This is a draft of a story I am working on. The end is where I got stuck. I'm hoping by putting it up here, I will be motivated to get it finished, so no one is waiting for the end too long!
Sophie remembers the lunches her mother made them for school as despicably embarrassing. There was no need for it, they were not poor, they lived in a good neighbourhood, but Sophie used to believe that some part of her mother’s history snuck through their WASP life, and made her determined to feed her children healthy home made food.
While all of her friends got Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwiches cut into triangles with the crusts removed, some cookies and milk, in their Superwoman or E.T. lunch boxes, she received her lunch in a homemade drawstring sack printed with honey bees and flowers made from left over curtain fabric. In this lunch she got a mason jar full of beef and barley soup, stew, or chilli, whatever they had had for dinner the night before. She was supposed to go an ask at the teacher's lounge if they could heat it up for her in the home ec kitchen. She never did. She also got a very dense hunk of buttered brown bread. Her mother never was very good at making bread. She just assumed because it was heavy and brown, that it was healthy. At the bottom of the sack was the treat. Some kind of dried fruit that always looked gruesome or hard boiled eggs. She remembers being so excited the few times she got cookies only to discover they were store bought, rock hard ginger snaps.
For the life of her, Sophie couldn’t understand why her pretty, popular and kind mother would want to punish her so. She learned early on however, to not bring home uneaten lunches unless she was sick. To do so would be to bring on the speech about the ungrateful daughter she tried so hard to raise with a healthy attitude towards food. Instead, at school, they made a game of disposing of her lunches. They would pour the contents of the jar into the janitors mop bucket, or down the toilets. Sophie prepared elaborate eulogies on the way to school that they used in these mock funerals. She knew the value in defecting the ridicule from herself to her mother. They discovered that the bread, dried fruit and hard boiled eggs made excellent ammunition to use in surprise attacks on unsuspecting little kids. By the end of fifth grade however, there were no more lunches. Her brother Steven told on her one day, after he happened to be one of the kids hit by a flying egg. Her mother never said a word, but the next day and each day after that there was no lunch waiting for her. The sack disappeared, and in its place lay two dollars. Sophie never asked why because she knew, and she couldn’t apologize.
Sophie supposed it had come full circle in a way. She was now the same determined mother, only instead of embarrassing her children; she was killing herself trying to come up with new lunch ideas every day. She didn’t want them laughing at her as she once laughed at her mother. She was on the net everyday looking up creative sandwiches, cookie recipes, and had stacks of parenting magazines with lunch ideas bookmarked. When she felt drained of ideas, she surprised them with a pick up day where they went to a fast food place. They didn’t know when it was coming and they didn’t know that it was just failure on her part to get her act together, they just thought she was the coolest mother.
Sophie suspected it was coming to an end though. At seven and nine her boys were not as pleased with PB & J cut into dinosaur shapes or Hidden Treasure rollups. They were starting to want less creative, more normal lunches. Nothing funny. And the burger trips? They wanted to bring friends along. They told her that no one else’s mom took them out at lunch. So she complied. They took turns bringing one friend with them. She dreaded the day when she wouldn’t be cool to them. She let them order whatever they wanted on these outings. Feigned interest in their gross jokes and noises. She didn’t understand testosterone, but she did understand the point at which mom stops being someone you want to hang out with.
When Aidan, her first son was born it happened so quickly that she never even had time to realize what was happening. She went into premature labour and Aidan had to stay in the hospital for two weeks. It was two weeks at home where the bassinet was empty, and her days became a blur of pumping and travelling back and forth to the hospital to feed him. Everyone kept telling her to use the time to rest she would need it when he came home, but she couldn’t sit for very long, she couldn’t sleep because her breasts were swollen and sore. She ached to have him in her arms, to lie beside him at night and watch him sleep.
He grew strong enough to take home and was feeding well so they packed him into the carseat, drove him home, and then she sat on the floor in the living room beside the carseat and wept. She didn’t know what to do with him. In the hospital she was there to nurse and cuddle him and she did so at regular times because someone was telling her to. David her husband could only sit beside her and hold her hand while she cried and cried, until her nose was raw, her eyes were puffy and Aidan was crying to eat.
He never seemed to require too much of her. He ate and slept and sat happily in his chair watching them, and everyone told her how lucky she was that he was not colicky, that he was so content. But in her heart, she wished he needed her more. She desired that primal connection that never got formed at his birth because he had been whisked away and put in an isolette in the Special Care Nursery. Sure there was a connection and a bond, and his smile was biggest for her, but it all seemed too easy. Too perfect. She kept waiting for the other shoe to come down.
The air is heavy around Sophie as she sits tightly balled up in her parent’s closet. Listening. They are arguing again, and this time the sharp rap rap of shoes going back and forth on the floor sounds hurried, anxious. She is so quiet in the closet they never know she is here. They always choose the bedroom to fight because it is the farthest away from the TV room, where she and Steven are supposed to be watching TV. Right now, Steven is lying on the carpet, concentrating on Dukes of Hazard. She knows when the fight is coming though. First it starts with a certain shrug and short, “fine then” or something like that from her mother, then the too loud closing of cupboard doors, the thick tension rising like heat waves, her father’s angry frown. Then it is quiet and the bedroom door clicks closed upstairs. Usually she hurries up before they do, so she can hide in the closet. To find out who is wrong this time.
“Do what you like then. It makes no difference to me. If I say no you’ll just do it anyway.”
“What are you talking about? Of course I wouldn’t why do you think I asked in the first place?” Her mother’s voice is getting higher pitched, and Sophie knows they are coming to the end. Her father always leaves the room, gets in the car and comes back later with pop and chips for Sophie and Steven, and some healthy muffins for her mother.
“Fine then Cheryl, no you can’t buy it. We can’t afford it.”
Sophie hears crying. Her mother. This is unusual, her mother never cries. “For once I just want something nice in here. I’m tired of all this shitty old stuff we have.”
“If I am going to work this hard, it’s not going to be to buy you something new every time the whim strikes you. If you want new carpet, go get a job to pay for it.”
