Gemma: Part & Parcel

On Mondays, when I would sit at the window at Lorna's house, I felt like the whole world outside was somehow trickling inside. I'd sit and watch the rain for what felt like hours, but would really turn out to be only a few minutes. I remember hearing Lorna's television in the background, coming from her bedroom. I remember the sudden silence once her "afternoon shows" were over and she'd slip into her Xanax and milk-induced nap. I remember that that was the first time I had ever really felt completely alone. The whole house was quiet as winter, and I would sit there at the window, watching droplet after droplet of rain crash into the glass pane and slip down until it hit the sill and puddled for a while, until the pressure of too many droplets forced the tiny puddle to burst and send the new family of droplets into a cascade down the side of the house, an adventure I couldn't watch from where I sat. And I remember everyday, when I knew Lorna was asleep and wasn't going to wake up for anything, that I'd rummage through her jewelry boxes to try on her costume jewelry from her "stage days". I'd put on piece after piece and stand in front of the mirror imagining myself to be anyone and anywhere but who and where I was. Sometimes it worked, sometimes not.
Also, I remember how at around 3:30 in the afternoon, I'd pull out my little box of tic-tacs (the white ones), pour myself a glass of milk, and wash two little tic-tacs down my 9 year old throat with a gulp of milk. Then I'd curl up in front of the window and fall asleep waiting for my father to pick me up in an hour.

Tristan says:

it was mostly fumbling and trying to say the right thing, or not really knowing what to say at all.
it was being so nervous that you're off balance completely and unsure.
it was that tingling in your fingers and on the edge of your lips, waiting for the touch, the kiss.
it was being so unawares, so off guard, so bare and trembling.
it was that you knew it was going to be more than you could take, that it was going to be something that, even if it didn't happen (what you'd hoped would happen), you would remember and it would warm you, and you think on it again, over and over, and how close you came to holding the moment for even a little while.

you'll think of his smile or the sound of his voice, or maybe the trace of his fingertips along your back will linger longer than it should.

>>>>how did you know this is what i'd always wanted?<<<<

all of these things, and you'll recall and know and wish and love and more.
it becomes something else, something better, and it's all involved, it holds everything from before and later.

"what do you love more than love?" Dar Williams

That girl...

Manfred hasn't spoken to me in a long time. i think he's off on one of his melancholy, "leave me alone and let me be" phases right now. He gets like that. it usually happens without warning. so i don't really know where he is right now. besides, i've been busy with someone else. There's this woman, Veronique, and she's been telling me her story and it's just hypnotic. And her voice......her voice seems so powerful, like a whisper fat-full with history and cities and torments, and she's just been nice enough to let me get it all down. So right now, i'm working with her, and i'm getting her story out. it'll be good. i promise. You'll love her. Everyone, at some point, does.

About Manfred...

Manfred really hasn't spoken to me in a while, which is quite frustrating. He won't return my phone calls. I think that he's just not in a place, right now, where he's comfortable unfolding. And maybe i'm not in a place, right now, that i can handle his story, his origami.
i do know a little about his friend though, not much, but a little. He has this friend, Ruttiger that he mentioned briefly. Like i said, i don't know much about him other than that they're friends, and they've known each other forever, and that he's really a nice guy---complicated, but nice. So anyway, that's all i know. Hopefully Manfred will talk to me soon, but right now, i'm just not up to the call.

he spoke to me and he said..

"this isn't really all of me. it's not enough. i don't want to start there."
so i went back to the landscape and i took the camera out and started snapping again, and just sort of listening to what he had to say, to the stories he told. some very interesting things had happened in his travels through Europe, for one, and i never knew, but if i had just stopped and listened.....
see, because i got so wrapped up in what happened to him in Kansas that i kind of forgot that here was this person with so much more, with so much to tell..so now that's what i'm doing, just kind of sitting here, snapping pictures and listening to what he has to say.
Manfred has so much to tell....

from Manfred's window..

dabbling.......finding his home

1

After the rain and thunder-storms of July had come and gone, leaving us with dew-drenched grasses and cathedral-skies in our backyards, the house on Gesrah Street was more quiet than it had ever been. Daddy had been dead and gone for nearly 7 years by then, and Charlie left in '49, and no one was sure where he was now. Momma didn't ask after him anymore, and I knew enough not to say anything that might conjure up unecessary worry. Momma wasn't more than 52 or 53 now, and she was as healthy as she'd ever been, but when it came to Charlie and his affairs, she'd just as soon as not think about him at all, except as the little boy she remembered from way back when. Last I heard from him, he was in Maine, at Ogunquit, staying with an old friend from his fishing days. He said he was looking for work and wasn't sure when he'd be home. He said he'd keep in touch and to take care of Momma. I haven't heard from my big brother in 3 years.
These days, it was just me and Momma in that big, lonely house on Gesrah Street.