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.

the seemingly futile love

A day is such a fleeting thing for most, but for me it can be a lifetime and I hop from one day to another, unaware of the accumulation of time, until often it is too late or I am unaware of how I wandered into a forest that never seems to end. Usually this realization is a pang of horror and dread, discovering that I am saddled by something that I said yes to on a whim and enjoyed a few times and fell into a routine of interaction that I did not ultimately desire.

So it was, however many weeks ago now.

Imagine all the lengthy days inside those weeks, hopping, busy with the life I lead, which somehow accelerated in the last month and it all sped past me, every day just another day of time that passed with some small measure of success.

I was completely unaware. Walking in the darkness of my malcontent, searching the sky for something, but always finding it empty for me. For others, it was full and rich, a bright place to explore. For me, it was a dark blackness obscured with a few faint, but prominent constellations. My family, my friends, my jobs, every day they turned in succession across my sky, a mapped out daily occurrence with no surprises (though the occasional shooting star might streak across me, or the disappointment of a satellite, or the drone of an airplane, big and heavy and unwelcome).

Even when something was new, it quickly fell into the dimness against that sky.

And so it was, for a long time.

Imagine that, feel that, then imagine walking up, looking into that sky, dark, bleak, full of emptiness and then there is the moon. The moon who gives light, which gives life, the moon who illuminates the things you could not see, the moon who smiles down at you with a bemused grin of unending pleasure and appreciation.

Every day I explored the moon somehow. Every day I looked forward to it, wondered how it might appear, if it would burst through the afternoon sky, a shimmering mirage against the blueness of daylight or if it would crawl above the horizon, as if it was hugging the earth. Every day the moon had a different shape and another feature to reveal about itself. And every day I was there to watch for it, to find it in that bleak sky, despite all the other things on my horizons, the other constellations that roamed my world.

Eventually, as the days began to accumulate into these weeks past and the moon proved it was strong and clean and big enough for all of me to rest inside it, I began to yearn for the moon, and miss the time when I wasn't standing in his strong light or able to see that face staring down at me. Sometimes, you can see the moon when the dark side takes its turn in orbit, but often you cannot. So there was a self-imposed period of stubbornness that I endeavored through to prove something to myself, that I could spend some days in the darkness again, not looking for the moon, not shouting up at it, not hoping for anything to come of it, just being with myself and that bleak dark sky with its faint but strong constellations: family, friends, work.

I learned that I can live without the moon. I have lived before his arrival and I can certainly live without his light and deposits of brilliance. In the end, if all the days of wonder do not overwhelm the reality and obscure the few bad days we've shared (a series of miscommunciation and carefulness bordering on insanity), I will have those days to remember him by and that will be enough. And yet, even though I don't need this, him, us; I want it. I want to give myself away to someone who can hold me, even if it seems futile and the distance between us is too much. And not just any someone, but the moon.

Except, maybe there is a certain point, when the futility of loving the moon becomes unbearable and foolish. For now, I will be the eight-year-old who stared up at the moon and wondered if there really was a man in there.

rubbed raw/holding onto my sanguinity

As I look back, all I see are the waves of it all crashing, at first, a year ago, it was a tolerable amount of crashing, nothing I couldn't handle. Lately, I feel like I am drowning.

I know this is just part of the process of change, but as the water crawls over me, another inch, another mood, another moment, I find it hard to remain still, to let it embrace me, to give into the death of the things that don't work for me, to accept change is to give up those dead parts of my life.

It hasn't helped that I am adrift these past weeks, so that there is nothing to anchor myself to, except the spinning of time, and the small joys the world leaves me to sustain me. I have had so many trembling pleasures lately, moreso than ever before, but sometimes it feels like I have to give something of myself to have them. I have to pay for them in ever escalating terms, plunking myself down in places where I don't belong and cannot enjoy.

I see no horizon, no where to land, no beach waiting to hold me. I have always wondered where I will end up and I find that planning has made no difference, and letting things be as they are has relieved some of the worry, but it troubles me from time to time, the not knowing, the specks of thoughts of the future, and then reminding myself that there is only today and that is enough, for now. It has to be enough because it's the only thing I know for certain is real.

"It's really hard to find yourself if you keep on leaving..."

Every two years, I feel the need to shed a part of my self; and it is reflected in my starting a new blog. You didn't know? [2008; to escape his memories], and [2006; to evade his scrutinizing stares], and [2004; to find a new platform to dive from].

I've been running away from each of them, hoping that if I run far enough away it'll stick that time, and I can start fresh, accept and claim the perfection that comes with emptiness.

Every time it happens, I hope it is the self I yearn to be, the one I've always seen glimpses of, even when I was a kid, I saw myself in other women, in other people, perhaps in one it was their giving heart, in another it was their ability to articulate their thoughts, in another still it could have been the warmth I longed to share with someone, anyone.

This year, I don't feel the need to run. Perhaps because physically I have changed so much these past two years, I don't have any desire to make something new and start fresh, to have a beginning that makes sense to everyone, a clean slate for myself. I have been sharing my self in this form for years and years and years, with my father as my constant reader, who I will love forever, no matter what, simply for his eyes and attention to these words.

I never understood what I was doing here or there, or those other places. It wasn't until asked and I stumbled to come up with an answer, that I began to realize that the stringing of these moments in my life, creating strands of my stories required the entirety of my past, and that abandoning them didn't make them go away. All that I have known, loved, loathed, it is all part of who I am today.

