The Worst of Sounds

I can hear it now.

The sound of my old roommate’s cat slurping water with her tiny, scratchy, leaf-like tongue.

And immediately, a look of disgust forms below my hairline.

My face wrinkles up like a comeback scrunchy. 

It is forever and always the worst sound of all sounds. 

Could it be that I simply had a very complicated relationship with that cat?

One that has involved too many scratches on my arms,

A headache-type ringing to my ears.

And an after-hours search party when she “mistakenly” slid out the back door,

Just seconds after I desperately peeled the door back with only 500 hanging items off my arms and an already spilled cup of coffee.

Why on earth did the cat need to slurp her way to Timbuktu right next to the dinner table where I would be eating food that I had been waiting for and daydreaming about all day?

All.Day. 

I couldn’t do it.

I can’t do it.

I will never do it.

I refused to spend my rent that way, sharing dinner with a slip-slop-slurpery, evil cat.

My food already cold in my hands,

I stormed off to my room.

But really...

I think the cat won that day.

And she knows it. 

An Invitation and a Walk.

Today Phyllis and I walked gravel, and then dirt, and then gravel again- in a loop.

“Want to do one more?” she asked whenever we neared the polished Ranch dressing-white fence with the megabus suburban white cars behind it.

The parking lot that, if we allowed it, bookmarked the end of our time together under this perfect patch of October sky.

 

I forget every year how pretty the fall is. 

It surprises me each October at every first chill, every first pumpkin sighting in the neighborhood or the tiniest first speck of yellow in a leaf.

Phyllis asked me this easy question like we had known each other much longer than two whole weeks. The question rolled off her tongue like a neighbor who casually locked you in to a conversation you could trust, a conversation you actually cared about. Not about the weather or the trash guy getting sloppy on his pickups, but about a favorite book or artist. It was a warm invitation that said she appreciated me, or at least it seemed that way.

 

Here’s the thing-

When Phyllis asked me to go on a walk today,

I literally hop-skipped out of the house.

I couldn’t help it.

She was and is my first friend here.

In a new town, a completely new season.

 

When I walked up to her car after first arriving to the park today,

she spilled into conversation like water.

Clear, soft, smooth.

 

You know, I didn’t know how bad I needed this-

A friend.

A girl friend.

A 63-year-old hilarious coworker now girlfriend that begins stories and statements with “Honey” and talks about Chattanooga like you wouldn’t believe. She knows back stories upon back stories of all people, places, and things here.

 

“Yes, I can do one more loop,” I kept hearing myself say, each time a bit less shy.

And I pray the loops would keep coming.

That's All You Knew.

I remember that one night.

I was in my front yard.

And it was dark outside, the darkest black dress my street had worn as long as I had known her.

 

It was one of those summer nights where I was pretending.

I was pretending to be okay,

Like I have been known to do.

(You know, when movements get compact, sticky... insignificant).

And I shrink in every way I know how.

That was the summer I worked with lots of teens- too many teens.

I taught yoga in hot rooms all over the city.

I babysat in fancy East Nashville homes and got way too used to smelling another woman’s breast milk.

And I was just plain anxious.

  

Anxiously waiting,

Anxiously guessing,

Anxiously moving,

Anxiously driving,

Anxiously knowing, and then... not knowing.

Avoiding the Truth, altogether.

I was living a lie,

Anxiously.

 

But on that oddly cool June night,

I don’t know what prompted me...

Perhaps out of habit, I looked up.

And I saw you.

 

I felt your weight- the part of your weight I could handle, anyway.

I felt your presence behind my knees,

At the tips of my fingers,

In the dryness of my throat.

And you stopped me.

You held me- the sky, the world.

Just watching, silently.

All you knew to do for me was watch.

That's all you knew.

But it was everything.

And all I knew to do was the next small thing, the next barefoot step toward my garden, my too-often-forgotten summer chore.

 

You tasted my sadness.

Sadness feels like too weak of a word, actually.

More like a paralysis of sorts.

I didn’t have the strength to make the hard decisions, to do the hard things.

All I know was that my plants needed water,

And that you were watching.

God Bless Y'all.

 My cousin owns a store called The Wrinkled Egg. 

