The assignment, to imitate a voice
so I read her letters to a friend
letter after letter
as dusk deepens
and white-crowned sparrows
chatter in the courtyard
and go silent
I write my little piece
into the dark
so easy to fall into her voice
familiar and dear to me
for forty-three years.
Ever since the friend who agreed to watch my cat Trair when I was away never went to feed her in my Oakland flat in 1987, I have set out a bowl or two of extra water for my cats when I’m out of town, my “talisman” water. I’ve kept this ritual up over the years since my last two cats died. I have a big round mug now, red crayon colors, wild yellow flowers, black rim. It lives beside the fridge. This morning I replenish the water. I rinse the mug, fill it close to the brim. I wipe the water from the bottom, the sides, and lower it with care to the floor in its exact spot, silent prayers for protection. Crouching beside the fresh talisman water, I catch myself in the mirror on the wall above it. I am struck by something in my face I haven’t seen of late. “Oh, there you are,” I say to my mirror self. “You’re coming back.” And with this pleased glimpse, this relief and welcome, comes grief, too, almost as if I had abandoned myself, and loneliness, as if I’d been alone all this time since I’d become sick, as if I’d left myself for lost.
I wake to a feeling in the air, an almost smell, a difference. Then I hear it through the open windows, quiet patters on my neighbor’s awning, soft rain falling. I lie on my back, early morning light, cloud light, tasting the rain, savoring, thanking. Then comes the voice in me who always wants more, who wants to hold things longer than their time. “If only it could rain all day,” it says, sotto voce. “If only I could stay home and enjoy it instead of being stuck inside the library all day, missing it.” But today I have more sense. “Shush,” I whisper back. “Hush, now,” I say. And I return to savoring, to thanking, to dancing inside to the song of this morning rain, this unlooked for gift, this happy surprise.
I cry brief tears in bed this morning, grateful for our home, the people who love me, my birds, trees, crickets, daddy long legs, squirrels, yard, the exquisite beauty and safe haven here. And I cry because I have lost touch with this, my deep gratitude, since I’ve been sick. It seems sometimes as though I am always recovering, or trying to, from grief or trauma, from illness or too much work. As though I am always trying to come back to myself in some way, to my life, to my dreams of writing and thriving. Being sick seems a little different, but in truth each kind of becoming well, or returning, comes in its own time. We can try to help the process, but we can’t orchestrate an end date. Still, I wonder how many people feel the way I do, so often trying to come home to myself. Do other people have some steady, solid, open-hearted, even-keeled way of moving through their lives? This morning, I suspect they do.
It’s a little windy out, and only 56 degrees in my trailer home, late morning. But I have my sliding glass door wide open anyway, inviting in the world. I’ve finished my chores, and I’m propped up in bed, cozy warm, watching my mountains and my bougainvillea, sipping hot spearmint tea. I’ve been sick, some lingering now in my throat, my chest, my ear. While I watch, two mockingbirds come. One lands on the edge of my neighbors’ carport. The other perches on the tip of a bougainvillea stem. I can’t tell if there’s a territory thing going on or a courting thing. Just then, while I’m enjoying these two mockingbirds and already dreaming one of them might make this their summer home for late-night singing, I hear loud unexpected song from the electric pole outside my window. It stops me, this crisp, clear burst of song, washes through me, dear, familiar, absent for a long time. This third mockingbird doesn’t sing long, but I can still hear him inside me as I write, sharp beloved memory, first song of the season.
No Holds Barred 