Living in Sicily—yes, I’m going to say it—changed my life.  Not just because it’s where I first lived with my husband, where I said goodbye to single life, where I conceived my first child.  Those things, while important, could have happened anywhere.  Living in Sicily gave me perspective and culture, it gave me pleasure.  That island stripped me down and slowed me down, whispered secrets.  Love is everything.  Adventure is everything.  Breathing is everything. 

When we eventually left the old rock on that early March morning, after three years, I was ready to go.  As we boarded the plane under still starry skies, I didn’t even take a last look; I didn’t even glance out the window as we took off.  I was pregnant, homesick, and I had island fever.  Looking back, I can’t believe I ever felt that way.  Now I think about Sicily all the time.  I see it through a haze; I see it as if sleepwalking.  It’s so far away and I miss it like crazy. 

Sicily is a romantic, sexy place—the bawdy, older sister of that elegant boot.  The food, of course, is amazing—so specific, so fitting to the feel of the place.  Thin, crispy pizza with cheese for days, garlic soup, fresh sliced tomatoes and crusty bread.   Hazelnut gelato, or my favorite—half lemon, half pistachio.  Seafood that’s alive moments before it hits your plate, and sometimes accidentally alive when the plate is presented to you.  Don’t even get me started on the arancini—little cones of rice, breaded and deep-fried with an oozing center of melted cheese, meat sauce, and peas.  The rice is buttery, the sauce subtly seasoned.  I hurt at the thought of them.  I’d trade a toe for one, I swear I would.

We lived in a small town called Motta Santa Anastasia, where the buildings and houses curve in a half moon around an old castle which sits, battle worn but strong, at the top of a cliff.  I used to walk to that castle, the Ramones so gloriously American and defiant on my headphones.  It was never lost on me, even at the end, the privilege of walking up the crumbling steps, surrounded by overgrown olive branches and fragrant prickly pear plants.  At the top, I’d lean on the castle wall—the castle wall, for crying out loud!  I’d let the cool, rough rocks and the history sink into my skin.  I felt so lucky, I almost felt jealous of myself.  It is different to inhabit than to tour.  I was truly familiar with Motta, my castle, the little cappuccino stand down the street, the one with the best arancini in town. 

I would often sit on a bench near a statue of the Sicilian poet Carmunu Caruso, who hailed from Motta.  I never read his work, but felt I knew him intimately.   I would sit there with Carmunu, turn off the punk rock, and write poems—exaggerated ones about lust and fairytales and changing the world.  Sometimes the poems would turn into letters to home, to old friends, telling them of the sunshine on my back, of the bench, of the teenage boys on scooters laughing and whistling as they zoomed by.  I would write of the orange groves and of Motta’s square at night, crowded with families eating pastries and laughing, everybody out, nobody watching TV. 

It’s not just the castle that I miss, it’s not the food.  It’s not my friend Carmunu.  I miss things I couldn’t have back even if I hopped on the next plane to Catania.  It’s that I want time to unwind and reveal itself again.  I want to learn to cook in that little summer kitchen of one hundred degrees, no counter space to speak of, dirty little street cats running in to snatch sausage right out of the pan.  I want newness with my husband, when holding hands felt like having sex and folding his boxers was a novelty.  We used to walk down the street together, trading a bottle of wine back and forth—pulpy, fruity wine crafted by the stubby, hairy hands of our landlord Angelo, who wore a fedora, ran a family farm, and was rumored to be in the mob.  At the end of the alleyway, Matt and I would drink Angelo’s wine, wrap our arms around each other and watch Mount Etna erupt, orange lava fingers stretching up toward the moon. 

I miss learning to play chess at the old gelato shop and grilling steak with our big, loud Navy family of new friends that felt like childhood friends.  I miss Christmas shopping in Misterbianco and reading Harry Potter out loud to Matt at bedtime, the windows open to the sound of crickets chirping.  I miss watching fireworks on an American military base, far from home, the first Independence Day after 9/11.   

I wish I could relive the day that Matt proposed, there, in our shabby bedroom with the hard tile floor and the hand painted dresser and the bright sunshine pouring in.  I was wearing a pink plaid sundress and my hair was pulled into a neat bun.  He was wearing his uniform and I remember feeling, even though there was little fanfare in the moment, that the image was timeless.

In the summertime we’d swim together in the Ionian Sea, encouraging and helping one another to reach our goal, the big, jellyfish infested rock about a mile out.   Our favorite beach was rumored to be a breeding ground for great white sharks, and although these stories were always told with a wink and a smile, my heart would pound out of my chest as my legs tread the icy depths. 

I was somewhat frightened of life before I lived there.  Although I acted boldly at times, when fear snuck in, it would paralyze me.  Running off to Sicily with a heart full of love changed that.  It was an overwhelming risk, and it taught me that I do actually like adventure, that I can handle fear.  And I miss the days, the shiny, exotic days, when I learned that this was true.

I left a full and busy life in Boston—graduate school, a job, a side gig reading for a literary magazine, good friends and a long history with a city that I truly loved.  I left for Matt.  And to be honest, life there was loving him and living on the island.  I was allowed to volunteer, but not allowed to work, which left many empty days alone with my thoughts.  It’s one of the reasons I was anxious to leave, but now I often miss the solitude, the complete solitude of being an American girl walking around an old Italian town, facing herself, just herself, every day.  Stripping it down, slowing it down, breathing, loving—for me, it was a whole other level of fear.  I miss facing it, I miss feeling it. 

What is it about nostalgia?  What is it about the smell of spring rain in the trees or a beat up old prom photo or just the memory of the first time you stood up on roller skates?  It’s often said that we want what we can’t have.  But I think we want what we can’t have back.  First kisses and Garbage Pail Kids and the smell of Grandma’s French toast.  Summer camp and catching fireflies.  Long late night talks in smoky college dorm rooms.  Sweet pulpy wine and Harry Potter by moonlight, fried rice balls and prickly pear bushes. 

I try not to get too caught up in it, although I am very good at getting lost down memory lane.  Honestly, I love living in the moment.  The cool, calm Ionian Sea and the threat of jellyfish and sharks taught me that.  When life gets hectic, when my family is spinning with things and lists and baths and bedtimes, I remember the poet’s bench and the families sharing sweets in the square, and I slow myself down and drink up the now, because I will miss it too someday.

Back in Grad School there was always required reading before I could go to sleep, dense chapters of esoteric media hypotheses to digest and comprehend.  Not the sort of books you willingly open after eight hours of bartending.  But I would diligently read all those pages after my shift.  Or else most of them.

Homework was done after midnight at my cheap wooden desk in my tiny studio apartment.  Still in my bartending clothes, reeking of beer and cigarettes and a non descript food smell, I would try to be a good student.  Some nights were better than others.

I mostly believed media theory was the math of my Masters program, useless mumbo jumbo you needed to graduate.  But every once in awhile I would come across an interesting hypothesis.  There is even one I remember clearly after all these years.  It was put forth by a British academic named John Fiske; he said, “television is not an orgasmic medium”.

There was a part of me that desperately wanted to believe Fiske, but the more rational side knew too much about television.  Orgasms were where you find them, and TV is as good a place as any.  Same goes for music, movies, and books.  I was without a girlfriend back then, and that was how my twenty-five-year-old mind figured it.

But orgasmic mediums receded from my consciousness the next morning.  Gray and silver clouds loomed over a frosty Commonwealth Avenue as I stepped out of my door.  The sidewalk had patches of ice, and the scattering of snow was dusted with soot.

I had four hundred and seventy-one dollars in cash, two checks worth $124, and three rolls of quarters.  Nearly all my currency until I worked another shift at Uno’s.  On this Tuesday afternoon I was off to Federal Street to hand deliver my rent.

I had yet to reach The Public Garden when it began to rain.  My lightweight jacket had a hood but I did not own an umbrella.  The foot bridge in the park was slippery as I passed George Washington on his horse, and I was glad I’d worn boots.

Down at the Swan Boat pond I watched a girl take a picture of her boyfriend.  She shivered as the rain plinked against her cheek, her umbrella useless on the ground as she lined up the shot.  I remember thinking that had to be somewhere in the definition of true love.