The premise of this blog was based on the buddhist prayer bracelet called the mala, to which I added my nickname--or if you know me well enough, you just consider it my name--stine. I imagined that each entry might be something I ruminate on and in allowing myself to fully address whatever it is that is worrying me, I could let it go and I might find peace.

"All beads are worry beads - from the Pope's rosary all the way down to those little wrist malas... worn by Buddhists and non-Buddhists alike. People of every religious tradition will claim that their beads are for praying - for appealing to a higher power, for collecting the spirit or concentrating the mind - and while this is indisputably true, that is not their primary purpose. Beads are for worry. They answer a human need so basic it actually precedes a religious consciousness - and that is to fret over things...The difference between the Buddhist mala and the various Western-style rosaries is simply that it makes this explicit in the symbolism of its beads.

"The message of the Buddhist mala is 'Don't worry about things; worry about the fact that you are so worried all the time, and address the foot of that." From Tricycle, Winter 2006 (Clark Strand)

"something obsolete"

When it arrived, a year ago, it was huge. She gave two others plants, one as an afterthought, though just as remarkably thoughtful and well chosen for her, the other to our mutual friend whose home was full of fake plants. It was clear she went there to get something for me. My tree towered over everyone else's gifts, and when she led me to it, biting back a giggle, I remember being surprised at how big it was. Nearly three feet tall, it was wrapped in heavy brown paper, which I took off in front of her, feeling the burden of her nervousness; how best to commemorate the time we shared?

At the time, as I removed the paper, as I realized how perfect a gift it was for me, the bright green bristles of the conifer, a norfolk pine, it's leaves soft and supple against my skin. I have always loved conifers, that they survive the harshest beatings of winter, and still stay wooly and warm against the heat of summer, without shedding too much of their bulk, I see a coniferous tree and it always brings a smile to me. I read once, "The world's tallest, largest, thickest and oldest living things are all conifers."

She had been sleeping next to me in my bed, having abandoned her room to our new roommate, she was unwilling to live here another year, and what I saw in that tree, more than the gracious regard for my love of conifers was the ever present sting of her leaving me. To have a physical reminder to connect to her leaving, a three foot albatross, an anchor to remind me constantly of her absence, that was what I saw when the paper fell away from those thin spindly branches, reaching out to the sides as if trying to touch us, the tops of them a round cluster of new growth, a burst of fireworks, a head of unruly hair.

She didn't understand my disappointment. I think only now, that the year comes to a close, that the distance has kept us apart, that I haven't been able to see her, that she hasn't been able to see me, maybe now she understands the disappointment that cored me that day.

Like anyone who spent even a small bit of time with her, I was in love with her, fascinated by the lilt in her voice, the way she would hum through the house, her thorough way of doing everything, the dense forests of her stories, the laughter and spontaneity she exuded, the quiet solitude she savored, the curls of her hair, everything I knew about her I adored.

The day I watched her pack her car outside my window, tempted to depart with her, to abandon all of my life and sit next to her on the drive and be swallowed up in her car with all her stuff up to the ceiling, and knowing I couldn't, it was embarrassing later, how much I loved her, but that day I just didn't want to lose the one person I never had to explain myself to, and even when I clarified myself out of habit, she knew me already, because she knew herself and we were so similar.

The conifer didn't fit in my room. I spent the day she left rearranging and then sitting with it, and then trying another spot, and another until I realized with some dismay that it didn't belong in there. I breathed a sigh of relief. To not wake up every morning with that reminder of her in my view, perhaps it was better. So I found an unoccupied corner in the apartment, near a window and I began to take on the burden of caring for the plant that was a constant reminder of her and her absence.

I gave it ornaments for Christmas. I found these tiny adorable ceramic birds she would have loved, they were too heavy for the delicate branches and made them sink from the weight, and tiny silver balls, and it was our Christmas tree. And then the winter passed, and it resumed its spot near the window. Caring for the tree was harder than I imagined, as I had experienced before, the seemingly hearty conifer species is actually a fickle houseplant, probably preferring to be out-of-doors and able to feel the air through its spiraling bristles, to feel the weak warmth of the winter sun on its branches, to have the humidity of fog and clouds and snow to soak up moisture through its green leaves.

It floundered for a while under my care, under what I suppose I should call negligence, for it required a daily spray of water on its branches, and a frequent filling of water in the rock bed underfoot. I spend too much time away from home, and too many mornings dashing late to work and too many nights crawling with exhaustion into bed to care for such a needy plant. My other houseplants are heartier and can stand to be dry for some time, but not this one.

Slowly, one by one, each stalk lost the brilliant green glow that brought reluctant smiles to my face and it became a thing of concern for me, I spent more time spraying it, diligently making time for it each morning, pouring water into the tray of rocks underneath it, stroking the arms flat against my palms, sometimes pricked by the stiffening needles, which left my skin itchy from the toxins conifers deliver from its resin.

It wasn't until almost summer though that it seemed evident, that the supple needles began to stiffen, the branches that had been reaching out atrophied, shrinking from long lean arms into mounded humps, just as the love between us shriveled, where I felt neglected and disowned, forgotten for others, and thirsty for her.

