{"id":419,"date":"2017-04-28T16:31:06","date_gmt":"2017-04-28T16:31:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/floridareview.cah.ucf.edu\/?post_type=article&p=419"},"modified":"2017-04-28T16:31:06","modified_gmt":"2017-04-28T16:31:06","slug":"enough-sealant-to-pool-the-concavity","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/cah.ucf.edu\/floridareview\/article\/enough-sealant-to-pool-the-concavity\/","title":{"rendered":"Enough Sealant to Pool the Concavity"},"content":{"rendered":"

March 12th<\/sup> <\/strong><\/h4>\n

Most evenings I go for a short walk around the neighborhood, my route always the same. I take a right on 1st<\/sup>, another right on S Street, uphill three blocks to where it Ts with 4th<\/sup>, east two blocks on 4th<\/sup> along the Calvary Cemetery, then back to 1st<\/sup> via U Street. Last night was my first walk since Bree\u2019s death, and I wondered: why such a cemetery-centric route? My route could just as easily rectangle or staircase south towards Reservoir Park, where students from the U play Frisbee and parents admire their kids from playground benches.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Here\u2019s how Wikipedia describes the grid I call home: \u201cFirst surveyed in the 1850s, the Avenues became Salt Lake City\u2019s first neighborhood. Today, the Avenues neighborhood is generally considered younger, more progressive, and somewhat \u2018artsy\u2019 when compared to other neighborhoods. Many young professionals choose to live there due to the culture and easy commute to downtown. It is also one of the most important strongholds of the Democratic political party in Utah.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I used to think about death constantly\u2014that was during my religious teens\u2026 I was going to insert a quotation from the Bible here, something along the lines of \u201cAlways keep in mind your last days, and you will never sin,\u201d but those memories are so distant and the internet is so choked with sin and warnings about sin that even Google\u2019s divine algorithm is powerless to help me find the verse. I saw my classmates doing what teenagers do, and I couldn\u2019t believe they could just ignore the punishment in store. Even if they didn\u2019t believe\u2014wouldn\u2019t they at least be wise enough to acknowledge the chance<\/em> that the fire was real and gamble on the side of avoiding it? As those fears gradually then suddenly receded, as I realized that disbelief could be active rather than passive, I experienced an unexpected side effect: my new certainty that everything would go black when I died alleviated my fear of death rather than intensifying it. There was nothing I could do about its inevitability, so it wasn\u2019t worth thinking about. And at least there was no punishment in store.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Even these brief thoughts risk flashbacks I\u2019d rather avoid\u2014I admit I wouldn\u2019t be recording them if not for my employer-prescribed grief therapist\u2019s insistence. Or that neglecting to do so would suggest that I\u2019ve inadequately grieved my daughter\u2019s death. I keep myself very busy, and I\u2019m not sure that time off work is really going to be beneficial. I haven\u2019t had time just to sit and think in years\u2014and that has suited me fine.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

During my walk yesterday evening, I noticed for the first time the abundance of crack sealant on 4th<\/sup>. The other roads in the Aves are not so heavily sealed (I had to check), making me wonder if 4th<\/sup> is more heavily or less heavily trafficked, better kept up or worse. I took these pictures today.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Some metaphor was nagging my mind, the sealant as intestinal or labyrinthine, but it escaped my articulation until I passed by T street and saw painted on the asphalt what I momentarily mistook for graffiti. Since I couldn\u2019t read it, I found myself tilting my head, then walking around the graffiti so that it would be north of me, thus, said my logic, legible. Strange logic since the Aves reads bottom to top, 1st<\/sup> being the southernmost street, a grid radiating outward from Temple Square.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

What appeared to be ornate black writing highlighted in white turned out simply to be the coincidental crossing of street sealant with the strip of white paint notifying drivers where to stop for the stop sign.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Writing, it occurred to me. The street sealant is just like a type of writing.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I mean, the white line is certainly a type of writing. Although I don\u2019t think I\u2019d ever consciously acknowledged this feature of roads\u2019 communication with drivers, it says \u201cStop here\u201d just the same as the white letters on the red octagon. I looked at the black sealant lines more closely.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The beginning was a mess, a snarl of capital Rs and As and Ys. Then a sort of W or M, a cursive R and the number one. A zero with a slash through it (Greek phi or theta), a T, an A, a P. Trailing off into maybe a Z at the end.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

