Incidents

Ego

And you're telling me this today...", his anger is cold as he manipulates the Mustang around traffic lights and New York minutes. He can see she's apologetic as she begins to explain, "Honey please try and..." but he cuts her and a Volkswagen off simultaneously. "Please do not 'honey' me, its demeaning." She's a little taken aback at his response, but she knows this is all she'll get for a while. His anger is patient and volatile...and always painful. But her decision depended on his silence and his fury...his penetrating gaze and his ability to dissuade her knotted in the dance between the heart and the mind...

He makes the left turn towards JFK, mute with emotion and analysis. His walls are up and he's already questioning commitment and signs...his hope against pride, distance against month-long relationships. He pulls up in front of the terminal and drops her off, driving into the horizon pock-marked with planes, a quick and frosty goodbye...she, silhouetted against the evening tarmac glow...him, bundled up in November fog and rising temper...

Amber signals and road blocks toying with his restlessness, he gets on the highway, preoccupied with all that he should have said, and all that he didnt. 4 am conversations and romantic movies weighed against lonely comfortabilities and the ego, the battle wrapped in familiarity. His mind becomes clouded with the moments flitting by, each an impulse of his time, and the Mustang gathers speed to match thought. He wages the silent war inside, nanoseconds unto eternity, and he almost doesnt see the truck driver veer into his lane, just another nobody trying to get home amidst nachos and radio stations...

She hears the last call over the intercom and knows its time to board. She's waited three hours for the damn phone to ring, pride allowing her only the dignity of checking voice mail every ten minutes. Now as the last few minutes go by, a rushed past and a disordered present collide over and over in an attempt to make sense and reason, and she loses patience. She switches off the phone and walks away, making a silent promise not to weaken, not to make that first call...

Incidents

Memories

She ambles at a deliberate pace, slowed by time and arthritis. What used to be ten minutes is now an arduous battle against nature and gravity, and these last few minutes of uphill crawl are particularly excruciating. But she takes warmth from the sunlight and patience from memories, the doors to the library almost within grasp. All around her are streaming swarms of people, seemingly moving at hyper-speed in a bid to steer around her, lost in isolated bubbles of thought and emotion. She can barely catch a glimpse before they're gone through the doors in a puff of importance and hurry.

It really is a beautiful day she thinks to herself, easing her mind away from the cramping joints. The lazy sun and cracked pavement take her back almost 50 years - to flowery dresses and red lipstick, to park benches and Oldsmobiles...to Frank. Across the candlelit table with flowers, grinning through the windshield with the kids tucked in the back, a bear hug for everytime she felt sad. He had held her hand through 40 years of bliss, right until the moment she found herself staring at his coffin and a tear in a white napkin. Frank, lugging the boxes across the hall as he reprimanded her, "A lady like you should never have to do grunt work". Frank, waiting patiently in the car while she finished gossiping after sewing class, "A lady like you should never have to walk alone". Frank, surprising her with vacations and white wine, "A lady like you should always be smiling". Frank...

Her reverie is broken as rock music brushes past her. He looks to be about 21 and in definitive haste, trying to sort out stock market rates and birthday gift ideas all in the minute to the elevator. He passes her and heads for the door, glancing back at her measured gait and wistful eyes, and he slows down. He hold the library doors open and waits patiently as she makes the last few steps past him. She turns to thank him for the moment of kindness in a sea of impatience, an act that defies human emotion and lives up to it all at once, but he hushes her with a single finger. "A lady like you should never have to open a door herself" he says as he walks away from her, and she finds herself standing there staring at him, and a tear in a white napkin...

Inspiration...

Sometimes life is a complete dead end. A writer's block in a blind alley. A series of indelible circumstances that lead you to nothingness. And although we may pride ourselves on finding our way in the more adverse of situations, sometimes the urge to give up overcomes sense and gravity. An overwhelming desire for a shoulder. A desperate need for scotch. A singular attempt to bite the tears back. Its moments such as these that are defining in failure. Like an emotion stretched thin and frayed at the edges. A breath underwater stretched unto infinity.

Its times like these that we are most in need of inspiration. A ray of light, a nudge in the right direction...divine guidance. To make the impossible seem human. And its times like these that we feel most forsaken. Lost, disoriented, helpless...cursed. Our greatest strength rendered useless in a single chess move. God's sleight of hand.

Its surprising how subtle inspiration is. It reveals itself not in a flash of color and blinding light, but rather in a veil of banality, the elusive shades of gray. In the amicable preaching of parents. In the discussion of life with confidantes. In faded journals and conversations. In that photograph when you had short hair. In home-cooked chicken curry, courtesy Mom. In clichéd movies about the impossible. The last pages of a book that made no sense before. An old song rediscovered. A lover's faith. The lonely drive through familiar roads and intimate memories. An evening walk down a rainy path. A second look from a stranger. A helping hand with no name. An implicit trust.

Watch for a twinkle in the eye. A fleeting rainbow. A happy day. The smallest things.