Grief
Trying to climb back into my body since Yves' death has been difficult. The last act that Yves engaged in before dying was performing cunnilingus on me, and he went to sleep with my juices in his mouth, on his tongue. His head hurt, and he was so tired -- too tired to have an orgasm, he said, but he asked if I would allow him to sleep for a couple of hours and then he would "make it up to me."
There was nothing to make up. He had already brought the promise of such bliss into my life. It wasn't just the sex. It was the connection. It was the way our bodies spooned together. It was the way our hands curled together across the dinner table, how we already instinctively knew how to make each other laugh, how funny he thought my French accent was. I didn't speak French like a Quebecoise, he told me. I spoke it like a Parisian. And we talked at dinner about the different words. He was wearing a black v-necked sweater over his tee-shirt, and he explained to me that there was a different word for that in Quebecois. It wasn't a pull; it was something else. But I can't remember the word he said.
At one point, he went outside the restaurant to have a smoke. I watched him, smoking, from my seat at the window table. It was chilly outside. Not frigid, probably somewhere close to freezing, but it was early November and there was no wind. He stood outside, I remember, one hand in the pocket of his jeans, the other holding his cigarette. He was watching the people going by him, and every now and then, he would turn and look at me watching him. We would both smile.
Anyway. Sex after Yves has not been the same for me. How could it be? It's funny that the black humour started up almost immediately. Within a day, my friends and I were making jokes about my ability to kill men by going out with them, how I'd have to warn all future dates about my abilities. And, one friend made the inevitable, obvious remark that had actually been so obvious I hadn't thought of it myself. "Wow," she said. "You really fucked his brains out."
Ouch.
It wasn't as if I thought that any man who touched me after Yves died was going to suffer his fate. I knew well enough that while lightning could strike the same place twice, I could be reasonably sure that it wasn't going to. It was more the sense of how can I imbue this act, this sexual act that means so much to me, with any kind of meaning now? When it has become the last thing that someone did, this sex, this mingling of bodies, of fluids? Jesus. There's always been a part of me that has tried to make sex something sacred. Not with everybody, of course. Sometimes, a fuck is just a fuck. But there have been times in my life when I have tried to bring myself closer to awe, to the whole, through sex. I don't mean finding my whole self. I am a whole self. I don't need to be completed by another person. I mean the whole as in that sense that there is something larger than oneself. That my body is this tiny, insignificant speck on a tiny planet in a vast universe. Hiking in the woods gets me to that place. So does sex. Some sex.
So, I had fucked other men after Yves died. But each time, it didn't really feel as if I was all there. Each time, I thought about him, and silently compared what was going on in that bed with what had gone on in his.
I don't feel as if I'm supposed to remain chaste. I did want to be Miss Havisham … for about five minutes. But I'm too much of the earth to let myself get stuck in a world without physical contact.
Instinctively, I knew what I was going to need to put me back into the center of my body. I needed to be with someone with whom I had a history, even if the story was more Grimm than Mother Goose. I chose a man about whom I had once written in my journal: "His loyalty lasts only as long as his refractory periods." But I had also written in the month after Yves died that "the urge to fuck is urgent. I am hungry, restless. I need to be pinned down, fucked while I scream and cry. I need the catharsis. I want rough sex. I want to be spanked. I need to be put back into my body, to be reconnected to the carnal, the breathing, the living. I am living with a ghost. I love that ghost and I don't want to give him up, but he cannot touch me. I miss him so much." Short, choppy, childlike sentences that demanded something of the world that seemed unattainable. As it turned out, the one person who I knew was capable of giving me what I sought played Hamlet, until, sick to death of the hesitation on his part, I told him to go fuck himself.
Winter of 2006 got off to a slow start. Many times, snow has fallen in November-sometimes even before Halloween-but November and December were mild. Grey. Bare trees, yellow grass, dull skies; I moved through a monochromatic world with a face contorted with grief palsy. I rarely cried. Instead, my face just felt set in a default position of "not:" Not happy. Not interested. Not here.
