by Buhl, Sarah
“That was the healing. The cloud lifted in that moment. Before then, I didn’t know how wounded I was. I didn’t know I was still there. I was physically here, but my mind was still there. That surreal sign was the catalyst to remind me I was home. That’s when I thought more about present tense. I needed to be active in my life now.
“I didn’t know what reality was anymore. Over there was so far removed from reality. Nothing was normal there. Nothing felt like real life. The fighting, the bullets, the fear, became my reality. Coming back home didn’t feel real anymore and I realized it was never real here. How I lived even before joining wasn’t real. I lived in this dream of what I wanted my life to be like. I wanted to be the hero. I wanted to be like the soldiers in all the movies.
“I couldn’t imagine going into battle like that,” she said pulling her knees up and hugging them. I sat on the floor across from her, with my back to the mirror.
“I tried to find my way. I never tried to find it in getting drunk or drugs like some have. I was desperate to find it. But I wanted to find it on my own terms. I’ve always kind of been a control freak that way. Maybe that’s one thing I took with me from before,” I laughed.
She gave me a soft smile and a nod. “I think we are all trying to find our way, no matter what we’ve seen or where we’ve been. Isn’t that what life is? Finding our way?” she asked.
“Yes, but remember, there is a difference with us. We understand what it means to go to war—to battle something. I used to see mine through a scope on a rifle, but now they’re inside me. Sometimes they hide and linger on the outskirts of memory. Then, sometimes theyare me. You understand that. Your battle is as hard as mine if not harder. It was easier when they told me who my enemy was. Now, it’s just me. So, I sort my thoughts and focus on the present tense.”
“How do we win? How do we know when we’ve won this battle?” she asked me.
“This isn’t something you can win against. There is no final count that declares a winner, like in sports. A war doesn’t have a winner, both sides lose. But that war ends. I came home. But it’s still in here,” I said, tapping my temple. “But your battle, your battle Margaret, is one you can’t see an end to either. You just keep fighting. Each day is a battle, but you never give up. You can’t and I can’t let you.” I clapped my hands together and pointed at her with my palms together. “Now it’s time for you to show me how creative you can get with your dancing.”
“You called me Margaret.”
“Yes, I did,” I said as I stood to turn on the sound system.
11
Maggie
Fall
The smile on my face hurt.
It wasn’t just the constant stretching of my muscles across my face. It was also a pain deep in my heart. I didn’t think it was possible to feel that intensely connected with another human being.
“Are you ready?” Karl asked.
“Give me a minute,” I said, sitting onto my knees. I rolled forward into child’s pose toward him. I laughed as I sat like that.
“What’s so funny?” Karl asked.
I kept my face toward the floor and my arms stretched out in front of me. “Well, I look like I’m bowing to you,” I said with a muffled tone.
“Yes, yes you do. But that’s not a bad thing,” he said with a laugh.
“Karl, are you flirting?” I asked, still stretching.
“I’m not sure if I am; it’s been awhile,” he said and I heard apprehension in his voice.
I pulled my arms back and sat up. I rested my hands in my lap and met his eyes.
“I wouldn’t expect that,” I said with sarcasm and a wink. “You are quite the ladies’ man.”
A different feeling filled my gut now and I knew it was wrong, but the thought of him giving attention to another woman made me feel like the world would combust on itself. Everything would cease to exist and I’d be the one left to think about it all. That’s how horrible that would feel.
“I used to be,” he said, picking at the hole in the knee of his jeans. He wore long underwear underneath his jeans.
“Tell me about it. Then after you’re done, I will dance.”
“Are you prolonging this?” he asked with a sweet smile.
“Yes, I am, but it’s beside the point. I want to hear this story of pimp daddy Karl.”
He laughed. He laughed very loud and long at that.
“Pimp Daddy. That’s a good one. I will let you decide when I’ve finished the story if you think it’s a good label for me.”
I nodded and tried to focus on him and his words and not on the fear building in me about trying to dance again. Not just play dancing, but dancing in my current reality.
“My first girlfriend was when I was a sophomore in high school. Before then, the only time I was near a girl was shy dancing at junior high dances. That was the closest I ever was to them. And, that closeness meant my hands on their waist as I stared past their shoulder, because the wall was more interesting than looking at them. Then I met my girlfriend. We were in art class together. We sat at the same table for the first semester and never spoke a word to each other. We found out later that both of us sat with the other because we saw that the other was quiet and we didn’t want to talk while we worked on different projects.”
I laughed. “How did you end up talking then?”
“She made this painting one time and I had to talk to her about it. I couldn’t be silent when I saw it. It was beautiful and it was creepy as hell. It was truth, so I told her it was.” He flicked a piece of fuzz from his finger and watched it fall to the ground. “Then she cried because I got it. I think that was my first moment understanding another human being. We dated for a few months. She was older than me. She went off to college. I wanted to follow her, but we didn’t have the money. So I decided—you know I always wanted to do something important, so I joined the military. My mom signed off on my enlistment and I went in when I was seventeen.
