Psycho-tropic
Montserrat was visible from no great distance. Smoke stacks compounding and rolling down the sides of its volcanic spout only 25 miles southwest of my bare feet. After its last eruption in 2012, glistening black sand could be collected by the jar-full off of Antigua’s north shore. I guess the trade winds willed it so. Though right where I was standing seemed the most plausible dumping ground for mounds of the sulfuric ash. Montserrat’s capital is a modern day Pompeii. Buried under decades of slag and boulders, one finds Plymouth. The people there still recognize it as their capital. I don’t entirely understand why. But, there’s much I don’t understand about people. Like, why anyone decided to claim a spit of sand with a wildly active volcano on it in the first place.
The local boy that was splashing about on the beach, seemingly self-contented, inched closer to us. Just as he’d been doing over the course of the past ten minutes. Things I was careful to account for because I had a feeling Jason wouldn’t. ‘Which is fine,’ I thought, ‘he shouldn’t have to.’ The continuation of an internal, yet collective, monologue rang loud and true. I knew there were many women out there like me. Those that’ve sacrificed a little part of their freer selves just to fill the protector’s shoes. All for the sake of keeping carefree partners close. A trade-off we still thought necessary to remain in the life-giving presence of the young at heart (without having to take on the responsibility of children).
I continued to study the young boy methodically as he picked up his mask and finally thought to approach him instead. My ‘smart’ full-face mask and snorkel in tow. A cherished gift from Jason, but of little material consequence to me. That was the case with most things. Though I’d never dare admit that.
“Hey, you want to try this one out?”
His whole countenance lit up.
“How! Ah wah dat?” he held out both hands eagerly.
“It’s a full face mask with a built-in snorkel. You don’t have to grip a mouthpiece. Your nose just sits here, see? Try it,” I said as I helped him adjust the head strap.
I acknowledged my dicey tendency to trust kids. Wholeheartedly. Without reserve. Even after having been held at gunpoint by a fourteen-year-old boy. Lacking exposure to the kind of crime that proliferates along the edges of desperate communities, I’d been caught off guard in broad daylight. I grew up in a safe suburb. And the safe suburban girl in me could never have anticipated staring down the barrel of a young black boy’s handgun that sunny, Wednesday afternoon on Gentilly Terrace. It was a beautiful day in the neighborhood.
This one could’ve easily bolted with the $200 mask as soon as I helped him finish adjusting it. But, he didn’t. He handed me his own and waded into the water instead. How little his decision had to do with the cultural background he didn’t know we shared. He’d probably profiled us as tourists just as I’d profiled him as a child.
I watched the boy slowly submerge. Bent over at the waist at first. Then completely disappear into a vat of liquid mercury.
…fuck, was my second thought as the acid hit.
The third was to look up.
The sky was blue. I gently reminded myself that the sky was blue. Easy enough when the grass draping the surrounding hills had turned a vividly HD-enhanced green. An entire array of effervescent hues.
Everything about me had subtly changed appearance. For there are certain constants in life, but matter isn’t one of them. Something I’d dimly suspected of the natural law, though this was the first time it had ever offered up any sound proof.
Was it sound? My mind seemed coherent enough. Huh. Maybe more so than usual. Thoughts lingered, but didn’t come up in tattered threads. No run-on sentences. No loose ends. Everything appeared seamless as if it had always made sense. And I’d questioned the integrity of my cerebral wiring since I was five. To no end. But, there was reason for that, too, I guess. The ceaseless scouring and coming up short. There is no end. The mind provides housing for a dalliance of endlessly intersecting streams of thought. And they did not all originate in or from me, but had access to me. This, I understood to be true somewhere beyond the mind’s comprehension.
Although “would you mind ordering some fries from the bar?” was definitely mine. I’d asked Jason somewhere between a few minutes and an eternity ago. He was now standing some 30 feet away before the kitchen window looking exceedingly anxious. Splayed out across the brightly colored beach towel, I tilted my head back to gaze up towards the underside of the wooden umbrella. Each galactic knot in the aged wood spinning counter-clockwise at a predictable rate. Nothing too out of the ordinary there. Everything was, for the most part, recognizable. Yet, today alone would manage to put yesterday and tomorrow into perspective for the rest of my days past and to come.
I sat up to look towards the shoreline, expecting to fix my regard upon the rolling foam like I tend to. A Neptunian tendency. But my roving eyes stopped short. Instead, gripping to the lichen patches ceremoniously crawling their way up the length of the wooden beam jutting from the sand.
“You needn’t venture any further from your post,” the wind off of the water cooed. Everything was willing to reveal itself at my station. Maya dissolves without any ceremonious declaration. The shreds of Egyptian linen masking reality beginning to rapturously unravel before my very feet. Where a four-eyed, eight-legged friend appeared atop the inner pink lips of the empty conch shell I’d dragged to shore. I propped myself up on a sturdy forearm to greet the visitor.
Jumping spiders are curious creatures. The sight of this one took me back a year’s time. Where I played yo-yo with another on his silken string while idly motoring through the Everglades. Maybe it was just another instance of human ignorance, but he’d seemed to enjoy it. How can you expect a human not to personify that which he isn’t in order to try to make sense of it? The newcomer inspected me in greater detail than I ever could him or her without the aid of a magnifying glass. These estranged human features through kaleidoscopic eyes. How he ultimately processed my image, I’d never know. But, that’s where the beauty of foreign interaction lies. Being able to relish in our respective details through different partitions. Disparate languages at a junction.
I could just make out every other hairy bristle coating his legs and abdomen. He could probably make out the roots of the peach fuzz carpeting my countenance. Maybe he could go so far as to see the fine grains of sea salt that had collected there.
‘Where was Jason?’ a lingering sense of time called me to. His footsteps on the sand seemed to move from faint to upon me without warning or transition.
“Agh, sorry it took so long. But, man, how are you feeling? Because this shit hit me as soon as I got to the window to order.”
Thinking about it, I felt…my usual unavoidable level of self-consciousness. But underneath that, a perceptible warmth. A permeating hum of potential energy. Everything about me was painted just as warmly.
And my perception of my surroundings is what provided those temperate undertones. I immediately understood that my feelings dictated their appearance.
“I feel warm,” I stated as I cocked my head to meet his eyes. I was beaming. Not with an intoxicated, glossy finish but a truly congenial grin. Throughout our relationship, he’d always been very good to me and even better company to keep. Not the kind I’d fallen head over heels for, but the kind I’d always shown love towards. We were great friends. And I could only hope that wouldn’t change.
He, too, radiated warmth. Beyond plain self-assurance, he was a soul possessed of itself. His internal sun constantly generating a convivial buoyancy about him wherever he went. I occasionally felt like a looming storm cloud in comparison. Only on my sunniest days could I ever come close to matching the child-like exuberance of his spirit. We were comfortably kindred, but could never cross that deeper threshold I required to feel truly bound to someone. It was by no fault of his. And for once, just once, I didn’t worry my pretty little head over whether we were holding each other back from loftier pursuits. Whether we were wasting time. I was in great company. With both of us.
All that mattered was this infinitesimal moment in our existence and how we chose to feel it. To feel life permeating from every chlorophylled blade of grass, and bleached and broken branch of perforated coral, and intentionally mangled tree, and faintly perceptible ghost crab scuttling across the open sand, and cloud undulating across a reflective, hemispherical light blue canvas. How much we chose to revere in the aliveness of it all…
The little boy had gone off, but left my mask in a neat bundle on the shore. I got up to make my way towards the water. To replace the boy in that vat of mercury. Jason followed close behind.
Step by step, the finely ground quartz molded to what I left exposed. The soft, fleshy soles of beautifully carved feet that were kept so without any extra care. They were dainty and nimble by design. How right every footfall felt. My whole human exterior craved to be swathed in the earth’s weathered minerals. And by that, I mean I wanted to roll in the sand. Like beach-philic hounds that always make it a point to do so as soon as you let them off the leash. With little regard for who might be watching or who might reprimand them for it once done. I made it as far as the shoreline before lowering myself to let the rest of my bare skin accept the earthen deck’s invitation, entrenching myself. Hips and groin relishing in the bodily embrace. And committed to observing the constantly altering configurations of the crystalline mounds as they were swept into submission by the wind. Churned into unique formulaic patterns with each passing draft.
Kaleidoscope: the term was derived from ancient Greek. Kalos, eidos, and skopeo syndicate to give the word its significance. The observation of beautiful forms.
