071211

I visited my sister this afternoon. She and her family moved to OC a week before me. As a housewife with a toddler, her only outing destinations were shopping malls and we headed to a less than fantastic mall nearby (my suggestion to just hang out at her new house, partially due to my aching back, was duly ignored). After walking around a bit, we sat ourselves on the bench near the play area for children in the middle of the mall, straight black coffee in our hands. We were watching my nephew playing in and out of various toy cars and trucks, when I said,

"I think I'm gonna die in OC."

There was a hint of sarcasm in my voice, a trait my sister is more than used to.

"Why, are you that bored?" she asked.

"No," I said, "I mean that literally."

It was the morning of last weekend, exactly one week since moving down to Mission Viejo. The moment my mind was awake, even before my eyes were open, one thought came fluttering about in my head--I'm going to die here. What a conclusively morbid declaration to have.

"L.A. offered me a sense of freedom, " I went on, "that I could pick up and move to New York next month if I so desired. I know what mom has to say about my health, but that freedom was still out there, always flirting with me. But now--I don't see myself going anywhere after this. That sense of freedom is lost. This is where I end."

"Yeah, I know what you mean. I've been feeling a bit trapped since moving down here," said my sister.

"No, no. If you feel trapped, there's a sense of, or an urge to, escape. There exists a concept of 'beyond'. What I'm experiencing is like the desert silence, the kind so deadening that your whole existence gets suspended in time and space just by closing the eyes. Except, now, opening my eyes doesn't seem to be an option. This freedom that I seem to have lost is not for the physical mobility but for that of the mind. Languid mind makes the body idle. So I'll just live, until I die, here in OC."

I could not tell if the brevity of my sister's response was due to lack of rebuttal, or because she didn't grasp my words, or because my nephew was done playing.

"We need get you out more often," she said.

Driving home later in the evening, I thought more on this subject. The roads were lined with trees turning their seasonal color. Up above, the winter sky was pouring its bright, twinkling stars. Close to 10 PM, most of the neighborhood was already asleep. All these things that now surround my every day are constant reminders of the loss and my unspeakable pain for that loss. They're like a consolation prize that I'd rather lock up...but can't.