Writing that the sky was marbled seemed too easy (and honestly I’m not sure it qualified as marbled). I found myself searching for something better. I called it an army of animals shrouded in shapes (unanimal like) marching towards the sunrise. I’m not sure how accurate that description is. For one thing, the sun is already up (not rising). The point was to force myself to be a bit unconventional. I was trying to think of other senses to use. The sky was loud? The sky was nervous? This morning, second cup of coffee time, I brought books and a journal and my phone…. when I went to write my sky note, I realized I had filled my journal. I felt a small sense of accomplishment about that. As a going away present, one of my colleagues back home, one who knew I was trying to get back in to the habit of writing, had bought for me a really nice leather bound journal. At the time, I felt like I might look like one of those pretentious snobs unwrapping the leather strap in an equally pretentious coffee shop. This morning, as I grabbed the journal from the book shelf and looked at that first blank page with the anticipation and hope of something new and pages of possibility, I appreciated the gift and the thought and the encouragement. It has some heft to it, I’d guess it’s over 300 pages – which is intimidating.
For much of the night last night, after I wrote my early evening post and after dinner, I wasn’t in the mood for anything serious (no reading, no writing). I played a video game for about half an hour, surfed the net, etc. etc. I thought about going to bed early and then decided to read anyway. I picked up a collection of stories The Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri. When my ex-wife moved out, there were a ton of books left behind. At least two tall bookcases full. It took me a little while to go through them all. Most of them were mass-market paperbacks like Stephen King and Janet Evanovich, but there were a number of literary titles as well. My ex was an avid reader – one who put the English major (me) to shame. She read quickly (which also helped). Most of the books she left behind I donated to our public library. I also used the opportunity to purge a lot of my own books. In the span of a few weeks or months, I gave away several hundred books (three or four boxes at a time). There were a handful of books I kept – Lahiri was one of them.
The first story in the Lahiri book caught me off guard with details that seemed pulled from my own life but rearranged and slightly changed – a PhD in process, a poet, an editor, an academic conference in Baltimore, a falling out of love. At one point early in the story I simply put the book down – it felt like it was hitting a little close to home. As part of the story, the couple starts sharing secrets with each other every night during scheduled power outages. I liked this idea – marriage / relationships are about discovery, sharing, unveiling – those truths we continuously revise and reveal to each other.
One of the secrets was that very early in their relationship (two weeks), the wife had peeked in to her husband’s address book to see if he had written her in. As I sit and fill journals with thoughts and writings, and as I think about that moment in the story, I wonder about the truths I reveal and what will get discovered. I’m reminded of how my ex-fiancee, B, said her late husband snuck a peek at some of her writings. I’m reminded of pulling books from B’s bookshelf to read and pass the time (if I was waiting for her to come home, or if she was going up to shower after the gym). There were a few journals on the shelf. I peeked once – quickly flipped the pages, immediately felt guilty and put it back. I remember sketches of Zelle looking sad, not much else. I also remember after she left, I still had a book or two of hers. In one of them was a poem she had worked on. I have no idea when, I know it predated me. It was about love and the sea. I had trouble reading some of it – her handwriting often escaped me. I took a picture of it. The first line read “biggest love made by small moments” a small reminder that she and I were cut from the same cloth, appreciated the same way of being and seeing the biggest gifts in the tiniest of moments. Looking at the poem, it was fascinating to see her mind at work – things crossed out and notes in the margins. Reading the story last night, I appreciated that Lahiri included this game of secrets and revealing – it’s one of those small details that speak to the curiosities of human nature. It might not be a bad jumping off point for a story or a poem – things unintentionally discovered.
More often than not, I scanned B’s bookshelf trying to get a sense of who this woman was and what her tastes were. I think there’s a twitter account now that posts snarky comments about the books behind celebrities as they post their Instagram and Tik-Tok videos. B had moved around often enough that I had to put some importance in to the books that were kept – these are the things we choose to carry with us and unpack in the life we wish to establish. The book I usually pulled off of B’s shelf to read was a collection of poems by Robert Hass Sun Under Wood. I liked what I was reading – though maybe not as much as I like his poetry now. I think I was reading the poems to pass the time and maybe didn’t fully take them in. There was another book…. as I’m writing, I’m searching Amazon to see if I can find it. It was a children’s book about love. It had soft illustrations and the odd oversized, elongated shape that children’s books have (though it was sophisticated, so I’m not sure that it actually was children’s book – this is going to be one of those things that will bother me until I find it….It might have been I Promise I’ll Find You – which without context sounds creepy). It was a gift either from B to her husband or from him to her. I can’t remember the inscription, but I remember looking at the book a few different times – it was such a sweet sentiment and I deeply appreciated the thought that had gone in to the gift. She didn’t talk much about her marriage, and when she did it was often in negative terms – though there were times that I saw her smile over good memories. These are also the things we carry with us and unpack in the life we wish to establish. While a certain discomfort arose in seeing this book, like wearing another man’s clothes, I came to see it as a representation of the best of them and a life that I think she wanted to find anew.
This was not at all where I had intended this post to land. For one, I’m still surprised that I feel bad over things like seeing those sketches of Zelle. I had actually thought I’d share some of the lines I copied down from some poems I’m reading (which I’ll do at the end). Through writing and journaling, I’m learning to go where my heart and mind wander. Sometimes to places of shame, sometimes to places of warm memories, sometimes to places from my childhood, and sometimes grazing a buffet of all of the above. In addition to surfing the net, last night I scrolled through dating profiles – and while I’ve said, often, I’m not really interested, it’s a way to pass the time. I came across one of a woman who said she’s following wherever her heart and spirit wanders. It’s a theme deep within a lot of us. The poem I photographed mentions the “adventurous heart exploring” one of the poems I read this morning had the lines “it was on evenings like this he knew / his true life lay elsewhere, it must, / so much acceptable pleasure here / yet so much yearning. He was home,” There is a level of complexity in all of this. We each contain entire worlds, if not universes, inside of us – more than enough for someone else to spend a lifetime exploring. For me, I can be equally fascinated by the hurts suffered and the joys experienced. Shortly after B left, I did what a lot of people do – I tried to see what else I could find out about her. In that process, I tried to also sit with the question why do I want to know more- is that where the answers will be kept? The epiphany I had was that I enjoyed exploring that world that came from this other person. I was learning, sometimes exponentially. That is the fire that keeps things going. Curiosity breeds desire. We should all be endlessly curious about our life partners. It felt like I was uncovering a capital T truth about the nature of love. I wanted to continue to learn about this person, my education cut short.
As for those lines of poetry I took note of this morning. I was reading Stephen Dunn (the lines quoted above come from his poem “A good Life”).
The terrible power of the one
-“From ‘Sympathetic Magic'”
less in love.
This is not the way I am
-“Biography in the First Person”
…
I would like to make you believe in me.
Intelligence warmed by generosity
-“Beautiful Women”
Is inner beauty, and what’s worse
Some physically beautiful women have it
And we have to be strapped and handcuffed
To the mast, or be ruined.