Two of Everything

Every day this week, there is no water in my building. Men come with loud machines and break through the street’s asphalt to fix water main pipes. The water on the street goes off for 10 hours. Brown dirt slips through gray.

I wake after the water is off, so I dip into pots and glasses and bottles I have filled from the taps the night before to wash my face, brush my teeth and attempt to flush the toilet. I do, however, feel dry here. In my hands. There is a sense of drought I feel in my hands. Every time I do something in the house, I want to stick them under running water to rinse off dust or food or something randomly sticky, and each time I have to restrain myself. I think of the millions of people in the world who don’t have running water, and my mind starts reeling because of how much I have been spoiled by this simple, but complex, convenience. I told a friend about this the other night, and she said that in Seattle, where she now lives, the water company details how many times a month you turn on the taps. She said it’s usually something like 700 times.

And every morning at 7:30, I am startled awake by the shake of my building from its roots. Unsettling. Be gentle to this building, I want to tell the men with the machines, it is 104 years old.

Because I was up so early today from the manmade earthquake, I watched a documentary called “Keep Not Silent.” Once I got past the stilted name, I saw a heart-hurting film about Orthodox Jewish lesbians in Israel. One woman has chosen to spend every night with her lover, but return home each day to care for her six children. The most remarkable story in this film, to me, however, is the woman who 20 years earlier decided to allow herself two decades to see if she could adapt to a straight life style. Marriage, children, fitting in with her community. Twenty years. I wonder if I could ever have, or need, such patience, and what I could possibly need it for.

I also never weighed fully this problem of a conflicted nature. I feel lucky to have entitled myself the tripwires necessary to accept my inconsistencies and dualities, but I better understand now how some people don’t have that capacity—socially or religiously.

Last night I hung two prints above my desk. One is green/blue, the other rust/yellow. They are of the same matter, but one is cool, the other warm. They give me unexpected peace.