Addicted

I almost missed my stop. I don't know what happened. One minute I stepped on the train and took a seat. The next, I looked up, read a sign and realized that I was already home. I made a mad dash for the door, fully expecting to see the doors shut before me, to hear, "For your safety, please step back. The doors are closing," or whatever it is that Randi Miller announces to Metro-riding public over and over, day after day.

For the most part, I ignore her.

Apparently, I ignored the conductor as well. I had no idea that we'd traversed the city. If I'd had to guess, I would have said Metro Center or Federal Triangle. Federal Center SW, at the outside, but definitely not Eastern Market.

I glanced at the sign cursorily, almost reluctant to take my eyes from the page. It took another second or two for the name to register. Panic. Dash. Sigh of relief. I had become that girl, the spacey, "Oh, is this my stop?" girl.

It wasn't like the tipsy, middle of the night ride almost two years ago (or is it three now?) when I fell asleep on the train and awoke in New Carrollton.

"Honey, is this your stop?" asked a woman staring at me from the door on that fateful night.

"What? No." I wiped the sleep from my eyes, stepped to the platform and re-boarded the train home. Fortunately, I hadn't fallen asleep on the last train of the night. I managed to stay awake until I got to my stop but it was definitely not my brightest, most shining moment.

The other day, though, the day when I almost missed my stop, was just another day. An evening commute. A little past rush hour but not too late. I was tired but no more so than usual. I didn't space. I didn't sleep. I simply fell into a book and fell into a circus of the Dust Bowl era and lost track of who I was and where I was and all the world about me. Time passed a little more quickly.

Books line the wall of my living room, sprawling onto the shelves, the dresser and the bed in the guest room, onto my dresser and bed, tucked in bags and stacked of most available flat surfaces.

I grew up with books. Stories before bedtime. Little Golden Books and Dr. Suess. Reading Rainbow. Story time at the library. RIF. (Reading IS fundamental.) Scholastic newsletters. The summer reading program – 10 books for a hamburger and my subsequent affair with the girl detective (and move to vegetarianism).

By fourth grade, I'd started into the classics, the Brontes, the Alcotts, peppered with Christopher Pike and J.D. Salinger. I had read almost every Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, Trixie Belden, Tom Swift, Bobbsey Twins, Boxcar Children, Encyclopedia Brown, Choose Your Own Adventure and Annette Funicello mystery book I could find. (Friends still send me classic Keene; I have purse made from my favorite.)

I started reading "adult books" by junior high from Steven King and Dean Koontz to Victor Hugo and Jane Austen. Charles Dickens. James Joyce. I read every single one of the Readers Digest Condensed Books in my mother's extensive collection. In lieu of anything else, I would read the back of a hairspray can or cereal box.

The beat writers: Kerouac, Ginsburg, Burroughs. The Gonzo journalist. Plays and poems. Medieval and Golden Age Spanish literature. Political essays. Best sellers and random books from my favorite shop, my favorite booksellers.

At some point, while alphabetizing the fiction and seeking ways to stretch the laws of physics to shove more books onto the crowded, groaning shelves, I realized that I had a bit of a problem. Almost missing my stop helped clue me in. When I stopped writing mid-post to buy a couple of books, I knew it was serious.

Over the weekend, with my family, we had two of the top three Washington Post best sellers in our room and another three books beside in our room of four for one night. I traveled to Minnesota for the weekend, to my mother's house and my grandmother's birthday with three books in my bag. I belonged to four book clubs. I considered a 12-step program, but then I'd have to find another addiction.

For now, I'll just have to pay more attention on the Metro or content myself with a trip to New Carrollton as I run away with the circus.


Tag: Reading Books Addiction

Speaking of breasts

Following signs, I wound my way through the first floor of the hospital, from the medical arts building to radiology. I needed to pick up an order from one and my films from the other in preparation for an afternoon appointment.

By the sixth or seventh corner, I realized that I should have just driven around the building but it seemed too late. I kept following signs until those for my building and parking disappeared altogether. I couldn't go back. Eventually, I emerged from a maze of halls to find myself over the lobby and near a bank of elevators. I glanced at a final sign and pushed the button for down.

On the ground floor, recognition twinged. I knew where I was and fought the feeling that I should be escorted in a wheelchair, on a gurney, or in a strangely-printed cotton gown. How could someone off the street just wander the halls of a hospital? I felt like I was breaking the rules.

My palms sweated a little, making me even more nervous. Per instructions, I was not wearing deodorant.

"Keep your head down. You're going the right way," I told myself. I blushed a little as I limped past a volunteer. "I belong here."

Toward the waterfall and radiology. I breathed a sigh of relief and pushed the door open.

An older woman anxiously awaited instruction from the girl behind the counter.

"I sign here?"

"Listen," the receptionist said. "Don't sign yet. People always mess up this form. Sign here. Initial here and put the name of your daughter here."

"OK."

"Now," the receptionist said. "Do it now."

She stood, glaring over the form until the woman filled in the blanks, shaking a bit.

"Can I help you?" the receptionist turned to me.

"I need to pick up some films. I called the other day?"

"Name?" she demanded.

I shrunk into my skin and offered it meekly. I turned to shrug at the woman who looked at me helplessly. She pointed at a second form and said, in a heavy accent, "I forgot my glasses."

I closed the distance between us and she turned the form toward me. Hand drawn images of breasts stared back at me. Inwardly, I groaned. I started reading.

"Have you ever had a mammogram?"

She nodded her head. I pointed to "yes" and searched for the receptionist. She had disappeared. I kept reading.

