...'the air is getting hotter'
August is counting down. After the last few cool days, the temperature is rising again. I long for it to be autumn, real autumn. I want to jump forward in time. I want to stay here, in the space where my grief is excusable. It’s that time of the year again. She’s always like this then.
I finish one book and reach for another. (I know, I know, that’s every day.) But sometimes it’s survival, and sometimes it’s pleasurable escape.
I have three interlibrary loans out at the moment. A December Tale (Marilyn Sachs I’ve never read), A Home With Aunt Florry (another Charlene Joy Talbot) and Pauline (Margaret Storey, with a good Victor Ambrus cover, even though it’s covered up by the ILL label.)
I finished The Queen of the Damned last night around midnight and I predict I will start The Body Thief before the weekend is done, but we’ll see.
There’s no wrong way to grieve (yes, yes I know) but at times I wish I could maximize my grief. Cry straight through for three days, get it all out from where it resides in my chest, heavy and light at the same time.
I worry about forgetting things. I look at pictures and realize I never knew the story behind them, and now you’re not there to ask.
I give first library cards to children with varying degrees of excitement and think of all those summer days and Sunday afternoons spent in libraries. How often I would go to the library if I didn’t work there? A question I’ve asked myself over the years, and yet never been able to answer because I’ve always worked at a library. I count up the time, and apparently it’s been twenty-two years. I remember after the interview I went home and fell into one of those deep summer naps, that only ended when Mom woke me up to tell the manager was on the phone, yes I had gotten the job. I’m sorry you had to leave the library to make space for me. In another life (that endless refrain) are we both still working there? Do we share an apartment or even a small house, possibly possible in that part of the Midwest. Do we have even more cats? Do we long and dream of brightly lit cities and spaces that will feel like home someday? Are you alive there?
Would that be worth it to you, alive, but still trapped in Missouri? I don’t know. I think I know, but not for certain.
As for me, I am glad I live in this city you chose by chance and friendship, that I walk to work past train tracks and empty lots filled with green, all the dogs out for their morning news, hipster coffeeshops and small parks where people sit out of the sun, basking in the shade and waiting for autumn.
I can see the moon from my bedroom window, and maybe that’s all I need to know I am home.
Last finished: The Queen of the Damned
Currently reading: The Garnett Girls – Georgina Moore / We Like the Night Life – Rachel Koller Croft