It’s six days ETA. Who cares right? What kind of a rude question is that? It’s Christmas, you dolt, if anybody’s gonna care it’s now.
Which makes today awkward. Somehow I thought it was further away; that I had another week to get sorted out, to endure, to make useful. Nevertheless, I’m two days into the last week here. Sunday I fly ouf Seatac to CVG, hop around on one foot for four days, and retire with a fifth of Jack to a hotel room in Northern Kentucky. Sober up for the shuttle right? Ache through another five or six hour tin can toss back to Rainsville, and the routine.
But somehow I’m excited enough to write about it. Of course I won’t know if I was excited for the right reasons, until I come back. I suppose you would expect that kind of judgment on landing, maybe 72 hours later, maybe after 50% of the time. But I believe that a single well-done moment can redeem days of stuttering and tripping, and misplaced hands.
And I’m so known for the delayed reaction. I may be quick on the return sometimes, and yes, I talk furiously with my hands (ou’re free to forget I said that), but the real weight settles in days later. All of the eyes, all of the long explanantions, the routine speeches, the reformulations of prepared dismissals. I’ll say, “yeah it’s too much and I’m nowhere in it.” You’ll tell me that it’s been too soon, or that perhaps, in an moment of quiet retribution, you’ll remind me that I’m smart enough to have this all worked out by now.
So daily, my little life flashes before my eyes, a history of my universe. It’s a history of untraversed roads, backing off and hiding. The camouflage of hiding in the moment, because the introductory paperwork, that prenuptial construction is too confining.
It’s not confining, that’s absurd. It’s obvious that it’s supposed to be containing, but it’s too liberating, it’s a liberating mirror. I steal the liberation in a kiss, in a goodbye, in a love letter, and in the walks to the car. What I leave behind is the seal, the signature. I’ve always been embarrassed by my penmanship.
Type. So I’ll stroll through the gallery, the memorial in six days. Optimistically believing that the pictures on the walls, are actually windows. Windows that don’t open; that I’ve closed. Who knows?