Tonight, like any good graduate student who happens to be studying, of all things, poetry, which is of course a type of writing, I left my house to do laundry and homework without my computer’s power cord, a notebook, or a pen.
I realized my mistake about the same time that all of the laundry was washed and loaded back into the car, my computer was at 21% power, and I had 3.5 hours to kill at the coffee shop on Adams before my dinner plans. At this point I had a few options. I could drive the 15 minutes home, navigating two different highways and taking my chances with the traffic. But of course, once I was home I’d be obligated to just stay there, diligently working, until it came time for dinner. Or! I could borrow the little green notebook that’s been living in my car and tracking my dog-walking miles (in the perhaps optimistic hope that my deductions would put a dent in the thousands I’m going to owe the government).
Since one of these options involved caffeine, and the other involved extra driving, I think I made the only logical choice. I tucked the little green notebook into my computer case, and headed inside to kill my laptop battery deader-than-dead before starting to brainstorm for my final Creative Nonfiction presentation by hand. What I forgot to remember is that this particular little notebook (green [slightly darker than lime but not quite forest], college rule, 80 sheets), was a gift. And as a gift, it’s a mausoleum to a past me, somebody I haven’t visited in July 24th, 2013.
Sometimes I like to play this game. It’s called, “If I were following the trajectory of X, then my life would look like Y.” For example, “If I were following the trajectory of my mother, then I would have an 8 year-old daughter instead of a 7 year-old cat” or, “If I were following the trajectory of my little sister, then I’d have been married for six years already.” Sometimes this game is comforting, it puts things into perspective and gives me insight into my own personal values. Ya’ll, let’s be real. I just don’t think I would have been able to keep a child (or a marriage?) alive this long.
Tonight I played a slightly different version: “If I had been capable of loving others as much as they claimed to love me, then who and where would I be?” Another way to phrase this is “If I had felt worthy of the love others claimed to want to give me, would I still be who I am?"
The not-quite-lime-but-not-forest-green-either notebook was a gift from my girlfriend-at-the-time. A gift for the summer she spent in New York City, studying for her MFA in photography. She was going to be gone for 7 weeks. At the time this felt simultaneously easy to navigate and absolutely insurmountable. In the first few pages she wrote maybe we can keep notebooks for each other this summer and she wrote we can exchange them and not feel like strangers and she wrote I’m not afraid of your secrets and she wrote thank you. thank you. thank you.
A year ago, my heart asked How many times have you been in love? and I want to think that I took the time to give her a thoughtful response, but in retrospect I’m almost certain I rushed my answer the way I rush most things, and said, Twice when what I should have said is What does ‘in love’ mean, really? Does it refer to your feelings towards another person, the way they make you feel about yourself, or some strange and incomprehensible amalgamation of the two? What is the difference between loving, and being in love? What is the difference between love and tenderness?
(side note: whenever I know I am in love with my cat, it’s because she’s done something that makes my throat squeeze shut like anaphylaxis and I can feel my pupils dilating, like they need extra space to store all the joy, and even though she woke me up with her Crypt Keeper yowl at 4am, I can’t imagine my life without her)
At the beginning of this semester, I turned in a manuscript of poetry and my professor said The first section is really compelling, then you follow it with three sections of love poems and I wondered how she could see love when all I saw was loneliness. The girl who gave me the notebook said every person she met was a mirror. She was grateful because she needed them to reflect herself back to her so she could see who she was. And I said she was in luck, because I felt made of mirrors. I was perpetually reflecting back what people wanted or needed to see. See also: what people thought was intimacy was just their own need for closeness magnified and refracted, infinitely.
Here is what I know: I have said I love you to nearly every human I have been with, and I have meant it every time. They have said it back to me, and this also feels true in a way I can’t explain. So what is love? The first time somebody said those three words to me, it was a trap that I deserved to be caught up in. Is that why is so often sounds like an apology?
Following my 2013 entries is a series of drawings from when I found words ineffectual and started drawing my demons. 2014-2015, these monsters are all open mouths and longing, all ghosts and agency conjoined with need.
I don’t know where all of this is going, except that I read the diary I thought I was keeping for somebody else, so our hearts wouldn’t be strangers, and I can see in it all of the desperate ways a younger me wanted to be seen, but was too afraid. I know, I know, I know that this particular relationship would never be right for me, but tonight I feel a small revived shame at the center of me for not being brave. So. To the poet photographer who viewed people as a mirror, here is perhaps my first honest and heartfelt reflection.
When we met, I was broken and dreaming kaleidoscope. I’m sorry my edges were so sharp. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to contain your big picture. I hope you’ve found somebody who reflects all the best pieces of you.
These days I’m feeling less mirror, and more deep, slow-moving water. There are things even I haven’t accessed, but I’ve been learning how to breathe and I feel more capable of diving deep. Thank you all for going on this journey with me.
xoxo
-b
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