It is two days now since the final blow landed--coming a day after hope, a day of reconciliation. Then words on a screen—those little black symbols in regular font—that leave my life shredded and quiet. My eyes tremble over the page, not daring to stop on any particular word until, finally, that last sentence, those last few words…
Like he used to do, I take to the bed. Sleep the sleep of angels. Dream of shiny new coins, a cool glass of water, music I have never heard before. I am naked between the sheets, the small fan on my nightstand fluttering breezy fingers along my bare shoulders, my neck… And then of course I wake up—morning knocking at my eyelids—and throw two reluctant legs over the side of the bed. Stand up. Stagger down the long hallway and gather the courage to look in the mirror. A new day. And I must put on a mask and ride the waves of heartbreak that wash over me this very long day. Some just licking at my toes, my ankles—and others gathering energy as they rush headlong at me, the wind at their back, and I stand braced for the collision of wave and foam against the sound of my bones breaking. I am glad, and slightly surprised, that I do not fall down this day. That I can stand there with my face to the wind and water and stare those waves down. But what else can I do?
Yesterday Amy says, let’s go to the mall. My guilty pleasure, the mall; my salvation today with a burning heart and battered limbs and no medication. Amy and I take my car, the windows down, a hot, sunny day. She says, I think you will have many lovers. Which is a good thing, I suppose, but those lovers should have been tasted before I met him. I would have known how to love through the prism of many faces, many bodies, all that space. But I did not...
At the mall, Amy and I have lunch, and walk the smooth, cool corridors. We stop to examine, to touch. We laugh—and the first time I do that, I am surprised by the sound that emerges. I remember that laugh rising up from my belly, erupting at the back of my wide open mouth. And I’m surprised to find that it is still there.
We go to Ann Taylor Loft, to Macy’s, to many other stores. At each place: patterns, color, lace. Pretty things that comfort me. I am a solitary woman without the eyes of a lover across a table from me, without a silky cursive fabric hinting at things to come. That will look good on you, Amy says, as I hold up a lavender-colored dress. For a brief moment, I imagine the first time it will come off, the first time someone will slip the filmy fabric over my head and push me onto the bed…
At the register, I recall A Pair of Silk Stockings and become Mrs. Sommers--indulging my own pleasure, my own escape. I buy three summer dresses, two scarves, a pair of black pants, a wispy top, three necklaces, a pair of sandals, one bold purple purse, and a blown-glass bangle that looks like you’re gazing through the eye of a kaleidoscope.
When I drop Amy off at her car, I am not done. I go on to Home Goods, Pier 1, TJMaxx, and K-Mart. Next to the bags of clothes in my back seat, I add a comforter, new bed sheets, curtains, a frilly pink throw pillow, a large sign that says “DREAM,” and a perfumed candle in a delicate frosted glass.
On the way home, I stop for a pedicure—and while my pretty polished toes dry, a woman works discerning hands over the tightness in my shoulders, and down the length of my spine...
Last night I was up until midnight, rearranging my room. I move the bed under the window—the moon at my back, the new day announcing itself gently in the morning. I shake the new comforter out over my old iron bed, hang curtains, light my pretty candle. And Lizz Wright sings I’m confessin’... When I'm finished, it is a new room for a new woman. And you cannot tell that he has ever been here. That he has ever stood looking down at me with want in his eyes and long graceful fingers starting to move.
***
Friday, August 28, 2009
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Spirit of Odetta
I’m back at Lincoln Center, back in the south plaza. It’s another hot night, and the rain from this afternoon has made the air as thick as a New Orleans stew. The faces of the crowd collected here are sweaty, expectant. I have my 7-year-old by the hand, and we make our way to the front and find, like an offering, empty seats in the second row. We settle in with our drinks and our snacks—and I explain to my son that this will be a magical night, a night he'll remember. Why, he asks. And I tell him, because we are here.
When Lizz Wright takes the stage, I am not prepared. It is still light outside, a sequestered sun still trying to bully us. The lights on the stage shine pink, shine blindingly white as the band enters and takes up position behind drums, keyboard, the bass and guitar. And then she appears from the deepest recess of the stage—a graceful young woman in a long sequined skirt that she will clutch and squeeze when she’s inspired. She wears a beaded gold necklace that catches the lights of the stage and reflects them out to us like confetti on this breathless night. Later she will remove the necklace because of the heat of the night, because of the hot lights that bear down on her. Before she takes the stage, they tell us that she has been raised in the church, the daughter of a minister father and a mother who sang—so you’d think I'd be ready. But I'm not. Just a few lazy notes in, she steps to the mic and quiets us all. My son watches her with an intensity, listening, his sneakers stilled, his hands unemployed. In the first row, a blind woman holds her walking stick like a staff, and leans her head back in rapture to an unseen sky...
