The windows in your apartment face North, away from the park. You’d be disappointed, you tell me, if you didn’t know that the other buildings around you were taller, obstructing the view to the South. In the morning (before your alarm goes off) I lie awake and watch the sun rising over the sprawl of Central Harlem—your hand gently, sleepily, cautiously creeping across the small of my back.
“What color would you say your eyes are?” you asked me last night, gazing directly into them as if for the first time in the years we have known each other. (Things are different now, I know).
“What do you think?” I return—tactful as I attempt to crane my neck outside of myself to see from your perspective. To no avail.
“Hazel, maybe.” I shrug—unaccustomed to the way you pay such careful attention to every detail of me. I blink and you’ve counted the freckles on each of my eyelids.
You linger over your morning playlist, brewing coffee in the French press, careful to select just the right song for the moment. You test the temperature of the shower before allowing me to step in.
“It takes a while to heat up,” you say, apologetic. “Until suddenly…”
Reminds me of something.
It’s threatening to rain any second now. The trees are getting greener before my eyes. I think of you with such frequency and intensity it’s almost frightening. (I see your reflection in the puddles on the sidewalk and I startle).
Cowards. The both of us.
“You’re really hard to read sometimes,” you tell me between a Marlboro gold and a sip of Bud Light. I know. (The moment you turn your back I dance. The moment you are not listening, I scream).
Still I tell you, “I know. I’m sorry” I lie. “I try not to be.”
If only your mother had told you when you were younger that a watched pot never boils.
It takes a while to heat up. Until suddenly…
When you were younger you made a vow to never tell anyone anything ever again. Now, what have I done to you? You give yourself away without ever saying a word. Come here.
Things are different now, I know.
Come here and sit with me on the couch. I don’t want to move from this spot. Play me your favorite song instead of the song you think I’d like. Let me see your apartment all messy and unprepared for my arrival.
Show me yours and I’ll show you mine.
Hazel, maybe.
To have studied my eyes so intensely and still guess at their color is to be too close to the brushstrokes to see the full painting. The rain will fall, and the water will boil, and everything will be as it should be in good time. I promise.
I think the view from your north-facing windows is incredible. And I wish you weren’t so hard on yourself.
It takes a while. Things are different now. Come here. I know.
- - - - -
Cinse: "tactful as I attempt to crane my neck outside of myself to see from your perspective. To no avail." and "Come here. I know." This all is the essence of all the kinds of relationships. I love how you captured it.
The front window of my childhood home was framed by my grandfather. I trace my fingers down the warm wood holding it in place and remember his hands as we crafted birdhouses together. I recall the way he supported the small structure as he encouraged me to nail it in place, on a tree nearest the window so we could watch birds together.
Through the glass pane, I view what remains of the gardens my grandmother planted. I can almost still see her bent over, fingers in the earth, caring for sprouts. I used to think her gardens were magical, the blooms stretching to the heavens.
As I child, I lived with my parents and grandparents. Four generations of my family have now looked out those windows.
When an ice storm felled the old hickory tree nearest the window, I rushed to my parents’ house and found the birdhouse crushed under the weight of the tree. I ran my hand over the rough bark and gently lifted the front piece of the house. Tracing the circular entryway with my finger, I imagined the generations of nestlings that got their first look at the world through that little window, the little platform from which they took their flight. I realized I wasn’t ready to let go. Rather, I gathered what fragments I could so that I could repair it with my daughters.
When my father was stronger, when his behavior was challenging, I reminded myself that he was my grandmother’s son, and she wouldn’t want me to turn away from him.
Last week, I looked out those windows as my father had a phone appointment with his oncologist. “I’m sorry, there’s nothing more we can do,” she gently told him. A large shadow passed in front of the glass, up and then back down. My eyes scanned, and I saw a flutter in the bushes. A cardinal sat just outside the window, fluffing its feathers and quietly looking in. We sat watching one another for a time, and its presence soothed me.
We had a hospital bed delivered, and I helped to assemble it so that he could see out the front window. Getting him out of his chair and into the bed, took all my strength. His knees started to buckle, and I summoned all my energy to guide him. As his weight shifted to the mattress, I felt a weight lift, of greater substance than a body. It was the weight of keeping a promise that was never asked of me, never uttered from my lips, but spoken with my heart.
