The truth in signs

"Perhaps the most misunderstood of all the major arcana, the Devil is not really "Satan" at all, but Pan the half-goat nature god and/or Dionysius. 

These are gods of pleasure and abandon, of wild behavior and unbridled desires. With Capricorn as its ruling sign, this is a card about ambitions; it is also synonymous with temptation and addiction. 

On the flip side, however, the card can be a warning to someone who is too restrained, someone who never allows themselves to get passionate or messy or wild - or ambitious. This, too, is a form of enslavement. As a person, the Devil can stand for a man of money or erotic power, aggressive, controlling, or just persuasive. This is not to say a bad man, but certainly a powerful man who is hard to resist. 

The important thing is to remember that any chain is freely worn. In most cases, you are enslaved only because you allow it."

Let me make it very clear at the outset...  I don't believe in astrology or fate or destiny or any other deterministic philosophy.  And yet, I do find it utterly fascinating just how closely I resemble the God associated with the Capricorn sign (my sign).

What makes me shake my head now is just how hard and for how many years I've fought against those qualities that I now embrace.  The drive, the desire to be in control, the passion, the explosive bursts of emotion - all of the things that I was brought up and taught to suppress, all of them are right there.  All of them are me. 

Pleasure and abandon, wild behavior, unbridled desires - all of these are things that I spent so many years fighting and tamping down.  My upbringing was filled with admonitions to keep quiet, to not show emotion, to keep my feelings to myself, to not get too excited.  Those admonitions were repeated and harped on for so many years that at some point I've flipped to the other extreme...  Too restrained, too rational, someone who never allowed herself to get passionate or messy or wild.  Someone who forced herself to pretend for years that the farce of a life she was living was what she was supposed to be content with.

Do you know what the absolute worst of it was?  The very worst of it was when the person who spent so many years telling me to control my emotions accused me of being cold and unfeeling and told me to learn to show my feelings.  Now how is that for irony?

I am who I am and I won't apologize for it.   To anyone.

The elephant in the room

Last night, looking for something to watch, I stumbled on a series of shows that I've never seen before and within minutes I was engrossed in it.  The show itself isn't important, the reason I mention it here is this...  in the middle of the second episode, I burst into tears.  The scene that caused the breakdown?  A seduction scene.

A masterfully done seduction scene.

A believable seduction scene and one that reminded me in all its painful reality just how long it's been since I've experienced that same simmering rise of passion and explosion of desire.  I burst into tears because I was suddenly reminded of what that feels like.  I wanted to rewind the show and watch it over and over again, but the build-up wouldn't have been there and the scene would have lost its appeal.  The same elements that made it feel so real made it impossible to replicate on demand.

And now to the elephant...  Need I be explicit?  The preceding paragraphs should be enough of a clue.

We don't talk about it.  It's there, in the forefront of my mind, but we don't talk about it.  The few times I tentatively brought it up, it was acknowledged and the conversation died there.

My previous marriage left me with some fairly deep emotional scars and one thing that I've always loved in my relationship with J is that I didn't need to fear rejection or worry about being desired or wanted.  In whatever ways we may have been incompatible, passion or desire for each other was never one of them.  Except that now I can't help but question that certainty.  When days go by I can ascribe it to tiredness, when weeks go by, I can attribute it to stress, but when months go by...

What scares me most is that I have almost accepted the status quo.  Almost...  And then a scene like the one I saw last night comes along and I'm stabbed with the full knowledge of just what it is that I'm giving up and tacitly agreeing to live without.

The elephant in the room is making me cry.

When does "tired" become plain old "depressed"?

Yesterday someone asked me if I'm all right, if anything is wrong.  Actually, three different people asked at various points through the day.  One of them is the kind of person that you know, if he's asking, you must look like you're about to keel over on the spot.  To all these inquiries, I mustered up some enthusiasm, smiled, and replied that I'm fine, just a little tired.

The inquiries got me thinking though...

I have been tired.

I've been tired for days, actually for weeks, actually, since before Christmas.  Realizing how long it's been made me wonder.  Am I really tired?  It's not a physical exhaustion - my lifestyle is depressingly sedentary. I haven't been sleep deprived nor do I have trouble falling or staying asleep, and yet, I wake up most days feeling just as exhausted as I did when I went to bed.  I feel wrung out and listless.  Does that qualify as tired?

I tried to chalk it up to the stress of my new position.  And it's true, my new job role has been taking up a lot of time and has been very stressful.  But if I'm honest (and if you're writing a blog, what's the point in being anything but honest?) I've had periods that were a lot more stressful in the past and I had woken up each morning buzzing with energy and determination to get through it, to learn as quickly as I can, to do well, to do better, to push myself.  I'm not feeling that now.  So, to get to the heart of this post...  Am I tired or am I depressed?

I am so terrified of the latter possibility...  It's a sinkhole.  I've been there before and I can't go through that again.  I won't go through it again.  Twice through that particular Hell was enough.  I won't make it through it again.

I don't know what to do to fix this.

