Part 12 (1/2)
We o where he'd make me cum with his hands down ulls and fishermen stretched out behind us Weand the sunset cliffs and one night even when I finished co a bunch of hippies in the cliff shadows put down their spliffs and gaveovation We met in bars where we sat next to each other on red leather stools and pressed knees and shoulders andWith ht us weekends back in Portland or San Francisco with rich people hotel rooms and room service and porn channels and 300 thread count sheets that we soiled and soiled He said ”Sometimes love is messy”
It's true his almost not anymore wife chased me in her OJ white Ford Bronco But our lovers story isn't the only story Though our affair was epic And sordid Narrative and passion have that in common
There's a story under that one
In addition to loaningme to and froht for eight weeks Bringing me a bottle of wine or vodka on the floor of the car when he picked me up You know, kind of like a best friend would do A kind, sly one
He also drove ht weeks Cooking me pasta when I couldn't lift s with h the 12 steps and nodded and set hoe at God and fathers and e with funny jokes about jesus andI'd done - this DUI - the dead baby- the failed es - the rehab - the little scars at my collar bone - myvodka - my scarred as shi+t past and body- as chapters of a book he wanted to hold in his hands and finish
But there's even a story deeper than that After he moved out of his wifehouse and into my little one bedroom seahouse a block from the sunset cliffs in Ocean Beach, after he finished his MFA and I filed divorce papers and he filed divorce papers, after I had to go into the English Depart because his ent in and spilled the shi+t, after we both bit the bullet and said the ”L” word out loud, so better than sexual and emotional zenith happened I didn't know that was possible
Night Ocean sound In my tiny seahouse On the sofa Both of us scotch handed Mazzy Star playing all night all night all night We'd been ad the Tibetan Book of the Dead to me sexuality and death Home run
He put his hand ondown into the well of an shaking Just fro I'd told him about myself, he said, out of the blue, ”I want to have a child with you”
Well you can iine how many ways I tried to say ”No” I wanted to pick up a phone ”Um, hello, human race? Can you connect me to the dreaded relationshi+p depart over here, and well, bless his heart, this man is confused He's clearlyDifferent area code Different address Different woman Is there a special number to call? I know It's crazy He thinks he wants to have a faive me the number to relocate him? He may need prescription medication I can stall him for awhile, but you ainst all ainst the mass of my crappy life mess
”I can see the mother in you There is more to your story than you think”
The Scarlett Letter FOR A GOOD SIX MONTHS BEFORE I WAS FIRED AS THE Visiting Writer at SDSU, rew
Listen Happiness? It just looks different on people like lish Departues tried not to look at or se when they spoke to me about Cultural Studies or Gender Studies or Wo to me at all, and siht a ned a paper saying I could never work there again, and I had to sign it too, and while I signed it, instead of looking at the paper, I looked straight into her hed
My belly grew every single class I taught, the undergraduates sely loyal like beautiful little revolutionaries against the raduate fiction writing se the thenificent tapestries no ment, theetic radiance
My belly grew too big forfor ger My belly grew
And each night Andy would put his hands on theany narrative but his oeet hidden life in the water of ive And he would suck therose and became enormous with my body, with our broken rules broken codes broken law love, every night our bodies er than the lives we carew the an to wear my enor bellied lowed, it ith the heatsurge and flush of a sexuality that goes to bed in sothan painted in books frorimace and fire of Kali - had anyone crossed e into elevators filled with condescending faced colleagues In my head I'd think, I am the woman you teach from literature But don't teach er than you I as staring down the tenured women POETS and spit on their so-called fe tenured literature oldon me when I had accepted their excuses for the line of women outside the acaderew
My belly carriedbetween our shi+t faced grinning The grinning of life and joy finally co to you when all you kneas how to suffer
When the ti up until the day before I went into labor I taught at that idiotic hypocritical place that had already fired ht writing instead of pregnancy leave I brought raduate se I taught it well Ask those students who graduated Soot jobs And books Sohed the laugh of an to leave o at the courthouse I wore a deep red vintage silk Asian dress, e I have no wedding photo of However
That night after the knot tying business? We went hoed a photo shoot Me with a black satin ribbon tied around my neck and black satin panties in front of a deep red velvet curtain licking milk from a bowl I don't knohy We just did
God the sex we had fro bellied sex
Now that, ladies, is a keeper
Because when love comes to someone liketo grab it I oods, but I'm not an idiot
And baby, lemme tell you I'm no Hester Prynne
Sun LIGHT
Life
Beautiful alive boy
The night my son Miles chose to coo in April a thunderstorht be wetted for a moment between days of endless sun
When on the street a block to the ocean Andy was asleep in bed My sister Brigid was asleep in the house I cried and the ocean within me made way for this boy and the ocean before ot to the water I said ”Lily He's here” Then I walked back to the house In bed next tolove I counted minutes It was 5:00 am The contractions felt like sentences before they are born It is the only time in my life I have experienced a purity of happiness Becauseelse aboutup the darkness Water everywhere
I've ht or never ca so not quite of this world
A japanese woman friend whose infant son died seven days into his life - no detectable reason - just the s until it disappeared, told o” - which translates loosely to ”water children” Children who did not live long enough to enter the world as we live in it
In japan, there are rituals for mothers and families, practices and prayers for the water children There are shrines where a person can visit and deliver words and love and offerings to the water children
There are no Western rituals for the water children I am an American woman who does not believe in God But I do believe in waters
The day Miles was born, Andy cradled id stitched love in beautiful thread around the roo could have entered her fiercely seorld When he came I wailed as woht into the world Butbody was brought up to rey spiral still connecting us
He moved
I felt the heat of his body
His little mouth made for the mound of my breast and nipple
So this is life
The first thing Miles sahen he opened his eyes was a father who let out a sound I've never heard before Aas space A father with open arms ready for his child, ready to protect hi, ready to be the path of a oes tothe story
My sister caanism I do not knohat she felt but her face is the word for it
In my belly, before he was born, Miles swam Back and forth and around and flip turns and kicks and such ht skin ofThe force of him took my breath away And yet we felt inseparable His body waswith Miles in my belly, which I did often, people in the lap lanes would , so round, so breasted - but fast But I knew a secret that they did not We are all swien and earth We all carry the memory of that breathable blue past
It is possible to carry life and death in the same sentence In the same body It is possible to carry love and pain In the water, this body I have coh the ith a history What if there is hope in that