In the summer, my writing dropped off. It lemming-ed off a cliff. There was too much fun to be had out there, and a lot of daylight to have the fun in. It was really a spectacular time. It aches a little to even imagine the summer. There are good times now, to be sure. But one must be more creative when there’s no sunshine.
It’s fascinating; I can sit down and work through a memory that’s hard to swallow no matter how deep into the past it goes. I could tell you about the time I got a D in math and an F in sewing. In the same trimester. My freshman year in high school. I remember driving past the McDonald's and telling my mom, and her being really upset, and it being near Christmas. And me giving her a copy of A Wish for Wings that Work that year, and the tears that ensued. Why didn’t I just do my homework? I think I was bored. I’m pretty sure that was it.
I remember when my sister told me our grandfather had died, and she explained death to me as something that happens to someone to make them go away forever. We were playing in my room, and she told me I would never see him again. I wasn’t upset. More curious than anything. I remember mom crying and dad hugging her. She was 34. I was 5.
I remember my first broken heart. It happened at a coffee shop. Smashed to smithereens.
Different coffee shop, different day. Not smashed, but thoroughly annoyed.
Where was I going with this? I am trying to remember.
I live inside my own head like everyone else. Making complicated stories and punishing myself and others for things that might happen maybe. Working out the steps one by one and making action plans for the just-in-cases. They rarely happen.
Writing renders it simple, all of the noise and the guessing. It allows me to confess, to step back; own my actions. I can go back to the beginning and start again, looking at life and making sense of the moments the best I can, or moving beyond the upset apple cart that has no meaning. It’s just a mess, plain and simple.
I’m closing my eyes, and I can see the joy in it all. I’m thinking of an animal that starts with the letter “L.” I’m waiting in line for both of us because it’s warm and we have no place to go. I’m wading through the crowd and I can’t hear anything but it’s so amazing to be with all these happy strangers. I’m thinking of dinner last night. I’m holding a weight above my head to see if I can do it the longest. And I can. I’m eating candy until I’m regretting not taking care of that cavity before I lost my dental insurance. And then I’ll have some more. I’m waiting in a different line and I see you again, and I wrap my scarf around myself like a straitjacket so you notice me. We're close together on the plane and I'm scared like always, but I'd go anywhere with you. I’m cleaning my daughter’s house of madness.
“What are you doing, kid?” I asked her.
“I’m closing my eyes.”
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Friday, July 9, 2010
a very small thought
I stared at the undersides of the maple trees from thirty feet below. They cut into the evening sky with three large bites, the black edges of the leaves trailing into a different blue. It was like looking at holes punched in the earth, like there were stars that sat past the ceiling we so often see.
Right then and there, I thought good and hard about what those trees looked like, and how I might describe them to you. Because I knew they were beautiful, but I didn't know how. I couldn't think of anything. It's only now I realize I could have wondered what the sky looked like because of them. What they were doing to the nature around. That's a different way of thinking about it. A very small thought that will remain right here.
Right then and there, I thought good and hard about what those trees looked like, and how I might describe them to you. Because I knew they were beautiful, but I didn't know how. I couldn't think of anything. It's only now I realize I could have wondered what the sky looked like because of them. What they were doing to the nature around. That's a different way of thinking about it. A very small thought that will remain right here.
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
munich us
Before we had a kid, we went to Europe. Because that's what you do, right? It wasn't a last hurrah, actually. We didn't know at the time that we would have a family other than us two. We flew to Amsterdam--a much delayed flight through New Jersey--and took the night train to Munich. By the time we got on the train, we were squeezed out tubes of sloppy sauce. And the train was filled with co-eds giggling and in their jammies. Or so he told me when he went to find us a make-shift meal of wine and cheesy crackers.
We slept like thieves, and woke up nearly in Munich. The lowest fog hugged the tracks as we crept past outposts. There was no part of it that wasn't like the movies.
We were there just a couple days. There were long, long walks around the city, and ending in the English Garden. There are pictures of us in front bright purple explosions of wonder and rivers and lots of beer. Beer bigger than anything. It was a Monday, and we were sitting in the middle of several parties of after work friends at the center of the garden, near a Chinese tower. Rows of green benches and tables. Eating something like a pile of french fries, only way, way more amazing, covered in this sauce that I don't even know what it is. But it was white and had lumps. Nothing was complicated. Everything was just like what we wanted.
We both felt it. Welled up inside with contentment, if such a thing is possible. So we dubbed ourselves, "Munich us." The us who didn't drive, whose destinations were epicurean and grand with the world. We promised each other that when we got home, "Munich us" would prevail. We will bike or walk everywhere. We will dine al fresco. We will eat full-fat foods but in moderation (most of the time). And we will be merry. Always.
There have been long bike rides to fantastic destinations. From one end of the city to the other just for the chance to drink out of a silly glass and end the day with seafood in the park. Music. Block parties and tattoos and waterfalls. Munich us has done really well.
But only since she came into the world. Only since time became something else other than what we waste. We came home from that trip and we did things. But it wasn't Munich us. It was just us. She makes everything better, and makes us remember what's important.
Two weeks ago, we were in a neighboring state, a more rural place. We rode bikes downtown there and ate pizza and had drinks after. We mistook people for other people and passed ashtrays to smokers. Then we left, and wheeled past the fairgrounds. Onto the bike path, through the woods. There were bugs and nature and no one else could see us. We even had little lights on our hats.
And that was all the light there was.
There was some disagreement about the safety of the path. Surely, there were murderers.
"I feel like I'm riding through 48 Hours Mystery!" I said
"It's not 48 Hours Mystery. Except for that one episode."
He is...hilarious.
I often imagine myself watching myself doing things, and thinking about how it would be reported on the news.
"Look at the stars," he said.
If I'm honest, I was a little intimidated by all the nature.
"I've seen stars."
"Not like this."
It was so dark. If we hadn't had those lights, we'd have been in a velvet sea.
"Turn off your lights for a second."
"What?!"
"Turn them off."
Not everything he says is gentle. But this was gentle. So I did.
It was just as you might imagine. Frogs and other chirps. The strangest of sounds but none of them threatening. So much more powerful than the two of us, but inviting us in. Taking us with. Munich us.
"Thanks," he said.
"Of course," I said.
"This smells like my childhood," he said.
We could have been best friends, swinging from tires. We could have grown up together. I always thought we would never have fallen in love if we had met a day before we did. That there was this perfect moment when we came together. I don't think that's true, now. Because even though it didn't smell like my youth, I really wished it had. I wish I had known you when.
"I'm going to write about this," I said.
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah. Total Munich us."
We rode past the ditch weed and the high school. All the way to another adventure.
We slept like thieves, and woke up nearly in Munich. The lowest fog hugged the tracks as we crept past outposts. There was no part of it that wasn't like the movies.
We were there just a couple days. There were long, long walks around the city, and ending in the English Garden. There are pictures of us in front bright purple explosions of wonder and rivers and lots of beer. Beer bigger than anything. It was a Monday, and we were sitting in the middle of several parties of after work friends at the center of the garden, near a Chinese tower. Rows of green benches and tables. Eating something like a pile of french fries, only way, way more amazing, covered in this sauce that I don't even know what it is. But it was white and had lumps. Nothing was complicated. Everything was just like what we wanted.
We both felt it. Welled up inside with contentment, if such a thing is possible. So we dubbed ourselves, "Munich us." The us who didn't drive, whose destinations were epicurean and grand with the world. We promised each other that when we got home, "Munich us" would prevail. We will bike or walk everywhere. We will dine al fresco. We will eat full-fat foods but in moderation (most of the time). And we will be merry. Always.
There have been long bike rides to fantastic destinations. From one end of the city to the other just for the chance to drink out of a silly glass and end the day with seafood in the park. Music. Block parties and tattoos and waterfalls. Munich us has done really well.
But only since she came into the world. Only since time became something else other than what we waste. We came home from that trip and we did things. But it wasn't Munich us. It was just us. She makes everything better, and makes us remember what's important.
Two weeks ago, we were in a neighboring state, a more rural place. We rode bikes downtown there and ate pizza and had drinks after. We mistook people for other people and passed ashtrays to smokers. Then we left, and wheeled past the fairgrounds. Onto the bike path, through the woods. There were bugs and nature and no one else could see us. We even had little lights on our hats.
And that was all the light there was.
There was some disagreement about the safety of the path. Surely, there were murderers.
"I feel like I'm riding through 48 Hours Mystery!" I said
"It's not 48 Hours Mystery. Except for that one episode."
He is...hilarious.
I often imagine myself watching myself doing things, and thinking about how it would be reported on the news.
"Look at the stars," he said.
If I'm honest, I was a little intimidated by all the nature.
"I've seen stars."
"Not like this."
It was so dark. If we hadn't had those lights, we'd have been in a velvet sea.
"Turn off your lights for a second."
"What?!"
"Turn them off."
Not everything he says is gentle. But this was gentle. So I did.
It was just as you might imagine. Frogs and other chirps. The strangest of sounds but none of them threatening. So much more powerful than the two of us, but inviting us in. Taking us with. Munich us.
"Thanks," he said.
"Of course," I said.
"This smells like my childhood," he said.
We could have been best friends, swinging from tires. We could have grown up together. I always thought we would never have fallen in love if we had met a day before we did. That there was this perfect moment when we came together. I don't think that's true, now. Because even though it didn't smell like my youth, I really wished it had. I wish I had known you when.
"I'm going to write about this," I said.
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah. Total Munich us."
We rode past the ditch weed and the high school. All the way to another adventure.
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
it's coming
They gave me a bed separated from others by weak curtains. I was second from the end and nearest to the door. I couldn't figure out how to adjust the bed itself so it wasn't completely parallel to the floor, so I lay there curled up like I was at home with all my familiar trappings, ready for dreaming.
Almost all the lights were off in all the quarters, except to the right of me. It was a he and a she. The girl had banged her shoulder up something fierce. The doctor came in and explained she couldn't lift up her kids for a few days, because sometimes fractures take awhile to appear in tricky places like the shoulder blade. Then he left. Her husband said:
"I'm going to sit you up on the couch and fling food at your face."
"You will not."
"I will too. I'm going to just fling food at your face and make you catch it."
She giggled. He helped her get dressed and teased her, I think, because I heard soft, playful protests of "Cut it out," and "I'm gonna tell the doctor on you and he'll make you stop it." I watched them walk out. She was adorable, like you could give her a squeeze.
There was a persistent dinging noise, and I heard the following question:
"Are we still on lock down?"
"What?"
"Are we still on lock down?"
"Not really."
More dinging, and then the voice of an older man,"
"Excuse me, Mr. Nurse? I need to urinate."
This plea went on for quite awhile. At this point, I felt all kinds of horrible. I wanted someone to help him, but there was no way I was going to tell anyone how to do the job of working in the ER. It took about a half hour, and then a nurse sweetly took him to the bathroom. I saw only male nurses at Touro.
It took about an hour for a doctor to see me, which wasn't bad. He said only two things to me:
"I'm going to give you every drug I can."
And...
"Are you diabetic?"
I told him no. He listened to my breathing, and a few minutes later, a nurse drowned my sorrows in another stream of "baby" and "darling" and brought me several pills. Then he said he needed to test my blood sugar (just a simple blood test).
"Is that standard operating procedure?" I asked.
"It is for this doctor," he said dryly.
I have no idea why that would be the case. Maybe we're all sugar and he thinks we'll melt.
"Alright sweetie, I just have to get your paperwork and we'll get you out of here."
At this point, a young, amazingly beautiful woman walked in to ask me some questions. Biodata. The basics.
"Religion?" she asked.
"What?"
"Religion?"
I had no idea how to convey my answer.
"No," I finally settled on this.
"Ok."
My name, my employer, emergency contact, insurance card. Insurance after the drugs. Completely fascinating.
Alright. Expecting to be dispatched quickly. I had the drugs in me. No reason to keep me around, taking up this bed. I hadn't even put on the gown; they could just keep it there for the next person.
The lights were on now. I started texting updates to some concerned persons. I sent a few pictures. There was silliness, and I felt completely at home. I was in my skin, and feeling totally connected to home while being far away and alone.
Then, I heard my doctor say the following as he stood in the space directly to my left, shadowed in the curtain:
"What's the matter, baby?"
No audible response. He must be on the phone.
"What? Did you take heroin?"
Silence again.
"Did you overdose on heroin?"
Nothing.
"Alright. It's going to be ok." Soft, sweet tones of comfort. The same person who gave me every drug he could think of.
I tried to not want to listen. This seemed personal.
The doors to the right of me opened, and a woman not too much older than me walked through. I saw her chunky, glittered sandals and blue-polished toes. And then I saw them walk with intention to the room next to me, crossed, sitting in a chair in the corner. I could only see the toes. And the sandals. She waved the foot crossed over the other back and forth like a heavy sigh.
"Is this mom?" said the doctor.
It wasn't a phone call. There was someone there. What do you know.
"Yes, I'm mom."
I will avoid going into the specific back and forth. Conversations about where she got the drugs. 17 years old. She had been in Touro earlier that day and when she got back home, she began to hallucinate. And that's why she was back. It wasn't the first time. There were lots of times before today.
But I want to tell you what the doctor said. I could only hear his voice, which is why I've written it this way. To me, it still sounded like he was on the phone. But there was another person in there with him, with her mother. This is what I heard.
* * *
You dropped out of school? Sophomore year? So what do you want to be when you grow up?
A Vet?
A Veterinarian?
No, you don't want to be a Vet. No.
Because you have to go to school for that.
No.
You want to be a Tech. A Vet Tech. That's what you mean, so say what you mean. A Vet Tech. Because you have to go to school to be a Vet. And you're not in school.
