Let's Love Now Cause Soon Enough We'll Die

I have been unpacking the dead lately.

The rooms of my heart are stacked with boxes holding the dead all swaddled, nicely, and put away. I unwrap each trinket from faded newspaper, blow on it to get the excess dust, and place it kindly on the shelf next to my grandmother's mirror. 

Particularly, I've been searching for my dad's laugh. I thought I bundled it between his last catfish caught and his porch swing. (Sometimes, he'd get that swing going so fast my tiny-blonde anxieties were exposed.) I've sifted through the day my mom moved us out of the house on my 12th birthday and my black and white cat getting smashed on the highway in front of our house.

I need help finding it. I'm desperate.

 

Tell Me, Are you a Christian, Child. I said, Ma'am I am Tonight

Be careful with the word deserve, my papa says. Don't throw it around. 

* - * - *

Yesterday, like every June 11th for the last 16 years, I acknowledged the dead. Sacrificed to the fire gods, gods of grief and chaos, to the quiet, to the natural order of life.
 I swallowed down so many 'what if's' and 'I wish' and 'but, why's' to turn my stomach sour. I kept my body still or slow, hands close to my rib cage, and my mouth closed.

* - * - *

Sixteen years ago on June 11th, I woke up to my dad screaming around 3:30 am. There was too much noise, too much smoke, too much tired to comprehend at that moment that my house was burning down. I stood up out of bed and immediately was forced to the ground -- smoke, as they say, is no joke. Confusion and incessant screaming forced me, on my knees, to the living room: rage, hot, orange, loud. Instincts said back door. I saw his legs at the front door. He did not see me. He had a mole on the back of his right leg. I watched those legs walk out to clean air.

They say he went back into the house. They say they found his body in the kitchen. I envision, even still, half a body.

When I was 14, living in the country with a step-dad and post-divorced mom, one of our pigs got out of his pen in the night. I came upon the body in the morning before school, ripped apart and bloodied. Back legs and haunches in tact -- mangled in the middle, but head, heart, face gone This is always how I think of my dad's burnt body abandoned near the pantry.

What happened in those last few minutes? Do I deserve to know?

* - * - *

What if he could say: go on?
Could I?

I Know There's Pain

Here's this: my bike was stolen.

I can't seem to settle my heart. I can't calm down. I can't seem to quit kicking things; fantasizing both about explaining to the bike thief the emotional earthquake he's thrown me into and standing on his throat.

To say the very least, I'm struggling with resentment - the kind that is so pure one drop out of the little glass vile I keep around my neck would burn a hole through an oak tree.

I'm sad.

But also, something beautiful is happening. I posted on all my social medias about my Fuji folder and the rush of sympathy was instant. And wonderful. My posts were shared and reshared and commented on and then reshared again and again by friends and friends of friends. On all platforms. There are eyes everywhere in my city looking for my Fuji.  And I can't help but feel sugary in my browbeaten bones. So thank you. Thank you, universe. Thank you, Fort Wayne. Thank you, West Central.

But one man has destroyed me with his kind words.

I knew your dad and he was mature beyond his years. He was taught to be nice and respectful to everybody. He always greeted me warmly with a smile. His deep voice and kind eyes were very inviting to everyone who talked to him. I'm very glad to have been a friend of his. He had a super mom and dad, I believe that is where he got his personality and character traits from. I'm sure that he would tell you that what's in your heart far outweighs what that bike represents to you. Dayne wouldn't want you to harbor any resentment. Let it go and free yourself of the bondage of resentment. You need look no further than his friends to have mementos of your dad. There are plenty of stories of him to go around. 

And now, I'm looking for a new bike.  

Only The Good Die Young

I want to tell you about poetry school. I want to be able to say, shyly, "Who woulda' thought, you know?" and you say, in sweetness, "I thought. I always thought" in the kind of way a dad would say. Except we would both know that you've been worried about my trajectory.

Teach me to change my oil, would ya? And while we're at it, can we conquer the country roads with a manual shift?

