sábado, octubre 28, 2006

Dorita

Holding my breath.

I repeat the names of Aaron's brothers and sisters in descending and ascending order. I know them all, Gonzalo, María Antonieta...Gustavo, que era Octavio but didn't like his name, so he changed it, Ñaña, Alejandro, that got his nickname from when he was a little boy sitting in his diaper in the hallway, and when asked what he was playing with said, "ñaña" 38 odd years later he was meeting me at the airport. Martín, whose house I know so well, Rey who will take me to the Chopo if I ask him...Ime, Tania and Isaura's mom... and Javi, who loves going to the film festivals.
There are more, more, I can remember them, I repeat them under my breath in a sort of a mantra. Arturo, whose birthday is the same as mine, the sister in Tijuana, what was her name? What was her name? Ah. Elsa, por cierto..

Dora, Andrea's mom. Recently divorced, her daughter is 6, she must be huge, he reminds me, it has been two years since I have seen them. I wish I could go with you, he says, even though I don't love you anymore. Maybe I can go with you, take me in your suitcase... Backwards, backwards. I can't mix them up, what will I do?

Weeks later, I get out of the metro and we walk towards the Avenida Álvaro Obregón. There is a defeaning roar of traffic and a whooshing rumor of bodies milling about in the circular esplanade. Arturo, who is inexplicably sick, leans on my shoulder, pinching my hair under his elbow. He tells me that during the '85 earthquake it acted as a refugee camp for the displaced. The wandering mourners lost in a sea of dust and rubble and twisted bodies. Martín threw down his camera. A life-changing career decision? He dragged the dead and the dying from the ruin, covered his mouth with a bandana, worked, worked, worked side by side with other able-bodied individuals. Not one of them died, not one of the 12 brothers and sisters, not the mother, or the father who must be approaching 90. He still speaks Nahuatl, still goes to their town, in Texcoco, still builds on the plot of land that he will give to his children to have when he is gone. Almost 60 years in La Roma, we walk towards the tiny house, with paintings covering the walls.

The floppy-eared beagle thrusts its over-eager nose under the metal garage door, the key turns, Dora steps out smiling, Andrea is bouncing, we walk up the street. You've never had tacos al pastor? No, never. You haven't been to Mexico if you haven't had tacos al pastor. We stop, we eat a taco. The pineapple drips with spit-roasted adobo, the minute tortilla melts in my mouth. Good, huh? Mommy can I do trick or treat? I raise my eyebrows, ya ves, she says, kids these days, Día de los muertos isn't good enough, they want everything like there, like in gringolandia. The plastic pumkin that she clutches is like the ones I remember using when I was her age. She jumps up and down as we pass the Casa Lamm, in the center camellón, the long, thin strip of green between opposing traffic lanes on this central avenue.

Then we are walking home drunk, from a club, we sleep on the floor in her office building, upstairs from the house her parents rent and where she and three of the others live. I miss her dad, she wails in her inhebriated state. Es un cabrón, pero lo amo todavía. We walk, arms locked, she steered me clear, kept me from kissing (too much) the cute bartender that kept supplying my drinks... Let's go, you don't want to be here, do you? Don't I? The swish of his pony-tail, and those straight smiling pearls that glow white under the black-light glow. No, I don't, wait do I? I sneak away and steal one last kiss beore she drags me away from the sounds of Heroes del silencio, or was it Soda Estereo? We are outside anyway, and it is cold, and I wrap the thin suede jacket around me, smelling of tobacco and clean dance-induced sweat. Underneath I am wearing practically nothing, nothing to combat the cold sinking into my bones, I am soooo drunk, we lay under the desk, her boss' desk, my head spins, she makes me drink some swill, says it'll feel better in the morning, but when morning comes an hour later, I am still spinning, and two hours, and three.

Someone tried to open the door last night, she insists, I couldn't figure out why. I shut my mouth in a tight frown. I kiss her cheek, I don't tell her. She leaves my house at 10, I turn on the music in the stereo and blast it, blast out my fury, my humiliation. Blast him, blast him, how could he bring a girl home, to my house, to our house, and try to pretend it was a friend. A male friend. And then have the gall to invite me into the living room, the one he still hasn't paid the rent for, to join them, this female friend. I don't tell her as she walks down the same street, I look out the curtain, over the balcony ledge, and watch her long-legged gait, watch her disappear down the street where I saw them kiss, just hours before. I sweat, and sweep, and scream and weep, but I don't make him leave. I don't kick him out on the street, or back to his father's house. I take pity. Until I don't.

