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February 2008 • words and images ↓
 

Monthly Archives: February 2008

That rules the night

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I don’t believe in astrology, but according to the Gallup Strengthsfinder program, one of my top strengths is “connectedness,” a sense or conviction that all things are connected and that things happen for a reason. Perhaps that is why, having been born under what astrologists call a moon sign and bearing a variant of the name for the Roman goddess of the moon, I instinctively feel a connection to the “cold-hearted orb that rules the night.”

I had heard about a total lunar eclipse on February 13 and meant to make a note of it, but lately at many levels life has been unkind, and my mind is churning itself ever inward in a quest to find relief from the outside pressures and internal emotional turmoil that are beating it back.

That’s probably why I forgot about the eclipse.

Fortunately, J. noticed it and called me around 9 p.m., just in time to witness the loveliest moments.

The last total lunar eclipse that I witnessed was many years ago, perhaps a couple of hours later in the evening. I walked over to 55th Street and Lake Shore Drive and found dozens if not hundreds of people standing around, pointing and talking. It was an event, something to be planned for, enjoyed with others, and talked about afterward.

I was by myself but did not feel it. Like many, I stayed until after 12:30 p.m. or 1 a.m. so as not to miss a glorious moment. What was one day of greater weariness at work at such a time? The opalescent beauty of the eclipsed moon made my soul ache in a wonderful way, and the crowd around me, with whom I had at least this one moment in common, helped to ease it. It was a wonderful ache, the kind that can never be duplicated.

Now, as long as I am here at The Flamingo, I can see the moon rise over Lake Michigan from my living room window until it reaches a certain height in the sky. When J. called, I didn’t have to take time to dress and go out. I could watch the eclipse the way I always like to watch the full moon — naked, exposed, unhampered.

Yet I think I might have preferred sharing the experience, if not with an empathetic, warm-hearted friend, then perhaps with an unknown and transitory neighbor.

I looked down to where I had stood for the previous eclipse and saw no one. It was too cold. A lone Chicago police car made its circuit of the parking lot before heading west, away from the dimmed, eclipsed moon. A steady line of cars passed each other in their north or south journeys on Lake Shore Drive. Places to go, people to see, no time for cold-hearted orb above.

The flurry of traffic in its oblivious rush reminded me of a warm evening many years ago, when a full rainbow arced over the sky, its ends disappearing into the the north and south horizons. I stood at the edge of the road marveling as much at the hurry that prefers the mundane to the extraordinary as at the arc of pale colors against the storm-darkened skies.

Perhaps wondering why I was standing in such an odd spot, the driver of a car finally stopped so the passenger could get out to snap mobile phone photos that could not have done this magnificence the aesthetic justice it deserved.

This night the moon was too high in the sky for anyone in a car to notice it, and there were no strange, lone womanly figures standing by the road to serve as a signpost. The police made their accustomed rounds of the parking lot as they do every night, and the world drove on, unaware of the event taking place thousands of miles away visible right over their heads.

I couldn’t help thinking of a time when the world was, in theory, less connected than it is today — when western and eastern hemispheres were ignorant of one another; when there was no telegraph, telephone, or Internet; and when communication in writing or through messengers and emissaries took weeks or months to wend its way back and forth.

Anyone who was still awake might have looked up into the sky and seen the strangely darkened glow of the moon and felt connected to the universe the moon represents, to God or the gods, and to something greater than the work and cares that bind us together yet keep us apart. Those watching the moon’s temporary transformation might have realized that they were not alone in their sense of awe and wonder. For a moment, they may have felt themselves transformed, too, into part of something great and magical, something that spoke to their mind, their heart, and their soul. And then some more practical person, perhaps a spouse or a parent, might have called them in out of the cold and the elements — or that practical soul may have felt themselves drawn to see what was so compelling and beautiful.

Sometimes I think that the more physically connected we are through technology, the less spiritually connected we are to the something greater in which our tiny planet exists.

We speed to destinations unimportant as the moon presides over all.

Dream: Torso terror

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I lifted the covering of an object on my dressing table and found a replica of the upper half of my torso. I tried to remember where it had come from.

I recalled that I had common gadget that would duplicate simple objects and that one day I had pointed it at myself. It had created this duplicate, which I had put aside to deal with later and somehow had forgotten. As I looked at it again, it frightened me.

