We sat on the porch, the summer air wrapped around us like cat tails and worried this through: What animal do we encounter time and again? That’s our totem, whose traits we take on as our own. Turtle, my sister-in-law said, and I carry everything with me all the time and that’s why I have a bad back. Bears, my sister said, and I’m fierce and growly. Just ask my students. She touched the stone bear pendant she bought at the flea market in Santa Fe. Bugs, the younger daughter said, remember when I turned on the water and an earwig dropped into the sink. Yes, the older daughter said, and you killed eighteen of them that night, killing and crying like a warrior. I’m persistent, the younger one said, like bugs who no matter what always come back. I was quiet. I couldn’t think of any animal that crossed my path so often I’d have to notice. I saw evidence of animals, my bulbs torn up or holes dug to rustle up grubs. Later, on a walk, I had an image, a bird swooping down on a scrap of tinfoil, a magpie though I’d never seen one. Still haven’t. That’s my creature, scavenger, treasure picker, hapless collector. I pounce on twisties, bendy plastic, not the paper ones with wire inside, pens with business logos, plastic paper clips, old keys, anything found. Anything found. A grandmother’s Yiddish sayings: She’s looking for last year’s snow. It’s the same old dreck in different decorations. I write them down on bits of paper and put them in my pocket. A look that goes through you, a suggestion to try nettles and horsetail tea for blood and nails, a tip about posture, glide your neck back, the name of a good book, a word overheard, manqué, treasures tumbling down on me, I grab all I can, hoarding, exulting.
Walking laps
At the Center I walk in circles around the track, past the clock, past the windows with their cracked screens, past the children’s rock climbing wall on the floor below, past the entrance where others merge ahead of me or behind. Like the seasons, I cycle through these landmarks older each time around, wearier, conscious of my lungs. A mother standing next to the bench with her toddler sees a friend holding a baby on her hip and smiles, her cheeks still fresh, her eyes clear, no sagging chin or wattled neck, no hair like dried seaweed. Unlike me. As I approach I absorb her endorphins, her buoyancy until I’m out of range. Her child cries. I don’t want to go home, no not home. I don’t want to. I become her, a small wailing girl who wants to be heard, whose every cell demands to have her way, who cannot live otherwise. Struck down by grief. She sobs, can’t catch her breath, let her stay, let her. Under the windows, where a crack lets in drafts, I’m myself, irritated that parents allow shrieking babies to invade my sensibilities. Nerves twitch with irritation. By the time I finish my loop, they’re gone; with each lap I shrink, walnuts for breasts, cantaloupe rinds for knees; unlike Lot’s wife I should look back; stop me, make me sit down before the salt of my body drifts along the track.
Rose has a new walker
We buy it online. She got her old one, standard issue gray aluminum, at the hospital after she fell at Susie’s house last summer. It’s a man’s walker, and she holds her elbows out like bent wings when she grasps the handles. It’s too wide for her. I toss out the question one day, if you had a new walker what color would you choose. Blue, she says, just like that. I order blue. When it comes, we connect the hand brakes, attach the basket and the seat, pull the plastic off the wheels. Can I return it, Rose says. Absolutely not, I tell her. It’s from the Internet. She feels better knowing there’s no choice. But it’s always good to try again. Maybe I won’t need it. I ride the exercise bike now. And in Chi Gong class I stand up longer. Before I did the exercises from the chair. Anyway, it’s not blue. I think it’s black. So for that we’ll return it? It’s navy. Under the lamp we compromise on navy black. I tell her to try the seat. But always remember To press the hand brakes when you sit down. It’s like the brakes on a bike. She doesn’t get it. She never rode a bike, she says, she roller skated everywhere, to the botanical conservatory, to the library. She tightened the skates with a key she wore around her neck. When they broke, and that was often, her father would fix them, always so patient. I ask Rose to push the walker in the hall. She can’t help smiling; stately, royal she glides like the King’s barge down the Thames. The waters part before her; I hear Handel’s music. It’s nice, she says. But what should I do with the old one. A shame to waste it. It’ll be a spare, I say. Maybe we’ll take it in the car when we go out. Remember when Daddy taught me how to ride, I say. Running beside me, his hand on the fender and then letting go. Of course I remember, she says, he taught all of you. And then I was free to pedal around the block, up to the drug store, turn right, turn right again, over and over, centrifugally pulled by the gravity of home.
