Day 1
On the worst day of my life I was struck by the cruelty of how normal it all seemed. Immense tragedies should leave warped scorched earth, shifted tectonic plates, plaques, locusts and famine. I stood panting by the side of the road watching the last train of the night roll past my front yard while crickets and frogs sang out their circadian melodies.
As the cars racketed past in their distinctive rhythm I suddenly flashed on the image of myself as a small girl, standing near the tracks back home in rural Mississippi. Watching the cars pass while dreaming about the far flung places they were headed. In those days I thought just about anywhere had to be better than Toomsuba, Mississippi. Now, I think being any place, even Toomsuba, would be preferable to standing by the side of the tracks in the middle of Nowhere Virginia.
The day had started like many others, by being nudged away by some internal prompt to get up and pray before the sun came out. I’d slid silently from beneath the smooth cotton sheets, careful not to make the bed or floor creak, taking great pains to make sure I didn’t rouse my husband Michael from his slumber. He worked in the city and was chronically short on sleep.
That day I’d felt a pressing need to pray, pray hard, like I never had before so I’d taken my old Bible out onto the front porch of our farm house along with a cup of coffee. As I sipped that first reviving cup I’d read from the book of Isaiah and prayed for whatever horrible unknown thing I felt looming overhead. I couldn’t imagine what it was because my life was, if not perfect, tolerable, about as much as I could expect. I had a home, a life, a husband, a child and for those things I was grateful to the Creator that day and every day.
Only Michael rushing to dress and leave going towards the Washington airport and the challenges of another Monday jolted me from the heavenly realms I inhabited while I communed with God in the cool of the day. Michael paused only long enough to kiss my cheek as he rushed out with a cooling cup of coffee in one hand and juggling his overnight case and briefcase in the other. He had an early flight scheduled out of Reagan National Airport for Los Angeles, a business deal he was working on. Usually he’d be for his two hour trip towards his office in Washington DC and most cranky about it. I smiled, what we had between us was strong, or so I fooled myself into thinking on that day.
I sat there in the gray dawn waiting for what I did not know that morning, never dreaming that the fabric of my life was about to be shredded, pulled away like dry rotted drapery turning to dust upon touch. I’d finally stopped praying, going into our spacious kitchen to get more coffee, pack lunch for our son Jay and fix breakfast for both of us. I knew Jay slept till the absolute last second, stealing those last few moments in the grip of sweet sleep before hurrying through a shower and starting that all important task of picking out the coolest outfit in his wardrobe. Both he and his father were dandies, concerned with looking fashionable, something that had never mattered to me.
Which Jay reinforced again, making me smile, over breakfast when he’d paused in his bolting down of bacon and eggs just long enough to comment, “You’re not really going to drive me to school wearing that?” For someone only eleven he sounded closer to a dripping with sarcasm sophisticated thirty five urbanite, not a boy growing up on a small farm. I smiled, teasing him by spreading the patched skirt of my old comfortable floral printed jumper and saying, “You are aware I’m planning on picking apples and making jelly today, aren’t you? I might even start another batch of goat cheese. What do you suggest I wear? Chanel for milking the goats?”
Jay rolled his dark eyes and muttered, “Oh, mother.” before making a face and abandoning the remains of his breakfast. Neither he or Michael were very enthusiastic about anything to do with my small farmette. Jay told me on his ninth birthday that he was ‘allergic’ to the great outdoors. I knew he was joking but still, it hurt sometimes that neither had any love of our land. I sure did.
As usual Jay was nearly late for school that terrible day and he whined that he hated school as I drove him in my old Volvo station wagon. Beautiful morning, not too hot, not too cool, Indian summer weather, as we zipped along I noticed who was harvesting their hay and who still had corn standing. Blue skies, huge white cumulus clouds and sunshine so beautiful it was like a landscape painting on the joys of rural life.
The rest of that morning seems like it passed in a dream. I got home, started a load of clothes in our ancient washing machine in the basement before washing up the breakfast dishes, harvesting off the ripe tomatoes and other vegetables in our garden. By the time the clothes were in the dryer and the first load of bedding went into the washer I’d moved on to feeding the goats, getting the milking done and weeding my organic herb garden.
Michael teased me about my small farm, it was obvious I’d never make the same money he made in Washington as an attorney, but I always managed to make a tidy sum from the organic goats cheese and herbs I sold to the nearby gourmet shops in the next chi-chi town over. The difference between my small farming and Michael’s job is that I enjoyed what I did, the leisurely pace, the quiet, the calm. Michael arrived home everything moaning and complaining about everything from the traffic to the idiots he was forced to work with in the course of his duties as a lawyer dealing with a client list as varied as individuals, corporations and various government agencies.
Lately I noticed Michael had been getting ever more angry with his job, lashing out when I timidly asked him how his day was. I knew he resented the fact that I never had to leave the house even as he complained that the trains passing our house sometimes on an hourly basis were enough to drive him mad. To me they were sweet music, a reminder of my childhood.
