From the archives 1: The weight of eating light

[muckefuck]

Walking back from lunch today, I felt numb inside. At least, that's the description that first occurred to me. After a moment's reflection, though, I realised that was nonsense. That's not numbness, I told myself, that's calmness. That's what it feels like not to be full of anxiety all the time. It's the positive side of growing older.

When I was in college I was, in the words of one my contemporaries, "an emotional jambalaya". I don't know how well I would've coped without my female friends. They were many (and there was some turnover), but the most dependable of them during my second year were Guge, Gorgeous, Wu-Wei Woman, and Destiny. They got my through my first really mad crush, a hopeless attachment to a cute German who I followed around like a puppy until he gave me the basket. I was supposed to cook dinner for him at Destiny's apartment, but he stood me up and so it ended up being just the two of us.

A couple weeks later at the end of Fall Quarter--almost twenty three years to the day--she gave me my Christmas gift. It was a poem she had written about that night. For years I'd given it up for lost, but thinking I might turn over some documents useful to the queer history project, I began rooting through a huge box marked "SOTNEMEM" and voilà:

Eating Light for Daniel

Sitting at my heavy dining room table
I speak of the weight of eating
of dining
of die-ning
"Heavy," you say
and we laugh the way old friends do
though we met not long ago
I have known you forever
and we pause over your ad-libbed meal,
wine from my grandmother that illuminates the table,
and wait for the levity of Bach to take hold.
And I think of the meal you've made for me
(while you stare at me because you love me and I'm beautiful)
this food that, even dripping in butter and wine, does not weigh on us
but just fills, the way seeing you across the table does.
And then we chatter of names for children we'll never have,
in the way of all artists, dreaming of creation.
We will live forever at this table
with the silver-light spread of Bach and the heavy harpsichordist
And I will not complain of my weight anymore
(because you love me and I am beautiful)
because the table has taken it in.
"I am light enough w/o anymore wine," you say
and so I too decline
Your lightness is enough
We have known each other that long.
And now we can make lists
of things that are not wrong
this is our Thanksgiving
this is what we have always known
(but you love me and I'm beautiful)
the weight lightness implies.
Why must I tell you what you already know?
This, perhaps, is my weight.
You know yours.
(I have learned my lesson)
This is our light.
This is our meal.

[Copyright 1989 by Jessica Greene. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.]

Thanks to Facebook, I'm now in touch with all of these women again--except for Destiny. Her name (as you can see) is too generic to be Googled easily. For a brief moment when I first joined Facebook, I thought I'd found her again, but it was just someone who looked uncannily similar. This is all I have left--well, this and the longstanding benefits of having taken her counsel.

Comments

[tisoi.livejournal.com]

Saw this on Facebook - you're the only one I know who is into Irish so thought I'd send it to you