The Apple

When I was young, my mother would let me play in the garden next to our house, and this is where I met my little snake boy.

He was not a real snake. Nor exactly a boy. But he wasn't make-believe, despite what my indulgent parents pretended not to think. He was my little snake-boy. Tall and expressive as a regular boy. But where skin usually lay its fortress between self and other, his body was covered with beautiful iridescent scales from head to toe. Even his curly dark hair had that rainbow sheen and the locks flew out over an imbricated scalp.

Where my eyes were dots over blue, his were long slits over amber. When our eyes met, we made little exclamation points between us. Water and sky blending with fire and earth to complete some essential cycle. That was how it felt.

I couldn't say exactly when we met. It felt in so many ways as if we'd always known each other. Always played together. Surely we must have met, but I guess I was too young to note it. The "imaginary friend snake" was legendary and traced to years before I ever would have ambled the garden alone.

We were the dearest of friends, as only children can be. With a flick of his little forked tongue, he conjured such poetry for me. And I fed my fantasies and curiosities into our cauldron of creation. We rode camels through snow fortresses. Commandeered clouds to visit the stars. Fought princesses to save dragons. And murmured the nothings of youth that contain secrets of the universe only children ever know.

On sunny days, he'd bask at my back in the middle of the grass. I, a human heat rock, putting out warmth and soaking in that guileless affection he returned. How my warm hand cooed to feel the sweet smooth bumps of his as we stared into the fauna in a sapid silence.In the snow, we'd wrap ourselves together in coats and blankets, my heat flushing us both. Always warm. Always sweet.

My friend. My little snake-boy.

Days and seasons passed and still we met, refusing to heed the elements that threatened our daily meetings. Rain became oceans to pull our ships through. Snow, the arctic caves of untold demons. Sleet was merely diamond falling from the sky. A hurricane would have been a giant's bad head cold.

Our worlds only intersected there in the garden and - to us - that was how it should be. Though sometimes I wondered what would happen to us when the garden was no more. When I went away. Or perhaps when he left. But only sometimes. Only thoughts that rapidly floated to the periphery amidst secrets and adventures.

!!!!

Then came my twelfth birthday. An important day, we both felt. Things had long threatened to change; blossoms felt about to burst. I'd been dragged through a hundred preambles of how my body and mind would morph in the coming years. Jokes about the looming "teen years" from my parents were endlessly creative and foreboding. And I noted the evolution and stirring of certain sensations when particular others come into my orbit.

It was a full, busy day and I was hard-pressed to make our daily appointment. Only through some deceit and half-truths did I manage to carve the time. Late and very tired with cake and celebrations, I was afraid he'd have given up on me. But, as always, he was waiting at the bench where we most liked to sit. His little amber eyes flickered when I entered their orbit.Slowly, he rose to hug me so tightly I lost my breath.

"You are grown, now?" His own voice broke, presaging other looming changes.

I laughed. Twelve felt old at the time, but I knew how much was left on the gamut to adulthood.

Shyly, he presented a small bijoux from his coat pocket.

An apple. But unlike any I'd ever seen. An ombre sunset in a tiny globe no bigger than my 12 year old fist. My nose reeled with the heady sweetness the skin alone exuded. My heart fluttered like a wild bird desperate to escape its rib-cage, strangely intoxicated by its aura.

"My family says I will have one of these when I am almost grown. And that when I've finished it, I will be grown. I thought perhaps, in lieu of more cake and treats..."

It is hard to describe a rainbow blushing, but it made my skin tingle to see just that in my friend's changing face.

"It's from a very rare tree," he explained. "Once you've had one, you will never need another. Its sweet-tart will be with you forever." He shrugged. Clearly unsure what he meant.

I laughed again, not understanding, but giddy with the day. Giddy with his tone and importance. Was I truly grown in his eyes? A woman? I flushed a mild crimson and snorted in a very inelegant fashion.

Shyly, I squeezed his hand and kissed his scaly cheek, blushing with unexpected heat. Whatever came from him was the sweetest and richest of treasures. I knew that and no more.

Should we try some? I asked.

He coughed. "I don't think I'm grown yet," he stuttered.

"You and I have grown together. If I'm grown, then you must be."

He cocked his head slightly, flicking his lips with a nervous tongue.

"Am I?" I hesitated, dropping his hand. "I don't know that I feel very grown even still. Perhaps next year? For most things, adults are 18. Maybe then? Or before college? How do you know you're grown"

He shrugged and shook his head. "So silly of me. I got so excited, I didn't think. Please think nothing of it." he said, sadly. Looking at his hand, a little tear welled, disappointed to fail me with a premature offering I supposed. He shoved the bauble back in his pocket and stepped back into the bench.

My heart fluttered again. "No, no," I said, grabbing his wrist and donned my bravest face. "I can be ready. I will be if you hold my hand! It smells amazing! I want to taste it!"

How sweet that small fruit smelled. How its aroma danced in my nostrils and triggered rivers in my mouth!

I took the fruit in my hand surprised at its heft and substance.

The first bite:  my teeth tearing through skin and pulp like feet crunching a dance in fresh fallen snow. When the juice exploded against my gums, I tasted all of heaven.

True heaven. I felt every moment of love and affection in my life, those had and those yet to be had. Coursing through my veins and bursting through my pores was unadulterated love. The warmth of the womb. Suckling in my mother's arms. Grandparents and relatives I'd not learned to remember. I felt a million embraces, and slowly a soft stimulating squeeze on my shoulder. Lips tracing lines on my body. Skin crushing away the distance between organs... bliss in every guise.

"Ahhhhhhhh" managed to rumble in my throat as I pressed our intertwined hands against my snake-boys' face. Our eyes exclaimed for one short burst, before a piercing scream overtook the moan.

Surprised to hear my own voice, I reeled straight into an agony I could never have fathomed. I felt my mother's bitter sleepless tears as she quietly begged me to finally, finally sleep. Flares of acid anger between mother and father where their ways of loving me clashed. I felt the ripping pain of loss, loss of trust, loss of reliance, loss of certainty, loss of the unimpeachable expectation of love. The surest awareness that my parents would die. I knew that my friends and I would grow apart. How often my dearest friends were destined to become strangers again. How often affinity was circumstance alone. How fragile it all was and how contrived. I felt love after love and comfort after comfort ripped from the deepest pit of my core. Watching every loved one betray, leave, die, forget...

I saw my little snake boy frozen in terror, staring at my face, flinching from my hand's force. Terrified. Unfamiliar. Unable to understand. Apart.

Anger welling inside of me, I cursed and swore. Wresting my hand from his, I pushed him so hard we both fell back away from each other. Still shaking with horror and rage, I landed heavily, the piece of apple lodging in my throat.

I remember less from there. I know he did not save me. I know he was not there when I woke up in a hospital bed several hours later. My last memory was of my dear little snake boy falling backwards and away- suddenly silenced - while I could no longer call to him.While he didn't even know my breath was blocked.

From my understanding, another visitor had found me. I'd coughed out the apple on my own, but in that stir, had hit my head quite soundly on a little statue near the fountain.

I was ill for days, though there was no particular physical etiology. There was a brief dalliance with therapy that I studiously attended, keeping my thoughts and feelings hidden in a polite compliance. No particular trauma was identified, and everything was chalked up to an overstimulating birthday party, some stolen sips of wine, and some fight with a little boyfriend or other.

While I recovered, I thought of going back to the garden with a mix of terror and anticipation. I gathered strength with this end in mind, but had no idea how that strength would be channeled. Had I hurt him? Did I want to hurt him? Had I forgiven him? Had he forgiven me Would he ever see me the way he had before? Would I embrace him or beat him when we met again?

He wasn't there, the day I finally was well enough to go. Or for several days after. And then I knew nothing would ever be the same.

***

We all live with the understandings I gleaned that day. We all carry on, and so did I. Though not without that wariness we come to carry.

 Love came and receded with a tidal flow. My parents lived on. They failed me. We repaired. I failed them. We repaired. Not always tidily. Trudging through those legendary teen years, I learned that life was sloppy and that our struggles were ultimately our own. That we float through distinct pains and agonies, always tangent and never touching. I knew the craving for connection and how only the smallest tastes and illusions would slake that thirst and only for so long.

Loneliness and I became interwoven. Not the boredom of naptime and time outs I'd remembered from childhood. This loneliness thrived in crowds and ran rampant howling through intimate relations. It clung to the constant awareness that we bear our lives apart. That we see nothing the same. That love runs its course on separate timelines for each of us.That what felt like love was sometimes only whim, boredom or pride.That nothing separates us faster than our misfortunes and pains.

Begrudgingly I tried to ignore the loneliness, and to cherish - where I could - the moments where it faded. The pressing of flesh to flesh. The seconds lost in another's gaze. The shared laugh. The timeless moments meant to fade and the echoes of their memories. Those illusions of connection. I stifled the knowledge of death as best I could. I tried to live in the moment as time tore me through moment after dissonant moment.

I studied anger from every angle, and met the fear and sadness the sparkled through its prism. I'd never been an angry child, but I made up for that in my teens. My friend had betrayed me, and he was only the first to do so. He gave me a gift I could not bear, and left me when it had its poisonous effect. Variations on that theme were always present. Every subsequent failure of friend or family echoed that moment and that look. Every gift carried a tinge of apprehension.

