What I Want to Eat, Everything in the Fearless Flyer, Fall 2020

The best part of my week this week was yesterday evening. (I know today is Monday; but I’m going to project and say that the activity I speak of will still manage to win the week, no matter what’s ahead of me in the next five days.) It was 5:02pm when I walked into Trader Joe’s. I meant to look at the time when I walked out, but I forgot. I meant to look at the time because I have a strict time limit I place on myself when going into a grocery store, during covid. It’s a new activity for me even to allow myself into a grocery store. For months, we did pickup or delivery only. But mask studies and pathetic produce have pushed me towards the freedom of sauntering through a grocery store for short bursts of time now, and — though some of that time is slightly fearful — most of it is pleasant. Like reclaiming the past. Touching my own fruits and vegetables. Smiling at people with my eyes. Grabbing items placed near the checkout simply because it’s about to be over and I don’t want it to be over.

Trader Joe’s was not quiet, by any means — but Oliver’s shrill voice wasn’t there. He wasn’t yelling or humming or clicking (I swear he does it only to annoy me but Nic says it’s truly one of his new sounds now) and my brain was allowed to surf the air of other people, and other sounds — and to service my own body. Take me to the frozens, I told my brain — and my legs followed suit, making their way to the bagged pastas that taste better than many restaurant dishes.

**

Our place is weird right now. Sometimes I can’t say ‘house’ or ‘home’ because we don’t live in a house or a home — we live in an apartment. And when my mouth and brain occasionally ride their own wave, and suddenly ‘Let’s go to our house’ comes out — Oliver will quickly correct me. We don’t have a house, he’ll tell me. We have an apartment.

It’s not the same thing.

They’re both okay. They both have strengths. They both have weaknesses. But they’re not the same thing. My mouth and my brain and my heart and my son all know it.

In this apartment these days, we have a child who cries because he knows he isn’t being seen. He isn’t being loved. Lauded by a teacher in a bright-colored room, who looks at him with smiling eyes, delighted at him…