Medicated, Domesticated, Mundane

The mind wanders; the self follows

A picture in her mind, or two. That’s how Joan Didion says she starts a story. I try it, but no story comes to mind.

A woman does: a chubby woman clutching her belly fat with both hands. Another woman: a long-ish leg, smooth but for one single dark hair on a white shin missed during shaving. A woman lying in bed with her palms open, meditating, her nail polish light coral and slightly chipped. Who are these women? Of course they are all me. Of course.

I don’t want this story to be about me. I want it to be about a lunar eclipse. Stars moving away in concentric circles. Someone drawing a character in soft clay with a blade of glass. A glorious reclining. A come-to-Jesus epiphany. A gothic saga spanning epochs.

But my mind is medicated, domesticated, mundane. A cup of Tulsi tea. Crisp cotton sheets fresh out of the dryer. A walk through Montrose, past old vacuum repair shops and other stores, bankrupt and boarded up. Overripe bananas and dead fruit flies. You’ve got to be fast.

It always drifts to the past. Always the past. Voltaire’s hair, wet and sweaty, dripping onto me without apology. Deodorant that leaves little white pebbles. Spilling a Starbucks cappuccino on the beige lounge in an AirBnB in Ojai and never quite getting rid of the stain. On that same trip, having to pee so badly I did it at Baba’s tree.

More trips. Breaking the air conditioner unit in Solana Beach and the bedside lamp in a hotel in Mykonos. The hot, fragrant path to the beach. Playing in the waves with M. whenever a ferry passed by. Walking the ancient paths of crusaders. Bearing a heavy cross myself. Byzantium blues.

A woman forces her way to the foreground again. A lonely adult with awful secrets. I tell her to put on lipstick and seize the day. Or failing that, at least do the chores. Do something against this inertia. Sweeping, dusting, dishes, folding blankets, cleaning the litter box, making the bed, watering the plants, hanging up wet towels, throwing out vegetables she optimistically bought but never got around to cooking.

But she fights me. She wants to stay in bed. Hibernate. She wants, if anything, the small salvation of buying something. Something new, something better, always something better. Another eucalyptus candle. A Korean face cream. Another notebook for the life she plans to begin.

The vegetables rot quietly in the bottom of the refrigerator. She doesn’t care.