But over time, I learned also concern and sadness were never killed by anger.

I learned affection outlives betrayal. That missing isn't dependent on some objective worthiness. That license granted to one's central being was irrevocable. I felt the absence of my little friend so strongly that it amounted to its own presence. The way I tried, and mostly failed, to find that sameness that once came so easily. Those exclamation points.They morphed within me, creating their own narratives.

 The anger faded to disappointment; a constant lingering disappointment coating and dulling every other feeling.

Each soft hand reminded me of the smooth scales it lacked. The warm bodies I pressed to my back felt infernal. Chatter of poetry, art, politics, celebrity, day to day life: all stimulated in some way, but remained colorless against those remembered confidences of youthful fantasy.

 Riding the bus to work, sometimes, I'd close my eyes and revisit one of our old fantasy haunts. Hoping, sometimes, to find him there. Sometimes I caught a flicker, but always his back as he ran away.

In time I stopped looking even within myself. Though he was never fully gone. His memory kaleidoscoped in a million fragmented directions. Bits and pieces of him (and all the people I'd since left or lost) reflected in every surface. But in such small glints, one would be hard pressed to trace the element back to any one quality or element. More and more attenuated as time passed. And time kept passing. Life kept living and dragged me along in its currents.

Then one day we found each other again.

Sort of.

Not what I would have expected: A tall man with dry, perfunctory peach skin. Ordinary dark hair. A slight beard covering up the well chiseled angles of his face. Behind tinted glasses, his eyes were largely hidden.

Nor did they meet mine, ours both diving to the ground with an instinctive shyness unfamiliar to us. We stood together in line without a sliver of recognition for several minutes. Each of us queuers so wrapped in our individual cellophane of illusory privacy and digital escape.

 If the writhing mass of people hadn't lurched like a grumpy beast. If I hadn't stumbled. If he hadn't caught my arm without thinking. If ... if something hadn't felt different in that brief clasp. If my scalp hadn't tickled just so with a premonition.

"You!" I whispered, provoking a visceral wave through his body, which rebounded through mine.

"You? a whisper returned.We stepped back with ceremony to see each other.

"But how? What happened...? You've changed!" I gulped out rudely.

"This is how we grow," he shrugged. "But you. You have changed, have grown too. More than... more than... you were young. We were so young.." A ripple spread across his taut cheeks, and I imagined that boyish tear of disappointment. Across this grown man's face, stretched something I didn't fully recognize.

We laughed a small painful round to fill the silence between us.

"It was a long time ago," I cleared my throat sheepishly. The anger so very far away, but the fear remaining. My empty hand itching. Neither hugging nor beating was present in my body. Simply a tentative hesitancy, as if my friend were made of paper and readily crumpled with a wrong breeze, and a yearning for the moment not to end. A need to hoard every second of this passing encounter, even as it too held a small twinge of disappointment.

We sat outside a cafe that day, saying little. Breathing deeper breaths, ever deeper. Shivering from our respective corners of the bench, but warmed somewhere deep inside.

As we parted, he hesitantly flicked a finger against mine. Our eyes connecting through glass to form little question marks.

 "You are still she, my friend. My friend..."

"Yes," I stuttered. "My ..." I trailed off... My little snake boy was no longer little nor a boy. Nor really a snake. How was he at all the same? And yet. There he was. I felt the space between us fill with flavors I'd nearly forgotten. I smelled his soft scents. I tasted hints of his breath, and saw camels and adventures. My palm replayed the cool roughness of his finger, that roughness my hand had sought in every hand since.

".. my friend. My dear, dear friend. Please let's do this again. Soon!"

And we did. Never the same place. Always hesitantly. But feeling the warmth grow. I remembered fantastical stories we'd shared. Who we'd been. All the different characters and facets of potential selves. Seeing myself, the heroine, again layered my inner chambers with a fleecy warmth. Little buds planted deep inside stirred in the heat of my inner suns.

Over time we met more often and became more comfortable. We gradually shared our lives, piecemeal at first. Then we shared our stories. Our news. The minutia of our quotidian routines.Our random observations and associations.

 It wasn't the same, of course. Childhood and all its innocence lends itself to something inimitable. But it was ... nice. So very nice. I felt little ice floes begin to thaw.

We talked like grown ups then, but sometimes dragons and camels crept in in jest. It made my scalp tickle just so, and my hair bounce in invisible breezes.

He visited my apartment. I visited his. Sometimes we saw each other with friends. Sometimes alone. Sometimes we just watched tv together and argued about celebrity couples and thruples. Our lives were unfantastical. But some little magic permeated ever moment. The depth of wordless familiarity perhaps, though my gingerness remained.Still so delicate and so tentative.

***

One evening, we were finishing dinner at his house. While helping to clear the table, I opened his fridge. My body jolted to see what sat in the upper shelf of that fridge. Adrenaline burning through my chest. A small gasp, and I staggered back, dropping the leftovers I'd brought.

My friend rushed to my side. Seeing what I had discovered, he closed the fridge door with ceremony. His hand pressed little patterns through my shirt as it gently steered me back to the living room. My head rustled a little to feel the contact.

 Sitting across from me, my friend studied the floor intently. In a deep bass, he intoned, "I am sorry. More than you can imagine. More than I can ever say."

As if to leave it at that, he stood again and began to walk to the table.

"But... how?" I managed to murmur out.

"How what?" he turned and offered me my water glass.

"It is what I think it is, isn't it?"

His eyes fell like a feather in the breeze, and his body matched the descent as he alit on the far edge of the sofa.

"The fruit, you mean," he said with a window rattling sigh.I felt him near me again, our breath eroding the space between us.

I said nothing.

Slowly he stood, removed himself to the kitchen and returned, a small apple in his hand. Again my heart found wings to beat against its cage.

Still a sunrise ablaze. Still dazzling white meat. A little twelve year old bite marking mountains in the middle.

"I was wrong then," he said. "It wasn't time. I am so so sorry. I could never ask you to forgive me." 

I laughed nervously again, a mix of nausea and overwhelming hunger battling in my belly. The sweet fruit saturated my senses.Small currents of anger, fear, and sadness beat against each other, filling my throat with lumps and bouncing my heart like a ball from a skyscraper.

"We were children. I was a child. I had no idea what you would taste. What it would show. But... When it was my turn, God, I saw. You and your face and all that I had given to you. What you live with now... I've seen what you've seen. But I've also more. So much more."

For a moment our eyes flickered towards each other, then scattered apart in a spasmic jerk. Our hands nearly touching, yet infinite halves apart. I shuddered. He buried his gaze in the cushions.

Clearing my throat, I shook my head, unable to offer an unrequested absolution. Unable to understand. Unable to even question how such an object had remained, pristine, in his care.

The space to speak was slowly receding again. I watched it close with a mild anxiety, but could say no more.

I am ready, now," he suddenly announced. "It would be different. You don't ever have to see this again. But if you ever you want another bite, I will be here with you... if you want me."

He wiped his eyes hastily and returned the apple to the kitchen. We drank our teas in a crushing silence, until time and distraction lightened the mood. Small talk obdurately intervened to chase away the ghosts that hovered between us. After a time, I stumbled home and slept poorly. So aware that night that we were not who we had been. Mourning our innocence. More aware of the distance.

The morning after, my curiosity emerged. I could recall that first taste with timeless clarity. The spritz of juice. The ecstatic burst of sweetness. The crushing bitter that followed. Would it taste so bitter with all that I'd tasted since? Could anything surprised anymore?

The next night we were together, I asked about the apple. He didn't answer in ways I could understand. Only that it was from a rare plant. Only that he had kept it so long, caring for it as gingerly as he'd been unable to do for me. Only that if I ever wanted to taste again, there was more to it... I demurred that night.

And several nights after. He never mentioned it on his own, but some days I did. Some days I sought it in his fridge and stroked it gently the way one pets a wild panther before withdrawing nervously.

 Sometimes I'd forget the apple. Sometimes I would be so fully engrossed in life that I barely even saw my friend, let alone the wonder in his fridge. Sometimes we drank coffee at a shop and exchanged perfunctory pleasantries from a comfortable distance. Sometimes I dreampt of our childhood, when my back oozed its warmth into his cold but loving belly.

I don't know why that one night, it suddenly came back to me the way it did. I found myself at his door, quite late. Fresh off a professional disappointment. Recently having fought with my mother. Lonely for a never-quite-ex. Otherwise having lived life.

Having had a dream I couldn't remember, but which surely featured the spring-water-fresh juice of that apple in his fridge.

Knowing he'd be home and awake, and trusting his gentle invitation to stop by "anytime," I came. We talked pleasant nothings and serious somethings, while I nursed a tea and wrestled with some lingering guilt for the hour. A light pause settled on us like first snow. Drowsiness caressed us both. We settled deeper into the sofa and into each other.

Erupting from that peace, I found myself demanding how could one know if they were grown.

He shrugged and said it didn't matter, really.

