Salvage (fictional piece)

I tried to sing for him but the melody stuck in my throat like an annoying popcorn kernel that knows to lodge itself in your esophagus at the precise climax of a movie. I slightly choked on the uncomfortableness of it all. Unafraid of singing before large crowds the adrenaline surging through my veins like a double espresso. I fed on their energy, on their life. But sitting here before an 80 year old man, my stomach churned with fear. He requested the old hymn a second time, and I simply coughed and fidgeted like a 4 year old trapped in a church pew.

“I don’t think I know that one pops,” I lied, swallowing back the swelling of tears starting to burn my throat. Hell, I didn’t owe him anything. Especially not this. He wasn’t a paying fan; in fact, I couldn’t recall him ever making it to one childhood voice recital or the high school musical where I probably set the record for chunkiest Sandra Dee in Grease - one of my proudest moments, actually. I was always the school nerd, you see, but at curtain call, every person in that auditorium rose to their feet, including the kids who taunted me. It was then, I knew this was my little piece of heaven and I was going to spend the rest of my life holding onto that. I looked for his face in the crowd that night. I waited until everyone passed by with their hugs and congratulations. I waited for two hours after the performance, sitting in the dark, spandex coated barrel legs dangling over the edge of the stage. I waited until the principal locked up, forcing me out. I waited. I waited, because he promised.

I heard a slight groan escape his lips. By impulse I moved closer to him reverting to that mothering role I had been forced to assume as a child. At this distance, I could see the pain in his face. I hadn’t noticed across the room how yellow his skin actually was. I just stood there for a couple of awkward minutes, not quite sure what to do. There was no vomit to clean, no rubbing alcohol or mouthwash to hide. What was my place here?

Another groan. “Hey, pops, there is a button for morphine here. Do you want me to hit it?” No response. But the pain etched into his face and running through his body was palpable, and I did what any humane person would do. I hit the button.

They say a person has to hit rock bottom before they realize they need to change. Well, if sitting in a puddle of your father’s piss and vomit isn’t rock bottom, I don’t know how much further I would have to go to hit it. New York was my ticket out. So, I lost the weight, asked for extra lessons from my voice teacher, and took two jobs so I could move as soon as graduation rolled around. I had been living my dream ever since. Until I got the phone call.

The truth is, I’ve been waiting 30 years for him to die. 30 years expecting it. Every time he passed out, as a child, I was there checking his pulse, putting my hand in front of his face to make sure he was still breathing. When everyone else had left, I chose to stay...until I couldn’t. I never expected him to live this long and honestly always thought he would suffocate in his own vomit before his liver would take him. But he proved me wrong.

He made a garbled sound. “What did you say, pops?”

“I said, ‘sing’. You always had such a pretty voice.”

How the hell would he know?

“Remember when you played Sandy in Grease Lighting?”

Fighting to keep my tone even tempered. “Yeah, but you weren’t there, pops.”

“Yeah, I was.”

“No you weren’t.” Contending with his feeble mind would likely be a never ending battle, but I wasn’t willing to back down. Not with this much at stake.

“I was too!” he insisted.

“No, you weren’t. I think I would know dad, I waited all night for you to show up. But you couldn’t give up the fucking booze for one night, could you?” Even temper, fail.

It seemed like forever, standing in that malodorous hybrid of feces and aerosol disinfectant. The silence was too much for me bare and I started out the door. That’s when I heard his voice clearer than I ever had before.

“No, I couldn’t give it up. That’s why I sat in the back of the theatre the entire time. Where you wouldn’t have to worry about me. You sang like an angel.” He chuckled slightly as he sang the words “ ‘Look at me I’m Sandy’. As soon as you bowed, I was the first one on my feet, clapping and whistling. But, I figured I was probably getting too loud. So I left.”

My stomach hit the floor, as I tried to make sense of a man who, most days, couldn't make it out of the house because he was so roaring drunk, somehow traveling two miles to my high school to see a musical.

I began to ask why he had never said anything, but I knew better than to spoil this sacred moment. All the anger and bitterness, I had worn like a glove began to quiet for a moment, as I made my way toward my father’s hospital bed.

Not knowing what else to say in that moment, I simply sat beside him and whispered, “ If you left early that means you missed the encore. I think I owe you a song”.

My life flows on in endless song;

Above earth's lamentation,

I hear the sweet, though far-off hymn

That hails a new creation;

Through all the tumult and the strife

I hear the music ringing;

It finds an echo in my soul--

How can I keep from singing?

I always thought Sandra Dee would live on to be my most prized performance, the performance that inspired an award winning Broadway career. But it was sitting in that hospital bed singing to my father that the role of Sandra Dee seemed laughable. As sobs of forgiveness garbled my voice, I sang a stuffed up, tear-stained solo just for my dad that was not anywhere close to perfection. But it was easily the most prized performance I would ever give and the best audience I could ever hope for. 

The Voice

In memory of Anne Sexton and her poem "The Touch", which was used to help create this piece.

The Voice

For years my voice was sealed off in a wooden box

Nothing was there but the painted smile of pretty lips

Perhaps it is dying, I thought, and that is why they have buried it.

You could tell time by this, I thought, like the rings of a tree.

Individual moments, individual branches flanking the sides of this instrument.

Coiling, choking that which was not welcome.

It lay there like Sleeping Beauty awaiting a kiss, for permission to gasp, to sigh, to breathe.

Prince Charming never came and the voice remained motionless.

Pulling back the shrub and ivy that enshrouded it, I rested it in my hands,

hoping there was something I could do to revive it.

It was bruised and scarred in places. Stitched. Hoarse and barely breathing.

Nothing but vulnerable.

And all this is metaphor. An ordinary voice that had been silenced...

only longing to speak.

Was it lost as a child amidst the rubble of loud noises,

Longing to keep the peace?

Was it the words that filled her head,

considered sin if they were released?

“Perfect, perfect, perfect. God will only love you if you’re perfect!”

Was it the coworker who crossed a line, while she was dismissed because he misunderstood “US customs”?

Was it he 21 and she 14, teeth entangled in her hair, his slimy tongue and words in her ears?

Was it someone she trusted most...

skin on skin

Be quiet

on skin

It will be over soon

on skin

It's your fault, you know

STOP!!!

That’s what I wanted to say.

Stop.

There, my voice. A kiss Prince Charming could never give you.

You are now alive!

To speak, to roar, to sigh...to whisper, to laugh, to sing.

To stand up, to sit down.

To fumble with this new gift you’ve found.

No longer do you have to live in a box buried just beneath life,

immobilized by fear.

No longer do you have to wear that pretty stitched-on smile and nod your head in agreement...

If you do not wish.

Within you is a power you have never used.

So take a deep breath and open your mouth.

Silence no longer owns you!

by Tracy Medberry © 2011

Room

She awoke, barely lifting her swollen eyelids, unaware of time in this place. The cold cement numbed the right side of her body, having played spin the bottle with random parts while she slept. At the moment her entire right side was declared the winner - a kiss of tingling pain her redeeming prize. It was no seven minutes in heaven. Rolling onto her back she smiled briefly at the thought of her youth; the only memories she could squeeze from her brain, were pleasant ones, at least. She went back to them often, relishing each one, over and over, sometimes for hours at a time.

Robert Ortiz. Her mind lingered there for a moment. Her mother’s basement closet. His soft cupid’s bow lips pressed against hers, and with it, the promise to teach her to kiss. She, a fifteen-year old novice, knew one seven minute lesson from this Latino master and she would acquire a skill-set that would last a lifetime. Taking a hard gulp, she followed his lead. At first a bit out of sync, with a little correction, she finally started to get the rhythm. Lips now dancing, unexpectedly she felt his tongue begin to move inside her mouth, making her stomach ache with pleasure. He took his time, licking each lip seperat..

SHIT!

