The Sheila Variations

The cup I stole

Every day he and I went to Rosebud's Cafe and had breakfast. We had done our show the night before. We worked hard. We had our days free, except on matinee days. We wandered around Ithaca, and we always began our days at Rosebud's.

This isn't a big story (although it is long), it doesn't have a dramatic finish, it has no huge climactic catharsis ... It's just something I have always remembered, a time in my life that still shines in my memory ... something I continuously try to write about, to attempt to define it, to wrestle it into words. I still haven't completely succeeded here ... I honed in on one or two aspects of the experience, although there are other elements I would also like to explore ... but it all ends up being encapsulated in that cup. The cup I stole.

There were three guys in the show. (We called them "the boys".) Two of them were being put up in a crappy little apartment over a rushing river, so that it sounded like the shower was always on. The other guy stayed out on this amazing farm, someone in the community opened their house to him, and he was out there, in the sunlight, with the wooden beams, and the red and white checkered table cloth, and the arbors of roses.

The other actress, Laurie, and I stayed in a house - a family lived there normally, but I guess they were on sabbatical. She and I referred to it as "the elf house" because everything seemed to be in miniature. The rooms were tiny, the couch had two teeny cushions on it, you had to go up the stairs in single file, and all the beds were single beds. We wondered if they took out their own double bed, to discourage any lascivious actress behavior, any co-habiting with the ... BOYS ... The beds were teeny. We of course did, on occasion, have "the boys" over, meaning our cast members - and they would sleep over, and the beds were so small their feet would dangle off out of the room and into the damn hallway. There was a small porch out front, with a teeny swing on it ... I sat out there, late at night, listening to the country quiet. lost in thought. Laurie and I would lie in our little elf beds, laughing uproariously about the miniature house we were living in. I didn't know her at all before the show, but within 2 days of living together it was like we were sisters. She was a gorgeous shimmery blonde, kind of intimidating at first - which was just my own issues - she was the kind of girl who just brings up issues in other girls, not her fault - we'd go out for a drink and she'd thrown on a red shimmery top and jeans and would be a total head-turner - with no effort ... I would be struggling to get the hair right, and find a sexy outfit ... but no matter how pretty I made myself ... I would just fade into the background when standing next to her ... Again, not her fault. But for the first day or so, I was intimidated by this skinny big-boobed blonde - and that lasted for about 2 seconds. By the end of our stay in Ithaca, there she would be - calling to me from the next room: "Hey, Sheila! Listen!" I would listen ... and hear a fart emanating through the elf house. Ah, good times, good times.

It was an out of town job. We were all Chicago actors. We had auditioned in Chicago, and we had rehearsed for three weeks in Chicago. Then we all traveled, via caravan of 2 cars, to Ithaca where we had one more week of rehearsal in the theatre before we opened. The whole thing was disorienting, hilariously fun, and perfect for me at that point in my life. It was just one of those jobs that came along at the absolute PERFECT time. I was in love with someone in Chicago - but even saying "in love" just doesn't seem to encompass the whole thing. It never does with me. I was out of my mind. It was one of the craziest summers of my life. I went through a FIRE. A ring of FIRE, man. It didn't work out, and I was at a complete loss as to how to get over it. I didn't know what to do. I remember sitting outside at a coffee shop on Southport (Cafe Avanti!!) with my dear friend David - who would be moving to New York shortly - and I remember I was so out of it. I was skinny, pale, and completely despondent. David said something to me I've never forgotten. He said, "Just because something might be meant to be, Sheila, doesn't mean that it will be." I couldn't even BE with that hard truth during that blazing hot summer. Dammit, I put my friends through the wringer.

