Martha had been home a week, surviving the final day of driving. Pushing for home in two days, rather than the planned three, had resulted in the final stretch over Donner Summit happening at night, a snow storm in progress, chains required. She was happy for her 4WD, passing the hundreds of trucks parked along the highway in Truckee, all putting on the heavy chains. She was driven to get home, unwilling to stop, heart beating a little wildly at pushing herself when she wasn't sure it was the best idea, happy when she pulled down the driveway of the house, feeling she had made the right choice. "Don't come home early, you'll be sorry ten minutes after you get here." Her sister's emailed warning had come too late, she was already on the road, half way home when the message floated through cyber space.
She wasn't sorry. It had felt right. It had been a good six weeks, not everything she had expected or planned, but many things she had not. She couldn't decide if she was changed, if the quest had led her to some vision which was new, enlightening, mind boggling. There were some changes. She had felt the huge leap in her ability to write, her production was ten times what it had been. The words flowed much more freely, she didn't have to focus, to struggle to get them out. If she simply sat in front of the computer and placed her fingers upon the keys the words flowed.
She had also settled into retirement with more ease. Gone was the frantic making of lists and setting time lines. With endless days stretched ahead
she let herself wake up and fall back to sleep, not leaping out of bed, trying to fit so much into each day. It was nice to wait until the house was warm before slipping out from between the sheets. She cleaned, wrote, read, walked, trying to bring back the relaxed feelings she had gained in New Mexico.
Two weeks passed.
Martha was eating sugar again, hiding the chocolate here and there around the house. The headaches were back and she wasn't sleeping well. She felt listless, lethargic. She tried to plan events, things which would inspire her, things she could look forward to, but nothing held her interest. She lost her calendar daily, the sheet printed off of Google ending up stacked with newspapers to be recycled or folded up inside a book, marking the place she had tired of reading. She spread out flannel to make herself a new nightshirt, got out her beads, folded all the linens in the hall closet, designed half of the family Christmas card . She pulled some fuzzy plants that had appeared in the yard, rolled up some hoses, washed the car.
Why couldn't she pretend that this place, this house, her home, held the same magic as New Mexico?
Maybe changes weren't huge. Maybe life wasn't like the movies, the books, the expectations. She knew she didn't want to be alone, yet she didn't want to be with other people. These rules which she lived by, these mental pictures of what things should be, what impact? If she could discard them, live for each minute, quit caring so much, stressing so much, what would she be giving up? Why did she hold onto these things with so much passion, energy, obsession? There must be a payoff. She realized that in her quest she had hoped to simply replace these emotions with something new, something better. But covering them up didn't erase them. They were lurking, hovering, creeping up on her. She needed to get rid of them once and for all.
Pain, I must be hiding from some pain. Or is it gain? I must be gaining something from maintaining this life, this way of being. But what pain, where did the pain come from? Her childhood? Blame it on the mother? That didn't work in her case. She had a great mother, everyone who met her wanted this woman for their own mother. Gain? Was there some sort of recognition, status, image she was after? She always said she didn't care what anyone else thought, and she felt this was basically true.
She recalled a reinforcement inventory, something psychologists and behaviorists use to figure out how they can increase the likelihood of an individual behaving a certain way. Then she realized that just by thinking in this way, thinking of systematically changing herself, she was doing the very thing she hoped to eliminate. By looking so hard for an answer she was driving the answer further from her, to something unreachable, a way of being which she was further from than ever. It was a vortex, a spinning and reaching. Like fighting against a whirlpool.
What was it about New Mexico that had made this different? What had led to the temporary abandonment of those internal drives, ways of being that kept her in this turmoil?
"I do believe in magic." She thought, even as she tried not to have any more thoughts.
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