little drop of water

river woke up the other morning saying he was a drop of water. it was still dark outside the window shade and we were trying to spy on the neighbor’s cats that have found sanctuary in our backyard. “this little drop of water is sad” he says, pointing to his chest with one hand and wiping his eye with the other. he is still between dreamland and wakefulness.

“i was born sad” he tells me and i hug him so tight because i know. and that one sentence hurls me back through space to his birth. to the hour following his birth and the screaming that ensued. the sadness and chaos and finally the calm. yes, he was born sad. yes, i know this to be true. and i hug him so tight, this little drop of water who i call river.

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i am spilling over onto everyone i meet today. i am 60% water but today my vessel is leaking. i slosh onto shoulders of friends with big tears. it’s too early in the morning. i am overcome. i am pushed down hard onto concrete. i am road rash on soft skin. i dont’ think i can do this.

no offense to you, the ‘96 honda civic with 137K miles. it’s not about the car.  today it’s about the grey oppressive sky threatening rain.  the barometric pressure my body reads as emotion. today my emotion controls the weather. we go from stormy to blue sky to humidity to flood. 

today it’s about the apparent demotion. the removal of the title ‘wife’. and so the spoiled brat in me questions, ‘really? this? this piece of shit car with the broken door handles is the place i’ve landed? how did this happen?’ my world is being rocked and it’s beginning with the car.

the morning starts out well until the minute i sit in the car. this is the first one i’ve found. i put my hand on her steering wheel and i’m suddenly overwhelmed by her life. i’m thrown down hard by the collision of my life with hers. her grime. her single motherhood. her baby’s birth certificate floating around the mess and dirt of her piece of shit car. the piece of shit car i am test driving because i need a car. her life reaches up through the floorboards and slides into my shoes. i don’t want it there. it reaches up with bony fingers through the steering wheel and locks hands with me. ‘let go! i don’t want this!’ i am overcome by emotion, i am driving but i feel like a moth flying to flame. circling. circling like a confused being of light wondering which way is up, and how the fuck do i get there and away from here?

we are not yet two miles from her driveway and river wonders aloud from the backseat “momma, are you feeling ok?” i can’t stop the tears. the choked down tears i try to hide from him, but he is like me, he senses them rising. he sees the hand lift to forehead in that way of hiding, in that way of holding back. “i guess i’m not feeling ok. i guess i’m sad.” he wonders about this and i wonder how to explain it to him. how to simplify, how to condense, how to be true but not real with the heavy weight i’m carrying.

my life in metaphors comes from mothering a sensitive child. my life in metaphors comes from sharing the truth in a way that is vague unless you can be present to feel. this is how we talk. “i guess i’m sad about my broken subaru” i finally tell him. which is true. but it’s not about the car. it’s not about the many cars i am test driving today. it’s about life leading up to this point. it’s about life driving away from this place.

when we arrive at the garage, i spill over onto him with my red blotchy face and puffy eyes. he, the dad husband grandfather business owner with gloved hands as he checks the fluids and dip stick. he does this for free because i don’t know why. because he gave my subaru its death certificate? he laughs because i call so often with many questions about uncharted waters. he laughs because i just keep driving cars to his garage without appointments because i simply don’t know what else to do. he laughs because it’s his smoke break and he comes over for another look… “oh god no, this is bad, this shouldn’t be throwing up coolant like this! and look at this! no no no. bring me another one!” he laughs in a way that a sixty year old kind hearted julius cesaer would have laughed when refusing a plate of grapes before crying out ‘et tu brute?’ he laughs in a fatherly way, “bring me another one” he says, and i do, again and again.

it becomes funny, this dark comedy. and i laugh too because i have nothing left but my gut instinct. my internal alarm which is flashing bright red lights, bigger than any check engine light on a 1990’s model mid-size car. i laugh because there’s nothing else for me to do but keep moving forward. how interesting this must look from the outside. seeing me fumble with my eyes closed, with my arms outstretched. feeling, finding the wall and following it, seeing with my heart and finally trusting myself again, as if for the first time.

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that me is a very different me who sits now eating crab rangoons with my son. a favorite restaurant in south austin that i never go to because i’m never this far south. but i am today because this is where all the used cars seem to be. river does downward dog on the bench beside me and i think of how often i came here when i was pregnant. when my world was very different. i loved the crab cheese wontons. and river does too, he must have gotten a liking for them while in my womb, we can hardly share a plate.

this is life because it’s ugly and messy and real. because it’s smeared with cream cheese and chased with pink lemonade. this is life in all it’s glory, minute by minute. it’s crazy and fucked up but it’s okay because it won’t always be this way.

i let him pick his fortune cookie and he also picks one for me. i unwrap them and he cracks his open, handing me the paper from inside. his reads: “in order to take, one must first give.” he nods his head in agreement while he crunches on cookie. i crack open my fortune and read it aloud: “do what you love and the necessary resources will follow.”

today it rains and storms and finally passes. today i will collect my tears like raindrops and learn to see them as a thing of beauty. today i will do what i love and trust that life will fall into place.