In the sunset years, a man enjoys the company of his muse, Lori.
Lori – A Child of Love
Far beneath the bluff on which my cottage sits, the ocean crashes and tumbles ashore like a restless spirit. I've always been drawn to the sea, not just in my life but in my writings, using the lighthouse as my signature; a beacon shining out periodically. Dawn to dusk, if asked, would be my favorite time to stand here, gazing toward the dependable, if momentary, flash that is Point Arena.
“Mr. Harry...” Calls out a child’s voice; one never too distant from my creative imagination.
“Lori?”
“Yes. Help me with the gate will you, Mr. Harry.”
My home is a grand sight – the redness of its bricks, the yellowness of the light through the kitchen window in the evenings, and the love it shelters inside. Stepping from the grass onto the gravel driveway I tell Lori to push hard. The gate swings wide. The child’s fragile hand finds mine immediately. This sudden feel of joy is almost painful; almost as if the warmth therein takes me back to my own childhood. I was a pirate way back then, going away, my skull and crossbones flying. It was always my very own glad adventure.
“What have you been writing about today, Mr. Harry?” She asks – matter of factly.
Before answering, I think about her question. You see, writing goes beyond the documenting of facts. It goes to who I am and why I do things the way I do. I write to put flesh on my bones.
“Well, let me think, Lori. Today I wrote about a magical Unicorn,” I tell her.
“You did!” She says brightly, understanding that is what I want to hear.
We reach the old bench, like me, rickety with age. I sit where I always sit, in the evening shade under the Cypress tree, itself bent and misshapen. Lori looks up at my face, her curls of hair naturally tight, eyes unnaturally blue, then frowning as she looks at my crossed legs. It's her clear signal. I uncross them, and she sprawls onto my lap, pulling herself upright, tiny hand touching my cheek. Is there another kind of touch that can break your heart this way?
“Does the Unicorn have a name?” She asks.
“Daniel,” I reply
“I like that name, Mr. Harry,” she answers. The distant flash of the lighthouse catches in the cast of her eye.
“I had a brother called Daniel,” she says sadly.
“Had? Lori.”
“He died.” She drops her chin, swinging her legs rhythmically. “He lives out there now...” she says, “...way out there.” Not pointing, just looking.
“Maybe the Unicorn and Daniel are the same?” I urge for comfort's sake.
“Mr. Harry, Unicorns live on the land, you silly bean,” she says, floating the wonder of her smile toward me.
“This Unicorn lives in the ocean, Lori. That is where the Unicorn becomes the Narwhal.”
“It does?”
“Why, certainly.”
Her legs cease their swinging. “I miss him still,” she says, her eyes gazing
There are those who find love, maybe not here by the sea, perhaps in restaurants or inside an office block and these people give each other a ring to kiss. When I was young, I remember a time when all I had to offer anyone was me, shabby most times, dreaming all the time. It's not much, I figured, but when I meet the woman I shall love, she will know; that's what I told myself. Anything to keep my empty heart open, knowing I would one day find her. Perhaps on an Alitalia flight to Rome, or having her hair done in the window of a New York coiffeur, or riding a rickshaw in Rangoon.
.“How long have you missed him, Lori?”
“I think he may have been born centuries before I came alive,” she answers. Her voice is quiet, solemn, and true .
Is she playing a game with me, I wonder. For I, too, have bones out there; bones of my bone and of my flesh. It goes to the pride of what my father was able to accomplish. How he contributed to what I am today. It goes all the way to respecting his hardships and his losses, his never giving in or giving up, his resoluteness to go on and build a life for his family. It goes to the depths of my pride that he fought to make and keep us a family, and it goes to a deeper, a more extensive understanding of what he was doing for me; that I too might be born of loss, but would remember him. How many hopelessly empty graves have I stood before and cried? I've lost count. How many times have I walked up to a grave and felt somehow that below is a lost love? I cannot say. My feeling is one of a man bound to wonder about his father. Maybe I write to put flesh on his bones and make him live again, to tell the family story and to feel that somehow he will know and approve. For me, it is more than a cold gathering of facts – it is breathing his life onto the page, one who has gone before. I am simply the storyteller of the tribe.
“Will you remember me, Mr. Harry?” She asks.
“Of course, Lori. No matter what chilly wind blows, you'll be safe from the storms with me,” I tell her, pulling her in close.
How many of us have a child, grandchild, or a lost child to love? I've been everywhere, seen everything I ever wanted to see. I've been afloat on every ocean. Then one day I saw a light of a woman calling me home, after years lost in cities. And out of the blue, every dream came true , how I would one day fall so madly in love. I mean head over heels, head to toe, slap bang into the magical world of love and all it would be. I've never been so rewarded by anything the way this woman rewarded my love.
“So, you are the one? Still a child. Still waiting,” she says, looking into my eyes that are filling with tears.
I don’t know why it is my mind should bring her back to me; an old man reliving his past, hoping as I was on that long ago day, being a child standing on the harbor wall of Tobermory, and wondering if I would ever learn how to be in love.
“To know love and beauty, Mr. Harry, a man must first reside in its midst. Your words will ensure you always come back to me. Love is accountable, and love is always refreshed.” She says, removing her scarf and wrapping it around my neck, twice, before slipping from my lap. “But now I have to be going."
“Where will you go, Lori?”
“Beyond the shoreline,” Mr. Harry, “following the foghorn's blow, remembering those who have loved me and those I have loved.”
In the overtones, there is a startling maturity in her voice. For a moment, I have a vision of an older Lori; older than a teenager, a woman I once knew and loved. It was in her heart I found the courage to believe in the resilience of life and love, and the confidence to barrel forward. Her love more indestructible than religion. I wondered if she has invented Lori in her absence: someone unbearably full of love, euphoric, and miraculously the way she was?
Together we pull open the gate wide.
“Before you go, why are you called Lori?” I ask. As her voice becomes distant, fading into the golden evening of my imagination, she calls back:
“Why, Mr. Harry, it was you who gave me this name: Love, Ocean, Radiance and Imagination” She answers, her voice faint as a mere idea.
Love, I’ve learned, never wears a mask. It removes any necessity for masquerading or making false assumptions. And when you carry a child in your heart, you are lifted aloft on love.
I turn back toward the cottage, see a yellow glow through the window, and feel the love beyond.
While reading, I kept trying to grasp the location for some reason. The California coast? And then I tried to understand whether this was mere fiction or whether it was "family" nonfiction. In the end, it appeared to be an old man's daydreaming at the end of the day about love lived and lost in the past. All in all, I found the story quite poignant.
It's almost Christmas. Lynn Basil is writing her last book about a secret entrance into the magical doll land of Sha Bebe that she loves so much. Bagannos have taken over the world! Lynn finally meets her dolls in real life. Can she write in a Secret
The familiar lament of dual-career parents raising children is, "I just can't do it all." The Libra Solution provides an alternative - a more satisfying and sustainable work and life approach - to the overwrought modern day norm.
It's almost Christmas. Lynn Basil is writing her last book about a secret entrance into the magical doll land of Sha Bebe that she loves so much. Bagannos have taken over the world! Lynn finally meets her dolls in real life. Can she write in a Secret
