The Three Doors

I went around the block, and smoked my cigarette, and thought about what I was going to say, how I was going to be. I thought about the wind that tickled me along the back of my neck. How the wind could be constant, pervasive, gentle and strong. How the wind can be, that was how I would be.

And still, I felt this anxiety. Still, I felt this iron ball of tension. So I took a breath, and another, and another until I felt constant, pervasive, gentle, yet strong. I was. I am.

So I knocked at his door, and he waved me in. My eyes swept past the detritus of his life littered across the coffee table, eyeing this one glass with something, em, gob like, floating atop whatever clear liquid it contained.

I sat down. He said all he had was water, so I decided to pour myself a glass, so I could clear my mind.

Wearing a man bun and underwear, pain ripped across his blue eyes again and again. He said he hadn’t filled his prescription yet, as he didn’t like to take pills. This, he said, was his second week since he fell down the stairwell at his job site.

The hospital said it was probably a hairline fracture, but no cracked or broken ribs. Just the same, he was in a lot of pain, so I didn’t stay long.

I reminded him how he’d told me to stop by, so I was stopping by.

“Had to walk the dog, but had some time, and just wanted to say hi, see how you were doing“, I said.

Which of course was a sort of a lie? We didn’t have a casual relationship like my words would imply. we had NO relationship. NONE. NADA. It had been well over a year, and we had barely spoken 10 words to one another.

But then he appeared, barefoot, with no shirt, through my hedgerow and changed all that. I should have said to him, “No shirt. No shoes. No service”, but I’m not that clever.

He left so many questions lying at my door.

I had expected … well anyways. Guess he’d done something to his back the night before, which was why he was writhing in so much more pain.

Things had changed. Or had they?

So I got to say none of the things I wanted, and it didn’t at all go as planned. However, still, I was cool as a cucumber, casual, constant, gentle and strong – cause frankly it was all I had. I smiled and left him to his own devices. And, have to say, his own devices seemed to be cruel, and made him twist and turn.

Perhaps I was at the wrong door? I thought as I walked away.

Passing my apartment I continued on, I can’t really say why. Or maybe I did know why. I passed by, and made my way to Crossroad Mans door, so as to see…feel…what? Or maybe just to pretend I’d never gone to see that blue.eyed.man.

And there he was, sitting on his front step, chatting to his old friend – I’ll call her Sue.

So I kvetched with her about men, to which Crossroads added his 2 cents. She, his friend, I think I mentioned before, Mom, also happens to be an old girlfriend…from years ago. He says they make better friends than they ever did lovers.

So now he sits and listens while she goes through the latest man that broke her heart. Offering advice, I guess, or just an ear, a shoulder.

Will blue.eyed.man be back? I would count on it. To what end? I have not one clue. I’m playing my cards close, though, and just taking it all as it comes.

Because I’m gentle, yet strong. I’m pervasive, and constant. I am the wind.

So yesterday I didn’t wallow in the anxiety and butterflies that blue.eyed.man gives me, still. No, I enjoyed all the pleasures that lie outside my own door. I planted 3 Echinacea “Alba” in the herb garden, after going across the road to the Aboriginal Day Pow-wow they were holding on The Green.

And tears of joy glistened at the corners as I listened to the drums, and watched the dancers underneath that big old Maple Tree, in a celebration of community.

And so I soaked it all in like a door had opened inside me.

This morning I watched as the morning light danced across my garden, that lies here just outside my own door. I see now there are much more than I had before. But I have to say, I like my own the best.

Love,