49 on 13

49 People.

Just fifty less one people on a plane into a relatively nowhere city. When you say you're flying into New York City, Chicago, or San Francisco the response usually amounts to an excited "oooo!". But say you're flying to Buffalo and you get "oh". Oh, you must know someone there. Oh, you must have a darn good reason. Oh, now where is that?Is that in Wyoming?

Yet on that plane, in those 49 people who sat in seats and landed in flames, were a cantor, an activist for 911 families' rights, an activist who was among the first in this country to sound the alarm on Darfur, an aunt of one friend, & the colleagues of another. Just 49, like taking a metal scoop, dipping it into the giant well of humanity and look what you come up with. Probably there were more than a couple sinners on there, too, like people who might have been unfaithful to a spouse during their sojourn in New York City. Even the saintly among them might have lied to get out of an extra $20 charge at the hotel. "Internet? I didn't use no internet!" Sure, we know who all was on that flight, now. But did THEY know?

But it makes me pause, just to think of what kind of calibur was among just 49 humans flying around in one tin can. Of all those planes I've been on in the past year... who was on there with me? What were their stories? I remember the screaming babies, for sure, and the daffy-professor type who sat next to me coming back from London. But then, too, there was the skinny little man with his even skinnier and littler family, exhausted from having traveled all the way from Myanmar. They were refugees from the typhoon. He held out the large card hanging from a string around his neck to explain himself to me. I could only frown as my imagination filled in the gaps. I said "oh". I made sure he had lots of water and pillows. That was the flight back from... Atlanta? San Francisco? New York? Shit.

It gives me something to think about as I eyeball my fellow fliers for she who clearly brought on luggage too large to be a carry on and he who obviously ate beans for lunch before getting into the seat in front of me. Who are they all, really, beyond the normal sensory offenses which make convenient excuses for distance?

I'm the "one"

Do not look at that oracle again. Do not pick it up. Do not ask the same question you ask every damn time. For just one moment of one day, let it go.

I've had my opinions about what I thought should happen in one situation and what I thought should have happened in another. I wouldn't even have called them opinions at the time, but they were; they were judgments. I thought B~ was a horrible disappointment and that events revealed hideous flaws of character. But I thought that because of my hope and expectations about the direction of our relationship. I really thought we would be in a long term relationship. I could envision him meeting my family or worse, making one. And that will never happen. I can see, now, how my expectations of him proved to mismatch the character he brought to the table. Expectation and hope were the only offenses, really. He was who he was and I came in with an unvocalized demand that the picture we make together look a certain way. Sure, I was willing to do my part to make that happen. But THAT had to happen. This has been the ripple underneath all of my dating escapades - stay with me.

And why do I crave this? It's like some odd obsession whose origins I cannot pin down. It's a chain tethered to some undisclosed location which constantly yanks my thoughts back into the same old rut. Please love me, please stay with me. Not only do I not need this thing I crave, seeking to sate it would be to my great detriment. What if I had married any of those various men I'd pinned hopes and time upon in the past? I'd be miserable! None of them were someone I could have been with for a long time. None of them were 'partners'. And have I ever really wanted a partner? Open the dirty, dark chasm of my mind and what hides in there is a woman shivering with fear and hoping to not face life. She wants someone to hide behind, protect her, hold her hand. That frightened form is a lie.

I feel it already with the Italian. I'm wondering why we don't talk about this or that... go do this or that... why it doesn't feel THIS way. Frankly, it's not supposed to look like anything! He's never ever going to fulfill that secret and unacknowledged fantasy of permanent security. He will never be the perfect partner. He will just be G~ and he'll be around for as long as he or I care to be. I don't know what his soul is up to in this. I don't know what B~'s soul was up to. There's nothing I can take from them. I don't need them to be who I am. What I am here to express will come out regardless. I'm slowly realizing that I'm just simply not here to judge and in not judging I save myself from expectation. In not expecting I take us all off the hook for results.

For a day I give myself a break. I don't let my imagination run anywhere. I don't think of certain people when song lyrics come up. I remind myself that there is no future. And for a bit I feel clean.

