noosphere
“I guess I’m quite used to not being understood rather than being understood.”
As she sips her drink, hot water with turmeric and honey, the girl listened to the Voice Memos she’s accumulated over the past six months. Fatigue curled around each consonance. The tone of the dispatch is hopeful, most of the time.
The girl could not understand everything spoken in the recordings and used her powers of osmosis to identify what was going on with her friend. She’d close her eyes and listen to the space between each sentence.
Grief is a wound that never fully heals. It leaves a hard, white scar like when the girl flipped from her bicycle and split her bottom lip. Her friend was grieving the loss of something. The girl didn’t need to know what to empathize with her pain. Sadness takes more time to express.
Someone brought the girl a cheesecake with raspberries on top. The girl layed on the floor with a large slice on a small plate. She picked off the fruit first and took tiny shavings from the top until only the bottom layer was left. The crust was the best part, a blend of granola and crushed cookies packed into a neat foundation. The girl felt heavy as she set the spoon down on the empty dish. At times like this, she didn't fight how she felt. She leaned into it with the agility of a sparrow landing in its nest. There were moments to feel buoyant and moments to feel broken, and the latter came regardless of what you wanted from life.
The girl collected her dish and utensil and placed them in the sink. Taking a pink scrub brush, she used a little lavender soap and warm water to wipe the leftover bits of cake and saliva from the items before setting them on a drying rack. Time took care of most things, drying dishes for one.
An aching heart could not be mended. Though time could take care of the intensity of the wound.
The girl knew this from experience.
There were no new voice memos from her friend. There had not been for weeks. Perhaps it was a month, though the girl did not keep track of her losses. She listened to the old recordings, relishing her friend's laugh. She'd enjoyed debating with her confidante over the irreconcilable politics they followed on social media. Greedy people and starving people. There was only this and that. Her friend always played devil's advocate no matter the girl's stance. Sometimes they eventually agreed and other times, they could not meet in one place, which suited the girl just fine.
She didn't need validation.
The girl cleared the grease and dust from the countertops and floors. She used a long handled broom and a linen cloth that hung on the wall by a green pin.
The girl washed her hair after wiping down the kitchen. She used a mint shampoo and conditioner. Her bathroom smelled of eucalyptus though she hadn't hung a vine from her facet in months.
How we mark time is an expression of what we focus on.
Hot water turned the girl's skin a dark pink and she stepped out into the steam to silence. The memo had ended. As the girl towel-dried her hair, she put on another one. Her friend was talking about Isreal. The protests. The deaths. She was driving for this recording and the girl could hear the windshield wipers slide back and forth over the glass. It was raining. The friend's tone was light-hearted.
The girl continued to listen as she put on her pajamas. A pair of flannel pants and a ribbed tank top. The pants were blood orange, the shirt a deep red. She slid between the sheets and put the phone on her chest. There was twelve minutes left in this recording.
She listened as her friend parked the car. She didn't have an umbrella and ran to her final destination through the puddles. The girl didn't know where she was going or who she was meeting. She couldn't follow the conversation. Something about resistence; do we fight or flee? When is it time to break up and when is it time to listen deeper?
It's nice to have friends who can laugh in the rain.
Photo source.
