Michelle O’Kane

The Brain — is wider than the Sky

2024-10-27
My 6th Grade Brain Assignment

Every day, exponentially expanding, are my thoughts. I then forget them. I have a room and all I see are things I’ve collected over the past two years. Yarn and knitting needles and more colored pencils and more yarn and. . . and the rest is mine, my things. My things fit into a box. My small purse and my three backpacks. My two photos of myself and my son. My flute. My ancient tv, on which I watch Friends and Sex and the City. My old bathrobe.

My photos are in my old house, where my son still lives. We were sitting on the sofa, the sofa I chose with my husband. As far as I know, my ex husband, my son, and the new wife still sit on my furniture.

My things represent my life because they are my life. My life is in this room. My blackout curtains block out the back of a giant satellite dish. It overlooks the pool five stories below. And across the way there is another giant building with the exact same apartments housed within. Each has a minuscule balcony that nobody uses unless someone is smoking. Sometimes I smell cigarette smoke from the twenty-somethings who live next door. On Saturday nights they play rap. I have never met them.

What’s familiar to me are my knitting needles and my yarn. I know people I see on my decrepit television. I know when the tv finally dies I won’t have that. I try to focus on what I do have. Still, less and less do I have any wish to bother. But, I’m still a writer. I still have that.

I want to finish the hat I’m knitting for my son. I want to finish something. I wanted to finish my life, but I haven’t and I won’t. When I die I hope there’s something good to do. Something to finish.

I have memories, and I want to talk about them and, more than anything, I want to see them. I want to go on a drive through Hope Valley. I want to buy a sandwich at the Genoa Store. Then, I want to drive to the Playa and get in a truck. I want to drive into the desert and find hot springs. I want to smile and drive that weird road that seemed to go nowhere. It had nothing particularly memorable about it, except that it was old. There was a town with a Smith’s, a gas station, and an old church. I want to see those things. I want to see a sunset from my own porch. I want to make toast in my own kitchen with my own dishes. I want to drink water from a glass I remember finding at a thrift store. Instead, I’m just sitting in this room. The dark curtains hide an outside that means nothing. I’m looking at Facebook and seeing familiar faces. I’m confused because I have no reason to make new memories. I have no way to do so. I have no relevance and nothing I see is relevant to me. I’m a million miles away from anything familiar and I’m driftless in my sky.
```
The Brain — is wider than the Sky
Emily Dickinson, c. 1862

The Brain — is wider than the Sky —
For — put them side by side —
The one the other will contain
With ease — and You — beside —

The Brain is deeper than the sea —
For — hold them — Blue to Blue —
The one the other will absorb —
As Sponges — Buckets — do —

The Brain is just the weight of God —
For — Heft them — Pound for Pound —
And they will differ — if they do —
As Syllable from Sound —
```
A person with short, pink-tinted hair and glasses is wearing headphones and a hospital gown while sitting in a hospital bed. Medical equipment is visible in the background.
Safety is an Observation

2024-10-09

I want to see flowers. I want to feel warm water. I want to feel waves melting around around my body. I feel stupid. I feel smart. Do I feel smart because I’m so fucking stupid? Feelings are supposed to be shown, not told, when writing. Show don’t tell. I want to feel happy. I want to eat. I want to know. I want my hair to not fall out. I need a break. I need a brain. I want a break that lasts me the rest of my life and beyond.

I don’t want to be standing on the gymnastics floor, eight years old, with my gymnastics teacher, Wayne, behind me. Gently reaching around to push his hands down the front of my shorts. I told my mom.

She stared at me.

I want my hair back. I want my life back. I want a sandwich. I want ice-cream. I want to eat with love. With people I love. And who love me. I want to sleep. Forever. I want to live happily. Indefinitely. I want to hold my newborn son, every one of these days. I want to be in love and mean it. I want to hide in a lake. I want to hide with fish. I want to write about people who exist, and who are good. Instead I’m swimming fiercely in rocky, murky water. My legs are drumsticks. My legs beat beat beat. The wood, shattering on the wet, sharp rocks. I taste blood. I remember the metallic, plastic, blasting—the sound of my typewriter smashing cement after I threw it over my second-floor balcony. Little brown buttons with letters in a dark courier font splattered the ground. H and I, two stated.

