I've been thinking about forgiveness lately, partly because someone recently told me that I am not a very forgiving person. Well, nope. I can carry a grudge further than you can imagine; it's practically a point of pride. I understand that there's a school of thought out there that forgiving others is a way of setting ourselves free and I will say to disciples of that school that they are welcome to feel that way and I celebrate whatever sets you free from pain but I personally would prefer to be stung just the once, just one time with the shock and the rush of tears and the ridiculous ages spent mulling it over and trying to play it different ways to reach different potential endings. "If I had not put my heart out, perhaps it would not have been sliced open," you think, these three a.m. thoughts that can take hours from your sleep, the thoughts in which you try blaming yourself as that's easier than imagining that anybody else could be that cruel. They can be, my sweet, they can be. Sleep with one eye open. 

My feeling is: once I've been hurt, I don't forgive, because I don't want to be hurt that way again. And I tell you what: people get in the habit of hurting other people in the same way over and over if they aren't careful. I of course never make mistakes but if I did, as sorry as I might be I would probably keep fucking up that way unless I really really really paid attention because I have been practicing that, whatever it is, for a long time. I am a person who strives on the daily to be better, specifically to be better to others, and I know I have blind spots, so it's no surprise that other people who maybe aren't trying as hard to tread gently around the emotional landmines of others will set things off time and again. So: Yes, people have hurt me. Why won't I forgive them? It's nothing personal, or almost nothing; I have seen that this is how they hurt people or at least how they hurt me and I'd prefer not to feel hurt so depending on the caliber of the hurt I will either avoid that person in certain circumstances or avoid them altogether and that's how it is.

It does not go without saying that one reason I am thinking about this so particularly is that I have just been hurt in the fucking exact identical way as I was before and the child I was more than half a lifetime ago has two faces: one grieving, tearstained, broken; the other haughty with all the righteous impatience of the young with the elderly and the sentimental: are you serious? no: seriously? again? you chose to do this again? Adult me rocks the child as she cries herself to sleep, which is to say I put my arms around my knees and try to pull myself together. I could have known better. And I hope I don't forgive myself. 

She asked what it would feel like to me to be stable, and perhaps because of the word itself I saw a table in my head, in fact the table we had just moved back into the room, careful so as not to scuff the new floor. We lowered the four walnut legs carefully into the space where they will live now, with small pieces of felt under each one to keep it from damaging the floor. The table wobbled a bit and I found another piece of felt to put under one leg, to steady the whole. Felt is a considerably better brace than a beer coaster in that it can be cut to fit exactly, plus it comes with adhesive that keeps it stuck in place.  I tried to lift the table by myself, bracing my shoulder against the underside of the table and thinking of Allen Ginsburg putting his queer shoulder to the wheel. I couldn't quite reach the bottom of the leg at that angle, though; I needed help. But with four hands, four shoulders, the work was easy enough. We leaned against the different parts of the table, but nothing wobbled, checked it with the level and it was perfect. Now it's where it belongs and it's steady and reliable, a stable table. I guess that some people think of themselves being stable and think of mountains, or anyway of things that cannot be moved. I had imagined for years that I would be stable when I could get my feelings under control, like how a rock feels no pain, but now I know that even a rock can crumble under pressure. Still, why didn't I think of something more sturdy than a wobbly table? I immediately thought of something with potential to be stable, if I was ready to put in a bit of work, rather than something that already was. Later I remembered the house I used to dream that was built on a broken foundation, creaking in the night. I understand very well that stable is not something that comes easy to me, definitely not through nature and maybe not even through a combination of chemicals, but it doesn't feel impossible most days, so that's progress. And I thought: I would feel stable if I had under me things that were felt. And then I thought my metaphor-hungry brain is probably the happiest little brain in the world today. 

On the bus to Berlin, the man in front of me was not having a good time. The woman in front of him had tilted her seat back so far as to pin him in, and tilting his seatback into my knees sadly didn't give him more leg room. So he pushed at her seat, shifted about, a lot of heavy and exasperated sighs. I think he tried to talk to her but she didn't hear or she ignored him. 

Finally when the attendant came through with hot drinks, he appealed to her for help. And she asked the woman to pull her seat up. The woman was also clearly annoyed at having been pushed and jostled and she said that well, no, she wasn't going to budge. And the attendant was perfectly pleasant, and calm, and she explained that we're all on the bus together, and could the woman tilt back slightly less so that the tall man behind her could be slightly more comfortable. And the woman agreed.

I'm thinking about when we were kids, and we were supposed to tell the teacher rather than escalate amongst ourselves. I'm thinking about when we call the manager, the authority figure who's supposed to be able to solve the problem to everyone's satisfaction. I'm thinking about when we call the police, and when (and why) we shouldn't. I feel like in general the inclination to appeal to authority to resolve a difference, a neutral and wise third party, is a good one. I just don't consistently feel that the authorities we appeal to are more qualified than we are, certainly not as qualified as the bus attendant was. I wish that were not true. That's all. 

