"Mittens are delicious!"

The stone steps are cold beneath me.  I can not remember how long I have been sitting here but the light is gone.  It is suppose to be spring but the season can't seem to show up.  Winter holding on too tight.  Is that what I have been doing?  Holding too tight to what I was sure I was suppose to be and not allowing something new in?  My hands are jammed in my pink coat, headphones on.  Home is the next stop.  But I know what is waiting for me there.  The silence of a life abandoned. The ghosts of movie nights and Survivor finales. Of 7 course meals and pizza deliveries.  I work as late as I can, knowing he will be ducking out early.   Each of us trying to maximize time.  Him with her. And me, anywhere but there.

"Yup... This is so me"

It was two weeks before Christmas and I had come home early from work to get ready for your clients holiday party.  Some hugely festive event held at a fancy hotel where we would get to put our dance lessons and knowledge of wine to the test against those who belonged in that world.  I had laid out my dress and shoes that morning, freshly pressed by the dry cleaner.  It was strapless, black, cinched at the waist and then flared out to right above my knee...perfect for dancing and for standing at attention next to you, perpetual arm candy.

I was getting out of the shower when you came into the bathroom.

"I bought you something." you said and as I fastened the towel around my body I imagined the necklace or earrings you might have purchased when from behind your back you pull a CVS bag.  I took it from you as though it might have contained an explosive, peering inside.  "It's a straightening iron," you said.  "For your hair.  For tonight."

And so I did.  And in the picture of us our neighbor took as we left our Beacon Hill apartment you can see the black dress, my fake smile and my perfectly straight hair.

"Don't you hate that dream where you're some sort of law enforcement, trying to protect the laundromat from being overrun by criminals? So you caught them and loaded them into the back of a pickup truck, but we're surprised when they jumped out as you went through the McDonald's drive thru?"

My dreams are filled with small moments and inside jokes. And so when I wake before the sun, before the children or the dog.  Before the carefully stocked fire has burned down. I can not remember which life I am living.  How is it possible to long for both?

This morning the snow was falling and the breaking dawn had turned the world a faded blue.  The kind of color new parents would consider for their sons nursery before choosing something more uplifting.  The air was cold on my cheeks and it took longer then it should have for me to realize I was barefoot.  The world was still, exhaling before the day began.  In a moment I will move.  Knowing only that where ever the door I open takes me, somehow it will always be a step backwards.

"Exactly"

I was walking down Bourbon Street, the noise from the bars deafening even at 4pm on a Wednesday and I felt my phone vibrate against my bra.  I was just running to the store for some milk and a pack of Marlborough Reds and the pockets in my jean skirt didn't fit my phone.  I stopped carrying a purse whenever possible months ago to reduce the risk of someone grabbing it and instead taken to tucking credit cards, keys and my phone into my bra.  I was always surprised by just how much fit.

Stepping into the shadow of a doorway to check the text message I discovered it was from you.  You who I had left behind.  You who contacted me whenever you liked, but would never return my calls.  Even when I wanted to ask you for a divorce I had to make an appointment with your secretary.  But here you were again.  Even in the shad sweat gathered on my back.  The August heat as oppressive as the smell of bleach.  "Jim Carroll died.  Was thinking about the last show we saw him perform in."

I held the phone until the screen went blank.

"heading to teach at only 3 degrees and not even 5am, living my dream"

There was a constant flurry in the air as we walked the Cornell Campus.  Why I had thought visiting Ithaca, NY in February was a good idea at the forefronts of my mind.  Noses and cheeks pink.  Gloved hands and hat hair.  It was the beginning of so many things.

Inside an empty bar we sat across from each other.  Taking in the heat and the silence and you quoted from Hemingway's A Clean Well Lighted Place, and I remembered why I came.

"Fairly obsessed with my new rug."

She only dated guys who loved The Big Lebowski.  It wasn't something she looked for or asked about it just sort of happened.  That somewhere around the second or third date they would drop a quote from the movie and she would realize that she was again involved with someone who held up the movie as a guide to life.  Some embraced the Dude... inspired by his simple approach.  His way of making life work for him.  Others saw themselves in Roger.  A man who gave his all to his country and his wife, long after she had left him. Others to Donny or the the Big Lebowski.

She would wonder what was in her that attracted these men.  They had little in common outside of their reverence for the movie.  Dropping quotes or making reference to the rug that "really tied the room together".  One time she had pretended she had not seen the movie and the guy had spent the rest of their dinner describing it scene by scene while they ate steak frites at a French Bistro.

"And we have a new bed time fave!"

The night air had turned cool and Jay stood by the carelessly built fire.  The school year had ended with a whimper and he relished in the last few days of freedom before he faced a long summer of working on his fathers lobster boat.  Years later, long after he had forgotten the details of the smoke filled party he would find his breath catch when The Freshman came on the radio.  He would be reminded just for a moment what had happened that had set the course of his life.  He could track back every bad decision, every wrong turn to that night.

He saw her, as he held his hands over the fire, shirt incorrectly button emerging from the shadows.  She was shaky on her feet and he was pissed because she was suppose to be his.  Not his girlfriend.  He had one of those with beautiful hair and grace.  But his play thing and somehow tonight her attention had turned elsewhere.  He tucked his blond hair behind his ear and watched through the side of his eye as his best friend took advantage of the moment.  Collecting her and holding up.  Leading her away from the party.

The first decision that led him off course, was the one to follow them.