Surviving Desire

It’s been a long time coming. 


It turns out that when fish spray out of the water like a fountain, they are running for their lives. And people still try to get here on handmade rafts. There were enormous rays leaping. A lost alligator. A nesting leather back. Real sharks came in close. She shows off a lot. Sunbeam sparklers and acrobatic waves. Ignoring the rain. Dolphins really do play.

Each of my parents came and walked with me. Swam with me. The children are tall and strong. Race often at my side. I am leaner. Browner. 

We have all lived with less, and it all means that much more. When you have everything, all that you need, all that you love, there is nothing left but gratitude. Perhaps a measure of fear. And then, new callings. The desire to make something new. To build it. Piece by piece. Jump or dive. Hold on tight.

So tonight, when SHARKFLAG goes live, the ocean will know that our hearts are in it. 

Liza's Eulogy : The Giving Tree

It is hard to believe. 

This mourning came.

All of us together under one roof.

Liza's growing family. 

Many more are here in spirit. I can feel them. 

Grandma Diane, listening. Closer now. 

Great Grandpa Charlie on the porch. In the garden. 

Great, Great Grandma Hatta, wiping down the counters, 
making dumplings and dry humor. 

The family tree is what I want to touch. 

With blood, like a river, there are mysteries in it.

_____

Liza loved the book, The Giving Tree, by Shel Silverstein

Enough that she chose to carry the 
whole lesson on her back. 

It's painful. The story. It begins beautifully. 

"Once, there was a tree... and she loved a little boy." 

There is joyful, simple play. 

"And when he was tired, he would sleep in her shade. 
And the boy loved the tree, very much. 
And the tree was happy."

Absence is the only thing the tree cannot bare.

"But the boy stayed away for a long time... 
and the tree was sad. 
And then one day the boy came back and the tree shook with joy and she said, 
'Come, Boy, climb up my trunk and swing from my branches and be happy.'"

As the story goes, he's too busy. 

He is trying very hard to make a life. 

"...you may cut off my branches and build a house. 
Then you will be happy."

Just go ahead and take everything. 

But when the first limb comes down it hurts. 

And it just gets worse from there.

How is it that this is a children's book? 

Why do we have to go so far away? 

We can't see where the man goes. 

We can't see what he built on the pages. 

Where is the fruit of this labor? 

Can he see it? 

Isn't it enough? 

When did he stop seeing the tree? 

So utterly depleting, the ending. 

Precious time past. 

No tree. No shade. No fruit. No color.

_____

Being sorry is hardening. 

Into regret. 

Forgiveness is called for.

It's a fable.

The tree is not gone.

Go back to the early pictures. 

That is what all the children want to do. 

The children within us.

Who among us doesn't call?

Call for forgiveness.

And season and after season after season,

forgiveness is granted.

_____

Over Liza's body. 

The illustration of a child resting under 
the generous apple tree. 

In this place you may have all the fruit you need. 

Unconditional love. Sweet and brave. 

Not mysterious at all, this lesson she carries:

That we all, already have, everything.

It's a simple human paradise. 

But isn't it just paradise? 

To love. 

To give and receive. 

To want what we have. 

To cherish.

_____

We would give anything Liza. 

Rest now for a while. 

Go out and play. 

Look up now and then. 

All around you, your big crooked family tree. 

It is abundant.

_____

Liza Whitacre

6.12.89 - 10.21.09

One Liza

Yesterday the beach was junky and rough and spitting white yellow foam. No one in that wind with me. A broken hanger covered in barnacles. A shoe covered in barnacles. A rum bottle with no message. Part of a vacuum cleaner. And dead fish in profile. Some of them large, all tangled in sea weed. Dangerous jellyfish to step on. All so ugly I knew I would have to write about it. What is the ugliest word for ugly.

Tragic. And that was the day.

The first call came. Please pray. So I'm on my knees, palms together with a her baby picture. Dear God, please have mercy. Bring her strength. Lift her up. Cover her in love now and heal her. If you can do this one thing for us I promise... Send my love to Chicago and wrap her up in it. And please God make sure the doctors and nurses know what the fuck they are doing.

But they didn't have the chance. The second calls come and take our breath away. I'll never say I felt like I was hit by a truck again. One of our girls is gone. Our Liza. The first born. The brave and righteous one. On her bicycle. In an instant.

There is that fine sliver of time before we wake when we ask ourselves am I a boy or a girl. I am Eva. How old am I. I am all grown up. Who is in bed next to me. Thank God. We have our children. What day is it. It is a school day. It's time to wake up.  And then it washes over you. We've lost Liza.  Every morning from now on.

