Monthly Archive for February, 2008

Tonight, I am having my first goodbye dinner as I prepare to leave Chicago. Over wine and soup and the constant tendings of a well trained waiter with ill timing and a penchant for taking the plate before you are done, I will say goodbye to someone I have come to know, care about and love and I will eat salmon in a leek and wine reduction. As the reality of this dinner’s theme hits me, I am flooded with feelings. All the feelings come to the surface, that I had cleverly kept at bay with concern for Inkey, a smashed hand, the chaos of everyday obligations and a mixture of shock, denial and numbness. I think of all the people I love and all the fertile hope that I had for what my life in Chicago would be and how little of that hope was realized. Unexpected tears arrive, I lift my fingers to my wet face surprised at the depth of the storm. Tonight, there will most certainly be dessert and a second glass of wine.

I didn’t know that I was so sad. But as I tried to make sense of the tears I took a quick inventory that proved these feelings were previously present. I realized that I have not been eating much or sleeping much and I really don’t care that much about shoes and am not thinking much about Paris. The omniscience of hindsight makes the diagnosis clear. Unable to tolerate my grief, I began to Google for a poem that matched my feelings, as I can not write poetry and that my raw feelings are word-free and are usually expressed in monosyllablic utterances like an emotive cave woman, “me, sad.” After trying on some ill-fitting poems that itched and scratched and pinched in the wrong places, I found the one that hug to the contours of my consciousness like a pair of well worn jeans. I share it with you in a lieu of more whining and complaining. I hope it doesn’t make you cry, like it did me.