OYM Day 78; Falling
I’m tricking myself into believing it’s not 117 degrees outside by lighting fall scented candles and eating soup. The A/C is cranked to 68 and I’m under a heavy knit blanket. The sun is beaming hard through the windows like a UFO ready to beam me up, but I draw the curtains and grab a book. Not today, fireball in the sky. Not today.
My house is an insane asylum. My toddler whines from her crib and succumbs to her nap. Two spry cats scratch at the bedroom rug and growl at each other, darting in an out of the curtains. My dog bounces in her crate, the sound of her squeaky zebra toy floating up the high walls and bouncing off the tall ceiling. My husband murmurs on a conference call, multiple voices talking over each other, a thick mud of baritone. And here I lay, tricking my mind into being somewhere else. And it’s working.
I’ve taken my meds, my vitamins, and my 4 cups of coffee. I’ve brushed my hair, my teeth, and washed my face. I’ve changed my clothes and called my mother. I’ve told my daughter I love her at least 40 times. It is only then that I can exhale. I slurp my soup and breathe in the scent of autumn leaves and nutmeg.
I think about what I must look like, sitting here, eating soup in my bed, in the dead heat of summer. I disassociate myself from my body further by biting my tongue, hard, and feeling no pain. I think about the things I would change. First, chopping off my feet, then my hands, as these things take me to trouble and do the dialing. I don’t like this image, though, so I take a deep breathe and thankfully my husband interrupts.
“Are you ok?”
“Yes. Just writing.”
Just writing. Just bringing things to life. Like me, with no hands or feet, in our heavily perfumed sanatorium.
When will it be winter? When will I dig through the bins in the garage for the decorations? It’s Monday and the week stretches out before me like wrapping paper, ready to cover my every corner and tape me shut because it looks pretty that way, doesn’t it? But really, I’m just temporary satisfaction disguised in glossy card stock and a bow. Better to admire than unwrap.
The wind blows in the palms outside. It could be storming, I think to myself. Yes. A storm has come. Maybe the lights will flicker and the power lines will snap. Typical, this time of year.
