the habit of being

Barnes and Noble

Yesterday:

He finally got the last match lit, and we lit a candle and made a fire with the sticks I had gathered. We cooked the rice and mixed in the canned veggies, sat the pot on the embers of the dying fire, ate the soup with plastic spoons I keep in a plastic bag with other utensils, broken fork prongs, and a can opener. All this is the Italian russet pack with the signatures. There’s also a plastic bag with toothpaste, our blue and pink toothbrushes, and some truckstop soap. There’s a bag of embroidery floss for my bracelets.

We ate our rice and bread and animal crackers, heads first. We vegged for hours on the tarp. We had sex until he was so hot he needed water, and I wiped his sweaty back with the scarf which had fallen out of my hair. Then we just laid there and talked about what we liked - what was sexy. He described me holding onto the skinny little tree with the hovery leaves. I was all stretched out and long, making the whole thing shake. We didn’t play Scrabble. We had sex again.

I was using my vibrator and somewhere between orgasms in a daze. The sun was looking straight across the trees at me from the West, and in my squinty eyes it seemed like a gigantic spider advancing toward me and retreating back with each thrust. I think he saw it too. I took a bite of one of the hovery leaves. It was fuzzy on top and not as bitter as grass.He came and I worried about getting pregnant for a while, until we walked to the bookstore. I started reading about Eustace Conway, the Last American Man, and James read about edible plants.

I made a sandwich for him and we laid together. He said he hoped he’d be able to stay with me. I asked why. He said I was pretty good to him, for the most part.

He got sad, but not as much as usual, it seemed. He was nice. Full body massage and oral sex. He liked me yesterday, or something. It was a pretty day. The pink faced man was still in the bookstore (He’s not here now, but it’s early..)

I thought of things to write about as I was trying to fall asleep, but I can’t remember them. I woke up once, half asleep, and peeped out from under the green wool to see all these fuzzy glowing shapes, kindof like blackberries on the ground, made of stars. It was just daylight through the trees.

. . .

Today:

There’s a black guy sleeping in the chair I usually sit in. He has a red fleece jacket in front of his face, which is supported by his hand. I’m in the chair usually inhabited by the Asian, James is in the pink faced man’s chair reading about stinging nettles, and there’s a pretty-but-not-great-looking blonde sitting in the chair he usually sits in. She’s wearing a toe ring and keeps looking confusedly at a couple books by the same author. She has a nice bag and she’s thin. She saw me looking at her and walked away.

. . .

Later:

I just finished my book. Other accomplishments of the day include beating Scrabble-master J. with three bingoes and and highest score either of us have attained since the purchase of our travel set, finding a huge patch of blackberries on the walk to Publix to buy yogurt, bananas, and three musketeers bars, picking and eating a ton of those berries - just as big and plump as any bought for $3 at a store. And I wrote a little.

We sat for a while on a huge pipe through which a little stream ran, after picking the berries. Aside from the pipes and buildings, quite the nature scene. The stream looked clean - apart from one crushed soda can - though, eerily, there seemed to be no fish or even water-bugs. There were raccoon tracks on the bank, and plenty of trees, which we pretended to be able to identify. Maybe we got a few right. I wanted to wade around the rocks, despite the possibility of poisoned water. My hands were scratched and purple from the berries and their thorns.

James seems to think we should hike the Appalachian Trail now. We’re eating wild berries out of washed out yogurt cups; surely we’re ready to take to our hiking to the next level. He’s talking about cooking. He’s got a fancy chef book and the plant guide and he’d ready to make us a feast of grass. It’s nice. I like him best this way, I think. Second best - he’s better having sex. Third - he’d best having sex and in love with me. After having eaten. In the old world, he made me spaghetti once. The sex was beforehand that time.

It’s been a good day. A good couple of days, even.

An old black woman with a scarf in her hair saw me stooped over with my ass in the air looking for berries by the side of the road. She asked me either what I was doing or what I was eating, I’m not sure which. I said “Blackberries!” and smiled. She walked on, and a little farther down the road she leaned over as if looking for some of her own. She didn’t look very hard. I should’ve given her some of mine.

There’s a pretty girl with a spider tattoo and a Frida Kahlo purse. I miss girls. I miss Jennifer, though it’s been years. I need a friend, maybe, other than James, but I suppose I can only live in one world at a time.

At the Camp:

While I sat and read all of Miller’s slang words for vagina and other theories on life in Paris, the pink-faced man returned and sat in the same spot he’d occupied the two days previous, speaking to the sales woman about her shoulder surgery but never a word to me. James went out to do signage only to return a few minutes later with a huge plastic bear once filled with six pounds of animal crackers. The head’s worth had already been eaten. He presented this to me as a birthday gift in the best of humor, though it was all he’d been given before a cop had told him to “get off my road” on a loudspeaker. We spent the rest of the day reading, both finishing our books about five minutes before closing. The bear sat between our chairs, and we munched as we read.

