The Journey Home: The Nightmare

There should have been plaster, there should have been Progress, there should have been people working, but my forgotten little ashen house sits across from where I sit, trying to occupy as little material space as possible, dreaming of a time when it was, desparing of ever being again. It had looked more occupied, more inhabited when it had no windows, than it does now, when the windows yawn black and reflect back whoever looks at them, denying their own existence.

I was promised that no matter what, this house would be done by June; I should have asked for specifics, like year and decade. I believe the house has been forgotten by those contracted to save it; it waits there, half its walls up, half the floor gouged out, the stairs cracked, vents opening onto empty spaces. No one comes to tend it for longer than a couple of hours a week in a good week. I visit it every day, dropping thoughts of well being on the ashes in the downstairs bathroom, on the cracks on the stairs, in the empty closet that is supposed to house the a/c. However, I don't need to be told that  my good wishes are impotent, like the dust that gathers on the untended windows and pipes of my house.

Suddenly, one day, I was told to call my cable company because the house was almost ready to receive such services. In a hurricane of fumbling, orders were sorted and appointments made, promising imminent livening up of my burnt life. However, all appointments and orders are cancelled and on hold now, since no one remembers making that call to me, especially not yet, since the hosue is so far from being "done."

Maybe I dreamt it, though people who inhabit this reality assure me otherwise. When I use all my spine to pose questions about possible completion of The Project, I get shocked, vacant stares at my audacity in asking such questions, which smack of blatant greed of squatting on the house. Patience, which I do not posses, is called for, as no one can estimate any longer how long This Thing is likely to take. In fact, it seems farther away from completion than it was two months ago. Maybe six months? Maybe more?

I know there has to be a lesson in all this; however, all thinking, computing, analysis elude me. I wonder if Rama, Odysseus, Sita, or any of my guiding metaphors ever felt this way; inevitably they did. They have had to. So, patient Reader, it seems what I complain of is merely my humanity; there is no fix for this.

I just returned from my daily stroll to my abandoned home; I wanted to check if the plaster on the walls was ready to be painted. There is no plaster; as I step out in the soft rain, I wonder at my grasp on reality, especially instead of the plasatering crew, I met the plumber in my house, doing mysterious tasks that are none of my business and anyways, beyond my understanding.

I have a recurring nightmare: a gnome, or a man sits in a dark corner under a cloud of foreboding and is busy with something I cannot see. My unchanging dream-fear is that he will turn around.

Maybe the lesson is from my nightmare? Maybe I ask too many questions. Maybe I quest and thirst too much. I have alluded to her before, but today, again, I am the woman from Garcia-Marquez's short story, who has run out of heartbeats to count and the man bothered by the noise of the wheeling stars.

The only resolution to my problems is that the unreal shift definitely away from the real. After all, that is how all nightmares are resolved.

The Journey Home: Waiting for Godot

In a few days, I will have been without my home for eight months. I am afraid I am losing larger chunks of myself, more frequently now, than I did when my loss was new. This indefinite, indeterminate, interminable waiting is eating up my beating heart even as I live and try to shift to a comfortable position which would allow my breath to sigh in, to exhale expansively.

I remain in awe of those who bear their losses with grace and patience. I know there are mothers who look for their lost offspring for years, decades even, if their life span allows. I wonder at the Cosmic mechanism that regulates their heart beats, syncs up their body functions so that they can place one thought in front of another.

People offer me platitudes: I am advised to look back at how much I have already endured; I don't have a choice (or many rights) so I must endure patiently; I should teach myself to look forward to new things I will undoubtedly surround myself with and anticipate the joy of shopping, setting up, designing my abode. Worst of all is when I can see people actually sigh in exasperation and look away when they think I am going to begin my same old litany.

I am afraid I sigh and look away too, but I can't seem to stop the litany.

I am also afraid that the contractor, association, City, all are rather tired of me and wish me gone to a place from where I cannot find my way to their tired ears; they have stopped acknowledging my desparate pleas for an estimate on a finish date.

These are Cosmic Processes and I should know better than to expect mere humans to know anything.

In a couple of months, my child leaves for College. We have a couple of shorter trips coming up next month. In a couple of weeks, I am going to have to begin another quarter.

We are making all sorts of plans for all these journeys and deadlines. However, it seems to smack of inappropriate, inexcusable, unbecoming hubris of the worst kind to even begin thinking of what we might like in our home, to ask when, if my home will be finished.

In fact, today, it seems improbable that we will ever find our way across the street.

Today, it seems that my family will soon end its Summer visitation and go their own ways, and I shall still be sitting here, in this not-mine space, trying to exude undying, genuine gratitude I do not feel for having a roof of sorts over my head, still waiting for six more months before anyone can tell me anything about Progress on the Cosmic Process.

Logos

I hope my patient reader forgives my rather long silence on this blog. I won't bore with excuses or reasons, only that we have passed many milestones between the last time this blog was updated and now; although I am not home yet, my child is officially an adult and no longer a school going day scholar, an adjustment we haven't yet digested, a milestone greater than can be imagined.

However, what drives me to this space, to break through the internal torpor that inevitably accompanies the whirlwind of my child's bildungsroman, is the story.

My friend once said that my stories don't have dialogue. I told her that that was because dialogue exhausts me. I feel I must explain a little; maybe you, my reader, might suggest something?

I confess I have been taking the easy way out when I write my short stories, concentrating on plot and setting, even when the plot is character-driven. It is so much easier to describe, to sketch images, let gestures, moments, flashes of recognition speak, rather than trying to have the characters open their mouths.

After all, one can't just have the character spout any words! The character comes from a specific place, geographical, historical, social, and is subject to the spice that flavors that place; hence what she says must reflect both, her topography as well as her place in it. So as the writer, one must create an entire world behind her: construct syntax, decide on diction choices, imply inflections, work in syllable-stress, tone.

That is not all. Dialogue implies two people, and a large part of that is what is not said, the many miscommunications, the cadence of unspoken language, the rhythm of thought process, and most important of all, the coherence, since the reader must not be lost in the exchange between two characters operating from different frames of reference.

To that end, I have been trying to observe the way that people speak to each other, especially two people. Rarely do we complete sentences; rarely do we compose; mostly, we try to just catch the moment, hook it with a thought, a turn of phrase, a change in syllable-stress, so that the hooked moment can lead to what comes next. And so I see a chain of half-spoken sentences, expletives, and a whole lot of unsaid language underlining what is said, making the dialogue heavy, gravid with meaning.

And all this time, the one thing we seek to do is to convince.

How can I, as the story teller, weave all this in? How can I hope to convince my unseen reader, when most of what convinces cannot, should not be deliberately designed or composed?

Am I the only one who feels this way?