Not Even to Tell My Grandchildren (6/20/09 Saturday)

The absence of and physical distance from Julie has engendered a certain nostalgia this weekend. Every moment together is impossible, replete to bursting with the unsaid and unsayable--the very things I dwell on once given the breathing room. Again this week, we didn't speak (I think my last crack was fatal), and were only once forced into prolonged contact--ten minutes of packing mail that produce from each of us an utterance that was only half meant for ourselves. Inches away, she bent to pack a box. Her hair parted from her neck. I wanted to plant the lightest kiss on the exposed nape. But's that only how I think of that now. Then, that neck was a taunt, and those unsaid words roiled through my veins. But I don't know what those words were, so I can't regret not saying them. Somehow, the scene is touchingly humorous as I write. If only that attitude could fortify me against the dread that will begin tomorrow night; but it's the only such recent memory of Julie that doesn't browbeat me. I've been thinking of our last meeting, and the more I do the more I feel I had only been indulged. I was confessional and over-disclosive, and she was the mom trying to say the right thing to the sensitive kid. Nothing nostalgic there. I'm not sure I can get far enough away from that memory to find amusement in its recollection.