The grapes of wrath (a fear beyond every other).

This morning I rolled out of bed and into a nightmare of coughing that followed me all the way around the block with the dog in the pre-dawn darkness. I came in and dragged myself through the motions of making honey toast and sweetened coffee for Ben. I kissed him goodbye and rested my head against the front of his jacket for as long as he would allow.

When he was gone I locked up again and headed back upstairs where I spent a good thirty minutes in the steamy shower, breathing in the warm air, unclenching my lungs and clearing my head. When I felt my skin begin to protest I got out reluctantly, slipping into my jeans and a warm hoodie and I ran a comb through my hair, gently. I returned to the main floor, poured myself a cup of coffee and holed up in the corner reading until the rest of the house awakened, one room at a time.

Such a marked difference between one tiny light casting a quiet glow on the side of a cliff and a house with every light on, everyone talking at once, waiting for turns at the coffee maker, asking me how I am feeling while I try to focus on getting the children fed and organized and out the door in time for school. Maybe I will be April's perpetual fool, attempting to live at 33 rpm in a 78 rpm world, running in slow motion when fast-forward has become de rigueur.

I changed my clothes, jumping on the 78, skidding across the vinyl on my way to the loft to check on some business. I will stay on this song as long as I need to and no more.

Ben is back to his usual hours for the next little while and I grateful for that. When he works long hours I feel disconnected and lost. When he is home I feel whole. Lochlan will tell you that is wrong but for him it is simply sour grapes. I watched him watching me as PJ gave me a hug upon hearing that I am feeling slightly better this morning and he visibly winced when PJ's arms closed around me. As if he can't bear this existence. Well, he doesn't have to be like this. He could let go but he doesn't. He could relax but he won't. He could live but he prefers to exist in the past.

Sometimes I don't blame him. The simplicity of a hot shower or a good cup of coffee is something we don't take for granted. The luxury of being able to get better without doing it under a gun still feels like a gift from heaven. The nights when two weeks into a new set up, it had been raining for days and I was so sick I was ordered not to get out of bed unless the camper was on fire, and Lochlan was as sick as I was but he would do all of our work and then head into town for soup for me and by the time he came back I would be asleep and the soup would be tepid and he would throw it out. We both lost weight and gave up hope and then the sun would make a surprise appearance and the show would be bustling and suddenly everything was going to be okay again.

But that same bittersweet history holds all of the reasons why we are the way we are now, forever and life goes on, we are the fools, time heals nothing. Time serves to twist screws and force change. Time serves to corrupt and skew the facts and warp reality. Fuck time, time is a ticking bomb in the face of relative peace.

Time is the cadence of the devil breathing down my neck. I am outrunning time once again.

The night after Lochlan brought my things to the fair in his backpack after breaking up with me, the borrowed camper burned. I was relieved he was not inside when it went up in flames and then suspected he or Caleb burned it right up until the moment he told me his journals were gone, right up until the fire department confirmed that it was accidental. He never would have burned those books, they are his definitive soul.

Only they aren't gone. I found them this morning, here at Caleb's loft and like I promised back in 1981 when I first saw Lochlan with one, I won't look in them, Lochie and no, this isn't a fucking April Fool's joke and I just need to figure out the right way or the right time to tell him they are safe but fuck it, half the time the right time never takes place because time is wrong and I am just about to leave and bring them back to their rightful owner.*

*******************

*(I wrote that this morning while I was still at the loft looking after some paperwork and I chickened out of posting it, in the very real risk that Caleb might read it before I could be safely underway with property that, while incredibly value to Caleb, belongs to someone else. Lochlan has his books now, clutched into shaking hands, I am home safe and sound and for good measure I closed the front gate and changed the code again, which is very frustrating for everyone. It won't keep Caleb out but it might slow him down, and that's all I need for now. This was one piece of the puzzle that's been missing for a long time. I would like to see the whole picture now.)

Will return on the day of fools.

I am working today at just trying to get well, moving slowly, sitting at the edge of the dark in the soft sunlight to stay warm, walking the dim quiet hallways at the hospital (I was sent for chest x-rays, because this cold doesn't seem to be getting better ever), teaching Ruth to sew with small, even stitches and a better needle than the one she first chose and wondering if the paint all over Henry's pants from his big class project will come out in the wash or if the pants will be added to the scrap fabric pile to be used to make more of the little stuffed-heart garlands we have been working on as of late.

I have hidden myself away from drama but she does not appear to be coming around today to play hide and seek, in spite of my newfound hiding place, out here in plain sight. I am keeping my head down, mouth closed, argument off. I just want to feel better. It's been so long.

