The vampires of January may bestow the appearance of death over the earth, but it is really just an induced coma. Beneath the anemic white skin of winter, summer’s soul is healing. Sip by sip, perfect crystal snowflakes nurture perfect sleeping cells. White feeds green and ice bleeds steam until death itself dies and spring reanimates the land. I love the healing season. It's like having the theater to yourself after the play has run and the audience is gone. There is a calm, a stresslessness (14 letters in that word and half of them sigh in contentment -- “sssssss”), in which nothing can go wrong. Rainbows recoup in white silence. Swift winds bear bad memories howling through the trees to dump them over the horizon so that flashbacks distill only cherishable moments.
But winter’s theater hasn't been quite so empty this year. Since mid-November Elm Creek's 2.5 K of man-made snow has been a festival of hundreds of skiers, tubers and boarders who thrive on close contact. It’s pleasant to feed off the cries on a sledding hill or mingle with the murmur of a crowd sipping hot chocolate in a chalet. Still, I need to whittle the ratio down a little. That’s because my passion is for exhilarating outings in serene vistas, perhaps shared with a single person. So I'll be heading west again this year to skinny ski through the mountains of Montana, Idaho and Oregon.
Meanwhile, I'm most grateful for the many questions that have come in since my Q&A column in November over on StorytellersUnplugged. I know I've been ducking that a little, but you've raised the ante on me for soul-searching answers. Over half the questions were like these: [Englewood, FL] "…I am most interested in more details about that ‘almost found that single star to steer my (your) ship’ you described ?" and [Hampstead, MD] "…you speak in mysteries and wonderments that leave me wondering now what did he mean and what happened that he changed his mind and wonder wonder wonder. What single star did you find to steer your ship? Or what happened to cause you to say when irony has the upper hand the less likely you will be to find a true companion for the journey." Daunting questions, to say the least. But it's Valentines month, and a leap year, so my answer is this:
When it comes to love, I’ve gone to waste all my life. At least that’s what I thought. The waste was sorta voluntary, because I never expected to meet my fantasy soulmate (ha ha ha ha). Srsly. It was even more unlikely because I never went looking. Formally. Ms. Soulmate would have to turn up in my environment somehow. The thing of it is, when you rule out flesh and blood fulfillment of your dreams, it becomes safe to think free and live true to the highest romantic ideals of your heart, mind and soul. You can fantasize a relationship that is virtual romantic perfection. Which is what I did. Only I should have known better than to tempt the gods of irony. Because that’s when they dropped the biggest improbability of all into my improbable life. Blindsided doesn’t cover it. She wasn’t anywhere where it should’ve happened, and we were impossible, and I wasn’t going to do anything about it anyway. But she walked into my blueprint for romantic perfection as if she had a script and had been practicing all her life for the role. Not just fantasy perfection for all the senses – anyone’s senses – but of the heart, mind, soul in a rare way that made us a matched set…and I might have resisted even that, except that her values were totally contrary to what her looks and charms could’ve gotten her. She was as counterintuitive as I am. She defied all the rules of procedure, which was my final gatekeeper. No games. No gender dynamics. She had the courage and the depth of love to tell me and make it happen. How could I not love her for that alone? Not that it was rushed. She had known for years she told me, and yet she waited patiently while our minds met before our souls touched before our hearts melted before our bodies merged. And all of this was like lightning igniting words and deeds out of every part of me I’d held back in life just so that I could give it to one transcendent person – to her. I was like a little boy opening his hot little hand for the first time to offer up a shiny treasure he has hoarded because it is the essence of what he feels to the core. And she took it. Trembling. We were both trembling. Thereafter, inspiration, motivation and imagination went into overdrive far beyond the sweet sting of passion between us. … Yeah, yeah, I know, it's an old story. But it's not like I don't know the drill of successfully evading heart/mind/soul commitment. Given the improbabilities of my life, I use the word “unique” advisedly. This was unique. And tangled. Hollywood pales. And the gods of irony are still having their fun in a most unbelievable way. Like I said previously, it only takes one star to steer a ship, if it’s the right star. But even our galaxies collided – one of the first gifts she gave me was a picture of colliding galaxies along with the CD of Howie Day’s “You and I Collide” – only, like most galaxies, hers had a black hole in the center that gobbles up stars. … So that was probably the last chance for me to be domesticated. Somewhere along the line the balance tips between avoiding loneliness and preserving romantic ideals. The perfect equilibrium between being tamed and my unconventional life is likely gone. Still, never say never. Because if you do, those same gods of irony will take that as a challenge. So, place your bets, kind readers – all you who have penetrated my abstractions from golden fields to white feathers – before we spin the wheel that spins the galaxy and sends the silver ball -- silver soul -- soaring round its cosmic carousel. Yes? No? Permit me the arrogance to weigh in with an opinion, though I've never won a single dream. It will be neither Yes nor No. Place all your chips on the one sure bet. That whatever happens to me next will be…unique.
If you’d like to read the whole column, OF SILVER SOULS AND CAROUSELS, here's the link: http://storytellersunplugged.com/thomassullivan/2012/02/15/thomas-sullivan-of-silver-souls-and-carousels/
Photos below include 4 of Elm Creek skiing, plus 4 Blast-from-the-Past photos of my vampire days to answer a request. That’s Doc Foto’s brother Dennis in 2 of the vampire photobooth shots with me. Which may explain why the evil doctor has dismembered me in the remaining shot. I think he should have captioned it, “My head’s just not in the game tonight.”
January, named for the two-faced god Janus, looks forward and backward at the same time, and February has an extra day this year as if to invite extra life, and on the strength of that I shall march into March, a keystone month for me. I’ll look for you on the trails!
Thomas “Sully” Sullivan
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