The house is still clean, your bed empty and made. There’s no need to run the dishwasher; not yet the washer; they fill now at a quarter the rate. The machines are as startled and relieved at this sudden break in the constant stirring as I am. The food is still there in the fridge, diminishing so slowly that some soup and greens turned, uneaten by you, my ravenous new recruit, my son.
Today I felt you tug at me around dinnertime, right before your call. Massachusetts’s gave us a long summer day with blue, rasp and blackberries that fill my pie dishes and the bears, unseen and watching from the wood. There are cubs now curling up into the north’s late and sudden summer dark, but you are no longer a cub.
Three years ago, you only grunted in response to the questions your Carson Home Support Worker asked you; sometimes you sat there saying nothing. Maybe we increased the Lithium too much, I don’t know. But we all had to try something after you came home from the hospital still threatening and kicking me.
You couldn’t find your “yellow,” is how your Carson Home Support Worker put it. Even the most minor disruptions sent you from a good-to-go green into a violent red zone: if you had to clean your room before going fishing, if you had to get up in time for the bus to take you to school, you would go “red”. There was no place for just noticing, no place for a yellow caution and an open pause.
I found this in the bottom of your backpack back then:
My Yellow Days
The color yellow feels long and skinny like a pencil writing a poem
Light and crunchy like mid fall leaves
Or the way that light that burns in the stove shows on the ceiling
There are days like squeaky wheels on a bus when it comes to a stop, or like when the whole file falls to the floor from the teacher’s desk; these are yellow, too.
Honey on a spoon, perfumed like that lilac the wind blows out back by the door. The space in between—my yellow days.
You surprised me with your yellow, you and your Carson Home Support Worker talking about feelings, about what yellow feels like in your body—talking, walking, playing ball, practicing facing all of life’s “no’s,” “not yets,” and “not enoughs.” Feeling and facing the good-byes and the losses. When we all decided together to pull the Lithium, you said you emerged from a fog, but that the fog had helped for awhile. I saw your sharp edges come back. You made friends; we moved you out of the specialized school and back into your town’s high school. Your Carson worker practiced with you for your first job interview, a success. And then, the following year, you began the research into military service—all of your uncles vying for your loyalty to their branch. Your Carson worker helped you study for your tests, helped you self- talk your way through the fears that restrained you in your exams until you passed. The Army won you.
We stood behind your broad back at your swearing in; I stood long after you deployed. This house is not empty. It is filled with yellow.
By JAC Patrissi
