I totter to the bathroom trying to focus and clear my eyes of sleep. After reading, I return to our darkened bed and strive to drift again toward trance and dream and the unpleasantness of sleep. I wonder whether I’ll lie awake as sometimes I do thinking of
I reach into space and touch Dee, who stirs after a moment. We closed our eyes at bedtime touching each other. After a few minutes, I felt her withdraw her hand and turn. Later, I woke. Last night’s “Bachelorette” episode comes to mind, and my still near-dreaming thoughts are about love. I remember from the Bachelorette episode an enamored, infatuated look that this bachelorette gave somber Wes, who sang country songs to her, accompanying himself with a guitar—but we viewers suspect him to be a quiet and reserved bad boy, a type to which she’s said she’s vulnerable. We suspect there’s something that he’s not telling her. I touch Dee and take her hand, and a wave of utter grief and sorrow, shame and guilt sweeps over and through me for all the dreams and loves that I have lost, stopped pursuing, or failed to win—from an engineering degree to the women I’ve courted. No one shared the dreams. They flower alone. Thought returns of one great culminated passion—my eight-year marriage with
“More powerful than a Google search, friendlier than a wiki, and the best natural language processor on the market.” This is how Erica Olsen, the founder of Librarian Avengers, has characterized librarians. The words cross my mind. Another day calls this librarian avenger to move mountains and accomplish the impossible, which with interruptions takes a little longer than immediately. Grim smile at this humor that has flickered through myself. A hook, upon which to hang grit, with which to climb from bed.
I am standing, late at night again, under fluorescent light on the subway platform at
I acknowledge what I have and don’t of muscles and attraction; and the thought comes that I am to love faithfully regardless. I embrace the thought, committing determinedly to it; and for doing so I feel calmer and more present to these lights, this platform, this moment. I pray silently.
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