Ok. So you want to be a Vet Tech. That's good. Alright.
But let me tell you what's going to happen to you, ok? Because it's coming. And I can see it. I used to work in a ladies prison in Mississippi. Before Katrina.
So you're almost 18, right? You're going to get busted. You're doing this with your friends. Your boyfriend. And you think he loves you. But he doesn't. Maybe he gets you pregnant but that's something else. You're getting your drugs from him, or from your brother. And they don't care, so they're going to get busted and then so will you. You'll be 18, so you'll go to prison. Not some cush juvie place. Because I worked in Mississippi, before Katrina, and I've seen it.
It's coming.
You get there, and a pretty girl like you, do you know what they call you? Huh? Do you know what they'll call you there?
Fresh. Meat.
That's what they'll call you. Because you're so pretty and young.
So here's what will happen.
(A slapping sound)
They will hold your hands like this.
(Slap)
And your legs like this.
And they'll make you.
Whatever they want to do, they'll do it, and there's nothing anyone can do for you. The people who work there? They don't care about you. They don't want to upset the order; they just want to make sure they get home to their families. They don't get paid much. And guess what?
They think you deserve it.
It's coming. It's coming.
And if you talk? If you scream? Guess what? They'll break your nose. They'll break your teeth. Your pretty face will be all ruined. And then you'll have to take it all the same anyway. They'll break your face apart. It's coming. I've seen it. You won't be pretty anymore.
So let's say you get out, and you want to be a Vet Tech. You get a job. You're 18, they'll find out about you. Why would they want to keep you? Why would they believe you? A junkie. Drugs go missing all the time from those places. Why wouldn't you take it? You're a junkie. It's coming. You can't even give your friends a recommendation, because who would believe someone like you?
Can I show you something? I just want to show you something. I'll be right back.
(Footsteps and papers rustling).
You've seen Faces of Meth? You've seen these girls?
Here are all the pictures, and look at the dates. Look at the first picture, and look at the last. Why do you think this picture is the last one I have?
No. She didn't clean up. Why else would this be the last picture?
That's right. She died.
And what about this girl?
That's right. She died. It's coming for you. It's coming.
I promise you, it's coming.
(Footsteps walking away. He was gone).
* * *
I heard sobbing now. Talks of committal, just for awhile, just to get help. There were cries muffled in heavy arms, in endless hugs.
It's coming for all of us. No sense running.
But no sense walking into the fire neither, I suppose.
I saw the mother and an aunt later, while I waited for my cab. They went to get food from the catering van. To have a cigarette and to text. While I was waiting, the same man passed me twice. He noted the second time:
"You haven't moved at all!"
I laughed. I was a million miles from where I had been, from when I had arrived. But I don't kid myself in thinking I saw or heard anything special. Just another night. Alone in the presence of another.
Almost all the lights were off in all the quarters, except to the right of me. It was a he and a she. The girl had banged her shoulder up something fierce. The doctor came in and explained she couldn't lift up her kids for a few days, because sometimes fractures take awhile to appear in tricky places like the shoulder blade. Then he left. Her husband said:
"I'm going to sit you up on the couch and fling food at your face."
"You will not."
"I will too. I'm going to just fling food at your face and make you catch it."
She giggled. He helped her get dressed and teased her, I think, because I heard soft, playful protests of "Cut it out," and "I'm gonna tell the doctor on you and he'll make you stop it." I watched them walk out. She was adorable, like you could give her a squeeze.
There was a persistent dinging noise, and I heard the following question:
"Are we still on lock down?"
"What?"
"Are we still on lock down?"
"Not really."
More dinging, and then the voice of an older man,"
"Excuse me, Mr. Nurse? I need to urinate."
This plea went on for quite awhile. At this point, I felt all kinds of horrible. I wanted someone to help him, but there was no way I was going to tell anyone how to do the job of working in the ER. It took about a half hour, and then a nurse sweetly took him to the bathroom. I saw only male nurses at Touro.
It took about an hour for a doctor to see me, which wasn't bad. He said only two things to me:
"I'm going to give you every drug I can."
And...
"Are you diabetic?"
I told him no. He listened to my breathing, and a few minutes later, a nurse drowned my sorrows in another stream of "baby" and "darling" and brought me several pills. Then he said he needed to test my blood sugar (just a simple blood test).
"Is that standard operating procedure?" I asked.
"It is for this doctor," he said dryly.
I have no idea why that would be the case. Maybe we're all sugar and he thinks we'll melt.
"Alright sweetie, I just have to get your paperwork and we'll get you out of here."
At this point, a young, amazingly beautiful woman walked in to ask me some questions. Biodata. The basics.
"Religion?" she asked.
"What?"
"Religion?"
I had no idea how to convey my answer.
"No," I finally settled on this.
"Ok."
My name, my employer, emergency contact, insurance card. Insurance after the drugs. Completely fascinating.
Alright. Expecting to be dispatched quickly. I had the drugs in me. No reason to keep me around, taking up this bed. I hadn't even put on the gown; they could just keep it there for the next person.
The lights were on now. I started texting updates to some concerned persons. I sent a few pictures. There was silliness, and I felt completely at home. I was in my skin, and feeling totally connected to home while being far away and alone.
Then, I heard my doctor say the following as he stood in the space directly to my left, shadowed in the curtain:
"What's the matter, baby?"
No audible response. He must be on the phone.
"What? Did you take heroin?"
Silence again.
"Did you overdose on heroin?"
Nothing.
"Alright. It's going to be ok." Soft, sweet tones of comfort. The same person who gave me every drug he could think of.
I tried to not want to listen. This seemed personal.
The doors to the right of me opened, and a woman not too much older than me walked through. I saw her chunky, glittered sandals and blue-polished toes. And then I saw them walk with intention to the room next to me, crossed, sitting in a chair in the corner. I could only see the toes. And the sandals. She waved the foot crossed over the other back and forth like a heavy sigh.
"Is this mom?" said the doctor.
It wasn't a phone call. There was someone there. What do you know.
"Yes, I'm mom."
I will avoid going into the specific back and forth. Conversations about where she got the drugs. 17 years old. She had been in Touro earlier that day and when she got back home, she began to hallucinate. And that's why she was back. It wasn't the first time. There were lots of times before today.
But I want to tell you what the doctor said. I could only hear his voice, which is why I've written it this way. To me, it still sounded like he was on the phone. But there was another person in there with him, with her mother. This is what I heard.
* * *
You dropped out of school? Sophomore year? So what do you want to be when you grow up?
A Vet?
A Veterinarian?
No, you don't want to be a Vet. No.
Because you have to go to school for that.
No.
You want to be a Tech. A Vet Tech. That's what you mean, so say what you mean. A Vet Tech. Because you have to go to school to be a Vet. And you're not in school.
Ok. So you want to be a Vet Tech. That's good. Alright.
But let me tell you what's going to happen to you, ok? Because it's coming. And I can see it. I used to work in a ladies prison in Mississippi. Before Katrina.
So you're almost 18, right? You're going to get busted. You're doing this with your friends. Your boyfriend. And you think he loves you. But he doesn't. Maybe he gets you pregnant but that's something else. You're getting your drugs from him, or from your brother. And they don't care, so they're going to get busted and then so will you. You'll be 18, so you'll go to prison. Not some cush juvie place. Because I worked in Mississippi, before Katrina, and I've seen it.
It's coming.
You get there, and a pretty girl like you, do you know what they call you? Huh? Do you know what they'll call you there?
Fresh. Meat.
That's what they'll call you. Because you're so pretty and young.
So here's what will happen.
(A slapping sound)
They will hold your hands like this.
(Slap)
And your legs like this.
And they'll make you.
Whatever they want to do, they'll do it, and there's nothing anyone can do for you. The people who work there? They don't care about you. They don't want to upset the order; they just want to make sure they get home to their families. They don't get paid much. And guess what?
They think you deserve it.
It's coming. It's coming.
And if you talk? If you scream? Guess what? They'll break your nose. They'll break your teeth. Your pretty face will be all ruined. And then you'll have to take it all the same anyway. They'll break your face apart. It's coming. I've seen it. You won't be pretty anymore.
So let's say you get out, and you want to be a Vet Tech. You get a job. You're 18, they'll find out about you. Why would they want to keep you? Why would they believe you? A junkie. Drugs go missing all the time from those places. Why wouldn't you take it? You're a junkie. It's coming. You can't even give your friends a recommendation, because who would believe someone like you?
Can I show you something? I just want to show you something. I'll be right back.
(Footsteps and papers rustling).
You've seen Faces of Meth? You've seen these girls?
Here are all the pictures, and look at the dates. Look at the first picture, and look at the last. Why do you think this picture is the last one I have?
No. She didn't clean up. Why else would this be the last picture?
That's right. She died.
And what about this girl?
That's right. She died. It's coming for you. It's coming.
I promise you, it's coming.
(Footsteps walking away. He was gone).
* * *
I heard sobbing now. Talks of committal, just for awhile, just to get help. There were cries muffled in heavy arms, in endless hugs.
It's coming for all of us. No sense running.
But no sense walking into the fire neither, I suppose.
I saw the mother and an aunt later, while I waited for my cab. They went to get food from the catering van. To have a cigarette and to text. While I was waiting, the same man passed me twice. He noted the second time:
"You haven't moved at all!"
I laughed. I was a million miles from where I had been, from when I had arrived. But I don't kid myself in thinking I saw or heard anything special. Just another night. Alone in the presence of another.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
the short story of waiting
I shuffled into the NOLA ER. I'm fairly familiar with the emergency room drill. Intake, triage, wait, room, wait, wait, nurse, doctor, nurse, wait, doctor, discharge. There may be some peculiarities to each experience, but the general pace is usually the same. The waiting is what fills the time. It's like a drip that just won't quit.
It had been pouring rain that day, and apparently this had affected the emergency room; I stepped over wet, dirty towels as I made my way past the security desk, and sat down at the check-in booth.
"What's the matter, baby?" The staffer was a giant man with a sharp mustache and an earring. My eyes welled with tears, and I told him I just couldn't stop being sick.
"Where are you from?"
"Minneapolis."
He asked me for my social security number. My name. No inquiries of insurance or anything. He asked me why I was in New Orleans.
"Work," I croaked.
"Well, you'll just have to come back sometime when you can have some fun," he said.
"I haven't even gotten to eat a muffuletta," I whimpered. This was one of the most important things I had not been able to accomplish. Because I'm just that petty and obsessed.
"You'll come back and have one."
A loud voice bellowed behind me, and I didn't turn around: "What happened to Lori's file?!"
The man before me raised one eyebrow.
"She had the ultrasound and she was just here."
Flashes of HIPAA violations flooded my brain.
"I don't know, I just got here, I don't know anything," he said in a high-pitched lull. Then he directed his attention back to me, the puddle of Minneapolis pathetic goo before him.
"Please go with Mr. Henry, he's the triage nurse and he'll take care of you, baby."
I turned around to see the most massive man in nurse scrubs. He was easily 6'4". He could have crushed me like a can, and he didn't look like he would call me "baby."
We walked through a doorway into a dark room that could be seen from the waiting room. I saw five women there, and I wondered if they all knew each other. They didn't look sick, and they were all chatting away like they were sitting on a breezy street, fanning themselves just because they had the means.
The nurse began the questions, most of which I'll skip. The only one worth mentioning was the obligatory, "Are you pregnant?" To which the answer was, "No," and which elicited the response, "Perfect."
"You're number 668, you need to remember this number," he said as he slipped the hospital bracelet around my wrist. I looked down and there it was, a 668. Touro. Minneapolis.
Out to the waiting room I went, sitting in the same section as the five familiar women. I watched a young, pregnant woman walk painfully toward another bank of chairs with her friend or sister or someone who clearly cared, and three perfect children under the age of 6. She held the underside of her belly like a bad cramp had caught her there and just wouldn't budge. Across from them was a woman in a wheelchair who had busted her arm, sitting in discomfort. Next to me was a guy in Homer Simpson PJs with a bum leg. There was no T.V., no magazines. No distractions.
I listened to the women because really, what else could I do?
"I was in Dallas when Katrina came. And the doors of my house opened up and let the storm in, but I wasn't there to see it."
"PRAISE the Lord."
"The Lord took care of us. He knows what to do. Always."
I leaned my head on the front of my fist and closed my eyes. I wanted to listen but not to intrude. Apparently, the did not know each other. There was some conversation about how familiar she seemed and she seemed, too, and maybe they had met at the market, the place where they said they spent all their money. Child, that's where I've seen you. Of course it is.
By some amazing chance, every one of them had four children. I did the math. That's a lot of people in the world.
"My four boys are all grown and there ain't but one who doesn't live with me."
I thought about the economic implications of this scheme. I imagined myself with three grown adults in my two-bedroom home, and thought about how angry I would be. I wondered what she did for all of them. Turns out one of her sons is blind, but according to her:
"He knows EXACTLY what's going on, and he could get the services."
The woman closest to me piped up. According to her looks, she was the oldest of the five, maybe late 60s, with curlers still in her hair and really, really nice shoes.
And a voice like treacle.
"My first child...was a love child. My second child I had because the first was too attached to her daddy. The third was an accident. And the fourth was a fuck-up."
The other four howled with laughter. I grinned and peeked at them. They saw me and smiled back as their amusement softened.
A doctor came out to see the woman who had been in Dallas when Katrina hit. They stepped out of sight, near the wet towels at the entrance. When she came back, she was clutching her chest. I know because I decided to look.
"He said to call whoever needs to be here and tell them to come."
She walked away in tears. And we all closed our eyes together.
It had been pouring rain that day, and apparently this had affected the emergency room; I stepped over wet, dirty towels as I made my way past the security desk, and sat down at the check-in booth.
