Singing Tibetan Bowl
We were at the Princeton University Campus, racing to class through the quad. I spotted you ahead on the sidewalk, in your fast lane. You were a bright red Corvette of a man, speeding one hundred and twenty miles per hour toward me. As we drew closer, our eyes crossed over the lane and collided. Yes, I could have died that day, and it would have been ok.
The following Monday, at the food court, a voice behind me in line asked, “What’s your name?” I made an illegal u-turn, and then our eyes crashed once again. Two weeks later, so magically distracted, I received my first and last ‘B’ at university, one day graduating Summa Cum Laude.
Falling in love was the natural part; gravity took care of that. I said, “You are a lightning strike.” Charley and I knew better than starting fires we couldn’t snuff out. After all, we both had promising careers ahead. But in less than a year, we burned white-hot.
~~~
Our parents pleaded, “You’re both too young, unsettled.”
I wish we’d listened, but it’s too late, both gone. You also are gone my Charley-boy. “Fly jets! Fly jets!” you obsessed. That’s all our children heard growing up, one, two, they grew up, moved away.
~~~
(Major Charles A. Montgomery, United States Air Force, dies in battle near Kandahar.)
“You God-damned brave pilot!” I scream into a pillow. For the longest time, I hated you, almost as much as I love you.
“Charley, you’ve had more than enough time. It’s been three long years, and you’re still making me hold onto you,” I shout in the shower.
Annie, my therapist, says, “Just look how far you’ve come, how much you’ve grown.” Her compliments have nothing to do with the sonic boom sized checks that I write.
After forever, I relent to the loneliness and move to Asheville, North Carolina. My daughter lives there, along with my two precious granddaughters. They fill me up with their sleepovers. Well, not quite. Absurdly, when I am around the ones I love, I feel vulnerable and more alone.
My granddaughters will love me, even if I don’t give them the chocolates they’re forbidden. When they visit for sleepovers, we jump up and down on my downsized bed, nearly pee our pants, even though Mother’s told them, “Girls, you’re gonna’ break some bones.”
All my friends tell me, “You’re young for your age, you’ll find another. Being a grandmother must feel so rewarding.”
It’s the sheer weight of emotion that makes me want to gather up all my belongings and run away into one of those bullshit storybook endings. When I am dark and cynical, I cry to myself, “Maybe I will learn to fly one of those God-damned jets into the ceaseless sky.”
~~~
He brought it back from the Kashmir Valley; he said, “to sing our song.” Now I keep his cremated ashes in his Tibetan Singing Bowl. It sits atop a beautiful redwood mantel. Every solstice or so, I move him aside to dust. He always leaves a perfect crater, each fresh one, emptier than ever before.
There are times I hear him whisper, “What did I do to piss you off so much?”
“Nothing,” I shout, to no one.
In spring, I curse his excuse, “My country needed me.”
In summer, I bitter like Key Lime. “But I needed you too!”
“You never move, you never sing,” I say.
~~~
At my granddaughter’s swim meet in late September, I crack a joke, wrestle a smile. As my words reach my daughter’s eyes, they morph into questions for later, like, “Mother, since when have you cursed?”
Recently, I’ve been more pleasant to Joe Cocker, the disgustingly cheerful mail carrier. Yes, the one I used to torture under my breath behind the kitchen window.
~~~
I was an amiable witch this year at Halloween. Just for the grandchildren. When they left for home, I finished his last bottle of expensive scotch and then shattered the emptiness in the back of the firebox. The fire yawned, so I stuffed it with mouthfuls of firewood and flames. Not satisfied, I fed it more until it began to choke, smoke.
In the pyre, I ritualistically pour his ashes in sacrifice, keeping the flames content, then more and more. I give him the Norse requiem he deserves. In the heat of the blaze, I haltingly back step and respectfully watch, as he drifts away from safe harbor, out into the darkness of what is now his sky-fire. His ashes rise and sparkle in contrails, up through the windpipe of the chimney––ever higher, flames against stars.
Something in me flies away with him, my hero, but I leave more than enough behind. I always knew I had it in me. He would have wanted it this way, wished me well. He would have said, “Share your love with the living.”
~~~
This year the holidays return, like a lot cat. All my family is here, where I belong. We are exhausted and happy like before. Adelaide is making sure my frisky granddaughters behave, while she scrolls through single-mother text.
Today is the day I’ve rediscovered a room in my heart that is fresh and safe, where love is resilient. I commit to all my seasons of song. I will seek out my very own singing bowl.
When their mother is distracted, my granddaughters, Cassie and Sam handle and weigh the bowl, then slowly approach me. In a synchronized chorus, they whisper, “Where is Grampa?”
Making sure mother is not watching, I place my right index finger up to my lips like when you whisper, shush. Then at the speed of Mach 1, I thrust it up toward the ceiling.
We giggle. It’s our secret, as sacred as the treasured M&M’s in the freezer that awaits discovery.
The End
About the author:
Dan A. Cardoza’s poetry, nonfiction, and fiction have met international acceptance. He has an M.S. degree in education from C.S.U.S. Most recently his work has been featured in California Quarterly, Cleaver, Coffin Bell/2019 Anthology, Dime Show Review, Entropy, Five:2:One, Gravel, New Flash Fiction Review, Poached Hare, and Spelk.
In the artist’s words:
Cyril Larvor: My Black Bird artist name is a wink to the crow who is an animal who is often hated by his appearance as the black cat, but who is also revered by a tremendous amount of culture and seen as one of the smarter animals capable of counting and speaking. Speaking … and I have already seen it. I have always drawn, painted and photographed. I wanted to be a cartoonist in advertising or photography, but I went to study in business and computer science. For 15 years I worked in the directions of information and computer security. 2 years ago I stopped to return in my first love the art and the human. My influences are vast; I was born in the 80s in the northern suburbs of Paris where social and cultural diversity is enormous. The 80s were a huge source of artistic inspiration. In addition to contemporary art and all other movements, there was the appearance in France of graffiti, manga, hip hop, computer science and the evolution of photography and television. All this has to influence. Since my return in the art, I exhibit in the galleries. The Lavomatik, also proposes music, the book …. ART21, a gallery in Montmartre, a district which likes and others a little everywhere. My other activity is in the human and the association. I collaborate with many associations that have been used as a means of communication and income. I collaborated with associations to help orphaned children, children in difficulty, migrants and give them the means to express themselves through Mixart art. An association for the protection of the oceans Bloom. An association against skin cancer Associations against poverty and exclusion: Emmaus, restaurant of the heart… J organizes painting workshops with children or disabled people and also grafiti classes. My inspirations are unlimited, including painting or in pictures, and I like mixing the two. My philosophical tendencies are in sharing, cohesion and construction or reconstruction away from destruction. My tips are simple. Create with your heart and share your art positively. For my art, I use all media and types of paints, but I have a preference for acrylic and aerosol: street art tools, and for digital photography and desktop publishing.
To contact me, I am in the gallery Art21, otherwise by Facebook https://www.facebook.com/The-Black-Bird-BLB-465375923644961/. My project with the origamiist Manuel Belhamissi https://www.facebook.com/Origami-custom-MBLB-concept-804841046289656/ Instagram to Cyril Larvor or by mail for all personalized orders cyril.larvor@gmail.com. Long live art.