Housewarming Presence
The light is muted through the curtain in their living room. There are ducks on the shelves and everywhere there are knick knacks, and echoes. I'm sure if I asked, almost all of them have a story. They're elderly, and time is evident in spades. The element that makes them stare in wonder at their great grandchildren growing so tall is the same element that has robbed the pigment from hair, the sight from eyes, the sound from ears.
***
It's been a two week process to get the house ready, and in my gut I feel the same mix of excitement and anxiety since I was a child. People! Oh god, people. The only ones to confirm fully are from Matt's university. Mine will try to be there but with me currently off work they're hit even harder. I've already told them it's not a crime to not show up of the day has been too hard.
And so I am pacing the floors, considering taking an old toothbrush to the edges of the sink just to give myself busy work when he arrives. It's a couple of hours early and he has R, and my anxiety melts. This is the first present.
***
His picture is on the wall, in his uniform. He's handsome. He bears resemblance to the many other faces in frames that watch the hallway, and I can't help the little smirk as I pass them. I'm a usurper here, in more ways than one. There's religious pride, good Christian values, and I can't help but wonder what they might have thought of me standing here, gazing at their faces. "I'm connected to you now, even if its a thin thread as yet. Do my own ancestors now appear beside you in the beyond? Are you all in your heaven, scratching your heads and wondering just what on earth is going on?"
***
He's wild in completely unexpected ways. Lust seems to rise up in us the moment we're even in the same county, and it's not enough that we might have each other in the night. No, it makes every touch and every kiss urgent, filled with hunger. I think I'll go crazy if he stops and no matter how hard I try to bring my mind to heel, it refuses. My body just straight up betrays me.
***
There are kids splashing in the pool. They're running and jumping and pushing the screens and this cacaphony of noise and slamming doors is a symphony to me. There's conversation and wine, children running, dads holding a beverage in one hand and a lost shoe in the other. They all do it, one at a time. I stop at random moments and let it sink in. The sound swirls around me, fills up the space and becomes a presence all its own. The longing in my heart eases, I've found a piece of myself.
***
When I visit important places, I touch things. Just a light brush of a fingertip. I did this as a child, because to me it seemed you could exchange something with inanimate objects through touch. Something like energy or memory. I think of all possible hands to touch something before me, perhaps it's only been one or two others. Later, when I recall a moment, I can feel the texture of it locked in my heart. Perhaps that will be my afterlife, visiting all the markers of things that were important to me.
I touch the walls, the piano, the frames. I leave just the tiniest imprint of myself here. An insignificant speck, but perhaps enough to call me back. To remind me that he brought me here and showed me these things and I want to keep them safe in my memory forever.
***
Eight chairs. Eight heads. Eight pairs of eyes trying to guage how this is going to work. The table is laden with food, and for a brief moment it's surrounded. The sun streams in from the windows, coffee brews, and seating is chosen. I'm sitting at the end of the table as my father once did, and Matt sits at the other end. Between us is this budding group, this family of choice. There's life here. Noisy, chaotic life. If everything I've gone through was payment made for a life like this one, then it was a cost I could bear. It is a cost I would repeat for even ten minutes in this joy. I'm happy down to the very roots of my being.
***
They've accepted him with hardly any struggle. "This is my boyfriend, and no he's not related to Matt." Every time I say it, he dives into his phone or into another room. The response is mild surprise and then everyone moves on. He says I don't have to explain to everyone our dynamic. I laugh and do it anyway, because it's the principle. Even though the onus of explanation was supposed to be on my husband before the party, it's on me to either explain when it's easy and quick in an introduction rather than manage odd stares. I can appreciate that Matt is deflecting to my lead, but I'm still vaguely annoyed it hasn't been done yet.
And so I plow through this awkwardness because this is more than just a party. This is their induction to someone they'll see more of. This is that jumping in point to openly myself up. How? The next time they see me, they'll ask how he is because he's important to me. Like the first groves in a new road, these are paths with his name that will eventually become trenches. This is how you entwine. This is how you begin.
