The Fan in My Parents' Room

I came home to my parents for one night, after almost a year. The old bed still stands in its old spot, the sleeping mat still cool in exactly the same place, and lying down I turned into the kid again, just as in the piece about why I turn fifteen again at my parents' house. I made up the poem below while I could not sleep, typing it into my phone notes at the lowest brightness.

Tonight I lie in my old bed,
listening to the fan in my parents' room
turn one way, then back.
Each turn, one small creak.

As a kid I hated that sound.
It kept me awake.
Now I lie waiting for it,
like waiting for someone
who always knocks on time.

Dad says if it still runs, it still works.
Mom says why buy a new one,
what a waste of money.
I bought one last year.
It is still in its box, in the corner of the house.

I lie listening, no longer counting.
There is the sound of someone turning over,
the clink of a glass on a water jug,
someone softly saying "go to sleep."

The fan keeps turning.
One more creak
is one more night
the whole house still sleeps under one roof.

I am not changing it.

A poem does not explain itself, so the explaining goes here. My parents have used that fan since I was in school, its green body worn pale where the handle is, and the creak sits exactly where the neck swivels. Last year I bought my parents a new one, because the old one sounded tired to me and I did not want them to have to listen to it. They thanked me, put the box in a corner, and the old one kept running.

I was a little angry about that for a few months. I asked myself: why be angry at a cardboard box? Then I answered: because I thought a gift was a way of saying I was there. Tonight I finally understood that the box in the corner belongs to me, not to my parents: I bought it to feel reassured, while my parents felt nothing missing. Some old things in the house are still doing their job, and I do not need to replace anything to feel present. The piece on the chipped teacup says something close to this, through a different object.

The next morning, Mom stood in the kitchen doorway, stirring a glass of milk coffee with a spoon, the steam smelling warm through the whole house.

— Did you sleep all right?

— Yes. The fan is still creaking, isn't it, Mom.

— It is. Your father says if it creaks, you know it is still running.

I laughed, took the coffee she had made, sweeter than I was used to.

The first time I wrote it, the third line had more words than the fourth, because as a kid I had plenty to complain about. After a week, some people find themselves adding lines about other sounds in the house, and some stop at exactly those four lines and feel that is enough. On a busy day just choose the sound and write one line: "As a kid I thought... now I think..." If you want to hear it more truly, there is meditation: listening to the night before sleep.

May you have one familiar sound to listen to tonight.