We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are.

Unworthiness, Depression, Grief, Fireworks.

2009-06-29T15:19:00.000-07:00

Going to see them on July 4 was mandatory, or so it seemed. How could we NOT go out and watch fireworks on the night of July 4? We'd be missing out on something essential, surely. Now, when I got back to school in the fall no one inquired as to whether I had gone to see fireworks on July 4. I guess it's just that they were so rare. Like having your own orange in your Christmas stocking, fireworks came once a year and could not be missed.

But unlike the oranges, fireworks don't come from a store and don't come cheap. Village picnics and fairs which featured pyrotechnic shows tended to charge admission either in the form of an entry fee or by way of food vendors and games that dazzled children would instantly crave. Add to this the hassle of keeping track of everyone (at least one child would get in a huff and want to adventure off on their own) to the constant worry of having one's pocket picked and July 4 was no holiday for my parents. They tried all sorts of means to get around actually taking us somewhere but still sating the desire for fireworks. We drove and drove around. We parked on top of a hill in the dark and were told that we would be able to see all the fireworks shows in the different towns if we just looked real fast. This met with immediate complaint after the first few "look over there! quick! Now there's some over there!". Fireworks were supposed to be big! They should fill the sky and leave the sensation that stellar glitter would soon fall all over one's person.

Finally, my parents hit upon taking us to "Hamlin park". Hamlin Park housed a village picnic for East Aurora and every year they held fireworks. We drove down dark, deserted side streets into the parking lot of a nearby firehouse and watched the show that came up over the trees. I wondered why we were the only ones watching all these fireworks. I wondered why half the show didn't manage to come up taller than the trees. How was one supposed to view them? I sensed something was wrong but didn't realize this was a workaround for a few years. My by then high school aged oldest sisters would murmur about how it would be fun if we went "into the park". My mom began to stay home and not go at all. I couldn't understand how she would think of missing fireworks. That would be like skipping Christmas! But as an adult who has skipped a couple Christmases, I get it now. Something was slightly off. But no one really wanted to bother righting a ship so off kilter from years of habit. My mom wasn't missing fireworks at all. she and my father were routinely bickering over money and debt with sparks that rained down on all of us. I smelled the smoke early, I heard the angry percussions through the wall my bedroom shared with theirs, but didn't understand the burn. Soon enough I knew that any school activity that would require me to bring in money was instantly "no". Ski club membership? NO. Yearbook down payment? No. AFS trip? No. New cleats for field hockey? No. I didn't even ask after 10th grade.

In the summer before I left for college, I worked at the nursing home in East Aurora. I'd get off work at 3, my mom would get off at 5. So for 2 hours I would either go to the public library or walk around town to while waiting for her to ferry me home. One day, in my wanderings, I decided to follow signs to "Hamlin Park". A massive open space hedged along all sides by thick maple trees greeted my shock. Just then I realized the extent of the July 4 ruse. I saw the space full of bodies, vendors selling popcorn and cotton candy, stalls offering games of chance, and all the interpersonal shenanagens of a hot summer night. I realized that the fireworks we had seen from a parking lot were a way of not having to take us into a park where Dad might be pressed upon to spend money.

I wish he were here today to tell me that he meant for it to be better. I wish he could tell me that we didn't go into the park because I was unworthy but because of his own fear and financial insecurity. I wish I'd known how hard things were going for him and had been the kind of kid who would understand. I wish I hadn't wasted so much time twisting the repurcussions of his troubles into a mentality of un-deservedness. But I know where he is, Dad has plenty now. And today I do, too.

Like a puff the flame goes out and drifts into the summer night.

No "one"

2009-06-25T14:42:00.000-07:00

"Well, it all starts with a friendship. If you aren't friends first - what do you have?"

"I have you!"

He's on the other side of this mammoth bed, facing the other way. We've already been through another battery of pillow-talk questions. What do you like about me? Well, what do you like about me? I answer and ask those questions about this situation, this sex, while watching a pattern of street lights coming through venetian blinds dance across the ceiling. We've wandered into how things go with dating lives and online profiles. He's rolled away to stake out a position on the far side of the bed. The internet seems to be good for friends, but not for finding 'the one'.

"What do you mean?"

"You are here regardless of having sex or not. You are honest with me. I have a feeling that you would be there no matter what I needed."

"Well, I am your friend."

And it's true. Partly. I'm also, I suspect, his chump. I knew there was another woman he dated this spring. I knew because the few times I'd stop by there would be something different in the bathroom or two wine glasses in the kitchen sink. He says he told me, but he did not. I simply kept telling myself that my hope for him was that he'd be happy. And I hid my hand about attempts to date other men also. Now, he asks if I've been protecting him and I have to wonder, have YOU been protecting ME? I've been busy protecting myself.

"You are the only good thing to come from {that site}".

"You are the only person I've ever met on there that I'm still friends with."

"We'll do ok, just keep being honest with each other."

In the dark, no one can hear you smile. I'm not the one. I've never been anyone's "one" which is fine by me. It's never comfortable to feel the mantle of someone's myth fall over my shoulders. But it's true. He's not my myth or my solution, but my friend. I've realized that I already met "the one" right in my mirror.

At the gym I find myself dressing next to an African American woman. This could be the woman he dated. What was the dynamic of that? How did that end? Is he still talking with her? Is she in pocket, too, like I have been, at the ready for some future intimacy? I imagine him next to a dark skinned woman. So here I am, having sex with him again. Plunk, into the old rut we go, as if no time has passed between April and June.

Do I only have sex with him on the suspicion that at some point he'll come around and see me as being worth something more? Wouldn't I rather just be his friend? Part of me wants to smack him... look what you are passing up! Maybe he thinks I'm not interested in more? I know I've had too much to think, but one moment floats back into memory. One response still gives me pause.

"What do you like about me?"

"You are sweet."

"What does that mean?"

"You are accepting of what I want to do."

Suddenly sweet doesn't sound so hot. The man likes his sugar but this rots.

In the morning, after the usual 5:45 exercise of passion, he grabs my hand to keep me there. But I'm up and in the shower. Because all night one thing has forced me out of a sound sleep only to see him curled up on the opposite side of the bed. It's a cry. "Touch me."

hot

2009-06-25T14:40:00.001-07:00

Hot.

On the corner of Randolph and Upper Columbus I pass the artist formerly known as "purple coat lady". Her signature rolling luggage still sits at her side, but the heavy purple woolen coat has been traded down for a denim jacket. This garb also looks a bit hot for the weather. But her face is well tanned and almost looks to be happily turned toward the very bright morning sun.

