Handfast

There are little things about our life together that I am afraid I will forget. Quiet, daily moments that will be swept aside in memory for the big events. There will always be big events; graduations, birthdays, Christmas mornings. Give me the memory of his spoon stirring my morning cup of coffee. The joke we shared through puffs of breath during a late-afternoon run. I do not want to forget the rise and fall of his back as sleeps on his stomach on a dreary Sunday afternoon. The scent of his hair wet from the shower, shampoo and Ivory soap and something that is only him, indescribable.

The rains come again, heavy and incessant. It is summer, it is green and gray and strange to look at the calendar and think: July. This is July. We take a nap Sunday afternoon, because the rain starts again and the wind sends it sideways on the bedroom windows, and it is dark and cool and the weather of hibernation and secrets. We each claim a side of the bed, legs and arms akimbo, spread out, taking space. When it is hot, we neglect to snuggle close, we are a duo that is solo in sleep.

Despite the length of the bed between us, there are times I will wake in the night to find our hands clasped together; in our sleep we find each other, hold on. We start out sleeping apart, I on my side, he on his, curled around pillows or snuggled tight around blankets. Each lost to our own worlds. But somehow in the night we untangle, we cross the space of cold sheets and tossed pillows, our hands reach out and we weave together, my hand in his, his in mine. Unconscious. Unknown. Unable to let go even in dreams.

Some summer day it may not be the sole pair of us; we may have children, we may have a wagging-tailed dog, we may have a house shared with parents or relatives. Some day it may just be him, alone and waiting in this world, this life. Some day, it may be just me, a husband gone, children grown, my hair gray and thin and sparse. On that day, I want to remember the space of time when it was just me and him, our bed an island in a sea of dreams, my fingers moving through sleep, his hand sneaking a way through parted sheets, both safely reaching out in darkness to hold the hand that was made for the other.

Strangers On A Blog

There was a blog I followed last year written by a woman in New York City who was laid off from her job. The only work she was able to find was part-time at a gym over an hour and 1/2 away from her home, and she wrote about her commute, the patrons who would frequent the gym, the employees, the members, and her continuous work search. But over time the posts became more personal and she was writing about fights with her boyfriend and feelings of despair. Then one day her blog was gone. Deleted. I don't know what happened to her, but a year later I still think about this unfinished story. I think about how strange the world of blogging can be, how for a moment in time I was privileged to read the daily thoughts of a stranger whose face I didn't know. How there is a woman I could pass on the streets of New York, or share a ride with on a train, who I know so much and yet so little about.

In my own little blogging world, I write surprisingly very little about my daily life and self. The more personal posts come months after the fact, but yet you still read me, and I thank you for it. Because, You and I? We are not strangers. Not really. Here is my face, my hands, my words. Pass me on the street and stop to tell me your dreams. Stop to tell me the taste of the green apples of your childhood, of the small torn hole in your coat that lets your skin feel the bitter pleasure of the cold rainy afternoon. Let's not be strangers. I'll start.

Here is my day: It is quiet in the house. My husband is working from home today and when he does, I tend to stay sedentary, silent as not to disturb, nesting in piles of blankets and cups of tea. (On days when I am alone, I am a raucous One-Woman Broadway Show.) Two writers living in one house, we often retreat into our own spaces and worlds and greet each other in the evening hours as if it were a pleasant surprise; "Oh, hello! You're here too! I missed you today." We are only one wall apart.

Last week, I pulled all of our joint Christmas decorations and bits-n-bobs out of the hidden corners of storage to make the house shine. Matt calls the image on my matching set of Christmas mugs my Mentally Challenged Moose. Not all outcast reindeer were born with red noses, poor fellow. He keeps me company in my nesting.

In the late morning hours I am awake in bed and lost in thought. I write elaborate lists titled, "NATALIE. GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER." Fail at the application when the day starts in full. To check off one thing on the list is an accomplishment worth celebrating. In the quiet of this morning I managed two.

I write long-winded sentences and delete them.  I have everything and nothing to say. I think of my father, my half-sister. The house smells of laundry, my sweaters drying over the stair banister. It is the first cold day in weeks. Have I forgotten how lovely the cold could be?

Later, I will commandeer the kitchen and crush long candy canes in Ziploc bags to make Peppermint Bark for my mother. It'll be the fifth or sixth batch made this month, the only Christmas treat I've conquered to perfection.

