11:35 p.m. - December 02, 2002
Light comes from the dark
The loneliest period of my life thus far was December 1996 when my relationship imploded and I learned that even the firmament lays atop liquid and solidity, surety, is ephemeral. It was Christmas break and I was alone in the apartment, Tasha having left to stay elsewhere, and I didn't do anything but look out the window and watch the Ballard bridge sections rise and fall. I did this day after day and in the evenings would walk down to school and slip inside the Humanities building where it was quiet and warm, to curl up on one of the couches in the Writing Center and listen to the hiss of the radiators, the groan of the trees outside, the settling of a building made when buildings were made to last. I didn't talk to anybody or really see people. I was in my own world. How easy to cut myself off from the outside, easier still when there is reason.
One day a snowstorm hit, the Once A Century variety, and Seattle came to a halt far beyond the usual confusion arising from an inch or two of snow. From my apartment windows I saw cars spin out and eventually freeze to the bridge or be abandoned on the streets below and I relished more than ever the quiet solitude snow delivers. I walked to campus intent on my routine of walk and sleep through the snow in thin boots and thinner socks laughing when I lost my balance and slid on the ice. A man slowly driving asked if I needed a ride and I laughed and said No, I'm from California and I love snow and he laughed and we went on our ways, he perhaps to work grocery things to do, and I to the tick-tock of the clock on the wall. I stayed there all afternoon, arranging the desk used by all the Writing instructors but mostly my terrain by default, surfing the web for porn and trivialities, filling up my day with the nothings that we can't live without but don't remember soon enough.
That night I couldn't sleep and began coughing and by morning I was sick. I wore two, then three, then four pairs of socks, covered the bed with blankets but it still wasn't enough and soon slept directly in front of the heater in the living room. Fever. A deep, searing cough that I couldn't tell was loud or not because my hearing seemed to come and go. Chills like palsies, spasms. I drank hot water and couldn't stand long enough to pee. I was afraid somewhere in this delirium and crawled to the telephone and couldn't remember the number of anybody I knew. Hindsight being an ally borne of enmity I suspect at that moment I realized there was nobody for me to call and that I had disenfranchised myself successfully, I had sown the seeds and at harvest it was simply me. I gave up and had terrible dreams and was afraid to sleep because I didn't want to die and once an hour dragged myself to the kitchen to heat more water in the microwave, a big blue Tupperware cup that warmed my hands and seared my throat and subdued the coughs for not long enough. Had fantasies of being found dead and newspaper headlines saying
I had pneumonia and was lucky I had come in when I did. When I woke up I wasn't relieved or happy or thankful; I turned over and went back to sleep and would talk as I slept and one of the nurses wrote down what I said and was the genesis of poetry I published in 1998 and 1999. I returned to my apartment when I had recovered and Margaret, Tasha's mother, visited me and we couldn't say anything, both of us unsure of what happened or why, and that was the way things were.
Moved out of the apartment into a friend's house and then into the dorms at school, a senior with freshmen, a hotshot English major known for writing the paper shown to subsequent would-bes as the best example of critical analysis, written when I was a freshman in a junior level course. I was known as one who snubbed the rules, lived with my girlfriend had sex drank, who turned down a scholarship at one school to beg for financial aid at another, the Jewish outsider at a Christian university, the writer, triple major, beautiful girlfriend fianc�e but not married. I was the hotshot Political Science major teaching undergraduates, editor of the literary journal, the one with the sky high GPA, GRE and LSAT scores; I ate dinner with professors and had lunch with the English faculty and Toni Morrison, chatted with Ngugi wa Thiong'o, taught English at the Center, overloaded on units in constitutional law, microeconomics, 17th century French literature. Served on hiring committees for English faculty, discussed classics in Latin, abused Kristeva in French. Buried myself in work and in the mornings couldn't get out of bed. I'd wait until my roommate left at 8:45 and then I'd cry, listening to the radio and the sounds of people walking below my window, in the hall, to the guys below me. The phone rang, my supervisor Where are you? My paradigm, the way I viewed the world, my Jacob's Ladder, had combusted and everything fell apart. I had pulled away from people gradually because my past refused to lay dormant and I was confused scared ashamed imperfect sullied dirty; a fraud. Better to be lonely than discovered. My friends became less so, then acquaintances, then strangers passed in the halls, fleeting memory What did we do, oh that�s right. I thought I had it all, was it all.
I would take my one remaining friend and we would go to bars every night and listen to bands and stupid us, I drove us back to school too wasted to drive straight but was never caught, up Queen Anne Avenue, down, more than a few near misses. Before returning to my room I would go into the Humanities building and sit there, think, feel sorry for myself and underneath it all grasp for understanding and control but in truth, I had lost it long ago yet consoled myself with the fa�ade; after all, if I was hot shit, didn�t that mean all was well? Professors called me into conference What�s wrong You can talk to me Are you okay Your papers are excellent as usual but something is lacking and I lost my temper at one, asking what more he wanted, what was wrong with 98% and he looked at me and said Lately your writing is cardboard and is not you and I started crying and so did he.
Later that night my roommate confided in me, saying his close friends now avoided his room because of me; he was matter-of-fact and I was stunned, not because of his comment but by his forthrightness. After all, he was nascent and my glory was fading, but it struck a chord. I resolved to change, be different, and the next day intercepted his close friend in the stairwell, You�re Dave�s friend E-----, aren�t you? and that�s how I met Bathsheba. Bathsheba, her roommate and Dave raised me closer to the lip of the hole and I began to laugh again as silly as that sounds. But it is true. My craving for people did not begin when I was sick and at the telephone without a number; it began when I had a taste. People, hold close to those around you. I look back and think of the strides I have made, an ever-widening circle of people I can trust, call friends. When I need to call, I know numbers to dial. This is what I must constantly remind myself of, to look at the details close up instead from afar because like most, the important things are lost amidst the general.
