Sunday, December 19  

Alone

Being alone has become a treat, an exhileration. It has the sweetness of sudden freedom.

alone adj 1 Being apart from others; solitary. 2. Being without anyone or anything else; only. 3. Considered separately from all others of the same class. 4. Being without equal; unique.

On a day that Jon stays home from work, Vic is allowed to venture out alone to run some holiday errands. Not "allowed" like she's the family pet and has rules about out and in -- but "allowed" as in, circumstance allows her. So you understand.

She wakes early, much earlier than she needs, and dresses in the dim morning light of their bedroom. Jon smiles sleepily from the bed, half watching her dress through eyelids barely open. He doesn't need to see clearly. He knows her body well enough by now to visulize without seeing. Like groping through a familiar hallway in a blackout, he can see her bending and reaching for hooks behind her back without sight.

She kisses him goodbye and goes to wrap a warm scarf around her neck. She digs her gloves out from the bottom of the stroller she normally leaves the house pushing.

As she leaves the apartment, strollerless, she makes sure to close the door gently behind her. Grace sleeps softly and a sharp noise would awaken her, which would awaken Jon and force him to start the day earlier than he wants, which would make Vic feel badly and like she really shouldn't be going out alone, which she doesn't want to feel.

All she wants to feel today is the swift excitement of walking quickly through the December cold. Her ears numbing even beneath her hat. Her chapped lips on the rim of an expensive, too-much-froth latte. Her lungs full of breath that explodes from her in great white clouds as she goes.

The 10 minutes it takes to walk to the Eaton Centre are her first 10 minutes alone since she gave birth. Or since she became pregnant really, since her body was shared with Grace for that time, her constant companion even then.

Vic cherishes her time alone with a level of intensity and awareness of small detail that is singular and uncomplex.