While waiting at Charles Street to cross into The Commons I spotted beautiful woman on the other side.  She was in her twenties, dark skinned, and had deep blue eyes and wavy black hair cut short.  She caught me looking at her and smiled.  The next time I gazed back she was staring at me.  But the dark skinned stranger quickly turned away, the light changed, and she kept her head down as she passed me in the other direction.

Should I have looked back?

The obvious answer was yes, but I did not.  The idea of the mysterious beauty lingered, but I forced myself to stop thinking about her.  She was nothing but a dream, just another attractive woman I would never meet.  Fantasizing about her would be just as bad as watching a crappy sitcom.  I needed to live in the real world.

And that’s when I almost died.

There was the crackling of ice, a deep whoosh, and then the boom of impact.  A large branch from a tree surrendered to the weight of the ice and crashed to the ground just as I stepped into The Commons.  Maybe almost died is an exaggeration, as I was about twenty yards away, but my path would have taken me to that exact spot.  If I had left my apartment a few minutes earlier I probably would have been killed.

I tried to decide if God or fate was trying to give me a message.  Should I have spoken to the girl at the light?  Or possibly this quasi near death experience was meant as a wake-up a call, to force me to get more out of life.  To find the orgasmic mediums that would make me complete.

After staring at the felled branch I chalked it up to a random occurrence.  Soon I had my money order for $625, and I walked down Federal Street to the high rise offices of the company that owned my apartment building.  Inside the courtyard was warm and dry, and the smell of coffee and assorted foods filtered through the air.

Even though I was minutes removed from the freezing street, a bead of sweat ran down my back as I rode in the elevator to the 10^th floor.  My heart began beating quicker as I approached the receptionist’s desk.  The office was quiet, save for some fingers tapping on unseen keyboards.

The receptionist had short red hair, glasses that looked like they were from the 1950’s, and wore little make-up.  Her dress was off white and quite plain.  The woman’s name was Samantha, and she could have been anywhere from twenty-two to thirty.

She was the reason I was there.

“I live at one of the properties on Comm Ave,” I said in a shaky voice.  “I’m here to pay rent.”

“I remember you,” Samantha answered as she looked at some documents.  “Michael.”

I’m sure my face turned red.

“You’re the only one that comes here and pays rent in person,” she said.

“It’s just so close, seems funny to mail it.”

“That’s a refreshing take on life,” Samantha said.  “Most of life is just mailing it in.  We go through the motions, trapped in our invisible cones of silence.  Personal contact is disappearing.  Have you used the Internet yet?”

“We have access to it at school, but I’ve yet to do it,” I said.

“Stay away.  I’m not saying it’s evil or anything, and I’m sure it does have a lot of positive uses, but we already have enough distractions in our lives.  I have a friend who spends five hours a day on the Internet.”

“Doing what?”

“God if I know,” Samantha said.

The phone rang and she answered a few questions about rental properties.  As she spoke she filled out a receipt for my check, stamped it, and pushed it across her desk toward the edge.  I didn’t want to take it.  I wanted to keep talking to her.

My mind buzzed with possible ways to ask her out on a date.  I had wanted to do this for months now, but never managed more than a few inane words about the weather.  Samantha said personal contact was disappearing, and I could prove her wrong.  I could have at least asked her if she thought the Internet was an orgasmic medium.

“Thanks for coming in, Michael,” she said while holding out the receipt.

“Thank you, Samantha.”

“See you next time.  Keep warm.”

Instead of that day being one to recall as a turning point in my life, it remains as another missed opportunity.  I have about five or six women from my past I should have asked out, and the rental office receptionist is at the top of the list.

I was soon outside in the rain and mentally cursing myself.  If anybody spoke to me the way I did inside my mind, I would certainly have punched them in the nose.   There seemed nothing else to do but eat lunch.

Faneuil Hall was close and offered many quick and affordable food choices.  I had a few friends who worked near by who could have joined me, but I wasn’t in the mood for socializing.  Instead I bought a Boston Globe for company.

Walking through that food court always brought back memories.  Summers after Sox games, weary nights after Christmas shopping, and strolls with girls who once meant something.  I could not help but think of all the times I’d been there with my ex.

I ordered tacos and took them up to the second floor.  Between bites I read about a taxi company that had a separate number for Roxbury and Dorchester, a housekeeper who was O.J.’s only alibi, and discovered our governor would not run for President of the United States in 1996.  None of the information was orgasmic in any way.

The thought of walking back to my apartment suddenly depressed the hell out of me.  So I strolled to the Government Center T stop and took the subway three stops to Arlington.  I still had a couple of hours to finish my required reading before class.

These were the days out in Roxbury, when I’d spend long, hot hours in the hall closet–my office, “the writing room,” which I decorated with photographs of my life and multi-colored twinkle lights.  Some of those lights were shaped like butterflies.  In certain places the wire was thin and dangerous.

This was a time when I didn’t go anywhere without a backpack—a thirty-pounder stuffed with books and diaries and a maroon apron that smelled like old pepperoni and sweat, no matter how many times I washed it. 

Back then I smoked cigarettes, because I was young and careless and invincible and stupid and horribly addicted.  I smoked and smoked in that little closet on Cedar Street.  The closet had no door but rather a heavy tie dyed sheet carelessly hung with thumb tacks.  The smoke in my little creativity cave was so thick that I’d choke on it and pull aside the sheet and stick my head out for fresh air.  The air was never all that fresh.  We were not very good at taking out the trash, or cleaning at all for that matter.  And of the many roommates that came and went, not one of them was a nonsmoker. 

These were the days at Emerson, undergrad version.  I transferred there from BU and found my stride as a writer.  I was inspired and confident and above all, prolific.  When I wasn’t writing pages upon pages of short fiction, I was writing in my journal.  When I wasn’t writing at all, I was waiting tables.  Often after waiting tables, I went to the bar with the other waiters and waitresses.   You were one of them.  And when I wasn’t doing any of those things, I was playing Pipe Dreams and Jezzball, mindless games on an ancient Apple—the 2GS, I believe. 

I drank one hundred ounces of Diet Coke a day and often forgot to eat.  I called in to Julie Kramer’s flashback lunch radio show at least once a week, begging for songs off the Pretty in Pink soundtrack and “Make a Circuit With Me” by the Polecats.  When Julie wasn’t on, I listened to my old favorites.  Upbeat new wave classics or the Spice Girls while getting ready to go out, Grateful Dead while trying to fall asleep, They Might Be Giants while writing, and the Pixies while playing Pipe Dreams and feeling restless.  Sometimes I was restless.  I was restless in the fat, wet heat of a New England scorcher, restless in my loud little life. 

The heat that summer was unbelievable.  Every ten minutes or so I’d take a break from the smoke box writing room and stand under a cold shower with my clothes on.  Between showers I’d be sweating and wondering about you.  I’d often think of calling, but I never did.  You’d find me eventually.   That summer, you just had a way of finding me.  Your turned up everywhere.

It was a time of disconnect on Cedar Street–roommates in fights and roommates ending their roommate romances.  At the end of it all we got the worst roommate in roommate history, the one who built the blue tarp sweat lodge and the totally not-to-code fire pit.  He used his boxer shorts as a coffee filter and spent most of his time with some sort of art therapist.  If I ever for a second looked bored, he’d try to get me to sleep with him, and he brought home a pit bull and tried to turn him mean.  When said dog pissed on his bed, he slept on it anyway and then stank of urine for days.  And by winter he jumped in front of a train—the mighty red line—and lived. 

That summer, you and I skated around something totally terrifying.  What was it there, that wasn’t there at the same time?  We were horrible and wonderful to each other.  I remember going on walks in the woods with other boys and forgetting that you existed.  I kissed strangers in front of you and cut my hair defiantly when you begged me not to.  I told you not to bring me orange juice when I was sick.  I didn’t want that kind of attention.  But I did confess that certain things were beautiful—your bright blue eyes, your full lips, the sunny morning when we walked the length of Boston, talking, talking, talking after kissing all night long, lips blissfully tired from all of it. 

