The Car Handler

She smelled like cigarettes, vodka and wet shoes. Her hair was all mussed and she carried her puppy fat in a way that took me back to Athens, and Jenny. She was so dramatic in her explanations of how she made money, her lexicon was like a cloak that she used to keep us out, a line drawn in the sand deeply and with a drunk's urgency. I drink to forget, her eighteen year-old flesh and bones said to me. And I couldn't help but thinking of The Little Prince, and how fallible it is to worship a rose. How all of this is ephemeral.

I knelt down there, in the tiny and dark and disgusting foyer, and whispered to her that it wasn't her fault. That she had done nothing wrong, that it was not her fault. She sobbed and passed out and woke up to cry again. Doubled over with the realization; the mud and the muck that some paths carry a person through. As always I watched myself from above and behind and recited the lines as if it had all been scripted, as if my being there was carrying out some kind of pre-determined turn in the plot. I thought of Athens again, and Emily, and the story she told of the hotel room and the idiot girl, and how things had turned out so differently for her. I wondered about the blood that courses through veins, that carries oxygen to brain, and how it can inflame such different fires and passions in people. Some of us are born to be warriors, and some are born to be victims. I waved the thought away like all the deer-flies when I run. How could I have become so cold and detached, and in so short a time?

There is a way to analyze your actions, that leads you to the next logical conclusion, and the next, and the next, until you finish the choose-your-own-adventure book that is this life. There is a part of us that knows what is going to happen. Some of us choose to drink to forget. Some of us choose to run headlong into the mountain, never doubting that we will reach the other side. The difference in thought process (which page will you jump to?) is where the truth of a person lies. Where the soul dwells, to be melodramatic.

Driving back to the station in the bible-black pre-dawn. Running through my mental checklist of things yet to accomplish to be able to go home. The unlit street was darker than a tomb in the mist of a light rain. My partner nodded off and on in dream land and my thoughts strayed to the concept of comfort, of family. I thought of the coffee pot in the other department's kitchen. I thought of the sunset over the lake, and of parking car to car in cul-de-sacs at 3am. And how important those little things are to me.

And when all the paperwork was done, and then sun had come back again, and I wound my way back through fields and farm and town, I drew my own line in the sand. Fragile, and shallow, and unsure of itself, but drawn none-the-less.

Blessed Father guide me.

Children of life are we

I remember a cold December night, maybe six years ago, maybe seven. She was tiny then, clad in puffy pink down, and the half-strung Christmas lights were strewn about the front yard. Tangled and chaotic, I recall thinking, as if they could somehow mirror the emotions within the adult of the vignette. Children playing at grown ups, guiding children. The webs we allow ourselves to be tangled in are complicated, and never-ending. Sometimes.

There was some kind of confusion over the keys. Time has washed away the specifics of it from the story in my mind. I remember volunteering to attempt to locate whatever was lost, but was superseded by this adult-child, and her need to be an important member of the cast. I remember watching her walk to the truck in her puffy pink youthfulness, the way she strode her big-kid stride to the driver's door and looked for something, some trinket, that was never there in the first place. I remember the feeling of all the let-down in the world crushing down on me that winter night, as I watched it all unfold, as if on my heart there was a harness, and the driver pulled the reigns tightly and all at once. As if somehow I could see the path ahead growing wild with weeds and falling off into the ocean, no caretaker to keep it up. How much heartache you will know, and even by the hands of the people you should trust, and feel comforted by.

It comes back to me like this, in waves, in inopportune moments when I'm looking into her green eyes, so deep that you can see yourself reflected down in the bottom, you can see the whole world looking back, as synapses fire and thoughts are bridged. It comes back to me, these tiny tragedies, and I am awestruck by how someone who has seen so much heartache, and so young, can be so loving and so brilliantly intuitive.

I sat there during the ridiculous ceremony, and we played rock, paper, scissors, and I put my arm above her on the back of the pew, and I knew. In my arms, it was the reflection of God I was cradling. And would that the reflection was as resolute in me. Someday.

Like a sunflower in a parking lot.

Every so often, at odd and random intervals, the body takes a greedy panic-stricken gulp of oxygen, the heart races and the mind surges forward at warp speed, as if it has become some type of demonic "choose-your-own-adventure" novel where all the possibilities of every turn of the page have to be decided upon all in the same instant. My blood pumps with adrenaline and I feel powerless before the feeling of being cast out into the rough and open sea.

