Skynest
I moved into this room when I was sad. They say wherever you go there you are, but all I did was switch my office with my bedroom, and I was still me, but I was less sad.
I cried a lot in December, but when I woke up at 4 AM, I could see stars right outside my window, and felt some clarity. I'm glad the crying's done. I wish the waking up early had lasted. I accomplished more once I decided to use the morning starlight to work by.
My friends are visiting, and our spare room (we call it the Purple Parlor) air mattress broke, so I gave them my queen mattress. Now I have a slim futon pallet, thinner than a twin bed, right on the floor. The Skynest, which is a small room and has been called the Skynest since the moment I saw it, is suddenly so much bigger and more angular.
I have always lived in high places ever since I lived alone and became a grown up. I have always liked to laze around and watch the sky. The other day I played with a rhinestone necklace in the late afternoon light and made the fairies dance on my ceiling. I realized it had been too long since I did that.
This morning I thought that whoever I'd been, watching the sky back in my Chicago Aerie, was a stranger to me now. Not a stranger. Someone familiar but distant. I thought that these last two years in Rhode Island had maybe stained me. Or scarred me. But those are both strong words, heavily laden with negative imagery. There is a brightness between me now and Chicago me. A tidal wash. A roaring.
So many people lie between me now and me then. So much travel. And events. And things. They changed me. I have changed.
But doth suffer a sea change
Into something rich and strange
A newer friend recently referenced an event that happened before I got here, as if I'd been there.
"I was not around back then," I said.
"Oh," he said. "I forget that sometimes."
I don't.
I wonder if an older friend who's not seen me as often as, say, Patty (who meets up with me at conventions at least once a year and talks to me fairly regularly on the phone, and writes) would have anything to say to me now. Or me to them. Other than polite conversation.
But even people I know well and deeply, even we have polite conversation when we first meet after a hiatus. Polite conversation about books and movies turns into something deeper. It's like we all require a warm-up before intimacy, no matter the flavor. Long walks help.
I don't know what I'm trying to say. I feel older today. But the sky is old and still very beautiful. And I never tire of looking at it with my stranger's eyes.