/ chorale

Clearly what I need in my life at this moment is a bit more excitement, something like a starring role in an internet hoax, whereby the patrons at Pier 1 or Ikea would whisper, "ISN'T THAT THE GUY WHO IS MISSING???" and I would feel the warm radiation of iPhone snapshots and the stinging sensation as bits of my soul were uploaded to FlickR, and glow in the anticipation of a box full of unrequited messages, "Yes, YES!" I would reply-to-all, "I AM missing! That IS me!" Or it was. I am not supposed to be here. I am missing from where I am supposed to be. I do not know where that somewhere is, other than I am sure it has nicer floors and an ocean view.

Today, we were talking about the ease at which we can rise to the occasion, as long as the occasion is anger, but tenderness and soft, woolen buttons, these are so much more difficult with which to bind us. Why do we always fight afterwards? It is not meant as disapprobation, and the answer seems so obvious. Because it lasts. If there were no anger in the rending of clothes then how could it last?

It seems uniquely appropriate to toast a new couple and catch the eyes of the love of your life through tulips, and see that flash of ire. That is what you are in for later, so you add fire and dash your speech with cliché. “A stranger came up to me the other day, and asked, ‘How do you know when you’ve found the one?’ The ‘one,’ I repeated. There is no finding the one. You have to find the two.”

What is the secret? he insisted. I don’t know. You must be very much in love. Ain’t got nothing to do with it.



There was a choral event the other day and I ran into one of the old firefighters, one I hadn’t seen since I quit the department, and we sat next to each other, and he pointed out his son, a senior, my god. And I remembered that his first wife had died when this graduating senior was just a small boy, and how her affection for him was legendary, and nearly enough to overcome the sorry lot she had drawn, and I wondered if sometimes he thinks he is dreaming, that maybe they were in a car accident and somehow all of this is the reality of his coma induced state, and just maybe he might wake up.

I wonder if he finds himself asleep sitting up in a chair, wonders if perhaps in his coma-induced dreaming his hands carry out the motions of the writing of a letter, and if perhaps some intern has thought to put a pen in those deteriorating fingers, to see what kind of messages he might be sending from the other side, which is almost always the inside.

“What is he going to do?”

“He wants to be a firefighter, believe it or not. He’s going to school in the fall.”

There is such sentimentality in his voice, that I cannot imagine any of this is a dream.