Watiffs
She eclipses the sun as she approaches, offering a squealing greeting, a loving smile, and a big, lingering hug. She tussles my hair, blows me a kiss, and turns away. She sure can put on a good show. I sense her melancholy behind her eyes, no matter how bright her smile. No, she cannot fool me, for I have known and loved her for all of my one hundred and five years.
Those years have been tumultuous, adventurous, and meaningful. I have seen it all, from tear-drenched pillows in the darkest of nights to the most radiant, exuberant days. Through the changes of our lives, she emerges seemingly unscathed to the world, an evolving chameleon, but I don’t buy her faux “Suzy Sunshine” routine for a moment.
She wears her smile like a mask to guard against the world—to protect, to please, to insulate or hide her melancholy, her lack of confidence, and something called her watiffs.
It is obvious when the melancholy strikes, sad music plays. Try listening to Albinoni’s Adagio or Pink Floyd’s Comfortably Numb fourteen times on repeat.
Sigh.
She loves music—except country. One of my favorite things is when her dad’s playlist randomly bleeds into hers and a country song comes on. She will start to howl along to the song until I joyously join in.
Her adventures tend toward the spontaneous—turning suddenly down a middle-of-nowhere dirt road toward a distant horizon. She is a dancing soul composed of science and art, whimsy and facts. She shines her brightest, dreaming and fulfilling future watiffs.
Watiffs.
Her watiffs of the past distress me. I don’t like them at all. When the watiffs of the past come knocking, she is a cruel and critical judge of herself.
“Watiff she had realized as a girl that she had more potential and more options than she ever gave herself credit for?”
“Watiff she hadn’t allowed herself—dopamine-saturated—to be whisked halfway around the world, only to find that the man who placed her on a pedestal as a queen would crucify her when he discovered she had feet of clay? Or worse, a brain and an opinion?”
“Watiff she’d had courage, instead of cowardice, sooner?”
Watiff, watiff, watiffs can become a frivolous and destructive waste of energy and time—an impediment to forward motion.
I wish she would learn to see the glass as half full more often than half empty.
I wish she would learn that two repeats of Adagio are enough.
Most of all, I wish she would learn to stay here with me—in the now.
That is what my one hundred and five years have taught me.
She is now about a new watiff—something about learning to write. I listen and wander closely beside her for she is my friend, my sun, my moon, and my stars. I know no devotion besides her, and I love being her object of affection. She reaches down and, bliss of bliss, scratches my ears, my tummy … I lick her cheek as she attaches my leash and we walk slowly home.