“Why do you think we eat the way we do and why we don’t wear expensive clothes, and why we never go out?” There is the pacing tap of shoes again. “You seem to think the allowance you give me is enough to get by on, well it’s not.”
Sophie hears the opening and closing of cupboards, the running of water, a stomping sound, coming from their bathroom. A muffled, “who is she? Tell me.” They are back, there is the sound of falling things. Books? Sophie can’t breathe. It is hot in here. There is a sharp, “where does the extra money go? I’m tired of being kept in the dark!” Her father’s answer is inaudible over the crashing noises. Sophie holds her breath. She shouldn’t be here, hearing this. This is not her parent’s fighting. They fight about stupid things, like who left the garage door open. Now she is stuck, has to wait it out. She puts her hands over her ears, tries to block it out, but they are shouting and things are being thrown. She squeezes herself into the corner, puts a coat over her head. Then it is over. They are gone. No, he is gone. She is still there, crying. Sophie edges to the closet door, squints out through a crack. Her mother is sitting on the edge of the bed in her dress with her beautiful strawberry blond hair still perfect. The only thing out of place is the mascara running down her face. Sophie has to pee. There is no escape until her mother leaves. For what feels like hours, her mother sits there, no attempt to wipe her face. As the room begins to darken, she finally rises and pulls off her dress, drops it to the floor. She pulls open the closet door but in the dusk, doesn’t see Sophie. She reaches into the closet and pulls out her robe. Sophie holds her breath. Is still as a stone. Her mother leaves.
Every morning after she dropped the boys off at school, Sophie stopped at the coffee shop on the corner, ducking in on her walk home. It was a ritual. One large cup of coffee, out came her day planner, and from there, she planned her day. For about fifteen minutes though, she just sat. Looked out the window and allowed her mind to wander. She knew if she didn’t get it out of her system, she would be apt to daydream all day, be scattered, and disorganized. She allowed herself this time of thoughts flowing into the other, hands wrapped around the hot mug.
With David there had been too much dreaming. It drove her crazy that he was always having ideas. They would pack up the boys and drive across Canada; they would live on a sailboat. He was always starting stories he never finished, dreaming he would one day finish a novel. His writing was strewn in every room of the house on bits of paper, smudged pencil made it nearly illegible. After he moved out, she kept finding them everywhere, would pick them up, stuff them into a crate of papers in the hall closet, only to pull them out and try to understand what was written on them, moments of brilliance, snippets of him, the deepest parts she never understood. There was no continuity from paper to paper. How was he ever planning on stringing them together? She couldn’t understand how he could stand all of the disorganization. He told her the day they decided to separate, that she had to know too many exacts. He couldn’t give her exacts, it wasn’t in him. There was no spontaneity left, and he couldn’t meet her expectations.
The separation was a trial one, his idea. Sophie felt the air being sucked out of her slowly at first, as she saw David’s lips move, mouth the words, “space, need some clarity.” Then quicker, a storm threatening with each word he uttered.
“I love you…but…” David’s face had fallen, a defeated look, gone the smile that lit her from within, a steady glow for eleven years.
“I don’t know what to say.” She busied herself with unloading the dishwasher, and nearly dropped a mug on the floor. Her hands wouldn’t stop trembling. Seeing the floor he had just retiled for her, the smooth grey limestone, made a lump form in her throat and she had to turn away, not look at the new countertop, appliances. He had surprised her with the kitchen reno they had been talking about for years, trying to save for, when she was away visiting her mother in Calgary.
He was so proud. The look on their faces, the boys beaming beside him when she walked in, how could they have kept it secret all the way from the airport? But maybe she had been too self-absorbed thinking about the stress of visiting her mother, about how tired she was from trip, to notice their excitement.
“Sophie? I don’t want to do this.”
Was he looking for a way out of the separation? She searched his face, saw nothing but deep sadness. She had caused this. Knowing this made it impossible to beg him to stay. She didn’t deserve his constant patience. “But you don’t want to…can’t live with me. I heard you.”
With exasperation, he blurted out, “why do you do this? Why do you turn everything around like this?”
She stared him in the eye, put down her dishcloth and left the room. Half expecting him to follow, she paused in the hall. When he didn’t come, she went through the door, got in the car and headed to the market. She pushed everything out of her mind, except what she was going to make for dinner. Dinner for three. No longer for four. The rest of the week, would be her and her boys. Oh God, what would they tell the boys? No, she told herself as she compared pasta sauces, they would deal with it when they had to. Not right now. Right now, she was shopping. It had to be done. They needed to eat. She would continue her day as normal, come home, fix dinner, pick the boys up from school, take them to the park, then come home to a cold chicken pasta salad and crusty rolls. She would explain David’s absence vaguely, he had to work late. They would do homework, watch TV, get ready for bed, and read another chapter in Charlotte’s Web. She would let herself fall asleep early and not worry about any chores. She had all day tomorrow to do them.
Just planning out her evening made her feel better; she felt the tension leave her shoulders. She began to swing the shopping basket, decided to buy an apple pie for dessert. Aidan and Trevor would love that. Maybe she was in denial but she was very good at organizing her life, structuring things so that they didn’t fall down around her. This separation was probably for the best. They had planned for a temporary one, decided one month would be enough time to really sort things out. This shouldn’t devastate them, lots of people needed space to see more clearly.
11.12.2008
3.21.2008
Something I wrote while in NZ
Aortearoa
The weight of this stone in my hand,
smooth, cool and nearly transparent
lies heavy in my palm
have pushed and pulled against the ocean floor
each grain of sand and salt
rubbed years of raw mineral,
volcanic and glacial rubble
to sit so softly
a perfect coolness
in my palm.