- - - -
Kathy: Beautifully crafted piece packing volumes into a few tangible images and rich story line. Heartfelt and tender. Thanks for sharing!
Cinse: Seeing the world through the eyes of those we love, those we inhabit this plane with whether we are people or birds. Beautiful.
When I think about it, the beginning of the end, began with the sofa. I remember when we got it, how we stood there, bickering, the salesman shifting one leg to the other, clearing his throat. In the end you agreed to my way, the room was too small for yours.
Five years we sat on that sofa, you, uncomfortable, scowling on the stiff, taupe fabric. ‘We should have got the cream one,’ you grumbled on and off for years. I said nothing as I fed the baby, looking down and focusing on her sweet downy head. You picked imaginary fluff angrily off the arm, wearing it away. As she grew, the drops of sweet milk replaced by toast fingers, cushions which once had that new, plasticky smell a little stale, but softer.
Eventually we gave it up, you sank down on it in the car park as grey drizzle filled the restless air. ‘I didn’t realise how comfortable it was, I don’t want to give it up now.’ You said. I wrestled it into my too small car. I stared silently at you in the rearview mirror as I drove off. It’s too late now. I thought.
*
And now, here we are. Her party is over, the last pretence before I am to leave. I stop and look at you, sitting on the garden sofa. I begin again, collecting the empty shells of balloons, stretching half-deflated ones until they pop. Muffled fireworks. You watch me intently as I bend, as I scrape. It’s too late for that now. I think. I collect other rubbish, broken pencils, a lego, a bottle top— our remains. Moments flash before my eyes, except I am not dying.
I walk over, sit down. The waterproof fabric stretches. We sit, both of us staring at the still garden. I turn to you, there is a light in your eyes I’ve never seen before. The blue-swirled clouds reflected in the fat tears are full of sunlight. I’d faded, behind you. A balloon drifted over the roof of the house, that would be yours. We watched as it moved away, you said: ‘Not all balloons float.’
I said nothing. I couldn’t. Because I’d already jumped, just in case the balloon got too high.
- - - - - - -
Kathy: Great opening with “beginning of the end, began with the sofa.” Invites us right in with a piece of knowledge to consider throughout the piece—creating a tension. Thanks for sharing!
Cinse: "...the room was too small for yours" says it all. "our remains" - we recognize them when we see them, don't we?
“You don’t fall in love with men, Cinse", the rabbi told me, “you fall in love with the best version of them that they can be.” He told me that I looked into mens’ eyes and saw their souls striving to come into the light.
I had to admit to myself that this was true. What was also true was that I was a serial exorcist. I wasn’t trying to draw forth demons but rather to invite the scared but sacred self at their core to come out and play. Perhaps this sound ridiculous or grandiose to you. It kind of did to me too but then I realized it was something of a family curse or blessing. (Call it what you will depending on the day and your mood. That’s what I do.)
You see my son lives under this same fairy blessing/curse. Of course, as my dad used to say, he is the new improved generation, so he’s learning about all of this much faster than I ever did. Thankfully he has me to vent to. I’m full of good advise and can provide a filter removal service for him. He’s traveled quickly through believing he had to rescue people. He has mostly stopped rending his garments when someone begins to wake to their glorious self and then it all becomes too much for them and they leave. He has learned that seeing what could be doesn’t always mean you can make it so, especially not about someone else’s life.
Learning what we can control, what we shouldn’t try to control isn’t only aided by misbehaving plumbing or technology. But isn’t that the magic, that we don’t orchestrate our own lives? We’re not conductors. We’re passengers. We can get off any particular train and board another. We can take the package tour - boring and reductive to me but available if one wishes to go that route. Or, we can just wander through the ordinary in a way that makes it feel extraordinary. We can choose how to react to whatever we stumble upon. Love is sometimes a restaurant you never want to leave and other times just a tasty morsel offered and accepted, but it’s all good.
The frogs and the birds already know this. Time perhaps for us to catch up.
