Posted on August 3, 2009 - by Rasham

Only When You Look

Jord: It is strange-our connection, like a hide a key: always there but you only know when you look.

It is early morning at the train station, the chill of the mist is biting, and I relish in the thought of a hot coffee, as I skip over the tracks in route to the nearest oasis. My fingertips begin to tingle as the warmth of blood returns, and I pause, studying the cast and crew of this early bird production: a gathering of officers has my attention, in costume and fully armed.

The grassy voice of the oboe slices through the mumbles and murmurs, and as I warily watch the uniformed chums babble and laugh, I realize just how human they really are. The presence of their weapons gradually becomes insignificant in my overall assessment: they appear as children, faced with he unfortunate future of danger and uncertainty because of the badges they carry. It almost brought tears to my tired eyes: I wanted to thank them for having allowed me to see them as such: vulnerable and afraid.

Before me a family of three takes three seats around a four cornered table. The tabletop is set with solo cups and pastries, and before a single slice of the confection is enjoyed, they grasp hands in a religious act of silent prayer. I wonder to which God they pray, and to whom they owe their words of piety. All that is apparent in this moment of divinity is their love for one another: otherwise, it is in the faith of mankind, and not God, that they bow heads in unison. It is so, that the properties of God and our ideas of Him exist within our minds, and not outside of him, nor in any other being. When one man says he knows of the existence of God, another who hears him may believe out of a need to appease his own curiosity and abate his nerves: the belief in God is then a mere belief in the words of that man. History is the greatest account of these phenomena, where from the awe of unexplainable good and from the unsettling fear of a lurking and mysterious evil spawned a need to trust in the word of our fellow man when he said to trust in the good of a power greater than ourselves; God. God shows himself in nothing but our own expressions of Him; in our own exhausted explanations of universal processes which are religiously defined. What we call ‘God’ is that to which we attribute those phenomena which simply cannot be explained by methods of science or rational thought. However, it is a force nonetheless, a force of human imagination and a manifestation of the relentless will of man to quiet his worldly suspicions and grief thereof. We still need each other in ways of which we are quite unaware; that we have an unspoken faith in the word of our fellow man despite the devastating condition of mankind is reassuring.

A child’s voice brightens the mood, which has become somber with the sad strokes of a stringed bass emanating from someplace within this espresso scented sanctuary. She is cuddled against her father’s chest as he reads from ‘Little House on the Prairie’, her petite face marked with round pillows of cream from her mug of hot chocolate. She looks in my direction though past me, sharing a moment with another little girl propped against the cushions of the filth spattered bench, a pink stemmed flower clutched in her delicate hands. The two are connected by the nature of their youth, exchanging innocent messages through the intensity of their virgin eyes: an experience which can only be had by the souls of children in a mature world. In the corner of the cafe is the sudden sound of steam escaping a metal vat and I am interrupted by the awareness of time: I must leave if I am to meet the train.

The station features a unique element of uniform contentment in that the presence of eager passengers is not forsaken by the presence of nervousness and anxiety, as when the mean of transport is by way of flight. Announcements fill the space between the queries of curious children and the laudable laughter of couples engaged, and my anticipation is fed on behalf of the light hearted energies of my traveling companions.

I take my first step onboard the California Zephyr, and already I can feel Jord’s presence, so comforting and familiar, the italic script in smoke-blue snaking across the tanned skin if his muscular back. It’s been a year since our last embrace, six since the beginning of our friendship: he is the sole reason for which I am a passenger on this vessel. We would find each other during trivial lapses of proper insignificance in our lives, and would welcome the opportunity to unite, usually under conditions of disparity and loneliness. When all other avenues of love had failed, when time reduced my romantic soul from wildly beating to broken-hearted and the thrills of life had become swallowed by the overgrowth of depression and boredom, I would reconnect with him, my dearest friend from the past. In his arms he would take me from bruised to beautiful, from dull to daringly enthusiastic. And when he called, I always answered, knowingly sacrificing my condition for just one glimpse into his hazy blue eyes. In opposite directions our paths had diverged, the similarities between us were fewer now than ever before. Though the consequences of our choices depict us as two opposites trapped in a cyclical perpetuation of an impotent romance, none of it is of any significance: together we are simple, all affects of our commitments and responsibilities have no bearing in our tiny corner of the world. Whence we stand in front of one another for the first time after a lapse in communication, our weapons are laid, our baggage is left behind: we surrender our images and are nothing but wholly ourselves. Our differing worlds collide in an empathetic moment of universal forgiveness.