"What's the matter, baby?" The staffer was a giant man with a sharp mustache and an earring. My eyes welled with tears, and I told him I just couldn't stop being sick.
"Where are you from?"
"Minneapolis."
He asked me for my social security number. My name. No inquiries of insurance or anything. He asked me why I was in New Orleans.
"Work," I croaked.
"Well, you'll just have to come back sometime when you can have some fun," he said.
"I haven't even gotten to eat a muffuletta," I whimpered. This was one of the most important things I had not been able to accomplish. Because I'm just that petty and obsessed.
"You'll come back and have one."
A loud voice bellowed behind me, and I didn't turn around: "What happened to Lori's file?!"
The man before me raised one eyebrow.
"She had the ultrasound and she was just here."
Flashes of HIPAA violations flooded my brain.
"I don't know, I just got here, I don't know anything," he said in a high-pitched lull. Then he directed his attention back to me, the puddle of Minneapolis pathetic goo before him.
"Please go with Mr. Henry, he's the triage nurse and he'll take care of you, baby."
I turned around to see the most massive man in nurse scrubs. He was easily 6'4". He could have crushed me like a can, and he didn't look like he would call me "baby."
We walked through a doorway into a dark room that could be seen from the waiting room. I saw five women there, and I wondered if they all knew each other. They didn't look sick, and they were all chatting away like they were sitting on a breezy street, fanning themselves just because they had the means.
The nurse began the questions, most of which I'll skip. The only one worth mentioning was the obligatory, "Are you pregnant?" To which the answer was, "No," and which elicited the response, "Perfect."
"You're number 668, you need to remember this number," he said as he slipped the hospital bracelet around my wrist. I looked down and there it was, a 668. Touro. Minneapolis.
Out to the waiting room I went, sitting in the same section as the five familiar women. I watched a young, pregnant woman walk painfully toward another bank of chairs with her friend or sister or someone who clearly cared, and three perfect children under the age of 6. She held the underside of her belly like a bad cramp had caught her there and just wouldn't budge. Across from them was a woman in a wheelchair who had busted her arm, sitting in discomfort. Next to me was a guy in Homer Simpson PJs with a bum leg. There was no T.V., no magazines. No distractions.
I listened to the women because really, what else could I do?
"I was in Dallas when Katrina came. And the doors of my house opened up and let the storm in, but I wasn't there to see it."
"PRAISE the Lord."
"The Lord took care of us. He knows what to do. Always."
I leaned my head on the front of my fist and closed my eyes. I wanted to listen but not to intrude. Apparently, the did not know each other. There was some conversation about how familiar she seemed and she seemed, too, and maybe they had met at the market, the place where they said they spent all their money. Child, that's where I've seen you. Of course it is.
By some amazing chance, every one of them had four children. I did the math. That's a lot of people in the world.
"My four boys are all grown and there ain't but one who doesn't live with me."
I thought about the economic implications of this scheme. I imagined myself with three grown adults in my two-bedroom home, and thought about how angry I would be. I wondered what she did for all of them. Turns out one of her sons is blind, but according to her:
"He knows EXACTLY what's going on, and he could get the services."
The woman closest to me piped up. According to her looks, she was the oldest of the five, maybe late 60s, with curlers still in her hair and really, really nice shoes.
And a voice like treacle.
"My first child...was a love child. My second child I had because the first was too attached to her daddy. The third was an accident. And the fourth was a fuck-up."
The other four howled with laughter. I grinned and peeked at them. They saw me and smiled back as their amusement softened.
A doctor came out to see the woman who had been in Dallas when Katrina hit. They stepped out of sight, near the wet towels at the entrance. When she came back, she was clutching her chest. I know because I decided to look.
"He said to call whoever needs to be here and tell them to come."
She walked away in tears. And we all closed our eyes together.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
thirty-five seconds
I was in New Orleans last week. It's a beautiful part of the earth, that city. I fell in love very deeply and I want to go back.
When I first arrived, I had dinner with a friend who I don't get to see so much. He's the best kind of egg, and we had a grand time sitting atop a balcony on Bourbon street talking, listening, and taking in the senses from below.
Fast-forward to me being very, very sick for the rest of the week. And me needing to be "on" at 8 a.m. on Saturday for work. This transition takes you to where I was Friday night: the emergency room of Touro Hospital, New Orleans, trying to get some drugs.
I have a lot of stories from this night, but this will be the first.
Three cab drivers I met that night, and how they hit me deep down inside the tender parts of my soul. Right in the spot I needed to be touched, and when I needed to be noticed.
* * *
I had been crying on the phone to my husband because I was so sick and tired. I couldn't stop being ill and I still had so much to do and I had nothing left.
"You need to go to the doctor," he said.
"I don't want to go," I said.
So the conversation continued with lots of support in other areas until we parted. And then I made up my mind to do as he said, and go get help.
The ER. Dammit.
I went to the concierge to find my way. Urgent care was closed, of course. You'll have to go to the hospital, doll. They're so nice in the South. Even when they're telling you how royally fucked you are.
He took out a map and showed me the cross streets.
"Tell the cab driver to take you right here, and to take St. Charles street. You know how some of these guys are," he said.
I had no idea how they are, because I'm from someplace else and we only talk like that in veiled slips of passive-aggressive mysteries. But I was grateful for the map all the same.
To my left I saw four friends pass by and out the doors, including my good egg from the first night. They were off to dinner and a show. Next time, I thought. I'll go with them the next time we're together.
I caught my cab in front of the hotel, a red minivan. I showed the driver the map and asked him to take St. Charles street to Touro hospital.
"Are you sick?" he said.
"Don't worry, I won't get sick in here," I said.
"I'm not worried."
We drove awhile, and it was clear we weren't on St. Charles.
There were mansions and weeping trees that fell heavy with rain. It was just how I felt. Full of lead that weighed down the promise I might have had within.
"Where are we?"
"The Garden District."
It was magnificent. Above ground cemeteries and pages from an Ann Rice novel. Everything around me seemed deep without color, all white and pale yellows. We passed the urgent care, boarded up for the night, or had it been closed for longer? I didn't know if Katrina had gotten this far.
"You know, you are sick and you're not from here. You just don't know when that's going to happen to you."
I shook a little inside and acknowledged with a sigh.
"Where are you from?" I asked.
"Haiti."
"Do you still have family there?"
"Yes."
Some more silence. And then he said:
"It took 35 seconds. It was like you closed your eyes and then you opened them, and everything was gone."
I cried openly but held back the whimpers. It was just that fast. And then he said:
"Like here. Like the hurricane. You think you have control. Some men, I think, they just get curious and they think they can do it. They think they have control and then they open their eyes and there is nothing there."
I thought about this underneath my own emotions. It has been a month of profound loss. More than I will ever be able to talk about here. But I thought of something in response to this.
"We have control over ourselves," I said.
"Oh yes. We can choose to be good or evil. Every day."
And just as fast as we had left, we were at the hospital.
I wanted him to come back and get me when I was done, but I was fairly certain this wouldn't be a short trip. He told me to call a United Cab because they take credit cards, but he gave me his number if I got in a bind. He said he'd pick me up any time I wanted. I thanked him and left, walking a block away so he didn't have to go the wrong way down a one way. He waited until I got inside, and then he said good-bye.
* * *
Four hours later and I was done with the ER. I had been waiting for my cab for an hour.
The first one had shown up and didn't take credit cards. Apparently, this is something you have to request when you call. I had no idea, but it makes sense now. So I was waiting for my credit card-taking cab in front of Touro. And up pulls a beautiful United Cab with a lovely elderly lady in the back. I held the heavy door open for her and started to climb in. And the driver, a guy younger than me with nothing but gold for teeth, an straight-brimmed Reds cap and black tattoos everywhere looked at me in confusion.
"Are you my cab?" I said.
"Uhhh, no."
Of course you're not. Because this is where I'm going to wait for the rest of my life.
"Do you take credit cards?"
"No."
I sighed, told him I was waiting for a United Cab that took credit cards. He wished me luck and drove away. I stood in the warm wind and waited. 11 p.m. I was so exhausted. I thought about calling my first driver but something didn't seem right about it. I felt like I was trouble.
A catering van had pulled up in front of the ER entrance, promising hot wings, corn on the cob, various fried things and soda and coffee. Amazing, I thought. People waited in line as though they were expecting it. I turned away and watched some nurses smoke and a guy dance and sing aloud to himself.
"HEY!"
I looked at the catering van and saw the United Cab driver with the Reds hat.
"I'll give you a ride."
My hope shot through the sky, and I walked quickly toward him. I promised him that if he gave me a ride, I'd run inside to the cash machine and tip him well. He said it wasn't a problem. He had gotten stiffed for $140 on credit card trips before and he didn't like to do it, but he didn't want to leave me stranded. His order came through the catering van window.
"I'll buy you dinner," I said.
"Really?"
"Of course."
"Do you want cheese on your broccoli?" asked the catering van owner.
"Whatever's easy," he said.
"Do you want cheese or don't you?"
"Sure," he grinned all gold.
I stuck out my hand and told him my name.
"I'm Cedric," he said. And we shook. He commented that a) He had never had a woman buy him dinner before and b) My handshake was so strong it hurt his arm. This was particularly hilarious because the physical advantage did not lay with me. About the dinner, I said there was a first time for everything. That's something I really believe in.
We stood there and talked while his order came through. About being nice to people and why it's important. He had a wonderful way about him, and he teased me about my handshake some more, and punched me lightly on the arm to let me know he was just foolin'.
And then my cab pulled up.
Cedric told me he would still take me if I wanted to. I said I didn't want to stiff the other cab, and walked over to make sure he had the credit card machine. Sure enough, the new driver held up the swiper. I felt like I was in Tron all of the sudden.
"Bye, Cedric!" I yelled.
He yelled and waved good-bye. I'm glad I got to buy him dinner. It felt good to make Cedric smile.
* * *
I settled into the deep seat of my final cab of the evening. The driver was silent, except to ask me which way I wanted to go. I asked him to take Magazine Street. So up we went, looking at all the beautiful people just beginning their night. It was 11:30 now, and there was still so much life around. I breathed and took it all in, thinking of Cedric and my first driver whose name I never got. There was everything else in-between that I haven't shared yet. An adventure. I swallowed it all and decided it had been a good night. I was on the other side of that evening's tears. We pulled into the cul-de-sac of the hotel, and I gave him my credit card, that which had delayed my arrival by an hour and a half.
"Which one of these is your first name?" he asked.
I set him straight. I guess they're both strange names.
"Where is that from?"
"It's Swedish," I said.
"You're Swedish?"
I never know how to answer this, being an American. No, I'm not Swedish. I'm no more Swedish than the way the letters scramble together. My great-grandparents were from Sweden. But me? I'm so far from anyplace not Midwest, it's immeasurable.
"Yes, I'm Swedish."
"Is that why you're so beautiful?"
I snorted and blushed and laughed my obnoxious laugh.
"No," I said. "I'm beautiful because of my mother."
"Is she Swedish?"
I bellowed and signed the slip.
"Why are you so beautiful?" I asked.
"From my father," he said.
I laughed and thanked him. It was a good answer. We all look like Christmas to someone.
When I first arrived, I had dinner with a friend who I don't get to see so much. He's the best kind of egg, and we had a grand time sitting atop a balcony on Bourbon street talking, listening, and taking in the senses from below.
Fast-forward to me being very, very sick for the rest of the week. And me needing to be "on" at 8 a.m. on Saturday for work. This transition takes you to where I was Friday night: the emergency room of Touro Hospital, New Orleans, trying to get some drugs.
I have a lot of stories from this night, but this will be the first.
Three cab drivers I met that night, and how they hit me deep down inside the tender parts of my soul. Right in the spot I needed to be touched, and when I needed to be noticed.
* * *
I had been crying on the phone to my husband because I was so sick and tired. I couldn't stop being ill and I still had so much to do and I had nothing left.
"You need to go to the doctor," he said.
"I don't want to go," I said.
So the conversation continued with lots of support in other areas until we parted. And then I made up my mind to do as he said, and go get help.
The ER. Dammit.
I went to the concierge to find my way. Urgent care was closed, of course. You'll have to go to the hospital, doll. They're so nice in the South. Even when they're telling you how royally fucked you are.
He took out a map and showed me the cross streets.
"Tell the cab driver to take you right here, and to take St. Charles street. You know how some of these guys are," he said.
I had no idea how they are, because I'm from someplace else and we only talk like that in veiled slips of passive-aggressive mysteries. But I was grateful for the map all the same.
To my left I saw four friends pass by and out the doors, including my good egg from the first night. They were off to dinner and a show. Next time, I thought. I'll go with them the next time we're together.
I caught my cab in front of the hotel, a red minivan. I showed the driver the map and asked him to take St. Charles street to Touro hospital.
"Are you sick?" he said.
"Don't worry, I won't get sick in here," I said.
"I'm not worried."
We drove awhile, and it was clear we weren't on St. Charles.
There were mansions and weeping trees that fell heavy with rain. It was just how I felt. Full of lead that weighed down the promise I might have had within.
"Where are we?"
"The Garden District."
It was magnificent. Above ground cemeteries and pages from an Ann Rice novel. Everything around me seemed deep without color, all white and pale yellows. We passed the urgent care, boarded up for the night, or had it been closed for longer? I didn't know if Katrina had gotten this far.
"You know, you are sick and you're not from here. You just don't know when that's going to happen to you."
I shook a little inside and acknowledged with a sigh.
"Where are you from?" I asked.
"Haiti."
"Do you still have family there?"
"Yes."
Some more silence. And then he said:
"It took 35 seconds. It was like you closed your eyes and then you opened them, and everything was gone."
