Thursday
She had parted her hair on the right side for so long that a gap was there about half way across and above her right eyebrow where the hair just naturally separated like water does when it comes to a rock. And every time she went to get a haircut, for twenty plus years, her stylist sent it the other way. So awkward. (And so unlike him, really.) Just un-thought out, like those hotel showers that you can’t turn on without getting your arm wet all the way to your shoulder. And every time, after the cut and the blow dry, when she opened her eyes to peer in the mirror, it always looked like she was wearing somebody else’s face. The hair was hers, newly shaped, springy and fresh without the time worn hole in the front, but she couldn’t recognize the face. It looked funny and foreign and yet vaguely, in a far off kind of way, familiar. Like someone she used to know.
The left part, by the way, never lasted. Some days it wouldn’t even make it to the car drive home. Centrifugal force would start a fist fight and the next thing you know the hair that was laying left to right wasn’t laying anywhere. It was just sticking straight out, like it was confused, caught in the middle, trapped between a good idea and a better one with no real clue about what to do in the time being.
That’s how it feels when it’s Thursday.
The best thing I can ever think of happening on Thursday is Grey’s Anatomy. Seriously, I mean unless your child coincidentally entered the world on the day before Friday, you probably can’t recall a single significant life mark on that day. Weddings aren’t performed on Thursday (well, not usually anyway). Championships aren’t won on Thursday. Churches don’t congregate on Thursday. Thursday is just there, like a smudge on your glasses, not really doing anything but sitting in between what was and what is, almost.
That’s the nail you can snag your pants on. ‘Almost’ is where the air gets thick.
My daughter was “almost” finished with elementary school. No more classroom holiday parties or Friday morning assemblies or artwork in the halls. Both of my kids got “almost” old enough to drive. What will be, then, even my reason for existing?!
I got stuck there a lot through the years as a parent. My son was “almost” old enough to go to Kindergarten. That meant, of course, that I would soon be forced to share him with the world. My daughter was “almost” finished with elementary school. No more classroom holiday parties or Friday morning assemblies or artwork in the halls. Both of my kids got “almost” old enough to drive. What will be, then, even my reason for existing?!
That “almost air” was swollen and impending, like the atmosphere on the day a tornado forms.
My son’s senior year of high school raced and it dragged me with it, kicking and screaming all the way. I lived his leaving home hundreds of times before it happened, the thought of it nearly drowning me every day. And then a crazy thing happened: he left and I kept living. It wasn’t particularly easy, but it happened quickly, kind of like ripping off a Band Aid. The worrying about what it was going to feel like was way worse than how it felt. It was Thursday for a year.
Tornado ‘almost air’ can be tricky. It can dupe you into spending entire days staring blankly at the sky. But, the truth of the matter is, funnels rarely even form. Mostly what you get from distended air are mild thunderstorms. And some days it doesn’t even rain. I “almost” had an empty nest for so long that the actual empty one, when it came, was an improvement over the quasi full one I’d been sitting on. As a mom, every article of clothing I owned got caught on that ‘almost nail’.
I don’t know anybody who doesn’t love Sunday. Some people love it for brunch. Some for an afternoon drive. Others for worship and fellowship, and some because it means they can sleep. There’s just not a lot to not like about the first day of the week. When our babies are born, it’s Sunday. The wedding and the honeymoon are Sunday. When we land a new job or buy a new house, it’s Sunday. Sunday is full of hope and anticipation. It says ‘anything is possible’ and makes us believe that it is. Everybody loves Sunday. Beginnings are tons of fun.
And endings are pretty much not. All that fun, that is. Sometimes they’re sad and sometimes they’re celebratory, and sometimes when you look at them with your head tilted just right, they’re both. But Thursday? It’s not the beginning or the end. It’s just the beginning of the end, a fragment of time that ranks right there with waiting in line for your dry cleaning, eating a Lean Cuisine, and flossing. Necessary, maybe, but not a thing anybody looks forward to.
Thursday is Friday’s ugly cousin. Friday is the best. It ushers in the day everybody is looking forward to, and it does so with Heinz Ketchup anticipation slathered all over it, sometimes being the bridesmaid that inadvertently outshines the bride. Friday says “It’s coming!” and you can feel it in your bones. Everybody has pep in their step on the day that escorts in the weekend. It’s payday in a million more ways than one.
