This time I wasn't deep into The Ugly Cry before I even hit the freeway onramp out of the airport - I managed to save that until I was safely behind locked doors. This time there were just a couple of pretty tears as I piloted my car through the British fog that enveloped San Francisco, foot to the floor, aiming towards the deep heat of Marin. I kept it all at bay as I went shopping at World Market to cheer myself up - a few new votive holders, a bag of interesting-looking pasta, drawer liners. Anything to keep me from thinking of how you're gone now.
When you leave, the earth tilts beneath my feet and there's no compass here, no way to know which way is up. North, south, our eternal question (now that east and west has been solved). Straight forward or ass-backwards, it's hard to say. The fountain you set up this morning is gurgling away in a lovely melody, but all I hear is your absence. The rancho, this petite little treehouse in the middle of a place we'd never otherwise come if time and circumstance hadn't dropped me here on my head, is too big. The Arabic-looking bedspread is gone, stripped and sent to a better room, one with more life.
In these hours after you go back to your real life and I to mine, it's always the same. The quiet - not the kind I like and strive so hard for - the trail of pretty things you always leave, too much food in the fridge we didn't end up eating. Your bottled water on the counter, the ghost of Egyptian musk that will dissipate within hours.
Thank God for the dogs. They bark, bringing life to the house, and they require me to be present, to not slip into the miasma of self-pity and ennui that always follow your departure, to leave the tequila and the medicine cabinet alone. I'll go through the motions - feed them, water the garden, wash the dishes, get things ready for work tomorrow - all the while walking around with a ragged hole blown through me, since the other half of my soul has landed four hundred long miles away, alone in its own house, but not yet at home.
When you leave, the earth tilts beneath my feet and there's no compass here, no way to know which way is up. North, south, our eternal question (now that east and west has been solved). Straight forward or ass-backwards, it's hard to say. The fountain you set up this morning is gurgling away in a lovely melody, but all I hear is your absence. The rancho, this petite little treehouse in the middle of a place we'd never otherwise come if time and circumstance hadn't dropped me here on my head, is too big. The Arabic-looking bedspread is gone, stripped and sent to a better room, one with more life.
In these hours after you go back to your real life and I to mine, it's always the same. The quiet - not the kind I like and strive so hard for - the trail of pretty things you always leave, too much food in the fridge we didn't end up eating. Your bottled water on the counter, the ghost of Egyptian musk that will dissipate within hours.
Thank God for the dogs. They bark, bringing life to the house, and they require me to be present, to not slip into the miasma of self-pity and ennui that always follow your departure, to leave the tequila and the medicine cabinet alone. I'll go through the motions - feed them, water the garden, wash the dishes, get things ready for work tomorrow - all the while walking around with a ragged hole blown through me, since the other half of my soul has landed four hundred long miles away, alone in its own house, but not yet at home.
Awwwww. How bout I bring an obnoxious 9 going on 21 year old over to shatter the quiet, make random messes in various places, break all your pretty delicate things (& some of the sturdy ones too!) And just wreak general havoc? I'd bet it would take you right outta that blue funk! At least for a little while! Buck up girlie! You are loved! Jewels and miss vannah!
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