Saturday breezes

It’s Saturday afternoon, and I’m sitting in my chair, the stacker doors wide open, strong breezes blowing through them, making the curtains billow and fly. I could restrain them—I bought the holdbacks to do that, but I can never seem to finish that project. I could even use the ribbons I salvaged from a blanket I bought—long, black, fabric ribbons with velcro at the ends. They’ll do the trick until I can finish the project.

I’m not watching TV from my chair, and I’m not perusing the world from my iPad. Instead, I’m reading a book I added to my Kindle months ago, one I can just never seem to finish. I have a lot of books just like that one—never finished, or, sometimes, never begun.

I put my book down and listen as the breeze surrounds me and makes the curtain fly into the back of my chair. There’s the “click, click, slide, click” of the curtains dancing on their tracks, the closest sound to me, but I don’t even notice it at first.

Instead, I hear some indistinct music playing somewhere in the distance, and while I can’t be sure, I know it’s some sort of pop music. It’s the rhythm track I hear most, and it betrays the nature of the whole.

Closer to me, I can hear neighbours calling to each other as they do Saturday projects around their house, and I wonder if they’ll finish them. Somewhere, maybe there, too, some children laugh and play and talk with each other in that far too loud voice children use when they’re excited. They sound happy.

Birds are singing everywhere, near me and farther away. When the breeze blows just right, I hear a truck or motorcycle, or the soft whispery whoosh of tyres on asphalt on the busy road that’s not usually close enough to hear, not unless the wind or the night closes the distance between us.

I close my eyes. I think about having a nap, and I listen. The inventory I’m making in my head, I realise, is something I should share. Because even though my life is still suspended, there are moments just like this, free of pain, of grief, or even the heavy obligation to deal with all the “toys” Nigel left behind. He’d be disappointed with himself that he wasn’t able to deal to those for me, and sad that I have to. It was just something he never finished—because he never got the chance.

I get up from my chair, go to my computer and turn it on. I sit down to write. I think about how I told Nigel it was the only thing I’d ever wanted to do, and yet, I don’t do it. Not really. There’s so much to finish.

I finish my cup of coffee.

And then, I begin.