She’ll have all these feelings–like she’ll wish she had an email, or that he’d be next to her when she rolled over in the morning. She’ll worry about him, or she’ll get all lovey. So now I’m here—she can say “oh, that’s Tom. That’s him. He doesn’t always think to email” or “he had to leave early this morning.”

Talk about warm fuzzies—that’s what I get all the time. That’s the whole thing on my side. She seems to feel better and then she just goes about her business. Me? Well I guess I go about mine, too. I just wait until she might need me the next time.

What about when she’s done with me? Will I be sad? lonely? resentful? Naw. It’s not like that, at all. Don’t get me wrong—I’m no martyr. I’ll just fade away, maybe not even a memory. Just a name.

You know, you hear people fuss about “what’s in a name. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet” and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, but what if there was no rose, no flower, no girl named Rose, no nothing? Just an R and an O and then an S and an E. What’s that? Just a name. Like T O M

It’s sorta like if a tree falls in the forest and your name comes thundering out of the ground, shaking the birds and the worms and the little critters in the soil. Was it there a minute before? Prob’ly not. When did it get there—when the tree fell or in my case, when she felt a little winsome.

I’m just here as long as she thinks “That’s just Tom.” Then she’s happy to have me there—her sweet little figment. Whatever. That’s cool.

“Why do you sit at home, writing this shit? Why aren’t you going to street fairs or raising dahlias or riding a mountain bike to the top of the world, around the lake and home again? That’s fun. This? This is nothing. You know, you never did learn French.”

True, we all need a push sometimes, but not doubt, thank you. Most times, I’m comfortable here at home, with and without my friends. I do whatever seems to be most important to me, even the laundry. That’s pathetic—but I’m getting used to it.

You see, I’m no longer young enough to try everything, but I’m old enough to try anything. I’m probably allergic to knitting, mysteries, gardening and most organized fun. I’m too old and too young for some things anymore: too old to pretend I like those things I really don’t; too young to stop trying new things, even if they might not work for me.

It’s a devilment of opposites. I long for structure and I love spontaneity. I’ve no need to be boxed in, but I build boxes faster than I know what to do with them. Anything and nothing goes—me, them, it, elsewhere and likewise. It’s art versus laundry—sure that’s an old and easy battle. But now it’s also art in laundry, and hell, just laundry. It’s my joy, my fantasy, my passion. And when the worm unwinds, it’s my loneliness.

The fretful details—the small steps that build all the Romes—send me running, fearful of futility, threatened by brittleness and loneliness. The details might want hours, days even. They might seize control and swallow up all my time and creative bandwidth. “Tidy up, pay the bills, read the mail.”

Some do these things well, with graceful routines that leave time for brandy and laughter. Some avoid them altogether. I desire both and do neither. When I finally turn to the ledger and account them their due, that’s when I notice false, brittle orderliness. Then that corner slips away to avalanche.

Of course it’s all perspective. The very grandest matters are just a series of small tasks that take attention, routine, method. Great thoughts and dreams require accounting and attention to detail. But when this starts to feel like a cog-in-the-works process, I sigh out precursor-despair. Tasks may be delicious, with their well-crossed lists. They may offer a place to hide. But whether I’ve embraced them as a hiding place or as tasks well-done, the insularity of small matters whimpers with interstitial
loneliness. “Can’t he kiss away the fearsome details?” Instead, the powder cloud swirls around me and I’m lost in it.

Someday they’ll find me out, those people who never knew to wonder, but suddenly do because they saw the feature expose. They had been busy grilling wienies and tossing softballs, riding their mountain bikes and digging their dahlias. They kayaked, spoke French and made love—or thought they did. They sang “Hallelujah” and crocheted potholders, never giving me a thought, I know. But now, they’re a little curious.

“Who does that?” they wonder, in that distract-able moment of our collective ADD. They didn’t understand why I sat at home, quietly minding my own business or why I looked wildly for my own business, again and again, in the comfort and newness of my middle-ages. They didn’t need to ponder why I had dressers with someone else’s crap still in them.

Who will reveal me? The hungry writer, hunting down one of those delicious stories of the weird—I mean everyman—crawling brilliantly through the wormhole of obscurity? Or is it the archeologist coming to rescue me from the avalanche of loneliness in small matters.