I can close my eyes and clearly taste
the first bite of ripe summer peach
the juice dripping down my chin
into the cupped bowl of my hand
sticky and warm from the sun
on the verge of something
tangible and sweet—but I still
don’t know the words for
the color of your eyes or
the feel of your skin
as I run my fingers
down your arm
fingers search for heat
and clutch the hot metal grate—
snow begins to fall
shoe chains grab at snow
as I climb my way towards home—
the street light flickers
Ballroom floor confetti
Sparkles like the stars.
I spin through resolutions
And tiptoe through the sky.
Holding on to all that matters,
Letting go of all the rest.
These are the simple moments
Where constellations start.
Dancing fire into darkness,
Laughing with the promise.
Play one more song, I beg him.
the word of the year
was create
and what did I create?
a mess, it seems
but maybe not
walls torn down
mind and heart
spoken as truthfully
as I knew how
art in suitcases
words online
new friends made
and lost
old friends
holding strong
the taste
of bourbon
and cider
and cream cheese frosting
the smell of
leather shoes
and the warmth
of good wool socks
the aha moment
when the person
in front of me
stands up
and for the first time
in a long time
their feet don’t hurt
the moon
and the tide
and the pull
of them both
river walks
and beach days
and hiking
up and down
this hill
and one more
lesson learned
but i think
i’ve learned it
this time
this time
i think i’m ready
to let the
right things in
I’ve seen the boy twice in two days. The first time he walked by my work just as I was telling my manager: “I don’t want to be out in public and alone at midnight on New Year’s Eve.” (What are you trying to tell me Universe?) The second time was the next afternoon as I was walking home from making the appointment for my new tattoo. I was in a good mood, despite feeling more crazy and invisible than normal. I saw him a couple of blocks ahead and could have forced a meeting, but I didn’t feel up to it so I turned the corner and continued home.
He was in my dream last night. It was dark and hazy and confusing. All I can really remember is that we were in the same room with a bunch of other people and he got up and left. On his table were a bunch of newspapers and a piece of notebook paper on which he had written the dictionary definition for the word true. After the definition he wrote something else. And it seemed important and urgent that I read it. But it was dark. And people kept interrupting me. And I never did get to read it.
This is twice he’s shown up in my dreams asking me to think about important things. Love the first time, and truth the second. Love and truth. But what is love? And what is truth?
Nothing seems true to me right now, in many senses of the word. Nothing seems factual. Nothing seems in its place. Nothing really seems real.
Particularly where he is concerned.
My general ideas about love and what is true are skewed at best. I know this about myself. And it makes me wonder about the reality of my feelings for him. Did I make up the connection? Did I imagine the way he looked at me? Did I fabricate our seeming attraction to each other?
Does it even matter at this point?
Maybe he really was just a lesson. A gentle reminder of what I attract and what I need to avoid. Nothing traumatic enough to actually scar me. Just a little disappointment and a bit of feeling stupid. So what if I did make it up? Maybe it was worth it. Maybe I finally learned my lesson this time.
But what really did I learn?
I learned that I fall in love with people’s potential. I immediately focus on the person I see them capable of becoming based on what little I know about them when we meet. I do think I see who they are at that moment, but I very quickly transfer that knowledge onto some imaginary version of them.
And I also learned that I cannot resist the trifecta of intelligence, creativity, and overwhelming arrogant self absorption. On the plus side, this means that my seeming inability to be loved probably has more to do with the people I fall for rather than any real inability to be loved on my part. Not to say that things falling apart is ever entirely their fault. I do my fair share of destruction. Mostly in the form of self sabotage. I have always had a hard time dealing with happiness and tend to look for things to go wrong. And if I can’t find anything wrong, I will inevitably do something that creates a situation that causes things to go wrong. Horribly and irreversibly wrong.
This last time is more on me than him I think. I knew from the beginning that he was immature but I decided to pursue the connection anyway. I remember the moment clearly, sitting on my friend’s front porch. A defining decision. And when I found out that while he had been separated for five months he was still technically married, I continued on the path I had chosen. Not my smartest move. But it’s not the obvious things like that that nagged at me.
I never liked his hands.
There was something about them that seemed insubstantial to me. He was always waving them around when he talked, like he was trying to distract me from what he was saying. Or from what he wasn’t saying. I kept telling myself that not liking his hands was a stupid reason to not like him.
Now I’m not so sure.
We are all attracted to different things for different reasons. Maybe my interest in hands has more to do with some sort of intuition and less to do with vanity. Or maybe not. Maybe I just didn’t like his hands. But looking back I see it as something I should have paid more attention to.
There are many things in my life that I should have paid more attention to but didn’t. Not until after the fact did certain things rise to the surface of my mind. It’s enough to drown a person, thinking of all the things that might have been if only I had paid better attention. But the trick right now is to not get lost in all those might-have-beens.
The trick right now is to start paying attention.
I am Yankee born with a Southern education and I have exiled myself to the Pacific Northwest.
The mountains called to me first, and I left the bluegrass for the Selkirks and Cabinets of north Idaho. The safety of the valley did me well I think, but soon I needed more. Soon I needed the turbulence of the sea. And so I came to the most volatile place on the coast. The place where the Columbia River meets the ocean. The Graveyard of the Pacific. There is nothing settled about the energy here and the restlessness has seeped into my bones along with the dampness that never quite leaves the air.
I feel chaos building inside of me.
My carefully constructed facade is slipping and the crazy girl I try to hide is peeking out. She’s giggling and whispering nonsense that’s making more sense than it ever has before. Paint your face she says. Paint your body. Wear clothes that make people stare. Force them to look at you. Force them to see you. Scream your words but keep your secrets close. Don’t give away too much. But don’t hold back either.
And so I make art. And I write. And I dream of elaborate costumes to compliment the masks I’ve made.
I dug out a pair of heeled boots from my “to donate” bag the other night and now I’m scheming a trip to the thrift store to create new outfits the wear with them. I think it’s time to stop being cute and start being sexy. Or at the very least I need to up the mysterious. Alluring might be a good objective. Maybe even seductive.
I’m not sure if I really know how to achieve any of these. But I’m going to try.
