Fists of Autumn

Some mornings, an Autumn day doesn’t look so glorious. Some mornings, it takes a super-human effort just to roll out of bed and begin the motions of the day.

Walk to the kitchen, place coarse ground espresso into the French press. Simultaneously heat water in the microwave for the lip-smacking deliciousness (insert sarcasm here) that is a bowl of hot steel-cut oatmeal. Open a can of cat food and scoop some into a dish, pour the powder over it you got from the Vets office that helps with his intestinal disease, allowing him to live perhaps one more day. He’s 16 years old, but you don’t have the heart to put him down. You don’t have any strength left inside your skin to watch him fall into that forever sleep.

You’ve managed to put sweats on, that’s a good sign. But really, its only because you are too lazy to draw the shades on the front door window so the neighbors outside walking their dogs and their babies don’t start clucking and shaking their heads.

You lean back on the couch, place a pillow on the coffee table to prop your feet up like a makeshift ottoman. You place the laptop on your lap on top of Paul Vanzella’s book of photography, because its within reach and will keep your thighs cool once the laptop starts to heat up.

You read your corporate email, whatever hasn’t been read since the night before. Knowing that if a mirror were held in front of your face you would be appalled at the banquet of disgust displayed there. You feel outside of yourself. You recognize objects and know their name…but everything feels foreign and breathing is an act of conscious ins and outs.

You know you must make a ton of phone calls, finish that proposal to the VP of emerging markets strategy at that emerging technology company. You know there are arguments to be had with co-workers…none of whom seem interested in doing what is best, or right, for customers – somehow missing that 2+2=4 equation of business. You open a company-wide internal email. It states that the board of directors has just replaced the old CEO with a new one. It brandishes all manner of exaggeration about how this is a good thing. It’s the fourth CEO in 6 years.

There are signs of layoffs coming and for a moment, you close your eyes, giving yourself over to that one second of bliss…thinking how wonderful it would be if you were one of the lucky ones on chopping block. Such is the extent of your job hate.

You haven’t made a commission check in 10 months, even though you are selling stuff left and right. This company is devious in its ability to manufacture reasons why a sale is not “commissionable”. You understand, like never before, the phrase going postal.

Your fingers are poised over the keyboard, shaking with an effort to type anything work related. The effort feels like lifting a barbell set to maximum weight. Your left eyelid is already twitching. Your heart is pumping fast and you decide to get up, go over to your purple velvet chaisse lounge and let your dog lick you all over your face. You glance out the window, winds are erupting, dancing a canvas of green through the chinaberry tree out front.

You get up after a few minutes (an hour) to wander back to the kitchen, make a second cup of coffee from your single serve French press. You let the steam rising from the mug tickle the hairs of your cheek with its aroma. You take deep breathes. Exhaling in shudders.

You hate this morning. Hate it. They are more frequent now and they have singed your skin black with anger and swamp thoughts. You are losing weight by the day, soon your clothes will hang in loose folds.

You head back towards the couch, thinking maybe you can attack the day with a measure of normal. When all you want to do is bash in walls and tear off rooftops and run your nails down someone, anyones cheek. You are screaming inside and its trying to break through your skin to the outside world in spasms.

You pass by a pile of old photos on the dining room table. Mom gave you your baby photo album many years ago. It holds pictures of you from 3 months of age through your goody-two-shoe attempt at teenage rebellion. Days ago, you removed several photos from between the photo vellum, yellow and crinkled with age. You and Dad. His hair is midnight black and his eyes can still pierce, all these years later. There is one of you and him sitting on his motorcycle. One of you in the easy chair as a toddler with your younger sister laying between your legs like a baby doll. One of Dad standing in the middle of the living room smiling broadly, pointing at the camera with you in his arms. And another of you in diapers on your parents queen sized bed. It was morning, Dad is under the covers but for the white t-shirt he wore to sleep and he is smiling at you as if you are the most beautiful thing in the world. You were.

You took these photos out to have them scanned, to place them next to the breaking tears of your leaning prose. You want everyone to see what you saw, the Dad of your eyes. The lost parent of your heart.

You stop and shuffle through the photos again, for the 100th time. You start to sob. The sick cat is gacking in the corner but you hardly notice. Your crying is so intense the back of your neck muscles are seizing. You, this 40 year old woman who counts time, suddenly misses, craves the Dad of your childhood heart like a lost sparrow.

You remember well because you write it down. But on this morning, you remember it like yesterday. You smell him in the air and recall the exact pitch of his voice. Not the Mad Hatter Dad. No. Not the one who lost his science, then his marriage, then his brain, then his life. Not that Dad.

You miss the bedtime story Dad. The I promise you words like rubies and juice forever and ever Dad. The proud Dad, standing next to you when you won your first writing contest. The Dad who gave you $100 cash to start saving for the trip to Europe you wanted to take when you turned 18. The Dad who nurtured the artist in you. The Dad who drew pictures with pen and pencil, to be placed as illustrations next to your poetry. The Dad who showed you how to make pizza in a toaster oven out of slices of white Wonder bread, pizza sauce, cheddar cheese and basil. The Dad who bought you a second Schwinn Beachcruiser after your first one was stolen. Just because he couldn’t stand to see you so heartbroken.

You want that Dad. On this morning. Even though you are the girl who took care of herself at age 16. Even though you are the woman that has taken care of herself ever since.

On this morning, just this one, you woke to the hard fisted edges of Autumn punching your bones. Life pressing its heavy timbers, all that trivial fucking gluttinous monstrous chiming is sounding off in your ears and all you want…all you really want, is just one tiny moment with the Ghost of Dad Past. To get lost in those arms, when the world felt safe and the smell of bread pizza baking in the oven was just as good as any Holiday.

Some mornings, an Autumn day doesn’t look so glorious. Some mornings, it takes a super-human effort just to roll out of bed and begin the motions of the day.

This morning, just this one. I don’t want to be so strong.

© 2008 mstrace

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Tags:

bad_day, dad, father, memory, missing, mourning, relationship, remembrance and sad