"Do you have a new lump or thickening?" Shake. No. "Do you have breast pain?" and "Have you had breast surgery?"

"Have you had a cyst aspiration?" I pantomimed shooting a needle into my breast and asked, "Lump? Needle?" The receptionist returned and shook her head.

"Do you speak Spanish?" she asked the patient.

"Ethiopian."

I continued the questionnaire, pausing briefly before asking her if she'd had implants, if her breasts were fake, and then I stopped, glanced helplessly at the waiting room, and asked, "Are your nipples inverted?"

Both the receptionist and I tried to make her understand the question as this older, Ethiopian woman stared at us with some mixture of confusion and fear.

"Do they go 'in' or 'out'?" We asked, the receptionist pointing at her own breasts and me pointing at the wall. "Out? In?"

We went with "No."

The woman's daughter arrived a question or two later and I discovered that my films were at another desk. I smiled my thanks, waved at the women and headed into the hall.

As weird as it was, I think it made my day. I never would have imagined asking a 60-year-old Ethiopian woman if she had inverted nipples but live and learn.


Tag: Doctors Funny

Plagiarized PSA

There's an amazing woman over at Toddler Planet. WhyMommy. I haven't actually met her but I've grown to know her (a little) through her writing – both on the blog and via email. Long story short, she's got a husband, two babies, and a dog. She's also got breast cancer. Through the diagnosis and start of treatment, as she's weaned her baby and suffered physically and emotionally, she's been courageous and strong. She's also been extremely informative.

I'd write about her but she's done so much better than I can do. So, without further ado, a public service announcement blatantly plagiarized...

Inflammatory breast cancer

by WhyMommy at ToddlerPlanet

We hear a lot about breast cancer these days. One in eight women will be diagnosed with breast cancer in their lifetimes, and there are millions living with it in the U.S. today alone. But did you know that there is more than one type of breast cancer?

I didn’t. I thought that breast cancer was all the same. I figured that if I did my monthly breast self-exams, and found no lump, I’d be fine.

Oops. It turns out that you don’t have to have a lump to have breast cancer. Six weeks ago, I went to my OB/GYN because my breast felt funny. It was red, hot, inflamed, and the skin looked…funny. But there was no lump, so I wasn’t worried. I should have been. After a round of antibiotics didn’t clear up the inflammation, my doctor sent me to a breast specialist and did a skin punch biopsy. That test showed that I have inflammatory breast cancer, a very aggressive cancer that can be deadly.

Inflammatory breast cancer is often misdiagnosed as mastitis because many doctors have never seen it before and consider it rare. “Rare” or not, there are over 100,000 women in the U.S. with this cancer right now; only half will survive five years. Please call your OB/GYN if you experience several of the following symptoms in your breast, or any unusual changes: redness, rapid increase in size of one breast, persistent itching of breast or nipple, thickening of breast tissue, stabbing pain, soreness, swelling under the arm, dimpling or ridging (for example, when you take your bra off, the bra marks stay – for a while), flattening or retracting of the nipple, or a texture that looks or feels like an orange (called peau d’orange). Ask if your GYN is familiar with inflammatory breast cancer, and tell her that you’re concerned and want to come in to rule it out.

There is more than one kind of breast cancer. Inflammatory breast cancer is the most aggressive form of breast cancer out there, and early detection is critical. It’s not usually detected by mammogram. It does not usually present with a lump. It may be overlooked with all of the changes that our breasts undergo during the years when we’re pregnant and/or nursing our little ones. It’s important not to miss this one.

Inflammatory breast cancer is detected by women and their doctors who notice a change in one of their breasts. If you notice a change, call your doctor today. Tell her about it. Tell her that you have a friend with this disease, and it’s trying to kill her. Now you know what I wish I had known before six weeks ago.

You don’t have to have a lump to have breast cancer.

Tag: Breast Cancer

Thank you

I decided to stop being nice. No more door holding. No more seat saving. No more "pardon me" or "excuse me" or "thank you." I was done.

Honestly, I don't know what started it. A woman giving me the evil eye as I offered her a seat at the theater, which she took with a hint of "why are you looking at me while I stand directly in front of you and shout at the man behind you?"

Maybe it was the lack of acknowledgment of the doors and elevators I held. The brush past/slight shove on the Metro platform. The coworkers who simply failed to show, "working at home" without producing a thing for an entire week as I picked up the slack.

Maybe it was the neighbors, the toddlers upstairs thundering through my sleep, running laps overhead as early as 5:45 in the morning, their father pounding into the kitchen to make dinner at 11:15 at night. All day, every day, the heavy fall of footsteps. Cries. Pounding. That little popper toy, for which I would risk incarceration and possibly death to spirit away and/or break.

Sleep deprived. Overworked. Tired. Stressed. I had no nothing left. No more niceties.

I stepped into the elevator, pressed my button and picked up my book. No door holding. No squeezing myself into the corner. I even considered the "close door" button but they slid shut quickly enough to the disappointed clatter of heels on the tiles. Later, on the way back down, I considered skipping floors but stepped back into my book.

I let doors swing shut behind me.

I walked determinedly, my face frozen in whatever expression fit my naturally downturned mouth. No more perma-grin. No more eye contact. Nothing.

It lasted about three hours.

"You are sweet as pie," a friend wrote in an email after I relayed the story of my day, the sprain and the move.

"Rhubarb, maybe," I replied. "A little bit bitter with all that sugar (and flaky bread product)."

"You're not bitter, are you? Really?"

