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7:38 a.m.
Asli has accepted to write a critical essay on the poet Anne Carson for the Boston Review. You should solidify your notes on that and begin writing soon, she prompts herself. While pulling her materials off the shelf a pink post-it note falls to the floor from under the stack of work. It reads: Carson Essay Due 4-11. April eleventh? What is the date today? Asking nobody because Isa is enthralled with her cartoon as Sagwa, the Chinese cat, is trying to sabotage her sisters presentation in front of the cat emperor. No, no, no. Not the eleventh. I had until the twenty-eighth. It is written in my calendar, I wrote it on the twenty-eighth. Where is my calendar? Rummaging amidst the stacks of paper that has piled in the study she has lost track of her organized mess and now it is an unorganized mess she cannot find anything in. Why can't anything be simple? After locating it squeezed between some books (who could have put it there) she flips it open to 4-28. Empty. Then she turns to 4-11, two days from now. There under pink scribbled circles was "essay due."
"Well, that is just grand," she rarely gets upset unless at a loss for words; to her it is the sign of a weak mind. But she is feeling weak minded. One job Asli, do you think you could handle just one job? It is as if the more she has to do the easier it is to remember and stay organized because routine lends itself to production. But sporadic jobs that emerge here and there end up disorganized and forgotten because she does not have something like and similar to do everyday. These jobs are comparable to waking out of a sound sleep at night to sweep the driveway.
"Come look mom, it is over." Isa calls from the living room.
"Ok, see what is coming on next." She will let Isa watch more than a half hour today so she can work on her essay. Isa wanders in the study and begins climbing on Asli's lap as she is typing.
"A sit mommy. I no touch buttons, otay."
"No, mommy can't work with you on her lap. Don't you want to watch PB and J Otter?"
"No. Stay with mommy."
"Go see if Baby Butter finds a firefly. Or would you rather watch Rolie Polie Olie?" hearing the cartoon from the other room.
"No. I stay with mommy. I be a happy girl, otay"
"I have to work sweetheart and get this finished, so mommy wants you to go watch TV. Here sit on the couch and I'll get you some fruit snacks. Red or blue?"
"Red." Isabel scrambles on the couch, she rarely gets sugar.
After working for twenty minutes Asli becomes suspicious of Isa's silence. There are always intermittent "Mom come look"s, and it has been too long since one of those.
"Isa?" She calls without rising from the computer. No answer. "Isa?" Asli gets up to quickly scope the situation before losing her train of thought. She moves into Isa's bedroom, the guest room, outback, when she hears her in the master bedroom.
"Angel, what are you doing?"
Isa had gone "poo" in the big potty (what a big girl you are!) then in lieu of tissue she proceeded to jump on their king size bed to wipe clean with the comforter Asli had bought in India. She steps into the room to find Isa scooting around like a dog in the grass grinning proudly over the skids she has produced on the exquisite cream silk and velvet. Asli knows she knows better and recognizes Isabel's motivation is to get her mother's attention or to punish her for lack thereof. Asli guides her life now in a particular manner which relies upon intuition and rarely partakes of the marvelous.
Unable to articulate anything in way of "positive discipline" or "redirection", Asli clinches her teeth and turns to run a bath ("Yeah, take a bath with mommy!) After plopping Isa in the tub, she bundles up the comforter, then scrounges some quarters for the laundromat's One Ton Super Size washer. Pushed by necessity, Asli allows the panic over her essay to leak out the back of her neck as admits she will not get anything done until night returns to relieve her.
It is only 8:25 a.m.?
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