J’s found himself a biography of a buckskin-wearing trail-hiking naturalist who was once saved from falling off a mountain by a frozen mule. This, entitled, The Last American Man, meshed well with J’s sorrow and fears… how he does not live by his ideals and no one would write about him as anything brilliant or extraordinary, but simply a mean or bad person. I said I would write the book he wanted, and he said if I wrote it that way it wouldn’t be the truth. He hated himself earnestly with tears in his eyes for a long, long time. I tried to help, but could not console him, and every once in a while he’d stop crying and tell me a story from the book, or contrast the hero’s point of view to that of Henderson, or even give me the wild burro treatment, wherein he jumps around on all fours, kicks, and says “I’m a wild burro” or “I’m stubborn” in the funniest way, and I laugh as I try to hold on to the bucking creature from beneath. Finally, I gave an agonized J who could not keep listening to the thoughts in his head a long blowjob, and he said it felt like he came three times. He praised me for a while and eventually we fell asleep.
. . .

Now, I’m supposed to be gathering firewood.

. . .

Katharine-wood-gatherer! Me make big pile! We make FIRE! When J gets back from grocery shopping anyway. Also, we don’t have enough water. Someone’s going to have to walk all the way to the mall to get more. We have brown rice. J is geting tomato sauce or spices or something to cook with the rice - maybe soup?

. . .

Southern Style Blend tomatoes, okra, and corn. Striking surface of matchbook smooth with candle wax.. J looking for more. Rice in pot. Water from EXPO Design Center. I should read the last Amer. man. Maybe we’ll stick around here a couple more days. We only have $5 though. New Asian at the bookstore, always talking loudly on his cell phone, asks me about St. Jude necklace. Do you travel a lot? He has one too; he’s a pilot. That’s St. Christopher though. I don’t say that. I say I travel A LOT. There are bug shadows running around my arm. I think the bugs are IN my arm. A spider crawled off of me in the bookstore yesterday. Yuck. James calls woody areas with lots of old camp places “homeless hotels.”

At The Camp (b/t fence & sound barrier):

I’ve woken up a hundred times, sneezed, squatted and peed in the leaves, listened to a man whimper like a puppy, slapped insects as they boared their little mouthparts into my epidermis, been serenaded by birds, squirrels, and cars on the Interstate, gotten a little hypnotised by the glowing patches of light moving all over the place, the leaves on the little tree next to our tarp hovering up and down ever so slightly, and J waking up in the middle of it to ask what I was doing. His hands still smell like pomegranate. I’m nineteen today and my hair is knotty. There’s dirt under my nails. It’s morning, maybe even close to noon, because we tossed and turned and it was cold. We walked to the grocery store, but they’d closed at seven, every other food-serving place at eleven, so we came back last night still hungry and tired. Some bird is saying happy birthday, I’m sure. Couple of ducks in May, my dad used to say.

. . .

He was living on a pecan farm among religious fanatics last I heard. I forget how long he said he’d been sober, but I got the letter in my dorm mailbox at NYU and was determined to write him back. It was right before I left. He warned against making stupid choices that will haunt. He remembers it’s my birthday. He knows I’m lost. He and my mother had an artistic vision about grandfathers and Faulkner and sex. In tears, he told me she was the only woman he’d ever really loved. Theirs is my favorite tragic love story and I’m supposed to be made of all the best parts of them. So I am looking for beauty too, and living wrecklessly past all hope, and I’ve been to Santa Fe. They travelled by motorcycle, or in a truck with Mom’s feet out the window. I’ve had my head of the window of an 18-wheeler in Arizona, so I guess I’m either on my way to the meaning of life or a nervous breakdown. Major depression with psychotic tendencies. Bipolar disorder. Futurelessness. Or I’ll learn to see, and never be lonely again. That’s pretty, but even artists are suffering, though they may forget to eat. Hurt can be symbolic. I see my situation from outside myself and I feel I’ve done well - given myself a story of sorts. But from the inside, it’s too real. When we read we never are the characters. They’d probably all be pissed as hell at us for thinking their lives made for good entertainment or parables or embodiments of some abstract beauty.

. . .

At Barnes and Noble, later:

My lover carried a little slip of paper with “I Want You” written on it in big black marker, cursive and shakey from the wheels below. He carried it in his pocket until it fell apart. He even carried the pieces for a while. They’re lost now though, or else I haven’t seen them.

. . .

I’m licking melted chocolate off the inside of a Snickers bar wrapper. My lover is doing the same. He held the candy bars under a stream of cold water from a drinking fountain, but it didn’t do much to harden them up. They melted in a shopping bag beside our Scrabble game and our feast of yogurt, fruit, and turkey sandwiches.

