More from The Dreaming

It’s Toronto, in the summer.  I can tell from the palm trees as I get off the plane, from the heat on the streetcar.  Turning the corner to home, a yellow stone building on College and Spadina, I stop when I see a dark haired man playing the guitar on the sidewalk.  He catches my eye and smiles, “Welcome back,” before starting Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s Buy For Me the Rain.  He has white teeth and bright green/blue eyes, the guitar is red.  

The song is for me, I realise as he plays.  I know him.  I surprise myself when it’s over.  My intent to kiss him on the side of his face is foiled when he turns to catch me.  The smile in his eyes tells me to stop being shy and predictable.  We’re the same height.  I catch my breath, close my eyes, and wake up.

To Me

Summer sun and shimmer,

Asphalt stretches away,

My eyes on the horizon's edge

But I'll come back someday.

Black ribbon stretched out flying to a coast

That I may never see,

Leading down the ways I've never been to

Who I might yet be.

Afternoon and shadow,

On through the fallen night,

Then stars will wink and blink and die

While I still seek the light.

And if I lose my road, there'll be no map

To show my way,

For dreams are built and burnt as fast

As night becomes the day.

To You, Whoever You Are

Sunlight slants through silence,

Miles and hours slip away.  

There are questions in your eyes,

But there is nothing I can say.  

There’s nothing I can give you

But the people I have been.  

The wild and weary work that’s

Done when reality sets in.

The pain of life so big

It can’t support itself is real;

Escape to dreams, but know

This is not how to learn to feel.

You can’t be my always,

But please be my just for now.  

With quiet understanding

I know you could show me how.

I don’t know where we’re going

And I don’t know what we are,

But take my hand and maybe

We could still get pretty far

Before the shadows gather for

The storm that’s yet to come.

Maybe we’ll go on until

This golden day is done.  

The Land of What Might Have Been

The last three days have felt like there's a string attached to my heart and brain that runs straight down through my body.  At intervals, and without any warning, something yanks on the end of the string and drags my entire nervous and circulatory system out through my crotch.  It's reminiscent of when you go over a bump in the road, or through airplane turbulence, or when you're lying in bed on the very edge of sleep and feel like you've just fallen twelve feet, except for the much lower center of concentrated energy than usual.  It's not a recommended way to go through life.

I'm not sure how to make it go away.  I don't really know that I want it to go away, except that it's distracting to have to reconstruct your insides a thousand times a day.  I know what started it:  three or four sentences, all as tame as the raciest parts of your average middle school YA novel.  But they set off depth charges.

In spite of assurances that this is normal, it doesn't feel normal.  It's also new.  The guy I had a hopeless crush on in high school had the ability to render me shy and stupid merely by being in the same room.  I had a lengthy correspondence relationship when I was in high school, too.  It was conducted almost entirely by letter and was more chaste than classic literature because we didn't even have scandalous subtext.  Checking the mail was punctuated by intense anticipation, but, really, that relationship was more about trying to out-write each other than it was anything else.  My ex-husband was a series of conversations in, "I should not do this.  Well.  OK.  Why shouldn't I do this?  Because it seems like a bad idea.  Like you would know without trying it."  *tries it*  "OK.  Well.  That wasn't bad.  It was, in fact, pretty good.  We could do that again."  It was logical and considered and somehow I still managed to get it all wrong.

Is it because I know so much better where this kind of interaction can go?  I've spent not an insignificant amount of time typing way, way more intimate acts to strangers online, and the closest this resembles was the guy who, without writing anything below my shoulders-

Oh.  Of course.  When I was married, my experience wasn't even part of his thought process, let alone his actions.  Of course anybody who pays any attention to me is going to effect me.

A conversation today included this sentiment, "You mean you wanted to have sex, asked for it, but didn't get it more than once a month?  And you can have multiple orgasms, and not only would he not go down on you, he was out looking for other people to have sex with instead of you?  I hate this fucking guy."  Which is, reassuringly, not the first time I've been told that.  Fingers crossed.

#TheatreFam

End of year recognition for my high schoolers.  I love my kids.  We have 300 amazing students, and I get to be there to watch them grow and learn and make me proud of their best selves.  I get them at their best and challenge them to reach farther, because I know they can.  That's so much better than if I got a teaching license and had to try to educate all of them.  I'll admit it, I'm not interested in inflicting federal and state mandated stuff on the ones who don't want to be there, I want to share cool stuff with the strange and talented ones.