It was perfect in every way — it looked like human flesh (I couldn’t bring myself to touch it), and I could see blue veins under the surface of the skin, which had a healthy, living glow. Worse, the half torso was solid; I knew that if I touched it, I would feel warmth and bones and would sense the organs underneath.

In the back of my mind I knew that this was incredible discovery — the ability to replicate entire body parts with a simple gadget, and that I should try to duplicate the effort. If I succeeded, I should announce the result to the world, or find a scientific team with which to work to explain it.

But all I felt was horror and fear and the need to get rid of the half torso — my half torso — as quickly as possible.

If I duplicated what had happened, I thought only that I would have two horrid half torsos to eliminate. If I failed, I would wonder how it had really come about, which was another dreadful thought.

I re-wrapped it and considered my options, a thought process hampered by my horror and terror.

I couldn’t throw the half torso into a park district trash bin; someone would find it, it would be traced back to me, and I would be suspected of murder. I knew that no one would believe the only explanation I had — even I wasn’t sure that I did.

I thought of burning it, but I couldn’t do that unless I put it into a bag along with charcoals in a way and in a place that looked like I was having a barbecue. For some reason, I thought even this would look suspicious, and I also wondered about the smell of burning flesh and the possibility that human remains still could be found in the ashes, even if only charred bits of bone.

I was still pondering the problem, which seemed impossible, when I woke up. I realized then the illogic of a partial torso, which I also now knew to have been half or two-thirds size — how were the ends sealed off? How did the organs function, if they did? What kept it alive? Was it alive?

Now I also wonder if my fear was really of being caught, exposed, and punished, or if it was of destroying something that had been part of my being.

Melting ice, freezing heart

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After days of cold and snow, snow and cold, and cold or snow, there was a partial thaw last Sunday. At this point, the ground is so saturated that the melting snow and ice run off into the street or pools on the grass. Now that it’s cold again, the park reflects the odd gold of the streetlights at night.

By Sunday morning, so much water had run onto the north end of South Shore Drive that it had reached the hubcaps of a half-dozen cars parked in the lowest area.

When I looked out, I spotted a person (gender unseen) in knee-high boots, stabbing at the water between cars, occasionally making mopping or sweeping motions toward the park edge. This person worked hard at this for a half hour or more, as though he or she were trying to clear hidden, randomly placed drains, poke drainage holes in the pavement, and sweep the water back into the park, whence melting water was still flowing onto the street.

From an outsider’s perspective, it was a Sisyphean task — perhaps the perfect metaphor for my life and the state of my mind. It was painful to watch, yet compelling in an inexplicable way.

Last Saturday, I took Hodge to the veterinary clinic for urine testing (crystals). I had decided to leave him for a few days because I needed to take a break from taking care of him, and I needed to be alone — completely alone — with my thoughts. I told the veterinarian that I would like to leave him until Tuesday evening, and she looked at me oddly and said, “You’ll call Monday evening to let us know when you’re picking him up?” She looked as though she thought it likely I would never return. No matter how I feel, though, a sense of responsibility wins out, which is why I am still here.

As she started to turn away with him to take him to the back, he reached out to me with both front feet and pawed my chest. The veterinarian told him, “Now, now, Mommy can’t save you.”

She couldn’t have known that Mommy’s under enough stress saving herself.

D. H. Lawrence quotations

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From St. Mawr by D. H. Lawrence.

Lou:

As far as people go, my heart is quite broken. As far as people go, I don’t want any more. I can’t stand any more. What heart I ever had for it — for life with people — is quite broken. I want to be alone, mother: with you here, and Phoenix perhaps to look after horses and drive a car. But I want to be by myself, really.

Mrs. Witt:

I’m convinced that ever since men and women were men and women, people who took things seriously, and had time for it, got their hearts broken. Haven’t I had mine broken? It’s as sure as having your virginity broken: and it amounts to about as much. It’s a beginning rather than an end.

Lou:

I’ve got to live for something that matters, way down in me. And I think sex would matter to my very soul, if it was really sacred. But cheap sex kills me . . . I dislike [men] because they’re not men enough: babies, and playboys, and poor things showing off all the time, even to themselves. I don’t say I’m any better. I only wish, with all my soul, that some men were bigger and stronger and deeper than I am . . . No, mother, of this I am convinced: either my taking a man shall have a meaning and a mystery that penetrates my very soul, or I will keep to myself . . . And to [the spirit that is wild], my sex is deep and sacred, deeper than I am, with a deep nature aware deep down of my sex.

