The artist may have taken liberties

One of my ongoing writing projects is a collection of essays on trips I've taken, part anecdotes, part travelogue, more David Sedaris than Bill Bryson. (I completed a full draft and made revisions in April, but Amber said she should read it before I publish.)

I have not taken a single trip on my own, at least that I bothered to record here. Whenever I've ended up in some curious place, it was not a means of solitary soul searching, my gap year attempt at enacting On the Road in the age of geotagging. I have only ever traveled with a woman at my side or, more than once, in front of me, tugging my hand to get me to follow faster.

It is both easy and commonplace (commonplace because it is easy) to forget the partner after the relationship reaches its conclusion, the saturation of one's mental picture turned up so high that one loses all nuance, and they transform into a thick-lined cartoon.

Revising things that I wrote at the time -- given the writer I was in my early twenties, heavy revisions are necessary -- a part of me is back there with them, on these sometimes-unlikely misadventures. I remember better what it was to love them in these islands of time we shared. If asked now, I don't have many unkind words about the women with whom I shared years. I know each of my significant exes -- omitting the one with whom I haven't had contact since I was twenty -- is a fascinating, delightful, and bragworthy woman. I have watched them as they've become more these people, as much as they have allowed me to watch. I am proud that I knew them and that, as much as I can given that we do not see one another outside of the internet, they are my friends. I know I have nitpicked who they were in reflection of who I was, a flawed and stumbling boy, but I admire who they are.

Reading back, I am in these moments. As I cut and paste entries about visiting New York City, I see how enamored I was with Emily, how I accidentally told her I loved her for the first time. And I see how I took her, took us, for granted in later trips. How she grew more tired of being who she was. How I loved her, but how it didn't burn as hot as it once did, and I was sad for it then. I see how we came together before we grew apart.

What is the story that these women, my traveling companions to Las Vegas and the grocery store, tell people? Tell themselves? You cannot ask people, because few can answer those questions without filtering. There is always the thought, the telling, and the reason. Maybe I remain cartoonish.

The day I met Amber, there was a woman present who had practiced witchcraft with Emily. When I mentioned I knew Emily and clarified I was once engaged to her, this woman considered that information dubious. This fact had never come up in conversation. Most people are not confessional writers, granted, but it was unsettling to have a portion of my life elided because it was not the story as she wanted it now.

When I sent Kate early sections of We Shadows, she reacted with a charming startle that my writing had so improved. What did she think of my writing before and what writing was it that gave her this idea? Her reaction then meant so much to me and was more encouraging than she could have realized. Even then, even with the years separating us, a part of me still wanted to impress her.

I turn these memories into something for public consumption, to entertain strangers. It is an odd thing to do. I don't expect most of the people who knew me (but perhaps do not know me) recollect stories about me, nor do I expect all they could say I would flatter me. (In my published stories, my former partners come off as quirky and charming. In part, this is because they are and I can tell it that way, but also that painting them with a flattering brush means they won't object.)

Even now, I like that I can describe my lovers by their occupations and passions. My back cover blurb reads: "The result is irreverent scenes little plumbed depths of America (and a little Canada for flavor) as Quackenbush explores the country accompanied by a hipster before it was cool, a black belt animal control officer, a collegiate muck-pastor, and a polymath former child model." It is not the whole truth of them, but the caricatures are meant to pull in a hesitating reader and not express their totality in haiku.

Soon in Xenology: Writing. The Sheet.

last watched: The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance
reading: Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates