communication

As I was standing in line at the post office today, for the second time, waiting to send off some little gifts for people back home, the woman in front of me suddenly turned around and told the man behind me that he could cut in before her.  She caught the look of perplexity on my face and quickened to explain that the man had to be back at town hall before it closes, in less than three minutes.  I guess she must have overheard his conversation with his young son – I heard it, too, but the meaning did not translate in my mind.  I told her that it was a nice deed.

It was a trivial event and yet, it reminded me again how much of an outsider I am, here.  I know enough to carry on basic conversations but as the situation of this morning shows, I am a long way from being a native…or being that woman this morning, who understood the man’s urgency in relation to his appointment at the town hall.

***

I often become a miniature icicle during winter times.  My body contracts, my skin flakes, my nipples refuse to harden even at my husband’s touch.  We haven’t been close in a while because I now go to bed in layers from head to toes.  When you bury your body under so much, it becomes somewhat a physical and emotional barrier.  So much so that even when my husband whispers into my ears his wants…I find them invasive.  Should I let go of my bundles and count on his bodily warmth?  It’s a decision I don’t like making and yet, when I choose my bundles I find myself unhappy for passing up the opportunity to be with him, to exchange love and tell each other caring things.

girls

I attended a good bye party for one of my friends last week.  She’s gay and the crowd of guests was largely gay.  I was on to my second drink when the music got louder, apparently indicating dancing time, because before I could realize it, one of my friend’s friends had started to rub his bony body against mine.  His boyfriend stood by watching but soon joined the dance with some other people.  I had never danced so closely to a stranger and this man, gay as he claimed to be and was, began to get quite excited and squirmy with his hands.  I looked to my husband who stood smiling, then to some older friends who had that look of expressionless.

As we gathered our things to leave, I came to my friend to give her a hug.  She kissed both of my cheeks; her lips were moist, probably from sweats and drinks.  I found myself wondering how it would feel to put mine against hers.  She was after all, very beautiful and could make almost anyone she liked feel cared for.  This was not the first time I felt strongly another female’s presence.  My earliest infatuation was with my mother and her boby, then with my sister and hers.  After them, in college I met a number of women who I liked and loved.  One memory I have took place in my friend’s dorm room.  Her school was in the city and I was staying over for the night.  I got down to the floor and got into my sleeping bag and looked over to her bed.  She was sitting up, giving her long hair a slow brush.  She started to say something.  We always talked for a long time before sleeping.  The light from the courtyard dimly lit the room.  With her back to the window and in her pale nightgown, she looked like smoke, hazy and transparent-like.  She was beautiful, soft and I was half startled by my feelings for her, for that image of her.

memoirs

Memoirs started to bother me recently.  The genre is fraud with opportunistic writers, who, perhaps due to a lack of confidence in their style, seek out the most outrageous stories to tell.  But I myself have often thought that I’d write a memoir someday about my childhood, which includes some taboo topics that have been either totally ignored or insufficiently discussed by writers in my childhood’s hometown.  The marketability of any relatively taboo topics: sex, incest, rape, etc. is of course, higher than say, spelling bees, basketball, flowers.  I am concerned with the potential reality that I may come to abuse too much the taboo-ness of my story, though it is an experience that had affected my being in profound measures and I want it to be told.  I am concerned also that I will treat the telling like some sort of philanthropic deed, because if I ever decide to realize and succeed in realizing this writing project, I want it to firstly, be mine.

a morning

I woke up at 8:05 this morning.  This was the first time in a few months that I’d woken up so early.  Having no job nor the necessity to hold a job, my days are flexible and I am finding myself waking up later and later.  I had to go to the town hall today for my residence permit.  After waiting in the cold for half an hour and perching on a plastic chair, armed with a science fiction novel, for another two hours or so, I learned from the clerk that my card was not ready.  Okay, was my first reaction.  I was neither unhappy or glad to hear the news — I was flat with emotions.  My days, after all, are equipped for long waits.  I returned home to find my husband leaving for work.  He had washed half of the dirty dishes from last night’s dinner.  I looked at the clock thinking what a productive day I will have, having woken up so early.

As I walked back from the town hall this morning, I was taken by surprise by the change in the weather.  It has been cold these past weeks, but this morning the sun shone strong and the air was chilly but not freezing.  I felt a sudden giddiness and awakening — I walked with my head high, almost smiling.  I scarf was gently hugging my neck and my hands found themselves unwanted of gloves.  I am thinking of Clarissa as I write these lines.  And I am thinking of Virginia.  I oftentimes think that I can write well if I choose to do so.  I have things to write about, like V. and the others who write.  But my husband said, and I agreed with him, that I must start doing the actual work…click click click…is that how typing sounds?

A while back, a classmate of mine was blaming the press for vilifying Sylvia’s husband, whatever his name was.  Spouses of writers are always villains are they not?  My husband is not dramatic (I am angry at him for being so sometimes).  I am.  Even as I write this I am aware of my inclination to be dramatic, to think of myself stuck in some odd tragedy (but with exit doors in sight of course).  The thing is that sometimes I think I am kidding myself.  Sometimes the real tragedy is right after the fake one.  Sometimes I have the feeling that it smiles knowingly at me, telling me to go ahead and enjoy the fake dramatic sense of tragedy.

I must go buy some chocolate; a friend is leaving next week and where she’s heading, there’s no good chocolate.

dreams

I am the one in our relationship who have weird dreams.  Perhaps my husband has them as well, but he usually forgets his dreams.  His blur into an incomprehensible mess whereas mine are often vivid, demanding to be remembered.  Yesterday I dreamed of a boy I knew and yet, who was a near total stranger.  I was a good friend of this boy’s brother.  But in the time span of seven years of being next door neighbors, I had never really talked to him.  If I would dream of someone from that household, it would and should have been his brother, whom I saw every day and played with whenever I was free of homework or housework responsibility.  The contents of the dream were bizzarely sexual.  We were running away together and his flesh was often bare.  We were both man and child, knowing and ignorant.  When I woke up I remember certain details.  Then the day progresses and I became proccupied with dirty dishes, a misplaced pair of glasses and overdue library journals.  So now, as I sit to write before my husband comes home, the dream is slowly evaporating from my memory.