Honest Chaos

It is only a little after dinner, but a womb-like darkness has laid down across the highway. This being the winter solstice, the sky is an endless blanket of blackness as if the highway had slid down into the guts of the earth instead of running the patch of Maine between Portland and Kittery. The only lights are cigarette red from the cars in front of me and dashing white from the cars northbound. We swim down the arteries in our compartments, containerized and separated. It has been years, but Bono still sings through the speakers about how he still hasn’t found what he is looking for. None of us have, Bono, I say out loud to no one because I am alone on this journey. Not one of us. The darkness feels like it should be milkshake thick, perhaps even obsidian amber, with our headlights trapped and shining forever. But instead, the miles slip by like time as we each push the gas pedal harder to get where we are already destined to be, all the colors bleeding into one. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit honestchaos.substack.com

The thing is you don't realize this is the last time you will close the windows this year. You close them on a day when the sun is sharp like angels' wings and the air bites your cheeks. You're not thinking you should turn the stubborn locks to seal out the fingers of winter frost. You close them one afternoon and then it has been two weeks or four before you notice you have been closed in, and closed off, and the long, gray time has begun. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit honestchaos.substack.com

Oh, Achilles, you were a sucker you died and you were forgotten. Perhaps not your name but who you actually were - the details that differentiated you from the other brutes on the beach - and who knows how much Homer just plain made up after a glass or three, and he wasn’t one to disappoint the crowd. If they wanted a little more blood or wanted you to be a little bigger and stronger and not actually have had to fight your fear well then so be it. But that’s not you he’s singing about, let’s be clear. That’s Homer's Achilles, and people are remembering that Achilles, the one he made up to turn a little gold. They're not remembering what you actually did, not what you actually sacrificed - not the beautiful children you could have held, not the fields you would have tilled, not the sunsets you would have pondered leaning on your plow in your old age that you did not have. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit honestchaos.substack.com

Each of us is born with a key-shaped soul - we spend our lives looking for the moments we are meant to unlock, where only we are the right answer to a question otherwise unanswerable. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit honestchaos.substack.com

I'm burning a candle as a metaphor for how short our human lives are, us all being poor actors strutting and fretting. But this one here is a three-wick spiced cardamom candle not something extruded from pig fat or gathered from hives. I won't be lighting a lamp courtesy of some whale's song cut short by hard men on three year voyages out of Nantucket - though I may catch the ferry there this summer for a day of rubbing elbows with the tourist elite none of whom smell like fish or have salt plastered to their sun burned faces. Indeed, human life is a bit longer and a lot less cruel. And the candles are plentiful if you need one to be reminded. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit honestchaos.substack.com

When you start your day by stubbing your toe even before you get to the bathroom and you know it's an insignificant injury in the scope of world tragedy but in the moment the pain occupies all of your brain except for the part still carrying on about how you have to pee - this is a first glimmer that the old gods are about today. But in case you're not ready to believe, you'll have cut yourself shaving and that tiny slice will bleed onto the first shirt you put on and so you'll go downstairs having dressed yourself twice. You'll knock your coffee over with a flick of your hand, then you'll forget your keys on your way to your car and then as you pull out of your neighborhood, you'll remember your wallet is waiting patiently on the counter for you. And you will do a quick calculus - can I get through my day with no money? what's the chance the police will pull me over? and that last one, given the other signs has you turning around in some stranger's driveway. Now your ancestors in that Mediterranean village - no, not the ones with the copious crucifixes, before them. The ones who made the tiny shrines tucked into every nook and corner where their descendants, closer to you, shoved little statues of Mary, but those older ancestors had other figures there first. They knew when a splash of wine was called for, or to place a slice of orange or a few almonds. And they would tell you, based on the morning you are having that you have with the utmost certainty offended a god. A small god, most likely, but still, what are you? Not a god, they would tell you. And now you, having lost touch with the old ways, awkwardly pour a bit of your coffee from your travel mug onto the mulch by the garage door, the threshold of your home and the larger world. It's a small gesture, but it is noted. Somehow from there you find yourself moving more deliberately and all the lights are green when you roll up to them and all the cars seem to have other places to be other than in front of you, and thus somehow, you arrive on time. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit honestchaos.substack.com

So now you have left us, having run through the number of your days which we did not know were ending, but we came upon like a fallen tree blocking the road just after we rounded the bend. We slammed on the breaks and everything came to a stop - we could see our lives frozen in the ice of time and we stood outside waiting for the sun to melt us back into a new reality - one without you. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit honestchaos.substack.com

The trees blush in reds and yellows at the thought of undressing for winter - soon they will stand brazenly naked, gray, the color of acceptance and surrender. Boney arms are lifted in prayer - do not make the snow heavy like concrete, keep the ice storms away. Let the nor'easters go on out to sea where the fish can look up and wonder at the whirling mystery of the airy world. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit honestchaos.substack.com