This drive, done under so many different circumstances over the past seven years, is beautiful and long. Coming into Minnesota at a chilly dusky hour across the Mississippi, at the hilly southern point near LaCrosse, it could take your breath away. One imagines skidding over the edges of these cliffs like a deranged bird. Its dreamlike and cinematic. Characters include truck drivers and heavy set ladies who work at gas stations. Toll booth operators. Families in cars with dogs. Me, looking distant, with a puppy on a leash, shivering while we stop to let him relieve himself. His paws dance across filthy snow to gracefully squat in the ideal spot. He is just like my other girls, the older beagles from a past life. I think about them curled up somewhere and I wonder if they remember me. Especially my Tess, whose fragile skeleton of a body clung to my lap as I drove her home from a shelter years ago.
Oskar makes me forget them some. He brought with him a divine promise of a new life. A canine Messiah whose $500 "adoption fee" and subsequent vet bills were scrounged from the remnants of my scrambled past. Dog, apartment deposit, expensive dinner to thank J_ for putting up with me, and then the money was pretty much dried up. This year life has made some rather startling shifts, from peaceful, to hopeful, to crazy. At one point it was shattered on the floor. In what deformed shape might I reincarnate?
Here I am, an exhausted monster.
This Christmas marks the end of what has been the most horrifyingly insane year of my life. I approach it humbly and with a bowed and solemn head. Gifts were purchased thoughtfully. This year I will not be embarrassed that I did not buy enough for my father, or aunt, or brother. I even contemplating getting something for the woman at Starbucks. I drive home with a heavy heart and heavy suitcase. I will use presents to show my family that I am okay, that I am of sound mind, that I am a functioning and contributing member of society.
At the close of the year I am caught between mourning the life that is over and adapting to the one that is to come. I am trying to find my way home.