memory jog: winter/spring 2023
a flash that's been in my drafts for nearly two years
When I’m home I supplicate myself; it is a trick I can do with my eyes closed. I’m deferential in the unsalted driveway of my Grammie’s house: I skate forward with my head bowed, a spare key in my hand. With me are two suitcases, an army green backpack, and Monkey, my elderly calico who flies well but hates the car, so she’s yowling and I’m murmuring to her that she’s so brave for coming so far. I think I would do well on a self-awareness test, because I know I am really talking to myself, but I have also heard that everyone thinks they are self aware, and almost no one is. Second-guessing myself is another one of my tricks: I ruminate for so long about my own intentions that I think I must be teaching myself something. Then I write it all down and it sounds petty anyways.
My Grammie hasn’t lived here for a long time. She is “cognitively declining,” so she lives with my aunt downtown, and no one’s sure if she is sick enough to start emptying her house. I let myself in through the garage, put Monkey on the floor and unzip her carrier, then head upstairs to lay down on the bed in my aunt’s old bedroom. On the vanity there are matching pale gold brushes, combs, and hand mirrors, like a place setting, on a diaphanous little doily; things that don’t suit my coarse, messy hair, meant for an era when volume was desirable. There is nowhere to put my wad of black hair ties, my plastic pink comb. I order a pizza online, but the place calls and says they stopped taking orders at ten-thirty. I take a bath and photograph my body, post it on Instagram. I haven’t been able to eat lately, and I’m grateful at least for the dignity of being small.
In the bathroom there is the raspberry lotion that I used to rub on after the bath when I spent the night here. There’s my grandfather’s razor and a full pack of blades (he died over ten years ago); I will use these for my legs. Under the sink: ancient tampons, a body cream that claims to dissolve body fat, an unmarked water bottle full of bleach.
My mom asks about my flight and I don’t answer. I look at my last post from Hamilton: a cake with little candles shaped like beer cans—I stole these from Value Village—and the words “capricorn baby” in red lettering. I think I look good in my jeans. Good for 28.
In the morning there are doves at the window; they remind me of my Grammie’s bird chest against mine. Mourning doves, the same as pigeons but the colour of milky tea. They inspire me: I walk to Tim’s for an iced coffee, come back and build a fire, stare out at the white yard.
The missing piece, the thing I am always ashamed to be talking about but am always talking about anyways, is my anger. And my grief. I call them both “grace.” I post about Gabe on my Close Friends story; I delete it in case it makes his sister sad.
I find a freelance writing gig and work on it from my usual place at the table. The days look like this for months as the snow melts clear from the eaves in the March, April, May sun. Relatives come to pick up their share of the heirlooms. My aunt comes over and cries and says she can’t do this.
My body returns to me in drips. No one touches me for a calendar year. Eventually I get it together enough to move, then move again. It doesn’t matter where, it’s always a room in a house and I’m the body that sleeps there. I might also be the story in the body, propped up like a treasured bear on a pillow, a mannequin against a wall. Dropped off, tacked up. Or maybe I’m nothing like that.