Oh actually p.s. I totally wrote a letter to the bus company commending the attendant for her excellent diplomacy. 

It feels very much like anger except whereas anger is pointed and sharp and fast, an arrow, this feels more jagged and stuck inside. It feels like sadness except the ache of tears is behind my eyes instead of falling from them. It is not released. It feels like the sour taste of any feeling held in instead of let go. With anger I have a choice: either I say that I'm angry and there is a chance to make it right, or I say I'm done and there's never a chance for it to happen again. With sadness I cry until it is washed away. But this, why does this bother me so, why does it sit inside me for so long. I can't look at you. I really can't make my eyes rest on your face. I have brooded on this for weeks now and brooded is a good word because it's a mother feeling in some ways. What makes it stick like tar inside me? The problem is not you. The problem is me. The problem is I hoped for something intensely enough that I thought it would happen, and the dissonance between the hope I had and the reality you hand me is echoing inside me and the hollow sound of it is more than I can bear. I'm not angry, I say to myself, and hear the truth of that. I'm not sad. I'm disappointed. Words I never wanted to hear in my own voice. Never wanted to hear them because never wanted to feel it, but also never wanted to fall down the hole in which I realize who the actual architect of my disappointment is. I hoped for different. I hoped for more. I hoped for better. I asked for something, and I got something else; either you gave me the best you could, which is less than I wanted, or you gave me something less because that's all you wanted to give. And in any case, it's my hope that led me here, to where I can't open my mouth because I know there's nothing to say. Oh, I am so disappointed. One of the few feelings I have trouble expressing. I swallow the words instead. The bitter burn on the back of my throat. The churn in the belly. It's not what one could call delicious, but it will pass. Some day I might even be able to look at you again, but probably not today. 

First: This sensation. That you thought you were fine, nourished, well fed even. That there was nothing you wanted. And then someone waves this past you, this thing that you suddenly want in such a primal way, the thing that has been missing from your life. Oh, it's so exciting to want something, isn't it? Want want want because now that you've caught the scent, you know that want will be followed by have. And then suddenly it is taken from you. Mmmhmm and what now. Do you go back to wanting nothing, your smug contentment? Or do you reach out your hungry fingers and try to clutch at what is already out of your reach, just waiting for you to acknowledge your failure? Or do you, perhaps, try to build one of your own, a thing to satisfy the desire that is eating through your thoughts? This feeling. But I didn't want. But then, let's not forget, but then you did. 

Second: This sensation. The thing that you wanted and desired and begged. The round holes you hammered your square self into, to turn want into have by force of will. The fire that consumed you and you tried feeding it small branches, twigs, pinecones, anything, and everything you gave it sparked and ashed away and left you burning. Burning to the extent that you thought it was your natural state, the human condition. And then one morning to wake up with a cool pillow by your head, the fever gone. Clean. 

Third: Clearly you pour that which is full into that which is empty. Your hand wraps around the full vessel, prepared to tip the contents into the empty one; balance is important. Isn't it? Hesitating. Probably this is right. The sensation of being pretty sure, hovering in the space between decisions has never been your strong point, plunger of worlds, but here there is suddenly a moment to look around, so you do. 

Every time the wheel goes around it goes bigger, the view gets clearer. "Back when I was an asshole" we say, with the understanding that those days are gone, until the next time around when we see that our understanding was little more than smug assholery, and refer now to that understanding as "back when I was an asshole" until eventually on one turn of the wheel or another the dissonance of seeing ourselves as assholes twice, three times, three hundred wears even us down and we get it: we will always be verging on hubris after insight and the best thing is to keep it to ourselves. Even now I'm still speaking aloud so I will have to go around again and see it again and learn it again.

Sometimes therapy is like that episode of Star Trek or whatever, name your favorite time loop story, where you learn the same lesson and forget it and learn the same lesson and forget it, and Die Taschen, three turns should do it, I assure you the cards are sufficiently randomized, don't forget your booties. A second of stunning clarity, an understanding, a view of how it could be outside of the cave, the pit, a moment, then the realization that I've seen that before but when but how and if so why am I here still. Sometimes life is like that. 

Hovering between wanting to be kind, to stretch my arms out beyond my fingers, to hold everyone, to love until my heart breaks and then on the other hand wanting to get the oxygen mask firmly over my own mouth first, secure. Between apologizing for being too rich, too heavy, too intense and saying "well fuck them if they don't like cake" to the walls again. I wanted the taste you had of me to be sweet. I'm sorry I overwhelmed you. I'm sorry I spilled over and stained your clothes. I'm sorry. 

