while the music lasts

It’s a moody day—argosies of cumulus grow somber, occluded by scudding masses of slate gray. The sky is wild and abandoned as a seascape and I’m on a park bench watching it, sketchbook out and ready.

I’m not a painter, but a writer.

It often surprises people to hear writers need to get outdoors and take part in life—not closet themselves in stuffy rooms, out of touch with the elements. But besides providing inspiration, being outdoors invigorates me, helps me stay connected, and I’m in desperate need of that now.

You see, I’m an amnesiac—I lost a great deal of memory in an auto accident six months ago and have been struggling ever since to reclaim parts of my life.

I think of myself as Robinson Crusoe, abandoned on a desert island, cut off from everything familiar. Now and then, bits of flotsam and jetsam float by—and some pieces I recover, but others, I don’t.

“It looks like rain, Mr. Stevens—I think we should head back home now.”

I nod in acknowledgment and dutifully pack up my stuff—my life reduced at the moment to being chauffeured around.

I blame Albert Deans, my agent, for putting bedroom slippers on me.

“Nothing like a private duty nurse to make you feel powerless,” I told him. “I can get by on my own.”

But he insisted.

“All we need is a sudden lapse of memory,” he said, “ and Bang! You’re back in an accident, and then, where would we be?”

“Precisely. Where would ‘we’ be?

Albert would go on collecting his commissions—Helen Moore, my wet nurse might be reassigned, but the gods would smile on me as I died relatively young at forty, no longer invalid, like an expired parking tag.

I smile cynically at my fate.

Helen is examining a yellow municipal parking ticket neatly tucked under her windshield wiper. Such are the risks of street parking close to High Park.

I could offer to pay for it, but I’d prefer she learned the ambivalence of the word invalid, that applies as accurately to expired parking stubs as it does to not-quite-so-expired writers.

I decide that tomorrow I’ll take the trolley bus to Queen’s Park and spend the day by myself, watching clouds and trying to scavenge more floating debris from the wreckage of my past.

Next day, I keep my resolution much to Helen’s chagrin and end up outdoors wandering through Queen’s Park free as a cloud and enjoying the October colors.

But I’m reminded also of another day, the day Elle and I gathered leaves—she, ironically, has no memory of that day—her memory lapses not attributable to brain injury, but springing more commonly from broken places of neglect.

Yet I resolve not to dwell on her, in order ‘to live in the moment’, as Helen would say, practicing mindfulness, or in my case, mindlessness, and sipping water bottled from the stream of Lethe.

O, sweet Oblivion.

And then it happens—the first grumble of distant thunder.

I groan, pack up my sketchpad and head in the vague direction of the bus station. I say, ‘vague direction’ because I’m making it up as I go—aiming myself generally north and hoping to recognize a familiar street sign that will prompt me to transportation and shelter.

Rain, the size of black cherries, splatters the pavement and I’m wandering past Victorian houses in search of the main street.

Then, the clouds open forcing me to take shelter on the huge porch of a brick house that doubles as The Institute for the Blind. The downpour’s escapable—but the irony is not.

A beautiful girl seeks shelter with me—her white blouse soaked and pink from her skin. I gallantly offer my jacket, which she desperately accepts—if only for modesty’s sake, and I’m thinking I’d rather be with her on the widow’s walk at the top of the house, alone with the clouds and wind.

“Thank you—you’re a gentleman,” she smiles.

“I get that a lot,” I say ruefully, as she buttons up my coat, and I try vainly to recall lost glimpses of her.

She holds out a hand in stiff formality—as if that ship hasn’t sailed. “I’m Letha Kessem.”

“Jase Stevens,” I smile, aware I already know her intimately in the most biblical sense of the word.

She wraps my coat about her for warmth, gazing up at the brooding sky. “How long do you think it will last?”

I gaze up as one familiar with the sky, figuring another hour, although inwardly, I’m hoping forty days and nights.

“I think it’ll ease up in about ten minutes,” I lie, “—long enough to find shelter in a coffee shop and drink something warm.”

“Th-that…would be wonderful,” she stammers through chattering teeth. I notice her lips are slightly blue and she’s shivering.

At that moment I spot a cab coming up the splashing street, and wave him over. “C’mon,” I tell her, “no sense in shivering out here any longer—let me treat you to that warm drink.”

She nods gratefully, much to my relief, but it’s the light in her eyes that touches me and warms me like a sudden burst of sunshine.

“I’ve got an idea,” she says, “let’s go to the Museum—it has a coffee shop, and it’s nearby.”

I relay directions to the driver, and while we’re weaving through traffic, she explains, “I work in the museum. I’ll be able to change into some warm clothes and join you in the café when I’m ready.”

“Sounds like a plan,” I smile.

Ten minutes later, she’s in a warm sweater sitting across the table from me as we stare through the windows at the storm outside.

“So, what do you do here?” I ask.

She’s bent forward at the waist, dark hair veiling her eyes, inhaling the aroma from the mug of coffee she’s cradling in her hands.

I snap a mental photograph: Lady in half-light.

So mysterious, I muse.

At length, the spell is broken and she speaks.

“I’m an archivist. I help acquire and preserve important documents and other valuable items for permanent storage or display.”

“Sounds impressive,” I smile.

“I suppose,” she shrugs.

She lifts her eyes to me, tilts her head backwards and shakes out her long hair, still be-jeweled with droplets.

A scene unfolds before my eyes—Jessica in the rain—a character from my novel. Days of memories come floating back, including details of where I mislaid some lost notes.

“Whoa! That’s incredible,” I gasp.

A wave of concern sweeps over her features.

“Are you okay, Jase? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“No ghosts—just shades of the past.”

“I don’t get it,” she says, looking bewildered.

I try to explain.

“About six months ago I was in an auto accident and experienced some memory loss—it’s been coming back slowly, but when you shook out your hair just now, a whole flood of things came rushing back—a lot of it connected with the novel I’m writing.”

“Hmm, so you’re a writer.”

“I am.”

“Then, I must be your Muse.”

“You are,” I told her and as I said it, I felt something stir deep in my heart.

“I knew it,” she smiled. “I sensed an affinity.”

It was the start of our relationship.

Six weeks later, we’re spending a rainy Saturday lazing about my house in the Bloor-West Village.

We’re sitting on a braided rug in front of my fireplace, our backs resting on the sofa and both of us staring dreamily into the flames.

“I had this nightmare about being lost on city streets,” I murmur.

Letha’s consoling me by pushing damp hair back from my forehead.

“Perhaps you’re trying too hard to remember, Jase.”

The warmth of the fire and rhythm of rain had lulled me into a troubled sleep, but now I was back—fully awake, sitting on the floor of my front room, and trying to unscramble the misery of me.

Only six weeks since we met, but now we’ve long crossed that divide between hers and mine, and every time I’m with her, another part of me returns.

“I know I’m pushing it,” I tell her, “but this is something I have to do—I have to get my life back.”

“Why?” she whispers, “Was it better than what you have now?”

I know she’s talking about us—women always take everything as personal to them.

“This isn’t about some other woman. It’s not about Elle—it’s about me. Besides, there are parts of me you don’t even know.”

She smiles seductively, “You sure about that?”

I have to laugh, but also have to let her know I mean business. “Yeah, I’m sure.”

She doesn’t understand, but I’m determined to recover as much of the past as I can before it’s gone forever—carried away on the tides of time, or lost to the seas of oblivion.

But she’s grown quiet, probably digesting what I’ve said.

Suddenly, her eyes brighten. “Let’s play a game.”

“Uh Letha, I’m kind of tired right now…”

She giggles, “Not that kind of game, Silly—close your eyes.”

“Okay.”

“It’s an early November afternoon and we’re out for a walk by a creek. It snowed last night and the woods are lovely and still. Can you picture that?”

“I suppose.”

I figure this is one of those meditation exercises Helen Moore loves me to practice, and I’m pretty sure she’s roped Letha into coaching me as well.

My eyes are closed but all I can see are fluttering shadows from the fireplace flames against the soft pink of my eyelids.

I could fake it, but it’d be futile. Letha would know. She always knows.

“I’ll wait until you can visualize it,” she whispers.

The fire is bubbling away merrily in the grate, the rain’s ticking against the windows, and far off in the study, as if wrapped in cotton, I can faintly hear the soft chimes of the grandfather clock.

I absorb the peace and serenity of the quiet house, savoring the comfort of being in her presence.

Suddenly, an image takes shape before my eyes. A woman, in a black, in full-length coat, is standing with her back to me.

I see a dark creek winding through a snowy wood and hear the unmistakable sound of a nearby waterfall.

The details of the setting and atmosphere are so familiar they fill me with an ardent longing that surprises and even frightens me.

The woman turns around, and my breathing stops—Letha is staring back at me.

And then a dam breaks within me, as images course through my brain—but they’re not images of my recent past, but a distant past I’ve totally repressed.

I see Letha beneath gaslights, her face half-lit.

In another vignette, my arm is around her waist as we stand watching a somber red sunset on a dark winter afternoon.

Then, there is a parade of ghostly images of the two of us together in restaurants, at the opera, on crowded streets and riding in a carriage—and inexplicably, they’re all memories of places we’ve been.

“I-I don’t understand,” I stammer.

“I told you I was your Muse,” she whispers.

“What’s happening to me?”

“You’re remembering your past, Jase—our past.”

“That’s impossible.”

“Do you still love Debussy’s Sirènes—are you still obsessed with clouds? Does Rachmoninov still make you weep?”

I’m in shock. I have no idea how she knows my secret things.

“Do you know why you keep going to High Park?”

I shake my head.

“You proposed to me there one lovely October day—October eleventh, a Thursday to be precise—in 1888.”

As soon as she speaks the words, the memories are there. I feel like a dead soul who drank from the river of forgetfulness trying to forget a past life.

But now the memories are back, along with this aching longing for her so deep and powerful I can scarcely bear it.

“How could I forget you—and why am I remembering this just now?”

“It’s okay, Jase—it took me a while too. Don’t you remember when we first met? I recognized something familiar about you. Didn’t I did say I felt an affinity for you?”

“You did,” I conceded.

“Well, I went home that night and experienced the same recurring dream I’ve been having my whole life—standing by a waterfall in the dead of winter and being kissed by a faceless stranger—I never saw his face until I met you. It was you all along, Jase—it was you.”

I began to understand. “So you knew if you set the same conditions for me as in your dream, it would spur my memory.”

She gently rubbed my back. “Well, I wasn’t sure you’d remember—especially considering your memory loss, but I certainly hoped you would.”

It’s strange Letha and I—reunited in this time and straddling two eras. While I’m slowly recovering my memory of my current life, I’m trying to adjust to the recollection of a distant past.

It’s strange the way the mind works disguising truths.

I realized Jessica, the character from my novel, was Letha—the absent woman I was always striving to romance.

She’s not only my soul mate across time, but also my Muse. She’s helped me complete my novel, much to Albert Dean’s delight, and the publisher is gearing up for a large-scale publicity campaign.

I still don’t fully comprehend what’s happened to us, but I’m gaining some insight.

Letha was the inward music I heard all my life, filling me with an ardent longing, I could never understand—drawing me back to where we began.

“You are the music while the music lasts.”
T.S. Eliot

© 2016, John J Geddes. All rights reserved.