I don't have anything else to say

I forgot how to write poetry a long time ago. Sometimes I eat the remnants, to remind me of the unreasonable heart that beats in my reasonable chest.

In the end it's not about what you lack

I took your invitations as more of an offer of distraction or refuge, so no, not thinking like they were demands or anything. Just giving a heads-up that I might not be out and about much for a while, until we get some sort of mutually-agreed-upon child rotation schedule worked out. The last thing I want is to do anything that would foster resentment at this stage.

I get the impression that he feels that I am holding him back somehow, and maybe that's not accurate but he keeps talking about things he wants to do, and somehow it comes around to chaos and the house being messy, and in the end I am left with the feeling that my whole life, my busy distracted child-filled life, is what is incompatible with his vision of how he wants to live. And, as much as I try to simplify, some things are not going to go away. Life is not going to get simple and quiet and un-busy. I am probably not going to re-structure my priorities to match his priorities. I am not going to make my interests secondary to paying attention to a husband. I'm just not, because that is not who I am. It's not that I think he's wrong for wanting someone who prioritizes the same things he does or whose primary focus is their partner, it's just that I am not that person and I don't think I can change that about myself without becoming miserable in the process. I have already become miserable in the process of trying to change things he doesn't like about me, and the problem with that is that he doesn't like me when I'm miserable. Who would? Who could like a miserable partner?

I have seen partnerships that are like what (I think) he wants, where people are so intertwined with each other that it's almost like they're one organism. To be completely honest, I can't relate, and those people actually kind of freak me out.

I am not, inherently, a wife. I am maybe a perfectly good girlfriend, but I like to be alone too much, I will always put fun above housework in my list of priorities, I can't stand to revolve my life and interests around just one other person, and I believe that personal growth is called "personal" for a reason. It's like personal hygiene... I don't expect him to hold my hand while I shave my cooch, and I don't want to hold his hand while he reads about Zen Buddhism or goes to temple or does whatever it is he wants to do. He is not especially interested in my spiritual life, and I don't blame him. My life, his life, with orbits that intersect for a few hours a day. Maybe only a few hours a week. A fairly decent girlfriend. A shitty wife. And you know, many nights I just want to be left alone, to putter or tinker, or waste time, or whatever. My time. I want him to ask me for my time, not assume that it is there for him unless otherwise allocated. I want him to treat me like my friends do, and not presume that the default is that my time is for him. And even while I type this, I am aware that what I am describing is not a husband/wife relationship.

So, who knows. In the end maybe we can continue having a relationship. I don't think it can be the same kind of relationship we have been trying to have, because that relationship isn't working and trying to make it work is making both of us unhappy. Maybe in the end I could be his girlfriend, and not have to try to be a wife. Maybe he can h ave his own home base and I can have my own home base, and we can come to each other with truly mutual respect for each other's independence, and really love each other for what we bring into the relationship, and not resent each other for what we don't.

And I think that maybe I will make this whole thing a blog because then, you know, it's out there. And I can look at it later to remind myself.

He doesn't love me anymore, and it's breaking my heart.

Phoenix

It was an incredible day here, balmy and gorgeous, and we decided to check out the Columbia Slough (http://www.columbiaslough.org/) because we are thinking about "adopting" a section of it. The awesome thing about adopting the Slough is that you get to go out once a month in a canoe or kayak, provided by the Columbia Slough Watershed Council, and you paddle your section and take notes on the changes you observe since the last time you were there.

The Slough has always been a magical place for me. When I was a kid it was just a 15-minute walk from my home... and I was always warned "Stay away from the Slough, don't touch the water or anything that's been in the water, it's filthy and it will make you sick". And at the time, it was true... it was vile, toxic water, polluted with human waste and other less savory things. I used to make the trek down to the Slough anyway, down the street, through the park, through the old part of the neighborhood, through the undeveloped part of the neighborhood, over the highway, across the train tracks, through the industrial strip, through the big chain-link gate, and finally clambering over the landfill to reach the tangled, murky, trash-filled water. I would sit on the city's discards and eat Chick-O-Sticks while watching sickly carp thrash in the warm, stagnant shallows.

Now, the Slough is vastly different. Through the efforts of a small and determined group of conservationists, my Dad among them, the Columbia Slough Watershed Council has gained members and support, and today the Slough is a far different place, with clean waters I don't have to be afraid to dabble my feet in, and frogs and ducks and healthy fish. The banks are lush with greenery instead of garbage, and in the summer droves of people come to paddle their kayaks, canoes, and inflatable rafts. There are two large lakes connected to the Slough, and although enclosed entirely within the industrial region of Portland, they are still oases of nature, screened from the massive Port activities by oaks and cottonwoods.

I am glad to see a place whose magic was evident to me as a child, even through a haze of pollution, restored to a modicum of its original natural beauty.

The girl with a girl's tender heart

She is not malicious. She is not calculating, she is not manipulative. She is not unreasonable. She is not making things up. She is not crying because she is trying to make you feel bad, she is crying because she feels bad.

Look at her. She looks like a girl. A woman, but we call ourselves girls. A mother. She is hard as iron, tough as nails. She endures like a mesa, bends like a fir in strong winds, stands upright after the storm. She is soft; she has curves, warm breasts, smooth arms, a nape on her neck that is made to be nuzzled. She is pretty. She has lips for kissing, eyes that can call for silence or snap and rage or fill with tears.

And she cries. A lot. More than she thinks she cries, because girls are made for crying. Crying and loving and holding people. And her heart is a soft, soft tender girl's heart. As strong as she is, as tough as she is, her hard hard heart softens at a moment's notice, and lets in the biggest baddest wolves as long as they talk gentle, move slow, and tell her the right stories. Because girls aren't made to be suspicious, aren't wagers of war or hostage negotiators. And it's too bad, because the hostages are our own hearts, our very tender not-lying-when-they-cry hearts.

Girls are amazing. There is no code; we are deceptively simple. We will tell you, in plain simple words, what we want. Love me. Be there when you say you're going to be there. Tell me what you want from me. If you listen, you can hear it. Don't complicate us; we aren't speaking in tongues. Don't pretend you don't understand. Don't pretend you never heard us. Just listen.

Just listen, and remember that inside the girl you are looking at is a girl's tender heart. Try not to hurt it. And when you have it, remember that she isn't very good at guarding her heart, so that will be up to you. That's a thing a man is good at.

Missed opportunities

I miss my little brother a whole lot today. I don't know why it hits really hard sometimes... I can go months without thinking about him much, and then every so often I'll have a really hard day.

Today I keep remembering the opportunities I didn't take. The time when he was 16 and he wanted to spend the night at my house but I didn't let him. The letter I forgot to send, when he lived in Seattle and I lived in Oakland and I was going to invite him to come spend a week with us but somehow I just got too busy.

The poetry I never shared with him. I didn't know he wrote poetry too, until his funeral.

I know it's not good to dwell on what would have, could have, should have been, but of all the things that have happened in my life, the only things I long to go back and change are the times I let a chance to connect slip by.

I don't miss the relationship we had, I miss the relationship we didn't have. Shit. God, let me never fuck up that badly again.

Oh, no. Not this time.

Things have been pretty good. Counseling has been helping.

But I fucked up, you guys. Oh no.

I fucked up. Something awful.