a want most wretched: someone — anyone (and the temptation of an app-administered poultice)
The dog was safe despite a narrow miss. Though I, the self-assigned neighbor responsible for making sure the oncoming traffic knew that someone's pet was loose in the streets, did my best, the escape artist was a jumpy one.
My leashed dog sat at my heels as I held my hands up to the cars. We waited for the husky to be intrigued enough to venture beyond the street bay and towards the safety of the sidewalk. Just as soon as it stepped onto concrete, my dog — several paces away — leaned in. That twitch of curiosity was enough to make the husky hop back onto asphalt. Luckily, the driver crossing the intersection was an attentive one, and the dog safely made off down the street to follow another pair of people walking their pet. Another husky, coincidentally.
I walked the extra block to serve as back-up. They didn't know what to do either, but from the opposite sidewalk, I suggested knocking on the door of the yard where the husky decided to sit. After a moment, the resident greeted their returned pet with a flabbergasted "You little shit!" and relieved gratitude. A successful side quest; a feel-good start to my day.
That was approximately twelve hours ago.
Three hours ahead, my best friend dolls up to go dancing. Maybe it's the mirror that makes them look so tall in the photo they send, or possibly it's the knee-high boots and the flared skirt ending midway down their thighs amplifying their stature. Cute as they are — and I took care to gush this at them in a series of rapid, emphatically formatted messages — I envy that they have someone to twirl around this evening.
Three days before, we were side by side in my bed. A decade of distance, two years since our first embrace, and barely two weeks total of existing in the same room kept us timid about intimacy. Most of what we enjoyed over the course of five days, I initiated: hugs, hands reached out, hair petted. A commanding "scoot over" on the third night so we could share the bed and fall asleep together. A forehead kiss. A second hug when we parted at the airport because I was too tearful to say goodbye so soon.
This restrained dose of platonic intimacy has ignited a want for more.
The idea of a dating app is almost, almost, almost enough to neutralize my desire to be held first. It offers a straightforward solution to my yearning, doesn't it? I'd just have to shuffle my calling card into a digital deck of other lonely hearts. It could be fun because it would be about fielding a mutual intrigue. I would no longer pine for a mental abstraction of a companion because I did the vulnerable thing that plenty others are doing in this era of technology.
But then I think about it — I really, really think about it. And I find that it's not what I want. Yes, it would be nice to have an arm around me while I read. Indeed, I'd be happy to have someone help me roll the sleeves of my button down up to my elbows because I'm godawful at getting them even. Definitely, I am made tender by the fantasy of not just wanting but being wanted.
Then again, I haven't finished most of the books on my shelf.
And so I justify my solitude with reading and writing; I fulfill my quota for contact by training my dog. I pay attention to the way different leaves fall when I'm lucky enough to see them flutter on the air. I chew more slowly; I eat every grain of rice. I drink more water and dance in the mirror. It's easier this way — it's easier not to think about how severely I miss being in the world, among strangers, with my smile seen in more than just my creased eyes above the KN95.
I talk about it with just about everyone at this point. How difficult it is to reside in your parent's castle with its asphalt moat and personal combustion carriages. How challenging it is to live removed from the cities where the most-recently-once-youth congregate. How draining it is to know that the seemingly endless stream of bids for your attention goes on whether or not you watch it carve ravines between you and the people you could love.
My lament has failed to change in three years.
Please trust me; it's not for a lack of effort. This quarter turn of the century has seen me make strides in my social and creative life almost reminiscent of who I was before the pandemic began! It's the distance that I'm struggling with. It's hard to only see my best friends a handful of times a year because they're in school, in other states, too busy. It's hard to dream of an inception more romantic than a snap judgement. It's hard to know if I want to go back to school or if I'm just afraid to write. It's hard to justify wanting anything more than I already enjoy because I became the kind of person who feels guilty for having what I know the rest of the world does not, like a warm bed and a snoozing canine tucked in around my feet and a dinner of creamy chicken curry with the sweetest Yukon Gold potatoes I've tasted all year and a washing machine that costs a bit extra to use during peak electricity hours and jewels of pomegranate clinging to the fudge of leftover birthday cake and a new favorite band and all these words that I've been holding back because I am afraid to write.
This new age of technology has me terrified. Not too long ago, it totally paralyzed me. The idea that anything I put online — not just my words but also my visage and my voice, if not especially those things — would be stripped from a server and reduced to data for a machine beyond my technical comprehension. I became paranoid and fearful; an indignation that the aches I carve into comprehensible passages would stop being mine as soon as they're discovered by an agent of the Machine prevented me from posting. Anywhere. I took down my illustrations. I took down my writing. I took down my face.
It was too late, of course. But I comforted myself by refraining from offering my head and heart to a world lacking in the latter upon a silicon platter.
In so doing, I became lonelier.
Loneliness is sometimes conducive to my creative process. Sometimes. Throughout my youth, my yearning for deep connection was satisfied by fictions. I sought romance in stories and simulated touch in writing — and in writing, I found my pinnacle of pleasure. Did you catch that? That thing that makes me delight in these twenty-six letters? I learned it in a poetry workshop (an intimacy I sorely miss) once upon a time. Chiasmus: A-B / B-A. For example: When the going gets tough, the tough get going.
"I sought [R]omance in [S]tories and [S]imulated touch in [Wr]iting."
Does it still count if it's just sounds and not full words? To me it does. And it's awful fun. Please try it.
Let me tell you a secret: I'm not sure why the backs of my hands broke out in hives the other day. It might be a new soap, or maybe it was stress, or perhaps some other unknown irritation. My fierce clawing over my knuckles has created tiny abrasions that have scabbed over in flecks of crusted blood.
I'll tell you another: I wouldn't call what I've got a 'crush.' If it falls under that category, it's limited to writing, for I have no desire for the consummation of something physical. Rather, I wonder how we could be good companions for our cerebral expeditions into the written word. I'd be a friend for them; they, me. But I'm not so sure that's what they see in me, so. Yay. Anony-blogging!
Here, I offer you a third: I feel much less stressed about being alive having written all of the above. Typing directly into the Bear Blog textbox is like setting parameters for a spell. I might end up archiving this, but no matter how long I leave the window agape for wandering ursidae interested in a few minutes of breathing with my brain in mind (A-B / B-A), how special is it to have made words and want to share them at all? Now that I've made record of these thoughts, of this day, I feel eager to do more with my night. I'll tune my guitar; I'll do push-ups. Or perhaps I'll pick up a book until I fall asleep with it tented over my chest.
Thank you. I'm a bit more at ease now, even with all that remains unsaid.