Now, I’m an instant photograph—an undeveloped Polaroid, seeking light to reveal myself. I’m composed of layers of amnesia—retrograde, antegrade. Pieces of who I am or once was diffuse into the painstaking, slow development of images. I’m not really an amnesiac. I, Michelle Kathleen O’Kane, am a Time Traveler. An object.
An object in time travels if and only if the difference between its departure and arrival times, as measured in the surrounding world, does not equal the duration of the journey it undergoes. In this place, the soft grey shawl and my knitting project are on my Anthropologie quilted bed. The book on my nightstand is The Echo of Old Books. My notebook, with its pinkish pages, waits patiently for more words—words I will emote before talking incessantly about myself and everything that used to be my life.
There was a time when everything felt possible. I wrote stories I believed in, and imagined new places and the hope of falling in love.
Memories of sharing meals with people I loved. Mimosas at brunch. Cosmopolitans before dinner. Vintage chardonnay with dinner. I wake up while driving in various cars, and I’m always the driver. Frequently, I’m on the unpopulated northern lanes of Highway 280, approaching the 92 exchange. Aware. While I’m driving, I surround myself with the color-changing hills. I’m humming along with Elvis Costello. Every day I write the book.
Now I drive west, heading toward Half Moon Bay. Always in my own car. Today it’s my blue Ford Ranger, the one I bought after my mother died. I was seventeen. She had only been gone a few months.
I pass the Half Moon Bay Nursery on the north side of 92. I drive through the edges of my town. My ocean, the salt in the air, blue sky, and the sea. White clouds stretch across the sun and water. I realize now how strange I have become.
I haven’t watched a movie with anyone in more than five years. I haven’t laughed with someone in just as long. Sometimes, something on TV or the radio pulls a laugh out of me—a quick, sharp sound. It surprises me. I hardly recognize it as my own.
Time is on my side. Gravity nudges me across cool, damp grass. Behind me, a 5’4” wide trail marks where I’ve rolled down the hill.
I’m jealous of many of the things I see on TV. And Instagram. Landscapes and cities and people at tables with white espresso cups.
“You don’t look back along time but down through it, like water. Sometimes this comes to the surface, sometimes that, sometimes nothing. Nothing goes away.”—Margaret Atwood
I am my world. My spinning world of love and grief and memories. The world of my words. The world of my worlds.
At first, it’s a party. People come over. They bring food and flowers and booze. They clean. They cook. "Hey there, how's everything going with you?" They ask because they truthfully want to know. They carry books and ask you to go on walks. They plan the memorial. They stay by your side on that day of celebration. Like a birthday party, a memorial celebrates a life.
The memorial is the last phase of people gifting you their time. They must get back to their lives. They must get back to the people in their lives. Friends visit only on weekends. The phone rings less. The walks get shorter and scarcer. The carefully wrapped casseroles stop appearing in the kitchen. The flowers start to wilt, dripping their leaves on the tabletop.
How are you doing? The soft voices that ask the caring questions start to evolve in tone, speed, intonation. Topics. Conversations evolve into the talk of life. The lives of the living.
But I can't, I do not return to my life because my life isn't there anymore. And never will be again. My lives. My worlds.
My friends go out for dinners. They take day trips to lakes. My friends eat at home or the home of friends. They return to their worlds. Silence now permeates what used to be our home. My house is now empty of noise because it is now missing my favorite sound. Now nothing seems right.
Now. For whom do I cook? Who do I cook with? How do I comfort others? How do I adjust to a new life without that person's existence? In the beginning—disbelief, shock. A phone that becomes a brick being held in my hand. A brick no longer brings me silly messages from the now-dead person. I start feeling more feelings. These are feelings that slowly start to whisper away. They fade as I acclimate to what's missing from my life. Missing from my life.