I don't know that there's anything I can do to fix this.

I could go to a therapist, but that hasn't worked before and I doubt it will work now.

I could talk to my friend, but she is not here and while I miss her desperately, talking via email or even on the phone isn't the same.

I miss her so much, it's a physical ache that takes my breath away and makes me want to howl.  She was a colleague; in fact, a colleague I interviewed and advocated hiring.  She and I became friends almost instinctively and then she moved away.  I wish more than anything that she could be here.  I wish we could go for a walk and talk and cry.  I miss her wisdom and her laughter and her "buck up and deal with it" advice that I'm sure to get if I were to lay out my issues.  I just miss her.

I hate feeling sorry for myself.  I hate feeling defeated or beaten down.  Normally, it triggers my instinct to resist and fight, but not today.  Today, I just want to lie down, curl up, hug my cat and cry myself to sleep.  And there isn't a damn thing I can or want to do about it.

Death

Yesterday afternoon my father called to tell me that my grandmother passed away.

The phone call was not entirely unexpected - my grandmother was 91 years old and had weathered more in her life than most people her age.  She lived through the war and evacuation, through losing both of her parents when she was barely a teenager and losing her husband when they still had many years ahead of them.  She went through immigration in her seventies and made a life in a new country with a new language.  And through it all, she remained a source of strength for her family until the end.
 
I don't know any of the details of her passing, she died half a world away from me, but I hope it was peaceful and painless.  I know enough to know that she would not have wanted to linger and so from that standpoint, it's a blessing.

My memories of my grandmother center around her role in my life through my childhood and until my family left Soviet Union.  I was closer to her than I was to anyone else in my family.  I don't remember a time when she didn't figure prominently in my life.  I remember myself as a tense, nervy, and anxious child, but my time with my grandmother was my reprieve from the anxieties of regular life.  The happiest moments of my childhood center around my grandmother.

I remember going to my grandmother's house, traveling on two trolleys or buses, then walking from the bus stop, feeling my heart thud louder with every step, running as far ahead of my parents as they would let me, and then finally dashing up the final alleyway, bursting through the gate to the little yard before the one-story house and yelling, "Grandma!  I came to see you for a million days!"  Even when I got older and was allowed to go and visit on my own, I would keep to the same ritual, laughing as I spoke the same words.

I was a sickly child, constantly struggling with colds and various other childhood ailments that caused me to miss many days of preschool and kindergarten.  I would spend most of the week at my grandmother's house while my parents worked.  I remember going down for a nap in the afternoon on the couch in my grandmother's living room.  Above that couch hung a large intricately patterned rug.  I would fall asleep on the couch and when I would wake up, before opening my eyes, I would turn toward the wall and then open my eyes.  I remember the feeling of hot contentment and happiness that would flood through me as I saw the rug and knew that I was at my grandmother's house.

My grandmother was the sole person who I felt loved me just as I was.  I never felt that she wanted me to be better, smarter, more courteous, more accomplished than I already was.  Her love truly came with no strings attached.  I have never felt as accepted as I did when I was with her.  I was no angel, but I never felt inadequate with her.  She had the gift of encouraging me to be better without implying that I wasn't good enough already.

Children are innately selfish and I'm sure I was as well.  I am sure that I took her love as a given, but I hope that I never took it for granted, I just didn't know of any way of repaying her other than showing her how much I wanted to be with her.

Although my grandmother passed away yesterday, I had truly lost her twenty two years ago when my parents took my brother and me to the United States and my grandmother stayed behind in Moldova.  She later immigrated to Israel with my aunt and her family, but we were still an unbridgeable distance apart.  The relationship I had with my grandmother was what sustained me through my childhood and losing it was beyond traumatic.  I'd like to say that it took me years to recover, but in truth, I'm not sure I ever truly recovered, I think I just learned to accept it. 

Ever since my father's phone call, I've had a series of movie clips slowly unfurling in the back of my mind.  Long forgotten memories resurfacing...  Most memories bringing with them short bursts of the calm contentment that I experienced back when those memories were formed.  It's a bittersweet experience because I've never since felt that kind of an overwhelming sense of childish happiness.  When we left Soviet Union, I tried to block all thoughts of my time with my grandmother because the pain of losing her was more than I could bear and so I don't think I ever properly grieved for the loss of that closeness.  Now when the intervening years had dulled the pain, I can relive the memories and appreciate the happiness they contain without drowning in the grief of their loss. 

My grandmother's love and influence have left an indelible imprint on my life and although I've never properly thanked her, I hope that she knew how much she meant to me.  I wouldn't be the person I am today if it weren't for her and for that I will be forever thankful.

До свидания, бабушка.

Spend money on what makes you happy

Recently I read a post about how we choose what to spend money on.  The general premise is that we all have things that we know we must spend money on (mortgage, car insurance, groceries, etc.) and then we have things that are optional.  Now imagine that all of those necessities are taken care of and you have all the money you could want to spend on things you choose.

