The Addict and Me: Part III

Some Back-story

I feel that I need to plug in some details here.  How is it that I’m off on a bus with someone I had never met; yet longing for a deep romance even after I had decided (or some part of me had) that was impossible?

(I’m also going to have to give that “someone” a name, for the sake of clarity.  I’ll call him S.)

I first met S on MySpace.  I was dissatisfied with my life and saw MySpace as a way to open it up, to meet new people, to reignite my long dormant writing “career.” Also, though I wasn’t quite aware of it, I had a story to tell that was burning inside of me that was aching to blaze out in the open.  Wow.  I had no idea how transformative this little step would be.  I felt lonely in my pastry career.  I felt lonely in my life.  I had a boyfriend, but I was feeling the limitations of that relationship.  We were companionable, but I couldn’t talk to him about all that interested me.  I needed friends, and there were friends a-plenty awaiting me in cyberspace.

S was one of the first people I met online.  I was immediately fascinated.  He liked my Sarah Vaughan on my page.  I liked his Rachmaninoff.  We were both pastry chefs, voracious in our taste for music and food.  We loved the same movies.  We were addicted to crossword puzzles.  We both wrote poetry.  I could hardly believe it.

Our first phone call was odd.  I felt that there was something wrong with him, but I couldn’t quite figure it out.  He wasn’t connecting with me in conversation.  It was as though he was just talking into space and not to me.  I was relieved, actually.  He was just a guy, a quirky guy whom I could befriend.  It would be all right.  My relationship with my boyfriend wasn’t in danger.  A week later, S told me he was an alcoholic.  Huh.  OK, I knew that there was something awry.  I didn’t exactly know what an alcoholic was, besides someone with a drinking problem, but I accepted it.   Then he got sober.  What a change!  He called me after an extended weekend rehab.  We had a wonderful conversation; he opened up and started sharing with me.  We talked about God, about Jazz, about the Twelve Steps, about being free and living life openly, without fear.  I found myself being drawn closer to him.  I realized that I was hungry for just this kind of connection.  He seemed surprised that I didn’t have this with my boyfriend.  “Is it just about sex, then?”  S asked, and that notion hung in the air and troubled me.  I was afraid of the answer.

Within a few weeks of meeting online, I asked him for an intimate friendship.  As I typed the words, I felt both the danger of it and the improbability.  Could I have what I wanted?  My heart was longing for a confidant, someone to whom I could tell my story, to whom I could show my true self.   I said that I wanted an intimate friendship, and I did, but I didn’t trust that it could be, or if it could be, I feared that it would inevitably be sexual, and I wasn’t looking for sex, I had that, I wanted something more.  He said that he wanted the same.

For me, MySpace was an incredible workshop for poetry writing.  I had felt the interest in writing re-blossoming in me just prior to signing up.  S wanted to read my work.  I began posting poems.  It wasn’t long before I had several regular readers and I had, at one point, about 150 subscriptions.  It was crazy.  It was heady.  It was great.  For the first time I had an audience, for the first time I was in a writing community.  I felt the opening up that I had wanted.  I began to tell my story in poetry and I began to open myself to S in conversation.  I had sincerely hoped that my opening up would open up something in my relationship with my boyfriend.  He was constantly telling me not to cling to him, to find other interests.  I think he thought I would take up knitting, or some other quiet hobby, instead I jumped on MySpace and begin to make friends all over the world.  I couldn’t shut up about it, either.  I told my boyfriend excitedly about all my friends.  I was writing all the time, or reading others’ work.  Boyfriend was not enthused about poetry which to him was just “words on a page” which would never make me any money.  He also feared that I wasn’t writing about him. (And, I wasn’t.)   He was jealous.  He felt the split between us coming long before I could conceive of it, or accept it.  I told boyfriend about S.  I didn’t want to be dishonest.  I didn’t want to cheat.  I didn’t know what I was doing.  Anyway, boyfriend said that S sounded perfect for me.  Yup.  That’s what I thought, too.

