Shadows on the Wall

Last night I couldn't sleep, as usual. I was haunted by yet another phantom of my past. Instead of the usual once-boyfriend phantom or the stinging-reply-in-hindsight phantom, or even the what-am-I-going-to-do-tomorrow phantom, it was one whose mere presence was almost ironic.

It was the phantom of my first insomnia.

I was four or five, a young girl still trying to understand the natural world. I was just beginning to understand that objects left unsupported fell. I was fascinated by my shadow in the sunset, that I was taller than my giant father. I also noticed that things looked different in the dark. That colors were still there, but instead of being green, torquoise, and gold they varied in shades of black.

I lay awake in my bed, in the middle of my once blue, now dust colored room. The venetian blinds covering the window were cracked just enough to let the streetlamp's light in from across the deserted street. The stripes gashed across my wall; vibrant, fresh. I reached out a hand to feel the line of contrast, to touch the bleeding light and the lifeless wall.

I was almost surprised to see that I could never touch the light. I couldn't place my fingers on it, there was always a shadow beneath them. I couldn't touch the light, but it could touch me. I lifted my arm higher along the wall, admiring the straight lines cast across my skin and the wall alike. I lay back in bed, my arm still above my head and above the windowsill, the light and shadow still caressing me. I marveled that its touch was nonexistent, but the zebra stripe glove on my skin was as real as the arm shaped shadow interrupting the stripe pattern on the wall behind it.

The stripes would shift position as I did, making the glove as long or as short as I pleased, but however I moved it the stripes never changed shape or angle, the glove always fitting as gloves should.

The next night I was still fascinated by the combination of the streetlight and the blinds across my window. I was for a week, until I realized that I was tired and wanted to go to sleep. By that time it was too late, I was an insomniac. I was too fascinated by the curiosities of a dark bedroom.

I can still remember that night, a week later, as I was playing with my zebra glove. “If only I could just take a nap. A nap would be great. I'm so tired, but I don't want to sleep, I just want to nap.” It was then that I realized something else: When you napped you slept, and neither would be easy for me ever again.

Fifteen years later it's still hard for me to sleep, nap or doze. But it's not often that something as simple as the shadow cast on my wall is the one thing that keeps me up at night. I realized that night, that this was the first time I'd slept under venetian blinds in five years. I was almost glad to have reconnected with my childhood, even though it meant another night of less-than-stellar sleep.

Closure

8 months, 5 days.

January 2nd to September 7th.

We'd endured 5 months of long distance, 3500 miles of driving, 1400 miles in flight, hours on the phone, parent-imposed curfews, a summer of work - not play, finals week, midterms, two moves, family members departing, pleasant surprises, gifts, emergency lunches, thrift shop trips, walks, piggybacks with sisters, a mission call, sushi, picnics - both sunlit and candlelit, slurpees, a first (and second and third) taco, movies, car cleaning, sunsets, moonrises, a roommate's wedding reception, libraries, reading under a trampoline, sunsets, moonrises, hikes, adventures, getting lost, getting found, ward hopping, homicidal mothers yelling EY!, indian food, implications, selfishness, forgiveness, selflessness, miscommunications, falls, band aids, private whispers, screams of delight, exhaustion, promises, plans left undone, plans completed, exhilaration, love.

I've never felt this way about anyone before, and I fear I never will again.

Last weekend as we held each other on my doorstep, it felt different. I loved him, but didn't need him. Things were ending, whether I wanted them to or not.

Last week as I'd walk across campus I'd see couples holding hands or lying in the sun. I hated them. I hated them for having something I couldn't. My Scott was gone, but on Saturday I'd show them.
This week when I see a woman leaning her head on her man's shoulder, her eyes closed; when I see a couple necking passionately in their own owrld in the middle of the bustling hallway, there was no jealousy. There was no hate. My Scott really was gone.

I was expecting to break up with him, not to break up with each other. It was entirely mutual, unlike the inception of our relationship. He was always the first to pick me up, drive me home, put an arm around me, hold my hand, say "I like you," then "I've fallen for you," then lean in and kiss me. At the beginning he invested far more far quicker than I, therefore I wasn't expecting him to be done before me. I was expecting to lay it all out, step aside, and let m stubborn, insistent side carry me through the subsequent and expected waves of misery.
No, he knew it had to be over, just as I did the last night we saw each other.

At times I wish I had my tenacity on my side, but it's lain dormant as of late. Instead there's something else, something deeper. Something that says "I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow, much less in the next couple years, but it'll be all right." I'm sad, but I'm not morose. I'm not curled in a fetal position surrounded by a halo of chocolate wrappers. It just feels right, and my tenacity isn't insisting that I be wrong.

Scott has been my best (albeit only) boyfriend, but also one of my best friends. He is my best guy friend, and one of the best men I've ever known. Despite his protests, he has been the absolute best I've ever had.

Scott, I love you.

Thank you for teaching me how.

Moon River

"I don't want to go for drinks. Let's go for a walk instead."

"Where to?"

"Down by the river."

"It's three o'clock in the morning!"

"Just drive."

She'd always say that to me. Just drive. As if that was the answer to everything - Don't ask questions, just go.

It really shouldn't surprise me, knowing her. It's not as if she was about to go do anything imaginable (think girls gone wild) No. That wasn't her. But once she got her mind around something, look out. If you get in her way - I've seen her make grown men cry. Yes, myself included.

I'd deserved it.

"Turn here."

"Park."

I complied silently, wondering what she was thinking. She'd tell me eventually, I didn't have to ask. I never had to ask.

We got out of the car and wandered to the paved path winding beside the river. The moon was out, full and shining on the flowing water. The soft silvery light cast strange shadows on the mostly bare trees. A cold October breeze whispered through the air, stirring her soft brown hair and caressing her face. Her hands were shoved inside her jacket pockets and her eyes were turned inward, contemplating.

The path curved along the banks of the river, five feet above the water. She didn't.

As soon as there was an opening in the trees, she scrambled down the rocky bank littered with dry leaves and proceeded upriver balancing on the river rocks tickled by the water. I stood on the bank, unsure.

She turned back, her face shining in the moonlight, her body balanced and content. She lifted one hand and beckoned to me. She continued on, not bothering to watch me descend the bank. She knew I'd follow. I always did.

A bend in the river later, we came to the moon. It shone above us, its belly tickled by the naked treetops. Her sister, her reflection, stretched languidly in the water, swimming towards us as the water flowed. The falling leaves played in the sister's hair, crowning her with laurel and scrub oak.

"Sit."

I turned around. She was perched on a naked tree root next to a worn camp chair. The chair said "Have a seat and share something that everyone can enjoy!" in faded permanent marker. Its fabric was old and dusty, and seemed to have sat next to the river for as long as that root had.

"You take the seat." She looked at me, her feminist tendencies rearing in her eyes.

"I've already sat there. I'm sharing it with you."

"You didn't put this here, did you?"

"No, but I found it. Hush."

We watched the moon and her sister swim in the sky and the river, we listened to the breeze shiver the trees, and heard the occasional car pass by near the paved path above.

When a leaf fell directly into my lap I picked it up by its stem and turned towards her, the fabric of the chair protesting quietly. Her eyes were distant and her hands unoccupied on her legs. I reached toward her, aiming to put the leaf behind her ear.

She caught my hand, her slender fingers molding to mine. She got off her root, my hand still in hers, and joined me on the little chair.

The breeze stole the leaf and set it on the water floating on its own reflection. She and I watched our own reflections swim with the moon as the leaf danced with itself, the only one able to flit from the moon and back.

Though as I held her I thought I got close.