The blue tarp

I noticed my wrists were sticking to my desk.

This was a gradual awareness. I spend almost all day at my desk, and I don’t know precisely when it started, but I finally looked down because my wrists were undeniably sticky. I had used the wrist rest in front of my keyboard for ... well, forever, and I’d noticed there were a few rips in the fabric. This had apparently progressed, completely unnoticed, until the wrist rest had started to ooze some awful sticky substance, which was now stuck to my arm.

“How did this happen?” I asked myself.

I have a friend whose father was a hoarder. She described the process whereby the house slowly filled with his stuff. He would conquer one room and then, almost imperceptibly, move into the next room until one day, the family found they could no longer use the kitchen range because it was piled high with stuff.

“How does this happen?” I asked her.

I remember a trip across the country when my husband, Peter, and I came upon a mobile home, sitting by itself, completely covered in a faded blue tarp. I assumed the home was abandoned until I saw there was a light on. The light was kind of hard to see because all the windows were covered with the blue tarp.

“How do you get to the point where you are living under a blue tarp?” I asked Peter.

“Gradually,” he said. I think this is probably true.

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