"I'm not bitter. Really. I swear. (I am in pain, however, [from the move] and scared sh*tless [from life].) Yesterday I decided to stop being nice to people because nobody ever says thank you. Or even acknowledges when you've done something kind like hold the elevator or save a seat, but I forgot. I was nice to people long before nightfall. It's a hard habit to break."

After work, I hobbled to my friend's almost empty house. One last "good bye" and a "hello" to her parents whom I've known forever. (My sister once babysat the girl who was departing to start a doctoral program at Tech.)

At the mouth of a Metro station, a man played percussion on pots and pans, a cookie sheet, a muffin tin. I gave him money – not because I'm kind but because he made my day a little brighter. I wanted to thank him for that.

Megan's dad offered me a ride back to the Metro. He insisted. I demurred with audible gratitude.

I came to work early. I stayed late. I picked up the slack and I got things done.

I smiled. I made eye contact. I thanked people for the subtle niceties they performed and I noticed when they did the same to me. Being nice, empathetic, compassionate made me feel better.

A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.
- Albert Einstein


Tag: Gratitude

Handful

Tears welled as they stared at me in abject horror. Granted, I'd just grabbed a stranger's breasts, but it wasn't my fault. I swear.

I could quite get up the gumption to leave for work. I got up on time. Showered. Dressed. Crashed on the couch. I was exhausted. I had stayed up too late with jangled nerves, an excess of adrenaline from a sci-fi flick and a very good book. The kids upstairs woke me early but my get up and go got up and left. Eventually, later than hoped and closer to eight than seven, I left for work.

My ragged, bloody feet slowed my pace to a frustrating crawl. I winced with every step, trying to forget the holes in my feet, the size of dimes, weeping and clinging to my thin cotton socks. I had built my outfit around my shoes. My feet. I tried to find a pair that wouldn't hurt. It didn't work, but I tried. Sensible Clarks. Black cotton socks. Black trousers and a fluttery, flowery shirt from Urban Outfitters. I felt rather overdressed for July in swampland, but I didn't know what to do. Clarks with a skirt seemed a little too Eastern European.

Hobbling slowly, I made my way toward the Metro. In the last block, in the home stretch, I lost it. I tumbled. I grabbed a woman's breasts. People and dogs blocked the sidewalk. I stepped aside to pass and a dogless woman stepped toward me. I moved back, losing my footing on uneven edge where a water meter cover met the sidewalk. I pitched forward, into the woman, and straightened, tears in my eyes.

"Are you OK?" and "Do you want ice?" and "I'm sorry I confused you" flew at me as I gritted my teeth and tried to smile. I peered through my tears and eked out an "It's all right" followed by "I twisted my ankle" and "I think I need to sit down."

Their conversation dwindled as they stared at me on the stairs.

"Um, did you try the website?" asked the blond with the big dog. "I'm sure something will work out."

Through my pain, I realized I knew her. We'd met ages ago at a fund raiser. Bake Back the White House. She knew my brother, the only Peace Corps volunteer working with her NGO in South America.

I wanted to say something but having injured myself in the midst of her morning dog walk and tete-a-tete with friends, I didn't really want to say, "Hey, Cathy. Kristin. Remember me? How are you?!"

She left for home, for work, for someplace other than the sidewalk in front of a friend's house with an injured stranger. The owner of the house offered ice once more before passing with his dog. I sat and blinked back tears for a while before hobbling to the metro, to my meeting.

"Sorry I'm late. I seem to have sprained my ankle."

Over the course of the day, it swelled, flowering into a colorful array of bruises. I would hobble through the day. The weeping holes. The sprain. The long, long week. The lack of sleep. One would think that would keep me quiet, at home, in bed by nine. Instead, I pulled on my Peas on Earth T, strapped on an ankle brace and helped a friend pack a truck for grad school. Fifty trips up and down the stairs, baby stepping one tread at a time, carrying bags. Boxes. Lamps.

Pizza and beer. Pain. Sweat in the shape of a heart on one man's T. Joking with friends. Talking about our high school biology teacher – a ladder, a nail, a nose. Months later, after plastic surgery, he returned looking exactly the same.

By the time I got home, I found myself the proud owner of 21 silver Christmas balls and without my stain remover. I was exhausted and sore, aching, sure of more pain to come and happy as a lark. After all, I started the day with a sprain and a handful of someone else's breast; the day had to improve.


Tag:

Sunshine

"Hey, Kristin!" called a man across the aisle, a man in the first half of the line. "Nice picture in the paper."

"Hey, thanks," I replied. "I totally forgot that it was going to be there. People kept calling to tell me. I had to find a copy. How have you been?"

We chatted a while, waiting in line for a screening of Sunshine.

Fifty years from now, the sun is dying and mankind is dying with it. Our last hope: a spaceship and a crew of eight men and women. They carry a device that will breathe new life into the star, but deep into their voyage, out of radio contact with Earth, their mission is starting to unravel. There is an accident, a fatal mistake, and a distress beacon from a spaceship that disappeared seven years earlier. Soon the crew is fighting not only for their lives, but their sanity.

We met several weeks ago at another screening, in Bethesda, I think. The movie was rubbish but I enjoyed our pre-flick conversation. Not only that, my new friend gave me my new favorite CD, a free one he found in a basket by the door, a Landmark Theaters' compilation of hits from current indie flicks.

He caught up with me in the hall after the showing.

"What did you think?" he asked.

"It was a little... intense."