It didn't help that it sat in the vicinity of the cold dead thing that occupies my apartment, that overwhelming stench of dying and decomposition, her blank face, those dead glazed eyes, which drives me into hiding every time I realize that the light is on, that my open door acts as an invitation for the addled and heavy droning conversations in which she would desperately like me to approve of all that she does and I cannot, because I cannot lie, so I hide behind my closed door and hope that she will ignore me; I left the plant she gave me amidst that, and it is no surprise to me that the life drained out of it, just as mine continues to drain out of me.

To have failed at keeping that plant alive is not truly a failure. It has been a year and finally I gave up that it will return from its dried out state, brought it to the alley and hoped someone who feels a great love for plants might give it a home, or that it will help the garbage in the dump breakdown better, be put to some use rather than wasting away in my apartment, which pains me so.

There are still reminders of her in my space, the magazines that are timeless, the poetry book I need to send her, the cassette she sent me that I still haven't listened to because I'm afraid it will re-ignite that steady flame she fostered in me, which I let die out and find the glumness of my days only a fair price to pay in exchange for the joyful gladness her presence gave me.

Maybe when I have nothing left to remember her by, maybe then I can open that time capsule from her and hear the words she recorded for me and know that love again.

the knock at the door

They assume I'll stay. I suppose it is because I haven't said I don't want to. I play out each scenario in my mind and it always ends with the devastation of disappointment and hurt feelings. I know that part of the reason I'm saddled in a groaning misery that is difficult to shake off has to do with this situation and my inability to do anything about it (it is a daily barrage of noises, that the dog has only exacerbated, the clinking of the fork against his bowl, his rampant barking and nails clicking on the hardwood floor, his awareness that amplifies her awareness that underlines the feeling I'm always being watched, it is nearly unbearable after all this time and to imagine another year here tolerating the brunt of her insecurities and her rules and regulations among her chronic hypocrisy makes it worse). So I plunge my head further into the sand, telling myself I'm not in a place to take care of this problem, not right now, so I have to do the thing that proves to me that I'm a grown-up now, the one thing that children cannot do well; I will wait. I will be patient. I will hope for the best.

The dust here is stupendous. It settles along just wiped surfaces quickly, grows into thick gray strands, and I know the dust is affecting me, bringing sneezes in the morning, pounding my lungs and lining my nose and throat. I have never been sicker, so many colds in this year and a half, coupled with quitting smoking and starting smoking again and quitting again because you get so sick of being sick that the idea of putting a thing that you love that makes you both happy and sad anywhere near you becomes a chant stop doing that to yourself. I haven't smoked for two months, except for some reason, out of some defiance, out of some feeling of unfairness, I had a cigarette with them, standing outside with the men, feeling equal to them, making jokes with them. And then I resolved to never smoke again, again. I feel I am constant state of regaining ground after being sick and losing it by getting sick again.

Never before I have enjoyed the freedom of a light work schedule, weekends off, sometimes days off during the week, but with it comes less money, and with less money comes the terror and panic of not having enough, of struggling, of resorting to a constant mental anguish, a constant calculation of what money may be coming my way and what work I can do to get more of it to come my way. I was working a lot before but I had a lot of money to show for it; now I work a lot less and worry over paying the rent (another reason moving away from here isn't feasible, because even paying this low rent is tough, how can I afford to live alone?). Being broke for the last three months has cast a pallor over my social life and it is beginning to take its toll on me. I miss doing things like going out to dinner, being able to see a movie with a friend or doing a spur of the moment activity. I don't miss the drinking; the stupid brain cell bashing waste of time and money, but the rest of it, it is frustrating how bound I feel by the lack of money.

And then there is them, to imagine not being within walking distance of him, so that it feels easy to go there and give my cheerfulness and optimism and smiles to him, I see the benefits of it, that he is not a happy person and I infuse him with joy, I feel glad that I can be there for him, even if it is nothing more than watching sports games or bad tv shows together, because it is just being there for him, sitting next to him, not shirking from his wan and gaunt figure, not scared of the man he's become, a man he constantly insists is not the kind and gentle and intelligent soul I know (he would say knew) him as. It is probably one of the more difficult things in my life, that I must pretend is just fine. To do that, to constantly dull the shock and sharp point of despair, to grin and bear it, it takes up nearly all the energy I can muster. I weep when I walk home, I have to remove the clothes that reek of cigarettes and shower the smell of stale smoke out of my skin.

So there is the constant flipping of these two columns, that it is cheap and near them (and the park, I must mention the lovely park next door) and stifling and obnoxious.

Somehow, despite that, I've managed to find peace in being broke, because it means I can return to the solitary activities that bring me joy. Whether it is the finishing of the fingerless gloves for Daniel, or the necklace I started in spring, or to watch the exhilarating television series Deadwood; I have been enjoying my return to creative endeavors and see that I could spend this time of fruitless indecision productively. I might have something to show for myself. I haven't had the opportunity to revive my summer's challenge of participating in the Artist's Way, but I see that these small spurts of inclination come from the wellspring that program pointed me to, and all there is to do is remove the boarded opening and let the geyser erupt. A part of me is holding back, because it would mean that I would have to alter somehow the life I've become familiar with and used to, even though it doesn't serve me fully.

I already knew there was change coming, change was necessary, but I'm tired of change, tired of constantly turning the puzzle pieces over and fitting them into another place. I want to be done changing and being put together, but I also want to enjoy the things I have always wanted for myself, so I will do the work it takes to have the life I want. Live the life you want and want the life you live, they said.

