Little Story

“You possess only whatever will not be lost in a shipwreck.” —Al-Ghazali

***ATTENTION! A SHELTER IN PLACE ORDER HAS BEEN ISSUED AND WILL GO INTO EFFECT TUESDAY, MARCH 17TH AT 12AM.*** We look up from our various frantically buzzing devices, and sense, well… perhaps it’s the presence of some intrinsic and uncomfortable gut feeling concerning the unspoken prospect of being stuck for the foreseeable with no one to talk to but each other. Perhaps premonitions of cake, depression and spontaneous dancing. Maybe I’m just hungry. But I lift my eyes, blink, and as I connect airpods to my phone the overwhelm is replaced by opera and I can breathe again. My mother holds my hand as we walk to the car. For the hour’s ride to my childhood home, I write bullet pointed lists in my head. Looking around my room is so confronting! Feeling utterly removed from this place that sits just as I left it— holding dreams, shame, and a few rare and shining rejections of it. A sense of falling back, you know, like when you brake a little too hard at a red light and you’re worried the bottles of milk in the trunk will fall over on top of the ripe peaches and the bags of ‘thin and crispy’ corn chips. As I speed-pack for an unknown future, I can’t help thinking that whether among all the things I so carefully listed, or in those treasures that drip sentiment from every seam, really, none of what I need is here. And then, remembering a song lodged in the back of my throat I smile behind my mask, close my suitcase and, singing, run back downstairs to join my family.