Tag: wow

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.

only the living speak

I still smell a bit like the witches, their blood and smoke and sharp perfume, like the sweat of the actor who held me more confidently than many of my serious past relationships, like murder and love and despair and the body swinging from the noose.

At one point I jumped an entire flight of stairs to keep up with The Detective, (Malcolm? Lord Duncan’s son?), only realizing in mid-air, knees automatically tucked, that perhaps what I was doing was foolish, what with the dislocated bones in my ankle, the sprained ligament in my spine. No matter that he just did it, he’s trained, looks like ballet. What am I doing? Too late, too bad, I landed perfectly, slammed into the wall and rebounded, leaping half the next flight, again, impeccably done, the better to run, the better to keep track of the plot, the story, the dark and haunting dream meticulously building inside the McKittrick Hotel. Sometimes you just have to sprint. And when, after I tore up the stairs after him after he was poisoned in the ballroom, as we sat panting on the floor of his office together, when he met my eyes, I almost smiled invisibly behind my mask, but instead I winked.

I was rewarded with a one of the rare and coveted one-on-one sessions, pulled firmly from the audience in the back of his auguromancy office, where the walls are covered in birds, into one of the locked areas, a long darkened room just off of the main street. Once the door was shut behind us, he pulled me to him as as a lover might, pushing my body with his in the darkness, close and incredibly, impossibly intimate. I had thought my time before with the green witch, who put her fingers in my mouth in the closet then tore me through the false back through a Narnia hallway full of fur coats, was familiar, but in comparison to how he held me, it was nothing.

He placed me like a ball jointed doll, manipulating my body with his body, pulling my arms back, trapping me against him so that every possible inch of us touched, and then swept aside a black velvet curtain that we’d been invisibly facing in the pitch dark. It might as well been a magic trick. In front of us was a very tiny room, just barely big enough for both of us, with a dim light shining on a small metal box sat on a very tiny table. We leaned down, still glued together, his unexpectedly powerful dancer’s body keeping me in place, and he opened the box to reveal five pale eggs nestled in straw. Shifting me to his side, as if I were conspiring with him, he then added an egg from his office to the box and ran his fingers over them, murmuring secrets and small pieces of not-quite-shakespeare. After the crowded office, the manic ballroom, it felt like we were the only people alive.

A beat, then another, until we were breathing together, before he chose one of the eggs and carefully placed it in my hand, closing my fingers around it as if it was precious, so gently I was actually shocked, then smashed it, cracking it completely into dust with the strength of his fingers around mine. My hand was suddenly full of ashes, thick and chalky. He forced them into my palm, roughly rubbing them in all the way up my wrist, reading the lines, the black streaks of carbon writing a map of my life. Suddenly a tiger, he brought me to my feet again, picking me bodily off the floor, and pushed me into the wall with his hips, ripping my mask upwards and off my face. “Who are you?”, he demanded, shoving, pulling at my hair, running a hand over my face, holding a massive magnifying glass only inches away from my eyes. I stayed silent, uncertain if I should speak, but then the moment shifted and again it was if we were lovers, and he pressed himself into me, lifting me off my feet, shifting me to another wall, and we held each other so closely, so tightly that it seemed real. I felt necessary, as if I wasn’t there, he would break. The intimacy was almost unbearable.

Then, another shock, the light flicked off, dropping us again into complete darkness. He fell a little, away from me, coughing, barely choking out his lines, clutching at me as his body wracked in agony. It was my turn to hold us up, until finally he spat up a tiny wet feather which he pressed into my hand. When the light came up again, but even softer, more dimly, he said, “The hawk was seen flying at dawn.” He fiercely pressed us into the wall again. I felt exposed by his need. We might as well have been naked. “Do you understand?” I nodded. “And blood demands blood.” His lines were the words that he’d typed on his locked down typewriter only two scenes ago. “Blood will have blood.”

conjunction

just a trim

“Don’t tell me the sky is the limit when there are footprints on the moon.” – Paul Brandt

As unlikely and unexpected as it might be, I have even more good news! Not only am I going to Burning Man, I’m going back to New York. Not as time-serious a trip as last time, but a weekend jaunt concocted just to see the PunchDrunk show, Sleep No More, an astoundingly intricate 100 room retelling of Macbeth.