I spent the entire hour and 47 minutes on the edge of my seat with my stomach roiling. I left out that part as well as my red fleece blanket and the fact that I could drown myself in Cillian Murphy's bottomless blue eyes. They looked almost amiss, a problem with filming, with lighting, in a sea of guileless coppery freckles and unreadable charm. He's not even a bad boy. So detached. He seems downright diabolical at times. It's just as easy to imagine him saying, "Kill him" about a beloved colleague and friend as "pass the cookies, Mom."

I knew better than to watch the movie. My frayed nerves didn't need apocalyptic horror, but I fell into those eyes, scooted to the edge of my seat, wrapped my arms around my fleeced knees and watched.

"Intense," he repeated and nodded. "It was definitely intense."

We walked into the night and turned up the street.

"Where are you going?" he asked.

"I need to catch a bus. You? Did you drive?"

He shook his head and said something about taking the train to Foggy Bottom. "Not a bad walk."

"That's what I'd normally do, but I wore heels today. I tore up my feet. Even the flip flops are bad."

He shook his head consolingly as we parted ways and I hobbled uphill to M Street.

"I hope we meet again!"

I smiled and waved.

"I'm sure we will," I called and I was sure. We would meet again. I wasn't so sure that I'd make it up the hill with my ragged, bloody feet. I wasn't sure that I would make it the five blocks home at the other end of the route. I certainly wasn't sure that I would sleep after that film or what would come of my appointments or my work or my limited travel plans but I knew we would meet again. It was nice to be sure of something so pleasant.

Sunshine
The Decemberists

On the lawn before the bouquet fell
Long before we hear the ringing bell
When all I want is a good look at your underside
Reading Tress like it was judy blume
Your paperbacks are strewn about the room
Awaiting their instructions to be mobilized
And everybody knows how it shakes and how it glows
Everybody knows and so it goes
That everybody wants their shoes in the sunshine, now

Lazy rayna had a million bucks
Changed into pennies on a hundred trucks
Cause linen’s legal tender for a layabout
Why hold your breath until your face turns blue
A stretch of rope you know can do that too
The truth be told, no one likes a gadabout
And everybody knows how it shakes and how it glows
Everybody knows and so it goes
That everybody wants their shoes in the sunshine, now
Everybody wants their shoes in the sunshine, now

Tag: Movies Sunshine

The irony

Last night, I caught an utterly charming French film about friendship. A man without friends seeks a man liked by all for lessons on friendship. Mon meilleur ami. My Best Friend.

A Greek vase inspired the lesson. An antiques dealer (Daniel Auteuil) bought it on impulse, moved by a morning funeral and an afternoon auction with the story of a man who commissioned it upon the death of a friend. The dealer's business partner makes a bet: If he can produce his best friend, she will let him keep the massive Greek vase he acquired on the company tab. If not, it's hers. A lovely, unlikely friendship with a taxi driver ensues.

"Isn't there anybody you can call at 3 a.m. in case you have a big problem?"

"I don't have any big problem."

"Yes, you have one, you can't call anybody at 3 a.m.!"

The flick focused on the illusive meaning of friendship: I went alone. (The irony is not lost on me.)

The story of the vase tells that the inconsolable owner filled it with tears upon the loss of his friend. A recent read, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, contained a similar concept, a reservoir filled with all the tears of New York City. Both addressed the tears of loss of family and friends. The images stayed with me and I wondered if I didn't carry my own tears somewhere, if maybe I needed a jar ala Cry Baby. An urn. A reservoir.

As I waited alone in the lobby, I read lighter fare: Assassination Vacation. Around the corner from Ford's Theater, I read of Lincoln's death, the conspiracy, the conspirators. (The irony of that was not lost on me either.) For an hour in line and 40 minutes 'til the start of the movie, I read. I plowed through the first half of the book.

I stewed a little at the DC Film Society woman who didn't ask if the seat beside me was taken, who didn't thank me for saving it (and abandoned her purse in the empty chair) and who smelled distinctly of alcohol. I'm sure it was cheap cucumber-melon lotion plucked from the sale bin at some discount store, but it reeked. She turned her back to me and I considered sticking out my tongue.

By the end of the flick, though, something broke. I sat alone in the dark thinking about friendships and something eased inside me. The well of tears shifted. Spilled. Evaporated.

I smiled as I walked out of the theater and returned a call to my dad, plans for another fun-filled family weekend. I skipped the closest Metro and walked toward Smithsonian, catching up with the man who gave me life.

"Well, that's about it," he said with details and assurances out of the way. "Or do you want company home?"

"I think I'm fine," I grinned into the phone, grateful for the offer. "I’m almost there anyway... But there's something on the Mall. I hear speakers."

I figured it out rather quickly.

"It's 'The Thing (from Another World).' Screen on the Green. I might have to go and watch a bit."

"Don't get abducted," he warned. "And I love you."

I walked toward the sound, the speakers, the screen, passing another station on the way. Pebbles crunched underfoot and slipped between my foot and flip flop. I stopped and shook out the rocks every few feet. Step, step, shake. Step, shake. Step, step, step, shake.

I watched as I walked and laughed with the audience. My finger marked the page I'd stopped reading hours before and I carried a bag with my phone, wallet and blanket. (I had worried about freezing in the theater; I considered spreading it under the stars on the cool, clear night to watch the end of the film.) I kept walking. Step, step, shake. The sounds of 50s science fiction filled the night.

I walked all the way home with thoughts of friendship and tears. Aliens and assassins. Clear summer nights. Fear. Hope. Life.


Tag: Movies My Best Friend

I cried

As predicted, I cried before I left.

