Thirsty For Life

I look in the mirror and I question myself: Do I still have it in me?

Short answer: yes. Actually I’ve got more of it in me than I’ve had in years. But the more involved answer is a little more complicated, and not a little trepidatious.

There’s a grapefruit IPA at the roadside pub near my (one of my) job(s): it’s best consumed when ice cold and is a refreshing treat on a hot day. The swamp cooler I ordered, by virtue of Seamus’ help, should arrive Friday, and that also will be a lifesaver in these coming hot months in dry as fuck Colorado. Air conditioned pubs are fine for survival, but my finances are limited. So I look forward to actually cooling my little birdhouse, instead of moving the hot air around.  For now, though, this moment in time, I sip idly on my grapefruity beer and engage in awkward small talk with the very young ‘tender, about summer school.

What the “it” is that I do indeed still have in me, I’m not sure of at this point. That’s the thing. This weekend I will be presenting at Denver Comic Con, a presentation I’ve been doing for several years now, and yes the content has changed slightly. In recent months I’ve been feeling rather professionally passed over, which makes me concurrently consider the career change I’ve been contemplating since a couple years ago when Friend Saul from DU suggested I get out of academia and go into the corporate world. I told him then I had zero idea how to do that, but right now, between him and Seamus, I have a couple ins.

Why do I still feel so clueless, then?

I glance up at the mute TV, and read the closed-captioned sports commentators quip: “My daughters do not believe in the ‘Work Harder’ plan…”

I work very hard. I do not get paid a living wage, hence my teaching at four schools. Nor do I have any benefits, which is why I haven’t been to the doctor in years (much to Seamus’ protective chagrin). I look at my startlingly youthful-looking-for-my-age self in the mirror and I sip smally at my beer again. I just don’t know what to do.

Seamus and I are continuing to doff the weights of recent times, and it’s like shaking rust or dust (or both) off. We’re looking at each other with eyes that are slowly clearing, but there are still significant fragments clinging, that we keep finding and getting rid of, piece by piece. Part of it we are helping each other with. Other parts needs must be done alone.

He is angry about it. About how he’s been kept down. This is a good thing, for him: being angry. Makes him fierce. Spurs him into chest-beating action.
Me? I’m not angry, but. I don’t know what I am. Which is actually an appropriate phrase in more ways than one. Having been subsumed by my marriage, now finding myself again in my own place and my new life.

I’m reminded of that scene in the 1st Matrix movie where Neo wakes up in a vat of goo and gets violently unplugged, all the way down his spine. He has to heal, and retrain, and wear drab gray and grow his hair back, but shit at that point at least gets real. Maybe I am The One to my new life; after all, I am the only one, as much as Seamus and I are tightly devoted. And why I decided at this point in my life to begin taking my clothes off for beer money, I don’t know. Maybe my mother is right–it’s a midlife crisis. The thought makes me lean on the bar and sip a little faster.

Been contemplating, too, my juxtaposition of total solitary, non-connected independence, and a nearly sociopathic aversion to personal connection, with my odd need for a tribe. Not being particularly emotionally connected to my family, other than bitterly reactive to guilt trips, and having separated myself emotionally from the ex husband, only to be dragged back into worry about the fate of my cats (a long story, for another post, or not)…..makes me hit my fist on my thigh in frustration. The folks a couple seats down the bar don’t  notice. Good.

I don’t need anybody. Emphatically different, as I was reminded recently when an old Highschool friend posted some rehearsal footage from sophomore year–I stand out. Not in a bad way, but very, very oddly. When with my ex-husband, I stopped standing out, as is my way; instead, I disappeared into him. Now, I’m emerging again. Butterfly metaphor? Well I dunno. One can hope. But now my hair is gothy again, as it hasn’t been since I flew on trapezes for beer money, and I am peeling away more crap that’s been dumped over me to dull my shine, and I am more myself, yes even with Seamus too, than I have been in almost 20 years. We can see it, in both of us, looking in the shop window reflections, and the faces of bystanders that always but always notice us, when he and I walk down the street.

