gutwrenchingguilt

[gutwrenchingguilt]

a little life on the east coast- an unabridged essay

I would’ve found my own way home that night, stumbling and carrying that beery air around me. And much to my chagrin, I had been so shrill; lip locking bleacher ornaments (of which you had to pry their wrinkled hands off) and emptying my limey stomach. By the end of the night, I had felt vile… bathed in red and blue lights, broken and American with lipstick mouth cuts peppering my porcelain cheeks. And I followed the train tracks for a somber moment, wishing I could just lay my dizzy head down on them. I remembered the seductiveness of death allured me- and the enormity of peace it would bring me. It was scary, and dark- the way I lived. And you galloped onward, racing up to me. God, I remembered. Here I am- simmering and drunk on the side of the road in a ditch, looking up at these tracks. And you stood in front of me like a god, shining and muscled. I was pretending (and I’m not sure if I succeeded or not) to be sultry, almost masculine for you, a little devil of the night. I’m glad you found me, I needed you to take me home and send me to bed. And when you climbed into bed with me, all I could do was melt into the thick of your arms like magma. You pressed your nose to the nape of my neck and I smiled as your fingers curled around mine; the knotted cluster serpentining right up to my heart. Maybe I’m getting somewhere with you. Maybe this is the concrescence of a long happiness where we’d reside in the East Coast. I wondered what it might be like. What might transpire… oh I can hear the violins flourishing now. 

We bought a little peace and quiet on the northern shores of the Chesapeake Bay. I loved the idea of a gray, shingled house like the ones they had in Nantucket or maybe Martha’s Vineyard, but the brick colonial stood as our little Monticello. I planted the hydrangeas and you painted the shutters an Old Ironsides navy blue, our windows hazily frosted and peppery. We had a crimson door and little white dormers. And in our sprawling lawn, your two black labradors chased each other and ran around the nautical flagpole, towering over our turpentined souls the American flag waving in the painted-blue wind. I loved our languid little parlor, the crown jewel being a Steinway and Sons grand piano. I’d strike those base chords down like I was digging my own grave as the melodies fluttered around our wing-backed chairs. That’s the same parlor we danced to Miles Davis barefoot on the hardwood floor; drinks, and liquor, and love in front of the bay windows. And those wispy curtains veiling the broken sunlight that slashed the room. And my two kitties (though they’re fully adult cats…I will always remember when they were babies) stretch on our Turkish rugs and luxuriate in those little golden lakes of sun. April roses and baby’s breath in each room, maybe on some antique our mothers gave to us; and Marseille paintings or mirrors or tapestries hanging above our hand carved mantles. Oh and the dinner parties we would throw. We would all gather, the wine always flowing, and eat our Maine lobster stew with sourdough bread and chutney- all on our fine china. Everyone’s cheeks are flushed as I tell some outrageous story about my strange interaction with the hostess at the ski resort in Jeffersonville, Vermont. She double booked us with the three stooges who were definitely planning a three-way! The hearty laughs, the dinner plates clanking, I’m spilling my wine on my cashmere sweater (you tell me not to worry about it as we can get a new one) and my heart is full. 

You were an academic angel, flying through universities that staggered above me. I contemplate how the city loved you, and how it chewed me up and spit me out a completely new person. I look at you. And I feel myself. How tenuous I am. How wayward and how magnanimous I am. And with that came the precariousness. I was so uncertain and scared that this life wouldn’t pan out to be everything I wanted. I glanced back at you with your Hollywood smile and I see that I am alive in you. Perennially it seems. We lay in our bedroom together after the day simmers to a darkness and it takes me back to that very first night. I’m still melting in those arms. Our hands are still interlaced and it stays like that the whole night. I wake up and peer out the window to our manicured garden with little Adirondack chairs that face the cold shore. We planned brunch at Chick and Ruth’s and strolled the docks and marveled at all the sailboats. Oh, the marina, and the masts, and the salt, it was all so divine. The opulence you had given me doesn’t even compare to the love that washes over me every day. They can think that I’m rich for all I care, for I am rich when you hold my hand. I am rich when your passional kisses press my forehead. And when I’m down, I am lifted up by your prosodic magnetism. Everything makes me rich when I am with you.