Then—then things start seeming kinda normal. I notice that the world is continuing. I cry less. I lol. I listen to a podcast. I eat breakfast. Then—when I'm kinda functioning without that constant feeling of emptiness, loss, grief—that is when the death hits me. I've returned to the normal headspace.
Life goes on. So do I.
I no longer have shock or disbelief to numb me. I no longer have the fresh, bloody cuts to bandage. All I have are what's under the now scarred skin: severed arteries and punctured organs and smokey images. Those things haven't started healing yet—and I know that the deepest cuts never will.
I knit. A scarf for Darlene. A warm beanie for Marc.
I stare at the fuzzy ball of yarn, next to me, on the sofa in my Studio. The soft, warm wool I'm gripping is the only reality I can touch. I’m navigating the unfamiliar terrain of amnesia. I am knitting together a semblance of connection, one stitch at a time.
My memories are scattered. Sometimes they show up as sharp fragments, bloody and jagged, lost pieces of time. Other times, the past grows hazy and slips away when I try to hold on. My mind feels like an abstract painting, and I have no idea who created it.
I walk the uneven streets of Bilbao, alone, my feet pressed into stiff Tivas, the straps biting at my skin.
Pebbles shift under each step, small reminders of all the scattered pieces I carry. Every movement tugs at something old.
The air is dirty, smoky, heavy in my lungs. I see fragments everywhere—bits of things, bits of people. Blood on hot metal. Even the people look raw, as if they’re made of broken pieces. The world outside blurs into the world inside me. Both are scattered, both unfinished.
I am my own small world—love, grief, memories. Words and air. Snowflakes drifting, melting before I can catch them.
At first, it’s a party. People bring food, flowers, and booze. They clean, cook, and ask, wanting to know. Books arrive; walks are suggested. They plan the memorial, stay by your side. Like a birthday party, a memorial celebrates a life.
After the memorial, everything changes. Friends drift back to their own lives, visiting only on weekends. The phone grows quiet. Walks shrink, then stop. No more casseroles, no more foil-wrapped dishes in the fridge. Flowers wilt, water stains the counter. Like snowflakes, like people, flowers disappear.
How are you doing? People still ask, voices soft but quicker now. Their words turn back to errands, to dinners, to the living. I stand just outside, watching, unchanged.
But my life isn’t there to return to. It’s gone. It won’t come back.
Who do I cook for now? Who stands beside me at the stove? How do I comfort anyone? The world feels empty. At first, only shock. Now the phone is cold, silent. No more silly messages. I feel everything, then nothing, as I get used to the empty space. Routine shapes me. Outside, life keeps moving.
Then, somehow, things start to look normal. The world moves on, and I watch it. Something unsettled hangs in the air. I cry less. I laugh, but the hollow stays. I listen to a podcast, eat breakfast, try to fill the emptiness with small routines. This new normal never fits what’s inside me.
Life keeps going, and so do I. I carry loss and whatever strength I have, step by step.
Shock and disbelief have faded away. I’m not numb now. The wounds are hidden, but pain sits underneath. My mind holds onto blurry, aching pictures.
Memories. Trees. Babies. So much beautiful food. Love. Hate. Sadness.
So many memories are fading, breaking down like old photographs from another century. The pictures I used to see so clearly now blur together, shifting from sharp to washed-out black and white.
I know I’ll remember it all again. Each time I reach for a memory, it changes shape. Nothing stays the same. Every visit shifts the scene—old pictures replaced, blurred by new feelings.
My friends go out to dinner. They drive to the lake for the day. They eat at home, or at someone else’s table. They slip back into their own worlds. Mine is just too fucking quiet.
I stand still in front of Guernica. My mind keeps circling back to Bilbao, again and again. Maybe I’m trying to find the memories I lost.
Now, when I look at photos of the Guggenheim Bilbao—whether in my mind or from the times I was really there—I see the building’s soft, flowing lines. I can almost feel the curve, cool and smooth under my hand.
The tragedies of war never fully disappear.
A woman holds a smiling child by a chain-link fence, looking at several grazing horses in a sunlit pasture with trees in the background.
I was born. I saw a few things. I wrote some of it down.
I lived for a little while, as we all do, and I will die, as we all will.
I’m happy that I came out of nonexistence and saw the sun before I go back.
Birthday
came out of the bookstore onto carson by comma coffee. had an old paris review. cost me $5.50. not bad. some paintings by woody guthrie were on the cover. i couldn't read it. i was too crazy.
the guys in the bookshop were laid back and friendly. we'd talked a little. the kid'd been sorting books, pulling them out of boxes. he asked the older one who isadora duncan was. there was an old autobiography. the old guy said he couldnt remember. "she'll know," referring to me. i dont know why he said it, but he was right, so i told them who she was. then i went out and walked. i had to hurry. i had to tell everybody the big news. i felt mad with it.
i stopped outside a restaurant. people were eating on the patio. good a place as any. i had to tell everybody about my baby. to tell the truth, i was kind of dizzy. too much excitement all at once. out of the blue, so to speak. i felt like my whole body was vibrating. sizzling. i was infused with light. i looked at the people. i looked at their plates. i looked at their decanters of wine. they were just stuffing their faces and staring at their phones. i had to wake them before they faded into nothing, there wasnt much time left for them. they were killing themselves with gluten and sulfites. the phones were frying their eyeballs. they sat there talking too much and saying nothing.
well, i was gonna talk and i was gonna say something. i was gonna scream it at them. and just like that i did.
Disaster Girl. Ces't moi. If I recall correctly, I earned that nickname right after I shattered my tibfib during roller derby practice. Tahoe Derby Dames! Anyway.
So. On September 27th I was ordered to go the ER because I was anemic. This was a strange order because I've spent a lot of time with phlebotomists because I have hemochromatosis.
So I went. Had a bunch of scans. Gave blood, got blood. Went back home. And then, 6 hours later, the Parkland ER called me and ordered me to come back because of ACUTE PANCREATITIS. Again.
So then I went back to the Parkland ER. Got admitted. Was not allowed to leave the hospital for 8 more days. Etcetera.
As is common with lengthy hospital stays, I was attached to the bed through my hardworking IV pole. And a built-in bed alarm. Then, on my last couple of days, I was released from the alarm. YAY! I was able to, with IV pole in tow, go the bathroom all by myself.
Of course, on my way back from the bathroom, a wave of vertigo washed over me and I fell down. I crashed to the gross hospital floor—and brought the IV pole with me—yes, the heavy-as-rocks pole landed on me. (Yes, that is what she said.) It was a pretty nasty fall, which I know because of the gigantic bruise on my upper thigh.
Anyhoo. Just another day in Feisty Falls Down world.
A person with light skin and a blue floral tattoo rests their crossed arms on a hospital bed rail, perhaps after frequent medical visits. The scene suggests a medical setting, with small bruises or marks visible on the person's skin.
Here is what is this about. I don’t know what I’m about. Most people ignore me now and I’m not sure why, but I’m pretty sure I don’t want to know why, and even if I knew why, I wouldn’t remember anyway. I’m a handful on my best of days. My best of days happened decades ago. I can hardly live with myself. And I’m not. Nobody is.
Time is something that speeds by on a billion schedules, and patterns its way around the world in an interactive lacy web. Life billows. I get tired easily and right now I’m busy imagining the reality of slitting my wrists. But that sounds like a lot of work and I’m tired.
I’m this tired because I hardly eat. Also, my brain has stopped functioning, which is exhausting. For once, this isn’t on purpose. The soldiers battling in my brain. I haven’t blasted them with shotguns full of vodka and smokey bullets of xanax. I haven’t made it to the store yet. I haven’t made it anywhere at all.
