Disappearing

For a while, she had felt that she was disappearing. When she went out in public, to the store for example, everyone ignored her, there was no “civil inattention,” no fleeting glance or partial smile, no simple nod to affirm the shared humanity of strangers. In fact, it seemed that those passing her remained intentionally firm, their faces turned away, their eyes cold, perhaps sensing her and her longing in the periphery but refusing to truly see her, as if ignoring her existence was some cruel social experiment and everyone was involved: fellow customers and cashiers at the store, staff and the other patients waiting at her doctor’s office, people she’d see walking along the street outside her house or at the park nearby. When she tried to be friendly and greet people (before she became so discouraged that she deemed it hopeless), there was little if any reaction, perhaps a strange twist of the mouth or movement of the eyes, nothing direct. But this she might’ve tolerated. After all, she had to admit these strangers owed her nothing, and she knew it was probably a bit odd to long for their acknowledgment. But it wasn’t just them. 

Even when she was among family, in the old, familiar house where she’d raised her children, she felt most of the time that she was retreating into the background and becoming so remote that she was no longer perceived at all, or had the same status as the very old dresser that stood in the master bedroom, an archaic object lingering in its corner. They would talk, joke, laugh, and make plans, and she’d try to join the conversation, but it was as if she was surrounded on all sides by walls invisible to her. Beneath the light of the chandelier in the dining room, that group would assemble (her husband and a few children with grandchildren, all together or separate depending on the occasion), and, as they looked at one another in familiar fashion, their faces would stretch, their mouths would change shape, their eyes would narrow and widen, and their voices would rise and fall in a scene of great energy and noise, all of it surrounding her, swirling around without making contact, here and there perhaps a fragment, a couple of words or a passing glance coming her way to be quickly dissolved in the general excitement, most of it coming from her eldest daughter, who vaguely knew how she felt but didn’t (couldn’t) know the full weight of that confusing dream of solitude.  

One by one, all of her friends, even those she’d known for several years, had become distant and almost completely unresponsive in their communication until finally, one day, she gave up trying, put the phone down, and, shaking slightly in her chair on the porch, resigned herself to the fact that her world was narrowing, that those she’d once been close to now refused to recognize her, and that it was best to preserve some dignity and quit making efforts to reach out to these people who were, like everyone else, by choice or by some mysterious design, on the other side of her invisible walls, out of reach perhaps forever. When she resolved to cut ties with them, she turned to her husband, who was looking at something in the yard, and said, “I guess I’m done.” “With what?” he asked. “You know,” she said.

Trapped within seemingly impenetrable walls, she continued on as best she could, managing her hopes and expectations as she faded from people’s sight and was reduced to something like a shadow. As she struggled to accept her disappearance, her entry into that ghostly dimension away from, but somehow aligned with, the world in which she’d once been fully regarded, she turned to gardening, which helped her forget the futile struggle to connect. She spent hours cultivating her plants, tending them as she had once cared for her children in the house behind her. At some point, in the midst of her solitude, she began to speak to them, whispering to the flowers in late evening as the wind whipped her face. Kneeling in the dirt, she had long conversations no one would’ve understood. No matter what the weather was like, enduring the intense heat or even torrential rain, she would be found kneeling there, speaking softly, melodically to the earth. Her family barely noticed, of course, and didn’t interfere, being as detached as ever. Left alone, then, she’d stay there for a long time, her lips moving as she held her head close to one of the rose bushes, her boots digging into the ground and her gloved hands continuing to work now and then. In this she found some comfort.  

Bent to the earth, she soon became withered, scorched by the sun, but she continued to stay close to the flowers, the plants, the grass, seeking harmony, whispering and singing softly to the fruit of her labors as the life, cultivated with care, grew so lush and abundant that the single acre on which the house sat eventually took on the appearance of a small paradise. Her husband made some acknowledgment of it one day when he stepped outside and, from the porch, with an uneasy smile on his face, said, “Oh,” upon which he went back inside. Other than this, she, along with her work, continued to be invisible.

Although now and then she’d sigh, thinking vividly underneath the weight of the sun of the fact that she was disappearing and no one could see her, and that perhaps no one would see the garden either, when she took a step back and caught a glimpse of the scene she felt a certain pride. Yes, it didn’t matter if no one else saw it the way she did. This was hers. And she could sense that in time, as was already happening, the garden would become her home, not just an escape or a refuge, and she would belong to it as it belonged to her, so that one day, singing sweetly at night, she would stretch out across the soil and feel herself begin to sink in. Then she’d look up at the heavens and perhaps wish for nothing else but to exist there eternally.