toksa
“Sew a crystal in your hem for the heartache. ”
I’ve had a hard time waking. And sleeping.
The days are humid and pregnant by the heat. I feel heavy and swollen by it. My skin caramel from saddling the edge of the sidewalk between shade and sun.
I understand why afternoons are siesta hours. I come alive at sunset when the darkness drops the moon's glow. One bead dangling from the sky, though there are no rainbows.
A wish for rain.
Last summer around this time, I took Code and Frankie to Kitsilano beach. Code wore a bat mask and Frankie a string of pink plastic pearls. We all wore our gumboots. The sand was heavy and muddy. Shells and mollusks scattered the ocean’s carpet, and Frankie collected the pieces like the little vacuum of the sandy strip.
I wanted to show them the upturned sailboat. A big rig moored mid-beach aside the stamps of footfalls, people who previously thought to snap a photo beside its barnacled bare hull. The boat was beaten- tattered sails and cracked containers. Rocks and paper coffee cups and green glass beer bottles littered its cabin. It needed a cloth. To be turned upright. I good rub down and rinse. Who doesn’t need a good rub down and rinse?
So the boat was turned on its side mid-beach by the basketball hoop where the lanky boys played in their high-top sneakers and long shorts and Code would watch and say, I can do that. And when we were swimming at the pool I’d give him a ball and he would spank and slam the bravado of the boys he’s seen at the basketball hoop.
The kids didn’t care about the sailboat until we arrived and they could put their sweaty palms against the cold sides and press their fingers to the hardened calcium plates. It had rained all morning. Dressing took too long. Pant legs pulled over arms and socks tossed under the bed. I couldn’t brush their hair. The soft brown curls on Frankie and straight gold locks on Code. Some fights are worth having. Others are not.
To clear the stagnant energy, I coaxed them from the living room with the grey rug and white walls and the long green plant with an invitation to Oh Carolina! A seven-minute walk through the park from the house, we stomped in puddles, and I had to pull Frankie out from the swings where a pool surged from the holes in the playground sand. The water sucked her into her little booties nearly to her knees and before the rubber could fill to the rim, I scooped her up in both arms, my woolly sweater coated with sand.
Oh Caroline! is a tapioca-coated cafe that sells espresso and pastry and Livia sourdough and large yellow and orange heirloom tomatoes and Italian pasta and French chips in camembert and bacon flavours and lollies for fifty cents and toffee cubes for a dollar and an egg bun sandwich with a spicy sauce and ice cream pops with real berries frozen on the inside. The petals of strawberry and blackberry burst from the cold to your lips.
The trip to the succulent studded cafe was a treat and ultimately typical. A routine Tuesday, I would skip making my cup of coffee in the morning and wait until our trek to order an American with a thimble of cream and two chocolate croissants.
I cannot look at a chocolate croissant without thinking of Code and Frankie. Each had a preferred way of consuming the puffy pastry. Frankie would pull the top crust off and get to the doughy goodness in the middle. SHe’d hand me the hard edges- the end pieces- and pull apart the buttery insides. Code’s method was cleaner. Frankie would be doused in croissant dust from head to toes, having kicked off her rubbers and pulled off her socks at the wooden bench seats. I’d take a wet cloth and wipe her head to toe, finishing at her feet before layering her limbs with booties and boots.
Code likes his croissant ripped in half to get at the middle where the roll of chocolate is nestled in the folds. I’d split it in two, slightly off-seam, and he’d scrape out the chocolate wedge and set it on the side. He’d patiently eat the pastry, intermittently wiping his hands and face, saving the best for last.
How we do one thing is how we do everything- watching the twins consume their treat, each so delicately and distinct, illuminated much of their character. Even if not, especially at four years old.
Sugared up and sticky, we reentered the muggy musk of the day and waltzed home. Colouring consumed the midday, and by afternoon the sun was spitting rays through the sporadic showers. I presented the idea of the boat to the kids with pomp and flourish- fully recognizing their disdain and lack of reception.
The car ride was wrought with struggle. In times of rife, I’d sing the Pavamana Mantra- egging the kids to join me. They would, eventually. Code would start, watching my lips to grab each syllable. Frankie would eventually join, puncturing the air with kicks and jabs. Watching, needing no one to encourage the vibration from her lithe body.
I parked in the two-hour free zone, a ten-minute walk from the beach. The distance from car to ocean gave me the chance to decompress and the kids an opportunity to run and rinse themselves of whatever notes lingered.
Where’s the boat?
It’s on the beach.
Why?
It’s been washed up; someone left it during the storm and was pushed to the shoreline.
Why?
When the tide went out, the boat had no one to operate it, so it got stuck.
Where is it?
It’s coming- you’ll see it soon.
Code was always the first to inquire. To persist. To insist for an answer. Frankie was happy to run and point at flowers and people - look at this! Look what I found. Or, see the kitty in the window?
We arrived at the beach as the sun burbled between two dark clouds, washing the sand in gold and orange sparkles. The sailboat was a loud kerplunk, a metallic penny dropped to a fountain, with people in a wide ring. Casting wishes. The kids were delighted, utterly. Frankie galloped toward its hull and Code took my hand. Let’s go.
At the boat, a family of five took photos with a small digital camera. An expecting mother watched her daughter pile sand into the shape of mushy towers. Two youths shared earbuds on a blanket, converse discarded, pressing their toes into the cold. A dark-haired dog ran in circles, boat side to water, splashing flecks of salt on those nearby. A woman wearing glasses and a green shirt put her hand on the boat's side and took photos of the seaweed next to her hand, the dark, pulpy orange bright against her olive skin.
The kids gathered at the port side and kneeled in the sand. A group amassed, as they do, forming out of curiosity and need. I stood a little back from the procession, watching. Needing to be separate and also part of the crowd. My stance allowed me to watch the children, to keep a keen eye on their wanderings though they were rooted knee and heel in the muck. The boat reminded me of my previous home at the Cambie Street Marina. With Greg. He took a plastic knife to the bilge and scraped off all the crap- the seaweed and barnacles weighing the boat down. I sat on the cabin with Clarice Lispector and tossed beers down as Greg called up to me. It was a glorious time. The sun danced on the water, the waves rocking me gently. Greg's cold, wet curls on my face, his lips salty with the sea and briny from the beer, on my clavicle and cheeks.
What would Greg say of the bilge of this boat? It was not well tended to caked with calcium as it was.
The memory darkens, pressing down into the gallows of my heart. There are tunnels in all our bodies, lines that traverse the continents of the soul. Frankie and Code are nestled deep inside of me- the moments we sparred and cuddled- running in the sand, getting splattered by sunbeams and rain. I fill the corridors of my being with their sweetness. I long to be there again, standing a little aside as they look up to the sails rippling in the pacific winds.
There is no wind in Barcelona. I feel a breeze on my bike and there’s a waft that wanders into the living room that sometimes smells of cat piss.
It’s Tuesday and my body is rife with my old routine. Chocolate croissants. Code. Frankie.
I’ve yet to write a new story into my psyche.
Tuesday.
What is?
Photo source.
