My friend Jenna went to Nicaragua last spring to help build a school made of trash. Specifically, plastic bottles. When Jenna came back I picked her up from the airport and intended to let her detox as long as she needed. Unfortunately and fortunately, I had a trip scheduled to Chicago with my girlfriend Hannah. Jenna ended up going home on the bus, something she is perfectly capable of but I didn't like anyway. I sort of imagined her weak state, nicotine cravings, too much world experience in too little time while travelling, and a bus full of Mexicans with chickens. I expect this was not the case and that I was remembering my time spent on the bus.
During the short time she was with me, we went to a Taco Cabana and Jenna had trouble not ordering everything in Spanish. She then refused to talk to me or my neighbors in Spanish. Instead she allowed me say things like "Journey is a good dog. Bueno and grande, comprehendo?" while they pet my dog. Jenna also sat with me at my dining room table, which at the time had been converted to an all out craft making, jewelry experimenting, mess fest. Jenna made herself period earrings. They were to be worn, guess when? It was to be a subtle notification to those around her smart enough to catch on to the fact that she was wearing earrings of stick figures with a red bead directly under the crotch.
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Last time I saw Jenna, almost a year after this, she was wearing her period earrings. Her hair had grown long and demeanor had become disturbingly scattered. Consumed with new love of a boyfriend that was actually of substance in her life rather than a carbohydrate. Jenna is a Pisces. Not only do I strongly believe in Astrological signs but I have never actually known someone quite like Jenna. Somehow, within her cloud of new love, blushes, secret glances and giggles she had another thing brewing...
It's not a Lifetime movie or a reality show about confrontation. It's alcoholism as portrayed in the behavior of Jenna. Which unfortunately can be very endearing and beautiful. Jenna can speak your conscious. Other people might know what you are thinking because of knowing you well and being around you long enough. Jenna can access things within people around her that are left untouched by others. It's what her magic is. It's what makes people everywhere follow her, seek her, love her, and ultimately....take care of her, excuse her, enable her.
Some images stay with a person, especially when all the words, party chatter, drunken laughs all completely unmemorable. But Jenna in her purple parka with the hood shrouding her face, brooding, smoking her cigarette and speaking nonsense very quietly, almost silently.... The other party members in their groupings laughing, trying to act like they had something else other to talk about when in reality, all they have been discussing the past hour is Drunk-Jenna-Antics. The girls rolling their eyes, the boys in their wide eyes amazement of the enigma that is this woman. This woman they have to deduce to a stereotype drunk party girl because the mystery of what she really is remains unreachable.
And that is Jenna. A woman you can't help but try to reach, to grab and keep forever, that is completely and wholly the most unobtainable person you'll probably ever know.
I sit in the hot tub, stealing sideways glances, refusing to coddle her, a vow I made myself after years of our friendship separation. This woman who made me cry as I hiked the Greenbelt alone, without her, after she blew me off for a customarily inexplicable "reason" after I drove my gas guzzling V8 from Dallas to Austin to behold some of her beauty and allow her to speak to me, without being aware and without intention, and coax away the loneliness I store up living and working here in the Big City.
A puppy just born unable to see, trying to learn and discover the surrounding world. This is Jenna beyond drunk at 3am refusing to come to consciousness, my efforts changing from sweet and concerned to frustrated and angry. "You bitch!" I say to her. I unzip my knee high boot, feeling like a clever asshole. 1st boot in the face with no reaction. "You BITCH!" The second boot better get you and dammit if it doesn't and I am leaving my favorite coffee cup here AND my boots I am driving back to Dallas cursing you for my frozen feet because this is NOT OKAY!
Some frustrating and hilarious moments later, I hand her off to the lover, "Special Delivery" I say. And I could see it right then, his face, his anger, his frustration, his beating heart for her.
Yep, this isn't just another man and it's not just any other night. This is our beating hearts stumbling in her tight Levi's across the wooden floor, her Period earrings left in the house across the street next to my coffee cup and boots.
She eyes me like a Pisces when I am weak
I've been locked inside your Heart Shaped box for weeks
I've been drawn into your magnet tar pit trap
I wish I could eat your cancer when you turn black
Hey!
Wait!
I've got a new complaint
Forever in debt to your priceless advice
