Progress

Progress

Last year at the writing workshop in Assisi, Dorothy Allison talked about writing as a way (I’m working from memory here, so I’m paraphrasing) to tell the truth, to tell your truth, to - as she says - “bury my dead.”   She taught us that it’s also a way to say “there is glory in the world and I am here to bear witness to it.”  I trust Dorothy Allison in a way I trust few other people.  She’s been to hell.  While she was there she painted a picture with her words, then made a good life without ever really coming back.  She has the unaccountable ability to describe murder, take you to the funeral, and leave you believing in redemption.   Bury our dead or bear witness to glory…as if it’s really a choice. 

If you read the earlier entries, you know I came here to study and write and mostly “to heal.”  The first two are pretty simple to put into practice, but “healing” is more than a little vague.  I’ve been stuck in my pain so long I don’t even know how to read the signs I might be making progress, but I think I’m catching on.

The horse trainer returned (sort of). Starting the week after I got here, I had the phone calls, the declarations of a true heart, the assertions that “It is very important to me, we must talk, we must talk faccia a faccia.”   Three canceled dates later, since he can never get away from work, he asked me to please come and ride with him, told me he was sending a friend to get me.  Why I, a tenured professor and former chair of a Women’s Studies department, would once again be intrigued by the lines of a man who couldn’t decide between me and his poodle (who told him he had to choose?) is question enough.  But why I, a fairly savvy woman who is striving to be both fierce and strong, would walk through a busy city in 90 degree heat wearing riding clothes (with makeup) and wait in the sun for an hour checking my phone (cue Phil Collins:  there must be some misunderstanding) while looking for a man in a red Ford Festiva (there must be some kind of mistake) is a complete mystery.  I’m sure this wasn’t what I had in mind when I said “full of love.”

But here’s the important thing, the sign to read:  When he didn’t show up, for once I got angry, and not just at myself.   I charged home, changed clothes, walked out to the Piazza Del Campo with my journal and drank a glass of prosecco.  I must have looked upset because wonderful Pino stopped to tell me that whatever was wrong, I should focus on the beautiful things in life.  I finished my drink, having literally written until my pen ran out of ink, bought myself a good distracting murder mystery in English and read myself to sleep.

When I told the story to my friend Lara she commented, “I’ll bet you looked like a badass in your boots.”  

I almost didn’t post this entry: it’s personal and it’s potentially embarrassing but it’s important.  Yes I cried, but I’m not paralyzed anymore.  I realized that when I was with this man – and in other, more critical situations - I forgot some important part of who I am, a part I’m remembering now.  I’m laughing (mostly) at my badass self in riding boots and make-up, I’m angry like I haven’t been in a good long while and, looking out at the walls of the Basilica of St. Frances in the glow of a luminous moon, I think I’ve just borne witness to a little bit of glory.  

I’m still not sure exactly how, but it’s time to bury my dead and move on.