I know you know how the morning started. You are familiar with its kind. Where the first seven words out of your mouth are expletives. Your eyes open to the clock reading 6:45; you should have left for work twenty minutes ago. And in your tired rage you knock over a full glass of water onto the nightstand (the newly sanded, finished nightstand that is made out of a porous and vulnerable tree stump, to boot), and the wall, and your glasses, and pillow, and face. You graze your knuckles on the edge. Somehow you make it out the door wearing clothes and matching shoes, and you do not even look in the mirror, because all you will see is the world's biggest cold sore dangling from your lower lip and hive-ridden skin, owing to a severe allergic reaction from the new moisturizer you tried two days before. (Note to self: Do not attempt to use ANYTHING other than what you have been using for the last five years, because it will only end in tears.) Besides. You looked in the mirror last night. It was not worth repeating.
Somehow, you manage the commute past the middle school, two elementary schools, a high school, a Starbucks, a major intersection, and a Peet's coffee, without breaking the speed limit and killing any small children or highly caffeinated pedestrians. You are grateful for this, and suddenly, at the final intersection, you emerge from your stupor to notice the red leaves against the fog. A fog so thick and soft that you can't ever remember seeing anything so beautiful, but never mind that, because you are screwed. You arrive at work, somehow, only six minutes late. This is a miracle. At the very moment you begin to exhale, and slip your coat onto a hanger, that manager (why oh why, out of six, does it always have to be that one, with the chip on his shoulder, pre-pubescent social skills, and total lack of perceivable grace), asks from inside the warm office door, why you're here. Because, apparently, you're not supposed to be here for another hour and a half. Oh. Okay, is all you can manage. I guess I'll clock out then. Good, he says. You tuck your tail between your legs and feel the sting of tears behind already swollen eyes. You are a balloon and someone has let the air out. You think, I would like a do-over, please. This is no way to begin a day.
Standing out on the curb, the fog continues to roll around you. You shiver. There isn't time enough to go home. And too much time to wait around. It isn't until you open your trunk in front of the cafe to look for a clean, spare thermos that you notice it. The camera. Forgotten from last night. And you remember the moment at the intersection. Go back to the street. Lay down in the leaves. Aim past the pink-red canopy of the sugar maples and
up into the fog, and say a prayer that goes something like this:
Thank you, Lord, for botched mornings.
Thank you for broken alarm clocks.
For clumsiness.
For bruised knuckles.
For allergic reactions.
For dawdling pedestrians.
For forgetfulness.
For misread schedules.
For jerky managers.
For bedhead.
For fog.
And for every single way
this disaster of a morning
brought me to this.
Amen.
The fog moves closer. And then you shoot.
All love,
*Andrea
