Festivals and Monsters

Kite flying, Spring 2005
Originally uploaded by Citizen Rob.

I didn't realize it until a friend pointed it out today, but apparently the Zilker Kite Festival in Austin is this Sunday. I'm really disappointed that I let this get away from us. For a year now, I've been looking forward to taking Schuyler back along with the Big Red Monster, and then I totally forgot about it when the moment came. I feel like I let Schuyler down a little, to be honest; I may have to take her out tomorrow for our own little kite festival.

This might be a little hard to explain. I love the time I get to spend with Julie and with my various friends, and also the time I spend with Julie and Schuyler together. It's when it's just Schuyler and me, however, that I think I feel the most at peace with what Britten, in his opera Billy Budd, refers to as "this grand rough world".

Things have become complicated for Schuyler and I both; I spent so long contemplating what her life will be like once I learned that she was broken. Now we're sort of broken together, and in a strange and wordless way, we've become closer. When we go out in our matching gimp tags, she always clicks them together before we leave, as if she's activating our wonder twin powers.

Schuyler behaves differently around friends and family and even when it's just the three of us; she constantly explores and pushes the edges of our group dynamics. But when it's just the two of us, something's different. I know that she doesn't understand that I'm sick exactly, but she senses that things are different, and she treats me differently as a result. When we sit on the couch together, she's leans her head against me. She kisses my hand before she goes to sleep. And when the three of us are riding in Julie's car somewhere, Schuyler has taken to asking me to sit in the back seat with her, where she can fake-whisper her secrets in my ear. In her own quiet, intuitive way, she's picked up on my need for some sort of reassurance. More than that, she seems to see that we've both got our own monsters now.

I also colored her hair purple. Maybe that's why she digs me these days.

Speaking of dramatic changes, Schuyler lost her other front tooth. Surprisingly, she looks much better than she did with just the one loose tooth hanging there. There's something to be said for symmetry, especially where teeth are concerned. She no longer looks like a bottle opener. She now looks like an old man, which is, I suppose, another thing we now have in common.