You were unabashedly free, with words and thoughts and time and sexuality.  Although you hinted at settling down, I never bought it.  You sang crude songs at art shows and made fun of ugly girls.  You joked about our romance publicly and only pretended to kiss me at work, at the frickin’ rat infested corporate pizza joint.  I remember it.  Don’t think that I don’t.  In the cold, dry walk-in cooler you leaned in with your head tilted just right.  And then you laughed and walked away.

There were two walls to scale that summer, you see.  I have to believe that when walls exist, you can peek over and enjoy the view very, very much.  But you cannot climb.  You cannot climb walls made of fear and differences that can’t be bent.  I know this because I have lived and loved without walls for many years now.  When there are no walls and the man smells like your mate, you just fall in love.  I don’t mean to imply that it’s easy, but it’s clear.    

I’ve seen friends fall in love with the walls themselves, longing for what might be on the other side.  They can smell what’s on the other side.  They can feel it tug at the heart.  I’ll admit, there may be some pretty good stuff over there, but what good is it if you can’t get to it? 

I’ve seen people try.  They bang their head against thick brick for years.  They bleed on rusty barbed wire.  And this is what love feels like to them.

Ha ha!  Do you remember that our first kiss was against a wall?  A dark spring night, a chain link fence.  I was stunned still by the eagerness with which you pressed me there, your hands in my hair.  And I should have known better. 

But we don’t need to get in to how it all started, or the funny things that people do.  I’m trying to remember that summer; oh, I’ll say it—1998.  I’m trying to remember our two walls, which both could have easily been of my own design.  I was fairly frightened of falling.  If there was a night, however, that the walls shivered and thinned, it was the night of the party at Em’s.  I wasn’t expecting to see you there, but I was never expecting to see you.  You’d turn up, in one of three favorite shirts—the black one, the Army one, or the one expressing your love for a certain east coast city.  You’d turn up and you’d plant yourself next to me and then we wouldn’t part for twenty hours or so.  And this night you turned up all messed up on something, I never asked you what.  I didn’t want to know.  You were sweaty and intense.  You chain smoked and you rambled on about wanting to get into my head, not just my pants.  And you rambled on about wanting to see my heart.  There were moments, that summer, and this is one of them, that I very nearly believed you.  I did believe you on some level.  A part of me wanted to rush at you, knock over your scrawny little body and see if it would break—that thing, that invisible thing that made me feel lonely and unsafe even though I was smiling.   

I know, it’s all so dramatic.  Don’t worry.  The window of time paints you sweetly.  That’s the funny thing about summer flings—because the sunshine is fleeting, because the days are long, because each year brings a packed, golden capsule of a certain kind of memory, the memory highlights the good.

We took a walk that night, the night of the party.   It had rained while we were inside, momentarily cutting the oppressive humidity.  The beat up Boston neighborhood seemed lush and inviting and you could even see a few stars.  I hid from you behind a tree because you looked alarmingly cute, and electric.  The moonlight/streetlight mix coated your dusty curls in copper and silver streaks and I could feel a deep heat rise to my face.  I knew that I was blushing or flushing; I knew that my body was overreacting to your presence.  Then we kissed, of course, in the tamed summer air, under the street lamps, under the stars.  You asked me to dance, but we didn’t have any music.  So you sang.  Oh oh oh, it’s magic, you know, never believe it’s not so.  I let you dance me over the cracks in the sidewalk, and the ancient trees with the roots that did the cracking winked and swayed to your gravelly voice.  And I let myself rest my weary cheek to your sharp shoulder.  And I let myself lift one shaky foot to the first brick.  You have to learn somehow.

I would be fired the next day, but the night before I went out with Gino.  I never really had any super Italian friends growing up.  One of the more overlooked differences between Boston and New York is their flavor of Catholic.  In my phone I had him listed as Ginoooooooo. Gino was an actor with a manic vibe and I’m not sure if we ever had a real conversation, but he was funny.

It was my first Halloween weekend and the real happening in NY is right after the parade in the Village.  I followed my still co-workers down into Alphabet City, to a charming little dump called Doc Holladay’s named after my second favorite Val Kilmer role.   It was the kind of bar where you spend hours behind a cheap beer excavating 70’s graffiti through the layers of wall grime with your fingernail. There was a thrill of possibly digging up a place where the Ramones had once pissed on a unsuspecting fan.

The costume contest had begun a touch before we arrived and sans costumes we could just sit back with a tub of Pabst and take in the seedy faire.  It seemed like an easy formula.  Round by round, the intoxicated contestants would stand on the bar so that the intoxicated crowd could cheer on the woman with the least amount of clothes.  The frontrunner was a girl who had apparently tailor-made her outfit for just such a contest.  She wore a cardboard box extending neck to knees, painted in black and bedazzled. On the front, she had cut herself some swinging door and wrote, in what I assumed was red lipstick, the words, PEEP SHOW 25¢. And just as promised when some forth coming patron would chuck a quarter up at her,  she opened the doors revealin just the skin she was in.

It was going to be a landslide.

Her only competition was a girl in what could only be described in the Village as a delicious catsuit, showing off every curve and fold her body provided.  Even the whiskers seemed like a detail I would be embarrassed to buy.
The conversation was again not premium but I enjoyed new friendships.  Trying to pick out the ones I could hang out with in the future over those who I would just merely be friendly with at work. I really felt like I was settling to New York.  Two months in and I was beginning to make friends and I had found a restaurant I could see myself at until I didn’t have to.  It was Goodfellas kinda joint and the owner, a scion of another more established Italian icon, loved to keep me late drinking with him at the bar until his wife called.  He loved me.  He wanted to make t shirts with me out of these ironic lil drawing that I had made and once sold as postcards in Union Square for a buck a piece.  He had plans for me.  I felt like it was going to work out.

Around my 5th or 6th PBR, the semi finalists were announced and the Peep Girl, drunk with tangible confidence ascended the bar for what would merely be a victory lap. Her opponent, the cat, stood waiting and hissing and prowling the crowd intending to go down fighting.  When Miss Peeps finally got her footing and the first quarter was cast, the unthinkable happened.  She slipped. Fell straight off the bar into the bartender, the ice bin, a rail of cheap liqour and hopefully a latticed rubber and impossible unclean floor mat below.   The crowd let out an audible gasp followed quickly by laughter and then cheer for the cat girl, left standing, who took the opportunity and egged the crowd to show her love for her balance and dexterity.  Twenty minutes later, she would crowned with what ever one wins in a bar choking with cigarette smoke and tables piled with Spartan beer cans shrines.

I would call in to find out my schedule the next day, only to discover I had none.  My eyes teared with shock.

Lamps terrified me.  At an age so young that I didn’t even know the word fear, I seemed to have plenty of them and lamps were number one on the list, grandfather clocks a close second.  Now, you don’t run into grandfather clocks every day, so they are a reasonably manageable fear.  But lamps—well, those fuckers are everywhere.

I thought they sort of looked like people, the various bases representing different body types, the rounded plateau shade a rather creepy version of a head.  One particular lamp freaked me out way more than any other because “he” was very tall.  In my mind, in my little toddler mind that knew no word for fear, I named him “Lampwick” and he was the leader of all the other lamps in our small, L-shaped house on Copa de Oro. 

Lampwick stood right on the brown shag carpet.  He had no need for a shelf.  His skeleton pole ran five feet high, right through the middle of a circular table at his gut, straight up to the shade, which was ridged and looked very angry to me. 

He didn’t bother me much when the sun was up.  Oh, I was aware of him, sure.  But not terribly scared.  I’d happily watch Saturday morning cartoons in my dad’s easy chair, right by Lampwick’s side.  Night was obviously a different story.  If it was dark outside, Lampwick was ignited, he was alive.  And he was sinister.  I didn’t favor my dad’s chair at night, but rather the far end of the couch, on the opposite side of the room from you-know-who. 

I’d actually try to be nice to him, this Lampwick, this inanimate thing.  I’d say goodbye to him before I went to school each morning, hoping that this simple gesture of kindness would prevent him from killing me in my sleep.  My thoughts were really that severe, and I kept them private.  Inside, I knew that this was crazy—saying goodbye to lamps, giving them names. 

For a time it was lamp nightmares every night.  I dreaded sleep.  I’d scream, cry, and hyperventilate each night when my mom tried to send me to bed.  I couldn’t explain it and as her frustration grew, so did my panic. 

Eventually I’d calm myself down, for show, and allow her to go back to the TV.  I’d wait a few minutes and tiptoe out of my bedroom, down the long hallway, across the small dining room to the little hallway outside the living room.  I’d sit there and I’d feel both safe and paralyzed, knowing I couldn’t stay there all night, knowing also that my dark bedroom seemed impossible to face.  Ironically, as I sat there in that little hallway, I sat in the striped shadows of Lampwick’s glow.  However, he was around the corner and I couldn’t actually see him and that seemed to make a difference.  Also, I figured that with my mom right there he wouldn’t try anything funny.  And that’s why I sat there, really.  I needed to know that she was still awake.  I needed to know that I was safe. 

I’d sit there and go over every detail of the pictures on the wall—the San Francisco cable cars painted by my grandfather, the boring old still life, the gypsy woman with a roaming eye.  That house, the one I grew up in, absolutely haunted me with loneliness.  It does still and it’s been over a decade since I’ve been inside.  Many of my dreams take place there, as if my desperate little childhood fears are still kicking around in the fireplace. 

Sometimes my mom would catch me there, in the hallway, splayed out on my belly, listening to Three’s Company or Quincy or whatever she was watching that night.  She’d wearily shuffle me back to bed and I’d protest again, although without as much gusto.  Exhausted, I’d reluctantly fall in to sleep behind a wall of stuffed animals, my army of protection against the lamps.  Sometimes I wouldn’t wake ‘til morning and I’d joyfully jump out of bed, licking up the glorious lemon sunshine with my eyes, elated that I’d made it through the night. 

Then there were the nights when the dreams would come and it would be lamps all night—cartoon lamps with thick eyebrows, lamps made out of stone, lamps made out of copper, Lampwick himself with a cape and legs, chasing me.  Once I even walked in my sleep and woke to find myself standing right in front of the bastard.  He towered over me.  He was massive.  In my half-slumber I thought I saw red hot arms reach out to grab me and then quickly retreat.  I stood there, shocked stiff for a moment before I snapped out of it and ran for my mother, who was sleeping.  I honestly don’t know where my father was in this situation—physically there, but not really, I guess.  Sometimes he’d throw a stray comment my way—a “this is ridiculous” or “go back to bed.”  But mostly he just followed sports.

At long last I walked my mother to the living room and pointed out my fear, finally unloading the burden that had kept me sleepless for months. 

My parents put old Lampwick in the garage the next morning, which was obviously not good enough.  In fact, it was worse.  I was convinced that he hated me even more for banishing him.  He wasn’t even plugged in out there, which obviously would have pissed him off.  In my mind, my nemesis had…a short fuse.  I am laughing as I write this because had my 34 year-old self been there with my three year old self, she, I, would have said, “Congratulations Sweetheart.  You’re a writer.  Good luck taming that imagination.” 

Next Lampwick was shipped off to my aunt’s boyfriend’s house and I believe they put him away whenever I’d come visit.  That part of the story is hazy to me.  Once I confronted my fears and told my mother, the intensity and frequency of the fear lessened quite a bit.  I do remember waiting in the car when my grandma took me to, of all places, “Lamps R Us,” but I think it was an act of stubbornness and punishment for her lack of sensitivity. 

In the couple of years after Lampwick’s departure I slept better, but occasionally wondered what the other lamps thought of me.  Once in a while, I’d make the rounds before school, saying goodbye to all of the lamps, even giving a timid hug here and there. 

I’m happy to say that today I love lamps.  They can be fun companions and they always seem to light up a room.  For the most part they are cheerful and purposeful, benign.  I do admit to choosing my lamps carefully, though, and have been known to linger in the lighting aisle, in front of a handsome base that originally caught my eye, but stays there on the store shelf because it just rubs me the wrong way.

(HAPPY HALLOWEEN FROM MEMOIRS ARE SO YESTERDAY!)

Please gather around ladies and gentlemen. Get nice and close up at the front so you can hear me.

First, welcome.  I really hope you enjoyed your tour of Middleton, Massachusetts on our vintage 1980’s yellow school bus driven by “Alice Tierney.”  But really that’s Belinda Cotter playing Mrs. Tierney circa 1987.  Just amazing.  Take a bow Belinda.  A round of applause for her marvelous acting.  Mrs. Alice Tierney was an actual bus driver, cafeteria employee and principal’s secretary back when children still received their elementary education in actual buildings.

Belinda, I’m sorry, Mrs. Tierney, will be happy to fill in any gaps about the President’s childhood that I have missed on your way back to the Popeye’s Chicken minibike depot and gift shop.

I am Park Ranger Al and welcome to 7 Riverview Drive, the childhood home of our 47^th President Justin Robert Tierney.

What you see above us, at the top of this gravel driveway is the culmination of three long years of research and restoration.  The President’s childhood home was donated to National Park Service after his death in the arms of the Sri Lankan Lady’s Volleyball team on what we here at the Park refer to as a “State Visit.”  The home is a palace of late 1970’s modest ranch style architecture.  It was built on this plot in 1979 for the purchase price of $40,000.  So you can see how times have changed, the wood alone used to restore the house cost taxpayers forty million dollars. Amazing, but sorry folks, no refunds.  Ha.

As you walk up the driveway, you will notice that it is completely gravel.  In the single parent house of the President, as were many in the 1980’s, the sound of gravel against tire became the latchkey to signal to the Tierney brothers that their loving mother was home.

To your left you will see the only remaining tree on what was once a densely wooded area.  It is a red maple given to the President’s Mother by her boys for Mother’s Day 1986.  Legend has it that the President himself picked out the tree from a local nursery and dug the hole furiously with his BARE HANDS.  He buried a lock of his own hair to help the tree grow.  Amazing.

No sir.  I do believe this is the actual tree.

Yes, it is quite amazing it has survived the inkjet and paper shortage of the 2020’s but that’s what this place is all about.  Amazing.  Now please follow me and save your questions until the end.

On your right, you will see a wooden well that marks the spot where the Tierney family once drew water from an underground aquifer.  This area has been barren of water for quite some time, but the infrastructure still exists.  And it too as been co-opted by the President’s plan for drawing moisture from the ground and air.

The well, of course, resulted in the President having a severe lack of fluoride in his early dental development and caused several cavities and root canals.  His signature winning smiling was manufactured just before running for Senator of New York when he had all his teeth capped and fused so they never requiring further brushing.  Amazing.

In the driveway is a vintage 1985 Buick Park Avenue, the Presidents first car.  Notice the Christmas wreath tied to the front that was a tradition of Momma Tierney who decorated almost everything in the Tierney household with wreaths. The bench seats of a car very much like this were said by some of the more scandalous biographies to be the site of his first female conquests.

This is the front door of Casa de Tierney.  Which is what we legally have to call it since the President signed it into law that Spanish and English would be the official languages of the United States of North America.  This front door was rarely used except for holidays and formal occasions.  It is said that the President, as a small child, threw his drunken Uncle Bruce out from these very steps because he thought he was Cuban.  Even then the President was protecting our land.

On your right, in the garden, you will see the Parade of Pets.  This is particular pride of our research team.  There is an animatronic replica of every one of the 13 cats, dogs, birds and lizards owned by the Tierney household in chronological order from Coffee Break to Oreo.  Feel free to pet them and talk to them about their origins.  You will learn things like D.J. and Sheba were sent away “to a farm” because they bit a neighbor in the ass.  That farm was widely suspected by the President to be Euthanasia.  Amazing.

Let’s squeeze into the living room.  Here the President and his brother would spend up to and eight hours a day watching television.  As you can see, people in the late 20^th Century barely watched TV because they were not attached directly to their foreheads.

I would like to point out, along with the wreath on the car; it is always Christmas here in the restored Tierney household.  The President and his family simply loved Christmas, even if he was the first devote Atheist to be elected President.  Forty percent of the furnishings were donated by the estate of Alice Tierney, the President’s saintly 120 year old Mother.  The decorations you see here are 100% real including the torn plastic bags you see on the ground. These bags, depicting 20^th century icons Raggedy Ann and Andy, were used by the President’s Mother as the sacks from which they received their Santa presents all the way into the President’s forties.

