Part VIII - Vulnérabilité

Paris Stories (continued) -- Part VIII

They spent the late morning together, drinking delicious coffee at one of their favorite cafés.

Auburn hues, and bold aromas drifted down avenues—fragrance wafting in the city air. Life’s rhythm slowed down in such moments; they would think back later and realize the magic of love sets aside time like an invisible hand.

By midday the streets of the arrondissement bustled with weekend activity.

Separate Paris lives bumped into one another, in close proximity but with uniqueness; like red-blood cells coursing through the body’s arteries. 

City dwellers’ living kinship, the concord of the masses: coexisting diversity, common values, the momentum of time, and a collaborative friendliness pervaded most of the neighborhoods along the Seine, at least those frequented by artists.

“I’m peaceful right now, Char.” “It’s hard to put to words, but exploration has exploded my creative boundaries.” They were long on both intimacy and communication, a powerful duo.

“Tell me how, Gabriel,” smiling, waiting expectantly for his answer.

“Its heart is energy,” he told her, “from my center, creativity hisses like a volcano; the earth’s about to crack open.” He continued, “there’s definitely a pressure building,” “It’s a mysterious force.”

Gabriel continued, “when I feel most accomplished, besides when I’m with you; is when the creative explosion erupts but I can still grab hold of it, use it!”

She loved his explanations, because she was pretty sure the wheels in his beautiful mind always spun.

“I didn't know the power of my thoughts; what to do with them?”

“I knew I was different but by secondary school, my classmates let me know for sure!” (winking)

“I miss Middle School,” deadpanned Charlotte.

She added, “Like I miss having Poison Ivy.”

He barked, “being different in secondary school… like being sent to the gulag—you’re labeled… doomed!” "Condamné."

“The hidden fruit finally came to the forefront, didn’t it?” Charlotte said.

“Thank God,” he replied.

Charlotte said, ironically, “I’m not trying to conform anymore, myself.”

“I want to be different, but I’m not sure making a living is something I should ignore,” Charlotte confided, “but if I devote all my time & energy to a law practice, there won’t be anything left for myself, for my art?”

Charlotte concluded, “Working in the law won’t give me the buzz that expressing myself does, artistically.”

Gabriel said, “Stimulus doesn’t pay the bills, Charlotte;” showing, maybe a firmer understanding of economics than she gave him credit for?

“But legal expression isn’t the same,” she concluded, “As a lawyer you have to say what your client wants you to say, or what they need you to say.” “And you have to fight for causes you don’t believe in!”

“The worst is when you know your client is lying to you.” He could tell she was agitated.

“Don’t get ahead of yourself, Char,”

[Did Gabriel mean that he had a better grip on the art business than she did?]

He believed Charlotte’s work as an amateur laid the groundwork for a long career as a professional artist. 

“You’ve got the self-control,” continuing, “You’ll know when it’s time to quit Lawyering; the art will meet the artist, when the writer is ready.”

“Keep exploring, Char, and drink from the waters of creativity,” Gabriel seemed confident. “You’re on the right path, I'm sure of it.”

“I just read Ayn Rand, she said that art is… 'a selective re-creation of reality, according to the artist’s metaphysical value judgments'.” “Isn’t that cool?” she said. This might be where Gabriel's English language skills broke down?

“The purpose of art is to exhibit and concretely make known, the artist’s fundamental view of existence,” “which I think is so evident in your drawings, Gabriel.” He was flattered, but also flummoxed.

Charlotte: “So, the metaphysics of your designs are made within the principles of mathematics, geometry, and uniformity. The black-and-white is obvious when you look at your art; but at the same time, the art is independent of the world’s measurements and reflects your own knowledge, beliefs, feelings, and desires of how the world should be.” Gabriel was completely focused; transfixed by this brilliant woman.

Image 2018 ©Charles Crumb via Facebook

“Maybe I know more than the casual observer, but to me drawing's a means of survival,” “a way to make sense of the world, your life, how you think things should be. That which is internal still makes its way onto the canvas!” After saying so much, she was physically spent—out of breath.

Gabriel just stared at her. He didn’t know what to say. 

