Page 79 of Life Out of Order

“When did you film this?” I am not sure how I feel about being here.

“Last weekend. I’d been thinking about adding it, that’s why I was there, when I first saw you. I thought it was important to you, somehow, so I got permission and did some image captures before the museum opened on Sunday.” I am grateful for Beck’s gift; I don’t want to explain that I’ve been weeping in this room for three years.

“Thank you.” I mean it, but Beck senses my ambivalence.

“Hey, let me show you something cool. You’re not afraid of heights, are you?”

“No,” I say, tensing up.

“Okay, we’re going to walk up that wall and onto the ceiling. Don’t freak out, remember, I’m moving the room—you aren’t really going anywhere. Ready?” Beck puts her arm through mine, and we step cautiously forward. We reach the gallery wall and it angles away and is under our feet. We walk across the wall and onto the ceiling. I feel dizzy.

The heavy wooden columns hang down like stalactites. The massive old pots and golden screens stay put, no longer held in place by gravity, but magic.

“It’s like dreaming,” I say. “A waking dream.”

“Do you like it?” she asks.

“I do. It makes everything unfamiliar. I feel like a ghost.”

“It’s the room that’s the ghost. The light you’re seeing is already six days old.”

I wonder if Beck sensed my unhappiness when she sat next to me in this room, all those months ago? Outside Beck’s windows, the rain intensifies, and a cold breeze cuts through the heat of Beck’s studio. That’s what was missing, all that time I spent here in this dim gallery, mourning: the outside world. I feel the weight of my sadness shift—it still hangs over me, but I can begin to look forward and imagine my life after Henry’s death.

Out of nowhere comes a voice: “You make my heart sing.” Beck and I stand quiet and still, waiting for more, but nothing comes. Beck reaches over to steady me; even so, I feel seasick when the Ando Gallery disappears and we are standing right side up in reality. Beck whispers, “Look.”

Isadora has turned to face us. Her head tilts quizzically, as though she’s wondering why we were muddling blindly at the other end of the room. “Isadora?” Beck calls. No answer, no movement, and yet I can feel her gaze boring into me. How much does she see or hear, or understand?

“Consciousness?” I ask.

“No. But something less random than usual. I need to figure out what.” Beck sounds apologetic, but eager.

We say our goodbyes and I leave her to it. Outside, the sky is brilliant orange and red in the west, and still oppressively gray above me. When I get home, Alba is making Toll House cookies with Kimy. The house smells like burnt sugar, and the kitchen windows are steamy. “Wild thing,” I sing to Alba, “I think I love you.” She laughs and gives me a cookie that is too hot to eat.

“You’re in a good mood,” Kimy says approvingly.

“I’m a wild thing,” I tell her.

“It’s about time,” Kimy replies. “Here, Alba, let’s wash these dishes.”

“I’ll do it,” I say. I roll up my sleeves, run hot water into the sink, and sing.

A Murmuration

Saturday, April 17, 2010 (Clare is 38, Beck is 34, Alba is 8)

Beck: Clare has invited me to visit her studio. Her house is a pretty, redbrick bungalow with those fancy green Spanish roof tiles and yellow trim. I walk along a side path to the back of the house per her instructions and find a garage-like building that’s been converted into a studio. I knock, and Clare answers the door.

“Come in,” she says. “Watch the steps.”

It’s a bright warm morning, and as I step into the little building the atmosphere darkens and cools abruptly. I can hear an air conditioner running nearby. The first thing I see is a small red lacquered table that holds a black ceramic vase and an unlit candle. I set my purse and my sunglasses next to the vase. I see Clare frown but she doesn’t say anything. I pick up my stuff and put it on the floor.

Clare says, “Hang on, I should turn off some lights before you take another step. Okay. Wait. You don’t have any phobias, do you? No? Good. Close your eyes.” I warily squinch my eyes closed. Clare takes my hot sweaty hand into her cool dry one and leads me across a wood floor in a winding path. We stop. “Okay, Beck. Please look.”

I open my eyes. At first I can’t figure out what I’m seeing. We’re standing in the center of a void, or, wait: We are surrounded by black shapes; the shapes are suspended in the air, they are moving very slightly, like children told to hold still but quivering with laughter; the black shapes are birds, not crows but something smaller. There are hundreds, maybe thousands of them. As my eyes adjust, I see that they are birds in flight: each one is rotating, vibrating with slight air currents, hanging from thin wires; puppets. Clare has a remote control in her hand. She presses a button. A light comes on overhead, and now we seem to be standing in twilight, or the end of twilight just as it becomes night. I hear a motor near the ceiling. The whole flock of birds begins to move around us, very slowly. Each bird is executing the motions of flying, fixed wings beating; the whole mass of blackness swirls around us in slo-mo; we are at the center of a rising vortex that reshapes itself, swarming and undulating. Sounds move around us, birds’ voices piercing, calling, searching. I feel as though I’m standing on a precipice, about to fall. I reach out and Clare grabs my hand. She presses the control; everything slowly halts.

“Wow,” I say, and then I don’t say anything because I don’t have words for what I’m feeling.

“Come sit over here,” Clare says. She leads me out of the room into a small office area with huge windows and a paisley covered sofa and a drawing table, and all sorts of interesting piles of fabric, paper, felt, dried plants, jars of pigment and other things that remind me of a chemistry lab or a witch’s kitchen. It smells marvelous and reminds me of incense and marigolds, though there is a slightly caustic edge to the scent. Clare guides me through the labyrinth of color and texture and indicates a place on the sofa that isn’t covered with little squares of beige linen. I sit down. Clare scoops up the linen and plops it onto her drawing table.