Crocus

Wednesday. A dark day, both literally and metaphorically.

I walk towards the car, thankful that it is pouring rain. Thankful that I can shield my face with my giant black umbrella. My mind is as flooded as the puddles that mark my path. Just make it to the car. Keep the umbrella down low and jump in the car where you'll be safe and you can just drive...

I look up for a brief moment when crossing the street and that's when I see her. Shit. Shit! She saw me. The Nun is walking towards me, her pace quickening with every step. She is the last person I want to see at this moment. Her steps are so quick and so light. Happiness and Light. And today, at least, I'm Dark. Oh So Dark.

I can't even pretend that I didn't see her. We had that split second of recognizance. And she's walking ohsofast. She speed walks across the street and before I can think, "Hi, Christine! Leaving work already?" It's just barely 10:30. I mumble a mouthful of excuses - far too many excuses. I'm talking far too much; the sign of a true liar. I am lying to The Nun of all people, but the only thing I can think of is that my makeup is washed away and it obviously has nothing to do with the rain and if I talk enough, then perhaps she won't. I look ahead, my eyes locked on my car, speed walking myself now, just trying to get inside my refuge on wheels and back home.

"Oh, Christine..." The Nun's hand suddenly slices the air in front of my path forcing me to abruptly stop. "Stop! Just look at that..." And in the frozen patch of snow on a random lawn is a sprout of brilliant green. A crocus just beginning its new spring life, pushing against all odds through the rough, icy terrain.

And with that, The Nun glides off, a God Bless You wafting through the clean spring air. She rounds the corner and is gone...

She appeared at the very moment I needed to get outside of my own mind and for this I feel strangely grateful. In a moment plucked from deep darkness, she taught me to look beyond myself, away from my own intense scrutiny and introspection. She taught me in that moment to refocus.

And I am suddenly, for just a very split second that day, truly happy.

Freedom & Shame

On the shiny surface, the bathroom is a perfect escape for a thirty-seven-year-old mother such as myself. It's a safe haven in which you are guaranteed at least a decent certain percentage of allowable quiet alone time. But -

But.

There are not one, but two mirrors. They're hung side by side, like two lopsided eyeballs staring me back in the bathroom. They make me think of the close bright headlight of a train about to wreck. Or of the white-hot part of a flame - the intense point of impact that creates the impenetrable glow.

The mirrors never reflect what I expect them to. Let's just leave it at that.

But the bath is like a big warm hug. I simultaneously sink and float.

Paradoxes abound.

At least while the mind is racing, the body can relax.

Wattage

I sit in the glow. My vision, straight out to its most peripheral points, inherits the glow. The glow is all around me. My face wears a smile that betrays me.

I brush off the sandy crumbs. They hit the floor and meld into the once-white rug. The sweetness that moments ago crept down my throat has now tangled my stomach. The sweet turned suddenly sickly. I am all at once wired and exhausted. I lie down on the couch and fall asleep with my eyes open. That's enough to scare even the truest friend.

I wake up at nothing o'clock. The glow is still there. I forgot to turn off the glow. I am still flat.

I trip my way to the white bathroom. Light. Bright. I wish I may, I wish I might.

I make my way to the bed. I close my eyes and see dreams smeared across the sky. Projectiles of the mind.  Fragments of a lifetime before or one yet to come.

Reflection

Who invited you in? You're a master of melancholy with your unflinching gaze and your black, black eyes. Your eyeballs roll like marbles over my pale white skin as you size me up and down. I feel your harsh words twisting up through my hair, reaching deep into my ears where no one else can hear but me. Your looping speech knows just where to pinch and sear me like vinegar to a cut. Sometimes you draw tears, other times I fight. Most days I lose, and you stand victorious over me as I lay broken on the ground, your foot wrenched deep in my gut where you know I feel it the most.

Who opened the door? It was me and I've regretted it ever since. I heard you knock one day, but I ignored your call. Then curiosity got the better of me, so I ran back quickly to the door and opened it just a sliver and you seeped right in.

You were not welcome. I just wanted to take a small peek.

You descended on me and clouded my colours with greys. You hushed my voice to a monotone. Slowly but surely your footprints stood strong upon my toes, and you pushed me deep below the surface. Some days I sank like quicksand, treading water for my life, the grey lines moving up and down and all around, swirling in a terrific haze. You chased me and I was caught. You spun your vicious web around my arms. You held them tight in your black embrace, digging straight into my ribs as you left me lying hostage in futile disbelief wondering how you caught me so off guard...

