Bean

Now I understand why van gogh painted sunflowers.

the burn

It happened the way those things always do, I meant well, time blinked, and all of sudden, I had burned the tenderest skin on my thumb, the part at the bottom of your finger nail, where your nail grows, with that little ridge of cuticle to protect skin from nail. The water might have been at boiling or higher and I gasped out loud (which I normally don't do anymore, having burned myself so often but because it was such a tender spot, I gasped). I set about the elaborate process of tending to my burn, a mix of running cold then warm water over the skin, maybe a half inch wide and a centimeter high. It had the pinkness of pain within minutes, and it seemed to be a deep down burn, the kind that would not stop throbbing. I then moved on to a piece of ice, which I held in place with my fingers until it melted, and another and another and another.

It is at moments like these, where I wonder what am I still doing there? I try to pretend I am good at that place. And sometimes, things just make sense there, it's true. I move like a drop of oil through water, slick, fast, and smooth. I make people do whatever I want them to, I can deal with just about anyone, and it doesn't seem like a good thing sometimes.

The other day, it was busy. It was the kind of busy that is reserved for two people, but even with two people racing behind the counter like rats in a maze, it would still appear busy. I did it all, managing not to piss off everyone in line and maintain a conversation with the cardboard cutout (an unlikely new fan of mine, a strange jelly has been formed between us, one that seems to require his visitation of me despite the fact that I would rather he disappear into a brine of my own disappointment and never be seen again).

[The cardboard cutout--or as you know him, the fire--has been rather baffling of late. He has been arranging times for us to meet up and in my presence he is merely a smiling anime character, to which I can relate, but he is unable to say more than a few sentences. He has a girlfriend now so his insistence that we have some sort of friendship seems odd, especially given that I know for a fact his girlfriend is the jealous type--he has suddenly removed photos of his ex from his facebook profile, for instance, and when we happen to have a facebook interaction, she'll quickly chime in with her undying love. I say no problem and thank goodness I did not land the beautiful, lovely cardboard cutout. I did however find him somewhat intriguing and told him as much, so maybe that is why he puts in the effort with me, because I had put in the effort with him, before he became girlfriended. My friends wonder why I still consider him someone worth wasting time on and all I can say is that he didn't do anything wrong, per se, he just didn't really do it right. He is a good guy and very sweet and there is nothing wrong with having more of those people around, I say.]

The burn on my thumb was so bad that it looked like my skin was glue. It began to collect lint on its surface, just in that small area, black cotton lint from wiping my hand on my apron and it wouldn't wash off. The next day I forgot all about it. The burn, the gasp, the glue.

Sometimes when people come in who haven't come in for a long time, they express their amazement at still seeing me there with a sort of cheerful pity. I feel the effects of their remarks, which range from, "Oh you're still here!" to "How long has it been?" to "You must really like working here...obviously."

A week or so later, the burn turned into a brown mark. My skin had died so deep down that it was finally ready to scab up and get crusty. It was the tenderest of skin. The brown mark registered in my peripheral as a surprise for a while, always accompanied with the worry, What's that on my thumb? until I would remember with annoyance, especially after the dozenth time that it was just the burn working itself out.

Last night, a customer who I have had some good interactions with was walking down the street right in front of my house. I was so surprised to see him that I blurted out his name even though he was on the phone and probably didn't recognize me in the darkness. He seem startled to see me and in his demeanor was a bit of dismay at realizing it was me and especially moreso when I pointed out that I lived right there. He just moved into a place around the corner, he mentioned in response, and with that, he continued his cell phone conversation and I tried to figure out why it bothered me so much.

Was it just the fact that everywhere I go there is some customer whose face I recognize that I am a stranger to because I don't have my apron and am not behind the counter of Siena? Was it his lack of enthusiasm at having me as a neighbor? Or the fact that I felt like saying, hey, I promise I'm not stalking you, I really do live right there, because he seemed so weirded out by seeing me.

When the welt grew new skin under the burned skin, it began to peel off around the edges at first. After a couple days it was gone, picked away by my nervous movements. The edges still had a some dead skin which I rubbed away with the pad of my forefinger. The skin is so tender there it can just be exfoliated by light pressure. Today was the first day I realized the burn is gone, there is no trace of its happening at all, except my memory of it and one day even that will be gone, rubbed away by alcohol or need for remembering something else, and maybe that is a good thing, to not remember everything.