You are supposed to ask yourself what would you spend that money on?  The general idea here is that even if you have unlimited funds, you will likely end up spending it on things you imagine will make you happy, but in reality won't.  By going through this exercise, you should come to a realization that it's not lack of money that's keeping you from getting things that would make you happy, it's the choices you make.

It's not a novel concept, I've seen the same line of thought in numerous other posts and articles, especially on sites aimed at women. Usually, I just breeze by it but this time it got me thinking.  If I had unlimited funds, what would I buy?  The answer took less time than it took to formulate the question...

Nothing.

I wouldn't buy anything for the simple reason that I don't lack for anything that I can buy.  Sure, I could find things to spend money on - books, pens, notebooks, office supplies - but there is nothing in particular that I am pining for and feel unable to afford.  I don't want ridiculously expensive jewelry or clothes.  I don't need a huge house or a car that costs more than I earn in a year.  My tastes just don't run to things like that.

For me money is not a purchasing tool, it's a symbol of security.  If I had all the money I could want, I would save it.  How much money would I need to have saved in order to feel secure?  A million?  Five?  Ten?  I can't quantify it - security is priceless.

The feeling of security is what I would spend money on if I had all the money in the world.

Playing

It's been so long since I've "played" that I prefer not to think about it...

It's no one's fault...

It's everyone's fault...

It's life's fault.

What does it matter, really?

The truth is, playing is a bit like exercise... The more you do it, the more you want to do it.  It's a rush unequal to any other - mental and physical.  The build up and release are intoxicating.  But, as with intense exercise, once you stop doing it for a while, it's difficult to pick it back up again.  And the more time passes, the more intimidating it seems to step back into the groove that once felt so familiar.

If you haven't played for a while and then you get a chance to, you want to make up for lost time, to pick up where you left off.  But if  you try to do that, you end up taking stupid risks, pushing yourself and getting hurt (and not in a good way).

Or, worse, you end up frustrated because the high just isn't there and instead there is just straightforward pain and discomfort and the mental release never comes.  That feeling of being cheated of your expectations, of not getting what you got before is worse than not playing at all.  Being disappointed by a scene is like having mediocre sex without release - it may have seemed worth it at the time, but in the end it really isn't.

There is no substitute for playing for me...  I've tried other diversions, other ways of disconnecting my brain, but nothing ever provided the same kind of overwhelming relief.  And sure, I could ask permission and perhaps play with someone else, but I have no interest in doing that.  Playing has always meant J, even when we weren't together.   There is no substitute for playing and there's no substitute for J.

So, if playing is not going to be an option for now...  Perhaps it's time to revisit other, however unequal, pursuits.

Recipe for a very bad evening:

• One three minute long conversation;
• One cracked, if perhaps not broken heart;  
• As many questions as you can think of;
• As few answers as occur to you when you're too exhausted to think any more;
• A pinch of doubt
• A dash of self-pity
• Lots of tears

Mix all the ingredients and then tell yourself that you've survived before and will again.  

And believe it.

Today is one of those days when I'm seething with irritation.  I haven't had one of those in a while...

There have recently been days when I've gnashed my teeth in annoyance, when I've had to work hard to hold back tears of frustration, when I didn't manage to hold back tears of sadness.  And then there were days when the turmoil of constantly changing emotions made me wonder just what I was feeling anyway.

Today there's no question - today I'm really, really irritated.  Granted, my tolerance level for bullshit is particularly low these days.

I think it's fair to say that this will go down as the absolutely most wretched holiday season in the history of my life.  At least I hope this is as bad as it gets because I don't think I can handle one that's worse than this one has been so far.  I've had a really rough couple of weeks...  it's hard to believe it's only been that long, feels like it's been months.  Every hour felt stretched and magnified, a bit like looking at the back of your hand under the magnifying glass.  You know all those pores are there but you don't really think about them.  Just like you know there are all those minutes in all those hours in all those days that normally pass you by unnoticed, but once you stop and really pay attention to it, you realize just how long a single hour can take.

Time has taken on a different dimension these past two weeks.  I haven't been able to eat which isn't a bad thing in and of itself, but for me it's highly unusual.  I haven't really been sleeping well and I wake up in the morning still feeling like I'm nowhere near ready to face the day.

I've made a decision.  A decision that will affect multiple lives.  A decision that I hope is the right one, but I don't really know.  Does anyone really know if a decision is the right one?  I think it is.  I'd like to believe it is.  Because if it isn't, then it will be a whole lot of upheaval for something that will turn out to be a very costly mistake.

I'm rambling a bit, I know...  I am actually, quite spectacularly drunk at the moment.  The "I can't stand up without help" kind of drunk.  It's not an accident, I got drunk quite on purpose.  When the bartender asked what I would like, my answer to him was "I'm trying to figure out how quickly and how drunk I want to get."  Nick (the bartender) has known me long enough to know not to ask any other questions. So, I'm on my second gin and tonic and I'm feeling no pain.

