Coast to Coast

It's 57 degrees and windy in San Francisco tonight. It's 81 degrees and clear in Biloxi. Both cities are caressed by oceans. Here the water is cold, but there it is warm. There, the water is still filled with debris from the monster called Katrina that surged over the town eight months ago. And a new hurricane season is only days away.

The U.S. is a big country that is limping along, carrying a piece of itself wounded, bleeding, much like an animal with a terrible, perhaps fatal, injury. Nobody can say whether this year's hurricane season will be as bad as the last one, but it wouldn't take anything near a Category 5 storm to wreak unimaginable havoc if it should again hit the Mississippi coast this summer. Remember, Louisiana got off easy last year; it is Mississippi where Katrina came ashore, and Rita.

But as of tonight, all is quiet on both coasts. No monsters have yet appeared. A new storm has not yet devastated Biloxi, though one will, perhaps this very summer. A new earthquake has not yet leveled San Francisco, though one will soon, inevitably, perhaps this summer.

There, the air is warm. Somebody I love dearly is, by this hour, probably nestled in her tent, with her iPod perhaps playing and her incense burning, and her mini-fan blowing. She may have a photo of a lava hole from Hawaii near her bed. She has a pretty Tibetan ring on her finger, and she may have matching earrings on as well. I wonder if she played her banjo today. I can hum all of her songs quite well by now.

Here, there's a chill in the air. Shadows overtake my nights and mornings. I feel restless. I am sitting on the bed, very alone, listening to music, the wrong music for my ears; I have a pretty ring on my finger, but a huge hole in my heart.

Writers have to write, but the stories we tell depend always on others. My writing voice here in this little blog is desperately seeking its muse. But she is so gone. Having been inside that tent with her on that balcony in that church, I know what night feels like there, and I yearn for that tonight -- the sounds, the smells, the feel. Her pretty smile in the darkness, still visible only to me. So much else that cannot be written in our language, because words are so limiting.

No story can be written alone. I would gladly fly away from this place to be at her place in an instant if I were asked. Then, the book I should be writing would begin. Then, my voice would once again be liberated. I write, and have always written, only from love. Lacking that, the shadows surrounding me lengthen, and this, like all stories, will eventually wind down to its very sad and quiet end. I cannot continue telling my story into a void. All things must pass. All voices will cease. Silence ensues.

I'm just not ready yet. Hope dies hard, in direct proportion to the amount of love that has been lost...