Have You Ever Paid the Ferryman?

Over the months, the marriage continued to spiral downwards splashing into angry pits of emotional venom and anguish. The core of me was becoming ineffably wounded and all I could do was pray for help. I valued times of aloneness to find some respite, and on one of those evenings, I was sitting alone on the couch and switched on the TV. Something bizarre captured my attention and I leaned forward in the darkness, stretching to see more.

There I could make out a group of irreverent artists, naked and painted, parading around in a mock ceremony wearing Avant-guard headdresses, tribal fusion jewelry, and banging on homemade instruments. I couldn’t figure out what I was seeing, or even what channel it was on, but I couldn’t resist the temptation to keep watching.

I sat stunned and a bit unnerved at the audacity of them. ‘Why do they think they can do that?!,’ I cringed. ‘They’re too old to be behaving like that.’  I kept watching trying to comprehend why they thought they had permission to behave that way. I was also trying to reconcile in my mind that I was disapproving of it and thirsting for it at the same time. My gut broke through my thoughts as I stared endlessly into what I was seeing, ‘My tribe,’ I said, with an energy like that of a child pointing with familiarity, ‘My tribe.’

After that evening, the scarring fights in my marriage only got worse, and l was starting to feel real damage to my brain and nervous system. I’d hold my head with hysterical blindness screaming from the inside for release. I had no context for the depth of the emotional pain, no reference or road map, and no one to reach for.

Night after night, I would continue to call out to God for help. I would call and call, begging for mercy, for salvation, for transport, for release, for anything…that would make it stop until I was too exhausted to call anymore. None of the counselling, books, tapes, homework, advice…nothing…was working. I was stuck in a brain too wounded, too exhausted, and too fried to think, but I still found the strength to pray.

And then one night, an image appeared in my mind with the same kind of essence as the one so many months before. Just before I fell asleep, it emerged out of the blackness, a bony, fleshless hand, fashioning a bone. I was taken off guard and shook my head for it to disappear, but it would return on its own time like a phantom, luring me with more detail as I waited on the edge of sleep. Its embryonic fleshless fingers eventually revealed a hand, then later a wrist, then later a forearm until finally I breathed one last conscious breath before hearing myself say, ‘He is fashioning my shin bone.?,’ as both a question and a fact. A wave of intimate belonging humbled me, and I whispered, ‘He is a sculptor.’ and fell asleep.

As I continued to work through the separation of the marriage, I couldn’t stop ruminating. I decided it might help to take on simple volunteer work outside of my day job to keep me occupied in the evenings and keep the ruminating at bay. I also surmised that it would put me around likeable people and give me some sense of normalcy again.

Before long, I was volunteering for my small town’s first film festival, tasked with finding suitable workshop instructors for festival attendees. While I was a work one day, a film magazine caught my eye, and as thumbed through it, I was drawn to an article about the nuances of film editing. As I read it, I could feel the words with my fingers almost as if I had been the one to type them. I followed the article along to the end where there was a small black and white photo of a peculiar man in the shadows, editing. I held the magazine closer to peer into the ghost-like photo until I could see more detail, and then with a soft grin I said, ‘You’ve arrived.’

With the festival only a few months away, I got to organizing a way for him to serve as an instructor. I never even considered that he would refuse my request because I knew he wouldn’t. And even though he admitted feeling hesitation at my “out of the blue” email, he told me he surprised even himself that he agreed to it. “I rarely drive out the city,” he said, “Everything I need is here.”

And with that, the deal was done.

In the weeks leading up to his arrival, our written exchanges grew sweet with a succulent allure, tempting us into a communication style that had a gravity of its own. The momentum of our encounter was building, and I was eager to make his acquaintance. On the morning of the festival, I hurried around making sure the sign-in tables all had programs and pens, and fumbled through pages and name tags, rearranging things until I felt satisfied.