Against the backdrop of the high sierra mountains we now reside in the bliss of each other’s company. The tendrils of his dirty blond hair are wildly wavering in the soothing breeze, and the cool of the country night is all around as we sit like children at the edge of the river’s shore. His voice is humming the tune of some forgotten melody as his fingers fondle the nylon strings of his guitar. I cannot remember a time in space where things were as simple as they are now. Torn blue jeans and bare feet, he had a young soul, delighted with the art of the outdoors. He would tell me of hunting tales he survived on islands in the North Pacific, where he roamed the territory armed with a shotgun, seeking a fatal confrontation with a black bear. His spirit was never more vibrant than when he spoke of his life then, of his times of vagrancy in an uninhabited land, and as a fisherman out at sea. It seems he flourished under such conditions, as he embellished his native origins, being just as well versed in the literature of his ancestry as we was experienced in their primitive life style. The ebbing water in the river before us seemed to extract traces of those experiences within him: the inflections in his soft voice were tainted with a sense of eagerness and excitement for things past. He had his own way of denouncing the modern and neglecting the fast-paced, and it was in his style that the truth of this was evidenced. He knew the stars as well as I knew the lines which defined his rugged face, and he referenced them in the songs he sang on this late summer night in the Nevada countryside. The constellation Cassiopeia twinkled politely in the far away distance in accordance with the love which was so gratefully accepted by the both of us.

I often wondered why we had spent so much time apart, but as I complete the thought in my mind, I am already certain of the answer: between him and me, a romance could not exist in any other way. The essence of our attraction is that we are not bound by the shackles of commitment, and perhaps if we had forged at one cross in time our interests for each other would have depleted, and that would of left us empty, hurriedly engaging in our long term goodbyes. Relationships are patterns: we repeat behavior which causes pleasure, and avoid those which cause pain. Ours was a distinct pattern marked by periods of indifference, which made the times we were together all the more pleasurable. It was at a distance that we were the best symbol of the harmonies of man and woman, and to desire anything more would be to tweak the course of our lives in a direction devastating to our friendship. “Better to let things flow”, he would say, after rehearsing a passage from the epic adventures of Crazy Horse.

“Across the cold midnight sky, you walked by, you walked by…and now you’re mine. I reached out and held your hand, I will love you till the end, of my life. Baby don’t be angry at the world, though it seems so cruel, I have you. Don’t fight with your hands, for hate there is no use…I love you….” He sang those words in an almost whisper, his eyes finding mine each time he breathed the words “love you”. I was sitting besides him with my bare knees in my chest; the linen from my dress formed a pond of fabric around me. He put his guitar aside, and slid across the mulch on the earthy ground, closing the space between us. I accepted his offer of embrace and relaxed my neck so that my head rest upon his shoulder.

“Do you ever wonder”, he said calmly, “about people…who die victims, before their time in this crazy world? I don’t know…like those girls you read about in the newspapers; young, beautiful, and taken by men who then took the lives of their youthful captives Every passing moment of their lives, every choice they made or which was made for them on behalf of those who cared was such that it brought them closer to death…”

I was as calm in listening to him as he was in speaking, but I lifted my head and looked towards the stars, searching perhaps for some guidance which would help me to respond to his random inquiry. It was always the case, however, that when the two of us would find one another, we were able to travel outside of ourselves in thought and conversation, toying with ideas which made the both of us feel safe only within each other’s immediate presence; we spoke of things which were cause for fear, and that made us feel humbled and small.

“I guess”, I said weakly, “that though it was, perhaps, a fateful end, it couldn’t have happened in any other way. It may seem as though we have choices, but only when we are able to view the consequences as they have already happened. While we are in that delicate moment which defines us in ways that have yet to be revealed, we are usually guided by forces unseen; we choose that which would benefit us, and which would leave the balance all around undisturbed. There is no other choice; just the next best thing. Had they chosen differently at certain points in their lives, perhaps they would still be alive. But they would see their end another time, in another place, as is the fate of us all. And maybe there are no horrible accidents in life. Perhaps there are those who are born to grow beautiful and strong, and retain their innocence so that on this one day, in this seemingly arbitrary nonessential wrinkle on the evolutionary clock, we may learn from the way of their departure from this world, and perhaps shift our awareness, and subsequently, the direction of life on Earth. Maybe that’s what it takes to spark people’s interest in making a change for the better good of the whole. That would be the philosophy behind suicide bombers, wouldn’t it? People don’t listen to words anymore; they don’t call in sick to work in order to attend the regular March for Peace. In our waking lives we are sedated, happily complacent, and lazy: only when we become disturbed do we begin to think for ourselves again, to question the reality within which we live. In death we rally, in death we unite, in death we open our eyes to the horrible truth of what our constant state of passivity has allowed human civilization to become; nasty and full of evil. And those poor girls; well, nature perhaps chose them to be the suicide bombers of our societies. It was their fate from birth. It’s sad, but perhaps we can say it is necessary in order to attract the attention of us all, and motivate us to do things which prior to the event were not being accomplished.”

