The Fabulous Fuoco Siblings

It seems like I have been grieving for longer than I can remember; grieving over illness, over loss, and now, death. In the last two months, I have lost two relatives I was exceptionally close to. My aunt and my uncle have passed into the infinite, into the space between spaces and are, at the least, together.

Some people believe that the afterlife is a manifestation of what we want here on earth. I like to think that's true. Like the things and places we loved most, the people we were closest to, are the things we experience when we are no longer restrained in our bodies.

So here are where Joe and Linda are now.

A world traveler, my aunt loved the tropics, so right now, she's chilling on the shores of Belize or the Bahamas, a pina colada in her hand, a book in her lap. She's making friends with everyone, in the way that she did, inviting them into conversation in the easiest way.

My uncle is young again, and back in playing form. He's swinging away on the Pebble Beach links and after his game, he will kick back with a glass of single malt scotch. Family and laughter were so important to these siblings, so they'll do what they did here: they will meet for martinis, play marathon canasta games, where they will discuss family, friends and everything else. And they will do what the Fuocos do best; gossip,  love, laugh, joke, and laugh some more.

Shot tastebuds

My taste buds are shot. For food. For people. At the behest of some of my friends who have had good experiences using online dating sites, I decided to actually use a paid service.

I sift through hundreds of photos and find that no one, or VERY few people are attractive to me. It isn't that they're bad looking, they just don't pop from the page, they don't make me thrill, or jump or get the butterflies. And alas, here is my problem.

I'm pretty, smart and a good person, but guys aren't lining up to date me. I want to get out there and enjoy different people and say that I dated, so when the right one comes around, I know it. I can look back and say I really did date and have fun in my twenties, I'm not just settling on what's come into my life.

My friends say that I'm being too hard on people, that I can't just judge a person by their picture. That I should give someone more than a first date to see if they spark me. But I've never had to give anyone more than a first date, an initial meeting, to know that in the past. Chemistry happens, it grows with a mind of its own and comes when it does, usually the second I see that person or talk to them, or know that they like me. That's what's great about sexual chemistry; it just happens, there is no premeditation, no thinking about it, no trying.

But I can't even muster the energy or the interest to just date, because for me, I've always had to be attracted to someone in order to date them. That's the problem. I don't get attracted very often, so I've already self-selected myself down to a few people, and more likely than not, those people don't feel the same way for me as I do for them.
 
So, I'm kind of fucked and the grief I've lived through in the last few months has numbed my ability to taste people or food, although I'm more hungry now than at the start of this year. I'm actually dying for a taste. I dream about tastes, and I'm numbed to it in real life.

Leaping from a ledge

And this is what it feels like to take a flying leap off a ledge....I've always been paralyzed by fear, and the need to make it go away leads me to be a bird in the hand is better than two in the bush kind of a person. So, it's very scary to know that someone I loved at one point is engaged. That's it. No going back now.

I sit here, clearly upset about this. If he's happy, then great, but it still leaves me with a question mark on the future. Like.....where's my partner? Do I have one? I was the one that broke up with him, not because I didn't love him, but because we weren't the right fit and I loved him so deeply I was always afraid of hurting or stringing him along, so I ended it. I let him go for good reasons. And I've been rewarded with loneliness, a thing I avoid at most costs, with the exception of co-dependence.

I keep telling myself that I will not be with someone simply because I'm afraid of being alone. Although an empty bed is starting to wear on me in ways I couldn't previously imagine. In fact, I've really been drowning in grief, barely treading the water. I've always been a person to take into account that life is full of suffering, and I'd like to form a partnership with someone, so we can hold one another's hands when the chips are down. There's a great piece of a dialog from an otherwise mediocre movie that is In Good Company; something to the effect of one character asking another how they knew who the right soul mate was. The older character says, you know, life is hard, you just grab who you think is a good partner, get in the foxhole together. That's kind of the way I've envisioned it too.

So here's my leap. I ended it knowing this could happen, knowing he probably would move on permanently with someone else. My leap of faith is the fact that there's no guarantee there's someone else out there. Man, I hope there is. I really do. But I have the cold piece of comfort to know that I made the right choice for both of us.
 

Cigarettes

What is it about cigarettes that are still so fascinating? Especially in light of decades of empirical non-partisan research that shows smoking causes many types of cancers in the human body.

I ask the question for many reasons; I've been watching the brilliant television series Saving Grace and Californication which both feature self-destructive characters that smoke like chimneys. The characters' love of cigarettes, promiscuous sex and heavy drinking are all signs of self-destruction, but I beg the question: why is self destruction so sexy?

It's not of course. I've seen too many family members die from complications from smoking to know that there's really nothing sexy to it. It's disgusting really; inhaling vapor death. Yes, all people die, but since I've witnessed cancer and complications from smoking firsthand, I can honestly tell other people, that cancer is not a good way to go. No way really is, and few are lucky enough to die in their sleep, but cancer is sickening pain; sick cells replicating themselves and spreading, attacking the inside of the body until nothing but pain is left.

Why is self-destruction sexy? Maybe it's because it's such an intense, passionate emotion. Maybe self destruction is the beginning phase to creating someone better; the way the phoenix has to explode into painful fire and die down to ashes in order to return strong. Or maybe it's because the phoenix only shows its most magnificent feathers seconds before it incinerates itself. Either way, the beauty comes at a price.

Time's Pain

To say that missing someone dulls with time,
like a scar that heals
shows up on the skin
is to lie about what missing someone is like

It can be years, days, months, hours
but the pain that comes from missing someone is not like a scar at all
for scars eventually heal, and there is no pain, but just an angry design on the skin

yearning and missing is a breathing, stinging and relentless beast
that lays you open and consumes you, piece by piece
leaving you raw and flayed, tears brimming to the eyes with nothing to help

yes, Time dulls the pain, but perhaps
the most painful thing of all, is that it is always there
a sleeping dragon scorching the heart sometimes, even years later

when it's over, it's over, but there's always something to miss
his eyes, his scent, his words, his thoughts, which cannot be replaced by another
......something

and that sadness never completely goes away
that is the worst pain of all

Brown Penny

There's so much I want to say and so much that I've recently been thinking about. Sometimes I get so sick of my own voice, feeling it's too navel-gazing, too self-indulgent; I get tired of my voice because I feel like it's completely narcissistic to write about me, about my thoughts, my feelings, my opinions, and I start to sound a little whiny to my own ears. After all, who gives a flying fuck what I have to write about? So for this entry, I will type out a poem, although written in a man's voice---it's one of my favorites that emotes much of what I currently feel.  I owe a deep debt of gratitude to that great Irishman, Mr. William Butler Yeats.

I whispered 'I am too young',
And then, 'I am old enough'; 
Wherefore I threw a penny
To find out if I might love.
'Go and love, go and love young man
If the lady be young and fair.'
Ah penny, brown penny, brown penny
I am looped in the loops of her hair.

O love is the crooked thing,
There is nobody wise enough
To find out all that is in it,
For he would be thinking of love
Till the stars had run away
And the shadows eaten the moon.
Ah, penny, brown penny, brown penny,
One cannot begin it too soon.

Green Lake, Seattle

A year ago I was witness to my dear friend Emily getting married in Portland. Andrew sat beside me, his arm reassuringly around my shoulders and his hand in mine.

It's been about a year and it hurts when I think that he and I aren't together. It's strange, that I have this compulsion to want to make things permanent with all things and all people, as if having the relationship with the same person in the future makes the memories of our past that much more real. A falsity I know, since past, present and future exist as separate entities; memories made in the past can't be touched or erased because they exist no matter what the present or future holds. In this way, I know, as I get sad from time to time about us, that the time Andrew and I spent together remains, pristine and special, hanging somewhere in the ether, protected.

I'll be going to Seattle this July, and Seattle only conjures up memories of him and I, sharing a hotel room, showing him my favorite city, the kick ass EMP-SCI FI museum, the Space Needle, the way Seattleites dedicate wasted sidewalk grass strips to vegetable gardening. I remember that it was gray and a bit damp (shocker), but the greens, oh my gawd, the greens of the grasses and the leaves, the vibrant colors of the tulips that just jumped from the petals to hit you in the eyes, all of it was glorious.

My favorite Seattle memory from that time was this: although it was evening the sun stayed out late, so much in fact that Andrew and I were walking around and taking buses at 9pm, because the sun had set so fast, catching us off guard.

It was about 7:30 when Andrew and I got off the bus from the University district and we were lost, but decided to walk around anyway. There in the distance, ahead of newly built townhouses and modest, lovely homes, was a big lake glimmering in the sunlight. The sun peaked low on the horizon  but strong, and shining its rays on the water so that the reflection was a light orange. A large running path wound its way around the lake. A desert girl, I appreciate rain and water the way most Mid-Westerners appreciate warmth in the depth of winter. I looked on this stunning view and thought, wow, what a beautiful place to live.

He and I will always have that memory, that sun set and the Green Lake.