Together alone with myself

November 12, 1987

Oh, I'm sure

write to music

never could.

November 16, 1987

Oscar Wilde 1880, unknown photographer

Oscar Wilde
I saw his picture in a book
I stopped and stared.
I checked the name
Oscar Wilde
My God, what a handsome face.

I might go insane.
I don't know if I can just go ahead and leave. My head starts to ache. The pressure is really intense. I'm really too afraid to act.






November 18, 1987

This is the way the video should go...
Women talking in the house - Jan to Halle.
Record this whole conversation on tape altering it by editing superfluous information and repeating things.
The other action should be in the driving with silence. The conversation stopping suddenly and Halle driving the back - repeating?
Images in slides could possibly be "couples" generic couples in love or bodies intertwined - fleshy, sensual would work very well.

(Evening)November 18, 1987

There would be no one to live for during those coming years; she would live for herself. There would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow-creature. A kind intention or a cruel intention made the act seem no less a crime as she looked upon it in that brief moment of illumination.
- "The Story of an Hour" - Kate Chopin

November 19, 1987

It has been so hard for me to write. It seems a time to reread what I have been thinking. I want to talk no longer. I cannot.
Cris wears Lisanne's black shirt. The cuffs of which cover his hands to his knuckles. Upon the last button hole, hangs a silver heart.
She came for dinner and [later] we [Cris and I] talked about us. We are going to be friends, that's what I need.
"We called a cab in fear of your reaction to her staying the night even though we probably would not have slept together."
The insensitivity to my feelings smacks me in the face. Cris wears Lisanne's shirt like a trophy. His bodily scents oozing into the black cotton fibers, weft and warp holding his essence.
When he returns the shirt (which may never happen, he is such a thief), Lisanne can take it to bed with her, wrapping her arms and legs about the shirt and deeply smelling it.

I need to just stop. Cris is such an asshole really. I am not finding him at all attractive, at all.

Cold, cold wind blow
See what's left of me.

God! Jesus Christ! I really make myself totally sick at times. Here's something else to think about...

Coffin-board, heavy stone,
Lie on her breast,
I vex my heart alone.
She is at rest.

Peace, Peace, she cannot hear
Lyre or sonnet,
All my life's buried here,
Heap earth upon it.
- Avignon - Oscar Wilde

=================================================

I wrote a lot. I left a lot out. It is strange how after 23 years, I skip the horror, write of video editing and quoting short stories. I mention a conversation finally after three days of hell.

The end of my marriage started on the 16th. I had forgotten my notebook for my afternoon class, so a friend offered to drive me home. I burst happily in the door, my children turned, smiling at me. As I stepped in I saw her. A young woman was sitting on the couch. "Oh, hai", I said, grabbing my notebook off the bookcase. Back in the car, as I buckled in I said, "My husband is having another affair." 

That was what my three sentence observation was about. I was thinking of leaving. I had threatened Cris before - that he had left the last time - leaving me with 3 young children - alone - distraught - empty. I had threatened to leave him the next time.
On the morning of the 17th. I was going to register for my second semester at MCAD. Cris and I had a routine. I had morning school, he had afternoon school. I worked some evenings. He went out and romanced women the evenings that I didn't work. This morning, he had not yet arrived. He had stayed out all night. He had not done this before - at least not since he had moved back home to me. I guess since I had caught him "red handed" the day before, Cris decided to drop the pretense of a "study group" and indulged himself in a romantic evening.

I watched out the window. Waiting. Growing more and more enraged. Where Was He? Where Is He? I Have To Go! The children played nervously in the next room, leaving me alone. A half-hour after my time to register, the city bus stopped and off came Cris. I grabbed the window curtain, tearing down the curtain rod. I screamed. I beat the window with the rod. I turned and beat one of Cris's paintings, ripping it, screaming enraged.

As Cris entered the duplex,  I opened the door, continuing to scream. I grabbed handfuls of books off the shelf next to the door. I pelted him with my Dostoevsky books, "War and Peace", "The Idiot", "The Brothers Karamazov", down they flew, hitting their mark as he climbed the steps. 

He reached the top, grabbing me violently and pushing me backwards into the bedroom. He threw me down on the bed, choking me. I kicked him, struggled to get away. The children stood silently at the foot of the bed watching - or were they crying? I did manage to get him off of me. I called my sister to get the children. I called my friend Halle to come get me, take me away. I had a video camera checked out to film my final project for class. 

I was bruised and swollen. Halle drove me to Stillwater to her friend Jan's house. She had not not planned to rescue me that day. She had planned to rescue Jan. Jan had woke up that morning to find that her husband had taken the children in the night, leaving a note on the table. She was distraught. 

Needing to tape anything. Anything. I pulled out the camera, setting the microphone into the bowl of fruit on the table. I held the camera low and listened to Halle talk to Jan. Jan began to open up and as most people do, she started to forget the camera. I turned it on and began to tape her stories. 

I did actually get a great story. She was the cheater in her relationship. I hated her. I was able to piece together a story and outtakes into a video that meant something to me. I made her stand for my husband, I made her seem petty and insensitive. The entry on November 18th was "faked" to make it seem as if I had preplanned the whole video. If I checked my visual journals, I am sure I could find the actual story I had wanted to film. I don't have the energy to look - and that is beside the point.

 After missing my appointment to register, my life took a drastic turn. I decided to leave MCAD, to apply to the University of Minnesota to peruse a degree in Art Education. After working on my video until midnight, I went home and gathered my things, then left.