I cried openly but held back the whimpers. It was just that fast. And then he said:
"Like here. Like the hurricane. You think you have control. Some men, I think, they just get curious and they think they can do it. They think they have control and then they open their eyes and there is nothing there."
I thought about this underneath my own emotions. It has been a month of profound loss. More than I will ever be able to talk about here. But I thought of something in response to this.
"We have control over ourselves," I said.
"Oh yes. We can choose to be good or evil. Every day."
And just as fast as we had left, we were at the hospital.
I wanted him to come back and get me when I was done, but I was fairly certain this wouldn't be a short trip. He told me to call a United Cab because they take credit cards, but he gave me his number if I got in a bind. He said he'd pick me up any time I wanted. I thanked him and left, walking a block away so he didn't have to go the wrong way down a one way. He waited until I got inside, and then he said good-bye.
* * *
Four hours later and I was done with the ER. I had been waiting for my cab for an hour.
The first one had shown up and didn't take credit cards. Apparently, this is something you have to request when you call. I had no idea, but it makes sense now. So I was waiting for my credit card-taking cab in front of Touro. And up pulls a beautiful United Cab with a lovely elderly lady in the back. I held the heavy door open for her and started to climb in. And the driver, a guy younger than me with nothing but gold for teeth, an straight-brimmed Reds cap and black tattoos everywhere looked at me in confusion.
"Are you my cab?" I said.
"Uhhh, no."
Of course you're not. Because this is where I'm going to wait for the rest of my life.
"Do you take credit cards?"
"No."
I sighed, told him I was waiting for a United Cab that took credit cards. He wished me luck and drove away. I stood in the warm wind and waited. 11 p.m. I was so exhausted. I thought about calling my first driver but something didn't seem right about it. I felt like I was trouble.
A catering van had pulled up in front of the ER entrance, promising hot wings, corn on the cob, various fried things and soda and coffee. Amazing, I thought. People waited in line as though they were expecting it. I turned away and watched some nurses smoke and a guy dance and sing aloud to himself.
"HEY!"
I looked at the catering van and saw the United Cab driver with the Reds hat.
"I'll give you a ride."
My hope shot through the sky, and I walked quickly toward him. I promised him that if he gave me a ride, I'd run inside to the cash machine and tip him well. He said it wasn't a problem. He had gotten stiffed for $140 on credit card trips before and he didn't like to do it, but he didn't want to leave me stranded. His order came through the catering van window.
"I'll buy you dinner," I said.
"Really?"
"Of course."
"Do you want cheese on your broccoli?" asked the catering van owner.
"Whatever's easy," he said.
"Do you want cheese or don't you?"
"Sure," he grinned all gold.
I stuck out my hand and told him my name.
"I'm Cedric," he said. And we shook. He commented that a) He had never had a woman buy him dinner before and b) My handshake was so strong it hurt his arm. This was particularly hilarious because the physical advantage did not lay with me. About the dinner, I said there was a first time for everything. That's something I really believe in.
We stood there and talked while his order came through. About being nice to people and why it's important. He had a wonderful way about him, and he teased me about my handshake some more, and punched me lightly on the arm to let me know he was just foolin'.
And then my cab pulled up.
Cedric told me he would still take me if I wanted to. I said I didn't want to stiff the other cab, and walked over to make sure he had the credit card machine. Sure enough, the new driver held up the swiper. I felt like I was in Tron all of the sudden.
"Bye, Cedric!" I yelled.
He yelled and waved good-bye. I'm glad I got to buy him dinner. It felt good to make Cedric smile.
* * *
I settled into the deep seat of my final cab of the evening. The driver was silent, except to ask me which way I wanted to go. I asked him to take Magazine Street. So up we went, looking at all the beautiful people just beginning their night. It was 11:30 now, and there was still so much life around. I breathed and took it all in, thinking of Cedric and my first driver whose name I never got. There was everything else in-between that I haven't shared yet. An adventure. I swallowed it all and decided it had been a good night. I was on the other side of that evening's tears. We pulled into the cul-de-sac of the hotel, and I gave him my credit card, that which had delayed my arrival by an hour and a half.
"Which one of these is your first name?" he asked.
I set him straight. I guess they're both strange names.
"Where is that from?"
"It's Swedish," I said.
"You're Swedish?"
I never know how to answer this, being an American. No, I'm not Swedish. I'm no more Swedish than the way the letters scramble together. My great-grandparents were from Sweden. But me? I'm so far from anyplace not Midwest, it's immeasurable.
"Yes, I'm Swedish."
"Is that why you're so beautiful?"
I snorted and blushed and laughed my obnoxious laugh.
"No," I said. "I'm beautiful because of my mother."
"Is she Swedish?"
I bellowed and signed the slip.
"Why are you so beautiful?" I asked.
"From my father," he said.
I laughed and thanked him. It was a good answer. We all look like Christmas to someone.
Thursday, April 15, 2010
here begins the lesson
He and I. We've been talking a lot about what we have learned. And how everything we did before that was petty and personal, now just has done "poof-ed" into the thin. There are no arguments to be had. It just isn't worth it.
I don't think I believe in lessons. Or meaning. Or "everything happens for a reason." If you're a regular reader, I think you know I believe this entire idea is a crock mixed with...organic matter.
Yet, we are still here. And we have to go on after all of the bigness of the moment.
Two years ago, we lost a child. "Alone in a room" is the entry. Right after this, I had to go away for work. Two weeks after. It was soon after, and I was tender all over. While I was gone, I completely let go of every reasonable feeling I had. I stayed up until the next morning drinking, sulking. In hot tubs and bars where you can't help but be trapped, because there's nothing else to do there. I was in the middle of nowhere doing the middle of nothing. Feeling sorry for myself and silent in the shadow. Consumed by this first big thing that had happened to me. The loss of a child. A person I wouldn't know ever.
These past two weeks, we lost someone with a name and a past and a future before her. And we watched the unbelievable grace of her mother. The Mother. Telling stories in the middle of making decisions about what would happen next, and the even next after that. She gains a brief moment of strength, I think, when we talk about what it was like to be with her daughter. Silly stuff. The person she was and will always be, and what she gave to all and the imprint of her experience on our adult selves. More profound than we knew at the time, because if you thought about it too hard...about how much you take for granted the people you love with every piece of yourself...I think you might explode, and be gone forever.
I spoke with her today, and she doesn't want us to go away. We made a tether, together. The remembering is a string of life. A cord that has some give, but keeps a joining.
"Meaning." Bullshit, that is. "Meant to happen?" I simply will not believe it.
But the lesson.
Let's hold each other close, shall we? Let us keep the bonds tight like nerves and systems and corporeal vines.
The ones who are closest.
My love, my sweetest child's father and my partner in all that is good and otherwise. He is the one I keep wrapped to my heart. He knows everything about me that is good and oh-so-very-wrong. He loves me for all the bruises on the inside and out. He tells me I am amazing.
And our friends on Tuesday nights. You're right, gorgeous; we have kind of grown up together. I can't tell you how lucky I feel that my daughter has such beautiful women around to show her how to be in this crazy world.
The Family Game Night friends who I don't get to see. I eat the leftovers he brings home. They're magnificent.
Next week, I have to go away for work again. Shortly after, a repeated verse. To a different place but for the same thing. I think I will have a balance, this time, between the disconnecting from reality and the hunt for home. It's good to be gone, I suppose. To be selfish and blaming my absence on needing to be there for some reason that isn't connected to "me." Pushing away with anger and feeling pulled by in all directions.
But I promise a balance. I swear I will remain tethered so you're never afraid. Pick out the things she will wear for the season; tell me how she was that day. Every single detail. Tell me she was perfect Tuesday night, playing on the floor of the kitchen. Face-to-face minutes where we say we wish I were home and we were together.
The lesson; it's that I have everything right in front of me. And at any moment. I could lose it all forever.
I don't think I believe in lessons. Or meaning. Or "everything happens for a reason." If you're a regular reader, I think you know I believe this entire idea is a crock mixed with...organic matter.
Yet, we are still here. And we have to go on after all of the bigness of the moment.
Two years ago, we lost a child. "Alone in a room" is the entry. Right after this, I had to go away for work. Two weeks after. It was soon after, and I was tender all over. While I was gone, I completely let go of every reasonable feeling I had. I stayed up until the next morning drinking, sulking. In hot tubs and bars where you can't help but be trapped, because there's nothing else to do there. I was in the middle of nowhere doing the middle of nothing. Feeling sorry for myself and silent in the shadow. Consumed by this first big thing that had happened to me. The loss of a child. A person I wouldn't know ever.
These past two weeks, we lost someone with a name and a past and a future before her. And we watched the unbelievable grace of her mother. The Mother. Telling stories in the middle of making decisions about what would happen next, and the even next after that. She gains a brief moment of strength, I think, when we talk about what it was like to be with her daughter. Silly stuff. The person she was and will always be, and what she gave to all and the imprint of her experience on our adult selves. More profound than we knew at the time, because if you thought about it too hard...about how much you take for granted the people you love with every piece of yourself...I think you might explode, and be gone forever.
I spoke with her today, and she doesn't want us to go away. We made a tether, together. The remembering is a string of life. A cord that has some give, but keeps a joining.
"Meaning." Bullshit, that is. "Meant to happen?" I simply will not believe it.
But the lesson.
Let's hold each other close, shall we? Let us keep the bonds tight like nerves and systems and corporeal vines.
The ones who are closest.
My love, my sweetest child's father and my partner in all that is good and otherwise. He is the one I keep wrapped to my heart. He knows everything about me that is good and oh-so-very-wrong. He loves me for all the bruises on the inside and out. He tells me I am amazing.
And our friends on Tuesday nights. You're right, gorgeous; we have kind of grown up together. I can't tell you how lucky I feel that my daughter has such beautiful women around to show her how to be in this crazy world.
The Family Game Night friends who I don't get to see. I eat the leftovers he brings home. They're magnificent.
Next week, I have to go away for work again. Shortly after, a repeated verse. To a different place but for the same thing. I think I will have a balance, this time, between the disconnecting from reality and the hunt for home. It's good to be gone, I suppose. To be selfish and blaming my absence on needing to be there for some reason that isn't connected to "me." Pushing away with anger and feeling pulled by in all directions.
But I promise a balance. I swear I will remain tethered so you're never afraid. Pick out the things she will wear for the season; tell me how she was that day. Every single detail. Tell me she was perfect Tuesday night, playing on the floor of the kitchen. Face-to-face minutes where we say we wish I were home and we were together.
The lesson; it's that I have everything right in front of me. And at any moment. I could lose it all forever.
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
she is quite wonderful
Sweetness is like sand.
Through your fingers and onto your toes. Little pebbles that turn into delicate piles, forming here and there. And then, all of the sudden, you think it's gone. But that's not the case, really. You find it in the most unexpected places. In-between your sheets and on the baseboards. Your shoes. Everywhere, even. All over the god-damned place.
A very dear person we know has passed away. Or, perhaps, she is in the middle of it all as she continues to give herself to others. In the process of one place to the next.
But neverthemind.
The point of the matter is we cannot see her.
We cannot hear her.
No new challenges between you and one of us to be meted out over time. She belongs to something else. And we all want to see her again. A whole big lot.
Sarah.
The nexus of my life is you, and I had no idea until I came home Monday and looked around the space I see everyday. And the life I have. All that is here. Everything from the walls around me to the person I kiss goodnight. In some way, it all connects to you.
I don't know if this was the way you wanted it to be; that everyone would be so affected by your "you." But you did it.
There was some point over the last two days when I was walking and thinking about what I would say. I'm sure there were some poignant things, crafted in such a way to make me seem on the inside of it all. I knew you when she knew you when and everybody knew you. That's just not the way it was. But you made me feel like I mattered.
Sarah, sweetest darling girl.
You gave me more than you probably planned.
I'm public hiding behind a private me, or perhaps its the other way around. Whichever way I was you turned me inside out. You flipped it all so wherever I thought I had landed, really it was someplace else. And that place was so good. There were concerts and parties and dinners. Friends that last. And there were moments between you and "the him" who is mine that I get to share. Twins games underneath the covers. Frozen candy bars and bad teen pop. Jesus, Sarah. You gave me a history of the person I'll be with forever. You gave him a past that isn't high school.
We have had the Family Room. A condensed version of life with stories and muffins and fruit and homemade truffles. These times of immense intense, vivid memories, plucked sharply with silence and tears that just won't end. A word or two will set us off into a sobbing jag, where we need a shoulder even though we don't want it. I want to be with everyone at all at once, I just want to be alone, too.
There is so much love for you. Abounding and amazing. Profound and everlasting.
Whatever happens after all of this, you know it now. Before any of us.
Sarah, everyone is very sad.
If you could do one last thing. If you could give us a moment to transcend the days in the Family Room. Where we see you smiling and saying something we would quote later when telling a story of Sarah to each other. Putting your hand just barely to your mouth in a faux "shocked" way of being, more for effect than for anything. If you could just give us one more moment of you, I think we would make it to wherever we need to be much sooner than we probably will.
As it is, all we have is each other. It is intense and important to be here. As good as it can be. I love to tell you all that I love you. I love that it is ok to say those words.
But Sarah, it would be better with you here.
It would be so good with you. To tell you that we love you.
He and I; we just said good-bye, and didn't say we would miss you.
No regrets. But for the record, the missing lasts forever. The whole life long.
The sweetness piles up between our toes. We will build a castle right on the part of the shore where it wears away slowly. One wave at a time.
Through your fingers and onto your toes. Little pebbles that turn into delicate piles, forming here and there. And then, all of the sudden, you think it's gone. But that's not the case, really. You find it in the most unexpected places. In-between your sheets and on the baseboards. Your shoes. Everywhere, even. All over the god-damned place.
A very dear person we know has passed away. Or, perhaps, she is in the middle of it all as she continues to give herself to others. In the process of one place to the next.
But neverthemind.
The point of the matter is we cannot see her.
We cannot hear her.
No new challenges between you and one of us to be meted out over time. She belongs to something else. And we all want to see her again. A whole big lot.
Sarah.
The nexus of my life is you, and I had no idea until I came home Monday and looked around the space I see everyday. And the life I have. All that is here. Everything from the walls around me to the person I kiss goodnight. In some way, it all connects to you.
I don't know if this was the way you wanted it to be; that everyone would be so affected by your "you." But you did it.
There was some point over the last two days when I was walking and thinking about what I would say. I'm sure there were some poignant things, crafted in such a way to make me seem on the inside of it all. I knew you when she knew you when and everybody knew you. That's just not the way it was. But you made me feel like I mattered.
Sarah, sweetest darling girl.
You gave me more than you probably planned.
I'm public hiding behind a private me, or perhaps its the other way around. Whichever way I was you turned me inside out. You flipped it all so wherever I thought I had landed, really it was someplace else. And that place was so good. There were concerts and parties and dinners. Friends that last. And there were moments between you and "the him" who is mine that I get to share. Twins games underneath the covers. Frozen candy bars and bad teen pop. Jesus, Sarah. You gave me a history of the person I'll be with forever. You gave him a past that isn't high school.
We have had the Family Room. A condensed version of life with stories and muffins and fruit and homemade truffles. These times of immense intense, vivid memories, plucked sharply with silence and tears that just won't end. A word or two will set us off into a sobbing jag, where we need a shoulder even though we don't want it. I want to be with everyone at all at once, I just want to be alone, too.
There is so much love for you. Abounding and amazing. Profound and everlasting.
Whatever happens after all of this, you know it now. Before any of us.
Sarah, everyone is very sad.
If you could do one last thing. If you could give us a moment to transcend the days in the Family Room. Where we see you smiling and saying something we would quote later when telling a story of Sarah to each other. Putting your hand just barely to your mouth in a faux "shocked" way of being, more for effect than for anything. If you could just give us one more moment of you, I think we would make it to wherever we need to be much sooner than we probably will.
As it is, all we have is each other. It is intense and important to be here. As good as it can be. I love to tell you all that I love you. I love that it is ok to say those words.
But Sarah, it would be better with you here.
It would be so good with you. To tell you that we love you.
He and I; we just said good-bye, and didn't say we would miss you.
No regrets. But for the record, the missing lasts forever. The whole life long.
The sweetness piles up between our toes. We will build a castle right on the part of the shore where it wears away slowly. One wave at a time.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
the keeping is not forever
Secrets are phantoms. They are terrors, even.
I have thought a lot about what to write here for a long time. About secrets. I am almost afraid to start. There are the things people tell us, the secrets shared with us, about other people. When we are trusted to be the keeper of a third party story--the person who would rather we didn't know, but we end up knowing all the same. It is just often too compelling to keep it a true secret. Secrets become trivialized the further they spread outside the center. Actions with context and explanation become reduced, like the farthest ripples of the biggest stone when it lands. And then you can't separate it from the rest of the water.
There are our own secrets. Stories about our families or our friends and experiences we have had together. Silent moments, deep hurt. Those are the things worth keeping quiet about, right? Because it takes so much to explain why these are not bad things. There are choices we make, all of us, that we don't want to talk about. So we think about them or not, depending on our style. Songs remind us of secrets. Skies remind us. And smells and words. And we hope everything passes outside of memory someday, and that we forget. But that's not the way of ghosts, really. Secrets are the most profound hauntings.
When I was in the fifth grade, my family experienced something very difficult we all had to keep secret. It was a big deal, and has certainly informed "me." I will tell you if you ask me, if you really need to know. But it's not my secret alone. So I can't give it away that easily. Many of you know it already anyway.
For all kinds of reasons that made sense for all types of realities, we all had occasion to tell lies to keep the secret. Its integrity. That was much harder than having the secret in the first place. Maintaining the fortification so it could not escape. That was the challenge. Given the scope and reach of the event, it affected so much of my daily existence that little sub-lies had to emerge. Snowballing into something greater and grander than what would have happened, possibly, if there had been nothing to keep quiet about. The burden grew like weeds. I can tell you that I have things I cannot pull out of my garden each year because their roots are too deep. And they remind me of this.
There was a day that may be remembered be one of you, too. Sitting down by the creek. The same creek where two years later I would have my first kiss. And I was wearing a shirt of my mother's, like kids do because they think some of their parents clothes are cool (before they realize this is wrong, wrong, wrong). Green and black big, art deco dice print, I think. And bad jeans with tennies. I was with a friend, and I started crying. Out of nowhere. The pressure of keeping this quiet, while dealing with all of its impacts was just too much for the little me. And the greatness of it was probably more than should have been shared with a fellow fifth grader. But I told her anyway. Just to have someone else hear it. Like I was shifting the burden. Roll it up the hill with me, will you?
This person I told, this child who is now a woman, was very kind. And I remember never speaking of it with her again. But I knew that she knew, and it was just fine. She may have told someone else. And that's just fine, too.
I told other people after that, with a measured choice that surprises me. But I was always expecting the world to fall down around me, you see. It felt like betrayal to not have a secret anymore.
But it wasn't.
Because it happened to me, too.
At the end here, I often don't know where to go. I am left creating an epilogue, translating these memories into a way I will behave going forward because I want so much for my daughter, the only child I have, the only child I ever want to understand a way to be in the world that is strong and honest. A way to be that is without secrets that weigh you down.
My darling, if you keep writings of your own--any reflections or sussing out of the world--someday your children will read it. As you will read mine. Near the lamp from my teenage room and the books you avoid as you reach for my glasses.
Every way you act in the world in some way belongs to the world.
You can have thoughts. You can have private thoughts that no one knows.
Actions are owned by the many. The everything. You can make mistakes. You can do what you want at the time, and you should. There is, in many cases, no other way to learn. Be stronger than the secrets you make for yourself. Outlast them with the choices you have yet to print upon who you will be. Never be afraid of your worst day; the day you answer for it...that is when the freedom comes.
I have thought a lot about what to write here for a long time. About secrets. I am almost afraid to start. There are the things people tell us, the secrets shared with us, about other people. When we are trusted to be the keeper of a third party story--the person who would rather we didn't know, but we end up knowing all the same. It is just often too compelling to keep it a true secret. Secrets become trivialized the further they spread outside the center. Actions with context and explanation become reduced, like the farthest ripples of the biggest stone when it lands. And then you can't separate it from the rest of the water.
There are our own secrets. Stories about our families or our friends and experiences we have had together. Silent moments, deep hurt. Those are the things worth keeping quiet about, right? Because it takes so much to explain why these are not bad things. There are choices we make, all of us, that we don't want to talk about. So we think about them or not, depending on our style. Songs remind us of secrets. Skies remind us. And smells and words. And we hope everything passes outside of memory someday, and that we forget. But that's not the way of ghosts, really. Secrets are the most profound hauntings.
When I was in the fifth grade, my family experienced something very difficult we all had to keep secret. It was a big deal, and has certainly informed "me." I will tell you if you ask me, if you really need to know. But it's not my secret alone. So I can't give it away that easily. Many of you know it already anyway.
For all kinds of reasons that made sense for all types of realities, we all had occasion to tell lies to keep the secret. Its integrity. That was much harder than having the secret in the first place. Maintaining the fortification so it could not escape. That was the challenge. Given the scope and reach of the event, it affected so much of my daily existence that little sub-lies had to emerge. Snowballing into something greater and grander than what would have happened, possibly, if there had been nothing to keep quiet about. The burden grew like weeds. I can tell you that I have things I cannot pull out of my garden each year because their roots are too deep. And they remind me of this.
There was a day that may be remembered be one of you, too. Sitting down by the creek. The same creek where two years later I would have my first kiss. And I was wearing a shirt of my mother's, like kids do because they think some of their parents clothes are cool (before they realize this is wrong, wrong, wrong). Green and black big, art deco dice print, I think. And bad jeans with tennies. I was with a friend, and I started crying. Out of nowhere. The pressure of keeping this quiet, while dealing with all of its impacts was just too much for the little me. And the greatness of it was probably more than should have been shared with a fellow fifth grader. But I told her anyway. Just to have someone else hear it. Like I was shifting the burden. Roll it up the hill with me, will you?
This person I told, this child who is now a woman, was very kind. And I remember never speaking of it with her again. But I knew that she knew, and it was just fine. She may have told someone else. And that's just fine, too.
I told other people after that, with a measured choice that surprises me. But I was always expecting the world to fall down around me, you see. It felt like betrayal to not have a secret anymore.
But it wasn't.
Because it happened to me, too.
At the end here, I often don't know where to go. I am left creating an epilogue, translating these memories into a way I will behave going forward because I want so much for my daughter, the only child I have, the only child I ever want to understand a way to be in the world that is strong and honest. A way to be that is without secrets that weigh you down.
My darling, if you keep writings of your own--any reflections or sussing out of the world--someday your children will read it. As you will read mine. Near the lamp from my teenage room and the books you avoid as you reach for my glasses.
Every way you act in the world in some way belongs to the world.
You can have thoughts. You can have private thoughts that no one knows.
Actions are owned by the many. The everything. You can make mistakes. You can do what you want at the time, and you should. There is, in many cases, no other way to learn. Be stronger than the secrets you make for yourself. Outlast them with the choices you have yet to print upon who you will be. Never be afraid of your worst day; the day you answer for it...that is when the freedom comes.
Friday, February 26, 2010
needed
My daughter is curious. She is 13 months old and passionate about discovery. Like most new people in the world. I don't remember a time when she wasn't this way, so growing up together thus far has been void of her seeming to need me for much. She loves me to be sure. She loves with her whole body, throwing herself on me and rolling around. But most of the time, she just wants to do her own thing. And I can watch if I want to. She'll love me as part of her play.
Her curiousness is not confined to stuff. She loves people, too. A flirt. At breakfast, she smiles and waves "Hi" to strangers. She even taps people on the back. When she went to her newest daycare--her third--they warned us that we may have to pick her up early on the first day, to maintain her sense of security. There was no phone call. She introduced herself to everyone and everything was just fine.
This morning we went to the doctor for her several month check-up. The nurse we see is lovely. "I love big babies," she says. "It's good for them." Undress, weight, height. Back to the room to wait for the actual physician.
Her doctor is an interesting character. A Boomer. Jeans somewhat pegged and plaid flannel showing where the cuffs turn up. We saw him walk past us in a leather jacket once. He has mentioned that he goes to the gym, and tells me that he hates our governor as much as I must, because he knows where I work and knows how brutal it has been with the budget cuts. A mix of familiarity and a bedside manner from, perhaps, the 1940s. He's sweet, really.
The point of this description is to let you know there is nothing strange about him. He's a normal person. With a medical degree.
My daughter was playing near me but not on me. Reading books. Talking and making cow noises. In walks the doctor.
And she loses her cotton-picking mind. Complete and total meltdown. Planets exploding in her eyes.
I laughed in disbelief. I couldn't help it. I was thunderstruck. She reached for me and held onto me like a cub, clinging her paws on the undersides of my arms. I couldn't even turn her around without her wailing. He listening to her chest and said loudly above her cries, "You look like you played volleyball!" "I did!" I said. Really, is was just my freshman year, and I wasn't good. At all. He kept asking me sports questions and I answered back, gently holding her down as he examined her further for whatever she is supposed to be. We were talking at a loud yell over the tomato-faced cub. Which was interesting, because I currently don't have a voice. It has been taken temporarily, I assume, by some viral illness or something. I wasn't yelling at the Olympics.
It was over. At least that part. Next were the shots, but a reprieve before. Us alone in the room. Me and her.
She held me close and I held her back. I pressed my hand to the side of her head to move it closer to my chest. I swayed a little and because I can't talk, I whispered a song to her. Her breathing slowed. I moved my hand to her back and noticed that her head stayed just as tightly pressed as if I had been forcing it there. The niceness of this moment. The need I felt from her, there was almost a sense of guilt at my joy of being needed while she feared the world that has always been her pearl. I felt so much a mom. It was so nice.
The rest of the visit was tough for her as well. And I coaxed her into comfort and back into her clothes. "Time to go to school," I said. I wondered if I would need to take her home and hold her tightly again. Maybe she was too traumatized to be apart from me. I'll drive here there and see how it goes. One foot in front of the other has always been my motto. One foot in front until you fall down.
We arrived at daycare. Step one and two and three. Into the bungalow. Washed her hands. Four and five and six.
"She went to the doctor this morning. It was a little rough."
"Well, she seems fine now."
I looked at her fully then. She was playing far away from me again. I started to walk away.
"Bye!" The enthusiastic familiar jewel she gives me and everyone else.
The phantom embrace was still there. I felt it, warmer than the sun that fell around me. The only sun there is to feel.
Her curiousness is not confined to stuff. She loves people, too. A flirt. At breakfast, she smiles and waves "Hi" to strangers. She even taps people on the back. When she went to her newest daycare--her third--they warned us that we may have to pick her up early on the first day, to maintain her sense of security. There was no phone call. She introduced herself to everyone and everything was just fine.
This morning we went to the doctor for her several month check-up. The nurse we see is lovely. "I love big babies," she says. "It's good for them." Undress, weight, height. Back to the room to wait for the actual physician.
