ME AND A TREE - FAILING AND FALLING INTO PIECES

Awake and unaware. Medications have taken over my ability to be aware. I will muddle through another evening that may or may not continue into the wee hours’ pre-sunrise.

I remember today. I remember yesterday. Beyond that, I cannot remember a thing without creating a pounding headache in my obsessive need to know. Don’t ask me to remember what I ate yesterday or the day before. Chances are, I don’t remember.

I do remember sitting beneath the canopy of a tree that had stood for 20+ years, feeding the sparrows and jays, feeling the breeze that kissed my cheeks and the day was splendid. The temperature was normal for this time of the year, with low humidity. It made for a clear blue sky with the occasional puffy cloud, and the feeling of rightness. The coffee was fresh and the added hazelnut creamer made it a treat. The warmth of the liquid settled on my tongue with a sweet and honey-like flavor before running down my throat. Some things are worth the awareness. Some things are worth remembering.

Yesterday, I watched them dismantle that beautiful tree branch by branch as I stood in the doorway crying for her loss. She stood up to major winds that came with these summer storms and she never complained, until recently. You see, she was splitting in two through her trunk and it was becoming larger by the day. We had to take her down.

I was aware of every cut they made and how noble she seemed, standing there with such dignity and pride. I fell away into a fog of despair and helplessness, knowing this was the right thing to do but wanted her to remain a little longer. I will miss her.

It looks barren where she once extended her presence over the decking and outward over a section of the ground below. Now, there is an emptiness inside of me that is equal to the emptiness where she once stood.

Today, my joy was difficult to find. Grandchildren filled the rooms and kept me smiling. How blessed I am for my grandchildren. However, the sun was loud and angry – the air was humid and hot where once it could not reach me. Inside my home, air-conditioner and fans spinning, I was still overcome by that overbearing heat and humidity. Muscles ached and I became exhausted after a small bit of work indoors. My head was spinning and I was irritable and unsteady. How does a person go from pure joy to such sadness and then into physical chaos?

The children were picked up and I slept for several hours in a blackened room with the fan humming as it attempted to mock the breezes, but it wasn’t the same. Nothing will ever be the same again.

My body hurts. It comes and goes. Sometimes with the weather changes, sometimes with the stress… in this case I believe I am having a moment of empathy for her, out there lying on her side and pieces cut for future fires. I managed to talk them into cutting wheels from the larger branches and trunk so I can sand them smooth, paint memories upon them, glaze them and then share them or sell them. I will keep quite a few of them for myself. 

No one understands my depression and melancholy. I’ve lost my beloved friend. The loss is almost too much to bear and the consequence of losing her blessed shade upon the back of our house is a stark and cruel reminder.

I can hear sirens in the distance. Perhaps they are on their way to save a soul or to save memories contained within the walls of burning home. Sirens are a foreboding sound. Nothing will be the same.

That’s it! A soul has been taken from me and I am the burning house trying to salvage the memories contained within the walls of my mind. The heat of the day was the fire that burned but there were no sirens and no one was aware that there was a loss out there and a bigger loss inside of me. 

I wonder. Does anyone else feel such love for a tree that I had for her? Do others feel the love returned to them emanating from within her bark? Do other people mourn the loss of trees as they would mourn the loss of a loved one? I wonder how long it will hurt, this feeling inside of me, and when will I be able to let go of the memories?

It’s odd how experiences such as these can affect us so profoundly. Yet, they do and we have no coping skills for these types of losses. Silly, that is what they would think of me if I were to tell them just how deep each cut was felt inside of me. Then, to see that she stood strong against such heavy winds with less than three inches of good wood encircling her trunk while the center was nothing but sawdust. I loved her even more for standing strong despite her disease and that weakness within that she must have felt. I am a shell of a woman standing strong against what life throws at me and I will not allow my disease nor my hollowed interior weaken me and allow me to fall. 

nb

She and I had a lot in common. No wonder I could empath her so well and I believe she could empath me. I will go on until there is no more of me to continue. I will be aware in the moment but I may have some difficulty in remembering. Memories are for those who no longer live a life, they sustain themselves reminiscing and reliving moments like this. I am still alive and all my capacities are working fine. Perhaps I don’t remember the details but I can certainly continue to appreciate each moment as it comes and retain what I need then dispose of the rest. 

What did you have for lunch last week on Wednesday? And, what kept you awake last Sunday night?

What is keeping you awake now? What thoughts, random as they seem, are keeping you company?

M TERESA CLAYTON

INSIDE OF BLACK

All that I have...                                     

                                 is all that I lack.

              I have given my all...                              

                               never calling it back.       

The day leaves me blind,                                      

                                             leaves me vacant,                

                         leaves me vulnerable                        

                                            to the lies.

In the light                                                     

                      we seek and find,                    

            like a vagrant...                                     

                                        a useless aspirant,

who simply lives long enough,                            

                          
                               then 

                                 finally dies.
              

Who do we blame for the poor                     

                                                              decisions?         

     Who is responsible for our 
               

                                                       derision?       

             So much                                                       

                          contempt within these              

                                                                            divisions,

                      Did I really need all that                                                                                                                                                     supervision?    

I have borrowed nothing...                               

             I can never pay them back. 

I’ve chosen to remain                               

                     

                                      blind...                   

                                                            safe,         

            without accountability,                                   

                                                 inside of black.                  

M Teresa Clayton

THE ARRIVAL

I thought I had walked for days; for days, I walked and walked and there was nary a thought of where I was going, just that I was on my way. I had neither anticipation nor excitement. There was no expectation of what it would be like once I arrived at my destination. I had no idea where my destination was, there was no direction; no map of the way.

I was too young to know any different. I was too young to fear, I had no experience to tell me there was anything to be afraid of. I was too old to fear, I had plenty of experience to reassure me, there was nothing to be afraid of. Young... Old... what are these?

When did I transcend my youth and enter into the old? When did the old take hold of my ankles and drag me into the darkness of the aged? Or was I confusing old with aged, when instead, it was actually wisdom? Wisdom. When does one possess wisdom? How does one know she has wisdom? Where does she find this wisdom and how does she come to possess it?

I walked and I walked, and I thought, and I thought… of where I had traversed from and where I traverse to, and still I have no answers to tell, nothing to comfort my questioning mind, nothing to give me hope, nothing that reassures me that the path I am on is the one that will deliver me to my... destination. Destinations are not the same as destiny; we are not destined to arrive at one particular place at one particular time. But then, why do we call this place of our arrival our destination? Originally, the word destination meant the action of intending someone or something for a particular purpose.

Perhaps I've been walking and walking and there simply is no place to go, no one waiting for me to arrive, nothing to anticipate as I keep walking and walking...

Maybe this is my destiny, my purpose, my fate. I am destined to walk without knowing. Destined sounds so ominous and foreboding, as if I were doomed from the outset. Then I should stop this walking and stand still until I know what is expected and whether or not I am expected.

Is there expectation? And who expects me? Fate is preordained. Is this fate? My fate is not preordained or I would have no choice and no reason to do this or that; go here or go there. Whatever will be, will be... without any interference by me or anyone or anything else... it will just be. So, I may decide to sit down right here and think about this a bit longer. It will have no consequence either way if I do or do not. Fate.

If it is fate and fate is indeed predestined and unchangeable then fate will find its way to me wherever I am; whatever I do. I should not fear it or rejoice in its arrival. It simply will be what it is without any forethought or intention.

If I have a choice and my destiny is changeable depending on my choices, then how will I know when I have enough information to properly make this choice?

My destiny could turn for the better or it could turn for the worse and I would have no way of knowing until I have arrived. And, again, how will I know I have arrived?

If my destination is a purpose intended for me, who is intending it? Where do these intentions originate? And for what end? Does someone else have control of my purpose? Does someone else's intention define my purpose and wouldn't that also define me? What a thought to think, someone else's intention defining me!

Then who am I? Am I who someone else says I am with a purpose intended for me that is not of my own choosing? I suddenly feel... wiser. I am not young and I am not old. I am not expected and I don't know what to expect.

I was sure I had choices but now I'm not so sure and perhaps there is no such thing as certainty, though I certainly think I have been walking and walking for days and days, and nothing has changed, not even the scenery - what I see, I see again and again - it repeats, much like life.

Life repeats with nary a change except for names and faces and maybe forgotten places... I have counted the hours, the days, the months, the years and this I know for sure - I changed. I don't know who determined it, fated it, intended it or destined me to be all these hours, days, months and years... but I am not the same as I was a moment ago.

I think I have arrived.

M TERESA CLAYTON

CONSEQUENCE

The author has chosen a few of her works to read aloud. If you wish to read it to yourself, that will be fine. However, if you would like to read along as she speaks, click here.

Zdzisław Beksiński

She woke up in the room feeling small and disconnected. She thought that perhaps she had been swallowed by a life that had gone too long without feeding and in a delirious state of needing, no longer saw her as its source and ate her whole without understanding the consequences.

Consequence.

Waking up has its consequences.  She would have to face another cycle of existence within this suffocating vacuum, trying to breathe, trying to stay awake, trying to fall away, go unrecognized and be eaten alive and swallowed whole, inside the belly of what could have been yet always was.

She was small, insignificant – but once again, provided the basic sustenance that would keep this life alive… for one more day.

Perhaps one day she will wake up outside of the room, having consumed it along with the life she had, feeling larger than life, alive and vital. 

She would need to keep her strength up for the days and months ahead, incubating, nurturing and giving birth to a new life that no doubt will once again suckle at her breast until there was nothing left… then eaten alive and swallowed whole by the life she bore… her own creation consuming her.

The cycle completed again… she, the inspiration, gives birth to new life, is consumed by her own creation, dies and is reborn again, and again, and again.

Continuance.

M Teresa Clayton (c)

art by Zdzisław Beksiński

JILL D PONTO-MILLER

c

TITLED THREE TILTED REALITIES

Outside you see my smiling waxed lip smile, my perfectly straight freshly whitened teeth, my blemish free makeup spackled skin and my hair cemented into perfection.

Outside you see me picking up the trash, pulling the weeds out of the sidewalk cracks, hosing off the concrete driveway and nary breaking a sweat.

Outside you will hear me laugh expressively (but not too loudly) as my eyes twinkle with delight and I pose for the imaginary paparazzi (satellites and google earth might catch me on film).

Inside, my lips are smudged across my face and into my ear, my coffee/tea/wine stained teeth reflect the ease of my choices, I itch and scratch my face uncontrollably until I break open the sores and stare blankly at my own reflection in the oven door.

Inside I am wading ankle deep through piles of dirty laundry, marveling at how industrious and committed ants are, and wondering when I last hosed myself off in the shower.

Inside I cry without tears, scream until I have no voice left to scream with, close my eyes as I insert my head into the oven door, light the match and wait for the flash. 

On this cold and rainy day, I sit listening to the sound of emptiness that accompanies the sporadic rhythms played out upon my roof and pinging off the gutters in no particular order.

I ask myself, is it order that is missing from this day? It could be. I did not want to stop dreaming and rise to meet this empty day. I wanted to stay inside of myself, inside of the cocoon I had spun around me with warm blankets, inside of that place of no expectations...

Once I did pour myself out of bed, I emptied an overly full bladder, brushed my teeth, washed my face and headed out to the kitchen to turn the coffee-maker on. I don’t know why. I didn’t want coffee, I wanted to return to lands beyond this one, where there were adventures and love stories to be played out in a colorful array of details that make it all the more real than what I was looking out my window and seeing.

I do love a rainy day when nothing is expected and I can slip away into reveries or stay awake and create stories for you to read. In many ways, they are one and the same - yet, so distant from each other in space and time.

Space. I take up such a small amount of space; so infinitesimal that if you were unaware and not expecting me to be here, I would totally go unnoticed. On days like today, I want to be as small as I can possibly be so that time cannot find me.

Time. Therein lies the problem. If I do nothing all day, I am wasting time. If I get busy and work all day, time slips away from me. This elusive and ethereal notion of time. It holds no place in reality. It is not made up of mass yet is possesses volume in our lives. Our delicate balance of a life that rests upon the head of a pin, while we move about like bulls in china closets trying to get to the next project or to run away from all responsibility expected of us.

A delicate balance; space and time. Neither truly exists. We barely exist. Between the drops of rain that ping off the gutters and the sudden downpours that never frighten us, but rather, they draw us under... in between the drops of rain and under the deluge, on a cold rainy day where the only thing to do is wrap myself back up in that cocoon and remain motionless as I drift away into worlds of magic.

I do not exist. (The only thing that tells me different is a full bladder.)

The hours have no respect for my life anymore.

They do not toll the time of my day and tell me what I am suppose to do and when, how to feel and why...

The sun and moon are playing tricks with my mind. I no longer understand the setting of the one or the rise of the other...

The day is tilted.

What day is it?

Could it be yesterday still?

Or maybe tomorrow has begun without me... I have a keen understanding that I am no long standing in today.

Let the dark remain dark, lest I see my own misery. Pull the shades and turn off the lights. I am better at feeling my way.

When the moon is black against the evening sky, I will run wild and free... no one will know, no one will see... least of all, me.

My color today - is blue-green, the texture is like the rough fur on a Terrier, I smell like freshly turned soil and sound like thunder rumbling in the distance. 

My sense is that something is about to happen that is beyond my control - not necessarily to me personally - but to a large group of people somewhere... else. 

I would paint it as disbelief. 

I would sing it like a mother searching for her child.

All of these vignettes (and more... later) are inspired by those who orbit around me, as if I were the sun and held them within my gravitational pull.