The day before the weekend, however, is the backside of the bell curve, and every person finds themselves there at one time or another, eventually. Thursday comes after the climb. After the dream and the one foot in front of the other grind. After the swell and, yet, before the ebb sweeps you off for a golden sunset ride. It’s the Bridge to Terabithia without the fantasy and just the tree house. It’s a real life pregnant pause.
Thursday doesn’t so much make you itch as it makes you fidget. I don’t know if it’s true for everyone, but the chasm between itching and fidgeting is large for me. Itching knows what it needs: scratching. Scratching feels so good. Fidgeting doesn’t know anything. Think restless leg syndrome—you move and twitch and turn and stretch and nothing helps because neither you nor your legs have any idea what you need. No position feels comfortable. No place feels like home.
And even home can play hide and seek. I remember, vividly, going back home after going away to college. My dorm room was where all my stuff was, but it didn’t really feel like I lived there. And my mom’s house felt like where I lived, except it didn’t have any of my stuff. I’d drive south on some weekends, a couple of hours from campus to where I grew up, and about the time I got there, I felt like I needed to leave. It was strange how nothing felt like it fit anymore. I spent lots of time through those four years going up and down that Oklahoma highway, a vagabond in search of my place.
I’m enamored with things and with people who can slip in and out of spaces with ease. In Oklahoma, redbud trees are like that —everywhere they grow it just seems easy. They find a spot and slip in it, like we do a timeworn pair of jeans. I looked it up one time and there are at least nine different species of redbud trees and within those nine, all kinds of varieties. Oddly enough, I don’t really know anybody that plants them. Not around here anyway. They just show up. It’s like angels glide in and drop them where they know they’ll grow. In the spring they dot the red dirt landscape with lacey pink to purple flowers while the rest of the world is turning thickly green. They grow best, it seems, in full sun, but they’re not afraid of partial shade. They shout softly , this beautiful dichotomy. Stubborn and fragile. Unique. Like JK Simmons, as comfortable being the supporting cast as they are the star of the show. Maybe that has something to do with why they are able to come and go so easily.
Redbuds aren’t landscape lifers in Oklahoma. They wow you for a decade or two, if you’re lucky, and then when they’re done they’re done. Just like that. They’re out. It’s almost as if they’ve got better things to do. And the crazy thing is, they don’t leave holes, not really anyway. You only miss them if you knew that they were there. And they take root in the most interesting places. Sometimes you find them growing in the middle of a flower bed, sometimes near the base of an Oak where you haven’t mowed for a while. Yesterday I noticed one growing in the crack between the flag stone. They just decide where they want to be and get after it.
Redbuds don’t get snagged on the nail. They jump right over the ‘almost’ part to land on ‘next’, like a child hopping from rock to rock to cross a stream. It’s as if they’ve figured out how to get to the other side without falling in. I admire how lightly they take themselves. How adaptable they are to conditions and how comfortable they seem wherever they may be. Sometimes it does seem odd, the places they end up growing. You kind of wonder how they got there and what made their roots take hold and fight for life, but then before you know it, they just look normal there. Maybe a little unpredictable, but perfect and essential. So much so that you can’t even imagine what it looked like without them. And then they’re gone again and everything feels like it’s how it’s supposed to be. Redbuds are so skilled at moving in and moving out.
Maybe we could learn something about transitions from the redbuds. Something about adaptability. Something about looking for opportunities to anticipate and maybe a better way of dealing with ‘almosts’. Because Thursday is coming for all of us. It comes in little boxes as well as giant crates. And it gets dark and stuffy if we climb in and set up shop there. We have to let it be what it is. And what Thursday isn’t is a room. It’s a hallway, and no matter how well you decorate it, it’s never going to be a place where you want to hang out. Life moves and we’re supposed to move with it. Thursday’s just the corridor that gets us from here to there.
Sherri Coale
THROWBACK THURSDAY!!! (yes, I know it’s Blog post Tuesday…)
Oklahoma Christian Lady Eagles 1983-84
Congrats to Dawn Fischer on her 2021 induction into the Mustang High School Hall of Fame!