I imagined laying on a cold, wood floor in a cabin in Maine to have felt just as good. I’d never been to Maine. Not even close. That wasn’t the point. It would have been just as inviting by its very nature. Its texture, firmness, temperature, pliability, and composition all working collectively to grant it utility and purpose.
Was I, too, just a masterful composition?
“You needn’t venture very far,” cooed the wind off of the water, “Everything you will ever need is right here.”
Though I was possessed of a spirit that vied to wander to the ends of the earth and back again. In search of truths I thought to be buried on distant hills in other times by ancestral hands. I knew nothing about the universal truths beyond my assumptions. And dictations and interpretations of what I’d been given to work with. And articles I’d poured over on the internet.
“Just live,” a voice beyond mine assured. “These projections and rigorous dissections. They will come up short and only leave you riddled with worry. Gray hairs and sleepless nights…just live. Exuberantly. Accordingly. And the veil lifts itself.”
I looked over at Jason, also rolling in the trough of sand he’d excavated for himself, and laughed. His eyes glowed with an undiluted playfulness. “I feel like I understand you for the first time. Like I’m experiencing you at your essence. Actively gaining a newfound appreciation for who you are. Why you are the way you are…You’re a crazy, white boy, Jason. I’m dating a crazy, white boy.” I felt the words drip from my lips. Sinking into a deep pool of recognition. I wanted my silly salute to his spirit to reverberate in the space surrounding us as acutely as possible. I also let the epiphany temporarily allow me to forget about the lack of sensual intimacy that had plagued our relationship for some time now. An aspect of it that, wait…did that ever really even matter? Over the past few months, I’d become so emotionally mired in how little we touched. How infrequently I invited his advances. How much I wanted to be ravaged by strangers and ghosts of dates past. That I’d forgotten why we’d even gotten together in the first place.
We were children at play. We laughed. A lot. It was very simple, really. And very obvious from the jump that we would be great companions platonically. Pursuing anything beyond that would be difficult, if not impossible.
We were here to validate one another’s inimitableness. Lift the shades of apprehension and let the light in. Unlocking a deep knowing only accessed through the connection established with a spirit that challenges one’s own. We made each other better, kinder, more adept people because of the constant compromise. Again, something just as easily accomplished by a strong friendship. Which was something I’d craved for a long time.
And here it was. Here we were. Friends just playing in the grains of infinite time and space.
We rose from our troughs and walked towards the exposed rocks jutting out along the beach’s west end.
Side by side, but not hand in hand. Healthy detachment. There was a distinguishable separateness to our sojourns with every impression left in the sand. What appeared to be a dried sponge poked out from the severance of a rock cut by the surf’s constant chisel. Bending low, I reached out to dislodge it. The soft branch accrued interest on its way up and out from the divide until, to my disbelief, a decomposing goat skull fully revealed itself. Grazes and grooves running their courses along the yellowed collagen.
Death was all around me. Sleeping peacefully in those out-of-the-way spaces aboveground. Seeking to go unnoticed by the bulk of the living in order to save them the discomfort. While death, for me, had always seemed familiar. An expected phase within the natural progression of all things.
“When it’s your time, it’s your time,” my dad had always said. And it had always rung true.
Even bone softens with time, I thought to myself gently placing it atop the adjacent rock. Jason decided to wander across the larger stones as I took a seat at the tidal theater. Watching the striped shore crabs mechanically shovel algae into their eager mouths just over my toes’ horizons. They mindlessly foamed at the mouth out of necessity rather than delight. Blowing bubbles to pull oxygen from the encapsulated air. The tide came in to wash over them, undulating in just as it went out. How rhythmic and ordered the dance was. As if there were some mathematical formula at work. Nature’s perceived chaos acted out in predictable, highly organized tessellations.
The surf glistened at the sun’s touch and so did I. Jason returned to join me on the basalt rock some time later. Maybe as equally satisfied with a personal discovery. His arm gently pressed against mine emitted an amusing warmth.
“So, how do you like it so far?” he pressed further. “It’s…heavenly,” I thought aloud, “pure bliss.”
“Good. That’s how it should feel. And that’s what I was hoping to hear. Because it is for me, too,” he beamed at me through squinted eyes. “It’s…more often than not…what you make of it.”
…Isn’t everything?
Jason stood up suddenly and made a mad dash towards the water. As impulsive and predictably unpredictable as ever. A wildly active volcano I’d chosen to settle near.
