A thank you note

I remember that last day at the Inner Harbor, when you told me 'This is how I will remember you'.

It was raining, a drenching soaking misting rain and through it fell rays of sunlight.  I wanted to answer your question, the one behind that comment but as I tilted my face up from under my baby blue cloche hat and smiled at your dark eyes, I couldn't.

Instead I reached up to let my fingers glance down the side of your face, fluttering as they fell and I looked away to the ocean. After a moment I turned back to you, all my thoughts tripping over themselves, my breath heavier than a humming bird's wings; yet still I froze. You watched and smiled reassuringly at my silence until I laughed a little.  So we said nothing more and I let you take my hand as we walked on.

Later, weeks later, I remember your voice.   I was sitting on the floor, my knees pulled in, clutching my phone with white knuckles as I heard the break in the connection, the break in your voice, "Come back- come back to me" and still I didn't have the words to tell you I could not, and why I could not.

Years have passed and that moment still exhales as if it just inhaled.  I wanted to write to you when I wound up out on the west side of the states.  I wanted to tell you about the day I met my sweetheart.  I wanted to call when we were engaged.  I really wanted to tell you about the day I decided to stop being afraid and instead love to fly.

I didn't. 

I didn't because I still did not know what to say.  But I know what I want to say now. The words came unexpectedly, while I was alone on a white mountain in a bright blue day.  They came with an easy understanding that reminds me of looking into clear water. 

I don’t want to interrupt the place I am in and the place you have doubtlessly moved on to.  I do not want to betray our strange and delicate friendship found during such a chaotic time in our lives. But I am going to write all of these badly belated words here because they are a tribute to your gift to me at a time I needed it most.

Regardless if it was because of how I was wired, how society had trained me or the experiences I’d had;  At that time my personal doubts were so all encompassing I could not see anything but them.  I needed a mirror to show me what was above and below; what was inside and outside and this mirror was to be you.  You were my first mirror and when I saw myself as you saw me; everything changed. 

You were the first person I believed who believed in me.  You were intelligent, successful, kind and good looking.  You were in a position of authority and inappropriately and significantly older than me.  You asked nothing from me (except to sometimes hold my hand).  You called me eclectic and beautiful and you told me I could Do Anything I put my mind to.  And because of how I saw you, I believed you.

Over the months, you began to love me, not just the attracted-to-you kind, but the real kind.   I knew you would shield me from the world; you would have showered me with excessive kindness and indulgence.  You would have given me anything I wanted, anything at all. 

I had began to understand the value of the gift you had given me and I began to know there was only one gift I could give back to you.  And that was to leave.

It was your character that made you kind and intelligent; it was your experiences that had taught you patience and given you your insight; Your successes were achieved after persistent attempts made over years and continued after failures.

I was young and I knew I knew very little.  I, wild and thin, I lived on coffee, cigarettes and spontaneous choices.  You had a community, you had businesses, friends, family – you had built a life I should not be a part of.  

Looking at you, I too wanted to gain character to make me kinder and intelligent.  I wanted experiences to teach me patience and to give me insight into myself and the world I live in.  I wanted to learn persistence, perseverance and gain my own success.  I wanted to find a place and choose to call it home.  I wanted to find a man I could grow to belong with and be equal to.

When I look back, now that I am also in my mid-thirties, maybe you only saw my youth, my femininity and vulnerability.  Maybe I made you feel young; Maybe you just wanted to help the broken unhappy girl.

But perhaps you saw my possibility.

Dear friend, here is an update.  While I am still not an ambitious person when it comes to a ‘proper’ career, I am competent and independent.  I paint, and sell my work.  I write and post my scribbles here online and sometimes people from all over the world read and re-read my work.  When you knew me I had never belonged anywhere, and today I have lived in one place with one person for more than ten years. 

I love a man who is everything a man should be and more And he loves me back  We argue, we squabble, we laugh and take care of each other. Because of him I have battled my way to becoming a half decent skier.  I was terrified of water and I learned to scuba dive and make myself swim in the ocean.  I am scared witless by heights, yet I love my paraglider.  I have overcome my social anxieties and I capably manage my dyslexia and naturally scattered self.    

I have taken what you gave to me, what I saw in you and made it my own. Thank you for being my first mirror.

