"It makes me forget all my problems.", by Arya Marin

It makes me forget all my problems.

It may also revive some of them as well, from time to time. Like tonight.

Like when I look for the bottle opener in the drawer and it makes a sound before I even touch it. With a precise lack of attention - or more of a look of habitual nonchalance I won’t admit -, it leaves me to two possibilities : the familiar cold of the metal piece in the palm of my hand, or the stingy point of the screw stabbing my finger. A sometimes required reminder of how piercing the true essence of liquid courage - or wallowing warmth as I see it -, can cut through more than with its bitter taste.

Tonight is not a lucky outcome, it seems. A small bubble of blood in the wrinkles of my finger jointures on my left index starts to show. Somehow, like in a blink - an eternal one - I catch an image behind my eyes, one from my childhood, when I was putting on the Velcro straps of my shoes, and one of the spikes had opened my skin as I had too harshly brushed my fingers from one shoe to another in a rush, my mom waiting for me in the hallway with my coat in her hands. My memory would lead me to believe that the blood bubble got really big. Too big in fact, I compared it to someone blowing it like a balloon.

I remember being scared of it to pop, scared that my tiny body wouldn’t contain enough blood to sustain my survival. Or was it courage that I was scared of lacking ? A fear of not having enough courage to sustain the effort of existence for the rest of the day. Either way, I always find the corkscrew, unless it always finds me.

“The flow of imagination.” I say out loud.

I laugh at myself in these times, from the space of my present moment. My index in my mouth, sucking on the wound. I turn around in a quick - and gentle - manner, as if I’m swept into another position by an invisible dance partner, a neck movement making my hair flow and a piece of my grown out bangs rushing down my jaw to hide my smile in the kitchen light. I can hear the cacophony of tree leaves outside my window, a mere ballad resembling the piano notes that I could never write.

Romance, love, warmth. In the many hours I spent staring at the ceiling, I have come to ask myself : aren’t they the feeling inside, that inanimate any situation, not the other way around ? Maybe what I long for is what I bottle inside. Here, now, there is no crowd to entertain, no friend to have a laugh with, no lover to impress. There is just me, and the influence of wine, before I even drink it.

I immerse myself in my quest of unveiling satisfaction and tear away the aluminum cap, wondering again about the subtle notes of my drink. And again, another question : but what if there was a lover to impress ? What if there was a reassuring presence that could find its hands on my hips, around my waist, its face in the crook of my neck…

Romance, love, warmth. I already read the tag on the back of the bottle three times and yet I can’t remember what it says…

“Oh well, I like surprises anyway.”, an out loud attempt of hope in my voice.

“Maybe the wine will make an impression on me. Leave a good taste that’ll leave me wanting more.” I turn on the radio, choose my favorite station, and go back to the table.

And now the moment to make an effort : letting it make my tongue peek out, I stab the cork, aiming for the middle. I try to ground myself, feel my feet on the cold floor tiles, ignoring the excitement of a fantasy - or the moment - take over completely.

No, I haven’t had a glass yet. I block the ring of the corkscrew and grab the neck of the bottle with the same hand, ready to twist in with the other one :

“This is ridiculous”, as I say making the first turn in the cork, in a chuckle.

“I forgot the white wine” I complain on my second turn, thinking about the two heavy bags I had to carry from the store at the same time.

“Did I think of the cheese crackers?”, on my third turn, my mouth watering at the thoughts.

And on the fourth turn, a feeling of resistance snaps loose, and I remind myself that :

“It’s just me tonight anyway”.

And I know I pierced through the other end, but I notice the arms of the corkscrew didn’t fully rise in the air yet.

“It has to clap on top of its head so you can grab its hands and pull it out… See ?” The low-tone voice of my funny uncle at the family reunion, showing off a skill to us with a big smile and shiny eyes, always doing something to impress the kids, isn’t the sort of memory I’d hang on to but it comes up from time to time. Times when I long for a sense of intimacy, one shared in family.

I don’t always catch myself in these moments. I sometimes sit in them, and enjoy whatever memory the projector in my mind lights behind my eyes, and in the pouring of senses that revive the harsh decibels of the laughs in the background, a children program on the tv that shouldn’t be this loud either, and the warmth in the room filled with people, giving us rose cheeks, it’s even funnier when I realize later that they had a few glasses already. It wasn’t always that apparent, not always funny or shared.

“Don’t tell the teacher about our weekend”, were words quickly half lost somewhere in the acrylic yarn of my winter hat as my mom walked me to school.

I remember wanting in as a kid, at the “adults’ table”, thinking I could sustain a conversation with them. Whatever I interpreted at home, led me to believe I could understand the rest. And it seemed to be easier for them to talk about duly matters with a glass of wine. Ah, the flow of imagination ! I look back at the bottle and start to pull the cork carefully, too aware of my own clumsiness, and it finally pops out.

There. A familiar sound. The caress of my mother’s hand on my cheek, sat down beside me on our mini sized couch while my father opens a bottle in the kitchen. The sparkly silver leaves, printed on an absorbing black velvet-like wallpaper, like two columns on the wall behind us. My head rests on her shoulder, and I look at the fiberglass behind the couch.

That’s how my mother liked structure. Pillars here, and there, squaring familiar corners. A shared space framed in the printed lines. Giving foundation to the feeling of the living room, glued in patterns on the drywall, which was glued on the bricks, completely forgotten… with all its hidden wires in between, giving us light, in lampshades curated to never escape the truth outside of the chosen illusion : an attempt at love and familiarity, in the monologues she would tell us on most nights.

