I am starting to forget the appearance of him. Sometimes I can recall his face, but only partly. I remember his eyebrows, his teeth, and the texture of his hair but they don’t form a whole. I remember how his body moved when he walked- the posture slightly bending backwards and perhaps, I can recall his hands and always well-done nails, too. Yet, the rest of my memory is fogged, as it avoids picturing him together as a whole.
Today I fell in love with a man who appeared at my gallery at 9:27 am in the morning offering to help me. He was quiet, but confident, listening about my failed attempts to install the frames levelled on a wall. After I finished telling him, he nodded, bent down towards the paper on the floor and asked for a pencil. I gave him a blunt pencil from the back pocket of my jeans. He drew a few lines with it, and then quietly asked:
“You don’t happen to have a sharpener nearby, don’t you?”
“No, I’m sorry. I have a pen.”
“It’s okay.”
He keeps drawing and I am quietly walking around, looking at the several small frames on the floor and thinking of possible solutions to get them straight on the wall. Suddenly he stands up, excuses himself and says he will be back shortly. When he returns a few minutes later with a sharpener, he takes my pencil from the floor, goes near to the bin, and sharpens it. He returns, bends back towards the floor, and smiles at me.
“I’m just particular. I like my pencils sharp.”
I have a memory of being a child and playing a game with my sister by the seaside. Sitting on a big stone, side by side, facing the sea what looked different each day, she said:
“Let’s play a game where we name everything that we can hear. Who cannot name anything anymore, loses. I’ll start.”
“Okay,” I agreed, as I did with everything she said. She was my favourite person. What she liked, I liked. What she said, I said. I wrapped my arms around my small knees. Let’s play a game.
“Sea”
“Wind”
“Birds”
“The wings of the birds”
“Grass”
“A boat”
“Waves”
“Water”
“Isn’t that the same as the sea?” she asked.
“No, you can hear the dripping. Listen!” I answered.
We listen.
Drip, drip, drip.
“Okay. A plane”
I look up. There is a plane flying over us, leaving traces to the cloudless sky.
“Dad”
“The other man dad is talking to”
“Barking dog” she lists.
I listen carefully, selecting out all the sounds that have been already named. I rub my hand on my leg, thinking would that count as something to be listed. I know she would argue. I’m trying to hear anything else. Birds have already been said. Waves, water, stones, grass, wind, wings…
“Your turn,” she says.
“I cannot hear more,” I say.
“You lost!” she announces.
I’m not arguing. I knew I lost.
“Okay,” she says. The waves take over the short silence, small birds chirping as they fly over the water. “Now, let’s list everything that we can see.”
2020
All the men with who I have been with, have learned quickly about my easily bruising skin. Their fingertips can be found on my hips and neck long after the touch has passed, and their hands lifted from my skin. After I have taken a shower to wash off the sweat and touch on the surface. Blue marks appear on my skin within the next twelve hours, showing traces of past love making within the upcoming days.
It’s always the next morning when walking to the bathroom and I’m slowly turning my body in front of the mirror, searching for proofs about the last night, making myself aware of the locations to prepare myself for the public looks. I wear them with pride most of the days. Some days I cover them with my make-up, carefully applying layers of primer and foundation on them, especially when located on my neck. This happens when I need to stand in front of the meetings. It happened once when I decided to leave them uncovered and I noticed the decrease of attention that people gave to my words after they discovered the marks on my neck. Sometimes big and even; sometimes few small ones, chronologically in row. But on other days, I leave them. I wash them with soap and warm water and choose a shirt which sometimes gives them their full attention. It represents some sort of empowerment. Femininity. The power of sex and lovemaking. Somewhere between the line of presenting my worth in a physical body. That I choose and that people choose me. Desire what has been responded to.
I spent a night at a hotel abroad alone. After hours of reading a book in the bath I ran for myself, I felt hunger and called downstairs to the restaurant to book myself a table. I put my heels on and pull over a shirt, exposing my bare shoulders and neck. I put my curly hair up with a clip, aware of how that reveals the big bruise on the back of my neck, appeared on my body only a night earlier. I am aware of every aspect of it. I am aware of my naked shoulders exposing my bony collarbones, my long blonde hair up carelessly, only parts of it hanging out, my painted red lips and me dining alone without my phone nearby and that the noticeable bruise on my back is visible to everyone who decides to see. I am sitting in that low dimmed lighted area, located by the window, waiting for my fig salad to arrive. I open the book which is still moist from the turned pages that I read when in the bath. My strong tobacco and leather perfume fills up the room. Every detail around me is well designed to be noticed. I want to be noticed. I desire to be seen by people who decide to see, leaving them wondering. Silent empowerment. After the first dry martini is sent to my table, followed by the one I ordered myself, I smile at the man who is sitting two tables behind me. I eat my salad, read my book, take a sip from the second martini and as I feel finished, I stand up, nod to the man as an appreciation and leave. I decide. He is a pass. I’m free but occupied.