I am the most myself when I am alone, probably falling down an internet hole, just as in my youth I easily fell into books. The lilypad jumps of the internet are also pleasurable, maybe more than books even, scratching the curious itch. Second most, talking to people who share my greedy mind and give me the same feeling of learning and growth without making me feel like shit for having not known, before. I am blessed to have friends who think about things and take the time to share their thoughts and know how to challenge me to be my best self while understanding that I'm most likely only going to be better, never best.  Conventionally you would apply such a computation repeatedly a finite number of times, and then settle for the better, but still approximate, result. 

Sometimes when I wake up in the morning I am still so fully in my dreams that their vague images cloud the whole solitary day. Sometimes I wake up and I start talking to you before I even open my eyes. Sometimes you are there. When you're not, sometimes I write a long story about how that feels but usually I don't send it. 

There was a time when I almost never discussed anything until I'd made up my mind how I felt about it, because I wanted my answers and my decisions to be my own, uninfluenced by others. I didn't ask questions because I felt like if I didn't answer them for myself then the answers didn't count. And now I'll ask anything, I'm shameless, my curiosity wins first. The problem is that I can't boil it down to one question, because for example I have a hundred questions for you, and you're just one person, and now you want me to ask one question. Ask what? Under the circumstances my first thought turns to human nature and then because I'm me I start with Who. Who are we supposed to be kind to: the people who earn it or the people who need it? What is the nature of that kindness; do we give people what they want or what we think they want, what they should want? Where are the scales that weigh our deeds, and are we weighed according to what we did or what we could have done; what could I have done for you that I did not do, what does that do to my scale in the end? When is the end? If I knew when I was dying, surely life would be much easier for a pointy-headed planner like me. Why, then, does the absence of that knowledge as well as the knowledge itself seem to bring so many people unhappiness; why can't we skip the question of when and live for the day as if it were the last even if it's not? Kiss me now before time runs out. How would I like to be kissed? Like it's the first time. Like you mean it. I'm actually a little troubled that I don't have a better question, a more meaningful one. If given wishes I would wish for more, but I don't know the same solution for questions. Why can't I have more? Maybe that is what I would ask. Except sometimes I know that the answer would be because I don't deserve it. What one question could I ask that would give me an answer that would satisfy me? Ah, there it is. 

When you were little you sucked your thumb at night, the sweet wrinkled fruit of it. It was your talisman, an everlasting gobstopper, the one thing that made it better. Nothing could entice you to give it up, not reason, bribery, punishment. The bitter liquid painted on at night took hours to get through. Picture yourself with bloodshot eyes in the dark, swallowing acetone and formaldehyde, desperate to get past the nausea to the comfort. This is how you learned to be stubborn. The shape of your mouth deformed, your hillbilly teeth that eventually had to be pulled in with braces that tore blisters into your cheeks and still there was nothing that stopped you crying as well as your thumb fit in your mouth, thumbprint pressed against the roof, tongue to nailbed, and finally sleep. 

You sucked it so hard that it melted down into nothing. It wasn't immediate; it was smaller and less comfort and smaller and less comfort and smaller still and one day you woke and you had no thumbs left. Gone. And you tried to talk about it, about how your thumb was gone, but your tongue was searching inside your mouth for what it lost and it stuck to your palate and everyone said you were sulking so you were. How can you complain about what you have lost when everyone was trying to get you to let it go anyway? You can't. Your mourning is ridiculous so you make it a secret, make a curtain of hair and cry behind it and learn swallow your tears, more bitter medicine.

Of course you didn't suffer forever; you're not suffering now. At some point you learned to enjoy your fingers and all the things you can touch when your hand isn't covering your mouth. Velvet, polished wood, the soft fur of some animals. The spines of books and people. You learned words like prestidigitation and dealt cards in a club where, as someone said, what we risk reveals what we value. You have nothing to lose anymore and so mostly you win. 

Sometimes you bite your fingers, not the nails but the skin around, until they bleed. Sometimes you eat like you're afraid someone will take your plate away even though you don't understand words like hungry and full. Sometimes you smoke cigarette after cigarette and for a moment it's like the red glow in the dark is going to get you where you want to go, an airplane light across the sky of your need, but this never comes true. 

Most of the time you are fine, mostly you don't think about it, you are a grown up now, for goodness sake. What are thumbs for, really, to a person who has so much. Some people have lost fingers, all of them; some people have lost hands, arms. You look at the palm of your hand, the life line's elegance. Your hands are strong; your fingers are electric. Also you can break out of handcuffs without even blinking. What's the opposite of sour grapes? You have eaten the sweet deliciousness of a life made simple by loss.

And then one day someone says that you can grow your thumbs back. That you've always been able to; that it's not too late to try. Aha and what now? Yes, now what.