The Handwritten Notes

When she was a teenager, it was nothing out of the ordinary to wake up to the drilling of street construction.  She could never find it once awake (what was being drilled) and so she said her Hi's and Morning's in sweatpants and the leftovers of last night's attitude, the day already feeling confused and hard.

As such, the monotonous sounds of dirty labor always left her reminded of morning.  Morning meant the run of a vacuum.  The bolting and unbolting of the basement door's lock.  The cleaning out of a closet.  Old board games falling off shelves.  She woke up feeling like things needed to be done, and now.  There was more homework.  More errands.  People to see, and now.  Now.  She did not like it but it was how it went.  

Standing up at the kitchen's counter top, buttering a toasted bialy while Al Roker got muted on the news, she would get hit with the sun lasers of window light hours after the dog had already been zapped. Taken care of and evenly breathing on a wood floor.  She wanted back to bed, too.  Carrying her bialy on a paper towel, crumbs slipping, stepping softly on wood, no one will know.  They were out getting their things done.

Oh, but a note.  It was handwritten.  Found a great table on Warren Street.  A woman is holding it for me.  Getting an oil change but will be back.  I want to take you there.  Go ahead and unload the dishwasher in the meantime.  Someone called for you.  A boy. 

Those were the handwritten notes.  Because they collected too much scrap paper beneath the counter, it was hard to pull the drawer out at times.  The papers were gentle, passive aggressive reminders of the algebra problems she cried over.  Her tears dripping on numbers.  Blurred numbers now.  Reaching for more scrap, she hoped to never live in a handwritten note house again.  Post-its for one kind of note.  Loose leaf for another.  Backs of fliers for another.   Index cards.   Gah.

As a twenty something year-old, maybe the notes were called for.   This was a family and their schedule happened to be up and running.  That was how it went.  To the next thing, to the next place, to the next person.  They would read the note.  They would crumple the note.  It was just paper and it was nothing to cry over.