The Week

Tuesday, 7/2/24

First thing I did was finish a book. I loved it so much that I left it on the patio to bake in the morning sun as if the flowers on the cover could sprout toward the sun. But don’t ask about rain. What is rain?

A groundhog visits our yard daily, scavenging the seed scattered from the above bird feeders. I put out peanuts, as well, and whoever has been enjoying the peanuts has been enjoying them then and there, leaving the shells behind. I suspect it’s not the birds, for their habit is to take one and fly away with it, littering the nearby forest floor with shells. No, someone opens the shells at the dining room table that is our yard. Groundhog, maybe. Squirrel, perhaps.

But anyway, the groundhog is wary of us humans who need to walk through that part of the yard quite regularly. Groundhog spends their time right at the threshold of our home but bumbles away into the anonymity of the jewelweed beside our shed. First, when we make eye contact, I say to them Doll, you don’t need to run off. I am simply going to walk by to get to my car because I have places to be. Most see groundhogs as pests, which is understandable. But groundhog isn’t eating my garden or destroying anything, so I think we have a peaceful coexistence. Yet, groundhog, despite my niceties, runs off into the jewelweed. I also try the tactic of not making eye contact or saying anything to them. But still they run off. Groundhog isn’t the only one we are trying to placate. When I’m watering the garden or when Brian’s watering the sunflowers at the bottom of the yard, our deer friends are often at the bottom of the yard licking salt or drinking from the bucket of water we provide (because, again, what is rain?). We know the deer are there just as well as they know we are there. The most eye-contact we make is through our peripherals. We resume watering and talking to the plants. I turn my back and rely on my imagination to see them, golden and large-eyed. They often end up looking like my dog Silas, but with hooves and nubbin antlers.

Brian headed to his parents in the Poconos for the holiday, leaving Silas and I at home. I drove Cosmo up to his work in State College and bid them both adieu. And since I was in town, I took myself to the movies to see a movie about blind aliens decimating NYC, hunting by sound. NYC on a regular basis is at a decibel of 75-80, the same amount as a low scream. Buildings collapsed and explosions terrorized the city. People were killed in the streets.

Sometimes we’re not talking about movies anymore.

I went home and my skin on my face felt prickly and spark-ly, like it was made of explosions.

Wednesday, 7/3/24

I began reading a book about the inner-eye, the imagination, specifically when reading. How when a character is introduced to the imagination, they are bits and pieces rather than a whole. They are a hand extending. They are hair being tucked behind the ear. They are a set of eyes squinting to look at a boat out on the ocean. They are, in short, movement. And when a face or body-type does materialize, is it the character’s face or body or your sister’s? Your colleague’s? Your own?

Yesterday when I came home from the movie and was alone with Silas, I told Silas that it would be just the two of us for a few days. I told him this as I watered the garden (because what is that thing called rain?). Brian usually turns the hose on and off for me, part of his love language. When I turned off the hose, I let my melodramatic imagination run away. So this is what it would be like if Brian were dead. I looked around at our yard and at peaceful Silas. My imagination continued to run away, imagining all the acts of service on my own hands. My heart pounded in imaginary loss.

I quickly got over it because I’m not so terribly insane and I love to be alone. I am fine now.

In the evening, I watched an Australian horror movie. I watch more movies (or TV in general) when Brian is away because we do not have the same taste in televised entertainment. We meet in the middle with some things, but when he is away, I take in the art-house, the horror, the suspense, the disturbing, and supernatural. I stay up late like an unsupervised child and go to bed with horrific images in my mind’s eye as if it’s my duty to the world. Like I’m the receiver from the novel The Giver.

Thursday, 7/4/24

The American flag needs to be reclaimed. As a symbol of justice and freedom, how did it become so bastardized?

