The camera sits in my lap, and I am scornful, resentful of its eye. That tricky, cold, logical lens that seems to hold all the happiness of others, and all of the sorrow of the world. Happiness in a glass. That is what I wanted, what I want. A happy little pill to swallow, a drink to chase it down, and the sweetness of troubles just evaporating like bursting champagne bubbles, tickling my nose on their merry way out of the glass. I stare back at the camera with my own cold eyes, stony to the metal and glass of the new gadgets. The new buttons, new technology, make that glass eye seem even colder than the eye of the old 35 mm cameras.
My aim wasn’t to take photos of the happy women all around me, but that is what happened. Now, while they stroll in and out of the shops as carelessly as happy drunks, that is what my camera captures. What is it that makes these other women so happy? They walk around with their shopping bags and smile as though they share a secret that I will never be given access to. DENIED, is how it would read, in blood-red, glowing digital letters on my camera screen, if I were to look too closely at the image of their smiling faces. But I don’t look at the images after I take them. I just point and click. Point and click. It is an exercise that is as futile as my intentions.
I took a cue from these achingly saccharine victims of capitalism, and tried shopping to ease my empties, but the only thing it did was empty my pocket book—which did not make me feel better. This space, this empty pit in my stomach has grown so large that it should have its own name. This nothingness has grown into an ever-widening pit of despair, and I am standing on the edge, watching myself, and threatening to myself, “I’ll jump, sister, and you won’t even see me do it.” That’s the least of my terrible self-orations, but it is the most frightening.
When I was very small my family went to the Grand Canyon, and my knees buckled
before I could get even ten feet away from the rocky rim. Everyone was already
out of the car and well on his or her way to take in the view, but my legs
refused me the motion, and I lay crumpled on the asphalt.
“Isn’t this lovely?!” “It’s the most amazing
thing I have ever seen!”
I wanted so badly to see what everyone was so excited about, but I just couldn’t
get there. Several other families of tourists took notice of me before my
own family. Some took photos, and some just stared, and until my mother turned
around, I was almost afraid that I would be scooped up by a German or Japanese
family, never to be seen or heard from again.
When I was in college, I went back to the giant Earth-hole. I stepped around it, and my legs carried me right to the edge. They didn’t want to, and a sharp pain shot up from the bottom of my feet, in an attempt to cripple my knees again, but I was stronger than they were. A tourist next to me removed a tissue from his pocket, but before he could dab at his nose the wind grabbed it up and lifted it out of his hand. It was a beautiful instant, the split second when his hand and the tissue were no longer connected, and separated by only a fraction of a millimeter. I watched it drift so gracefully over the canyon, out, out, out, out; it seemed to fly forever in a slow, steady decline. That was the first time that I had ever scared myself so badly. I was right there, and I could have just floated off the rim like a loose bit of tissue. Maybe my legs knew what they were doing. My mind on the tissue, my legs gave way as before. Knees pocked with tiny bits of rock and sand, I am carried away from the edge, but by whom, I cannot recall. All of those snapshots are blurry.
“Hey, how about a coffee and a browse through the bookstore?” Your tone is so light, and I can tell that you are more frightened of me than I am. Your fearfulness frightens me more; alerts me to my true proximity to the chasm. My heart beats louder in my chest and the blood running through my veins makes me ashamed to be in such a state. You stare at me so hopefully. Hoping words, written, spoken, tender touches, and a good shot of caffeine might be the key to a flicker of our old happy ways. But that coffee house where we had our first date, and I thought my life, my head, would be transfigured; it no longer exists. Everything is cold.
“Yes, that would be lovely.” The words dribble out of my mouth like oatmeal. I feel like a brat. I should be happy, I have no reason not to be happy, but I cannot keep those tears from heaping up. A puffy, red Inuit stares at me in the mirror, and blames me for the way she looks. I am not uncomfortable--unaccustomed--to look like I do in public. It must be more awful for you to be seen with me this way, but which is worse, the inside of this head, or the outside? I feel like an abuser. I should be locked away.
The bookstore coffee house is a cold shadow of our warm, cozy, and dark, Café Milagro. Faces read magazines, but mostly, they want the sugary dessert coffees, cakes, and then they leave. Was ours the last of the real coffee houses, where you might find a budding group of artists? Did that flame flicker and die for a colder, quicker caffeine fix? Where are the old sofas? The fat, lumpy, suck-you-in-and-never-let-go chairs? The books are all around, but you are not welcome to read them until they have been purchased, the magazines need to be bought as well and don’t come in as many varieties. Nobody here sips on a coffee, in a real mug, with a book, or discusses important things. These are shadows, and this too leaves me hollow, where even my own voice is echoing, and sounds strange to my own ears.
A couple sits down after a long day of shopping, and I scrutinize them for their happiness and youth. Girlfriend follows boyfriend, like the equally cute pair they are. Fiancée rolls off the tongue as easy as smoke around the mouth of a Parisian in a café. It is a word of promise, and the physical picture of youth, health, and happiness. But by the time the Fiancée becomes a wife, you can hear the tiredness seen in the image. A tired, bedraggled, burdened word—Wife. To which, one can always add the extra taxation, the extra chains, of Mother. It sears from the mouth like puss from an irritated sore. The word belongs to those with scorn for the job, and women who are fallen, trampled leaves. No matter what SUV you drive, no matter how large your diamonds or your McMansion, these words speak to their image counterparts as few words can. The most scornful, hostile words always reserved as markers of the feminine.
Back in the car, the rain makes splatter patterns on the windows, turned to blood by the tail-lights of the cars in front of us. You smile, and speak to me as though I am a scared child. Pretending that I am okay, because you don’t know what else to do.
Oh, what I didn’t know.
To be Continued
Splatter Patterns