lines
My parents' faces have creases in the morning. My pillow gives me some, but theirs are deeper and etched into their smiles. Like the scratches on driftwood in Islesboro which tell you where it was before it washed up on your beach. Like Annabelle’s tattoo – jtb – scrawled on her inner arm. Like the vein on my wrist, which my best friend told me is “super duper blue.” She loves blue and saying things like “super duper” and I’ve never paid much attention to my veins.
My advisor Howard is old and he too has veins and his cheeks bend to his moustache. His Scottish hat skewed slightly to the right and his wonky knee make him a lopsided man. When we meet his words are gruff and slow and most times I see him I tell him I like his scarf. He tells me about his time in Île-de-France and his two little pomeranians and his kayak and the sunset he can see from his house on the lake and the herniated disc in his wife’s spine. His moustache bends downwards in a funky way and I try to remember who it reminds me of.
Papa doesn’t walk much anymore but on April 7th every year he plans a dinner. We go to an Italian restaurant on Lex that’s quiet so we can hear each other. There are cousins and a small coffee cake and my dad who got out of work early and we murmur “to Mama” as we hold up our glasses. My sister has a new job and my aunt saw an AMC double feature last Sunday and we discuss these details while Papa fades. His eyes are deeper on her birthday and across the table his moustache twitches in the same way that Howard’s does. I wonder if he is telling her something while the rest of us talk.
I don’t have a moustache or many creases on my face. My lines come most vividly from my hands. When I tap one with the other, adjusting my fingers and squeezing my thumb, it means I’m nervous. When I pinch the pendant on my necklace and move it to different places around my neck, it means I’m acutely aware of someone staring at me. And when I lean over on a hammock and it’s breezy outside and I make a pinky promise, I mean it. When I’m lying close to someone and take their hand in mine, I mean it.
I can’t explain it quite right but sometimes I notice these lines around me and on me and I feel a small drop inside. Not violent, more downwards and gentle. A pull. I look at lines and I think of people I know and some I used to know, and home.