Behind a drowsy rhythm, she tells us in her smoky, sovereign voice about an easy rider; about giving the con man her all; about a man being there that she doesn’t remember letting in. As she sings, I feel emotion building from some unknown place in my belly, in the heaviness behind my eyes. I take in the smoldering sky—the sun having finally given up and yanked the night time over it like a blanket. On stage, she lifts two sculpted arms, and by the time she sings, What if I fall, and the water is cold?, I am sobbing, my chest heaving—a Roy Orbison cry tonight. Because I did fall, and the water is cold. Very cold…
And then the unexpected man appears just as I am wiping my tears and struggling to gain a quieter footing. He slips into the only empty seat beside me, here on the plaza, and I turn my mascara smudged face to look at him. He studies me for a moment and says, quietly: he does not deserve your passion. I know this, of course, but the heart is an unruly, intemperate thing that doesn’t listen, that won’t behave. I shake my head, knowing the truth, knowing that I have fallen in love with cold. That my heat and fire are not enough to warm him, not enough for him to stay.
I’m sorry, I say. To the unexpected man, who I wish was someone else beside me tonight. I introduce him to my son, who quickly peeks around me, and settles right back into his chair. The unexpected man pats my hand and says, I’ll be back—but I’m not sure he will. Yet as she reappears on the stage for her encore, there he is, carrying drinks for us all. She sings Amazing Grace a accapella, her voice thicker than this murky night. Fighting back tears, I lift the cup to my lips and swallow one small, muted sip.
Intermission.... and the stage bustles with roadies taking things down and setting things up. The crowd makes its way to the bathroom, to the concession booths scattered like children’s blocks in this open plaza. The unexpected man asks me if I’m okay—which I don’t think I am, but I nod anyway…
When Allen Toussaint takes the stage, there is a surge to the front. They are ready for New Orleans, ready to dance. Mr. Toussaint still has flecks of dark in his white hair, and he wears a suit on this hot summer night, as he sits behind the piano. Even in my sadness, I wonder how they keep the keyboards tuned on such a night as this. He strikes the opening chord, and the crowd moves, and jubilance is unleashed into a muscular sky. No dancing for me—at least not yet—because my knees ache and my heart is too heavy. I watch as people are pulled like magnets toward the source, to the open area in front of the stage. They go in pairs, by themselves, pulled by the seductive, thumping beat of that faraway city. I watch a man in a short-sleeved red shirt with seagulls on it dance with his woman. He is my age, with white in his closely cropped beard. Beside them, two older women dance together... when suddenly the man in the seagull shirt grabs the waist of one of the women, and they spin off together. She matches his step--they are aligned... She wears a black dress and pearls, and her smile is pure memory as she and the seagull man glide and spin. And with one fluid motion, she slips her purse from her shoulder and hands it off to a young man—a stranger—sitting in the front row, so she can move unencumbered. Because nothing bad could happen as she dances with a man in the plaza tonight…
And finally I, too, want to dance. Want to let my pain go. And so my son and I step out from the row of chairs and into the crowded space with so many other lost souls, and we dance together, my boy and me, on the south plaza, at Lincoln Center—the unexpected man watching us, as I think only of him…
***
When Lizz Wright takes the stage, I am not prepared. It is still light outside, a sequestered sun still trying to bully us. The lights on the stage shine pink, shine blindingly white as the band enters and takes up position behind drums, keyboard, the bass and guitar. And then she appears from the deepest recess of the stage—a graceful young woman in a long sequined skirt that she will clutch and squeeze when she’s inspired. She wears a beaded gold necklace that catches the lights of the stage and reflects them out to us like confetti on this breathless night. Later she will remove the necklace because of the heat of the night, because of the hot lights that bear down on her. Before she takes the stage, they tell us that she has been raised in the church, the daughter of a minister father and a mother who sang—so you’d think I'd be ready. But I'm not. Just a few lazy notes in, she steps to the mic and quiets us all. My son watches her with an intensity, listening, his sneakers stilled, his hands unemployed. In the first row, a blind woman holds her walking stick like a staff, and leans her head back in rapture to an unseen sky...
Behind a drowsy rhythm, she tells us in her smoky, sovereign voice about an easy rider; about giving the con man her all; about a man being there that she doesn’t remember letting in. As she sings, I feel emotion building from some unknown place in my belly, in the heaviness behind my eyes. I take in the smoldering sky—the sun having finally given up and yanked the night time over it like a blanket. On stage, she lifts two sculpted arms, and by the time she sings, What if I fall, and the water is cold?, I am sobbing, my chest heaving—a Roy Orbison cry tonight. Because I did fall, and the water is cold. Very cold…
And then the unexpected man appears just as I am wiping my tears and struggling to gain a quieter footing. He slips into the only empty seat beside me, here on the plaza, and I turn my mascara smudged face to look at him. He studies me for a moment and says, quietly: he does not deserve your passion. I know this, of course, but the heart is an unruly, intemperate thing that doesn’t listen, that won’t behave. I shake my head, knowing the truth, knowing that I have fallen in love with cold. That my heat and fire are not enough to warm him, not enough for him to stay.
I’m sorry, I say. To the unexpected man, who I wish was someone else beside me tonight. I introduce him to my son, who quickly peeks around me, and settles right back into his chair. The unexpected man pats my hand and says, I’ll be back—but I’m not sure he will. Yet as she reappears on the stage for her encore, there he is, carrying drinks for us all. She sings Amazing Grace a accapella, her voice thicker than this murky night. Fighting back tears, I lift the cup to my lips and swallow one small, muted sip.
Intermission.... and the stage bustles with roadies taking things down and setting things up. The crowd makes its way to the bathroom, to the concession booths scattered like children’s blocks in this open plaza. The unexpected man asks me if I’m okay—which I don’t think I am, but I nod anyway…
When Allen Toussaint takes the stage, there is a surge to the front. They are ready for New Orleans, ready to dance. Mr. Toussaint still has flecks of dark in his white hair, and he wears a suit on this hot summer night, as he sits behind the piano. Even in my sadness, I wonder how they keep the keyboards tuned on such a night as this. He strikes the opening chord, and the crowd moves, and jubilance is unleashed into a muscular sky. No dancing for me—at least not yet—because my knees ache and my heart is too heavy. I watch as people are pulled like magnets toward the source, to the open area in front of the stage. They go in pairs, by themselves, pulled by the seductive, thumping beat of that faraway city. I watch a man in a short-sleeved red shirt with seagulls on it dance with his woman. He is my age, with white in his closely cropped beard. Beside them, two older women dance together... when suddenly the man in the seagull shirt grabs the waist of one of the women, and they spin off together. She matches his step--they are aligned... She wears a black dress and pearls, and her smile is pure memory as she and the seagull man glide and spin. And with one fluid motion, she slips her purse from her shoulder and hands it off to a young man—a stranger—sitting in the front row, so she can move unencumbered. Because nothing bad could happen as she dances with a man in the plaza tonight…
And finally I, too, want to dance. Want to let my pain go. And so my son and I step out from the row of chairs and into the crowded space with so many other lost souls, and we dance together, my boy and me, on the south plaza, at Lincoln Center—the unexpected man watching us, as I think only of him…
***
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Carnival Frevo
Tonight I slip on a sleeveless summer sheath and a delicate pair of heels; pump a lithe perfume against the sensitive part of my shoulders, my neck—and head into the city. To Lincoln Center and carnival frevo, carnival Brazil. Applying lipstick in the dim light of my car, I drive too fast over the Henry Hudson Bridge, and down the West Side Highway. I sing along to my iPod, on my way to an adventure. Above the Hudson River, the sky is the color of wet sand, the moon hidden behind clouds, the air thick with heat and the promise of many good things. I have bandaged the other day’s wounds, applied ointment and cream, and taught myself again how to smile—practicing in the mirror, in the quiet of my car. I am so tired of pain, so tired of being left behind…
On the south plaza, the crowd is assembling, moving slowly onto the smooth gray stone, still warm beneath our shoes from the day’s heat, just beyond the Center. I pause alongside the fountain, and remember all those times I sat there—a majestic spray and the perimeter of lights mirroring my joy. Those were happier days when I was kissed with an open mouth, was loved with both arms and a man’s thirsty heart… Tonight, the fountain is under repair—like me and this wounded body, a string of caution tape stretched around my own bruised heart.
