POWERFUL WRITING MADE POSSIBLE BY NOWM 2018

Powerful Writing made possible via New Orleans Writing Marathon 

“Why don’t you take a pause and clean your room?” This last line delivered in a humorous anecdote while breakfasting at Croissant D’or, and as I laughed, something clicked in my head and I immediately had to write.

            I was reminded of all the times I had said something similar to my own two kids. Robbie’s carpet was a deep, dark blue, but I only know that because I bought it. Katie wanted red, bright like summer tomatoes, but settled on a dark forest green when Momma put her foot down.

            How many wasted moments, worrying/nagging/fighting about the stupid rooms?

            “I can’t even see your floors!” I would argue. “Why did I pay for carpet if we were never going to see it again?”

          And Katie, preparing for Air Force departure, piles, heaping piles of clothes and all the things she’d collected in her eighteen years so far. She was only allowed one large khaki military bag and a small duffel when I dropped her at the hotel with the other new recruits, so she was cleaning her room and deciding what to do with things.

           Two entire dresser drawers were filled with ‘special rocks.’ I remember standing in her doorway, fighting the urges to cry because she was soon leaving and sigh because clearly, I had missed the cyclone hurricane earthquake that had come through her bedroom sometime during the night.

          “Didn’t you get rid of your rock drawers when we moved here?” I sighed anyway. Sheepishly looking up at me, her hands cupping stones and then letting them slide through her fingers down into the drawer, she smirked. “These are my new rocks.”

          And then Robbie was gone, and I was sprawled on my driveway as sirens howled and police arrived and cars parked everywhere as word spread, and I did my best to stop screaming, keep breathing, and answer unanswerable questions. A special cleaning crew would be necessary. I couldn’t return into my home until then, and I needed to be back inside. Exposed items would need to be discarded, due to the ‘nature of his death’. 

When my best friend asked, ‘what do I do with all the things in Robbie’s room,’ I sobbed. “Get rid of it. Get rid of all of it!” Another friend cried, ‘No, No, you don’t want to do that.’

            Until then, I wasn’t aware of the dozen or more people gathered behind me on my driveway. Had they witnessed the past hours of my destruction, the screaming, me at my worst moments? It didn’t matter. None of it mattered.

          The deep sea blue carpet was ripped up that night while I lay not sleeping, shaking with shock. I returned to my home early the next morning and stood in vacant space. Newly painted walls. White. Floor bare of everything. Plywood, waiting to be replaced with a neutral low shag.

         I can see the floor now, but would give almost everything to have  back that blue carpet, mysterious and hidden again, and my boy sprawled atop the mess smirking, rolling his eyes, and ignoring his messy room.