Damsel in the Red Dress

Mint

My eyes open to the sound of chickadees laughing through the cold and scattering birdseed - kicking little tally marks into the snow. It's seven a.m - but there's no sun yet.

I get up and make the bed. I shower and wash my hair, tying the front portion back with a clean, white ribbon.

I brush my teeth. I fold my pajamas and lay them on the pillow. I put on clean clothes, though I don't have many of those left - and head down the stairs, pull on a coat - head out the door.

I walk with intention down the snowy - ice-glazed sidewalk toward the florist shop - feeling carefully for the safe places to step, but keeping my eyes forever on the horizon line - and the houses - the sleeping trees.

The bell laughs cheerily over the shop door as I push my way in - like it's happy to see me. The dryad behind the counter looks up from a hard copy of 'Romeo and Juliet,' and smiles a small smile, as bright and amiable as the chuckle of the bells.

"Can I help you? We don't have any peonies today..."

So she remembers me. I glance around the room - almost unchanged since the last time I came by - except that there are blue flags and poppies where the peonies had been and more ferns. Just perfect.

"No flowers today," I say, with a wave toward the green things. "Actually, could I just get some ferns?"

*

The treads in my shoes chew the snow, crunching contented solefuls of dirty frost at each step. I imagine I can see the fingertips of the inflatable Santa waving around the edge of one glowing house before I turn the corner onto my street.

All of the houses but mine have Christmas lights up now, and a few have red-capped snowmen in the front yards. By my landlord's rules, I'm not allowed to string up lights of any kind, since the house has been divided up into 4 little apartments - and it would look weird to have only a quarter of it festive - since the other seventy-five percent is uninhabited. At other times, in other years, I've been known as "the weird neighbor who gift-wraps her door" but I don't have the energy for that sort of silliness this season. Still, I think I might like a garland, just to jazz the place up a little bit.

I set the ferns stem down in a half-gallon canning jar and place it on the middle shelf of the mostly empty fridge, taking a quick survey of what eatables lay therein.

Not much. I let myself take a deep, slow breath.

I've gotta go to the store tomorrow.

Grabbing the last slices of a loaf of bread and a couple of eggs, I make myself breakfast. Scrape the crumbs into the trash, and wash the dishes.

There's a poem about this - I think - but I don't know it.

'Oldie but a Goodie' is still playing. 'White Christmas' or 'Dreaming of a White Christmas.' I never know the names of ninety percent of songs.

I dry the dishes and put them in the cabinet next to the kitchen sink. Hang the dishcloth back in its place, to get some air.

Wiping the dampness from my hands onto my sweater I turn the kitchen light out and draw the living room curtains, letting the early morning sunlight spill into the living room like a bowlful of stars. The snow twinkles on the driveway and the sidewalk. The inflatable Santa bows.

Sometime next week, I'll shovel.

For now, I walk briskly through the living room, collecting scattered plastic and styrofoam - the shoes I discarded so unceremoniously the night before - until the room looks a bit more like a house and less like the habitat of some savage sort of trash dwelling monster.