May 20, 2011 - 7:04 p.m.
when your car starts making a godawful scraping sound (again), which is a whole next step up from the regular rattle, it's always a relief to hear (when you pull into a random driveway)... 'oh, yeah, that's your heat-shield. You don't need that'. I'm thinking, 'good, cause it fell off before I got home.'
and this, following a day when I received a letter in the mail for a non-existent account, welcoming me - the new home owner... to a company's services that I didn't ever solicit... thanks to a phone call I now know that I haven't paid for electricity (which could be cut off at any moment) for a year... Sandy says I am 'one of those accounts that must have fallen through the cracks when they changed over to a new system.' Funny, I hope that doesn't mean I owe back payments for one years' worth of energy... because these bills have been daunting as it is.
And Al is asleep in my bed, which will soon be our bed. Sleeping like an angel, face so perfect that I catch myself staring at her; sweet curve of her nose, button-like, freckled and adorable, her lashes so thick I'd hate her if I didn't love her so much.
It was Jan. 23rd that we first went on a date - Insomnia... which is now what I cause her with my sleep choreography and talking... and the mattress, damaged from the bedframe broken beneath... fixed with giggles and duct tape. Sleeping now, in the bed that will be our bed, topped with her preferable mattress, her body snuggled beside me, just four months (in three days) since.
Kate called it. She asked, the day before Al did, when was she gonna move in, already. I laughed and said there was no rush. There still isn't. The timing is just so. The circumstances did not dictate, they just asked, casually, suggested and we acquiesced.
Excited, a little scared. I have been here before, but not like this. I don't think my bones could withstand another fall - out of love. I am so good at falling, accustomed to the bounce off pavement, after the initial jaw drop... that feeling that I still can't get over
her, sitting next to me, the perfect be her/want her admiration. At Insomnia, then kissing like teenagers in unsexy places, like the Rhino - not in the fluorescent of the basement restrooms, but within earshot of the pooltable, abandoned because neither of us was very good, or very intested. in that.
is this a date? I hope so. Is this our life now? yes. and every day more.
Parts and Labour, woman with purpose, lipstick no longer a question - welcomed as her legs in skirts and blouses - blouse and skirts - I cannot make myself out of this
could not leave without the scrapes of hard-falling, literal in the snow, phone flying, high-fives and laughter. More of this, more of this.
High on these days of high hopes and winter skies that held so long onto their chill, not quite ready to thaw.
To Argentina, and back again, taps on, hearts open, working our way into the dailiness and kitten-soft minutes of movies in bed, from so far back
that first standing moment in your dining room, music on
kissing you until I forced myself to walk my legs out the door.
And these days,
these days seem sweeter, warmer, greener - new leafy and wet
a yellow bird
flew into my sliding glass door yesterday.
pieces of him, left against glass
stunned but not dead. I watched him make his way up the branches...
higher and less afraid
he didn't quite know what had hit him
but he had his eyes opened,
a shock of recognition,
transparent and hard
"in me she has drowned an old woman"
but I will not stick my head in the oven, I will be no fish,
that terrible fish of regret
that - daily - swims on our heels, inside that lake of our heart.
two fish out of water it seemed,
finding feet and new songs,
feathers flying, some lost
baby teeth, undercoat, nursery rhymes and cautionary tales...
inside ourselves, our own sharp hard-won lessons and scars, shed
tears and skin
I love every inch
and each fall has an audience now
rave reviews, such sweet praise
and my ears cannot get enough of it
there is not a person who knows me who is not excited for me - about you.
So perhaps I don't need
a heat-shield
after all.
And this rattle is charming somehow
like a purr
hands off the wheel, ducked-driver
all- Bridesmaids and laughing
until we are hurting
for all the right reasons
You do this
you do this to me.
And those parts, those rusty parts,
that I paid, so much
to have held in place
held on for dear life
cheap fixes, symtoms of a shaking somewhere inside the engine
they fall away
and it seems
to run better, imperfectly,
than ever before
and perhaps we will run into them
pieces of our pasts,
old parts,
in passing, conversation
in walks
scattered around the neighbourhood,
their threatening bark-bigger-than-bite
menacing sounds
softened
by the warmth here
by the grass, grown up around them, old parts strewn on the lawn, like my crazy neighbours who are only crazy by proxy
and we will play badminton, and eat kettle corn and crave chocolate wine
and sometimes come up against our old reflection, this time
coming up short, just before our nose hits the glass
and in that moment
maybe it too will soften,
soothed as I have been by you
into a place of forgiveness and calm
past caring about past hurts, because I there is no room here within all this smiling and heat
but I will, when you are sleeping, wonder sometimes about the hard shells we have lost, the parts we once laboured over - wanting to mend and change - giving in, after so many mental miles, to that inevitable disolution of bonds and the shedding of parts that aren't worth their weight
full,
satisfied,
that
without their disonnnant sound
we hardly notice them gone
with all these things I keep noticing
instead
the longer we look
it is sometimes hard
for me to let you sleep
because outside on the breeze, someone is playing "Common Feel the Noise"
and there are so many things to tell you
that I have been thinking about
in these minutes
that you
have been sleeping