The President and his brother, Wind Tycoon and philanthropist Jason Ryan Tierney, were very often left to their own devices.  In this very hallway, they developed their imagination, creativity and athletic prowess with games such as sock hockey, sock baseball and sock basketball, using a this very laundry basket that was shaped as a basketball hoop and hung on the bedroom door.  When they could not find socks, they often used t-shirts.  There are currently twelve sock hockey leagues around the world and there is even talk of it becoming an Olympic sport.  And it all started right here in this hallway.  Amazing.

Now I must warn you.  This is a very narrow hallway and you may brush against some of the décor.  Like many of the things in this house, they are vintage and made up mostly oil based plastics.  This eighteen by twenty four inch trinket display proudly shows off many of what the Tierney boys found in cereal boxes.  At the time, cereals would entice themselves off the shelves with promises of sugar and toys within.  They are not all original sadly because several, especially the Smurf dolls, were commandeered by their Maternal Grandmother, who shall not be named, as good luck charms for her severe gambling addiction.  But the joke was on her, as we all now know that oil based plastic is the major cause of almost 95 percent of all cancer, many of which we used to think were caused by things like smoking. Ha.

We segue nicely into this side room.  Welcome to the computer room sponsored by Camel Lights.  Feel free to light up and go back to a time when computers were not voice and mind controlled.  The President pounded out many of his early great works here on this computer.  It is where he explored the internet, then known as Prodigy, for the first time and printed out pages upon pages of essays on this noisy cumbersome dot matrix printer.  Although becoming obsolete by around 1992, the President’s Mother used it well past the turn of the century.

By now you have noticed that rugs are all different color.  This room has green rug while the living room and hallway have an orange rug and you will see there is a blue rug in Jason Tierney’s room and a brown rug in his Mother’s room. Of course as boys, the Brothers Tierney frequently pretended this orange rug was lava.  This green rug was man-eating jungle and the blue rug Razberry Slushy of Doom.

No sir I do not know of any seismological events in this area.  And I realize that the instability of the Earth’s crust in this day and age is no joke.

No, I do not question the President’s mental health.  Please save your questions for the end or for the bus driver. Thank you.

As you can see Jason Tierney’s room has been fitted with a TV, several hundred “Micro Machines” from his own estate and a “Nintendo.”   This was a 20^th century video gaming system used before full emersion simulacrum media.  The boys spent hours playing football and baseball “video games” like Techmo Bowl and RBI Baseball.  The “CD” player you see above the TV was known to play almost exclusively the complete collection of a late 70’s rock band Led Zeppelin.  Jason Tierney went on to name his first Wind farm The Robert Plant.  His second was named for his first musical love Boys 2 Men.  There is no longer any record of Boyz II Men in the national archives.  Pity, but also amazing.

Here in the back of his Mother’s room you will notice the washing machine.  Now yes, it is a real working washing machine from the turn of the century before clothes were cleaned by focused Solar bleaching.  And you will notice there is no dryer.  That is because it was moved downstairs for some unknown illogical reason.  The five year old President would use every tiny bit of his strength to lug up to fifty pounds of wet clothes down to the basement.  This helped him build his strong athletic frame and character of mind.  It is said in his autobiography, “Takin’ It Back, Takin’ It All Back,” that the President was astounded later life when he discovered that washers and dryers were normally found in the same room or even on top of one another.  That book is available for mental dissemination at the Popeye’s Chicken minibike depot and gift shop.

You will pass the bathroom on your left.  It was the sole bathroom in the Tierney household and many of the President’s earliest memories are of his Mother beckoning him from this very toilet seat.  Feel free when the tour has ended to join the hundreds of thousands who have all made the pilgrimage to put their bare ass on this hallowed throne.

In the kitchen, you will notice the terrible floral wall paper, which was very popular in its day, I’m sure.  You will also notice the sliding glass door over looking the porch and wiffleball field.  This canary yellow contraption is a “gas” stove.  The President, who has since written twelve cookbooks, learned the craft of fine cuisine during his twenty years as a waiter.  The Cafeteria at the gift shop features some of the family recipes, such as Lemon Pepper Tuna salad, Hamburger Mac and Cheese and of course Peanut Butter and Bacon, which I’ve heard from a very good source, can actually be attributed to the President’s Father.

As we descend the stair case into the basement, please notice the actual graffiti uncovered on the walls by our restoration team.  In a young boys handwriting, you will see the sentence, “I’m R2D2 and don’t say I’m not.”  This has been attributed to the President’s brother and is the origin of his nickname R2, which comes up frequently in his own autobiography, “Life in the Shadow of Greatness: A Little Brother’s Courage.”

In the cellar, you will see two distinct sections.  One filled with antique yard tools, abandoned exercise equipment, a ping pong table and a wood working shop built by Mrs. Tierney’s only live in boyfriend, Harry Taylor, who packed up this very workshop and left the family while they were enjoying a trip to Disneyworld.  He would ironically die while choking on a popsicle stick left over from a Mickey Mouse ice cream bar.

Now you won’t this hear from the other Rangers, but the President enjoyed making wooden people from Mr. Taylor’s scraps on the jigsaw.  He then proceeded to cut off their heads and appendages while making screaming noises.  Makes you wonder about the war with Portugal doesn’t it?  But you didn’t hear it from me.

On the other side is the crown jewel of the tour: the President’s two room basement residence.  Originally built by his Uncle John in the late 80’s, when he lived here briefly with the family, the President moved into this room after his Uncle’s departure.  We have replaced most of what was particle board wall with glass so that you can peer into the world where the President developed into a man.  From his artistic abilities shown in the drawings and painting on the walls, to his ingenuity revealed by the shoestring he tied from the entrance to the light bulb cord so he wouldn’t have to fumble around in the dark to light his way.  This couch is said to be the very couch where he possibly lost his virginity, although it cannot be confirmed by any historical record or writing.  The book shelf is a personal library filled with books from his childhood.  His favorite was about a badger that throws mud in his sister’s eye.

No sir, there’s no insight or joke here.  It’s just fact.

Now as we past the dryer, we have come to the bulkhead, a large steel door that was a traditional entrance to the back yard but signals the end of our tour.  Feel free to walk the grounds, taunt the locals in this now depressed area, and to play wiffle ball with our horse based plastic bats and balls.  Completely cancer free and only seventy three Ameros at the gift shop.  My name is Park Ranger Al and you have all been amazing.

Thank you and no running!

The four pieces of matching luggage rested next to my feet.  The bags were shiny, black and free of any scuffs or scrapes.  Amtrak allowed you to check three of them.  It was still too early to do that.

I sat on a wooden bench next to track five in Boston’s South Station, my friend Rich directly across me with his bags.  We each listened to cassette tapes via our Walkmans.  Neil Young’s “After The Gold Rush” played on mine.

Rich’s parents had driven us to the train station on that cold November day, and they also helped with the many pieces of luggage we possessed.  We were not going on vacation.  In a few days we would call the Rocky Mountains our home.

Rich had decided to move to Colorado before we graduated from Boston University.  His brother had been out there a couple of years and raved about the stunning mountains and clean air and the different kind of life.  Rich knew Colorado was for him.

After getting my diploma I had applied to over a hundred newspapers on the east coast, mostly in Florida and North Carolina.  But none had offered me a job as a reporter.  And thus one October evening, while drinking beers and Irish whiskey with Rich, I had an epiphany.

“I’m going with you,” I told him.  “Maybe not getting a job is exactly what was supposed to happen.  Maybe fate is sending me to Breckenridge, Colorado.”

“You still reading Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance?” Rich asked.  “That book can really put strange ideas into a person’s head.”

“Finished it yesterday.”

“Are you sure you want to go?” Rich asked.

“I did three internships and wrote articles every week for The Free Press.  God or whatever force is out there must have other plans for me.”

“It would be good for you, and I’d love to have another friend out there.  But you’ve always talked about Key West and the whole Jimmy Buffett-Hemingway experience.”

“I’ll get there someday,” I said.

“Are you sure Colorado is where you want to be?”

I was not convinced the Rocky Mountains were the answer, but I had to make a decision.  Since graduation my apathy swelled with each job rejection.  Disappointment had become the norm, and life was whatever passed in front of me.  I had to take control.