And there we are, at the store. I can't believe you don't know how many people you invited. Give me a ball park. 50? I can't remember, just last week we were listening to Antidoping's release. Hey, that kid, you know? The one who fell? He died. My stomach hurts, he died? They took him to the cruz roja, and they sent him home. He died the next day of a brain hemmorage. So young. Tears well up in my eyes, I think about the baby in my womb, and I shiver. We pick up a second case of caguamas. People will be there in an hour, I think. She chops and chops, mini-sausages, tiny, she makes finger foods, there are people streaming in the doors, the music is loud, she hands me a tequila, and I decline. She raises her eyebrows. It's not like you are going to keep this baby. I squirm under her scrutiny. I think about our trip the next day to Tepoztlán, and the Canadian doctor we are looking for. Maybe? I just don't want to drink, ok, she frowns at me, shrugs, walks back into the kitchen and keeps preparing. It is late and she falls, Mamá, Dora, Mamadora, laughter follows as she falls from one side of the car out the door in between the car and the curb. She is stuck, right where the car had pulled away, with another man, and another woman, after a kiss, a clandestine kiss, that went unpunished, or never went unpunished. She stumbles back up the stairs.

I don't see her again until that baby is almost 3, and I am heading to California, Tania is having a house warming party, and her family is all there, not to disapprove, well, not really, even though it would be better if she married before moving in. You know you can call me, she says. I will, I say, she knows I won't. I know she won't either. Her daughter is 9, she is huge, she is beautiful. I remember the Barbie that I got for her birthday all those years ago. We say good bye. It was good to see you. Yeah, we smile sadly, good to see you.

Dolores died. My mom says, and I say, Dolores? there was no Dolores. I run through the names one more time, incredulously. Dora? You mean Dora?! I shouldn't have told you, I am sorry, I didn't think. No, I want to know, I would have wanted to know. Dora? I don't know, I don't know, I shouldn't have said anything. NO, it is ok, I mean. They said it was the youngest sister. That's Dora. Honey I'm sorry. Yeah. She must be, have been 37, what will happen to Andrea? I wonder. Her brothers went to DF this weekend. I don't understand. I don't understand. I do. But I don't. Don't want to. It is so easy to let go, so easy, it is just one step, one step too far, letting go, and the downward spiral, and someone else can take care of me, of my kid, I could send her to her grandparents, there are others, disappearing into the night, into the life that asks for nothing back, for nothing, nothing. It eats away, ate her away, I think, she was so thin, so so thin. She was ill for a long time. Yes, for how long? I wouldn't know, longer than I have known her, longer than that. But the illness, it is there, lurking, yes, I feel it too. It wouldn't be hard, you know, to give oneself over to the darkness. I'll miss you Dora. I'm sorry I never called.

martes, octubre 24, 2006

In the company of women, Girls! Girls! Girls! or the derelict daughter

Never is it so apparent this need to surround oneself with members of the same sex, as when one is in crisis. Sanctuary from a storm, tears that fall with the slightest provocation. A knowing smile. We are a household of women, we are. I. happily sings, a melody that grates after five minutes (akin to AJ and my famous 12-hour journey singing "naranjito in the snow, naranjito in the snow..." in a descending scale over and over) and becomes a low background hum after that. "My mommy, my mommy, my mommy, my mommy..."

I discover, after accepting to cover a companion's class at noon, that it is parent-teacher conference week. How did such a gross detail escape me? How could I have forgotten signing the paper, 12:30, staring me back in my very own letter. I am a zombie, wandering through the days in a half daze. And still the deadlines come, and still I manage to scrape together some semblance of a presentable appearance. Is it all in my head? Does it really matter?