This morning I growl and roar louder than the water. Each time I keel over I pick up another shell. The same ridiculous deflated yellow birthday balloon is still here from yesterday blowing around on a tethered string. There are black buzzards eating the big fish and I can stare straight into the sun. Hearts breaking now, over and over. Can you feel us Liza. Can you feel how much you are loved. I find an amber glass bottle covered in barnacles and I will take it home and wash it and keep it on my vanity. Each time I put a flower in it, it will be for you. I've walked way past where I've been before. There are huge cement skeletal remnants of an old dock jutting into the chop. I have too much to carry. So a put my bottle and my shells on the highest pylon by the sea wall and go on and on.

Here is another amber glass apothecary bottle. Capped and full of white powder. I have to scream to get it open. I wonder if it is full of cocaine and if I can shove it all up my nose at once. But it smells sweet. I do what people do. I walk into the water and let it all blow away sideways. Magically void of any relief. I hauled back and threw it out deep because I have a really good arm.

I can see you Liza. You are held over a porcelain bowl being baptized.  David is lifting you up to show you what's on the other side of the fence. You are watching cartoons in your pajamas. Cecilia is giving you and Lauren a bath together. You are dancing in the basement. You are in a tree. You are in the top bunk in the dark listening to the radio. You are tickling Max. You are wearing eye shadow for the first time. You are becoming a beautiful woman. Downtown is yours. You laugh all the time. You speak french. And you get tattoos without permission from anyone and I haven't seen them yet. The whole Giving Tree on your back. I wanted to come for a visit and touch it. To hear you tell me all about that. To tell me all about everything. I've missed everything. So much love left unspoken. Unshared. Lost. Please turn back now.

My pile of shells is gone. Washed away. Impossible. Where is my Liza bottle. Please give it back! Please give back my Liza bottle. The white blanket of foam finally recedes far enough and it's there and I run in and grab it up and hold it close and I can't breath. Can you feel me Liza.

Time to go now. There is a bright blue boogie board leaning against the cement. I know it wasn't there before. It's big and it's for me. So I carry it under my arm all the way back. Just one more weeping shell. One bottle. Our one Liza.

Animal Matters

The beach was so sluggish this morning I could barely walk through it. Like deep deceptive snow. I did a lot of dragging and kicking up the sand with the top of my feet. The kind you're not supposed to do when other people are around. I didn't find one shell I needed to keep. The light was hot but I could make out 2 wide dark tubes of rainfall far out on the horizon. That's perspective, I thought. The long view. I was struck by the fractal nature of this day. Chaotic. Fleeting. Utterly unpredictable. And the animal part of me wasn't disturbed by this. Actually, not disturbed at all.

There's another mom from the school that does the beach after drop off. But she runs. She runs low, in a zig zag, up and down, to make it harder. She's strong, like a small sun bleached horse. When she passed me she was carrying a large flat rock under her arm like a discus. A simple rock. I wondered if she would save it for tomorrow or when she was done with her other arm, just drop it.

I started to think about symmetry. That maybe it's overrated. Because I am a graphic designer, in part, I have too much affection for it. A circle pleases me too much and I am an evangelist for negative space. Life has not always been smooth and hardly linear, for me or anyone that I know or love. It's comforting to bring order to chaos. Put a thing in its place. Control the outcome. But this human appetite to sum it all up has gotten so graphic lately. The world is small. It is a web. My curiosity is a click stream. My friends are a network. We have a user experience. Give talking points. An elevator pitch. Oh, and every person should be their own brand. Every person a brand? Seriously?

We play a good game. If you were an animal, what animal would you be? I have always known I am a large breed wild cat. More recently convinced I am a mother lion. My daughter is sure that I am a jaguar. And don't forget it again, mom.

I'm finally smiling when I am halted by the beach patrol guy on a big four wheeler talking on a walkie talkie to a group of men in black about 50 yards away. You can't pass through here now. We have a problem, he says. Is this an animal problem? Or a people problem, I ask. It's a grenade problem he says. It's going to be a while. Where did the grenade come from? From the ocean we hope. Oh, I guess I'll have to go around. I could swim around, I say with a new confidence. No, I can't let you do that. It's too rough out there today. You can just cut up through that yard and out to the road where the fire trucks are. It's all right. Nobody is home.

