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I Like It Here
It is day more-than-thirty-for-sure-but-less-than-100 of Shelter in Place with 2- and 4-year-old boys. I'm contemplating the Flow of Time as I relish in 3.75 uninterrupted moments. I haven’t quite pinned it down, but something's different.
I am drawn to the bunker of deep, afternoon shade, a tiny oasis from the bright that cradles our little garden. I wander across the grass and the long leaves bow, prostrate under my bare feet. Thick, fragrant basil pops from the shiny white pot, the acrid, skunky tomato plant piques the nostrils. I water the budding life, and watch as the dry, light earth gives way to rich, dark soil as it is inundated.
The wind changes, and the kids are at each other's throats. Engage! Distract. Re-direct! Repeat. Who the hell even knows what the order is supposed to be? I hustle them back inside, exiting the tyranny of the sun for the artificial chill. The once divine smell of coffee now peppered with aging citrus and a dash of day-old diapers makes war with my senses. I fling the kitchen window open and fresh air pushes onto my face. I taste, rather than smell, the chicken stench, and remember that the neighbor's newly constructed coop is four feet flat from my nostrils. I couldn't give a sh*t. The window stays open.
We re-settle in the playroom, where the noisy AC unit hits just the right note to soothe flushed cheeks and tingle across radiating skin. The kids are momentarily occupied and I'm just sitting here. Wait—how am I just sitting here? I rock a little and the ends of my hair paint little pendulums in an arc between my shoulder blades. Leaning back into the embrace of the chair I think it's all so pleasant, and rising simultaneously is an awareness of something tamped down again and again. It's the absence of aching parts and gnawing hunger and eyes that sting from crying or lack of sleep or the face wallop I just got and being kicked and headbutted or elbowed and kneed during every activity (mostly by accident?). The constant, cacophonous chorus of NOW is…not normal. And it is subsiding.
It can't be gone, no certainly not. Coffee is still the glue and my second (third?) cup hijacks my brain and tricks me into overdrive. Contact with Charlie move move move move because suicide watch and where is their water and they're yelling for more oats, and the slip risk on the floor should go straight to the wash and never mind I can probably hold my pee for another 20 minutes—minimum.
But 2 and 4 are nearing 3 and 5, and it's getting just a little bit easier, and also there's no place to be, and the kids don't need clothes, and Dad is around here somewhere, his morning commute a set of steep stairs leading to a far quieter lair.
It's not that I've been out of my body, no, I have felt everything. But for the first time in a while, I like it here. Here, in this brief moment, the tides have receded and my senses are laid bare. I recognize a longing to go back out into the world, and I say a silent prayer that one day soon when I'm ready, it will all still be there.
Dear Roach,
There are many ways for your kind to perish. It had never occurred to me that this morning’s incident could be one of them.
My first mistake was leaving the coffee out. Even the best kept households sometimes give quarter to your brethren and so it was my arrogance that brought us here.
My second mistake was not checking the coffee to make sure that nothing had plunged into its depths before I drank it. Or rather, before I microwaved it.
As children, whenever a bug was ingested, my great-grandpa always seemed to be within earshot. “Protein!” he would grunt happily from behind his ancient gas stove, or near his rolly polly farm, or from underneath the massive chinaberry tree. We would squeal in horror and delight and have since counted ants, mosquitos, and even small spiders as inevitable edible additions.
But you, Roach, you are special. Perhaps because I ingested so much of you before realizing my error. Perhaps because you likely boiled a moment in the swirling depths of my reheating coffee. Perhaps because it’s normally coffee grounds that I find at the bottom of my cup.
I did not eat you, Roach, but I consumed your essence. I hereby lay you to rest and shudder to think that a part of you, small—though in some ways not small enough—lives on.
Happy Trails,
Dani