Last year at this time
Quick memory:
It had only been a few days since Chris had cut off contact for good. I remember the smells. The smells! The ammonia in my hair from the brown dye, the gooey hospital smell of the ointment I had to put on my tattoos, the metallic nervousness of my anxious German Shepherd who drove us both crazy with her pacing and her constant whimpering. She would circle the house at night, moaning and of course I couldn’t sleep. In the mornings I sat at a table at Ginkgo and wrote letters on a yellow legal pad, and there were smells there, too – dusty ancient shop smells, the sweet cream of the Thai coffee, the buttery old croissant I ordered each day and ate exactly half of. I did not eat then and my bones were everywhere.
I remember the not eating: I drank coffee and I ate the stale croissant and then I would eat a piece of bread before bed. I had no interest in food, which I understood was a sign of depression, but I’d been depressed before and had never lost my appetite. It fascinated me, and the part of me that wasn’t destroyed examined this scientifically. I recorded my calories on a program on my computer. 500 in every day. Much more out because I walked miles with my dog, in circles around the neighborhood in the cold. It was fall and the air was cold and clean, like white sheets just slept in.
She was anxious, jumpy and prone to whining if she didn’t get a walk, so we walked through the leaves, past the houses with the Obama signs, past the elementary school with the loud kids, through the park that had stone tablets informing you of all the tree and flowers names in the garden and back to my house, which was empty and boxed up. My coat was blue and from the thrift store and the zipper was broken. My mouth smelled like old tears because I was crying a lot, and I smelled like my dad (flannel shirts and Listerine), who was visiting because they were both worried about me. I don’t remember what I was doing during the day besides going to Ginkgo and walking my dog and crying. I was working, but I worked from home and my life had narrowed to a very dark tunnel of events
My bed was stuffed in a corner. I’d rearranged the room when he left, had moved furniture eight times my size out of sheer will. Everything was a mess; cleaning up seemed stupid when it wasn’t my home anymore. I don’t remember what I wore to bed. I don’t remember how I slept. But I did, sometimes. I slept a lot. Or I didn’t sleep at all.
At one point my dad made a burgundy beef stew – from scratch, no recipe – and it lingered on the stove all day. He was a wonderful cook, though he didn’t cook much. I came home from a meeting and sat at the dining room table, and he put the stew in front of me and I ate it all. It was the best thing I’d ever tasted and it swirled around in my mouth hot and salty and I swallowed every single bite. And the next day I looked for apartments.
What I thought I would remember from this would be my interactions with Chris, how insane they were – truly twisted and chaotic and permanently damaging to us. But I only remember the times when I was alone and gritty, not the times when I was panicked and hysterical. I remember the times when I was stone, steeling myself as if holding a coat closed against a cold wind. The nights when I walked the dog in circles, when I drank that coffee, when I wrote those letters, when I sat in the same coffee shop at closing, ordering soup I didn’t eat, applying for jobs in California. The baristas knew me by name, they were used to the bony brunette with the yellow paper half-weeping in the corner over her Thai coffee. I still go to that coffee shop, though I’ve long since moved away. My hair is long and naturally red again, and I’ve put on more weight than I lost before. My order is the same, but they don’t recognize me and I’m grateful.
Posted by: Zosia | 10-14-2009 | 11:10 PM
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