Thursday, December 4, 2008 (Clare is 37)
Clare: It's a cold, bright morning. I unlock the door of the studio and stamp snow off my boots. I open the shades, turn up the heat. I start a pot of coffee brewing. I stand in the empty space in the middle of the studio and I look around me. Two years' worth of dust and stillness lies over everything. My drawing table is bare. The beater sits clean and empty. The molds and deckles are neatly stacked, coils of armature wire sit untouched by the table. Paints and pigments, jars of brushes, tools, books; all are just as I left them. The sketches I had thumb tacked to the wall have yellowed and curled. I untack them and throw them in the wastebasket. I sit at my drawing table and I close my eyes. The wind is rattling tree branches against the side of the house, A car splashes through slush in the alley. The coffeemaker hisses and gurgles as it spits the last spurt of coffee into the pot. I open my eyes, shiver and pull my heavy sweater closer. When I woke up this morning I had an urge to come here. It was like a flash of lust: an assignation with my old lover, art. But now I'm sitting here waiting for.. .something.. .to come to me and nothing comes. I open a flat file drawer and take out a sheet of indigo-dyed paper. It's heavy and slightly rough, deep blue and cold to the touch like metal. I lay it on the table. I stand and stare at it for a while. I take out a few pieces of soft white pastel and weigh them in my palm. Then I put them down and pour myself some coffee. I stare out the window at the back of the house. If Henry were here he might be sitting at his desk, might be looking back at me from the window above his desk. Or he might be playing Scrabble with Alba, or reading the comics, or making soup for lunch. I sip my coffee and try to feel time revert, try to erase the difference between now and then. It is only my memory that holds me here. Time, let me vanish. Then what we separate by our very presence can come together. I stand in front of the sheet of paper, holding a white pastel. The paper is vast, and I begin in the center, bending over the paper though I know I would be more comfortable at the easel. I measure out the figure, half-life-sized: here is the top of the head, the groin, the heel of the foot. I rough in a head. I draw very lightly, from memory: empty eyes, here at the midpoint of the head, long nose, bow mouth slightly open. The eyebrows arch in surprise: oh, it's you. The pointed chin and the round jawline, the forehead high and the ears only indicated. Here is the neck, and the shoulders that slope into arms that cross protectively over the breasts, here is the bottom of the rib cage, the plump stomach, full hips, legs slightly bent, feet pointing downward as though the figure is floating in midair. The points of measurement are like stars in the indigo night sky of the paper; the figure is a constellation. I indicate highlights and the figure becomes three dimensional, a glass vessel. I draw the features carefully, create the structure of the face, fill in the eyes, which regard me, astonished at suddenly existing. The hair undulates across the paper, floating weightless and motionless, linear pattern that makes the static body dynamic. What else is in this universe, this drawing? Other stars, far away. I hunt through my tools and find a needle. I tape the drawing over a window and I begin to prick the paper full of tiny holes, and each pin prick becomes a sun in some other set of worlds. And when I have a galaxy full of stars I prick out the figure, which now becomes a constellation in earnest, a network of tiny lights, I regard my likeness, and she returns my gaze. I place my finger on her forehead and say, "Vanish," but it is she who will stay; I am the one who is vanishing. ALWAYS AGAIN
Thursday, July 24, 2053 (Henry is 43, Clare is 82)
Henry: I find myself in a dark hallway. At the end of the hall is a door, slightly open with white light spilling around its edges. The hall is full of galoshes and rain coats. I walk slowly and silently to the door and carefully look into the next room. Morning light fills up the room and is painful at first, but as my eyes adjust I see that in the room is a plain wooden table next to a window. A woman sits at the table facing the window. A teacup sits at her elbow. Outside is the lake, the waves rush up the shore and recede with calming repetition which becomes like stillness after a few minutes. The woman is extremely still. Something about her is familiar. She is an old woman; her hair is perfectly white and lies long on her back in a thin stream, over a slight dowager's hump. She wears a sweater the color of coral. The curve of her shoulders, the stiffness in her posture say here is someone who is very tired, and I am very tired, myself. I shift my weight from one foot to the other and the floor creaks; the woman turns and sees me and her face is remade into joy; I am suddenly amazed; this is Clare, Clare old! and she is coming to me, so slowly, and I take her into my arms. Monday, July 14, 2053 (Clare is 82)