Josie Schneider

            It was the kind of day purple tones appeared in dark shadows as I walked to the grocery store — the color practically glowing on Baltimore’s winter sidewalks. It was the kind of day for blue skies — the darkest directly overhead — fading to almost white on the horizon. It was the kind of day twinkling lights hung from leafless trees and neighbors put a water bowl out for thirsty dogs. A fun-loving person had painted the word BUMP to warn of a heaving sidewalk. A different color for each letter. Teal, pink, red, yellow. Bright white dots were painted neatly along each letter’s contours. I pictured the painter dipping a pointed brush in pure white paint and then touching the point—touch, touch, touch, touch, touch, to create the added whimsy. BUMP with white dots.

            It was the kind of day when volunteers raked debris from the water’s edge after a winter storm. It was the kind of day I realized I’d been here before — had walked the same bricks of the promenade next to the harbor. But that had been summertime. I ate oysters from a street vendor back then, tipping the shell right into my mouth. One buck each back then.

            At home, groceries put away, I looked out the window of my rowhouse on Eastern Avenue, across from Patterson Park. It was the kind of day people walked three dogs at once, all of them patient when one stopped to pee. It was the kind of day both cats snuggled on me —Emma sound asleep as usual and kitten Lila kneading the blanket while sucking its fuzziness, as if she were weaned from her mother too early.

            Long before eating oysters from a street vendor, I had no time for colors in shadows, no BUMP painted on the sidewalk with white-dotted letters that go straight to the heart. Certainly, no sitting on a sofa with kittens.

            Long ago, those were the days of frenzy. Life as a streak of lightning. Life as a blur. Those were the days of baking twenty-eight cupcakes at 11:00 p.m. for my daughter’s third grade classroom the next day. Those were the days of workouts at 5:30 a.m., a whirlwind of work, calls, laundry, dinner, coaxing homework, planning logistics for the next day’s sports, piano, mother-in-law lunch, doctors, work again, dog puke on the carpet, shopping, broken toys, tears, tantrums, fights, I-thought-you-were-picking-her-up discussions, we’re out of coffee, toilet paper, detergent, and the only kind of bread the kids will eat, more calls, send husband shopping but he forgets the toilet paper so everyone uses tissues or paper towel, the dog ate a bird in the backyard, I don’t have the cash for the kids’ field trip, call a friend who has a drawer of emergency cash, run across the park to her house to get it, toilet’s plugged, man at the door selling vacuums, someone calls in sick so my job just got bigger, deadlines, horseback riding lessons, piano lessons, 5:30 a.m. workout, funeral in the family, made plane reservations, cooking, holiday parties, cards, big splinter sent my son to emergency room, a storm felled two trees in our backyard, the car broke down, the dog wrangled a downspout off the house because a chipmunk escaped up there, my son needed surgery, my daughter broke her arm, I had to attend a convention, made reservations, another family funeral — a horrible one that day — husband wants to move out of state, 5:30 a.m. workout, monthly breakfast with the girls, family vacation, don’t forget my daughter’s guitar or she’ll make the trip seriously, inhumanly miserable.

            Those were the days when my son came out to say what we already knew

            Those were the days of living on five hours of sleep. Those were the days of feeling alive and accomplished. Those were the days the kids left for college.

            Then there was the day the kids and I held onto each other as their father died one hour before he would have turned sixty.

            Those were the days of climbing a flight of rickety stairs to a crappy apartment in a new city, Ann Arbor, alone. I stared out the window at the frat house across the street. My broken life vs. their fresh lives full of promise.  

            Then there were the days of righting my world with happy clients and wearing dresses--that black one with big roses down one side, my favorite. The red briefcase joined me, and I hiked it up on my shoulder with flair. Those were the days of dating--that awkward way of joining the world again.

            Then there were the days of nuptials spoken at the combo yoga studio/wedding chapel in Ann Arbor. Then there were the days of the orange rug ordered at Macy’s, me worried it’d be too garish. I worked it all out with color samples on graph paper and brought together a living room we still love coming home to.

            Then there were the kind of days of feeling history as I ran my fingers in the grooves of thousand-year-old stones next to the Seine. We walked for miles soaking in cultural lessons. Then there were the kind of days of a kookaburra laughing on top of a hotel sign as we walked to the beach through the rain forest. Miles and miles of a new life. Miles and miles of rocky paths overlooking the English Channel and then onto a golf course by mistake and escaping through a hole in the fence, laughing like delinquents. Miles and miles toward epic meals and happy exhaustion.

            Then there were the kind of days with a giraffe in my back yard and feeling the breeze from a mama elephant’s flapping ear. The six of us drank too much and argued (discussed?), politics and talked about sex because I loved when Val squirmed in embarrassment, then the car broke down, and we learned about South African repair shops.  

            Then there were the days that turned into years.

            Then there were the years that gifted me myself.

            Then there was the day my granddaughter was born an hour after we thought it would take all night. Then there were the kind of days of feeling life couldn’t get any sweeter.

Today is the kind of day we walk a mile instead of twelve. Ice on the knee, please. I stare out a window for three hours or play a video game on my phone. Meditating, I call it. Today is the kind of day purple tones appear in dark shadows on Baltimore’s winter sidewalks.