Quite a week or weekend around here, or whatever the semi-graciously unemployed call 5 sequential days. Forms at the doctor’s office. Sex: female. Children: yes. Marital Status: foreclosed. I mean, divorced. Divorcing, actually. Mind wonders back to the first question. Sex: maybe, eventually. Hopefully sooner than later.
A Saturday to clean. Top to bottom. East to west. OWL’s walk-in-closet-turned-bedroom, my bedroom, bathroom, hallway. Living room, the clothes-sewing-crafting-photographs-storage-closet. Look for thoughts & lessons & learning between reshelving scattered board books and discovering 3 of the 7 stacker rings under the bedroom blanket. Tender flood of excitement about a good friend’s pregnancy, knowing that one day soon she too will find these treats hidden in their bed. Sooner than seems possible, but I see how quickly time marches & swirls forward & about these days. Imagine lessons & hopes under clean sheets warmed last night only by me and the curled up cat. Clean floors. Folded clothes. Empty dresser tops.
Sit at an old table. Beer in the early evening darkness. Light rain kissing the air on its way down. He wears a shirt I’ve never seen before. Looks faded & old & soft, like something I want to curl up against, feel the heat of his shoulder through the flannel threads. Instead we exchange books, keys, a mug. Words say part of what I want to say, but so much of it is a feel, a spectrum of time & place – a currency I cannot exchange over drinks. Drive home under the weight of absolute ease turned to an absolute goodbye. Who would have thought ironic detachment was bullshit? Well, me. But I always second guess myself. Move on to the kitchen. Dishes. Countertops. Pantry. Table. Dust shelves and baseboards. Mop floor. Sulk out in the cool wet evening to avoid watching a scary movie alone. To avoid 9 pm sleep on a Saturday. To avoid the silent & blank screen of my phone. To avoid no more words. Sometimes it feels like life is only for other people. But the rain runs rapids down 15th Avenue East, pools and moves on. Recall the texture in the gap between the out & the in-breath. My life runs in those rapids, snags on branches & rolls over leaf jams & around crumpled potato chip bags. It’s just not very glamorous.
Rain cascades in sheets, white-orange under the glow of street lights. I dry & sit & drink & stand & listen & drink. And talk. Life without the details, without the storyline. Feel human. Memories in this place strong. Late night dance floor spins with the sister. Wedding song slow dancing. Sold out club. Me, at the end of the night. Standing. Dancing. Beaming. A million years ago. In the rain I discover that I was a witness, too. Select groceries & cook meals. Buy textbooks & study astronomy. Performances. Tears. Witnessed you curl your fingers around OWL’s endlessly small fist minutes after he was born, hold his face against your cheek. Stand in the room of this bar and see my life in the running rapids and hard sheeting rain. Feel my life in the smoke as it drifts inside towards the warm air. People come & go. Short exchanges & extended stays. Long breaks. Years of friendship. Rekindle & break. Kids as common ground. I cycle through it all – roar like a lion and sleep like a lamb.
Four full days in solo mode. Four days of decadence & endings. Out late. Foreclosed. Mopping floors. Nyinthun in hangover. Hostessing & food & wine. Good friends & old friends & new friends. A little little baby learning to roll & watch this world. Pick up OWL from his papa only to find, within a few hours, an absolutely transformed creature shouting & twisting & convulsing with “no-no-no-no-no’s” and the strength to back it up. Goat-like resolve. Tangle in car seat straps. Walk home carrying his crying shaking body parallel to the ground. Shrieks induced by everything. Diapers. PJ’s. Stroller parking. Socks. Sweatshirt. Bathtub. Hand-washing. A 5 minute temper tantrum is an eternity.
I’ll say it again. A 5 minute temper tantrum squeezing through the lungs & throat & mouth and twisting body of a 16-month old is an eternity. And there I am in that eternity: foreclosed, divorcing, solo, incapable of doing it all, not everything, faking my way through, not x-y-z enough, jobless. No gaps or breaths or breaks, no full nights sleep. In that eternity, there is a full sink of dishes, unswept floors, laundry spinning about in machines & reproducing in the corners, diaper covers to air dry, a noisy cat to feed & scratch & snuggle, the next snack to prepare….
It takes every ounce of my strength & courage at 6:27 am to throw the blankets over my head, find my silly voice. The voice, with an audible smile, giggling “Where’s Mama?” Peek out & hear the echo of my giggles. Duck back under as happy snorts dry big puffy tears. Footsteps racing to the bed. Outstretched arms. Lift & snuggle. The courage to coo and play. Fearlessness to let the eternity dissolve into the emptiness. To let my solid mythical self dissolve into the emptiness. The compassion to come back to it again & again.
Read Full Post »