Sometimes as a kid I imagined the darkness was a palpable thing. It had depth and dimensions, contours like a canyon. If I wasn’t careful the shape of the darkness would bloom and swallow me and I’d feel the sense in my gut I was falling or being consumed. I sometimes have the same sense when I’m in corpse pose now, the darkness returns like a familiar character. I know it’s just the interior behind my eyes, my mind. But as a kid it felt like the vastness of space, something untouchable or eternal. Between that space behind my eyes and the universe, somewhere in the middle there was me.

I’ve been trying to find words to describe this sensation all my life. That moment of feeling especially in tune with your mind and body just as it’s subsumed by a larger space, this darkness. It’s not a bad feeling of disappearing but more of a blending. Us mammals are brought into this world from the dark, the shooshing sound of our breath, our mother’s heart, our blood pumping; it’s the same darkness we return to. The sound of silence has a high-toned pitch like the line on the horizon at twilight, what it must sound like at the edge of the universe if there’s a place where everything begins and ends. The edge of an oblong sphere.

I am the happiest corpse in meditation. I wiggle my toes and curl like a fetus on my side, rise to a seated position, fold my hands, and bow.

(Later)

The rats were getting in through the bump out the exterminator said. I had to ask twice what he said. “The fireplace bump out,” and he gestured for me to follow him. And then I remembered from working at Starbucks the construction guys called that area in the drive-thru the bump, where cashiers took payments: it’s a feature that literally bumps out from the exterior of a structure. Then he explained how there’s often a gap between the plywood and foundation, that’s where they tunnel in. Twenty years of doing this, he mumbled. He was wearing one of those ominous-looking black American flag hats and missing more than one tooth on both sides of his mouth. We talked a lot about smoking meats. He didn’t wear a mask, gloves, or haz mat suit when he got down in the crawl space. That I found reckless or impressive. When he first rang the doorbell and said hello he’d seemed genuinely excited to see the rodents, eyes all aglow.

I couldn’t blame them for hunkering down in there; it was warm and quiet underneath the house with lots of bedding (insulation), even drinking water from the recent floods. Looked like they were really settling in. Piss and crap everywhere. Would not have been surprised to find rat graffiti or broken bottles, dirty magazines.

I congratulated the exterminator for his wedding anniversary plans and we shook hands, then I washed mine. I felt immediately relieved knowing the problem was now someone else’s. And I awaited a quote from their subcontractors who do the “clean out work,” otherwise known as replacing the soiled insulation and vapor barrier. That was ugly work and would cost hundreds, maybe more. Surely I could do it myself but didn’t want to. I could also trench the area around the bump out and put in quarter inch steel mesh and pea gravel and save myself $200; I probably would.

I fiddled about the garage getting ready for our oldest daughter to come home. She’d called from the hotel lobby in Frankfurt where she was trying to check in (with a long line behind her) and they wanted 250 euros deposit but she didn’t have enough in her account, could I transfer some? Which I was glad to do right away. There’s nothing worse than travel crap like that, especially when you’re alone with lots of luggage and 20 years old.

I’d do a mulled cider with some nice cinnamon and grapefruit peel, cloves, star anise. A fire and some warm stew, nice music. This was just how my mom lovingly prepared the house when I’d return from college and it was the very best way to come home. Bacon and eggs in the morning and lots of coffee. PJs from dawn to dusk.

Every few hours it seemed more rain blew in and the Christmas lights would start to rattle against the picture window as the wind kicked up. There were still enough gaps between the rains to fiddle around the yard and pick up fallen branches and dead stuff. The whole plot was ours, it seemed. Rats ourselves.

Categories: Creative Nonfiction, Memoir, yoga

Tags: Creative Nonfiction, journal writing, Memoir, pacific northwest