Collected Lies

Paul and I were helping Rachel carry a bag full of stuff left over from a weekend vacation in Plain. It was heavy and we each carried it in one hand and eventually my whole arm hurt but we got it home. Lucy joined us later at Rachel’s place, sitting on the roof of the building under stars that are only clear the way they are in the fall, and I was gesturing with my hand and she said, “Martin, your hand is shaking.”

Everyone went silent for a while as we looked at my trembling hand. I said, “Must have been from carrying that stuff for Rachel,” and Rachel apologized half-heartedly and left to go make some hot chocolate. The conversation continued after that without mentioning it but after a while I held my arm just so, so it would shake like it was earlier. Lucy took my hand in hers without saying anything.

It was a cold evening and the hot chocolate helped, and eventually we were just quiet in the late October sky, listening to the city and watching the stars.

Posted by martin at 21 October, 2008 (15:43) | [ ] | No comments

Yesterday it was warm for a while, so Martin and I walked to the coffeeshop and sat on the curb drinking our coffees in the watery October sun. We expressed a hope that we would find the mysterious person from his story, although of course we both knew that we wouldn’t. We made up stories for everyone who passed us to go inside, why they might be the one who was trapped and what it was that was trapping them.

After a while it got rainy, one of those hard, sudden rains that comes from nowhere and disappears within minutes, so we went inside to wait for it to pass. We sat at a table in the back corner, and on the table there was a napkin covered in a darkly-inked drawing of pretty much everything under the sun. It was a tangle of zig-zag fences, broken umbrellas, snaky giraffes, wine bottles, circus tents, and half-bare trees and in the middle in a tiny white space marked with an X it said ‘You Are Here’. It seemed important, a little like a clue, so I took it home with me.

Posted by lucy at 16 October, 2008 (11:52) | [ ] | No comments

I think I remember what I was trying to say while I was sick before. There was a coffee shop I’d gone to just before I really got sick–I had a scratchy throat and I was hoping something hot would make it go away. It seldom does, but it’s always worth a shot.

It was a quiet new place around Roosevelt Square, I think, with a lot of dark wood and some old books and generally an atmosphere to which bookstores ought to aspire. It was chilly enough out that I didn’t want to go out until I’d finished so I waited there and drank my coffee. I wasn’t trying to watch any of the people or eavesdrop but I heard a snippet of conversation anyway.

“I’m just trying to find my way out of here. I feel sort of trapped.”

“Yeah . . .”

I looked around but didn’t see where the conversation was coming from. Nobody had walked past or anything. Maybe I just didn’t look in the right place. Which is everything when it comes to people, really. It makes sense if you just look in the right places. I tried to listen for another snatch of conversation, something else that might give me a clue to what was going on. But the voices never seemed to come up again and I was left puzzling over that.

I think I got really sick the next day and I tried to tell Lucy and it never quite worked out. She’s not home right now so I’m writing it down so I can’t forget again.

Posted by martin at 8 October, 2008 (21:42) | [ ] | No comments

When Martin was sick last week, he was trying to tell me some story, something I think that happened to him the week before. He seemed to think it was very important that I know he was at a coffeeshop, but he never really got any further than that. He would fall asleep or give up or I would get bored of waiting for the introduction to be over.

When he was better I asked him what the story was and he didn’t remember. I guess it wasn’t important anymore, or maybe it was never really a story to begin with. He told me another story instead, about people-watching at a record store. It was probably better than the coffeeshop story; but I can’t help hoping he’ll find that story too. Martin’s stories are always good, except when he forgets to tell the end.

Posted by lucy at 29 September, 2008 (15:25) | [ ] | No comments

The past week or so I’ve had one of the horrible illnesses I tend to get around September every year–sore throat, congestion, fever. It’s hard to write when you are wasting away and delirious anyway, but I made a few attempts, mostly incoherent, nothing substantial or lasting or anything I could wrap my fevered brain around.

Lucy took care of me, which she probably shouldn’t have done, but my protests wouldn’t have held weight even if I was healthy. I’m glad she was there and real. I never remember much about my bouts with illness after–it all sort of runs together in the end. But there are things I don’t forget, and some things, left in the pockets of old corduroy jackets, that I can look forward to remembering.

Posted by martin at 23 September, 2008 (10:36) | [ ] | No comments

This morning we were both getting ready to leave, putting on two of Martin’s jackets together (I use Martin’s old corduroy jacket and he had just unearthed the one he got last spring), when Martin stuck his hand in the left-pocket and discovered a little box full of things I had left there when it got too hot for jackets. Some of them were memories– a movie ticket that I’d sketched us on while the previews played, a tiny shell from the beach in Oregon– and some were just random treasures; there was a charm that I found on the sidewalk, shaped like an octopus and it was tiny but it had a worried face on it that I had sometimes seen on Martin. There was also a note, rolled into a scroll and tied with a tiny bit of green thread.

