There are lots of iconic first lines in the stories we tell. The kind they make you write about in school. This isn't one of those.
So here's the thing. Storytelling is bullshit.
Of course, I don't really mean that. I'm just not a fall-down-backwards-over-"the power storytelling to change your life" kind of person.
I do like way a good story can bring order to things; the way it organizes. The way is can make some sense out of life. Even if its pretend.
Truth is life is completely senseless. But if you give it a beginning, middle, and an end? Voila. The appearance of - DUMDUMDUMMM - Meaning.
Another "Truth": I could sit here and spin bullshit about "life" and and "meaning" pretty much forever. And you wouldn't know shit about me.
So we best get on with it.
It started when the rains moved in. I literally felt the winds change. And then it darkened.
I didn't quite get it then - how perfect it was. The outside reflecting the inside. I just figured that today it was supposed to rain.
But put all that aside. The deeper meaning, I mean. And focus on the rain. Because this was one hell of a storm. And I was watching it. My face glued to the front window, all streaked with droplets of water.
The storm moved out as fast as it had moved in. But though the rain stopped, whatever bigger thing this storm had brought with it, it didn’t leave. It hung, damp, over us. And I felt it. Like a chill.
For all that talk of “resilience” and all that openness and sharing and all that therapy and all that “work” I thought I had done, it was here again. And even though I saw and felt it coming, I also knew - remembered, sadly - that there wasn’t a damned thing I could do about it.
Two small birds glided by in formation, as a soft early evening golden white hued light broke. I tracked them across the sky until they shrunk away invisible.
It was quiet again.
My grandmother used to say, “There’s a quiet *after* the storm too, but folks don’t often talk about that one. Because that’s also when you have the most work to do, especially if you’re soaking wet and freezing cold. The quiet doesn’t last for long.”
I pulled the shades down, one by one, and then sat on the couch in the dark.
Another thing my grandma used to say was “No matter what it is, there’s a beginning, a middle, and an end.”
I always liked that one.
But how can it be that it’s so easy to get lost; that keeping your place is tricky?, I thought.
Am II nearing the end or only just getting started?
Maybe neither. Let’s be honest. I’m sitting alone in a room at 6:30 mindlessly bouncing between an old episode of Law and Order: SVU, a repeat of SportsCenter from earlier, and the misery of today’s breaking news on CNN.
Slim pickings. But when I’m looking to distract myself from myself, just about anything will do.
Four hours and four episodes of SVU - and a whole lot of disturbing sex crimes - later, I killed the television, pulled a knit afghan over myself and curled up on the couch. I had the kind of dull headache you get from too much TV. I grabbed a pillow to hug.
Couldn’t sleep though. When I grabbed my phone to check the time, it was 3:20 am. Unsettled, I fell into that compulsive pattern of checking the time in increasingly shorter and shorter increments. Asymptotically approaching 4 am.
It was 4:10 AM. I got up.
I peaked outside. The sun hadn’t yet risen. But I was up for good. I’d been in the house for days feeling sorry for myself. It was time to break out of that.
I picked up my phone. I was in hiding, but couldn’t seem to stop checking my notifications. Seven missed calls. 27 text messages. 20 WhatsApp messages. 13 Facebook notifications. At least I could see who I was hiding from. But right now I didn’t want to know. I turned it off.
“Clear your head and get out in the fresh air.” “Being in nature is what you should do.” “Get some exercise. Go for a walk. You’d be amazed what it does for your mental health.”
I headed down to the garage and hopped in the car.
The Dunkin’ drive through at the Colonia rest area on the Parkway supplied the caffeine and sugar I needed for the trip. Whatever remained of a large, somewhat watery iced coffee sat in the drink container in the center console.
Oddly, driving alone all hopped up on caffeine can take me to a pretty contemplative place.
It’d been years since the last solo late night drive to the shore. That was not a good time either. Run run run run runaway.
Sometimes you just need to turn the world off and drive fast down the Garden State Parkway with the radio up and the windows down.
A few hours later, I was parked on Ocean Blvd where I could smell the ocean and see the dark waves crashing ashore.
It had been a long time since I checked my phone. I picked it up but then placed it down again. The urge to stay disappeared was stronger than the urge to check it.
The sun was coming up, smudging orange across the distant horizon over the ocean.
Something moved to my right. I jumped a little. But it was just an early morning jogger. The town was stirring to life. I wasn’t alone anymore.
As daylight came, and the boardwalk began to fill with an assortment of walkers, joggers, cyclists, and beach goers, I realized I was starving. Within minutes, breakfast was all I was thinking about. I stepped out of the car and walked down the block to a diner on the corner.
The stack of pancakes came with a large dollop of already melted butter on top and I applied the syrup. Hot coffee and a fresh squeezed OJ to wash it down.
“Can you experience pleasure?” “Are you able to feel joy?”
“Why yes,I suppose I can and do.” Exhibit A: This Breakfast.
