Before the Appraisal

A cloud in the winter sky casts a small section of the woods into darkness. The others are bathed in the usual cool light. This scene unfolds through my kitchen window just as it does from Pride Rock, although I smile at the implication that lower Burgundy is the Shadowlands. The heaters my mother has scattered throughout the drafty kitchen ensure that my feet are no more numb than my exposed hands on this cold day, and I can feel all of the familiar textures - hardwood and marble and carpet and rugs - alternate under my feet as I pass. I can hear Tidbit's feet as well, the sharp click of her nails follows me throughout the house. Another familiar sound emanates from the dishwasher, the urgency of whose efforts almost resembles the crashing of waves.

Soon, we will sell this house. We are getting it appraised today, and sometime soon - a year, or two, or five; no later - we will sell it and move away. I think about the familiar things, and it isn't only the sensations but also the tiniest details. As an elementary school child, I found faces and animals everywhere - in the marble, in the sponge-painted walls, even in the faux-wood grain of our cheapest furniture. The clearest of these was the little rabbit in my old computer desk, but it's gone now. We chopped up the desk to fit it in the trash, and then we set it out by the curb. I don't even have a picture of it. Momentarily, this makes me sad. How easily I could have snapped a picture of the image that, so like a game of hidden pictures, enchanted me so as a child. But then I think of Loung Ung and her sister Geak, of which there was 'no surviving picture' as of First They Killed My Father, and suddenly it seems absolutely ludicrous, and I laugh. Even so, I think I'll take a picture of the badger in the marble floor.

I'd like to avoid riddling this post with cliches. I'm not even torn apart over any of this. I just feel like climbing up onto the kitchen island and laying on my back there, watching the clouds tear past through the skylight as if the whole world is turning and changing to the pace of my breathing.