Pieces, continured

I slept late on my days off, as a habit.  I figured it was my day to do with as I pleased.  I have started taking my phone off the hook to keep it from ringing and interrupting my concentration   I had stayed up late with my collection, again.

I had dreams about them. Little pieces of paper in multi-colors.  They were everywhere I went now. I dreamed that I found one big piece of paper. When I say big I mean really big, this one was over six feet tall and it had a menacing face drawn on it. Evil, dark eyes staring at me as I walked down a windy street.  This menacing paper accused, " you took them from me" over and over again as I tossed and turned in my bed.  After a while I awoke all tired and a bit stressed from the dream.  I could see that paper clearly still now that I was awake. The face drawn on it was accusing me, and it was angry.  I lay in bed thinking about this for a while.  That is, until I heard a noise out in the front room of my apartment.  I had been sleeping, hadn't invited anyone over or anything, and so, I figured maybe someone had broken in.  Not that i had much that anyone would find of worth, really, but the idea that someone was in here uninvited.

I got out of bed, pulled on my robe, and opened my bedroom door.  I peeked out of into the hallway.   I couldn't see anyone in the hall, but I distinctly heard noises from what I guessed to be the kitchen now.  When you're half awake you don't always think logically. And so, I began to panic, thinking I had an intruder.  I came out of my room and walked a couple of steps in my hallway towards the living room.  Trying to decide if I should say something or not. What could I say? I'm coming out now, don't hurt me?  I decided to just walk out and surprise whoever it was. If it turned out badly, it did.

I rounded the corner from my living room and went into the kitchen. And there, at the stove was my older brother, Gabe, with his back to me, cooking something.
"Hey" I said.
"Hey, sleepyhead" he says back. "Was wondering if you were ever going to get up, or what."
"Some people call me before they break into my place and start cooking my food." I said to him.
"Some people answer their phones when I call them asking if I can come over and hang out." he said, "yours was off the hook when I came in."
Of course, I had known it was.  I didn't want the phone to wake me while I was sleeping, so I had taken it off the hook just before I went to bed.
"What are you making me?" I asked, coming over to his side in front of the stove now.
"You were sleeping, I got hungry waiting for you to get up. So, I am having some eggs and toast.  I suppose you want some too?" Gabe looked at me with his please say no look.
"I'd love some," I said and smiled back at him.  He didn't answer this with words, just a heavy sigh, which I knew meant he was going to make what I wanted.

I wasn't really thinking about anything in particular now.  I went back to my room and found some clean clothes to put on and brushed my hair and washed my face.  By the time I had done these things there was a plate on the dining room table waiting for me.  Scrabbled eggs and toast with grape jelly.  Gabe was already eating his as I came in and sat down at the table.

"So what's new?" I asked him between bites.
For a minute or two he pushed his eggs around on the plate with his fork. Maybe considering what his answer should be.
"Going to be needing a place to crash for a while," he said, not looking up at me yet.
I considered him for a minute before I said anything.  I was waking up now and the very first thing that came to mind was my pieces of paper in the baggy in the desk drawer.   I really didn't want to share that with anyone, not yet anyway. If Gabe moved in how would I keep up with that?
"So what's the story? Thought you had a good job and a little place of your own now?" I said a couple minutes later.
"Yeah, I did, but the guy I'm renting from decided to sell the place so he is clearing us all out.  I still have my job but not enough money to afford a deposit on another place at this point.  I'm making it month to month and nothing left over after that." He still didn't look up at me yet.
I could tell he had had to swallow his pride to ask me if he could stay here for a while.  I really wanted to say it was okay. And yet, something, well okay, I knew what, stopped me from saying it.
"No other options?" I said instead.
Gabe did look up at me then, I guess surprised that I hadn't just accepted him in.  "No." was all he said.
I thought about it for another minute or so.  I supposed I could stash my collection and notebook in my room someplace and just have my private time in there with it. He didn't even have to know about it all.
Not even thinking about the fact that he would surely question me spending so much time in my room, I told him he could stay as long as he needed to.
So, we sat and ate a quiet breakfast. After which he got up and put our dishes in the sink and told me he was going back to his place to pack.

