Everyone buys,Caleb in church this morning, winking at me as I took my seat staring at him like what in the heck are you doing here? and he gave me a little smile that said, well, I'm just trying to fit in, and I watched his eyes drift away from mine to see my ears and my hearing aids which I think I only wear for church and that surprises him and everyone else too. There's too many people. It's noisy, I have people who whisper to me and whisper about me and I just cling to Ben's hand which wraps tightly around mine and his other hand opens two of the buttons on his black dress shirt because he doesn't like shirts that aren't comfortable and then afterwards we're gone before I can get to see Sam because Ben avoids Caleb as much as he can and I'm with him far too much as it is.
Everyone's got a price
And nothing is new
When will all the failures rise
Out to the diner for a late breakfast and too much coffee and this is why I crash magnificently hard for a nap every night on the couch or any time I am forced to sit still and stare at a screen for more than an hour and I miss certain things about life, like back in the mid-nineties Cole would go and rent three or four movies and we would get a pizza and some pop and snuggle down on the couch and proceed to slog through six or eight hours of new releases and I'm lucky now if I make it through one movie.
I fell asleep during Bolt earlier this week, my chin bumping down against my coat and waking me up and Ben looked across at me and I lied and said, no, I wasn't sleeping but I was and for some reason I never want anyone to know how tired I am because then there are no movies, no time to just stop and just escape and just enjoy without any other thoughts for two whole hours at a stretch and I am told to get some sleep.
He will wrap his hand around my throat and kiss my face and tell me soon, we will get some sleep and my eyes are always heavy these days and if I don't get that late-afternoon cup of coffee that I have come to enjoy at two o'clock every day but always forget on Saturdays then you can be sure that by ten I am nodding again and telling you I am fine.
When we sleep, he is closed off, still and unyielding. When he is busy working or otherwise engaged I spend too much time these days rattling around with myself for company, marveling at how together I seem lately and keeping busy with minor things which enrages the superstitious Irish part of me, that figures if things are good soon something will be bad and we are not to become complacent. My hands no longer shake right now, because things are good.
Nothing in the world could....
....fail me now.
Tattooed on me for a very specific reason. At any point in my life if I invoke this particular piece of poetry that masquerades as a quietly inspired song lyric I know that I am at whatever bottom level of the current situation and I will start fresh and pull myself out and things will keep getting better no matter what. No matter where I am. No matter how well I'm doing.
Home now and checked on Daniel who is still sleeping. Ben has already changed back into a t-shirt and a flannel shirt, open and soft, no buttons buttoned, and jeans so broken in they should be tossed away and he and the kids are flying remote-control helicopters and laughing about the puppies we watched at the pet store yesterday, the pugs that Ruthie once again called Siamese puppies and the Chihuahua-Dachshund crosses that I insisted if we got one (we won't) we would have to name it Pancho Caliente, because it's a Mexican wiener and I don't even know if that's right but it's one of those things that becomes an in-joke but you can't really explain it to anyone else.
Like me falling asleep at the movies.