Floating

I float along
on the current of sound
that fills me with images and emotions
the way only great music can.
I drift through the day,
buffered from the impact of feet on floors
and slams of doors,
insulated from voices laughing,
complaining, demanding.
The words and notes
swirl around me in the air and
filter out everyone else.
This is how I numb the need,
the shaking jones of an addict,
craving and seeking
the next fix -
I am haunted by this habit
that seeps through a crack in my foundation,
where it has been buried.
It surges to life and controls me like a puppeteer;
I am at war with myself,
wanting what I don't want,
needing what I can't have.
And then I remember...
I already have it all.

History of a Heart

Once there was a girl

and she was sweet and quiet and happily religious.

She dreamed of falling in love every day until

she heard the new boy in school had asked about her,

and they went walking on the north shore of the harbor 
after school that one day,

with his friend and her friend.

And then she stopped dreaming of anything but him,

the cute boy that no one really knew yet,

and she kept him all to herself,
as they spent every day wrapped up in each other;

and she kept him safe until he left for the stupid Marine Corps,

and then they slowly fell apart.

But they loved each other so much that their division 
wasn't something they acknowledged;

she wrote to him and called him

and met him on leave in Harrisburg and Virginia Beach

and said yes when he offered her a beautiful diamond ring

on the cold and windy beach,

and she should have offered him her self, finally, 
after all the time they'd spent 
driving each other mad with desire;

she would regret that for many, many years.

She went home, and showed her friends the ring,

and was giddy for weeks,

but then he couldn't make it to her prom, at the last minute,

and she was devastated,

but a guy-friend saved the day 
and got the last tux in town 
and filled the evening with laughter and fun.

On her birthday, a few weeks later, 
she opened the door and almost couldn't smile,

she was so overwhelmed with joy and surprise:

he was there!

She cried with relief and happiness and held him so tightly; 
he cried, too.

They didn't leave each other's side for the whole weekend;

they walked on their favorite beach,
and talked about their future together -
vaguely and dreamily.

She didn't know it would be the last time she would kiss him,

or rest her face in the crook of his neck;

she didn't know it would be the last time she would see him smile at her

while telling her how much he loved her
(the last time she would see him at all).

She didn't know that someone would tell him

that she was cheating on him (she wasn't);

she didn't know that while she was starting her freshman year

at Brigham Young University in Utah,

and he was beginning his duties with Presidential Support in D.C.,

that he was drinking himself into oblivion,

almost ruining his career,

in order to drown out the lies he'd heard about her.

She didn't know that when he didn't come home for Christmas

he was letting go of her...

and maybe she was too wrapped up in her new life in Utah

to notice it as keenly as she should have.

They played phone tag a lot after Christmas,

and then it was February,

and she called him that one time, at the barracks,

and asked for him by rank and last name, as always,

and when they asked if she was his fiancé she said yes,

and then

then

the man's thick southern accent unscrambled itself in her ear,

and her brain registered the phrase he'd really said,

"He's with his fiancé," unbelievably,

wrongly,

broken world, broken heart set in motion with that phone call,

as she was given a glimpse of his world, 

so far away.

Phone tag that had finally yielded the game-ending, 
career-ending injury.

She cried for hours, then days.

She called again and was told he'd moved.

She asked her roommate to call the new number they gave her...
too afraid of what she would find
(the last time he'd had a new number,
it was a new barracks).

A woman answered; it was not a new barracks.

A woman answered; he was away for the next week, could she take a message?

A woman answered. A woman answered. "This is his wife."

She waited until he was back before she called a second time.

He answered, and she had prepared a cool, distant speech, 

quietly asking if he'd planned on telling her 
he'd married someone else, 

and then wishing him well,

even though her sad kindness was greeted with bitter cold.

Her heart was shredded into tiny slivers of light gone out.

She didn't know how to breathe anymore,

because her whole world had twisted into 
a grotesque impression of itself.

She told the story over and over, 
until the raw ends of her nerves dulled 

and it only felt like having a truck drive over her chest.

She cried herself to sleep every night for months.

She dreamed of him in vivid detail,

those dreams where you wake up crying,

panting from having been wrenched form the alternate reality

your brain created to soothe you...

she dreamed he had joined the CIA and needed to cut ties with his old life, 

dreamed that was why he'd taken a chainsaw to her heart,

why he'd severed their bond with the slash of a machete.

She called again, once.

She wanted him to know that he hadn't broken her, 

that she was fine without him.
She hoped it would hurt him,
or prove something -
what, exactly, she didn't know.