For a few days i've been happily remarking on the return of the fat spider to the window outside my office. How they climb all the way up here and what they find to eat at this high perch I don't know. But she stretches her fine web across the window between the girders and grows fat and brown. today I hear the sound of thudding on the outside of the building and turn around to see the thin ropes going up the side of the building. in minutes smallish brown men with suction cups on their hands and only the smallest seat to secure thier tenuous ride up and down the outside of the building, have washed the windows clean. I look at them and marvel for a minute that they hang at such a height from such delicate threads, but to them this might be normal. Spiders of any size have learned not to look down.

Just for one more day I tell myself to look, observe, breathe and be. Not to think.

Monster under the skin

2009-06-15T15:06:00.001-07:00

A long walk down the lakeshore takes me out of the isolation of my home, further from the voices of crazy selfishness, into an afternoon like a modern take on Seurat's "Sunday after noon on Grande Jatte". Although in my version the people are plumper and far less likely to cover their corpulence with Victorian decorum. Sand in my shoes can be tolerated for just so long and I move to the edge of the surf, flirting with the water while the lake breathes.

White people play volleyball on Foster beach, Black men clog the one basketball court with a game of pickup. All manner of hair flies up and down the tiny concrete court. A tall man with his long dreds tied back, lifts his shirt to wipe the sweat from his face. He's well fed.

Rounding the bend to head down the long stretch of Foster beach, I get lost in a new found throng of people. Bikes, scooters, children waddling from the water to the family blanket all criss-cross my path. I marvel at how over weight so many of the people, especially children, are. I pass families with crying babies, men nursing coal fires awaiting meat and marshmallows, women with beaded hair flipping their heads in conversation. Kids laugh. Three scabs talk about the various painkillers they've tried out. Single women read books. Volleyball nets go up, picnics are packed up. Soccer games fill every possible open lot of space. How do they do it? How do people collect families about themselves like this? And, listening to a tottler squaling, I wonder if I'm quite sure this is something that I want?

I check my phone again. Yes I have signal. No, he hasn't called. Stop it. Keep breathing. Just be present to what's around you, the canvas of human activity.

At long last I find myself on a bench 3 miles from home. Give me a sign, God. What should I do? Give up? Go home? Just then, he calls. Come on over here.

And here we are again. What do I do here? Am I being selfish? What could I possibly add to this man's life? My god, we're opening this book up again...but personally I'm on a different page of this volume called 'love'. Here I am again. It's not yet midnight and I'm sprawled on my half of the king sized bed listening to him purr en route to dream land. Tired, can't sleep yet. Roll over and watch his expression go lax, become placid. Watch his real face emerge.

He's so much easier to be around than he used to be. Maybe I've learned to translate his translation better. Maybe without the immigration stress he's able to open up more. Or, he's up to something. Hmmm.

Periodically through the night I wake up from fitful dreams of looking for a doll in London or running from one of those robots from the movie we saw tonight. I swim between the sheets and wrestle the monster. The monster masks itself as a sort of love, or maybe just adoration, during the day. But under this blanket, this blanket I curl myself in because it smells like him, the monster is loose. I know there's a body next to me, I want so badly to cuddle up next to it. But I don't. I don't interrupt his slumber. The monster's imperious urges wake me up with its continual curiosity as to weather the other body in this bed will feed it some attention.

It's 5 am and the octopus next to me wakes up.

It isn't what I want, I realize. I just want someone to enjoy being near me and to want to be close to me. Tell me that I'm worthwhile. Please, just touch me. It's so easy to walk away, to trade a casual bisou and 'good day' when the sunshine returns. But that solves nothing. For now I see that all the monster craves is to come in from the cold.

warm day

2009-06-08T19:56:00.001-07:00

The warm air plumps with the smell of bodies lying on the grass and pollens in the air. The breeze is warm like it carries the smile of every past lover on it and for a minute I need nothing. This was such a barren place just forty days ago. barren and lonely and now its full of bodies in newly resurrected summer outfits. You'd think winter never even happened. It's all just a dim memory of the way things aren't supposed to be.

A dreamer, just like dad

2009-06-07T20:23:00.001-07:00

That damned alarm clock.

I was talking with Dad, again, and he was younger. I saw a dad that predated me and an energy in him that had faded long before I knew him. Dad in the days of high testosterone. He was smoking. He was talking about boys to me. An he was telling me...

"Think about it Tootsie...Think about his man G~. He doesn't talk so much...sometimes a real hard read. Why do you still think about him? You know that hope for more lives on in your mind and you put it away but it rises back up, doesn't it? I'll tell you why. He's just like ME. Is that what you want? Do you want a man like your Daddio?"

And just then, 5:20am, the alarm clock cuts him off. damn.

There are so many reasons that I thought my dad was exactly the wrong type of man to be with. The music comes up in my ears as my feet pick up their trot down Sheridan toward the lake shore trail. It's that Beyonce tune what became my anthem around January 30 as I was kicking Bruce dust off my feet and thinking about meeting up with this nutty Italian for gelato. G~. "You must not know 'bout me!" Miss B snaps to the beat. I cannot see myself ever speaking this way to G~. Who knows where all this will go but he is my friend. Mostly.

He is a butterfly. The color he brings is the dream of life lived somehow differently. Gently, for a moment or a day, that dream comes to rest on my shoulder, volunteering itself as part of my life. We enjoy the moment of sunshine together but should I turn to touch or hold the butterfly - to offer it a more grounded love or attempt to define the relationship - it alights from me. Just as well. Touch to touch such gossamer wings would be death - to both of us.

I look down at the legs striding over the pavement. I see their strong shape. See my long fingers and tough shoulders. I see myself, the heap of DNA that has made me. Those reasons for not wanting a man like dad came from a mother who refused to pick up tools that might effect a working relationship. And for years her complaints filled me with guilt and shame because in truth, I look just like my dad. It's his cheekbones, dimples, limbs and shoulders echoed in my features.

Sr. G's cold is still sticking and he coughs a bit as we meet up. I must confess to being slightly happy at his convalesence as I've found him much more agreeable to deal with when ill. We listen to Dar sing as the moon comes up over the lake. I give him his birthday present. And we actually talk for a while. In that moment I feel like he could tell me anything and I would be ok with it. He could tell me he's seeing someone or done with me forever and I would accept it. Not like it, but accept it.

"I was looking at your website the other day. Everything about you, your training and experience, is 'artist'. I don't see where your job fits into this. And so why be shy about being artist more and getting art out there more?"

My gosh, he's right.

Almost four years ago we buried dad. At his funeral so many of the buddies from his small town band came forward and shared how they would have never tried to make music if it weren't for Dad. They never would have known quite for sure that, in fact, they have a tin ear. But Dad loved music and dreamed of being a great trombonist. And that dream got wedged into the margins around work that payed. He pursued the dream only to the edge of town. As his family we dealt with the second life and watched it take over all of our schedules.

