A Picture of Loss

One summer evening I was sitting quietly at my desk. My brother Josh was out for the evening and so the room was still and quiet. The events of the day had been unremarkable at best. It had been one of those days when you can't help but slip into a pensive state of mind, basking in the melancholy of having nothing important to do. On those days you find busy tasks to keep your mind off the void of purpose. But when you sit down at the end of the day and you think about what has actually been accomplished, you can't help but wonder why you aren't living a different life, that is, a life with more purpose and meaning. My head was swimming in this.

I was reclining in my chair and staring blankly into the wall when someone came bursting through the door that was behind me and across the room. Normally I am agitated by such entrances without permission but I don't recall even considering the intrusion disturbing as there was nothing to disturb.

"Have you seen Jasper this evening?" a voice hurriedly inquired.

It was the voice of Leah, the youngest of my sisters. For a moment I sat unflinching and then without turning to her replied that I hadn't. Less than a second later she was gone with the door closing behind her. I continued as I was, motionless at my desk. Several moments later I heard some commotion outside below in the yard. The voices of my family were calling for Jasper out in the night. The time was around 10 pm. It was then that I finally began considering what Leah had already indicated. Jasper, our Golden Retriever, was unaccounted for. I grabbed a flashlight from one of the drawers of my desk and went down and out into the night to pick up with the search.

I knew already where I would check first and fully expected to find him there almost smiling at the commotion he had caused. Once out the back door I was met by my mother and Leah who were standing out on the deck appearing slightly alarmed. My mom asked me the same question Leah had several minutes before. I don't recall if I even answered. For some reason I felt agitated by the situation. I passed them by and remarked that he was probably under the very deck we were all standing on, just were he usually was. I descended the stairs and onto the brick patio and turned back around to look below the structure. At first I bent only partially and pointed the flashlight into the dark space there below. There was nothing there. My mother and Leah were still up above on the deck and were now staring at me intently waiting to hear of what I might find. Surprised that I hadn't resolved the conflict, I bent lower to get a better view. The adjustment soundly confirmed that he wasn't there. I told them so and felt a flashing sense of failure.

"Where could he be?" broke from Leah as fear began to take its hold of her.

Without saying a word I began walking around the side of the house, counter clockwise, searching as I went. My mother and Leah trailed behind verbally assessing the situation in circles. I mostly ignored their words and only searched. An entire sweep of the immediate perimeter of the house yielded nothing. To the best of my ability I approached the situation with reason and tried to remain in an objective state of mind. It seemed to me that the search of those with me had been dominated by emotion and impatiently observed how blind it seemed to have made them. They were talking in circles and they couldn't even tell. I considered the positive notion that I was already narrowing the possibilities of where Jasper could be and continued searching.

From the area surrounding the house, I went to the perimeter of our property and began searching clockwise along the fence. By then my mother and Leah had left me to search in other places. I continued on my own traveling north and into the night where porch lights couldn't reach. Behind me, my family continued the chorus of the lost puppy's name. At some point I prayed a simple prayer, asking that Jasper would be found safely and that no harm had come to him. In a way, that prayer was little more to me than an objective task that needed to be eliminated. I was still trying to operate reasonably but it was becoming more difficult with every moment that Jasper remained lost.

I came to a corner in our property and turned east. 75 meters to my right was our house. It was wrapped in a halo of light that emanated from the outside fixtures, each and every one of them lit. I could see my family shuffling along in places I, and probably they as well, had already searched. I refocussed my attention before me and continued on my way. I eventually came to the largest of our two barns. Most ofthe entrances where sealed, except for one lower opening. I entered slowly. The darkness filled with the light that sprayed from my flashlight, instantly casting the shadows into the corners of the space before me. For the first time I called Jasper's name, quietly. He wasn't there. I exited and made my way to the second barn which was diagonal from where I was approaching.

I advanced from the rear and went under the lean-to. I called to Jasper again and inspected the area as best I could. He wasn't there. I left and made my way to the front of the barn. The door was opened and I entered slowly. The light made a circular view into the dark space before me, seemingly darker than the other barn. I navigated the maze of tools and workbenches while calling Jasper's name, louder this time. Everything was still. Little specks of dust floated through the bright beam of light projected before me. I exited and continued on.

I began searching along the fence on the east side of our property heading south. The path brought me through the orchard and finally to the corner which meets perpendicular with the road. I turned the corner and began making my way west, now parallel with the road. As I went, I began shining the light in the direction of the road every so often, just checking if there was anything to see. I hoped with everything within me that I wouldn't see him there on the side of the road. I continued on, casting a flash in the direction of the road every so often. I realized then that, not far from where I was, my sisters were watching me as I made my way along. I didn't want them to come to realize the significance of why I would be so fixated on the road. I tried to be more discreet, but the suspense of the moment kept drawing my attention back to the road, almost involuntarily. Thankfully, I found nothing there.

