Feb 22, 1992. After reading Margaret Atwood's Surfacing:
In the beginning, there was the boy. In the beginning of
everything, in the void of sunwarmed grass the voice of the twin spoke. In
the sun and hill of the morning, the boy stood on his bed and tried to get
his cat to jump onto an outstretched pillow, tried to get his schoolmates
to jump onto an outstretched Lego set, sitting in the cool bathtub at
school fully clothed to watch movies about horses. In the beginning, there
was the hill and the sun and the earth and the apple trees. Within the
apple trees lived premade seats for the boy, which he swore he'd remember,
but now couldn't find with his hands nor eyes. Is that how far away the
beginning is?
From a wash of sound to a parking lot in Greece, to a snapshot of
linoleum and grinning boy, in those days black and white to suit young
eyes. For God so loved the life that he made it simple and than took it
away. Days came in cartons like eggs, and as easily conceived. The boy
dropped lines from the second floor and begged mother and father and family
and whole to put surprises on it, something, anything not seen before.
Grinning meant tightening the mouth, moving meant tightening the self,
living meant holding in the hurt until finally surprise came like blood
from a cut, a respectful pause for our maker and then a tribute to the
hidden source of the Nile in hemoglobin. Raise the hand to God and feel
the blood stop coming, feel laws of gravity hold the blood to his heart,
his printed-negative heart, somehow reversed and green and absent in the
warmth of his chest.
For the Thou Shalt Not of the world to come down meant a sacrifice
of everything he saw around him, of every safety ever known now doubtful,
every memory of coveting, disrespect, or bearing true witness cut on a
stone on a mountain and no ram to jump in front of the self-saving knife.
Blow your trumpet and watch the walls rise up from the ground and leave the
boy within the lions' den, still safe, just a lamb. Lambs are the only
thing safe around lions in this boy's book.
But no Exodus for this boy, no angels to hold up his feet. Safe
passage through the furnace of other people, their faces and flames and
voices miraculously leaving his untouched, save the creosote dripping down
and making his eyes sting, save the crescent moon on his leg of white-hot
burn, marking him as well as Cain.
For God so loved the world he took the yin-yang and spun it until
it showed the rainbow of a promise to a man in a boat, until it left this
boy in a room on a hill, back where he started, looking for the seats in
the apple trees.