3:46am
Yesterday a bird on my property yelled at me. I’m walking up the black asphalt drive and from the branches above, it lets out the ugliest screech at me. The nerve, that bird. On my property.
It’s suburbia here and a buck is staring me down. I’d like to park the van. He’s young, and unpredictable, I’d assume. I cautiously yet optimistically inch towards the side door- the van is nudging this teenage buck to get on home. Nearly to the door. He really isn’t thrilled with me and I brace for deer-sized tantrum. He’s gone now, and I scurry around the sliding doors collecting children and things and scramble through the hazardous storm door (watch your ankles). Are we safe?
The tree had to come down. It was nice for the shade but invasive. It costs a boatload of cash we didn’t really have. Dropped a few good branches onto our nice stuff-tried to be a boss. Anyways, tree had to come down, so all the men and their trucks and tools sliced it till nothingness remained. I imagine the process sprinkled new seeds of that awful tree everywhere within a mile long radius. Scientifically, I’ve got nothing to go on. But can’t you just see those tiny, dusty and defiant molecules settling into the earth? “Watch me now, jerks,” says the unearthly ghost of tree! “I’m bursting into millions and digging my heels in deep to the cool moist depths of the dark earth. Nothing can’t stop me now.”
Oh the mice. The Mickey Mouse wanderers who find our home. I. Do. Not. Do. Rodents, and if I need to poison them and their food chain I will thank you very much take your uppity peaceful living garbage and shove it. Phew. That was exhausting. Mad is madness is invasive and then permeates.
I hear you raining on my roof, water squeezed like dishrags from the sky. Tires roll 50 yards from where I sit and the wet between their treads and road would tell me enough, without needing to hear the gutters overflow.
Even at 4:11 am it’s noisy. There’s static in my ears and a stray baby cry and snort, snort, siiiiiigh from the dog at my feet. I only want to weave, in the quiet, without the rain and static, and cries, and sighs, and judgey birds, and intimidating bucks, and invasive species, but who am I really without all that? I’ll meditate on the wool thread as I batten it down, but there’s no structure to hold the wool without the steady, boring, omnipresent weft. The other day I told my son that the weft cannot break, and to demonstrate, I pulled hard. It broke. I guess the thread was cheap and just an imitation. Fooled me though, that’s for sure. Turned out I was betting all my woven art on a faulty system of threads that could snap with just a nudge of my hands.
I’m planning to be a better parent today, just like everyday. If only I can turn down the static, just slide those radio dials to zero, then click off. I’ll yell from above at the distractions in my way or stare down hard at the crap in my path and scurry through the mazes while dodging the toxic temptations, and finally, finally, settle down into my rightful home, nuzzle my children close, inhale, exhale, there we are, we were there all along, weren’t we? Just had to turn down the noise.
c. 2021 Melissa Lipnick
Written by Melissa Lipnick, a writer and artist in Cleveland, Ohio.