Existing In Between

            Princess Mononoke is often seen as a film that is very anti-industrial and concerned with the preservation of nature. While these environmental viewings are valid and important, the characters, their conflicts, and the resolution cannot be contained to that single theme. This movie endeavors to display a more complex relationship with nature than singularly environmental reading offers. It is a film that is ultimately about existing in between. I will discuss the idea of being in between in both the context of the protagonist Ashitaka’s position between humans and nature, as displayed in Miyazaki’s fantasy masterpiece. This position is best seen in the characters and their relationships, starting first with the opposing sides. The hero of the human side is the Lady Eboshi. She is the leader of Irontown, an industrial people who strip away the forest to mine for iron. The opposition of Irontown are the god and spirits of the forest, mighty creatures who are remnants from ancient times. Chief among them is the wolf god Moro, and her three children. One of these children is a human though, adopted by Moro when she was abandoned by her parents. This child is San, who as Moro describes is neither human nor wolf. San fights fiercely for the forest and hates humans. This sentiment changes through the course of the movie as Ashitaka appears, a figure in between these two diametrically opposed forces, and pulls both sides inwards. Ashitaka comes to Irontown in search of the answer to a mysterious curse upon him, but rather cures the curse upon the land.

The Lady Eboshi is strong, confident, and protective of her people. She has more courage than any man in this feudally inspired setting. She is intelligent, cunning, and brought Irontown to prominence. Furthermore, she has a compassion that most didn’t in this world. After Ashitaka heroically returns a pair of Irontown workers who had been hurt on the road back to Irontown in an attack carried out by Moro, Lady Eboshi invites her back into her private garden. Here Ashitaka learns that Lady Eboshi took in and cared for lepers who had been abandoned by the world. Lady Eboshi is one the strongest and most complete female characters in one of Miyazaki’s movies, which do not lack for strong female characters. Casting Lady Eboshi as a villain is too simple. While her goals oppose that of San’s and Ashitaka’s, they are not necessarily evil.

While perhaps Lady Eboshi is not evil, she is dangerous. Her strength and ability mean that her will can be indomitable. This means trouble for the spirits of the forest and San. San is portrayed as very wolf-like to begin with, a ferocious combatant of Irontown and its people. Slowly she becomes more human as she interacts with Ashitaka. The opposition of the two sides is best seen when San attempts to assassinate Lady Eboshi. San raids Irontown, scaling its palisades and running along the rooftops. When her and Lady Eboshi finally clash, the battle is savage and quick. Ashitaka makes his way into the battle, with slow and purposeful movements. He immediately comes between them holds them apart. This shot is the heart of the story. San and Lady Eboshi stand in front of each other, hating the other with complete venom, and Ashitaka stands between them, trying to stop the violence. The magic of Ashitaka’s curse swirls around him, as he shouts to the townspeople, crying for peace. The framing of the image perfectly represent Ashitaka’s position in the story. He is the man in between the two sides who will bring them together.

Ashitaka’s curse visually represents violence through the film. The purple taint spreads across his body, and grows stronger when he fights. When he stands between Lady Eboshi and San, it is at its visual greatest. The original purpose that brought him to Irontown was seeking a cure for the curse. This purpose becomes secondary as he learns of the conflict between the forest and Irontown. Throughout the whole movie, Ashitaka does not take a side. Many times he espouses that his entire goal is to stop the conflict. This is seen in how the movie ends. At first appearance San and Lady Eboshi seem as if the other would need to die in order for there to be an end. It feels destined that one must die, and yet, Ashitaka prevents this from happening. In this way, Ashitaka exists in between. He embodies a role of duality, not fighting for any side, but trying to stop the conflict. In this way Miyazaki creates a story that is not surmised by a purely environmental reading. It offers a more complex look at the conflict between industrial humanity and the environment, that seeks to stop violence between the two rather than justify one side.

The Curse of Dreams

Hayao Miyazaki’s final film The Wind Rises presents a story of dreams. It is in some ways his most grounded story. It is a biographical piece that imagines the life of Jiro Horikoshi with many fictional embellishments. It does not seek to tell his story, but rather tell a story of dreams, their power and their curse. The movie begins with a quote from the French poet Paul Valery that reads: “The wind is rising! We must try to live”.  The movie goes on to explore how dream affect the way we live our lives. In this movie they are very powerful forces that Miyazaki often lets visually seep into the waking world. The movie also asks the question of what it means to try to live, a problem that becomes immediate to Jiro later in his life. In his childhood though, at the beginning of the movie, Jiro is dreaming.