I bide my time and I. counts the days, down, down, down, until my mommy is back in town, to take care of me, and to (breaking her own rules) help me clean my house again, the second time for a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown (and not nearly as cute as Victoria Abreu). There is a new girl kitten to care for, shots to be administered, reproductive apparatuses to be sterilized. We are women, hear us roar. But how we cut each other down, we don't cover our backs, we fail one another too. But sometimes we don't, sometimes we make do, and we give back, and we understand that a problem isn't a solution waiting to happen, but a moment of shared gravity.

No Jardim Botânico

Here, incidentally, are the wonderful girls who filled my days with joy, during what seems more like a summer years ago, distant, light years from this, by the Douro, and the Tejo and the Mondego even still, with wind in our hair, and wine in our glasses, and pain, just a little, in our heart. We all came for different reasons, and left just a little bit wholer, for what we found.

sábado, octubre 21, 2006

Coimbra, in memories

Nacho, and Alicia were there, at the funeral. I wanted so much to see them, but not under such circumstances. Nevertheless, it was good to cry together. Tonight, I called Sara, partially because I realized that the bullshit about Tim's death being related to food poisoning was still floating about cyberspace and upsetting people from afar, but mostly because, she reminds me, "no están solas". I just wanted to hear a voice of somebody that cares. She didn't let me back out of the conference, like I had wanted, but rather convinced me to write my paper this weekend. I can do it, tomorrow.

Martina has settled into our house, she is sweet, and mostly gentle, though her one shortcoming is a propensity for biting/sucking ears of unsuspecting sleepers. I. said she was happy to be able to live with her sister, now that her daddy is gone. She doesn't cry until I do, and then she wails, and I wish I could comfort her, the way that I want to be comforted by my mother, but instead, I just hold her and we cry together. "Sara," I ask, "What do I do with all this pain? Where do I put it all?"

It is 9 pm, and instead of reading Cabrera Infante, I find that my book was lent out (not by me) months ago, and resides with a woman who won't answer my phone calls. There are days when I curse caller id, and the casual way we just flip up our screen, see who it is, and push a button if we deem them unimportant. I'll admit, I have done the same, and not only for lack of importance, but if there is something else that needs to be done before we speak, for example. It saves us from the classic, "You answer, and if it is for me, tell them I'm not here!" urgently hissed at friends and family members when avoiding a certain person.

Seeing the Nachos, as we affectionately refer to them, made me think of Coimbra, and Nacho was even debating returning this summer. I felt tempted to join him there, keep studying. I don't know. I could make it work, maybe, if I find funding as of now? For now, I will just peruse its streets with my memories.

And for those of you who would like to peruse with me, here are the pictures.

faculdade de letras

lunes, octubre 16, 2006

Requiem in G minor

Air drips thick of condensed expectation-
breath held-
an inaudible whisper
laced with crystalline teardrops,
fingers intertwined through
waves of pain,
convulsing in a body
that is not there:
A reflection of what never was
for eyes that have no home,
peeled away
one
last
time

The door clicks shut with hermetic determination,
reverberations of echoes that die
away
in an infernal half-life of desire-
light and shadow,
game of mirrors
distorting reality
into a manageable,
knowable,
crippling
eternity of words.

Ages of ice and fire
lie of truth.
Silent
answers unfurl.
Unspeakability
tearing at my breast,
no more loss,
no more loss,
no more less...

I will drive you from my bones
excise the last cancerous cell
of fear
and comfort.
I whisper to the frame
on the wall
that holds my body
in its absence,
in its decadence,
twisted,
disgraced.
A pillar of salt for you to blow away,
and miss forever
in concave dreams of lack.

viernes, octubre 13, 2006

I'm not superstitious or anything, but...

I just thought that I would (in the words of Garp) predisaster myself yesterday, thursday, october the 12th so that Friday the 13th would look joyous in comparison.

And boy let me tell you.

It could have been worse, well, maybe, I don't know, maybe not. On the bright side, there was no death, nor permanent bodily injury to anyone. I left my house in a state of virtual war zone, with a bowl of caked-on eggplant and mushroom risotto to fend for itself among the tomato crusted bowls and pots of this weekend's stew. (Normally my kitchen stays clean, needless to say, when I fall apart, so does it.)

