In case of SANDCASTLES

I think I gave up my search for identity a long time ago.

Let me explain.

From what I remember from Psychology 101, generally speaking, most people form their identities during their teenage years. They actively wonder who they are, what they will become, what their role in the world should be. They collect some ideas, choose some childhood experiences that correspond to and support these ideas, and sort of build an identity foundation with these large granite ideological blocks.

And from then on, it’s all just pebbles, really. Little stones here and there, whatever you can make stick, whatever you assign meaning to, whatever is the same color of granite you have already…that’s what you use to build the rest of your identity. Occasionally, you get some bigger stones – like at major life events – but mostly you build with small rocks from there until the end of your days.

But…

Sometimes I feel like I’m made entirely of small rocks. Where are my cornerstones, my irreplaceable truths? Who am I? What has formed me? What do I believe? I have no idea. I’m like a child in a sandbox that builds something gorgeous one day, then knocks it down and starts over the next.

Gah, stupid metaphors. What am I really saying?

Okay…

I gave up looking for Tricia. I gave it up long ago. I don’t know who or what she is, and – to be perfectly honest – I don’t care.

I suspect that this is abnormal; most people don’t live this way, they walk with both feet on the ground. One step leads to the next, one foot is always in the past, one foot moves ahead into the future.

Me? I jump.

The past is gone, over. It’s nice to look at and watch, to bring out and listen to as a favorite song or movie, and I cherish the people from my past, I do. As for the future, it’s exciting. I can’t wait to find out what’s coming…

But the present is always this detatched, suspended leap.

And I am always a different collection of experiences, the important ones are interchangeable, the sad ones don’t matter, the bright ones have faded. I can have or have not, I don’t care. And if I do care, then I care for today, or for this month, but next month I won’t. I will look back and say, “At that time in my life, I cared deeply.” And that’s as far as it will go with me. Already I will be devoting my attention to something else.

Former versions of myself seem like strangers to me now. I have some things in common with them, but I am not them anymore. And I don’t miss them. I miss very little. I need almost nothing that I don’t have, now, at this present moment. Plus, I don’t remember much. I think the memories might be in me somewhere, but I have to go actively hunting for them in my mind.

The point is…

I let go. I don’t know how not to. I let go of everything and everyone, beautiful or ugly, joyful or painful. Either “Tricia” is buried so deep in me I can’t see her or feel her, or she is always on the surface and shape-shifting too fast for me to know her well.

(And so if you love me, hold on to me. I just don't know how to hold on to you.)

In case of OLD TRUNKS

When Bobby and I broke up, I took back Disneyland.

Disneyland was our thing – one of our many things.  And, of course, you know what I mean.  Couples (relationships of all types, really) collect distinguishing marks and memories.  A date here, a movie there, a song.  You keep and horde these things, set them on the shelves of your heart, and revisit them with sacred awe.  You polish them.  You listen to them.  You pull them out and drink of them together.  You keep them, like trophies, on the mantle. 

But when relationships go wrong, you trash them.

These things – restaurants you ate in, music you love, quirks and passions held dear – they’re suddenly ugly.  And those things not made ugly are, at the very least, painful.  And so you kill them, smash them up.  At the very least…you put them away.

But when Bobby and I broke up, I took back Disneyland.

He couldn’t have it.  It was too much fun!  It was too precious.  No!

So I embarked on a wild fling and took the New Boy there with me.  We stood in lines with our arms around each other and had our photo taken on the Mark Twain.  We kissed on rides.  I wrenched Disneyland, which was fast sinking into the quicksand of my breakup, back up into a safe place in my heart. 

But there are things in this world that are lost and gone.  Probably forever.  I couldn’t save them.  Or I didn’t want to save them.  Natalie Cole.  The Nightmare Before Christmas.  That little Italian restaurant in Pasadena.  The rock of Gibralter.  Glass.  Red tide.  (These are my memorials.)

And last night, I went back and listened to Michael Buble.  And I realized that his music, too, is gone from me.  I love Michael Buble!  But I don’t have anything else to tie that music to.  So it’s gone.

But.  Okay.   

Here’s the good part.

There are infinite number of things in the world.

There are always more songs, more places to go, more discoveries to make.  There are new memories in store.  There are new things that we can call ours.  Ours! 

And I don’t forget the old things…I just put them away.  It’s like cleaning out the trunks of your childhood.  You have to move all your old toys and books to make way for your new clothes.  Your new books.  All the NEWNESS that life wants to hand you.  Fill up the shelves of your heart again!  Put new golden memories upon your mantle!

And even if you have to, at some point, again throw the new things out and again put the new things away…there will be newness.  NEW newness! There will be new things even then.

As Oggy always says,  “This is how it goes.  We are human.  If we were robots it would be different, but not as nice.”

Life.  Newness.  This is how it goes.

In case of SUDDEN, UNEDITED POETRY

I listen to us as a song

Discovered in my youth and caught, bright

Between the panes of memory.

We’re still here

And there

In symphonic phrases

Hymnal lines tripping to their ends

Lyrics insisting FM radio

And in the smoke of our melody

bluer than blue.

I play our love deliberately.

Watch.

I listen to us as a song

A gentle vinyl spin

Scratched by the sharpest of needles

Around and around

Beginning to end

And then –

Silence.