And now that I've had enough to drink to effectively pickle my brain, my irritation doesn't seem nearly as important.  Did I mention that it's my birthday today?  Happy birthday to me...

What binds us

We are all bound... 

By circumstances of our birth, circumstances of our lives, responsibilities, needs, desires, repercussions of past deeds.

What binds you?  What keeps you on your current path?  Contentment with your lot?  Acceptance of what you cannot change?  Unwillingness to risk changing what you can?

If we are all bound in one way or another, are we ever truly free?  Would we even want to be?  Freedom within that which holds and grounds you can sometimes feel like a bird free within its cage.  Confines upon confines, but what are we without them?  Free or aimlessly adrift?

Freedom is never absolute.  If not bound by convention and society, we are all still bound by our own bodies and minds, by what we are capable of achieving or what we believe we're capable of. 

What allows one to feel truly free is not a complete lack of constraints, it is the ability to live and thrive within them.

Body v. Mind

I've been feeling a little off today and the irritant of it has been a festering burr under my skin.  All right, the red-eye flight across the country and the subsequent twelve hours in the airport before getting on another cross country flight back didn't exactly help.  It's more than that though.

I have been living with this sense of disconnect for a while now and today I suddenly identified it.  My mind and my body, or rather what my body can do, seem to have fallen out of sync.  Let's call it a misalignment of expectations. 

I remember feeling like that before...  As a teenager I gained a lot of weight and while I'm sure it was traumatic on my body, it did a complete number on my head.  Up to that point I have always been too thin and I never gave a single thought to what I ate.  Size and weight were just not on the list of things I worried about.  Then, in a space of a single year I had ballooned to twice my weight and I can think of few other experiences in my life that were as traumatic as that.  Logically I realize that it didn't happen overnight, but that's what it felt like.  I went to bed as a skinny twelve year old and woke up the next morning as a depressed and grossly overweight thirteen year old.

The mental damage of that transformation took more than a decade and a half to repair.  The adage "what doesn't kill us makes us stronger" may be true and I may appreciate it now, however, at the time I would have gladly chosen to die rather than battle on.

That sense of a disconnect between what I expect my body to do and look like and the reality is what I'm experiencing today.  There are things I expect my body to be able to do and tolerate.  Things that I don't want to have to think about, let alone be confronted with incontrovertible evidence that it just ain't happening.

Have I mentioned that I'm neither accepting of nor gracious in defeat?

Let's see what I can do to get things straightened out again.  After all, who doesn't love a challenge on the eve of a new year?

Games we play

It's been over a year since my last post... but I don't want to talk about why it's been so long since I've written or why I'm slowly starting to write again.  What I want to talk about is my (relatively) new toy.

That's my toy, in the picture for this post.  It's even more beautiful in real life.  When J bought it for me, I couldn't put it down.  I kept taking it out of my pocket and caressing the handle, tracing the rivets and grooves with the tip of my finger.  Pressing it against my arm and seeing how hard I can press the tip before the sensation turned from warmth to a sting to an almost unbearable pinch of skin against the blade.

I've drawn lines and designs on my body, gritting my teeth as I painstakingly trace the same damn pattern over and over to make it stay, to make it more than fleeting, less than permanent.  Scarring isn't quite what I'm after.  I'm after the challenge of the act itself.  The burn that follows a few minutes later.  The tenderness to the touch.  The sudden jump the next morning when the hot water hits the spot in the shower and wakes me up more effectively than the whiny alarm clock.

I fell in love with that knife the moment I held it in my hand.  We were in Cabela's in Lacey, WA, wandering around the store, not looking for anything in particular.  I wasn't looking for a knife, not seriously anyway.  At the row of display cases, I got lost in dozens and dozens of knives.  Paralyzed by the variety of choices, I couldn't settle on any to look at.  Eventually, when the salesman came up, I pointed at one, almost at random.

Can I see that one, please?

The first one I picked up was one that I thought I'd like the most - it was a riff on leatherman tools - all tidy curves and air pockets, but it felt insubstantial and flimsy in my hand.  Hollow and empty, it was like holding a walnut shell after the nut was eaten.  The second had a gorgeous deep blue handle.  Ok, I'll admit it, I chose it solely for its looks, but it felt too heavy and clunky and the straight blade reminded me of a kitchen knife.  I was on the verge of walking away when the man behind the counter pulled out another knife similar to one I already had out, but slightly smaller.

Try this one, he said...  He flipped it open and handed it to me.  I didn't know what I was looking for until my fingers closed around the handle.  I was in lust.

With the man behind the counter watching, I couldn't do what I really wanted...  I couldn't put the edge against my skin, press it in and slowly draw a line along the length of my forearm, watching tiny droplets bloom along the newly carved stem.  Instead, my hands trembling, I turned the knife over and over in my palm, caressing the blade where I didn't dare caress the edge.  It felt light and solid and I just couldn't put it down.  

So, what are you looking to do with the knife?  

The salesman was clearly worried about the sale.  He needn't have been - there was no way I was leaving without that knife.  But what to answer?

