The Great Pumpkin

I found eating to be painful yesterday since I have one of those annoying cuts on the back of my left gum. It is a bit better today, but I am still uncomfortable. I ate soup for dinner last night (crab bisque), and then intended to watch "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown." I barely made it through the opening credits, before I drifted off to sleep. I woke up just in time for Linus's famous "just you wait til next year, Charlie Brown!" tirade during the end credits. I guess I will have to wait til next year, afterall.

I've been listening to Prince's hits and b-sides 3-disc set for the last couple of days and getting reacquainted with some favourite songs. I have also been listening to the neo spiritual goth stylings of Evanescence. My youngest sister turned me on to the deftly rendered vocals of the frontwoman. It may be too young a cd for me in some ways, but I like a little angst with my morning coffee.

What else can I say? It's raining in Baltimore, baby, but everything else is the same.

To Do

Sunday Night

Laundry
Wash Dishes
Wipe Down Kitchen Counters
Vacuum

Monday Night

More Laundry
Go To the Market
Make Dinner
Light Candles
Vacuum Again

Tuesday Night

Windex bathroom mirror and coffee table and end table tops
Scrub Kitchen Floor
Scrub Bathroom Floor
Write a Reply to Devika's Most Recent Letter

Rain Stained Buildings

Selma Blair and Ahmet Zappa stood out on the balcony this morning playing with a toy bird--sending it out, watching it fly back to land at their feet. There were a few times when I wondered if they could see me as they seemed to stare straight into my office window, but probably not.

It is a gloomy day in Charm city. Looking forward to going home tonight, making tea, doing laundry, and making dinner for one. Think I'll do some extra work and light a few candles.

Separation Anxiety

I feel that I haven't blogged in days. Sarah and I woke up yesterday morning at about 7 a.m., showered, dressed, and headed to her storage unit in Montgomery County where we met her parents who were waiting with a Penske truck in tow. A small group of friends were also present to help us with this first of three legs of the move.

Long story short, it went off without a hitch. A good friend of mine, the illustrious Quill and her invaluable brother were the indisputable stars of the day. It really touched Sarah, because Quill hardly knows her, and Quill's brother had never met her before Saturday. Everyone was so generous with time, help, and resources.

I have been trying to prepare for tonight for a week. This is my first night in the apartment as the sole occupant (I stayed at her new place last night). It feels empty because Sarah's essence is really not here now, though a few of her possessions still linger (like this laptop that I will take with me to work tomorrow), but it is clear that she does not live here anymore.

I asked her last night if she had disengaged, psychologically speaking, from this apartment. She had--and she should--but it's still a bit sad. I am not worried about not seeing her enough (we work together!), and I am not worried about not being in her life, but it is the end of an era. We have been roommates for four and a half years, and while I have dreamed of the autonomy that is part and parcel of living alone, I find that I feel alone, and miss her so much I don't think I'll make it to bed tonight without crying.

Sarah, know that you are the best friend I have in this life, and though it's time now for us to have our own space again, I loved living with you. Sleep well, honey.

ARTIST
(Dominant Introvert Abstract Feeler )

Kate:
Like just 4% of the population you are an ARTIST (DIAF)--creative, adventurous, and deep. Although you are an introvert, your dominant ideas lead you to assert yourself often--especially through your work. You actively put your creativity to constructive use, and because you are ruled by your heart you are less likely to be inhibited by logic.

You have an intuitive understanding of emotion and know how evoke it in others, but the real world can be a prison of foolishness and embarrassment if you don't get your head out of the clouds a little more. Also, you are 87% likely to write poetry. Please, for the love of God, stop now.

"We Would Never Have Marched So Far To Be Food For a Crow."

I come back to the idea that "God has not brought me this far to abandon me now" many times in any given moment of fear and distrust.

I am worried about many things all the time--having enough money, needing to lose weight, having exact change for bus fare, one day getting furniture that I will really like, being able to move to a vintage building in the city, Gordon... Since I've turned 30 the mysterious, centering calm I'd been feeling has not waned altogether, but it's more like a thin mist some days than a warming shroud of bliss.

And I worry about not being good enough at my job. I worry about dropping the ball on anyone, and when I do, I smart over it for days. When someone else drops the ball, I smart over it for days. There are moments when the disconnect between what I want and what I have is so impassable, that I sink into a crippling, VH-1 marathon-watching malaise...

