in the spaces

Lexi is sawing away at the cello; it demands more concentration than my daydreaming girl can sometimes muster.

She struggles, and looks over her shoulder for support.

I like the way she is willing to go through the trouble. It's not easy on a burgeoning perfectionist.

I've been waking up around 4 am lately, unable to fall back asleep. My hips hurt, sure, but my mind defaults to strange places in this place between sleep and Zack creeping in my room.

Flash: The swimming pool I went to as a child, handing my clothes in a hanging basket - the undies discreetly crammed in a shoe - to the man behind the counter.

Flash: The breezeway at my elementary school on election day.

Flash: A barbecue at my Grandma's house, in vivid color. (It sits vacant now, gray and dour.) The sun is hot and I am eyeing a piece of cheesecake until I am shooed away, told cream cheese is wasted on kids like me.

I lie in bed, devoid of thought, just a parade of snapshots for a bedfellow, and decide this is what it will be like to grow old, treading in days gone by.

Comments

Lola Bacon said…
Have you read Saturday, by Ian McEwan? this post reminded me of it a bit. It's a great book. It becomes strange, but it's written beautifully. Like Don Delillo, kind of.
JCK said…
I'm sorry you are not getting much sleep. But, maybe some great book ideas will come by all of these thoughts and memories!
lapoflux said…
Isn't it strange how memories just pop up out of nowhere like that?
We are reading the kids a book by Jill Tomlinson (no connection) about a baby barn owl who is afraid of the dark and talks to people he meets about it. There is an old woman who says that Dark is Kind because in the dark she is never lonely with her memories. It's a sweet book - and I think you are right.
Hope that sleep comes your way though, and that the memories are sweet ones.
And you are so worth cream cheese in my book. Come visit and I'll stock up ;-)
Jennifer S said…
I'm glad you're writing down those flashes, and how it feels.

Have a feeling we'll see a few of them someday, between the pages of hardcover...

I've always been fascinated by the way an image or a memory just comes to mind like you've said, unbidden.
What an evocative writer you are, Lisa! Really and truly...you send my mind spinning off in a flurry of its own memories. So vividly and powerfully written.
Jess said…
Your words are so inspiring. They make me feel. And that's so hard to do.
Beck said…
Memories are weird, teh way something gone for so long becomes so tangible, something you can almost touch.... your poor hip!
holly said…
actually these gave *me* flashes too.

mine was a dude telling me i'd had *enough* cookies. how did he know?!

there is a 4am now? wow. who knew?!
Jodi Anderson said…
That last line just tugs at my heart strings! Beautiful.

Also tugging at my heart strings? Your girl playing the cello. I took violin lessons for eight years, played much longer, but I always, ALWAYS wanted to learn how to play the cello.
Madge said…
"treading in days gone by"

i love that.
brandy101 said…
I was having these night wakings on and off for YEARS until I was put on hormones (bc)last month for all the perimenopause issues. Although i complained about headaches initially,(which have since subsided) I have been sleeping GREAT (knock wood!) and my skin is really looking good; maybe it is worth a try?
katydidnot said…
your words are so right. in so many ways.
This was kismet. In so many beautiful ways.
Suzanne said…
Must be something in the air, because I've been waking up at 3am every morning. And I wake up and think that I've forgotten to do something. But I can't figure out what. *sigh* Maybe we should just get up and write in the wee hours?
Either that or you were just hungry. Cheesecake anyone?
stephanie said…
Oh dear, bless you. That was some powerful imagery, that.

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