And even though I was trying not to, I began a courtship with S.  I had never been in a situation like this before.  I had never met someone so perfectly matched to me with whom I could talk and talk for hours.  We had so much in common and so much to learn about each other.  So, I strayed.  It seemed inevitable.  And after my boyfriend broke up with me (Surprise!  I was shocked.  I didn’t see it coming at all. ),  S and I began to talk openly about love.  It was bumpy, but the beauty of it all for me is that I was able to practice being in a relationship the way that I wanted to be.  I found out that I was able to address issues as they came up.  Each time something uncomfortable came between us, we were able to talk it out.  I had so much fear of rejection, of doing, or saying the wrong thing.  S let me say what I had to and then took time to process it and then talk it out with me.  It blew my mind.  I kept thinking that each revelation would be the deal-breaker—my attraction to women, my ill-tempered ways at work—that something ugly or incomprehensible in me would make him turn away, but what I found was myself growing stronger in each instance I had to speak my truth, even with my fear of rejection shaking strongly inside of me.  I was coming into myself.

In the autumn of that year, S and I started to make plans to meet in the spring. I knew that I wanted to have sex with him and I had to tell him my big, bad secret:  herpes.   Even typing it now makes me anxious.  OK, I spilled it out.  I told him straight up and he handled it beautifully.  He thanked me for my honesty.  He told me that he loved me.  He told me that he would have to get back to me, because he had never had to deal with something like this before.  I let him go and process it.  I was ecstatic.  I had faced my big, bad secret and it was accepted.  I was still loved!   Or so I thought. 

Was this the deal-breaker at last?  S got back to me:  How would herpes affect my ability to have children?  Wow.  Would this be the deal-breaker for me?  Children?  I was almost 46 at the time.  I had never considered having children in my life.  I didn’t think that was likely to change.  I felt my beautiful dreams of my perfect romance crashing.  I crashed.  I couldn’t be his perfect woman.  I couldn’t give him what he wanted—children—and I didn’t know why.  It just wasn’t inside of me.  I didn’t have the desire.  My fledgling sense of self crashed into the rocks.  I cried and cried and hated myself for not being “womanly.”  What was wrong with me?  Suddenly pregnant couples appeared everywhere I went—many of them Asian women with quiet careful white males shepherding them. They were so smug and so perfect in their little precious cocoons.  And I was stung over and over by the sight of them:  You’ll never have this.  This will never be you. 

A few weeks went by.  I processed my stuff with the help of my therapist.  She helped me see the situation more clearly with the drama toned down.  I was who I was.  There were things I could not change.  So many times in relationships I had tried to remake myself to please the other.  This time I just couldn’t.  S was who he was.  Alcoholism was a big deal.  Like herpes, it wasn’t going to go away.  It had to be faced, too.  Even if I had wanted to have children, did I want to have children with an alcoholic?  We didn’t match up.  We had both met our deal-breakers.  What did my truth tell me?  I said it quietly in my session:  I cannot have a romantic relationship with S.

S and I talked a few days later.  He told me more about his alcoholism.  I didn’t know how serious it was, how he was near to checking out of life a few times.  He told me he couldn’t have a romantic relationship with anyone at this point in his life.  I nodded.  We were honest with each other and it felt good.   We decided to be friends.  I had a funny feeling inside of me that I would have trouble keeping that distance, but, at the moment, all was well.  I had made it through.  All was not lost.  But I still hung on.  I couldn’t let go of the connection.

Papir iz dokh vays

Papir iz dokh vays

un tint iz dokh shvarts.

Tsu dir, mayn zis lebn,

tsit dokh mayn harts!

Paper is still white

and ink is still black.

To you, my sweet,

my heart still pulls!

Yiddish Wedding Song

Outside, in this night, the birches are white,

reaching up from the earth still and black,

dark as the blood which clouds my heart,

and slowly floods my sex.

I hear you singing the wedding song so aching,

here where we first confessed~~

two fresh blushing girls, sweet-smiling and shaking,

holding hands beneath this bar, in secret,

so long

so long

so long

in the past.

I didn’t know I’d see you.  I only stopped for a drink.

A klezmer band clad in khaki and Birkies,

with violin, clarinet & soft drums, start up a waltz

and on stage you appear, outré as ever,

your fire red hair curled above white shoulders

in blue satin, strapless, with a doll’s pink bow

trailing down your gown, you begin singing.