Ridiculous, a bit, as it was playing while I was there, but I didn’t find out until after my trip, when Mordicai attended then posted about it, so now I’m flying all the way back just to see it! It’s wiping out my emergency savings and much of what I earned as the photographer at Mishka’s wedding, but I figure that after three years of scraping, living in crazy poverty to pay back Heart of the World, it’s about damned time I starve for a good reason, something that makes me happy instead of twisting me bitter. It also helps that I’ve been managing to move forward with surprising rapidity with Burning Man prep. Though I’ll still probably be scrounging until the last minute, (still no ride, still nowhere set to camp, etc), I think it will all be okay. I don’t think there’s going to be any reason to panic.

In a lucky turn, Tony’s going to come with me, which also makes my heart glad. I was willing to go alone, but I suspect it might have been a little bit of a tragedy, as Sleep No More is designed, down to the last bit of insane writing on the wall, to every minuscule atom of splendid performance, to be shared. Everyone that goes in walks a different path, discovers different scenes, finds different hidden treasures. Everyone gets a unique narrative, an incredible, very personal experience, so it’s extra important to be able to share. (I would probably go twice if I could even remotely afford it). I’m also getting contact lenses for the first time, all proper like, just so I can wear the mask. I’ve only worn them once before, found the learning curve to be a little bit crazy, but this time, I can barely wait. I’ve been dancing everywhere, ever since we booked our tickets.

We fly out of Seattle late Thursday evening, and arrive first thing, the morning of Aug 19th. (We’re staying in Greenwich and leaving Monday evening.) We have tickets to the Friday, 7 pm, Sleep No More show, and for the Sunday’s Fuerza Bruta, (because Tony wanted to see it, after my rave reviews). Besides that, we have nothing planned.

Are you there, too? What are you up to that weekend? Let’s visit!

artpost: something I could never do

Dear Photograph: take a picture of a picture from the past in the present.

E-mail submissions to: dearphotograph@gmail.com


Dear Photograph, Thank you for everything we had. @jonathanstampf


Dear Photograph, Dad never took a picture of me, ever. Then I noticed his reflection in the glass. Happy Father’s Day, Dad. Anonymous.

yes, I have a favourite sixty belgian girls. don’t you?

Spending this weekend in Seattle to attend the Ainsley baby shower and take some pictures of Rebecca’s baby bump. It’s going to be a great trip. Not only am I staying with some of my favourite people on the planet, there’s plans in the works for an obscenely epic Friday. If you’re in town, you should come! The rest of you, start your jealousy engines revving. I’m starting with an early dinner in Belltown, the better to attend the opening of a Kris Kuksi show at La Roc La Rue, (also featuring monochrome pop-alt darling Travis Louie), then dropping South to see the Scala Choir hit the stage at the Showbox. Oh yes. YES. Favourite tumbled upon favourite upon favourite. I’m drooooooling. Drooling like a happy kitty. Meaow purr durr.

Also, reading that over, I am considering that my considerable lack of sleep lately has left me with temporary brain damage.

for the record (yes there is video no you can’t see it)

HIVE3 was as entertaining as ever, yet in spite of the pushy blow up doll horror movie incident, the near death experience, the cupcake rape-baby incest kiss, and the skunk suicide therapy, the most epic thing I witnessed this weekend was in my apartment: late yesterday afternoon, Lung manfully inflicted a brilliant and surpassingly brave four minute lapdance upon Victoria, my very surprised mother.

Lung’s astonishing strip-tease started mildly, with slow hip swings and mild gyration, but gained momentum as clothes came off, until he was throwing pants at my head and using his belt to better capture my mother, finally finishing with a shocking yet shamefully victorous Full Monty flourish of his genitals.

No word yet on if he left on his socks.

like a wicked dream that leaves you feeling torn out of beautiful paper

Shane’s show last night blew us all away. I truly think it’s one of the best things he’s ever crafted for the stage. Jordan’s music hit perfect notes, Shane’s performance was exquisite, there was drama, and hope, and cruelty, and love, and everything balanced. You have to go. You must. There’s only a couple of shows left, but they’re essential.

instant platonic anything friends

  • Extremely rare shark found, then eaten

    Been addicted to Omegle all day, the chat program which connects you to a completely random stranger. I just wished a gay Brazilian teenager good luck on his exams, after spending a quite significant chunk of my day in a rather gratifying discussion with a Swedish student named Phillip about med school, music, Italian earthquakes, and, finally, the current global economic downturn and what it’s been going to Iceland. It’s also freaking fantastic for surreal fun, so much so I’m going to start a file of my favourite saved conversations. Have you got any?

  • Extinct bird rediscovered, then eaten