The Fourth Tooth

I have an ideal self and a real self. The ideal self is always calm, always competent and faces life unafraid. The real self has a messy, embarrassing life and easily disintegrates into tears and despair. Or maybe I have a sunlit self and a haunted self.

Today, I lived in the sunlit world and have been able to sustain that feeling into the evening. And that is because I worked in the city. Even the hole in my gum where the tooth had been until last week hurts less, and while I was working, I hardly felt it throbbing.

It is the fourth tooth that I have lost in three years, and I blame it on having been under rocket bombardment followed by having been out of work, just as I blame the first three teeth on divorce. The stress hormones adrenaline and cortisol flood the body under prolonged assault, and the result is physical and spiritual illness and strong teeth that rot.

The first time this happened was in the midst of my virtuously flossing, no less. A piece of tooth broke away as if it were a bit of cliff shearing under the forces of natural erosion. This happened the morning of a court hearing, which I attended with a jagged half tooth in my mouth that the tip of my tongue kept stealthily touching. I carried the shard to the courthouse in my wallet, and later that day to the dentist in my hand.

And now, a fourth tooth has gone. It began stabbing me in the jawbone two Friday nights ago and within forty-eight hours, the dentist pulled it -- a well-shaped, apparently otherwise strong molar whose twisted, bloodied and decaying root the dentist seemed to take satisfaction in having me take a good look at as the tooth lay on white, absorbent paper upon his metal tray.

But I was talking about my own work. Waiting for the bus this morning, I saw my neighbor's copper-colored hound leaping on her over and over again in joy at the start of their walk. Then, as I rode the bus toward the city, the winter sun shone through the window and warmed the back of my neck and shoulders. I took the joyful, leaping dog and solicitous sun as good omens.

It is good to have a workplace to go to and come home from, to remember what it is to be competent, and to imagine that maybe I am or can be of some social use. Riding home on the bus and walking home from the bus stop tonight, I savored my exhaustion as if it were a particularly satisfying meal that I had eaten slowly.

I resisted stopping for hot chocolate at the coffee house on the way home because I knew my dog was waiting for me. I walked her in silent companionship, too tired to coax or give praise. Her nails rhythmically tapped the asphalt and cobbles and her shoulder blades worked under her fur as she trotted.