Neither Here nor There: Under a tree, on the back of reptile

I went for a walk today because I am trying to learn to sit still. I walked until the pit in my stomach worked its way up to my heart and then walked faster so my heart pumped the knot into my throat. I arrived at a small park and climbed on the back of the stone turtle just as the lump threatened to dissolve and leak out my eyes. Boo hoo, Kate. You're sitting on giant stone turtle, under a purple crepe myrtle.

And then: HA HA! KATE!

YOU'RE SITTING ON A GIANT STONE TURTLE/

UNDER A PURPLE CREPE MYRTLE!

And in that moment, the purple of the flowers the perfect shade of my shoes, I was reminded once over how much I love rhymes; how gently the rhythm of words can carry you forward and set you down gently in a new place, even while you are learning, especially while you are learning, to sit very still and rest in the shade of a tree.

Antietam & other battles

The man on the radio starts in this morning, before there is light, listing the significances of the day.

And finally, it's the 149th anniversary of the Battle of Antietam today. Near Sharpsburg, MD, this was the first major battle to be fought on Northern soil.

Somewhere, in between bragging about seeing the Rolling Stones in '72 and rolling up his sleeves so we could all get a better look at his 17 inch pythons, Mr. T pressed into my head that this was, why yes indeed, the bloodiest battle of the Civil War.

I think about the soldiers, littering the fields, on my way to work. I picture their mangled limbs, the mud and blood. It's not that cold, but I am cold.

The emergency room is strangely still when I arrive. I make beds, fold clothes. I think about soldiers, ether, and muskets, while I work. Wool blankets and whiskey.

A man my ages comes in because he's thrown up a couple times, carrying on as though he might die. When we put an IV in, he cries and threatens to faint.

I say: I know. I know. It's almost over. You're going to be okay.

What I want to say: You're lucky no one has come after you with a bayonet.

A girl my age comes in because her stomach hurts. After the doctor leaves the rooms she tells me that she can't handle being pregnant now, that both she and her husband are starting new jobs.

I say: I know. I know. It's a lot to take in. But you're going to be okay.

What I want to say: You're lucky he's not dead in a field and that you won't hemorrhage to death on a bed of dirty rags when the baby comes.

My friend brings me a cup of tea and says Are you okay? You seem sad today.

I say: I know. I know. I'm a little tired but I'm going to be okay.

What I want to say: What's wrong with the world today? I really don't think I'm fit for modern life.

But I know that what's wrong with people today is the same thing that was wrong with people then, and in the beginning.

And trying to live outside the time you're in is as bad as not knowing what to do with the time you're given.

SOME THINGS CAN NOT BE FIXED

I said it out loud today and then immediately wanted to un-say it.

This is a truth about being human, but not an absolution.

coffee shop romance

I gave in and said yes, I'd have coffee with him, because the last time he asked, the zit on my chin was at its reddest, orneriest peak and I'd already been vomited on twice that day. If he could see past that, well, maybe it was worth 45 minutes of further exploration. I pull the curtain behind me, pause, considering coffee. We've spent the past hour trying to irrigate the catheter of a demented old man with prostate cancer. He peels the gloves off his hands and throws them in the red bin by the sink without ever moving his eyes from my face. I feel the zit pulsing, projecting like a laser onto his forehead.

"C'mon. After what we've just gone through together, you're really going to say no? No matter what happens between us, there's no way that it will be more awkward than that back there."

How inaccurately he must see me - a girl who collects awkward moments like notches on bedpost.

His pager goes off. "Tomorrow? I already heard you say you're off. 4:00?"

It's impossible to find what you're looking for, or what you think you're looking for, sitting across a small unstable table, square or round, in a coffee shop. What kind of music do you like? Have you read anything by _________? People think this is the data you need to find and coffee shops play right into this type of shoddy research. How does he carry a shovel, what he does he do with the sweat on his brow? The tenderness with which he kisses his mother. This is the information I'm looking to gather. A first date in the middle of a field. Miles of fences to mend. Ask me once and I'll say yes in heartbeat.

When I called my mother earlier in the week, finally admitting that the last few months of dates with the architect had imploded into nothing, infertile ash, she went silent for a minute.

"What is it?"

"It's just...maybe you would have more success with men if you were less....," she can't finish the sentence. My mother teaches high school geometry. She is impeccably clean.

"Incongruent?"

"Well, that's one way of saying it, yes. "

"Ok. 4:00 tomorrow. I've got to go." I rush off into the room across the hall and start fiddling with the monitor even though it's not beeping and the patient isn't mine.

I get to the coffee shop early, trying to beat the rain and ending up my signature blend of windblown and sweaty. My bike falls over when I try to lock it while simultaneously looking over my shoulder to make sure he's not already sitting, expectantly, at a sidewalk table. He's not. There's a table in the back corner and I debate whether I should sit with my back to the wall or the door. I go with back to the wall and sit down, willing composure to rise up and beat back the incongruity I feel. All around me, people are typing intently into sleek machines, underlining passages, nodding in rapt agreement. It is too easy to be erudite and glib here. There is no room for awkwardness which is where I always find what I need to know.