Tracie Temreck
untitled
We stand, lips touching, fingers entwined and I'm leaving
Touch, the only voice we have right now,
in this leaving
Lips, heat, electricity,
and I'm leaving
all I ever needed
lips, hands, heart,
breaking
But for now,
lips touching, bodies close
hands palm to palm,
is the hanging on
Tracie Temreck
More About The Sea
the sea is in me
a rhythm,
at my core
I move with the tides
lower
higher
until I have comsumed those around me
as the moon begins it's steady pull
and the water releases it's grasp on the shore,
all the tides across the planet
converge,
so then,
does my grasp slip
I am distanced,
from those who stand
hands outstretched
I am in the centre of her pull,
held tightly in her clutches
this sea that pulls my heart across the waters
to a place so far
I try to free myself,
pour myself onto the shore
lie down in surrender,
but like being entwined in the kelp,
I cannot come back,
until she deems it
as the moon resumes her orbit and the magnetic hold is released,
I am tossed free
and so continues the rhythm
Tracie Temreck
Cheap Shoes
Today
in cheap shoes and a warm coat,
a cup of coffee hot against my palms
I sit still and wait for an answer in the falling leaves,
the squeak, squeak, squeak,
of the swing at the park
or maybe,
like the whisper of a lover's breath
as it warms my ear
I will understand
by how it feels,
just right
in my cheap shoes,
I feel worn
like my soles,
and uncertainty
is my winter coat
Tracie Temreck
Seeds
The seed that unfurls tendrils within my veins
spreads it's roots,
is bitter
day by day I pluck,
weed,
mow down it's stubborn buds
but one will escape unnoticed
until I feel it's choking,
tangling,
vines
and I fume, rage, claw at it's darkness
wanting to shred it from my body
but sometimes it takes death by fire
to obliterate this bitter flower
12.19.2007
Seagrass
It is the rustle of seagrass bending towards the hot sand
that nudges me into place a place I only remember in dreams
a distant memory,
you rising above me, your touch a whisper that elicits a sigh
the sound of your feet on the sheets as you slide next to me in bed
I remember salty skin pressed tightly against the sudden cool of water
a shocking rise of goosebumps
you hold me as we sway with the waves,
the softness of flesh meeting bone as our legs entwined
my breathing matches the rise and fall of the waves,
of your heartbeat against my ribcage
it is the gust of hot summer air that that tugs me into that dream place
where you are lying next to me,
your voice in my ear is hot and moist
as familiar to me as your hand mapping the rise of my hip,
following the slope of my inner thigh
but I open my eyes and I am sticky with the heat of the sun,
salt crystals form dusty rivers on my legs
I pull away from the hazy aquatic rippling
of dreaming memory
You are not here.
Were you ever,
here?
© T.L. Temreck
that nudges me into place a place I only remember in dreams
a distant memory,
you rising above me, your touch a whisper that elicits a sigh
the sound of your feet on the sheets as you slide next to me in bed
I remember salty skin pressed tightly against the sudden cool of water
a shocking rise of goosebumps
you hold me as we sway with the waves,
the softness of flesh meeting bone as our legs entwined
my breathing matches the rise and fall of the waves,
of your heartbeat against my ribcage
it is the gust of hot summer air that that tugs me into that dream place
where you are lying next to me,
your voice in my ear is hot and moist
as familiar to me as your hand mapping the rise of my hip,
following the slope of my inner thigh
but I open my eyes and I am sticky with the heat of the sun,
salt crystals form dusty rivers on my legs
I pull away from the hazy aquatic rippling
of dreaming memory
You are not here.
Were you ever,
here?
© T.L. Temreck
12.18.2007
Strong
I am strong.
I stand tall on top of accomplishment.
I value my mind as a sharp tool
that brought me up from roots I am determined to erase.
My feelings run deep,
my heart deeper.
I know who I am,
and yet,
you can break me
with a word
a look
a subtle sneer that only I can see.
All I have made can crumble,
become dust,
with the slightest blow from you
and then,
just like a light that is switched on in the darkness
I am left stunned and blinking in the light,
and you are unaware of the ruins.
© T.L. Temreck
I stand tall on top of accomplishment.
I value my mind as a sharp tool
that brought me up from roots I am determined to erase.
My feelings run deep,
my heart deeper.
I know who I am,
and yet,
you can break me
with a word
a look
a subtle sneer that only I can see.
All I have made can crumble,
become dust,
with the slightest blow from you
and then,
just like a light that is switched on in the darkness
I am left stunned and blinking in the light,
and you are unaware of the ruins.
© T.L. Temreck
12.17.2007
The Secret
Your big secret is,
you are walking dead
and my living, breathing self
is not going to save you,
neither hero nor saviour anymore
but a heavy stone breaking the strands
of memory between us
My big secret is,
I found relief
in not having to run
and fix
because you would not let me catch you
anyway
so I surrender,
from a life filled with heartache
disguised as love
I slip into apathy
apart from you,
once a part of you
I abdicate my responsibility of
breathing life
into what is dead
© T.L. Temreck
you are walking dead
and my living, breathing self
is not going to save you,
neither hero nor saviour anymore
but a heavy stone breaking the strands
of memory between us
My big secret is,
I found relief
in not having to run
and fix
because you would not let me catch you
anyway
so I surrender,
from a life filled with heartache
disguised as love
I slip into apathy
apart from you,
once a part of you
I abdicate my responsibility of
breathing life
into what is dead
© T.L. Temreck
12.16.2007
The Fig Tree (short story)
“Are you acquainted with the land where the lemon blossoms bloom?” Goëthe
We sip wine in the fading light, on chairs he has fashioned from pine, and gnarled branches cut from the cherry tree outside. They are one of his recent experiments, junky, rustic cottage furniture. Twig stools, benches of rough, whitewashed wood, and tables made of old stumps, scattered through the house and workshop. The chairs dip in just the right way, a comfortable embrace.
I decided to move one of the couches and both armchairs to the shed for the summer, so the breeze can pass right through, to stir the muggy hot air. The room looks bare now, but the air still hangs heavily. Little dust balls gather in the corners of the room, usually hidden by the missing furniture. The house has taken on the appearance of a summer cabin, since I went on a furniture moving frenzy in an attempt to remove some of the heat.
I should sweep. At the least the family pictures on the walls make it look lived in, a gallery of memories. The only paintings of mine that are hanging on the walls, are those that Daniel insisted go up, his favourites, gifts to him before we were married. All of the others are lined up against the walls in my studio, awaiting gallery placement or sales.