I have a past. Once, I had a mother and a father and a sister. I never knew my sister, but I heard she was a perfect baby. I had a first husband. They’re all dead. Ken’s dead, too. Today, Koko died. I wish I drive by Koko’s woodland home in Woodside, like I did every day when I lived as her neighbor. I want to be driving, in my 4Runner, by her old home, I wish I could see my old home, I wish I could see where my memories were born.
I am overwhelmed, usually because I’m on the floor, and everything is tall. I’m so hungry that when I try to eat I just puke. My throat and my fingers have been on a break. I feel like I’m washing away. I feel like a melting pile of snow. I feel like I should be in the forest, climbing redwood trees. I feel like I need a nap but I can’t sleep. I want to die. I want to live. I want to live a different life. I want to write something good. I want to write it well.
But I don’t know what good is, and things are never well enough for some people. I want to stop dwelling in the comprehensive state of my racing pulse, my speeding heartbeat. My mother’s voice.
I am forty-three. My mother died when she was forty-three. She died right after surgery to remove her brain tumor. The last time I saw her, alive, she was on a gurney, sedated, her long, curly brown hair looking like it was being mulled into a cap. I watched her being pushed, under a blanket, on the gurney, through blue hospital doors, that closed. Quietly. That was the last time I saw my mother breathing. Two days later I saw my mother again. She was in a hospital room, dead. Her bed was against the east facing wall, and there was only one bed in the room.
I learned that there were always a single bed in those rooms—the dead people rooms. Dead people and machines that should be beeping and moving. The machines in those rooms were also dead. I felt so shaken, like when I had stood behind the shuddering glass at the one-hour-photo, where I worked, last year. That was the ’89 earthquake. Everything shook, rolled, dropped, broke. Seventeen seconds of rolling destruction. And invisible force. It was such a quiet, deafening shaking.
Like now. Like inside of me now. Looking at my dead mother. Like now. Me. Standing in a ray of sunlight, on the weirdly soft hospital floor. Always, hospital floors were softly quiet. The wheels of wheelchairs and gurneys were loud. Rolling around, squeaking. Everything was always, it seemed, rolling.
I felt more shaken by how little I felt as I looked at her, sleeping without breathing. She still had that cap on her head. It was the only time I ever saw my mother’s hair look so lifeless. Today, I am alive, technically. I often wonder if my mother and I had brains that weren’t built to work for more than forty-three years.
I want to see flowers. I want to feel warm water. I want to feel waves crashing against my back. I feel stupid. I feel smart. Do I feel smart because I’m so stupid? “Feelings” are supposed to be shown, not told, when writing. I want to feel happy. I want to eat. I want to know. I want my hair to not fall out. I need a break.
I need a brain. I want a break that lasts me the rest of my life and beyond. I don’t want to remember being eight years old with my gymnastic teacher’s hands in my pants. I’ve been working for something since I walk to my 3rd grade classroom, in Eureka, Ca. I walked out the front door of our house on Myrtle Street, turned right and walked five blocks to Lafayette Elementary School, on Park Street.
I want my hair back. I want my life back. I want a sandwich. I want ice-cream. I want to eat without puking into the nearest toilet. I want to sleep. Forever. I want to live. Happily. Indefinitely. I want to hold my newborn son, every one of these days.
I want to be in love and mean it. I want to hide in a lake. I want to hide with fish. I want to write about people who exist, and who are good. Instead I’m swimming fiercely in shallow water. My knees hit rocks. I taste blood.
I remember the metallic, plastic, blasting sound of my typewriter exploding on concrete seconds after I dropped it from the wooden 2nd floor deck, on which I stood. Single black keys with white single letters then scattered around the typewriter, wordless on the grainy grey ground.
I remember brown leaves drifting around my brown typewriter, like ballerinas, floating in the blasted air. I want to see the brown leaves drifting across the scuffled concrete of my patio. I want to look between the brown patio stairs and see the ground. I want to hear the shuffling sound of shoes as people walk on the other side of the fence, unaware of what they’re missing over here.