Now this is not just some yard. It isn't Tiger Woods' house, but these are his neighbors. Massive windows shuttered because it is not yet high season. Good luck! So I venture up the wandering path to a large stone terrace. The kind of purposeful, accidental rustic charm that only very old money seems to buy. Green, green, green. There is a boyish gardener with shiny black eyes in a green uniform perched on the wall, trying to blend in. He pretends not to speak english long enough that I have to pantomime the whole thing and talk too loud. There's a bomb. It's OK. Someone is coming to take care of it. You're not in trouble. You need to help me get back to the beach way down there. Show me the way through this yard and the next yard too. He's not leaving his perch? He's just smiling now. I have to get home. I have a brand to design. I have children for gods sake. Now I'm crouched down, barefoot in the prickly edges of another thick hedge staring through the branches at the next house over. Another fence. Very interesting. He is squatting behind me. Do they have a dog? No, he says quickly as he stands up. Come on. He leads me to a little hidden gate that is not locked, and opens it for me to step through. There you are. Just right there.

Another open gate is waiting at the far end of a flat dirt lot. No one is taking care of this house. Not now. Not for a long time. I prance down the old wooden steps holding my car keys to my chest so they won't fall out of my suit. That silly old bomb. The pack of firemen standing around in a circle with their arms crossed all turn around from their waists up and lean back and watch me run by. Hello, they all say at the same time and exactly the same way. Like in a movie. I'm still a cat.

Isn't It Aquatic

Last Friday I actually waded all the way into the ocean. This is because Race was holding my hand. More commonly he must carry me. In his arms. On his back. On some floatation device. Fear is a powerful thing. Fear of touching the bottom. Fear of injury. Fear of the unknown.

This marital behavior is observed as a demonstration of love. Sometimes other wives at beach parties show jovial envy of my attentive husband. Some likely expressing mild disgust in private at our public display. Our young children waiting on the beach for our return. Mommy and Daddy love each other so much. A veil of romance cloaking my irrational adrenal resistance to the water.

Lately, always, quietly, this feeling infuses my sleep. (worry -verb: to torment oneself with or suffer from disturbing thoughts; fret). Use worry in a sentence. "We worry in each other's arms." Something needs to change.

Saturday morning my walking beach filled up with families for the long and ironic holiday weekend. The water was transformed, churning rare waves caused by a distant named storm skirting our coast. Surfers. Paddle boarders. Heat. A life guard. Our brave beautiful children. My handsome husband. All there. And so I went in. More deeply tired of being afraid than feeling afraid. I paddled out, by myself, on a watermelon pink boogie board.

What's the worst thing that could happen? (worry along or through, informal -verb phrase: to progress or succeed by constant effort, dispite difficulty: to worry through an intolerable situation). I could lose an arm. Or a foot. I am out almost as far as the surfers. Looking right into the small walls of water as they come. I can't look down when the water is calm. Everyone knows that all you have to do is poke a shark right in the eyeball and it will go away. Also you can drown the shark by pulling its tail directly backwards for a while. So I keep trying to ride the rythym. Cresting without capsizing. And then I'm thinking, the word blast was meant for this. I can see my son wrestling with the water at the shore far way, and Race swimming out deep with our daughter in his arms. Are you guys doing OK? I call to him. You should see your smile, he yells back to me. Your face is glowing! Now that's romantic.

The best things in life are free.

My Gold's membership and the 30 mile round trip drive to the gym has given way to a new ritual. Early, long, barefoot walks on the beach of Jupiter Island. Breathtakingly beautiful, a formidable workout, and just 3 blocks from the kids' school.

Last week, Race and I watched a tiny loggerhead hatchling make his way down the dunes, intent to get out to sea. It took him more than a few tries. He was tossed around, upside down, in and then back out onto the beach. He did finally ride the current out and swam like a champion to the smooth part of the water. Because they need to breath air, we were able to keep his small black head in our sights for quite a while. Until we couldn't anymore. I almost cried.

Yesterday I was all alone, except for a homeless man on the big rocks who just woke up and was preparing to fish. We said good morning. A flock of exactly 24 pelicans started following me along the coast. Or I was following them. We spent a good half hour together as they alternately dive bombed the surface and wobbled in the water like happy buoys. It was raining in slow motion. Giant birds.

Today was dog day. Three white labradors were body surfing and it wasn't the first time. A rogue black poodle with very long legs ran so far, so fast, in and out of the waves and around the bend. It may have been her first time. The owner looked like she had not been on a walk in a long while. Some unexpected exercise was needed. She walked behind me, probably reevaluating how much she really needed or wanted that poodle. Then I took mercy and sped up ahead to help. When the dog finally heard my voice and slopped herself over, she shook so hard, and was so damn happy, that I had to give her a big long lecture about what a trouble maker she was and head her back home.

When I'm done I always stand in the water and look out at the horizon for a bit. Then up the steps to the big smelly pavilion to shower off the sand. By that time, the picnic tables are full of these same local people praying out loud. And some other regulars, smoking cigarettes, listening to them talk about God. He's down there, I think, walking to the car.