Still, you looked

I've been working for the Hot Dog King for three weeks now, maybe more. Today we damn near came to blows over how mustard should be applied to a dog. I felt that on top of the kraut with my zig zag sizzle would be fine, he insisted on laying it down underneath. "It's my signature", he said to me. I told him that that zig zag was mine. I felt that walking away was the better of two evils. Two artists in the kitchen and two men with entirely too much time on their hands. We both really, truly need to get back to work.

Work. It seems I lack impetus to do things like the cart anymore. I feel I am constantly shoveling memory aside. putting away the thrills, pain and daily glories of paid employment in order to be able to find meaning and worth in things like selling dogs on the weekends. It's under the radar cash, sure, but it's sustenance in the way that the free day old bread and the commodities are at the food bank. It's not something I can or want to get used to, no matter how fun or unusual or "cool" it may seem to be.

Sure, there is that entreprenueral edge that working the cart shows the world. A thumbing of the nose. A big "fuck you" to the corporate giants. A little man against the world who, if he had the right spot and didn't mind slinging nitrated meats seven days a week, might make it. Might being the key operand word.

But that takes me back to this morning and the shouting down of mustand laying technique. I am not a boss. I am not an owner. I am used to working in a business where collaborative thinking is the law of the land, the rule of the road. I am sometimes deathly afraid that my words here to you somehow poisoned the well forever, that no matter what I say or do or how much time goes by that somehow because I wore my heart on my sleeve here to you, hell, still do, that the hounds of unemployment will continue to bay and nip at my heels.

To that end and because I need the ready cash I continue to work a place that was once a key stop on the Stations of the Cross. It wasn't a hot spot, not like Freddies, but we had a few moments there. Buying beer in the cooler, running into each other at the register after a breakup, sharing coffee under the overhang, the very same overhang that I work under each weekend. So, instead of laying down my mustard squeezer and walking away I'll continue to stand there two days a week, six to seven hours a day, shilling dogs. I stand there, most of the time just waiting. I stand there and think too much, worry too much, somehow allowing for a bit of fatigue but mostly boredome to set in. I get to the end of the day wondering if and when I'll see you, when I'll catch you and yours shopping.

As a matter of fact I shouldn't have seen you there at all today. I was late getting out. I stuck it out until five, waiting for the King to return from the airport. Seems like his dear's baggage was late getting out of the hold of the jet. No matter, it was raining and I didn't feel like running home to pack up the house, so I waited, found a comfortable spot on top of the kindling. The sun was down, the vapor lights glowed, the parking lot was humming with hungry traffic, the rain came down in light fits and starts then committed itself to a constant drizzle. I was watching the Scouts work their magic with the stream of customers, touting for a food drive, when over my right shoulder I saw The Detective heading across the parking lot. It was a double take and then I knew for sure he was heading my way, least ways, toward the direction of the store door.

It was then that I saw you.

It's funny, well, not funny, how I never see you two walking together, that when you have your children with you you are always there with one of your girls by your side. They seem to be your life raft, a way of staying afloat, above some sea of pain or hurt or sadness. Yes, sadness. I don't see that old joy there in your stride. It wasn't there in your step, in your face. You continued to come on, your girls hesitated at the film rental kiosk then one of them went inside with your man. You gave it a beat, studied the menu options and left one of your girls behind to figure out what to rent. As you walked through the door I called out your name, you looked up with a smile,not knowing who it was, saw me sitting there, blanched and then ducked inside, as if afraid to be caught talking to me.

It was over in a second, but I had a long panoramic shot of you crossing the void, coming into the light and then disappearing once again back into the world, a world that knows your words, your smile, your heartbeat. It was enough for me.

It was as if I had attended a prize fight in Vegas, one of those quick, one round jobs, the kind where the old wheezy heavyweight champion goes into the ring with the new practically untried prizefighter. No one ever expects for the champ to go down, least way, not so fast. I took it on the chin, then decided to fetch some canned goods out of my car for the Scouts. A man has to have a bit of pride. So I gathered the goods out of my trunk and headed back to the overhang. That's when I saw you and your entourage heading out of the market, back to your car. I saw the whole family dynamic at work, the Detective steaming ahead to the car, you and your girls hanging back. One thing though was telling, I saw you turn your head towards the place where I was sitting. A surreptitious glance, sure, but then you looked down and then up again and resumed a conversation with your girl, not with your man, once again with one of the key reasons why you are still there in that life of yours.

I saw you look, M, and once again I saw that sadness float up and off of you, away like a vapor trail, like the glowing cigarette smoke I see flowing from the Navy yard smoke stack across the inlet at night. Sharp, bright, insistent, constant and then gone, only to come back again with the next pulse of light, like the pulse of your heartbeat, like that little joy you got knowing that there was man out there who would still call out your name, regardless of whether or not it caused him pain, caused you hurt, or pulled you back into that nameless memory called hope for a beat or two of your ragged heart.

