The kids talk to me before I talk to them.
"Her name is Jazz," says the one in a faded purple shirt, right after the white puppy trots after me. She's got a bandana around her neck and a brown spot over her left eye, and when she hears her name, her forehead wrinkles into a story of puppy love and recognition of the boy's voice.
He is slouched against an old building in Uptown, the one right around the corner from the Lawrence stop, and without shoes, his feet are cut and dirty, blackened like tar on the bottom. I saw them as I came around the corner onto Broadway, noticing the sign before the sprawl of legs and cardboard cushions.
"Hungry, Hungry Hobos," drawls the back of a notebook, black sharpie on creased yellow paper.
I pause, look at it, but without cash or snacks, I walk on. What can I do?
"She just loves people," the boy adds as I walk away, and that's all it takes.
Matt tells me his story as I sit, folding my legs underneath me. He's a carpenter, he and his woman split a while back, and he misses his tools, god how he misses coming home from work and working the rough grain of knotty wood into the curved lines of chairs and other art.
At 25, Matt is the oldest of the group, but he has the boyish good looks of Huck Finn, a real-life story in front of me. Hair curled and messy from a week on the road, he is cute, but looks so young, especially when pairing the curls with the rolled up jean bottoms and bare feet.
I talk with Matt about his travels, warming the sidewalk opposite the Green Mill, and for a couple of hours, I watch the world pass by with these dirty children of the road.
They are going to California, going to work in the "fields," take part in the grand harvest that approaches.
"We're going to make 20 bucks an hour, make some money, man," says the other boy around a mouthful of bottle.
At 22, Chris has already been out to Cali for the harvest once before, and this adventure isn't the first one taking him cross-country on the free ticket found in the back of a freight train.
"I don't have any work lined up, not yet," he tells me, pulling thoughtfully on the cigarette his girlfriend rolled moments before. "But I've been out there in the past, and I hope to get some carpentry work too, get in with the locals, you know."
Jillian nods her head at this idea, nubby brown pigtails bouncing in agreement. She has been silent, plucking absently at a small guitar, but once she joins the conversation, her quick chirp clips along with youthful enthusiasm.
"Have you been out there before?" she asks me, eager to hear my take on it. "I hear it's supposed to be really great."
I tell her that I haven't, but yes, have heard good things. At 20, Jill is the youngest member on this adventure, and I can see why she's drawn to Chris.
He wears his scruff in a way that becomes him: a shadow of the road spreading across his face whether he intends it to or not. He's tall and lanky, and as she leans into him, his arms wrap around her, white and bare against the gray fabric of her sweater. I know exactly how it is that she feels, a short little girl taken care of by her tall hippie boy, but I can't say that I really miss that feeling. Not tonight, not anymore.
But it's more than this outward physical thing that draws her to him. This too, I know. It's his life.
Chris has lived. He's hopped trains before, he's harvested crops and stories with others in Cali, and because he is all the things that a career in dental hygiene is not, she is enamored and brought to life by this.
I can see it in her face as she calls a friend on her phone and squeals out the story of the day in Chicago. She is young and in love, and I remember what that's like at 20, how my own tall lanky boy made me feel back then, and earlier. I like Jill because her sense of adventure runs deep, and I imagine that's what Chris likes about her too. He's teaching her about the world, his world, and she's eager to hear it all. When I tell her about my recent trip to Thailand, her eyes open as wide as her mouth, perfect circles of awe and excitement, and I hope that she is as eager to embrace calamity as she sounds, should it befall her on this trip. She has considered this possibility, and is afraid of what will happen if the cops take Chris away. They almost did that at Union Station today, but when I ask her if they've discussed a strategy for that, I see disbelief and fear color her face more than the streetlight illumination from above.
"God, what would I do? We haven't even talked about it, no."
She stares down at Jazz for a minute, and then snuggles into Chris' side, feeling the emptiness of a life on the road without her man. What would she do? I would like to think she'd figure it out, maybe late, but better then than never. That's what I did.
Up until Monday, I had planned on going to California, too. Not so much to take part in the harvest, exactly, but to be part of that culture of people who pass the seasons waiting for it like my family waits for the first spring-time sprout of life to color the fields.
A mess since my return to the states from Thailand, I was unhappy in Chicago, ill-at-ease among the skyscrapers and dull sheen of life in the US. Thailand had been too much, too much fun, too much happiness, too much… everything, and life in Chicago had been boring and flat, a watercolor wash of grey day after grey day.
So when I started fucking a friend in California and he suggested I move out there, first I thought "no, what a terrible idea." And then as the weeks passed each other with the slow monotony of spring in the Midwest, it sounded better and better, almost perfect. Not because I anticipated any sort of real life out there, but because it wasn't Chicago, which wasn't Thailand.
I looked at apartments here, evaded the real world and sought refuge from it in my books and my writing, and the night before I signed a lease on the most boho apartment I could find, my friend said that yes, if I went to California, everything would work out. For a few days I even believed it, and then, after posting my few possessions on craigslist and ending my lease, the reality of the situation came to pass, taking with it the charm and illusion of sandy shores and a life of stoned simplicity in the sun.
What is it about going West that reaches for the American spirit like stalks to the sky? How was this story started, and who perpetuates it to this day? These kids grew up together, friends in Baltimore, east coast elites gone organic, escaping the hum of existence by hopping trains and sleeping on sidewalks. I wanted to do that once, around the same time I thought living like a broke writer would be so bohemian and 1950s.
"How very 'beat' I'd be" I cleverly thought to myself, imagining all of the scenes from a Ginsberg or Kerouac epic in my own bedroom. "How very perfect for the storyteller in me, all of those bodies and lives and sorrows crashing against the stable shoreline of my being. It would be the life to end all lives, the adventure and chaos of a life lived to its fullest that I've always sought.
And then as quickly and randomly as the idea of attempting a life in California was proposed, the allure of it rubbed off like some dollar-store trinket gone brassy in the western sun. The dream, or the illusion of the dream imagined by someone else, someone I'm not, fell from the sky. And like a candle holder chipped and shattered against the cold tile of my floor, I swept it up and threw it away.
By 1 am Jill was needing sleep, and I could see a fight in her shoulders, if they didn't get to going where ever it was that they could sleep tonight soon.
"If my doorman isn't around, you can stay at my place," I offered, sparking a flame in her eyes and a glance upward from Matt, who was buried in his journal, Sharpie in hand. Chris smiled, busy chatting with the homeless and probably schizophrenic man laughing crazily at our feet.
"But with Jazz, the lobby has to be empty or else it won't work," I continued, hoping the man would go away before we headed to my place. The idea of showers and food had garnered their attention, and I felt bad for bringing it up, knowing that the doorman was probably around.
"I'll go home and check, then call you if it'll work."
My block came up quickly, lit up and alive, even at 1 am. The neighborhood has gentrified, and instead of my own neighborhood schizophrenic, it is my maintenance man and his wife, out with their baby, I run into at this late hour. We wave, cross paths, and I enter the lobby. How different our lives are, all of them.
This small family of three, neat and tidy at 1 am; me, sweaty and dirty in running gear and puppy tracks offering my home to another family of sorts. Am I crazier than the man laughing outside?
I think of the kids I've just met as I pack crackers and fruit and granola bars into a plastic bag. I can't get them in, not tonight, but if I make it back there before they seek shelter, maybe I can feed them. Maybe I can take care of them in the only way in have at this hour.
My train rattles along up the track, past Argyle, past Berwyn, back into Bryn Mawr. I get off slowly, letting the drunks stagger warm, boozy circles around me. The night has cooled down, and I wonder where the hobos will sleep tonight, how far their train will take them tomorrow; if Chris will get caught and separated from his mamma," and what Jill will do if he does.
"I didn't get much sleep last night," Jill said as we parted ways. "So I've got to get some tonight. Sleeping on the train is hard, and with Jazz, if I have to hold her… my arms…oh, it's just hard."
I nod my head in agreement, imagining that it is indeed, a challenge. But what do I know of hopping trains and holding sleeping puppies and chasing someone across the country because "that's what you do?" That's not what I do.
What do I know of trains and harvests and feet as black as the midnight tar on the street outside?
What I know is Chicago, and my own sense of adventure, my own heart and the things that I love: words and stories, not people. I know the way the right ones seem to find me, the stories that make whole my life in a way that the living of it never does.
What I know is that in another lifetime, I might have hopped a train and rattled off to Cali to chase some dream and some adventure. But not now. Not tonight. Not anymore. Instead, I will return to my apartment, sit on my couch, legs once again folded and firm beneath me, and capture the essence of this life lived in a night in my own words. And for me, for now, in this lifetime, that is good enough
Showing posts with label Creative nonfiction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Creative nonfiction. Show all posts
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Gift from the Lake
And suddenly, she felt old, aged like the day as it burns through the sky toward nightfall. Gone were the vibrant, showy hues of intense red and molten orange one feels as the sun reaches for the horizon; here, instead, were the soft pinks, a wash of watery violet, a hint of solid cerulean where the sky becomes earth.
It wasn’t this gradual though, this feeling of… finality. It wasn’t as if she had seen it coming out her window, as she had seen the sun dip down below the concrete skyline and color the night. No, this feeling was sudden, and once upon her, complete. There was no time to panic and rush about, ripping off the drapes to catch the last hint of golden color glinting off distant glass. Once the consciousness of this was upon her, it was complete, a blanket of acceptance as deep and calm as the night’s approach.
She paused, feeling the sand around her and the boom of jets above, and settled into the feeling. It was neither surprising nor disappointing, as she had imagined it might be. The acceptance of this place in her life, was just that, acceptance. Like acceptance of the sunset, and sunrise, and the promise of a new day, she had, after all, that known all along it would happen eventually. That it would feel like this.
Perhaps that’s why she had put off the actions and relationships that had brought it on all these years. Some part of her psyche, the part that in youth, lies dormant and still, that part had always known this day was coming, had remained silent, allowing her to spend sunrise after sunrise in the company of others, or herself, so that she could better understand the certainty of it when it came.
There is no way to prevent the setting of the sun, nor the rising of it, though the foolish, or the daring—and it is possible to be both at the same time—m may try. It wasn’t that she learned this only for the first time in the twilight of her walk along the beach, just that she knew the time had come to remember it for herself.
And now, that that time had arrived, spread itself quietly and softly across the expanse of her being, this too, she settled into, waiting. She hadn’t changed, no more in that minute than any other before, and yet with the combination of all past minutes and moments, she had changed dramatically. She was a progression of life experiences; truths and mistakes and ideas comprised her being. This too, she recognized and accepted, with what she believed was the wisdom of someone who has lived enough life to reflect upon.
And more than anything, more than “age” or finality, it was wisdom that she felt, indescribably so.
Wisdom, because she felt that she had learned how to pair that daring with this new life, and she felt like she had been blessed with a summation of parts, her parts, and a unique understanding of their relation to the parts of others. Her sense of daring, that which she imagined would fade, or be taken entirely from her, with the choice now made, was replaced now by a sense of stepping into the unknown, in an entirely new and different way.
For her years of presence and solitude, she had received the ability to see herself for what she was, on her own, which held the excitement and chase of life she craved. In its place now, was a foreign and welcome change of pace, a new opportunity to trust the person she had become with an adventure not entirely her own.
And finally, when the sun set and she ended her day, quietly, alone, waiting, she accepted that this too, was what she wanted, all along. The solitude of self occasionally interrupted to make room for and a life with another equally composed and daring being.
I've been reading "Gift from the Sea," by Anne Morrow Lindbergh, and I think it's easy to see here the influence her writing had on me as I wandered by Lake Michigan and then as I sat down to write. In her collection of essays and thoughts on what it is to be a "modern" woman, Lindbergh uses her experience as a woman, wife, mother and artist to craft a collection of well-written lines based on the gifts of time and clarity and sea life she received during her beach-front vacationing.
The writing spans 1955-75, and yet her book is as timeless as the beach itself, a well thought-out analysis of self and literary construction. I've always admired her stance, even if the idea of putting kids and a husband before myself has been pretty much non-existent in my life (It's uncanny how close this parallels the life of Charles Lindbergh, famed pilot and yes, husband to Anne Morrow).
But this evening, while easing my achy joints (go strep throat) into action, I was suddenly hit with the realization that I am going off to live with a man not as a room mate but as, well... a partner? This paradigm shift hasn't left me frazzled or anything, but I think it may be some combination of antibiotics and sleepiness that are numbing me to it.
And then again, with all seriousness, I know that not only do I want a sun to awake to new light each day, I'm ready for someone to be there with me as it happens.
It wasn’t this gradual though, this feeling of… finality. It wasn’t as if she had seen it coming out her window, as she had seen the sun dip down below the concrete skyline and color the night. No, this feeling was sudden, and once upon her, complete. There was no time to panic and rush about, ripping off the drapes to catch the last hint of golden color glinting off distant glass. Once the consciousness of this was upon her, it was complete, a blanket of acceptance as deep and calm as the night’s approach.
She paused, feeling the sand around her and the boom of jets above, and settled into the feeling. It was neither surprising nor disappointing, as she had imagined it might be. The acceptance of this place in her life, was just that, acceptance. Like acceptance of the sunset, and sunrise, and the promise of a new day, she had, after all, that known all along it would happen eventually. That it would feel like this.
Perhaps that’s why she had put off the actions and relationships that had brought it on all these years. Some part of her psyche, the part that in youth, lies dormant and still, that part had always known this day was coming, had remained silent, allowing her to spend sunrise after sunrise in the company of others, or herself, so that she could better understand the certainty of it when it came.
There is no way to prevent the setting of the sun, nor the rising of it, though the foolish, or the daring—and it is possible to be both at the same time—m may try. It wasn’t that she learned this only for the first time in the twilight of her walk along the beach, just that she knew the time had come to remember it for herself.
And now, that that time had arrived, spread itself quietly and softly across the expanse of her being, this too, she settled into, waiting. She hadn’t changed, no more in that minute than any other before, and yet with the combination of all past minutes and moments, she had changed dramatically. She was a progression of life experiences; truths and mistakes and ideas comprised her being. This too, she recognized and accepted, with what she believed was the wisdom of someone who has lived enough life to reflect upon.
And more than anything, more than “age” or finality, it was wisdom that she felt, indescribably so.
Wisdom, because she felt that she had learned how to pair that daring with this new life, and she felt like she had been blessed with a summation of parts, her parts, and a unique understanding of their relation to the parts of others. Her sense of daring, that which she imagined would fade, or be taken entirely from her, with the choice now made, was replaced now by a sense of stepping into the unknown, in an entirely new and different way.
For her years of presence and solitude, she had received the ability to see herself for what she was, on her own, which held the excitement and chase of life she craved. In its place now, was a foreign and welcome change of pace, a new opportunity to trust the person she had become with an adventure not entirely her own.
And finally, when the sun set and she ended her day, quietly, alone, waiting, she accepted that this too, was what she wanted, all along. The solitude of self occasionally interrupted to make room for and a life with another equally composed and daring being.
I've been reading "Gift from the Sea," by Anne Morrow Lindbergh, and I think it's easy to see here the influence her writing had on me as I wandered by Lake Michigan and then as I sat down to write. In her collection of essays and thoughts on what it is to be a "modern" woman, Lindbergh uses her experience as a woman, wife, mother and artist to craft a collection of well-written lines based on the gifts of time and clarity and sea life she received during her beach-front vacationing.
The writing spans 1955-75, and yet her book is as timeless as the beach itself, a well thought-out analysis of self and literary construction. I've always admired her stance, even if the idea of putting kids and a husband before myself has been pretty much non-existent in my life (It's uncanny how close this parallels the life of Charles Lindbergh, famed pilot and yes, husband to Anne Morrow).
But this evening, while easing my achy joints (go strep throat) into action, I was suddenly hit with the realization that I am going off to live with a man not as a room mate but as, well... a partner? This paradigm shift hasn't left me frazzled or anything, but I think it may be some combination of antibiotics and sleepiness that are numbing me to it.
And then again, with all seriousness, I know that not only do I want a sun to awake to new light each day, I'm ready for someone to be there with me as it happens.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Part II
I hang on to the excitement long enough to imagine sand in soft sheets and hands held in the dark. And when I am able to let go of this and breathe in deeply again, the thoughts rasp hard in my throat. Harder than breath jagged and dry during long run on an ankle still physically pained. Two miles on that is nothing compared with run-away mind on emotion.
Did I really imagine that this cross-country venture would be a good idea? In that split-second of decision making before agreeing to visit, did it even cross my mind that it might not be such a good idea? No, and that’s why I ran with it, full steam ahead. For once, it felt right and I didn't even question it.
“Mars, I think you should come out here, really. I have this ticket you can use, let me get online and see if there are restrictions on it.” He had said it before I knew what he was saying, and as the metronome tick and tock of a tongue to teeth thought echoes across the miles, I listen to him think out loud about this wild idea.
I am sprawled on my couch, readied in shoes and tank top for a run on the beach before the sun goes down. A dusky circle around the water and back. I am planning on getting outside and enjoying the light before it is consumed by the night. But he has different ideas, this spontaneous, light-hearted boy on the other end of the line, and somehow, I’m becoming convinced that they might be good ones.
“Aw, I don’t know. I don’t want to use your ticket.”
“no, see, you could come out here as soon as you get done fishing with your dad, and it’s round-trip and, wait, when are you going fishing?”
His earnest consideration for my trip home jerks me back to reality, and I’m once again wondering what is happening, what has happened to me in the past couple of days.
When I met Jay it was Christmas, and we were at his parent’s house drinking his dad’s home-made wine. Mr. Latore had spent the past 20 minutes showing me each and every piece of his sprawling 20-year-old collection of holiday houses and stores, complete with running water and lights and singing angles. “See, and over here, over here, this is California. This is where Jay and his guys are at. See those homies?”
The elder Latore is funny and kind, eager to show off his landscape and happy to have friends and family around to do it for. Jay and I had talked in the corner about myspace, music, I don’t even remember what else. And later, at the bar, we sat together and talked about Long Beach, and music and travel and how it all fit together into our respective dreams and goals.
When we left the bar that night, I driving my boyfriend’s car, Jay riding along in his best friend’s back seat, I thought back to something Sean had said to me earlier.
“We’re going to meet my friend Jay tonight, I think you’ll like him.” He had said this walking up to Jay’s house in the suburbs.
It hadn’t meant anything to me then; of course I’d like him. I liked all of his friends. But when I met Jay I understood exactly how he had meant it.
In high school, and then college, and even afterwards, the guys I dated were free spirits. The kind of guy who my best friend Nate used to call “fun guys” in jealous condemnation of the drugs and sex and fun I shared with them. They were the kind of boys who got me to go to Alabama in the middle of a semester without telling my parents and without a driver’s license and without any money. The kind of boys who convinced me to pierce soft, feminine flesh because similarly located soft male flesh had been thusly outfitted. They were tattooed, or pierced, and constantly hitching up jeans or strumming imaginary bass riffs in odd moments of idle handedness. Baseball caps turned backwards or knit beanies scrunched down low capped dark, perfectly curled hair and flipped it out in adorable waves around the ears. I hadn’t met a guy exactly like this since the last Jay I had met. And I had liked him, too.
“So. What did you think,” Sean had asked as we walked to his car in the crisp dark.
“Um, yeah, I liked him. He’s exactly the kind of guy I used to date,” I say, honest to the end. “Why not?” I thought to myself. “I’m dating Sean, it’s not like me saying this guy is cool is gonna get weird.”
And it didn’t, not then. And it hasn’t, yet. But as the momentum of my decision to spend a week in Long Beach with this man I barely know catches up to me, I’m wondering just how weird it’s got the potential to get, and the excitment of days past has turned into some sort of knotted tangle in my stomach and legs and chest.
Did I really imagine that this cross-country venture would be a good idea? In that split-second of decision making before agreeing to visit, did it even cross my mind that it might not be such a good idea? No, and that’s why I ran with it, full steam ahead. For once, it felt right and I didn't even question it.
