Tag: journal

Day 60: Drink

It would be easy. No one would know, or care.

I could walk into the kitchen and open the bottle in the fridge. Is it a pinot grigio? Or a chablis? No matter. I’ll get my favorite glass, a few ice cubes, and give myself a pour that passes for modest.

The oncologist recommends against it. My father’s alcoholism recommends against it. A college friend, who left me a drunk and rambling voicemail, recommends against it.

My face burns, thinking about it. My mouth waters.

I do walk into the kitchen. I fill the kettle, and set it to boil.

Day 59: Cartwheel

The woman is asked if there is a part of her she has lost.

In a moment, it’s defined: a cartwheel.

She’d been a gymnast in her childhood and early teens. She filled every moment with cartwheels, handstands, leaps; there was always some climbing, flipping, or tumbling to be done. She was comfortable upside down. Muscles did what she demanded, and ankles and wrists could be depended upon. Her body had made shapes that felt beautiful.

The woman, who is me, looks down at her calf, her thigh, her shoulder. She traces her skin, recalling the backbend that lived underneath.

Day 58: The Universe

When I shuffle the cards, I
Think/dream/conjecture/feel my question,
Though I know The Universe already hears it,
Already knows my confusions and curiosities.
I make my hands soft, nestling, permissive.

When I cut the cards, they
Break themselves into stacks of information,
Lined up like visitors at a funeral
Each with their own message for the
Living and the dead.

When I lay out the cards, we
Remark upon the first to show its face:
the luscious blue pool with a woman floating inside.
She is The Universe,
Pregnant, amniotic,
Holding my intentions up to the light.

Day 56: Scar

I have a horizontal scar on my breast about an inch long, marking the spot where the surgeon reached in and pulled out a cancerous tumor last year.

I like it. It’s straight and skin colored, not angry, puckered, or jagged. It’s the perfect slot for a pocket square, or a button hole where a man might slip a flower to decorate his lapel. It could be a runway where planes take off, or the top of a bookshelf where my favorite novel lives. It could be a window waiting to be opened, or a sleeping ocean ready to wake.

Day 54: Safari

My aunt’s memory is failing. We first noticed this two years ago, when she got lost on the way to the grocery store; these days, she can hardly be left alone.

My dad, her impatient and controlling younger brother, is having a hard time with it.

Most recently, they fought when she told him she just returned from Africa. He reminded her, loudly and with considerable frustration, that she’d not left their neighborhood in years.

I’m truly disappointed in him. What sense does it make to argue? She will be gone soon. I want to know what happened in Africa.

Day 49: Clock

Oncologists, surgeons, and radiologists have decided to navigate the breast as a clock. This way, they can easily communicate about the location of tumors and other irregularities.

I get it. Boobs are (sort of) round. They have a nipple in the middle, anchoring the invisible clock’s hands. Twelve and six are at the top and bottom, with three and nine at the viewer’s right and left.

But have none of these incredibly intelligent people realized that for a cancer patient, a reference to time calls to mind time passing, and potentially running out, and that’s probably not the best idea?

Day 44: Sing

My friend died, brutally, of cancer.

I’d like to gather my thoughts into an elegant essay on her memory wall, as so many of her friends and family have done. But I don’t want to think about it.

I do, however, sing with her.

See, she had a Disney princess voice that was the centerpiece of several secular and religious singing groups. My relationship with God is like a suffocating wool sweater, itchy and uncomfortable. But singing along to her recordings feels like a pure channel to something beyond all of that.

My friend, my heart still hears you singing.

Day 41: Sliding Doors

“Bob,” was a guy I dated in college. We made better friends than significant others. We chatted, partied, danced, tailgated. We fucked, drank, and fought. A lot.

Bob, according to Google, is now living in Los Angeles. He has the job of his dreams directing an entire media division for a large entertainment company (the one with the superheroes). When I learned this, I spent a few minutes considering the what ifs.

And I also considered: what if I’m right where I’m meant to be?

I gaze at my little family asleep on the couch, and feel nothing but relief.

Day 39: Present

Your birthday is coming up.
I think you should get me something.
I think it should be an impossible gift.
I think you should get me a do-over
That’s years long and a whole state wide.
I think I won’t rest until you present it to me,
Negative space, pressed into a wrinkle in the
Space-time continuum, stretching out
All four of the dimensions, poised to
Erase and remake each unbidden memory.
I think it should be wrapped,
Not with newsprint or comics,
But airtight, so not one bit
Of the old way we were with one another
Can escape.

Day 37: Birthday

My sweet baby, there should be no tears on your birthday. You should have only presents, smiles from your friends, and notes of love that remind you of everything wonderful growing another year older means.

I lean over you, holding your cold hand in mine, and your sobs break my heart. I feel your world-weariness, even as young as you are, heavy like a stone in your chest. Growing up means a driver’s permit, freedom, independence. It also means showing a face to the world that has swallowed its tears, at the head of its own table, licking the icing.