if you stayed over

autumn music:
(artist/album)
Jose Gonzales/Veneer
Bonobo/Days to Come
Bark Psychosis/Codename:Dirtsucker
Sam Prekop/Who's Your New Professor
Devendra Banhart/Rejoicing in the Hands

all heart wrenching, like autumn itself. a time and place to feel out the dusty corners of the heart. see what's still moving around, see what's died and is just bones. been missing my family and friends very much these past couple of days.
been missing scott, too. or just how we used to be. very much in love, very involved. flowers, nice words, lots of attention, lots of time together. i know that i traded all that in a sense, for a stable thing instead, with much more quality than quantity, but sometimes it seems we don't see one another for days. and it causes amnesia as to what it was like in the beginning - how every love is in the beginning - a cause for the world to turn.
we took a shower, i said "let's get pregnant so we can tell everyone at christmas!" why did i say that? i don't know, let's go over the possible reasons in a minute. he did not respond, just gave some looks indicating my insanity. i made some appropriately insane looks back at him. we proceeded to have unprotected sex in the steamy bathroom. do we both want it? am i close to ovulation? am i actually crazy? do i really care about finishing my degree? if not, am i just wasting time and money? if i don't finish my degree, what will i do? pottery? massage? finish it after the baby? do i just need someone else to love? will scott's and my life ever align so that i feel nourished by our love?
meanwhile, sean and i have a silly crush on one another and our friendship, i have to admit, tries to fill what isn't filled by scott's and my relationship. that is to say, we spend time climbing trees and talking about God. we have an amazing friendship, though sometimes i battle my attraction to him. however, what keeps me safely from that attraction is the privilege i feel to be his close friend versus just another girl in his life. this kid had three summer girlfriends, and they just didn't work out for him. i'm so glad that i am not in that position. that i can be his friend safely, because of my marriage, which creates this huge boundary that we are both respectful of, and take caution to not cross or come near.
let's be honest - "chemistry is a dime a dozen" (citing scott, 2005). knowing that can safeguard a friendship. why did i not know this in high school? i thought chemistry meant something! i could have saved myself from at least two failed relationships. damn.

it's a vague feeling, what i'm sitting in this morning. is it wrong to hold a secret, evil hope that scott might not get into nursing school? it is evil. i'm sorry. i would just love to move. can't stay still for long before i long to leave. i feel uprooted and undone.
"this is an undoing" is an art installation in the caleb bingham gallery in the fine arts building. it's incredible. $500 worth of sunflower seeds are piled on the ground, and above them hang 3,000 fabric forms. the fabric is sheer white, shimmery, and has been treated with a heat gun so that it folds in and makes fluffy, cloud-like shapes. these shapes are hung with something similar to fishing line from the ceiling. in two diagonal corners of the room, light projectors shine white light, which is actually written words, through the fabric and the lines that hang them, onto the surrounding walls. meanwhile the rest of the room is completely dark, and speakers play the artists' breathing slowed to sound like an approaching storm.
the effect is like watching a rainstorm and hearing thunder. if you lay in the seeds, nest yourself in, get cozy, and observe the forms from below, it is both like lying on the ground watching the clouds, and also like being underwater, which is my favorite sensation in the world. it's a large installation and encourages interaction. it's the artist's graduate thesis, and it's the most wonderful art installation i've ever experienced.
it's also like free therapy, lying in those seeds, feeling them work into your clothes and hair, staring at the "clouds" above. the light words float over you, touching your skin and sliding onto the wall. "this is an undoing. i want to be undone." watching the light spread through the fabric is like . . oil on water, maybe. it spreads and seeps, instead of just shining straight through. it's also like watching lightning illuminate clouds, but without breaking through them.
it's phenomenal.

all this. and falling leaves every day. the ambiguity of a looming winter. vague and vast as the landscape, and as a body, craving change and love.