the things they carried

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last january, i had decided to re-read it,
tim o’brien’s masterpiece about war and its precursors,
the aftermath and the process.

i brought it with me on my trip to washington dc,
and was reading it when i got the call from leanne,
the call saying that she had cancer.

i remember rushing back to my cousin’s apartment,
grabbing my clothes and stuffing them into my suitcase,
and seeing the book on the bed and making a decision…
to leave it there,
to not carry it with me
into this new place.

(besides opening my notebook to write the letter to lydia,
it was maybe the only decision i made that day)

a month ago i asked my cousin to send it back to me,
and she did.

this is a train station in seefeld, austria.
it is the train station before the train comes,
or maybe the train station after the train has come and left,
the lights throwing themselves on the snow,
the footprints beginning to crust in the evening chill.

the commerce of coming and going,
of big noise and goodbyes and so much metal
echoes on and on.

i was there on wednesday, on the last day of my first trip since leanne got sick,
and i brought the book with me — two milestones to note:
that leanne is well enough that i would feel comfortable leaving,
and that i am well enough to feel comfortable being with the book.
it went in my bag to chicago then copenhagen, then munich, then innsbruck,
but i never took it out.

i’ve been living it for some time now.
pulling behind me what was happening at the time,
like a dog pulling a sled,
or, yes, a train, pulling a long line of cars behind it
and how it does not even know what it is pulling,
only that the load has been increased at times,
decreased at others, a car emptied, a car filled or added,
but the engine does not know, it looks straight ahead.

and we carry differently.
we not only carry what is happening,
but what has happened
and sometimes what may happen too.

carrying crisis is exhausting,
as is carrying the return…which only happens after,
the ability to process -
like feeling the train only after it has left,
which is the way i felt on that platform that day,
standing there when it should’ve been silent,
the tracks empty and slick,
but hearing the noise everywhere,
the clanging of so much weight being tugged.

—–

one of these days the book will make another trip,
from my backpack to my hands, from my hands
to my eyes, from my eyes
to my brain, from my brain
to my heart.

—–

for those of you wanting a plain old update,
leanne is feeling fine.
she has the hormone levels of a post-menopausal corpse,
though there is no sign of cancer, really,
and that is what we try to focus on.
most days.

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