all this wishing is really starting to bug me

Anyone from a city would take note of the greatly enhanced starscape blanketing this tiny northern Wisconsin town on a night like this. When stargazing with cityfolk, it might still be necessary to clarify what they see, however. No that grayish haze directly overhead is not smog, factory smoke, or even light cloud cover. It's an arm of our galaxy. Though, even if the gazer is savvy, and can recognize constellations, they are now challenged by the addition of surrounding stars, once muted by the orange glow of a trillion sodium streetlamps on a canopy of pollution. And as for the astronomically uneducated, bystanders can take amusement in a suburbanite pointing out a satellite, clipping along as they do, and shouting "UFO!"

Shooting stars, as they're called, are infamous for their misconceptions. They've been thought of as actual stars burning out, as well as angels falling. These stories are perpetuated by children whose parents either don't know wiser, or are looking to dazzle the imaginations of their young ones. I probably need not inform the reader that a shooting star is a chunk of rock burning up on entry to the atmosphere like a poorly assembled Earthman's rocketship. And, the phenomenon is closer to home than a distant star's death, or a cherub's expulsion from Heaven.

Also called a falling star, and more scientifically called a meteor, the phenomenon has played on the human notions of God, luck, and magic, probably for eons. The phrase, "catch a falling star," has age of centuries for sure. For many of these centuries, the misnomer could have been the assumed truth--no matter the definition or supposed distance of a star. Attaching romance to the witness of a meteor or occasional meteor shower is harmless to the cynic. And, the odds of a meteor becoming a meteorite, not burning up, and striking the earth, are very small. So, the brilliant streaks in the night sky are a violent and dramatic showing, but ultimately benign. Billy Bragg, folk punk singer of the 1980s sang a lyric: I saw two shooting stars last night / I wished on them but they were only satellites / is it wrong to wish on space hardware? / I wish I wish I wish you'd care.

Tonight, I am on a visit to my mother's retirement home, a few miles north of the handful of streetlamps in the tiny town. It is a crisp, clear night. As I walk outside to smoke cigarettes, the starscape crackles into view. The florescent-lit guest room adjoining the garage constricts my pupils so that I walk out into purple blotches, but my eyes adjust quickly. As I puff, I peer into the night sky. I'm not a follower of classic superstition. A house of broken mirrors or a herd of black cats wouldn't raise my pulse. The number thirteen, I've read, has many more applications than just bad luck. Fountains full of coins may as well be one arm bandits--slot machines.

But I have seen a few falling stars, at least I thought I did. That is, until I began seeing falling stars below the tree line, and even below the horizon. The june bugs were fluttering by the porch light; it was June, and the fireflies, the lightning bugs are out in full swing. In their quests to find mates, they buzz up into the starfield and blink their little thoraces. There is no way to tell the difference. Lightning bugs aren't hard to catch, certainly easier than an actual falling star, meteor that is. Tonight, I don't bother, for I have allowed some of the bugs into my room from the congregation of hymenoptera by the porch light, right above the door. I kill the lights, and bed down. Lines of light streak by my head. I make wishes, on phosphorescent insects. Is it wrong to wish on phosphorescent insects, Billy Bragg?

slash pound back slashing and pounding

Most say nothing of it. Although I speak of it seldom, I joke lightly and darkly about it. Best I could come up with was, "Everyone has a MySpace tomb except me... I wanted one too!" I've cursed fuel injected engines and the well ventilated garage. My feelings on it are mixed. Visiting the site of my first and only attempt at suicide brings a real combo to my head. There is embarrassment that goes along with survival, I'll forewarn. While shuddering in relief, I weigh my chances of survival, and they were not good. So, I question whether this is all a post death hallucination, as they say. Those who mostly say nothing of it have done little to refute this theory. The trip thereafter has been so strange.

The craftsmanship of the attempt was knowingly flawed, though persistently executed. I arranged plumbing for the gases, and gathered all garage door openers. I was told my mother had a side-door key, and that she discovered the shop-vac hose to be pinched in the hatchback door. My mother probably didn't know the word "Bejesus." Had she, however, she might have told me this is what I scared out of her. I can imagine her searching high and low for her "Bejesus," it having been scared out of her. In the same way, she probably searched high and low for the side-door key she needed in order to drive to work that morning. As the after death hallucination trudged on, in the confines of a psychiatric unit in a neighboring town I might have felt some fear myself. A couple of weeks into my stay, a nurse came to my room to tell me that my mother, who had visited the day before, was now in critical condition in the ICU of a neighboring ward. I had sighed many times since the emergency detention that brought me there, "What next?" These words surely crossed my mind after the news; though, I was back on a heavy regimen of medications, and still am. In the same way a wave of paranoia--i.e. my closest friend wants me dead--does not gel in my mind... I was prevented from panicking when the news came. And, I don't believe I've grieved to a natural extent since her death, which occurred several days later.

