16

Sixteen years. An impossibly long love. A teenager, learning to drive but unwilling to ever go anywhere but here. We sit at the bar and catch up on the years. Have we really only known each other for four years? he says, his scruffy beard gray now like it wasn’t when we met. My heart mended now like it wasn’t then,  when it was tender and bleeding despite itself. When I tell him I am happy, I mean it, and it seems more like a gift to myself than anything else. 

Sixteen years I have lived here, but hasn’t New York been my home for much longer? Didn’t I dream of belonging here when I didn’t belong anywhere else? When I arrived here, late one Thursday night, and the bright lights of Times Square screamed at us in the airport shuttle, wasn’t it like seeing someone you truly loved after too much time apart? 

When I arrived here, wasn’t it like coming home? 

Elvira

Returns are an emptiness like hunger in your gut, like a space was carved into you insides by sparkling confetti only to be cleared out and left like a great balloon of longing. Monday mornings look bleak in comparison, the so called real world like a wet blanket on your spirit. Along the river, I listen to a musician in his youth, dreams of rockstar lifestyles in his eyes, and the innocent optimism is a sweet reminder. 

There is magic to be had in this life. You have piles of it in your rear view mirror, you forget sometimes but they already amount to mountains. 

There’s no reason to expect any less from the years ahead. 

Vändplats

I turn on an out of office message. Keep it neutral, don’t tell them all the wonders that swirl in your midst, there are too many to divulge, you wouldn’t know where to start. A whole life lies behind you, but a whole life lies ahead, you doubt it sometimes but it continues to be true. A hope appears on the horizon, like a gift. When I was eighteen years old, I dreamed of going to New York City, like an impossible dream but relentless. I do not set my mind to many things, but when I do, I hold on to it like a predator biting down until the bones crunch. New York held on until my bones crunched, and now I am soft to its hold. Life held on, too, and sometimes I don’t understand how I’ve been so lucky. 

The little station wagon is parked right outside the green door with the 1/2 address. I pack it up, head off to another wonder. Count my blessings, count my chickens, count the items left on my to do list and decide to just do them. 

I made it here. I can make it anywhere now. 

Swell

The heat continues without reprieve, beads of sweat perpetually parked along the frame of white baby hairs around my face. I reluctantly descend into the heavy heat of the subway, try to parse my travels with breaks in air conditioned spaces. Speak in dreamy tones about fall foliage while perpetually reluctant to let go of summer as it wanes. All goodbyes are equally hard. 

In a Brooklyn brownstone, we brainstorm avenues for a successful future, the one that lies just around the bend behind Labor Day, the one that requires a return to reality. You feel optimistic. 

That, alone, is a gift, and you feel grateful to know it. 

Lillet

Come morning, I wake late, head heavy. The air by the river is already warm, but clear now, the water blue, like a perfect summer day and you want to explain to your to do list that this is not a day for work. Maybe none of them are. The idea that one could spend ones days only writing, only going on long walks and dreaming, you remember now the delusions of your youth. In the bar, she speaks of not wanting to close herself off, not to be done growing. You want to agree with everything, want to loudly appreciate how she always paved the way for a future you envisioned. She asks if you have any thoughts on your upcoming day and you know you should. But your life was always a crisis, your life was always a step behind. More importantly, your life was always trying to figure out how to break free. 

You do not need a socially constructed milestone 

to want to live 

Better.

Clock In

The writer speaks in your ear about also being a psychologist. She calms your panic about how you got there. We all turn out to be human. In your dream, you carry a baby through a town you were supposed to recognize, next to a man you knew you were not meant to co-parent with. Someone spills the wine. Your subconscious works through what it needs to work through. I went for a short run along the river and tried to remind my muscles who we used to be. Your mother still wonders where she belongs and you realize it is never too late to change your mind. 

You used to think it meant you could never set your bags down and rest. 

But now you think perhaps it means you’re never dead until 

you are. 

Driftwood

The dive bar bartender connects with you over your shirt, as it calls back to a lower east side of yore: old New York recognizes old New York. By the time you’re making your way home, reeling north along a bubbling late summer city, your brain is tipsy and your heart cold. This is part of the deal, but you do not owe anyone anything but yourself. And the city, perhaps, you owe the city everything. 

When you wake, the slightest memory of a hangover rests across your temples, but the storm is coming, so you make your way out to the river before the torrent. Monday morning quiet and peacefully gray, the overcast sky fading imperceptibly into the east river. The precipice is far away again, the ground underneath you steady. You remind yourself that you know this ebb and flow. Stand back up, brush yourself off. 

Keep going. 

