Ah, so that's what the days are for
Sunday
I have never seen black so sweetly dark, so mysterious as I glance out my window and see nothing but the many yellow heads of the flames. They reflect like wispy mirages that enlarge the room deep into the darkness. I look outside the balcony and see nothing, and I have never been so delighted by this. I hear the distant hissing of the cars, but I imagine I’m in the country, detached from everything, and even the light of my computer is magical, natural, organic, like that of the candles. Not all of them are white. Some are red, the deep blood red that smells of roses, and some are pumpkin orange, sultry and suggestive in their glow.
I like these moments-moments that disrupt the cool flow of time, of routine, of city life. I like this masked mystery engulfing the coordinated hours of the outside world. I love the stillness that settles when people, without the use of technology, know not what to do with themselves. There are no lamplights, no steps, and no voices to be heard outside. A leaf rustles every minute or so. The engine of a car moans as it parks in thick pitch blackness. The colliding of keys soon thereafter and then back to the uncharacteristic, uncity silence again. It is only the buildings surrounding us, like a protective halo, that have no power. Walk two blocks and you return to the city, to the mocking of daylight. I couldn’t live like this, no, the darkness would be unnerving, but the break from the light eases the tension of feeling like it’s a Sunday and that tomorrow the Monday routine returns and the absence of life is filled by the presence of too much productivity for the sake of it.
I could do this more often if I had my typewriter again. I wonder whatever became of it. My grandmother probably threw it away.
Monday
The wind racked at the building. It pushed and pushed, like the wolf, and would have brought us down, except we were wise, and inlaid the outside walls with bricks, so though it pushed, it could not heave enough breath to bring us down, but we hardly slept from the fear, and I hear that the wooden houses on the flat, sweet, green grass tumbled down, panels like cards and people like smashed figurines.
Tuesday
I read Death of the Heart and listened to the children play. They yelled and laughed and yelled some more, their voices muffled by the windows. I thought of how nice it would be to come home and run out and play. How nice it would be to do something for the sake of doing it, and not have a major plan, not think, I’ll burn some calories, or I’ll get some down time.
John and I went to bed late Monday night, midnight, and could not sleep. The heat of our bodies overcame us and our hands moved underneath the sheets like waves. We stopped. He slept. I lay awake, stickiness still between my legs, thinking of that event at my school, Take Back the Night. The title doesn’t make sense, I decided. It’s all about rape, this event, and the women and men who are afraid to go out at night for fear of predators and criminals. I thought, still full of sweat, still full of that sensual smell, that taking back the night implied we once had it. But predators go farther than our ancestors. They are the root of evolution. The root of life as it is. They do not stop. They do not just lurk. They exist so we exist. They are our human condition.
So let’s not take back something that never belonged to us, something we blot out with our sleep. Let’s take back the voice we lost to those predators. The voice that everyone tells us must be shut down, because it knows only to grieve and not to celebrate. Because only cynics celebrate losing a war. Only liars can convince themselves of that. Only sadists could ask a person who lost all sense of true desire, all sense of sexuality, all sense of what it means to lay with someone and not lose yourself, to shut up.
Wednesday
I get ready faster than usual, and so we get to the loop at the front of the school too early. We park there. We laugh at nonsense. We kiss. I tell him he’s lovely. I tell him to behave. He says I’m lovely, and that he will behave only if I do so as well. We say if the world were made just for us, we’d lie in bed for the rest of our lives holding each other, because my skin is so soft and he smells all too good. We know how romantic and silly it sounds. It makes us laugh again.
I shut the car door. He parts for work. I have a presentation to finish. We have our taxes to send. I still have the letter for our accountant. Rent was paid yesterday. I remember his question in the car, when’s Easter? because we gave up dining out for lent. I look at my calendar filled with paper due dates and appointments to meet, but it doesn’t say when Easter will come.
I have never seen black so sweetly dark, so mysterious as I glance out my window and see nothing but the many yellow heads of the flames. They reflect like wispy mirages that enlarge the room deep into the darkness. I look outside the balcony and see nothing, and I have never been so delighted by this. I hear the distant hissing of the cars, but I imagine I’m in the country, detached from everything, and even the light of my computer is magical, natural, organic, like that of the candles. Not all of them are white. Some are red, the deep blood red that smells of roses, and some are pumpkin orange, sultry and suggestive in their glow.
I like these moments-moments that disrupt the cool flow of time, of routine, of city life. I like this masked mystery engulfing the coordinated hours of the outside world. I love the stillness that settles when people, without the use of technology, know not what to do with themselves. There are no lamplights, no steps, and no voices to be heard outside. A leaf rustles every minute or so. The engine of a car moans as it parks in thick pitch blackness. The colliding of keys soon thereafter and then back to the uncharacteristic, uncity silence again. It is only the buildings surrounding us, like a protective halo, that have no power. Walk two blocks and you return to the city, to the mocking of daylight. I couldn’t live like this, no, the darkness would be unnerving, but the break from the light eases the tension of feeling like it’s a Sunday and that tomorrow the Monday routine returns and the absence of life is filled by the presence of too much productivity for the sake of it.
I could do this more often if I had my typewriter again. I wonder whatever became of it. My grandmother probably threw it away.
Monday
The wind racked at the building. It pushed and pushed, like the wolf, and would have brought us down, except we were wise, and inlaid the outside walls with bricks, so though it pushed, it could not heave enough breath to bring us down, but we hardly slept from the fear, and I hear that the wooden houses on the flat, sweet, green grass tumbled down, panels like cards and people like smashed figurines.
Tuesday
I read Death of the Heart and listened to the children play. They yelled and laughed and yelled some more, their voices muffled by the windows. I thought of how nice it would be to come home and run out and play. How nice it would be to do something for the sake of doing it, and not have a major plan, not think, I’ll burn some calories, or I’ll get some down time.
John and I went to bed late Monday night, midnight, and could not sleep. The heat of our bodies overcame us and our hands moved underneath the sheets like waves. We stopped. He slept. I lay awake, stickiness still between my legs, thinking of that event at my school, Take Back the Night. The title doesn’t make sense, I decided. It’s all about rape, this event, and the women and men who are afraid to go out at night for fear of predators and criminals. I thought, still full of sweat, still full of that sensual smell, that taking back the night implied we once had it. But predators go farther than our ancestors. They are the root of evolution. The root of life as it is. They do not stop. They do not just lurk. They exist so we exist. They are our human condition.
So let’s not take back something that never belonged to us, something we blot out with our sleep. Let’s take back the voice we lost to those predators. The voice that everyone tells us must be shut down, because it knows only to grieve and not to celebrate. Because only cynics celebrate losing a war. Only liars can convince themselves of that. Only sadists could ask a person who lost all sense of true desire, all sense of sexuality, all sense of what it means to lay with someone and not lose yourself, to shut up.
Wednesday
I get ready faster than usual, and so we get to the loop at the front of the school too early. We park there. We laugh at nonsense. We kiss. I tell him he’s lovely. I tell him to behave. He says I’m lovely, and that he will behave only if I do so as well. We say if the world were made just for us, we’d lie in bed for the rest of our lives holding each other, because my skin is so soft and he smells all too good. We know how romantic and silly it sounds. It makes us laugh again.
I shut the car door. He parts for work. I have a presentation to finish. We have our taxes to send. I still have the letter for our accountant. Rent was paid yesterday. I remember his question in the car, when’s Easter? because we gave up dining out for lent. I look at my calendar filled with paper due dates and appointments to meet, but it doesn’t say when Easter will come.