"Deep Thoughts": July 2009 Archives

When people introduce themselves, the first few questions are invariably the civilian equivalent of name/rank/serial number: What's your name? What do you do?

The latter being perceived as the most important, the real identifier. We are what we do. Presumably.

Why, then, do I feel so far removed from my self-identifiers? When asked, I usually say "I'm a writer." And occasionally, "I'm a writer and an artist."

But honestly, the only places I write lately are here, the fridge, and work. None of which align with the sort of writing that I'd expected - or hoped - to define my life, to be the conduit for everything I want to say and make for this world.

I don't think I'm finished or anything. Heck, I've hardly started.

But when I look at the things that occupy the bulk of my thought and conversation, they're like the joke someone made about me recently - "You're all about the two B's - bikes and boys."

Yes, I am.

At least, most of my surface-level thoughts are.

I suspect, though, that there's something more happening underneath. I think what the two B's have in common, and what may explain why they're so compelling to me, is this: PLAY.

I haven't played nearly enough in my life. I've been so damn serious, for so very long. SO SERIOUS. So serious, in fact, that last summer I had to consciously strive not to think so much. Not to make any big decisions, at least not with my brain. Last year was all about learning to listen to my body, to lead with hormones and chemicals and muscle.

This summer I haven't been quite sure what's going on, until now. Side note: It's interesting that I seem to do a lot of big work during summers. It's as if each has a theme, and at the moment, paradoxically, the theme seems to be about not working so much - and not only that but actively learning to play. Allowing myself to be all about play, and all about the two B's - my favorite forms of it.

So while that may seem shallow, especially to that judgmental part of me that's been so harsh, so demanding - it's maybe not a waste of energy, nor of my not-inconsiderable talents and brainpower.

I desperately need to play, I think. I don't think I can really write that great novel without it. My brain needs to grow some frills, some frosting; it needs pink.

Showers and thunderstorms likely. Some storms could be severe, with large hail, hail, damaging winds, gusty winds, and heavy rain. - National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

There is a very large, very dark cloud overhead, and intermittent dashes of rain against the street below. The fan is bringing in the smell of ozone and wet pavement.

Forty minutes ago I was sailing along on my track bike, my bag loaded down with groceries, having ridden most of the way through southern Brooklyn with one of the famous boys.

It was a lovely ride, though there were giant crackling thunderclaps now and again, even in a sunnier sky when we set out, and the air seemed just about to burst into giant drops the whole way back. I arrived home, carried bike and a zillion pounds of dried fruit and peanut butter and hummus and assorted necessities and a bar of dark chocolate and so on upstairs, put it all away, and looked outside to see the rain pelting pelting down. As if it had been waiting for me to get everything done first.

So nice of it. Thank you Rain.

It's been an unexpectedly beautiful day, the kind that surprises me. All weekend I've been up and down and all around about how I feel about this boy, and I have no answer, which might be a problem in and of itself. And yet, every time I go to tell him, "well, this is wrong and that is wrong, and I can't do this," I end up not saying anything. I end up falling right into his little slim arms again, and I don't know what to do about it, because I like it.

I can't seem to logic myself into a more straightforward situation with him, or with the world in general. And I don't know why I expect it of myself, anymore, since I've never been a very good Vulcan. I'm a creature of strong feelings, and perhaps happiest when I relax into that instead of fighting myself. It can make for some strained moments - eyes filling with tears unexpectedly in a movie theatre and then draining away just as quickly, only an instant in the dark, seen by nobody. Needing suddenly to vanish, to hop on my bike and fly home to the cat, who I know will have missed me because she always misses me, even if I'm only gone a few minutes. Needing to just hole up in the half-dark with the Tour de France, with Phil Liggett's voice, soft and erudite and familiar.

He's very tiny this boy, small and sweet and delicious, like a little tart plum. Acerbic. Fiery.

I will tell you this: I get lonely in the middle of the night.

Someone once asked me why I stay up so late, and I answered, "because I like to be alone."

"But don't you live alone?"

"Well, yes. I guess I like to have the whole world to myself."

I was thinking, recently, about the secret lists we make for ourselves - not the kind I often make here, but the larger kind.

The kind we live by, or strive to live up to, or live for. Like the list of things we hope to find in a lover, or perhaps more accurately in that more serious term - a partner.

Well, I don't want a partner - not yet. I am still tired from the last time, or maybe I am just still working that work that doesn't want anyone to get too close, because they'll only interfere, and it's vital that no one and nothing interferes. I'm fighting for my life in a very real sense, only not desperate the way that sounds. I've been working for a long time to clear out old rubble from under the structure of me. It's working in a way it never quite has before. It's grand, when I look at it from a little ways off and see the progress I've made.

But up close, it's ugly. And I don't want anyone to see that. I want to be alone with it.

The trouble is, I get lonely, being all alone in it all the time. With apologies for sounding like an ill-thought-out recruiting slogan, I've been an army of one for so long. I like watching war movies, but not for the usual reasons. I like watching because I can relate to soldiers - to men in a desperate position. To having to pull last bits of strength from hidden places. To bloodying my hands and my heart.

The difference is, they have comrades in arms. I don't.

I never have. I never will. It's not exactly that I feel outcast and alone in life; it's just that, for some kinds of pitched battle, there are no comrades. If there weren't then, there can't be now. That's just the way of it.

On some level, I accept that. I am okay with it. I am okay with knowing my own strength, and that it is all I ever had. I am fiercely proud of it some days, and sad about it others, and that is part of the shape of my life. If I look at it from a distance, like a work of art, I think it beautiful. I think, if this makes any sense, that as a person, I am glad to know me.

But damn does it make it hard to date.