And then, this past weekend, enjoying the air conditioning and the scent of Seamus in his place, folding little tshirts and small pairs of underwear. Matching tiny athletic socks. Knocked me off kilter again. What’s going on? Life. Fuck. The more things rapidly change, the more they I dunno what. And I don’t know what to do, what comes next.

Life. I’m still hungry for more…

 

…We Salute You

Gotta think. Do I still have it in me?

Yeah, I do. But there’s no convincing me of that. That’s ok. I’m not the one I need to convince.

Back up: context. So I took a couple of weeks to clear my head, got to a better spot. I’m still taking it easy and I’m putting a more solid effort into my parenting, but now’s not the time to leave bar land behind for good. I got other pressures to contend with, and a glimmer of opportunity to get after. Life…Jesus.

These last few months…fuck that. These last few years all I’ve done is survive. Not knowing which way to go. Weighing one bad option after another – we’ve been through some of this already. But then last week, kind of out of nowhere, word. Some money, a better equity stake, and maybe more down the road. Things I hadn’t expected and, frankly, hadn’t earned. But there they were. Fuck.

Look, let me tell you about Mr. Browning (I’m changing his name but only slightly). High school science class. Peony sat behind me. He was short, awkward, and unprepared to address it. Instead he did things like giving the class guidelines on appropriate forms of address to The Instructor, which caused us all to convulse with barely suppressed laughter. But I could have dealt with all that. With baby Peony by my side we could snark our way through the worst that any of the woebegone faculty could foist on us. Senior year though, I got sick. Mono, Lyme disease, no idea (my family skimped on medical care). I missed some school, and he took advantage of a district policy that allowed him to “administratively” change my grade from an A to an F. It was one of the only slender threads of power he had, so he did it. And for that, I give him my hatred everlasting.

Here’s the thing though. He wrote me a letter, attempting to give me guidance. And therein he committed the far graver sin than attempting to derail my entire life: he was sort of right about something. He said that in his belief, I had managed up until then to get by on “a wing and a prayer, natural ability and personal charm.” I would, he assured me, not be able to make a life of these on the basis of these qualities which he himself did not possess.

Well, he was right. But only because of small fuckers like him. I did have to knuckle down and work hard, and I pulled my grade back up by graduation. And I’ve worked hard ever since. But that’s not usually what my greatest successes have come from. Those have come, overwhelmingly, from the times I could get past the Brownings of the world and just be me.

Don’t get me wrong. The last few days I’ve been looking at my work over the last year, and I’m not satisfied. I can do better, and I will. But what these guys I work with want from me isn’t simple diligence. They want balls, brains and attitude: all the things Browning wanted to save me from.

Well. That’s how it is. Everything is dialed in to pull you back down to average. Believe anything else and they tell you you’re cocky, arrogant. They tell you to check your privilege, get back in line. In the same breath, they want what you have, and they demand it from you.

How’s this for hot cheese? Back then I was a big AC/DC fan. “For Those About to Rock” just came on at the bar. Goofy, sure, but I’ll take whatever sign the Gods feel like throwing my way.

Like I said, I’m not going to convince myself that I’ve still got those powers. I’m too beat down for that. But I’ve got people to look after, so I can’t afford not to convince everybody else. Gotta be vast, gotta contain multitudes.

That I can do.

Bars of not exactly Yore but just the other day: Wit Theatre at Thin Man

The theatrical event was delayed by quite a bit. We had never attended before, though Seamus is a regular of this place from back in the day. So we talked and laughed and marveled at how we turn heads in the world when we appear in public together, and then when it felt too late, ambled to the outdoor patio in back, where the weather was just barely holding back the rain and the crowd had gathered to the extent that we had to stand.