***
"We used to live here." I'm driving my truck behind his little black hybrid. K rides shotgun and Z is in the back with his sword. They've been quiet most of the trip, K sometimes sings and she doesn't catch that I turn the radio down enough to hear her. Z took a nap. But now they're both up and pointing things out. This is the timeline, from high school youth to the man I met only a couple of months ago. These are the places, the stages, old venues. I can see S with each new little bundle. How each time the family grew, so too did the house. He's showing me his life, and the family line.
But why?
***
It's dark, and the room still spins a little when I close my eyes. We're talking and he's asking me pointed questions. I don't understand that I've taken a misstep, so I'm just answering as honestly as I can. There had been friction between Matt and I, and in my own irritation at him relying on me to be the bad guy, I've inadvertently said something mean. Little T is rolling his sleeping bag out right about where the head of my air mattress is going to go. He does not want to sleep in the room with his mom and Matt, and sheepishly Matt is looking at me with a shrug as if to say he can't argue with little T and it's my issue to handle now.
I've conceded the master bedroom to him, with it's private bath and the understanding that they would have first crack at showers. I've warned him to create his game plan, that since C and little T are his responsibility he needed to be ready to handle their accommodations. I even offered to help with getting little T options to sleep in the room with the other three kids, but my patience with certain expectations ended there. As C corralled little T to the bedroom I muttered "You get the big bed, you get the monster too." Not that little T is a monster, it was more a poor joke about a monster under the bed and having a more casual approach to euphemisms with kids. I'm our family it's not out of place to hear kids referred to as "little assholes", "little shits", etc. It's never sat perfectly comfortable with me, so I've substituted "monster", "hellion" and "tiny human". Good habit? No. Muttering it while tipsy after being irritated? Definitely up there on the list of "not a good look".
Guess I found something to work on.
***
I'm sitting in his kitchen and I've had the rest of the drive to get lost in my head.
What did he think of being openly introduced and welcomed as a big part of my life?
What did he think of breakfast?
Why did he bring me to the places he did?
Has he really forgiven my tasteless and flippant comment?
I recall him saying that he's afraid to plan in advance. Because he's done that before and then when the time comes to pass it's just a painful reminder. Has he felt all of this before? Done these things with someone who left? Is he haunted by his ex girlfriend? What dates, what reminders remain?
"What's on your mind?" He asks.
"It's been a long drive," I say. And it has.
***
It's been a two week process to get the house ready, and in my gut I feel the same mix of excitement and anxiety since I was a child. People! Oh god, people. The only ones to confirm fully are from Matt's university. Mine will try to be there but with me currently off work they're hit even harder. I've already told them it's not a crime to not show up of the day has been too hard.
And so I am pacing the floors, considering taking an old toothbrush to the edges of the sink just to give myself busy work when he arrives. It's a couple of hours early and he has R, and my anxiety melts. This is the first present.
***
His picture is on the wall, in his uniform. He's handsome. He bears resemblance to the many other faces in frames that watch the hallway, and I can't help the little smirk as I pass them. I'm a usurper here, in more ways than one. There's religious pride, good Christian values, and I can't help but wonder what they might have thought of me standing here, gazing at their faces. "I'm connected to you now, even if its a thin thread as yet. Do my own ancestors now appear beside you in the beyond? Are you all in your heaven, scratching your heads and wondering just what on earth is going on?"
***
He's wild in completely unexpected ways. Lust seems to rise up in us the moment we're even in the same county, and it's not enough that we might have each other in the night. No, it makes every touch and every kiss urgent, filled with hunger. I think I'll go crazy if he stops and no matter how hard I try to bring my mind to heel, it refuses. My body just straight up betrays me.
***
There are kids splashing in the pool. They're running and jumping and pushing the screens and this cacaphony of noise and slamming doors is a symphony to me. There's conversation and wine, children running, dads holding a beverage in one hand and a lost shoe in the other. They all do it, one at a time. I stop at random moments and let it sink in. The sound swirls around me, fills up the space and becomes a presence all its own. The longing in my heart eases, I've found a piece of myself.
***
When I visit important places, I touch things. Just a light brush of a fingertip. I did this as a child, because to me it seemed you could exchange something with inanimate objects through touch. Something like energy or memory. I think of all possible hands to touch something before me, perhaps it's only been one or two others. Later, when I recall a moment, I can feel the texture of it locked in my heart. Perhaps that will be my afterlife, visiting all the markers of things that were important to me.
