Closed In

For a while I tried to make my new “seaside” apartment feel like home.  It wasn’t such a bad place: from the bedroom window you could see the ocean, if you pressed the side of your face against the wall and really strained.  But when that got old, and I lost interest in unpacking, I started using unopened boxes as convenient stands for things like junk mail and canvases.  As much as I wanted to care, I couldn’t.  Somehow in my desire for flight I’d forgotten that my belongings would only remind me of the life that had blown up with the barn.  When I tried to deflect this by buying a watercolor from a local shop I wound up just putting that on top of a stack of boxes, too.

The only one who seemed happy with our new life was Daisy.  Lazy though she might have been, she relished the chance to stretch her legs during our evening walks on the beach.  “Dogs like you just aren’t meant for places like L.A.,” I told her, when she ambled up to me with a piece of driftwood in her mouth.  “I’m sorry I put you through that.  It won’t happen again.”

Because even if I were lonely and frightened and not nearly as pleased with the move as I’d hoped, there was no going back.  I would rather stay with this slow death instead, waiting for everything and nothing at the same time.  Despair stretched before me, as vast as the Pacific Ocean.

And then Christine called.