At the Cemetery

~If you frequent my blogs, you already know I’m on the edge of psychosis. 

A single tip to the right may shift me off balance and place me in Bedlam or wherever crazy ass people end up.   A solitary nudge to the left may cause me to scribble Platholian poetry all over my newly painted chocolate walls.

This is the light of the mind, cold and planetary / the trees of the mind are black / the light is blue / …I am separated from my house by a row of headstones / I simply cannot see where there is to get to.-S. P.

I’m at the point where madness is ordinary, where sinking and slobbering into my mourning and muckiness is just a typical day.

“Hello, Kim, This is your life now.”

Hence, lately while having dinner with my husband, I, out of nowhere, began weeping mid-sentence. The ugly cry, the blubbering, the snot running down my face, mascara dripping…

“My, sister.  My sister.  OOOOh, god, my sweet, sweet  sister.”

I then wiped my eyes, blew my nose, took a sip of merlot, and finished what I was saying.

He’s used to it; used to my blank stares, my flights into my own obscurity, my sudden bursts of “Son-of-a-Bitch” shrieking from another room. 

But sometimes…even inside the core of darkness, small slants of light arrive from my past world.

Smiles form. Pleasure seeps.  Laughter explodes.

For example, at the cemetery last week. (It’s absurd writing that word “Cemetery.”)

 I hate it.  I hate it.  I damn well hate it to death.

Nevertheless, we were at the cemetery because Kay loves wind chimes—and we were trying, with much displeasure, to fasten a wind chime to one of the trees above her grave.

I look at Tia, "Why the hell didn’t you bring step stool?”

“Shut up. Why didn’t you?”

We glance around for something to stand on.  Nothing for miles except ugly flower boxes.

“Here, use my hand as a stirrup to reach up there,” I say.

She slides her foot inside my hand and slips back to the earth. 

“Shiiiit. Just shove me up there, will ya?” she demands.

She clasps her hands around the bark, lifting the chimes to the nearest branch.

“Puuuuush.  Puuuuuush. Haaarder. I almost have it.”

I am boosting her up with all my might. 

“Your ASS is tooooooo big,” I grunt loudly.

We start laughing:  uncontrollably, hysterically. beautifully.

We both collapse to the ground like two idiotic imbeciles. 

I turn to Tia, “Now what the sam hell are we going do? I’m too lazy to go back home. Should I call Dave?”  

“Oooooh, stop right there, Sistah,  I have an idea.” She gets up quickly and runs to her car.

 “I’m going to back up and we can stand on the trunk of the car.”

I’m guiding her into the cemetery.  My arms resembling those flight employees who have those lighted orange cones.

“A little more.  A bit more.  Slooooowly, or you’re  going to hit a grave stone. There. There.  STOP. Nooooow.”

We both climb on the back of the trunk (nobody is around, or we’d get arrested) and we tie the chimes to the nearest branch.

Perfect. Yes, that’s more like it.

We lie on the cold grass together still howling like schoolgirls.

Kay would have cherished this moment wholly, completely.

I can nearly hear that undeniable snort of hers…that indisputable snort when her happiness was out of control and glorious and so incredibly rare.

Excessively rare.

I can almost hear my sweet angel’s laughter tangling up with the chimes and the wind and the branches of the oak tree.

Yes, she is here--Always here.

Three naughty schoolgirls lying in the sun,

Adoring one another. Loving one another. Loving one another...As if she never left us.

.(This photo is on Kay's gravestone)

© 2010 kimsistorobinson

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Here is your bed, folded open.  Lie down, lie down, let the blue snow cover you—Louise Erdrich