It was raining.
On this damp May evening, my mother turned to my sister and asked her to refrain from speaking to me.
Pensive is the word she used.
My sister heard the word "pencil" and thought I was sick with lead poisoning.
I remember her checking the room for different writing utensils, she was looking to hide them as you do the knives when the depressed family member comes for a visit. Such a sweet girl to take the graphite and leave the eraser. I'm sure it was a subconscious gesture, or made with complete disregard, but nevertheless I was smiling.
The first time I fell in love, I was standing up straight, head over heels. A web browser was open before me, asking the difference between love and anxiety. Later did I come to find that the former and latter are more similar than most know or care to know. One night while looking at her lips and glancing at her eyes, she told me I was adaptable. That was the first time I questioned love for lust.
My grandfather started crying.
His hands, those of a carpenter, were holding his face. There I sat across from him, hairs on my neck standing, praying for him to speak first. He always spoke first. He would also tell me to stop him if I've heard the story he was going to tell, although I never did. But the story happening before me was one I wanted to stop but couldn't. Never have I seen this man cry, and that would be the only time I ever would. Two years later he had passed on peacefully.
By then it was my turn to cry.
Some remember the words they've spoken. Others the words they've heard. But I can recall all of the times I've sat in silence. The moments and memories I hold in the company of the ones I love or have had love for are some of the more quiet times in my life. The only quiet which can rival that told above are the times that I've spent putting word to paper. And those are the quiet times I can't remember offhand, but I can always revist. Those quiet times are kept in the walnut filing cabinet.
Right beside the
photograph of the cabinet maker.
