Thanatopsis: Essays on Death (and Life by Association) [Mature Content]

[Dr Greenthumb Granger]

They call it sliding because that's what you do, you slide, but not quick like a water park ride that shoots you down and spits you out into chlorinated pools. No, this kind of slide is more lazy river slow, slow the way you'd like to imagine it was back when you were born, when you drifted down the birth canal except here there's no violent noise, no glaring lights in your face and doctors smacking and probing you for signs of life when you hit the other side. Here on yola all you have to do is slide deeper into a dark pool of you.

You're the whole world. There's nothing but space and you but you're warm, so warm, it feels like you're wrapped up and cocooned in violet-velvet petals, the black-purple leaves with their wide veins wafting sweetly below you. Maybe they're singing a song without sound to you. It's a little different for everyone.

I heard bells the first time. Heard's not the right way to describe it. I was inside the bells, every one of them, tiny as they were. I rolled endlessly around inside. They were spherical bells, suzu bells, and the metal felt as cool and refreshing as the word's meant to sound tripping off your tongue.

There is nothing and everything. You drop further and further away from the space where your eyelids have closed. Maybe your eyes aren't closed at all but it feels that way. I knew a guy; one time when he was sliding he made the mistake of leaving his fifth story apartment window open. He made the mistake of sliding and being human. Humans aren't meant to fall out of apartment buildings and live to tell the tale. But, that's the price you pay for a few hours of perfect harmony.

That's a lie, really, there's nothing all that perfect about it. Not after the first time.

You can never slide so far, so swiftly at a soothing pace, ever again. You'll try and you'll fail. But you won't stop trying until you're dead. And you'll be sad when you're dead because you imagined dying would be like that first time you tipped the needle against your skin.

The sickest part, in my opinion for what little it's worth, is that you will do all these things being fully aware that staying on this path will always drop you off a cliff. You'll do it regardless because something that's happened along this way we call living has pushed you on a quest even more obsessive than sliding. To feel numb, to escape and to dive away from everything and everyone in the world that's ever hurt you. It's next to impossible to ignore that need.

But Gigi, you say, how can you know these things and live to tell the tale (unlike that poor bastard who learned too late to close his apartment window first)? It's got nothing to do with morals or seeing whatever light you believe in. I stopped because I'm greedy. You can't make money if you're using all your product. Quitting was just good old fashioned business sense. My father would be proud.

That doesn't mean I don't think about it every day. It's like having an itch in that space between your shoulder blades, halfway down your spine, and no backscratcher in sight. I spend so many minutes of my life actively deciding not to grab every last thick ounce of that black pudding in my greenhouse and shoot it into the first vein I can find. If it weren't for greed and vengeance I'd be slumped over a toilet somewhere, bloated and dead. How d'ya like them deadly sins now?

So Gigi, you respond, how can you sell something you know is so awful to people's sons, daughters, mothers, fathers, uncles, aunts, cousins, husbands, wives, mistresses, third cousins twice removed and so on down the ties that bind? You've seen junkies willing to mug their own grandmothers for enough cash to buy them one more ounce. How do you sleep at night when you're peddling death one injection at a time?

I can sleep because I know it's not such a cut and dry issue. Sorry if it sounds cliche but it's entirely gray. I won't condemn someone who wants to disappear. It's their choice, their right. If I stopped selling it they'd get it from someone else. Maybe they'd get it from someone more willing to screw with the quality and dilute it to make more money with greater quantity. It doesn't matter. You can't condemn them without knowing what it feels like to burn for something so badly, whatever that something is.

Maybe it's not right but the only person who'll ever be able to convince me to stop is me. And I'm a stubborn bitch.


((Originally posted Dec 4, 2010))

[Dr Greenthumb Granger]

People generally have such a narrow view of death and dying. I'm not even talking about how we're all dying a little every day (if you're not immortal anyway). I mean death is a helluva lot more subjective than that.

It goes beyond all the physical ways of dying -- death by water, death by fire, by gun, by knife, poison and pestilence, strangulation and decapitation, disease and disaster -- the list is long but not complete. The death of dreams and of the spirit is a far worse fate to suffer. The body only lasts so long but what good is it to have one when you're unable to do all the things you know you're capable of, the things you'd happily strive and sweat for if given half the chance?

