the esthetic of lostness

As a child I thought I loved flying. In retrospect it comes clear that what I loved was the sensation of leaving. Apart from leaving, everything else about flying is varying degrees of unpleasant from the tightly packed seats to the recycled air to the officious security guard digging through my carry-on bag.

*

To say I hate this city does not begin to name the tightness in my chest, my throat, the pressure behind my eyes.  I fell in love in this city. Many times. I wore every colour. I cannot bring myself to look directly at the ghosts though they find me when I sleep. I try to shut them out, close my eyes, close my mind. Afterward...  I promised myself there would never be another winter in this city, never ever another winter. But here I am. 

*

And I have never felt afraid of the dark at night -  but sometimes the darkness of November mornings makes me tremble. I am riding public transit because I do not remember how to drive in the snow, do not want to remember, do not want to take anyone else's safety in my mittened hands. A small child sits across from me on his mother's lap. I take in his lovely face, his long dark lashes, his focus far away. The mother talks on her phone. (She is secretly a robot.) Her perfume feels like an assault. Her boy rests his forehead against the cold glass, dreamy-eyed, his breath fogs the pane, and I watch as he sticks his tongue out and begins to lick the vapour off the filthy glass. Revulsion. I want to scream at the mother to make her see. I do not.

*

The first time I noticed that my sister was mentally ill and not just rebellious she was fourteen, I was eighteen. I stopped by her bedroom door to tell her to turn her music down and she looked at me warily and told me she had just fallen into a furnace made of ears. I thought at first she was dreaming and almost smiled, but the picture this brought to my mind was somehow pure horror. What the hell is a furnace made of ears? I forced a laugh anyway and closed her door. I wondered, I wonder, all the time which of us was ill and why.

Do these thoughts follow me because I am foolish enough to keep reading Wally Lamb? I have four other books (and nine other days) packed in my bag. I could choose better, I know I can do better.



*

Impulsively I change my plan and get off the train downtown. I have somewhere I am meant to be, something I must not be late for, and still the force that propels me forward does not care about these things. Pull my scarf higher against the biting wind. I walk two blocks to my old apartment building, stand on the sidewalk below and try to find my window. Count the floors, count the windows across, count my breaths and count my boot-steps and count my blessings. And cannot find my window, cannot tell which one it was, cannot find my 23-year old self looking out from anywhere up there. Tears. I do not have time to go backward, only forward. I have somewhere I am supposed to be, I am late, I am much too late. Frozen lashes, frozen footsteps. I hate this fucking city. I am only meant for going forward, I am only going forward. How is it so dark, how is the world so wide awake in the dark? 

*

The tiny one-bedroom apartment feels enormous because I am alone in it, more alone than I have ever been, and for the first month I am using milk crates for furniture, pillows on the floor. Shopping one day at a time for an apple, a cup of yogurt, anything I do not have to cook because I do not own any dishes. (Fifteen years later I still eat like this.) I am haunted in this apartment by what I call the Dread. I call myself Intrepid, pretend I can slay the Dread. I am not afraid at night, I am only afraid in the mornings. 

The sliding door to my patio freezes shut and I spend an entire Saturday afternoon chipping away the ice so I can open the door to let in the winter air, pewter-coloured clouds and grey cotton skies. Upon opening the door I find it is too cold to leave it open after all and am forced to shut it again. It freezes closed immediately.

My neighbour bothers me. He waits for me to leave in the mornings so he can time his exit to match mine so we will ride the elevator together. I want to be alone in the elevator because I am still convinced at this time that elevators are soundproof (which it turns out they are not). 

I am lonely here, achingly lonely. But there is no more sleeping on anyone's couch, no more sleeping outside in October, no more physical danger. I have climbed another step on Maslowe's hierarchy. I can now afford to be heartbroken and it is a relief to think about something so luxurious as this.

But the numbness returns. (Small cracks run through it.) I bite my lip, taste my own bloodlessness.

*

That was 1995 and the distance between then and now should be wider. In the winter in this city there is no space to take a step, take a frozen breath. I hate everything in this city, I hate everyone, I hate everything I have touched here. I am frozen. This could be true, it might be. It probably is not.

*

In the airport the security guard insists I remove my mittens, show him my hands. My hands are cold, will not move fast enough. He is impatient, my rings are slipping off. People behind me and before me all lining up to show him their hands. Hands hands everywhere and none of them are yours. I am tired, blood-tired bone-tired, and I wonder if I understand anything about where I have come from. I am counting the days until I will be home. Counting backward from nine. And I am counting my decisions forward, one, two, three.








*

*