memories – Page 4

The post I almost didn’t write

September 12, 2011 by Billy Coffey 9 Comments

I almost didn’t write a post about 9/11 this year. That would’ve been a first for me since beginning this blog. Sometimes it was a post, sometimes a video, but it was always something. If not on 9/11, then right around that time.

But this time I thought maybe not, even though it’s been ten years now. A decade. Anyone else feel as strangely about that as I do? I’ve read that scientists are studying why it seems that time speeds up as we grow older. Something in the brain, if I remember correctly. Some chemical or a certain pattern of neurons. Regardless, I remember a time when my days seemed to stretch on into forever. Now they pass so quickly. If there is anything I miss about childhood, it’s that sense of earthly eternity—that permanence.

That’s one reason I wanted to let this 9/11 pass. It feels like only yesterday I sat on the edge of my bed and watched those towers bleed fire and ash. Watched those poor souls jump from stories high, choosing death by gravity over death by immolation. Even now I see them. Those images will haunt me for the rest of my days. But I did not see that yesterday, I saw that ten years ago, and so much has happened since.

Another reason was how politicized the commemoration of 9/11 has become, how over-the-top. I hear religious leaders are not allowed to speak at Ground Zero this year, nor firefighters, nor policemen. I don’t understand how that could be. Then again, I don’t understand much these days. Sometimes I feel as though we’re all galloping toward some final end, and the ones leading the charge are the ones who are supposed to be protecting us.

But mostly, I wanted to let this 9/11 pass because of how strongly I still feel about it. To this day I cannot see an image of those ash-covered people fleeing for their lives or hear Alan Jackson’s “Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)” or be reminded of the phrase “Let’s roll” without feeling my eyes sting and my throat tighten. Ten years seems a long time to hang on to such emotions. There comes a point when the mourning must stop and time must continue on. We all must learn to let go. After all, life is a straight line. It isn’t a circle.

That’s why I didn’t want to write anything.

And yet here I am, doing just that.

Because no matter how well-intentioned the people who say it’s time to get over it and move on may be, I know I never will. There are some things that should not be whisked away into the haze of our yesterdays to fuse with other memories until it becomes more fiction than fact. There are some stories that should continue to be told and retold not out of a sense of anger, but a sense of honor.

It is human nature to want to set aside pain and cover up old wounds. It is also human nature to hold onto those things because they are a reminder of both the coldness of this world and the faith we must possess to live upon it.

I could forget. I could move on. I could bow my head each September 11 and pause, and then I could move on as if it were any other day.

But I’m afraid if I do I will also forget the men and women who ran toward those flames rather than away.

I will forget an outpouring of love and kindness, of unity, that I had never experienced in my country.

I will forget the stories I heard like the man who believes he was guided to safety by an angel and the man who chose to stay and die in the North Tower rather than abandon his wheelchair-bound friend.

I’m afraid that I will forget not only the horror, but the wonder as well.

Because on that day ten years ago I saw what evil there lurked in the souls of men, and I also saw what grace abides there, too.

Making a memory

August 3, 2011 by Billy Coffey 21 Comments

We are by the creek, my son and I, our backs against the grass and our feet in the water, looking first to make sure the snakes are gone and then to the two white wrappers between us.

“You’re first tonight,” I tell him.

“Orange,” he says, “because it’s like the sun.”

I hand him the wrapper on the left and look out toward the mountains. Sure enough, the sun looks orange. That means red for me. Good. I like red.

He opens the package and licks the popsicle inside. There is a satisfying smack on the end, followed by, “Aaah.”

We sit for a while and watch in silence, watch the robin searching for supper in the front yard and the bumblebee doing the same in the flower bed and my wife and daughter watering the hanging baskets. I don’t know what my son is thinking, but I’m thinking that sometimes you can be closer to someone when you’re not talking and just enjoying their company.

These post-supper trips to the creek with popsicles were his idea. The inaugural event was held on the first day of summer vacation. Seems like that was just yesterday, but it was almost two months ago. Time ticks faster when we’re having fun. That’s what my son told me the other day. Then he said he sat for five minutes and watched the clock and discovered it ticks just the same whether you’re looking or not.

There’s another lick and smack, but this one is followed by a sigh. I ask him what’s wrong.

“Summer’s almost over,” he says.

I ask him how he knows that, and he answers that he saw the newspaper last Sunday. There was a back-t-school ad mixed in with the comics section. He says seeing that made him feel like he did the time he ate chili and then ice cream after.

“I want it to stay summer forever,” he says, “like on Phineas and Ferb.”

I don’t know what to say to that. I’d like it to stay summer forever too, and offering up some cockamamie wisdom about how all good things must come to an end would only depress the two of us more. Instead, I start singing the Phineas and Ferb theme song. Partly because I have to say SOMETHING, but mostly because it’s nearly impossible to sing and be depressed at the same time.