I was just catching my breath when I suddenly felt an urge to leave. I broke abruptly from the rest of the group and headed out with a start walking determinedly towards something but not knowing what. I moved decidedly, like a commander leading an army, and marched to the precipice of a large hill covered in tall brown grass. The force of the wind turned my beautiful, thick hair into little whips thrashing against my face and then something caused me to turn.

There in the distance, I could see the editor, yet I’d never met him in-person. I watched him as he drove towards me slowly up the winding path where I stood steadfast with my hand shielding my eyes. I strained to see him as he emerged, hearing gravel crunching beneath his boots. He stood with his back to me, crouched over in the middle of the grassy lot, shielding himself from the wind as he lit a cigarette. “Turn to me,” I said under my breath and watched as he slowly started to look over his shoulder. My heart leapt and I called out to him watching him search the embankment to find me. When he saw me, he called back with a sort of feigned bewilderment, “How did you know it was me?”

‘Because I summoned you.’ I thought.

I started down the hill to greet him running breathlessly against the fierce winds, descending feverishly as I swept the hair from my face. I stood wavering before him feeling all the muscles of my face surrender. I breathed in deeply with my eyes closed and then, looking up into his face, I searched for him in his eyes and said, “I’m so happy I can see you.”  He looked back at me with dominion, holding his ground, and keeping me in my place. I stammered and tried again saying, “I-I-I mean…I’m so happy to see you.”

He looked back at me calmly, reaching up to gently scratch his ear lobe while cocking his head to one side. I led him across the fields to where he would be teaching, inviting him into the delicately lit wine cellars we’d prepared with flickering warm candles on top of big oak barrels, and dainty white fairy lights draped across archways.

No one else was there yet, so the two of us moved around inside alone, gently feeling our way through the cool cavernous space to familiarize ourselves with where we were. We floated silently, like dancing seahorses, sometimes turning to one another, arms down by our sides, to take one another in. In these moments of silent encounter, we’d wait; waiting for the moment to solidify and then pass.

We made our way through the weekend, sometimes crossing each other’s paths and sometimes not, but always knowing where the other one was. When the festival ended, I didn’t want him to leave. My heart sunk and my head followed like a little girl who had lost her favorite doll. I wished for him to come back and take me with him.

In the ensuing weeks, we stayed in touch by email spinning an intimate web of language through cryptic poems and elegant haikus. Our invitation to one another was never rushed and the lyrical potion we concocted satiated our private presence and moments of escape. We developed a taste for one another, meeting through our keyboards, and navigating our impulses for wanting more.

In time, I would need his tutelage for a film project, and he agreed. I would soon be going to his home.

My anticipation grew as the day I would visit him approached. When it arrived, I was out of my mind with nervousness. I rushed around frantically trying to hold it all together until I found myself out on the highway, wild with excitement. I soared over the vast open roads like my wheels didn’t touch the ground letting out high-spirited laughs contrasted with sudden surges of dread, clambering to find something on the radio to appease me.

An hour had passed yet I had no recollection of where I’d begun. Just then, nervous tremors seized my insides and my heart quickened as I saw the great suspension bridge in the distance. I turned off the radio and tightly gripped the wheel bracing myself in the presence of the huge metaphorical drawbridge stretching for miles across the great rivers leading into the city.

I slowed the car down dramatically as I approached the massive steel buttresses waiting for me like the gaping jaws of a rampant lion. I was dizzy with the enormity of it all and suddenly tried to find a way to turn back and call the whole thing off. I grabbed my phone and as I was telling my would-be teacher I couldn’t do it, he sounded frustrated and annoyed, and asked if I’d reconsider if he guided me across.

I agreed and he calmly and powerfully led me back suggesting what I might be seeing out the window and helping me to prepare for what was to come. He energetically held my hand as I made my entry onto the bridge. I gasped at the sound of rumbling cars and trucks banging onto the causeway beneath me. My hands were clammy, and my heart started racing as I braved the massive incline. I struggled to fight back my phobia of wide-open spaces and heights as I continued climbing hundreds of feet above the great rivers thrashing below.