Welcome to the wonderful world of
Mr. Alexander.
The Soul of a Frozen Moon
a collaboration
by calm and jack.
I went to the beach at night,
in winter,
in Maine.
It wasn't too big a crowd,
but they were all inside my head..
pushing and shoving at me,
clawing at my mind for attention.
and
like children in a lunch line
they took and kept no order....
no discipline.
My own childhood was barely dropping from me
and it wanted to join in the game too.
I had some obscure thought about assigning a grain of sand
to each idea,
each question with no answer,
or with several answers....
each answer that I didn't have the question for yet
or that had several questions.
As I left my car, to walk over the crisp dunes towards the rolling waves,
I hoped there would be enough grains.
I wasn't dressed for winter,
for this northern exposure...
I wore blue jeans
and a
white cowl neck sweater.
Old white tennis shoes with tube socks
and my beat up yellow jacket....
and yet
it was suffocating me.
I was bursting from the inside
and yet muffled on the outside.
The chill wind rolled silver breath at me from the white tops,
curling in the moonlight,
the rhythmic
crash, swirl, swoosh,
crash, swirl, swoosh,
that echoed up from the tide line
set me to walk a dance,
over the iced dunes.
I had gone to the beach to think,
to sort out my thoughts,
examine my options,
to reach some conclusions...
and to devise a plan,
and an alternate plan.
My hair hung close to my face,
afraid to fly,
lest the wind cause it to be blown out to sea,
over the blackness and gone forever.
Stepping down from the rolling hills
and onto the soft sand gathered in the lee
of the dune line,
I heard the chaos in my head begin to die down,
maybe the lunch monitor had come,
and the children started to fall into line.
After only a few feet,
I noticed the sand in front of me,
below the high tide line,
where the water beneath never really leaves...
it was shining in the moonlight...
glistening in the flashing of a nearby lighthouse...
not just shining and glistening, but frozen
sparkling, shimmering,
reflecting the moonlight from a million miles away,
into a symphony of diamonds...
and the manlight stabbing out of the blackness
into a chorale of tears
An entire planet of new formed ice crystals,
each more beautiful than the last,
and searching to entrap the precious light from the heavens
to make more diamonds.
in this strange chill of deepest night,
each tiny grain
became a teardrop of the moon.
It was late about midnight
and I can remember the tide was going out.
It seemed to be leaving me
and taking all my problems with it.
I can remember the dead silence,
the soft sound
of the occasional undertow dropping behind a shell.
This was the sound that made me feel ok .
It was a trade
for every shell the waters left
I released a problem - a bad thought.
Although the ocean waves moved relentlessly towards them,
the tears and diamonds
laughed at the danger.
My feet were upon them now,
and the grains didn't move underfoot.
it was an ice rink of beach sand...
I could have slid...played around...
but the magic was too strong.
Instead I tried to float,
to put as little weight onto the sand as possible..
I tried to hover,
stepping only onto the damp air above each grain.
And yet,
the carpet of diamonds spread before me,
like the palms in Jerusalem,
and bade me welcome, relax,
becalm yourself.
I walked for what seemed like miles, and yet it was only a few yards.
And then I stood,
and breathed,
and didn't think at all.
The diamonds spattered bolts of fire into the air.
The moonlight,
and the lighthouse
and the reflection of both
from the sparklets
at the falling crest of each wave...
these were the lights of my life,
the illumination that I sought..
As my mind slowed and opened at the same time,
The chaos emptied out,
into the cold air and onto the Atlantic winds,
to be tossed around the globe forever.
I sat, on the frozen sand,
and looked at the jewels around me.
The sense of wonder at such delicate temporary beauty
and the amazement I felt at the insanity of creation
close to snatched my breath away.
The waves were noisy
but the diamonds were silent, in the silent light.
I felt my bones become cold, and my muscles relax to allow the blood to flow
and warm me..
I felt myself at such peace,
at such
one ness
that soon I became warm, almost cozy.
I could have laid myself down
on this bed of sparkles
and moonlight rainbows...
I could have flown or floated,
lived or died...
I could be...or used to be
But it wasn't a decision that I had to make right now.
The thoughts were jumbled in my head
as the clothes would be
years from now
in my daughters bedroom,
and just as I now often do
to fix the jumble in her room,
I just closed the door.
I shut the entrance to the doubts
and the guilts
and the questions
and the answers.
and I sat in my field of shimmers
and breathed the savage air into my wide awake lungs.
it cooled me, and fired me...
and it made me whole again..
not altogether fixed,
but able to go fight some more dragons,
and rescue myself.
and each time the lighthouse flashed over the diamond sand
I saw
a better place - a better life - a better time.
I don't know how I could tell that it was time to leave.
I knew that something had reset the clock
and now it was keeping the right time.
I headed back up the beach and
surrounded my lighthouse shadow with the sand tears...
they seemed like tears of joy now
tears of warm relief on the frozen grains.
My mind was clear and aware and unafraid.
For the moment the room door was closed,
and over the years I have opened it periodically
to let out some of the thoughts, and questions, and answers.
There's still lots of them in there
forever imprisoned by the power of the ocean magic,
by the rainbow moon diamonds in the sand,
and by the warm flash from the lighthouse
as it ripped liquid fire across the beach.
I know where that room is,
and I know that I'm safe from the inhabitants.
At least for as long as there are winters in Maine,
and oceans of diamonds
and sand tears.
If you found any of these pieces educational or at least amusing, drop a note of encouragement to
and maybe more such pieces will appear....
and
Remember to hug your Kids
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