September 22nd, 2025 - The Pool
Dear TNY,
I’m late again, for reasons I’ll get into, but I did finally get around to “The Pool.”
It’s not terrible. But Boyle wrote it, you know? So you know it’s not going to be terrible. If there’s one guy out there that I would bet on writing a story that sounded just like this, it’s him. I read a complete collection of his years ago and, much like Hemingway’s, I saw there was a formula to it. This follows that formula to a T. And that’s okay. Truly. For all it lacks in depth and transcendence, at least it reads like real life, it’s not about victimhood, and it’s on par with short story writing from the 80s, which is in another universe compared to the shenanigans we are treated to today. It feels real, you know? And that’s good. It feels like something I would have written during my MFA years, something that looks for the beauty in the struggle of the mundane. Pockets of meaning and/or wonder happening all around us if something could just shake us loose from our intense focus on how overwhelming all this civilization has become. Bills and jobs and parties and possums and taxes and meetings and voting and groceries and receipts and loans and car trouble and fashion and tuition and meat loaf and exercise and rock collecting and dusting and picking out kitchen cabinets and Irish dancing classes and walking the dog and parent teacher conferences and work trips and and and…
But that shit didn’t catch him, see? Because even though there was all that shit, he was free enough to get drunk on the day of his third child’s birth and jump into the air, snatching himself back from everything else, once more before death. We don’t know if it was the last time. That doesn’t really matter. What matters is that for a second, he was everything, all at once, and nothing could touch him.
That, folks, is why I’m depressed. It’s not the alcohol or the relationships or lack thereof or missing time with my children or running out of money or having to work again on other people’s lives or the state of our country or any of that shit. I figured out how to live, mostly, in the air. I can see the pool. I can see the roof, if I choose to look behind me. But I’m right here. Living. I’m in the single instant between the cusp of a well-teased out orgasm and the break of the relief. I am in that moment when you are bowling with her, knowing already that you love her but not having said it because you know she wasn’t ready to say it back, when she turns around in those purple and chartreuse lights at the bowling alley in Juneau, you, walking up to grab your ball as she walks by you, having just cleaned up a spare, and instead of picking up your ball you watch her go back to the seats, where she puts both of her hands in her back pockets, and she turns around to face you and says, “I love you!” for the first time, maybe even the best time, I’m in that moment, the one before you get to say it back but your heart swells and explodes into a million tiny points of light because she’s every goddamn thing to you and you know you are to her, now. I’m in the front seat of the van, “All Eyes On Me,” by Bo Burnham playing on the radio, my oldest son in the front seat, youngest in the back, somewhere on the border between Colorado and New Mexico, the road disintegrating as we drive over it, windows down, in the Spring, crying and crying. I’m in that moment, ten years in, when my wife at the time had her first penetrative orgasm and she cried in my arms afterward, thanking me for not giving up, me knowing that it had never been a chore, but an honor. And I’m also in that pocket of time where I wrote my dead brother letters in my mind, by hand, imaging my pen forming each character, one by one, describing in detail how I had destroyed that wife because of depression, ego, and loneliness, casting aside our children as well, then folding each letter neatly and tightly, flinging into space above me, traveling through the blue winter Alaskan sky, up past the blue-black, and into the space, hoping those letters would catch the tail of Voyager I or II and leave the solar system to hopefully find where he went when the automobile knocked the him out of his vessel. I’m the in pocket of consciousness which sprung us forth, one leg still in the warm, fuzzy blue pool, both arms outstretched trying to hold on to this matter body in this matter world with these matter problems when I know that not much of what is supposed to be important here is actually important. Real importance is being kind, proceeding with grace, and trying to see past all of these walls we put up to find the children inside each other and just play. To stop being so afraid of living. So afraid of the other. So afraid of ourselves. I am reminded of this:
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.
Your playing small does not serve the world.
There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.
We were all meant to shine as children do.
It’s not just in some of us, it’s in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
This is from a movie called Coach Carter. It’s drawn from a quote by Marianne Williamson, but I didn’t go with the original because it is tainted by the inclusion of religion, which, by its very nature, fears the other, fears its creator, and rewards mistakes and struggle with eternal pain. If there is a god, it won’t do that. It’s already done enough to us while we are here that it can only greet us with loving arms and tell us how proud it was of each and every one of us. And apologize for how hard it was.
Our job here is to save each other’s lives. It’s that simple. To give more than we have. To take nothing in return. To be strong when others cannot. To be soft when no one else will. To eschew the bullshit. And hold the essence of another human being in our hands and say, “I’ve got you.”
And that’s enough.
Nick
P.S. I was late again because a good friend is struggling. So I dropped what I was doing and hopped on a plane and worked on the roof of her up and coming woodshop. But mostly, I worked on her. I was present. I tried to talk her down from impending doom after impending doom. I fought the monster inside her that makes her feel like she is not enough, doesn’t know shit, is fucking everything up, is a burden, is all the bad things a person can say about oneself. I fought this demon daily while on a ladder, moving heavy shit around, and making mistakes myself. I went so that for a week maybe we could get her to feel a little more whole. Because guys, she didn’t do anything wrong. This isn’t her fault. And it’s not yours either. Let it go. Help us put up the roof. There is so much work to be done and we’d love to have you.
