Monday, November 27, 2006

Friendship vs. Romance

She stands at the bar in a crowded, dimly lit room. Music plays and the smell of smoke, perfume, and a hint of sweat fills the air. He enters, sees her at the bar, she hasn't noticed him yet, but a couple seconds later senses his eyes on her. She looks up, smiles, looks away, then looks back and smiles again, tilting her head to the side ever so slightly.

He buries his fear deep inside himself and covers it over with the armor of confidence, smiles back, and closes the distance between them. He sees her face, her smile, her clothes, and the body underneath, and swears he's in love. He buys her a drink, they talk for a few minutes, trying to hear each other over the sound of the local band playing cover songs, and he asks her to dance. They move out onto the dance floor, leaving their drinks behind, and stand close to each other, moving, smelling each other's cologne, feeling the heat from each others' body. No words are needed, no words are possible. Their bodies speak a language all its own and they listen. A couple more rounds of drinks, more music, more dancing, and then a walk out into the fresh, cool air of the night.

The stars are out, there's a warm glow from the drinks and the dancing, and he pulls her close. They kiss, soft at first, and then deeper, longer, more passionately. The heat turns into fire, and it's a brief negotiation, his house or hers. Hers is closer, so they climb the stairs before slamming the door behind them and undressing each other in the dark. Three hours ago they didn't know each other existed, let alone saw each other's bodies in intimate detail, but they're following what comes naturally.

Tomorrow they may be strangers again, or if they're lucky they'll have breakfast, and coffee, and lunch, and then another night, and he'll bring her into his world and she'll bring him to meet her friends. One month later they're doing laundry together. Six months later they're buying fine china. Two years later they wonder what they ever had in common, but for now, this is love. This is what it looks like, what it feels like. This is how relationships go.


Another man, another woman. They talk on the phone, make dinner together, play basketball, send each other birthday gifts. They're friends, and have been for years. He cares about her. She cares about him. They spend hours talking, hours and hours. He knows her family's names, she knows the name of every pet he's ever owned. The night she came home stunned after the death of her friend he was there, holding her. The day his dad died and he felt numb she listened, understanding.

She says it doesn't feel right. It isn't love, because it doesn't look like love should look. It's not perfume and dancing and drinks and smoky bars, and instant, uncontrollable heat. The fire burns, but burns low, a steady flame but not consuming. He tells her there's plenty of kindling he's been saving up that she doesn't know about. He's been storing it away, waiting for the day when the flint strikes and the fire of straw, newspaper and twigs becomes a roaring flame of trees and houses and countrysides. But she warms her hands instead, and throws on another piece of kindling.

Monday, November 20, 2006

Sunday afternoon

It was Sunday afternoon and not too cold for late November. The sun had been out earlier in the day, but now the clouds masked the world over in a thin gray. The wind blew through the naked fingers of the trees, swaying the smallest of the branches and the last of the leaves still clinging tenaciously to their umbilical cord that connected them to summer and the last nutrients of the earth before the winds would finally sever them, and they too would go back into the ground to enrich new generations of spring leaves.

Wearing her oversized green sweatshirt and a stocking cap, Billie Holliday carried the red plastic rake she'd bought from Wal-mart for $5 across the yard, swinging it like a baton, the first song by a band named Flyleaf gearing up on her iPod. She'd gone to church earlier that day, then left after a few songs, unable to continue. She needed to get away and think, she told herself, and so she'd sped out of the parking lot, stopped at Wal-mart, picked up $5 of cheap therapy (aka the rake), and had driven the ten minutes across town for home.

Fall afternoons. Raking leaves. The music had an edgy, gritty feel to it and Billie cranked it up, coccooning herself in a world of noise and the rhythmic scraping of the rake across the grass and dead brown leaves. One foot, and then another, until soon the yard was littered with small mounds of yellow leaves, like dead carcasses piled up after the kill. The grass underneath was still green, still tender and alive, and still very much in need of a last mowing.

Her body began to feel warm and the first trickle of sweat ran its way down her back. Her breathing became uneven, and she had to remind herself to take deep breaths as she raked. In spite of the cold, a glowing warmth began to spread its way into her arms, her legs, and feet. She began to remember how much she enjoyed this, being outside, working in the yard, feeling like she was taking care of a piece of her world, taming it, nurturing it, making it beautiful. She didn't care that this wasn't her yard, that she was renting it. For now, it made her feel like she was part of something.

