Teaching Myself to Sleep

D flew out on Saturday. We talked on the phone for 2 hours while he was at the airport, waiting to go through security, waiting to board. And on Thursday night we did the same. Me at the farm, on the porch, getting drunk fast on white wine and rolling one cigarette after another. Him in New York, walking down the street after work. Sunset fading to black here and me not turning on any light. Coyotes amped up in the not so far distance. Friday night old friends came up to visit and there was a blue full moon. When we got out of the car, after dinner in New Paltz, the fields and the trees were all lit up. But unlike last summer, when friends came to visit me at the farm in August, and we stayed up all night drinking, talking, listening to music, looking up at the sky and the moon, our shadows on the grass, this year we all went to bed early. Not exactly my choice but I’m also trying to teach myself to sleep. I felt like D should have been here all week, before his trip back home to Italy for a month. Kept checking the rooms in the house, half expecting to find him. D and I often say that the 3 months I was friends with E was just enough time—a window—for us to meet one another. Now we’re so close, we’re like family. I even had one of D’s oldest friends, A, send me a text message telling me that D had arrived safely in Rome. My favorite city for feeling what’s possible.

Crossposted with Love Dog.

Submit a comment