introspective periscope : peeking inside since Y2K ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- my strange days and the unexpected meeting 19 days remaining - thirteenth of august-this isn't home anymore- "what can i say / but i'm wired this way / and you're wired to me / and what can i do / but wallow in you / unintentionally"~ani it was the strangest day, yesterday. i didn't expect the confidence i had when i walked out the door. but there it was, the sky as cornflower blue as any picture perfect sunday morning could be. the streets: they were empty and silent but for a few early risers gone out to get coffee and cigarettes and late edition (yes, we have two editions of the sunday paper here. the early edition comes out late saturday afternoon. the late editon, sometime around two am sunday morning. i know this because i, former mini mart employee, used to stuff those papers full of glossy ads and coupons. my fingers and palms would be black with the ink of the news. they would shine with the gloss of the advertisements. yes, then. two editions. leave it to pittsburgh.)..they'd be getting their late edition sunday papers and maybe some breakfast stuff for lovers who still lay slumbering in warm beds in dim bedrooms like the one in which i left him dozing. the streets were silent but for the sound of my padding footsteps on the cobblestone. i heard his voice clearly: "up one block. over one. up another. cross the street. up a block. in front of the bank. wait there. the bus will come. it will be the eighty six A and it will take you downtown. you know the rest. thats not wood street. thats smithfield street. yes." See, we'd been up early for us and stayed on through the night, he and I. The twinkling lights mingling with twilight were magical. And I don't much remember what we were talking about, really...just the comforting banter between friends, no doubt. He had a bad sunburn and I liked the feeling of being able to nurture him in at least this most simple of ways (for i cannot heal his heart for him) as I coated the scorched sun-toxin-laden skin with my mother's home remedy, apple cider vinegar. (I have come to appreciate home remedy.) We'd been filthy all day,coated in amusement park grime and sweat from the overly warm August day. I'd washed with the Nag Champa soap that that girl i adored so much had given me. i wonder how nacho is. i wonder when she goes to that new college. i wonder if she'll be alright. the soap-it makes me think of summer and then, I put on scarce pajamas to balance out the heat of my mild sunburn with the sixty nine degrees of air conditioning, smirking to myself about canned air. I like cold when I sleep. Sometimes, I think I can be such a hypocrite. And it must've been during the darkest hours that we said our last, after our nightcaps of purple grape and berry blast Kool-Aid. (OH, YEAH, dach.) and i guess what i'm getting at here was that i was really tired and beaten down with activity that had left the wrinkle images of smiles in my face, evident on my sun-kissed skin. and when the alarm went off, it went off too early but the prospect of getting up and getting there and doing so without missing the flight..well, i was wide awake and had him caught in my think tank. so i showered again, washing the sleep from me, for i am the cleanest dirtiest girl in the world and, in turn, a shower whore. i showered the scent of his sheets from me and when i came back in, garbed in respectable clothes for the free flight, he was already sleeping diagonally in his bed like i imagine he does when there isn't someone there to claim half of the blankets. he is a blanket pirate. and after having stolen all of the blankets all night, he finally slept soundly...right through my meanderings about his room, picking up the things i'd forgotten to pack the night before. i looked at the clock and left ten minutes early and from then on, the position of the rising summer sunday sun gave me enough to know the general time. i knew that i wasn't going to miss it and i felt alive, walking those empty streets alone. i felt free. tammie said she felt free when she rode that caged in ride and when she heard that song. sunday morning, i knew the feeling of freedom for a brief moment. i felt confident. and i got to the corner of liberty and pearl and watched the sun come up slowly at the end of the street, where the pavement ran into the sky. i watched an old man across the street standing outside of the church waiting to greet each person that came and i watched flocks of pigeons swoop from the tall buildings and down to the street to peck at gravel and other things at which pigeons peck and i felt guilty for not having something to offer them on this holy lovely morning. finally the bus came and i listened intently at the conversation between the driver and the woman that works at the prison downtown. flirtation is such a delicate dance of words and wit. i smiled a small sleepy smile as we headed into the depths of the city, weaving from liberty to penn to liberty to penn avenues and finally stopping at the end of the route: my stop. i walked the few blocks between the tall buildings and although i often say that the city is filthy and dirty and grey, sunday morning, glass sparkled and shone in the clean of sunday sunlight. it glowed beautifully and the brick sidewalks were lazily empty and the occasional car that passed only made the place more surreal. i dont suppose that any of those shops really open on sundays and it was like a ghost town but the busses run. the busses run. and i waited there, with three other women. i felt strong with them and comfortably safe, even under those tall buildings that stretch to the sky. i felt confident and safe. the bus came and i found a seat and my eyelids grew heavy. i don't know how long we rode. i missed the busway which fascinates me because i never feel like i'm in a familiar place. i feel like i'm driving through a place that is sort of like a time warp. there are no cars. there are only trees and stations and walls and sometimes, grafitti that is aestetic and political or random and sophmoric. i slept on the bus. i was comfortable. and i opened my eyes in time to get my bearings. i stood and gently woke the passenger near me who was also asleep. he blinked and i imagine it was much like looking into a mirror. he thanked me and i disembarked from the small gold bus and headed inside. but strangeness doesn't lie in these mundane things. the strangeness comes when we are faced with the unexpected. a million times, i've thought about the conversation we'd have. a million times, i've practiced the apology. the security checkpoint was overly crowded and the guards scrambled to hand out plastic trays for our loose change and keys and other metal objects that might set off the metal detectors. i walked through without issue, as is usually the case, even for all of the metal imbedded in my flesh. and i stood waiting for the third tram, the small train that moves the people from one side of the airport (the "landside") to the side that houses the terminals and concourses (the "airside"...pittsburgh international is a very large airport). i was in no rush and was groggy and impatient with the crowds. the clarity and freedom of the morning passed and i was once again forced to mingle with my species. i don't know what made me wait except that everyone seemed so hurried and i was anything but. i don't know what made me wait but i stood there, practically unconscious of the thinning of the crowd and when i looked back while i waited, i never expected to see him. but there he was, in his tall lanky manner. there he was. and he didn't have the chin hairs that used to make me laugh. he still had the gangly walk. and he had something new...he had a companion that seemed, finally, to fit him. and i dont ever want to give the impression that i was too good for him. no, it wasn't that because the boy had a heart of gold...but he wasn't ready for me. i don't think, honestly, that he ever would have been. and i don't want to give the impression that i thought badly of him because i didn't. but i wasn't right for him. and he wasn't right for me. and all of that pain i caused him was so unneccesary and i know that now. and our eyes met and i remembered again my love's beautiful green-hazel eyes and smiled because finally, i've fallen for someone that doesn't have blue. blue eyes break hearts. and there really wasnt much to say. i mean...there was. there was so much that i'd w a n t e d to say, but i didn't. i think he must've understood. and this woman he stood next to is his new wife. i can tell to look at her that she is right for him. she is the psych major he was telling me about: the girl with the nice safe major that he didn't have to lie to his mother about. she is the girl who goes to church and prays and sings and doesn't have to be provoked. she is good. and she is his. i could never be his. i had to be mine. and there wasn't much to talk about because its been so long. i had so much to tell him; so much i'd planned to say. but i would like to think that he knew me well enough at one time to know what was in my head. or maybe he never knew me at all. but i think that it was there, if he looked. and in seconds, it was over. they were headed back to philadelphia. and as they walked off and i walked to my gate, i realized that i hadn't even asked her name. i had just looked at him and talked nonsense. i hardly realized the conversations that passed between us and then, he was gone. and i felt a little peace on sunday morning as i sat quietly with my dollar twenty five cup of hazelnut coffee. a small cup it was, at that...with packs of sugar and cream...the way i take it. i sat at the gate and pondered a bit quietly. i had waited all of this time to apologize; to set things straight with him and put it behind me. and i suppose that perhaps i never expected to see him again, honestly. and perhaps i was afraid. and i wonder, sometimes, why things happen the way they do. i mean...why sunday morning? why when i was on my way south to see him? "you're always flying to see boyfriends, aren't you?" he had said. i remember that clearly. it had nearly irritated me but in the spirit of reunion, i let it slide by. but maybe he was right. and i didn't go on and on about the boy sleeping in Nashville. i didn't need to. he understood and i think he could see in my eyes the same look he'd had for me so many springs ago. and i slept strangely on the plane and stood finally, flight over. i don't think you know what its like for me on the plane when it lands, T. I don't think you know how my heart races and how my breath shortens and how my mouth dries eagerly. and that walk up the jetway is always forever long and i strain to see your face as soon as i can. and when i finally collapse in your embracing arms, i am home. and i saw him sunday morning and my words ran dry because there really wasn't much to say. i suppose that, with him, there never really was. and the delphinium you gave me were so lovely and deep blue and your yellow shirt was so soft...and your lips were like heaven. and your voice..and your arms...you are like a sunday morning sunrise on a deserted city street. you are clean. you are safe. you are my confidence. lately, my days are sometimes strange but there's a systematic strangeness about them. i'm learning to expect the unexpected; i'm learning to put my demons to rest. and in turn, i'm learning to sleep a little bit more soundly, only lacking you beside me. in turn, i'm learning to look forward and learn from the things that came before you. and if i don't tell you i love you enough, i want you to know now that i do. she is his now and he is hers and they are right for each other. and i, much the same way, am yours. and you are right for me. and there are things about us that nobody will ever understand and i love that. god, i love that. i love us. we are so right. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- .what came before. - .what happened next. a diamond at the bottom of the drain - 20 october 2017 |
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