Three years ago I began working with my writing partner and doing the bare minimum of work to develop my novel. I had hoped that I would be able to go to grad school to give me better focus and a greater discipline. Fitting my writing into my busy life is hard, harder than just about anything I spend time doing (because it is something I actually would rather do more than anything else, I try to find a large piece of time that I can really enjoy it). I come to each meeting with my inner artist bound and gagged, and I carefully release her, bathe her in reassurances and then she talks to me.

As of late, my writing partner is absorbed with her own stories, capturing them, crafting them, so in the meantime, instead of wringing my hands at the writing I cannot do alone (I could write an entire entry about the reasons why, suffice it to say, I would be easily distracted when left to my own devices), I decided to print out the entirety of what I have crafted and attempt to do a thorough edit. The distance of time will help, as each sentence is no longer imprinted in my mind, so that I can view it all objectively. I printed out one document with 179 pages (double spaced, manuscript style) and even though I knew it was 179 pages, to see them, to feel the weight of one hundred and seventy nine pages (and know that there is more of it not included and more to write), I felt the pleasure one must feel when showing off their growing infant. My how it's grown.

And then there is my quest, seen to many as arbitrary and unnecessary, but to me, reading the Snopes Trilogy by William Faulkner was my way of creating one safe haven to rest, one less decision to make, one less door to worry about whether or not to open. I have another hundred and more pages before I leave the world he made, and I have stayed in it, lingered there, loved it these many months, I think it has been more than a year; each book stretched into a cluster of pages that I mentally excavate, aware of every word, thrilling in every shift and whorl, examining the structure of the writing while being hypnotized by the words themselves. I sometimes wonder why it took me so long to find him, but realize that I would not have been prepared for him, which is why it took me so long to get through what I now see is his most deceptively simple novel, As I Lay Dying. A part of me would like to reread all of his novels I've previously blundered through with this attentive appreciation, because I know I did not give them enough careful consideration and I know that I would be a happy reader for it.

And then, there is them. It is strange. I had completely reduced the urge to be with someone, put on the mask of unloneliness, pretended that being single hasn't bothered me. I even went so far as to allow one (who is not enough) to try and make that emptiness seem a little less empty, but it only seems to shine the light on all the corners, all the openness, all that's missing. It makes me feel more alone, which I hadn't expected and now wonder what to do about them. For a long time, I was not ready for the task of dealing with them, of navigating the senseless and often difficult waters, like a ship trudging through glaciers in Antartica, trying to find a place with waters free enough to sail and weather less difficult to maneuver through. And now I see that just like everything in my life, it requires not that I be perfect, not that I know ahead of time what to do, not to be more patient and less anxious, it is a matter of being as prepared as I already am and able to choose to open the door when the knock arrives.

epilogue [pt 8]

There in Trafalgar Square; the kids in their crested jackets on one of the great lions, tourists posing in front of the other three, a world floated around me that did not bind me due to the magic spell of travel which leaves one free of the constraints of self, realizing I would never see that face again, never hold her again, I still tremble at the loss of her, hearing the song that she used to fall asleep to on my chest with the beating of my heart in her ear brings me to great horrific sobs, still, I felt it then as I feel it now; the tourists walked past me in oblivion, the sun beat faintly at my eyes, the grey hat that had been mine for years but never belonged to me until I placed it on my head in London, that there I might try to pass the hat off as part of me, but with my friends I could not reveal a new item without some serious critique; I photographed myself.

It wasn't until after I returned, after I'd spent a week in bed with a horrific flu that literally got a hold of me in the airport and was completely throwing my nervous system out of whack by the time the airplane landed at O'hare, fevers, chills, aches, headache (I never travel well on planes, having a terrible time with my ears losing pressure), the flu that triggered six days of migraines of the painful, high level on the broad scale that are my migraines, the kind that happen to me once in a great while, those six miserable days I spent lying on the couch/during which I was absolutely aware of the fucking coincidence that emotionally I was in agony; I would have to get a new job, maybe go back to the cafe again, but the chanting was endless: I was never going to see Iris again.

It wasn't until after that woman suggested we meet to discuss what happened in London, after I arrived late at the meeting, in which we exchanged pleasantries, she actually went through the rigor of pleasantries, and then I said I wanted an apology from her, for the swearing, for the outburst, to which she said no. We agreed to disagree and then she lied, meek in public, not able to fully release herself, a self I had seen biting at the surface for years before it actually emerged, so I was prepared for anything that day, but I did not expect her to leave it open, saying, maybe we just need a break. (The break continues, some two and a half years later. I have not contacted them and they have not contacted me since.)

It wasn't until after all that, I finally saw it. The burnham prepared them for me, printed off my camera, all of the treasures stored on film, processed and the product given to me, to be a film photographer is to give birth one frame at time, no twins or triplets for me, because each photo was my one opportunity to capture that vision that had arrested me, a pile of buildings mostly, ornamental additions, the lopped off trees, frozen in time, aching at the sky, the surprise of the stencil graffiti, every picture of Wales idyllic, all of it tumbling back at me, a regret, a sadness, until; there I was,

I hadn't been angry in a photograph since I was a little girl, always carefully smiling, obscuring the space in my teeth, holding myself as perfectly as I could, trying to distract everyone away from what my faults were and draw attention to my features. That day, the last day in London, I didn't care what anyone thought of me, I held the camera up to myself, no rush, in a crowded square of strangers I felt the lack of that chronic and characteristic concern that someone was watching me and waiting to point out to everyone what a fool I was (a feeling that lessens every day continuing from that day), and I took the picture. I saw that in my imperfections, in my scowl, in my defiance, even with the grief of losing her gripping me, I saw that I already was perfect, that I didn't need to fix anything about me, that I may be ugly to some, but I am beautiful when I am being myself and not hiding anything.

the crash [pt 7]

My last day in London, I walked around the city, what had once seemed like a million details I would never learn and suddenly seemed so small; it is where I lost myself, it is where I found myself; I stood in Trafalgar Square, amid a bevy of things known to me, the uniformed teenagers riding one of the great lions after school, the tourists, the easily recognizable Americans, slumbering along in their sneakers, the rest of them European, but easy to pick out with their maps, their stares upward, their gaping cow eyed indiscretion toward everything but themselves, there I was among them, scowling and cold, indignant and righteous, most of all alone.

After Wales, the rest of the trip was strained. Things were still polite, of course, but strained. So I reigned myself in and snipped off every bit of me that was too wild or unruly. It made me a little sad, but it didn't bother me, I had done it before. And yet, I was startled to see that in growing older (I was thirty one years old), I could not be anything other than myself. People are often befuddled by that, that my seemingly endless well of niceness has a bottom, and in it is me happily living my life, doing what pleases me and attempting not to be unraveled by every stare, smile, hand, hug, moment.

Thankfully his sister and her family embraced me, not understanding that I had tried their patience with my gloominess and perhaps a trickling confusion about what was going on and a growing concern that I was never going to be alone even in sleep. To say it simply, it was poorly planned and I am a person who thrives on plans.

Still, despite the strain, it was a wonderful trip and I enjoyed myself immensely when I was left to my own devices, I traveled through London and saw so many things, I had never traveled alone before and it was gorgeous, I took photographs all day, I walked until I had blisters on my feet, I went through many museums, I rode the bus and peered out the windows, I really enjoyed myself. And his sister and her family, they took me to things I preferred to see, markets, historic sites, cafes, eateries, shops, it was a pleasure to be with them and I was thankful for their cheerful company and the opportunity to be myself.

When I returned to them, things were lighter, maybe because I was lighter, or they enjoyed the separation from me, but insignificant things brought the strain back. Even then I still tried to remove my worries and concerns from our interactions but eventually I realized it was no use. Who fights the hurricane, with the precursors of its arrival stinging enough; the sleeting endless rains, the brute winds, the disappearance of the sun?

That day was the second to last day of our trip. We had exchanged pleasant enough verbal uppercuts all day, many of hers landing full on and making me pause in fury. How unfair when she had somehow managed to plant doubt in all of their interactions with me (was it my being his playpal that made them worry? or how much she loved me and I loved her? or how much I beamed at him and enjoyed him? all things that felt like pure joy to me, did she make seem bad to them?).

When we reached our destination for lunch, it was nearing three in the afternoon. I was hungry and crabby, as were the girls, who were not captivated in conversation with anyone and did not care for how many years it had been. I had a difficult time seating both of the girls and her verbal jabs set me to boiling (I recall clearly how she yelled across the table at me to lift something on the ancient high chair which she described in such unhelpful words while I was holding her screaming and thrashing child above the contraption).

The girls had finally been settled in and we were looking at the menu. I was so happy to just eat. I let the squish hold and play with the butter knife closest to her reach while I perused the menu. She was happily playing for a few minutes until that woman looked over and noticed and humorously mentioned to me (while she sat down in her chair five seats away, had she been truly worried, she could have gotten up) across the table of eight or so of her long ago friends that her baby had a knife in her hands. No one laughed. Everyone looked at me. She was trying to embarrass me, and it was not nice. She asked, across the table if I was not enjoying myself, I seemed upset. I sighed, I said something outright rude (I don't always have to smile, I'm not a clown, I'm not here to amuse you), clattered my plate and got up and walked off, shocking and surprising everyone. They had felt a brewing discontent between us and now she was free to blame the entire thing on me, but I could not stand to sit at the table any longer.

I remember him coming out and trying to talk me back in but I would not. Then he brought the kids out and we spent some time exploring that alleyway, investigating every tree and closest branch of leaves they held. When I came back in she was offering me her meal if I was that hungry, that I had an outburst at the table, and I muted my rage and sat, defiantly. The food arrived and the table shifted away from me and the children and to her, where I felt it should have rested the entire time, had she not been so focused on bullying me. As the meal ended, the tension eased up as everyone gathered their things. We walked up the block and everyone pretended not to know me, except the one who'd met me before the day laid out before us, before she set the minefield, and she alone was the only person to acknowledge me. Even him, I could feel his disappointment in me, I sensed a weariness from him that surprised me.

Our train ride home was focused on the children. The frozen sister jumped to my rescue with lots of darling things to say, and she devoured the attention she had been missing while her routine was in disarray. When we returned to the home, the children were sequestered with him while she and I found ourselves together in the kitchen. I remember things being somewhat informal, as if we just happened to be in the same room at the same time and had some things to discuss. I knew she was angry at me, and I was not going to hide from her. As she began her argument, she seemed particularly stuck on the fact that I had slammed my plate and silverware down in frustration. I tried to explain myself, defend myself, relate to her, but really there was no way we could see each other's side (she was upset that I had not been more of a lovely person and intermingled naturally with her friends as she fantasized) (I felt battered and beaten and tired and cowered in the job I had come there to do, which was no solace, she seemed to keep wanting to point out just how badly I was doing it). Then she screamed the words that scoured my soul, that underscored just how much pain and anguish I had caused her those four years, conveyed exactly how she felt about me, she said I was acting like a brat because I wasn't the fucking center of attention for once.

