vianaturae

One day a few years back I scraped my side mirror on the wrought iron frame of the automatic gate spanning my all-too-narrow driveway one too many times. So I drove to Home Depot, rented a small jackhammer intended for horizontal demolition, and brought it home.

It was the hottest day of the Los Angeles summer. I donned white sweats, a long sleeve white t-shirt, a white baseball cap, thick leather gloves, and marched out into the driveway armed with the chipper.

Six hours later the useless 9′ x 2′ x 6″ retaining wall imposing driveway narrowness on my poor, sad, scraped Volvo was gone. A pile of rubble took its place.

What does one do with a pile of rubble?

Why, pile it all in all of our garbage bins, of course.

It was a lot of concrete. But no matter: the wall was gone and I was liberated, running on the pure adrenaline of victory. Unable to feel my blistered palms, numbed by the jackhammer, sunburned, dehydrated, and proud, proud, proud. Take that, evil retaining wall, and good riddance to you. The simple joys of homeownership include the freedom to tear things up at will. It’s a beautiful, albeit exhausting thing.

In hindsight perhaps it was a bit extreme. The tip-off came a few days later, when, subsequent to the garbage truck’s weekly visit, three bins full of rubble still sat curbside. Apparently they were too heavy for the robotic garbage-dumping arm on the truck, too heavy for the garbage engineers to lift, yet somehow not too heavy for me to maneuver down the driveway and to that curb.

They sat, for weeks. Poor Neighbor was bin-less.

I decided to redistribute the rubble a few pieces each week among the neighboring garbage bins under the cover of darkness. An effective, yet far too time-consuming and gradual to be workable plan.

And then one evening, Neighbor pulled up to Campus at around 10:30 while I was out in the street, dress and heels, post-red wine evening with the girls. Somebody had backed into one of the bins and tipped it over. Rubble spilling out, strewn into the street.

A U-Haul pick-up was rented that weekend. I single-handedly transferred rubble from bins to truck bed, and then Neighbor and I drove it out to the dump, gloves and all, prepared to unload rubble one last time.

Laborers were standing by to relieve us of our duties for around $20. Too much of a bargain, I dare say.

We let them keep our gloves.

_____

Today was an emotional coaster of a day. But in the end I’m feeling more like myself again. It’s good to be back. At least for now. Day, by day, by day.

Knitting a sweater when one’s wits aren’t quite about them is a bad idea.

Consequently last night’s witching hours were spent slowly undoing the damage I’d done while gorging on primetime TV pabulum.

When there is no need to spring forth from the bed sheets I tend to reach for the Reuters news feed blinking at me on the nightstand.

Ah but for the days of donning slippers and robe, and padding down the driveway to fetch the morning paper as carelessly tossed by some inane paperboy motoring by at the crack of dawn.

This morning was no exception and the ten hours of sleep made for a particularly leisurely read.

“Long sleepers show higher dementia risk”

There it was.

The licks this weekend they just keep on coming.

The indelibility of a series of seconds elapsed as if in slow motion, giving way to minutes that become the hours that change everything.

And so it was for me, on the morning of 09/11/09.

They could squeeze us in at 7:45am so we were on our way. A series of tiny events culminating in the one that left horror in its wake.

The little, mundane, regular, normal things are what I now try to focus on.

Waiting for time to lift this filmy veil of numb detachment that I cannot shake. It shrouds me like a heavy blanket. A thick hangover fog that no cold shower, caffeine, or greasy morning-after Mexican food can lift.

So I will write about the normal things.

It was my wise, thoughtful German engineer who planted the seeds of my normalcy quest when he suggested that I do yard work, or organize my cupboards yesterday afternoon instead of going to work as I was planning, a short-sighted attempt to pretend like it never happened, I suppose.

I’ve got to feel the feelings apparently.

That is hard to accomplish. The dam won’t break open.

Shellshock.

So I pulled weeds yesterday afternoon. Sitting in the dirt, sweating, and cussing, and swearing “I’m fine” to the dear friend who dropped everything when she heard and was busy weed-wacking, and raking everything I pulled up from the ground into a pile on my behalf.

More normal things to write about tomorrow, and every day hereafter, at least until things are back to normal.

I’m afraid this is going to take awhile.