Cave Dwelling

Boo Radley has burrowed between two of the comforters to hide. He's lightly snoring now, and I can see the lump of his round belly heave up and down next to the lump that is his head. A heavy kitty sigh escapes. He feels safe.

I did that today too, for a little while. If it weren't for my sister and her children I would have stayed there all day. It felt good pulling the covers up over my head and shutting off my brain. Later, I sat on the stairs going down to the basement and cried a little. It felt better after that - my brain. Like the hissing chatter had been momentarily silenced.

Everything is going really well, actually. I am happy and well fed. I am in good company, with plenty of things to keep me busy. When I sat on the stairs, even through the tears, I knew there was no reason for them. But they were there. So I let them come.

I didn't really cry about leaving Paris. The day I left began so early, driving through the snow to the bowels of some part of Charles de Gaulle people just don't think about and surely don't know exists. I didn't cry that day.

When I dropped the Boy off at the airport to go back to France I only cried a little then. Knowing he would be on a flight back soon took away those tears.

But today I cried. I guess for all these little things. Because people have started the inevitable curious questioning about Paris and why I left and I still think it's right for me but oh man it hits me sometimes that that beautiful city is no longer outside my door.

The thing is, Paris breathed life back into me. It gave me my adult soul, my woman body, my stronger heart. I feel a certain pressure (self imposed, of course) to keep that momentum going. I am afraid that, if I stagnate too long, that I will once again be the aimless girl who arrived in Paris. Part of me is afraid that I already am.

And I guess that is the problem with coming home. Those skeletons you thought you buried well come back to the surface to be reckoned with - to be reconciled. The girl I was the last time I lived with my sister is still here in this basement, tempting me to be the same, to return to my old ways. I feel like I have to keep moving; to shake her off.

The electric baseboard heater clicks, and stretches and hisses covering up the muffled sounds of my sister and her husband in the room above me. I am locked into my basement room - no windows, no drafts, no clear sounds except those that come from the cat beside me - and here I feel safe. Soon I will have to be back out in the world, out of the cocoon, out of the darkness, and back on my path. Soon enough.