I told myself that it was the long hours he worked, the commute, the stress of his job and I daily put Michael and our marriage into God’s hands because I couldn’t do anything else. It had started to be obvious to others outside our little family that Michael had been in a temper lately. Yesterday after church we’d attended a picnic at a nearby park and Michael had blown up discussing politics with some of the other men of our church and he’d stormed off to pace around the lake while some of the ladies had come to me asking me in whispers if everything was alright between us. Yes, yes, I’d laughed, he’s just under a lot of pressure at work, it’s nothing, I’d said. I made excuses to others and myself because I loved him.
Michael said nothing of the incident on the way home beyond mentioning that he was starting to realize what a bunch of reactionary right wing fools most of the men of Plover Creek Christian Church were. Late he rattled off a long list of reasons why he was thinking about leaving our church. I didn’t argue and I didn’t point out the obvious, that they hadn’t changed, the church and it’s people were still the same as they been ten years ago when Michael had drug a very reluctant me, backslidden Catholic girl, to all those years ago. What had happened was that I’d become a believer and Michael, well, Michael wasn’t sure any longer who or what he believed in. Many Sundays I’d spend the afternoon and evening listening to him talk about how this person had behaved like the utmost in hypocrite or how silly the sermon was.
His faith was another thing that Michael seemed to be so restless with.
Thankfully he’d recently stopping trying to turn our son Jay into an athlete. Every year from the moment Jay had been old enough to hold a football Michael had been enrolling Jay into every type of sports league you could imagine. Long frustrating hours sent trying to turn our almost delicate son, thin and asthmatic, into something he most certainly wasn’t, the champion athlete. At first Jay had gone along with it but in the last few years most practices and games were preceded with Jay bitterly arguing with his father about badly he hated all organized sports, that he’d rather stay inside and play video games.
The first time Jay yelled at his father that he wasn’t going to basketball practice and he didn’t care what he thought I’d been shocked. He used harsh words and ugly tones and I felt fear, fear at what Michael would say and do. Eventually Michael started to blame me for Jay’s refusal to have anything to do with sports, said that I had mollycoddled him, purposely turning his son into a weak mommas boy.
If it sounds hard, like I’m trying to portray Michael as a monster it’s only because one of the few ways I can stand to look back and not feel fatal heart pains is to demonize him in my own mind. I loved him and look where it got me. And I thought we were happy, well mostly happy, for all of those years.
When it was a good, it was so good. Michael certainly looked like a knight on a white horse in shining armor when I first met him. I loved him almost from the first time I laid eyes on him at a Renaissance fair in suburban Maryland.
As the cars racketed past in their distinctive rhythm I suddenly flashed on the image of myself as a small girl, standing near the tracks back home in rural Mississippi. Watching the cars pass while dreaming about the far flung places they were headed. In those days I thought just about anywhere had to be better than Toomsuba, Mississippi. Now, I think being any place, even Toomsuba, would be preferable to standing by the side of the tracks in the middle of Nowhere Virginia.
The day had started like many others, by being nudged away by some internal prompt to get up and pray before the sun came out. I’d slid silently from beneath the smooth cotton sheets, careful not to make the bed or floor creak, taking great pains to make sure I didn’t rouse my husband Michael from his slumber. He worked in the city and was chronically short on sleep.
That day I’d felt a pressing need to pray, pray hard, like I never had before so I’d taken my old Bible out onto the front porch of our farm house along with a cup of coffee. As I sipped that first reviving cup I’d read from the book of Isaiah and prayed for whatever horrible unknown thing I felt looming overhead. I couldn’t imagine what it was because my life was, if not perfect, tolerable, about as much as I could expect. I had a home, a life, a husband, a child and for those things I was grateful to the Creator that day and every day.
Only Michael rushing to dress and leave going towards the Washington airport and the challenges of another Monday jolted me from the heavenly realms I inhabited while I communed with God in the cool of the day. Michael paused only long enough to kiss my cheek as he rushed out with a cooling cup of coffee in one hand and juggling his overnight case and briefcase in the other. He had an early flight scheduled out of Reagan National Airport for Los Angeles, a business deal he was working on. Usually he’d be for his two hour trip towards his office in Washington DC and most cranky about it. I smiled, what we had between us was strong, or so I fooled myself into thinking on that day.
I sat there in the gray dawn waiting for what I did not know that morning, never dreaming that the fabric of my life was about to be shredded, pulled away like dry rotted drapery turning to dust upon touch. I’d finally stopped praying, going into our spacious kitchen to get more coffee, pack lunch for our son Jay and fix breakfast for both of us. I knew Jay slept till the absolute last second, stealing those last few moments in the grip of sweet sleep before hurrying through a shower and starting that all important task of picking out the coolest outfit in his wardrobe. Both he and his father were dandies, concerned with looking fashionable, something that had never mattered to me.
