Still on the Floor

April fifth. The call ended and I stayed on the floor.

It started the way it always does, I was going to be quick, just checking in, Easter's coming and I wanted to hear her voice before the week got away from me. Forty minutes later I was still sitting with my back against the cabinet below the sink, bare feet on the tile, sweater sleeves pulled over my hands. You know the particular quality of a call that goes longer than you planned and you are not even a little bit sorry about it. That was this one.

She asked about the apartment the way she always does, not interrogating, just curious in that specific grandmotherly way that makes it feel like the apartment is also her business, which I don't mind at all. I told her about the windowsill. Not the whole history of it, just that it has some things on it that matter, which seemed to satisfy her. She told me she's been watching a cooking show and has strong opinions about pasta. We were both laughing at the end and neither of us wanted to be the one to say okay, I should let you go. So we didn't, for a while.

looking at the windowsill without looking at it

After I finally hung up I just sat there. Gerald's vine was doing its thing on the shelf above the stove. The windowsill was doing its thing in the background. I thought about Simone mentioning the estrangement feeling after the holidays, coming back to open studio feeling like a stranger, and I wondered if the reverse of that is also a thing. Coming back to a voice you know so well it briefly feels like you've never left. That's the call I just had. The floor was fine. I wasn't in a hurry.