My mind wanders waves of boredom along to the rhythm of the lawn mower next door. Spring time in my hometown and it is equal parts nostalgia and unreasonable panic. Writing helps. Sleeping helps. Walking ceaselessly on the treadmill in my parents’ basement helps.
My sister and I watch old movie musicals of bible stories brought to life from our childhood. Laughing at the absurdity of the narratives and pointing out the problematic lines. An Elvis pharaoh croons at us from an onscreen stage followed by a calypso song sung by the 12 sons of Jacob. The giant hand of god descends from the sky and murders all the firstborns in The Prince of Egypt and I feel that familiar panic swirling in my stomach. My sister dozes, nine months pregnant, on the couch. I long ago dispensed with any belief that the old testament fables were real but the memory of belief in things so horrifying is still held in my body. My cells have replaced themselves countless times since then, but they must have passed on the remembrance to the new ones.
Sitting at the table eating toast and drinking tea in the morning, my mother points out a pimple on my nose. She still treats us like her children or her teenagers despite the fact that we’ve been adults for years. I know she can’t help it, I try not to allow the triggers to dictate my behavior.
I think my body is finally regulating its hormones again after taking a single Plan B pill a year and two months ago. Love and carelessness and that tiny, white, preventative pill threw my vessel into a chaos that has taken a lot longer to even out than I would have anticipated. But I’m finally seeing some progress.
10am is my wakeup time on Saturday, I’m still on West Coast time. I wander downstairs and find the house empty. I turn the gas on under the tea kettle to heat the water and my gaze settles on the quarter of a chocolate cake on the island. There are vases of flowers around the kitchen and the inevitable buzz of lawnmowers floats in through the windows. It may rain. Black tea and chocolate cake for breakfast while I relish the brief alone time. I feel as if I’ve achieved nothing in the 4 days I’ve been here. My novel sits on my computer, neglected, my other projects, untouched. I know rest and presence of moment are important but the future tugs at me, the things I am trying to accomplish will not be quiet. And I’m thankful for their insistence. They are proof that my depression is shrunk. The fact that I want things and am willing to work for them feels exhilarating and sensual. Like my entire body is awake again, alive again.
The storm arrives and water falls from the sky in sheets, it is dark at noon and thunder and wind mix together in a comforting harmony with the rain. I do my best to allow the music of nature to unknot the muscles I am holding tense. The terrible habit of tension exacerbated in this place where I grew up.
The weather lightens and I read mindless fantasy books and eat more toast and watch the birds on the feeders outside. A male cardinal is putting on a show for the female he is courting. He ruffles his feathers and dances about while she looks on. They fly away to the privacy of the pine branches at the back of my parents’ yard.
My inbox gets cleared and I read newsletters about my industry and accrue films for my watchlist and text my friends back in my city, desperate for the churning, ever-moving activity of my profession. The stillness of my hometown is uncomfortable. I lie in bed at night feeling anxiety and the sensation of falling behind, the certainty I am not doing enough to further my dreams. That this place somehow accelerates time wasted. It is a feeling I contended with my entire adolescence. Waiting. Waiting to turn 18 so I could leave. Waiting for freedom from church, from rules that made no sense, from the puritanical household I came of age in. The pearl-clutching scandalized culture of christianity and ‘reputation above all’.
It all comes back here. In the stillness of boredom. In the space of waiting and waiting, the memory of waiting for the clock to run so I could leave but also the knowledge that I was wasting so much time waiting but what choice did I have? I wish I’d been more rebellious back then. Rebellious enough to do something other than wait. That the resourcefulness I cultivated in my 20s had shown up earlier. But how could it have? It was born from necessity. And the most pressing, ever-present necessity back then was escape. Like a siren’s call in the front of my teenage mind, compelling me across oceans and states and dreams that everyone else deemed impossible.
