What are sisters for

So I had a great trip home, punctuated by a horrible Christmas Eve. I had two arguments with my 19-year-old sister, who I drove to Detroit and then back to Kalamazoo. These days she generally seems so ice queen, why-don’t-you-just-drop-it-Rachel, although if you confront her with any accusation of being uncommunicative or “cold,” she has been known to fly into genuine fits of rage, even tears, however uncharacteristic.

(We grew up sharing a bedroom. I used to come home from middle school torments and cry to her in her bed, charging her to grow up and defend the defenseless, to never pick on anybody, and she would nod solemnly and agree, “Okay, Rachel.” I think I knew even then that she would be better equipped to get through school unpickedon, that she was a likely cantidate. I think I knew that she was going to be cooler than me, in middle school anyway.)

At one point during this last visit, I actually said to her, all bitter and shit, “And about the ride home? You’re welcome. You’re welcome.”

I really did. Ben was there. So was Ev. You can ask them.

She never says thank you to me. It’s awesome that she walks around feeling entitled to her own shit, but she doesn’t have much shit of her own to entitled to just yet; she’s walking around feeling entitled to favors from other people, it seems like. To drive her to and from Kalamazoo without a word of thanks just makes me start to feel like a sucker. Especially after I, albeit in a fucked-up way, told her that it bothered me.

The thing that really sucks about all this is that I adore her. I think she walks on water the rest of the time, and I’m amazed by her strength and resiliency, however untested it might be at this point in her life. I left the house for a while on Christmas Eve., cried an inordinate amount, and drove around aimlessly, talked to -I- for a while, who said, “I don’t know what to tell you, except to say that it won’t always be this way.” He’s right, and he also says that she probably isn’t as indifferent as she seems; she just doesn’t know how to say what she means. But now is the time when I feel like I have the most to offer her, now and when she was a younger teenager. But who am I kidding, really. Those were the hardest years of my life, and probably the easiest of hers. But then, how would I know?

here's that poem I told you about.

I haven't written a poem in a while. This is a first draft, so I invite your comments.

***

Sex is a glass of water
the first glass of water set out in the morning for me to drink
in the thirsty morning and I’m woken up late and rushing past
and the glass drips
and halfway out the door I have time for only one gulp
and Holy God
it is the best water ever
but it is not enough

Arriving home
late
the glass is still there
warmed by the room
dusted and staled
I might drink it down
dust and all    faintly metallic

or I might let it sit    and evaporate
and I evaporate a little too
shrinking under my skin like a raisin
because somehow
it’s hard to drink a glass of water
when you finally have time to drink it

here’s that poem I told you about.

I haven’t written a poem in a while. This is a first draft, so I invite your comments.

***

Sex is a glass of water
the first glass of water set out in the morning for me to drink
in the thirsty morning and I'm woken up late and rushing past
and the glass drips
and halfway out the door I have time for only one gulp
and Holy God
it is the best water ever
but it is not enough

Arriving home
late
the glass is still there
warmed by the room
dusted and staled
I might drink it down
dust and all    faintly metallic

or I might let it sit    and evaporate
and I evaporate a little too
shrinking under my skin like a raisin
because somehow
it's hard to drink a glass of water
when you finally have time to drink it

One of those Sundays…mm, mm, mm.

Sunday was one of those days. It was one of those Sundays.

Let me start a little further back: when my wedding was approaching, people were really excited about my wedding night. I mean REALLY EXCITED. Almost as excited as me. They’d get all flushed and dewy-eyed talking about our first time. Which was also my first time. Intercourse, anyway. I was one of those “technical virgins” you’ve heard about. Roaming through this wilderness.

These were often the same people who, after I got married, would regularly interrogate me about the frequency and quality of our intimacies. Don’t get me wrong, I’m always up for a good sex talk, especially if it involves dispelling the INFURIATING misconception that after marriage sex suddenly dries up, or, like for instance, that married people don’t have oral sex (WOO girrrl), or that sex between married people is some kind of sterile, floaty affair (whoops, I used the word “affair”), involving a lot of gazing and interlaced fingers. Face-holding. Eye contact. And, of course, beds. And babies, too. As if sex outside of marriage is somehow less procreative.

So, back to Sunday. Well, almost…back to a few weeks and months past, as Ben’s been putting together his portfolio and his application, as we’ve been missing each other by millimeters, feeling each other’s breath on the back of each other’s necks as we pass, prickling with frustration, as he’s wanted me most at the crack of dawn (when I want nothing of the kind), and I want him most when I’m walking out the door to go to work. There’s a point when sex happens like breathing–and almost as often–and there’s a point when it still happens, but it involves a little more work and preparation…you have to prepare to not be prepared. Make space to unexpectedly be swept away. Tomorrow I’ll post a poem I wrote about this feeling. It’s not a feeling of a lack of desire, but a lack of space for it, a lack of time. Of stolen hours, some stillborn minutes.

So, Sunday. Can you tell what I’m getting at yet? We’ve been married for three years now, and people often ask me what it’s like, air their worries about the idea of being with one person for a lifetime. I suspect that they’re curious about our sex life, I think, because there are a lot of people who don’t spend a year and a half in a relationship (the length of time Ben and I were together before we were married), without having intercourse. They may or may not be the majority, but it’s at least perceived that way. I’m not bragging or touting some kind of victory here, I’m just making an observation.

I was tempted to characterize Sunday as the return to some kind of honeymoon mentality, but there it is again: a singleist way of looking at sex, that the only exciting sex life is the sex life closest to the fire of singlehood. What really happened? We spent time together. We rested in stillness for a while. We gave ourselves the space to catch each other by surprise. We did the work of loving each other, and the play happened on its own…which is its own kind of work. But the best kind.

I can tell you now!

Ben told me his news over a payphone, and we got cut off, so I didn’t have a chance to ask him if I could tell EVERYONE that…

Ben got into the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

And not only that.

He was awarded a $6,000 Merit Scholarship just for being so friggin awesome.

Sorry, folks, no babies just yet. Just paintings. Babies in the artistic sense. Art babies. Paint children.

My husband is going to study art at the Art Institute. And he is also going to study Art Education at the Art Institute.

I am so proud of my baby.

I Explode

I am bursting with good news. Just found out today.

Can you guess what it is?

(I’m not sure if I’m allowed to tell yet. The news also involves someone else.)

No, I’m not pregnant! Geez.

I can’t wait to tell you. I ooze with news.