This year has had no shortage of surprises. For some, they were mostly the worst kind. Others found a silver lining. From my position as a removal technician at a mortuary with questionable leadership and a lack of staff, I experienced the tsunami of death firsthand. I carried the bodies. Ruined a few nice shirts with blood.
I discovered apathy at things that previously horrified me to no end, a sober cognisance of the tragedies, and having stared it full in the face, felt both everything one expects to and, curiously, very little at all; for suicides, murders, and especially the forgotten dead, who may lack even a distant relative to feel so much as a twinge of sadness.
What words they couldn't speak were said in their surroundings. Homes that looked as though a team of poltergeists professionally sabotaged every room. In reality, the zenith of a shattered mind before the end. It was surprisingly common.
What about the stranger left to collect their ghosts? Was that my job? To linger and look at a photo and wonder who they'd been when they had it together? I believe it was. Not just for them. For me.
I don't like taking things at face value; I hate pessimism. There's always a deeper story, another explanation. But some truths spoil even the virtue of honesty.
A lot of people think I was traumatised by this work. It's true, I've carried dismembered body parts and saw all manner of gore; I was so inure that I made jokes while I did such things. People assume that's a defence mechanism. It isn't. It's the world we live in and finding it funny is a way of understanding the depth of suffering behind it.
That summer brought the fires of the west coast. The sky billowed with black. Once more the streets were desolate, doubly so. Both the coronavirus and dismal air quality emptied the freeways, the restaurants, shops and public spaces.
I felt both ostracised, trapped, relieved to have a job, and as though I had the entire city to myself. A pity, that it was spent with rotting bodies in a minivan, sweating in a full suit for 13 hours at a time at a whopping 15/hr while my lungs filled with char.
It sounds like Hell. But with the Black Keys blasting and a decent enough attitude, I could spin days like that into a bizarre heaven.
But Halloween was coming. I took the plunge. I quit.
I always despised spending Halloween at a menial job. It's my favourite holiday. And even though a killer attitude with decomposing corpses is a great way of cultivating work ethic, after a certain point, you have to wonder why you are focusing so hard on not being miserable instead of making yourself fulfilled.
And boy did that question hit me hard when I was showing a rookie how to slide an elderly woman who'd been rotting in a bathroom for three weeks in 100-degree heat, just then making up the technique myself. (As it turns out, just yank on the ankles. And if the flesh slides off, just grip the bone.)
My life was already something of a sitcom without the laugh track. "Hey Quin, we're going to send you and this new hire to pick up a 600 pound case."
"600 pounds? Is that a typo?"
"No."
May as well gamble it all on my dreams, I figured. Pinch pennies. Do gig work as needed. Spend time entertaining strangers on the internet, making videos that might never see so much as 100 views, or perhaps as much as 700,000. A podcast for a devoted handful. Spend time perfecting a book that might not get sold, but I'd sooner dig my own grave and choke myself in the soil than give up on that. Or even being a literal, you know, clown.
I didn't care anymore. I was doing what I was passionate about, as long as I had a roof and something to eat, I couldn't give a fuck what Mr. 30-something with a 9-5 thought. Edgar Allan Poe didn't. Charlie Chaplin didn't. But that's not entirely accurate. In fact, it's precisely the opposite. We care so much that it is soul-wrenching to see the passion spent on anything besides our own idea of a wonderful life. Though it feels selfish, it also comes with the earnest hope to leave a mark on others. Maybe just so they can feel a break from what routine they’re exploring.
It hasn't been all roses since then. It's one thing to juggle a day job and a dream. But kicking off into open ocean with a broken oar and a dumb grin on your face? The hard questions start being asked.
Today it came full circle. I spend more time than ever working on my creative pursuits, nurturing the communities growing around my work, the small, haphazard pieces I manage to eke out between bigger projects.
It may sound like smoke, but I think endlessly about the people in my corner. My patrons. The folks who send encouraging messages, like my posts, share it with their friends. I'm overwhelmed by it all. I don't know if you're my friends or family. We may just be a strangers, but it never feels that way.
For the first time in awhile it felt like I took a full breath. I stood with my feet in the cold water of the Oregon coast, watching the ebb of the tide pull in trillions of grains of sands. I could hear my thoughts clearer than ever. I had looked in a mirror countless times in the last year, but it took an entire ocean to feel the gravity of the changes that had occurred, the things I’d experienced.
A great, calamitous breath of nature swirling about me. I could've cried. I did.
Then that spark happened. I was able to put a feeling into words. A feeling I've had for many years.
I'm a fanatic about logic, evidence, and careful scrutiny of the nature of reality.
But I do not wish to 'know' all the answers. Those great, existential questions that have kept philosophers busy for all history. Our ultimate purpose. Our origin. A meaning shared by all.
"How wonderful," I thought, "to not know at all." Because those who are unburdened with the urgency of such questions feel no fear for the discomfort of not knowing their answers. For the fear of finding that the answers do not match their expectations.
It is not an embrace of ignorance, but an admittance. Even if science or a diety could answer all the mysteries behind our existence, the human condition would remain. The constant din. The ebb and flow of our daily aspirations and goings-on.
I have seen what those who profess to know the answers look like. It manifests in divination and star charts, chapels and robes, communion and rituals. The majesty of our mortal experience boiled down into a few articles that reliably quail to and belittle the raw experience.
For me, through occult and religious explanations, existential questions and attempts at answering them lose their charm. Their magic, even. What science can uncover behind the callous cogs of what it means to be human adds to the complexity. Understanding it makes it that much more awe inspiring, sometimes terrifying.
The rest, I'm comfortable leaving to intuition. This is the absolute antithesis of billions of people, who may find the void of a collective purpose a kind of nightmare. I understand that. It is scary. It doesn’t mean it is isn’t plausible. The real question is, "Where do we go from here?”
I have come to believe that, except for all and any abject, needless suffering, that every bit of this world can be interpreted into a kind of beauty. Even if it hurts. Or bleeds. Or cries. And there are billions of people whose only hope may be in the reassurance that this is an accessible, subjective truth. The alchemy of turning challenge into conquest, despair into euphoria, and the simple appreciation for that which cannot be altered.
The waters were up to my waist now. The tide had come in. How long had I been standing there? Fog engulfed the waves, crashing with that white, seething rage. All about me was grey. I could stand there for an eternity. I was doing nothing but thinking, and it was the most honest form of art I had done in awhile.
I needed this.
I am not missing anything without the answers to questions for which I have little interest in, as there is much work to do and a precious few moments by which to enjoy it; and I do believe that in the pursuit of such efforts, these questions begin to satisfy themselves, willingly or no.
A final, quiet thought emerged. "Am I on the right path? Is this the man I want to become?" But it is ritual. A prayer. A spell. I have not doubted myself in a long time, because there has never been more than one answer.
You could say I take it on faith.
