solidarity, pt. 3

Eris.

When I tell stories about Alex, I'm always sort of a passive character in them. Part of that is because I'm sort of a passive person, but as is the case with all good stories, a lot of it is because I'm lying. On a good day (or bad day, depending on your point of view) I could tell you everything about her, and about our relationship. I'd spent my entire life getting good at observing things, starting with myself and working my way out.

She was the sort of deliberately abrasive person that fancies themselves "brutally honest," so she didn't have any close friends. Just me. And she'd gotten used to the idea that no matter how much abuse she heaped on me, I'd just shrug and deal with it, because we both needed each other--the connection we had was a fucking addiction.

I'd started deliberately needling her, doing the things she always hated. I'm sure I thought it was a good idea at the time. Every time, she'd react the same way--which is to say, badly--and I'd get pissed off and start needling her even more. This went on for longer than I'd care to admit. Eventually all the quiet resentment I'd been building up turned into a white-hot fury, and I drove her away.

When I'd screamed my voice hoarse, I called my sister. She told me stories that made me laugh, and for a while everything was okay. And that was more solidarity than I'd had in years.

solidarity, pt. 2

Alex.

We met in late August, I think, just after her school started. It was one of those summers where it got ridiculously hot later than anyone thought it would, and I remember her in her summer clothes glistening with sweat and sitting on the porch. She looked like she needed a friend, so I went out and said hi. She was a little weirded out by that, but then we got to talking and actually got on pretty well. I told her if she ever happened to be walking by my place again and she saw me she should stop by. I didn't expect that we'd ever actually see each other again, so I didn't ask for her name or anything.

So imagine my surprise when I was sitting out on the porch, one afternoon just after the morning's low clouds had burned off, and there she was walking by. Her face lit up and I couldn't help but smile back--nobody that I knew ever seemed so excited to see me. She hurried over and asked if she could join me, very politely, and I said sure.

She told me her sister usually drove her home, but she was busy, so she decided to walk, but the way she said it, the way she looked when she saw me--she walked by just in case I was there. She was willing to go out of her way to take the chance that she'd run into me again. And the elation I felt at that realization was impossible to contain.

We'd made a connection, I decided, and I would fight like hell to make sure that nothing would ever break that connection.

solidarity, pt. 1

Eleutheria.

I don't remember his name or his face, but I remember the shape of the mark I left on his neck after a night of sloppy drunken kissing on the floor. I also remember the guy sleeping on the couch a few feet away from us, dutifully pretending to sleep--I think I thought about him more than the kid I was making out with, which, in fairness, isn't saying much.

We met again years later, when I was back in town to visit. Everything seemed so different now--which I think had more to do with me than anything else, of course--and there was a party and we ended up out on the front porch. It was one of those hot, muggy days where it felt like a storm was going to break any minute--but it had felt like that for hours, and no storm seemed to be forthcoming. I think I felt a raindrop or two.

There was a silence in our conversation and I apologized for being inconsiderate all those years ago, and he just smiled and laughed and said he wasn't worried about it. Life's too short, he told me, to worry about stupid things like that.

"Doesn't stop me from doing it anyway," I said.

"Hey, me neither."

Then there was some more silence and several people came out to join us on the porch and, because this is the nature of social gatherings, we didn't talk again. But that moment of solidarity made the whole thing worthwhile.

a prelude for august

I never used to like August very much, though looking back on it I realize that sort of thing isn't really August's fault. I think it's just that it's one of the really dead parts of the year--sometimes high summer is as suffocating and lonely as February, the month where I wrote about isolation. This month I'm writing about solidarity. It was originally going to be 'community,' but that word bothers me, because almost every time someone uses it it means they're a phenomenally insincere human being. It's also just not a very good counterpoint for isolation.

Solidarity, however--sometimes all it takes is knowing that there is one person out there who cares, and suddenly you're not alone anymore. Sometimes we find that solidarity in a community, but sometimes community is the most isolating thing there is. Community is a word that means something to a select group of people--or an isolated group of people, if you will. Solidarity, I think, means something to everyone. Whether or not we admit it, that's what we all crave, isn't it? Sometimes I think human living is nothing more than reaching out blindly, hoping that someone will take our hand and say "I'm with you."

regret, pt. 5

Eleutheria.

I didn't really tell anyone I was leaving when I finally got around to it. Not even the handful of people I actually liked--it was better, I thought, to make a clean escape. Some of them didn't know I was going until I was gone. And it was a good feeling, lying there in the dark on the couch of my new apartment, a hundred miles from the life I'd built for myself, staring at nothing at all. Freedom is always a good feeling, even when it's a little terrifying.

But I'd gotten used to the old life, with all the plans and expectations and projects. I'd never call it comforting, but it was familiar. It had taken a lot of work to build, too, and I'd just abandoned it. I mean, yes, it had been a prison, but it was my prison. I'd designed it in an effort to find meaning in a world that seemed to have none. And abandoning all that work now meant that this quest was fruitless, didn't it? Was it even so bad back there? I could have stayed for a bit longer, made it work out with a little more effort, couldn't I? But going back was impossible.

There's a famous line, mostly used by the hopelessly naive, about how the only things they regret are the things they didn't do. Sadly it's more true than I'm prepared to admit. I've done plenty of things I regret, of course, but the list of things I didn't do? It's practically infinite. And I regret all of them, almost as much as I would have regretted doing things differently than I had.

regret, pt. 4

Alex.

I came home from work one night and Eris was waiting on my front step, along with all the memories I'd managed to bury in the interim years. She gave me the same tentative smile she had when we first met, and seemed to hold me at arm's length even when she wrapped her arms around me. And despite all that, just then, clear as day, I could see this beautiful future unfold.

Except none of that was possible. I didn't know why she was here, and I didn't believe her when she told me. Well, that's a lie. I knew why she was here: she was chasing a dream. It was a dream she didn't believe in, and it was a dream that wasn't going to happen even if she did, but that's why she was here. I knew the look: I'd seen her chase dreams before. I'd seen her stop believing in dreams before. Hell, I'd led her down both of those roads.

She'd led herself here, whatever else was true. We were both powerless to stop it. I knew that in a few moments I'd invite her in and offer her a beer and tell her stories and pretend nothing had ever happened. And she'd go along with it and act like there was still a shot, and that weird false optimism would be as infectious as ever. The vision I'd had of a beautiful future evaporated, and in its place was a moment of real clarity, a glimpse of the real future: this would be just as fucked up as everything else about our relationship had been. We'd rip all of our old wounds open, and for a moment, before the spell took hold, I regretted that I didn't have the strength of will to say no.

regret, pt. 3

Eris.

I made a list of coincidences the day my house was destroyed and I jumped on a bus headed east. For some of them I even did the math for how unlikely that particular chain of events was. My mind was fixed on that: everything that happened up to and including a meteor landing on the house I shared with my roommate was so phenomenally unlikely, the only thing that could possibly explain it was the whims of an angry god.

It had destroyed more than just my home. It had destroyed my entire life--who I was, what I'd done. This was an omen, a sign--I was supposed to do something with this new freedom. This was as much a gift as it was a curse, because bigger than all the coincidences of that day--the meteor, the fact that I survived, and so on--was the biggest coincidence of all: the fact that I existed at all to begin with. The fact that anything existed.

Freedom fell from the heavens on me. I could have done anything, gone anywhere. Instead I went running east, back into Alex's arms, back into a life that had just been destroyed. I could have gone anywhere. Instead I went backwards. And once I realized that my half-mad impulse had locked my course in, what could I do but regret it?

regret, pt. 2

Melissa.

I want to say I regretted calling you immediately, but that's not entirely true. It crept up on me like a fever. Every ounce of hope that I allowed myself to have--maybe running really did fix everything, maybe you weren't angry at me for disappearing, maybe you really would pick me up and we could act like things had never changed--vanished like fairy gold, leaving nothing in my hand but dried up old leaves, which I promptly threw on the fires of my regret.

I regretted that I called you, I regretted that you agreed to pick me up, and most of all I regretted that I still clung to that tiny shred of hope that kept me from calling again and saying that I'd try to find someone else to pick me up. I regretted the cold certainty that you'd see through that lie, and that even if you didn't, nobody would be there at the airport. I'd driven everyone away, except you--including you, really, and that was the problem.

Most of all, I regretted that I'd dug up a past that I knew was dead, to make sure that not even fond memories remained. By the time I got on the plane back home, I regretted all of these idiotic notions that the world had changed, or that I had changed--nothing ever changes. But I knew I was right about one thing: when I got back we'd act like nothing had changed. We'd be guilty and bitter, and by the time we were done with each other we'd regret even the most beautiful moments.

regret, pt. 1

Nicholas.

Memory plays funny tricks on you if you aren't paying attention. Or even if you are. You left without warning, so of course I didn't know that the last time we met would be the last time we met, but suddenly that night loomed large in my mind. You seemed subdued, fidgety, nervous--not the breezy, confident woman I knew. Not the girl who was as annoying as she was enchanting. The girl I was drinking with that night seemed defeated.

I didn't dare ask what was wrong, because you had taught me that this sort of thing was usually a trap. But the trap never sprung. The night wore on and you became increasingly agitated, and after we left, rather than wait for the bus like we usually did, you insisted on walking, and as we walked you talked endlessly, gesticulating wildly. You were a little drunk, and you were talking very fast, and you tripped over your words or used the wrong ones, and didn't stop to correct yourself. And I thought: this isn't you. This is someone else entirely.

We reached the door to my house you looked like you had something you wanted to say, something you'd been trying to say or build up to all this time, and for a moment I swear you were looking at me like you needed help. I smiled and said "did you forget where your house is?" and suddenly, effortlessly, the woman I knew you as returned, smiled charmingly, and said, "No, I was just making sure you remembered how to work the doorknob." When I demonstrated that I did, you grinned and left.

And that's how I remember that evening. For the first time since I'd known you, you were vulnerable, and I just played the same stupid game we were always playing. Rather than try to help you--someone I cared deeply about, despite all evidence that this was a terrible idea--I decided to treat you the way you'd always treated me. I'd take it back if I could.

a prelude for july

It's hard to believe we're actually halfway through this extended conceit I'm putting you through. This is an example of a lie, the sort of lie we tell all the time because we don't know how to properly mark something as significant or noteworthy. So we pretend we're having difficulty believing it, when the opposite is usually true. It's far harder to disbelieve than it is to believe.

This is where hope comes from--humans will never have a hard time believing something, even when we have no evidence for it. Hope was the theme of my stories from January, you may recall. This month is their counterpoint. This month, the stories are about regret.

I was tempted to make the counterpoint to hope something like nostalgia, but that isn't properly the opposite, is it? Hope is thinking of the past with positive thoughts; nostalgia is like hope, except pointed backwards. There's still positivity there. Regret, on the other hand, is hope's truest companion.

It may be helpful to read January's stories before you read this month's stories. This is the part of this project where I start writing variations on the stories I've been telling for the first half of it, and I suppose that makes it the part where we find out whether my hopes for the project ultimately turn into regrets.

eternity, pt. 5

Nicholas.

I used to use words like "forever" because I thought every eternity was like that first summer we spent together. I doubt you even remember that road trip we took across the mountains. There was an early heat wave, but you were always in your element in the burning sun. You navigated some small town I don't even remember the name of like you'd been there your whole life, talking to people I didn't recognize like they were old friends. I guess for you it was just stepping back in time.

We slept on the floor of your friend's apartment that night, and I told you how surreal this had all been, and of course you just laughed and said the heat must have addled my brain. You laughed at everything back then, of course. I imagine you still do. But even at the time I remember that day stretching on forever, an endless chain of people and places. It was strange and magical and wonderful, and I used words like "forever" because I imagined days with you would always be like this.

Now, of course, that day is an eternity ago, and I realize that "forever" is as much a threat as a promise. Several summers on, you were still making the days stretch on forever, except now it was exhausting just trying to keep up. I would have given anything to make those days end, except, of course, you were my ride. So you never stopped, and I never realized that I could have gotten off at any time.

eternity, pt. 4

Alex.

It's funny how long even the shortest nights of summer can seem. I spent a summer with Eris in Maine, and we spent our nights on the grass of her lawn watching the stars, sometimes talking, sometimes quiet. We'd stay out until the light of morning crept over the eastern sky and one of us would suggest that we move to an actual bed.

On one night we were driven indoors by a storm, just after dawn. We ran inside and laughed in her bedroom and wrapped ourselves in blankets, only she just kept shivering, and I asked if there was something wrong. She shook her head at first, then sat up on the edge of the bed and told me that she'd spent the evening trapped in someone else's mind.

She lay there, paralyzed, staring up at these alien stars, thinking thoughts that she knew could not have come from her own head, just praying for a dawn that seemed an eternity away. Perhaps it was. I'm not going to pretend I understand what happened, or why, but even I felt powerless after she told her story. I took her hand and promised that I would always be there, at her side, and if she ever doubted who she was she would always have me there to comfort her. And I meant it--I'd be there through eternities both long and short.

She smiled at me and kissed my hand and said "That means a lot." And it was the most beautiful, heartbreaking lie she'd ever told me. No matter how close I held her, she would always be alone with me.

eternity, pt. 3

Melissa.

Summer solstice was the first time I kissed you, and also the first time that I realized I was terrified of you. I'd been making you chase me for what must have been months, and suddenly the prospect of an entire summer--and summers back then lasted forever--made me realize that there was a reason I was running away. This was supposed to be a game, and the thing about games is you can pack them up at the end of the night and put them back in the closet.

But you weren't playing the same game. Despite everything you were ready for a summer with me--you were ready for an eternity with me. So I asked you that night if this meant we were a thing now. You said you guessed we must be.

"What does that mean?"

"It doesn't have to mean anything. I like you. I think you like me. Isn't that enough?"

And I wanted to say no, you stupid boy, that isn't enough. That will never be enough. The days are long and so full of potential, and here you are telling me you're prepared to just let eternity happen to you, like it's no big deal. Like it isn't going to end at any moment. Instead I just shrugged, and looked into my coffee, and in the swirls of cream I saw the future.

I would be forever running away--it's in my nature, as a very dear friend once said, though she thought I was the frog, not the scorpion. You would be forever chasing me, and I'd always be just out of reach. You thought eternity meant kisses in the sun and days that never ended. Instead you'd be my very own Tantalus. I wonder if you even realize what you stole.

eternity, pt. 2

Eleutheria.

When I first moved to Seattle I lived a few blocks from a used bookstore which was right next to a little coffee shop on one of my neighborhood's major intersections. They were the first landmark I really recognized, the first part of the city that I saw and didn't just see a maze of endless buildings, all faceless and alien. And they became a part of my life just as much as "home" was. Every weekend I'd go down to the bookstore and pick something up, then sit at the coffee shop and drink coffee and read. It became my little ritual.

At first I used my ritual to stave off loneliness in a new city. Eventually I made friends but I still kept some time free every weekend, because it was comforting and familiar--or, put another way, because it was changeless and eternal. And even once I'd moved away, all my thoughts of home included that coffee shop, that bookstore. In my mind these ritual altars stood tall and proud, untouched by the years, mysterious and ancient like Stonehenge. They'd be there long after I was gone. It just wouldn't be Seattle without them.

Once I'd left town, of course, I stopped performing my little ritual, and sometimes I feel like things would have been better if I hadn't--like these little shops actually helped keep the world at bay. An absurd thought, perhaps, but you need absurd thoughts to understand the eternal.

eternity, pt. 1

Eris.

I was sure that first summer would last forever. Summer is a season that slowly creeps up on you, and suddenly it's June and you realize the sun hasn't set when it should have, and somehow you're okay with that. So we'd sit on the porch and watch the summer evenings creep in, or we'd go exploring, safe in the knowledge that dark wouldn't come until much later.

She was my shelter from an indifferent world, and, as it was summer and we had nothing else to do, and armed as we were with eternity, we faced it together, bravely, triumphantly, ridiculously. Wasting away the summer nights, laughing off the endless days. No matter how many hours of sunlight we had, the days were never long enough--the days passed quickly and the nights seemed to stretch on forever.

I made her stay up until sunup on the solstice, because it felt important--this was the heart of the endless summer. How could we not? Then we slept, safe in the knowledge that we'd done something right. We'd paid our homage to the gods of eternity. How could what we had not last forever?

a prelude for june

June is officially the start of summer here, though unofficially it tends to be marked by what the locals call the June gloom, or occasionally Juneuary, which is probably why I can never think of it as anything but a beginning. 

Most people who aren't from Seattle live under the impression that it's rainy all the time; this is something of a misrepresentation. By the time summer rolls around we often go weeks or months without rain. Nothing but clear skies and a gentle breeze. It's not until autumn rolls around that the weather even thinks of changing. From June onward it is possible to believe that the summer will never end.

Winter has that problem too, of course, but we fill our winters with festivals, marking the solstice and the new year and other things that pass the time. Summer has nothing. Summer stretches on endlessly. So I've always thought of June as the month that begins an eternity, and this month's stories will be on the subject of eternity.

This month also means we're approaching the halfway point. It never seems like it's been that long.

life, pt. 5

Eris.

Life is narrative. It's not that stories all work out in the end--they obviously don't--but stories are important. Probably the only thing that's important in this fucked up world we live in. That's the thing I've always latched onto when it seems like it's slipping out of control.

Well, I say "always." This is one of those things I can trace to a single conversation. This was after some party at someone's house back in high school, hanging out with Alex on the porch. I always felt overwhelmed at big parties, though Alex seemed right at home. She was right at home pretty much anywhere.

I was complaining about the sorts of things you complain about when you're seventeen and think that everything is the end of the world, and she just shrugged and said, "I'm sure you can make a good story out of it, at least." You know, the sort of meaningless thing you say when someone is complaining and you don't really think it's worth complaining about but you don't want to just slap them and tell them to shut the fuck up.

But I was drunk, young, and impressionable, and that seemed somehow profound. That became the lens I used to view the world, and suddenly stories were everywhere I looked. It was still overwhelming--life will always be overwhelming--but it was comforting, and then it was important. Since life is narrative, it's always safe to say you're part of something that will last long after you're gone.

life, pt. 4

Eleutheria.

Things started to really fall apart just before I finally fled. I was depressed and ended up abandoning a lot of commitments I'd made, which of course made me feel even worse. So I tried to trick myself into getting motivated by falling in love with this kid I'd only known for a month, and then convincing myself that if that fell through at least I had this other boy I wasn't particularly into but who liked me well enough to fall back on. And it worked, for a while. I dreamed up a future with both of them (but mostly just the first one) and was sure that, as soon as it all worked out, the depression would go away and life would continue as smoothly as it ever had.

There were a number of flaws in this plan, of course, but the one that seems most glaring now is that I failed to take into account that these people lived their own lives when I wasn't around, and those lives weren't going to line up neatly just because I'd planned things that required them to. After our lives had briefly intersected, their lives veered off quite radically. Since I was relying on them as something of a psychological safety net, this didn't work out particularly well.

I spent a lot of time writing about how capricious life can be after that. I've still got pages upon pages of me, waxing eloquent about life and its inherent unreliability. All of it, of course, is written with the assumption that when I talk about "life" I'm the only figure that really matters, and with the assumption that "life" is something you can figure out.

It's not, of course. It took me a while to finally understand that, but I finally did: life means everyone. Everyone you will ever meet has this entire universe living inside them, and no matter how close you get to them, you can only ever brush the surface. Once you've figured that out, it's a lot easier to come to terms with.

life, pt. 3

Melissa.

I hear they're destroying that 24 hour place we used to hang out at, putting in some more office buildings. I always thought of that place as the last monument to us. So many late nights with only cheap coffee and greasy food to keep us awake--that, and the certainty that we had life figured out. I thought it fitting to write one of them down. That way a little piece of the monument might remain.

It was, oh, probably a Tuesday night, about four am, and there was a lull in the conversation that went on a little too long, because we were both falling asleep and had said pretty much everything we had to say. Which was, in fairness, quite a lot. I said something like "We're both absurd, you know."

"Are we? I mean, I knew that you were, but--"

"Sitting here like we've worked out life's little problems. We haven't. That's not how life works."

"Maybe not. But I know tonight I'll go home happy, tomorrow I'll wake up hopeful, and maybe somewhere I'll make something better." Then you paused and gave me your little triumphal smirk. "You'll be just as miserable as ever, of course."

"Of course."

"The thing is, despite your best efforts, you've already helped."

I thought about that a lot. I don't know if you even remembered it, but it was good to be reminded that despite my cynicism, sometimes life was pretty all right.

life, pt. 2

Nicholas.

After you came back from London, when we finally met again at a party, I remember thinking how incredibly unchanged you were by everything. You treated me exactly like you always did--just like you did when we first met, as if I hadn't left you at the airport and as if you hadn't run away for several months, and avoided me for several months after that. I even said something like that. "You never change, do you?"

And you gave me that little ironic smirk and said "I change plenty, you just aren't clever enough to notice." Then, later, you joined some of your friends out back for a smoke. You never used to smoke. I must have been giving you a surprised look because you just smiled and blew a smoke ring in my face and gave me an insufferable 'I told you so' look.

I think that broke the spell. I realized that when I was looking at you before I was just seeing a memory. Whoever it was that left all those months before, she didn't come back with you. You still looked like her, and you still had her smile, but life had happened since then.

Eventually it was just you and me out back, and your smile was starting to wear a bit thin, and of course I couldn't ask what was wrong. Instead, I said, "Life's a funny thing, isn't it?"

You took a long time before answering. "Not really," you said. "We like to think we're all characters in our own stories, but we're not. We like to think we've figured out the story, but it never works out that way. Life isn't funny, or ironic, or anything like that. Life just is." Then the smile came back. "That's all the philosophy you're getting out of me tonight, Nicholas."

It wasn't until you were long gone that I realized I'd probably derailed your story just as much as you'd derailed mine.