4/5/2012
It's 4:30 am in Dublin Ireland on a Thursday. It's 11:30 pm at home. I shouldn't be awake either place. I'm good at being awake when I shouldn't. I can't sleep. I have a headache. I have a headache a lot in Ireland. It's all the Guinness and Jameson. Even though I tread softly through the room, the man I love wakes as well. Both of us are restless. I've had beastly little nightmares and snippets of last nights drunken and troubling conversation. We fell asleep midway through and it keeps rattling around in my head. I leave him tomorrow to collect my dearly missed children for Easter while he jaunts around a few more days. I push it all out of my mind. I'm cold and lonely to the bone and my teeth are chattering. I draw a hot bath and play music that replenishes my strength and sense of self. I sink into the tub with a pencil that came with the room and my notebook. It's been years since I've written in pencil and I'd forgotten the beautiful rhythmic swishing noise it makes when the thoughts are coming quickly.
I run the bath so hot that I have to keep getting out. My skin looks sunburned where the water has touched me. It's a metaphor for my life. The way I do anything is the way I do everything. Longing for warmth, I overdid it, burning myself. Then I miss the cold! Back and forth I go, only finding balance after some time has passed and the water (the separate entity) has cooled, tempered itself in spite of me and what I thought I wanted.
During one break from the bath I get out and notice the sun is coming up. The window is far inset and it's hard to see, so I open the curtain and stand on the low window sill, wearing only a towel, and press against the cool glass. Below, I can see down into the hotel's restaurant. The table is set for breakfast in a couple hours. Directly across is another wing of the hotel. A brick wall of windows faces me. It makes me profoundly lonely that there is no one with my exact idea at this precise time. The windows are identically empty with their curtains drawn.
I get back into the water and burn until I can't stand it anymore. I hang one leg over the side hoping to cool myself like a lizard. Eventually it's too much and I go back to padding around the room. I open the leather tea box and choose "Irish Breakfast Tea". I've been in the country nearly a week. It's about time I try it. I heat the water and add milk because it seems right. There's hot chocolate also, and I decide to make that later as a treat for my very Irish boyfriend. He's quietly lying still and engrossed in his reading all this time. I try to lie still beside him, but I know it's futile because I'm restless and noisy with my teacup and saucer and little spoon. These items always delight me. The little clinks they make sound like tinkling bells to my soul.
I admire the way he can be so restful in his unrest, tucked neatly under the covers. His head is heavy on the pillow and his shiny dark hair, that is so fascinating to me, contrasting against the white sheets. His arm is draped over his forehead and he just lies there, still and heavy, nothing moving except his impossibly long eyelashes as he takes in the pages.
The cold and restlessness get to me and I go back to the bathtub. He's known me long enough now that he's accustomed to my fitfulness and isn't alarmed by my odd comings and going anymore, so long as I stay within earshot.
I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror and for once I don't loathe it. My red hair is up in a messy bun and my makeup is still on from the night before. The rest of me, pale from the winter and curvy.
I stay in the bath until the water is too cold and I begin to hate it. I realize I've left my towel in the bedroom and I'm freezing again. Not that it matters. I never bother drying off completely anyway. I'm too cold to take time for that. I get under the covers to warm up. I know if five minutes time I'll have found my balance again.
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