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I stood on the beach. The funeral was still a couple days away. The kids wandered off, collecting shells and dipping their feet into Tampa Bay. Only children do that in November. The family milled around, aimlessly, trying to make sense for each other of the new gaping hole in their lives.
The tide came in as the sun began to set over the horizon. I stood alone, reflecting on the fact that life came from the oceans. Indeed, I was standing on the detritus of countless living things that had eroded over aeons.
Then it came. The bay and the sunset called me. I didn’t hear the call in my auditory cortex- I could feel it at the level of my DNA.
“Come home,” it said. “Come home and be with us. You’ve had your fun. You wanted to try new things- multicellularity, differentiation, living on land, walking on two feet, playing the double bass. You’ve done all that. We miss you. Come home and be with us.”
The sun sank lower, now a glowing sliver on the horizon. “Come home.” The warmth and love I felt in my DNA captivated me. It was a gentle welcome home that was filled with the love of all life itself. I felt the impulse to jump in, swim out to the deep of the bay, and after a few short minutes I’d experience the unimaginable joy of reuniting with the universe.
My daughter brought me a shell. I stood, watching as the last of the sun slip away.
Radical Totality 
I know the feeling. Though this is falling a bit on the sentimental side for me. You might make it more powerful by being less direct.
I find it interesting that you found this sentimental. I don’t think I’ve at all expressed what happened on that beach. (I’ve been struggling to find a way to express it). Sentimentality evokes for me a clinging, longing, nostalgic, Norman Rockwellian experience. I suppose it probably looks that way on paper, but the actual experience of it felt the exact opposite of sentimentality- it was a powerful compulsion (as if at the level of my DNA) to let go of human life and join with something larger, more spiritual. Very strange.
Back to the drawing board. I guess that happens when you try to express the inexpressible.
Something incredibly profound happened on that beach that I have yet to capture in any creative endeavor. I feel the need to express it, to explain it. This is the closest so far, but if it rings as sentimental I’ve clearly missed the mark.
It is words/phrases like “Come home,” and the conventional imagery of sunset, ocean, etc. Somehow that picture-postcard cliche really got in my way. And the language/form is kind of flat.
I took the liberty of critiquing, but don’t want to overstep, so let me know if I am.
No, you’re not overstepping at all! I value your criticism- particularly as a Modpo vet.
The problem I have doing this is that it is not fiction! The imagery does seem cliche- but that’s actually how it happened. I really was watching the sunset when I felt this feeling, heard the words “come home,” and felt the nearly irresistible urge to swim out into Tampa Bay.
It may not be possible to get past the hackneyed imagery, even if it is the real deal.
Also, there’s a reason why I’m better at aleatoric nonsense writing than narrative.
Maybe I need to mesosticize this thing.
It really is frustrating, Rob- I simply can’t find a way to express it. It’s probably not possible.
No matter how I do it sounds like I am describing a Thomas Kinkade painting.
Speaking of cliche- I share the office I am in today with other doctors. I see on the wall that somebody has put up two new calendars. *Both* of them have photographs of sunsets!
I think the problem with this piece (aside from the accurate-but-cliche imagery) is that it tells the WHAT of what happened, but it does not capture the feeling- the shock, the strong pull it had.
http://travelsindreamland.wordpress.com/2012/09/26/and-she-asks-laughing/
It’s uncanny, Bob- I just a few minutes ago came across (and followed) another of your blogs! Glad to meet you again.
While the resemblance is amazing (perhaps not, I suppose), what’s different in my experience (if it didn’t come through in the piece) is how strong that sense of death was, and how alluring, how beautiful, and how compelling it was.
The reason I view this piece as a failure (aside from Rob’s appropriate criticisms) is that it failed to express this feeling.
Failure is wonderful, without which we do not learn what we need to learn about what we are really made of, for one thing. In writing, the best novels, poems, and essays are often the result of cumulative failures that finally yield success.
Blessings!
That’s exactly my feelings. I’m just taking my first steps as a writer, so I need to stumble around to find my voice. Strangely enough, it seems to be in aleatoric nonsense, but hey- if that’s my voice, so be it!
If you persist with sincerity and honesty, your true voice will reveal itself.
That’s the plan! Check the ego at the door.
