LM's Eyes
It’s been a while since I sat down to write.
It’s been a while since I put pen to paper, fingers to keyboard, and created something meaningful.
It’s been a while since I allowed myself to explore my thoughts and emotions in a way that allows me to collect them, understand them, and send them out into the world, to share with anyone who cares to read.
Today is the day. read more »
In the hazy remnants of the dark of night, in the final moments before dawn when even the birds have yet to open their eyes to sing the world awake, I jolt upright in bed. My husband is out-of-town and I’m alone, save for the two cats that slunk, with the stealth of cat burglars, to settle beside me during the night. They are disturbed by my sudden movement and, with haughty indignity and a disgusted chorus of “Meows”, they saunter away to rest without further disruption. I cannot. Something unsettling has been unearthed. Unacknowledged in the light of day, it was dredged from the shadows of my subconscious and presented to me in vivid, HD imagery, while I slept. Something difficult. Something inevitable. Something that my tense chest and weighted sighs indicate I would prefer remain concealed.
“Moooommm…”
The call slithers towards me down the long corridor between where I sit and my daughter’s bedroom. It starts quietly, softly, a nighttime whisper hissed from the shadows of the retreating day.
Before I can respond, it comes again. “Mooommmmmmm…” A little louder this time.
I have just, not more than ten minutes ago, tucked my 12 year-old Little Miss in for the night and retreated to the sanctity of our living room. Enveloped by the golden hues of the streetlamp just outside our window, I’m ready to relax, a good book held in one hand, a soothing cup of Zen herbal tea in the other, and the companionable silence of my husband working on his lap top beside me while our two cats sleep the deep, deep sleep of lazy felines. Ah, the end of a long day.
But I know this call. I’ve heard it before. In the quiet, lonely darkness of her room her mind races. The challenges of twelve-year-old-life loom large when illuminated by moonlight and Little Miss needs to talk. It is confession time.
The sun was high in the June sky despite the early morning hour the day we saw it. It was perched precariously atop our car antenna and neither of us—my husband, my daughter nor I—was sure what it was. The consensus: Garbage. In the midst of grabbing a tissue to swipe it away, with my stomach in turmoil and my nose upturned, it moved. It was subtle at first but unmistakable, and the motion increased with the intensity of our stares. It was an egg sack. It was small and silken and perfectly shaped, and in the nascent stages of presenting to the world its swarming contents. As we stood transfixed, thousands of minuscule golden spiders wriggled their way free, crawling over each other in mayhem, uncertain as to what to do next with no mother near-by to guide their way. But quickly, like a scene from the ending of Charlotte’s Web, instinct trumped chaos and they departed, en masse, floating away on the ends of fine, glossy filaments to face the world alone.
I woke up this morning with the early light of dawn. Awake at 5:00 a.m. and out of bed before 5:30, on a Saturday. I have never been one to sleep-in. Early morning has always been my very favourite time of day, especially on days like this, when my Little Miss is sleeping soundly (The Phantom in the Other Room has recently been visiting but seems to be packing his bags for a hasty departure), and my husband, who just last night returned from another week away on business, still rests peacefully in our bed with Mikey-the-cat nestled at his side. With coffee in hand, a good book beside me, a little time to write and my family near-by, life is good. The serenity of this morning is perfect, and even the grey outside my window feels comforting, like an old wool blanket wrapped around my mood to keep it warm and content. Until my morning reverie is torn to shreds by this headline: Gossip Guy Chace Crawford Busted for Pot (http://ca.eonline.com/uberblog/detail.jsp?contentId=184326).
No, I am not a close personal friend of Chace Crawford’s. I am not even a fan. It is drugs that bother me, pure and simple.
I eat too many pistachios. This is the thought that repeats in my head as I stand at my kitchen counter, stomach rumbling, mouth salivating, hand immersed deep within my pistachio jar. Again: I eat too many pistachios. I look at the brimming handful of delectable, bright green nuts that I am attempting to extract through the narrow opening of the jar and swallow in anticipation, wondering if I will successfully convince myself that the mass encased within my fingers is equivalent to ten nuts, roughly, maybe eleven, close enough. Why ten? Didn’t you know? Ten is the maximum number of pistachios we are supposed to eat within a 24 hour period. I read this once in a book on diet and exercise, something related to Pilate’s if I’m not mistaken, and if I read it, it must be true.
On the weekend I went to a high school drama performance. It was written by the roughly 24 grade-nine and grade-ten students performing, all of whom were girls save for the four, brave boys who chose to stand in their midst. It was a series of vignettes, scenes derived from monologues written by the students and based on their real-life, early-teen-aged experiences. The students collectively chose to title their presentation “Vicious“, a representation, according to the teacher, of their perception of themselves: The average 14 year-old girl.
