when he was well

goodybe Pablito

Pablo spent the last days of his short life outside, where he enjoyed listening to the sounds of the night, with the people who loved him petting and brushing his decimated body with a soft brush.

His family and friends gathered the night before he was to be euthanized at the veterinarian’s office. To many people who have never experienced a pet relationship, this get together might not be understood, but for the people who loved Pablo, it made perfect sense.

It was a way to say goodbye and share our grief with each other. It was our way of coping with the loss of such a vibrant cat.

The Lint Graveyard

This is the kind of thing I find fascinating!

A mended regret

My war with As I Lay Dying began at least a decade ago. I can hardly remember my exact age at the time. I remember that it was the first Faulkner book I'd attempted. I was encouraged by my then voracious biblophile boyfriend who had long since digested that great book and has since read tomes I might never be able to pry open.

I remember reading the first few chapters. I remember not understanding what was going on. And then I put the book down.

I encountered Faulkner again in the supportive environs of a writing class in pursuit of my degree in writing. The book was Go Down Moses and it came with a geneology printout, a list of vocabulary and a stern warning from my teacher. Apparently, the word had gotten around that Faulkner was "difficult to read." Our teacher assured us that we would take things slow and answer lots of questions. But read it we did. And I found that Faulkner was not so bad to read. And that I had lived a little helped immensely.

And so, I went to a bookstore to rescue that forgotten title, but again it was too much to bear. After just ten pages, I could not understand it, so it went onto one of my many bookshelves and languished there, forgotten again.

When I moved in with Eric the first time, I had to pare down many of my belongings into a category I will call Things I Cannot Fathom Never Seeing Again. So I parted ways with that book once more.

Last summer I was successfully reading Faulkner (as you may well remember) and I made the purchase of that same book again. This time I vowed I would read it no matter what. In fact, I devised an elaborate plan to read it in a supported way, this time with my own little writing group. Because neither of my companions had no interest whatsoever in that book at all, it floundered in my world once more.

I attempted to read it in the travel time I have to and from work, a tactic that has served me well with many many many other books, but this book could not be treated that way. It demanded a detail of attention and a focus that I simply could not give it on a crowded bus in the middle of summer.

I left it sitting out to guilt me into reading it; it sat in my hallway near the door for two months. So I finally picked it up again one night. I discovered that I had read nearly half of it and did want to keep reading. I think it was the word "moiling" that really intrigued me. It took another couple of weeks, but I have finally finished this book that has haunted me for years.

It is funny. I had a similar, though not as lengthy, experience with Cosmicomics by Italo Calvino. And other books that I have really loved were wrestling matches as well. I rallied through East of Eden because I knew from experience with Steinbeck that something good would come out of it. And now I have wiped away the burden of my deepest book regret and finished that book.

It left me the way many of Faulkner's books do: envious, humbled and exhilarated. And if Oprah can read it, well then so can anyone.

the truth about her

I'd almost forgotten her. The sting of her stealing his heart and discarding it so easily had begun to diminish. She had him so completely and left him aching. He gave her his entire self in the form of absolute truth, a thing I could never have with him because we were never friends first. And then she said a firm no to his advances and I was roused back into life from the dead.

That we live on a street that is her name seems to me no small coincidence. The apartment has its charms and I try to forget that part. Anyway, he chose it and it is something I will never be able to understand, but I accept it.

That they worked together in such closeness drove me insane, but I managed to keep that turmoil deep inside my brain.

And then, one day he left and it was done. There was no mention of her. She was not his coworker. She was just a name. She was just a memory.

And then she had something to share, some photographic event that she sent via text. He pretended he was not interested. And I tried to forget that she was a name in his phone and not just a random sequence of numbers that she had been once.

A few days went by and I had forgotten her again. I was at my favorite bar with my favorite people. I had my hair down and my smile on. And then she appeared in the doorway with her girlfriend.

When people muse that time has the ability to stop completely in a moment with a significant pause and then stagger to regain its balance and then accelerate to make up the difference, well yes, I believe it can. It did in that moment.

She may or may not have seen me. It was busy there in the bar. And I made no attempts to welcome her or greet her, even when she passed my table. I wanted to grab her by the hair and demand answers, instead I felt like I was going to vomit or pass out from the adrenaline rush. And she passed me, with her manly companion and I let her pass.

Later, after the bar had cleared, after the booze had settled into my limbs, I wandered back into the bar with a friend to catch a glimpse of her. The friend casually glanced. She went to the bathroom and there was no way she could pretend not to notice me. So she walked past me and I knew that there was still something there in her heart for him. If there wasn't she could freely gallivant all over me, victorious, greedy, malicious, but there was something in her that did not want to be hurt by me.

Sometimes I wonder why she could not let him in. He was certainly willing. She was eager to share his world in many ways. They went on trips and had great times. I never imagined that it was because he still loved me. Sometimes I pretend it must be something else, but there is no pain greater than knowing you cannot possess someone completely.

Navy Pier