The first sequence of the movie is a dream. A plane, appearing more bird like than mechanical, flies Jiro across a beautiful sky. Suddenly, cruel and animate looking bombs appear as the clouds part. Jiro looks to stop them from hitting below, but sees them with a blurred double vision. This first dream sequence is immediately used to show to the audience, and Jiro, that his poor eyesight will forever stop him from being a pilot. This is important because it shows how Jiro’s dreams are connected to the real world. The dreams are not an escape from his problems, but rather offer insight that might not be obtainable without the dreams. The young Jiro’s dreams are very revealing of his character and also very powerful. In a scene where he and his younger sister, Kayo, sit on the roof, Jiro is unable to see the stars the same way his sister can. Instead though, an amazing dream appears to him. The fantastic colors used to depict the planes as they rush across the sky rival any stars that he might see. His dream here gives him wonder that he might not have had without them. In this dream the figure of Count Caproni appears. He is an Italian aeronautical engineer that appears to Jiro many times throughout the movie, and according to him, shares this dream. Later on, Caproni would call their shared dream, The Kingdom of Dreams, a place that proves immensely important to Jiro. During this first encounter, Caproni says to Jiro: “Airplanes are beautiful dreams. Engineers turn dreams into reality.” This is the driving force of the story, as Jiro embarks on a life that seeks to turn the airplanes of his dreams into a reality.

Jiro doesn’t just see airplanes in his dreams at night, he sees them everywhere. They appear in the sky at random moments. When eating lunch, he picks a fish bone out of his mackerel and wonders how its structure might be applicable to a plane part. Jiro sees, and is open to, inspiration in every aspect of his life. Miyazaki brilliantly works dreamy images of planes into small moments, letting the dreams seep into the real. The character of Honjo, Jiro’s friend, offers a good contrast to this. Honjo is a grounded man, obsessed with how Japanes technology seems to be decades behind other nations. Jiro is equally obsessed though. That appears to be something shared between him and every plane designer. Jiro’s obsession is with making a beautiful plane. This goal drives him, and it is shown several times, when Caproni appears and asks Jiro “Is the wind still rising?”. Jiro always replies affirmatively and moves forward towards his goals.

Dreams aren’t just used to show Jiro’s hope and aspirations though. They are also used to warn and remind him. Jiro and Honjo travel to Germany at the bequest of their employer to study German flight technology. While they are there Jiro has a dream, one that envisions a large Japanese bomber plane burning up and crashing to the ground. This vision offers him a sight into what won’t work, guiding his path once again. Jiro never wanted to build bomber planes to begin with though, so this dream doesn’t impact him as much. However a later dream, that shows the failure of his own plane’s design is much more relevant. It is later implied that this failure actually did happen to one of his designs, meaning that the dream haunts him with problems of the past. In this way the dreams really push him to innovate.

After the failing of his prototype, Jiro was sent to a mountain retreat for some rest before tackling the design again. It is here that he runs into Naoko, a girl he had helped earlier in the movie and his future wife. The character of Naoko presents a grounding element to Jiro’s ambitious and dreamy personality. She is sick with tuberculosis which greatly impacts Jiro’s life. It is a cold hard truth that her lifetime is limited, something that the couple cannot ignore. No amount of dream driven inspiration can solve this. His love for her is real and it keeps him tied to the world outside of his work. Still, his relationship to her can only be described as neglectful. While at first she had decided to try and get better at a facility far removed from Jiro, the two decided that they wanted to be closer to each other while she still lived. But even when she is living in the same house as him, they spent the majority of the day away from each other. Jiro worked all day, and often worked at home as he pushed to design the famous A6M Zero plane. While their commitment to each other can’t be questioned, the reality of Jiro’s work was responsible for a distance between them. Eventually, Naoko decides to leave the house, claiming that she would go away to try and recover once again. This was on the day that Jiro’s prototype was being tested. She stayed just long enough for him to finish his plane. As the test flight is occurring, and Jiro is witnessing the fruition of all of his dreams the wind stops. Everyone else in the scene is celebrating, and the test pilot is screaming by at an astounding speed. Jiro isn’t even looking at the plane. He looks off towards the distance and the camera does a slow pan to follow his gaze. It passes over a wind kite, which shows that the wind has stopped. Jiro does not watch the success of his dreams, instead he stares towards the distance into which Naoko is going.