“Mars, I think you should come out here, really. I have this ticket you can use, let me get online and see if there are restrictions on it.” He had said it before I knew what he was saying, and as the metronome tick and tock of a tongue to teeth thought echoes across the miles, I listen to him think out loud about this wild idea.
I am sprawled on my couch, readied in shoes and tank top for a run on the beach before the sun goes down. A dusky circle around the water and back. I am planning on getting outside and enjoying the light before it is consumed by the night. But he has different ideas, this spontaneous, light-hearted boy on the other end of the line, and somehow, I’m becoming convinced that they might be good ones.
“Aw, I don’t know. I don’t want to use your ticket.”
“no, see, you could come out here as soon as you get done fishing with your dad, and it’s round-trip and, wait, when are you going fishing?”
His earnest consideration for my trip home jerks me back to reality, and I’m once again wondering what is happening, what has happened to me in the past couple of days.
When I met Jay it was Christmas, and we were at his parent’s house drinking his dad’s home-made wine. Mr. Latore had spent the past 20 minutes showing me each and every piece of his sprawling 20-year-old collection of holiday houses and stores, complete with running water and lights and singing angles. “See, and over here, over here, this is California. This is where Jay and his guys are at. See those homies?”
The elder Latore is funny and kind, eager to show off his landscape and happy to have friends and family around to do it for. Jay and I had talked in the corner about myspace, music, I don’t even remember what else. And later, at the bar, we sat together and talked about Long Beach, and music and travel and how it all fit together into our respective dreams and goals.
When we left the bar that night, I driving my boyfriend’s car, Jay riding along in his best friend’s back seat, I thought back to something Sean had said to me earlier.
“We’re going to meet my friend Jay tonight, I think you’ll like him.” He had said this walking up to Jay’s house in the suburbs.
It hadn’t meant anything to me then; of course I’d like him. I liked all of his friends. But when I met Jay I understood exactly how he had meant it.
In high school, and then college, and even afterwards, the guys I dated were free spirits. The kind of guy who my best friend Nate used to call “fun guys” in jealous condemnation of the drugs and sex and fun I shared with them. They were the kind of boys who got me to go to Alabama in the middle of a semester without telling my parents and without a driver’s license and without any money. The kind of boys who convinced me to pierce soft, feminine flesh because similarly located soft male flesh had been thusly outfitted. They were tattooed, or pierced, and constantly hitching up jeans or strumming imaginary bass riffs in odd moments of idle handedness. Baseball caps turned backwards or knit beanies scrunched down low capped dark, perfectly curled hair and flipped it out in adorable waves around the ears. I hadn’t met a guy exactly like this since the last Jay I had met. And I had liked him, too.
“So. What did you think,” Sean had asked as we walked to his car in the crisp dark.
“Um, yeah, I liked him. He’s exactly the kind of guy I used to date,” I say, honest to the end. “Why not?” I thought to myself. “I’m dating Sean, it’s not like me saying this guy is cool is gonna get weird.”
And it didn’t, not then. And it hasn’t, yet. But as the momentum of my decision to spend a week in Long Beach with this man I barely know catches up to me, I’m wondering just how weird it’s got the potential to get, and the excitment of days past has turned into some sort of knotted tangle in my stomach and legs and chest.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Part I
It dawns on me somewhere between his third exclamation mark and the second message I get from one of his best friends. I know that the two are “porn buddies,” friends who have a pact that if one dies, the other removes all traces of pornographic material from the former’s life before friends, family and others can find the porn and lose respect for the deceased. I know this about them, because I was dating the former when I met the latter.
And I know that what I am about to do is considered taboo and stupid and maybe even scandalous in some circles. Kind of like owning and admitting to watching porn in polite society. And I’m guilty of having done all of the above before.
“I have some porn of Jay’s. Will you take it to him when you go see him?”
He has been skirting the issue in our last couple of conversations, but now I know that Sean knows that I’m going to go see his friend in a couple of days. I knew, of course, that Sean would be involved in this somehow. Jay did, after all, have to call him to get my number before he called me. I just didn’t know if Jay had happened to tell Sean that he wanted his number because he wanted me, or because he wanted something else.
“Jay liked your blog about Thailand,” Sean had said in that first conversation, that first one we’d had since I returned from Thailand. “Must have been some hot steamy Thai action?”
Sean wouldn’t know if there was hot or cold action if it was in his lap—or maybe only then—and he certainly never would have taken the time to read my blog and find out.
“You could say that,” I said, deferring. “Did you enter the limerick contest?”
We banter about limericks, the way in which he did secure the part of my heart that hadn’t immediately labeled him a sleaze ball. But that was a while ago, last year, in fact, and since then I’ve gotten poetry from other boys, equally empty to me, yet somehow meaningful in its creator’s capacity.
I hadn’t wanted to talk to Sean since I returned, and I hadn’t wanted to talk to anyone, really, since I’d been back. All that had happened to me in Thailand—how could I explain? How could I talk about it, especially with someone like Sean, who never really cared about me in the way I needed him to when things were good, much less falling down around my ears like banana leaves?
When Jay calls me, the first time, I am clearing my apartment, moving things around, trying to say busy and focus the mind that screams and jabbers and jumps through thoughts like chimps above. The number is one I don’t recognize, and the voice is the same, in the immediate moment. But both are a welcome distraction from the boredom that has become my life post-travel.
“Mars? Hey, it’s Jay. What’s going on?”
I am stunned into silence, not really sure why he’s calling me, but assuming it has something to do with my blog. Since January he has been a faithful presence, commenting, critiquing, reading. He seemed especially interested and encouraging of a few of the Thailand blogs, and I’d even received the visual equivalent of schmoopy poetry postings. And I know he had to get my number from Sean. Torn between that interaction and what this one means, I stammer my hellos.
“Eeeah..hey, Jay. Nothin’ much,, man. What’s goin’ on with you?”
With Sean, always on edge to act and behave and look a certain way, I pulled out the dignified salutation of someone greeting a business client. With Jay, the easy slur of someone I used to be slips out. Our conversation is peppered with “dude,” “right on” and several vehement “no ways!”Somewhere around the 75 minute mark I end it and shake my head, laying down to think. There’s nothing to say, and no one to say it to, so I laugh out loud.
“What the hell?” I can’t stifle the laughter inside, any more than I can stifle the smile that is working its way across my face.
“What is going on?”
During our second conversation, sometime between the first exclamation and the last subtly-made point, I understand that Jay wants to see me, even if I’m not exactly sure why. There’s mention of “urgency” and “fun,” promises of calls and sushi in the future.
I lay on my bed and contemplate the hour over and over in my head. At a loss for words and guidance and seeking neither.
And I know that what I am about to do is considered taboo and stupid and maybe even scandalous in some circles. Kind of like owning and admitting to watching porn in polite society. And I’m guilty of having done all of the above before.
“I have some porn of Jay’s. Will you take it to him when you go see him?”
He has been skirting the issue in our last couple of conversations, but now I know that Sean knows that I’m going to go see his friend in a couple of days. I knew, of course, that Sean would be involved in this somehow. Jay did, after all, have to call him to get my number before he called me. I just didn’t know if Jay had happened to tell Sean that he wanted his number because he wanted me, or because he wanted something else.
“Jay liked your blog about Thailand,” Sean had said in that first conversation, that first one we’d had since I returned from Thailand. “Must have been some hot steamy Thai action?”
Sean wouldn’t know if there was hot or cold action if it was in his lap—or maybe only then—and he certainly never would have taken the time to read my blog and find out.
“You could say that,” I said, deferring. “Did you enter the limerick contest?”
We banter about limericks, the way in which he did secure the part of my heart that hadn’t immediately labeled him a sleaze ball. But that was a while ago, last year, in fact, and since then I’ve gotten poetry from other boys, equally empty to me, yet somehow meaningful in its creator’s capacity.
I hadn’t wanted to talk to Sean since I returned, and I hadn’t wanted to talk to anyone, really, since I’d been back. All that had happened to me in Thailand—how could I explain? How could I talk about it, especially with someone like Sean, who never really cared about me in the way I needed him to when things were good, much less falling down around my ears like banana leaves?
When Jay calls me, the first time, I am clearing my apartment, moving things around, trying to say busy and focus the mind that screams and jabbers and jumps through thoughts like chimps above. The number is one I don’t recognize, and the voice is the same, in the immediate moment. But both are a welcome distraction from the boredom that has become my life post-travel.
“Mars? Hey, it’s Jay. What’s going on?”
I am stunned into silence, not really sure why he’s calling me, but assuming it has something to do with my blog. Since January he has been a faithful presence, commenting, critiquing, reading. He seemed especially interested and encouraging of a few of the Thailand blogs, and I’d even received the visual equivalent of schmoopy poetry postings. And I know he had to get my number from Sean. Torn between that interaction and what this one means, I stammer my hellos.
“Eeeah..hey, Jay. Nothin’ much,, man. What’s goin’ on with you?”
With Sean, always on edge to act and behave and look a certain way, I pulled out the dignified salutation of someone greeting a business client. With Jay, the easy slur of someone I used to be slips out. Our conversation is peppered with “dude,” “right on” and several vehement “no ways!”Somewhere around the 75 minute mark I end it and shake my head, laying down to think. There’s nothing to say, and no one to say it to, so I laugh out loud.
“What the hell?” I can’t stifle the laughter inside, any more than I can stifle the smile that is working its way across my face.
“What is going on?”
During our second conversation, sometime between the first exclamation and the last subtly-made point, I understand that Jay wants to see me, even if I’m not exactly sure why. There’s mention of “urgency” and “fun,” promises of calls and sushi in the future.
I lay on my bed and contemplate the hour over and over in my head. At a loss for words and guidance and seeking neither.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Amen(ds)
"Marcella?"
His voice is low and rolling, like a dark blue thundercloud over the plains.
I haven't heard it in months, almost a year. So when the man on the phone asks for me in his signature, soft tone, I'm genuinely surprised. I hadn't recognized the area code, but certainly hadn't expected him.
"Hey. It's Ryan."
