Words, captive in my head, vibrate like freshly-trapped squirrels in a dark, hollow crate. Spinning ceaseless, going nowhere, all in a panic. I can barely construct what I want to write, but I’m free to demonstrate my difficulty doing so.
My days are this: thin. Spread taut between nails, rapidly drying out at sunrise and split by the rising full moon. There is no honeycomb for thoughts, and very little time for guesswork. Each mark feels indelible: a pursed lip at the first grade classroom door, extracted by Ford’s exhausted teacher; the moment I yell at Chas for screaming joyfully into my ear (quite by his accident); the angular tension between my eyebrows.
Some people more in tune with their bodies and minds would suggest I can’t think straight because I am trying to do too much. I say I am fumbling while trying to live on my own terms.
True, I could focus on one thing or another. I could scour books tonight about childhood development to find a possible cause of Ford’s intense participatory excitement in school, or I could shrug it off to an active boy trying to live life on his own terms, as well.
I could say one hundred Hail Mary’s for the trauma I inflicted on Chas, who was just as angry with me for shrieking as I was for his screaming in my ear. How insane it is to expect a 4 year-old to ignore the power of his own ego: “Give it up, world! I’m the shit in this beeping, light-up Ben 10 Omnitrix watch!” You can’t hold in that kind of joy.
Who’s to blame, really? The energy within this house bounds, unmitigated, through each and every one of us within its walls in completely different ways. Some of us channel it better than others, that’s all. I think Damon rides this force on his bike all the way to work, through his day and back home again, for example. At the other extreme, I grab it by the throat, wrestle it into the box within my head, and let it vibrate for a couple of hours each night.
That probably explains the exhaustion.