But then - suddenly - in the middle of the burning heartache I hear about an audition. From a friend (who was also one of my roommates) who had gotten cast in a show - a very exciting show - Killer Joe, by Tracy Letts - a Chicago-area actor who had written this thing and it had been done to ENORMOUS acclaim in Chicago. It was one of those moments when a playwright came along who truly excited people. It is a marvelous play. Sinister, evil, dark, complex ... and very very well-written. There are five excellent characters. It reminds me a lot of the Coen brothers' chilling and terrifying film Blood Simple. It's a lot like that. So the Kitchen Theatre in Ithaca was premiering Killer Joe - it would be the premiere of this play outside of Chicago. Very exciting. My friend (and roommate) had been cast as Ansel Smith, the ineffective patriarch of the family. They were looking to cast Ansel's wife - Sharla. The evil manipulative trashy BITCH SLUT Sharla. It's not my type of role, it's not normally what I would be cast as - but I wanted it. Oh, how I wanted it. For professional reasons but also for personal reasons. I wanted to do it because it would be a great job - but I also wanted to do it because I needed to get the hell out of town.

I auditioned and then - I don't remember why - the details are lost in the fogs of time - the director came to my apartment to have me read a couple of the scenes with Ken (my roommate - who was already cast). I hadn't gotten the job yet. Sharla was trash. She married Ansel, a poor dumb sad sack of a guy, mainly because he would take care of her ... he had two kids - 18, 19 years old - Sharla was only a couple of years older than her stepkids. She promptly had a torrid affair with her own stepson. And continued to just fuck around on her husband, left and right, through the town. Poor Ansel. Sharla was bad to the bone. A selfish piece of trash. What? Me? I'm a pale-faced freckled Irish girl. I play mentally ill sensitive poets, and hopeful damaged ingenues. So for the audition, I curled my hair, Farrah Fawcett style, I wore skintight stonewash jeans, I wore a denim shirt tied at the waist with a trashy black bustier underneath. I put a tattoo on the top of one of my breasts - so you could see it peeking over the top of the bustier. I wore blue eyemakeup, false eyelashes, and glimmering pink lipgloss. What can I say. I knew what I had to do. I don't look trashy, normally. I had to show him that I COULD. When he showed up at my house to do a couple of scenes with me (I guess you could say it was the callback) - I wore the same outfit. The director did not know me. We had never met. He had no idea if I was or was not that girl, he had no idea if I was a good actress or not ... It was all going to be based on first impressions. Is she this girl? I went all out, man. I felt like a jackass, but it had to be done.

The three of us sat around my dining room table, scripts out, reading our scenes. Acting.

Cue song from Chorus Line: "I really need this job ... Oh God, I need this job ... I've got to get this jooooooooob!"

In the middle of my audition, the phone rang. Mitchell (my other roommate) slinked into the room, trying not to disturb, quiet, and answered. I heard him say, "Uhm ... no ... she's busy right now ... " Longer pause. He said again, "She's auditioning for something ... can she call you back?" I hear all of this peripherally AS I'm going through my scene. Strange. How you can have two levels of consciousness going on at the same time.

After the audition, the director left. Mitchell told me it was the guy. My guy. He had called?? What? And he had gotten uppity with Mitchell when he said I wasn't available - "Well, she can't call me back - I'm at a pay phone!" I felt a strange mixture of sensations. I felt thrilled that I had not been available ... but the thrill was very bitter. It was a vicious tight kind of thrill. Angry. It was like: "Hah. You think I wait by the phone?" But on the other side of that was this deep sadness because of course I HAD been waiting by the phone for weeks ... I had been eating myself alive missing him, wanting him, yearning for him ... and he hadn't called ... so ... I felt this great LEAP of happiness that he had called, my heart pulling up out of my chest. Why hadn't I been available? Why hadn't he called an hour earlier? Why did he have to call when I was busy?? Etc. I was a mess.

I sat down to write about the cup I stole from Rosebud's Cafe in Ithaca, but this is what comes up. It's not what I planned. I wanted to just talk about the cup, and why I stole it, but I find that I cannot help myself. All of this other stuff is background. And it is why I need to write about the cup. It is what I still see, on occasion, when I have my coffee out of that very cup every morning.

The next day, the director called me, and he offered me the job. I accepted, happily. I had an odd swooning sensation, a strange feeling that time was suddenly speeding up - and that I was already GONE. Zoom ... my life was going to change. This is such an actor thing. You think your life will be one way, and then you get a job, and you know it will be another way. 2 days before I thought I would be in Chicago for the whole fall, recovering from this breakup, and working in Chicago. But now - suddenly - I know that I will be in Ithaca New York for the entire fall, and I have NO IDEA WHAT THAT WILL BE LIKE. It's one of the funnest parts about this business. Not knowing what the next day will bring.

Rehearsals began. I threw myself into them head first. I didn't hold back. I threw myself into that part ferociously. I knew none of the other actors except for my friend who had got me the audition. All of them were dedicated serious professionals: all of them still working. Not surprising. We were all in our mid-20s, but we were all serious about our craft, serious about our acting ... I was, it must be said, absolutely crushed by what I had lost that past summer ... I felt schizophrenic at times. I would go to rehearsal, dressed up in my trashy garb, and I would THROW myself into the part, headlong, holding nothing back. While I was in rehearsal, my whole world was that play. Then I would come home, to my apartment, with my little single bed in my cute little room, and immediately my real life would rush back into reality, and I would lie there, eyes open to the dark ceiling, aching, pulsing with heartache. Then I would wake up and get through my day, counting the minutes until I got to rehearsal again, when I could lose myself. The best thing about playing Sharla was that she was a total Id. She was like Tanya Harding. She did whatever she had to do to get what she wanted, no matter how sleazy, illegal. Sharla didn't care what people thought of her. How freeing for someone like me! I am so the opposite of an Id gone wild. I over-think everything. I never act on impulse. I ALWAYS care what other people think of me. I am very very cautious in my real life. So to go to rehearsal every night, and to give all that up, and to just act out my impulses as they came to me, to be a person who had no brake-pedal, to be a person who had no boundaries ... was one of the most glorious things I could ever imagine. Rehearsals were my life. I lived for them.

The guy who played Chris, Sharla's stepson, the one with whom Sharla had a torrid affair ... was strangely intriguing to me. His name was Michael. It was strange because I was supposed to be heartbroken. I WAS heartbroken, but he was still intriguing. He was hot. Let's be honest. He was hot (and I'm talkin' smokin' hot, people - Mitchell can be my witness to this!! He knows him!) . And he was 20 years old. The youngest of all of us. He was very serious, very focused. Not like a 20 year old. He worked hard on his part. He put his nose to the grindstone. He was very very good.

I liked him. I found myself behaving in a kind of ... high-school-girl way. Pacing my steps so that he and I would walk into the rehearsal room together. Silly stuff like that. I wasn't even aware that I was doing it half the time. And he, turns out, was also doing high-school stuff like that, pacing himself, making sure he was near me, etc ... so we ended up always being together. By "accident".

Then it came time to leave town. I left my apartment, and Mitchell, and my cat Sammy with some sadness - but other than that, I was thrilled to be getting the hell out of town. Getting away from heartbreak. It seemed to me, in that moment, that it was just a matter of geography. The heartbreak would not follow me to Ithaca.

And strangely enough, it didn't. At least not completely. I was so busy, and everything was so new - settling into the "elf house", finding our way around Ithaca, rehearsing ... that there were only a couple of moments when I would be ambushed by that old hurt. Other than that, I was free.

Unmoored from our homes, our old connections and social lives - we in the cast became everything to each other. There was a strange disconnect ... did my old life even exist anymore? And yet also - a strange and beautiful connectedness that I associate with my time in Ithaca. I've written about it before. It was a connectedness to the senses, to nature, to the physical world. Maybe it was the newness of it. The immediacy of being away, and acting in a show, and living in another town for a while ... Every day was vivid, clear, and heart-achingly beautiful.

I wrote in my journal:

Everything is so vivid now. Everything is sensory. Nothing intellectual. It's all about the taste of coffee, and the golden light inside the church. I am filled with awareness of the colored leaves and the cold and the stars and the crickets � all kinds of sensory stuff � Michael is a sensory experience, too. It's not reflective. It's sensory. I fell into his eyeball, after all. French toast, ice cream, book stores, cafes, coffee drinks, sitting in the sun, people watching, lying in the grass, the fallen leaves, Michael's voice reading out loud, and he would keep checking to make sure my eyes were closed and that I wasn't peeking. All of these simple things now ARE my life. I am wholly in them all.