It wasn't the salsa, fresh cut with hunks of tomato, onion, peppers and cilantro in Mason jar that I picked up at the local farmers market, the only thing I bought during our early morning trek through town to the market and yard sales (which I abhor). My aunts threw it into a bean dip that they made and served while I was out of the house. I found out later, much later, as I rummaged through the refrigerator.

"Carol did it," her sister shrugged.

It wasn't the long days, rising at 5:30, 6:30 and 3:30, respectively. Staying up late to talk with people who remembered me as the child I'd been and weren't exactly sure if they knew or liked the adult I was.

It wasn't the white-haired ladies with salon curls and thrice-focused glasses. It wasn't the conspicuous absence of white-haired men, now gone from their lives. It wasn't the pictures of my grandfather, dashing Marine, student and groom of the 40s, the responsible proud papa of the 50s, the businessman of the 60s or the aging, mellowing bear of a grandfather I knew and loved. He died four years ago. (They would have been married 60 years this summer, August 17. My cousin Heather's birthday.)

It wasn't the changes, seeing my mother's furniture in my grandmother's house. My cousin Heather with a baby of her own, named, in part, for our grandfather or the fluttering, birdlike arms on my once solid, young and seemingly immortal grandmother.

It wasn't the conversations that I had or the conversations I missed, straining to hear one while participating in two others. I heard about my great, great grandparents and a fire where the only thing saved was an apron in which to wrap the baby. I discovered that my grandmother worked in a cartographer's office during high school, coloring in maps. She went horseback riding with my grandfather on one of their first dates – he chastised her for not galloping. She showed me a picture of my 1-year-old mother and grew embarrassed that in the photo, the baby wore dirty shoes. (I had noticed and secretly relished the detail lending legitimacy to my mother's childhood.)

It wasn't the cards or gifts that we gave. The thoughtful gifts including photos and stories. The words that made us laugh. The messages from family, friends, former neighbors and at least one dentist who did most of the gold work in my family's mouths.

"She didn't like me for years," my grandmother observed wryly.

I cried because I loved these people, with all my heart and soul and mind. And I would miss them.

My aunt Becky and I – an aunt by marriage, whom I adore, and I – formed an unofficial welcoming committee at the official party, greeting people we didn't know and pointing them toward the name tags and guest book.

Time and again, my mom pointed me out from across the room, "And my daughter, Kristin, is there in the blue dress."

"Oh, yes. We already met her."

I chatted with a World War II bomber pilot named Liz. A nearly blind woman named Alice who told me she'd been looking at her wedding picture, which she couldn't see but knew by heart - she was the only surviving member of her '41 wedding party. My cousin's wife. My cousins. My stepdad's third cousin once removed, a magazine writer that people kept dragging over to meet me.

I laughed with my brother. My tall, Irish cousin. My tall everything – At 5'8", I'm the shortest over the age of 9 and under the age of 80. (Mom's shrinking, though. I'll take her soon.)

I played basketball and I swung from monkey bars. I held my nieces in my lap and in my arms and rocked. Wiped sticky hair from their brows. Wiped away tears.

And on the way out of town, I cried.


Tag: Family

Being good

“Do we have to go to church?” I yawned into the mirror, squinting at my sister’s reflection. She nodded.

“8 o’clock service.”

“It’s early yet,” I said, washing my hands and crawling back into bed to read for a while. Somebody started beating on the bathroom door, shouting at 6:29 in the morning. It would be a long day.

Eventually, I pulled myself from the covers and slipped into a sun dress, pulling my hair into a high ponytail. Far too summery for the cool morning, but it was supposed to get hot. Not only that, it was supposed to get humid as only summers in the land of lakes can get. I pulled myself together and headed downstairs, book in hand.

“They should go. They know it’s important to her.”

I walked into the middle of a conversation about who would attend the 8 o’clock service and who would be (conspicuously) absent.

“She didn’t ask anyone if they wanted to go,” I observed, knowing better but involving myself anyway.

“They know it’s important to her. It’s the only thing she lives for.”

I harrumphed my way into the kitchen and rooted through the cabinets, shaking the box of Lucky Charms and wrinkling my nose at the soggy cinnamon rolls. I grabbed a can of soda and noted the time.

“Don’t we need to leave?” I asked. “Church starts in 15 minutes.”

“What time is it?”

“Um, 7:47?”

“Nuh-uh.”

“Uh, huh.”

“We have to leave.”

“I know.”

Despite a rush to the cars, despite being up for ages, we walked in late – during the first hymn – and took a seat in the front. As always, the first three rows were empty and the last row packed. We looked around for Grandma, whispering, “I don’t even see her.”

Up and down. Rote responses to lines I knew inside and out. Singing half-remembered verses in tone-deaf reluctance. (I offended even my own ears.) Leafing through the Bible to find the lessons – Deuteronomy. Colossians, somewhere in the back with all those letters. “Where is Colossae? Is that Turkey?” I wondered and “how, exactly, does one write a sermon based on the 2,000-year-old introduction to a letter?” Luke (singsonging “Matthew, Mark, Luke and John” to get the order right in my head). Luke. The parable of the Good Samaritan.

As I read the long familiar story, as I listened, I found myself regretting that the sermon wasn’t based on this text.

And he answered and said, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself."

Huh. Love my neighbor. Love anything with all my heart, soul, strength, and mind.

It made me think - about not calling the police when I saw mob violence, about Aileen's post and what I would have done if I'd seen a couple being wrestled from a car and attacked in a parking lot.

Once upon a time, I stopped a guy from hitting his girlfriend in our dorm. Years later, at a wedding of a friend, she told me that I was the only person who ever told him that what he was doing was wrong. I had forgotten all about it.