I eventually searched the entire perimeter of the property. From there I began searching loosely through the internal area within that perimeter, which eventually yielded nothing. I knew that I had checked everywhere on our land that he could possibly be. I realized that there was only one solid and dreaded explanation. He was gone. This simple notion came as an unwelcome conclusion that insisted the attention of my entire mind. I couldn't think of anything else. I knew that there was nothing more that I could do and went back in the house. My objective search had yielded an assurance that I would have never willingly welcomed. And though I couldn't see it at the time, while my mother and sister had been talking in circles, blinded by emotion, I had been walking in circles guided by ostentatious reason.

I ascended the stairs that led to my room on the second floor, feeling nothing. Just as I reached the top of the staircase, my other sister Elizabeth came stumbling from the bathroom drenched in tears and muttering inconsolably,

"I want my doggy back..."

She passed right by me and went straight into her room and slammed the door behind her where I heard a deluge of sobs come bursting from her. I quietly went into my room and sat back at my desk for several minutes. I tried to think of something other than the enveloping ordeal that surrounded me, but all attempts to cast my thoughts elsewhere were futile. I decided to go to bed and hoped that I could let it all go, expecting it all to just drift away.

But sleep wouldn't come. I tossed and turned for several hours, my mind racing the entire time. I kept revisiting the conclusion that I had reached earlier. Jasper was gone and there was nothing else that I could do. Logic took hold once again and began grinding out the possibilities of where he could be. The first notion that came to mind was that he had somehow gotten through the fence on his own. He was a mischievous puppy that always seemed to crave adventure. It seemed to me that the most likely place that he could have gotten through was the large gate that sealed our driveway. Just several weeks before my father had given me the task of covering the large spaces of the gate with mesh wire so that Jasper wouldn't be able to get through it. I couldn't shake the notion that I might have in some way allowed for his escape to happen by incompetence as I had completed the task, but not well. In any case, what might have happened to him after the escape remained a mystery. It seemed most likely that he had just taken off on some big adventure and was probably enjoying every minute of it.

Eventually my mind began considering what might eventually happen to him. I kept thinking that if he had stayed close to the roads, he might very well end up getting killed by a vehicle. The roads near our house have always been unnaturally busy for the country. I hated to think about him laying on the side of the road dead. Other than this I considered that he might have made his way into the sea of cornfields that mostly surround our property. If this were the case, I knew that we would never be able to search for him there. Out of nowhere the danger of coyotes came to mind. I envisioned Jasper out somewhere in the night, miles from our house in a corn field surrounded by a pack of coyotes mocking him with shrieks just before tearing him to shreds. The thought was unbearable.

I forced my mind to return from imagination and back to reason as I identified another possibility of how he might have gotten out of the yard. It was, at first, just as unsettling as anything else I had thought about. I realized that he could have been stolen. I envisioned the thief driving by our house and seeing Jasper frolicking in our yard, deciding to take him from us, maybe plotting for days or even weeks. I began feeling an anger within me that I didn't want to control. My mind slipped away from reason once again. Hate began painting the imagined culprit in an increasingly sinister manner. I even imagined what I would have done if I had I caught the thief in the process. Seeing myself beating him senseless entertained the anger inside of me.

I continued examining the notion of theft for a while. Eventually I came to the conclusion that I might very well prefer theft over the alternative. At least he would be in someone's care. I then realized that even if he had gotten out of our yard on his own, he could have still found his way into the care of someone who would look after him. I imagined that he was now in the possession of some family with kids that would play with him and not take him for granted. I drank in the notion that even if we never saw him again, at least if some one had him, he would have the chance to be happy. He would forget about us and eventually live a long and happy life. I knew this was better than his untimely death. We would have to live with the void of his absence, but I'd rather deal with pain than know that he had to. I knew that such an innocent creature couldn't understand pain. I fell asleep comforted by the thought of some lovely kids playing with him and caring for him. Weariness had dissolved all reason and emotion had emerged through subconsciousness and created a fantasy that consoled the pain that I felt.

The next day I came awake and my mind immediately went to Jasper. I wanted more than anything for it all to have been a dream. But I was awake and there was no changing any of it. Grief crept inside of me and filled my chest.

"It's just an animal. Why am I allowing this to be such a big deal?"

I tried with all of my will to deny the pain that I felt for the little dog, but I couldn't. My mind replayed all that had happened since the night before. And then I realized that it didn't matter if he was only an animal. I conceded that if you love something, that thing has value no matter what it is. I realized that this couldn't be denied. I cared about the dog. I cared about what happened to him because he had value to me. I cared because my heart told me to. The pain that I felt hurt just the same as anything else that could have mattered to me. And although it was subjectively determined, my love for that dog existed objectively. I was drowning in this.

I was sitting in my room at the desk where I was the very night before. My feet were propped and I was leaning back in my chair trying to breathe deeply, hoping that I could exhale the pain in my chest. I picked up a book and began reading words, not comprehending their meaning. I was just reading and trying to forget for just a moment.

Then the door opened behind me. I turned my head and there was Leah, just as before. 

"Dad found Jasper! He's home!"

Joy Unprocurable

I believe that there are some things in this life which can only be learned through experience. These are the things that you can be told over and over, but until you see it for yourself with your own eyes, you wont fully believe it. One thing that I had always heard was that the best things in life are those that you can't earn. While I never denied this outright, and actually considered it to be true, I never really appreciated the depths of that truth until I saw it in the life of one of my friends. I learned that truth on a summer's day back in 2011. 

One thing that I would consider to be a priority in my life is literature. I love to read. One morning about a year ago I  was reclining in a chair, feet propped, and drudging through the arduous journey known as Moby Dick. Sometime during that morning my brother's phone began to ring somewhere in the house. I pulled myself from the distraction and ventured back into the archaic realm of whaling, revenge, and obsession. Looking homeless and drunk, having been awoken from sleep, my brother came to me and relayed a message.

"Pat wants to know if you want to ride horses... or something." He slurred.

"What? Horses?" Something about his words couldn't be balanced.

"I don't know, man, I couldn't really tell what he was talking about.. I was half asleep and the phone kept cutting out." At this explanation I was certain that the message had been lost somewhere in translation. However, I did my best to make sense of what I was being told and assumed that Pat, a friend of ours, must have wanted to go to a horse track, which in many ways, I now recognize in retrospect, would have been just as absurd as if he were wanting to ride horses with me.

"The nearest horse track is in friggen' Kentucky dude! That's just ridiculous..." As far as I was concerned the matter was settled. I ignored every bit of the previous several minutes and went back to reading. Just moments later Josh began again.

"I'm giving him your number." I persisted in ignoring the situation until it was absolutely necessary to engage. That point came when I answered my phone with quiet frustration.

"Hello?" I did my best to not sound annoyed but rather cheerful. If that were even possible for me, I don't know.

"Hey. What are you doing today?"

"Um, not much, really. Just reading, I suppose." I tried to formulate my response in such a was as to not betray the fact that I had absolutely nothing to do. I suppose that it is generally understood that when someone has reading on their agenda, they aren't doing anything, this being only true for the fact that most people don't consider reading a priority.

"Right. Cool… Hey, you want to go to a race track with me?"

"Well, I don't know… Did Josh say something about horses?"

"No.. Wait, what?"

"He said you wanted to ride horses, or something?"

"No!" He chuckled. "Porsches! A guy from work invited me to come to a Porsche rally and I don't want to go alone. It's at a track in northern Ohio. We can even ride in them!"

The missing and distorted pieces of the message were coming together clearly and my interest was instantly sparked. "Really? That actually sounds pretty awesome, man!"

"Yeah, so you want to go?"

"Of course I do! I mean, when do people ever get a chance to do this sort of thing?" I was now trying my best to not betray the fact that I was actually quite excited by the proposition of hanging around really expensive cars all day. The White Whale would have to wait; Ahab's obsession could endure another day.

Upon learning how long it would take to even get to the race track―3 hours―I felt regret for a fleeting moment. I couldn't help but consider how many pages I could read in that time. I consoled myself with the thought that I would probably never get the chance to experience something like this ever again. I knew my books weren't going anywhere. 

When we got to the track we were ecstatic. Everywhere we looked there were unbelievably expensive cars. They roared around the track, RPMs spiking, gears shifting, adrenaline pulsing. We gawked unashamedly. Pat parked his brand-newish Honda Civic between two Porsche Carreras, laughing to ourselves. One of these things does not belong.

We strolled around snapping photos of every car. Some were race modded, others were stock, all were impressive. Their owners sat in lawn chairs, told stories about their cars, and reveled in the attention and envy their cars evoked in us. License plates from New York and California. I imagined they were CEOs, owners of companies, stock brokers, lawyers. I was envious to the core. But I wondered if they were happy. Really happy. Something in me kept trying to tell me that if I had a car like they did, something in me could be satisfied.