Later, Matt and I will share our bed, and talk about the ocean, the way sand crabs blink, and the small spaces between us will dissolve. If we are lucky the rain will be our lullaby, and if not, the distant sound of lone train whistles will lull us to sleep. In North Carolina, I have never lived in any place where I could not hear the sound of a lonely night train.

If I am lucky, sleep will come undisturbed. The things I do not want to write to you now, the things you may not know, become tide pools in my mind. It happened like this; my half-sister's child, a young man in his twenties, stepped into the ocean in November and never returned. We are not strangers on a cold beach, and the train we share rolls on into the night.

Here is my day, then; I wake and think of you; stranger, friend, reader, and wonder if you know that though this world is hard and rough to walk, it is worth the walk. I want to keep walking it. I want you to keep walking. There is still so much to see.

Badly Drawn Little Comics: Wild Saturday Night

Click to enlarge.

May this be a lesson to you all, kids. Don't drink and draw. Your beer bottles will come out all weird.

Saturday night with my husband, Matt. Wild times for nerds in love! Complete text for this badly drawn little comic below the jump.

Cinderella

It happened so fast.

The swirl of my dress. The smooth slab of newly laid concrete under my bare feet. The breaking of the stranger's glass on the dance floor. The club was new, a renovated warehouse on the edge of uptown, the crowd small for a preview opening. My shoes kicked off to dance. My bare feet on cool cement. The glass. It was fast and inevitable.

I hopped to the edge of the dance floor with the aid of my friend Mags; perched myself on a raised platform by the bar. Before I could even look at my foot, he was there. Kneeling down in his good suit, cradling my bleeding foot in both hands on his lap, his handkerchief pressed to stop the blood. Maybe then. Maybe that was the moment I knew.

Last night we watched Manhattan. It was past midnight, me with a cup of Earl Grey, my husband with  a decaf coffee. We stay up too late. We watch movies at odd hours. It started years ago, when we were first dating. His house was a small brick rental, a dark cave surrounded by old growth. He didn't live there long. The entire back garden was a swampy mess of bamboo and mud. Once we saw a rat by the edge of the fence. But the house was clean, and the bamboo shaded the windows, casting a pale greenish glow in the afternoon sun, and the front yard had a swing hanging from a branch of an old oak tree, perfect for two people to share. On Sundays we would sleep late. Watch movies with coffee and unbrushed hair. Did we love each other yet? Were we, or weren't we? We watched Annie Hall in our sweatpants and sweetened our drinks with kisses.

At night, he'd cook dinner for me, while I prattled around his house. I'd kill bugs hiding behind bookcases and never tell him. He'd startle at the bang of my shoe. What was that? Nothing. I'd wash down the kitchen counters, make the bed. Kiss him goodbye at the door. Look back to the lit front porch as I drove away. My own apartment would be cold when I returned.

In bed last night I asked him, could you pinpoint the moment you fell in love with me? It was raining outside in short bursts, on and off. No, he says. I nest in the folds of our bed. Me either. Our bedside lighting was a wedding gift, with satin tan lampshades. Sometimes I miss the green of the bamboo shading. His body is like a radiator, and my feet grow warm next to his. I don't remember falling asleep, but I know I reached out a hand to scratch the space in between his shoulder blades. I reach out a hand just to feel him near me. 

My friend Mags and I called each other Gypsy Sisters. We were wanderers. She sat in my London flat and gifted me nail polish and suntan lotion from Doha. I took her for pints at the Black Friars pub and we watched a small mouse brave the carpeted floor for crisp crumbs. And years ago when she held my hand on the dance floor at the new warehouse club, I stepped on a piece of glass. I didn't feel any pain. Too tipsy.

He held my foot gently, as if it were a wounded bird. Flightless. Mags gave a sigh in my ear. Look at him! He's so sweet! His eyes raked mine in search of tears. None. I watched him in quiet fascination. He washed the cut with bottled water, stopped the bleeding. Searched for glass embedded in flesh. Worried.  I spoke. Don't get blood on your suit! He didn't care. His hands mentally grounded me against the sway of alcohol; his hands ceased the risk of infection. There's no scar. He found my sandals and worked the small clasps. Tenderly slid it on my injured foot. No more wounds tonight, OK? Gave me a hand up. Kissed me. Sent me back to dancing and to wandering with a rust-stained handkerchief for his troubles. Maybe then I knew. Maybe that was the moment, with Mags' sigh and my bleeding foot and a broken glass and Matt with both hands lovingly holding on to me in pure care and concern. It happened so fast. I knew I loved him. Maybe then.

I fell in love with him.