Uncle Will

You died.

And at first, when I heard the news, I was stoic.
I rocked shut and clinched my face.
Like a toddler who slams closed her eyes
in the face of a monster –
if I can’t see it, it’s not real.

But my mother’s quivering voice lingered.
And it was real.

I thought: This affects my father more than more me.
You were his best friend, his more than blood brother.

Then, the next day, though I begged it not too,
my left eye let out a continuous stream of tears.

It was allergies, I told myself.
The pollen count was quite high
and I’d been sneezing for days.
A misplaced, overactive tear duct
that was all.

But when, around lunch time,
my right eye joined my left,
I could no longer fool myself.

You died.

And I felt as though a part of me died too.

I didn’t know you, really.

I only knew the man
who smiled his Santa Claus Smile,
and winked his glistening eyes,
(eyes that I can only assume were brown,
but I really don’t remember).

The man who drove hours to my college graduation,
and presented me with a Kenneth Cole watch,
that, I think, I should have been more grateful for.

The man who carted my furniture
down four flights of stairs
and into the waiting car
when I moved to my first real apartment
in Manhattan.

The man who I loved,
only because I know my father loved you so much,
even though, as a man, I never heard him say it.

The man who, although I don’t remember,
I know held me as baby,
And dotted upon me –
I’ve seen the pictures.


You died.

And I don’t believe it.
I want to pretend you’re still alive,
traveling throughout the country,
using one of your 27 cell phones.

But I can’t.

Because I heard my father’s voice.
A voice I’ve heard so often,
yet, until now, never before.

He must have loved you a lot
to make you the godfather
of his first born child.

And I, I love you too.

It breaks my heart that only now
do I realize how much.

A Pink Day

I'm starting to think that risk, jumping head first into the unknown, is, in some instances, preferable to comfort.

Comfort is dull, monotonous, chock full of beiges and greys.

Risk is vibrant, tumultuous, decorated in harsh, smothering blacks and imposing, frightening reds, along with vivid, crazy pinks and funny, tickling yellows.

And I...I need some color in my life.

No more grey.

Writing, Rewriting and More Rewriting

"I have spent most of the day putting in a comma and the rest of the day taking a comma out."
-Oscar Wilde

Changes

Life is full of change. To live without change is to not really live at all. It is to exist in a monotonous, grey colored bubble lacking any sort of development or evolution.

Tomorrow I face a change. A positive change, but a change nonetheless.

One door closes and another one opens. I can only hope that what lies behind this nearly open door is as good as I anticipate.

I've never been one to accept change easily. And I've certainly never been one to coolly and willingly decide to make a change.

But, this instance is different.

Perhaps it means that I've become disjointed, rash in my decision making. Perhaps it means that I'm barreling forward with arms open a bit too wide to greet whatever comes next.

But perhaps...perhaps it means I'm growing up.

What Styron Says...

"When, in the autumn of 1947, I was fired from the first and only job I have ever held, I wanted one thing out of life: to become a writer. I left my position as manuscript reader at the McGraw-Hill Book Company with no regrets; the job had been onerous and boring. It did not occur to me that there would be many difficulties to impede my ambition; in fact, the job itself had been an impediment. All I knew was that I burned to write a novel and I could not have cared less that my bank account was close to zero, with no replenishment in sight. At the age of twenty-two I had such pure hopes in my ability to write not just a respectable first novel, but a novel that would be completely out of the ordinary, that when I left the McGraw-Hill Building for the last time I felt the exultancy of a man just released from slavery and ready to set the universe on fire."

"Lie Down In Darkness" - This Quiet Dust and Other Writings (1982)

Untitled

Ring the bells that still can ring.
Forget your perfect offering.
There is a crack in everything.

That's how the light gets in.

-Leonard Cohen, Anthem

A Story. By Me.

