the wait

I just spent three days walking my old stomping grounds: come to find out everything has changed, and nothing has changed. I spent the first half of my weekend with R. R is the same. Completely the same. All he talked about was drugs, sex, men. Drugs, sex, men... and Wigstock. This guy is in arrested development. He said it was because we were visiting old haunts that he was drinking like he was. He drank heavily both nights. And he smoked like a chimney. And he said he does neither on a regular basis. He asked me to get some pot from D. I was appalled. I'm an adult in recovery: she's an adult in recovery. Why would he ask us to score him some pot? I am so over him I don't want to take the time to write about him. ugh.
As for D... Oh, how I want her. Not in that "Oh baby you are sooo hot" kind of way : although she is pretty cute. It's that "OH MY GOD your BRAIN is amazing! How do you know all this shit?" kind of way. I'm convinced that the universe put her in my life the first time to imprint her on my brain so that when she became the person I want as a life partner, I'd know 1) her name 2) where to find her and 3) what she looks like so I could pick her out of a photograph on the internet.
Neither of us were able to be any kind of supportive or anything back then. But we sure did remember each other and have, for some reason, an instant connection despite the fact things did not end well.
I spent my last part of the weekend with D; I didn't say anything about my feelings until I felt forced to by circumstance. She asked me where I wanted to sleep "You can sleep in my room, in the kid's room, or on the couch". I should have picked couch, so I could get some sleep, but I picked her room, because I wanted to see what would happen. She had taken a sleeping pill and was dozing in and out when I felt the need to ask her if she had any interest in a relationship. She shot me down and said she really needed to know herself first, and that jumping into relationships was her M.O., etc.
I know it was really bad, awkward timing on my part, and I know I should have asked her before I went up there, and I should have not slept in her room because I was tormented by wanting to hold her; but it was what it was. The next day I felt FRIED and HORRID and useless. What a bad weekend for traveling: I had cramps and my heavy nasty period was just ending when I went up. And R. has no patience for women and women's problems such as needing the toilet more often when menstruating. Then my period ended and I did get some sleep one night but the next night I was out very late and got NO sleep and spent the day in the sun watching harness races and steeplechase. And of course D. and I did not get to talk much about the elephant in the room until we were on the way to the airport. D. missed the turn due to talking and we got me to the airport with ZERO seconds to SPARE. I bought a water at the kiosk so I guess I had about forty seconds to spare, actually... they were making motions to close the airplane passenger door when I went through it. One person came after me so I didn't feel quite so bad. At any rate, although she was telling me NO, I was getting the signal that she really enjoys my company and the talk was going so well that I felt as though it were not me being told no, but me being told to wait.
I can wait. I would wait a long time for her. We were walking along the James River, along a trail we both knew well from olden days , pointing out places we used to hang out. I was having such a good time being with her. We came upon the old 'church' down at the Iron Works : she told me she didn't believe the date written on the placard so she said she was going to 'douse'. I thought she was 'dousing' for water, as that is all I had ever heard of dousing being used for. But she was dousing for information. She cut a branch off a tree and started saying the years, I don't remember what they were, but it was like "1888, 1889, 1890..." on and on until she came to the right year. And the dousing stick was turning down as she recited the numbers until it was down and she said that must be the year the building was built. I took a photo of her dousing because I did NOT know what to make of it. I sort of ignored it, almost embarrassed by it at first but then; I became enraptured by it. Whether she truly believes in dousing or was showing off to me, I don't care. It was so endearing that she would do that in front of me with no qualms that I decided if she believes it then that is all that matters. This woman moves through the world in a way that is hard for me to describe but I am totally enthralled by it. She is always looking around in wonder, eyes wide open, a ready smile. She's always noticing things, as I am, and although I do not comment on everything I notice, because people dont usually care , she does, and points them out. And we had fun, figuring things out together.
For instance, her horse has laminitis brought on by eating too many persimmons. So she is keeping him locked in his stall as much as possible when not there to monitor him until the persimmons have all dropped. She let him out of his stall and he came out with his head to the ground,sniffing.
Usually this indicates a horse wants to ROLL. They are sniffing out a place to roll. But he kept walking. D. said "Go ahead and roll, you silly horse!" and I asked myself, do I want to tell her what is really going on? Will she be offended if I tell her he's not looking to roll? So I did. "He's sniffing for persimmons." I'd never seen a horse walk along sniffing the ground as far and long as that one did: it had to be what he was doing. Earlier D. had shown me a persimmon. She said "Can you smell it?" I said no. So we held it to my nose. I could smell it then. So we both deduced that her horse was sniffing for persimmons because you can't smell them until you are right on them, even horses who have such great big nostrils can't smell them without getting close.
And she looked at me and said "Huh. I thought he was getting ready to roll." We spent the weekend like that, figuring things out, putting our heads together, it was great.
Also she ropes. She has a rope. She was going to give it to me and I wanted it. But I can't take her rope. I can't believe she likes to practice roping. I love doing that.
*sigh*
We were in the car on the way to the airport and got back on the subject of why she should not be in a relationship and I told her how if I had made a list of things I wanted in a partner, it would look like her. I told her how it is that I keep ticking things off like :NPR, check. Classical music, check. Practice with rope, check. Horses, check. Reading, check. Punk rock, check.
It's amazing and I get so excited when she texts me. I don't know of any thing else i can do other than let this go where it will and explore it as far as I can.
It feels so surreal.
And so I heard this on the way to my sister's...
********************
And the Cantilevered Inference Shall Hold the Day

by Michael Blumenthal

Things are not as they seem: the innuendo of everything makes
itself felt and trembles towards meanings we never intuited
or dreamed. Take, for example, how the warbler, perched on a

mere branch, can kidnap the day from its tediums and send us
heavenwards, or how, held up by nothing we really see, our
spirits soar and then, in a mysterious series of twists and turns,

come to a safe landing in a field, encircled by greenery. Nothing
I can say to you here can possibly convince you that a man
as unreliable as I have been can smuggle in truths between tercets

and quatrains on scraps of paper, but the world as we know
is full of surprises, and the likelihood that here, in the shape
of this very bird, redemption awaits us should not be dismissed

so easily. Each year, days swivel and diminish along their inscrutable
axes, then lengthen again until we are bathed in light we were not
prepared for. Last night, lying in bed with nothing to hold onto

but myself, I gazed at the emptiness beside me and saw there, in the
shape of absence, something so sweet and deliberate I called it darling.
No one who encrusticates (I made that up!) his silliness in a bowl,

waiting for sanctity, can ever know how lovely playfulness can be,
and, that said, let me wish you a Merry One (or Chanukah if you
prefer), and may whatever holds you up stay forever beneath you,

and may the robin find many a worm, and our cruelties abate,
and may you be well and happy and full of mischief as I am,
and may all your nothings, too, hold something up and sing.