That which the inferno does not consume, it forges.

“When someone shows you who they are, believe them.” ~ Maya Angelou

“What are you doing, can I help?” I murmured, softly pulled from sleep by the man who was quietly getting ready to leave for work. It was the day before my birthday. He had been very careful, but the sound of a suitcase zipper had been enough to wake me. He chuckled and sat down on the hotel bed beside me, his weight creating a curve in the mattress that pulled my body to his. I gratefully curled against his broad torso like a cat to warmth in the winter. “You sweet girl,” he said, “how delicious of you. I can think of a way.” He reached out and stroked my hair, then leaned down and tilted my face to meet his. I was sleepy and soft. His hand was gentle on my face, as were his lips on mine. It was perfect.

(Writing this is difficult.)

Another hotel, another man, someone I used to love. We unexpectedly tumbled into each other years after we had last been close, a surprise coda to an awful time, and after I remarked on how strange a beast memory can be. “This.” I said, pressing my hand against his shoulder for emphasis. “I remembered exactly how your hands fit with mine, the geometry of your fingers, but this, how the length of my arm is precisely the width of your shoulders when you cradle in my grasp, this I had forgotten. I still know you while I do not. It surprises me.” He smiled wryly, “You’re not writing about us in your head again, are you? Writers. Incorrigible.” But I hadn’t been. I had lost the knack when I lost my heart. Yet now I am, months and months later. My time since has opened the gate.

(Writing that was easier.)

Neither of these men are people I could claim as mine, but they were, just as I was theirs. How near we all are to disaster at all times. I’m starting to type this from a plane, finding comfort in the turbulence that is distressing the other passengers. To such tolerances airplanes are made! With such cleverness and scientific understanding! The wings flex even as the snout pushes forward through the air unconcerned, the shaking accounted for, the math figured. This is not how airline disasters are made. Each engineered piece interlocks to create a miraculous whole. The more we jostle, the safer I feel.

If only it were so in relationships.

My heart, lightly returning to me, feels haunted. I shuffle through our time together, examining every interaction and conversation like tarot cards for clues. I find nothing. He was honest in every particular, but one. His family.

-::-

I met him on the dance-floor at a conference, completely unexpected. (The odds are good there, but the goods odd.) I wasn’t certain our first few dates. I was hesitant to kiss him goodbye, hesitant to start something long-distance again, yet we found magic writing together on-line. He was well read, political, and his sharp wit inspired me. He was smart, funny, and harassed me without mercy. Eventually I point-blank asked what the catch was, “How is it that you’re single?” He explained that he travels too much for work, the same problem that plagues plenty of my more interesting friends. I felt encouraged, cared for, and delighted, enough that I shelved my long-distance relationship concerns and replied, “I can live with that.” “I hoped so.” It was two in the morning. He got us a hotel room. We had a pillow fight. It was on.

We were meant to have another night together for my birthday, I was going to ditch Vancouver to travel down to see him, but he had to cancel. Work scheduled him away that week. This was not unexpected, this was part of the engagement, so I told him I understood and expressed the appropriate California-envy. Fourty-eight hours later, he proposed flying me down with some of his endless air-miles. If I could find somewhere to stay after he head home to Seattle, he told me, I could stay as long as I like.

I stumbled, but I recovered. Gladly, gratefully. And blind. I didn’t know where we were staying or when I was flying out. I knew nothing. Eventually it was puzzled that my flight left on a Tuesday, but I didn’t have an itinerary until 4:30 Monday morning. And that was fine. It’s was trust exercise. It was fun. I was happy.

He picked me up at the airport, checked us into a hotel in San Jose, and kissed me like I had been missing for years. Once his work-trip was done, we moved into my ex’s flat in the Castro in San Francisco.

I was smitten. I hesitate to speak for him, but he seemed equally so. He met my friends, we went on little exploratory ventures, he sang flawless, soul-shattering, classically trained opera in the shower. Everything was all splendid. He was incredible. We, together, were marvelous. We get on so well it was improbable. He was generous, kind, and effortlessly carried me up a tall flight of stairs when my ankle gave out like I was stuffed full of feathers instead of chagrin and admiration. I felt blessed and adored and adored him in turn. We didn’t sleep at night. He smiled all the time. I blossomed.

-::-

My urge to write about us is basic. I can’t not. He’s not mine, but he was. And he risked his entire personal life to be. It is sad and tragic and hurts, yet I respect how much that’s worth. I want to write about everything. Honor his indisputably stupid sacrifice by capturing every moment of our time together in amber, sweetly displayed in this glass screened case as an exhibit of That Time. “This is what he risked his world for. It was not small, nor tawdry.” We felt lucky, we found joy, what we made together was satisfying and darling. Was it worth it? It’s not for me to say, but I would guess no, not for him.

