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the story of the time, in detail ~ November 27, 2006 - 9:03 p.m. so I've only alluded, in dreamy bits and pieces, to the new love in my world... he's this one. such a deep sweetness there, so much love and so much healing in it for both of us. we've been in that really joyful place of ecstatic newness ever since ren faire. and then, friday night, I was reminded entirely too graphically about how it can be, with boys, and their sometimes utterly baffling lack of clue. but let me rewind a bit, because-- damn-- it's been a time. he stayed over tuesday night, which is a treat, when he can stay the whole night. he's a caregiver to a quadriplegic who needs to be turned in the night, so sometimes when he comes over he has to creep out of bed at three in the morning and go home to turn his employer. no really, that's what he's doing. I don't want you to get the wrong idea from the rest of the story that follows... he's honest. just, occasionally, having a boyish lack of clue. so he stayed over and I got to wake up in his arms and we had a long morning of getting out of bed too slow and lingering in the shower, digging through my closet for costume pieces, thrift store shopping and waiting for indian takeout... we lingered and loved on each other too long and we both got in trouble with our jobs for rolling in late. it was a sweet morning, and we were trying to put together a costume for me for the dickens fair, which he'd invited me to come to on friday. he works there, ballroom dancing and being a nice irish lad. I needed costume, and I was a bit wound up about it, having never been to the dickens fair and not exactly having a closet overflowing with dickens garb. but he'd asked me, and I was delighted to be asked. we've been lovers for the last month and a half or so, but never actually been on a "date" sotospeak. I knew he'd be working, and busy, but still-- I loved that he'd asked me, that he wanted me to be there. he asked me to dress up. he'd leave me a ticket at will-call. it felt sweet, and romantic, and fun. that was wednesday... and then came thanksgiving. the day that most things in my life went to hell. it started out well enough... I was happy, making candied cranberries for the feast I was heading to up in oakland, chatting with my folks on the phone in the sunshiny courtyard. it always seems to be overcast on thanksgiving, but this one was gorgeous. and it turned out that my housemate, susan, had dickens fair clothes from when she used to work it, and she even made a special trip out to her studio to get them for me. a black velvet skirt, lacy high-collared blouse, round-brimmed hat with flowers. I loved how it looked with the luscious beaded peacock shawl my mom gave me last birthday. then I got in the car to head to oakland-- and my car broke down. just a few miles from santa cruz, with no warning. my cell phone was almost out of minutes, and I'm on the prepay plan, and broke-- so I used the last of my minutes to call susan, and she called AAA for me. they took almost three hours to come. so that was my thanksgiving, sitting by the side of the road in a dead car with a dead cell phone and wondering how the hell I was going to manage all the things which had just gone suddenly, horribly wrong. I really just felt kind of numb. after two and a half hours, the third highway patrolman to stop called triple-a back for me. turns out they hadn't gone far enough up the highway to find me. twenty minutes later, they finally arrived. and he was sweet to me that night, on the phone-- after my free nighttime minutes kicked in and I could make calls again. told me I could call him anytime I need to, even in the middle of the night. I love this boy, I really do. and then there was friday... one of those universe-kicking-you-when-you're-down kinda days. I had to work friday morning up in san francisco, and since my car was dead I had to take public transit. which, from santa cruz, is a lengthy process with multiple steps. and since it was the day after thanksgiving, the highway 17 express bus was on a weekend schedule, so I had to leave an hour earlier than I would have had to otherwise. that meant, in order to get up to the city by 10, I had to catch a bus at 5:50 a.m. so, up at 4:15, stowing my victorian garb in a backpack and catching the cab to the bus to the train to the bus to the walk to the meeting place for my job. which was a very funny marketing gig, promoting a pay-per-view martial arts fight. I was the driver, driving around this 18-foot flatbed with a fighting ring built onto the back, two martial artists, two girls in tiny skirts and tank tops, and a very cool manager woman. it was, honestly, one of the most fun of all the promotional gigs I've done. I like driving big trucks, and that was pretty much my whole job. they thought I was an amazing driver, I think because i'm a girl and yet not afraid to drive an 18-foot flatbed. we'd pull up wherever we thought we could get crowds, and the boys would spar while the girls paraded around in their skirts and passed out advertising cards. friday was black friday, and we were on union square, so it was just completely nuts. crazy crowds, cops everywhere, macy's workers on strike. but they loved us, all the crowds. we were entertainment. so I had a good work day, then I got changed into my dickens gear in the bathroom of the safeway and caught a ride to the cow palace with the martial artists. and the dickens fair was such a sweet, warm little world. it amazed me that they were able to create something so dreamy and sweet in such a cavernous beast as the cow palace. I felt good in what I had on, and I got checked out hard by one of the barmen as I walked in-- one of those up-and-down-then-appreciative-smile kind of looks-- so I was pretty sure I looked nice, too. and he was dancing, and looking so cute