And here I am, taking a paying job and wedging this art habit in around it. And I let myself get tripped up by...what? People not buying in a tough economy? I too have a second life. I'm just like him; just like Dad. And I think if Daddio were here he'd tell me to seize the dream before it's too late. This is what G~ sees when he looks at me. By his lights, I am the butterfly. He knows I have a spirit that flies and so he does not attempt to grasp at the delicate wings.

I invite him in for tea. I have no TV so we go through my bookshelves. I show him my worm box. He wants to rest his head in my lap again. I rub his shoulders and then feel a hand go around my waiste. And then... well...it's different this time. This time...we laugh.

Sniffling he heads back to his own home. I cannot close my fist on the certainty of any sort of relationship. He is my friend. He is a lover. And tomorrow is another dangerous day in which my brain will try to knit meaning out of a memory.

Don't plan, don't hope, don't fear. Just breathe.

My Improbable Friend

2009-06-07T19:46:00.000-07:00

A funny light in the morning sky, reflecting in different ways off the storm clouds, makes it seem as if the sun were rising in the north. It's an illusion, I know, but it gives the city a sense of being someplace different. Perhaps this morning I'm really running through Helsinki, not Chicago. Just the sense of being somewhere ELSE is refreshing.

Sometimes I wish I knew what his deal is. Is he seeing someone else, now? Do I finally get to be that female friend who is the underlying threat instead of being the nervously possessive girlfriend? He's sick, but he comes to meet me at the tennis courts and then wants to see a movie. A walk. Says we'll go for a walk. Right. We sit on the lakeshore, watching boats and chatting. And you know, the chat is good. We talk about siblings and parent and how I came out of mom's womb last and wrecked the joint. Maybe whatever cold medicine he's on has disarmed the system a bit - but I finally got a sense of him. What is up with this man who still wants to do things together but still does not want to date? It's been over five months.

He falls asleep with his head on my lap. Asks permission first, but puts his head on my lap. Out of instinct I rub his head and shoulders. I feel a hand go between my legs in familiar acknowledgement. There is the last vestige of our affection in one bizarre moment of physical ease. Sometimes we're just silent. And silent is ok. I hugged him goodbye at the end of the day, genuinely grateful for the time together.

Part of me wants to know, to squeeze some sense of the future out of this. But there's no sense. It was just one day in the sunshine. And for today, he is my friend. Funny, I don't think I ever really knew what that was like. Ghosts of affairs past drift through my mind and while I wish them well, I do wonder where they are. But for today, he has survived and he's here. My improbable friend.

Artist statement for June - July show

2009-06-04T14:06:00.000-07:00

Holon: and entity that is at once a whole and simultaneously part of some other whole entity

I've long enjoyed observing how the geometry of such tiny structures as molecules or delicate sea creatures is mirrored on the macroscopic scale of geological and cosmic formations. Exploring the relationship between geometry, discreet parts and the "wholes" has consumed my artistic efforts for quite some time. For while a great whole is comprised of many parts, that whole is itself present within each of the parts. And what is a "part" but merely where I decide to draw the line? I find myself making art which is really a map of relationships & influence between characters both tiny and great; primitive and sophisticated; matter and spirit; deductive and intuitive. Yet, the more I map, the more frontier appears just beyond the scope of my latest work.

A friend once asked me "why don't you just paint things as they really are...just as they look?". The truth is, I do just that all of the time. I simply stopped trusting my eyes a long time ago. My work re-presents discussions, humor, flavors, interesting shapes & textures all nabbed from unsuspecting donors. I have found that everything I re-present mirrors an evolving interior relationship with something bigger.

For some reason I'm always drawn to art media which force me to release control of the outcome. I always enter my studio with a head full of technicolor dreams intending to push pigment, water, or epoxy around. For an hour or most of a day I do my part. Then, I wait. I have to step back to allow the inherent nature of the material to take over to and dry, bleed, ooze, contract, cure, heat up or cool down. I get to shape the experience, but I don't get to force things. On a good day, this is a beautiful partnership. The finished product contains pleasant surprises I could not have planned and serves the medium much better than sitting in a can on my shelf would have done. While painting in watercolor and casting in plastic may seem like an improbable combination of media for one artist, this invitation to creative partnership is the common denominator for all of my work. The real medium is "self".

because they told me to

2009-05-01T21:13:00.000-07:00

People wonder why I run. They wonder why I insist on going so far, and then farther still. Two miles used to be my max. It's not even a workout, now. I'm juicing up my ipod for the morning, adding new songs to do a quick 5 miles at 7 am. 5 miles is nothing now. Better make it 6:30.

Indoor gym. I get flashes of the early morning activities as I round every corner. At first cute man conceals himself in a corner to do his ab work. But soon that little woman who has started following him around has discovered this hideout and comes to chat next to him. They sit like that for 15 laps. He's cute, sure. But, whatever. I don't need that guy or his recognition. I focus on my feet, making sure that my toes always point forward, making sure my weight doesn't start to sway from side to side. Everything must point straight on to the goal. Rounding another corner I see my own reflection in a safety mirror. Lest we forget, there, in those sculpted features, is the goddess.

But that's not why I run. I run because they told me to.

"Run back there and tell them to get out of that pond!" The moms yelled, upon finding out that their tween-age sons were back catching frogs at a pond deep in the woods. They were worried, the boys were not. The great disadvantage of the whole conversation was that messages of warning and responses of rebellion were all being conveyed by me. Neither party really wanted to listen to me. So the argument between mothers and sons continued and all that hot summer afternoon I ferried messages between them, running through the woods. Finally, when I came back panting and sweating, Mrs. Schiltz looked at me and asked "are you RUNNING?". The argument promptly stopped.

"Go get your brother! NOW! I need his help!" Something was wrong with Dad. He had mentioned earlier that day how his stool was coal black. Mom took one look at him and knew he had better to go into the hospital. No one knew it would get serious so fast and she wanted him to take a bath, first. But in the bath dad lost all strength and mom couldn't handle his bulk. Oh yeah, he was still big, then. She yanked the door open and yelled to me and something in those words told me this was serious. So I ran. I ran the mile to the CCD building as fast as I could and demanded my brother be released from class. When he saw me, he started to run, too. We were back home in under 20 minutes.

A mile. That's just 12 easy laps around this silly little track. A mile is nothing. I could sprint that, now. I could make that dash for help faster, now.

At seeing us home so fast mom turned to me with incredulity "you ran!" I've since wondered if he knew. Did Dad know that I ran out of fear for him? The only private moments we get, now, me & his stone, come when I escape the house to go for a run. The route takes me about 5 miles. But at 4.25 is the cemetery.