Whenever I find myself in the hospital room, standing next to the bed on which is resting my dead mother, in indecipherable spans of time, I am looking out the window. It is Summer Solstice, which means I am nearly exactly 17.5 years old. I am staring at the white blinds, which are slanted open, and I look through countless strips of plastic, I am looking at the sky. The sky is blue. Above the top of the concrete roof of the fifth floor of the other wing of The Hospital, the sky is blue. It’s that clear, clear, clear, clean, windex blue. The kind of blue that only happens for a little bit of time, on days with a slight breeze, and little pollution. Danny and I–Danny Lee Clark Junior (he’s dead now, too) and I–had left the trailer in San Jose, after the call came, around 7:30 a.m. Now, it was around 9:30. It wasn’t yet 10:00. The light would be less clear at 10:00. It would start to look hot. And it was, after all, June. June 14th. 1990. I look at my mother. I look at her. She looks peaceful. I’d never seen her look so peaceful. Ever. The bandage wrapped around the top of her head was neat, and clean, and white. It only covered the top of her eyebrows. I would not–did not–think about the bloody wound hiding beneath the clean, white dressing. It was all dead. She was dead. Standing on my balcony, in Reno, I watched the explosion.

When the typewriter hit the concrete, the black ribbon spool still pressed against paper. After the ancient typing machine crashed onto the ground, I remember brown leaves drifting around my brown typewriter, like ballerinas, floating in the blasted air. Today, now, I want to see the brown leaves drifting across the scuffled concr ete of my patio. I want to look between the brown patio steps and see the ground. I want to hear the shuffling sound of shoes as people walk on the other side of the fence, unaware of what they’re missing over here.

What I want to be is home. I want to be cooking paella on my stove, in our house, that I toured with Jay with a real estate agent. I want to be standing in our kitchen, in front of the counter, chopping vegetables on the countertop that I designed. I want to boil water on the stove that I, after much research, had installed. Our 5-year-old son watches something silly on the tv with J, who is sitting on the long sofa, a shot-glass of to-be-sipped-slowly tequila in his hand. They watch the green Bang & Olufsen television. I want to be there, at home, where I was–where I thought I was–safe. Safety is an observation.
Knitting, Purling & Amnesia

2024-09-22

I am my world. My spinning world of love and grief and memories. The world of my words. The world of my worlds.

At first, it’s a party. People come over. They bring food and flowers and booze. They clean. They cook. “Hey there, how’s everything going with you?” They ask because they truthfully want to know. They carry books and ask you to go on walks. They plan the memorial. They stay by your side on that day of celebration. Like a birthday party, a memorial celebrates a life.

The memorial is the last phase of people gifting you their time. They must get back to their lives. They must get back to the people in their lives. Friends visit only on weekends. The phone rings less. The walks get shorter and scarcer. The carefully wrapped casseroles stop appearing in the kitchen. The flowers start to wilt, dripping their leaves on the tabletop.

How are you doing? The soft voices that ask the caring questions start to evolve in tone, speed, intonation. Topics. Conversations evolve into the talk of life. The lives of the living.

But I can’t, I do not return to my life because my life isn’t there anymore. And never will be again. My lives. My worlds.

My friends go out for dinners. They take day trips to lakes. My friends eat at home or the home of friends. They return to their worlds. Silence now permeates what used to be our home. My house is now empty of noise because it is now missing my favorite sound. Now nothing seems right.

Now. For whom do I cook? Who do I cook with? How do I comfort others? How do I adjust to a new life without that person’s existence? In the beginning—disbelief, shock. A phone that becomes a brick being held in my hand. A brick no longer brings me silly messages from the now-dead person. I start feeling more feelings. These are feelings that slowly start to whisper away. They fade as I acclimate to what’s missing from my life. Missing from my life.

Then—then things start seeming kinda normal. I notice that the world is continuing. I cry less. I lol. I listen to a podcast. I eat breakfast. Then—when I’m kinda functioning without that constant feeling of emptiness, loss, grief—that is when the death hits me. I’ve returned to the normal headspace.

Life goes on. So do I.

I no longer have shock or disbelief to numb me. I no longer have the fresh, bloody cuts to bandage. All I have are what’s under the now scarred skin: severed arteries and punctured organs and smokey images. Those things haven’t started healing yet—and I know that the deepest cuts never will.

I knit. A scarf for Darlene. A warm beanie for Marc.

I stare at the fuzzy ball of yarn, next to me, on the sofa in my Studio. The soft, warm wool I’m gripping is the only reality I can touch. I’m navigating the unfamiliar terrain of amnesia. I am knitting together a semblance of connection, one stitch at a time.
The Dead Hospital Rooms, My Mom

2024-08-25

I often find myself in the hospital room. I stand next to the bed where my dead mother is resting. This happens many, many times at indecipherable periods. I am looking out the window. It is June 14, meaning I am nearly 17.5 years old. I am staring at the white blinds. They are slanted open. I look through countless strips of plastic. I am looking at the sky.

