tupelo honey

My coffee tastes a little sweeter and smoother this morning though I didn't make it any differently than usual.  I did however, get to drink it in my window for the first time in months.  Is it really only early February?  .....fresh mild air and the warmth of the sun on my cheek.  It's the first real warmth I've felt in months., not the electronic warmth of my blanket or the gas powered warmth of my car heat.  There are only two perfect heat sources in this world, the sun and human touch. 

Gotta love the city where the trees aren't quite bare in the winter.  The tree outside my kitchen window is sporting a variety of plastic bags today.  A tan Wawa bag, a small plain white one, and a shredded food delivery bag.  They're making a nice rustling accompaniment to the gulls flying over the Yarn Mill. 

As if to bring me back to reality, I randomly remember the plastic dog food bowls in the cabinet to my left.  Gray bowls with little white paw prints around the outside edge.  I've nearly forgotten that that was this apartment just over a year ago.  I feel a slight breeze and the sun pokes my cheek and I smile at the dog bowls hidden in the back of the cabinet. 

My mind quickly drifts to an early October bonfire... hotdogs, bud light, s'mores, and more stars than I've seen in a very long time....

I think I really liked this last one.  Though I've already put that all in past tense, I'm not completely giving up.  I'm not waiting around either.  Life will take me where it wants to take me.  And I'll continue the search for the fine line between fighting for what I believe and walking away from a lost cause. 

My heart lets out a maniacal little chuckle and tricks me into going to youtube and playing a certain song.  I curse myself and listen a second time.  Shitballz!  *splat*  That's the worst part about music, it breathes life into fantasies, it calls back the memories of making out in the dark by my car at the end of the night, it reinforces hope that may no longer exist.  I'll gladly live in that particular 3 minutes and 31 seconds with my second cup of coffee and the realization that allowing myself this partial little fall was the best thing I could have done for myself, even if it turns out to be nothing more than a memory that smacks me like that last one, over morning coffee in my window sill.

bridges

There's an envelope on my kitchen table with your name written in black sharpie, in big bubbly caps, crooked and underlined once.  It grabs my attention every time I walk by.  I hate it.  Some days I pretend I'll never see you again and eventually the envelope and its contents will get shoved aside and then end up in my basket of sort and shred.

How did I end up here again?  I promised myself I wouldn't let it happen.  I did everything different this time.  Well, almost everything....

I haven't driven over my favorite nighttime bridge for half a year.  It was love at first sight.  A cable-stayed bridge that spans the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal.  It glows gold at night.  Though I'm usually one for silver, it's stunning and too peaceful to ignore.  The stretch of highway that takes me there is a great drive as well, not heavily traveled, dark, boring, just curvy enough and just long enough.

I needed a drive.  I wanted to see my bridge.

All the sound in my head shut up as I crossed the Delaware state line and I realized I never turned on any music.  I left the stereo off a bit longer.  Music's been making me queasy lately, a sad state of affairs for a full time musician.  I simply can't find peace in even my favorite albums and artists right now.  It's great to be working but I need a hobby and I'm not sure driving over bridges in the middle of the night is considered a hobby.

My EZpass got a workout tonight crossing the bridge 4 times.  I thought of stopping and taking a picture but it's not the same, nor do I want to share my bridge with you.  You wouldn't really care anyway would you?  Didn't think so. 

I wish I were back on that beach in Florida, alone and watching the sun sink into the Gulf.  Better yet, I wish I were in Ikaria on the rocky beach in Faros watching the fishing boats and soaking in the beautiful all day long.  My reserves of beautiful seem to be depleted.  Maybe that's why all the grump lately.  Looking around me I see all the places I left bits of happy... willy-nilly sharing it with people who only wanted to enjoy it temporarily and superficially.  I'm ok with that.  What good is beautiful-happy if you can't share it?
 
A quick Waffle House stop cements the smile my bridge put on my face.  Hot coffee in an old stained and cracked mug, scrambled eggs, scattered, smothered and covered hash browns, and sausage.  I feel full and warm again. 

