The Past Pulls Close

Nothing in this whole wide world is ever over.

I’ve got a beer sitting out for any Ancestors who want to stop by and a fire to keep the darkness at bay.

This is it, the darkest plunge into the deepest night. There will be colder nights, but none so long, not until we swing around to this position again, the spiral ever twisting–the moon around us, we around the sun, the sun in its arm of a twirling galaxy.

We have not been here before. And yet, we keep coming back here.

Have a drink, my old gone friends. Come on out, into the light. As Gillians says, let me see the mark death made. And I will show you the scars on my body in return.

I tell the same story over and over again. And always I put myself in the middle of it. So angry at the betrayal of Paradise. Still holding out hope I’ll find a comfortable way in.

Always ready to fuck over the people who have been so good to me for the brief affections of those who have fucked me over.

Spinning, spinning.  Waiting, knocking.

And who waits at my door? Who knocks to be let in?

I really hate this time of year. It just feels like grief–stale and fresh. And I wonder when it happened. I wonder what, exactly, it is. And I can’t say. Only that I recognize that it’s gone.

I miss those folks so much sometimes that it takes my breath away. Who knew me like they did?

And yet, it was me who let go. It’s always me who lets go. The dance ends, the partners switch and I am gone.

Spinning. Slipping. Gone.

Until we’re back again, in the longest night. Me and my dead things, waiting.

Trying to make peace.

Weird Dreams

I had a weird dream that the Haunted House at Disney Land was walk-through and I was there with some guy I know who I won’t embarrass by mentioning. But there was real danger and we were separated. And looking for each other to escape. And then he stopped wandering. He just went to the heart of the house and waited for me there. And I, who had not stopped running hysterically from room to room did find him, rather easily. And we were safe.

And it was so brilliant that it woke me up.

But then all today I kept thinking, “How would that work in real life?” How would you know which person should stay still and which should keep moving? I guess it requires knowing which one of you is going to stumble around like a chicken with her head cut off no matter what.

The Art Lover by Carole Maso

Someone on Facebook recommended it and whoa, it blew me away. I wouldn’t say it’s among my favorite books, but it is among the books I respect the most. The structure of the plot (which is not the same as the structure of the book) is like sitting in the middle of a small peninsula watching the waves wash up on shore on all but one side of you and the story is what the water leaves in the sand after each wave.

There is a crescendo, but it’s not the point where the characters you’ve been following so far have some glorious climax. Instead, it’s where Maso says, “You’ve been watching the shore to your left and right, but you’ve missed everything going on at the point. Let’s look now.”

Ugh. It just tore my heart right out..

To me, writing is about longing and longing is the close sibling of grief. This is a book that really gets that.