The Jenli monks, they teach that Buddha said: "Everything is changeable, everything appears and disappears; there is no blissful peace until one passes beyond the agony of life and death."

Beyond the agony of life and death...

I have to hope that my brother Teddy's in that peaceful place now. I wish he were still here more than anything else but I can see now that even alive in those last few years my father had already started killing all those things that qualified a true life for Teddy. His aspirations weren't the right ones. He wanted to teach literature, to spend his days opening young minds to new ideas contained within texts from all over the multiverse so that they might one day know what path belonged to them. My father sucked all that was good and beautiful about Teddy one disappointed frown, one condescending comment, and one angry reproach at a time until there was little left. Then when he had the obedient son he wanted those fields my father loves so much claimed Teddy for their own. And in turn I found a very different path laid out beneath my feet that repelled me away from the family as fast as I could run down it.

Teddy's light was being extinguished long before the accident. I don't know if I can ever reach that blissful place after witnessing that most ultimate of cruelties but I can pray that he has. He had nothing left to lose.


((Originally posted Dec 27, 2010))

[Dr Greenthumb Granger]

Blood's an awesome thing. When I say "awesome," I mean the more biblical definition. I mean awesome the way you talk about a God who inspires wonder, awe and terror all within the same acceptance of his existence - neither good nor bad but everything in between.

In its vital nature blood conjures up all sorts of beliefs and significance. It's the kind of magic you don't want to f**k with if you know what's good for you. Even vampires who don't bleed themselves can't function in a world without it.

I understand why we put so much stock in blood but more often than not it drives me up the motherf**king wall. The man who pumped his blood into my veins is the person I despise the most in this universe while a man like Kado, who shares not a single drop with me, will always feel like my father even when we're so many miles apart. But even I can't fully sever those blood ties no matter how much I want to, and believe me, I've tried.

"Fully," for those keeping track, is the key adverb in that sentence.

I miss Kado so much despite the fact that I saw him a few weeks ago before I left Jenli. Holy sh*t was that last trip a disaster. Not the seeing Kado at his monastery part but the rest of it. Kentaro. Talk about f**king blood on my hands.

S**t, where was I? Kado. He?d tease me about how disjointed my thoughts are these days. And for being so angry, which really should be the last two ways to respond to either of those conditions but that's Kado. "Kagami, if you fill up with any more steam you will blow worse than a yak with bad gas."I would laugh too despite myself. It's hard not to feel more relaxed around Kado. The man's a Jenlian Quaalude.

Kagami. It means mirror. It's what Kado calls me, although sometimes he reminds me I'm more of a broken mirror. He says part of what unnerves so many people who circle around me is that I force them to see themselves. I'm some monstrous mix of fun-house and talking mirror. "The tongue, like a sharp knife, kills without drawing blood, Kagami." People are wrong to think I'm dangerous if I carry around my switchblade or my knuckles. The danger isn't that I'll stick you, it's that I'll see you, and in seeing comes saying and then you'll see the same.

Kado is definitely on my mind, the monk has my inner monologue thinking in f**king tongue-twisters for Christ's sake.

But the more I think about what went down with Ollie, the more I'm reminded about mirrors. It's no secret I can be cruel, there's a certain compassionate light that flickered out the day Teddy died, but I think I've always been a mirror. It's more obvious now because I don't bother to round out my words, temper them for the situation, honesty with empathy, but even before my brother died I could get under people's skin. My family took it better back then because, and it's so hard to remember this part of me now, but I could be sweet once upon a time too. That sounds ridiculous doesn't it? But I think it's true. Who knows though, maybe one pill too many will make you remember things that never were.

I've gotten over the need to justify my actions to people. That happens when everyone's ready to stick you in the box they've got labeled for you to tuck you away in the attic. Every family needs a villain. You get used to it. But what happened with Ollie is that he looked in the mirror. He was condescending to Cally and throttling Correy on the bar. So sue me, I enjoyed forcing him to stay and confront it instead of letting him leave and cool off. Maybe he would have apologized later but that's not the point.

