Mellow Waste: On Living the Unpopular, Abnormal Reality

I watch the flowers; its red and white petals wilt quietly and right before my eyes. My lessor, Sharon hands it over to me two days after I sign the notice of termination on my lease. It’s been one year living here, a few months living with their son. The same fingers that point me to the dotted lines for my signature, must have cut the stalk with care and precision, and arranged it in a jar. Water gurgling at the bottom, filling and filling. Half empty, half full. A gift. An appeasement of some sort. She fumbles with the words as she speaks, and I stare down at her hands, lithe and unmoving. They would want to have Laska visit their son, she says. Laska is a German Shepherd. Bear with me, I want to plead, I did nothing wrong. But of course, this has nothing to do with me. Or rather, it has everything to do with me. I can’t pretend I’m not surprised so I nod. I smile. I have a month to move, she says. To find a new home during a pandemic. The guilt is unspoken but felt. Like a hurried affair, I want to be gone immediately.  The thing about my yearning to belong is, I am just as eager to walk away with the slightest hint of being unwanted. This would be the second time I’m leaving a home in America because of my fear of dogs.Of all the things I am terrified of, none has received the most disbelief as this. I’m doraphobic too but no one’s asked for a story to validate how I could possibly dread digging my toes into a fur carpet. People can get away with the fear of enclosed spaces but a dog? Not a chance. Irrational. I suppose the tragedy of living one’s own reality is there’s hardly any room for possibilities other than what they know to be true.I find a new place in less than a week and now as I pack, I’m surprised how much I’ve accumulated- books, blankets, a pair of never-worn boots. I sit perfectly still in the middle of the clutter, the walls of my tiny room closing in on me. I weep the transition with my head clutched in my hands. On the new agreement, I read No Pets Allowed but I still want to be sure. “Ms Sanchez,” I say, my voice is squeaky over the lump in my throat. “You mean no pets at all?” I’m careful and even fearful, I’ve seen how defensive people get over the subject. My soon-to-be lessor, the sweetest eighty-five-year-old woman I’ve ever met, throws her hand across her face and whispers, “No, no. I don’t care much for them, but I just say I’m allergic.” She winks at me. I smile a doubtful smile and sign the lease. The tightness in my chest unfurls. In my room, as I fold an over-sized shirt, I glance up at the flowers slumped over the mouth of the jar, weary and limp. Finally, I bring myself to accept what I’ve been given- the delightful, dying fragrance of roses. A graceful apology. A small predictable truth about what the human mind can find consolation in. I offer pardon by keeping it, placing the weathered remains in a Ziploc, and pressing the seal tight. A fading memory. It is not that I want to remember the goodbye, it is that I don’t want the gesture of acceptance to be forgotten. I hope, when she thinks of me, she imagines a love that makes room.