I, Too, Shall Die

*Revealed in a series of vignettes

I, Too, Shall Die

By Wheston Chancellor Grove

A memoir about everything in between.

What does science know of the heart’s intellect—

Nothing, absolutely nothing.

Author’s Foreward………………………………………………………… 4

I. In the Clouds……………………………………………………………. 7

II. Life Takes No Prisoners………………………………………………... 9

III. I Was a Soldier and a Scribe………………………………………….. 12

IV. Toe-pography of the Heart……………………………………………. 17

V. The Violet Ball of Meaning……………………………………………. 19

VI. Reincarnation is a Fact…I Know……………………………………... 21

VII. Does Potential Have an Expiration Date?............................................ 24

VIII. I Chose This Name………………………………………………….. 27

IX. Why Be Designed to Endure?............................................................... 29

X. Summer Nights in Virginia, Streaking the Gardens…………………… 32

XI. Remembrance is a Museum, I am the Smithsonian…………………... 34

XII. Sky Splendor…………………………………………………………. 35

XIII. Loneliness…………………………………………………………… 36

XIV. Suicide………………………………………………………………. 37

XV. I Was a Poet………………………………………………………….. 40

XVI. Remedies……………………………………………………………. 42

XVII. The Wing Bends But Never Breaks (Four Wishes)……………….. 45

XVIII. Driving Down the Roads of Our Well-Worn Lives………………. 48

XIX. Maybe I’ll Marry a Poem…………………………………………… 50

XX. The Blue Heron aka Sara Scott……………………………………… 54

XXI. An Occasion for the Arts…………………………………………… 58

XXII. Vanity Has Its Reasons……………………………………………. 62

XXIII. Military Entrance Processing Station, Fort Lee, VA……………... 67

XXIV. Unfurling, Falling Open?................................................................ 75

XXV. Squashing Quarters at the Train Station with My Mother………… 77

XXVI. Waiting for My Shuttle to Return………………………………… 78

XXVII. How Little of What We Do Is Living……………………………. 80

XXVIII. Hostage to the Past……………………………………………… 81

XXIX. Come Hell or High Water the World Will Know………………… 82

XXX. Did Beethoven Ever Say, “I shouldn’t Be Playing the Piano”……. 86

XXXI. Dust of a Dandelion………………………………………………. 87

XXXII. Watching a Tree Blow in the Wind on the First Day of Summer.. 88

XXXIII. Why Steve Irwin?......................................................................... 89

XXXIV. Hinges…………………………………………………………... 90

XXXV. Of Mice and Men………………………………………………... 91

XXXVI. What Must the Other Animals Think?......................................... 93

XXXVII. Linchpin, Oglethorpe, and The Fat Paw……………………….. 94

XXXVIII. All the Magazines and Titanic………………………………... 99

XXXIX. Dumbo Dumbo Phanté, Phanté Phanté Trumper Sky………….. 102

XL. He Whose Name Shall Remain Unknown………………………….. 104

XLI. A Way Out at Every Turn…………………………………………... 106

XLII. Coded on Membrane……………………………………………….. 108

Author’s Foreword

There is only one thing that matters in life, they are interconnected and so I classify them as one: compassion and mercy. When we die, the only things we take with us are the love we have felt and kindness given and received. If you don’t want to continue reading this book, then take that statement away with you, if nothing else. We live and we die. All the stuff in between – the shit, drama, high points, low points, the accumulation of things – all of it stays on earth. Chasing after money, success in terms of climbing the corporate ladder, proving a point – in the end it all slips away.

I know this story. I lived its hours. It is in my skin, my eyes, and memory. I don’t need to write it for myself as a form of catharsis. I’d prefer to brush it aside and live without thought of the past. I am devoting my much needed and conserved energy to the labor that awaits for your sake. Anyone who questions the meaning of life, purpose, and form: I am writing for the future generations I will never know but who will, through my words, come to know me and the years stored up inside. Do what you may with the contents. If you extract nothing from these pages other than this, well, my life has not been in vain: Make the world a less painful place while you’re part of it. Your stay is over just as it begins. The human lifespan is infinitesimal. There is more at work than meets the eye. We come for a purpose.

My lesson has been in love and letting go.

I’m sitting in an empty house in Williamsburg, Virginia. What used to be my place of residence for 11 years. The owner wanted to sell the townhouse to me. I didn’t want the headache of upkeep. That was four months ago. Haven’t heard from him since. I am now squatting, daily, in an empty room at my old house. An orange power cord runs from the back upstairs window and over the fence into my neighbor’s yard. They are letting me pirate their electricity to power my laptop. It’s comical and practical. A giant oak stands sentry out the back window. To my content, I have no internet access. Just me, Microsoft Word, the wind, and the birds. It is May. Sometimes I urinate into a large plastic container and empty it in the backyard to avoid flushing the toilet. The water is still on, I pay the 15.00 monthly bill. I don’t want to have the pipes rusting. I’m conscious of not wasting water in a house where, technically, I no longer live.

