Home Again/Where It Lives

A week later, and I'm back in the same little room, in the same quiet.  

I've been to the Midwest and back, touched my old place for a moment, my old bed for a night, my old mother and her softening back, my old dog and his firm gray chin.  I took a seat by my father at dinner and watched his eyes go dark and bright as we took turns speaking around the table "out of concern," my sisters said, "for your health."  

But now I'm home, here I am at home again.  

  

K's parents are in town for the holidays.  I've tried to avoid them for as long as possible, until I accidentally walked in on them sitting together in the dark, watching their grown son sleep on the couch.  

"Oh, hello," they greeted me in quiet pleasant voices, "We're just letting this guy nap before his gig at the Moon tonight."   

I've never seen a family like this before.  He is their only one, their greatest adventure, their living hope, their best love.  From Mother and Son to Son and Father and Husband and Wife, there is no gap, no loose end, nothing forgotten.  They will sit together and speak with each other in the same language each time.  

"It smells good in here," I whispered back and shuffled into the kitchen to put my groceries away.  No small part of me lunges to resent them for the clarity of their relationships.  When he speaks well of "the folks," not even a stitch of irony sullies his tone.  This drives me insane.  Mock them! I want to howl, They are your parents.  Tell me you aren't for real!

But truth is a patient and ruthless thing.  I'm coming up on a year with this one and it turns out that this whole thing's for real.  He truly loves them, and they truly raised him as best they could.  So when the muscles in my back start coiling, and my mouth starts flooding, I have to run the tape of things I know to be true:

My family is fucked up.

Not every family is fucked up.

The un-fucked up families are not a threat to me.

I want love to live where it lives.

I want love to live where it lives.

The tape ran tonight as we made quiet conversation about the airports and the weather, a small cluster of flowers on the kitchen sill, New Year's Eve and the upcoming smoking ban.  As we talked, I stacked canned black beans and tins of sardines in the cupboard, cut into bags of cashews and dried cranberries and almonds, listened with one ear to the gentle drumming of the fruit and nuts as I stirred it all together.    

  

   

Photo credit: Alec Soth from "The Last Days of W."

Good For Me

I'm supposed to be in St. Louis tonight, sitting in the basement with my cold feet tucked under the butt of my old German Shepherd, listening to my saucy sisters yap at each other across the room, to my mother croon at the sound of all of her children home once more, listening to my father close a drawer upstairs, alone, listening to my brother tell it all to his girlfriend on the phone behind the door, he's lying in bed and has flung an arm over his eyes.

But the slick and the snow made it impossible for my airplane to take me there, so I'm here instead, in my own bed, my own room, listening to the wind shower ice against my window in the dark.  I'm not sad to be here and not there, but on Monday morning, when we try again, I want my plane to fly.  

This morning he left for his own Christmas with a back seat full of Cornish Game Hens and sleeping bags, just in case.  I got out of bed when I heard him shuffling around outside my room, and made myself a tuna sandwich for the road while he trotted stuff out to the car.  I focused on the tuna as he finally tucked his scarf into the collar of his coat, and as he stood still by the door, thinking, scanning the room for any one last thing.  

No, everything was ready.  Time to go.  He looked up at me and sheepishly waved. 

"Merry Christmas," he smiled.

  

"Merry Christmas," I waved back, laughing, "And, uh, Happy New Year!"  

I watched him stand there and fiddle with his keys, but I didn't step away from my sandwich.  I held onto the countertop with one hand and waved again.  He waited a moment longer, shook his head smiling, then went out.  

I stood fast.

What did I want to do?  Oh- you know.  Fly across the room.  Throw my arms around him like Christian the Lion.  Say Goodbye, I'll Miss You, Drive Safely, Come Back to Me, Think Of Me When You See Beautiful Things, all those kinds of words said into the collar of a giant overcoat.  Hold that thought for eighteen seconds.  Hold it until you start to breathe again, until you can really feel what it's like in there, in the space of someone else's breathing.  You know.  The things I wanted to do.

But I stood fast instead.

Good.  For.  Me.