“It’s weeping.” I say, pointing to the corner of the room.
“Huh?”
“The fig tree, it’s weeping.” The large drooping plant leans towards the window.
“It probably needs water. It was hot today.” Daniel gulps his wine. He refills his glass from the bottle we have chilling in a bucket of ice. “Leila, hey you okay? You seem a little anxious.” He watches me cross and uncross my legs, and I suspect that he is thinking, as he does sometimes that I am going along with our marriage just to humour him. I don’t know where he gets these thoughts; it started when we first got married, when he realized I am slow to react, not excitable. I guess my aloofness makes him crazy. Right now, I am too hot to try and say anything so I stare at the fig tree.
“Maybe I should water it.” But I make no move to get up. “You know, I’ve always hated that plant, but it keeps growing. It needs a new pot every year. I’m sure it will need to be planted outside soon. Isn’t it terrible that I keep hoping it’ll die?” I sip my wine, lift a hand to my hair, and push a damp strand behind my ear. Daniel says that without the gold studs I wear, naked of them my ears seems somehow fragile. He notices things like that, and he says that I’m the artist.
When I was twelve my parents unexpectedly divorced. They never explained why. I don’t blame them now for how I am; I did at the time though. I made it difficult for them, was a stone. Sometimes I paint myself into frenzy, and am unaware of days passing, weeks even. I wonder if he notices this or is just used to it. At those times in the exhausted aftermath I feel badly for withdrawing into myself. So I don’t wear the studs, just to make myself appear fragile, as he says, more open and vulnerable. I don’t know why, a signal of sorts, of needing to re-anchor.
“I suppose I should make dinner or something.” I say, with a toss of my hair, lifting it off my neck in a fanning motion. Still I can’t make myself move. It is hot. The kind of heat that invades the body, leaves you breathless and sweating. Sometimes I miss the mild, green and wet Vancouver where I grew up.
“I can do it.” Daniel looks at me, smiles a slow smile, the smile of when we were students at the University of Toronto. We shared more study dates that didn’t involve books so much as studying each other’s bodies. I went to Toronto to get away from my parents, from their constant need to make sure I was okay, and their need for me to relieve them of their guilt.
“Do what?” I bring my attention back to him, away from remembering adventurous trysts in the library, my dorm, times I wished I could always keep the recklessness in me. So much forgotten, laid to rest.
“Dinner.”
“Oh. No, I just don’t want to create anymore heat right now.” I gulp down some wine and press the glass against my cheek. I realize he is smiling again. “What?”
“No more heat? At all?” I kick his chair, and rest my toes on his thigh.
“None! But we do have some cold cuts and cheeses left over from the gallery show. We can make sandwiches.”
He puts his foot up on the coffee table, leans against the window sill. Neither of us wants to move. I notice the age in his hands and face, the slight beginning of a belly. His hair is completely gray, but it did that after Angus was born. He used to joke that every time Angus cried, another hair turned gray. But Angus stopped crying. Instead, he grew steadily, like a weed. Daniel complained then that he couldn’t keep up to Angus, but he always did.
The sounds and smells of being young parents, in love, every season’s distinctness I tried to capture in my paintings. There was camping, ice skating, birthdays and sneaking to the bedroom while Angus watched TV. We dreamt of when we would be alone again or grandparents, the thought was inconceivable. For awhile it was all I painted: portraits, fragments of a memory, isolated by a colour or fragrance I never wanted to forget. The lilac tree I got for my first mother’s day. I painted the tree, Daniel sitting below it with Angus running away across the grass. I painted Daniel’s feet resting up on the headboard of our bed, post coitus, a newspaper spread across the bed. But I moved on as Angus grew up. Those were paintings that were hard for me to sell. It was always an emotional loss, but sell I wanted to, so I needed to move on to something else.
I look at Daniel, his long lean legs stretched out it front of him, feet bare. I love how perfect his feet are, smooth and tanned. Not hairy like I remember my father’s, and other lovers’, hardened working feet. Daniel looks at me and reaches for my hand. Ears, feet, hands, the back of a thigh, how is it that we can love another’s body parts so much, comparing all others’ to theirs, but find it so difficult to speak of these feelings. I stand and move to adjust a picture on the wall. Angus should have called yesterday.
“Have you talked to Angus yet?” He asks, I think, almost on perfect cue.
“No he’s probably just too busy discovering the pleasures of Europe.” I think that those young girls are no match to my son’s blond charisma. Europe had been our graduation present. Our offer to see the part of the world we have only dreamt of visiting, put off until the perfect time. “Or he’s spent all his money and is too afraid to call.”
I search Daniel’s face in the light of the sunset, to see what he will say. He only smiles. “I wish he’d been more responsible with money before he left. But I’m sure there are plenty of beautiful girls willing to take him in.” He looks at the Fig Tree. “It’s losing more leaves; maybe you’ll get your wish.” A small pile of crumpled brown leaves lie in a pile on the floor.
“Maybe we should take our European trip,” I blurt out suddenly, “or maybe even a tour of Asia.” I pick at the hem of my shorts, snatched from Angus’ ‘clothes outgrown’ pile. I lift and flap the hem to cool my legs. “Don’t you think that’s a good idea? Going somewhere? Didn’t we say we would pick a different continent every year until we’ve seen the world? We’re about twenty years behind.” I feel a tightening in my gut, for the briefest of seconds. It’s an old argument.
When we first got married, we postponed our honeymoon to buy the house, believing that such a perfect house would never offer itself again, but there would be plenty of opportunities to travel later. Our house with the attic studio and a view of the lake across the road, a view to inspire art, wide wrap around porch and large bay windows. I loved the wood burning stove in the kitchen and the huge claw foot tub. I knew then when I was younger, how the Group of Seven must have felt seeing this place, painting the lake and trees, the distinct seasons, the extreme of it. I didn’t realize until later the isolation of it. Most of our neighbours are weekend cottagers. I look around, suddenly feeling the emptiness of the house and feel a panic. I will never get out of here.
