Sunday 9 July 2006

Tying down the butterfly.

Hmm...I think I like that phrase even better than Nose Butter. If you don't know what Nose butter means, you're not a snowboarder. If you don't know what it means to tie down a butterfly then you don't have to live with me.

Always fluttering. From one leaf to another, one of my absolute worst personality flaws is that I can't shut anything off at will. Especially my mind. It flutters and churns and click clacks away and I can't sleep, I can't run, I can't get any peace from it.

Friday night was no exception. I couldn't sleep, I couldn't even relax, I couldn't stay down. It was hot, so muggy and miserable in the house. Jake slept restlessly. Every time he tossed his giant frame I would snap wide awake. Finally I got up and opted to read in the porch. I think it was 2 a.m.

No sooner did I settle in when Jake appeared at the door with a tray. The tray held two plates of blueberry buckle with ice cream and two snifters of cognac. The cognac was Jacob's very adult bottle that he keeps locked in the desk in the study for Very Hard Times because he's very old-fashioned in that way, really very proper despite my repeated attempts to unravel his fabric with my total foolishness.

For example-my snifter contained about a quarter of the cognac that his held. Just because I'm really not supposed to drink and I asked him if he was looking for the wild Bridget and he laughed and said he figured since we were locked in the house and it was so late it was probably okay to have a little, just once. But that there wouldn't be any more for me.

He's feeling better. Good. I was glad because honestly I never really know what to do with him when he's upset over something that can't be changed. And to me that's very sad because he knows how to fix me. He knows how to make me feel better, when to leave me be, and how to make things bearable.

And boy that sounds stupid. One of the things that made me cringe about Cole is that if he was happy, everything was okay. Like everyone else's well-being hinged on whether or not he was in a good mood. And I'm smart enough to see that this is how my universe works as well. Cole used to say it wasn't him, it was I who made the planet rotate smoothly. Me with my legendary petulance and ineffectual, lethal gaze.

Right. What a crock.

When I test the theory to see if it holds, it does and boy that's scary. Almost as scary as Jake waking out of sound sleep because I was restless and he wanted to comfort me, while I couldn't sleep because I wanted to comfort him. So I get comfort in the form of warm food and warmer liquid solace and he feels better because I feel better and we all get a little sleep.

So the moral of this story is if a butterfly lands in cognac it will stop for a rest. Or something like that.