Her doctor is an interesting character. A Boomer. Jeans somewhat pegged and plaid flannel showing where the cuffs turn up. We saw him walk past us in a leather jacket once. He has mentioned that he goes to the gym, and tells me that he hates our governor as much as I must, because he knows where I work and knows how brutal it has been with the budget cuts. A mix of familiarity and a bedside manner from, perhaps, the 1940s. He's sweet, really.
The point of this description is to let you know there is nothing strange about him. He's a normal person. With a medical degree.
My daughter was playing near me but not on me. Reading books. Talking and making cow noises. In walks the doctor.
And she loses her cotton-picking mind. Complete and total meltdown. Planets exploding in her eyes.
I laughed in disbelief. I couldn't help it. I was thunderstruck. She reached for me and held onto me like a cub, clinging her paws on the undersides of my arms. I couldn't even turn her around without her wailing. He listening to her chest and said loudly above her cries, "You look like you played volleyball!" "I did!" I said. Really, is was just my freshman year, and I wasn't good. At all. He kept asking me sports questions and I answered back, gently holding her down as he examined her further for whatever she is supposed to be. We were talking at a loud yell over the tomato-faced cub. Which was interesting, because I currently don't have a voice. It has been taken temporarily, I assume, by some viral illness or something. I wasn't yelling at the Olympics.
It was over. At least that part. Next were the shots, but a reprieve before. Us alone in the room. Me and her.
She held me close and I held her back. I pressed my hand to the side of her head to move it closer to my chest. I swayed a little and because I can't talk, I whispered a song to her. Her breathing slowed. I moved my hand to her back and noticed that her head stayed just as tightly pressed as if I had been forcing it there. The niceness of this moment. The need I felt from her, there was almost a sense of guilt at my joy of being needed while she feared the world that has always been her pearl. I felt so much a mom. It was so nice.
The rest of the visit was tough for her as well. And I coaxed her into comfort and back into her clothes. "Time to go to school," I said. I wondered if I would need to take her home and hold her tightly again. Maybe she was too traumatized to be apart from me. I'll drive here there and see how it goes. One foot in front of the other has always been my motto. One foot in front until you fall down.
We arrived at daycare. Step one and two and three. Into the bungalow. Washed her hands. Four and five and six.
"She went to the doctor this morning. It was a little rough."
"Well, she seems fine now."
I looked at her fully then. She was playing far away from me again. I started to walk away.
"Bye!" The enthusiastic familiar jewel she gives me and everyone else.
The phantom embrace was still there. I felt it, warmer than the sun that fell around me. The only sun there is to feel.
Monday, February 15, 2010
bite thy tongue
When I was a kid, I thought living in this state was a stroke of great fortune because of the changing seasons. Specifically, the snow. We get snow. A lot of snow. With this comes the cold, but this wasn't something I ever really noticed, probably because I was kept warm by sugar, emotions for which I had no conduit, and moon boots. I loved the snow and couldn't imagine living in a place where it was green and brown all year round. It made me feel lucky. And little hipper than warm climate dwellers.
To be young. To be young and totally insane.
My adoration for the seasons has waned, a direct inverse relationship to my age. I started to give myself tricks to keep appreciating things. "Anyone can be creative when it's warm; it takes true genius to have a great idea in the winter." Or I would force myself into a moment of awe as we drove past the river, the trees creating a decadent, diamond arch above our passage. This majesty was only present immediately following a snowfall, lasting all of about 24 hours before it became a bunny flop of dirty mess. And then it was just cold again.
I have lost my appreciation for the beauty of winter and the snow. It represents exhaustion. Responsibility. Agony. It feels like death. I'm tired of being stuck in the road, stuck in my house, wet feet. No one holding hands because it's too hard with gloves. No faces seen through scarves. Pale and repetitive. There's this scene in Fargo where Steve Buscemi is burying the money in the middle of nothing. He looks around, making a mind map of his surroundings so he can return for the loot in a scene or two. To his left: a blanket of nothing. His right: a mirror image of the left and everything around and besides is all the same. He takes the red window scraper he has used to dig a shallow hole, and plants it there. An angry scar. A desperate, hail mary hope that he'll be able to get back to this same spot that looks like everything else in its description of "eternal sameness."
That's pretty much how I feel. I do not feel creative enough to appreciate what is happening around me. I feel the same as yesterday.
I have to take a different approach. I have to do something that I generally try to avoid, because I feel like this strategy is placing an undue burden on someone who can't quite speak for herself yet. Using her for something I need without her consent. But I've got to do something. So I turn to my daughter. And I use her.
She is just starting to marvel at the white blanket around her. We took her sledding once, and she drug her hand along the sidewalk, leaning into the puff. She has seen it snow, and laughed. She is just starting to get it. Next year will be better; she'll be able to play more, and will understand but a bit more about the importance of wearing a hat and gloves. She'll start to saturate her mind with the possibilities of this season.
It will be different with this than with other things I have discovered again with her as though it were the first time. Because she cannot make me like it. Because I don't. It's not like pasta or cheese or animals. But there will be this brief time in her life when the snow means something else to her. A gift from this land, from Kepler, dendritic and singular. So I will learn to keep my head level. Not curse at biting wind. I will give her space to discover what it means for her, and let her learn to tell herself whatever stories she wants about the remarkable nature of the earth. I won't destroy the possibilities for her with my own developed, prejudiced mind.
It means something, this. Letting something be special for someone. Even when you think otherwise.
To be young. To be young and totally insane.
My adoration for the seasons has waned, a direct inverse relationship to my age. I started to give myself tricks to keep appreciating things. "Anyone can be creative when it's warm; it takes true genius to have a great idea in the winter." Or I would force myself into a moment of awe as we drove past the river, the trees creating a decadent, diamond arch above our passage. This majesty was only present immediately following a snowfall, lasting all of about 24 hours before it became a bunny flop of dirty mess. And then it was just cold again.
I have lost my appreciation for the beauty of winter and the snow. It represents exhaustion. Responsibility. Agony. It feels like death. I'm tired of being stuck in the road, stuck in my house, wet feet. No one holding hands because it's too hard with gloves. No faces seen through scarves. Pale and repetitive. There's this scene in Fargo where Steve Buscemi is burying the money in the middle of nothing. He looks around, making a mind map of his surroundings so he can return for the loot in a scene or two. To his left: a blanket of nothing. His right: a mirror image of the left and everything around and besides is all the same. He takes the red window scraper he has used to dig a shallow hole, and plants it there. An angry scar. A desperate, hail mary hope that he'll be able to get back to this same spot that looks like everything else in its description of "eternal sameness."
That's pretty much how I feel. I do not feel creative enough to appreciate what is happening around me. I feel the same as yesterday.
I have to take a different approach. I have to do something that I generally try to avoid, because I feel like this strategy is placing an undue burden on someone who can't quite speak for herself yet. Using her for something I need without her consent. But I've got to do something. So I turn to my daughter. And I use her.
She is just starting to marvel at the white blanket around her. We took her sledding once, and she drug her hand along the sidewalk, leaning into the puff. She has seen it snow, and laughed. She is just starting to get it. Next year will be better; she'll be able to play more, and will understand but a bit more about the importance of wearing a hat and gloves. She'll start to saturate her mind with the possibilities of this season.
It will be different with this than with other things I have discovered again with her as though it were the first time. Because she cannot make me like it. Because I don't. It's not like pasta or cheese or animals. But there will be this brief time in her life when the snow means something else to her. A gift from this land, from Kepler, dendritic and singular. So I will learn to keep my head level. Not curse at biting wind. I will give her space to discover what it means for her, and let her learn to tell herself whatever stories she wants about the remarkable nature of the earth. I won't destroy the possibilities for her with my own developed, prejudiced mind.
It means something, this. Letting something be special for someone. Even when you think otherwise.
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
tell me
I have a vibrant love affair with change. I get bored with frightening ease. I don't pay attention to that many things for that long because I'm afraid I'm missing something else. Must shift the attention so I don't lose a moment over there, let me tiptoe to see. I like to have ideas and thoughts and share them with people and hope that they take flight. And then I like to go about my way to something else.
I have a couple of uncles. When I was a kid, one of them used to have a trick for getting me to calm down in my hyper-extended fury of doings. He would gently touch his thumbs and pointer fingers together, making somewhat of a Hershey Kiss-shaped triangle, and he would say in a slow breath, "Mellow." I also had a teacher who forbade me from eating sugar.
For someone who moves around a lot, I do actually listen. I like to listen. And I'm highly impressionable. So I took the mellow very seriously, confident that it had an actual impact on my vibes. It's a strange mix of superstition and, even in this, a want to be different in five minutes. I don't have to be hyper all the time, that would get old. I can be chill, too. I can be anything for a little while.
The older I get, the more intentional I am about directing the frantic me into appropriate channels, and the greater desire I have to work on things until they are at a seeming state of "done." Since I have become a mother, this re-routing of energy has become more important, because I want my daughter to be able to focus on something. Like homework (which I almost never did). I want her to be able to be satisfied sitting still and dwelling on a problem without drifting off into contexts and connections. At least I think that's what I want. I'm not at all certain what she has in mind for herself. She may have other ideas.
I place so much value on the things that I can't or don't do. If I can do it, it must not be important. I have tried to talk myself out of this logic, but that is something I'm really not good at. Because I will listen to everyone before I listen to myself. This probably stems as much from a desire to make people happy as it does to change. Whichever comes first in that equation, I'm not sure. Another post another time. The point is I see other people being focused. Doing math. Keeping a really clean house. I think about the things I am good at: change and listening. Following orders which leads to change, even if it's becoming someone's vision of what you should be. When I was in labor, the nurse commented on how perfectly I did exactly what she told me to do, causing my husband to say, "She would be great in the Army."
There's a line in a movie (always points if you know which one). A woman is introducing her boyfriend to all her friends and the dialogue goes something like, "This is Jack. He's an artist, but right now he works at a bank." "This is Charlene, she's in real estate, but she's really a dancer." After several of these exchanges, the boyfriend says this:
"Let me ask you something; why is it all your friends are on their way to becoming somebody else?"
In those words I sit, anxious but peeking around the corner of the phrase. So wonderful to dream and imagine who I am going to be when I grow up. So frightening to wonder that I am not yet somewhere I might be. I could, and probably will, do this for the rest of my life. But I will sit still, making the mellow sign, and tell myself who I am as though I have traits locked firmly to my every action and blink, that are with me even when I'm being a good soldier. If I could choose who I am and what I would do in a future yet-to-be-determined, these things, I would take them with me. The me who can be someone else but will show you how to make the mellow sign. The me who wants to hear what you have to say and is so interested in you, for real. The me who asks questions to understand and remembers what you said the next time I see you. Who wants to look at pictures of people I have never met because you want to show them to someone, and I feel lucky. And it is this me who daydreams with you on the cloud of your choice, about the person you will be someday, too.
I have a couple of uncles. When I was a kid, one of them used to have a trick for getting me to calm down in my hyper-extended fury of doings. He would gently touch his thumbs and pointer fingers together, making somewhat of a Hershey Kiss-shaped triangle, and he would say in a slow breath, "Mellow." I also had a teacher who forbade me from eating sugar.
For someone who moves around a lot, I do actually listen. I like to listen. And I'm highly impressionable. So I took the mellow very seriously, confident that it had an actual impact on my vibes. It's a strange mix of superstition and, even in this, a want to be different in five minutes. I don't have to be hyper all the time, that would get old. I can be chill, too. I can be anything for a little while.
The older I get, the more intentional I am about directing the frantic me into appropriate channels, and the greater desire I have to work on things until they are at a seeming state of "done." Since I have become a mother, this re-routing of energy has become more important, because I want my daughter to be able to focus on something. Like homework (which I almost never did). I want her to be able to be satisfied sitting still and dwelling on a problem without drifting off into contexts and connections. At least I think that's what I want. I'm not at all certain what she has in mind for herself. She may have other ideas.
I place so much value on the things that I can't or don't do. If I can do it, it must not be important. I have tried to talk myself out of this logic, but that is something I'm really not good at. Because I will listen to everyone before I listen to myself. This probably stems as much from a desire to make people happy as it does to change. Whichever comes first in that equation, I'm not sure. Another post another time. The point is I see other people being focused. Doing math. Keeping a really clean house. I think about the things I am good at: change and listening. Following orders which leads to change, even if it's becoming someone's vision of what you should be. When I was in labor, the nurse commented on how perfectly I did exactly what she told me to do, causing my husband to say, "She would be great in the Army."
There's a line in a movie (always points if you know which one). A woman is introducing her boyfriend to all her friends and the dialogue goes something like, "This is Jack. He's an artist, but right now he works at a bank." "This is Charlene, she's in real estate, but she's really a dancer." After several of these exchanges, the boyfriend says this:
"Let me ask you something; why is it all your friends are on their way to becoming somebody else?"
In those words I sit, anxious but peeking around the corner of the phrase. So wonderful to dream and imagine who I am going to be when I grow up. So frightening to wonder that I am not yet somewhere I might be. I could, and probably will, do this for the rest of my life. But I will sit still, making the mellow sign, and tell myself who I am as though I have traits locked firmly to my every action and blink, that are with me even when I'm being a good soldier. If I could choose who I am and what I would do in a future yet-to-be-determined, these things, I would take them with me. The me who can be someone else but will show you how to make the mellow sign. The me who wants to hear what you have to say and is so interested in you, for real. The me who asks questions to understand and remembers what you said the next time I see you. Who wants to look at pictures of people I have never met because you want to show them to someone, and I feel lucky. And it is this me who daydreams with you on the cloud of your choice, about the person you will be someday, too.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
from here to the rest of the world
We are almost done watching "the Wire." We've plowed through it with our accustomed tenacity, and we are one episode away from done. There's a lot about this series I really like. In particular, the fact that it takes place in Baltimore--the only other city where I spend any time in my youth--is special. Baltimore is a strange, simmering place. It is midnight in-between the south and east. This series captures some of that. And some things are missing. Like my sister and I smoking menthol cigarettes three blocks away from my grandmother's house after eating cheese steak sandwiches, and buying a box of Entertainment cookies and eating them on the side of a hill by the busy street. Me walking my grandmother's silent greyhound while wearing a pair of boots that went up to my thighs that I had found in her old clothes (?) past the old building whereabouts my great grandmother and her sister owned a dry cleaning business. Sno Cones with marshmallow topping and graveyards and trips to Ocean City. But they had steamed crab, scrapple, and the Domino Sugar sign in the show. I remember those things, too.
