the disappearing act

[I didn't mean to disappear. I love writing here, having done it for so long, knowing I can look back and see how far I've come. It's the last day of 2011, and while I don't normally fall prey to such conventions, I know I wouldn't forgive myself if I let this year end without some summation of what's happened.]

This has probably been one of the hardest years of my life, which coincided with the experience of growing the fuck up. It's been swell, young adulthood, it's been great. I had some amazing times with good friends. Some of them are gone, finding themselves in other parts of the world, some of them I've outgrown and some of them I've rediscovered again.

For me, it has been the year of being missing, everyone is saying, where are you? where have you been? where have you gotten back from? All the while I've been working and traveling and trying very hard to make sense of what is happening to me, like if I just pay close enough attention to every single thing maybe it will all make sense somehow and get better, but then there are so many things.

So many factors go into a disappearing act. It's not just one thing. They are all here, transcribed already. Money, family, love, sobering up, finding out that who I am is nothing without love.

And then there's this:

My family has never been close. It's just understood that the love is there and that's that. We don't talk, we don't see each other much except for holidays and we look forward to seeing my brother who has three cheerful wild children. We started to talk more, I won't get into the painful teary why, when you talk to someone who loves you and really wants to talk to you and they are kids it is a big gushy good feeling.

I wrote a story this year. One story. It is part of my novel, the seemingly never-ending source of mockery of my own making. It was an embarrassing story, difficult to write, hard to get out, a cringing unwelcome peeling of something unpleasant over and over again trying to find a way to make something of the effort of trying to figure out the magnet. Sometimes I am asked to explain why I write. This story made me realize that it is less about wanting to and more about needing to, because there was never a story I wanted to write less than that one.

Maybe because it turned out it was time to write some of Peter's story and remember what a presence he was. We miss him. Things haven't been the same since he left. His presence comes to me in strange visions, the sort of thing I've never experienced, I feel a little terrified of them, but grateful all the same because it never feels like the message or whatever I interpret the message to be is a bad one. He appeared to me in a dream, smiling, happy to see me, even though seeing him made me realize I had died and gone to heaven.

As some of my friends have disappeared, either to moves, marriages, or school; I find I am lonesome. I miss Siena, talking to people, discussing things, elaborating on things, remarking on things and there is no one I can do that with anymore. It makes me disappointed and dismayed. Recently, I saw some old friends and I realize I never want to see them again. She doesn't forgive me for saying she wears grandma sweaters (she does) and he can't see me without seeing the burnham. So even though there is time and love and there was some joy, it doesn't mean anything anymore. I can't keep spending time trying to line up and sort out the details of my past. Because somehow, without my realizing it, I have a future.

Being me, and living day to day, surviving, trying to see where I went wrong back there to avoid getting in the same spot again is why I had no future. You can't look forward if you're always looking back. Except the future isn't much clearer, an even murkier pond with a few spots of reflection and no clear view.

This year the moon reached out and grabbed me. He took my hand and helped me out of the darkness. He made the world seem small and simple. He holds a future for me, except to have it, I have to make a difficult decision, but for me it is not difficult. He is what I've been waiting for. So I will bide my time and wait, but I already know I am going to pack up and move one more time. It will be the best move of my life, it will be the best year of my life. I am ready for what will come and excited to share life with him.

I am glad for this year of struggle and sadness and fear. I learned that I can do anything as long as I take care of myself and am true to my own morals and ideals. I am also glad for it to be over.

“If you are depressed you are living in the past.
If you are anxious you are living in the future.
If you are at peace you are living in the present. ” Lao Tzu, Daoist philosopher

'advice from a caterpillar'

It feels like I'm speaking another language. Every interaction feels awkward and obtuse and confusing. Every word I say and hear has to be stripped of its meaning and contemplated.

She's the only person who understands the words I speak. She too is stuck in a whirl of change and is in between two worlds. She chased her rabbit down the bunny hole and landed in a world where everything is topsy turvy.

My head is in Chicago, but my heart is in Edmonton.

Having been lost for a long time, spending months and years in the abyss of limbo, wondering where to go next, what to do next, it is no strange surprise that being found is just as alarming. At least being lost was familiar, being found and stuck is worse.

He doesn't know this, but the first time he made the cold hard knot of hate that was my heart ooze hopefully was from a sentiment contained in a caption of the view from his balcony. I don't remember if his feet were in the picture, characteristically crossed at the ankles and propped up. I don't remember which portion of his view it showed, most likely the river valley and all the trees along it, because all I remember thinking is, my gosh, I would love to be there.

And the caption, corny, but sweet, went something like, looking for someone to share this with. A plaintive wail thrown into the dark night; a message in a bottle that I found and treasured. I never imagined I would get to see it for myself, I never thought I would prop my feet on the railing alongside his, I never considered something that seemed so far could be reached.

So to go there and be there again and spend time being found makes everything here feel like an obstacle. Even myself.

The Caterpillar and Alice looked at each other for some time in silence: at last the Caterpillar took the hookah out of its mouth, and addressed her in a languid, sleepy voice.'Who are you?' said the Caterpillar.

This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation. Alice replied, rather shyly, 'I — I hardly know, sir, just at present — at least I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then.'

'What do you mean by that?' said the Caterpillar sternly. 'Explain yourself!'

'I can't explain myself, I'm afraid, sir' said Alice, 'because I'm not myself, you see.'

'I don't see,' said the Caterpillar.

'I'm afraid I can't put it more clearly,' Alice replied very politely, 'for I can't understand it myself to begin with; and being so many different sizes in a day is very confusing.'

why love is my misery

It's been three years since that day. Three years since I came home in a drunken stupor and found him sitting up at two am in the dark texting a mysterious someone he tried to pretend was his brother. Three years since I woke up an hour later as he snored next to me and read the words that broke my heart. Three years since I discovered the other woman I'd been accusing him of looking for the entire time we were together. Three years since our relationship died in an instant despite lapses and breakups, crackling chemistry, intense passion and fiery love.

That I caused it makes it doubly agonizing.

That he withstood the machinations of that cold hard knot of hate that was my heart, the testing, the fights, the hurt, the endless and tiresome questioning of his mind, body and spirit is a testimony to how much he did love me. And all I gave him back was fear and jealousy, spiteful words and bad behavior that I loathed performing but found myself unable to stop.

Facing those demons isn't easy. Especially when they writhe in such delicious joy from causing so much pain, manipulating every word, twisting every scenario, searching for the proof of infidelity where there is innocence and fun being had. Because the demons don't like it when someone is having fun without them.

The origin of them is simple enough. Someone very important wasn't there, and every man that stood in his spot vanished eventually (from death, divorce, or despair), which was tangled up with witnessing my grandfather's heart attack from our apartment window across the street on the second floor. I couldn't do anything about it, but somehow it became my fault. And if I'm the reason they left, then I could never trust one that wanted to be with me in the first place.

And so it began.

It played out many times, many ways, with essentially the same underlying pattern being repeated. I let them love me, but I wondered why they did. I didn't want to be left alone so I would leave them first and find someone else. It wasn't until my heart was in it and his wasn't that the stakes got raised, and the demons slithered out from the despair I felt at his betrayal, whispering how I should have known.

Because looking back, I did know. I knew there was something between them. Everyone knew. Except he was in denial and she was sad thinking she lost him to me and I was just the catalyst that caused love to spark between them. I was so innocent, having just had the shocking metamorphosis of self as adult, which he bore witness to and encouraged and inspired.

And worse, he lied to me about her, didn't come clean for a long time, so the demons grew stronger in my rejection, in my assurances that I was right, in the sadness of losing him and being alone.

I barely had time to recover from this before I met another him, and eagerly enjoyed the air balloon of romance offered by a man who wanted to be something better than he was. I knew it was wrong, but I let him love me. It wasn't until our relationship felt threatened in a way that felt too familiar to what had happened before that I began to question him. He faltered, with me throwing stones at him with the repetition of a deranged lunatic. I beat him down so hard that it shames me. I have never been so cruel and so unkind and I hated myself the entire time I did it but I couldn't stop myself. I promised I would never be in another relationship if that was what I would do, because I couldn't put another person through that and I couldn't be that girl again.

