WINGS IN STONE
I saw the wings fixed in the stone...well: the impression of wings. a fossil - to be exact. but I was profoundly fixed in my tracks because of the sight. which I can still see even with my eyes open: the fragility of the wings. of a bird from so long ago. so long ago. it made me cry. made me. really did. I can still see those wings. for me it was so about how I couldn't move. how my life was so stuck. my wings. like a freedom for me. fixed in stone. horribly fixed. so fragile. so held forever. beautiful. but terrible. stasis. without hope. can't you see what I mean?...
he was much older than I was. fourteen years older. I had made a big deal about how much older he was than I was. when we first started going out together - until he got irritated and said that if it was a big deal, then maybe we shouldn't go out. so then I said that it wasn't a big deal. but I guess it always was... because I figured that I'd have to take care of him some day. but maybe not for a long time. since he was just turning seventy. and: he was still very strong. and pretty frisky. except he had some bad health habits. mainly pot. yep. pot. he became delightfully honest and creative on pot though. like a cheerful social drinker. so it didn't seem too bad. he was also a social drinker. otherwise: a healthy guy. sexy and kind too. and loyal to his friends. but not to his women. not in the past anyway. not a lot of guys are tho. in my experience. a lot of them say they are tho. he said he loved me quite soon. before I ever did. I was surprised. but still. I liked him a lot. and I wanted out of where I was. so I moved out and into his place. which was being torn down around his ears. which is another story. anyway...we got married within a year. we had been pretty happy. poor. content. it was fun. an adventure.
then he got his huge cardiac event, as they say. his valve blew in his heart. and his heart rate got really bad. he had open-heart work done. I took care of him. it's been my fate to be around guys at the exact time that they have respiratory or cardiac problems that are huge. I get to save their lives in a way. which is kind-of cool but a bit scary...so we had to quiet down a bit. but we kept having to move a lot. and he always pulled his own weight best he could - but he did have these heart problems. so I was sort-of supporting the whole show. he would add the extras. I never was good at getting the rich ones. money and I never stuck somehow. no Velcro for the rich guys. my karma maybe... and then my back started going.
we made some good plans anyway. we had gone to Hawaii. we had a lot. a lot. of fun. I'm a great traveler. I've got to say, he was pretty good too. so we decided to go to Europe! I had heart problems by that time too. he was just over his. so it was like: if we don't go now, maybe we never will. my mom had died and left some money too... so we went for ten weeks. seven countries. sixteen towns and cities. tons of paintings. museums. the grand tour of the continent. it was great! we were both wasted though. the exertion was enormous. we both lost weight. I had to go back to work right away. since we had spent thousands with no income coming in. it had all been worth it though. things were going slightly down all the time, sorry to say. it was all getting slowed. like minerals pressing under all that pressure of living. pressing into wings and feathers and skin and bone... we were fossilizing really - but didn't even see it. I don't believe most folks do. it all seems OK. but isn't. you don't see how you're not really living so well. you know the old saying: it's more than just a long river running through Egypt...hah. hah....
so we had to make another move. I think it was because of friction between our landlord and him, that he refused to look at. the move cost me my back for sure. I was overweight by a long shot, as well - had to move again. blew my back muscles all to hell. I had to work with pain morning and noon and night. that's just the way it was. we were making do in a nice new apartment... I hate apartments. they make me feel very poor. I've always been genteel poor. this was the bottom of that rung tho. by my standards. and our sex wasn't good. because my pain was so severe. I had a feeling he was getting some somewheres else. just a feeling. didn't even look at it. we kept seeing all our friends and getting along as usual. on the outside. the 'wings' that used to make me feel free in this world were fossilizing for sure. I could feel it. but I am peacemaker. I am head of household. I see that all goes well. I was dragging my way up the twenty-two stairs to our apartment every day and back down again and up again. going to work. coming home. doing the laundry. bringing it back up. he'd help... but he didn't have work. kept blaming me for that: because twice I had told people that he was retired. so not getting work was all my fault. weird arguments like that. he was getting pretty testy. then he fell.
he fell over my son's dog. who he wasn't supposed to be fooling around with anyway. I wound up having to take care of him some more, at a time when my back was barely better at all. it took me down - went on for months. he was very passive. depressed even. would watch my pain and just sit there. wouldn't say anything. we were at a low point for sure. I decided that I had to make some changes. and fast. otherwise I was going to die. no joke. I was huge. in pain for months. all the time. without relief. I had to drop some weight. plus: we had lost nine people to death within one year. most of them older people. one was my best friend for thirty five years. another a really good friend for twenty years. I had to get some new friends. and younger ones. I had been being an old lady for about four years. and I wasn't that old yet. it was too soon to be laying down all old. really was. if I was ever going to get my wings out of the stone. ever going to fly again: then I had to get help. and I had to get light. had to shake those wings like lightening. had to start moving them flying into something new. I decided it would be writing. I'd start writing.
up until that time I had put off writing some more until I'd retire. fat chance that was ever going to happen now...I had to start writing again now. I had stopped because all the non-fiction I'd done had gone no place. had been all adventures that just spun off into nowhere at all - for lots of reasons. so I'd start with short stories. sort-of like memories or memoirs. most of them: exercises in my craft. learning about writing again. learning to make my own way. my own style. my own voice. in my own wilderness: make ready the way of my own song. singing my own song... I was losing weight fast. making friends with younger people. got in touch with my old boyfriend from high school - really by accident. he started being my muse. I don't know how... time and life were pressing me into movement. freeing me from stone. it was a force I could not change. even if I had been asked to. which I wasn't.
my wings began to move. stiff. filled with dry blood. that had to learn to move again. to fill my cells with life. to move the wings again. to reassemble flight. flight where? that was quite a question...he decided to leave. that was a huge surprise: I had thought I would take care of him until one of us died. even me. it could have been me. pretty grim plan. no joy there. that was for sure... he left. he had been seeing his old girlfriend anyway. she was old and sick. but she loved him. would let him in to have the sex he wanted. sex without waiting for some one to stop being sick and in pain all the time. I had no bitterness about that. it was just the way it was... he said I had wrecked our marriage. destroyed our marriage. that wasn't it. not true at all. the marriage had become a fossil. wings in stone. hearts in stone. love in stone. still a sense of beauty. but no life there... so many marriages are in stone like that. every one is used to seeing it. it's almost normal now. all that stone where flesh and blood used to be warm and welcoming. it happens. I didn't cause anything. neither did he. it just happens....
I was relieved after I went through sad. I didn't have to worry about him dying in traffic. or losing his mind to the years of drugs. or him getting more demented just by time. or more cardiac events and so on. not yet. mine could be coming on any year now after all. I'm no spring chicken. still: my old boyfriend and I were now falling in love. just the way he predicted when he walked out the door. my husband had seen it coming before I did. just a bit before tho. came on like a freight train. crashed through all the stone. the old bird had to break out of all that and start to fly for sure. so I did.
now I'm light like a bird. in love and alive. writing up a storm. looking at a future again. it's the oddest thing. you look at this tip of feather: impression in stone. you think about how delicate it is. but it really isn't. it's stone. it's real. strong. still: only an impression: a press in stone. of where life was. or shouldn't have been. or should have been. who knows alive what was there. alive once. how long ago. and why...
I saw every feather. yet no feathers at all. all the flight is in my fancy. in my creative blood. streaming in every beat of my heart. the place where it all became stone is over. it's all out in the world now. flying...
that's where my wings are...
no more wings in stone...
don't need to know where I'm going now...
I'm just
flying
flying
flying
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