Nothing Goes Away

Now, I’m an instant photograph—an undeveloped Polaroid, seeking light to reveal myself. I’m composed of layers of amnesia—retrograde, antegrade. Pieces of who I am or once was diffuse into the painstaking, slow development of images. I’m not really an amnesiac. I, Michelle Kathleen O’Kane, am a Time Traveler. An object.

An object in time travels if and only if the difference between its departure and arrival times, as measured in the surrounding world, does not equal the duration of the journey it undergoes. In this place, the soft grey shawl and my knitting project are on my Anthropologie quilted bed. The book on my nightstand is The Echo of Old Books. My notebook, with its pinkish pages, waits patiently for more words—words I will emote before talking incessantly about myself and everything that used to be my life.

There was a time when everything felt possible. I wrote stories I believed in, and imagined new places and the hope of falling in love.

Memories of sharing meals with people I loved. Mimosas at brunch. Cosmopolitans before dinner. Vintage chardonnay with dinner. I wake up while driving in various cars, and I’m always the driver. Frequently, I’m on the unpopulated northern lanes of Highway 280, approaching the 92 exchange. Aware. While I’m driving, I surround myself with the color-changing hills. I’m humming along with Elvis Costello. Every day I write the book.

Now I drive west, heading toward Half Moon Bay. Always in my own car. Today it’s my blue Ford Ranger, the one I bought after my mother died. I was seventeen. She had only been gone a few months.

I pass the Half Moon Bay Nursery on the north side of 92. I drive through the edges of my town. My ocean, the salt in the air, blue sky, and the sea. White clouds stretch across the sun and water. I realize now how strange I have become.

I haven’t watched a movie with anyone in more than five years. I haven’t laughed with someone in just as long. Sometimes, something on TV or the radio pulls a laugh out of me—a quick, sharp sound. It surprises me. I hardly recognize it as my own.

Time is on my side. Gravity nudges me across cool, damp grass. Behind me, a 5’4” wide trail marks where I’ve rolled down the hill.

I’m jealous of many of the things I see on TV. And Instagram. Landscapes and cities and people at tables with white espresso cups.

“You don’t look back along time but down through it, like water. Sometimes this comes to the surface, sometimes that, sometimes nothing. Nothing goes away.”—Margaret Atwood

Hemochromatosis, Life & Alcohol

Brain Damage, My Mom and Me

I Taste A Liquor Never Brewed

I've been thinking about when we delivered Flynn. I can still see the carpark from the hospital window. I remember the 4Runner you had when we met at NASA. Was it blue or yellow? I bought a yellow one later. It was a piece of shit, remember?

Your old blue duplex was just a few blocks from Kim's Vietnamese Restaurant. Your blue BMW motorcycle and black helmet sat in the small garage. Denise and Tom lived in Milpitas. Lynn and Larry had a green lawn with flowers across from the flute lady, where I took flute lessons.

Do you remember when we saw that flute teacher on our flight from Dublin to London? In London, we stayed on the second floor of a big B&B. We went downstairs for breakfast, and there was just one other person in the room. When we left, the hallway to the kitchen was on the left, and the large brown door to the street was on the right. We stepped outside, turned left, and walked down the road. It was my first time out of the country, so the walk felt amazing.

Sometimes, as I write, I think about our cottage in the Castro. We would step onto the patio. Behind us was the entrance to the two-story building. I wonder, did Freddy have a missing finger or just a big band-aid? Did he play guitar?

Still thinking about the Castro cottage: after leaving the big black iron gate, we would turn right and walk down to Castro Street. The theater was a block or two away, across the street. My mind drifts, and I expect to see the Mountain View ice-cream shop, the last one on the right, with railroad tracks across from it. I miss Kim’s and the lunch spots from NASA.

Sometimes I think I remember one of our living rooms, but then realize it’s just my old living room. It was in the tiny house where I grew up in Cupertino. I practiced flute near the front window. My mom was always in the garden, her hands covered in soil. I can picture the loveseat, the spot for the Christmas tree, and the little dining room. We even used it sometimes.

In Mountain View, the front door opened into the living room. There was a small dining area on the right and the kitchen straight ahead. The bathroom was to the right, the bedroom to the left, and the back door led straight to the small garage. Is that right?