If I can't have things completely just so, I don't have the heart to try for any element of what I want.

So, on the eve of living alone, for real this time, I have plans in place to regain my footing, get established the way I've always wanted to be, to stop ordering carryout, stop buying on credit, light candles, and play more with the zen garden I inherited from Sarah.

Sinister

There are several "group" meetings at work today, held at different times, in which the president of our start up will address the company's future, and discuss the financial forecast.

Add to this the stress of Sarah's move, which involves making several forays over to her new apartment between tonight and tomorrow to take things that shouldn't go in the moving truck on Saturday.

God, I need you to intervene here.

I didn't even see this movie (I'm an adult afterall), but what a flattering result!


What Finding Nemo Character are You?
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Couldn't Resist...

New York, NY, you like shopping, looking good, and
making statements. Living on a 5ht avenue
apartment makes you feel sophisticated and
real.


WHAT CITY SHOULD YOU LIVE IN?
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Requiem

My grandmother's memorial service was tasteful and simple. My father and the two of his three brothers who attended, each spoke anecdotally about her wit, her sensibilities, her utter ineptitude in the kitchen, and her pride in being the mother of sons.

I saw my father as a broken man, mourning the only woman he's ever adored. I also saw that for all of my legitimate issues with him, that I have not helped the situation by relating to him out of anger. I think that I can still insist on respect, not let myself be emotionally man-handled, and meet him half way.

I remembered, being there with my family, who I am in the scheme of things. Being with my uncles and my grandparents as a child, I felt such a sense of possibility and pride, because I belonged to a name--even though I have never carried that name, legally speaking. The reason is too complex to go into here--and in truth, is beside the point.

My mother arrived, due to a snarl in traffic, very late. The service was actually over, but everyone was still there--so I got to see my mother and father in the same room for the first time in 24 years.

Things will always occur just as they should.

In my heart, when I heard about my grandmother's passing, I thought "Gordon, come with me [to the service]."
The following day, without any prompting from me, he offered to drive me if I needed him to do so. Unfortunately, when I decided to take him up on the offer, his car died.

But I couldn't shake the feeling that he was supposed to be there. I prayed to make peace with his inability to accompany me, for God to provide another means that would be perfect. I did what I could to make other arrangements, but nothing felt right.

Sarah actually called him on Friday and asked him if he would consider borrowing a car to take me--she let him know that I had not asked her to do this, that I would not ask him... but that she knew I was stressed and agitated, and asked him to consider it. She did this out of love for me, also believing that he was supposed to be there.

The day came and went with no word from him, so I knew that whatever was going on--it was something that couldn't be helped. I went to bed believing that that was the end of the story. Until the phone rang at 11:30. It was him saying he'd borrowed his parents' car, and would pick me up at noon the following day. He did not mention that Sarah telephoned him.

So, in the course of one afternoon, he met everyone in my life that has ever been important to me, including my very flamboyant, over the top mother (and her quasi boyfriend). Something indescribable happened in my heart when I saw my uncles shaking his hand, and later hugging him... to see my father very kindly thanking him for being there.

One of my uncles said "you know, we have a lot of Gordons in our family..."

Later that night, on the phone with my mother, she couldn't stop talking about how much she liked him. She described his spirit as being beautiful, she remarked further that there is something about him that just "drew" her, and she also loved the warmth and openness of his smile.

2 + 2 = 4

About a week and a half ago I saw Tracey Ullman a stone's throw from my office building. I was on my lunch break, and had just stepped into the waterfront deli to buy a 20 oz. Coke. Seeing her from a distance I thought to myself 'That woman looks like Tracey Ullman.' Then she spoke, and it was unmistakably her.

Keep that in the back of your mind for a bit while I introduce a new element.

For the last couple of weeks, I have been taking note of the apartment that is eye level with my office window. I have been taking note of that apartment because the female occupant has come onto the balcony twice in the nude. Once a week ago, and then again today. I started to wonder why a) this person doesn't recognize she's directly across from a functioning office building, and b) why she is always home during normal work hours.

A few days ago I noticed "the boyfriend" character (as I came to think of him)--also home during peak hours, not seeming to rise much before noon, and mostly talking on his cell phone as he paced back and forth along the balony door. I also noticed that he bears a striking resemblance to Ahmet Zappa, most recently seen on the new Star Search this past season.