The term for all this activity - at least the way I use it in my life- is called "athletica nervosa". But they just don't understand. Someone has to run. Someone has to be the go between who holds the works together.

Chef

2009-04-24T22:18:00.001-07:00

I watch the silicone spread through the mold. Seeing the thick fluid ripple out of the container I can't help but remember being small and watching mom cooking. Egg and flour batter, whisked up to a high viscosity every Sunday morning in the plastic mix & pour bowl, descended into a thick liquid onto the grittle and spread out in neat circles. Cake mix would emerge from the electric mixer after the noise was over and fill in the waiting baking pan. I was at her elbow, waiting for tastes, a bowl to lick, and watching the powders and eggs and milky liquids become spongy, consumable solids.

And here I stand in my bathroom. There's no one to make birthday cakes for. No one is there for a Sunday breakfast. It's just me and in my mixer is silicone rubber. After combining silicone with hardener the thick fluid takes on a dried blood color. At the end there is no bowl to lick and the stains up my arms look like those of a demented surgeon. All the finger prints I leave are anonymous glove smears. The garbage of casting paraphernalia looks like something fowl and bloody has just happened. But it's just me, mixing up the solitary recipe for what I make to bring some happiness into the world. Mom cooked eggs and milk and flour and sugar. I cook chemicals into art snacks.

Life is a 4-letter word with a big 'if' in the middle.

2009-04-23T20:53:00.001-07:00

Plastics packaging dumps endocrine inhibiting chemicals into our children. Fragrances fatten with pthalates. Soap phospates in Chicago that deaden the Gulf of Mexico. Less fresh water draining into our oceans. Bears swim too much, their bulk drowning in pursuit of a meal. Coal from China rains acid over the midwest.

For what? So we can continue the inertia of our consumptive lives - pushing the present moment to a cushioned distance? Our cushion fluffs itself to the great discomfort of our future.

Why was I born into this world? I wish I could just absent myself from this craziness, I swear. Put on my sneakers and just run right off the edge of the whole thing to some better, cleaner, less fucked up place. Why am I here? Why do we do these things?

But yet, here I am. Not to judge it, not to pity it at all, but to love and revere the life even as the life is a mess. This life as it has been handed to us is a four letter word with a big 'if' in the middle.

Slowly, maybe first heeding the call of fad and fashion, minds pull themselves from the sludge of craving. Like first seeds maybe they will turn to the light and grow in a new way. It's a start. Every day must start at midnight. Even Earth day.

Girl with horn

2009-04-19T20:26:00.000-07:00

The cleaning kit finally arrived and, finding myself with a pocket of time, I plunged Dad's coronet into hot bath water. We used to get into all sorts of trouble for playing these things when we found them in the basement. Now, it's MINE! I pull apart the one valve and yank out the tuning slide. Snaking the cleaner through pipes I watched as dark green clouds of old filth billow out. The valve is still missing a spring so it won't work to shift the key. This instrument is caked with slide grease and valve oil that have gone sticky and picked up basement gunk. The surface is dull and just looks like neglect. Soap. never had to soap a horn before but this needs it.

Then, it's time to put it together. At first I wonder if the horn is still dirty inside as it's tough to get air through. Then, I realize it might be my lungs that are out of shape. I figure out its intervals and briefly contemplate waking my party animal neighbors with a reveille at 5 am after their next late night fete.

As I take a cloth and polish the sediment off its surface a lovely silvery horn emerges. Like loosing the genie from the lamp I know I'm not alone in the room. Dad smiles over my shoulder. The brighter the horn shines the more clearly I can see his face. I put the new mouthpiece in and make sounds, experimenting with the few bugle calls I remember, and he plugs his ethereal ears.

After a few shots, my breathing comes back, my mouth remembers its "oo" arbrasure and the sound gets clear. "Next time you go home," he whispers "find my trumpet."

the spring merit badge

2009-04-18T20:23:00.000-07:00

I look down at my arms and notice the scratches around wrist and elbows have turned red. By tomorrow these lines will fade down to small scabs looking like they were drawn with a ruler. But I know what they are. These are my merit badge that spring has started.

Crouched close to the dirt, clipping away at dead grass and pulling out leaves, I listen to the sound of a plane going overhead and the children playing at the adjoining park. Basketball, screams, games of interpersonal chance float in percussive syllables over the soft spring air. The smell of melted dirt fills my nostrils. For a split second it clicks back into place. This is the garden. Five months of snow and persistent cold have kept me away, but here it is again.

I see the garden as it was last season. The day lilies which towered and bloomed persistently until October are now just a few dried leaves and husks on the ground. The marigolds which insisted on growing into bushes make ecru skeletons clutching the dirt. The rose bushes, ah my precious wild roses, are a mange and chaos that cannot be ignored. The discipline of my clippers is met with thorny protest. The beauty I've wrestled with has left me looking mauled as though by a beast. Last season was indeed lovely. But it's done. Spent bushes and plants left to seed must be removed. Dead leaves applied for winter warmth must be raked away. Dead grasses clipped. It was beautiful. And now it's just time to start again.

Each year I start this process hoping to head off any weedy chaos at the pass. But tending this patch is nothing like cleaning a kitchen counter. It would seem the same rules apply, to set up a system of organization, to create clean surfaces, but it doesn't. There's too much letting go and waiting in the process for it to be anything like neat and easy. I know what I'm doing - setting myself up for more work! I spend 4 hours clipping and raking and hauling. And I know as I do this that there is no guarantee in this act of preventing work later on. I'll be here, playing catch-up with nature, every week, all season. I already know what I have to do when I come back next week.

Gathering clouds part for a bit and I see the flower bed, now flat and bare save for the first few patches of plants coming up. There's the daffodils, ringed by day lily, some bearded iris, the poppies, the dianthus, the holly hocks, and the roses. Other surprises await. Will the marigolds and zinnias I let go to seed come back? In a month so much more life will have exploded from the dirt you'd be hard pressed to say its the same place. In two months the day lily will start blooming and the roses will be out. Sounds a bit like I know what will happen. But I don't. The blooming is like a christmas present I get to open over and over. I can barely wait.

Water normal

2009-04-05T18:45:00.000-07:00

In the wind whipping off the lake this morning, the water works itself into foamy waves that march toward the the shore like rows of shark teeth. You'd think the land didn't stand a chance. But, at the last second each icy peak shatters and sprays into a million pieces like angels falling to earth.

The taste of water in my mouth. Neutral, wet, even and unthreatening, like a constant to come back and visit after so many visits to countries sweet and acidic. The water pretends to offer no answers and has no agenda of results. It just is for the consuming for anyone wanting to come home. Much like love.

