Navelgazer

I’m walking around my sister’s house in her absence– there’s some immense, imprecise sadness– someone missing, dead? gone? something. there are rooms after rooms, and I’m amazed by the size of the house– just when I think I’ve tapped it, I discover a staircase to an upper level. the place is full of furniture from our grandmother, and I’m a little peeved that my sister has ended up with so much of it– but this isn’t real envy– I don’t actually want any of it myself, I’m just kind of awestruck by how put-together and grown-up and stylistically coherent and large my sister’s house is. she’s a new mom, and I’m trying to help with the baby but don’t really know what I’m doing.

there’s big destruction threatening– something huge and irresistible– at first it’s unclear exactly what, and then I look out the window and see a king kong monster headed my way, the ground trembling with contact shocks. it’s scaling a building down the block, and I realize there’s no way to hide. then I look again and realize it’s just a lion escaped from the demolished zoo and on the loose– and I think, well, there are surely more, other big cats, carnivores, wild animals, all roaming the streets. I’m scrambling onto a moving train car when the lion catches up with me and fastens its teeth onto my leg– I try to shake it off, but it’s attached with an unbreakable grip. the most important thing is that I board this train– so I just pull the animal up after me– and see that it’s no bigger than a domestic housecat, tho all claws and teeth. I take its frail neck in my hands and squeeze and twist until I’ve throttled it. this takes a long time and is very personal and immediate, and I’m a little horrified by my own brutality. but the point is, I’m safe now.

I’m sitting on the wood decking around the water courtyard– the water flows beneath us, but in the wide square at our feet it’s shallow and black against the bottom– decayed leaves and mud, probably, but the water above clear. the person sitting beside me is covered in soapy foam– it just sprouts spontaneously, or I suddenly see it. I begin scooping water by handfuls to stroke along the arms, rinsing the person’s smooth skin clean while they sit still and patient for me to do this work– it never occurs to me that they might rinse themselves– it’s a kind of care-full tribute. the arms go well, but when it comes to the face, I have to carry the cupped water such a distance and turn my hand at such an agle that most of the water slips away and it becomes little more than a caress along the the cheek and jawline– in the gesture love grows.

[working from both ends to catch up with my journals– so if things seem to be appearing haphazardly from months past or suddenly, today, that is why. this is the consequence of emerging from my most recent, and periodically necessary, tuber phase.]

I’m painting my neices’ white dresses red.

I’m visiting my ex-boyfriend’s mother’s kitchen– she’s a russian jewish immigrant and there’s byzantine folk decor on the walls, jewel-red and gold on shining black– it’s a matched set of planters, mirrors and small hanging fountains, and it’s the sound of the waterworks I focus on: how soothing the chorus of trickling water is.

we’re going to board a train– the doors are closing, and my companions hang back while I make the leap– I don’t quite make it before the doors close and the train begins to move forward, picking up speed– I’m wedged in a kind of entryway alcove and hanging on, heart a-beat– I know I need to be careful with my feet, not let them get caught in the wheels or the track and pull me under– I feel weak and unsure I can do what I need to do: reach up for the doors and swing myself inside. I gather a deep breath, calm my heart, and slowly, carfully manage just that– and I am safe inside the train, hurrying along on my way.

there’s been an accident in which someone is killed, and after they’ve taken the body away, I pick up the nose, which is lying on the concrete, having been severed. I wrap it in a couple of paper towels and take it home and put it in the refrigerator in the back bedroom of my parents’ house, which has been set up like a little apartment. but after a couple of days there’s a bad odor that begins to permeate the room, and I realize I have to get the thing buried. I actually don’t really notice the smell too much, living with it, until I invite some friends over and they leave because it stinks. so I go sneaky-scouting with a small shovel around my parents’ back yard in search of a good place to dispose of it. not in any of the gardens, I decide, because they or their dog might dig it up– maybe back along the fenceline behind some bushes… but no, the dog would still be a problem. and then it hits me, the perfect place. back in the corner of the yard stands a rock pile– actually a stack of old paving slates– that I used to climb on to peek over the fence at the neighbors behind– and by this pile there’s an old buried canister for disposing of dog poop, leftover from my childhood, ages past. so I climb up on the stack and pry off the rusted top of the canister and find it full of curled black leaves– perfect. so I start climbing down, but this time go around the tree that’s grown up since I was little and down the far side, which looks nearly like crude steps– only once I put my weight on them, they begin to wobble and threaten to avalanche, me along with them– so I grab a branch of the tree and swing around it, and the sensation of elevation and motion is so refreshing and empowering that I go on effortlessly swooping my way down the bole of the tree.

back in the house I’m suddenly running late for my flight out, and my parents, who are driving me to the airport, won’t let me dawdle. halfway there, I remember the nose in the fridge, and my stomach does a panic-flip. my mind races. before long my parents will smell it and then find it and then, oh lord. I have to do something. we’re driving along the detroit freeways when my father simply disappears– there’s just nobody at the wheel, only my mother in the passenger seat, who turns to me with weird calm and asks, are you about ready to take over? so I hurriedly climb over into the driver’s seat and fix my hands to the wheel and my feet on the pedals. the lanes are windy and a little precarious– beside me a jeep flips onto its side, but I safely maneuver past it. I start explaining to my mom about the nose, how I came by it and how I’d planned to dispose of it and how I need her to take care of it for me when she gets home. unlike my dad, I feel I can confide in her– the only problem is I’m not sure she won’t forget the whole thing as soon as I’ve gone– she’s never been very good at being responsible for things– but to be fair, at least in this case neither have I. I’ve totally flubbed it and am not even sure why I picked up the thing in the first place. in any case, at this point it’s out of my hands– I have a plane to catch.

the wind has blown my house down— upstairs has collapsed into downstairs, and the whole structure is unsound— I’m running around trying to salvage what I can, what I want to keep or sell— it feels like kind of a relief that my options are limited, that the entire upstairs and basement are ruled out by the structural damage, and as I hurry through the wreckage, collecting this and that, I realize how little I truly need or care about, although the process goes on and on seemingly all night long.

I go out with friends to a bar I used to go to when I was younger– I’m giddy to be out and dance/skip over to ask a couple of witresses if the band’s playing tonight. they look at me a little pityingly and say, they already played. I go into a side room that has a bed in it– this room was apparently “mine” at some point previously. I’ve left a pair of shoes on the floor by the bed. I look through the medecine cabinet to see if there’s anything I still want. my plan at first is to crash for the night, but people keep coming in– and the truth is I don’t really belong here anymore.

I see a flare as the kitchen door opens– someone’s flamed a pan– and then, after a little while, another one– only this one grows, and people run around to put out the fire.

I discover I’m riding that hippy bus, the green tortoise– it’s unclear whether I’ve been on it the whole time, if the bar is itself located on board the bus. the thing has misleading dimensions for sure, much bigger inside than out, which I realize as it takes a corner and squeezes through a narrow gap in the alley past a limousine full of stupid drunk frat boys.

I’m sitting at the bar when someone brings my friend to me because she has apparently drunk so much she’s barely standing– she doesn’t strike me as particularly drunk, more exhausted, practically passed out on her feet. I take her over from the guy who brought her to me– her weight is nothing, so I pick her up and carry her out and lay her across the back seat of my car. she asks me for a pillowcase or something, and I pull a soft cotton shirt out of my bag and hand it over to use as a pillow– I also happen to have a throw blanket in the car and put that over her, then close the car door and turn to go back to the bar– but I’ve just started inside when she calls me back and says, the dome light’s on— I open and shut the door and tell her it’ll go off in a minute, then wait until it does. she calls me back a couple more times for different reasons. finally I get back inside, a little exasperated at this point and rolling my eyes.

a little while later the person I’m talking to breaks off in mid-conversation to point back behind me and say, what’s wrong with her? I turn and see my friend framed on the other side of a plate glass window– she’s standing in the middle of the kitchen, her eyes darting around following something below the window frame– she’s making sudden, staccato little screams, tho there’s no sound, we can only see her mouth moving– I run around into the kitchen to find out what’s upsetting her so much and see a little creature scurrying back and forth behind the sink– it’s covered in green gunk, and I can’t quite tell what it is– after awhile I manage to get it cleaned off and discover it’s a pure white lizard. at first I’m afraid it will bite me and that it may be carrying disease, especially because of the gunk– but I begin to tame it and make it my friend. sometimes instea of a lizard, it’s a rat. the other people who work in the bar are grossed out and conspire to trap it– but as they’re sneaking in at night with their handfuls of horrible glue traps, it sneaks out the open door and makes its escape.