When Angus was born, days of no routine or structure were gone. My days revolved around laundry, baby feedings, naps and playtimes. I painted whenever I could, at times frantic to fit it in, as though I needed to get the urge out of my system. I forgot the state of the house, leaving Daniel to tend to the cleaning. I felt as though I would lose it, or forget how to paint, and would then have to rely on words.
I began to make clippings of places I wanted to see and kept them in a shoebox. Our lives followed the pattern it fell into depending on what changes Angus was going through, and my box of clippings grew. Eventually when the shoebox grew too crowded, I made a binder with plastic sleeves that I kept on the bookshelf. Sometimes at night after making love, we planned our first big trip. When Angus was old enough, when he was in school, then when he was out of school.
“What are you thinking about?” Daniel’s voice filters through my thoughts slowly. He places a hand on the side of the ice bucket then puts it against my cheek. I close my eyes and let the cold droplets run down my cheek.
“Nothing.”
“I love how nothing with you refers to just about anything.” He smiles at me. “You’re right. Let’s go on Monday to the travel agents. We can pick somewhere to go.”
“Well we’ll have to wait until Angus gets back, and don’t you have to finish that dining room suite table? Not to mention I have another gallery show coming up. I need to be in Toronto for a week.”
“We can work around it. Angus will be back soon enough, and he wouldn’t care about having the house to himself. You’ve waited long enough.”
It sounds too good. Too simple. There are no more excuses. I remember the day I got my first cheque from my first gallery show. The money I made was supposed to be for a trip, but it went into a fund, to be used later. It was always later. The money from each sale after that slowly and steadily grew over the years. We used bits here and there for family vacations, camping, driving across the country, and once when Angus was seven, Disneyland. Now a huge chunk of it had been our gift to Angus, for his European trek. I wonder if he knows, or if like most teens feels a sense of privilege, that we owe it to him. I suddenly feel angry with my son, but quickly push it out of my head. Tell myself it is just the heat getting to me. There is no way he could know about the money, we never said anything about it.
“I remember when your paintings started to change. They became…I don’t know, otherworldly.” Daniel’s words startle me.
“What do you mean change?”
“I don’t know, they felt…sadder, like in your café scenes. You started giving them city names, or country names. I always felt it was a hint, or a reminder. I wanted to give you those places so badly. It always amazed me how you captured the essence with never having been there. I guess I convinced myself that describing the places in paintings was good enough. But you weren’t satisfied with that were you?”
“I guess I convinced myself that a box of clippings would have to suffice too. No, it didn’t. I wasn’t hinting, I was just trying to, I don’t know, hold on I suppose. I didn’t want us to forget where we had been headed, before we got sidetracked.” I look out at the darkening lake. I don’t know what to make of this conversation, he never mentions my art, other than to tell me that he likes it or doesn’t, never why.
“I never meant it to suffice; I just figured it would do until there was a right time. I loved those paintings…maybe it was the eeriness. I don’t know art like you do, but they were like feelings, not pictures. I missed the portraits and still lives, but part of me wanted…” he falters.
“What? You’ve never spoken of this before. I don’t know how you really feel about my art.” I expect him to say, like he never knows how I feel.
“Well I guess part of me wanted to preserve it, the parts of you that you never show. Even when Angus and I didn’t see you for days, you were so vibrant, and your work so…well it sounds like a cliché, but alive, that I wanted to keep it that way. If we became a normal family again, and if you actually went to those places, maybe the spark would fizzle out. With so much going on with Angus it was easy to make excuses about why we should wait. I know that’s totally selfish.”
“No not really.” I draw my toes along the floor, through a patch of dust, and browning curled fig leaves. "Maybe I had my own excuses.”
“Do you blame me for holding you back?”
“I…” I can’t answer, so I tell him what he wants to hear, what I know is the easy answer on this hot heavy day. “No, I don’t blame you. If I wanted it badly enough, I’m sure I could have found a way.” I wipe the beads of moisture from my wineglass, and lick it off my fingers. It is nearly dark in the room and I can see cabin lights from across the lake starting to wink in the dusk. I can also feel the wine getting to me, thanks to my empty stomach and the heat. The haze around my head is nearly tangible. The Ontario summer air is abating, slowly lifting its heavy hand from us, a slight breeze stirring off the lake. Crickets hum loudly outside the window, in rhythm to the breeze, to the leaves dropping from the fig tree.
Daniel stands and goes to the kitchen, conversation obviously stalled. I can hear him rummaging in the fridge. I turn and watch his strong back, well muscled arms and shoulders, a carpenter’s build. I think that tonight I would like to make love, despite the oppressive heat our bedroom is sure to have awaiting us. It seems so long since our bodies, slick with sweat, have been pressed together in the big oak bed he built for us fifteen years ago. We always found time, an excuse to escape to make love. I smile when I think about the work our bed has been put to over the years. Maybe I have been blaming him for holding me back.
Daniel brings in a tray of cubed cheese, cold cuts, and slices of buttered bread. I realize that all the things I’ve been waiting for have suddenly become available, Angus is on his way to college in the fall, but the impending freedom is frightening.
“Daniel, what if Angus decides he wants to stay in Europe, live the hostel life, and sleep with whomever?”
He laughs. “Leila, so what, he’s nineteen. We did the best we could. I always thought you wanted him to be independent anyway.
“Well as long as he makes the right choices I guess. Stop laughing at me Daniel. I worry about him. If he had siblings I would worry less.”
“You know you would. It’s a mother’s job to worry about her children. You were always closest to him; he spent hours in your studio. I used to be jealous that he had no interest in my workshop.”
“That’s not true! When he turned thirteen, suddenly he was this little man who wanted nothing to do with me.”
We become silent, and let the night air brush over us as we munch on our food. I’m used to the dark now, even though we are just charcoal coloured silhouettes in the room. I know exactly what he looks like beside me. I wonder if he wishes as I do that we could claim back the past. Instead of travel clippings I would put moments into my shoebox. Like when Angus was twelve and brought home that ridiculous fig tree. It kept growing. All those years thinking that the crooked stem and drooping leaves were a sign of imminent death that made it ugly, when really the periods of vibrant green were like his growth spurts, sudden and surprising.