We've talked for hours on the phone. We finally met f2f and while on one hand I enjoyed myself, I couldn't help but suppose afterward that I'd screwed everything up. Signals, men want signals. What does a signal look like? Where is the instruction manual for all of these feminine wiles I'm supposed to wield? Is that what all of those men who decided I wasn't for them wanted?

What did they want? Why didn't they stay? Or was it me? How many times did I hop off the rolling train when it passed through a tunnel? Was I supposed to want something? get something? Marry someone? The tide of self doubt comes in again, nibbling at my shore. I always come back here, to gnawing doubt and a subtle but pervasive unworthiness. The waves roll back to reveal what detritus lives under every life tide: suicidal depression.

Self pity comes easy. Just because that derelict of mental crashes remains in the deep sand doesn't mean I need to go excavating. I could. But today I keep it at a distance. I keep at a distance the way he asks so many questions and how many long pauses fill the conversation. I keep at a distance that line I've heard so many times "I'm not ready for a relationship." I won't dive in there, today, but keep running.

People wonder why I spend so much time alone. It's just that it's like water - a formless sense of normal that seeps in and where I don't feel expected to be anything. I just can't help but drink.

Winter relapse

2009-04-02T11:50:00.000-07:00

I can't tell if it's about to happen or if I've already missed it. I stare into the yellow glow on the horizon, trying to pick out the round form this morning's haze might conceal. Just as I turn to keep running the sun sneaks over the horizon in a blaze. The yellow ball burning through clouds is the same color as amber LED's on the front of a bus. Here she is, driving over the horizon on a west bound route, the #1 vehicle upon which we all hitch a ride through space.

On a whim I asked how she's doing and got back a flooding response. In the middle of a divorce, anyone who asks such a thing is a welcome chance to unload. Anyone who asks better be willing to show up for the whole story. You don't ask a soldier how they are and expect to run off. And she is a veteran of the heart wars. So this is what marriage and children can look like. It doesn't have to, but this is the picture I bolster myself with when too many popular voices upbraid me for staying single. You may say I'm selfish, but I'm quite happy.

Patches of snow remaining from winter's relapse remain like frozen sundials on the east side of trees and hills. The sun didn't come out yesterday until after leaving its zenith. All through the pounding wind, sleet and snow I was amazed at the sounds of birdsong, as if they were trying to keep the trees awake and reassure them that spring was not a joke. Would that they could wake us all up.

Meeting him today. After how long? A month? 3 weeks? of nothing but phone calls. "No pressure no pressure" became "dammit when are we going to meet?" Somebody got frisky, maybe. This should be interesting. Will it be a lecture on TM or a conversation about sex? I could use a nap. "Don't kid yourself" I say. exchanging words isn't knowing. Don't try too hard. Look good enough to feel happy about yourself but not too..sexy.

Feet don't want to move as fast today. Darn it. Must need more sleep. Push through. Seagull screeches leak through the audio fill of new ipod. Hop over melt off rivers. I thought we were done with seeing these weeks ago. Spring is back at step one, trying it again.

Metallic carnage that sustains our life starts to clang and thump to life. Arterial highways carry corpuscules of steel and rubber into the city. Is this really life? Are we really living if our actions enslave? We could be seeing the decline of human dominance. Soon we will negotiate our treaties not with cultures of other countries but of other species. Dolphins will tell us where we can go in the ocean and birds will discipline us in the forest. Will we be left to the cities or will our cities cease? What if there were fewer of us?

Coming through the door at home I see the full buds on branches, days, maybe minutes, from exploding. Hey birdies, it worked.

Social Nigger

2009-03-27T20:19:00.001-07:00

"Alcoholic"

It's like social speak for 'nigger'. Some folks will understand, maybe even accept you. Some will be astonished by the quality of your personality and intelligence despite the obvious flaw. But among the normies, among those that ain't your own, you're sitting on the back of the friendship bus. You're giving up your seat as mate or girlfriend when a 'normal' person presents similar (maybe even a few less) strategic qualifications.

So we stick to our own, make more of our own, get together and share our tribal stories and have our rituals. We have our private picknics with burgers and watermelon in the summer where we laugh at pain and tell stories in a lingo nobody but us understands. But, quite without pointing fingers we can see lots of niggers in hiding amongst the legions of 'normal' folks. I see my same disease festering just below the surface of a culture crazed by entitlement and the pressure of 'more'. I see it boiling over into stress and spiritual crisis now that consumptive wings have been collectively clipped by the tumbling tower of lies. Just as humanity all came from Africa if you dig back far enough, we all proceed in our various incarnations from a sacred wound which bids us to re-member Who We Really Are through as many paths as, well, humanly possible.

Can't you see past my disease? It is NOT a "lifestyle choice"! I didn't ask for this. But it has been my curriculum to God. Love doesn't have a color and certainly doesn't show up with a menu of demands.

I'll show you. I'll show you I'm as good as and someday your children, the children you didn't want to have with me because of these two scarlet letters - "AA" - will look at you in shock and disappointment that you would put a person of my caliber to the back of your bus. "How could you expect a perfectly capable human being to settle for such treatment?"

When they ask that, I want you to tell those children quite plainly that I DIDN'T.

Ciao bella

2009-03-26T15:18:00.001-07:00

Clouds dry brush the sky with steel and indigo. The approaching sun peeks through in pastel drawn lines of pink and red. It's not like last week's clear, perfect sunrises. But somehow it's even better, as if the clouds, the steel sky and blue shadows make something even more clear. Push through the wall that's coming to meet me after just two miles.

My earphones aren't interfacing properly with my auditory canal. Something about the vacuum it forms lets no sound in from the left. Instead, the morning leaks in, the echo of no traffic & bird song.

Here it comes; the glycogen wall. I will my legs to keep up the pace.

So I told him. I told him about my past as an addict and decade plus of sobriety. He wished me well, puzzled, and then said "It's ok for friends, I respect this was your lifestyle choice, but for a mate - someone I might even have children with - is unacceptable...Why are you telling me now?"

"I thought, based on what you said during that conversation we had while driving to Home Depot, that you wouldn't talk to me anymore. I finally just decided that I couldn't hide it anymore. Being a sober person is a big part of my life and I decided that if you don't want me around because of that well, you should be able to make that decision. I was afraid. There have been times I've told people and they said it was cool, but they disappeared. No returned phone calls, gone."

"No no, I don't disappear. I'm attached to you. Not going away." But again, I don't trust it. Attached... check your dictionary again. In subsequent days since this conversation? Silence. Better to know the truth, I guess. So I guess that's it. Done. Over and out. Ciao bella.

