SEPTEMBER 2011

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There are only a few days that separate me from that life. The new life that I have chosen for myself. The one that I have been working on for the past three years. It's crazy how quick it went. Orientation week was brutal, everything and everyone being completely new and part of the

many elements my brain needs to absorb in very little time, but at the same time, this feeling of strange familiarity.

Come to think of it, it's not so different. It's true, Phyllis was right. Is right. I mean the spotlights aren't there, nor is Mark singing next to me, drenched in thick bloodlike sweat. My Wurlitzer is missing too , although the school has a remarkable organ that i might be able to lay my hands on. No keys ready to wail at my caress here just yet, though. Yeah that one hurts a little bit maybe. That thought. But I m happy Linda is playing it somewhere, my Wurlitzer, even now maybe. Taking it on her journey. Worrying about it being dropped on the floor by a careless roadie, instead of me.

But i've decided now. I have. Never would have thought it could be so easy.

Walking through the corridors during orientation, i could almost see the adolescent I was twenty years ago, looking at me in disbelief.

First day of class tomorrow. 9F, good thing Michael warned me. Have the worse stage fright! It is very much like a stage I guess. But a stage where i can't hide behind Mark anymore , or behind my instrument.

Im glad of what I found with Phillis during that intense cession a few weeks ago: teaching is like orchestrating a score within each student, creating a new world in them, a new tonality in which they can reinvent themselves, and explore who they are.

Just like in the band, I am an indispensable part of all the elements needed for the piece to be complete. Without me the show can't take place. It s just a different kind of show.

Im glad Caroline gave me a chance. It s also scary that she would. Pretty crazy in fact how fluid the whole thing has been. How she would take a chance on me, just like that. To think I almost didn't apply. I do have the credentials but so many people must have applied with comparable or more experience….I wonder what did it, apart from the musical background of course.

...

I did it, I survived. A full week. The smell of coffee is everywhere in the language center. I like that, the morning routine. The cadence of this life. I do feel like i am wearing a costume sometimes. The Miss McKenzy costume. I am performing in many ways, yet again. When I am in the corridors and a pupil calls me out, it still surprises me. Feel like i could just go to sleep every time i come home, though. And most of the times, I don't resist the urge. It's that intense. But very proud of myself. Maybe the tiredness comes from all the rewiring happening in my mind. I know that it isn't that again. I can feel it. Not depression again. Just facing myself, the choices that I have made for myself, that I am making. I hope i can do this.

That little girl in 9F, Denise, gave me this sharp unforgiving look yesterday. It was by far the worst class of the week. She could be an other version of me at her age. An uber confident version of myself at her age. Maybe that is why it hurt so.

But I have decided yesterday that it is true, i do love it all, the marine blue uniforms stiff with starch, students whose voices burst and bounce along the glossy hallways.

After all these years, when the bell rings my heart still jumps. Fear. Wonder where it comes from exactly. Was I that scared as a little girl? How much of that fear is still there ? Maybe it just reminds me that time hasn's sat still.

OCTOBER 2011

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Writing from this beautiful retro coffeehouse not far from school, Henrietta's. I chose the table close to the window from which you can see the reddening leaves of the trees in the park from so close, you feel like you can almost stretch your hand out and touch them. I almost feel like an expatriate here, everything is so different from London. I can make my own life here, i feel protected somehow. From myself mainly. Sometimes the loneliness leaves me breathless though. I try to remind myself that the felt emptiness is necessary, for now. That I made room for beautiful things to come into my life. I try to relax in it….

…

Still a lot of unwanted dizzying S. thoughts though, but doing much better. Far, very far from days where living without her, without the possibility of us, seemed like an unbearable thought, that would stop me in my tracks, pulled me from any of the activity I was still able to have to leave me laying down in a featal position on my bed for hours on end. Seems almost unreal to think that in March, that was my reality. Maybe due to actually being so close to my new life being real. Being lived. I know better than to claim victory just yet. I know that the abyss is still very real. That going back there, to the world shrinking in on me, is possible. Phyllis was very clear.

