June 1, 1997
MY HAND GOES OUT…
that’s the thing,
you see something to buy, a card to send, some favorite color fabric,
a book they would like if they were still there…but, they are not…
something is missing.
my hand goes out…and,
i feel embarrassed to have forgotten. “put that periwinkle fabric down.
she is dead, remember? the quilt won’t be required. it’s too late. how could you forget?” i move quickly to look at other colors, but then i stop,
“who else likes this shade? who could this be for?” no answer comes. i don’t know anyone else who adores periwinkle blue that way.
i can not think of one person…except my mother-in-law
when Aunt Anna died, it was like that too.
she loves blue, flowers mostly, blue flowers all shades, in the same fabric…
whenever i see these my hand goes out to grab it for her.
a shopping bag of blue flowers, we had a joke,
“how many shopping bags could someone possibly have?”
she had that many. i would send her new ones from Boston, from Vermont.
i would mail them, i put them in big manila envelopes…
she would bring things to people in fancy shopping bags from Neiman Marcus,
and Bloomingdales. she would cart things home on trains and planes,
with blue flowered fabric bags, duffel bags, and overnight bags.
for years, i was a blue bag hound for her. it was difficult to stop doing it.
my hand goes out to get them for her now but i put them back,
no one i know, likes shopping bags enough to have a joke about them.
no one has a collection anymore…. at least, not to admit.
shopping bag collectors hide their habit.
“it is really no one else’s business” they think, tucking folded bags in,
next to the refrigerator. it is not a laughing matter, but with Auntie it was.
my hand goes out, and back into my pocket.
i’m not nuts about blue flowered bags.
i don’t desire periwinkle blue fabrics
but i wish my Aunt and Mother-In-Law were still here.
they held up the purple blue end, so i could live on the orange red side.
the blue part is in the blue sky, now.
i imagine a world-without-bodies
where the someones i love,
who used to get my mail,
don’t have addresses anymore……
