WRITING: HOLES or THE ARCHITECT AND THE TENANT

Holes or The Architect and the Tenant

All that remained was the black chiffon sequined tie sash for the tailored floor length gown of the same description. She held the tie sash up above her head showing it to Jane, who was crouched eye level in a ball of fur on top of the white wicker bureau. Jane is the other beating heart and communicating creature living in the house. “Jane”, she sighed, “this is all that’s left of mom. 48 inches of chiffon and sequins glittering in the light. How I miss her. What a hole she made when she left me.” They rubbed noses as a kiss of acknowledgment.

Holes. All the holes by all the people that left, that past over, that died, that ceased to exist any longer… their last breath. How many of these last breathers were with someone they loved? How many went peacefully and how many went violently? How many loved ones couldn’t face witnessing their passing over, their last puff of warm moist air? How many experienced the empty envelop of a body that was once their mother, their father, sister, brother, aunt, uncle, brother, cousin, friend, teacher?

How many of the dearly departed knew that they were loved in their lifetime? How many loved themself? How big a hole did they make when they left the bounds of gravity and where did they go? Could they still see us? Did they zoom away or lurk around us unseen?

Who do you know that left you and you never said goodbye? People come into our lives for a reason, a season or a lifetime. The surprise enters when we think someone is there for a lifetime. We even make vows declaring that fact. But they leave. They don’t die, not in the last breath kind of way. They disappear. They disappear even when they are standing right in front of us, cutting their meat, or snoring next to us in bed… in the process of becoming a hole replacing the vow maker.

Sometimes, an old hole shows up out of the blue in a photo processing store, twenty-seven years later while you are flopping around in the giant gap of your own life; the writing was on the wall and you just didn’t see it. The instant recognition of that old vacancy instantly gets filled back up and replaces the empty spaces you were wallowing around inside your mind, soul and heart.

This new old hole caused by an old flame from decades ago, at the perfect time… some people are just great manifesters, not to mention great at projecting their shit onto a partner and hating how they act it out at them. The new old hole replaces the current one, not quite a hole yet. The female that went all in, built a life around his dreams, contributed to his expansion, was present each step of the way, dealing with the addict son moving in, dealing with his recovery. When it came time to celebrate, the three and a half year almost new hole was totally excluded and the new old hole was invited to participate. Devastating remorse. All the partnering devotion. All the merging with his dreams. Thought to be a lifetime together… a Marriage. Then — BAM! Invisible from the inside out. Me- The Architect, Me- the co-dream builder , She- the Tenant, slithered right in, She- assuring to erase, replace and lock me out.

What wasn’t mentioned… The Dreamer and the new hole were having a calm friendship, assisting one another… she having a dream of her own to have a second chance together. Then, two weeks after running into the new old hole in the photo store, driving to his house because she knew he was in Maine, securing the place, a pack of photographic paper was sitting outside, it was starting to rain. the Tenant’s car was parked. She Opened the locked back door and brought the package inside. Stopping dead in her tracks, the new hole saw two wine glasses on the kitchen table. Gob-smacked with reality, it was the last time she was entered his house. The new old hole (the Tenant) instructed him to sever all ties with me. Instantly — a new hole manifested.

The Tenant replaced the Architect who built the dreamer’s dreams. The Tenant moved in immediately; living the Dreamer’s dreams. They went to his family village in Italy, while previously sending me to Siena by myself… They took RV journeys across country … They ultimately married and moved to Maine. The architect physically vanishes, disintegrates into a new hole.

The Tenant became what the Architect designed with the Dreamer — Life together. Elvis Costello’s CD Painted From Memory played incessantly for six months as the new hole adjusted to life without the Dreamer. She didn’t realize how deeply imbedded on the walls of her heart he was, until she spent a night of Sufi prayer in New Jersey.

Another hole. The one made by the black chiffon sequined tie sash, the one made by the Dreamer who cast out the Architect. The hole made when the partner of the tie sash left, new crevices created by living sibling holes, the Grand Canyon hole made by the offspring that just doesn’t care to know who the Architect is… All these HOLES.

We search and search for ways to fill all the holes, all the spaces others opted to leave empty… we wake up each day, take our first breath, go through time and space not noticing the holes, until, in an instant, we pick up a black chiffon sequined tie sash and remember. We begin with the memory of one hole, expanding into all the holes of all the people that left us. “Jane, you are so beautiful. Grandma would have loved you.”