Today, and Yesterday
There are days when I can see clearly and days when I cannot.
And anyway, nothing is there, and nothing is not there. I said this all in a very long train. The train was not really a train. It was more like a bus. There were wheels. Nobody has been believing me lately.
Believing things takes leaps, and leaps are for people suspected of taking. There is nothing to take anymore. All the things to take are behind this heavy plexiglass—for example, apples. Apples are the food to take at the grocery store because they are fiber-rich and vaguely breast-shaped (they do fit well).
However, they’ve been waxed and are now behind glass. Which, in my personal opinion, ruins the taste. What I have been accused of is:
being very dramatic.
So I’ve said to others when they say things like, “that’s very dramatic,” I say, “let’s do other things.” We do not always do those things, but still, there’s that weight to it. The other things could be talking to children at the playground, renouncing our affiliations, or standing in line and not going in. the not going. Sometimes I plan to go somewhere, like church. I like to wait in line. I like to stand in the communion line. I like to watch people in the communion line filing in and out. in and out. I like to cup my hands once and walk towards the door. I like to watch their bodies swell the pews. My body is that standing one. And usually, they are sitting. Then I leave. What matters is that I went, not that I stayed.
So, there is no point.
No-one is ever really noticing. When I leave, they are thinking of bread. And the bread is that white round bread, which is sugar. And sugar is also white, but also not bread. They are all thinking this thought. And they are not noticing the cupping or the leaving. Or if they are, they are not saying.
The other choice is the children. And the watching of them. They notice that I’m noticing them. Children are more aware of that. Since they are shorter, they notice everyone looking down. Unless, of course, they are a very tall child. In which case, they’d be noticing everyone noticing them.
I don’t do this like a voyeur. Nor is it odd. I am old, so people assume that I am, which is not true. This feels like a lie. The standing there is more like this: once I was there and then I was not. And the children notice this. The earlier you realize, that-the smoother the day. And I will do anything to make anyone’s day smoother. I am pretty good at ironing.
Once I loudly announced that I was a communist. This was humorous to those around me because I enjoyed having multiple boxes of breakfast cereal open at once. Usually, I did not even finish the Raisin-Bran. Now everything is glassed, and it’s one per customer. But still, not everyone is a Marxist. Which, I think, proves something.
My daughter says, let’s go overhear and talk.
Mom, it’s not like that. It’s not like this.
She wears these curtains on her head. All of them do. Is it difficult to see?
Mom, it’s not a hat. It’s a had.
They were in fashion once. I tell her about the importance of this.
The importance is this.
She gives me these numbers to put on the fridge. What does it matter? I can’t take them. I can’t take anything anymore. So what does it matter? It’s not that I don’t feel old. I feel old enough for sex. Finally, I do. And now, no one will touch me. When I was born, my mother was a virgin. When my daughter was born, I was not a virgin, but I had not yet had sex. I told her it’s okay to lie sometimes.
At the hairdressers, everything smelled like pine needles. And I asked, “did someone die here?” No, no one died. They did.
I get my haircut somewhere else now.
Kelly Blane is a graduate of the University of Connecticut’s creative writing program. She is the recipient of the Aetna Children’s Literature Award and Jennie Hackman Memorial Fiction Prize. Currently, she serves as a poetry editor of the Aurora Journal, an eco-feminist literary magazine.