Celestial Clockwork (or): Waiting Around for Grace, cont'd

Well, (she said, to the empty air) you can't have thought I'd forgotten, for the heart is persistent, down to its last agonized beat.

I don't know if this will make any sense. Maybe it will only make sense to the ones who need it.

I wrote the linked post quoted above back in September 2021, after a particularly haunting sort of day, the kind where absence feels as solid as presence should be, and loneliness is so sharp you can almost trace the outline of what is missing from your life. 

The title was from a song that was stuck in my head at the time, called Waiting Around for Grace, about which I'd privately mused that "Grace", aside from a desired state of being, might as well have been a dear friend you'd once arranged to meet at a certain time and place, who never arrives because she'd died long ago. (A feeling not unfamiliar to me - my best friend has been gone 20 years now.)

It was a significant day, spiritually at least, and aside from the post named above, I had continued to write and ponder on it for a long time. I'd always expected to finish this related piece called "Celestial Clockwork" when I figured out what it all meant, but 4 years later, I don't suppose I am any closer to knowing, so I guess I'm just going to post it today. 

This is what I wrote, back in 2021: 

Celestial Clockwork

 The restlessness started in mid-afternoon. It wasn't uncomfortable, exactly, but unfamiliar. Like craving food while having no appetite. 

The sense of needing something gnawed at me, though what it could be was not clear. I ran through all the possibilities in my head, all the things a person might conceivably need, but nothing came up a match. 

I went outside to where my husband sat under a tree, partly to consult him, but mostly because I couldn't stay still. "I need something, but don't know what, " I said. "Do you ever feel that way?" He looked up into the branches, thinking for a moment. 

"No, never."

Trying another tactic, I asked "well, what do you need, then?"

"Chinese food." he said.

Okay, we could do that, at least. Get the keys and go. You know how it is with these things. When you don't know what you're looking for, you might find it anywhere.

...

The restaurant seems out of place in the market plaza; the curling manes of the stone lions not in keeping with the stark façade. Like a few things I've come upon in my travels, these lions do not want to be photographed. It's simply not possible to get them both in the frame. I gave up trying long ago. What's the use of having the yin without the yang?

Inside is a darkened maze of wooden booths and bamboo screens. It's very quiet. The servers dart about soundlessly. In the center of the maze, the buffet tables are steaming. There is something slightly surreal in this, I think, the bright shimmer in the dim room. Visible heat. Strange how a sense of unreality can creep into most mundane of scenes. The transmutation of the unseen into the seen.

My husband has positioned himself at the end of one of the tables, and while I know he's just waiting for the General Tso's chicken, there's something about the sight that puts me in the mind of a chess piece awaiting the next move. In turn I position myself near the cauldrons of soup, another chess piece, if a less imposing one. In the stillness, I can feel a clock ticking both inside and outside. Above me, I notice, the ceiling is painted like the evening sky. 

Outside the restaurant it is silent. Amid the oblique geometry of the forecourt, the breeze moves in angular bursts. Pigeon feathers hover and swirl before drifting away. It's still summer, and hot, but the air has a trace of melancholy, the end of the season in a tourist town. We take our food and head home, and somehow things seem different, even though it's not clear what has changed. There is a vague sense of a far-off glimmer. Perhaps some unseen satellite ascending.

....

I don't know from astrology; I only know I like charts and glyphs. It's a comfort to me, mapping the arcane. Planets transit the houses, the moon changes its phase, a stranger on the street turns to catch your eye. Who can say what it means? I just like to think about it. 

Anyway, it helps with the restlessness, which has begun to metamorphize into an uncomfortable prickling, the feel of a cheap wool sweater on a hot day. The clock is ticking, I can feel it now that it has come into my awareness, though it must have always been there. What it is counting down to is a mystery. Perhaps some enigmatic matter of fate, which I can sense now like magnetic north or the pull of the ocean across the plain. 