As the sermon meandered, I thought of my experiences and my limited empathy, of helping and loving and living.

I stood and recited. I sat and sang. I thought.

I tended to treat people as I wanted to be treated, with respect, kindness and understanding. I tried to put myself in their position and I tried to understand their actions. I tried to love them as I loved myself. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't.

As I caught the twinkle of my grandmother's eye, as she walked away from the communion table and saw that we were there, as my mother leaned in for a hug, I realized that whether or not I succeeded all the time, at least I tried. I got up early, rubbed the sleep from my eyes and tried.


Tag: Family Friends Church

Fly away

A stupid mistake. A big thing of cream, pink grapefruit body butter in my tote instead of my rolling bag or in the cabinet at home.

“It’s too big,” said the man behind the conveyor, twisting off the lid to sniff the thick creamy contents.

“It’s 20 bucks,” I pushed through my teeth, mentally kicking myself.

“You could check it.”

“My bags are already gone.”

“You could check that bag,” he smirked, motioning toward my gaping shoulder bag before tossing the jar in the bin with a resounding thud.

I seethed silently. It was my fault but I was uncomfortable with the way he rifled through my belongings without so much as an “Is this your bag?” or an “I’m going to need to look inside.” I didn’t even see him grab the bag from the X-ray machine before he approached with its contents. I felt violated. And stupid. I knew better.

Breathing deeply as my brother laughed, “You’re upset, aren’t you?”, I crouched to buckle the white leather straps of a 5 year old’s sandals.

“You have to help me,” she instructed as she passed through the scanner and waited for her mother to deaccessorize and reassemble her jewelry. “Too tight.”

I loosed the strap.

“Is that good?”

…

At Dunkin Donuts, they picked out their favorites. Glazed for the boy. Cake with icing for the girls. Sprinkles. Both saved the sprinkles for last.

“They’re the best,” said one.

“They’re messy,” said the other, by way of explanation.

They split the final one, pink and sprinkled, growing bored with the wait. We walked over to watch the planes; I walked in a chair, earning another bruise. We played rummy and I won.

“Beginners luck,” I claimed as my nephew packed up the cards. I determined to lose the rest. We walked through the shops and he tried to talk me into a set of fire trucks, the entire set of Air Force One vehicles and accessories or a plane, a single plane, at the very least. I knew would succumb before the trip home but it was early.

I sat alone on the plane. My nephew took my seat with my brother and my sister sat with the girls ahead of me. I heard their clear high voices from my window seat, a whispered “Bless you, Lodi” when I sneezed. I saw Bear, tie-dyed and ratty in a purple lace dress pressed against my window.

“My first flight,” whispered my niece, pressing into Bear. She looked back at me and smiled.

Through the rest of the trip, as we parted the clouds and zipped through the air, she pointed things out and called back to me, “What is that?” “The clouds are getting small,” and “That’s a really big stream.”

“That’s a lake.”

“What’s it called?”

“Lake Michigan.”

“Michigan? It’s really big.”

I pointed things out and tried to answer questions like, “What’s that thing that looks like a flower?”

“An interchange. It’s called a clover leaf; it’s how people get from one road to another.”

Like the 5 year old in front of me, I pressed eagerly against the window. “That’s an airport, the thing that looks like this” and I held out my crossed fingers. “That’s I-80” and “That’s close to where Uncle Scott and I went to school.”

“That river, it’s called ‘Maumee.’”

“Ohhh,” she sighed. “Mommy.”

“That’s a plane and the line behind it is called a ‘jet stream.’”

The smell of soggy cheeseburgers filled the air and turned my stomach somewhere near Chicago. I looked with horror at the proffered cow sandwich hermetically sealed in plastic.

“Cheeseburger?”

“No,” I replied, shaking my head emphatically and edging toward the window.

The farms of Ohio, Michigan and Indian blurred into watery, angled strips of Illinois, lakes and rivers, meandering roads and swaths of green.

My niece leaned, forehead pressed to Plexiglass and asked me questions.

I leaned, forehead pressed to Plexiglass and tried to answer.


Tag: Flying Family

That thing you like

I'm leaving on a jet plane. Don't know when I'll be back again… Well, actually, provided all goes to plan, I'll be back on Monday. In a few short hours, I will join my siblings, nieces and nephew on a jet headed north and west for my grandmother's 80th birthday.

Hi!
I can hardly wait to see you! I'm planning to meet you by the baggage area (inside). Carry your cell phone and I'll have mine so if there is a problem we can communicate.
Anything special you want to do while you're here?
Love you!
Mom

I'd say that I got the email because I am the responsible one, but truth be told, we probably all received messages. She's just so gosh-darned excited that we're coming to visit.

I, of course, have no expectations for the weekend other than playing some games, eating too much and probably crying at some point. I always cry when we all get together. I'm not sure if it's joy or stress.

The local bakery, a small town bakery with an amazing selection of breads and pastries, friendly staff and a sugary scent always tops the list. Closed on Sundays and Mondays, we go out of our way to visit when we first hit town. Though, I tend to forget the days that it's closed and end up plundering the goods bought by my aunts and uncles, the mocha cakes that my grandmother hides on top of the fridge, the smiley face cookies in the back of the freezer.

Ah, smiley face cookies, how I love thee.

Mom always brings the cookies when she comes to visit. They are her favorite. My sister hoards hers, hiding them from her husband and kids, eating them in secret and wondering where they all went My brother eats a steady pace. They last a little longer but not more than a week or so.

