My furry ward has left the nest. Today I moved him into his new apartment in the lower Haight. He’s sharing it with a successful hair dresser who has his own shop, and the gayest taste I have ever seen: wrought iron dining chairs, salmon leather sofa, faux paint job on every wall… You’d think he watches way too much Home & Garden TV, but he doesn’t have a TV. It’s all genetic!
So I got very weepy a few days ago, well okay, sobby. Some three odd years have passed since I plucked him from his board-and-care and invited him to live in my studio. He was then a catatonic hairy shell who could hardly carry on a conversation, and now he’s living on his own and charming every other available twinkie in town. My Galatea’s off in his own new direction, and I’m the waving midwestern mom slowly fading from view in his rearview mirror.
I think that I’ve come to know him better than anyone I’ve ever known. I experience his mental illness as two distinct personalities. One side can lie to me and believe it, the other side can hold me so tightly that I feel I’m going to die from being loved so hard. I used to think that people were either good or bad. Not both–and not at the same time. There’s no morality guiding him, just self-preservation and passion.
And I love this person. Frequently I’ll call Big Chrissy. “I can’t take it anymore, he’s got to leave, he’s driving me crazy, he did this unmentionable thing, he did that unmentionable thing, he used my good silver to clean his pipe…” And then he hugs me and I don’t care that he just chipped my majolica. Again. Everything fades and sappy music plays and fireworks go off and bands go marching by and the United States declares victory over Japan and kids scream and a child is born in the East…
What is this love that has nothing to do with reason, or taxes? I’m sure that if he told me that he’s decided–as he’s done frequently when I’m dating or married to someone else–that I’m the only one for him, I’d chuck the whole lot of you and move into his little room and spend the rest of my life–well, okay, a week–in furry bliss. No, I’m not sure I’d do that, but I’m scared to death of the part of me that wants to.
So tomorrow is the first day of this part of the rest of my life. Again. I’ve shot the images for the next pieces, two flowers. One flower is made of images of his butt, too close to even be read, but familiar to those who have been there, the other a rose made up of images of my fingers in his chest hair. We’ll die. I’ll forget. Here’s something of us.