They can't all be happy endings.

"To think that I've wasted years of my life, that I've longed to die, that I've experienced my greatest love, for a woman who didn't appeal to me, who wasn't even my type." Marcel Proust, Rememberance of Things Past, Volume I

The cost of starvation

They took three years and wore me down to the bone. I was full of love and pleasure and now I am empty and fearful of giving myself away ever again. 

They were drawn to me because I was light and shiny and they captured me and held me, suffocated me with obtuseness and left me wishing for escape, believing he was there to save me when in fact he was there to starve me.

He made sure I was there and then he slowly took away the loveliness and magic we shared, letting it whittle away, asking for more of me, pressing, always pressing but never giving and taking, always taking, but never giving.

I challenged him as best I could and tried to be the best of myself for him. I wasn't always good but I've never been better. No one has ever gotten this much of me. And maybe he came and captured me to show me that I could love again and maybe that is the hope I should cling to, because the rest of it feels so contrived in hindsight's strong hand, that he was saying all the right things but he didn't know how to do them and that once again I gave my heart to someone that didn't deserve me and didn't respect me and didn't love me and left me hungry, starving for love.

Now I sit, having to resume my life, the life I was shedding, I rejected my home, my city, everything that meant anything to me, even tailored parts of myself to suit him, I feel more devastated than ever, than any of them have left me, even the worse ones, even the mean ones left me better off than this, because I didn't have to give everything up for them, I didn't have to prove myself, I didn't have to embarass myself the way I have for him.

I'm not mad, I'm not sad, I'm not even shocked, I'm simply numb from starvation, from the circumstances the last three years have served from the two of them, how forever I will avoid any of them that say they were born the same day as either of them, because even though they are very separate beings they both had the same obtuseness, that same entrapment under that mountain of insecurity and self doubt, that same murkiness, the depths of which were rarely shown and when I did manage to get a glimpse, even the hint of the darkness they kept so hidden terrified me to no end.

None of that matters now, because they taught me a valuable lesson on exactly who and what to run screaming like a banshee from. I will never try to love another that cannot accept my love and adoration and dismisses it on the grounds of their own self loathing.

All there is to do now is feed my hungry spirit and nurture my starving soul. It is already getting better, but there are so many things that ache with his presence, so many symbols we shared, so much we imbibed with magic and wonder and that will lesson as time passes, but it seems to move very slowly right now and the morsels of life I once enjoyed so easily and readily touch my lips and revive me bit by bit, reminding me that even though I struggled so hard, hard enough to alter myself completely, transformed, whittled down, I am still very much alive. And no matter how much they live, they will never know what that is or how that feels, to be alive, to love and to be loved, because they are incapable of it, they find it all a mystery and that is what nulls any moment's anger I am able to muster. 

goodnight moon

He asked, "Are you bringing anything with you from Canada?"

I laughed inside at the irony and said, "No, nothing."

trying to make sense of a dream

Everything is about to change. One way or another. Fork in the road, nothing will be the same, that moment in time you'll always wonder what if? kind of change.

Every day adds a new wrinkle, another complication, more of the anxiousness surrounding big change. The swells are rising, the tide is turning, it's about to swallow us up whole. You can't feel it?

Maybe I'm too sensitive, maybe I'm too observant, maybe I've been staring too hard trying to figure out the depths of the change I'm facing, but it's finally coming to fruition, the change I've been feeling for months, and as I look around, it's happening to him, and her, and them and we're all about to be drowned in it.

All I ask for, all I want, is for it to come, finally, to stop the churning and roiling of indecision, of wonder, of curiosity. I want to drown for once and for all and be delivered to dry land, the security of ground beneath my feet, to see one place and know it as mine, to belong somewhere and feel safe there.

To be lost like this, not knowing what tomorrow will bring, feeling lashed and bound by change which should feel free and pleasant has been an utterly harrowing experience. I've lost weight, I've lost my voice, I've lost my self.