As for them, and that place, the sting of what was, what could have been, what is, that is what keeps me from submitting myself further and that is what makes me want to run and cower. I won't as easily forget that time my new neighbor and I talked about my writing, or the time when the cardboard cutout made his giant laughing impression on me.

More pears!

Week five

the land and its lies

It has been way too long.

Here goes nothing:

I am fine. Nothing is wrong here. It is the strangest sense of clarity I have ever purported to have. Sometimes it even sits with me for days and days. The urgency I once had; gone. The guilt over not doing everything I ought to be doing; gone. The sadness I felt for time passed and lost; also gone. It is strange. I have reached some sort of mega zenith in which I know that exactly where I am is exactly where I'm supposed to be. I know that all the things I have surrounding me are things I want nearby. I know that everything my thoughts turn to is good.

I miss a lot of things. I miss my father tremendously. I haven't spoken to him in some time and I find there is no better reason than I simply lack the time I would like to give him. I cannot seem to muster it up in some chunk enough to supply him my absolute attention (which is want I want to give him) and so I keep saying, tomorrow, next week, next month; and I think of him in the way that someone tries to see stars, that seeing them seems to rest on so many things coinciding on one perfect point, by following the routines, and I have lost that routine.

I never expected my routines to be so disrupted by my moving in with people. I've lived with people before and treated those people as if they revolved around me, as if they were mere entities in my way, obstacles, mosquitos. I would like to pretend it has nothing to do with moving, but it is apparent, if you look back, that my life has not been quite the same since I obliged myself to moving in with them.

And oddly, I love it. I love them. I love the feeling she gives me. She as a friend is like having a twin sister, someone who knows you and your movements and their meanings so completely and finds them so enjoyable because they are the same. And then there is him, who I've inherited, who I cannot imagine never having known, the absolute best person I have yet to meet, for all of his giddy statements bring me joy, all of our interactions make me smile. I love the appreciation they give me. I have never had people in my life I so fully enjoyed who so fully enjoyed me that it is almost tiring, the being with them, because I don't want to stop, I get exhausted. And generally, this involves nothing more than their presence. I languish in their words, in their laughs, in their company like a contented cat, fattened with cream and tuna. For the first time in my life, I understand a love given entirely from friendship. They make my heart happy.

I miss my writing. Around the time I moved, my writing partner disappeared into other projects on a temporary basis that has turned nearly permanent. I remember our meetings in past tense and it troubles me briefly until I am whisked away into the throes of pleasure (the summer, the activities, the food, the conversations, the smiles). I remember how for almost three months, we met three times a week (or attempted to), that in one of those months I completed a short story, a solid, well written piece of my novel and I remember how alive I felt. Even though Iowa had turned me down, I would not stop writing. I existed like a well run machine for those three months, churning day after day, each day of the week already known to me through the handshake of routine.

I went to the bar more then. It was part of my routine, part of my emotional rut, that I had nothing better to do and nowhere better to go than there. And maybe I needed to go there, to fuel myself, or find myself, or something. And he was there, the magnetic disk and I kept going there trying to find the answer and once I found it, I found I could not keep going there because I hadn't realized it before but I was embarrassing myself. I saw it the last time I was there when I approached him and everyone else's eyes met and lowered in embarrassment for me. There was a moment of tension, they quieted to hear what I had to say and resumed talking when it was obvious I wasn't professing my love for him. I can't deny their concern, but I still shudder over that moment.

And yet, we had so many good times; argued over a point in the sky (venus? no, jupiter), I gave him my favorite book with all the earnestness and delight of a child and he accepted it with the same pleasure, we ran into each other one especially warm day when I was wearing my cute summer dress and he was wearing a hangover and the displeasure of being punished for being late, when his eyes lifted at the sound of my voice, the excitement on his face was undeniable, he reached over to me and kissed my cheek and hugged me, bringing me close to him, feeling my back, and I know it was just a habit, but it was one that righted his demeanor instantly. Or the time he realized I'd been smoking again, his face mocking and skewed with fake shock as he pointed it out. Or that he still remembered all the things he told me that night, but carefully avoided the most important thing (that he still wanted to be my friend). It is all nothing and will never be anything more than a confusing series of circumstances; a mystery never solved.

