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All pain is temporary.
This is not the pain of injury or injustice,
It is the pain of fear, doubt and weakness leaving my body.

"I must not fear..."

For Myla.

I'll never forget the smell.
Gunpowder and regret.
Acrid burning fabric and leather and paint.
Or the sound,
No-one ever tells you about the gunshot report
My ears rang for an hour after.
I wiped the blood from my eyes one
Two
Three times.
Shook to clear my head again
Thought maybe I could see better if I was outside
Maybe the light would be better.
Groping, slick fingers for the door handle I fell outside into snow.
Deep snow.
I could see the dark of the pavement, where it stopped 20 feet away
At least no-one can hit me here.
I couldn't see my phone enough to dial, so touched the button on my bluetooth headpiece - somehow it was in my ear, though
I don't remember putting it there.  I don't know how I found it.
"Call Mom."
"Calling."
Nothing.
"Call Dad."
Nothing.
"Call 911."
"Emergency."
"Help."
I blinked.  Blinked again to clear my vision, bobbing my head to make sense of something, but I couldn't see my hands in front of my face.
I panicked a little then, and jumped back in the car.  Maybe I'd be warmer there.  If only I could see.
But maybe no-one could see me there.
I knew there was a town, something with cell service a few miles back.
Maybe if I kept trying my phone, I could walk to where it would work.
I remembered somehow to keep the car keys in my pocket.
What happened?  The road was dry, a cold and sunny winter day, but no reason for me to think anything would be wrong, other than the wisps of snow snaking across the ground in front of the car.
And then one-two, through and through.  I made a 50 mile per hour right turn.
I countersteered to correct, but too late, or too far, or just somehow
Wrong.
I remember the car spinning left, the heave as the wheels suddenly touched asphalt instead of ice.
I remember thinking "Oh.  Oh no." and closing my eyes so I couldn't see the hill coming too-fast toward me.  The last clear thing I'd see for a very long time.
What happened?  I remember the snap-bang of the airbag, and then a metal-salt taste in my mouth.
I stumbled a few times, in the snow.  Panic and bright pain now creeping in the corners, I cried out.
I screamed.
Nothing.
I felt dizzier somehow, and realized that if I fell down in the snow, no-one would see me and...
I trudged back toward the wreck of my car, staying toward the white side of the dark-light line of the roadside in front of me.
I climbed back into my car.  Into the only safety I could think of, and waited.
For what, I don't know.  I don't know whether I was waiting to fall asleep, or for my vision to clear, or to wake up from whatever nightmare I was in.  My face burned.  I wiped thick blood from my nose again.
A car.  Someone drove by.
I scrambled out of the car, waving and yelling, spinning in the white light.
If only I could see.
Someone else drove by, I thought - someone will see me.  If I stay here, someone will see me.
Someone did.
I heard the car stop and I steadied myself.
"Hello," I said.  "Can you help me?" As if it wasn't painfully, extremely obvious that I needed a lot of help.
A woman's kind voice answered "I'm Myla," and a hand touched my shoulder.
She had a pack of 4x4's in her car and handed them to me as she helped me inside.  I insisted she grab my purse from the car, so that I'd have my insurance card at the ER.
The things you think are important, in moments like those.
I held my forehead together as we started down the road, apologizing for bleeding in her car.
She was so kind, quiet as I remember her now - probably quite shocked at my appearance.  It was weeks until I could see the photos taken of me in the hours afterward.  The CT scan report read "Severe swelling" "Orbital edema" and "multiple fractures", but thankfully "no evidence of intracranial bleed".  I remember trying to smile at my ER nurse, and being afraid to open my left eye, for fear it would leak it's contents down my face.
I remember joking with the nice man who sewed my face back together.  He tried to help me find the contacts I had been wearing, but both had been blasted out of my eyes.  By that time, the whole world was just yellow light and darkness.  Too much bleeding into both eyes to see, I simply kept them shut.
I let the fear come through, once, but Myla told me "keep it together." And I did.
No use in losing my shit.
What had happened?  I didn't remember how I got in the elevator, to come back from the CT scan.  I didn't remember the scan.
I called my mom "I've been in an accident.  I'm ok," and the measured panic in her voice.
I called my husband.  My marriage had exploded a week prior, and I ran a thousand miles away.  Here in the ER, I needed his help, and he jumped to help me.  Whatever it took, he did it without question.
My dad even drove down to get everything from the wrecked car.
Everyone I know surrounded me with love, with patience.  They brought good food, flowers, cards (I couldn't read for a while, but they made me smile anyway) and love.  I have never in my life felt so loved as in those weeks when I needed so much.  I made a wrong left turn on that cold, bright day, and found boundless generosity, kindness, caring and love of a hundred people or more.  I'll never be able to count those gifts.

