watching light

She stood beside the shallow river. I could not see what she was looking at, but it was down towards her sandals. She had been standing there forty-five minutes ago. I had hiked up the mile and a half high hill and back and wondered what was going on in her head. It would not have been so odd if she had been sitting, or even crouching. She was simply standing.

She was in a salmon moose pate colored dress. There was amber light in her reddish hair and blue prisms bouncing up from the river onto her pale skin. If I were a man I would have fallen in love with her. I was obsessed with her feminine image. (Or I was obsessed with the parts of her that were so feminine.) But I was just a lady clerk and an uneager one at that. I started to believe if I watched her too long she would think I was creepy the stalker sort but I just couldn’t stop. It seemed like her silhouette was freezing the sunset and I didn’t want the frosty night to set in. So, I sat down.


In front of me was a woman that I had followed up the hill for twenty minutes.

I had noticed her as she turned in front of me in the gravel parking lot. I had continued down the road past a few ranch houses and driveways realizing on the third or forth mailbox I needed to see her again. I turned around, three-point style, in front of a Jackie O blue ranch and smiled at the Australian Shepard who walked around the house to greet me.

Back on the gravel lot on the edge of the river I pulled the parking break and looked out the window to see Her. She was still lacing up her hiking shoes. I was happy to have taken casual Friday seriously. My feet were strapped into the ever-flexible Keene walkers and they would do on a hike.

I got out of the car and followed her down a steep pathway. It was root bare and smelling of attic. Actually it was less like a pathway, and more like one hundred and fifty years of erosion. At the bottom she stopped for a moment and I wondered what she was looking at. It seemed like she was remembering something. I worried she may turn and head back to her car. But she didn’t she just stood there watching the space in front of her near the river.


Somehow I felt safe near this woman she seemed so worldly she was the type to rescue people, like a mother. But you could tell she had no children. It made her seem all the more comforting like every inch of her would focus on you. I knew there was a man standing behind me. He had followed me up the hill and back down again. At the top I felt his presence a little too close and I wondered how long it would take a rescue team to get to get to me.

You could smell him, this man, it was distinct. He once smoked a pipe. He didn’t any longer but he was also not the sort to dry clean his hunting jacket, the old wood smell pierced through the scent of leaves in fall and had begun to remind me of the smell of a new England attic just before the snow.

I thought he was attractive and began to fantasize about him catching up to me and whispering something in my ear.

“I’ve seen you everywhere. You’re the one who is always carrying a manila envelope from that office downtown. You’re the one who looks so charming in old tweed suits, you can get away with loafers.” He’d pull a picnic basket out from behind a tree and there would be a blanket folded on the top. It would be the same brown and orange and yellow wool as his jacket only in a wider stripe.
He would lay the blanket down and pull out a flask of whiskey to warm us as the sun was setting. Inside the basket there would be nutty cheeses and meats, boring crackers and some dates. Also there would be one perfect tiny little empire state apple and we’d pass it back and forth between ourselves taking the tiniest bites. Always wanting to save the last taste for the other person.

He had stopped he was bent over and examining something on the base of a maple tree. Lichen I thought, maybe he’s a scientist and just happened to hiking on the trail directly behind me. It wasn’t as though this trail wasn’t popular; it was brief and followed the edge of a shallow river. I guess it just seemed odd because it was noon and most people this time of year were indoors sipping herbal tea. That act alone was enough to make them feel healthy.

I looked down at my stiff hiking boots. I missed my loafers.


At the top of the trail she noticed me behind her and stopped, I wasn’t sure how I would explain myself so I bent over near a tree and found myself staring at an anthill. They were trailing in and out on the same path and the ones heading in were carrying something that looked like rice. I wonder where ants found rice out in the middle of the woods. And I hoped that it was cooked because I had heard if a tiny animal was to eat uncooked rice it would expand in it’s stomach killing it. These little ants seemed to be working so hard, storing up for the colder months to come. I really hoped they were not doing all of this work for an accidental cult killing.

I want to believe that I can fall in love with him.

I look at him and he is not my type. He’s not frail, but he’s closer to it than anyone I have ever slept with before.

He has the laugh. The laugh is what makes a person my type. It’s a wholehearted belly laugh. It’s a laugh that happens without any type of cover up anytime of shame. It’s open throated and jolly, but not fat like a Christmas time character, or someone watching TV alone. It’s the type of laugh that is sounded in front of people, but not for people.

He has the laugh. And when he makes that sound, the laughing sound. I want to kiss him. More than that, I want him to take off my shirt and kiss me, not just on my lips. When he laughs I can smell him and me and I can smell him and me.

But I eat toast, and he eats corn chips. And we drink our water but we’ve run out of whiskey.