As if I couldn't tell.
At its best, that voice had been full of promise and potential, like an much-needed storm cloud blown clear and harmlessly over a field after mosturizing soft green growth. At its worst, it accompanied the whirlwind of destruction and worry that being with Ryan sometimes meant. We dated last year, and when I ended things in June, after one chaotic trip too many, I didn't think I'd ever hear his rich voice again.
"Yeah, I know, Ryan. Hi. What's, uh, what's up?"
I had nothing to say and wasn't quite sure where this was headed. When I last talked to my wide-eyed hippie farmer boy, we had been fighting, about his drinking and the destruction of my apartment and the paint all over the floor. I had told him I couldn't handle it anymore, and that his crazy-ass trips to Chicago need not include me anymore.
It wasn't a pretty way, or a nice way to end things, especially with someone I had really wanted in my life as "the one."
But the universe had other things in mind, and so as I waited the half-second for his reply, I mulled over what they could be.
"I'm going to a meditation retreat up by Chicago, and I was wondering, if you'll be around, if you want to hang out. I feel like... well, I feel like I have amends to make with you."
Amends. One of the steps of AA, one of the steps of NA. One of the steps he'd planted his foot upon before.
"Yeah, I'll be around. But you don't have to make amends with me. Make them with yourself, and you'll have made them with me," I told him.
We talked, and about an hour later, decided that meeting up would definitely work, as long as things were calm and steady. Granted, I wouldn't know how to deal with him in that manner, but it was a necessary requirement. After vowing this, and telling me all the ways in which his life had changed, we got off the phone. And then I waited, looking forward to today, wondering what it would bring.
He teaches me, all the time. It's what drew me to him in the first place. When we were together, I had hoped that he could "be the one," because he made me a better person, made me want to do good things and strive for real peace and beauty. You know how some people are good influences, and bring out the best in each other? Or the worst? He brought out the best in me, but unfortunately, I brought out the worst in him. For some reason.
Time "spent" with me was time spent at Goose Island, the brewery I had introduced him to, or Piece, the other brewery I had shared with him. I knew he liked to drink (at that time, as much as me), but I didn't realize that unlike me, he couldn't just shut it off after a couple of beers and bad days. I made life harder for him in that way, during his visits here, but he helped me see my weak spots, and was one of the people on the path to help me seek inner resolve. Even with having to deal his drunk, belligerent ass, I still got the better end of the stick, long-term, I think.
And today he continued to share his subtle lessons with me.
When he called me at 7 am to ask directions from some street I'd never heard of to my street, and didn't even know if he was in Chicago, I sighed and shoved my head back under the brown pillows.
"Fuck. He's going to be a wreck again, as always. Why did I agree to see him?" I thought with dark, rolled eyes. Upon waking a bit, I decided to not be such a bitch and map quest the roads and help him out. After a couple of hours of directions and panicked follow-up calls, I was severely cranky, behind in my job application work, and ready to yell at him when he did arrive. But I bit my tongue instead, and told him to meet me at a local coffee shop when I got done with the work I had to do.
By noon we had settled down to pecan sticky buns and cinnamon rolls, and conversation over hot cups of tea and cocoa. And I was thankful for the presence of mind to bite my tongue earlier.
It's been an interesting month or so for me, what with all of the ex business that keeps popping up, but there is a reason I have all these exs as friends I guess. They are incredible people ( I mean c'mon, I DID pick them to date, after all, for some reasons), and I consider myself blessed to have them in my life now, safely at the distance they are.
We hung out at Target, goofing in the aisles and playing with the gardening stuff and the candle accessories. I even got a new camera to document the trip. And at the end of the day, when it was time for him to meet his ride-share partner and move on to the the ten-day silence, we parted on good terms, with more dirt on each other than many married people (and still just friends, phew).
And today he also taught me about patience and reminded me that it's something to continue working on. How many times have I been lost on the roads of Chicago? Do I want a more knowledgeable friend to blow me off or belittle me next time its me (because I'm sure its coming)? 'Course not. I did, however, also note that my inability to deal with people I expect independence and responsibility from is much higher with him than others. Will be thinking on that one for a while, but am sure it's because it's been shattered so many times with him.
And the other thing I began to believe today, from his example, is that things work themselves out, if you just give them time. Being with a person is a day-by-day process. It's not about tomorrow or next week or next year. All good to consider, but first, it's about getting through just one day with that person.
And we had one nice day.
I'm grateful that he made the effort to stop and mend things. And I hope that he can keep truckin' on the path he's on. If we managed to make it through one day of solid peace and respect for each other, I have hope that it's because he's managed to find some peace and respect within.
His voice is low and rolling, like a dark blue thundercloud over the plains.
I haven't heard it in months, almost a year. So when the man on the phone asks for me in his signature, soft tone, I'm genuinely surprised. I hadn't recognized the area code, but certainly hadn't expected him.
"Hey. It's Ryan."
As if I couldn't tell.
At its best, that voice had been full of promise and potential, like an much-needed storm cloud blown clear and harmlessly over a field after mosturizing soft green growth. At its worst, it accompanied the whirlwind of destruction and worry that being with Ryan sometimes meant. We dated last year, and when I ended things in June, after one chaotic trip too many, I didn't think I'd ever hear his rich voice again.
"Yeah, I know, Ryan. Hi. What's, uh, what's up?"
I had nothing to say and wasn't quite sure where this was headed. When I last talked to my wide-eyed hippie farmer boy, we had been fighting, about his drinking and the destruction of my apartment and the paint all over the floor. I had told him I couldn't handle it anymore, and that his crazy-ass trips to Chicago need not include me anymore.
It wasn't a pretty way, or a nice way to end things, especially with someone I had really wanted in my life as "the one."
But the universe had other things in mind, and so as I waited the half-second for his reply, I mulled over what they could be.
"I'm going to a meditation retreat up by Chicago, and I was wondering, if you'll be around, if you want to hang out. I feel like... well, I feel like I have amends to make with you."
Amends. One of the steps of AA, one of the steps of NA. One of the steps he'd planted his foot upon before.
"Yeah, I'll be around. But you don't have to make amends with me. Make them with yourself, and you'll have made them with me," I told him.
We talked, and about an hour later, decided that meeting up would definitely work, as long as things were calm and steady. Granted, I wouldn't know how to deal with him in that manner, but it was a necessary requirement. After vowing this, and telling me all the ways in which his life had changed, we got off the phone. And then I waited, looking forward to today, wondering what it would bring.
He teaches me, all the time. It's what drew me to him in the first place. When we were together, I had hoped that he could "be the one," because he made me a better person, made me want to do good things and strive for real peace and beauty. You know how some people are good influences, and bring out the best in each other? Or the worst? He brought out the best in me, but unfortunately, I brought out the worst in him. For some reason.
Time "spent" with me was time spent at Goose Island, the brewery I had introduced him to, or Piece, the other brewery I had shared with him. I knew he liked to drink (at that time, as much as me), but I didn't realize that unlike me, he couldn't just shut it off after a couple of beers and bad days. I made life harder for him in that way, during his visits here, but he helped me see my weak spots, and was one of the people on the path to help me seek inner resolve. Even with having to deal his drunk, belligerent ass, I still got the better end of the stick, long-term, I think.
And today he continued to share his subtle lessons with me.
When he called me at 7 am to ask directions from some street I'd never heard of to my street, and didn't even know if he was in Chicago, I sighed and shoved my head back under the brown pillows.
"Fuck. He's going to be a wreck again, as always. Why did I agree to see him?" I thought with dark, rolled eyes. Upon waking a bit, I decided to not be such a bitch and map quest the roads and help him out. After a couple of hours of directions and panicked follow-up calls, I was severely cranky, behind in my job application work, and ready to yell at him when he did arrive. But I bit my tongue instead, and told him to meet me at a local coffee shop when I got done with the work I had to do.
By noon we had settled down to pecan sticky buns and cinnamon rolls, and conversation over hot cups of tea and cocoa. And I was thankful for the presence of mind to bite my tongue earlier.
It's been an interesting month or so for me, what with all of the ex business that keeps popping up, but there is a reason I have all these exs as friends I guess. They are incredible people ( I mean c'mon, I DID pick them to date, after all, for some reasons), and I consider myself blessed to have them in my life now, safely at the distance they are.
We hung out at Target, goofing in the aisles and playing with the gardening stuff and the candle accessories. I even got a new camera to document the trip. And at the end of the day, when it was time for him to meet his ride-share partner and move on to the the ten-day silence, we parted on good terms, with more dirt on each other than many married people (and still just friends, phew).
And today he also taught me about patience and reminded me that it's something to continue working on. How many times have I been lost on the roads of Chicago? Do I want a more knowledgeable friend to blow me off or belittle me next time its me (because I'm sure its coming)? 'Course not. I did, however, also note that my inability to deal with people I expect independence and responsibility from is much higher with him than others. Will be thinking on that one for a while, but am sure it's because it's been shattered so many times with him.
And the other thing I began to believe today, from his example, is that things work themselves out, if you just give them time. Being with a person is a day-by-day process. It's not about tomorrow or next week or next year. All good to consider, but first, it's about getting through just one day with that person.
And we had one nice day.
I'm grateful that he made the effort to stop and mend things. And I hope that he can keep truckin' on the path he's on. If we managed to make it through one day of solid peace and respect for each other, I have hope that it's because he's managed to find some peace and respect within.
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Like an undiscoverd work of art
I want him to touch me like the Gardener, like I’m a rich, beautiful plot full of potential and earthen mystery, like my curves and valleys and topography have purpose and difference in yield and required attention. No two plots are the same, and in fact, no two areas of one fertile field are necessary the same type of soil, the same distribution of sand and loam and silt. And If he doesn’t intuit this, as the Gardener did, I want him to study the lay of the land and learn it.
I need him to challenge me and refine me for courtly presentation, as the politician did. He must have the mind of a studied historian, the wit of a jester, the poise of a stately diplomat, although only in the most necessary of amounts. Too much and the charm of sophistication is lost, like a fine Scotch consumed to excess.
His verse must sing with honesty and insight, as the Writer’s verse has. He must be able to craft and compose his dreams and desire and love for me with the care and purpose of a poet writing his own legacy. Yet I need him to be able to edit this prose, not run it on and on and on, dulling its meaning.
His dreams and optimism must be real and achievable, as they were to the Actor. Yet his playing need go no further than the stage. His words, with me, his actions, must be all his. All original.
All of these things I need from the man who is art yet undiscovered, the one who easily and completely turns my artistic talents to more than words and lines on a page. All of these things alone, with nothing else to compliment them, as they existed here, must work together, in one who inspires my world. All of these things and one more, the most important of all, really. For what is an understanding of the physical, or the mental, if it is not complimenting an understanding of the indescribable essence of who I am in all my parts? The dreamer, the actor, the poet, the planter; I too, am each of these things. The diplomat, the jester, the muse drunk on my own power… each of these things, as fundamental to my complimentary half as they are present in me, are hard to grasp and understand. Fluid, always changing, always moving, these pieces of my world must be quietly understood and sought out like the great adventure they are… just as the Wanderer sought to do.
The wanderer. For his downfalls and unsettled manner, his turbulent changes of atmosphere, he understood these parts of me like no other. But, in equal parts unsettled and in search of distant shores, greener grasses, I too, could not settle and remain content with the fluid life that such a journey provides.
There is no importance to the order of application of these parts. Like a song, many parts are layered and harmonized to complete the motif. All murals great and small, are colors and shapes and strokes woven together as part of the panorama. Body, plot, problem, resolution, all move a story from beginning to end. There is no set formula to the application and organization of these elements, they simply must come together to complete the artistic whole.
I need him to challenge me and refine me for courtly presentation, as the politician did. He must have the mind of a studied historian, the wit of a jester, the poise of a stately diplomat, although only in the most necessary of amounts. Too much and the charm of sophistication is lost, like a fine Scotch consumed to excess.
His verse must sing with honesty and insight, as the Writer’s verse has. He must be able to craft and compose his dreams and desire and love for me with the care and purpose of a poet writing his own legacy. Yet I need him to be able to edit this prose, not run it on and on and on, dulling its meaning.
His dreams and optimism must be real and achievable, as they were to the Actor. Yet his playing need go no further than the stage. His words, with me, his actions, must be all his. All original.
All of these things I need from the man who is art yet undiscovered, the one who easily and completely turns my artistic talents to more than words and lines on a page. All of these things alone, with nothing else to compliment them, as they existed here, must work together, in one who inspires my world. All of these things and one more, the most important of all, really. For what is an understanding of the physical, or the mental, if it is not complimenting an understanding of the indescribable essence of who I am in all my parts? The dreamer, the actor, the poet, the planter; I too, am each of these things. The diplomat, the jester, the muse drunk on my own power… each of these things, as fundamental to my complimentary half as they are present in me, are hard to grasp and understand. Fluid, always changing, always moving, these pieces of my world must be quietly understood and sought out like the great adventure they are… just as the Wanderer sought to do.
The wanderer. For his downfalls and unsettled manner, his turbulent changes of atmosphere, he understood these parts of me like no other. But, in equal parts unsettled and in search of distant shores, greener grasses, I too, could not settle and remain content with the fluid life that such a journey provides.
There is no importance to the order of application of these parts. Like a song, many parts are layered and harmonized to complete the motif. All murals great and small, are colors and shapes and strokes woven together as part of the panorama. Body, plot, problem, resolution, all move a story from beginning to end. There is no set formula to the application and organization of these elements, they simply must come together to complete the artistic whole.
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
It's all pretend, Part I
March 11
It comes served to us under the neon glow of false morning light.
An all-American breakfast: fruit, sausage, eggs, toast. Shrink-wrapped sustenance with a smile. The perfect orange circles of yolk on the perfect round disks of white next to perfectly square sheets of toast- it looks like plastic food, like toy replicas we played with in kindergarten during "meals" or at Friend's houses, playing "house."
"It looks like the shit you see in windows at restaurants," Kyle says, before I can even comment. He's right, except we're not at a restaurant, hungry gawkers staring in, potential members of the dining elite allowed to feast with mouths and stomachs, not just eyes. And we're not playing "house," either, although the booth we fill reminds me of a 50s era kitchenette. It's a breakfast nook leftover from years gone by, as aged as the rest of our surroundings. And there is no play for us now, not really. Even if it feels that way.
We're on the No. 51 Express train heading north from Bangkok to Chiang Mai. Maybe we'll be able to play there.In the meantime, breakfast has been served under shallow lights as we creep along through countryside that is hilled and treed like that of anyplace U.S.A., not palmed and tropical as I'd imagined Thailand to be.
This is the second eggs and sausage breakfast I've had. More all-American than the breakfasts I eat at home. I didn't fly 23 hours to eat eggs and toast everyday. I don't know what I DID come for; not this.
I didn't come for upset stomachs, traveler's diarrhea, no, but that's to be expected, isn't it? Yes. And after my last meal on the streets, yesterday afternoon, I've got both the upset stomach and riled innards that will probably only mean one thing once I make it to the silver hole in the train's floor that serves as the toilet.
I had eaten several types of yummy, mini doughnuts; lots of varieties of pad Thai, tom yum, chicken dishes, fruit and all manner of noodley dishes and soups off the Bangkok streets. I wanted to immerse myself in culture through the cuisine. So I dug right in, better than homefries and comfort food anyday. But I hadn't tried the meat balls on a stick, all colors and shapes and types. And I'd been craving them. So I balled up and got a selection: chicken, pork, beef. I was leery of them each day because I wasn't sure how long they'd been sitting out in the sun at any given street stall, and my better judgement told me to avoid them. Since I generally ignore my better judgement, I decided to skip it and take a chance on the culinary curiosity before leaving the city.
The beef balls were delicious. Spicy and tender and just smokey enough to cover the heat and decay that had already begun to set in when I purchased them. Dipped in a hot chili paste, they were fine.
The pork balls, white and almost spongy, tasted fine, it was just the consistency that gave me pause. Dipped in the same sauce, they proved edible. Reservations would come later.
I knew with one bite that the chicken balls would be my undoing, that the meat had long since gone home to roost. Eating these will make me sick, I thought to myself, soaking them in the cilantro red sauce they came with. It wasn't until I bit into a piece of feather that I gave up on the spheres of white meat; I didn't want to find the beak or bit of scaly leg piece. All behind me now, the meal on the tiny tray in front of me was my present concentration.
Filling and just barely enough to hold me over for another five or so hours, these small home style breakfasts are good enough to eat, but that's it. Just enough. Walking around and hauling a 25 pound (yes, really) pack in this heat is enough to make one want more than three squares a day. But it was all I had, so I ate it, jumped out of the robin's egg blue booth as often as possible and loaded up on the tea to fill my tummy when done. I'll just pretend that I'm full.
Empty now, our car (No. B) is devoid of all human conversation, all life save Kyle and I. When he's in his seat and not out smoking in the space between cars or talking to someone in the sink area, that is. I sometimes wonder if we're just acting here, just going through the motions, just making it all up as we go along, not sure of the right words or actions or staging.
It comes served to us under the neon glow of false morning light.
An all-American breakfast: fruit, sausage, eggs, toast. Shrink-wrapped sustenance with a smile. The perfect orange circles of yolk on the perfect round disks of white next to perfectly square sheets of toast- it looks like plastic food, like toy replicas we played with in kindergarten during "meals" or at Friend's houses, playing "house."
"It looks like the shit you see in windows at restaurants," Kyle says, before I can even comment. He's right, except we're not at a restaurant, hungry gawkers staring in, potential members of the dining elite allowed to feast with mouths and stomachs, not just eyes. And we're not playing "house," either, although the booth we fill reminds me of a 50s era kitchenette. It's a breakfast nook leftover from years gone by, as aged as the rest of our surroundings. And there is no play for us now, not really. Even if it feels that way.
We're on the No. 51 Express train heading north from Bangkok to Chiang Mai. Maybe we'll be able to play there.In the meantime, breakfast has been served under shallow lights as we creep along through countryside that is hilled and treed like that of anyplace U.S.A., not palmed and tropical as I'd imagined Thailand to be.
This is the second eggs and sausage breakfast I've had. More all-American than the breakfasts I eat at home. I didn't fly 23 hours to eat eggs and toast everyday. I don't know what I DID come for; not this.
I didn't come for upset stomachs, traveler's diarrhea, no, but that's to be expected, isn't it? Yes. And after my last meal on the streets, yesterday afternoon, I've got both the upset stomach and riled innards that will probably only mean one thing once I make it to the silver hole in the train's floor that serves as the toilet.
I had eaten several types of yummy, mini doughnuts; lots of varieties of pad Thai, tom yum, chicken dishes, fruit and all manner of noodley dishes and soups off the Bangkok streets. I wanted to immerse myself in culture through the cuisine. So I dug right in, better than homefries and comfort food anyday. But I hadn't tried the meat balls on a stick, all colors and shapes and types. And I'd been craving them. So I balled up and got a selection: chicken, pork, beef. I was leery of them each day because I wasn't sure how long they'd been sitting out in the sun at any given street stall, and my better judgement told me to avoid them. Since I generally ignore my better judgement, I decided to skip it and take a chance on the culinary curiosity before leaving the city.
The beef balls were delicious. Spicy and tender and just smokey enough to cover the heat and decay that had already begun to set in when I purchased them. Dipped in a hot chili paste, they were fine.
The pork balls, white and almost spongy, tasted fine, it was just the consistency that gave me pause. Dipped in the same sauce, they proved edible. Reservations would come later.
I knew with one bite that the chicken balls would be my undoing, that the meat had long since gone home to roost. Eating these will make me sick, I thought to myself, soaking them in the cilantro red sauce they came with. It wasn't until I bit into a piece of feather that I gave up on the spheres of white meat; I didn't want to find the beak or bit of scaly leg piece. All behind me now, the meal on the tiny tray in front of me was my present concentration.
