tuckova

so bitter, bitter and so sweet

Yesterday, someone logged onto the account of my friend who died in August. That green gmail light came on and brought all the Saturdays when that was the most welcome thing in the world, yay now we can talk. My heart flooded happy and drained cold. I sent a message anyway, because I couldn't not. Whoever it is is still there, still active, though not responding to chats. Is it his mother? Someone else? Are they going through and reading all his old e-mails, trying to piece it together? Would I do that, if someone died? Someone I loved? Would you? Could you let them go; would this be part of letting them go? 

I've been dreaming about him lately. Sometimes we talk the way we used to. We threw a ball back and forth and whoever held the ball had to be quick witted, one word, and throw it back, no beats missed. I mean we did this literally but it was figurative, too. Sometimes in my dreams he just comes and curls around me while I sleep, which is very sweet because even though I have mastered sleeping in the middle of the bed I sometimes find that in my sleep I've packed myself in with pillows. Or imaginary dead people, I guess. Somewhere I may still have a tape of us throwing a ball, sixty minutes of our brains dancing together, but I can't bring myself to look for it. Some things are better held in the memory.

like the shapes of dreams

Do you think I like being able to see the future? When they came with their clever present and I said don't let the wall down, do you think I told you because later it would bring me such pleasure to say "I told you so"? I never even say it. It brings so little comfort; certainly no pleasure. I see the destruction before it happens, the flames; there is nothing I can do to prevent it. It just means I see it twice: once in my mind and then once again. It doesn't make it better. Or I insist it doesn't, but maybe it does. Maybe knowing what will happen, seeing it first in my mind, seeing it alone, means that when the real moment turns I am ready. It still happens, still is awful. My city burning, my family slaughtered, the screaming. Maybe all that gets me through this is the slight detachment that comes from seeing it and seeing it again. I've seen it all before.

**

I keep wanting to summarize 2010 in some way to make it compact, foldable, something I can put in a drawer. Or maybe out on top of the garbage can. There were good things, I have to keep insisting: there were good things this year. If I made a list of pros and cons the pro list would be longer. It's just that the cons seem to occupy so much of my mind. It's hard not to feel like I'm a roller coaster, and the horrid carny running it, leering and taunting a girl in a short dress who is also me, and she'll be tempted and she'll go and scream and lose her sunglasses and possibly her dinner and she won't get a refund. I'm sure it was fun but I wouldn't do it again. No but I am trying to be good about it, to be positive. My friend died; two of my other friends had babies. My marriage collapsed; my friend got married and my sister celebrated her 10th anniversary. Freelancing pays less, but I'm not crying every morning from stress. CIRCLE OF LIFE, yo.

**

What else? There is this need to push through, to work beyond the pain, to focus on the goals and get behind the mule and put your shoulder to the wheel. There is the need to experience the moment, to be here now. They are at war. They are shouting and shaking their weapons at each other, and I cower in the DMZ and hope I don't get hurt. Yes yes you have a point. And yes, you too. Maybe we could work a treaty like, for three days we'll be some combination of ass-kicking and intellect and laughter, and then for three days we can stay in bed eating chocolate and reading pulp fiction and rubbing the fuzzy part of the blanket. Saturdays are wild.

**

We're going to Costa Rica, did I mention? Squire and I have taken on the wintery gray color of root vegetables and a change is needed. I rented a house on the beach for a month and we won't come back until we are freckle-coated, well-rested; as beautiful on the outside as on the inside. Because we are beautiful, even if we are not always pretty.

take your quirk and ...

 When did quirks become an important part of who we are, where announcing them is something like a handshake? When did we stop slowly revealing our pet peeves, our little habits, peeling back layers of politeness and tolerance to reveal the secret lacy hidden underbits of our hatred of broccoli, our strong preference for soft rock in the car, our dislike of lightbulbs over 40 watts? When did we start wearing our underwear on the outside?

I ask because I do like revealing things, secrets, the hidden surprise that becomes a thing we have in common, another thing. "I love cleaning my ears," and "Oh! Me, too!" and our friendship takes that little step closer. See how we have that in common? That frisson of recognition, that suddenly revealed secret passage in the house we share. What else can we explore? Or even it can be a thing that we don't share, but you respect it about me and that is how we are friends, is that you set out the q-tips when I am coming to visit. That I remember that you like olive oil more than butter, except for with fried eggs. That we remember these things and catalog them to show how much we love each other, that we're paying attention. That's how it used to feel, anyway. I thought.

But now it seems to me that these are things people expect me to accept right off. "I can't sit next to a double-paned window!" or "I can't touch things made from cardboard" are not things I expect to have to respect. My sister and son have a visceral hatred of polystyrene, which is sort of adorable, and one way that I tell them I love them is by taking things out of the packing before I give it to them, or wrapping things in bubble wrap instead. But that is because I love them. I do not expect to be asked to accommodate a person who doesn't like to eat off of real silver the first time they are a guest in my house. And yet... (well, obviously not exactly that, as I haven't hosted Billy Bob Thorton, but) I do feel increasingly asked to deal with people's preferences in a way that frankly prevents me from wanting to accommodate them, because if they expect this level of intimacy from near strangers, what obsessive nightmare maintenance levels do they save for the people who love them?

I mean, I guess it is nice to know what you like and don't, and to tell people in advance so there's no awkwardness. I guess it is nice to go out and know that people are going to do what they can to make you happy, and that your happiness will make them happy, too. I guess. But to a certain degree I feel... what about my feelings, while I sit and watch you count the tomato cans and only take every third one? Do we really need to leave the restaurant because you don't like being served by people with facial hair? I dunno. Do we chalk this up to another reason to find me a Victorian nursing home ASAP, or is this something other, less rigid people notice and find annoying? Is there a polite response other than the weak smile, the yield, the suddenly-too-busy cut?