Gnash...

That's Right!!!

You know what makes me happy? Space exploration.

Maybe and mayhem...

I will be the silence
Left between your blasts of relevance;
I will be the liar
Who invents the daily circumstance.
I will be the spire
Pointing deep into an empty sky;
I will be the ugly one who asks them why.
 
I will be the violence
Bringing chaos to their temperate views;
I will be the mire
When they try to wash their falsehoods true.
I will be the fire
When the world has left us cold and blue;
I will be the only one who stands beside you.

Why hello there, baby hellbenders.

Do you see these? They're Ozark hellbender babies, propagated in captivity due to the disappearance of their stock in Missouri's rivers. The decline of populations in the past century has led to their unfortunate positioning on the federal endangered species list.

The St. Louis Zoo and the Missouri Department of Conversation has been working the past decade to keep this incredible creature--the only giant salamander this side of Asia, and a bit of a boggler when it comes to figuring out how it came to exist in North America--from passing into extinction. In November 2011, the captive breeding program successfully hatched this batch of babies.

My first introduction to the elusive hellbender was in biology class; Doc Hatch had a preserved specimen in a gallon jar on his desk that elicited plenty of awe from us all and particularly great horror from most of the girls.

I saw a hellbender in person while gigging with my brother and dad one night on a trip home from college. For the uninitiated, you gig by taking a john boat rigged with halogen lights out on the river at night, allowing you to see the contents of the murky river that are invisible in the daylight. A skilled hand can use the gig pole tipped with a small trident to spear freshwater suckers, a fish most people don't cotton to much since it's rather boney. My brother, remembering the bottled hellbender from biology class, made a point to show me the hellbender wiggling quickly back down out of sight. To this day I consider that sighting of an Ozark hellbender in its natural habitat paramount to seeing a sasquatch or a wild okapi.

There are two subspecies of North America's Cryptobranchus alleganiensis,  which together form the genus Cryptobranchus and join the Andrias genus of Asian giant salamanders to form the Cryptobranchidae family. Fossil records of these giant salamanders date back 65 million years, making them a truly remarkable creature in my mind.

One subspecies, Cryptobranchus alleganiensis alleganiensis, known in vernacular as an Allegheny alligator, is found in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia, Kentucky, Illinois, Indiana, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Oklahoma and Kansas. The Ozark variety, known as Cryptobranchus alleganiensis bishopi, is found only in the rivers of lower Missouri and upper Arkansas, but in the past few decades, populations have dwindled to nearly nil.

No one truly knows how giant salamanders came to exist in North America. I, of course, have wacky theories related to Missouri's many caves, but we won't get into that right now. Considering they've been preying on and falling prey to the other creatures in their ecosystem in the rivers of my home state for thousands of years, I certainly hope this anomaly's time has not come. Some deride the Missouri Department of Conservation for its sometimes unexpected maneuvers, but I personally laud the captive propagation of Ozark hellbenders. It'll be a sad day in my heart should this five-fingered living fossil ever find itself locked in history for keeps.

Just wrote a new song...

Mater Mea

Verse
You strolled into my life
When all had left my side,
Oh, little did I realize
How well you improvised.

Chorus
Oh, what would I have been without you?
Where would my road have led?
Your hand upon me softly,
Your love in every word,
In every word you said.

Verse:
There was no guarantee,
Yet you never took from me,
You tried to set me free,
Past walls I failed to see.

Chorus:
Oh, what would I have been without you?
Where would my road have led?
Your hand upon me softly,
Your love in every word,
In every word you said.

Verse:
Your years defined my grace,
I'll miss your sure embrace,
Your courage kept us in the race,
You'll never be replaced.

Happy Mother's Day

I received my Mother's Day gift early, and it may well be the best Mother's Day gift ever.

A compound bow, half of the resolution I made over a year ago. A bow and a motorcycle are the two corporal things I discerned, after the great paring away, that would complete the essential me.

What does the mongrel need with a bow?

The mongrel needs to eat something of substance, the likes of which she never gets these days. One can't be raised on the dark savoriness of the wild and then achieve satiation with the flesh of the captive-bred-born-and-slaughtered.

The mongrel needs to eat flesh that has never known a pen. Free-range chickens are not the answer, nor will buying another's kill negate the need.

Muscles must now memorize, acute alertness must be honed, stealth and invisibility must become first nature.

I begin now, with the past 12 years burned behind me. From those ashes I rise a new being. In time you won't even remember that girl glutted with the gross acceptance of bondage latent in her tasteless repasts.

Lover

Why hover o'er a silent town?
Come, lover...lay your body down
At my feet again,
Lay it down.

Discover worlds you haven't seen,
Uncover what you are to me.
Let me show you what you are to me,
Let me show you what you are,
Oh, what you are to me.

