They Sounded Like Questions

The air was still, and cool, the way it is inside of big caves. And it felt a little bit thick as it filled her lungs – thick with moisture, thick with the presence of living things. The chair beneath her smelled like mildew. The cushion was once velvety, but as she ran her fingers along the edge of it now, it felt like it had gone bald long ago. When she sat on it, a little puff of dust made its way to her nose. The brass buttons that held the cushion to the chair were cold on her hands as she gripped the chair beneath her, taking careful inventory of her surroundings.

The table in front of her was rough and knobby. She leaned forward on it, and the grain of the cracked wood cut into her elbows. The table had scraped the dusty floor noisily when she bumped it coming in, but now it sat on its thick legs silently.

She could hear the walls crumbling as she sat with the table in silence. The dust from them tickled her eyes and incited small tears. She blinked them back, feeling the dust being pushed to the corners of her eyes. There were rustlings in the roof above her. It seemed as though she should be hearing those sounds in a wheat field outside, but it was above her. She looked up for a moment, but quickly looked down again. She didn't want to be blinking back more than the dust that already crowded her eyes.

Outside, she could hear the voices. Some of them rumbled – like a large, hungry stomach. Others excitedly tumbled out – like a water brook pushing out of the ground into the sunshine. There were a couple that were gentle – like the whisper of a breeze passing through the trees. She hoped they would be the ones to speak to her, the whispering breeze ones.

There was laughter too. It burst into the open window like it owned the little house. It was not mocking, though. It was full. It had all of the tones and variations that a good round of laughter should have. There were short bursts, soft snorts, hearty chuckles that climbed up from way down in someone's stomach. Some of the laughter skipped out, hopping up and down like an excited puppy. Some of it sauntered out, as though dressed in a tailored suite and carrying a cigar. Yet, somehow, all of it was laughter.

She breathed in sharply and smelled the sweet stickiness of sugar cane in the air. At her side, the thoughtless buzz of flies broke up the sounds wafting to her ears from outside the house. The sunlight was coming in the window at such an angle that the room was a gentle orange all around her. It made her fingertips tingle with warmth. When she breathed in, the sunlight was warm on her tongue also.

The footsteps were determined, but sounded only like a gentle steady tap on a small drum as they approached from far away. As they drew nearer, the sticks breaking beneath them and the gravel shifting in their passing became audible. In her ears, they sounded like footsteps. In her head, they sounded like questions.

Then the rusty door handle turned in the soft orange light. The thin wood of the door rubbed the floor with a gentle cooing as it swung open. The next sound was the lazy exclamation of the hinges, and then all of the voices and laughter were dancing beside her in the golden light. 

The Box

The one thing she would bring was her box. It was shallow, made of sturdy cardboard, and a plain light brown color. It had a tiny little padlock that was only as wide as her finger, which fastened the lid down tightly against the contents of the box. She kept the key on a blue string that always hung around her neck. The knot in the string was pulled so tight now – since she had worn it for so long – that it would be impossible to remove it from her neck without cutting it. So whenever she pulled out her box to examine its contents or to add something to it, she would crawl under the bed and gently bring it out. Then she would set it on the edge of her bed, sit down on the floor in front of it, and leaning forward, open its padlock with the little key still securely tied around her neck.

She loved opening the box. Every time, no matter how many times she had done it before, it would bring her a little rush of joy to lift the lid. On the right hand side of the box were all of the letters. She had collected them her whole life long. (Her life had not really been long yet, but it seemed long to her.) They were from different friends she had discovered in all different places, from grandparents, from her sister, a couple from her brother, even a few from her parents. Some of them were old, the pages starting to yellow on the edges, the ink of the writing deeply embedded in the fibers of the paper. Some of them were on fancy, colorful paper or had beautifully sculpted writing. Others had been written on notebook paper, casually. Some of them had shallow words. Some had real words. Some had changed her a little bit when she read them. Others she kept only for the rarity of receiving something from that particular sender. But all of them were important to her.

The rest of the box was covered in a medley of her life's memories, piled in the box carefully, but without any particular organization. There was a chip from the salt blog that had sat behind her grandparents house, attracting all kinds of beautiful deer to their yard. She had loved to stand by the backdoor and gaze at them in silent wonder as they timidly arrived in the yard to lick that block.

There was a picture of her with all of her cousins when they were all still young – and innocent. They were all in matching jackets, the girls with their hair curled, the boys with their hair spiked.

And there were two toe nails. They were animal nails, though. One was from her favorite dog as a child. The other was from the fat, lovable cat that had been a brother to that dog. Somehow, they had both managed to lose a nail at one point in their various escapades, and she had nabbed them joyfully when they did. The dog had been big and ridiculously afraid of water. The cat had been gray with white socks on his feet.

There was a duct tape bracelet, a porcupine quill, a bookmark made of pressed flowers, several feathers, two hands full of beautiful or strange rocks. There was a ring that the stone had fallen out of. (It used to have an amethyst opal stone.) There were more pictures – from different places, with different people, from different stages of life. There were things she had drawn, or built, or made herself. There were lots of things she had written (because she loved to write).