I am welcome

At 11 pm the row of lights atop of the Hancock tower blink off. Up here I can look passing clouds in the eye. Up here I look down over buildings as windows shut their eyes and go dark for the night. It's that time again. Time again I'm listening to the sound of him sleeping next to me, sounding like the soft purr of a giant cat. It's time again I look out over the skyline, over the night city, and wonder.

I never know how to figure these out. I can lie here suspecting that this man just won't understand certain parts of me. But roll the tape back even one month to a man I thought did understand. Re-hear his talk; the sweet and understanding language. Hold his subsequent behavior up to the light and observe what hideous revelation of character eventually brought into view. His soul rotted in self-pity, his mind full of drink: it's sad to watch someone fall so perilously far short of the person they could be. Sad for him. I step over the body and move on with amazing alacrity.

Perhaps expecting someone to "care", to "understand", is simply too much and too gooey a goal to really understand in physicality should it arrive at the door. What does this understanding look like? What does it sound like? What does it ACT like? Perhaps it's a gift one only gives yet truly releases the strings. Maybe the math on feeling "known" will never balance out. It's fruitless effort on an impossible equation. I look around my full life and don't know what it is I want or somehow think I need. There's nothing, really, nothing I need. But the question of how can I just not hurt one more person with selfish behavior for one more day persists. I'd like to say that I would like someone to be good to. But is that, too, selfish? What spark of my own happiness am I expecting to come flying out of some man? Why am I here? The horns atop the tower blink red, warning planes and keeping a pace for all insomniacs of the city. What do I do here, god? How am I to be authentic, here, today?

Roll over and watch him sleep, face relaxed in an unconscious lack of expression. It's the same face I see as he answers the door or cleans up after me when I spill precious chocolate milk in the kitchen. He wears only his own face and there's no denying it's simply beautiful. He shuffles slightly, perhaps sensing my regard from the distance of his dream. Settling back in, his purring returns. I hate to admit it. It will feed right into that big Italian ego, but he really is the best lover. I doubt the oracle telling me to 'go ahead with this' every day, but when has certainty ever been a guarantee? Never.

I retrieved the cracked offerings of my affection from him who tossed them back so carelessly. And I'm fine. It was mine to keep all the time & I'm certainly not less anything in the attempt. Maybe I try too hard to give away that which I should be keeping.

As we part in the morning, wishing each other good day with a peck, it hits me just what I'm seeking. I want him to tell me outright, in that very moment, that he wants me to see me back as soon as possible, wants to call me, looks forward to seeing me again. I'm just looking for a welcome. Just another person hoping their heart doesn't die homeless. So that's what it is.

Unusually warm air kisses my face as I step out into a sun drenched morning. Saunter down the street like a soft jazz song plucked on a Les Paul. Despite all my thinking, who couldn't smile, now?

Mi dispiace

"Can I make a request?"

"Sure...."

"Can you wear nice shoes? A skirt would be nice, but can you wear nice shoes?"

What?! My comfy sneakers and earth shoes aren't so appealing? Those birkenstocks I wore on Saturday didn't turn him on? I know where it's coming from. He's trying to say "I like you to look sexy... and you mostly do... but you're missing a spot" I know I've worn rather overly comfortable shoes each time I've been near him - mostly because those are the shoes that won't make me too tall. I don't like to feel big. Well, if he wants to see what happens when I turn on the power of tower... god help him. But I'm no fashion maven and suddenly every pair of shoes in my closet falls into question. Are you a 'nice' shoe? I have one pair of Italian leather boots...maybe those...? What will go with those? what skirt? Darn it! It's never just about the shoes!

It says something when the first words you make the attempt to learn in your new lover's native language are "I'm sorry". Mi dispiace. Even worse that I figure how to get the pronunciation right from a Madonna song.

The fun might wear off at some unknown point and then we're two people wondering what we're doing together and what happens, exactly, when we're apart. Does she see other people? Is he still on the prowl? At this point in life you'd think I'd be better at pushing these questions early. But this isn't about knowing - I don't want to know shit. It's about forgetting. It's about forgetting those people who've kicked us both to the curb in favor of wallowing in their own drama and self pity. Those people made the mistake of not reciprocating such freely offered adoration. It's about not looking over our shoulder at the world collapsing outside. We've picked up what's left of our souls and come to this place 47 floors up to watch the sun rise over the lake. Here on this island we're happy and have hope that pleasure can outlast erosion.

