Notes for the Everlost
Page 18
Come to rest, settle or Be cast down.
Diminish in pitch, volume, value,
Morality, chastity.
Pass into, give in to sin.
Lose primordial innocence And happiness.
Be given inheritance,
Retreat from established course.
Cut down, drift off, give ground.
Lag unnoticed, neglected, unchecked.
Feel love for; be in love.
Be deceived or swindled by
Autumn.
* * *
Mussels with coconut milk, fish sauce, lemongrass, red curry. Asparagus and crumpets. Slathers of stuff. Tempeh crumbled up and packed, pan fried, slathered. Long sourdough bread, slathered. God, I’m slathered, I wrote in my journal in the dark space after my marriage dissolved. It sounds like exhaustion but feels like decadence. I would put the little red table out and sit with my legs crossed with a dish towel on my lap. A buttery spread for one. I would eat and process photographs from weddings (see also: masochism); eat and look a while longer at that thing that was due; eat and write children’s picture books. Silky poached eggs, spinach, mushrooms. Lentils cooked all day long with tomato and oregano and marsala wine. I would catch my reflection in the laptop and wonder: Is this what I really am? Sitting here with my legs crossed, buttery, by myself and not minding it, at least mostly? Unluckily lucky?
I was on my own for what felt like a long time. I needed to be, though the fear solitude would stick forever was a crippling one. Some people, I rationalized, are with people because they’re afraid of not being with people. That will never be me. I would rather be alone and learn how to be fine. Some might have seen my little red table and sighed, imagining an autonomy that felt impossible for them. Others walked by holding hands and talking in quiet voices. Their symbiosis felt impossible for me. Sometimes I got up to look out my window. Sometimes I didn’t.
I bought a six-inch cast-iron skillet. When the kids went to be with their dad and the empty house throbbed with emptiness, I cooked in miniature. If you can feed yourself well, you will always be alright. You have all you need to make yourself feel loved no matter what. Even if it’s just you loving yourself. That’s what my mother has always said.
* * *
Marshall was a pirate. He painted my old crooked house. He had two teeth I could see, and his bones jutted out the back of his T-shirt. Everywhere he walked, he looked like he was walking uphill. I tried not to stare, but he had leathery skin, all grooved and burnished, and it made me stare. I wondered how old he was. He couldn’t read or write. He poked at hornet nests and called them nasty little buggers and brought me outside to show me the papery remains. The torn-down houses of nasty little buggers alongside paint flecks in crabgrass, mounds of it with slivers of rotten wood, the collateral damage of creeping meadow on hundred-year-old shingles. Marshall smiled wide and laughed. It’s what he did when he said hello or goodbye.
He did the first new patch of paint. Not so buttery, like it looked on the stick. More like butter-colored Crisco, the stuff my mom curses at when she buys it accidentally. Dyed to look wholesome, pretending.
“That’s Some Yellow!” said Marshall in that south shore way, with equal emphasis on all three words, going up at the end and then down again, amused.
My house would be the color of butter-colored Crisco.
My dad’s hammer banged new shingles, and Marshall scraped and painted. Scrape-scrape-scrape. Knock-knock. I walked across weedy grass with the crowbar. It was a fixing up of the only facade I could affect. Thanks to them, it would be yellow.
* * *
By the time I grazed my scar with my fingertips, noticing the bumpity-bump as an afterthought, as a silvery line that was one of several accumulated features upon my landscape, it was no longer a crime scene. But that took time. Years.
You might never know what happened in this body. To see me at some reception or potluck, or even without clothes, almost nothing would be out of the ordinary. What you might know of me might amount to The writer who lives by the little creek. She had a short film festival in the woods, on a sheet hung between two trees. She always makes the fire too big. She puts gorgonzola on pizza. She goes to schools and reads silly monster poetry to children, talks to high school kids about how art is a superpower. Lives with a storyboard artist, the tall funny guy. Yellow house. Two kids. Boys.
Ten years after he died, whole swaths of people in my life don’t know what happened or what life I had before. It’s like having met somebody three or four times, chatting in aisles or at parties or on the sidewalk. You know some of the same people. And you’ve met them too often to back up and say, I’m sorry, but what was your name again? You’ve missed your moment. There are people in my life I’ve been friends with for a year or more. One in particular is having a Halloween party. I might go as Relic from The Beachcombers. Low-hanging fruit, I told her, and we cracked up. She doesn’t know I didn’t just have two kids. I had three. But I’ve missed the moment.
What’s significant is that it might take me a year or more to realize you don’t know. I might whisper his name into whatever room I’m standing in, into the hum of people talking and laughing, of drizzle outside and kindling crackling. And I might decide it’s okay that you don’t know. There is no shouldn’t. I’m not resisting an urge to tell you. I don’t have the urge in the first place. He is mine, integrated. I whisper him into the hum, and that’s enough.
* * *
My friend Elaine shared a “How to Recognize (and Escape) a Rip Current” infographic. How did I not know this? I live in California, she commented, as I, a Nova Scotian, thought the same thing.
