It is when I tip toe back to Jörn’s amidst the throes of an opera solo of his mother accompanied by Josef and Andreas —playing violin and clarinet respectively.... so, I manage to sneak by unnoticed. I hear Jörn by the recording equipment emphatically explaining something over the music with frightening exclamations —punctuated with his tossing various sheets of music everywhere with angry emphasis
I wonder what all that is about....?
Only I have been with the builders and Joanie for hours and ....
I keep thinking about my late nephew who passed away last month
because one of the workers was playing a deth metal band and it was a band Michael always listened to —and I become sad realizing again in a day for the one-thousandth time that.... it was not a nightmare; he is gone from our world....
So my head is in the deep morass of turmoil. It makes me think of all the sticky webs that wrap around .... our family history
from my recent late 19 year old nephew and back to the life long conflict between my sister and I —which has never made sense to me
except for the fact of who her father was
.... and who my father was
obviously
We are worlds apart
it makes me think of how she always calls me “the black sheep of the family” to everyone she introduces me to.... how the soot gets all over me when I am too long around her universe
What a chaotic mess it all is. So on top of this, I speak to Chris the other day. Always a mistake. He always hurts me. He says he does not want to stop knowing me, even though we are not together he wants me in his life but— why? Is this a healthy idea? And then—when he tells me that my Electra complex is at the source of why my daughter won’t talk to me.... I think ‘oh, that’s why, he wants a whipping boy!’
he always hurts me....
And why should anything he says matter? If he never really saw me....
he says to me just the other day: he knows me better than anyone but.... he’s wrong! he never saw me! ....so why does it hurt me to hear him tell me these things....? These things he has no business telling me
He says, going on about playing his Freud theory
“you know, you write about it all the time; your whole Electra thing....” he says with that superior laugh he does and says, “well, that’s at the center of your issues with her— she told me....” !
She told him? I realize now she talks to him. She talks to him. Why? ....and not me? when I can’t even look at a playground without crying
he is only her step father
was— or what are we? We’ve been apart so long now but once we were a family
Why does he still want me in his life?
my trail of exes seem to wrap barbed wire around my ankles and tether me thus —they don’t let me go, I don’t understand it
but Chris.... I spent the most years with and it is too bad he was always too inebriated to hear a word I said but claims he knows me better than anyone does
fuck him
So I decide to take a bath and shut Jörn’s bedroom door. Immediately inside the vacuum cocoon as the sound is sealed
I don’t want to think anymore
I think emotions play war games with my intellect and vise versa and both sides are hampered with their own bias
My mind goes back to Jörn’s reference to Barcelona
because that was right after the conversation I had with my mother that got overheard— right after the biology assignment that revealed my blood type did not fit my family. He took off on a sudden business trip and my mother started saying something about his not coming back and they might be getting divorced
—the past has a fucked up way of holding on to you.... it haunts and repeats
when you don’t know who you are —it makes everything uncertain
It makes you search for what defines you
it forces you to prove yourself to yourself over and over .... I’ve stared for hours at my reflection looking for my father who made me Electra searching for meaning in a self made dictionary— a voice? When I can hear his voice on the Internet because there he still is accessible and how strange is that? This mystery who was my father is known on the internet and in history books but not really known to me. I can stare at his famous pictures and see my smile in his.... so I stare at my reflection in search of him and wonder about DNA memory
I think more gets passed on than the genes —I think obsessions get passed down too; those unresolved dark horses hidden in the attics
I think of my discussions with Nigel about DNA memory
and my discussions with Gerald about the infinite memory of a soul
I think about
what it is about Jörn..... what is it?
what is it about him that I am so compelled to....
it feels like some blind knowledge pulls me —it was like this from the moment I saw his eyes. Something about him. Something I see inside his eyes that I cannot look away from and seems to make everything else irrelevant
That is the real reason I went upstate
I was trying to —I guess run away.
Because I don’t trust normally
and I don’t want to start —I know it is a huge mistake to ever trust anyone especially if he makes you feel like this. It is a mistake .... how do I stop myself ....how do I step back and wrap Mithril armor across my heart? I should not trust him. Besides that he’s a confessed spy —his family doesn’t really like me. Because I’m feral, isn’t that it? Well, his mother doesn’t like me.... she thinks I’m a wild fox. And Josef thinks I’m a stray cat
only I like Josef. I like Andreas too. And, no—I do like his mother, she just scares me and.... doesn’t like me
I go under the water in Jörn’s bathtub and look through the waterline above me
I see Jörn come in and he walks over to me and I see from under the water
I emerge from under and blink out the water. Still, of course he’s blurry because I am blind without my glasses so I squint up at him
“Are you drowning yourself again?” he asks me
I’m not sure if he’s serious but he says,
“the little mermaid....”
