STir CraZy
"The work of the eyes is done.
Go now and do the heart-work on the images imprisoned within you."
- Rainer Maria Rilke
Sally Mann, photographer
1973. that was the year i said i was stir crazy. at least i said that. really i was sad i think. the old woman across the street was dying. the cold was unmerciful and i was too much alone. the one time i felt like cooking the lasagna pan was scratched to infinity and i realized i had lost track of things. my dreams were without color and i used the word 'weird' a lot. i blamed it on the bitter cold. it just seemed suffocating and obese and unending. i remember i looked out the window and saw a deer with a withered front leg looking for food and i found myself crying for the pity of it. and i could not look away because i knew that deer was me inside and i couldn't do anything about it. then i knew it bothered me that you had joined the ashram.
it was cool, we said. you need to do this i said.
i'll be back you said.
i'm good i said.
but i went slowly stir crazy and it was just cold all around. all i knew for sure was before you left you came behind me and wrapped your arms around me and pressed your warm wet mouth against my neck. my bliss body exploded and time fell away. i think i died after that. so i read salinger and listened to zeppelin and thought salinger was brilliant since he called rilke a bastard although i really did not understand. i tossed about and did nothing. it was the cold i said and i waited but nothing happened.
days got longer. spring came. for years my recurring dream is of you stealing doors from our house and nailing them to the basement walls of the house where i lived as a child. now i am no longer young and live in the city.
we have lifetimes together you said and lifetimes apart while the great wheel goes 'round. i know this now and treat my stir-crazy as friend. i let it in when it is cold outside and make it warm. still, whenever i see sunglasses pushed atop a woman's head i shiver anew.
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