Mornings

I write in my half sleep, I am words even in dreams, they look laughable in the stark unmagic of mornings. There’s a brief moment each day when I am rational, there’s a short morning walk and a window of work, when I am not still dreams, a lifetime lived in the fantastical, I’m about to turn middle age and I am still full of childlike wonder, that is a gift. New York is sweltering even in mornings. I feel the precipice, too close, I feel the gaping darkness right beside me and if I only stumble, if I only relax for a moment, I will fall right in. 

There’s a path in another direction, there’s a path that leads away from the Illness, I know because I have walked it, I know now that I could find it familiar. At the edge of the canyon it feels impossible to reach, when the pebbles tumble from beneath your feet down the steep ravine, you don’t know how you’ll ever make it to safer shores, but you’ve done it before, don’t forget you’ve done it before, don’t forget you can reject punctuation and choose dreams, don’t forget as long as you are alive you still have a chance to make it home. 

Matter

The eye of the storm is eerily quiet, it pads you in a vacuum, in a hangover, the heat keeps you indoors with the windows closed, it’s a metaphor. You try to deduce meaning from your deflated balloon, from the swirls of your returning Darkness in the periphery, from the patterns you discover only by their contrast. There’s a fuzzy outline, but you can see it taking shape. There’s a 1,000 piece puzzle on the coffee table. You use it for practice. 

The doctor says the results will come in soon, the walk home from the bar says you are back in New York, the client asks if you live in a house, everything is a ridiculous detail if you ask it. Sixteen years ago I asked the universe for a gift and was given a miracle. I book a mansion in the upstate, tell my friends it’s the only thing I would want  we move forward in life in ine way another. And maybe another will be  brilliant, too.

Bells Ringing

You return in a whirlwind, persistent deadlines following you until a moment's break tosses you into apathy. It's not an unwelcome moment. Your apartment takes you back like a warm hug, you cannot be mad when you are loved. The river is the same in the early mornings, you walk out jet lag early, but the crowds are already there before you. You remember a time in New York before you were even there, a New York of long ago, you remember there was a magic lying in the gutters. 

It's still there, you know it. 

You vow to keep looking until forever.

and a Half

Return to a New York quiet with august Monday sentiment, Penn Station feels like it’s taking a vacation. There’s a breeze in Tompkins Square Park that wasn’t there when you left, and you feel lifted by the familiarity of a homecoming. Wake early, while it’s still dark, you have to remind yourself you are in a place that gets dark now. The air conditioner hums a steady hum. 

For a brief moment, you are suspended. Look at your feet. 

Be mindful where you choose to land. 

Gate A3

A journey ends. I wake to a full moon and collect the remains of my belongings. The dog moves up to the warm spot at my pillow, one sleepy eye following me around the room. As dawn begins its mild stretch onto the island, I drag my heavy suitcase across cobblestoned hills, Stockholm silent with rest, with peace. The airport is a familiar buzz, you hesitate to open your resting office, try to postpone returns as long as you can. Returns. My hair still smells of a hundred summer swims, my eyebrows are white with origin. Last night at sunset, we took the boat around the island and marveled at the things. May we always marvel at the things. 

I know a few new answers have bloomed in my spine now, know a few deep breaths have reached my lungs despite myself. Fall arrives, everything arrives, I have walked to the ends of the earth to find  solutions that were buried in where I came from, but the thing is, I wouldn't have seen them

if I hadn't gone away.

Reimers

Come straight here when the boat comes in, we’ll be here waiting with wine and cheese. You’ve never had a better welcome. 

The late summer sun sinks along the country roads, as the bus winds the last few miles back to the city. Suddenly you remember how to navigate the station, know where to stand before the train arrives. I took ten last dips in the ocean today, but when the wine is all drunk we still make our way down to the small dock by the city boats to jump into the blackness. The dog lies next to my bed, smelling of wet summer.

 I ran around the island and when I didn’t want to run any more, I took all my clothes off and slipped into the water. Nothing is complicated. You let them take care of you, when did you ever let anyone take care of you, you think no one passes until a decade in. You were always slow to warn, slower to let go. 

The point us you are now. 

What will you do about it?

Shoreline

 Early morning on the dock, before the island wakes, before the plans of a day begin. I sit in silence, contemplating cold water swims, what is becoming of my body, what has changed in my mind. Tell me about the pills she says and I realize they were only ever a way to get here, and I made it. 

Truths about a life swirl around my periphery, answers I barely knew I was looking for package themselves in a happy jumble around my ankles. I think there’s room for you here. 

He writes to ask if today is the day I’m coming home. What does one answer to a question like that?

Happier Than Ever

(I wanted you out, I wanted my veins clean, wanted every cell in this skin new, I went to the ends of the earth and here you are, still, and I cannot be angry for it. I carry you now as a heavy treasure in my side, such is life. 

