i have been trying to be better about updating the blog. so i am going to at least catch up on last weekend. maybe later i will do this weekend. i make no promises.
after an incredibly stressful week at work, and the promise of an even more stressful one the next week, i decided to split town. shayne and i went up to VT to visit our respective sisters.
i started the trip by going to a turkey supper at the catholic church. they needed a new roof, so for $8.00 i got a full dinner and some interesting conversation. the guy next to me scared the pants off of me by wanting to talk about the Pope. i felt edgy enough about being in a catholic church, the last thing i wanted to do was get into a theologic conversation. it turns out that the dude wanted to bash on the Pope for being a nazi youth. boy, was i relieved.
the rest of the weekend was spent eating, and walking, and futzing. my sister figured out a nifty little cellphone hack so that i could create my own ringtone. now, when my phone rings, it plays Lonesome Magic Vice Harvest (aka -- the music from that Geico commercial). it makes me happy every time it happens. i got to see the school my sister swims out, and the legal clinic where greg works. and i got to pick up some of my favorite VT doughnuts and other assorted junk at the dented can store.
i returned much rested and ready to face the chaos at work.
so i'm up for my usual insomniac bout. reading a book, texting truncated conversations with an absence.
i just had a cigarette on the front porch. the smell of the air reminded me of a night in august four years and two apartments ago. it was so hot that night - i don't know how cold air and hot air can smell the same, but they do.
it was the first time brandon had slept over, but just slept, and on the couch. i was a strangely naive 23, and still not sure how to make the jump from couch to bed. we had bare feet, and i was wearing a slate blue tank top and pj pants - pink with hearts, a valentine's day present from my mother. there was a top that matched. it was overkill and i gave it to the goodwill, but good pj pants are something you keep.
i had brushed my teeth and was walking down the hallway. it was an awful hallway, running the length of our almost railroad apartment. there was a flourescent light at one end, and it was wood panelled and narrow. two doors at opposite ends, with nothing in between. somewhere there's a picture he took of me walking to the living room, with little drops of water and toothpaste staining my tank top. he loved that picture because i was so real and honest in it, and i realized that there is an intimacy and purity in unadultered reality that i'd never known before.
neither of us could sleep that night, and we ended up sitting on the front stoop at 4 in the morning, with our respective pj pant legs rolled up, touching knees and whispering so that we didn't distrub the city.
one year (one heartbreak, four months of space, one semi-back-together) later we were riding our bikes on the fourth of july. i had already fallen once because of him, and we took another tumble on the way back from playing in some sprinklers. there are pictures of our skinned knees together on the curb. he got it worse than i did, but the accident was caused when he grabbed the back of my bike and pushed - well intentioned but poorly executed. friends at the party were angry with him for not being more careful with me. i still took care of us: washed cuts, ibuprofen, water.
it's strange to think that someone who left me so bereft is now this beautiful set of memories and things that float along at night and have a taste and smell to them. tonight there is a sense of things going on: some sort of activity in the ether that can't be spoken or even defined with words. like you just reach up and pluck the past out of the breeze, to look at for a moment, and then let it drift off again. i am in love with the idea of somerville keeping my secrets and memories safe on its porches and stoops and quiet streets.
we had a nice weekend hunkered down at the casa. saturday was spent in tense anticipation of the coming storm muttering "where is the damn snow". the damn snow didn't come until the wee hours of Sunday morning. Shayne and i went out to the sligo with half of the duffless foundation and MDG and some other friends. we camped out in the sligo until the jackass with the giant beer hat on filled up the place with kids. we tried to hold our ground, we tried filling up the jukebox and drinking our cheap beer in plastic cups. duffless and i even shared a massive mind meld moment when her songs came on, and we talked about mix tapes from the 80's. for some odd reason, almost any mix tape i got from a dude in the highschool included the song Troy by Sinead O'Connor. as i was telling her this, the song cued up on the jukebox. it was magical.
once we were finally forced out of the sligo, we wandered over to underbones, which was quieter and warmer and knew the difference between tonic water and club soda. we stayed until they kicked us out. and like any fairy tale must end, we put a slightly tipsy emily into the Banky Cab and made him promise to get her home safely.
yesterday the storm roared through, dumping almost two feet of snow on us. i hunkered down at the casa, shoveled and cooked and caught up on my mail. sometimes the snow really brigs out the best in people. the neighbors chat and wave. the dogs frolic in the drifts. the streets are quiet and sedate. when i went out on my porch this morning to have a smoke, i looked down at the fresh two inches of powder on my walkway, and saw that somebody had left me a message. there was also a heart on the back of my car. thanks to whomever left it. the little gestures remind me of why i stay in new england.
no, not really. let's just say it wasn't the best of weeks. nor was it the worst. it might be a little out of place above the picture of me jauntily posing in kate's huge underwear, but i'm feeling introspective tonight, so if you're just here for the laughs, you might want to move along. i'm sure there will be more shenanigans and hijinks soon enough, stay tuned.
"Love is never any better than the lover. Wicked people love wickedly, violent people love violently, weak people love weakly, stupid people love stupidly, but the love of a free man is never safe."
from "The Bluest Eye" by Toni Morrison
i worry a lot about the kind of love i give - is it wicked or violent or weak or stupid? or is it just flawed and imperfect and complicated? i know that sometimes my love comes out all wrong, it gets twisted up inside and i don't know how to untangle it. all i know for sure is that my loved ones make me want to be a better person so i can better return the love that's shown to me (even when that love comes out messy or mean or confused...). i hope i'm on the right path. if the people who love me are any indication, i'm pretty sure i am.thank you all for loving me so well.