Home and in bed before the sun even thought of rising.....  I dropped my purse on top of your envelope with barely a second a thought and am cozied up in bed.  Much better for now.

snow covered caddy

I had a dream about the abandoned light blue caddy the night before last.  It was sitting right where it was left.... under the light in the little patch of parking spaces between the Waffle House and the Best Western that didn't really belong to either, in Nashville, in January 1999.  I spent countless hours sitting behind the front desk watching the flurries cover it in silence.

That was the best job ever.  The pay was shitty.  The hours were shitty.  I was always the only one on duty and I was almost always second shift so not even my 2 favorite housekeepers were around, the recovered junkie/former Allentown, PA prostitute or the sweet but dumb as bricks large toothless former drunk woman.  And I looked forward to Air Guard weekend each month.

Once a month I had a hotel full of Master Sergeants and higher ranking officers.... Good southern men.  Good strong southern gentlemen.  I was a not quite 22 year old fresh out of college girl far from home with a big smile and quickly ended up with a dozen or so body guards.

It was the one weekend a month I was guaranteed to be well fed and stocked with beer and conversation.  They would bring burgers and fries or pasta or peach cobbler and ice cream to the front desk for me regularly.  Mmmm I remember that cobbler... it was still warm and the ice cream on top was barely starting to melt! 

One particular paratrooper (Room 112.  Always.  Double, non-smoking.... he liked the second bed to lay his stuff out on.). He always greeted me with a huge smile and tons of charm.  At least once during each stay he would call down to the front desk, have me order delivery and would show up 20 minutes later with a six pack, pay for dinner and we'd eat together.  He would call the front desk every hour or so and tell me a joke or ask a stupid question "to make me laugh and kill the boredom of the hotel for a few minutes."  His admiration did not go unnoticed by his fellow airmen and if they were in the lobby at the same time they would tease him about his shameless flirting and tell me that if he bothered me to call their room.

He never did anything to put my job in jeopardy and never made me feel uncomfortable.  He was deployed to Kuwait sometime during that year and we kept in touch via email.  That year was not a great year.  I commuted back and forth between Nashville and Philly every few weeks for my sick father and was getting pretty good at drinking heavily and regularly.  I was bored and depressed with my life and my lack of opportunities to play and make music.  It's really no wonder I pushed things out of control electronically with 112.

I knew what to say to get a reaction out of a man, even a player 16 years my senior.  It was easy.... he was putty in my hands.  Safe putty on the other side of the world.  I loved the attention and the fantasy and the freedom of being freshly single for the first time in 8 years.  I enjoyed exploring my own sexuality and was in awe at how simple it was to drive this man crazy. 

We met up on 2 occasions after that.  Once between Kuwait deployments in the hotel where we first met where I was no longer an employee and once before an Afghanistan deployment in Pittsburgh on Easter Sunday.  I left family dinner with a lie and drove 5 hours for the sake of adventure.  I remember sitting in my car staring at the massive hotel in front of me wondering what possessed me to drive all this way for someone I didn't really care about and hadn't seen in 3 years.  I called him and when he answered he said, "You aren't coming are you?"  I told him I was in the parking lot and he said he didn't believe me and to flash my lights.  Again I thought about saying never mind and going home but couldn't resist the urge to prove I was there. 

I spent the night with him, ate room service in the morning, and then we went separate ways.  Depending on your definition of sex, it is possible to say nothing happened.  We never had "sex".  Our meetings included a big barrel of inappropriateness and a touch of awkwardness whereas our emails were completely  uninhibited and fantastic.  Isn't that the way it goes though?  Electronic communication isn't really  communication at all. 

We lost touch sometime during his next deployment.  Internet access was rare for him and I had my life going in all sorts of directions.  I've tried to find him a few times in the passed few years..... facebook, myspace, google... to no avail.  Though honestly, I haven't tried super hard.  Never even tried to send an email.  He's one of those experiences in my life that I look back on and smile about and giggle a little and even blush about.  Everyone needs a few of them. .....Gawd, he's in his 50's now!  hahahaha wow!

moving on..... again

I didn't grow up in a physically violent home but there was an awful lot of yelling much of the time.  But what else can you expect from a family of 4 girls with an off the boat father and mother who is more stubborn than a Christmas pageant mule?!  I essentially moved out at 18 when I went to school though I was back the first 3 summers and for random, short periods of time over the years.  When dad got real sick, I took over a good amount of the yelling at my mother... or one of my sisters did, there was never a lack of screaming matches.  We were good at yelling at each other and good at being miserable much of the time.  Our parents taught us that well.