It's a toy... I finally told him.  He seemed a bit confused, but given what I was thinking, I was not likely to give him any more details.  And then, after a brief hunt for a box and a few minutes in line, we were out of the store and the knife was mine.

My toy.  My beautiful, shiny, totally inappropriate toy.

What stirs you...

"We become sad in the first place because we have nothing stirring to do." - Herman Melville 

I came across that quote and I could immediately relate to it.  I become very irritable and discontented when I'm bored and so I began thinking of what stirs me.  On the face of it, a lot of things... work, cooking, reading, ropes.  But then as I thought about it a little more, I realized that there's a common element that's a more appropriate answer to the question of what stirs me.

Challenge.  Being challenged is what stirs me.  I can challenge myself, but what really gets me going is being challenged by others or in front of others.  I can't imagine how I didn't realize it before, but I'm definitely an exhibitionist.  Perhaps I wasn't one before, I don't know, but I am now.  

I'm a performer, a chameleon of sorts.  I'll adapt to whatever I think the audience wants.  Within reason...  I won't become someone else.  I'm not an impersonator.  I don't want to imitate someone else.  I just enjoy playing with people's preconceived notions of who I am and for that enjoyment I'll pour myself into likely and unlikely molds.  And as long as it's a challenge, I'll keep pushing myself into the boundaries of my invention for the whim of those watching. 

Sometimes the challenge is a mental one - project confidence when I feel like I am on the verge of cracking.  Talk back to my superiors, speak up with a certainty I don't feel.  Raise my voice, defend thoughts and fight for others when all I want to do is crawl under the desk and hide.  Challenge myself to say "yes, I can" even if only in a frightened whisper to myself when I want to believe that I can't.

Sometimes it's physical - let's see just how far back my arms will bend before the shoulder pops.  Pain measured in stinging blows or constriction of tightly bound limbs.  How many breaths separate the high of levitating on the brink from the moment "yellow" erupts from clenched teeth with a cry of surrender?

Sometimes, if I can focus on just one aspect of the challenge, I can exceed my own expectations.  Especially when my pride is on the line.  I don't think I've ever realized just quite how much my pride matters to me.  When it's only me, I'll fold in surrender often without even trying to fight.  But when challenged in front of others, whether I know them or not...  In a battle between common sense and pride, pride will often ride far ahead of common sense until self-preservation pulls on the reigns.  

There is something to be said for the fuzzy boundary between challenge and willful self-destruction.

Misusing the alphabet

I find writing "under the influence" to be a fascinating experience.  It's just about the only time when I can actually write without censoring myself and let everything land on paper.  The rest of the time I don't fight the impulse to self-edit and while what comes out in the end might be a fine piece, it's been chewed up so many times that it no longer bears resemblance to what I started writing.

I can write when buzzed, but the best uncensored writing comes when I'm straddling that fine line between very, very mellow and unfit to walk.  That's where I was last night with the help of two bottles of apple cider.  Since the letters on the page I was reading were blurring, I pulled out my journal and wrote the following...

-----------------------------------

And so the story begins.
Because everything has to start somewhere even if you
Can't yet figure out where it will lead you.
Does it really matter whose fault it was?
Everyone saw the end result even if they couldn't
Figure out why the gun went off when pointed at
Georgiana's bountiful chest.
Heresy, you might say, how could you not know?
I tell you, I didn't.
Just as surprised as you, I was.
Killing isn't as common as you would think.
Lately I've been feeling jaded, I guess
Martin proved me wrong.
Never would I have expected him to be the one.
One to pull out the gun, one to have the guts to
Pull the trigger.
Quaking in his shoes would be more his style.
Really not the one to surprise anyone usually.
Saturday night he was quiet, pensive, sober almost.
Thought he was drunk, then sober, then high.
Unfortunately for Georgiana, he wasn't any of those.
Very unhappily enlightened is what he was.
We all thought he didn't know or didn't care.
"X marks the spot" is all he said before Georgiana's
Yelp pierced the mellow buzz of the bar.
Zero warning.

I never thought of myself as particularly helpless or weak-willed.  In fact, most people who know me will describe me as determined, sometimes almost to the point of single-mindedness.  Control freak has been used as a description more than once.  I like to be in control - of myself, of the situation, even of others on occasion.

I've never tried illicit drugs not out of some sort of a moral conviction, but out of sheer fear of losing control and being unable to regain it at will.

Willingly giving up control is different. I can and have done that, but finding myself without the ability to regain control is something I don't like to think about.  And so it's all the more galling that I can't seem to gain control over a habit I have.

I hate it.  I hate the sense that something is stronger than my determination.  There's no medication that can help, no X-step program, there's nothing except me and my utter inability to exercise the self-control necessary to stop doing it.

Why don't I just stop?  It's not because I can't.  I'm at least honest enough to admit that.  I don't stop because I don't have to.  I've overcome and conquered challenges before because I had to.  Because it wasn't a choice, it was a matter of survival at least on some level.  In this case, I should do it, I should kick the habit, but I don't have to.

And so I choose not to.

Books and life

I read a book today...

Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that I swallowed it; devouring pages, choking on the sentences, gulping air in between carefully crafted words and phrases.

It was a difficult book.  A fact that didn't escape my notice back when I first lifted it off the shelf.  The bland description on the back cover hinted, oh so beguilingly, at unseen horrors within and yet the calm and serene cover seemed to promise restitution.  Read me, it seemed to whisper, you may suffer in the process but all will be well in the end.

Seduced by the lovely prose and by the implied promise of happily ever after I picked it up and began to read.

There is no happily ever after.  Just as life tends to provide questions rather than answers, so did this book.  The horror within blossomed, dark and incomprehensible, made all the more poignantly personal by the child's name... Kate. Reading it was like walking along the precipice, knowing you're going to slip down into the yawning abyss but hoping you're wrong.  And as the book unfolded you would admit to yourself that you aren't wrong.

I'd like to say that the book was ultimately uplifting, that it brought comfort and deliverance along with its exquisite pain, but that would be inventing my own ending.

As most good books do, this one left richly painted and complex characters suffering in the wake of the last page closing.  What made it so solid and real is precisely why there could be no happy resolution, no neat tying up of loose ends, no promise of absolute answers. 

Real life carries no promises of happy resolutions to our own personal versions of hell and this book was nothing less than real in all its terrifying and inexplicable monstrosity.

A "not good" day...

This will not be a good day...

I can already feel it and it's not even 10am. My skin feels prickly with dread of a wasted heap of hours before me. I keep catching myself tightening my jaws and grinding my teeth and the fact that I keep doing it is irritating me, leading to more tightening and grinding.

My hands are shaky and want to be let loose on the keyboard but whatever I let them type today will be drivel and I hold them back, feeling prickly irritation flow from the fingertips up through the arms. My shoulders are tense and the worst part of all, the way I know for certain that this will not be a good day is that I can feel my collar.

Usually it's a comfort, a reassuring metal band locked around my neck, heavy enough to stay put, light enough to never remove. But on days like today, I can feel it tightening, pressing on my throat. It isn't, of course it isn't. It's just me, it's the tension, the straining of muscles that makes the skin hypersensitive and turns the collar from a comforting presence into a choking warning to relax.

Except that I can't relax. I don't know what's bothering me, but it's getting worse by the minute and it'll keep getting worse, crushing all my attempts at concentration on my reading or my chores or anything else I would normally be doing today. Music isn't helping, coffee isn't helping, being in a place I love is having no effect. It's the fight or flight tension except I can't pick which one I want to do. And I don't think either one will help.

This will not be a good day.

Dinner Party

Laura taps her fingers distractedly on the table and sneaks a glance at her watch. She picks up her fork and puts it back down again. Her mouth-watering plate of pasta has by now solidified into an unappetizing blob. She picks a bread roll and starts tearing it into tiny bits. She has to tell him. She was planning on telling him tonight but then Carrie called and she sounded so miserable that somehow Laura found herself inviting her along. And now, look at the three of them, sitting there in awkward silence, making strained conversation on topics none of them care much about. Killing time and, to Laura’s annoyance, killing Laura’s resolve.

Maybe I can just write it all out in a letter, she thinks in sudden inspiration. But she and Mark have never been a letter writing couple. To start now would be fake and somehow dishonest. Oh why, why did Carrie have to come along tonight?

~*~*~*~*~

Mark stabs his chicken, trying to avoid looking at his almost full plate. Somewhere between getting to the restaurant and seeing Carrie rush to their table, a halo of copper corkscrew curls framing her face, he lost his appetite. The plate of Chicken Saltimbocca is marooned before him, the formerly succulent meat congealing in a cooling puddle as his stomach gives another lurch.

Why didn’t Carrie come before he ordered dinner? The guilt of eating “flesh”, as she calls it, in front of her is making him irritable and hungry with no desire to keep eating. Why didn’t she come on time for once? He could have ordered a salad and… He feels his neck flush a dull red as he throws a nervous glance at Laura but she’s not watching him. She doesn’t know. Of course she doesn’t know.

~*~*~*~*~

Carrie picks delicately at her beet and arugula salad. A piece of gorgonzola cheese slips out of fork’s reach and the tines skid on a patch of oil, dislodging a leaf onto the crisp white tablecloth. She picks it up without really looking, her eyes glazed with disappointment. She was so hoping for a long chat with Laura, how stupid of her not to have listened when Laura suggested dinner together. She must have mentioned that Mark would be there. She must have. Lately she could never seem to get Laura on her own. She was busy with work or at the gym or planning outings with Mark. Carrie bites her lip, trying to stop the hot pressure behind her eyelids from resolving itself in a flood down her flushed cheeks.

