Parachute
i make dinner; the chicken comes out perfect. at the symphony, sasha plays the violin solos in scheherazade like he was weeping molten gold. on the street after, david and paul drive past shouting compliments at us from the truck. but back at home, madhavi is tired from her dive trip and thinks about going home and i get tense.
sometimes it's so hard. she pulls back and i remember the way things were and get scared. and i get scared so she pulls back more. and we both have to take slow deep breaths and build tender moments to push through the fear. she says i terrify her, the way i dig so deep inside. and i know she scares the hell out of me, the way she cracks me open.
here's the analogy i use: a long time ago she and i without thinking jumped out of this plane together. and now we've got two choices; we can hope between the two of us we've got a parachute that works or we can hit the ground. (if you've been reading this blog for a while, i'll confess now that it was her dream about the people jumping off the cliff and her dream about me being a tall black man.)
madhavi doesn't go home. in the morning we toast bagels and drink rich coffee and black tea and sit in the sun doing the new york times sunday crossword. it just feels so normal and that's scary, too. to have so many memories of sitting at the kitchen table, racing to fill in the squares before the other gets to the easy clues. to instinctively know how she feels and what she needs and to be able to spread that out like a picnic blanket. just we aren't housemates any more. we don't live in amazonia. there's more than a thin wall between our rooms but the other obstacles, so insurmountable for so long, now dissolve slowly like steel in the sea.
but only slowly. her ex is awfully upset that we're seeing each other again. i think in his head i stole her from him, but that's just not true. or maybe he's just upset in general. having your ex start seeing other people is always rough, and this was so quick if you look only at the immediate history. in the long term, it's been a dreadfully long time coming and far from quick, rash, or premature. but her ex never quite accepted the fact that the only reason madhavi and me are together now is because we started up so long ago, and the only reason we did that was because he broke up with her before he was ready. without that first event in mind, sure, it looks like i tried to steal his girl. or like she decided he wasn't good enough and started to look elsewhere. neither is true. i moved in fast, but only after he said clearly, but incorrectly, that he was done (and hell, i've apologized for that a number of times. i'm done apologizing for that.). and he was good enough, if not better, just in the end not the one for her. so i wish he'd stop trying to make us feel guilty for being happy. it's got nothing to do with him. it should have nothing to do with him. it was about him until they both decided, again and finally, it was time to be about other people. they both decided that. i'm sick of him changing his mind. and it's way past time for him to accept some responsibility for the way things are.
madhavi suggests i pitch an article to kitchen sink about being honest in blogs. it's a good idea.
i'll just remind her that it was her idea if she starts to get twitchy about our private life being doled out on the web.
and yes, in answer to her question this morning, it is most definitely all worth it. 'cause i know i've got a parachute around here somewhere.
