I pulled a drawer too far out on its rails today and the entire contents preceded the drawer to the floor. The long breath that I drew did not quite sustain me as I lowered myself onto a bench and started retrieving paperclips, pens, and micro-disks from beneath the cabinets. With everything gathered back into the compartments of the wooden organizer, I started to calculate how I would lift myself to chair level.
Most people bend and crumple with age. My body began to curl within itself so many years ago that I have no memory of any other condition. I haul myself from the floor, clutching the post of my stairs. With an angled lean, I snag the drawer with one hand, balancing it on my knees. It wavers and I let go of the rail to steady it with both hands. I ask myself, what will you do it it falls again? The answer comes, sort it again, put it all back again. My inner laugh sounds almost rueful.
I will never understand the glibness of the able-bodied. They drop something and retrieve it without a second thought. As for myself, I invented an entire mythology to avoid the struggle of stooping for dropped coins. It’s angel money, I would tell my small son and his friends. If you leave it on the floor, the angels will come. At a certain point, I’d tell them, now you can gather all the angel money. I’d let them use their finds to buy what they wanted. My son put his in a piggy bank and paid for his own souvenirs at Disney World.
Two motorcyclists drove past our park this afternoon, slowing their pace as they drew even with my row of houses. I stood by my car and watched their progress. When they got beyond our community, their engines raced. A murder of crows rose from the wires above me. The cacophony of their call cut across the air. A flutter of leaves drifted from the towering oak. I remember complaining about life in Arkansas, about the open space and the simplistic rhythm of the days. At thirty-two I yearned for the smog, noise, and grime of the city. I couldn’t wait to escape. Now I shudder at the folly of such impatience.
The radio blares with accounts of conflict, death, and sorrow. I dump my groceries on the counter and stand to listen. A young girl describes the crowd pressing forward at a Texas concert where eight people died. I shake my head. The story fades and a woman starts talking about coming to America from Afghanistan. She describes hiding from the Taliban; the sudden loss of freedom; the fear; the terror. I turn the radio off. Standing in the silence, I feel the rapid irregular beating of my heart.
I breath; in, out. I lower myself into a chair. I study this small dwelling in which I have crafted an existence. In my old house, my traditional house, my lovely 1258 sq. ft., hundred-year-old bungalow, someone once asked me, Don’t you want more for yourself? I shook my head then; I feel the motion again, now, here. Quite the contrary, it seems; I wanted less. My heart slows, then finds its own wonky rhythm. One day that missing beat will fell me, but today is not that day.
It’s the seventh day of the ninety-fifth month of My Year Without Complaining. Life continues.