She hates feeling so weak and needy, but damn it, Laura was her friend well before she even met Mark. Carrie wills the tears back and grits her teeth. Is there a way to suggest dessert but make it clear that Mark isn’t invited? She has to talk to Laura, she has to tell her what she’s decided, what she’s finally come to realize. She has to…

~*~*~*~*~

“May I take this for you, sir?” Mira is already reaching past the man’s arm to remove the barely touched food. This does not look like a successful meal and she sighs. She can already see the look of disgust and annoyance on Alberto’s face when she'll bring the plates back. Alberto hates when food makes its way back into his pristine kitchen. He always takes it as a personal affront and then takes his anger out on the hapless servers. Maybe I can sneak it past the sous chef, she thinks in sudden inspiration. Get Pietro to dump it before Alberto goes ballistic that one of his personal favorites was mangled and left to dry almost whole. Mira sighs and bites her lip. I don’t need this tonight and I bet the tips will be lousy.

“Would anyone care for some dessert?” she hazards, fairly certain of the answer but still hoping she can salvage Alberto’s mood and her tips by suggesting the chocolate soufflé.

“No,” the man is abrupt, pushing his chair back from the table and fishing in his pocket as if to pay. Mira’s face is impassive, her hand already reaching into the pocket of her black apron for the check. Definitely a lousy tip, the guy looks pissed off.

“Actually,” the red haired woman shakes back her curls and dimples up at Mira, giving her a sweetly shy smile, “Actually, I’d love some dessert.”

The other woman looks up in surprise, her fingers stilling for a moment as her eyes travel between her dining companions and up to Mira’s face. She looks lost, as if unsure of why she’s still sitting at the table.

Mira halts, glancing from one diner to another. The man is already on his feet but he’s not looking at either of the women. His face has a closed off look that Mira has long learned to recognize as that of someone who has already left the restaurant in mind if not in body.

“I’ll give you a minute?” Mira allows the end of the sentence to trail off just enough to spur a response.

“No, it’s all right,” the dark-haired woman speaks, her voice growing more assured with each word now that a decision has been reached.

She turns to address the man, “Mark, you go on home. Take the car,” she hands him the keys, pressing them into his hand when he looks like he’s about to sit back down.

“Go on, you said you had some work you wanted to catch up on. Carrie can give me a ride home later.” She looks at her friend whose face lights up as she nods.

“Just go.” Her tone is impassive and she is not looking at the man anymore. Instead, she turns to Mira and gives her a dazzling smile.

“How is your chocolate soufflé?”

Hands

Hands… Touching, caressing, gripping, pushing, hitting, pulling, soothing.

Do they ever do something on their own? Something unexpected? Something you thought they didn’t have in them? Gripping hard enough to cause pain when all you intended is a firm touch? Does it seem sometimes that anger and frustration flows directly from your heart to your hands, bypassing your brain?

Ever wonder how hands can be so expressive without your permission? Ever sit on your hands to stop them from shaking while you pretend to be brave and not care that the world is crumbling all around you? Ever reach for something even when you knew you shouldn’t? Ever force your hands to slip something into your pocket and walk away pretending it didn’t really happen?

Ever have your hands tell you something before your eyes did? Hands breaking out in cold sweat a moment before you saw the car in front of you stop suddenly as you were still reaching for the brake pedal. Did you really think the rash blossoming on the delicate inner wrist was just an allergy? Was it?

Touch… welcomed, desired, rejected, indifferent. Or lack of it. Which is more painful? My hand gripping yours; unable to hold on, unable to let go. Hugs, handshakes, waves, hands talking without ever saying a word. Can you control what your hands say or do? Would you even want to?

Unusual Pet

Not sure which blog this story belongs on... Let's see how it does here. As always, comments are welcome and appreciated.

------------------------------

The play of wooden wind chimes from his dream translated into persistent knocking on the front door as Richard reluctantly opened his eyes. For a moment all was quiet and then the knocking started again, more determined than before. Grumbling, he pulled on a pair of sweats and glanced at the alarm clock. Two thirty in the morning.

“Someone better be dead, Kira,” he growled, opening the front door.

The woman on his doorstep attempted a smile but what came out was a tightly twisted grimace.

“Oh, I hope so,” was all she said, pushing past him into the house.

Before he could say anything, she turned to face him.

“The bastard had a heart attack,” she spit the words out, hands balled into fists at her sides. “He’s in intensive care and mother insists I come immediately. He couldn’t just die and get it over with, could he?”

She rubbed her arms for warmth and glared at him, “Anyway, you know how my mother gets, so I have to go…” She muttered something unintelligible under her breath.

“Kira, you could tell her, you know,” he attempted. “If she knew what he did…”

“Stop it, Rick, “ she cut him off, waving her hand, “I’m not having another one of those ‘truth is best’ conversations now. This is between me and that bastard and anyway, that’s not why I’m here.” She inhaled and continued, “I need a favor…”

In spite of himself, Richard grinned. Kira’s fiery nature was one of the reasons he fell in love with her even when she told him straight out that he had the wrong plumbing. The two became friends and Richard ended up on the receiving end of many rants involving Kira’s father, or “the bastard” as she referred to him.

