A Kiss And An Open Suitcase

I'm disinclined to write much tonight, although I have a great deal on my mind. This past weekend I was in Long Island, New York with Linda, visiting members of her extended family as her niece celebrated graduating from high school. Some of my time was spent talking to a geologist who has traveled to every continent on the planet, except for Africa. "I'm too old to deal with civil war," said the 74 year old, talking about strife in that part of the world. And yes, she has been to Antarctica. Naturally, that's the tricky part of visiting all seven continents. She was fascinating and funny and whenever I could I planted myself next to her and worked hard to overcome Avoidant Personality Disorder. I'm a fair conversationalist when I'm not crippled by this ridiculous, aggravating social anxiety. She spoke and I listened. I'm a better person for it.

After several glasses of wine, 3 mgs of lorazepam and 150 mgs of tramadol, I found myself getting a little dizzy in the backyard of some lovely Long Islanders. Every so often a bright, white arc revealed the presence of a firefly. I hadn't seen one since my family lived in Billerica almost twenty years ago. Each sharp flash touched me like music. At one point, I fought back tears, not knowing why. Having given it some thought, now I know. A vein of innocence, long buried under shock therapy, suicide attempts, a broken heart and simple failures was mined by a little bug doing what I imagine is some sort of mating behaviour. As I sat in a wobbly lawn chair in the growing dark, my thoughts turned to the old house I mentioned, in Billerica, Massachusetts. It's a small town, very different from the other towns I've lived in over the years; Lawrence, Medford, Belmost, Somerville, Arlington and even Natick. What made it different is that it was rural, not a suburb or the city. Summer nights out there and back then produced those fireflies (we called them lightning bugs), and the dark, country nights necessary to properly set the stage for them. And in my ears were the sounds of crickets and the wind in the trees. The scent in the air was sweet and clean, and a little bit like hay and horse shit.

The house we lived in was white, with a barn out back used for storage and a stone wall around the east side that enclosed a crab apple tree and a glen where grass, weeping cherry, boxwood and forsythia all grew. My memory has been shattered by ECT, but I'm pretty sure that it was beautiful. And out behind the barn were piles of old, junked cars that my brother and I took pleasure in destroying.

All this came back into my mind after seeing a firefly in Long Island. The New York mosquitoes took advantage of my sentimental disposition and semi-drunken and drugged state. I have numerous bites on my ankles and arms that, I have to admit, are pleasurable to scratch. One more thing about the memory of living in Billerica, the location of my last firefly sighting so long ago. I was an avid reader back then, and aspired to be a writer. To that end, I took a writing course by mail. How fondly I remember sitting on the front porch one rainy summer afternoon, typing up a short story on an ancient Royal typewriter. I didn't know it then, but that day was very special. My mother was alive and healthy and just inside, and my father was out working. I endeavored to make them proud of me, as a writer, and actually enjoyed using that antique Royal to reach that goal. I fell in love with the clack-clack-clack.

Besides writing, my other goal in life was to travel...to see all the places I read about. And that brings me back to the old geologist. She'll never know how much emotional currency her stories had with me. When she told me about staying at a flea-bag hotel near the Champs Elysses, I swooned. Her story about a recent trip to Switzerland put a smile on my puerile face. At various points during the weekend we spoke about Darwin, Tierra Del Fuego, Lake Vostok microbes, archaeology and stark class divisions in South America. She made me remember a time when my heart was full of romantic notions of how I was going to travel one day and see the world entire. Now, I get anxious if I'm away from home for more than a couple of days. I'm comfortable with that failure (out of familiarity) and managed to get past myself and enjoy the company of my new friend.

I'm weary, though, of the anxiety, depression and guilt. It's so bromidic and tiresome, this self-absorbed, banal mental illness. I'm close to a handful of people, including Linda and, of course, my brother, who is my best friend and greatest ally in this fucking nauseating life. And my father, of course, who is another best friend. And there is Clare, Jen, Donna and just a few more people. Outside that circle of friends, though, I find it impossible to function normally. In order to survive by reducing guilt, anxiety and depression I need to limit my intercourse with the world. Otherwise, I go down a path that I know will lead to misery and self-mutilation and eventually a mental hospital or suicide. That's the story of me. But that doesn't mean I can't imagine, in my little flat near Boston, of opening my suitcase in Paris and walking under the Arc de Triumphe with my father (he was there in the 1950's and we dream of going there together). Or kissing my darling Linda beneath the Astronomical Clock in Prague's Old Town Square.

An intensity of feeling and self-loathing and guilt requires I hold the world at a bit of a distance. I do so to survive.