Finding Johanna

This is another piece I wrote for my writers' group. They may recognize sukiyaki as having been one of the assigned words that week.


FINDING JOHANNA

“What exactly is sukiyaki anyway?” Steve put down the newspaper and frowned across the breakfast table at me. I was going through recipes and cookbooks, muttering to myself and preparing a grocery list. I glanced up at him absent-mindedly.
“What, honey?”

“Sukiyaki. You said something about sukiyaki. What is it?”

“It’s a Japanese dish, dear. Layered vegetables and meat and bean curd, all fried together.”

“Bean curd?”

“Tofu.”

“Oh. Tofu. You’re not planning to make that are you?”

I sighed. “No, Steve, I’m not going to offend your sensitive palate by offering you sukiyaki. I might just as well try serving you fried eel or pork rinds. I just happened to see a recipe here and thought it looked interesting.”

Steve pushed aside the rest of his Swiss and tomato omelet.

“I’m full,” he announced, leaning back in his chair and burying his face behind the Saturday real estate supplement.

I scribbled the last few items on the list – milk, cheese, yeast, wheat flour, eggs – and stacked the recipe books. I stood up to clear the breakfast dishes, taking my recipe file with me. This was so typical of my relationship with Steve these days. He was either critical or detached, and I was left feeling awkward. Or worse – ignored.

As I rinsed the dishes and loaded them into the dishwasher, I wondered what was wrong with me lately. I was much more sensitive to Steve than ever before. I was acutely aware that neither he nor my children seemed to need me very much these days. Certainly I was necessary for their comfort: I did the shopping and the cooking and the wash. I ironed. I changed sheets. I picked up basketballs and dirty socks and milk glasses with crusty rims. I made sure the pantry was stocked with Gatorade, Power Bars, Cheerios and chocolate chip cookies. And I never, ever made anyone eat sukiyaki.

Was this what it felt like to be taken for granted? I wondered. Or maybe I was having a mid-life crisis. Isn’t 36 too young for a mid-life crisis? Yes. Too young for a mid-life crisis and too old for an identity crisis. I wasn’t sure what to call my crisis.

What was I? Just another worn out 36-year-old housewife. I had a handsome 42-year-old executive husband who earned enough money to give me the privilege of staying home to raise our boys. Those boys were now ten and fifteen, and perhaps my being home all day was beginning to be superfluous. And maybe the modern world had passed me by.

The truth of the matter was that I didn’t have many aspirations beyond being a good homemaker, hearthkeeper, wife and mother, and now I was worried that those roles didn’t mean much to anyone besides me.

I looked around the kitchen, now immaculate and sparkling. I caught a glimpse of my face reflected in the shiny stainless steel of my mixer bowl: it was tired, listless, and marked by those tiny lines that sneak up from nowhere when you realize you’re not twenty-five anymore. Although I shouldn’t have been, I was shocked to see that weary face looking back at me. It surely was a hoax of Mother Nature’s, wasn’t it, that I was no longer the soft and supple young woman I once was?

I felt Steve’s hand on my shoulder.

“I’m taking Ben to REI,” he said. “Want me to pick up anything for you while I’m out?”

“At REI?” I laughed. “Hardly. Have fun.”

“I want to buy some camping gear for next weekend,” Steve explained. He tossed his car keys in the air and caught them again, smiling at me broadly, looking youthful and vibrant and handsome as ever. Why didn’t he have the same time-weary lines I did? Why did the hint of silver in his hair make him all the more attractive while mine just made me look dull? Another of Mother Nature’s cruel little jokes, I supposed.

Ben, our long and lanky fifteen-year-old, came bounding up the stairway from the basement family room, all legs and sneakers and teenage sweat.

“I just beat Andy three times in foosball,” he laughed to his father, brushing past me and barely acknowledging my presence. Andy, our ten-year-old, the smaller carbon copy of his brother, appeared behind him, howling, “I never win! I want to go to REI too! Can I come, Dad?”

The three of them tumbled out the door, laughing and talking all at once, slamming the kitchen door behind them. I peeked out for just a moment, watching them pile into Steve’s Durango and roar off up the street.

The silence in my normally noisy house seemed louder than the noise it replaced. It was Saturday morning, the house was clean, my boys were out, and I had no idea what I would do to occupy my own time. Make cookies? No, I didn’t really feel like making cookies. Call my mother? No. I didn’t think she’d ever had a crisis of self in her life and would surely look on mine as a fundamental character flaw. Grocery shop? Yes, that was what I should do, but I didn’t have much enthusiasm for the task.

I wandered around the house aimlessly for a while, trying to resurrect the comfortable feeling of security in my home. It was a beautiful house, carefully decorated with pieces Steve and I picked out together. There was love in every hardwood floorboard, every stitch of the quilts on the beds, and in the small touches of matching towels and fully stocked bookcases. I had everything I could possibly hope for. Why in this moment did it feel like “not enough”?

I found myself heading for the bedroom with the intent of cleaning out and organizing the closets. Subconsciously, I suppose I knew that I wanted to inspect, reread, and wallow in the faded memorabilia of my life before Steve and the boys. I’d been married for 16 years, and my impetuous teens seemed light years away, a life lived long ago by a pretty young girl, a life I’d seen pictures of but couldn’t remember participating in.

