Saturday, January 29, 2011

Closet

I stand there before my closet, chilled from stains of sweet breast milk on my nude camisole. The high heels I purchased from a fancy department store are perched on my shoe rack. Once so elegant, black and shiny--patent-leather--almost snobbish in the way a house-cat roams around not bothered searching for warm sun rays to nap in. I wore them the first time to a May 29th wine tasting event in 2009. I remember this date because it was the first year anniversary of my mother’s death and my friends took me there to cheer me up. There was a large handsome black man playing the guitar and singing smoky jazz notes. I drank a lot of wine, red, white, pink even. I drank on an empty stomach. I did lots of things on an empty stomach that year. Now my heels that clicked and clacked me from a grieving wine tasting event, that showcased OPI’s latest red, to a formal Spring seminar at my old job, are hanging heels out and dusty. Their gold buckles are dull. It’s almost one in the afternoon; I move away from the closet and venture into the kitchen where my coffee just finished brewing for the day. The laundry is stacked high, and the trash needs taken out. I did however; manage to run the dishwasher. I sit down with coffee in the living room, near a patch of winter sun. I place Lilly on a pillow that’s sitting on my lap and she latches on. I’m left with gentle suckling sounds, the warmth of my dog as he curls over my bare feet, and a full belly from last night’s chicken dish. I close my eyes and breathe in the wonders of what is 2011.