Alone, Together

More bubbling up from the Not-A-Journal…

Circa 2009

I am walking up to the elementary school with Sonar X4 to pick up Sonar X5 and two neighbor kids. Sonar X8 will make his way home on his own. X4 dances ahead of me on the sidewalk, comfortable in this routine and this space in spite of all the cars. The queue to pick up kids winds around at our left. Many cars idling with air conditioners on, though it’s not really a warm day. The staff parking lot at my right is full of empty, parked cars—mostly. That lot is off-limits for regular pick-ups. Only buses are allowed in there, but a few parents—whether by exception or rule-breaking—wait in their cars along the curb.

One woman waiting in the staff lot is familiar to me. She sits in her new Volkswagen Jetta Stationwagon, engine off, windows rolled down. I don’t know what she drove before, only that I know this car is brand new. Before the Jetta, she usually came to school with a double jogging stroller, one seat filled, one waiting for her pre-K son. 

I don’t know her name. We see each other every week at the library, during storytime. She is L—— and A——-’s mom. That is often the case with me too. People often call me Mrs. X4 or Mrs. X8 because people are more likely to know the kids’ names than mine. 

A——-’s mom is very tall, with an athletic build. She is clothes-conscious, both for herself and for her children. She does not run in an old t-shirt and sweats like I do. When she talks to other parents, she’s fairly blunt, friendly but opinionated and not overly worried about whether she alienates anyone with those opinions. She is sometimes short-tempered with her bright and energetic kids, though she is obviously very affectionate with them as well. She always looks tired or stressed when she snaps. 

Today though, sitting in her car, staring across the burnt-grass field into space, her attitude is completely different. She is unguarded, unpropped, her fierceness or pride—or whatever it is that crosses her face when she greets someone—is gone. 

Her face is sad, tired. I can’t see A——-, but I assume she is in her car seat in the back, probably asleep, or at least zoning quietly. Perhaps that’s what this mom is doing too. Zoning in a space where she must be awake, in spite of her fatigue, but in a paused moment which, for that one bit of time, demands no more from her. No song, no pat, no kiss, no question answered. Guarded by the walls of her car. 

It’s more than fatigue though. She looks lonely there in her car, there in her life. I don’t know how to connect to her, or if I even want to. If she knew I was watching her, the mask would be reset. I don’t want to intrude on her vulnerability, so I look away. I pass by her car, as if I don’t notice she’s there.

Flashback: a Memory of Matches

From deep in the layers of the Not-A-Journal, I unearthed this bit of a memory about matches. So, you know, I’ve clearly been playing with matches for a long time. 

***

Among my earliest memories is being in my grandmother’s house, mainly in the basement. Imagine the Brady Bunch house, and you’ll get a sense of the general style and open feel of my grandmother’s house at the time. With the big bar and the big fireplace. The fireplace was an intense affair, dominating one end of the basement den. I remember a Christmas tree. I remember sitting under the tree at one end of the fireplace hearth with one of my aunts. We were using silly putty or something to lift a newsprint image of Jiminy Cricket (I loved that cricket) and put it on a rock. The rock was eventually coated in clear nail polish and lived in one of my drawers. Jiminy gave me a smile and a whistle whenever I looked at it.

In the same place, but perhaps at a different time, I remember using a gadget that rolled old newspapers into fireplace logs. I always wanted to turn the crank on that log-roller. I’m not sure how well those newspaper logs burned, but they were no doubt lit by the incredibly, mind-bogglingly, long wooden fireplace matches kept in a box way up on the mantle where I could not reach them.

That part is a lie. The part where the matches were up high. That’s my mommy-eye remembering. *I* would keep the matches up high. But this memory lives in the 1970s, in a house with broad-open stairs and no baby gates. Grandma’s cigarettes and lighter were always sitting on some nearby table. So I don’t really know if the long matches were up out of my reach. Maybe I could reach them. Could feel their brittle length and their splinters. Smell the tips ready to ignite with the right friction. Knowing that those sticks could bring fire out of the air with its crackling golden light and heat. 

Struck.2

“Why do you have matches?” she said, pulling her hand from the pocket, holding the wooden sticks. “Used matches. Why do you have USED matches in your pockets?”

I looked over at her, standing there next to the tree, wearing my winter coat. “Where did you find that?” I asked.

“The matches? In your pocket, I said.”

“No, the coat. Where was the coat?” I stood up straight, trying to brush the dust from my hands.

“In the trunk. There’s a blanket in there too. You cold? Maybe you should wear the coat and I should wrap up in the blanket.” She looked at me, her gaze innocuous. I thought I’d lost that coat. I hadn’t seen it for months and then forgotten about it in the summer. The girl crossed her arms, hugging the jacket close around her throat and bounced on the balls of her feet. The blustery wind swirled up the skirt of her dress. Her bare legs and sandaled feet were looking pink and raw.

“Or maybe I’ll take the blanket and you change the tire,” I said. “You didn’t bother to get the jack? Or the spare while you were rummaging in my trunk?”

“Oh. No. You think we can change the tire?”

“Yeah. There’s no reason we can’t.”

“I’ve never changed a tire before. I’m not really sure I know how.”