After that phone call,
she felt emptier than ever,
and when his letter arrived a few weeks later,
telling her to kindly fuck off,
she was angry
(HE was the one who deserved to fuck off)
but not surprised.

She went home that summer, 

and worked at her same job she'd had in high school, 

waiting tables at the western-themed restaurant, 

overlooking the achingly beautiful harbor.

She felt tiny and alone in the restaurant 
where he'd come to ask her on their first date, 

where he'd sent her roses after their second date, 

where he'd waited for her to finish work, 
so they could go walking down Main Street.

She stayed away from the place he gave her her first kiss,
on the street between the Thorndike 
and that jewelry store that isn't there anymore...

She went to work, 
and cried when she told Lisa P, and Jan, and Shirly, and Beth...

they hugged her and told her 
it would take twice as long as they'd been together 
to get over this kind of thing...

four years sounded like an eternity,
and she wasn't sure she could make it.

She let Greg and Glen make fun of him, 

because it made her smile a little through her still-puffy eyes.

She developed a crush on Glen because he wasn't out of the closet yet;

she was disappointed when he introduced her to his friend,

but the friend was almost the perfect salve for her still-crushed heart.

He wasn't her type; 
she didn't like him that much; 
but he would fall in love with her, 
and that felt like a necessary step to healing...

She felt so selfish after she broke his heart

(because it's only a matter of time 

before you break the heart of a person 

who thinks you love them).

She did throw her virginity at him 
in a lousy attempt to get back at her sweet boy 
for marrying someone else; 
it didn't work, obviously.

It did open the door for her to escape mormonism, though, 
so it wasn't a total loss.

And then...there were the Utah boys - 

long-haired stoner boys to rescue her 
from the homogenous dating landscape of BYU, 

where she had never quite belonged.

She hopped from one to the next, 

hoping that in one of their beds would be the magic potion, 

allowing her heart to heal, instead of limping along, still dripping blood.

After a while, she grew tired of the games, 
and took a break from it all, 

then met the man she would marry.

She knew as soon as they met that they would marry; 

at a certain point, she didn't really want this, 

but she felt like it was what was supposed to happen, so she did.

He was broken, and she thought she could fix him, classic story.

His childhood had been so hard, 

so she excused him for his roughness, 

for his coldness, 

for his insane jealousy.

She closed her eyes and turned her head away 
while he spent hours fucking her.

She dreamed of far away places and sweet Marine faces 

while the pain spread where pleasure should be.

She kept heaping more love on him, 
but it slid off like sand, and piled up at his feet.

She crafted a perfect life,

pushed the boulder of housewifery uphill all day every day, 

to make his home happy,

but somehow it was never enough.

She dreamed of her home in Maine,

hating the oppressive social fabric of Utah,

feeling trapped there, trapped with him.

She grew weary of not being loved, 

and of his constant accusations of infidelity.

She found herself again, when the babies were 2, 

and she started working out and writing;

she felt strong and beautiful and necessary.

She flirted with the idea of never trying to satisfy him again,

and the idea of falling in love again;

she continued to crave Maine with the fervor of an addict.
She found loopholes,
and almost slipped away from him -
in fact, she did, in her heart & her mind.
But he wasn't ready to let go,
so they tried to fall in love with each other again (for the first time).

For a few months it seemed like it had worked,

but then everything went back to the same old,

and she knew it wasn't only his fault,

that she was to blame for her own misery;

she would never be satisfied with this

(later, she would wonder why it seemed so bad, so impossible, but it was.)

She would be relieved when he finally asked for a divorce;

unaccountably, and briefly, she would be jealous of the woman

who came over the night she moved out,

the woman who replaced her in his life as seamlessly as a fulfilled warranty.

She would delight in settling into her pretty little house with her sons

and the cat they got to have since Dad was allergic,

but they didn't live with Dad anymore...

this broke her heart too much to really love the cat.

She thought about getting wings tattooed on her back,

because all she'd wanted for years was to fly away from that man,

but now she didn't need wings; she was free.

She was happy.

And then she found her soul mate, the sweetest man on earth,

who loved everything about her and was everything she'd dreamed of;

every cliché, every love song.
Miraculously, he was from her home town,
and had recently moved back;
like a dream come true, she joined him there.

Her heart was finally whole again, and she gave her entire soul to him;

this would prove too painful,

so she had to pull back a little, and keep some of herself for herself,

but it didn't diminish her love for him,

or her sense of security and blissful joy.