Along the plaza, sculpted trees lift long, graceful arms that are haloed in light from some unseen place below—and tall, courtly buildings stand anchored around us, like sentinels, like guards to make sure we don’t get too raucous tonight. Which is what I ache to do, what I want to have happen. Me alone and unloved on the flagstone plaza, the warm, quiet breeze my inconstant lover—like the man I knew before this. I know there is more than emptiness and pain, that my fire and heat are magnetic, wanted…
The band kicks in and the crowd begins to pulsate, to express their joy through shuffling feet, lilting hips, and fingers snapping out their pleasure. It’s not long before I am swept into the swell, into the energy of the people here tonight, and I move alone—carefree, captivated. My bliss lifts up into the dusky night to join hands with the rest of the joy that has been released up there. I feel every curve of my body, every rounded angle and swell, as I move, move, move… And suddenly the slightest touch of a hand on the small of my back, on my arm—and he’s there. An unexpected man who asks if I am alone. I am, I tell him, flashing a noisy smile that he flashes right back. But I don’t want to be…
And he urges me to a space just a few steps away--where we might move together on this hot summer night, under the watchful eye of those guardian buildings. You are the brightest woman here, he says as we move—and I suspect he’s talking about my dress, the flash of my smile, my polished pink toes. The drums and bass lay down a pulsing rhythm that draws the whole crowd closer, including the unexpected man and me. His face is just inches from mine, this tall stranger: gray licking at his temples, eyes as black and daring as mine. It’s a hot summer night—and we move, and we move, and we move…
Later we take a giddy walk down Broadway, two strangers, two open souls, on a fanciful night in the city. Still, he says: you are a sad woman, I can see. Which I don’t deny, but instead tell him that I won’t always be. I have lost a lot, I say, but I’m ready to find other things. I don’t like going through life empty-handed…
At the bar, he orders our drinks, and leads me outside to a small patio where music floats along in the heavy air from speakers no one can see. There are tables and expectant people—the sound of laughter, of newly ripened love. In the corner, white lights shimmer like crystals from a sassy tree. We sit together at a small glass table, the tension in my knees igniting a heat that I can feel each time I cross my legs. Above us, the moon and stars remain hidden, leaving us to the night and all its brassy shadows. Tomorrow, and my own jagged pain, float along somewhere with the music, waiting for the dawn, for this night to end, for me to reclaim them…
***
On the south plaza, the crowd is assembling, moving slowly onto the smooth gray stone, still warm beneath our shoes from the day’s heat, just beyond the Center. I pause alongside the fountain, and remember all those times I sat there—a majestic spray and the perimeter of lights mirroring my joy. Those were happier days when I was kissed with an open mouth, was loved with both arms and a man’s thirsty heart… Tonight, the fountain is under repair—like me and this wounded body, a string of caution tape stretched around my own bruised heart.
Along the plaza, sculpted trees lift long, graceful arms that are haloed in light from some unseen place below—and tall, courtly buildings stand anchored around us, like sentinels, like guards to make sure we don’t get too raucous tonight. Which is what I ache to do, what I want to have happen. Me alone and unloved on the flagstone plaza, the warm, quiet breeze my inconstant lover—like the man I knew before this. I know there is more than emptiness and pain, that my fire and heat are magnetic, wanted…
The band kicks in and the crowd begins to pulsate, to express their joy through shuffling feet, lilting hips, and fingers snapping out their pleasure. It’s not long before I am swept into the swell, into the energy of the people here tonight, and I move alone—carefree, captivated. My bliss lifts up into the dusky night to join hands with the rest of the joy that has been released up there. I feel every curve of my body, every rounded angle and swell, as I move, move, move… And suddenly the slightest touch of a hand on the small of my back, on my arm—and he’s there. An unexpected man who asks if I am alone. I am, I tell him, flashing a noisy smile that he flashes right back. But I don’t want to be…
And he urges me to a space just a few steps away--where we might move together on this hot summer night, under the watchful eye of those guardian buildings. You are the brightest woman here, he says as we move—and I suspect he’s talking about my dress, the flash of my smile, my polished pink toes. The drums and bass lay down a pulsing rhythm that draws the whole crowd closer, including the unexpected man and me. His face is just inches from mine, this tall stranger: gray licking at his temples, eyes as black and daring as mine. It’s a hot summer night—and we move, and we move, and we move…
Later we take a giddy walk down Broadway, two strangers, two open souls, on a fanciful night in the city. Still, he says: you are a sad woman, I can see. Which I don’t deny, but instead tell him that I won’t always be. I have lost a lot, I say, but I’m ready to find other things. I don’t like going through life empty-handed…
At the bar, he orders our drinks, and leads me outside to a small patio where music floats along in the heavy air from speakers no one can see. There are tables and expectant people—the sound of laughter, of newly ripened love. In the corner, white lights shimmer like crystals from a sassy tree. We sit together at a small glass table, the tension in my knees igniting a heat that I can feel each time I cross my legs. Above us, the moon and stars remain hidden, leaving us to the night and all its brassy shadows. Tomorrow, and my own jagged pain, float along somewhere with the music, waiting for the dawn, for this night to end, for me to reclaim them…
***
Friday, August 21, 2009
Choices
It was an explosive day—his size 13 foot landing solidly in my gut, my teeth, my head—the pain erupting like a 5-alarm fire. I swear I didn’t see it coming. It was a day like any other day, and then suddenly it wasn’t. And me, silly me, caught so unaware. Sitting there, wide-eyed and believing, when the kick came. Like an open bull’s eye that his foot sailed right through.
