catelin

amoureaux au bouquet
Marc Chagall

It has been my habit since childhood to stop and slowly turn a circle when I perceive those moments in life that are small but grand at the same time. It was winter and I was eight. It must have been a Friday or Saturday because I was up late when the snow began to fall. Everyone else in the house had already gone to sleep. I was a night owl as a child, and I'd often stay up reading with a flashlight under the covers. I remember a full moon and how quickly the street outside my window turned from glittery black to soft luminescent white. I watched tiny bits of snow hit the glass pane turned to drawing slate by my warm breath. I put on my shoes, threw a coat over my nightgown and headed out into the living room with my gloves and stocking cap in my hands. I silently opened the door and walked out into the front yard that had transformed itself into every place I ever wanted to be. It was so quiet and clean. Every movement I made was like a whisper. All I knew to do was to stand there, eyes closed and face up to the sky, slowly turning, telling myself I would remember this. I will always remember this.

Years later, I visited the Floral District in Los Angeles for the first time. It was a city made of flowers. I stopped in the center of one of the giant floors, closed my eyes, and began my circle. It was sweetness, nectar, and voices--garbled Tagalog, Vietnamese and Spanish, the squeaking of carts and baby strollers, the gentle spray from the misters. My boyfriend at the time stood there nervously, looking around afterward to see if anyone had noticed the crazy girl in her orbit amidst the blossoms. I tried to explain it to him. He didn't get it. How can you remember anything with your eyes closed? It's how I make myself know that magic is real. It's how I spin on my axis and create a charm for this bracelet that is my life. I remember things best with my eyes closed, circumnavigating the happiest moments of my existence from the inside.

Harold: What were you fighting for?
Maude: Oh, Big Issues. Liberty. Rights. Justice. Kings died and kingdoms fell. You know, I don't regret the kingdoms--I see no sense in borders and nations and patriotism--but I do miss the kings.




Maude: What kind of flower would you like to be?
Harold: I don't know. One of these, maybe.
Maude: Why do you say that?
Harold: Because they're all alike.
Maude: Oh, but they're NOT! Look. See, some are smaller; some are fatter; some grow to the left, some to the right; some even have lost some petals. All kinds of observable differences! You see, Harold, I feel that much of the world's sorrow comes from people who are *this*, yet allow themselves to be treated as *that*.




Maude: A lot of people enjoy being dead. But they're not dead, really. They're just... backing away from life. Reach out. Take a chance. Get hurt, even! Play as well as you can. Go team! GO! Give me an L! Give me an I! Give me a V! Give me an E! L. I. V. E. LIVE! ...Otherwise, you got nothing to talk about in the locker room.




Psychiatrist: Tell me, Harold, how many of these, uh, "suicides" have you performed?
Harold: An accurate number would be difficult to gauge.
Psychiatrist: Well, just give me a rough estimate.
Harold: A rough estimate? I'd say... fifteen.
Psychiatrist: Fifteen?
Harold: That's a rough estimate.
Psychiatrist: Were they all done for your mother's benefit?
Harold: No, I would not say "benefit."




Maude: Dreyfus once wrote that on Devil's Island he would see the most glorious birds. Many years later in Brittany he realized they had only been seagulls. To me, they will always be glorious birds.




Harold: You sure have a way with people.
Maude: Well, they're my species!




Harold: Maude, do you pray?
Maude: Pray? No, I communicate.




Maude: Vice, virtue, it's best not to be too moral - you cheat yourself out of too much life. Aim above morality.




Harold:So you don't use the umbrella anymore?
Maude: No. Not anymore.
Harold: No more revolts?
Maude: Oh, indeed! Every day. But I don't need a defense anymore. I embrace. Still fighting for the Big Issues but now in my small, individual way.




Maude: Harold, everyone has the right to make an ass out of themselves. You can't let the world judge you too much.




Maude: You know, at one time, I used to break into pet shops to liberate the canaries. But I decided that was an idea way before its time. Zoos are full, prisons are overflowing... oh my, how the world still dearly loves a cage.

We met online a couple of years ago. We were both lurking in a poetry chatroom and he struck up a conversation. I was never that good at the chatroom thing. I didn't have the patience for the tiresome questions about my age, marital status, sexual preference...I'm sure you know the drill. He was different, though. He didn't ask me the stupid questions. He called himself "Custard Brain" and that made me chuckle. It was so....anti-suave, you know? He was smart. More than that; he was clever. He had a wit, a razor sharp wit and a way with words that still leaves me dazzled each time I have mail from him. We spent hours talking to one another about everything and nothing. It was one of those rare connections that people make, even when they are face-to-face. It wasn't about flirting; it wasn't about sex; it wasn't about anything but being friends. We were so stupid sometimes that I'd have tears in my eyes from laughing so hard. But it was that good kind of stupid...that kind that you can only share with the people you trust.

