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| This evening I went to the first of what may become a habit of creative writing sessions at the local community center. I kind of loved it--a table full of every kind of person who'd care enough to sit and share. Afterward I made eye contact with a kid named Joe who'd been across the table from me. He sleeps at the community center and he has plucked out both his eyebrows and has written with permanent marker on his backpack 'Don't Fucking Touch!' He walked up to me and said, 'I can tell by what you write that you like to be transported. Well, read this,' and he handed me a notebook of poems he'd written. His handwriting is impeccable. Cursive and even and light. His poems were about sailboats and moonlight and a mother's love. I wanted to say 'exactly!!' but I think I just said, 'yes.' He realized he'd found an audience, so he pulled another notebook from his bag. It was full of beautiful ink drawings of Egyptian gods and wolves and tigers. They were strong enough to make my breath catch. I said, again, 'yes!' The first few pictures were smudged and wrinkled. I ran my finger along the spine of the tiger on the front. Water damaged. I said, 'shame these first ones got wet!' and he told me, 'I was sleeping at my friend's house in New York and his pit bulls peed on this.' I didn't pull my hand back quickly the way I wanted to. I was gentler. I said, as I was being called away, 'I can't think of anything I like more than a drawing of a crouching tiger.'
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| I’d been asking Scott to demonstrate a new mouthpiece he’d gotten for his sax, and this was a good opportunity. It juices me. Like, turns me to juice. A private concert from this king of music. I curled up in his recliner and he stood to play just a few feet away. He played through some of his classical repertoire for a half hour or so, and between pieces he’d ask what I’d thought and my response would be to stand up and stick my tongue in his mouth. Oh my word, it was brilliant. He’s brilliant. He loves playing for me, because I love listening to him, and he knows, he fully knows that I will do anything to hear him play, and anything after I’ve just heard him. Later that night I said something I hadn’t meant to share—my odd memory of what it was that lit him up in my mind. I know the exact event that took him from being, to me, simply a mad-talented sax player and turned him into a freaking magnet. It was at a community wind ensemble rehearsal three years ago, and I was playing a borrowed English horn for one of the pieces but the neckstrap was missing. In the minutes before the rehearsal had begun I was whining to the conductor about how heavy the thing gets without support, and lo, out of the blue this random guy from a few rows back—Scott—was coming up behind me with string and some sort of foam pad (who knows where he'd found these), and was tying it through the loop on the back of the English horn and around my neck. The conductor laughed and said, ‘he’s tying a rope around your neck! Do you trust him?’ and I said something like, ‘shouldn’t I?’ and sat perfectly still while he adjusted it. Scott didn't say a word. He just swept in and swept out. Fixed it. This was when I changed the way I looked at him. This was when he took on a fourth dimension. This particular memory had popped into my mind that evening as I’d been following the line of the sax up between his fingers and into his strong, soft mouth and then traced the veins down his solid sandpaper neck to where the neckstrap rested. And I thought of the way I’d felt years ago in that odd single moment of collision we’d had. He was delighted with this story. And said he remembered it. I’m not sure he actually does, but I think he remembers the sentiment. I didn’t mean to tell him this. It’s a little bit of myself that I can’t get back, that private feeling of aha. It’s giving him a little more power than he had before. But I think I’m glad I gave it up like that. I still have other memories I can hold onto as bargaining chips. | | |
| I woke before my alarm and had an extra hour to sit in the kitchen and sip and think.
I had a fight with silver symbolism and won.
The cats reminded me of the value of an ambush.
My eyes devoured red and gold dipped trees.
My ears were given a gift--sounds the shape and texture and flavor of an apple. Fresh and tangy and crisp.
There was a hill, and the world at my feet.
I ran towards the sun through a field of brittle corn.
I remembered the words and what they mean.
I overcame a low-grade panic through sheer, muscley reason.
I was a feast.
I feasted.
I tasted love on my tongue.
I felt at home. | | |
| My friend SB is one of my favorite people. Scott teases me for defining so many people this way--as a favorite of mine. But damn, there are people I just love and there are a lot of them and they're my favorites. SB is amazing. She's going to massage school. And asks her friends to volunteer as test clients. She spent a little over two hours giving me a full body massage this afternoon. I am still relaxed, chill to the point of bliss, and that's even after we overdosed on chicken ranch pizza and had a very intense game of Phase 10.
I woke up three times this morning. The second was the best.
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| Here's me again, up past midnight because of a boy. Now I'm wide awake and he's just left and I can still smell him in the air of my room. I spent more than an hour today trying to define him. My conclusion at the end of it all was: I think this must be real because I'm not having to try to be a good girlfriend. I am a great girlfriend to him because of who I am, and it's easy and it's perfect and it's selfless. If I were someone else none of this would work. Also, beautiful music makes him cry. You have to love that.
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