I had to break the pattern. I was the problem. I shut myself off. I threw myself and my belongings into a tiny studio apartment and spent long nights staring out the window and wondering who I was, who I wanted to be, what the fuck was wrong with me. I smoked. I drank. I wandered through everything else. If someone came around I made sure to push them away. I built emotional walls with high standards, a tough exterior and rough edges. No one would ever hurt me again and I would keep myself from hurting someone the way I did him.

And then time passed.

Being alone felt good, doing what I liked to do, being solitary and not having to explain myself, enjoying the silence, no questions, no answers; no relationship, no demons. I thought I was healed. I felt confident in myself and who I was and where I was going. I thought since I had better friends and better days I was ready for this new relationship when it arrived unexpectedly.

At first it was careful and polite, then it was a surprise, an avalanche, an unstoppable force of nature, and as the days settle into a routine, and the words build up between us, and things in my life fell prey to a slew of unfortunate circumstances (my family, my friends, my jobs, my living situation all taking dark twists), the demons began to waken after their long slumber.

And more than anything I want to stop them. I will name them, call them out, shine all the lights on them that I can, because I don't want to be the girl they make me and more than anything I don't want to hurt him, my moon. The more I love without their voices behind my behavior the closer I get to being free.

the fiscal abyss

At first, a year ago, the descent was a tiny spiral staircase, worn smooth on the sides from constant hands rubbing past: a pay cut, less hours, one of my many odd jobs finding a conclusion, someone not paying me when they should have. The nature of my "work" is constant fluctuation and getting used to never knowing much in advance.

Then I moved, which cost a lot. And went on two trips, which was expensive. One of my best clients moved. And then, I quit a job. I absolutely had to do all of those things, the move, the trips, quit that job. Except, ever since I've been desperately broke. And it's been a long five months.

It's funny how being broke has changed me. First it was the little things, cutting out the trips to Starbucks, eating out less, waiting until something was absolutely out before I bought a new one. It felt temporary, because I've always been busy and working a lot and making enough money. So whenever I'd get a little bit of money I'd spend it all, not listening to the new meek voice in my head saying not to spend it.

You start to see how money affects your mood. When you have it, life is great. When you don't, life fucking sucks.

A month went by and then another, where it was not just hard to pay rent, but hard to pay my cell phone bill and buy groceries. And not only could I not pay the bills, I have a debt or two hanging over me that I cannot even consider paying. I started really scrutinizing where I was wasting money, and my sights settled pretty fast on drinking. So I quit going out. It coincided nicely with moving farther west and having a harder time getting home.

I went on a spending freeze. I looked for ways to make extra money. I started to use up the resources I had on hand that I was too picky for when I had all the money I needed, eating that bag of quinoa I had forever and using up all these toiletries I'd accumulated over the years of trying to find the perfect potion. No more socializing because socializing cost money. The few people I did socialize with are stubborn, generous or managed to catch me on a week when I had a little cash to spare.

And the worst part? I developed a horrendous case of worrying. My brain was like a nervous squirrel, digging, testing, wondering, scavenging, never ceasing its activity of adding and subtracting and worrying about money and when I was going to get it and how it would get to me before rent was due. The one characteristic I hate the most about other people I'd stumbled into and relied upon because I felt like I had no other choice.

I felt like I was drowning. I felt like I'd rather just give up than struggling so hard. I had to endure well meaning helpful suggestions from people who don't understand my livelihood. I can't really get another job unless it fits in with babysitting and my personal assisting gig (both of which are flexible, but never consistent). I can't really quit either of those jobs. I started to expand my pool of clients for my organizing business, but got disheartened when it seemed I never had free time that wasn't me sacrificing having dinner or an evening to myself at home. How could I be so busy and not have any fucking money to show for it?

And then, a long anticipated event finally arrived. I was due to go on vacation with my boss, a gift she extended me which was an all expense paid trip to Europe. All I had to do was leave my life for two weeks and go along for the ride. In some ways, it should have been the most wonderful gift, but all I could think about was how much it was going to cost, how hard I would have to work afterwards, how am I going to pay rent if I'm not working for two weeks? The meek voice turned nervous squirrel became an angry endless churning.

And long gone was my carefree happiness, my gladness and my joy.

Finally, the voice of reason broke through. I realized I wouldn't be able to work much if my boss was away. And, being a nervous squirrel worked. I had saved up some extra money. I worked hard and had more money than I needed. I felt a sense of quiet relief after I returned and realized everything was just fine. I still owe money to my friend, I still owe money on my student loans, I still have no idea how I am going to pay rent at the end of the month, but I'm tired of being held hostage by money or the lack of it. It never had a hold on me before, why should it now?

The Importance of Being Earnest

She emerged at my twelve o'clock on a bicycle. That same doughy face with the smallish mouth and big nose and eyes pressed like raisins on top. I knew her at first glance and I turned on my heel hoping she would not see the beat of recognition in my face. I cowered under my umbrella. I hoped that she would know better than to say anything to me.

So of course it was no surprise that she rode over and stopped her bike to ask if it was really me. The doltish gesture was followed by an expectant gaze to which I had nothing to say. Nothing at all. Not a single word. The bus was coming, the bus I needed to get on was arriving, I was already late, but that wasn't just it. I had nothing at all to say to her.

She seemed to nod in some sort of understanding at the panic in my face and the lack of words. She pedaled away strongly as I boarded the bus and I watched for some time her figure gain some distance then lose some distance until suddenly she was gone again. And then I breathed.

There many ghosts here, even though it is big and full of people, I have lived here for a long time and there are many people I have cut loose, cast aside, let go of, and in some rare cases been let go. These ghosts sometimes cross my path without meddling with me, choosing to disappear into obscurity, some forgetting my face, lost in the hum of their own thoughts. When I see them I consider the things that led to our departure from each other, and usually those musings involve some small coins of regret that when tossed into a fountain had been hopeful wishes but have since become unrealized and forgotten.

She meant a lot to me at one time. She was in my life at a time when I was a giant mass of uncertainty and she helped shape part of who I am today. She had been a coworker then good friend and perhaps a best friend at some point, and when I needed her the most, she took a critique I made about her behind her back and to a mutual friend and made it mean everything.

I knew I was somewhat in the wrong to do so, a lesson that has since affected me in always saying out loud and to the person that needs to hear it everything I feel. What bothered me was not her anger about it, which was reasonable, to some degree, it was her embarrassment that her behavior had been questioned at all, and by me, someone who was her friend, to someone else who was her friend that did not know the behavior in question. And all of this high school tomfoolery arrived when things between the burnham and I were in a state of despair, because I had done the same behaviors and it cost me my relationship. And so, in the span of a couple short weeks, I lost my boyfriend and my best friend.

They both returned some time later, him with more success than she. We never really saw each other again after that summer night, when she tried to convince me that talking about her with our friend was a very bad thing and I just wouldn't let her be right. Part of me was ready to throw away that relationship, it had become tiring, I could tell she was no longer interested in my many twists and turns of testing out who I was or might be, she didn't seem to care anymore, we had grown apart and it was a long time coming. So when she crawled back into my life in the most discreet way possible (through blog comments and emails) I made no motion to ban her, I responded to her as best I could with the advantage of time to ponder my reply.

Even then she was tiring. Assuming things that were not true, pinpointing the most inane details, pressing books of great interest to her that I found droll and uninteresting, cheerleading that reeked of tail-between-the-legs earnestness all without any attempt at clearing up the rift or an apology. So it remained, for me at least, unresolved. Oh sure, time has lessened the sting of it, and since I was feeling less than enthused by her friendship I didn't miss her very much at at all, but I still felt bad that someone out there somewhere in the world had tried to mar my good name while I was already down no less. I have no doubt that she trotted out the scenario to any of our mutual friends who would listen to her lisping tiresome storytelling. And that to me, that was the overriding hypocrisy that cancelled out my own rock crashed into the still pond of our friendship.

Over the years I hear of her in little snippets, like news items, and I find them mostly to be good things for her, that she too has been trying to figure out her place in the world and who she is as a person. Some of the news I found corresponded to that loathsome quality of hers in which religion was her anchor and bringer of great guilt. I felt badly that she erased parts of herself to suit her beliefs, but to each their own.