He joins in halfway through. When we finish, the lick/smack/sigh is replaced by lick/smack/smile. Much better.

“Dad, can I ask you something?”

“Sure,” I tell him.

“Are we making a memory?”

I bite down on my red popsicle and think. “I reckon so,” I tell him.

The smile is bigger now. It’s the sort of smile you get after you’ve been carrying a very heavy something for a long while and can finally lay it down.

He is silent again, but not because he didn’t hear me. He’s too busy to talk. He’s more concerned with doing the one thing children always excel at and adults usually fail miserably—being in the moment. His eyes are bugged and his breathing is deep, steadying himself against the picture his mind is taking.

The cool water flowing over his hot toes, the orange sun peering from the peaks of blue mountains, sounds of robinsong in the trees and frogs in the woods, the sight of his mother and sister and the gentle mist of hose water over purple and white flowers, orange popsicle leaking down his fingers, the bright sky and the warm breeze, the first star of the night and the knowing that for this one instant, the whole world is peaceful and good and right.

He is living this moment, and when he is done he will tuck it into a secret place in his heart and keep it safe. He will tend this moment and nurture it and keep it whole. Alive.

And on some cold and distant January day that promises little more than spelling tests and word problems, my son will sit in his small desk at school and pull that memory out. He will look out the window and see bright skies rather than somber heavens and green leaves rather than bare trees. He will hear robinsong and taste orange popsicle and feel cool water running over hot toes.

It will be winter then and he will be at school. He will know then that the world is not peaceful and good and right, but he will gain strength knowing it once was and thus may well be again.

All because of the memory he made with me on this summer night, here by the creek.

A letter to me

July 6, 2011 by Billy Coffey 28 Comments

When helping your parents clean out their attic, it helps if you approach the task as a recovery mission. You aren’t discarding, you’re salvaging. I know this from experience. I did it three weeks ago.

We found the normal things—Christmas decorations long forgotten, toys long neglected, and several items of which no one can remember using, much less purchasing. We found not-so-normal things as well. Like the box of notebooks.

You could say I caught the writing bug early; I was filling notebooks before I understood what words were, drawing pictures of the sun and trees and describing them with an jumble of mismatched and incoherent letters. These, sadly, were not in the box.

The high school stuff was.

Lyrics mostly, as if the words to Skid Row’s “18 and Life” and Cinderella’s “Coming Home” were so moving, so utterly profound, that they warranted preservation for the ages.

There were thoughts as well. Plenty of them, all sopping with the angst and shallowness that define the teenage years. Some were laughable in their naivety—“The suddenness of life is a guarantee the soul is eternal.” Others, to my surprise, weren’t so bad at all—“We have lost much of the language of religion, but little of our longing for a faith in something larger than ourselves.”

Memories, all. Not the false ones either, the ones that are saccharine in the remembering. These were more a mixture of sweet and salty, proof that my recollections were true. Regardless, the decision of whether the box was to be discarded or salvaged was an easy one.

It all went to the junk pile save for a single sheet of paper torn from the notebook on top. The last page, as a matter of fact. Written two days before I graduated.

It was a letter. Not to the me I was then, but to the me I am now.

A portion:

“I don’t know who you are (hard to do that, especially since it’s tough enough knowing who I am). I don’t know what you’re doing, either. But I can make the sort of guess with both that people do when they see a falling star or a discarded eyelash, the sort of guess that has a wish at the end. So I’m guessing you’ve made it. I’m guessing you’re rich and famous and happy, and I’m guessing you’re far away. And I figure as long as I guess and wish those things, I’m going to be okay. Because that means I’ll eventually be you.”

I remembered writing that. It was late at night. I was outside, scribbling in my notebook while watching the stars and sneaking a Marlboro red. I remembered how I felt then—sweet and salty, so it must be true—knowing that part of my life was about to fall away and another was ready to begin.

I was afraid. Afraid of the world and my place in it. And in that fear I wrote that night with a sense of purity and honesty that even now I try to capture each time I reach for pen and paper.

I wrote those words in secrecy, and now, all these years later, I snatched them away in secrecy as well. No one saw me stash that letter into my pocket. I’ve kept it since on the top of my office desk, there and not there, like a sickness hidden from a doctor for fear it is a symptom of something more serious.

“So I’m guessing you’ve made it. I’m guessing you’re rich and famous and happy, and I’m guessing you’re far away. And I figure as long as I guess and wish those things, I’m going to be okay. Because that means I’ll eventually be you.”

I couldn’t let those four sentences go. They weren’t supposed to be disposed. They were supposed to be salvaged. I needed to answer myself.

Today is my birthday. I suppose by some sort of twisted logic, that’s why I waited until now to send a note of my own back in time. After all, birthdays are much like graduations. They are a falling away and a beginning.