This might be an unlikely claim from someone like me, but sometimes there is no point in asking why. Every so often, things just are, and you won't get anywhere pretending otherwise. I meditate for an hour, surfing relentless waves of inner itch, but all that happens is wanting to shed my body like a dry lizard skin. So, lacking any other solution, I mentally track the planets through their whorl of nebulous destiny. I don't believe for one moment that, say, Venus transiting the 7th house has an actual, physical pull on anything, but I know - the way one knows these things - that recurring patterns in the chaos are a signal. Cosmic tarot. Symbol plus placement plus synchronicity. 

It's Saturday, the 11th of September 2021, and aside from the internal ticking of the clock, there is no sound but the echo of blowing leaves.

At home, I skim the edges of the yard, looking for a place to land. It's easier to think outdoors, and there is much to ponder. The ticking of that clock, for one thing. Why do I suddenly feel as if I'm one of those number slide puzzles with the tiles slightly out of order? That I need to figure out what to shift before the clock winds down? It must have been just after 6:30 when I settled down in an out of the way corner behind the house. No one would be likely to find me there. My restless heart ached for peace, among other things. It seemed I was supposed to do something, and there is nothing worse for an aching heart than to feel there is some unknown move you should make to resolve the pain. 

I sat there in the dusty heat and tried to clear my mind. Somewhere up above I was dimly aware of planetary gears. I was conceived in September and born in June; there has always been something autumnal inside me, a wistfulness, an animal-like alertness to incipient change. I felt it keenly at the moment the clock went silent. A dust devil rose from the ground like a phantasm, present only briefly but portentous all the same. Somehow, I knew - at that moment, like a weight falling - that the first part of my life and its purpose were over. Whatever signal I had been sending like a determined firefly had gone out into the aether, and now there was nothing to do but to wait for a signal in return before moving forward to the next.

....

And that (having never become clear on her purpose) was all she wrote. 

Not that there was no more to the story, you understand - there was so much more to the story, so many layers, and loops, and walking one careful foot in front of the other down what seemed like a fateful and fated road that somehow instead came to a dead end. 

Yet, the feeling remains. The sense of absent presence, a third energy, a golden thread, an intangible field on which unseen action is meant to play out. My life has changed completely - sometimes serendipitously, sometimes forcibly pummeled into a new shape - from the way it was in 2021. But where this journey goes or why, I have even less of a clue now than I did then. 

As for Grace, I'm no longer waiting for her arrival. I accept that she isn't coming after all. Even the Chinese restaurant with the curly-maned lions is long gone, and the Texas hill country is far in the distance. I had a heart attack last year, and now my agonized old heart beats more erratically than ever.

Even so - for the moment, though - it still persists. 

The picture at the top of this post was taken as a somewhat mocking nod to that very same linked piece, outside a florist in Detroit one night in the autumn of 2023. Perhaps you can tell by my pained smile, that - despite the signage - grace was not exactly forthcoming for me at that time. 

Whirlwind in Retrograde

"Don't go far off" he used to say, but in the end, he only wanted me to go.  

Some days, I walk out onto my doorstep and it's like a dream I had once, long ago. Chalky blue-white midwestern light and curiously elongated shadows. There is some solace in the way the wind and the trees aren't bothered about me; I just am, if I'm anything at all. 

There is a house on the next block with a row of temple bells out front. They chime with a most delicate sound. 

Once upon a time - that is to say, three or four years ago - I used to gaze out toward a point on the horizon, northeast beyond the cliffs, gaze at it until I could imagine seeing the traces of my attention there, a phantom signal against the sky. 

What was I signaling? Something desperately important, it seemed. A longed-for future. A magical elsewhere. A certain place where I was not. At night I gazed at the stars and dreamed. Twice I watched the earth's shadow cross the face of the moon and felt my destiny coming into being. My goddess is a goddess of eclipses, after all. 

Now I look out my southwestern window and understand so clearly that what I was signaling was my own self, looking back from where I came.

