Scruffy Green Angel
...A dispatch from bewilderness
Eighteen years ago, I woke up in an ER strapped on a board. A scruffy green angel was looking upside down at me, floating just below the ceiling lights.
Things were beeping, which was great news. It meant someone had survived. The scruffy angel asked me a question. I pointed to my head.
I learned my mind had been trashed by a truck. That sounds like a bad country song, but it was true. My brain broke up with me. Or broke up in me.
I was supposed to keep it together. Pieces of everything that ever happened from anywhere I’d ever been. I can’t. Too, it was supposed to keep me together. It couldn’t.
The world was divided into things I couldn’t say and more things I couldn’t say. That is called aphasia.
A Speech Therapist asked me to point to a teapot, an apple, a plate, a spoon. Sometimes I could. Sometimes I couldn’t. This was called “systemic collapse.”
Imagine a 3-dimensional object shaped like a brain, made of soft plastic pieces that come apart. Sometimes the "brain like" object rotates slowly, sometimes it spins into space.
What I knew flew. What I didn’t know could fill a book. Brutal, helpful, hopeful. So I decided to write a book of sparkling somewhat random things strung like beads on strong string.
The universe could survive without writing, much as it did for the first trillion years before writing was born. But it’s deeper, funnier, wilder, more inventive, vibrant and bravely imagined when you add words.
Fluid, digressive prose that puts itself together in unexpected ways. With juxtapositions so transportingly wrong, you likely won’t find them anywhere else.
P.S. I lost my former agents due to disability (mine) but I’ve got new books for the new agents who may find me or whom I may find. You can help by sharing my stack and recommending it if you have a stack of your own.
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I love reading everything you have to say. It makes sense to me. That’s an indication of some, uh, too many things I’ve experienced in my life, and the resulting scar tissue and damage. But unlike you, there was, nor is, any underlying skill or talent for explaining or expressing such. Not just that, but there is an incredible lyric artistry to your words, that is so unique and just leaves me awed. Something like how I feel when looking at a spectacular photo of the Grand Canyon or other bit of something wondrous. That probably doesn’t make sense to anyone, and I don’t care. It’s what I experience, so therefore it is perfectly fine and valid. Keep us apprised of your book publishing. I will relish reading it. Your writing is of value to many of us that are neuro-odd, neuro-damaged, neuro-traumatized. I’m purely making up terms, but I know you get my drift. What you’ve been through is a terrible tragedy, yet it has created something beautiful that we all need to hear. I say so. We must all keep in mind, and be compassionate about, the fact that our very delicate brains can all too easily be affected by just simple hard knocks of a single fall or event, let alone big physical disasters. You’ve come out the other side as a gift. So sit with that. ❤️
I am in awe of you. Your journey has been frightful, distructive, and yet you have images, words that are beyond speech, speech that rattles and hums!!! Light that is surrounded by darkness and darkness that shines onward!! I am in awe of you and for you. U bring light out of Your darkness.