A Scream for Life

4:12 in the morning, a woman screamed bloody murder for her life. I was getting soda water from the fridge, earlier than usual, but still my morning ritual, when I heard her.

The scream was a blood-curdling, sheer terror for life. It lasted only a second or two, enough for the driver to slam on his brakes suddenly, the sound an immediate jerk.

The cat heard it too.

The windows were open, but the house was being painted, plastic covering them so I couldn't see.

I notice then, through the thick cover, a bright blue light shining in my windows. It started in the kitchen, and shined through all three windows.

"Oh good, the cops are here," I thought to myself as went to wake up Sandy.

"Sara! did you hear that?"
"What?" She instantly woke up.
"That scream."
She didn't hear it, she said as I peeked out from behind the blinds.

But what I saw, wasn't the cops.

It was a lean male, in a dark hoodie sweatshirt who pulled into my neighbor's house two doors down and shone the light in her living room windows and back towards our house. The light wasn't blue, it was an LED - bright with a far distance.

"He's looking for her," I said.
"Is the front door locked?" Sandy replied quickly.
"Hell if I'm going down there!" I said. I'm usually the one who checks out the noises, but I wasn't going outside. Not after hearing that scream.

"Well, I'll do it, then!" she bustled out to the arctic entry to the deadbolt lock.

I was frozen as I watched the car, a silver late 1990 Taurus, pull in front of our house, then turn into the house across the street - just barely in the driveway at first, then all the way to the garage.

"What are they doing at Diane's house?" I wondered. The deaf old woman would faint dead in her oversized nightgown and white socks if she looked out the window right then. The man was insistent on finding something. Someone. The girl.

But where did she go?

The man drove off after about two minutes of looking through poor dear Diane's front windows. Where was her footstool of a dog, Tiger when you needed him?

And where was the girl?

The cops came around next, but it was too late. There was nothing but the sleepy cul de sac of our neighborhood. Silent homes, and structures without words as witnesses.

The chills of the story still run through me. A woman, scared for her life. Yards, feet away from my sleepy head. What happened to the woman? Who was she? Where did she go?

And just like that: one day, as you're pouring yourself a glass of soda water at 4 am on a Monday morning, a girl's scream becomes etched in your memory. Without ever seeing her, or knowing the situation, her scream is still being reverberated through the walls of my chest, the crevices of my mind, pumping through my veins. The struggle of someone, desperate. The most desperate cry for help, not the kind in a dream when you lose your voice. The kind where you scream because your life depends on it.

My dear, I pray for you. I care about you.

My heart aches for you to be safe.

Hands of Time

My ring finger on my left hand bears no ring. It never has. They say rings signify insecurity.
A small piece of knowledge I picked up from my best friend's dad. He was a psychologist and the smartest person I know. I believe everything he says - even though he can fill a story with more bullshit than truth. You know when he does that, though, because he'll bellow out a laugh after - look down and rub his bald head, belly bouncing from laughter. His nearly toothless smile propagates mine. We'd all collectively laugh - or add to the sarcasm we are usually drowning in - launching off each other's energy and wit. He is the guy who calls me kiddo with affection. He's the one who offered the advice about my breakup.

"When the foundation is broke, it can never be replaced." That was after I left my boyfriend the first time.

I thought I could defy him - like I can all the people who look at my hand. My lonely, empty hand - bare.

Maybe forever.

People can't believe I've made it this far without getting married once. How could I have survived the wolves all these years. Little do they know I am one. I suppose there are more unbelievable things.

Like a broken foundation.

I refused to listen to this advice. "I'll show him. I'll show him I'm not like the mould. I'm different."

In the end, or what is at least an final intermission, my friend's dad was right. The foundation of our relationship wasn't built without cracks, though it wasn't damaged without repair. And after five years of wet concrete and caulking the cracks, maintenance of rusted pipes and even the purchase of a new home - the foundation remained compromised beyond anything we could fix together. The structure was there and the interior and the exterior - while often messy, cluttered and unkept - was operable, tolerable. I guess just not solid.

And now, three years later, my home is still at times messy, cluttered and unkempt, my own foundation appears to be settling. Maybe I am breaking the mould. The foundation is jiving together without luxury travel plans and a large bank account, even with pools of tears soaking into it. My foundation is getting stronger - and not only to support the structure of my self - but grounding too. Deeper and stronger. Organic. With personality and color.

"Why would you color concrete to support your house?" they'd ask me. "What's the point if it is covered in dirt and houses the musty smells and damp leftovers of yesterday's experiences? Where dreams go to age like a fine bottle of wine - becoming better over time?"

My hand is bare and my fingers are short, just like my grandmother's hand. But her finger always had a ring on it. That was what you did back then, especially if you were 14 and pregnant. Her nails were always painted and when they chipped, even if it was two hours later, they would be redone for dinner.

Dinner tastes better when women with finely manicured nails serve it.

I used to never paint my nails, because I had the unfortunate curse of biting them.

"Boys won't like you if you keep biting your nails," my dad told me growing up. It was a threat that if my ugly behavior wasn't corrected, there would be consequences. It was saying my habit made me less desirable, a trait we didn't want. I tried to quit, but if I was stressed, or bored, or if they weren't exactly symmetrical from one side to the other, they wound up in my mouth. I'd only notice when they started to bleed.

