Faces of Strangers

FACES OF STRANGERS

A crowd gathered, waiting for the restaurant to open. Seated among the Asian throng, no one spoke a language I understood. Relieved of the normal eavesdropping occupation, I could fade into the background where comfort is guaranteed. 

When paid, performing center stage is not difficult for me. But I prefer blending in, unnoticed, blending into the background, observing without contributing, to choruses of chitter-chatter and nothingness.

I like to look at the faces of strangers. I like to pick out who is married to whom; mirror neurons clearly molding spousal selection into identifiable couples. Their faces shapes resemble each other as if born brother and sister.

It’s fun, obvious (to me, at least), and reveals more than lives lived.

Carved facial features let me in on private joys or painful episodes shared by two people I’ll never know. Reading expressions, watching reactions, traversing well-worn lines on heightened foreheads and layers of neck-folds, lets me know secrets not well hidden, as with any chartered map of any remote hiding place.

It’s true we mirror each other, especially whom we love and live with. How that works is a mystery. We are born unique, but blend beautifully by copying curved lips, squinted eyes, twitching noses. Even sounds are echoed: laughter sounds similar, hushed tones match, accents blend, obscuring regional differences to a distant past.

Of course the kids look like the parents. That’s genius genetics. Thus, two complete strangers meet, marry, multiply, and presto! Faces of strangers are familiar and familial.

Most curious of all is the effect we all have on each other. We copy friends, we adopt habits, we emulate those we admire, and mirror exactly those we love.

I think I used to speak differently. I know I’ve acted a million different ways, depending on where in the world I was, or what in the world I was doing.

I can’t help but wonder if anyone has ever “mirrored” me? That would lead me to wonder why they would want to.

We morph because we are all insecure about something or another.

Sitting there in that crowd watching every detail from posture to lost composure at having to wait to be seated, I listened to babble in foreign tongue and guardedly assumed what was no doubt debatable.

I like to look at the faces of strangers. I like to suppose their stories are any more fantastic than my own.

I’ll never know.

Just Another Lori Story

Views From a Cruise

VIEWS FROM A CRUISE

Everything looks prettier from one's private balcony on a cruise ship. Or so I imagine. I'm so spoiled. I've grown accustomed to the view while sipping a pina colada in my pajamas. Snap. Snap. I click the camera at the sunrise, the waves, the remote islands we sail by, the inconceivable cloud formations, the eventual goodnight salutation of the sun ... an animal that surfaces, anything that touches an emotional chord. The music is the humming of the ship, the cracking of the sea, the hushed winds that whisper all day and all night.

Is that a Monet painting? It could be. Except that it is from my little point and shoot camera. The only thing more beautiful than the actual Venetian view is the surreal surprise of seeing it later looking like this! I don't remember it being that beautiful as I looked through the tiny lens.

People say they're bored on a ship. "Nothing to do," is the common complaint. I understand that. There can be long days at sea, where eating or shopping or drinking or thinking can become a rigorous routine of monotony. The noise at the pool and the incessant sun is not for everyone. I get it. That's why a private suite with a quiet balcony is the only way to sail. Except that solitude is not for everyone either.






Of course you could always come and hear the special interests speaker (ME!), and learn about etymology or gemology. I'm listed on the daily program somewhere below origami oranges or how to crimp a braid. Seriously? There's the casino ... but I'm free. (And fun!)

You want to hike in the mountains with giant spiders? Sleep in a tent? Sit cross-legged at an ashram? Bicycle across a continent sweating, panting, inflating tires, and sipping a small bottle? Walk through endless ruins contemplating the scholars of centuries past? All great ideas. All activities I do too, in my imagination. *Knock - knock* What's that? Room service? Ahhh ... try that in your jungle paradise!

Or ... try this! The sunlight shimmering with twinkly sparkles along ridges of cresting waves. Soon the illumination of stars on waters. Cloud formations slither as wispy shapes or dense cover between patches of intensely blue sky. Structural patterns, occasional dark clouds, animal shapes, an angel, a spreading shadowy sprinkle ... peace. It's peace, pure and wet, and wonderful, and never the same to be seen again.

The higher up you are on a cruise ship, the more expensive the accommodations. I like the lowest balcony I can get. The closer I am to the water, the more I can see the depths of the sea and the animals below. There are telltale signs of a feeding frenzy, a whale's tale, excited dolphins diving in the wake of the ship. Once, mere miles from Key West, we passed over millions of jellyfish in a gelatinous bubble of frenzied feeding, but who else noticed? Certainly not all the boozing sunbathers on the top of the ship, Am I the only one that saw that unbelievable sight? Maybe.

Everyday a new thing to see or a port to explore. Everyday, meals made for me, sheets pulled back, little towel animals waiting on the bed. This is luxury, and I like it.

