Right Now...

I need solitary activities. Stuff that involves no one but me and my head. I was online a few days ago when the idea of visiting one of my favorite websites crossed my mind. I hadn’t thought about etsy.com in a long time. It’s a place where people who hand make things, sell their goods. As I was scrolling through the various pages of orgasm inducing creativeness an old idea crossed my mind. I’ve loved charm bracelets and necklaces since I was little. I still have a silver bracelet that my aunt gave me years ago. Many family members have contributed to the loud jingling noise it makes when I wear it.
“Make jewelry.” I think to myself. I have such a strong urge to create things right now, to use my hands. It’s something I’ve thought about off and on for years now. I remember buying a book years ago about beading with some allowance money. I think I was 10. Ideas bounce around in my head. I want bold pieces of randomness placed together to create something loud and obnoxious. It’ll be a tangible version of a scream. It’s the only response I feel I really have left at the moment. I feel trapped and I don’t know the way out. I’ll try this for now. I’ll see if I can find the charms and things needed to replicate what’s in my head. I’m scared of it though. Scared that I’ll invest time, money and energy into it and lose interest. (I have a habit of doing such things…) I guess the only way to find out is to do it. I search the website for “supplies” and make my first (albeit small) purchase.
I head to work shortly after that exhilarating thought and wonder just where the hell it came from. As I was in between clients, I flipped through a Reader’s Digest and came across something that was said during an interview with a man who has pancreatic cancer. He said “Live your childhood dreams.” Hell yeah! I feel pushed in the right direction. This is certainly something I want to do for myself. If other people like it, then awesome, but if not, no worries. It’s not meant to be for anyone else.
My third client of the day, Reg is quite dear to me. Actually, everyone coming in today is and I feel guilty for wanting to be completely alone. He hugs me hard and asks how I am.
“Oh. You know…”
He nods and we walk over to my station. When I begin cutting he says,
“I’m here to listen. Whatever you want to say.”
My eyes flood with tears as if someone turned a knob and opened me up. Someone wants me to talk. He’s not afraid of my emotion. I can say whatever it is I want to say and I’m at a loss for words. I jump all over the place from what’s going on now to what went on when Rob died and various things in the middle. As I’m talking I’m simultaneously remembering the last time I saw Reg. It was the day of my accident, two days before Rob died. I was talking incessantly about how much I loved Rob, about how I couldn’t figure out how to explain this amazing connection we shared knowing Reg felt this way about his wife. I was so excited to be able to tell him “Look! I found it too!” I remember him telling me, before he left that afternoon. “I tell all my daughters to find a gentleman. Not just a gentleman, but a Gentle. Man.” Reg has told me this before and I was so proud to be able to say “I understand and I found him.”
“I wish I had something profound to say to make things better, but I don’t.” he says to me on his way out when I’m done with his haircut.
“I know. It’ll get better. At some point.” I reply.
“It just gets… different.” he says. I hear him and I’ll hold on to his words but I don’t understand just yet.
I don’t think he knows it but in the 4 years I’ve done his hair, he’s always said something profound to me. I always walk away from our 45 minutes together feeling fulfilled in some way. Today it wasn’t what he said, it’s what he allowed me to say.
My next client, Todd is a writer as well and I always enjoy our conversations. We seem to somehow struggle with the same things. The last time I saw him he was telling me that a character in his story was headed down a direction he didn’t anticipate. He wasn’t sure what to do with that. I think it’s interesting how as the author, you have created these characters but as you write, they come to life and have minds of their own.
When Todd sits in my chair he asks how things have been and I decide I’ll tell him about Rob. It’s always a toss up when I see the client I’m about to work on who didn’t know I was even seeing anyone but I feel close enough to Todd somehow to share this part of me.
I tell him everything and move on to telling him about writing my blog and all sorts of things.
He suggests to me that I try writing about the struggle of writing the blog. I’m quite perplexed by the idea.
“Do you keep a journal?” he asks.
“I did. A detailed one until the day he died. My blog has been it for the most part. I’ll fill in the details later.”
“I think it may be helpful to write about the time you have writing about all this.”
“I never thought about that.” I stop cutting to look at him.
“Maybe you two went out and got drunk together. Maybe you want to write about your sexual experiences but don’t really want that published in your blog. Write about your thought process. It doesn’t have to be shared with anyone.”
I’m wide-eyed now taking in this piece of information. I never even thought about that. How am I going to squeeze in more writing? It would be so interesting to do so though because yes, my head is full of stuff I don’t write about. My notebooks are filling up with all sorts of random thoughts, quotes, words, paragraphs, half written blogs, etc… I miss my journal like I miss a long lost best friend. I still carry it with me always but the pages following April 20, 08 are blank. I’m scared of that process too. I have to re-live everything again in the most raw, uncensored way. I’d hate myself for not doing though, for letting it slip into nothing. Looks like I have some work to do.
“I’m sorry I don’t have more cheerful things to talk about.” I tell him as I’m finishing up.
“It’s ok. This is your life right now.”
That it is.