Once upon a time,  I fell partially into a story by T.H. White.  As Arthur says in the musical “Camelot”…made from White’s story, about first seeing the sword in the stone that would shape the entirety of his life, “It was a war memorial…”

Of course, I am no “once and future king”— only a minion in some story that has the words “war memorial” in common.  On May Day of 2003, I lost my temper when a man said the mission was accomplished.  A mission HE did not accomplish in any sense whatsoever.  And I knew the death count wasn’t at an end.  I dreamt angry dreams that night and saw the figure that is one of my personal deities beckoning; and I thought, “Yes, of course, a proper “memorial” is in order—small and humble tho’ it must be to be of my making, but at least it won’t wait for a government to do it.”

So, into the story I fell.  Sometimes, in my mind’s eye, I see the stones of the Labyinth falling from a midnight blue sky in slow motion.  The building didn’t happen that way, of course, and about the time I had it all there, saving only the central monument, I knew I was in over my head and that this was no mere memorial.  What exactly it was instead evaded any kind of sensible definition; my son and I postulated that it was a gateway to some afterworld, specifically demanded for those dying in this war.  We gave it a private name and a public one.

A person who ever lets the phrase “once upon a time” enter into a personal story of their life is really asking for it, you know?  But once upon a time, I thought what I had done might somehow miraculously change the affairs of man; that the simple sweat and grief made visible would move hearts and minds.  Since then, I have decided nothing moves the necessary hearts…nothing at all, perhaps they don’t even have real hearts and are like storybook sorcerors who coldly do without such beating, tender accouterments?  The only heart and body put into motion by the building of the Walk seemed to be mine.  And I still can’t say with certainty where that walk is taking me.

I walk names of the dead to the center, as I have said before, several times per week.  And I whine (like this!) more and more about it.  It isn’t the time out of my day, or even the money for replacing frost shattered stones each spring that makes me feel sorry for myself.  It is fear of things I cannot understand when I am walking that walk.  You see, the thing about falling into a story, instead of merely writing one, is that you are not in control of what happens.  Sometimes, after a restless and nigh-sleepless night, I open my email to DOD lists of the dead and as I write them down, I hear myself mentally insisting that I ALREADY wrote down THESE names.  But of course, the names are not there in my book.  So why did I think they were familiar?  The utter certainty of the feeling is so beyond what is usually called deja vu; I now sometimes wake up with a name already singing in my head before I turn the computer on.  This upsets me no end.  Who or what whispers these names so insistently into my consciousness?

Pagan I call myself.  But I am not one of those “anything goes” sorts…I am the kind who insists on absolute convincing to accept something; so theorizing on possible afterlifes and deities who take personal interest is always a work in progress.  I absolutely believe in free will; my “gods” take a very hands off approach to the affairs of men—this is our ball of wax and if we screw it up, it is our problem.  But that doesn’t mean it goes without notice or effect in those theoretical otherwheres “out there” someplace.  There is a phrase much bandied about in pagan and magical circles: As Above, So Below.  And yes, one has to assume it works backwards, too….if we screw up the below, what does it ignite in the above?  And if I can decide on nothing else about the effect of the Labyrinth upon my life, I have concluded that out there is a sort of liminal zone between the phenomenal world we all share, and the noumenal world we can only guess about.

A tightrope of stones bordered with sedums and herbs, and a peaceful place it is with bees buzzing in the thyme blossoms and ducks browsing in the grass margins.   Yet, the more time I spend there, the less peaceful I feel.  I feel torn and broken and useless.  Sometimes I feel comforted, sometimes I feel like I am growing more ill with each step I take there.  I worry over my sanity and tell myself I am making it up as I go and to just walk away from what, after all, must be just a “war memorial.”  But there is no walking away.  I feel, at times, that most of America walks away—from the few television sets that actually mention the people dying in this continual war, from protestors who may or may not feel the reality of the slogans they shout, from serious thought about the sound-bites politicians bandy about on the topic of the war.  So, I dare not walk away.

I criticize my own cowardice and whimpering over it.  I have lost nobody there…nobody I personally knew; and yet all of us lose everything in a sense, with every death.  Our continued prosecution of this war destroys what America was supposed to mean.  America falls OUT of her own story with each passing day of deaths in the “Sand Box” and we lock the Merlin of flag-draped caskets into a crystal cave of lies with every photograph not allowed.   What did America learn from Viet Nam, where I could have lost the husband I hadn’t met yet?  The politicians learned not to show America flag draped caskets, not to let the press report deaths nightly, and to call anyone who disagrees names like “traitor” and “terrorist-enabler”.  But the ordinary Americans?  Did they learn anything?  They learned not to be afraid of it happening again—because there is no draft now to threaten THEIR sons or daughters or husbands and wives.

Yes, I have fallen, not like those whose names I read at the Walk of the Fallen, but I fell into a story not of my writing.  I thought I was building a war memorial, and I fear instead it is a memorial to an America that will be broken and shattered and fall from its midnight blue field of dazzling stars because so few of us participate in the story the Founding Fathers wrote.  Because we fear being put on no-fly lists, because we fear being branded disloyal, because we are uncomfortable confronting the thing itself behind our eyes when whatever easy phrase coined and wrapped in red, white and blue bunting is easier to mentally apprehend.

I am just a little woman, aging, with streaks of silver in her hair, a private person with strong opinions and a fairly foul mouth on occasion.  I don’t want to be the vicar of America’s guilt.  What has that last sentence got to do with this little rant?  Well, everyone has heard about living vicariously, right?  I am walking the walk out there and get more sure every day that it is going to drive me right out of my mind, but I can’t stop walking.  Because someplace behind my eyes, a calculator is running and even though there is a peace march in Washington D.C. today, I can FEEL that the number of Americans demanding an end is not enough yet.  So, I am walking, pushed by the vicarious need to expunge the sins of a nation that has too many “citizens” more devoted to the latest video game than it is to what is happening to its military members,  its national reputation, even its all-important national debt.  A nation that puts up with newscasters who talk about how “Presidential” a politician “looks” or “sounds.”  Wake up, America.  Your reality check has bounced…….even a crazy little woman on a spiral of stone can see that.