a good day

Today was a good day. There were bicycles and didgeridoos and blossoming cherry trees. There was sunshine and loud tailless kitties and fat little dogs and dogs that looked like you could strap a saddle to them and be taken for a ride (Great Pyrenees). The afternoon reflected off the water as the trains slid slowly by... It was a good day.

I should have been grading papers, but I wasn't. I was trying to feel light. I was trying to keep moving. I was also (again) looking into the tall arched windows of an old abandoned brick building. (The Yale Union Laundry Building-- don't suppose anyone knows who owns it and what their plans are for it?) And then the sun slipped down the sky and the air cooled and I closed all the windows and doors. It was a good day and now I am sitting here in the quiet, sad, and too much in my head.

I have recently asked for something that I really want, something I am afraid I had no right to ask for, something I am afraid I will never know in the manner I wish to. I am trying to be patient, but every minute that passes makes me feel a little sick, makes me feel a little closer to receiving words I don't want to hear. I spent the day running into the wind, trying to escape what I fear is inevitable, trying to be absorbed in the small wonders of my life. Today was a good day, but it hasn't distracted me from this looming question. I am, it would seem, very adept at torturing myself this way.

I have been researching cities I am toying with starting a love affair with. Seattle and Chicago, so far, top the list. I think about the mountains of Colorado, or the desert blooms and lightning storms of the southwest. I dream of the tropics and the light in San Miguel. They might all become a home to me. They might all prove to be welcoming. But in all of them, I'd still carry this weary heart, and while I might be taken by a sunny afternoon, I never forget what beats behind these ribs. I'd like to comfort myself by stating that it's a good thing to never forget one's heart; that even when it has been blown apart, it resonates with all that is worthwhile and still has something to teach, some important wisdom to bestow, if one can quiet the mind and simply listen.

When I listen to my heart, I hear your blood moving beneath your skin. I hear the breath beat of your living heart against my cheek, under my hands. When I turn to meet it, I see your face looking back at mine and for a moment I know, with certainty, that I am not alone in this world. It is hard to be quiet and patient now. I want to punch you and run away. I want to tell you that you never mattered. I want to do anything to prolong the time between this moment and the one in which my question is answered, finally. I am afraid. This missive is my effort to acknowledge that fear and to set it adrift, to help it along its way, to break its hold on me.

I want to say I will miss you, my beautiful friend, but I said I wasn't going to succumb to preemptive heartbreak. I have, however, succumbed to some sort of illness and it is at the feet of this illness that I lay all the responsibility for this nonsense. I will miss you, though, should things resolve that way. More than you will likely ever know. Certainly more than I will ever tell you.