FLIGHT HOME
Bad Things always happen to other people. your name isn't on the list of the dead...it's on the list of the twenty survivors who "made it" "against all odds"...Susane had such an experience. tho she barely remembered it...from when she was just five years old...she could remember going down the slide into the water with her life-vest on and mama behind her saying "Go, child, Go! Mama is right behind you!". and, for a minute, she was...and then Susane hit the water. laughing. and mama was laughing. but the chute ripped away from the plane. Susanne went down into the water. and the other end of the chute tilted backward into the sinking, flaming plane and mama slid off that end right back into the plane. Susanee was screaming and screaming and never stopped screaming until the doctor told the nurse to give her a 'shot' and the nurse did. then she fell asleep. but she woke up screaming three times until she stopped abruptly. she didn't make another noise at all for three months. then she finally said, "Mama?" and the nurse in the room started upright from her cat nap, and said "No Suzane...she's not here...just rest, Kiddo...." and Suzane fell into a deep and, now, restful sleep....
Survivors lead odd lives...they sometimes go back into doing what they used to do...it all seems to 'work"...and in relationships too...Suzane went on in life as if nothing had happened at all. Her Auntie Patsy and Uncle Ed 'raised' her until she was eighteen...they never noticed anything unusual about her at all...the Docs all were clear that she was not a normal child...that she was living with her survival deep inside of her...watching her mother die and all...that she was a very traumatized young person...but no one ever saw it. she behaved exactly like a normal kid. in every way....she finished high school with honors...she had nice kids for friends...nice young men for boyfriends...she got a small scholarship to the local state college...for writing an essay on "What Life Goals Mean For The Modern Teen In Today's Society"...every thing in her life was fine...just fine....
it was Social Drinking that started it all...kids do, in college...after all...it's normal and so on....Suzanee would have a couple of glasses of beer...or of wine...no more than that. at first...she really couldn't handle alcohol, as they say. got silly and sometimes sick...but drank anyway. wore her alcohol like a mask...
then there were the 'relationships'...the men, especially...she never 'got close' to any body, really...never showed anything going on 'inside'...it was not clear if she even knew - or cared - about what was 'going on inside' anyway. she kind-of didn't reveal much about her life at all...to anybody...ever....the sex was good...but not 'close'...she stayed in control of herself quite seriously...there was not going to be any one who was going to be that intimate for her. she would make sure of that...her life was a flight of sorts...from her old, unsure memories of a child's past...
just once, some one said something about therapy to her...she laughed and said why? I'm more functional than any of you at work...more able than all of you...she had a point there....and, of course, she wasn't unhappy at all...not at all...no sleep disorders or eating disorders or psychosomatic stuff...no 'disorders' at all....just ask any one....
Of course, she married...three times, in fact...had a couple of kids...she was good to the kids...good to the husbands...just...not entirely 'present'....there wasn't much to say about that..there are lots of families where the women or the men are...well, not cold... but...not warm enough either... every one survives...just not that well. that's all....
then, something very unusual happened in her life. which was otherwise heading into a state of simply sliding successfully graveward...with nothing disturbing the deadening view ahead....
Suzane, first of all, began to find it impossible to drink at all...it made her sick...so she stopped...and then she began to 'feel'. that's all it took. no more alcohol. feelings came in. the feelings were fear. sadness. even despair. she told no one. her most recent husband never guessed...she lost a little weight, not drinking and all...but she still ate normally. slept as usual. went to work. and, worked. smiled, as she always smiled, at jokes. saw friends as usual.
her feelings, those were all different.
by strange fortune, it was at this time that she met James. it was a friend's party. from a group of friends or so away, she heard a man talking about his childhood. he was talking about surviving an airline crash, when he had been just a little boy of four years old. he had been in the water with his vest on. screaming for his mother. another little child, he said, had lost her mother in the fire of the plane. he had been through years of therapy, "learning how to be a human"...that's what he said..."learning how to be a human"....
Suzane went numb inside. she could see the flames. heard her little girl laugh as her mother slid backwards off the slide...felt the horror and guilt of knowing that the laughter was wrong. very wrong. that everything was very wrong....she found herself by his side. "I was that little girl." she told him. he turned to her. said the name of the place where the plane had burned into the water. yes, she told him. that was the place. and the time.
to her surprise, he took her hands in his...it's really odd to meet you, he said. very softly. thank you for coming over here and telling me that you were that little girl.
Suzane felt love. what she felt was love. she wanted to love this person, this James. she wanted him to love her. it wouldn't matter how. just that they somehow be close. she asked if he was married. he was. but, he told her at once: separated. unhappy. I am too, she told him. it turned out that neither of them had ever been that happy with anyone, except their children, of course. they saw in each other a chance to live a fuller life. a good life. with understanding, which had not been in their lives...a comfort...both desired that feeling of comfort, the safety of that, more than anything.
they obtained their divorces with sadness and guilt. but they did not hesitate. they had survived worst things as little children. they would survive these losses as well...they were not children now. the future belonged to them. they would suvive. because they had some thing between them more powerful than love. more intimate than sex. they had the plane. and the closeness to death that was part of their every day breathing in and breathing out....
Life gives some men and women just these remarkably close ties. it's a fate. a Huge Fate. most marriages - most loves - are natural and normal. every one is comfortable around them. couples such as Suzane and James are out of the ordinary. not that comfortable. closed to the rest of the world, in many, many ways. still, they are part of the world...rare...but not that rare...unusual...but among us...not un-natural...just 'different'....eventually, the neighbors and families and friends absorb them in...accepting that some loves are Very Large...happy, perhaps, that they are not tortured by such a Huge Love in their own lives....
James and Suzane. it would be nice to tell you that they were happy every single day and night. that would not be quite true. but, you know what? they were very happy a lot, a lot of the time. they fell into more love through the years. they became older, of course. they didn't have any children together. they felt, strongly, that it would be too frightening to have more children. their own childhoods had been so...tainted...vaguely unhappy....knowing about life and death too early...it had helped them ....no, it had hindered them...from wanting to participate fully in life...yes, that was it....to particpate fully....to have kids. now that they were feeling, so fully, life as it really is......
here's what I wish: I wish that this story didn't sound, somewhere deep inside, like a sad story...a story of depressed people...unhappy people...they were - they are - not depressed, not at all....but happiness - doesn't happiness always have a little sad edge? the edge where it may end? where it does end...somewhere in some loss...in some far-away future that always, always happens? these two were happy, tho. truly happy. in ways most do not experience. or understand.....
if I told you that these two lovers, this man and wife, died in an accident, would you believe me? They did die in an accident...a ferry accident on a vacation cruise to the Orcas near Seattle...on a vacation: fifty people drowned. they were found holding eachother...their faces calm in the face of death that had always been part of who they were....
so, yes, this is a sad story. of course it is....life has its plans for us...and yet, no plan at all....we try to direct the plots somehow...find a theme, or themes, should we live long enough to develop such complexities....but still: life weighs on us all and takes us all to death. and that cheerful thought does not make for a great story....
OK. I am sorry this is not a great story...
still...it is the story of flight: the flight of two sad souls into each other's arms...for respite...for comfort...for the relief of love with understanding...for love...for love....
not all flights end in flame...or in water...and,
inbetween the flights that spell survival...the struggle for survival:
are the flights into arms that love
for who we really are...
that love us
just as we are...for who we've been
for who we might have been....
such flights
I honor
with this story...
I hope that is enough.
in the way such loves
are enough - more than enough -
for those who live them...
where flight...
is the only way
Home....
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment