The Light

 

He wrapped the sleeve of his jacket around his right fist and used the fabric to dry off a circle of condensation on the inside window of the bus so he could see out.  It was dark – really dark.  It was deep into Fall, when the darkness comes early, and we’re all still kind of used to the daylight lasting well into the evening.  He liked watching the lights coming from the buildings this particular bus passed along its path.  Its path was a long one.  It helped pass the time.  This was a commuter bus from downtown, through SW Portland surface streets, all the way out to the suburbs and ending finally in the countryside.  He enjoyed looking at the shops along the way.  He always noticed shops that he would not see during the day.  These intrigued him and made him think that maybe he would one day stop off and uncover some sort of Daniel Pinkwater world, where he would meet strange characters in a mysterious coffee shop or all night bookstore and go on adventures.  He was also intrigued by the seemingly endless number of apartment complexes along the way.  They were all much like his own.  He was fascinated by how few lights emanated from them.  He wondered if they were filled with lonely people, like himself, who while away their time at home, alone, mostly in the dark.  He never particularly liked light.  He liked the darkness.  His eyes were generally pretty sensitive to brightness.  He began to try to discern the lights that were coming from windows of the apartments.  There were many different shades, colors, and levels of brightness.  A strong wave of sadness enveloped him.  He began to imagine internal crises going on inside those boxes.  All of those people so close together, yet all living completely separate.  

His mind drifted back to a long-ago memory of him and his father visiting some young family’s home.  It was a home on one of those streets that has a grass covered island down the middle of the street.  On the end of that island was a covered half basketball court with one hoop.  It was dusk.  Mostly dark, but there were still faint hints of pale pink and urine yellow washes in the western sky.  Bright buzzing lights were already blaring from tall poles in and around the court.  He spent his time shooting baskets, because he used to enjoy that.  The constant bouncing of the ball, only broken by brief moments of silence for shots, echoed through the neighborhood, but did not stir any attention.  The echo of the dribbles – a simultaneous thwip/thud – were beginning to give him a headache, yet he continued on.  He was hyper aware of his surroundings.  He couldn’t really see outside the covered barrier due to the intensity of the lights, which were above and posted at each corner of the court.  These lights created those weird four-part shadows that show in every direction.  Only darkness lay beyond.  These intense and stark lights, along with the complete lack of activity throughout the neighborhood, made him feel incredibly lonely.  As he thought about this memory, he began to question it.  He couldn’t pin down when this was, approximately how old he was, who the people were, why they were there – wherever they were, why the rest of his family weren’t there, or if this was a completely invented memory.  He was not very old, so this stuff should’ve been much clearer.

He was certain that his Mom would’ve turned every light in the house on day and night, if she had the option, but no one else wanted that.  She loved light.  He started to understand, as he looked at all of the dark residences.  He longed for a window with light and life coming out.  Sure, each apartment complex had street lighting and strategic light posts in and around each pathway, the parking lots, and the doors of each unit, but those only highlighted the sheer stillness.  No activity could be seen.  He began to imagine birthday parties inside, or other fun memories and moments, but could not conjure anything, but empty spaces, or people alone, motionless, in front of a TV.  He decided that it couldn’t be all that bleak.  He remembered how he used to sit for hours staring into the lights of his stereo, as he listened to the radio stations fade in and out, afraid to turn it off, in case he might miss that one important song that would change his life. 

 

He had other basketball memories.  When he played on the High School team, the two best teams in their league were also the two biggest schools.  Both of them had weird lighting in their gyms.  It’s no surprise his teams’ had little chance of victory.  One of the gyms had strange blue-ish lights that made everyone look like a corpse.  It actually made everyone’s lips look blue, and everyone felt sluggish and weighed down with heavy limbs.  The other looked like an old cabin in the forest, which was lit by about a dozen bare 40-watt light bulbs.  It was dark and creepy like the old slasher movies that he had been exposed to far too early in life.

He drifted off into more thought.  There is probably some sort of science to how lighting dictates mood and entire communities who are hyper-aware of how different lighting effects them, and do their best to control it.  If only he cared enough to look it up on his phone, but he only got so far as pulling it out of his pocket.  Then he started thinking about lights in the classrooms he grew up attending in school and in his workplace.  Upsetting at best.  Then he started thinking about those who are into controlling their lighting environments – it must be be exhausting.  He guessed that being too aware of how light can affect mood could make one too sensitive, so in effect cancelling the entire point.  We cannot control most lighting we’re exposed to and it can truly be disconcerting and uncomfortable at times.  For example, the lighting on this bus is startling and disturbing.  It makes everyone look weird.  It’s set for night driving, it’s a dark red near the driver, but bright in the rear to a point where you can see everyone’s blood vessels.  He decided to open his phone to social media to pass the time.  Isolated with about 30 other people nearby.