Last night I was sitting in my new patrol room, analyzing the new cast of characters and I felt the blood vessels constrict and pupils dilate just prior to the onset of the panic. I had a memory in my mind, playing as clear and colorful as a movie, of me in the old basement locker room, fastening my duty rig, with the normal jokers leaning against the door frame, and my sergeant walking down the hall to prepare for shift, and my best friends grabbing their go bags from the rack just outside. And I wanted to rip my heart from my chest when it dawned on me that I won't be going back to that.

I had a dream this morning, after so much of this rumination. I had been locked in the back of a patrol car, and was being whisked away on a violent getaway pursuit, the car driven by a horrible mix of one of the guys from C shift, and one of the new K9 officers I'd just met. A creature from purgatory, or another such outlying and terrible province, I am sure. I pressed the panic button on my new radio, but there was no cavalry. Then I noticed a black and white cruiser ahead, with the familiar almost too-small badge sticker on the driver's door. The familiar face of the scrub behind the wheel, and I turned in my seat and frantically waved at him to follow. And he saw my pleading, and he obeyed. And he put the call out and the wild dogs came from near and far and descended upon us like St. Michael and his legions. The car overturned, the window broke, and I was able to crawl out and help them "detain" the driver. And when I woke up in my dark, stuffy room, sunlight trying its best to penetrate the blackout shades, I had the emptiest of feelings in the middle of me.

I lay there and I thought about all of the guys, and the way we did business, and what it meant to we lucky few. And how lucky I am to have been able to experience that, even if it was short-lived. It's like the anxiety of the past five months has given way to a quiet but constant grief, with this new-found permanence. And all I can do is go in, learn as much as I can, and try to have the faith that all of this history goes beyond my understanding. And to be thankful.

Because who knows.

Rise

I followed him down the dark hallway, and like a wall the scent hit me and memories of tan lockers, black leather chairs, coffee, cigarette smoke and the sound of mischievous laughter came flooding into my brain. I was a kid again, following my dad around his station, with his navy-blue clad colleagues towering over me, asking me questions which I could never quite answer quickly enough. In awe the whole time, letting each sense absorb as much of the place as it could. As if somehow the experience of the building would help me to understand the kind of man my father was.

I remember being in junior high and sneaking into his closet after school and trying on his uniform shirt. The white short sleeve pressed polyester lying loose and roughly against my tomboyish frame. Looking in the mirror it occurred to me that no matter what your age, the uniform brought an unmistakable authority and appearance of maturity. The gold of the lieutenant's bars made my heart stir in a way that I couldn't have possibly understood then. Regarding myself in my father's uniform, I felt so proud of him. And was convinced that I would never be strong enough to follow in his footsteps, that no payoff was worth the kind of sacrifice that job required.

But we grow up and life changes us. For better or worse we find ourselves in the present moment and we carry on. I am reminded of that afternoon whenever I get suited up for my own shift, in my own uniform, when I see the last name etched in silver just above the front right pocket. Each letter is like a dedication that I make to everyone who went before me, that I will never let them or their name be sullied.

My mind let go of the memory and I found myself sitting in the dark confines of my new supervisor's office. OSU paraphernalia all over the walls and the Christian radio station coming out of the 1960s console from the back of the room. I closed my eyes as he spoke into the phone and was amazed at the level of anxiety I have accepted as normal these past five months. My heart raced, my palms were clammy and the insecurities waged a war of constant derogation against my right to be there, and my ability.

Deep breath in, deep breath out, I said a prayer of Mitakuye Oyasin and instinctively knew that I would never be alone. A few minutes later out in the hallway were each and every member of my army, near and far, departed and not, and I thought, my God, what have I done to deserve all of this blessing?

Onward. Upward. There is much to be done.

Seagulls

The waves broke over each other in three and five foot swells, in a chaotic and surging race to the shore. The tops were all capped in white and the under current turned the lake water thick and brown and dangerous. Poseidon's diminutive brother, whatever his name, (who lost out on the grand inheritance and instead was given charge of the lakes) was out in full force. And with calculated hubris we, the living, ignored him completely. The slight not going unnoticed, only fueled each break and recession of the faux-tide.

In my mind I traveled back several years to a stormy afternoon and the ocean tide, the waves churning fast and brown and thick. Standing there on the walkway with Emily, the sea having swelled to the boundary that normally marked where the man-made structures like hotel and restaurant and pool where left untouched by the tide. But not during storms. We stood there as if waiting to be tested. I will follow you in, she said. And I will follow you. And more than any other thing in this life, those words have always brought me strength.

