(expedition)

X.

         We are on an expedition. Maybe Mom, maybe Dad, maybe a guide. Snowy pass high up in the mountains, starry starry sky I can't look away. Can't look at the aurora, don't look at what the others see: must look at the stars. Find Orion, it doesn't matter I don't. There is a guide who sits in a white plastic chair, always sits there, out in the snow off the path, facing the path. John Muir, perhaps. I don't remember what he says; my two Anybodies are listening for me. The two who are my companions, the two of the group that survive with me. If they are Anybodies, I'm an Anybody too; I'm me, I'm a girl I'm a boy I'm neither. I'm a character in a movie, I'm a child. I'm a Lost Boy, The Lost Boy, but I'll never know it. I'm living androgyny, I'm living a roleless role, I'm free and I'm dreaming and I'm living.

         Our group has made it across the dark snowy pass and back before, at the start of the dream. We are going Back, Enya is singing and off the path towards the guide's fixed chair there's a leafless twiggy tree, growing out of the snow, not quite tall as myself, young and colorless because it's dark. It's sleeping 'cause it's winter, it's night time. Enya is sounding, water shows the hidden truth, and under the tree is a dark violet iris, violet amaryllis, violet violet, so deep and dark that it's the color of the sky, the deep space of the backdrop to the stars. I'm looking at the flower; it's not growing out of the snow, not growing but eternal just the way it is, there like a spirit not touching the ground, a stem with no roots. I'm looking at it as though I were sitting in the chair off the path, a few feet from the tree; as though I'd gotten up out of the chair and squatted down by the violet, in the snow, with the snowy pass and the Anybodies still on the path. The Anybodies still waiting, watching the aurora, in the background of my vision of the violet. I don't know if we're going Back to where we came from or Forward, to an equally unknown. I don't know which way we are going, where we are going.

         We dabbled in the land of the Rock and the Bank and the Waterfall before, not enough to remember at the start of the dream. So our group returns, we're on the mountain pass again, still. Now it is dark and snowy and Muir's chair is empty; it is quieter and harsher and darker than the last time. There is no violet. My eyes are spinning the sky, crossing and uncrossing and blurring and whirling fast, searching. All the stars that I find are Anystars, not Orion for sure. So many stars, not Orion for sure. We lose members of our group somehow, somehow it's just me and the two Anybodies, we make it down the steep, steep mountain, the steep slope next to the jagged cliff like a castle to the bank below. There are rocks that look like huge castle bricks embedded in the cliff; it almost looks like a castle tower. We make it to the bank, the Wild bank of the wide wild river, the river that has just two banks to beach on, each on one side of the Giant gray rock, which juts into the river like a thorn in its side. Like the thickest, heaviest splinter; splinter of gravity splinters the flow, splints the wide wild river. The bank, Wild bank, at the foot of the mountain is on the downstream side of the Giant gray rock. It's Wild beacause it's hard to get to, it's dangerous to get to from the dangerous river, but the bank itself is calm in the shade of the Giant gray rock. It's surprisingly still, it's the pocket of pool at the toes of the mountain. The water there isn't salty like tears because the freshwater snow drips down the mountain's legs and into the pool in the steadiest, slightest stream. The Giant gray rock is granite, it’s bluish gray with flecks of salt and pepper; it's eroding where the river bites and slaps and weeps at it, just above the water level almost to the middle of the river. The wide wild river might be salty 'cause it waterfalls to the sea.

         We make it to the bank on the Upstream side of the Giant gray rock; we have to live there for years, for forgetful time; we guess three or four or maybe five years. We live there for years because it's too dangerous to try and hike up to the mountain pass where we lost so many people. We have rusty-spotted aluminum three-seater canoes, two or three; we only use two. We have orangish-red helmets with strips of navy blue and neon orange life jackets with black buckles and yellow straps like highlighter fluid. Because the water is dangerous; just a ways down past the Wild bank is a waterfall too huge too unknown no return. The plastic weave of the lifejacket cloth and the chinstraps on the helmets is perpetually wet, feels like a leash after a dog walk in the rain, a harness after a frolic in the downpour. Maybe we started out stranded with a few more people but we lost them and their canoes to the Waterfall, or to the dangers of the wild, the power of the wild, the forces we trust. Maybe we didn't lose them, maybe they left us. The forest is dense and lush and wild with tall coniferous trees. The water is wide and deep and Cyrano clear: the greenish cerulean clear of the fountain at Mirpe Square, the clearish color of things we touch and we leave, the salty cyan of friends we know and we touch and we friend for a short time and leave. It's gushing and constant and a body of the force, the body of the force. There are sand colored stones that form the bed of the river, they're smooth and round and born with gray rings.

