#weird mornings

I groggily realized it was an animal, wordless, urgent. And then the cry stopped. I haven’t heard it since. I’m sipping my coffee now, and the day won’t feel normal.

I live surrounded by woods on a semi-civilized patch of lawn. It would be swallowed by the forest if I turned my back on it for a summer. I’ve lived  in some form of countryside for almost all of my 37 years. 

 Waking up is always the next greatest adventure, and this morning is ordinary and like no other. I’m awake at 7:11am - four minutes before my alarm. The other side of the bed is cold, uninhabited. A reactionary sigh wracks my entire body, sending oxygen down through my limbs and giving me the strength to swing my legs round and hop out of bed. I make sure to shut off the alarm, being considerate despite my abandonment. As I move through our new nest, the short walk-in closet hugs me close, arms of a variety of fabrics rustling near my skin to welcome me into the new day. As with every new day, I follow my code of conduct for getting dressed, which is to wear exactly that which I feel like. I rustle through drawers and flick through hangers, looking for the fabric, color, style that will grab me. Today its a vibrant green t-shirt thrifted from Frenchy’s with a comically small breast pocket made of cotton and Angora rabbit hair – it’s soft and a little too big, perfect for the morning bloat plaguing my body. I pair it with a black pair of stretchy pants, lulu lemons that I never would have been able to afford myself, but which were gifted to me by my mother-in-law. Add a purple bandana around my neck to make me feel strong. Sometimes it’s the little things.

                I drag myself down the stairs, rubbing sleep out of my eyes and then turning to rub it from Maeve’s – she’s been having goopy eyes lately in the morning; the 35$ tube of cream the length of a toothpick prescribed by the vet hasn’t helped any. I lose faith in all things unnatural or man-made daily it seems. Tomorrow I think I will try putting tea-bags on her eyes, because somehow that makes more sense. Anyways.

                I walk into my tiny kitchen – it’s almost an alcove, but everything I need is here. This is my laboratory, and I feel a surge of annoyance zap through my veins at the sight of beer bottles strewn on the counter, dirty dishes piled on top of the dishwasher. I step back into myself and think of prettier posies so that I might unthinkingly tidy the area before setting my oatmeal pot on the stovetop with its apple juice and frozen berries. I set the coffee percolating, feed the dog, write down hubby’s to-do list for the day on a bright pink notepad. I’ve offered him a deal today – one he could hardly refuse. It’s regarding a very recent and ominous problem we’ve been having. Two days previous a pair of birds flew into the picture window, messing themselves as they made impact and dying on our outdoor porch. The previous day the same occurrence happened. The offer, as it stands, is that I will deal with the dead birds outside if he concedes to do the dishes. Really, my considerateness continues to astound me, particularly when I think of how cold the right side of my bed was all night. I grab a spare compost bag, turn on the oatmeal pot and take the dog and the green compost bin under the counter outside. On the porch, I take a deep, steadying breath. At least there was a good frost overnight, I tell myself – they’ll probably feel like stiff Christmas ornaments, I delude myself. I can ignore the fact that they were once alive, I lie to myself. I put my gloved hand in the compostable plastic bag, my bagged hand on the first tiny body. It fits perfectly in the curve of my palm’s gripped hand; the feathers lie flat, sleek along the body, frosted on the tips. Like a Christmas ornament, like it was never alive. I place all four bodies in the same bag, tie a knot at the top, and grab up my compost bucket to head down to the burial site. Maeve comes along, lightening the mood with her wagging tail and Colgate smile. She pees, she poos, I dump the compost into a larger bin behind the condominium complex. I feel the weight of the bag of birds in my hand; they’re not heavy. I place them in with last night’s veggie skins and last week’s uneaten leftovers before turning to go back up to the house with Maeve, where the top of my pot is dancing and my juice is boiling. I kick off my insulated rubber boots, a good size and a half too large, and leave them on the makeshift burlap sack mat at the door. I stir in the oatmeal and some brown sugar, which I’ve somehow delusionally convinced myself is not actually that bad for me, and wait for my breakfast. Sit at my computer which is parked at the kitchen table, it blinks awake at me and starts up more efficiently that I ever could. “Hello, how are you? Here’s some e-mails for you to peruse – don’t forget you have class at 8:30am and also that you must return those books to the library. No one read your blog yesterday, you should probably update it. Have a great day.” Blink. And the pink cover snaps shuts.

We're all carrying something heavy.

Our heavy hearts, and heavy minds.

And through our heavy days, we confide in things that somehow, help us carry it all.

I want to say you make it easier.

That because of you I feel like I could carry the world on my shoulders, as long as you're there.

That because of you, a heavy heart like mine, doesn't feel so heavy.

You lift that weight off for me.