magicbeans. nothing if not awkward.

so last night allison.m and i were talking in the kitchen. [i'm going to have to paraphrase and horribly maim the conversation to reproduce it in some sense here. i might be misrepresenting her.] 'are you looking forward to going back to providence?' she asked me.

'yeah. but at the same time i'm scared. in a way i've spent this whole year with the intention of going back to something, and that's not really there right now.'

'do you know why she's doing this?' she asked.

'she gave me some reasons.. but i don't always understand her motivations for doing things. she's scared, basically. that's my take on it. there's less than a month left and she's scared of commitment and how serious this is.'

'i can sort of understand that. i want my life to be about me. i would like someone to come home to, sometimes maybe. but myself and my art are what's important.'

'it's nice to just have someone there though. so maybe when you're working and you've finished what you're doing for the day or you take a break, you have a little thought of them. you know that they're there. it's a constant that grounds the rest of things.'

right now it's kind of like that, but in the negative. when i stop working she's not there. and it hurts. the other day i had finished my dots, including the photo developing, by 1.00p. normally that would be a good feeling, to have accomplished your main goal for the day that early, the rest of the day would still be ahead of you. but it was awful. 'okay, i'm done now,' i thought, 'and i still have half the day to be depressed.'

[so i'm not sure if i've managed to convey anything important with this conversation. i've lost all the nuances of it to twenty-four hours of neglect, and in typing what i can recall (or plausibly make up) it seems way too short, and just a bunch of rehashing anyway. but that's what i'm flooded with right now. i miss her. i still think we could be good together. i'm giving her space, but i'm not going too far away.]

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and once again rob brezsny's words seem apropos (if a little new-agey at the end).

For the Week of April 10, 2002

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): In Denise Levertov's poem, "Zeroing In," a man says: "We had an old dog, when I was a boy, / a good dog, friendly. But there was an injured spot / on his head, if you happened / just to touch it he'd jump up yelping / and bite you." I'm sure that you, too, have a vulnerable place like that dog, Pisces, though it may not be from an actual physical wound. I'm guessing that you've built such an elaborate system of protection around it that no one ever gets close to brushing up against it. While this may have served you in the past -- it has kept you from biting innocent bystanders, for one thing -- it has now begun to shut you off from adventures you'd really benefit from. The time is ripe to let yourself be touched there by a smart healer.

as a side note, i think i vaguely remember reading that particular denise levertov poem at some point (in high school, probably), but i'm not completely sure. there is another of hers that i put on the web years ago though.