I miss men. I didn't realize it until I recently hugged my friend, a well made man (who only loves men). He has a bulkiness and heavy strength I forgot. I generally feel so big and huge, but next to him, I am soft, frail and malleable. Having moved, I have a bed now, whereas before I slept on the floor; now--and again--I sleep with pillows next to me, to simulate the body that I'm so used to being next to. Before it was him (the love of my lifetime) that I missed, now I recognize that it is just the form and the warmth and the support of a body next to me that I long for. I don't know why I haven't had any men in my life in the last year. I think I am just beginning to get over the shock of what happened with him, but I still think I carry a sign around that may as well be visible and shouting out loudly GET AWAY FROM ME. Based on my results I can only guess that's what the sign says.

The random texter turned out to be the singer. I knew it was all along, but there was some part of me that doubted just for doubting's sake. He wanted to continue in the manner in which he'd been going, where he'd invite me to be a part of his life every three weeks or a month or so and leave the lapses in between us empty of explanations. He wanted me to be someone he could dump and pick up whenever he felt like it, but I didn't want that. So we have sorted that out, shared the necessary pieces of the puzzles that we mixed up and I have moved on. I am not interested in wasting any more time, at least not wasteful wastes of time. If we spent two weeks together only to have him depart, that would be one thing, but I won't sit for three weeks waiting.

the drunken ambusher returned to my scope for a brief moment in which I was able to fervently recapture the depth of my joy and passion for him, but it was still not enough for him and once again we are strangers. It is good to see that we still have something, that there is something between us that always been there and I think will always be there.

It is also good to see that I no longer prattle on and on about what could be when I very well know there is nothing. I spent a week wearing that old behavior (having a crush on someone, anyone, having someone to gush about, having a permanent grin on my face because all I need is a man to make me happy). And then I got rid of it. Let it go. I haven't thought about him in two weeks and today I was at work and it was the first time he crossed my mind and I was so proud of myself. I really am learning what aspects of my behavior are useful and harmful and unnecessary. My brain has a lot of idle power and it gets wasted on these ridiculous prospects (who might be better prospects if only one key, but unchangeable, element was in place).

I long to be in love again, to have that joy, that pleasure, but I understand now that it was sometimes contrived before and this time I don't want to settle for anyone less than worthy of my company. So if that means I will be single for five more years before I meet someone who is capable of meeting me eye to eye physically, emotionally and intellectually, I will savor those five years or however long it may be.

I miss my family. It is strange, but the summer months mean that I don't see them as much, for the family get-togethers are thanksgiving, christmas and easter. I generally don't see my mother very often, or my brothers, or his children. I sometimes have contact with them, but not often. I got to see my brother's family at the birthday party for his daughters and it was a delight as always, but it feels so far away now, that Sunday just six weeks ago, with the pool in the backyard, the kids running around, the presents, the pinatas, the drawings with chalk on the cement.

I've started thinking about if that will ever be my life, having kids, making parties for them, kissing their heads when they fall, and wondering if I've used up my time taking care of other people's children, if I've missed my chance, if it's too late for me. I suppose there's no way of knowing that until it is certain that I cannot have children, but some part of me doesn't seem too concerned about the absence of children from my life. I have seen so many children take their first step, say their first word, and even had one child give me the tenderest most absolute love I have ever received from a child.

Mostly, I think I am sitting at a point in my life where I don't know what's next. I have always known, or had an idea, or wanted something, and now, I have this vastness ahead of me and opportunities worth accepting, but I don't know what's next for me. I think this is what's given me the sense of peace and lack of struggle, because if you want to get away from something you have to have somewhere in mind that you're headed. It's not enough to want freedom, it must exist somewhere.

I know that I have an immense freedom in a lot of ways, because I am single and childless and without debt. I am still at the mercy of my routines and my cost of living and until there is a release in that, I will not feel free.

p.s. I know they say a picture is worth a thousand words, but given that all I've offered here for the last month is a couple entries and a bunch of pictures, I hope they were at least worth a hundred words. When I don't write or can't write here, I try, for the very smallest effort, to communicate through pictures and let you know that I am okay, if quiet.

In quotes

Inside

Hailed The Crotch and it certainly smelled like one last night.

seriously, where does the time go?

I look up at the calendar and August is nearly gone. I know I have had days that were chock full, either of work or fun, and I look around the table and their smiling faces bring a smile to my face. It has been a long time since I was able to just succumb to pleasure, to have it waiting and at the ready for me, and to have it be an offering I wanted to partake of, to share, to have.

I worry though, that my fun is taking over, that there's no time for me, that my writing is suffering (I haven't met with my partners in over two months), that I am losing myself in pleasure.

So for the first time in a while, rather than worry that my absences here mean I am spiralling down into darkness, it is a sign that I have been happily soaking up the joy around me.

I miss this, and the thoughts that get emptied out, but one of the benefits of spending time solely with people who bring joy is I have nothing to ruminate over and no puzzlements to work out. And, when those moments do occur (seeing him in the street, getting a text from noel, finding pictures of him with her) they weigh nothing against that joy.

Blues

the way I'll tell the story of the night we met

It was such a lark. I wasn't supposed to be there. I should have been sleeping. And you, you probably weren't planning on being there that night, which was not your usual night, but there you found yourself, a little drunk and happy to be dancing with one of the beautiful girls who sometimes worked behind the bar, probably on those nights that is your regular night, and you smiled at her face in the dark while you danced. You were hoping for something more with her, always hoping, and your pain made you feel a hundred pounds heavier, but you still tried because there was something about her, she just seemed so far away and brilliant and being close to her made you feel like you could catch the moon.
And then she left, like an eclipse, and there I was.
And instead of chasing stars and heavenly bodies, you felt like a mountain being blasted through for a tunnel, and I smashed you.
And I didn't even know. I was alone, trying to pretend I wasn't lonely, but even in that room of people all smiles I was in my head, in my own world, completely out of place and something about that appealed to you in a completely different way than the way she did, and you moved towards me, hoping above all else that I wouldn't drift off.
And we danced.
I'll interject here that my legs hurt for days.
You'll smile at me and say, mine did too, darling.
I wouldn't take any of it back though, I'll counter.
Of course not, then we wouldn't be here, you'll say.
So we danced.
And your body became a figure I was aware of, like walking through a room you know better than any, a bedroom, maybe, in which you could wander through it in the dark and you wouldn't fall, because your body could feel the room, remember the steps to take to avoid the furniture; that's what it was like to be next to you. I had no idea what your face looked like because of the dark, but in the dark your limbs and body were well known to me, as a familiar room in the night would be.
And for some reason, as soon as you engaged in dancing with me, the world fell away. I ceased to be part of the eternal flow of observations, thoughts, endless nuancing, excessive questioning and rampant worrying. I simply existed, without strategic manipulations of myself (the constant adjusting of my physical body is a tic of my thoughts). I was the way that I sometimes am when doing the things I love most. And you were still a stranger at that point.
Time flew by. It's a cliche, the best we can employ, for it really did whoosh around. The other day, well before dusk a flock of birds raced over the dome in the sky; they dived crazily and swooped ominously, and I was with a friend and we tried to figure out what sort of birds they might have been, until we got closer and realized they were bats, and those bats swooping around in a circle, that is what it was like to dance with you. Mesmerizing, I think I will say.
You'll laugh at me then, as the people across from us coo with delight, and your heart will swell a little and maybe you'll add your side of the story, that my face was like a carousel and I spun you around.
I'll continue, that finally, sometime after we began dancing, we arrived at the bar with merely a gesture of complete understanding, no difficulties, no issues, no concerns for disregarding something else, we both wanted a moment to size up our dancing partner's intellect and tastes before carrying on with our dancing.
We introduced ourselves and from my friend's point of view, we stood at the bar together, a mix of two long lost friends and also as two forces pushing wildly against each other. The bar felt us, it found us difficult to look away from, we were colliding and they all wanted to see the collision.
A drink was consumed. We were sweaty, thirsty, unapologetic.
I asked you a question, you asked me a question. We liked the answers. Your face twisted in puzzlement and your finger pointed at me, okay, you said, and I'll chuckle when I tell this, like it is the funniest thing anyone has ever said to me, because at the moment, really it was, and you said the word dealbreaker, in such a way that I understood the context of your meaning immediately and answered, yeah? in such a way that you knew I was ready for the challenge of your coda, that I could take any arrow you plunged in my direction and save it from falling into an empty field. You asked, firefly? in a tentative voice, because it really is a dealbreaker for you, no joke. And my face cracked instantly into a smile, which you say blasted another tunnel into your mountain, and I said, I love firefly!
Oh, then, I'll say, and you'll nod, I tried to make you understand that being a giant (relatively speaking) made us so powerful, and to prove it I held your arm out and we blocked the aisle with our arms outstretched and you grinned at me like we were two kindergartners who were having the best time doing nothing.
After that, we danced some more.
There was nothing left to say. We knew each other already, like two old friends, like two pieces of a shoelace pulled together to begin the lacing. We pressed against each other and knew each other. Collision. Not epic, perhaps, that epic one being so deep it still resonates inside me, like a pulse, but a collision nonetheless.
We danced so close that I could not dance and be that close to you, and our limbs tangled and my feet found yours instead of the floor so many times that I got a little self conscious and the spell was almost broken but you somehow managed to reassure me in a tone genuine enough that I ceased worrying and went back to that complete black abyss of nothing and just existing with pleasure.
The couple across the table might get a little nervous then, sensing the dramatic tone in my voice, seeing you lean in, perhaps you'll nuzzle the crook of my neck, it will make them uncomfortable how very close and delighted and able to share ourselves like this with them, so completely, so easily. This is the kind of behavior most couples reserve for their bedroom, they might think nervously, her twisting her napkin around her knuckles under the table top and him squeezing his wife's knee in the hopes that she is paying attention to how to treat him, how all men want to be treated, really how every one wants to be treated.
As if he/they/she/it/them are the center of the universe and nothing else exists.
we pretend this is false and unrealistic and unfair and yet we secretly crave that level of being known so completely that we are the only thing that exists for them, worth hearing every word, seeing every gesture, being in a sixth dimensional correspondence with.
I'll say, remember how we danced?
And you, hanging on my every word, delighted that I still remember, pleased that I smile and not just any smile, but a wicked one, the one where my eyes narrow and my lips pucker slightly, and you'll say, Yes, I remember, with the breath falling out of your mouth on the last syllable.
And somehow, even though it seems impossible, I will also be feeling that I am the only eyes in your universe, that I exist solely to languish in your presence, like a project, like an enjoyable venture, like a cross section of the most fascinating creature ever to be discovered, you will feel relished and enjoyed.
Then my friend broke the spell, he stepped in and time resumed, the clock wound itself backwards then forward to the present, reality reeled itself into focus, the room turned into a solid mass, where everyone had disappeared from, where the only people left were us, my friend, and the people paid to be there, it seemed the party I was part of managed to leave without my noticing. Ten people I'd interacted with that night became ghosts and slithered away while we danced, which is impossible to consider that I did not take any notice of their exit.
The couple will relax a little then, their shoulders will melt, their faces will slacken and a sense of relief will come over their faces, relief they didn't know they were waiting for, the tension over, the panic subsiding. You'll attest to the fact that I think incessantly, even though you try hard to create silence for me and many times have, it is hard, I am a tough case of overworking brain, or as David Caref (who has become an old man already, even though he is just a year older than me and I was shocked, just absolutely surprised to see that he is unrecognizable as the Adonis he once was, when I was in love with him and he was my moon and I was compelled by him and I managed to get him close up and I felt like I had the moon in my hand) said once, but not in the appreciative manner you'll do, "you think too much (which somehow struck through me like a sword even then, when I was sixteen and he was my everything, I knew it was wrong for him to say that, that it was wrong for him to declare that in that tone)."
And then you took my number, and again, it wasn't hard, not the way anything else with a girl has been hard, and that will be the reason it takes you a while, the reason it took me a while, for the ease to sink in, to bubble to the surface as a bubble of air will sometimes do, it mounds the water and takes on the light for a second before it pops into obscurity, with a splatter of the water across its surface and a motion that looks to the eye like the snapping of a twig.
And that, we'll declare, is the story of the night we met.

this not about love, 'cause I am not in love III

The thing is, I couldn't have planned it any better. And that's always the thing with him, the thing that makes the sheer frustration of his presence so unbearable, that there is no way I could plan the interactions we have and have them actually end up so well, with us landing in each other's proximity.

And so, I broke my word again, because there were more people than him I wanted to see, rather than him I didn't want to see, and really, this time I resolved even if he was there I was going to ignore him completely and hold myself erect and proud and unawares of his eyes and his laugh and his body and his presence.

So I staked out a chair and wandered away and said hello to my friends. He was standing nearby and I could feel his eyes on me but I refused to meet them, didn't look up, stayed loyal to my friends. Out of my peripheral I noticed him coming toward me and even then it was nervousness that held me rigid more than resolve. He squeezed my shoulder like it was for life, like he was drowning and I was there to pull him out and I looked at him, with the nervousness and rigidness solid in my throat, as if I was going to vomit and I tried to smile, but I don't think I did and no words would come out. His eyes met mine and in them was also that same nervousness and panic and concern.

And then I realized I am hopelessly in love (or whatever it is you could call this) with him.

And I hate myself for it.

As if that wasn't enough, when I turned from my friends to my seat, I saw that he was sitting right next to my seat and had been sitting there before I even got there. So without meaning to, without even knowing, I picked the one seat in the entire bar right next to the magnetic disc. Of course.

I was horrified. I spent as much time as I could outside with the smokers (even smoking a few cigarettes out of sheer terror) and pretended to engage in meaningful conversation except all the while my brain was operating at ten thousand times its usual overworked capacity and all it was saying to me was What the fuck are we going to do now?! We're fucked!

And then, it was inevitable, I had to go in, I had to sit there, squished up next to him, his thigh jutting out toward mine, his work shirt on the bar in front of me, his hand on his beer, his fingernails, his hair, his face, everything just up closer than it has been in months.

He sat for a while talking to someone on the other side of him and because he was on the corner of the bar, he had to sit away from me, and maybe it was on purpose, for he held his hand up to his chin and blocked me from his vision the same way I have done many times in the past. I tried to ignore him as well, for some reason up close he was not so loud, so obnoxiously obvious everywhere and his eyes were trained away from me. I could almost pretend he wasn't there.

It was awkward, until it got worse and someone showed up, someone who the magnetic disc was angry that I got along so well with, and suddenly, I was between the two of them and I was so uncomfortable that it was almost laughable, that I was perched at this place I hated with two terrible prospects between me and a cloak of awkwardness smothering me.

Finally, he turned in our direction, the magnetic disc and things between us got slightly less awkward until I asked him the question that has been plaguing me for months: When are you leaving?

It was then that I found out that he will be here another year. And not just that, but he said nothing more about us, about me, about her, about what was to come. It was then that I knew that whatever the reason for his nervousness it was not from love, because he is not in love with me. I don't know what he feels for me, maybe some sense of regret, maybe some frustration, maybe some confusion, but it is not love (or infatuation or lust or wanting or interest or anything).

I fell into a tailspin then; I have been going through the motions and totally disinterested in life at large. I've spent the last two days since busy with work and let myself get swept up in the wave of my roommate's pleasurable company and tonight with another friend and I try to go to sleep with round eyes and dreams of falling and landing in my bed. Even now, I should be sleeping, but I can't stop feeling that moment, that slam of the door, that rush of understanding, that empty, that hollow ache, now there is nothing and no one who wants me.

That is what it's really been all about, that even though I knew I'd dodged a bullet with him and the universe saved me from complete and utter disarray in my life, I had some solace in the idea that maybe he was in love with me, and maybe someday I could turn to that love and find something worth feeling, at least for a little while.

I left knowing that I can never walk into that place again, at the very least, not for another year; and I am truly, completely alone.

rain rain go away

week three

the pears emerge from their protective leaves...