Journal, April Foolishness

4/1 Easter Sunday, April Fool’s day, and Canice’s 60th birthday. We BBQ lamb and beef, a good party. Neil comes late: 10 PM, we all sing until the wee hours. Neil sleeps on one couch, me on the other—talking until dawn. I confess to him, “How you shed light. You’re so easy to be with, I don’t have to be anyone but who I am, no pretensions or posturing. I can be myself. What a relief!” He talked about his parents’ marriage, and how they were great friends too. I asked why he never married. He said it never felt right. Something was missing. He let go of the idea; it didn’t bother him so much now. He didn’t want to marry when he was young because everybody was doing it. He asked why I never married. For similar reasons. I don’t tell him of my lack of faith, my loss of passion and desire, my inability to fall deeply in love again after breaking up with John.

The cats raced through the house using us for launch pads. Neil’s allergic, so of course they want to visit him. He was so thrilled by the view outside the window, I opened the blinds, noting the sensation of dejá vú as I leaned over him. I’ve done this before. Our energy isn’t just sexual, it’s a settling into each other. I began to think he wasn’t interested in me because he said he had monkish tendencies when we were talking of marriage.

We caught a few winks somewhere between dawn and 11 AM, when I dreamt of Ram Dass. We cozied about in bed until Sinéad got up and served us tea, toast and huckleberry jam. Went to the Swing Café, met up with my aunt Jane. Already we were intimate, having shared toothbrush and razor. Last night I handed him my tin whistles, he played a tune, handed them back saying, “Play something.” I put it to my lips, still wet from his, it was as if I was tasting him and we hadn’t even kissed each other. Swapping spit. We’ll be doing more of that soon anyway. At the café, he stood behind me, I unconsciously leaned into him, brushing against him like a mare in heat, I pulled back just as he trilled his hands down my back to my waist, grasping my hips, pulling me in. Dangerous ground. It was all I could do to keep myself from rubbing my ass into his groin. And my family there! The first flicker of heat from me in ages! Long buried desire—something I haven’t felt since my parents died. (Him too I think.) A transitional moment, a flickering of lust, promises to come… we were still checking each other out. On the other hand, if we were dogs, we’d be fucking right there in the café… someone throwing cold water on us to separate us…

We went out to Mt. Vision, hiked down the trail overlooking the estero. I wore his shirt under my jacket. The wind, so strong it nearly blew us off the face of the earth! We took shelter on a grassy path overlooking the estero. I gave him a gift of wild strawberries, but he absent-mindedly threw them away. Uh-oh! I played with the violets and pussy’s ears as he talked about his father, wanting to do a film of him. “Return to Redargan.” The story of the farm in Ireland he lost and the resulting 50 years of his life. The flashbacks of multiple selves meeting each other… Our deep reverie interrupted by a mountain biker who appeared from the middle of nowhere like an apparition! Meanwhile, our own meeting contained multiple dejá vús—more so for him than for me. We talked of death, the fire burning within our journeys, through suffering, Buddhism, why he became an actor—all through the afternoon.

And over dinner at Café Reyes, we’d spent 24 hours together, most of it talking, and we’d barely scratched the surface! If it’s going to be platonic, then we’ve covered more ground than most couples ever do—in an amazingly short time. Over dinner he said, “I suppose you know we’ve begun the dance?” I answered, “Yes.” Why play coy? Lay our cards on the table. “I don’t know what will happen or where it will go…” he added, his voice trailing off. This, slipped in somewhere between Descartes and states of grace. Can I trust him? I watched his body settle into the words, some resistance, perhaps resignation, or surrender, saying the words out loud, he met them head on, took responsibility for them, and more important, I believed him. This, after nearly bursting into tears when I talked about my dead mother. Yes, we are both suffering but this is larger than our individual pain.

This morning, he was lazing on the couch, a bright form beneath a red sleeping bag, I brought him a pot of tea, he muttered under his breath, “Shall I pour for you? Take care of you? With me, you’ll not suffer for want. This, I promise you…” I was so stunned I didn’t know what to say. Was he practicing some lines, was I hearing something so private, as if he never uttered them aloud, and was I eavesdropping, or had he said those words to me before, in another lifetime? I nearly dropped the teapot. “This morning I watched you sleeping… You were snoring” made me realize he was watching me as much as I was watching him. But I was caught unaware, an unguarded moment. All this talk of marriage. Does he know what he wants from me? Do I trust him? This is all happening too quickly.

That evening we watched the comet, he hugged me long and well, I felt like I was coming home. He placed a hand on my shoulder, turned me to him, chucking my chin with his finger, searching my face, as if debating to kiss me…then thought better of it. We may have begun the dance, but I guess it doesn’t mean we don’t have second thoughts. Over the safe distance of my truck he asked, “When will we see each other again?” I said, “It’s your turn now. I invited you here to meet my family.” I told him I wanted to go to the SF Film Fest. I decide this is a test. See if he’ll come through.

We’ve made so many tentative plans to go out to the Point, to see a play, a movie—plans that have never materialized, he’s never followed through and I’m a bit leery. The urge, the impulsiveness was there, but now there is a deliberation, a formality. He still owes me a dinner, and $15 (never paid back!). He might not know what direction we’re heading, but I do. My dreams told me ages ago, but it has to come from him—and his plate is full, indeed. In debt, in mourning, uprooting to Scotland in May, Hell of a time to start a relationship.

4/9 Been feeling a bit desperate, uneasy and abandoned all week long—as if a gulf has opened up between us—thinking I’d hear from Neil. I sent him the stuff on the film fest on Mon.—circled the films I was interested in, the fest came and went, and he never bothered to call to confirm or deny our plans, leaving me hanging so I didn’t get to go at all. I was very angry. I also left a message re: Ken Bullock’s birthday party, but again, no answer. Gena said “Don’t worry, he’ll call tonight.” A forlorn red light blinking on the machine. By the time Sinéad called, I was thoroughly depressed, then it dawned on me, he couldn’t call me because the line was busy. I hung up and he rang within minutes, from Mendocino, he decided to stay, “Jammin’ with friends at the Gualala Hotel on an electric Gibson. I’m thinkin’ about startin’ a band,” he says. (He had an epiphany while playing, it was magic.) Why did that bother me? An inconsistency? Minor alarms sounding. We talked for an hour.

He said he read the excerpt from my flood piece, “Building an Arc,” which won 2nd place in the Copperfield’s literary contest, and really liked it. “They really gave you quite some bio. Was that the same Maureen Hurley I know?” teasing me. “You’re important. I’ll have to watch it.” He saw a lot of women like me in jeans and pickup trucks—a west county phenomenon—wholesome and fresh. He met someone from Forestville who didn’t know me. Thought about driving over for a visit (but I was teaching all day). While I was feeling desolate, he was thinking of me and I didn’t even feel it. Just the distance, knowing I wanted to see him again, feeling abandoned… Gena said, “That’s about your own fear. You have to let go of it. He’ll call.” And so he did.

See Journal entry, Allen Ginsburg Memorial, Passover

4/23 I go home, smudge the house and spread rose petals on my doorstep for the dead. My neighbor Steve confesses he gets nervous: “Every time I see you do that, somebody dies.” Odd, I never connected the two. Sinéad calls to say our cousin Barney O’Reilly, Sr. died. We prepare for an Irish wake: whiskey and bagpipes in Eagle Rock. I sing Danny Boy. The earth is shaking again. Time is imploding. (My cousin Barney O'Reilly died)/