“We have not spoken words to each other in some time. I know you are lonely. A loneliness that has no comfort or reassurance anywhere in its grasp. I, too, am lonely and at times I think our loneliness could be shared to comfort one another.
“Don’t answer now in haste. This is not an order just a proposal. My heart aches as does yours. I only propose a building block on which to start a foundation.” I wrote to the troups when I felt my own loneliness after weeks of only feeling theirs.
* * * * * * *
“Mama. Mama. I want my Mama. I can’t find her. Mama. Mama. Where are you? I don’t want to do anything until my Mama comes back.”
* * * * * * *
I realized that, although I was still quite capable of doing physical injury to myself, I was virtually assured that I could no longer desensitize enough to kill myself. The fantasy was irretrievably destroyed by the image of Adrian crying inconsolably over the loss of her own mother—with no possibility of reconnection. It was simply too fresh and real to me to imagine imposing it on one more child in the world.
* * * * * * *
A PERFECTLY GOOD FANTASY SHOT TO HELL. (Where is your compassion?) IT WENT OUT WITH CHICKEN SOUP. (I like chicken soup.) UH-HUH.
* * * * * * *
A couple days ago, I was driving along I-5. That relatively short but tedious route northbound between Olympia and Seattle. Just as I crested the gradual climb between Fife and Federal Way, I remembered something. Out of the blue, I remembered that there was a place between Federal Way and Des Moines I’d always really liked but had forgotten to look at for a very long time—a very long time.
It was a little place, a slight dip in the road, where there was a small lake and two houses with a boat dock looking very quiet and serene. I remembered looking at it on foggy mornings and wondering what it was like to visit there.
“Yeah,” a part of me woke up, “I remember, I loved that place.” I came to in the car, could feel the movement of the freeway, and craned my neck to look at the small dip in the freeway. “Lots of trees. Where did all those trees come from—with leaves. But over there above the trees appears to be a break. Could that be a lake?”
I could remember it so clearly. “How had I forgotten? The trees blocked my view. That’s pretty darn rotten.”
* * * * * * *
(Now cut that out!) WHAT? (No rhyming for god’s sake. We’re writing the great American novel here.) OH, RIGHT. SORRY.
* * * * * * *
I tried to figure out how long I’d forgotten to look for the lake. “Jesus, five, ten, fifteen, twenty years?” Those trees looked, well, quite fixed in place.
All those damn leaves, could it just be the season? It vanished in summer. That could be the reason.
* * * * * * *
(You’re really pushing it here.) YOU NEVER ENJOY THE FUN PART. YOU TAKE EVERYTHING SO SERIOUSLY.
* * * * * * *
It took me a couple more trips on the freeway. Finally from the southbound lanes which were just a bit higher, I saw at one place through the trees the two houses and the lake. Obviously, the place had changed. There were more houses there. But there were fine trees there now between the freeway and the lake. For how many years had I forgotten to look?
* * * * * * *
Mommy. Mommy. Mommy.
“Mom,” I said in my near sleeping state. It was my voice, but I knew it was an alter. I was holding Rahne where my mother used to lay with me in bed before sleeping. “Mom, I have something to tell you. You won’t like it…I’m angry.”
Suddenly, I remembered what it was like to live with Jeannette in those years before Western. In a moment, I had the undiluted truth of what my relationship with my mother had been like. All of the worst moments with my succession of lovers had been that emotionally barricaded, self restrained, intellectually violent way lovers can be with each other. I had done it all first with my mother and had gone on to do the play repeatedly alternating which role I played.
“Mom, I’m upset.” No matter how I would follow up that statement, my mom would end up crying or screaming that I didn’t care about her; just wanted to leave her like my father; and was selfish and insensitive.
For a few moments, I remembered what it was like to live with someone so desperate and emotionally distraught that she could not for a second contemplate me as anything other than an absolute extension of her own experience. Imagining going to family therapy with Jeannette would be like being locked in that battle again trying to disengage.
It was as if Jeannette said, “Everything you do, everything you think is about me, relates to me, or is because of me.” It was a tough hook for a 12 year old to break.
“I feel because of you. I think because of you. I act because of you. My whole life’s ambition is to be with you, to see you, to touch you. That is all I ever want.”
Or the flip side, “Why do you hurt me so? You know I love you more than anything. It kills me to think of you being in so much pain.”
Or, flip again. “I guess I’m just a terrible mother. I don’t know how you can stand me or why you put up with me…” etc., etc., ad infinitum, ad nauseam.
“I’m tired. I’m old. I just don’t want to go anymore rounds with you, Mom.” I thought, “I admit it. You are better at what you do than I am at not participating. Except for this one painful, boring, dull, drab way of not participating anymore at all.” Thus, I left the phone undialed, the letters unsent, and the pain unshared—at least with Jeannette.
* * * * * * *
(Do you suppose those memories were locked up with the special place on the freeway?) LIKE WHAT, NOW SUDDENLY YOU’RE INTERESTED IN MY OPINION? (A little introspective discourse. Is that so bad?) STUFF IT, SHITHEAD!