Now, jumping to today: I woke up in Scotland. We're upstairs in a tavern or pub. It's around noon. We park in a dead-end alley, with the car on the right side of the street, facing the two-story building. We walk inside, turn right, and go up to the second floor. Inside, everything is wood—shiny, caramel-colored walls and a bar. The left side of the pub has windows, some with stained glass, flowers, a cross, and a pretty mosaic. Outside, the air is wet and gray. It feels like we are always walking through clouds.

Still in the Scottish pub, it's fun trying to order vegetarian food. We sit at a high table and climb onto shiny chairs. We read the chalkboard behind the bar. We're wandering through the highlands, with Cawdor Castle as our destination, maybe today or tomorrow. You order soup and a beer, and I have a cider and a salad. Later, I'll ask you to stop at a market so I can get some cookies.

A local asks where we're from and tells us his son is in New York, though he’s not sure why. He drops his shoulders and laughs, and we laugh too. Scots have big smiles and laughs, so it never feels gloomy here. We haven’t been invited to the Scottish boy's birthday yet—that comes later. We’ll see a young man carried in a chair while friends and family wave pound notes.

I've been coping better in unfamiliar places. Jay made this possible, even if he didn’t mean to. I never feel unsafe with him. He’s confident, and he’s always been the smartest person I know. It took time to realize I was safe with him. That feeling grew and let me take risks. Taking risks with Jay made me start living.

Time shifts again: I fall asleep and want to travel more. I want to go back to that narrow, scary Scottish road that seemed to twist forever. But I woke up in Hawaii instead. That’s okay. I love waking up there, especially in Kauai. It wasn’t our honeymoon, but the time we stayed near the North Shore. We drove a red rental car to a roadside spot with a red arrow, parked, and hiked through mud and trees to a beach. We swam and watched fish in the warm sea. Every time, the warmth amazed me—I never knew an ocean could be so warm. Not Half Moon Bay, not Trinidad, not Cannon Beach. Those were the only oceans I knew before Jay. "Be careful. Watch out for jellyfish."

Another place, another morning: I woke up in my art gallery. I loved that place. Jay came by to set something up on my computer. I had been browsing the DWR catalog, hoping to buy Jay something cool to sit in—something beautiful, comfortable, and good for his back. I looked up the Eames Lounge Chair and Ottoman. I knew he'd love it, but he would never buy it for himself.
Moments later, I’m somewhere else. I was sipping a cranberry martini Jay made as I started waking up. In this room. Dallas.

I slammed myself into the hospital bed. Jay is holding my hand. I am pushing Flynn out of my body, with no pain relief. Jay keeps telling me I can do it. You can do it. So I do. That was January 7, 2005. I never wanted to believe all the things I knew were true about me, things I thought were only for other people. I’m a piece of shit. And I’m insane. It’s right there in my medical records. Today, I’ve wished many times I could rewrite my story. It’s unfair that I inherited a disease. It didn’t show up until I’d already thrown everything away. I even lost myself. Now, I see a life—my life—that hasn’t stopped just because I’m no longer in it. Every day, I wake up all over the world. I think about how to stop the constant waking up. So far, nothing has worked. The other day, I woke up in Ireland. We’d just hit a cow. Then I went to sleep in Dallas, by myself, knowing the biggest memory loss I have is that I’m hardly a memory for anyone anymore. I hope that soon I wake up in that little white villa in Andalusia. We drive to the convent on that five-foot wide, winding road. We ate those delicious chocolate treats the nuns made. Jay bought a flower from a nun and gave it to me. I hope I wake up here again soon. Spain. Warm. Health. Sangria.

Finally, I long for another place. I want to wake up in my Humboldt forest. I want to escape my small box with a bathroom. I want to crawl through fallen branches, under what used to be ferny canopies. I want to be drunk on liquor never brewed.

A silhouette of a face with intricate floral patterns, facing a hand holding a small flying figure. Text reads: “I taste a liquor never brewed – Emily Dickinson.”.

I taste a liquor never brewed (214)
Emily Dickinson
1830 –1886

I taste a liquor never brewed – 
From Tankards scooped in Pearl – 
Not all the Frankfort Berries
Yield such an Alcohol!