The fate of Naoko is left unknown. The movie ends in The Kingdom of Dreams. Jiro is talking to Caproni, when Naoko appears and tells him “You must live” and then fades away. The ending feels unsatisfactory. The resolution of the A6M Zero being designed is sour when mixed with Naoko’s leaving and Jiro’s sudden uncaring. In the Kingdom of Dreams, Caproni calls airplanes “cursed dreams”. Perhaps this curse extends to all dreams. They drove Jiro to a wonderful success, the creation of a truly beautiful plane. But, the plane was used for war and death. But, in his mission he lost the time that he could have had with Naoko. Perhaps, this is the message Miyazki wishes to tell after his career. That our dreams and passion can lead us to great things, but it’s important to make sure that those are the things you truly want.

A Purpose for Fantasy

My Neighbor Totoro is one of Hayao Miyazaki’s earlier animated works. The atmosphere and tone of the movie are similar to other works around the time like Kiki’s Delivery Service. Notably though, it is set in a much less fantastic world than his previous major works. It is a cult favorite to followers of the director, and one of his first really big hits. At first glance, the movie holds a feeling of cheerfulness that is reminiscent of early childhood. This matches the ages of the main characters, Satsuki and Mei, who have recently moved to a house in the countryside with their father, Tatsuo. While the music and bright palette of the movie give an adolescent mood to My Neighbor Totoro, mature themes run throughout the story. Through the two young girls exploration of their new house and the surrounding area, Miyazaki examines the relationship between childish imagination and emotional pains.

The story begins with an overflowing truck. This blue truck bumbles its way along the road, burdened with a mountain of things strapped to its bed. Tatsuo Kusakabe is moving to the countryside with his two daughters. We are never explicitly given a reason for this move, but later we may intuit one. The house that they arrive to is run down. The wood is rotting, dust covers every inch, and it is generally in disarray. In these early house scenes, the first supernatural element is introduced. Mei and Satsuki open a door to find a completely black room. The blackness vanished in a flurry of movement. Mei and Satsuki come across this instance of vanishing blackness several times throughout the house. It is explained to them as soot gremlins. Creatures that live in old houses and watch over them. This explanation is offered to them twice, first by their father, and then by their elderly neighbor simply named Granny. Granny claims that “I used to be able to see them when I was your age”, and lets them know that they are friendly creatures. This first instance of supernatural is indicative of each fantastic thing in the movie. It comes from a need of the children. In this instance the girls, especially Mei, are depicted as nervous and frightened about certain aspects of the house. The idea of a haunted house is enough to scare any child. So it is easy to create a friendly little creature to explain darting movements seen out of the corner of an eye. This is not to say that the creatures aren’t real. Throughout the movie there is no conclusive evidence that the fantastic creatures are meant to be understood as purely a part of the children’s imagination or not. That argument doesn’t feel pertinent to the movie either, and this essay won’t look to address it. Rather, this essay will seek to show how the fantasy of the children is used to deal with the needs of their lives.

Beneath the Charm

My Neighbor Totoro is known for being adorable. The fuzzy and lovable creature that Mei will discover is perhaps the most fitting thing ever imagined for a plushy toy. Cuteness seeps from the screen, as Mei and Satsuki’s antics and the upbeat music force smiles out of rocks. Like many of Miyazaki’s films though, there is a very real conflict at the heart of the story. This is no less true in My Neighbor Totoro, and when contrasted with the jubilant feeling of the art, it feels even more somber than usual. When the viewer learns that Mei and Satsuki’s Mom is in the hospital, the story takes a serious turn. The movie doesn’t suddenly become a drama focused on her illness, but her sickness and its impact become more and more obvious as time goes on. There are several clues that show that the situation of the children isn’t as happy as the cult ivated atmosphere would have you believe. First, the nature of the house suddenly becomes suspect. Questions about why they have moved become more pressing. Now, it is possible that they moved to the countryside to be closer to the hospital that their mother is residing in. But, as Granny explains later, it is a four hour walk to the hospital, so it’s not exactly close. Furthermore, the house they move into is extremely dilapidated. These both indicate that their financial situation might be strained by the expenses of a lengthy stay in a hospital. Regardless of whether their finances are stressed, Tatsuo’s time is definitely overloaded. This subtle hints of these burdens are expertly shown in a shot of Tatsuo and Mei. The shot takes place on a morning when Tatsuo overslept. Because he woke up late, he wasn’t able to make lunch for Satsuki who is going off to school. Satsuki has already made lunch for herself and the rest of the family though. Mei, who is too young for school, is left with her father while Satsuki takes off. Miyazaki establishes a shot of Tatsuo’s study in the house. The room is cluttered with an obscene amount of books and paper. Tatsuo leans over a desk, focused on what he is writing. The back wall of the room is open and Mei plays in the grass just outside. The frame of the shot does not change for a long time. While Tatsuo is bent over his desk, the frame holds tight and he never changes places. Meanwhile, Mei dips in and out of the frame, running and playing, shouting to her dad, and displaying the energy of youth. This shot displays the lacking parent figure in the daughter’s life. While Mei looks to explore and run outside of the frame, her father is petrified by his work. These subtle details show the reality of their lives. Many small moments are impacted by their sick mother. These realities are unavoidable, and issues that the children must deal with.

