In the beginning,
[find]
the path of least resistance
[because]
God can forget too . . .

 

4~p

It’s like watching the slow and dying embers in the
backyard firepit on a sultry summer’s night.
In some ways I understand it, some I don’t.
Maybe it’s meant to be that way.
It’s hard enough to watch someone you love die but it’s the
‘dying marathon’ of Alzheimer’s that really hurts inside.
I had a deeply emotional visit with my father this past Sunday.
I felt this impending sense of detachment from him that I’ve never seen or felt before.
My sister says it’s that way with most patients in the final stretch of the endgame.
I am trying to make myself understand that.
Not doing too well with it either.
The past 5 years have been a sad and long goodbye and although I’ve said it before,
I want to believe in my heart that he is ready.
My father did not cry yesterday which had me scratching my freshly shaved noggin.
It was almost as if he was trying to be strong just for me,
but maybe I’ll never know.
I sat and held his thin and badly shaking hands and really looked at him,
into my father‘s eyes.
My heart was instantly shattered as a lifetime of tender and lost moments came crashing into my mind.
I want many things for my father and not one of them was in this room that has held him prisoner for the past 5+ years.
I want him to walk and feel the rays of the sun on his face again,
love and be loved in return, find the missing piece of the puzzle he’s been searching for since he got sick.
Find my mother.
I want him to find enough strength to finally fade away and find his corner of the sky,
his cerulean peace.
It’s time for my beautiful father to go home.
Because of all the places I roam, I miss having him there the most . . .

Reading 'Carver' right now.
Please READ THIS.
You will spend 20 minutes of your life and thank me.
This is one of Carver's most amazing short stories.
Please take the time and read it.
The man was amazing.
Simply amazing . . .

 

 

He stares blindly out the window of another night
down on Bleeker Street, where nothing seem to change except a world gone mad.
He exists.
I exist.
I go to him, touch his shoulder feeling the quivering bone underneath my hand
but he doesn’t move, nobody is home it seems.
As I bend to kiss his forehead,
I think back to my childhood remembering the smell of him;
a rich elixir of leather, spice and a fatherly scent I could never quite put my finger on.
It was a smell of  total comfort and one of extreme familiarity.
His scent is different tonight; he smells clinical, preserved and abandoned.
He smells like a familiar stranger, an ancient decade of melancholy memories,
echoes of voices lost in an obsidian mist . . .

I sit there with him as we both blindly stare out the window, watching a world gone by
and we sigh,
we cry,
we say goodbye to the too many words left unspoken,
the things we once took for granted,
and the once welcome spaces where we no longer belong.
I take his frail and shaking hand and wonder (as I have thousands of times before)
how many more nights will he sit here all alone and stare?
And simply exist.
There is little left to say but with my father, somehow that’s okay.
Somehow, I know he understands.
He has taught me well.
He was never big on words anyway.
It will be very hard to forget the nights down on Bleeker Street and even harder to forget
the little man just sitting staring out the window . . .

 

I need the sharpest of knives to slice this
epidermal anomaly from the trappings of my weak and aging body
Deep slices to the elbows, slow and tender slices to the knees
please scratch my legs until they bleed, thank you please
this betrayal of skin, the most hideous part of me
is a possession of the worst kind,
an internal itch I will never be physically able to touch
the P takes over my body, the quintessential tired host
it will never be free . . . as the crimson spreads far above the blood that boils deep within me
People will continue to stare,
invisibly pointing to my sprawling scarlet letter ‘P’
just another ugly ducking,
just another ugly waiting stranger hiding deep inside of me . . .
I hate this

 

Off in a not too distant somewhere, I hear the shimmering sound of church bells.
Melancholy yet beautiful, their dissonance fills the night air with a longing, a void filled, 
an endless possibility.
Dark grey clouds move low across the sky saturated with change; change of the heart and mind,
soul and body, a chasm of repeating continuation.
The church bells chime on, sounding more and more like a movie soundtrack that once defined your life
as it echoes the pain,
loss of cerebral photographs, and confusion of all the simple things that mattered.
And yet, the sound is oddly comforting, a musical pall of earth tones beckoning pure white light.
I am suddenly aware of the clip-clop of my blackened dirty shoes on the pavement below,
an urban heartbeat, the intrinsic essence of time and space; of a time that
I listened for the sound of your footsteps, of a space holding everything you once were.
You.
My dear, drifting and lonely Father.
If you could only know what I want for you in the most loving of ways.
If you could only hear the beautiful church bells.
But the world will continue to hurt you until you find a way to finally listen.

 

 

 

 

Maybe it’s a sign of survival, of anguish, of the frightening realization that mortality does exist in the deepest recesses of the mind. Maybe it’s a sign that everything is still changing, still in that near frozen state of flux . . . For him, for me, for the four walls that still imprison him, for a world that looks to him as confusing today as it did several hundred yesterdays ago. Maybe it’s not a sign at all but a palpable gesture that while he sleeps, this ravenous disease does not; it always wants more. It replaces what it takes with something barely recognizable, something dark and foggy, something you never want to talk about around the coffee table but remains forever. Sometimes this thing just takes. And takes . . . Maybe it’s a sign that he is tired, fed up with playing the host, sick of food that looks like pureed shit put through a strainer that he has to try and swallow. Banana Crème Pie should never look like soup. But it does. And that's a crying goddamn shame. His mother was a pastry chef, Christ in a sidecar. Maybe someday I will look back at this point in time and have a moment of revelation but I’m not betting on it. If this disease has taught me anything it’s not to get caught up in any kind of emotional gambit. It’s a losing proposition at best. So maybe it is a sign. For my father maybe it’s a sign that simply says ‘stop’ . . .

