I did not feel a thing

When I sing, I feel no pain. This is really remarkable, almost like magic. I remember reading about some old master painter whose fingers were locked up with arthritis, but who became young again and pain-free and energetic when he picked up the brush again. But I'm certainly not a master, and I'm not old either. It's just that singing requires so much concentration there's no room for anything else.

There are lengths of notes, and pitches of notes, and those are hard enough to get straight. There is dynamic (or loudness), and so many other symbols to pay attention to both above and below the staff... there are crescendos... and of course the words you are singing, which have to be memorized eventually, you can't read them and read the notes and everything else at the same time. I am not a music prodigy. Just trying to keep track of one or two of these elements at once--say, the words I'm supposed to be singing and the lengths of the notes, at the tempo we're singing them--requires so much concentration that the rest of the world might as well not exist.

I had terrible cramps the day we were rehearsing the Brahms Requiem. I have cramps that could fell a horse, although that's not special among women. And I thought, good. Better to have them today. I was in so much pain I was nauseous and shaking and sweating on the risers, afraid I was going to faint. We would sing a movement and there would be nothing but focusing on singing, which is wonderful, and of course the piece itself, and it was beautiful and electrifying and fun and everything it always is. I would feel nothing physically, unless the hairs on the back of my neck stood up like they do when you sing in a chorus and you hit a particular chord. And then the piece would end and Mr. Kent would drop his hands and the pain would come back all at once and I would try not to fall over. Sweating. I was so glad we were rehearsing because otherwise I would have been at home alone in my apartment trying to deal with it, with no distraction.

I have somehow backed myself into a corner this year with my bad habits, mostly worrying and perfectionism and denying my feelings. I've had these problems all my life, but somehow this year they've bred until I've gotten to a place where literally every move I make hurts. I can't ponder a decision without being stabbed by fear or cut down by self-criticism... but I don't even see what I'm doing and I react to it without thinking, like an animal. I feel like I've dressed myself in a straightjacket. Every move hurts. I am blessed to be able to write this now... it has become so much a part of the background that I'd begun thinking this was just the way life was. It is painful all the time, and if I have a problem with it it's because I'm weak or lazy.

It was funny to watch myself singing tonight. I felt no pain while singing. And then when we quit for the evening I felt it all roll back in. But it was the thoughts that were odd. Half-formed things resembling "Oh, now I have to feel this again... this is real life... I'd forgotten about this..." as blankets of queasy fear and pain settled on top of my brain, smothering the clarity I'd had a minute earlier.

But they give themselves away. Those thoughts. There is something of a chicken-and-egg question here. Which came first, the heavy misery or the thought that I had to experience it? That--oh--I have forgotten what real life is? What odd thoughts to have. It seemed to me that they were a bit over-eager, rushing in in the desperate hope that I wouldn't forget about them. Well I was afraid and I set myself in opposition to them, and they overcame me and I became straightjacketed again. Until I sat down to write this. Writing is a little like singing.

I'm sitting here watching the words appear on the screen as my fingers move. I want to make a resolution, I want to say, I will not be in opposition to my fears. I would say that I will feel them when they come and when they go away I will feel that. It is a new thing to me to be at this loose end. To give up trying to control tomorrow. I must remember that I am already in a corner and there is, in fact, no where else to go. To learn a new thing is difficult sometimes but if that's all that's keeping me from it... there are far worse things than difficulty. Like, oh, TERRIBLE TERRIBLE PAIN.

I must say this

In Wal-Mart tonight in front of me a little boy, I mean a really little boy, asked his father, "Daddy, does smoking feel good?"

"No," said his father, who had tattoos on every visible body part.

"Then why don't you stop doing it?" asked the little boy, who was apparently at the age of four already turning into his mother. (Either that, or he was really just being a little kid.)

I know what you want, part 2

I've been wearing my hair long now for years for one reason: the way it feels when I've been in and out of the water from sunup to sundown, wet and dry and wet and dry, without the time or inclination for a shower. It gets dreadlocked with salt, stringy and sticky, until I can't run my fingers through it at all, I can only whip my head back to get it all out of my face. It's breathtakingly gross and breathtakingly freeing at the same time. My body's so far gone it isn't worth even a thought about getting clean, let alone an effort. Salt is crumbly on my arms and thighs. My fingers are pale and wrinkled and everything has a faint blue haze from the sun pill I took this morning. The Pacific Ocean goes on right to the sky where little clouds dribble like white droppings on the horizon, unimportant and very far away. You know, even my eyebrows have salt in them.

I love the Earth. It's been said to me that you can't truly appreciate Earth unless you've spent time in space, but I've known for a long time that I can't go into space, that this is all there is for me, and it only makes things all the more precious. This is all there is. And it's heaven.

For instance, there's nothing like the beach. And even if you've been to the beach--even if you came down from Quasaw or rode the rail from Missouri and spent an afternoon sunning and swimming, you wouldn't know what we know.

It's Rafe's second day on Earth and I was right. He likes the surfing all right but he loves the surfers. Because my friends are the opposite of spacefolk. They're laid-back friendly San Francisco Earthsters with all their rough edges smoothed over by drugs and sun. They like everybody. They're a lot like me.

"So you play that thing?" Marcus is asking him, pointing at the guitar.

Rafe shrugs. "I play it every day. I've played it every day of my life since I was 12." He picks it up and sits it on his thigh like I used to do with my niece when she was a little sack of potatoes.

"Do you sing?" asks Tony, crowding in in his eagerness.

Rafe grins, that smile, that smile, that makes me so grateful he's here. Because it's not a stunning smile. Or a beaming smile, or a polite or a self-conscious one. It is a simple smile, so shy and honest I think I could go without talking for the rest of the year. In fact it doesn't bear describing at all, so I take it all back.

