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From Anticipation...

Here comes a rare opportunity.

The house is calm and quiet. My husband is sedated and satiated by sounds and games and lights that flicker on screens. His body is stiff in the chair and he does not acknowledge me as I peek at him from behind the door. Our beloved babe is sleeping. There are no sounds of rustling or whimpering escaping from her room, only the silent hum of dreaming.

Here is a rare opportunity.
I am unnoticed. I am unneeded.

The skin of my domestic self does not shed so quickly. Responsibility clamors in my brain. The laundry is poised for washing, the dishes wait expectantly in the sink, and the unmade bed mocks me. I need to sever my household connection; abandon ship, kill the alarm, silence the sirens.

A glass of red wine, a steamy bath behind a closed door, a neglected novel ease me through my transition. The wife in me nervously poses the avoided question of intimacy with spouse. The mother in me remembers the diapers and crib sheet that need to be packaged for tomorrow’s daycare. These anxious women whisper and whine until they realize that I am slipping away from them. My thoughts are turning to ink and poetry. The sensible women no longer command the helm of my consciousness.

Finish the wine, flick the drain, dress in silk. Tiptoe past my husband, down the stairs to dark abandoned rooms. The kitchen light is harsh and painfully bright. Yet, it will have to do as my office is occupied, busy hosting bloody war games and jam sessions for pirated music.

Here is my journal. Here is my pen.
Here is myself. Here is my soul.

I was told today that I use too many adjectives and adverbs. I ponder this as I drum the cold metal tip of my pen against my soft pale pouting lip, then bow my head and start to scratch thick flowing ink across the white naked pages. Screw you. What is life without adjectives? Life. Forget Life. I want a wonderful life, and a fantastic life, a laughing, lovely, lilting life.

“Beware of sentimentality,” I am told. What? Beware of myself? My sentimental being? Do my emotions make you uncomfortable? Does my vulnerable honesty blunt the sharp edge of my intelligence? I refuse to mask my sentiment, to hide my soul behind arguments of pure logic. Where is the bravery in that?

I believe in meaning. I believe in the mystery and greatness that surpasses the obvious, the factual, the visible. Can the spiritual exist without the sentimental? Intellect is fabulous - I love it. But it is merely a piece of the whole, a piece whose value I often question.

Once, when I was feeling insecure, I took that test. The numbers reported back to me to say that I am of great intellect. That is very amusing. I, who openly bash the high honors our society awards logic, am apparently graced with an inordinately large share of it. HA! I wonder if this faculty could have been better put to use by another heart.

The logic in me, and the woman in me, they do not always get along. I would bury myself in passions and sensations and love, if only my cool, breezy intellect did not demand something more solid.
“More solid than love? Isn’t love the only real thing?” sentiment asks, aghast, while intellect merely roles her eyes and sighs impatiently.

My thoughts must rest there with the bickering spirits of sentiment and intellect. My husband is no longer distracted. The silk caught his attention. I have ceased to be unnoticed. I have ceased to be unneeded. I have ceased.

posted by Scribbler @ Sunday, May 30, 2004