Dream: Danger from the robot siblings

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Virgil and I were at a carnival and volunteered for an act. We were placed inside a structure like a water tower. It was strange because we did nothing, and no one could see us.

Suddenly there was a light and a mechanical voice calling, “Clear!” When the excitement was over, Virgil had disappeared, and the panel to the outside wouldn’t open. I understood that something was about to happen in the tower that was dangerous or life threatening. I saw a woman at some controls and knew her to be a robot. I asked her what was going to happen.

“The chamber is about to be flooded with [unrecognizable chemical-sounding name beginning with a ‘t’],” she said.

I asked if it were harmful, and she answered, “It will burn your lungs and sting your eyes, but it will not kill you. Do not breathe it.”

“How long will it last?”

“Several minutes.”

“But I cannot not breathe for several minutes.”

She shrugged subtly and left as she had entered — mysteriously.

I banged the door with my fists, but this only hurt my hands and made little noise, and there was no answer. I took off a walking show and slammed it against the door repeatedly. It made a little more noise, but no one came, and although I had a sickening sense that the robot woman had lied about the gas, I realized that all I could do was to see what happened.

I don’t remember the gas, except that I took her advice and breathed as little in as possible. It burned and stung a little, but not remarkably.

The robot woman returned finally and this time let me out. I had a flash of insight that I had been punished for being too slow to grasp the meaning of the “Clear!” warning and how to act upon it.

It also flashed on me that the robot woman hated me, so I asked her point blank. As she fiddled with the controls, she said, “I liked you well enough at first.”

I continued to look at her questioningly.

“The more you talked and the more you worried, the less I liked you,” she said both coldly and passionately. I tried to recall the conversation and what had turned her to hatred, but couldn’t remember meeting her. I senses that she hated my emotions and my honesty about them.

I got out and saw her talking to her robot brother. I couldn’t hear their words, but I could hear in my mind the one important thought that I needed to act on. “She seems to be all right; wait until next week’s newspaper comes out with the photo of her with Clark Kent.” But I was not Lois Lane, and I knew of no such sexually incriminating photo. I knew, however, that they could produce one if they wished, and that the public would accept a fake as real even knowing the ease with which it can be done. I didn’t know what to do.

I noticed that when I breathed hard (with the emotional excitement), a fog came out of my mouth and enveloped people and things in its path in what seemed to be a harmless cloud. I experimented to make sure that it was really my actions and not coincidence. I confirmed that I was the cause.

I had a creepy sensation that the robot siblings were watching my every move and would be able to hear my every word if I spoke. At the same time, I was certain that they did not know that I had “overheard” them and that I was producing the odd fogs and clouds. To test this, I followed the robot man discreetly and enveloped his head and sometimes his followers in a cloud. I sensed his conviction that this was his own doing.

Satisfied with my tests, I sought help about the newspaper threat from — Virgil? Clark Kent? (I didn’t know him.) Someone else? I don’t know; I thought I talked to someone, although I’m not sure how I evaded the knowing eyes and ears of the robot siblings (perhaps the clouds I produced hid us?). I do not know if the fabricated photo was published. Most important to me, I do not know why they hated me and my honest emotions so.

Three days, three falls

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Another day of snow.

Three days, three falls.

And numerous failed (?) attempts. Graceful I’m not, but nothing broken.

According to the good doctor, Hodge has a tender bladder.

Better that than other organs we could name.

Dream: Sickening anguish

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I don’t feel well today, and I meant to get over it this morning and to be at work by noon. I couldn’t, as it turns out, and so I am home for the day.

Dreaming was not therapeutic.

I was at home with my dad, and family and friends. The place and the people were not from my memory, but I loved them as though they were real.

There was a tiny room, perhaps mine, with peeling paint and plaster. I tried to find where the water was coming from, but it eluded me. It was unreal.

I was overcome by a terrible, wrenching anguish that worsened with time, and I could not stop crying. I needed comfort, and there was none. My father in the dream mocked me, insulted me, treated me with contempt, and finally ignored me as though I were not there. So did everyone else. My anguish only deepened, and with it their contempt for me. I was no longer human, and there was no end in sight.

When I finally woke up out of this nightmare, I could not face another one. Yet this is not much better.

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