Coming Home

My name is Clair. Which means ”bright” or “clear” and I suspect my parents chose this name because they had something in mind for me. For my life or, more precisely, their life. They wanted a bright child. 

I always wished they had spelled my name with an “e”. Claire. Just like Anne of Green Gables was proud her name had an “e” because “A-n-n’ looks dreadful, but ‘A-n-n-e’ looks so much more distinguished.”

I’m not distinguished, but maybe if my name had an “e” I would be. Maybe if I was Claire I would be dazzling, interesting and magnetic. But, because of this naming mistake, my existence isn’t very bright. For whatever it’s worth, however, it is very clear. I am a wife. I am a mom. Simple. 

Today I wake up the child that I birthed, launder his socks and jeans and make a taco salad that he loves because his friend’s mom makes it. I scrub the bathrooms till they’re shiny.  I will pack Mr.’s lunch before bed because he gets up at 5 am and hang up his work shirts before they wrinkle. It’s pretty clear what my role is:

• Keep the home tidy and functional
• Keep the son tidy and functional
• Convince the world that Mr.’s life is tidy and functional

Which is why I find myself looking for kitchen supplies at the thrift store on a Saturday morning, where most of the colored tags are 50% off, instead of relaxing with an extra mug of coffee at the end of a long week. There are things they want, Mr. and son… smoothies and crepes and stirfries, thanks to the goddamn FoodNetwork (that I watch compulsively) but a Vitamix is $300 and a decent wok is $60, but staying within my budget is a large part of what makes me a good housewife.

18 years ago, when I fell completely in love with my new baby and didn’t want to leave him in daycare for my call-center job, it felt noble to become a  stay-at-home-mom….to sacrifice my paycheck so I could count his little toes every morning, snuggle him at naptime to The Rosie Show, and be the only one to mash up his food and take him to playgroup and administer antibiotics. I felt like a hero when other moms talked about balancing work and diapers because I had made the ultimate decision to respond to motherhood above any other calling.

It doesn’t feel all that heroic now. I gather all the ingredients to make a taco salad my son can’t stop talking about, but then robotics club runs late and the lettuce gets soggy and it all goes in the fridge to be eaten later in his bedroom in front of Minecraft. It’s really lonely eating a meal in solitary that I never would have made for myself in the first place.

So many expectations… make the perfect home, raise a happy child, don’t make too much noise and don’t spend too much money since, remember, I’m not contributing to the savings account. Which is why the thrift store has become my ally. It allows me the luxury of a Keurig so Mr. can have morning coffee on demand without the fight over a $99 receipt. A matching set of dishtowels for $2.50 (half-off on Saturdays.) Four white bowls with matching lids so abandoned dinners can be stashed in the fridge and reheated. A retired Pampered Chef ice cream scoop that is worth five times what the price tag states.

But we don’t have ice cream nights anymore.

I can usually find something half-off and useful on a Saturday… a cast iron skillet like the kind my grandma had, a mini-waffle maker or a serving spoon to replace the one I mangled up in the garbage disposal. Lately, I’ve been picking up wine glasses, as I seem to keep breaking ours. All our wedding glasses have been shattered and sent to their grave a long time ago. I don’t throw them, of course, but somehow, in my fuzzy evenings, they just end up broken. It’s become a sideways joke with Mr., but I know that jokes are often criticisms in disguise, so I pick up glasses that don’t cost us more than $.99 when they end up in pieces.

This is my favorite thrift store in town because they organize things well. Silverware is often bundled into sets, salt and pepper shakers taped together and dishes are arranged by color. I feel more comfortable around order rather than chaos. Right behind the row of kitchen supplies starts the home office supplies… 3-ring binders, sleeve protectors, and an array of greeting cards that the donor had no recipient for. I typically shuffle past this aisle with a lingering curiosity because my personal office supplies are some of my favorite possessions. I hoard notebooks full of scribbles, pens and highlighters that I might need someday, planners packed with the best of intentions, and cards that I’m sure someone might need to receive in their mailbox in due time. I sometimes wonder if this aisle of shelves is simply my closet on display. What feels so important and sacred to me, were they suddenly transported to a thrift store shelf, would they look like junk too?

