I saw the first orb spinners of autumn last week--a full two weeks early.
Gonna be an early and long winter, I'm afraid.
Of course, with days like today, the thought of fall and winter right around the corner seems very, very far away.
But it is. i hope it lasts long enough for Chris to get a taste of the best we have to offer before he gets swallowed by the six months of cold grey wet that passes for winter here.
It never does end.I still wake up cold at three am sometimes. I still have nightmares, I still sometimes feel like just sitting down on my front stoop and watching the world go by. I'm still ambushed by memories and the familiar blame and hate I wielded against myself all those years.
But, lately, I've been remembering some of the good stuff.
I remember one long perfect afternoon, before the blackness came entirely, when the light fell on my hands and I noticed that everything was beautiful.
I remember lemons from the lemon tree, and the smell of the blossoms.
I remember climbing into the cherry tree, and jumping out into my daddy's arms. I remember that he caught me, that there was nobody in the world stronger than him.
I remember going tadpole hunting in the creek behind the house.
I remember my brother defending me from my parents by unexpectedly taking the blame for something I'd done.
I remember meeting Teesa, and how it felt to fall in love with someone so selflessly that I never expected it to be returned.
I remember Misha and the lunch hours we spent on the stage.
I remember Dove bars with J, talking about our relationship and our friends with hope and love. I remember the afternoon he came up to my room when I was so upset, and held me and petted me and made love to me with that empathic instinct of his for exactly what I needed.
I remember late nights with my Iowa City family, feeling like nobody could ever hurt me there.
I remember meeting R, and how right it felt for the two of us to be together. I remember falling asleep wrapped up around him, how my head came right up underneath of his chin when we were standing together.
I remember the second M, and how funny he was, and how gentle.
I remember adoring sex with men.
I remember the first time I ever kissed a girl for real, and how surprisingly soft her lips were and how good she smelled.
I remember lying beside G and watching him as he slept.
I remember the RVW and WSP crowd, and how welcome they made me feel.
I remember getting the lead in Wait Until Dark, and how happy I was when i found out.
I remember how patient he was when I woke in the middle of the night crying, how he'd soothe me with his hands and his voice. I remember that he would wake in an instant if my breathing changed. I remember his inexpressible patience with me over all those years. I remember how much he loved me, and how I returned that love.
I remember the shock and the hope that rocked me when Chris came back into my life.
All of this, and more, so much more—I remember it all. I remember it as vividly as I do the bad stuff, the hard red nights and the nights when it seemed like it was all falling in on me. I remember and I think, with utter amazement, how blessed I have been, how much love there has always been in my life.
For so long, no good memory could stand against the bad ones. The good memories were soap bubbles against the thrown rocks of the bad, and a person could either be good to me, or bad. In my bicolor world, one hurt cancelled a thousand smiles, and I couldn't stand to think of someone who had hurt me also having comforted me. A bad breakup cancelled the months and years of love that went before. A word said in anger silenced the memories of sentences spoken in love.
I fought against the harsh rules of my world for so long. I understand, now, why I needed the rules. And i also know that I've grown beyond the need for the protection of a wall built of screams.
And one by one, I look at each of the stones of my wall. I remember the good and the bad, and both of them combine to deepen my understanding of where I—and they—were at that moment.
And I see colors.
I can remember being an innocent young woman eager to learn all about all the ways of loving I could. I can remember the delight of discovering that I was capable of being loved. I can remember being a high schooler with a peer group for the very first time. I can remember making beautiful things in junior high. I can remember sticker books and secret friends in grade school.
And I can remember being a very little girl who worshiped her daddy enough to trust him when he told her to jump out of the tree. And whose trust was rewarded by being caught, safe, in those big hands, hands big enough to hold my entire world.
It's been interesting talking to Chris lately. He's getting so close to this move, and I'm remembering what I went through to get here, what I went through after I got here.I've been here three years now, and though the change in his life is much more visible, the change in mine is no less profound. Even though I will still be on my home turf, I'll be dealing with the changes in my life recently compounded by suddenly, after six years of being at a physical remove, suddenly being close physically to him. A presence in my life more immediate than on the other end of the phone line and the other side of the computer screen.
We are tied for life, the two of us. We made sure of that, all those years ago...without knowing exactly what we were doing, this is true, but that doesn't make the results any less permanent. It's been rough in patches, as neither of us are really easy people to be with. We're too moody, too intense, too introspective, too rough around the edges to make us genuinely easy people. And we're all of those things in different ways—adding misunderstandings to the laundry list of things that have gone wrong between the two of us.
And yet, we can glance at each other sometimes and understand completely how the other is reacting to a certain event. We talk, sometimes, in voices pitched only for each other's ears.
In a sense, both of us are coming home. No, we're not going to be "involved" as in having a romantic-type relationship...at least that's about at the bottom of the list of possibilities.
But is an end and a beginning of a chapter of both of our lives.
[added a couple of journals to reads. I really ought to go to bed.]
Best reason to tinker with ASP:
Because sometimes you end up with something as cool as same as a picture, +/-.
how goes the war?
Obviously, the enemy has been breaking our codes. Twice we found ourselves cut off at the pass.