I never thought about it until later; but from the moment I met him, I knew, without any doubt at all, that we were going to mean something very important to each other. That our connection was going to have a significance that would outlast any infatuation with certain sites or virtual meeting places. I was right, you know. He is the reason for so many of the things that I've done. He liked my writing. He was the first person, other than my best girlfriend, to tell me that I had some talent...and that I should keep writing. Even when other's reactions to my stories were lukewarm, he would gently nudge me into continuing. Most of what I wrote wouldn't have been written if it weren't for him. The literary site that I created would not have ever existed if it weren't for him. I would not be writing this here if it weren't for him. I love him in a profoundly, intensely personal way...if there are soul mates, then I have no doubt he is one of mine. It goes so far beyond anything physical, and yet I can almost feel myself tethered to him by the heartstrings from across an ocean. I almost never comment on his journal entries because it's awkward having to share him with others; as I'm sure it is for him to share me. We are both so busy that we hardly have time for more than the occasional "Hey, just checking to make sure you're still alive" email. I have never seen him in person; I'm not sure if I ever will....but it makes no difference to me. I see him. I see him every day, in everything that I do. His name is Val...and he calls me "Cate of the Deserts" and "Cate-o" and all sorts of other wonderful silly names. I am breaking the silence and sharing some of our secrets because I just wanted him to know that things are very much as they were in that joyful beginning we had...and as they shall always be.

Who says boys don't express their feelings?

Max: I love you, Jacob.
Jacob: I love you too....hammerhead.

I write this for Reive, not because our situations are so much alike, but because I want her to know that there is almost always a reward in moving forward even when you feel the urge to go back for something you left behind.

Walking Backwards In a Snowstorm

Surprisingly, I was the one who left. Fooled around on him even. Just a quick fuck with someone he didn't know--out of anger, out of sorrow, out of wanting to feel like I wasn't invisible. Betrayal was an ugliness in me that I didn't know I was capable of until then. But of course it was more complicated than that--autopsies always are. We'd been together so long that our edges had become blurred. We had become an our. Our house, our friends, our furniture, our life. I wondered for a moment how much of our life would still be mine once I left him.

I came home and changed into a pair of jeans and sneakers, fed the cats, watered the plants. He was there--hair pulled back in a ponytail, sitting in front of the computer, high. He got high a lot more these days. It was the only sign from him of possible unhappiness that I could detect. I told him I was going. He looked at me for a moment and I thought he might say something, anything to keep me from leaving. I probably wouldn't have stayed, but that he didn't even try left an old wound that still bothers me once in a while on rainy days.

We'd tried the conversation on for size about a week before. I told him that I was moving out. He was still so beautiful to look at that I almost forgot what I was trying to say. I had been so in love with him once. That I wasn't now didn't make the memory of how I felt any less acute. We made an odd couple, yet everyone who knew us said we seemed perfect for each other. He had dark hair, as long as mine, and towered more than a foot over me. I was fair and slight, the light to his dark. He was a sturdy person--a very still person. I was constantly in motion and I floated busily about him. A friend of mine jokingly referred to us as the redwood and the nymph. I told her later that I'd picked the wrong tree.

When I told him I was leaving, he had no reaction but to quietly and evenly ask why. I replied that I was surprised he even had to ask. It's just not working. That's what I'd said. I was so angry with him. I'd tried to make my home in him for so long. I'd nested earnestly in his arms, but could never get warm enough. I wanted to tell him everything, every detail of his failure. The way he never saw me, not even a glimpse of me. That he was so goddamn lazy in bed--like his erect prick was prize enough just by its mere existence. I hated that he couldn't change a tire. I hated that he thought he was smarter than me. I hated that he'd left me to cry alone all night when my grandmother died. I hated that I'd spent the last five years of my life with a man who didn't like to dance, who never once told me I was pretty, who couldn't pick his fucking underwear up off the bathroom floor to save his life. I wanted to beat the apathy out of him, to shove his face into the carpet and shriek like a madwoman until his ears began to bleed. I didn't. It's just not working. It was the sort of vague non-emotional answer he could appreciate.

We'd never said a harsh word to one another until a couple of weeks after I'd finally moved out. He called me up and asked how I was doing. It made me hopeful. Maybe things could change. Maybe...then he told me the reason he'd called was to let me know he didn't appreciate the mess I'd left for him to clean up in the apartment. "Now you know how I've felt for the last five fucking years," I told him before I clicked off the receiver. It was the first and last time I'd ever raised my voice to him.

