I attended a talk by Anni and John Furniss at Powell’s. I realized with a start that I hadn't been to a single reading here since before the pandemic. I used to come here nearly once a week. Of course, there aren't as many readings as there used to be, and I usually don't recognize the names of the people reading.
The couple was there promoting their book, The Blind Woodsman. John is a woodworker and makes bowls and other vessels in his garage. He is indeed blind, and keeps his eyes closed due to nerve damage in his eyelids. Anni is an artist and writer. The two of them paint a portrait of a couple with numerous physical and mental challenges who have found peace through their art and their love for each other. Their story is aggressively inspirational –the book is subtitled “One Man’s Journey to Find His Purpose on the Other Side of Darkness”- and I would find the whole thing tacky if they weren’t so genuinely sweet and unpretentious. My own eye and foot issues seem petty compared to what they have been through. On the other hand, they have each other, and I feel envious, then ashamed of my envy, then angry at my shame.
But loneliness is a key aspect of my personality. Who would I be without it? I did text Nurse N. one last time on St. Patrick’s Day. She hadn’t responded to my last text, and I figured she was done with me. She surprised me by answering back, saying this was her work number but I should call or text her anytime at her personal number, which she included. I responded that I would give her a call this week and she responded with a heart.
I called her a few days later and we had a nice talk. I found myself eager to paint a rosy picture of how things were going. She didn’t reveal much of herself, was content to grill me about my health. She did say the plumbing in her house wasn’t going to be fixed for another month, and that in the meantime she was staying at an Air BNB in the Pearl, across from the old post office. She kept saying “we,” but she still has never mentioned a man of any sort in her life. It could be that one of her daughters is staying with her. More likely she just doesn’t want to admit that she has a partner, for some reason.
During the conversation she was friendly but not flirty, like I was secretly hoping she would be, now that we’re no longer professionally entangled. She did say she should stop by sometime, and I told her I would love that. When I got off the phone I felt a little let down, then embarrassed for being so needy, then frustrated at being so easily embarrassed.
Anni read passages from the book, which they wrote together. She teared up a number of times, then made fun of herself for doing so. They sat close to one another, constantly touching. My poor vision blurred them into one mass. She recounted the time she tried to get a taste of his experience by putting on a blindfold and trying to count the change in her pocket. Numb and flattened out as I am emotionally, I could sense the warmth radiating from them. There was a good-sized crowd, and most of them seemed to be friends and relatives. The room was positively filthy with love.
Afterwards a local poet I know came up and said he wished he could have made it to my reading a few weeks back. He asked how it had gone, and I said great. Armed with a slideshow of my poetry comics, I had spewed out a feverish soliloquy about wrestling with the necessity and futility of art. Everyone had laughed a lot, which was intoxicating. But there had been none of this sweetness, I offered no promise of redemption, just a flood of tics and neuroses. You work with what you’ve got, I guess.
I didn’t buy their book, but I picked up a slim catalogue of Paul Klee pictures. Klee was closer to a poet than a painter in some ways. This book included one of my favorites, Tanze Du Ungeheuer zu meinem sanften Lied!, or Dance You Monster to My Sad Song!, which is about as perfect a title as I can imagine.
I talked for a while to the friend who had told me about the reading. She works in the education department at the museum. I feel so removed from that place; I pass it almost every day on my way back from treatment, and marvel at the construction, thinking about all the changes that are going on inside without me. When my friend regales me with tales of the dysfunction and melodrama, I’m glad I’m not there to witness it. “Everyone misses you,” she says, which is kind but I know isn’t true. I miss them, but can’t imagine being back at work. My life has become so consumed by my medical routine, by my daily visits to my hyperbaric family. It’s difficult to believe that I only have a few weeks left. I know there’s a part of me that is going to miss this weird experiment, though it will be a relief to be able to see clearly again.
I take the streetcar home and when I get off at the corner of 11th and Jefferson, I am blinded by flashing lights. The intersection is crammed with ambulances and cop cars. I hear an onlooker say that someone got hit by a car. As I pass the Plaid Pantry, I say hi to a scantily-clad young woman smoking with the guy who works the counter. Long braids snake down her back to brush against her ass. “How you doin’ sweetheart,” she says.
The guy tells me he’s the one who called the cops, though for some other issue. “I saved that dude’s life,” he says. “And I didn’t even mean to.”
“That store is a swirling vortex at the center of this city,” I say. “I don’t know how you do it.” They both nod.
“Saved that dude’s life,” the guy says, and flicks his butt into the parking lot and heads back inside. I tell the woman to have a good night and I continue on to where my building looms over the freeway.
No comments:
Post a Comment