By the way, Bob- my osho was also a student of Joshu Sasaki. He cut ties with him over what’s going on out there.
For some reason I didn’t get notified of your follow-on comments. What you are wrestling with is what every artist does, of course. The mind tends to fall back on familiar patterns (the brain within its groove) unless it is forced by a constraint or some other discipline to break out of them. That is why these “artificial” techniques, whether they be chance or constraint-based, are so valuable. Cage said they helped him break free of the sentimental. That’s exactly what they do.
And you’re correct, conveying the feeling is the thing. But description is not the way. There must be a rendering. And that is usually by “telling it slant.”
You’re so right. I’ll keep working at it. And I’m listening to Gyorgy Ligeti today which helps! (though I don’t thing my coworkers are thrilled…)
I’ll have to crank up my Spotify and annoy my own coworkers.
Try Lux Aeterna if you want them to stay civil. Atmospheres if you care less. Aventures for 3 Singers and 7 Instrumentalists if you want to be ostracized.
You might also try Ramifications for String Orchestra if you want to annoy them good.
Thanks for the tip on Ligeti. I let Spotify do the selecting and it’s doing the Trio for violin, horn, and piano. Just dissonant enough for my Arvo-Partish predilections.
I dig Part. The first time I heard his work was at Ravinia in Chicago. I don’t remember the piece but I’m sure you know it- it’s a secular work (maybe a symphony) where he used (among other odd instruments) baby toys. My date for the concert was wondering what in the hell I had brought her to.
Your poem and the emotions it seems to be trying to capture reminded me of a poem I wrote many years ago, set in the same place (St Pete Beach).
On the Gulf
The unsure breakers stumble across the sandbar,
Blade to shoulder, subside before they crest,
Finally trip, collapse, and spill like milk.
Coquinas lap it up and burrow back.
It’s August, the off-season.
The sea goes on and on, beyond reason.
Sea-oats toss their heads, unruly horses.
The beach is anchored by the old hotel.
Pinkwashed, Hispanic, rescued from the war,
It stands like an air-conditioned mission
Against sun, squall.
The storm hasn’t been named will take it all.
Stingrays cruise in gangs along the shallows,
Startling the bathers. Out of a dead float
They drag children ashore like puffed vinyl.
Stand and watch. A dolphin shows a fin.
The wind dies.
They queue, regroup, sparsely venture in.
The water’s nearly body temperature.
Seaweed sticks to the skin. Sand and salt
Foul the hair. Hot, fetid,
Passing like an eye, no motion.
Enter anywhere:
Light-sump, black hole, ocean.
*That* is a terrific poem, Rob. You really wrote that at St. Pete Beach? That’s uncanny.
You’re getting me inspired to take another crack at it.
The old hotel- has to be the Don Cesar.
Yep.
I just find it an incredible coincidence of us writing inspired by the same beach.
I find it difficult to find a way to take this powerful, direct experience and tell it slant. I guess that’s what makes it art!
I’ll say this- even though it’s lousy writing, it sure got a discussion going!
You know, Rob, even though I agree with you about this piece, it’s been far and away my biggest hit. Go figure.
Apparently there’s something supernatural about St. Pete Beach 🙂 .
We have St.Pete/Tampa ties that go way back. My wife’s parents lived there for about 17 years, and two of my sons and their families lived there (at different times) after that. It’s only been a little over a year since the last Holland moved out of St. Pete. And we attempted to build a house a few years ago in Gulfport, that ended up in foreclosure because the builder went belly-up due to the recession. In spite of that bad experience we still love that area.
No kidding. My father in law lived on Pass-a-Grille for a few years, then moved to South Pasadena- right there by Gulfport. You know that golf course on Gulfport Blvd across from the playground? He lived two blocks from there.
Yes, I know it, though I haven’t played there.
I had something like your experience very strongly in my early twenties. I was in Mexico (Ensenada) swimming nude in the warm Pacific at night and I just wanted to melt into the universe. Of course it was a very womb-like experience, what with the bare skin and the warm fluid. But I still vividly recall it.
That’s a poem right there. I think maybe the imagery is so cliche because the experience is common.
Also known as the death-wish. 🙂
Duh. I’m a shrink but not a Freud guy. 😉 .