It is exactly these real problems that lead to the fantastic in this movie. Immediately after the previous scene, Mei goes on an adventure around the house that leads her to discovering Totoro. In this way, the fantastic answers the needs that the real imposes onto the children. When her father must work, Mei is entertained by chasing fantastic creatures around the house and in the backyard. Totoro’s second appearance only comes when Mei and Satsuki are missing their father. As they wait in the rain at a bus stop for Tatsuo, who has missed a connection on his commute from work, Totoro appears again. He delights the girls who have grown tired, and in this ways supports them while there father is gone. Totoro’s final appearance comes at the climax of the movie, when Mei has disappeared after running off to try and see her mother at the hospital. Totoro appears again to help Satsuki find Mei. Here, the ambiguity of Totoro’s actually existence is preeminent. While nobody except for Satsuki and Mei have seen it, Totoro has the real world impact of helping Satsuki find Mei. Regardless of how real he is, the pattern of the fantastic arriving to fill the needs of the real, especially in situations where the children have no parents, is definitive. Miyazaki’s work shows how childhood imagination helps us cope with very real and mature problems. It also does not judge this way of dealing with the problems. Mei and Satsuki are not harmed by this imagination; rather they are supported by it. My Neighbor Totoro show how children are sometimes faced with very difficult problems and yet manage to find happiness in their situation, with the help of the fantastic.

A poem written in Jedidiah Smith State Park

Campfire Stories

Campfire stories,
knights brave and bold.
Campfire stories,
with ghosts of old.
Campfire stories,
over a warm yellow glow.
Campfire stories,
make the night wane slow.
In the still forest
soft whispered voices
pierce through the dark
and over crackling bark
to tell of far-away places
and thrilling detective cases.
These campfire stories
play in our mind
stories of worlds
we never could find.
These campfire stories
they twist and they dance,
as the teller crafts tales
everyone’s caught in a trance.
Rare nights are these,
when we go without tire
among the tall trees
sharing stories and the blessings of campfire.

A Poem Written At Smith Rock

On The Precipice

The wind sweeps above the river,
where it is seasoned by the water’s spray.
It sings and sometimes howls
through the chutes and canyons.
Scraping along the ice,
which has formed like crystal webs
between the grass in shadowed vales,
it picks up even more cold
then moves on with a hurry.
The wind is always rushing,
even though it is timeless,
there seems too much sky
to run across. And so it runs,
sometimes fast, sometimes gently,
over eastern plains and sandy deserts,
on daunting mountains and misty coasts,
through cities and forests,
between glass towers and trees alike,
running to these rocks we sit upon,
weathered shapes risen and formed just so,
that have taken years we can’t count to,
in order to stand so high.
From on these tall rocks
we can see the valley and the fields,
the river, its host of mallards, and the banks we walked along.
Stone columns and far ridges draw the skyline,
and the sun colors it with inks of orange, pink, and blue.

The wind gusts up the cliffside over the precipice
and into our moment,
washing away weariness.
I can feel the very sky we watch in the distance,
swirling around us, carried in the wind.
It’s a young wind,
I know by how it feels on my skin,
cracking lips with its rough touch;
but also by the way it dances, uninhibited,
in all the spaces in between.
It gives generously, and begs to be breathed deeply.
It’s a cold wind.
It’s a good wind.

2036: A Fire

Smoke was the first sign, as it seeped through a small crack between the first carpeted step and the door. It was thick smoke, black as night and terrible to breathe. The room it broke into was the kitchen, whose skylight and hanging incandescents made it wont to being light and cheerful. Beaming through the skylight, the sun cut a thick shaft of light down into the kitchen and rebounded off of the smooth marble countertops to brighten the cold fridge, black oven, marbled counters, and cedar cupboards. When the smoke entered the room through its narrow slit, the it stood up tall, rising to fill the room with its dark body. In the middle of the kitchen, leaning over the wooden island, were Sarah and Andrew; who having found an unusual moment in which their children were quiet and gone smiled brightly. Drawing closer their lips came together, unaware of the growing smoke which threatened their kitchen and their moment.