Richard rung again. So strange to hear happiness in his voice, to realize we are there already, able to speak to each other like that again. After the whole tearing each other apart. At least he is. Always feel like this big warning sign is popping out each time i do indeed take the call. That before we know it, we could be there again. Poking at each other's wounds and calling it love.

Maybe that's really what we needed. For it to be written down somewhere. That we are free from each other. For us to be able to share this way again.

While talking to him I was thinking of the morning when I got them. The divorce papers in my brand-new mail box. The relief, but also this very peculiar sense of sadness. How they sat in my handbag for a week before I decided to finally file them.

His joy and apprehension when he told me that Emily was 24 weeks pregnant. I was expecting to hurt but very strangely, this healed something for me. Made me feel more hopeful. Genuinely happy for them. Like finally one of us has won that battle that we had been fighting for so long before we gave in, and found ourselves empty, with only scars to look at. No medals.

He asked about S. I told him how S left me. How she went back to the US.

The comfort of knowing that I don't have to explain. That he knows. Just by hearing me speak about her.

S. Is far. She will never be mine, I will never be hers. She will never want us, like that, together again and that is OK. She will never want my skin against hers, not like I want it. And that is OK.

Getting there I guess. Still quite painful I am afraid. (…)

November 2011

Writing from the desk of my new haven. My "room of one's own". My shelter. Boxes are still everywhere. Tons of choices to make. Mom's expression when she saw the new house, when she visited it with me. The relief in her smile, thinking that maybe I was indeed going to be okay. Haven't felt that free since York. Just bought a Zanele MUHOLI photograph for my house warming present to myself. Soon the tender embrace of these two women washing in a bucket will be the horizon of my study.

(…) Horrible nightmare this morning. S. rejecting me again, I was stuck in this monstrous fair, full of different rides, loud music, extremely crowded. Also kind of felt like a venue whose green room I was trying to find. S. was there, we were there together. It felt completely normal in my dream, although it never actually happened, us, like that, together. And suddenly I lost her, she was walking ahead of me. Not waiting for me, purposely trying to lose me in the crowd. I called her , shouted till it hurt in my dream. She never turned back.

I woke up to the nausea of her loss lodged deep in my throat. Again.

(...)

Loved loved loved that moment with Caroline yesterday! She got me a nice selection of gourmet teas for the house. Mumbled something about it being for me to be able to make acceptable tea for future guests. She won't let me forget how I commented that I loved the disgusting tea that we were served when we went to Henrietta's together to speak about the end of the year concert. Loved everything about it. How she downplayed the whole thing and almost threw the present in my lap while avoiding eye contact.

She popped in almost everyday on my first week, now that I think about it. Last Friday, she pulled me back from a bad place. Letting me know what an excellent job I was doing and urging me not to be too hard on myself. Telling me, reminding me, that classes that don't go well are part of the job specially in the beginning. She scares me a lot too. There's this anger about her that is likely to erupt at any given moment. She's quite glorious when it does but it's also scary. I get on really well with the other teachers, Michael especially, but I'm not part of any clique yet. I suspect that it will not happen. I'm a bit of an oddity really. A suspicious Rock Band past, divorced, no trace of any children, biracial and possibly gay….Michael is quite nice but he's certainly not discreet. I should definitely keep that in mind. The the london extraction doesn't make things any better I suppose. Caroline's an oddity too in some respects. She makes me laugh so hard at times.

Could be completely off but feel like she takes special care of me. Like the idea of that of course.

Probably completely off of course. Like her courage though, her strength. Wonder what her husband is like. I've heard they just split up. Something about him leaving for another woman.

Certainly a breath of fresh air compared to the boys club i had been stuck with in the band for more than a decade! I like working in an environment where strong women fits the description of 70 percent of the staff ! I also find the whole decorum of the posh British School quite endearing. Reassuring. If only Mark could see me! And the band!