We came across a very self-concerned man. He wore designer clothes and spoke definitively and authoritatively into a blue-tooth headset. Pat approached him and tried to start a conversation. I thought to myself, what are you doing man, this dude has 'not-to-be-trifled-with' tattooed on his forehead. Pat wanted to know who we had to talk to in order to set up a ride-along around the track. I became distracted from the conversation as a bright orange Porsche rolled up before us and stopped. Others began lining up behind. They were queued for the next heat on the track. The kid in me began lamenting that I never became a race car driver. I became aware that the self-concerned man had broken conversation with Pat and walked up to the first car in the queue, got in and led the pack onto the track. What in the world just happened, who was that guy? I couldn't help but imagine him roaring around the track in his Porsche, blue-tooth at ear, negotiating a business deal at a hundred miles per hour. Who were these people? 

We eventually found out that we had missed our chance to participate in the ride-along. Instead we watched the cars fly around the track. It was a road course, with varying elevations, which wound all through the hills of north central Ohio. After taking pictures of just about every car, our favorites from multiple angles; and after speaking at length with a gentlemen who owned and introduced us to his Formula One race car, we left for home with a virile, masculine satisfaction. Driving through the country side in the Honda Civic we recounted all of our favorite cars. We decided that one of our favorites was an Audi R8, obviously misplaced at a Porsche rally, but no less appreciated. As we made our way home, we passed an Amish Buggy, drawn by horse, clopping along the side of the road. We were in Amish country. It occurred to me then that many of the cars we had seen that day were worth more money than these people would ever own in their entire lives. It further occurred to me that this was not something that I should feel sorry for them about, even despite how much I had envied the people of that rally all day.

When we got back into town we decided to stop in to see Phill, one of our best friends. In our minds, we had just experienced one of the coolest things we might ever experience, and we wanted to share it with him. Once inside, we found Phill and his wife Christina in their living room playing with their 6 month old son, Eli. We were greeted warmly, but briefly, their son regaining all their attention. We sat down beside Phill and proceeded to show him the photos of the exorbitant vehicles, hoping to evoke from him the same awe that we had experienced. At first he paid us mind, but soon his attention went back to his son, laughing jovially at the various baby noises and expressions that his son made. He had only one priority; one care, and it wasn't some worthless sports car. I noticed it right away, rather more perceptively than I tend to be. I shut off the camera and put it away and just watched a man play with his son. There was more joy then and there than I had ever seen in quite a long time, certainly more than I had seen or experienced all day. True joy. It had nothing to do with something that could be bought. It wasn't due to something that could be earned. I would dare even say it was a gift that none of us really even deserved. And after an entire day of gawking at possessions, wishing I were more successful in life; after watching grown men play with expensive toys and then a young man playing with his son, I finally got it. 

You cannot earn joy. It cannot be bought.

Art

Ever since I was a child I have always felt the need to express myself artistically. When I was young this expression was manifested through visual art. I spent most of my waking days illustrating the world around me. It was no secret to my family that I was artistically inclined. My parents in particular appreciated my art more than anyone. But although they consistently praised every picture that I produced I never felt as though I was satisfied with anything that I drew or painted. It was never good enough.  

I was a realist through and through. I wanted to capture images in a detail just as crisp and comparable as what my eyes perceived. However, I was seldom able to do so. I would draw and redraw a particular detail a hundred times over just to get it right. Many times I would rub away an entire eraser just trying to complete one minute detail. It was in those moments when, after many failed attempts,  frustration would begin to set in. Tension would fill my strokes. The tip of my pencil would penetrate deeper and deeper into the paper, until finally my failures were etched into the paper itself. And though I tried, these were the marks that couldn't be erased. I would turn the pencil on its eraser and then rub to no avail. On one occasion, when working on a picture of a wolf, I was having a particularly hard time illustrating a satisfactory nose. In my frustration I erased a hole right through the paper itself. It now seems ironic to me to observe that when no paper remains, neither do any of the mistakes; the indelible marks of failure.  

This process occurred on many occasions; inspiration, failure, further attempts, further failures, frustration. Though I couldn't see it myself, I was told that I had an innate talent for visual art. When in elementary school I won a contest that awarded me with lessons at an art institute near where I lived. Later on I began entering my pictures in various art contests and placed first more than several times, though I honestly couldn't see why.     

Over the years, though the task was never mastered, I became much better at capturing detail. The best I could do in my own eyes was make something satisfactory, never anything exceptional. But it was then that a new vexation emerged in my art. I then began finding that, in my obsession with detail, there was an adverse neglection of the bigger picture. This problem could only be perceived after the completion of a picture when I surveyed my work only to find that the larger image was slightly askew. Though the details in and of themselves were satisfactory, I would find that I had failed to properly coordinate them to each other. Unlike the problem of accurately capturing detail, this problem was one that I never sought to correct. Rather, I slowly turned from expressing myself through visual art all together, the urge for expression remaining all the while. 

Now, I want to be a writer.