Her eyes forced opened wide by searing pain in her left ribs, leaving Robert Ortiz and her mother’s basement miles away. She lifted the tatters of her shirt to find magnificent shades of purple, yellow, and green bleeding together to form an artistic creation on the canvas of her skin. She knew she must find beauty in the small and even brutal things, now. If she wanted to survive. Her breath was shallow from either pain or the lack of oxygen in this place.

She tried to retrace the steps of what happened the night before, how she got to this moment. Her earliest memory was when she was four years old and had snuck out in the middle of the night, plopping all of her stuffed animals on the tailgate of her parent’s station wagon. And with popcorn and soda in hand and her whole entourage of soft playmates, she pretended to watch a drive-in movie. She remembered little league games and dance recitals. The time she broke her wrist doing a back flip off the trampoline in sixth grade. She could picture the exact red dress she wore for senior prom and the speech she made at graduation. She knew every family member’s name and birthdate. But thinking of them now only brought tears to her eyes.

She looked to her left desperately seeking a source of light, her only connection to the outside world. There, far above her head, was a tiny crack that proved she was not in one constant state of being, that there was still such a thing as time, such a concept as night and day. She bathed in that pinhole of sunlight for as long as she could.

Then she heard it. A tiny scritch-scratch, as if two pieces of fabric were being brushed across one another. Aware that this was most likely a figment of her imagination, she held completely still, praying for another sound to fill that void of indeterminable silence she had been enduring.

Scritch-scratch. There it was again. She intrinsically turned her swollen eyes toward the noise, finally able to make out a form. Why hadn’t she seen it before?

...to be continued

Mother

In a woman's life there ultimately comes the awe-struck day in which she realizes she has turned into her mother. This day is far removed from the ones where she believed her mother was akin to some sort of superhero who knew the answer to all of life’s mysteries and could fix every problem with magic spit and a bandaid.

Neither does this day usually occur in the self absorbed pre-teen, teenage, or even college years, where the daughter finally becomes cognizant of the fact that she actually knows much more than the woman she idealized all this time; and if there is a superhero to be found, she, the much younger and indefensible daughter, would fit the criteria. And if there happens to be any likeness at all, it is simply the same surname that magically appears on the checks that pay for her car insurance each month.

At this point in her life, the daughter is often ferociously fighting the affinity to be like her mother, perhaps in an attempt to carve out her own identity, perhaps out of fear of becoming like mom. She promises herself she will never do what her mother did, say what her mother said, or become anything like her mother.

But, sooner or later, the fateful moment will occur...

It may be while at the beauty salon when getting that cute pixie cut that was all the rage in this week's issue of Glamour, that the resemblance finally hits her, and with tears welling in her eyes, she immediately inquires about extensions. Or it may be in the heat of passion, while wrestling a 2 year old on a NY subway train during a nap time temper tantrum; some words she promised she would never say to her own child, finally fall like acid from her lips, immediately burning a groove into her synapses, faintly reminiscent of her mother’s voice, taunting her like a broken record. Or it may come after she has married and put her career on hold to pursue the man of her dreams wherever his next job lands them, as she looks back on her mother’s life and succumbs to the fact that she is knee-deep in those footsteps she swore she would never follow...

Or in the worst of circumstances, it may be while packing her mother’s old belongings- a woman taken by cancer. A daughter, lost in a sea of her mother's clothes and old photographs, searching wildly for a scent or a small freckle that matches her own; she studies her face for any resemblance that will keep her mom, here with her.

Whether we bemoan it or embrace it, the moment holds a special place. It's a space where we are simultaneously faced, in the same breath, with our mother’s frailty and our own. Long before, having been hit across the head with our mother’s imperfections, we are now struck by our own faults, our own humanity. It’s a moment where the smallness of our lives, how minute we are within the universe, seems overwhelming. The actuality that we will probably never accomplish everything we set out to do as children comes barreling toward us, and we long for nothing more than to crawl up into that warm lap where platitudes are free and magic spit is plenty.

