River Rock

10/26/2009 - Monday Night

I locked the house, set the alarm and before going to my room, I sat down at the end of the sofa and laid down my head and reached for the river stone in my fountain, the river stone Clint saved all these years as a souvenir of a picnic we had on the river 35 years ago. He kept it on his desk. I ran my fingers over the stone, feeling the patches of dried river moss that have survived. I lay caressing the rock and weeping and begging Clint to come home to me. I wept until tears ran off my face and onto the arm of the sofa. I wiped my nose on my arms because I could not make myself leave the fountain. I pleaded with it to talk to me, to say I’m okay, as I continued to run my fingers gently across the surface of the rock. It just splashed on in its loving and cruel key, happy and sad at once.

These are the times when I fear for my sanity, but Ann Carol says that these are the times when I release my sadness and loneliness and helplessness that I have saved up in little compartments because they are too painful to deal with every day. It has happened to me every time I have returned from a trip, so she may be right. Who the hell knows?

I continued to finger the rock, resting my hand on it, trying to make some kind of connection with Clint through this precious inanimate object. My tears finally dried, but I heard them in the splashes of the fountain. Maybe that’s why the fountain came to me, so that it can weep for me when I can’t cry in the same way it laughs for me when I can’t laugh.