Portrait of a young Reluctant Artiste in love: Exact. Oh.

It wasn’t what I wanted.

We’d only been together a few months. And I was in love—capital L-O-V-E—and I wasn’t sure he was.

At least there’d been no words to that effect. Not one. Despite all the silences I had placed strategically in his path, wide and waiting.

And it was Valentine’s Day and I thought maybe he might take the opportunity to demonstrate what he had not yet said.

The box he held out was rectangular. Bracelet-shaped—which I thought was promising. I would have preferred ring-shaped, but beggars can’t be choosers, and I unwrapped it, heart a pitter patter, and saw, not a blue velvet jewelry box, but a blister pack.

An Exacto knife.

Narrow and matte silver chrome. The sort used for slicing the waxed sheets of copy that we both worked with, in the dusty days before computers replaced the sweat and smoke tinged lay-out tables of the newspaper print shop. I would be the envy of the slicers, I realized, much later.

At that moment, all I could think was a) he doesn’t love me b) he wants me to be more employable so he can dump me in good conscience and c) what the hell do I do with my face, in case I am wrong about a) and b).

“It reminded me of you.”

What did that mean? He saw me as cold, hard-edged, the kind of woman who cut things? Very particular things? The kind of woman who you certainly did not envision a life with, because you don’t spend your life with retractable razors—not if you have any sense at all.

“What? Don’t you like it?”

“Of course I do. It’s great. It’s just—“

“What?”

“Well. It’s an unusual gift for Valentine’s Day.”

“You said Valentine’s Day was a corporate plot.”

“I didn’t mean it!”

Tears.

“What’s the matter?”

“I love you. Do you love me at all?”

“Of course I love you. I’d kill for a knife this cool. It’s got a rubberized grip—“

“Stop.”

“What?”

“Go back.”

“Where?”

“To the part where you love me. “

“Of course I love you. What did you think we were doing all this time?”

I didn’t know. Because there’d been no words. He didn’t know that I didn’t know—‘cause every gesture he’d made since the day he’d met me, was him telling me.

He had yet to learn the language of silence yearning for words. And I had yet to learn the language of Exacto knives.

 Happy Valentine's Day.

The Reluctant Artiste and Creative Non-Fiction: A Sort of Contract With the Reader

There are all kinds of liars. There is only one kind of deceiver.

There's a story I've always loved about two sisters, one favoured by her mother,  though she was lazy, mean-mouthed and shiftless, and the other hated for being pretty much the opposite and making everybody look bad. That's a story in itself, but the focus here is on when the second girl gets sent on some kind of very hard dirty errand and meets up with an old woman or man or rabbit, I don't know, something weak and seemingly without any capacity to reward kindness with anything but a craggy or buck-toothed grin--depending on which guess is right back there--anyway the girl is asked to do something twice as hard and nasty for this unfortunate and she does it, just cause, if she were in the same spot she'd like someone to do the same for her; not that anyone ever has, in her memory, but such is the reputation of empathy, it is looked for where it has never even stopped by for tea. 

The task completed, the girl is rewarded for her kindness. Every time she speaks, a flower or a jewel tumbles from her mouth--just one--and I like to think she was also given the ability to repress this talent at will--as love-making, attending sports matches and other things would be, I think,  unpleasant if the talent couldn't just go into idle a bit. Anyway, it's a great gift and stupe that she is, she goes home and tells her mom about her fabulous luck.

Mom is torn between greater hatred of the girl and intense pleasure at all the things she's going to be able to buy with the take from one dinnertime conversation alone. She orders her favoured child off to wherever the first went--it was a well, I now recall, water had to be hauled over a great and rocky distance--of course the chosen one doesn't even know the way there-- she's never had to haul water, couldn't be cheerfully helpful to anyone, least of all an unfortunate, if her life depended on it. When asked for same, she instead angrily demands her gift. The old whatever-it-is gleefully lays a whammy on her--and toads and snakes start falling from her mouth--especially, I like to think,  during love-making and sports matches.

As I recall, Blossom and Gem Girl gets married to some fellah who is taken with her gifts. This part worries me a bit. Where was he when she was hauling buckets of water over stony miles for the two bitches? So I'm going to tell you that she leaves on her own, and meets someone during a sports match who loves her before anything gorgeous tumbles out. 

Things tumble out of me. They're not jewels and roses very often. But  I can tell you that rubies do have a very slight cherry Lifesaver aftertaste. That if a flower has to find it's way across a ticklish palate, better a nasturtium than a sunflower--though there is a greater sense of achievement with the latter. 

But mostly it is the most ordinary things I cough up--buttons, hairpins, screws for wall-mounting something I gave away in the late eighties. Dog hair.  Little boys' socks. Toads. And snakes. But I tell you this--when it is a toad or a snake, I never make anyone hold out their hands in anticipation of a gem or a blossom. I never let it out at all. I feel the hysterical push and flutter. Warm silk-leather pushing between my bulging lips. Panicked piss on my tongue. Feel the bile's burn as I swallow it wriggling down. 

Because I'm a liar. Several kinds of liars. But not the other. 

TRA: Off to St. Peter's College (Muenster) to teach Creative Non-fiction

One of the ways I avoid writing is teaching it. Or possibly I avoid teaching by writing. Hard to say.

Nice problem to have though--since to be honest I love doing both. 

For those who wonder what Creative Non-fiction really is, here's a helpful video: