I wake at seven-thirty, gasping, my sight blurry. I'm still caught for a moment in my dream. There, I could not see, and peered down, trying to control my anxiety, at an indeterminate shape in the bathtub. "Chrissy, Chrissy!" I called. "I think…there's something…did the cat throw up?" I know in the dream it isn't something as stupid as cat vomit. It's worse.
But now it's morning – somehow I've overslept…no, not somehow. By setting the alarm wrong or turning it off. There's a part of me that seems to know when I can technically afford the extra sleep. I lurch out of bed, brush teeth, make coffee. I feel slightly ill, and wonder if I'm coming down with something, or if it's just poor sleeping and poor living.
During the morning, I try to work – I read some chapters in some books and find it intensely difficult to understand a dense book about Marxism, idolatry, and commodity in the Renaissance. Is this because I don't understand Marxism, or is it because I can't think?
Eventually I give up and go do housework. It feels good, to clean and see the results. Yesterday I scrubbed the whole ceiling in the bathroom, which had become speckled with increasingly horrifying dark mold. Had we left it, I'm pretty sure it would have covered the whole room eventually. But I got up on the small ladder from outside, left by the housepainter (only his decisive coughs, coming shockingly from outside the window, let me know when he is here), and I scrubbed and scrubbed, main force and bleach cleaner, and today my bicep is sore and the ceiling is white.
As the morning wears, I dust; I vacuum; I scrub and bleach the white sideboard in the dining room; I light a pumpkin-scented candle and spirit the magazines away to their hiding places. I deprive the front door of its scuff marks; I try to coax the neighbor cat, all black-plume of a tail and wide yellow eyes, to take treats from my hand; I disinfect the counters and the sinks.
Chrissy's parents are visiting from today to Sunday. They're coming for an early Thanksgiving. I've said I would make sweet potatoes and applesauce, a dish it turns out my mother largely invented – I called her for the recipe on Friday. I start on it, baking the potatoes maybe a little too long. How is it I've never baked a potato? I just haven't, I guess. I imagine cooking with great gusto, but when I try I am always filled with anxiety, and not a little resentment: I can't get it quite right; there's something I'm missing. When I take the potatoes out of the oven, I burn my wrist, leaving a small mark like a crescent moon. I mash them up and spread them in a glass baking dish, topped with butter, brown sugar, cinnamon, then applesauce. There's room for only a few layers – not nearly as many as Mama always gets into her square casserole dish. I hope it turns out all right.
I greet Chrissy's parents when they arrive, and make a fool of myself in the kitchen (not that they mind – they're good people). I try to work. Try, fail, try, fail. The day wanes, and then disappears.
And finally here I am – the present-tense present tense, the tense present, to be tiresome about it. I wonder if I'll have another dream where I can't see or speak or hear or move. That seems to be all I remember from my sleep these days – an attempt to behave as if waking, and my bewilderment when I cannot.
But now it's morning – somehow I've overslept…no, not somehow. By setting the alarm wrong or turning it off. There's a part of me that seems to know when I can technically afford the extra sleep. I lurch out of bed, brush teeth, make coffee. I feel slightly ill, and wonder if I'm coming down with something, or if it's just poor sleeping and poor living.
During the morning, I try to work – I read some chapters in some books and find it intensely difficult to understand a dense book about Marxism, idolatry, and commodity in the Renaissance. Is this because I don't understand Marxism, or is it because I can't think?
Eventually I give up and go do housework. It feels good, to clean and see the results. Yesterday I scrubbed the whole ceiling in the bathroom, which had become speckled with increasingly horrifying dark mold. Had we left it, I'm pretty sure it would have covered the whole room eventually. But I got up on the small ladder from outside, left by the housepainter (only his decisive coughs, coming shockingly from outside the window, let me know when he is here), and I scrubbed and scrubbed, main force and bleach cleaner, and today my bicep is sore and the ceiling is white.
As the morning wears, I dust; I vacuum; I scrub and bleach the white sideboard in the dining room; I light a pumpkin-scented candle and spirit the magazines away to their hiding places. I deprive the front door of its scuff marks; I try to coax the neighbor cat, all black-plume of a tail and wide yellow eyes, to take treats from my hand; I disinfect the counters and the sinks.
Chrissy's parents are visiting from today to Sunday. They're coming for an early Thanksgiving. I've said I would make sweet potatoes and applesauce, a dish it turns out my mother largely invented – I called her for the recipe on Friday. I start on it, baking the potatoes maybe a little too long. How is it I've never baked a potato? I just haven't, I guess. I imagine cooking with great gusto, but when I try I am always filled with anxiety, and not a little resentment: I can't get it quite right; there's something I'm missing. When I take the potatoes out of the oven, I burn my wrist, leaving a small mark like a crescent moon. I mash them up and spread them in a glass baking dish, topped with butter, brown sugar, cinnamon, then applesauce. There's room for only a few layers – not nearly as many as Mama always gets into her square casserole dish. I hope it turns out all right.
I greet Chrissy's parents when they arrive, and make a fool of myself in the kitchen (not that they mind – they're good people). I try to work. Try, fail, try, fail. The day wanes, and then disappears.
And finally here I am – the present-tense present tense, the tense present, to be tiresome about it. I wonder if I'll have another dream where I can't see or speak or hear or move. That seems to be all I remember from my sleep these days – an attempt to behave as if waking, and my bewilderment when I cannot.
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