I flinched indignantly. As if perhaps, he were implying I was still a child. That he had eaten his apple and I had recoiled from mine. Almost heady with dare, though none had really been offered, I pressed on.

"That damn apple? When would I be ready? According to the big whoevers who set this all in motion."

"You?" he snorted a little puff. "Only you can say that. I only know that I am ready."

"I want to try it." I said, surprising myself with unanticipated resolve.

"Then I would say, you're ready," he intoned this with a patina of hesitancy that rankled ever so. I shared his doubt. Wasn't I doing this to prove something as much as I'd once tried it to please him? Was that really ready?

He solemnly sliced the apple and arranged it on a plate. A rough hand extended towards mine as I picked up the first bite - a piece worn down with my little teeth marks.

"I'm here," asserted a voice so solid it inhabited the room. And somehow, in that thick velvet proclamation, I did feel ready.

And so I bit down, the crunch echoing through the room and down into my toes with such resonance.

The rush was the same as before, though now so much more familiar. The same sense of love and blissful dependence. The same turn to pain and disappointment. My mother's tearful angry face. The flinch as she realized how much she wanted to hit her crying child. The hatred that flared between parents in rapid moments of forgetting. Profound disappointments. Anger. Eye rolling. The stench of their fallibility and mortality.

I winced. The anger had bled out of me. The hurt pooled. A rough hand, fingers coiling mine, heaved me back to that quiet room and stifled my gag reflex.

I picked up the second piece. The blossoming of new friendship and the succor of enduring ones. The ecstasy of interpersonal exchange, and the rush of trust and giddy intimacy. Like a roller coaster cab cresting the peak, it rapidly devolved into the doubt, the resentments, the misunderstandings and - worst of all - the echoing ambivalence of lost connection. The drifting apart, "outgrowth" that felt more like shrinking. And again the loss. The death. The hurt. I gasped but continued to swallow, squeezing deeply.

The third piece. Passionate love. Deeper than the bodies that acted out their spiritual frenzy for union, the unquenchable thirst for consecration. I felt the dizzying rush of ecstasy in objects associated with a name, with a touch, with a breath. I imbibed the cherished breath, tasted the mesmerizing flavor of body and heart, melted into the defenseless giving and taking of souls.

And predictably, I saw lovers look on my bare and hopeful body with flashes of disgust. I saw my heart buried in indifference. I saw the boy I'd left because I loved him enough to know he deserved not-me. The boy who'd left me because love scared him. The female friends who'd loved the boys I'd loved, where we realized the limits of sharing and of our own bond. The choices that weren't mine to make, and the unpredictable consequences of those I did make. The anxiety. The jittery worn out agonizing addictive misery of unreciprocation. I saw the death of love and the hollow feel of its corpse.

 I felt loss, again and again the death and pain; again and again my parents and friends flashing away as they failed to support. Failed to feel. Failed to understand. Failed to be what I needed them to be. Failed by me. Failed by fortune. I gulped in the loneliness that only a severed connection can create. I felt the falling into a black space so heavy all self, hope, and imagination were crushed. I crumbled and winced, hanging by a tight rough hand.

I ate the next piece. I felt a child, my child, growing in me. Felt what it must have meant to be god creating universes, dizzy with a sentiment "love" can only hint at. I felt the ecstatic revelation and selfish-selflessness that pulled all the earth inside out and upside down. The tendrils in everything in every sense. The merging of beings rediscovered against the breast, in the simple glow of symbiosis.

 I felt the warm velvet of a small hand in mine.

And I felt it ripped from mine.

 I felt the empty muted hollow of staring at my child and feeling nothing. Of anxiety so crushing my bones shook. The helplessness of an entire soul's well-being being placed on the shoulders of a young life with ill-formed ideas of its own.. I felt the anger and the doubt. The failure. Constant failure in a million tiny ways every day. How the hope fed the loss. Finally the loss. Like nothing I could ever describe. The isolation beyond all words. I felt the world live and die a million ways, disintegrating every bone and tissue and organ in its path..Child born and unborn, mine and never mine. alive and dead, in a seemingly endless loop. I understood the world I'd thrust this child into. The pain waiting outside the birthing room. How little I could do.

As the apple went down bite by bite - hand squeezed/squeezing so hard my bones nearly crushed - the beauty and the agony merged together. Death and life blurring into each other with such shouting screaming presence that I couldn't even feel as much as be filled to bursting. Each moment expecting that explosion, each moment stretching a little wider. Love and hatred, genocide and sacrifice. Religious ecstasy and religious massacre. The rise and fall of civilizations, and the individual breaths and fears of every living soul within those. I swallowed every bite, shaking and sobbing unaware of what I was even witnessing. What I was feeling. It all hit so fast, an existential vertigo tearing through my body.

All I felt - all that was left to feel - was my friend. Rough, cool arms wrapped around me. So tight that I could barely move or breathe, but somehow anchoring me from spinning beyond the gravity of the earth.

Dizzy, my eyes landed, then, in those slits across amber. Dark glasses gone. Gaze plunging deeply into mine. Suddenly brighter than the hottest dessert sun. Glistening. Burning into me.  Anchoring the darkest center of my being. Pushing back the void away.

The last apple slice was in my free hand then. As I stared into my friend's eyes, I saw my own death - not from my eyes, but from his. I saw that no matter how kind, no matter how selfless or thoughtful, my life would inflict such pain. Perhaps through cruelty or indifference, but just as likely through every sweet and loving offering of self I made to him, every gesture taken to intertwine our lives. The way our mingled roots would rip self from him along with me. How my misfortune would become his.

I saw my memory in him. The hole my absence had seared into his core. I saw the hands that weren't mine. And the acid remorse and fear and longing and missing. The loss. The loss that would come again in time. That I could never prevent other than to disappear completely and even then it was too late.

From my overwhelmed and helpless place, I felt a flurry of feeling, a desire to hold him to me and me to him. Not to comfort but simply to press into this person who had made himself so vulnerable in that caring. To emboss myself into his bones so thoroughly that I Could never be missed and always would be there.

 I felt my own death in this moment - in every future moment - through his marrow.  My breath spurted out, narrower and weaker in each second. As I fell in and out of swoon, in and out of him. I felt the depths of his pain. And I felt the depths of his love. And they were the same.

Eyes dropped fully into mine, he whispered "it is all love. All." He crushed my head into his chest as if to press it fully against his heart.

I crumbled forwards into him, sobbing as he sobbed. As we sobbed. Clinging so tightly to each other that bruises and blisters congregated in our points of contact. Still we held.

And somehow as the final bite went down, I knew things I could never put words to and some things I can. I knew that time is a joke we play on ourselves. That love is never lost, never fully accepted but always there. I knew eternity wasn't some outside afterlife but a presence in every moment, fully saturated in existence. I knew...

I knew every particle of the friend pressed into me. I felt my cells dissolving, constantly replenishing - both of us always new but always intertwined.. Losing form at the boundaries, molecules fizzing between us. Whole systems aligning - breath to breath, heart beat to heart beat, chemicals dancing in our brains in a call and response. Never fully the same, but always connected.  

And I knew my friend's breath. I knew every particle of air that burst through his veins, up his lungs and against my neck. Every blood cell. Every ventricle. Every fire of synapses. I knew it would be lost if I tried to note them, observe them or do anything but feel. So I felt.

I felt this. And only this. And the tension seeped from my body in that feeling. Gravity turned every ounce of me into a floppy rag-doll of self in my friend's arms.

 And he laughed with such weariness. And I laughed with such wonder. And we cried and laughed again together, bodies aching and seething from the night's experience. Falling back, then, we slept without intent, waking only in sotten spurts through a long noiseless night. Locked in each other's battered arms. Dreaming together wordless images and eternal truths. Finding those camels and castles and seeing again in all new lights.

In the morning, we said nothing to each other. It no longer felt necessary. The silence was verdant, fecund, we were so fully rooted in it then.

Like sleepwalkers, we strolled down the street together, hand in hand like old. Hardly tracking where our feet fell or how our bodies glided through space.

Until, somehow, we found ourselves entering that old garden. Hardly changed in all these years.

My friend tugged towards our old bench and I followed. Sitting together we stared just shy of the sun, still climbing to its ultimate seat above the trees.

I kicked off my shoes and he did the same, and we dug our toes into the mud beneath us. Laughing noiselessly, pressing our shoulders and arms into each other at times to jostle and laugh again. Full of inner jokes and wonder beyond words.

Blinking in the sunlight, I glanced at my friend. Then I saw it with a gasp. His dull skin shone like a sky on fire. His beard flickering glints of color. Each scale a nacre sheen more beautiful than I'd remembered. His hair rose like some infernal fire, glimmering and sparking the darkest rainbows.

"My little snake boy!" the words exploded from my mouth like an animal uncaged.

 His darting eyes collapsed into mine in fractalized "!!!!!!," a certain shocked glee buzzing through his fulgent scaly face..

"My sweet butterfly girl" he laughed, tiny tears sparkling across the diamonds of his cheeks.

My scalp tingled as little flutters blossomed down my neck and around my crown, tossing my hair in giddy waves. Thousands of wings whirled about my face in flashing glints and puffs of air, lifting me slightly aloft with every inhale.