“I joined the military for a girl and with the idea that what I saw in the movies was real. I should’ve been smarter than that. I was smarter than that. But I let myself get carried away by what I thought was love. She kept in touch with me. After my first deployment, I visited her. We had drifted apart; she was figuring herself out in college and I wasn’t what one would call faithful. But that’s what ends up happening when your life and time is measured by every one of the days you spend trying to keep your sanity,” he said.
“I was a charmer then.” He continued. “Looking back on it, Blake reminds me of the me from then. Not that he’s a bad guy. It’s just who he is. But it wasn’t me. I played the part and I lost myself. I lost a lot of myself and I hid behind a veil because I was out of my mind. After though, I learned that it wasn’t worth it—hiding like that.”
I couldn’t stay the five feet away from him after that story. I scooted on my knees across the floor to him and picked the piece of fuzz up he had flicked. “I’m glad you came out of hiding.” I put the fuzz back in his outstretched hand. “Now, I think I’m ready.”
“Okay,” he said with a smile, and stood from the floor. He put his hand out and as I took it, he pulled me to my feet.
He let go of my hand and walked to the back of the room to mess with the sound system again. I stood in front of the mirror and studied my face. I lifted my left leg onto the bar and grabbed my toe. As I stretched down, I pressed the toes of my right foot into the ground and tried to lift. Lift.
It didn’t happen, but I was okay with that. This wasn’t about lifting on my toes or technique. This was about me feeling a song and just dancing. I had to do it from this place—for me.
I needed to remember why I loved dancing as a little girl. I needed the freedom of it. All fear would cease as the dance took me away from the overwhelming emptiness the uncertainty of my future held.
I stood tall and breathed deep as I focused on my reflection.
“You can do this, Maggie—Margaret.” I smiled, speaking softly
to myself.
A song began. It was a slower one. There were several hums and claps that began in quiet, subdued tones. I felt the music first, letting it consume me. I let my hands go limp at my sides and closed my eyes. I bowed forward and let my hands move around my legs in a smooth motion and turned with hesitation on my left foot.
I didn’t attempt to push onto my toes again. I stayed on my flat feet and let my body tell me what it was capable of now. I listened to it. We were together again. I didn’t fight with it or hate it, but I thanked it for still moving this much with me. I thanked every movement and cheered to myself when I spun. It wasn’t the most graceful move, turning on my flat feet. I imagined I looked like a child, pretending to be a ballerina or dancer on stage. But just as a child dances for the joy of it, I did as well.
I didn’t think about the stress of my now former job. I didn’t have that to worry about anymore. I didn’t have to put on the exterior facade that sought approval from the world. I didn’t need society’s approval, because I was free. I was me.
The song intensified and tears formed in my eyes. I let go to the song and to the movement. I had longed for this over the last few months. It didn’t matter how I looked, because inside, I felt it. I felt every beat of the song and every beat of my heart. I was alive. I cherished that thought. Whatever lay on the horizon, I would live right now.
12
Karl
Fall
I watched as she moved with fluid ease across the floor. Pain danced across her face as she moved. I knew the pain wasn’t just physical. The pain was from every dream she once had falling to the floor around her. But, what she didn’t know was that I would be there to help her pick up the pieces. She wouldn’t be broken by this. I wouldn't let this break her. She was too strong and brave to let it happen. She needed to remember her own bravery.
She was amazing. I felt uncomfortable watching her after a time. I felt like it was a moment for her and her alone. My being there was a distraction. She needed this for her. I was thankful that the longer she danced, she let go—and it was only her. I could see her falling into the place of acceptance and strength that comes with knowing you have to fight.
She finished and sat on her knees once again and looked at her hands with a sigh. In silence she ran her palms together and examined them as if she were trying to recall what she once had.
“Do you think this is all I will be able to do?” Maggie asked without looking at me. “I can’t feel my fingertips. I can’t stand on my toes, how the hell am I going to dance?”
“I don’t know, but I do know that whatever you get tossed, you’ll make something of it.”
“How do you know that?” she asked, meeting my eyes.
“I know enough of you, that I see you’re determined. From what I’ve learned, determination is one of the most important parts of living.”
“You suck, Karl.”
I laughed. “I suck? That’s fine if you want to think that, I’m okay with it.”
“You suck because you keep saying all the things I need to hear to remind me what I’m supposed to be doing. You suck because I wish you could give some of that to Toby, and that thought alone makes me hate myself. I love him. I shouldn’t want him to be like someone else.”
The needle pulled through again, wrapping itself one more time around the seams that frayed on my heart. “Don’t hate—not even yourself.”
“I can’t help it. I don’t know myself anymore. The real me is trapped in here somewhere, screaming against my flesh, trying to be let out. But my body won’t let it out.”
“That’s when you need to redefine yourself. Better yet, you need to understand that you’re always redefining. You know the human body regenerates every moment? I read once that the brain regenerates every two months and the skeletal system does every three. So, if that happens, why can’t we regenerate our minds? You know, we are always changing and adapting—moving forward—evolving. We just hang onto that. It’s that simple, Maggie.”