Jennifer She Said

During the summer of 2014 there was a big local news story about a woman who went missing.  A late 30s wife and mother of two young kids.  The story was riveting as it unfolded.  She was last seen buying a few small items at a pharmacy and filling up her car’s gas tank.  If I remember correctly, there were some clues that she might’ve been spotted in the San Juan Islands area.  Every day, each local news channel had reporters on the various scenes with updates – treating this as a likely abduction.  Then, a couple of weeks later, she was found near her car on a secluded country road in Yamhill County not terribly far from where she went missing.  She had committed suicide.  Because of the personal nature of suicide and the media’s strange way of covering suicides, the coverage abruptly ended the day her body was discovered.  The media generally chooses not to cover suicides of everyday people to protect the rest of us from getting any untoward ideas and the privacy of the people involved, yet they don’t seem to have any problem sensationalizing celebrity suicide.  I’m not certain that I can be critical though, because it’s a tough and touchy subject. 

All suicides are sad.  It is horrible that someone reaches a point where that becomes the only solution to what is ailing them.  There was something about this woman’s suicide that hit me in an especially profound way.  Her disappearance was sad and scary, but learning that she was the cause of her own disappearance filled me with a surprising empathy.  Almost a jealousy.  I’m not sure why her particular story resonated with me, nor do I know much beyond the superficial coverage that was provided via the local news outlets, but it hit me deeply at the time and continues to this day.  I mean, she seemed to be living the dream, right?  By all accounts, she came from a solid family, had a husband and two young kids and apparently were financially stable.  I will not speculate as to why this was not enough to keep her from taking her life.  I know from the results that it wasn’t.

There’s a part of me that feels a kinship with her.  Every few months I drive through the country roads of Yamhill County and though my childhood self would’ve never believed this, I find a certain solitude there as I pass through on my way to and from the coast.  Every so often, I take different roads to see different sights and explore the landscape.  Every so often, I pull off at one of those mom and pop highway mini marts that sells live fishing bait to see if they have three foot long pepperoni sticks, and fresh homemade jerky.  Sometimes I stop somewhere to get out and absorb the quiet solitude of the tall fields, the rolling hills, and the hum of the breeze blowing through them.  My mind drifts to thoughts of moving to a small house on a small lot in one of the small towns like Yamhill, Carlton, Dayton, or Sheridan and becoming some sort of writer by day (HaHa!  I know, right?  One can dream.) and maybe pouring pitchers of beer and soft drinks at the local pizza joint a few evenings a week.  I think the idea of running away from my daily reality is what makes this so appealing.  Sometimes the mental and physical pain reaches a point where the idea of lying down to sleep a deep never-ending sleep in one of those remote fields on a warm sunny day to never be found again feels like the only acceptable option.  There’s a peace in the idea that I struggle to find anywhere else.

The devastation to this woman’s family has to be overwhelming.  It is impossible to recover from such an intense and unexplainable loss.  Like so many out there, I have lost friends and acquaintances to suicide.  Suicide is characterized as a selfish act where the victims are the survivors.  In this case, one wonders how her husband and children have coped and continue to manage.  She had people in her life that rely on her every single day and she left them.  Perhaps from her perspective, she saw no better way.  Her internal pain may have overcome her need to fulfill her obligations.  I am not one to cast judgements about her decision.  I am familiar with a self-hatred so intense that you feel like a dark cloud in your loved ones lives.  That they are better off without you.  At least in my case my life has been lived so much in isolation, there is no one that relies on me.  At most, I am someone who is okay to hang out with on occasion.  Let’s grab a beer.  Let’s get some din-din.  Let’s go see a show.  Otherwise, I’m a bit of a burden with my history of health issues and the resultant help I need sometimes financially or day to day care taking, because I am incapable of managing on my own.

We’re all only here for a relatively short time whether we choose to end our lives at a particular point or not.  Why do so many of us live lives that make us unhappy?  Why are so many of us wired to be unhappy no matter what the circumstance?  I found out while typing this that today is World Suicide Prevention Day.  I realize that this is not a ringing endorsement for staying strong, but please, if you are not feeling like you can go on.  Believe me.  I understand.  There are lots of people who understand and are willing to listen.  Please reach out for help, instead of making a decision you cannot undo.  Let’s all try to figure out ways to make our lives better.