I have no such power. Each of you, the true inspiration for my vignettes and short stories here, are my sun, and I orbit around you far out in the cosmos of non-existence where you are unaware that you are the storyteller and I am listening intently to every word you utter.

Thank you for giving me such a gift. You do matter and you are worthy of so much more than you know. You have given a voice to those who remain silenced. Keep talking.

M TERESA CLAYTON

FAILURE TO THRIVE

She sits in her room, the fan humming as it turns back and forth as if trying to locate the source of her anguish and extinguish it before it consumes her.

A dark, darker, darkening room where she hides her face, the one that reveals the truth, beneath the blankets in the empty bed where she lays her burdens down so she can lift up her cries for understanding… a little bit of compassion from the other side… tiny prayers swallowed hard as her chest heaves unevenly with the sobs that overcome her and choke her into silence.  


Silence.

She opens the drawer on her bedside table and takes out the only comfort she can count on and places the pill into her mouth and swallows. Soon, the night will give her what she needs – safety from the reality of her days, solace against the insult of indifference, and a world where she can be free of pain.

Morning comes too soon. The day takes over and she obeys the order of the habits that keep her calm and give her the sense of security she so desperately needs.


She feeds the cats crying at her feet, lets the dog out to pee, starts the coffee brewing and stops to remind herself that this is Tuesday… or is it Wednesday?...  It becomes her focus as she fumbles through the piles of paper, empty glasses, unopened mail, keys, receipts, half-eaten bowl of cereal from the previous morning… there; she spots her calendar and opens it to July. 

To her horror, she realizes that she hasn’t opened this calendar in over two months and there is nothing written inside, no X’s in the squares that number each day of the week, nothing to give her the answer to what most would know instinctively – what fucking day is this?

She hurriedly prepares her cup of coffee and turns the television on – Ah; there it is – Wednesday, July 18^th.  


It will be another record hot day in the region (hell, for the entire country) and again, she will be held captive inside these four walls for another day trying to survive what threatens her out there as well as what threatens inside.

Absentmindedly, she rubs her tongue over the front of her teeth – the taste of something offensive has been building inside her mouth for days and now she thinks she can feel the buildup… it is rough and feels like it is covered in thick mucus.  When was the last time she brushed her teeth?  Or taken a shower? Washed her hair?

Staring out the window by the sink she realizes that it has been over a week now, but can’t say exactly how many days it has been for sure… it’s Wednesday, isn’t it?

She sips her coffee and the hot fluid immediately cleanses the grime from her teeth and tongue and carries it all conveniently down her throat… down there where she choked on her prayers the night before.

What will she do today? It’s just another day, no different than yesterday and nothing anticipated for tomorrow… She should clean something, get active and do something constructive. 


So she sets about moving the mess from one end of the dining room table to the other and wiping off the surface.  Now, instead of piles of junk – everything is stacked up nicely on the other end of the table as if waiting to be dispatched to their proper places… maybe tomorrow.

The question that perplexes her most is whether or not to even get dressed. She is more comfortable in her jammies, no bra, nowhere to go, no one to see, no one who cares one way or another – so she decides to stay in her jammies.

The news is going on about two boys shot behind a bar on North Street, it looked like an execution-style hit.

Politicians are playing their games, the name calling, but no one really ever says what they intend to do about those like her who do not go out of their house, have forgotten how to socialize in the world today, are afraid of what they might find beyond their front doors.  No, she will stay safe inside today, maybe she will go out tomorrow, she’ll see how it goes…

The phone begins its daily succession of calls from bill collectors, sales people, people with questions about how she feels today and if she needs anything…  She tells herself that she will someday make up a list so she has it available for such questions in the future.

I need someone to help me make repairs around the house.

I need assistance with carrying my groceries in.

I need to talk to someone about the thoughts I am having.

I need to find a way back in time, to a place where my family was all together and we laughed and played.

I need to go back and visit those days when I was not in constant pain and I could breathe!

I need to go to that place where I once kissed my children’s eyes asleep at night and then kissed them awake each morning.  Where have my children gone?

I need my husband to make the hurt all go away and come home to me and stay.

What would they say if she gave this list to them – her needs?  Simple needs.

She walks over to the cabinet to retrieve her meds already placed in their appropriate and corresponding days of the week container and takes out her Wednesday pills.  She takes a glass of water and flushes them down in one take.

Now she performs her daily dance, up to clean a bit, sit down to rest and listen to the television a bit, then back up to clean a bit, then to lie down to recover (but not for too long or the pain will freeze her limbs) – up, down and dancing around because she cannot be in any one position too long or the pain will overcome her and she will lose another day… and there aren’t many more available, certainly none she can afford to lose.