Love, your WHMB

Adios Pat's

One more touchstone gone. Pat's. Another one of those fabled places where we would hang out like outlaws, backs to the wall, always watching the door for friend or foe to enter. A place where we could drink coffee and eat breakfast like lovers, but lovers in the Archie and Betty kind of way. Sipping caffinated beverages instead of highballs, eating toast instead of caviar.

I heard about the bakery's closing while I was hanging out with my Facebook crowd. At first I mixed up the name of the bakery on Callow. It wasn't until this morning that I straightened it all out in my head. And while I don't usually find myself on that side of the world anymore I just figured when I did Pat's would just be part of the equation, that it would always be there, a constant in my old universe, a sort of flat earth map to counteract the realities of a well rounded and not so kind world.

Pat's was part of the makeup of that mythical world we shared, sort of like that corner of the parking lot of Sylvan and Wheaton, sort of like the oversized green love seat we shared at Value Village. Someplaces, somethings live on in the mind. But most of that stuff just goes away when you turn your head and blink.

We did. So did Pat's.

And that's just the way it is.

Goodbye Pat's. You were more than just a chapter in the grand story of our lives, for a time you gave two lovers shelter. Who can ask for more?

Your WHMB

Kitsap Sun story:

http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/2010/feb/03/pats-restaurant-in-east-bremerton-exits-after-29/?partner=yahoo_feeds

Hard choices 1/2007, 1/2010

"Don't you know that if it wasn't for the hard decisions I would be waking up next to your face right now?"

Remember the morning you said that to me, Professora? First week of January. In the parking lot right off of the corner of Sylvan and Wheaton Way. It was cold, early. I didn't tell anyone I was leaving, you were on your way to taking the girls to school. I was pretty fresh off the road from another visit down south. You were just in from another snowy visit to Colorado. We were estranged in only the way that lovers can be. You were close to the edge of breaking things off with me completely once again, yet had just written me one dynamite letter letting me know that you still thought of me daily, that you still had the desire to call, that you wondered whether or not you would do it again. Only moments before, immediately after rolling up alongside my car, you told me, not just once, but twice:

"Yes, I would do it all over again"

What a different woman you were back then, M. Not waving the sad little waves, not rolling by at 25 and pointing at me, but rather, one who didn't mind stopping and hugging and telling me things that still, back in the not so long ago past, would enflame me and keep me going for days and weeks at a time. No wonder I had such a hard time letting go. The mixed messages, the words between the lines, the unspoken poetry of your gazes, the gifts taken, the thank you's neglected.

But when I read today's posting from Tut in my email box I immediately thought of you and our lives and know that the hard decisions we made are the way of the world. The hard choices we made yesterday are the foundation of the hard lived lives we deal with later on in the unforeseen future. I know what those hard choices meant for you and how things turned out for you because of them. Somewhere along the line those choices included unforeseen stuff, including a pact with the Detective that meant giving up a certain sort of freedom, somewhat like giving away part of your soul in order to maintain the peace in order to please your unseen God and maintain your home in that country club setting.

What a bummer.

In the end my hard choices got me lines on my face, a house on the market, my kids at five hundred miles, a very narrow window of time to work with before I leave and a very crazy life well spent, integrity intact. A life lived without you was the given, I suppose. Maybe it was all upfront and I didn't see it. Maybe those hard choices needed to be made, to be lived, in order for me to know, really know, what the ultimate price of true love is.

Your WHMB


A word from TUT:

"Nope. No one on this end is authorized, or even interested, in telling someone on your end when their thoughts are in conflict. Can you blame us? We'd immediately risk being labeled critical, unsupportive, and misguided. Forget it!But that's perfectly all right, Wally, because under the current system everyone eventually discovers truth... either through manifesting so much chaos they're forced to ask the hard questions, or through just plain asking the hard questions from the get-go.

Win-win, sort of.

Love you masses,

The Universe.


PS Roger, introspection is an amazing tool!

Vacuum

Todays is Punkin's birthday.

The cat woke me up early as usual. Some days I don't heed his alarm but today I had an additional mission to handle: I had a birthday song to sing. There was the hour difference for starters, then there's there was the bus she has to catch at eight, her time. Little girls are slow to move in the mornings but the bus waits for no one.

So we talked on the phone a moment ago, exchanged greetings and I wished the best of the day. I figured I didn't need another cake around here so I plan to bake the next best thing: a pan of biscuits. That little girl is mad for biscuits.

