The Five Strands of A Sedentary Empress

Aimless

I love the coo of the mourning dove. Not the brightest of birds, but they are beautiful, I think. To me they look as though they are carved from soft clay, with their greyish, round bodies blending the feathers to look as though they've been molded by hand. Their call is the sound of summer, to me, and does not denote the woefulness they are named for. I love that they perch outside the window to my left and sing until the sun is gone.

The warmer days are coming. Oddly, a cool spring day feels far more dark and chilly than a day of comparable temperatures in autumn. I suppose it's the lack of colour, or maybe the desperation we have to feel our blood warm inside, but yesterday, though sunny, was too cold for me. I want to banish my winter coat to the back of the closet and be done with it for a while. I want to turn my nose at my pilling sweaters and walk around the house without socks on my feet. I want to crack open every window and let the breath of the universe push its way in. Even M., who often makes fun of me for always being cold, complained about the weather the entire time we were out walking, and when we came in the house afterward, the warmth created an instant stupor, like an invisible blanket wrapping around us with our pink cheeks and frozen noses, and I had to fight the urge to fall into bed.

I hate the way I look in photos, lately. It's not like I ever had delusions of my beauty before, but now I can really see that my face is beginning to betray me. M. showed me a couple pictures he took over the weekend, thinking I looked 'beautiful' in them, and I instantly grimaced at the contours of my body, the heaviness of my long hair, the puffiness in my cheeks and the fact that I am beginning to look exactly like my grandmother, disinterested posture and all. I am the couch sitter, the one who sits at the edge of the couch with her arms folded and her legs crossed looking angry and distant. It's not intentional, but I have noticed that this seems to be my signature pose in photos. I often envision myself as someone more ethereal and bright, exuding a playful sexiness mixed with enthusiasm, but there have never been any photos which exhibit these traits convincingly. I look angry, more often than not. I look far away and less and less attached to the body I live in. I had been hoping for a peak period of beauty, but I suppose I've past it without knowing.

Two half read books next to the bed on the dusty night stand. I really ought to dust, but the dryness around here lately makes it nearly impossible to keep up with. The journals of Sylvia Plath, though lovely, tend to send me to sleep because of the endless chains of sentences, which are as tiresome as they are beautiful. I'm still in her beginning years, while she's in school, and she is currently prattling about the boys she's interested in and the sex she is craving but also, there are so many glaring hints of her fate that it saddens me. When she writes about where she pictures herself when she's forty, it saddens me. When she talks about the gas stove at her employer's home, it darkens my mood. When she mentions how much she loves the little children in her care, or how much she fears trying to balance a family with her dreams of writing professionally, it fills my stomach with a cold gust of wind. Her wants weren't much different than my own. She wanted a man to love and she wanted to write poetry. Somehow, things got complicated. Then, I started reading the other book about a woman's quest to find herself through eating, praying and loving her way through a year long of travel and though I can't say I hate it, I am finding myself feeling as though this woman had things pretty good before she went on the quest. I push it aside, though, because I also understand what she's writing about, the feeling of a deep, crippling dissatisfaction which takes everything over and the need to find a way out of it. I wish I had the freedom to do what she did, and by freedom I mean the fearlessness to pursue my own happiness, but I'm not there yet, so I am feeling slightly cynical about her. I kind of look at personal freedom as the greatest thing a person can possess. The ability to say 'yes!', the power to push doubt away. Once you have that, there are very few limits, I feel.

I look at my house and I feel frustration. I am trying not to care about having new things or the fact that it doesn't look like something from a magazine but the constant presence of discarded toys, the hastily composed drawings which are affixed to the wall with masking tape, the laundry baskets that never seem to be out of my bedroom even when emptied, the sameness of the bathmat which lived in a different house once while I was partnered with someone else, the lack of photos on the walls and the mismatched lamps by the bed fill me with screams that never fully erupt. I want things. I don't want a lot, but I do want some, and this want creates a savage anger in the bottom of me that always tries to rise to the top. I clean and I arrange and I am always trying to find the high one feels when they love their surroundings but it gets harder and harder. It's the routine of it which makes all the colour dull. I miss the temporary perfection of a house without children or the constant presence of a partner at times. For a few small hours, the house I lived in used to be mine and I would light candles and burn oils and play music. Now, I have to consider other people, and I'm mostly grateful for it, but sometimes I wish I remembered how it felt to sing at the top of my lungs or what it was like to read while nestled on the couch without the incessant 'Mom? Are you listening to me?' or the penetrating eyes of my partner who silently wonders why I'm not being more productive. At least, I imagine this is what he's thinking. I know that being alone is probably my greatest phobia, but there are times when I crave it, like when I really just want to eat cereal for dinner, or when I want to spend the day naked. Also, there's a part of me which refuses to get involved in a household task if M. is home because that part of me resents that he isn't helping. When he goes out is when I'm most active, and both of us have noticed it, though we can't explain why.

And now, I interrupt this rambling to make lunch for the wee person who has been insisting that she could just eat chocolate instead. I have to admire her technique, though, the suggestion of chocolate eggs for lunch so that I won't be 'innerupted' by having to make something wholesome.

'It's okay mom, I know you're busy.'

Crafty.