Let's sit on the porch and gossip about your neighbor lady, but the good gossip. The "can you believe how earnest she is about keeping strangers out of our yard?" gossip. And the "She's honestly still kicking" and "She never NOT talks about her surgery" gossip. We'd start every sentence with: "I mean, I'm not talking bad, but.." We'd finish (probably) a 12 pack of beer and feel fulled up with the meat of a good-goddamned autumn night.

Tell me the importance of measuring twice, cutting once. Tell me the mistakes you've made, that seemed big, but now are small.

Is everything permanent? If not, why does it seem like concrete has filled the little sacs in my lungs?

We should be crazy one night and buy expensive tickets to a rock and roll show. We can sit and eat up the night; poison it with sentiment. If you wanted, I'd let you tell me about when you fell in love with mom, what it was like in the 80s, the first time you heard Guns'N'Roses, why you stayed with mom, what it was like when your children were born... If you wanted, I'd listen all night, after the music died with the moon. Maybe we'd drink a little bourbon and I'd promise my first born would have your name. Girl or boy.

Maybe one day I'd call you and cry, but I'd call you because I just needed your voice to calm me, like it did when I was a tiny with an upturned nose. You'd say, "Did I ever tell you about that time we were in the abortion clinic - and I looked at your mom and your mom looked at me? Did I tell you what I said?" [Silence] "I said, 'I think we can do this,' and so we left." And that would appease me. That would reaffirm me that at least two people in the whole world, so big/so small, loved me before I even existed. And I'd stop crying. We'd probably make dinner plans. Afterwards, I'd help you weed the garden.

Anyway, I want to tell you about poetry school. But you're dead.

We Will Never Die

Few things are barely connected; most things are.

Two things fucked me up real bad today. If they happened to you, maybe it would have been a passing breeze. And if it happened to me yesterday or maybe if it even happened tomorrow, maybe it'd be just nothing, but today: today, these two things were everything. And somehow, I know they are interconnected by delicate strings.

Here they are:

I watched a beetle die today. Much to my protest, this beetle died. And his life ended in front of me. I watched it. Do you get it? I FUCKING WATCHED IT.

I saw a lonely man today with a lame arm.

goddamnit. both things made me want to die. but somehow afterwards, I felt more. Just.. more.

My heart's learned to kill

The summer between my junior and senior year of high school, I had a boyfriend named Jon. In August, he went away to the Naval Academy where I visited him twice. It was nice. I was friends with his youngest sister. I called her MixMaster. That summer was slightly stressful - my stepdad had moved away to set up house in Arizona where he accepted a job with a huge pay bump. I had decided to stay in Indiana to finish up my senior year. I was approaching a year without my mother. Anyway, I had this boyfriend, before Arizona, before Annapolis.

He was a nice boy. Smart. He loved to make out in his Caprice Classic, he had a wonderful mother and dad. He liked me a lot. Once, in a moment of vulnerability, he sort of proposed to me. This, however, wasn't *before* Annapolis. This was during. Anyway, I had this boyfriend.

I was with him the night my dad died. He left about 3 hours before it happened. We didn't really talk that night, we did a lot of kissing on that green couch. Well, anyway, he was the 4th or 5th person to stand next to me the morning after my childhood home burned down. He was the one who waited on me while I told the firemen "exactly what happened as [I] remember[ed] it". He let me lose my shit.

He moved away weeks later. He accidentally proposed months later. And I cheated on him. Lots. I was a vacant human being. I know now I should have been nicer - fuck, I knew it then. But I couldn't.

Let's be honest: I couldn't do anything. School, and grief, and school, and grief, and blowjobs, and movie theaters and lots of Fazolis, and the loneliest, scariest nights of my life. That's what I had to hold on.

And the distinct memory of watching that green couch in flames as I escaped the house without my dad.

He died 13 years ago today. I was the last person to see him, the last person to talk to him. He didn't really like my boyfriend.