Sarah noticed it first. She was facing the basement door so that in between kisses she noticed hints, which became clouds of smoke behind her husband. It took several moments to register as smoke inside of her brain. At first she just stared, straight through Andrew’s closed eyes, pursed lips, and unshaven cheeks, as a strange substance-still not recognizable as smoke to her- floated towards the ceiling. By the time she realized it for what it was and her mind answered the inevitable question of its source, it completely haloed Andrews head; whose now quizzical expression looked stupid when backlit with smoke. She suspected that he was just getting ready to ask what was wrong when she shouted.

“Shit!”

“What?”

“Shit! Shit! Shit!”

“What? Oh! Shit! Shit! Shit!”

Together they rushed to the doorway. Andrew grabbed the knob and recoiled immediately. Shouting obscenities and clutching his hand, he rushed to the sink and ran cold water over the burn. Sarah ran from the kitchen, returning seconds later with a single boot around her right foot. It was a robust hiking boot, grabbed from the mudroom which attached to the entry hall adjacent to the kitchen. The boot was unlaced and made it difficult to walk, but she knew it was solid and heavy and thought it would be stronger than her shoulder or bare foot.

“Go check for the kids upstairs!” She shouted while furiously charging towards the smoking door. In the last possible instant, she raised her booted foot up and ungracefully kicked out at the door. The action was closer to aggressively falling over with a foot extended than a kick. Prostrate on the linoleum floor she shouted to her husband again, “go look for the kids, I’ve got this!”

Andrew leaped over Sarah, and sprinted into the adjacent entry hall. He turned to the left, and bounding up the wide staircase Andrew began to call out: “Paul! Katie! Where are you? Paul! Katie!” Flying from room to room, opening each door and poking his head in for an instant before moving to the next. The final door of the hallway was Katie’s, and he hoped with his entire being that she was behind it. Andrew entered Katie’s room with a flurry, barely opening the door before crashing through. Katie was sitting at her desk, focused intensely on her computer and isolated from the world by a large pair of headphones that engulfed her ears and leaked out chords and lyrics. Andrew rushed to her side and ripped the headphones off of her head with an urgency only producible by immense relief.

“What the fuck!” Katie shrieked, turning towards him with eyes full of torturous thoughts. She would have protested more, but he had already wrapped her tightly in his arms. He squeezed the breath out of her as he hugged her to his chest, then let her go and looked at her with teary eyes. Confused, Katie asked, “what’s going on?”

“There’s a fire. Do you know where your brother is?”

“Last I saw him he was in the basement watching a movie. Where’s the fire?”

“In the basement.”

Together they rushed out of the room and down the hall, skipping half a dozen stairs at a time as they descended into the entryway adjacent to the kitchen, before plunging into the hazy kitchen. Smoke had risen to the ceiling, filling the well of the skylight and bubbling out from there. The kitchen was a cloudy world, and it took several seconds for them to spot Sarah at the far end of the room rummaging through drawers.  She produced an oven mitt from the drawer, then spun around and ran to the basement door.

“Katie says Paul is down there,” Andrew told his wife.

“I’ll get him, you get Katie outside safely.”

Before Andrew could protest, or stop her, Sarah grabbed the doorknob and twisted. He stepped forward to grab his wife and tell her that he couldn’t let her do this, that she was the meaning in his life and he couldn’t lose her, that he wanted to go instead of her because then he could be happy knowing she was safe, and all of the other things that she could say to him; but as he stepped forward he was slapped in the face by a thick cloud of smoke. It dove into his mouth and nose violently, digging its way into his lungs. Millions of daggers hit his eyes as the smoke made contact with every molecule of exposed eyeball. Andrew could do nothing but stumble away, coughing for his life. The smarter Sarah had stepped back for the initial blast of smoke, then covering her mouth and nose and squinting her eyes in a desperate attempt to lessen the pain, she disappeared into the dark basement, her single boot thumping loudly as she went.

Katie guided her father as he coughed terribly. Leading him through the entry hall adjacent to the kitchen and out onto the front lawn. Their automatic sprinklers kept their grass a vibrant green all year round, and Katie watched her father fall onto the grass and quake with every hideous cough. But he was outside, he would be okay, and so her mind turned to her brother and mother, about which she could promise herself nothing. She rushed to the shallow well against the bottom of the house, where the only window that looked into the basement was located. Katie tried to look through it, but the glass had grown a film of smoke that glowed an awful orange, as the origins of the smoke danced behind it. The orange made her sick as it sheened the window, taunting her cruelly. No matter how hard she tried Katie could not peer into the darkness, could not see her brother or her mother, could not know their fates.