Mine last forever. I shove them in the freezer. (I don't eat cookies all that much.) I grab a frozen, sugary treat when I'm stressed or depressed and eat the goopy frosting eyes first. I still have one from an Easter visit. At that point, I had three left from last year. I like knowing that they are their, much like family.

I look forward to the craziness that will be our gathering – the overlapping conversations, juggling three at once on completely different topics, a cacophony scaring off those not related by blood. People disappearing to smoke, to play solitaire in solitude, to catch a nap in the fireplace room.

I look forward to games with Grandma, to Boggle and backgammon. If I'm lucky, we'll find enough people for a game of euchre.

I look forward to presents, pictures and the stories of the past 80 years. I wanted to get Grandma a t-shirt but my brother didn't approve of the slogan: I taught your boyfriend that thing you like. I could totally see 80 year old Grandma Mavis rocking the shirt, and if anyone gave her something inappropriate, it would be me. I swear in front of her. I treat her like a person not a Grandma and she treats me like the sun rises and sets with my words. That's how I feel, anyway.

I look forward to not doing anything. After a crazy busy/hugely relaxing weekend in New York and an intense week at work, I look forward to the time away and leaving the computer at home. (Though, I'll probably end up borrowing one.)

I still need a break and I'm taking one. I plan to keep taking them until I don't need them any more. Fortunately, I've got a lot of places to visit, people to visit and things to celebrate. I should be good for years.


Tag: Presents Family T-shirts

Hootenanny

Who knew that hootenanny could be so much fun? Until this morning, I didn't even know what it meant. The first definition, a social gathering or informal concert featuring folk singing and, sometimes, dancing, fit the occasion. The second, an informal session at which folk singers and instrumentalists perform for their own enjoyment, fit much of my life.

Thanks to a recommendation, I found myself back the Kennedy Center and the Millennium Stage for the Wiyos, a Brooklyn-based band featuring "vaudevillian ragtime blues, hillbilly swing and old time country." A hootenanny, in their own words.

It was a little bit awesome.

I arrived late and the seats and steps were filled, the velvet ropes up and the gray-haired usher shooing people away from the side and the exit path. We crowded against the ropes watching the band on the stage with their harmonica and washboard, car horns, bike horns and bells, a megaphone to give a grainy, gramophone sound to a voice.

In vintage suits and hats, the men on the stage swayed to the beat of the bass and board. I wanted to dance. I restrained myself to bobbing a bit as did the gray-haired usher on the side.

I would leave early, join a friend for trivia and stay up much too late.

"I just had an 'Oh, fudge' moment," I said as she returned from the bathroom. "It's after midnight."

She looked at me blankly.

"Metro stopped running?"

"Well, that's stupid," she replied. "And I think that calls for a drink."

We didn't sing. Play music. It wasn't our thing. We used words and talked through most of the night. Wrote. She slept in my guest room in my t-shirt and pajama bottoms. I gave her a skirt and sweater for work, which seemed like something I would wear and not the least bit like her, but it fit and it wasn't the outfit she'd worn to work on Tuesday.

Throughout the morning, I would think of the night, the strange night, the music, the talking, the desire to dance. I would think of hootenannies from the past with my brother and friends, guitars and drums. A friend once used my candy jar as a maraca. I played the spoons. It's been so much fun - I'm glad I know the word for it now.


Tag: Hootenanny Music Friends

Heavy boots

I started reading a new book over the weekend. In a bar, on the train, before bed at night, even in the company of friends, I read. I couldn't quite stop reading.

Apparently, it's one of those books that readers are "supposed" to read: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Actually, I think we're supposed to read Everything is Illuminated by the same author, Jonathan Safran Foer, but I have a habit of reading the other books. The Island of the Day Before instead of In the Name of the Rose. Portrait in Sepia instead of The House of the Spirits. That sort of thing.

I have to admit that the cover attracted me. A shiny red hand with words scribbled across it. I kept picking it up in bookstores, reading the back and putting it down on the stack.

At some point I must have bought it. I found it when I was alphabetizing the fiction in one of my recent fits of stress cleaning. I picked it up, read the back and put it down on the stack.

While packing for New York, I shoved the book in my bag, in my orange backpack with all of the clothes that I wouldn't wear and the few that I would. I shoved it deep in the middle pocket on the front, the one I hardly ever use.

At some point, I must have started reading.

At some point, I realized that I hadn't put it down.

The tale of five boroughs resonated with my weekend trip. I hit all five during the stay, in and out of Queens, Brooklyn and Manhattan. The Bronx for the jhandi. Across Staten Island on our way into and out of the city. All five boroughs in four short days.

The book follows 9-year-old Oskar Schell, inventor, Francophile, collector and tambourine player, on a search through the city to find the lock that matches his key. The precocious child is charming and exasperating and completely neurotic, which is understandable as he deals with the reality that his father died in the World Trade Center. His father was in a building that was hit by a plane and he died.

I want to believe that the story's not real. I know that it's fiction, but children did lose their fathers. Parents their children. Wives their husbands and husbands their wives. The story of Oskar might be fiction but the reality of the events of 9/11 were equally absurd and the aftermath just as heartbreaking.

On the Metro, on the way home, I read a story from Oskar's grandmother.

I lowered the volume until it was silent.
The same pictures over and over.
Planes going into buildings.
Bodies falling.
People waving shirts out of high windows.
Planes going into buildings.
Bodies falling.
Planes going into buildings.
People covered in gray dust.
Bodies falling.
Buildings falling.
Planes going into buildings.
Planes going into buildings.
Buildings falling.

