She Makes Me Nervous

I have just finished installing a new doorknob on my bedroom door. It has a lock and key. Now, perhaps I can keep That Sprout out of mischief. She's got full run of the common areas and her bedroom. It was getting a little old trying to keep her out of trouble in my room and baby gates are about to be obsolete. She's a real climber now.

It took me almost an hour to install this new piece of hardware because A) The instructions were garbage, B) I've never replaced a doorknob before, and C) It required more finesse than know-how anyway.

It probably didn't help matters that in the middle of the installation I started thinking about Laura Kuhn. I don't know why it happened - I was one screw away from having the doorknob improperly fitted (the first time) when I dropped the screwdriver to the floor with the last screw and went to the computer to google her. I found a series of websites under her brand Midnight Boheme, but no news from her world as to what she might be doing nowadays.

Laura (Source)

The last time I saw her was at Catfish Festival 2010. I had just found out that I was pregnant and I wasn't taking the news very well. After listening to the gospel sing in the park and falling to pieces I found myself at The Parker House drinking diet coke while everyone else got wasted. To say it was awkward would be an understatement. j^C was already on the Magical Mystery Tour and I was getting the feeling all my old schoolmates thought he was a figment of my imagination.

After an hour or so of awkward conversations and hanging out with people who were my mother's age I honed in on a young man who looked as out of place as I felt. Having never met a stranger, I went over and struck up a conversation with him. He was not a local, but married to one. When his wife arrived she hugged me and talked to me as though we were old friends. I was aghast. She was in the class of 99. How did she remember me? Even more shocking - Laura remembered me.

As a 7th grade student at CCJSHS, Laura Kuhn was my hero. I wanted to be just like her, although I doubt anyone really knew that at the time. Over the years I had voyueristically kept up with her. I went to see the Tim Burton Planet of the Apes just because I heard she'd done some makeup work in it. I stalked her MySpace back when that was a thing. I may have even thought about contacting her from time to time. I never did because why would she want to talk to the likes of me? She was a successful artist - a writer - a bohemian - and fucking beautiful. All the things I wanted to be. All the things I still want to be.

Imagine my shock when she began chatting me up that night. I was Moses up on the mountain listening to the voice of God. I was reverent and attentive to every word that passes from her ruby lips, every look from her painted eyes. She was a porcelain goddess glowing the night, the blue smoke from her cigarette circling her head like the halo transforming her into the icon she always was to me.

I should have called her the day after, but I was afraid. I still felt unworthy. I still feel unworthy. She makes me nervous. When I look at her work online, I feel just a little sick to my stomach. Just a little afraid. Maybe it's the fear of a mortal before God.

 Or maybe it's the fear that if I seek too much, If I look too hard, the face she's prepared to meet the faces that she meets will shatter and fall to the floor, and behind it will be someone not unlike me. Someone who is afraid, disenchanted, alone, and entirely human.

We all need something to cling to, after all.