I've conquered sea-sickness, a migraine in Africa, the medinas and bazaars in many foreign lands, losing a throng of tourists I was in charge of in Amsterdam. (No, they were not in the "coffee bars".) I've weathered all kinds of weather, including a hurricane in the English Channel that tossed my stateroom like a salad. (That'll teach me to pack so many pairs of shoes ...) I've endured the dirty waters of the Atlantic to get to the bluest waters of the Adriatic Sea. And then there's the Med. Nothing beats the Med. Heck, they named a whole club after it!

I do have one fear, however ...

That something might happen to me way out on the water. Something really bad. Not that the ship should sink, but that I might sink. What happens to sick people? Really, really sick people. Heart attacks, strokes, falls, that sort of thing. Well, like anywhere else, it happens all the time. There is a hospital on board and they handle broken bones, the dreaded Norovirus, all sorts of maladies. Even death. Yes. Even dead people don't get to get off. Your cold, dead body does not disembark until the last port of call. You'll be in cold storage with the meat. (Kidding -- they have a separate shelf for the steaks.) No, cruise ships don't stop except in ports of call.

That's why one night while I was reading in bed, I clenched decidedly when the ship stuttered to a clangy, loud, throttling halt. What was that?! We've stopped in the middle of the ocean? Hundreds of miles from anywhere civilian? No way! But, yes. We stopped. (Another reason why a balcony is mandatory  - so that you can verify you're stuck dead in the water ...) I went outside and we stood still. No motors. No familiar wave noise. We were stopped. They were opening the side of the ship and a small boat from I don't know where was approaching rapidly. Were they pirates? (I've watched way too many movies ...) Wait .. what's that? A stretcher? A person on a stretcher? Leaving like that? From the bottom of the big ship onto a tiny little boat? Family and luggage going too? I watched from my low-down perch. Incredible. The only other time I knew of a medical emergency, that person was whisked via helicopter from the top of the ship. I had never seen anything like this that I was watching. The tedious unfolding of the bowels of the ship and a person's very life, simultaneously. The ordeal took about two hours. The tiny ship finally sailed off, the ship closed up the portal, and we laboriously lugged along again.

What had possibly happened to that person that was worse than death? Then... it happened again! The next morning, someone else, same ordeal, off the Greek islands. This time, I saw the chef among the crowd of ship's personnel, noticeable by his tall toque, helping the ill person disembark. Why was the chef there? Should I worry about room service? Is there something in the food that's putting people off? Literally, as in these two cases?

No. I have a balcony. I will surely eat again. And then again. That's what we do on a ship when we're a sea. There's nothing else to do, remember? Then, I'll buy something I don't need, win the ship's raffle (because I pulled the winning ticket out of the bag and it was curiously my own), discover the delicious taste of a wasabi martini (no, I don't know what's in it, only that I want another one), and return to the respite of my beloved balcony -- with my camera of course, because I always want to remember the glorious views from a cruise.

Just Another Lori Story.

124,002 WORDS

124,002 WORDS

Finally, it's finished. And it's 124,002 words. No, not this blog post (breathe with relief!), but my book. My beautiful book about my beautiful relationship with an “Angel”. At more than 450 pages, it is nevertheless an unfinished story.

It took 3 years of my life to write Torture: Broken Foot, Shattered Soul. It takes time to tell a story like that. And it took ALL my time. It stole my sleep, exacerbated exercise efforts, stifled social life, toyed with my self-awareness, and manipulated me like a puppet with a pen. Nearly every moment of every day surrendered and spent writing, thinking about writing, reading about writing, or chastising myself for not writing.

The monster grew until it materialized as a big book. A very big book. Unbelievably, only the beginning of an even bigger subject matter.

My intentions were clear from the start. Firstly, I wrote Torture for the “Angel”. “He” changed my life in every way and in extraordinary ways.

He changed me.

I needed the “Angel” to know the meta-psychology, the why behind the “why” and beneath the “why”. I wanted him to know the truth. About me ... and about those around him. I owed him that much.

I owed him more.

Catharsis stood as reason number two.

"Many patients keep a journal as they recover, for catharsis,” the “Angel” had told me.

Though a cathartic intent rests soundly in logic, that intention didn't work. Research supports a different view. Running through events over and over, reviewing them endlessly through an astonished mind, only buries them deeper and indelibly, offering little relief in the form of Letting Go.

Catharsis should be an understanding, a release.

It didn't work.

My last reason for writing Torture was to get answers.

Answers to questions I had yet to conceive. Answers to questions I had asked endlessly without sufficient clarity to understand. Answers to questions I was scared to give voice to.

I wanted to heal, but most assuredly lacked the knowledge or experience to cope with such a wide swath of wound, which wound tightly throughout my every exhalation. If I couldn't relieve, how would I breathe?

Only the “Angel” holds the power to heal my hurt. He has that power because I gave it to him. How do I get that back? More questions … I can't answer.

People have suggested that I am allowed to be angry, that I should be angry.

Too late. I promised myself when I started my story that the “Angel” never deserved anger.

I still choose to bless rather than blame.

"He" didn't know any better than I knew.

And what I knew from moment one was that ours was never a random chance encounter.