Imagine unweaving a braid from a basket. I was that secure, that firm, that settled with where my life was, and who I was, I had everything I thought I wanted at that point, except at night when arrived that nagging part of me that cannot be quieted, unless by chemicals or other force.

She didn't have to do much, sometimes it was just a gesture, just a look in her eyes, she was like a creature, a snake, hypnotizing me, with nothing as terrifying as the quiet frozen moment that snaps into quick sharp unexpected and yet expected movement.

For the duration of the trip, to live under that level of awareness of her feelings, having sensed her her rage repressed for four years, all the elements converged, knowing that I had outshone her, knowing that her own child had cried in her arms for me in front of her in-laws who she already felt like she hadn't proven herself to in the ten years they'd been together, even though I was just being myself and trying to do my job amidst a lot of bad planning and not enough alone time, it was really like something I would consider hell.

Then to have the man I imagined is perfection, the kind I would have liked to have married, when I now consider that perfection it looks and acts and still speaks like him, the surface of him that I knew at least, having finally accepted he would not belong to me, that he would always be hers even if she wasn't there for some reason, that his vow was that deep, that his love was that rooted. He tried to reason it out with me and even though I told him how my side of the day had gone, he would not agree with me. Maybe I knew he wouldn't be able to agree, but I still wanted to plead my case to him, fuck the rest of them, I don't care if they like me or not, or think I'm a piece of trash, but it was him that I couldn't stand to hate me. Even knowing I could never have him, I still consider him one of the finest human beings I have ever had the pleasure to encounter.

And in the face of that, of making the case for myself and having someone of his caliber dismiss me, I was ruined.

The next day, I was told I had the day off. It felt like I was exiled. The following day we were due to fly home. I struggled with the events of the day previous, finding no joy in being alone, in reliving what happened, in trying to find some way that my pride would relent and I would be able to make things right. To never speak to her again meant to never see Iris again. And that day, I knew it already, that I would never see her again, it clamored at me, as I listlessly walked through The National Gallery, seeing paintings I knew from art history, paintings that should have had the power to obscure my building dread, but not being able to see anything but the anguish I would feel from never seeing her again.

man-made Joshua tree [pt 6]

How can one predict the path of destruction of a natural disaster? That was what it felt like, that I survived something brutal and unexpected, the panic of which left me bed-ridden for a solid week. I can only say how it felt for me, what it looked like to me, what I thought about things. It is only beyond the aftermath that we can trace the path, and even then, how are we to know it is not something beyond what we can see or know?

His parents I had met several times in the four years off and on that I spent with their grandchildren. I found them charming and cheerful and I got to know them, I enjoyed them very much. They also knew me, not as thoroughly as someone who spent a lot of time with me might have, but they knew me in the soul to soul moment way, when they saw me with their son. He brought out the best in me and I was cheerful and relaxed and delightful in his company. To spend so much time in their home did not bring about any nervousness at all.

When we arrived, it was a wonder, we left a snowy climate that had battered us with wet and cold, it was early February and still unrelenting, but just a few hours away we encountered an unexpected gift, London was having an early spring. She'd already arrived, perhaps a week or almost two weeks before us, close enough to where you could tell she had not yet been, especially on the naked trees, many with their limbs lopped off at so many awkward angles they resembled gnarled hands reaching into the sky. But the sky it clamored at was bright (not the dreary London I'd been told to anticipate, grays, muddy skies, obscuring fogs). The clouds were puffy and dense, the skies behind them idyllic blue and the sun shone into our faces, not the rough summer sun, but the paler, lighter sun, that I could navigate the city without sunglasses surprised me, it was such a weak warmth, but just enough to give breath into the air, instill a sense of openness and joy. We shed our winter selves quickly, it was a pleasure to be free of winter's grip.

I was in a sort of palatial bliss, in which I was dropped suddenly into a completely different world that I had no real knowledge of and I soaked up everything about it, even just around them, I was so enraptured by everything there that I didn't already know, unlike the way I knew so much of my life back home, a routine, a sort of network of daily habits of awareness. As much as these dismay me, the breadth of them, the networks growing larger and out of control, that I see the inability to make it to the furthest outreaches to protect every outpost from harm; I enjoy them. In them, in learning the routines of my world, I see the stories, I see the themes, I see what drives certain people, I puzzle over all of them in great detail while also knowing their scope.

To learn a new place was challenging and exciting. I learned their house, where the parquay floors had lost their seal and where the silverware stayed and where the stairs creaked. I learned their neighborhood, where I could go and buy something from a place I'd seen while walking, in a few block radius. I learned the buses, the trains, most of the city. This immersion was sudden and immediate, within days I was forming sentences as a Briton might (have you got any jam for this bit of toast?) and, I spoke with an accent very easily. It almost seemed to me an unofficial long standing etiquette training. I was in my own transformation story and I hadn't even expected to do anything more than sit glumly in the corner and hope for invisibility and enjoy the four days off they promised me. Museums were free, there were so many sights, and I hoped to feel like I had seen some of another great city.

