The Elements You Leave Behind
October 26, 2004
When you leave there are elements that you forget to take with you. I am moving around my apartment and there are the tiny messes- disarranged towels, dirty glasses, a crowded nightstand, and rumpled clothes shoved out of sight. It is the physical elements are easy to remove: the finger prints, the second season of Sopranos on DVD to be returned, the tiny messes, and runnaway beard hair from the time you shaved in my sink. I went to bed last night and my pillow smelled of you ("in a good way" I reassured you on the phone). The apartment was too quiet. I could hear the tapping toes of my neighbor. Pull the sheets over my head and fall into a deep sleep.
It is non-physical elements that are never easy to remove. Although I embrace them, they make me painfully miss you. I drive the same route back and forth to the same coffee shop almost daily now. It is the Bloomsbury equivolent for the occupational therapy study group. Annette and I found ourselves surrounded tonight by 65+ year old fiesty bridge players & last week we observed Elvis inspired poets sing on stage. Yet you and I go there once- to experience a folk trio featuring a woman in a long sleeved black velvet dress heated under stage lights- and that coffee shop suddenly reaks of you. There is you in the corner, watching & analyzing the sound system as I order rasberry chai for the first time. You manipulating your seven letters into a 40 point word. You winning a game of scrabble (just barely) again.
Thank you for sharing a pizza & Sopranos with me after my mega-test day when my mind was literally putty. Thank you for grounding me all week long. Thank you.