I touch the walls, the piano, the frames. I leave just the tiniest imprint of myself here. An insignificant speck, but perhaps enough to call me back. To remind me that he brought me here and showed me these things and I want to keep them safe in my memory forever.
***
Eight chairs. Eight heads. Eight pairs of eyes trying to guage how this is going to work. The table is laden with food, and for a brief moment it's surrounded. The sun streams in from the windows, coffee brews, and seating is chosen. I'm sitting at the end of the table as my father once did, and Matt sits at the other end. Between us is this budding group, this family of choice. There's life here. Noisy, chaotic life. If everything I've gone through was payment made for a life like this one, then it was a cost I could bear. It is a cost I would repeat for even ten minutes in this joy. I'm happy down to the very roots of my being.
***
They've accepted him with hardly any struggle. "This is my boyfriend, and no he's not related to Matt." Every time I say it, he dives into his phone or into another room. The response is mild surprise and then everyone moves on. He says I don't have to explain to everyone our dynamic. I laugh and do it anyway, because it's the principle. Even though the onus of explanation was supposed to be on my husband before the party, it's on me to either explain when it's easy and quick in an introduction rather than manage odd stares. I can appreciate that Matt is deflecting to my lead, but I'm still vaguely annoyed it hasn't been done yet.
And so I plow through this awkwardness because this is more than just a party. This is their induction to someone they'll see more of. This is that jumping in point to openly myself up. How? The next time they see me, they'll ask how he is because he's important to me. Like the first groves in a new road, these are paths with his name that will eventually become trenches. This is how you entwine. This is how you begin.
***
"We used to live here." I'm driving my truck behind his little black hybrid. K rides shotgun and Z is in the back with his sword. They've been quiet most of the trip, K sometimes sings and she doesn't catch that I turn the radio down enough to hear her. Z took a nap. But now they're both up and pointing things out. This is the timeline, from high school youth to the man I met only a couple of months ago. These are the places, the stages, old venues. I can see S with each new little bundle. How each time the family grew, so too did the house. He's showing me his life, and the family line.
But why?
***
It's dark, and the room still spins a little when I close my eyes. We're talking and he's asking me pointed questions. I don't understand that I've taken a misstep, so I'm just answering as honestly as I can. There had been friction between Matt and I, and in my own irritation at him relying on me to be the bad guy, I've inadvertently said something mean. Little T is rolling his sleeping bag out right about where the head of my air mattress is going to go. He does not want to sleep in the room with his mom and Matt, and sheepishly Matt is looking at me with a shrug as if to say he can't argue with little T and it's my issue to handle now.
I've conceded the master bedroom to him, with it's private bath and the understanding that they would have first crack at showers. I've warned him to create his game plan, that since C and little T are his responsibility he needed to be ready to handle their accommodations. I even offered to help with getting little T options to sleep in the room with the other three kids, but my patience with certain expectations ended there. As C corralled little T to the bedroom I muttered "You get the big bed, you get the monster too." Not that little T is a monster, it was more a poor joke about a monster under the bed and having a more casual approach to euphemisms with kids. I'm our family it's not out of place to hear kids referred to as "little assholes", "little shits", etc. It's never sat perfectly comfortable with me, so I've substituted "monster", "hellion" and "tiny human". Good habit? No. Muttering it while tipsy after being irritated? Definitely up there on the list of "not a good look".
Guess I found something to work on.
***
I'm sitting in his kitchen and I've had the rest of the drive to get lost in my head.
What did he think of being openly introduced and welcomed as a big part of my life?
What did he think of breakfast?
Why did he bring me to the places he did?
Has he really forgiven my tasteless and flippant comment?
I recall him saying that he's afraid to plan in advance. Because he's done that before and then when the time comes to pass it's just a painful reminder. Has he felt all of this before? Done these things with someone who left? Is he haunted by his ex girlfriend? What dates, what reminders remain?
"What's on your mind?" He asks.
"It's been a long drive," I say. And it has.
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