(no subject)
In the summer of 2008, I posted this: nancyshane.livejournal.com/46648.html For now, I've decided to call it Silent Things. And since December, I've been working off and on on a reprise. So here it is:
Last night I dreamed of Australia, the red of the sun behind my closed eyelids and the heat rising from the earth. It was a sweet dream, and I was happy, and you were not there. Since you’ve gone I don’t think of you, most days. I do not miss you or wish you back. You are simply gone in the way that you go, quietly, positively, finding your way across the world, leaving a warm space in my heart. I think I have not told you that, about the warm place for you I keep in my heart. It is among the things I’ve never said.
Andrew, today you came back. I knew you would; I was told there would be a surprise guest, and it could only be you. The kids jumped and flew at you, screaming with glee. They did the same to me then, because like you I have gone from them, just not as far.
It was good to see you today. Your neck smelled of incense, and you said there was mint in my hair, and I saw that the lines around your eyes have grown deeper. This evening just before you got out of the car, I finally told you I love those lines. You said, “Really? That’s good,” and gave a reason, but I didn’t hear. There were too many voices in my car at that moment.
When I am with you, Andrew, I am drawn to whatever it is behind the lines of your face and the salt in your pepper hair and the shifting colors of your eyes. I am drawn, but there is something sad in it, the same something sad I see in you sometimes. You remind me of cowboys, and you cannot stop riding. That rolling walk of horses just keeps rolling. You are a perpetual optimist, and perpetually disappointed that things don’t turn out as you’d hoped, nearing forty, alone, and always looking. It’s these contradictions, Andrew, the ones you move amongst so gracefully, that I admire, your ideals and your realities, the fire that burns in you and the fog that puts it out. You are so thin your clothes hang on you as in a closet, but you are large, you contain multitudes.
When you came back today you were already on your way out again, still looking, this time again in South America. Officially, you moved to Israel this summer, but now it is winter and the mountains have called, so you are on your way south. I look at you in your worn jeans, your hands on your knees and your eyes closed, and a voice in my head states clearly: This is not what I want for myself. Nearing forty, alone, and always looking. These knotted muscles, these tired eyes, this is not what I want.
But then another voice speaks, and this is the voice that drowned you out in the car tonight, the one that says: Why not? I have wandered before, and wondered, and seen the sun behind my eyelids red as the Outback dust, and those days were some of the best I have known. To be merely forty, and to be on my own in the world, with everything wide open before me, to not know. It’s a life I have loved; I could love it again.
You got out of the car, and I listened tonight, as I do most nights, to the first voice. Tomorrow I will rise before the sun and dress. I will put in earrings and fasten my watch and drive to work, and the second voice will echo for a few more days, until you slip away. Until you are gone again.
Did my hair really smell of mint, Andrew? Or was it just the cold?
It must have been the cold, I think. It was good to see you today. I do love those lines around your eyes. I do love your hands and that cowboy smile, though I suppose I will never say so out loud. For all this winter cold, I have not lost that warm spot. I carry it with me, waiting for you to roll back into town.
But maybe I won’t be here next time, Andrew. Maybe next time, you’ll have to find me. Tonight, as I go to bed, I am thinking of Australia, of the colors of the dust in a hundred places I have left. When you return, if I’m not here, well, you’ll find me somewhere. I am somehow sure of that.
Last night I dreamed of Australia, the red of the sun behind my closed eyelids and the heat rising from the earth. It was a sweet dream, and I was happy, and you were not there. Since you’ve gone I don’t think of you, most days. I do not miss you or wish you back. You are simply gone in the way that you go, quietly, positively, finding your way across the world, leaving a warm space in my heart. I think I have not told you that, about the warm place for you I keep in my heart. It is among the things I’ve never said.
Andrew, today you came back. I knew you would; I was told there would be a surprise guest, and it could only be you. The kids jumped and flew at you, screaming with glee. They did the same to me then, because like you I have gone from them, just not as far.
It was good to see you today. Your neck smelled of incense, and you said there was mint in my hair, and I saw that the lines around your eyes have grown deeper. This evening just before you got out of the car, I finally told you I love those lines. You said, “Really? That’s good,” and gave a reason, but I didn’t hear. There were too many voices in my car at that moment.
When I am with you, Andrew, I am drawn to whatever it is behind the lines of your face and the salt in your pepper hair and the shifting colors of your eyes. I am drawn, but there is something sad in it, the same something sad I see in you sometimes. You remind me of cowboys, and you cannot stop riding. That rolling walk of horses just keeps rolling. You are a perpetual optimist, and perpetually disappointed that things don’t turn out as you’d hoped, nearing forty, alone, and always looking. It’s these contradictions, Andrew, the ones you move amongst so gracefully, that I admire, your ideals and your realities, the fire that burns in you and the fog that puts it out. You are so thin your clothes hang on you as in a closet, but you are large, you contain multitudes.
When you came back today you were already on your way out again, still looking, this time again in South America. Officially, you moved to Israel this summer, but now it is winter and the mountains have called, so you are on your way south. I look at you in your worn jeans, your hands on your knees and your eyes closed, and a voice in my head states clearly: This is not what I want for myself. Nearing forty, alone, and always looking. These knotted muscles, these tired eyes, this is not what I want.
But then another voice speaks, and this is the voice that drowned you out in the car tonight, the one that says: Why not? I have wandered before, and wondered, and seen the sun behind my eyelids red as the Outback dust, and those days were some of the best I have known. To be merely forty, and to be on my own in the world, with everything wide open before me, to not know. It’s a life I have loved; I could love it again.
You got out of the car, and I listened tonight, as I do most nights, to the first voice. Tomorrow I will rise before the sun and dress. I will put in earrings and fasten my watch and drive to work, and the second voice will echo for a few more days, until you slip away. Until you are gone again.
Did my hair really smell of mint, Andrew? Or was it just the cold?
It must have been the cold, I think. It was good to see you today. I do love those lines around your eyes. I do love your hands and that cowboy smile, though I suppose I will never say so out loud. For all this winter cold, I have not lost that warm spot. I carry it with me, waiting for you to roll back into town.
But maybe I won’t be here next time, Andrew. Maybe next time, you’ll have to find me. Tonight, as I go to bed, I am thinking of Australia, of the colors of the dust in a hundred places I have left. When you return, if I’m not here, well, you’ll find me somewhere. I am somehow sure of that.