         We always wear our life vests and helmets when we canoe because we don't want to lose each other. But now something is calling me to the Wild bank: I'm meeting Mollie there, I know she'll be there so I get in the canoe with just a clean, raggedy white towel, the kind we used to dry the dogs with after we gave them a bath. I paddle left, paddle right around the Giant gray rock to the wild bank, I'm in the canoe without my life vest. I'm a boy without a shirt. I'm a child without shoes. The raggedy white towel is draped over one of my knees, partly in my lap. Riverbrown riverwater is sloshing around the rust-spotted bottom, floor to my feet. The Anybodies hop in the other canoe. Now just one Anybody, a handsome actor-like Anybody, Sam-like, is in the other canoe and asking me what I'm thinking, what I'm doing, free like I'm going to die without my life vest, without my helmet. The other Anybody might be another handsome actor-like Anybody, the younger brother of the other Anybody; he is now on top of the Giant gray rock looking out for us. We bank, the handsome actor-like Anybody who followed me in the canoe might be like my oldest brother, but he's Anybody, no questions. I beach on the bank, I don't need to think about the canoe, I don't think about anything but I'm meeting a wolf, I'm meeting her here and I climb up the steep slope towards the Mountain pass we never went Back by.

         As I get to the top of the slope to the mouth of the Pass, I meet her, just like I knew she'd be here. She's here and she's magnificent, Anyage, she's young and old and wise like spirit, has the energy that's locked away in questions that are lived. She's absolutely beautiful and we run to each other and embrace each other and we cuddle and we're together. We climb up the rocky Castle Brick steps to the Castle Brick Cliff. Mollie leaps up on the Castle Brick ledge and lies there comfortably; my arms wrap around her and my hands pet her silky fur and scratch the dark brown soft behind her ears. I flop her ears, we are together, there near the edge of the cliff. We're so close that I don't bring myself to look straight down over the edge, at whatever's straight below, I don't want to fall. But Mollie can see it and she's not bothered, so I can look over the edge, just not straight down yet. Together we're gazing out at the wild world with the most incredible view. It's freedom, the freedom of a wolf, and Mollie is free, is a wolf. I know she has a pack to be an important part of, a wise member as an equal to everyone, everyone is equal in the pack on the path. A pack to go Back to, to be free with, and this is what she sees. I see the lush wild forest, the ledge of the waterfall cut off by coniferous trees, the Giant gray rock and the wide wild river, the Wild bank and the path up the steep slope. The bank that we live on, the Upstream bank, is too far away, cutoff by the Giant gray rock, so I don't see it. I don't see what is straight down, I'm not comfortable as Mollie who is lying on the ledge, but together we see the fifty plus wolves running by the river, my pack or hers, running out of the forest to hunt, to run to nothing to live, to free.

         I have to say goodbye to Mollie. She has to go. I hug her, Anybody is there to encourage and help me down the steep rocky castle brick steps, but in the end I do it myself, and Mollie comes with me. There's a bit of time before we part, and there's a spot of level ground at the top of the grassy slope where we won't roll away. Growing on the level ground is a light brown, leafless twiggy tree a bit taller than myself. We lie on the ground and roll around and cuddle and play open-mouthed like we did when we were children. We flop and roll around and live together with abandon, freely and with each other every second, no time. I have an iPod, the only second I take is the time to pressplay an Enya song, whatever song I click I let it happen, listen to the rain. In my vision is the violet iris, the violet amaryllis, the violet violet 'neath the tree like Mollie and me and it's light and purple like a flower in the sunlight. I'm with Mollie now. I love her, don't keep her; we live together like that, my arms wrapped around her, my hands stroking her fur, face buried in her fur. Every touch the most meaningful touch in the world, the kind of touch that happens because you are loving someone, you aren't thinking about it but you're living it, there is no better moment or longer moment or moment you could wish for but this, and that is the best.

         We live that until we have to go, and I'm not sad and she's not sad because we are still living, we're free and close and closer than ever to the edge, and she's comfortable and I am too, and it's as natural as life as living and breathing and the force we trust, so she stands by the tree and watches me leave with Anybody. We are parting ways, going Back Forwards to our packs, she to her wolf pack and me to mine. And I can still feel her fur, her beautiful white and black and brown and sand colored fur, the warm fur that grows from the nape of her neck. The soft feel of that fur in my fingers, the loving feel of it on my lips. The back of her head, by her ears where I bury my face, silky smooth, dark brown, warm. Where my tears collect, when I cry, when I'm a child, when she's my best friend and we're living each other and we're right there with each other for each other. When the rain is the most beautiful thing in the world, when Mollie is the most beautiful in the world, when I was living believing all this on a rainy day, together with Mollie behind the light blue-cushioned rocking chair in the room with the Cyrano walls. I can still feel her, when I am a dog and a child, when I am close to nothing and life, everything and death. When living is dreaming awake and free.

(places)

I.

          There is a place in me, when I shake household lamps, any lamp-like containers within sight and reach, hoping to wake up a genie, wishing more for the magic than for the three wishes. When I give it up, if only because the genies are simply out-of-commission. When I am more skeptical about reason, not seeing a benefit of the Doubt.