Then I moved as far away as I could.  Came back.  Left again.  Came back but to my own place in Philly.  Things were good.  The yelling at home was over... mostly.  I moved and moved again.  The fighting then returned to my home with some busted up drywall every now and again.  I moved again.  Things were good.  I moved again.  Things started out great and quickly deteriorated.  I found myself in the all too familiar position of not wanting to go home.  I moved far away.... again.  Things were good.  I ran out of money and came back to homelessness since the one place that offered me a permanent roof also offered me malicious back-stabbing pettiness.  I don't need friends like that and didn't want to live like that.  After bouncing around for a few years on couches, in my car, a few days a week here and there, I was exhausted and resigned myself to a "permanent" home.  As permanent as I could allow something to be.  And the fighting was back.... because that's what we grew up with.  That's what we learned.  We learned passive-aggressive manipulation and guilt.  Once you've moved away from your family, you should never move back.  Old habits die hard and yelling, whether I'm involved or not, gets in my head and I can't think or hear or talk or see or even breath after a while.  I abhor raised voices.   

Misery loves company.  I slowly got sucked into the pettiness and skewed personal perceptions of what was happening.  Entitlement flew like beads on Mardi Gras.  Nothing out of malice but everything out of not knowing how to make things better.  All my money was spent in travel to work over 35 miles away and my calm was buried in the back yard under the old outhouse. 

I finally was able to move again.

It was a beautiful thing.  A teeny studio apartment in the Port Richmond section of the city.  Surrounded by mostly Polish families that had been there for generations.  I figured it would be a lot like Fishtown and I LOVED my little apartment.  Top floor, back of the building with lots of windows and a great view as the tallest building on the block.  And alone.  All alone!  For the first time in my life I was alone and not lonely while surrounded by people.  I found peace that I had only wished existed before.  Happy, peace, contentment.   

So, yeah, my neighbors smoke a lot of pot.  A LOT of pot.  eh, so the smell would wake me by creeping under my door at 7 am.  I was still ok with that.  Oh yeah, the dude that lived in the basement was dealing drugs enough to have the FBI snooping around and stopping me on the way to my car in the morning to ask questions.  I kept to myself and had nothing to do with those people...  it was ok.  *sigh* and the boys downstairs would have crazy parties every other Friday night that were often loud enough to have neighbors down the street call the cops.  Noisy, underage drunks.... eh, once every other week.  I'd deal with that for a great little place on my own where I could wake up anytime I want each day and sit in my kitchen window with my morning coffee watching the morning rush on 95 in the distance as the sun came up over the Delaware. 

Then the husband on the first floor, not the dealer, ended up in Graterford for walking into a bar with a hammer and bashing some dude's skull in.  That unit moved out shortly thereafter and in came relatives of the boys on the second floor.  They actually kept the noise of the parties down and stopped the fights when they started but suddenly the shouting through the hallways of the building increased all day, every day.  Aaah, the yelling returns.

And then my next door neighbor moved out.  YAY!  No more pot smoke seeping under my door at all hours of the day!  Oh but wait, more relatives moved in.  This has now become a single family home of sorts with cousins, aunts, and uncles, girlfriends, children..... 19 members of a family and me, "the lady on the 3rd floor who keeps to herself and doesn't even have a tv."

The yelling increased.  My new next door neighbors spend most of their time in the hall outside my door.  I told them from the beginning that I hear everything that happens in the hall.  They understand but the 2 yr old has a heart condition so they can't smoke in the apartment (plus it's a family of 4 in an efficiency and there's just not enough room).  No one in this family knows how to speak.  They yell.  They yell and belittle each other constantly.  All day and all night.   A fight broke out one evening and the window on the one door in the foyer was busted out (or, as I found out 2 days later, an uncle pushed the 14 yr old through it for "gettin' in his face").  *sigh* a few weeks later of steady yelling and hearing things smash and break downstairs and then last Friday night happened. 

