Sand in My Eyes (41 page)

CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

THE POST OFFICE WAS
closed when we got there. After all the effort it had taken, counting pennies and getting ourselves dressed and out the door, I decided we would stay, sitting on the curb, waiting the fifteen minutes until the post office opened. It was nice knowing, after our summer spent without looking at clocks, that I was capable of getting us all ready and to a destination early in the morning. I felt more confident about starting the school routine.

Then one child had to use the bathroom. Another fell down and scraped her knee. And the last, I saw from the corner of my eye, was pocketing large landscape rocks. From the corner of my other eye I saw that the first child had peed in his shorts. My daughter was screaming bloody murder over the sight of her hurt knee. And my remaining son had clenched his fists and was grunting at me in an ill-tempered fit when I told him to empty the rocks out of his pocket. It was all making me think that I had a hundred children, not three!

“In the car, all of you,” I scolded. By the time I had fastened their seat belts, the post office doors had opened and I was tired. I could do without the stamp, and my children could go on without having experienced a field trip into the post office.

“Whoopee,” I said out loud as I put the key in the ignition and started my car. Then again, I should get us all out, go in there, and buy the doggone stamp. Or I could buy it tomorrow, alone. I could come back and
stand in line silently, full of peace, a pleasant look on my face, with no one tugging on my hands or pressing my nerves. I could leisurely stuff my query into the envelope and lick it lackadaisically, or I could do it all now, get it over with—oh, how I hated my indecisiveness. I sat in the car, fretting over what to do.

“We’re going to rest,” I announced to the children. “We’re going to sit right where we are and rest for ten minutes.” I was aware of weariness that had to do with writing past midnight and again before sunrise. Writing at those hours would be simple if I weren’t mothering three children from sunrise to midnight.

With their seat belts fastened, I no longer cared that their mouths were rambling or that they were whining and giggling in the backseats. As long as they weren’t getting into things, I could close my eyes and fall asleep. A mother gets her sleep wherever she can, even in the post office parking lot.

But then, like a cat about to nap, I gazed out my window, my eyes homing in on a patch of dirt alongside the building. Hard as I tried, I couldn’t look away, for I instinctively knew what I needed to do in my life, and the thought had me pawing at my eyes. Rather than send my query out in the mail, I would dig a hole in the dirt, drop my writing in, and fill it up—I saw no other option. There was only so much of me to go around. I needed to work on my marriage, my husband needed my help in generating income, and my children needed a mother, not a walking, talking, sleep-deprived, dream-chasing zombie.

“Sometimes a mother does that,” I whispered to myself. “She tosses her aspirations into the dirt and walks away, leaving them behind. It’s not that she doesn’t have the passion or desire to cultivate them, but that there are other things demanding her care and people who cannot flourish without her.”

My children were bickering in the backseat, and the sound of it made me cry—not ordinary tears, but rather droplets of passion-filled dew that watered my dream, my desire to write, which now, like seeds, I was mentally, emotionally, and spiritually letting go of, tossing into that dirt. I would walk away from it for one year, two years, or however long it might take until my life cleared and I found myself a woman strolling along,
frolicking in the rain, tiptoeing through a garden with more time and less pressure.

But then I could feel my creativity, like a strong wind twirling within me. My thoughts were spinning like the noise in my car. Inspired by the chaos coming from my children, I grabbed a broken crayon from the floor and, on the back of a grocery receipt, I calmly wrote a letter to my first son, because I had already written one to my second son, and one to Marjorie, and it had been in my subconscious all this time that I didn’t want anyone to be left out. And besides, I was feeling emotional about them starting school in the morning.

Dear Child
,

When I look out my window I see an osprey soaring through the sky
,

But when I look at you I see you doing more
.

When I pull you in the wagon we see a turtle diligently digging a hole
,

But when I look at you I see you doing more
.

When I take you to the shore I see a big boy building castles out of sand
,

But when I look at you I see you doing more
.

When I take you for a ride at night, I see the lighthouse lighting up the

Gulf so bright
,

But when I look at you I see you doing more
.

When I push you on the swing, we see the trees reaching up to Heaven
,

But when I look at you I see you doing more
.

When I look at you, my son, I see the things that you can be
,

And I also see bits of me
.

I see all the things I wanted to be, the things I wanted to do
,

But then I see more
.

When I had finished writing the letter to my child, I glanced into my rearview mirror and saw a car run through the four-way stop sign and turn into the post office parking lot, jerking into a space behind me. I recognized the red-and-white convertible and the woman driving it. It was Fedelina, and
she was getting out. With tears streaming down my face, I felt caught in the act. I considered telling her that she had changed the way in which I perceived my life, that her garden idioms were rubbing off on me, and that I was sitting here crying over my children as well as for dreams that were like seeds planted in the earth. But how ridiculous, I thought as she came up alongside my car. She was a busy lady and there was purpose to her walk.

“Why, hello, Anna,” she said, stopping at my opened window.

“Hi. How have you been?”

“Good up until a week ago,” she said.

“What happened a week ago?”