And I am an imposture, living my fake life. My unfamiliar life. After the blows land and he walks away, I tend to my wounds for a short while, but before I’ve even stopped bleeding, I turn away from the pain and back to my work. Check emails, take phone calls, read papers. Try to recreate an unremarkable day. Every now and again, I rub the swollen, bruised places on the soft part of my skin. But I don’t linger there too long—because even the gentlest touch in those areas is painful, makes me cry. Toward the end of the day, Liza comes in and says, you’re not okay, I can tell. And she’s right, I’m not, but I grab a mask from my desk drawer and slap it on quick. I’m fine, I tell her. Just tired. But as sometimes happens when I put my mask on too quickly, it lies obliquely on my face—and Liza walks away shaking her head. Girl, I hear her say, it ain’t none of it worth it…
Last night I sit with my son in a place that sells pizza and pasta and salad—and wine. My little boy and I skim the menu, make our choices. I want something new, something I haven't tried before. The man at the counter pours a quiet Chardonnay, and slides the amber colored glass across the flat surface between us. Here, he says in a lilting voice I recognize, it’s on me. He smiles, and I return an anemic smile—the best I can do tonight—and limp back to the table where my son waits, still deciding. Around us are families playing out their lives, making their choices. The young mother beside us feeds her baby pizza, chocolate cake and Mountain Dew. I wrinkle my nose at her choices, but just that one action pains me—and I remember that I am in no position to judge: my own life like a shattered picture window around me. No matter how I rearrange the shards, and make choices about the pattern, I cannot figure out how to put the window back together. I am laid bare without even a gas-filled pane to shadow me. And then suddenly, at just the right volume, a bit of reggae and then r&b, modulating from hidden speakers--and it soothes me and all the raw places along my wounded body. The man with the voice I recognize has made his choices known, and I see him watching me as I sip my wine and pretend to eat. He tries to read my story from the choices I make, moving my fork around my plate. And I ache to tell him that I no longer recognize my story, that I am bruised and hurt. That I am lost…
Out in the car, I study the floor beneath the wheel. Gas pedal and brake. And tonight I see the two things as symbols. Both are within reach of my delicately painted toes and the hard flat surface of my shoe. I test the resistance of each one, gently at first and then with more conviction. I am surprised at times by my own strength, even when I am wounded. It is a clear night tonight—the streetlights march along the avenue, lighting the way into the distance, into the future. My son and I are buckled in, ready for the ride—he trusting that I will make good choices, and me playing over the options in my mind, wanting desperately to get it right...
***
And I am an imposture, living my fake life. My unfamiliar life. After the blows land and he walks away, I tend to my wounds for a short while, but before I’ve even stopped bleeding, I turn away from the pain and back to my work. Check emails, take phone calls, read papers. Try to recreate an unremarkable day. Every now and again, I rub the swollen, bruised places on the soft part of my skin. But I don’t linger there too long—because even the gentlest touch in those areas is painful, makes me cry. Toward the end of the day, Liza comes in and says, you’re not okay, I can tell. And she’s right, I’m not, but I grab a mask from my desk drawer and slap it on quick. I’m fine, I tell her. Just tired. But as sometimes happens when I put my mask on too quickly, it lies obliquely on my face—and Liza walks away shaking her head. Girl, I hear her say, it ain’t none of it worth it…
Last night I sit with my son in a place that sells pizza and pasta and salad—and wine. My little boy and I skim the menu, make our choices. I want something new, something I haven't tried before. The man at the counter pours a quiet Chardonnay, and slides the amber colored glass across the flat surface between us. Here, he says in a lilting voice I recognize, it’s on me. He smiles, and I return an anemic smile—the best I can do tonight—and limp back to the table where my son waits, still deciding. Around us are families playing out their lives, making their choices. The young mother beside us feeds her baby pizza, chocolate cake and Mountain Dew. I wrinkle my nose at her choices, but just that one action pains me—and I remember that I am in no position to judge: my own life like a shattered picture window around me. No matter how I rearrange the shards, and make choices about the pattern, I cannot figure out how to put the window back together. I am laid bare without even a gas-filled pane to shadow me. And then suddenly, at just the right volume, a bit of reggae and then r&b, modulating from hidden speakers--and it soothes me and all the raw places along my wounded body. The man with the voice I recognize has made his choices known, and I see him watching me as I sip my wine and pretend to eat. He tries to read my story from the choices I make, moving my fork around my plate. And I ache to tell him that I no longer recognize my story, that I am bruised and hurt. That I am lost…
Out in the car, I study the floor beneath the wheel. Gas pedal and brake. And tonight I see the two things as symbols. Both are within reach of my delicately painted toes and the hard flat surface of my shoe. I test the resistance of each one, gently at first and then with more conviction. I am surprised at times by my own strength, even when I am wounded. It is a clear night tonight—the streetlights march along the avenue, lighting the way into the distance, into the future. My son and I are buckled in, ready for the ride—he trusting that I will make good choices, and me playing over the options in my mind, wanting desperately to get it right...
