I shouldn’t read her blog at 1:30 in the morning when I should be outside talking on the phone to someone who is not her but is closer to her than I am (physically, anyway). It’s a dumb thing to do because I am suddenly torn between me-now and me-then, and why do I have to check so many times to see that the answer is always the same? Of course it is, because she’s so amazing, so strong and so incredible that she didn’t need me just yet… but soon. And that’s another story.
Doesn’t make sense? Heh, you should see the inside of my head. It’s really scary in there because it does make sense.
I was digging through the secrets of the universe, organizing them into neat little packages so that they could be mapped into eternity… and, no, that’s not a euphemism. That’s really how I spend my weekends now. So, as I said, I was turning over stones and leaves (and that is a euphemism) and while listening to a very poorly-produced podcast (that was, nevertheless, extremely enlightening), I found myself wandering over there…
Have you ever gone back to a neighborhood that you knew so well, so intimately, that you had to be on your guard to not end up somewhere you didn’t intend to go? Like walking again through Old East Dallas and not ending up at my art teacher’s house, or taking that hidden side-alley behind the church into Deep Ellum, or walking out of the movie theater – the one that’s been there since the 1920s – and finding yourself suddenly staring in shock at a real estate office that used to be a perfect little restaurant. I am shocked that I am not at my car, which is where I meant to go… A real estate office? Really? Well, back before the fire, it was something altogether different…
I think my self-work has released so many linchpins that I am now surprised to have feelings and memories that appear, at first, to be unrelated. In my head, I can hear the music from a club thumping four doors down and across the street from the cafe– no, not a cafe. It was a coffee shop. (There’s a difference.) The music thumping from down the street, making concentric circles in my overly-sweet coffee, a different flavor every time I refilled (no, this was before Cafe Brazil, but that’s a good guess), and my father is not my father but a friend that I hang out with, and that makes it …
I’m standing at the hostess station at Dixie House, waiting for customers, feeling too small in my clothes that are too big, but they don’t make clothes for people like me. Back then, I was perfectly proportioned but set at 70% reduction in the copier. Now it’s only 85%. The light is streaming through the windows that are still smudged despite having been cleaned three times already, and the angle of it adds an ethereal glow that is only possible immediately following a pounding spring rain that came, decided it didn’t like what was on the menu, and left. A man walks in and banters with humor, and it’s the first time that I laugh at a pun that is not made by a relative.
In the mind-map in my head, I know how they are related, and the One of me is amused that the Other of me is confused. It’s a kind amusement, not cruel or mean, and meant to be educational.
Also, Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream has wheat in it. Which totally explains my little paranoid freak-out between the last paragraph and this one. Of course, if my paranoid fit turns out to be true, I will feel like an idiot for writing this, but I can say with 90% certainty that it is just paranoia and nothing precognitive. (That 10% is an asshole.)
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