Filling and just barely enough to hold me over for another five or so hours, these small home style breakfasts are good enough to eat, but that's it. Just enough. Walking around and hauling a 25 pound (yes, really) pack in this heat is enough to make one want more than three squares a day. But it was all I had, so I ate it, jumped out of the robin's egg blue booth as often as possible and loaded up on the tea to fill my tummy when done. I'll just pretend that I'm full.
Empty now, our car (No. B) is devoid of all human conversation, all life save Kyle and I. When he's in his seat and not out smoking in the space between cars or talking to someone in the sink area, that is. I sometimes wonder if we're just acting here, just going through the motions, just making it all up as we go along, not sure of the right words or actions or staging.
Sunday, April 6, 2008
Loving in the Park
* note that my Thailand blog posting are out of order at this point. Each one is dated and titled like this one, for clarification.
March 8
Her foot is intertwined with his, locked into the dark crease of his knee. They sit folded up into each other on the park bench in front of me, laughing over who-knows-what or just sitting quietly, happy in the silence. To my left, reclined against the park’s western edge of concrete blocks and seats next to the river, another couple nods off in the afternoon sun, heads tipped in and held upright by shoulders warming in the sun. This park is full of lovers, each time I visit, heavy with the Thai essence of pairing off, the intensity of love and connection that seems to be everywhere.
I’m here not as part of a dynamic duo, in this sense of romance and love, but with a friend, so I get to observe, sit and write and think about that it means.
If I were here with a boyfriend, or in some sort of relationship that was anything other than just here for myself, I’d probably be caught up that and what it means to be in love with someone In Thailand and on vacation. But because Kyle’s not my lover-- and is at the dentist, isn't even here in the park with me-- I’ve got the whole afternoon to myself to do exactly what I want, however I want, without the complications (or yes, comfort) of another.
That’s not to say that I feel like I have to entertain him, or vice versa. We have our own comfortable silences to get caught up in. Like a couple of old friends-- which is what we are-- there’s no need to impress or worry or put too much effort into being with each other. The perfect travel companion.
I’m here doing this for myself, looking at my opportunities to write and think away from Chicago and the “real world” as an inner experience achieved through outer stimuli. As silly as that might sound, I really hope that it actually really is all that. And more. I’m trying to decide if grad school will be in my near future; will it be a job, any job at the RIC, just to have a job, or will it be the internship I’ve been banking on since last summer? And if it’s school, is it gonna be speech distorders/therapy, or the MFA, the writing path I’m trying to tell myself is the right one. Speech therapy seems so solid, so secure, so permanent, in a different way. Writing, storytelling- that will always be mine, so why get more schooling in it? I could travel then, and write, yes, but where’s the money for that in writing? Therapy though, solving the riddle of communication and speech and though problems, that’s a commitment. A long-term choice in the making. And I’m not sure I’m ready for that. Or a real job. But I do want some sort of direction.
I want clarity, closure, an understanding of why and how this trip actually ended up happening after two years of thinking and talking about it.
Only a couple of days into this vacation, I’ve already had a chance to experience the warnings of the guidebooks, the thrill of Thai traffic, the scheming, shifty salespeople and stalls on every corner. I’ve had ideas of my own about all of this, but like travel to any unknown world, like simply going to Chicago’s south side for the first time or walking into a pharaoh’s tomb, Bangkok thus far, has been outside of any of my possible expectations.
Not that I really had too many expectations. I expected the crowds, the traffic, the congestion of Cairo or Colombia, but Bangkok has it’s own, overwhelming flavor.
“Should we stay for three days or so, get your dentist stuff done, then go to Chiang Mai?” I asked Kyle this morning. I think that I’m going to be completely overwhelmed by then, with this craziness.” In theory, it sounds great. Whether or not that happens, I’m not sure. Maybe we’ll fall in love with Bangkok and overdo our stay, cut short something else.
The people are friendly, everyone does, indeed have a smile, as promised in the tour guides and stories and experiences shared. During breakfast on the first morning, at the hotel near the airport, I talked with a Frenchman about the islands he’d been to and the places he’d stayed. With no plans, the entire country is ours, so I’m happy to learn what other people have to say in building our plans.
I have a cousin who studied here recommending a more sophisticated way of traveling that will not happen for us, a book to follow in chasing my own “perfect moment,” and an open month’s worth of time to explore and learn. If this adventure is anything at all like the rest of my travels and trips, it should be a good one. And with the agreed on level of “keeping it platonic,” the tangles and rewards of a relationship should be as far away as the looks in these people’s ayes as they gaze into smiling, brown faces opposite.
March 8
Her foot is intertwined with his, locked into the dark crease of his knee. They sit folded up into each other on the park bench in front of me, laughing over who-knows-what or just sitting quietly, happy in the silence. To my left, reclined against the park’s western edge of concrete blocks and seats next to the river, another couple nods off in the afternoon sun, heads tipped in and held upright by shoulders warming in the sun. This park is full of lovers, each time I visit, heavy with the Thai essence of pairing off, the intensity of love and connection that seems to be everywhere.
I’m here not as part of a dynamic duo, in this sense of romance and love, but with a friend, so I get to observe, sit and write and think about that it means.
If I were here with a boyfriend, or in some sort of relationship that was anything other than just here for myself, I’d probably be caught up that and what it means to be in love with someone In Thailand and on vacation. But because Kyle’s not my lover-- and is at the dentist, isn't even here in the park with me-- I’ve got the whole afternoon to myself to do exactly what I want, however I want, without the complications (or yes, comfort) of another.
That’s not to say that I feel like I have to entertain him, or vice versa. We have our own comfortable silences to get caught up in. Like a couple of old friends-- which is what we are-- there’s no need to impress or worry or put too much effort into being with each other. The perfect travel companion.
I’m here doing this for myself, looking at my opportunities to write and think away from Chicago and the “real world” as an inner experience achieved through outer stimuli. As silly as that might sound, I really hope that it actually really is all that. And more. I’m trying to decide if grad school will be in my near future; will it be a job, any job at the RIC, just to have a job, or will it be the internship I’ve been banking on since last summer? And if it’s school, is it gonna be speech distorders/therapy, or the MFA, the writing path I’m trying to tell myself is the right one. Speech therapy seems so solid, so secure, so permanent, in a different way. Writing, storytelling- that will always be mine, so why get more schooling in it? I could travel then, and write, yes, but where’s the money for that in writing? Therapy though, solving the riddle of communication and speech and though problems, that’s a commitment. A long-term choice in the making. And I’m not sure I’m ready for that. Or a real job. But I do want some sort of direction.
I want clarity, closure, an understanding of why and how this trip actually ended up happening after two years of thinking and talking about it.
Only a couple of days into this vacation, I’ve already had a chance to experience the warnings of the guidebooks, the thrill of Thai traffic, the scheming, shifty salespeople and stalls on every corner. I’ve had ideas of my own about all of this, but like travel to any unknown world, like simply going to Chicago’s south side for the first time or walking into a pharaoh’s tomb, Bangkok thus far, has been outside of any of my possible expectations.
Not that I really had too many expectations. I expected the crowds, the traffic, the congestion of Cairo or Colombia, but Bangkok has it’s own, overwhelming flavor.
“Should we stay for three days or so, get your dentist stuff done, then go to Chiang Mai?” I asked Kyle this morning. I think that I’m going to be completely overwhelmed by then, with this craziness.” In theory, it sounds great. Whether or not that happens, I’m not sure. Maybe we’ll fall in love with Bangkok and overdo our stay, cut short something else.
The people are friendly, everyone does, indeed have a smile, as promised in the tour guides and stories and experiences shared. During breakfast on the first morning, at the hotel near the airport, I talked with a Frenchman about the islands he’d been to and the places he’d stayed. With no plans, the entire country is ours, so I’m happy to learn what other people have to say in building our plans.
I have a cousin who studied here recommending a more sophisticated way of traveling that will not happen for us, a book to follow in chasing my own “perfect moment,” and an open month’s worth of time to explore and learn. If this adventure is anything at all like the rest of my travels and trips, it should be a good one. And with the agreed on level of “keeping it platonic,” the tangles and rewards of a relationship should be as far away as the looks in these people’s ayes as they gaze into smiling, brown faces opposite.
Friday, March 7, 2008
Tha Thewes Market
It smells like the old rotting shed behind my grandparents’ house. Dank and dark and mysterious, full of ancient secrets. The heat of countless tropical afternoons has cured the peeling, wooden walls with the stench of meat, the essence of animal byproducts; decay. Wooden pallets stacked in a dark, cobwebbed corner and countertops resting clean and bare in the afternoon’s lull mark the industry of this building, but reveal nothing of its purpose. The market’s smell has permeated the very foundations of this building, though, and I know that human activity, if absent from this room, simmers in the sun, one room over.
In the main part of the Tha Thewes market, motorcycles buzz through the foot traffic, somehow spilling neither strapped-down contents from the seat nor stalls, nor pedestrians in their blue, fumey wake. The frequent disturbances fill the aisles with sound and exhaust, held heavily in the air by the moisture, the humidity of the Phra-- river. But these mechanical puts and gurgling are not the only sounds.
These chambers of secrets sparkle like Ali Baba’s thieves’ den; crackle with shopping bags, plastic wrap, static radios. There is a cacophony of human voices, like Bable, all are communicating without attention to what’s being said by others. The rising, throaty “ng” sound of consonants close and unheard in English, the nasal, happy “sawadee” called out in greeting reach me through the din, remind me of where I am in time and place. I bite into the smooth, snow-white squid on a stick purchased upon entry, enjoying the chewy texture, the spicey, clean taste, the possibility of fresh seafood. As I browse the stalls looking for nothing and finding everything, I am jarred for a minute by the beautiful chaos of the atmosphere and the lack of urgency I feel. Even in the scramble, I feel alive, unhurried, almost… calm. When was the last time a stop at the “market” was like this at home?
Home.
Back in Chicago, where shopping for groceries, clothes, planting supplies-- whatever-- is anything but unhurried and exciting. Home, where ceilings of false lights and immaculate floors trap me and tarnish me more than any corrugated tin ceiling or cement walkway here ever could. The aisles of my local Jewel-Osco grocery store, the levels of products at Target--when was the last time I cracked a smile in the crowds of scowling faces, the noise of screaming babies, the noise in my own head?
