An Organized State of Disaster

And the rain begins. Today felt very much like the beginning of something long and drawn out.  Odd that inside of the dismal drizzle is the flowering of a new hope. Somehow this fall/winter season seems refreshing, as if the cool air were here to blow the strife away.  Change is in the air as summer releases her fragrant gaze; maybe I can change too, into something harder, stronger, and braver. For the last few days I have been walking about in a bit of a daze, as if now, for some strange reason, I can see glimpses of myself, that usually obscure themselves to me.  I can see down this ladder for the first time in a long time. Pockets of clear between the clouds I can see how far up I have actually climbed. That all these trials, all this work that I really have gotten somewhere, that perhaps the view doesn’t look like I imagined, a bird’s, graceful, beautiful, easy. But I can see a long way when I let myself. And as the cold air sweeps down from the north it will eventually carry with it the clarity of sight, when between the rain clouds, the frigid molecules of oxygen and carbon dioxide direct the eye to preserve further onto the horizon than is ever possible in the wavy heat of summer. It feels good to feel proud, at least momentary of all I have achieved. That I am a woman, 32, working for herself, out of a makeshift shop, beside her rental house, woodworking, building, fixing, renovating, making it happen with her own two hands. Even when it scares her, even when it goes wrong, even when she makes mistakes and doesn’t know what to do. Even when she isn’t perfect.  Even though that is the mark she sets herself. Even though perfection can be the clouds that hide the view. But I have climbed this far, with my own two hands and my own two feet. I hope that change will follow through, and clean out some of this old baggage, with me and you, and she and me, and past and present, to be here and now. And so as I battle the rain, as it finds its way into every broken thing, my tarp covered shop, my ancient old truck, my dilapidated shed.  I will try and remember that it is because of the rain that I can see the cracks and fix them.

Last night I went to a bar, down on a dirty street filled with people I did not feel like touching. Even brushing against really. Does that sound horrible? I drank so much I only got a hangover, skipped drunk entirely.  There were women on stage that could move their bodies in ways I couldn’t even begin to simulate. I believe ass shaking begins in the foot. A loosening of the leg muscles in conjunction with a triple timed rhythmic foot bounce, their perfectly shaped behinds vibrating hypnotically.  We spend most of the evening screaming at each other about our lives. A rough spot to get caught up, as techno Reggie blared from the DJ booth.  Dancing, the three of us ladies were surrounded by men whose desire for some ass, any ass, encompassed us as well. "One of us is a mother", I wanted to say, "and one of us has the love of her life sitting over there."  The three of us have danced in many places, and this was not my favorite. My misplaced high eluding me when I needed it the most, to make my feet understand this terrible beat. I was not up for it. But I was happy amongst the rabble to see my friends' faces. 

We stayed until close.  I watched, more coherent than most, the final couplings of the evening, the magnetic force of sex or lust or loneliness work its magic as disparate groups found, amongst the throng, the best bet for 3am on. I went back to my friend’s new loft. In her new home, the first home I can ever truly say she nestled in we talked till close to dawn as her lover lay next to her passing in and out of our world and his.

I feel like I have been running with scissors. Or maybe the scissors have been running with me. I feel connections; the threads that held my life together, fall away. Things are different now.  I made them this way, others made them this way and some were altered by the unknowing world.  And so I am left to wonder at what I will make anew with the strings, ribbons, strands, fibers and filaments that fall upon me daily. Will I make hammock, a boat, will it hold me, and will it unravel or prove transparent? Or perhaps they are like clothes, that fit so well at first, bold and free and beautiful, that only later, when tattered and stained, are thrown away for something new. (Although true to form this takes me years, for all my cloths go through many various levels of use before I hold on to them unused before throwing them out) But I do not feel bold and beautiful, no that’s not quite true. I do feel both those things but low down like a simmering deep inside. On top is all froth and foam, anxiety and doubt.

I am trying things out but have an untenable desire for something, some dream to come to fruition, although I have found that the minute a dream becomes reality, it looses its luster in the day to day grind that sands away a polish. But despite that I do know a few things about myself by this age. (32) That what I want has not change much from childhood. And that perhaps now is the time to believe in childish dreams because the adult ones seem just as unrealistic.

There have been moments this week when I felt the threads straining or stretching to comic lengths.  Driving with the dog, whose helicopter tail has ceased to move through overexertion and age, in a truck that still takes seven to twelve tries to start in the morning. Its one remaining side mirror held on by a single, stalwart screw. I felt at a loss, overwhelmed by the list of things that are not working compared to the minute list of things that are.

But now days later, the wag has slowly returned. And I have found and installed new (to me) side mirrors on the truck whose countenance has thus improved with my care and attention.

We, my partner and I, almost ended and then did not.  Ever trying to recapture some beauty we both felt was there. I know perfection is not our goal, our flaws far to cavernous for such presumptions but we were connected before by steel and this week we were down to a string. But it did not break.

And so despite the fact that I live in a place where almost all whom I love have left, where I quit a perfectly good job to try to go it alone, where my love, whom I adore, cannot see me sometimes, where the cat fights with its neighbor requiring frequent bouts of antibiotics, where the dog has lost its wag, where the kitchen floor is never clean, where the cars are never new, where the boats are never finished. I will try to make my stand. And I’ll try to make it a good one!