One of the kids in the show is struggling with his place on earth. He's not made for the streets but he is made from them, and this is a tough bind. He's smart but not brilliant. And not lucky. He's sweet. He wants to fit and protect himself. To figure out where he belongs, like any of us do, and survive in the most primal sense. So there's this scene where he's sitting outside the boxing gym of a reformed criminal, and they're just talking. This guy is telling the kid he's not meant to fight either, kind of breaking it to him. And he's not old enough to work. There are other things out there in other places that have yet to be explored. Life is his to be had. But not exactly, because this kid has to make his way to the place where he belongs, all on his own. And he asks the boxer something:
"How do you get from here to the rest of the world?"
The lump formed in my throat. And I went through my typical brain tricks ("It's just a show, this kid probably has steady acting work.") But these games don't really matter, because this line represents something that really is. Poverty. Racism. Hatred. City. Generations to overcome. And I cried, thinking about that kid sitting somewhere in Baltimore, somewhere.
The last time I felt this way, I tried to do something. I joined the fight, the cause, to try and deal with the inequalities that ebb in and out of the structures that keep us safe, employed, and in a home. My experience was not good. I was young, and my hopes were easily affected. There was one final thing that did it for me, where I had to watch someone try and stand up for themselves against a mountain. They were crushed, and I just couldn't do it anymore. I quit.
Life is really as hard for me as I make it, or perceive it to be. But it is not hard. I never doubted that I could step out of my front door and do anything I wanted. I have written about the chapters I have ended because of a more thorough understanding of myself. This is a gift, really. It's a good thing. I am fine-tuning my path, not paving it.
But I should be listening and looking for that way to help others reach the rest of the world. And not give up on it. To fork my road toward someone else. I don't think there is just one thing to do, and I think that was my first mistake those years ago. The thought that if I had this credential, this identity, it would make a difference because it was significant. But it is about choices made every day. There may be a "big thing to do." But it is only sustainable if the smaller things support its structure. So that when it shakes, it doesn't fall.
The boxer didn't have an answer for the kid. They sat in the darkness not knowing.
One of the kids in the show is struggling with his place on earth. He's not made for the streets but he is made from them, and this is a tough bind. He's smart but not brilliant. And not lucky. He's sweet. He wants to fit and protect himself. To figure out where he belongs, like any of us do, and survive in the most primal sense. So there's this scene where he's sitting outside the boxing gym of a reformed criminal, and they're just talking. This guy is telling the kid he's not meant to fight either, kind of breaking it to him. And he's not old enough to work. There are other things out there in other places that have yet to be explored. Life is his to be had. But not exactly, because this kid has to make his way to the place where he belongs, all on his own. And he asks the boxer something:
"How do you get from here to the rest of the world?"
The lump formed in my throat. And I went through my typical brain tricks ("It's just a show, this kid probably has steady acting work.") But these games don't really matter, because this line represents something that really is. Poverty. Racism. Hatred. City. Generations to overcome. And I cried, thinking about that kid sitting somewhere in Baltimore, somewhere.
The last time I felt this way, I tried to do something. I joined the fight, the cause, to try and deal with the inequalities that ebb in and out of the structures that keep us safe, employed, and in a home. My experience was not good. I was young, and my hopes were easily affected. There was one final thing that did it for me, where I had to watch someone try and stand up for themselves against a mountain. They were crushed, and I just couldn't do it anymore. I quit.
Life is really as hard for me as I make it, or perceive it to be. But it is not hard. I never doubted that I could step out of my front door and do anything I wanted. I have written about the chapters I have ended because of a more thorough understanding of myself. This is a gift, really. It's a good thing. I am fine-tuning my path, not paving it.
But I should be listening and looking for that way to help others reach the rest of the world. And not give up on it. To fork my road toward someone else. I don't think there is just one thing to do, and I think that was my first mistake those years ago. The thought that if I had this credential, this identity, it would make a difference because it was significant. But it is about choices made every day. There may be a "big thing to do." But it is only sustainable if the smaller things support its structure. So that when it shakes, it doesn't fall.
The boxer didn't have an answer for the kid. They sat in the darkness not knowing.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
you must be out of your mind
A friend and a good soul I know has a very lovely habit. She uses a lot of caveats and likes to provide a lot of context for what she says, the stories she tells, and the situations she reveals. I really like this about her. We jive on it. Probably because I do it, too. I am entangled in background and context. There is nothing I love more than a good story from anyone.
We were laughing about the caveats and how being a partner to each of us must be interesting. So much wind up before the pitch. All the information that precedes "getting to the point." She said something I will always remember her for. We were acknowledging this tick, and she said:
"It's really more of a third date habit."
I had a wonderful mental collision as these words became a thought. The truths we don't share about our peculiar selves until we are--I am--the smallest bit certain there's a chance we'll not be pushed back into the tiny plastic musical chair. It's like the, "I'll let you see me naked" of the less primal us. And when it gets right down to it, this is the part that matters when it comes to any kind of union. Not the imperfections in flesh. I could describe to you everything about me that is physical and someone, somewhere would tell me how those folds and shadows are beautiful. There's a fetish in all of us that loves the unsymmetrical. The freckles. The too small this and the too big that. Because people are like that. That is why they are amazing. We even pride ourselves on the things we seek that are singular in their attraction.
But let me tell you about my temper. It is red. My jackass-ery; significant. My insecurities manifested with specific rules and codes of conduct that you didn't know you were participating in, but you are. Didn't you know you were supposed to be this way?
I cancel plans. I make excuses that are not about me but are about some unforeseen circumstance that never could have possibly happened unless it was fate. Not lies, but bundled truths. And other things. Complicated "I am so very sorry" for everything upon everything. Let's top it all off with this:
I hate this in other people. I hate games. Pot. Kettle.
The most wonderful thing about living in a world with other people is that they understand what all this means. Like the person I told you about, who started all of this. Women and men and parents, we are all at least one of them and they all behave like this. When we are trying to make that match with another soul, a beam out there, and when we get it right, these body-less flaws melt into everything else. You're not good with money? I didn't hear you say that. I'm tangled up already.
Forgiveness.
Acceptance.
Love.
Pot. Kettle. We both. We are.
The lifetime before me is filled with our curious strangeness. So many third dates and mixes from the song I want you to hear.
We were laughing about the caveats and how being a partner to each of us must be interesting. So much wind up before the pitch. All the information that precedes "getting to the point." She said something I will always remember her for. We were acknowledging this tick, and she said:
"It's really more of a third date habit."
I had a wonderful mental collision as these words became a thought. The truths we don't share about our peculiar selves until we are--I am--the smallest bit certain there's a chance we'll not be pushed back into the tiny plastic musical chair. It's like the, "I'll let you see me naked" of the less primal us. And when it gets right down to it, this is the part that matters when it comes to any kind of union. Not the imperfections in flesh. I could describe to you everything about me that is physical and someone, somewhere would tell me how those folds and shadows are beautiful. There's a fetish in all of us that loves the unsymmetrical. The freckles. The too small this and the too big that. Because people are like that. That is why they are amazing. We even pride ourselves on the things we seek that are singular in their attraction.
But let me tell you about my temper. It is red. My jackass-ery; significant. My insecurities manifested with specific rules and codes of conduct that you didn't know you were participating in, but you are. Didn't you know you were supposed to be this way?
I cancel plans. I make excuses that are not about me but are about some unforeseen circumstance that never could have possibly happened unless it was fate. Not lies, but bundled truths. And other things. Complicated "I am so very sorry" for everything upon everything. Let's top it all off with this:
I hate this in other people. I hate games. Pot. Kettle.
The most wonderful thing about living in a world with other people is that they understand what all this means. Like the person I told you about, who started all of this. Women and men and parents, we are all at least one of them and they all behave like this. When we are trying to make that match with another soul, a beam out there, and when we get it right, these body-less flaws melt into everything else. You're not good with money? I didn't hear you say that. I'm tangled up already.
Forgiveness.
Acceptance.
Love.
Pot. Kettle. We both. We are.
The lifetime before me is filled with our curious strangeness. So many third dates and mixes from the song I want you to hear.
Monday, January 18, 2010
the white album gave us something
Last year, it was very important to me that I learn all the words to "Big Rock Candy Mountain." We would listen to it on the way to wherever we were going and the line, "Where they hung the jerk, that invented work," really hooked me. It became essential that I learn all the words and before my daughter was born. Because I had decided that I would sing this to her when she needed it. It has a lot of lyrics, tells a story, all the things that are important to me. I felt it would keep me engaged.
I printed out the lyrics and studied them every morning after my shower for the last two months of my pregnancy. Other lines made me really happy, too.
In the Big Rock Candy Mountain, you never change your socks.
And tiny streams of alcohol come a'tricklin down the rocks.
I did sing that song to her many times. In the middle of the night when she needed soothing. Sometimes to sooth myself, even when it seemed to have no effect on her. It's a fun song to sing, and I recommend it.
But at some point late this past summer, I started singing different songs when I put her to bed. And I developed a routine. A certain Beatle trio: "I Will," "In My Life," and "Rocky Raccoon." It just sort of evolved, I think, because I got tired of "Big Rock Candy Mountain" and the only songs I know all the words to without hesitation are Beatles songs. When you're tired, you just don't want to think that hard. I knew once I got into Rocky Raccoon, it was almost time for the big put down. Sometimes she needed longer and I'd pull out an "Ob-la-di" or an "I'm So Tired." And then I'd have to use my brain a little more. But most often, without fail, right around the time Rocky falls back to his room, I could tell that she was nearly done and ready for me to leave.
Because I know the words so well, I have time to think to myself when I'm in there singing. I think a lot about how these songs represent the arcs of relationships, and the dips and dives. The first is such a sweet, tender lull. There's some talk of parting for a time, but they find each other at the close. And it says the way you are, and who you are, this is what makes me love you. The things you do endear you to me. And "I Will" whatever you need when you need it. I'll be the one to help you find it. And what you want, most of the time. I'll do those things, too.
I remember exactly where I was when I heard "In My Life." It was the summer at my grandmother's house in-between the fifth and sixth grade, and my sister had a Discman. There was a copy of "Imagine" rolling around, and I put it on. That's the song that made me a John girl, always and forever. I've been places and seen things, and there have been a lot of people. I've built relationships and some of them just didn't make it. Because you're not meant to have everything forever; where would you keep it all? Memories lose their meaning when I think of love as something new. Love is old. Love doesn't stop and end, I don't think. But people change and learn, if they're lucky. That song really is a life from beginning to end. It's a little bit of a heart turned inside out, and placed gently on the mind.
I thought about poor Rocky (who I believed was actually a raccoon for most of my life). What was it like before Nancy left? Did he call her Lil, was he the only one who didn't know her as something else? What was he going to find in the passages of Gideon to help the healing begin and end someday? I wondered where he got shot. It certainly wasn't in the heart. I like to ask a lot of questions, to figure things out. I like to know about people. But I'll never know anything else about Rocky or any of them. I want to see their faces and know what they've learned. What happens. Did they make it?
These three, they will represent something quiet for me always. That time in the evening when I left my daughter with a final sensation of the world. Stories of love done three ways. I've thought about telling her some day when I sang to her. The eye rolls that will probably ensue. But maybe we'll have a conversation about love and loss. And loving again, too.
About two months ago, we convened for our nightly routine. I got exactly this far into the first song:
Who knows how long I've loved you.
I know I love you still.
And she sat up and gently pushed me away. Having no idea what was going on, I stood up, and put my daughter down. She said, "Hi," and turned away from me. She fell asleep without me helping her do anything at all.
I printed out the lyrics and studied them every morning after my shower for the last two months of my pregnancy. Other lines made me really happy, too.
In the Big Rock Candy Mountain, you never change your socks.
And tiny streams of alcohol come a'tricklin down the rocks.
I did sing that song to her many times. In the middle of the night when she needed soothing. Sometimes to sooth myself, even when it seemed to have no effect on her. It's a fun song to sing, and I recommend it.
But at some point late this past summer, I started singing different songs when I put her to bed. And I developed a routine. A certain Beatle trio: "I Will," "In My Life," and "Rocky Raccoon." It just sort of evolved, I think, because I got tired of "Big Rock Candy Mountain" and the only songs I know all the words to without hesitation are Beatles songs. When you're tired, you just don't want to think that hard. I knew once I got into Rocky Raccoon, it was almost time for the big put down. Sometimes she needed longer and I'd pull out an "Ob-la-di" or an "I'm So Tired." And then I'd have to use my brain a little more. But most often, without fail, right around the time Rocky falls back to his room, I could tell that she was nearly done and ready for me to leave.
Because I know the words so well, I have time to think to myself when I'm in there singing. I think a lot about how these songs represent the arcs of relationships, and the dips and dives. The first is such a sweet, tender lull. There's some talk of parting for a time, but they find each other at the close. And it says the way you are, and who you are, this is what makes me love you. The things you do endear you to me. And "I Will" whatever you need when you need it. I'll be the one to help you find it. And what you want, most of the time. I'll do those things, too.
