Intimacy and ice cream both melt

I wake up in the middle of the night laying next to you and you are still awake. You are reading on your kindle and wearing your thick framed glasses. In that moment, you look like lenny kravitz if he were a professor of literature. 

We start to talk about intamacy and what it is for you. 

How your longest relationship of two years ended with you just disappearing for two weeks. This girl who you refuse to admit was quite possibly the love of your life left feeling like she was not enough for you. Left with empty space to fill. 

How did I end up in your bed again? It was late and raining and we forgot that we both arrived on your bike together. I said goodbye and walked out key in hand with no motorbike to ride. I suggested I could sleep next to you with all my clothes on as my personal barrier against lust. But then, you surprised me with the obvious. Just as I was asking if I was allowed to hit on your friends, you stuck your curly head up to my chest and I melted into you, enjoying the sweet comfort of much needed affection. I need this right now damn you. Fuck the future. I just need you to hold me in this moment.  You are my friend, let that be good enough. Just like scrambled eggs on sunday its not fancy and perfect but it will make me happy and full. 

You told me earlier that you had slept with someone. I held you with this knowledge. I saw that you unfriended her on Facebook. She looked like a rounded version of me, holding a glass of wine while lounging on pillows. Yes I digitally spied on you, how could I not? You declared we were over and then ran off without speaking to me for a week. 

I kept this image at bay and held you. Pushing back the flashes in my mind like a broken movie reel that only sometimes lets in a visible frame thru the light. I still wanted you even though you are tainted goods. You are a spoon on someone else's dinner plate. You are a cup with lipstick smears and a bit of orange juice left in the sink unwashed. I tried not to think about it. She was just one of many before, this was now. You are always just now for me.

In this version of now, you were suddenly so affectionate, holding me tight. Wanting me. We have gone thru this a few times, so I could allready predict the future. The first night we had sex twice and you held me as if you wanted me. Drinking me in. The second night, not at all, less snuggles. You texted me when I left after two strange days together to let me know that the retort to your landlord was "it was nothing serious" when she asked if we were "back on". You informed me unserimoniously that you would finish the movie we were watching together on your own. Not save the ending for another night in bed. 

Intimacy scares you. You build walls against it. You make rules. You routinely vote against it on the premise that it is dangerous. Like broken glass in a yard with barefeet. It could hurt someone.  It could hurt you. Danger Will

Robinson there are hearts involved. 

Intimacy is so much more than sex. Intimacy are those moments that we share late at night when neither of us can sleep and we talk while staring at each other across the pillow. Intimacy is what happens when two people share thoughts and feelings. Why are you tryinging to stop it, to block it? Why question it. It, like all things will pass. Just like the night, the morning always comes even if you can't sleep. We will both wake up from our heady ocsytocin laden cloud and declare that neither is enough for the other. In the mean time, pretend this thing we have is ice cream in the sun. lets eat it befor it melts.

You are broken my sweet friend. I forgive you for this defect. I imagine you as a baby crying it out in the other room as your parents weened you on the urge to need them. You sleeping in a bed on your own and not snuggled up next to your mothers breast. Enacting the modern myth that a flannel blanket is enough to replace human skin next to human skin. Is this what did it? What ended all possibility of enduring human connectedness for you? I don't know. But I no longer take your rejection personally. I no longer chase this want like I am chasing butterflies with a net. Escaping my grasp just when I almost catch it. I now simply enjoy those moments when you let down all guard. Those moments you let me in. Those moments when affection is what you give freely like peanuts at the zoo. Those moments I enjoy beyond words. Just moments. Let's eat them before they melt sweet friend. 

sit next to me

My son, the love of my life, was having sunday croisonts with me. Chocolate almond filled croissonts. He sat across from me but wanted nothing more than to sit next to me. He is eleven years old. He asked if he could move seats. He wanted to fondle my hand caressing each finger one by one. He wanted to play with my hair, taking strands and braiding them or scooping it back off my shoulders. He wanted to snuggle up to my arm, resting his head on my shoulder. He wanted this as an addition to the coffee and croisants. For him, It added to the chocolate filling. I am his mom, he loves me.