I remember how it was back then, when Angus was small. Daniel wanted to teach him how to use a level, to be precise with the plane, so that each piece of wood would fit together like a jigsaw puzzle, not even needing a nail or screw. He would take the little boy’s hands in his and together they would run sandpaper over the wood in slow smooth circles. But Angus wasn’t interested in the wood. Despite Daniel’s patient persistence, he preferred to spend his days with me, in my studio, painting on newsprint I would lay out on the floor. He was pensive over these paintings, quietly shaping his world.
We worried that he would be lonely, so we tried to have another baby. Nothing. The doctors explained I had scarring, that Angus had in fact been a miracle as I should have never gotten pregnant. I felt a secret relief at the impossibility of another baby, remembering long sleepless nights with Angus nursing off my aching heavy breasts, plans slowly slipping from my grasp. There was guilt though; a desperate love for the two of them made me want to fill the house with the sounds of other children.
I hoped that he would make friends, and his need of me would lessen. Daniel let him escape the workroom to be with me. Did Daniel know then, that the separation would come naturally on its own? He left my side, left his finger-paints, and gradually returned to the workroom to learn how to carve, join and sand the wood. He discovered soccer, forts, bicycles and girls.
“Look, it looks as like our fig tree really is going to die.” Daniel points to the plant. It is listing seriously towards the floor, nearly falling over with the weight of its branches, and it seems as though there are more leaves on the floor than on the tree.
“No!” I say almost too sharply, surprising Daniel. “It just needs some water.” I speak quietly, and take the wine bottle out of the now melted ice bucket and gently move the lower branches, pouring a stream of water into the parched dirt until it becomes moist and soft beneath my fingertips. I can’t tell him that I love this plant suddenly and fiercely as though my life depends on it.
© T.L. Temreck
We sip wine in the fading light, on chairs he has fashioned from pine, and gnarled branches cut from the cherry tree outside. They are one of his recent experiments, junky, rustic cottage furniture. Twig stools, benches of rough, whitewashed wood, and tables made of old stumps, scattered through the house and workshop. The chairs dip in just the right way, a comfortable embrace.
I decided to move one of the couches and both armchairs to the shed for the summer, so the breeze can pass right through, to stir the muggy hot air. The room looks bare now, but the air still hangs heavily. Little dust balls gather in the corners of the room, usually hidden by the missing furniture. The house has taken on the appearance of a summer cabin, since I went on a furniture moving frenzy in an attempt to remove some of the heat.
I should sweep. At the least the family pictures on the walls make it look lived in, a gallery of memories. The only paintings of mine that are hanging on the walls, are those that Daniel insisted go up, his favourites, gifts to him before we were married. All of the others are lined up against the walls in my studio, awaiting gallery placement or sales.
“It’s weeping.” I say, pointing to the corner of the room.
“Huh?”
“The fig tree, it’s weeping.” The large drooping plant leans towards the window.
“It probably needs water. It was hot today.” Daniel gulps his wine. He refills his glass from the bottle we have chilling in a bucket of ice. “Leila, hey you okay? You seem a little anxious.” He watches me cross and uncross my legs, and I suspect that he is thinking, as he does sometimes that I am going along with our marriage just to humour him. I don’t know where he gets these thoughts; it started when we first got married, when he realized I am slow to react, not excitable. I guess my aloofness makes him crazy. Right now, I am too hot to try and say anything so I stare at the fig tree.
“Maybe I should water it.” But I make no move to get up. “You know, I’ve always hated that plant, but it keeps growing. It needs a new pot every year. I’m sure it will need to be planted outside soon. Isn’t it terrible that I keep hoping it’ll die?” I sip my wine, lift a hand to my hair, and push a damp strand behind my ear. Daniel says that without the gold studs I wear, naked of them my ears seems somehow fragile. He notices things like that, and he says that I’m the artist.
When I was twelve my parents unexpectedly divorced. They never explained why. I don’t blame them now for how I am; I did at the time though. I made it difficult for them, was a stone. Sometimes I paint myself into frenzy, and am unaware of days passing, weeks even. I wonder if he notices this or is just used to it. At those times in the exhausted aftermath I feel badly for withdrawing into myself. So I don’t wear the studs, just to make myself appear fragile, as he says, more open and vulnerable. I don’t know why, a signal of sorts, of needing to re-anchor.
“I suppose I should make dinner or something.” I say, with a toss of my hair, lifting it off my neck in a fanning motion. Still I can’t make myself move. It is hot. The kind of heat that invades the body, leaves you breathless and sweating. Sometimes I miss the mild, green and wet Vancouver where I grew up.
“I can do it.” Daniel looks at me, smiles a slow smile, the smile of when we were students at the University of Toronto. We shared more study dates that didn’t involve books so much as studying each other’s bodies. I went to Toronto to get away from my parents, from their constant need to make sure I was okay, and their need for me to relieve them of their guilt.
“Do what?” I bring my attention back to him, away from remembering adventurous trysts in the library, my dorm, times I wished I could always keep the recklessness in me. So much forgotten, laid to rest.
“Dinner.”
“Oh. No, I just don’t want to create anymore heat right now.” I gulp down some wine and press the glass against my cheek. I realize he is smiling again. “What?”
“No more heat? At all?” I kick his chair, and rest my toes on his thigh.
“None! But we do have some cold cuts and cheeses left over from the gallery show. We can make sandwiches.”
He puts his foot up on the coffee table, leans against the window sill. Neither of us wants to move. I notice the age in his hands and face, the slight beginning of a belly. His hair is completely gray, but it did that after Angus was born. He used to joke that every time Angus cried, another hair turned gray. But Angus stopped crying. Instead, he grew steadily, like a weed. Daniel complained then that he couldn’t keep up to Angus, but he always did.
