Dangermond.org

When is enough ever enough? I have counted the minutes (34,560), the hours (576), the days (24) of this separation – to think the first leg of it was to be two and a half months – as if! – and I know we will have to endure half this time again soon – and yet, this morning my breath quickens, my heart is heavy, my thoughts feel a dull hammer beating out this mantra “the third time will be longer, it will be 32 days, 768 hours, 46,080 minutes” – ay dios mio! – I tell myself to be present – to say, “Rachel, today, she comes home in 7 days, so YIPPEE!” – but my mind keeps creeping back to what is on the horizon – she says, “but it is the last separation” – and I think in my petty way – last, first, middle, whatever, I’d rather have already endured it, than know it is coming. Then I catch myself between a smile and a scowl – she’s coming home soon – T minus 7 days!!! and she will go away soon T minus 11 days!!! And then T minus 32 days – how will I suffer it? Then I say, we’ll have weeks together before that happens. Yes I say to my self. Self, I say, you can bear it. Then self answers – NO I CANNOT, look what 24 days did to me! And I say – it’s back and forth these things I say – swinging from pole to pole – I love her and can bear it, I love her and CANNOT bear it, I love her and can bear it. 

By August Kleinzahler Copyright 1999 by August Kleinzahler

---

Watching Young Couples with an Old Girlfriend On Sunday Morning – How mild these young men seem to me nowwith their baggy shorts and clouds of musk, as if younger brothers of the women they escort in tight black leather, bangs and tattoos, cute little toughies, so Louise Brooks annealed in MTV, headed off for huevos rancheros and the Sunday Times at some chic, crowded dive. I don’t recall it at all this way, do you ? How sweetly complected and confident they look, their faces unclouded by the rages and abandoned, tearful couplings of the night before, the drunkenness, beast savor and remorse. Or do I recoil from their youthfulness and health? Oh, not recoil, just fail to see ourselves. And yet, this tenderness between us that remains was mortared first with something dark, something feral, we still refuse, we still refuse to name. 

City Park has workers a plenty cleaning up for Jazz Fest. All of the gardens have been planted including mine. Orange cones are appearing around peoples’ driveways. I even heard music and microphones being tested today. Well that could have been from the symphony in the park or it could have been from a neighbor. But the Jazz Fest hum is starting to rise and by Friday this time – it will have entered all of us living around the Fairgrounds.  

I spoke to a couple of friends this evening and all of them are stressed with work and relationships and I thought good grief, maybe at some point it should make you relax to know that everyone has some sort of stress and some sort of relationship they are working through – whether out of or into or through – and so maybe you need to have little reminders built in – things that tell you you’ve done a good job even if you haven’t completed your to do list, or that you were a good partner even if you didn’t do everything perfect, or that you helped the company you work for even if you feel like pulling your hair out. Sometimes you just have to pat yourself on the back and say, hey I didn’t hurt anyone, I did some good here, and now I deserve a break today. 

There was a sign on the bayou – that read YOU WANT THIS CAT! – and went on to describe a rare type of Siamese cat that had been rescued in the storm and who had orange tip markings. I told T – she said check him out – and so I went to check him out. But something about everything wasn’t right – I had shades of Rusty when I saw him – the orange tabby that ripped me to shreds and scared the holy shit out of me when I took him while I was living at the Can – and although Snow did finally warm up to me a bit after sitting and waiting, I never could get passed his slanted distrustful eyes. Or maybe it was the beer on the breath of the owner. Or perhaps the way Snow’s white fur came off in clumps as the owner rubbed him, littering the hardwood floor in the foyer with piles that grew to tumbleweeds in no time. Or maybe it was the way the back story never aligned – that the owner couldn’t have cats in the apartment – but turns out he has another cat that doesn’t get along with Snow – or that he had a posse of feral cats with his girlfriend uptown but now he is here with what? one feral cat? two feral cats? A couple of cats and a penchant for beer before noon? Or maybe it was his desire for us to be buddies – to network since we are both writers – something about the encounter seemed to make me recoil as if it would all end messy if I stayed one more minute. 

Finally after Mike, then Joe, and now Vince came to fix the air conditioning – I think we’ve nailed it by Jove! Vincent explained in detail, the most thorough detail ever, about how my air conditioning system works – by the time he was finished my eyes had frosted over. But the good news is that it WORKS! Hooray. Tonight, I sleep. 

When I was a little girl, adults used to tell me to calm down, don’t get so excited, speak slowly. It irked me. When I was nine years old, my teacher wrote on the blackboard, “Rachel, Rachel, where art thou, everywhere unfortunately” because I raised my hand for every question [nonetheless he adored me]. I am prone to excess. J calls me Zia. What I love about T is that she nudges me towards my center. This morning, after we talked, I was walking Loca in the park, it was late in the morning, because I hadn’t slept all night, and I was a little bit in a daze, and a lot of bit pensive about our conversation. I stumbled onto a different path and as I was walking, I was enchanted by the landscape – huge Louisiana oaks spreading their thick twisted branches to the ground – enormous canopies with moss draped fat across the limbs. It was a new way of seeing them. I looked around and wondered why they looked different and noticed that I was not following the path to the right near the lagoon, nor the path to the left by the road, but instead had taken the middle walkway – how appropriate, I smiled. I know I am excessive – but she tames me with a gentle touch – she doesn’t douse my flame, she adjusts it to burn just so. And that is why I want her back. 

My mother hoards – her mother spares. My country lends itself to excessive eating – her country rations. My body is voluptuous – hers is lithe.  Here we smile – there they scowl. I was raised in an ancient religion – she in a communist godlessness. I am light – she is dark. The differences fade to black when the similarities are so striking. 

Daily Affirmation

April 23, 2008

Today I manage my needs and wants, all the details of my life, according to the larger vision I have created for myself.

 

Hopefully to dream of tranquil thoughts – the sea coast of Croatia, swimming in the ocean, and peace on earth. Bush said this week that we are not in a recession (read: head up his ass). The superstitious believe you shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth – my horse rode in and I keep yelling from the rafters how great she is – it’s hard to tone down exuberance and excitement and joy – but if any of my zealousness has the potential to blanket this fire, to suffocate this desire, or to reverse the course then I would rather wear barb wire around my chest, stick pins in my eyes and walk on glass than yell above a whisper that we are invincible – because I know too well the fragility of life, the slow fade of love and this morning, in my groggy clarity, I know my greatest fear, that this is all a dream from which I will awake.