Inevitably we were all up late last night while Jesse was beginning to pack and get in the spirit of our departure. He's still anxious about having to put his magazines next edition to bed in a state he feels good about before he leaves for eleven days, entrusting everything to others in his absence.
I called Michael this morning but he was not awake yet when I upright and able to function.
So I'm back at a Starbucks down the street on Manhatten Ave in Brooklyn, having strolled past young Polish mothers with their infants in tow or in strollers, soon to be standing in long lines in the Polish stores waiting for Easter pastries and other household needs.
I am torn to be away from my routines. I love the adventure of travel, but much less without a personal partner, delighted of course to be able to travel this time with my son (there are only three to go) and still feeling the hollowness, the empty place where my anchor used to be, that part I knew would keep me ultimately from falling off the floor and floating up into the void, the sky, the depths of anxiety or despair. Now I know, there is no such person. No one can be trusted to perform that anymore, no one ever has, but I certainly made good use of the illusion for a long time. I do believe that some of us are well suited to function in tandem, perhaps it is a phase of life and I have missed all the trains I waited for, the ones that wouldn't wait for me, that left when I wasn't looking.
There is no bond like a shared adventure, there is no loss like the bond discarded. No matter what the rationale, there is no amending the bond unless it is totally unanimous. That, for me is an unknown experience and not one I care to entertain, at least not in this lifetime. For me, after a lifetime of losses of family, friends and wives, I am no longer willing to accept the idea that after the sumptuous feast of intimacy I have been now invited to return , but only to look at the meal and not partake. I'd rather not be treated that way. So onward, and alone.