Sometimes our rift causes one of our remaining mutual friends a bit of concern over who not to invite (I suspect she alternates our invitations in the interest of fairness) and I feel bad that I'm partly responsible for a delicate situation. I don't like having these sort of emotional land mines to navigate, preferring things to be cleaned up at the parting.

So all of that was running through my mind when her leg halted her bicycle next to me and she obtusely asked if it was me. And then, even though I have found myself, known myself, I couldn't reveal myself to her and I still couldn't lie and pretend seeing her was anything but alarming and unwelcome. Even now, a week later, I still have no idea what I could have said to her. Because none of it really matters until you start asking questions. And I could not say yes to her.

our eden

It was a coach house, which meant you had to walk around the front house on the lot. Next to the house was a concrete path, the gangway we called it when we were kids, but on the other side of the gangway was an empty lot for cars, it was a sea of wood chips and walking on them was the best feeling, like walking on sponges or sand. At the end of the woodchip lot was the community garden. The plots were marked off in irregular chunks and varieties of plants in various states of growth sprawled across what could have been a backyard.

The coach house was this pretty little white house. We lived in the basement. An artist lived on the other floor. His name was Bob and he was the most marvelous conversationalist, he would bump into you and wonder about something and you could spend the day shooting the shit with him and felt like you learned something or went through something profound with another human being in a way that you just don't feel with any old human being. And he rode a motorcycle, sometimes he parked it out front of our house. It was an old Italian motorcycle and sometimes I watched him work on it when I had the day off and the sun wasn't too bright. When I had to leave there, Bob took my green plastic molded chairs on wheels and gave them a good home with the appropriate reverence and delight.

There was a privacy fence that was about eight feet wide and six feet high and three or four bunches of clematis draped over it, big bursts of purple flowers and the green of the leaves snaking up along it made me smile when I saw them. I decorated the roof of our front entrance with strands of glass squares on fishing wire and delicate crackled aqua ornaments. And then there were the cosmos I planted, the only seeds I ever buried in dirt and watched grow. The white wooden planter in front of our door held them and they grew into large stalky plants only one of which ever had flowers and the flowers were small and sad and shriveled up quick. Oh, but the stalks of those cosmos, the delight I had watching them grow, how I would stare at their shadows on the white painted bricks. They looked like a forest of trees in their shadow and I would sit and smoke and trace with my eyes every single leaf and I adored those plants.

Outside the house was almost like a room in our house. It was all paved, cement, but there were things from Bob that he'd collected and deposited there, collages of found objects, stacks of like items, a giant husk of a rusting metal cross that he filled with every profane thing he could find. He liked stuff. His van sat on the other side of the privacy fence and it was covered, so covered I don't remember what color it was, with doll heads and stuffed animals and vintage toys and pretty much anything you could imagine a guy who liked stuff would attach to his van.

I would walk the length of the house and stare at all these pieces stacked on giant wooden spools or cement cinderblocks. We grilled out as much as possible and ate at the table outside. We loved being outside and enjoying the wonderland that was our place. It was quiet, except when the neighbors were loud, it was serene, it was peaceful.

I remember the best times we had were in the garden, tending to our little plot, looking for where the snap peas cast nubile green tendrils up the chain link fence as we hoped, pulling ripe raspberries off someone else's underwatched plot and eating them straight from our fingers, watching with delight as the broccoli grew, staring at the asparagus that someone had in the back corner, watching with interest and then concern as the melon vine grew and its fruits spoiled or were half eaten by squirrels or rats. Our little garden was the best part of our meager lives, we touched and palmed and stroked so many plants, it was a delightful seduction.

We always got along well, spending our days in monk like silence and keeping to ourselves, meeting somewhere to eat after work, our nights curled into each other's limbs, but the garden and that space outdoors littered with the found treasures and whimsy of the artist Bob, it was where we learned to love each other again.

this new life

Sometimes it amazes me how many paths I've traveled. In what feels like another lifetime ago, I was almost married, sharing--for years, my space and life and thoughts and words and everything with a man who was great in nearly every way, except I wasn't ready for him. Had I stayed with him, kept on that path, I wouldn't have gone to school for my writing, I wouldn't have traveled, I wouldn't have done anything but been a good mother and a good wife and had a perfectly just fine life. Except even though I wasn't ready for that, it was something else I knew but couldn't articulate, the constant barrage of negativity, the tireless critiquing, the effort of catching up. I wasn't ready and I wasn't his equal and so I turned off that road, a sharp turn, a wild move, no one anticipated it and everyone thought I was crazy, but I had to go.

And in between I worked at the cafe, learned the dry cleaning business, had my first taste of personal assisting and was a nanny for an extremely wealthy family. If I was going to be the perfect wife, I had to learn how. My brain needed to be fed new things to learn and my body needed to be worn out to the point of exhaustion to make me numb.

When I ran away, I threw myself into the arms of the first man who paid me any attention, and luckily for me he was just about everything I needed at the time with a lot of things I didn't need thrown in for good measure. His artistic philosophies and commitment to his craft inspired me. His love for noise and smoke charmed me. His world was new and fascinating. There were stories everywhere. For the first time I was with someone who didn't want to be in a relationship with me except he was everything I thought I was looking for, so I let myself fall and fall hard, because falling seemed to be required. As I went to school and worked to the point of exhaustion, I learned how to keep a healthy distance and in that time alone I learned myself. In his eyes, he wasn't good enough for me, in my eyes I wasn't good enough for him; it was no wonder that it didn't work.

I hunkered down for the winter. School was there, work was there. I learned how to smoke. I listened to music. I wrote stories.

And then, when I least expected it, there was the burnham, who coincidence seemed to deliver as if hand-picked, so many times I wondered how dare I deny the fates that brought us together. There were so many perfect stories that circled around our union, all of them relied on not just one or two coincidences but a perfect storm of moments. And so I went along, trying to see what it was the universe wanted, why it had me collide with another who was in so many ways exactly what I needed, wanted and desired, except his heart was full of sadness and anger and there was no room for me in there. We drank to numb the pain of holding on to the thing that once loved you that we could not fathom why it loved us to begin with. After we bloodied our figurative heads and hands on each other's walls, fate intervened and diverged our paths as if we never met. And to think, I loved him with the aching agony of chemical, mental and physical desire, never to know him again. He was the mirror of my emotions that I could not have seen otherwise and for him I am eternally grateful.

All the while, there was this place, the cafe, where I grew up and learned how to conduct myself as a well balanced, articulate and lovely human being. When I began working there, I was painfully shy and extremely misanthropic. Every time I worked there I was afforded the opportunity to rise above a challenge, and for a long time I sank, gurgling in the depths of anger and choking on my own selfishness. It took me a long time to grow up. Nearly fifteen years I worked there, and somewhere around the ninth year I finally understood that no one gave a shit if I was sad or mad or tired or hungry or any other emotion. It didn't matter. No matter how hard I tried, nothing really mattered. There was never enough I could do, I could never be good enough, but I could certainly make it worse by complaining all about it. If it didn't matter what I was, I could be anything I wanted. I slowly revealed who I wanted to be, petal by petal.

Sometimes I think back to those lives, how deeply entrenched I was, how terrified I was that I was never going to get out, how I always felt a sense of foreboding and could never quite explain why, I just did. My intuition led me away, took me to school to do fiction writing and held my hand through all the jobs and pain. I didn't know why, I just followed.

So I quit working so hard. I stopped being in relationships. I got numb as often as possible for those and other reasons or out of habit and somewhere along the way I woke up into a dream:

He eviscerated me with words. He lavished me with more words. He made me laugh, made me wonder, made me proud of myself. He freely shared joyful things with me, all with a delightful grin of bemusement. His sense of whimsy and play is one of the best I've encountered. He was another candidate to be everything I ever wanted, except this time I had one thing on my mind, despite my intuition's firm approval, I had to be careful. So he came from far away to meet me and he made me feel comfortable and at ease. There are only a handful of people I've ever felt that way with, my family, a few close friends, children I babysit for, and him. And yet, he challenged me in ways that I can only say would have been difficult and tedious from anyone else but I took timid steps to meet his challenges and mostly succeeded at them.

