Shock

It’s getting light shortly after I get up these days.

I find it strange that it matters, since I spend so much time in the house anyway, but you know how spring is, it just feels nice.

I suppose it’s not really even supposed to be spring yet, but just try telling the daffodils that, or the thousand-frog chorus in the bog behind our back yard. I suppose there’s a date set for when spring actually starts, but I don’t know what it is. It just feels springy this morning. Yesterday felt decidedly wintry, but I think that was a goodbye storm, not that we won’t see another one before whenever summer begins.

I spent decades looking at the clock, sometimes with dread, sometimes with relief, and I went to work at the same time whether the weather was wonderful or not. Building’s gotta get built, and if it doesn’t stop raining for 51 days-I think that was 2006-well, that’s just going to be a tough couple of months.

I remember when it broke, when the rain stopped. It’s....something to witness, and be a part of history in the making, but it’s hard to appreciate when you’ve had your head down by the weight of it for a very long time.

I was upside down. Mostly. None of the ladders we had were long enough to reach the rafter tails that needed to be trimmed, and I, well, I was usually the guy who did that sort of thing, so there I was, at the top of the tower, laying head down on the rafter, in a full set of raingear, and a harness, and a tool belt, and fighting with the cord for the skilsaw and the saw itself, while trying not to bugger up the string-line while marking, then cutting the rafter tails into a straight, plumb line without dropping anything, when the rain stopped.

Do you know about the sound of no sound? It feels like something is wrong, or missing, like you’ve suddenly crossed over, and even time itself has paused just for you. I swear, nothing moved in the world but me as I stopped working, lowered the saw to the floor by its cord, sat back onto the rafter wedged in my butt crack, put my gumboots up onto the top plate of the wall, watched the rays of the sun break through over Barkley Sound, and began to cry.

I wept, actually, just like I’m doing now with only the distant memory, but moments like these exist outside of time, don’t they just. Something about a little light, a little space, a little time out of time; everything else can just fall away, and you don’t even wonder where it went.

For a few breaths.

For ever.

I didn’t feel my half healed broken hand, I didn’t feel the painkillers gnawing at my guts, I didn’t feel the despair of watching my marriage fall apart, I didn’t feel the guilt of not being the father I wanted to be, I didn’t feel the hopelessness of watching myself crumble under the weight of addiction. I didn’t feel. I didn’t want to feel; that’s the whole point of addiction, after all. You surround yourself with pressure, so that nothing can come out, and you live there, under constriction, ever retreating until, somehow, you are released for a moment, relieved, re-lived. It’s shock, and you’re body doesn’t know what to do, so your soul breathes for you, outside of time, your life in a moment, and you, the observer, in truth. Sometimes you don’t like what you see.

The reprieve didn’t last very long, the sky closed back up, cloaking the sun. It rained, but that was ok. I’m made of tough stuff, and I never stay down for long, so upside-down, burdened and restrained, busted up, and with gritted teeth. I went back to work.

I just wanted to see the light again.

I wanted to go home.

I wanted to see my kids.