Maisie
north facing windows (don't look away)
The windows in your apartment face North, away from the park. You’d be disappointed, you tell me, if you didn’t know that the other buildings around you were taller, obstructing the view to the South. In the morning (before your alarm goes off) I lie awake and watch the sun rising over the sprawl of Central Harlem—your hand gently, sleepily, cautiously creeping across the small of my back.
“What color would you say your eyes are?” you asked me last night, gazing directly into them as if for the first time in the years we have known each other. (Things are different now, I know).
“What do you think?” I return—tactful as I attempt to crane my neck outside of myself to see from your perspective. To no avail.
“Hazel, maybe.” I shrug—unaccustomed to the way you pay such careful attention to every detail of me. I blink and you’ve counted the freckles on each of my eyelids.
You linger over your morning playlist, brewing coffee in the French press, careful to select just the right song for the moment. You test the temperature of the shower before allowing me to step in.
“It takes a while to heat up,” you say, apologetic. “Until suddenly…”
Reminds me of something.
It’s threatening to rain any second now. The trees are getting greener before my eyes. I think of you with such frequency and intensity it’s almost frightening. (I see your reflection in the puddles on the sidewalk and I startle).
Cowards. The both of us.
“You’re really hard to read sometimes,” you tell me between a Marlboro gold and a sip of Bud Light. I know. (The moment you turn your back I dance. The moment you are not listening, I scream).
Still I tell you, “I know. I’m sorry” I lie. “I try not to be.”
If only your mother had told you when you were younger that a watched pot never boils.
It takes a while to heat up. Until suddenly…
When you were younger you made a vow to never tell anyone anything ever again. Now, what have I done to you? You give yourself away without ever saying a word. Come here.
Things are different now, I know.
Come here and sit with me on the couch. I don’t want to move from this spot. Play me your favorite song instead of the song you think I’d like. Let me see your apartment all messy and unprepared for my arrival.
Show me yours and I’ll show you mine.
Hazel, maybe.
To have studied my eyes so intensely and still guess at their color is to be too close to the brushstrokes to see the full painting. The rain will fall, and the water will boil, and everything will be as it should be in good time. I promise.
I think the view from your north-facing windows is incredible. And I wish you weren’t so hard on yourself.
It takes a while. Things are different now. Come here. I know.
- - - - -
Cinse: "tactful as I attempt to crane my neck outside of myself to see from your perspective. To no avail." and "Come here. I know." This all is the essence of all the kinds of relationships. I love how you captured it.
Katherine
The front window of my childhood home was framed by my grandfather. I trace my fingers down the warm wood holding it in place and remember his hands as we crafted birdhouses together. I recall the way he supported the small structure as he encouraged me to nail it in place, on a tree nearest the window so we could watch birds together.
Through the glass pane, I view what remains of the gardens my grandmother planted. I can almost still see her bent over, fingers in the earth, caring for sprouts. I used to think her gardens were magical, the blooms stretching to the heavens.
As I child, I lived with my parents and grandparents. Four generations of my family have now looked out those windows.
When an ice storm felled the old hickory tree nearest the window, I rushed to my parents’ house and found the birdhouse crushed under the weight of the tree. I ran my hand over the rough bark and gently lifted the front piece of the house. Tracing the circular entryway with my finger, I imagined the generations of nestlings that got their first look at the world through that little window, the little platform from which they took their flight. I realized I wasn’t ready to let go. Rather, I gathered what fragments I could so that I could repair it with my daughters.
When my father was stronger, when his behavior was challenging, I reminded myself that he was my grandmother’s son, and she wouldn’t want me to turn away from him.
Last week, I looked out those windows as my father had a phone appointment with his oncologist. “I’m sorry, there’s nothing more we can do,” she gently told him. A large shadow passed in front of the glass, up and then back down. My eyes scanned, and I saw a flutter in the bushes. A cardinal sat just outside the window, fluffing its feathers and quietly looking in. We sat watching one another for a time, and its presence soothed me.
We had a hospital bed delivered, and I helped to assemble it so that he could see out the front window. Getting him out of his chair and into the bed, took all my strength. His knees started to buckle, and I summoned all my energy to guide him. As his weight shifted to the mattress, I felt a weight lift, of greater substance than a body. It was the weight of keeping a promise that was never asked of me, never uttered from my lips, but spoken with my heart.