Most Frenchmen weren't as sapiosexual as he was at the moment.

But this vulnerability exposed him to great danger.

He felt like his skin was transparent, and she was gazing right inside: into his beating heart. 

"My art is my own language, Char; it's unconventional, but on its face it looks systematic, I know. It's learned from an apprentissage of my own mind; and a long period of experimenting, or doodling as you call it in English."

Gabriel proudly finished his speech:  "I don't know if it's capital-A art; but it's neither a sob story, nor a confidential whisper. You're correct, Charlotte, my art is a translation of my personal life into visual terms. As weird as that looks."

Image 2018 ©Charles Crumb via Facebook

(Fair use of copyrighted work shown herein above is not an infringement of copyright law, 17 USC  Sec.107)

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The video I'm posting to celebrate Part VIII is one of the sweetest love songs I've ever heard, slow dance: #TupeloHoney

https://youtu.be/3DbTIKHYwog

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Fiction ©Mark H. Pillsbury

Legal disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. 

9-11 Tribute After 13 years: R is for Resiliency

R is for: Resiliency

“The good folks mostly win, courage usually triumphs over fear, the family dog hardly ever contracts rabies; these are the things I knew at twenty-five, and things I still know now, at the age of 25 X 2. But I know something else as well: there’s a place in most of us where the rain is pretty much constant, the shadows are always long, and the woods are full of monsters. It is good to have a voice in which the terrors of such a place can be articulated and its geography partially described, without denying the sunshine and clarity that fill so much of our ordinary lives.” –Stephen King (April 16, 1996)

 

If I’ve learned anything through trials and travails, it’s that even though life seems short, ephemeral, and progress only seen dimly as through a dark opaque window; there is always the power to rise to the moment, and summon the courage to change. This is my voice articulating a vision of the geography of the dark places we face; and after so many years--maybe even some of those affected by 9/11 have navigated out of the dark forest.

Freedom Tower, Manhattan

 

Even when one seems too old, tired, or uncomprehending of how to alter their course; by taking deliberate steps down another path, I’ve seen durable people transform themselves and their situations remarkably. "In a real dark night of the soul it is always three o'clock in the morning," said F. Scott Fitzgerald; however, let me assure you, there is always a way out, the morning after.

Sometimes it means realistically dropping one dream, now cumbersome baggage; developing another set of goals. Other than developing a love to read and learn; this might be one of the keys to unlocking life’s complexities, and is certainly something I want to bestow upon my children: resiliency.

Those fortunate to have their wits and health, living in this great land of opportunity, and with God’s sovereign blessing, can get up one morning and resolve to change; indeed, one’s path is never set in granite. Killing inertia is itself an early skirmish in this brutal, continual, wearisome war.

Standing with your feet firmly planted allows one to gaze out and ponder a new course; even though the road looks twisted and crooked through the brambles and brush of rural forest. Sometimes it seems too overgrown and dark to find your way. Don’t give up! Keep looking for the light, and if necessary, hack your own way out till you find the dirt road for which you yearn.

Once the new path is found and begun by faith; the energy to meet the new challenges will appear; although, this river of energy fueling a fresh endeavor is not always apparent. Sometimes you tap into its power like a hydro-electric plant, or otherwise jump in, just riding with the flow. This process isn't instantaneous. It requires patience, strength, and resiliency founded in a higher power, or should I say “outside yourself?”

Others may call the new path: too risky, or pronounce early failure. Valuable are those friends who support and encourage: every single, solitary one is an angel sent from above. Thank them when you get back on your feet. And don’t be too sure who the angels are; some of those closest to you will disappear at the moment you need them most.

All your days have prepared you for the battle now raging; take the step forward in faith and fire the first shot.