And then, there was Iris. The joy of our lives was now shared by them, and she was a round eyed creature of great beauty, who captivated all that encountered her.

We spent those first few days in great ease, seeing sights and people, it was a heady time for me with the newness of the new and they even did some touristy things with me in mind, we rode The Eye, they pointed out the sights, he drove me around one night, and he pointed out his life there. Then somehow, perhaps the moon crept into fullness or the thrill of the new wearing off, or how they say traveling with people is a test of a relationship, and ours was set in motion on the fourth or fifth day. It was a succession of dominos, that slow slap of one thing pushing into another to build us into raging.

I was probably woken up by listening to the baby cry. I am a light sleeper and that first gasp of air hit my ears and I was awake instantly. She may have cried for five or ten minutes or so until I heard their door open downstairs, and the lumber of his body climb the stairs and he pulling her from her crib, to tend to whatever it was ailing her. To hear a baby cry like that, one that you love, who loves you, and to not know if you should get up and tend to her, or if that would upset the woman and she would be colder to you the next time she saw you. So there I lay, on the other side of her wall, frozen by indecision.

Then, strangely, sadly, she began to cry for me even when in her mother's arms, and I cowered in the shame of having delighted in her so much that she now yearned for me. I wouldn't say she preferred me over her mother, but I do think she enjoyed spending time with me. I constantly interacted with her, with a toy, words, noises, hand clapping, testing her understanding of the world around us. It was part of our joy that previously we had been able to enjoy without boundaries. Suddenly, that woman had something to prove to her in laws, and the second the baby cried for me while in her arms, I felt the slap of those dominos falling.

It happened several times over those near three weeks, but the worst one was when I came downstairs after having some time to shower and get ready for the day. She heard my feet on the stairs and knew it was me (everyone else was sitting in the dining room eating breakfast) and began to cry. She had just gotten settled when she heard my voice and began to cry louder. I was embarrassed for that woman, as much as I did not care for her, I still respected her humanity and that was quite the blow to hers. In order for me to eat breakfast at the table with everyone, she had to carry her child away so that she did not see me.

In spending that much time with them (an unrelenting progression of events with no quiet time to myself and no solace in sleep, because the frozen sister slept in the same room with me and woke up several times during the night, and the baby crying next to me every morning), I lost my ability to maintain my cheerful disposition. And when it seemed that my love for their child and her love for me was too much for that woman, I was angry with them for bringing me there. And him, I was angry at him for choosing her, a woman who was not nor never could be his equal. I was angry at him for being so damn charming and funny and clever and so devoted to her.

There was a moment when the slaps of that love, the love I had flourished under, denied, vilified, loathed and forgiven; there in London, there was one huge slap, and it came after a day of seeing their friends and having a lovely time, in which I was never treated like the help and still managed to feel chasms apart from him, because he was adoring her, enjoying her, loving the mother of his children with such beaming joy. Slap. We were standing in the doorways of a grimy tube car, the children at their feet, his arm around his wife the darkness of a tunnel dimmed the scene and when I looked into our reflection, I was standing on one side, they on another and their children between us and they were kissing. I wanted at once to champion for their love and devotion and to smack her and say how dare you! when all you do is complain and create messes for him to clean up. I wept. I hid in my hat. She tried to talk to me and I could not be polite, I grimaced at her and hid from her.

After enjoying a day off (to my glad ears, it was told with no advance warning, but soothed by the cavernous room of Mark Rothkos at the Tate), I vowed to not be bitter any longer. I had the burnham, things were still good between us, and perhaps had I been born some years earlier, I could have been where she was. Things were the way they were and that was that.

Except the dominos had already begun to fall, and by the time we reached that weekend, they were falling with such rapidity, that I can barely recall the sequence of them: every moment became pregnant with awkwardness. And, specifically, she teased me about my newfound accent, she was mortified that her child cried for me, she was jealous that he had driven me around, she was offended that I did not want to come to the pub, because he was sad that I opted not to, she came down with a headache one afternoon that I was supposed to be free for the day and on and on.

The weekend we went to the countryside, the girls and I were a cluster of irritation. The frozen sister had a headache, the baby was teething, and I was cranky from little sleep and the exhaustion of being polite with them so much. The country was typical English dreary landscape, which I believe also affected our mood. We tromped through the paths and toured the neighborhood, but it was with some effort on my behalf. I retired after the children went to bed. And then we traveled on to Wales.

Wales. I had not expected to travel there, so I think it was doubly impressive in its surprise and it was so lively in its atmosphere, as soon as we crossed the border I felt a connection to the land that I could not say I felt for London or England, a sense of belonging, a smile as my heart whispered, welcome home. It was absolutely gorgeous and mysterious. I was in love and they (being Britons) were quite annoyed by my sweeping sense of awe of the place. To them, it was just a silly country (the Welsh language the biggest factor on the list of silliness) but to me it was heaven; rolling hills of properties marked by wire fences or wooden posts with clumps of sheep bleating in the distance and brilliant blue skies of breathtaking beauty and the town nestled at the feet of the hills, a town that still resembled much of how it has always been, and it has always been quaint and lovely.