She looked down at her palms as she ran them across one another. She examined them as if she could see her skin and body closing in on her and reminding her she was still here in the present.
“I think in that dance you started one part of your homework,” I said.
“What’s that?”
“You are living now. You were free out there Margaret, and you were in the place where you needed to be—the present.”
She laughed in her usual soft way. “You called me Margaret again. Why?”
“First, I looked in a name book when I first wondered if that was what your name was. I knew it meant pearl before I asked you,” I said as I sat on my knees in front of her.
“I then had to take it further, because that’s what I do when I want to know things. I looked into pearls. Did you know they’re the oldest known gemstone? The thing I thought the coolest about it was that the pearl is derived from organic material. A living being makes pearls. It starts with an irritant that gets inside it. Then the mollusk works it for years until it becomes this unique, beautiful thing. Some traditions called them ‘teardrops of the moon’ and they believed pearls came from a single raindrop that fell to earth. It’s also seen as pure and innocent. That entire description is the perfect name for you. You are using your determination, and you are taking this thing inside you and working on it and through it until you create something genuine, real, and priceless. Not everyone can do that.”
She sat up onto her knees and moved closer. She put her hands on either side of my face and pulled me up to meet her as she placed a gentle, chaste kiss on my lips. She held me there for several seconds. I watched her closed eyes and saw how even with her eyes shut, sitting across from me, she still danced.
13
Margaret
Fall
Tenderness—an incredible, soul drenching tenderness is what it felt like. It was a kiss that said everything and nothing. It was much the same as my life. I was in between again, but in the simple touch of our lips together his words pulled me closer to one direction—to him. It was pure and innocent.
I had spent my life not wanting to think deeply about anything. I wanted to move ahead without looking back. I wasn’t always that way. I’d always held a determination to achieve something, but as a child it felt different. I spent time with my grandma and knew that I would be like her one day—giving of myself to see something better come of things. That has twisted over the years. I don’t know if life jaded me, from the experience of losing my cousin and watching the other cousin fall in a downward spiral. But, I knew I was going to now focus on the internal part of me.
I had once focused on achieving and constantly doing. But in this kiss with Karl, I learned something. I needed peace in my life. I needed this, and I needed us. I was gaining a tether that pulled me from the abyss of doing.
Always moving, always doing something. But, he slowed me down and I would cherish the understanding the quietness of Karl brought. That’s how it was with Karl—quiet.
I didn’t want to let go of this moment. I wanted to stay there, resting my hands on his face and my lips on his. But I needed to let go. Every worry of what the next few weeks had in store, drifted away.
I dropped my hands from his face, letting my fingers trace down his beard and sat back on my knees holding his eyes with mine.
We watched each other like that—examining and understanding each other without speaking.
“I’m not sorry I did that,” I said. “I’ve wanted to do that since you held my hand in the waiting room. You just have this face I want to kiss. It’s the purest, most genuine need to be close with another human being. You are perfect. You also kind of remind me of my grandmother.”
He laughed a soft laugh.
“I mean her spirit. Not that you are like my grandma.” I rolled my eyes with a playful grin.
“I knew what you meant. My laugh wasn’t out of mocking you, but out of my own shock. If you would’ve told me at that party
when I met you last year you’d end up being one of the closest friends I had, I wouldn’t have believed you. But, the universe—or life—knows better than us.”
I lowered my chin and looked at my hands in my lap. “Yeah, but it’s too bad it took what it did for me to realize how awesome you were. I mean, I used to think I was good, and I was perfect. I used to think that I had my shit together, but I had it as together as the perception the world told me to have. It was all wrapping paper and bows.”
He turned his head to the side in question.
“You know, how we spend so much time wrapping gifts with perfection, to have them torn apart within seconds and the paper stuffed in a garbage bag. I spent all that time making a gift look pretty, that I forgot about the gift inside. I don’t want to just make something pretty, I want to worry more about the gift.”
He tilted his head with an awestruck expression. “What?” I asked.
“Nothing, I just thought of something. But you’re right, it’s a waste of time, isn’t it?” he asked.
“It is when you suck at it as bad as me. I took forever to get presents to look nice.”
Karl was the one to sit up now, and he leaned into me and put his hands on my cheeks as I had his and he kissed the top of my head.
“I don’t care about the wrappings. I think what you just did was beautiful. That was you—that dance. That was you acknowledging the desire inside you to be and to create. It was amazing,” he said with a shy smile.
“Thank you,” I said leaning back and pulling my knees up to hug them.
“Do you want to see the next part of our evening I have planned?” he asked with a grin.
“Of course I do,” I said.
He laughed. “You say that a lot.”
“Of course I do,” I said with a laugh, as I took his hand and he pulled me up.
“Let me go start my car so it will warm up. I’ll be right back.”
He pulled his jacket on. I used to hate those jackets—it was one of the heavy canvas ones that are brown and men who work outdoors wear them a lot. Now when I saw him wear it, I realized how juvenile and trivial it was in the grand horizon of life that I’d be annoyed at a coat.