No, these marks are meaningless flukes. It\u2019s not much like writing. Not like the actual graffiti I discovered on my fence returning home.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

MOST timid tagger in the city. I think I\u2019ll leave it there.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I think my anxiety over starting this journal, of writing something for the first time since a college creative writing class, something that doesn\u2019t have to do with projecting city water supply, must just be causing me to see writing everywhere. Not just the names on tombstones, which\u2014for the first time in all my walks\u2014were those of human beings, not just those dashed dates that were the most different of all the days McNeil or Duddshuh or VanWaggoner called their lives, not just the giant U on the side of the hill that here could stand for University or Utah or Utes\u2026 The power lines themselves seemed to sag and crackle with communication that only my dimness kept me from deciphering.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Today I got a few strange looks for photographing the asphalt, particularly because I have a dumbphone and the only camera I own is a video camera that also takes stills.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

March 13th<\/sup><\/strong><\/h4>\n

Last night, my route was disrupted by the presence of a stranger headed north on U Street. My feet just started following him. Along the eastern edge of the cemetery, I tried to stay far enough back that I wouldn\u2019t arouse suspicion, but close enough that I might get a look at his face when he passed under the streetlights. I wanted a face to paste on my absurd fantasy. There was no reason for my heart to be pounding so hard, for me to feel the thrill of the hunt. He entered a house and was greeted, I saw through the window, by a kitchen-full of twentysomethings holding cans of beer. Hanging back, I wondered what the reaction would be if I knocked on the door, asked if it was an open party. I had never visited this section of the Aves by foot.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

March 14th<\/sup> <\/strong><\/h4>\n

I set out again last night searching the dark streets for Bree\u2019s lover. It\u2019s crude to think this way\u2014my daughter\u2019s death as a liaison\u2014but my mind ignores all pleas of decency.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I know that my chances of encountering Bree\u2019s lover are slim, but it wouldn\u2019t be the most remarkable coincidence this month. I brought along my camera even though I\u2019m not sure if it would work in the dark or what I\u2019d do if it did. My ears were even more alert than my eyes, filtering the night\u2019s noise for a sound that\u2019s familiar even though I can\u2019t remember ever having heard it. Suctionless unstoppering. Metal that\u2019s heavy.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

As I walked by the cemetery on 4th<\/sup>, I noticed a little neon light that someone had used to decorate a loved one\u2019s headstone. It was a meager flare in the night: red to purple to blue to green to yellow to red to purple to green to yellow to red to purple to\u2026 A depressing sort of vigil, and I found myself thinking: if I\u2019m to be remembered thus, I\u2019d rather be forgotten. Regarding my cremated remains, my instructions will be Dump wherever<\/em>. I\u2019ve always liked Zion National Park and could see my ashes borne from the peak of Angel\u2019s Landing. But it\u2019s such a popular destination that there\u2019d be people all around who\u2019d get bummed out. Also\u2014I thought before realizing the thought\u2019s absurdity\u2014I\u2019m afraid of heights.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Above the cemetery, the letter U luminescent on a hillside, blinking: red red red red red red red\u2026 My mind transformed it into \u201cyou.\u201d Zoom out even a miniscule distance (proportional to the cosmos)\u2014the grave\u2019s little light and the bombastic U would be equally invisible.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

