The Confidence of Pencil

Home for the Holidays

There are always gardeners in Huntington Beach, even when the season is pretending to change. Perfectly manicured lawns. Wind chimes harmonizing from porches that never look lived in. The air smells of salt and freshly cut grass. A place where the breeze lands on your skin without ever asking to go deeper. Down the street, an inflatable Santa nods back and forth, like someone saying “mmhmm” while thinking about something else.

I drag my suitcase into the garage when one wheel catches on the lip, stops abruptly, as if to protest that we have traveled far enough. I lift it, shove it toward a corner where I will not have to see it for a while, and that is when I notice the old wooden trunk wedged between paint cans and a box of kitty litter, one hinge slightly bent.

I pause with my hand on the lid. Then I open it.

A musty aroma of damp paper rises out of the trunk to meet me and I feel a small stab of guilt that I have neglected something that never learned how to ask for better.

Inside are my children’s keepsakes. A onesie. A baby blanket. Things I saved on purpose and then forgot why. I push past them with my hand, careful not to pick anything up, not trusting myself to hold them.

Underneath my wedding album is an old yellow folder with worn down edges. The label is typed on a machine that hit too hard and never felt bad about it. It has a county seal on it that makes a home feel like a cold case. I see it and look away.

Then the journal.

The cursive handwriting is nearly perfect, straight and confident, but written in pencil. Something I used to do so I could erase it later if I needed to. Back then I liked the comfort of a bold statement that had the commitment of an eraser.

Now the pencil has faded, making the lines hard to read, as if the words themselves are retreating.

I sit down on the cold concrete with my back against the wall and open it near the middle. My eyes fall on a line that is barely legible.

I know who I am, and I’m not afraid of where this will lead.

The handwriting is mine and not mine. I can see the person who wrote it as if she is standing nearby. I do not correct her.

I turn a few more pages without really reading them, then close it and slide it back into the trunk. It settles against the baby blanket, and my hand touches the softness for a second before I pull it away.

When I pull the lid down, it refuses to close all the way. I try again and then decide not to force it. Step back, and hear the kitty litter crunch underneath my shoe.

I wipe the dust from my hands on my jeans and pick up the suitcase and nudge it until it disappears behind the paint cans.

Later that day I see the inflatable Santa again, still cheerfully swaying as he repeatedly dips and rises, as if collapse is always nearby, but not being chosen.

I feel my earlier criticism dissolve. He is doing his best to stay up.

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