The following writing is clips from an older story. I was much younger. It seems like another life. With no explanation, possessing deeper meaning, I simply present:

Involved in a solitary moment with her older brother, Rebecca felt herself melting into the entirety of her experiences and being.  It made her legs weak to the point she feared she would collapse.  She had been hard on life, thus life was hard on her.  However her brother was so simply complacent it made the act seem stupid, ridiculous and overly dramatic.

She recalled the letters Michael wrote to her during her stay in the rehabilitation center, her time of recovery from a worldly successful life within a gothic punk rock band ‘Onus’ and not so successful drug abuse.  At least once a week, Michael wrote.  Rebecca enjoyed the letters immensely.  His light and easy manner of writing about the things and events he found interesting soothingly entertained.  His descriptions of random items like the account of an Arizona thunderstorm, or the story of a coworker who accidentally tripped a coyote trap which shot the man with a tranquilizer dart—leaving him paralyzed yet conscious for the night brought a sense of peace.  Her brother was an intelligent aware observer, simply and contently watching the world.  She recalled the last letter he wrote regarding an older man who managed a gas station and junkyard on the outskirts of a small Arizona town. The old timer made it a point to show Michael additions to the fatal section of his junkyard, automobiles involved in deadly accidents.

Rebecca spoke to her brother.  “It makes me sick to be spend so much time with Mom.  I cannot believe how cold she is about everything.”

Calmly, Michael responded.  “You and Mom have always seen things differently.”

“Why didn’t she stop Dad’s drinking?  Doesn’t she feel any guilt for the travesty of his life?  She was an enabler and yet she carries herself as if the whole thing meant nothing to her.  The woman possesses such an arrogant sense of impunity.  Do you know when I was in rehab, I spent countless hours screaming at that bitch.  Why couldn’t I ever break through to her?  She harshly rejected me as a child, always favoring you.  All my life I’ve sought her approval and she’s always treated me with such indifference.”

Rebecca was somewhat surprised by the harshness of her words as she had actually calmed herself during her reflection upon her brother’s letters.

“I think you are very hard on yourself, as well as Mom.”

Rebecca lit a cigarette and ended the conversation.  “You’re just like her, always have been.  Why would I expect you to understand?  Everything is always so God damn easy for you.”

…..

Standing on her mother’s front porch with her brother Michael, Rebecca recalled the opening words of Mr. Dunne in his ‘The Peace of the Present’: “We may think we are in one story when all along we are in another.  I may think, for instance, I am in a story that is already over, and there is nothing more to hope of life, when in reality the story is going on, and some important thing is still to come.”

A return to academia, Rebecca would study Linguistics, specializing in romantic languages, building upon her solid foundation of Latin garnered through high school pursuits.  She felt a pull to embrace literature, poetry, and religious studies. Gratitude reined, thankfullness to be in a position to pursue realistic goals, happy with the idea of staying with her mother. Once a worldly child, a spoiled rich girl, one who grew tired of countries, she found comfort in returning home to convalesce with her mother.

She spoke to her brother. “I broke Mom this Christmas morning.”

Michael listened to the words without responding.  All day he was slightly surprised by the calm nature of his sister.  In such a mood, she reminded him of his mother.  Patiently, Michael waited for a further explanation.

Rebecca seated herself on the porch swing, close to her brother, holding a steaming cup of coffee.  “I woke up in a shitty mood and as soon as I saw Mom I felt like messing with her.  She was sitting in her studio preparing to paint, mixing colors for a background.  I stood watching, devoid of Christmas spirit.  God, how she can fill me with anger when she appears so at peace with herself.  When she turned and greeted me, I felt the devil rise and before I knew it I blurted out.  What the fuck do you know? Who are you to be painting? Every breath you take is sheer arrogance“.

It amazed Rebecca that she so sincerely and devoutly embraced pious matters, practicing a sound prayer life formed in rehab, and yet still she could be filled with such hateful thoughts toward her mother.  Wrath could still dominated her disposition.  ‘For the good which I will, I do not, but the evil which I will not, that I do’.  Rebecca reflected on a verse from the Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans before she continued her explanation to Michael.