“Now God has us where he wants us, with all the time in this world and the next, to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus. Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It’s God’s gift from start to finish. We don’t play the major role. If we did, we’d probably go around bragging that we’d done the whole thing! No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving. He creates each of us by Christ Jesus to join him in the work he does, the good work he has gotten ready for us to do, work we had better be doing.” Ephesians 2 (The Message--Copyright © Eugene H. Peterson)

“There dwells upon this earth a mysterious Being, whose office is to renew the fallen and restore the wandering… His chosen residence is a broken heart and a contrite heart.” –Charles Spurgeon

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©Mark H. Pillsbury (2014)

 

Fire and Rain: fiction ripped from the headlines

Audubon Magazine
Part Two: fiction ripped from the headlines...

The Fire Pounces

Rick felt at home in someone else’s bed, often he slept in the Tahoe. It was a pleasure to be unplugged and free to sleep-in, surprisingly he was dreaming about Mexico.

image credit: Mike Hollingshead, Eric Nguyen

Storm chasing was a young person’s game; it took the commitment of a professional athlete, constantly on the road, the pressure to sink the big shot, the same highs and lows of victory and defeat. An integral part of storm chasing was waiting, supplanted by quick bursts of energy and adrenaline. He loved it more than Jessica, but they both slept happily, peacefully for the first time in days. Dreamland was a bucolic scene that early morning in Texas, yet outside, roiled a fire as wild as any super-cell ever hunted, bearing down on the beautiful couple.

“Jess, get up!” Rick shook his partner. “Get up, I smell smoke.”
She was groggy, “Smoke?” Jessica was confused. “Is your phone on?” She asked.
He fumbled through his backpack; it was dead. “I think my battery is done! Damnit, all my stuff is out in the truck,” Rick responded. They were uneasy with the lingering smell of burning brush wafting through the house.

The rush to the Tahoe gave Rick no assurances, the smell of smoke was heavier, and as dawn broke there was a red glow on the horizon. Darkness cloaked the pyrocumulus cloud forming above. Jessica was already headed up the ranch road in flip-flops, Rick followed her, still waking up.

image: Garganta del diablo en Cozumel

Rick remembered “Devil’s Throat,” off the coast of Cozumel: Jessica was the first diver through the long coral tunnel over 100-feet below the surface, and heading up the ranch road seemed eerily similar; smoke formed a tunnel and at the entrance to the ranch where the trees opened into a clearing, they could see the wall of flames in the distance.

Over a million acres of dry trees fueled a “mega-fire” which burned at frightening temperatures, spawning fire-whirls spinning off tornadic winds of 80 mhp. The only hope to stop such destruction was a change in the weather; the inferno was out of control.

The smart phone interrupted. Jessica’s expensive weather app delivered three ominous chimes. Each was a warning from the previous night about wild fires raging through Texas. They could see darkness, which was the tree line in the distance, but leaping mirthfully from the tops, red sheets of fire snapped like firecrackers. Instinct dominated what happened next. Rick pivoted like a point-guard, back to the Tahoe, grabbing the laptop computer on his way to the house.

Amazingly, Clay was still asleep snoring like a black Labrador, blissfully ignorant. Jessica watched over Rick’s shoulder as he looked up coverage warning maps, reading NWS updates. During their sabbatical, wild fires encircled Liberty County; Clay seemed so surprised and sleepy they could have been showing him a foreign newspaper.

Rick and Clay shuttled back outside, as Jessica studied the laptop. “What in the hell is going on, Rick?” Clay asks.

“Can you see the shooting flames above the tree line, Clay?” Rick shot back, “I think we need to get outta here.”

They both internally inventoried their emotions at the moment, recognizing regret, ignorance, terror, flight, confusion, curiosity, and urgency, all competing for bandwidth inside the central processing unit known as their hung-over brains. “I knew there were some wild fires around Texas, but I gotta tell ‘ya Rick, this caught me off-guard, and it looks a whole lot closer than I would like! There’s just a coupla ways off this ranch and the county roads are hard to navigate,” Clay responded to the ominous wall of flame at which they both stared.

“Alright.” Rick wasn't quite listening, planning another quick exit, almost instantaneously assuming command. “Load your truck.” He said, wheeling again toward the house.

“I'll get Jess,” he was running back down the road.

“We’re burnin daylight!” Clay was one step behind, but he caught the irony of the last statement.

Photo credit: AP

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(to be continued in Part 3)
©Mark H. Pillsbury