The sky is blue. The sky is above the top of the concrete roof. It is on the fifth floor of the other wing of The Hospital. It is blue. It’s that clear, clean, polished blue. The blue that only happens for a little bit of time. It seems on days with a slight breeze. It occurs on days with little pollution. Danny and I left the trailer in San Jose. Danny Lee Clark Junior (he’s dead now, too) and I went after the call came. It was around 7:30 a.m. It was around 9:30. It wasn’t yet 10:00. The light would be less clear at 10:00 and start to look hot. And it was, after all, June. June 14th. 1990. I look at my mother. I look at her. She looks peaceful. I’d never seen her look so peaceful. Ever. The bandage wrapped around the top of her head was neat clean, and white. It only covered the top of her eyebrows. I would not–did not–think about the bloody wound hiding beneath the clean, white dressing. I realized that I’d never seen her face so smooth, the lines around her eyes were softer. Everything about her makes me think that she was finally at peace.
Show Don’t Tell

2024-08-25

I often find myself in the hospital room. I stand next to the bed where my dead mother is resting. This happens many, many times at indecipherable periods. I am looking out the window. It is June 14, meaning I am nearly 17.5 years old. I am staring at the white blinds. They are slanted open. I look through countless strips of plastic. I am looking at the sky.

The sky is blue. The sky is above the top of the concrete roof. It is on the fifth floor of the other wing of The Hospital. It is blue. It’s that clear, clean, polished blue. The blue that only happens for a little bit of time. It seems on days with a slight breeze. It occurs on days with little pollution. Danny and I left the trailer in San Jose. Danny Lee Clark Junior (he’s dead now, too) and I went after the call came. It was around 7:30 a.m. It was around 9:30. It wasn’t yet 10:00. The light would be less clear at 10:00 and start to look hot. And it was, after all, June. June 14th. 1990. I look at my mother. I look at her. She looks peaceful. I’d never seen her look so peaceful. Ever. The bandage wrapped around the top of her head was neat clean, and white. It only covered the top of her eyebrows. I would not–did not–think about the bloody wound hiding beneath the clean, white dressing. I realized that I’d never seen her face so smooth, the lines around her eyes were softer. Everything about her makes me think that she was finally at peace.
Celebrating Life, Death and Peace

2024-08-18

At first, it’s a party. People come over. They bring food and flowers and booze. They clean. They cook. How are you? They ask, because they truthfully want to know. They bring books and ask you to go on walks. They plan the memorial. They stay by your side on that day of celebration. Like a birthday party, a memorial celebrates a life.

How are you doing? The soft voices that ask the caring questions start to evolve in tone, speed, intonation. Topics. Conversations evolve into the talk of life. The lives of the living.

The memorial is the last phase of people gifting you their time. They must get back to their lives. They must get back to the people in their lives. Friends visit only on weekends. The phone rings less. The walks get shorter and scarcer. The carefully wrapped casseroles stop appearing in the kitchen. The flowers start to wilt, dripping their leaves on the tabletop. Like snowflakes and people—flowers wilt.

But I can’t, I do not return to my life because my life isn’t there anymore. And never will be again. My lives. My worlds. Blah blah blah.

My friends go out for dinners and take day trips to lakes. My friends eat at home, or the home of friends. They return to their worlds. Silence now permeates what used to be our home. My house is now empty of noise because it is now missing my favorite sound. Now nothing seems right.

Now. For whom do I cook? Who do I cook with? How do I comfort others? How do I adjust to a new life without that person’s existence? In the beginning—disbelief. Shock. A phone that becomes a cold thing that no longer brings me silly messages from the now dead person. I start feeling more feelings. They are feelings that slowly start to whisper away as I acclimate to what’s missing from my life. Missing from my lives.

Then—then things start seeming kinda normal. I notice that the world is continuing. I cry less. I LOL. I listen to a podcast. I eat breakfast. Then—when I’m kinda functioning without that constant feeling of emptiness, loss, grief—that is when the death hits me. I’ve returned to the normal head space.

Life goes on and so do I.

Right?

I no longer have shock or disbelief to numb me. I no longer have the fresh, bloody cuts to bandage. All I have are what’s under the now scarred skin: severed arteries and punctured organs and smokey images. Those things haven’t started healing yet—and I know that the deepest cuts never will.

In the passenger seat, I see the stars come out of the sky. Yeah, they’re bright in a hollow sky. You know it looks so good tonight.

