|
Main
| Feeder
November 27, 2006
Bounce
When the phone rings before the sun rises, my gut instinctively twists. It is rare that the message will be a good one. News of death, even when expected, leaves one breathless, or in my case, sitting at the bedside attempting to sort out a barrage of emotions with one hand on Alexis' shoulder, gently shaking him from sleep.
This past week left me feeling like a game piece in a round of jacks. Every few seconds a ball of emotion has hit the pavement and a giant hand has swept me up from one place and dropped me down in another. One morning I was in a car heading east to a Long Island graveyard, the next on a plane hurtling westward to California. It was a week of final farewells and joyous hellos. There were bagels and lox and sitting shiva and turkey and stuffing and tiny baby feet and by the time our flight landed last night my brain felt as stuffed as most post-Thanksgiving bellies.
While in our holding pattern, the plane circling four boroughs, I peered down at the patterns of light. It is funny how time can feel both suspended and accelerated at the same time, how weird it is that sometimes you can remember nothing yet everything in one moment, and how one night the aerial of Gotham is a string of traffic and street lamps and the next, loops of red and green and blue and white, houses decked out of the holidays, astoundingly visible from ten thousand feet above. It is amazing how the lurch of anguish, that pain of loss that can only resemble what it might be like to peel away a piece of the heart, can reside right next to the warmth and joy of an infant's smile.
Sometimes, everything and nothing makes sense and, in a strange way, that is what I was thankful for this holiday. Family, lost and found, old and new. That and my own bed and the rumble of Van Brunt Street, some stability and familiarity, and, hopefully tonight, a long, deep night of sleep.
Posted by callalillie at November 27, 2006 6:57 AM | Introspect
, La Familia
You have captured in words how I often feel but cannot explain.
I hope you got your sleep.
Posted by: Phc at November 27, 2006 10:26 AM
How I felt many of these feelings too this holiday, one of the most poignant that I have experienced. I was so glad that you and Lex were a part of my joy. Thank you for being in our home.
Posted by: Virginia at November 28, 2006 8:14 PM