I found myself eating dinner in a fancy restaurant, swept away in conversation, and staring across the table at a man I had known for less than forty eight hours (in one sense) and not needing to be anywhere else or do anything else or wanting anything else. It wasn't too this or that, I wasn't too this or that, he wasn't too this or that. Everything was just right. And I was incredulous and just a bit dubious. How easy is it when there is distance and a vacuum of time to enjoy each other? I wondered.

When he left, I resolved to go to his world, to learn his life, to see what he could not say about himself out of a refreshing humbleness and quiet reserve. I didn't know what I was looking for, just curious to see what it was and if I would recognize anything. I flew to him. I held my heart at bay, even though that part of me knew it was a useless endeavor, I still tried to maintain a safe distance just in case I was wrong.

(I never planned on it being right. Because being right is something I got used to not having. I learned to live without the good things, I let myself get by on the little dribblings of love I got from other areas in my life, I expected that when things could go a certain way, they would go the wrong way.)

I found myself in the woods, with no makeup on, no one around, wearing strange new clothes and eating delicious food and learning new things and sharing it all with him. I was none of the things that usually make me happiest, I had none of those things to rely on, there was nothing in the middle of nowhere and it was just right.

So this is my life now, I live in a dream. Everything is just right: I like where I live, I like where I work, I love who I say I love. I worry about waking up; it's hard for me not to. I stopped getting numb so much just to make sure I wasn't dreaming. Someday I will believe what I already know, that I'm already awake, but until then, I will let them be sweet dreams.

accumlation/expulsion

one foot in front of the other 4/03/11

When the coins fell, when I was brought to my knees by the mess I had made with my life, there was nothing I could do but pick them up. And laugh.

I'd already been broke for a week, spent my birthday hoping no one would want to do anything that cost money and anticipating that I had a little money to spend, but I found out it was less than a little, and of course, in typical me fashion, I didn't save it, hold on to it, I gave it away to the first person who gave me more than it was worth. And I stumbled home, drunk and destitute. Happy fucking birthday. I boarded the bus with a clear mind to get home and promptly fell into a deep sleep. When time resumed, when I awoke two hours later, I was far past my stop, so I got off and did what I do best, I let my legs out and moved my feet one step at a time and kept moving.

end of year sale 12/23/10

Sometimes, I look around and think, How did this happen?

It's a wonder. It's a wonder. I really thought I would be somewhere by now. Somewhere good and clean and good. And there is nothing. Actually, it's a negativeness, the most of it, the checks and balances lie mostly checked in the how did I get here category?

"how did you get so drunk?"/this juncture 12/18/10

I equally love and hate my life. It is the best time of my life. I am as free as possible. I am still constrained by the efforts of laboring for money to pay my bills and live the life I love, but for the most part, everything is just fine

the prison of guilt 11/09/10

he sits in his self-made prison. (What is my prison? Where am I free?)

wasps in my brain 11/08/10

feverish, unnecessary, the opposite of normal, where more time passing helps create tangibility and comfort. I am smitten.

untitled 8/26/10

After so many times of talking myself out of it, and wanting to go but not wanting to, I went.

spirit animal 8/09/10

It came to me like a clap of thunder; and I knew it instantly, and could not disagree.

I was sitting on the bus and I was very high, the kind of high when you vacillate from delighted to paranoid in a moment's notice. All of a sudden, yes, really, that archaic storyteller's device is suitable for use here, all of a sudden a dragonfly was lazily exploring the confines of the 22 Clark bus. And I seemed to be the only one who noticed.

on proving everyone wrong 7/9/10

I did it.

quest: 4/30/10

After the one particularly painful break-up I've endured (I described it as losing a vital integral body part) I wrote this sometime in November of 2002 as a rough estimate of what I wanted in a relationship:

And the thing is, more than anything, I just want to be wanted, to be consumed, to be ravaged, to be explored, to be taken, to be filled, to be emptied, to be burned, to be restored, to be used up and replenished.

untitled 4/23/10

In my last entry, I said that I wanted to experience the practice of the cleanse not solely for the health benefits, but for the halting of my busy life.

I wrote that entry in the bed of the mother I was standing in for, the woman I babysit for, as she was waking up in London. I had some idea there was a volcano that erupted, and as people across the internet began to whine about not being able to travel to and from London because of the cloud of ash that sat in the sky and caused a scramble between the airlines and scientists, I still hadn't connected the dots. It wasn't until she emailed me that it dawned on me. She was stuck, which meant, in turn that I was stuck. And for a week, I lived her life and unexpectedly got my wish.

arrival 4/1/10

My mom says I'm kooky. I've arrived at my destination. Always saw kooky people and thought, wow, those people look like they know how to have fun. And now I am one of them.

the peacefulness of french fries

It was inevitable, you see. We run in the same circles, we wander the same streets, we know the same people. So it was no surprise that after almost running into each other (a couple times quite literally, I almost ran into him), time elapsed enough to reveal him again, that being of walking perfection.

Except a year had gone by and time had given him some extra weight, lengthened his hair, roughed up his cool calm exterior. I had every right to be spitting mad, but I was never mad in the first place. I knew within five minutes of meeting him he was not for me, a dismissal that only made me more appealing, and so I relented to having him in my bed that night, not hoping or wondering or caring about anything else, because I didn't want anything from him.

I could see the fear in his eyes. You don't become that kind of man without crushing a few flowers along the way. Luckily for him, it was a Friday night at our favorite bar and the dirty bird was packed with bodies. Our eyes met over the crowd, and flitted away. He knew it was me. I knew it was him. And there was nothing else to do about it.

The night carried on. Drunks were made, laughs were had, no one was being careful anymore. The best thing about alcohol is it makes you something you could never be in the daytime; uncouth, uncivilized, unrepentant.

Eventually, under the guise of saying hello to our mutual friend, he circled nearby and hovered over us as we ate french fries to quell our late night hunger pangs.

I felt myself sharpen with anxiety and curiosity. What would this man say to me after his half hearted lies about his "sister" being mad at him for being gone all night, how he'd call me, which I knew right after he said it he wouldn't, how he let himself believe I wanted something from him because sometimes it feels better to believe what makes you feel better about yourself?

He said the french fries smelled really good.

And so, there at the bar, late at night, drunk as hell but with nothing but love in my heart, I picked out the best french fries and let him take them from my fingers and the past was the past. Because sometimes, you have to make a gesture to let people know they are forgiven, even if it's all in their head.

indelible things of Canada

his world: edmonton, yeg, loonies, twonies, red maple leaf, polar bear license plates, LRT, river valley, Muttart, vehicle, University of Alberta, Strathcona, porridge, money with bumps and snowflakes, bacon and tomato sandwiches, fleece, flag football, huddle, bombier, his yellow jeep, lululemon, helly hanson, mec, dadeo's, blue plate diner, strongbow with blueberry vodka, eman, seamless, Tim Horton's, whyte ave, 82nd, refinery party at AGA, Garneau, stencil bridges, provinces, the stadium, streetcar, mini doughnuts at the farmer's market, MRKT, Chicago Deep Dish "We're better than the authentic," vietnamese subs, maple fudge, outlaws, donair's, black dog, trimming his beard, saskatoon pie, coconut macaroons, hudson's, signs in french and english.

paradise: jasper, camping, white water rafting, wetsuit, Snaring River, inukshuk, elk, woodland caribou, longhorned sheep, lodge, his family, Adirondack chairs, eating bison, the green box, bear storage, glacier fed, glacier water, hot springs, osprey, witch's broom plant, Athabasca, seas of trees, canyons, waterfalls, hummingbird, mountains, Horseshoe Lake, teal waters, ball of sweatpants material, knit hats, nanaimo bars, the edge of the world, tawkeht, wood splitting, campfire, packing, wool socks, bug spray, rainbows, love.

the walker

No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path.

Buddha

Sometimes the call that wakes us up is unnecessarily loud. In his case, maybe it needed to be that loud, for the ones around him it changed things for them too, they made stands, they held their own, they said enough was enough.

At first we thought it was the thing that has been the elephant in the room for the last year, because we knew it was only a matter of time before it became a bigger problem. We argued and fretted, all in our own ways, all with each other, except not with him, though she spilled over with worry all the time for him. He knew we were worried, but he couldn't stop. It's not that he didn't want to, or didn't care to, he couldn't stop.