But today, I pause my squeaky cart, a vehicle that will I will never again plop a chubby, little body into, and I look more closely. I kind of want these shelves to be actual garbage, to prove to myself that all my analog recordings, my attempts at organizing, my records of birthdays and PTO meetings, and recipe notes aren’t just trash. I really need to see some trash today. My eyes fall on empty photo albums, opened reams of computer paper and dingy whiteboards stained from years of recalling something that was once so important it had to be written down, now eternally erased. 

Then I see her… a chunky, lavender-colored diary with a lock, too obviously adolescent to be mistaken for a handbook or ledger. The cover is full of watercolor wildflowers in soft, earthy tones and she is haphazardly tossed in a bin with a manual for an HP printer and several boxes of paperclips (which I consider may be a budget-friendly purchase.) 

She sees me… messy bun, but not in a cute, Pinterest sort of way, clothing that may or may not have been last night's pajamas, and an expression that is somewhere between boredom and longing.

My fingers pluck her out of her captivity while I wonder, “Who would donate a diary?” and check to see if a key might be taped to the back, but of course, there is not. I had a diary just like this once, when I was 12 or 13. I don’t remember the exact age, but I remember the lock immediately and the illusion of privacy and secrecy. A flash of my sister announcing to her friends the contents of my diary while they fall apart in hysterical laughter pierces my mind while my fellow shoppers, looking for Instant Pots and grilling tongs, blur into the background. 

After I watched the 1959 film version of The Diary of Anne Frank I had the romantic idea that maybe someday I would either 

a.) die a tragic death 

or

b.)  live a fabulously remarkable life

and the world would clamor to read my early, innocent words. I began writing all my childish thoughts down in a little, spiral notebook I purchased at the mall on a 4th grade field trip. I thought I was keeping these writing times to myself, but under the tree that next Christmas was an actual, real, diary. Complete with a padded cover, a lock, and a key.

Knowing that I could lock up my thoughts gave me such a sense of safety, and I bared my heart and soul and pre-teen admissions with reckless abandon. Boys that I agonized over, arguments with my mom that left me wounded, what I spent my babysitting money on… it all went into my diary.

I turn this discarded gem over in my hands, ignoring the exasperated expressions of other shoppers as I clogged up the flow of traffic. I lightly stroke the softness of years of wear, marveling at how similar it looks to the one in my memory, and feeling a pang of embarrassment for the owner who would surely have never approved of this fate. I feel a static, pulsating energy that I don’t feel for a George Foreman grill or a non-stick frying pan. Like a heartbeat in my hands saying, “Take me back home.”  

I know I have to have her, to rescue her, to find her owner. She needs to go home.

I pay for her with the cash from my soda bottle returns so that I won’t have to hand Mr. a receipt for a $3.25 purchase of “junk”, clutching her to my chest and telling the clerk, “No, thank you. I don’t need a bag.”

On the drive home, I have some, admittedly, heroic daydreams of reuniting this diary with her owner. I will gently break open the lock, look for any identifying information, then get on the internet to find the original author. I’ve watched enough Hulu movies to know that you can find anyone on the internet.

What I don’t expect is how difficult it will be to break open a lock on a vintage diary without destroying the book itself. I can rip the lock out completely, but that seems as sacrilegious as digging up a grave. For the first time in my life, I’m wondering how my sister opened my diary without my noticing. 

In the evening, Mr. heads out for his weekend teaching job and I pour a glass of wine while rummaging through kitchen drawers in search of a paperclip, which I imagine will simply pop the lock open when inserted into the keyhole, but nothing happens. I push, prod and poke to no avail, finding myself staring into space with flashes of my big sister gleefully blurting out my feelings for my romantic crushes to her giggling friends. A heat billows up from my chest and into my cheeks.

