Hold On To Yourself
I’m parked in the half-light of the Dunkin Donuts. A lone employee scurries around under the glow of the fluorescent lights, closing up for the night. I’m just here. Waiting outside the martial arts studio, playing the time game, will we or won’t we make the next boat home?
Sitting in the driver’s seat, legs tucked under me, skirt tangled up and pinned tight under the weight of stacked legs.
The dash glows brighter as the late September light fades and brings the digital clock’s time into focus. 6:53 pm.
It’s been thirty one years and 52 minutes since they called it.
I glance curiously at the curve of my calves. Browned by the now-dwindling-summer-sun. Toned and lean in this flattering yet dwindling light but also from a life on the move. I’m 5 years less than he was on this day and find myself drifting off, caught up in an odd little memory from so long ago:
The nurse on duty tells us we can be in the room to have some time. Freed from life support, here lies, under respectfully dimmed lighting, the simple elegant shape of my dead father under a sheet. Age 55. It’s so surreal. What are we supposed to do with this moment they’ve given us? Alone, I choose to run my hand along the outside of his lower leg. My fingers gently shapeshifting. His calves are strong. Sturdy. Islanders never really stop and their bodies take shape from this rugged life of resourcefulness. This islander’s body is the shape of resilience and grit and independence. Sea legs. Coast Guard search and rescue legs. And in another time, long ago, they supported my weight, and that of my sister’s, as he carried us across the Cove, over rocks, and up steep hills to launch toy airplanes over the gravestones below.
2023: In this moment. Pink Floyd is on the radio. A splash of red bars rises and falls on the dashboard console and pulses in time to my throbbing temple, an intake of air, a rising sharpness at my throat.
So, so you think you can tell
Heaven from hell?
Blue skies from pain?
6:01 pm. September 21. 1992. The 265th day of the year 1992. There were 101 days remaining until the end of the year. The day of the week was Monday.
How I wish, how I wish you were here
We're just two lost souls
Swimming in a fish bowl
Year after year
It’s a lonely harmony. “detached feelings many of us float through life with. It's a commentary on how people cope with the world by withdrawing physically, mentally, or emotionally.”
And in 1992 it’s REM:
Well, everybody hurts sometimes
Everybody cries
Everybody hurts, sometimes
And everybody hurts sometimes
So hold on, hold on
Hold on, hold on, hold on
Hold on, hold on, hold on
I included it on a mixtape for my mother that year. I thought it would help. Now it just feels dramatic:
And in 1993 we’re still raw and reeling. And Sarah McLachlan belts this one out blunt and sharp.
Hold on
Hold on to yourself
Oh god
If you're out there won't you hear me.
I know we're never talked before
The man I love is leaving
Won't you take him when he comes to your door.
Am I in heaven here or
Am I in hell…
Hold on to yourself
For this is gonna hurt like hell.
I put that one on repeat and shared it with my mother. But surely she remembers the long night matched by the long shadows cast down hospital’s corridors? Because it was here, side by side, slumped against the wall, knees pressed up, chins resting on knees - an upright fetal position - where we gently changed positions and she became the child and I became the reassuring adult.
2023 …
Weightlessness, no gravity
Were we somewhere in-between?
I'm a ghost of you, you're a ghost of me
I boldly asked the staff on duty if there was a way to tune the machine to “silent mode” so she wouldn’t have to hear the beeps and flateline. Because I guess I thought I was in a TV hospital drama. I was 19 and it sure didn’t seem real. . What else was there to feel in control of? I thought I could control the trajectory of the grief that was to come. An ex boyfriend called me on the phone. I took his call on the phone in the family waiting room and said I told him I. Was. OK.
Is there a soundtrack to Mourning? A rhythm to sorrow?
There certainly is and it’s on repeat. Thirty one years and 52 minutes and counting, slumped over in the front seat of my car, waiting for my son he’s never met in this life. Music is medicinal. Music keeps my memories in tune.
Did they get you to trade
Your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
Running over the same old ground
What have we found?
The same old fears
Wish you were here
The ballads and beats blindside me. And I am grateful for the shape of their refrain.
This piece was written for Lipstick Rodeo Magazine’s ‘music’ edition.