You promised me nothing, but I hung on to every word as though it were the truth. You were a politician of lies. You masterminded every strategic move. You kept your whispers light like smoke, so as quickly as they drifted in, all traces of you were gone. You reflected back on me like shards of mirror, tossed to the ground yielding nothing but bad luck and a bloody mess. You cut straight to the chase leaving behind no fingerprints or sign of your existence besides your indelible imprint on my impressionable mind.

Why did I ever believe you, this stranger, this thief of my own self?

Because I paused for a moment and I went back and I myself let you in.

I slammed the door hard and ran back into the empty room, alone and desperate to exhume you from my life. I picked up every tiny shard of mirror that you left behind. And as I assembled them all in the middle of the floor, I looked hard into each and every jagged piece.

I dropped to the floor as though every bone in my body had been stolen when I saw that the shattered stranger staring back was me.

Siren Song

When I'm in the city, I walk really fast. My stance is as follows: shoulders back/eyes up/ear to the ground. A fusion of scents wakes my senses as well as any good jolt of caffeine as I wind my way through the mazes of pavement. Italian, Greek, Japanese, Lebanese, Ethiopian, Vietnamese, Korean. Raw and cooked and barbecued and braised and stewed and skewered. Meats and chickpeas and yogurt and coconut and garlic and coriander and chiles and cumin infuse the air. Vivid colours and smells and flavours and goodness all marinating together in a single city block.

Book stores. Market stalls. Fountains. Tattoo parlours. Traffic lights. Gastropubs. City buses. Coffee shops. Apothecaries. Shoe stores. Delis. Corner stores. Gas stations. Street lights. Subway stops. Buskers. Luxury hotels. Bakeries. Hair salons. Record stores.

The people that pass by me are diverse. Languages, accents, fashion, gait, stupors, struts and shuffles are as varied as the faces I look into. As I walk, I ponder this way of life that consists of brushing past people and spending just a second or two in the same place at the same time. We are all on our way somewhere to gether and then in an instant, we pass each other and are gone.

The shadows that jut out from the feet of giant structures hold me in their protective grasp. I look longingly at the architectural details of old apartment buildings with their fourteen foot ceilings and original hardwood floors and views of a parking lot. Grafitti catches my eye, beautiful as a rainbow as it cuts through the grey. I fall asleep to the siren song lullabies of the streets that surround me as the city embraces me and lulls me off to sleep.

You can walk down the street where I live now and some days not a single person will pass you by. There's the familiar grey barn to the left, the invisible animals who find their hiding spots nestled among leaves and hollowed out trees, and drunken beer cans resting on the sides of the road folded inwards on themselves in the dusty gravel. In theory, you could run down the street stark naked for a short moment hooting like a banshee and chances are fair to good that no one would be even the wiser. You might see the odd car, receive the odd nod of the head or the two-finger dashboard salute, but in general, this place is pretty quiet.

Bullrushes. Ducks. Fresh air. Horses. Manure. Regulars. Mailboxes. Empty roads. Sunshine. Frogs. Tractors. Clouds. Treetops. Open spaces. Squirrels. Vegetables. Woods. Quiet.

Too much quiet.

I sit in my backyard and it's just the forests that surround me on either side, the crackling grass under my feet, the gigantic garden plot in front of me, the sun on my face. The birds flitting to and from the feeder are more or less my main vein of visual stimulation.

To some people, this country life would be paradise, but to me all of the quiet makes me too instrospective, too aware of my own thoughts. It's all too much contrast to the noise in my head. It makes me yearn for a taste of my heart's true influence: the city.

Sometimes I walk for miles out here. I'm haven't quite figured out if I'm trying to find myself or if I'm running away. I was on my way somewhere with everyone, and then in an instant everyone was gone. Maybe I went too far.

Brazen Chickadee Sucker Punch

I am crouched in the middle of an overgrown lilac bush, rusty secateurs in hand, and I am conversing with a brazen chickadee. The small, round bird is perched on a crooked branch only a couple of short feet away. It’s looking me straight in the eye as we shoot the shit. The sun is out and doing its best to cut through the interspersed shadows that envelop us both. This chickadee and me are through with the introductions and small talk and heading into a truly friendly tête-à-tête.