So excuse me if you came today looking to see if you could have a peek into the life of someone who overdresses but always in shocking black, throws dishes at the minister, openly adores and defies the rockstar all at the same time, courts the mafia, misses the dead and still seeks the approval of a formal career carnival man before she will make a move, well, sorry but she isn't taking visitors today.

Secondary orbit.

She seems dressed in all the rings
Of past fatalities
So fragile yet so devious
She continues to see it
Climatic hands that press
Her temples and my chest
Enter the night that she came home
Forever

Oh (She's the only one that makes me sad)

She is everything and more
The solemn hypnotic
My Dahlia bathed in possession
She is home to me

I get nervous, perverse, when I see her it's worse
But the stress is astounding
It's now or never she's coming home
Forever

Oh (She's the only one that makes me sad)

Sam waits nervously at the door but I am busy throwing things that don't seem to want to break and I have no intentions of stopping until everything does. Every toss gets a name or a reason cursed upon it before I let it fly. Every word comes out in a scream. Sam adjusts his vest. Such a nerd. He's holding Jacob's well-worn, fingerprint-embossed, still achingly-warm bible against his chest as if he's considering an exorcism.

Good, I would do the same thing if I were in his shoes. Only I haven't been taken over by demons. I am just angry. Angry in a ferocious, uncharacteristic way.

In between unintentional frisbees, I ask him questions as they come to me. I'm not sure if he knows any of this stuff or not. I do. I'm only asking so he feels less weird. Because weird is the habitual state of affairs in this family, like days that end in y and the heart-shaped ice cubes in the freezer. Next to the little blocky little tombstone ones.

Do you know what color vermillion actually is, Samwise?

Yes, it's an orangey-re-

It's the color of my blood. I laugh, so inappropriately.

He looks at the floor. It's going to be a long day. He tries again. Bridge-

How many letters has Jacob left for me, all told?

He counted briefly in silence and then shouted his answer. I don't know.

How many times did Queen play at Wembley, Sam?

Oh, Bridget, I have no idea.

Success. The plate hit the wall just over the door, shattering into a million fragments and Jake's bible is now muted-black with dust. Sam squeezed his eyes shut but to his credit he didn't duck or freak out.

Next. If you get it wrong you have to go. Why can't we ever act like normal human beings?

Sam just rolled his eyes and turned and walked out as Lochlan was walking in. They don't exchange words, just looks. We've come too far to need any more words.

I sit down on the floor in the midst of a room full of would-be ruin that I didn't have enough strength to break and I realize I don't recognize myself anymore.

I'm a slave, and I am a master
No restraints and, unchecked collectors
I exist through my need, to self oblige
She is something in me, that I despise

I won't let this build up inside of me
I won't let this build up inside of me
I won't let this build up inside of me
I won't let this build up inside of me

(All the stops have now been pulled and the train resumes the slow journey around the water to where I am resting, bound and gagged, stretched over the tracks with my knees and my head resting on the rails, blonde hair tangled in the gravel, creosote and arsenic from the sleepers soaking into my skin through my dress.

My eyes watch the stars. My head will be filled with beauty when the light comes to blind me.)

Lochlan and Ben have abandoned me as muse and taken each other on as...as male furies. The most difficult dynamic of their relationship leaves me on the floor dividing my devotions with a dull butter knife, in a block of sunlight tinged a bright shade of vexation. I've been here for hours, measuring it out and it always comes out lopsided and unfair and I'm running out of ideas.

The devil has some incredibly aberrant solutions but I hold no interest in those. He is entertained by my efforts nevertheless.

You can't make this fair and just, princess. No one's going to be happy in the end.

Be quiet, will you? I'm counting.

The noise-canceling husband and a ride in the clouds.

I find comfort in strange places today. In Mason Jar lights and in the freezer section at the grocery store, where I saw rows of teeny-tiny gourmet treat containers, in a new Kleenex on a pink nose and in Ben's arms, my contagious face shoved right up under his chin hard where it burns and where I am complete in blocking everything else out. Sigh.

Yeah.

I managed to either win back some sort of bonus round with the stupid fucking cold I had two weeks ago or it's holding onto me for dear life. I guess I know how it feels. Am now on a hideous poison cocktail of ginseng, zinc, vitamin C, etc. etc. etc. and copious amounts of tea, vitamin water and very good leftover Chinese food.

In other news, the exhibition here (permanent which means ANY TIME WE WANT) is getting a Star Flyer.

A freaking Star Flyer!

It's like the icing on the best cake I've ever had.

There is a stack of brochures on his desk and all I have to do is pick one and bring it to him and he will make the arrangements.

There is a bowl of sliced melon in the fridge, and half a magnum of champagne, which will be thrown out rather than finished. A large container of yogurt and a basket of strawberries remain untouched on the top shelf. My stomach growls with hunger but my brain misses the cue.

Fresh flowers are everywhere. In the bathrooms. The credenza by his desk. The island in the kitchen and also in the entryway. Those had to be moved and rearranged because they were huge and the spray ended at eye level with me and I feared I might lose my vision. I didn't say anything, he noticed and had it changed.

I was given a key. I already had a key. He is clearly unprepared for the proximity and unnerved by my total compliance.

He dismisses the small neatly print-labeled bottles on his vanity with excuses I know to be lies and I accept them with distraction. This is not a comfortable place to be, in the realization that someone who held so much power is prepared to release me. The white flag flaps violent against the glass and I can only watch it because I don't know if it's real or just one of those things my imagination puts into place to help me understand things that my mind knows but my heart simply can't manage.

There is a difference and it is stark. To me at least.

He is amused by my hands. Rings sliding loosely over my knuckles, my fingers flutter a never-ending ode in air piano. Fidgeting, counting beads on the bracelet I wear, tapping on the table, pulling wayward strands of blonde out of my lip gloss, which attracts my hair like static cling, fascinating him to the point where he sits motionless in a low chair by the window, bourbon in hand, watching me move. Watching my nervous motions. Checking for the holes through which he will reveal my deception or my conviction.

I offer none of either. I am waiting him out.

I can bend him a little and he bends me back. I give up and he moves in to suggest decadence. I pretend to take it for granted and he exudes clear, silent exasperation. He talks to the walls and then his whole face drops when I ask him to repeat himself. He seeks perfection in my flaws as a singular and unfair definition. This is not who I am.

He held up his remorse, looking for a reflection and I gave him back cold detachment. In this light he is not who I want him to be either. This new revelation tore him apart.

I dropped my hands to my sides and turned, marching off only there is no place else to go and when I pointed that out from between gritted teeth, seething with pretend patience he made a call and twenty-minutes later I heard low rumblings in the hallway. He returned with this thick pile of choices for me, if I want them. He is the new mother and I am the inconsolable child and he does not know how to quiet my cries. He is becoming desperate.

Instead I take the flowers from the front hall and carry them outside to the balcony. My heart stops every time I step onto it, more than thirty-six stories high but that's the only coincidence I will acknowledge and I turn the vase upside down and let the water and the lilies fall. The wind does not take them. Someone on the sidewalk below will think that angels are throwing flowers at them. They would be correct.

I turn to come back inside and he is frowning. A misstep. The flowers should have simply been removed, not fixed and returned. You can't fix things when they don't work the first time. You can't make it better and you can't pretend you didn't lose an eye when clearly it's missing and the only thing left in your head is a few pretty glass marbles rolling around in your head.

He is eager to make this okay. Nothing is okay. And nothing he does is going to change that.

Would you like to go out for lunch?

Yes, I lie.

He goes to get our coats. I wonder if maybe I'll find my mind in one of the pockets. I hope so, but life holds no guarantees.

Acoustic pine.

We were seventeen markers to the end. I have always counted. I rolled my head back against the soft leather headrest, feeling his eyes on me briefly in between keeping watch on the road, I'm sure he thought I had fallen asleep but my eyes were wide open, tracking Orion, tracking little bear and the dipper too. The stars were fixed and we were in motion, on a ribbon of black lit by halogen, winding through trees lit by the moon, on a ball that spins so slowly you fail to notice until the sunrise.

I stick both arms up above my head to catch the wind and he laughs. We need Nick Drake to sing us home, I suggest and he shakes his head. We need the peace and the quiet, too, Bridget. I pout but I can play the songs in my head any time I want to, I think to myself and the music floods in, cutting off whatever I was planning to think about next.

The rest of the drive was in silence for him, just the way he likes it.

Endless spring.

We've been here for a year today. And I'm surprised at how quickly time flies and not at all surprised by how slowly I spend it. I have loved getting to know the entire West Coast and the amazing beauty that exists here that I really wasn't conscious of in my visits. It's impossible to truly appreciate how amazing a place is until you don't have to leave it to go home because it IS home.

I love the ocean. I love the giant happy-face slugs on the trees that Ben always threatens to lick. I love the pine trees and the cleanliness and the snow-capped mountains and the cold clear streams that you can rinse your hands in and not have them come away worse than when you started. I love the small-town vibe in a big city backdrop and I love how everything is simplicity demanded by a population that is heading out for a hike and doesn't want to screw around.

