From the Files of Portland
6:26 a.m. Portland International Airport. Portland, Oregon. Sunday, November 14, 1999.
My head is buried against Tom's chest as we sit at the gate. Something I said, or he said, or no one said, has brought tears to my eyes. Maybe it was the thought of him walking out of the airport when I board the plane. With his backpack, his new ideas, his new self, leaving me before I lift off the ground. With his mind on the bookstore he wants to visit downtown. With the connection gone.
I hear the end of another announcement over the intercom, and I look up to realize everyone has boarded our flight. I say I need to go. We stand and he hugs me. He wants me to eat on the plane so I won't have a blood sugar problem. I promise I will. He says he loves me and I say I love him. We kiss and he takes my hand as I walk toward the flight attendant at her podium. He lets go of my hand as I reach her, and whispers, "I'm going to watch your plane leave."
I want to melt. I want to dissolve into wherever it is that I am standing, in whatever time this is that we've created. All I wanted to hear was that he cared, and there it was.
I hand my ticket to the woman and begin to wonder what to do with the space between the podium and the door. I have to walk to the door yet, and I don't know whether to look back at Tom or not. I am afraid of how to leave this entire experience, as though the final moment dictates the whole experience....the whole outcome. She hands me my ticket back and smiles as I take my first step. I take another, and another, and then before I can think about it, I turn my head to look at him.
He is standing next to the window, and he blows me a kiss. My next step is through the door, and I rush into the hallway with a momentum of pain, fear, and hope, which rushes outside of my body, unable to be contained. My body offers up the tears fresh and hot, and they fall relentlessly, slipping and sliding across my cheeks and chin. Blindly I find my seat on the plane and sit down, thankful to have no one in the row beside me.
I turn my head toward the window where no one can see me, and as the memories flow inward deep inside of me, I let the tears rush out. Maybe they will rush into the deep, somewhere unknown, maybe the heart of God. And then they will be brought back into the soil and the forests and the oceans and the life around me, and replenish something out there that needs to survive.
I need to survive. I close my eyes and think, "I am strong. This is my decision."