So on my porch this morning in front of the mountains and the birds and the rising sun, I wrote this:

“I’m not rich. I’m not famous. And though twenty-one years separate us in time, only five miles separate us in distance. But I’ve found things greater than those, and I’ve become happy in the finding. Because the things you search for as a child are not the things you stumble upon as an adult, and thank God for that.”

Time well wasted

June 20, 2011 by Billy Coffey 19 Comments

I bought a cheap watch from a crazy man
Floating down Canal.
It doesn’t use numbers or moving hands,
It always just says Now.
Now you may be thinking that I was had,
But this watch is never wrong.
And If I have trouble the warranty said
‘Breathe in, breathe out, move on.’

—Jimmy Buffett

I spent last week on vacation. Traded seven days of Virginia Mountains for seven days of North Carolina beaches. Emerald Isle, to be exact. If there was ever a name more fitting of its location, it’s that.

I’d spent a good four months looking forward to the trip. It’s been a tough time at work, a tough time all around, and of course everyone knows the cure for a tough time is an easy place.

But the truth? As the day of our departure drew closer, I didn’t want to leave. There was so much that needed to be done. So much that must be finished or started or continued. Dropping everything to sit in the sand seemed a little selfish and irresponsible. I was too busy to go on vacation. That’s not to say I thought the world would fall apart in my absence. I guess it had more to do with the notion that I’d held on tight for so long that I’d forgotten the value in letting go.

And there is value in letting go. There’s a lot.

At some point we’re all introduced to the fact that we do not make the world spin. But in this age of technological wonder where so many of us are driven—and at times even expected—to share our thoughts and happenings to the world with a simple click of a button, it’s easy to convince yourself that even if you don’t make the world spin, it will nonetheless go wobbly without you. I won’t say I fell for that lie. I will say I was headed in that general direction.

I spend much of my life on the written page. I count that as a blessing rather than a curse. And yet after so much time spent looking outward at the world, I found I was losing a bit of me in the process. Over the past year I have heard from a great many people about a great many things, and yet I realized I rarely heard from myself about the things that mattered most.

In the end that’s why I fled to the ocean, that vast expanse of nothingness that is so big it drowns out the little things and renders the big things bare. No writing, no news, no computer. Just deer, crabs, and the three dolphins that played tag just beyond the waves each morning outside my window.

And you know what I found when I returned home? That I didn’t miss much. Anthony Weiner resigned. More jobs were lost. There were floods and drought. Wars. Accusations. More of the same. The earth spun and I followed, though for seven precious days I chose to trail at my own speed rather than to flail at keeping up with everyone and everything else.

What I learned there will likely fill these pages for the time being. There’s much to ponder and memories to sift. My week at the shore resembled a fine wine in that the flavor is only truly tasted upon swallowing.

In the meantime, I leave you with this:

It isn’t how full our days are that matter, but how fully we live them.

Not how fast we go, but how closely we look.

Not how much we hear, but how often we listen.

Not how often we laugh more than cry, but how often we’re willing to do both.

Time well spent is valuable, but so is time well wasted. I know that now. Because it’s in those minutes and hours that we are still and quiet and watching and listening that the truths we seek are made manifest. They appear like glistening shells washed upon endless shores, offerings for the taking.

Before I left I was convinced that wealth was best measured in happiness and peace and good memories. I know better now.

I know now that wealth is best measured in moments.

Selling memories

June 13, 2011 by Billy Coffey 7 Comments

(This story was originally posted back in January, 2011.)

It’s funny how old memories can sink with the weight of new ones only to bubble up again. Tiny moments you thought had been long blown away by life’s continual wind circle back and stick to you like a burr. You find that memory is suddenly everywhere.

That’s what’s happening to me right now. One little memory.

I don’t know why it bubbled up again, don’t know why it’s sticking. I think God often makes us remember things in the past that could serve as the basis for some sort of wisdom now, but I can’t imagine how that’s the case with me. And it’s a painful memory, one I’d like to see sink back down in my mind for as long as possible. I figure writing about it may help. Or, perhaps, it may help you. In either case, it will serve its purpose.

I was ten years old, an age that is largely spent balancing on that thin line between knowing much about the world and not wanting to know. It was summer. I remember it was hot. I remember the crowd, too, and thinking it was more people than I’d ever seen in my life.

They were all gathered around two farm wagons that had been towed into my grandparents’ backyard and placed side by side. They sat in the open space between the garden my grandmother and I once worked and the giant willow tree I spent hours swinging from. There was a small patch of spearmint that grew at the base of the tree. Grandma would pick a few leaves and make tea with them just for me. I remember the people clamoring around the tree that day, trampling the patch.

I think that’s when I began to realize everything was ending.

The white Cape Cod my grandmother and grandfather had lived in for nearly thirty years was showing wear. The siding had been dulled to an almost gray by the sun. The shingles on the roof were brittle and stained by rain and wind. The house looked tired. I remember that, too. Everything looked tired.

