previously published by me elsewhere:
We just got back from our bright shining capital city. Our little excursion only lasted the heavier side of a day, but with the profusion of smoke from forest fires throughout much of the drive as well as the multiple detours due to a partially closed I-10 for the presumed same reason, it was that much more taxing.
Oh, wait, and the fact that we spent our time with family!
Tomorrow encompasses not only the hallmark holiday called Mother's Day, but the less emphasized my-dad's-birthday. Conflicting schedules and the sheer dread of going anywhere on Mother's Day morning turned Saturday into Sunday, but it's not as if my relationship with my parents really dictates anything predictable and card-worthy. What actually exists between us wavers from indescribably complicated and leaf-crunchingly boring.
I spent much of the night tossing and turning on their pull-out sofa, not out of irritability from their company, but more that hotel-related discomfort you feel when traveling. Spending time in foreign beds, in unfamiliar sheets, breathing the air of someone else's world, everything becomes more intensified and disconcerting, and at an extreme what I have heard the first night of homelessness to be like.
My mind was racing through mental calisthenics more than calculating an exit strategy. The house was uncomfortably quiet, in those spurts fitting of suburban, USA. A silence broken by the incessant ticking of the wall clock that seemed to move like Willie Nelson sings, or the occasional rhythmic party on wheels that would pass by the window, and the heavy internal thunder being emitted by my parent's cat as I stroked behind her ears. Every bit of kneaded fur led to a deeper octave and an erratic twist of her little head. She cozied up to me, tiptoeing with her claws tapping delicately into the comforter, with much needed gentleness and calm.