Maybe a shower and I’ll brush my teeth. She gathers her things, a towel and washcloth, and steps under the warm spray and feels instant relief.  Why doesn’t she do this every day?  She washes her hair, her face, and scrubs the dirt from the rest of her body and then reaches for the toothbrush and paste – when she is finished she is squeaky clean and her mouth feels fresh and bright again.

She puts on a new pair of jammies and climbs into her bed and decides to communicate with the outside world via the internet.  The house is silent except for the droning of the fan.  She finds hours of distraction and is thankful she does not have to think.  Her daughters call and ask her how she is doing, what she is doing – the answer is always the same – nothing and I am in pain. As if the words fell hard to the ground before their ears heard the response – the conversation continues about what they are doing and, well, just checking in.  Maybe she should start making notations in the calendar where nothing is ever written… keep track of the lives being lived…. Out there.

She doesn’t eat much anymore, no need, no hunger – she tries to keep up with her water intake to keep herself hydrated. They tell her she is losing too much weight – too much?  She giggled when they told her how tiny she was at the doctor’s office one day. It should have made her feel better but she was indifferent – feeling old now, broken down and a little bit insane –but she is a tiny little thing… there is something wrong with the timing perhaps.

You have the most beautiful skin. Another compliment that is out of its time.

Confused, she is both flattered and happy about it but a bit perplexed as to how this will change anything.

So she returns home from a hard day at the doctor’s office and the tests (always tests). Exhausted and beaten she looks at the clock and it is only 5:00 PM.  Two more hours and she will lock up the doors, turn off the lights, reach for her special pill beside her bed and pray for a speedy delivery into her reveries.

It might be a week or more before she showers and/or brushes her teeth again – she is now posting notes all over the bathroom to try to motivate and remind her to do it.

No one knows how long the little mounds of messes will lie about waiting to be put away in their rightful places.

What we do know is that when she wakes in the morning it begins again – sometime around the point where she makes the coffee she may ask “what day is this” and the panic sets in again.

You don’t know this woman, she rarely comes out of her house and when she does she often remains elusive and quiet – trying not to draw much attention to herself.

I know this woman, she is slowly dying from  "Failure to Thrive: We do not thrive without human touch. One could absolutely die from lack of touch/eye contact, which could lead to loss of appetite, failure to thrive and death." 

Hugs are a commodity, there is no one to lie down with and cuddle close, no one to hold her hand, to look her in the eye and pay close attention to the brilliance that exudes from every pore in her body. She no longer feels important, vital, dignified or glorified.   

She is older now, not very valuable, can’t really offer anything of substance to the whole, except to show up at dinners and be the old woman everyone calls grandma – she is taken out of the closet on special occasions and then forgotten until the next one.  

No one is interested in what she has to say – and she knows so much – she has studied her whole life and is still a student of living. 

Her art goes unnoticed – her writings even less.  She is loved by her many followers but her own family doesn’t see her, even when she is standing in the room where they are.  How can this be?

She once said to me:  When I die, I want my family to know who I was.  I don’t want there to be any surprises – I don’t want them to go through my things and say “Hey, I didn’t know she won this, had that, or was such a bloody success! She didn’t tell anyone!” 

She did tell you, over and over again.  You didn’t bother to ask so it only goes to reason that the information, unsolicited, never made it to your ears – you were not interested.

I did watch her, day in and day out, create beautiful works of art, write with such aplomb, and she had more fans and followers than many musicians out there. People paid attention. To many who don’t know her – she is EVERYTHING.  

Ironic.

She is now asleep in her dark, darker, darkest room with the fan blowing to and fro. Her pale white skin glows in the sliver of light that peeks in from the hallway – she is deep within her dreams and lays her head on her pillow like the goddess she is.

She is the single most beautiful woman I have ever known and yet she possesses a magic that draws others to her.

She is breaking into pieces before my eyes, yet they continue to call upon her for her words of wisdom.  It’s the only thing that feeds her soul… She’ll be okay as long as there are those questions.

I watch as one of her cats knowingly gets up and gently moves toward her face and places what looks to be a kitten kiss over both her eyes and then curls up next to her, content to lay there until morning.  Looking out over the bed… all the cats are with her.  

No harm will come to her this night or any other – her familiars will protect her as she sleeps. The dog is settled and sleeping upon his bed on the floor at the foot of the bed. They know her in all of her incarnations – and they love and adore her.

Good night your grace.

M TERESA CLAYTON

all rights reserved, published 2015