Flurries
It’s November 28th, at about 2:30 pm, and just a few moments ago it snowed, very briefly. Or maybe it didn’t, and it’s just someone on the fire escape above me, tapping their ashtray against the rail. Debris maybe. No, I’m right- weather app says flurries, for the next ten minutes or so.
In April of last year, my parents called me early in the morning, before I could get ready for a morning shift at the bakery. Was it snowing outside, my mom asked, could I see it? No, I couldn’t, though the clouds were gray, and my face felt like it’d been stepped on from the pressure in the air. It was snowing a bit in Maryland, mom said, maybe a sign of some sort. I feel like she mentioned my godmother liking snow, though I can’t be sure. Either way, my parents were calling to let me know she’d passed, that my godmother was gone.
I’d known of course, seconds into the call- it’s not that often my divorced parents will collab on a joint call. I hung up, and sent an email that I’d be out of work, then laid in bed, not sure what to do with myself. How to process this, I wondered. Instantaneous tears should’ve been on deck, a swoon and graceless fall to the floor like in the classic black and gray movies she liked to watch. Wasn’t there now a reverberation within me, some tremor or quake?
There was, and there is. More like a buzz though, a discordant hum. I stepped out into the living room and looked at my hand on the wall, my toes poking out from the tops of my sandals. I spent most of the following year a stranger to myself, shifty and nervous in my own body.
Today’s my first full day back in New York, having just gotten in the night before from a visit home. The past few years, I’d always spent the day before Thanksgiving at her apartment, trying to peek into the pots on the stove and laughing at Christmas decorations she’d already set up. I was proud of myself- no tears this year. My mom and I pulled up photos from years past, talked about the knocking in the fridge that must’ve been my godmother, and I’d laughed, I’d smiled.
It’s now, seeing specks of snow dot the air, shy and discreet, like they didn’t want to be too much of a bother. Now is when something collapses in me, and I cover my mouth and press my face against the couch, hard as I can. A rip in the cushion scratches my cheek, the tears are hot and my mind is foggy, there’s a scream in me that caves as quick as it rises. What else is there to do, but to let it tear through me, to dig my nails in and let the wave overtake me. And then to rise, to rub at my face with a cheap paper towel, to unmute the phone call I was in the midst of, make an agreeing sound so they can be sure I’m listening, while going downstairs to pick up a package. Strange, it’s all strange. Is this me, it must be. Back inside, look out to see the sky is blue and bright again, roll with the tremble as it journeys through you, lean away from the caress that feels like a knife’s edge, one that your mind offers your spirit. Forgetting is easier, maybe, but I must exist in this state, knowing that grief is part of the mundane, it can settle beside joy as I unpack a new pair of boots, ones she would’ve liked.
I said a while ago that I’m sick of writing about death; every play in some way has been about it. For some reason though, I sat down to write this. How else to make sense of it all?