Inebriate of air – am I – 
And Debauchee of Dew – 
Reeling – thro' endless summer days – 
From inns of molten Blue – 

When "Landlords" turn the drunken Bee
Out of the Foxglove's door – 
When Butterflies – renounce their "drams" – 
I shall but drink the more!

Till Seraphs swing their snowy Hats – 
And Saints – to windows run – 
To see the little Tippler
Leaning against the – Sun!

ONCE UPON A BEACH

A toddler with blonde hair stands on sandy beach facing the camera, while a man carrying a blue boogie board walks toward the ocean in the background. Several people are swimming in the waves under a bright sky.

It was just another day. I hadn’t spoken to anyone in awhile. Not that a while of time means anything.

People forget things. I forget the details of my life, but not the people I shared it with. My memories come and go as they please. Each day brings back travels and restaurants and movies and love. I wish I was capable of curating my life.

It was August. I was 22. Today I remember a walk from years ago, leading to a spot on Kauai’s beach. The west side. I had just married Jay. Our wedding night was the start of our honeymoon. We stayed in a tall hotel near San Francisco airport. From our room at the Hyatt, I watched planes take off and land. Planes full of strangers, coming and going. The next morning I was one of those people.

The memories stayed. In the days that followed, Jay and I got married just 24 hours later. We flew to Oahu, changed planes, then flew to Hilo. My grandmother told me, go to Waimea. It looks like Ireland, she said.

My grandmother’s advice was strange, but she was right. I’d been to Ireland. Waimea had rolling green hills. Standing there, I felt peaceful and restless at the same time. The blue sea behind the hills made me think of old dreams. It didn’t look like the lower Big Island. There were cows, and small houses scattered in the grass. The place felt Celtic, and that comforted me, but it also reminded me how far I was from home. We drove our little rental car with the air conditioning too cold. The cold helped settle my nerves. When we stopped, the heat outside surprised me. It was nothing like Ireland, where the cold seeps into your bones.

A few days later, we flew to Kona and rented a white car. We drove to Kiahuna Plantation. We spent ten days in a small, clean ground-floor condo. The kitchen was to the left of the door. The living room was straight ahead. Past the loveseat, sliding glass doors looked out at the backs of the beachfront condos.

We didn’t have an ocean view. It didn’t matter. We walked around the green pond. It was small, but it reminded me of us. Not flashy, but quietly there. Some things seem unimportant at first, but they grow on you. We reached the sand and the ocean. Above us, the blue sky.

I was 22 then. Now I’m 46. I live alone. I can’t remember what I ate for breakfast, but I remember the greenish dish towels in that condo. Worn, but clean. The bedroom was a step to the left. The bathroom, a step to the right.

Jay broke his back on that trip. Not, as he liked to joke, during honeymoon shenanigans. He was just body surfing in shallow water and injured his lower back.

He said he’d heard a crack in his lower back.

On the flight home to San Francisco, I knew Jay was in terrible pain. He’d traveled all over the world, and turbulence never bothered him. But after we buckled up, I saw sweat on his neck. He was hurting. Even then, he smiled at the flight attendant.I sat next to him, helpless. My heart pounded. I tried to hide my fear with a smile, just like he did. That helplessness made me feel closer to him.

I don’t remember what I ate the night before. Maybe I didn’t eat at all. Reflecting on our honeymoon, when Jay was 33, I trusted him completely. He smiled even when things broke, including me. Trust is beautiful.

But always , there are more strange truths.

Me and my kid hanging out on the Half Moon Bay Coast.

Celebrating Life, Death and Peace

At first, it’s a party. People come over.  They bring food and flowers and booze. They clean. They cook.  How are you? They ask,  because they truthfully want to know.  They bring books and ask you to go on walks.  They plan the memorial. They stay by your side on that day of celebration. Like a birthday party, a memorial celebrates a life. 

How are you doing?  The soft voices that ask the caring questions start to evolve in tone, speed, intonation. Topics. Conversations evolve into the talk of life. The lives of the living. 

The memorial is the last phase of people gifting you their time. They must get back to their lives. They must get back to the people in their lives. Friends visit only on weekends. The phone rings less. The walks get shorter and scarcer. The carefully wrapped casseroles stop appearing in the kitchen. The flowers start to wilt, dripping their leaves on the tabletop.  Like snowflakes and people—flowers wilt. 