I laughed and left while he was still looking everything over; I didn’t want to be standing around while he was reading the note. It mentions that there’s another old note, much older, in the front pocket of the jacket I wear, but Martin will have to catch it before he can read it.

Posted by lucy at 11 September, 2008 (19:12) | [ ] | 1 comment

There is a waterfront amphitheatre of sorts on Greenlake. I’ve walked by it a few times when I was wandering around at night, looking for someplace to watch a storm. I’ve never been a fan of exploring parks by day, but at night it feels like the whole place is your own. So tonight I took Lucy to see a little independent movie and after walked down to the waterfront. We walked in and sat down on the seats and pretended there was a race going on–or just watched the stars and the city lights reflect in the water, which was pretty still despite the rain.

Sometimes all I seem to do is think about the past and the future–thinking of the wonderful times in the past wistfully, imagining how to make the future awesome, and I’m never just happy with right now. I’ve made this observation before, I’m sure. But tonight, this week, was about as perfect as it gets–and instead of worrying about it later or worrying that it would never end I decided, just this once, to let the moment be all there was.

I jumped when Lucy threw something into the water. There was a splash, and little dark ripples, and I didn’t ask her what it was. It couldn’t have mattered, anyway.

Posted by martin at 6 September, 2008 (00:25) | [ ] | No comments

Halfway through this afternoon, I started wondering why we had to do something special, or something new, to make this 4th of September a day we could remember three years later; couldn’t we just do small nice things? But then I thought about days I remembered from three years ago and realized there weren’t really any.

Martin met me coming home from work, and we dodged through some side streets and explored the city, especially alleys and storefronts, holding hands and walking closer together as it got dark. We raced down residential streets and cuddled breathlessly on a park bench. It was 9:00 by then, and I was starving, so we stopped at a diner and got sandwiches.

After that, we were walking home, slowly and out of energy, and there’s an old Anglican church a few blocks away from our place. When we passed it, we saw that a lonely light was burning in the chapel, and the windows were open and someone was playing organ quietly. We sat on the cold concrete steps among the cigarette butts and listened, leaning against the heavy old door. Martin told me a story about a man who thought he was turning into a ghost, and I told him that I couldn’t remember any of my other September 4ths, but that I would make sure to remember this one. He said he thought I liked forgetting things. “No,” I said. “I don’t usually think about the past, but I like to know I can remember it if I want to. Only ghosts have no history.” I asked him if he could remember any of his September 4ths, but I fell asleep on his shoulder when he was answering; I’ll remember to ask him later.

Posted by lucy at 4 September, 2008 (18:48) | [ ] | No comments

Tonight it was cold and windy out–it has been for a while, at night, anyway. When it was dark and Lucy was home from the store, I handed her a jacket (one of my old corduroy jackets she had appropriated and made hers) and I put on my brown plaid jacket. She grabbed a woolen blanket I’ve had for years. There was an incomplete house, done enough that you could walk around inside but there was only wood on the floors, and I took her there. I had my flashlight with me so we walked up the stairs and sat on the floors, looking out the window at the little residential neighborhood. The house was on a hill so we got a pretty good view.

The wind was picking up and the trees were rustling, and we had the blanket wrapped around us against the chill. Sometimes, rarely, a car drove past. Nobody saw us in the little unfinished house, hiding from the wind, watching a little residential neighborhood sleeping. And for our part we didn’t talk much. Any conversation we tried to have would have felt so… unfinished.

Posted by martin at 4 September, 2008 (01:07) | [ ] | No comments

I woke Martin up early, this morning, reminding him of our quest to make magic out of the next week; I am pretty good at waking up early when the mood takes me. Martin let me wake him but didn’t get up, preferring to doze in the splintery light of the sunrise. He should know better than to make me excited.

I wanted to paint, while it was still cold so that droplets collected on the windows and still quiet, and I wanted to paint orange. I rolled back our rug and spread out paper, lying on my stomach to sketch and mixing orange paint and blue. I painted a autumn blue sky, a fall tree like a gnome might live under and standing under it, a boy with silly eyes and a girl with black hair that went everywhere around her head in curls. By then it was getting pretty light out, and Martin got up and sat sleepily on the floor. I conscripted him to cut out words from magazines for me, to say:

2 little whos
(he and she)
under are this
wonderful tree 

and

(2 little ams
and over them this
aflame with dreams
incredible is)

We had to cut ‘aflame’ out of individual letters because it is never in any magazines. Whenever Martin’s hands came within range, I painted orange paint on them. I said it was an auspicious way to begin, Martin said it was more messy. It didn’t really matter; only that we had begun mattered. AFLAME was spread out neatly beside my painting in uneven letters like a floorboard prophecy.

Posted by lucy at 2 September, 2008 (19:19) | [ ] | No comments