Which Jay reinforced again, making me smile, over breakfast when he’d paused in his bolting down of bacon and eggs just long enough to comment, “You’re not really going to drive me to school wearing that?” For someone only eleven he sounded closer to a dripping with sarcasm sophisticated thirty five urbanite, not a boy growing up on a small farm. I smiled, teasing him by spreading the patched skirt of my old comfortable floral printed jumper and saying, “You are aware I’m planning on picking apples and making jelly today, aren’t you? I might even start another batch of goat cheese. What do you suggest I wear? Chanel for milking the goats?”
Jay rolled his dark eyes and muttered, “Oh, mother.” before making a face and abandoning the remains of his breakfast. Neither he or Michael were very enthusiastic about anything to do with my small farmette. Jay told me on his ninth birthday that he was ‘allergic’ to the great outdoors. I knew he was joking but still, it hurt sometimes that neither had any love of our land. I sure did.
As usual Jay was nearly late for school that terrible day and he whined that he hated school as I drove him in my old Volvo station wagon. Beautiful morning, not too hot, not too cool, Indian summer weather, as we zipped along I noticed who was harvesting their hay and who still had corn standing. Blue skies, huge white cumulus clouds and sunshine so beautiful it was like a landscape painting on the joys of rural life.
The rest of that morning seems like it passed in a dream. I got home, started a load of clothes in our ancient washing machine in the basement before washing up the breakfast dishes, harvesting off the ripe tomatoes and other vegetables in our garden. By the time the clothes were in the dryer and the first load of bedding went into the washer I’d moved on to feeding the goats, getting the milking done and weeding my organic herb garden.
Michael teased me about my small farm, it was obvious I’d never make the same money he made in Washington as an attorney, but I always managed to make a tidy sum from the organic goats cheese and herbs I sold to the nearby gourmet shops in the next chi-chi town over. The difference between my small farming and Michael’s job is that I enjoyed what I did, the leisurely pace, the quiet, the calm. Michael arrived home everything moaning and complaining about everything from the traffic to the idiots he was forced to work with in the course of his duties as a lawyer dealing with a client list as varied as individuals, corporations and various government agencies.
Lately I noticed Michael had been getting ever more angry with his job, lashing out when I timidly asked him how his day was. I knew he resented the fact that I never had to leave the house even as he complained that the trains passing our house sometimes on an hourly basis were enough to drive him mad. To me they were sweet music, a reminder of my childhood.
I told myself that it was the long hours he worked, the commute, the stress of his job and I daily put Michael and our marriage into God’s hands because I couldn’t do anything else. It had started to be obvious to others outside our little family that Michael had been in a temper lately. Yesterday after church we’d attended a picnic at a nearby park and Michael had blown up discussing politics with some of the other men of our church and he’d stormed off to pace around the lake while some of the ladies had come to me asking me in whispers if everything was alright between us. Yes, yes, I’d laughed, he’s just under a lot of pressure at work, it’s nothing, I’d said. I made excuses to others and myself because I loved him.
Michael said nothing of the incident on the way home beyond mentioning that he was starting to realize what a bunch of reactionary right wing fools most of the men of Plover Creek Christian Church were. Late he rattled off a long list of reasons why he was thinking about leaving our church. I didn’t argue and I didn’t point out the obvious, that they hadn’t changed, the church and it’s people were still the same as they been ten years ago when Michael had drug a very reluctant me, backslidden Catholic girl, to all those years ago. What had happened was that I’d become a believer and Michael, well, Michael wasn’t sure any longer who or what he believed in. Many Sundays I’d spend the afternoon and evening listening to him talk about how this person had behaved like the utmost in hypocrite or how silly the sermon was.
His faith was another thing that Michael seemed to be so restless with.
Thankfully he’d recently stopping trying to turn our son Jay into an athlete. Every year from the moment Jay had been old enough to hold a football Michael had been enrolling Jay into every type of sports league you could imagine. Long frustrating hours sent trying to turn our almost delicate son, thin and asthmatic, into something he most certainly wasn’t, the champion athlete. At first Jay had gone along with it but in the last few years most practices and games were preceded with Jay bitterly arguing with his father about badly he hated all organized sports, that he’d rather stay inside and play video games.
The first time Jay yelled at his father that he wasn’t going to basketball practice and he didn’t care what he thought I’d been shocked. He used harsh words and ugly tones and I felt fear, fear at what Michael would say and do. Eventually Michael started to blame me for Jay’s refusal to have anything to do with sports, said that I had mollycoddled him, purposely turning his son into a weak mommas boy.
If it sounds hard, like I’m trying to portray Michael as a monster it’s only because one of the few ways I can stand to look back and not feel fatal heart pains is to demonize him in my own mind. I loved him and look where it got me. And I thought we were happy, well mostly happy, for all of those years.
When it was a good, it was so good. Michael certainly looked like a knight on a white horse in shining armor when I first met him. I loved him almost from the first time I laid eyes on him at a Renaissance fair in suburban Maryland.
posted by Blues In The Night | 4:48 PM
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