The rain hasn't gotten to me yet, surprisingly. The hours may have, as the boys are working harder than they've ever worked before but they're also getting more recognition than ever and they seem a little more at ease now that we are a little more settled and things are ironing out.

I even found a place to have my skates sharpened, just today. Took 3 minutes, cost five bucks.
Then I went around and around on the ice with no gloves on, sailing across the smooth surface of the frozen layers with the cheesy piped-in music drowning out our words and I tried to keep Henry upright when he was determined to keep falling and I tried to keep Ruthie happy when she got tired and hurt her knee but refused to slow down and I realized abruptly that I have certain muscles whose memories are as badly flawed as the ones in my head because they had forgotten how to skate and wow, everything is always new, but you know what?

Someday it won't be.

I really do like it here.

Nerves of Jell-O.

Lochlan has a lower-ranged Fix You queued up on the guitar this morning. I think I might have to avoid him today, too.

When you lose something you can't replace
When you love someone, but it goes to waste
Could it be worse?

I was a slow convert to Coldplay, and while I've barely grazed the surface of their catalogue, I still maintain my position that Lochlan finds his music the same way I do, picking and choosing from among the most profound of lyrics or melodies to augment his emotional release, whatever it may be.

I don't know why that is, I'm guessing it's nurture over nature, as it would make sense that the one who taught me to embrace the music this way would do it as well. And I don't mean to be so grumpy lately. I miss my horses. I miss the beach because I haven't been down in a while. I think I miss new Jake just enough to make everyone vaguely angry and I'm angry at Caleb for forcing this weird formal parenting arrangement on me when what the mediators and the judge can't see is his position standing on my back. I am face down in a puddle of dirty water and I can't breathe because he won't let me up. I miss Ben most of all. Ben works a lot. Madness in artistry, artistry in madness, we have it all covered up here under a canopy of rain-soaked trees.

I get stressed and I start to pick on everything and everyone. I lash out and I'll try not to. That's all I can promise. I will try not to. I won't back down but I'll attempt to look at things from your perspective and you can look at them from mine.

My patience with just about everything was flung off a roof and then with epic, mistaken regret, Jacob chased it all the way down to street level. And I'm very sorry but I didn't have any in reserves and I have forgotten the recipe to make more.

Lochlan can thaw me out with this beautiful song (one of so many and I am only thankful today for the health of my children and the music that people have created that I can still hear) and I will be here if you need me but you don't, because the world turns in perfect circles whether I am leaning into the curve or not.

Tears stream down your face
I promise you I will learn from my mistakes

Sweet little hypocrites.

I am sitting on the edge of a long couch in a Vietnamese nail salon near the edge of nowhere downtown patiently waiting for Caleb to finish with his metrosexual grooming errands. He is getting a manicure in which they do little more than file a few ragged edges and buff and then collect a hundred dollars from him. Four times I have refused to be umm...treated so instead I am listening to the women who are waiting for their appointments as they seem to arrive in groups and I am getting an earful.

They have all decided Caleb is exceedingly hot and then helpfully the shop owner whispered something at the largest group and then pointed to me and a sea of falsely-tanned, overly-streaked blinged-out blondes gave me their heavily-practiced 'disappointment' faces. One of them mouths She's so LUCKY! to her friend.

Oh, girls. If only you knew.

But I did not correct them out loud. I will let them live in their bubbles. I haven't opened my mouth short of asking Caleb directly how long he would be and he responded that I may as well sit down for a moment but don't leave. Fine.

The tanned girls are reading celebrity magazines and discussing other nail salons. They are complaining about the place that ran out of the right color and the one where the water for the pedicures wasn't warm enough and at another place the horror was in having to wait ten minutes past her appointment time and her time is valuable, she had tanning afterward and it got messed up and she had to reschedule for fifteen minutes later. Yet another was downright PISSED because her nail technician got up once to answer the phone and it took two extra minutes to have her polish finished but she didn't get a discount after all that trauma. Still another won't go to her favorite former haunt anymore because their Sex and the City reruns are 'annoying'.

If he takes much longer I might slip off the end of the couch into sheer stupification, perhaps to rock myself back and forth and I remind myself this is why I don't have girlfriends (other than the obvious glaring reasons). Because I will go buy a bottle of pretty color and paint my own nails a hundred times for $3.99 and it takes very little time (Sally Hansen Insta-Dry) and then I have nothing to complain about and no one's going to take my hundred dollars only to make me wait five minutes or force me to endure dumb television shows and gossip magazines. And....tepid water.

I consider that very good value. I just don't understand how you can be so spoiled as to pay someone to regularly paint your nails and then have the nerve to complain that you weren't pampered enough.

I really hope he's finished soon though. I really fear I might punch somebody in the face.