July 19, 2005

Heart. Body. Once Removed.

"Go be outside, it always makes you feel better" my mom said as i hung up the phone.

I drove down to the harbor. The moon was up and the sun was down and the light stood inbetween and still above the angry ocean like it was brushed on by a heartbroken Winslow Homer. It was high tide and sand shook when the waves fell like a ballerina driving a bulldozer. I ran along the edge of the ocean. I ran through the very edge of the surf where it boiled like caustic poison and foamed like jaws of a mad dog, drooling under my feet.

I ran past the vacant volleyball courts and lifeless lifeguard stands. I ran until Homer's sky began to fade like feelings.

Then i stopped by a jetty wall and took off my shoes and shirt and walked into the ocean. The water was a dark creamy red like an old bottle of wine. I walked in until the waves slammed into my ribs and took out my breath. I dove into the darkness and began to swim.

I swam until i couldn't see prada standing in the surf. She stood strong in the boiling foam with her wet ears flexed on her cocked head as she stared at me, swimming away .

Then i turned around and kept swimming.
I kept swimming because i wanted to get away from everything that was the way that it had become.

I swam until i couldn't feel the bottom in the troughs of the wave. The lights from the beach houses went dark between the breaks. I kept swimming because i wanted to be more alone than i ever have been. I wanted to get it all out of my system.

I kept swimming until i couldn't see the jetty wall on my left, and until the angry ocean carried me up and down it's black tide until all i could see were the oil wells on the horizon before i slid down the backside of the wave and into the darkness. I kept swimming because i felt helpless and wanted a real reason to feel that way.

The black water poured in both of my ears and up my nose. I hung my feet straight down and allowed myself to sense the unfathomable darkness below me. And then i kept swimming. I swam farther because i wanted to get as far away as i possibly could from everybody and everything. i wanted to get as far away as i could from love letters, Los Angeles Traffic, salad bars and sad songs. i wanted to get away from every memory i have made in the last 2 years. and there, more than a quarter of the earth away from the central park sunrises, far far away from the arching arms of concrete in the decidious forests of the Pennsylvania turnpike , the crumbling brick in Nashville, the hazy hot flowers along the gravel roads of the Ohio Valley, and as far as physically allowed from the smooth white hotels in Miami- i was out on the edge all alone. Surrounded in pounding, drowning darkness.

i couldn't go any farther. i turned around and tried to see it all. and there like a feeble beacon i went to the edge of my world with nothing but the immeasurable space of the pacific ocean at my back. i was as far away as could ever be from everything i have ever known. i couldn't get a wider perspective of the world i live in. I was at the edge, any farther and i would loose sense of direction in the darkness.

The water roared around me. I felt small and insignificant. I was alone. i reached out in every direction to grasp for balance but there was nothing solid to hold onto.

And there, finally; my body was in the same situation as my heart.

Posted by Todd Roeth at July 19, 2005 01:14 AM