I scribbled notes. Months later, I keep finding them. Some are in my journal. Some are on my desktop computer at work. Some are on my laptop. Some are on pads of paper. It's bizarre, because there are some notes that I don't remember writing down. Clearly, I was functioning. I continued to teach, and care for my children, and perform the quotidian tasks that define us as social beings. But part of my brain had obviously checked out. Reading the little notes I find is like finding postcards from the dead. Here's something I wrote sometime in late November:
I feel as if I've dropped a box of marbles on a hardwood floor. They're rolling everywhere. They are my memories of Yves. I'm afraid I won't be able to gather them all up, that some will never be found again. Maybe years later, when someone is renovating the house, they'll find a single cat's eye underneath a floorboard and someone will wonder at its significance.
I remembered something today. There's a bag in my closet that I haven't opened in over five months. It's a silver-colored, heavy plastic bag, the kind of bag that you get from a clothing store. It was apparently a bag that Yves' mother had in her laundry room, or had been picked up off Yves' floor. Inside the bag are three items of clothing. When we went out to dinner that night, I was wearing black boots, black slacks, a red lycra camisole, a black cardigan, and pink silky panties.
At his apartment, he quickly stripped me down to my camisole and panties, and he laid me down on the bed. I was not passive; we were kissing, I remember, kissing and crab-walking together back through the hallway and around the corner and into his bedroom and then he lifted me up onto his bed. His bed was not up on a platform supported by legs, rather, the platform was suspended among four chains that were attached to intricately carved plates in the ceiling. He had told me that he had designed the bed, and it kind of felt like sleeping like that rock-a-bye baby in her treetop cradle.
Once I was on the bed, however, Yves managed to pull my clothes off, save my camisole and panties, and there I lay, reclining on my elbows as I observed him stripping off his pants and socks and sweater. He was in a teeshirt and jockey briefs, and he lay down beside me, kissed my face, my neck, my collar bone, his fingers tracing my skin. He shimmied his fingers underneath the legband of my panties, and I remember that I laughed because there was no mistaking how much I wanted him.
I have pulled the panties, the camisole, and the tee-shirt out of the bag. I bury my nose in them, and I can smell him in the clothes. I can smell just the tiniest hint of the perfume I wore that night, and I can smell the tobacco, and then, there's something else. It's not laundry soap, because that's there, too. And it's not death, because he was naked when he died. I bring the tee-shirt up to my face and I breathe in hard. A blow lands on my solar plexus, and for just an instant, I think that I can't breathe.
Migraine pain carves through my right cheekbone, my right eye. I see a picture of the Soviet flag, and I wonder what the association is. And then I remember: migraine is like "hammer and sickle" pain.
I fold up the tee-shirt, and shove the panties and camisole down into the bag, roll it up tightly, put it back in the closet.
A note. This is probably (I never say never) the last essay you'll see from me for a while. I have decided that this book, which is burning a hole through me and is forcing me to write and write and write, will be born this summer. I am in transitional labor, and all I can do is hold on and wait for the moment that I get to push.
I don't know if I should post this. It is SO private, and yet, this is the story that I have to tell.
So, this is TTFN, not GBCW. I'll see y'all later.
Much, much love. Lorraine
Black and white softens what is harsh, takes the bite out of a day when the windchill scorches your cheeks, cripples your fingers through the thin shell of the gloves you've put on as you grip the shovel.
Wednesday and Thursday were snow days here. Between about 8 pm Tuesday and 10 am Thursday, we were encased, smothered, in a fine, white powder. No fluffy snowflakes. Not a one to be found. Instead, the snow came down as the grains of sand such as you might find on a Caribbean beach, only icy. Wind chills ripped toward -25F, and the gusts of wind picked up entire hillocks of snow and deposited them against buildings and cars and trees and people, if one was stupid or unfortunate enough to be out in it.
My friend, Angela, and I had ventured out Wednesday afternoon to clear a path through what had fallen then. It was arduous work, and later, both of us were sore. But the snow continued to fall, and when I got up on Thursday morning, it was to the certain knowledge that once again, the snow would have to be cleared.
This is a pile of snow that I made by adding to what was there with what was parallel to it on the driveway. I took a certain pleasure in listening to the thunk of each shovel-full of snow hitting the ancient windows on my house.
