The noises of destruction
16 November 2009 09:07 PM Categories:
Memoir
There was an
oak tree just outside the back window. Brown
leaves clung to it through the winter,
unwilling to sever their ties until they were
forced out by new growth. Some nights, when I
was tired of waiting and had a little too
much to drink, I would slip out in the dark
and throw my empties at it. My mother did the
same thing – tossed cheap wine glasses
against rustic mantles, flung half-full
bottles of Sangre de Toro against cracked
linoleum. Broken glass every time. Me? I
lobbed 7-ounce Budweiser bottles here, old
jelly-jars-turned-cocktail glasses there.
Every single one landed with an unsatisfying
thud in the frosted grass or clinked against
mildewed siding.
One night, frustrated, I drained a 12-ouncer and went outside. Two feet from the oak, I held on to the bottle as if it were a diminutive baseball bat, gripped its neck with my fingers, and slammed the tree with as much force as a slightly drunk sixteen-year-old girl could.
It’s harder to break a bottle than you think.
From a writing prompt last summer: Out the window. NaNoWriMo is beginning to drive me crazy. Sixteen days. 41,000 words. One messy and rambling novel very close to completion.
Bit of trivia: my mother now makes jewelry from pieces of broken glass she finds on the street or breaks on the cement slab in her own back yard, a picture of calm with a broom and dust pan.
One night, frustrated, I drained a 12-ouncer and went outside. Two feet from the oak, I held on to the bottle as if it were a diminutive baseball bat, gripped its neck with my fingers, and slammed the tree with as much force as a slightly drunk sixteen-year-old girl could.
It’s harder to break a bottle than you think.
From a writing prompt last summer: Out the window. NaNoWriMo is beginning to drive me crazy. Sixteen days. 41,000 words. One messy and rambling novel very close to completion.
Bit of trivia: my mother now makes jewelry from pieces of broken glass she finds on the street or breaks on the cement slab in her own back yard, a picture of calm with a broom and dust pan.