paris journal

Saturday, March 20, 9:00 a.m.

I lifted the window shade and saw the Seine snaking through the countryside and plumes of smoke from stacks unmoving and tricking me into thinking they were some kind of statues for a moment.

The land is cut up into irregular squares, verdant and earthy red with clusters of buildings at some of the corners, communities or country roads.

As we near the end of the flight, patches of unfarmed land grow bigger, the clusters of buildings get bigger and more uniform, the country roads widen and become more silvery and the river comes around the bend like a long shiny green snake. On the opposite bank, buildings congregate at the water like pigeons waiting for something that may never come. And the landscape turns industrial.

The plane tips to the left and the bright morning sun pours in and warms my face and melts the frost on the outside of the window.

Traffic circles! Cars and trucks creep by on an eight-lane highway like busy ants. {??} shapes in a bright green patch - is that a golf course?

The river and the tightly packed houses in its elbow, red roofs and windows catching the sunlight, winking up at me as if to say, "We are here!" and "Look at me!"

A sewage treatment plant with a canal running off of the river; here the green water turns oily black. Several tall buildings in the distance poke up through the haze. Nearer, apartment buildings zigzag through the streets like block letter Ms and Ls.

A farm - two patches of red, three of green - looks out of place next to the jagged terrain. And then more farmland, with a commuter train cutting through it, then a factory, where the farmland turns dull sand-colored and eighteen-wheelers {actually ten-wheelers in France} wait in a parking lot. This gives way to the airport - Charles De Galle. Landing.

Bon jour, Paris!

--

The airport was very quiet. In fact, the only thing I heard was my traveling companion saying over and over how quite the airport was.

shut up and write

I'm in a race to write a book,
getting things in order before I sit down in front of the computer
or splay myself on the bed with the three-ring binder and pen.
I need concentrated time, uninterrupted.
I want to get all of the interruptions out of the way,
bedtime,
breakfast,
sending pictures of my Paris trip to my mother,
journaling,
blogging,
and work.
If work comes, I'll do that first.
I want work; I need the money.
If work comes, it takes precedent over writing.
Unfortunately, that's just the way it is.

I don't have far to go to finish this book,
but I feel like I'm forever away from the end.
I'm still in the midst of first draft land here,
but so much of it is done,
so I'm really just filling in the blanks.
I don't even have to do a top notch job with it,
just get it out,
there will be time later to fix the stuff that doesn't work.
But that's not the way my mind works.
I'm forever fixing,
perfecting,
rewriting
even as I'm writing,
thinking about stuff down the line that might oughta be changed,
picturing the finished product,
the proud responses,
the surprised reactions,
the not-so-surprised.

But now I need to take a shower.
And it's a shaving day.
And I keep clicking the Refresh key on the laptop to see if any work has come.
And there's breakfast dishes to do,
and laundry,
and the mailbox to check,
and just a little downtime to think.
And then yoga,
and improv.
How did it get so complicated?

I did do a little writing last night,
after everything else.
I got through a little more than a page,
typed up something I had written longhand.
It was good; I'm happy with it.
I could have gone on for a couple of pages more,
easily,
typing up what I had written,
but I was distracted,
thinking about this, that, and the other thing;
checking email,
looking for a recipe for a friend in need,
going hither and yon,
pulled away
all the while wishing I had more time to write.
I was tired so I didn't want to commit too much time to writing.
Chapter 24, "Sin City."
It's a good one.
I'm just getting geared up for it.
This is one of the ones I wrote ages ago,
part of the very original draft,
something pulled from real life
so it's practically effortless.
But I have to work it into the lives of the characters,
who are not real life.
Not really.
They're in my head and so vivid they seem real.
Sometimes I catch myself doing loving-kindness meditation for the characters I've created.
Which I guess is okay;
I guess it's like doing meditation for myself,
the many facets of me.

But I'd rather be writing than meditating.
I'd rather be writing than doing so many other things.
But then, when it gets right down to it,
it is really hard.
Just me and the piece of paper,
waiting for the inspiration.
Come on, come on...

--Oops! There's work to do.

paris journal

Friday 20 March, 5:30 a.m.

