beyond the harmed circle

Who doesn't want to escape a circle of harm? For that matter, who is not from a circle of harm? Freudians, perhaps Jungians, too, as well as anthropologists, sociologists, historians, biologists, theologians, philosophers, pornographers, and poets would note that the circle of harm we all experience is birth, the trauma of passage through the dark and narrow avenue of the womb to the rude light of day in the fresh and brutal but necessary air. (Some theologians would hearken farther back, all the way to the birth of the human race and its rupture from Paradise.) 

Harm might be the wrong word. How "harmful" could it be if we're all in the same boat (or ark)?

And why a harmed circle? Why not a harmed square, rectangle, oval, or triangle? That's easy. I hardly need to type it. Who hasn't at one moment or another (maybe many or most moments) felt like a hamster on a wheel of frustration, pain, or madness, in an inescapable loop? The circular treadmill might even be jubilant, pleasurable, or poignant. Good or bad, it's hard (impossible? barely possible?) to extract oneself from that furiously spinning circle.

It might not be harm at all! You might be in a circle of charm. You might be hamster-running under a spell, on an intravenous-magical-mystery drenching of espresso, sex, drugs, religion, righteousness, reason, anger, angst, success, failure, danger, or drama. 

Can the circle be unbroken?

Maybe.

Maybe not.

Aha! I got it. Eureka. I have found out how to wed harm and charm (lucky or not), quirk and quark (charm, it turns out, is an elemental particle; don't ask me why they chose that word; channel Stephen Hawking). The enchantment of charm can dispel harm, singing an aria (that's right, charm circles back to song, incantation, chant, verse) of freedom and release.  

Before we get too excited about the charm bracelet of etymology, before we decide it always works like a charm, bear in mind that a charm can be a curse or a blessing. No less than Jakob Grimm, of the Brothers Grimm and their grim fairy tales, reminds us of this in 1883. To be effective, Grimm says, a charm "must be a choice." He claims it can't be a blessing and a curse. It's got to be one or the other, "either/or" (which is the title of a work by the philosopher-theologian Sören Kierkegaard). 

Take your pick.

Or flip a coin.

Charm or harm.

Give or take a letter.

Who said "spelling" wasn't important? 

 

palimpsest people

I have already lost touch with a couple of people I used to be.  

Joan Didion

82. He crashes his head onto my chest. The baby blanket draped over my shoulder. Will it hurt him? The rhythmic pacing and patting. The ardently sought burp. His eyes on mine. And when he cries it's full and all and now and forever. To him. I know, he doesn't know, it'll pass. Travail will not last. Baby, be my metaphor. The sobs of relief and joy into the bathroom towel before they came home. Triggered by John Lennon's Beautiful Boy.

54. The first-grader whom Mrs. Nutter called "Sunshine," memorialized in a photo lost, for now. The one who forever onward remembered "left" as the windows side in the classroom and "right" as the wall side with the entrance door; he who idolized Willie Mays but more so decades later cherished fatherly arms wrapped around him, secure, swinging at a lobbed baseball, this being the hugs and outward love signally recalled; he who played priest with a blanket over his shoulders, awed by the breathless fear of eternal hellfires and brimstoned purgatory mirrored. bookended, by pristine absolutioned after-bath crisp sheets purity. 

73. Soho. A few pounds sterling. Drunk. Another drink. A few more pounds. In for a dime in for a dollar. Another drink. More pounds. How much is that in dollars? Her name was Tanya.

77. At the altar, at a cathedral no less the velvet kneelspace of the prie-dieu not cushiony enough. Her back hurting, she in Renaissance array. Vows. Not a word of the sermon called to mind. Mom and Dad supposed to bring up the "gifts" but a foul-up, a confusion. Have and hold. For richer or for poorer. Sick or well. Unto death do they part. No incense. No asunder. No consummation, not here. The exchange of rings. Looking into the eyes. The hand places the ring on the finger. The public kiss. Not the consummation. The communion, even for Protestants. The beard, gone. The suit, not a tux. 

86. The splash of liquids, fluids, on the other side of the draped cloth. Here. It's a scissors. Here. What? Take the scissors and snip. Tough meat, that umbilical cord. Want to keep it? No, thanks. The fierce and roaring wind the night before. The nub on the bottom of her foot, subtracting from a perfect Apgar score but not hindering the strength or stamina or stretch of a soaring ballet career. Looking across the glass, at the latest crop of newborns: there, there, no, yes, there there that's her his beaming.

79b. Noon. Up the dark wooden stairs, slowly, hopefully, warily. Raise your hand. Stories. It was just stories. J. was there. Drunk in the middle of the night at a party months before on your side of town. He was not drunk now. Serene and sober. Just stories. Only an hour. The hot bath at home. New water. Lighter. Buoyant. Walking up those steps. And back down again.

97. Kentucky Derby. Waiting. Timing contractions. Chinese takeout from Seymour Street. Her walking, her nausea, her vomiting. What? She had taught childbirth. What was this? Walk halls with her, the IV tubes trailing. Sleeping in the room. Sunday morning. Here we go. Is this possible. This is physically possible. The slow miracle. The shrill cries. Hold her. New. She's okay. Newer. They're okay. Newest. We're okay. More. Even more. She. Her.

95. Let's try this again. A chapel we never returned to. Warm and windy for November 11. Veterans, we joked, of previous wars. Was the priest drunk? What did he forget? There was talk. The kids said we came back, driving in a November blizzard, peppy. Was that their word? Peppy. 

79a. Out there, the life of the party. They were all laughing. The Rolling Stones' song about the Puerto Rican girls. Miss You. Carrying on as if it were a dance floor. What a time we were having. We were all laughing. Shitfaced. Almost falling down. In the bathroom, in there, staring into the mirror and proclaiming and praying: You can't do this anymore. You can't. It's gonna kill you. You can't keep doing this. You... What am I gonna do? Back out there, the life of the party, the ringleader, manic. What a carnival. A circus. Closing time.