At home, also near the water’s edge (this water being Lake Michigan, not -- river), I scurry through aisles crowded with cans, bags, boxes, people, things, displays of stuff, stuff, stuff, STUFF, looking for something, but finding NOTHING, wasting a whole day among the masses. Here, a day in the market, a day of nothingness, a day “wasted” is not a waste, but a lesson in culture, history, language, life. Here, everything is “sanuk,” the Thai word for fun. Everything is an experience, a reason for celebration, an opportunity to learn and let go. Even though I have seen this in action on the streets, in the backpackers mecca of Khao San Road, or the bars late at night, it is in this moment of activity that I really realize just how fun life can be here. If you can just let it be.
Caught up in this epiphany, I bump shoulders with a fellow shopper, a fellow female. “Mai pen rai,” we call out in apology. “Nevermind.” No problem, no big deal. Here, a bumped shoulder is simply that, not a bumped ego or a damning accident as it often is in Chicago.
Buddhists adhere to living in the present, as it is all that exists. Not the past, it is behind you. Not the future, it is not yet here. Just what is here, now, in front of you.
In front of me, I see chilies spread on a wooden counter, glowing reds and muted browns drying in front of me. Chilies so hot they rival the 90+ degree heat I’m growing accustomed to.
My second meal here, a hot, hot dish of pad thai cooked on the street, plagued me twice. Once, before the liquid wash of Singha beer could quench it, and once the next day, as I sweat it out in a hangover dimmed only by the liters of water I gulped down while walking around the temples.
The chilies in this booth are in various stages of freshness and preservation, and if I lean down and away from the fish and snails and shrimp next to them, I swear I can feel the heat of their oil in the burning, red aroma that enters my nose. Saffron, seafood, basil and garlic; these are the scents of the market. Layered with the exhaust, sprinkled with sweat, they all paint a vivid, olfactory panorama across my mind.
A motorcycle veers toward me, marks my left leg with its splatters of water trickling slowly below my feet. As much as the market is a combination of kitchen, shed, fragrant garden or livestock pen, it is not at all dirty. For the Thais, cleanliness is next to, well, holiness, at the least. Temple admission is gained only with the removal of shoes; covered heads, clean aprons, spotless dishes glisten in each eating establishment-- even the street stalls-- I visit. This passing motorcycle, then, splashes me not with street muck or sludgy water, but mists of the overflow of a stall washed clean, buckets rinsed and restored as the evening’s traffic nears the space.
As I prepare to leave, exiting the way I came in (this labyrinth of stalls and walls and people could make that hard) the warm, earthy core of the earth’s produce catches my nose. These upshoots of inner germination-- mushrooms--are laid out in neat rows and clusters before me. I could spend hours at the exit, eyeing each smooth cap, each dark, fragile filament of spore lining, but because the rest of the city beckons, my experience with the market ends with the brilliant hues of metallic sarongs, in fabrics whose colors rival the rising sun’s glow or soft pastels of the swollen moon. Only here would the fashions of the day be stacked next to the tumbled tangle of mushrooms and onion roots, the shimmer of street fashion neighboring the activity once bustling underground. Terrycloth as soft as the downy lining of a bamboo mushroom stem moves soft and silent under my fingers, ending the tactile thrill of taste, touch, smell and sound that has been my experience of the Tha Thewes market.
In the main part of the Tha Thewes market, motorcycles buzz through the foot traffic, somehow spilling neither strapped-down contents from the seat nor stalls, nor pedestrians in their blue, fumey wake. The frequent disturbances fill the aisles with sound and exhaust, held heavily in the air by the moisture, the humidity of the Phra-- river. But these mechanical puts and gurgling are not the only sounds.
These chambers of secrets sparkle like Ali Baba’s thieves’ den; crackle with shopping bags, plastic wrap, static radios. There is a cacophony of human voices, like Bable, all are communicating without attention to what’s being said by others. The rising, throaty “ng” sound of consonants close and unheard in English, the nasal, happy “sawadee” called out in greeting reach me through the din, remind me of where I am in time and place. I bite into the smooth, snow-white squid on a stick purchased upon entry, enjoying the chewy texture, the spicey, clean taste, the possibility of fresh seafood. As I browse the stalls looking for nothing and finding everything, I am jarred for a minute by the beautiful chaos of the atmosphere and the lack of urgency I feel. Even in the scramble, I feel alive, unhurried, almost… calm. When was the last time a stop at the “market” was like this at home?
Home.
Back in Chicago, where shopping for groceries, clothes, planting supplies-- whatever-- is anything but unhurried and exciting. Home, where ceilings of false lights and immaculate floors trap me and tarnish me more than any corrugated tin ceiling or cement walkway here ever could. The aisles of my local Jewel-Osco grocery store, the levels of products at Target--when was the last time I cracked a smile in the crowds of scowling faces, the noise of screaming babies, the noise in my own head?
At home, also near the water’s edge (this water being Lake Michigan, not -- river), I scurry through aisles crowded with cans, bags, boxes, people, things, displays of stuff, stuff, stuff, STUFF, looking for something, but finding NOTHING, wasting a whole day among the masses. Here, a day in the market, a day of nothingness, a day “wasted” is not a waste, but a lesson in culture, history, language, life. Here, everything is “sanuk,” the Thai word for fun. Everything is an experience, a reason for celebration, an opportunity to learn and let go. Even though I have seen this in action on the streets, in the backpackers mecca of Khao San Road, or the bars late at night, it is in this moment of activity that I really realize just how fun life can be here. If you can just let it be.
Caught up in this epiphany, I bump shoulders with a fellow shopper, a fellow female. “Mai pen rai,” we call out in apology. “Nevermind.” No problem, no big deal. Here, a bumped shoulder is simply that, not a bumped ego or a damning accident as it often is in Chicago.
Buddhists adhere to living in the present, as it is all that exists. Not the past, it is behind you. Not the future, it is not yet here. Just what is here, now, in front of you.
In front of me, I see chilies spread on a wooden counter, glowing reds and muted browns drying in front of me. Chilies so hot they rival the 90+ degree heat I’m growing accustomed to.
My second meal here, a hot, hot dish of pad thai cooked on the street, plagued me twice. Once, before the liquid wash of Singha beer could quench it, and once the next day, as I sweat it out in a hangover dimmed only by the liters of water I gulped down while walking around the temples.
The chilies in this booth are in various stages of freshness and preservation, and if I lean down and away from the fish and snails and shrimp next to them, I swear I can feel the heat of their oil in the burning, red aroma that enters my nose. Saffron, seafood, basil and garlic; these are the scents of the market. Layered with the exhaust, sprinkled with sweat, they all paint a vivid, olfactory panorama across my mind.
A motorcycle veers toward me, marks my left leg with its splatters of water trickling slowly below my feet. As much as the market is a combination of kitchen, shed, fragrant garden or livestock pen, it is not at all dirty. For the Thais, cleanliness is next to, well, holiness, at the least. Temple admission is gained only with the removal of shoes; covered heads, clean aprons, spotless dishes glisten in each eating establishment-- even the street stalls-- I visit. This passing motorcycle, then, splashes me not with street muck or sludgy water, but mists of the overflow of a stall washed clean, buckets rinsed and restored as the evening’s traffic nears the space.
As I prepare to leave, exiting the way I came in (this labyrinth of stalls and walls and people could make that hard) the warm, earthy core of the earth’s produce catches my nose. These upshoots of inner germination-- mushrooms--are laid out in neat rows and clusters before me. I could spend hours at the exit, eyeing each smooth cap, each dark, fragile filament of spore lining, but because the rest of the city beckons, my experience with the market ends with the brilliant hues of metallic sarongs, in fabrics whose colors rival the rising sun’s glow or soft pastels of the swollen moon. Only here would the fashions of the day be stacked next to the tumbled tangle of mushrooms and onion roots, the shimmer of street fashion neighboring the activity once bustling underground. Terrycloth as soft as the downy lining of a bamboo mushroom stem moves soft and silent under my fingers, ending the tactile thrill of taste, touch, smell and sound that has been my experience of the Tha Thewes market.
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Schoolhouse/rock
I just spent the last hour getting versed on the differences between "dating" and "seeing someone" and "hanging out" and just being "friends" and "leading someone on" and "shitting where I eat" and even "dinner."
I guess the rock I was living under did too good a job of shading me from the sun, since I didn't seem to know my head from my ass on this topic, and the sun would have been a pretty good indicator of "up."
Here's what I learned.
1. I can "hang out" with someone if he's not an adult. Or if she's a girl friend. Or even a woman I've made out with can now be "hung out" with. But I cannot simply "hang out" with someone who might like me, or I might like. That would be a "leading on" of said person. Or else he can't be an adult, because adults don't just "hang out." Apparently, other female friends can "hang out" with non-adults they're making out with and eat pizza with them, but I can't. Maybe when I'm older. But then I won't be an adult. What?
2. "Seeing someone" means you are having intimate relations, like eating pizza together and sharing hand-drawn pictures of each other's homes over discussions of showers. You might also be "sleeping together" at said homes," "making out," "giving head" or going to concerts with guitars and clowns. I got lost somewhere between the concert and the cotton candy stand though, so don't quote me on that.
3. "Dating someone is when you actually get to have "sex," which is something like inserting Tab A into slot B, except there's no bacon involved, and those cardboard bacon packaging slots are the only ones I'm familiar with. Near as I can tell, you begin "dating" someone after two weeks of eating pizza, sleeping together and giving or getting head. But not before. That's still just "seeing" each other. Maybe clarification comes in the shower? I should check.
4. If one of your "friends" invites you over for "dinner," you just might be going on a "date," unbeknownst to yourself. Those "friends" are sneaky bastards, they are. If that "dinner" is scallops and three other courses, it's a "date." If it's pizza and three other courses, it's just "hanging out." I had pizza and three other courses with these educators tonight, so that made it "hanging out." I had to check my notes at one point just to make sure I understood this concept. I think I do, but for next time I have to apply it in real life as part of my education.
