The thoughts that creep in during quiet moments between heartbeats, the fleeting stillness of an idiotic hope. A long ago whisper echoing through the dark, she told me once life is over there, behind the shelf the sexton keeps the key to,putting up our life, his porcelain, like a cup, the skeleton of a thought that was once flesh.
I closed its cover and a solitary droplet of saltwater traced the outline of my cheekbone, following gravity down to the hollow inside of my ear. All at once the beauty of human life descended heavily down, down, down and crushed me in a sudden remembering. I wondered how long it had been since I felt that feeling. How long since I even remembered that it was possible to cry for what was beautiful, and not just for the ugly and broken.
We stood there at the end of the world, early morning fog obscuring the horizon as we looked back at the space that spanned the void. A bridge from nowhere, to nowhere. There were no words, somehow silence was the only appropriate reaction. I thought of the moment when I realized that the poem was about God, I was still standing on a northern corner, moonlit winter clouds the color of the desperation of wolves. Proof of your existence? There is nothing but. In an instant the words' loneliness was replaced by a contentedness that has only been rivaled by the hunger after a good swim. I imagined what Alaska would look like during those months when it is never dark but never quite light either. The sun teasing the earth below by casting an unending dusk upon the land. Would the sky dance with reds and oranges and purples as the children made their way home, as dinner was prepared and the fire stoked?
And why is it that such details make all of the difference?
30.8.08
27.8.08
I'll bite at your ankles
Josh or one of the other con guys that we used to be infatuated with scrawled it across a wheat paste poster illuminationanticipationisbetterthansex... and he had a point. The anticipation is usually better, in all things. Except, except.
Eight of us on tonight and I think I was sent to 80% of the calls. Monitoring my MDT screen throughout the shift, keeping track of all the red lines. The delineation between sheepdog and sheep. I remember him saying you'd tell me if you thought I wasn't pulling my weight, the image of that self-consciousness was in my mind as I was saying motherfucker through tight-lips at my radio all night. A girl could get burnt out like this. I think that you are not pulling your weight.
But in the end, it doesn't matter. My evidence guy came to back me up and he had no equipment to process fingerprints. Had to go all the way back to the department to retrieve the right tools. Me in a dark sandstone dirt floor basement with my gun drawn, flashlight leading the way. Clearing every cob-webbed corner for the bad guy who had committed the aggravated burglary, lest he be hiding out, waiting for me to leave. All by myself and I knew it was stupid. But those damn red lines on my computer screen makes the sheepdog in me puff up. Later the homeowner commended me for my bravery. No time to eat and he sends me a quick message to not be mad because he's going to lunch. I go from call to call to call like a freaking car-hop and I am still motherfucking the radio.
It's nights like these that my appreciation for JD grows exponentially. And I begin to understand the sarcasm in his voice.
Later on a 911 hang-up and my backup diverts to a different, more glamorous call. I can hear the frustration in the dispatchers voice as she is looking for someone who will back me up. In the end no one comes and I offer everything up to God. Because really, what else can you do?
Tomorrow I will be stronger, and smarter.
Eight of us on tonight and I think I was sent to 80% of the calls. Monitoring my MDT screen throughout the shift, keeping track of all the red lines. The delineation between sheepdog and sheep. I remember him saying you'd tell me if you thought I wasn't pulling my weight, the image of that self-consciousness was in my mind as I was saying motherfucker through tight-lips at my radio all night. A girl could get burnt out like this. I think that you are not pulling your weight.
But in the end, it doesn't matter. My evidence guy came to back me up and he had no equipment to process fingerprints. Had to go all the way back to the department to retrieve the right tools. Me in a dark sandstone dirt floor basement with my gun drawn, flashlight leading the way. Clearing every cob-webbed corner for the bad guy who had committed the aggravated burglary, lest he be hiding out, waiting for me to leave. All by myself and I knew it was stupid. But those damn red lines on my computer screen makes the sheepdog in me puff up. Later the homeowner commended me for my bravery. No time to eat and he sends me a quick message to not be mad because he's going to lunch. I go from call to call to call like a freaking car-hop and I am still motherfucking the radio.
It's nights like these that my appreciation for JD grows exponentially. And I begin to understand the sarcasm in his voice.
Later on a 911 hang-up and my backup diverts to a different, more glamorous call. I can hear the frustration in the dispatchers voice as she is looking for someone who will back me up. In the end no one comes and I offer everything up to God. Because really, what else can you do?
Tomorrow I will be stronger, and smarter.
24.8.08
Next time.
Remember:
The good guys always win. There is no way we can do anything other than what God has planned for us. It just takes faith and then comes so much sweetness.
You will always be stronger than the last moment if you choose to be. You will always be smarter tomorrow. Think about it.
There is still a warrior standing with her arms outstretched to the fates in a still darkened parking lot as the morning rush hour traffic whizzes by a few hundred yards off. That strength, determination, resolve and self-assuredness ripples underneath.
You are farther along than you will allow yourself; take the break that you know you need.
The good guys always win. There is no way we can do anything other than what God has planned for us. It just takes faith and then comes so much sweetness.
You will always be stronger than the last moment if you choose to be. You will always be smarter tomorrow. Think about it.
There is still a warrior standing with her arms outstretched to the fates in a still darkened parking lot as the morning rush hour traffic whizzes by a few hundred yards off. That strength, determination, resolve and self-assuredness ripples underneath.
You are farther along than you will allow yourself; take the break that you know you need.
21.8.08
LOVE/hate.
You tell yourself you are smarter than this in the quiet moments after you wake up in the morning or as you make the slow trek to bed through darkened hallways in the empty house. You make a strong resolve to pack up the accumulated baggage, small as it may be, and toss it over the nearest bridge next time you run. Watch gravity take it all the way down until the river has claimed it, and there are no more ripples. You remind yourself of how it will end, otherwise, and try to be practical for the foolish girl who would suffer through the inevitable pain. You keep a steady eye on that weakness that just can't find it in herself to care.
Hope is the thing with feathers, that perches in the soul, and sings the tune without the words, and never stops at all she whispers in my ear on my most recent run.
The phone beeps and like Pavlov's dog I am transfixed. The determination evaporates like the early fog of what will be a very hot day. You can't stop thinking about me. I find myself in mid-conversation before I realize that I've dialed the number. The whole relationship is played out between the lines and hours afterward I am still engrossed in the analyzation of what wasn't said. Then later, when it rings again, the waltz we dance with the sound of laughter and sighing. There is so much potentiality in what can never be and you think that you must enjoy torturing yourself.
You think too much, I have told him. Using the conversation as a mirror to remind myself of my own truths, and to see if any of it takes hold across the cell towers. What will the reaction be? His answers, between the lines of what we say I realize that it is not like falling at all. It is much more like a slow descent down a dark trail where you can't even see your hand in front of your face. The fingers become the eyes and all you can do is pray that your instincts can be trusted.
And we tell each other, everything happens for a reason.
Hope is the thing with feathers, that perches in the soul, and sings the tune without the words, and never stops at all she whispers in my ear on my most recent run.
The phone beeps and like Pavlov's dog I am transfixed. The determination evaporates like the early fog of what will be a very hot day. You can't stop thinking about me. I find myself in mid-conversation before I realize that I've dialed the number. The whole relationship is played out between the lines and hours afterward I am still engrossed in the analyzation of what wasn't said. Then later, when it rings again, the waltz we dance with the sound of laughter and sighing. There is so much potentiality in what can never be and you think that you must enjoy torturing yourself.
You think too much, I have told him. Using the conversation as a mirror to remind myself of my own truths, and to see if any of it takes hold across the cell towers. What will the reaction be? His answers, between the lines of what we say I realize that it is not like falling at all. It is much more like a slow descent down a dark trail where you can't even see your hand in front of your face. The fingers become the eyes and all you can do is pray that your instincts can be trusted.
And we tell each other, everything happens for a reason.
10.8.08
Paper jam
The way the story was retold was actually worse even than I thought the two-dimensional paper version would be. I remember the way he looked at me when we were out in the hallway before the pow-wow. I knew he was thinking of packing it in and finishing the report with TOT... and I did not want to accept that. Don't allow yourself plan B, it's just that simple. It was the same look in the squad room, because I was staring at him during the re-telling. A pause in the monologue would be followed up by eye contact that I never let myself break. The middle-schooler inside would have been proud. My SCAN instructor told us that 95% of lies told are lies of omission...
The constant analyzing that I inherited from my parents, the skills of observation, is both a blessing and a curse. I am pretty sure I am at the top of the curve when it comes to reading people, but it is sometimes painful to know the thought behind the thought.
As I was driving while on routine patrol much later I found myself, again, praying. For a stronger next moment. To be free of the negative thoughts which were draining my energy. To physically feel the guiding hand, the divine light within. The autumn-like winds rocked the cruiser and blew my hair across my face. The sun shone through huge, puffy clouds and it smelled like Olympia, like rain. There is always this moment, I thought, and it is always my own, and I can be as strong in it as I choose.
I gave myself advice via his arrest as I processed her this morning. I told her that we always have the ability to move forward, and to make the next step one that counts, one that is in the right direction. Here is to one foot forward.
The constant analyzing that I inherited from my parents, the skills of observation, is both a blessing and a curse. I am pretty sure I am at the top of the curve when it comes to reading people, but it is sometimes painful to know the thought behind the thought.
As I was driving while on routine patrol much later I found myself, again, praying. For a stronger next moment. To be free of the negative thoughts which were draining my energy. To physically feel the guiding hand, the divine light within. The autumn-like winds rocked the cruiser and blew my hair across my face. The sun shone through huge, puffy clouds and it smelled like Olympia, like rain. There is always this moment, I thought, and it is always my own, and I can be as strong in it as I choose.
I gave myself advice via his arrest as I processed her this morning. I told her that we always have the ability to move forward, and to make the next step one that counts, one that is in the right direction. Here is to one foot forward.
9.8.08
Shades of blue.
Three traffic stops on Friday, each with their own absurdness. I accredited it to the fact that it was the eighth day of the eighth month of the eighth year. I hope that doesn't mean that I'm into all the moon crap as one of my counterparts questioned.
1.
I was driving northbound on a busier street in town, minding my own business, drinking coffee and being thankful for such a sweet job. Ahead of me a car pulled onto the road from a residential street, completely blowing through the stop sign. I immediately activated my lights, and she stopped. When I walked up she told me that it was a new car and she was still getting used to how it worked. I asked her if the gas pedal and the brake were in relatively the same place as her previous car. Then I wrote her a ticket.
2.
I was sitting at a dead-end in a residential neighborhood, where you can simultaneously watch about three intersections. There was a paltry amount of traffic, and everyone was obeying the law and stopping for all of the stop signs. I was getting bored so I put in gear and started to creep out to resume patrol. A car approached the intersection that I was not ten feet from and completely blew through the stop sign, not even a whisper on the brake pedal. I activated my lights and she stopped. I walked up and she was very apologetic and really didn't have an excuse for why she didn't even pretend to stop. I wrote her a ticket because the house next door has five kids that play in the street a lot. Tragedy waiting to happen. When I walked back up to have her sign it she started crying and told me that what she actually was doing was praying and was so deep in concentration that she didn't even see the stop sign. I should have told her that she didn't pray hard enough. Instead I just handed her the yellow copy as she cursed the Divine.
3.
Waiting for a red light at one of the "no right on red" intersections in town and the car ahead of me turns right. I cut through the gas station parking lot and turn the lights on. She doesn't pull over. I honk the air horn a couple of times and she signals to turn left. I am right behind her gesticulating, with the lights blasting away and she turns into the Starbucks parking lot. She slowly finds a parking space, pulls in, turns the car off and starts to get out as I'm parking and jumping out of my car to beat her to the asphalt. I tell her to get back in her car and point to my lights blazing and ask her if she realized I was pulling her over. She looks stupefied -- she had no idea. Duh, she hadn't had any coffee yet. Yeah, she got a ticket. And I noticed, after I pulled away from the stop, she put it in gear without getting that first cup of java.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
What was it about today? There was something about the way she started to answer our questions before we had even finished asking them that struck me as wrong. The explanations just came out too readily. The dry-mouth was a massive red flag and I could see the face of my SCAN instructor -- he had an eyebrow raised and I didn't let it pass by unnoticed. Out in the hallway I thought for sure that my counterpart would agree with me, that we would huddle up and figure out our attack. His dissent made me question my conviction, and I volunteered to do the leg work to prove to myself that I wasn't crazy. He stayed and continued with the questioning. Before we parted I looked at him and said she's guilty as sin. He looked back with those hazel eyes. What if I'm wrong?
When I returned, victorious, she was mid-sentence with an entirely new line of bullshit. I was tired of the game, of the lying I am always so tired of the lying, so I pressed her hard, impatiently, and asked for corroboration. She was too reluctant and you could tell she was getting tired of keeping track of her story. So my counterpart posed her with the old, well if you're innocent then you won't mind if we look, right? To which she, of course, agreed. Because if you say no you look guilty.
Which kills me, by the way. Because if you say yes, we are going to find it, and then you are guilty. What tangled webs we weave.
We started in the bedroom, because it's always in the bedroom, and I found her drug stash. My counterpart uncovered a drawer full of sex toys and was totally engrossed when I noticed her apparently rearranging shoes in her closet. In a flash I realized that rearranging shoes in your closet while the po-po is performing a consent search in your bedroom is just not normal behavior. So I suggested to her, look, why don't you step out here and stand in the middle of the room where we can see what you're doing. I made a bee-line for the purse she had been trying to bury under a pile of shoes and, as if by magic, recovered what we had been looking for. Her eyes were burning holes into my soul the entire time I slowly unzipped every compartment of the purse. I kept watch on her out of my periphery and new I was going to find it. So much so that it was almost like watching a movie that you've seen before, the inevitable unfolding.
The rest was mostly procedure and paperwork.
I cornered him later though with I called it. Part of me felt cheap for saying it but I couldn't keep it down. He knew, and the look in those hazel eyes spoke volumes. Maybe it will be different now, I don't know. Things are changing all of the time with us.
As always it's his paper, his credit. I can't wait to read the two-dimensional version of how the whole thing went down. If nothing else I learned, unequivocally, to not question the gut reaction. You are right, the mystery is in figuring out how you are right.
Later, on my own, on the bike path, flying on the asphalt with the sun burning my nose. Glorious sanctuary that it is, the bike path. I found myself praying. Thank you, God, for such a beautiful day, the wind on my face, the sun, the strength to hurl myself forward, mile after mile. Thank you, Lord, for giving me a calling and the tools to be successful. Keep me humble, Lord, and always smarter and stronger than yesterday.
Later I got a text of admission that my gut was right on, and something about a hope that I didn't think it was down-played. And the flirtations. It is like being given a present of a book that's in a language I can't read. What does any of it mean? I think I should stick to my solitude, and to Rumi. Because when he says we have a barrel full of wine, but no cups. Which is fine with us, I understand.
1.
I was driving northbound on a busier street in town, minding my own business, drinking coffee and being thankful for such a sweet job. Ahead of me a car pulled onto the road from a residential street, completely blowing through the stop sign. I immediately activated my lights, and she stopped. When I walked up she told me that it was a new car and she was still getting used to how it worked. I asked her if the gas pedal and the brake were in relatively the same place as her previous car. Then I wrote her a ticket.
2.
I was sitting at a dead-end in a residential neighborhood, where you can simultaneously watch about three intersections. There was a paltry amount of traffic, and everyone was obeying the law and stopping for all of the stop signs. I was getting bored so I put in gear and started to creep out to resume patrol. A car approached the intersection that I was not ten feet from and completely blew through the stop sign, not even a whisper on the brake pedal. I activated my lights and she stopped. I walked up and she was very apologetic and really didn't have an excuse for why she didn't even pretend to stop. I wrote her a ticket because the house next door has five kids that play in the street a lot. Tragedy waiting to happen. When I walked back up to have her sign it she started crying and told me that what she actually was doing was praying and was so deep in concentration that she didn't even see the stop sign. I should have told her that she didn't pray hard enough. Instead I just handed her the yellow copy as she cursed the Divine.
3.
Waiting for a red light at one of the "no right on red" intersections in town and the car ahead of me turns right. I cut through the gas station parking lot and turn the lights on. She doesn't pull over. I honk the air horn a couple of times and she signals to turn left. I am right behind her gesticulating, with the lights blasting away and she turns into the Starbucks parking lot. She slowly finds a parking space, pulls in, turns the car off and starts to get out as I'm parking and jumping out of my car to beat her to the asphalt. I tell her to get back in her car and point to my lights blazing and ask her if she realized I was pulling her over. She looks stupefied -- she had no idea. Duh, she hadn't had any coffee yet. Yeah, she got a ticket. And I noticed, after I pulled away from the stop, she put it in gear without getting that first cup of java.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
What was it about today? There was something about the way she started to answer our questions before we had even finished asking them that struck me as wrong. The explanations just came out too readily. The dry-mouth was a massive red flag and I could see the face of my SCAN instructor -- he had an eyebrow raised and I didn't let it pass by unnoticed. Out in the hallway I thought for sure that my counterpart would agree with me, that we would huddle up and figure out our attack. His dissent made me question my conviction, and I volunteered to do the leg work to prove to myself that I wasn't crazy. He stayed and continued with the questioning. Before we parted I looked at him and said she's guilty as sin. He looked back with those hazel eyes. What if I'm wrong?
When I returned, victorious, she was mid-sentence with an entirely new line of bullshit. I was tired of the game, of the lying I am always so tired of the lying, so I pressed her hard, impatiently, and asked for corroboration. She was too reluctant and you could tell she was getting tired of keeping track of her story. So my counterpart posed her with the old, well if you're innocent then you won't mind if we look, right? To which she, of course, agreed. Because if you say no you look guilty.
Which kills me, by the way. Because if you say yes, we are going to find it, and then you are guilty. What tangled webs we weave.
We started in the bedroom, because it's always in the bedroom, and I found her drug stash. My counterpart uncovered a drawer full of sex toys and was totally engrossed when I noticed her apparently rearranging shoes in her closet. In a flash I realized that rearranging shoes in your closet while the po-po is performing a consent search in your bedroom is just not normal behavior. So I suggested to her, look, why don't you step out here and stand in the middle of the room where we can see what you're doing. I made a bee-line for the purse she had been trying to bury under a pile of shoes and, as if by magic, recovered what we had been looking for. Her eyes were burning holes into my soul the entire time I slowly unzipped every compartment of the purse. I kept watch on her out of my periphery and new I was going to find it. So much so that it was almost like watching a movie that you've seen before, the inevitable unfolding.
The rest was mostly procedure and paperwork.
I cornered him later though with I called it. Part of me felt cheap for saying it but I couldn't keep it down. He knew, and the look in those hazel eyes spoke volumes. Maybe it will be different now, I don't know. Things are changing all of the time with us.
As always it's his paper, his credit. I can't wait to read the two-dimensional version of how the whole thing went down. If nothing else I learned, unequivocally, to not question the gut reaction. You are right, the mystery is in figuring out how you are right.
Later, on my own, on the bike path, flying on the asphalt with the sun burning my nose. Glorious sanctuary that it is, the bike path. I found myself praying. Thank you, God, for such a beautiful day, the wind on my face, the sun, the strength to hurl myself forward, mile after mile. Thank you, Lord, for giving me a calling and the tools to be successful. Keep me humble, Lord, and always smarter and stronger than yesterday.
Later I got a text of admission that my gut was right on, and something about a hope that I didn't think it was down-played. And the flirtations. It is like being given a present of a book that's in a language I can't read. What does any of it mean? I think I should stick to my solitude, and to Rumi. Because when he says we have a barrel full of wine, but no cups. Which is fine with us, I understand.
6.8.08
Viva la vida.
The first thing I noticed when I cleared the apartment were the cat droppings covering the living room floor, and then the cat, emaciated, with its eyes gone. It looked like one of those cartoons of a dead fish, where it's just the rib cage and two "exes" where its eyes had been. I remember thinking, well, maybe he just went out of town and forgot the poor bastard, completely denying the smell that was raping my nostrils. I pulled my gun and saw Don follow suit. I remember remarking to myself that I was going to have to be the sheepdog in this, if there was a bad-guy lurking somewhere. I could hear the building manager in the hallway, repeating everything that I said. I remember wondering if she always repeated things back like that, or if perhaps it was just the way her nervousness manifested. I cleared left and turned to cover Don but when I saw his expression, I knew. He had found him.
