November 6, 2009

I thought about wearing my uniform to the Halloween party at church this year.  I can feel the many buttons as I don the uniform - on the pants, maybe five; and on the shirt, another five or six, the many pockets.  I could feel tucking the pants into the boot, and lacing them to just the right tightness.  I could feel the hat pulled over my hair, and the curve of the bill over my eyes.  Shaded away.  My self layered down, a bit away from reality in a world…separated.  Joining the warriors.  We live in the shadows and know what to do when killing occurs.  We know how to kill.  We know how to save.  We know how to run, walk, high-crawl, low-crawl on our bellies through our worst fears.  We live isolated with slivers of connections in a look exchanged with another warrior.  No words, just the look, for we cannot tell another with words where we have truly been.  We simply say, “yes, I have been there, too.”  Many fear hell, but we don’t for we have been there, and a piece of it still exists inside the warrior’s mind.  I can slip so easily away.  I know if I wore that uniform to the party that I would be away from the well-lit social hall echoing with children’s laughter.  I would be elsewhere, low-crawling in the dark.  I clutch and grasp at the rest of the world at times trying to hold on to my own mind.  My own semblance of mental health ever fragile.  I hold on to the leaves changing, colorful cothes, a cup of coffee in a mug.  Here was not there in my war.  I can’t wear the uniform anymore.  It is not a costume, and if I go then I do not know if I will make it back.  I do not know if I will rejoin the laughter and joys of the social hall.  I joined as much as I could, with a thin veil held tight against the lights and laughter.  One step removed by playing a role so that I could be a part instead of apart.  Because I do not know if I could rejoin if I entered in my uniform.  It would be like, well, coming in with both guns blazing.  He entered and killed, just as warriors can.  He went into the other state of being, but he was not away - he was here among the way of here.  I know how that can happen.  I know the fragility, and seek to be here - to keep from away.  I will not button those buttons or tighten those laces around my heart again.  

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