Ripest summer peaches in an assembly line on the chopping
block. My knife slicing to the rhythm of a soothing, silent beat. The
surrounding quiet is friendly, familiar, just listening. Its lack of input allows
my cells and senses to realign themselves. Absorbs the waves of discord that
exit my brain.
This middle of the night is mine.
It is free from the careening rush of requests that lurch
and lunge at me during every waking hour.. To the casual observer, these
interactions might seem quite pedestrian. Quite unimportant. An obvious
component of being a parent, of being a functioning person. But they don’t see
what’s going on behind my eyes. That my mind is climbing, climbing, chugging
along- and each interruption lobs itself at my train of thought, derailing it
from its track.
The dog, the doorbell, the lists and lists of silly little
things. MOM, can I have a Coke? MOM, when can we go to New York again? MOM,
after we finish this can we go to the mall, movies, park, bowling alley,
batting cages? MOM, can you buy me new shoes, new bat, new game, new toys, new
everything? MOM, will you play ping pong with me? Sit with me? Play with me? Me
me me?? Why can’t they understand that each insistent, innocent question is an
assault on the precarious order in my mind?
I can already hear your clucking warning. Yes, it will be
over all too quickly and I will long for these days. It already is. I already
do. But as their days are racing along, they are taking my days with them. And
soon, I will blink and look up and wave goodbye-to them and to my youth- and I will wonder, what the hell was it I was
trying to get done, again??
In the middle of the night, I am anything I want to be. I am
nobody, to no one.
I have time to think. My mind is on the verge of all the
answers. I don’t know them, but I know they are there. I also know it doesn’t
matter if I figure them out, because the answers exist independent of my
understanding. Of anybody’s. Sometimes it’s kind of lonely. I have to be all by
myself to be myself. But it’s also healing. It’s right. It taps into the part
of me, the part of all of us, that is already everything and nothing at all.
In the middle of the night, I am in charge.
My knife and my thoughts have stamina. They are supreme
athletes, conditioned and poised for the long race. They will work tirelessly
and efficiently towards the triumph of the finish line, the finished product.
Nothing is too difficult, too complicated, too much effort. Nothing is too
unimportant, too unnecessary, too frivolous, too expendable.
In the middle of the night, I don’t come in last place.
As my hand reaches for the last peach in line, I feel a
wistful sense of accomplishment. The task comes to a close and takes my sense
of purpose with it. Grudgingly, my eyes and my mind know that it is time. That,
in a blink, the dawn will bring with it a new list of mundane demands for me to
get behind.