***
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
At the Pool
Today my son and I pack a quick bag and head to the pool. An uncaged sun unleashes a heat that snakes around us and squeezes tight. But he and I look to the clear blue sky and laugh at all that power. And he pushes me in the water first—and this time I allow myself to sink lower into its quiet pull, and to take my time coming back up to that vigorous sun, to the heat, to people enjoying a hot afternoon in August. Then my son jumps in, splashing me, his wet face flashing pure joy as he breaks the surface of the water and clings to my arm. And I am grateful for this one perfect moment, with my boy and me in the water, his matted hair and dripping face just inches from mine. His 7-year-old smile with all the holes in it. The sun at our backs, the sound of other people’s joy in our ears. A flawless moment, this... But it, and he, slip from my grasp before I’ve had my fill. I chase after them both, but they’re gone. He disappears under the water and lifts two sturdy legs in the air. And I recognize a much smaller version of my own flat feet, and laugh.
Pulling myself up the ladder, I step wet and dripping to where we have set up our things, and settle into my chair. Put on my sunglasses, lift headphones to my ears. My son is off with kids his own age—as he should—and I sit alone with my Sunday salvation singing in my ears. Around me, the lie that I have recognized as such plays out very believably. Children splash and swim; parents sit along the side of the pool, cooling their grown up legs in the noisy water; others gather in fleshy clusters on lawn chairs under the relative cool of the canopy. Fathers and sons play ping pong, shuffleboard. Beyond the pool area, women my age grill polenta and chicken for their men, create comfort and security around a picnic table for their sons and daughters. I search the women’s faces for cracks in the façade--but today I can’t find any. They are happy here at the Westwood, their families assembled around them like pegs on a board. And there’s me, loving my son and feeling like I’m doing it all wrong—because I am not that on a sunny afternoon in August. I switch my iPod from music to Bill Hicks, listening intently, even though I know every word in his act…
At the deep end of the pool, my son waits behind a cluster of boys for his turn to jump off the diving board. The boys are older, yet their bald shoulders and skinny limbs give them each a deflated look. I watch the boys ignore my son as he steps around to be a part of their boastful banter, part of their laughter. He laughs when they laugh, and I wait to see if they will acknowledge him, will welcome him into their fold. And then a younger boy my son knows joins the group, is recognized and welcomed by the older boys. And my son—my little guy—stands rejected, quietly waiting his turn at the board…
Many years ago, I walked along a hiccupping sidewalk in a housing project in a quiet, comfortless town. An uneventful day. Me and my newly erupted body walking along in cut-off jean shorts, a tank top and pony tail on my way to nowhere. It was summer. And so when my mother’s friend Janie called to me from her front door, I had no expectations. I was too young for such things, too young to recognize that Janie was acting on pure impulse that she would later come to regret. Rachel, she hollered, there’s someone here I want you to meet. And so I turned into Janie’s sidewalk, hearing excitement in her voice—something other than my own curdled boredom—and I stepped inside. It took just a moment to adjust to the darkened interior, Janie’s apartment familiar, comforting. At the table by the window, a man with short dark hair and my eyes stood up and extended his hand. This is your father, Janie said, clapping her hands together over her plentiful bosom. The man and I shook hands. And he sat back down, and we were done with all that.
And this is what I want to tell my boy today: that you cannot make people love you, cannot make people want you—and only a desperate soul, a futile soul, tries. And I watch him closely as the boys climb the ladder to the diving board and jump, tossing remarks over their wet shoulders like shiny coins that their friends scramble to pick up. But not my boy. He dances around to an unheard melody playing in his head, excited for his turn to jump, okay with being alone—like me, my little guy, like me.
