Today I went down to the manufacturing district where we have a warehouse. I had my family wait in the van while I popped inside to try to locate my African Violet pot I had left inside…The warehouse is weathered grey nestled with other buildings near the dock, a few blocks from downtown. Inside feels more like flea market then storage as I tend to drop excess items off in a hurry and use scrap wood inside to build benches and tables for them to sit upon. Fluorescent lights hang from chains high overhead flickering. A row of plexiglass windows towards the ceiling allow in filtered late afternoon sunshine.
Vases, nick knacks themed for every decade, board games, thick square TV’s, boxes that are still wrapped with a holiday bow meant for a friend I just didn’t catch up with during the holidays eight years ago. There are stairs on either side leading up to a landing with – you guessed it more items. I climbed up onto the right hand landing thinking I had stacked the plants together over the years in something almost resembling organization.
Most of the plants were various shades of brown but the Porthos vines had stretched out towards the plexiglass frosted windows that let in late afternoon sunshine they were gathering enough moisture from the air to keep hanging on to life – I gave them a sip of water from my Dasani bottle I was carrying in my purse. There was an appalling amount of bamboo representing an enthusiastic phase I had gone through. I could almost hear Enya playing looking at the bamboo and bamboo related artifacts of my bygone life. I recognized my favorite African Violet pot under a home made shelf, it had a dead plant inside of it of course – guilt poked me in the ribs. The pot was very popular in 2005 and designed for watering the plant from the bottom. Funny how at the time I expected to always be able to find such a specialized pot, but they don’t sell them anymore.
I had stacks of letters from old friends I had not seen in decades beside it. I had my Dads fishing gear in a corner and everything coated in dust. I should come back in and clean I thought.
A shadow passed over the sun and the golden syrup of afternoon light was interrupted. The board I stepped on gave way slightly and I sought better footing. This floor leaned precariously. It definitely needed reinforced and repaired. I don’t weigh too much, I won’t stay too long…it will be okay… I glanced around. It was darker now, much darker. How long had I been standing there?
I felt like I had been listening to a program and following along and suddenly it cut out. It was so quiet. What had I been listening to? My own thoughts humming along…I had to hurry and get back to the van where my husband and kids were waiting….but they wouldn’t be there would they? The kids were grown up. One was in Arizona and the other across the border in Canada. They had their own lives now, they weren’t waiting.
I grabbed the rail, my head was spinning it was so, so dizzy. My Dad’s fishing rod, I had felt for a moment – just a moment like I was just keeping it for him. He was going to click on the lights like he always did, give a long list of what he was going to fix next – he was always tinkering. He loved this warehouse that he called, ‘the Shop’ but he hadn’t been here in thirty years, he was buried on the hill.
I sit down on the stair unable to continue worried I was going to fall. I had a terrible sensation once again that time was happening to me all at once. Just yesterday I was a twenty-year-old who vowed never to change her rebellious streak – and then I was a Mom, and then I was saying goodbye, so many god damn goodbyes. I learned to hate cancer as much as anyone could hate anything.
You don’t really have anything.
My head was so dizzy now. There was a familiar presence in the darkness. I felt it coming closer. I could feel it breathing and watching me. It was always there – it had always been there over the years, watching me, waiting, cold and unfeeling. Now it had me, alone, dizzy and unable to find my way forward as I sat on that old stair clutching the flower pot.
I heard the door, and familiar voice – “over here I croaked” – I heard his shuffling steps hasten towards me. I had been gone a little too long and scared him. “C’mon baby” he said reaching an old liver spotted hand to me. “Why did you want to go all the way up there, I would have found and bought you a pot, you didn’t need to do that, you didn’t need to do that.” A thick arm wrapped around my little waist and he helped me down the stairs one by one slowly – he didn’t need to be up stairs, not with his heart I thought. He had been with me through so many decades now, there after the kids moved, there with each tragedy. Every little cell in my body loved him. The light that protected me from the thing in the dark.
