Wheeling and Dealings, part 6 of 7

Wheeling and Dealings
5/20/2010

Josh and I roll into Bloomington a few minutes after 5pm, unload the truck, sweating and grunting and stumbling our way with my parents’ things into his house, which, piece by piece grows odder, more dissonant, more gratifying, as their things reshape his house, so that his living room for me becomes a museum of living memories; a glass taken from a kitchen cabinet; silverware from a drawer – it was ugly in Monroeville, it's beautiful here; paintings on the wall – two pages from an illuminated Persian manuscript, the girl with her back to us, sitting on a bed playing guitar (my sister's first art purchase), the photo of my father as a little boy, riding a horse-drawn grocery wagon with his father; the skinny, taciturn secretary overseeing the room with her wrinkled glass panes; the massive couch (that was a bitch to carry); the samovar in the corner and its Magyar tea-drinking spirits; all allow me to once again sit with my parents, as I sit with my child who I admire and love with virtually no limits.

Now I take a slow, deep sixth breath.