Dream on my Shoulder

I woke up with another dream. Literally. This Dream sat on my shoulder, yawned with me and staggered up and also came to have a cup of coffee.

I put on my mascara while it clung to my shoulder like a koala to a eucalyptus tree. Dream perched to the back of my head rest as I hurried to work and it squeaked in protest when I took a corner a little too fast.

This has been “One of those days.” We all have had one of these and although we all apply these days in different ways, all feel the same way about them regardless.

After this day filled with people who also seem to be carrying dreams around like sulky cats or yapping little dogs on too long of a leash, I have decided to talk about mine with the hope that by doing such, it will get down off my leg and politely sit in place.

The first dream this week was about a little boy. He was not mine. His sticky tousled butter hair clung damply to his serious face and large dark grey eyes. I woke up worrying about him and I haven’t been able to turn around without hoping to see him, but to see him with a smile.

The second dream was last night. This was a jumble of candy cane colored street stripes, snow in a high desert, Santa Claus forced up on stilts to be hung on a cross, wind shield wipers blown off by howling winds and losing my favorite shoes as I was forced to slug through a giant pond of a puddle. As I was standing on the other side, glumly glaring at the spot where mud sucked them off, I looked up and around and thought “I have been in this terrible version of Alice in Wonderland for a while. I should be waking up soon.”

With this thought I decided to ditch the car and walk for a bit. My feet bleed and ached but as I was aware that these were my dream feet I wasn’t too worried about it. I seem to be in perfect shape and none the worse for wear whenever I enter a new dream. Plus the wind only howled if I got in the car.

I wandered from the open field into what I thought was another one until I reached the slightly receding road’s bottom and saw wan abandoned, and once very nice, suburban neighborhood. Tumble weed tumbled, as it does; cracked and aching dry sidewalks and driveways split open for weeds and the front yards were filled with burnt yellow grass that tried to wave their tiny tinted blades in the (now)soft wind, but instead broke continuously into dust that sighed around me in the silence.

Where did the snow go? I looked back up. Yes Santa was still up there and yes he was too far away to help and yes there was about eighteen feet of snow….

But here at the bottom it was death valley meets the sub-prime crash of 2007.

I wished for and then looked at the helpful watch that appeared on my wrist. About thirty minutes until the alarm went off. I could wake myself up but I tested my physical self and I was still quite comfortable and deeply resting. Plus I didn't sense danger. It was as if this bizarre broken world did not yet know I was there still.

But then It did. I couldn't see it, I could not smell it but I could breath It. This danger felt like ants had crawled into my lungs and left me gasping for air. The sun was suddenly burning, burning, it was burning my skin! I could not breathe the air that had no life and choked as I tried. My pulse hopped up and as my heart tried to flee, the rest of me tried to stay calm. Where was it? What was thinking this malice and had noticed me? A dry cracked wail broke out from the deadly stillness; throwing hot drenching icy fear to trap and hold me in this world of deep despair.

I thought of waking up but forgot how to shake myself out!

I then thought of green and I thought of home. I thought of blurred hills and glowing moss, I tasted the smell of my best friend, I reached for the thought of my dog’s eyes. But I shivered and I lost them.

-Then I heard her coming.

My Wind Woman’s arms stretched out with her flowing cloaks of starlight, rain and mist. She slipped over the road where I had come from; she covered the snow, swept away the dust, the haunted hills and the road disappeared in her loose waves of grace; (she has a way of taking over everything); As she descends, (her face always haunts me) and I can see her dark, mischievous and dangerous eyes. She came down behind me, caught me up in her midnight blue hair and whispered “Wake up!”

I felt the clean chilling touch of her breath through my bones and sat up in bed.

Reflection

I am day dreaming today. I want to go to the art store and pick up some canvas. I want to feel the itchy tingle of paint drying against my skin. I like that feeling. It is not comfortable but it is comforting. When paint crams under my nails to the point that they ache I feel like I can understand the texture of the wind and the weight of breathing.

I walked Sally last night and watched the cloud’s reflection in street puddles. The storm raged and twisted and wrapped into its self, far above, it was a giant silken throw of silver grey.

Then I tripped on the sidewalk. It helps to watch where you walk.