the habit of being

There are blackberries here, and I feel as if I am suddenly back on Woodrum Road, in the ditch picking with sticky fingers, near my childhood home, fearful of snakes. I woke up in the middle of the night with what looked like tiny white bugs under the skin of my feet, and sleepy James wouldn’t believe it, and he treated me like a child. I’m supposed to bleed today, but I suppose I could scare it off worrying. Or I could be pregnant. Oh God. “Need Abortion. Please Help.”

My feet are painfully blistered and J never says he loves me anymore. He doesn’t. It’s hot but breezy in our field, with its blackberries and poison ivy. Rather pretty really. We got two rides yesterday. One was with a sincere and nice man named Chuck who had two horses and a deer but no family. Interesting, he picked us up while we were “flying” our Hungry sign, not our Houston sign. He seemed very sad, in a relieved kind of way, like he no longer took notice of his loneliness. He gave us food and told us nice places to visit. We broke our spoons eating ice cream in his truck. He took us to a small town halfway from San Antonio to Houston.

The second ride was with a group of friends about my age, all utterly oblivious and carefree. Though loud and annoying and silly, they were certainly nice to us. Still, I prefered Chuck’s quiet company to the blaring music and the speeding and and attempts to discretely pass the pot pipe. In Chuck’s truck, the music was so low you could barely hear it.

We sat a long time in a McDonald’s yesterday, and I really wonder what effect spending so much time in fast food restaurants has on us, if maybe it is something like watching TV. But when it’s a million degrees out and are feel dizzy and tired, anything with air conditioning works, even when part of your goal was to see the world and leave the McWorld behind.

This books seems so fake to me. This is not what is going on, really. There are simply cycles of feeling here. Hopelessness sometimes, often guilt, much yearning, but also there is still some peace, some love for J, some renewed determination that I can make it through the days and the moods to a greater understanding and a greater appreciation of beauty. Still also, there is the lingering desire to make things right between J and me, but I often see him as a confused thing with layers. One of his layers is very cruel and angry. I wrote once that if I could ever describe this man fully in words, those words would be my masterpiece. The task is certainly impossible.

He is intense in all things, and easily involved. His mind is in constant narration, if not always in words. He has an artist’s sight, and seeks beauty. He does not forget his pain. He knows how to give of himself, but also how to take. He seems to know what he values. He can break me. He is smart and persuasive. He can be very, very mean. He is beyond sentences. He is lying next to me, reading a book. He once loved me more than anything. His hands are poised. He is looking at me. He says “looks that way” when I say “I have a James,” and he will never trust me again. His feet are small. His hair curls when it is humid. He does not complain of physical discomfort. At times, depression seizes him deeply and he cannot see outside it. He wants happiness. He can feel things so strongly it seems he cannot feel at all, and he wonders at his removal. He is a prisoner. He knows idealism well and tries to conquer it. He’s all about right vs wrong, but only on an intellectual level. In his journal, he writes about pretty girls he sees.