The sounds and smells of being young parents, in love, every season’s distinctness I tried to capture in my paintings. There was camping, ice skating, birthdays and sneaking to the bedroom while Angus watched TV. We dreamt of when we would be alone again or grandparents, the thought was inconceivable. For awhile it was all I painted: portraits, fragments of a memory, isolated by a colour or fragrance I never wanted to forget. The lilac tree I got for my first mother’s day. I painted the tree, Daniel sitting below it with Angus running away across the grass. I painted Daniel’s feet resting up on the headboard of our bed, post coitus, a newspaper spread across the bed. But I moved on as Angus grew up. Those were paintings that were hard for me to sell. It was always an emotional loss, but sell I wanted to, so I needed to move on to something else.
I look at Daniel, his long lean legs stretched out it front of him, feet bare. I love how perfect his feet are, smooth and tanned. Not hairy like I remember my father’s, and other lovers’, hardened working feet. Daniel looks at me and reaches for my hand. Ears, feet, hands, the back of a thigh, how is it that we can love another’s body parts so much, comparing all others’ to theirs, but find it so difficult to speak of these feelings. I stand and move to adjust a picture on the wall. Angus should have called yesterday.
“Have you talked to Angus yet?” He asks, I think, almost on perfect cue.
“No he’s probably just too busy discovering the pleasures of Europe.” I think that those young girls are no match to my son’s blond charisma. Europe had been our graduation present. Our offer to see the part of the world we have only dreamt of visiting, put off until the perfect time. “Or he’s spent all his money and is too afraid to call.”
I search Daniel’s face in the light of the sunset, to see what he will say. He only smiles. “I wish he’d been more responsible with money before he left. But I’m sure there are plenty of beautiful girls willing to take him in.” He looks at the Fig Tree. “It’s losing more leaves; maybe you’ll get your wish.” A small pile of crumpled brown leaves lie in a pile on the floor.
“Maybe we should take our European trip,” I blurt out suddenly, “or maybe even a tour of Asia.” I pick at the hem of my shorts, snatched from Angus’ ‘clothes outgrown’ pile. I lift and flap the hem to cool my legs. “Don’t you think that’s a good idea? Going somewhere? Didn’t we say we would pick a different continent every year until we’ve seen the world? We’re about twenty years behind.” I feel a tightening in my gut, for the briefest of seconds. It’s an old argument.
When we first got married, we postponed our honeymoon to buy the house, believing that such a perfect house would never offer itself again, but there would be plenty of opportunities to travel later. Our house with the attic studio and a view of the lake across the road, a view to inspire art, wide wrap around porch and large bay windows. I loved the wood burning stove in the kitchen and the huge claw foot tub. I knew then when I was younger, how the Group of Seven must have felt seeing this place, painting the lake and trees, the distinct seasons, the extreme of it. I didn’t realize until later the isolation of it. Most of our neighbours are weekend cottagers. I look around, suddenly feeling the emptiness of the house and feel a panic. I will never get out of here.
When Angus was born, days of no routine or structure were gone. My days revolved around laundry, baby feedings, naps and playtimes. I painted whenever I could, at times frantic to fit it in, as though I needed to get the urge out of my system. I forgot the state of the house, leaving Daniel to tend to the cleaning. I felt as though I would lose it, or forget how to paint, and would then have to rely on words.
I began to make clippings of places I wanted to see and kept them in a shoebox. Our lives followed the pattern it fell into depending on what changes Angus was going through, and my box of clippings grew. Eventually when the shoebox grew too crowded, I made a binder with plastic sleeves that I kept on the bookshelf. Sometimes at night after making love, we planned our first big trip. When Angus was old enough, when he was in school, then when he was out of school.
“What are you thinking about?” Daniel’s voice filters through my thoughts slowly. He places a hand on the side of the ice bucket then puts it against my cheek. I close my eyes and let the cold droplets run down my cheek.
“Nothing.”
“I love how nothing with you refers to just about anything.” He smiles at me. “You’re right. Let’s go on Monday to the travel agents. We can pick somewhere to go.”
“Well we’ll have to wait until Angus gets back, and don’t you have to finish that dining room suite table? Not to mention I have another gallery show coming up. I need to be in Toronto for a week.”
“We can work around it. Angus will be back soon enough, and he wouldn’t care about having the house to himself. You’ve waited long enough.”
It sounds too good. Too simple. There are no more excuses. I remember the day I got my first cheque from my first gallery show. The money I made was supposed to be for a trip, but it went into a fund, to be used later. It was always later. The money from each sale after that slowly and steadily grew over the years. We used bits here and there for family vacations, camping, driving across the country, and once when Angus was seven, Disneyland. Now a huge chunk of it had been our gift to Angus, for his European trek. I wonder if he knows, or if like most teens feels a sense of privilege, that we owe it to him. I suddenly feel angry with my son, but quickly push it out of my head. Tell myself it is just the heat getting to me. There is no way he could know about the money, we never said anything about it.
“I remember when your paintings started to change. They became…I don’t know, otherworldly.” Daniel’s words startle me.
“What do you mean change?”
“I don’t know, they felt…sadder, like in your café scenes. You started giving them city names, or country names. I always felt it was a hint, or a reminder. I wanted to give you those places so badly. It always amazed me how you captured the essence with never having been there. I guess I convinced myself that describing the places in paintings was good enough. But you weren’t satisfied with that were you?”
“I guess I convinced myself that a box of clippings would have to suffice too. No, it didn’t. I wasn’t hinting, I was just trying to, I don’t know, hold on I suppose. I didn’t want us to forget where we had been headed, before we got sidetracked.” I look out at the darkening lake. I don’t know what to make of this conversation, he never mentions my art, other than to tell me that he likes it or doesn’t, never why.
“I never meant it to suffice; I just figured it would do until there was a right time. I loved those paintings…maybe it was the eeriness. I don’t know art like you do, but they were like feelings, not pictures. I missed the portraits and still lives, but part of me wanted…” he falters.
“What? You’ve never spoken of this before. I don’t know how you really feel about my art.” I expect him to say, like he never knows how I feel.
“Well I guess part of me wanted to preserve it, the parts of you that you never show. Even when Angus and I didn’t see you for days, you were so vibrant, and your work so…well it sounds like a cliché, but alive, that I wanted to keep it that way. If we became a normal family again, and if you actually went to those places, maybe the spark would fizzle out. With so much going on with Angus it was easy to make excuses about why we should wait. I know that’s totally selfish.”