Feeling part of something hadn't come easily. The last two years she'd been a leaf, blowing on the wind. She'd started out at the bottom, a sales rep for a computer firm, and when she'd agreed to commute six hours to Cleveland 2-3 days a week to close a $5 million deal with a potential client, she told herself the fast-track promotion would make it worth it. But then Carlye got another deal for $6 million, out of Grand Rapids, in less time and became Billie's supervisor.

It hadn't helped that her dad had died in the midst of this. He lived in Tennessee, but she'd called him at least twice a week. Now she was alone, with no one to talk to, her life heading quickly into a tailspin. She submitted her resignation and transferred to a company in Illinois. It would be a new start, she said, a redo and a chance to meet new people. Maybe feel connected again.

She continued to rake the piles together, combining them, pushing them toward the edge of the yard until a small mounded wall had grown up about two feet high around the perimeter, a boundary between green grass and the gray, lifeless concrete road. The dead leaves and gravel underneath served as a "no man's land" between them.

The phone was set to silent in her pocket. No one usually called, but today she wouldn't have talked with them if they had. Today she felt lonely, alone. She didn't know why she did this, but on days like this she turned the phone off, a conscious choice, a cutting free of the tether. She was a leaf blowing on the wind, cut off from her lifeline and rootedness, but at the same time no longer bound to the pressures of fitting in, of worrying about whether someone would call, or feeling the silent disapproval of not being enough. Knowing no one would call and choosing to not answer were differences by degree, she knew, but it was that space of her choosing that made a difference. Somehow she had control, she could wrap the aloneness around herself like a blanket and find solitude within it. Tomorrow she'd call someone. Tomorrow. But for right now, it was time to swim in silence. The last song ended, and she could once again hear the wind blowing past her ears, feel it through her hair.

There had been other days like this: going on hayrides on farm tractors and back country roads, trying to stay warm and not fall off the wagon, trying to stuff her friends as scarecrows without getting hay stuffed in undesirable places between her own clothes. When the hayride was over there'd be a roaring fire, hot chocolate, chili, and after that marshmallows that would blacken at the edges and burn her fingers as she'd try to pull the sticky mass off the stick before popping its warmth into her mouth.

There was pulling up cornstalks and tomato and pepper vines and rotten zucchini and squash into a mound in the center of the garden where her dad would stuff gaps at the bottom with newspaper and light a match as they stood there watching the flames for over an hour, the dying embers of the summer produce.

She fumbled in her pocket for a lighter. She squatted down near the edge of the pile she'd brushed into her makeshift wall, heard her knees pop, placed her thumb on the cold metal wheel of the lighter, then flicked it hard. A small flame shot up, orange and yellow with a faint hint of blue at the center, and she passed it close to the dead leaves, back and forth, until they began to smoke, blacken, and then catch with yellow flame. She stood up, stepped back and watched as the flames licked slowly at first, then hungrily, then combined together and took hold. The leaves were ablaze, sending out enough heat that she had to take a step back. She turned and walked toward the house, hearing the wind blow and the crackle of flame ending the silence.

Saturday, November 18, 2006

Dreams

It's late at night and I'm looking for a hotel. In this dream I'm married, and have a family. My wife's Latina--short, petite, with dark hair, brown eyes and olive skin: beautiful--and we have two children, a girl and a boy, 6 and 2. We stop at a hotel run by a Hispanic man I seem to know well. He has a room for us waiting, a suite with glass doors leading to a balcony and soft queen-sized beds, but we're standing outside in the parking lot, struck by how dark it is. There's an outdoor pool, and I'm afraid my daughter will fall in and I won't be able to find her. In fact, at some point in the dream she dives in and starts swimming and I have to jump in, clothes and all, to pull her out.

She's fine, she's a good swimmer, but my heart is pounding in my chest and I then remember that my cell phone is in my pocket. I check it to see if it's gotten soaked, but somehow my pocket seems to be almost waterproof and my cell phone only has some condensation on it. It still works. I exhale a sigh of relief. I feel like I may need it later.

The hotel manager looks around nervously, fidgeting while he talks in broken English. We shouldn't be out here. It's not safe after dark. I have a bicycle and hide it in the branches of a tree, and park my car under a bush so it won't be easily seen, and we take our suitcases in to the hotel. We came here to vacation during holiday between teaching semesters. I've brought a book and have been looking forward to some much needed rest and unscheduled time with my family, but realize now it won't be as peaceful as I'd hoped.

We've just gotten settled into our room, the kids are sleeping on a bed and I hear broken glass coming from down the hall, in the direction of the main lobby. "I'll go check it out," I say, though the look in my wife's eyes is one of terror, and I wonder if it'd be better if I stay here with her and our kids in case someone else comes, or if I should go out to meet whatever is out there. I decide to leave.

Outside our room, there's a large indoor swimming pool and fountain. Although you could swim in it, it's mostly used for decoration. The fountain has been turned off for the night, and the jacuzzi/hot tub at one end has shut down, but there are bushes and small trees around the edge of the pool, to give it the look of an outdoor paradise. Unfortunately, it also provides excellent cover for anyone who might be hiding.

I hear a splash in the water and see a deer bounding out of the pool. It had come inside for a drink, but had gotten spooked by the presence of a human. I almost laughed with relief as I saw it find the exit and make its way through an open door outside. Maybe that was the noise.

But I didn't think so. There was something else. A warning sense keeps my adrenaline pumping and all my reflexes and senses on high alert. There had been patrols of gangs outside, shootings, the once safe neighborhood was now a place of terror and I grieved the loss of another safe haven. The hotel had been our getaway, and we had stayed here whenever we were in the area. My wife and I had honeymooned here. We had struck up a friendship with the hotel manager we'd been here so often. And now, I was wondering if we'd get out.

I walk silently down one of the hallways toward the lobby to find the hotel manager crouched down behind the desk, pistol in hand. He doesn't say anything but motions me to stay low and not make any noise. I drop and run low to settle down on the floor next to him. I hear voices outside and they are coming nearer. . .

The next thing I'm outside, my wife and kids are back in the car, and I'm telling them to keep the doors locked. It's pitch black except for a solitary street lamp, but I know we have to get out of here. I run to the car door, lock the door behind me, and start the engine. The radio turns on, and startles me. The car's running, but it's idling rough, and I'm wondering if it has enough juice to get us going. There's a hill we have to climb to get out of the neighborhood, and the way the car's running, I'm not sure we can make it.

We pull out of the hotel parking lot and onto a side street when the car dies. I set the parking brake, but it doesn't hold and the car begins to slide backward. I apply the brakes, and they don't work either, so I jump out of the car and try to push it from behind. The hotel manager joins me and we keep pushing the car, trying to slow it down and get it moving in the opposite direction, but we know we're vulnerable from this position and can get picked off from the shadows. I'm terrified, and my only thought is to get out of this place with my family, all of us still alive. At this point I'm also begging the hotel manager to come with us, because it's no longer safe for him either, but he shakes his head violently and refuses. "It's my home," he says. Everything he owns is here, but I'm afraid he's a captain stubbornly going down with a sinking ship.

We finally get the car running again, drive slowly up the hill (the whole time I'm wondering if we're going to get shot, we're moving too slow), and out of the neighborhood as the dream shifts sequence and my wife, two small children, old jalopy of a car and the hotel manager fade away and I find myself in Rapid Eye Movement to somewhere else.

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Quick Update

The Travelin' Man series will continue. I have some ideas I'd like to work out in my head first, but thanks for your encouragement and for reading on.

For now, a quick break. My parents came into town for a couple days and I'm trying to juggle spending time with them and teaching class. A much needed break from school is coming up (giving thanks for that), so I'm trying to get caught up and limp along mentally until then, between giving lectures on Romantic lit, Hellenistic Art, and getting ready to talk about 19th century realism in Dickens and the gang. Oh yeah, also trying to think up what I'm going to teach for a culture class in ESL (English as a Second Language) tomorrow night. I'm thinking showing clips from Over the Hedge, Memoirs of a Geisha, Respiro, Life is Beautiful, The Last Samurai, and Babette's Feast. Any other ideas? I'd welcome them.

I'll post soon on Go master Chris (the game of Go), and the Zen of shooting hoops (I'm shooting around 78% right now in free throws). All for now. Be back soon.

The Madman