Just for a moment
People take their lives into their own hands all the time. Risky propositions are a matter of course for some. I’m not a thrill-seeker, though, I’m a comfort-courter. Sleeping in your presence? The ultimate show of limitless trust, like a feline offering you its tender, soft underbelly. Vaguely aware of the consequences, I clumsily hoisted myself onto the ledge, seduced by the deepest darkest blue shroud. That one that envelops you in infinity. Two seconds of that elusive child-like wonder? That’s well worth the price of admission.
“He’s dead.”
“What?”
“He’s dead, he’s fucking dead.”
“Shut the fuck up.”
“I’m not shitting you. He’s fucking dead.”
On this ledge just wide enough to nestle my body like a cement cradle, I’m not looking down. For the first time in forever, I’m not looking down. It could be said that nothing separates me from death. For the first time in forever, however, I sit in calm acceptance. Not in wonder or pain or shock or disillusionment and definitely not the usual morbid fascination with its mechanics. No, we simply sit for once, side by side, in acceptance of each other and the way things are. The way things are.
“No, he can’t be. You’re fucking with me, I know you are.”
“I’m sorry, I’m not. They’re saying it was an accident but you know…”
“Know what? Know what the fuck what?”
I’m not looking down. This being the only time when up holds my gazing attention more efficiently than down. It’s cold in this night sea breeze but I’m more interested in the silver-lit expanse all around me. How it crackles in its nature, ebbs and flows, how it exists so effortlessly harmonious with itself. Why is it that such openness can only be experienced alone and at night? The water washes in and out and over me on the shore to my left. The night moves near imperceptibly above me, trickling towards dawn. But not yet. It’s not time yet. It’s not time.
Why? Why did you do this to me? Why couldn’t you wait just that much longer? I have to, why shouldn’t you? What makes you so fucking special, your hurt so much fucking worse than mine?
I slept. Five stories up on the edge of the earth. Under the bare glow, I was fearless. Really fearless, not the usual false pretense. The deep darkness, undulating waves, the twinkling lights and me. Alive. So close to senselessness yet so fucking alive.
4 November 2007 at 7:45 pm
“What makes you so fucking special, your hurt so much fucking worse than mine?” Yeah… that sometimes keeps me awake at night.
4 November 2007 at 8:36 pm
Gosh.
I slept under the stars once, on the probably rather dangerous edge of a flat roof. But it was on top of a two-storey halls of residence at Middlesex Polytechnic in February 1990. I think I may have looked up at the stars too. Not that I remember, as I was only out there because somebody had spiked my drink. I woke up six o’clock the next morning, with gravel marks on the left side of my face, and oozing strangely coloured drool from the corner of my mouth. To this day, I don’t have a single recollection of what happened.
In other words, your experience is far more eloquent, magical and, needless to say, poetically phrased. Beautiful.
4 November 2007 at 9:40 pm
Oh god ani, I know what you mean and yet I don’t know the details, all in one go. This writing made me think and rush and feel , all at once , I loved it .
5 November 2007 at 7:24 am
I have been too close to senselessness too much of late.
So, these words made me think/rush/feel too.
5 November 2007 at 10:52 am
Z: Yes, it’s a question you can’t help but ask, even if you know the answer or as is often the case, there is no answer.
AUW: Ha! There may or may not have been strangely coloured drool involved in my little adventure. That’s all I’m saying on that account. But beautiful? My, you certainly know how to flatter a girl.
Isabelle: Thank you. Thinking and rushing and feeling is what it’s all about.
Lillipilli: I think it’s good to lose all sense on occasion. Though a nasty fall could have proven otherwise.
5 November 2007 at 12:07 pm
i get terrible vertigo, could barely read this it was so vivid
6 November 2007 at 12:17 pm
Peach: I think it’s true that not looking down helps. I can’t help it though, I’m always tempted to look (and I promptly regret it, of course).
6 November 2007 at 2:11 pm
In the midst of death, we are in life.
Visit the raw places now and then - the cliff top, jagged shoreline, the roaring storm, alone. Let the rain bruise your skin, the rockpools cut your bare feet, the storm tear you apart - just once in a while, just long enough until you start to feel it hurting. Just until you remember why the pain is still there, and what it means.
There was a time earlier this year when I wanted to take a train to Land’s End. I want to stand on the cliff edge - right on the edge - with my arms spread out, feeling only the nudge of the sea breeze securing me to the world. I wanted to only let myself walk away when I realised precisely why it was wrong to let myself fall.
I never did it.
Thanks to your words, resonating about the inside of my mortal skull as I read them, I feel a little closer to no longer needing to.
6 November 2007 at 5:46 pm
Ben, I’m always so glad I found you and that my words resonate with you, the way yours do with me.
It would be wrong to let yourself fall. Wrong on so many levels I don’t have words to describe. But that doesn’t matter because you already know. I know you know.
So stand on that edge, experience that breeze, but always ensure your safe return. So you can write about it, in that way that only you can write.