March 15th<\/sup> <\/strong><\/h4>\n

I told Rich in our session today that boredom is not helping with the grieving process, and he suggested that I take up a hobby or two. We decided on Nintendo and piano, both of which have been sitting inactive in the house since Bree\u2019s death. I used to play piano, but I never really got into video games. Also, whereas the musical instrument is unchanged since the last time I\u2019d played it (and for two centuries or so before that), the new WiiU system Bree\u2019d brought into the house had evolved into something radically different than the gray console on which I\u2019d last chased a one-up mushroom down a bottomless pit, much to my young daughter\u2019s delight. The hulking controller alone threatened to overwhelm me. It had its own screen, and everywhere I looked there was another button or joystick. The first game I fired up was called ZombiU<\/em>, not quite the type of therapy Rich would approve of, I\u2019d imagine. It took me hours to get past the game\u2019s intro, a weaponless character fleeing zombies through a subway to get to the \u201csafehouse,\u201d following the instructions of voice that identified itself as \u201cPrepper.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The safehouse contains 1) a metal locker where you can stow weapons and ammo and health packs that you pick up on your missions across embattled London, 2) a work table where you can add modifications to your weapons, 3) a computer system that provides you with surveillance of the game\u2019s various districts, 4) a generator you have to refill with fuel every so often, 5) a bed where you regenerate as a new character when you die\u2014I find it\u2019s best not to get too attached to any single character, and 6) a manhole cover you lift off to reveal the entrance to the sewers. ZombiU<\/em> inverts the sewer system into a place of speed and safety, allowing you to warp at loading-speed between the safehouse, Buckingham Palace, Brick Lane Markets, etc. The surface overrun with verminous versions of homo sapiens, the previously proximal space between civilization and its subconscious has become a haven for what traces of humanity remain.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a0\"\"<\/p>\n

<\/h4>\n

March 16th<\/sup> <\/strong><\/h4>\n

The presence on Bree\u2019s desk of this vintage toy:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The goal is to negotiate a ball bearing from the START alcove around a maze of plastic partitions without allowing the ball bearing to fall through holes in the surface that represent a variety of hazards: Haunted Mountains, Black Mountains, Blood Lake, Man Eating Plants, Poison Desert, Tiger Valley, Sargasso Sea, and so on. I spent twenty-three minutes playing it before finally reaching the FINISH. Tucked within that right angle, the ball bearing is away from hazards but doesn\u2019t know what to do with itself. It rests in an infinity of safety and boredom.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

March 17th<\/sup> <\/strong><\/h4>\n

Today Rich asked how my grief documentation is going, and I told him that I have nothing to write about.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

He told me there\u2019s always nothing to write about. I\u2019m not sure how clever he was intending to be.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I\u2019m auguring snarls of tar sealant, I told him. I\u2019m stringing Bree\u2019s status updates on telephone lines. I\u2019m reading everything I can find about the Well of Souls.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Not a natural cave per se, but a chamber beneath the Foundation Stone, where Abraham purportedly attempted to sacrifice Isaac and\/or Ishmael. But cave-like\u2014but inside<\/em>–a chamber further interiorized by the Dome of the Rock. Pierced Stone. Wikipedia: \u201cJewish tradition views it as the spiritual junction of heaven and earth.\u201d I tried curling into a ball in the deepest corner of my unfinished basement, but it isn\u2019t the same.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

March 18th<\/sup><\/strong><\/h4>\n

In an effort to learn how to better use the controller\u2019s touchpad to navigate post-apocalyptic London, I stumbled across a ZombiU <\/em>promo video online that demonstrates the various functions of the touchpad. The hands holding the controller get increasingly twitchy as the three-and-a-half-minute video progresses. The viewer is not sure why. At the video\u2019s conclusion, the arms\u2019 veins and arteries blacken, its flesh molders, and\u2014if that isn\u2019t enough\u2014an off-camera screech testifies the game\u2019s ability to infect those who would dare play it. It\u2019s a clever marketing scheme\u2014and accurate in different ways than I think its creators foresaw.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

March 19th<\/sup> <\/strong><\/h4>\n

Bree\u2019s birthday. I don\u2019t drink very much except tonight. Made the mistake of going on her Facebook page and scrolling through the birthday wishes and her last posts. In my current disbelief system, the continued persistence of her Facebook and Twitter and Instragram and Pinterest pages are the best approximations of a soul and the afterlife that we can attest to. The first step in the science fiction scenario of being able to upload our consciousnesses and live forever.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I unfriended the friends who wished Bree a happy birthday without realizing that she\u2019d plummeted to a lonely death. Now only 21 people like her \u201csuicide\u201d post, down from the initial 42. Police and logic eventually ruled that her death was not suicide. It was an unlucky night, and sometimes you just happen to vague-book right before you die of incredibly natural causes: Wikipedia is heaven when you don\u2019t want to remember anymore. <\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Lo, Google informs me I\u2019ve been quoting Bree quoting Nick Cave. Sweep me away for an hour or five, Wikipedia, you means of discovery and forgetting to which I return again and again. Give me discography, give me Murder Ballads<\/em>, by God give me personal life.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/strong><\/p>\n

