Crucible: Unknown

From: Kim Smith
Date: September 30, 2005 8:29:06 PM PDT
Subject: Fwd: Avalanche

I suppose

Begin forwarded message:

A guy is sitting next to a blonde in a diner. She is reading a newspaper and sobbing. The headline reads "Twelve Brazilian soldiers killed in avalanche." The blonde turns to him and says, "How many is a brazillian?"

No one taps their foot to a painting

It's not that paintings don't have rhythm.

Their complex time signatures feel flat.

This jive don't make me jump, even when it's real gone, man.

When I see a painting I just listen.
 

Never Let Me Go

Keith Jarrett, Jack DeJohnette, Gary Peacock; Keith Jarrett Trio, 1996, Tokyo, Japan; live concert at Orchard Hall.

Sublime.

Do you still want me to call you?

I'm so glad there are 2 days on a weekend. It seems so generous when you consider the possibility that an executive board would agree that one at most is enough if at all. Two freaking days!?! Yeah, dig it.
    What do you do with it? I mean you. I have some regular things I do—service, chores, fun, naps—and there are big blank spots that I fill in as it comes. But you. You, my friend, need a blog of your own! I need you to write it all up and put it in a post, post haste!

February 16, 1980

When she came back from Hawaii (...1977...?) she was determined to make me belong to her. This was entirely possible, despite what had gone before. She zero'd in on me, and I was lost... to this day, I suppose. Love crossed like vines in our eyes.

Lake Tahoe was our destination. I couldn't get off of work for February 14th, Valentine's Day, so we had to wait until Saturday the 16th. We and the Braitenbacks and the Storms and the Maidichs drove up Friday night from LA, while the Sterlings came over from Steamboat on Saturday. Blizzard hits Hwy 395. Stringing chains, laying under the car, future sister-in-law Rosie and Kim huddled in the freezing car by the side of the road. My parents, the Maidichs, had gone off the road somewhere above Bishop.

We made it to Carson City just before midnight and were just able to get the marriage license. A good omen. We made it to Reverend Love's Chapel at the Lake the next afternoon. I forgot to bring a tie, Chuck lent me his. Photos with Shannon and Braden have survived in my box here. Kim and I said, "I do." And that was it. Off to the casino. Couldn't tear her away from the craps table, Chuck made us 600 bucks that night. Then, to gentling alone, married.


I never thought I could get this lonely, I never thought I could be this blue. I can't believe it's all over, you were just here. I miss you so, my Kim-o.

Beneath the roaming homeless stars

February, 16, 2010 is looming. Our 30th wedding anniversary. My 30th marriage anniversary. I'm still in love with her, despite everything. But that does not have the same meaning that it did one year ago, or 30 years ago. A year ago was the end of a long ending to our long relationship, frayed threads barely binding the face to face fabric. So much time together, so many connections that cannot be portrayed, my private recollections. I have much in the way of feelings I cannot share here, conflicted, private. Some I can, you can relate from your life. Grief, a sense of loss, disappointment, dissatisfaction, sorrow, remorse. Longing. Sublime miscellanea.

She used to point out older couples, silver hair and faltering steps. "That'll be us", she would say. I was at the park today and it was rough observing the several couples in their seventies and eighties ambling around the paths. No, not us.

There's no point in blaming "the disease". There's no point in blaming anything. Her touch is gone. Wandering beneath these crazy stars. Blame them? For what? That she let go, or that she couldn't hold on? That I couldn't? "Never let me go." Our great promise.


The current Esquire magazine (March, 2010) has quite an article on and interview with movie critic Roger Ebert. Ebert has been suffering from cancer and in 2006 had his jaw removed, still he writes on. The article's author states, "Roger Ebert is no mystic, but he knows things we don't know." And he quotes Ebert's blog....

I know it is coming, and I do not fear it, because I believe there is nothing on the other side of death to fear. I hope to be spared as much pain as possible on the approach path. I was perfectly content before I was born, and I think of death as the same state. What I am grateful for is the gift of intelligence, and for life, love, wonder, and laughter. You can't say it wasn't interesting. My lifetime's memories are what I have brought home from the trip. I will require them for eternity no more than that little souvenir of the Eiffel Tower I brought home from Paris....