Embracing like castaways falling upon solid ground, our bright and dark interwove. Hair dancing with hair. Skin tickled with wings. Heat absorbed and returned in fondness. Flying ever so slightly.

Giggles like tinkling crystal, tossed light against the deepest shadows. Setting the garden ablaze in pure light. A purity that was blind to nothing. That saw all and was deeper for it.

And when we stopped laughing, our voices echoed on into a riant silence. A silence richer and darker than all that was and wasn't there before the light's big bang.

And there we were - my little snake boy and his little butterfly girl - in the garden. Roots intertwined. Blossoms growing towards each other.

Together.

 In that moment.

And that was everything.

The only thing.

Ovidrel Remembrance Day, Dinosaurs, and a little Ditty

Happy Conception Day to Chaya.

 Happy Conception Day to Chaya.

Happy Conception Day to Chaya... we're gonna gross you out when you're a teen!

November 22nd is the likely date of Miss Thing's Conception. Which I know because that's what medical science is good for. Like this is why ART exists. So I can mortify my child by saying: "Oh sweetie, how were you made? Well, after making me promise to think real hard about reduction surgery if I got preggers with multiples, the doctor gave me the go ahead to inject this giant ovidrel  shot into my belly after a month and a half of HCG shots also in my belly, and hon' Mittleschmerz is dang real and this was pretty emotional stuff, BUT hormones. So many hormones...And then mommy and daddy... oh we made a Miracle, baby... And also you were conceived."

I dunno. If you get cake for being born, what do you get for being conceived? Brownie? Tart?

But before we practice mortifying Chaya with tales of hormone-induced wildness, we'll keep her chugging along in preschool and being-at-work-being-a-flying-butterfly-cat. She's got her own agenda.

Like Shabbat Dance Party!! Chaya is so down with her Jewish heritage. Turns out her imaginary snake, Snake, is Jewish too. Neat synergy there. Christianity cannot compete with friggin' dinosaurs and Episcopal mommy is spiritually permeable enough that she's just bummed that they don't have dinosaurs for the adult Shabbat services. Some of the scarier versions of Christianity have some kickin' kids' rock parties, but they're usually pretty born-again-adjacent. Reform Judaism for the win.

How else have I been? Having fun trying to figure out all new doctors and fun like that.

I've got folks of the boomer persuasion going on in  head-shaking terms about my Millennial oversharing for including a selfie of me with a tube down my nose from last year's fun medical testing. So, anything further would be such explosive TMI that it may just crash the entire Social Security network and nuke every episode of NCIS ever made. You're right, you're right. There are limits. So you know, just lemme know if you're curious why I'm in a particularly grumpy mood this week, and I'll point it out for you on one of those therapy dolls they use with kids.

 In the typical medical hijinx, it was mistaken for something it was not, even though it was tested as not-that. Which wouldn't be a problem except I'm so darned sensitive to things that the prescription for what-it-wasn't was very irritating and made everything significantly worse until I decided f-that and stopped torturing myself. So... that's how my weekend's been. But it's on the uptickish, since then.

As always it's little annoyances like this that glints the gratitude. My dearest  hubba has been awesome: handling Chaya duty last-minute for various long-running and rescheduled doctors visits, randomly replacing my broken watch band just because (probably not related to the above, but timed in that arena), and generally being cool about the occasional flares of additional moodiness. And my friends? Man, but man, I've got some whose faintest concern is like a sitz bath in aloe and a shot of something highly scheduled. And my child? um. She's a divine terror and is amping up her chaos with newer and cleverer forms of "independence" and "assertiveness". But the cuteness in between tantrums at mommy or daddy for not drawing a doggy quite to expectations is epic. "Chaya, no, do NOT throw that. Not THAT. Alright. That's it, it looks like it's time for us to leave the table... awwwww... you are so cute rolling around the floor in your own drool hearts... but seriously time out."

In other news... We went to the ballet on Sunday - all local all premieres - which was indeed diverting and touching and all those things one wishes of a good date afternoon.

Aaaand. Our house totally closed and now we've got a massive down payment chunk o'change to blow on ... well a new house some day. In a while.

So on whole: Things are thumbs-up worthy and I've got my things to sing about.

SO here, reader. Something. Something. For you.

I Didn't Write You A Poem

Exactly 

That elegant ink-blot line between cliche

and poetry/art/zesty-slice-o-humanity.

isn't mine to sploink just so.

I feel like you. You, like me.

(I like you! You like me!)

Literal words are anything but: 

Sometimes personal syntax diverges just so

To take the same thought and toss it

to opposing corners of the page.

In wordy words, we don't always see eye to eye

(maybe if you slouch and I tippy toe?)

But in metaphor, the same few suns burn bright

The same stars shoot across glowing skies, and splash

in an undulating ocean of "heard it, felt it, all before"

Our collective lives are some small klatsch

of story and simile sewn up with quirk.

It's beyond me to add a striking twist to the tropes

But any plug of irony gives way to a flow of awe.

A need to drown in creation and cast reflection

This sacred lure to commemorate, to consecrate.

Because "wow"

 Just...                   ... damn.

And wow again.

So what  if we're boring             

                  in our recursive ecstasies?

Ecstasies

Objectively, meh.

 Subjectively...                                        

                                    ...daaaaaamn.

I feel so  hopeless; happily helpless

Doubled in doubt but hey here's the faith. 

For you, I'll repaint the world by number

Soaring high with each blah brush-stroke

So let me lob eternities against

some snickering canvas:

Butterflies bee-booping in bellies

Universes big-banging in moon-sparkled seas

Heaven. Earth. And everything in between.

I want to hurl every bright cliche

in brilliant explosions, screaming HOLY HAI!!!

I'll squeeze my heart like a bandoneon,

Pluck my soul like a deep double-bass

my breath a tuba ooompa-ing mmmmmm

My blood cha-cha-cha-ing from head to toe

Drizzled over with gustatory delectation:

Sunsets spiced with cumin and coriander,

Full mango moons behind clouds of mousse

Sighs of cardamom and starfruit spritzes;

vanilla bourbon breath and shy caramel glances,

and - pop fizz - champagne blood

effervescing though feasts of feels.

Giggles, hurtles, gasps, whirlwinds and whirlpools...

I'll try them all, and feel them all too.

Less self-conscious with each fluttering sec

Zealously blitzkrieging words with Bacchanalian abandon

So old. But to me, it'll feel brand new.

Because my autumn age feels first-bud-of spring.

And old feels fresh. And new feels ancient.

And it's all the same and it's all unique.

With newborn fervor I pummel the page

with tropes that predate history.

Themes worn thin and done no favors

by my grubby fingers' flubbing scrunches.

But every second is its own. All sensation an infant gasp.

No river can be crossed twice. But millions of times I'll cross.

Every river.                                               

Every time    

                                              To reach you.

Towards you, I'll Salt-bae sprinkle

Teeny snowflakes of sentiment

each hoping - in all the flurry -

to land just-so on your outstretched palm.

For you, with your melting warmth,

to find the beauty. To give the meaning.

Like you always do .

Story Time - 2008/2019 Edition

I was rereading a travel log from my Bs As summer in '08. Found a couple of unfinished stories. Wish I'd known where I'd been planning to go. Original fragments reworked now 2019.

The Demon in Her Eyes

I haven’t always had the best life. For the most part, it’s all good, but every once in a while it wears through.

Hold up. This isn’t supposed to be about me. It was gonna be about her, not me. Her and me. But to understand her… well, my vision of her, I am at least a bit relevant. Still, let's start with her.

We met etc. Within seconds of pleasant conversation, I found my body surging with curiosities about hers. How would the round of her head fit against the center of my palm? How would her hair scrunch between the webs of my fingers and would it tickle or scratch my finger tips How would that solid crown compare to the thick jelly of her breasts in my same palm? Would her nose find a knotch above my clavical or would mine in hers? How would my belly curve against the transition between the small of her back to the acme of her ass? Which finger would fit just-right in her cupid’s bow? How would my arm fit against her waist?

My earlobe wanted to investigate the nape of her neck. My lips wanted to drag across the fuzz of her earlobe. My fingers to trace the little crinkles that flashed about her eyes when she smiled. My forehead craved to compare pores with hers. My skin everywhere wanted to know the relative temperature and humidity of her breath. My inner ear wondered if that crystal laugh would acquire more gutteral intonations in moments of abandon. My nose wanted to catalog and map her scentscape in endless atlases of anatomy. My arm hairs stretched to tangle in hers.

You get the gist. All of me wanted all of her. It was mutual. Very good start.

But now, I really should add a little back story.

I had a shit family. And consequently a shit childhood. I dealt in my youth with a priggish moral rectitude to shame Jesus. I rose above it all, the white sheep in the pig sty. If there was a moral resume builder to be found, I probably ran it by my teens. Man did my farts ever smell great. You know the type.

This is where it gets melodramatic, so I’m gonna rev up and rush through it. Kid turned up dead one night and not a pretty death. Foster brother. Long story, but I was nice to him despite his unacceptably glaring "queerness" (not ok in my particular town). Misinterpretations of "kindness" flourished way before the foul play. It got worse after, and I got dragged into months of investigation accusation and complete repudiation from all those virtuous character building institutions. Thank god for DNA and... well that's another story and not really the point.