Purple coat lady

I see her again at the corner. Same purple coat, same rolling backpack and hand bag next to her. She walks back and forth, back and forth, never getting on a bus, never walking into an office. I ran into her the other night in the Cultural Center. I was marching toward some lecture, she was marching toward a warm seat. We show up in many of the same places, both of us in our long coats and toting worldly goods for the day. But the subtle differences make a world of difference. One of us looks like our steps have a purpose, the other actually has one.

On some days the differentiation is slim. I could dissect and twitter myself endlessly, trying to outline a life but find it to have been thin on purpose as I put head to pillow in the end. What goes through her head, I wonder? I notice her at her corner just after I finished playing chicken with a cabbie who proves to not possess the stones to send me into the afterlife. I'd like to stay with her, on that corner, pacing next to her, to see what it's like. I'm sure my head would not be empty at all but would soon fill with demons a-plenty. The tide of mental pollution I push away with purpose, a prayer and a job title would rise and flood my mind. The rush might drown reason but also cover a multitude of sad and sorry-smelling sins.

"I wish he'd just get off the pity pot, wipe his ass and live - plenty of people's father's get cancer. I hope he remembers to give me my book back.

I wonder how she is today. The furnace just go replaced, next the roof needs insulation, the well needs to be re-dug and the bathroom walls - shit the bathroom walls.

If that bitch bugs me about my weight again I'll scream! Don't people know how rude it is to comment about another person's weight? Jees!

I shouldn't have said that, or that or that. Shit it's 9 am and I haven't managed to do a single thing right today."

Soon enough my simple bag would also spill over with the detritus of life that must be carried around. What would the world look like? Would it be more frightening or would it in fact prove to be a simpler landscape of impressions and associations? Absent of the details of the day I could wander in a city of my own thoughts - lost. I want to know, for real, but don't have the time to find out.

Past purple coat lady I push up the street to the office building where I work. She didn't start out as the woman who wandered around downtown, I'm sure. Did she start like me and simply find the slippery tide of depression and confusion too tempting? Hard to say. That fall lands us all in different places somewhere between loss of appetite to loss of mind. I run into her at a corner sometimes. Out of habit or concern she looks both ways before crossing the street. Me, I've stopped bothering to look.

The dirt of winter

I don't much mind the dead of winter, it's the dirt of winter I take issue with. Snow, rock hard from days of varying temperature never getting quite warm enough to melt the lot but merely render it into a colder kind of concrete, is like a blank sheaf of paper. Each page dropped from the sky successively records the detritus of the day. A cross section, on view maybe against the glass wall of a bus stop, reveals the sedimentary layers of city in winter. Snow bergs rise from the dirt, the dusty chalk of Chicago air and snow frozen and refrozen into ice.

Its safe to go out with just shoes on for even though two feet of snow still lay upon the ground the works is packed down enough by feet that one can make a way down the street. It's not just the cold that restricts the motion, though. Jaywalking, straying and cutting corners are not options on sidewalks hemmed in by piles of snow yick. More and more the page is dotted with yellow-orange stains and dog poos left behind in favor of hurrying home out of the cold. Someday when the works melts it will liberate months worth of garbage, doggy do, and things long ago dropped and unable to locate in the snow. Someday the grit held in the snow will lie all over the grass, all over the sidewalk and street. It will be as if the sky had rained grit and poo. It will be worth it just to jay walk again.

How fortunate are we

When it comes in great torrents, it's so easy to confuse the blessing of fresh water falling with a curse. But the rain, each drop, is only in and of itself intending to bless. Its volume, its timing, merely makes us confused. What it washes away, the attachment and appearance of things hoped for, longed for, worked for, these are the curse we place rain upon our own heads.

But am I brave enough to hang there, let this rain flood my life, erode those things not anchored too tight in the truth? I'm afraid. But what does that prove? If fear constantly won over creativity we'd still live in caves.

How fortunate to have employment to loose, how fortunate to have the love that might relocate, how fortunate is the healthy body sweating its way through 2 hours of yoga. Being is the blessing - its appearance, whether in him, her, it, or that, merely changes shape and appearance as it reflects our life. It will always find some new circumstance in which to manifest, should one get washed away. Life reflects being like the raindrop falling, always falling, to ground.