For years I longed to be alone. I was in a loveless marriage, feeling like my life had been reduced to slavery. Punching the clock, trying to fulfill everyone else's needs, losing sight of my own. Till I couldn't do it anymore. I missed who I had once been, before I was defined by all the detritus of adulthood. When I got my wish, as these things always go, I missed all the clutter that padded and protected me from the rocky road of solitude. My journey became dark and treacherous when I was finally alone. I'm still struggling with how to navigate this unfamiliar path.
Today I woke to the usual cries from my needy cat. I scolded myself in my mind for spoiling her, and for rewarding her demands with almost constant affection. It was still dark outside, and I debated taking some ibuprofen. Headaches had plagued me all week, and trying to fight it seemed futile, but I swallowed the pills with the foul-tasting water from the faucet. I pulled my hair back, threw on a fleece shirt, and walked out the back stairs to grab a coffee to further medicate myself. It was so gray and dreary, quiet, still...and without thinking, I exited the store with my warm drink and walked toward the clouds, in the direction of the rising sun, which I scarcely believed was somehow rising behind that colorless curtain.
My walk took me past my old therapist's office. Past the blackened snow piles at the fire station. Down the street where I used to catch crickets to feed my lizards. Like a nostalgic scene in a movie, my mind's eye obscured the generic beige town homes, and in their place I could envision the untamed grassy plot that used to surround the old greenhouses where flowers and onions were grown for a hundred years as the town took root.
Past Mayren's beautiful bungalow...I was fairly sure I saw Mayren jogging up the stairs in a long night shirt, stopping abruptly as if she recognized me. I walked up Milburn, then back down Evergreen, admiring the holiday decorations that lingered in the fog. I wondered why that foreclosed house was empty, and why the fog was so much thicker in that backyard.
I said hello to a woman, same age as my mom, who was pulling the leash of her stubborn husky who wanted to sniff around the electrical pole some more. I realized I was the only person walking without a dog this morning. Maybe I need a dog, I thought. I made my way to the playground where I spent countless afternoons as a kid. I thought about the day we packed up the Feigns' cats in the Burley trailer and walked them to this park, how our kids laughed and rolled around in the grass in their pajamas in the setting sun, the day before our family trip to Colorado. I plucked a needle from a pine that sparkled with water droplets, and ground it between my fingers so I could smell the winters of my childhood. The last bit of thawing snow crunched under my feet. The grass poked up bright green through the slushy ice. It had been preserved like a salad bar garnish since the warm spell before Christmas. I left the park and passed the church where a year ago I attended a group therapy session for families of addicts. How open my eyes had been that day.
The snow that had been piled next to sidewalks and driveways was shrinking, twisting, growing black sooty stubble. I sought out the formations that looked like black and white renderings of the hoodoos I saw in southern Utah. I saw one that was a perfect little arch. Just big enough for a cicada to walk through. I bent down to get a better look, and I uttered a little "huh," like I would if I was about to point it out to my companion.
And just then, I didn't feel alone. This little nature walk was all for me. The surprises were my own, not for anyone else to notice. My imagination, swollen with sweet lingering memories, was doing cartwheels, soaring high over the earth, dancing freely, singing answers to my questions, holding both my hands and swinging me like a child over the cracks in the sidewalk.
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