The more things change...

The more they stay the same.

Yes, It's a trite expresson. And, yet, I'm finding it to be true all the same.

To wit: I keep telling myself that I'll write more when I have something to say. The truth is that I have plenty to say, but it's just more of the same. Patterns repeating and all the rest of it.

So, what's on my mind these days? Something similar to this essay, which I wrote about six year ago.

I'm nothing if not consistent.

So there's that.

past all accident.

Read this immediately.

You won't regret it.

little things

Mostly still trying to sort out the past few months. Mostly.

I've started a new project in the meantime, just to focus on the good things at hand and as an attempt to stave off whatever depression may be lurking round the corner. Check it out here.

A small effort, to be sure. But, usually, I find, small things add up—in either direction. So, I'm aiming upward.

Radio Silence

Just to say: I'm taking a break for a bit and trying to clear my head. I'll be back soon, perhaps. In the mean, you know how to reach me.

Once more, with feeling

PER·SEV·ER·ATE (pər sev'ə rât'), V.I., –at·ed, –at·ing. 1. to repeat a word, gesture, or act insistently or redundantly 2. to obsess over a particular word or phrase, often in an attempt to come to terms with it; see "cervix" and "heart" 3. again, obsessing, this time in an attempt to convince yourself that things will be okay 4. and, finally, obsessing because you realize they probably won't and talking about it doesn't seem to help —per·sev'er·tion, N.

Noted. And recorded.

I mentioned it here.

Now, for the actual quote:

He made me think of home—perhaps home is not a place but simply an irrevocable condition.

Pretty close.

Ten points for me.

Long Story Short

And then it happens, despite your best intentions to the contrary.

Or, at least that's true for me.

It was mid-September, already feeling like fall, and my plans had changed suddenly—I was going home for a funeral. Nevermind that I hadn't spoken to the deceased in more than ten years; she had been important to me at one point in my life, and I needed to be there.

There was a man, N., in the picture at the time. He had stolen into my apartment in the middle of the night. I knew he was coming, but it stirred me from my sleep all the same. Then the next day, he was leaving the city in much the same way that he had arrived in my apartment the night before—meaning that he had been making murmurings, it was nothing unexpected. Yet suddenly they sounded serious, suddenly there was a time frame.

I didn't realize that I cared until it seemed to be too late.

I tend to disassociate from my emotions, or so I've been told. But, not on the day of the funeral. Instead, I was near tears. It was a number of things, really: the lack of sleep, the difficulty of going to any funeral, the trip after to see my own grandfather's grave—how we had gotten completely lost and how shocking it seemed to be to see my own surname on the headstone when we finally arrived. I grew up in a family where children didn't go to funerals and so had never been to his grave before.

In my mind, the day exists mostly in the details: the misting rain that made the ground so damp that my heels dug into it; the smoothness of the stone I placed on my grandfather's grave to signal that I had been there; the steady sound of N.'s breathing over the phone as I talked about the difficulty of it all and his suggestion that, maybe, just maybe, sleep was what I needed; the suprise to discover that I, who doesn't cry easily, was actually crying.

And, there I was, a few months later, crying again—sobbing, actually. Things were over at that point. In fact, we were supposed to be meeting persumably to talk about that. Instead, I was talking about a family health issue. Or, trying, rather. I couldn't get any words out. Couldn't do much of anything.

And, again, most of the night is in the details: the hasty departure from the bar since, clearly, I couldn't be there or anywhere in public for that matter; the scratch of his sweater against my face as he held me; how my back started to ache from the strength of my sobs; my knowing that I would forgive all else, that I had to, because I had no energy left to be angry, left to be anything.

It's easy, in retrospect, to say that these things don't matter, that hindsight is 20/20 and all the rest of it.

But, I was there.

And, months later, I find myself trying to make sense of it all. Of why things happen in the way that they do. Or, more specifically, why this played out as it did. I don't cry; I make a sarcastic comment, brush it off, and move on. Yes, this was different—and, yes, much, much worse—than anything I've ever had to (or possibly will have to) live through. But him?

Maybe it's as simple as this: he was there.

I don't know.

I'm inclined to think that's not the case, that what's important stays so.

There's this, too: I wanted to be right about him.