Hush

I got dressed in black pants and a white shirt. I put on some make-up. I got my white apron and drove to Monticello and went into the Opera House and back to the kitchen. I was glad to be there with the ladies I have come to know and love. And Tom. Can't forget Tom. He's the husband of Denise who co-runs the catering company. He's not a lady but he is a gentle-man.
I felt honored because Denise asked me to help plate. There weren't many reservations tonight so it was all easy-peasy and I served up the potato casserole that looked so good that I could hardly stand it. I kept saying, "Denise, this just doesn't have enough butter in it," being completely sarcastic because the potatoes were swimming in it. With cheese.
I didn't even taste it. It was just too alarmingly beautifully rich.
I went around with water, I bussed tables. I saw people I knew. It was fine and yet...I am just not myself. I am usually a font of humor when I am working in the kitchen. I make people laugh. That's what I love to do.
But tonight, I just felt quiet. The way I've been feeling.
And I missed Colin.
Dammit, every time I set foot in the Opera House these days I miss him. I still expect him to come bursting in looking as trim and dapper as ever, shooting off sparks and saying, "Hello, luv!" with that accent of his he never lost even after almost a lifetime of living in America. He was a Brit no matter what his passport said.
Hello, luv!
It was intense tonight, that missing-him, that huge hole where there was no hello, luv, no Colin-sparks, no long arms reaching for trays.

I had thought to stay and watch the show. Kathleen's in it and so is Marcy and I just couldn't. I sat and chatted with Jan and Denise for awhile and then I said, "I just want to go home and shut up my chickens and maybe clean my kitchen."
Jan said, "Go. It's okay."
It was like the world cracking open to even imagine not staying. Like- oh. It's possible. I can go home.
I felt like I'd spent every tiny coin of sociability I had in me, just being around people for a few hours, asking folks, "Are you finished with that?" and pointing to their empty plates, and saying, "I'm so glad," when they told me how much they'd enjoyed dinner.
Just being in the kitchen and shooting the shit with people I love being around. People that lead with their hearts. Not even fake people. Real people. People who know me and accept me as I am and allow me the responsibility of serving the potato casserole and putting the tomatoes on the salad.

And I am NOT being sarcastic here. I am being as serious as I know how to be.

I feel terrible because I left but this is where I need to be. I shut my chickens up after I stroked their soft feathers. I can tell Dolly in the dark because she is the softest hen of all. My fingers in her feathers feel like my fingers in soft air or whipped cream. And here I am, home and wearing my Goodwill cashmere and on the way home I came to within five feet of hitting some huge animal. I guess it had to be a deer but I swear, it looked like a bear-sized dog and it was light-colored. I almost turned around and drove back to see, but I kept on going.
I kept on going until I got home.
The heat is on. It's in the low forties already. It's cozy inside and I have a candle burning that's supposed to smell like pine and I guess it does. Or The Forest. Something woodsy and pleasant. It's quiet and it's safe here. The dogs are with me. The chickens are shut up cozy on their roosts in the hen house I cleaned today.

To everything there is a season, one of the best books of the Bible says, and that is about as true and evident as anything I've ever read or heard and as beautiful.
I am having a season of quiet. Not of the heart or soul, but of the mouth.
I feel skinless, like Birdie said today in her post. Raw and open to everything. I look at the face of someone I love and I just want to weep. Everything is too much. I can't fake anything. I can't put on my social face. It is the season for me to withdraw. Perhaps I am growing new skin. I don't know. Or shedding old skin. That's a vulnerable time for reptiles, you know, when they are shedding and we still have all those reptile brain parts of us whether we know it or not. I see how my hens and my rooster are not themselves when they moult. Same-same.

Maybe for us too.
Same-same.

All I know is that I feel too much. I am like one of those children with autism (and maybe I am one of them, all grown-up) who can only take SO MUCH stimulation and so I come home and light that candle and put on old cashmere and let myself miss the ones I miss.

I didn't tell this part- I walked out of the kitchen tonight to see my friend Lynn's mother and brother. Lynn is my friend who died three years ago. One of my oldest, dearest friends. As joyful as Colin, she was. My dancing sister. Her mother is a friend of my mother's and she is old, but still getting around and she and her son were just in Monticello to visit another old friend of Lynn's and had popped into the Opera House to see it and there they were. I have known these people for thirty-six years. I took Lynn's mother into my arms and she was fragile like a tiny bird and yet strong, too, even now.

There. That was my last coin.

I am home. I served potato casserole wearing black pants and a white shirt. I was polite and didn't spill anything.

I did the best I could do.

I am home where my raw soul can be quiet and I can wear old soft clothes and where I will soon slip into the black velvet darkness of sleep and for awhile, I can shut it all off and slip into a softness as real and dense as Dolly's feathers. Where everything is rounded off by time and there are no sharp edges on which to bruise this shedding/moulting body.

To everything there is a season. I know that. And it's okay.