After work, I got stoned and took Silas to the nearby river for no other reason but to get him out of the house he had been cooped up in all day as I worked. I followed him into the river (I still struggle with calling these skinny, shallow central Pennsylvanian rocky trickles rivers). As Silas carefully walked in the river, I weaved in and out, looking at rocks. Inebriated, every rock looked like a fossil and everything sounded like a hornet’s nest. I often stopped and stared up into the trees, looking for a nest, only to find nothing. About 100 yards upstream, I saw what looked like a piece of a Corinthian column partially buried in silt. I more easily believed that it was a part of a column before believing that it was a large fossil. I dug out the heavy thing, shocked to realize that I did unearth a large fossil. I was unable to look it up on the spot or consult my friend Steve due to all the humans at the nearby water park sucking all the internet out of the air. I carried it downstream and up to the car through stinging nettle and knotweed.

Another evening, another movie of cities being decimated. Buildings collapsed and explosions terrorized the cities. People were killed in the streets. The movie Independence Day is terribly nostalgic for me. The cadences of sound, the one-liners, the tone of Jeff Goldblum’s voice, the triumphant music, the incredibly raspy voice of that one guy. You know the guy.  Daaaaaavid!

As I reminisced with the movie, the sound turned way up so that Silas couldn’t hear the nearby fireworks at the amusement park three miles away, a guest joined me. A big brown bat flew into the living room as I just sat there, looking at them, a bowl of ice cream in my lap. In and out they flew, dining room, living room, dining room, living room. I let out a long sigh and said hello to them, which waked up Silas. I paused the movie, put my ice cream in the freezer, and called Brian. There’s a bat in the house. He didn’t know what to do or say but I wasn’t calling for guidance. I called him to invite him to what may ensue. Maybe he will hear something--definitely not the beating of the bat’s wings, which is silent. But maybe my efforts. Maybe my commentary. I put on a jacket, hat, and gloves. I got a net and waited as Bat swooped past me. They eventually landed next to Silas on the couch, where Brian would be if he were home. I briefly imagined a bat for a spouse. I imagined a belly full of lightning bugs. I imagined the lights dimming inside the stomach. I spent too long admiring Bat and they took off again, back and forth, poor thing. They eventually landed on a step and peered down at me from the edge. I was smitten and wondered if I’d just allow Bat to live with me if I lived here alone. Brian, on speaker phone, talked aloud about Terminex. I gently placed the net over Bat, who percolated with bat-sounds. I gently slid Bat onto a Cognitive Behavioral Therapy workbook and took them outside and they flew off to join the summer nocturne. Land of the free, home of the brave. Brian, relieved. Father-in-law, amused.

Friday, 7/5/24

Morning texts with Brian, who was still away:

Me: I’m going to try and want to go out tonight but I don’t know if I’ll be successful. Deep down just want to hang out on the patio tonight.

Brian: You’ll have fun once we get there. And we can have a patio night this weekend!

He was right, kind of. I did have a good time seeing friends I hadn’t seen in a while. But I don’t care for bars. I have never cared for bars. Especially now that I have a home I love and the home has its own share of alcohol, as well as good views, and a relaxing atmosphere. On top of that, I had to wake up at 4:30 the next morning to go to work. I am doing my best to be more social but I’m in the strange middle-ground of not knowing why people want to spend time with me. All these tables and I have nothing to bring to them.

Brian came home today, obviously. He is my favorite table and I bring and bring and bring.

Saturday, 7/6/24

Tired from lack of sleep. It is my Friday and my weekend has begun.

When I got home from work, we hopped into the car to scout out a sitting hole in a stream. We entered a wormhole into the woods and I wondered aloud how long the path goes. All the way to the end, Brian said, matter-of-fact, which made me laugh almost all the way to the sitting hole in the stream.

Once home, I had intentions to do many things but ended up daydreaming on the patio couch. Before I knew it, the bats were flying overhead. It must be 9:00.

Sunday, 7/7/24

A colleague texted me in the morning, asking if I wanted to join them at the nearby waterpark. Again, I just wanted to sit on my patio and slowly follow my whimsy where it led me. I had never been to the waterpark even though I live three miles away, can hear its fireworks at night, and drive past it four days a week. I told her yes.