then says,
“we’re rehearsing but no one is listening to me— I had to step away for a bit.... I brought you a glass of wine,” he hands it to me after he takes a sip and then when I take it from him and sip it I feel his hands move over my shoulders; strong fingers find tension and I let out a cry, “why are you so tense?” he asks me
I tell him a little but he gets annoyed about Chris,
“why do you still talk to him? I think you want the pain,” he says
I down the rest of the wine
He gets up and steps out of the room
“Jörn?” I call him
because I think now he’s cross with me
But he comes in lighting candles and arranges them around me by the tub. He shuts off the light so just the glow of the candles light the bathroom
He says, crouching down to me,
“I’d so much rather stay in here with you — and join you in there.... but tomorrow’s the performance.”
“I know.”
“Which you are going to,” he tells me
I don’t answer
I lean drunk back against the back of the tub that is contoured stone
“Don’t worry about Mama,” he says
“She can’t stand me,” I say
“No, she’s jealous,” he says this without a doubt
So I sit up and look at him even though I can’t actually see him
But he stands now from the kneeling position and says,
“it shouldn’t be too much longer. Do you want music?” he asks me
But I am still drunk
and I forget to answer him
Soon I hear music .... and he says something and then leaves
Some time after this I add more hot water as it has grown chill
It is awhile later that I get out
He’s reading something on his laptop and sitting in bed. He wears a black Henley with his running sweats and looks up at me. I like it when he wears his glasses to read; it changes his face so much
“Did you resolve your differences for tomorrow’s performance?” I ask him and look for something to put on as I am wrapped in a towel
“Who knows....” he shrugs, “it will have to be whatever it will be—at this point I don’t care,” he tells me and watches me as I find his navy blue long sleeved T-shirt and put it on. It fits like a dress on me and the sleeves fall past my hands
“Come here,” he says
He has put his laptop on the table next to him
When I come to him he motions for me to come closer, so I climb into his lap or start to because he wraps my legs around him and runs his hands up the back of me, under his T-shirt that I wear
I say to him,
“I don’t imagine I will be allowed to wear the opera coat.”
“Please forget about Mama, min lilla duva, I think you need to be distracted.”
“She hates me.”
“She doesn’t hate you— I told you what it is.... yes, you definitely need to be distracted, be quiet and open your legs.”
“I cannot do those two things at once though, Jörn.”
He laughs at me
“we’re rehearsing but no one is listening to me— I had to step away for a bit.... I brought you a glass of wine,” he hands it to me after he takes a sip and then when I take it from him and sip it I feel his hands move over my shoulders; strong fingers find tension and I let out a cry, “why are you so tense?” he asks me
I tell him a little but he gets annoyed about Chris,
“why do you still talk to him? I think you want the pain,” he says
I down the rest of the wine
He gets up and steps out of the room
“Jörn?” I call him
because I think now he’s cross with me
But he comes in lighting candles and arranges them around me by the tub. He shuts off the light so just the glow of the candles light the bathroom
He says, crouching down to me,
“I’d so much rather stay in here with you — and join you in there.... but tomorrow’s the performance.”
“I know.”
“Which you are going to,” he tells me
I don’t answer
I lean drunk back against the back of the tub that is contoured stone
“Don’t worry about Mama,” he says
“She can’t stand me,” I say
“No, she’s jealous,” he says this without a doubt
So I sit up and look at him even though I can’t actually see him
But he stands now from the kneeling position and says,
“it shouldn’t be too much longer. Do you want music?” he asks me
But I am still drunk
and I forget to answer him
Soon I hear music .... and he says something and then leaves
Some time after this I add more hot water as it has grown chill
It is awhile later that I get out
He’s reading something on his laptop and sitting in bed. He wears a black Henley with his running sweats and looks up at me. I like it when he wears his glasses to read; it changes his face so much
“Did you resolve your differences for tomorrow’s performance?” I ask him and look for something to put on as I am wrapped in a towel
“Who knows....” he shrugs, “it will have to be whatever it will be—at this point I don’t care,” he tells me and watches me as I find his navy blue long sleeved T-shirt and put it on. It fits like a dress on me and the sleeves fall past my hands
“Come here,” he says
He has put his laptop on the table next to him
When I come to him he motions for me to come closer, so I climb into his lap or start to because he wraps my legs around him and runs his hands up the back of me, under his T-shirt that I wear
I say to him,
“I don’t imagine I will be allowed to wear the opera coat.”
“Please forget about Mama, min lilla duva, I think you need to be distracted.”
“She hates me.”
“She doesn’t hate you— I told you what it is.... yes, you definitely need to be distracted, be quiet and open your legs.”
“I cannot do those two things at once though, Jörn.”
He laughs at me
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