Winter in Fragments

Stitches

The dentist and his assistant really are very kind. They talk to me all through the procedure to distract me from the sharp buzz of the drill. Metal scraping against enamel. Fluorescent white light from the overhead bulb seeping in through my closed eyelids.  During the worst part, they up the volume of their voices in an attempt to drown out the sound of my tooth breaking and splitting as they pull it from my gums.

I hear it anyway. The sickening crack. My mouth filling with blood. 

One of the consequences of an eating disorder is having weak teeth that break easily. This isn’t the first molar I have split in half. Even though I am in recovery, I have done some damage to my body that is irreversible.

The dentist's assistant gives me instructions on how to take care of my mouth while it heals but I can’t focus on what she is saying. I hear my heartbeat. I feel blood soaking into the gauze stuffed inside a gaping hole where my tooth used to be.

All over now and the damage is done.

All day, I spit blood into the sink. My tongue brushes over the crisscross stitches in my gums, sweeps over the newly hollow space in the back of my mouth. It’s not really noticeable.

Still, I am ashamed to smile.

Geese

One last swipe of the chainsaw and the old Cottonwood tree tilts slowly to the left and then topples to the ground. The final creak of splitting wood as it falls. Scattered limbs surrounding the dead tree lying motionless in the pale yellow grass. The men spend the morning feeding the bare branches into a wood chipper. When they load their truck and drive away, a sad silence settles over the empty space in the yard. Now, when I look out the window I see the stretching plains and the distant faint blue mountains of New Mexico, instead of branches full of leaves. In the mornings, I watch the dark wings of geese drifting through the fog, flying above a river that runs through the prairies.  

Waste

What do you do? The man asks me. I mean for excitement. What do you do for excitement?

I read, I say.

You read? He says.

I’ve always been more of an introvert, I say. I don’t like going out in crowds.

So you read? For fun?

That’s what I do, I say.

What a waste, he says. What a waste of a life.

Wall

Sometimes I feel like I can’t get out of bed. Worn-out limbs and a head full of static. Staring at the blank white ceiling, my legs refusing to move. The wind grazing across my windows. The day seems like a towering wall of hours and minutes and seconds that I won’t be able to climb. But I do. I do manage to get out of bed and climb up and over that wall. 

Climb and climb and climb.

A Thousand Floating Leaves

Just before the winter rains come, I sweep a heap of yellow leaves away from our chain-link fence. For weeks I’ve watched them fall from the trees and gather along the edge of the gate. As I sweep, a gust of wind suddenly blows through the alley and all of the leaves swirl up into the air at once. For a moment, I am completely enveloped in yellow.

A thousand floating leaves falling all around me.

   

Sparking Wires

Sometimes, I can’t sit still. I pace and pace and my heart beats erratically. I worry. I worry about everything. Name it. Everything is scattered and disorganized. Everything is too bright. Everything is too loud. Everything moves too slow, and at the same time, everything moves too fast. I lose my breath. My heart beats hard and quick; I can see it pounding through my shirt. My chest grows tight and sore. My arms go numb and my vision blurs. My brain feels like a tangle of frayed, sparking wires. I make myself sit down in a chair. I put my feet square on the floor and I try to breathe.  I breathe and I breathe. Deeper.

Years ago, when I was in grade school, my teachers would have conferences with my parents about my anxiety. I remember standing in the empty hall with my teacher, listening to the rows of fluorescent lights droning above our heads. She was trying to calm me down.   

You’ve got to stop worrying, she said to me. I have never seen someone worry like you do. You’re going to give yourself ulcers.

 Beige floor tiles shining under a new coat of wax.  Everything buzzing. My heart beating fast. Faster.

I would come home from school and complain to my mother about my heart. It beat very fast and my chest was hurting. Doctors taped wires to my skin and hooked me up to EKG machines. They monitored my breathing and my pulse. They could find nothing wrong. Everything was fine.

Years later, they decided that I was having panic attacks.   

I worried about my worrying. I worried that my worrying was making other people worry. When my heart would start to pound in school, I would slip away from the other kids and walk by myself along the edge of the playground. Placing one foot in front of the other, trying to balance along the border that separated the blacktop from the grass. My arms tingling, growing numb. A faint tremor running through my legs. Countless little dizzying stars floating through my peripheral vision. My pulse hammering through my head. Silently telling my heart to slow down: Stop it. Stop it. Stop it. You’re giving me ulcers.

Ghost

While I’m downtown, the snow begins to fall. From inside a diner, I watch people walk on the damp sidewalks and trot across soaked streets. Long wool coats and dark umbrellas. The smell of coffee and the sound of spoons clinking in cups. Outside, snowflakes are falling on brick buildings. I catch my reflection in the window. I look old and tired. My cheeks are sinking in again and my eyes look dark and hollow. Like a ghost. I turn away. It never takes me long to give up on my reflection.

What a waste. What a waste of a life.

The snow keeps falling. Without warning, my eyes fill up with tears.

How embarrassing. 

Morning Light

In the early morning, a pale orange sunrise streams in through the frost on the windows. The grass is covered in snow and the roads are gleaming with ice. Heavy snowflakes fall through the lamppost’s soft yellow light. Sometimes, when everything is quiet like this, the world actually seems manageable.

Foreheads

After the snowstorm, I sit on the floor next to my cat. He puts his forehead against my forehead. We sit like this for a while.

 I can’t remember the last time I felt so low.

Thaw

Beads of cold water drip down from the rooftops as the snow melts. Damp grass and wood burning in fireplaces. I stand at the window and watch the gray day fade. Streetlights switch on over the sidewalks as the sun sets.

Another day done. Another wall climbed.  Sometimes, it feels too high. The wall.  Too many hours. Too many minutes. Too many seconds. Tired bones and a heart that hurts. 

But I do climb it. I always make it over the wall. 

Tomorrow, I’ll climb the wall again.

Climb

And climb and climb and climb.