Summer is beginning to end, just yesterday it was possible to taste fall creeping into the weather, and yet to me, it’s still spring. My run of bad luck began then, and there I have stayed, foolishly expecting a shift in happenstance to accompany the weather. It’s basic and slightly animistic of me, perhaps. As if the world might lick my wounds with sunshine.
Ellen is leaving us, moving her family eight hours away. Her children, Kevin, Brin and Maz, are my godchildren. They call me aunt sometimes, or mum when they’re not thinking about it. I’ve known them for such a long time it hurts to think about. I’ve watched them develop personalities and grow into decent human beings from mewling toddlers, backlit by their amazing mother. Being with them makes me happy, they’re family in such a basic sense that it goes beyond friends. I’m already scheming a road trip to visit them. There’s going to be a huge gathering at their new place for Thanksgiving, Max’s second birthday. It’s a camp out deal, tents piched on thier four acres of backyard.
My reactions seem so far away from my body lately, voices are quiet, touch is remote. Everything is mild, as if I’ve grown a new layer of skin, one made of thick lucite. I feel like a widower not yet ready to crave life again, instead still lying on the coffin or holding my corpse husband’s hand in a brightly lit room. He slept here. I’ve been sifting through my memories, holding them up to my inner eye and trying to understand where things went so sideways. I remember standing, vibrating with the first anger I’d had in years. How could you? I remember standing, my body molten honey, my hands unable to stop pulling him into me. His hair, his voice. Feeling like this was just right. What have I done? I don’t dream at night anymore. I won’t allow it. I’ve thrown down my gallows, soon maybe I’ll remember how to breathe. I’ll stand up out of the dust and wipe my hands on my trousers, readying myself to walk back home. I don’t understand how you can love me so much You’re persuasive, now I don’t either.
I want a long walk off a short plank. An unexpected drop off to give me my catalyst, three months has been and gone, too long, too long. SinCity is this Saturday and I don’t know if dancing is finally going to help. My spirit wants to fly out past the edges of the cliffs that hem this city at the ocean and just keep going, out until my arms can’t help me swim anymore. Except for a brief period when I had emotional support from Matthew, I haven’t had a good week since the beginning of May, since I came back from Toronto. I think that I have friends who understand not to press me, who are kind enough not to force me to care. I’m thankful. I don’t want to call anyone on the telephone, I don’t want to leave this apartment alone. I got as far as the park today before breaking down, falling by the side of the road, a crumpled excuse for a small girl. I want a voice that I can’t trust to call me and apologize, explain, but I know that life doesn’t work so well, it doesn’t reach down a hand from over the prison wall so easily. This dream is an everyday agony.