29

I want to be one of those people who can talk to the sky and think that someone is listening. As much as I'll agree with those of you who do, and believe that you believe, I don't know that I do. Even if I did, I don't know that it would help.

Because for all the talking and looking for signs the facts remain:
There won't be any new pictures.
My hair was a stupid color the last time he saw me, though he said nothing, standard.
I feel like I didn't do enough in time.
I hope he was proud.
I hope we were friends.

The clouds parted for a minute and I want to blame it on something I can't see and don't feel, but instead I'll attribute it to the wind speeds and keep pulling myself back to Earth; steel myself against everyone's shaky voice, and hide my own under blankets of smoke.

Every once in a while I have these moments of calm. I am submerged in this deep blue tranquility I feel I can only achieve in sleep. For the last 6 years or so it hasn't come in slumber. It hasn't come often. It comes like the calm after a storm. This utter loss of control. This weight that cannot be lifted. It is most often a calm of resignation to my circumstances. But tonight, it is different.

I feel a smile playing at my lips. Even, here on this porch, where I have spent so many nights with dry salt streams on my cheeks, it feels like...well I can't say that I've ever felt this before. I can't describe it. There are simply no words, which scares me. The usual worries about the validity of this calm are still pushing their way through the Prozac. Screaming their high pitched warnings:
"Don't trust it."
"Don't hope"
"Don't be fooled"

But these days, these voices, these demons (if we're going to be Catholic about it) are held at bay. Because, the calm I feel today started to creep in when I let my gaze wander to those deep blue tranquil eyes. When, after putting up a fight, I stared my dreams square in the face and kissed them in the cold, on this porch, in this chair, where I've cried so many tears for so many who weren't worth them. In these blue eyes I feel safe, I feel calm, I feel a future again. These eyes are not glassy, glossed over like so many influenced by substance or that lacked it. These are not the eyes I've spent year writing about. These are not the eyes I thought I deserved to stare into, but with the new year, came this opportunity, this encapsulation of the dark corners of my heart. The secrets I started to keep even from myself, because they were too precious for even me to ruin.

This might not make sense. Or be the best thing I've written. My fingers are frozen. My lips are chapped. I cannot wrap my mind around all the things that make so much sense, and the things that are only making sense now that they've destroyed me.

I cannot wrap my mind around him. But I've accepted the fact that I must stop trying. I must stop trying and simply give in...

but we all knew I'd do that the first time he held my hand, didn't we?

I don't write because it's trendy...

There was a cat in the bar last night.


It kept rubbing against my legs, 
and hers. 
More her legs than mine. 
I hate cats. 
Because I am allergic, 
or because I make myself believe I am allergic,
because I hate cats. 


No one spoke to us this time,
and this night felt better, 
until we saw them, 
and panicked,
and peeked around the corner
before running to my car,
and giggled nervously at our nerves. 


Please come visit me 
in that romantic city 
in the south.  

Assigned Seating

     Twenty minutes ago I was trying to choose a table to sit at, today this seemed like an important choice. A man in a fishing hat was gathering his things near the table I set my bag on. As Alyssa and I situated our over sized purses and laptops and sunglasses the fisherman stopped and turned to us like he had something to say. I thought for a second that he was offering us his table, which made no sense since we already had one and this cafe is dead aside from the old couple simultaneously thumbing through pages of separate Diabetes magazines.  

     I looked at the fisherman and smiled, nervously. 

     "Are you a writer?" he asked

     "What?" Alyssa said even though we both heard him clearly. She said no, then looked at me. I didn't saying anything. I'd been talking about my apparent writer's block all day. Am I writer? I am, in most senses of the word, right? I didn't admit to it. I just stared at him. 

     He stared back from underneath his ridiculous hat and motioned at the table he had just vacated, "this table is good for writing." I smiled. He left. Did he know I was having trouble today? Did he know I've been struggling for the past few months to put a cohesive idea on paper? That I'm afraid to get everything out on paper because it makes it all real?

     In my mind this was one of those moments other people have, but not me. The moments I hear about through long distance phone calls where someone has an experience that totally sets their life or, at least, their day in perspective. A powerful run in, an intense conversation with a stranger, the perfect song on the jukebox, whatever, today was my day. 

     I walked over to the fisherman's table. I could see some writing on it's surface. I assumed he was talking about some inspiring phrase he found printed on the table top. I looked down and realized that the only thing written on the table was an add for the cafe's premium coffee blends. This wasn't one of those moments. 

     So, twenty minutes later I'm sitting at a table, not THE table, but one that's proving to suffice. I don't know what the fisherman was inspired to write sitting at the table across from me or what it means that he told me about his experience and that I've spent half a page reliving a brief conversation. I am, in this particular moment sure of one thing...

     I can't make it mean anything.

     I attach meaning to words and actions like I inhale and exhale. It's involuntary. It's like I'm trying to solve a chronic mystery coming out of everyone's mouth. Today, in this freezing cafe, in the most uncomfortable chair I have decided to change that habit. During conversations, that usually happen  through phone lines or in parked cars after midnight, I've been reminded of the importance of the present and all the challenges I'm missing trying to find the logic or meaning in what might not mean a god damn thing.

     Tonight I am accepting, being, and breathing in the simplest sense. I am shivering. I am aching. I am longing. I am hoping. I am forgiving. I am creating. 

     I will be everything tonight. I will mean only what I mean. And I will take you the same way if you'll let me.