And when I find dry land, who will I be? I'm already forever changed.

it looks easier than it is

There is nothing more brilliant than an ice skating rink. Like an earth bound moon, it is a disc of opacity, a cold frozen space. First setting out onto it is the hardest part. It is slippery and smooth, a feat of balance, a trick of the body to have faith where wobbling could win out. It's easy to fall, the hard part is staying up.

The coldness is assaulting. It makes you breathe different, it makes you want to move, it chases you around the rink. It makes you wonder what are you doing this for?

Being in the middle just means you have to keep going, no turning back, cutting a path into the ice with skate shoes, deadly weapons of heft and sharpness required to do what looks to an observer easy simple movements. Because it is easy after a while, after you get used to it, after the coldness squeezes you so hard it warms you up.

I didn't know how to skate very well. Even though I'd done it before and it looked easy when I saw everyone else doing it, I couldn't get the hang of it. I wobbled, I fell, I bloodied up the ice. And yet, I still get up and keep trying.

What amazes me most is not just the rink itself, but also the machine that comes to spray it with water and spread it into the cuts and lacerations of that frozen disc. To fill in all the hurt and the pain, to freeze it over so it can be cut up again, what a poetic life the ice skating rink leads, with never a complaint or a sad note, just that coldness that is at once slightly disarming but mostly exhilarating.

I am not like you

Sometimes, I try to see it from her point of view. She came into our family suddenly, she was different, we were different, and the chasm of differences between us were impassable. She was young then, she wore bad clothes and bad hair, her face was a fat blank and her eyes were wide. She learned us quickly. That we didn't talk much, say much, do much. We were quiet. We were simple. We didn't need much to enjoy each other. In just about every way we could be, we were different.

At first, she couldn't do much but stare. Year after year, she took it in, she brought babies to us and we loved them, but with her there was always something in the way, our differences, maybe, and it was hard. In some ways, what made it hard was her constant questioning, her expectations and her pointing out the differences. I feel badly that he had to bear the brunt of her assaults, that her insecurities made her such an intolerable person and it was all our fault. We didn't ever do the right thing, say the right thing, give the right things.

After a while, it turned. Her eyes narrowed with suspicion, rolling whenever something displeased her, a tsk at the ready, a mean retort swallowed. I saw her agonize over and over about us, how could we, how dare we, why did we. So many things and yet she never said a word. She gave him every word like a lash, whipping him with the hatred of us, and soon he began to say the words she wouldn't.

Instead of being understanding, accepting, appreciative, she took our differences and turned them into a problem, a reason to be mean and spiteful, a campaign to wage against him, and the problem is, none of what she points out is wrong, but to be mad at someone for something they did not do, that they did not promise to do, that you expected and didn't get is wrong.

For a long time I defended her, having been in her exact state of mind over similar situations, knowing that what made me so angry wasn't them but the things they represented, the things I was not, the things I didn't have or know how to get. I have been different, a stranger, misunderstood, so I tried to explain her side. I made impassioned speeches on her behalf, I tried to reason with my family, I could see where she was coming from.

And now, now that she has attacked me, made me the scapegoat, asked me the questions, made me defend myself and my family, and given me nothing in return, no compassion, no efforts, even worse, she has made things more difficult for no good reason, she and I, we are done.

the little coffee pot

I have this little coffee pot. It's different than the one a lot people have. It doesn't require electricity, it doesn't have a water tank, it doesn't need paper filters, and it doesn't have any buttons or gizmos. It's simple. All you need is water, coffee and fire. And maybe something to hold it above a fire.

When it was new, it was a marvel. Silver and shiny, the metal gleaming from the perfection of never being used. It came with three metal parts, a reservoir on the bottom for water, a funneled coffee filter that nestles into the water chamber and a pitcher on top to collect the coffee. The three pieces meet in the middle and fit together in a threaded column. A slender handle and a tiny knob on the lid made out of black plastic provide safe places to touch and peek at the progress of the brewing coffee. It is small and only makes one cup.