He didn’t betray me, but himself. The tragedy isn’t mine, but his and theirs.

-::-

He left after a week, singing so loudly out the window of the rental car that I could hear him from a block away. Even as he left, he made sure I was alright. Then I moved in with Heather for a bonus week full of good people and happenings. It was an enriching time. There were long walks through new places, a cocktail party, a rooftop BBQ, a rave in an abandoned train station, time with new friends and with people I already love. Then I flew back to Seattle for more fun and good people. I went dancing, I made new connections, I had a tai chi lesson on a roof downtown in the sunshine. Life was good. My sweetheart was in Colorado for work, but I was looking forward to seeing him the next time I could.

Then I went for lunch with a friend who I met through the same conference, though years ago. New information. To say I was suddenly having a bad day is an understatement. We were hopeful, there was a lot of benefit of the doubt, but then the phone numbers matched. The phone number of my sweetheart and “my friend of ten years whose wife is…” Oh. Pregnant. Not with their first child.

Our relationship was obviously not a thought out decision. Aside from the deletion of his family and claiming to be single, he didn’t hide a thing. Everything else he told me checked out.

-::-

I was in Vancouver less than 48 hours once I came back from Seattle. Time enough to put my passport in for renewal, basically, then repack and head to an airport to sleep, so I could head back east to visit Toronto and Montreal for Recon.

My plans shivered a bit once I was out there, and I ended up spending more time than expected in Waterloo with one of my best friends, Ian, his charming wife, and two lively children. We all spent one warm night in his back yard, their daughter cuddled against my body, our feet in the pool while Ian dove and twisted like an otter through the water. We lay on our backs and watched the sky. I pointed out the International Space Station as it drifted overhead. Their daughter sighed and lay her head on my shoulder, asked about the stars as I explained constellations. His wife’s laughter was just beautiful as the heavens.

Is this what my lover had balanced me against? This sort of home? This ease and grace and care and trust? I’ve never had anything so honeyed as this small slice of family. No one has ever tried to build so much with me. How divine it seemed! I wondered what my presence could have pumped through his veins. How much did his heart race? There are easier ways to find adrenaline. Lying there, surrounded by their life, I didn’t feel worthy of the sacrifice. I was grateful the darkness meant that no one could see me cry.

-::-

I was attacked the morning of my birthday on my way to the Facebook campus for lunch. Pedestrian sexual street harassment that I stood up against until he escalated too far, until I had to run. Eventually I fled along a train from car to car, concerned for my physical safety, desperately searching for a conductor while a stranger stalked after me shouting awful things, “Cunt, whore, I’m going to break you.”

He was thrown off the train, but it rattled my entire day, threw me off my stride.

My lover salvaged even that. He arrived too late to join the hot-tub evening, I was being kicked out for the night when he came to the gate, but he was late because he’d brought a surprise. We sat at an iron table outside my friend’s apartment, (an anonymous place in a terrible suburb of anonymous buildings and fussy street security), while he produced a tub of ice-cream from a bag, then a package of candles that spelled H-A-P-P-Y B-I-R-T-H-D-A-Y, and a birthday card and a lighter.

No one sang and I forgot to make a wish, but I felt more cared for in that gesture of grace than I had in a very long time. It was darling and sweet. “I understand it’s late,” he said with some satisfaction, “but we had to celebrate!”

My distress fell away. I may have been attacked, but I was in California, swathed in adventure, and this man had sent for me, flown me down for a romantic birthday get-away, to be embraced in his care. This man, this thoughtful, considerate, and brilliant man, he liked me back. The world was unexpected, but finally benevolent. It was the best birthday I’ve ever had.

-::-

(Have mercy on me, even knowing the truth, I do miss him.)

-::-

Everyone else who knows is furious, but I have a lot of hope for him. For his relationship, for his family. (He’s a good communicator. I don’t know anything about her as a person, past her name, but if they’re together, I expect she must be excellent as well.) It’s going to hurt, it’s going to be hard. As it should be. I am sorry that his choices led him to test his home in this fashion, but I don’t hate him, I’m not angry, and I’m not bitter. I feel for him, even. How afraid and sad he must be.

I’m down a relationship that was gracious, compassionate, and loving, and a friend, but it was a new thing. I’m just abruptly single again. New things fail all the time. He may have lost something much greater.

So that’s that. I am disappointed, but mostly I am sorry for his partner. I’ve been somewhat in her position, though certainly never to such an extreme. I wonder what will happen. If it has happened before. If this will be the end of either his affair(s?) or their relationship.

I wonder and I wait and I know, soon, we will again say hello. It took a few weeks, but he finally reached out and replied to one of my messages while I was in Toronto. I’m leaving for Seattle today for ToorCamp. He has asked to meet up to talk as soon as our schedules can allow. I gratefully said yes. He is cancelling travel in order to make it right away. We should be in the same place at the same time next week.