An Unlikely Friendship


Milton Joseph was a simple man, with a plump, pot belly, liver-spotted head, and round red ears over powered by tufts of thick white hair. If he could transfer the hair from ears to his scalp, why he’d be all set, he’d exclaim from time to time to no one in particular.


Milton lived in a one bedroom on the corner of Larkspur Avenue, a bustling street at the epicentre of his small town. At eighty-seven, Milton was old – no question about it. He wasn’t middle aged or in his golden years, Milton Joseph was just plain old.


Occasionally he’d stand in front of his sturdy cheval mirror – the one that was a good decade or two older than his twitchy little landlord – and look at himself. Taut white socks over vein covered pruney knees. Sweat stained t-shirt clinging to sagging flesh. Droopy beige skin that hung in haloed sacks over sea green eyes.


He’d remember when his skin was taut, fresh. When rigid abs and chiselled features were all the currency he needed in the world. He’d remember this, and he’d smile, his yellowed, gap tooth grin proving more frightening than endearing. And at this, he’d smile wider, and sometimes he’d chuckle; a phlegm filled, shaky sound.


Sometimes he’d sleep for days on end, purposefully unplugging his phone and shutting off his alarm. Other times, he’d watch in awe as one sunrise after another floated across his window.


“Mr. Joseph,” little Eli Nestles from 12A would call from his front door, gingerly tapping his fingers against the wood. “Can I come over?”


Some days Milton didn’t hear Eli’s quiet taps. Other days fatigue and the comfort of his downy bed kept him from answering the door. But most days, most days Milton would drag his body up from the worn arm chair and limp to the hallway.


“It’s late, Eli, my boy,” he’d call out. “Shouldn’t you be in bed or doing homework now?”


“No, Mr. Joseph, “Eli would reply, as he always did. “I ain’t got nowhere else to be or nothing else to do.”


And Milton would busy himself with unlocking the many locks that littered his door; half grumbling, half smiling as he did.


He’d usher the little boy in, asking about his mother or school or if he saw the football game the other night.


Eli wouldn’t ever say much. Milton’s questions were greeted with a shrug or a grunt at best. So it was Milton that did most of the talking, while little Eli sat on the swivel chair gulping chocolate milk and scarfing down Oreo cookies that Milton brought just for that purpose.


He’d talk about the war and his two ex-wives. His daughter who’d moved halfway across the world and rarely ever called. He’d talk about his days spent as an Ad man and his dog, Lenny, the best dog a man could man ask for, who’d finally died twenty-three ago. He’d talk about his mother’s pumpkin pie and the smell of his dad’s cigars. He’d talk about his buddies in the twelfth infantry and sweet Suzy Jane who he would have married if it wasn’t for that damned Saul Barton. He’d talk about the time his brother, Calvin, almost burned down the house trying to start a campfire with stolen matches and about Pearl Barminter who kept bringing him homemade apple cobbler even though Milton hated apple cobbler as much as he hated Pearl Barminter. He talked about his yellow toenails and his damn hairy ears, his ever fading eyesight and his scratchy skin.


And Eli would listen intently, offering up a chocolate stained smile, empathetic little sigh or, rarely, piping up with a question or two.


“Do you miss your daughter a lot, Mr. Joseph?”


“Is that why your leg’s all funny?”


“Can’t you just tell her you don’t like apple cobbler?”


When 9 p.m. came, announced by the buzzing of Milton’s alarm (an always jarring reminder that it was time to take his pills), he’d hem and haw and coax Eli towards the door, promising, as he always did, that he could come over again real soon.


Eli would look up at him with those stoic brown eyes and then turn and trot slowly down the empty hallway to his mother’s apartment, his stick thin fingers tracing lines down the walls as he went.


Milton would watch him, just to make sure he made it back in safe and sound. Then he’d quietly shut his door, replace all the locks and swallow his nightly pills, an unwitting smile always making its way across his face.


And Eli, cocooned in blankets and curled in the corner of the bed he shared with his three brothers, would smile too.