Time-wise, the proximity of my attempt at suicide and my mother's untimely death were--to me--suspiciously close. It triggered my human tendency to see a correlation. First, the antipsychotics were working enough to muffle the event, but not enough to curb ideas that her death was part of an unfolding of a post-death hallucination. That is, those people in the picture drop off, beginning with the closest and foremost. My mother did, and of course, would have discovered me. I wondered who was next, and in what way they'd leave. While careening into the idea of a hallucination, I was gripped with fear. Second, I made a more real correlation. Though, I hate to think of it as being true. Psychosomatic stress causes rheumatoid arthritis, or so claims a professional in my treatment... claims a doctor of hers. My mother's death was sudden, gastrointestinal. My gut aches at the thought of losing anyone I'm close to. I'm told to put this out of my mind, and I have help from prescriptions.

Often in my psychiatric history have I considered an event to have ended my life, and that I was walking in the thereafter. The streets are filled with celebrities and rock stars--mostly. There was an architectural engineer off her circuit, as well, but that's another story. The belief that I walk in the afterlife is accompanied by a good amount of bipolar bliss, but also pain. Doubt soon takes over. The theory cannot be sustained. The last feeling to leave is what I call "Forever." It's essentially boredom with realizations that we are all still on Earth that no one has proven it not to be Hell. In brief, "Forever" is time standing still while I'm in a confined and stifling situation. Part of my treatment following the failed garage scenario was a month long stay in a group home. Leaving the psychiatric ward in a minivan, with the group home's administrator and her mother, I sang lyrics I'd written, to entertain them during the long drive. I neglected to ask questions about my new living arrangements--coed? Ages of the other dwellers? A home that turned me down bragged a pool table and a computer in its basement. I thought I'd be in good hands if their setup was similar. I was not offered the information, but I'd still have had a hard time preparing for what was in store.

I was to share a house with five women, mostly over the age of forty-five. The daily schedule of activities was posted on a large dry erase calendar, but all I really saw was everyone vegetating in front of Game Show Network all day. With few exceptions, I had no privileges to have visits from friends. Visits from family were restricted, as well. This was, until I had a job and thirty days had passed. I had my cell phone plan, and an acoustic guitar that a friend had lent me on an exceptional day. I pace a lot, especially on the phone. I wore a dirt path through the yard, and I often wandered into the sidewalk adjacent to the house. I was under strict legislation at every turn--I could not even take a walk from the grounds alone. Guitar playing was ruled to end at six o'clock. I was penalized for returning ten minutes late from a visit with my father. I was told by the assistant director to stay off the sidewalk, for it was lava, or something. When the director told me to stay off the grass I was killing with my pacing, I felt I was becoming closer to walking a literal tightrope. Through the weeks I stayed, I felt the same hellishly mind warping "Forever" as in psychiatric wards.

Another bit of legislation passed at the group home was a limit on the number of cigarettes I could smoke each day. I bought my own on field trips from the house, but I was only allotted one pack of twenty cigarettes per day. This would ordinarily be enough, but I had a lot of time to pass. I smuggled in extra packs I purchased during visits with my father, and refilled my rationed pack throughout the day. I was hurting, when the stash ran out, only once or twice in my stay. None of the staff suspected my crime, or let on that they did. The assistant director was strict, as I've said. Imagine your high school's assistant principal. She'd have found a dastardly punishment for me. I won out in the end, though; I gained satisfaction from subversion, and the thrill of the crime--as well as the extra tobacco. I swear it, though--it was the only thing I got away with.