The doctor was duly frightened by the golf-ball-sized swolen lymph nodes and prescribed hard-core antibiotics (when asked if all alcohol was out of the question he said, a few glasses of wine would be fine, now I know. I also, incidentally and most likely unrelatedly learned that Staph infections while manifesting themselves anywhere on the body, maintain their reservoir in the nasal cavities. Shocking and fascinating all at once. Alas, when I returned to retrieve my prescription, the pharmacy had already closed, so here's to three more nights in which I cannot rest my neck due to severe discomfort. Blah. Whine, sob.

Pushing ahead and sloughing through work, I did manage to finally get to Jenny at 8:45, wander around the downtown area of LA (which guaging by the concierge's baffled expression, isn't generally walked about at night, but was indeed quite safe.) We found a strange bakery/cafe that was more of a diner than anything else, and drank several cups of mediocre coffee, enough to keep us going until now (3 am). Upon return with gin and tonics in hand as she smoked a ciggy in the valet area, we were accosted by the Hummer2 driving asshole, who while crass and uncultured, managed to boast about his jet company housed in Boston and his participation in what had to be a young republicans group that sent him to South Africa, you know, to throw money at those poor ignorant black folk with AIDS and the victims of rape. And by the way, since Jenny was in town doing training for the local health department on AIDS prevention interventions, could we elucidate how it was transmitted. Christ on a cross! as a dear friend might say. The Hummer was a rental and he was highly unimpressive, but the best I could muster were a few disinterested looks and a pedantic tone while co-explaining the intricacies of why different kinds of sex were riskier than others in terms of permeability of ripped tissue.

