my last day in town
Preparing for a two week trip back East to see my family. I woke up at 6:30 this morning and couldn't get back to sleep. At 7, I gave up, got out of bed, gave the cat her third-of-a-can of wet food, turned on NPR, heated up yesterday's leftover coffee (a sacrilege, I know, but I brewed the last of my coffee yesterday), checked, as always, for dispatches but found the internet wasn't working. Not unusual in that house where the wi-fi just drifts in from parts unknown and when you open your computer you just hope for the best and you never know...
I spent the morning gathering my things together, things which had managed to migrate throughout the downstairs of the house. I packed everything back into my laundry basket and the collection of plastic bags that now accompany it. I feel like a Bedouin. I cleaned the kitchen and returned the things I'd moved to their original places. I dragged everything to my car and left.
For the first time in probably all my life I am not nervous about my trip back East. I *am* nervous, but instead of dreading the flight or the anticipated trauma of time with my family, I am nervous now about going to CB's this afternoon to pack my big grey bag for the trip. I was last at CB's a couple days before Christmas. I stopped by and lasted about a half an hour. It was bad, we were terrible to each other and I left. As I drove away, I abandoned my notions of stopping by on Christmas, of buying her the present I'd been meaning to get, of making any effort whatsoever. As I drove away, I decided to become a hermit for a bit. And I did. I haven't spoken to her since.
Now, I will call her in an hour or so and warn her that I'm coming over to pack, give her the opportunity to leave if she doesn't want to see me. I hope she leaves. I have decided that I don't want to see her for awhile. It's too hard and it doesn't do either of us any good.
Then, tomorrow, I'll get on a plane at 8am and fly to Orlando Florida. I'll lose three hours as I head East and I won't get to the airport until 8:30pm. My mom and brother will pick me up and I'll enter this crazy vortex from which I will not emerge until January 12th when I finally return to Portland.
I have felt lately, in terms of my leaving CB, like I've jumped a slow moving train. I'm standing in the open door of some box car and the train is moving very, very slowly, but moving nonetheless. I can look back and see CB, not so far away. As time passes, the train moves faster, CB gets smaller and smaller. I can jump. I can still jump. I'm not that far now, the train's not moving all that fast. But soon... my trip back East, a two week absence from this town, this life, two weeks unable to jump. My train will have traveled far by the time I get back from my trip -- it will be a long way from the place I left CB and it will be moving much too fast by then to jump.
I spent the morning gathering my things together, things which had managed to migrate throughout the downstairs of the house. I packed everything back into my laundry basket and the collection of plastic bags that now accompany it. I feel like a Bedouin. I cleaned the kitchen and returned the things I'd moved to their original places. I dragged everything to my car and left.
For the first time in probably all my life I am not nervous about my trip back East. I *am* nervous, but instead of dreading the flight or the anticipated trauma of time with my family, I am nervous now about going to CB's this afternoon to pack my big grey bag for the trip. I was last at CB's a couple days before Christmas. I stopped by and lasted about a half an hour. It was bad, we were terrible to each other and I left. As I drove away, I abandoned my notions of stopping by on Christmas, of buying her the present I'd been meaning to get, of making any effort whatsoever. As I drove away, I decided to become a hermit for a bit. And I did. I haven't spoken to her since.
Now, I will call her in an hour or so and warn her that I'm coming over to pack, give her the opportunity to leave if she doesn't want to see me. I hope she leaves. I have decided that I don't want to see her for awhile. It's too hard and it doesn't do either of us any good.
Then, tomorrow, I'll get on a plane at 8am and fly to Orlando Florida. I'll lose three hours as I head East and I won't get to the airport until 8:30pm. My mom and brother will pick me up and I'll enter this crazy vortex from which I will not emerge until January 12th when I finally return to Portland.
I have felt lately, in terms of my leaving CB, like I've jumped a slow moving train. I'm standing in the open door of some box car and the train is moving very, very slowly, but moving nonetheless. I can look back and see CB, not so far away. As time passes, the train moves faster, CB gets smaller and smaller. I can jump. I can still jump. I'm not that far now, the train's not moving all that fast. But soon... my trip back East, a two week absence from this town, this life, two weeks unable to jump. My train will have traveled far by the time I get back from my trip -- it will be a long way from the place I left CB and it will be moving much too fast by then to jump.
posted by reasonably prudent poet at 10:48 AM
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