I saw his frame shrinking, felt the protruding bones in his shoulders and back, knew without knowing that he was being circled by dark shadows in life and in his dreams. I spent as much time as I could with him, I tried to make the time we spent together carefree and easy, because I knew there was nothing else in his days that was.

He lived in a prison of his own guilt and was bound by impossible standards.

No matter what any of us say about it; he was there, he lived this horrifying life in which he stole, beat and disappointed others. He lost part of his soul just trying to be a kid and have fun, he didn't realize what he was doing. Because sometimes when you're bad, you wait for the consequences to find you and live like there's no tomorrow. And so he did.

And now he is lost. I have tried to help him find a path many times before, cleared the way, cut down trees for him, held his hand and watched him die a little inside. I know that it is not easy for him but I try, because I cannot do anything but try, and because I love him.

Part of the problem with experience is that we must go through it individually to gain it, and so there have been many times when I realize he must walk alone and sometimes I can walk with him, by his side, but that is all. I am glad I get to laugh and enjoy him still and for that I am grateful.

Oh, Canada!

he is my avalanche.

Way back, back before knowing was even possible, because knowing requires proof, knowing requires time, back before there were days, hundreds of them, before there were words, millions of them, before there were countless things between us that clutter the landscape of our world, I knew.

He knew too, I think.

Except with no time and no proof, all there was left to do was explore. The days passed almost like a movie rewinding, we knew it was love, but we had to prove it, we knew there was something, but we had to see it, we wondered what could be and then we met; long after all the days, all the words, all the things between us. In many ways it was like starting over again, no more exploring in the dark, wondering what was what and what belonged where.

The proof isn't for us, at least I don't need it, but I see that everyone else does, so I do the work it takes to answer every query, to know as much as I can, because they like answers. I know all I need to know, and it's such a small amount of knowing that it doesn't seem like enough to anyone.

It amazes me when I take a look around and see how much has accumulated, the wonder of it all, the way we made something out of nothing but words and time. In a lot of ways, it was engulfing, a swell that seemed impossible not to be carried by, an avalanche of the ice and snow that had built up over the years.

There comes a time after that to survey and dig out and make decisions. And so, I will go to see him. I have enjoyed this time, being consumed, delighting in so many pleasurable feelings, endless discovery. I will bring the best I can to this new place.

the gall/incomprehensibilities

It began with a gut feeling. After years of serving the general public, seeing countless personalities flash themselves at me in an instant, using those experiences to accurately gauge the beginning, middle and end of many relationships, I knew within five minutes that she was not for me.

I can tell you it was a number of things she did that left a pungent distaste in my mouth. Things that perhaps no one else would see for weeks, months, years, I could see just like that.

She is internally distracted, as if gnats were flying in a cloud in front of her eyes, her eyes held nothing and looked nowhere until she was spoken to. Her body is a long lean skeleton with some skin and clothes attached. Her skin was the gray of sun-hazed, overripe peaches, except it had nothing to do with the sun. Her hand came to shake mine in a limp dainty gesture that had no form and no urgency; she let me shake it and then slowly reeled it back.

And then, from this strange creature, came insincere greetings that floated away like a long dead pile of Fall leaves. They meant nothing, they had no substance and responding to them, trying to corral them into understanding was a useless endeavor.

It wouldn't be the first time I'd found a soul that was hollow. Her vacancy was not surprising or alarming except that she belonged to my good friend and it seemed out of place that my friend had allowed her to live there with another of our good friends.

And then, the idea that I should live there arose. At first it was a great joyous thing, but then I thought of her and that was my only concern. They assured me that she was just fine. Alright, yes, she was a little odd, perhaps, but mostly just sweet and nice. So I relented.

The day I moved in, she was on the phone and brusquely tabled my cheerful hello. Right then I knew I had made a mistake. I moved in all my things and set them down and went for a ride filled with foreboding thoughts I tried to shake off.

As the days progressed, I saw more of it. There was no room for anyone, she'd filled every available surface with her crap. She had piles everywhere. Her room was disgusting. She was disgusting. She belched, she stomped, she chewed, she clanged, she sang, she cried, I saw a year of emotions overtake her in a week's time. I had never lived with someone so physically and mentally intolerable. She had not a single consideration for anyone other than herself, and she often disguised kind gestures that ultimately benefitted herself.

Her actions were bizarrely incongruent: upon entering the house she would call out a hello from another room, but moments later ignore me as I passed, she would wake up earlier than everyone in the house, eat breakfast, do whatever for an hour and then take a shower when the rest of us were rising, she seemed very into growing her own herbs and plants yet she rarely used them and hardly watered them, she would watch television with rapt absorption but often chat during anything that we attempted to watch, driving me into the confines of my room.

As the weight of this sank into my days, I felt some relief in the other who lived with us. We two were inseparable and that only made her worse. Somehow, us two being friends, good great friends managed to push that buried button inside her that turned her into a sniveling version of her high school self, insecure and unpopular and misunderstood.

And I kept wanting to scream at her, if you want to be liked, you have to be likeable.

She was the furthest thing from it. I would often wipe her slate clean, forgive the errant belching (which seemed more a way to garner attention than to relieve her full stomach), ignore the strange mood swings, look past the promises made and not kept, try to see the human being in that walking deadness and every time I let things go, she'd add another intolerable element into my days, hair on the shower wall, battering others for things she was often guilty of, being a big giant bitch, getting a dog and not cleaning up after him or attempting to learn how to properly discipline him as she promised.

The arrival of the dog changed things from mostly unpleasant to dismal. He was noisy, so the level of noise she forced us to suffer through was added to; she traveled a lot and often requested we take care of the dog; he shed a lot of hair which meant the living room was full of dog hair and not really a place you wanted to spend any time in and she didn't bother to sweep his hair ever, not once, in almost a year. His presence underlined the fact that she is a disgusting person with disgusting personal habits and she didn't care at all how it affected anyone else.

I tried various actions over the course of year to alert her to these transgressions and each was met with a puzzled look (sometimes with tears and a litany of excuses), a gloss of understanding and a promise to correct the behavior, which ultimately never got corrected.

And so, it was with great pleasure and much relief that I departed that place, and now I hope to never cross paths with her again.

As the misery I submitted to begins to fade, the small stretches of delight in not having to wake up to her noise, not having to share anything with her, not having to see that glum face every morning animate itself to speak with me, I find that I have learned the lesson to trust my instincts, to know that what I feel is true, to honor that deep down place of mysterious but certain intuition.

Had I trusted myself, I could have spared us both, for I am sure it was a misery to live with me, as we were as opposite in as many ways as we could be. To constantly attempt to make her understand how unpleasant she was left me extremely frustrated and unhappy. In my heart, I do not want to hate; though my mind finds many ways to loathe, my heart was heavy in its sadness for the situation.

the magnet and the mess

He's still here. It wouldn't bother me so much except there's still the mess he made that no one has forgotten. I've managed to evade him and the mess by declining over a year's worth of invitations and great nights in which I knew he'd be in attendance. I had to stop visiting with his sister, who'd been my friend for a while before his arrival, because it seemed everywhere she was, there he would be, him, standing five feet behind her, laughing that big monstrous laugh. Every encounter was weighted with that strange tension that followed his dismissal of me (a heady mix of guilt, shame and regret) and it was so unbearable I couldn't enjoy myself knowing he was in the room.

And then, the ship sank, the days passed, things carried on. And time did what it does.

The sting of the mess, the rage I felt over it, the unnecessary bullshit and drama, after that much time, it seemed like something not worth caring about any longer. When he appeared that day and he greeted me with open arms, I fell into them and we hugged, it felt like a relief, like it was all over and that mess was gone, especially with all we had to deal with that day.

And maybe I was too grief stricken to give him anything else, not even a glance, not even words, not even including him in our hasty plans (and why should I have to be the one to encourage him?). Or maybe I was scared because it had been so long and there was still that magnetic pull between us. Still. I was so disappointed in myself, but there it was, those spinning, stomach churning, blushing feelings I had felt so long ago.

