Living Free Under Giant Umbrellas

This is PART THREE in my series: dis-PLACE-ME-nt: a poetic vision of place, self, and interdependence.

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The early morning sky, the one whose moon has already set and whose sun has yet to rise, the one peppered with planes flashing red, white, and blue, the one whose taxis weave through carless traffic, the one that I'd rather sleep through reminds me of days spent hopeless and aimless and listless on forgotten allies littered with empty needles and crusty tissues and ripped open tin foil squares. I'm staring at the stars in a different city and a different time but cannot escape reminiscing through memories that beg manifestation. I shouldn't be remembering. I should be grateful for the roof and the mattress and the coffee maker brewing some organic Peruvian, but I can never escape the trappings of no one space to call my home and sleepless nights under giant umbrellas as the pitter patter of rain puddles in the crevices of broken asphalt under my ass. It is damp here too, but it is not wet.

These images fade as the sunless night lightens calling forth the magentas and violets and midnight blues of approaching dawn, and they are gone as quickly as that midnight blue fades to pale yellow. I am sitting on my porch on a wooden swing the shape of a bench I once slept on in Golden Gate Park. It was specially made, and now is the only place I hope to find comfort. It is much more comfortable that the mattress with its hospital corners and down comforter that still smells new. I prefer the sweet scent of unwashed days and clothes worn for weeks. This place is so much more constricting than the grumbling tummy of dumpster meals.

He's still sleeping and does not know of my longing. It is only mine and the one thing he can never have. He's been to conditioned by air conditioning. He will never know the constraint imposed by controlled environments and windows and doors and the automatic dripping of the Krups coffee maker. And still I love him despite my anger at being swept away from my houseless home. He's kind, and I need that more than another night wondering where another meal will be. Still he will never understand this is as much a jail as any cell as I will never comprehend his need for an electric toothbrush or an immersion blender.

I swing here on the porch, and the sun has fully risen. He is awake and pouring me coffee and carefully measuring the cream. He is putting two squares of sugar into the bottom of my cup and will be bringing it momentarily. I love him. I love that he cares enough to know my taste in coffee. And while this horizon is of distant mountains rather than the unending sea, I love that I am here with him and bounded by another constraint: marriage. Luckily, it is not legal, so my mind can wander uninhibited.

The trappings of personal history flash away as the sun hides behind the storm clouds in the East. My coffee is in my hands and sugar is upon my tongue. He's holding me as I cry. It is this moment -- the one of tenderness -- that make me feel free despite this suburban prison. And I wouldn't trade this 30 seconds for ten more years of living free.

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