Hillery Occasionally

So I got this email from my dad today…we’re not talking yet, but we’re emailing our way through the nearly four year silence…asking me if I’d moved to Canada permanently, among other things.  I have not.  That is to say, there is no permanence in my life at the moment.

A month or so ago I bought a one-way ticket to Spokane, Washington, rented and SUV, and drove deep into the wilderness of British Columbia to maybe break up with my boyfriend or maybe make it. 
He lives part of the time in New York and part in the Canadian mountains.  Leave it to me to find the most complicated happy ending, right?  After ten days together and a week apart I remembered what they say about long-distance love affairs—they’re for assholes—and asked him to buy me my next one-way ticket.  I told the restaurant I needed an indefinite leave of absence, left my roommate with checks written out for two months of bills, kissed my cat goodbye, and that was that.

I’ve been here a week and I haven’t finished cleaning my new kitchen.  I open cabinets, cower in awe, rally with courage, and then dismantle and scour.  He signs off on piles assigned for drop off at the dump or conversely argues, “but my grandmother gave me that…and I was her favorite, sugar.”  How do you argue with that?  I throw up my hands and resolve to learn to love the slow cooker with crawfish dancing along the rim, incomplete with an ill-fitting lid.  At the very least, I’ll unearth a safe place to hide it. 

I make lists of things for him to do or buy and, miraculously, he does them and buys things.  There are no jobs here except for loggers and horticulturists, but I make the bed, and do the laundry, and bring in firewood, and load the dishwasher.  This leaves for a lot of downtime, thank heaven.  The first thing he crossed off my list was a writing desk.  We found an antique library table in Spokane and he loaded it into the back of his pick-up truck and then unloaded an entire room of furniture to make me a comfortable place to write.  So here I am, back to you, dear reader.

I have seeds and a starter set for gardening.  I’ll be planting my herbs tomorrow and working on my book and in the afternoon sometime we’ll go for a walk. 
Those are my boldest plans for the future.  Other items on my agenda include learning not to worry about what comes next, getting used to feeling loved, and not being afraid all of the time that affection will be stolen away from me in the night…or in broad daylight, for that matter.  Wish me luck!

Sometimes it feels as though we’re met with roadblocks at every turn.  Just as I was in the midst of elucidating and analyzing my love life, unfulfilling to the point of necessarily becoming imaginary, as you well know, dear reader…just as I was simmering the sum up, he came along…in the flesh.  The man I love.  Get that one and you get your name in the paper, as my father used to say of a seven-ten split. 

Solving the problem, as it were, in the middle of defining it leaves me at a disadvantage in this third installment.  I suppose the question becomes whether or not I met the man as a result of focusing so much attention on my issues with men.  Or perhaps it was simply the right time for both of us.  I don’t pretend to understand.  I do know I’ve been retraining my radar when it comes to attraction, wanting to focus on people who will be better for me and to me.  Looking back on what I’d been looking for over the years and who I’d been reeling in…well, it’s about time I started looking out for myself.

Although I feel I’ve finally resigned from the Fantasy Future Ex game, there may still be lessons to be learned through examination.  You see, there were things about Henry Rollins that appealed to me significantly, painful as it is to admit in hindsight, because I wanted them for myself.  It was his career in particular and also partially his notoriety.  He made enough money and got enough attention to start his own publishing company while touring both his band and spoken word act.  Then he got a radio show and then his TV show on IFC.  He’s the kind of entertainer who people feel passionately about.  They show up, not necessarily because of his latest film or record, but because they can’t get enough of Henry.  He is his own brand. 

For me, that was a larger part of the infatuation than I wanted to see while it was in full swing.  I think I also liked the idea of the age gap.  While Henry turned 45 this month, I am 33.  The potential experience gained in that nearly dozen-year difference seemed reassuring.  I see now that I liked picturing myself with someone who had established himself in a manner I eventually wanted to meet.  I suspect this is not uncommon.  And in reality, I don’t even want a profile that high…just, you know, slightly more than six readers, someday.

Oddly enough, my real live here-to-stay boyfriend was born exactly a week after Henry.  And while I’m enjoying the age gap, it’s less about gained experience than accrued maturity.  He asks me why we didn’t meet a decade or more ago and I remind him he was Hell-on-wheels in his thirties.  He’s established himself in his field, a creative one at that, making a living as a painter for twenty years now and touring for a bit with a rock band in his wilder days.  But what I find more important is the way he treats me and feels about me and that he can and does articulate those feelings.  Still, I appreciate that these intimate riches could not come, at least not as easily, without the collective boon of professional approval and life lessons learned.

My bottom line, I suppose, is something along the lines of: fantasy is good, examination is better yet, but there will always be mystery…something beyond any bottom line.  Would you have it any other way?