Years and Years
Flower is here visiting me and we were talking about people we know who are having a relationship stumbling block. As all do. We discussed her side and his side and our side and could only agree on the fact that in a relationship even the participants are hard pressed to know all the details of their own truth.
When you try to sit down across from each other and talk about what it is you want, what would make you happy, what you need to thrive, words often fall short. And often you’re scared to speak the words for fear that you might regret what you wished for or worse, get what you ask for.
We went to Jazz Fest yesterday to mingle with the crowds and listen to the beautiful Laura Mvula singing so clearly from the stage and to eat, hear, see and touch all the rest of the Fest and what it has to offer. Jazz Fest has grown too big, too expensive, and is too much – and yet, I still get a thrill from it even when it overwhelms me.
I finally went by and got a book my friend did – she signed it – for years and years. And that’s what it feels like right now. The other day sitting in the coffee shop and looking out the window I spotted a dog with a grey muzzle who I last saw as a puppy. Recently, I passed the house of a friend who no longer lives there because his marriage has disintegrated. I walked by the apartment that was Tin and my holding station between homes. I run into another who tells me that something I wanted so desperately eight years ago has come to pass – and now it’s water under the bridge – the irony escapes me.
I tell my friends about a crush I have now – friends I count on to tell me the truth – they respond: I’ve become so obsessed I’m becoming a bore – I laugh them off but I know my capacity for self deception better than most and I know that if you wait a minute, even obsession becomes indifference, both a part of the same force inside of us.
I am that young girl, that middle age woman, that lover, wife, daughter and friend. I am the girl on fire and the one who collapses on the sofa. I keep turning and turning hoping to smooth out my rough edges only to realize that they don’t really go away, even after years and years.