I remember when I first heard the name.

I can’t remember the story behind the name-

I know there was one.

 

We were all at either Applebee’s or Ruby Tuesdays, 

My memory merges those two place together often… I can’t help it. 

It was the 90's and these two ruled the town.

We were all piled up in a booth, and yes we are all family, but there were officially and confidentially too many small and big pairs of hips sticking to each other.

I remember that part too.

 

My cousin told us all about the store, 

That she was starting it, that she named it, that she lived down the street from it.

Before I knew it, I was holding a brochure.

It was a trifold- a silky, orangish-reddish kind of thing that felt good to slide through my fingers.

I think I was somewhere close to 10, but that’s also the age I offer to myself when memory gets muggy.

 

If the same someone lingered at all my stories, they would have thought I must have hit the jackpot of life at age 10- all the people I met, decisions I made….

 

Anyway, I didn’t really understand the store or why she was doing it all.

It felt a little risky to me, but I do remember thinking,

“Man, she’s cool.”

 

My horse-loving, church league basketball playing, “Can we order more cheese sticks and Sprite?” self, thought she had all and every bit of her life together.

 

Her name?

Virginia.

 

Her store is still standing, thriving actually, on the edge of Asheville, North Carolina.

And she still is one of my coolest cousins.

 

During this new normal of Pandemic Times, 

I am on a handful of group texts, one of them including Virginia and other cousins and aunts and uncles across Alabama, Florida, North Carolina, California, and Tennessee.

 

“This thing is getting more and more serious, but don’t panic,” my dad preaches.

He is always the self-proclaimed preacher with text typos running through his words like tangles at the back of a little girl’s head before bedtime.

 

“Be sure to thank those in the medical field,” my cousin George chimed in.

 

“Well, I still have the store open.. and I just went and bought some extra hay for our horses to support the other small business down the road.”

(This was Virginia).

 

So much has changed even since that group text exchange at the middle of last week. 

 

“Here, watch this video to understand the spread of the virus.”
That was Aunt Wanda.

In a different group text with her husband and me (officially Uncle Frank), sweet and soft-voice Wanda would get a bit political.

But not here.

She knew her complicated audience-

(Extended) Family.

 

“God Bless Y’all.”

That was Aunt Cathy.

She never had much to say beyond blessings. 

It Was Just Us.

 We were in Florence. 

My mom and I were not used to spending this much time together.

None of the other mother-daughter combos with the twangy 

and sometimes embarrassing “We’re from the Deep-South and we know it” accents 

had invited us to dinner. 

It was just us, 

Again.

 

My mom was tired of all the walking, and I was tired of all the Trump-talk and the, 

“Oh, we’re saving this special handmade Italian lace for her wedding” talk on the bus.

Like that was the only thing that mattered in a girl’s life.

Waiting for a wedding.

 

How did I end up… here?

With all of these strangers, on a boxy and uncomfortable, loud tourist-shouting bus in Italy? (I wouldn’t necessarily say this is how I prefer to travel).

 

And what would I tell myself now, three years later?

You really don’t get trips like this with your mom.

Put your phone down- he’s not going to last, and he’s desperate.

You will soon tell all of your friends and every person that begins to say the word Italy,

that this was the best meal you’ve ever had in your life.

 

Creamy, rich pasta with deep maroon, stain-threatening, 

“It’s okay, I’m on vacation and I’m walking home anyway” red wine,

And Mom.

 

Your mom is here,

Your mom is perfect.

 

 

 

Our Sky Angel

“What does this door go to?”

 

A very innocent and common question, usually asked from a friend or a cousin or a babysitter as they eagerly and questioningly stood in the corner of my green and pink, wallpapery room

 

The door was ice cream-white but disguised with animal stickers, then later, lots and lots of photos.

These photos were tiny snapshots of a special moment at a friend’s birthday party or a sweaty, slow day at summer camp.

But either way, there were enough layered years of sticky things against that poor door that my dad would get annoyingly frustrated.

 

“This will tear off the paint,” he scolded, and I would rebelliously roll my eyes or turn a shoulder and ignore the very words that, quite literally, just filled up our space.

Like his “Debby Downer” comment never even happened. 

 

Anyway, the door.