Diving into the closet, I pulled out dusty shoeboxes filled with stiletto heels and long forgotten boots. I rummaged underneath the extra linens that weren’t quite as fresh-smelling as I would have liked. I found textbooks from Steve’s graduate school days, and moved past cardboard boxes full of family photos I’d promised myself would go in albums one day. I finally unearthed a dark green cardboard box tied with double-knotted twine. It had been buried underneath the accumulations of married life for more years than I wanted to think of. I slipped down the hallway back to the kitchen and pulled the shears out of the junk drawer. I stopped to fill a wineglass with Riesling, casting a guilty glance at the clock as I did so. It was just before eleven. Who was here to care if I had a glass of wine in the morning? Who would have cared if I’d had the whole bottle?

Back in the bedroom, I closed the door, hesitating only momentarily before locking it behind me. I sat on the floor with the big box and sliced through the twine with the shears. The scent of faded potpourri and old papers wafted to my nose and tempted me inside. I took a long sip of the Riesling, leaned back against the dresser with my knees pulled up, and placed a stack of papers next to me.

A few pages of high school poetry, stapled together in book form. A manila folder of essays written my sophomore year in college, before I dropped out to marry Steve. An article for the school paper. Another one for the local weekly, written just after Steve and I rented our first apartment. I read a little and laughed a little. I flipped through the pages of poems, sighing over the raw angst in the verses of my youth:

Late last evening, I
Cried for a time because you
Said, “I don’t love you,”
And how can I keep living
Knowing that I still love you?

I stopped reading for a minute to wonder if, like twenty years ago, I was drowning in my angst and allowing the problem to balloon to greater proportions than it warranted. I took another long sip of the wine and continued thumbing through the pages.

A paper on illegal immigrants written at age fifteen. Love notes from someone in my journalism class in college. A list of my favorite songs. More poetry. A few childish short stories and one ambitious play.

I reached into the box and pulled out more of the puzzle pieces that were my life: my high school diploma and tassel, a leatherette folder of pictures from a college party, a crumpled brown paper sack filled with letters from a soldier I’d written to.

I glanced again at the stack of essays and short stories and the play I’d written at seventeen. I stood up and gently opened the door, peering out into the hallway. It was still and quiet. Steve and the boys were still enjoying their testosterone outing. I padded down the hallway toward the kitchen and retrieved the rest of the bottle of Riesling. It was eleven-thirty. Who cared? I had a past to live in today.

I returned to the bedroom, once more locking the door. Refilling my glass, I settled in on the floor again and spread the stacks of paper in front of me. Before I lost myself in the long-forgotten words, I wanted to get an image of my former self. I opened the leatherette folder of pictures, fanning them out and looking for an individual shot of myself. There I was: young and pretty, rosy-cheeked and smiling, hamming up a pose for whoever had been behind the camera. I wasn’t just pretty then. There was life there behind those mischievous blue eyes and brilliant smile. I hastily restacked the photos and crammed them back into the folder.

My eyes lifted to the framed wedding photo on Steve’s nightstand and saw the same smile, this time aimed adoringly at the face of my new husband. Had I been too young to get married, at twenty? I supposed not; we’d done well enough in our marriage and I loved my husband. Over the years the occasional tempting thought to have an affair popped into my head – I was intrigued with the idea of a relationship that was all passion and longing, and no dirty socks and televised golf games and Tuesday meatloaf. The ideas always went as quickly as they had flitted into my head, and it had been a long time since I’d even thought of it.

I turned back to my reading, slipping easily into the other worlds created in my own brain long dusty years ago. As I read on, I gained a new perspective on who I had been and who I could be. I felt myself lifting from the funk that had held me captive.

As I took the last swallow of wine in my glass, I heard a tap at the bedroom door. I opened it to find Steve on the other side.

“Johanna? Hey, what are you doing locked away in here?” he asked, looking quizzically at the papers and folders strewn on the floor.

“Oh, just looking for something.” I flashed him the same brilliant smile I’d admired earlier in the photos.

“Well, we missed you this morning, hon. The boys and I wanted to know if you’d like to go out and join us for lunch.”

The invitation touched me. I thought again of how I had everything I’d ever dreamed of, and the feeling that something was missing dissipated as a new and welcome thought occurred to me that I couldn’t wait to share with Steve.

“I’d love to,” I answered brightly, linking arms with my husband and heading back to the kitchen, where our sons waited near the door. Was reality really all about perception? Where earlier I’d felt taken for granted, I now felt like the belle of my own ball as I gazed on the expectantly happy faces of my family. Perhaps my journey down memory lane had positively altered my perception.

“So,” Steve asked, holding the door open for me to step outside, “did you find what you were looking for?”

“I think so,” I said.

“What was it?” he asked as he locked the door and motioned to the boys, who had started tossing the basketball around.

“Myself,” I whispered under my breath.

“What did you say, sweetie? Ben! Andy! Get in the car now!”

As I reached the door of the Durango, I turned to face my husband.

“Steve,” I said.

“Yeah?”

“I think I’d like to start writing again.”