They're not just talented, they're good to each other.  Theatre was my family when I was in high school; 40 other weirdos like me who, when it came right down to it, all loved and supported each other.  This is high school, where everything burns hot and cold and every day can be the most important day of your life.  It was not the greatest experience of my life, but it was the most emotionally charged period so far.  These kids blow my experience away.  There were 400 kids in my graduating class and I didn't really know 80 of them.  These 300 kids cross all grades and include freshmen in two separate buildings and they're family, too.  They show up.  And not only do they show up, they are genuinely there for each other when they need to be, and that is so cool to watch.

This year, they were given the opportunity to nominate each other for an award for those students encompassing passion, dedication, kindness and selflessness.  Four students received the award, and we read out the nominating letters written by other students, and gave their names.  They wrote mature, adult recommendations -heck, recommendations better than many adults write- describing their peers.  And they weren't allowed to be anonymous.  To have been a writer of one of those letters says just as much as for the recipients, because that means at 16, 17, you have to step outside all of the high school stuff -rivalry, jealousy, pettiness- and look with respect for a peer and individually represent all that the entire group embodies.  And hey, they're speech kids, they have the words to express their commendation.

My first freshman class will be seniors next year.  They are an incredibly strong group, stronger than the two classes before them, and I have loved watching them take on new challenges and surprise and amaze me.  Freshmen are such kids, and then they turn around and show you what they can do.  And I might not be there to see what they do next year.  In fact, I probably won't be.

That kills me.  All of the great things I get to do are great, but they don't sustain me beyond love of the work, or love of the people.  I love the trust and autonomy that I have at the high school; at the little community theatre; in the tours I give.  So tonight I have to say to the head coach, "I might not be back," and she says, "Full time theatre work?"  "If I can get it; I've been applying."  "That's what happens to the good ones.  Well.  I want you back, but if I can't have you, tell me as soon as you know.  You'll be so hard to replace.  Any of you are, but you'll be hard to replace."

That kills me a little bit, too.  I was in agonies my first year, I didn't know what I was doing, there was some other way I should be doing things, they didn't all make it to All State, they can't like what I'm doing.  Then I figured it out, nope, the kids love me and they were growing, and that was all that mattered.  Since then, it's been great, and there's not a lot of recognition of that, but I don't need it, I see it in the kids- they reinforce that I know what I'm doing and that I'm doing it right.

I *still* think of the middle schoolers I worked with a decade ago, for a year.  I marvel at the teachers who cycle through students year after year after year, because that's a lot of lives to touch, and forget.  And I love that this is theatre.  They call themselves High School Theatre Fam.  There's a hashtag.  And it's true.  The good theatres are families.  Moreso than my own relatives, theatres have been my support and haven; the people who are there for me.  It happens over and over again.

I should know not to worry.  Wherever I go, there will be a theatre, and there will be family there, and my only job will be to find it.  Or make it.

Anne of the Thousand Days

I've been legally divorced four months today.  May 31st marks one thousand days since I ended my marriage.  Looking back, I discover that I knew it was over about six months before I finally ended it.  I didn't recognise it at the time, but reading my words now, I see how much I struggled to acknowledge that I'd already made that decision and needed to follow through on it.  

Who am I now?  I've learned a lot about what a relationship should be.  Still learning, because, really, I've researched and thought a lot.  I may finally be in a place where I could be in a relationship.  I've started to notice what I miss about having someone else in my life.  

I know I can live on my own.  I know I'm an independent person, and I have a much better idea of my needs and think that I can communicate them better now than I could at nineteen.  Of course I should be able to.  Nineteen year old me and twenty two year old me do not want a visit from current me.  Sixteen year old me and I are back on the same page.  I think she'd probably listen to anything I had to tell her.  I know she would tell me to stop being stupid and take an opportunity if one comes along, and that there is nothing left to be afraid of, because everything you thought might happen pretty much has- you got hurt, you had a lot of terrible sex, you made really bad choices and alienated everyone around you, again.  It's like high school only with sex this time.  Now that you know you actually like sex, don't worry about the rest of it, move on.  

She's right.  She's also kinda stupid, but she's sixteen.  She knew her limitations and also knows that I don't have any I'm not creating for myself.  

Last week, in a conversation with my ex husband about his future and his options.  I think he's in a slightly better place than he was, or he's finally learned that I do not want to hear hopeless whining about things that are within his control if he'll just do something about it.  So I ask, what was so bad about me that he had to go looking for sex?  

And he's intensely uncomfortable with the conversation.  He's completely inconsistent in his answers.  I still don't know whether he lied most recently, or lied the other times I've tried to find out why he felt the need to do what he did.  It turns out, it doesn't matter.  It's enough to know that he's still not able to address the situation, "I can't believe we're having this conversation."  "If we'd had it years ago," I say, "Things could have changed."  

He thinks that, no, if we'd had the conversation, if he'd talked about what he needed and wanted, I would have left.  Which does finally tell me what I needed to know- he never trusted me with his sexuality.  He was happier believing that he needed me more than he needed to tell me the truth about what he needed.  

That's for him to deal with someday.  Even as he was saying it, I knew he didn't realise what he was telling me.  Clearly, his sexuality is that big a weight on him, and I hope someday he figures out how to manage it.  

It's nice to recognise that if I met his exact clone tomorrow, I'm not going to make that mistake again.  Good to know.  

The Wanderer Above a Sea of Mists

Gothic spires silhouetted before a lurid sunset, darkened terrain and flashes of supernatural mysticism inhabiting the deeper levels of my superstition.  A thick scent of ozone.  Torrid, hopeless, sublime subjective natural landscapes mirroring personal doom.  This nightmare world, spreading beneath the distant stars on the infinite horizon, cutting through the shadows inhabited by the indistinct shapes and symbols of all the things I have ever dreamt.  Where everything is iridescent purple mirror shine, a black mirror where things look out that never looked in, or looked in once and were trapped, twisted to reveal what they are.

All that's necessary to reach the stars is to cross it.

The eyes of Dr. TJ Eckleburg as they look over the grey Valley of Ashes, the hopeless space that separates us from the green light, from the hopeless gay parties that never end, the dangerous and fascinating people who can make anything happen, for a price.  Gatsby stands on his dock, reaching back to a dream he'll never re-create.  A midwestern story.  A story of being so fundamentally fed up with who and what you are that, desperate to become anything else, you become a symbol.  A warning.

But J. Alfred Prufrock knows there is nothing to stop us, with the evening spread out against the sky, except for a million realities, doubts and fears, the things that keep us from ourselves, our hair, our faces, life and death, and do we dare?  There will be time later, so wait, turn back.  Know that mermaids sang, but not to me, for human voices wake us, and we drown.  Because life is talk, and death and work and sleep and doubt, and more than that, the certainty of doubt which reminds us we are not infinite, and should we dare, time will turn us back to coffee spoons.

Extension

I'm lonely.  I live in a house that's been in my family over 90 years.  My brother lives in the basement, my parents live in town.  In spite of this, I'm looking for a home and a family.

I've been doing it on my own for a year and a half.  I'm good at it.  I'm *really* good at it.  I have the freedom to say, "I want to do this," and do it.  And when that plan doesn't work, I try the next thing.

It's tiring, though.  It means having an inexhaustible ability to start over.  It means being able to do it on your own.  And sometimes, a lot of times, I break.  I'm lucky to have friends who will let me complain about whatever the latest new and insane plan is.  Do one thing each day that scares you.  Do six impossible things before breakfast.  Oh, and do everything else, too.

The days I can't do it anymore are the days I want to disappear so far inside someone else I can't see me or my problems anymore.  Which is what I did in my marriage.  His problems were bigger, and became mine.  How much easier it is to forget yourself and worry about someone else.  As long as you don't care who you are.
These days, I want to be me.  I'd like to be me with somebody else.  To be able to say, "hey, this is too much for me right now, can we do this together, or can we do something else for a minute and then remind me to go back?"  I don't really want to disappear, I just want a hand.