A few days later we all found ourselves together again and in my nervousness from being late and having nothing proper and decent to wear to a funeral and knowing he would be there, I slighted him, sweeping past him to find solace in the people I felt comfortable with. I ignored his laughter on the ride to the service, I ignored his owlish eyes that I felt searching for mine, I sensed there was a question there that I did not want to answer again, it needed to rest.

Except then, there was booze to soothe us all. With every drink he became more wild-eyed, more angry, more and more of a reminder of why I was grateful nothing ever happened between us, he reminded me of the burnham, he had that same moody glare for me and it made me hide. So I spent the rest of the night avoiding him and wishing he would pass out on the bar.

Instead, I watched with horror as he flirted with a friend's girlfriend, danced with everyone, sidled up into conversations just to stare at me with a curiosity that burned so hard it made me cringe. What does it matter? I wanted to scream. Of course I still care about you. If I didn't, would I even have a hard time talking to you? I can talk to anyone, I'm an expert at talking to people, but with him I had no words and nothing to say.

Eventually, finally, I saw his gaping mouth being held up by his splayed hand, the palm holding his chin, the glasses crooked, the stubble abhorrent, the bar holding him upright, dozing off. They tried to slap him awake and he resumed his disgusting pose. And I stood there wondering how it had happened. Was it because he was so taken with me when we met? Or was it that he seemed so promising when there was nothing? Sometimes, I think it was because back then, he felt different and familiar.

We decided to go to 907. It was a crazy scheme that brought several of us stumbling toward that place we'd known Peter for. There were a lot of us. I didn't realize he was coming, figuring he'd go home after falling asleep on the bar, but then someone said, hey get the door, and there he was, the magnet. I saw that glare and pushed the door open for him, just enough so he could grab it, and I ran away from him. And he knew it. He spoke in disgust about me. He hated me for it. After all the shit he did, all the shit he put me through, he wanted more than anything not to be the bad guy, except he was.

He sauntered up and stood right next to me. I sensed he felt the need to bully me, and I did not back down, but inside I was trembling, I did not want to let the bitterness explode, not that day after all the days I had held it in, and so I let the anger pass, and then I let myself behave the way he wanted me to, I pretended like nothing was wrong, that nothing had happened, that he wasn't a giant fucking asshole who everyone loathed, I showed concern and interest, I let myself love him again.

And when he entered that room and collapsed across the bed and fell asleep, then I was free. The tension that had been on me all night was gone. And that will be the last time I ever see him.

It may mean giving up those friends and that life that connected us, but they never belonged to me anyhow.

more to see

http://twitpic.com/photos/stineybean

unionizations/"the only exception"

I've always been alone.

Even in a crowd of people, there is always something that sets me apart, makes me different, makes me unable to be part of whatever group I am around, I'm too tall, too old, too young, too something.

I spent the years of my childhood, the oldest of four, the gray sheep in the bunch, always different somehow, it started that long ago, I always felt misunderstood and apart from them, from everyone. I careened through the rest of my life with the anger of those years behind me, expecting to be barred for being different, anticipating being misunderstood, cringing for the moment of expulsion.

I made the best of it, preferring to spend time with my nose in a book or finding solace in stringing words together, observing people from the distance we created in our differences; I accepted that I was just an outsider.

It is a strange thing to spend so much time feeling that way and suddenly find myself belonging to people. And not just any people, but ones that I am proud and privileged to know.

It began a few years ago with my group of friends, we found each other in the cafe, disappointed by life, artistically gifted but stifled by life, we found commiseration in each other, and joy; the first time in the span of my life that I had friends who knew me, understood me and loved me, for everything I was and everything I was not. These few gave me hope that life was worth living, because at last, finally, I was not alone.

They helped me shed the anger I had for so long, because love and time are the strongest balms for healing pain.

From there I found another friend, I remember when we first sat together and talked, I offered him my chair and within ten minutes I knew he was another kindred spirit who had experienced a similar disappointment in life and we became fast friends. There was no work, it was not hard the way it had been with other people, I looked forward to seeing him and spending time with him. And now we are living together and it makes me very glad. He thinks of me as a sister, he says, and I know what he means with the closeness and comfort we share.

He loves one who is another of us, a misunderstood and aching soul, and we three have become a trio. We have adventures, we have easy good times and it is a relief to live with them, to realize we are all happy to see each other, even early in the morning when seeing and speaking to anyone is a chore, it is good.

And then there is him. I don't even know how to say it all. I pretended for a long time that it didn't matter that I was alone that way. I filled my time and wasted my energies well enough, fell into bed with exhaustion, but for the ten minutes before and after sleep that empty bed could not be ignored.

I consoled myself with my friends and alcohol and the gladness I felt that I no longer had to feel like I was forcing myself into relationships that didn't suit me. Men had always been a bad solution to feeling alone, being an outsider, feeling misunderstood. They didn't know me, they only knew my body and who I tried to be in an effort to please them. I remembered that no matter what good times I'd had with them, there were plenty of times when were angry and fighting stupid useless fights. We fought to prove ourselves to each other; from our own deep wells of doubt and there was nothing that could get us past those wells, not even wanting love more than anything.

I spent two years single. I had men in my life, but they were temporary, and we knew it, so it was just a way to pass the time. I enjoyed the time, finding that being alone, choosing to be alone, restored me somehow, reminded me who I was, not for anyone, not because of anyone, I was always defined by who I was in relation to someone else, but for the first time in a long time, maybe since I was very young, I was able to be myself for myself. It helped that I had friends who coaxed me away from the anger that defined my life, who appreciated things about me others found strange, things that I appreciate about myself. I learned to trust myself, my intuition, my choices, my ideas, my desires, my wants, I learned myself, got to know myself and I enjoyed being me. I stopped holding up the past for scrutiny: all the failures, all the bad things, all the guilt, let those things be part of my experiences with life and I started to enjoy life newly.

I wasn't looking for another relationship. I was open to one, but I was not searching or hoping or wondering or waiting or wanting one. It's not like I didn't care, but I had reached a point where I'd spent a majority of my adulthood in a relationship, usually one I was unhappy in, so I reasoned it was better to just be alone for a while.

It's so funny that I can't just say the good things without explaining why it feels so good. Where I've been, how disappointed I was, how resigned I was, and that I wasn't looking or desperate for it, that's what makes a good thing better, greater than good. And to find someone who matches me, suits me, appreciates all the little quirks and things that made me an outsider for so long, it's a wonderful feeling. I have to admit I find it harder to believe than I do with my friends, because it is a deeper level of intimacy, the road to becoming an "us." I am out of practice, but I am glad because my practices back then were bad and this is a chance to have better habits and routines, to learn how to be in a good relationship. Believe me when I say I have never been in one I wanted to be in before this one and it is an unsettling but delightful feeling.

As I get used to enjoying the people in my life, I find that my smile is never buried and I am nearly always glad. It has been a good time.

fiesta del sol

It was dusk in the piazza. Such a simple thing. No one else seemed to be impacted by it. It brought tears to my eyes, it was that achingly beautiful to me. I stood there for a full moment, long enough to let that scene imprint itself in my mind and then we moved on from the most beautiful moment in my life.

It was an accident that I was even in Madrid, Spain to begin with, you see. I was supposed to be flying home that day. There was fog in Rome and the fog delayed our flight and Madrid was where we landed and I ran to the plane, lunging past and dodging casual European travelers and I arrived at the gate just in time to watch the plane that was supposed to take me home fly off into the sky. And I was stuck in Madrid.

Later, I learned that my luggage had managed to get on that plane. But I didn't make it. So after nineteen days of being in Europe, traveling to five cities in four countries; my first time traveling abroad, my first time traveling alone (for some parts, at least), I was ready to go home, I had had enough art, churches and history, beautiful sights, now all a blur, except for those my camera pointed at; I wanted to go home.

I was the first one from our Rome flight to reach the gate and I sank into a chair in immobilizing misery. The rest of the faces were similarly stricken, eager to get to Chicago, not happy about a delay, so I followed them to the airline's help desk where we learned that the flight we'd just missed, the flight I watched depart, it was the last flight of the day and we would all be welcome to fly tomorrow and in the meantime stay overnight in a hotel at the airline's expense.

Everyone was glad. I was not. I don't just mean I wanted to go home. I was ready to be home. I needed to be home.