I rose out of it like a battered phoenix and flipped the bird homeward, before settling into a far more comfortable goodish-enough moral stance. I came out of it alright, I’d say. Glad for the pecadillos my last rigid stance allows me.

Yeah, I had a crap beginning, but it’s been good from there. I have my jobs. I have my friends. My hobbies. Aside from a tendency to strike people just a little wrong, I’m pretty much just “normal” to industrious. Though I won't let the world forget what I've mucked through and how solidly I have. I guess sometimes people are just unlucky, and I take a fair but of pride in my survival of that condition.

I have just made myself more interesting than her. Sorry. It’s a thing I do. If we’re being honest - which lord knows we might not be being - I don’t know enough about her to make her independently interesting. I mean she was interesting, but that can get drowned out in the proximity to self. Sure a few things: She had a laugh that fluttered at your ear a bit like a dragonfly’s wings - first thing I noticed - and a surprisingly sharp tongue to cut through that syrup. She was never phased by me, which felt like a challenge. And there was always a sense she wasn't telling something vitally important. I liked that. And hated it. And, well, let’s just admit this was about me all along.

It's just that every once in a rare while, I start wondering if the luck isn’t random. If I’m not really an evil person, polluting everything he touches and sets about to care for. These usually set on me after half a bottle of whiskey, but sometimes the premonition of these thoughts is what made the whiskey appeal. Something some asshole parent whispered in my crib no doubt. And fuck ‘em for being so uncreative.

The point being it’s a rare and quarantined side of me, my whiskey soaked demon. Most people know my early life sucked, but all they see is a happy enough guy who probably pisses them off and they can’t say quite why.

So this is about her: she was an exception. Circumstances partially to blame.

Midway through our first date (I still indulge in these niceties, call me old fashioned), shit changed. We ran into a particularly hostile relation of my old friend “the dead gay kid.” Things got heated and loud. We’re talking “escort off the premises” kind of hostility.

I kept composure with a tight smile throughout, but something in me felt the crumple. I hadn’t expected it then. We're a long way from home. I had no idea anyone had followed me here. My defenses were diverted towards sparkling badinage and I recovered too slowly.

Shaken and already healthily inebriated I gradually shared “the story” with her.

“The story” itself is no big deal. Honestly, you would be surprised at just how well it gets a guy laid - pity and drama make potent aphrodisiacs. Did I mention the kid was all roughed up because my foster dad like to drink a little much and go to town on him? And me? True story. But I just laughed at him as he did.

The “big deal” was a little of that darker mood - the one that doesn’t think all this crap comes by chance, and sees its origins in yours truly - slipped out. Not the parody I affix to persona in time of great lust, but the demon itself.

At first the whole thing was mortifying, but then delicious. And then back and forth between the two off into the sunset.

Her reaction was hard to describe. Most women experience one or both of two reactions: (1) they recoil, as I’ve just taken myself off the eligible list and into the land of red flags, (2) they want to fix me, save me, and mend all the cruelties of the world through me.

The latter, as I’ve implied, has been a great boon to my sex life.

She seemed simply unsurprised. As if I were relating that the newspaper hadn’t been delivered on time. I don’t want to paint this reaction as cold or unsympathetic. Merely that it came across that all this was perfectly natural. Perhaps I simply couldn’t see her real reaction past some studied composure. I doubt it. In this lay profound relief and a rare sense of intimacy.

Like puss from a boil, I let that side drain out in her unphased presence. The story expanded, bringing in more and more detail from birth to present. Talking almost to fill the space that she held without flinching or soliciting. Binding us together with tendrils of tenderness and terror. When the tears had dried and the comfort been applied with a surgical precision and a nurse’s attention, we consecrated this bond with our own catharses.

Things were back to a good start. My body got its answers and raised new questions. Always new ones. Infinite arroyos and mesas to query. Infinite little folds to discover. A full language of breath. An endless subtlety of blushes. In a different universe, I would have written book after book, tirelessly forging further.

The side effect of all that open space and intimacy being - unfortunately - that this side became more and more connected to her and essentially associated with her. To become the happy regular person I really am, it felt urgent to flee. In this was the mortification. The more I confided, the I feared. The more resentment I felt for what she saw and drew out of me. But the more that side riled, the more it needed to be bled. Dependence and disgust set in in tandem.

If she hadn’t seen. If only. We would have had such fun. We still did. But there was a half-life to it. She confided nothing in me, yet gifted me with staggering vulnerability anyways. I recoiled from my own by caring for her. Little rescues. Little attentions. gentlemanly things that she accepted graciously but also without surprise. Always without surprise.

It would go well. So well. Bodies fitting in bodies in novel origami. Sometimes exciting. Sometimes languorous. Sometimes silly. Soft and innocent. Like precocious children washed of original sin in one healing bath of laughter and affection. So it would start.

Then it would go… well… poorly. We don’t have to get into that. I’m not a saint, obviously. Broad strokes, I’d panic to see my demon reflected in her eyes. I’d vanish. I’d lash out. She’d lay out her needs soberly. I’d decline. We’d shrug and resolve to part. Then: Tears. Recriminations. Space. Mourning.

And then some lonely night, a little alcohol, and a joke that only she would get. One more little question from my body of hers. The sole of her foot again my calf? The palm of her hand… how had it fit just so against my jawline. The flutter of her eyelashes against my cheek bone versus her lashes against my neck. That little gasp she took before a kiss: what key had that been in?

A joke. A question. A dialogue. A moment. And again the dance.

***

"I'm not the girl you'd have taken home, anyways," she slurred one bubbly sotten night of reconciliation/seduction "I'm a phase. Maybe I'll kick start some inspiration and remind you of your passions. Maybe I'll remind you how much you miss home or how you've longed to save the fucking turtles in the galapagos. Beautiful revelations and off you'll go again. I'm prolly the one before The One...but I like you an awful lot anyhow."

She shrugged in just such a way that my entire body spewed novels of questions about the slope of her shoulders and the tilt of her neck. "So what are you failing to work out that you're back again?"  Eyebrow arched in just such a way that I wanted to compare her upper eyelid to my cheekbone.

 A salty bitterment to her syrupy tone that teased my taste buds, before burbles of giggle teemed out and the mood changed again.

What was left to work out? I was certain at that moment that it was the exact curve equation of her upper lip. Perhaps what undiscovered ecstasies lay in her third left knuckle. The lunulas of her pinkies.

***

This cycle re-perpetuated itself as many times as we were both willing to allow. We must have known better. At first, I’d tell myself I’d make it up this time as a lover or - since that never worked - a friend. It always started well.

And when it didn’t end so well, it bothered me endlessly to imagine she was out there hating me, disgusted, or - so much worse - just forgetting me and all the little matryoshka ways our bodies and words interlocked. Leaving the demon with me alone again. That fear bonded me to her more deeply than all her fluttering lashes and tinkling laughter.

It always went the same, albeit in rapidly accelerating cycles: reconciliation, seduction, confusion, and bloody retreat. There were variations, but this pattern was never much revolutionized.

The seduction - if you give such a fancy term to something more akin to falling-back-into-configuration - became a see-saw of hysterical outbursts that I usually started. Typically, it began with my loneliness and ended with hers.

***

In a pique of hyberbole, sometimes I'd tell her I loved her. I still remember the jolt her flinch sent through my body. The way she'd look away, new railroad maps across her forehead, and close her eyes. Not surprised. Saying nothing.

Sometimes - as cycles wound down - I'd tell her no matter what, she'd always be a part of me.Things of that general nature. Things that felt true to me, and how she never left my mind. Sometimes it felt like she'd peeled back a layer of my skin and added a layer of her own. It stung. It itched. It was never settled. I wanted her to understand that. That she was never fully absent even when we were apart.

I remember her looking at me - unsurprised but deeply non-plussed. "Why keep coming around then if you have me so neatly packed up?"

I was usually sober enough to recognize a rhetorical question. Occasionally not.

Sometimes she'd add that when I left her that night - for a few hours or a few weeks, who could guess - she wouldn't be swimming around in my bloodstream like the booze I'd brought. She'd be there in her room brushing her teeth. Shaving her legs. Blowing her f-ing nose. And otherwise being a boring animate human being with some deep hurt and a nice side of self loathing. Whatever else I imagined. She'd cry or sneer depending on the prevalent hostility levels. Sometimes both.

Around that time, my hand would grow curious what sting it'd feel colliding with her cheek. Palm or back of hand? Both? Other queries grew up around this, before imploding into a heap of more generalized lust and loneliness.

I'd cry, she'd cry or continue to. We'd end up tangled in each other's arm. Part comfort. Part rebuke. Never sure what flurry of delusions would last the night.  Always a small bit willing to give it another shot.

***

There were exceptions. The first time barely nicked the skin. She understood. Wrong time. Wrong place. When opportunity arose to reconnect, she let that flow as well. It was beautiful, really. How I would have wanted it from the start. I was exactly what I wish I could have been the first time. In control. She melted into me and I tasted such concoctions of self and sudor.

But it wasn’t a clean reboot. The little demon was home in her arms, peeking from my solar plexus to suckle at her bosom while we slept. Domestic bliss possessed. When it fell apart, she didn’t seem surprised, a small sting in that fact.

The second required more than a few laughs, some apologies, and a rescue involving lost apartment keys after a late night out. New job. Stress. And again. Understandable. It got more tenuous. More ritualized. More… alcoholic from there. Never surprising. Always predictable. Almost scrawled in iambic pentameter.

Then there was that time so many months later. Different than usual. It felt dissociative. More of a reflex than an emotional act. Our bodies taking their inventories, finding their nooks and crannies. Our minds clamped down in a steely silence, too tired to engage in the same endless scripts.

As I was leaving that time, she smiled sardonically in a way that made my gut flip. Softening her eyes if not her lips, she declared that we were friends and there were no expectations. Neither of these statements was remotely true, though I wished they could have been. I agreed solemnly before wandering away. I felt tired, then, and cheated of her expectations, though I’d trampled every right to expectations in ways she had yet to discover.

I was - and remain - aware that her actual expectations involved some clauses I had failed. She’d expected I’d tell her if I wasn’t single anymore. When I was seeing somebody seriously. A somebody who knew enough and no more. And a somebody who most definitely expected things of me, fidelity in particular. I’m sure she would have expected me, given my previous declarations of principle, to give some effort to resist temptation if just a warning. I knew that had mattered to her. I knew she expected that. I’d known the last several times. Some things flow so easily. Others… not all demons were so bold to show themselves I suppose.

***

I didn’t necessarily know that my "someone" could be traced a few degrees to my “her.” That we’d be introduced with all the cringeworthy formalities at a party less than a week later. I can’t forget the exact configuration of teeny facial muscles that formed her expression when we locked eyes. The blankness about the pupils. As if the mirror I’d seen in her eyes suddenly flipped inwards and she finally saw it too. Or maybe she saw herself in some distorted fun mirror of my creation. I don’t quite know. Maybe us both.

Finally, I’d surprised her, and in such a terribly unoriginal way at that.

And that sudden overwhelming throb of shameful curiosity to know how her body would give and fold under that image came rushing over me in ways I am not proud to admit. Though it brings me still a burning pleasure to recall how it did; that night, at that party. With no remaining semblance of amicability or tenderness; only insatiable curiosity and fire. The speechless way her body begged to feel and feed back the hurt of her psyche: it fed into an unhinged libidinous violence of mine. It was jagged edges and nail marks and stinging fingers on flesh. A colonization where there had been tender exploration. The frenzy of what I can only describe as exorcism. No words exchanged. No apologies offered. No hope of redemption.

And then she was gone - without a word, without a glance,and finally quite truly free of expectation. The world was still. I was empty to the depths of my core. The space. The silence. I will never forget that either. Free. Purged. Empty.

***

I want you to understand, I’m no philanderer. If I'm in a relationship - and I take those seriously enough not to be in them often - then I know the terms and I follow them.. I’m no cheater. The odd lapse was always a “swept away in the moment” uncalculated kind of nothing soaked in booze. And I’ve always atoned. Almost always. There are different ways to atone.

There’s always an exception to the rule. That addictive something that can’t be treated with anything short of hexes or heroin. That little avatar on my phone waiting for a sensory twinge. A question I’d never meant to ask. A justification I needed to share. And I always thought it would just be a moment. An epilogue. A "one last thing!" Sometimes thought that.

I’d like to say I returned from that party stirred to reformation having worked out whatever thing she seemed to think I had needed to. I'd like to think that was a full exorcism and a full return of skin to skin.

She changed her number. But I never did go by her house, which I could have. Not while she was home anyways. Not up to her door. I thought better of it at some point.

 I have no idea if new cycles might  have continued. How would they have looked after that last reveal? Sometimes I wonder. Sometimes fantasize. Guiltily. Which heightens the fantasy. Cycles all their own.

I miss the tenderness, though, too. The Garden of Eden her figure's longitudes and latitudes somehow conjured. Before the apple's Eureeka moments. Before the shame. Before the snake. But there never was a before the snake. It was always there munching at every fruit tree, and watching patiently.

So I'm a bastard. But an average entitled prick bastard. This isn't caused by any shattered bit of past. Just a stirring of loins and a certain kind of self-negating erotic compulsion that's existed long before there was music to set it to song.

I'm not excusing myself. While I have always enjoyed a surplus of undeserved trust with minimal pangs of guilt, I know it will and should out somehow. The world is only so large. And well, I rub people the wrong way. I have crap luck. It’s only a matter of time before the good I’ve scraped together blows up again.

Before that self I saw in her eyes, fully realized that last night, emerges and finds itself in other eyes. This is why I’m not thrilled to have people out there with dirt on me, no matter how benign. Maybe not her, but somebody else she knew. Though it’s reassuring to remember how agonizingly discrete she was about every little thing.

But I’d like you to understand. I’d like somebody to understand and look me in the eye and show me what they see.

 I’ve changed since then, I think. I hope. I wish I could show her that. And remind myself of the exact angle and approach of her arm across my back, her head against my shoulder.

A Valentine's Note to Them All

It's been an occasional Valentine's ritual for me to recognize all the people who've intersected in my life romantically, to thank them for what I learned from them, apologize where I feel moved, cherish a sweet memory and wish them well.

It's funny which people get included from year to year. Who gets subsumed into a general category and who stands out. Definitely some are always obviously there. Other times less so. And on we go again.

To the eleven year boy companion who held my hand as deep wretched splinters were dug out. You let me cry without a blush. A friend who hinted at the more that would come of bittersweet friendship longing to be something more. Who held the innocence of pre-adolescence in the same stroke. Who brought me lilacs and let me rest my head on his shoulder on one long and bumpy drive home

To my adolescent yearning, the friend who'd hold brotherly concern for me through a decade while I intermittently craved more. I wish I could have been more myself around you, but I learned so much and felt so watched out for when our lives intersected.

To the adolescent friend who'd yearn for me. Who'd hurt and be hurt in staggered measure over the decades and with whom I've shared exorcisms of latent desires and hurt feelings. Who took me in in my despondency more than once, and who shared melancholy pilgrimages to the desert before offering me your world. A world from which I'd gain so much before pushing myself back out of it.

The oh so painfully handsome teen heartthrob who chatted me up during the symphony, got my phone number from the drama teacher who knew my name and took me on my first proper dates. Who despite all the raging hormonal flirtation and raw chemistry, would somehow not go beyond a brushed hand (until an anticlimactic rematch several summers past). You loved earl gray tea and soundtrack compositions. You were really cute.

To my first proper kiss. Who stuck around but a little too timidly to keep my shy desperation from accepting another more aggressive suitor. Who had SO MUCH in common with me it was almost too expected for us to have connected. Who'd occasionally come close to something more several times more and who doggedly forgave me my inevitable betrayals. I wonder if your forgave my writing you into one of my last stories. I'm sorry. Very sorry. For many things.I'm glad you've mostly forgotten me.

To my first real boyfriend who quickly became a much closer brother and companion, as affection evolved into a more fraternal attachment. Your family welcomed me as their own. Your drumming on the edge of the navy parades and the times we held each other after hard school days, went on walks and stayed in contact to this day. You are my brother.

To the visiting student who gave me my first swept off your feet moment to the song Cheek to Cheek before disappearing as quickly as you materialized. It was a taste of many things to come on the dance floor.

To the men who preyed on the innocent little American girl on her first solo journeys and took a sense of security and autonomy that had to be clawed back over many years and experiences. Having to regain them taught me their worth.

To the boy who got further merely by popping up after the right number of drinks and resolve to move forward. Who muttered absurd poetry and was ready to be quickly forgotten having served his purpose.You were cute in a bowtie. And the girl who orchestrated it all, who would fling me through several romantic entanglements in almost scientific curiosity. The only woman to hold me while I cried. Boy we went through some things. It's so awesome to be friends still.

To the second-third-and-fourth-time who felt like the first-time. Whose infinite kindness and care for the world I briefly mistook for something more personal in a bashful haze of infatuation. For those fleeting moments of tenderness and affection that were mine alone. For the enduring patience and friendship you offered in lieu and for some years to come. You had my back if not my heart. The kindness in your eyes is unmatched by any in the world.

To the oh-so-many men I met online or at dances who made for funny stories, tasty dinners, and excellent refinements on what on earth I wanted and did not. You gave me great practice for job interviews to come and trained me to define my boundaries exactingly.

To the amazing friend who took my heart and mind and drank them down to the last drop with such zest that my dormant self woke up glowing and enthralled. Who saw me so deep I learned to see myself again. Who was meant for somebody else but still -like me - struggled with the gravity between our hearts.Who held my hand and then held me for the first time only when I understood we couldn't be friends anymore. In whom I melted so briefly, before mourning, and moving into the world with hope. I'm blessed to have found the enduring part of our friendship, but if I had never seen you again, you'd still always be with me. I will never stop seeking you. 