It’s also a moment of immense freedom, if we’re lucky. We begin to see this woman who birthed us, raised us, and put up with all of our bullshit, with fresh eyes. She is a woman, just like we - human, imperfect, original. She has an identity that goes far beyond that of our mother. She is: Artist. Entrepreneur. Author. Courage. Vulnerability. Lover. Beloved. Imperfect. Whole. Striving. Dreamer. Seeker. Protector. Beauty. Child of God...Friend.

That last one hits me personally, pretty hard...Friend. It wasn’t until I stopped fighting to be anything like her, that I could start to see the true value in who she was/is as a human being. She is one of the few people with whom I’m unafraid to broach any subject (probably a little to her annoyance at times). But she’s there discussing... politics, religion, family, pop culture. Agreeing. Disagreeing. Both of us knowing at all times, that unconditional love is present, no matter what is said.

Don’t get me wrong. There are still some things about my mother that drive me up the wall. But there is a masterpiece standing before me. And like a connoisseur studying a fine work of art, I am beginning to pull out and reflect on traits from this invaluable mosaic.

I envy her piss and vinegar attitude concerning the opinions of others - she could care less what they think of her. I value her willingness to be open to new ideas. She is completely giving. I could not have made it through my pregnancy without her self-sacrifice. My mother is beautiful. When I growup, I want to be just like her, again...well, barring a few minor details.

In fact, just the other day, now past the shock and tears from the pixie cut fiasco, I asked my mom to send a picture of one of her haircuts in her younger years. “You know, the really hot one,” I added. Hell, if I can’t beat looking like her, no reason not to join her...the best version of her, that is.

Written by Tracy Medberry © 2011

The Appendage

A cigarette end burning from her lips.

Ashes falling.

Bruises on her arms.

A cold instrument haphazardly bound to her head.

She gazed into the mirror, no longer able to fully recognize

this object, barely able to trace it’s slurred outline.

She quizzically looked at this cold piece of metal seemingly fused to her, wondering if anyone would ever free her from its bondage.

Or if the original owner, bored, would reenter and for his own sick, twisted amusement add more weight to the already useless appendage.

She couldn’t remember much of the original owner, or even if there had been one.

She couldn’t remember how long she had been sitting there, in front of that mirror

waiting for release...

RELEASE

She screamed, reaching out for the intruder in one final attempt to rid herself of it. Aware of its existence, but unable to focus - her world a blur - she flailed about miserably trying to catch hold of her oppressor. Nothing.

Dizzy from exhaustion, she fell to her knees, a puddle of tears forming beneath her.

In that tiny reflection, she finally caught a clear glimpse.

Bright. Beautiful. Gold.

Once muted to her eyes, jewels beset in this foreign object

began to shine brilliantly.

She jumped from her knees to get a better view.

The mirror that had betrayed her so many times in the past,

For the first time showed truth.

She placed her hands up to her head- to this gift, memories flashing back like lightning.

The man who gave it to her, said it would be light.

She lifted it from her head. It was as light as a coin.

He said it would be there in times when she needed it most

to remind her of her beauty. In this moment, she felt like royalty.

Standing there that day, bruised, battered, covered in years of ash, she released cold oppression and discovered, in it's stead...a crown.

Written by Tracy Medberry 2011 (not that you want them, but all rights reserved)

Twice in a Lifetime

There is a set of lines, a bit sappy, found in the climax of many movies of the romantic genre. Said lines are usually uttered by a character, generally, a man who has lost his wife, accompanied by an orchestration of swelling violins and violas. As the the music reaches it's pique, the man sweeps a strand of the female's hair off of her forehead and gently caresses her cheek. Or if the director wants to go for added benefit, they will have him stand in the freezing rain, the female soaked in some floral patterned, cotton dress, the violins still at an all time screaming pitch. And at the moment of perfect catharsis, this amazing man will reveal the words that would make any breathing female's, heart skip a beat, "After my wife died, I honestly thought I would never find love again. I thought, if people were lucky enough to grab hold of it, true love only came along once in a lifetime. And I was content to go the rest of my life knowing I had shared something very special with one very special woman, something some people search their whole lives and never find. But now, you're standing before me, the second love of my life, and the only thing I can think, is don't let her go!" This of course is followed by an extremely romantic embrace and a kiss. (at this point I should add, I am not making light of those who have lost a spouse, just Hollywood)