“No not really.” I draw my toes along the floor, through a patch of dust, and browning curled fig leaves. "Maybe I had my own excuses.”
“Do you blame me for holding you back?”
“I…” I can’t answer, so I tell him what he wants to hear, what I know is the easy answer on this hot heavy day. “No, I don’t blame you. If I wanted it badly enough, I’m sure I could have found a way.” I wipe the beads of moisture from my wineglass, and lick it off my fingers. It is nearly dark in the room and I can see cabin lights from across the lake starting to wink in the dusk. I can also feel the wine getting to me, thanks to my empty stomach and the heat. The haze around my head is nearly tangible. The Ontario summer air is abating, slowly lifting its heavy hand from us, a slight breeze stirring off the lake. Crickets hum loudly outside the window, in rhythm to the breeze, to the leaves dropping from the fig tree.
Daniel stands and goes to the kitchen, conversation obviously stalled. I can hear him rummaging in the fridge. I turn and watch his strong back, well muscled arms and shoulders, a carpenter’s build. I think that tonight I would like to make love, despite the oppressive heat our bedroom is sure to have awaiting us. It seems so long since our bodies, slick with sweat, have been pressed together in the big oak bed he built for us fifteen years ago. We always found time, an excuse to escape to make love. I smile when I think about the work our bed has been put to over the years. Maybe I have been blaming him for holding me back.
Daniel brings in a tray of cubed cheese, cold cuts, and slices of buttered bread. I realize that all the things I’ve been waiting for have suddenly become available, Angus is on his way to college in the fall, but the impending freedom is frightening.
“Daniel, what if Angus decides he wants to stay in Europe, live the hostel life, and sleep with whomever?”
He laughs. “Leila, so what, he’s nineteen. We did the best we could. I always thought you wanted him to be independent anyway.
“Well as long as he makes the right choices I guess. Stop laughing at me Daniel. I worry about him. If he had siblings I would worry less.”
“You know you would. It’s a mother’s job to worry about her children. You were always closest to him; he spent hours in your studio. I used to be jealous that he had no interest in my workshop.”
“That’s not true! When he turned thirteen, suddenly he was this little man who wanted nothing to do with me.”
We become silent, and let the night air brush over us as we munch on our food. I’m used to the dark now, even though we are just charcoal coloured silhouettes in the room. I know exactly what he looks like beside me. I wonder if he wishes as I do that we could claim back the past. Instead of travel clippings I would put moments into my shoebox. Like when Angus was twelve and brought home that ridiculous fig tree. It kept growing. All those years thinking that the crooked stem and drooping leaves were a sign of imminent death that made it ugly, when really the periods of vibrant green were like his growth spurts, sudden and surprising.
I remember how it was back then, when Angus was small. Daniel wanted to teach him how to use a level, to be precise with the plane, so that each piece of wood would fit together like a jigsaw puzzle, not even needing a nail or screw. He would take the little boy’s hands in his and together they would run sandpaper over the wood in slow smooth circles. But Angus wasn’t interested in the wood. Despite Daniel’s patient persistence, he preferred to spend his days with me, in my studio, painting on newsprint I would lay out on the floor. He was pensive over these paintings, quietly shaping his world.
We worried that he would be lonely, so we tried to have another baby. Nothing. The doctors explained I had scarring, that Angus had in fact been a miracle as I should have never gotten pregnant. I felt a secret relief at the impossibility of another baby, remembering long sleepless nights with Angus nursing off my aching heavy breasts, plans slowly slipping from my grasp. There was guilt though; a desperate love for the two of them made me want to fill the house with the sounds of other children.
I hoped that he would make friends, and his need of me would lessen. Daniel let him escape the workroom to be with me. Did Daniel know then, that the separation would come naturally on its own? He left my side, left his finger-paints, and gradually returned to the workroom to learn how to carve, join and sand the wood. He discovered soccer, forts, bicycles and girls.
“Look, it looks as like our fig tree really is going to die.” Daniel points to the plant. It is listing seriously towards the floor, nearly falling over with the weight of its branches, and it seems as though there are more leaves on the floor than on the tree.
“No!” I say almost too sharply, surprising Daniel. “It just needs some water.” I speak quietly, and take the wine bottle out of the now melted ice bucket and gently move the lower branches, pouring a stream of water into the parched dirt until it becomes moist and soft beneath my fingertips. I can’t tell him that I love this plant suddenly and fiercely as though my life depends on it.
© T.L. Temreck
10.08.2007
Not supposed to be...
This was never how it was supposed to be,
or how my life unfolded.
I had a plan, and I was living my lines,
well rehearsed.
I didn't wake up one day,
and wish it so,
complicated and broken.
I woke up in another place,
the past flying by
has become someone else's.
The life I see today
is a trick of my eye
viewed through the rearview mirror.
I want to follow the life I knew,
that girl I was,
who's life was becoming perfect.
But all I see now is merciless change,
a challenge just to breathe.
I am getting smaller and smaller in the distance
and the mirror I look into,
is splintered.
or how my life unfolded.
I had a plan, and I was living my lines,
well rehearsed.
I didn't wake up one day,
and wish it so,
complicated and broken.
I woke up in another place,
the past flying by
has become someone else's.
The life I see today
is a trick of my eye
viewed through the rearview mirror.
I want to follow the life I knew,
that girl I was,
who's life was becoming perfect.
But all I see now is merciless change,
a challenge just to breathe.
I am getting smaller and smaller in the distance
and the mirror I look into,
is splintered.
i've been waiting
i've been waiting for you,
my breathe held
through a lifetime of storms
i've been travelling this road
and i'm tired of walking alone
all my life i've told myself
i'm better off this way
but this step of uncertainty reminds me
how good my life could be
so step closer
my arms are yours and i've been waiting
my breathe held
through a lifetime of storms
i've been travelling this road
and i'm tired of walking alone
all my life i've told myself
i'm better off this way
but this step of uncertainty reminds me
how good my life could be
so step closer
my arms are yours and i've been waiting
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