We spent most of the past two weeks together. I'm glad for this New Jersey break to breathe and put it all into perspective. It was good to force a pause. I was concerned that it would get old for her, that she might get bored with over-exposure or would have to return to her responsibilities and priorities.
Not only to force a pause, but come to the East Coast. The sky and the air is so different here, not to mention the deeply embedded memories. It forced a reality check. There is my life there, but it is my past here. Being here where everything is so naturally and intensely familiar, while realizing that my reality, what Joy is a part of, is something completely different. The California sky and the California air. Not so intense, not so natural or familiar, but definitely real. It's mine, too. The 'rents have no idea about it. It's much more real than here.
Late afternoon, a sunny, hazy day, the sun still high in the western sky; the Berkeley marina, the calm waters of the Bay; the Bay Bridge stretching towards the San Francisco skyline. Rows of cars parked and people enjoying the marina. Joy and me. Sitting together on a rock, not saying much, not having to say much, sitting as close to her as I dare. I couldn't ask for anything more.
I visited Vikki in Boston and things were great. We have been developing our friendship into new grounds. More caring, more vulnerability. It's a little weird, but I like it this way a lot. It's hard to shake the form of friendship we've already carved with our teasing and tormenting, the joking which always ends up at her expense. She hitched a ride with me back down to New York since she got a call from her parents the day I was leaving, and she needed to come to New York.
Things have been satisfactory with the 'rents. I've barely spent any time with them. I haven't had to endure going out to dinner with them as I expected I'd have to. The one time we had set a time to go out, I couldn't get home in time from New York because of a fire in the 181st St. subway station. By the time I got to their house, they were all ready to scamper out to go dancing.
They pursue the usual questions and issues that bore me. My responses are always the same, but they still ask. To show they care? Whatever. Do I plan to move back East after school? I don't know (no fucking way). All you have to do is graduate and get certification. Yea, I know (right, fat chance).
I'll be glad to be going home tomorrow. It hasn't been so bad here. A little refreshing. A little disturbing at how familiar it all is; at how easy it was to adjust to being back here. It has been a nice little fantasy trip down memory lane. I can't wait to see Joy again. We're going to get together on Saturday morning for a couple of hours before I take her to the airport. She's going down to L.A. to visit her parents.
