ice

I lost power to the ice storm that hit New England the other day. Just one of another million poor, cold souls--somehow I never felt so faceless. My girlfriend and I drove to the grocery store to find chaos. No more bread. No more bottled water. The store lost its frozen foods and its cold goods. We walked around and bought something so at least there would be some sustenance.

It was lucky I had firewood left. We lit a fire (it took some convincing but we managed) and huddled around it. It was the only light and the only warmth. No power, no gas--just me, her, the fire, and the vague certainty that we would get power back eventually, and we probably had enough food to last until then, maybe.

It was the work of a few minutes to find all of our blankets and winter clothes. I don't have a flashlight and there were only a few candles, so it was dark and there wasn't much to do--my laptop's battery was dead, she was conserving hers in case we needed it for something. We used our cell phones as illumination as we built a little stockpile in front of the fire.

We didn't say much. There wasn't much to say. We got a few phone calls and text messages, asking if we were okay. We always said yes, asked if there was news. They didn't know.

She fell asleep and I kept up, making sure the fire kept going. I was sure that was important.

home in the rain

I am reminded lately of a time not long ago when it was rainy and windy, but warm. I had a few miles to walk, and I had a jacket--but it was nice out. I didn't want to hide from the rain and be miserable, so I let it drench me and walked with my head up. It was a singularly marvelous experience.

On the way home I kept imagining what people would say when they saw me. Conversations danced around in my head. I wanted them to become captivated by this excellent joie de vivre I was demonstrating. It wasn't that I wasn't enjoying myself--but I wanted other people to know I was having fun. I'm exciting and live in the moment. I planned for everyone to see.

I got home and nobody was there. I still had hopes that someone would come home, but nobody ever did. I sat on the couch reading the newspaper (which was a little bit soggy but only in places). The cold was getting uncomfortable. I started shivering, water dripping down my face, clothes soaked, the blankets not entirely helping.

a quiet sort of problem

"I didn't want to say anything" has become my mantra recently. "It's okay, really." "I don't want to get in the way."

Sometimes there aren't any problems. I'm always polite and people generally think well of me--quiet but thoughtful, or something like that. But then there's the shouting, the fighting, me in the corner reading. Me on the couch writing. Sometimes it's in the next room, but their voices are raised and I can hear it. Sometimes they pretend I'm not there. But I never say anything. I smile sometimes. I leave sometimes. Then they apologize and it's always "don't worry about it." "It happens." "We all have off days."

I try occasionally, usually when I'm feeling confident or optimistic, sometimes when I feel trapped. But then they think I'm choosing sides. They tell me I should stay out of it. They apologize but say this is important. They wish they could do something but they can't this time--they are trying to be reasonable.

And of course I have to understand. I smile. I tell them things will be all right. I always, always remain calm. I just hope someone notices.

hiding

I've been hiding behind cars at street corners lately, or occasionally parking and hiding in one. I'm always worried someone will notice but nobody seems to. It's sort of a people-watching experiment. The one I really like at night is not far from my house, and at night the neon lights give the street a dull purple light to them.

I was hiding under a delivery van last night and this couple was walking along and stopped in the purple light. I couldn't hear what he said to her but he dropped to one knee like he was proposing. They embraced for a long moment and kissed briefly and then walked their separate ways.

anything but fine

I wasn't sure if I should call it rain or mist but I couldn't see the tops of the buildings downtown as I was walking home. Or not exactly home, just walking--headed north because that's where home was, even if it's five miles and I knew I wouldn't get home for hours and I wasn't entirely sure where I was going. It was dark but the sky was kind of grey and pale from all the city lights reflecting on the mist or the rain or whatever it was. It wasn't cold and there was no wind and it was exactly what a late autumn day should be in Seattle.

And I knew there were buses going my way, but I didn't have a destination in mind while the skyline I'd fallen in love with wasn't entirely visible and my hands were shaking and I felt restless from too much coffee and not enough sleep and not enough food though I probably had too much and sometimes I'm still not sure if it was caffeine that made me restless.

If you asked me I'd have told you everything was perfect. I still might if you catch me in the right mood. But still I was walking home and wondering what went wrong or what was going to go wrong or what was wrong. And I told myself it was really only bothering me because I always get like this after too much caffeine, and that might have even been true.

