Terug

You are back. So close I imagine I can feel you.

I have deeply conflicted feelings about your return.

When you were gone I knew where you were. If I didn’t know exactly, I knew you paced the same square footage every day.  I know what it is like to ride a ship: to see the silver expanse of ocean stretch to a smudged and shifting horizon. To hear the bells and calls, and feel the thrill of the daily battle rhythm; to know your shipmates and work in a team. I may never have that experience again but I remember. I can imagine you there.

Now you are back, as unconstrained in your movements as any person.

It Isn’t the unconstrained movement that bothers me, I think. It’s the unconstrained spectrum of possibilities and the likely outcome. Integrate from zero to infinity. Normalize the area under the curve to one. Give me your wavefunction. The height and breadth of your personality and choices and  I will calculate the expectation value that I might find you again: the man I knew you once to be. It is a very very low probability, I think.

 I don’t really want to write to you about me anymore. I haven’t been able to write to you for some weeks now. Something so live and vital in me has gone dormant. Some hope has burned too long and is nearly out. I taste tar and ashes in my memories now. The woman you once knew is gone.  I reach back to touch her, confident she has followed me here, want to feel her warm hand and sense her sure footsteps, and find only emptiness on the path behind. 

concerned

I'm worried about my friend. She texted me two days ago with bad news about her health and her job. I need to talk to her. I miss her. I love her. I worry about her. I need to know she's okay.

Just stop

I came home from work on a Wednesday.  Early. Especially to meet up with Willem. Only an hour to spare before Mara picked me up for a run.
He made me porridge. Big pot on the stove.
"What is porridge?" I ask. Oh. Just oats.
"You need carbohydrates for the run," he says.
I try to be calm around him. "Everything is fine here," I say with my body, with my voice.
Even when it isn't fine.
I've been exhausted. Burnt. Spent.
Willem takes me by the shoulders, looks at me earnestly.
"I'm afraid you're going to die," he says.
I laugh. It isn't a good laugh. Comes out breathy and insincere.
"Afraid I'm going to die? What do you mean?"
Willem is tall and he is thin. Almost unnaturally From a distance, in a hooded sweatshirt, with his long gangly limbs and loping stride, he can pass as a teenager loitering. Up closer, his cheekbones jut out and his hazel eyes rimmed in grey betray his age. He is 37. One year younger than I.
"You're going too fast," he says. He reaches for words, "I know that circumstances at work have been bad; I know you have Lynn and me here. I know you're strong. You can last longer than most people. But you need to stop. Just stop."
So I did. Took a few days. Away from everything - even him.

Lynn and I have been traveling. Seeing as much of life as we can. Yesterday we went to a flea market and a museum on the Resistance movement during the war. I'm breathing again.

Long silences

For years I've used this space to process. Everything.
Recently this has become more difficult.
I want to find my way back.