Without a place to land.

Deep within the night, tucked inside of a little house on a hill, there is a girl who is waiting.
Waiting on nothing in particular, but knows she’s waiting for something.

The little house on the hill is quiet, the sound birthed by slumber.

Muffled, she moves about the house. Mixing words on paper, typing in the paint. Preparing tea, but then switching to martinis. Her left argyle sock is slouching, and her back is straight as an arrow as she’s stretching.

She hears a whirlwind somewhere out in the night.
Despite what could be lurking, she opens the arched door to the outside.

Sitting on her porch,

Nothing.

Disappointed,
She goes back inside.

She thought for sure, there would be something, someone.

The heart dew’s break.

As a small child, before the many different things they diagnosed her with, there was only one thing that could calm her down.

She would go into these fits. These loud, uncontrollable, maniacal, feverish fits. They were scary, intense, and I remembered in the midst of, wondering if they’d ever come to an end. To watch her during these times created some of the most intense griefhoney that I’ve ever experienced. No amount of cradling, or coos, or song, or rocking could tame her. Leaving her put to let her ride it out only made it worse.

She didn’t speak a single word until she was 4. The noises that came out of her mouth were strange coos and gurgles. Not unlike the sounds of certain parts of  French pronunciation. I was the only one that was able to find a pattern within these vibrations. I knew her language as an involuntary reflex. I was her translator, her advocate.

And then there was this one day…
When finally in the midst of an episode she started speaking in her broken language.
Red ball, she said. Red ball. Red ball. Red ball.

I knew the ball she wanted… It was my twin and I’s favorite ball.

I ran outside and found it. Rushed back in to show her.
Still screaming, still crying, Mother falling apart holding her in the rocking chair,
I waved the ball around… “Ama! Ama! Look! Here’s the red ball.”

Nothing.

I sat the ball on the floor. I ran to my Mother, grabbed my little sister, set her down on the floor near the red ball. Her legs were spread, forming a V. I sat across from her in the same position, our feet pressed closely together… She always had to have physical contact.

I grabbed the red ball, and rolled it to her.
Instantly a deafening hush filled the massive house.
She stopped.
She rolled the ball back to me.
We played that way for hours.

The little red ball, the only thing that worked.

A clown’s nose.
A cherry on a sundae.
A bull’s eye.

Last night, as the doctor’s predicted, she had a psychotic break.
Chances are, she won’t be coming back.

And all I find myself doing, is searching for the perfect little red ball.

The honest ink.

Eight years ago I read something about a man named Grace. It moved me so, and I found myself searching for him without realizing.

Grace was my fictitious emotional cherry popper. Prior to him, I had never fallen in love with a fictional character. I was raised to believe that you love the art, not the artist. The music, not the musician. The word, not the writer. You can appreciate them as a vessel, but it goes no further. But Grace, though a product of the printed word, became real in my mind. He wasn’t a character, he was a real person that was out there that this printed word was based upon.

A few years after the first reading, I realized what was happening and I made it stop.

The process that followed was like losing a loved one to death. I suppose the timing was appropriate because that was a period of time in my life when my family, friends, and lovers were dropping like flies.

So, to aid in this process of loss, I started developing ridiculously honest relationships with strangers. Single serving people as Palahniuk put it.

And through time it became something much more than bumping into someone and starting a conversation… I had started writing strangers. I’d pick a random address. (Be it in the local white pages or an online phone book.) I’d write to them about myself, about what was plaguing me that I couldn’t shake, or random thoughts and ideas I couldn’t get out of my head. (Coincidentally, not long ago, I offered this bit to a fellow blogger that I’m rather fond of.)

Through the years I’ve received a lot of responses back. I have a box under my bed with all of these saved letters. Some of the most personal and intimate things a person could ever hear… All because it was completely safe. It was letting go without forgetting. It was the best part about being a human. And that’s all it ever was. So completely perfect. Neatly packaged in white envelopes. Black and blue inks bruising the pages.

Three weeks ago, I sent a letter out to the middle of nowhere Montana.

Saturday, I received a response…

To date, it’s the most moving, the most needed. She was immaculate, gorgeous, and I loved her as any child would love its mother.

Last night, I painted her… The image of what she is in my mind.

I haven’t painted, really painted, in quite some time. Too wrapped up in other arts and endeavors.

But last night, I painted her. Upon it’s completion, I stood there and sobbed. I sobbed, and sobbed, and sobbed.

It was my best work, in my opinion… It was the most honest thing I’ve ever done. There were no walls, no constraints. There was no one pushing my pace, forcing reaction, creation. It simply flowed out in a matter of hours that passed like minutes.

Her maiden name was Grace, bringing everything in my mind full circle.

And had I never gotten lost that day I found my favorite bookstore,
Had I not craned my neck to see the captivating title,
Had I not lost my family, my friends, my lovers,
Had I not developed a loving relationship with strangers,
Had I not craved to write secrets on blank papers,
I never would have found her.

This thing that ties it all back to Grace.

A word that surely from now on, will always come with a capital G.