Most people would take one look at this little contraption and think it was a joke. In a world of having the newest, best and greatest, I have an Italian stovetop coffee pot that was popular in the sixties and is still widely used in Europe and South America. Everyone knows how to press buttons and make coffee, but no one gets how to use this little coffee pot of mine. And that's fine by me.

One day, after a few years of using it, a friend of mine who was staying overnight in my apartment decided to try it out, I gave her a tutorial, I explained all the components, all she had to do was follow my instructions. What I didn't make clear to her is that even though it seems like an archaic thing, like it will take forever to brew one cup of coffee, it's actually very fast. So when she set it on the stove, she walked away for a while and the plastic handle melted from a larger than needed flame. She apologized profusely and bought me a new coffeepot to replace the one she felt she ruined. I tried to insist it was fine, sure the handle was a little misshapen, was less shiny from years of use, but it essentially still worked.

I continued to use my little coffee pot. The new one sat in its box for a long time until I decided I would send it to him, my love, my moon and share with him a small pleasure I'd found in life, making coffee with this little coffee pot. I was excited to send it to him as a housewarming gift and finally put the unneeded extra coffee pot in the hands of someone who would use it and appreciate it.

The day after I sent it to him, as I set out to make my coffee that morning, I suffered the cheery blathering of my roommate and as I grumbled to myself, distracted by her loud theater voice and ridiculous airs, I neglected to fill the water chamber and set my little coffee pot on the stove. As my roommate pranced about the kitchen in her mismatched shabby clothing that was her idea of pajamas and expunged on the latest man she felt might become her husband someday, I waited patiently for my coffee to brew. I waited and waited. I pulled up on the little knob and saw nothing inside the pitcher. I checked the flame. I wondered. I knew something was wrong, but my roommate was filling my attentions with idle chatter and I was too tired to realize what was going on.

Finally the smell of burning plastic began to rise to my nose. She smelled it too, but she kept talking. I touched my fingers to the knob on top of the lid to the pitcher and it skated slightly on the surface of the metal, loosened by heat. I turned off the flame and fretted and still she kept talking. I reached for the handle and watched it completely separate from the pitcher, sliding off and hitting the stove with a clunk. And still she kept talking.

Later, after the smell cleared, the kitchen emptied, I discovered my error, but it was too late, I had burned the pot, melted off the handle and ruined my coffee pot and given away a perfectly good new one that I'd never used.

And still, I kept using it. Now I had to use a kitchen towel to hold the pot as I poured it into a cup, but otherwise it still worked fine. Maybe it didn't look so good, maybe I had to be careful not to burn myself pouring it but it still worked just fine.

I'm telling you this so you understand something. Sometimes life is like a little coffee pot. And I'm stuck using the run down broken coffee pot because essentially it still works and seems wasteful to throw away, and no one understands why I'm doing this to myself, day after day making coffee in this debilitated machine, when I could just throw it away and get a new one.

Because that's not who I am.

My love endeavored to get me a new coffee pot, as a gift, to replace this one, the one that I use without regret every day, happy it still works despite my absentmindedness. He was ultimately unsuccessful because the little coffee pot I prefer is not widely available, certain small retail shops carry it, but despite his best efforts, he couldn't find any places that carried it. I appreciated the gesture and mostly that even though he wanted to replace something that to me seemed unnecessary, at the very least he understands me well enough to know not to buy me a big fancy gizmo coffeepot. Because that is really not who I am.

His efforts left me wondering. His frustration at using my little coffee pot led him to want to get me a new one. How much of life do I allow to be unworkable, at a disadvantage, defunct? And why? He thinks I deserve a working coffee pot and he not only tried in vain to get me one, he has me finally reconsidering using this one, the burned, scarred, ruined one I've used for over a year in this dilapidated condition. So now I can still be a person who loves my little coffee pot, but it doesn't have to be a ruined coffee pot anymore. I've embraced the run down coffee pot for long enough. It's time to get a new one.