Gabe had stayed with me before, I guess that was how he knew to come ask me now, when he was in a fix. He knew I would take him in. I knew it was a hard thing for him to ask too. No guy liked to have to swallow his pride and ask to be given something so basic as this. It made him feel less than, like he couldn't take care of things himself.  He never had to say this to me, but I knew how it was.  Gabe had been down on his luck for years now.  His wife had left him for some other guy eight years earlier. The only good thing about that was there had been no children to fight over.  He loved her, and it hurt to see her go, but in his mind it was better that she was happy, even if he wasn't so happy without her. That's the kind of guy Gabe had been as long as I could remember. Always willing to sacrifice for someone else's good.

After Gabe left I took my collection and the notebook I had started for it, into my room and tucked it into a drawer out of sight.  I knew Gabe would not look through my drawers. He had more respect for other people's belongings than to do something like that.  I would just have to get used to spending a lot of time in my room for a while, if I wanted to spend time with what had now become a big part of my life.  I sat on the end of my bed and thought for a minute about all of this.  Not about how much time the collection had started to demand of my time, but of how I was going to manage it while Gabe lived here with me.  I had no idea how long he would be here, and I had to come up with a way for him to understand that I needed the time alone in my room without him bothering me if I was in here for a long time.  My collection consumed hours and hours of my time.

I didn't think about why that was, I had stopped trying to figure out what it was that drew me to it. I had just surrendered to it.  My collection now had 138 pieces to it, just about every color you could imagine, some that way from age and dirt and some it was just the color of the paper... I could no more tell you why I wanted all of them, than I could tell you why a man in China liked tea.  I just did.  I almost took it out and started looking then, just thinking about it. But, I realized that I had other things to do.  I had neglected laundry for too long and a room or two could use cleaning before Gabe came and settled in. He would wonder why there was a mess, he knew me to be a neat person, at least the me he knew.  Really how well does anyone know anyone else?  Sure we grew up together but as we grew up he had his little world and I had mine.  He went away to college, I didn't.  He eventually got married, I didn't.  We became different as we got older. 

I got up and started on the chores I had to do.  As I did them I thought about how nice it would be to show Gabe he was welcome.  He said he was broke, well I figured that a good dinner would be just the thing to cheer him up.   As it happened one of the things I had learned well, that he hadn't, when I grew up, was how to cook and to cook well.   As I folded clean clothes I decided on what to make for him that night.

Gabe came back about 3 hours after he had left.   He gave a brief knock before he came in the front door.   Even if it had been locked he could have come in, just as he had that morning while I was sleeping.  He had a spare key to my place, and I had always had a spare to his place. We did that just in case...but had never discussed what either of us figured the "just in case" actually was.  It had just been a good idea.  When he came in, I told him he didn't need to knock anymore. To make himself at home.   Then I told him had better figure on being here for dinner, I was cooking, and he had better be hungry.

Taking charge huh? he said with a bit of a smile on his face.
You know it.  When was the last time you had a good meal, man?"  I asked him.
He said something quietly about the diner down the street being pretty good when he went there.  But it didn't sound convincing to me at all.  He knew the company was better here anyway.
"What's on the menu tonight then?" he asked.
"Well," I said, "when was the last time you had a good steak?"  His face lit up and that was my answer.
"Okay, grilled steaks it is."  I said.
Gabe had been on a burger and fries type budget for too long, I though.  He knew better than to offer to help cook. He knew I was the better cook in the family and that I didn't like to share the kitchen when I did it.
I told him to settle in and I was going to the store.
The store I went to was only a couple blocks away, so I walked...picking up pieces of paper for my collection as I went. I found a total of 4 of them total going there and back on opposite sides of the streets each way.  I stuffed them into my pocket for later. But really, I didn't want to wait to get to them.

All during dinner, which Gabe really seemed to enjoy, I thought about them, I wanted to look them over more closely and document where and when they were found and each detail about them...then I would compare them to the others I already had.  I don't think I let on that anything was distracting me. I answered Gabe's every question without delay, and we had a long talk about the time when we went to Italy as teenagers.  There were some good memories there for both of us.  Gabe said that sometimes he wished he could have stayed there.  I knew without him saying so that the world had been a simpler place before we became adults and had so many things we needed to be responsible for all the time.  It had been the same for me too.  Italy had been the place we could just explore and not worry about making sure things were taken care of all the time. We did pretty much what we wanted then.

