When You're Blocked, Try Fiction
A small child in a doorway watches his mother iron. Back and forth her arm moves, gripping the hot vessel that comes to a surprising point at the tip for all its angled roundness. She makes an adjustment in the tension of the sleeve wrapped around the neck of the board. The steam that resides in the iron bursts out, escaping with a loud hiss, for the excess moisture cannot possibly be absorbed any further by the fibers of the blouse. There's just no place for it to go but out.
He watches her body move in rhythm to her motion with the iron, her hips swaying back and forth a little as her wrist pushes the iron one way up the sleeve to the cap, then pulls it back to prepare for the next stroke upwards. Her eyebrows knit in concentration, she is intent on de-creasing the messy crumples, a result of not having taken the blouse out of the dryer before the wrinkles had had a chance to set in but deep. As she works, she senses that she'll have to rely on more drastic measures and reaches for the spray bottle she had brought out just in case. She mutters under her breath as the droplets shower the blouse. She's late again and the lunches have not yet been prepared.
Nor has the table been cleared or the dishes done from last night's attempt at dinner. Dried-on refried beans cling to the surfaces of the plates, tiny bits of chips scattered over the pattern complicate the design so that it is difficult to discern where the pattern starts and where it ends. Just like the mess that is my life, she thinks to herself, wondering where she'll find the time--no, the energy--to tackle this wreckage before it's time for the next meal that will come from God knows where. Cereal is a fine meal for breakfast, why not for dinner as well? she says in her head glossing over the half-bowl of milk left behind from the morning's sugary food-coloring fix.
Moving from the sleeve to the back of the blouse, she is grateful for the relatively expansive piece of fabric she can now work upon and her strokes lengthen, her hips enjoy a wider swing, and she is noticeably relieved that there is just one more sleeve with which to contend. And although the lacey front will prove to be challenging, at least she won't have to deal with so many frustrating pleats on such a tiny circumference.
The boy continues to gaze at his mother. He looks at the back of her head, sees the distinctive curl of hair just above her ears, and watches her navigate the ironing board. A tilt of her head here, a turn of her elbow there, a shift of her weight to the other leg, and she adjusts the blouse again, ready to tackle the second sleeve.
"Hey, sweetie," she says in her calm voice. "Mommy's running late. Can you be a big boy and get your trucks to take to Miss Laura's?"
The boy runs off, wishing he didn't have to leave her, yearning to stay nearby as though he were tethered to the sound of the swish of her skirt and attached to the light on her soft skin gleaming in the slip she wears, waiting for the blouse to be put on. And even though he wants his trucks, loves his trucks, he doesn't want to leave this intimate familiar.
She glances at the clock in the kitchen, skimming over the dirty dishes in the sink, detecting a faint odor of mildew coming from the dishrag, remembering that there are piles of impatient laundry on the other side of the wall, forcing herself to brush aside the tempting plan to just walk into a store and buy new underwear rather than face the growing mound, when she realizes that this stupid stubborn blouse is costing her way more time than it's worth.
She merely touches up the second sleeve, whooshes the iron over the front, and decides to let the ruffles assume the appearance of doing their thing.
She pulls the blouse over her shoulders as she rushes in to the kitchen. Moldy bread in the cupboard. Last night's leftovers remain on the table on which a few flies appear to be saying grace. In the fruit basket: two dark brown bananas, shriveled beyond even desperate attempts at appeal.
She glances again at the clock. 20 minutes late and they hadn't even left home yet. By the time she stops at the sitters and gets to work...she couldn't bear to allow her mind to complete the thought. She is utterly discouraged.
Her body feels heavy, her shoulders like lead as dread rushes in and swims around in her head like silt in a puddle. 9:20 in the morning and all she wants to do is sleep. To strip off the ridiculously complicated blouse, chuck it in a corner where it could return to its original crinkled state, ignore the boy, crawl into the covers with her bad breath and best intentions, and drift away into nothingness.
And yet, the boy knows nothing of such things. His trucks are cumbersome, lying awkwardly in his arms as he struggles to move towards his mother. Her face in her hands, she is sobbing when he enters the room. As a small gasp of exasperation laced with a titch of frustration escapes from his lips as he lumbers forward, she looks up at her son, walks towards him to relieve him of his burden, and smiles.