And I'm laughing. Because I’ve seen this before.
But, I have never been so aware of the turn on while lips turn up.

how I will leave you

I have started shrugging. I hear his voice but I am tuning it our entirely.

You are talking and I am washing everyone's dishes by hand. Yesterday the dishwasher broke, and today is Christmas. I am trying to decide how I will leave you inside the house, while I go out snowshoeing. You've become a little boy that needs to be tricked. If it wasn't Christmas I could tempt you with a snack and the beginning of some game on the TV. But it is Christmas and you've eaten more than your share of ham and polish stuffed cabbage.

Although I am blocking you out, I can hear the kids playing in front of the TV. Trains, I am not sure how we got to the point in which we do not buy our children toys with batteries, but we do let them play with handmade wooden trains in front of an alert television. I hope it's just background noise. I wonder if they are trying to tune you out as well.

" Hey Cass, next year why don't we just microwave the carrots, it was never a problem when my mom did it that way."

I think about responding. "Carrots get soggy that way. Unless, you cover them with butter and brown sugar they taste like thickened water. I like carrots to taste like carrots not candy. " But I don't say anything. I shrug and wipe that indistinguishable holiday grease off a plate, remembering what a good vegetarian I was before I met you.

"Cass, why don't we have the kids come in and do the dishes. You and I can go up stairs and pick out a movie on the TV."

Some may think that this would be my opportunity to leave him sitting in front of the television but there are three things you do not know about Kevin. He wants the children to be our maids and tries to take away all possible enjoyment from them whenever he can. He will whine if I get up in the middle of the movie. Even if it's just to use the bathroom. Watching a movie with Kevin is code for sex. It has been since we were in our early twenties. Kevin and I have not had sex in two months. Since before Halloween when he commented on the attractiveness of Lily, a neighbor, who is possibly thirteen, but my guess would be she’s eleven.

She was dressed as a nineteen fifties vampire vamp, and somehow it really came off as Bettie Page. I am sure Lily has no idea who Bettie Page even is. But Kevin does, and Kevin knows that Lily is young.

We had talked about her watching the kids and he's the one who said he wouldn't be comfortable with anything more than a mother's helper situation. I haven't been able to shake this thought. Kevin looking at Lily dressed like Bettie Page, his mouth opening and those words falling out. Kevin is not a pedophile; I know he would never come on to Lily. But it didn't matter; my boredom with him in my life and in my bed suddenly became general disgust with him as a human.

I shrug, wondering what I will do to get out of having sex with him tonight.

"Why don't we finish the dishes, and pick out a movie to watch with the kids. They’ll love it. I think “A Christmas Story” or “It’s a wonderful life” may still be on.

I know that K.J. our four year old has come in to ask for a glass of milk. K.J. has great hearing. K.J. heard what I said. There would be no getting out of watching a movie with the kids. I am compromising my children. I am using them as self-defense.

Snowshoeing could wait until morning.

walking watching working and waiting

“There’s a time for everything.
There’s still time.
There will be time for everything.
It’s all about what you make time for.”

All of these statements have come my way in the last week. Various friends have responded to my despondence with tacky phrases like those above. But they don’t understand, it’s not me I am talking to them about, it’s them I am talking to them about.

I still believe in each of those statements, and am trying to follow them down some swervey gouche roadway. They aren’t. My friends have moved into warrens with nameless partners to what? Have millions of bunnies?

That, I could respect. But that’s not what they are doing; they are falling off to watch TV for three hours a night and microwave diner because they feel they just don’t have the time. They will join gyms instead of walking running riding a bike or dancing.

It’s just that way.
Everyone has been trying to deny it. But my father was honest. He said,

“Everyone is going to settle in the next few years of your life: it’s just what happens.”

I told him those people my friends were the only goal I had, to be with those people to stay with them, to stay young with all of them. I never considered that they might decide instead to grow old.

Everyone is allowed to change. I am allowed to change. It would be okay if I woke up tomorrow and eloped and moved into a condo. It would be okay.

But I would judge me.

This is the part I have to get through. This is the hard part, watching everyone get comfortable and settling into a grove on his or her loveseat while I am still walking, watching working and waiting.

Meet George Jetson

I met you when we were twenty-one. Well, actually you may have been twenty-two, I have never been particularly clear on your birthday, and you never wanted anyone to celebrate it.

I fell in love with you immediately. I don’t know why, you were sitting there leaning back in a chair that was not meant to lean. You stared straight ahead, chewing on a rubber band. You didn’t make eye contact when we were introduced instead you stared at the TV screen, The Jetsons. As I walked behind the curtain, that pretended to create another room, I saw you lean out and look at me.