Right now, as birds scream around me, I want to yell at him. I want to shake him until his brains rattle and ask "Since when is having a disease a 'lifestyle choice'? It's a sickness! A pre-existing condition like any cancer. So fuck you! Every day for 10 + years I've had to dig down & tap a greater source just to stay alive! If you want to have a negative judgement about that it's your problem! My journey has been a blessing! You want to walk away? Fine. FINE!! You're selfish and I hate the way you make humor by putting me down, anyhow! Ciao!"

The flock of seagulls mingles, squaks and swarms, conversing with jets flying low. Our birds eat McDonals and our waterlife takes unwilling doses of ridalin & antidepressants. It seems like too much, for a minute.

I feel the volume of my heart, pumping away in my chest. Pushing through I get that power and it carries me all the way home.

A drift

2009-03-22T20:12:00.001-07:00

"How long are you going to hang out on that glacier? How many more years to cling to that frozen landscape you've called a heart?"

I'm floating, again, in the sapphire sea, adrift on my rock of ice. It's a comfort, this cold stillness that I can cling to, like the cool side of the pillow on a hot night. I come back here for solace, for knowing, despite knowing that there is no truth on this glacier.

It's melting. I've given it permission to melt. I've asked for it to be warmer, here, in this environment I call a soul. But as I watch large chunks calve into the blue void and leave me, I can't help but to be filled with grief. Less and less space is left for me to act out the old play. Old roles and actors leave gaps in the mental drama after they've gone. And as I watch another piece float away part of me accepts the departure, part of me screams with grief.

Yet another addictive facet of me instantly it melts into the warm, understanding sea like an ice cube in bath water. There it goes. I pretzel my self, twist stories and bend truths just to look good enough to get that measure that means approval. I just want to be in this whatever we're calling it today (friendship? relationship?) so that I can take the satisfaction I want. I'll exert whatever verbal calisthenics are necessary to come out looking justified and right. And now all 'needing to feel good about myself by what you tell me about me' all of the 'I'm nothing unless I can take what I want from you' chunks off with a base thud and a quake - gone. With it go the fairy tales of what life should bring to ME. Me me me wants someone to say "I love you" just once, wants someone to think about her before they go to sleep, wants to be right, just wants.

Want has drifted off. I'm left on an even tinier island of my ice. What will be left of me, now. What do I become now if I've hit the point of truly realizing that I need nothing from another person - neither sex nor approval nor cash - to be Who I Really Am. I was born to give, not to take. I knew this... KNOW it in my head. But now, taking it into being and behavior and saying yes to that truth feels like dying.

"Maybe that's ok. Consider that something has to die for something wonderful to be born. Without the disintegration of fall and death of winter no new seeds could be born into fresh growth."

For now I ride in the bluest ocean, clutching what remains. What remains? I don't even know yet what sediments lie under the surface of what's left. I shudder to think of what life will look like without these few old things to cling to. My shrinking glacier is a cold, hard and barren turf. It is a lie of a landscape. But, it's what I know. And when its gone I will be left in this big, empty ocean drowning in the sea of feelings. I will die. I will absolutely die.

"No. You will not die because you cannot be killed. Let go of the ice and you may find that you've known how to float all along."

designer dawn

2009-03-19T13:05:00.001-07:00

Some days she paints and the mushy, watery pigments of nature blend in edges of mystery. Today, though, mother designs. In the pantone blue west a half moon glows as if stenciled on with a 20mm deckle. Schaedler precision rulers set the deep aqua lake apart from the neat gradient of encroaching dawn in a perfect horizontal line. Eastern sky could be called a "rainbow" but the mesh is more complicated. In the moving mix shades of grape juice, apricot jelly and strawberry candy present fleeting overtones. I can see the caption written out, in perfectly kerned Helvetica. "Dawn" - neatly punctuated at the end by a water pumping station resting on the horizon.

I was tardy for the iPod parade this morning, taping the feet up took a bit longer. After the last run I managed to rip all the skin off the top of my foot. Fuckin nice! Have to be more careful, now. Today the feet send back no messages of pain whatsoever. All systems are go.

"And so what? I am a rock star! I got my rock moves! And I don't need you!"

Out here the dark silhouettes of trees are fast becoming old fashioned. In an hour, charcoal shadows will seem so passé. Why, dark is so night time! Naked limbs expose brown clumps of abandoned birds' nests. I can hear the ticking in the trees. In each branch a countdown nears the zero point when green will explode on the earth. In some day to come we will be shocked with the sudden blessing of leaves.

"I'll be eaten by the worms, and weird fishes. Picked over by the worms, and weird fishes. Weird fishes..."

I look up at soccer hill, opting for the longer path around its circumference today. 8 runners use it to train; I see their black creature-ish silhouettes against the sky. They each go down the hill, then up, then down a different direction, then back up. Together at the top, then breaking into a chaos and then converging at the crest, they are a perfect swarm.

"It's all and illusion. There's too much confusion. I'll make you feel better..."

Rounding that bend which could hook me back north or feed me further south, I take in the perfectly crafted vantage point of Montrose Harbor. My feet yell "next stop: Belmont harbor!" But I look at the time and force them northward, promising that on Sunday we'll go for 10 miles. I promise! From this spot on this clear morning, I can see all the way to Navy Pier. "Navy Piers" he calls it. Silly Italian, he pluralizes everything. "Piers", "Cereals"...

"Something is going on at Navy Piers this weekend I thought maybe we could do that..." Later I get an SMS updating the suggestion to one of going to galleries - a genius stroke. Someone has been doing his homework. He's being awfully friendly; awfully kind and even, maybe, sweet. It's dawning on him that I don't need him, maybe. Maybe he's realizing that I can be pleasant company, after all. But, something has shifted. I'd love to trust the kindness, but I don't. I can't. We'll see how he acts once the green card issue gets resolved.

"I woke up this morning the sun shining brightly I put on my happy face..."

Dawn doesn't just happen at the horizon. The whole sky participates in sunrise. The west takes its cues from the refracting atmosphere and accepts the hug of long pink and purple arms, gently waking the whole dome. A gold glow above the horizon, an atmospheric revealing the hideout of angels, marks the location to watch. There, in moments, the thinnest pink line appears. Line grows into a mound like a bright pimple on the water. Soon, there she is. Blink and you see every step of the sunrise still framed in the retina burn of your eyes. Look at that, will you. Look at that color and drama and tell me it isn't natural for humans to adorn themselves and seek beauty.

