the habit of being

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.