And I can't remember when Michael and I started "dating", but it was pretty much immediately after we crossed the county line into Ithaca. While we were in Chicago, normal rules still applied. We didn't know each other. He was shy and serious. I was nursing a broken heart. He was maybe working his way up to asking me out ... but once we got to Ithaca? Fuggedaboutit. It was like there wasn't even a question. He didn't "ask me out", I didn't "ask him out" - we just basically started going out immediately, with no question. Strange. The ease in which we did that. It is as though we were there for years, instead of months. There are pictures of us playing cards, hiking, hanging out ... as though we had been married for 25 years. It's hysterical, in retrospect. We dressed almost exactly alike, except that I sometimes wore a little kilt skirt - so the photos are doubly hysterical. We look like twins. Our uniform: Flannel shirts. Corduroy pants. Big boots. Glasses with Elvis Costello frames. We were inseparable. And yet every night - we would say goodbye - and he would walk back to the apartment with the rushing river right below his window, and I would walk back to the elf house. It was a very special time. The dark, the quiet, the crickets ... That time away gave me space. Healing space. I could just BE with myself, as opposed to ... racing around in the daily grind, trying to squeeze in some free minutes for reflection and contemplation.

I had all this free time. I went to church almost every day. Sometimes Michael came with me. I cooked for him while he read. We went out and had ice cream. We hiked up the hill to Cornell. We did the show every night. I went running every day. It wasn't a big "party" cast - we didn't go out after the show and get hammered. A cast has its own personality, and sometimes you get into those hard-drinking casts and if you're not a hard drinker, and I'm not, at least regularly, then you have to monitor yourself and say, "Jesus ... NO - I'M NOT GOING OUT AFTER THE SHOW TONIGHT. I'M GOING HOME AND GOING TO BED." This particular cast was more like we were little kids on a field trip. We frequented every store in Ithaca. We went to the famous Moosewood Cafe. We went to "Trivia Night" every Wednesday night at a local pub, and played "Trivia" like maniacs. Michael and I were unbeatable as a team. The rest of the cast split us up so that they would have a fighting chance. There were only two movies playing in the town - Reservoir Dogs and Schindler's List. We saw both of them probably 10 times. "What do you want to do this afternoon?" "Ah, let's see ... bookstore? Church? Ice cream?" "Nah. Let's go see Schindler's List again." It was something to do. Rusted Root played a show while we were there - in a massive space like the Bowery Ballroom - and we, being the local celebrities, got free tickets. It was a blast. We explored the multitudinous waterfalls throughout and around Ithaca. Michael and I would sit on the porch swing at the elf house, and I would lie down with my head in his lap, and he would read out loud to me. Until I fell asleep and then off he would go, into the night, back to his apartment.

Strange. How quickly I got used to him.