Nature itself rolls the drum - such a showoff.
On the other side of me, the drive is starting to fill with southbound traffic. Off to markets and jobs, man rolls the dice - another day.

pinch me

2009-03-18T10:10:00.000-07:00

She sounded so excited on the phone yesterday, and I mean excited not in a good way. Like her world just got put on a merry go round and run in circles too fast after lunch. So I took her a little something this morning to brighten up the workspace. Get rid of that "twilight zone" feeling of watching all of the people and departments you work with the most get disappeared. She's the only one who would, here, and she refrains, from making a weight comment. Hiding half of me behind a counter helps. I don't like the comments. There's a subtle criticism to them, I think. Some small disapproval of the change. Oh but the change is coming. Just you weight.

I pinch myself. Hiding in the dressing room at the gym because I don't like being subjected to the nattering on of other women, I pinch and find the pockets which will be the target of next ten pounds. Outer thigh, not so bad. But inner thigh still has parenthenthetical adipose tissue. That must go. Arms don't suck, just need more muscle to shape them out. Inside of knees... how does one loose the inside of the knee fat? Belly, not so bad at all. But there's this persistent pocket, like a guffle of bread made out of fat, that rides on the back of my hip bones. It's neither butt fat, nor waist or hip it's just... back fat.

On a pig that would be called the "leaf lard". It's a persistent little storage depot, I can tell. Furthest back ancestors foraging across Africa would be proud. But 21st century woman gets a less positive judgment when the fat pocket puckers out from her side like an anatomical interloper during prayer twist pose. Well, you're next. I'll think of you every time I'm hungry enough to eat my fingers. With herbal laxatives, fiber supplements, protein powder and pickles for dinner, I'm coming for you, leaf fat. Leaf lard is supposed to be the highest quality. "Aren't you eating anything?" Why yes, I'm eating the best bit of fat on earth.

On line at Livestrong.com obsessing over which foods spiked my carb intake and how to classify my homemade chicken with no noodles soup. The system has popped me down to 1600 calories a day outside of tracked exercise which I don't enter until I go to bed so that it doesn't suddenly start telling me I can eat way more calories. I stay at least 200 below what they allot me, as a rule. Down too much too fast and I open myself up to bingeing. If there's nothing else I've done right in a day I've done hunger properly. There are charts where I can watch the graphs of what I eat and what I do and what I lose and the best part? No one is admonishing me. The computer just watches in mute anonymity. Thank you for the data, user "meatball".

Down just 15 lbs. from Jan 23. BMI at 22. Fuckin not enough! I remember that day. On that day I said 'no one will ever reject me again!' I'll never be not good enough again. It was all the fat's fault, that artificial layer of ick that is not part of the real me, I'm sure of it. No sir, from now on the ball is in MY court! She who is perfect gets to call the shots! Just another 20 lbs. to go. I fiddle with the numbers on the BMI chart. Well... 23. 23 pounds to go before the BMI raises official eyebrows. 23. How is that for symetry?

I'm going to live today

2009-03-17T08:51:00.001-07:00

5:55 am. On with sneakers. On with iPod. Out the door. There's more what's awake at this hour than a normal person would believe. But somewhere folks are already at work or assembling for a 6 am aerobics class. The day to come is just a faint amber glow to the east of an ink blue sky.

Descending in the west, the ancient overseer glows, still, though her eye is half shut from a month's tiring work. The path is dry as there is no more snow left to melt. Already one can feel it. This will be a good day.

My belly complains. 40g of prunes and 2 tsp. of honey didn't shut it up at all. They compound with yesterday's total intake of 1200 calories to mock my effort. But just that much sugar is turning the trick & I hit a stride with pure octane pumping the engine. Feet go, legs leap, no wall in sight.

I weighed in at 146 lbs. at 5:15 am. I checked. That's down 15 lbs. from January 23. People keep asking if I'm loosing weight and I retort with a surprised "no!". Why it's so impolite to comment about weight - no one would say shit if I were a man! But the numbers don't lie - not like I do. After the weigh in I pulled my thinspiration out of hiding and compared again. Down 15 lbs. and still there is a bit of a tire around the middle! Of all things my tits get smaller! But for now I take the hunger in stride. That pain in the gut is a comfort, telling me I'm still alive - as does the twinge on my feet from the tape which holds them together.

The glow brightens. The lesser light bows down as a rosy stain spreads across the big bowl of sky. Spaceship Earth is turning. I can feel it - slightly different moment by moment under each foot fall. Cue dawn.

Maybe this morning I'll run over the hill between the soccer fields. From Cahokia to Giza, humans have pulled higher vantage points from the flat earth, seeking mountaintop experiences where nature provided none. Some theorize this stems from a common spirituality or a synchronicity. Perhaps it's just the instinct brain expressing a vestige from when our souls were bird soul. We go up because we must leap. We leap, once knowing but now just hoping, that a thermal will catch our frail selves and buoy us on.

"I wanted to take you out to dinner. Not well planned, I know. I wanted to do something nice together other than just me relieve stress at you..."

'Relieve stress'. Is that what the kids are calling it these days? What's so terrible about stress relief? But he's right. I'd rather just talk, sometimes. Sometimes I wish breakfast together lasted longer. He has been awfully nice lately. Knit one eyebrow. He also still needs that green card. But then, he must know I suspect him of being up to something. Knit one eyebrow, pearl two. Maybe he wants to feel different about himself? Maybe being nice is his way of stepping away gently? No idea. Knit two eyebrows, pearl one. I'd still love to put him in my pocket and protect him forever. But I know what happens next. It's time to pull back the curtain, show him who I really am... and wait to see if he stays or runs.

I make myself run until the flat top of the hill levels out. Around me city towers encircle like a glittery Stonehenge. Brightly lit birds, on wings of American and United, fly off to the east. It is a good day to wear green and have a holiday. It is a good day to heal. I look over the morning rituals of other humans subjecting themselves to this early exercise and glory. Some run in tandem, others in circles. Some walk with arms pumping while others skirt along on two wheels. I stretch.

And then, through an invisible gap in the horizon's blue curtain, the sun steps through. First, she demurs with an artsy smile. Then in red roaring glory that arrests the eye, she makes the heavenly demand for pause. This is the day. I'm going to live today.

sketch of a day

2009-03-12T16:00:00.001-07:00

Inky sky in the frigid morning gives way to slate grey and snow. Soon it will be spring, but not yet. Today, still, the wind blasts me in the face like a power drill forcing its way into every pore. Someone leaves their takeout on a post box and it has frozen faster than a hungry mouth could find it. The barker selling papers on the corner makes a "wooooooo wooooo" song that he does when the wind whips up real cold. Sometimes, on particularly warm mornings, he's out there singing a tune at 7 am, but he pipes down when someone gets close. I've started saying "good morning" when I go by, even though he seems to ignore me.