But Seattle is a coffee city. You ask people out to coffee. You go out for coffee late at night. It's a drug for those late nights that aren't supposed to end. Writing that paper. Studying for that exam. Your last night in town. Driving home late at night. Staying out too late with people who are too fascinating to leave until it's 5 am and the sun is coming up or it would be if it weren't raining or misting or whatever it was doing, and I wondered how I could ever think of this city as anything but a city of late nights.

After 45 minutes and a car drove by. I imagined it was a friend looking for me but if it was they didn't stop, they didn't notice, and anyway I'd rather be alone with my thoughts and a skyline I could't quite see.

raison d'être

I do not want your patronizing smiles and words
as if I were an ordinary man. When you
stroke my cheek with your thumbnail,
wiping away the tears I would never admit to,
telling me that everything will be okay--when you
kiss me softly on the cheek while my eyes burn
like my passions and frustrations and hope and
everything I have ever hoped for and wanted and believed--
when you embrace me as if you can make my fears go away
with your warmth--
I do not want you to treat me as if
you can make it go away.

There is no comfort in basic human comfort
and no dignity in basic human dignity.
There is no comfort in your comforting hands,
along the knots in my back,
along the ridge of my spine,
trying to massage away my demons. It is as if
you do not appreciate my struggle--and I do
struggle--and instead view me as
some troubled man, haunted by ghosts
from my past, as if who I am can be separated
from the ghosts that haunt me and guide me
and define me.

I do not want your consolation or your well-wishing.
I do not want this to go away. I do not want to abandon
my fight, my quest, my struggle. My raison d'être is
to prove that I can overcome any challenge,
not merely to will it away.
I do not want your protective arms around my shoulders,
warding off life's slings and arrows, telling me
that everything will be okay.

the holiday spirit

It's Thanksgiving and I'm flying home to see my family. We haven't spoken in years. Occasionally we exchange letters, so I'm hoping to surprise them. I'm sorry I haven't been a better son/brother/nephew. I hear I'm even an uncle now. I'm not a very good uncle, either. I've seen a picture of my niece. She is a smiling infant in every photo and looks the same as every other smiling infant and I'm not there.

I don't know if they miss me. I haven't been very good to them. Not since my work, or my wedding, and maybe I cared too much about my wife or my job or too little about them but I think I was happy and really I knew that there would always be my family if things went wrong. Things haven't gone wrong. My wife and I both decided we should see our families this time around, though she's been good about keeping in touch with hers and that's all right with me.

The airport is already festive and it's cold and everyone has winter clothes now. It seems too early for this sort of thing. I didn't have coffee this morning and I've been up all night worried about traveling, and I never worry about traveling. But this time was different. Maybe it'll go wrong. It feels like there's something at stake.

Over and over in my head I imagine all the different ways it could go wrong. The plane crashes. The plane gets hijacked. I see all of these scenarios, me frozen with terror, unable to do anything as the flight makes its way to its destination. I board the plane with trepidation. I've never felt it so important to celebrate the holidays with my family.

weather forecasts

I'd hoped that coffee would help us sober up. I should have--there's a hundred things I should have done. Right now all I can think about is the weather. It's been raining constantly since we rolled into town and the car broke down. Sometimes hard, sometimes a drizzle. I keep getting flood advisories on my weather reports. The locals say it's been like this for a month and no sign of letting up.

My girlfriend's angry, or maybe it's me who's angry. I know she's upset. I know I'm upset. I know we shouldn't talk about it, we should just go back to the hotel, but we're both soaked already, and coffee sounds perfect and we can talk it out, right? We can make it work. I shake her off angrily as she tries to slip a hand around my waist.

We've found a seedy truck stop, and as the hostess leads us to our seats--the place is almost completely empty. We both order coffee; she asks if it's all right to smoke. According to the hostess, it's all right. Now we're looking at each other I notice how unsteady her hands are. Is it from drinking? The cold? Emotion? I don't ask. She fumbles with her light, manages to light up, and doesn't offer me one. She spills some cream when she arrives. I take my coffee black. I can't stand looking at her anymore so I just glare into the cup.

I hear the rain picking up and feel her glaring at me. She hates the weather, is sorry we're still here, wants to know why we haven't left and I don't know, I don't have any answers. We haven't talked about it but I know that's what it is. She's mad and she's drunk and I say to the waitress, "Some weather." She says yeah.

"Is it like this often?" She says no.

I watch my girlfriend finish her cigarette. I can't tell if she's angry or sad or both as she watches me. I can't meet her eyes. I'm not sure what I'd say if I did but I can't. The smoke gets everywhere. We both look away and we don't talk and the restaurant is dead, and I know the hostess and waitress are watching us, we might as well be screaming at each other. It's hours before morning, a long trip back to the hotel, getting soaked all the way, and still no sign the rain's going to let up. And right now all I can think about is the weather.

fevered inspiration: cream invades the coffee black

While I wait for my sister at the Denny's, I watch the cream swirling into the coffee. Little intricate spirals, random, or not actually random. She sits down and bumps the table, disrupting the pattern. I smile at her and say it's nice to see her. She's tall and dark-haired and today she looks like business and smells like smoke. She compliments my suit, and I say thanks and begin to stir the coffee.

She takes her coffee black, and I never wait to watch the swirls once she's here. She says she's looking forward to Paris. I tell her I know. The waitress arrives and takes our order. The food is better than I expected. She talks about her plans in Paris, and I talked about my job. We haven't talked for months, but not because of any real distance. Unless you count literal distance. We've been busy. Sometimes we find the time to write.

And even now we act like it's just business. I don't talk about how weird it feels to be in SeaTac with her, the city of departures, but I mention the weather is funny lately. I tell her about the windstorm. I tell her I might be getting a job in Boston. I don't tell her about the desperation there.

We step outside for a smoke after I pour another creamer into my coffee. I don't stir. It happens naturally while we're gone. Some things happen whether or not you interfere.

The night wears on, we talk about everything but our lives. We leave it unsaid because sometimes words don't work like you want them to. Then the sun comes up and she flies away and I take the bus back to Seattle. I won't sleep until later tonight.

fevered inspiration: coffee liqueur

She was drinking coffee liqueur and that seemed unusual, and she must have noticed me staring because she said it made her think of all those nights in high school when she'd go out to the diner and have coffee and talk until the sun came up and she had to go to school. We talked until the bar closed and they kicked us outside and the wind was high and the rain was terrible, the streets filled with water, and neither of us had the cash for a cab--so we took shelter in the mouth of the subway station, leaning against the wall and watching the rain outside.

It wasn't too cold but it was cold enough, so we huddled close, and talked--about the religion we'd both left behind, the small towns we still called home for some reason. I talked about my comfortable upbringing and how I was never sure if I should claim it or reject it. She told me about her family and how she left it behind when she was 18 but she kept going back. Then we both thought of the line from Magnolia, "We may be through with the past, but the past ain't through with us," and a part of me wished it would rain like it did in that movie.

But it's true. We drink coffee liqueur to remind us of those carefree days in high school we hated so much because we can't afford to forget about them. But, she says with a tired smile, it also reminds her she's not there anymore. The taste of alcohol wasn't there when she was young. Maybe it's cheap and artificial, but sometimes that's all we have.

"We're really fortunate, you know," she says. "Life should have been perfect for us."

I tell her I know.

She says, "Then why are we so unhappy?"

In the morning we go home and I'm left worried about the world but so happy for that one night, and I still don't know why.

fevered inspiration

Sometimes I feel lie I am only really alive when I'm sick. It happens maybe once a year and my mind just stops working--or at least, not like it used to. My memory isn't sharp and I don't notice details like I usually do but maybe that's just because my mind is racing. I drink a lot of coffee, smoke cigarettes sometimes, to try to replicate that but once the fever takes hold I just keep thinking and I usually can't write fast enough to keep up with--

--this sad girl at the bar tonight, and I didn't even mean to start up a conversation but we talked for hours and the trains stopped running and the bars closed and we wandered out into the night but it was raining and windy and we had to run for shelter and--

--the last time I really talked to my sister, at the airport just before she left for Paris. Well, before the airport, really. We spent all night at a Denny's in SeaTac, drinking coffee, occasionally retiring for a smoke--I always loved having a smoke with my sister--and then she was gone and so was I, on the last plane to Boston, leaving behind all the disappointment and regret from--

--that wide-eyed acceptance and optimism I've always had somewhere. I'm not a cynic. I've never been a cynic. But I'm also afraid. I'm afraid and desperate and frantic and that never comes out until--

--my fever.

wardrobe

Every morning I wake up at the same time to get ready for work. It is the same routine every day--I put the coffee on, take a shower, come out, have some breakfast and coffee. My girlfriend emerges to join me for my breakfast at this point. We are still warm and communicative this early in the morning.

I return to the bedroom to get dressed. My suit and shirt are neatly pressed. I pass my girlfriend on the way into the bathroom to adjust my tie in the mirror. This takes a few moments, as I must be perfect. I return to the kitchen to read the newspaper my girlfriend has left there. She is reading the financial section. I turn to politics.

When she returns she is wearing a sharp skirt suit in black with a white blouse. She is wearing glasses now. Her hair is perfect. I lower the paper to give her a cold look. I glance at the clock. "Shouldn't you be going?" she asks. I nod curtly and leave. I enjoy work. I run into her at lunch at the cafe, and we talk business over coffee. We are cold but polite--cold in the sense that there is no warmth left between us. She drinks an iced latte. I drink black coffee. We argue about the economy and stocks, but politely.

I work late tonight. When I come home she is sleeping on the bed. I hang up my suit and tie and change into boxers and a t-shirt. She wakes up as I slide into bed and smiles at me--no longer perfectly arrayed for work. I tell her she's beautiful and she kisses me softly, and we lie in bed, enjoying each others' warmth. In the morning it will be the same. We'll get dressed and pretend we are polite business partners. We will quarrel politely over coffee at lunch. We will present our perfect selves to the world.

unfamiliar territory

Despite going home to the same place every night, I have not stayed in the same house on any two consecutive evenings for weeks. I come home to an unfamiliar building--the furniture is different, the layout of the house, even the architecture. But it's home. The key fits, the same people are there--or at least they look the same.

I get used to the new arrangement and find my room--always in a different place--and go to sleep in a bed that feels like a stranger's. I dream of the house I used to know, but it seems distant, dark, and haunted now. Then I wake up and find myself somewhere entirely new. When I eat my breakfast, it doesn't taste like it should. I can never quite place what is wrong with it. I can never remember how I like my coffee, but it always tastes wrong. Now too sweet. Now too strong. Too much cream. Too grainy.

And my love is different every day. Today her hair is up and dark, she is dressed like a professional, a working woman, very serious. Last night when I went to bed she had her hair long, it was red, and she wore jeans and a striped shirt. She smiled a lot more. "Did you dye your hair?" I ask her today. She looks confused. I apologize and say I haven't been sleeping well, which is true.

Nobody knows about this disorientation, because they don't seem to understand when I start talking about it. Am I the only one that notices? Am I going mad? Can I trust my own memories? I don't know what is a dream anymore. I'm never sure what is happening. And I'm not even sure I'm the same person through all of it.

familiar accents

I spent much of the evening in a diner, drinking coffee with cream but no sugar, reading a newspaper. I usually put sugar in my coffee. I usually don't go out alone on a Saturday night. I usually don't read the newspaper. Tonight was not every night.

The waitress talked to me occasionally, but mostly just to make sure I was okay. She didn't say much to me. She talked to some of the other patrons, too, and some of them I got the feeling she knew. About half an hour into the evening, while I was eating my club sandwich and generally feeling tired, I noticed that she was greeting the couple behind me without an accent.

She spoke with an accent to me--not strong, but noticeable. Did I look like an out of towner, or did I look like a local? Was I just not hearing her right? I didn't ask about it but I left a good tip and smiled as I left. No sense acting like anything is unusual.

what i had in mind

I'm often guilty of overplanning. I want to make sure everything goes a certain way, and while I don't always write it down I always know the steps and exactly where everything is expected to be, when it's supposed to happen.

I saw a friend a few days ago that I hadn't seen for a year. I'd sort of given up on ever seeing her again. I had plans for the evening--I always had plans for the evening--but I didn't see any problem with her tagging along for a while. Then we stepped into an elevator and something changed.

I'm still trying to figure out what happened. I didn't mean to change it, but suddenly I felt like we'd gone off course. This was not what I had in mind. I've been uncharted for a few days now. It's completely new to me. I should be uncomfortable with it--I always am when something doesn't go according to plan.

But all I'm worried about is that I'm not worried about it.

legacies and paper trails

A dear friend of mine committed suicide recently, unexpectedly. I was looking through what she left behind with her brother, and we found a little box full of receipts. Her brother figured she was just keeping a record for herself, but the box intrigued me. I asked if I could keep it and he said sure. I put it in my bag.

While he continued looking through her things, I was looking through some of her jackets. She liked wearing jackets and had a lot of them. And the pockets were mostly full of receipts. Some were faded so only the server's name was readable, or only the restaurant, or only the price. Some were to places I had no idea what they were or that she had ever been to.

I spent the evening poring over these old receipts. They told me nothing, were kept haphazardly in a dusty box, obviously never looked at again, but there was something that kept her from throwing them away. There was nothing unusual about her spending habits, no way to create some narrative from it. Perhaps that was the story. I wanted something unusual. I wanted a marked deviation towards the end, or some dark secret that was revealed in a receipt for $17.76 at the grocery store. It's information for accountants, not for bereaved friends.

I saved a few of them. Times I remembered, things she'd bought that I recognized. I keep them in my own box, and never look at them. But lately I've taken to keeping my own receipts and putting them in the pockets of my jacket, just in case.

departures

I'm at the airport, staring at the screen with the lists of departures, flights, arrival times, delays--people walking around me, brushing past me, leaving, arriving, waiting for friends, family, relatives.

Eventually I check my bags and shuffle through the security, thinking of all the other people who were departing. It wasn't their stories that interested me this time. I wonder how many of them are returning, how many of them are being replaced by others. Everyone in the airport eventually wears the same hassled look of too many security checks and too many excess fees, waiting in line, hoping everything works, being made aware that everything really important to you fits in a couple of bags, that it will be searched by people who have never met you, and that they will not find anything interesting about it. Whether that is a comfort or a fear--in the end everyone looks at the planes with the same mixture of boredom and trepidation.

Even the ones who aren't returning. I wonder if anyone notices the wistful quality to my gaze. There are no families embracing past the security checkpoints. None of the travelers look happy to be home, however many of them are coming home. I'm sure some of them are secretly happy, though. And I know I'm happy to be home, even if it's for the last time.

I'm one of the last to board my flight. I have a window seat. I close my window and close my eyes so I don't have to see when we depart.

where i've been lately

The past few days I've been wandering. Visiting old friends, exploring places I'd never been--carrying most of my stuff in a bag or the back of my car. It's always a weird sort of feeling. We never act like I'm about to leave forever. It's always casual conversation, asking about the last few days. It's like watching a clip from a movie or reading a chapter from a novel. I don't know their stories anymore, and I'm reading a little chunk of it. But they look happy now, mostly.

I wonder if they notice that I'm coming undone. I've got a few nervous tics. I fade in and out of attention as some little thing, a movement of her hand or something she says, draws me back to the time she--well, that's another story altogether. I return to reality and shake my head to get back. I blink a lot more, scratch my arms, look around--do they see me? Do they know? And I do it all more when I'm nervous.

And the night comes to a close and they ask if I need a ride back to my car and I say "No, it's okay." So then it's hugs and handshakes and fleeting glances and I'm alone in a darkened parking garage. It's a long walk to my car, a hundred miles to the place where I'm staying--and I realize I'm finally a man without a home.

nonexistence

Solipsism is the belief that you are the only person or thing which is real--everything else is the product of your imagination. Lately I've been wondering if I'm not an illusory being--maybe the world is real and I'm not really here, like a ghost or something. Oh, sure, people talk to me, even interact with me, but it seems like it's on a limited level. If I'm hallucinating my own existence, or at least my own interactions with the world, it's not a stretch to assume I can hallucinate some limited interactions with people. My ghostly brain just adjusts all the facts to make it seem like I'm really here.

It doesn't make sense, of course. But I feel dreamlike and detached, I feel like people forget that I exist--and that makes me wonder if I ever really existed in the first place, or if I just wish that I did. I cling to photographs, things I've written, a handshake--some desperate evidence that I'm really here.

express mail

I wrote a letter, a real letter, the other day. It was a personal letter, to someone I'd written letters to before--and sometimes they were never sent or never delivered and sometimes I'm sure she got them but never read them, but I know she read at least some of them. We still talk sometimes. The letters are a part of our relationship that I'm still not even sure I understand. It makes the moments real, somehow.

I don't have an outgoing mail slot so I walked out to the post office. It costs twenty dollars to ship something by express mail, and I wondered how many letters get shipped express. There by tomorrow a noon. Guaranteed. It's not important, or expected, and I don't even think she'll be home and if I really need to hear from her there's always email, which we use, but--

I decided to ship it express anyway. I dodged the questions when the woman at the counter tried to make conversation, because I didn't want anyone to think I was weird. Or at least, not yet. I'm sure it will all melt down soon, but I've long stopped trying to resist my whims. Anyway, I couldn't bear the thought of another undelivered letter.