While I waiting here in Port Orchard for Punkin to wake up in Boise I flashed on a very significant truth: the key reason why we got involved that long ago summer of 2005 was all because of emotional physics. It was due in part to the loneliness factor that you endured on your end but also due to the immense love vacuum that happened here in this house. When the Estranged One left with the kids on August 5th I breathed a sigh of relief. We were fighting all the time and we needed a break. The tension snapped like a rubber band when I saw that van go down the alley and leave for what I thought was a two week visit. But things changed fast that August. It wasn't more than ten days later when I found out that she had enrolled the kids in school in Boise. "Just to try it out".

You know and I know that those kids mean all the world to me. That they were and are the biggest reasons for living. We both know and understand the non-negotiable status of our children, that they are the reasons why we do the things we do. You took your commitment to this code to a higher level. I may love my children but when I said I loved you, that erased all others before you. You, in turn, untook a bigger, grander option: to love God and place no man before him.

There you go. Kids or no kids there was no arguing with you over that one.

But back to that summer. After I cleaned and straightened up the house I knew one thing for certain, and that was without them this house was empty. Sure, it had furniture and knick-knacks, movies and books and cooking gear, all that, but was lacking it's soul. It felt as if the heart of the house was gone. Where was the noise of little bodies in motion? Where was the shrill jubulation of living? The atomic power of their laughter? I would come home after work, after a turn at the track and wonder what the hell happened. I knew that wearing the black hat meant a lot of things, but marooning me in this house without my kids was not supposed to be one of them.

Then, you came by for coffee.

Was that cup of coffee you brought over from Starbucks that Saturday the speck of planetary dust that started the shift, that knocked all the planets in my universe out of alignment? Or was it your follow up visit, the one where you offered to take me along with you to Silverdale to look at lighting, the one I so graciously backed out of because I was hungover? Or was it our rendevous in Tukwila, the one that took in IKEA and beyond..was that the day that finally put the cart in motion? I know that I've always loved you but what, really, was the catalyst that put the match to the fuse, the one that lit and burned rapidly all the way to the bomb that went up in my face?

Today is Punkins birthday and I will always feel glad for our connection, but equally sad for our long distance relationship. I know that when she and her siblings left my heart went with them. I made a vain attempt to fill that hole in my heart with the love we shared. Somehow the time spent with you became the saving grace of my life. Without you that time apart from my children might have gone differently, would have been more self destructive, less insightful, less of a learning, rebuilding, reinventing period.

And yet because I used that love you shared with me to bondo the holes in my heart this heart of mine could never again belong an other. So be it. You filled the vacuum and others, especially the one who ran away, never had a chance to love me after that, no matter how hard I tried to convince them otherwise.

I woke up this morning knowing it would be a bittersweet day. Every day in this house has been, ever since the kids have gone. Ever since your love decamped.

Such is life. We endure and move forward the best we can.

Happy Birthday, Punkin. Good morning, M.

Your WHMB

I push it

Imagined conversations:

"What are you doing here?" you say to me out of the passenger window from your running car.

"Breathing" I say. "What are you doing here?"

"I live here!"

"Hmmmm. In your car? On that patch of asphalt? If so you better homestead it!"

I took a walk today, a hard walk through the back paths, service roads and boulevards of the Woods. It was too gorgeous a day to squander it at home. Oh, sure, I have a realtor coming on Wednesday to talk about the upcoming listing but the house isn't going on the market until the 1st. Plenty of time to truly square away and strip down this funky pad of mine.

I had to walk, and I told myself that I would start to do it again every day, regardless of the weather or time or my dispostion. I've let too much time go by without a serious push at something. I think my weight is the thing I need to concertrate on for the next few months. I would rather have sweaty clothes hanging off of me after a hard hour or so walk than tight, dry, not so comfy ones while I lounge in the comfort of my easy chair. Fat's not where it's at, baby.

But back to that walk, to that imagined conversation with you. I indulge in them because apparently those are the only kinds I will ever have with you. I saw you today. Hell, I walked along the main thoroughfare fully prepared to take on the Detective or see your kids go running by, but instead, as I looked up and faced the light and adjusted my muffler I saw you bearing down on me instead. And instead of turning away or looking down at the road I stared you down, looked directly into your windshield, into your face. You pointed at me as if to askj me "what the hell are you doing here?" Did I quake? No. Instead I saluted you, Roman style, arm out, stiff, no emotion, no waving, just an extension of my body held out towards your passing car.

And that was it. No stopping, no turning around on the part of either party.

It was if I had passed some sort of test. I believe that something, somewhere has happened to me, something that says that I am now cured, okay, ready to walk even longer walks through life unburdened.

I walk that strip in your neck of the Woods because I can. Because I want to. Because your little community is now part of mine. I walk that walk because it says, when you see me in passing "I don't mind seeing your face". Really, M, I still love to see it, even if it's passing by me at twenty five miles an hour through tinted glass.

I saw your face and walked on, happy for the sunshine, the sweat and the time that passes, the one that cures all ills.

Your WHMB