I wake early to beat the day. I am first to step onto the ground floor of our old Victorian home. I stretch and bend as a cat while feeling like a cow throughout my daily yoga routine, ruminating on a body that I thought would always be at my beck and call, but one that has recently been betraying my command; my lack of commanding has bred the insolence. I peer into the mirror while changing from the first set of clothes to the second, and let the thoughts ride a Gilded Carousel in timely circles. I find them interesting, but really they are the same brand that everyone has, just a different color. I think they may be chameleon print today. I am hungry.
Breakfast is oatmeal with a view of a small norway maple in the company of three women, young, spry, and cynical. My roommates are wonderful humans, and I adore them. We talk about – almost – everything.
Intellectually we explore ideas, but after the first emotionally charged conversation over dish cleaning routine, I knew to leave some rocks unturned. Work passes quickly. I patch holes in plaster for a second time, filling the cracks like those of drying clay, and sanding away the tiny peaks formed from excess glue. I paint an old rocking chair alabaster white in memory of its past self, and it turns out to be quite a handsome thing; I can see it holding up a past tenant on a hot day, the puddlets of condensation from a cold drink sway with gently rocking inertia. We stop early for the day and I return to my room. Both in look and feel, I sleep in a soft and dark cavern. Floral wallpaper peers down as I stand on my zigzag polygon rug, the light softened by comforters hung to shade from the sun rises I aim to beat, and multi colored sparkles spring to life along the walls from christmas lights stuck in the socket. It’s four in the afternoon, and I raise my heart rate with a spasmic exercise led by a youtube star, so charismatic and beautiful that we may soon become friends. The day is gray and beckons to me to join it in slow motion that reminds me of teen angst in the best way. I have never been able to say no to a day.
I slip on my rattiest sneakers and set my feet on a path to the Rocky River, here in Three Rivers, MI. I know a little place, haunted by the ghost of a small cat who died behind my sitting log. I didn’t know the cat was there when I chose it as my own haunt, but I am not so rude as to dispel quiet company or shared solitude. I slip off my rattiest sneakers, and tentatively explore the river’s edge muck with my soft, suburban toes.
I have my Dad’s toes, long enough to weave a scarf or play piano, and I tangle them into tall, hollow grasses full of friendly spiders and year old dust. The water is smooth and dark, holding the secrets of places it has passed and washing them clean, then setting them as thoughts in the minds’ of its secret admirers, like me. They are clean thoughts, refreshing in a stressful time, and I welcome them onto the Gilded Carousel. Away from human squawking, I hear birds and breeze in tree branches above my fuzzy head, and neither are concerned with anything but their own business. My mind’s loose screws rattle happily in this space where it is allowed, where death is not a feared concept but a calm reality, where all happenstances of a moment are fully colored. Though I try not to, I grasp for them. I try to hold on to all that is soothing, and though distorted by my effort, they still leave in accordance with the rules of time.
Do not leave me. Do not go. Do not age. I will cook and clean, though you do not need me, I need you to stay sane and to ignore my own inability to change, though I must, much as I do, in accordance with the rules of time.
Change as much as I may, is it done in the way I’ve come to know as my own? Analytical, warm, dry thoughts that salt and pepper the meat of journal entries which converse with my ego; ask it to ponder, to wonder about others for a change, because without others, without more, without something – I am nothing, I am no more, I am none. There is no dichotomy of one.
My walk home is pleasant. The steps to the backdoor of our Victorian home are slick after rain, and I am careful not to slip. The door has a squeaky slam that I aim to hear behind me, and I slink in on the balls of my feet; an old habit from an old home. Quietly I sit and eat bread and cheese, scattering crumbs with each bite as I have since childhood.
The sun is setting and I am ready to rest, ready to wake, ready to chase tomorrow.
Jeff Torano || Three Rivers, Michigan || April 1, 2020