I think a lot about that place between what was then the future and the past. There was so much I did not see. Ohio like apple-raspberry candies from the dime store. Gingerbread, cloves and chamomile. Soft Sounds of the 70's. Cold grue and aquarium sky. From my limestone perch in Texas, I did not see this, nor hear it, nor feel it. What I sensed, on the other side of my prickly pear reality, was something golden and glimmering, reaching into the beyond. The glow of manifestation, maybe. I wonder now how much of it belonged to me. 

...

One night not long ago, I was at the library, a building that looks like it was designed by Escher on a bender. We sat in the atrium and listened to astronomers talk. Through the pointed panes of glass, a slow twilight was descending. My attention drifted upward until I could see the first stars. 

Far away, I sensed a faint blip on my inner radar, that signal trace of who I used to be. I signal back, a pinprick of light with the density of heartache. I tell her that I am here, looking at the sky 1353 miles away, and if you hurt, it's because the future hurts. But you did make it out, even if it wasn't like you imagined. You managed to do what you were supposed to do. You did make it there, eventually, and for a little while your wish was true. 

I already knew she heard me, because I'd heard it all those years ago. 

...

Now the solar eclipse is coming, and there is nothing to do but wait. We traveled here by the path of totality last summer, without knowing. The direction of the signal in the sky. It seems somehow significant now. 

For the moment I bide my time here in the track of the moon's shadow, among the flat fields and whirling leaves, searching the horizon for a signal from my next future. Perhaps, in the afternoon darkness - if I'm lucky - it will shine. 

The Opposite of Presence

It's late mid-winter in northwest Ohio, and the wind is achingly cold. The fields are empty even though they are not empty. The silence is a deafening roar.

What is this absence that screams without sound? I keep asking but nobody answers. 

Muddy sun sets in grey sky. Cell towers blink on the horizon. At dusk, the belt of Venus appears in the east, but close, so close that it feels that the edge of the earth is near.

The pain in my bones signals my own existence. 

I step into the field to pose for a picture, but already I am disappearing from the landscape. It doesn't know me and won't miss me. My greatest value now is in being gone.

Inside, invisible to see, I recall that it was only a year ago that I watched the conjunction of Venus and Jupiter from the end of my street. Every night the planets drew closer and closer. It seemed to mean something then, it must have meant something; even if I can't remember the way it felt now. I watched and waited and was happy then, until the planets moved apart, the way they always do.

High Mysterious Union

It's May, and the owls and whippoorwills call in the night. Soon the cicadas will begin their summer song.

Here on my rock, I watch and listen. I think about signals and transmission lines.The electrical hum along the wires. Waves bouncing off the blue sky.

Mathematical formulas become sigils if you think about them long enough. Arcane frequencies resonate in time.

Somewhere, beyond the range of ordinary perception, the invisible conversation goes on and on.

Scheme Supreme

Much to my surprise, this turns out to be the summer that my youngest child discovered Archie comics. One minute, I'm worried about his getting enough reading practice this summer, the next he's gleefully raced his way through 5 double digests with no sign of stopping.

Obviously I'm not one of those parents who think comic books are substandard material for teaching kids to read. Quite the contrary - I've been impressed by the speed at which his comprehension of even difficult words has improved. Anyway, I experienced it myself when I was just about his age.

I can even remember the moment it happened.

It was the night before Easter, and we were spending the holiday with my seaside cousins, which was always a thrill. Their house was very quiet at night, though, much more quiet than my own, and I despaired of ever falling asleep. My cousin was snoring away in the next bed so she was no help at all. On her bookshelf I spied a Jughead Jones digest - it was a bit worn and no doubt appropriated from her dad's bedside table (and really, if a chemical engineer like her dad could read comics, then who could find fault?) I opened it up and began to read a story called "Scheme Supreme."

I hardly knew who Jughead was or why all the girls in town were plotting against him, but the idea of a secret society (The United Girls Against Jughead or U.G.A.J.) laying out complex plans to prevent the spread of his anti-romance ways was very compelling. Even if the plans were a massive failure and by todays' standards, definitely not politically correct.

