Yom Kippur as Manifest in an Approaching Dorsal Fin (3 page)

us?”

21

Adam Byrn Tritt

He stares at me.

“The answer is yes to both,” I tell him.

“You’re just getting to see it today. Welcome

to Florida. If you plan on hiking instead,

remember, we’re the only state with all four

kinds of venomous snakes.”

He walks off.

I continue my walk. With each step I think

of a person I have wronged. I apologize. With

the next step, I forgive myself as well. I do this until I can think of no more people, but I am

human and I must have hurt more people

than I think simply by the act of living. I apologize, with each step, contemplating the

many ways we hurt each other and never

know it, cannot help it. And, when this is

done, forgive myself.

As I continue to walk, I think of each per-

son I know has hurt me. I forgive them. It no

longer matters. In the span of time, what

could it matter? If they have not admitted

guilt, what does it matter? I forgive them. I

forgive them all. If I have thought badly of

them for the wrong they have done, for this,

even, I apologize and forgive myself.

22

Yom Kippur as Manifest . . .

Why carry guilt? Why carry anger? Why

carry a careless word? Of what use is it in the

span of years? A million years, and how long

am I here? There is a shark in the water.

Ga-te, ga-te, Pāra-ga-te, Pāra-sam-ga-te,

Bodhi svā-hā.
Gone, gone. Beyond gone. Past beyond gone. There is enlightenment.

I start to run. Barefoot I pad the sand

beneath me. Step by step following the mean

line of the surf. If the waves come in further,

I lift my legs higher, pull up my knees, splash

as each sole descends. This varies my running,

changes the muscles used, increases my

activity.

With each footfall, I think of a year of my

life. A year. Each time I pad the sand beneath

me; grains millions of years in creation, mil-

lions in erosion. Each step, a year. I run out

of years quickly, in a matter of half a minute.

I think of my potential lifespan and run them

out in another half minute.

I think then of the people I love and run

them out, each step a year of life. My family,

less than a minute each, like the blink in time

they are, we are. My friends, a minute. I think

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Adam Byrn Tritt

of those I know, enjoy the company of, gone

in minutes, and I do this consecutively but I

know it is all concurrent, all gone, more or

less, in the steps it takes me to run out mine.

I think of those I don’t like. All gone too. No

different. All the same. We are a set of foot-

prints. We wash away.

I wish all people happiness and the root of

happiness. I wish all people freedom from suf-

fering and the root of suffering. Even those I

don’t like. Especially. Now, before I become

invisible among the sands. Now, before I wash

away.

I have run out of people. I have not run out

of beach. I continue, watching the sandpipers

skitter the foamline as I splash and make

impressions which are instantly gone behind

me as the tide washes out. I run and am not

tired. How much further?

I expected to run for a few minutes. I

thought, how long can I run before I need to

turn back? How far can I go before I know I

am half-spent and turn around to run back

or all spent and must walk my way back? But

neither point comes. I run.

24

Yom Kippur as Manifest . . .

I run easily, no pain, barely sweating, my

heart slow, my breathing calm. It was not long

ago I would run five minutes and be exhausted.

I would run and walk and run and walk in

alternate minutes. Now I am easy and feel

free and comfortable, open. How long have I

been running?

I choose a point in the distance, a home

among the many but different in color than

most, and decide to run to that, then turn

around. On the return I can sense no reason

to be heading back but my desire to return to

my writing. Still, I am not tired, not worn,

my breathing slow and full.

I see the salmon-hued building that signals

where I started. There is the boardwalk, invis-

ible behind the sea oats and dunes. I run up

to the ramp and there I stop.

Once to my car, I look at the meter. I have

been gone more than an hour and a quarter

and it flashes at me. I have run for much of

that time. I have run for nearly an hour. It is

not a marathon, but it is an amazement, an

accomplishment, and I have a sudden keen

sense I have not eaten anything today but half

a cup of milk. I am not fasting. I cannot fast.

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Adam Byrn Tritt

It is bad for my health and is, therefore, for-

bidden by Talmudic law. Certain people and

people under certain conditions, according

to the Talmud, may not fast. I have brought

nothing by way of food with me and across

the empty street is a Coldstone.

I get my things from the car, brush off my

feet, put my sandals on, put another quarter

into the meter and walk over. What could

make this day more perfect than adding an

ice cream?

There is a Starbucks, on one side of it and,

on the other, a Bizarro’s Pizza. There used to

be café here Lee and I ate at once; had lunch

with Jeannie, Joseph, and Connor on our first

visit to Melbourne. It left with Frances, or

Wilma, or one of the September storms to

visit in 2004. The building is still empty,

partial.

I walk into Coldstone. It is slightly after

twelve and it feels as though there have been

few customers today. I ask the young lady

behind the counter for plain ice cream with

no fat and no sugar. They have ice cream with

no flavoring; simply the taste of milk, crys-

talized, thick and solid. No sweetener. Why

26

Yom Kippur as Manifest . . .

would milk need sugar? She is happy to oblige

and what size? One cup. A small.

Would you like anything in that? No. Wait,

yes.

Please, if you would, some almonds.

27

Burial

So we buried her,

My brother and I.

After words that did not mean

anything

and time spent staring at the torah,

We buried her.

After a procession to the graveside

down the newly swept path

at the end of which waited

a mound of dirt,

higher than myself.

I thought I should climb up and slide

down on the seat of my pants

as I would have when she first came to

live with us.

I would get dirty, full of thick clay

that she would do her best to wash off

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Adam Byrn Tritt

and end up trying to scrub the freckles

off my knees.

Instead, I buried her.

Standing around the grave

my parents and uncles, aunts, a cousin

or two,

a rabbi I had never met,

my brother with a shovel

and one for me.

I should have climbed the hill

sat on the top

(instead us all being below)

and kicked the dirt in with my heels

buried her with my body

taken home dirt in my clothes

and pores to scrub off later

but, instead, I took the shovel from my

brother

and buried her.

Stabbing at the mound

reducing it bit by bit, biting it away

one day at a time.

The first shovelful fell

30

Burial

making barely a hollow whisper as it

hit the box.

It was a cheap casket of thin pine and

not much inside to absorb the

impact

but an old body

that hadn’t been whole for years

with pieces missing inside and out.

There wasn’t much left but

I buried her.

The first shovelful hit

and dispersed over the box.

Surrounded by the family I had not

seen for years,

people I did not know who had

gathered from all over,

coming together to watch as

I buried her.

Shovel passing shovel

mine and my brother’s

in a crisscrossing pattern

biting at the same mound

reducing it bit by bit

each burying our version of her

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Adam Byrn Tritt

and the rabbi I didn’t know said,

“Let me spell you,”

and I said “No,”

as I dug in with my

shovel,

“I’ll do this.”

Shovel

as my tears dropped into the dirt in my

shovel

and my sweat drenched the handle of my

shovel

and the dirt in the grave under my

shovel

and the box under my

shovel

as I buried her.

My father stood by

my mother stood by

uncles and aunts and cousins I didn’t

know stood by.

My brother sat down

as the rabbi no one knew took his place

and his shovel

to rain soil on my grandmother

32

Burial

until I asked him to stop.

I finished the job myself.

•

We talked later, my brother and I,

about burying my grandmother,

how the sound of falling dirt was a

rhythmic rain,

why no one else seemed to care.

And he apologized for not finishing

the job,

for putting his shovel down to a

stranger

We talked about her burial. “Our first,”

he said, “but not our last.”

Just the first in a long line:

mothers and fathers

uncles, aunts, and cousins—

wives—

and on

until someday

one of us is left to bury the other

and he promised

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Adam Byrn Tritt

if it was me

he would not stop.

34

Funeral,

Expurgated

My wife tells me she cannot believe

what writers have to do. They

must bare their souls, score their

psyches raw and place what is inside, outside,

on paper, in an artistic manner. And we must

make it sound as though it was effortless and

fun.

True enough. That’s the fun part. I think

every writer is an exhibitionist to some degree

and, perhaps, a bit of a masochist. Or martyr.

Or minister. The act of writing, for me, must

be sacred.

It also takes bravery to be a writer. This

observation comes not from me but, again,

from my esteemed helpmate, my goddess

incarnate, she who is the Joy of the Universe

and Queen of Creation: my wife.

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Adam Byrn Tritt

She states she cannot imagine the difficulty

of having scraped the emotion from the soul

and then putting it out in public where the

people will not only read of our own exterior

and interior lives but those of others as well

and then judge how artfully or entertainingly

we have rendered them. How do we not hurt

feelings, bruise hearts, hide that cause which

is private while making public the effects?

How do writers not end up either ineffective,

with a social network intact, or effective and

read but friendless and lonely? How do we

not alienate our families and friends?

Who says we don’t?

I have struggled with this. How much to

say? What to leave out? How does an essay-

ist balance narrative with personal relation-

ships? I have no idea but know I will struggle

with this again and again in essay after essay.

I expose what I need but leave out what does

not move the concept forward, support the

idea, make more clear the conceit and reality

I wish the reader to experience.

But my idea of what needs to be exposed

and what does not may be fully different than

that of the person suffering the exposure. As

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Funeral, Expurgated

a family member or friend is feeling left naked

in the wind while I am thinking I did noth-

ing more than describe his hat.

I am going to be brave now. It’s all I know

to do. I’m sorry.

•

When I die I want to be dropped off a cliff.

Or left in a forest. That would be fine as

well. Throw a party. Say what you will. Cry,

laugh. Recall anything I might have done of

worth. Remember anything I might have

done or said that made you smile. Please for-

get any act or utterance of mine which might

have caused hurt or pain as you’ll know it was

not done of meanness or cruelty, but of the

ignorance we all share as the fallible humans

we are.

Make no marker. If my deeds are of worth,

people will remember them. And the hunt

to find my grave or remains may prove quite

a cottage industry. On the other hand, if I

have left nothing of worth no one will look

for me. If I am not memorable, no marker

will make me so.

37

Adam Byrn Tritt

It is Thursday night. The phone rings twice.

Lee, my wife, answers it. It is late, nearly ten-thirty at night, and seldom does the house