"Uh, I try not to," he says.

I am sitting on my favorite piece of driftwood watching him like a hawk. The orange sun is behind him and there's a skin of orange light wrapping around his features, sifting through his hair. Hair that's too short for him to feel what I feel now, tickling my shoulders and back. He has a light, deft jaw, I'm noticing, his mouth moves so easily--despite his persistent silence--like English is weightless, like he lives in some alternate universe from mine where impulse is hefty but expression light, instead of the other way around. I want to know what he wants.

I do know what he wants. He wants to sing. For these new friends, people whose attention he craves, blond dudes like the characters in the movies, who've been showering him with warmth and questions since the moment I brought him to this beach when the sun was still in the east.

"Come on," I say. "Do you write songs?"

He nods, his Adam's apple bobbing in a swallow. The faintest likeness of his smile, the understudy of his smile, just a little movement of the lips, flickers on his face. Yes. You want this, I think, and it's intoxicating to me. I see it! that hint of your spaceboy soul, and it's better than drugs. You've come thousands of miles, leaving behind intellectual friends who match your smarts but not your sincerity, to be here on this one beach where you can share this one song with the one group of people who'll take it just like it is.

Or something.

"Yeah?" I ask. I make myself pause. It's hard, but I'm not totally lacking in self-discipline. "You know, this beach, I mean, it's beautiful and all, and it's easy to come here and use it and go back to town, but it's harder to try to give something back."

Now Kit and Marcus are looking at me too. I better think up something good.

"It's not... I mean it's not... I mean it is for the beach, for Mother Nature, but it's more for us, actually. Like the Indians, to try to give something to the spirit of the place, to show we can be humble. To leave something of ours behind."

Rafe, bless him, actually glances up the beach to his bag for a second, but then he looks back at his guitar. He's not even thinking to question this spiritual mumbo jumbo, the rascal. He plain wants to sing for us. I am suddenly so absurdly touched.

"I wrote this song about this one night a couple years ago on the station," he says easily. The first chord is perfect, each string ringing out, in tune and everything. I would know; my brother played guitar for years. Badly. The guys lean forward in the sand, so pleased, I know, to have something new tonight, something other than Tony telling us what he did with his girlfriend. I look away before he begins, because the evening is coming on, and the air is just right, exactly 75 degrees, with a breathlike breeze, and the sun is that soft color that makes it impossible to take bad pictures, or memories. The ocean is a dark blue with waves standing out jagged in the exaggerated relief of sunset. My muscles are warm and ache and I can feel the warmth of the sand on the tops of my burrowing feet and even on the pale skin between my toes.

And Rafe opens his mouth and sings low and perfectly on key, and I don't hear a word of it. It gets to verse three or something and I'm kicking myself because I'm noticing for the fifth time in the past forty-five seconds that I'm not paying attention to his song. I'm paying attention to him. The angle his back takes as he leans over the instrument. The years of practice I see in how his fingers move. The preciseness with which he's trimmed his nails. The freckles on his shamelessly pale arms. The lack of tattoos. The ring I didn't notice until now, a silver ring. His lips... how the curve of his upper lip leaves his white teeth exposed when he opens his mouth to take a breath. How long his eyelashes are. The pointiness of his active, human, insignificant elbows. His elbows!

Pay attention, man!

It's only one night
Tomorrow comes quickly
For sleepers and lovers
And slowly for me
It's only one night
But it's only three-thirty
And I had this same thought
At a quarter to three
It's only one night
And I know tomorrow
Will find me as foolish
As the guilty can be
And it's only one night
And it's only one night
And it hurts and it's still only three-thirty-three.

Well damn it, he's good... And I'm a fool for not being able to listen to the whole song. I don't know what's wrong with me, sometimes. But I let this slip away and there's no way to get it back and I'm chagrined. I clap with the others and gaze at his smile. Somewhere in my self-castigation I know he's the one who's important, that it's what he's feeling that matters. He's happy. That's all.

And the guys are definitely happy. They whoop it up. "Dude, you're good!" says Marcus in awe. "You're good," echoes Kit. He's such a gusher. "You could be, like, on RayRay. You're better than half the singers on RayRay. You should apply."

Rafe is shaking his head, still smiling. The guys can't stop talking. They're all over him with praise. Okay, I am too. "You have perfect pitch, man," I say. "And you know emotion. You're a songwriter. I don't know what you get paid to do back on station, but you're a songwriter."

The sun's going down... we have a delicious evening of food and alcohol and the town and partying ahead of us... tomorrow it's the jungle, and it's just you and me. Your last day. Then you get on a ship and streak away to Tokyo. Tokyo! As if anyone cared about Tokyo...

"So what are you going to leave?" Rafe the songwriter is asking me, and Kit laughs, and I'm so surprised I think it shows on my face. Shit.

"Yeah, Nate, what's your offering to the beach? I gave it my blood, obviously." Kit is talking about his wipeout earlier.

I'm scrambling. What do I know about sacrifice? Being a surfer and a junkie and a tour guide is about take, take, take! Take the sun, take the evening, take the dope, take the money, take the delight, I take it all. Silly. I can't do this. I can't think of anything.

"Dude, all he's got is his shorts," says Tony, guffawing.

"Nooooo!" says Marcus.

Imbeciles. I'm an imbecile too. "I'm leaving something... intangible," I say, not knowing what. Rafe nods at me so I think it's all right. I think I can leave it at that and not be taken for a liar or a cheat. I just don't know how to play this game, all of a sudden.

I don't even know what I'm leaving when we actually leave an hour after the sun goes down. It doesn't matter, I don't think. Tomorrow I'll be doing what I do best.