Three years later, I'm happier than I have ever been.  Back to driving through the snow with caution, but not panic.  I'm performing and working and dreaming hard.
I think, so often - I get to do this again.
There are a hundred different ways that day in the snow could have gone differently,
But it is what it is, and as such I get to see another sunset.
I get to hold my lover's hand.
I get to breathe in salty ocean air.
I get to hear my family's laughter.
Enjoy my grinning dogs.
Feel warm, loved, happy.
I'm about to celebrate another New Year's Eve - the 4th since then, and it still reminds me to be grateful,
So, so grateful.
For another chance "to be alive and breathing."
For a chance to do it right.
For anything, and everything.

I'll never forget that day.
Blood and gunpowder and change and heartbreak and gratitude and charity and generosity and everything that came from that split second.

Home.

I'm home.
Been through it, one piece or another.
And, whether I keep these pieces together or not
It's enough to just be back
To where I belong.
I lit a fuse, a long time ago
Rode that rollercoaster to its firey end
Started down a path
Was it a year ago when we first set foot in the sand?
Or two when we laughed by the hearth?
Three, maybe - when I ran screaming for the wall and broke everything.
(Toward, or away- is still up for debate.)
Or nine when I jumped with both feet into a strange river
That carried me far,
Taught me the world.
And has finally brought me back to where I started
Only now I have new information.
Am I heroine, or damsel?
Saved or savior?
Here in this, some new ever after
I could never have imagined.
Here, the most important lesson of all, things I wish I could impress on my teenage self...
It will all be ok.
It will always work out.
You may not always be happy, but
You will never be alone.
You will always be loved.

1+1

I always think things add up to more.
That these seven things add up to good
And those four add up to bad
I always think I know what the future will bring,
How many eggs I will have in my basket, and sometimes that number makes me happy
And sometimes I am disappointed
Which is silly, because I don't have any eggs at all right now
Or even a goddamned basket to put them in.
All I have is this.
Here.
Now.
All I have is one.
One chance, one moment that
If I breathe it in
Roll it around on my tongue,
Drink it's full flavor in
Then someday when I get around to counting all the things that have been
Rather than the ones that could be
Then I'll realize that even that doesn't matter
That none of it adds up to
Any more than
1+1.

Drops.

I had a microscope,
A view into other tiny worlds.
I looked at leaves and dirt and drops of water and honey and soap
To find they were not the whole things I had thought, but made of many interlacing parts.
And I wondered what other invisible facets the world held for me to discover.
You poked your finger, one day
So that I could examine a drop of your blood.
I realized that day the weight of the sacrifices you had made for me
And would always make for me.
I remember looking,
Over and over again
Long after it had dried on the slide
At that dark crust of your life.
Looking to see its magic again.
You had given me many gifts,
But no present before had been so very yours.
I wonder if you know how much magic I still find in blood,
However macabre that may sound-
I deal in blood and sweat and pain these days.
I deal in the magic that I saw on the glass that day.
The soul-water spilled on the floor and splashed on the curtains.
Every drop, your drop.

Drown.

Lean in.
Don't turn away.
Keep hope.
Open.
Forgive.
It's the only thing you can do, when the ground's a little unsteady.
Find my shuffling gait, will my feet to march on forward next to yours.
Drifting on Love's wild tides,
They crash and break heavy 'round me these days.
Ship's taken on a little water,
But we keep bailing and keep our heads above the deck.
Keep our kegs dry, and our caskets empty.
Horizons, they may dawn and fade
But I'll always have your light to guide me home.

Beach-glass tumbling waves ever my blue water constant.
Red sky at night, sailor's delight.
I found a bottle in the sand worn by time and travel,
And smiled to see it still held
The same bright promise.

Jacob.

Oh God, her name.

My kingdom and all its glory for her name.

I swore I would never forget, after reading it so many times.

I would never forget...

And here I am, like a goldfish in its crystal bowl.

Wishing I could remember as if it would mean something.

As if somehow her impact on me would translate into 

His impact on the world.

As if I could play proxy for her hopes and dreams and that if I could

Keep that candle bright, 

That flame a-stoked, 

That it would make it real for her.

I want to reach out, 

To remind her it was real for me, too.

That I would keep a cold guard at the door of his tomb,

Witness to his miracle and tragedy.

And somehow burn bright that hope in the sky above 

To save us both.

If only I could remember...