Moonlight & Vines (57 page)

I don't know. What I do know is that the antidote for me is to immerse myself in something like my writing, though simply puttering around the apartment can be as effective. There's something about familiar tasks that keeps at bay the unsettling sense of everything being out of my control. Engaging in the mundane, whether it be watching the light change in the sky at dusk, playing with my neighbor's cat, or enjoying the smell of freshly brewed coffee, serves to alter time. It doesn't so much stop the express, as allow you to forget it for a while. To recoup, catch your breath.

But writing is best, especially the kind that pulls you out of yourself, off the page, and takes you into a moment of clarity, an instant of happy wonder, so perfect that words, stumbling through the human mind, are inadequate to express.

The writer's impossible task is to illuminate such moments, yes, but also the routines, the things we do or feel or simply appreciate, that happen so regularly that they fade away into the background the way street noise and traffic become inaudible when you've lived in the city long enough. It's the writer's job to illuminate such moments as well, to bring them back into awareness, to acknowledge the gift of their existence and share that acknowledgment with others.

By doing this, we are showing deference to the small joys of our lives, giving them meaning. Not simply for ourselves, but for others as well, to remind them of the significance to be found in their lives. And what we all discover, is that nothing is really ordinary or familiar after all. Our small worlds are more surprising and interesting than we perceive them to be.

But we still need enchantment in our lives. We still need mystery. Something to connect us to what lies beyond the obvious, to what, perhaps,
is
the obvious, only seen from another, or better-informed, perspective.

Mystery.

I love that word. I love how, phonetically, it seems to hold both “myth” and “history.” The Kickaha use it to refer to God, the Great Mystery. But they also ascribe to animism, paying respect to small, mischievous spirits that didn't create the world, but rather, are
of
the world. They call them mysteries, too.
Manitou
. The little mysteries.

We call them faerie.

We don't believe in them.

Our loss.

Saskia is still sleeping. I look in on her, then slowly close the bedroom door. I put on my boots and jacket and go downstairs, out onto the pre-dawn streets. It's my favorite time of day. It's so quiet, but everything seems filled with potential. The whole world appears to hold its breath, waiting for the first streak of light to lift out of the waking eastern skies.

After a few blocks, I hear footsteps and my shadow falls in beside me.

“Still soul searching?” she asks.

I nod, expecting a lecture on how worrying about “what if” only makes you miss out on “what is,” but she doesn't say anything. We walk up Lee Street to Kelly, past the pub and up onto the bridge. Halfway across, I lean my forearms on the balustrade and look out across the water. She puts her back to the rail. I can feel her gaze on me. There's no traffic. Give it another few hours and the bridge will be choked with commuters.

“Why can't I believe in magic?” I finally say.

When there's no immediate response, I look over to find her smiling.

“What do you think I am?” she asks.

“I don't know,” I tell her honestly. “A piece of me. Pieces of me. But you must be more than that now, because you've had experiences I haven't shared since you . . . left.”

“As have you.”

“I suppose.” I turn my attention back to the water flowing under us. “Unless I'm delusional.”

She laughs. “Yes, there's always the risk of that, isn't there?”

“So which is it?”

She shrugs.

“At least tell me your name,” I say.

Her only response is another one of those enigmatic smiles of hers that would have done Leonardo proud. I sigh, and try one more time.

“Then tell me this,” I say. “Where do you go when you're not with me?”

She surprises me with an answer.

“To the fields beyond the fields,” she says.

“Can you take me with you some time?” I ask, keeping my voice casual. I feel like Wendy, waiting at the windowsill for Peter Pan.

“But you already know the way.”

I give her a blank look.

“It's all around you,” she says. “It's here.” She touches her eyes, her ears. “And here.” She moves her hand to her temple. “And here.” She lays a hand upon her breast.

I look away. The sun's rising now and all the skyscrapers of midtown have a haloing glow, an aura of morning promise. A pair of crows lift from the roof of the pub and their blue-black wings have more color in them than I ever imagined would be possible. I watch them glide over the river, dip down, out of the sunlight, and become shadow shapes once more.

I feel something shift inside me. A lifting of . . . I'm not sure what. An unaccountable easing of tension—not in my neck, or shoulders, but in my spirit. As though I've just received what Colin Wilson calls “absurd good news.”

When I turn back, my companion is gone. But I understand. The place where mystery lives doesn't necessarily have to make sense. It's not that it's nonsense, so much, as beyond sense.

My shadow is the parts of me I'd hidden away—some because they didn't fit who I thought I was supposed to be, some that I just didn't understand.

Her name is Mystery.

St. John of the Cross wrote, “If a man wants to be sure of his road he must close his eyes and walk in the dark.”

Into his shadow.

Into mystery.

I think I can do that.

Or at least I can try.

I pause there a moment longer, breathing deep the morning air, drawing the sun's light down into my skin, then I turn, and head for home and Saskia. I think I have an answer for her now. She'll still be sleeping, but even asleep, I know she's waiting for me. Waiting for who I was to catch up with who I'll be. Waiting for me to remember who I am and all I've seen.

I think I'll take the plants off that board in the dining room and reclaim the desk it was.

I think I'll buy a sketchbook when the stores open and take one of those courses that Jilly teaches at the Newford School of Art. Maybe it's not too late.

I think I'll reacquaint myself with the animals that used to live in my chest.

I think I'll stop listening to that voice whispering “as if,” and hold onto what I experience, no matter how far it strays from what's supposed to be.

I'm going to live here, in the Fields We Know, fully, but I'm not going to let myself forget how to visit the fields beyond these fields. I'll go there with words on the page, but without them, too. Because it's long past time to stop letting pen and ink be the experience, instead of merely recording it.