Year ago, after I broke up with my then boyfriend, I travelled to his hometown after months apart, turning what, we broke up. We sat in his living room, wording our final thoughts and getting ready for my departure again, shortly after a few hours of arrival. He sits on my left side, looking at me with the eyes that reveal past lived love, still strong enough to bloom into another flame but that’s not why we are there, sitting on that sofa. His eyes stop on my arms.
“You have bruises on your arms,” is all he says, after he stands up to bring us water from the kitchen.
All the men with who I have been with, more than once, have learned quickly about my easily bruising skin. What once has been the power and pride of theirs, has become mine.
Every now and then I babysit my friend two-years old. She is a great toddler to babysit because she is as calm and careful as her parents. Very sensitive, doesn‘t raise her voice and even when she does, it sounds just like a small bird making noises to catch attention on the nest of a top of the tree. I have been surrounded by kids all my life. I was only five when I became an aunt to my sister‘s son. I have memories playing with him and us being babysat together. I enjoyed playing with guns and building ships out of legos. Never did I feel that he was five years younger than me, but kids probably barely do. The only category where people fall for them is simple- are playable or not.
It was on a Friday night when I offered myself to come and babysit again. They went to eat at some new restaurant and to the movies afterwards, when I was drawing colourful portraits of different animals at home with her. She wasn‘t much interested in it after a short time had passed, but I was keen to keep going. I kept using her colours when she was simply dressing and undressing her doll next to me at least seven times. My friend warned me before leaving that her sleeping schedule has been really off recently as she was sick and that she has been sleeping on her bed for the last two weeks with her. That is admirable because my friend is over one-eighty tall.
„Don‘t worry too much if you struggle putting her to bed. Just watch something on Disney Plus and I‘ll do it when we get back,“ she said.
There is no better fuel for me when challenging my capabilities. The more complicated the task is for others, the higher is my desire to accomplish.
„I‘ll figure it out, you guys go and enjoy yourself,“ I told them as I sent them out of the house. As the time turned eight o’clock, I went to look for her toothbrush from the cabinet in the bathroom and squeezed a pea-size amount of toothpaste on it. After I asked her to open her mouth to access her teeth, she quickly ate it, leaving the toothbrush clean and untouched. I only remembered then how my sister used to spread the toothpaste evenly all over the brush for me, so I was unable to eat the sweet toothpaste without needing to brush. I did it like this for years to come, even after being a teenager. I promised to make a note to myself for the next time I am babysitting a small human again- always spread the toothpaste evenly on the brush.
After changing her clothes- what were more covered with paint than milk what she had before, as she is a careful kid as mentioned before. But art is supposed to be dirty so from my shy opinion, this two-year old has already some perspectives of things sorted out- I asked her to lay on her back once she crawled on her bed. I took the cold blanket and lifted it high up, letting it land naturally all over her. I used to love it when my mother did that to me. She giggles. After skipping the bedtime story part and doing my best theatrical performance with the two stuffed animals I found on her bed, I kiss her goodnight and leave the bedroom, hoping that it will be as easy as that. That I have some sort of a superpower of doing complicated things- talk myself into places where I don‘t belong and put kids to bed who don‘t want to sleep. As I step out, my sense of being overly confident raises the minute I close the door. I am only able to sit down and read a page or two of my book and grab a piece of Brie from the kitchen, when I decide to give up on her bird-like crying noises.
I go in and sit next to her bed, placing my hand over her small face and starting to stroke her forehead as she catches her breath back. The first strokes are faster, as she is still struggling to find her breath. I simply follow the pace of her own heartbeat with my finger, stroking up and down, up and down. Soon her breathing calms down completely and she is starting to noticeably fall asleep. As I sit next to that small pink bed, only then I realise that it‘s the same as if I was running my fingers on his dark hair last night, feeling his pumping heart through his chest next to my naked body as we were laying in bed.
„Your heart beats so fast,“ I remember whispering. He mumbled as an agreement. I placed my hand on his head, starting to softly stroke it. I felt his pulsating chest on my skin, hot and sweaty, as his heart started to get its natural rhythm back, breathing noticeably slower as I continue stroking his head.
„Do you mind me staying over?“ he asked after he was breathing quietly and he fell asleep in my arms, our naked bodies wrapped around each other.
He, too, was playable.