Europe had been wonderful and kind to me. It was exactly what and where I needed to be at that point in my life. It affirmed something in me that I knew all along but could not express until I saw it for myself. I may have been born in the United States of America, but my heart and soul were of the old way, of the European way. I fantasized about moving to Paris, I was thrilled by the clashing of cultures in Amsterdam, I adored every bit of Florence (the most charming place in the world), Vienna showed me Beethoven's Frieze and an exhibition on women in comics in one building, and then in Rome, I learned to love the metropolitan air. And after seeing all these things that made me love humanity, that made me fall in love with human artistry, human invention, humanity in its entirety, I was homesick and I wanted to be with the people I loved most in the world.

Except I was stuck in Madrid.

The petulance I describe amuses me now, to be stuck in such a wondrous and vast city, the shame of being so disappointed, to have a free night's stay in a bustling urban metropolis similar to New York (a place I still yearn to see someday), had it been the beginning of the trip, I wouldn't have minded so much. But it was the end. And what awaited me when I returned was freedom. I had cut myself loose from something I knew I wasn't ready for, and the freedom I'd chosen came with a man I felt as unsure and certain over just as a coin has two opposite sides, embarking on my college education and living alone for the first time in my life. I was 26 and my life was just beginning in a lot of ways, and I was eager to get started.

But first, Madrid. She lay before me in a splendor. So many trains, streets, sights. At the hotel, a group of us discovered we spoke the same language, primarily English, but also deep, speculative, explorative words too, and I was cajoled into exploring another city.

We set out to wander. A lovely thing to do as a traveler. To let the world lead you to where it wants you to go. A train stop, a noise, a crowd, a left then a right and we found that this weekend in Madrid was one of the biggest citywide celebrations devoted to the sun and people went to the streets to dance, sing, drink and relax. Decorations of suns were everywhere, strung across streets, lit up even in the waning sunlight, a myriad of colors.

I was deemed good with maps and given the title of Navigator. A thing I still smile over, to be in charge of the directions, to make sure we didn't go too far astray, to lead us in a big enough swirl around the city; it was a joy. No one had ever let me be in charge of something like that before. I enjoyed it very much and still enjoy staring at maps, determining where we are and where we're going.

We wandered through the streets, smiling at the people, taking it all in. Another beautiful side of humanity, this time in Madrid. There was nowhere we were going and nowhere we had to be, and home and freedom and him were all waiting for me, tomorrow. Sometimes learning how to be patient is a good way to appreciate what's happening right now; today.

And then there was a turn and a left, and maybe we were looking for the palace, but it was dark in the glower of dusk, a vague shadow in my memory. Across the busy street, perhaps that street had once been a garden, a path, a walkway; there sat the piazza.

The sky was a bowl over it. A globe of streaky dark blue clouds against the day's blue background, with the sun's departure imminent. There were birds. All over Europe, birds wander the skies in packs, more visible without the expanse of tall buildings to block them, and at dusk they circle overhead, I felt they were lamenting the darkening sky. There was a building, very symmetrical in its architecture and it was made of marble, which glowed pearlescent in the last light from the sun. A statue sat in the center of the piazza, centered in front of the building, all the paths of the gardens led to the statue of a man on a horse, riding triumphantly away from battle. The paths were laid with a peach colored gravel and lined with dark green manicured bushes. And then, it began to rain, a light breathy mist that feels good on your face.

I had already seen a million beautiful things, countless paintings, endless historical sites and buildings, every person themselves seemed a work of art. I saw them all with a blurry scope of innocence and rabid curiosity, but nothing more.

In the piazza that day, I saw something that no one told me about before, no one told me I would love it, no one told me I had to see it. No one told me how to feel about it, I just felt it.

I felt the rush of pleasure in humanity's clash against nature. The sky was showcased so that no matter which spot you stood in the piazza, it felt like you were in its center. The sky overhead might have any number of cloudscapes on a given day, but what surrounded you on the ground was a soothing palate of colors, a pruned and cultivated garden exhibiting man's control of some elements (stone, metal, plants), and in the middle, the statue of the man on the horse celebrating his triumph over his enemy.

For everyone else, it was just another piazza, another pretty spot some King had designed for him a long time ago, and with tears streaming down my face, I took one last look. I turned and felt the brightness of the day finally fade, dusk shut out the sun with a suddenness. And then we moved on through Madrid, exploring more, taking the train back to the hotel, enjoying each other, while internally I marveled at that spot and wondered when I could be there again.

It's been a while/at the dawn of hope

Ah, Winter. That time in everyone's life where things seem to slow down to a snail's pace. Probably one of my most favorite times of the year, to sit inside and read, to work on knitting projects, to bake breads and muffins. This winter I tried a puzzle (but gave up on it after too many long absences from dogsitting), got back into my arts and crafts, made a lot of homemade soups and tried very hard to do sun salutations on a regular basis (which requires I be home, which means I spent more time at home; which is new and different).

My world has slowed down somewhat, and it's strange, it took me a long time to notice it and stranger, I'm noticing it takes me a long time to do anything these days. I used to gulp at life like a fish out of water, clumsy, awkward, uncertain, but lately, I've become very methodical, extremely careful and begun to savor everything I encounter. It is a lovely change that perhaps age has brought to me, which most people would shun and be angry over, but I am grateful to slow down and lose that coltish skittishness I've always had.

Another move looms on my horizon and all I can say is I hope it will be a good one, I'd like to have the things I need and want, space to unfurl, a place to truly feel home, where I can wake up every morning free of bother. It's been a very long time that I've tolerated things in my current place and borne the brunt of her unrelenting obnoxiousness. I wasn't sure how I was going to escape it, but some good friends extended an opportunity to live with them and now I am moving again.

There is a man in my life who has been so many things to me, the moon, he is. It is an indescribable feeling to have discovered him and be discovered by him. He is full of contradictions, something I recognize. We have shared long talks, books, music, movies, photography and culinary magic. It is a strange thing, because he lives far away, so it is hard, and there is the large shadow of the future looming over us, except we enjoy it day by day and try not to prick the joyful balloon with pins of doubt. It will go the way it will go and we hope for the best. It's hard enough without asking questions that only lie in the future, anyway, the future is always a lie believed.

Then there is my writing, which has settled into a dry desert. I haven't met with my writing partner in a long time. I don't know why. She is busy. I am busy. I should be more worried, but I know myself, I am finally in a place where I know myself, I need lapses and lulls, I need time to mull and ruminate over the next thing and then when I am ready it will come. A thunderstorm of words. Until then, I am slowly editing the pieces that are close to completion, taking out words, tightening screws, reading and getting caught up in the story and starting over to examine it closely. It makes me proud sometimes, when I see how solid it is, how well it has all held up, how clear it is. It may not be much more than a puddle of words, but at least it is not murky. I still feel that I am close to finishing this project and that means I can move on to something new.

As much as I love Winter, I am ready for Spring, ready for the warmth, ready for the sun, ready for new life and new things to emerge. As much as I am loathe to change, I see it is arriving and I am ready to embrace it fully.

"part 1 of...infinity."

I got there early. I am generally always late. Not for any real reason other than trying to do everything. That day, I didn't want to do everything, I just wanted to reach that point and more than anything I couldn't be late for it. So I got ready. I prepared. And I left when there was nothing left to do.

When I got there, it was jarring. Being somewhere different, even though I'd been there before, it was jangly and uncomfortable. I was not just on time, I was ridiculously early. I couldn't remember a time I had been so early. I had a book and I sat and read, even though the world around me clanged and bellowed, I had to pass the time and I passed it by reading for a bit. And then, when I couldn't read anymore, because the dissonance and noise had become less jarring and obnoxious, but the sound of it clamored at my ears in a building crescendo, I got up and walked around and still I was early.

I watched people for a while. I saw them seeing me. I looked stunning, as stunning as I can look, tall, taller from my boots, long coat, long hair made straight, fully made up, eyes rounded by nervousness and panic. When I saw myself in the bathroom I didn't recognize that girl because who I am every day isn't perfectly put together, but I wanted him to see me at my best. I saw in their eyes that I was stunning, they saw me and their eyes widened in interest, the stare that goes beyond a glance, then they saw me seeing them seeing me and their eyes snapped away, but they came back to study me in the briefest moments of passing. I felt uncomfortably in the spotlight, but I would not cower against the wall that I favored because I had to be in the right spot to see his face, to watch the moon descend into my world.

