The Flight

I had three ideas I was sure would work. First, I could barricade her into my flat. Second, I could barricade her out of my flat. Third, I could hide her Green Card. Once I realised that I'd not quite got the heart or the neurosis to put any of these plans into practice, I knew I'd have to resort to other tactics.

     
Jo was of course leaving for Seattle in the early hours of this morning, after five weeks in England, and the last eight nights staying in my flat. The bestest friend I could ever hope to have - after eleven years of love passing between us, five years of living together. I can't remember a single row we've had in that time, or a time I didn't trust her implicitly. My family, my sister, my confidante, my spiritual ally. And she was sodding off back to Seattle forever.

     
I decided "I shall be a rock, impervious to all emotion." I certainly wasn't going to be reduced to a blubbering mess. We had only one hour left before bedtime so my plan didn't seem too ambitious. I ensured that my Itunes played no music with an acoustic guitar in it or worse, a harp. Then I sat like a wooden post at the end of my sofa, pondering whether to just put on Eastenders and pretend she wasn't there. I even considered informing her that I couldn't get upset for health reasons. Since my recent discovery of two frown lines on my forehead, any kind of emotional stimulus that worsened them would be quite out of the question.

     
Then she cuddled me. The cow. We squawked like two chicks in a nest, tears flying out from our eyes and landing on each other. Tissues streamed between us like great, soggy clouds. I knew it was too late to lock her in my cupboard. Jo, my loveliest of all Jos, was flying the coop.

     
She left at 4.30 am, as I hunched in my bed feeling a strange ache in my chest. I pulled up the duvet as she scuttled round in the hallway outside my door, collecting up her things. Then I flung it open and we hugged, my eyes stuck together with tiredness, my hair no doubt standing on end.

     
Now there's a Jo-shaped hole in my living-room, but I'm imagining her winging her way across the ocean as I write this, towards her new life. It's a beautiful image. And I got a chance to say goodbye this time, to wave her off, to wish her well, and hear her close the door behind her.

     
Never underestimate the preciousness of true friendship. It's like family - it runs in the blood, it is a tract that crosses all land and sea, returning home, again and again, no matter the miles.

A couple of nights ago we watched Lars and the Real Girl. They played this Talking Heads song in it, and it's one of my favourites. So this is for Jo. It's nicely weird, especially towards the end.

tuesday

She's gone! Five weeks to America and who's knows all that shall come of it. The dearest, sweetest Jo in all of England has embarked on the biggest journey of her life in years, and is now, I imagine, gracing the folk of Seattle with her loveliness as I write.

Let it be known, she shall be sorely missed! And I expect photos of pancake stacks and gas stations and those long, long roads ..

I accompanied the girl to the airport, as she accompanied me, a year or so ago, when I flew to New York, and I saw her off at the Departure Gate before scuttling off for a cry outside the pyjama rail of the La Senza underwear shop. How funny to be the one saying goodbye, waving off, before getting the little train back to Brighton, back to my own life, to my own life which is itself changing, though I can't always see it..

A wonderful thing about someone close to you following their dreams and taking that chance is how it rubs off on you. For me at the moment, my way is not of long flights and travelling overseas alone towards some destiny, but it is of admitting my dreams and following them, even in the knowledge, the painful knowledge, that they might well lead only into dust and vapour. And it is admitting that I can't do it alone, that I need people and I need love. Solitude has been necessary these last four years, but now it is time to dive back in; ok, perhaps still with armbands on, but diving in nevertheless. The waters are cold and deep, but so alive; kicking my legs through the milky blackness.

It certainly wasn't the road signs or the thought of love or money littering the streets or what the paper said.

Only the half caught things that make my day. Like the end of a T.V. show. Like reflections in car windows. I don't understand why I was meant for a treacherous life. Never known any different. The clouds speed at two o' clock along with the rain and my head falls forward on your chest. Your room is white as air, Death Cab For Cutie on the stereo. I feel your tears rolling into my hair as mine spread down my chin. I say "I'm tired, I'm tired". And the way you looked at me then, well, it made my day.

And I am out into the wet again, boots soaked through to skin, waves up high against the balustrade. Paper blowing to the West, a magic lantern swings on the peeling wooden railing. I am no ornate fixture, despite the tunes trickling through my head. I am blown to pieces. But how he took my hand, he didn't have to. Led me up the wobbling road. He bought me yellow roses and carnations just to cheer me up. And a washing up bowl, one without a hole in.

I had an orgasm tonight. When I came it was no man, no woman, no fumbling graphic scene, it was only the kindness in a stranger's eyes which made the world explode. Kindness, almost blue in colour. I remember then the page after page I read yesterday from a guy in Pennsylvania writing about his girlfriend, a local stripper, who danced for him the first time as she danced for all the others and how he fell for her and how she had left him, and I cry too.

In a small room, a woman whose hair is long, the rest I don't remember, brusquely gets up from her chair, rustles through folders, tells me as I'm leaving "I can help you, do not worry". Then I am on the bus home, front seat, rain all over the windscreen, smudging the outside world into blurry charcoal. I sense the lazy orange lights of the Palace Pier, seeping through wet and black. I see beauty in oblivion.

I'm flailing like a good one. A nine to five seems like bliss right now. A strip lit room with pens, wrinkled shirts and routines, a pay packet on a Friday. That would keep me warm. All this writing reduced to zero. What does it count for? All that I love most is like the fucking wind. Can never get my hands on it. Get into media. Get onto the Ladders of the World and Climb. I never bothered much with what I'm meant to, it never aroused a thing in me. But I pretend. I don't let on that I know you, every last one of you, and every piece. It gets me out of tight spots to be this way. Like having a pretty face. It can pacify bus drivers when you've forgotten your change.

for my friend

The cups are all put away, the tea things set straight and tidy, the film is over, the ending final.

I watch your face, a barrel of tears in the daylight, a configuration of spattering grief, and somewhere I can sense we are near home now, it isn't far away.

You walked with serenity in the garden of bliss, when your toes were blessed with dew and whimsy,your eyes were clear and looking upward. The door was obvious to find, the key turned easily, just the way it should.

But now, your face is bright with pain, fueled by longing. The garden has grown all a tangle, there's no way of knowing where to step.

We talk of the wheel of life, you and I... we talk of turning, turning, turning.

Today, I'm a spring daisy, feeling warm rain after a long hard winter. You are an icicle, threatening to melt, sliding down into streams and puddles. Together we form a current, pulling at the harbour. Together, we fall apart, in our own ways, into life and yearning.

We trade places like fishermen keeping watch through the early dawn. I never meant to stumble upon happiness, I never meant to fall into the river. And you, you are resplendent and glowing, pain shooting you like the greatest gun slinger.

We match, living and dying in our own ways. We track the paths to our hearts through dangerous terrain, all sorts of weather. And home, it isn't far away, it is calling below the shadows of sea birds, beneath the valley of nightfall, through the watch of the ever rising, ever setting moon and sun.