- - - -
Kathy: Beautifully crafted piece packing volumes into a few tangible images and rich story line. Heartfelt and tender. Thanks for sharing!
Cinse: Seeing the world through the eyes of those we love, those we inhabit this plane with whether we are people or birds. Beautiful.
B (CG - Crazy Gnome)
Prompt – Love
When I think about it, the beginning of the end, began with the sofa. I remember when we got it, how we stood there, bickering, the salesman shifting one leg to the other, clearing his throat. In the end you agreed to my way, the room was too small for yours.
Five years we sat on that sofa, you, uncomfortable, scowling on the stiff, taupe fabric. ‘We should have got the cream one,’ you grumbled on and off for years. I said nothing as I fed the baby, looking down and focusing on her sweet downy head. You picked imaginary fluff angrily off the arm, wearing it away. As she grew, the drops of sweet milk replaced by toast fingers, cushions which once had that new, plasticky smell a little stale, but softer.
Eventually we gave it up, you sank down on it in the car park as grey drizzle filled the restless air. ‘I didn’t realise how comfortable it was, I don’t want to give it up now.’ You said. I wrestled it into my too small car. I stared silently at you in the rearview mirror as I drove off. It’s too late now. I thought.
*
And now, here we are. Her party is over, the last pretence before I am to leave. I stop and look at you, sitting on the garden sofa. I begin again, collecting the empty shells of balloons, stretching half-deflated ones until they pop. Muffled fireworks. You watch me intently as I bend, as I scrape. It’s too late for that now. I think. I collect other rubbish, broken pencils, a lego, a bottle top— our remains. Moments flash before my eyes, except I am not dying.
I walk over, sit down. The waterproof fabric stretches. We sit, both of us staring at the still garden. I turn to you, there is a light in your eyes I’ve never seen before. The blue-swirled clouds reflected in the fat tears are full of sunlight. I’d faded, behind you. A balloon drifted over the roof of the house, that would be yours. We watched as it moved away, you said: ‘Not all balloons float.’
I said nothing. I couldn’t. Because I’d already jumped, just in case the balloon got too high.
- - - - - - -
Kathy: Great opening with “beginning of the end, began with the sofa.” Invites us right in with a piece of knowledge to consider throughout the piece—creating a tension. Thanks for sharing!
Cinse: "...the room was too small for yours" says it all. "our remains" - we recognize them when we see them, don't we?
Cinse:
“You don’t fall in love with men, Cinse", the rabbi told me, “you fall in love with the best version of them that they can be.” He told me that I looked into mens’ eyes and saw their souls striving to come into the light.
I had to admit to myself that this was true. What was also true was that I was a serial exorcist. I wasn’t trying to draw forth demons but rather to invite the scared but sacred self at their core to come out and play. Perhaps this sound ridiculous or grandiose to you. It kind of did to me too but then I realized it was something of a family curse or blessing. (Call it what you will depending on the day and your mood. That’s what I do.)
You see my son lives under this same fairy blessing/curse. Of course, as my dad used to say, he is the new improved generation, so he’s learning about all of this much faster than I ever did. Thankfully he has me to vent to. I’m full of good advise and can provide a filter removal service for him. He’s traveled quickly through believing he had to rescue people. He has mostly stopped rending his garments when someone begins to wake to their glorious self and then it all becomes too much for them and they leave. He has learned that seeing what could be doesn’t always mean you can make it so, especially not about someone else’s life.
Learning what we can control, what we shouldn’t try to control isn’t only aided by misbehaving plumbing or technology. But isn’t that the magic, that we don’t orchestrate our own lives? We’re not conductors. We’re passengers. We can get off any particular train and board another. We can take the package tour - boring and reductive to me but available if one wishes to go that route. Or, we can just wander through the ordinary in a way that makes it feel extraordinary. We can choose how to react to whatever we stumble upon. Love is sometimes a restaurant you never want to leave and other times just a tasty morsel offered and accepted, but it’s all good.
The frogs and the birds already know this. Time perhaps for us to catch up.