Don't stutter if you'd rather scream,
Beloved, cry your aching heart clean.
Let me hold you while you cry it clean,
Let me hold you while you cry,
Oh, while you cry it clean.

You suffer, but without a sound,
Beloved, lay your burden down.
Find your strength again...
Lay it down.
Lay it down.
Lay it down.
Lay it down...

...a blind bird sings inside the cage that is my heart...

The Bottle That Changed My Life Forever

This is the bottle that changed me for good.

My name is Darla. I am an alcoholic.

I stand in the rubble of what should have been a reasonably good life, with the very sledgehammer I used to destroy it in my hands.

I have a drinking problem.

I had a drinking problem.

I've been sober since April 22, 2012. I quit. I had to. I finally found the bottom of the bottle. As one might expect, it's hard, cold and painfully transparent.

I gave the past decade of my life to drinking. I've never needed it, but it's been around, so I've succumbed to it as a necessary evil. It did keep me from having to focus on myself, my loved ones, my emotions, my past, my future. It allowed me to sail from one day to the next on mostly fun though somewhat foggy seas.

I started drinking at 4, when my dad would give me sips off his Coors. I liked the taste of it a lot. He became a minister when I was in junior high, though for several years prior he had already given up his habit. But I remembered the taste of it, and craved it.

My mother's dad died of alcoholism at 46. His kidneys didn't just shut down, they exploded. That's what the doctor said, anyway. Three of his brothers struggled with alcoholism, one to the point that he was the laughingstock of the town, ending up naked in the ditch far too many times. He had to move out of state and spend years in AA to stay on the wagon.

The first time I got drunk as an adult, I was 20, and downed half of a fifth of tequila in 30 minutes on an empty stomach. I can't even imagine what horror my pal Jesse experienced in the hour before my blindness finally turned me over to sleep.

I blacked out another time after drinking too much at a Halloween party. The sexual assault I found myself subjected to resulted in six athletes being dismissed from university. I became a pariah the likes of which the town had never known.

In the past two years I've blacked out more times than I can remember. Each time I've thrown myself around like a dog, leading my husband to believe that I have no moral compass whatsoever, and that I am intentionally trying to smash his heart to bits.

This last episode was the worst yet in regard to his feelings, and finally made me realize that I have a serious problem.

So I quit. I did it without God, I did it without anyone. I did it because my remorse shrouds me at all times. I will never again touch a bottle. I can't retrieve the past 12 years of my life, but I can for damned sure ensure that my problem won't rule me the rest of my days.

Life is hard here lately. Facing your weaknesses is painful, crippling, devastating. Having to do it quietly while still trying to work, raise your children, struggle to save your marriage and get a band out of the garage is...a little harder.

Thankfully, I'm strong. I'll make it through this, and I won't always feel this broken. For now, though...

Three Regrets

As one who makes mistakes on a regular basis, I try not to litter my heart with crippling regrets. I carry three to date that refuse to be buried. I fail to discern if they are now permanent elements of my personality, or if I am simply not seeing the lessons that keep them fresh in my mind.

Julliard

Scott

Daniel

Julliard was my first choice for study after high school. In retrospect, I should perhaps instead bemoan the fact that I ignored all the personality exams qualifying me best suited to be a physicist, but as an oboist, vocalist and award-winning dramatic artist, I could see no better sanctuary than Julliard to hone my passions into a blissful lifelong career.

My parents, bless their hearts, saw me careening toward the edge of the nest and did their best to keep me from plunging headlong into the maw of all the world's predators, both real and imagined. When I reported the amount of automatic academic scholarship awarded me by Julliard based on my ACT scores, and asked permission to schedule an audition for oboe and voice scholarships, I was shut down with such ferocity that my poor little dream withered in the wake of my parents' horror. Was I insane? Scholarships or not, talented or not, did I think a little rube from the backwoods would stand a chance in The Big City? I would be snatched up, raped, murdered and thrown into the East River within an hour of stepping off the plane.

No. A massively emphatic NO.

I was too soft at the time to know that certain aspirations are the foundation of our very selves, and that if they are allowed to die, one begins crumbling slowly into the mud. I tucked away my visions of swimming euphorically in history's great masterworks from my oboists chair in the world's most revered orchestras, I dropped my head and tried not to think of that beautiful feeling when one's voice pours out and fills an auditorium of appreciative ears.

I went on humbly and fully financed myself through three years at a close-by Baptist university. I kept myself busy winning awards for interpretation of poetry, prose and drama, but the lackluster mid-Missouri life sucked the very desire for greatness from my soul, and I ultimately dropped out to distract myself from disappointment with booze, short-term promiscuity and self-mutilation.

***

Scott was born four days after me, to my mother's aunt. Even as small children, we were obvious soulmates, opting to sit quietly and talk while the other children ran riot in the yard. Without fail we greeted and departed with warm hugs.