March 21st<\/sup><\/strong><\/h4>\n

One infuriating aspect of the ZombiU<\/em> is that, when your character dies and you regenerate as another character with another name and former occupation at the safehouse, you lose all of the resources that were in possession of the character who died. That zombified character\u2019s location is marked with a skull on the sewer map, and if you want your weapons and ammo and health packs back, you have to go to that location\u2014now armed only with a cricket paddle, a handgun with six rounds, and whatever you were wise enough to stow in the safehouse\u2019s locker\u2014and kill the character you\u2019d been trying so hard to keep alive. If you die again before doing so, all those supplies are gone.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Discomforting, what comforts us.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Not only does my bedtime get pushed back further and further each night by my urge to meet just one more of the game\u2019s objectives. Just one more, just one more\u2026 But the game\u2019s content, graphics, and geography are corrupting my daily perception. I begin grafting the face of Arthur, my daughter\u2019s lover, onto the zombies I clobber or shoot or incinerate. I bring a crowbar on my patrol one night. I imagine access to a sonar map of the Avenues in which I am the locus of radiating pings and my daughter\u2019s boyfriend is an elusive red dot. Manholes, too, are marked.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I begin expecting the infected to pop out at me, and I scout for escape routes. I see a section of the fence around the graveyard that has been displaced, and I gauge whether or not it\u2019s enough space for my character to fit through.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I love how the post topples in segments, in super slow motion. The way wrought iron gives way to chain link. The mysterious symbol on the third block from the bottom.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

In ZombiU<\/em>, I would scan this symbol with my gamepad and it would provide me with a clue to a clue to a clue that would lead me to Arthur, my daughter\u2019s lover.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

March 22nd<\/sup><\/strong><\/h4>\n

We are infected\u2014piano has taught me that. Twenty years ago I taught my hands a Chopin mazurka, and these past two weeks my hands have taught it back to me. It\u2019s so strange how much knowledge lives on in us unacknowledged, atavistic\/instinctual or just part of our daily ballet. I reached a level in ZombiU<\/em> called \u201cRon Freedman\u2019s Flat,\u201d which includes a room where you have to pick off zombies that have been lulled to the nepenthe of throbbing bass and black lights. Even though they\u2019re not technically alive anymore, their bodies remember actions they performed during life and respond automatically to stimuli.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I put my wallet in the toaster today.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Trying to memorize the Chopin, my brain will alert me to a difficult series of upcoming measures. I\u2019ll be fine now, fine now, but I\u2019ll feel the approach of chord or ornamental figure that I know will trip me up. And it will trip me up, and I will go back to one of my bookmarked measures and start again. But that chord or figuration is not content to simply remain resistant and rotten; it will spread its clumsy amnesia backward to meet my oncoming fingers. I will greet the dementia a measure earlier than before, rewind again, get tripped up two measures before the first time. More and more of the piece will fall into darkness until I end up admitting forfeit and bringing the sheet music back out so the whole mazurka isn\u2019t engulfed.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I worry that all memory works this way. For example, I\u2019m confident in my general memory of our \u201ctherapeutic\u201d family trip to Zion the year before the divorce, or Bree\u2019s reluctance to move back in with me when she didn\u2019t get accepted anywhere but the U. But then I try to recall something specific from those scenes\u2014the words of a conversation, what we ate for dinner\u2014and my inability to do so taints the whole year of life with such unreliability that I\u2019m left wondering if it ever really happened.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

March 23rd<\/sup>
\n<\/strong><\/h4>\n

This morning I awoke to find the city workers applying sealant to the section of 1st<\/sup> right in front of my house. Behind their truck they pulled a giant orange tank streaked with tar and dirt, and I wondered about the similarity in temperature and consistency of this sealant compared to the tar used in the defense of castles in the Middle Ages. Google: tar or pitch, along with stones, hot sand, molten lead, and boiling water were dropped on enemy soldiers from \u201cMurder Holes,\u201d holes in castle ceilings, barbicans, or passageways. Google: tar is more or less fluid, depending upon its origin and the temperature to which it is exposed. Pitch tends to be more solid.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

My mind moved to treasure seekers combing the beach sand with metal detectors as I observed the workers trace their wands over the asphalt in cryptic glyphs. Wikipedia: \u201cThe simplest form of a metal detector consists of an oscillator producing an alternating current that passes through a coil producing an alternating magnetic field. If a piece of electrically conductive metal is close to the coil, eddy currents will be induced in the metal, and this produces a magnetic field of its own.\u201d No, the discs at the end of the wands were more like the spongy proboscis of houseflies, trailing a line of black blood instead of lapping it up. Google: labella.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The workers chatted about an overly affectionate cat that had disrupted their workday, about the prospect of giving it a black stripe of sealant, about an episode of Pep\u00e9 le Pew remembered from childhood. For half an hour they discussed where they\u2019d eat lunch. One of them was in favor of Whole Foods, the other Wendy\u2019s. After they\u2019d moved on, I stepped outside to examine their work. The newly laid sealant was a blacker black than old sealant but glistened gold in the sun, veining the dull asphalt with light.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

In places, the sealant pooled in shallow potholes like miniature versions of the tar pits that trapped dinosaurs and preserved their bones. Wikipedia: \u201cMost tar pits are not deep enough to actually drown an animal. The cause of death is usually starvation, exhaustion from trying to escape, or exposure to the sun\u2019s heat.\u201d Wikipedia: \u201cOver one million fossils have been found in tar pits around the globe.\u201d Wikipedia: \u201c\u2018The La Brea Tar Pits\u2019 literally means the the tar tar pits.\u201d I was bothered by places where the workers had not dispensed enough sealant to fully pool the concavity. It seemed like they\u2019d missed an opportunity to clear a wound of dirt.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

No, I realized, not clear the dirt. I wanted infection. Containment of today\u2019s irritants, a burying again of the meager portion of planet that sees light and feels the wind. Perfect infection. It seemed unfortunate to me that tire tracks already dirtied the tar in places, an irrevocable and inevitable tarnishing given the tar\u2019s consistency. Wiktionary: \u201ctar\u201d and \u201ctarnish\u201d do not share an etymology. Even if they did, tar can be tarnished\u2014and the more dust that sticks to it, the more it\u2019s pressed down by tires, the more that it\u2019s weathered by sun and snow, the less likely you are to notice it. Unlike the usual tarnishing that stands out as a defect\u2014like a stain on a shirt or a crack in a dish\u2014tar is tarnished into invisibility.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

HOT CRACK SEAL diamond-shaped signs warned drivers, and I had the urge to test the substance. I found it quite cool and pliable.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

My fingerprint held its shape for longer than I cared to watch.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

(Stepping back out an hour later, I was relieved the divot was gone.) As there were many more cracks in the asphalt than the workers could possibly have filigreed, I wondered what their system was for determining that this crack was fine for now while this other needed attention. Rich, what\u2019s yours?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It\u2019s true: at Whole Foods you can accidentally spend like fifteen dollars on a salad.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

March 24th<\/sup> \u00a0<\/strong><\/h4>\n

The cemetery by my house was brought up as an option when Bree\u2019s death forced Gail and me into conversation. She suggested it might be difficult for me to live in such close proximity to Bree\u2019s grave. I thought it was a hilarious suggestion, but I didn\u2019t laugh.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

March 26th<\/sup><\/strong><\/h4>\n

It\u2019s one month since Bree\u2019s death, and I could tell at our session this morning that one month is Rich\u2019s milestone for tiptoeing the concept of forgiveness into the conversation. A difficult homily to a man who walks the streets for hours every night looking for blood. I didn\u2019t respond well at the session, but now I have a moment to consider what makes forgiveness so difficult in this situation. I\u2019ve tried to imagine him (I\u2019ve imagined him a him) generously, someone beaten down by society, someone sick and poor who met the wrong prophets at the wrong time. I imagine him ignorant of his actions\u2019 consequences\u2014or, knowing, bereft. A story of the Aves and the Ave-Nots. I imagine him as Arthur, a tenant I evicted from my Liberty Park rental a few years ago. I\u2019ve had to evict tenants before when they\u2019ve fallen behind on payments, promised they would pay me back if I could just give them more time\u2014but Arthur was the only one who I believed and evicted anyway. It\u2019s a stupid, impossible fantasy, just my attempt to imagine some kind of scenario in which I deserve this misfortune. (I never attempt to fit Bree into this equation of who deserved what.) Once I imagined Arthur\u2019s face on the shadows I screened for, it was locked there and I couldn\u2019t shake it. Recalling his last name, Stenger, I imaged him the timid tagger MOST, signing his name on the wreckage of my household as an elaborate work of revenge art.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

