SCI Topic #4: Crunch
It’s amazing how quickly time gets away from us. Days drift into weeks, weeks melt into months and months are absorbed by years. And it all seems to pass in that proverbial blink of an eye. One day we just seem to wake up with our faces a little more lined, our hair a little more gray and wonder how it happened. I know I certainly do. I see the face in the mirror and sometimes wonder who she is and how she got here. And what she has to show for it.
Some people measure out their lives by the tick of the clock or the turning of a calendar. I’ve realized that I measure mine by the crunch-crunch-crunch of my husband’s breakfast cereal. Every single day, it’s the exact same routine with hardly ever a deviation. We’re up by six-forty five and while he gets ready for work, I pour him a bowl of cereal, add in exactly half a banana and two teaspoons of sugar, no more and no less. By seven-forty five, he enters the kitchen where I hand him his cup of coffee (two sugars and no more than a dash of cream). I then pour the milk into his bowl where he will sit, read the paper and spoon his breakfast into his mouth. I sit across from him with my own cup of coffee and my section of the paper, listening to him chew exactly 5 times, every time, before swallowing. crunch-crunch-crunch-crunch-crunch
By nine-thirty, the dishes are washed, I’m showered and dressed and on my way to my part-time job at my friend Dina’s coffee and pastry shop where I work ten to two, four days a week. My husband calls it my “fun money” though I honestly can’t remember the last time I did anything fun with it. That has been the start of my day, every single day, for the last eleven years, one-hundred and forty-one days of my life.
I often wonder when my life became so automatic. So routine. So monotonous and so full of… nothing? Exactly when did my life became so passionless and devoid of anything resembling actually living.
“Uh oh, I know that look.”
Her voice startled me out of my thoughts, I hadn’t heard anybody come in as I idly flipped through my magazine. I looked up and smiled. Wanda has been one of my regulars for years and is an invaluable dispenser of motherly advice. She was in her mid-fifties, a big and boisterous self-made woman, having built a thriving travel and tour business from the ground up. She lived her life with such obvious relish and zeal and I have to admit that she was somebody I admired quite a bit.
“And what look is that?” I said with a smile.
“Like somebody either ran over your dog or you found out you’re pregnant.”
I just laughed. “The usual?”
“Let’s be daring today,” she replied. “Give me two shots of espresso.”
“Oh my, two shots today. Living dangerously aren’t we?”
“Life’s short, sweetie,” she said. “And we only get one crack at it.”
I finished making her drink and set it on the counter before placing a blueberry muffin in a bag for her. “I assume you’re not too daring for a muffin?”
“Oh hell no, let me have that thing.”
I set the plate down on the counter as she pulled the magazine I’d been flipping through toward her, smiling as she looked at the glossy and artistic pictures of Paris.
“Have you ever been to Paris, sweetie?” She asked.
I laughed. “Does dreaming count?”
She made a tsk-tsk sound. “It’s one of the most gorgeous cities on the planet. It really is. You go there and you may never want to leave.”
“Oh how I wish,” I said and gave a loud, theatrical sigh.
“So why don’t you and that husband of yours take a second honeymoon there? I can arrange a trip that you wouldn’t believe.”
I closed the magazine, grabbed a rag and started wiping the counters. “David doesn’t really like to travel,” I said. “Besides, he’s always so busy with work and everything.”
“How old are you, Viv?”
“Oh, I’ll be thirty-four in a few months.”
“You know,” Wanda started. “You sound a lot like me back in the day. I made every excuse in the book for why I didn’t do this and why I didn’t do that.
“Oh, I’m not making excuses,” I said. “David is really working hard, learning everything he can and building up a clientele. In a few years, he’s start his own accounting firm and maybe then we’ll have some free time to enjoy.”
“Uh huh. I said the same things too,” Wanda replied. “But what about you? What about your dreams and your life? Are they all subject to what your husband wants and needs?”
“He’s a good man, Wanda,” I said perhaps a bit defensively. “He takes good care of me.”
“I’m sure he is. I don’t question that in the least. But sometimes we just don’t fit with a person, you know? And what about you? Your life? Your dreams?”
I looked away from her but Wanda reached over the counter and took my chin in her hand, forcing me to look her in the eye and gave me a look of warmth, understanding and compassion that brought tears to my eyes.
