potatoes

I can’t write about the way I stuffed my face last night, my early dinner of potatoes, potatoes, potatoes, how I kept coming downstairs for more and the shame of getting into bed knowing that there was no way I could let my husband touch me, even though it was probably a good night, even though we’d been talking about it, even though it had been weeks, even though I can’t actually remember the feeling of him inside of me.

The relief of the movie in bed, our feet touching, then soon after, the relief of his snores, that another night had passed and I had escaped the intimacy, the awkwardness of touch and the movement toward each other.

I can’t write about how I’ve been wondering if the open marriage isn’t just terribly convenient, that the philosophy may be poppycock, that business about how the four square walls of marriage are limiting, too tight. That business about how other people allow you to express the untapped, that one person can’t be it all for you.

Lately I wonder if having a lover isn’t just a terribly convenient way to drift from each other, both of us a little high, a little drugged in the anticipation of the tryst, the way my step became just a little lighter when P. said he could make the Wednesday night date, how I found myself taking the first full breath of the day.

I don’t know if I can write about how difficult it is to move toward my husband, not for any good reason except that I am comfortable in my defense, tucked as I am behind my great wall. How right, how disappointed.

If they sliced me open they would find road blocks and ditches, and old refrigerators and ovens that people had ditched along the banks and which now blocked the flow of fresh water.

When my lover called to say Wednesday I think I giggled. I sounded like a child. I realized I could make it through today and tomorrow and the next day.

What I can’t write about are those dead refrigerators getting rusty and rained on and clogging up the river. I find myself unwilling to look or uncover. I find myself drifting and blaming and eating potatoes.

What I am unwilling to write about, what I find impossible to write about is the feeling each night of getting into bed with a man I care about but do not know how to move toward. The other night I wanted him to touch me. I wanted to ask but I felt guilty. It was only the pleasure I sought, not the connection. It could have been anyone’s hands, and this is a very hard thing to write about.