It is late. It is well past midnight. I feel the crisp night air brush against my skin as if being pulsated by the chorus of crickets… chirping in tiny gulps of the same cool air and escaping in a whistle like sound, ringing in my ears.
I ought to be in bed. Curled up like a cacoon around my daughter. Instead, restless with a voice and story that wont quite leave my head, I came outside.
My house is quiet, my boys are finally sleeping sound in their beds in the other room. My daughter in my room, probably clutching my warm pillow, lulled by my familiar scent that lingers when I leave our bed.
Like a ninja I creep through the dark hallway, tiptoeing over the wreckage my toddler made today. Curious to see if I can find a moment or two, maybe three just for me.
Another sound joins in natures orchestra in the cool breeze. A cat meows, as if calling for me on the other side of the wooden lattice fence. The fence that shields my small patch of yard from the intrusive eyes always lurking on this dead end street.
Two years ago, today, my mother was all alone and hurt. How many hours she laid there calling for me I do not know. If she even did, that I do not know. The pain and terror suffered, I am quite certain. Had I been a better daughter, she wouldn’t have died, I am convinced.
Though the enormous weight guilt embodies is not an item I often carry, for it only fits in a particular luggage that is best suited for travel.
Traveling far and fast and without destination only to escape the pain guilt brings, of course in said luggage you pack for the trip is a kind of self torture and insanity best experienced once and quickly analyzed for the lesson it really is.
Or it will eat you up, if it doesn’t haunt you to suicide. I almost fell for that one, taking my own life. I know that is not my purpose to be a waste or be a miracle from a man and womans extraordinary lives all wasted in vain.
No. Sleeping beauty did wake up, and if for nothing other than a certain ghost intervening slightly with a nudge of a bottle a couple inches beyond my reach, I did not leave this world.
I have only told 2 other souls about mothers day of last year. I carry a handbag full of that shame still. I know. Just put it down. Leave it behind and live you are thinking. But it is my life to live and my path I travel as each one of you it ultimately is a solitary one in my opinion.
I know whats in that little handbag and it is ok for now, as I don’t think I will soon forget it needs to be throroughly inspected before it goes out to the trash.
These late night moments where I sometimes find a little me in the dark, are a goldmine of self discovery when my creative conciousness is not obstructed with the dreaded writers block.
I say Im a little bit wiser, a tad more healed and my eyes heavy with sleep beckoning me back inside. Im left feeling accomplished.
Maybe when I wake up, that pesky writers block will have been cleared so I may continue on with my story and find that voice always nagging in the back of my mind.
Til then, Im off to see the “sandman” my daddy used to always say 😉


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