I’m writing to free myself from the past, even though the past, present and future are one. I am writing to let others know why we are here. I may lose some of you along the way. Those meant to stay will, ultimately, read my life to its present conclusion. I’d rather be the monetarily unencumbered artist than the rich or middle-class businessman who has no time to think and lives for tomorrow. I’d rather be rich in love than weighed down by wealth earned through self-enslavement.

The world would be a better place if poets ruled it.

Why does it fall to me to articulate the ineffable?

All the years leading up to this point served as preparation. I pray the world will one day know the cost of writing. I write because I have to. It is my purpose. It is for you.

*

It doesn’t matter if names of people suddenly appear in this narrative, just debut on the page. Passages will be strewn with different recollections. Different women. Since I have a familiarity with these people and the reader does not, I will provide a brief record of identification for your bearings.

Sara Scott is an odd woman. Her eccentricity and lack of emotion are bewitching. Sara and I “worked” together, in a manner of speaking, although I don’t feel any work was accomplished during our time together. The true work came afterward. She and I were not sexually involved. Emotional penetration took place. Leni had been my wife in a past life. She is the main character in my bildungsroman, “Who Has Known Heights.” I was Sara Scott’s father in a former life. Despite resonating with the Buddhist faith, Sara would never discuss what it meant to her when I said I’d been her father. I asked her to shed light on her feelings. She said nothing. Always nothing. This remains painful.

When I’m flying, up in the air, I feel suspended from the past and the future. A place of peace, safety, and escape thousands of miles up in the sky. It makes sense since most writers live in the clouds.

*

Did Beethoven ever rag on himself and say, “I shouldn’t be playing the piano. I ought to be outside plowing a field or giving counsel to someone in need. I’m shirking selfless duty.” We’ll never know, but I doubt it. Maybe he wanted to be doing something else, but his purpose was musical composition. He was a composer and knew it, devoting his life to pain and the piano. Did he choose that course? It was laid upon him. The skill and gift was borne within. The suffering he endured was written before his birth, for whatever reason. His choice was to continue playing. It was his life preserver. I know that feeling. I didn’t choose to be a writer. The task was chosen for me.

*

When a painful memory comes up, I can blow it away like the dust of a dandelion. Be gone! You are the past. I won’t let you take any more of my time. I won’t let you hurt me.

The Blue Heron aka Sara Scott

When I allow my mind to light upon Sara Scott, I think: All the unanswered questions that fall like blossoms to the ground.

I loved Sara and that love was complicated, misunderstood, and used against me. I kissed her hand twice. Innocent. Warm regard. I asked. She said yes. It is here, alone, in these pages, that I am safe from judgment and given the time and respect to tell what happened. Aside from Death, the writer always has the final word. I could focus on the negative memories, but that doesn’t make me feel good. When I die, I wish to preserve the sanctity of affection.

The shortcoming of counselors is that they mistake themselves for psychologists, which they’re not. They analyze to the degree of anaesthetizing feeling and look to diagnose normal feelings. They frequently see with their minds instead of their hearts. Judgments are borne of mental synapses. Many people criticize and judge what they can’t or don’t want to understand.

Sara Scott blinded herself against Divine sight. I didn’t deserve what happened. Lord knows this and, in the end, Sara knows it, too.

There are things one must keep buried in the heart because to talk about them gives memories life and makes the pain real all over again.

~

I was visiting my Second Cousin Charles in Tampa. He took me to his favorite shoreline, Coquina Beach, located on the west of Florida. We waded into The Gulf. He had two rafts. The waves were ideal. I told him I felt extremely vulnerable not being able to touch the ground or see what was in the water. The Gulf is the color of aloe. I know most shark attacks occur in three feet of water, so they say, and bull sharks don’t discriminate by location. The temperature soothed my body, perhaps detoxifying it of accumulated cortisol brought on by the unresolved trauma related to Sara.

Assumptions destroy lives. Silence fans vexation. Sara would not acknowledge the truth or take accountability for her capricious behavior. She never apologized. Her refusal to provide an explanation revealed her nature. In the end, Sara erased and punished me for calling out her bizarre and incongruent behavior. She treated me like shit on her shoe, scraped and scuffed off on a curb without so much as an afterthought. O’ waves, purify my heart and mind; heal the unseen wound under my ribs.

Cousin Charles laughed at my candid concern for being out in the open, beyond the breakers. I told him no splashing or flailing—it attracts sharks. He stayed in his raft. I swam beside mine—all limbs prime for detaching in one violent chomp. Somehow, I felt safer just knowing my cousin was with me. Even if a shark did attack, we were close enough to shore. I might be saved. But that wasn’t my concern. Maybe dying alone was. I didn’t want to be taken under the water. I’d rather be dragged to shore and bleed out on the white sand, voices fading away. Cousin Charles assured that attacks in The Gulf were rare. “That may be, but it just takes once!” I declared, having fun despite looking around and scanning for a gray fin. I swam out to the buoy. Cousin Charles used his hands to gently paddle, in a reclined position, to the orange marker. We eventually left the ocean play behind and returned to our chairs in the shade. We then took a walk by the pine trees to another part of the beach that curved to the left. It was here that I saw the heron. A couple of people were standing by it, taking pictures. The bird was queer. Tall, skinny legs. Head feathers silver-gray, a little unruly, with a long tuft of steely blue poking out the back of the skull like a cowlick. The same color as Sara’s manly cut hair. The heron stood with a piercing gaze, a look of audacity. Its pupil reminded me of Sara’s on two separate occasions. One positive, the other traumatizing. Black feathers adorned the heron’s wings. Sara mostly wore black. “Ease of assemblage of wardrobe” she explained when I asked her why. I also knew black represented a classic era; executive prowess. Personally, though I look good in black, I’ve never felt comfortable wearing the color.