Gabe told me then how he had been for the last six months or so.  We hadn't talked to each other much in that time.  Me consumed with the collection, and my daily life suffering in the process, and he becoming depressed, lonely and finally getting a notice that he had to move out of his place. I had scarcely thought of him, let alone anyone else. All I had wanted to think about was my collection. And even still while I sat there talking to him, I felt like those pieces were burning a hole in my pocket, saying "Come on, take me out, look at me."  I resisted doing that pretty well really.  I wanted Gabe to see me as the same person he always had.
But deep inside, I knew I wasn't anymore.

I sat with him for what I thought was an appropriate amount of time that evening eating and talking and even for a bit after dinner. Then I made an excuse and went to my room and locked the door behind me.  I didn't think about what Gabe would think of my doing this, it was the furthest thing from my mind. I pulled my collection and note book out of the drawer, and put them on the bed.  Then I took out the four pieces I had found that day. I wrote down all the details about them that I could and I started to compare them to the rest of what I had collected, making little notes about them as I went.   Unaware of the passing of time. Unaware of anything but what I had before me. I could go in here and I would forget all about Gabe being in my living room or anyplace in my apartment.  I basically forgot about him while I was in here. In my own world again.

Pieces

I'm not really sure how it all started. I guess, one day there was just this piece of paper I found. The first of, I think, thousands. The first few I did not pay much attention to where I was really.  Didn't think it mattered much. But as I continued, I began to detail it all in a journal of sorts. What I found, and in great detail, a description of it. Where I was when I found it, what time of day and what day and all of those sorts of details.

Details, maybe that is what it was about all along.  I had a sense I was looking for something, without really knowing what that something was.

And so it began..

Walking down a quiet street, on the way to my favorite coffee shop, to meet up with Joey. Nothing important really, just relaxing time.  I had my warm jacket on, it was cold out.  I don't wear that jacket very often. I dug my hands deep into the pockets to warm them from the chill in the air.  At the bottom of my left pocket there was something there. I grabbed it between two fingers and pulled it out to have a look. A very worn white piece of paper, just a small corner of one really. No more than two inches across and the writing on it faded just enough that I had no idea what it had been originally that I would stick it in my pocket for later.... I stopped for a moment to look at it and then put it back into the same pocket. I forgot about it again for a time. Went about my daily life again for a bit and did not think about it at all. 

And then, about a week later, I was cleaning my closet out and I came across that same jacket. No big deal really but I pulled out that piece of paper from the bottom of that left pocket and sat down to look at it.  I suppose it mostly bothered me because I really did not know where it came from. No recollection at all of what it had been before it faded and why I had kept it.  Logically, I could have reasoned that it was just a scrap I had tossed in there instead of littering on some sidewalk or something.  Just the idea that I really did not know is what bothered me, I think.

Instead of putting this little white faded paper back into the pocket of my jacket again, or throwing it away, I decided to put it in a safe place and think on it some more. At some point it would come to me where I had gotten it and why I had kept it. I just felt there had to be a reason. So, I put it in a clear plastic baggy and sealed it in. This, I stuck in the bottom right drawer of my desk. Sort of out of sight, but I knew where it was. 

A few days went by, the usual stuff happening, going to and from work, eating and sleeping. Nothing really going on, just living.  On a Thursday I was at work in the morning. I went over to the printer in the side office near mine.  I had queued a set of documents I had been working on. And so, I was waiting for them to print out for me.  I leaned against the wall and stared out the window across the room. Not really looking but bored and just waiting.  Near me, the printer clicked and buzzed into life and so I figured it was my documents.  I looked at the printer and there beside it on the table was another piece of paper, this one smaller than a post it note, and a bright yellow. Not old at all, no folds or wrinkles in it.  I picked it up and looked at it, my printing forgotten for that moment. I turned it over in my hands, somehow liking the cool feel of it but not in any way I could explain if you had asked me to.  One side of this paper was blank but on the other I saw a small scribble in blue ink. I really couldn't make out what it said, if anything at all.  So I looked at it and wondered for a minute or two and then one of my co-workers walked in and said "Hi." to me.  I looked up and realized I had not grabbed the pages that had printed out and were waiting for me.   Without really thinking about it I stuffed that little yellow paper in the pocket of my pants, got my documents, and went on with my day.

