Hair tight back in coiffure fit only for the office, she balanced her luggage against herself with one hand, fumbling with keys to unlock the door with the other. With a glance at the sky, which was threatening, and a slightly exasperated sigh as one folder slipped from her grasp, scattering paper, she opened the door and tossed what she could into the far passenger seat. Sliding into the car, she hurriedly reached down to retrieve her lost papers before tossing them, pel-mel, beside the open briefcase, closing the door just as the wind started to pick up, and letting her hair down with a sigh. One moment of silence, tired head against the headrest, eyes closed; a rub of a weary face; and then, resolute, she reached for the keys and pulled away from the office.
I should have kicked off my shoes. Too late --
--as she pulled into the street and entered traffic, too absorbed with lane-changing for a moment to think of anything else. Only a slight throb of a headache persisted for the moment to remind her of the weight of stress and -- something else, what was it? --but she was too busy.
Interstate -- get over into the right lane, pull back to the left after a violent honk and a near-collision; u-turn, another u-turn. Get back into that lane, resolute this time; merge onto the interstate. Cruise control, and a deep breath. Now she could think.
About what? That was always the problem; a weight pressing down, unidentified; thinking was only staring at a blank wall and hoping to see a pattern. It was there, but she couldn't make it out except out of the corner of her mind's eye. So, turn on the radio....skip until the stations start over...nothing on. Back to silence.
It was the same thing that drove her to watch the news until bedtime or catch up on her latest BBC series episode, or else look for something new to keep her occupied: anything to avoid the silence and solitude where one is simply ans starkly alone with one's thoughts, feelings, prayers, mind --trying somehow to fill ... what? The emptiness, maybe.
You make it sound so melodramatic, like you're just--depressed and miserable. What is it, though? It isn't nothing. It's not like I'm totally happy, either. Just that gnawing, pestering something.
But if you can't make sense of something, you ignore it; what's the use of sitting there and letting an indeterminate discontent, unrest -- whatever it is -- torture you with no point and no progress as a result? Solitude sometimes feels like an enemy.
And finally the threats of the lowering sky and buffeting wind were fulfilled. The floodgates of heaven were opened, in increments, and drop, drop-drop, patter, thrum, roar --clap of thunder. She jumped, started her wipers waving furiously, headlights on. Something about that storm brought relief, or maybe a kind of catharsis that could not be put in words or even thoughts. Here was something that was more eloquent for its wordlessness. Like deep crying out to deep, or like a mother rocking a whimpering child. Both, somehow, wrapped into one, the terrifying and majestic fury of a storm with all the comfort of a mother's embrace.
When she pulled into the driveway, she turned off the engine but did not get out. Silent, she closed her eyes and felt the pounding, whooshing, thundering. She took off her shoes and let her head fall back against the headrest. No answer in the storm, but the message was clear: be still and know that I am. Not a lucid phrase, but it stuck deep, almost achingly so: and for a moment, she waited, still.
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