Oubliette

We can’t stop here. This is bat country. –Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

When I was in grad school, people would ask me what I wanted to do with my degree. I’d tell them, “frame it.” Why such a  tongue-in-cheek response? Well, to put it simply, it started with missing wedding rings. Let me explain.

 ***

I was sixteen. The halls were colder, but wider than the ones of my high school. The students stood, mostly quiet, with their glances fixated on the cork board postings of roommate requests, large televisions for sale, and one motorcycle ad. I watched the professors move up and down the hallway in the same determined motion that wooden ducks move side-to-side at carnival shooting games. The professors’ eyes fixated on the floor, their fingers bare. There was no wedding band for most of them. Their clothes fit awkwardly, their gazes, if they made eye contact, projected something missing that I couldn’t quantify.

The students in my physics class showed up one-by-one. One was a man who must have been in his early thirties and who looked somewhat like a body builder, but with Bill Clinton’s hair. Another was Dennis Jackson: a younger man, strong country accent, shit-eating grin, vocal and jocular. And there was an attractive girl; maybe her name was Melissa. 

I felt excited. The first day of my first physics class was about to start; it was something that I had looked forward to throughout the summer (as Randy Pausch said in his Last Lecture, “I guess you can tell the nerds early.”) But it would not be long before my observations extended beyond those of undergraduate mechanics.  

As the semester progressed and the cold reality of equations and simplified diagrams passed through my purview, I began to wrestle with my own relativity. Melissa sat only a few seats away. But to a sixteen-year-old, alone at university, she might as well have been a galaxy away. And a subtle inner voice began to speak in tones of gray, without lyric expression or musicality:

This is what we have for you. You will explore with the logical recesses of your mind. One day you will confine yourself to the lower levels of a windowless building, exhuming ideas from the mix of the universe, eating your lunch in a one-hour time slot—the same every day—and when you come home, the rooms of your house will be echo chambers for silence. Don’t worry if your heart is dead. That’s not what we value. –The World 

***

When I was eight years old, I wrote my first paper on nuclear fusion. I thought then that I wanted to be a plasma physicist. There’s a certain simplicity in the unchecked idealistic notions of youth. Images of science and research likely resemble something closer to a comic book movie than the climate-controlled diligence of a lab. But I knew that The Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory had made great strides in nuclear fusion research. It was a glimmer in my eye—unlimited cheap clean energy. And the magic of the science fascinated me: a one hundred million degree compressed plasma, contained only by a magnetic field. 

In only eight more years after that first paper, I’d notice the missing wedding rings. And not just the rings, but something missing on a deeper level. Perhaps it was a reflection of something I feared missing in myself. In truth, I can’t judge them. Marriage isn’t important to everyone nor does everyone balance intellectual and emotional pursuits on the same scale. But in my sixteen-year old mind, I was already on my way to a fate I feared, found in reflections of the lives around me. I walked the halls alone. If my eyes were to keep off the floor, it took a conscious effort. And there were piles of books ahead, years ahead. I craved something...less certain. 

When you stumble upon a path that seems right, look as far down the path as you can see. If you see an array of lights, a resplendent city on a hill, and signs along the way, then stand and contemplate. If the road looks manageable, if it looks certain that you can make it, and if the signs all point the way, then go no further. Be certain that it is not the right path... because you can see too far, the road is too certain, and most of all, it requires no faith. –An Inner Voice 

The world is full of voices, and so are we. It would be years before I learned to discern them. As a wide-eyed teenager, confused into fullness of possibility, I felt the sharp stagnance of choice. And not long after, I felt the failure of paralysis. In my twenties, motivated by the fear of Stephen King’s Langoliers at my heels, I blazed through university and ran straight into grad school. I pushed the lab cart up the incline until I could finally hear that voice again. 

The irony does not escape me. As much as I felt I was fighting the world, I was at least as much fighting myself. And my own finger is still bare. But I know I couldn’t have gone any other way. Had I gone the way of the world's voices, I may have found a ring, but I know the fit would have been wrong. 

And while I swing my machete, carving out this path into the unknown, those professors may still roam the cold halls where the fluorescent lamps flicker at sixty cycles per second. Their hands still unadorned, bereft of any sparkle or unity, painted only by the white dust of their trade. Perhaps for them, they reached the destination they always wanted. I hope that’s true. But for me, my destination remains hidden, and I continue to walk the only path I could ever walk, no matter where it leads.

Undertow

A voice swirled through the trees, deeply harmonizing. I saw a young kid—a kid my age—strolling down a diverging dirt path, passing to my left. His eyes gazed upward, his throat vibrating in a steady rhythm that seemed to match the confidence in his eyes. He wasn’t aware of me and I couldn’t place the song. Maybe it was Boyz-to-Men or All-4-One, but if I had closed my eyes when he passed, I would have thought he was a recording. He moved past in a few seconds and I was alone again.

I walked down the dirt path of the camp, plain Georgia trees spread before me, revealing an event horizon that was only more Georgia trees. I couldn’t say their names and I couldn’t care if they had names. They were just a framework to me, one that I had no choice but to walk through. I was looking for something that stood out, something that would move my mind in a direction with momentum. 

The 4H camp was in a buried part of the state. We were hauled in by the busload, little sardines, packed together, wet and smelly. There was a general optimism on the part of the educators and a precise ignorance on our part. The schoolteachers couldn’t say, “This is as good as it will get for most of you. One day, you’ll be cogs in the machinery, little gears that will be easily broken by the big gears unless you spin in perfect timing.” They couldn’t say it because they weren’t really aware of it themselves. And thankfully, neither were we. We were just the nerds in the Latin Club, happy to be doing anything other than homework. 

