July 17, 2013

Home Again

          The PVC glue had dried and all that needed to be done now was to connect the garden hose. The plastic shower stood at the bottom of a daringly short flight of concrete steps leading from the backyard, and the July sun was like a glamorous city skylight on the yellow- green algae of the walls.
          I put my glass of white wine on the third step up and covered myself with patchouli soap. I missed the country.
          The week had been like a celebrity biography, in which the subject takes half a year to do nothing—to shop, stay with friends in France, or read. Playlist followed playlist, sunset (with the sound of couples quietly talking in row boats) followed sunset, and I was never too full or too tired or too drunk. We played cards late into the night and once as I went to bed I saw daylight rising from behind the cedars, the color of fresh blueberries.
          I had quit my life but my young companions regarded mespoke to me, waited for me to reply. I lost a little weight without trying to. I won a couple of the rounds of cards. I took my arms away from my face where I had braced them, waiting for my life to crash—to flip over into the Delaware canal on a rainy night, trapping me in the back seat with my memories.
          But this shower was a surprise, like a new friend or a wad of bills found in the hamper. After the sixth week of not hearing from the plumber, Gary plopped it down over the French drain with a chic little teak-wood platform and a dish for soap. After 22 years of baths in the old tub, ringed by a motley row of tiles and blackening caulk, the shower was a treat. 
          It stood tall in the cellar way with the top of its white neck bent like a swan's.
          I dusted off my ego and started steaming vegetables and exercising again. For the first time in years, I stood at the mirror and looked long at my face, trying to recognize myself in it. Something about the jaw was different—the spine of a book that has been fully read, laid aside.  
          I have come back.