          There is a place in me, when it stops raining, when I go outside and pace the wet street on my bicycle, for hours. Dreaming. When I stop, beneath dark chandeliers of glass globes and spindly pine needles, clocks of pale needles spraying towards the sky, towards me, towards the ground. Fanning outwards from the limbs of sloth Giants, who bow to children and their doggy friends and bend their bristly arms into upside down arches—upside down because their round elbows bowl downwards towards the ground, form the base of a half circle that the light and the rain and the wind fall through. Their slow hands sway in a great noble reach to the clouds, which leaves the children and dog-children in awe, and when the wind shows up, the great boughs shake small magic all over the dog-eared believers; glass worlds of flipped children, so small you can frame them with your thumb and index finger.

          When I stop there, and the trees send extra wet splashes to my scalp, and I can feel the round shape of the drops before they break in my hair.

          When I take the chance of looking up, see how long it takes before a raindrop falls in my eye, see what the rain looks like when you look straight up into it, to where it's falling from. When a close call closes my right eye with a force, turns my face downwards to the damp dirt that cakes the edge of the cracked cement, to the potholes and dips that house wide open puddles, when I gaze into a puddle and it's transparent, and I see the hole in the street underneath which is a girl gazing up at the sky beneath her.

          When I try to imagine the point where our two worlds meet, somewhere in the surface of the puddle. When there is no stable plane for the horizon between the two, there is no place to go to be between, except the place in each world where both meet.

          When I find my feet, and the hard wet surface that they fall to, when the toe of my sneakered foot flicks the kickstand, flicks it up flicks it down in a half circle motion, and I back up the bicycle so the pedals are ready for me to take off with rocket power; right pedal up, at the top of its cycle, left pedal down, a half cycle away.

          There is a place in me when my feet tread the air, so far above the clouds that my tangled hair drags dirt and leaves along the wood-chipped ceiling. When I see with my eyes that I'm a helium balloon that anyone let go of, that's finding the ceiling, floating up with a force that feels as heavy as my body, as strong as my feet touching ground, the pull that brings them to the ground. When I'm a helium balloon suspended an arm's length from the ceiling, caught against a band of black rubber, the opposite of a seat, between two pinchy chains of oil-black links.

          When I swing there, a million miles of blue and white air below my feet, the drop so far that I can't see any ground, and I am lucky that as I pump my legs and swing in a half cycle back and forth, I'm falling up.

          There's a very long, very small since between here and that place in me when I walk the nothingness above the ceilings of my house, stepping carefully over the rises in every doorway.

          Between here and that place when I'm breathlessly uncomfortable, caught against my giant brother's shoulder with the strongest force, strong as the heaviest weight of my body, falling me up like magic, like the anchored lamps that fall up and shed light down.

          When my giant brother calls me a Sack O' Potatoes, when he flips the world upside down and walks with his feet way above, touching the shoe-worn lusterless wood and unvaccuumed carpets, sprinkled with debris from outside and bits of yarn, the surface above me. The floor way below my feet is bright and blank, with an occasional spider that sticks out black against white, attracting my eye like a beacon. It's otherwise clean and lonely, repelling furniture feet, the feet of my friends and family, the feet of my giant brother magnetically, til they're unbudgingly far away and untouchable, like the light that falls up and sheds light down, like the anchored lamps lit with Sadly, the speedless magic of For Good.

          And through the long, small since stretches a freeway with alongside ditches, where muskrat guts and raccoon skulls and hollow squirrel carcasses go. And all the crows of my lifetime that got into the garbage on brisk Monday mornings decompose there. They were sentenced to decompose there the moment I set eyes on them and forgot, lost them to tear open their huge black presents, wrapped with hefty black plastic and perfumed with rotting peels and rancid pulp and wet paper, tied off at the top in a knot, or in a stretched plastic bow, or in stretched red knots. Mystery prizes dragged out to the street by the mailbox just for them, collections of lost and discarded and forgotten smelly pieces for the crows, who sleep on their collections of lost things in huge itchy nests by the wastewater runoffs that lead to the lake.

          All those crows of my lifetime go as masters of the lost to the alongside ditches and decompose there; they bring treasures like pipe caps that We As Children hopped on to throw the question, Water Gas Or Nothing?

          And they forget---except the one crow who's two wings and left foot are captured Somewhere, in seven frames of some unknowing someone's home video. That crow stays unsolid, Barely but remembered in the camera of my eye, like every eyelash I've shed and picked off my cheek and wished upon, wishing nowhere, to a question, whispering in my head because the direction of the wish is so unsure. Like every leaf of grass, shaft of wheat, stalk of corn, wild grass, every individual plant that passed me by at sixty miles an hour, that passed my window and was recorded by the camera of my eye, seen and forgotten, found and lost, the kind of block that builds Familiar. Along the freeway between here and that place in me; all of the since of growing like a bean, awkward and twisted and natural and steady.

          I think I'm moving through a space when the freeway is a place in me, instead of an unimaginable horizon between. When growing is a place that doesn't exist between a child's world and an adult's, but rather a place in each world when the two worlds meet.