I left the apartment. It’s an odd shock to suddenly be living with a person you are attracted to and I thought you were an anomaly. As I walked down the street I reintroduced myself to the city I had left a year before. Taxis, piles of trash and in this neighborhood many women wearing black slacks and penny heels. I walked to the café and ordered myself lemonade. Happy to find they had not sweetened it I sipped it slowly while pulling out my journal. I wrote that I found you obnoxious and that you needed to take a shower. But I was simply over-reacting to my gut instinct to go back to our apartment and sit on you, Forcing you to put all four feet of the chair on the ground. Forcing you to if not look at me or at least to slide your hands down to my sides. Forcing that rubber band to drop to the ground and making it easier for you to focus your mouth on something else.

But I finished the lemonade and did not see you until the sky had turned that color that I feel insecure calling purple. We made plans to make millions and teased each other’s histories. You explained how to give the perfect blowjob and I listened. We talked about Dogs and how great they were. We pondered why anyone would ever want a cat. We talked about our love of music and compared favorites. After a couple of drinks we both admitted we liked top forty, but more than that we liked top forty country. It was the only time in our friendship that you admitted to me the fear you had for your father. You told me about that one night when he approached you in bed to hug you goodnight. The night you thought he might hit you, so you wet yourself and your starwars sheets. I told you my hospital stay. I told you my heart stopped for thirty seconds and that I was so unafraid that I woke up believing all religion was fraud.

Our night faded and became day, as nights like that do when you are twenty-one or twenty-two. We ambled home drunk and happy, when we got to the door you leaned up behind me as I turned the key. I could smell the beer on your breath, I didn’t mind. You had taken a shower, but the night was humid and you smelled like yourself again. I could admit at the moment I loved it. The pressure behind me immediately heated my face and I waited. Your knee bent out in front of you and tucked under mine.

I was on the ground. You were laughing and inside. Our roommates were laughing too I had forgotten they were there.

This is how it happens

This is how it happens.

How a girl that is really a woman becomes a cliché. This is the day when everything stops making sense. This is the day her reality becomes her fantasy. It's not a good Fantasy. It's not a dreamscape. It's the dream where she watches herself become a cat lady, a cat lady with allergies to cats.

There is a thought, or maybe it's a saying. It's for sure something people say. And I hate it, but I guess it's true. One woman breaks a man in and another marries him. My problem with this saying is not the other woman but the thought that you have to break a person to spend a lifetime with her. Or to spend a lifetime with a person you have to be married.

Last night my ex told me he was getting married. Do not get me wrong here; this is key, and important.... I knew he and this girl were going to be together for as long as any marriage, i.e. a lifetime. The problem lies with him saying the word “married” and that he wants that. Here's this physically huge "anarchist” who will not vote, who refuses to receive head more than he gets it, and who straight up disliked my friends if they had "real jobs" telling me he was marrying his new girl.

How did I respond...?

"Wow, congratulations, I am shocked, next thing you know you'll be buying a Volvo..."

I start to laugh, and look into his eyes. He is not laughing. He's smiling but I can tell he has more to say.

"We have a Volvo."

So here we are in that time when everyone starts to change. It's been two years since he and I ended our three and half year relationship. They found a place to move to. This was our plan. He and I were saving money to travel the country looking for a home we could agree on. And when he took her on our plan six months after our break up, It was fine. When the place they ended up in was the city I had run away to, it was fine. When I found out they were living just minutes away from me. It was fine. Because while this was a man I loved more than any other two years ago. This was a man I knew was all wrong for me. This was a man who would not vote, who refused to receive head more than he gave it, who straight up hated my friends with real jobs. This was not a man I could marry, because he was against the institution of it. I also had thought I was against the institution of it. It's sexist, It's homophobic, It's just another way for the government to control our lives and receive money for it. We told our parents we were "life partners” and we were Okayed to sleep in the same bed.

Shortly after running away from him and the place that we lived, I realized this little girl inside my soul wanted a wedding and so I added it to the huge pile of reasons why our relationship was wrong from the start. It made me okay. His opposition to marriage was part of my healing process.


And I am still fine.

It’s been a day. A wasted emotionally coated day. A day in which I got nothing done, a day in which I cried too much. A day in which I found out who I could count on and a day in which I found there are very few people that are emotionally reliable. I am feeling better. I slept until noon, finished the cliché pint of ice cream I bought last night for breakfast and I am asking myself.

A person for life? Do you want a person for life?

Inside the trunk

Becoming a writer at thirty is not a new thing. Nor is begining to write by describing what it feels like to be thirty. And doing all of this in a blog is incredibly cliche. But after writing poetry in this blog for years I have decided to switch it up and begin to try to become slightly more realistic.