The people who stood on top of the two giant wagons looked just as weary. My mother was one of them. Also an aunt and two uncles. They would each hold up what was in their hands as the man with the microphone yelled to the crowd in a language that was both foreign and fast. My mother held up a painting of a cabin that hung in my grandparents’ living room. I remember I would often sit on the sofa and stare at that painting while Grandma and I drank our spearmint tea. I would tell her that one day I wanted to live in a place like that. I still do.

The man with the microphone yelled more, numbers I knew mixed with words I didn’t. My mother kept her hands raised. One by one, others in the crowd raised theirs. I wondered why she looked so sad with all those people waving at her.

She put the painting down just after the man with the microphone said the one word I did understand:

“SOLD!”

I remember my father standing beside me. I asked him, “What’s going on?”

He didn’t tell. Instead he put his hand on my shoulder and led me over to the apple tree. He picked one from a high bough, rubbed it on the leg of his jeans, and offered it. I still remember how that apple tasted.

As I said, I was ten. Balancing on that thin line. But on that day the line was thinner than I cared it to be. I was old enough to know my grandfather had died and my grandmother before him, young enough to still believe I would still come and work the garden and drink the tea and stare at the painting of the cabin. I wobbled on the thin line that day between the memories I could keep and the memories being sold.

I suppose I wobble still.

This post is part of the One Word at a Time Blog Carnival: Home, hosted by my friend Peter Pollock. To read more on this topic, please visit him at PeterPollock.com

The Kissing Tree

April 20, 2011 by Katdish 15 Comments

The tree stood like a king in the middle of the field, gazing over its sovereignty. It was tall, taller than any building in town. And old, as evidenced by a trunk so thick that it split partway up so as to give the appearance it was two and not one. Its canopy stretched out and then down, as if gathering up those who pause beneath it.

To see it was to recall the Ents of Tolkien’s Middle-earth. The tree was that magical. Put your ear to its wood and you could swear you sensed a beating heart and coursing blood just beneath the bark. Listen, and beneath the chirps of the robins and mockingbirds and the squirrels snacking on nuts you could almost hear the stories it had to tell, old stories of long-ago times and long-ago people, back when times were simpler and a man named Wenger owned the field.

The oak was known by many names, but mostly it was The Kissing Tree. There was evidence of that if you look closely enough, names and initials scrawled into the wood but even then mostly absorbed, adding to the stories the tree could tell. Some said the tree had grown to such magnificence because it had been watered with love as well as rain. But I knew better, even then. No doubt there had been much love kindled beneath that gathering canopy (and no doubt many children), but there had also been much love that was kindled only to be extinguished by fickle hearts and dashed dreams.

Such was my experience there on that day.

Her name was Sara, a neighborhood girl who lived down the road in a house that defied any description beyond a simple Fancy. She was smart and achingly pretty and knew how to climb trees. Once on a dare, she leaped into the murky, snake-infested river down by the place where Murphy Johnson swore he saw a ghost. She swam to the other shore and back again and said it was no sweat.

I knew then I was in love with her. She was perfect. And best of all, she wanted to kiss me.

I was eleven that summer and had never kissed a girl, didn’t know how or how long a person should do it and what I should do afterward. But I at least knew where to take her for that kiss.

We met at The Kissing Tree on a hot afternoon in July. That’s when I saw the tree as king of the Ents and felt it’s beating heart. Sara was already there, dressed in a pair of denim shorts and a white T shirt that showed the bumps on her chest. Seeing them and her and knowing we were alone under The Kissing Tree was enough to make me turn tail and run away, but I didn’t. I was too scared to move.

We talked for a bit, me about baseball and going to the beach the next week and Sara about how her mom and dad always fought and she wished she could run away. I think in that moment I saw her for the first time, not the tough little girl who swam across the river to where Murphy saw that ghost, but the fragile little girl who wanted nothing more than to be loved. As scared as I was, I wanted to kiss her even more then, just so she could hold that happiness tight, if only for a moment.

We closed our eyes and kissed beneath that great oak, adding our names to the stories it could tell.

Things between us didn’t work out. They seldom do when you’re eleven. But I ran into Sara the other day, and our talk wound itself back to that day beneath The Kissing Tree. It was strange that our versions were similar but not exact. She could not remember telling me of her parents. I did not recall us bumping heads before we met lips. And while I swore we kissed beneath the tree, she promised it was away beyond its shadow instead.

It was strange knowing one of the moments I thought had defined me was a fuzzy one. Not as sharp, as exact, as I thought. Now I wonder of all of my reminiscences are such, if my memory has glossed over them and rounded their sharp edges. I wonder if memory is simply an incomplete experience.

And I wonder if that is our blessing or our curse.

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