When I imagine forgiveness, I imagine someone kneeling before the one he or she has wronged, a benevolent hand eventually placed on the shoulder or head of the wrongdoer. Rays of sunlight. But forgiveness is especially noxious in my situation because he might not even know he\u2019s wronged me, wronged Bree. He might have experienced none of the setbacks in life that I\u2019ve imagined. Forgiving someone who has not asked\u2014does not even know<\/em> they require forgiveness\u2014someone who might right now be continuing to enact the potential need for forgiveness from any number of strangers… Perhaps the person and the guilt we\u2019re forgiving is always a projection, but in this case what I\u2019d be forgiving would not be an actual human, but something in myself. And, currently: no.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

March 27th<\/sup><\/strong><\/h4>\n

This heart on a telephone pole in my neighborhood:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

What\u2019s the first thought this cheery decoration inspires? The violence of a screw through the heart\u2019s heart. My mind these days.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

March 28th<\/sup><\/strong><\/h4>\n

I haven\u2019t sat down at the computer in my home office for a while, but today I was feeling particularly anxious about Kenneth\u2019s ability to deal with my work responsibilities in addition to his own. Taped above my computer, I saw and remembered, is a printout of the fake email I wrote under a pseudonym that got me in so much trouble, the leaking of which\u2014coinciding with Bree\u2019s death\u2014led to my mandatory leave.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Free speech has its limitations; the most frequently cited example is yelling drought in a desert. Shortage during a shortage. Double sacrifice, career and daughter of Senior Analyst, to mountain gods appeased. It\u2019s barely stopped raining since the funeral.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

March 30th<\/sup><\/strong><\/h4>\n

With nothing else to do, I drove two hours today and visited the Spiral Jetty for the first time in my life. Surrogate brain: \u201cThe sculpture becomes submerged whenever the level of the Great Salt Lake rises above an elevation of 4,195 feet (1,279 m). At the time of Spiral Jetty’s construction, the water level of the lake was unusually low due to drought. Within a few years, the water level returned to a normal level, submerging the jetty for the next three decades. In 2002, the area experienced another drought, lowering the water level in the lake and revealing the jetty for a second time. The jetty remained completely exposed for almost a year. During the spring of 2005, the lake level rose again due to a near-record-setting snowpack in the surrounding mountains, partially submerging the sculpture. In spring 2010, lake levels receded and the sculpture was again walkable and visible. Current conditions fluctuate.\u201d That\u2019s either from Wikipedia or the ether, but I searched current conditions fluctuate<\/em> moments after copying, pasting, navigating back\u2014and the phrase was cut from the entry, edited away by a stranger. Current conditions do not fluctuate, apparently. It\u2019s our confident knowledge that\u2019s suffering a constant erosion.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I walked the length of the Jetty to the center, my sneakers collaborating with its entropy. Back to my car, however, was a straight line.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A young couple Bree\u2019s age pulled into the parking lot with a kayak on top of their car, apparently failing to anticipate how far the lake had receded from its usual shoreline. I call this washed-out photo \u201cThe End of a Relationship.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

It was very sunny.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A couple hundred yards south of the Jetty are the lithic remains of an oilrig from the 1950s.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Oil seeps from the lakebed where the petrified forest of old dock posts juts skyward.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Texture-wise it reminded me of a tree on 1st<\/sup> Avenue, the barky carapace of slow spillover where the trunk takes root at the corner of lifting sidewalk slabs.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The oil, you can play with it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

And, like tree bark, it eats irritants at glacial pace.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

March 31st<\/sup><\/strong><\/h4>\n

Today I added a paragraph to my fake, all-too-real e-mail to SLC residents:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

