Packing

I woke up to my cell phone ringing at 8:18 this morning.

It was my brother. He called to tell me that this morning he saw mom packing her bags. I felt all kinds of things: concern, grogginess, annoyance. I wasn't ready to wake up yet. But, it looked as if mom was leaving dad, so it was time to put aside my lust for sleep.

Mom and Dad had it out the night before. They hissed, they cursed and slept in separate spaces. I know that he snored his way into oblivion while she tossed and turned like a fish
exonerated from the burden of water while introduced to the fatality of air.

I called Mom. Same old thing. The problem: my father no longer loves my mother. And he simply can't pretend anymore, so he doesn't. She's still a woman: she needs affection, emotional support. He simply can't give it.

We all know that mom can't leave him. She's not financially independant, never has been. She can't just move out and get herself an apartment in Boynton Beach. She has no idea how to save or manage money. I think of the long history of bounced checks, undesirable credit and all the banks she's been kicked out of.

The Irony of this: one of the reasons why my father can't stand my mother is the main reason why he won't leave her. He knows she can't make a living on her own financially so he will never leave her to the vultures that we know as rent and electricity and phone. And this is the way he still loves her. Maybe the only way. He loves her in a way she can't possibly see because it's not a gift wrapped kind of love complete with back rubs and kisses that fill in all the spaces that words simply can't get to.

When my father comes home from work, he gives my mother a peck on the lips. I've seen this mechanical kiss for years. It's like a machine that puts caps on bottles. That kind of kiss. And i see the yearning in her, the untouched sensuality, the fruit long-fallen from the vine and shriveling in wait.

And lately I've been thinking about how my parents have shaped (or misshaped) my own views of marraige. I've been wanting them to get a divorce since I was 12, so that they can just go ahead and be happy. Yeah, that deep. Npt only glass is recycalbe; arguments are too.

And speaking to her this morning it's the same argument. He can't give her what she requires. And how does a woman live this way? How does a man? It's been painful, the times I've begun to despise the person I'm with, when I could no longer stand his breath, his laugh, his cough, his smell, his jokes, his walk, his ungraceful, his uneven nostrils, his pleasure face. It hurts when all of these things about someone becomes so undesirable I can't even look at him.

What do i do when admiration sours to disgust? I weep inwardly for weeks and then suddenly, one day I just cut the cord. It's that easy. It's that hard. But a marraige? How do you work through that, year after year as they have? How do you bestow that machine kiss day after day? Shit, how do you recieve it? It must be like receiving a small bowl of rice every day while remembering the taste of oxtail.

She's not leaving him. Not today. Not tomorrow. I hope she does one day though. I want that for her. I want her to find something better and I want him to find peace.

And the packing of bags this morning? Well, we cry in many different ways.