Past Tense — An Essay by Tash Moore

Issue No. 5: Stressed Out!
Words - Tash Moore

I often find myself flicking my wrists like an imaginary spider woman, trying to expend webbed energy that doubles as the stress amassed along my tendons. Perhaps the sticky substance can shoot out and cling to the wall, or the doorknob, or even the bedpost. Anywhere other than the coat of tension that melds itself to my joints, or curdles in my knees. The tension that used to gather along the base of my neck so taut that I couldn’t sleep on my back for a year. The muscle spasms were intolerable.

I now understand how nerve or emotional trauma makes its home in my Black femme body. I might notice the anxiety when I react so strongly to someone moving my backpack for me or don’t find my leftover sandwich where I left it. Making room without telling me. My arms tense and the surprise announces itself in a brief spitfire between my eyes. The anger is perhaps irrational. They needed the space.

I needed the space first.

Probably years ago. Things and even my tiny body were moved without my knowledge. I remember enjoying the surprise of waking up somewhere I hadn’t fallen asleep when I was a child. I napped in my grandparents’ bed and woke up in the guest room in the den long after Disney Afternoons had gone off the air. I would climb out of the bed and happily make my way to the kitchen. My grandparents would be glad to see me and might make a comment about how the sandman treated me. Quite the contrast from the constant refrain at their house from my Nana about putting my toys away before I moved onto something new. Put the toy food back on the play stovetop, ready for a new meal. Now, it occurs to me that I was practicing homemaking in the style I knew. Practicing finding and deliberately leaving my things where I knew how to find it: scattered. A far cry from finding my father or his things in the right place. My Nana’s son never left cufflinks or cigarette packs in any familiar place at my mom’s house while he was away. There were no shirts to find or any habit of reading morning newspapers or shoes by the side door to grow used to as a tot. He was often away for years when I was very small. Out of sight, out of mind on both sides.

He was home at his own mother’s house, not my mom’s. He slept in his childhood bedroom and came and went as he chose. Sometimes he slept in our basement but not often. Sometimes he slept in our mom’s room. That wasn’t often either.

My impressions of him were just like his things and his sleeping places and his voice being glad to remember me: scattered.

Nowadays, my little high-energy body is all over the place, much to my own mother’s chagrin. I struggled to stay home where I had to lie in tension. I fought my body and eventually fled from the cubicle in my own corporate life. Tethers nettle me.

Now I gaze at the naked skin on my left ring finger and wonder at the imaginary tether I’ve been preparing for. Life with a partner requires acceptance and even confrontation. Partnership will require me to honor a piece of paper I can’t always see downtown, and a set of words ringing out over an audience in someone's church. A family will require me to make peace will stillness. With reading and playing and sleeping in familiar places.

My children; toys will have a home that hopefully doesn’t disappear. The kids will have a mom and dad who know how to stay and be present. They will hear their father’s voice in the morning. They’ll know where to find me after a nap. My children will know where to leave their rainboots. Settled and waiting by the backdoor.

Maybe that way, the storms of life won’t scatter them like they used to scatter me.