Inertia

I don't believe in fate. I haven't for a while. Probably since my dad got all burned up in a fire. After that, the people who didn't know how to say a simple "I'm sorry" would say something along the lines of: "everything happens for a reason". To which, I wanted to stab them in the face and, with a witty smile, ask them "what was the reason for that?"

I know it helps people to think that every tiny detail is organized by a supreme being who has everything in order. It doesn't help me. I've never really enjoyed being micromanaged. Not to mention, how unrealistic it all is.

Imagine with me for a moment that there IS an all good, all ruling, just being who has the ENTIRE world (or universe, you know, whatever) to be in charge of... and this entity is going to care about "blessing this food to my body" when millions of people are starving? It's going to care about my grieving heart after the death of one person when people all over are getting massacred? It's going to care about me landing the job I want when poverty is pulling people under down the street, across this nation, all over world? Can we be anymore selfish?

So, we've got my stance established.

But here's what I want to say: Just because I believe that fate is an ill-designed fantasy - that doesn't mean that when tiny, lucky moments present themselves, that I'm not excited by the fact of what can happen with them. Just because every detail wasn't written eons ago by god, that doesn't mean good things can't happen. Because good things can.

And good things will.

tell it to me slowly

Yesterday, a friend sent me a picture of a dead bird. "What is it?" the text message asked. I wanted to respond: "a goddamned tragedy", but instead "cedar waxwing" is what I said.

I know where I was when I saw one for the first time. I know where I was when I heard of one for the very first time. And then, there it was, right in front of my face - seeing one with a broken neck for the very first time.

There's something here about life and death. There's something everywhere about life and death.

You Belong With Me

Can you even believe I learned how to water ski in a cove named Lick Run? And a few years later, my Papa taught me to slalom in a bight we call Paradise. My dad caught his last catfish in the green waters across from Message Beach. Kingfishers nest off of Hummingbird Hill and the most coveted arm of our lake, of course, is Cell Point.

The hills above Indian Creek were bought by an old man who cleared the trees, promptly died and now his estate is all for sale. Cedar Hill Marina sells the best deep fried pickles. Wolf River Cliffs tested my guts every year until someone banged his head and died. The Milky Way trail and meteor showers make my brain explode out in the middle of this lake.

This lake belongs to me like my gray shirt belongs to me. But also, like the universe belongs to me. The summer my dad died, we wondered if it'd be a place of grief. It was, but the water cleaned our wounds. We wondered, this winter, if this summer would be different because my nena's health - but we're anticipating the clear water to work it's magic. It will. We know it will.

The limb lines will hang after the fisherman chore the shore. The slate rocks will lay until we pick them up. Poison Ivy will eat up our flesh. The sun will bake us. And we will drink Grey Goose in our orange juice and Bailey's in our coffee and listen to Billy Joel loudly.

And even though it's just a summer place, Dale Hollow water pumps through all the Andersons' bodies. We know the lake like we know ourselves.

like the pine trees lining the winding road

There are serene moments in life that don't make sense. Laying flat on my back watching the stars fall right the fuck out of the sky, like love, while the cicadas sing until their membranes are raw with vulnerability.

Covered in soot, the fireman telling me that my dad's ate up corpse was found near the kitchen door, leading to the mudroom. Calmness like fog, calmness like fucking fog.

Once, I stood on the lip of a canyon and brought iron into my lungs.

Things, some things anyhow, make my skull break apart, make my blood a mudslide.

you have been gone too long.

I heard the very last words my dad ever said. And just a few short hours after he said those words, I heard the last sounds my dad ever made.

Five houses down, banging bruises on my fleshy palms, trying to wake my grandparents in the still of the morning, I watched my childhood home burn down. I noticed the flag tear itself away from the pole and float with flames to the summer grass. I watched electrical lines bounce in front of the house with an ironic pep. And, probably 35 seconds before my beautiful papa opened the door to a world of grief, to his shock stricken granddaughter and his dead son, I heard a window break and my dad scream.

My dad's last breath was panicked and rushed and probably full of excruciating pain. I heard it all.

Remembering is funny. Some nights, like right now, everything is at my fingertips. When it plays through my mind, some parts are in fast forward, other things are caught in a silky breeze, slowed and luxuriously articulate. And, my brain will grab random memories and toss them in haphazardly - and I mean, random shit.

Once my dad had a friend over, I think his name was Gary, who tried his hardest to impress me. It almost worked until he broke an egg over our kitchen table trying to do an experiment I'm sure he saw in high school. It doesn't matter, what matters is: he broke the egg over the table in front of my dad who died in that kitchen near that table.

That memory means nothing. And everything.

If you're wondering, I was in the house. I crawled out the back door and ran five houses down.

The last words he said (the ones before the scream):

"I don't know what I'd do without you and your brother."

I'll be goddamned if he'll ever have to find out.

Nothing Matters When We're Dancing

When I was seventeen, I was fighting for my life. And I was scrappy in typical 17-year-old ways. Making out with boys in the back of my car, in barns, at stop signs on desolate country roads, on couches, on beds, standing up, on their door steps, in clothes, out of clothes, at parties in fields and so on and so forth. I had about 4 or 5 guys in my rolodex and a boyfriend. I know - despicable. And mostly, I'm not proud.

Haven't you noticed that life is hard? I was learning that shit on the front lines, and quickly. I had one dad to die, one mom to move away, brothers who had to follow and the entire life my little brain knew vanished - fell in between the railroad tracks on it's way out of town. I was (mostly) alone in the world. So, I filled up on fake comfort, tongues and sweaty encounters. And who's to say I didn't enjoy it? Things were fucked up; I was pretty and without a curfew and had a badass Buick. I don't hate it that I learned life like this. Because I had a chance to.

Two 17 year old kids got killed in my hometown on Saturday. They tried to out-run a train.

They tried to out-run a mother fucking train. Kids, you guys, just kids who will never have a chance to find out that life (kind of) evens out as you get older. Grief is coiled in my stomach for their families and for their friends and for the train conductor and for the first responders and for the void my small town will suffer and for the mercilessness of this world. I'm sick. And I'm so sorry.

Sorry.. but also thankful.

birds pass by to tell me that i'm not alone

My dad's name was Dayne. Dayne Thomas Anderson. He was a handsome man, funny and sincere. People wanted to be his friend - his authenticity was palpable from across the room. I'm not kidding. He had a good laugh, a barrel chest and teeny tiny heart tattoo on his left arm.

He was born in late December back in '63 (yep, like the song)and he wore socks to his calves. My feet look a lot like his did.

My mom divorced him for a few reasons, one of them: he had a drinking problem. A big one. And even though he was an amazing example of a true and genuine human, his faults destroyed his family on several occasions. It was devastating to hear them fight as a tiny girl from my bedroom and know the *exact* moment it turned physical because the fighting sounded differently. It was hurtful to know too much, like how extra-marital affairs were commonplace in my parents' marriage as an 8 year old. I knew the phone number to the police, by heart. I would hide and call them if things got too much for my little heart to handle. I couldn't participate in fundraisers; the money would be used for booze. These things, I'll never forget.

But along with those things, I know he loved me. I know he quit drinking for my brother and me - I know those things because he told me ALL THE FUCKING TIME. He apologized and I believed him. Strike that, I believe him. Alcoholism is a disease and because he was my dad and I was his daughter and because we are Andersons and because I know that life is a fuck fest most of the time, I forgive him. AND I believe him. I know he's sorry and I know that if he were alive, we'd be close.

People tell me I remind them of his best times. They tell me I have his smile and his social charisma. And I'm proud of that. I'm happy to be Dayne Anderson's daughter. I know now what I couldn't have understood then. And that is quite alright.

I know you've been hurting

The kitchen was quiet tonight - it was me (soggy hands) and tomato stained bowls. My breathing was steady; no explanation - just steady.

Some days that's a little miracle.

And outside, tiny little specks of water hit the window. Quietly.

i am ready, i am fine (guilt shame and pain)

Human bodies are strange things. It's an odd idea to be alive - to be moving these bones around with a mystical force - to allow this blood to pump all alone to every single space inside my skin.

Today is a day that requires lots of thought. I feel like I'm on the cusp of understanding something big. But I don't know why. And, especially this, I don't know how. I feel this way when I'm saying my goodbyes to people (and whether you know it or not, I've probably said my goodbyes to you). I feel this way when I know that this body of mine could fail at any given moment. I worry too much, I know. Quit telling me that. I've known for quite sometime. I live this life with this brain and this anxiety. I get it. I'm a big ball of worry, but guess what - it's true. We die. Quickly and without reprieve.

Someone asked me this weekend why I'm so fearful. I answered them as I would've answered anyone. And the song is sung like this: "wouldn't you? wouldn't you worry if you heard your dad scream as he died in a house consumed by fire and fear? Wouldn't you worry if you watched the electrical lines bounce around alive outside your childhood home as everything burned down? wouldn't you if you were haunted by the half corpse that was collected by the firemen who couldn't have cared less?" I didn't say that. I didn't. I wanted to. I said, "because my dad died quickly - and it makes me nervous for everyone i love."

He said I was tormented, this person. I told him that I knew I was. People who live just are. People who live and know how close they are to death just are tormented. And I will be far longer than I want to be.

i can offer you a warm embrace

There are lots of different reasons to be sad. I'm experiencing about half of them -- all together. Topping the list, I just really miss my dad. I think that's okay to say nearly 12 years after his death. I didn't know him, but I bet he would really *get* me. I would wager that he might be close to the only one who could - but what am I to do? I wonder if he would wonder at 48, "could I have been more?" But he doesn't get that luxury. Well, fuck, let's call it like it is: I don't get that luxury. I don't get the luxury of being stable or being happy for longer than 4 days in a row.. I just can't get over the idea that maybe it's his fault. There, I said it. Getting mad after 12 years? Probably not normal.

Lots of people don't have dads. Lots of people borderline hate their jobs. Lots of people feel empty and relentlessly void. I am not unique in my trials and burdens. The unhinging of my life is ancient. Survival, really. Survival really gets me down. Understanding how it's done escapes me daily. Mostly, I feel like I'm not a real human. The things I do are tiny and dumb. I have a body that fails and a mind that fails and a heart that does, too.

I'm a mess, really. But when I really shake it down and label what it really is, I feel trite and like tomorrow's biggest idiot. I'm sad about a decade dead dad and about my job. What the hell?

When did life get dumb and hard?

i walk upon the river like it's easier than land

it's raining. it's been raining all day. and that's okay. I did a lot of driving and sometimes driving in the rain is good for the soul, today it was good.
i went to La Porte, Indiana.  i have history there. and family there. and a dead dad there. i also have a cousin who does hair there. that's basically why i went - to get my highlights and a trim. but i visited the graveyard.
it's weird how walking through the gate felt like a homecoming. i didn't have big revelations, i didn't actually *say* words to the grave stone like they do in the movies, i wasn't sad and weepy - i just was. i was comfortable and hiding underneath an umbrella.
i did take off my shoes. i wanted the soles of my feet to touch the ground that covered my kin - it was probably the best part of the day. i stood there. for a while. it's been eleven fucking years. can you believe that?
i stood on the ground that covered the remains of a dad i used to have. life is chaos and pretty fucking cruel. i feel better when i think about breathing in particles of all my ancestors. i feel better when i think about that time my dad suggested to my mom that maybe they should keep the baby instead. i feel better when i think of his ruddy complexion and barrel chest and how, if i have a baby boy i will petition all mighty powers within the universe to have him resemble an Anderson man. i feel better knowing that my dad didn't choose to disappear from my life. these things make the 11 years easier, but then i think of the apparent disorder and all the bull shit people tell themselves to get by.
so, i wasn't sad until i started driving away.
and it was the kind of sad that tastes stale.