There seemed to be something oddly familiar about the woman in the apartment,but nothing clicked because I never got a very clear look at her face.

Today, I saw "the boyfriend" person outside. And it was beyond the shadow of a doubt, Ahmet Zappa. I spent several Friday nights this past spring looking at his face while Bina indulged her guilty pleasure of watching talent competitions, so I should know.

I immediately thought about Tracey Ullman, whom I'd not thought of since passing her on the street nearly two weeks ago.
I did a web search to see what's she's up to these days.....

She's filming a John Waters movie (A Dirty Shame) in Baltimore (where else would a JW movie be filmed?). Other cast members include Selma Blair, to whom, I realized today (before I did this search), the naked woman in the apartment across from my office window, bears a striking resemblance.

If you're still not convinced, I just read online that Blair and Zappa are engaged.

There you have it.

You're honey! You're sweet as can be, but
sometimes you can be too nice!


Which condiment are you?
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As I sat in the salon chair tonight getting my tresses chopped, it came to me.

How can anything I do out of love reap destruction? Why would anything I do for him out of love ruin me?

So the verdict is "irrational fear."

I am disappointed that he won't be at the memorial service with me--that would have been a real statement to my family, all of whom I have not seen in the better part of ten years. I couldn't have introduced him as anything other than my friend, but it would have been the first time in my life I would have been present at any family event with a man from my own, separate life and experience.

It would have helped me to feel less alone when I face my father. It would have said to him "This man cares about me so much he wouldn't let me look you in the eye without him."

His offer is in no way undermined, but I wish it were going to be an actuality, instead of remaining a gesture. When I first heard about my grandmother, in my heart I whispered Gordon, come with me... Then I wrote it on a post-it note I later threw away.

Irrational Fear or Gut Instinct?

I need to be honest about something. A couple of months ago when one of the women I manage had just started working at my company, I told her about Gordon's art. This topic came up organically enough, and she was actually very taken by one piece in particular that she felt she wanted to buy.

A couple of e-mails to Gordon later, and I had potentially set up a very exciting sale for him.

Since that time there have been some stops and starts--Deb needing time to get the money together (art is expensive), mostly. During the course of this elongated waiting period, I have experienced a persistent, niggling fear that once Gordon meets this woman, he will become instantly attracted to her, and that he will want to pursue her.

I am worried because for as much as I have in common with Gordon, she would have just as much, if not more (I know because we've had enough conversations, and I've clicked enough with her that the parallels between her and me, and him and her, are obvious enough).

It doesn't matter that she is supposedly in a committed relationship with a man in New York--Ah... New York...something else they would share in common. Their disdain for Baltimore and utter love of the Big Apple. It doesn't matter that she is 24 with a five-year-old son. Love always finds a way, if it has the potential to be such.

I try to talk myself down from this ledge of fear all the time. I try to shoo away the inexplicable thought that occurred to me a scant two weeks before Deb began working with me--the thought of Gordon maybe dating a single mom sometime, and wondering how that would go over with his family. I was at the bus stop and this just occurred to me one morning....

I tried to comfort myself with Deb's pending plans to move back to New York--but in my heart I knew that somehow she wouldn't be able to do it when the time came. Yesterday she confirmed this. Money, or the lack thereof, won't allow it right now. Hmmm. Sounds familiar.

In any event, I took myself out of the logistics end of this painting sale a while back, so not knowing if and when they would ever make contact has been a source of nagging worry. I relaxed a bit more when Gordon told me a week ago that he had indeed heard from her, and that he hoped to set up a time for her to come by and look at the piece to make sure she wanted it.

Yesterday, I got tired of feeling helpless, so I asked her if she'd yet bought the painting. Apparently, Gordon hadn't answered her e-mail. I offered to call him (since I know he wants to make the sale), for which she seemed grateful. She told me she could put cash in his hand next week, once she's back from visiting... New York...that's right.

I am torn because I never want him to set eyes on this cute dynamo with a pixie hair cut, sharp wit, taste in music that probably matches his more than mine, who has a body that would entice him more than mine would, I'm sure. But I want him to do well; I want him to have enough money. I want the world to know and experience his art.

So I called him and let him know he could have money next week--we agreed that he would just call me to set up something since reaching Deb on his own had brought minimal success (apparently, he had e-mailed her back, but she'd not gotten the message). I am the liaison once again. On the one hand, that brings with it a degree of comfort and control. On the other hand, I am worried that I will be forced to be the architect of my own despair.

It didn't help that during my conversation with him yesterday that he asked if Deb "[has] a rich boyfriend or something" because I said she'd be in the bahamas (now it's New York. Long story.) for a few days. I couldn't tell if that was his way of trying to find out her status, or if the question was unloaded with double intent. I took the opportunity to tell him that she is indeed attached, but that I'm not under the impression that her guy is rich. And, God help me, being a woman, I took the opportunity to mention her five-year-old child.

Moments later, he mentioned my grandmother's passing and her pending funeral. He told me he knew that seeing my father was going to be the hardest part of the whole situation. He asked me again if I knew details about the service--where and when it would be. He expressed a willingness to drive me there if I needed him to, provided his car held up. To say that I was touched, and temporarily bolstered, would be an understatement.

And as I later found out, I would need his assistance. But... his car died. So he can't help me, afterall.

I felt bad for him. He didn't know what to call himself. "This is your... this is your... this is your..." I told him I had heard about his mother and that I am sorry. The conversation was brief. He only knew that the memorial service will be"either Sunday or Monday," and told me that he's taking the bus down from Philadelphia for the funeral.

"Maybe I'll see you," he said. I assured him that I would be there. Then he was gone.

Resurfaced

My paternal grandmother has died. I know this because my birth father, with whom I have a strained relationship, called my mother's house to find out my phone number. My sister, given the circumstances, gave it to him. She called me, though, to give me a heads up.

I haven't talked to him since January of this year when he called to lambast me for my negligence (from his perspective) of his mother in recent years.

I am sure he's going to let his anger simmer and thicken before he calls me to let me know she's died. And I am also sure that he will try to level me at her pending funeral (I have no details at this time) with his rage.

What was started nearly a year ago has reemerged as a battle for me to fight. At this risk of being campy, I am expecting something of a showdown.

I sent out a mass e-mail to friends soliciting their prayers when I heard in anticipation of that very occurrence. A few people have replied to that missive, including the elusive, incognito-as-of-late Gordon. So I guess his fingers weren't broken afterall.

At least I know not to send him any more poems. I can't take that particular silence. It's more difficult than death to me.

Milk Jug in Recession

The photos in my cubicle indicate that I have a warm, charming life,and that I know happy, interesting people. My current favourite is one that I took of Catchka in Boston in the last days of Summer. She is pointing a ketchup squirt bottle in my general direction, though her eyes are focused somewhere past me. I love the angles and lighting in this shot--the pure candor of it. But I also like what I didn't see in my frame of vision when I pushed the button that forever immortalized the look on my dear friend's face. There is an unassuming gallon of milk, cattycorner from the ketchup squeeze bottle in C's hand. Just sitting there (as milk jugs tend to do). I am intrigued to think this is what my eye took in in the half second it took to set up and execute this shot, but there is so much I didn't notice.

Something Unforeseen Barred

The walkthrough and lease signing/orientation went very well. Sarah noted a couple more issues she wants the property representative to have fixed before she starts to fully occupy, but other than those few minor things, all systems are go. She will move in on October 25th.

Frustration Factor

I had my cell phone number changed yesterday, more than a year after returning to Baltimore, so that the number actually reflects the area code of my "home" city. The monkey wrench? My voicemail hasn't yet processed the new number, and is correctly reading the old number as being defunct, so I can't set up my message box for the new number, if that makes sense. Time to call the company again...

Moon Beam

Even though my alarm is set for 7 a.m. more often than not, I often awaken without prompting between 6 and 6:30 every morning. This morning it was the fiercely blinding, white light of the moon hovering over the bedroom window that caused me to wake with a start. It seemed at first that something must be terribly wrong in the world, but then I mumbled "oh, it's the moon." From my vantage point there were four distinct beams shining from it in four directions, creating the illusion of a cross shape behind it...

