But what could you do? Only keep going. People kept going; they had been doing it for thousands of years. You took the kindness offered, letting it seep as far in as it could go, and the dark remaining crevices you carried around with you, knowing that over time they might change into something almost bearable.
A strange week.
On Sunday Jacob and I marked our first year of being married. I woke disoriented from a terrible dream in which I comforted Saoirse Ronan whose husband and two lovely babies had disappeared off the ship we were all on. Jacob kissed my shoulder and pulled me in, and could tell from my heartbeat that I'd had a nightmare. That's one thing about marriage: your nightmares are never yours alone to bare.
I'd written him a letter which I took out from under my pillow and gave it to him to read while I lay there, looking at him reading what I'd written the day before. Sunday mornings are so sweet - we wake up with nothing to do, but go on a walk if we want to and eat breakfast if we'd like to. Always the choice is ours. We always choose a walk and breakfast, even if it pours with rain.
We spent the day playing boardgames and drinking tea and eating ice cream in the sun. It had been a hard week before with Jacob's reports due, and it was a hard week coming up with his end of term marking and final preparations for flying to England, and this day felt like an island of joy in between. Our Sabbath.
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On Monday I went on a short morning run, which felt like freedom after period pains wracked my body in the last run I'd done on Friday. I felt strong, although I didn't push it, and I enjoyed my breakfast, graded lots of artefacts, and worked from my family's place in the afternoon next to a very sleepy Dad.
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On Tuesday I went for a haircut in the evening. I felt so happy and free on the way there, cycling in the business district past people in suits and heels while I was on my bicycle in shorts and the exercise top that Jacob bought me. In the hairdressers the stylist looked at my hair and sniffed. "You've never done anything to your hair?" he asked and I said no, I hadn't yet. "It's very plain," he said. "So boring," he later said. I sat there while he cut my hair and dried it, and curled up inside. While I cycled home I cried - plain and boring - and then cried again with frustration at how much I let myself be affected by the words of a nasty stranger.
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On Wednesday Dad prayed before dinner, unexpectedly honest and lucid: "Father, we are grateful....for this life...that is...confused." He paused, then laughed, "I don't know what to say!" We all laughed then, and I started, "For health, and strength," "and daily bread. We thank you Lord. Amen." he finished.
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This morning I got to work early and finished off Elizabeth Strout's Amy and Isabelle. I hugged the book when I finished it, and then got up to get more water. A goodreads review of the book said " I find it somewhat obscene that this was a debut." and I wholeheartedly agree.
"I should go to Mass," Dottie was saying, directing the statement to Amy, who had no idea what to saw and so only smiled back at the woman, shyly, from the other end of the couch.
"I s'pect God would rather see you eat a pancake," called out Fat Bev from the kitchen, and Isabelle had a sudden, intense desire to be Catholic.
If she were Catholic, she could kneel, kneel and bow her head inside a church with brilliant stained-glass windows and streaks of golden light falling over her. Yes, oh yes, she would kneel and stretch out her arms, holding to her Amy and Dottie and Bev. "Please, God," she would pray. (What would she pray?) She would pray, "Oh please, God. Help us to be merciful to ourselves."
I finished the book and then I read about the Texas school shooting and cried as I imagined the children and their parents trying to identify them from a line of little dead.
What the actual fuck a million times over, and which way is up and which way is down, and where are those 19 children and two teachers now, and are they at peace?
My younger son is in elementary school, like the kids in Uvalde. He’s the kind of third grader (like every third grader?) who is always wiggly. He either runs or dances down the street. He sleeps sideways in bed, head firmly off pillow. He likes jumping over the back of the sofa; he drums his fingers on the dinner table; he asks us to watch how fast he can run. I think of the Uvalde children: were they wiggling in their chairs five minutes before the shooter walked in? Were their feet kicking along to a song they were softly humming? Were they thinking about lunch? Were they writing with No. 2 pencils? Were they stacking blocks? Were they laughing? They were breathing, I know that. They were breathing and almost definitely wiggling.
After dropping my dancey little boy off at school this morning, fear in my throat, I came back and looked around the house and thought of the parents returning home alone last night. They would fumble with their keys and open the door. They would step over small sneakers, sneakers that probably had Velcro because tying shoes was still hard. They would see crayon drawings taped on the wall. Honey yogurts in the fridge. A wobbly stack of board games. A colorful toothbrush still damp from the morning. The little bed with tousled sheets and the half-full water glass on the bedside table and the fifth book the child had asked to read but it was clearly too late and they were being silly and sneaky and they needed to get sleep for the school day so they could learn and grow and laugh and play.
The gunman in Uvalde had a handgun, an AR-15 assault weapon and high capacity magazines, reports CBS News. After the rampage, among the carnage, parents had to line up to identify their dead, disfigured children. The child might be unrecognizable to everyone else — a bullet from an AR-15 creates a hole the size of an orange — but a parent would know. By their body, their hands, their look, their energy, their slouch, the way a parent knows. Maybe a scar, a birthmark. They could always look at their feet. I would know my child’s foot among a million others. I know the way his toes slant. I’ve clipped my eight-year-old’s nails every few weeks since the summer morning I pushed him out of my body and fed him from my breasts. More than 200 times, I’ve hunched over those little feet and cleaned and cut those little nails. Sometimes he would fuss, sometimes we would chat, sometimes he would watch TV and absentmindedly pat my back.
I would know. Those parents knew. (From
cupofjo)
Oh please, God. Help us to be merciful to ourselves.