I did it. I left Cris for 3 days, well actually, two nights and three days. I slept at a friends house the first night, on the wooden floor, waking early, sore and going to school in the same clothes I had worn the day before. I slept the next night in my car, in the MCAD parking lot. It was late November. It was cold. My windows iced up. I was frozen. I changed my clothes before going to the restroom to brush my teeth before class. After class, I defiantly went home. I hugged my babies and ordered Cris and Lisanne OUT! 

I  am still pretty sly, hiding all my turmoil in quotes from books, and quick conversations. I am still like that now. I am quiet in my discomfort. I speak to no one about my pain. I do have a secret blog where I confess my dissatisfaction, my despair, my sorrow. You could look at me, and only see either boredom or disgust. Those are my expressions. I am a secret that nobody knows. 

My husband, Anthony, never reads my blogs. It feels empty to me that he doesn't. He sits next to me, coding. I am alone.

My story starts and ends with me

November 2, 1987

School conference with Aja's teacher today. She does well in school, but needs some work with letter sounds and math concepts. She is fine though and tries hard. I think she gets frustrated too easily.

I am sick. It is really terrible to be sick. Ianthe fell asleep counting pennies today at 11:30. She must have been pretty wiped out.

We had lots of fun on Halloween, in Bayport. Aja and Harrison went out ahead of us and arrived home about five minutes before Cris, Ianthe and me. Cris took them back out again. They were too afraid of some of the spookier houses.

Scary Pirate Harrison and Spooky Ghost Aja!

I am interested in the occult lately. Want to know more. Maybe if I close my eyes and just let myself write some thing might happen...

/rolls eyes

I once was a river
trees standing tall
never enough time to grow
the wind seems so
restless the snow so cold
Once I could speak
but now there are no words
My lab is small
the wall are white
one of my assistants is
a little girl with curls
and a puffy yellow dress.
The other is a man
in a lab coat. his hair
is thin and dark -
balding at the top.
They each stand in wait
with chalk by the board
man to the left girl
to the right.

November 5, 1987

Before I was born, I went with my other and father to Banff National Park in Alberta, Canada. There is a black and white picture, with crinkly edges (the old fashioned kind, you know) of my mother with her big fat pregnant belly. This is me. I know it and feel it, more surely than any other early memory. I am reminded of my own children - Aja in utero attending the Alice Cooper concert - she did not like it. Ianthe went to REM a month before she was born. I danced - she didn't even twitch - she never did - nothing then or now ever phases her.

Magic, Cris is taking a very intellectual approach. I doubt it will ever work for him. Me, I've gone through believing in it. I have feared it and realized that truly fearing something is the same as knowing it is real - so I just shifted focus. Fear is not a good approach.

I want to help Cris, but I think although he thinks it is his own doing, he is helpless. He wants proof - I've already had it. I will make him an "altar" - he is so into ceremony. I'll stock it with glass vials and wool cloth and many colored candles. I'll get him another mortar and pestle (maybe his mom still has ours) and a beautiful glass tray in which to burn things. I'll get him a glass pan to make an infusion. Maybe even stock the vials with a few remote herbs. Oh, how exciting.

========================================

I live in a very black and white world. I am the star of my existence. I have and always will be. It comforts me to know my story starts and ends with me.

When I was a young mother, I wished I could disappear. I found a book on magic that talked about how you could become invisible. He wasn't talking about becoming invisible in the "poof" gone sort of way - it was more along the lines of "blending" in. That thought really appealed to me. I practiced.


I dressed up sometimes. Wore clothes that were not mine - that I had bought at a garage sale or been given by a friend. I would do up my hair in a different style. I would paint my face with makeup - I never wear make up - I did in high school, but haven't since. I like my face just fine thank you. 


I would look totally NOT ME. I went to places that I knew Cris would be at: Uptown, the Walker Art Center, an Art Crawl downtown. I would casually walk around using the "blending" techniques. Breathe in slowly, hold, breathe out slowly, breathe. Stay to the edges, move slowly. Stay out of sight lines.


I would watch Cris with Char. I was insane with jealousy. At this point in my life, I do not understand why I could spend so much time "stalking" my own husband, confused about why he had chosen another, believing it HAD to be me. I knew about Char in July - Ianthe was born in September. I finally left him for good in June, before Ianthe turned three. That is a long time to torture one's self. Why did I do that to myself. I know now. The patterns of existence. I have routines. I hate my routines to be disrupted. But back then, I didn't know that Asperger's ruled my thoughts, ruled my behavior. Ruled my doubt.


You know that feeling in your stomach? The one that makes you slightly sick - the adrenaline being released - the slow burn? Think of that. Three years. And I thought I was the one at fault. I wasn't a good enough wife. I didn't cook well enough. I didn't keep the house clean enough, I didn't read the labels right: bough creamed corn instead of whole kernel. But it wasn't me at all. I was good enough. It was not me. It was him. 


I enjoyed my invisible self. I was no one. I could walk freely around unafraid. I asked the neighbor downstairs to listen for my babies, if they cried. Then donning my stranger's clothing, I would take the bus to Uptown and walk around, following Cris and Char. They never once saw me. I enjoyed it as much as I was pained by it. I think I enjoyed the secret me - it was the free me - the normal human with no children me. I was not ME. I was what others were to me. A Stranger.


Sometimes now, I wish I could disappear. To become invisible. I wish I were invisible now. To disappear from the world. To work in the dark. Alone. All Alone, very quiet, only the sound of the bubbles in my can of coke and the bouncing of the keyboard as I type, and the quiet pat, pat, pat as another cat comes to see what I have written tonight.


A secret. The story starts and ends with me. I am not afraid of that.