Following Fish

night

I hate to admit that old Beardy Bruce nailed it, but Maryn's place is perfect. The adobe house sits behind and below the Photo Park. My room on the second floor is cozy. The peachy pink clay walls peek out in slivers between Maryn's paintings. The bed is comfortable, covered by a lush comforter and packed with pillows, not one of which has been rendered useless by a frilly case. This is the kind of bed I would fantasize reading in with my husband on a lazy Sunday morning. Our legs intertwined, the only sound is of us flipping pages until stomachs rumble and we decide to go out for brunch. Over the last few years, our bed had become a battle ground. Fighting for the causes of sleep, sex, and connection. We lost them all. Perhaps, if we had been fighting on the same side...

There's a balcony that faces east, away from town, into nothingness. This is the place to watch shadow hour, but I've missed it tonight. Mountain air cools in an instant. I snuggle into my husband's college sweatshirt and review the memory of how Maryn stopped my getaway this afternoon...

She approached me slowly a beer in each hand.

"I feel it impolite of me to yell your name as we've not met, but I thought it better than 'Hey You,' or worse yet, 'Yo'."

Her voice, a melody. Every sound a note, every syllable a rhythm. She played me like jazz; listening to, then echoing my silence. She left me enough space to turn around. She examined me. The path of her chestnut eyes (both in shape and color) gently warmed my feet, legs, midsection. It lingered on my collarbone for an extra second and finally took in my face. She's concerned with seeing me, not looking at me. Through her artist's gaze I am relieved to be reduced to shapes and light. My nose a triangle. The space between my lips become the shadow of a thin crescent. I've always hated my weak chin but as she handed me a beer, she said, "Your head is like a lemon, from front to back."

I am instantly charmed. I don't usually drink and can't remember the last time I ate. The beer makes lead of my arms and legs while my citrus balloon of a head is finally light enough to float. My neck follows suit and gets long. My vertebrae stretch and applaud for this reprieve. We walk to the back of the Photo Park and descend a mismatched staircase. Once we are in the house, she points towards my room.

"Tonight is for resting, tomorrow is for talking." This is not a threat. "Good night, Lucee."

I come awake to singing. Howling? Keening? Night has pulled its blanket over all my senses except sound. It's a mishmash of human, earth, and animal songs. First in the score is the wind, playing hard, huffing and blowing the blinds on my window. It lays down an unreliable beat, tapping at the edges of my sanity, looking for weak spots. Next, the coyotes. They've gotten something. Their celebration is captivating and creepy. If you've never heard the raucous chorus from a band of coyotes, it makes everything stand up and listen. Even my eyes in this darkness dilate widely to take it all in. It sounds like an old answering machine tape in a defective machine, playing too fast, getting caught in its own gears and emulating high pitched human squeals. Or a group of giddy girls having a sleepover after a sweet sixteen, up all night drunk on friendship and sucking the helium out of the balloons. Maniacal, unstoppable falsetto laughter. Now put those kids and old school answering machines all around you. Envelop yourself in that. Now remember---it's coyotes. That's the shell of the sound symphony that woke me. What's inside is different. A voice. Singing. Existing in the eye of this sound storm.

I grew up on the east coast so I know the eye. I remember my first. It was Hurricane Gloria. She was relentless. School was canceled but this was no snow day. Snow days are still, but hurricane days have prep. Taping windows, securing patio furniture---it was the only time my mother and I had ever cleaned the yard. Then, the storm. She punished us for hours, and when the eye came, I asked my mother if it was over.

"This is the eye." She didn't say more than that. The sound of a basketball striking the street coaxed me outside. I went and stood in my front yard; the whole neighborhood was doing the same. The sky was grey and grumbling in the distance. Neighbors met at fences, kids played in the streets. The hair on my arms and neck were not interested in playing; they were honoring the energy that the storm still possessed.

Now, in the darkness, this "song" holds that kind of space, the storm of wind and coyotes swirling around it but the song is unflappable. Calm and potent. I struggle to make out the words. Is it in another language? Whatever triggered my goose flesh during Hurricane Gloria thirty years ago translates the lyrics without issue, and sends tingles through my scalp. Too pleasurable to be an all-out warning, I hold my breath to direct more energy to my ears. Sometimes pieces of the melody cut through the thick adobe walls and other notes and phrases sound as if they are miles away. I try to catch it, commit it to memory, but it must have the hint of a lullaby in it because in no time I am sleeping again.