And that’s how I found myself departing Boston on Amtrak’s Lakeshore Limited.  The first leg of the journey would take us nearly one thousand miles to Chicago.  From there we would change trains and the California Zephyr would eventually deposit us in Denver.

I had built up many romantic ideas of what the train trip would be like.  Riding the rails was timeless, a way to connect with the past and enjoy the here and now.  I thought of Kerouac’s October in the Railroad Earth, of “blue sky of perfect lost purity and the warp of wood of old America beneath me”.  I also relished the opportunity to meet interesting people and listen to their stories.

Once on the train I had difficulty finding the romance.  Rich and I spent much of our time reading or listening to our cassette tapes.  The scenery whizzed past us.  The nights were devoted to drinking, which was also a means of lulling us to sleep.  We had no private berths and were confined to regular seats that barely reclined.

Although thinking about it now, I can accentuate the charms of my train ride across America.  Glimpsing a grinning hobo, wine bottle in hand, as he stumbled down an alley near the tracks in Cleveland.  The flat and otherworldly spaciousness of Nebraska plains and the grass that billowed like water.  Staring out the window with a head full of booze at the sparkling stars.  The great talks I had with Rich as the train rumbled along in the darkness.

“I see you becoming this big mountain poet, singing in coffee houses and bars,” I told him that first night.  “Some record exec will be on ski trip and discover you.  You’ll make millions and never leave.”

“What about you?” Rich asked.  “The Rockies should inspire you to write a great novel.  I think you should ditch that whole mystery book and start writing some real prose that’ll knock this country on its ass.”

“Later,” I said.  “Right now I need to focus on writing something that will sell.  Because if nobody will hire me to be a reporter, I don’t want to end up waiting tables or sitting behind some desk staring at computer screen all day.”

“We’re going to have to get jobs soon.  Our graduation money ain’t gonna last.  Doesn’t matter what we do, long as we’re making enough to keep us going.  You writing and me with my music.”

With the right amount of alcohol in our system we finally fell asleep.  The morning brought Chicago and having to change trains.  There was an hour and a half layover before we boarded the new one to Denver.  I wanted to get outside for some fresh air.  Rich decided to stay with the bags.

I walked up the steps in Union Station, the same ones from the film The Untouchables, and thought about G-Men and gangsters in the 1930’s.  Outside it was cold and I quickly located the Sears Tower.  I stared at it and smiled.

Four months earlier I had been on the top on that skyscraper with a dark haired girl.  We spent a wonderful week together that July.  Fireworks on a blanket in Grant Park, bar hopping on Division Street, and getting the chance to continue a romance that had begun on Spring Break in Mexico.

Back in the station I could not find Rich.  Within a flurry of bodies and bags, I rushed to the tote board to see what track The California Zephyr would leave from.  On the platform with hundreds of people, I found Rich leaning against a post smoking a cigarette.

“Thinking about your Chicago girl?” he asked in between puffs of his Marlboro Light.  “When’s the last time you talked with her.”

I grabbed my bags and answered, “She got back together with her ex.”

Aboard the new train we soon met Buffalo Will.  Unshaven and wiry with salt and pepper hair, his eyes bulged when he talked.  Will could not have been sane.  He proved this by the barrage of words that came out his mouth.

Rich and I were getting drunk in the lounge car, in preparation for sleep, and for awhile Buffalo Will was our entertainment.  Since leaving Boston every person we encountered had been unremarkable.  Possibly this guy would turn out to be a weirdo with sagacious wisdom.

That did not happen.

Buffalo Will was paranoid about everything.  He was certain some minority would try to stab him and steal his money.  Or the government would evict him from his land.  Or the police would seize him and take his guns.

Buffalo Will loved his guns.  His shotguns, rifles, and handguns were the only things keeping him safe from minorities, the government, and the police.  He said he looked forward to the day when he finally got to shoot another human being in self defense.

“I’ve never picked up a gun in my life,” I said.  “And I never will.”

Buffalo Will looked at me with disdain and laughed.  “In three years time you’ll be dead.  You really think the cities of this country have much longer before the riots begin?  By 1995 America will be one big war zone.”

When the lunatic went to the bathroom after last call, we slipped away to our seats.  I stayed awake for another hour, sipping my can of beer slowly, and kept my eyes on the door.  I would not engage in conversation with another stranger on the train.

In the morning I woke to see flat and barren land.  It had an eerie quality to it, like terrain of another planet.  Occasionally a house, a barn, and a tractor would become visible.  Afterwards no signs of life for another hundred miles.  The only creatures with a heartbeat were cattle; they dotted the landscape, seeming as rulers of the land.

Then suddenly the mountains appeared.  After gazing at smooth ground for hours upon hours, the emergence of a giant protuberance in the distance warped my senses.  With all the flatness I had witnessed, the mountains just didn’t belong.  But I was sure glad they were there.

Rich and I arrived in Denver’s Union Station, a fraction of its Chicago counterpart, and then waited for our luggage.  We sat on the hard wooden benches and looked at the big clock, disorientated but excited.  Our bags were delayed forty minutes, and our ride much longer.

I had so much pent up energy, and paced around the station waiting for Steve to arrive.  Rich was pensive and made trips outside to smoke cigarettes.  He had no explanation of where his brother could be.

Yes, it was a favor for his brother to drive all the way down the mountain to pick us up.  But Rich had given him the exact time of our arrival.  Being over two hours late was a bad omen.

Steve finally arrived and gave an excuse I can no longer remember.  We loaded all our belongings in his yellow 1970’s Saab wagon and jumped inside.  The vehicle stalled twice before leaving Denver, and on the mountain it slid so much I began seeing a headline in a Colorado paper- “3 killed on snowy road, bald tires blamed”.

We kept climbing, physically higher than I had ever been in my life.  It began to snow.  The three of us started making plans for our new apartment, and talked of finding girlfriends and recording music and writing novels.

I would only stay in Colorado for six weeks.

The apartment we were promised had been given to somebody else.  We could not find another in our budget, as the ski towns bulged with young transplants spending the season in the mountains.  We ended up crashing on couches and floors of Steve’s friends.  Every place had cats.  I was allergic to cats.

But in that Saab wagon curving up into The Rocky Mountains, I knew nothing of my future.  There was so much hope.  It felt so good to have followed through on this huge life decision.  Everything around me was new.  Out the snowy window you viewed what you thought was the zenith of the mountain, but then you would reach that point and glimpse more rising land.

When I was a kid, I lived in a triple decker right next to The Footlight Club, (America’s Oldest Community Theater.)  And when I say “right next to,” I mean “my bedroom window was six feet away from one of their windows.”  As a result, I was exposed to an enormous amount of musical theater from a very early age.  In the winter I could barely hear their nightly rehearsals, but in the summer, before my parents put an air conditioner in my room, every single night, a guy was only doing it for some doll.  Did it make me gay?  No.  Did it make me hate musical theatre?  Well, sorta.  But, minus the neighborly, unintentional, and I am quite sure well intentioned intervention, I probably would have reached that conclusion on my own.

In the darkest AM hours of March 20, 2007, I went for a walk.  I walked and walked and walked.  I walked for six hours straight, taking breaks only to pee, sip tea, kiss, and stand in the warm shower. 

Walking was all I wanted, and luckily I had set things up so that I could do exactly what I wanted.  Ain’t nobody messin’ with me this time. 

I dragged Matt outside at about three AM, which honestly could have been two or could have been four.  Time was meaningless and still and intangible.  My water had popped about an hour earlier.  Nothing happened at first, other than the mess.  We made a few calls, watched a late night showing of Oprah, and played Yahtzee.  Matt was having the game of his life, though we’d never finish it. 

I had read the granola birth bible, Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth.  Ina May, woodsy midwife and America’s homebirth expert, made a strong case for making out during contractions.  I know, I know.  I know!  When reading the book leisurely before bed each night, I’d often roll my eyes at the stories of couples kissing in the woods, going with the sexual flow of birth.  Once in labor, the concept didn’t seem so silly.  Shoot, when it comes to labor, anything’s worth a try.