When I lay in bed, I clutch a large teddy to myself. It's an infantile reaction to my loss, but it helps. When I lie in that position, on my side, my legs pulled up in a semi-fetal position, I can almost feel Yves tucked up against me. When we were laying in bed, that night, that only night that we were together, he wrapped himself around me, his chest against my back, and he said, "I think this was the most perfect sleeping position ever invented. Because it allows me to kiss the back of your neck like this." And then he sent shivers down my spine as his lips brushed underneath my ear. He didn't stop there. He kissed the place where my neck met my shoulder, and then trailed his lips, in tiny increments that thrilled me not only with the sensation of the kiss but with the anticipation of the next, he moved his lips all the way down to the small of my back, and then turned me toward him so that he could kiss my belly. "I love this belly," he said.
I don't often find men with whom I'm sexually compatible. Of course, I find men who are perfectly content to fuck me, or be fucked, but, magazine bravado to the contrary, I don't often find men for whom sex is a passion. Certain men touch you as if they are you; so closely have they familiarized themselves with the female body that it's as if they've become female themselves. And no, the men who claim that they are lesbians are not the ones I'm talking about either. I'm fascinated by the inherent insecurity and shallowness I've encountered in men who consider themselves to be modern-day Casanovas. And there are other men who are so intimidated by women's bodies that they they never fully give themselves over to love-making. In fact, I've been told by more than one of those types of men that I'm too much woman, that I'm too voracious, or have too much of a sexual appetite for them. So, finding a man who has a passion for sex but is not a "dog" and who is secure giving himself completely over to the experience of making a woman happy is a rare, and wondrous, thing. Another thing to be pissed at the universe about.
I was afraid, in those first few days after Yves died, that I would turn into Miss Havisham. I didn't want to shower, or change my clothes. If I sat and pulled my knees up close, put my face down on my chest, made a tent out of my sweater, I could smell him. He was still there on my flesh, the places he had touched and licked and sucked. The skin he had told me was so touchable, so soft. The skin he had stroked in play, but also in wonder, in awe, that this thing was happening to us. And so, I buried my nose under my cardigan and breathed in deep.
When I finally did take a shower, I wept. I wept that I was washing off whatever remained of him. I wept as the sponge passed over the parts of my body where his mouth and fingers and cock had been. I wept that the previous shower had been a deux, the two of us playing grownup games.
I stayed in the shower for a long time. I needed its warmth to penetrate what had become numb. My interactions with the world that weekend were carried out behind a curtain of gauze. People hugged me, but I did not want to be touched. I couldn't feel anything except that theirs were not the bodies of my lover. It was raining that weekend, but the air had the stifled, semi-opaque feel of summer; it clogged my sinuses, clouded my eyes.
I was so afraid that weekend that I would forget. I wanted to hold on to every little word he had said to me, every phrase, everything that had made me laugh, or shiver in delight of what was to come. Truthfully? I wanted to become Miss Havisham. I wanted to be 80-years old and able to remember every last detail of those few hours I had had with him. I wanted to wear those clothes until they were rags, wanted to be able to tell the story over and over again to a generation not yet born, of what it was like when he touched me. How it felt when his tongue was in my mouth, or the laughter at the restaurant that night, how when I got up to use the restroom at the restaurant, I could feel his eyes caressing me as I walked away from him.
A number of people have written to me to ask me how I'm doing, what I'm doing, and why I'm so silent. I'm writing. I'm publishing a small piece of what I'm working on. Just to let you all know that I haven't crawled into a cave and died. Life is good. Honest. And while there is a whole clusterfuck of mess out there, right now, I'm still in my solipsistic universe. It's where I need to be for a while.
Teardrop on the Fire. The night before I met Yves, we talked on the phone. He told me that he was listening to a lot of 80's music—that that was his mood. He would tell me later that he had been so nervous about meeting me that he had just wanted to get lost in old, familiar music. I remember that in the background, I could hear something playing, but I don't remember what it was. I just remember hearing the underlying excitement in his voice. That excitement has always manifested itself for me as anxiety—near panic—and there have been times that being so energized about meeting someone has sent me into a panic attack. So I understood his mood. I wasn't put off by it, or scared. I just knew that he and I shared one more thing.