April 1st<\/sup><\/strong><\/h4>\n

Today I started learning a piano piece just because I like the name, Debussy\u2019s prelude La cath\u00e9drale engloutie <\/em>(The sunken cathedral<\/em>). I\u2019m starting to remember why I had to finally give up trying to relearn the piano years ago. I always told myself starting back in that my life would be enhanced if I could just play, say, that one Chopin mazurka I love so much. But then my usual human affinity with the number three would make me want to learn two more pieces, perhaps become a Chopin expert of sorts. No, I would learn one piece\u2014or three pieces\u2014from all the major movements in old music: baroque, classical, romantic, modern. Pretty soon, one hour of practice a day would become two, three, and I\u2019d again recall that I seem unable to just dabble in piano.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Wikipedia: \u201cThis piece is based on an ancient Breton myth in which a cathedral, submerged underwater off the coast of the Island of Ys, rises up from the sea on clear mornings when the water is transparent. Sounds can be heard of priests chanting, bells chiming, and the organ playing, from across the sea.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I\u2019m also remembering that the more you try to channel passion or sadness or joy from your real life into your performance, the more you tend to botch it. Your mind must be like the driver on a highway whose exit is coming up pretty soon.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

April 2nd<\/sup><\/strong><\/h4>\n

At night I\u2019ve made it a habit of walking on the street rather than on the sidewalk, mainly because so many of my neighbors have motion sensor lamps with the wattage of a prison guard tower spotlight\u2014and\/or hyper dogs who don\u2019t know they live in the Avenues. These streets are quiet at the hours I walk, but I\u2019m always alert for cars, especially since I\u2019ve been dressing in darker and darker clothing in anticipation of meeting Arthur. Tonight\u2014I guess it\u2019s last night technically\u2014I heard the sound of a car approaching me from behind. I stepped aside, but something was different than usual. Then I realized: the car didn\u2019t have its headlights on. Then it did\u2014its red and blue strobes as well. Even as my heart quickened, I reasoned that it probably had nothing to do with me, and I waited for it to pass.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But a cop got out of the car and began to approach me. Backlit, her features were indiscernible to me even as I was blasted with light for her.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cSir, may I speak with you for a moment?\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cIs there a problem, officer?\u201d I delivered my line.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cCan I ask if you have any weapons on you?\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I told her that I had a crowbar, if that counted as a weapon, and I set it down on the pavement. Yes, that is my only weapon. This bag contains a camera. I handed her my camera bag. She unzipped it and gave it a fleeting inspection.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cWhat are you doing out here tonight?\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just out for a walk.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cWhy are you carrying a camera and a crowbar?\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t reply.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

She continued, \u201cThere have been reports of a suspicious man walking around the neighborhood, filming. And we\u2019ve had a problem with theft of sewer covers in Salt Lake City recently, including in this neighborhood. Would you know anything about this?\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Again, I was in possession of such exact answers to her questions that I struggled to articulate them. She seemed to interpret my silence as resistance.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cDo you live in this neighborhood?\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cYes,\u201d I said, \u201cI live on 1st<\/sup> Avenue. The man with the camera is probably me, but I haven\u2019t been shooting video, just taking stills for this project I\u2019m working on.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cProject?\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cThe theft of manholes is why I\u2019m out here. Like the neighborhood watch.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cIt seems that the neighborhood watch is worried about the neighborhood watch.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The sign was disconcerting to me as a kid; I thought the watching-eyed black figure was <\/em>the neighborhood watch, rather than a caricature of the type of man the watch wanted to scare off. (I\u2019d imagined him a man.) I never liked the straight line from the tip of his hat to the small of his back. I never liked how the forbidding red bar obscures any tapering of his midsection, as if his gumshoe hat is the peak of a crooked mountain. His hat spins like a top when he\u2019s excited; I\u2019m not sure why, but it does. I still can\u2019t figure out the slice in the side of his head. If it\u2019s a leering grin, then the letch has an eye at his ear region or a mouth on his cheek. Is that the collar of its trench coat or the jut of a bottom jaw? I guess maybe he\u2019s talking out of the side of his mouth? Psssst\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cWhy do you have a crowbar with you?\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cWhy hasn\u2019t the city installed locking manhole covers?\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d like you to come down to the station with me just so we can clear a few things up. Are the photographs you\u2019ve taken still on this camera?\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t want to get taken down to the station or even sit in the back of her car while she sorted things out.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So I told her.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