You sing to me, I think as I swing my sweet orange slice around

circling my foggy summer beer, a tall Oberon.

But that’s the trick of the stage, in the spotlight, 

straight ahead you gaze and into my heart without seeing.

I want to tell someone at the bar,

“You see that girl? She once was mine.”

But I sit alone and wonder if that was true,

as if I had possessed you, as if I could.

I had the desire, and so did you,

but we slipped through it, that wedding dance,

luminous moonlit breasts and kisses,

crepe lantern roses, so quickly eclipsed.

At the end of the song you come down

and drape your arm around another.

My heart drops, too.  I cannot face the loss

of the love that had seemed the answer.

I’d let it go, that question, I thought,

I’d made peace with what was empty.

I’d painted you as my dream girl,

but I soon saw the cracks, the ways we’d never match.

You were wise enough to end it, saying,

“I love you too much to offer you less

than you deserve.”  It was true It was true

But, tonight, I cannot face it.

Tonight, I kiss the dark arches of dripping branches,

sigh the sidewalk air home,

& listen very softly as my crowded heart breaks
quietly

all alone.

June or July

Grosgrain ribbon Beige, Bronze, Brown

wrapped on the bias

all around the pointed toes

of your clicking shoes

that snap and catch on my mid-morning peruse.  I wonder if you would take me to the garden, the bois beyond the Square,

plunge past the fountain’s shush, pin me to a shag-barked tree and fix me there. 
Your kisses would slur my name, smudge carmine crayon smoky sweet cardamom
 & marzipan.

I can’t change. I can’t change. I’m tumbling in the tangled

briar,

 in turbid swirls of venery tumultuous, cirrus wisps feather-tipped high

dear

&

drained.

Restless trees shift green leaves

in your eyes
&

then curl

up

again.

I don't care what the neighbors say

your dress

Tutti Frutti 

ice cream

you come

melting 

up.

don't say

nothing

bird

held

with your diamond ring

false promise

again & again.

Southbound

Astrolabe,

Venus

astride,

winking,

always 

lost

on high

in pink

ruffle flutter

squeezed

from 

sweet

green-giving

calyx,

sugar sugar

marzipan

rose.

The Addict and Me: Part II

I had made the decision to go visit my friend.  The flight was booked, room reserved, rental car ordered.  When I faced my true intentions, my feelings and desires, I felt doomed.  There was no way this was going to work out in my favor.  I tried to work through scenarios of what could happen:

  1. We would meet at the airport with passionate kisses and be locked in a frantic naked mambo for days.  Not likely.   Our moony love phase had passed.  We had worked out that we weren’t each other’s paths, that we couldn’t have a romance.  Maybe. 

  2. I would see him face to face and realize that he was a total loser and wonder what I had been thinking and spend the whole time trying to politely get away from him and the whole situation.  Possible, but then I would know the lay of the land, as it were, and that would be a good thing.  And I had my own hotel room and rental car and could escape, if necessary.

  3. He would see me and reject me and I would spend the whole time in my room in tears.  That would suck, but, once again, I would gain knowledge and, hopefully, be able to move forward in my life.

  4. I would try to seduce him and be rebuffed and feel like crap.  I would be the total loser in that scenario.

  5. He would be indifferent to me and I would spend the whole vacation secretly longing for him without being able to express my desire and leave frustrated.  Hmmm.  Possible.

            Thus began my descent into crazy world.  I thought that I was doing the right thing for myself.  I wanted to see this guy.  I wanted something.  It seemed that to go see him would settle things one way or another.  I had put myself in the position of being in love with someone and desperately wanting that love in return.  I didn’t know how to make this happen.  After his “public” relapse, he had been rather incommunicado, focusing on his sobriety and new job.   I was unsure of what was going on with him.  I realized that I had desire that might not be met and matched.  Plus, I didn’t know what I was going to wear.  I went on several clothes shopping outings.  I had a vision of myself as something, but everything I tried on made me feel inadequate.  I was trying to hard to be young, sexy, or at least cute and somewhat desirable.  I broke down in dressing rooms.  I felt panicky.  I cried.  Nothing looked right.  Who was I?  I wanted to be me, I thought, but some more idealized version.  I felt that I had only a little time to create the stunning woman I wanted to be.  Or the woman he wanted me to be.   Or the woman he couldn’t possibly resist.  It was too much to ask.  I was completely outside of myself, my true self.  I was trying to make myself up to be a magazine girl.  I picked out a new cologne:  Euphoria.  I liked that it was amber-y and exotic, but not too exotic.  It seemed to be blown into every magazine I picked up.  Couldn’t I be that?  Couldn’t I be every pretty airbrushed glossy girl?

I felt unbalanced.  I felt crazy.  How had this happened?  I thought I knew who I was.  I thought I was OK with myself, but this situation unhinged me.  I had expressed my physical attraction to him months earlier (we had seen each other in online photographs), but what had he told me?  About all I knew was that he liked that I had red hair.  I also knew that his previous love interest was a younger, petite Asian.  I was a tall, older, white Midwest farm girl.  I had no confidence in my appearance.  We were also planning a hiking trip in the Rocky Mountains—more anxiety.  Was I in shape?  Could I handle the altitude?  I had a month to prepare.  I began biking 13 miles a day.  I read up on altitude sickness.  Water Water Water.  OK, I could do that.  I’m not much for hydration, but if it kept me from dizzy spells and passing out, it could be worth it.  I got my legs waxed for the first time and a pedicure.  I know.  For hiking.  I wanted to be a super sexy hiking chick, I don’t know.  I wanted to be everything.  It felt good to get a pedicure.  Getting my feet groomed and massaged was very sensual.  I liked my toenails being crimson and shiny.  The waxing was easy.  My clinician said I was a natural.  It seemed better than shaving.  I was going overboard, but I justified it by saying it made me feel good.  I felt more womanly.  I felt different.  I hadn’t had sex in ages.  I felt I needed bolstering up in my feminine charms.  Even if the man I was going to meet couldn’t have cared less about nail polish and smooth legs and hairstyles and shoe styles, I still felt the need to go through this to try and steady some insecure girl part of myself.

The night before my flight, I was even a bit more of a wreck.  I had to pack.  I had to get it together.  There were several phone calls and what I heard from him was that he didn’t know what to wear either.  He finally said, “I don’t care what you think of me,” and I laughed with relief.  We were in the same boat.  We both wanted to impress each other.  We both were unsure of how all this was going to go.  I relaxed.  We had spent so much time getting to know each other from the inside though hours and hours of phone calls and IMs, what difference would our outsides make?

I woke up the next morning happy and excited.  I hadn’t felt like this in years.  I was going to meet a dear friend.  The day was sunny and fresh, as though dawning after a thunderstorm.  A little sunflower smiled through the cracks of the airport parking lot, I smiled back.  I checked myself in the big mirrors of the airport bathroom.  I looked cute.  A little heavy on the makeup for 9 AM, but it would fade.  I was wearing a somewhat see-through Autumnal patterned blouse with a black lace camisole underneath; a simple black rayon knit just-above-the-knee length skirt and my blessedly comfortable soft black Mary Jane’s.  I felt I was a good mix of sexy and girlish.  On the flight, I felt that I was running towards him.  I’m coming.  I’m coming.  I’ll soon be there.

The airport was huge.  I called his cell phone as soon as I landed, but I had a long way to go before I saw him.  I was run/walking as fast as I could, bumping along with my wheeled carry-on trailing.  I saw him before he saw me.  I was coming up the stairway from the transit trains, and I saw him.  Hundreds of people all around, and there he stood in a metaphorical shaft of light, so perfectly the man I loved.  Cupid rained arrows down on me.  “I’m in trouble,” I sighed inside myself.  I knew I wanted him and I didn’t know what he wanted.  Not at all.

We smiled at each other and exchanged an awkward hug.  We had a bit of time to wait for the bus.  So, there we sat in the airport, two people who had talked and talked so openly about so many things over months and months and we were suddenly shy with each other.  He let me take his big warm hands; interlace his long lovely fingers with mine.  I wanted to kiss them.  I wanted to kiss him.  I wanted to jump all over him.  I wanted to lick his face.  I felt like a puppy all wiggly with “Love me! Love me! Love me! Because I can’t help but love you!”  I could feel his heart thumping, but he was stiff and pulling back from me.  He looked scared.  This was a bumpy start.

I still drank him in:  slim and pale and boyish and just a smidgen taller than me.  He was wearing a beige linen suit coat, a white button-down shirt with a thin blue and black art deco style tie, black jeans, and buff suede shoes.  He hadn’t slept well.  He hadn’t eaten breakfast.  He needed a smoke.  I wanted an Italian Soda.  We couldn’t find any.  I settled for a $5 bottle of water (must remember:  Hydrate, Hydrate, Hydrate!) and we went outside.  He had a crumbly chocolate vending donut in his pocket; he offered me half.  It was hilarious.  Two pastry chefs meet and eat crappy stale donuts.  I laughed.  Oh god.  I couldn’t help but be joyful.  I couldn’t help but beam at him.  The voice that I had learned to love came in this amazing vibrantly nervous boy/man animated package.  I could feel the warmth of his skin radiating.  I wanted to brush the small stubble of his chin.  I wanted to inhale him.  I was fascinated.  I completely forgot about my appearance.  We got on the bus and he let me drape my arm on his thigh.  He rested, a little uneasily, his head on my shoulder.  All my focus was on him, and, then, on the beautiful blue brown grays of the snow-capped front range of the Rocky Mountains which were getting closer and closer as our bus rolled forward.

my little girl

my little girl stays in the country,

in a house so far away

that no one ever goes there,

hardly.

my little girl has a new dress for Easter,

don’t she,

though hardly nothing in the closets,

someday someday.

sister said there will soon be plenty:

lots of pretty lace and ruching

not to wrinkle, hanging,

lovely.

my little girl will need boxes,

lots,

for all the jewelry

coming,

someday,

and for tampons she won’t know

how to use

anyway,

will she.

my little girl has dragged her sleeve

in the mayo, already,

trying to get to the pie

on the table we set

in the sunshine,

didn’t we.

my little girl would rather watch the cows

mowing

the green pastures to sundown, slowly,

then listen to me tell her how,

lowly,

the hands of the clock move one way

only.

Little Boy

Mother tows you

down the sidewalk

&

you drag slowly

behind

in her hand.

A stick!  A stick!

Must stop for it!

Oh, how lovely!

You trail it along,

head bent to its ticking,

clicking over each crack:

this this this

Mother Son Stick.

At the coffee shop

you get a cookie,

walk with it so

very carefully.

Big Brown

Peanut Butter

crosshatched

on a turquoise plate.

Your glasses are difficult,

black and hard,

the cookie wants to slide off

the shiny plate,

the door is huge,

the latch is up up up.

Can glasses stay put

can hand hold cookie open door?

I love you so much

in your concentration,

your balancing act

of desire for the cookie,

and to do what’s right:

not break anything

not lose anything

to be grown up.

I want to help you,

but I think you might

misread my smile

as mockery.

I’m grown up,

my glasses,

thin and umber,

blithely

scooch down my nose

towards my yellow book,

my difficult reading:

The Myth of Freedom.

I love you.

I can’t help it.

And, I can’t help you.

You make it out the door

triumphant

in your own eyes

and mine.

On the patio of the café

you spy a Radio Flyer

red in the sun.

The stick, a cookie

and now this.

You pick the black crusty

handle up & look around

for approval.

Is it OK?  Can I take this?

Is it mine?

Where is mother?

You look at me,

(Simon says . . . .)

but I am all green light;

books and cares

dropped from my

reading glass eyes.

I will say yes,

always,

but you don’t know this.

(Simon’s a trickster, isn’t he? isn’t he?)

The world is your little red wagon:

Grab hold and go.

But already there is fear

inside you,

the widening divide

of loss,

of others,

of judgement:

I’m not your Mother.

I don’t know what’s best.

You drop the handle

and run

and hold onto her dress.