The event? Something called ShakesBeer, that a local theatre company I’d only vaguely heard of (The Wit) apparently performs rather regularly. Fractured Shakespeare at a bar. Audience participation (and entering and exiting withal) encouraged. And then we witnessed why the delay: every single actor was handed a full pint of beer. Then the introduction commenced.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream was expertly abbreviated, inebriated, and ameliorated with sips, gulps, and expletives by the actors. Each actor played multiple roles, and like I said, the script was brilliantly treated. I should know: I have this fricking thing memorized, as I have played multiple fairies, the warrior queen Hippolyta, and understudied Helena in my chequered theatrical past. Normally, such a thing would irk me, as seeing theatre at all for me is like the old adage of: work in the sausage factory, don’t have a taste for hot dogs.

Tonight though? I guffawed into my pints more than once, as I enjoyed the actors using the innate lines to comment on the crazy weather, the building drunkenness (of audience and actors alike), and the hilariously intricate action you’ll know well if you know this show. Seeing them off to the side, fully visibly  changing back and forth into their various characters was also fun to see, as was watching them navigate when to put aside empty pint glasses and pick up a new full one, while the action still flowed.

Another adaptation I appreciated in this performance done during Pride Weekend: both Lysander and Helena were portrayed by the opposite gender that they were written as (of course, in Shakespeare’s day, all female parts were played by teen boys, but.), which made for all sorts of delicious twists in the lovers’ action that weren’t really twists at all.

What struck me in particular was how very accurately Shakespearean this show was. In style, I mean. Even though, sure, we probably didn’t see actors in Shakespeare’s time toting and quaffing pints constantly onstage, but the feel of it was authentic. The fact that the audience (all of us groundlings) were sometimes drunkenly too loud, were milling in and out but mostly watching the show, booing villains and awwwing at love scenes, was totally in line with what this very show would have been like had we been there in that Great Wooden O in the late 1500s. So much more fun than the badly cast, stodgy, stone-seated bigtime Shakespeare Fest in Boulder every summer, and ironically more authentic, let alone a much better Shakespeare Under The Stars, and for free to boot (tip jars passed around after).

For all these reasons and more, Midsummer by The Wit was fantastic, and when later Seamus discovered that his whiskeys and my pints were severely discounted for who knows what reason, there was even more cause for celebration.

Father Knows Best

I think this bartender is twins with the other. If not identical twins, they’re at least very close in years sisters. This one, who just poured my pint so full it wets my fingertips and soaks the coaster beneath, is dour, pale & smooth skinned, way too thin as is today’s fashion, slightly above average height though not as tall as me, in jeans tight enough to show a thigh gap and light brown hair up in a bun only tight enough to allow a few tendrils to descend down her long, upright, ballerina neck. It’s only recently, that she’s recognized me as a regular, that she half smiles and asks: How’s it going. Her (what I’m convinced is) twin is a little taller, but otherwise identical in every way physically. The main difference between the two is demeanor; the other is bubbly, cheerful, and chatty-friendly.

I’m done teaching for the evening and so I’m spending my last ten on a pint or two as I wait the more than an hour for my bus home. I get paid Friday (actually a little more than expected, to my palpable relief), but the week till then will be thin. I’ll have to cheat in the little ways I know how, to keep me in a pint till then, and I’ll milk the very small dram and a half of rye I’ve got left in my Columbo crystal set.

For now, though:  the roadhouse bar in Longmont on the highway, dour ‘tender keeping me in IPA, a live blues ensemble playing too loudly upstairs.

Father’s Day was yesterday. Amid the several greetings given to friends who are fathers and the phone call to my own eccentric Dadoo (on vacation in Wisconsin visiting his mother and other extended fam), I left Seamus’ abode early so he could host his boys a day earlier than scheduled by custody, to celebrate the occasion. I sat in the excellent shaded patio chair (with drink and book AND phone holder) they gave him as a gift for the holiday before I left to let him parent alone. Which you’ve read about below, readers, though I daresay that’s only a mere fraction of the fractious reality. At least, I can only imagine.

I can only imagine because, for as many years as I’ve been a teacher, of all ages of humans from infant through adulthood, I’ve never been an actual parent myself. Not a mother, not a surrogate, not a stepmom. Yet.

As regards the first two: that ain’t happening at this point, even if my middle aged body is still capable (which it probably isn’t, let’s be honest). Motherhood was never a choice for me. Biological clock never ticked–must be digital.
But that last? Now I’m embarking on a new journey with Seamus, and there are two gorgeous, precious little ones to consider, along with all the other ills that Seamus’ and my flesh is heir to. What to think of this?

No, I haven’t met Seamus’ sons yet. More time, nurture, and care and settling and things of that nature needs must happen first, after this, his recent divorce, not really all that long after the divorce from their mother. So. We let the small children bounce back first (as we all know they do).

My phone vibrates with my maintenance guy calling, no doubt asking about the fixes I’ve texted him about. The blues band begins another tune. The beer I’m drinking is called Insane Rush, and while the beer isn’t that, I am reminded of what a couple weeks ago was: me meeting Seamus’ first ex-wife, the mother of his children.

Whatever he’s told me about her aside, she was remarkably civil, and her husband was affable and friendly to the brink of doofusness. I had heard she’d asked Seamus who he was seeing confrontationally just a short while before our nearly-surprise meeting, asking if it was “that dancer.”

Yeah, that dancer. Indeed. The Homewrecking Whore. I know the piercing look, and the etc.
Really, in this case I’m more The Highschool Sweetheart than That Dancer, though I am that too, and there’s a modicum of The Homewrecking Whore there too, no matter how saintly the intentions of Seamus and I are to each other.

So I met Seamus’ children’s mother, which plunged him back into that corner he’s written about, with the sharpened stick, peering out. And I was left wondering how this was going to move forward, and only hoping, even perhaps praying to gods I don’t believe in, that I might meet his boys before they hear about me first from their vindictive mother. I’d like their first impression of me to be theirs, not anyone else’s. But I have no say in this.

There are some things in this world, and in this relationship, that I have absolutely no control over. Nor should I, truth be told. I have shed much (if not all) of my customary armor, loving Seamus. After this? I feel as though I needs must gird myself for battle. How to do this, though, without becoming hard again?

A bar patron, outside, props his bright orange sneakers up on the fire pit and smiles, talking laughingly at someone I can’t see, sips a very light colored pint of something. My gaze falls onto my hoppy, darker gold colored pint, still two-thirds full, and I shake my head. There are two seats open and empty on either side of me at the bar, and I am struck with the image.
Where do I fit in? I haven’t given a shit about fitting in since I first went Goth in 8th grade, that is until I became sexually active. At twenty.  Unless you count wanting auditions as fitting in, but actually I see that as the opposite. That’s standing out, which I’ve always admittedly done too much. But I digress.

There’s a favorite picture book of mine, an adaptation of a well known folktale, called The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig. This story follows much of the same idea as the original tale, except we begin with the three little wolves in a house of bricks. This, upon being destroyed by the big bad pig, is upgraded to a house of concrete, and from thence to a house of steel, with chains and locks and a computerized security system. All destroyed by the BBP.
So finally, the three little wolves take a different tactic: they build their final house of flowers. So fragile, it sways in the breeze. But the moment the BBP takes a big breath (you know, to huff and puff and etc.), he instead sniffs the marvelous scent of the flower house, realizes how terrible he’s been, and becomes a big Good pig. And befriends the wolves and they drink wolfberry tea together and yadda yadda.

My armor, methinks, should heed the important lesson from the postmodern version of this old tale. After all, isn’t that what kids’ fairy tales are for? So I shall sniff the aroma of the house of flowers, disperse my love into same, and wait.

UPDATE: the other ‘tender has shown up, and now that I see these two young women side by side I see they are not in fact identical. They are surely of the same gene pool, though. My introversion is kicking in and I don’t have the wherewithal to ask either of them.

UPDATE #2: the dour ‘tender, upon me apologizing for my tip not being great, surprisingly and wisely and kindly says, “Well. Money is money, right?”

 

Far from the Bar

Laundry, always, and dishes, always. Those are given – I’m always behind – so I have to triage when I get home because I can’t run both appliances at the same time. If I need Tupperware, say, for the kids lunches in the morning, I’ve got to get the dishwasher going right away so I can pull the containers out and get all that put together before bed. If don’t need anything out of the dishwasher tonight though, I have to pivot and get the laundry going quickly. All the available baskets and space are already taken up with either clean clothes waiting to be folded, or the unending backlog of dirty clothes, so whatever comes out of the dryer tonight is going to need to get dealt with quickly; there isn’t any place to put it.

Washer started, now food. I planned for the week but something always goes sideways and by the last custody day my meal plan is shot. It’s okay – I keep an emergency frozen pizza in the freezer, and I’ve got some leftovers for the finicky one. The boys will tell their mom and I’ll have to deal with accusatory questions about nutrition but the bottom line is I’ll get them fed so I run with it. I also have to get lunches sorted. The ones I packed today came back with two wilted and uneaten sandwiches so that’s out. There’s some Italian noodles-and-chicken frozen family entrée thing banging around the freezer so as soon as the pizza’s in (you don’t wait for preheat – we’re not making souffle here; just chuck the stiff pie in the cold oven and fire it up) I get the entrée in a pan. That’ll go in the lunches with fresh fruit, juice and whatever the hell else I can scrounge up. Snacks too.

The kids are gaming and I should be doing something better, being more engaged with them, but the kitchen is somehow already covered in food wrappers and torn-apart cardboard containers so I’ve got to get that under control. I’m not about to eat the frozen pizza either, so I mine the leftovers for myself. A lot of nights I actually do manage a sit down, family dinner but tonight won’t be one of them. I scarf a piece of half-warmed meatloaf and a nectarine and figure I’ll have a protein drink before bed. Good enough.

The little one though – he’s alone in my room, very small in my bed, with his iPad. He’s seven, and he only wants to play games where he can choose pretty outfits and accessories for Anime girls. Going on instinct I break off from what I’m doing and sit next to him, pulling him into my lap. He’s quiet and typically downcast. His brother comes in and tries to muscle into the hug, chiding his little brother for being sad all the time. I gently chase him out, and when he’s gone I tell the little one that he doesn’t have to be happy all the time – he only has to be himself. That connects with him, and he nuzzles his head into my chest, saying quietly, “yeah, I just want to be myself.” I don’t have time to think about what a long, hard road that seems ever-more likely to be. There’s never been any question about being committed to it so it goes into its compartment for another day. I give a squeeze-hug and a kiss and he grumbles as I disengage from him but he’s okay for now.

And me? I’m tired, there’s a pain behind my eyes that I realize I’ve been ignoring. I don’t want a drink at all. Layering in more fog and fatigue sounds like suicide right now. I’m taking a break from all that anyway, and while I feel different ways about that at different times, right now I’m thankful. Check the pizza. Counter tops need a wipe. Mentally compiling missing grocery items that will need to be scrounged up in the next day or so – paper towels, napkins, coffee’s nearly gone, something will be needed to feed Peony with later in the week. I tear off a scrap from a kids’ sketch pad and start jotting down the list. I’ll never remember it otherwise. There is a stack of papers and unopened mail on the counter top. I don’t have time to get to it but God knows what time bombs are lurking in there so I grab the whole thing and shove it in my bag to take to work; I’ll go through it if I get a spare minute tomorrow. Besides, it clears space.

The dining room table always collects detritus so that gets a quick purge. As I police up random dishes I try to figure out what the boys need to wear tomorrow, but realize it’ll all be in the laundry. The dryer is running so that has to wait, but I can’t forget. Work clothes for me are hanging up to dry so nothing more I can do there right now either. That’s significant – pressing clothes in the morning can add 15 to 20 minutes to the routine so I need to plan for that.

Around 8pm I get to a point where, though I’m still behind, there’s nothing else I can take action on right that minute. I flop on my bed, giving myself 20 minutes. I scroll vaguely through some articles on my phone, read a bit of somebody talking about his alcoholic mother, who had always been an alcoholic, etc, and recognize familiar tropes from the 12-step playbook – folk medicine stated, as always, in the language of established and unassailable fact. The Program, you see, is predestinarian. You were an alcoholic before you were born, or you weren’t one and could never become one. If at any point in your life you did become one, having not been one before, it only proved that you’d been one all along and had been hiding it, you filthy liar you, even if you’d been hiding it by never having had a drink.

Of course none of this is true, but one doesn’t question The Program. My 20 minutes up, I put down my phone, grab a derelict plate left on my bed earlier in the day by a snacking youngster, and drag myself to my feet, already feeling ten years older than when I’d laid down.

Everyone likes to tell stories about when “dads” try to parent. These well-meaning but hapless buffoons who can’t actually do anything, who make a hash of every attempt, and isn’t it funny and adorable bless their hearts. I never say a word when this comes up. What does anybody want to hear? That the boys’ mom never bonded with either of them and was gone on a haze of Xanax and business travel before the little one was six months old? That my second wife tried, that her parenting style was bitter and draconian but that I never trusted her with my children to begin with, that I shut her out of the process until I blew up the entire relationship with my own dishonesty and confusion, leaving me to do all this alone again? Nobody wants to know any of that. But I’ve always done this, since day one. I’ve always taken care of this stuff, not perfectly but well. You just wind up accepting that nobody’s going to recognize it, and you remind yourself that there’s only two people whose opinion will matter in the final analysis anyway.

I should try to be fair, too. Their mom isn’t the person she was back then and, though still an unreconstructed bitch through and through, is not a terrible co-parent. She provides money that I don’t have, and logistical and organization support for summer camps and whatnot that I struggle to keep straight. So I remind myself that it could be, and is for many men, a hell of a lot worse. But I digress.

As I hang trousers and dress shirts from a shower curtain rod I find myself thinking about shame. The shame of the second divorce, things I did and failed to do. Shame as distinct from guilt – shame in the sense of a deeply diminished evaluation of oneself. Another reason to be thankful for the work. Because when the laundry is hung there’s something else to do, and something else after that, and it all needs doing no matter how often or how passionately I inwardly consign myself to hell. All the shame in the world won’t pick up a single kid’s sock. If the boys weren’t here I could sit down and really dig into the self-loathing but that’s off the table. I’ve got hugs to give and fears to soothe, and a prayer out to anyone listening that if they ever come to know what an asshole I can be, that it’ll be because they asked and I was honest with them; not because I let them down.

The announcement of bedtime, and the inevitable cries of shock and dismay. This can’t be avoided no matter how many warnings I give. Over their keening lamentations I force them to bed, put on soft night music and fetch their waters, only to find my oldest passed out cold before I can even tuck him in. Awake, he’s a bright-eyed and neurotic young man. Asleep, I can still see the baby that first led me to the absolute thunderbolt of what it means to totally love another human being.

I should go to sleep, but as sometimes happens when they’re down a little second wind comes on, so I sit down to write instead. In a minute I’ll set up coffee and figure out breakfasts, do a final pass for stray dishes, clothing and anything else that isn’t where it needs to be, lock doors, adjust air conditioning, mentally note the laundry situation and the rough priority order in which I’ll have to attack the morning’s routine. And I am tired – I’m exhausted. I’m beat as beat gets, but here’s what you’ve got to know: tomorrow night I’ll be alone, and I will miss everything about this.

Bars of Yore: A Tear for Paris

Scene: a small, cheap room in a Paris hotel, near the Sorbonne. A tiny alley called the Rue something-or-other, improbably housing the hotel, a cafe, and a Lilliputian art cinema. Early evening, hot. The tiny TV is showing British soap operas dubbed in French. I’m restless, bored, sweaty. I’ve been drinking warm Carlsberg all afternoon. I’m 27 years old. I’m alone. I wouldn’t mind finding a woman, but I’m a big, too-obvious American and that’s off the table. But I’d settle for a proper whiskey.