It is during this time of the year that I generally go into an emotional cocoon; my own kind of hibernation and self preservation mode. December 1st until January 2nd, my internal sensors (censors) go into a Lockdown setting. Life is hectic, loud and screaming with white and pink noise. I need a celestial graphic EQ (equalizer) to take out the nasty sonic peaks and hisses of the daily grind. Ah, were it that easy. Maybe there’s an app on the Iphone for that. ;) The only place that I can find some silent respite is when I fall asleep. But sometimes even sleep doesn’t work. The other night (this just came to me now) I was dreaming that I was standing in the middle of some godforsaken superhighway with cars and trucks whizzing by me at what seemed to be light-year speeds. I could feel wind on my face but the cars and 18-wheelers were just horizontal blurs of colour. I was frozen, frightened and couldn’t move without getting reduced to a platter of road kill. I did finally wake up at 3:03AM. My skin was clammy and I was thirsty. I went downstairs and got a glass of water and back up to bed where I began tossing and turning my nocturnal thoughts like a mad chef tosses a freshly ordered Caesar Salad. At 5AM I got up and made coffee. The act of trying to sleep was maddening. This dream was symbolic for me and the perfect allegory of my life. It also made me think of a story someone once told me. It could have been told to me by my mother - but like my dream’s unknown ending, I just can’t remember. I do remember the story though. Its author is unknown so I’ve taken the liberty of changing the POV. This story inspires me and brings hope to the heart because a worldly truth is that we are all in this thing together. I was at the end of my rope. Seeing no way out I dropped to my knees in prayer. “Lord, I can’t go on,” I said, “I have too heavy a cross to bear.” The Lord replied, “My child, if you can’t bear its weight, just place your cross inside this room. Then open another door and pick up any cross you wish.” I was filled with relief. “Thank you, Lord,” I sighed, and did as I was told. As I looked around the room I saw many crosses, some so large the tops were not visible. Then I spotted a tiny cross leaning against a far wall. “I’d like that one, Lord,” I whispered. The Lord replied, “My son, that’s the cross you just brought in.” During this holiday season, it is my hope and prayer that the burdens you carry in your hearts today will seem lighter and somehow more distant tomorrow. Pax . . . *the picture I used for this post was taken by Amanda Lucier. Click here to learn more about this amazing photojournalist and the story behind the photo.

The tree is up and dressed with soft, white lights, ornaments and icicles. The cats are already stripping them off and methodically leaving them on the floor where my unsuspecting feet find them at 3:02am. The other morning I found a ceramic reindeer the sole of my left foot was violently impaled with the antlers of an unsympathetic and ceramic reindeer. *%&^$&(#)@!!!! Bastards. Yeah, it’s Christmastime. Although I’ve yet to hear much in the way of holiday music, I’ve no doubt that within two weeks time I’ll be deep in the complicated state of Yuletide Dismay wanting to slit my wrists at the mere sound of the introduction to ‘Carol of the Bells’. It is at this festive time of the year that I unleash my innermost Mister Nasty, the stygian beast within, the curmudgeon of melancholy, my dark saint. Part of me still harbours (more like imprisons) that little boy that used to love the snow and the Christmas lights and yes, even the ’Carol of the Bells’. These days Mister Nasty can’t come out and play. Actually, I don’t want to come outside. I play the dark saint of sorts and find my own personal way to somehow make it to December 26th (Sarah’s birthday for those of you who will find out anyway on her Twitter). I think that some of my snowy disdain is rooted in the overabundance of past holiday social fatalities. Dealing with Alzheimer’s Disease ironically (and sadly) made me forget my ‘Santa’ mentality replacing it with this almost diabolical Grinch-like quality - an issue currently Under Construction. Humor me for the next month or so as I deal with the bleak canvas of winter as my thoughts turn deeply inwards. This holiday season has quite a different feel to it though and I think I know why. Unfortunately, I can't tell you the reason. So indulge me, won’t you? And who knows? Maybe this Grinch will once and for all find his Christmas heart . . .

Deep inside this garden of souls lies the bones of a lifetime drowning in half-truths, Of long and slowly forgotten days that were sadly beyond repair, Of nights not unlike the darkest side of the moon A few insignificant touches of the brush would be all that it took, to make life go on as she thought that it should; Unbroken and bright, the simple and small while echoes of unwanted things filled the silent grey halls . . . Of her Gothic cathedral, sadly visited by few, where three skeleton keys were kept hidden from view because life wasn’t meant to be that easy, and she kept it that way, anyway maybe all the way The tall stained-glass windows soaked with rays of the sun kept the white light of truth from touching the soul of anyone, near or far, it never really mattered distance was never a fragile thing Deep in this garden of souls lies the bones of my life, my blacks and my blues, and yes, my oh-so-not-insignificant life But you will know I was here by two things left behind originally unwanted but in the sweet by and by they would find . . . You. Somewhere deep in Gethsemane with two deep sunset roses nearby . . .