My time at the park was a Seinfeld episode. I initially parked in one of the side parking lots and she texted No, you’ll need to come in the water park and park behind there. So, I went to the water park part and parked behind there. I saw her standing at the front of a line and joined her, because I was her buddy, which means that I get a cheaper pass because she’s a member. She introduced me to two other ladies, a little older than her. They are also veterans of this place and have their own modus operandi. They talk about how crowded the place can get and how they need to proceed in certain ways in order to get the best seats and best inner-tubes. Of course, of course I said. We finally got my pass and in we went but the gates to the fun were still closed. I saw a line of Vera Bradley-type bags at the gate. I already came in and put my bags down, my colleague said, indicating that she was first in line. We went and sat in the shade. The actual park wasn’t opening for another hour. I learned about the pizza, the Italian sub, and how there are two types of inner-tubes for the lazy river and how we need to hurry to get the good kind of inner-tube that you can lounge in. She explained the path we’d take once the gate opened so that we can set our stuff down on our lounging chairs. Instead of putting sun screen on once we’re in the gates, we’d do it now to save time. Eventually, her daughter and grandson arrived and we put on our sun screen. We eventually got in line with the Vera Bradley bags and there was a long line of people behind us. The gates opened and she encouraged her grandson to run and claim the chairs. Chairs claimed, we headed to the lazy river and we got into the special inner tubes. Don’t go that way, Sarah, or you’ll get wet, my colleague told me, warning me of surprise blasts of dumping and spurting water. But I went those ways because I wanted to get wet. I developed a strange anxiety that they were floating way ahead of me very quickly, propelled by water jets, and I was going slow. But I gave into the slowness. I rescued bugs, dead and alive, from the water. I people-watched. I pushed various icons that led to jets of water spraying other people. Next, we went to the wave pool. I had never been in a wave pool and thought that wave pools consistently had waves. But this wave pool had waves for time increments, with ten minutes between each wavy event. I enjoyed people-watching and wished the waves were more violent. After hearing that my colleague and her daughter don’t ride the water slides, I offered to go on the water slides with her grandson. I felt creepy, aware of stranger danger. Maybe this kid doesn’t want to go down a slide with this weird woman and her boobs. I was nothing but boobs in that bathing suit. But he was excited. I get nervous around kids because I know I’m kind of lame. New to this waterpark experience, I asked him to explain everything about the slides to me and he did. He shared that he hadn’t gone down one of the slides and he was scared to, so that’s the slide we went down first. We did it twice, both times my bathing suit riding up my bum. An anxious kid, he talked about whether he would jump over a gap between one platform and another for a trillion dollars without falling hundreds of feet to the ground. I told him that he would easily become a trillionaire. He can jump that gap and that one, and this one.

I had a nice time but didn’t stay long. Sundays are for Brian.

Later, Brian was upstairs and I heard him yell my name in a way that frightened me. My brain is still wired to think that people are upset with me all the time. I respond, worried, thinking to myself what did I do? What’s up there? Or did the dogs get into something? Brian then said Come up here when you get a minute. My brain couldn’t handle being surprised by something so What is it? I asked.

There’s a bat.

The relief that poured through me. I am a vessel, the bat, a cool, refreshing elixir.

Monday, 7/8/24

There is a lot of hate and dislike for summer. Give me all the cumulonimbus clouds that loom like raised dinosaur heads on the horizon. Give me all the dead gnats gathering at the corners of my eyes. Give me the sauna-hot garage, which winter does not have, where I dance with a kettlebell, beads of sweat rolling down my legs. Give me sweaty, lower back. Give me all the garden rashes on my arms and hands. Give me all the excitement of watching flowers turn into food. Give me all the river-sits even when the river is a low-pulse trickle. Give me the hot cement patio on my bare feet. Give me all the grass on my bare feet, even if its hardened and sharp from lack of rain. Give me all the thunderstorms, the lightning. Give me all the sweating after showering. Give me all the summer beers. Give me all blue-time. Give me all the noxious plants. Give me all the lightning bugs in their stuccatos and rises, all for the name of sex. Give me all the stray hairs that cling to my sweaty skin. Give me stifling. Give me storm warning. Give me blistering. Give me the relief of shade.