And last evening a break from him - I felt like a mother with a night away from her baby. As much as I love him already, it was nice to have him in someone else's care. Madeleine took him into the city to hang with her friends with lots of admonitions from me about how to care for him (no getting him high or drunk, no people food, lots of water, not too much excitement, making sure the car windows are mostly closed, getting him home at a reasonable time, etc). I went to my bi-monthly writing group and wrote well. James led the prompts and our assignment was to write a perfect first sentence and then, for the rest of the evening, we wrote three pieces using that perfect sentence, each inspired from a photograph he passed around. Being the trouble maker that I am, I warped the instructions and changed the first sentence for each of the three pieces and just continued my story. Luckily there is no time out corner for writers who fail to follow instructions.
Here are the three pieces I wrote last night. They are unpolished (that's the point) and each was written in the allocated 10-15 minutes.
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Piece #1
I was ten when the angel visited me for the first time. It was on a class trip to the Badlands. Badlands for a bad girl - a perfect destination for the class floozy. At age ten, I already had my period and a B cup. The boys were buzzing around me, hopeful to cop a feel. That was the year I learned to sew and the year hip hugger bellbottoms made their appearance. I dressed the part of a bad ass girl with my pants barely covering my pubic bone and a red see-through shirt over a black lacy bra.
Jonah and I broke away from the group, ignoring the warnings of the group's tour guide. Slyly we slipped into a cave, thick with bat guano, aquiver with the furry, upside down, sleeping critters who seemed to whisper in their sleep. The cave vibrated. Repulsed we dove deeper into the cave in the hope that we could find a spot free of guano where we could lay together and explore each other's bodies.
Soon we were lost, irretrievably lost, in the inky darkness. We were no longer amorous prepubescents. We clung to each other. We cried for our mommies. I think I lay down, eyes closed and sucked my thumb. Jonah tried to nuzzle me. I kicked him - it was his horny fault we were in this predicament.
Willing myself alive, I sprang to my feet and lurched through the darkness, arms outstretched before me, feeling my way through cave passages. Then it happened. My hands touched him...he was stock still waiting for me..calm, waiting for my fingers to discover him. He put his arms around me. I thought he was the tour guide. But then I felt his feathered wings - huge wings that draped his nakedness like a blanket. He pulled me to him, tucked me under one of the wings and led me from the cave.
"Jonah," I said..."what about Jonah?"
"He wasn't intended to live," the angel replied. "You were."
Piece #2
I was twenty when the angel visited me for the second time. I was home alone, house sitting an old Victorian lady home, owned by my anthropology professor, Sy, who was on a sabbatical dig in Tunisia. I had just broken up with my boyfriend Jonah. I listlessly ignored the sirens that warned me to the basement, not really caring if I lived or died.
Sitting on the edge of the queen-sized bed in Sy's bedroom, I watched the 100+ year old elm tree dance like a sapling in the 75 MPH winds. It was fascinating - would it hold? And if the tree, that had survived this long, finally snapped, how would it fall? On the house?
Lightening cracked open the sky, followed by thunder that boomed through my body. I closed my eyes and for the first time felt fear. Maybe I did want to live after all. Maybe I should get my ass to the basement. Then another crack of light and a crash followed by the shriek of the tree splitting down the middle.
I watched, absolutely frozen, at the tree, which, as if in slow motion, listed and slowly fell. I watched in fascinated horror as it fell toward the house and me. I did nothing. I just watched the danger approach.
When I came to, he was there. He held my face in his baby-soft hands. His lips brushed mine, as soft as a whisper. "I thought I had lost you this time," he said. A single tear wet his white eyelashes.
"I remember you...you are real after all. Why did you come back?"
"You belong to me," he whispered. "I am always near." He pulled me from the tree branch that had crashed into and penetrated the house.
"I have to leave you now - but first one question," he said looking mournfully into my eyes.
"What?" I asked.
"Why do you keep falling for guys named Jonah?"
Piece #3
I was thirty when the angel visited me for the last time. The pregnancy had been difficult. Jonah and I had tried for five years and finally with the help of in vitro, we had conceived. There would be no hospital birth for me and my baby. I had found a pregnancy wellness spa in Puerto Rico, on the outskirts of the El Junque rain forest The owner, Myrna, called herself a witch doctor She had purchased the little piece of land that abutted up to a beautiful waterfall. Through Internet marketing she attracted starry-eyed, alternative mothers-to-be like me who wanted their babies to be grounded in nature from their first cry.
Next to the waterfall was a natural shallow pool. The water was warmed by the sun to the perfect birthing temperature. Myrna had built a birthing stool from smooth stones she hauled from the falls. All was going well. I labored for eighteen hours and periodically, Myrna dove beneath the water and examined my progress, holding up fingers to let me know how many centimeters I was dilated. When she held up ten fingers it was time for me to push. Something slipped inside of me and lurched - then stillness. I knew my baby was in trouble.
"Shit, shit!!" yelled Myrna. "What's going on here?" I looked down - the water was dark crimson,the color of liver blood. The air shimmered, the light grew dimmer, my limbs grew cold. Myrna ran to the house for help.
I prayed for him...."Help me," I pleaded. "Help my baby...please come again. You said you are always near."
I opened my eyes. He was there, whiter than ever. He gently spread my legs. The crimson water stained the white wings that drooped into the bloody pool. Grimly he helped the baby out. It was lifeless and almost black. I howled. Then I watched as the angel leaned over the lifeless thing and began to lick it like a mother cat licks her newborn kittens, not missing a single spot. The baby stirred and pinked. It was then I noticed the tiny little wings sprouting from its shoulders.
"It's yours!" I gasped. "How?"
"I am always near," he said, smiling. "Sometimes I am very near."
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Every Wednesday for the past few months, after we write we hang out at the Hotel Orrington. Patrick calls me and I excuse myself and find a quiet spot to talk with him. I read him what I wrote that night - often about him and us. He is always astounded...he hangs on every word. Last night I knew, for the first time, there would be no call from him. I also knew he was feeling the loss too, knowing it was my writing night, wishing we were still connected. And so I cried a little bit, discreetly. Missing him so much.
And is it OK to tell you, my friends, just how much I miss him and why? I won't bore you again with this but I need to talk about it. It just feels wrong, like the universe is shrieking in pain to have two hearts ripped asunder. The loss is terrible. I miss feeling tiny in his arms. I miss the way he held my chin while he kissed me over and over and over again. I miss his gravely voice and his hearty laugh. I miss his wit and fine mind. I miss how he lorded over me when he won at games and my fake sulking. I miss that he could never be near me without touching me, whether it was a hand on my thigh as we drove or an arm around me as we took in a show, absently stroking me, or a hand extended across the dinner table, searching for mine. I miss the way he smells, and his manly looks. I miss his 20" upper arms and his legs, each the size of a small child. I miss his hairy chest that I would run my fingers through. I miss his adoration when I sang just for him, our eyes locked to the exclusion of everyone else. I miss the sex - a lot. I miss talking to him about business, his and mine. I miss reading to him amazing passages from a book and having him appreciate the beauty of the English language as I do. Oh.....I miss him so much!!! There I've said it. I won't belabor the point in this blog.
Several weeks ago when we were still talking I wrote this paragraph in a larger piece I wrote. It captures perfectly how I feel.
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Love is an awe inspiring power. Two hearts cleave to each other and start to beat as one, sympathetic beats in time. Two bodies, move as one, in time. Two breaths are shared, his out, hers in. Limbs entwine, where his end, hers begin, physical boundaries dissolve.
And when it ends, the hearts and bodies are cleaved in the opposite way, as with a butcher knife. Two hearts, ripped from each other, two breaths independent once more. Limbs unravel. Separation. The hearts and bodies mourn their other.
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