and lovely, and he lit up all sweet when I appeared beside him at the end of the dance. he took me onto the floor for the next one, and we had a tremendously awkward waltz, which I spent mostly trying not to trip him, because I had no clue what I was supposed to be doing with my feet and I'm not at all used to being led. and we danced by another couple, and he introduced me to the girl-- and she and I both knew by the names that we were meeting the other girl he's seeing. he hadn't even told me she was there, and suddenly I'm meeting her, but not in any kind of face-to-face way where I cold make a real human connection. and this is where it all went wrong. it started with the first waltz. he said, I figured that was as good a time as any to do that. I said: warning's good, too. then I explained that I tend to warn a lover when I'm inviting them somewhere that another lover's going to be. and he quibbled with definitions, since she and he aren't quite there yet. but and still, I told him. he thanked me for warning him to warn me. he didn't tell me he hadn't known she was going to show up, so I spent the rest of the night wondering if he'd actually invited us both. on its face, a deeply foolish thing to do. and it all just got worse from there. I was having fun in any case, getting asked to dance and warning each one of my deeply patient dance partners that I was terrible at the outset. playing "stagecoach" (because I was invited by a gentleman and found the outstretched gloved hand too charming to resist), and generally entertaining myself. I knew he'd have a break sooner or later, and we could spend a little time. and then there was a set break, and he came to find me, and what he said I'm timesharing. I hope you don't mind. and of course I did. *I* was the girl he'd invited, the lover he shares a deep connection with, and he'd hardly said two words to me since the first dance. I'd gone to some trouble to be there, I was having an awfully hard time in my life anyway, and the fact is that WHEN YOU ASK A GIRL OUT, YOU DON'T TAKE OFF WITH ANOTHER GIRL IN THE MIDDLE OF IT. polyamorous or no. damn, boys and their lack of clue. but of course, I was trying to stay mellow, wanting to be easy. I took a deep breath and squinted at him, trying to figure out what to say. I felt like such a fool for thinking he'd asked me there because he wanted to spend time with me. I knew he could feel the wave of confusion that swept through me, and then what I said was well, I guess it's oh-kaaaay-- but you know that I don't know a soul here. well, have you walked around? he asked. I had, a couple of times. and really, and there's only so much looking at crafts you can't afford and food you shouldn't spend money on you can do. he kinda shrugged, repeated the "timesharing" thing, handed me an almond roca, and went to spend his break with her. I ate the almond roca in three bites, rolled the foil into a ball and threw it away, and then walked over to a chair and sat down, feeling punched in the stomach and blinking back tears. and truly, I'd forgotten, what it is to feel so utterly undone by a boy that you love. I've recovered and remembered so many feelings and sensations in this time he's been in my world. what it is to love and be loved, like this. most of what I reclaim is ecstatic and unbearably sweet. but also there is this: the pain, larger than the stars, bursting hard and sharp from the pit of your stomach up through the ribcage when your sweet love does you wrong. and how that pain feels like it will be howling through you in a weeping why? for the rest of all time. you can't imagine drama that large stirring inside you, when you're standing in that cool and spacious place, outside of love. you can't imagine feeling sixteen again, with everything larger than life, sitting in a corner and blinking back tears, trying not to feel like a fool. and I knew, even then, that there was nothing malicious in any of this. that it was simple boy-carelessness, and inexperience with polyamory done well. but it was just so unbelievable-- it was the first time he'd ever done anything to hurt my feelings, and it was just so huge and hurtful on so many levels. he takes a certain amount of pride in being sensitive to my needs, too, and in making me feel comfortable and good. and then he invites me out somewhere for the first time ever, and treats me like an inconvenient visitor. it was just so shocking, coming from him. the boy who'd always been so good to me, so caring, so intuitive and aware of my needs. and it only got worse. I pulled myself together and got up to go to the bathroom, mostly just for something to do, and they were coming down the village street toward me. I couldn't look at either of them, I went numb and cold and turned to walk into the stark fluorescents whispering I am such a fucking idiot. I'd feel like even more of one after I came out of the bathroom, with some small hope that maybe it was now my turn for some small share of his time. I walked to the dance parlour and sat down. he came over, crouched down, took my hand, and said, with worried blue eyes how are you holding up? and I shrugged and let him feel all the hurt in my body, and said Oh.kay. in that deadcold kinda way because I'd gone all frosty numb. he said well, I'm back on now, but I'd love to--and then someone work-related had to talk to him and he was gone. and there was me, again, feeling like's the world's biggest asshole, trying to blink back the horrified tears and mouthing fuck. bad as it was when he took off to spend his break with another woman, I'd somehow believed he wouldn't spend his whole break with her. there was "timesharing", right-- so I should get some time too. I didn't know that somehow, in the impossibly contorted mathematics he was doing in his head, my one clumsy waltz with him balanced out giving her every bit of his free time. that