We got the call as we were heading back in to station, the completion of a countless number of figure eights around the confines of our jurisdiction. Mutual aid the metparks, two swimmers in distress and being carried out, the third not able to be seen from shore. My fingers instinctively found their home on the new siren buttons, lights activated, cursing each car as it jerked and stuttered into an awkward stop on our approach. And passing. Halfway to the beach it dawned on me that all we could possibly be tasked with in such a situation was to bear witness. And how angry the realization of that made me.

The top of the stairs was a swarm of humanity, staring from us, to the lake, and back to us, waiting for me to pull a miracle off of my duty belt as I ran down the steps and onto the sand. They were out about thirty feet from the end of an algae-slick sandstone pier, about 200 feet from shore. Bobbing with each crashing wave, they were three sometimes, and then they were two. Out on the pier, with the onlookers' gaze pressing into the back of my skull, into my very soul, I prayed to St. Michael to intercede. I prayed for something, anything.

And then God walked up, with his dude-speak, and his toned body, and cool as a cucumber he tore off his shirt and walked down a slick rock and into the water. He fought through the rip tide the way one might imagine an unpopular prophet would walk through the unfriendly throngs. He reached her, the one who went under and less and less frequently came back up, he wrapped his arms around her and he dragged her back to the slippery rocks. And her friend saw and she followed, mustering whatever reserves of strength she had sequestered away for the final moments when she was to make her peace there, at the bottom of the lake. We dragged them back onto the sandstone, and carried his charge back out to the sand. She was shaking, and couldn't speak, and her lips were blue, and I fought against the demon within who wanted to yell all kind of obscenities at her idiot bones for going in, in the first place.

Then again it was the crush of the bystanders, and the uniformed people around all yelling, and the sun beating down, and the wind whipping, and the same people shouting the same things, over and over again, into the radio. All are out of the water, everyone is okay. And it struck me that when I first reached the beach I expected that she wouldn't make it, that we wouldn't get to her in time, and that I was okay with that. As if I had signed a truce some time in the past and in the fine print I gave over my ability to be incredulous, or even doubtful as to the motivations behind even the smallest act.

Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.

I watched my colleagues as they passed through anger and disbelief and helplessness and rage and almost felt impotent as I stood there, with the sun beating down, and felt nothing, really, for the girl who had almost been carried out and for her friends who were shaking violently from the fear of having almost lost her. And I wondered if I am broken. It played out as if it were a movie, with my part skillfully scripted, and what could I do but say the lines as they were printed? And I wonder still, if perhaps I am broken.

In all ways. I have offered up my heart, what is left to grieve?

Whispering, you still hear.

Noticing my passing reflection in the window glass, it strikes me how much I look like my Bohemian grandfather. The long face and nose, high cheekbones and glacial eyes squinting against the sun, taking in the outside world and all its beauty. It occurs to me that body and soul are like a jigsaw puzzle of my ancestry; mother's hands, father's determination, grandfather's laugh, and the pride that so many generations have left me by giving me their name.

The good news came in like a tidal wave and for nearly a whole day I rode the tide above my terrestrial confines. I couldn't have realized how much of a relief it would be to just know concretely. No more of the "she's just part-time" to contextualize my reason for being. No more needing to qualify my purpose. I have a home now, and soon, a new oath, and I have never been as grateful for anything in my life. How important and meaningful things become when they're taken away -- you spend all of your energy working to get back to where you left off, and when you make the circuitous loop you can finally take a step back and see just how much strength you found along the way. Who carried you and to whom you offered your prayers. These things we only learn about ourselves during the trials.

Blessed Father, thank You for the many blessings that You have bestowed upon me. Thank You for giving me another chance, and for believing in me especially during the dark moments when I couldn't find the strength to believe in myself. May I ever be worthy of serving You, may I strive everyday to carry out Your mission here, as You do in Your realm. In all ways.... I am so incredibly thankful.

Lazy Sunday.

A shell with calcified outer layers turned into the wind, feet dug strongly into the sand, waiting out the storm. It's what remains inside that counts, you tell yourself. I am sometimes ashamed of my incredulity of being led around by leash and collar. As if I am being denied some birthright, as if there was some mix-up and at the front door they told me to go around to the service entrance. My body shakes and my will tries to force it out. Keep your head down and remember that being humble is being close to God. There is absolutely nothing in this world that you are entitled to, not even your own skin and bones.

Remember the promises that you want to keep to yourself. Remember where you would like to be in a month, in two months, and get there. There is no way that anyone or thing can stop you, once you've made up your mind. Decide, and the body follows.