Pleasant Thoughts

There was blood in her hair.  I'm pretty sure of that now.  It seemed to hit me all at once one of the nights I couldn't get to sleep, having rolled the dice and lost on that all too familiar gamble called "Should I Take My Sleep Meds Tonight or Try To Wing It"?  I was worried about being too groggy for work, and I had an early morning, so I left the pill in its bottle and suffered from insomnia all night.  All too often when I can't sleep, the images, the sounds, and sensations of the road sneak up on my exhausted brain from behind, or wherever such intrusive memories are stored. 

This night, I stumbled through the pitch black sleeping house by the light of my cellphone, and crept into the studio, hopeful to paint myself sleepy.  The pieces I like the best, the ones that feel the most honest, are the ones that have no predisposed plan, just two hands working paper and paint, quite disjointed from my brain.  Or so I've always thought.

I had turned on the little space heater that keeps my studio cozy in this unpredictable Michigan weather, and put on one of Cory's hoodies over my sleep shirt, feet bare and tucked up under me as I sat on my knees.  I was warm, there was light, and I just floated along in the quiet of 3 a.m., putting down marks, smudging them, adding color, making a grand and beautiful mess.

I stopped at one point, and ventured to the kitchen for a drink.  When I came back,, I looked at the face I'd done, upside down from my viewpoint, as I walked into the room, and nearly spilled my juice.  It was one of those moments when all the hair on the back of your neck stands up, and you can actually hear the blood pounding, making the rounds, in your ears. 

She had blood in her hair.  Suddenly, I was certain of it.  Just as I thought it to myself, my eyes returning again and again to the disheveled, dirty, almost disfigured face on my journal page, a face with hair that nearly obscured it, and was streaked with gore, the road came back full force.

Sometimes I wonder if I will spend all the rest of my life on that damn road.  Just so you know, you can't just "think pleasant thoughts".  These are intrusive memories that come triggered or un triggered, willy nilly little harbingers of hell.  It hardly seems fair, wasn't once enough?

There were a million little frames of that scene that are all jumbled up in the creases of my brain.  I know that two main images - her twisted arm and her impossibly blue lips- have been given top billing.  Little by little, more are seeping through. 

She had blood in her hair.  It wasn't red, that I remember; it wasn't droplets.  It was more like a thick black tar that covered so much space, so much, so much...how could anyone have that much blood in them?

I remember washing her hair, what three strands or so she had, when she was a newborn, just home from the hospital...the smell of that baby shampoo; the smell of my baby.

I remember coaxing her shiny blonde toddler strands into a "Pebbles" side pony.  For some reason, I am also stuck on pouring her chubby baby self into a red plaid and denim dress she had, complete with bright red cable tights, and tiny Mary Jane black buckle shoes.  She was like a living doll.

I remember how she begged to have her hair cut short like Darla's when we watched the remake of The Little Rascals.  I told her when she was a little older.  She waited to catch me on the toilet, and snuck a pair of scissors stealthily into the room that is now my studio.  She emerged moments later, victorious, a lopsided bob of sorts no competition for the joy in her eyes to have accomplished her goal.  That was pretty much the last time I tried to weigh in on Cory's hairstyle.

I watched her grow from a gawky preteen to a tiny fairy whose short hair cuts always suited her diminutive proportions.  Some days, I would catch sight of her at some new angle, and think to myself, God she is beautiful.  Is she really mine?

I watched her hair color span the color wheel, according to her mood.  The plum purple had to have been one of my all time favorites.  It played off her fair skin, and her eyes fairly leapt out of her face, so large, so luminous...as if they belonged to some fragile creature that didn't really belong to you, only gifted you with their presence as they made their way to a better place.

I piled her hair onto her head in up dos, and the like for every dance she attended.  For the junior prom, I gave her a smoky eye to go along with it that she adored.  She took one look in the mirror, and just beamed. 

My Cory, my girl, giggling and putting away groceries with me and her brother.  The next time I saw her,

she had so much blood in her hair.  There was blood... everywhere.

"She's only nineteen!
Somebody do something!  Why isn't anyone doing anything?   Is she breathing?  Oh my God, is she breathing?  Somebody ANSWER ME!!  IS SHE BREATHING?  Oh my God, please, please...IS SHE?  IS SHE BREATHING?  She's only nineteen--"