Bites

I don't really know what to write here anymore. I don't know where to start. I have all kinds of threads of ideas that unfortunately don't translate very well to this little white box. I started this the other night and it went nowhere:

 I don't  know if, born scarred, that's how you stay and forever after everything's a little bit broken or if that's some more melodramatic garbage I made up in my head because the words fit.

Probably. That's probably the case, I don't know. What I do know is that there's very little beauty now. It's a hard slog, February, even at the end of a mostly-neutral winter. I do ridiculous shit to handle seasons, like recite Ecclesiastes to myself in the car on the way to work, although I rejected the Bible long ago as anything other than a three-star "way to go" on Goodreads.

"All streams flow into the sea,
   yet the sea is never full." Ecc. 1:7

That's not the seasons part at all, but I just looked it up and I liked it.

The world is too much with me, yeah. The shards of sun in my rear view, the man wanting money on the median, Libya. Freaking Egypt and Libya. Do not get me started on Wisconsin, or the guy who walks into my classroom with a Phillie Blunt in his mouth, unlit, chewing on the end until I'm like, "Hey, what's up?" standing there in my sensible shoes, pointing at his mouth before my palms go up. He considers all of this for a second before he takes it out.

"I don't know, y'all," he says.

The cigar situation and Libya are not remotely the same. It's just it all piles up and then I sit in my chair with a finger on the Twitter and one on my coffee cup and I am crushed with the knowledge that nowhere I'm sitting and nothing I'm reading has anything remotely to do with my soul or skill or whatever the hell this is supposed to be or do or evidence.

And that is where I stopped. I couldn't go any more and I went to sleep because I was tired.

**********

The woman I was supposed to rent a condo from back in November killed herself just before Christmas. I only know this because someone in her family contacted me a couple of weeks ago, a week after I moved into my new condo the same complex -- a situation that came together out of the blue in January. This person told me that she died and asked me if I still wanted to rent the place.

No, no I didn't at all, besides that I didn't need it anymore. And by the way, I was sorry, I wrote, sitting at my desk crying for a tiny person I'd met exactly once, in addition to exchanging several e-mails and one brutal phone conversation three days before I was supposed to move in, when she told me that I couldn't because her marriage was breaking up and she had to take the place herself. She was ripping up my lease.

She sat on the other end of the line, a little more than a month away from dying who knows how, crying into the phone, apologizing. I was pissed off that that my plan was wrecked and I wasn't very nice about it. I knew her for a blip, long enough to know that she was a month younger than I was, that she practiced yoga, that her aunt owned the place before she died, that she was very pleased with the new cabinet handles in the kitchen. I was actually proud of myself for being so hardcore annoyed at this disruption in my life, for displaying an anger that I'm bad at cultivating for a 90-pound woman in Keds, for holding someone accountable. This time I would not be understanding and say everything was fine. This time I would advocate for myself, not like all of the other times.

It bothered her so much that she made your life more complicated, her person said in the e-mail from hell. She was very sorry. I'm so glad things worked out for you.

It's a temporary freelance job, thinking of the one nice thing I didn't say, of all that this did not have to do with me, that I turned 40 and she never did. The day I got the e-mail was the last day of a 40-day yoga program I'd been doing since the first of the year, a commitment I made for absolutely no reason that took me to some places I still didn't really understand. The parallels were a lot to take, the godforsaken message that even spiritual immersion cannot save you.

It's not like I didn't know that anyway.

Every once in awhile, which is to say every other night now, my subconscious insists on seeing her in the corner when I walk into my dark apartment. She lived in the building on the other side of the parking lot. I can see her place from my balcony.

Location, location, location.

************

I used to rest in a Rainer Rilke quote, the one about living your questions now, so you could live your way into the answers.

It turns out that it's kind of a pain in the ass. It's not at all that anyone told me it would be easier, I just stupidly really did think it wouldn't always be this hard.

And that really probably is all I needed to say here, right now.

Comments

[Neil]

I think that was a perfect post to come back with on this space.

[schmutzie]

Love this. Love you. It gets better.

[Deb Rox]

Wow, what a story, and your writing. I love when you write.

[Redneck Mommy]

You are such a brilliant word smith.

[Angella]

I'll read anything you write, lady.

[Sarah, Goon Squad Sarah]

How can you hate this?

YOU. You write so beautifully.

[smart aleck]

Laurie,
You are one of the most talented writers I have read, but the difference between you and most of them is that you are present now, so I don't have to worry about running out of your works. Always keep writing, whether it is your blog or tweets...especially because I know your writing and encouragement bring out the best in Sarah too.

[KalynsKitchen]

All these others who have commented are exactly right, your writing is beautiful. And I agree, I didn't think it would really be this hard either. (And that is all I'm going to say about that too, but maybe someday if we have Mexican food andm margaritas again I will tell you.) xoxo

[flutter]

You are beautiful. Your heart, your soul, your writing. You are beautiful and fuckitall, it won't always be this hard.
xoxo

[Al_Pal]

Criminy. Painful.
The writing is beautiful.
So sad when people can't see past the pain... *hugs*