03.23.2003 2:30 am
a house of your own

A quiet night. I feel like a ghost in this room, with Corey long gone and Phil halfway to Portsmouth by now. It's strange to run my fingers over his things, things I identify with memories, ideas. Nights of hot cocoa.

And I read her emails. God, she's beautiful. And mature. Like a lump of clay, formed into a perfect sculpture, waiting to be fired. I'd like to say that her... innocence?, her way of looking at the world is... seductive. But I need another word, without a sexual flavor to it.... I am envious of her easy grasp on life and her connection to things I used to value more than I do now.

Reminds me of days surrounded by the mess of my best friend Tina's house, with cats and dogs and stuffed animals, dried flowers, religious iconography, cracked old cups and saucers, plastic tumblers, wooden furniture, white walls, brilliant refrigerator poetry, books everywhere on topics ranging from the cold war to the little bear in his blue coat..., stacks and stacks of children's games, a whole room devoted to dress-up, overstuffed sofas that pulled out into beds, NPR emitted from well-concealed speakers, word-of-the-day in Italian and Russian, music everywhere, Holly's cooking, the way Tony treated the cats, precious precocious Tessa with her tiger, and of course the stunning Ms. Tina herself. Humming something bluesy and low, stopping suddenly to play something at the piano, then moving on to play with the dogs or call a friend or change her shirt or the million billion other things that made up everyday life in that time gone by, in that Antolini household I loved... inexpressibly.

And she reminds me of that. Of everything that time was to me, much more than I can put down in words, more even than I'm probably consciously aware of. I could explain it better if I tried with my voice, not my fingers. You might get the idea if you were here with me now, to see my tears falling on your blanket and keyboard. You would probably forget for a while the fact that I had violated your trust by reading private emails on your computer without asking, while you were away. But you always seemed reluctant to explain her to me, so I tried to explain her to myself.

Please love her. Love her, and have her, and give yourself in return. Who am I, to have your love? It should be her. I'm waiting for a someone with whom I can make that house, fill it with an eccentric mix of warmth and intellect and sound. I can't make it with you. I may never know why, but I can't. But you and she, you could. Make a house of your own.

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