But I can't, I do not return to my life because my life isn't there anymore. And never will be again. My lives. My worlds. Blah blah blah.

My friends go out for dinners and take day trips to lakes. My friends eat at home, or the home of friends. They return to their worlds. Silence now permeates what used to be our home. My house is now empty of noise because it is now missing my favorite sound. Now nothing seems right. 

Now. For whom do I cook?  Who do I cook with? How do I comfort others? How do I adjust to a new life without that person's existence? In the beginning—disbelief. Shock. A phone that becomes a cold thing that no longer brings me silly messages from the now dead person. I start feeling more feelings. They are feelings that slowly start to whisper away as I acclimate to what's missing from my life. Missing from my lives.

Then—then things start seeming kinda normal. I notice that the world is continuing. I cry less. I LOL. I listen to a podcast. I eat breakfast. Then—when I'm kinda functioning without that constant feeling of emptiness, loss, grief—that is when the death hits me. I've returned to the normal head space. 

Life goes on and so do I.

Right?

I no longer have shock or disbelief to numb me. I no longer have the fresh, bloody cuts to bandage. All I have are what's under the now scarred skin:  severed arteries and punctured organs and smokey images. Those things haven't started healing yet—and I know that the deepest cuts never will. 

In the passenger seat, I see the stars come out of the sky. Yeah, they're bright in a hollow sky. You know it looks so good tonight. 

My sky is exploding. My stars are combusting. I am a passenger. Newly healed and freshly sore. Waiting for my stars to come out of my sky.  

And I knit and I knit.  A scarf for Darlene. Darlene will smile. I'll feel her smile in the yarn coming alive in my hands. 

I can not, I do not, return to my life because my life  isn't there anymore. And never will be. My life—my world— is lost and I’m still trying to find it.

My friends go out for dinners and take day trips to lakes. They also eat at home or the home of friends. They return to their worlds. My world is now silent. My house is now quiet. I pick up my yarn. The soft, fuzzy wool I'm gripping is the only reality I can touch. Feel.

Knitting through my life.

I'm a passenger in my own life. I'm navigating the unfamiliar, unpredictable, terrain of amnesia. I am knitting together a semblance of connection, one stitch at a time.

I find myself in the hospital room, I stand next to the bed on which is resting my dead mother. This happens many, many times in indecipherable periods. I'm looking out the window. It is June 14. My birthday--my half birthday--is on the 21st. Summer solstice.

I stare at the white blinds, which are slanted open. I look through countless strips of shiny white plastic. My gaze creeps across the shutters, to the sky. The sky is blue. I'm standing on the fifth floor of the other wing of The Hospital. The sky is blue. It's that clear, clear, clear, clean, lightish blue. It is the kind of blue that occurs only for a brief period. It happens on days with a slight breeze and little pollution. Danny and I left the trailer in San Jose. After the call came, around 7:30 a.m., we departed. Danny Lee Clark Junior (he's dead now, too) was with me. Now, it was around 9:30. It wasn't yet 10:00. The light would be less clear at 10:00. It would start to look hot. And it was, after all, June. June 14th. 1990. I look at my mother. I look at her. She looks peaceful. I'd never seen her look so peaceful. Ever. The bandage wrapped around the top of her head was neat clean, and white. It only covered the top of her eyebrows. I would not--did not--think about the bloody wound hiding beneath the clean, white dressing. I realized that I'd never seen her face so smooth, the lines around her eyes were softer. Now I stared at her eyelids, which rested. Still.

I would not--did not--think about the bloody wound hiding beneath the clean, white dressing. I realized that I'd never seen her face so smooth, the lines around her eyes softer. Everything about her makes me think that she was, at last, in peace.

ABOUT TIME

Here is what is this about. I don't know what I'm about. Nor does anybody else. 

Things, like time, are war. Games. War games. Time—is of the essence. I grasp the heavy rifle in my hands. I blast the abyss with bullets of memories, leaving sparkling lights that, slow, dim into the darkness. Often I wish I was still younger. My terrain in my head, then, was a much smaller area to blow up. 

Time after time—we do not have the luxury of forgetting that time is of the essence. The second hand unwinds. The drum beats out of time. 

Days and time whirl us up in its violent tornado. Lives living a billion schedules, pattering around the world in an infinitely interactive lacy web. 

