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May 15, 2004 ~ It's Just a Day
Saturday.
I'm wearing a skirt for the first time in months and months, the purple velvet skirt that I sewed myself, walking down Haywood Road, warm morning, passing "The Amp Shop" at the end of the street--the Amp Shop, blue with magenta trim and the bright flowers bursting out of every open piece of land. The woman who owns the shop sticks her head out of the VW van out front, brightly painted all over in flowers, rainbow colored. She grins, points to my skirt, and says in her loud and direct way, "I love that color!!" and she is so thoroughly tickled that it pours out in her voice, and I look at the colors of her house and her van and her beds and say, "I bet you do," and grin back. (A few weeks ago, she had thanked me for walking by in bell-bottoms and giving her a memory).
And I get to the co-op and stash my things, and D. grins and we greet each other, and he slips off into the office and I take charge of the register, and I check dates in between, giving a man advice on apples, helping the woman who's looking for a good herbal healing salve, talking politics and wolves with D. off and on when it's slow. And it is very slow this Saturday. Then the mail carrier comes in and chats a little and leaves.
I hear a loud voice near the back of the store. It's a man talking with D. A bent man, looking older than his years, sun-scarred skin. His southern accent is so thick with some sort of speech impediment on top of it that I understand only one word out of three, and he is talking insistently, and I realize that it's not about the store at all, and D. is somewhat disturbed. The man says something about having no friends, about how all the nice people always tell him to go away, because the cops harass him. He repeats these things several times, and we start to catch his words, though they still don't make sense. He points to a scar on his forehead, and rambles about how he should be dead, he's been shot before, "sho' in da hea, an' sab'd in da back, too, an' da cops, th' al's yill a' me." But he says he doesn't want trouble, he just wants to talk, and we're so nice, and thank you, and bless you, and have a good day, "Allsa be goin'." And he walks out into the street and starts yelling at the mechanics across the street. D. and I just look at each other, speechless.
And I'm off my shift, back at home, I pick up two tupperware containers full of coleslaw left from the barbecue, and I head out to the field next to the house, the one with the tire swing, where they're having a block party, and, "Hi Melissa!" says the man who had handed me a flier earlier in the week, walking the neighborhood with his two kids and his cat, and I'm very impressed by his memory, guilty because I don't remember his name, "I'm glad you could make it!" And I hand him about a gallon of coleslaw and grin.
And I sit in the shade and laugh with the children, and an old woman sits down next to me and comments on how I look so calm and kind that she knew she needed to sit next to me, and I tell her she's too much of a flatterer, and I try her brownies even though I know they're not vegan, and we talk about the neighborhood, and she asks me out of the blue, "Now, you're a mother, aren't you?" and I say, "No, but hopefully soon!" And she grins and says, "Well good. You should be." And I watch all the people, and the children, and the little girl who lost her helium balloon and cried and cried, and the many of the adults start complaining about President Bush, and the old woman next to me turns and says in a confidential whisper, "It's about time for my nap," and she winks. And soon I bid goodbye to my new acquaintances, thank the organizers, purposefully forget the large amount of coleslaw that remains, and walk back across the field, feeling a slight pang of remorse that Morgan and I don't plan to stay in West Asheville for many more years.
And I go back home, and I switch over the laundry, and I go through my writing anthologies and pull about fifteen of them out that I've outgrown, and add them to the give-away pile.
And I randomly decide to call my mother. And we end up having a two or three hour conversation, one of those talks that moves things around in your head, and makes you realize a lot about yourself and the person you're talking to, and changes your relationship a bit, but in a good way, and brings all sorts of old musty things out that needed some air.
Then Morgan came home and we talked and laughed and loved in the kitchen while I cooked rice and tadka dal and falafel and stir-fried squash, and we ate together dreaming of things that we hope will come.
Now he sits working at his computer and I'm digesting the day, and feeling joyful and sad and peaceful all at once.
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