I was writing MONDAY on the chalkboard in bold, bubbly letters, when he sank to the bottom of the pool. He stayed down there so long I decided to join him. He was impressed that I, too, could defy gravity and ruminate at the bottom. When I came up for air I found my friend and placed a nautilus in her hand. She asked me if I was a teacher and I said, Right. But not as a question, as a conviction.
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I took his paintbrush and his paint to cover my walls pale yellow. I dipped my brush in the paint, only to realize how big the room really was and that it would take me a good amount of time to transform. So, I stopped. Sat down and waited for him in his truck. When he found me later in the driver’s seat he looked frustrated, but couldn’t help to laugh. It was the last place he expected to find me. A small game of hide and seek.
I was waiting for you, I smiled.
To which he replied, You would have been waiting a long time.
To seek and not be found might be the greatest disappointment. That, and an unfinished paint job.
We were all moving on this day. Although, I forgot my wheeled cart. An elderly woman offered up hers only it was nowhere to be found and moving hour was fast approaching. The others joined in on this search. Somehow every shopping cart we tested was not quite right. Our exhaustion set in and our troubles were met with short breaks of licking bee brood – a brilliant purple and orange paste that rippled in texture and tasted of golden comb. A young fellow sat on his bed, savoring his portion, while removing his shirt. He held out his clothing and insisted I take it as a souvenir (so that I may remember him). Of course, I didn’t even know who he was, so I refused.
I was dancing in my kitchen. No one was watching except the shadow of my younger self. She looks at me and I stop mid-twirl. I don’t know how I got here. But the light filters in and touches my face just right. I don’t care if anyone discovers me. They would be surprised to find me here. Alone in my kitchen.
The room was bare. Only the window left open. I thought about my security and for a moment reached out to shut the window pane.
But stopped.
I decided to leave the window open because it was old and chipped and likely to be stuck in its frame.
He took flight before he was supposed to. Landed right down there in the crack of that cobalt blue ocean. I wasn’t going to help him. He had to help himself. Free his body from that cold sea and lift himself onto the icy shelf. Which he did and he learned his lesson, I guess.
I am dropping this stone in the lake for you.
The stone I carried back from the other side of the world.
The stone you had no use for.
So I am giving it back to the lake.
Letting it sink to the bottom, so that no other girl can pick it up and carry it back to a man on the other side of the world.
This rock (which I plucked from a glacier in New Zealand) holds layers of dreams that never were.
This dark-charcoal square-like rock, curved like a staircase to the stars
Maps our family.
Our son.
Our stone-home.
Curved like a staircase going nowhere, but to the bottom of this lake, where it will rest easy.
No longer in a holding pattern.
But nestled under soft waves, caressing its very existence.
Happy and calling to be let in.
Sinking down into its cool, deep nest at the bottom of the lake.
Back to it’s home.
The land was covered in a thick blanket of snow. I am walking and can barely lift my feet. Fat snowflakes filter my vision, so I cannot see very far ahead. But I can hear the bus coming. Barreling around the bend. I’m talking on the phone and trying to get out of the road, but I keep sinking in deeper. Until I reach a snow bank. The bus driver sees me and she lets me on. The bus is packed with people. As she rounds a sharp curve the tail-end of the bus swings up into the air, then lands back down, hard.
The bus driver confidently announces,
I’ve been doing this for years.
I feel I have to believe her.
They tried three times to stick the needle in her arm. On the fourth try, an inflatable bag filled with blood. She carried this bag around like it was a part of her. A brilliant comet of red trailed her side. Although, she walked too far and the needle slipped out of her arm, which caused her to look down at the crease in her forearm. Three bruised puncture wounds painted her skin like bullet holes left behind. She didn’t think she had been cared for properly. Situations like this didn’t normally happen to her. She had been cared for all her life.
My parent’s friends arrived in couples. Each one was pregnant. Ashamed, I wrote on the blackboard:
Don’t travel so much. Make Rituals.
I was warning the pregnant women how to raise their babies right. With my own child, I was hiding from someone in particular. When they passed by, I held up a newspaper so they could not see us behind the pages. I am not sure why we were hiding and nothing happened.
The older gentleman had a fondness for my sister and I. When he let us drive away in his car I knew it was because one day his kids would be old, just like us. Because, in us, he saw his own children.
I was late for my bicycle ride, but happy to discover a new path leading out my backdoor. It led though a trimmed lawn and into an English garden, curved around a bed of tightly-wound roses, past another home that I had not noticed before.
It was a glass house. When you looked inside an ocean reflected off the windows.
I liked this house.
Still, I was late for my bike ride.
Marga Pictures 