This House

This winter it does nothing but rain and when we move out of our house I imagine I will say, all I did was lie next to the fire that winter, that and wait for the rain to stop and go down to the water. That’s what I’ll say. What else will I say about this house, how there was a lot of love but there was also a lot of grief. Sometimes it’s good to get out of places, to inhabit new spaces. I’m working a lot on letting go. When I was a child I used to cry when the bathwater drained. I tell him, I’ve always been like this.

She tells me, “Mountains are waves. Soften your focus– you do not have to choose.” It makes so much sense to me I think seriously of getting tattooed on my body. Dream messages are like that, they get in no matter what you do while you’re awake. I imagine her and I are so similar we might slip into one another’s shadow if we were in the same room.

There was a time when I thought about her so often it bled the light out of the good parts of my days. I think that’s the big lesson lately. Be where you are and not where you’ve been. I don’t think other people have to deal with it like this. I think it’s specific to my makeup. Does everyone else dwell in such detail that you might as well be able to time travel? That’s no way to live a good life or the right life. I lay down in my car for forty-five minutes and pretend I’m somewhere else.

But, pretty soon the spring is going to come and the rain is going to stop and I’ll grow snap peas out on the deck. I suppose what is being asked, is what is the point of building a house if you don’t even live in it?