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It's been a year. My daughter's father no longer haunts me from the grave, dead one year and burnt into ashes, embers threatening to scald me, yet I told him no, I had nothing to do with your demise you filthy drunk. And I love you, I said.
It's not "still crazy after all these tears" for the dawn of 2006, as I thought when 2005 sucked itself out of the mud in the town I live in. Still. Eleven years and I still feel trapped here in the bottom of a round wet valley. (The azaleas, camellias, hydrangeas are awesome.) There's a glimmer over the mountains to the east, just a slice of paradise beckoning, and four years to go and I can return to my home--so the glimmer makes me hurry. Just have to graduate the tomboy-turned-teen and so sad...my baby is growing up fast. Get her done with school and into college, married? and I'm a red streak on that mountain pass--the dust and sage and pine, the mountains and lakes and air--my name is stroked in cumulus and hangs in my favorite canyon.
We filed the Paternity Action in November after months of paperwork. In two counties, god bless my attorney, my county and the county of the deceased. We may even become famous for setting a precedent in Oregon, "stupid judges" aside. Remember all of those DNA tests? The paternal-Grandparent testing? Paternity was proven through my daughter's grandfather, we opened probate, are going after a court-ordered stipulation of paternity, one thing leading to another, and we have a full-blown Paternity suit. Against a deceased respondent, someone who didn't want anyone to know he was a father, and told me to get an abortion, get lost, get real, get out. The Abortion is 13 years old and beautiful, smart, sweet, worth living for, dying for.
I've spent three nights of the last week dreaming of men I knew, know. My first boyfriend. The one who kissed straight on, with full lips and soft strength. Then, a Mensa candidate I know at work, a fit and fast toothpick with sparse hair; his sweet crush on me is fascinating, and in the dream I was pondering capitulation. Awake and sensible, I knew there is no way I'd get involved. I could never kiss him. Girls all know, if you can't bear the thoughts of kissing a man, he is not The Man.
Dream three, the best. A doctor I've known for years, fallen in and out of attraction with, romanced me into kissing him. Most recent news is although he is a very sick man, he has learned to cope with his disease. He has stopped looking for a woman. Yet, Prednisone becomes him, gives him color, and weight to his face. He looks better than ever to me--still mountain biking--still looks up (briefly) when I walk by. I've become very calm about him. It didn't work out, didn't work into anything other than a vision in fact, and so a dream in which he wetly at long length drinks all of my oxygen was a surprise, and beautiful.
Here's to 2006: A successful Paternity Action, closer dreams of home, and...kissing.
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