And then there were some random things she loved for no good reason. Like the Coke can. Or the cup. Or the candle. Or the book in a language she could not read on a subject she did not care for. Or the maps of places she knew well. Or more strangely, the maps of places she never planned to go to. And her one map of the whole world. Oh, how she loved that map! The creases of its folds were so worn from use that the map could only be kept in one piece if it was opened very. very. very. carefully.

There were some other things also. Sometimes she would find something she couldn't remember why she kept. Sometimes she would find something she didn't remember putting there. But she never took anything out of the box – even when she didn't know why it was there. It all stayed. It was all hers. And it was all she wanted to take if they ever came for her.

She had been told that when they come, they don't give any notice. And you're never given time to prepare anything. You just have to grab your coat and go. So her coat was always under her bed, next to her box. She would hide the box inside her coat. It was the only thing she had to keep with her. It was all of her memories. Even all of the terrible, painful ones were there, right beside the beautiful ones. It was all of her life. It was all of her. And she was going to keep it, no matter what. Her past was all that she could hold onto.

She would not lose it.  

Silence

She looked up from weeding her garden when the first crow landed nearby, then went back to pulling up crabgrass. But then another one landed, and another. Soon the lawn was covered with crows. Dozens of them. And her.

She had been crouching, her furrowed brow pointed intently toward the ground. She had been listening to little more than her breath and the occasional breathing of the wind in the trees for the last several hours. Now she froze.

She didn't even have to look up, she could feel them. Their wings rustled softly all around her, as though someone were flipping through the pages of a great book. And their eyes – they pierced like a sudden noise in the stillness of a snow-blanketed day.

She had not invited them. Why had they come? She had no food for them, no chichi birdbath, not even what you could call a beautiful garden.

She thought all of this in silence, still gazing intently at the ground beneath her. She did not want to look up, did not want to startle them away. She wanted them to stay. So she kept her head down, but she lifted her eyes gently.

There they sat, not wandering, not searching. Some preened. Some nestled. Some only gazed. It might have been ominous, had they not seemed so utterly content. It was beautiful.

How could she make them stay? Why – once more – had they come? The only thing she had to offer was the silence that she kept.

So that is what she gave. And there they sat quietly. She still heard her own breathing, and the occasional breathing of the wind in the trees. But now it was mingled with peaceful rustling, gentle cooing rumbles. Now her lawn was covered by more than her contentedly working hands. Now her silence was being shared.

So they stayed, and it was beautiful.  

To Change a Life

To change something in your life is to change, essentially, who you are. I thought, at first, that writing of what I'd change in my life versus something I'd change about myself was less annoying – less self-deprecating, somehow – than the latter option. And maybe it is.

But it's definitely not easier.

There was a man named David Mitchell (I don't know who he actually is, but maybe you do), who once said something that I really like. He said: “...there ain't no journey what don't change you some.”

Is that not the pure and simple truth? And what is life if it is not a journey? So then, I would say – and even venture to say that this Mr. Mitchell would agree – that all of us are shaped by the journey that is our lives, i.e. changed by the journey that is our lives. So then, to ask someone what they would change about their lives is, at it's root, the same as asking someone what they would change about themselves.

However, the twist comes when we look at the fact that most of us can think of several things that we would change about ourselves fairly easily. It is much more difficult, though, to think of something that we would change in our lives. (Or maybe that's just me, but for the sake of argument, I'm going to assume I'm not the only one like this.) Can I really imagine removing a person from my life, removing an event from my life, or even somehow cramming another event into my life somewhere in the limited space of time that has been my life so far?

Every life event that I have experienced – good, bad, difficult, joyful – has been inseparably connected to every other event I've lived through. If I were to remove one, wouldn't the whole fabric of my life fall apart? If I were to add one, wouldn't it change every event that came after it and change my view of every event that had come before it? Aren't our lives woven together in such a way that to change one thing is to change everything? And if we were to change one thing and thereby change everything about our lives, would they really be our lives anymore? Would it really be my life anymore? Isn't who I am a product of the very life course that has shaped me, which would mean that changing that course would inevitably completely change who I am?

Maybe these kind of questions aren't meant to be dissected so thoroughly when they're presented. Maybe they're presented as self-help-guide kinds of questions. But, somehow, that seems dangerous to me. Inciting people to think about what they would change about themselves or their lives without actually desiring to help them change it seems cruel. And if you present the question because you do want to help someone change in the way that they desire, you will be unsuccessful in helping bring about the change if you don't recognize the way that the person has been shaped to be who they are and led to the place they are at by a whole fabric that is not only that person's life so far, but is also the very journey that has made that person into who they are. They cannot be separated from that.

