In my lost year, 2014, I could go to a coffee house, post my presence on social media, and within a half hour, someone would appear at the doorway to spend time with me. Jeanne Jasperse, Penny Thieme, Genevieve Casey — any number of wonderful folks would stop their normal daily routine to come order coffee and share the events of their lives.
Today the press of my solitude bears upon me. I gaze outside at the painfully tender blue of the sky and wonder what my friends back home would think of my life today. Jeanne left us years ago but I still see her in relief against the bright sun of the open doorway of Homer’s Coffee Shop. I still hear the lilt of her voice as she pulled out a chair. Hey girl. My heart beats within my chest in an unbearably poignant rhythm.
I had a sudden urge to see a particular picture of my mother and me. I struggled with the search bar of my old laptop. Something in my eyes, I suppose; a sudden sting. I tried to sort by name but the download grouped itself by date. The longest bunch just bore a simple heading: A long time ago. Oh yes.
I realize that I lost most of my scanned photos in the hack of my website. I get a little desperate, running search after search. Finally I find it in an album on Facebook. I study our profiles. I remember that day. I’m 17 or 18 in the photo; my mother must be nearly 50. You cannot see the sorrow in our hearts but those years held very few quiet hours. Yet in that moment, on the porch of an historic house in St. Louis, we could have been any mother, any daughter. My heart contracts.
Years ago, in a book of essays and short stories called Solo: Women on Women Alone, I read someone’s account of solitary life. Most of the time, I’m all right, she remarked. I go about life without a care. But once in a while, I come home and check the closets and under the bed. I imagined her going through the apartment. Did she fear finding someone hiding there? Or would she draw him out, make a cup of tea, and serve him dinner? Was it the thought of a crouched figure that frightened her or the anguish of the empty spaces?
Today I dwell on every bad decision that I’ve ever made. I cannot help it. It is I who finds the silence haunting; I who parks the car and listens as the motor cools, wondering what everyone else has found to occupy their day. I talk to my mother, to Penny, to my sister and my son. But mostly in my head, in the stillness. I study Jeanne’s grin as she strolls through the coffee shop. Hey, girl, I tell her. Long time no see.
Life among the missing holds little joy, except the vague shadows of pleasant hours gone by. Yet still do I cling to its brittle contours. The faces might eventually fade, but the feelings will ever linger. I find some comfort there.
Mugwumpishly tendered,
Corinne Corley
The Missouri Mugwump®