was his "timesharing". he wasn't even thinking about me, or what I might need, or how I might be feeling. he just figured I was fine, while he ran off with someone else and left me alone in a place where I knew no one. why the fuck do people always figure that I'm fine? I know I'm strong, and independent, and make my own way in the world. but I am not bulletproof. not even close. and I have a deeply tender heart. even so, I refused to let it ruin my evening, and I refused to curl up in a ball in the corner and weep the way I wanted to. I danced with any man who asked me, and it took me out of my head and my heart. I made polite dancing conversation and started to get the waltz, and a couple of them were so skillful that I forgot my feet altogether and just whirled around the floor in their arms. and then he came to me, after the two devastating hours I'd spent feeling alone and uncared for, with sorry blue eyes and outstretched hands and was I dancing? and I agreed, and he squeezed my hand hard and murmured thank you for saying yes, because he'd seen and felt me in my misery and was beginning to realize that he had very seriously fucked up. and we had a fun dance, a group one with partners and steps I could follow, lines and arches and he'd squeeze my hand tight when he had it. and then the band announced that it was the last waltz and everyone should find their favorite partners, and I turned to him and asked, shaking with emotion and irony, so, who's it gonna be? do you want to? YES. thank you. and he wrapped me in his arms and held me close, waltzed me around with blue eyes close to mine and sorry, and I was still not so smooth, but a much better waltzer than I'd been at the beginning of the night, and he said you're starting to get the hang of it, and I said I've been practicing with any man that would have me! he laughed then, we both did, and he said so that's what happens when I leave you alone, I'll have to think about that! and then the last waltz ended, and he wrapped his arms around me and hugged me tight for a long time, so long that he was reprimanded for being impolite. and then there was caroling, and I lost him in the shuffle of it, and fair was over and he was my ride, but I didn't know where to find him. and I was emotionally and physically exhausted (up since 4 a.m., remember), and not up to wandering around feeling like an idiot any more. so I sat down with my book in a chair by the entrance and waited for him to find me. and that's when the tears finally began to overwhelm me, and I stopped caring enough to hold them back. I read anansi boys with silent tears running down my cheeks. and then he came and found me. and was so sorry, and worried, and wanting to know what was wrong. and I just poured it all out to him, how this night was something I'd been looking forward to in the whole hellish vortex my life had suddenly become, the first time he'd ever asked me out, and he'd neglected me and ignored me and spent all his free time with another woman when I was the one he'd invited. and he really listened, really heard me, really cared, owned how completely he'd fucked up without taking on anything that wasn't his. he explained what he could, and we talked and talked. about all kinds of feelings, all kinds of things, about love and relationships and needs. the talking was just so so good, and confirmed for me that he has the communication skills to really stay present and talk through things when we hit friction. we went out after, with friends of his, and it was fun and easy and he was affectionate and sweet with me. he took me home and we were both so sleepy, but feeling close and deep again and I invited him into my bed and we made deep and sleepy love and curled close and warm into sleep until his alarm went off to send him out of bed and home to turn his employer. and the next day I sent him long emails, articulating more about my experience of that night and what I was processing. I laid out for him a concept of "therewithme", something I'd never thought to articulate before. but in my world, when a lover invites you somewhere, there's an implicit agreement that you're there with them (unless communicated otherwise), and your needs are given primary consideration if another lover shows up. then he came, early this morning, to drive me to traffic court. which we never made it to, due to an accident on the highway (I got an extension), but we had great conversation in the car. he tried to explain what had been going through his head, and it was pretty much exactly as I'd thought: a general lack of clue. and he gets just how totally he fucked up. he feels dumb for not realizing sooner what kind of impact his actions were having on me. he told me he's even had the same thing done to him, so he's deeply surprised that he turned around and did it to me. he's promised me it will never happen again. we've talked through it in every way, and articulated what we need in the future. it's good, this. we were going to hit friction sooner or later, and I'm glad to know who we are when it happens. that we can talk like this and really be heard, really work things out, really communicate our needs. that he's freaked out not at all by my emotions. we're deep, this boy and I. we have been from day one. I have the feeling that we can work a lot of things out between us. and so this is the story of my thanksgiving weekend, in all the excruciating detail I needed to lay out. just the kind of time when the shit goes down all at once. but there's a lot of love in my life, and a lot of wonderful people. one of my housemates took me out to lunch on saturday, another smoked me out and gave me fifty dollars to get my phone turned back on. a friend will be coming down to look at my car. and the boy loves me. he really does. I know it'll all be good in the end. somehow or another, it always is.
(((rings))) |