As I entered the university, Scott followed his father's footsteps into the military. I often wonder if he, too, lacked the passion for his path that I did, but he faced the service with determination. My sophomore year and his second year as a private, we penned letters back and forth for a time, until I moved from the dorms into my own apartment and found myself busied with work, school, competitions and playing oboe in the church orchestra.

I missed my missives from Scott, but as an ignorant young adult, I assumed that I would always be able to pick up the train again once my life calmed. Several months into my dreadful self-absorbed post-university descent, I received a call from my parents. Scott had killed himself. He had just been promoted to corporal. He had been found in his chair at home with the pistol in hand.

I can't write more about this right now. It should be easy enough to surmise the shape of my regret.

***

I met Daniel soon after moving to Oregon. I immediately disliked him, as he rather cheekily invaded my personal space and touched my ass, then laughed at my discomfort. He looked eerily similar to the fawn in Pan's Labyrinth, though at the time I wouldn't have made that association, as that movie wouldn't be released for five years. He was half Cantonese and half British, and an albino to boot, with horrible gnarled teeth the shade of dirty dishwater. And he was always smiling. He was also nearly blind, but had an uncanny ability to take photographs that captured the essence of the scene he couldn't really see.

Daniel subsidized his small income selling fried rice at Saturday Market by selling weed, so of course I met him via my husband's many head friends. In time I warmed to his familiar nature, but I never felt fully at ease with him, as he attributed some great beauty and power to me that I found highly suspicious. Yet as the years passed, I found myself growing to appreciate his uniquely offbeat personality, and we became heartfelt friends.

There was a point in time when Daniel approached me about "subsidizing" his income by letting him share a house with my husband and me. We didn't have children at the time and in retrospect, the situation would probably have been delightful, but I let some strange belligerence rule me and denied him, even though I knew he was struggling and that he had mustered a great deal of courage to even ask. Shortly thereafter, I bought a new car, and Daniel saw the commitment of funds to a machine as an enormous betrayal. In typical fashion, when faced with his anger I simply stopped seeing him, using my silence and absence to drive the hurt deeper.

Reconciliation began the week my eldest was a week old. At his behest, we brought Mars for a visit, and of course, he fell in love with the little bull. During the six months that followed, we saw one another again randomly, as he would drop by the house to see the baby and while away a few hours. 

When we moved to Veneta to escape what we considered at the time to be intrusions by our many friends, Daniel's visits ended. Two months later, my husband's birthday came, and he dropped by Daniel's cramped apartment across from the library for a quick visit, but unusually, no Daniel came to answer his knock. A day later we received a call from a friend that she had found Daniel dead on his floor. By all estimations, he had probably been dead when my husband attempted his visit.

I had let a beloved friend, who saw more value in me than I saw in myself, go to his death with the pain of my anger in his heart. I regret this deeply.

***

The past is locked, so I can do little more than learn from my mistakes, but writing these thoughts down today helps me considerably. The force of my will is sometimes stronger than any situation requires, and I must learn how to put this force to better ends, lest I compile more regrets than these three.

Cycle Time

Soon, soon, soon...I'll be one with my little red racer again.

I'm still slightly miffed that my easy path to the Greenway--my J-Mill-I-Water-H-Kelly zigzag--turned into my less-interesting and sometimes frenetic shot up 5th to D once we moved, but it's certainly better than trying to shoot the gauntlet across Pioneer at Q to the path at Mill. What a noisy hassle, that one.

My winter legs need thinning and my winter face needs wind in it again, with the smell of the woods along Pre's Trail and the sight of the rapids at my left. My boys need the exercise, too, though I hardly expect the wee-legged one to do much pedaling, the trailer's far more suited to his imperialist ideas about his mobility and mommy's servitude to it.

I can't wait for my fuel frenzied motorcycle days to fire up, but there's little in my world as purely satisfying to my soul as being wrung out by my bicycle in the spring and summer. Soon, soon, soon, little red racer.

A Poem for Today

At Sea

By Aleister Crowley

As night hath stars, more rare than ships
In ocean, faint from pole to pole,
So all the wonder of her lips
Hints her innavigable soul.

Such lights she gives as guide my bark;
But I am swallowed in the swell
Of her heart's ocean, sagely dark,
That holds my heaven and holds my hell.

In her I live, a mote minute
Dancing a moment in the sun:
In her I die, a sterile shoot
Of nightshade in oblivion.

In her my elf dissolves, a grain
Of salt cast careless in the sea;
My passion purifies my pain
To peace past personality.

Love of my life, God grant the years
Confirm the chrism - rose to rood!
Anointing loves, asperging tears
In sanctifying solitude!

Man is so infinitely small
In all these stars, determinate.
Maker and moulder of them all,
Man is so infinitely great!