What does it go to?

 

“The attic,” I answered back in a mature, sophisticated manner.

I usually opened the magical, mysterious door like a proud mother showing off never-ending “Why does she keep showing me these?” pictures of her new baby.

 

There was the nearly life-size dollhouse in the corner that my parents picked up in Mentone.

It was made to look just like our house at the time, green shutters and all.

 

And of course, the glow-in-the-dark stars forever pressed against the ceiling.

(Those stars decorated the exact place that my 6^thgrade best friend Caroline taught me how to put a bra on with the snaps in the front, right above my belly button, instead of blindly twisting and turning for an hour and a half to hear that final click of a snap behind me). 

 

There were my horse ribbons mounted and showcased so elegantly against the chalkboard at the back of the attic, ribbons from hunter jumper extravaganzas all across the hot, sticky state of Alabama.

 

And don’t forget the forgotten dusty drawers of my oldest brother’s basketball cards, neatly rubberbanded and stacked. 

There were so many of them, they were bound to outweigh the dresser they lived in.

 

Oh, and the old Barbie and Ken playsets up against the leaning-left “Don’t hit your head on the ceiling” corner.

 

The attic was my favorite hideaway as a kid with the same ice cream-white walls and ceiling as the door that led to its concealed quarters. 

This top-secret space was like my very own version of a glamorous, grownup studio apartment in the city.

A treehouse loft somewhere far and fancy like Birmingham, with its wood floors and perfect rectangular sky window.

 

This dreamlike window was a shared eye into the outside world-

Sometimes I borrowed the eye to look at the Sky, 

And sometimes she borrowed the eye to look at me. 

 

And I wonder, Was this where I fell in love with the color blue?

Our Sky Angel, 

She held us.

She watched our games and listened to our songs and giggles like they were her own.

 

She knew us, 

She knew me.

 

 

 

 

 

Time-Stopping Days.

I miss holding Caroline’s hand.

Always warm, sometimes sticky.

And little.

So little.

It was a part-time job.

Sometimes I think of Caroline,

And I feel a brick stack of guilt in my lower belly.

I was distracted.

Lists of chores scrolling down my head, like movie credits, tiny white-print scribbles against a backdrop of midnight black.

See, I was afraid I would forget something, and the list was my anchor-

Or so it seemed.

Sometimes, lots of times,

I was on the phone in the car a whole 40 minutes home,

Sometimes longer with traffic.

Caroline would cry every once in a while, like an alarm reminding me I wasn’t paying attention.

I would eventually hang up.

Those moments add to my ever-growing brick stack.

This time last year on our drive I would say,

“Caroline, should we count the purple trees?”

I hope she still counts them in April,

And I hope I am more present in the car next time.

No matter how much I try to wash my car, Caroline’s fingerprints are still there at the edge of the back door on the passenger side.

These were probably from the moments she waited for me to quickly, sometimes frantically, unlock the door and get her car seat settled.

And let me tell you, dealing with the car seat alone will make anyone with a brain hesitant to pursue becoming a parent- It’s impossible.

But let me tell you something else- 

If I’m being honest, I don’t want her fingerprints to be erased. 

Not yet.

Will I be a distracted parent?

You know, if I ever do have kids?

Will I forget to count the purple trees in April and sing even when I don’t want to and get off my damn phone?

My mom was distracted often, you know, with adult stuff.

We are close, and I forgive her.

We have always been close.

But I remember feeling anxious with her sometimes.

Like she was in a hurry.

She was always in a hurry, it seemed.

Perhaps in the same way I could be with Caroline in the car ride home.

But also, I remember this:

The many, many mornings I would practice my singing voice with Mom before she dropped me off at school.

Those were my favorite moments with her.

Me leaning forward toward the edge of my seat, so focused on the sound of my voice and desperate to hear her feedback after each song. 

Was I getting better?

No one was rushed, it seemed, those mornings.

And the best part?

It was just me and Mom because my brothers could drive at that point and they went to another boring building for their school.

One day Mom told me that she shared with the women at her Bible Study that those were her favorite moments with me too. 

When I would sing us all the way to school.

Time stopped on those Alabama roads, 

It just did.

I pray for more time-stopping days, always.