So I let the people pass me and ogle me and I let the time crawl by. I stood in the way of everything and waited for him. A million questions had tromped through my mind, but in that moment, when I saw his face, my mind could not ignore that I was not just smiling that rarely given, but biggest smile of my smiles; I was also grinning. And I could not make it stop. I could not hold up the stoic mask of indifference that I carry for everyone, that blank look that keeps everyone away from me.

I don't know how I knew it already, but even at first glance, I saw he was just like the moon, his face seemed brighter and more open than all the rest, the slackened faces of wearied travelers whose baggage awaits them, his was a stark contrast to theirs, a bright wide clean face and in it was a smile. And I didn't have to pretend it was a smile just for me, as I do sometimes with the moon. He was glad to be here and glad to be seeing me too.

It was a lovely moment of confirmation, that all we had hoped for was there and even more we couldn't imagine yet could be possible. We collided, the world fell away, and it was clumsy at first, those initial gestures, they make me smile in remembering, because it was so awkward and uncertain, to be standing next to each other, finally, after so much had happened already, this one act should be so easy, but it was rife with the awkwardness of unbridled pleasure, extreme joy, and gladness.

What I like about us most is that nothing comes easy, that the first time we share something together it is never an instantaneous flash of glitzy perfection, we build up to something that feels natural and we lead each other there with care and the occasional clumsiness of eagerness, misunderstandings and moments of trial and error until we get it right. When it's easy, when things fall into place, you lose the chance to build something solid, you rest on your laurels, you don't go out of your way to be magnanimous. And even more amazing, for me, to give what being magnanimous requires and not have it feel like a chore is what is even more astounding.

He stayed here for four days. He let me lead him through my worlds, tasting and glimpsing what my life is like, learning me, our bodies finding a rhythm, his arm across the back of my seat on the train, his body strong and solid and warm, a body I missed after his departure, his smile eager and kind, his face full and open, his words curious and captivated, he gleamed at me, shone at me so brightly it took me days to recover, it's taken me weeks to digest it enough to write about it here.

Before he left I realized that I felt as comfortable with him as I would feel alone with myself, unfettered by the mental anguish of everyone's expectations and demands, free of concerns, at peace.

Given all that, I should be terrified for what's ahead, for the many difficulties and long stretches of absence. I have never been anything but scared to lose that which I want most. And yet, I feel no fear, no worries, no concerns. I puzzle over that until I realize that every day brings some satisfaction that quells every nagging thought. He is a wonderful man, he is the moon, and I am pleased to have met him and to learn him and he is not just enough, but actually beyond it, he is bountiful and generous and kind and I am pleased.

reflections only seen in stillness

Sometimes, especially when you live day to day, hours at a time, forging ahead and forgetting what's behind you, what makes you realize, take stock, think back is always something unexpected and shocking. Head in a whirl, life progressing, there's no time to look back, until everything stops and you don't know what else to do. Yesterday everything stopped.

We sat there, the place we'd all known each other, the place that was more a home to me over the years than a home has been. And we sat there.

We talked, we smiled, we were baffled, we were angry. We were there for her, for him, for each other. And we all just turned up, like lost pigeons finding home after so long of circling the skies. We tried to strategize, to sort it out, what had brought us there, it seemed unreal and unbelievable.

And then, once the bits of information began to fit, we reconciled ourselves to it, to the strange news. He's gone. This man we all loved, who loved all of us in very different ways, who meant so much to all of us without the fanfare of loving another person, who gave us all the joy of laughter in a world of confusion and discontent, who helped pass the time and in its passing soothed us all with his irreverence, his stories, his greatness; he's gone.

And then I realized, I belong to something bigger than me, even though I refuted it out of weariness and misunderstandings, even though I didn't always enjoy it, I'm part of this network of people, this group, this family. As I looked over our faces, filling with waves of grief, hearing the music we all knew him for, music we sang together, I realized even though I didn't belong to him, we were part of this thing bigger than him and me, and he is one of the most monumental figures among us. And I had been strong for her, even coolly distant from it because he was more important to everyone else, except he was important to me too, and I'd just been too busy living day to day to see all that we shared behind us.

When I cried, they peered into my eyes with red rimmed glossiness, held me and took care of me. It's been so long since I let someone take care of me. And then someone else cried and carried on, and it was an entire day of being there for everyone with waves of grief coming over us. The world stopped for us yesterday, and in this crisis we all found that there was nowhere we would rather be than with each other.

the secret queer

I don't know if it happened before her. I think back, lightly scratching at the veneer of what I projected to the world during the years of school and childhood and it all seems very innocent until she came along. I looked at them, but I looked at everyone. I study people, I watch people; that has always been a part of my life.

She was different. It seems trite, but yet, she was. The women in my life were mothers, sisters, friends. They were stuck in their roles and most of their life was spent in frumpy, but practical, attire.

Then I met her, who looked like she stepped out of the pages of a magazine complete with high heels, her blonde hair pulled into a tight ponytail, her smile demure and ever-present, dressed in all black, her clothing tight, her skirt just above the knee and that knee was covered in sheer black pantyhose. And that was the knee that changed me.

Now, you see them all the time; they are modern and put together and well-dressed. Back then, I had never met or spied a woman who looked or acted like her.

She was gracious and effusive, her laughter ringing through the space between us, she was brimming over with sexuality, her hand gently squeezing my forearm, her knee (that knee) brushing against my leg. She made me uncomfortable but I couldn't stand to ignore her.

And so began a lifetime of concern and wondering.

Her presence in my life was my first indication that I was attracted to women. She didn't make me the way I am, but she certainly lifted whatever veil I'd been hiding under from exposure to religious thinking and a deep-seated fear of the word "gay."

She was also the harbinger for many other things I'd never considered about myself, that I wanted to be a sophisticated, charming and fashionable woman, which was preposterous at the time, I was a dowdy copycat of my mother who wore no makeup and did not ever laugh just to laugh.

For a long time, I let myself believe that it was wrong to feel how I felt about her and many other women who I found myself attracted to over the years. I overcompensated for this by becoming ultra boy-crazy, sometimes while talking about whatever dolt I'd decided was my current crush, I would be watching the long legs of an attractive woman slink past my view and momentarily halted out of speech.

I was a secret queer.

I watched shows about gay people, I had gay friends, I danced in gay night clubs, I attended the gay pride parade (I even walked in it one year), I shadowed the life I couldn't live and hid in a presumed heterosexuality.

Men were safe. They liked me and I could hide in their arms. So I let myself be with men, lots and lots of them. I convinced myself that each one was the one I wanted, the one who could make it all better, the one who would rid me of this attraction and keep me from being alone like my mother. I didn't want to be alone, so I was never alone, jumping from man to man, crush to crush, leaping, hurling, fighting, wanting, hating myself, and all of it was useless, I thought I was hiding, but I was hurting everyone, especially myself.

When things with the burnham and I ended suddenly, still I tried to always be in a man's arms, but not finding what I needed or wanted, I was always unsatisfied, because I wasn't thinking about the person those arms belonged to, just that they were holding me.

And then I let go.

I chose to be alone. To see what would happen. To find out who I am. Who I really am. And every day I peel off a little more of that pretense, that projection that I felt the world should know me for, that perfect little nice girl that everyone saw me/sees me as.

I am attracted to men, but once I accepted that I was also attracted to women and didn't need to be with a man out of a fear of being alone or to hide being attracted to women, that drive to be with someone, anyone; all the chatter, all the effort of leaping from guy to guy just stopped. And in the quiet, I've realized I had been allowing myself to be taken by any man that would take me, rather than choose someone who inspires me, delights me and enjoys me and someone I inspire, delight in and enjoy.

And now, there is nearly a lifetime of cobwebs to sort out, of friends to be honest with, of people who I've lied to by omission, or lied to from fear, or lied to because I didn't know how to say it. It's taken me a long time to learn how to be comfortable with myself, for myself, not for anyone, not to please anyone, just for me. And now, when people ask me I will not hesitate to say, I'm queer. I don't want to hide it anymore.