September

Aren’t the rooms roomier, the air inside airier, the sleep more continuous, than before her month of exile?

The post-modern weather conditions of the North, the abstract, absolute rains in the South, the white heat of the days, the winds and thunder of the evenings, flashing, making pictures of the rose-patterned gossamer curtains on the wall there, not minding that the sidewalks need sweeping or the man who runs the kiosk at the corner won’t be at his post until hours later.

She is making all kinds of lists, now, what she needs, what to shop at the market, what books to read. She goes through her cupboards and drawers, pulling out old sweaters she hasn’t worn in a year, forgotten teapots just sitting there, unused, opens the heavy curtain that hides her rack of clothes, takes out a brown vest, discards it in the flea market pile with some of the others, a shirt, a skirt, corduroy pants.

She dusts, vacuums, does batch after batch of laundry. Her whites need now more than ever to be separated from the colors, and she is angry when one of the sheets comes out still sporting the mysterious spot of black soot, even though she specifically washed it with a whitening liquid.

Nonetheless, she folds it neatly when it is dry, deciding it is clean enough, it did go through almost three hours of wash cycle, and she is no Martha Stewart anyway. Happily domestic after weeks and weeks of living off the suitcase, she browns minced meat, slices onions, butters the oven pans, eats the casserole.

Her black skirt comes out unblemished, though, and her dark greys and purples aren’t mashed at all. Purple like an eggplant, she thinks when she pulls a tee-shirt out of the machine, vibrantly colorful, like the slogan on the detergent package says.

She makes plans with mother next week, and thinks about writing postcards to all her friends. She even goes as far as start picking out which postcards, when she remembers she needs to shop for some tea at the Bio-Green store, and takes a pencil from the enamel cup with a picture of a panda on it, and scribbles down not only the tea, but also potatoes, cabbage, lentils, sunflower seeds.

(What friends?)

Is it merely the air outside that is crispier, the fall that seems to be whispering in the positions of the trees, who, while still green, are beginning to develop the somber, regal look of acceptance and loss, before the real frolicking begins, and the colors change, and the street seems cheerier and somehow more absurd than how it usually presents itself; serious, lukewarm, matter-of-fact, proper? The sobriety and appropriateness of the street is such that sometimes Clarissa Jane has trouble walking along it, if she is feeling blue, or whimsical, or if she wants to be comforted, or share her joy.

She has to walk all the way to the lake to get comfort, to show her glee, to cry, or to misbehave. Her home street won’t allow it, but at least there are all those rowans now, with their reddening berries, to look at, and they are growing straight, instead of all crooked, bending towards the ditches, because some important but not so much in the know on plant life architect wanted to build his building so near the old trees. Clarissa Jane has lived on such a street as well, so she knows this is a good street to live on. Because the rowans grow straight up.

And the sobriety and matter-of-factness is a good thing, too. No one wants to live on too eccentric a street. One has only so much space then for herself to be eccentric on it.

If she is feeling out of place, like a visitor in her own life, which sometimes happens, she will get her exercise too, because the lake is so beautiful this time of year. And if things are bad enough, there is the smaller lake nearby. It is very picturesque, and small enough to circle around in fifteen minutes, but it is also a favorite spot of the rambunctious kids and the beer drinking teens, and so many people decide to take the tour of the little lake daily it sometimes seems there must be a marked sight somewhere unbeknownst to Clarissa Jane there, the pathways are that crowded.

Of course, there is a sight. The large stone shaped exactly like the shark from Jaws, mouth open, ready to charge, the spitting image really, if seen from a distance. But somehow Clarissa Jane doubts many people come to marvel at the stone.

(What friends would those be?

Elena, with her career, somewhere in Europe? Ambitious Elena, with her towering height and her naturally curly hair, rubbing elbows with the movers and shakers of the marketing racket, making a name for herself. Clarissa Jane doesn’t even have her address anymore. She thinks of Elena, sometimes, and feels a distant joy for her, but she doesn’t really know her, now, so imagining her life seems impossible.

Mint, so self-important with her ridiculously expensive handbag, and her new set of friends, fashionable and happy, Mint who now smiles with one corner of her mouth, is the loudmouth of every restaurant table she sits at, hanging with people who won’t bother her with complicated moods or ask for anything? Mint’s snipe at Clarissa Jane from a few years ago, about how she didn’t owe her a damn thing, still linger in her mind, sometimes, when she happens to run into her in town. Secretive and flippant, she now routinely masquerades her unfriendship in politeness and empty pleasantries that are almost worse than if she just ignored Clarissa Jane completely.

Marie, with her insincere smile and conniving questions?  Freeloading her drinks, with an air of unmistakable phoniness about her, Marie with her website and her dozens of unidentified friends she kept referring to? Marie had made an art of sorts out of presenting other people’s ideas and thoughts as her own, but her style was so poorly thought out, she never took any notice who she swiped the words from, and there were times when Clarissa Jane had her own words spoken back to her, in slightly altered form, by poor Marie, who looked so pleased with herself, thinking she was making an impression. Impression was made, but perhaps the wrong kind. Everyone else seemed to tolerate the small thefts, though, because she was so beautiful.

Geoff keeps telling Clarissa Jane she gets too easily attached to people who abuse her friendship. Clarissa Jane knows this to be true, and does her best to toughen up, trying to overcome the stupid pain overhearing others use terms like laughably naïve or the hell bitch about her, nursing her bleeding heart with an extra helping of some comfort food or other at night, when the witnesses are few and far between.)

Besides, she likes to think that the boulder is a secret nod to her only, an inside joke between the lake and Clarissa Jane, and although she has told some people about it, they claim to never having seen the resemblance.

And the sleep, the sleep now is like that of the dead, although she still does routinely awaken at least once a night. And while the sudden descent into madness only happens then, on those waking moments in the wolf’s hour, and her lamenting the lost feelings once so powerful, and never-corrected misunderstandings, and fear for her loved ones dying suddenly, in the morning she gets up from bed feeling silly, having wasted energy on such pointless and random matters, they have nothing to do with her life now anyway, and she takes pleasure in walking to the kitchen, looking outside, on her street with the rowans that grow straight instead of along the grass, and she feels a sudden blessing in just being able to see all of it and cherish it as a gift, the gift of a good night's sleep.

She had a dream last night. She was on a patio of a large house, reading a book in an easy chair. Next to her, there was a bearded man, also reading a book. The man looked a little like her father, a little like Steven Spielberg, a little like someone she knows from work. They were sitting in comfortable silence, turning the pages, when Clarissa Jane asked the man what his plans were for the New Year’s. He smiled at her, pointing a finger at the full orange moon in the black night sky, and told her that he was taking one of them moon cruises, and was planning on saluting the first moments of the new year with his glass raised on the moon, looking down on Earth.

In the dream, Clarissa Jane seemed to know all about the moon cruises, and she simply marveled in her mind at how the man was able to afford the costly trip in a spacecraft.

“But are there places to stay overnight?” she asked.

“Sure. There is the Traveler’s Rest, and Skipper’s Ottoman, at least. Accommodation won’t be a problem.”

She looks outside, thinking about how it is true, what the man said, that we really do not deal the cards but merely play the percentages here. She puts on the legendary Art Tatum and Ben Webster session album, remembering how in the movie Elaine Stritch dances with her man to the piano and sax, and muses the upcoming season. After the dream, she doesn’t feel as lonely today.