While we’re talking, I absentmindedly reach out and grab out for a sucker to prune back, but instead, I am punched back in numbness. The stabbing pain bolts me back into reality and I am suddenly aware that I haven't really been talking to a chickadee at all, but rather echoing the tiny bird’s chirps. I have been engaging in actual birdspeak for approximately fifteen more minutes than any human respectably should. I look down and see what look like half a dozen tiny cat claws lodged in my fingers and the palm of my left hand. A wave of nausea strikes through my body as I gingerly extract each thorn from its tenuous grip. 

I stop speaking to the bird and look away. It gives up on me and flies away.

I focus back on my pruning. I start by just cutting off tiny dead branches, but really I have no idea what I'm doing. I progressively move to larger branches but end up cutting of some new buds along with the old, dried-out pods. I wonder, do you cut off some healthy to destroy the truly dead? Am I cutting off too much all at once? Will I send the plant into some sort of shock? Some version of foliage arrest?

I keep at it for some time. My hands begin to blister. The secateurs are rusty and hard to use because I haven't taken care of them. I haven't taken the time to put them back in their proper place after each use. Instead, they've sat out in rainstorms, gotten lost in the grass, turned from sharp and helpful to rusty and difficult. I feel bad, so instead of replacing them with new ones, I suffer through the harder grip needed to make them work. To do the work I'm not quite sure how to do.

I step back from the giant shrub to survey my efforts. There is a giant bald patch on one side of the plant where I have been pruning. My mind wandered and I wasn't careful. I tried what I thought might work, but I kept cutting and hacking and weeding and suddenly there is nothing left. My hands are throbbing from overexertion and my work is not good. I should have figured things out before I started.

I throw the rusty shears to the ground and go inside.

Here we go...

I am superwoman. I can fly. I’ve performed at the Grammy’s. I’ve been a spy. I am an angel. I am a rebel. I hang out with rock stars and do rock star things. I write for a living in my Parisian pied-a-terre. I do good things in the world. I am ambitious. I am smart. And beautiful. I have traveled the world and seen all that it has to offer. I can do anything. I am never afraid. I am confident. I never worry about what others think. When I speak, people listen. I have great posture. I have amazing friends. I never complain. (I have nothing to complain about). I have it all. I do whatever I want. Anytime I want to do it. And I sure as hell do it well.

Sometimes I float down from my daydreams as gently as a feather drifts to the ground. The warm halo of light around me quietly fades while the real world softly comes back into focus in front of me. I am aware. I am calm. I breathe. I smile.

Other times, reality smacks me hard across the cheek and then shoves me harshly back into my unsuspecting body. I manage to scowl back as the real world flips me the bird. I land hard on my ass and dab protectively at my smudged dreams with a crumbling tissue.

I am a dreamer. The world where I choose to spend most of my time is right up in my head.

The reality? I am average. I sing mainly in the shower and/or the car. I am a daughter, a sibling, a wife and a mother. I am often tired. I am self-deprecating. I worry. I am forgiving. I am sarcastic. I am impatient. I try not to judge people based on the contents of their grocery carts. I am thirty-five. I am open-minded. I am a paradox. I talk too much/I don’t talk enough. I am a middle-ground of awkward. I like to make things with my hands. I see two sides to a story. I like texture and layers in both people and things. I love libraries and bookstores and the smell of books. I swear too much. I get cranky when I need to eat. I am shorter than I’d like to be. I want to travel more. I am loyal. I prefer city sidewalks to nature trails. I’ve let a lot of dreams burn out. I proposed. I have too many freckles. I am good at spelling. I interrupt too much. I am pear-shaped. I think money was a horrible invention. I wonder what the future holds. My eyes are green. I like impractical shoes. I really like houses. And modern design. And food. Oh, and wine. I am unnaturally obsessed with NYC. I can’t do math. I like to knit. I learn things best when someone shows me. I wish on stars. I wonder why weekends are only two days long. I wish I could trust as easily as I used to. I am a really bad liar. I am stubborn. I am hard on myself. I am tolerant. I am indecisive. I am all of these things and more.

I am a dreamer.

And I have stories to tell…