To the antsy flash of momentary upstairs neighbor who offered me the exact opposite of the chaste emotional intensity I was mourning. You came. You offered release. You disappeared. Purpose served. I hope your new home was lovely.

To the sweetest of boyfriends I know I never deserved. Who brought me to a bowling alley bar and Old Country Buffet without an excess of irony. And so earnestly told me I was smart and beautiful. Who told stories of his Aussie childhood and his kangaroo pet. Whose sweetness I rapidly refused to savor for the stench of the cigarettes I'd never asked you to quit. The way I blew you off was lame, but I'm so so happy you're happy now.

To the adorable dance teacher with the silly mustache and sillier sense of humor. For a half second I thought I loved you a bit. Then I realized it was the dance you were giving me, which makes me love you so very differently. I still laugh thinking of your laugh.

To the deepest depths of my soul experienced with my tango crush over many years. It was an honor that you reciprocated that bashful affinity for our tandas. With whom many torrid and deeply affectionate nights were worn on the floor ending with a deep united breath and a bashful return to reality. (With a friendly wave to our significant others, because it all stayed on the dance floor.)

To the oh-so-achingly naughty tanguero who loved my moves, my curves and my loooooong hair, but just wasn't "in a place for anything serious." Your cologne stuck on my skin for days in tantalizing ways. Your adventurousness exceeded my capacity for emotional compartimalization. You stung, but you sure enthralled. And sometimes late at night you let me linger and shared grilled cheese with me. I never wanted to be a Bond girl, but it was an experience knowing how it might feel. Hope you're keeping on keeping on.

To the swing dancer whose deep family hurt emerged so painfully on our first weekend together. Who held to me then too closely and whose fears and pains caused you to withdraw, reach out, withdraw, reach out on and off again. Together we "watched" so many movies I'll never know the plots of. Had so many heartfelt tearful protestations only matched in intensity by the flirtation the next day that would lead into the next set of protestations and tears. You brought me into blues and the whole world that gave me. You made me laugh more than you made my cry, and both were often.

To the dance partner who wanted more. Who left me with beautiful photographs of myself and many wonderful dance memories between some very difficult heartfelt misunderstandings. Who stood by me during some difficult relationships but eventually couldn't stay when I did find truer love.

To the shy carpenter who kissed me quietly at a friendly party, then respectfully let me crash hard when sickness kicked in. Who a year later would run into me recoiling from another life-jolt and bring me into his cocoon for a short spell of respite from the stress and terror of first year of law school. Your fluffy cats. Your comfortable couch. Your big cozy bed. Dutch baby and coffee on lazy mornings. That passion you felt for sound. You didn't want to be there. And I was there. You let me know that I wanted *there* so much more tangibly. And you dumped my stressed out  one-L tush, just in time to regain my composure and open up for the real event.

To so many more moments, flashes and connections. Those who hurt me. Those whom I've hurt. Those who drank from the depths of intimacy in a moment of musical crescendo.

Thanks for the lessons and the honing that left me available and whole enough to find my partner. Thank you for what we shared and what you taught me I still wanted to find. And thanks for the great break up soundtracks!

And to the guy who met me for tea by my apartment at the end of my 1 L year, talking about flip phones, and offering restrained hugs and tales of theater from the inside. Who was less interested in sweeping me off my feet than dipping me at the end of  anumber, and waiting for me to kiss him squarely after a good night out. Who let me rest my head on his shoulder and watch the ocean while telling me about his family with some tone that we would meet some day. Who was there when my mom had cancer. There when my grandfather died. There when my grandmother died. There when school wore me down. And then when I emerged victorious. Who drove untold hours of commute to be with me.

Who became the man who stood with me through so many manifestations and challenges. Who doesn't necessarily understand but who earnestly loves and faces the difficult stuff with me every day. Who helped deliver the most amazing little monster into my arms and takes her back to hold when I need a break.

Who for ten years has persisted in choosing me and being chosen.

To everyone who has supported me through the tough times and rejoiced in the happy. Who witnessed our marriage as it formed or as its evolved.

Happy Valentine's Day

The Little White Bones Delve Fairyland's Infinite Closet in the Pale Moonlight

Previously on A&A's Adventures in Cohabitation: Our heroes rustled the rabid rabbits and let the fields run awash with chocoblood of their oh-so-saporous enemy!! Easter drew nigh in a tumble of lindt boulders, birthday imprecations, and melted peeps. Failing fertility found new hope in the brassy bruiting of renewed life from barren winter... and discomforting medical investigations that led to new mysteries in the extraordinarily sphynxless innards of the Medical Matroyoshka. 

Coming Up: The fairies frolic with mischief in their minds. Will Adella find and tame her words or will she be left armless against a sea of endless estradiol troubles? Peter Pan pipes a patter of palaver in foreign tongues and tofu steams itself to freedom. Our dauntless couples dare to plunge into the chambers of Narnia, with nary a light to guide them. Will Andrew possibly survive a darkened closet and his mad-wife? Beautiful inside, Adella lets light strobe across her weary bones. Will she find her whisky pants at the end of the diagnostic rainbow, or merely yet another pill to proclaim from mountaintops each morn? The evil Thompson twin lurks online and in office. Will the website warrior fend her off or has he been consumed by the Thompson alma mater? 

Dare ye plunge the cavernous spelunk of mysteries abounding, grab your fairy wings and harness and join the excavation of answer that lie below... 

Peter's Pipe Plays on the Physio Under Crepitating Crosswords The siren call of collapse



Welcome to the sacred grottoes my afternoon. Between the closing of work and the arrival of the Mistah, I have happened into a wee burble of a bubble of time to myself. Solitary, for certain. Still? Less so, but gradually inching nearer. 

My pocket of unemployed single ladydom follows a certain schedule in order of priorities. My first order of business is to put away the groceries and other things in my bag. This is rather a crucial one, since I pick up frozen and otherwise perishable foods often enough, and refrigeration is a task bestaccomplished within a five minute window of entry. After this juncture, I forget entirely about the perishable aliments, surreptitiously stashed as they are in the folds of my back-pack of mysteries.

Should I accomplish this, my next priority is to check the mail, since it requires wearing shoes and I hope to get my darned shoes off ASAP. In fact, although a now-or-never priority, I often forestall retrieving the mail and possibly only do so once or twice a week these days. I really want to take those damned shoes off at the end of the day. 


 If it's a night we're staying in, I would have changed, but we're going out later. As such, I am begrudgingly still in workish clothing. I would happily endue myself exclusively in pajamas and workout clothes, but there seems to be some standards for being in an office, even if I've more or less bottomed those out on several occasions. Still, baggy kakhis and even jeans seem like more of a head nod towards societal norms (albeit casual Pacific Northwest ones) than a penguin polar fleece and an electric green sports bra. I do admit that nowadays, most of my "work" tops are lycra and have shelf bras. Between the incalescence of our twelfth floor office in the clement months and treadmilling habits, my little nook of Englettlaw can turn into quite the little steam room. So what's a gal to do but banish sleeves and embrace the moisture wick. And really, a separate bra? Two pieces of clothing when I could have one? For shame! The excess! The waste! The sheer profligacy! I do have an overjacket for more "formal" occasions... like leaving the confines of my office when members of the public are present. I'm not saying that my over jacket isn't also a light running jacket... I do also keep a blazer and work pants at hand, but I really love my little blue running jacket for layering. 

But back to my priorities and the eventual stillness of a relaxing moment. I am not allowed to alight upon comfort until after I've done my PT. Physical Therapy is like most other exercise regimes: easily built up in my head as truly horrific and daunting until I simply begin. The longer I forestall, the more herculanean the task becomes in my head. Should I wait until after dinner, the commencement is likely to be met with tears and a mild temper tantrum. Quite enough to almost discourage one from continuing on in that obtuse way our brain has of gravitating towards the simple and easy, despite delighting in the challenging and novel. Fortunately, the slight tweak in my foot and those attendant limitations provides sufficient motivation in a way working out rarely does. Stretching? Sure, that would help in the long run, but I'm less viscerally aware of the cause and effect of that benefit. Same with strength training. For most exercise, I still must rely on social pressures or the ever daunting calendar entry. If I have it on my calendar to go to pilates and I know there are people there who expect me to attend... then I will mostly go and only sort of be relieved on the days when class is mysteriously cancelled due. My compliance with PT is significantly improved over most any other home workout, given I can palpably measure its impact on my increasing - though gradual - reintroduction of self to active lifestyle. The same eagerness helps me get out for my little "runs" two or three times a week. I figure at least twice a week is required for me to continue making progress in the rehabilitation of my little arch. 

After PT, there may be a snack, as I've no doubt neglected to feed myself quite properly by the end of the work-day. It might also be time to start dinner or finish chores, but tonight... it's sofa time, baby!! Kindle or crosswords... the ultimate decision. I'm reading J.M. Barrie's The Little White Bird, which is famous for being "the first mention of Peter Pan" although in this incarnation, Peter Pan is a seven day old half-bird-half-infant who was stranded on an island in Kensington Gardens after flying away from his mother and forgetting how to fly. Also, it's a story told by the protagonist with a little boy he's become fond of. An endearingly sweet story of a crotchety old man with a begrudging soft spot and a class appropriate horror at his own increasing whimsy and kind-heartedness, all of which is tinged with an overwhelming sense of loss from a prior love and a fear of reaching out too far and disappointing those he loves. It postively delightful and would lend itself to quite the treacly Hallmark adaptation, but is saved from cliche by the deftness of narrative, and the long fancies of fairy worlds and pirate ships, and St. Bernard's. 