I can barely wait to find out what he has to say.

the united states of canada

Yesterday was Election Day. Unfortunately, in spite of endless scandals, illegal Americanstyle campaigning*, and being held in contempt of Parliament, The Conservative Party won a majority, striking a hot, dirty victory for the continued fast erosion of social progress.

What does this mean? No more neutral foreign policy or equal rights for gays and women, further destruction of our formerly balanced budget, the cancellation of the long form census, even more money pulled from social programs and arts and culture and given to the military and to build privatized prisons, (despite the crime rate going steadily down), (also related: jail-time for pot smokers), many, many corrupt and suspicious officials, including a Creationist chiropractor for Science Minister, no more guarantee of truth in the news, a stop to open, transparent government, an introduction of the RIAA’s DMCA laws, secret meetings about a Perimeter Security pact with the USA, The Government of Canada rebranded as “the Harper Government”, unsafe food laws, a repeal of abortion rights, and a government complicit with torture, climate change denial, and the debacle that was the G20 Summit.

I could go on, there are enough infractions against the rights of Canadian citizens to fill a small book, but it’s too depressing. As someone mentioned so succinctly on Reddit earlier, “The key part that so many people miss is that in a democratic system, it is not simply the will of the majority the prevails. In order for the system to work, the majority must protect the rights of the minority. That is what I think people are afraid of. That’s why I’m a little saddened by the results. Not because people have differing opinions from mine, but because I fear they will not protect the rights of all people.” Given all evidence, I completely agree. What about you?

*Register a complaint against Harper for breaking the law: commissionersoffice@elections.ca.

explaining heart strings

http://fauxfire.com

A restaurant in Gastown burned down this week, scorching my friend William‘s apartment into ashes with it. For now he’s staying with me and some other people, bouncing around as he tries to pick up his life, while he searches for a more permanent residence. Does anyone need a roommate? $500/month, comes with a cat. He’s clean, he’s tidy, he’s even sort of cute in a blonde looks-like-Jesus sort of way, if you like like them young and sweetly idealistic.

Playing with the moon.

Shuffling facts like piano keys, trying to play this history in the right order. This is how it all went down, this is how the penny dropped, how the worst occurred but the patient survived. I try to keep it light. We’re Talking About Boys as we walk through the rain. Coats slowly soaking through as we make it to a gallery, everything splashing as the words pour out of me. “He brings me clean laundry like a valentine, when I would rather the time was spent folding origami roses.” She is also troubled, someone who should have missed her did not phone. Someone who loves her, but only in sections of time, sliced like wedges of cake iced like a clock. My problems are more and less ephemeral. My heart’s not a mess, it’s simply too clean, too drained of colour and left to beat untroubled like glass.

I’ve waited with her for a bus, then turned in my own direction, continuing as the rain. He is walking toward me, then stops, a stranger, says hello, turns around to walk me home. Unasked, he tells me how his father died and refers to me as a female, leaving me conversationally in the cold. My guess is that he’s been drinking, a faint perfume of anise and something less particular but just as sharp. Mark says hello from the doorway of Falconetti’s, a temporary rescue. We make plans to see each other Sunday and I leave when the strange man’s back is turned. Half a block later he’s there beside me, taking my arm, enduring the rain. We see Jess, wave to her, make more plans. The stranger is taken aback, does not understand how I know all these people. Makes guesses that fail. When we reach my apartment, I make him wait outside. When I return, I am holding an umbrella. “Here, take it,” I say. “Happy holidays.” I do not expect to see him again.

I can hear a rat scraping around in the back of the store. I want it to be my friend.

Passion-Hill, a very delightfully wrong Benny Hill/Passion of the Christ mash-up that confirms every little inner voice belief I had telling me never to watch the film.

The miracle of the clean water straw, the lingering joy of the discoving that people in little villages in africa have the habit of climbing trees to get better reception for their cell phones, these ideas were connecting in my mind this morning. I walked to work with the flavour of the future in my head. I’m curious to know who would be interested in starting a coffee-house discussion group on things like social networks inter-reacting with technology, the internet, and what we’re doing with our journals. There’s been a lot of talk lately about using the net as a tool, but I look around and never find enough people doing it. Honestly, I don’t have a lot of time to set aside for this sort of thing, but I’m willing to give it a try. I don’t want moderated discussions or weekly topics or anything regulated, I would rather let people spill what they’ve discovered that week and give them feed-back. I want motivations, clouded or otherwise, for keeping a journal. I want explanations, links to the news that changed your perpective on what the internet offers you. I talk about this sort of thing all the time in my every day but it hardly comes up here. I’d like that to change. Game?

When the zombies come, swords don’t run out of bullets. They’re going to be having a cane-fighting workshop come next Sunday.