“My claim was denied and I don’t know why. It’s not the first time. Last time, would you believe, they wanted a prescription for eye drops that didn’t require a prescription with the pharmacy. Who knows this time?”

“Didn’t your insurance company send you an explanation?”

“They did. I had to use a magnifying lens to read it, and I read it over and over again but still don’t get it. I feel like a struggling school-girl. I’m so frustrated.”

“Sorry to hear that,” I said. “How was the Grand Ole Opry?”

“Wonderful,” she said. “I felt so alive on that trip. Now I just feel tired. I was up all night, hoping there might be a better explanation of benefits waiting for me in my P.O. box today.”

“Did you try calling a representative of the insurance company?”

“I will today.”

“Good. They should be able to talk you through it, give you a thorough explanation. It’s probably something simple.”

“Let’s hope,” she said, looking out at the parking lot filling with cars. “I better get in there before the lines start. I’ve got a lot going on today.”

“I only came for a stamp, but …” I lowered my voice. “Someone in my backseat needs a change of clothes. I’ll come back later.”

“Don’t be ridiculous! I’ll go in and buy it for you. Just one?”

“No,” I told her. “I can come back later.”

“Let me help you,” she insisted, and hurried inside. A few minutes later she returned, holding a stamp in one hand and a large, padded envelope tucked under her arm the way one clutches a purse.

“Thank you,” I told her. “You spared me from what would have been an all-day, hair-pulling field trip.”

“I do remember,” she said.

I smiled at her. Despite her opinions that day in the garden, I missed the pleasant things she used to say to me. “Other than your claim being denied,” I said, “life is going well?”

“I have nothing to complain about. And I’ve been waiting for this,” she said, taking the padded envelope from under her arm.

“What is it?”

“A couple of more letters my mother wrote. Two, I’ve never read before. After all these years they’ve shown up. My cousin found them tucked in with some old papers in a trunk she hadn’t opened in years, and they had my name on them. I can’t wait to get home and read them, Anna.”

“Wow,” was all I said.

“If you’re at all interested, I’ll let you read them. I know you enjoyed the others.”

“Yes, I did. I’d love to.”

“Good, then why don’t you come by sometime?”

“You’re the busy one,” I said with a laugh. “You tell me when a good time is.”

“They start school tomorrow, right?”

“Yes, so don’t be alarmed if you hear a few hallelujahs coming from my yard.”

“I’m sure you’re looking forward to a little private time.”

“I am,” I told her, “although I do have to find a job—nothing too stressful—but a job that pays, a job I enjoy.” I smiled, waiting for her to give me a glimmer of optimism, a fact about roses.

“Well,” she said, “I had better get going. I’m meeting a group of ladies for a breakfast in ten minutes.”

“Don’t let me keep you,” I said.

“Stop by sometime, Anna. If you see me out in my garden, come on by.”

“I will,” I told her. “Maybe tomorrow, once I get the children off to school.”

CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

THE NEXT MORNING I
walked up the steps of my stilted house alone. There was no child riding on my hip or tugging on my hand or whining at my heels. But there were two lizards dancing in circles at my feet, and a bunny staring at me from afar, and a sticky frog attached to the railing. It all made me cry, for there was no one for me to point these things out to, no children for me to share it all with.

I was a teary mess by the time I reached the top and there, sitting at my door, were a plant and an envelope with my name on it.

Hi, Anna
,

This
Trimezia martinicensis
is for you. Don’t let that name intimidate you. It’s a subtropical walking iris. I figured, what better gift to give a mother whose children are headed off into the world, even if it’s preschool. I used to divide my clumps of iris by taking the whole mass out of the ground, breaking it into smaller pieces, and planting a few small ones. Of course I always gave some to friends
.

Anyway, it’s called a walking iris because it sends up a spike with a baby plant on it. The baby plant falls to the ground, still attached to the mother plant, and often roots. The plant appears to be walking!

You’re probably wondering, Anna, what that has to do with your children going off to school. Well, like the walking iris, as children step out into the world, so does their mother. A mother stays attached to her children by way of her heart, soul, and mind, as they go off, rooting lives of their own
.

I thought I’d leave this for you, because I forgot when I saw you yesterday at the post office that I had some appointments in town today. If I’m not too tired when I get home, I’ll stop by with a copy of one of the letters from my mother. Hope you enjoy your first day all to yourself, no kids
.

I went into my house, made myself a cup of tea, and sat down at the kitchen table, but there was a silence to my house that made me nervous, the kind one hears at a circus during the trapeze act, and I found it hard to focus. My own voice was coming through loud and clear, and I found it disturbing that all it was telling me was that I should be cleaning, washing floors, folding laundry, and finding a new job. Because I didn’t feel like hearing all of that, I got up from the kitchen table and went over to my neighbor’s yard with my cup of tea. And, because I knew she wouldn’t mind, I sat down on the stone bench amidst all the flowers. There I sat, doing nothing, thinking hardly anything, but looking with my eyes and smelling with my nose and getting up every so often to touch with my fingers the beauty of her flowers, the beauty of my life.