What to do in the dark - #153
Rooting.
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In the dark, the blinds drawn and the humidifier bubbling, I can tell which cat is coming to bed by the weight and speed. Finn is first, and he comes with the assuredness of having been my cat the longest. Next is Link, tentative and as light footed as a solid dumpling can be. You can hear him like a helicopter approaching with that purr. Banzet comes in the night all at once. He is not there, and then he is on your chest like a panther, mad that he cannot lay directly on top of the baby.
In the dark, I run my hand across their coats and a field of firecrackers erupt between my skin and their fur, static electricity lighting up our connection if ever briefly. It is a goal of mine to get them all purring at once, like spinning plates balanced on precarious sticks. It’s easy to get Finn and Link, bellies up and paws outstretched. Banzet is a harder sell.
In the dark, Banzet will settle for laying on the baby’s feet. Everyone is fast asleep, and he and I are the night watch. It will take him several tries to find the right position, but once he does, if you mush him aggressively enough, he will begin to purr. When he was a kitten, any time you pet him he would get worked into such a purring frenzy that he would suckle his own penis. I brought it up to the vet.
“Is this normal? When Banzet really gets purring, he suckles his penis.”
“Your cat sucks his own dick? Can’t say I’ve seen that before.”
He’s grown out of it, and I can’t say I mind. I’d still like to get them all purring at once.
In the dark, closer to dawn, I can smell Jibs’s paws. Jibs works like an alarm clock, starting the night deep under the covers and working his way back up to fresh air. When I can smell his paws reaching out toward my face, I know it’s around 4am. Corn chips. Frito feet, they call it. A portal of a past dog, heavy and soft in your bed again. For a moment, it is Cooper’s soft muffles I hear, but he slips back into the garden as Jibs barrel rolls in bed to press his back against my side.
In the dark, it is raining, if only from my phone. “10 Hours of Continuous Rain Sounds for Sleeping” would have you think we live in a rainy climate, but the rains won’t come until June. At hour 11, the rain stops—abruptly—and we are thrust to the coast, to the jungle, to a hot summer’s day in the Midwest as lightning cracks through the omnipresent whirs of the air purifier and the humidifier. It sounds and feels like we are in a rainforest exhibit, manufactured and reminiscent, a smoke and tobacco candle in a linen shop. The wind against the house is loud, furious, and futile. Snow whips against the glass. Birdsong starts to play and we are lost in dreams.
In the dark, a hand rests on my side, palm no bigger than an avocado seed. It has not worn itself hardy from bike handles or steering wheels, it is still new and soft and warm. I built it. I ate chocolate and apples and tuna and tomatoes and I printed a small hand to press against me in the dark. I am sitting up, curled around a nightlight and a book, and the small hand curls its fingers in and out, checking. Mama?
Yes, baby. Mama is here.
In the morning, she will engage in the lightest of witchcraft. With cinnamon and sincerity, she will wish for abundance — a harvesting word for relief. She will blow a teaspoon through her threshold when no one is around and write down her hopes in a journal no one reads. The ritual will feel silly, like an assignment with no credit in a class graded on “networking.” But adding ritual to regimen makes the days feel longer, like they matter.
And anyway, there’s lead in her cinnamon. It’s as good a use as any.
Trees network. Through fungal networks in the ground, they share what is needed to thrive: nutrients, water, information. They warn each other of disease, drought, and distress. Some saplings will snake their way to light, drinking fast and burning out. Some old friends will fall together, roots entwined in the free fall. But the forest, when it is not too damaged, works together, for if only a few trees grow too tall, too big, then the rest die in the dark.
In the dark, I am alone, running numbers on my phone. If I take this gig and we spend this much and we make these moves and it goes this well, then I will know the cinnamon worked. That all my work has worked. The glow of the calculator dims the room with a number, a goal. I feel the ache to get started, to plant my bare feet on the cold floor and produce.
But I am not alone, even in the dark. My son and my husband and my dog and my cats breathe steadily, bellies and backs undulating with the rhythm of life. My husband cooks the food that feeds me. I make the milk that feeds the baby. We water the plants that make the oxygen. We feed the animals that hold the mice at bay who feed off the walls that keep me warm as winter wails while I make the money to buy the food that my husband cooks to feed me so I can feed the baby. And so it goes, a network, giving and taking.
It is abundant, if only I can remember it is there. If only I can remember I am not an oak, but an aspen. I am of a grove, connected and commiserating. I have nutrients to share, promises to keep. I have seeds to lend, buds yet to leaf. I am not one, but one of many growing root to root and branch to branch, touching the sun while saplings encircle us, soaking up the light until their height is indiscernible from our own, the grove ever growing in the sun, in the soil, and even in the dark.
More like this:
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Siri, set a reminder for every morning that I am an aspen💪.
I like being in this grove. This is just gorgeous writing.