The image of his face, purplish black and bloated, is burned into my memory and I find it in the forefront of my mind when I allow the brain to idle. The smell, the flies, the utter loneliness of the view from his shabby eleventh floor apartment. The calendar on the wall was from a local Chinese restaurant and was stuck in April, 2007. There were fifteen unplayed messages on the answering machine that had accrued during the week he was MIA; all of them from the same man who was not his family.
It was better when my grandfather's friend from the coroner's office arrived. He reminded me of Grandpa Z and it wasn't so bad to go back into that death house with him. The compassion behind his eyes, his gentle way of moving, was unmistakable. We talked for the hour that we waited for the body to be removed. Mostly about the connection between our families, police work and the like, but every now and then the topic strayed to the apartment's former resident and how a life could possibly end up in such a way. I offered up my thanks that he was the one sent that particular afternoon.
And when I got home I ran and I cannot stop. I have logged hundreds of miles with my legs over the days since I was sent on that call, and sweat gallons. My entire body is sore, but it works itself out as soon as I get going again. I have discovered that if part of me is feeling pain, if it is hard and I have to push myself to keep going, then there's no mistaking that I'm alive. That there is no chance I will end up cloistered in a 90-degree dismal apartment with old photos on the wall of people who don't call anymore. That at least, if I am to die soon, when my grandfather's friend comes to investigate he will think to himself, her house was in order and she kept herself in shape.
And why that is important to me I really haven't figured out, but it is directly related to that hot Friday afternoon.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
And there is another memory that keeps descending from the recesses of my mind, when I am alone and it's quiet and I have the time to indulge myself. It ties us together in an invisible spiderweb. When we talked, the way he mentioned it, I knew that it held the same place in his mind, and I imagined him shutting up the door to the guest room, closing his eyes, and being selfish for just a few moments. The way that sounds change on humid nights, the way that smells linger and float heavily in the damp air. The way that our gravities orbit each other, like a waltz in slow-motion. I can't forget it.
The image of his face, purplish black and bloated, is burned into my memory and I find it in the forefront of my mind when I allow the brain to idle. The smell, the flies, the utter loneliness of the view from his shabby eleventh floor apartment. The calendar on the wall was from a local Chinese restaurant and was stuck in April, 2007. There were fifteen unplayed messages on the answering machine that had accrued during the week he was MIA; all of them from the same man who was not his family.
It was better when my grandfather's friend from the coroner's office arrived. He reminded me of Grandpa Z and it wasn't so bad to go back into that death house with him. The compassion behind his eyes, his gentle way of moving, was unmistakable. We talked for the hour that we waited for the body to be removed. Mostly about the connection between our families, police work and the like, but every now and then the topic strayed to the apartment's former resident and how a life could possibly end up in such a way. I offered up my thanks that he was the one sent that particular afternoon.
And when I got home I ran and I cannot stop. I have logged hundreds of miles with my legs over the days since I was sent on that call, and sweat gallons. My entire body is sore, but it works itself out as soon as I get going again. I have discovered that if part of me is feeling pain, if it is hard and I have to push myself to keep going, then there's no mistaking that I'm alive. That there is no chance I will end up cloistered in a 90-degree dismal apartment with old photos on the wall of people who don't call anymore. That at least, if I am to die soon, when my grandfather's friend comes to investigate he will think to himself, her house was in order and she kept herself in shape.
And why that is important to me I really haven't figured out, but it is directly related to that hot Friday afternoon.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
And there is another memory that keeps descending from the recesses of my mind, when I am alone and it's quiet and I have the time to indulge myself. It ties us together in an invisible spiderweb. When we talked, the way he mentioned it, I knew that it held the same place in his mind, and I imagined him shutting up the door to the guest room, closing his eyes, and being selfish for just a few moments. The way that sounds change on humid nights, the way that smells linger and float heavily in the damp air. The way that our gravities orbit each other, like a waltz in slow-motion. I can't forget it.
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