I'm unabashedly watching the door when a girl about my age comes in, struggling to keep a 24 pack of toilet paper under the crook of her arm. She walks to the counter, dropping the toilet paper twice, and orders a large peppermint tea. She counts out the exact change, blocks the line of customers behind her while she waits, and yells "oh shit" when the light green water splashes over the lip of the cup onto her fingers. With great commotion, she gets herself, the 24 rolls of toilet paper, and a mug, half-full, of peppermint tea to the table next to me and sits down. I inspect her. Everything is a little off, a little over-ripe. Squidgy is the word we coined for girls like this in college.

A few minutes later a man walks in, and stalks through the minefield of tables. We never came up with the male equivalent for squidgy, but here he is. Without saying anything at all, he leans down and kisses the girl. He kisses her deeply. He kisses her faceoff. Then he stands up, stretches, reaching his arms high over his head, and yawns. When he's done stretching and yawning, he turns to the 24 pack of toilet paper on the chair next to the girl he's just kissed. He tears open the thick plastic, takes out a roll, and unwinds a long piece of toilet paper and blows his nose so thoroughly and loudly that everyone (unprotected by earbuds) turns to look. I, myself, stare, enraptured by the whole scene.

"Hey. Sorry I'm late." He's arrived and I hardly recognize him without his white coat and pager. The zit on my chin is gone and I'm feeling strangely hopeful about what can happen in this coffee shop, this afternoon.

He sits down in the chair that places his back to the door and cocks his head toward the couple.

"Wow. Did you see that. Kind of awkward. Hahahaha...," he laughs weakly and it trails off into my silence. Over his shoulder, I see the barista with the sparrow tattoo push play on the stereo and a song I love floods the air. I smile, betraying nothing, waiting for it to harden. He doesn't disappoint.

"Ahh! Great song!" He can not help himself as the seconds gather. "So...," he takes a sip, always looking at my face. "What kind of music do you like?"

wish

I want a good old typewriter bad.

midnight song

The cricket in the corner is quiet and steady.

The rain lashes down the drainpipe

and in the rich dark of my room,

I hear the soft tic tic tic

of my own carotid pulse;

hot blood and the cool of the pillow.

My heart keeping time for this midnight song.

Neither Here nor There: Part One

Neither Here nor There

or:

where have you been all my life?

"And this is the simple truth - that to live is to feel oneself lost. He who accepts it has already begun to find himself, to be on firm ground. Instinctively, as do the shipwrecked, he will look around for something to which to cling, and that tragic, ruthless glance, absolutely sincere, because it is a question of his salvation, will cause him to bring order into the chaos of his life. These are the only genuine ideas; the ideas of the shipwrecked. All the rest is rhetoric, posturing, farce."

- Soren Kierkegaard.

&&&

The Left Handed Captain, miraculously, comes to town on an Easter Sunday overwhelmed by dying bodies & disordered lives. He brings 18 perfect brown eggs & two bottles of champagne and, while I change out of my scrubs and into a pretty dress, whips up a midnight brunch so sublime, so glorious, I almost cry from disbelief. On the front porch we eat by candlelight, talking about this and that - Flannery O'Connor, giving up the search, lakes in Africa, the queer ability of low-fi audio recordings to pluck at our heart strings like the Holy Spirit. I tell him about my day and he says You are a good woman, Kate. He is handsome & charming, his hollandaise sauce is perfect salt & light. But my faith is so anemic, I tell him. When we talk of the people we've hurt and loved, he says Most days I wonder if I haven't made a huge mistake. We shiver as Easter Sunday fades into the start of another long week, already stacked against us. So incarnate are we -- unable to help ourselves to anything else besides more food - and yet...

(We live in this and yet... This is where we find our home)

...and yet, the early spring dew lands on our heads like a benediction; searching, feasting, together, our communion is blessed.

&&&

I lay awake these nights, deep in the dark, thinking of a man who told me once he loved me, and then told me again, and then again and then, finally, after all was said and done, once more again. In the middle of the night I would wake him, wake him just so he would say Oh Love, it's okay. Go to sleep, Kate, go to sleep. And I would. And just like that, I would.

I lay awake these nights, deep in my own mind, the knowing coursing thru my heart like blood, that love is not enough. Oh Love, it's okay. Oh Love! It's not enough! But love and sleep and passage beyond the bounds of one's own mind - is that enough? A lifetime of sleep, of love. Is that enough? Is okay enough?

&&&

I stop at the corner of 7th Street and Massachusetts Avenue and wait for the light to change. In the basket of my bike I have a bottle of Burgundy, purple grapes, dark chocolate gelato. It is Bastille Day and what I really want to bring with me (Regardez ce que j'ai apporté pour vous, mon amour!) is a gypsy man with an accordion and a wrought iron window basket exploding with red geraniums. But I am 29 now, slightly more practical, slightly less stupid, about these things (Peut-être que ce n'est pas vrai, ma chérie...).

A girl rides up next to me and startles my reverie. She is a little flushed, charmingly disheveled, with short dark hair, pink shoes, a green bike. Am I anywhere near Peregrine coffee shop? she asks and, then, before I can answer, Do I look ok? I'm going to meet a boy! I tell her, truly, that she looks lovely, that she is very close, only a few blocks away. Before she can answer I tell her that I, too, am going to meet someone. Well, you look very pretty, too! Good luck! she says and then pedals off to the place where we left off, il et moi, once upon a time. The light changes and I continue on my way, toward the guillotine, the Hall of Mirrors, an ancient stone wall, a bottle of Burgundy -- qui peut savoir, mon amour?