The man that says he is not my boyfriend  doesn't consider affection. But don't be fooled by this fact. He is sweet in so many ways. He does want to widdle away his day talking to me about everything under the sun, while laying across from each other on cushions with a view. He wants to teach me deffensive chess moves while cricket casually plays on his mac in the background. He wants to listen to eclectic playlists of spotify music that range from motown to hipster bluegrass. He is content to do this naked in bed under a mosquito net. Why do I care that he is not my boyfriend? Why does all this leave me wanting? Why do I care that he doesn't hold my hand as we walk, or rarely reaches to gently touch my leg? My hair he doesn't twirl around his finger. He never leans over to kiss me. 

In the end he is content to sit across from me. Does he know that his affection doesn't measure up to an eleven year old? 

The exchange

You message me. 

"Is it ok if I pick him up at 12:30?" 

You come on your motorbike and leave your hemet on. I can say no more than hello. I have no pleasantries to give you. My news no longer has any purpose in your pressence. 

I have a mild form of distaste that lingers like bad breath on my tongue. I can only feel yesturdays jelousy and anger. It rains and I stand there getting wet as your motorbike runs. I say nothing and barely look your way. Everything is grey.

If I love you it is only in concept. I hate you for choosing her even if I am the one who let you go. I want you to keep wanting me. You don't. No one does. 

We trade this human that we love. We share this love in seperate rooms in seperate houses. You snuggling him and then I in turn. Never at the same time never again in the same bed like before. Never all wrapped up together with a movie and popcorn all the love that he has under one roof. 

He is the only proof of love we have left. Even last month there was shouting at least and the ocassional hug. But now there is no more trying. 

You get him and then I. We swap. Tomorrow you will bring him back to me. You will stand there in the rain with the engine running and let him come to me. He will kiss me and I will only nod in your direction befor you drive off. The proof of love being traded in the rain with the motor running. 

My father used to pick me up at the A&w rootbeer shop. My mom would get out of the car and shake his hand. I would go to him and she would drive off as he bought me a root beer float and curly fries. Root beer wiith icecream tastes like divorce. 

You said you didn't want a root beer float divorce. That you wanted us to keep something of us. We can't. 

Just leave the motor running. Leave your helmet on. Give me back the only proof of love that we share and go about your life. Bitterness is the only thing left. The rain can't wash it away. 

One way love

Morning and evening 

someone waits at monsushema.

One way love

- matsu basho

"I never was that into her" he said. "She was always more into me" he said. They stay like this locked in acceptance of this imbalance. Thirty years pass. Him wanting more, her not getting enough. She gets fat, her a judge, him a lawyer. They both work too much, they both drink too much. One way love. 

He was buying me dinner yet again. For years he did this. Show up in Bali and buy me dinner. My sugar-daddy, he joked. He would call her later to say he loved her. That he missed her. I would sometimes listen to this conversation as he sat in my house. I would not sleep with him, no sex. I liked his company but was not that into him. I wished I wanted him. He owns a vinyard, he likes to travel. One way love. 

I sat over coffee with the father of my child. "I never looked at anyone but you." He said. We stayed coupled for 17 years. I know this fact to be true. I was the center of his universe as he honestly described it. He ate up all my offerings. Like thanksgiving dinner he always wanted what I gave him. I accepted him everyday and appreciated that he loved me. I loved him in return for being my unconditional safe haven. For 17 years I longed for someone I wanted beyond reason. Wanted like cookies and ice cream in summer. One way love?

The man who for six weeks was never my boyfriend returned after a month in Australia. I had forgotten what he looked like I said. His daily white t-shirt, yummy  curly chocolate hair and warm skin. And mostly his eyes, brown and deep. Now I remember. His Australian accent willing me to aknowlede we are not from the same place. 

I sat with him on a plastic wicker couch by the pool in the villa that had been the scenes of our six weeks of sex and friendship. His black newly purchaded samsonite suitcase on the floor holding his only possessions. We talked about everything but the subject at hand. I abandoned my visiting friend in a coffee shop so that I could sit with him on this couch and pretend not to want him. I wondered if anything had changed since a month ago when we had declared ourselves friends. When he said goodbye not wanting me enough.

