“Lying is done with words, and also with silence.”

I pretend like everything is OK - because it's what I want to believe.  And most days it is.

But then there are moments, like today, during the ultrasound at Children's Hospital watching splotchy images of my daughter's liver pulse on the screen in the darkened room --- and it's not -- it's really not OK. I listen to her laugh at the technician's jokes as he runs the wand over  and over her taut beautiful belly capturing our future into digital format - tea leaves in a cup.

And suddenly as I feign delight, along with her real joy, at Sponge Bob's antics on the screen above the gurney - I want weep.

It feels so familiar to be in the ultrasound room with it's Nemo decals, soft lighting, and the incredibly kind staff who minister not just to the sick kids but also to the frightened parents. It feels so different to be alone in those overwhelming moments of the not 'knowing' if our borrowed time has finally expired.  If this is the scan where the alarms will shrilly erupt.

I smiled down at my golden child, to realize she had already forgotten that her question about why her dad was not with us - went unanswered.  I remembered how, before the "disappearance"during these scans, behind brave smiles the two of us used to surreptitiously squeeze each other's hands like a superstitious childhood 'pinkie promise' against our fears.

Today, I found myself silently wringing my hands as if to find a memory of that comfort between my own cold fingers to realize my silence was ending.

“And this wasn’t lying, not really. It was leaving out.”

In the absence of sleep my dreams fled. There was no more past or future- just the now. The magical realism that had saturated my days was lost.

I have recently returned to sleeping.  And like the consuming sinkholes I now dream of -- my dreams pull me back into unknown times and cause witness to previously unimagined forms of omission. 

These are not the nights of golden slumbers.

Some mornings, I awake to effervescent sunlight dappling my duvet and I time travel. I feel your warm breath on the back of my neck and tucked inside the protective spoon of our love, I have an overwhelming sense of hope.

Then I realize this is the residue of a dream and that you are, actually, lost to fates unknown.

I dream of careening cars that move backwards through time and space and I frantically try to avoid hitting obstacles or harming people as I glance in the rearview mirror.  In those dreams I cannot turn to look back, but must face forward capturing only stolen glimpses of what is next.

I dream of forgetting that I am in therapy and arriving to a first appointment with a psychologist to find my most hidden secrets written in sharpie markers on the consultation room walls.

I dream of lyrical motorcycle rides. Rides on beautiful bikes that metamorphose into steampunk dragons that lunge at cars and men in suits, as I try to steer a safe course and do no harm.

And then I dream of sinkholes; of pedestrian moments turned into abject terror, as normalcy is swallowed without warning into nothingness.

Those are the most terrifying- a silent and sudden loss of the known. From normal to not.  And unless you knew what preceded the peaceful tableau before you- you might never realize what had been lost.

Unspoken Words- The Lies We Don't Actually Tell

Lately, I think a lot about what is lost in omitting certain versions of the truth.

And what the consequences are to living in houses that fill with the shadows of the unspoken. About the phenomena of enough shadows collecting, and how like coal under pressure, their weight also transmute time and space, to create something new, cauls that entangles the heart and spirit.

And how, these veils casts patinas.  Causing the pathways to integrity to become obscured by, what at the time seem, the best of intentions.

And how the only route to freedom is to leave behind what has become the accustomed refuge of shade.

Surfacing

So it was at the birthday party of my youngest daughter's best friend when the weight of another lie became unbearable. My girl ran happily about with the other kids; barefoot in a sequined mermaid dress, glittered tulle in her hair, and a heart painted on her smiling face.

"Actually, no, I am not partnered. We lost the girls' dad to mental illness about a year ago- we are unsure whether or not he is still alive, at this point we presume he is dead."

I think we were both surprised by my answer to a question so often asked and left unanswered.

I had considered sharing my usual lie in response to her question.  But somehow I could not, not with this woman who smiled with kindness at me every day.  Each morning we joined our daughters to read stories in our poorly accented Spanish to the kindergarten classroom. She had my respect for those quiet moments of courage; the rest of the mothers read with fluidity and in lilting accents.

I could not start another journey bearing the weight of feigning normal.

And then,  she shared .... her story.

And with that my journey back to the surface began.