The reason humans can do mime is a function of our brains.  When you do a physical activity, portions of your brain light up as they work.  When you think about doing that physical activity, when you're just sitting in a chair, your brain continues to light up in the same exact ways.  It doesn't matter if you're doing it, or thinking about doing it, or pretending to do it, your brain turns on the same places. It still learns, it still creates the circuit, improves it.

This is why they say touch is one of the strongest things we can do.  Because it lights up our brain and connects us, and the memory of that experience is like recreating it.  Wanting someone to give you a hand isn't a metaphor.  It's literal.  It's the need to reinforce that someone is there for you.  And that's how your brain creates all those chemicals that are side effects of human connection- happiness, love.  So when you're out of them, you can find them by thinking of them.  And that makes the hard things not so hard.

That's how it's supposed to work.

Are All Music Teachers As Dense As I Am?

Another message from my ex-husband, he wants my help.  That was our entire relationship.  He wouldn't do something, or couldn't do something and at the last minute, I would be expected to fix it.  Every year, his portfolio review would come around, and at 1am the day before it was due, I was sitting up printing and gluing and correcting text.  I edited all his papers.  I practically did all the research and wrote them, too.  

This time, I told him no.  I am not going to continue to do favours for him that I know will never, ever be returned.  That's not friendship, that's not nice, that's just using me to get what he wants and I had the opportunity to do that while we were married, why would I do it afterward?

It's not just him.  I scroll through my Facebook messages and realise, with a few exceptions, people only contact me when they want me to do something for them.  "Hey, I bet you know," "Could you look up ...?" "Give me an idea," and I do.  Sometimes, when they've gotten what they want and say thank you, I say, "Hey, we should do a thing," and they say, "Yeah, yeah, sounds great."  And it never happens.  

I wonder how to change this, but I suspect that it involves being a person that I'm not OK with being.  

A Better Fate Than Wisdom

You're not an unintelligent person.  You have a wide range of sex-positive vocabulary and tolerance.  You understand that relationships are built on more than sex:  communication, respect, trust, intimacy.  However, there are certain things that still have you turning to Google like a 12 year old.

Last night, talking with a guy online and he talks about one of his favourite ideas about date night, and, as I'm thinking it sounds like one of the sweetest things I've ever heard, he quickly explains that it's just when he's feeling low-key, not, like, going all out.

"That's a lot fancier than my experience."
"What's your experience?"

I cannot bring myself to say, "When you're allowed to eat inside the fast food place rather than having to go through the drive through and eat in the parking lot," so I say, "For his birthday we went to a chain steakhouse.  My birthday always fell during a show, so we never did anything."  And he takes a very long time to type, "That guy sucked."

I know.

"No fun dinners?  No going anyplace fancy?  What would you do if you could?"

In this moment, I realise I need a girl.  Luckily, a friend is still awake, "Hey, what are dates?"
"You like theatre.  Theatre is a date."
"No, theatre is work."
"A date is a thing you like to do and would like to do with other people."
"Ah.  Got it.  Thank you!"

I explain that adventures and conversation are pretty much good enough for me.  "Oh, flirty-type dates.  Cool."  While the conversation moves on, I'm still left wondering what the heck he means.

This morning, I ask for clarification from another friend, what the heck is flirting.  He does eventually answer in a way that makes sense, which I appreciate.  On the way there, I'm left with another comparison I don't understand, "the difference between kissing and making out."

Which, after he disappears, has me on Google all afternoon trying to figure out exactly what this means.  Eventually, I ask my brother, "Teenagers in the car right before the alien/monster/ghost/murderer gets them, what's the word for that?"
"Umm.  It's usually just the scene before the title card, I don't know.  I can look it up."
"No, not the trope, the thing the teenagers are in the middle of."
"Making out?"
"Got it.  Thank you."

That's something I've done maybe twice.  Over a decade ago.  All things at any point after had to lead to his orgasm.  He always said no to anything else.  No means no, right?  No means you shouldn't question it, if it's OK with you, just do it.  Besides, if you say no because you'd rather do something else, and maybe do that later, the whole process will just stop.  Who knows when your next opportunity is going to come along?  So, OK, take what you can when you can.  What does normal even look like?  Why did I let this be OK?

Or, more to the point, why do I still have so much of my self-worth tied up in this?  And why does the only way to change this involve being braver than I feel?