Mine and yours

This is a weird process, this determination of who gets what. In no previous relationship have I accumulated so many things with another person. Nearly all the furniture in our home. Nearly all the artwork. Rugs. China. Lawn equipment. Dogs. And a house. There is an intermingling of everything except our clothes and shoes. (And even I have to reclaim my too-big shoes off GF's feet at times.)

It seems ridiculously fast to be at this stage in the game, but GF's got it in her head -- and it's in mine, too -- that I need to be out of the house in a reasonably short period of time. It's probably the best way to keep the peace and to stifle the awkwardness of sleeping in the same bed and carrying on the same domestic routines that we've maintained in several years of living together. I'm still folding her undies (yes, I'm an undie folder), and she's still cooking my dinner.

But the coming apart is starting to come together. "I really wish you'd spend more time with other people," GF told me tonight. "It would be good if we didn't see so much of each other at home. It's just ... awkward." I've been doing that, you know, I said. I was thinking of going to Lake Quinault at spring break. "It would be good for you to do that," she replied.

Then, she starts asking me what I want to take with me when I leave. Which pieces of furniture? Which decorations? "Will you take the adirondaks or the patio furniture? And how shall we handle our retirement accounts?" Nothing feels good, but the discussion is going calmly.

Then, GF starts to tear up and says, "This is really, really hard for me to ask for, but I want you to know I want it *desperately,* so I hope you'll let me have it." Considering we've divided the major pieces of furniture, I am surprised to see this much emotion and wonder what it can possibly be. So I inquire: What is it?

"The photo album from Peru," she says and a big tear escapes.

I feel a stab in my chest. I think of standing in Kuelap, watching the senora's daughter pull a large stone out of the ancient walls. She reached inside and felt around, and I was thinking, Snakes! Spiders! but was also looking at the bromeliads and orchids cascading down the wall nearby. Then she pulled out a large bone fragment -- obviously a radius or ulna -- and extended it toward me. Eight centuries old, it was, at least.

And I think of the "Casa del Serpiente" in the Amazon. Not a place for someone with a snake phobia, even when it's in remission because of The Clairvoyant's successful hypnosis. There, I touched an anaconda. It was a "small" one, perhaps 10 or 12 feet in length.

I think of the moto-taxis in Iquitos. The first sight of the Amazon itself. Swimming in the Amazon. Eating the pirhana I caught. Seeing the Southern Cross for the first time (thank you, Crosby, Stills & Nash for *that* song). Being eaten alive by bugs and needing shots to stop the itching. Watching women in the Andes walk down the street with severed cows heads tied to their backs. Taking a long soak in a deep Incan bath. And, then, happening upon what I believed to be the moment of my death in the Maranon Canyon.

It all comes like a flash.

Uh... I say, lamely. Then I look closely at her face. Why Peru? Why not Italy? Or Panama?

"Because Peru was the best trip we took," she said. Then, she added, "You can take the alpaca blanket. And the photos and negatives from all our trips."

OK. It's a deal. And I'll take the Panama album, I guess.

First time I've seen her smile in days. Then she says, "Washer or dryer? Or both?"

This feels like the most bizarre conversation I've had in my life. But I'm willing to bet there was some discussion -- some day with friends who were all stoned or something -- when the topic was a lot more peculiar. ... Oh yeah, definitely the day we decided it would be funny -- or not, in that freaky Homeland Security kind of way -- to put a radio transmitter in someone's vagina and broadcast All Vagina Radio, All The Time. There could be Tampon Talk, Sex Hour and, naturally, the Vagina Monologues. But that's a story for another time.