More: there’s a low, subsonic hum outside. My room looks out on an air shaft – I can see nothing. But something’s happening out there. I pull on a clean V-neck tee, pocket a pack of Dunhills, and head for the rickety elevator that smells of stale smoke and in which I can imagine Anais Nin banging Henry Miller.

And then a surprise. The little street outside has come alive. It is the summer solstice, and unbeknownst to me the Fete De La Musique is underway. Everyone in Paris is out, everyone is tipsy and on every corner there’s some sort of pulled-together band.

My idea had been to cross the Seine and wander up through the Marais, which I’d found congenial on previous evenings. I did so, taking little sips of sight and sound along the way. The bands were everywhere, but most seemed to have been introduced to the idea of a band, if not music itself, only within the last few hours. Still it was all lively and fun and, by Parisian standards, friendly. It was warm. I was comfortable.

Eventually I found myself moving with a crowd and followed, easing into the mob. The river opened up in a wide square – probably Place de la Republique though at this remove I can’t be sure. On the other side of the opening was a proper festival stage with, refreshingly, a proper band playing. They sounded decent, and I thought to head toward them. Doing so, however, meant crossing the square, which was packed. I waded in and began sort of drifting through the mass of people, thinking to find some opening or at least a flow of movement that would take in the right direction. It was slow going, however. There were really too many people even for a fairly large space such as that, and I began to get a slightly uncomfortable feeling, not unlike the sense you get when you swim out a bit further than you’d planned and suddenly mark your distance to the beach.

I had already started to think twice about the whole adventure when there was a sudden opening in the crowd, a spreading out like oil dropped into water. A line of young women to my right were backing up in unison. My eyes went to a very beautiful young black girl who was doing a strange sort of dancing movement, waving her hands, eyes closed, an awkward smile on her face.

And now how to describe the sensation? Like I was splashed in the face with something wet but not wet, anti-water, closing my throats in an instant, an invisible lash across my eyes. A sensation dominating the senses, commanding instant, total attention, wiping out every other concern. So: tear gas. But why? And by whom? I would never know. Like every other soul nearby, all I knew or cared about was getting away. I pulled my shirt over my nose and mouth, covered one eye and burrowed into the crowd at my back. I pushed and rolled back toward the south side of the square. The invisible cloud passed away and blinking, coughing, I jostled through until I couldn’t anymore. And then I really couldn’t.

The crowd around me had coalesced somehow, and I was in the center of a sea of people. I looked around – A proud member of the American race, I was a head taller than the people around me. About 20 yards away was a kind of kiosk – maybe a shelter for a bus stop or something, and there were two gendarmes up on top of it. They were busy with something and I realized they were pulling an inert young woman, a rag doll, up out of the crowd. This, I realized, was probably not good.

The crowd moved and I had to move with it, but there was nowhere for my feet to go. I struggled to stay upright and realized everyone else was doing the same. I was caught. The faces around me were pale and wide-eyed. There was a lot of shouting; there were screams.

Okay, this is bad, but you must not panic. That’s the first thing. Relax your shoulders. Breathing deeply through your nose would be best but the gas nixed that. Still, slow your breathing. Look around. There’s a building about 50 yards to your left. Focus on getting there. There’s an inch of room on your left side. Put your shoulder in. Feel for a place to put your foot. When the crowd shifts, try to use the motion. A step, good. Small increments. Breathe slowly. Ignore the panic around you. They’re French. They can’t help it.

By tiny shifts I worked my way left. The crowd was moving me forward and I used each surge to wedge a little further through. Finally, astonishingly, an opening: push through. I broke free and into a meter-wide channel between the wall and the crowd, pushed forward to a corner, darted through a gap, and I was out.

Free of the press, my eyes still streaming, adrenaline flushed through me and I got the fuck out of dodge in a walk-run, swinging my arms and clapping my hands a few times to discharge the adrenaline. And the strangest thing – a hundred meters away it was back to the party. Everything was fine, and everyone. I found a beer at some kind of festival stand and lit a Dunhill and let the shakes dissipate.

Evening began to fall, and I was neither dead nor maimed. I wandered, soaking in the people and the noise and the endless bad music. Another beer somewhere, a baguette and cheese, but the whiskey remained a problem. Every bar was thronged, with a line out the door. Eventually, tired and a little footsore, I turned back toward the left bank.

And at last, trudging back to the very alley of my hotel, a miracle. The little cinema had a small bar, and though it was crowded it wasn’t madly crowded. I shouldered in like an American, and asked for a double White Label in broad American English. The bartender actually smiled and gave me a long pour.

In the Widening Gyre

My slow thighs are sore from an Allen Ginsberg-related burlesque (don’t ask) and the mistake I made last night of going to a birthday party in heels that were way way too high. How else to get used to them, though?

The roadside bar is hopping but mellow. The stocky ginger bearded ‘tender remembers me despite the new hair color. Remembers what I like to eat and to drink here. Basketball is playing on the big tv in my face, and I follow the action but don’t know who I’m supposed to root for. My brother would know, but I don’t have the wherewithal to call him, and he doesn’t do text.

I order another pint. I’ve already had too much to drink today, between waits for multiple buses and lunch break. But here’s another, because it’s almost another hour before my bus home. Today isn’t the only day this week that I have had too much to drink. I don’t like to admit this, but it’s how I’m coping with my anxiety, my worry, which has been plaguing me all week, pretty much ever since Seamus dropped me off at the train Monday morning. I don’t know what else to do, to back off from the precipice I feel is near, though of course I recognize it’s not the healthiest way to do so. It’s a familiar way though.

Today, I’ve been to this bar twice (the one with the bikers, near my work, that you’ve read about more than once), and my fave pub once already. I’ve been complimented on my nails, hair, and outfit here. Chalk Phoenix Healer is still hanging over there.
I am on the edge of something, and I don’t know what. And I sip and relish the hops and replenish my lipstick.

Seamus has quit drinking. For his health and his sanity, and since his health and sanity are, quite frankly, nearly more important to me than mine own, I support him fully in this endeavor. I myself haven’t quit, though I have cut down. Had. Did. This week is an exception. Because I’m falling into some abyss or other and I, Ford Prefect-like, am cushioning the blow for myself.

I haven’t talked to Seamus about the myriad of things I’m worried about; haven’t told him about the drinking; haven’t asked him about this new precipice, as he has his own myriad deep fresh sorrow to contend with, sober, and somehow me to navigate withal. At least, I hope he’ll continue to navigate me withal… Gaah. Another long swallow of bitter hops.

Last night, home alone in my little birdhouse, late, I leaned back in my hard little bed, fan blowing relief across my skin in oscillation. I watched the warm lightning storm make artwork across my windows. I touched myself and climaxed with the lightning, though quietly, and I heard no thunder.

I don’t know what this new chasm edge is. I look into its depths and I see nothing. Not darkness, not forks in the road, just…blurriness, confusion. Nothing. Which is worrisome, because I knew exactly what that precipice was when Seamus and I first reunited, and at the Exile, I was shoved down over another without warning. Clear enough. But this?

As I make my slow thighs move swiftly (out of necessity) to the bus stop, the lightning plays, pricklingly close, across the wide open sky. Again, spectacular and warm. Again, no audible thunder.

Maybe this new thing isn’t a precipice at all. Maybe it’s merely a path I’m taking. We’re taking. Is it we? I hope so, with all my shared heart, but I can’t see anything clearly, and I’m not helping my sight in my pints, nor in my whiskey, in a Columbo-inspired cut glass decanter at home. But I’m plodding forward, into whatever it is. Slouching toward Bethlehem to be born.