Home Again

“Is it square?”

According to the cards that lay before me, the answer is yes. That’s shorthand for “You know what you need to do and there are not any hidden issues you need to address”. I was a bit concerned to see the purity card come up. I didn’t think it was a present issue and the cards don’t usual talk about things that haven’t already happened and/or are imminent. I glance at the calendar. I shouldn’t be “imminent” on that  for a few weeks yet.

How soon I forget that bleeding is not the only purity issue.

My home has been vacant and unattended for three months. I didn’t have a lot of time to ready it for my departure when I first left to tend my mother, and it didn’t occur to me that lying in state is not much better for apartments than it is for people. In addition to the random mess from when I was packing, there were Tupperware leftovers in the fridge which had become thriving mold colonies, dead flies and moths littering the dinning room floor, a bone dry toilet which had become stained by hard water minerals, spider webs hanging from everything, and a coat of dust so thick it didn’t even stir when I dropped my suitcase as I looked around in utter disgust.

That was most definitely a purity issue.

But I was too tired to do much about it. I had driven for eight hours through several construction detours to get home, on less than four hours of sleep because the faithful air bed I had been using at my parents finally gave way and popped in the middle of the night right before my trip.

Despite being exhausted, sleep was not on my schedule for the afternoon. It was 111 outside and close to 103 in my third floor apartment. I turned on the AC and waited for sunset, lying on the couch and drinking water to keep hydrated. Five hours later, I had the temperature down to 89 and finally felt rested enough to attempt some rudimentary cleaning—it was still too hot to get any real sleep anyways. I tried to flip on the kitchen light so I could scribble a list of things I needed to do on the pad attached to the fridge only to discover it was burned out.

Did I mention Set’s card was in the reading as well?

This is par for the course for us. In the back of my mind I know he’s just stirring up my world because I need something to do to keep me from thinking about the look on my mother’s face when she couldn’t breathe. Her eyes still haunt me, and I’m happy to have distractions from that. I spent part of the night getting rid of the dead bugs—I’ve had enough death for a while—and then ended up hanging out a friend’s house until late so the AC had a chance to work. I threw some clean sheets on the bed when I got home and collapsed into the moderately comfortable 79 degrees that was just cool enough to let me get some sleep.

I started the real work the day after—vacuuming things, scrubbing things, washing things, disposing of things… it took me all of today to even make a dent in what needed to be done and I imagine the better part of tomorrow will pass before I am finished. I’m taking the opportunity to rearrange and organize my space a bit differently—I’d like to start the new year off from a different place than the one I have been living from. From a place of courage and growth, instead of a place of waiting and fear. Changing my physical living space is a nod toward that goal.

But not all of my problems go away with just a good scrubbing.

There are still flowers that need to be ordered for the memorial. There are still relatives and friends who need to hear my voice on the phone and confirm that I’m okay. There are still the dozens of people here in our hometown who haven’t heard yet but will when they stop me to ask me how my mom is…

But if I put the shrine in a different place and get rid of that table I hate it makes me feel like things are normal again. If I move everything around, for just a moment my heart doesn’t notice that something is missing.

I deleted her number from my phone. But gods help me…it feels strange to not be able to call her. I glance at the special stationary I bought to write letters for her. I know the two aren’t that different. In my heart, I know she can and will hear me and that she can and will respond. But…things are different.

So I move everything around because that’s a difference I can control instead of one I simply have to accept.