I'm going to go back to the de Lint soon, but right now I'm just listening to some Bill Staines, looking out the window, talking to y'all. We're flying into...well, not quite a sunset yet, but the sun's low in the sky. There's a sort of clear gold glow coating the pale blueness of sky right now, and the clouds are huge and puffy below us. I love it when it's like this, big patches of puffy cloud, so you can see, far below, just an intimation of distant ground. The clouds look so solid, like you could just step off the plane and step out onto them, walking across. If I were de Lint, I'd probably be inventing a whole spirit community that lived up here, swooping through the clouds.
It's so calm. Maybe spirits wouldn't be a good thing. I'm not sure how much of its beauty lies in its emptiness, the vast spaces untouched. Sometimes I feel so crowded on this planet -- like every corner, every inch is getting filled up with people and our stuff. I love my stuff -- I just went out and bought a blue chenille throw this morning, to match my pillows. But the stuff can get a little overwhelming. It's comforting, then, to think about all the emptiness out there. In the sky, in space.
Am I feeling a little crowded at Kevin's? Heh. Maybe. It's been a little over three months now; not a bad time to pause and take stock. It's still Kevin's, you know. I'm very comfortably esconced in his place -- my bookshelves, my spices, my clothes in the main closet. But it still doesn't feel quite the way it did when we were living together back in Philly. I'm not sure why. It might in part be the simple fact that I'm not paying rent. Back then, we were splitting expenses pretty much evenly. These days -- well, I had pretty much no income over the summer, so I just lived off him. And while I'll have my fellowship money starting soon, plus the money from the new book, that's going to go to paying off my debts. I owe a sad amount of money to banks and things. He doesn't need my money anyway. But it may mean that it's a little hard for me to feel like it's actually our place, rather than his. I mean -- really, it's his, y'know?
But more than that...well, more than that, is that it's all still temporary. Up in the air. Next month we could decide it's not working out -- or in six months. I guess in some ways, that's true of any couple...but it's very clearly true of us. We still have some things to settle...and we're not quite ready to settle them yet.
I've been here three months -- but he was away for a month, and I've done a lot of travelling this summer, and not done yet. In mid-September I go back, and have no immediate plans to leave again. We're pretty done with house stuff -- unpacking and buying things and settling in. Maybe if we can just live together for a bit, we can figure out if this is going to work long-term.
I'm really not sure. Sometimes I'm so happy, I can't tell you. When it's good between us, it's remarkably good. Most of the time...it's fine. Pleasant. A little odd. Occasionally irritating. I think I'd gotten used to living alone, after three years. I'm having some trouble adjusting to thinking about someone else's needs. I was trying to explain this to Roshani the other day, how it bugs me a little, having to think about whether he might prefer quiet, when I'm wanting to put on loud music and dance around cleaning the apartment. And she just didn't get it -- she doesn't feel that kind of frustration. I don't know if it's just that she and Tom are better suited than me and Kev? Or that she does that kind of calculation so automatically that it doesn't even surface enough to be noticed as frustrating? Maybe she's more selfless than I am...I don't know. And it's not so bad, putting on headphones and a walkman and dancing around the apartment...but it's not quite the same, either.
Oof. I don't know. It all seems to go better when I don't obsess about it, so I think I'd probably better just put all this aside for now. I'll have a good, busy, exhausting time at the convention. I'll have fun visiting Jed and David and all my Bay Area friends. I'll run the Portland SH workshop and decide if I want to keep doing these. I'll go home, and kiss Kevin hello, and try to get some work done. That sounds like a good plan, doesn't it? It sounds good to me, anyway.
I'm looking forward to this trip...but I'm also looking forward to going home again, already. I miss his arms around me.