what if i let this what if die?

Death. I have written about a death of a name. How can a name die for you? Good question. Just get involved with a few guys with the same name and they seem to let you down in a heart and gut wrenching way. So much you begin to wonder there might be a tragic flaw in a name. I vowed to never date a man with the name C. I shake a hand with someone attached to this the name. And I cringe. Inside. I hear someone say the name from afar and I stay there. I stay away from them. From those C’s.

After I fell for three men with the same name- I let the name die for me. I ended up being left with a doubled park dumping and an almost broken nose (my doing from a drunken night of debauchery-aftermath due to the break up-see previous blog entry). I was left with a bad highlight job of blonde- I needed a change and some lady I didn't know made me blonde to forget. I was left with him showing up on my doorstep with a b-day present months after he dumped me. And me not wanting him upon my door. He left me with one final email. I never responded. Later I heard he had gone off the deep end. At least I wasn’t left with that.

Another. He left me with one less book on my shelf- my favorite book Unbearable Lightness of Being and wondering what would have ever happened if he had really took a chance. He later found me. And came to give it round. Kissing me upon my doorstep. Anticipation of years made me feel faint. For the first time. But he ran away again. Left me wondering.

For years, I did. Wonder. What ifs from the beginning stages of life sometimes we hold onto to them too long. Until he almost died. And I had to tell him. And wonder until. I couldn’t anymore. The last time I saw him was in hospital room. He might be healthy now. His body. But a fatal flaw of a man who would rather be full of potential than fail is not a tragic hero but a sad estate of affairs. If death doesn’t breath life into your bones into your body nothing will. Needless to say. He let me pass through his life again.

What ifs. Were better for him. He stopped being a what if. After one last summer of living out our past college days of infatuation. I walked down that hall of the cold clinical hallway and pushed the button to the elevator. Wanting to run down the hall and say goodbye. Or just say no. Don’t die. Not now. Because as I walked slowly and purposefully. I never wanted this what if to die. I wanted it to grow and flourish into something. But it had. As it lay lifeless inside of me. In that hospital. The elevators door open. Two faces appear before me. I hesitate. Not sure. If I can. Walk away. For good. I find my place in the elevator as the doors close in slow motion. Closing my view. Smaller each minute. Until it disappears. Dying. The death. Of me wanting it to work. He didn’t die. But we did.

built with love: the safety of a picture window

Dreaming. I lay upon my back upon the small piece of grass in front of my duplex home in the f section and stare above. Above me- the clouds move. Just watching the movement of the clouds- cotton balls that I always dreamed I could walk on. My younger self- stared up wishing to walk upon the clouds even though I was told I would fall through. That the clouds would not hold my weight even as a small child. But somehow I thought if I ever got that high I could walk, walk upon those large drifty cotton balls. Cotton balls of cotton candy pinkish sometimes when the sun is drifting away. I dream of jumping between the clouds not falling through. Where to. I didn’t know. Then or now.

I still find my self looking up at the clouds. Today. And stopping and watching the quickness of the changing canvas along the blue. I alert the kids to the good clouds ahead while driving up and down the hills to our next destination. At the stop light, I say I have always wished I could go up to the clouds. K responds, you can you just need the right ladder. Dreaming.

Dreaming. I used to dream there were witches under my bed. And in my closet. So often that I couldn’t sleep in my bubble gum ice cream pink smeared room. Pink everywhere upon my request. Then. I couldn’t sleep and found refugee down the long hallway in between the two parts of me- my mother and father. Darkness around me. I thought. But the nightlight never forgotten to be put on by him or her after my reading. I found them each time.

Dreaming. Of witches. My witches dream. Became a problem. They kept coming. And my father did what he could to bring me comfort. In my closet- one of the locations where they would come in my dreams. He built the safety of a picture window only a father could. In it was a picture of trees and sun and clouds. Drawn by him in pencil and then in color. Lined in the only color I thought should exist pink, pink window panes. He pulled down the string of the light he had lengthened so my five year old hands could reach.

And there was my very own picture window. My own blanket. My own safety. From the witches. See Katie he said you don’t have to be scared anymore. My picture window. A picture window from my father. Was the only thing that kept me from the witches in my dreams. And got me to dream. Again. In my own bed. In my own room. Light on in the closet. So I could keep the window. In my view.

taking a field trip to the marina- no dancing tattoos to be found

It was familiar, yet it seemed strange as I walked in to this yoga studio. Away from home. Neighborhoods beyond my reach beyond my comfort zone. I enter the yoga studio on union street. I walk slowly up the stairs unsure of what will be the scenery at the yoga studio faraway from my mission home. My roots of home easier to stand upon that mat. There. So as I find myself in the population of unfamiliarity, I find myself there because of a friend and a great deal. I couldn’t pass up. Great deals allow us to forget the rolling eyes and annoyance that can exist for the dislike of what a neighborhood of pleasant richness ville that is so cookie cutter you feel something begin in your stomach and move up. They welcome me and I sign up. But they give you freebies here unlike the studios I call home. Free towels. And oranges.
I walk into the room. I am in lake of blonde. I have never seen so many blondes in one place in years. I feel safe among my fellow brunettes. I don’t dislike blondes. But I do hate so blonde. So blonde. Platinum. There is still warmth that exists from the class before. It is like walking into the steam of someone else’s shower or entering a room after someone else’s romp. It being your own shower or sexcapade it doesn’t feel foreign but walking into someone else’s heat makes the humidity of a stranger unbearable. Many ladies in this room are small child make. Skinny here is not like skinny elsewhere. The chatter shakes among the voices of predominantly white folks, mostly females, a token male here and there. They seem less gay then the guys I see at the mission spots. White and female I can’t pretend like that is an oddity. The privilege of practicing. Shouldn’t be. But is. Still.

There is a loud noise around me. And for once I want to sit quiet. Breathing in and out my back pushes into the mat as the mat presses into me. My feet find home on each other and my knees reach for the distance beyond me. The air travels slowly from the bottom part of me to the top. The noises of the radio of others dims. At least for now. Me the talker quiet. Quiet. The rarity. Exists. But really I am usually quiet during yoga. Don’t speak. I once sat next to a couple that kept on talking in yoga and I almost laid into them. Me the non-stop talker. But even I need breaks. And yoga is one of them. I am upside down and seeing my fellow yogis. No tattoos dance around their parts as my home. I am usually the odd man out tattooless. But today. Today in this new studio. I just move. Move and pretend I am home.

bringing down the house- they say time heals everything

Time was the explanation. Give her the time, they said. With words only spoken in ways you can’t capture not by a camera or to inscribe in a book or another location to replay at another time. No these words of give her time. Are transmitted through the looks of communication that you can only understand if you are paying attention. These words of time are spoken through the eyes. The look comes toward your own and the sense of acknowledgement that yes this sucks, yes we would rather be talking about anything else, and sorry all mixed into the perfection of the attempt at empathy.

Time. Time was all she had. Had been given. By me. By her. By him. By all of us. She had been given all the time in the world. To be someone else. To be herself. To be anything but who she was now? Because what she was now. Now she was nothing anything you would wish for anyone. Anyone at all. But especially not your mother. A mother who birthed you. Who loved you. Who fought for you. Now a stranger familiar only by blood and forgotten on purpose and remembered always memories.

I look at a picture of her. And can tell. She is telling a joke. Right then. But how? When my cousin purchases her cowboy boot slippers I laugh and speak as if I am speaking of a normal mother existence, mom will love those. The words come out easily as if any of this is easy. Because in time I have forgotten. That part of this wit. These funny bones I inherited. I inherited from her. Time we have given her. Her to be normal. But in time I had forgotten when she was. Was. And that she still can live inside of me. Even if it has been all the time in the world since I have seen her face. My own face. In her eyes. That I only have too. I forgot about my ability to remember. Remember things in a photographic way-the ability to remember how and when I met someone years ago, the transcript of life pulls quickly out the top of my head. That it was hers, it was hers first. Time can’t change that. Time hasn’t.

We have given her all the time in the world. To get the help. She needs. Help that none of us can give her. No matter how many degrees we get. Or how many lives we save. Breathing life into the others. So much easier. But your mother. My mother. Give her time, they say. But that is what we have always given her. Time. And now time has passed. Passed. That I am no longer the eighteen year old she last saw on that park bench budding with adulthood. For now I am an adult. And in adding up the years. You realize time is all she has. But time is what she has lost. Lost.

So this time. As every time. You hope it will be different. That she will in fact seek the help she really needs. Needs. Time can only explain so much. Time can only give us so much. We have to do something. Too. Ourselves. For me time allowed for me to walk and run and play and breathe life for myself. I had to forget about her most of the time. But never forever. Forever. Because I still hope that the help she needs, the help that time can provide her, the help that is possible can be hers. So that when we look back upon this story-my own story of my mother and me and everyone who has loved her-we can say she had more than time, she had finally found the answer.

i am an imposter- a charity walking one

I did it. I impersonated a charity walker on day 3 of raising awareness and money for the breasts, to fight the cancer. But I did not mean to. I swear. It started innocent as always. I do hate that saying the road to hell is paved to good intentions ringing in my ear. I hate hearing it all. I was busting ass to meet a friend. Wearing my purple clad jersey t- man make x-small v-neck of my American apparel and jeans and my toms. Typical outfit for meeting of the friends. For hearing of the bands. In the park. I am doing the speed walk when you swing your hands up and down the swim stroke of walking I am doing that the freestyle sprint of walking. My pool lane my sidewalk. A flip turn might be interesting.

I see a crowd and cheering. And think oh there must be an event. Until I am in the sea of the pink and release the cheers around me are cheers those around me. Yay for them. But wait no one is walking through the crowd but other than me. The cheers are for me. The sea of the crowd surrounds both sides of the street. Eyes full of admiration are mine. Oh shit. I am look down I am not wearing pink. I speed walk faster and try to get the hell out there. It doesn’t help. They cheer louder. Now people are offering me waters. I refuse and they insist. Please take it- it has been a long day. They say. With their eyes. Cheers resound for me. The imposter. I am offered a power bar but decline. Although my stomach rumbles. I want to shake my hands around sporadically around-no not me glowing in the redness of embarrassment as I laugh uncomfortably and quieting underneath my breath. Stop. Please stop. I am just late.

The guilt I am feeling to mistaken for someone, someone who actually walked for three days and raised money someone who might have lost one of her lady lumps or lost someone who did. My face squeezes tightly wincing for these cheers and faces and free food and water would disappear. You can’t stand in the middle of the crowd and start yelling No stop cheering me on. That would be weird. No this is weird. So I do what I can. I speed walk fast up the hill almost running- running in the race of me against the cheers away from my cheering squad.

Safe. I am. There was nothing to do. But tell via the device the text of my friends about my monkey in the middle game of perfectly bad timing. They cheered me on. When I found them sitting outside that café on divisadero. And asked where was the water and power bars were. Left for the real walkers. Not the imposters like me. By accident. Of course. But I can’t steal from someone who actually making sacrifices. God Kate you could have least got some water. I couldn’t bear the immorality of it. Stealing water from the real walkers- the real do gooders. Do the right thing is doing the right thing when no one is watching.

That was the day. The day I was mistaken for a 3-day walker, when I had only been walking for a few minutes. Good story. Over coffee or beers. Everyone laughs for this one. But the cheers without the work felt empty and embarrassing and reminded me how much the working matters. Even in our world that praises be the best at all costs. In anyway possible. Cut corners, screw people over, do what you can to get ahead we all sing in unison as we walk to nowhere fast. Follow the leader gone terribly wrong. Unless we stop to think. So many people walk in charity walks for just a few minutes and collect the prizes and giveaways and glow from the accomplishment. But it’s not real like so many things. That day.

That day I felt what other people might feel when they do things. That they do for others to only see. Some people live for the eyes of others. Sometimes I might be like them. But I do the work. And I do want the cheers of others. But not as an imposter. As the real thing. And most of the time. I will be cheering someone else on. In my purple shirt. In a sea of pink. Handing out waters, and hall passes, and advice and, time, and listening to those passing by.