We put our clothes in a pile and jumped naked off the dock in the light of the full moon. I feel a happiness in my very soul now, if you remain in this blood, at least I know you won’t be sorry.)

Blasieholmen

I wake early, well before the alarm. Don't know why I set it, the sun is a better start to any morning. A cool current of air moves in from the balcony, whispering of stability and safety. 

Safety. 

Make my way through an old part of town, a royal castle heavysat at the horizon, seagulls whispering of the proximity to an ocean. In the distant, on another island, lies the church that was once my beacon home, but it's been so many years now, although some things never feel like too long ago. 

Some people don't either. 

The boat makes its way through the archipelago, out to the open sea. Three hours to an island at the ends of the earth, she laughs when you ask if there is Wi-Fi to work. Your doctor writes to check in on you and you have nothing to say but smiles, you are nothing now but poetry, in your snail shell lies only bathing suits that haven't dried yet, you've worked so hard to find the meaning of life only to realize it was all 

so

simple.

Oh no, god damn

Move on to another borough, another way to reach water with your deep held breath. Remember how two weeks ago she said fall is here and you shivered, now the sunshine is all summer, is all flushed cheeks and neglected duties. Goodbyes don’t get easier just because you’ve survived them before. 

This will all end in tears, you whisper to yourself in the solitary quiet moment of the transfer. Wonder at how many years can fit in a life. How many lives can fit in the years.

The city that once was your home glitters at your feet. You don’t know how to build a life that appears only once for a whole year. 

String

I’m halfway across the park before I realize the key is missing from my hand, music pounding in my ears and the sweet ache of a run in my limbs. An ephemeral emptiness in my palm, a slowly creeping awareness of consequence. Stockholm lies in the periphery, all green grass and postcard views and whispers of what you should be missing. 

For now you’re only missing a key. 

Perhaps that’s the message. 

By the time you recover it, hours later, and the tears arrive in a surprise, he has to hold you for them to subside. You haven’t the composure to hide your inner workings. Explain, there is only perfection. 

He takes you to the water because it is the thing that always heals you, and you only briefly have time to think how long a year. Thank goodness you cannot dwell on it. 

You take the wrong subway line to your next destination. 

Bakom Västerbron

You arrive in the last town you called home on a sunny Sunday afternoon, roll into the central station flags waving and stately buildings on parade. You forget yourself. 

The subways are the same as before, a muscle memory sits in your spine, sputtering back into action and almost remembering. You ride the bus past the house of a man you once thought you might care for. Nothing stirs. In the late evening, you go back to the dock for another swim, nothing else has ever mattered, the sun doesn’t set over Stockholm because it is summer yet, because it is alive yet, you wonder if you could live here when November comes but the question is irrelevant. He stays longer than intended. When your heart is heavy, you return to those who love even your darkest corners.  

In the morning, I pack my swimsuit into a purse. You never know. It sounds like a metaphor, 

but maybe it’s just an itch to scratch. 

Do Us Part

Another day, another sorrowful goodbye. I drag my heavy suitcase toward the bus, only to run into a man who loved me once. He drives me to the train station. I say, tell me everything that is new with you in seven minutes, but we don’t know which words are the right ones. I say, next year we will make more time. The spaces in between are eons. 

In the early afternoon, the bride lost her words to say I do, but recovered later for a chaste kiss. The newly minted husband said she is the most impressive person he knows. Your old accent creeps back into the fold, but none of your old wounds open, none of the aches remind themselves in your bones. At the end of the night, just before the briefly dark August night turns, I swam out into the lake. Behind me, the twinkling lights of the dance floor, ahead only dark waves and bright stars. I don’t remember what was whispered into that moment, but I know I smiled despite myself. I know each wave was washed in gratitude. 

It is possible to feel joy, 

and only joy. 

Ack, Värmeland

A week passes in buses and trains, in dragging your suitcase through a meandering landscape of nostalgia. Babies are born, children grow up, the cities where you once were young feel distant underneath your feet. Do you remember how big that hill was when we were kids? You remember everything. 

But the distance doesn't ache in your chest like it used to do. The awkward tangle of how your limbs both fit and don't doesn't chafe like it once did, like it always did, like it cut slivers into your skin and you returned home bleeding in silence. Now you simply drink it in, rejoice in the late night conversations, the rainy day skinny dipping, the champagne soaked retreats with people who've known you in so many of the lives you've lived so far. You are all love and very little pain, is this what peace is? In the short silences just before you sleep, poetry whispers itself across your brow. You've been looking for answers in every corner of the world only to find that it makes itself within you. 

You hold on tight to the idea. Tight like a baby bird. Tight like being soft takes more strength than the fighting you have left behind. You hold on like it's love.