And so the journey begins. I don't know if I've ever been so prepared or relaxed for a trip. I woke up at 2:30 this morning - 8:30 Paris time, quite respectable! - meditated, then got on the computer to see how far it is from my B&B to A's hotel (she texted me the info I asked for in the middle of the night). 36 minutes walking time. No problem at all. I walk down Blvd. Richard Lenoir to the Bastille monument/traffic circle, then onto Blve. King Henry, over Pont de Sully (a brige over the Seine, I'm thinking?), left/right/left and I'm there.

A was originally going to be on the near side of the river, but she changed hotels to be closer to P&N - to the Left Bank, twice as far from me. Not that I care so much, but she said she felt bad and offered-- no, insisted on paying half of my B&B. I didn't protest too much since I am feeling a bit strapped and since my mother intimated that she was sending me something for my trip (which I assumed was $) but she never did, or hasn't yet.

I took $300 out of my savings account and got another 96 by cashing in my change at one of those CoinStar machines. I was surprised and delighted! I don't need much - I only intend to get a souvenir for a 6-year-old and mabe a nice straw hat for myself - but I would hate to run out of money. I want to be as prepared as possible in case A forgets to give me money.

simplification.

I'm not writing. Today, it doesn't look like I'll get around to it. Maybe this evening, after yoga and the performance I'm taking part in (reading from a numbered list of instructions, guided by audience members calling out random numbers).

I'm trying to simplify my life, but it doesn't seem to be simple right now. Since I no longer have a relationship with C, which was so challenging and simultaneously enriching, I feel like I need to spend more time with the other challenging/enriching element of my life, my book. I left it behind when I went to Paris. Or I should say that was my intent. I had struggled with a chapter rewrite, and then, in a wash of inspiration, completed it a week or so before the trip, and the chapter that followed started coming to me almost immediately, so I felt like I should pay attention, but I had already set the intent to not work on it in Paris. I found a space in the bottom of my carry-on big enough to slip the slim three-ring binder into, just in case.

A couple of times, I packed it in my bag and carried it with me to the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe, thinking I would find a place to sit and be inspired and write. But it was too cold in Paris for sitting outside, or inspiration. I didn't write anything in Paris other than random notes in a journal.

Now I'm back from the trip, happy to be back, but more broke than I thought I would be, and feeling the need to really simplify my life. Again.

I've been enjoying improv classes, and I've found a way to take more of them for no money (repeating the current or previous levels). There's a new level two starting up next Thursday evening, which I think I'll join, and I'm already in the Saturday afternoon class and sitting in on the Tuesday evening class. Last week, for the first time, I joined in on the Wednesday improv "jam," which isn't a class but a free-for-all performance for people of all levels (no audience except each other). It doesn't feel as "safe" as the classes that I've been taking, but I feel the need to get out of my safety zone.

I'm also doing more yoga. Monday through Thursday at 3:30, and now Sundays at 1:30. That leaves Friday through Monday evenings to fill up, if necessary. I would like to fill up some of that time with writing. But I also feel a strong urge to work as much as I can, since the recent pay cut, so that takes precedent. If there is work to do on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, I'll do that first, and then fill in whatever leftover time I have with writing. Or at least that's the plan; there hasn't been any leftover time so far.

I just finished the work available this weekend. I've worked 16.5 hours since Thursday - which is pretty good, because I didn't work at all on Thursday and not much on Friday. I went to therapy, got a massage, took some Me time. I needed some time off - even though I just got back from "vacation." It didn't feel much like a vacation. It felt like a challenge. It made novel writing seem like the easier option. So I'd better get to that and prove myself right.

Oh, but I've got to head out for a rehearsal right now, and then yoga, and then the performance. Jeez...

message in a dream

I had a dream this morning. I was walking through an area with warm, low Frank Lloyd Wright type buildings, live oak trees were abundant and old, their limbs like hundreds of big strong arms hovering near the hilly ground and high into the sky. It was a sunny day but it was cool and shady where I was.

I heard someone say my name. I recognized it as being C's voice, a friend with whom I've recently had the third and what seems like final falling out (in the course of our short and very intense relationship). I turned to look and saw someone who looked like him but wasn't him.

"Did you call me?"
"No," the stranger said, "That was just C pointing you out. He went inside."

