fill in the blank, part 1

it was such a lovely day.

that's what i remember most clearly about the before.

driving to work with my windows down on an unusually warm winter day, i sang country at the top of my lungs and believed every word.

it was a great day to be alive.

my phone rang from the passenger side and i glanced at the screen. an unknown number flashed on the front, but i answered because why not?

she was in the hospital.

dying, apparently.

i pulled into work and stared at a blue sky.

----

i used to watch her for hours when she didn’t know i was there. quiet as a mouse, small as a whisper, i would hide around corners, behind chairs, anything i could do just to watch her. if i did it just right, she never even knew i was there. 

she was so different when she was by herself. 

from her doorway, i stood watching her sitting in her bed, propped up with pillows, tucked into blankets, carefully hemming some clothes. she had nimble fingers and a creative mind that allowed her to make the best halloween witches from scraps of fabric, or angels from tea cloths. 

today, it was mundane. mending clothes. but she did it with precision. a steady hand holding a thin needle, moving swiftly and smoothly along the lines. 

i must have made a noise or a small movement, because her eyes flew up to mine. 

she smiled. i felt warm. 

“come here,” she said, and beckoned me beside her. 

i flew to her side as she moved the covers to let me snuggle next to her. 

“want to learn to sew?” she asked. 

this is what heaven feels like. 

the love of a mother.

----

he said he didn’t trust me to drive myself, so my dad drove from fort worth to waco to take me to tennessee.

to her.

i packed a small bag with a blow dryer, makeup, a few text books, pens and a random assortment of clothes.

what else, i wondered, would i need?

but i knew what else.

i knew the if.

i walked to my closet and was for once grateful for my slight OCD. my clothes hung in perfect color blocks from black to white.

i only needed the black.

----

it was supposed to have been my weekend with her. 

i'd only seen her three times in the last year since they divorced, yet her boyfriend's daughter, beth, was there every saturday. to make up for breaking my heart, she tried to bribe me by letting me name one of the kittens that had just been born at her house. 

there were three — one white with a black spot on its nose, one black with a white paw and a red tabby. she said i could pick any of them to name.

i knew she’d been drinking. her speech was slurred and her reactions were much too slow. i could almost smell the alcohol through the phone. i suppose she thought her odds were good that out of three, i wouldn’t pick the black one — the one i wanted to call moonbeam. 

but i did.

“you can’t name him,” she said. “beth named him blackie.”

blackie. ok. unoriginal and obvious, but fine.

“wait — beth is there?” i asked. “i thought you said you couldn’t get me because your car broke down.”

silence.

“it broke after we got her.”

“so, she got to see the kittens be born?” 

don’t cry. don’t cry. don’t show her that this hurts you. she doesn’t deserve to see that this hurts you.

“yeah, and she really liked blackie,” she said. “and snowball.”

“she named two of the cats?” 

i’m stuck with the tabby? she said i could name any of them, but what she meant was, i get the tabby? beth gets two, but i get the tabby.

“well, no, i named the white one,” she said. “rick calls the other one scout, but i told him that you get to name him.”

“but you said i could name any of them,” i whispered. if i spoke quietly, she wouldn’t hear me cry. 

“don’t you give me that shit, caressa,” she hissed. “it’s a damn cat. you can call it whatever the hell you want when you’re here. beth won’t always be around here when we get you and cats don’t know their fucking names anyway. it’s a cat. shit.”

----

we drove all night to get to her, stopping only for coffee, gas and restrooms along the way.

i don't know how my dad stayed awake, refusing to let me drive and insisting i get more sleep. as i laid there, tapping my fingers against the glass and staring at the ink black sky, i felt the swells of anger rise and calm within me. 

she's so dramatic.

she's just doing this for attention.

i'm going to drive all this way, i thought, get to her bedside and find her eating jello and watching daytime tv. meanwhile, i'll have missed three of my midterms and the chance to see a really cute boy in my thursday class. 

and for what? an impromptu roadtrip with my dad in the middle of february? there are better ways to get me to talk to you, mom.

fell into an orange sky

"tell me the best day of your life," he asks. and then waits. 

-----

in the dream, i drove. i got into a car and i felt the need to escape, so i drove and i drove until i remembered meeting a man who told me the best place to get away happened to be just around the corner from the road i was on. i pulled over and found myself at dusk, under a swirling, almost eerily orange/purple sky, facing the man i'd just remembered. he led me to an unusually tall, tiny room set atop wooden poles that stretched 10 stories into the sky. the wind whipped across my body, slicing me in two with its surge. i looked back at him from the porch, where he started to climb down. 

"be still. look. feel," he said. "take as long as you need. you'll know when you're done."

-----

do i go with the obvious? the "mom" answer? do i say, "of course it was when my children were born." or "it was the day i met their father (despite the later crash and burn)."

yet i am more than motherhood. so should i talk about the unexpected joy i found laughing with my mother for the first/last time? should i tell about the boldness that comes from the steady constant of my father's love?

still, he waits.

how do i answer? what is my best day?

-----

i dreamed i was losing my hair. i leaned into the mirror and saw a map of an enormous lake that rivaled an ocean in its beauty and depth on the bald spot on my scalp. along the hairline, the coast. in the dream, i knew this was a place i'd always wanted to go, but didn't know the way until i lost my hair and found the map permanently imprinted on my own body.

-----

when i feel small.

when i lie on my back, in the dead of night, with nothing but my breathing to note the passing of time while i look at the stars, feel a sense of oneness with the universe and wonder ... why? how? when? who?

when my focus becomes narrowed by the lull of the ocean, the spray of the water, the feel of the sand. when i'm grounded on earth, firmly planted and still feel ... fleeting.

a blink. a nod. smoke.

there are so many things that cause me to feel bigger than i am. more important. the chance to feel small ... to really feel the freedom of my own insignificance ... is at once frightening and calming. reassuring and sad.

but it is freedom. it is such freedom.

and if you string together the moments i've felt released, the sum might equal a day.

the best day.