Excerpts from A Tiny White Light
Prologue: Family Portrait
”I’m more than a little worried that my leaving the hospital depends on figuring out proverbs. When my therapist, Sam, visits, he asks me to explain the meaning of ‘A rolling stone gathers no moss.’ But is it desirable for stones to be covered with moss or not? The beauty of moss—should I say that if one just rolls through life, always on the move, one is deprived of the beauty derived from sitting still and letting lovely things come to you? But maybe he wants me to think of moss as a kind of fungus, so I picture green furry moss lining my skull. Then I should say that an active life precludes some sort of decay, but I hate that notion, the idea that one should be like a stone, unthinking, unfeeling, busy, busy, going, going, gone. And then what is worth saying about one’s life? The difference between being and doing, it seems to me. A value judgment.”
Chapter 4: Burial in an Apple Box
“It was strange being in Houston [Wisconsin]. Everyone so happy to see us, as if [. . . ] death was just an excuse to visit. People wanting to take our pictures, chatting about their families, being so unfailingly kind, as if I could listen or care, when all I could think about was the horror of what had happened.
We drove past the old pool hall, with its Western facade and peeling paint, where on hot Sunday afternoons, I used to hang out with one or two other teenagers, the main street of Houston bereft of cars, none parked, none passing through. I’d thought I might never make it out—the sticky black tar of the pavement might permanently glue my bare feet to that dead street, melt them down to stumps, and I would stand there forever like a statue, waiting for something to happen.”
Chapter 7: The Mother Hood
“The upside [of motherhood] was the miracle of life, created by me, unfolding in front of me, so that I could almost believe in God. When I really thought about it, just the physical aspects of conception, development, and birth, the sperm with its microscopic plans plunging into an egg that had other plans, the merging into one living cell, floating down a red river and attaching itself to the uterine wall in just the right place, the millionfold division of cells into a predestined shape, the ultimate birth of consciousness, a human being emerging from the inside of another human being, it was truly astounding. The miles of capillaries, an intricate transportation system feeding millions of cells; the mystery of eyesight, an eyeball—a spherical ball of tissue and fluid that can communicate what’s out there; the heart, a perpetual motion machine for perhaps a hundred years—how could it have all happened by chance?”
Chapter 12: Nothing to Do with Anyone
“A thunderous concerto, somehow ominous, played behind the closed doors to Sam’s living room. I sat in Sam’s foyer, imagining him sitting in there, tormented, angry. It felt dangerous to be there, alone with him, so that when he finally appeared, looking pensive, his usual enthusiastic hello replaced by a more serious one, I was giddy with anxiety, and blurted, ‘Some of your neighbors were sitting on their porch steps and saw me arrive. I was so embarrassed.’
When Sam asked why, I told him they were probably thinking, There goes another crazy person. Not saying I felt caught, that I had the feeling there was something illicit about our meeting, unchaperoned, alone together.
‘Why not imagine you’re my supervisee, coming for a consultation?’
I rather stupidly said, ‘I’m not dressed for it.’ Not for that or for the other either—I had made myself uncommonly plain today. A warding off that confused me—did I want him or not?”
Chapter 16: Resurrection
“And now here I am!—feeling separate but boundless, inextricably connected to everything around me, that I am one expression of everything that is. I am happy. So alive! As if I have just been born. As if a shroud has been whisked away from my body, from my feelings and senses, so that everything touches me. The shimmy of light from the window across my skin, a drop of water on my tongue, the notes of a song swirling in my ears—all fill me with a sense of awe. So aware of my feelings—of joy, laughter, anger; so aware of my body—of sexual longings, hunger, touch, as if every nerve in my body has opened up simultaneously like flowers to receive the sunlight, to receive the world.”
Chapter 20: Garden of Eden or the Devil’s First Supper
”I think Jake’s family is not here, but he points them out atop a long hill, clustered around tables aligned under a series of trees, as if even though it is dark, cloudy, they require this added protection from the sun since it is antithetical to their beings. As we walk slowly up the hill, I am filled with a sense of portent—the trees above the family are wild with the wind. So cold and dark here. I must follow Jake, but how can I turn back time and avert this catastrophic moment that threatens all mankind?
Jake’s mother greets us with chicken, wants us to take, eat, in remembrance of . . .
I say, ‘I’m not hungry.’
I do not let the children eat, but instead gather them to me, and say, ‘I’m leaving. It’s too cold here—the children have no jackets, no protection.’
I rush them down the hill, avoiding disaster, the Event, and Jake comes running after us.”
Chapter 24: Return to the Womb, with Emergency Exit
”The knob turns—someone is at the door. I must not be seen. I hold my breath, stand behind the door. A woman enters, gazes around the room, looks at me and raises her eyebrows, but says nothing. She undresses, crawls into bed, places her hands on her chest, and shuts her eyes, does not move. I cannot even see her breathe. She is a living corpse, her face a skull, her arms so thin they are merely bone.
Why is she lying in Sam’s bed? Am I meant to imitate her? Is she demonstrating what to do? The plan: I must pretend to be dead, and then I will be taken from here on a bier, taken to Sam. I crawl under the covers, arrange them so my clothes do not show, only my head protrudes. I, too, place my hands over my heart, pretend I lie in a casket or on my deathbed, do not move, take shallow breaths. Someone is at the door. My eyes are shut. I do not breathe.”
“In the main hall I see a door I have not noticed before: Emergency Exit: Do Not Open, and I think it is my door, only I am to open it. But it is not an emergency, and I am to do the opposite of the signs. I reach out and push the door, will simply walk out to meet him. As I push, there is an ear-shattering buzz, a siren, and I stand back in astonishment. People are running toward me, and someone is yelling, ‘Turn off the buzzer!’”
”Another night passes. It is morning, and Sam finally comes.
He shakes my hand, shakes it again, twice I feel him squeeze, and it is as if he pulls me through time, through the haze, and then we are walking to another room. Inside, the chairs are strangely skewed, as if the room has tipped, pushing the chairs into tight concentric circles around the window, through which the sun shines. We are in the audience of God, Sam and me in an empty room, the halls full of people who cannot follow us, as in my dream. As we sit here, I cannot tell which shines brighter, Sam or the sun, or are they the same, shining on each side of me? I cannot look at him for long—he is too bright.”