the space between my fingers

when dan and i first started seeing each other, we held hands. constantly. i used to hold my hand up to his, to see how much larger it was than mine. for whatever reason that consistently astounded me.

the size, the shape of his hand, so foreign from my own, and yet so well known.

every once in a while i still do that -- measure my hand to his. remind myself of the span of his hands, how he can palm a basketball with ease.

it's been many years since we met. so much shapes you, as you grow--the wind, rain, the cold and the heat, all the various emotions. when we were young we used to argue all the time--sometimes about the most mundane of things, sometimes about simply who was right and who was wrong. as time passed and we grew to know one another better, other things stood in our way and our arguments shifted. then we argued about money, about jealousy, about the things that are so terribly important when you're twenty-two and think that you're All Grown Up.

really, nothing could be further from the truth.

but at that age, you don't know it.

i think that many people, myself included, have a difficult time understanding how to put aside that drama from childhood--the fears of monsters under the bed, of the dark, of things that are unknown to us, the proverbial bump in the night. that drama sustains us, for a time. when dan and i first held hands it was strange and comforting and exciting. of course later we argued about it, i'm sure. if i look in all my old journals i'm certain to find that it was some part or parcel of discussion.

who knows.

it grows easier and easier with time to become mellow--to drift, to float along, to find all the things that bind you together with other people and forget the things that keep you apart. while swimming you forget that you cannot fly; while walking you forget that you can swim. there is space between my fingers--it's always been there, holding them separate. in the womb there was no space, the fingers were paws, webbed and alien.

and then growth--time passes and one is born, and the fingers are their own little entities. did i take the time then to quibble about the why, or question the need for ten digits? was i overwrought with this change? did it consume me?

no--i was too young to remember it. and now i am old enough to see the difference and appreciate it. so very few things separated my fingers three decades ago, so very few things separate me from dan, from my family, from my friends, now. why should i argue? why should i gnash my teeth and suffer? what is the point?

i guess somewhere along the way--in between the fretting and worrying and shouting--i let it go. there was no point to holding onto all of that drama; it was useless. it became a question, each time an issue arose--is this life-altering? if not, then pick another battle. save your strength. wait, this too shall pass.

all the arguments we had ten years ago, all the suffering and agonizing over decisions and opinions--it all falls away. in the end it is his hand in mine, and if it were not for the space between my fingers, i would not know that balm.

lost and found

here's a list of what i found under a tv stand yesterday while assisting with a move:

--child's cap, blue & purple striped tiger with ears and eyes
--batman action figure
--Tony Hawk's something or other disc for Playstation
--red bowl
--one small pink striped sock, rolled into a ball
--neon orange squirt gun, thankfully empty
--sudoku book

and assorted other items. it's always strange when you move -- you pick up one thing and discover an item you'd written off as gone years and years ago sitting there, patiently waiting for you.

moving always hurts; it hurts to lift all the stuff you've accumulated and it hurts to leave a place you've called home. i guess in this case it just hurts because i've got all kinds of muscles, whose location i'd rather not disclose, clamoring in pain, but there's no "why-did-we-have-to-move" pain. just the pain of disuse, which is my own fault.

i remember the last time i cleaned the carpets in the house, before we got the new couch. when i shoved the old one out from the wall, there were items to which i too had said goodbye: a red twenty-sided dice, cat toys galore. this morning i cleaned out a bin that's been in the front closet probably since we moved in. it's where we keep the light bulbs but heaven forbid that you actually lay hands on a light bulb in said bin. it was more of a catch-all for cords, duct tape, those dowel-holders for closet rods, some tiny, tiny light bulb that could only be for a car we no longer own, and a random vacuum cleaner belt for, yes, an appliance that's no longer here, either.

it's so odd to think of all these items lurking in the house -- things that i don't necessarily need on a daily basis, but items that could, at some conceivable point, come in handy. part of me wants to scour the house for these treasure-troves of stuff, while the other half of me would rather write about it and then perhaps take a nap.

i won't even discuss the random bits that end up beneath seats in cars.

anyway, today i'm going to relax and allow my own found treasures--at the moment, my biceps--take a well-deserved break. with some flexing now and again, to reassure myself and my body that everything's still there, and perhaps won't be forgotten again for a while.

dejavu

It seems like every day’s the same/and I’m left to discover on my own -- seether, Fine Again

i get this feeling a lot, that "i've been here/done this before" feeling. today i had it and then i realized that it was just the radio conspiring to make me think that i had just repeated monday.

they're doing this promo giving away a year's worth of gasoline--they see your license plate, they call you, you win, the usual crud. anyway yesterday on my way home i was interested and strangely uplifted to hear someone win this.

it didn't occur to me until today, when on my drive home i heard the same winner again, that it could be recorded.

everything else on the radio is recorded...so why not the winners?

as i waited at the turn signal, however, i had an internal argument. was this the same thing i heard yesterday? or was this actually something that just sounded that familiar? or had i actually heard it but just in a dream or something?

it sounded familiar because it sounded vaguely like my brother, and the guy used the words "dude" and "unbelieveable" and "you have no idea how much this means."

so the question becomes: of all the random shit that piles through my brain during the course of the day, why on earth do i remember this?

i have no idea.

***

anyway the fact of the matter is that every day is different, and every day is the same. the sun comes up, the sun goes down. i go to work, i come home. never-ending cycle. which is fine, because there are so many permutations that can occur that it makes every day different.

until you hear something on the radio and begin to question your sanity, ie, did i just repeat monday all over again, or is it actually tuesday now?