“A favor?” Richard’s grin widened, “Do ask…”

Kira set her jaw and glared at him, “I hate asking.”

“Yes, I know.”

Kira turned and prowled around the living room, picking things up and putting them back down. Finally, she stalked back to where Richard was leaning against the wall.

“I have…” she hesitated, searching for the right word, “a pet that needs looking after. I’ll only be gone for a couple of days, three max, but I can’t leave Sephi alone. I need someone to stay at my place during the day and look after her.”

Richard raised an eyebrow, but Kira continued, “You can write from anywhere, right? I have WiFi, food, coffee… You can bring your laptop and you can even sleep there if you want. God knows it’s warmer than this icebox you call home.” She shivered, waiting for his reply.

Richard frowned, “No offense, K, but does your kitty need a constant companion? Can’t I just drop in during the day and feed it or change the litter?”

For the first time that night, Kira’s expression cleared and she gave him a dazzling smile, “I didn’t say Sephi was a cat… Look,” she added before he could interrupt. “Just promise me you’ll do it and I’ll leave you to get back to sleep.”

He opened his mouth to protest but Kira had already seen the agreement in his eyes.

“Great,” she leaned in to give him a quick hug. “Feeding and care instructions are on the kitchen table. I’ll give you a call tonight to see how you’re getting on. Thanks!” and with that she was out the door, leaving him holding a key to her loft.

Driving to Kira’s loft the next morning he tried to recall any previous mention of a pet but came up with nothing. Shrugging, he concentrated instead on the problem with his current freelance assignment.

Still deep in thought, he opened the door and heard rather than felt his breath leaving in a hiss. Folders and papers slowly tumbled from his nerveless fingers as he contemplated the incomprehensible image before him.

In the middle of a sparsely furnished living room, on a soft Persian rug, stood a giant folding dog cage. Its occupant appeared to be asleep on a dark mauve cushion. As he cautiously approached the cage, the oak planks creaked and he stopped. The naked girl in the cage lifted her head and tilting it to the side, regarded him. Arching her back, she stretched gracefully and sat up. The tight black leather collar gleamed darkly against the pale skin. The name tag read Sephi.

“Uhhhm…” he swallowed, “Uhhm, I’m Rick. I…”

“Meow,” said Sephi.

No name

Blue eyes, caramel blond hair, heart shaped face. Bored expression of a seven year old playing reluctant witness to adult conversation she doesn't understand. Unwilling to stay, unable to leave. Too old to play in the kids' corner of the quiet cafe, too young to be allowed to wander off on her own. Harassed mother on one side, sleeping baby brother on the other, pile of papers on the table, and across it a pair of strangers talking about boring things like mortgage and inspection. This isn't how she pictured a sunny Saturday afternoon.

Sunlight filters through the window and she shifts on the padded bench, watching as the sparkly sequins on her jeans catch the light and wink at her. The strangers across the table ignore her, intent on the papers and her mother's droning voice. She's not used to being ignored, although with Billy's birth it's been happening more often. She sighs and twirls the tiny silver heart charm on her bracelet. She reaches for a pen lying forgotten on the table, but her mothers snatches it back, glaring at her and simultaneously smiling at the other couple.

She shifts again, trying to get comfortable and bumps the table, earning another glare. Now the other woman looks at her and gives her a bright fake smile.

"Are you bored, honey?"

She scowls back and mumbles, "No." The mother sighs, a familiar sound of frustration.

"Why don't you go play in the kids' corner? We'll be done here soon."

She looks at her mother, incredulous. The kids' corner is for little kids. She doesn't want to play there. Tears of frustration and anger well up and she's about to protest when she realizes that the door is right next to the toybox. Sliding out from behind the table, she wanders over to the toys and glances back. Her mother is pulling Billy's carrier closer, obliterating the space where she sat just a moment ago and is already back deep in conversation.

She pauses then slowly pushes open the door and steps outside. Through the glass door she can see her mother and the other couple. Her mother is talking and smiling, not looking at her, unaware she's no longer there.

She sits down on the steps outside, warmth of early spring sun making up for the chill of the breeze. Shivering, she hugs her knees and watches as the cars pass by. Some pull into the supermarket lot next door, others just head past. Across the street, on the soccer field an impromptu game is in full swing. She watches, twirling a strand of caramel blond hair.

A car pulls to a stop and the passenger side window slowly rolls down. A little pug pokes its head out, sneezing and she laughs, delighted.

"Hey, you look bored." The driver leans across the passenger seat and smiles at her. "I'm going to the park," he gestures up the hill toward the park with her favorite playground. "Wanna come along? You can play with Lucy here. She loves kids."

She hesitates for a moment and the little dog gives an encouraging bark, wagging its tail. She looks back at the cafe. Her mother is gesticulating with her hands, her face animated and as the girl watches, the mother throws back her head and laughs.

"Ok," she's already pulling open the car door even as the word falls from her lips. The door slams, the window rolls back up and the car pulls away.

The mother looks up, "Becky?"