Winter in Los Angeles can be bitter. Perhaps it's the juxtaposition of Christmas lights and palm trees, but the cold of it cuts to the quick. My dark days began with our friends' uncomfortable excuses for not seeing me, with the embarrassed silences when I happened to run into the old crowd. After a while, I gave up trying to hang on to any part of my old existence, apart from a couple of wonderful people who'd decided to cross the lines over into enemy territory. Within three months' time, my life changed so much that it was unrecognizable to me.

The initial bravado of making the decision to leave him behind had quickly dissolved into uncertainty, fear, and aching loneliness. I lived alone up in the hills, near the Hollywood sign. I drove home almost everyday thinking of Peg Entwistle. She'd jumped off that sign in 1932. It was the only time in my life that I'd ever been beaten enough to understand how death could appeal to someone who'd lost her hold on the tether to any meaningful connections with others. It wasn't a contemplation of suicide--I'm a survivor by nature, but it was a feeling of kinship with all of the other desperately lonely people I'd always known lived in this city. I was one of them now and it frightened me. There was a man I'd coupled with during this time. He was one of them too. We groped and clung to each other in his dark apartment. We tried without success to pretend that it meant something. I couldn't even make myself stay with him until the morning. He sat there in bed watching me dress. His eyes were dead. I knew mine were too. We nodded a dismal three a.m. goodbye, promising to call, knowing we never would.

I floated, as I always had before, but now without purpose or direction. There was no comfort in the rhythm of my days. My nights were full of ghosts summoned by regret and despair. So when he called after his return from Montreaux, I told him I wanted to see him. It was horrible. He was smug. I was ashamed. I was drunk by the time he came over…the couple of glasses of wine to steady my nerves had somehow turned into the bottle. I was maudlin. I asked him if he thought we'd made a mistake. I told him that I missed being a part of something. I cried. When I tried to find my place in his arms, he gently pushed me away and told me he'd found someone else. Another woman...in Europe...beautiful...she was beautiful...and she made him feel...so alive...she was unbelievable. I smiled sickly and told him I was happy for him. I was humiliated and angry with myself for letting him see me like this, for allowing him the comfort of my misery. He had to go. I barely managed to close the door behind him before I ran to the bathroom to vomit up the cheap wine along with the last few bits of my self-respect. I slept on the couch that night because my bed, the one we'd slept in together for so long, was too much to bear after seeing him so changed by someone else.

We saw each other a few times after that. He said he'd always remained friends with his ex-girlfriends. I never had done that. To me, over always meant over; but I tried, feeling like perhaps I'd made a mistake in leaving him...not wanting to lose any more of him than I already had. There was too much pain in it for me, though, and I soon realized that his pleasure in seeing me was only derived from letting me know how happy he was without me. The wheel turned slowly and Spring came in spite of all this. The newness of it made me brave again. I let go once more, this time with nothing to lose. This time there was the freedom in my floating that I'd had before I knew him, before I'd let his stolid nature ice my wings. I was reborn. The next time he called to see if I was interested in catching a show, I politely declined. He eventually moved to the East Coast and married the fabulous woman who'd given him so much more than I ever had. I eventually moved to a different set of hills, where oaks grow in place of redwoods, and gave myself so much more than I ever had.

Probably spurred on by the approaching holiday, a friend of mine who believes herself to be the consumate matchmaker of all time told me that I needed to send her my laundry list of 20 "ideal man for me" traits. (I suspect she's been reading some sort of go-out-and-git-yerself-a-man book.) So, for the sake of getting her off my back for a while, this is what I sent:

1. Someone as smart or smarter than me. Someone who likes to read more than just the newspaper.

2. Age group: Five years on either side of my own.

3. Someone who is not raising children, who does not want any more children, but who has no problem with mine. (That's usually the dealbreaker.)

4. Someone with no freaky ex's, hang-ups about ex's, or ex's who are not really ex's.

5. No drug users, alcoholics, or men with criminal histories.

6. Someone with an expansive sense of humor.

7. Someone who likes to travel.

8. Someone who is spiritual, but not dogmatically religious. (Pagan tendencies are a definite plus.)

9. Someone who is not in therapy...of any kind.

10. Someone who has a semi-normal relationship with their parents, or who is an amazingly well-adjusted orphan.

11. Someone who likes to be outdoors and do outdoorsy things: e.g. gardening, camping, fishing, swimming, etc.

12. Someone with all their teeth or reasonable facsimiles thereof.

13. Someone who would be willing to relocate. I've moved enough...I'm staying here.

14. Someone who wants to buy an old barn and convert it into a house.

15. Someone who likes to ride horses.

16. Someone who is kind to animals and people.

17. Someone who loves living in the country but likes to visit the city.

18. Some liberal arts background would be nice, but not absolutely necessary.

19. Someone who earns about the same or more than me.

20. Someone who is optimistic and good-natured.

So I'll let her do the looking for me...most days I'd be happy just to find a man to take the trash out every other day...but a gal's gotta have standards. ; )