The only reason for this very drawn out exposition is that, as corny as the latter lines may sound, I can't help but picture Fear that way sometimes. Not a simple, I'm a afraid of spiders Fear, although I'm sure that can leave some in a life altered state for a matter of...moments.

I'm talking about Fear that, almost as powerful as Love gripped you so strongly at one point in your life, you would be happily content if it never shared a cathartic moment with you in the freezing rain or placed it's sharp, boney fingers anywhere near your face.

But there's the rub. Although, Fear and Love can often be construed as opposites, Fear is the one thing that has touched me as deeply and intimately as a lover.

And although, I would be content if I went the rest of my life without this invader uninvitedly seducing it's way into the very marrow of my bones, naked and raw, making me wish to crawl out of my flesh, I must admit, we've shared something -- a kiss. He has seen me at my darkest moments. He has tucked me into bed, wishing to smother me in the blankets which nestle me in safety.

However the one truth I hold to is that Love is stronger, more alive and palpable than Fear.

This very week my unwelcome invader tried to sneak his way back into my heart, seducing me with his muffled logic -spewing that the depths of what we've shared only comes along once in a lifetime, that he had searched the whole world and couldn't find another with whom he had experienced the same level of intimacy. He grabbed the locks of my hair, twisting them, ensnaring them in the space where his joints barely met at the knuckle. And in a scotch and cigar infused wheeze, he whispered that he realized he was lucky enough to find me once, and now, that I was caught again in his embrace...he would never let me go.

My heart skipped a beat...

For a moment, I surrendered, briefly paralyzed by the vitriolic fumes of his breath. But, then I realized... I've been to the deepest, darkest pits with this monster's boney fingers wrapped around my neck, and I have SURVIVED! I have come face to face with my hellish predator, who longs for nothing but my destruction, and I have survived! And I will continue to survive! Each time I stand firmly and look him in the face, allowing Love to replace what he has to offer, that boney grasp loosens its grip. It's only a matter of time really, until his skeletal remains have not even the strength to lift a pinky finger. And on that day he will have no choice, but to let me go.

by Tracy Medberry 2011 (not that you want them but all rights reserved)

Wrestling With God

This is an extreme sport and one at which I am very adept. It requires sheer determination and and an ability not to back down. And like most sports this one will leave you tired and worn out in the end. Unlike most sports one wrestling match of these sorts can go on for months and months. And believe me when I say the match does not usually end with the sheer exhilaration one might have after climbing a 100 foot peak or scoring the winning run in your league's final softball game. After all the frustration and torment I, the wrestler, cling to during one of my marathon sessions with God, I usually begin to realize I have two options 1.) to let God win and find myself broken before him or 2.) or to try to assume I am somehow a match for God and stay on the mat. The first option is usually an easier route once I am willing to trust and to change. But the two words trust and change usually leave me in this match for much longer than I intended.

Because quite frankly I am have a hard time trusting God without images of Job coming into my mind. I mean, if I relent and let God win the match, I am often left with the feeling, "OK God what are you going to do to me next?" "Is my house going to burn down?" "Are you going to send pestilence (been there)?" "Is my skin going to erupt with rashes (done that)?"....

Am I going to face depression... Will I be able to see Your face when I go to that dark place and cry over and over and over, "Please take this away." I realize post partum depression isn't very likely as I don't plan to have any more children. But the thought of, "Why didn't God save me from that?" is still very present and very real in my mind. And that no doubt explains my issue with trust.

I am pretty sure it's about time for me to let God win this round. No doubt I will find myself broken before him. No doubt I will have to change. But it's probably time to trust again.