Circle

Photo by Andy Holmes on Unsplash

CIRCLE

Me
I'm a part of your Circle of friends
And we
Notice you don't come around
And me
I think it all depends
On you
Touching ground with us, but

I quit
I give up
Nothing's good enough for anybody else
It seems, and
I quit
I give up
Nothing's good enough for anybody else
It seems, and

And being alone is the
Is the best way to be
When I'm by myself
It's the best way to be

When I'm all alone
It's the best way to be
When I'm by myself
Nobody else can say goodbye

Everything is temporary anyway
When the streets are wet
The colors slip into the sky
But I don't know why
That means you and I are
That means you and I

I quit
I give up
Nothing's good enough for anybody else
It seems, and
I quit
I give up
Nothing's good enough for anybody else
It seems, and

And being alone is the
Is the best way to be
When I'm by myself
It's the best way to be
When I'm all alone
It's the best way to be
When I'm by myself
Nobody else can say

Me
I'm a part of your Circle of friends
And we
Notice you don't come around
La la la la, la la la la la

Songwriters: Edie Arlisa Brickell, Brandon Aly, John Bradley Houser, John Walter Bush, Kenneth Neil Withrow. For non-commercial use only.

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The stifled sound of swallowed hiccups and clear mucus being sucked back down my throat were better masked by the tones of Shooting Rubber Bands at the Stars in the summer of 1988. Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians. We were only alike in that she was a poet, and I was discovering myself to be, though it would take another 35 years to speak that out loud. She spoke to me. A skinny, white girl with a Texas drawl standing in front of a group of male musicians, quietly commanding the room, whispering, softly purring the magic and trepidation of coming alive to oneself.

I am a planet in retrograde, far out from the sun, a year takes forever on my surface. This morning on my walk with Ivan, my trusty bestie (mutt, all white with one brown ear) the colored blue sky was so diffuse to be periwinkle in one place and nearly deep purple in another. Against buildings there were intense rays that pressed shadows at windows and balconies and awnings. The whole place seemed like a painting by one of the California painters so awed and favored in my art school painting program.¹ People rushed to the station to catch the train into New York Penn Station, and I veered left into a wide-open field. I stood stock still for a moment and the hum of cicadas and bird calls across the meadow and the strange light, made me feel as though I were hovering. There is very little gravity on my planet.

I woke up too early this morning, 5:45 am, which for some is right on time, but I’d gone to sleep too late, stealing moments for myself after a weekend spent being attentive to others. I hear the scratching of check marks on the endless to do list, tasks added at the bottom before everything can be crossed off. Then there is the list of crises that run Saturn rings around everything

grief, loss, sadness, estrangement, famine of spirit, poverty of hope

We need to wear a mask to prevent these particles from lodging in our lungs, but no one wants to anymore for fear of looking scared or concerned about illness, death, or god forbid, making other people sick. On my planet, we don’t lean too close to one another for fear of bad breath, and test regularly for disease.

I have lived here in isolation even with satellites close and the discovery of new planets and asteroid belts and comets. It doesn’t surprise me when I come to learn that I am either near or far outside of another’s orbit. That a pathway I once believed had us chasing one another around a bright, hot star was not as serious as I’d imagined. Pluto being allowed and then disallowed as a proper celestial body feels like home.

We notice you don’t come around. Pluto was a fringe character anyway.

And what of friends who suddenly disappear, step outside of your circle, no longer require the shared space you’d so delicately cultivated? At what moment do you allow that they are no longer part of your solar system, though they continue to influence your journey, maintain a magnetic pull even as they linger only in the shadow?

She seemed so sweet, that Edie Brickell, with her tiny body, long hair, and easy relaxation. Nothing like me, my heavy-voiced, deep brown presence, enormous, too big and round and loud and black, pressed, wound tight like a charcoal knot, not sure there was enough to make a diamond. I sang her songs in my room, lying flat, staring at the ceiling, willing myself into a higher register, a lighter, less dense, spinning rock. I didn’t know it then, but mine is a disorganized/fearful-avoidant attachment style, which now makes all the sense in the world. How could it not be?

My family was less a constellation than a series of dying stars, already gone as I stood in the grass watching each one fall. Connection was tenuous, based on attachment patterns of our parents which were insecure and avoidant. There were no hugs or kisses or checking in other than ticks on a checklist and little to no expression of depth, empathy, or compassion.

It hardly surprised me when someone left without saying goodbye or tired of me. When we were first together, my then husband remarked that everyone went to bed without a kiss, noticed that my dad was there and then suddenly not, never sending us to sleep with a blessing or a hope that our dreams were sweet, and that my mother stared blankly past us when we took leave of her sitting in front of the television or working on a puzzle in the dining room.

And being alone is the best way to be

It was music that save me, lured me back to the periphery of the circle. I cultivate tiny groups of friends and loved ones, artists and dreamers, thinkers. I know how to be amenable to a crowd, highly visible and invisible all the same. When someone looks too long, they don’t realize that this star has already been gone for light years. I did not know that this method was not keeping me safe, rather alone, full of longing for others to stoke the fire with me and dance naked around it, howling at the moon, screaming into the night. I knew at least that. I want that.

I find myself very quiet in a large group, like everyone is competing for the conch shell to hold space. I make jokes and I have a wicked, dry (wicked dry for my people in MA) sense of humor and it gives me protection, a ring around my retrograde planet. I loved the cartoons where a character could run around those rings, only to learn that they are gaseous and won’t support the weight.

Shooting Rubber Bands at the Stars means to be playful and joyous, truthful, soulful, honest. When we go into retrograde, especially Mercury, people are afraid all hell is going to break loose. But really, we are being called back to be mindful, more attentive, and considerate. To double check and check again, to clear the spaces where we’ve walked a groove and need another pathway.

And while we think we are doing ourselves a favor hiding in our rooms on the floor, singing with the celestial bodies outside our windows, perhaps we need to risk the moment we fear. That many constellations share star points, that some stars burn out, that some connections don’t linger. The world keeps spinning.

When I’m by myself, nobody else can say goodbye

1. See Bay Area Figurative School, Bay Area Figurative Movement. My mind went to Richard Diebenkorn, Wayne Thiebaud, and David Park’s light, color, and shadow.