I wrote that fallen “I Want You,” and I also wrote him a letter from Borders. I thought to myself in a spell that he might forgive me for being a bad person if I wrote to him every day. He wants me to write nice things about him. I used to do this beautifully. There was my treatise on love, after I had lost my virginity on the yellow blow-up bed surrounded by his mother’s paintings of flowers and close-ups of Indian corn. How splendid it all was, and not about sex, I declared. Jennifer envied me for a whole year after I wrote that piece, all dragons and pearls. Where are all the good things now? All adoration must live forever, every word still lives. The bubble spaces, the knots in my stomach, the vodka gingerale at Aquavit..

Where are my other memories, of life in Manhattan? I’m walking across the Eastern edge of Washington Square Park on my way to yoga class. I’ve lost all the street names I knew, all but the most basic - Broadway, McDougal St, St. Marks, University Pl. The Angelika Film Center at the corner of Houston and Mercer. I saw a midnight showing there with a group of girls who mostly never became my friends. I bent over my Molec. and Cell textbook for hours and never missed a lecture, but I slept through Chemistry on a regular basis. Second semester, I finally made it to the Met. Mostly, there was the walking between tall buildings, never looking before crossing the street. There were coffee shops and expensive boutiques. You don’t really have to stay in Manhattan more than a day to learn its flavor. I was there six months and didn’t learn much. Meg went out drinking and I talked online. I went to that club, the Limelight, with my friend Marlon from home. I lost myself in smoke and strobelights while a short middle-Eastern man pressed his erection against my leg. I got disgusted and mad. I watched Marlon kiss a boy. I walked around art museums with my 19th Century text. I never wrote an essay in a coffee shop. I told people how I’d wanted to live in the City my whole life. I left.

. . .

I curled up under the olive green blanket, his, and put my head against his side. It moved up and down like the hovering leaves above us. Slow and delicate hydraulics. He asked me the meaning of life, as we were walking from the grocery store to the bookstore, and I said “suffering.”

“You’re not suffering, are you?” he said with an “aww,” in a little child’s voice. Sarcastic.

The sole of my shoe came untaped, and I haven’t gotten a single “Happy Birthday.” There’s a naked woman on the cover of Tropic of Cancer, and I’ve read another hundred pages today. I want to have sex and live all the good things. Every night he gets sad. I get sad too.

At Barnes and Noble:

Reading Tropic of Cancer. Miller writes a life in which his living is entirely filtered to the life of a writer, an artist, he says. I should live like a writer, even if I never write. James is sitting in a striped chair reading Henderson the Rain King, probably realizing he is Henderson. We’re all Henderson.

Here: Asian man reading a how-to book. Old man with pink skin and white hair, who was here last night too. Notified me when he turned off his phone. Everyone has a cell phone except us. Man in the mall wants to give us a free one.

. . .

There: I try on a $340 dress, and the ribbons wrap around me like my torso is a ballerina’s ankle. Saleswoman says it is made for me and I love her. James is sitting on the little couch. I turn around and turn around. Natalie Portman on the cover of Vogue. I look at myself, naked in the triptych mirror. I have a Venus body. My breasts are pretty; my nipples don’t know where to hide. James doesn’t look at me much. Bad sex this morning. It was cold. I didn’t want it. He lost his erection and treated me badly. I yelled at him. I cried for a long time. There was also a red dress, only $70 and probably more flattering, really. I feel bad trying things on because I stink. Haven’t bathed in over a week. My pants are designer but full of holes. Both knees and the ass. Badly patched with Kristie’s Chinese silk and some misguided attempts with duct tape. One leg said “Vienna or Bust” for a day. I make bracelets with string. Someone handing me a sample on a toothpick thinks I am from Paris because of my Eiffel Tower necklace. He’s not the first.

. . .

Where am I from? I’m from… here. I grew up in Georgia. James was looking at me when I wrote that. His hair is longer than chin length but still inches above his shoulders. I always fall in love with people who have long necks and beautiful eyes. Not to say that’s the reason, but I imagined my palm on his neck, and on Jennifer’s. His beard is getting long. His mustache goes in my nose when we kiss. His facial hairs get in my mouth and I have to stop and pick them out. Our hair gets curly in the mornings after rain. My shoes are falling apart. I have one of the soles taped on with duct tape. Half of one heel is broken off. Hurts to walk. There is talk of a “new shoes” fund.

We already got the new tent, yesterday, after spending a couple days covering the twelve miles or so to the REI. Now in posh shopping area - Borders traded in for Barnes and Noble. We’re “premier” members of the Perimeter Mall. I put on mascara and glittery eye makeup at Sephora. Three months without makeup. I, sadly, didn’t feel much prettier afterward.

. . .

We’re going to live in the woods - eat rice and grass. Set traps for rabbits. He’ll slit their throats. Moral killing. “Just me and my food.” I’ll write. Everything will be about writing. No more love, only writing, something “good.” More metaphors and less I’s. Not sentimental, not idealistic, not fluffy.

The Giving Tree kills me. James and I are reading it together (not now) and his hands smell like pomegranite salt scrub and first I’m the tree and then he is and then it’s just sad. That’s how it is for me, being the villain and the victim, never as good as the tree but I get self-righteous at times, thinking I’m trying to save him. He says he’ll kill himself eventually, whether I’m here or not. He asks what I expect from him. Says he feels horrible about every horrible thing he does to me everyday. This was last night he said these things. The suffering will say anything. I even tried to kill myself, after he wouldn’t listen to me suffer out loud anymore. That was a long time ago. No more writing melodrama, K. He’s looking at me and his eye is blue. The other one is brown but I didn’t notice. Enough.

We’re out of food. Completely. The old man’s face is bright red. He has nice boots. They look unused. The Asian man is reading Kitchen and Bath Ideas. Henry Miller is calling women cunts and making me want to write. He’s in Paris, like my necklace. I’m sure every woman who reads this book wants to be his lover. James thinks he’s a bad lover for me because it’s hard to get inside unless I’m using my vibrator. Thinks he doesn’t turn me on. We have really amazing sex sometimes though; he was just depressed. I growled and said I wanted it rough. I talk during sex now. He likes it. I say “I want it,” “Give it to me,” and whatnot. It’s fun. I ask how it feels and he says it feels great. Wet. Tight.

. . .

He’s walking to Publix to get fruit and yogurt. I’m meeting him outside. The store will be closed. The man with the pink face listened to our conversation. We’re an oddity, a freakshow. The old man mutters to himself a lot. I wonder if he isn’t a bit of a freak himself. He was here last night too, afterall. Tomorrow is my 19th birthday. We haven’t used the tent; our current camp has too many spiky plants. It’s award-winning, and we got 20% off too. Thirty extra dollars. We’ve been spending it diligently on food we can’t really afford at the Perimeter Mall. here’s a Hovan Gourmet. The man who made my number three value meal commented on my St. Jude necklace, said he had his picture. We saw Catholic schoolgirls in blue and green pleated skirts while we ate. There was a man playing a piano in Nordstrom’s. We’ll make an animal trap out of sticks, get a book on edible plants. We’re going to Utah.

I have three or four tiny ant bites around my left eye. James is allergic to ants; his bites swell and become grotesque. We went to Applebee’s and to see the Lord of the Rings movie back in Norcross or Duluth or wherever we were. Luxury. I gave him my first completed bracelet. We got the book on how to make them in Duluth too. Travelling and Hungry stories. James is back, record time. I saw him behind dancing leave through the window into the dark. Says he’s too tired to walk. Didn’t make it to the store. Wake me up when it’s time to go.

. . .

The Asian and the pink faced man are gone. There’s New Agey music the background. The time is now 10:45 PM. Store and cafe closing in fifteen minutes. The play-by-play I should reject for moving prose. Never write about writing. Once upon a time there lived a girl. She had many beautiful symbols that glowed, and she wore Mikimoto pearls because she was loved….

Everything is falling apart, again. One moment he wants me with him; the next moment, he doesn’t. I’m breaking; the world is breaking. The future is terrifying. I cry uncontrollably, about things I’ve already cried about. I’m angry. I’m literally angry. It’s not just sadness- it’s outrage. I don’t deserve to be treated this way. Yet I want it, I suppose. I want to be with him. I want him to want me.

He throws me around like an old toy, and I must forgive everything because I hurt him and I love him. It is horrible. I want this record to show that it is horrible. It is the worst thing I have ever been through. I’m constantly confused. My future changes drastically with his moods. He is the saddest person in the world. He wants to live for something else entirely, because he has no faith in people. They always disappoint him, he says. They change. He means me. He can’t live with himself he says, and I automatically add “because of what I did.”

He wants lonely solitude in a wilderness somewhere. He wants to draw plants. His philosophies are beautiful, and I’m sure he could do beautiful things, but I only think of losing my best friend, my lover, my only love. It tears me to pieces to hear him say he’d prefer trees to people when he once preferred me to anything. Now he not only doesn’t want me, but he’s condemned the entire human race because of me. He won’t put value in relationships at all, not the kind of worth he gave out love. It is not the way to truth.

What is truth? I have no concept of truth? It is he who changes so violently. I feel I am relatively steady, yet still have have no strong grip on “what I hold true.” Not anymore. I know I love this man. I know I suffer. Suffering is my truth. It is the only certain thing.

Lately I think there is a God, if only because I need to pray. (He is light. That is all. He is not truth.)