Note to Self

Cursed page: white and neat, crisp, blank, correct in its angles, lines, corners. Now in march the letters, the black lines like so many dreams of loose eyebrows, eyelashes, stitches, black bobby pins – gross grotesque marks filling up a page.

I had premonitions about your dying. Many times, dreams with a box, a container. Crying and crying and waking up, convulsing and being surprised at the lack of real tears. There was a handful of dreams. I can say this. A handful, a measure. A container, a logic.

When you say and tell me, and Mom’s home midweek, and there’s that tone (your logic perhaps matter-of-fact), it’s as though you take a step backward, and I’m straining to hear – it’s muffled – there’s cotton engulfing us, there’s bedding. I can’t understand; come closer. Be clear; stop shaking. Be well; straighten your back. Blink; open your face, hand it to me. Breathe.

I want this to stop happening. I want to stop feeling foolish at our previous fortune, like we squandered time when we were all perfectly healthy. Now what? No one’s going to live through this as we know life – as we’ve loved it – as we didn’t love it enough.

I feel foolish to want and humbled to be demanding. Shy. I only want to set things right.

How do I mean?

– tell Jill how I feel off the hook knowing she’s leaving as if my will – demonstrated – can be packed up, closed. Stored.