2 weeks & 2 days

As I ate my soup standing at the kitchen counter, because my little kitchen table is covered with 6 months of unopened bills and credit card offers, listening to Pandora‘s odd mix of songs, I remembered how much I love Sarah McLachlan's voice.  It takes me back to Nashville, TN in late 1999.  Post the greatest affair of my life. 

I met a boy in my parent's basement one night.  I didn't think much of him.  I met that same boy years later and decided I was going to love him even though he didn't want to be loved.  And he loved me back in spite of himself. 

In the darkest time of my life, I loved and was loved.  The affair was bookended by the deaths of our fathers.  Mine on August 1, 1999 and his on October 24, 1999, both after long battles with cancer.  All the books in between read the same....  cigarettes and drunk sex, music and poetry.  Although the friendship seeped beyond that three months, the affair lasted just two weeks and two days and those were separated by a month and 850 miles.

It's difficult to think of the details.  Not because of feelings.  But because of the heavy beer and vodka cloud that hangs over the whole thing. 

We went on a real first date.  That I remember.  I got an email, “I have some extra cash this week and I want to take a pretty girl out.  What are you doing Friday?“  We had dinner somewhere on Welsh Rd in the northeast and then we shot pool on Levick and Frankford.  I dropped him off at home and we sat on his front steps talking.  His friend ended up stopping by sending me home a little abruptly much to his dismay.  That was sometime in late August.  We spent every day and night after that together until I moved back to Nashville September 8th and took his friend's affair with me.

I remember packing the 17 foot Penske truck the night before.  Most of my things were already in Nashville, in my cute apartment on Trails Circle.  Just a few odds and ends and those 1970’s barrel backed white chairs that are now occupying my storage space 2 blocks from the music school.  They were the last to go in the truck.  We all got drunk, chain smoked, and ignored saying what was really on our minds.  He wrote us a poem, gave it to me the next morning as the truck was parked in front of my family's house and we said our goodbyes.  He told me not to read it until I was in Nashville.  I read it at a rest stop near Roanoke, VA.

Men and women

Walk in and out of each others

Lives

Sometimes like lemmings to sea

Sometimes like pilgrims to the promised land

Searching for comfort

In an uncomfortable world

Once in a great while

Some will walk into each other

When the time is right

And both need compassion and healing

And passion

But life is chaos

And no time is the right

Because we all have different paths

Mine will lead me to North Broad Street

To finish my education

It will detour soon to a cemetery

Other paths include a Penske truck

And an 850 mile trek

In hopes of finding something

Keep saying that at 5:30

Tomorrow morning I will be upset

Truth is I have been upset for days

Yet at the same time

I have been joyous for weeks

Pain and ecstasy are divided

By a thin line or so they say

Now I feel the two have bled

Together in a swirl of beauty

I write in typical style

Thoughts flowing

Imperfect yet no revision

Like life the past is written

Only the future is an open page

Yet to be written

I hope our paths cross once again

But am satisfied with what I have received

Gift of the self is more precious than

Anything material

I thank you for sharing your self

With me

Changed yet again in significant fashion

More evolved more complete

In this journey toward death

A chance to grow

Explore the mind

And be comforted

In this uncomfortable world

Thank you,

I haven't gotten to the 2 days portion of the affair and the 10 years of my best friend after that.  But this story is over for now.  The wrinkled, handwritten piece of white legal pad paper with doodles in the margins lives peacefully with a handful of other handwritten and typed pages.  I haven’t looked through them since the last major snow storms years ago....

 
In 13 years I’ve had one boyfriend which lasted two years.  The rest of my time I’ve spent having affairs with extraordinary men who I can also call my friends.  Sometimes I think I should draw a line between love and friends and then I think “Silly me, true friends are the definition of love and the best kind of love at that.” 

until next time....

She's worried.  I don't know what's going on but it would be best if you lay low for a while.


That was a year ago.  I was compelled to make this trip and I was nervous about it.  Once I arrived, I instantly relaxed.  As soon as I closed my eyes and sank into his too comfy bed, everything felt ok.  And then he spoke and everything was all right.

A year to the day since the last time we played together.   We celebrated with 2 gigs that night and after that we sat in the front yard with a large bottle of Yellowtail, a couple of stray kittens, and eventually, a sunrise.  His eyes struck me as I watched him talk.  Red and slightly swollen and teary, cheeks a little hollow... he was on the wrong side of youth.  I know that means I am too. 

We had no intention of watching the sun come up over the bay or of anxiously waiting to see "OPEN" in Capt. Jim's window glow red and stumbling over at 6:30 am.  He drifted off while we waited for our omelets... eyes still open as I babbled about something when he startled and shouted, "E!"  Had I not been fighting to stay awake myself I would have gotten a good laugh of everyone in the restaurant turning and staring at us.  We climbed into bed around 10:30 am after picking up the dog and woke around 4... just in time to shower, eat, and play another gig.

The next morning we drove to South Carolina.  Every time I looked over from the passenger's seat I searched his eyes.  It was still there but softened by daylight, sobriety, and laughter.  We puzzled over spanish moss, marveled at the super cheap gas, and joked at the overabundance of pancake houses and BBQ places.  That evening after a wonderful home cooked meal, the three of us sat in the garage smoking and drinking wine and talking well into the night.  Though two of us had met electronically less than a year ago and in person only hours before, it felt as if we were lifelong friends.  I like these people.  No, love them.  Home to me has never been geographic.  It has always been, and I think always will be, in people.     

We returned to the North Carolina beaches to clouds and rain.  The second day of this I found myself alone for the first time in a week.  My dog friend was snoring and farting next to me on the soon to be homeless couch and my wish for the sun was merely wrapped in the desire for warmth.  I was expected back in Maryland that evening and called to inform them that I hadn't yet left and didn't intend to until sometime the following week. 

There were more gigs, more beers, more shots, more friends, a day on the beach, a moving day, movies, and Oreos and milk....

I finally arrived in Maryland nine days late.  The sun was hot on my face and my pajama pants were rolled up above my knees as I eased into the day on the back deck.  Morning coffee is meant to be enjoyed in wonderful places like this with the yellowing walnut tree leaves starting to fall and on the boat slip in Sneads Ferry, NC while the little fishes jump through the air as if they were dolphins.  There's still a little time left.... just a little.

I'm in love with second hand smoke again.  Yesterday, I understood that this is common among my non-smoking cousins.  "Cigarette fingers," she said, "they just make me think of Yiayia." 

Yiayia.....          Greece.... 


I'm also addicted to music again.  For that I am most thankful. 


As I neared the Pennsylvania border I saw a huge rainbow arching over Philadelphia and smiled.  This isn't so bad....  Then I crossed the Pennsylvania border and the skies opened up and released a hellish storm.  That's the problem with not having automatic windows... the sudden storm soaked through my seats, suitcase and bags, puddled in my purse and drenched my keyboard case before traffic stopped enough for me to reach over and roll them up.  A grand Welcome back. 

The rains washed the last of  the North Carolina sand from my tire treads and the lack of butterflies here now strikes me.  I'm getting farther from the peace music gives me and closer to the stress of teaching.

It's time to find the new in-between. 

As I welcome fall this year, I look forward to more than just next summer vacation.

"It's been sunny and hot here with thunderstorms every day since you left." 

I haven't left in 13 years.... it's about time.