Those Who Have Loved Us Into Being
I'm at sitting at a table in the dining room of my boyfriend's grandparent's suburban home. The whole family is here. Large groups tend to make me feel ill at ease, and I'm constantly searching for a soda to sip, a dog to pet, a cigarette to smoke, anything to occupy my hands. At this moment I'm nibbling on little crusty slices of bread dressed with spinach dip, and I mention offhand to my boyfriend that I'm feeling warm. His grandmother, a small vigorous Japanese woman, overhears this and comes rushing to my side, gently takes my right earlobe between her thumb and forefinger. She makes a considering noise and agrees that I seem a little hot. Then to my puzzled expression she laughs and says, "In Japan we do it this way, to feel for fever. Ear, not forehead.'' In a few years time she will succumb to her own struggles with anxiety, losing her sanity bit by precious bit, but for now she just grins and offers her own earlobe for me to check.
I was dumped last week with very little ceremony. This evening, after a few hours spent sharing a bottle of Christian Brothers with three former housemates, I stagger home to the apartment I share with my best friend. I somehow manage to fall up the stairs leading to my door and once inside sit down on the floor. I'm full of grief and pathetically, embarrassingly drunk. I'm only wearing one shoe. An ugly inhuman sound is pouring from my open mouth, somewhere between a banshee's shriek and a hyena's chuckle - the word "hysteria" unfurls in my mind like a red banner - and the sliver of myself that has remained lucid is impressed with how unashamed I am. The cat is frightened, hiding under the desk, and my friend looks like he wishes he could join her. Instead he rallies his strength, coaxes me into bed, and makes me lie still while he covers me chin to toe with a quilt. I'm not wailing anymore. My head aches and my eyes feel hot and dry in their their sockets and I know that tomorrow I will be sorry, but this thought soon passes and I fall asleep, my friend's hand resting on my shoulder, the cat perched lightly on my hip.
Bourbon and three different varieties of beer was an unwise choice. I've just been violently ill in my friend's bathroom while the others are gathered around a bonfire in the backyard, and after rinsing my mouth I stumble to the living room and lie down on the sofa. Better. I'm depleted, but not sick or tipsy anymore, and I laughingly explain myself and say goodbye to everyone as they filter through the house and out the door. Finally it's just me and my friend. He fetches me a blanket and a glass of ice water and turns out the lights. He takes off my shoes and sits with my feet in his lap, his big hands wrapped around my ankles. We are two of a kind, sharing among other things a love of Italian food, theological discourse, good-looking men, frank discussions on madness, and amateur footage of tornadoes. He puts on the tornado videos, and we rest bathed in the light of the television, soothed by the images of destruction playing out out before our wide eyes. ''It's like the pointing finger of an angry god," he says at one point, and grips my ankles tighter.
It's the steamy end of August, a Saturday at one or two in the morning, and there are a little over half a dozen of us crowded in and around a hot tub with a broken heating mechanism. One of us is moving out of town in a week, and this is her bon voyage party. We're all some point past drunk. Dozens of empty and half-empty beer cans cluster here and there on the back porch, and in a fit of giggles someone has accidentally tipped half a bottle of blush wine into the tub. We're stripped down to our underwear and talking, singing, shouting, trying to store away each other's voices and laughter, we're wild and hilarious under the stars. Never again will I have so many friends or such good ones. The gathering breaks up just before dawn, and my last coherent image of the night is of my friend, the one in whose honor the party was held, tipping back her head and saluting the sky with a few choked but spirited blasts from a gifted vuvuzela.
I am at a boy's apartment, visiting from out of state; it's now three days into my stay and most of what we've done is eat, watch movies, have sex, and sleep late wrapped in separate quilts and waking up pressed back to back, curled like mirrored question marks. Midnight, and we're dressed in tshirts and underwear, lazing around in the bedroom. It's dark and warm, with ribbons of late winter air stealing in through the open window. I'm stretched out full length on the sheets and he's at the foot of the bed rubbing my legs. I have a pain disorder, and my legs always seem to hurt, but right now they don't and it's such a welcome change that I start to feel a lump forming in my throat. I tell him that I might cry. He asks me why and what's wrong, and because I don't have the ability to explain myself at length I say simply that I can't remember the last time I was touched so nicely. He doesn't pause in his motions and he doesn't skip a beat when he says, "Well, you deserve to be touched like this." Then there's only quiet, punctuated by a peal of laughter from outside and my own foolish sniffles. The dark, the wintry air, and two hands, moving.
It's been a rough day, which is par for the course this week. I'm in need of comfort, so I make a pot of spaghetti, I drink a glass of wine, I smoke three cigarettes on the porch while looking out into the night, the river valley and the mountains beyond, freckled here and there with little points of light. Even though I'm probably an atheist, I can't resist: "Thank you, God, for this heavenly dark." Once inside, I take my vitamins, brush my teeth, wash my face, and look for a moment at myself in the mirror. There's nothing especially interesting to see, just me staring back, plain as an egg and pale from lack of sleep. There is vulnerability in that face, but no weakness, no unloveliness. "You've grown into a very beautiful woman," I tell my reflection, and turn off the light.