Somewhere. Some wheres. Somethings. Things. My bed. My paintings. My Le Creuset Enameled Cast Iron Dutch Oven. Blue Azure. 

Now. I’m a writer. With published books. My published books are romance novels. Now I write my memories. My memories are rarely the same story accurately remembered. So. So I’m forcing myself to scrawl each version of the stories I remember. Then I just try to fit all the pieces together in a way that—fits. Or—doesn’t. 

I love pretty stories. I love writing. Now I write. Now I’m in the middle of a tornado.  Throwing the letters & words & exclamation points!!!

My brain is inside my skull. I know this is true because I’ve seen it. Seen images of this. In the X-ray I see see the tornado, violently rotating within a column of air. This whirlwind slices out pieces of what’s left in my mind. I see it scattered over the people I've known all my life or, seemingly, all my life.

A tornado is a violently rotating column of air. It is in contact with both the surface of the Earth and a cumulonimbus cloud. In rare cases, it connects with the base of a cumulus cloud. It is often referred to as a twister, whirlwind or cyclone.

I’m not sure why. I'm pretty sure I don't want to know why. Even if I knew why, I wouldn't remember anyway. Time. Flies. It's just a game I've never successfully searched through.

My memories. Carnival games. Loud. Tacky. Frustrating. Exhausting. But. What isn’t? 

The Brain — is wider than the Sky

My 6th Grade Brain Assignment

Every day, exponentially expanding, are my thoughts. I then forget them. I have a room and all I see are things I've collected over the past two years. Yarn and knitting needles and more colored pencils and more yarn and. . . and the rest is mine, my things. My things fit into a box. My small purse and my three backpacks. My two photos of myself and my son. My flute. My ancient tv, on which I watch Friends and Sex and the City. My old bathrobe. 

My photos are in my old house, where my son still lives. We were sitting on the sofa, the sofa I chose with my husband. As far as I know, my ex husband, my son, and the new wife still sit on my furniture. 

My things represent my life because they are my life. My life is in this room. My blackout curtains block out the back of a giant satellite dish. It overlooks the pool five stories below. And across the way there is another giant building with the exact same apartments housed within. Each has a minuscule balcony that nobody uses unless someone is smoking. Sometimes I smell cigarette smoke from the twenty-somethings who live next door. On Saturday nights they play rap. I have never met them.

What's familiar to me are my knitting needles and my yarn. I know people I see on my decrepit television. I know when the tv finally dies I won't have that. I try to focus on what I do have. Still, less and less do I have any wish to bother.  But, I'm still a writer. I still have that.

I want to finish the hat I'm knitting for my son. I want to finish something. I wanted to finish my life, but I haven't and I won't. When I die I hope there's something good to do. Something to finish. 

I have memories, and I want to talk about them and, more than anything, I want to see them. I want to go on a drive through Hope Valley. I want to buy a sandwich at the Genoa Store. Then, I want to drive to the Playa and get in a truck. I want to drive into the desert and find hot springs. I want to smile and drive that weird road that seemed to go nowhere. It had nothing particularly memorable about it, except that it was old. There was a town with a Smith's, a gas station, and an old church. I want to see those things. I want to see a sunset from my own porch. I want to make toast in my own kitchen with my own dishes. I want to drink water from a glass I remember finding at a thrift store. Instead, I'm just sitting in this room. The dark curtains hide an outside that means nothing. I'm looking at Facebook and seeing familiar faces. I'm confused because I have no reason to make new memories. I have no way to do so. I have no relevance and nothing I see is relevant to me. I'm a million miles away from anything familiar and I'm driftless in my sky.

The Brain — is wider than the Sky
Emily Dickinson, c. 1862

The Brain — is wider than the Sky —
For — put them side by side —
The one the other will contain
With ease — and You — beside —

The Brain is deeper than the sea —
For — hold them — Blue to Blue —
The one the other will absorb —
As Sponges — Buckets — do —

The Brain is just the weight of God —
For — Heft them — Pound for Pound —
And they will differ — if they do —
As Syllable from Sound —

A person with short, pink-tinted hair and glasses is wearing headphones and a hospital gown while sitting in a hospital bed. Medical equipment is visible in the background.

Lightening in a Bottle of IV Fluid