This scene was edified by the home we spent a night or two in, a beautiful maze of rooms and spaces, some big some small, stained glass, a snooker table on which I learned to play the sport, a lovely garden with ponds, a cliff with the countryside all green and blue and rolling ahead of your eyes, and the woman of the house was an excellent cook (their mother had somehow become a true English woman in many senses and her cuisine was less than exciting; especially the meal of cow tongue, which I truly will never forget for how disgusting it was) and her husband was a pleasant man and their children were older and very smart and I enjoyed their company very much. I decided to fall into the delight of their nephew who immediately adopted me as his play pal, despite the fact that I was a giant woman who was only visiting for a few weeks and not a boy of his age. We had so much fun. I know it irritated that woman because she had tried so vainly with them (her awkwardness was a sign of her desperate attempts to fit in, I think), but she lacked the ability to laugh at herself, laugh with them, and trust them. I realized I was outshining her and I did not hold back at all on her behalf.

This seemed to upset him as well and there was some talk about what was expected of me and what was not expected of me. I don't think there was a clause for getting along too well with his family and somewhat abandoning my duties, but I reasoned, it was the weekend, they traveled there to see his family and how could they enjoy the kids if I was always taking care of them. Also, I was having too much fun playing snooker, doing a puzzle, gossiping with their niece, assisting the lady of the house, pulling up sheets of ice from the ponds, and many many other small joys. They hadn't expected me to fit in so well, especially not with them who found his wife to be cold and unfriendly (because she was cold and unfriendly). I hadn't expected to fit in so well with them either. I'd met them all separately when they came to visit in Chicago and found them all to be good people, but them as a family, well they were too charming to deny.

The dominos took a different turn then, she had been gracious to these pile of irritants I'd delivered while simply being myself, but soon she began to lose her ability to be polite.

the set-up [pt 5]

They were some of the happiest times in my life. I spent every day thinking about her, every day I spent with her was a joy, I often dropped in on the weekends just to see her for a little bit, because two days without her was unbearable. Sometimes she would be napping and I would impose on them, but often it was a carousel of emotions, to see her, to see him, to avoid the mother's perplexed gaze, to explain to the sister that I still loved her too.

Things with him had changed, because he wasn't around as much and because things with the burnham had somehow miraculously resumed and seemed better than ever. I spent my days with her, pleased and happy, my nights with the burnham, learning him again and exploring our love again. Happy times, indeed.

Things changed there, in a good way, and it was the warmest it ever was there in that house and it was all because of her. Because she loved me so fervently, I became hers and spent more time with them than ever before. I felt like I was part of their family, we ate dinners together, I sat in on some of their holiday celebrations, I saw the way they had become a family. It was lovely and I was so grateful to be a part of their lives. Every so often the pang of what would never be would rise up, often I found her a tiring woman, but being with Iris made everything a wonder. The summer ended; she was a caterpillar for Halloween, there were so many of their holidays, some of which I sat in on, watching him and the sister recite the prayers, smiling with her.

Time with the squish was easy. I cannot think of another way to describe it. Often, the things in my life I remember in great detail are the moments I feel disappointed or confused, but there was none of that with her. When I am happy, everything just exists and I am able to be in the moment, not preserving it for scrutiny later, to dissect it, to puzzle over it, so that is what I attribute to not really being able to remember anything, that and the overwhelming sense of wonder.

Again, I will say, there are glimpses, the smiles, the feel of her hair curling along the nape of her neck, the squeeze of her fingers, the way she would kick out her feet, the round eyes narrowing in understanding at me, the joy she had for all of my babysitting gimmicks, except, I did not need to persuade her to examine a fallen leaf from the ground or go down the slide or sing or dance or bounce on the bed or play clapping games or read books or any of the other distractions I had for children. We simply existed together, happy to be in each other's presence and adored each other and whatever was nearby that would entertain us, we grasped and everything else was out of focus.

Five or six months passed like that, a joyful giddy thrill, and then one day, when he was driving me home, he asked me the question that would begin the destruction of all of it. Had I known now, I would have said no. At the time, I couldn't even consider a no, because it would mean not seeing her for twenty days and the idea of being apart from her for that long was unthinkable. The friends we had tried to warn me, to say that it wasn't a good idea, sometimes I wonder if they knew that woman's heart, if they knew already that she did not care for me and was waiting for her opportunity to ruin me in the eyes of her family, or maybe they just knew that the bigness of me and the delicateness of her would never survive in a small space and they were right.

He asked me to travel with them for almost three weeks to London while they went to visit his family.

The way I put it then, and the way I still think of it, it was like winning the lottery. I was so delighted by the idea. I love to travel, I hadn't traveled in sometime, I had never been to London. Mostly, I wanted to be with Iris. I don't know how the mother felt about it, I got the sense at the time that she wasn't that thrilled about having me around. I wish that she had stopped it, or I had said no, but in a way, it was as if neither of us could prevent the collision, we may have tried to steer our cars on ice blacker than empty space, but there was no point in trying, we were going to collide and it was going to be massive.

Winter was upon us. The preparations for the trip took some time, and we all bunkered down against a very snowy winter, the sort that was grueling to travel about in, the kind that makes you want to migrate, the unrelenting bashing of snow and wind and wet. He asked me sometime in November, I think, but it wasn't until February that we left for London.

I began to be too eager for her face and love, and too demanding of her. I said that I was willing to give up almost three weeks of my life to be their nanny, to accompany them to another country, to make their visit easy and comfortable. Mostly, I just wanted to be with the squish; she brought me joy and gladness of the purest easiest sense.