I Taste A Liquor Never Brewed
I've been thinking about when we delivered Flynn. I can still see the carpark from the hospital window. I remember the 4Runner you had when we met at NASA. Was it blue or yellow? I bought a yellow one later. It was a piece of shit, remember?
Your old blue duplex was just a few blocks from Kim's Vietnamese Restaurant. Your blue BMW motorcycle and black helmet sat in the small garage. Denise and Tom lived in Milpitas. Lynn and Larry had a green lawn with flowers across from the flute lady, where I took flute lessons.
Do you remember when we saw that flute teacher on our flight from Dublin to London? In London, we stayed on the second floor of a big B&B. We went downstairs for breakfast, and there was just one other person in the room. When we left, the hallway to the kitchen was on the left, and the large brown door to the street was on the right. We stepped outside, turned left, and walked down the road. It was my first time out of the country, so the walk felt amazing.
Sometimes, as I write, I think about our cottage in the Castro. We would step onto the patio. Behind us was the entrance to the two-story building. I wonder, did Freddy have a missing finger or just a big band-aid? Did he play guitar?
Still thinking about the Castro cottage: after leaving the big black iron gate, we would turn right and walk down to Castro Street. The theater was a block or two away, across the street. My mind drifts, and I expect to see the Mountain View ice-cream shop, the last one on the right, with railroad tracks across from it. I miss Kim’s and the lunch spots from NASA.
Sometimes I think I remember one of our living rooms, but then realize it’s just my old living room. It was in the tiny house where I grew up in Cupertino. I practiced flute near the front window. My mom was always in the garden, her hands covered in soil. I can picture the loveseat, the spot for the Christmas tree, and the little dining room. We even used it sometimes.
In Mountain View, the front door opened into the living room. There was a small dining area on the right and the kitchen straight ahead. The bathroom was to the right, the bedroom to the left, and the back door led straight to the small garage. Is that right?
Now, jumping to today: I woke up in Scotland. We're upstairs in a tavern or pub. It's around noon. We park in a dead-end alley, with the car on the right side of the street, facing the two-story building. We walk inside, turn right, and go up to the second floor. Inside, everything is wood—shiny, caramel-colored walls and a bar. The left side of the pub has windows, some with stained glass, flowers, a cross, and a pretty mosaic. Outside, the air is wet and gray. It feels like we are always walking through clouds.
Still in the Scottish pub, it's fun trying to order vegetarian food. We sit at a high table and climb onto shiny chairs. We read the chalkboard behind the bar. We're wandering through the highlands, with Cawdor Castle as our destination, maybe today or tomorrow. You order soup and a beer, and I have a cider and a salad. Later, I'll ask you to stop at a market so I can get some cookies.
A local asks where we're from and tells us his son is in New York, though he’s not sure why. He drops his shoulders and laughs, and we laugh too. Scots have big smiles and laughs, so it never feels gloomy here. We haven’t been invited to the Scottish boy's birthday yet—that comes later. We’ll see a young man carried in a chair while friends and family wave pound notes.
I've been coping better in unfamiliar places. Jay made this possible, even if he didn’t mean to. I never feel unsafe with him. He’s confident, and he’s always been the smartest person I know. It took time to realize I was safe with him. That feeling grew and let me take risks. Taking risks with Jay made me start living.
Time shifts again: I fall asleep and want to travel more. I want to go back to that narrow, scary Scottish road that seemed to twist forever. But I woke up in Hawaii instead. That’s okay. I love waking up there, especially in Kauai. It wasn’t our honeymoon, but the time we stayed near the North Shore. We drove a red rental car to a roadside spot with a red arrow, parked, and hiked through mud and trees to a beach. We swam and watched fish in the warm sea. Every time, the warmth amazed me—I never knew an ocean could be so warm. Not Half Moon Bay, not Trinidad, not Cannon Beach. Those were the only oceans I knew before Jay. "Be careful. Watch out for jellyfish."
Another place, another morning: I woke up in my art gallery. I loved that place. Jay came by to set something up on my computer. I had been browsing the DWR catalog, hoping to buy Jay something cool to sit in—something beautiful, comfortable, and good for his back. I looked up the Eames Lounge Chair and Ottoman. I knew he'd love it, but he would never buy it for himself.
Moments later, I’m somewhere else. I was sipping a cranberry martini Jay made as I started waking up. In this room. Dallas.
I slammed myself into the hospital bed. Jay is holding my hand. I am pushing Flynn out of my body, with no pain relief. Jay keeps telling me I can do it. You can do it. So I do. That was January 7, 2005. I never wanted to believe all the things I knew were true about me, things I thought were only for other people. I’m a piece of shit. And I’m insane. It’s right there in my medical records. Today, I’ve wished many times I could rewrite my story. It’s unfair that I inherited a disease. It didn’t show up until I’d already thrown everything away. I even lost myself. Now, I see a life—my life—that hasn’t stopped just because I’m no longer in it. Every day, I wake up all over the world. I think about how to stop the constant waking up. So far, nothing has worked. The other day, I woke up in Ireland. We’d just hit a cow. Then I went to sleep in Dallas, by myself, knowing the biggest memory loss I have is that I’m hardly a memory for anyone anymore. I hope that soon I wake up in that little white villa in Andalusia. We drive to the convent on that five-foot wide, winding road. We ate those delicious chocolate treats the nuns made. Jay bought a flower from a nun and gave it to me. I hope I wake up here again soon. Spain. Warm. Health. Sangria.
Finally, I long for another place. I want to wake up in my Humboldt forest. I want to escape my small box with a bathroom. I want to crawl through fallen branches, under what used to be ferny canopies. I want to be drunk on liquor never brewed.
I taste a liquor never brewed (214)
Emily Dickinson
1830 –1886
I taste a liquor never brewed –
From Tankards scooped in Pearl –
Not all the Frankfort Berries
Yield such an Alcohol!
Inebriate of air – am I –
And Debauchee of Dew –
Reeling – thro' endless summer days –
From inns of molten Blue –
When "Landlords" turn the drunken Bee
Out of the Foxglove's door –
When Butterflies – renounce their "drams" –
I shall but drink the more!
Till Seraphs swing their snowy Hats –
And Saints – to windows run –
To see the little Tippler
Leaning against the – Sun!