The Nada

Salvador Dali's Clock Explosion

Today, loss washes inside of me like the leftover milk in the bowl I carry to the sink. Each of my steps forces a thin skim of white over the bowl's blue insides. Sloshing precariously close to the edge of the rim, the liquid threatens to spill over, wetting my hands, my pants, my feet. If I'm careful, I can right the bowl and avert the mess.

I don't want to be careful, though. I want to send the bowl crashing, the muscles of my throwing arm stretching and flexing as the bowl splinters into jagged shards, the milk running down the wall in rivelets. As a young married woman, angry over something I can't even remember now, I hurled a bowl of chocolate pudding against our rented beige wall. The pudding stuck in clumps, sweet brown tumors holding their tremulous form until plopping onto the ruined dish.

I should make a gratitude list. I should reflect on the symbolic beauty of the flash of red bird against the bare branch. I should pull myself up by my damned bootstraps, and lay my face against the window glass to feel the sun's warmth.

Instead, emptiness wraps its arms around me, pulling my head close to its chest. "Fall into me," it croons, giving me the come-hither look I've come to know.

What's left are these: pale, still unformed eyelids that I couldn't save, no matter how hard I prayed; blue laundry stamps on white hospital sheets, rigor setting in; a cheap gray box marred by a spot of blood near the head; words--words I didn't say, words I shouldn't say, words I said; time wasted and measured and used up, flat now like Dali's clock; a woman I never knew crying for her children in the common room, rocking and rocking and rocking herself; meanness of spirit, you selfish girl, did you have to think so much of your sorry self?; so many souls scattered like grains of uncooked rice; pregnant moments on the edge of the sea, promise rising like ripples of waves touching my feet.

(I plant my feet firmly in the wet sand, grains whooshing out with the tide, throwing me off balance.
Still I fight not to fall, digging my heels deeper, though I lose, and I cannot breathe for the sand that plugs my nose.  The enormity of what has passed is too much, and I close my mind against the sum.)

Later, in the dark kitchen, I find myself pouring the milk into the sink drain and rinsing the dish with warm, clear water before setting the blue bowl intact on the counter.

Learning to Pray

I was nearly 50 before I really learned how to pray. It was a raw spring day, and I had the day off from work. Sunk into black misery over a million wrong turns in my life, I still wore pajamas at nearly 1:00 p.m. My hair stuck out in a tangled poof, and I had been sitting for hours in the oversized suede chair in my family room staring mindlessly at daytime television. I think I dozed through Good Morning America, and then sat numbly through Regis and Kelly, Rachel Ray, The View, and the local news. Nothing registered except for the laugh track.

Finally tired of sitting, I lumbered over to the coffee pot, thinking a dose of caffeine might get me moving before my family began arriving home, one by one. The coffee pot was off, having stopped heating hours ago. I poured the cold coffee into a carefully chosen cup--today, the Pawley's Island mug--hoping for a quick mental dip in the warm, crytalline ocean. Slipping the mug into the microwave, I turned to look out the window. The weathered deck wood looked gray and bleak without the summer deck plants and furniture. It looked like I felt.

Closing my eyes with a sigh, I waited for the beep signaling that my coffee was ready. At the sound, I opened my eyes, and there on my windowsill sat a fiery red cardinal. The contrast between the colorless deck and the magnificent bird made my heart race. The bird didn't seem to be in a hurry, and I studied the point of his beak, the crest on his head, the fragile black feet, the patterned red feathers. "Nature's gift to me," I thought.

My mood lifted, those red wings bringing me a fluttering of hope. Might it be the small things that count the most? If I held tightly to those things, might I find my peace?

And so I started to say little thank-you prayers. Thank you for the startling beauty of the red cardinal on my gray deck. Thank you for the opportunity to teach the beauty of the written word. Thank you for the speed and grace with which my daughters cross the field. Thank you for the marshmallow roasted crusty black and oozing white cream.

Those moments of gratitude buoyed me, comforted me, changed me. When I look beyond the small things and get lost in the large void of "what if's," I reel myself back in by thinking of that random visitor to my windowsill. Then I start over. And so tonight I say, thank you for the ripe tomatoes eaten with fresh mozarella cheese and basil from my garden. Thank you for the corn from our farmer friends' fields, tiny full kernels popping with sweetness. Thank you for the black-nosed dog who lays his two paws across my son's legs. Thank you for the man who has loved me wholly everyday since I was sixteen. Thank you for the pile of unread books waiting for me by the side of my bed. Thank you for the dance of the fireflies I've watched on my nighttime hillside all summer long.

Thank you for listening.