April 3rd<\/sup>, 2015<\/strong><\/h4>\n

TAKE SHORTCUT<\/p>\n

X<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Venn overlap of tragedy and comedy. Our cities are pocked with holes\u2014but as we drive through the rainy night, we trust that the covers will be in place. Rather, we don\u2019t even think about it. Maybe tomorrow, but no hole will open in my life today or today or today.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

April 5th<\/sup><\/strong><\/h4>\n

Rich asked me at my session this morning if I think I\u2019m making any progress. I wanted to tell him that the question is stupid and canned. I\u2019m not sure if progress would look like grieving less or grieving more.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But I realized today that I am making progress. Just one month ago I was asking road sealant to form the letters of the Latin alphabet. While I continue to be suspicious that all things visible and invisible are a form of writing, I\u2019m beginning to understand that they speak to us each in their own distinct languages, and that any attempt at augury\u2014inevitably biased and imperfect\u2014requires transcription. Maybe this is what separates artists from the rest of us.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Desperate our clinging to this crust. Fragile our traction. How utterly dictated by coincidence is all life on this planet, even more so the circumstances that impossibly collided to make me this creature here and now rather than someone else some other time, some worm, or continued nothingness\u2014all the possibilities of existence and non-existence in the infinite combinatory of life. So maybe I can stop holding court against one tragic coincidence, zoom out and count the heap of flukes that endow me with the love and sorrow and language to name them. Maybe I can start a new grief journal that grieves my lost daughter instead of myself.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Two dots in time and space wretchedly intersected. That is all.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

And when we\u2019re gone, if we\u2019ve failed at our mission to eradicate life on planet Earth, how long before there are no traces we were ever here? Cosmic time, proportional to our brief tenure.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In my dream I must have gotten a job as a city utilities worker, because I\u2019d taken the liberty of bringing home some equipment. The tar tank had a pull cord and started like an outboard engine. My first line of black tar was reserved for her laptop. I coated the keys, the screen, the speakers, the mouse, the hinge where it closes. I sealed the line between her mattress and headboard, headboard and wall, all along her pillow. You\u2019d need a knife to open her closet and chest of drawers after I\u2019d finished with them. Her alarm clock was no good anymore.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Internet: the Jewish tradition of covering mirrors during the ritual of Shiva is of uncertain origin, one theory being that\u2014since humans are created in the image of God, and since a human\u2019s demise represents a rupture between living human and living God\u2014the image of the Creator itself shrinks with the death of its creatures.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I covered the mirror in Bree\u2019s bedroom\u2014then all the mirrors in the house. The task of containment felt incomplete, and I applied a line of sealant all around her doorframe, my dream-physics causing it to stay put and not drizzle down the face of the door. Following some alterations, my upright piano featured 36 black keys and 52 black keys. My cell phone and camera were encased where they sat. Let the windows be shut upon them.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Still dissatisfied that some therapist or third dot might disturb our hard-fought solitude, I applied a gag and blindfold\u2014so that, should I ever make it back, I would never be able to betray the route to friends or enemies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A multi-media story about grief… and tar.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":462,"template":"","categories":[9,48,49],"tags":[203],"class_list":["post-419","article","type-article","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aquifer","category-fiction","category-literary-features","tag-grief"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nEnough Sealant to Pool the Concavity - The Florida Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/cah.ucf.edu\/floridareview\/article\/enough-sealant-to-pool-the-concavity\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Enough Sealant to Pool the Concavity - The Florida Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A multi-media story about grief... and tar.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/cah.ucf.edu\/floridareview\/article\/enough-sealant-to-pool-the-concavity\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Florida Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/cah.ucf.edu\/floridareview\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/43\/2017\/04\/Sacksteder-head-shot.jpeg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"960\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"641\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"31 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cah.ucf.edu\/floridareview\/article\/enough-sealant-to-pool-the-concavity\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/cah.ucf.edu\/floridareview\/article\/enough-sealant-to-pool-the-concavity\/\",\"name\":\"Enough Sealant to Pool the Concavity - 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