By Antonia Deignan
PROMPT—Privilege ...
I was fixing a light bulb. It was a tiny one, no larger than my thumb. It lived in a salt rock lamp. The salt rock lamp was as big as a watermelon on the heap of summer season’s bounty, piled up in neon green with darker green stripes, the dumpster-ish cardboard boxes welcomed at the Stop n Shop, the Aldi, the Whole Foods Market. One melon there was bigger than two bowling balls together, one melon was a boulder you could sit on. I loved the size of my salt rock lamp.
I noticed my glasses on the bedside table, folded. I placed them there (where they belonged) the night before after closing the pages of my current read, (Ram Dass). I still liked them, the glasses, the style of them. They appealed to me and my innate presentation of self, which over the years has evolved certainly. But also, I’ve maintained a consistency, an imprint that I have not ever defined nor been made to explain, it just is, was. When something as benign as a pair of glasses are replaced, it’s not that I don’t like them anymore, it’s that I have decided they’re not true enough. These lenses are as big as two Chips Ahoy chocolate chip cookies, with slivers of silver rim and comfortable temples. They made me smile. My mother always wore fantastic glasses, both sun and prescription, large, mod, colorful statements. My first dance director did too. But she must have taken them off to teach, right? How would you spin and twirl with them on?
I lowered the heavy salt lamp to one of its sides to settle it on the dresser. I pulled the pronged light bulb base out of the lamp’s bottom and heard a crackling and crinkling. The tiny bulb shattered and only its metal foundation remained stuck, screwed in. The delicate bulb's glass skipped across the dresser. I had first thought to gather the pieces carefully with my bare hand and began to. But common sense took over. I risked cutting myself. A plan replaced that one immediately. I stepped into the bathroom, went toward the toilet and pulled the tissue tail of the toilet paper a few times, bunched what I felt was the right amount to sweep the glass up with.
Back in the bedroom, I had enough toilet paper to prevent the glass from poking through and slicing me; plus, the light airiness of the tissue glided easily over the wood surface as I believed it would. Firm enough to gather the sharp bits and sturdy enough to contain them. I threw the waste in the kitchen trash bin. I didn’t want to use the bathroom bin as I thought it was risky, maybe someone would accidentally knock it over and not realizing there was barely visible broken glass in there, would open hand sweep it up and cut themselves. I walked into the garage and found the needle nose plier. Returning to the bedroom, and flicking on the overhead light, I carefully used the plier to twist out the remainder of the bulb.
What's the point? It wasn't my altogether normal.
I had during this random morning episode a profound ease in each moment, a sense of gratitude for the aspects of sound, taste, sight, scent, touch, consciousness/unconsciousness. Like a psychedelic trip, like my minutes of set mindfulness during meditation, suddenly and without predetermination, the now-ness of those minutes arrived and lived and arrived and lived, tik, tok, tik, as I remedied a broken bulb, appreciated my surroundings, acknowledged the privilege of considering my essence past and present, my ability to see, reflect, move, detach, breathe.
Antonia Deignan is the mother of five grown children. Before the adventures of motherhood, she parlayed her childhood years of movement and theater into a professional ballet and jazz dance career. Following a bike accident at fifty-five, she found new expression through writing. She rediscovered, and ultimately, found sanctuary in processing survival of childhood trauma through her body’s art and her mind’s dreams. Moving alongside those rhythms within her, insights and the inspiration to write followed. She has multiple publications in magazine and online formats. Her memoir Underwater Daughter was published on May 2, 2023 by She Writes Press. Antonia writes from Indianapolis, IN.