My private student for today canceled at the last minute and without thinking about it I rescheduled him for next week. On my week off. Oh well. It is just one session and always a congenial one.
I have a call in to a tattoo artist to see if I can schedule for some time next week. He hasn’t called me back yet but comes highly recommended and I loved his voice on his message. This is a different tattoo artist than the one Mr. B. is working with. This one works from a private studio.
It’s been 11 days since I have heard from Mr. B. That is pretty conclusive.
We bought a dahlia together in one of our plant store forays, he planted it, and today it flowered, a beautiful red against an almost brown, green leaf base. Yeah, heartbreaking…
The cravings to contact him looking for answers are lessening and the emotional pain has calmed down quite a bit. I am still showing indications that I am distracted but that could be the League transition stuff, which I am deep in the middle of this week.
On Saturday I wrote a poem. This one fills in a little more detail about a particular day, the day we went to the movies and when we started to confront the difference in our ages. This was before the attempted intervention by Walt and his partner, and we came to the mutual decision to have “The Fling”.
I feel pretty good about the poem, but I want to share it, and my conundrum is asking myself if I actually want to be sharing it with people that know him. There is an Open Mic reading on the 12th that I am going to go to and share. There won’t be anyone there that knows him.
But how much do I share with my local friend group, and students. Walt is the only person who heard the helicopter logging poem, which is about the same day but from a different point of view. I think he allowed himself to believe it was about someone else, not Mr. B. (I did get his manuscript in the mail, the first line is, “I believe in Love.”, Ugh.)
Mrs. Sherlock is back from her latest adventure, and I will have a chance to talk things through with her at the weekend. But she’s never been much involved in my writing life.
Here’s the poem, I will share it with you, as you all know the story. Writing through it did help me get some perspective and a thin veneer of protective distance.
Astronomical Dawn
First, the rolled-up shirt. Midnight blue. Heavy cotton and huge, you hand it to me, a gift. Do they make people this big I ask. You grab my hand to hold, we’re walking. We’ve been walking. Strong, we can’t get the rhythm right. It’s been so long. You’ve got Pinocchio hands. Fingers of one tattooed in a stupid game as a kid with the name of the one deadly sin that put you away for most of the lives of your sons. We’re laughing after having spent the afternoon alone in a movie theater in the best seats in the house. The sun is bright when we leave, someone is playing a saxophone low and sweet. Later, you sit on the floor in front of me and unstrap my sandals one at a time. And start to rub my feet. You tell me you’d been thinking of this the day before as we sat next to each other in a crowded room, my feet up on the leg of a battered library table. Your shoes off you sit next to me, a hug turns into spooning on the couch, you hold me like that for hours as we talk. I wrap those big hands in mine at chest level and can feel your heartbeat through my back. Your heart. My heart. The transfer of the rolled-up shirt, enough to be a dress on me to my knees I discover another day waiting for you as I try it on. Almost on my knees. The stars were all out, and in their bright light, we saw together in the hollow heart of desire there was no chance for us to take this further. I can’t help when I was born. Later, when you left, unremarked on by us both, there were fireworks. But we were each alone by then.
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