Manic Pixie Dream Girl
...of the Apocalypse.
Dear reader,
In August, a man behind a cafe counter wrote his name and number on the back of an order slip and passed it to me. Chatting briefly while I waited for my grain bowl, we acknowledged each other’s familiarity. “I’ve seen you around before,” I said. “Call me,” he said with a smile.
I kept my cool until I was outside, and out of view. Under a cloudless blue sky, I skipped giddily along the sidewalk on my way back to work. This was the first attention from a man I had received, let alone wanted, since breaking up with T., and I was elated.
The next day, after a few friendly texts back and forth, I invited him to come by the studio after his shift. By that point, ROCK SHOP was finished and furnished, but I still hadn’t started letting people in. Though I longed to feel at ease sharing the space with others, I hadn’t gotten over a shyness that made me want to hide in the bathroom every time someone walked by.
Cafe Guy was a good excuse to rip the bandaid off. I knew I was never going feel ready to be in the presence of a stranger while they give me—and everything I make—a once-over. I reassured myself that one day I would feel proud of the space, but that it would happen in tiny increments.
Admittedly, opening the door for an available, single man with romantic potential felt like skipping ahead into a hard launch. I hadn’t even practiced talking about the studio without mentioning my history with T. But Cafe Guy was cute, and so into the deep end I went.
A few minutes before he was scheduled to arrive, I dusted off the record player, took the trash out, and wiped down the bathroom sink. In ass-hugging jeans, I busied myself with easy-to-interrupt tasks, like sorting paper and organizing my color pencils.
When Cafe Guy finally showed up, he let himself in, plopped down on the sofa, leaned back in repose, and let out a sigh. On the contrary, I situated myself awkwardly on one of the milk crates I had been using as a plant stand, which meant that I was literally on the edge of my seat and had no choice but to appear intrigued, and borderline thirsty.
We passed around some small talk. I waited for the moment when I’d finally have to say something about the studio and the work inside of it, or reveal a personal detail about myself, but the moment never came. Instead, Cafe Guy talked about himself for the better part of an hour, while I unintentionally played the role of The Milk Crate Therapist. When our session was up, we agreed to meet again over the weekend and have a proper date. Using only the sides of our bodies, we half-hugged each other, and he left.
Saturday was a lazy morning in the canyon. One landmate prepped beds in the field, while another worked on his truck. I did laundry and made coffee, and listened to a 12-step meeting on my phone. I was halfway through a YouTube Pilates video when the texts started piling up. “There’s a fire over by Ben’s ranch,” said someone in the group chat.
Sweaty and out of breath, I paused the video, took my velcro ankle weights off, and stepped outside. I looked to the sky, and sure enough, a cloud of smoke was growing from the horizon line. Another text from a landmate: “For anyone that is home right now, meet in kitchen.”
It was a skeleton crew that day. Half of us were off the property, likely already on the coast doing weekend chores, drinking smoothies, or surfing with loved ones. The rest of us converged around the kitchen island and devised a plan.
“Welcome to the closest a fire has ever been to our house since we’ve lived here,” Lucia said calmly. We each picked a walkie-talkie from the dock that lives on our junk table, and made sure we could hear the landmate who was already down the road and at the scene. Options were passed around, like staying put and clearing any remaining fuel around the perimeter of the house, or packing up our cars and heading for the coast. We agreed to get everything we needed ready to go.
When I walked back up to my room, it was entirely different than how I’d left it. It was no longer the safe place where I kept the objects that make me feel like me: clothes, shoes, books, gifts, art, pictures, letters, exercise equipment, lotions, potions, drugs, instruments, etc. It wasn’t the sanctuary where I slept, showered, fucked, and took rest when I was ill. Instead, it was a landscape of rapidly forming hierarchies.
Everything was reduced to two categories: leave behind, or take with. Choosing was simple and limited to the size of my car, but felt cutthroat nonetheless. I picked my passports, my mother’s journals from the eighties, my sunburst Harmony Stratotone from the fifties, a few changes of clothes, camping gear, baby books full of photos, a surfboard and a wetsuit, and a pair of cowboy boots I had gotten with T. at the swap meet.
The driveway was a flurry of quiet and focused landmates stuffing their cars. I took one last look around, hugged the people that remained, and climbed into my van. Driving to my studio, I passed CalFire trucks headed in the opposite direction, towards the blazing hill. I felt a hollow grief in my stomach: I will be never be ready to lose this, I thought.
By evening, the fire was under control and no evacuation orders had been issued. I was posted at ROCK SHOP when Cafe Guy texted. “Still up for dinner? I heard there was a fire on your road, everything okay?”
I was grateful to be preoccupied with the trappings of a first date. I knew we weren’t going to lose our house that weekend, but a domino had fallen that day: the road home had caught fire.
“All good here,” I replied. “Weird times, but looking forward to dinner.”
Cafe Guy and I sat side by side at a sushi bar, pushing rice and loose pieces of fish around in bowls of Chirashi. We poured each other tea from a cast iron kettle and swiveled nervously back and forth in half circles on our stools.
“I’m so relieved your house is going to be okay,” he said.
“Me too,” I replied. “It would have been devastating for the community, plus our neighbors…”
“Yeah, I just like, you know, part of the reason things with my ex got weird is because her dog died,” he explained. “She just got so sad, I mean like really sad. It was so heavy. And then when I heard about the fire on your road, I was like, Oh no! Not again! Another girl who’s going to lose something!”
I was silent, unsure of what route to take in my response. I had been on first dates before where I’d caught the ick after a well-meaning person had said too much, too soon. I knew he was talking about his ex, but he could have been telling my story. I thought about Lily, the cattle dog I adopted from a shelter in San Francisco when I was nineteen. I was obsessed with her death in the weeks leading up to it, and when the day finally came, I felt life leave my body when Lily gave her last breath. For all I knew, the creature that held every good and pure thing about me had just died, and she’d taken them with her.
I wanted to tell Cafe Guy that maybe his ex’s dog was the first thing that was safe for her to love, and be loved by in return. I also wanted to tell him that it sounded like he was whining about supporting his partner, and that I didn’t feel sorry for him, but I did. I know that I can only be there for people because I’ve let myself really love, and lose something.
Glancing at the TV screen that hung above the bar, I watched tiny bodies throw a ball around on a bright green field. Earlier in the day, I’d swiftly broken everything I owned into two categories. I wondered if living through this great unraveling would require me to do the same thing, but with people: the ones who can go into the dark with me, and the ones who can’t.
I leaned back in my stool and let out a sigh. “If you’re looking for a relationship without loss,” I prefaced, “you’ve come to the wrong planet.”
Love,
Anna
*all photos by
(on Instagram Joy Newell)
all i can say is, “bye felicia”. anyone who can’t handle us in our grief doesn’t deserve us in the sheets. thanks for this, reassuring and reaffirming that tragedy helps synthesize what’s truly of value. 💔❤️🩹
Holyshit. Yea. So much in a nutshell….edge of the milk crate….deep connection with loss…those who can’t touch the void. Thank you for this. It’s holding my ambivalence in narrative.