That evening when I got home I took it out again to look at it more. I wondered what it was supposed to have noted on it, but still had no idea.  After I had looked at it for a bit and figured out nothing at all about it, I opened my desk drawer and put this piece of paper in the same clear baggy as the old white one. Closed it up again and put it back in the drawer. 

The next day I was off work, sometimes I got Fridays off.  I went out to my mail box and collected the mail. Sorted through it and read some and left the others on my desk unopened. Some was junk mail. The sort I tore up and tossed into the garbage. As I tore one of these pieces of mail up it made me think about the pieces of paper I had again. After I finished tearing the junk mail up and tossing it in the garbage I went back to my desk and sat down.  I took the little clear baggy out again and stared at the two pieces of paper in it. 

Something about them that I just cannot explain, it drew me to them as if I had kept them for a reason.  I had no idea why, still. I sat there for a while, rubbing my fingers over the plastic. I hadn't taken them out this time.

If you were to ask me what I was thinking then, I couldn't tell you. Nothing I could clearly tell anyone that would make any sense.  Sometime later, I put it away again and went about my day.

Over the next few weeks I began to notice more pieces of paper almost everywhere I went.  Most of them I picked up and put in my pocket. And later, when I was home and it was quiet, I sat at my desk with them, just going over them in detail and wondering about them.  Then adding them to what had become my odd little collection in the clear baggy.  At some point I began to think it might be important to remember where and when I had found each one of them. And so, I began a little book that dated and described in detail, each of these little finds of mine. Page after page with a date, a place and what, if anything, was on the paper I had found. Into the baggy it went and on to the next one I had found. Most days it was only one piece and I felt in control of it all, could keep it straight in my head where I had been and when, when I found the piece of paper that day. 

Eventually though, there were days where I was finding three and four pieces of paper in a day and pocketing them for later. I became obsessed with remembering later, exactly where I had been and the time of day and all of the tiniest details of the piece of  paper I found.  It got to a point where I decided, just naturally, that I ought to keep a little book with me to write it down when I found them, so I wouldn't forget by that evening, each of the details for each one. Each evening I sat down at my desk, took out the baggy that was filling rapidly with pieces of paper and I transferred my notes from the small book I kept with me into a larger one I kept in my desk. Pages and pages of information that I poured over time and again, hoping to see what I needed to see. Some sense to it all, some pattern that put this all together for me.  I became obsessed with figuring out what it all meant.  I knew I had found all of them for a reason. That reason just still eluded me.

On a rainy Sunday afternoon with nothing else to do, I sat down at the desk, cleared it off and took out the baggy of pieces of paper. I opened it and gently took out each piece and laid it out on my desk all of them side by side until I ran out of room and then started another row below the first, until they were all spread out in rows on my desktop. 

Then I opened my book of details and began to sort them to the order I had found each one, the little white one first and then the newer yellow one and so on until I was done putting them in order there. Then, with all of them spread out on my desk I looked at the whole collection of them.  I couldn't tell you how long I sat there with them and studied them. I really don't know. Eventually, I turned on the lamp on the desk so I could keep looking at them. Night had fallen, and there I still sat looking at them all.  Some were blank, some were torn and tattered, some were brand new looking. They came in all sizes and shapes, triangles squares, some ripped edges so they had no real shape at all.  So many different colors it was mind boggling.  So many different things on the ones that had things on them.  A squiggly line on one, a number on another, a date on another, some with a business logo, or a part of these things on some that were torn when I found them. Each had become so very important to me. And yet, I still did not know why.  

I spent more and more time with my little finds. Less and less time out with friends or doing anything other than detailing these and looking at them.  Pages and pages of notes about them. A book I studied over and over and over again on a daily basis now. On days I did not find a new piece I merely went over all the ones I already had again instead. 