He grabbed me and pulled me on to him. I burrowed my face in his beard. He kissed me long and hard. There was emotion there. There was longing. It felt good. I wanted him. In that moment he wanted me. I wanted not to think about the consequences, the future aching heart. I wanted not to ask or at least to ignore who he had been sleeping with this past month. I missed this man. I wanted him inside me, naked. Like a moth to the flame. One way love? 

 

La rueda

La rueda is a cuban form of salsa that is performed in a circle. The men dance and spin thier partners and then swings them on to the next person. As a woman this means that someone is always there to catch you. Each person takes you in and grabs you and holds you only tight enough to keep you spinning in that moment and then lets you go. You spin on to the next partner who catches you in turn. 

I feel so freed by this experience. I am indulging in Salsa to practice this metaphor of letting go. A metaphor for my new life. I am no longer dancing with one partner. I am no longer being held tight. I am being spun and then sweetly caught by the next man in the circle. 

I attended a halloween party last night. The man who was my first went with me. Two days earlier we spent one last day and night together. A day adventuring on sheer plunging beach top cliffs watching the sunset, the night tangled up under the sheets. In the morning we drank a cappucino and declared ourselves friends. No benefits. Just friends. The halloween party was the first to test out this new reality. We started the evening together talking and then slowly spun from person to person seperatly in the crowd. Dancing small talk. I peered at him from across the room as women flirted and chatted with him. We are friends. We ended the evening discussing our options. We would each now spin to the next partner. His choices were clear. A dark skinned girl from london wearing a hat wanted him in that moment. He would take her. I would keep looking. 

May the next person catch me as I spin, may they not let me spin out. May they let me land softly. 

Tomorrow I will rueda again. I will practice in the salsa movements the feeling of being held by strangers for a moment and then letting go. Always letting go. 

Someone else's laundry

I am wearing a shirt that is not mine. The laundry gave it to me by mistake. I can't give it back to the rightful owner so I am wearing it. 

Not long ago it was worn by someone else. A woman. I maybe even have passed her on the street or stood behind her in line at the supermarket. 

I should be bothered by this proximity with a stranger. The wearing of a strangers clothes just washed. I am not. 

You spent the week with her in another city, sharing a bed, sharing space. You will see me tomorrow possibly. I will hug you, share your space. You may tell me you love me as you did before you left. 

I spent the weekend pondering if you ever wanted me back, would I be able to share you like a shirt worn by someone else, just laundered. Would my phyche be able to ever get past this? This use, this wearing, this closeness. 

Once in the evening you came wearing her sweatshirt. I asked where you had gotten it. It was hers. I cried. Her things on you. It hurt so much. 

You just texted that you are back but didn't invite me for coffee as you said you would, only that you will pick our son up from school. I want to die. I understand why people feel this, that they can't bear the pain and they want to jump off of bridges. I did this damage. I pushed the first domino. I pushed us down this hill. Now I am a divorced mother. We never even were married. 

I went on two second dates today. The spanish guy who owns a vespa shop in Barcelona and the Australian journalist. I like both of them for company. For an hour. For a meal. This is supposed to help, this company. 

It really only reminds me of my loss. 

How do I replace this lifetime shared. I have to trade you in for someone else's shirt? For someone else's laundry? 

Suspension of disbelief and other magical thinking

A friend just told me of her new relationship. That she is in love, moving in, signing a year lease on a vacation house. She informed me that despite having spent only six weeks in his company, despite him having just ended a seven year relationship just two months earlier, despite having had only a long distance relationship for months, she was in love. Because I am a logical person I wanted to tell her she wasn't thinking this thru. I wanted to tell her that in all fact she doesn't know this man well enough to be in love. She can't really even understand the depths and complications of the relationship he just removed himself from, maybe isn't totally disentangled from. Skype doesn't transmitt the smell or feel of dirty laundry left on the floor. She has no idea what the future brings, but she is willing to fall, to let go. To totally suspend disbelief to the point where it doesn't exist. This is what love requires, this magical thinking that makes you ignore the bad in someone. 

The other night I went to dinner at this same womans house. This was the kind of scene one could only find in Bali. The house was oppulent and rustic at the same time. The table was piled high with freshly made balinese food. Classical music playing in the background. There was brief banter about whether the servant cooking dinner would join us at the table. This conversation and its surrounds was a stark dichotomy with the stringy haired hippy sitting in front of me. These were the kind of hippies who had money and servants and time to arrange well apointed sceances. 

