December 24th, Two Thousand Two: We're walking down sidestreets, quiet and hushed as the holidays
set in. Light snow covers everything with translucent powder;
insulates with a soft, plush blanket of white, hushing all of
us like babies with a gently whispered "Shhhh, there now. It's all right."
I remember the Christmas Eve my father -- his arms full of packages
he'd saved and scrimped for to give to my sister and I -- was
mugged in a dark alley in Chicago. All our gifts were stolen;
he lost several teeth in the struggle, never to have them replaced.
I didn't care about the gifts; I was so terrified at the idea
of my father hurt and bleeding, at a world that could be cold
enough where children's gifts could be stolen the night before
Christmas. I was worried for my father: his body and pride wounded;
about his clear fear that we'd love him less for not having things
to give us, offerings to make to prove the love I always knew
was there, even when he was not.
I think to myself, there aren't dark alleys here.
Everything is quiet, the sidestreets deserted. Tiny lights twinkle
from windows, and the scent of someone baking with unsweetened
chocolate nearby tickles my nose. My dog pads along jauntily,
thinking herself a great adventurer, kicking up the leaves underneath
the snow and salt with some odd sense of purpose; the way we all
have a natural, fleeting urge to leave our footprints in wet concrete.
It's just she and I this year; I feel alone but not lonely, but
recognize the seeming strangeness of this small, half-furry family
that is mine. I talk with her as we walk, and it doesn't seem
so strange at all, both of us wrapped up in our little fleeces,
smiling at the snow that dusts our copper hair and ices our noses.
I try to remember when I last didn't feel it'd been just she and
I. It's been longer than I'd allowed myself to realize.
I suppose there are dark alleys here; perhaps I have just chosen
not to see them sometimes.
I think when we get home, we'll nestle up on the couch in the lights of
the small tree, she with her bone, and I'll have a steaming cup
of máte. Maybe we'll press our noses up against the frosty windows
and breathe on the glass until it clears. Maybe I'll read while
she naps on my knees. Maybe I'll sit with an instrument and sing
to the silence.
In running our errands I discover one more small thing I've been
severed from. Not more than a small annoyance, really, but it
hits hard today. The busier streets aren't so quiet -- manic drivers
in a hurry to ply others with presents make a ruckus and an uproar.
The timbre of the white and the snow and the quiet shifts as my
mood does -- it doesn't feel quite so cozy, knowing someone is
trying so very hard to remove all traces of me from their life,
even in the smallest ways, as if one could simply erase another
person and make what hurts vanish like the dust you'd blow from
the paper. As if, when someone cut an old boyfriend out of a photograph,
they couldn't still see him standing there in the negative space
the scissors created. We can't judge another's way of healing,
of coping -- we're so very different, we nurse wounds so differently
-- but I think to myself, that for myself this is not how I want to cope and to heal. I walk a few blocks with a mantra circling
in my head, repeating to myself not "He is gone from me," but "He is no longer with me as once he was, but remains as he is
now. I accept what is now, and honor and cherish what once was
in memory." I don't want to erase. I just want to make new drawings, and
file the old somewhere where it's okay for me to look at them,
touch them, and remember, whether they make me smile or cry; likely
both.
There are dark alleys here, but I don't want to walk them.
This small bag of fresh sweetbreads from the bakery spreads warmth
into my senses, wanting to flirt with the warm room and hot mug
waiting nearby. The dog and I, our feet are tired from the long
walk in the cold; my face is flushed and frosty, but feels fresh
and clear. A beautiful rastafarian walks by, long, long dreadlocks
hanging down his back, smelling of sweet marijuana smoke that
makes me grin with whimsy. I allow myself to look at the small
house that always catches my eye; the one with the large pile
of firewood and the swing on the porch that I have a small ache
to go to the door of, knock, and be taken in. I recognize it as
a house of my longing -- for warmth, for a home, for belonging,
for family, a sense of security -- but I walk back towards my
own, favoring not what I want, what I yearn for, but what I have,
now.
We know the steps back, our pace quickens as we get closer. We
know where to hang the coats there, where the water bowl is. We
could sing the song the whistling kettle makes perfectly when
it does choose to whistle, know which part of the couch is our
very own spot. We know how to find what we need, see what we are,
in words and images and sounds and scents. We know the way home.
Sometimes we just have to walk through the dark alleys to get
there. |
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