I got to know some of the women (the staff often referred to them as the girls). An older one I'll describe, L, had a habit of talking to people who were not there. At these times, a staff member would intervene, though I saw the talking to be doing little harm. Once, as I walked through the living room, I noticed a game show carrying on to itself. No one was in the living room to watch it. I approached a staff member concernedly, "The TV... it's talking to itself again. You'd better check it. Thought I'd let you know." L was sharp enough at most times though, and a bit of a goofball. As I walked by carrying my guitar, she tried strumming the strings. I fingered a few chords for her to play, and she seemed delighted. Another time, L and I sat alone at the dinner table, the other girls gone off to watch television. She had the idea that she'd like a meatball sandwich now, instead of waiting for dinnertime. L was persistent with the staff member, who was occupied in the adjoining kitchen. She was about to give up, but I coached her in a low whisper, "One meatball! Just one meatball!" She repeated this to the sighing staff member, the staff member oblivious to my encouragement. I giggled for hours later. The food at the group home was pretty hardy. A dish I remember well was fried corn fritters, which I called "fornicritten foreign critters fer eatuns." The usual worker was first generation Polish, and sausage was served at least ten times in a week.

Although I resented the hard line rule making of the assistant director of the group home, I grew to respect her, and appreciate her for what else she was. We spent much time on field trips, and I found her to be more than what I disagreed with about her. At my time of loss, I wasn't interested in holding grudges or passing judgment. Though, I had a hard time with the bumper sticker on her truck, which claimed she was a registered terrorist hunter. Her three sons were enlisted in the Army, one soon to be in charge of disarming roadside bombs in Iraq. I witnessed her and her mother, who is a staff member, making burial arrangements for him, and my heart opened up--No matter the absurdity in what they were doing.

As well as virtually unlimited cigarettes, I entertained myself in the home through putting music to lyrics I'd written in the psychiatric ward. I'm blessed with a muse, a person, to whom I owe a lifetime of explanation. It's, again, another story. I'm unsure if any of the music will ever fall on her ears; but if one imagines the world to one day be in the absolute, the work is worth it. I've caricaturized my muse, in drawings I made to pass time after the six o'clock guitar curfew. I managed to embody the mother of my child in cartoon form, as well. (Funny, most would have no trouble differentiating between the two drawings... It's, again, another story...) My thoughts are with my baby's mother, and with my six-month old daughter, three and a half hours away from where I now reside. I'm determined to follow my father's example, and be as close as I can when afar. The mother's father is a bit of a challenge, and I've tried hard to do right by him. He's a bit of a grouch, but possesses a similar wit as I do. I've never been able to scoot any of mine in edgewise to our conversations, however. I completely understand his position, but it's been difficult to get positive recognition for my efforts since my daughter's conception. There's a sea of gobbledygook surrounding my parenthood. I'm looking forward to the day I can get some of my daughter's insights.

My mother did not meet my daughter. Though, she was by my side through many moments during the preceding nine months, and during the five months following my daughter's birth. We talked on the phone nearly every day. She had planned to take a trip the week after she passed on, to see the me, the mother, and the girl. When I told her that the mother was pregnant, her first words were an exclamation, "I'm going to be a grandmother!" She might have know my daughter into her twenties, had my mother lived a span comparable to my grandmother. This is hard to think of, as are the impulses to call my mother. I can imagine her laughing as I related some of the stories I've told in this piece so far. Then, I feel she is still in my audience, during everyone's end, if we will all eventually see the absolute.

The memorial services are now over, and I'm finishing my fourth day of new residence, solo, in a loft apartment. The whirlwind of faces of relatives and friends blew by with a surprise. I had not seen or spoken with many of the people for years. However, I saw little change in any. A female cousin might have been wearing stilettos for as much as her appearance and personality had transformed with age---Simply a little taller. Not all of the guests posed the difficult questions I had feared. And, with the distraction of others in the crowd pulling them away, I usually needed only affirm what they'd already heard. When I am required to outline my situation and all its details, it comes out sounding unendingly complex to me. I'm sure it's a woe of many adult lives, and I try not to feel too oddly unique. I'm off to a roaring start in fighting loneliness, having turned down my first party invite back in this town. I opted for pouring over the first draft of this piece of writing in a coffee shop, alone. Still rattled, I'm cautiously pulling those close to me, closer. It's hard to explain; not wanting a suicide attempt to be taken personally, when I'd been so thoughtless of what could be. It's hard to bear; my having wanted peace through death, side-by-side with the death of someone who found peace through living. It will be hard to explain to my daughter, but we've got time. For now, I'll thrive with those who are happy enough to let it go, but who sincerely chide to knock it off.