That year March 20^th was the last day of winter, although it is often the first day of spring.  Our Poughkeepsie neighborhood was littered with snow banks, glowing like golden ice bergs in the honey of the streetlamps.  There had been a surprise St. Patrick’s Day blizzard, an inappropriate belch at the end of a wonderfully warm winter.  Talk about white knuckles.  The night of the blizzard I sat on the couch with my legs crossed.  Tight. 

Through both of my pregnancies Matt joked that he was going to start a club called “Poor Cold Husbands of America.”  When pregnant, I throw the windows open in thirty degree weather.  I dip the AC to 65.  This night was no exception to the raging hormonal furnace.  Matt was shivering, miserable, looking longingly at our cozy colonial each time we passed, as I ushered him up and down our street in a long, exaggerated pace. 

Beneath the ice and snow I could smell the green.  I could taste spring.  The air was cool on my face, but in a pleasant way—energizing and new.  I was like one of those animals in Bambi, heightened senses, hormones thumping, babies brewing.  Twitterpated, as they say, hot with spring fever. 

We kissed during contractions, per Ida May’s instructions.  Seriously, magic.  Not only did it dull the pain to near nothing, but it was like I had never kissed before.  Even though I was so big my coat wouldn’t button, even though I was wearing pajama pants soaked with amniotic fluid, even though my Poor Cold Husband of America was  reluctant and embarrassed, I felt fantastic!  I was a birth goddess, a powerful lioness, a sex kitten, a mother.  It’s a feeling I crave when life gets hectic—feeling wild yet in control, tasting spring—womanhood by design. 

The kissing didn’t last all night.  Eventually it was time to face the music and transition and that inexplicably sweet and humbling pain—a pain so profound and otherworldly that it’s able to make you forget kissing even exists.  Within an hour I would go from powerful lioness to desperate dog, sex kitten to touchy feral cat.  And through it all I would walk and walk and walk, through my house, room to room, keeping my husband close, but not too close.  Don’t talk, don’t touch me, but don’t go.  When I think of my son’s birth, I don’t love to think about those moments.  There is a place for them in my memories and of course they are an important part of what makes me whole, but they’re not the ones I replay.

I like to think of what it felt like in the semi-fresh air of Poughkeepsie, a town we never really felt at home in.  I like to think of Matt and I walking, arm in arm, taking care not to slip on the ice.  I remember his lips, cold of course, but warming to me.  They had never felt that way before and they have never felt that way since.  They were just so there, they were just so mine.  When we weren’t kissing we were strolling slowly, looking up at the guest room window, where our midwives were laying out their inventory, preparing for the baby’s arrival.  It hit us, walking that lonely street, that it wouldn’t be long before we met him, our Nolan, a boy so important for one we’d never seen.  His sugar hung in the air like a heavy sigh, like the long walk between abstraction and bloody, screaming reality. 

As we walked and walked I fretted over Allie, my first born.  I wondered how I could love another, knowing inside that I would and that it would sting her a bit.  As I thought of her my heart ached and I entertained fantasies of running away and calling the whole thing off, this second baby, this boy.  And then I faced fear and the fact that a fantasy couldn’t be more impossible.  He was coming out.  He was coming out soon.

As we walked we diligently tried to hash out a middle name, something that we wouldn’t end up deciding until three weeks after his birth.  We would throw around crazy choices like Winter, Hunter, and Sailor, only to settle on James. 

At some point the midwives stood on the porch with their hands on their hips and Matt started pushing me toward home.  I didn’t want to go there.  I didn’t want to face the music.  I didn’t want to leave the cool, green hint of spring.  I didn’t want to stop kissing. 

I remember being the last one in the door, the warmth of modern heating humanizing me and taking me in.  I cracked the screen door and stuck my head out one last time, sucking a big vernal breath into eager pink lungs.  I looked up and down the street and saw our walk like a ghost, like something faint etched in the pavement.  It was not quite the most romantic night of our relationship, but close—as real as a moment can be and sticky with glue, wonderfully grassy glue that one can only hope saturates a marriage.

It all began when my high school English teacher assigned The Sun Also Rises to our honors lit class.  At the time I probably didn’t grasp a fraction of its subtext, but I loved it purely for the story.  I loved how Jake Barnes talked with women in Paris cafes and fished for trout in Spanish rivers and drank wine with Basque peasants and just completely enjoyed life on his own terms.

Then there were the bullfights.

I had never met anybody who had seen one in person.  Hell, I had never even heard bullfighting mentioned in conversation.  It was Hemingway’s words that penetrated my 17-year-old mind and made me interested.

Flash forward to my senior year in college.  It’s Cancun and scantily clad girls and booze and sun soaked beaches.  Although I wanted to experience traditional Spring Break craziness, I couldn’t go all the way to Mexico just to get drunk and look at bikinis.  So I bought a guide book to find the culture in Cancun.

There were Mayan Ruins.  Boat trips for snorkeling and fishing.  A day trip to an island.  And I remember breaking into a wide smile when I read about the Cancun Bullfights.  Conjuring up images of Jake Barnes, Brett Ashley and Pamplona, I made a promise to myself I would buy a ticket even if I had to go alone.

There was no way I would miss the opportunity to experience the sport that was such an inspiration to Hemingway.  Sure, there’s always the bull’s side; but what about every cow that is slaughtered in the United States?  At least before the bull got to the butcher’s table he would be taking part in a ritual that has been around since the Seventh Century.

But my opinions were formed just from reading.  I hungered for empirical information, to sit in the ring and see the spectacle with my own eyes.  I was eager to get the same feeling Hemingway did when he witnessed man and bull becoming one.

I have so many wonderful memories from Cancun.  Charging into the warm ocean water just hours after leaving Boston and 22 degree weather.  Ordering buckets of Coronas while lying on white sand, the cold beer tasting so good in the hot sun.  I was also fortunate to spend several days and nights with a sweet, dark haired girl from Chicago.

It was a special trip.  But since then there have been many tropical beaches, plenty of booze, and several romances.  There has only been one afternoon of bullfighting.

Jamie, my friend and freshman year roommate, was also interested in seeing the bulls.  Or maybe I had to convince him while he was drunk.  Those details are murky, but either way when Wednesday rolled around we pried ourselves off the beach and made our way downtown.

From the hotel zone the bullring was located on the left at the end of the strip.  We were a little early so we stayed to the right and ambled down Tulum Avenue.  I couldn’t focus on the people or buildings we passed.  I just wanted to see el toro.  After grabbing a quick bite to eat we bought our tickets from a street vendor and headed toward our destination.

As Jamie and I turned the corner and started down Bonampak Avenue, I first glimpsed the pale maroon, stucco bullring looming up over the trees at the end of the road.  We were soon absorbed by the crowd streaming toward the entrance.

“It kind of reminds me of heading down Brookline Avenue to Fenway,” I said.

Looking puzzled, the only response Jamie could muster was “Huh?”

But it did feel that way.  Walking with a large group, in the kind of heat and humidity you’d find on a typical July day in Boston, to watch an event steeped in history and tradition.  Except instead of a homerun sailing over the Green Monster, you’d watch a bull get killed.  Obviously the two were different, but being outside the ring created the same type of atmosphere- one of anticipation and excitement.

After traversing through the long line the guy took our tickets.  I began to get a taste of how it might have been attending a bullfight during Hemingway’s time.  The clay walls, the dirt floor, the pungent odor of . . .

“This place reeks of shit,” Jamie said with a wide grin.

One certainly smelled bull droppings, but we would soon be engulfed by the figurative kind as well.

To reach the seats you had to walk through the actual ring where the bull would be killed; there was only one reason- they wanted you to buy things.  Souvenir stands hawking anything from tacky matador hats to the kind of plastic bulls you might find in Disneyworld’s version of Spain.  My vision of Hemingway’s sacred country vanished, replacing it was the reality of commercialism.

Cancun was a town built solely for the tourist industry, and I shouldn’t have been surprised. Except the mystique of the corridas de toros and its roots in Spanish culture were enough to think it couldn’t be spoiled . . . that the event was sacred and not to be corrupted.  My naiveté had sucked me into this vortex, along with thirty-three US dollars I paid for the ticket.

But I yearned for the Hemingway adventure, and I would do my best to achieve it.  I made a conscious decision to ignore the tourist atmosphere and concentrate on the actual bullfight.

It wasn’t easy.