That sounds about right, I thought to myself, considering what we've been through recently. I turned to leave the area and saw litter on the ground. I picked up a clear plastic bag and put the litter in it as I walked toward the exit. I dropped the bag in a big trash barrel. There were bottles and cans in it, but I didn't see a recycling bin, so I didn't bother separating them. At the end of the sidewalk, there were several recycling bins, organized for the different items. I went back to the trash barrel to retrieve the recyclables. There were ants coming up from deep within the barrel. And then there were bees and wasps hovering around. Every time I looked away and back, the ants, bees and wasps had multiplied exponentially.

I tried to pick out the bottles and cans, but the flying insects were thwarting me. I saw a shovel on the ground, it was covered with the bugs as well. They were flying in my face, scaring me a little. Finally I put down whatever was in my hands, said to myself, "Better to just leave it alone," and walked away.

Better to just leave it alone.

It was one of those message dreams, pertaining no doubt to the stuff I've been going through with C. I was the one who instigated the separation, but it wasn't really what I wanted; it was what I felt like he wanted. I expected my email to sting a little - I was in Paris, feeling very alone, feeling like he was responding to everything I said from a very selfish place, not seeing what I was going through, not being the friend he had been the previous two months. I expected to get a response from him the likes of when I canceled out on a meditation retreat after our second falling out. That time he had written, "It makes me me very sad to hear that."

Apparently, this was exactly what he wanted to hear. His response to my "Letting Go" email was, "I think this is for the best." He went on to tell me that our relationship now "brings up confusion and an agitated heart" for him.

Maybe it was foolish of me to write that email saying "I feel like I need to let go of this relationship." (Be careful what you ask for, comes to mind.) But I was in a really sorry place in Paris, and I felt like the focus had been on him in our recent interactions - and come to think of it during the whole relationship, I decided in the moment before I wrote the email. I kept it on my phone a whole day, rereading it, editing it a very little, making sure it said what it needed to say, before I sent it.

He had never had a close gay friend before me. (Whenever I repeated that back to him, he was always quick to correct me, saying that he had never had a close gay male friend before; he had lots of gay women friends. Whatever.) Suffice it to say there are things in his past that make him a bit leery of male companionship at all, and particularly with a gay man.

But that was what this relationship seemed to be about in the beginning, about him working on getting over some of his issues. It was about that for me, too. It has long been my desire to be friends with a man in which sex is not a consideration. We discussed very openly (at first) all of the things that were coming up for us; it wasn't hard, but we were determined to press on, to figure things out. We even had a therapy session together!

And now I'm left with my own confusion, agitated heart, and a softball-sized pain in my belly. The only difference is I'm still willing to try to work it out.

I've outlived my father by six years so far. He seemed so old when he died at 39, so grown up. I know he had his problems, but he didn't deal with them in the big way that I feel like I am dealing with this loss. I cried all day long yesterday and the day before. Not constantly, but when I went outside to deal with the laundry or turned the corner into my bedroom, or somehow the wind changed, a great sadness would suddenly descend upon me and I was unable to move for a few moments, except for the movement of my insides, my pounding chest, my pounding head, my tears, my gasps, my anxiety. I don't feel like a 45-year-old man; I feel like that same boy in the eighth grade who cried in private and had no one to understand him or help him figure things out.

All of this is not C's fault. --Okay, is any of this his fault? We got a little too close to his edge; he got very scared; he ran. I understand that need sometimes.

But he said he wouldn't. Over and over again, I expressed my fears of being abandoned; again and again he said he would not do that. He said he was there for me. He said "I love you," he called me his "dear, dear beautiful friend"...

What do I do with all of this? Where do I put my sadness? C came strong into my life shortly after Timmy my cat died. And now for some reason, the sadness of Timmy is back. Day before yesterday I was drawn to his grave and just sobbed uncontrollably for 10 minutes. C was a nice substitute for the uncomplicated love I had for and from my cat. The love C and I shared was always complicated, but it was as deep as any love I have felt for a man, and special because it was not sex-based.

There were trust issues on C's part because of my sexuality. He seemed more sure and confident of my sexuality than even I am. He seems to have some stuckness around what that means, what it means to him, what it should mean to me. I've tried to work through these things, have tried to process all of my fears and anxiety through him. He said he was open to that, said "bring it on" in so many words. And so I did.

And then he pulled away. And now I feel abandoned. I've printed out our email and text correspondence - 43 pages of 10-point Arial typeface. I'm trying to figure it out. I wonder if one last therapy session with him would be possible or even a good idea?