Becoming the Storm
58 Raking the Stones
MONDAY AFTER THANKSGIVING, we were right back in the swing of things. Call was at eight in the morning and the audience was seated by nine. I watched Elaine move into her routine and the audience get into it. There were close to forty people in the audience and they were in the holiday spirit.
ELAINE: We’re back after the national day of mourning on Friday. That’s right. Black Friday. I think it is fitting that we commemorate the day the stock market crashed on Friday, September 24, 1869, with this solemn holiday, the day after our most conspicuous gastronomic consumption of the year. I personally put on my little black dress, a veil, and black gloves. Black pumps—not too high because you don’t want to show disrespect.
And you might need to run.
Then I went out and totally destroyed the department stores.
I was in the thick of things. I clawed my way to the toy department and grabbed the very last of those Talkboys. You know, the personal tape recorder that cute kid in Home Alone used to fake his way through New York! I had to get one for…
That’s when I realized I don’t have any children! I forgot!
I handed the little toy to the nice woman who was chewing on my heel, adjusted my veil and went to the ladies’ wear department where I attempted to corner the market in gold… lamé.
Later that night Hercules went into depression. We expect a return to a normal market economy in January.
Elaine looked great in her little black dress.
Tuesday, I just hung out and watched. Debbie and Dolly were the guest chefs. They decorated cookies with different types of frosting. Not a real stretch for anyone, and certainly appropriate as we were in the holiday season. But they had their own twist. It was Carl’s twenty-second birthday and they used him as their guest in the kitchen. While they had cookies to decorate, they ended up decorating Carl. He had frosting all over his face. And he had no idea which girl was which. Whenever he said anything to either of them he would call her by the wrong name and get pointed in the other direction. As he worked on mixing or spreading frosting according to their directions, they would switch places so he would once again call them by the wrong names.
It was funny. The audience loved it and there were some very good frosting recipes as well. I breathed a sigh of relief. Debbie and Dolly were soon to become my permanent guest hosts.
Wednesday was a tough day. For everyone. After I’d struggled through my eggnog recipes, I finally left the studio and walked toward the River. It was cold, but at least it had been a dry week so far. There was a bit of sun and when I reached the gravel path, I took off my shoes, even though I was going to freeze my toes off. This was Lexi’s birthday. She would have been twenty years old.
Last February, when Denise would have been twenty-one, I was so overwhelmed by my rage that I broke a railroad tie. I hadn’t noticed any flaws in the tie in the two years that I’d been beating on it, but obviously it must have had a weak spot. I certainly couldn’t break a railroad tie with my fist. That was just stupid.
But as I walked on the gravel path toward Lexi’s final resting place, I was a lot calmer than I’d been nearly a year ago. I was… more mature? I don’t know. I didn’t feel bottled up. My rage—my anger—that I’d felt for four years was still there, but it was not quite at the surface now. And I don’t mean I’d buried it. I was in touch with it. When I woke up sweating or screaming, I knew the rage was right beside me, ready to answer my call. But I was beginning to separate myself from it. I could see now that it wasn’t who I was, but something that I could use.
It’s in my kit.
Sly and Lily were the first ones I met. They were sitting on the ground next to the River with their bare feet in the stones. It seemed that they were staring up into the sky. Sly glanced my direction and smiled. Then he looked back at the clouds. I continued around the stream. Judy and Amber were sitting together at the next place where the stream intersected the River. It was much the same scene as Sly and Lily. The two girls had their arms around each other, silently sitting by the River and staring into the sky.
When I reached the River the third time, Monte and Ross were sitting there. The guys were bisexual, though I don’t think that made a difference in the way they were holding each other with their feet in the River and their eyes on the sky. Judy, Monte, and Ross had been inseparable from Lexi for the whole time they were in junior and senior high. It just felt right that they were here together. At the fourth intersection, Samantha and Hannah sat. I didn’t realize that Hannah had left the studio. After my portion, there was still a bit with Elaine. I wondered who was directing the cameras.
There was a certain symmetry about the way two people sat at each of the stations along the River. I guessed that meant there was really no room for me. I didn’t want to break up what seemed like such natural positioning. I was about to continue on and leave the eight to their meditation. I could come back later.
“Brian,” Samantha whispered. Had it been any softer I don’t think I could have heard it. I stopped and looked toward her. She held onto Hannah with tears streaming from her eyes. “Rake, beloved. I think you are the only one who can do it.” I wasn’t sure what I could do. She wanted me to rake the River; I would do so. Somehow, though, before I could set my foot on the colored stones, I had to strip. I could not take anything from this world to the world I was about to cross into. When I was naked, I stepped across the white chain and picked up the rake.
I remembered the way Mama Ruth and I had raked the stones. She’d told me I couldn’t fix anyone else, but by helping others, I helped myself. I could fix myself. I began raking. I approached it as I approached doing forms—slowly, deliberately. Each line I traced with the tines of the rake obliterated all trace that I had been there. In fact, however, I stepped so softly on the gravel that there was no trace to cover.
There were long sweeping flows in life and I had forms that took me in that direction. There were forms that caused swirls in current. There were forms that carried me to the shore and then back to the channel. The rake never broke contact with the pebbles. I dragged it through them as I proceeded through forms of peace, forms of anger, forms of acceptance, forms of love, forms of passion. Each kata left a trail in the current of our river of stones. When I passed Lily and Sly, they smiled at me and lifted their feet from the shallows. It seemed natural that when I reached the station where Judy and Amber were, that Sly and Lily had moved to join them and wrapped them in their arms.
Forms of companionship. Forms of family. Forms of friends. Forms of intimacy. The swirls in the stones were all the reality I could comprehend. It was expected when I reached Monte and Ross. Sly, Lily, Amber, and Judy were with the two young men, holding them in their arms. We’d created a very long and winding river. I retraced steps of the forms to pick up spots I had missed. Forms of inclusion. Forms of encircling. Forms of submission. Forms of bonds even stronger than blood. Stronger than love. As I approached Hannah and Samantha from the River, the other six approached them from the stream. I wove around the rocks in the river and came near the shore where their feet were before dancing away into the flow and bringing the current back with me. As they lifted their feet from the River, I swept past them, stepping out of the River and into the stream as I parked the rake in its accustomed place. After making my way through the entire circuit of the River, there was not a footstep visible. There was a single, unbroken path of the tines of the rake. The current of the river.
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