Author: Sam McManus

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The Tone & Timbre

My father called here this morning. Why does he have such a hold over me? I hadn’t heard his voice in 6 months, and yet the tone, the timbre, are as familiar to me as my own, yet so foreign at the same time.

Alexa answered the phone, but she didn’t recognize him. After all, she’s only talked to him twice before. She covered the mouthpiece and asked me who he was, if she should speak with him, if it was okay. I wonder if he wants some sort of relationship with my children. He claimed he did once, but that was a dog’s age ago, and he disappeared again.

Is he back? Or was this just a Mothers’ Day surprise?

Why does he, even now, hold such sway over me, over my thoughts? I ask myself this less and less, but always when he calls again, after so much time. And I know I should make up my mind. Do I want to try and craft a relationship with him, even now, even after all this time?

Continue reading “The Tone & Timbre”

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Stretch & Tone

“Ultimately spiritual awareness unfolds when you’re flexible, when you’re spontaneous, when you’re detached, when you’re easy on yourself and easy on others.” ~Deepak Chopra

Flexibility is something I’ve lived with pretty much my entire life. I remember my high school graduation, how much I reminded my uncle of how early I had to be there (he was supposed to be my ride), and how I still found myself flying after the city bus, racing down the street with my mortarboard cap under my arm, robe flapping in the breeze. At least the people on the bus wished me good luck.

I used to pride myself on not being like that, in being everywhere early, in being as dependable as Cupid on Valentine’s Day. I treated it like it was the biggest virtue, and it is important, but time has shown me everything isn’t quite as black and white as it seemed when I was judging my uncle (at 17). I hated this ability to be flexible on things that to me mattered more than others. But maybe it wasn’t about being flexible at all. Maybe it was about trying your best and life intervening. Continue reading “Stretch & Tone”

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A Treatise on Exhalation

I’ve been neglectful, really. Not the kind of regret that sits on a windowsill and judges, but rather the kind that pops up out of nowhere and reminds me that I’m a human being, that I’m connected to a larger universe of humanity (a horde, really) that exists in and for itself. It’s both outside of me, and a part of me in ways I can’t always quite fathom the way I probably should.

Being “in-semester” does that to me.

For days on end, in-semester, the world shrinks down for me into seven classes, some on the Tuesday/Thursday cycle, and others revolving around Monday/Wednesday/Friday. Each one is its personal microcosm of energy (and the lack thereof, depending on what part of the semester we’re in). When I’m with that group they are the whole world. I engage, I am engaged, and I exhale when I have to move on from them. That’s my life.

But now I’m doing a different kind of exhale. Continue reading “A Treatise on Exhalation”

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Redemption?

It’s been a week since Tiger Woods shocked the world and won his 5th Masters title. For those non-golf fans out there, don’t tell me you didn’t already know. It was everywhere on social media, on the news, even in articles about Notre Dame (I know, right?). Well, Tiger Woods is larger than life, isn’t he? His problems, his foibles, his innate humanness, they were also larger than life in the intervening 10 years since he crashed his car into a hydrant. Such is the curse of being really good at what you do, and at having what you do be in the spotlight.

But hindsight is 20/20, dreams hardly ever come true, the Easter Bunny isn’t real… All things you should know by now. Part of that obvious list used to be that Tiger Woods would win more majors. It was in his DNA, after all, having captured his first on that selfsame august course he was playing this time last week (pretty damn early too). When 13 others followed in quick succession (can you believe the 1st 14 came in only an 11 year period?) it was easy to think they would keep rolling in.

However, golf is a fickle sport, and man is a giddy thing. Continue reading “Redemption?”

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It’s Sunday Morning.

It’s Sunday morning. I should be watching Friends for the umpteenth time and drinking coffee (dark roast). I should be curled up in a blanket, on a couch somewhere, taking sips and laughing. I should be daydreaming of weekends in the Caribbean, of trips to destinations unknown because I’ve seen them in a postcard somewhere. I should recall what postcards used to cost. I have no idea how much they are now.

I should be doing many things. After all, it is Sunday morning. But instead I am looking outside my study window, at the intermittent rain. If I am patient enough I can see it touch down in a puddle, which is how I know it’s still there. I’m sure if I open my window I would be able to breathe it in, the salty with the sweet, just like a confectioner’s shop.

I leave the window closed. It’s enough to imagine it, to remember it again, because I’ve been fooled before. I’ve been surprised by the smell of the rain, and I’m not in the mood for surprises this morning. Continue reading “It’s Sunday Morning.”

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Driving Sideways

Ever since the accident, I’ve been extra careful, especially when it snows. I can still feel the gravitational pull as my car slid across the ice, past a braking Honda Accord, and planted itself sideways in the ditch.

I’m sure my expression was one of shock. I kept thinking, “This isn’t really happening.” My brain had it on replay, the only phrase that made sense out of the chaotic wasteland that was my mind in those brief moments between driving down the road and being sideways in the ditch.

My mind still goes there every time it snows. I try not to drive by that spot, if I can help it, with the tree, and the house back a ways, and the ditch that I imagine still has the imprint of my Santa Fe in its depths. The car I slid past pulled over to the side of the road after I went into the ditch sideways, its driver scrambling out to assist me.

I am grateful for the kindness of strangers, always, but definitely then. I was in a state of shock. In my mind the whole accident was replaying in slow motion, over and over again. Continue reading “Driving Sideways”