I See Fit
I.Live.By.Myself.
(with.my.dog.Sharky.)
Yes, it is very nice. I often find myself wandering naked from one room to the next in search of a blouse or some shoes because living by myself allows me to have two closets. Wandering in the fat kind of naked, too. It’s amazing. I’m not parading myself in front of myself, I’m just in my skin suit, going about my earthly business.
Most nights I sit and listen to music and spin the wheel on the computer. Interestingly enough, I always wanted to have a dog named Bob Barker. So I sit and I bathe in the likes of Duke Ellington and a band I’m newly in love with, Big Thief, and I take my time, and I drink sparkly water, and sometimes I try to play the guitar. I get down on the ground and I play with Sharky, on my new fluffy Flotaki rug that makes the whole room want to sit on its lap. I write. I’m not quite cooking yet. It’s hard to cook for one.
But living by myself hasn’t always been so good. There was a long time when I felt very lost in the echoes of the stillness around me. I would sit and actively wonder what I should do with my time. I took a few continuing ed. classes here and there, watched TV, wrote in a lot of journals. But somehow I was left feeling like I should be doing more. I was lonely. I felt empty. I was restless. The feeling followed me outside the home in my interactions with people, yes, but inside my house I was a cavernous mess. I was lost inside myself.
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Today was a good day. Not much happened, but I went to a job where I’m able to talk to people and learn about their lives. I had an hour-long conversation with a man whose wife ended up being from the tiny tiny town where my mom and dad grew up. I think she might even be distantly related to us. He lost a daughter a few years ago, had a tire business for awhile, I know where his boys live and what they do, what his wife now does. I saw a light in his eyes when he talked about his family, saw tears well up when talking about his daughter.
Three men have cried in front of me in my month-long tenure as a salesperson at the dealership. Three men have straight up cried while talking to me. In a car dealership.
One of those men was an older gentleman who pulled into our parking lot today around 5pm. I had been standing, looking out, waiting for someone to show up and buy a car. A white Buick turned the corner and headed slowly into the row between the used cars and the Accords, and parked, door open. I was the first one out the door, hungry, but when I got to the car and greeted the man, he looked up at me, shrunken, and said in a shaky voice, “I’m lost.” He was crying, and he was scared. His hands were clutching his phone, and as I reached down to touch his shoulder and say, “Don’t worry, we’ll get you home,” his daughter’s voice could be heard through the speakers in his car saying, “Dad? Where are you? Is it a dealership or is it a used cars place?” “Would you like for me to talk to her?” I asked, and he handed me the phone. “If you can just direct him to the Dollar General on Hwy 22, he’ll be able to find his way from there.” “Okay, no problem,” I told her as we hung up the phone. “Wait right here,” I said to the man, whose name was George. “You see that red car right there? I am going to go get the keys for it and you can follow me, we’ll make it to the Dollar General on Hwy 22 and your daughter says you’ll be able to find your way home from there.” “Okay,” said George, still watery and shaken. “Now stay right here,” I emphasized. “I will be right back.”
I ran in to the showroom and threw myself into Kevin’s office to grab a tag for the mini red Fit I would be taking to light the way for George’s passage. I flew across the room and swung open the door to the key room, found the key for the Fit and ran as fast as I could in tiptoe steps out of the showroom, and opened my stride once I hit the pavement. I did not see the car. “Oh, shit.” I said to myself, thinking George must have alzheimers and had forgotten I would come back. But then I saw he had backed into a parking space, and was waiting for me to drive the car around. All things ‘go,’ I climbed into the Fit and pulled out into the row of cars waiting to be taken in by some loving family. When I got to George’s car, he rolled down his window and said, “Do you know where Eagle’s Dreams is?” “I do not know where you live,” I said, “but we are going to the Dollar General and your daughter said you’d be able to make it home from there.” Thumbs up, okay. We began the trip.
I kept the Buick in close watch as we travelled down Hwy 72 on our way to 22. Even in the 45, George drove 30mph. I tried to nudge him along gently so he would speed up a little bit in all the heavy traffic, but it was no use. Thirty must’ve been the age he got married or had his first kid, I thought. And so we stayed at 30. There’s nothing more to say except when we got to the Dollar General, I turned in and he beeped his horn twice, and as I pulled out and onto the road and saw him turning into Eagle’s Dreams, I breathed a sigh of relief.
Sometimes it is good to have people around, yes. Just watch out for the corridor from one closet to the next if you’re coming over unannounced.