I've learned over the past 2 winters that as long as I keep moving, I won't be so cold.  Thus, the birth of the 24 hour dance party in my apartment.  Sometimes with a glass of wine or a glass of whiskey to any music I may be in the mood for at the time.  If I dance around until it's time to climb under my electric blanket I'm not paralyzed with cold.  It's almost as good as having sufficient heat, iron, and blood pressure.  I dance to the Smiths or Billie Holiday or Tori or Radiohead or Pink Floyd or Tool.  It doesn't matter because there is no one else here.  And I can do the dishes tomorrow everyday.  I eat my own leftovers (though I'm nearly certain lentils and brown rice would be pretty safe from most any other person on the planet).  I have bars and restaurants and Wawa in walking distance and the el is a quick trolley ride away.  I love my home. 

All the fighting is stressing me out.  I regularly listen at my door for the rare few minute window that the neighbors are yelling at each other inside their apartment instead of at my front door.  I don't like walking through a domestic dispute on my way out of my own home.  It only makes things worse that the unsupervised boys downstairs have infested the building with roaches and I've now seen 3 in my apartment.  Oh yeah, and of course there's the car repair bill every 4ish months from a mirror or window or the like being smashed out while parked.  I am thankful that mine wasn't one of the six vehicles that had been set on fire and burned down to the frame this past summer. 

Friday night was a going away party for the boys as the 19 yr old has joined the army and was leaving on Saturday.  The DJ equipment went on at 10 am (typical).  By 6 pm there were 60+ drunk teens downstairs (typical).  By 8 pm the fights started (typical).  By 1 am the cops had been here 3 times, the 17 yr old boy downstairs had been taken to the hospital, the railing between the first and second floor had been ripped out, the ceiling was busted where some kid got flipped and his foot went through, the wall in the stairwell between the first and second floor doesn't exist so much as it has more than a dozen holes from heads and bodies and fists.  The glass on the second foyer door has been busted out.  Both second floor windows to the outside are busted out from bricks getting thrown through them and no doors in that unit are in one piece or even hanging anymore.  The wall on the second floor landing has a giant hole in it from a person getting thrown into it (likely the same one that got flipped down the stairs and smashed his foot through the ceiling). 

I listened to this all from the safety of my apartment, shaking a little at the insanity that was happening around me.  Saturday morning I left for work around 9:30 am trying to ignore the smell of stale beer and smashed beer bottles in the hallways and certainly pretending to not see the blood splattered through the halls.  I politely stepped over the broken glass that was everywhere and quietly closed the doors to the building.  Though, for the second time in my life I truly questioned how the hell I had gotten here. 

My arrival back home after work found no more glass or blood and everyone in the building laughing about what had happened the night before.  Laughing!  Perhaps I'm a spoiled little girl from the suburbs but I'm pretty sure that this is not right or good or funny.  Maybe my middle class upbringing is just causing culture shock right now.  Whether it's my skewed perspective or their's, I'm not living like this.  I've put the fighting behind me once, twice, .... eh many times.  and I'm certainly doing it again.  My new place is secured and undergoing some renovation before I can move in. 

In the meantime, the boys downstairs are moving out!  YAY!  Being evicted actually.  When they are gone the building will be bombed for bugs and the family of 4 next door will move into the 2 bed unit downstairs.  But the yelling won't go away.  I'm certain of that.  I don't like the yelling in the least. 

I've been sharply aware lately that I most definitely intensely fear anger.  I will walk away instead of fight.  I will hide instead of fight.  I will stand up for myself when absolutely necessary though.  I think that's the important part but I am too agreeable much of the time.  I'm learning.... slowly, but I'm learning.  With a better understanding of myself and why I behave the way I do, I'm ready to move forward.  I am ready for things I've been avoiding for 8 years.  There are possibilities in the air.  They crept in with the autumn air and whether or not they are real is of no worry.  Just breath.  Things are constantly changing and getting better and everything is as it should be, just not in the right place quite yet. 

reconnecting

I'm out of milk again.  This is a fairly regular occurrence in my kitchen.  I’m used to drinking my coffee sweet and black.  My shopping list is now: milk, something to eat that is more substantial than sunflower seeds.  I realize there are easier ways to go about things but I like things this way.  I don’t mind sitting here thinking of an old friend when I should be dressing and going to the market before work.  In fact, I prefer sitting here thinking.

