My desk is stocked with green pens, the finest tip. Of all the art on my walls, it is the lush green stone cut lithograph that I prefer. When my parents eventually slide into that gentle good night, they are well aware that it is the expansive green stone cut on their wall that would ensure my fond remembrances, everlasting.
Of the features I awkwardly accept as my own, it is my eyes that I find most comfortable. Spring green in laughter. Dark forests in anger. The color of moss wet with sadness.
My birthstone is a gentle lime green, my dishes a set of pottery washed in the color of wet ferns. I am strong in the ivory skirt adorned with feathery leaves, adventurous in the tweed mini. In boarding school, I reveled in the forest green black watch kilt that swung far above the knees it was meant to reach.
One false move, and I’ll be covered in green ooze.
In 24 hours, the crystalline waters of my swimming pool have devolved into a cesspool of algae and stagnation. Koi would decline these waters, and at any moment I am expecting the Swamp Thing to emerge. And because I am “woman without able man,” it falls to me to … er … jump into the pool and find a solution to this fetid situation.
The thought of which has me feeling green and seeing red.
My home has reached a certain age where the bones are becoming brittle and the potential for hip replacements is increasingly likely. And in the past two weeks, I have seen green move from my hand to theirs as I’ve had to repair the air conditioner, the garage door and the irrigation system.
And now this. In the dead of summer. In the desert.
Which is why I am seeing green far beyond the algae-infested pool and the disappearing dollars. In the first chapter of my life, I never questioned why the house and the cars and the pool functioned without interruption. How bike tires were repaired, and sprinklers never stopped. And he never questioned why bedtimes were what they were, when bills were paid and why the work suitcase was in the hall again. Everything worked. Because we worked at it.
But since I have been left to fend for myself, the car has died, the pool is problematic, leaks linger on without stoppage and the garage full of tools has overwhelmed me with its lack of direction and purpose. Seemingly inconsequential needs have become insurmountable in frustration and, deep inside, the prideful and lonely part of me has accepted and struggled through uncharted territory, reluctant to ask for help and see inconvenience flash in eyes and mistrust in others.
While envy flashes in the green of mine.
1 comment:
How well I relate with your last paragraph. I find myself learning and doing things that were once his domain. Those I can not (or refuse) to learn are left to slide into oblivion until it becomes mandatory to deal with. The tool box once meticulously organized with every tool imaginable now looks like a gutted fish with all its parts missing. I feel the same way.
Post a Comment