Monday’s child is fair of face,
Tuesday’s child is full of grace.
Wednesday’s child is full of woe,
Thursday’s child has far to go.
Friday’s child is loving and giving,
Saturday’s child works hard for a living.
But the child that is born on Sabbath day,
Is bonny and blithe, good and gay.
I was born on Sunday.
Today is Wednesday.
Yesterday was Tuesday.
I’ve often lived my life in weekly cycles. They work best for me. I don’t think in months or years or seasons. Just weeks. Sundays are sometimes family dinner. Always sleeping in as much as I want. Mondays are yoga, 6-7, via computer and also via leftist affection and good humor. Tuesdays are dinner with a friend, though we miss many weeks. Wednesdays blank. Thursdays at the barre and then briefly attempting to leap, crosswise across the room, as our room isn’t too big. Fridays are open. Saturdays are coffee with my mom and sister.
Yesterday was Tuesday.
I read on the balcony for a bit, but none of my books settled right. I kept reading a paragraph over again. I have He Wanted the Moon, a book about a doctor with manic depression and his daughter who hardly knew him. I have A Pilgrimage to Eternity, taking me along a pilgrimage route down France. I have Stay True, a book about friendship between two ’90s boys. None were working.
The cats remained outside, though, as I took the waters of youtube on the couch.
Then the storm blew in. Rain collapsed on us as if exhausted. Even my brave little girl, Leia, came in. I shut the door and latched it. The rain continued, and I thought, this is good. It’s a rainy day. Now I know what kind of day this is. I know how to treat it.
Then the sirens screeched. Our sirens, we listen to.
On a Tuesday, friends and I were texting, my family was texting. I’m not wedded to my phone, but we were hanging out now. I put on a youtube video from a meteorologist who has been our meteorologist since I can remember. He looked pinched and thin.
I grabbed Leia, and her little sausage body squealed and protested and I lost her. It took three tries to get her in her carrier. Then I hugged my big boy Lafayette and got him in his backpack. He wasn’t too mad about it. I set both their carriers next to the door to the basement.
I got my lantern. I put on a t-shirt and overalls and socks and shoes because I have heard tell being without real shoes is no bueno in an emergency.
Some places you live with the volcano, some places you live with cracks in the earth, or sandstorms brewing.
I got my purse and my keys.
The bad one, in our minds, in Kansas City, was Joplin, in 2011. We’ve all taken cover a hundred times, but Joplin was a town we had all driven through a million times, and it ate 4,000 homes. A few weeks ago, a tornado bit into St. Louis, not far from where my sweet aunt and uncle have lived forever.
My body gushing adrenaline, I decided to clean out the refrigerator. It was right there by the basement door, I didn’t want to clean it out, and I have learned to use my anxiety for cleaning.
I removed things shelf by shelf, replacing them briefly with a hot towel. Like a stewardess serving first class.
A few times I looked out the window.
Once I stepped onto the porch.
There wasn’t anything to see. Just gray.
My therapist said, you guys go through a huge transition. You fall off a cliff.
We do. One minute you are responsible for dozens of vulnerable people, trying to save them from everything, and the next minute you can stay in bed all day if you want.
It is a cliff.
It’s a wave.
It’s a ride.
I rinse out the container of vodka I infused with blueberries for Mardi Gras.
I use the foil topping to scoop out some truly science projecty former pasta salad. Sometimes I cut up a lot of veggies and then I just can’t.
Tuesday was full of grace. The rain stopped, ominously (we know this is bad), but nothing followed. TV journalists raced around to take video of one lone ambulance in a ditch, and one pathetic tree that had fallen (film at eleven!). The sirens stopped, then started again.
Textually, we recounted how the sirens had not been turned on in St. Louis, and how Trump has cut National Weather Service funding.
But nothing happened.
Full of grace.
I canceled dinner with the friend. I dug into cleaning more, my first cleaning since school ended: bathtub bleaching, floor sweeping. The little things like rehanging a picture that lost its nail, and moving another nail up a bit, where the picture looked better.
Was it okay to stay home again? Should I be seeing people? How much should I see people? How much should I write? Read? Slurp down 3 hour runs of “The Great British Sewing Bee”?
Grace, voluminous, but daunting, isn’t it?
Going On 