Make Sure.
- Jun 17, 2022
- 4 min read
by Christy Tending
I love the way my child says make sure-ing, rather than making sure.
I’m make sure-ing of you, mama.
He tells me not to laugh. Remember, this is important.
I love the way the cat’s paw rests on my hand in bed, in the dark, in the soft space between now and sleep. She is making sure of me. Or make sure-ing. What is the word for certainty in cat? But when she is satisfied, she sighs, and that is the signal that I can move my hand somewhere else. Underneath the covers or my cheek. It does not matter to her. She is sure.
I am sure of very little. I am reading the results of a kidney ultrasound, comparing numbers to the normal range. I am reading through the recipe. I am giving my phone number to the man in the shop. But this does not amount to certainty.
I love the sharp geometry of a hummingbird’s beak, its mechanical winding sound, its tongue like lightning. There was an orange one outside the dining room window last week and I had to open the book to find out what it was. Skimming for the orange color in pages darting past, the way it swam through the leaves of the bottlebrush tree. I was sure I saw it. I was sure it was orange. Yes, it was a hummingbird. I’m telling you.
There are only so many qualifiers I can eliminate before I sound like a robot, a mouth without a person. Because I am not sure at all, is what I’m saying. I am winging it all the time. I am adding ginger where none is called for. I am peering at the numbers through my reading glasses. I am slipping feet into shoes, trusting that they will carry me. Time is flying, and I am hanging onto the rudder. I am telling you what I remember, knowing that at least half of it is a lie.
I love the way the loon’s songs skip across the lake at daybreak. I love the moment the water reaches my scalp: cold, animating my hair into its own organism, brackish, dark. I love the way the ladybugs curl up inside of hollow logs by the thousands. I love the quiet of my own breath, standing still as we watch the fox flick its tail at dusk. I take my son’s hand: there, look. His face looks up at me for certainty. Mirror/translator.
I hold open my hands. This is how the world is.
I point. I am the moon.
This does not mean I can understand the world, that I have the words for it. Like this. Not exactly this. I apologize. I admit that I am wrong.
I love the way the music sounds when you sing it, bouncing off the walls of the kitchen and the rice on the stove. The way you say, let’s run. The way my heart skips a beat when I see a cement mixer. You understand? It’s not about the cement. There is something in the hum of the engine. Even when you are not there, I want to grab your hand and say, look!
There is something in the dirt to love. Not just your fingers, but the worms, the seeds. They are going about their business. They are trying their best and it is heartbreaking. They do not know any better than I.
There was a caterpillar, once. As long as my index finger and as round, electric yellow. Surreal and artificial, and yet there it was. That was a long time ago, on a different coast. I don’t know their names. I didn’t forget. I never knew. There were things I did know once that then dissolved while I was sleeping or kissing his sweaty forehead in his sleep, peppery and sweet. That loosened their grip on me as the cat twitched from dreaming.
I do not tell him about the times I almost died. I do not say what I would do on his behalf. What is the use? The enormity of my love would terrify him, to think that such a thing is necessary, that there is a world so haunting and viscous that it would require a love like this, ready to bear its teeth. I let him eat his oatmeal before we fling the door open, tender in the face of a world like this. I don’t know how we endure it.
Instead, I think about the temporary pleasures of a body. The euphoria of a bandana askew. The way the pasta bites back. My feet against the porch railing. My own knees, my god. Can you imagine?
I do not know how to explain the world. My child asks about tomorrow, and I promise it. He says it Tomollow, round and plump. It lilts at the end, always a question. It has to do with hot chocolate or riding bicycles or a new book, you see? Tomorrow, tomorrow. I do not deny him the promise of it. All the proof so far tells me that it is true.
Yes, tomorrow.
But I am not sure of much, even these fragile promises. There is horror and beauty that I find inexplicable. What I remember clearly is the curve of a cup, the weight of it, the way the sugar sinks to the bottom. The way the backs of my legs stick to the vinyl booth. You are human, do you remember? At once here, in this moment, eating pancakes. The next: unstuck, I am walking out into the morning. I look at the sky, make sure-ing.
Christy Tending is an activist, educator, writer, and mama living in Oakland, California. Her work has appeared in Ms., The Everymom, Scary Mommy, and The Mighty. You can learn more about her work at christytending.com or follow her on Twitter @christytending.
