Today marks the very first time there are neither of the above in my house. I ran out of nag champa a long time ago. Lochlan ran out of beer last Wednesday.
He has made no move to get more. On the other hand, once the cold weather comes I like to have the nag burning late into the mornings while I work with my words. It's atmosphere, the same way Lochlan blurs the edges of his atmosphere so very slightly with hops and barley. Just enough to take the edges right off the throb of pain when he gives me back to my life, gently dropping me out of history, hanging me by the hands to be let go at the last second to fall the final distance down into the real.
The real.
Now. Present. (Unscented.)
Now with one hundred percent sober.
I'm not jumping guns or sharks saying that, I know how Lochlan thinks and when he stops, he just stops. He's self-regulating. Everything with a reason. I am not, I'm working hard to make my wishes known instead of transmitting them via invisible brat-waves and not throwing tantrums but forcing myself to pick up a book when I can't get my way and appreciating things like a roaring fire or a lit gingerbread candle or a hot cup of tea. Simple. Good. It works. Well, for now it works so cross your fingers, like I have crossed mine.
Cooking simple meals. Cranberry juice. Drawing the curtains before dinner, when the sun drops down behind the treeline and the mountains cast their shadow over this warm house. Look around you, Bridget. We made it. We have everything at last.
(Knock wood. Knock your head. Knock everything, just in case.)
A year ago this week Caleb offered us the move. The one we couldn't refuse. Tonight he is coming for dinner to celebrate our relative intactness. Or maybe he is coming to curse it. Either way I invited him if only to say Ha. Look. We did it and I didn't depressurize or implode or lose my mind. I packed it lovingly in wads of paper and bubble wrap and sealed it in a small box marked FRAGILE. When we landed they poured beer all over it to rehydrate it and look, I was good as new.