Blending their families was harder than she'd expected;

leaving her cherished hometown nearly broke her;

living on the plains of Iowa was as barren as it sounds.

She would follow him around the country,

like a devoted puppy,

never quite daring to put down roots,

and not even daring to hold onto her dream of returning to Maine.

She tumbled along, letting her world revolve around him,

because her heart was beating in his chest.

She was happy; he was her home.

Circle Jerks

Too many--

I would say thoughts,

but maybe it's more like emotions?

Maybe it's both;

Too many, too much--

I can't really discern through the fog of anger.

I want Louis C.K. to be treated fairly,

and I am fairly

certain

he is not.

I think women who thought he was gross

accepted his apology years ago

(years after the incident, incidentally)

and then shouted about how wrong it was

that he did the thing

he said was going to do--

the thing that they stayed and watched, while laughing,

after going back to his room for drinks.

I get that there is a level of Pressure there

that I probably don't get.

But how is making someone uncomfortable

at all the same as

a hand on a specific set of body parts 

(pushing, pulling, needing, kneading)?

I know that I would feel different if the man in question were repulsive to me,

but I would say that he wasn't repulsive to them intrinsically - 

they wanted something from him, too,

in that subtle way that life is a negotiation:

we get what we want from each other in many ways,

small and large,

pointed and subtle;

saying "please" and "thank you" gets us less spit in our hamburger,

for example,

while hugging a sad friend builds the trust and care between two people and benefits the hugger at some point--

some spectrum of this exchange is a part of so many aspects of life,

from the subconcious to the blatant.

They wanted what he had to offer (career boost) and they thought going back to his room and having a drink would lead to getting what they wanted;

instead he asked them if he could do something that is generally categorized as weird,

and they laughed because they didn't think he was serious,

and he began to undresss and do the thing he'd said he was going to do.

I can understand being surprised by this, and feeling yucky about it,

but after he called years later to apologize, why still throw it back at him?

It seems 

petty and spiteful.

It seems 

like an attention grab.

And I can't seem 

to let it go.

Because unfairness is so abhorrent to my prickly little sensors,

and because of something else, 

something I can't put my finger on, 

and so I go around and around with it,

parrying and retreating.

We have decided 

that people can decide 

so much about their own sexuality,

and that is beautiful, and wonderful, and we aren't even all the way there yet, I know,

but what about letting people have a little room for testing boundaries? 

It is unsettling to settle for 

wondering 

where those boundaries are 

as I navigate the waters myself

and attempt to usher so many sons through them, too.

Maybe I'm ruffled by the question 

"What if the roles were reversed?"

What if Lisa Lampanelli had masturbated in front of two handsome young men?

Would they be complaining?  

Maybe.

Or maybe not...

Maybe I feel like saying, 

"Why don't you talk to your therapist about how this made you uncomfortable, 

rather than ruining a guy's career because you couldn't deal??"

I just don't know.

I know that what he did is far away from 

what Harvey Weinstein and Kevin Spacey did 

on the spectrum of misbehavior.

I know that he didn't assault anyone,

and that he thought that asking meant it was ok - 

the fact that he now realizes that was incorrect is not surprising to me; 

he is so insightful to the human condition, 

and it feels like the kind of thing he would have figured out as he matured, 

and figuring it out, he would have felt guilt,

which is what happened.

I go 'round and 'round.

I can't seem to solve this riddle.

The riddle of how to feel about this.

How to live in a world where a man like Louis 

can be villainized because some women he apologized to years ago 

decided to pile on to the "Hollywood is full of pigs" bandwagon....

fuck....around I go, again.

I worry that I can't feel settled about this because I'm wrong.

What if I'm wrong?

(or at least I suspect that all my fiercest, 

dearest friends would think so, if they knew

--knew that I don't condemn this man, that I adore him still)

What if I need to dig deeper and find unforgiveness for the man?

Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I'm not wrong.
Because Louis isn't wrong.

Maybe I'm just grieving.
(denial, bargaining)

Maybe I'm just going to have to keep readingandthinkingandtalking 

about this until it stops feeling so bad.

Fuck.