“What a bitch.” I think, before realizing have muttered the words out loud. It feels really good to say so I double-down.  “What a FUCKING BITCH!” We haven’t talked in years, but I consider throwing her a text to say, “Hey, remember when you violated my privacy by breaking into my diary so that you would look cool in front of your friends? Could you tell me how you did that?” before reminding myself that the wine is probably taking hold and I will only regret the confrontation later.

I hold her to my chest again, taking deep breaths and letting the golden elixir of chardonannay soothe these jagged edges. I pour another glass, hearing the clickety-clack of my son’s keyboard coming from his closed door. 

Does anyone care where I am? What I’m up to? What I’m feeling? Has anyone cared about my feelings ever? I spend so much energy worrying about my family, present and past. Why doesn’t anyone worry about me? 

I wake to a puddle in my lap… a sogging mess of wine and a thrift store diary in the nest my legs and constantly expanding tummy make. What time is it? I toss my now-empty glass in the sink with a clatter, stumble to my bedroom and tuck the diary under my mattress where it will be safe from sisters and husbands and sons and the world. I will think about the fact that I just ruined this book tomorrow and, for now, let sleep comfort me.

Like an unwelcome guest, tomorrow arrives right on time, unfazed by my disappointment. Surprisingly, amidst my reluctance to face the morning, there is a sudden moment of clarity, the solution to the puzzle my brain was working on all night. It dawns on me that the key to my childhood diary, entrusted with safeguarding my innermost musings from prying eyes, possessed a tiny knob — a half-circle cleverly designed to engage the lock. My sister must have stumbled upon something that mimicked that precise key bump, coaxing the lock to yield.

A bobby pin.

I shuffle to my bathroom, feeling queasy with a familiar hangover, but an urgency that outperforms the need for coffee, in search of a hairpin. Finding one in my cabinet, I retrieve the diary, now wrinkled with dried wine, and slip the knobby end into the keyhole, twist, and hear a satisfying click as the lock breaks free.    

The religiosity I feel as I open this cover can only be matched by feeling God in a quiet moment as I search the title page for her owner’s name, the person I can heroically reunite this book with.  Instead, I find the ink blurred with Bota Box chardonnay, with almost nothing legible remaining. But, as my eyes keep searching, I think in the smudges I can make out a word. “Claire” 

I shut the book immediately. Clearly I need coffee.

I clean up my son’s breakfast dishes and turn on the news. But between the whir of the dishwasher and the droning of the newscasters and the swishing of the lawn sprinklers, she calls to me, “Open me. Look at me. I am here.”

After a sobering mug of coffee, I gently ease the now-crinkled pages apart, curious and scared to see what this Clarie has written, only I can’t make any words out. Most of the pages are stuck together and my mistake from the night before has rendered most of the handwriting illegible. I gently ease two pages apart, hearing a slight tearing noise, to find that the ink has swirled and blurring into something that looks like… a face? Similar to cloud formations or imprints on a piece of toast, I am sure I see a face. Not the face of Jesus, but the face of myself as a child. Large glasses, chunky bangs, innocent smile, my favorite sweater.

I stare and blink and stare and drink more coffee, but the image doesn’t change, doesn’t morph back into words blurred by a late-night drink. She is me. I am her. 

Frustration bubbles up inside me, escaping as a soft whimper, while I contemplate the countless words Claire could have penned, forever unavailable to me. I'll never glimpse into the pages that might have revealed Clarie's circle of friends and cherished memories, or whether her parents showered her with love and care. Did she skip marriage for a college education? Did she live a bright life?  I'll never know. Yet, I find solace in the embrace of my imagination, in a truly happy version of myself. In this moment, she becomes my sanctuary, my sense of belonging.

I wrap my arms around her, and myself, feeling my heart bumping against her lavender flesh. 

She is home.