I later researched the symbolism of seeing a heron. I like this explanation: “…the heron refers to tranquility and stillness for us humans. The symbolism also signifies determination because we are bound to wade through marshes and ponds through life's journey, but we must never give up.”

I want to call attention to the hugging ritual I had with Sara Scott. It is hard to believe such a time existed. When we shared a hug. It’s like another life, not mine. The way she hugged reminded me of someone scooping up a hug. Sara didn’t embrace around the torso and back, width-wise. She went under the arms. Her arms operated in a scooping motion, coming straight up, hugging vertically, so that her elbows remained pointed at the ground, as opposed to circumferencing my body. I felt her reedy limbs, the lankyness of her body, and how the palms of her hands gently pressed my shoulder blades. I remember the substance of our hugs because something inside me hurts. Yes, the ‘s’ on ‘hurt’ to signify present tense. Sara told me the first time we hugged, “You’re a good hugger.” Her arms reminded me of bird wings folding up, and in, on themselves. Long bones. Thin bones. The way Sara hugged.

Why do people do the things they do? For instance: Work? Family? Vacation? Do they know they’re doing them? Or do they do them because they fall into this pattern and it’s all they know: Get a job, marry, have children, become grandparents, retire. End of story. I don’t get it.

This is what life means to me, for what it’s worth I’ll sum it up in a single moment:

I was walking with my dachshund in a neighborhood. A random neighborhood with tons of foliage. He was nine-and-a-half years old. I was looking at the houses, all separate, with individual cars. People who mow their lawns. Wondering what they did with their lives. It was overcast. May. A little chilly. Unusually so for that time of year. I looked over to one house that was rather quaint, well-manicured. I noticed a vibrant, violet plastic ball waiting on the edge of the property—the side, not the front. Obviously, children had left it there. Maybe it had rolled over to the corner of the yard when the children ran inside some evening. Its refreshing color jumped out at me as it sat on top of the verdant green lawn. I loved that it was out of place, yet perfectly positioned by happenstance. A beautiful sphere. Its color meant everything in the world to me. That instant was life. I know this might not make sense to you as a reader, but that moment of noticing embodied life and its essential form. A few days before this occurrence, I’d been meditating, which I haven’t done in a long, long time. A sentence came to me. My existence felt desultory. But the sentence came to me very clear and direct. “You are here to decode the world.” That’s what came through the ether to me. I watched the wind fondle the trees and flutter the leaves whilst sunlight played over them like lace and latticework. I was sent here to watch and record. I didn’t ask for this position. It was assigned to me. Perhaps my soul asked for it, but that was before I was awake in this plane of existence.

*

THERE IS NOTHING LIKE THE FEELING OF BEING IN LOVE ON A SUMMER EVENING. THERE IS NOTHING LIKE THE FEELING OF NOT BEING IN LOVE ON A SUMMER EVENING.

Had I remained a woman what course would my life have taken? A question I can never lay to rest.

Both my sister and I always excelled academically. We enjoyed school and learning. It was easy and came naturally. We like to push ourselves. Counselor and social worker once remarked that I was a genius. Years ago, I researched gifted individuals. Individuals with high intellect, well above average, often experience a reoccurring existential crisis. They may feel overwhelmed by the number of choices that they have professionally. They also require contact. And not just from anyone. Embracing carries significance.

I’ve always known there is nothing I can’t do if I put my mind to it. I never pursue something halfway. If I am going to do something, I master it. There is nothing half ass about it. I feel the heft of my first memoir, “Who Has Known Heights.” There are queer moments when I wonder who wrote it? Others have commented and asked, “How did you do it? How did you keep track of all this information?” I look at its length, its depth. It was sheer madness, passion, and yes, one might venture to say genius. It came from someplace else. I was the instrument. In spite of its completion, and then another book which I wrote in six weeks—“The Gift of Blindness”—and this current account which is in your hands, I am disappointed in myself. I am disappointed because somewhere I feel my intelligence has been wasted. What good is it to me or to anyone if my life’s labor remains hidden away in some corner of the world? A 10 x 12 room in some hamlet on the East Coast of the United States. I am dying in obscurity. I could have done anything. Still could within reason. I say within reason because certain jobs have an age cap. Air Traffic Controllers are cut-off at 31. Military slots are restricted by age. And yet, here I am. Alone with my thoughts. When does potential stop being potential? Is there an expiration date?