The dinner progressed and the conversation quickly turned to gurus. These are people who have them and believe in them. There is apparently a hugging guru. A fat lady from India who is known to hug 1000 people in a day. There is another who gives strict instructions about whom to marry and when. 

Apparently what people want from these gurus is to be told what to do with thier life. Apparently if you give over control to them they will run your life completely.

I understand this need. I understand wanting someone else to take the steering wheel. To drive for awhile. 

Being frozen, afraid to make choices for fear that they will be wrong. This makes everything impossibly hard. I wish I believed in hugging fat ladies as the solutions to my problems. I wish it was that simple for me. 

Believing in fat hugging gurus to know more about life than you or believing the guy you just met could be your soulmate. It is all the same. It takes ignoring most of what is in from of you. It takes selectively liking and seeing only certain bits. This is a skill. One that has been honed by most people. This is how I am broken, this is the ability I lack. I am a realist. I see the messy bits, the trainwreck before it happens. 

I think this is why the romantic beginings of relationships are impossible for me. I will never be able to suspend disbelief long enough to fall. 

Ours, yours and mine

I made fried rice out of the leftovers in the fridge, added an egg. This is yours, I forgot it was. You reminded me that this is what you used to do last time I saw you. 

I painted your walls butter yellow befor you met her. You still wanted me then. Now these walls are yours. These yellow walls. Other people compliment you on them. You say thank you. No credit given, no credit required. She doesn't even know they are mine. That me and your son picked the color with love and painted them for you, using our own two hands while you were away. 

Remember that city in mexico when our son was a baby? Remember all those yellow buildings? We were there. Can't we return to that moment?

You cook our food for her. It was mine first but over the years it became ours. First when I was pregnant and couldn't stand the sight of raw food. Me lying on that old garage sale couch nautious and directing you in the kitchen. You slowly becoming a cook.  

You have pickles on your shelf that you made. They are my pickles. My recipe. Can I take them back from you? I cannot. 

We have these things that are ours. This is how it is. Now you are sharing them with her.

Is that you outlined in a shadow in her Facebook profile picture holding those pickles next to you and her? She doesn't know they are mine does she? 

Then of course there is our son. He is the perfect equal combination of you and me. Yours and mine. Your face, love for books, astronomy and a dry wit. 

My snuggliness and sense of adventure. 

These things are so intertwined, so jumbled. After this many years, we can no longer pull apart these pieces. I am always a part of you and you are always a part of me. I just have to accept that you are now sharing those parts with her. I have to accept this without feeling like a jealous toddler who is unwilling to share my toys. I have to release you. Release all that was shared. Give you away. Give it all away, to you, to her. 

Wherever you go, there you are.

When you strip everything else away, what is left? I ran away to a tropical island. I left naked of my possessions, I ditched it all and said farewell to the world in which all good adults should live. I came to never never land. I left the security of the reality that keeps us going day after day and blindly embraced the unknown. Now is the after part, the part where paradise and happily ever after merge in what is usually known as the end of the book.
A tropical island has a way of stripping away the trappings of a life. I wake up every morning to balmy warmth, the sound of roosters and time and empty space that begs filling, adorning or at the very least contemplating. The minute ritualistic distractions of city life that keep even the most miserable among us busy with the daily habits of sipping white chocolate mocha's, paying the cable bill, and ushering kids to karate are gone in one fell swoop.
After 15 years in a marriage and having narrowly escaped the drudgery of modern life I am left with the this empty space. I am left to ponder the pattern of yes and no answers I am responsible for having shaped my life. I am left to uncover layer by layer the elephants left languidly sleeping in the room who despite their size where easily obscured by nearly a decade of modern adult life. Now we are just us here, the palm trees sway, the geckos chirp and in this peace the reality and truth settle like a cold cloud around my shoulders. I can now honor and weep with my afraid to be alone twenty year old self who spent most of her adult life obscuring sad realities with the business of life. Once you have run away from home, you cannot do so again you have to face yourself in the mirror and understand what is good and what needs fixing. This is where I stand now. Alone in front of the mirror contemplating what to fix, what to break and what to make gentle peace with.