The eternal allure of the unobtainable man

Most of all, I liked the idea of the unobtrusively-placed red thumbtack that signals the meeting. Even at 7 years old I was fascinated with signs and signals. 

At any rate, I fell in love in love with Archie comics, and with Jughead and Betty especially (seriously, wouldn't they have been the best couple?) and they kept me company during those grim years at elementary school when I felt utterly alone.

For my son's part, he's thrilled to learn that Archie has been around for 80 years. This means he has 80 years worth of comics to read.

Now at least one of my kids will appreciate inheriting  my ridiculously huge comics collection one day.

Neon

In 1840, the first sign of the Great Comanche Raid in Victoria was a flaming arrow. In an odd sort of commemoration, a neon arrow set this barbecue joint's roof ablaze nightly for 50 plus years.

Signals

"At night you can see the red light blinking on and off on top of the radio tower. A tiny flurry of human activity against the impeccable backdrop of stars and void."

- Welcome To Night Vale

Those Who Take Their Presence With Them, Those Who Leave It Behind

photo by Francesca Woodman

My friend and I were talking the other day about a girl we'd once known and loved. As a child, she'd seemed touched by magic, everyone around her felt touched by magic. I'd feel so bereft when she'd go away. Since we didn't see each other very often, it was my fate to be left behind.

The essence of this is distilled in dreams about her: we talk frenetically, tell half-understood stories, play confusing, yet fascinating games. The clock ticks in the background. There are months of things we want to tell, but there is never enough time. Her mother's voice calls from the distance, saying they have to go. Her real life is somewhere else, far away from mine. As always, I'm left with a vague notion of color and shadow, a memory where her presence once was. Nothing even as substantial as a ghost. Only an undefined longing fills the vacuum.

Childhood friendships can be mysterious, and I've long wondered about this ancient grief of mine. To this day, I'm not certain what I expected. I'm quite sure I was more attached to her than she ever was to me. Perhaps this was the source of the longing - underneath our apparent closeness in those days, I really knew who was loved the least. 

My friend considered this view, but ultimately disagreed.

He said, "It's just that she takes her presence with her when she goes. When she's gone, she's gone. Those kinds of people, there is an emptiness where they used to be.

'You, on the other hand, leave your presence behind."

It was immediately clear what he meant, though I'd never heard it put into words before. It was an intriguing idea. We thought through all the people we've known, whether their presence went with them or lingered. Despite the intangibility of a quality such as "presence", we were able to agree in every case as to who was which. We wondered at first if it was the type or strength of personality that made the difference, but no...there were similar types who fell into different categories, and exceedingly different ones who were the same. Nor did spirituality matter much - one very spiritual roommate left nary a trace of his living there, another had such a strong presence, even the years couldn't diminish it.

It's a nebulous, but distinctive phenomenon. Your beloved is not with you, you are totally alone.

Your beloved is not with you, yet some sense of  them remains. 

I wondered if missing someone more acutely contributed to the perception of absence. Again, my friend disagreed. To him, feeling the absent person's presence made missing them more difficult, a constant reminder that they really were gone. Plus, he pointed out, there are some people who drastically improve the mood in a room just by leaving it. Well, I certainly can't disagree with that.

To me, though, the absolute feeling of absence seems utterly lonely, haunted by longing. As if I might recapture something important if only I could find a trace of that person, somewhere, around some far corner. A sign or signal drifting on the breeze.

This last is how it seemed to me with the girl we'd once known and loved. Years later, when we were grown and living in the same town, I would catch hints of her presence. On the sidewalk, through a shop window, in the echoes of a stairway where she had just been and gone. Not much had changed, really...the ticking clock had been set in motion long ago. The mysteries of our friendship were never to be solved; ultimately, there is little point in loving someone who must always leave you. Instead, I learned to love the traces of her presence for the brief moments they remained, like little whirlwinds, so many vaporous wisps, so many childhood  ghosts.