muscles give in, I roll with the waves and smile despite myself, we buy fruit for pennies and eat them with sandy hands until sweet juice drips down our skin. There’s a breeze in the palm trees that never knew sorrow, there’s a life out there that never wanted to break you, only bring you to shore, you take every gift the Universe gives you.

My heart bleeds and bleeds.
I don’t regret a single thing.

And All That

Washington Square Park, sunny Tuesday afternoon in July, office workers dawdle over gossipy lunches, nannies fuss over ecstatic children, a quartet plays jazz in the shade. You think the world would be a beautiful place if not filtered through your dour lenses. How your highs have been so high but your lows so terribly dreary you’re not sure they’re worth it. A few blocks away in a messy pre-war walkup, a half packed suitcase stands waiting, patiently, you know it’s a drug like any other but pray for a moment’s respite, even if it’ll peel away with the suntan. A small candle sits in a liner pocket, it does not care where you run, it is loyal and patient. You carry it tenderly with you as you go. It is the weight of the world and yet no trouble at all, such is love. A small child nestled itself into my embrace one night and I thought here it is after all, an answer:

you are so much stronger than you ever thought, and life will give you the chance to prove it.