I've told lovers this over the years - especially after I learned the advice from my dad initiated sympathy. Which I could then use as a tactic to get what I wanted. Which was essentially for them to tell me they loved me despite this ugly part of me. This was in some way a signal of their unfettering fixation on me - a most worthy muse.

Clearly this strategy as failed me. It's clear by my bare hand. Not only just the place where a westernized version of love is to be displayed, but by the bare hands - ten bare fingers - signalling freedom - a carefree spirit - no obligations or personal risk. No one at home. Security.

These hands are not cluttered like my house can be. They are unattached to material. They are dirty under the nails I used to bite and still do at times. These hands do not know how to be harnessed - but they know how to be held. Entangled, entwined, involved with another set of hands - who hold mine - who I can hold. That's part of my foundation.

Instead of concrete - colored or not - my hands find foundation through touch. My hands are sometimes cracked from the dry Interior winter air, the thousand times sanitized throughout the day, sometimes bloody from picking at the skin around the nails and hardly ever manicured.

Maybe my dinners don't taste as good because of this.

The Fair

Crocodile tears fall down my face, as I walk the mile to my house.
A man I didn't know brought them to me.
I inherited his energy - he handily passed it to me.
I still have it. It is lingering.

I cried hard and maybe it wasn't only because of the man in the essential oils booth.
Maybe it was something else I was breaking through.
That was probably it.

That man.
Kicked me out of his tent.
Before I could call him an asshole.

I just can't

We're on an island remote from Alaska, but not too far, just in case there is danger. Like Russia. There are bluejays talking to us. More like barking at us. They seem curious of who we are, there in their territory. We are the invaders. They make sounds communicating with each other in a language I can't understand. But maybe I do.

They're trying to figure out who we are as well. And how territorial we will be. With our food. And our space.

The bugs don't care about us or those mouthy birds.

They are just flying around, buzzing past ears, landing on dewy skin. They are interested in the food, too.

But they don't eat much.

In the distance is a soft lapping sound from the salty ocean water. A sign of life that has passed us by. A sign that life continues to move, although we stay here.

Inside and all around, life is busy, although we are still. 

Sour and Sweet

A flower with beautiful petals smells sweet. The collective scent of millions of them infiltrate our senses as we hike through mostly untouched land.

"If the air begins to smell bad, that is a sign of a bear," we were told once.

Back then, we were fresh-blood cheechakos. Wide-eyed Pollyannas with bright smiles and adventure paving the way where money never could.

That hike was through Southcentral Alaska. I was with Denise and two boys we befriended on the ferry. Ian and Aaron.

The hike was to last three days. We packed out our tents, sleeping bags and food. Headlamps, shoes and socks. We were barely a week old in the Last Frontier, but we had been creatures of nature for weeks traveling here.

I remember the first time I walked into a Wal-Mart again after sleeping outside and being on the road. The florescent lights jarred me - the air, stale - although cool from the summer temps.

Everything was fake. I didn't need anything here.

I just needed to be back outside where I could hide within the sour and sweet smells of plants I didn't know the name or purpose of - but welcomed all the same. 

Lost: Part III

Like a braid weaving in and out of strands of hair.
Each one a borne follicle of DNA that advises how to proceed.


Hair - blonde
brown
blue
white...silver -

The color of hair can indicate the life of the person who bears it.
And can indicate the life of friendship relative to that person.

Or it could be genes.

Like braids of hair, friendships swerve in and out.
They weave,
heave,
grow,
retract.

Dry up.

Sometimes, they are revived years later.
After the death of your mother
or your cat.

Rivers braid themselves this way.
Fostering life from the moving current.
Cultivating life underneath.
From the shore,
the stream looks calm,
or perhaps the current,
obvious.

Underneath, there is another current that could sweep you away.

Friendships
like meeting a person for the first time
and knowing somewhere,
you've met before,
although they come from Mars
and you're sure you've never met anyone from Mars.

But you know, your lives are entwined -
somehow.

And then, the friendships that go away
leaving a hole
maybe scarred,
maybe charred,
maybe void of nothing.

The friendships that remains are consistent
as consistent as the river moving,
interweaving.

Lost: Part II

Lost earrings.
Lost socks.
One match for the other
one way of making a pair work.

When one sock disappears,
what does the other do?

My lonely socks
continue getting washed.
Like the washing machine is the suspect for a disappearance.
The reason which deems the other socks' sole purpose as unnecessary.
Disregarded, in a way.
Loss of meaning and purpose.

For a sock, finding a match proves a restless cause.
There's always more cushion in a younger sock.
The seam doesn't fit quite the same from the right to the left foot anymore.
The color doesn't match.
One sock survived a load of wash that died pink.

Together, it's unnoticeable.
But there will never be another sock to match the hue so discreetly.

And while there might be another sock that can fill in on unnoticeable nuances,
that will never change a sock lost. 

Lost: Part I

A part of the path of journey is getting lost.

Losing your self.
Losing your way.

Finding that once lost,
another path can be found.

Discouraged.

Afterall, why would the need to ever find a new path exist,
if it weren't for being lost?

I suppose one could come to a fork in the road.
And we all know the brilliant ones take the road less travelled.

What is it to sacrifice along the way?

I'm losing my childhood cloaked in drippy wet dreams - filled by idealism and utopia.
The idea that utopia can exist on this physical earth.

I'm losing that.

By gaining realism.

Realistic understanding of a world
lost to me.

A world I must recreate.