“Mom ignored me, continuing to mix her colors.  God, I was so pissed.  Instantly, I determined it would be a morning of great confrontation.  I walked over to her young ballerina painting and knocked it off its tripod, staring sternly at her”.

Rebecca met eyes with her brother.  Michael frowned a bit as he continued to listen.

“How does Mom react?  She calmly walks over to the painting and picks it up.  Although when she turns toward me, I see for the first time Mom hurting, really internally struggling.  She says to me ‘Rebecca I can’t seem to get my colors right this morning.  Maybe it is all vanity why I paint.  Maybe you are right about everything.  I know you despise me.  I wanted to start a new picture on Christmas morning.  I had a nice idea in mind, but it doesn’t seem to be happening.  Nothing seems to come to my mind.  Every day I feel a great emptiness.  It engulfs me, swallows me.  When I am alone I cry tremendously.  Thoughts are difficult and it as if I never really knew anything.  I am so sorry for raising you with so much anger in your heart’.  She breaks into tears, and falls to her knees.  Barely able to speak through tears, she offers a final apology, saying ‘she’s sorry she could never make me happy. I cannot believe I witnessed Mom cry, and so franticly.”

Rebecca compassionately recalled the profound morning.  For so long, she wanted to defeat her mother.  When it happened, she felt miserable.  The moment brought no satisfaction.  Instantly upon seeing her mother in a vulnerable mood, on her knees and in tears, she comforted her mother, embracing her, wondering why she ever desired, for so long and so strongly, to see her mother falter, to see her mother weak.

Michael responded.  “Dinner should be nice.”

He watched a young festive couple unload several presents and a baby from their minivan across the street, losing sight of the family—the father carrying gifts and the mother carrying an infant—as they walked behind a hedge of bushes decorated with Christmas lights.  He wished his girlfriend Paula was with him.  He took his sister’s hand into his own and began rocking the porch swing.  In a contemplative mood, he thought about human ignorance and suffering, defining the words in Buddhist terms as he recognized the Buddha as ‘The Great Physician’.  The concept of a man being inflicted with a poisoned arrow, for every human being that arrow being a lack of insight into reality, duhkha, an ignorance regarding the true nature of things, was brilliantly pragmatic, wonderfully human within its logical approach.

Michael reasoned, ‘it is not that we are bad, it is that we are not aware, possessing penetrating insight and patience’.  He recalled a strange dream in which he awoke to a voice speaking to him in the night, proclaiming the words, ‘edify the spirit, experience the world and grow in love and understanding’.  Due to its strangeness, Michael wrote the moment off, while always keeping it in mind.  ‘Get the arrow out and tend to the wound, so much suffering and yet life is so precious’.

Sitting on his mother’s porch with his sister, Michael experienced a profound joyful sorrow envelope him.  It was Christmas, the birth of Jesus Christ.  He felt like he could swallow the world, acquiescing to reality through faith, hope, and charity.  A visual image from his past presented itself, a moment gone by resurfacing, an event from a fifth grade field trip, specifically a return bus ride in which his entire class stopped and ate lunch at a riverside park.  Rebecca took over the effort of rocking the porch swing.  Enjoying the back and forth motion, Michael recalled sitting on the bank of a river, watching the water flow slowly past.  As he sat and watched the river as a child, he was thrilled to discover a turtle frequently popping his head out of the water.  The turtle was slowly swimming upstream.  He discovered he could follow the progress of the turtle by observing the points at which the turtle would break the surface of the water in order to satisfy its need for air.  Amazed, he eagerly anticipated where the turtle would emerge next. Suddenly, the water would break and there again was the head of the turtle, beak held high, eyes looking about.

Michael squeezed his sister’s hand, enjoying the touch of her flesh.  “Rebecca, I drove by the Toledo Racquet Club the other day.  Have you considered playing tennis again?”

“Not really.  It sounds wonderful though. Mind, body, and spirit.”  She was a decent tennis player in her younger years, in high school playing for the varsity team.

“We could get you a membership Monday.  I would enjoy playing myself.  We could play when I come into town.”

“I would love that.”

Jackie opened the front door of her home and called out to her children.  “Rebecca.  Michael.  Christmas dinner is ready.”