After one final and tremendously powerful fit of coughs Andrew had control again. He was outside of the house, in the middle of their wonderfully green lawn, and his head hurt. Dizziness swirled around his skull as he tried to walk towards Katie, who was crouching in front of the basement’s window. His body wanted to grab hold of Katie and fall backwards into the grass. His arms wanted to cling to her, his chin wanted to feel her soft hair against its own rough growth, and his eyes wanted to cry. But something besides his eyes saw the door, and something besides his brain told him what to do. It was the beat of his heart that drove him toward the door, ringing loudly in his ears with an imperative cadence. Step. Pause. Step. Pause. Step. Each labored step was full of dizziness and confliction. He did not need to look into the window to know the darkness that awaited. Still he stumbled on. Step. Pause. Step. Pause. Step. The front door was very close now. His head was growing clearer, and in it he could see a vision of Paul’s body, the frail frame of a six year old, crumpled in Sarah’s arms, both burnt to ashen figures of who they used to be. Behind them a man was approaching. It was himself that approached in his vision, his body similarly ruined by the fire, getting closer to Sarah and Paul with every step towards the door. Step. Pause. Step. Pause. Pause. Sarah was there in the doorway holding Paul in her arms. Pause. Not an ashen figure, but the real Sarah, her skin beaten by the fire, but not burnt. Pause. She emerged from the door and collided with him, and the three of them slammed against the lawn, and Andrew’s heart stopped its pause and beat again.

Katie helped them to their feet. Paul was coughing weakly, but coughing nonetheless. They surrounded him in an embrace, holding each other and watching Paul. Sarah gave Paul to Andrew’s arms so that she could hold Katie and kiss her on the forehead. Smiling they shared grateful gazes, then turned back to Paul who was stirring. His eyes opened up, two wonderful orbs of brown. In a low and meek voice he spoke.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Andrew said, “everyone is okay. We all got out of the house.”

“But the fire-”

“It’s okay,” Andrew repeated.

“Speaking of the fire and the house, don’t you think we should call the fire department?” Katie said.

“Yea, who has their phone on them?” Andrew asked.

Katie and Sarah pulled out their phones and set to work. Andrew set down Paul and pulled out his own phone. Half a minute went by in silence. Sarah was the first to speak.

“How about these guys? Tom’s Firestoppers? Has anyone heard of them? The reviews say they’re alright. Oh, never mind, they only do commercial building fires.”

“Oh,” Katie said excitedly, “I’ve got one, but eh, they require a non-refundable deposit just for an evaluation.”

“How much?” Sarah asked.

“Fifteen hundred. Then per minute rates plus expenses. The reviews are good though.”

“I don’t think we need something really high quality,” Andrew said.

“Didn’t your cousin just have a fire last October?” Sarah asked Andrew, who was pensively scrolling down his phone.

“Yea, and I’m looking into the one she used. But apparently you need to have a house inspection for pre-existing conditions that would exacerbate the fire, or might endanger the firefighters, so unless you’re already in their databases as meeting the criteria they won’t come.”

Andrew bit his lip angrily. Smoke was streaming from the front door. In the bay windows of the living room, fire was ravaging their furniture.

“What’s that one ad on TV all the time?” Katie said, then after a pause continued almost singing. “If you’ve got a fire problem, then we’re just the ones you need, call five three nine six eight something. Five three nine six eight what?”

“Five three nine six eight eight, two seven, three one!” Sarah sang while she typed the number in. In seconds she was talking on the phone. “Hello. Yes, we have a fire. Mmmhmmm. Yea that will be fine. I agree. Okay the address is twelve forty one Davis Street. My card number is six one nine, hold on a second. Honey,” she said turning to Andrew, “which account should we use?”

“Fuck! My bank files!” Andrew shouted and rushed for the door.

“Shit! Shit! Shit!” Sarah screamed while chasing after him.

The clerk of Trusty Firefighters, waited for three seconds before hitting a button on his desk to activate the firehouse’s comm speakers. “Scrap that, payment didn’t go through, but don’t start playing with yourselves yet, I’ve got someone on another line.” He hit the green button for the next line, closing all ties to Sarah, Andrew, Katie, Paul, and the house on twelve forty one Davis Street. Then he regurgitated to the latest potential customer. “Thank you for calling Trusty Firefighters, we appreciate your business and hope to serve you better than our competitors. A fire, okay, then you need to know that by hiring us our company is not burdened with any responsibility for damage to property or person incurred by the fire or as a result of our firefighting actions. If you understand this and agree then say: I agree. Okay we charge a flat rate of two thousand dollars per fire, I’ll need your card number and then our satisfaction-guaranteed firefighters will respond within minutes.”