Unscrewing a cork was like the telling of the course of our day, an evening habit. Well at least for those of us who mentally recorded it, who invested themselves. Not a popular effort in our yellowish gray household, the 3 of us like trying to occupy space as best as we could. I never felt like I had much to say, feeling mostly out of my head on a day to day basis. What was there to remember, what was there to feel ? Something always felt wrong and I thought the only way to deal with it was to question it by myself, until a natural answer would come. I was a quiet kid, but I always relied on my notebooks.

I felt lonely in my room alone, and would sometimes come downstairs, run in between my parents, opening my arms for a hug when the atmosphere let me believe it could happen. Their hands were always busy with sweating glasses, but I mostly remember the sound they made on the cheap countertop when they put them down, like a ring in my ear. The kisses on my forehead were wet, but it was their breath that gave it away, that took over everything.

That might have been what screwed me, since the beginning. I didn’t taste it until much later, but I think I gave in to its power. The flare of the kitchen light, the joints of the floor woods separating even more since the flooding accident, a can of vegetables cooking in its own juice in a pan behind them. Sweet smells and memories from childhood. When the right sounds ringed.

I pour the content of my conquered bottle down a tall glass of wine, chuckling at my own dramatic taste for glasses, as if I was ever chic enough to pretend my wine was old and my walls were wider.

I barely smell the notes before taking a sip. I find my satisfaction in letting the wine coat my mind in the velour feeling of freedom. I think of nothing else when I bring the rim of the glass to my lips, close my eyes and let it run down my tongue. And when I open them again, taking in a new breath, I see the deep red color swirling in my drink, far darker than the yellow clear one in the glasses I used to see all these years ago. How theirs tasted like tight lips to indicate silence, and how mine tastes like writing in a crowded place. And yet tonight, I sit by myself, in silence. And it makes me wonder :

When does a story begin, and when does it end ? I know it starts at the top of a piece of paper, or after the production tags at the beginning of a movie. But who can truly determinate when a story begins ? Is it a power ? Something that is claimed ? And all those questions for a meaning of life, a life of philosophies and fantasies fill my mind again, and I smile, resting in what feels like finally being at ease, not back at home.

I open the freezer, take a bag of vegetables out. It won’t be much but it will do. I open the bag, pour some on the sizzling pan. It takes me a couple of sips before I remember to put the bag back in the freezer, and a couple of others to stir the vegetables burning in the pan.

I think of paper, I think of ink. I think of a laptop, precisely the one I had to sell for emergency money. I think of my parents, how they seemed in love before they sold the house. A I’m wondering if childhood is split into two : the fulfilling of our dreams or the closeness with our loved ones. I dream of landscapes far away from mine, a busy life full of printed words. I’m in transit, in between origin and home, figuring out if the words are worth a speech, if aspirations are worth letting go. It brings tears in my eyes, soon dried out with another sip. Another serving, actually, I finished my first drink.

The same music that my father used to play on our car rides every Saturday makes for a good hum in the background, the higher vibrations drowned by the sizzling in the pan in front of me, a second drink poured, coating the bottom of thin glass, sitting in my palm, my fingers wrapped around it.

And it feels like an anchor. Or a whisperer. One of poems, one of memories, one of… Longings. A long awaited reunion with my best friend, the apologies of my mother, the long awaited devotion of my lover. Something that doesn’t look like that night I felt the need to slam my childhood bedroom door at the sound of mother’s crying, or more recently, the door of my lover himself, my own tears running down my cheeks. Something that would look like a cozy couch shared by the two of us, with plans of a vacation in mind and in conversation. Maybe with a glass of beer. Some other landscape at least, and some other taste in the back of my throat.

My shoulder hurts at the thought of it, as if the hopes of it coming to fruition stroke a nerve in my back like a piano chord, the symphony of my instinct tinted in wine, aching for me to admit the truth. Not a truth of failure or generational repetition, but one of self-worth. A sound, like a hum, that would tell me it’s okay, that I can be loved, loved more than this.

I massage my collarbone, bring my hand to the back of my neck, try to shrug it off with a stoic face.

Maybe this whisperer could inspire me to wish something simpler, something like security. And in a sudden focus of my eyes, I think of only one thing : something that would look like fresh vegetables with quality herbs, aromas that would bring colors to my words. But it will have to do in this end of a month.

Dinner doesn’t end well. This time, it’s because the food goes cold quickly, and the broccoli is quite chewy. But I feel at peace, still… somehow. There are no harsh looks, no awkward silence, no tampering. There’s no attempt at trying to keep things “civil”, and no triangular dynamic to figure out. I find intimacy in these moments, eating with a lack of attention - or maybe even more so : a nonchalant intention - thinking about the words that I will write this very night, the form that they will take, and what they’ll shine lights on. What will come to my mind ? When does a story end, and when does a story begin ?

I know mine usually starts with a bottle of wine, and lately, I tend to write myself in everyday. Baudelaire said : “You must always be drunk, it’s all there; it’s the only question. To escape the horrible burden of time that breaks your shoulders and slopes you toward the earth, you have to get drunk without stopping.” And I know my first written words tonight will begin with something like :

“It makes me forget all my problems…”