introspective periscope : peeking inside since Y2K ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- homecoming -missing a lot of things - twentieth of july, 2001-nashville's cloudy sweetness "they say everybody steals somebody's heart away."~mazzy star i'm here. i'm here on your grounds and i've never felt more at home in my life. this is what i've needed and yet, there are so many things that i'm realizing will change. things that will change about me, about you...about us. things that i'll long for; new things that will make up for empty spaces. you see, the trip here was one of many legs. i began packing the night before and when mark arrived to get me on thursday afternoon, so many things had come up that of course i was late. and brian m was right when he said that i'm a daudler (one who takes one's time and never seems to accomplish much or get out of the house because they spend so much time getting ready to go in the first place) and it was late before we got to the city. and there it was: pittsburgh in its height and lights looming on the horizion, nestled between mount something and mount something else. and we'd dropped tammie off in her house with no window dressings and sped off towards your new house. i meant it when i said you were growing up. every time you move, its a little better. every time you move, i'm more proud of you. so we flashed along highways and interchanges and bridges and pulled into your parking spot by your house and i could see glimpses of rea in the window and you managed not to hit your house and all was well as i lugged the duffle that it took the two of us to get to your car inside. and we smoked a little and talked a little about rea and her bowel movements and laughed til i felt like i might split. and then, we retired and you gave me a shirt from the closet of clothes that you never wear...a glittery cotton old navy deal. you always give me something to sleep in, even when i've packed my pajamas. and we layed in bed and talked and laughed...there is always laughing when i'm with you. there is nothing that isn't laughable and good. well. except for the things that aren't funny....and the things that are bad. it had been a bad day. verbil..she needed a shorter tie out for dot to be happy. and mom...she wanted a fight and i conceded and felled her like a shorter version of a sequoia. she fell. slowly. and my heart sank. she is my mother. and then my thoughts scattered to plans to move on again...to not get comfortable. to not let myself get comfortable. it had been a bad day and i was putting it behind me as i prepared for the journey that would bring me here. we were laying in bed, mark and i, and the phone rang and it was you reaching us live on the bed of love, a joke that will never rest. and you took what was left...what he hadn't made better already and set it right in me. i am the luckiest of people to have boys in my life that can set me straight...men who know me well enough to reorganize my disarray. god, sometimes, i sound so dependant. and then you hung up and i knew i'd see you tomorrow and i knew you'd be there when i stepped off the jetway. we slept. i realized how peaceful my sleep has become in the last weeks since i've spent nights with you and i realized how troubled he still is in the posture of his slumber. his daytime facade covers so much but everything he still feels cannot be shrouded in sleep and, again, i wanted to reach out and hold my dearest friend close to me; to take away all of that. i am forever wanting to take away the baddness....and what would i do with it if i could? when i woke to your alarm and to call the fine fine woman at the port authority transit hotline to find out about the busses to the birds, you looked so grown up. you looked so ready for another raise and a briefcase and a house and a throbbingly large bank account and bills that are paid on time and all of that stuff that we always knew we'd have someday. i just didn't expect for someday to creep up on us so quickly...so silently, we have grown older and so animately, we have fought it. i think about you a lot, you know. and it seemed that the time we spent wasn't nearly enough...the time we have always seems so short and you had to be to work and i had to sleep a little bit more to make the time go by faster. time always goes by when you sleep. its a bitch if you can't sleep and you just lay there anxious. i slept restlessly with strange dreams of falling trees and shouting. i have never been a girl to spend too much time getting ready: a shower and whatever clothes fall into sight; sandals or bare feet. cigarettes. i never need too much. i have never been a girl to spend too too much time getting ready, although a daudler, i may be. most of that time is spent trying to find keys or wallets or things like that...not making myself look pretty. but for you. for you i want to be pretty. for you, i want to be soft and smooth and gentle. i have come to realize that the boy in me can concede to the girl and still spit. in other words, i have come to realize that i can still be all of those things and keep my independance and my boy-qualities: i can spit. i can be dirty. i can wrestle you to the ground. and i can still wear lippy. and although i've never been one to take too much time making myself pretty, i probably spent an hour or two with myself. i made friends with a razor and visited the contours of every curve and crevice; i felt the soft bubbly lather of soap on my flesh. i felt the oil smooth my skin. i took slow moments feeling the clothes i would ordinarily throw on quickly...making friends with a skirt...feeling the soft new cotton against my flesh. and in an hour or two, i was ready to depart and right on the schedule i'd made up for myself earlier in the morning before the dreams. i packed the duffle on my back, struggling with its weight: the weight of the things i'd need for a week with you. so began the second leg of this thing. i walked the block and a half to the stop and waited for the right number. i asked the right questions and got the vauge answers that had me walking the same two blocks back and forth looking for the stop. my shoulders were red and raw for the straps of my duffle rubbing against my naked soft shoulders. i found the corner, finally...exactly where i always knew it was but from that direction, didn't recognize. i felt so silly and so suburban in the downtown jungle. i felt so small under skyscrapers and corporation sentiments. i felt so lost and yet, so strong. i knew i'd find my way through the safari. i always manage. even if its costs me another forty cents and a transfer. i always manage. and i got on the bus and rode the busway and fell into a new chapter of the book you lent me. there are times when those dharma bums make so much sense and i feel it in myself. there are times when i feel so disconnected. and i saw the airport looming there and i slipped the straps of the pack i'd been lugging over sore shoulders. it was nestled there on the seat like my companion and i leaned against it and felt the loose straps carress the thin red welts on my skin and i heard terri's voice in my head: "pack everything you need and then take half of it out." i should've. i will learn. when i'd finally checked my bag, i felt so much lighter and i felt so much more free. i put the piercings back in. i was incognito. i was nobody again and no longer the daughter of the employee. i didn't have to meet the codes. my nose was itself again. my tongue deuly decorated. and when they called my row, the front one with the window seat, i gave them the pass and i sat in the seat. one of mom's friends, kevin, came on after me and we talked the dialouge that we've been trained to talk. and then i fell asleep, i think. this trip, they didn't bother to wake me for the juice. they didn't stir me from my sleep. i always wonder if i snore. an hour and a half flight between time zones is all it takes to get to you. i've got two more sets of tickits. an hour and a half flight and i get my hour back when i get you. its the longest hardest hour and a half because i've had weeks of days since i last saw your face and it hardly seems appropriate that i might wait even another hour to touch you again...to hold you...to hug you...to hear your voice as it truly is when it isn't masked with the distance and exchanges of wires between us. and when i stepped off that jetway, you were there just like i knew you would be. and i held you and hugged you. it is always so unreal to be home in your arms again. i am here. i have been here for a week now. and i know that leaving you on sunday is going to be the hardest thing i've had to do in a long time. i know that feeling that plane pull away from its jetway is going to be the most painful ache that won't dull until i am here with you on a more permanent basis. it hurts to be so far away from you and even though i'm here for two more days, i can feel an ache that would kill me starting to settle in. and i know that i can't be without you. i know that without you, i am not complete. i know that in you, i've found my home. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- .what came before. - .what happened next. a diamond at the bottom of the drain - 20 october 2017 |
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