 

A Poem From Ireland

I wrote this poem in Ireland. There were so many beautiful lakes and hills that I felt I needed to write at least one poem.

Between The Oaks

In the summer
the island was our home.
Stark against the wind-tossed
waters of the lake,
great oaks, rose into a thick copse.
The water was never warm
but the August Sun
was just enough, for us to swim.

In those kinder months
we’d make our way to the oaks
nearly every day,
sun against our skin,
and warmth in our chests
as we raced each other, and the failing
of our youth.
And on that island, sanctuaried
by the gnarled oak trunks,
and the green that sprouted
through their roots,
we would play and love and smile.
Within our wooden castle
we escaped, coming in times of need
and boredom alike,
always with each other.

Once time grasped us,
the we that fled into the oaks became I,
and the grasp grew even stronger.
I delayed until inevitable,
and then, in winter, I returned.
Rowing through the frigid water,
I did not face the island.
I watched the lakeshore,
where the waters lapped
in rythym with my breath.
As I breathed and saw the air of my lungs
mist upon the cold,
I remembered our warm, labored chests,
as we swam through the lake,
and lie at dusk, our bodies spent.
But now I arrive on the island
unexhausted and forlorn.
There, before the thick bark of the oaks,
I stopped.
I could not enter.
Even though the world between the oaks
was a part of me and I a part of it,
no, it was ours, and therefore never mine.
Alone, I could not breach the threshold
of the oaks, and so I left,
the island and memories of summer.

In The Night My Mind Runs Free

Staring up at storied skies,
endless stars to look through.
A thousand nights could be spent,
watching and guessing tales for every light,
the faint and strong alike.
And in my mind I’m weaving
figures across the blue black sky,
finding patterns in empty spaces
which aren’t empty,
but just too distant
to tell their message yet.
A whisper cracks the silent air
to point out a falling star,
and I wonder:
What days might be?
in the homes of these distant lights.
Do far off peoples swim and laugh
underneath these foreign stars?
Did they climb and strain,
and run and scrape, just like us?
Did they curse the clouds
and crash through waterfalls
then bathe in dirt and sand,
just like us?
Ours is named sun.
I wonder if those points of light
stare back this night
while crafting stories,
light years away.
I think of our story and smile.

Finishing My Speech

It was a full day. The regional championships were draining of body and mind. After finishing fifth and realizing that our season was over, there was only one thing left to do before we clambered into vans and sat, cramped and sore, for the several hours required to make it home. We took our cleats off, letting swollen and blistered toes swim in the cool grass, and sat in a circle preparing to digest the season and look forward to the next one. I told my teammates that I wanted to speak last, because I had been spinning and playing with my speech for a week and I knew it would take me a while to say what I intended to. We went around the circle, speaking on that weekend and all of the other weekends and nights we had sacrificed together. We talked about winning and losing, joys and disappointments, pride and desire. We talked about practice, we talked about games. Then it came to me. It was a speech I had been considering for a while now, and the time was upon me faster than I had wanted.

During the drive from Corvallis to Walla Walla I contemplated what I would say. I knew that this season decompression was coming and I wanted to be prepared, but I wasn’t ready. Regardless I had to try. So I spoke of my friend Topher, a teammate who had died a year before. Toph was a left-handed ruckus on the field, and an incredibly kind and friendly person in life. I never partied, but Topher was the soul of any party he walked into. And even though we differed in many ways, he was always accepting and nice. He was quick to smile and quicker to make you smile. No matter what, he just wanted to laugh and make the people around him happy. He was a warm soul, that radiated to all those around him. I told my team my story of Topher: how I heard of an enigmatic dynamo abroad in France, whose return would bolster our team with deft throws and shocking athleticism. I was shocked when I saw the short and stout figure of this legend. I was shocked when I saw him play and he exceeded expectations. When he died, I realized that to me how good of a player he was, wasn’t important. It was his character that I cared about. He was smart, kind, funny, and wonderful in so many ways. Mostly he was unique, and he was my friend. And that is why I play ultimate. When scores and calls and rules and plays fade away, the reason that I play ultimate is the people that I meet. I play for the opportunity to find and grow with new friends.