Still, I had no more idea about them all than I had when I first started collecting them. The collection had grown to over 50 pieces in just over a month's time. I thought about them in bed before I fell asleep, and again in the morning as I woke up and got my first cup of coffee for the day.  

Friends began to wonder where I was keeping myself so much lately, I had started to decline invitations to parties or even just to go out for a movie or lunch or pretty much everything.  Somehow, I couldn't tell them about this thing that was so important to me.  It didn't really occur to me that it wouldn't make sense or seem rational to them. I just wanted to have it all to myself. So, I did not tell anyone about these pieces of paper for the longest time. They were mine and I wanted it to stay that way. They were a part of me that I just couldn't share with anyone.

So its that time of year again when I spend more money than I can afford to...So its a week and a half till Christmas and I'm already broke. Still got a few more people that I really want to buy things for yet so I'm going to have to use my dusty credit card that I swore I wouldn't use again, damn interest rates are like robbery but oh well... It's not like I'm not already in debt, right.
Regardless, I am still full of Christmas spirit now.  Got to buy presents for my granddaughter for her very first Christmas, including starting a tradition of buying her one special ornament for the tree each year, just for her.
That could be fun in the years to come as she grows older, she can help pick the ones she likes too. This years is a little pink rocking horse, really cute.
So much going on right now I'm not going to blog it all here. Main highlight is my son getting married to the mother of is baby on the 20th. Not a big special ceremony but just making things legal and wanting to prove to her that he really does want to spend the rest of his life with her.  That is going to be a special day for sure.
Christmas itself isn't going to be that big of a deal. I had already decided that, after the huge feast I footed the bill for at Thanksgiving, I'm going to lay low and just kick back for Christmas, not cooking a special meal or anything and people can come and go as they please, no big deal but it should be fun anyway.
So just a relaxing couple of days off from work...and its good, I don't have money to go do anything anyway lol.
Looking at my granddaughter's smiling little face is worth it all. Her smile melts me every time. And yea, she is only a baby this year but....upcoming Christmas's as she grows up, The whole Christmas celebration with a child is priceless and can't be beat :)

Another Saturday night and I aint....

Yea its been a couple of weeks since I posted, been busier than usual.
Turkey day went good. my brother, my sister and my sons all showed and relaxed and pigged out. And even still, there was a lot of leftovers. 

Work has been drama again, I really think its me rubbing someone the wrong way without meaning to and then things go all to hell... I'm not trying to do anything to upset this other person, I care about them, but they apparently see things quite differently than I do.  I can't change their point of view, tired of trying to be nice about it all.  So, I will be indifferent instead.   This person doesn't care what I think, so I won't care what they think from now on either. I talked about some of this a bit back in a different post so I won't repeat it here.  It's just time for me to let go of it all.   Do my job, mind my own business and just be the best me I can.  If that is a problem for someone else, it's their problem. Not mine. Gonna leave it at that .

I so much want to start Christmas shopping, got paid but it all went for rent and bills etc.  I know I will have a good Christmas bonus coming, I just don't know exactly when. Should be within the next couple of days coming up here.   Got several ideas of things I want to buy my grand baby...maybe I will have enough to get Everything I have in mind. I hope so.

My oldest called me yesterday and announced that he has asked is girlfriend to marry him and she accepted.
He made my day. I want more than anything for PITA to be happy and apparently he is. That's what really matters to me. He gave her a beautiful sapphire ring. She posted pics on Facebook for everyone to see and she is very excited.   In a way, if I look at her then its nice to see that my son can make someone else that happy too.  Its a win win situation IMO. So now i have 2 engaged sons, lets see which one gets married first lol

Things could be worse in my life and I know it. A lot worse so I am thankful for what I have and accept that, at least for right now, there are things I can't have.   Oh well. 

My granddaughter's smile just draws me to her so much.  Sometimes I irritate her mother because she is trying to get her to go to sleep and then I come talk to her and look at her and she smiles ear to ear for me.  I can't resist I just love her so much.    Such a beautiful little girl!

Well, just checking in for now. Hope you all are well and not going broke for the holidays yet...