“What about you, sweetie?” She asked. “What’s going to make you happy and when do you get to go about doing it?”
The tears fell and I just shook my head.
“Like I said Viv, life is short. We really only get one crack at really figuring out who we are and what we want, what will make us happy, what we dream about. And when we do, it’s up to us to chase those dreams, grab hold of them and make them our own. It’s up to us to live every moment to the fullest. Or not.”
She gave me one more smile before laying some money on the counter, grabbing her things and walking out of the door.
I drove toward home on auto-pilot, Wanda’s words reverberating through my head. What did I want? It was something I’d never really stopped to consider before. I knew of course, what I wanted but never had the strength or courage to give voice to it. My father would never have approved as he never really approved of anything I ever did. Except for marrying David. My father saw much of himself in David. Both were reliable, hard-working, dependable and stable. And while those are all desirable qualities, deep in my heart I knew I wanted more. I wanted passion, fire, romance… I wanted somebody who would do crazy things with me, who wanted to have fun and silly adventures with me. I wanted somebody who wanted to really live life. I loved David but I can’t say that my soul is on fire for him. I was becoming more and more certain that I’d married him to appease my father, thus tucking my wants, desires and dreams in a trunk and storing it in the furthest reaches of my soul that I could find.
But Wanda, damn her and love her, had drug that trunk out and thrown it wide open. Now what was I supposed to do with it? And that’s when the idea popped into my head. I stopped at the store and picked up all of David’s favorite things, determined to make him a dinner he wouldn’t forget anytime soon and maybe, I hoped, spark something new between us. I wanted to take us from conservative and practical to passionate and romantic. Why couldn’t we be all of those things? Why couldn’t we learn to love each other in a whole new way all over again?
“Wow,” David said as he sat down to the table. “This all looks fantastic. What’s the occasion?”
I poured a glass of wine, heedless of his strict half-a-glass limit. “Oh, I just thought you’d like a nice dinner.”
I lit the candles, dimmed the lights and put on some soft music. David looked somewhat awkward and uncomfortable sitting across the table from me.
“What’s this really all about, Viv?” He asked.
I sipped my wine and smiled mischievously. “I was just thinking,” I said. “That it’s been a while since you and I have gotten away. How do you feel about taking a trip with me? Just the two of us?”
David smiled as he grabbed his fork. “And where do you have in mind?”
“I was thinking about Paris.”
“Paris?” He asked. “Paris, France?”
“That would be the place,” I said, smiling wide.
“Well that’s just ridiculous,” he said. “Really, let’s not be ludicrous.”
“But David-“
“Honey, up and going to Paris on a whim is just absurd and completely impractical. Really.”
The rest of the meal passed in silence. I don’t think he even noticed the tears streaming down my cheeks.
The next morning was the same as every other morning had been for the last eleven years, one hundred and forty-two days. I’d dragged myself into Dina’s shop by ten o’ clock like always and set about to work, trying to distract myself from the massive hole that had been torn into not just my heart but into my soul as well. I polished the glass and the chrome nearly to death, I scrubbed the grouting with something akin to fury and I swept the floors within an inch of their lives. It wasn’t until later that I noticed the envelope bearing my name attached to the refrigerator door behind the counter. Alone in the shop, the morning rush long over, I opened it and pulled out the contents. My hands trembled as something close to a current of electricity spread throughout my body. Ribbons of fear and elation followed closely behind. I quickly sat down on my stool and tried to calm my nerves and looked again at the paper in my hand to be sure that I was seeing it correctly. I’d cried more in the last two days than I had in years but I couldn’t stop the tears from coming. Though, what I was crying about in that moment, I wasn’t entirely sure.
A week later, I sat in the airport lounge, sipping a glass of wine and listening to the gate assignments being announced. The butterflies in my stomach fluttered like they were struggling to burst out of me when I looked at my watch. Thirty-two minutes to departure.
I looked again at the contents of the envelope that had been left for me at Dina’s shop. The envelope contained one open-ended first class ticket to Paris with lodging accommodations at a hotel overlooking the Seine. And a note…
“For when you’re ready and decide to start living your life, sweetie. ~ Wanda.”
I raised my glass. “I’m ready, Wanda. I’m ready.”