I sopped as much of the remaining syrup as I could with my final bite and then polished off the coffee. After leaving a $20 bill on the table. I stepped back outside, squinted into the bright sunshine, and turned back towards the beach.
I grabbed a seat on a park bench next to the boardwalk and took off my sneakers. I balled up my socks inside them. Three gulls swooped and dove in the distance.
“Now take a deep cleansing breath.”
I took a slow deep breath.
“Concentrate on your breathing.”
I couldn’t.
It was probably time to head out. walked down Ocean to where I’d left the car, opened the driver’s side door and got in. My hand instinctively reached for my phone where I’d left it in the center console. I clicked it ‘on’ and waited as the screen filled with notifications.
My motions were so rapid they appeared almost random. I triaged - calls, emails, messages, texts, social media - swiping, deleting, scanning and gathering in the last 12 hours or so of data from the world I had put away for a bit to take this ride.
After checking, I was now comfortable to continue to put that world to the side for a while longer. I held down the power button and the phone again powered down.
Sitting in the driver’s seat, looking out over the beach, I just smiled when I saw the squall move in so quickly. The sky darkened. Within a minute, the rain splattering against the windshield was absolutely torrential.
You can’t outrun the rain.
You may gain a temporary reprieve, distract yourself for a while, take in a sunrise at the beach, and even score a pancake breakfast.
But sooner than later, that storm that’s chasing you - that storm that’s a part of you - comes for you.
The beach and boardwalk were a blur of motion, people rushing to gather their things and running for cover in every which way. The rain beat down in huge cold droplets.
Though I have no memory of exiting the car, I soon found myself among the throng instead of watching it. But I pulled in a different direction from the frantic crowd. I was the only person walking - slowly and calmly - towards beach.
I looked back over my right shoulder. The driver’s side door on my car was open. A faint chime was dinging. The headlights were on. So were the overhead lamps inside the car. The rain - now coming down in steady sheets - was beading on the leather seats.
When I got to the beach, I pulled off my shoes and balled my socks into each shoe. The sand was cold against my bare feet. I trudged on towards the horizon where the ocean and sand met, the waves reaching soaring heights just a few feet away from me.
By this point the rain has soaked through my remaining clothes. The beach was empty. I waded into the ocean -ankle deep, then knee, then thigh. It was so cold that I could barely feel my toes. I looked up, eyes and mouth open to the pelting streaks of rain. Then I dove downward.
I was swimming - or rather, flopping around in a swirl of crashing water and sand and tiny shells, taking on salt water in gulps, trying to figure out what was down and what was up.
Well. Here I was. “Doing something out in nature.”
Next thing I remembered was the taste of salt water in my mouth. I was facedown on the beach, a washed ashore bedraggled castaway groggily coming to on the beach.
But I wasn’t exploring some strange new land. I was right back where I had started.
I sighed as I pushed myself to my feet and started walking back towards the car.
What was I was even doing with all this? I mean, I think I knew. I was pulling myself outside to push myself to try to feel something.
But with this New Jersey styled walkabout? This Polar Bear plunge / baptism in the rain “adventure”?
It now seemed kind of pointless.
I’d gotten myself out in the world, but I was still absolutely alone. Still inside my own head.
I toweled off at the car and closed the door.
I sat in the front seat for a long time, staring straight ahead, waiting on myself.
I didn’t know what was next. The truth was there wasn’t any good reason to go back. But I also didn’t know where going forward meant I was supposed to be going.
It is at this point that it becomes important to provide some context about this time in my life.
I don’t know exactly why that storm triggered such a visceral reaction in me or where I got that urge to drive away and to the ocean. But it wasn’t the first time that storm had visited me, and though this wasn’t something I spoke of to anymore, it was now coming more frequently.
In one version of this story, after I watched the storm appear, I ran and stood outside in its eye, raised my arms and head to the sky, and just let the rains engulf me. Until it stopped.
In another,I drove towards the ocean, but ended up spinning out on the Parkway, careening towards the divider before coming to a full stop. Shaken up and alone on the road, I pulled onto the shoulder and sat there for God knows how long, heart beating out my chest.
About a month ago, a bolt of lightning took down one of the trees in our backyard. It was so dark out that I only heard it snap and then groan. When it hit the house, the window pane I had my nose pressed up against burst into a million pieces. I couldn’t stop shaking.
Last week, I was walking up the front steps to my house when everything went black. I couldn’t have been more than a few steps from the front door, but I couldn’t see it. I felt disoriented. As if I was floating suspended in the middle of the dark sky. I waited for the rain.
I made it inside. Minutes later the lights throughout the house dimmed but held. The rain came so fast and so hard that within minutes the back staircase from our upper yard to the patio became a rushing waterfall. The water rose. And then came pouring into the living room.
Is there a return after the breaking?
I used to think that there was. I mean, obviously. Just as there are downs, there are ups. Ups and downs. People say that.
But now I’m wholly unsure. Everything feels different. And the storms keep visiting me.