When you’re caught in a riptide—being pulled away from the land, into deeper water—don’t try to swim against it. You will only exhaust yourself. That’s how people drown. Don’t panic. Float. Relax. When you feel it start to ease, swim across the current, parallel to the shore. Rip currents are a linear phenomena, columns perpendicular to the sand. They’re narrow. They are not the whole beach. Just a sliver of it. Once you’re off the rip and into normal currents, the waves will push you back to safety.
Don’t panic. Float. Relax. Then, gentle. A little counterintuitive—not to safety, but alongside it, skirting it. Diminish in pitch, volume, value, morality, chastity. Lose primordial innocence and happiness. Wait. Give a little push, then drift. Wait a bit more. Then try again.
* * *
Are you still here, body? Years later. I’m sorry. You’ve been alright. More than alright. You have bumps and lumps but I’m glad to have you. I know I haven’t been the easiest occupant. I’m a pain in the ass. Your ass. My ass.
Only when you eat onion rings, says my body. Forget about it. I don’t hang on to stuff. I haven’t got the room. Neither do you.
* * *
Every pregnant woman I saw smiled and glowed while I stamped and snorted, eyes peeled back with fear like the only horse who smells the barn on fire. Couples had much the same effect.
I am calm now. I don’t feel so leprous, so out of place in mixed company. My apocalyptic visions are muzzled. I’ve seen, thanks to sheer numbers, that most of the time, the vast majority of everyone else will be fine, thank goodness. And I’m not angry about that anymore. Thank goodness. Time is all. Just time.
* * *
June 14, 2016. It is the night before we go together to the lodge to canoe to Liam’s tree. I am sitting with a gin lemonade, painting my nails on the front stoop. I am engaged. Nick shakes a shrieking Ben upside down like he’s a pickpocket. Evan comes outside in his pajamas. They play ball hockey as a lazy, golden sun goes down.
Nine years ago, Liam was alive. Nine years ago tonight we took away the ventilator.
The thought hangs in the air. The boys send the ball careening into the front field. Hockey turns into a wrestle. Two monkeys stuff grass down a tall man’s shirt.
Nine years ago tomorrow morning, Mother Nature had taken him back.
I try to imagine three. I can’t. I listen for his voice and hear nothing but seagulls and wind in the trees. We are too far down a different path from the moment he left us.
I love you, baby. I wanted you. I miss you still.
“Aah! Aah! Let me go! Uncle! Uncle!”
Nick has Evan in a head lock. Evan is squirming and beaming, stars in his eyes. Ben runs circles around them, shouting NICK IS WEIRD HA HA.
Getting here was counterintuitive. I diminished in pitch, volume, value, morality, chastity. I lost primordial innocence and happiness. I waited. I gave a little push, then drifted, waited a bit more. I did not find a fairy castle. I built one, when I was ready.
So will you.
* * *
Mommy.
(We were in the dark.)
The kids at school say I have an imaginary friend. I tell them Liam is not imaginary. I tell them he’s in all the leaves on all the trees and the sunshine and the grass and the fish. I tell them if he was here he would be in my class, and I would sit next to him and he would sit next to me. We would be just the same.
You know what, Ben? Imaginary friends are just as important as real friends. If that’s what they think Liam is, it’s really alright. Even if you feel like he’s more.
You know what else, Mommy?
Yes, love?
I think we should thank Liam.
For what, sweetness?
(His whisper became whisperier.)
For giving his birth to us.
Oh yes, baby. We are lucky we had him with us for a little while. It was sad too, but you know what he is, right now?
What?
He’s okay. He’s just not here.
I wish he were here.
Me too, love.
(We were quiet for a while.)
Mommy?
Yes, love?
When me and Liam came out of your belly, what were we wearing?
Little purple suits and bright red socks.
(He giggled.)
Did we match?
Of course!
Mommy?
Yes, love?
What’s an Eggo waffle?
Frozen.
What is moose poop called?
Moose poop.
(We were quiet for a while.)
* * *
Love to the mothers with the undrunk milk.
Love to the fathers who had counted on things fathers should be able to count on: shoulder rides and Sunday pancakes. Love to the fathers who worry about her.
Love to the parents who have lived with grief for a while now, and who have adapted, mostly, but who still have no answers.
Love to the grandmothers and grandfathers who had been looking forward to so much, and who then had to witness the pain of their children in addition to loss.
Love to the brothers and sisters. Even though we’re all grown-ups—we’re supposed to know the why of things—we don’t understand, either. Let’s just keep getting muddy together. Somehow, I think that helps.
Love to the friends who couldn’t find the right words, but who sat with us anyway.
Love to all those who couldn’t—or wouldn’t—sit with us, and who turned away in discomfort. Their own histories and fears were, for the moment, overwhelming. Forgiveness is a lifelong practice.
Love to the babies. He is with mother nature, I say. She feeds him chocolate and lets him stir the sea and tap cracks in ready raven eggs. She lets him stay up all night long on sheepskins until he drifts off to laughter and wood smoke.
Love to me, love to you. Forgiveness is a lifelong practice.
Sign up to receive news and special offers from Shambhala Publications.
Or visit us online to sign up at shambhala.com/eshambhala.