But those, those were all minor compared to the ordeal on getting my ass to LA. As I drove, alone, I coached myself. "It'll be fine, you're making good time. You won't get lost..." in a sort of an obsessive mantra. The doctor today suggested that there is help for ocd, if I wanted it, and I was too tired to even be offended. Of course, he said his ocd got him through med school, so go figure. So I am a neurotic slob who couldn't even manage to clean out the car, and as I am passing Simi Valley, and feeling like my stomach has been punched because that is where Tim died just a few days ago, and he's NOT coming back, and it is Columbus day, which means that it would have been my anniversary, and Wednesday I have to come back for the funeral, and I don't know if I can take seeing his lifeless body, and I feel doubly sick and sad and terribly alone and Tori Amos' "Under the Pink" album is blasting, and I am singing, screaming, really at the top of my lungs along with her "Hey, what's it gonna take, til my baby's alright... ah, pretty good year" and tears are streaming down my face, and there I am focusing on the road ahead, and the cars braking slightly before me, and I suddenly realize that there are lights flashing behind me, but no siren, so I carefully wend my way across 4 lanes, and yes, it is me that is being pulled over, and I magically have all my papers in order, but the cop makes a joke about my hispanic surname, that he just arrested somebody by that name, and where did I live? And had I been drinking ? (oddly enough, no) and what was my mother's name, and where did she live? And I bit my lip and gave monosyllabic answers and nodded my head to keep from shaking or crying and tried to be polite, but my hands were trembling because in fact I had absolutely no idea how fast I was going (82 miles per hour, he said, which in my defense, was what everyone else was doing too) and when he came back, after checking again whether I had had any recent infractions (no, not in 10 years), he said that irregardless he needed to give me a ticket because I was going over the speed limit, but it was just a little ticket, he claimed, and YES he said "irregardless" which is NOT a word in the English language and Jenny, my fellow grammarian comiserated with me over this particular point, noting that police where not hired for their ability to correctly employ English or any other language for that matter. So my hand wobbled as I held the little clip board, specially designed, no doubt for traffic tickets in their unique shape and size, and he look impatient as I actually read the entire sheet that I was meant to sign, and I ask in that tremulous voice if I indeed have to go to court, as it claims on the signature line, and then the tears are building and building and he is explaining that I will get something in the mail, and I can do traffic school by internet, and I stare at his moon face and squat, bald, head as it shines the afternoon sun back in my eyes and I can't stop the tears and he starts to say that it isn't a big deal, just a traffic ticket, and I bite my lip practically to the point of drawing blood, but it doesn't make him disappear or stop saying that he knows I have been going through a lot, and I shake my head angrily while carefully averting my eyes, lest I make contact and crumble into ash right before him and he keeps talking at me about how it isn't a big deal and I hold my hand up as if to stifle his speech, and the sibilant whine of tears escapes my lips in a soft hiss. And he kindly takes the hint and tells me to take a minute to compose myself, and he'll get out of my face, and I nod him away, and then the tears really rip open and then it is an all out open sob, and I curl up against the driver's side door, and try to approximate a fetal position, and my phone is vibrating somewhere under my ass, and I can't even look to see who it is. But the crying won't stop, and the sobs build up so that I can't breathe, and I don't care about some fucking traffic ticket, but I just keep sucking wind, and gasping for breath and the last time this happened I was in a puddle on the floor in Mexico, and my mom talked me through it, five years ago maybe, but I know it is a panic attack, and all the floodgates have burst, and every last little bit of loss that has accumulated over the years, and fear, and sense of abandonment, and desire for isolation come barreling through my chest, and rob my lungs of air, and I keep hugging myself, pulling my legs up to my chest, resting my outer thigh against the steering wheel, and my hands begin to tingle, and lose sensation, and the sound of the hyperventilation itself provokes more panic, and I know I have to find that phone. So I call my mom, and she doesn't answer because, of course, she is at rehearsal, and I call my dad, and he says, call 911, but the thought of that is even worse and makes me sob harder, and I manage to croak that the police officer is still parked behind me, and thankfully isn't blaring his high beams into me as if to bore holes in the back of my head. My dad doesn't have my mom's soothing patience, but rather wants me to solve the problem immediately, get a grip! He shouts into the phone, wanting me to snap out of it, but yelling only makes it worse, and I manage to open the door and slump halfway out, and heave in short breaths, which draws the officer from his car, and my lips are tingling now too, and he wants to know if I want an ambulance, and I shake my head no, but he calls the paramedics anyway, and I apologize through gasps, that my boss just died, and when the paramedics arrive one of them is kind, and tries to talk me back down. He talks me through my options, as the fire truck pulls up in front of me, too. They can't give you anything, you can't stay here, you need to calm down. Is there anyone you can call? I weakly shake my head "no" and the men confer, and they ask about medications, and I whisper them, and explain that they are not related to amphetamines, and they insist (quite insensitively, in my opinion, knowing that I was in the process of multiple loss) that there MUST be someone I can call to come pick me up, and where did I say my parents lived, and well, they can't possibly get you and I shake my head that I know, and I want to add that there is no one who can pull me out of this but me, and the nice one seems to be fending off the others who want me to sign something and he says I don't have to, and only later do I wonder if I am going to be charged an ambulance fee, for an ambulance I didn't request, and as I am forcing, forcing, forcing myself to slow my breathing, a little laughter comes into my mind as I muse that the police officer is probably really sorry he pulled me over because of this whole stupid ordeal that it spawned, and wouldn't he feel guilty if I died, and it was all because he gave me a speeding ticket when it was really not at all necessary. And all the while my body seems to be hovering above me, and the idea of them taking me away somewhere seems almost appealing. Where would they take me? I wonder. Would it be easier there? Would everything hurt a little less, would I just give it all up, and sink under the weight of my responsibilities. The me that is hanging above the me that is still sucking wind in a slightly less tangled ball toys with the idea of a 19 nervous breakdown, juggles it in the air, like a lazy hackey sack that falls back into the hand with a satisfying beaded crunch. No. The other part of me pulls hard on the strings that are threatening to detach and float away, who needs the car? The voice asks. Would they lock me up? Would I be a criminal?

But I finally land, with a thud and a crunch inside myself. Grounded. I ask the men to leave me alone, for ten minutes. They oblige only because the one, the nice one with piercing blue eyes, makes them leave for good, and the poor shlameel that pulled me over sits and waits for me to get it together. And in another ten minutes I do, and I take a drink of water, and I apologize to him, like I did to the paramedic who was taking my blood pressure, and to the kind one who chased them away, even as they were saying I couldn't possibly drive like that, and he argued that I had no medical condition, I was just upset, and he understood, and made them go away, and made me stop apologizing, or tried. And the mortification that I felt paled in comparison to the relief of ripping open, splitting at the seams and just, for once, for the first time after all this year, letting go.

miércoles, octubre 11, 2006

Lord I got to keep on moving...

Lord I got to get on down
Lord I've got to keep on moving
Where I can't be found, where I can't be found
Lord they coming after me
---Bobbie Marley


Sometimes it feels like the only thing is to keep on rolling like a rolling stone, no moss, no loss, but that self-imposed. I barely get a chance to breathe and off I go again, this time south, though before it was north and then west.

Tomorrow I am off for several days of swanky hotels, and all around lounging. A night at the Omni in LA and a last visit with Jenny.

The cat lady of DC

Pictured, here, two weekends ago in DC but not pictured this weekend in SB as all batteries were utterly dead.

Then it is on to San Diego, before Ben and Heather's wedding, to pick up sir Jeff of monkey land, pictured here in NH this summer (for the complete set, click here, especially to see all the kids!) .

Jeffypoo

Lest I forget the recent travels north to Eagle Point Ranch, to see Kirsten or our final stint in Granada and my solo visit to Madrid.

I know, I know, moving too fast and furious for the majority. Still haven't dealt with all the images of Coimbra. My heart longs to run there, to a safe place where everything else was on hold, magical, suspended reality, safety. And yet there is a decidedly bitter taste in my mouth. Everything hurts, my egg shell heart cracks and breaks three-hundred times a day and I can't run away (as it is said) from myself. I can only run away from the people that I love, forever, or run towards them, still not quite sure which way is up, though.

lunes, octubre 09, 2006

It's all fun and games until...

Somebody loses a heart. I know, I don't feel very funny, in fact I don't feel very anything as it stands, except tired. And sad. I suppose that stands to reason. And so many reasons at that.

It all began well, or as well as could be expected, you know, the yearly barbecue, the one that no one really wants to organize but everyone wants to have. It was fun, and I somehow managed to spill wine down my white blouse, red wine, mind you, and then practically all over the acting 70-something year-old chair. He was sporting about it.

When he told me about Tim today and his voice wobbled, and he didn't realize that he was speaking Portuguese instead of Spanish (though it didn't matter because the end result was the same - we still don't know anything- he said) that was when I could cry. I had known for a full twenty minutes, or three hours, really if you count the urgent phone call before class that suggested "critical condition".

We all know what that means, but we don't want to believe it. I keep waiting to hear his voice. The joker, waiting for him to swing his door wide open and smile his devilish smile, and say "sike!" in the way only people who survived the 80's in the US can do. He was in high school when I was in elementary school, I think, not that much older now, but a universe of difference then. I wonder what he was doing, was he wearing his cowboy boots already? when I was wearing my hot-pink sweatshirts with plastic-coils, and fat neon laces in my shoes that didn't tie, and side ponytails, to compliment the acid-washed jeans whose fronts were covered in pleather, and which when I fell from my bike not only failed to protect my knee, but ripped in such unseemly ways. I had two pairs, both met the same fate, back when I would ride my biciycle for hours a day.

I can't seem to teach I. to ride her bike, I don't have the patience required, or perhaps swimming was the one lesson I could impart. Her reading is soaring in her new school, now that she can challenge herself, and direct her learning. I would have leaned halfway in and out of Tim's door and talked to him about her for a few minutes before class, and he would have cracked jokes, and offered me some gum, while popping the top off another diet coke. Always diet. Always coke. He was just 41, it seems so unfair.

And I. tells me in the car that her new best friend just went to a funeral because her twenty-year-old cousin was at a party dancing and two guys came up behind him and knifed him in the back. She says it is sad. I ask her if she is worried because she has heard me talking about a friend that has died, and she says, no, because he is already dead, there is nothing she can do but be sad for him. And she is.

If it weren't for Jenny, visiting from D.C., I might not have made it through the day. She was there when I got the initial phone call, and when I heard the bad news in my office. We were painting our toenails, waiting for office hours to end. I only finished one foot. It seemed somehow inappropriate to paint the other after such shocking news. It was just Friday that I was holding out a glass o Sangiovese for him, that he was chasing us home with barbecue utensils that he had bought for the sole purpose of the event and didn't want to take home. They are clean and sitting in my house, I can't give them away now. I held the woman who came to tell us as she shook. I couldn't cry, not then. I know my face must have twisted up into that sort of sour smirk that my mother always hated and that I made when my cat Mauritz died. One-eyed Mauritz, God I loved that cat, no wonder I. misses Baudelaire so much. I forgot how hard it is to lose someone, something. I couldn't cry, but I have learned to stifle the obscene laughter, the inversion of pain, the inability to appropriately express. She would always get angry with my response, but I didn't know how to express grief. I still can't. I get mechanical. I make lists of things to do, I help other people, I want to.