There were times when the whole experience was like ... oh ... some silly movie where the city girl goes out into the country, and suddenly starts canning peaches as though she grew up on a farm her whole life. The movie Dying Young comes to mind. Member her canning fruit or whatever? Like: what, if you rent a farmhouse, you suddenly are adept at canning? Is everyone born knowing how to can stuff? Julia Roberts was supposed to be a club-hopping city-girl - but there she was canning peaches like a professional farmer? hahaha I have no idea what I'm talking about. The reason I bring this up is this: On our first day there, Michael and I were exploring the "elf house" - which took about 1.5 seconds, seeing as it was no bigger than a postage stamp - and we found, in a dirt ditch by the side of the house - a kitten no bigger than my hand. Mewing pitifully. The teeniest tiniest little "mew" you could ever imagine. It was all of a piece with the "elf house" motif. It had obviously just been born, and was obviously abandoned by its mother. I picked it up, oh, its eyes just tore at my heart, and the tiny little insistent sound: "mew mew mew mew mew" filled the air. Its entire body (black fur - completely black little kitten) fit in my hand. We literally found this abandoned kitten an hour after we unpacked our bags. Laurie - my housemate - was just one of those girls who seemed to know what to do - She found a vet, called the vet, asked him what we should do to take care of it ... got the answer, somehow procured the necessary supplies ... all while Michael and I wrapped the poor little thing in a teeny tiny tea towel, which still engulfed the thing like a mass of enormous blankets. It was so teeny. It was petrified of us. It needed us. It mewed its little heart out RIGHT AT US. We fed it milk with an eyedropper. As I recall. That's what I'm talkin' about: we were Chicago city kids, and within an hour of being in our little country home we were feeding newborn animals with eyedroppers. Ithaca's not real country, but compare it to the hustle and gleam of Chicago, and it sure feels like you're in the country. We were in a HOUSE, that had a big YARD, with major TREES, and a TOOL SHED in the back ... We were on a street that would be pitch-black after a certain time of night - no cars coming or going, no sound ... just crickets, and the rustle of leaves. We kept that cat the entire time we were there, and found a good home for him when we left. He recovered from his horrendous beginnings, and got plump and sleek, and ambushed us from around corners in the elf-house, his green eyes gleaming - making him look manic and insane. Not the pitiful little mewling guy no bigger than the palm of my hand!

Two of the other people in the cast also "hooked up" - and their relationship actually lasted for a couple of years. It began in Ithaca.

There was no pressure to always do everything with the cast at all times - although we did take some group outings, one being a memorable visit to a winery - where Michael took the picture of me that is, hands down, my favorite picture of me ever taken. I'm not being vain. I normally hate pictures of myself. But this one I just love.

I love it because it captures the feeling of that day. It captures the feeling of my entire time in Ithaca. Doesn't quite look like a heartbroken girl, does it?

I wrote this in my journal while I was in Ithaca:

We sit in local cafes in our grunge flannel, jeans, and retro glasses, and read our books for hours. He is reading Brando's biography, I am reading Howards End. We walk and hold hands. I take care of him. I cook for him. I had an out-of-body experience staring into one of his eyeballs. I don't know how else to describe what happened. It was 2 a.m. and I fell into his eyeball and that is all that I have to say about THAT.

Leaves turning. Orange � gold � red � flame � purple � lit from within. Freezing nights. Warm blue-skied days.

I know how much I will miss this experience when it's gone. I will miss this situation, knowing these people in this way. It won't come again.

Ithaca: The Commons. Simeons. Rosebud Caf�. State St. diner. Sirens. So many disaster vehicles. There appears to be some inbreeding. Strange. Churches. Michael and I have fights on the sidewalk, then we go get Ben and Jerry's or go to church. We went in one today. Presbyterian. Golden light streaming through circular window. Arched ceiling. Deep blue cushions on pews. Huge organ pipes. I feel like we have been in Ithaca for months. We go to the park, and sit in the grass. I put my head in his lap and he reads outloud to me from the Village Voice. Then we go and get Ben and Jerry's. I am telling you, we get Ben and Jerry's every day.

Michael's parents came to the show. We have been spending every minute of every day together, so for two nights he hung out with his parents, and he missed me. He was obsessed with what I did during those two days. Pat and I went to go see Jurassic Park, and Michael was totally jealous. Ridiculous.

I take care of him. I'm good at it, surprisingly enough.

In a lot of ways, he and I do not speak the same language, but at the same time we're both really good listeners. So - weirdly, it all works out.

One night, we had a fight. He got very mean. He apologized, but by then I was so hurt I could barely process the fact that he was apologizing for being mean, and then THAT pissed him off. We were in a loop. We didn't make up.

But the next night was when he and I went to the "70s Dance Party" at Club Semesters. Just the two of us, and we had a fucking BALL.

That was when I realized our compatibility. We didn't even have a make-up conversation like: "Oh, I'm sorry I was mean�" or "I'm sorry I was a bitch." No. What did we do? We went out disco-dancing for 3 hours straight. And then we were FINE. If only all misunderstandings could be solved in such a fun way.