The details of that evening are not mine to share and even if they were, I’m not sure I’d want to share them with you.  I’ve thought of her often.  Especially a few years back while with him.  He and I were playing out a 20 year old fantasy and the rest was just good fun.  I now wonder who was actually the better friend and how the hell I ended up the one in the middle.  Oh yes, I remember now.... we were 14 years old. 

The 3 of us were "in a band" together.  We had shitty instruments, no songs, and never played together but we were going to make it big!  It was the 3 of us against the world.  But this was the boy that all the girls loved, including us.  The guitar playing boy that all the girls went nuts over.  The boy who spent everyday after school and that summer at my house hanging out and playing music.  He was so wonderful and I wasn't, there was no way he could ever like me, not when he could have any girl he wanted.  I was naive.    Naive even after he kissed me towards the end of that summer shortly before he moved away.  It was too late though.  I had already lost my best friend and had a horde of torch carrying girls out to kick my ass.  All over this boy.

1000+ miles of I-95 between us, communication was spotty letters and occasional phone calls.  We held on to a "someday" that we discussed in every conversation.  We were young and thought we could do anything.  I spent high school rebuilding my social life and working towards college.  By the end of senior year we were all living in a different world.  Feelings had healed, apologies were given and accepted, and life moved on and distances of all kinds increased despite random run-ins, letters and phone calls. 

She was the last best girl friend I had.  I never really trusted another girl after that.  I thought of her often during his and my brief affair a few years ago.  After getting back in touch after about 15 yrs of no communication we agreed that this life was not meant for us but that we weren't ready to call it over.  It was the perfect affair, short, loving and provided closure at least for me. 

It's absolutely impossible for me to separate these two friends.  I think of one and see the other standing back and to the left.  They have set the standard for all friendships since and that's not necessarily a good thing.  But it's also not an entirely bad thing.   

There was a strong instant hug when she walked up to me on Saturday.  We are now grown women.  We've walked our own paths, moved on to new lives but in that moment, during that hug, I felt that old bond still there and strong.  Maybe it was just a wish. 

9 days

The now familiar alarms... the phone at 6:30am... a pleasant woman's voice telling us "This is your wake up call."  We didn't even have to put the receiver to our ear to hear it loud and clear.  Then the cell phone alarm 15 or so minutes later.  This time though, I also had to get out of bed.  This morning I couldn't lay cozy in bed listening to his shower and sneaking peeks of him dressing and leaving for work.  This morning however, he turned the heat on before he got in the shower to help make getting out of bed easier for me.

I climbed out of bed with arms of warm air starting to reach out across the cold room.  I reached for my panties somewhere on the floor and pulled on my clothes from last night.  I could have brought clean clothes but I knew it would be an early morning and I would wait to shower at home.  The sun was just starting to rise... I could see the mauve and steely blues and hazy purples and the clear turquoise blue in the space between the clouds from the sliding glass door.  It was only raining in the puddles on the low roof below, otherwise, it looked like a beautiful day.  I could feel a crisp chill in the air through the glass and I stood there until the urge to close my eyes and drift back to sleep left me... He stepped out of the bathroom clean, smiling, and shirtless.  What a week!

I pay for a little studio apartment 16 miles up the highway.  It's small and cozy on the top floor of a building filled with trashy tenants in a questionable neighborhood.  I pay my rent in cash and keep to myself.  If I ever needed an egg or cup of sugar I'd be shit out of luck there.  But I don't mind it being that way.  I love my cozy sanctuary perched above most else on the block just a short drive from this hotel room.  Yet every evening this week I've found myself here with him.  And every morning I hear the hotel room door shut in the wee hours of the morning and smile.  It reminds me of the business lady and her hotel room in Florham Park, NJ where I used to stay a few nights a week for a few months.