But what I really want is a hug, just someone to hold me until it passes, and it will pass, as we all pass. And the terror, yes the terror, when no one answers on the other end of the line. The terror that if one of my beloved friends were to die I wouldn't get a phone call. I wouldn't ever know, I would just let the telephone ring and ring and ring ad nauseum and finally give up, deciding that I must not be wanted anymore. That's how I have been feeling lately. Wanting to curl up inside myself and no longer give anything to anyone, not anyone, not ever again.

But then I teach my class at 10 and I think about how Tim always says that no matter how bad it is, teaching is just the thing because at least it distracts you for that one hour about how miserable you are. And I am not miserable, not in that way, just numb, and hurting for others. So I make calls, and I see my therapist, who is sweet and listens but is not ultimately the voice that I want to hear. But then I remember Tim's warning about vampire relationships, and how he wanted me to steer clear.

The day before seems light years away. All cogs fit nicely into their gears. Wheels turn smoothly. We drink (terrible) wine at Firestone, only because it is the first vineyard up Zaca Station Road. We move to the next and a little girl is tired of stuffing handfuls of pretzels with brandied caramel sauce into her hungry mouth so we give up and head into Solvang. We drink some more wine, after eating pseudo-Danish food. The town is quaint, and we entertain fantasies of biking along the windy roads, and then of other biking trips, across New Zealand, or Nova Scotia. It has been years since I biked. A miracle I was never killed, back in the days when helmets were uncool, and unrequired, and the sun actually tasted like melted butter on your tongue, caramelized sugar, honey flowing through golden curls and sweat beaded on brows.

There was a summer, all I did was read books all night long and ride my bike all day, and I wonder what happened to that girl, and will there be another chance for her? And I am confronted with the stark reality of my own mortality. I don't want to die, not yet. I don't want to die alone, but is it better any other way? So I try to conquer my desire to pull inside myself and shut out the world, but my heart hurts so much, and his heart was working overtime, too large in the literal and metaphorical senses. Who will take care of his mother? And Sara? Who will take care of her now?

I take an offering, because I am too awkward to give other sorts of comfort. My hugs seem shallow to me, I twist up inside myself, I don't know what right I have to feel anything, or to console anyone else, but I try. I put on a brave face, not the face my mother hates, I hope, but doubt, and I let my lip tremble, but that is it. I bring bottled water and mint and chamomile tea, TLC crackers with dill, and trail mix with cranberries so that when she can eat again, she'll have something with protein. I get a bear full of honey, the kind that I never buy for I because it doesn't add up economically, but I don't care, I don't look at prices. I put in a frozen quiche, and a package of curried tuna. I know she won't eat, but I hope against hope that she will.

The phone rings off the hook. Jenny calls me back. She is a comfort, and I know she has seen more, lost more than I have. I don't have any battle scars. I have lost so few, but there is always the fear. No answer. A new message on the other end. What if the family doesn't know to call me? What if they don't even know I exist. Panic, terror. I. calmly reminds me that there is nothing to be done but to feel for them. I want to feel. I field a few phone calls. I don't like the tone of my voice. I wish I could somehow invoke more tragedy. Somewhere inside of me I know it is there. I just need to dig deeper.

lunes, octubre 02, 2006

And on that note...

Feeling a bit cocky? I wonder. If ever a man felt less than masculine, he need only take a gander at such emasculated men as these, dancing, lyp-synching and, yes, stripping for all to see, and cop a feel (if for a small fee) at Perry's on the 1800 block of Columbia.

Dancing divo (and no, those aren't real)

Shakere shakira

I often wonder why Santa Barbara doesn't have such delights (not to mention the multi-ethnic spread of fabulous finger food), but perhaps sunny southern California is just a bit to concerned with conservation... ahem... of traditional values.