I walked several paths that day, including one that rose like rainbow fire on a blanketed hill. Brown was the burning base, the little unnamed flowers were the crackles and pops, and my feet felt the soot as I pressed upward. I walked without regard, lacking destination, unsure of any purpose in my motion other than to move because moving didn’t feel wrong. I’m sure I walked two or three hours worth of miles, how many ever that may equate to at the age of fourteen. I walked as far as I could in order to get back to exactly where I started.

When I sat in stillness in the confines of the camp, I found myself adopted by Griffin High School in an informal ceremony led by a young blonde girl. She put a purple hat on my head and said I could be one of them. Their energy was magical to me, something alien from the closed-quarter walls of my own school. They moved quickly, deliberately, erupting in smiles and laughs, pouring a sense of community and belonging into the air. I thought then that I should have grown up in the country. I should have had a childhood with more rides in the beds of old rusty pick-up trucks. I should have learned how to ride a horse rather than work on a Honda. A cold iced tea, hot fields, a few cows, a country girl with stiff boots and a wild southern smile—I was certain it was all part of a past I lacked. 

At night, I walked through the camp with Brandon, Russ, and Tara…and some other girl I can’t remember. As we sat on the bridge that extended over the lake, Russ had his arms around Tara, while she looked at and talked to me most of the time. I didn’t understand why. Neither Tara nor I knew it, but a couple of years later she’d be a waitress at the Steak and Shake on Barrett Parkway. And after midnight when the Rocky Horror Picture show was over, she’d stand at my table and still talk to me. Russ wasn’t there. 

Later in camp, when I was alone, I made my way back out toward the lake. I found a dry woody spot, elevated from the main path, where I could sit and stare at the moonlight in the rippled flow. I don’t remember what I believed then or what spirit I spoke with in my isolation. But after a time, a girl interrupted my thoughts. I’ll call her Robyn. She was masked by the absence of light, showing only a thin frame, as she moved towards me. We talked for an hour at least, but I can’t recall anything of what was said… except that we’d meet the next day. 

The day we left the camp, Robyn and I met and exchanged a few sentences; they were meaningless words, the kind adolescents say when they know they have nothing else to reach for. But I told myself it was fine because Tara’s smile was still on my mind, because I could still hear that kid harmonizing, and I had been adopted by the Latin Club of Griffin High School. 

The bus ride back to Atlanta was an undertow. I was no longer walking alone, but I was riding alone, further from the lack that lacked what I couldn’t find. We were driving straight, sixty-five miles per hour, but if I closed my eyes, I felt myself moving in a circle. I was in the current of the swirl, being pulled toward the center, down to the sandy bottom. 

Promise

Remember when we were bold,

And we'd steer our vessel firmly,

Whispering prayer-song

As the night-pearl flexed its force.

Remember a salted spirit-forge

From tide's breath to night swells,

And currents from coral to anemone

Rushing by the chromis and tangs.

I'd pull old oars, maple stained,

Through the viscous sea

For hinted-sail of wind and music

Until our feet became thunder on the land.

We'd never avoid town or fountain light,

Leading us to old places beyond home,

With echoes of horse hooves on cobblestone

On a once-broken road, rich with story.

***

I'd call you Savage One,

Tiger's Eye, Feet Prowler,

Dark Rhythm, Lovely Shadows,

And Naked Constellation.

You'd dream as a tiger lily:

Fresh nectar, with memory in your eyes;

Your thoughts like funnel web spiders:

Weaving, crawling, creeping, spinning.

And through aroma of vineyards

And tongue-tip-taste of sweet wine,

We'd find our way back to water

Before last twilight on a sea of fire.

I kept my promise, I brought you home

To the deep celestial, for your ocean soul,

Where we tangled as heavy boat rope

And baked in the warmth of a slow-burning sky.

Roam

My thoughts twirled 'bout in song and sleep,

Toward my chair, I again did creep,

To find a voice or vacant whisper,

Soft and sullen with meaning deep.

I stretched my arms and cocked my head,

At no great distance from my bed,

Safe I was, whether cold or coward,

To invite that existential dread.

True, my door was but steps away,

From human light or dream decay,

So might I venture, were my soul well,

But not this night, no, not this day.

In black that hides the moors and heather,

Or a city lass in lace or leather,

I shall find no towers nor cricket chirp,

I'll remain safe from man and weather.

And in this house, this quiet home,

Where stars are blocked, no light shone,

I'll type and drift through lost ether,

That only fingers, not feet, can roam.

A Long Journey to Earth

We dropped out of warp near Andromeda,

In cold black—every speck a galaxy,

Radiant heat coupled to the cabin oxygen

From our cooling Alcubierre.

Your gaze sparked memory

Of shedding your EV suit,

From our first planet in NGC 2403,

And bare skin smooth as a neutron star.

My thoughts around you like trillions

Of pieces of Saturn's rings;

Your body on me as Venus's atmosphere:

A blanket of heat and chemical art.

My burning finger tips,

Gliding like comets across

Your cheek to your neck,

Approaching a fast-thumping pulsar.

We pushed through the universe

Embodying the Lorentz force,

In the direction of the electric,

Pulling us together, the magnetic;

Finding I want you in the way

A tokamak compresses hot plasma,

While your lips moved on me like

A nebula, darkly bright in slow formation.

Remember witnessing the power of fusing iron,

100 billion Celsius, in the supernova

Of the NGC 3109 blue supergiant—

Your mind’s eye like the storm on Jupiter.

But after twenty million parsecs,

And enriched with cosmic self-awareness,

I find you are my Earth, the gravity well I want

To slide deep inside, and remain.