Days

"It was a morning like other mornings and yet perfect among mornings."

-- The Pearl, by John Steinbeck

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My mornings are slow to start, gradual awakenings like a tide or early Windows boot-ups. Ajax is the usual catalyst, gnawing at my laundry basket in search of delicious socks to rip, or burrowing into my blankets in search of the same. He shocks me out of dozing with his stupid cuteness. It's always just in time for lunch, too, and I roll off my pillow with a poofy bedhead and strange images in my head, faded Polaroids of my dreams.

Dreams, by the bye, have been wonky: full of zest, exotic colors, parades, and a healthy dose of Eros, mixes of textbook plot twists, jolly deus ex machinas, sensors and feelers haywire at home. Sleep has become my artistic outlet--sleep, and this blog.

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Never before have I written letters by hand and mailed them every day. But I do it now, happily, as naturally as peeling oranges or tying a half-Windsor. I do all this each day: I write my heart in looping script, etch something new on the cover of these blank white cards, stamp the envelopes, add the same addresses, walk a block to the silver box with the horizontal slot. I'm sending hugs thousands of miles eastward to the girl with swimming pool eyes, reaching into clouds to stroke Celtic golden hair, remembering lotion scents and quiet smiles, the sizzle of holding hands. That prompts me to write to her, to draw for her, to open up and whisper with my pen.

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My mom started work at a local optometry shop yesterday. She thrived on the challenge, never having worked on eyesight before, and loved the towers of illuminated frames and the educated gossip, eye-doctor lingo, the white coats and promise of nameplates and parking spaces. But her heart, she says, is a mother's heart, one that returns to her children and loathes the work that takes her from her home. "I look at women with careers and children, and I think, I can do that, too, I want to be like that," she says. "But when I can't make dinner for my family and we have to go to fast-food, I feel awful. When the house is a mess, I don't want to leave until it's clean. What career can I have? Dad is okay with whatever I want to do, as long as it makes me happy." She frowns at a spot on the wall, her eyes damp, her fingers absently touching her eyebrow. "I guess that's what I'll do for now."

She quit her job today.

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I realize that I don't know the answer to most of the things I wonder about during a day. My mom says that's what life is: a collection of days when you ask a million questions and get one, maybe two, answers per day. "Ever since I can remember, I've never had time to think. Trying to find out my purpose is something I don't do. If I'm going to go to school, what do I see myself taking? I've been asking myself a lot of these questions lately. I don't know. I don't know if that's funny, or ridiculous. Nothing sounds right. Earlier today, I made up my mind that I'm going to quit my job because I want to be here. That's one less thing to worry about. That's what I should do. A week from now, I'll see people with careers and families, and I'll think, 'I'm just staying at home: wasting away. I know I can have a career, and I have to prove that to myself.' I guess because all I see is me, sitting at home. I have to constantly remind myself that I made this decision, and this is why."

Touche, mother mine. I think she's coming around to existentialism via post-feminist social theory.

Or maybe, two of her children are moving away this month. A nest that is usually full is losing 2/3 its contents. Such questions and concerns are contagious: I now feel kind of bad about moving away.

I have to constantly remind myself that I made this decision, and this is why.