The Trifecta

Ever since we went to the concert, one line loops and sings to me,

"You can only dance in a hurricane, 
            if you're standing in the eye."

I had never known Brandi Carlisle, except for this one song Dad put on my ipod.
It's about stories, and how they don't really matter without someone to tell them to.
Then I think about my Dad, and how he has chosen to be a lone Maverick in his own desert.
I'm glad I've listened to his stories when he returns from a long stretch on the trail.
There was a time when I couldn't listen, because all his stories were at me and all of the dark things about to happen.  They were about God, or my fallen mother, about the world's crumbling morality and mine.  Now I write my own stories with a fluid hand, one that makes no apologies and tells no lies. He isn't scared anymore.
My tether to him transcends words, yes it is love, but love itself is inadequate.  When I hear this song I become him.  I am the aging man who hears it.  I am the man who has raised 6 children, whose whithering wife left when the youngest was only 4 years old.  I am a genius who never went to college, but instead found God.  As it turns out, God doesn't care much for genius.  I see the whole world all at once and it is too much, but I am up for the challenge.  I listen to the Les Miserables soundtrack turned all-the-way-up in my dark living room alone, but I do not feel lonely. I feel empowered.  I am a man of routine who buys only one type of sock and six of the same t-shirt because the cut is good and the material is hearty.  I always eat whole grains.  I deny myself pleasure because it gets in the way.  I can live in my truck on Mount Olympus water and Triscuits.  I know because I have done it.  I miss my kids desperately.  I know my dreams will sustain me when everything else is gone and I will die without apology.  I will go hard and fast down roads too scary for most people.  I raised a daughter.  Her name is Sarah.  I am very proud of her.  She is me but she is also her, she is finally feminine.  Her hair is long and red.  She has never stopped writing.  She will write a book for both of us one day.
When I hear this song I quiver but I don't allow myself to mourn.  I keep walking.  I let the dust settle on my shoulders with the heat.  My breath stays steady and propels me forward like a steam locomotive.  I have too much momentum to quit now.

I went to this concert with Katrina.  It was her birthday gift to me.  I turned 36 years old.  I wore a white and green striped dress with red Vans tennis shoes.  My hair spilled down and trickled gently along the hot summer current like water from the sides of a boat.  Her dress was the color of cantaloupe and so were her earrings. She is very good at that, matching her earrings to her dress. We walked in sync together up the gravel path to the mountain venue, our flat shoes crunching. I knew the sun would set later, and it would be beautiful.  Especially with all the smoke in the air from the California fires.  Funny how fire can make the sun turn pink like hibiscus.

We sit together on our blanket in the grass with bare knees like junior high girls.  We talk soft and easy with heads leaning into one another.  We watch the people, all somewhat wealthy, or at least comfortable enough to afford these tickets.  There is something silly to me about people with money.  I wonder if she notices this too, but I say nothing.  I am happy to be here in this simple space with her.

As we walk to the bathroom she whispers,
"I wish I hadn't worn these panties, they're so uncomfortable."

"Mine are too.  I was just thinking the same thing!" I exclaim.  "Let's take 'em off in the bathroom."

"But what if something...happens?"

"It doesn't matter.  Even if people see up our dresses...it doesn't even matter, right?  Why does it matter?  We don't know any of these people."  I flash her a Cheshire grin and she can tell I really mean it.

"Alright...I must really trust you, Sarah,"  She sighs.  But I can tell she feels better and so do I.
We sneak out, both grinning now, with panties balled up in our fists.

After the opening band, best friend number three arrives.  Her name is Butt-Nutt.   I don't know how this came to be...it is just her name.  She is the most wild.  If we were that workout show from the 80's, you know the one with the three circle tiers of intenisty?  She would be high, I would be medium, and Katrina would be low.  Yet we have all sought to destroy ourselves at some point, with equally piercing intent.  The trifecta is in order.

1. • ri·fect·a
     trīˈfektə/
     noun
     NORTH AMERICANAUSTRALIAN/NEW ZEALAND
     noun: trifecta; plural noun: trifectas
     1.            a bet in which the person betting forecasts the first three finishers in a race in the correct order.
     ·                                       a run of three wins or grand events.
     
     

And this is the hard part...it is the most important part of the night, but I can't tell it to you.  I can only tell you what happened on the outside.
I was the first to cry.  The sun had barely set.  The sky flashed it's elusive color of turquoise.  The color I have wished upon after a long day and tired feet.  Brandi Carlisle was letting her whole soul escape through her throaty voice and chest up to the stars.  My head leaned in to my Butt-Nutt whom I had been certain would die of a drug overdose on the street, or worse.  My friend who got sober and lost her son anyway.  My friend who was at my wedding in a silver dress with movie star curls. The one who my baby's placenta and exclaimed it to be the most beautiful thing she had ever seen!  My friend onto whose immaculate white comforter I sobbed my deepest grief when I got divorced and broke all hearts into more pieces than I thought could ever be mended.  My friend who wailed the Pretenders with me into the night while driving fast down State street and promised to be there forever.  But I was 26 and she was 19, how could we know?
Now, ten years later, we know.  At least we kind of know the truth...life hurts so much more than we were prepared for.
Then my head leans the other way and is met by Katrina.  My quiet friend who scales mountains with me.  Who followed me up a massive sand stone cliff in Lake Powell only to rappel over 200 feet of unknown and gorgeous blazing rock.  That was our first adventure, and we just kept going for long swims through the lake with arms that know the water as automatically as Mom fold clothes. We scramble up with bare feet shivering and tight to lie on hot rocks like lizards. We are perfectly balanced like a good sushi roll.  When she asks me how I am doing, I answer her more honestly than anyone else on the planet because I know she will listen and understand me even when I can barely articulate.  Sometimes she can see around my next corner but she doesn't tell me what's coming.  She trusts that I will deal with it just fine.

We have been the cast of each other's stories, switching costumes, alternately playing the mother, the mentor, the traitor, the clown and the accomplice.  There are lines of worry etched between Katrina's eyes which belong to me.  Up under my ribs is a scar where I cut my heart out and gave it to her as a apology.  Horizontal across my forehead is the crease made by Butt-Nutt's heartbreak. On her, you will rarely see it.  Butt-Nutt's real name is Georgia.  Georgia is a place spread wide and buried deep.  Do not let her jig fool you.  She may hop like a grasshopper on stilts which seem to always bounce back, but those legs are made of lead sometimes.  She has good reason to be firmly planted.  Katrina's shoes are always dainty and she walks softly on the ground, a trait I will never acquire.  She knows how to pace herself so she will never have to quit.  She will not complain about her bunion.  She will keep walking until you are ready to turn around and go home.

On our little blanket, time collapsed around us that night.  All of the stories so concentrated into our small space were more than we could contain, and we found ourselves sweetly and surprisingly crying.  I spilled over onto Butt-Nutt first, and it became contagious.  But how could we not cry, really?

"Anyone who says the arts should not be taught in schools is an idiot," I mutter.

All of these lines across my face 
Tell you the story of who I am
So many stories of where I've been
And how I got to where I am
But these stories don't mean anything
When you've got no one to tell them to

I climbed across the mountain tops 
Swam all across the ocean blue
I crossed all the lines and I broke all the rules
But baby I broke them all for you
Because even when I was flat broke
You made me feel like a million bucks
You do and I was made for you

You see the smile that's on my mouth
It's hiding the words that don't come out
And all of my friends who think that I'm blessed
They don't know my head is a mess
No, they don't know who I really am
And they don't know what I've been through like you do

~Brandi Carlisle