Vaguely, I knew that this all would have to end. That this was not really REAL. I mean, it was real ... but it was separate from our everyday lives back in Chicago - we were in some kind of suspended time out of time. The bonds created during that experience were real and lasting - but somehow, somewhere - even though it felt like I had been in Ithaca forever - I knew that it would end. It may have felt like a new beginning - but what it actually was, was a respite. I don't know why I knew that. The feelings between Michael and I were real. But somehow I just knew that when we crossed over that county line again, going the other way, this sweet little high-school-in-the-1950s romance would end.

And that's why I stole the cup. I didn't know it at the time, and I didn't even do it consciously. I didn't think: "Hm. None of this will seem real when I go back home, so I really want to have some EVIDENCE proving that it all happened! Let me take this cup!" It would be a relic. Something to remember it all by.

If I were a different kind of girl, I might have made for DAMN sure that Michael and I were "hitched" in an official enough way that he would never be able to get away from me. Or at least not for a while. Some girls are really good at "nabbing" men. They push them, they put the pressure on, they hover ... I have never done this. If I had been that kind of girl - I would have pestered him, talked about the future incessantly, made plans with him for the weekend we came back to Chicago so as to not let him get away, acted jealous, possessive ... You know, the games people play when they are courting. But that's never really been my thing, and it certainly wasn't my thing with Michael. This dynamic probably deserves a post in and of itself - it's a topic that greatly interests me (men, women, dating, dynamics, etc.) Michael and I just met up for breakfast every morning, and nursed endless cups of coffee, as we both read. Then we walked around the town. Then we lay down in the park on a blanket and took a nap. Then we got some ice cream. Then we headed over to do our show. After the show, we went out and played Trivia at the pub - which was always kind of an ordeal to get him in because Michael was underage. Then maybe we walked around after Trivia. Enjoying the night. Talking. Not talking. Then he went his way, I went mine (I'm telling you, we were in a 1950s movie at times) ... and we met up for breakfast again the next morning. He even said to me once, a wopping 4 weeks into the thing: "I think we're in a rut. We need to shake things up." hahahaha We were in a RUT. After four weeks! The comfort level was bizarre, and very much outside of my realm of experience. It's not that he didn't make my stomach do little flip-flops, and stuff like that. He did. And, even though it might sound kind of boring, it never was. It was sheer peaceful joy. But could that kind of thing - with its casual acceptance of togetherness -exist amidst the bustle of everyday life? Back in Chicago? With other obligations pulling on us? With .... wait a second ... I forgot! I was heartbroken! Member that? Yeah, that's it! Heartbroken! Because of another man! How long had we been away again? Years and years? What year was it? I've only known this boy for two months? What?

The spell would be broken when the run of the show ended. I didn't really deal with it until our last day there, when I completely fell apart and made a fool of myself ... blubbering like a lunatic in Michael's arms, out of nowhere. But up until then, I floated inside a little charmed bubble. A perfect world of autumn leaves, morning coffee, and chilly nights. Everything in equilibrium, nothing jarring from the outside. Even our fights - and we had a ton of them - were interesting, and ferocious, and ... in a strange way ... FUN. My life took the form I most would want it to take - if I could choose, if I didn't have to have a day job, if I could wave a magic wand and say: "My life should look like THIS ..." Long open days, filled with small projects, exercise, reading, nature ... and evenings at the theatre. Not to mention having a mate.

A couple of days before the end of our run, the melancholy started creeping in. I could feel it, almost physically, like a shadow from a cloud. It was subtle. But very much there. I thought about going home and I literally felt sick to my stomach. I wanted my floating little bubble to go on forever. It had been - like so so few things in life - perfect. And worse, I was the only one in the cast who felt that way. Everyone else was itching to get home to their lives. My roommate (the one staying out on the farm) was missing his girlfriend back home. Michael was in transition - he was still so young - moving out of his parents house, ready to start his life in Chicago as a young man. I wondered how I would fit into that new life of his. I felt lost. Everything was compressed into 2 days. I started getting weepy. I would take long long walks by myself, feeling that old heartache - geographically placed back in Chicago - coming to claim me again. There it would be. Waiting for me. No more bubble. I would lose Michael to his new life. I was so so sad about that.

