Dec. 5: Co-flourishing

She knew it was a mistake to let Peter move in with her, but she did it anyway.

Funny, she thought, as she made space in her dresser for Peter's socks and underwear. Funny how you can recognize that you're making a mistake, but you can't persuade yourself to get off the course. She knew it wouldn't work out. She knew that she and Peter were not alike at all. Peter was not an artist. There was nothing romantic or creative about him at all. He worked in the payroll department of a large dairy company. Numbers and logic were his world. She watched him as he moved in his stuff. She saw the critical glances he cast at her pottery wheel, her canvases and paints, the sketchpads, the primitive typewriter where she pounded out her poetry and prose. 

She didn't have a television set. Peter assumed that was because she couldn't afford one. A week later, the wall of the one-bedroom apartment they now shared was dominated by a giant flatscreen. Peter was on the couch, watching a baseball game, a box of pizza on the coffee table in front of him. "Surprise," he said, not looking up. 

-

On the bus home from the office, she dreamed about putting on some Mozart and spending the evening painting. She was working on a series - her city's skyline as interpreted by famous artists of the past. She'd done Van Gogh and Monet, was thinking of a real challenge, like Picasso or even Malevich.

But the television set squashed her creative spirit. She'd always thought of her apartment as an entity, not just an empty unfeeling space but something with character. Something that nurtured her, that stimulated the muse, that might even be the muse itself. Peter, not even a week into his tenure there, had already revealed himself to be the interloper.

"You're not going to paint tonight, are you?" Peter asked. "Your paints stink."

He didn't offer her any pizza.

-

That was okay. She didn't like pizza anyway. There was vegetarian casserole in the fridge. She ate it cold. washing it down with water from the carafe. 

Peter glanced back at her. "Why not join me, babe?" he asked. "Your paints will be there tomorrow. Take a break for a night."

So she had gone to him and that night, she had tried to love him. Afterwards, with him snoring beside her, she looked out the open bedroom door into the living room. In the glow cast by the streetlight outside the window, she could just make out the outline of her pottery wheel. 

It called to her. But she was too tired. Tomorrow, she thought. Tomorrow.

-

But there was no tomorrow. Not for her art anyway. All of the tomorrows belonged to Peter. Slowly, the apartment began to bear his stamp. The Rolling Stones poster went up in their bedroom, the fridge - once meticulous - began hosting buckets of fried chicken and Chinese takeout. Sodapop and beer began competing with the mineral water for shelf space.

And she felt her muse leaving. Slipping away, like summer sliding into fall.

-

One night she asked him if he had a creative spirit; if there was any art that he could do, that brought him joy.

"I can piss my name in the snow," he said.

-

Later, he said that it didn't make sense to pursue the arts because they don't pay the bills. He forced her to agree with him after he pointed out that he'd begun taking over the lion's share of their expenses. 

But what she didn't tell him was that she didn't mind the poverty. When it was her against the world, when she was the only one she had to provide for, poverty was a fine battle to wage. Now she had not only to share a home with Peter, she had to make a home for him. When he came home, he was often grumpy, complaining about the traffic or his co-workers or the idiots in management who couldn't decide what was what. She resented him for it, she hated him for insisting that she spend her creative energy listening to him rather than investing in her first love.

That night, he said: "I was thinking maybe we should get rid of some of your art stuff. You don't use it much anymore. The space could be better used for something else... some exercise equipment, maybe. What do you think?"

She didn't reply. Wordlessly, she rose from the couch, went to the door, slipped on her coat and shoes, and left. She was aware that he was asking her where she was going and then he started protesting when she wouldn't answer. But it was a passive awareness - the awareness one has of their own heartbeat or the sound of an appliance in another room. She gave it no urgency. She just stood and left.

It was a warm evening. She walked. She didn't know where she was going. That didn't matter. She didn't know where she was living either.