But crosswords are my brains version of a long deep stretch. And my head's a bit aflutter today and needing to come down. 

Choices.... choices...

From the Tip-o-The Toes to the Top-o-the-Tete 'Tis Time! For what, I couldn't say

Yesterday, I had a bit of down time for dithering 'twixt crossword and whimsical fantastical fairyland confections. Certainly, I could have mixed them, but that would have invited a thorough mischief upon my person. I have it on grand authority that fairies are highly disorganized creatures with rules all their own that are only understood by the very young little girls who appear to misbehaving but are simply doing-as-the-fairies.

 And so, with a twinkle of the toe, I took a further plunge through The Little White Bird, and left the words to sort themselves out. I suspect it was a rather fine call, even if it filled my head with even more moonshine than previously presaged as possible. Wednesday is a fine day to drip fairy dust and whimsy at any rate. And the jaunt through Kensington Gardens proved to be restorative after a minor estrogen bonk (my term for the feeling of malaise, tinniness, and echoey migrainey dissociation that occasionally accompanies my transition back to just-the-estrogen after a more pronounced PMS bonk from the orange barracuda pills).

Really, feeling bonked  is not an ideal state of mind for our weekly date night, so I'm glad to have been shaken from the hibernal recesses of my gelid consciousness before the bike-and-chain arrived with his newly muffled chariot. (and I was reminded by a British friend that "bonk" can have several different connotations depending on context, but let's assume I am using the endurance athlete's argot in describing my full sense of having hit a wall mid-day and requiring the full frolic of the fairies to recover).

 Feeling rather grand, we embodied my version of the previously requested "low key" by going to our favorite Chinese Takeout place, Q.Q. Li's. Sadly, the owner and her little piano-playing puck weren't present. The blond surfer dude who runs the ship more tightly than the best bos'n arrived some time after we'd received our meal. The gentleman who speaks a faint degree of English managed to take our orders with far less pantomime than previous attempts, although he did omit the tofu from my order of "steamed tofu and vegetables." A minor oversight and I'm relieved that he at least got the vegetables in. For a small worldly treat, I got to eavesdrop cluelessly on a Mandarin conversation between our clerk and the customer ahead of us. I couldn't make out much more than "here" and "grammatical structure word" and "not" and occasionally "good, good" or "no." But given all the gesturing, I'm not sure that this was solely the shortcomings of my paltry language studies in full remission. 

To  my multicultural delight, the rest of the evening's eavesdropping was a jaunt through my even weaker Spanish (mostly picked up from travelling, and about a week and a half of study when I was in Argentina to get the most superficial of mid-milonga chatter handled). The only others in the restaurant were speaking exquisitely enunciated Spanish. And of course, my attention had been drawn to the family due to a significant level of sock and leggings envy for the little girl of the trio. Oh small children. If I could dress like you on a daily basis, I might eschew my over-arching preference for pjs and workout clothes. 

Upon our return from glamorous gustatory globetrotting, Mr. (W)right and I had a little adventure befitting an evening that begins at the fairy's ball: we went spelunking through our closet in a domestic blend of fort-building hide-and-seek and Seven Minutes in Heaven. I forget that we technically have a walk-in closet with a sliding door, until I've cornered my prey and want to see just how afraid of the dark he might be (answer being "not nearly as afraid of the dark as of his wife in an impish mood")! No passageways to Narnia, but quite a lot of room to explore between giggles and ghostly goosings. 

Today reeks of wet pavement, burgeoning blossoms, and a slight musk of work long-neglected. Despite a hot rush from the Monday starting gate, I've had a small bit of time to reconsider our highly out of date office webpage. It currently claims that some weird bespectacled lady named Adella Thompson is the only associate. I've mentioned her before - she's my evil twin. She wears suits, slicks back her hair and pretends to do regular litigation style cases. I'm also pretty sure that she feeds on the souls of young chrysanthemums. Tsk tsk. Those wild single ladies!

Don't trust her for a minute -
she's quite mad with semi existence

 Of course, our prior web guy no longer maintains his old email address. There's a similarly named fellow working at WWU, but I'm not sure if that means he's out of the business. If I knew enough about the passwords and whatnot, I would contact the lady who did the Whatcom Collaborative Professionals Page, but I have no idea how to do anything with our current site (one of the things I'd like to change - as I have at least limited competence in managing the WCP page in accordance my secretarial duty and occasional caprice). Perhaps time to take a hike through my old outlook emails again. 

Which will have to suffice for exercise today, since I'm giving up my lunch-gym run and light pounding to have light flashed at my hips in some kind of soothsaying attempt to predict the calcium contents and strength of the bones therein. In case I want to excuse my very-very-bottom-end-of-a-technically-healthy-body-fat-and-weight as just having dense bones. Or in case all this dalliance with being underweight caused osteopenia or osteoperitonitis or something. Unlike the ultrasound, this is solely a secondary preventative check with no particular diagnostic relevance for the amenorrhea issue.

Speaking of, I received a phone call from my lady-doc (my gyno is male, so when I say "lady-doc" I should clarify that this is my Fagles-esque translation of  gynecologist ... who ever said two years of studying Ancient Greek wasn't a boon to my high dudgeon of musty culture?) informing me that the ultrasound came back and everything looked "very good." I'm so flattered! I knew I was pretty on the outside, but to be all purdylike on the inside too?!? I knew that investment on having wall to wall carpeting and a few prints to spruce up the place was a sound one!

Happy Tippee Toe Thursday all! May your pollen be gentle and Friday come nipping at your heels like a peppy puppy!

Strobe Lighting the Bones and the Careening Career Fair Head-ShotThe birds float effortlessly above the anomie

Shiver me cedars. My bones have been densitometried.Unlike the whole internal ultrasound thingy, this was an obstinately simple and easy test. I did not need a full bladder. I didn't need to fast. I did not need to shed an item of clothing, not even my shoes (those I chose to remove my jacket). I simply lay back with my legs propped up on a pad, made some idle chatter about the weather with the technician, and lapsed into a semi-hypnosis staring at styrofoam birds hanging from the ceilings above. 

 To make it even easier, I'd already been exposed to the existence of several "Mt. Baker Imaging" facilities, and had located my appropriate "women's diagnostics" wing before heading out. Incidentally, how useful that the women's facility is located mostly in the middle of nowhere, but smack dab next to Labels, the best and brightest consignment shop in Bellingham. I can't say that I have actually had a chance to stop by on the way back from my increasingly plentiful diagnostically female jaunts, but if I were winding my way back for the first-date-gone-bad-to-awkward discomfort of your average mammogram, I'd definitely be treating myself to a new pair of shockingly economical designer pants from a style-era that valued "ugly" less obstreperously than these recent years. Not that also having a TCBY or something wouldn't be a doubly-great great investment.

Yes, yes, I am stereotyping like a madwoman (ooop mad women, aren't they all?... surely that's chauvinist too!), but whether nature or nurture, haven't "we" all been so inculcated into these purportedly "feminine" coping mechanisms as to recognize the koine symbols of self-comfort, if not to fully embrace the  symbolic tokens that they ultimately are. But really, after most of these "women's diagnostics" procedures, probably a stiff whisky and a snickers bar would do the trick just as well. The pants ideations of fitting acceptable pants are more of an ongoing thing. At least I've grown into my hand-me-down pair of "long and lean" Gap Khakis that made their winding way from my sister to my mom to me in some familial Daughter-Sisterhood of Travelling Enduement pattern that is none too infrequent. Being the tallest lady in the family, my no longer being underweight does limit the amount of clothing I can cadge, but occasionally I stumble into something that just fits a little differently. 

Yes, but back to ... ok, forget it, we finished with the bone densitometry escapade before we even began. It was fairly anticlimactic. I'll hear just how clever or dense my bones are some time next week. If they're insufficiently block headed, I may get to add some kind of new pill to proudly announce each morning. I have found that the only way I can reliably remember to take my daily estradiol is to announce to Andrew in as grandiloquent a timbre as possible that I am ingesting my little pill. He responds with his equally triumphant consumption of claritin. Soon, no doubt, we'll be posting daily selfies of ourselves duck-facing our way through the little bottles. 

Tonight Andrew and I are attending the Bellingham Tech Expo. Andrew has been at EI(eeeeiiiiiooo) long enough to (1) still love it (if not the commute), but (2) realize he's probably a far more valuable potential employee than he was before his year of work experience, and not see the harm in "seeing what's out there." Mostly he just wants to mix with nerds. Besides, there do seem to be lots of fun little exhibits. And, I need a new head shot of myself that actually looks a bit less like the evil Thompson twin, and more like Ms. (W)right. Don't ask why, but somebody's purportedly offering "free headshots". Let the ugly tired allergy puff and crazy hair begin!

Though if that doesn't work out, I think I've got some good website options: