Clever

A Lori Tale

Note: Writers, from what I’ve read, some anyway, are visited by a ‘muse’ for literary inspiration. Such a tool is commonly used by me and comes in the form of Lori, a child roaming out there in my storytelling universe.

I’m standing on the shoreline with the first radiance of light brimming on the hills of Mendocino behind me, seen flickering through the rustling redwood trees. In front of me, under a belly of sea fog, softly capping the shallow waves bringing everything but answers.

Far off, a low mournful hum, like an ancient fugue composed for a hobo sailor, emanates from Point Arena Lighthouse, stretching beyond the shore’s craggy coastline. I’m thankful for my jacket this early morn. Its bolstered warmth, my hands squeezed around a mug of tea.

I’m alone with a feeling of immense gratitude, twenty-three years married, still caught up, bedazzled by my wife’s charms. I’m an embarrassment to passion; her heart is so whole it shines like a diamond. Yet, beside her, I lay awake hour after hour, night after night, trying to imagine why she wanted so much to live her life with me.

Suddenly, I feel the warmth of a child’s hand pushing its way into mine.

“Mr. Harry…hello?”

Immediately, I’m brought out of one euphoria of love for another. “Lori, what are you doing down here, child?”

“You’re up early this morning, Mr. Harry,” she says brightly.

I look down upon her wild strawberry hair, the crinkle in her eyes, a child whose breath would awake azaleas from a cold snap. But, dear Lori, her childlike strength is her pure gentleness on any given day. How I welcome her friendship.

“Yes, Lori. I woke up and felt utterly possessed by love, a love that cries against me, often for what I have not said,” I try to explain. “Anyway, child, you have to get up early, almost anywhere along the California coastline, to find the best seashells.”

“Hold my hand, will you, Mr. Harry,” she says, pushing her fingers harder into the palm of my hand. Such a thing, I wonder. To hold a child’s hand. “Your hand is so warm, Mr. Harry.” I apply a small amount of pressure tightening the warmth.

Be on the lookout for strength in people, their gentleness, how they smile throughout a lifetime. Always be on the lookout to complete them.

“Do you want to walk with me, Mr. Harry?”

I cannot but wonder where Lori lays her head? What brings her to the edge of the ocean, to this universe I call my imagination. Is she love, I wonder, given a child’s body?

“What are you thinking about today, Mr. Harry?” She asks, skipping at my side.

“Well, Lori, honestly, I was thinking about my wife,” I tell her.

Lori’s eyes can look at me in ways that suggest an adult is behind their beauty.

“Whenever you tell me about your wife, Mr. Harry, you’re going to talk about friendship…gratitude…love, and other grown-up things,” she responds.

“I suppose so,” I say, pulling a woolly scarf from my jacket pocket and looping it around her neck twice.

Life is full of contradictions. Marriage has rendered this man unique, virtuous, and wise — so would thirty years living in a monastery. If I have regrets or feel inadequate, it comes from quarrels of my own making. It is easy enough to see the truth of a beach, its trash, a rubber sandal, kelp aplenty, cans, plastic containers, but with imagination and belief, with someone’s spoken friendship and gratitude, these, too, carry every kind of treasure to its edge. Such gifts from those we know, love, or befriend, allow us to trade back, like the tide, the worst part of ourselves.

“What do I mean to you, Mr. Harry?”

To know genuine love and beauty, a man must first live in its midst. Lori’s words always bring me back, make me accountable, refreshed, and ready for the day.

“You are, to me, all of them, Lori. Friendship, gratitude, love, and while I’m with you I can believe it, feel safe from the storms of doubt,” I reassure her, “no matter what chilly winds blow.”

We all happen upon this journey in life, occasionally wacked by a sharp pain into a state of utter insensibility. I like to wonder if Lori was ever with me when I was a child? How lonely it felt when other boys talked so cleverly, and I spoke simply, plainly. I would talk about walking with day, sometimes poetry, but I wanted to talk like a clever boy and write like one. I never shine in that way. I seemed happy with humor, a fistfight, caring for nothing with any great passion. I couldn’t sit still long enough to learn, and I felt flawed not being a clever boy, and now as an old man, an inferior writer. Back then, I only had particular abilities, a dark soul, living perilously, blackening an eye when afraid, biting ears, and I was unaware how blemishes first appear until they become bruises. Bruises that shine still.

“Your wife, Mr. Harry, she is a treasure. I hunt for treasures, too,” she says.

Such a child, how can she know at such a young age what treasures lie in wait for her? What infinite charms? Recall it was once a book full of pictures, riding on dad’s shoulders, stars out my bedroom window, waking on a Saturday. Today my inner life is lived with the ones I love. I don’t need my head cracked; I found plenty of places to do that. Yet, somehow, I found my way to something majestic. My wife is a labyrinth of beautiful things, sometimes narrow streets leading me to surprises, other times a palace, big enough to hold her magnificent love. Yet, today I notice poor people, not clever people, and it makes my heart heavy. They sit on park benches, lie in doorways, sleep on verges buried beneath accumulated junk. How did a brute like me escape such a destiny?

“And what treasure do you hope to find, Lori?” I ask.

“I’m not sure I know that Mr. Harry. But I will when I discover it. I want to be like you, thinking about everything, climbing stairs, and coming down again, having a new idea, working with ideas until you find that treasure, that thing, Mr. Harry.”

“Yes, Lori. Like I found you. A treasure beyond treasure, worth more than gold, simple, loving, a playhouse where my love is acted out and judgment has no place,” I tell her sincerely.

“I like that, Mr. Harry. Evidence of affection is a valuable thing. I know you must go, Mr. Harry. You have work to do.”

“I do, Lori. Listen child, there is nothing in the world I love more than talking with you, seeing you, knowing nothing to be more steady than you in my imagination,” I say.

“I know, Mr. Harry. We are both quite clever in our own way, don’t you think?”

Clever…the word creates a tear down my cheek. Finally, strange phantoms in my brain clear out. Looking up to the edge of the bluff, I see a yellow light illuminate the window.

“Cheerio, Mr. Harry. Just remember, the essence of my being is you.”

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