…

DECEMBER 2011

Felt like i had misplaced something all day. Looked for my reading glasses before leaving for school. Made sure my keys were in my bag about ten times. Made sure i had all the material for each class. knew that I had packed my lunch. Wondered if maybe I owed someone some money or if it was forgetting an important birthday. Finally when I got home i realized: non one S. thought. Not in days. Not sure how I feel about it. It s not there pounding, anymore, the loss. I can think of her and not ache.I wonder what is left. I wonder how strong is the scar tissue. How resistant.

JANUARY 2012

So, not sure i should even write this down. Writing it makes it more real than I want it to be. That's why I've avoided the diary the whole month of December. Writing Makes me feel even more vulnerable. Means i can't keep pretending to myself like I have. Phillis would probably wonder if my pathologic need for intensity isn't at play. But yes, something is happening. Has happened. I don t know how it has, really. There was a shift for sure. At least for me. Just cannot pinpoint when it took place. Well, Something has been there, since the beginning really. Since laying eyes on her to be precise. Caroline. A sense of relief maybe. Deep rooted. An openness too. Eery familiarity. Or maybe i'm just a sucker for well clad snotty 40 something women.

I think I was just far too preoccupied with intruding Sarah thoughts to see it before. Blinded almost. But it was there then. Its been there since. Something was never neutral between us. For me.

It s a little bit the same as with Sarah, and this is what scares me potentially. Repeating that, the Sarah paradigm. But mid november, it shifted, slipped rather, into something else. It's all because of music again. Bumped into her at this Chamber music concert. She was there alone. She said something about how she'd gotten a membership with John and her mother hadn't wanted to come with. When I found her there, on my way, when she had already been on my mind, something lifted I think. It was very peculiar, physical almost. She invited me to join her for the mid december concert …and just like that I started counting.

« Did she look at me a bit longer today? Did she check me out just now? Am I making the whole thing up? If i leave exactly at 3.05 on friday i could actually bump into her since that's what happened two weeks ago. I haven't seen her in three days now, what on earth could I invent, to see her. I can go another day without seeing her, If nothings happened on thursday i'll just go to her office and mention the end of the year concert…. » It's a wonder really that even with that, even with the counting, I still was fooling myself.

I was quite happy pretending to myself that I was just caring about my new friend that happens to be my boss. I indulged happily in her self centered rents on her philandering husband, her worry about her children, mother, house, you name it; all the while vaguely aware that they were becoming necessary for me, those moments where I can be with her, close to her and take everything in. Her wit, her laughter, her scent, the way her voice alone can make me shiver. The questions that keep popping when she speaks to me, at me rather, most of the time, "I wonder how they taste, her lips, how soft exactly?" It s frightening really the level of denial I am capable of, even after all the coming out process.

Eventually, I found out the same way as I did with Sarah. Counterintuitively. Not with how I felt and thought everyday really. But it was the pain, as usual, that ended up sobering me up. Again. It was the pain that made the rest impossible to ignore any longer. Her smile that i could hear over the phone, that I could picture to myself thanks to all the time i studied how it modifies her voice, when she explained that she had a date, that she couldn't make friday night after amazingly, she'd been asked out by one of Gavin's friends that didn't seem like a complete mess, and that she was going to take him to the concert. That she hoped I didn't mind. That she hadn't dated in decades and had no idea what to wear, that she was hoping we could see each other on thursday after school instead. The nausea all of a sudden. The anger creeping in slowly. I had enough self respect to say, pretend rather, that thursday was impossible for me. That I was already taken. The disappointment in her voice. The silent " i thought you'd be happy for me" she didn't utter.

This is where it stops though, the Sarah parallel. I'll keep my distance from now on. I will protect myself this time. No indulging anymore. She'll barely notice I'm sure. I Want moré, deserve moré than that.

But i do, pathetically I might add, wonder what's she'll wear. Maybe that exquisite see through shirt and the beige skirt...

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