It's easy to deny your ugly parts but we all have them. It's the people who lie to themselves and make excuses that need to see. This isn't about me being proud of throwing down with my cousin. I hate that I probably hurt Lola, Jon and Cor with that scene. I know family's a big deal to them. But you can't know yourself without knowing all the parts of yourself, both good and bad, the entire awesome spectacle that is you.

My ugly part is that I liked seeing Ollie snap. It made me feel powerful. I pushed him as hard as I could and he broke. He swung at me like Junior used to hit him. He said it, not me.

The part that no one will ever understand is that for the first time in as long as I can remember I felt closer to Ollie. I caught a glimpse of who he was and what brought him to this time and place as he is. I felt like maybe one day I could actually know him as something other than a link in my life I would have never chosen for myself.

((Originally posted on February 9, 2011))

[Dr Greenthumb Granger]

"Pour out thy wrath upon the nations that know Thee not, and upon kingdoms that did not call out Thy name, for they have consumed Jacob and laid waste his habitation."

I've been thinking about this psalm the last few days, mainly because I dropped by the good Rabbi Yitzraig's last week when he was preparing for Passover. I like the Rebbe because he's spiritual and a stoner. It's a perk of the job I guess, how many people with such varying beliefs will talk to me, if only for long enough for me to hook them up with what they need. My stoners are the easiest to shoot the sh*t with; they're not like my slider babies. Poor things, sliders can't help it if they want to smile and shank me at the same time if it means shoving that yola into them that much faster. They're wired for it. Doesn't mean I let them and it sure as sh*t doesn't mean I'm not above bashing in their skulls if they're too far gone but I know it's not personal. Nothing in this game is personal except the demons that drive us all to this same point in time.

F**k, there I go, waxing off without any nearby pothead to blame it on. Where was I? The Rebbe and the wrath. He was showing me the new Haggadahs his wife wanted to use at their Seder this year. The big difference was instead of kicking it old school and reading the whole 'pour out thy wrath' section, which happens to be one of the better sections in my opinion, the new book had it rewritten as "pour out thy love upon the nations that knew you." What the f**k?

I hate all this soft heart bulls**t. I rip up too many ethical lines to ever pretend that I'm religious but I have a spiritual interest in the world. I don't know if I will ever understand it all but sometimes it's nice to think there's something bigger at play and maybe if the day does come for me to be judged, well f**k it, I'll make my case and let the chips fall where they may. So I don't make this commentary as a devout religious worshipper but as a third party observer. I get that there's this theme of Passover about taking in anyone who wants to be part of your Seder and welcoming them. Go ahead, love all you want. But let's not forget all the wrongs that happened to you to teach you that kind of empathy.

Sometimes, you've got to flex some muscle to make people believe. The good Lord, or Lady, or Lords AND Ladies, whatever higher powers you want to pick, can't be any different. Take what happened in Egypt. Why wouldn't a being that powerful take out Pharaoh in one shot? He could have. He didn't need Moses to do it. And yet over and over again just when things were looking like good old Ramses had gotten the point his heart would harden and he wouldn't let Moses' people go.

That kind of brilliant mastermind is someone I'd pray to any day. He put on a show, continuing to harden Ramses' heart to justify further displays of his awesome (yes, there's that word again) powers, not only to teach Pharaoh a lesson but to hammer the point home to the Israelites.

YOU DO NOT WANT TO F**KING CROSS ME.

Ten plagues, dead firstborns, an army of Egyptian carcasses floating in the Red Sea, and forty years of wandering for not keeping faith later, the point got made.

"Pour out Thy rage upon them, and let Thy fury overtake them. Pursue them in anger and destroy them, from under the heavens of the LORD."

So do I feel bad about what happened to Susie Trevor? Not really, no. If anything I wish I could have made more of a public display out of her. I would have strung her up naked by her heels in the Marketplace with those big brown eyes she used to stare at Jon's image so obsessively stabbed out if it'd been prudent to do so. It'd be a helluva lot more effective than politely asking people to please leave the worthwhile members of my family alone.

Then again, I never got all the details about why Elias needed her alive... Perhaps my demented cousin's gone above and beyond the call of deities.

((Originally posted on May 2, 2011))