***
Pulling myself up the ladder, I step wet and dripping to where we have set up our things, and settle into my chair. Put on my sunglasses, lift headphones to my ears. My son is off with kids his own age—as he should—and I sit alone with my Sunday salvation singing in my ears. Around me, the lie that I have recognized as such plays out very believably. Children splash and swim; parents sit along the side of the pool, cooling their grown up legs in the noisy water; others gather in fleshy clusters on lawn chairs under the relative cool of the canopy. Fathers and sons play ping pong, shuffleboard. Beyond the pool area, women my age grill polenta and chicken for their men, create comfort and security around a picnic table for their sons and daughters. I search the women’s faces for cracks in the façade--but today I can’t find any. They are happy here at the Westwood, their families assembled around them like pegs on a board. And there’s me, loving my son and feeling like I’m doing it all wrong—because I am not that on a sunny afternoon in August. I switch my iPod from music to Bill Hicks, listening intently, even though I know every word in his act…
At the deep end of the pool, my son waits behind a cluster of boys for his turn to jump off the diving board. The boys are older, yet their bald shoulders and skinny limbs give them each a deflated look. I watch the boys ignore my son as he steps around to be a part of their boastful banter, part of their laughter. He laughs when they laugh, and I wait to see if they will acknowledge him, will welcome him into their fold. And then a younger boy my son knows joins the group, is recognized and welcomed by the older boys. And my son—my little guy—stands rejected, quietly waiting his turn at the board…
Many years ago, I walked along a hiccupping sidewalk in a housing project in a quiet, comfortless town. An uneventful day. Me and my newly erupted body walking along in cut-off jean shorts, a tank top and pony tail on my way to nowhere. It was summer. And so when my mother’s friend Janie called to me from her front door, I had no expectations. I was too young for such things, too young to recognize that Janie was acting on pure impulse that she would later come to regret. Rachel, she hollered, there’s someone here I want you to meet. And so I turned into Janie’s sidewalk, hearing excitement in her voice—something other than my own curdled boredom—and I stepped inside. It took just a moment to adjust to the darkened interior, Janie’s apartment familiar, comforting. At the table by the window, a man with short dark hair and my eyes stood up and extended his hand. This is your father, Janie said, clapping her hands together over her plentiful bosom. The man and I shook hands. And he sat back down, and we were done with all that.
And this is what I want to tell my boy today: that you cannot make people love you, cannot make people want you—and only a desperate soul, a futile soul, tries. And I watch him closely as the boys climb the ladder to the diving board and jump, tossing remarks over their wet shoulders like shiny coins that their friends scramble to pick up. But not my boy. He dances around to an unheard melody playing in his head, excited for his turn to jump, okay with being alone—like me, my little guy, like me.
***
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Glass
The other night I stepped on glass. Walking down a busy West Village street, I saw the shards there, collected like shiny gems on a hot sidewalk. The moon floated quietly somewhere above dignified buildings, and occasionally a lazy, moist breeze came around a hidden corner to please the backs of our necks, to seduce the tender part of my shoulders. I lifted the hair from my temples and laughed at such a night as this. I felt full, anticipatory. A woman in a red dress walking with strength and confidence right through the shards of glass glittering on a pretty street on a hot, sultry night in summer. I had no sense of danger—the night was too perfect for that, too full of promise. And of course I misjudged, mis-stepped—and suddenly there was pain, and then blood from the tip of one newly painted toe…
Sit down, he says, taking my arm. But I don’t want to sit down tonight, don’t want to stop moving. I’m uncertain about where we are heading, but I want to keep going. I want to see this night through: I am curious, hopeful. Later, in a crowded brick room, the singer says from the stage, Hey, Red, you got the fire in you. And I forget until I look down that I’m wearing a red dress. Something that will come off later and take the fire with it, a heap on the floor, and me stretched across the bed in pain.
Glass is a lovely thing, full of contradictions—like me, like us. Smooth, sharp; reflective, translucent. It brings the new day inside, the morning sun radiating polished leaves just beyond the window; at night, glass hides the outdoors, reflecting the bedroom lamp and my obscured face back at me. There is glass everywhere in this lonely house. Sometimes I avoid the large glass mirror hanging on my bedroom wall, and sometimes I stand before it and lean in close.
Today the cut is healing as I sit with my sore foot propped up on a pillow on the coffee table. I have washed it, applied ointment, and will wait through the healing. Sometimes it stings more than others… Before me, my son sings flat and impassioned to the TV, the mic in one hand, rock star hopes in the other, and an animated band on the screen. He is surprised when I know the songs—oblivious to the fact that his mother has lived, has loved, in ways that he is unaware. You know this song? he says, looking back at me with a grin that makes the pain disappear. But only for a moment. And then it comes back, throbbing, insistent, saying, don’t forget about me…
***
Sit down, he says, taking my arm. But I don’t want to sit down tonight, don’t want to stop moving. I’m uncertain about where we are heading, but I want to keep going. I want to see this night through: I am curious, hopeful. Later, in a crowded brick room, the singer says from the stage, Hey, Red, you got the fire in you. And I forget until I look down that I’m wearing a red dress. Something that will come off later and take the fire with it, a heap on the floor, and me stretched across the bed in pain.
Glass is a lovely thing, full of contradictions—like me, like us. Smooth, sharp; reflective, translucent. It brings the new day inside, the morning sun radiating polished leaves just beyond the window; at night, glass hides the outdoors, reflecting the bedroom lamp and my obscured face back at me. There is glass everywhere in this lonely house. Sometimes I avoid the large glass mirror hanging on my bedroom wall, and sometimes I stand before it and lean in close.
Today the cut is healing as I sit with my sore foot propped up on a pillow on the coffee table. I have washed it, applied ointment, and will wait through the healing. Sometimes it stings more than others… Before me, my son sings flat and impassioned to the TV, the mic in one hand, rock star hopes in the other, and an animated band on the screen. He is surprised when I know the songs—oblivious to the fact that his mother has lived, has loved, in ways that he is unaware. You know this song? he says, looking back at me with a grin that makes the pain disappear. But only for a moment. And then it comes back, throbbing, insistent, saying, don’t forget about me…
***
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Heat
It’s 3 am and I have kicked off the sheet and flipped my pillow over to find the cooler side. I run a tired hand through the tangled, moist hair cleaving to my cheek, my temples. Finally, I sit up in the darkness, alone in my house on a hot and muggy night. I have been dreaming: my heart throbs against my nightgown; the back of my neck is damp. I stare into the murkiness of this bedroom and listen to the weary hum of the air-conditioner. The old iron bed frame squeaks as I pull my knees to my chest—and soon the tears come. I never wanted to be alone like this…
I like the heat of many things. The heat of a feverish night in summer—with friends on a rooftop deck, a breeze rippling off the river. The heat of a few good words on a page. The right color and stroke of the brush in a frame. The heat of people walking in their own deliberate and self-assured way. The heat of an audacious love... Which I have lost to something more tempered, more subdued. A flat, dry cracker of a love when I desire the grit and spice of a New Orleans love, a raucous kind of love.
I lift my legs to the side of the bed and pad down a hot, darkened hallway, the hardwood floor sticking to the bottom of my feet. In the bathroom, I splash water on my face, my neck—a softer image of me reflected in the quiet mirror. My edges and lines lost to the dusky shadows. I am me in a dream tonight, moving about an empty and unfamiliar house, moving around my unfamiliar life—bumping into things. I reach out sometimes to steady myself, but there is often nothing there. Yes, this must all be a dream…
The other night I am in the kitchen and he sits by himself in the living room. I hear staccato voices as he flips through the channels as so many men do. I chop vegetables, sauté onions, simmer a fragrant spicy stew. Yet he does not come to see, to test, to sample. He is not curious about the heat, a kitchen alive with the smell of gumbo filé, cayenne, andouille in the pan. I wipe my hands on a towel, sip a smooth red wine that slides like bliss along the back of my throat, my cheeks flushed from the open flame on the stove. And he sits in another room unaffected by the heat…
Sally tells me once, long ago, about a meal downtown with a man who dipped his fork without noticing the lace of sauce, the sprinkle of rosemary--the heat of it. She turned away, she said, and swallowed a soul-less meal that night all those years ago.
And so I make my way back to the bedroom, down a long quiet hallway, and wonder, as I settle back into bed, what to do with this night—with its shadows and silence. What to do with my own gnawing sadness. On a hot summer night in August: alone, alone, alone.
***
I like the heat of many things. The heat of a feverish night in summer—with friends on a rooftop deck, a breeze rippling off the river. The heat of a few good words on a page. The right color and stroke of the brush in a frame. The heat of people walking in their own deliberate and self-assured way. The heat of an audacious love... Which I have lost to something more tempered, more subdued. A flat, dry cracker of a love when I desire the grit and spice of a New Orleans love, a raucous kind of love.
I lift my legs to the side of the bed and pad down a hot, darkened hallway, the hardwood floor sticking to the bottom of my feet. In the bathroom, I splash water on my face, my neck—a softer image of me reflected in the quiet mirror. My edges and lines lost to the dusky shadows. I am me in a dream tonight, moving about an empty and unfamiliar house, moving around my unfamiliar life—bumping into things. I reach out sometimes to steady myself, but there is often nothing there. Yes, this must all be a dream…
The other night I am in the kitchen and he sits by himself in the living room. I hear staccato voices as he flips through the channels as so many men do. I chop vegetables, sauté onions, simmer a fragrant spicy stew. Yet he does not come to see, to test, to sample. He is not curious about the heat, a kitchen alive with the smell of gumbo filé, cayenne, andouille in the pan. I wipe my hands on a towel, sip a smooth red wine that slides like bliss along the back of my throat, my cheeks flushed from the open flame on the stove. And he sits in another room unaffected by the heat…
Sally tells me once, long ago, about a meal downtown with a man who dipped his fork without noticing the lace of sauce, the sprinkle of rosemary--the heat of it. She turned away, she said, and swallowed a soul-less meal that night all those years ago.
And so I make my way back to the bedroom, down a long quiet hallway, and wonder, as I settle back into bed, what to do with this night—with its shadows and silence. What to do with my own gnawing sadness. On a hot summer night in August: alone, alone, alone.
***
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
