Somewhere around July it's Clear

The things I carried with me five years ago continue to follow me as I pack for another weekend toward the west. I'm stuffing sweaters on top of journals and tubes of extra thick mascara, copper eye shadow and bronzer on top of a print out of Amy Hempel's "The Harvest" because nothing is ever quite as bad as it could be. I stop myself there- even I know can sense a limit.

Whenever I travel, I always feel a sense of permanence- there's the unnerving threat that when I leave I may never return or what I return to may be gone. I have nightmares about tragedies I’ve never endured- pictures of my childhood in flames so hot and bright I can smell the chemicals burning as I sleep. I wake up and am left agonizing over what the greater heart break truly is: to abandon or to be the abandoned.

Which leaves me where I am now- standing with my calves squeezed against the sides of this overnight bag, cramming in Merle Norman Rose Sorbet nail polish in a desperate effort to leave nothing behind.

He asks me what it is all this time that keeps me coming back. Or I guess- what keeps me wanting to leave. And my answers are meek or non existent. Something must attract me to the five hour drive he reasons; the landscape is dull. And I do not disagree; as I drive the long stretches of nothing suffocate me. But I've come to appreciate the flatness of Erie, PA and the two lane road that carries me through it as a steady 35 miles per hour. What I'm telling him is, the capacity of the east coast is not lost on this girl.

I caution that alone on the road, you are never really alone. There are always other cars headed down the same highway or waiting at intersections to join the journey. You learn where to stop for gas based on where others stop, what road side dives serve the best food and which motels are the least roach-friendly.

Life behind the wheel is what I think prison would feel like- just a thin pane of glass separates confinement and community. Isn't a prison its own community the same way rest stops are during dangerous weather? Do I not long for eye contact when I’m waiting in line for an iced coffee or bathroom break after 200 miles without stopping like an inmate pleas for conversation and physical contact after being in confinement? We share same dry throat from the silence. It's as if you’ve forgotten how to speak. My lips stick together when I try to shape my mouth into a polite smile and I know I'll miss the opportunity to make contact with my own community if I don’t look up fast enough.

People say long trips become a blur after some time, but if you're whole life is one stretch of highway to another long stretch of highway- then how could I not feel insulted?

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At the end of the day its words you are left with.
Words that keep you whole- vowels knit your bones to your skin, semi colons & exclamation points weave nerves with veins so blood doesn't pool at your feet so that your heart isn't floating next to your liver, soaking up digested skin milk and Kahlua.

On a Monday night in late October you find yourself with not a word to speak, not a person to turn to, just the swoosh of deep breathing, a steadying calm that has reached out for a synonym, but your mouth feels dry. The words you cherished are stuck.

It's so hard to find peace when the muscles in your throat stretch your skin and all you can think is "who will love me now with this turkey neck.”

You think you are asking for help, but your consonants come out as giggles, your tears are from laughing not crying- sitting in front of a cup of black coffee, stealing French toast off the plate across from you- it’s the happiest of moments where you find yourself welling up.

You wonder why this thickness has clogged your esophagus. The uncertainty you feel turns out to be apostrophes that built up in your lymph notes, the doctor prescribes The Elements of Style by E.B. White. It will teach you that everything has its place. A period belongs at the end of a sentence; a sentence is a complete thought- but what about conjunctions and run on sentences and phrases- where do semicolons come into play?

I once knew a boy, now a young man, who tried desperately to correctly use the semi-colon. Days were spent considering the placement of commas and parentheses, looking for the perfect adjective to describe yellow. But he never said “this is yellow”.

A winter with no snow is upon us. Dead leaves greet me each morning, crunching at the weight of my feet. I walk in silence from home to work, and in reserve. The phone rings and the movement of my lips produce nothing but gasps.

Handwriting

Driving down the road I'm living 10 years from now. I pass vacant townhouses that will be lit up one day. I'm not sad, but this is not happiness. All the noise around me starts to fade away; from this position the steering wheel is my only confidant, my best friend. The rear view mirror is my only audience.

I take the long way home- it used to be that there was no time to think, and now I'm wearing holes in my socks from running circles in my brain.

I can see our bedroom, and the sheets that we sleep in. It’s winter still, so the flannel drapes against the carpet, the comforter creates mountainous waves and under our bed sits a black leather hat box.

Pale pink satin lines the inside; holding crumpled yellowing pages and envelopes with my name on them. The addresses vary but the pages are all the same- they keep me awake at night promising adventure, romance, the possibility of being somewhere besides here. And I find myself clinging to a life you have no knowledge of.

I listen to the stairs as I climb slowly, my feet sinking with each step & I feel weak by the time I reach your face. Cupped in my hands I can feel the coarse hairs of your beard finally grown in completely- instead of commenting on your victory, I'm lost trying to convince you that I'm really here with a kiss.

A Decade of Bangles

Thinking about writing is simple. Picturing yourself sitting down in front of a computer screen, hovering over a blank sheet of loose leaf, pen in hand- that's the easy part. Fingers against keys and pen to paper- that's a totally different experience.

Being lost in your words is what I think being in a coma would be like. You know that life is going on around you, you are aware of whats happening but lost inside yourself. Do all writers have this out of body feeling? Upon revisiting their words, do they question where such intense imagery comes from? If those particular details grew from their own memories, dreams, where?

A piece of writing is never truly complete, years later you will want to change a comma to a period or a noun to a pro noun. The writer's journey to perfection is never finished, but upon reaching that final sentence for the first time, feeling your thoughts come full circle- a wave of adrenaline rushes against you. A feeling that can last and last, but afterward feels so distant. You're not sure how you got there, but once the hangover sets in, you feel empty, tired, released.

The rush of looking at a page that was once empty but not full is unexplainable. Ask a drug addict how to explain the euphoria of their first high, a marathon runner crossing the finish line- its all a fog until it's over.

Maybe all is Not Lost

Forcing writing is impossible. To think about the vision before you see it creates a falsity that you can not deny. It can be compared to nothing else, because the relationship a writer has with words is not love nor lust nor envy. It can not be faked.

I once knew language. I understood how to manipulate words so a painting would emerge as each sentence melted into the next. I could fill pages with just once glance, in one instance I would be sent into a frenzy.

For too long time, I have not seen anything. I have not felt language in my life. I have been lost. Until I actually was lost. That's what I saw it. Alone behind the wheel, during the 354 mile trip - wrong turns and a broken GPS - my vision came back to me.

We sat next to each other awkwardly; small talk was neither of our strong points. The weather was nice and we both commented on the usual cold that’s expected this time of year. Really, we both starred off, the small was no small talk. I wasn’t listening and I'm confident if I was able to ask today, you wouldn’t remember a single sentence.

I think about all the times we spent together that I took for granted, rare were the moments where you exposed your vulnerability. The patience you proved to have, your persistence was genuine, as was your disappointment the many times I let you down.

You always smelled of familiarity, of an entire days worth of cigarettes. Our eye contact is short lived. I notice the walls, they're bare for the most part; the ceiling looks unstable and there are cracks from the corner to corner. I wonder aloud if anyone else has noticed the cracks. My inquiry is not acknowledged and we continue.

Somewhere around mile 150, I remember a moment, us standing in a sea of pink & white and black both smirking towards one another. And I can see it so clearly.