Later, after the events had transpired, I would find the playlist of what he had listened to that night. He was the Web master for the housing cooperative he was a part of, and he maintained a site that contained news about the co-op, and playlists of music that the group's members could stream. Those playlists would remain on the page until he posted whatever new songs had appealed to him. He always entitled his playlists "Playing while we hack." If you happened to check the page while he wasn't there, you'd find the old list, but where a new list should be, it would simply say, "Nothing… Our desktop's speakers are silent." Since the day of November 11, 2006, those words have become permanent on the site. They feel etched onto the monitor of my computer. The list of songs he was listening to the night before he met me are there—they are a permament record of that night, but I cannot seem to glean much of any meaning from that list.
Friday nights are hell. There is something about anniversary days, regardless of how close or far-removed they are from the actual event, that set something off in my psyche. Yesterday was only the second Friday that had passed since Y's collapse. Last Friday was the memorial service, and this Friday, well, this Friday I needed to find something to do with myself.
Wednesday night, I was driving with a friend due west. The sun was setting, and the vermilion sky cast the barns and the trees in a sort of blood-amber light. In the midst of all that redness was the palest sliver of new moon. Inanna's moon, and I was reminded of the legend that says that the sliver of new moon is Inanna's boat, carrying the souls of the worthy from the underworld to heaven.
I could not take comfort from that legend. The only thing I could think was, "When you're dead, you don't get to see these things anymore." And the idea that Y could not see what I was seeing pierced me. Death is not about the dead. It's about the living. It's about how we make meaning out of the sudden disappearance of what was once a presence.
I keep seeing his ghosts everywhere. They're private moments, and I'm collecting them all, trying to piece them together so that perhaps, if I gather enough of them up, I can glue them together and make him present again.
Ridiculous. I'm a rational, intelligent human being. And yet.
Me. In the hotel room. Right before I left for the memorial service.
Y. A photo he sent to me when we were preparing to meet one another.
I feel as if I've dropped a box of marbles on a hardwood floor. They're rolling everywhere. They are my memories of Y. I'm afraid I won't be able to gather them all up, that some will never be found again. Maybe years later, when someone is renovating the house, they'll find a single cat's eye underneath a floorboard and someone will wonder at its significance.
Note from my notebook as I've tried to write down what is happening to me right now.
How can I bear it; buried here,
While overhead the sky grows clear
And blue again after the storm?
O, multi-colored, multiform,
Beloved beauty over me,
That I shall never, never see
Again! Spring-silver, autumn-gold,
That I shall never more behold!
Sleeping your myriad magics through,
Close-sepulchred away from you!
O God, I cried, give me new birth,
And put me back upon the earth!
Upset each cloud's gigantic gourd
And let the heavy rain, down-poured
In one big torrent, set me free,
Washing my grave away from me!
Renascence by Edna St. Vincent Millay
Safia Amajan was murdered yesteray in Afghanistan. The other American war. The one we were successful at, driving the Taliban out, and restoring peace and democracy to. That war. Remember?
This was first published at c u l t u r e k i t c h e n:
today was like any other day.
it was a beautiful day, just as it was two years ago. blue sky, gentle breeze.
the kids were romping and jumping. we took time to play, time to read and time to learn. the house was a mess, we were running low on groceries, and the kids were getting antsy. so we picked up a bit, i left the kids in the playground with our neighbors while i went to the store.
it has been just a day like any other day. still, evan asked:
"are they coming back?"
"is the empire state building still sad?"
this day, two years ago, i was feeling a bit tired, a bit disoriented and, well, a bit lazy. september 10, 2001 marked out first day of homeschooling. i had this great week planned out for our official first week. i had decided not to go to the observatory, just to keep things simple, and just go to the empire state building because it was closer to us.
the "observatory" was the top of world trade center #2.
this year, two years ago, we heard a loud boom. not a sonic boom, but a boom louder than the one a truck would make after hitting a pothole. i thought "that must have been one helluva big truck".
minutes later our baby-sitter walks in and says, did you notice one of the towers is on fire? although we are on a tall building in the east village, we face north. i had to go up to the roof to check it out. i did and came back and we put the tv on. and as the news anchors are trying to make sense of the information being fed to them and the image that was on the screen, the second plane hit. all us saw it, even my kids.
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Photo by Daniella Zalcman