“The hardest part is going to be getting the lug nuts off. They were machine tightened the last time the tires were rotated.” I kicked the tire and then looked up at her.

She was staring at me.

“What?” I asked.

“I’ve never heard you talk about tires. You sound so smart.” She smirked, like she was being sarcastic, but didn’t move.

“Ok, let’s get the tools and get you home, shall we?” I said, crunching over the gravel to the trunk.

“I really appreciate you giving me a ride, you know,” she said, taking the lug wrench when I thrust it at her.

I just grunted.

I stood next the car, trying to figure out how to do this without completely ruining my clothes. My knee was already raw from kneeling on the gravel. “Give me the blanket.” My skirt was longer than hers. I reached between my legs to grab the back of the skirt, and pulled it forward to tuck it into the belt at the front. It was an awkward arrangement, but hopefully I wouldn’t rip the fabric when I knelt down. She handed me the wooly, moth-eaten blanket from the trunk. I decided I’d rather be cold than wrap up in the greasy thing. I put it down on the ground next to the car and knelt down to place the jack.

I started pumping the lever on the jack. The car started to rise. Very slowly. She watched for a few seconds, then started rummaging through my pockets.

“So why do you have used matches in your pocket?” she asked.

“A little busy right now,” I said.

“‘Scuse me.”

I managed to get the tire off the ground and switched to the lug wrench. I looked down the road, hoping for a car, but I couldn’t see anything. The wind whipped my hair around into my face. I couldn’t get the nuts to budge. A sharp scraping noise startled me and my hands slipped from the lug wrench. My shoulder hit the side of the car.

She stood holding a lit match up to the sky, one hand shielding it against the wind. Her eyes moved to me. “Sorry.” She shook out the match and raised her hand to flip it onto the gravel shoulder. She hesitated, looking at me again. She gingerly pinched the tip of the match to make sure it was out and then tucked the match into the jacket pocket.

After a few more minutes of futile struggle with my bare foot (my sandal slipped on the metal lever), I stood up and gestured for her to have a go.

“What?” she asked.

“We need to get it to turn and loosen the nuts. You have a go.”

“You look sweaty.”

“It’s hard,” I said, leaning against the car and rubbing my shoulder.

“You want the coat?”

“No, I’m ok right now.” I switched to rubbing my foot to warm it.

She wrinkled her face, trying to tuck her whispy skirt between her thighs. She blew out one breath, gave me a worried glance, and leaned in on the wrench. 

Struck

What good were matches that couldn’t stay lit in the breeze as I tried to light the two candles under the tree. The two candles that tried, unsuccessfully to light a celebration.

I struck the matches against a rock under the tree. The first one sparked to life, burning their light into my eyes, so that I still saw the flame in the darkness, even after the breeze swirled in to put it out. Why did I keep trying? The wind did not want those matches to be lit. The wind did not want me to see your face, looking at me and the tiny cake with embarrassment, then contempt. Or was it the other way around? The wind would not let me light the candles and tried hard to stun the matches the moment they were struck.

One match, the last one, I sheltered in my hands, guarded it from the meddling wind, when I looked over the light, smiling in triumph, at your face, not looking at me, but at your shoes, your mouth twisted into something. Something ugly and not looking at me. I knew that you wouldn’t eat the cake. I knew that you wouldn’t look at me again the way you had looked at me before.

The flame scorched my fingertip, and with a reflex, I shook out the light. Smelling the smoke of the burnt wood, but not trying to strike another, not wanting to see the emptiness in your eyes or the twist of your mouth as you stood there, leaning against the tree, your hands deep in your pockets against the cold wind, not trying to help me, not offering to hold the cake, not interested in a celebration of anything between us.

Coward.

That’s the word that came to me. You stood there. A coward. A spineless jerk who couldn’t even afford me the respect of saving me this humiliation. I came here with this romantic plan. With this cake. With these matches. Against the wind. Against the rain. I smiled and laughed as match after match went out and into my pocket, one of them singeing the lining because its ember still burned.

Coward.

In that instant—in my embarrassment—I hated you completely. Just like that.

“I guess it’s too windy,” I said. All the laughter and the joy was blown out of my voice by the wind.

“I guess so,” you said. Even in the dark I knew you weren’t looking at me.

Maybe I need elbow grease?

I have spent the past few weeks in an epic toss and declutter mission throughout our house. We have trashed and donated a huge amount of stuff. Though I’m normally a (compulsively) list-oriented person, this (spring) summer cleaning has unfolded organically. I’ve moved from drawer to shelf to closet as function struck me. 

Big jobs and small. Electronic and physical. Organizational and emotional. I have tackled it. I washed curtains! We even helped Sonar X11 face his burgeoning micro-hoarding tendencies. There is more, of course. In a functioning household, there is always something else that can be tidied up or sorted out.

In the middle of this cleaning frenzy, I also sewed, and baked, and knit, and planned for the upcoming school year. The house feels good.

There’s one problem.

This domestic sifting and discarding elbowed out other things. Like the writing. I know the Order will be pleasant when the writing recommences. I appreciate that.

But dude. The writing needs to start elbowing back.