He was watching me the entire time I spoke, and I was only half convincing, knowing that if I became too impassioned he would be inclined to wrestle me playfully to the ground.

“Well then…every passing moment of my life has brought me closer to you, now…” he said, with a smile on his face. It was such a smile as was deserving of a kiss, and I released my knees from the wrap of my arms and leaned over to touch my lips to his. I pulled away and returned to my previous position, my head resting upon his shoulder, my arms cuddling my bent knees.

We sat in this way for a short while longer, until the need for sleep was no longer avertable. Sitting on the bench seat of his pick-up truck, he had one arm around me, the other in firm control of the movements of his vehicle. The windows were rolled down and the breeze from the stale summer air filtered through the cabin, licking loose strands of my unkempt hair. In the sky it seemed an artist had wept the pastel paints from the edge of a wand: a swirling tapestry of pink rose, lavender, and dense white clouds loomed overhead. We turned off the main road, the headlights catching the glare of two sparkling rubies in the distance: the eyes of a fawn, alert and rationally hesitant. On the way the truck rumbled over the uneven surface, and I glanced back to watch clouds of dirt drift upwards to greet the clouds in the sky. His arm never left my shoulders, his sight never strayed from the road ahead, and when we had reached our destination, the sounds of the engine were suffocated by a simple twist of the key, and all around was silence save a symphony of creek insects and shallow breaths. “Shall we?” he said, and I smiled softly as our hands met and we escorted one another to the porch steps of his unadorned dwelling.

The floorboards creaked under the weight of the intruders. He set his keys next to a picture from the past, where by a pool of turquoise blue a young mother held in her arms a beautiful little boy in a pinstriped bathing suit. Jord wandered up the wooden stairs, and I followed, turning slightly into the master bedroom. The drapes along the open window’s barrier were pulled aside, flowing gracefully in the welcomed breeze. The light of the moon was upon his face, and in between the spaces of midnight blue on the quilt spread across the modest bed, the glow of night illuminated our haven for sensuality and surrender. We undressed in unison, and took our places atop the blankets, resting on our sides, his chest pressed against my back. His arm reached around me so that I was able to kiss his hands, of which the skin was rough, cracked and scabbing from years of work in the trade of skilled labor. We were cuddled, holding each other as if we were to be faced with our last moments on earth, content that we would not have to face it alone. As my eyes coerced my mind to rest with involuntary episodes of chronic blinking, I wondered about the moon, visible outside the window from where I lay, though shielded by the masterpiece of the artist in the atmosphere: for whom was it also shining, and what part were they to play in this world?

A coat of moisture soaked the skin on my face as I awoke to the presence of the sun, and to Jord, who seemed so alive in gradually waking from his slumber. “Hey sweet pea”, he said, as he nuzzled his unshaven cheek against the blade of my shoulder.

“Hey you”, I said in a hoarse morning voice. Branches from the tree outside were dancing in the light of day, and I relaxed the urge to spring from bed, watching the performance just beyond the bedroom window. Jord looked outwards as well, and he sighed in agreement of our delayed departure from the wrath of sleep. “You know…looking at that Maple tree, I am seeing all of it: every tiny branch, every irregular leaf, every imperfection and inconsistency, every flaw, every speck of color, all which composes this thing, and yet it still appears as one fluid entity before me…”

“Every tiny golden hair planted slightly above your wrist, every curve and bend of your body…I see you, and you appear as perfection in whole before me…” he said, exploring my skin with his coarse hands. I spun around to face him, and then rose up from the wrath of blankets. I peered across the room, where in a corner a shotgun was angled against the wall. Jord was a hunter of duck, dove, and deer, learned by his father, and his father’s father. I was his most attentive audience, listening with extreme intent as he recalled stories, enamored by the radiance of his natural spirit when he spoke. Some stories I had heard more than once, though because of his love for sharing such tales was admirable, I never stopped him from telling it once more. “The eagle feather,” he had narrated to me years past, “that I wore in my hair guided me to the bearer of that feather…I followed that bald eagle for miles, never once losing sight of him, until the both of us approached a rise in the land, and he flew from sight, ending our journey together. I searched the sky with eyes so wide, wishing for one last encounter with my spiritual companion…instead, not but a short distance ahead stood a buck of supreme stature, and our eyes met as I slowly drew my rifle, neither of us committing to any rapid motion: just me and him, suspended…it was pure existence, watching as the beast watched me, seemingly understanding my motives, but making no effort to escape…he knew death was inevitable, such is nature…I had one shot, and with it I took his life…”

When he told such accounts he did so with vitality and grace, never looking in my direction, but afar, as though the memory played like a slideshow of tangible images before his pale blue eyes. Hunting wasn’t a sport to Jord as much as it was the revival of ancient tradition, and a kill was never cause for celebration; it was an opportunity for sacred prayer and an essential element of surviving man’s evolutionary superiority. Jord killed only that which he would eat, utilizing the life of the land in harmony with creation.

“Let’s go to the river”, I said, tearing my eyes from the weapon.

It was still morning when we made it to the rocky shores; the river was animated as gravity performed her usual duties, tugging the snow melt downstream. In a small cove the two of us sat, each on separate stones, Jord with a fishing pole in hand. The energy of the day was static; it seemed as though I had lived in this way for an eternity, and that here I could remain for eternity still. Perched upon this solid slice of sediment I thought of what was said last night, regarding fate and choice. To what extent do we have choice, and power over the present? I wondered about his story with the buck in the wilderness, and inquiries surfaced in my mind; what course of events, what choices defined the scene which displayed the two characters, together in that exact location in that exact moment in time? It would seem as though since the instance of Jord’s arrival on earth and the birth of the animal, a series of seemingly unimportant events were consciously lived by the two, though separately, which would find them, hunter and prey, as it happened far off in the future. Perhaps it was decided by powers unrecognizable that the buck would meet his end at the front of Jord’s rifle. Perhaps they were guided to that moment so subtly yet so perfectly, as Jord had felt escorted by the bald eagle, never once questioning their paths or fighting the urge to participate in their lives.

Only in retrospect can we see that the power of choice was ours, or not ours. Power over destiny is an illusion similar to God, in that we are comforted by the belief in having it, yet so mystified when made to explain it. It is that great power we all wish to possess, that we are in control, that we have the freedom to choose our course in this infinite world. We may think we have power when the moment at hand finds us miserable, believing that our inadequacies and personal defects have led us to perpetuate a series of wrong choices. We may think we have power when the moment at hand finds us happy and free, that our courage and brevity have led us to perpetuate a series of good choices. But only during occasional pause are we afforded the privilege of invoking memories which allow us to access the insight of hindsight, and thus the illusion of power of fate is fabricated by our imaginations, propelled by a desire to know and understand, and a will to possess that power. In a world full of billions of people, inhabited by an infinite number of life forms, it seems silly to say that I am the sole director of my own life, for how could I possibly shape my future when unpredictability is looming, and whatever lays ahead is mysterious and hardly promised?  We are all heavily bombarded by interactions with our surrounding environment and all that is within. Truly, the only power we possess is in how we choose to react to the natural forces which are all encompassing, and very much alive. In acceptance of the truth of a connected and reciprocal existence we find that our course runs smoothly; in self-seeking we find that our paths are tumultuous and defined by disorder and struggle. We have passions, that mental aspect which decides our interests and desires, and we have memory of positive and negative consequents of action; these two factors in conjunction with universal motion often finds us conscious in the present moment, looking into our crystal ball and wondering “how did I get here?” We just are here, however time may find you, guided by forces outside of our own control but within the power of acceptance, on a unique journey with a definite and uniform end. The choices we make in our lives are arbitrary; they usually mean nothing until they are set in the context of our pasts and colored by the nature of the present. Jord and the beast were guided by mystical forces of existence and nature from the very start of their lives; that buck could not have met his end in any other way, and Jord could not have been in any other place during that window in time.

Some sound seemed invading to my train of thought, and I turned to see Jord skillfully winding the reel of his pole: he had caught a fish. Steady, steady, wrestling with the creature, with not but a wand and string between the two. I watched him, and not the water, for his movements were poetic, foreshadowing of a glimpse into the subject of fate which has me baffled and thoughtfully rambling. On shore now, he has the fish subdued as it flounders helplessly atop the sitting stone. Grasping a rock and in one simple motion he strikes the fish’s head, leaving it still in the unchanging atmosphere. Jord whispers something not meant to be heard over the rush of water in the river, and I make no sound, in awe of the peaceful essence of events I had just witnessed. In some way it felt as though time had lost meaning, and I pretended as though civilization had not yet come to be, and this was the fish which would serve the purpose of extending our lives for one more day.

Now on the train returning to my origin I recall the memories of Jord, as I had days before our retreat, pondering the nature of our connection. We had parted after a lengthy goodbye, in which he said, “until next time, sweet pea…”, and I can’t stand to resist the inkling that some part of me rests with him, though we are now miles apart. However the forces of life guide me in matters of fate and choice, all that is needed is a simple fold, a crease in time, which would reunite my world with his, and the shadows of our pasts will collide once again, and we will be wholly ourselves, in tune with the nature of direction and in love with the present moment of togetherness. As the train conquers layers of track ahead I wonder of what choices I have yet to face, and how they will evolve in unison with time in such a way as to bring me back to him. Until that day, I will miss you Jord.

From ‘Love and Furlough’