I remember exactly where I was when I heard "In My Life." It was the summer at my grandmother's house in-between the fifth and sixth grade, and my sister had a Discman. There was a copy of "Imagine" rolling around, and I put it on. That's the song that made me a John girl, always and forever. I've been places and seen things, and there have been a lot of people. I've built relationships and some of them just didn't make it. Because you're not meant to have everything forever; where would you keep it all? Memories lose their meaning when I think of love as something new. Love is old. Love doesn't stop and end, I don't think. But people change and learn, if they're lucky. That song really is a life from beginning to end. It's a little bit of a heart turned inside out, and placed gently on the mind.
I thought about poor Rocky (who I believed was actually a raccoon for most of my life). What was it like before Nancy left? Did he call her Lil, was he the only one who didn't know her as something else? What was he going to find in the passages of Gideon to help the healing begin and end someday? I wondered where he got shot. It certainly wasn't in the heart. I like to ask a lot of questions, to figure things out. I like to know about people. But I'll never know anything else about Rocky or any of them. I want to see their faces and know what they've learned. What happens. Did they make it?
These three, they will represent something quiet for me always. That time in the evening when I left my daughter with a final sensation of the world. Stories of love done three ways. I've thought about telling her some day when I sang to her. The eye rolls that will probably ensue. But maybe we'll have a conversation about love and loss. And loving again, too.
About two months ago, we convened for our nightly routine. I got exactly this far into the first song:
Who knows how long I've loved you.
I know I love you still.
And she sat up and gently pushed me away. Having no idea what was going on, I stood up, and put my daughter down. She said, "Hi," and turned away from me. She fell asleep without me helping her do anything at all.
Monday, January 11, 2010
the bad things done
I have done some totallystupidthings in my 1/3 of a time on this mortal coil. Poor judgment. Knowingly bad. Selfish. Reckless. Naive.
Like many of us, I also tend to say, "I have no regrets."
This is, in fact, a lie.
I have regrets. Maybe a lot, even. When I say these words, what I mean is, "I would never change things because that means I wouldn't be the lucky son-of-a that I am today." Because when I think of regrets, I tend to revert to my formative understanding of consequences, which is really based on a repetitious viewing of "Back to the Future." Like if I changed something, someone I love would end up in a photograph with hid or her head missing. I would never change things because then everything would be different and nothing would be the way it is today. It is...amazing how uninformed my understanding of cause and effect is.
But honestly, there are things I have done that I would change. I've hurt people I love, most desperately and dearly. I have put myself first when I should have been protecting the interests of tender others. Sure, there may have been lessons attached to these incidents that somehow inform who I am as a person. But really, I would sacrifice that self-awareness for some of these choices. Not everything is worth it.
Those moments when I have been at my worst have been times when I have not been honest with myself. The falsehoods I have made my face have grown from the tales I have told to my own heart. And I have to say, this realization is very new to me. That the mistakes I repeat are rooted in the lies I've told myself. The lies I tell myself all the time.
Along with these regrets, and these lies, I do believe in karma. Because I have found--coupled with the choices I would take back--moments that have taught me that the consequences of my actions reach beyond whatever seems to be the obvious. Somehow, it's as though my bad stuff has punched little holes in the plans I have for myself and let in other things. Darker things. Judgments and even hauntings; happenings totally outside my ability to control. There is nothing more terrifying than things outside my ability to control.
When I have these moments of karmic confrontation, I check my mind with my partner in crime. In some ways, my Id, Ego, and Super. And he always, always tells me the same thing:
"You're just not that special."
He untangles this a bit.
"You're just a person. People make mistakes. You're not being punished by the world."
I have always thought of myself as so different than everybody else (is there anything so grandeur?). I've just often felt very strange. I see my family and my experiences as so totally unique, that no one could have faced the moments I have. No one could understand. But when my husband tells me this, that there may be other people out there like me who have made mistakes they regret (can you imagine?). Choices that have unintended consequences. When he reminds me that I'm not alone in the world, that there are "people" and I am one of them. When he tells me this, I feel a sense of peace at the sameness of it all. When I worry about judgments, I remember that I only have control over how much I judge. What perceptions I level on others for their actions. That is where the cycle can be changed.
I imagine there is a person out there, just like me. Maybe she even looks like me. Maybe she's in Sweden. And she has dreams and thoughts and good intentions. But she is also remarkably selfish. She has taken for granted the most precious of things. She hasn't learned from the most pressing of her mistakes. But she is not evil. She cannot be reduced to only those decisions. She is also a partner, and a daughter. Even a mother. She is everything that came before and all that is yet to be. She gives and she takes just as much as she offers. Sometimes, she takes more than she should. Sometimes, more than she is entitled to. She is trivial and she is thoughtful. But she is more than her worst day. As is everyone.
I think about this second person third person. And I do the only thing I can; I forgive her. I ask her to forgive herself. I tell her that it is going to be alright. The judgments will come. Maybe forever. Pain for a long time, alas. But there is a place to begin; stop lying to herself. Stop telling herself the things that are convenient for the moment that she knows are not true. Do what is difficult and be honest. Then, the best choices become easier to make. And the sunshine of days will be that much warmer. Everything will be brighter and behold.
Like many of us, I also tend to say, "I have no regrets."
This is, in fact, a lie.
I have regrets. Maybe a lot, even. When I say these words, what I mean is, "I would never change things because that means I wouldn't be the lucky son-of-a that I am today." Because when I think of regrets, I tend to revert to my formative understanding of consequences, which is really based on a repetitious viewing of "Back to the Future." Like if I changed something, someone I love would end up in a photograph with hid or her head missing. I would never change things because then everything would be different and nothing would be the way it is today. It is...amazing how uninformed my understanding of cause and effect is.
But honestly, there are things I have done that I would change. I've hurt people I love, most desperately and dearly. I have put myself first when I should have been protecting the interests of tender others. Sure, there may have been lessons attached to these incidents that somehow inform who I am as a person. But really, I would sacrifice that self-awareness for some of these choices. Not everything is worth it.
Those moments when I have been at my worst have been times when I have not been honest with myself. The falsehoods I have made my face have grown from the tales I have told to my own heart. And I have to say, this realization is very new to me. That the mistakes I repeat are rooted in the lies I've told myself. The lies I tell myself all the time.
Along with these regrets, and these lies, I do believe in karma. Because I have found--coupled with the choices I would take back--moments that have taught me that the consequences of my actions reach beyond whatever seems to be the obvious. Somehow, it's as though my bad stuff has punched little holes in the plans I have for myself and let in other things. Darker things. Judgments and even hauntings; happenings totally outside my ability to control. There is nothing more terrifying than things outside my ability to control.
When I have these moments of karmic confrontation, I check my mind with my partner in crime. In some ways, my Id, Ego, and Super. And he always, always tells me the same thing:
"You're just not that special."
He untangles this a bit.
"You're just a person. People make mistakes. You're not being punished by the world."
I have always thought of myself as so different than everybody else (is there anything so grandeur?). I've just often felt very strange. I see my family and my experiences as so totally unique, that no one could have faced the moments I have. No one could understand. But when my husband tells me this, that there may be other people out there like me who have made mistakes they regret (can you imagine?). Choices that have unintended consequences. When he reminds me that I'm not alone in the world, that there are "people" and I am one of them. When he tells me this, I feel a sense of peace at the sameness of it all. When I worry about judgments, I remember that I only have control over how much I judge. What perceptions I level on others for their actions. That is where the cycle can be changed.
I imagine there is a person out there, just like me. Maybe she even looks like me. Maybe she's in Sweden. And she has dreams and thoughts and good intentions. But she is also remarkably selfish. She has taken for granted the most precious of things. She hasn't learned from the most pressing of her mistakes. But she is not evil. She cannot be reduced to only those decisions. She is also a partner, and a daughter. Even a mother. She is everything that came before and all that is yet to be. She gives and she takes just as much as she offers. Sometimes, she takes more than she should. Sometimes, more than she is entitled to. She is trivial and she is thoughtful. But she is more than her worst day. As is everyone.
I think about this second person third person. And I do the only thing I can; I forgive her. I ask her to forgive herself. I tell her that it is going to be alright. The judgments will come. Maybe forever. Pain for a long time, alas. But there is a place to begin; stop lying to herself. Stop telling herself the things that are convenient for the moment that she knows are not true. Do what is difficult and be honest. Then, the best choices become easier to make. And the sunshine of days will be that much warmer. Everything will be brighter and behold.
Friday, January 8, 2010
a piece of falling into it
Like pretty much every other couple, he and I have often talked about how lucky we are to be together. There is, of course, the "luck" of finding each other in the first place. But that initial burst of good fortune is just that; it's at the beginning and, because it doesn't require much work right away, it doesn't speak to the "forever" that everyone associates with the Big L.
There's more to it, really. There is also our luck at really falling in love after we were married. We had certainly said we loved each other before the day, and we've always meant it. But it has been through our experiences together that we have fallen more deeply into it. Whatever words we said to each other about "forever" years ago have only come to mean something each day we wake up together and do it all over again. That's where the lucky comes in; not that we were right in the first place, but that we choose to be right each day.
This is probably not a surprising revelation. I think any couple would say that time makes a difference in the depth of union
So now onto admitting something that is more tender.
I knew I wanted to be a mother before we had our daughter. When we found out we were having a girl, we literally high-fived. I was so excited and ready. I spent a lot of time thinking about the big day when she would finally be here, wanting to be prepared to do my part. When it came, it was beautiful beyond anything.
And then, we came home.
And she cried. And didn't sleep. So we didn't sleep. This is nothing new; this is, as they say, par for the thing golfers putt upon. We were totally exhausted and overwhelmed, as everyone is. I remember watching Gwyneth Paltrow on "Oprah," talking about how when her daughter was born, she had "baby euphoria," but when her son was born she was depressed. That made me feel better. Until she said that she had dinner with Madonna and that had really helped her get out of the funk. That option didn't seem available to me, so I sunk a little deeper.
Each day at home seemed long, cold, and filled with radio in a chair. The winter sun poured through her nursery and there I sat, rocking and nursing and not.moving.at.all. I felt horrible. It wasn't love I felt; it was an overwhelming sense of responsibility and fear that I was going to screw her up. Just by being me. I was supposed to be filled with all of these instincts and inclinations and instead I looked at this amazingly beautiful creature and felt so sorry that she had gotten stuck with me. It didn't feel like depression, or what I imagined depression to be. It felt like a mountain before me that I was not prepared to climb. I felt young and old enough to know better. And that made me feel foolish. I had made this choice, too.
What I didn't know and what I think I do now is that my daughter and I had to get to know each other. Because she is, amazingly, a person. Since she was born, she had been an individual, not a vessel. She is not something for me to shape; she is someone for me to shepherd. I have come to understand her likes and joys and what she needs and wants from me. She, for her part, has grown to understand me and who I am. She may be made of us but this child is her own lady. And once I came to understand this, that so much of it is outside of my control, everything has been a wonder. We have been relaxed and we have had fun. We have fallen in love with each other, as all people do when they are meant to be.
We are just that, she and I. We roll through the time we spend together laughing and eating ice chips. She pretends to put food in my mouth and then eats it herself. What a joker. Just like her mom.
There's more to it, really. There is also our luck at really falling in love after we were married. We had certainly said we loved each other before the day, and we've always meant it. But it has been through our experiences together that we have fallen more deeply into it. Whatever words we said to each other about "forever" years ago have only come to mean something each day we wake up together and do it all over again. That's where the lucky comes in; not that we were right in the first place, but that we choose to be right each day.
This is probably not a surprising revelation. I think any couple would say that time makes a difference in the depth of union
So now onto admitting something that is more tender.
I knew I wanted to be a mother before we had our daughter. When we found out we were having a girl, we literally high-fived. I was so excited and ready. I spent a lot of time thinking about the big day when she would finally be here, wanting to be prepared to do my part. When it came, it was beautiful beyond anything.
And then, we came home.
And she cried. And didn't sleep. So we didn't sleep. This is nothing new; this is, as they say, par for the thing golfers putt upon. We were totally exhausted and overwhelmed, as everyone is. I remember watching Gwyneth Paltrow on "Oprah," talking about how when her daughter was born, she had "baby euphoria," but when her son was born she was depressed. That made me feel better. Until she said that she had dinner with Madonna and that had really helped her get out of the funk. That option didn't seem available to me, so I sunk a little deeper.
Each day at home seemed long, cold, and filled with radio in a chair. The winter sun poured through her nursery and there I sat, rocking and nursing and not.moving.at.all. I felt horrible. It wasn't love I felt; it was an overwhelming sense of responsibility and fear that I was going to screw her up. Just by being me. I was supposed to be filled with all of these instincts and inclinations and instead I looked at this amazingly beautiful creature and felt so sorry that she had gotten stuck with me. It didn't feel like depression, or what I imagined depression to be. It felt like a mountain before me that I was not prepared to climb. I felt young and old enough to know better. And that made me feel foolish. I had made this choice, too.
What I didn't know and what I think I do now is that my daughter and I had to get to know each other. Because she is, amazingly, a person. Since she was born, she had been an individual, not a vessel. She is not something for me to shape; she is someone for me to shepherd. I have come to understand her likes and joys and what she needs and wants from me. She, for her part, has grown to understand me and who I am. She may be made of us but this child is her own lady. And once I came to understand this, that so much of it is outside of my control, everything has been a wonder. We have been relaxed and we have had fun. We have fallen in love with each other, as all people do when they are meant to be.
We are just that, she and I. We roll through the time we spend together laughing and eating ice chips. She pretends to put food in my mouth and then eats it herself. What a joker. Just like her mom.
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