Immovable

Sometimes it makes me sad that my mother is so
immovable.
She doesn't have room in her right/wrong columns
to add anything new to her "right" side.
She can't
won't?
doesn't
conceive that there could be a reason for me to include lots of gorgeous,
richly textured FUCK words into my life, my world, my writing.
I can't imagine sharing with her the chapters I'm working on right now for my book about boys.
(especially the Frank one, where there is already lots of "fuck"ing,
soon to be lots of fucking;
or the Gary one, its ugliness almost invisible beneath the sunshine she herself created)
I can't imagine her ever being able to allow for the belief
that tattoos are holy,
that listening to fingers on ivory,
while a Russian girl sings her jagged, sparkling poetry
could be a spiritual experience.
I can't imagine my dear, sweet mother
ever sliding anything from her "wrong/naughty/bad" column
even a little closer to the line of her "acceptable/right/proper" column.
And I can't imagine
not imagining
all the wicked things
and delicious things
and beautiful, raw, wild things!
I'm grateful, though, that she doesn't push me into her columns -
which one would I fit in?
Certainly not the "acceptable/proper/right" one,
but what does that leave?
Because I don't exist in a world of black and white,
I exist in all the vivid shades of grey,
that aren't visible to my colorblind mother.

Listening to Regina Spektor last night,
my thoughts were drifting and charged.
The collection of stories I'm writing this month -
she whispered to me that it's a kaleidescope of boys...
all the ways I've loved them
since I first started dreaming of them
as a very small child.
Has there ever been a more boy-crazy girl?
No, probably not.
I'm working through some of the hard stories right now,
but leaving the hardest for another day...
for a day when I have all day to sit with it,
because they don't call them "daddy issues" for nothing.

Lullaby Set List

Sometimes Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here," comes on the radio,
or cycles through in my playlist,
and when it does,
I always smile.
I see myself sitting in the dark,
with one twin snuggled onto my lap in the rocking chair,
and the other waiting his turn in the nearby crib.
I would sing a few of the usual nursery rhymes, as well,
but the three songs that were always a part of my bedtime routine were
"Wish You Were Here,"
"Puff the Magic Dragon,"
and Suzanne Vega's "The Queen and the Soldier."
I remember looking up the lyrics for "Puff the Magic Dragon,"
so that I would know all the verses;
same for Suzanne Vega.
I remember how good it felt to sink into that chair
at the end of a long day chasing those two around.
I remember how soft their little cheeks were,
and how solid their warm little bodies were,
as we slipped into dreamland.
Now they drive themselves to work and school
and tower over me.
They are hilarious and generous and kind
and my heart is full,
but I stare longingly at their baby pictures and
wish they were here...

Tragedies

I used to think they only happened to other people,
and then I found out they happen to anyone,
anytime.
I think I kind of thought I would live forever,
or at least,
I didn't really believe that death could be so
wrenching
sudden
world-skewing.
I'm not sure how I failed to comprehend,
since I'd lost a cousin, a brother, a friend's toddler brother, a cousin's husband...
all so close to my sphere,
so young,
so unexpected.
But, I guess...just not quite close enough to my daily life,
for me to feel the impact,
for me to see the absence in every room,
in the driveway,
in my husband's eyes.
When the one lost was violently snatched from within your grasp,
from under your roof,
moments after you heard his footsteps enter and exit...
When you are the one to answer the door to the 4 men in uniforms,
and then you stand alone in that big,
emptier-than-ever house,
and try to figure out who to call first,
how to call,
how to say the words,
where to start...
He was so young, so full of potential.
But this tragedy was much less complicated for me to process than the next.
The next is far too sad,
far too filled with
all that I could have
SHOULD HAVE
done differently.
It is filled with a bond that never seemed like it was all it should be,
from the very start of my life,
and certainly wasn't, at the end of his.
I will break apart inside if I have to think about that night again.
I tried to process it all in the aftermath,
but sometimes
everyone keeps telling you there was nothing you could have done,
and they say it over and over until you want to scream at them with ragged rage,
and reject their ridiculous absolution -
they don't know that you held anger in your heart,
they don't know that you didn't know he needed help,
but that you bloody well should have.
They don't know that their forgiveness isn't what you need,
or how it feels to know you should have taken a deep breath
and forgiven him,
and been able to see how broken he was...
They are wrong.
It was definitely my fault.
This is the one I will someday
maybe
figure out how to live with.

Word Count

Today is the first day of NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month.
The goal of this endeavor is to write 50,000 words during the month of November.
If I average 1,667 words per day, I will meet this goal.

Today's Word Count: 1551

11/7 Updated Word Count: 4334

I'm still behind my goal, but at least I'm writing! Woot!

11/9 Updated Word Count: 6053
11/12 Updated Word Count: 8750
11/14 Updated Word Count: 10,852