Maybe these questioned aren't actually great for encouraging change in the pure sense of the word. Maybe these kinds of questions are actually better for encouraging thoughtfulness – and even thankfulness. They make you think about who you are and, more importantly, all that has taken place in your life to lead you to this point. Even if where you are now and who you are now isn't where and who you want to be, it is still somewhere. You have not remained static. You have changed. And that means that there is opportunity for more change. If we have the capacity to change for the worst (which every one of us does – there can't be an argument there), then we are also endued with the capacity to change for the best. But it will not happen instantly; it has to be a part of the journey called Life. 

A Country Just Short of Regret...

This is the first of a series of writings which will be inspired by prompts from a book which challenges aspiring writers to write something every day of the month of January based on random prompts presented in the book. I don't know what's coming any more than you do... Enjoy!

I knew a girl once, who lived in a country just short of regret, in the state of bittersweet oranges, in a city of lonely blue skies. Sometimes, she wished that there were clouds in the lonely blue skies because then they would not be so utterly lonely anymore. Sometimes, she wished that the orange groves would all get dug up, and the ground fertilized, and the trees watered because then the oranges would not be so bittersweet anymore. Sometimes, she wished that she had the courage to leave behind her little country for a time because, even if she landed in regret, at least she would have gone somewhere.

But her perfectly lonely blue skies were never marred by a cloud. The orange groves all around her were always peacefully left alone in their bittersweetness. And she never left her country, so she never ended up in regret.

I knew a girl once, who lived in a country just short of regret, in the state of bittersweet oranges, in a city of lonely blue skies. She decided that she was going to see the world, so she left behind her country. Of course, she landed in the next nearest destination: regret. There, the sky was not blue. Across its face rolled dark, thick clouds that growled in anger. And there were no oranges, not even bittersweet ones. There was only cold dirt, and it clung to her clothes as the wind whipped it around her. She decided that she could not return to her home so dirty, so she didn't. She stayed in regret forever.

I knew a girl once, who lived in a country just short of regret, in the state of bittersweet oranges, in a city of lonely blue skies. She, too, left behind her country and landed in regret. But when she got there, and felt the wind whipping the dirt around her and gazed up at the clouds growling above her, she did not decide to sit there in the dirt. Nor did she decide to go back to where she had come from. It could never be the same anyway. Instead, she reached into her pocket and brought out a small orange seed. Crouching to the ground, she began digging with her hands. The dirt was hard and full of rocks in some places. As she dug, her hands became scratched and filthy, but she kept digging. When she was finally satisfied that the hole was deep enough. She planted her bittersweet orange seed in the hole – the one thing she had brought with her to the country of regret. As she pushed the dirt and soil onto and around the seed and packed it carefully in place, the sky began to cry. She had never seen the lonely blue skies of her country cry, and she wondered, “Why?”

Over time, her little orange seed, watered by the tears of the sky above, began to sprout. It began to spread its leaves and stretch toward the sky. It began to grow. And the sky did not always cry. Sometimes, the clouds would break up and there would be blue sky smiling down on the girl and her orange tree. It was not a lonely blue sky, though, like there had been in the old country. It was a hopeful blue sky. And as the clouds returned time and time again, they no longer seemed menacing and angry, as they had that first day she had arrived in the country of regret. Instead, the girl began to realize, these clouds did not cry tears of anger, nor even sadness; they were tears of joy. She began to gaze into the sky in wonder, watching the tears fall from the fluffy dark clouds that rested above her. They, too, brought hope because both the blue skies and the clouds helped the girl's orange tree to grow, and grow, and grow.

One day, the girl's tree produced its first orange. It was more oblong than round, more dirty yellow in color than bright orange, but it was an orange. In delight the girl plucked the orange from the branches of her tree. She had been waiting so long for this day. She had not tasted an orange since the day she left behind her country and landed in regret so many years before. Carefully, as though the orange were delicate, the girl peeled the orange as she sat beneath her tree, patchy clouds floating through the blue sky above her. Pulling out a section of the orange, she took a deep breath and then brought the piece of orange to her lips. Gently, she took a bite.

She was not prepared for the sweetness that burst across her tongue! There was no bitterness in this orange at all, only perfect sweetness. As she took another bite, she wondered: why was this tree different than all of the trees she had left behind in her comfortable home before? Why was it different even than the tree from which the seed itself had come? Was it because of the dirt and soil that she had so laboriously dug up herself in this country of regret to plant the seed? Was it because this tree was nurtured not only by the sunshine of a blue sky but also the rain of a clouded sky? Or was it really different at all? Maybe it only seemed different because she had waited so long and eagerly for it. Maybe her anticipation caused this perfectly normal bittersweet orange to taste like candy. Or maybe it was all of these things. Maybe the dirt of regret dug up by her hands and the clouds that often covered the blue skies and the anticipation and patience of watching her orange tree take so long to come to maturity in this new, strange place all worked together to make this orange the sweetest she had ever eaten.

Maybe she should go back and tell her family. Maybe they did not know that regret was not as scary as it seems at first. Maybe they did not know that oranges can grow even in a dusty, barren land if they are given time and patience. Maybe they did not know that the clouds and the rains were necessary to make the orange trees grow strong and sweet – that the lonely blue skies were not actually enough. Maybe they did not know.