I told this to my teammates. My teammates who I had been with for hundreds of hours, in rain and mud and wind and heat, late nights of homework after practice, painfully early Sunday mornings, and everything else we shared. For me what was important was each other and the bonds that we made. That was what I told them on those grassy fields. That was the story I spoke, but it was incomplete. It was only half of the story that I wanted to tell. I had put forward what was important to me, but the why, that I had kept to myself. I didn’t told them why. Maybe I had failed do this because I tend to bumble and ramble though speeches. Because I need time and paper and ink to find my words. That might be why I held back; because I wasn’t prepared enough, I hadn’t picked through the alphabet soup of my brain for long enough to make the right words. The hours in the van silently tumbling the speech through my head hadn’t been long enough. Or maybe I wasn’t ready to tell anyone yet. Maybe I needed to stew emotionally. Regardless, I only gave them half of the story.

The second half of that story begins in fall of that year. The Freshmen were fresh, practice numbers were huge, our bodies hummed with anticipation for a new season, and my Mom had cancer.

It sucks finding lung cancer in the leg, it sucks finding lung cancer at all, it sucks that my Mom wasn’t even a smoker, and it sucks that terminal became necessary vocabulary for our reality. The hope five years was better than nothing, but no amount of time could be enough. The cold and uncaring fact of cancer hit me, but it didn’t pierce me immediately. I remember sadness, but I also remember wondering why I wasn’t devastated. It’s because the news wasn’t real yet. It was just a sadness, not yet something I had to tell and trust to someone else yet. As long as I didn’t tell anyone it wasn’t real enough to truly hurt me. But that couldn’t last long. Eventually I told my girlfriend and I cried. I trembled and sobbed as the pain became immediate and impossible to avoid. It was a good thing though, because when I verbalized the truth I let myself feel, and while I felt fear and doubt, I also felt warmth and happiness in my girlfriend’s arms. She held me as I cried and I knew that pain and sorrow could be conquered. She was the release for me. Even though my closest friends had told me that I could talk to them about anything, I didn’t. I couldn’t talk to anyone else about cancer because it was too hard. Even though I knew that other people were there for me, being vulnerable and sad is difficult; except with her it was easy. It was easy to trust, it was easy to be vulnerable, it was easy to cry with her. And that’s what I did. For months, I took the easy choice and cried with her. It was so good to have someone to unburden my sorrow with.

But there is no cosmic sense of fair. Things just happen, and they don’t wait for the right timing or your readiness. When we started to break up, I wanted to think it wasn’t fair. Retrospectively I know it wasn’t fair of me to put that pressure on her. Even though at the time I was arguing with myself about what was fair, my arguments never stopped the world from spinning, and in Spring I was alone, with no one to give my trust and pain. I had my friends still, and they meant to help; but I couldn’t bring myself to be my weakest in front of them. I was in a hell, crying every night by myself and struggling to keep composed through even an hour long class. I needed a way out of this hell, and in the saddest months of my life, practice was a holy respite.

Almost none of my teammates knew about my problems. They weren’t my Virgil, and I didn’t need them to be. I had to lead myself out of the hell I was in, but while I was struggling to cope with my emotions I needed relief. Practice was two hours of heaven three nights a week. It was a place where I could go and release all of my negative feelings into exercise. It was a place where my friends laughed and smiled. It was a place that reminded me of all the good things that I love about life. It was a place where cancer and break ups didn’t exist. My teammates never knew it, but they gave me respite from the evils of life. My teammates pulled me up from hell every practice, showing me what in life is worth loving: friendship, laughter, comradery, kindness, respect, joy, caring. It wasn’t a perfect place, there was still frustration, anger, sadness, and everything else that can hurt us; but it was a human place. A place that I needed to have, and what was most important was that this was a place I could depend on. I was a part of the team, and the team existed for every individual that made it. I didn’t need to ask them to be there for me, or explain how I needed them; when I was low my team raised me up without even trying.

With counseling, my Mother’s inspiring strength, and the heaven that my teammates gave me, I was able to work through a most painful part of life. That spring I learned why I played ultimate. I played for the people that I met, and the bonds that I formed. That was what I told my teammates at the regional championships. Telling them about Topher and how he was important to my life was easy, and that the reason that I played were people like him and my teammates; telling them all of that was easy. Telling them, that each and every one of them had saved me from a hell, telling the why of it all, the fact that I had so recently been (and still partly was) in such a dark place, that was too difficult. I owe them an apology for taking so long to explain my appreciation. I shouldn’t have kept the second half of this story to myself. But I need time and paper and ink to speak. So here it is. This is an apology and my appreciation. My teammates were and will always be saviors for me.