• Wednesday November 27
    Seven thirty am.

    My dad calls me. I put on my fake “I'm totally awake” voice which works. It always does. My skill is in pretending to feel one thing when I feel another. Dad probably thinks I'm already up and putting on my helmet. You see, the plan was- his plan was- I get up at seven in the morning and go for an hour long bike ride. My plan was to stay up late sleep in late and forget about the work, thanksgiving, my grandmother, the pain, and myself. For just one day. One day. To be myself as I only can be amongst myself and nobody. Read the paper, write, drink juice, maybe just sit and watch stupid television shows...

    My plan never flies. It is his plan. I must follow the agenda he has thrust before me and follow it willingly. At least act willing...


    Seven thirty three am.

    I fall back to sleep. Needless to say I left the house late. My mom was still home. I left without saying good bye because she was on the phone...

    Once I start to feel my tires pushing the world behind me I remember the old me. I remember when such was my redemption. All evil I had committed, no matter how horrible is forgotten and forgiven by the world, the wind running up and kissing my face and embracing me in such an embrace I have never felt before, an embrace of real love and real truth. The embrace that should be felt by the child from the mother. Mama, which is more like a name than a title, the name that I call my mother. I can't remember that feeling of love and truth from her, nor from my mom now. Only sitting on my high seat in the open air pumping my legs until they go from horses hooves to gelatin.

    I get off my bike at Safeway. Stepping onto the ground that everyone else uses and takes advantage of, with no thanks to it for holding them, such as my light blue steed holds me, I feel the instant transition from hooves to gelatin. Like motion sickness, except non motion sickness. Like when you become sea sick not because you are on the sea, rather because you miss it.

    I browse the baking aisle. Remember again the hope I used to find in baking, until I dropped that pie. It was cherry, and fire red, and the floor looked like it was covered in the blood of the baker who had nothing left... Nothing but that cherry pie and had hands that were blistered as though that cherry pie had licked up and burnt her bleeding hands.

    I haven't baked a thing since. I can mix it up every once in awhile, but the satisfaction of pulling it out of the oven does not exist. The feeling of doing something totally correctly is gone, I can not say if it will ever come back... I decide to make a compromise. I call my grandma- twice and she has two new voice messages waiting for her.

    I invest in a large peppermint hot chocolate at the star bucks. I will also say that I am not their biggest fan, certainly not since they started to water down their chai in the excessive way that the do.

    As I ride out of the parking lot with my disposable holiday cup in hand I consider my movements. Me riding my bicycle single handedly is as natural as dad driving his car with his morning decaffeinated beverage. I even notice the forward arch in my back such my dad gets in his morning driving coffee or tea in hand state. I notice how easy it is for me to swerve, with such grace and ease.

    I ride by a dog who barks at me, as I swerve around a pot hole filled with water known as a puddle. As I swerve around a mail truck and glide down seventy second the dog's barks echo through the dark empty depths of my mind and I sense an awakening.

    Upon arriving home I sit down at my computer to write. I hear my cat Sina Hibiscus crying across the hall at my bedroom door. I let her out I scold her before she does something wrong. I notice I haven't written since before we got her. “You had best not bother me while I write, I will flip out!” I say closing the office door behind me.

    She manages to open it.

    The moment I see her sweet little face I leap up in anger. She dashes behind the futon and I return to my desk. She leaps up to me a few times but after awhile I figure she senses the sheer coldness as opposed to annoyance in my mood, as I roughly lift her and gently sit her down on the ground.

    I come to notice my writing is seeping now from my heart as it once flowed from my mind...