My sky is exploding. My stars are combusting. I am a passenger. Newly healed and freshly sore. Waiting for my stars to come out of my sky.

And I knit and I knit. A scarf for Darlene. Darlene will smile. I’ll feel her smile in the yarn coming alive in my hands.

I can not, I do not, return to my life because my life isn’t there anymore. And never will be. My life—my world— is lost and I’m still trying to find it.

My friends go out for dinners and take day trips to lakes. They also eat at home or the home of friends. They return to their worlds. My world is now silent. My house is now quiet. I pick up my yarn. The soft, fuzzy wool I’m gripping is the only reality I can touch. Feel.

Knitting through my life.

I’m a passenger in my own life. I’m navigating the unfamiliar, unpredictable, terrain of amnesia. I am knitting together a semblance of connection, one stitch at a time.

I find myself in the hospital room, I stand next to the bed on which is resting my dead mother. This happens many, many times in indecipherable periods. I’m looking out the window. It is June 14. My birthday–my half birthday–is on the 21st. Summer solstice.

I stare at the white blinds, which are slanted open. I look through countless strips of shiny white plastic. My gaze creeps across the shutters, to the sky. The sky is blue. I’m standing on the fifth floor of the other wing of The Hospital. The sky is blue. It’s that clear, clear, clear, clean, lightish blue. It is the kind of blue that occurs only for a brief period. It happens on days with a slight breeze and little pollution. Danny and I left the trailer in San Jose. After the call came, around 7:30 a.m., we departed. Danny Lee Clark Junior (he’s dead now, too) was with me. Now, it was around 9:30. It wasn’t yet 10:00. The light would be less clear at 10:00. It would start to look hot. And it was, after all, June. June 14th. 1990. I look at my mother. I look at her. She looks peaceful. I’d never seen her look so peaceful. Ever. The bandage wrapped around the top of her head was neat clean, and white. It only covered the top of her eyebrows. I would not–did not–think about the bloody wound hiding beneath the clean, white dressing. I realized that I’d never seen her face so smooth, the lines around her eyes were softer. Now I stared at her eyelids, which rested. Still.

I would not–did not–think about the bloody wound hiding beneath the clean, white dressing. I realized that I’d never seen her face so smooth, the lines around her eyes softer. Everything about her makes me think that she was, at last, in peace.
My Life With Death: Suicide & Survival

2024-08-11

I was never great at problem solving.

What do you do when you’ve lived your life and survived? Do you get a pistol and kill yourself? Do you shoot yourself in the head? If so, how do you do it? Point at your temple? Or do you shove the gun to the back of your throat, pointed up to get a good shot, to do the deed, seal the deal?

Your arms are not long enough to hold a shotgun. Also, you don’t own a shotgun.

There are many variables in something you’ve seen perfectly executed thousands of times, in films. In movies, most of the time, when people get killed they get killed with a bullet. Pills are for the wealthy. In the film, wealthy people are poor.

You have bleach, a box of razor blades you bought twenty years ago, at Flax, and a very sharp chef’s knife. But the knife was a birthday gift so it seems disrespectful to use it to slit your wrists. Plus, wrist slitting seems like an acute challenge and you’ve never been good with details.

It’s a method of problem solving. It’s a process of a set of rules. It’s Wikipedia. They trick you. They teach you how to multiply numbers. They tell you that x=0. But they never call it a language or reveal that zero means nothing. Except a vertical line.

What you want to do is you want to put the gun in your mouth and pull the trigger. Die in the bathtub, or maybe a field of gravel. Surrounded by blood: trickling, splattering, dripping. Sticky hair, messy. But not too messy—the whole point is to die with as little mess as possible, hence the bathtub. But a field doesn’t require the heartache of cleanup. Death is nature. Natural. Earthy.
Finding Peace in the Hospital Room, Summer, 1990

2024-08-10

Whenever I find myself in the hospital room, standing next to the bed on which is resting my dead mother, which is many, many times in indecipherable spans of time, I am looking at the window. It is June 14, which means I am nearly exactly 17.5 years old. I am staring at the white blinds, which are slanted open so, and I look through countless strips of plastic, I am looking at the sky. The sky is blue. Above the top of the concrete roof of the fifth floor of the other wing of The Hospital, the sky is blue. It’s that clear, clear, clear, clean, lightish blue. The kind of blue that only happens for a little bit of time, on days with a slight breeze, and little pollution. Danny and I–Danny Lee Clark Junior (he’s dead now, too) and I–had left the trailer in San Jose, after the call came, around 7:30 a.m.

Now, it was around 9:30. It wasn’t yet 10:00. The light would be less clear at 10:00. It would start to look hot. And it was, after all, June. June 14th. 1990. I look at my mother. I look at her. She looks peaceful. I’d never seen her look so peaceful. Ever. The bandage wrapped around the top of her head was neat, and clean, and white. It only covered the top of her eyebrows. I would not–did not–think about the bloody wound hiding beneath the clean, white dressing. I realized that I’d never seen her face so smooth, the lines around her eyes had softer. Everything about her make me thing that she was, at last, in peace.
Observing Peacefulness: A Moment in Time

2024-08-10

Whenever I find myself in the hospital room, I stand next to the bed on which rests my dead mother. This happens many, many times in indecipherable periods. I am looking out the window. It is June 14, meaning I am nearly 17.5 years old. I am staring at the white blinds. They are slanted open. I look through countless strips of plastic.

Staring at the blue sky. I can see it above the top of the concrete roof. I’m captivated by the stunning blue sky above the hospital’s concrete roof. The sky appears clear, and light, reserved for days with a gentle breeze and minimal pollution. My friend Danny and I quickly left our trailer in San Jose after receiving a call around 7:30 a.m. It’s now around 9:30, not yet 10:00. As the day progresses, loses its clarity and the heat will intensify, fitting for the June 14th, 1990 weather.

Observing my mother, I’m amazed at her peacefulness, accentuated by the neat, white bandage wrapping the top of her head. Despite the underlying concern about her wound, her face appears remarkably smooth. The lines around her eyes have softened. Her eyelids are at absolute rest. blue, a rare si the light will roof belongs to the fifth floor of the other wing of The Hospital. The sky is blue above the concrete roof of the hospital. It’s that clear, clear, clear, clean, lightish blue. A gift. This blue only happens for a little bit of time. It shows up on days with a slight breeze and little pollution. Danny and I–Danny Lee Clark Junior (he’s dead now, too) and I–had left the trailer in San Jose. We left after the call came. It was around 7:30 a.m. Now, it was around 9:30. It wasn’t yet 10:00. The light would be less clear at 10:00. It would start to look hot. And it was, after all, June. June 14th. 1990. I look at my mother. I look at her. She looks peaceful. I’d never seen her look so peaceful. Ever. The bandage wrapped around the top of her head was neat, and clean, and white. It only covered the top of her eyebrows. I would not–did not–think about the bloody wound hiding beneath the clean, white dressing. I realized that I’d never seen her face so smooth, the lines around her eyes had softened. Now I stared at her eyelids, which simply rested. Still.

This is how I’d always remember my mother’s face. Still. Peaceful, at sleep.

Peaceful.
Death is Nature

2024-05-22

What you want to do is you want to put the gun in your mouth and pull the trigger. Die. Die in the bathtub, or maybe a field of gravel. Surrounded by blood: tricklin g, splattering, dripping. Sticky hair, messy. But not too messy, the point is to die with as little mess as possible, hence the bathtub. And water. And soap.

A field doesn’t require a heartache of cleanup. Death is nature. It’s a method of problem solving. It’s a process of a set of rules. It’s Wikipedia. They trick you. They teach you your times tables, and that x=0 but they never call it a language or reveal that zero actually means nothing other than it’s a number reflecting more money than you have in your pocket.

Meanwhile, at night, when you lie in bed, concentrate on the areas that bother you (your sinuses) let your mind sort of float through your sinuses. Then feel that the spirit of the lord is flowing there, soothing & healing – drying up your sinuses (you can even try it at work when you are troubled). You can ask Him to remove the pain. Just say, “Please, Jesus, take away my suffering.” Just try it.

–Kathy, 1976

It’s like when I would wait to take sex phone calls, like from the guy in Santa Clara who got raped when he was thirteen. While biking home from school, a gang of teenagers threw him off his bike and beat the shit out of him. Frequently. That man paid me $1.99 a minute to listen to the story and I was never given an algorithm for that. He raped himself every day, having unprotected sex with strangers, and then paid me to hear the stories. I could not fix him.

It took a lot of years to understand algorithms and I still don’t. I was never very good with math. That’s where they trick you. It’s not about math or numbers or logic. It’s not, but they trick you. Logic. They throw around so many terms, all the terms, and they leave you. You wonder what the words mean: are they word problems? Calculus? Blind luck?

While your brain still functions, kinda, you think about the parts of your life that were good. Or, you just make up some good parts. Isn’t that what you do? What you’ve been paid to do? You make up pretty stories, write them down, and sell them.

Romance novels. A bunch of pretty stories.