After the souvenir booths inside the ring were dismantled the vendors swarmed into the stands to peddle the same hokey merchandise.  We had taken a seat on the first row on the balcony to be closer to the action; this was a mistake because the hawkers continuously disturbed our sightline to make their rounds.  Thankfully the bulls would be coming soon and I could focus on what mattered in the ring.  Besides, the crowd was more that fifty percent local, and if they could tolerate the marketing so could I.

When the opening ceremonies commenced I began to relax.  A group of dancers emerged from the tunnels and launched into a routine accompanied by the frantic beating of drums.  Clad in elaborate silver and gold costumes, they did a series of flips and spins that the crowd found entertaining.

After the applause faded from the dancers’ finale, a portly man dressed in cowboy garb and wearing an enormous sombrero did rope tricks.  Big loops to small loops, he repeated the show as he glided around the bullring.  From the polite claps the audience obviously preferred the dancers.  Or maybe they had become restless, anxiously awaiting the bull’s entrance.

They wouldn’t have to wait much longer.

There is no proper English translation of corrida de torros. It literally means the running of the bulls, which doesn’t really describe what  happens in the ring.  But according to aficionados, calling it a bullfight is a misnomer as well.  They feel uncomfortable using the word fight because it isn’t a pugilistic affair at all.

The program I bought outside the ring described it this way: “The bullfight is actually moving art.  A man using his courage, risks life to create art.”  That account went along with Hemingway, and I would finally get to witness this artistic expression of courage.

I felt a rush down my spine when the bull bolted out of the box and whooshed into the center of the ring.  He had it all- long horns, expansive hump, and from the haughtiness he displayed by stopping directly in the middle of the spectacle, determination.  Shouts of “toro, toro, toro” rang down in appreciation.  It was almost as if the bull was playing with us when he refused to charge, opting instead for the dramatic pause.  We waited anxiously for the beast who would not leave this ring alive.

If you blinked you would have missed it.  With breathless agility the bull shot at one of the banderilleros, the matador’s assistants who play an important role later on in the ceremony.  The young man had been yelling at the animal, and wanting to see his next paycheck he quickly hopped over the partition to safety.  Never breaking stride, the bull turned as if on skates and charged at another banderillero, who followed in his partner’s path.

The crowd loved every minute of this, and I was completely enthralled.  The bull had enticed me into his world and everything else receded.  The cheap souvenirs were now buried inside my mind, somewhere under the geometry I learned in eight grade.

That is why I was so disturbed by the voice.  It came across the speakers and radiated, in English, throughout the ring. It told us the next stage of the event was ready, and then proceeded to explain what would happen.

I couldn’t believe that they’d have an announcer to hold the tourist’s hand.  For someone who had no clue it was probably a good thing.  But for the person who had done their homework, who came to witness “moving art”, the voice was an intrusion.  I could only imagine what the locals thought.  Maybe they found the announcer amusing.  Maybe they didn’t understand him.

Because of Hemingway I did not need to be told what would occur next.  After showcasing the bull it was now time for the picadors.  Riding horseback, the picador’s job is to weaken the beast by jabbing it in the back with a long spear.  Their task is vital, for if the bull isn’t slowed, the matador cannot execute his exciting cape work.  In addition to their practical function, the picadors also serve as a test for the bull: one that determines if he has courage.

“If the bull runs from the picador’s stab, he has demonstrated his gentleness,” the program said. “But if he charges the horse and doesn’t retreat, he demonstrates his breeding and courage.”

This one had courage.  The instant the two picadors emerged (one on a white horse and the other on a black one), the bull shot at the light colored stallion.  Along with everybody else I gasped when it rammed the unsuspecting horse into the wall.  Reading The Sun Also Rises had somewhat prepared me, but deep inside it still hurt to see it.

“Don’t look at the horses after the bull hits them,” was what Jake told Brett in the novel. “Watch the charge and see the picador try and keep the bull off.”

I heeded this advice and inspected the picador’s futile attempt to keep the bull away. But el toro was intent on knocking the man off the horse, and succeeded in five seconds.  This was the only time I was glad it wasn’t like Pamplona in the 1920’s.  Because if it were, the horse would have been killed.  In 1990’s Cancun the animals were padded and the horns could not penetrate.

When a horse is felled it is the matador’s job to make the bull charge at him.  In The Sun Also Rises, to achieve this Pedro Romero only had to flick his cape.  With this bull it took more.  The matador had to maneuver a lot closer and yell.  Eventually el toro, hungry for more damage, rushed at him.  The matador swung his cape with two hands and lead the bull into the other picador, where he could be jabbed properly.  This was a Veronica pass.

It took several more passes for the bull to tire, and the picador riding the black stallion finally speared him with force.  But even though el toro had blood oozing from his hump, he was not broken.  He could not capitulate the first round.

The second stage was about to start, and once again Mr. Announcer explained it in English.  But it was easy to forget about the intrusion here.  This was the part I would find the most exciting- the banderilleros.

The men who participate (who made their debut briefly in the onset) have the task of jabbing two barbed sticks into the bull’s hump.  They have no weapon of defense, nobody to cover their backs.  And the banderilleros don’t wait for their enemy to charge- they’re always on the attack.  I thought of them as the rodeo clowns of bullfighting, because they entertained and assisted the star, all the while risking their very existence.  But the banderilleros were certainly much more bad ass then anything you would find at a rodeo.

So there was the bull, gigantic and fierce and determined.  And there were the banderilleros, small and serene but equally resolute.  The crowd had been behind the bull from the minute it charged.  The banderilleros would give us a reason to root for the matador.

The first banderillero was the youngest.  Lithe in build, with short cropped black hair and a child’s smile, he barreled at el toro.  The bull seemed to enjoy this, and galloped quickly at the little man.  It was a classic game of chicken, about as fair as a compact car versus an eighteen wheel truck.  Just as the bull was about to maul his prey, the young man sidestepped and thrust his instruments toward the bull’s hump.

Somewhere in the blur I saw the sticks graze the beast and tumble on the dirt.  Looking dejected the banderillero shook his head, jogged to the edge of the ring, and leapt over the wall.  Although he failed in his task, the audience clapped hard for the effort.

The young man seemed to inspire his peers.  The next two banderilleros were older and heftier, but each challenged the bull and connected with good placements of the sticks.  The momentum had now swung back to the matador.

The bull lumbered directly underneath us and instantly there was a change inside of me.  Any high I got from the banderillos evaporated as I inspected the bull.  The black creature, once so full of energy and life, was now weary and listless.  His expansive hump was stained red.  His mere sight made you desire euthanasia.  A wish that would soon be granted.

The third act of this tragedy was set to commence.

This was what I had been waiting for . . . the matador challenging the bull and thrilling the crowd with deft cape work.  I desperately wanted to see if the artist moved in the terrain of el toro or faked danger by staying in his own.  I gazed intently as the man in the red and black costume positioned himself and then proceeded to conduct his passes.  I studied carefully, somewhat enjoying the fluttering of the red cape.

But I could not feel anything for the bull or the matador.

It was now kill time, and it was anti-climatic.  I simply could not believe the matador was risking his life for artistic expression.  As for the bull, I had accepted his demise from the beginning.  The two participants were simply finishing what they started in the kind of manner my high school English teacher would have called “perfunctory”.

The bugles sounded and the announcer told us it was now “the moment of truth”.  I had lost interest and felt slightly sickened.  If el corridas de torros is indeed an art, it loses all aesthetics conducted in these surroundings.

When the matador drove his sword into the creature it all seemed so contrived.  His movements were not smooth, they were over emphasized.  The bull staggered for a few seconds, his tongue draped over his mouth, and then collapsed to the cheer of the crowd.

But the creature still had a few gasps of life.  Another man entered the ring and stabbed the bull between the eyes with a knife.  I winced.  But it was finally dead.  More men entered and tied the bull to a horse.  There was a crack of a whip.  I’ll never forget the trail of bloody dirt the bull made as it slid across the ring.

Two more bulls would be killed, and I would not witness animal and man become one.

But that night I met the dark haired girl from Chicago.  We held hands and walked the beach at night.  We kissed each other in the ocean.  The stars were bright and the air was warm and I soon forgot about Hemingway.