Random stars collide. Sometimes a brighter star results, sometimes a star explodes, sometimes an uncharted orbit expands both stars via a celestial gate, into a new and unknown galaxy. The collision, however, originates from a place of predetermination.

The stars don't select. They surrender.

I wrote. I'm still writing. I still need to sort it all out, all the while realizing I may never accomplish that alignment intention.

I wrote only for the “Angel”.

"He" doesn't think he's an “Angel”. So far, he's been unable to grasp the metaphorical aspect – that though he is a man, he's an “Angel” for me.

Is it possible God picked “him” purposely, knowing “him” quite well, and knowing “he” would be exactly the right intercession for me at precisely that moment? What if God recognized that this “Angel” was the one and only one who would reach me and rearrange my potentiality. The perfect fit of imperfect personalities. Is it imaginable that God specifically put us on the same path at the same time because the journey we needed to take together, through the layer of spiritual substructure, would forever alter us in unknowable ways?

I only ask, what if?

How scared I was … when I finally finished Torture and went to deliver the “Angel” the first printed copy.

Stunned, “he” told me he would read it.

"I'll read it ... and I'll let you know what I think ...”, the “Angel” assured my scared spirit self. Relieved, I sighed.

I trusted him. Still.

I believed him, even after so many letdowns. I believed him when he promised he'd read the book I wrote for him and let me know --- something. Any thing. I believed him.

I had the renewed innocence of hope. I believed him once again and once again he fooled me. And I fell for it. My unwavering trust and vulnerability vanquished, yet undiminished.

I expected my “Angel” might have questions of his own after reading my story.

I have answers. I am ready.

How should I interpret “his” silence?

A kindness is missing. A validation. An understanding that “he” acknowledges and affirms me. That “he” hears me. We may listen with ears, but we hear with hearts. That “he” realizes the part “he” played in the damaging demise, the ruins of what was real for me. His disregard is deafening.

My favorite priest, who read and enjoyed Torture, said to me, “If he's a sensible man, I think he'll be awed.”

Apparently, my “Angel” is not a sensible man after all. On the face of it, my “Angel” appears to be odd … rather than awed.

I wrote 124,002 words for an “Angel”....

From “him” … I heard … not one word.

Just Another Lori Story

The Little Skater

THE LITTLE SKATER

She skated by me on spindly, unsteady legs. The park path was smooth, but the little girl on roller skates kept falling down.

While swaying back and forth on a glider, I watched her. Each spill to the pavement made the small seven year old less unsure and made me more distressed to see her less able to master her skating skill.

The park was packed with families, pets, screaming children. A beautiful scene on a beautiful spring afternoon. I noticed everything, but the little girl on skates captured my attention.

I admired her tenacity, even as she got slower each time to rise up and try again. Her face registered heavy concentration and consternation at the same time. Determined to skate correctly, but worried for failure. Her knees hit the cement and as she rose yet again, I saw a bloody scrape.

Little children are so brave. I would've left wailing after failing so many times, but she still kept skating, arms flailing wildly for better balance.

Ironically, those rapid motions were her downfall. And down she went again.

As she struggled my way, her expression signaled a pleading request for a rest. I motioned her over and slid left to offer a seat next to me on the swing. Immediately, the little skater smiled, nodded, and collapsed quickly next to me with a grateful sigh.

“Hi!” I said brightly, and smiled big at her. “Hi,” she answered, as she looked up at me and then held her head in her hands with an audible sigh.

“I can't do it ...” she whispered with a throaty, whooshing sound, raising her sad face to look at me closely.

“Yeah, it looks like you're having a hard time,” I acknowledged. My tone brightened as I announced, “well, guess what? Today's your lucky day!”

The little skater looked at me with a toothy, eager grin.

“You just fell down next to a skating coach,” I continued, “and I'll bet I can have you up and skating within five minutes!”

“Really?” She smiled bigger as if she really had won something. She had a tooth missing and a precious personality. I knew I could help her and my confidence was contagious.

“Are you ready?”

She nodded eagerly.

Using my hands, I demonstrated the correct posture and explained how gravity, motion, and body position all affect balance and the ability to glide gracefully without worry of falling.

“Your body will follow your arms, so if you wave them around, you will be unsteady and fall back if your arms are behind you,” I explained. “Keep them level and in front of you, and if you feel yourself start to fall, push your arms even further ahead of you to regain balance.”

Anxious to succeed, she immediately tried to skate again, implementing my corrections. I think she surprised herself that a smooth and balanced glide actually was that easy! As she rotated to smile wide at me, she jerked herself back to balance, realizing that that turning motion made her wobbly. Her determination and belief solidified as the little skater gracefully glided away – seemingly taller with pride.

With matching satisfaction, I watched her skate over to her mother and brother, and pointing to me, the little girl mouthed some sort of over-exuberant explanation of our encounter and her newly found expertise at skating. They looked over to me and nodded.

The little skater skated away. Faster and faster, happier and happier. As she rounded the oval to pass by me again, she waved as if we were old friends. I clapped to applaud her confident success.

We were old friends. It was that easy.


Just Another Lori Story.