I walk into the gym, the same song comes through the speakers as was playing when I walked out yesterday morning. In the locker room I run into the "running granny" as I call her. She's in her 60's, runs marathons, skinny as a bird. Today I'm a bit earlier and she's just stepped out of the shower. Perhaps I've surprised her but we look at each other for a long second. Hair wrapped in a towel, the bones of her face seem to jut out further and I see how dark and sunken are her eyes. Is that where I'm heading by going on 5 hrs of sleep a night?

That same PM at work has been offering me beers for over a year now. Finally just tell him "allergic...sorry". Maybe the allergy theory of alcoholism is bunk, but I happen to like it and have repurposed it handily to circumnavigate events I don't wish to attend. Company lunch at a Chinese restaurant. I could do that, consume almost 1000 empty calories and spend 2 hours in awkward conversation not working - or I could just beg out thanks to an MSG allergy. Pizza? Gluten intolerant!My rarified system can only tolerate the finest sashimi and European chocolate!

Now if only I could beg off being allergic to silliness and stupidity. It still chaps my hide, that person who seemed so shocked at my suggesting they take the CTA."I'm from Texas! We don't have trains there!" Yet you've lived in a city WITH trains for long enough to get a medical degree. I moved from a tiny town of 900 to New York City in 1988 and after 5 minutes with a map - I spoke 'public transit'. Ok ok, drop it.

It's light out at 6, but sooner or later the sun must slide under the bend in the Earth. Night like a stain that won't go away. Dark that one has to wipe out of your eyes upon finally arriving home.

1300: Over the moon

2009-03-05T21:09:00.000-08:00

Another abnormally warm late winter day. Waxing gibbous overhead reaches its zenith in the early evening sky as I turn onto the lakeside path for a run. Remnants of melted snows catch her like many tiny mirrors and I step over the moon.

The lights on top of the Hancock have gone back to white with the passing of Valentine's day. It's like a big fake moon hanging over the city. And at 11pm, the moon shuts off. In the darkness I hear the purring next to me. Man - cat sleeps happy.

At Foster beach I take the unpaved, unlit path next to the water. In the eastern sky approaching stars move and weave as they come in for a landing at O'Hare. Our conversation keeps running through my head. His constant worry is his green card. While we watch the telly a birth control commercial comes on and I hear myself making the comment about how I hate the pill - how it felt like having the steering wheel to one's brain stolen by an angry monkey.

Then, he says it. "If you got pregnant I could get my green card."

"Neither of us needs that mess."

"But I could get my green card!"

"You run that idea past your momma, see what she says." Me, I know what mine would say. I know what she'd do and how she'd feel. It's the wrong reason. Of all the ways to fall of the horse of independence that would be the worst. What if he tricks me and sabotages the birth control?

The melt off has left puddles in the pathway which do not refreeze now that night has come. I'm hitting the wall a little early and my legs feel weak and light. Still, I step over the moon.

It's tempting, though, if for no other reason than it's nice to have the brief illusion of being wanted. In the early morning, before the sun has arisen, his form covered with soft skin finds me. His arms feel good. His back feels good. His head rubbing against my neck feels good. His cock feels good. Afterwards we both lay silent, playing possum, when I hear the whisper.

"You awake?"

"yes"

"Tell me, what makes me such an irrisistable lover?"

"Hm. Let me think about it."

"Ok, talk to you later."

"Ok, I'm just going to go to sleep and take over the whole bed now. That's my German half that does that!"

I roll over to fall asleep. The smell of his sweat is on my skin. I love it and feel sorry to have to wash it off in the morning. I don't know what it is that makes him irresistable. He's like catnip.

The wind along the lake is terrific. It pushes me backwards and threatens to tear the hat off my head. I turn back and finally hit a groove. In the dark the puddles collect her silvery light. I know she's high over my head, and leaping over water, I step over the moon.

Can I trust his being kind? Now that the idea is out there, that the green eyed lady could double as a green card lady, how do I know that the friendliness is genuine? He wants something. But then, we all want something and pose hard to the side that will get us what we want. He won't be content to be my hostage for long. In the morning I come to the end of the cereal. Do I buy more cereal or stop coming over?

By the elevator I grab his chin to kiss him goodbye. "oh, your question..." He seems a bit baffled that I would answer it there! "I need to do some more experimenting!"

The walkway to my front door is terrific for collecting water and so her reflection lights my path like a celestial guide. Coming home to independence, to strength, to me, I step over the moon.

When the cereal runs out

2009-02-26T16:21:00.001-08:00

I wonder who will tire of this first? I don't wish for the affair to end - but I don't care to be the curb kick-ee either. Sometimes I wish I could fold him up and put him in my pocket. Sometimes I'd like to just knock his block off. No matter what we try to go out and do he sits there looking bored. I'm far too nice. I've done "relationships" enough to know what I don't like so much. And this? Could be courting disaster once again or - not. Freewheeling. Just deciding to feel differently about some similar circumstances is all.

Who will phone whom first? Was two nights in a row too much? Too close? We run back to our solitary routines in a hurry lest any closeness creep in. Back in loneliness I buttress feelings and remind myself to not drink of the tempting offer to hope for more. There is no more. There never really has been, ever, in any one's arms, just a cosmic tease of a dream that is in fact, a mirage. I stop and ask, where is it? Where is this love I hear so much about? I don't see it. It cannot survive a face without makeup, morning breath, funny digestive noises, sour pusses, sms messages that go misinterpreted. Thank you for not being too nice. Now I don't have to worry about being in love with you. I don't have to worry about making something last or making sure you love me. I can put on those 4" heels that make me just a bit taller than you - and walk. Whenever I feel like it. Maybe tomorrow.

Does he make sure there is milk for my cereal because he cares or because he's unable to prevent himself from planning everything? Does he fix me breakfast out of courtesy, caring, or because he just doesn't want me dickering around in the kitchen, spilling the chocolate milk and making him late? Why did he make sure to stash some of this tea he knows that I like - yet point out its procurement with such show? When my gluten-free cereal runs out - will the affair be over?

Blue run

2009-02-25T19:36:00.000-08:00

I had forgotten how it feels, those first few runs in the spring when the air is still cold but the ground is just melty enough. The encroaching evening is kind and doesn't threaten to freeze the slush beneath me into anything frightening. I ease in for a fast run. It's hard to believe this is a workout - it feels too easy.

From the east, through the thickening aqua air, a moving constellation approaches. First Big Dipper, now Orion's belt, the stars fasten their seat belts, put up tray tables and prepare for a landing. Hello Boston, hello New York, hello London, welcome home.

Lighter than air I chase ovals of amber light down the lakeshore, finally turning. Turning from pavement to the slushy path, abandoning the lights, i trot off into the blue cloud of encroaching night and take the way of trust.