Art and Vulnerability

(I Showed him my notebook/ the underside of my soul released/in scribbles on pages-- the Innocense Mission)

I wrote a poem about Gordon's painting "Only the one who knows longing knows what I've suffered." I told him about it, partly because I wanted him to know that his art inspired me, but also I wanted him to know that I had written something at all, especially after his recent, heartening encouragement of my work--his plea to me to continue with it at all costs.

This is the second time I've written a poem about a painting of his-- the first time was about a year ago, and it took him a week to get back to me. And when he did reply it was to say that he needed more time, because the poem had made him speechless.

I guess, in light of that, the absence of an immediate reply this time shouldn't alarm or disconcert me, but you know, it does. I am left to wonder "Does he hate it?" "Does he get it?" "Would he tell me if he hated it?"

If we are really getting closer, there should be room for him to dislike something I've done and tell me about it--but my writing has always been the purest and best version of who I am--the part of me with which he connects the most deeply, and holds in the highest esteem. Maybe now that's been compromised and he just doesn't know how to say it....

Once I gave serious thought to joining a wolf pack. Now we know why...


Your element is Earth. I hate to say it but you are
down to earth. Stubborn and loyal. You tend to
want to nurture others and you are the one
person friends always come to for awnsers.
Without people like you others would be flying
over the edge because, whether you know it or
not you keep a steady beat to your life and
will end up where you want to in the end. There
is a sureness about you that is hard to match
that draws people to you. No matter what
happens the Earth keeps turning.


What's your element
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Sarah, barring something unforeseen, has a new 2-bedroom apartment about 15 minutes outside the city proper. I'll go with her to sign papers and do a final walk through tomorrow afternoon.

I've been waiting to be a free agent for more than a year and a half, and now it's happening. Living alone is truly imminent this time, and I'm already turning my attention to what I'm going to do. I'm either going to get another apartment in this building, or move to a vintage building, but that's seeming a little improbable at the moment, since I never received a call back from the real estate office, and I doubt I could find money for a truck and a security deposit for a new place...

I already passed up a cute little one bedroom in this building because Sarah had not yet found a place. I just hope another one opens up sooner rather than later. I need to start packing as though one will be, I guess. Things seem to happen on a dime these days.

I keep meaning to mention that I can see my apartment building from several of the windows here at the office. It always gives me such a feeling of integratedness to be standing where I work and watching the place where I sleep.

Potential and Kinetic Energy

When an object is elevated or intensified, and is released, the potential energy (stored energy) becomes kinetic energy (motion).

"Since energy can neither be created nor destroyed, the energy is merely changing from one form to another." (excerpts from a Science lesson I edited this morning).

This principle is intriguing to me in its implication for human interaction. It would seem that everything is always just about to become, or is becoming....

Renewing My Mind

I don't know anything about intimacy, real intimacy. It seems that it would require an awful lot of willingness to sit quiet and still with another person, without forcing an agenda. I have the same tendency many people, even those who know better, have. I often sexulize the concept of intimacy. So, when I imagine being close to a man, being in an exclusive relationship with him, I think primarily of physical gratification.

For my entire life I have subscribed to the belief that the full expression of physical intimacy should be kept for marriage--so priceless and exclusive are its joys--as an indication of the singularity of intention in that relationship. I don't believe that any less now, but as a 30 year-old, I struggle with a very keen desire to know those pleasures sooner rather than later.

As I nurse the hope of being in a marriageable relationship with a specific man, I cannot say that I am not plagued by thoughts of what it would be like to enjoy those pleasures with him. This is normal, I'm sure.

But it worries me. It concerns me because I notice that when our friendship enjoys any significant increase in depth, my fantasies run rampant, unchecked, I am chagrined to say. The basis of the correlation may be understandable, but that doesn't make it right.

I know that one of the reasons I am not ready to be in the exclusive committed relationship I want to be part of is because I need God to inform my desire for intimacy and my concept of what it is, at the deepest level. I know that intimacy is a process, not a theory. I know that you learn about it as it unfolds in your life, but there is so much to be said for contemplation and prayer before attempting something of this magnitude.

God, I want to be in a relationship with Gordon that is characterized by true intimacy, respect, and a lack of self-consciousness. Won't you help me to see what such a relationship would look like, from your perspective?

I selected two paintings from among the group he laid out for me. As he pulled them out one by one, some I had seen before and some I had not, I let my heart be the judge. It lurched forward when I caught the first cursory glimpse of a sad, alienated man in a room with an upright piano. Everything about the spirit of the piece resonated with me, and though I did not say so immediately, I knew immediately that I wanted it.

Gordon left me to make my selections without him, so I gingerly pulled the piece from behind the others in the stack. On the back of the canvas he had written "Only the one who knows longing knows what I've suffered." (Goethe) Obviously, I had not seen that quote that also functions as the title before, but it seemed to confirm all that I intuited in an instant.

The other piece, equally tender in its rendering, is for a dear friend, so I don't want to describe it here. I will say this, Gordon's empathy with the "other" as expressed through his work is really remarkable. My sister commented to me on this last night. She told me how much she values his ability to paint in something other than "his own image."

We got together "on the fly," because Sarah and Michael were having a rather serious conversation, and I didn't want the weight of another presence in the house to hem them in. I also didn't want to have to stay scarce, so I called up G and asked him if he was up for hanging out with me for a bit.

So I got to see the house where he's staying for the first time. One of his two roommates, Jack, was around. I noted the atypically sparse introduction Gordon provided. "Jack, this is Kate. Kate, Jack." I shook Jack's hand, said the requisite "It's nice to meet you, Jack," and started to walk away.

Jack then asked if me if Gordon and I are coworkers. I told him that we aren't, so he asked how it is that we know each other. Normally Gordon would have taken care of that by adding the detail in his initial introduction (i.e., This is my friend Kate), perhaps adding that he knows me through a mutual friend. Or maybe he would have said "Kate is here to look at some of my paintings" as an explanation of what I was doing there.

In any case, there I was having to explain something basic and fairly common, and all I could come up with is "We're old friends." Jack accepted that, though he seemed to be waiting for more details.

After giving me the grand tour of the place, Gordon and I sat out on the stoop of the house--He wanted to smoke a cigarette. I drank one of Ralph's root beers while he did so, and we talked amiably enough. He was very tired, so he was less engaged than usual, though not fully detached.

Before leaving we went back up to his bedroom so I could look at the alligator satchel he wanted to show me. While there, I took the fortune cookie fortune I had in my pocket and placed it on his desk. It read "Don't be hasty. Prosperity is about to knock on your door."

It will give him something to wonder about when he finds it.

I Hear You

I didn't get the chance to write about this before I left town for a church retreat (this past weekend) because I was in the throes of laundry, packing, and making and keeping a hair appointment for my much ignored tresses, but last week I received three pleas from three different friends to remember the reason I am alive.

Catchka, who always faithfully challenges me, gave me the assignment of going to the library, checking out the most recent copy of the Poet's Market, and to start submitting my work to appropriate journals. Gordon, who is generally only verbally encouraging, took the initiative to write me an e-mail in which he implored me not to forget my poetry and other writing in the midst of the busyness of my job, because "what [I] have to say is beautiful," and the lovely and intellectually astonishing Devika sent me a postal letter in which she strongly encouraged me not to keep my writing private--calling it a disservice to the literary world if my poems continued to be unavailed to the public.

The topic of this year's Women's Fall Retreat was finding, knowing, and implementing your life's purpose. The notion that God has created me for a purpose beyond my mere 9 to 5, beyond even the coveted roles of wife and mother, that is so specific and unique to me, my inclinations, and my gifts was heartening.

I believe the Lord speaks in myriad ways--through the words of trusted friends is certainly one of those means He uses to reach us. So, to honour these messages, I plan to enroll in grad school for writing next Fall. Keep me in your prayers.

29

your lips were seductive surrounded by smoke
i searched your face, saying only with the darkness of my irises
like coffee without cream, not bitter, just dark and tortured
that my body aches at the core
for your body

it was your birthday
and i couldn’t help but think
that you were being created
as i came silently, soberly into the world

how long i have waited
for you to emerge
into an understanding of me

your fingers tapered, intentional
in their grasping at air
your skin is raw milk
close enough for me to taste

feel the weight of my unspoken dreams
floating toward you on the air currents
with your smoke
weighted
waiting
waning

if you do not hear
they will vanish

i have tried to find myself in reference to other selves
but you are my guidepost
your wound the only one I want to heal
by opening my own flesh
to envelop you and reign you in
through dark hours

your mouth poison in its witholding
leave a drop for me.

© Kate Krupnik
June 2, 2003

One Year Ago Today, This Is What I Was Thinking

Sometimes I want him to hold me, smooth down my hair, kiss my face, and tell me that I will never have to know the terror, fear, shame, and uncertainty I knew as a child, again. I have a recurring fantasy that I am sitting close to him, and he asks me what it was like the first time I saw my step father hit my mother. My answer is always one word. Devastating. I feel very safe with him in this scenario, and I know that he is asking me this question because he wants to know what it meant to me to have my world fly apart at the age of 6, roughly 18 years before I met him.

He is the first man I've not wanted to impose a kind of perverse redemption on my childhood experience--or to be the upgrade template for all of the sociopathic, abusive men that have frequented my life. I used to want the guys I coveted to make me worthy by my association with them. I considered that they might be with me inspite of who I was--and when they didn't want to be, I attributed it to the heavy sense of degradation that always lingered around me.

Discovering that I had feelings for someone used to make me violently ill in the initial stages of the infatuation because I feared that I was sullying the person with my feelings for him. Everything I longed for, dreamed about, or thought of myself was informed by that one evening when I first saw my step father beat up my mother. He broke her ribs and blackened her eye. I splintered apart, and so learned to categorize and compartmentalize myself, so that what I would accept and what I hoped for were always at odds with each other. I was a study of hairline fractures.

I don't expect that he can change what happened to me, nor do I think that what happened to me and my family makes me unworthy of him.

On last wednesday night when my sister called me and said that her father had beaten her up, I found myself wishing I could hear his voice, wishing I could share with him what had happened... the way it is natural to want to tell the people you love everything. Normally, when something of paramount importance happens, I think "I need to e-mail him about this..."

And that is what I ended up doing. Sending out a mass e-mail to friends, on which he was included, because for as much as I've grown and matured, and for as much as I wanted him to comfort me that night, that is not the present reality of our understanding. It was close to midnight during the week, and there was no immediate need for his help, and we do not yet have it like that...

But it was good for me to be aware of myself wanting to have that with him, wanting to approach him as his equal, believing that he had some measure of strength to offer me--as my friend, whom I now know I trust.

Something small, but crucial happened on the day of our bike ride that let me know decisively that I can let him be a source of protection for me. His family has two dogs. One of these animals behaves erratically, and he informed me, has bitten people, unprovoked, in the past. And in the same breath that he very calmly shared that information with me he said "But as long as you stay with me you should be fine." I believed him. I was.

He didn't go

to New York. When the time came, he wasn't feeling well. I asked him if he rescheduled. Apparently, not for anytime soon.

I have actually been at my threshold today where he's concerned. It has been the better part of two weeks since I've seen him, talked to him, and even longer since we've e-mailed. I've been wondering about him the whole time, how the trip to New York went, but I also felt (until today) a general sense of "all is well," and so wasn't worried. I felt very connected to him in spite of the lack of contact.

Today, though, I started to cave. I wanted to establish contact with him so badly, but I also knew in my heart that I needed to let him establish contact with me. I have tried unsuccessfully to do this in the past. This time it was even more important that I wait. A few hours ago, I was ready to write him. I was willing to settle for the hollow victory of hearing from him as a result of my own effort.

I didn't. Sarah didn't let me (what a friend's for). About 20 minutes after the talk in which she reminded me that I have been wanting him to take more initiative, he called. He's been busy with work which is why he didn't call me a couple of days ago. He wanted to catch up.

He alluded to future opportunities to get together (a drink to celebrate selling a painting to the person I recommended to him, me seeing his place, finally, and getting my own painting from among his collection, etc.), and he told me to call him or e-mail him when I get back from my weekend away.

I just hope it gets easier to let him take the lead.

October, We Meet Again.

(When autumn comes/ it doesn't ask/ it just walks in where it left you last/ You never know when it starts/ Until there's fog inside the glass around your summer heart-- From "Something's Missing" by John Mayer)

I love the smells of October air--earthy leaves, sweet burning wood, rain. I love the sounds of October--the snapping of a football,the crunch of fallen leaves underfoot, the crackle of spitting flames at bonfires. I love the feel of October--chilly in the morning, mild in the afternoon. It's time for sweaters and baking pies--hikes and baking bread--for reading Rilke by candlelight in the evening.