In that north Jersey hotel I remember the lingering smell of her tea tree oil lotion as she bent over and kissed my forehead goodbye.  She knew I'd be gone when she got "home", just like he does.   They were both so kind as to put the "do not disturb" sign up when leaving so that I could sleep a bit longer.

He also kissed me on the forehead before heading out each day.  There's something I love about crashing in the bed in someone else's hotel room or lounging around in their house after they've left for work for the day.  I find it so sweet when these wonderful people kiss me so gently before they leave.  I wonder if they know I'm awake?  That I've been awake since they've crawled out of bed, just lying there relaxing and soaking in all the things I wish didn't have to end.  And when I finally get out of bed I look around at the remnants of the night before and smile leaving it for housekeeping or to make them think of me when they return to the empty room after work.

I can smell him on my skin as I have everyday that I've gone home to sit at my computer, drinking coffee before starting my day.  The lingering smells floating around me make me turn my head to find him but it disappears only to sneak up a few minutes later on the other side.  Like being haunted by a ghost only there is no ghost here... not yet at least.  I've had the happiness knowing that I would be seeing him again each evening. 

We spent the evenings laughing and talking and watching movies and drinking whiskey and eating take-out or delivery or something someone else has cooked for us.  We had little adventures throughout the week.... pretty dresses, bridges, big ships, parties, tattoos.... but those are other stories for other days.   

This morning we said our goodbyes in the room and again just outside the hotel entrance and went separate ways to our cars.  It is still pre-rush hour on 95 North and the drive towards the Girard Point Bridge is peaceful as I watch the sun slowly come up over the Navy Yard.  I hit pockets of rain showers as the sun shines bright through the hole it's burned through the clouds.  I'm not used to being on this side of the sun rise.

He called me pretty this morning as I sat on the bed and he stood in front of me holding my face.  I'm thinking of that as I drive through the city.  Breakfast at the Port Richmond Diner for some coffee and breakfast seems to be in order to say goodbye to the last 9 days of fake life.  An empty diner on Tuesday morning... I drink my coffee and watch the day open up.  It's cozy and warm and comfortable in here.  I know my apartment will be cold and lonely after all this.  Pele will keep me company today.  Pele and that smile that keeps sneaking across my face. 

Wine, Pele, and a piano

Today was the first day of Pele weather and I still need a new leather.  Like the red one I used to visit in the shop window in Forest Hills.  That was forever ago when I was living with a girl in a hotel room in north Jersey. 

I suppose it's really been quite a while since I opened a bottle of red wine and cozied up in my jammies and ignored human contact.  It feels so nice and the wine tastes so comfortable. 

The chilly air hit early this afternoon just after a short soaking rain.  I had my pumpkin coffee in hand and headed into Room 104, my favorite 9 foot Steinway.  I sat down and started playing and remembered 12 years ago, my piano in the living room... my big, beautiful, shiny black grand piano in the ugly room in the ugly house.  Chopin Nocturnes while I could barely see straight from entirely too much self medication.  One particular time, one especially drunk and down time, I remember my mother complimenting me the next morning, "You sounded really fantastic last night playing.  The best I've heard in years!" 

I don't have a piano anymore.  I can only play at the school.  And then I can't drink.

I used to love my second apartment in Nashville... 359 Mountain High Drive :)  The wonderful apartment with 2 full bathrooms and a balcony and a cat and a piano.  I loved it when I was home alone.. I'd open a bottle of Boone's Farm, because that's all I could afford aside from the whiskey and vodka, and I'd dance and play and drink for hours.

That piano got repossessed when I moved back to Philly.  They should have never given it to me but I'm glad they did.

A colleague came in my room today as I was picking through a Chopin Etude.  "Miss" Olga often eavesdrops while I'm playing I've learned.  "There's just something special when you play classical music.  Something special there that no one else I've ever heard has.  Your touch.... I love it.  I could listen to you all day and all night.  So beautiful!" 

She smiled and left me with the ghost of my Maynard sitting beside me on the bench.