The scene: December 31, 2011. 9:14pm. Living room floor, hardwood. Space heater on high. The Bourne Identity (which one, unknown). Dog asleep on the couch. Cat asleep on the chair.
The image: Girl in fetus position in front of the space heater, her feet so hot they sting. Fluffy white robe covers all but below the knees. Her hair, wet and wavy and slightly darker from the dye, flopped over on the floor. She is passed out, the image of post-party exhaustion. But she never made it to the party. She sleeps, nulling the indecision of New Years Eve plans: fancy party or writing through the night. She had been thinking that she should spend this first NYE alone the way she wants to spend 2012, but she both wants to be more social (read: fun, interesting, fearless with friends) and write (read: be a writer) in the new year. The Bourne Identity was a distraction from this decision. The space heater was a necessity. The freshly dyed hair was a belated attempt at a refreshed self-identity. The robe was a comfortable placeholder for the clothes she couldn't decide to wear.
The action: Sleep, on her side, until 12:02 am. An infomercial now on the screen. She wakes, startled that she had ever been asleep, and sees the clock. She gets up, stiff from the hardwood, and limps to bed. She climbs in her bed still in her robe, perhaps thinking that she might still get up again and write in the first hours of the new year.
The action: Sleep, in her robe, until 4:54 am. She wakes, startled that the lights are still on, that the tv is still on, and that she is sleeping in her robe. She gets up, turns everything off, feeds the cat in hopes of preventing her from pawing for food in an hour, gives the dog a cookie for waking him, changes into the usual bedtime fare, and gets back in bed. She moves likes a drunk, though she's had no food in 18 hours and only Dr. Pepper to drink. She doesn't care that she missed midnight. She will have her own story to tell.
The last day of 2011
I woke late, at 7:30, and glad. We started with a hike on the trails in Duncan Park, the trails that start just a block from my home, and muddied our feet in the red ground. Fog hung low, and the sun cut through, creating a bright blur to the south, an image you can only hope for in photographs. Through the trees, shafts of light and silent puffs of cloud moving out. Over the bridge, the lake was still, and we kept on the trail until we met its edge. Mallards flapped in the mist and quacked a chorus as they kicked toward the body of the lake and out of the marshy shallows. We followed their tails through branch and limb but headed back, up through the leaves to home.
Because the humane society would be closed on Sunday, the traditional dog-walking day, my Sunday group met at 10 on Saturday, and the four of us ventured to walk them all. It seems many of the puppies were adopted for Christmas, and so they were mostly older than 6 months, all of walking age. I went down the back line, skipping only those, like Duke and Dozer and one of the Boscos, because they were too big for me to handle. I began with Mason, then Jacolby and Odyssy, down the line to Tommy and Tabitha and over to Marley. We walked and played and then had to time ourselves because we were spending too much time with each dog; it was taking too long to walk them all. I left after Marley, came home to let Scooter out on the tie out in the 60-some degree sun of the last day of the year.
I took out the new bookcase I bought last week at Ikea, taking it piece by piece out of the box from my car. I vacuumed out the hair and the rocks, sprayed air freshener. I made my car clean on the inside, something I hadn't done in likely over a year. The outside is still spotted and masked with dirt, but I care less. Scooter and I took five bags of recycling to the bins behind Krispy Kreme, and that lightened my load.
I built the bookcase and arranged my nonfiction books in its cubes. I placed my Steve Snell blue bear and former HUB-BUB green typewriter on top. This place is becoming more and more my home; the yellow walls reflect and emit so much light. The room is open; there is room for moving, for playing, for breathing.
I ate leftover pizza for lunch. I planned on getting Chinese take-out between dying my hair, showering, and going to the party that started at nine. I needed cash for the party. I needed dark hair for the party. I needed to get ready faster. I needed to decide if going to the party is really what I wanted. I ate corn chips in front of the space heater in my robe and watched The Bourne Identity as I lamented that my hair was not as dark as I'd hoped it would be. I wanted to be warm. I wanted Jedsen. I wanted New Years Eves of past. I lay down to rest as I tried to decide what to do. I lay down, and that was my decision.
The first day of 2012
I intended to spend the first day of 2012 doing what I hoped I would do all year. I started by taking Scooter to the abandoned baseball fields in south Hampton Heights, something I try to do once a week so he can run, run, faster than I can for him. He runs across the field to me and past me; he shows me how fast he can be. I hide behind piles of dirt in the middle of the diamond, and he seeks me out, excited to have found me and gets low to the ground.
I intended to swear off fast food a month ago in honor of the new motto I'd like to live by: "Why do I want to invest in?" But I wanted a breakfast of biscuits and gravy, and a friend had told me that Hardee's was the best in town.
I intended to swear off pop years ago, but at the last minute I decided I needed Dr. Pepper with that biscuits and gravy combo.
I ate my breakfast and watched the Sunday Morning program on CBS, learned how to help a hangover that I didn't have. Scooter tried to bite the end out of the paper bag to get to the hashbrowns. I gave him a celery stick so he'd leave it alone for a few minutes. I watched Face the Nation and rolled my eyes. Then church programs came on every network channel except Fox, but I wouldn't watch Fox News, so I flipped through the in-between channels that I never try and found Create. I learned that you use paint stain on outdoor wood rather than paint to allow the wood to breath. I muted the tv and continued reading Wild by Cheryl Strayed. It's about her solo hike on the Pacific Crest Trail, about her trying to recover from losing her mother, her marriage. I read myself in her, in why I go hiking and go alone. I say I am not crazy for going alone. I say I want hiking to heal me. I read until I need to go run errands. I make a list and, for once, stick to the list. While I'm shopping, all I can think of is reading and writing this. And all I can think of is that I'm so excited that all I can think about is reading and writing; I'm returning, I think. I eat lunch at Panera Bread, my "third place" and order a U Pick 2, tomato soup and turkey sandwich. I savor it and read, while sipping my second Dr. Pepper of the day. I can't stop. Outside, the clouds get dark, and the wind is a Kansas wind, foreign here, and strong. It looks like rain, cold, but it's still in the 60s. I finish a chapter, finish my plate, and drive home.
Writing. Thinking about writing. Blogging. I get to it.
Knock knock. My neighbor needs his car jumped. We talk in the drive while our cars are connected.
Good luck dinner. Celia and Randy explain the meal, the sides: pork, black eyed peas, collard greens, cornbread. All have meaning, all for luck.
I end this first day full of friends, words, and Dr. Pepper. Tomorrow, words and some work.
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