Our last day in Ithaca, we had breakfast at Rosebud's, of course. We didn't talk. His mind was already moving out of this experience, this very specific out-of-town-in-Ithaca experience ... It was already over for him. Not his feelings for me - but he was okay with letting go of our little bubble. I felt bad that I was holding onto it. We both were kind of quiet, restless, and uncomfortable at breakfast. Out of the bubble. Awful. I didn't like the air outside of the bubble. I didn't feel safe anymore. It was a cold world out there. I seem only able to write in cliches right now. Like I said: it was so specific, and my mind gravitates towards language that has already been used to describe it. I will keep working on it. It was so specific, and ... it's weird, to be in your mid-20s and have a totally NEW experience. Like - to feel things you have never yet felt. What I felt that morning, at that breakfast, was like that. It was new. Almost like a soul-chill. I just wanted to stay put. But we didn't talk about it. At least not then. We just had breakfast, and we now were not in the same bubble - we had split off from each other.

After we paid the check, I took my coffee cup, which was now empty, and stuffed it in my duffel bag. It was your typical diner cup - like the one in the picture above. The classic. Used in diners across the country! Dark brown china, round handle, with slightly scooped in sides. I didn't think about it, or analyze it. I just took it. I needed something to hold onto, I can see that now. I needed something concrete to remind me that this magical time had actually happened. How little faith I had in my own memory. In my own powers of retainage. I didn't believe that I would be able to hold onto this experience. I still wanted to hold onto it. I was younger then. I thought that I needed evidence ... an object ... a physical reminder ... rather than just rely on my own brain to remember things. Because I sensed (and I was right) that tough times were coming. It's easy to revel in a positive experience you've had when you're feeling GOOD, and your life is going great ... but it's nearly impossible to hold onto things like that when things are not going so well. The power of it, the healing power of it, recedes. I felt almost as though my time in Ithaca was a small pit-stop in a green glimmering oasis ... and I was about to go out into the desert again ... and I needed to make sure that I really stocked up on water, I really needed to drink DEEP. Stock up! Saraha ahead!!

Somehow all of this is wrapped up in why I stole that damn cup.

In the moment, I just WANTED it and I TOOK it.

Strange. And you know what? It kind of worked. In a weird way. I have enjoyed having it. I'm sorry, I know that stealing is wrong, but I'm glad I took it. It's from Ithaca. It's from that magical autumn. A time in my life when I was given the space to just take a breath, a deep deep breath. Time to just BE. Let me correct myself: I wasn't "given" the space. I earned it. And then once I was there, in Ithaca, I took it for the gift that it was. Every day felt like it was 50 hours long. Reading in the mornings, as the coffee brewed, was endless, so relaxing, the mornings stretched out forever, and I never seemed to run out of time for things. Until the very end. When we really did run out of time. And ... of course I don't always think of my magic little Ithaca bubble when I pour coffee into that cup. I drink out of it every day. I'm over it. But it's traveled with me. It was packed away and it came to New York with me - it moved from 103rd Street, to 62nd Street, to a storage unit, to Hoboken ... and so on.

Later, when I was thinking more clearly, I would kind of smile to myself about the irony (accidental, of course) that I had stolen it from a cafe named after the mysterious sled of Citizen Kane. In the same way that Rosebud is the answer to Kane's entire personality - it's the answer, and yet all it does is bring up more questions - my stealing the cup explains everything, and explains nothing.

It's an object. It's in my cupboard right now. Like I said, I'm casual about it now - it's just an object - one of many cups - but sometimes, very rarely, while shuffling around in my kitchen at 6 am, getting coffee out of the freezer, pulling out a coffee filter, yawning, rubbing eyes - I'll take the cup down, and suddenly, from seemingly out of nowhere - the pictures and sounds come: the night stars, rushing waterfalls, ice cream, the autumn grass, my cheek resting on Michael's shoulder, the soft flannel of his shirt.

Posted by sheila