I believe that if, at the end of it all, according to our abilities, we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do. To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts. We must try to contribute joy to the world. That is true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances. We must try. I didn't always know this, and am happy I lived long enough to find it out.

Where am I now? Lingering, the meanings still unfold. Daily, new signs, new surfaces on familiar things. Familiar things, still holding me. The gifts she gave to me each day sit on my window sill. Her squint behind the sunglasses, and so all bright afternoon light brings her there. I find beautiful sorrow and true joy in her legacy. I recall her love, her heart. Never let you go.

Happy Birthday, Grayson!

Put another candle on my birthday cake!
My birthday cake, my birthday cake!
Put another candle on my birthday cake!
I'm another year old today!

Amargue: those days are gone

Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, 1983.

I want to live every moment we had together over again. There is a quality that threads through my recollections that I believe is captured in this photograph from a sunny day in Mexico. Some quality of a wish I had when I was very young, when I heard great love songs like "She Loves You", "If I Fell", and "I Should Have Known Better", and I came to believe that someday I might fall in love with a special girl who would love me too. And I wished for it, dreamed of it down deep in my heart, and hoped it would come true. That the music would come true. Who was she, where would we be, what would it actually be like once we found each other? As unsure and difficult as our long relationship was, ours' was the one I wished for. Despite all the trouble, a blessing. This I can see today.

Lost in my memories, a true indulgence. But in my memories are all the boring times, the rejected times, the deceitful times, the ambivalent times, the painful and hurtful times. I cannot be reminded of every aspect in every recollection, but today I can see out over all of it and know the meaningful and endearing times came about because of all the contingent and consequential times that preceded and surrounded them. They support and intertwine each other. Today I can see that it only ever can be that way, always in a context, always subjective, and always observation; always tempered.


Photography is technical. Looking at photographs, listening to recorded voices, holding a keepsake from some special day, some special moment — that's magical. When I see our son running in the backyard, I can feel the cool Easter morning air and recall the warmth of the sweatshirt. I can feel her at the camera. I can remember the night before, her plans for the fun in the morning, her calm confidence in the delight of orchestrating and enjoying these simple, special moments. I can recall her expressions, her demeanor, her unique life-force moving in her style between the kitchen counter and the dining room table. Colorful eggs, a basket with peeps, an open package of peeps on top of the fridge she would pick from when she walked by. She liked them stale and chewy. That's not in the photograph, that's recorded in my heart, my mind, in my soul if there is such a thing.


I can feel her love, standing in the driveway, saying "Let me take your picture". I can feel it in the joy of his eyes. I happened to be in that neighborhood today and drove by our old house. The street is the same but the house has been remodeled beyond recognition. The pink deck is absorbed into the extended living room, the fireplace is gone. The front yard and the sidewalk remain. Those days are gone, the photographs remain. My memories, too, come and go.

The smell of the summer air, I could smell it in the late afternoon sun on the trees and the grass. The creek by the side of the road, the river in the distance. I want to live every moment we've had together over again. Amargue: those days are gone, a bitter taste, a love song played over again.

Fu Fighter's Revenge

A few weeks ago, I came home from work and immediately noticed the scene in the photo above. Kim had a thing for what she called "Fo Dogs" (Fu Dogs), which technically are Chinese Guardian Lions. There have been two by our fireplace, male and female, for years guarding this entrance to our home. Over Christmas, I put by the fireplace the various gifts we received and afterward left the bag in which I received my gift from my girlfriend at that time. I left the bag there for weeks. Then, coming home I found this scene where the one Fo Dog had "attacked" the bag. The Dog is cleanly snapped at its middle, and the base is unmoved as if no force was applied from 'outside' the Dog. In other words, the Dog broke itself in the middle -- it lunged -- and knocked the interloper's bag over in a desperate attack to protect our premises. More Kim weirdness, I'm sure. Her Wicca power rolls on.

We went there alone

You reached to the book with both hands
leaning slightly forward
agile fingers turned the page
a finger slid up the fold
pressed the next page flat
with gentle ease
I sensed your slight gaze toward me
saying "... ah? ..."
we read further.

K2E