A hedge back home in the suburbs

over which I never could see...

Here I am, in a green leafy suburb in western NY. Rain across the continent, rain and gloom outside, working away suspended in this warm kitchen while F is mostly at work. Linked through a tangle of wires and wifi to the rest of my world -- taking advantage of F's digital phone for calls with clients, my colleagues, my sister, my friend -- endless yammer -- and the patchwork of email and online links. Between my treo, the gmail, ramshackle sympatico email, wifi --- I'm still in my world, but hovering above it.

F and I are sort of experimenting with this workaday connection, how we fit together when we're both in work mode. It's a little un/surreal -- he's in his own space, trying to navigate around me, I'm trying to find physical and head space to work remotely. An odd combination of the dispersed life, emotional and cognitive connections I have to keep alive across distance -- and the reverse of how F and I usually connect, our physical proximity the most real, the words and sketched out lives in relief behind us. It's working, though the rhythm is so strange when we're always in each other's space, each other's routines, no real shared world yet. We do work together, though we can both be fiercely autonomous and just a little cranky. But waking up together... feels right, it's where we should be.

I feel as if we're crossing all sorts of lines, previously recognized and maybe a little invisible. If I leave shampoo and girly bodywash in F's shower, is that a territorial marker? What do we take for granted, and where are assumptions too early? How do we make space for each other in our routines, when one of us is never at home? Gentle navigation, acknowledging our own edges. Little reels with switching of places and set steps, testing the ground, gradual movements.

There are a lot of actual borders and lines... Sprawling houses artfully arranged on this cul de sac so the neighbours are rarely visible. Dogs hurling themselves after me while I run, then caught short by invisible fencing (what happens if the power goes out??). A simultaneously incredibly dumb yet officiously prick-ish border guard when I entered the country on Monday, who didn't notice that my passport was actually CANCELED (waiting for the new one), but peppered me with endless questions about who I was visiting, how I knew him, what work I did, why I was crossing near Ganonoque when I lived in Toronto, how often I make this trip, whether I had a criminal record, whether the vehicle was registered to me. Thankfully, A never got around to transferring the title, and Not-so-astute Barking Man wasn't curious about why I co-owned a vehicle with a woman at an address I don't live at.

But of course, it's crossing into a new kind of lover territory for each of us, visas of another sort. Learning who each other is in every context. Intimacy unfolding, lines weaving together, layers coming off.

Now, must run (avoiding the dogs), go find the car wash so I can return my ex's car in decent shape, unlock the stuck patterns in my head about my dissertation proposal. Life spread out.