5. "Leading someone on" is buying him a ticket to the circus and telling him there will be guitars. If the guitars are not present, I hope he notices the elephant's leash more than the one you're using, but I have no footnotes to reference.
6. "Shitting where you eat" should logically follow "dinner," but it has nothing to do with food. Unless you work in food services. Or the alley behind my apartment. This term refers to "dating" and/or "seeing" someone you work with at their home, the circus, a concert or in bed. Also not to be done with pizza, dinner or scallops, it means that you cannot spend time with this person at all, unless you are just "friends," or "hanging out." As far as I know, though, if you are just "hanging out" with your co-workers at work, you're going to get fired, and the whole thing becomes a moot point anyway, eradicating all boundaries and opening you up to all sorts of options.
And isn't that what we all want, anyway?
I mean, I want to eat pizza AND scallops AND bacon for breakfast AND maybe "dinner," too, with my adult friend whom I might or might not be interested in while we may or may not be at his house or in my bed. If I want to "see" him and not get or give head prior to "hanging out" with him in the shower, do I have to quit my job, and can I go to the bathroom after having sex without leading him on? Will the clowns have the guitars, or do the elephants play them?
I just want options. Doesn't everyone? I thought that was the beautiful thing about living in America and being cute and making it to 25 and having opinions and intellect. That's the thing about my rock. I didn't have things cut so crystal clear-as-mud then. I didn't know what I could have been doing wrong or missing out on, and under a rock, you'll take anything you can get. Now I want to explore the worthwhile options that come my way, in my own way. I guess what I'm saying is that I'm not ready for another rock just yet, and all of this sounds like fun stuff to explore. Except for the "shiting where I eat" part. I already sleep where I eat (sort of) so that would make things all sorts of awkward for me at home, too.
Oh, and one last thing I missed the powerpoint on: I have no idea what "friends" are, but I know they are the sorts of assholes you CAN hang out with, share six courses of dinner and great conversation with (even while shitting), regardless of whether guitars or clowns or adults are even present.
I guess the rock I was living under did too good a job of shading me from the sun, since I didn't seem to know my head from my ass on this topic, and the sun would have been a pretty good indicator of "up."
Here's what I learned.
1. I can "hang out" with someone if he's not an adult. Or if she's a girl friend. Or even a woman I've made out with can now be "hung out" with. But I cannot simply "hang out" with someone who might like me, or I might like. That would be a "leading on" of said person. Or else he can't be an adult, because adults don't just "hang out." Apparently, other female friends can "hang out" with non-adults they're making out with and eat pizza with them, but I can't. Maybe when I'm older. But then I won't be an adult. What?
2. "Seeing someone" means you are having intimate relations, like eating pizza together and sharing hand-drawn pictures of each other's homes over discussions of showers. You might also be "sleeping together" at said homes," "making out," "giving head" or going to concerts with guitars and clowns. I got lost somewhere between the concert and the cotton candy stand though, so don't quote me on that.
3. "Dating someone is when you actually get to have "sex," which is something like inserting Tab A into slot B, except there's no bacon involved, and those cardboard bacon packaging slots are the only ones I'm familiar with. Near as I can tell, you begin "dating" someone after two weeks of eating pizza, sleeping together and giving or getting head. But not before. That's still just "seeing" each other. Maybe clarification comes in the shower? I should check.
4. If one of your "friends" invites you over for "dinner," you just might be going on a "date," unbeknownst to yourself. Those "friends" are sneaky bastards, they are. If that "dinner" is scallops and three other courses, it's a "date." If it's pizza and three other courses, it's just "hanging out." I had pizza and three other courses with these educators tonight, so that made it "hanging out." I had to check my notes at one point just to make sure I understood this concept. I think I do, but for next time I have to apply it in real life as part of my education.
5. "Leading someone on" is buying him a ticket to the circus and telling him there will be guitars. If the guitars are not present, I hope he notices the elephant's leash more than the one you're using, but I have no footnotes to reference.
6. "Shitting where you eat" should logically follow "dinner," but it has nothing to do with food. Unless you work in food services. Or the alley behind my apartment. This term refers to "dating" and/or "seeing" someone you work with at their home, the circus, a concert or in bed. Also not to be done with pizza, dinner or scallops, it means that you cannot spend time with this person at all, unless you are just "friends," or "hanging out." As far as I know, though, if you are just "hanging out" with your co-workers at work, you're going to get fired, and the whole thing becomes a moot point anyway, eradicating all boundaries and opening you up to all sorts of options.
And isn't that what we all want, anyway?
I mean, I want to eat pizza AND scallops AND bacon for breakfast AND maybe "dinner," too, with my adult friend whom I might or might not be interested in while we may or may not be at his house or in my bed. If I want to "see" him and not get or give head prior to "hanging out" with him in the shower, do I have to quit my job, and can I go to the bathroom after having sex without leading him on? Will the clowns have the guitars, or do the elephants play them?
I just want options. Doesn't everyone? I thought that was the beautiful thing about living in America and being cute and making it to 25 and having opinions and intellect. That's the thing about my rock. I didn't have things cut so crystal clear-as-mud then. I didn't know what I could have been doing wrong or missing out on, and under a rock, you'll take anything you can get. Now I want to explore the worthwhile options that come my way, in my own way. I guess what I'm saying is that I'm not ready for another rock just yet, and all of this sounds like fun stuff to explore. Except for the "shiting where I eat" part. I already sleep where I eat (sort of) so that would make things all sorts of awkward for me at home, too.
Oh, and one last thing I missed the powerpoint on: I have no idea what "friends" are, but I know they are the sorts of assholes you CAN hang out with, share six courses of dinner and great conversation with (even while shitting), regardless of whether guitars or clowns or adults are even present.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
The middle way
"I'm going to teach in Japan or Korea or something next year."
The comment came as a surprise in the shuttered light of the early morning, but then again, nothing was a surprise in this relationship.
"Asia? So... we should break up. I know you have a thing for the Asian girls." I'd been thinking of ending things anyway-- what timing.
What? Big steely blue eyes open wide in surprise.
"No, I..."
"No, really, we should. Go do your thing, live the life you want, without a girlfriend at home. I'd hate for you to have to think about me when you have the opportunity of a lifetime a world away. It's fine."
And that was that. But the conversation from earlier remained open. We'd been talking about doing some traveling together, taking some fabulous trip to South America or Indonesia or some exotic place far removed from the drabness of South Dakota and the misery of our lives there.
"So, if you're over there already, lets go travel when you're done. I'll meet you in Thailand, we'll see the country, then I'll go to Cambodia. It'll be fun?" I wasn't sure if I could still ask this question, pick my own cards and then play them too.
"Really? Really? You want to do that? Yeah, that sounds awesome, dude! Yeah!"
Ok, "dude"- the official term of affection still applied. I was still cool. Good.
The conversation we'd been having for weeks remained open, and if all went well over the next few years, I'd have a friend to traipse around Thailand with. Would this "middle way" of having a friendship with a past lover maintain, or get too weird? I knew the friendship would be fine, as I stay friends with most ex's, but this might be different, especially if we thought we'd still travel together at some point. And to a place as lush and diverse as Thailand.
That conversation has remained open, and as my ex and I have gone off from South Dakota to do our own things-- he in Korea, me in Chicago-- we've managed to maintain a long-distance friendship that's been the best sort of relationship for us at this time in our lives.
"Chicago's going to be so good for you, there's options there and room for you. Here, it's... stupid," he had said to me, the last time we talked before I moved. "You're going to love it."
And I have. Probably more than he loves Korea, but likewise, that's been good for him, the right place at the right time to make him grow up and do things on his own. Change is good.
But now, what began three ( or was it only two?) years ago, is finally coming to fruition in the form of that oft-dreamed of trip to Thailand. Change hasn't happened there; I haven't changed my mind on it, have been dreaming of it and talking about it since I moved to the Windy City.I have held on to the idea of real Thai food and gorgeous beaches and all the history I can handle, but I do wonder a bit if change would do me good in that too, if giving up on it would be a wiser decision. Right now though, my mind is made up. All that's left to do is buy my ticket (once I know he's got his) and pack my bags. And for that, there is time. There is always time, with the middle way.
But will those beaches and decadence allow me to maintain this patience, this nuetrality? For this, too, I must wait and see. Even if it had been a couple of years, complete with change, I still know me.
Friday, January 11, 2008
Ring's a round and rosy
“Oh god, my ring.”
There it was, translucent and obvious and out on the sheets for all the world to see.
Ok, it wasn’t all the world, it was just me and the boy, but still, it was clearly not where it was supposed to be. Oo. What would he say?
“You’re right. It does, uh, look like one of those glow-stick bracelet things.”
Now, my thoughts on birth control are that if you’re comfortable enough with somebody to see them naked and likewise share your self, then you should be comfortable enough to discus birth control options with them and deal with the facts of life that come along with preventing it.
Sean and I had discussed my preferred choice of birth control before I got on it again, but I wasn’t quite sure how he was going to feel if he a) felt it and b) if he saw it out of its natural environment.
“Do you have to, uh, do something with it?” he asked, looking at it with some curiosity, as if it were an eyelash curler.
After all, the NuVa Ring form of birth control is a small (maybe 2 inches?) in diameter ring of tubular plastic. Not tubular like the 80s, but tubular, like, well, one of those glow-stick bracelets we all wore in the 80s (it is pretty awesome though).
It’s obviously not like the patch, in that it doesn't stick to your body, and it’s not like the pill, because you don’t ingest it, but it does, in fact, nestle up inside ya.
Yep, that’s right. It’s like using an ob. Tampon except easier and much cleaner.
I decided on this form of birth control a couple of years ago, because it’s so low dose and so convenient. In that time, I’ve only had one other experience like this, and that boyfriend didn’t complain or get weird about it, but people are funny about sex and its accoutrements.
Not me.
appreciating Sean’s look of nonchalant interest, I scooped it up and rinsed it off in the bathroom. Thankfully, it was all over but the um, shouting by this point, so its appearance didn’t interrupt the mood.
And actually, the shouting had already happened too…
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