I’m stealing a moment or two from the day to sit down and write, something I have less and less time for as the time marches onward. In a little bit I’ll head out to my eye doctor’s office for my annual prodding. It is a rare event when I go a full year without any degeneration of my sight; this year I’m feeling lucky and I think I might even get my glasses prescription updated, too, since it’s been … oh let’s say four years or so. If you people had any idea how little I can actually see when I’m wearing my glasses, you would call the cops when I got into my car.
Just now as I was making a cup of the world’s most bitter coffee, I looked into the back yard and saw yellow leaves scattered about in a little sporadic blanket of fall foreshadowing. I didn’t dare go out there in the heat to try and figure out which tree is getting a jump start already, but I appreciated the sight. It’s as if the yard is saying, “We know all your flowers are dead right now, but give it some time and maybe you’ll have something else pretty to look at soon.”
I like the growing anticipation attached to this fall. Having a fall baby suits me, I think. I like to imagine myself wrapped up in smart, neutral-colored autumn clothing, walking the neighborhood streets on a carpet of damp asphalt and mottled leaves, my hands clutching my improbably huge belly and my mouth forming a tired smile. (This, of course, in no way resembles what reality is sure to present.) I’m a little less excited to have a winter newborn, however, given how cold this house gets and how bleak winter can feel even when your hormones aren’t racing wildly to recalibrate. “Do not get postpardum,” my mother instructed me bluntly back in May, as if avoiding depression was just something I had not considered before. I look at the rap sheet of all the crazy in my family — particularly the women — and I get a little worried that these major hormonal shifts are going to break something loose in my brain.
Saturday’s yard sale went pretty well, I think. I woke up at 6 and drove around the neighborhood, taping signs to poles to try and corral a crowd. At 7:40 I got back to the house and started setting up tables and sweating profusely. People crept by in their cars, no doubt wondering what he holdup was. I had a real steady crowd for the first hour — which felt like it lasted for two. Amanda came by and set up her table, and throughout the course of the day we got to meet some pretty interesting folks, including a man going to Burning Man (he was looking for costume pieces) and a dude who talked like he was a professional picker of sorts (he had nearly bought a huge lot of collectible Barbies, but couldn’t get the price right). There were people coming by in long-sleeved shirts as I soaked through my dress. We made a little bit of cash but the big thing, for me, was just getting rid of crap. I hated to see some of it go — some man got my nice rice cooker (that I never use) for $5 — and selling things that people have given me ignites all sorts of guilt and anxiety in me, but it has to be done periodically. I am nowhere near a hoarder but I do think like a hoarder sometimes. (“Throwing this thing out that my grandmother gave me will make her die sooner.”) I am perpetually amazed by people who don’t get attached to things, even things they don’t care about but were given to them by people they do. I have a goopy sentimentalism lurking inside me that clings to the most random things. But I have a small house, and it’s becoming overrun with baby gear, and my mantra is becoming I have to do this for MY family now. And that is like a guilt salve, numbing the ache bit by bit.