The death of her son, her only son, is a small part of her story. She lived before the towers fell. She lived after. She had a universe inside her, much of it sad and the tears welled. For what she'd seen. What she lost. What she found. For who she was and the way her grandson saw her.

It gave me heavy boots (a phrase I picked up from the book). I couldn't go forward. I couldn't go back. I sank a little. I found my feet mired. Same with my heart. But I couldn't put it down.

We all have universes inside us. Things that make us feel like 100 dollars and things that give us heavy boots. They're not always visible from the outside. People don't always see us as we are or understand what they see even when it's all out there. The book reminded me of that.

I stayed up late reading. Later than I should have, finishing the book before sleeping but not before today turned into tomorrow or yesterday into today. I cried. I tried to sleep. I cried a little more and hoped that I would remember that which gave me heavy boots. We never know when something will be the last time. We should treat it all as if it were.


Tag: Books Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Flawed

Four days in New York were not nearly enough. Four days in a three-room apartment with seven other souls – six of us sharing a bedroom, all of us sharing the bath. At any given point, a dozen of us wandered the city, annoyed people on trains and talked of anything and everything.

"Do you know what I love most about your friends? Your Peace Corps friends?" I asked on the drive home, long after the sun had set and in the last leg or two of the journey.

"What?"

"They're all flawed."

I caught his look out of the corner of my eye and continued.

"I mean, we're all flawed but you all know each other so well that you know the flaws and like each other anyways. That's pretty awesome."

"I think that's the glue that holds us together," he said. "None of us had anything like that before we went and we haven't found it since."

I was not part of it, not the Peace Corps, but they knew me tangentially and welcomed me with open arms. Literally.

"You've met before, why no hug?" one girl berated her boyfriend and he leaned in for a hug, all 6 foot, 7 inches of him. I spent much of the weekend in their company. More hugs followed.

Promises would flow – to meet again soon, to write, to call. Many would be broken but the intentions were true. These people knew each other, inside and out, and honestly liked each other. They would come together again and again as they had over the past couple years, their ties growing stronger with coupling and real world friendships and the formation of their non-profit. Overlapping stories and overlapping lives.

I heard tales from their days in Guyana and their lives since. About drunkenness, defecation, and falling in love - in one couple, all three combined. I heard about falling down and rising up. I knew the characters and most of the places.

I scanned through pictures and asked for names, settings, stories, when he came back for Christmas. I visited twice. I listened. Talked. Shared.

Some of the volunteers are part of my life now, my neighbors, my friends. Others have visited and stayed with my brother. Stayed with me.

I questioned my brother on the way home about jobs and plans and stories half heard. I reviewed the faces and names in my mind.

"It's not like it matters," I said. "I just want to know. I like your friends."

"They're great."

For four days, I wished that I had joined the Peace Corps. I knew that I still could and would create my own stories, my own group, if I did, but I wanted this one: Flawed, funny, accepting and great.

Some of the boys might move upstairs. A man from Chicago and a couple from New York plan to visit before summer's end, and I have invited myself to Argentina. With each visit, we will move farther from Guyana. The stories will grow. They will include me. Some already do.

For four days, I stopped waiting. Waiting for my car. Waiting to find out if I'm sick. Waiting for the Metro and on the Metro. Waiting for meetings to start and meetings to end and for somebody, anybody, to get to the point. Waiting for doctors and movies and lecturers. Waiting to go home and do it all again. A life on hold.

For four days, hours on the subway melted into nothingness as we were together and the journeys eclipsed the destinations. I had nowhere to go. Nothing to do. I could wake up at noon and nobody cared. I slept better in a room with five guys than I did at home upon my return.

For four days, I simply existed. I was me: flawed, human, accepted and loved. That is just the way they are.


Tag: Waiting Friends Acceptance

Footprints

My feet are dirty gray from walking barefoot on the roof and I have terrible, painful bruises from crawling through the window to the fire escape. I am scared of heights but by the end of the night, I was lying on the roof and looking at the streets below, trying to find the source of a strange sort of siren. It was an ambulance.

My brother played guitar in the dark night, singing horribly inappropriate songs that made most of us laugh and one girl say, "This is making me uncomfortable."

The boys jumped from one roof to another to relieve themselves in a corner.

"If it can resist rain, snow, hail, it can resist the force of my urine."

We picnicked on beer and wasabi peas. Chocolate chip cookies. Some ate dinner, Cuban sandwiches at the green Cuban bar with an eco-friendly design, outdoor seating, and buckets of Corona. The buckets weren't big enough. We bought them two at a time, eight bottles, but there were a dozen of us. An even dozen. No baker's.

Some of us were still full from the jhandi – plates of sticky rice and sweet rice and roti. Seven different types of curry. Eating with our hands under a blue tarp on a drive in the Bronx until the tarp fell. The girls changed out of their saris and into street clothes after the ceremony and after serving the food. Jeans and t-shirts, shorts and tank tops. Spread out on blankets, heads on laps and backs and bellies after the food was gone.

It took three hours to get there from Brooklyn. Two hours to get back. But there were many of us. We talked and read. One girl slept a while. The long day of not really doing anything sapped our strength as did the rocking of the trains, the late night in Queens at the fund raiser, sleeping in a crowded room and talking. It was lovely and exhausting.

The bruises still hurt. I left dirty footprints on the bathroom floor even after showering. I couldn't erase the marks of the night with just hot water and soap. I am glad for that.


Tag: Friends Jhandi New York

Sleeping

“Don’t shave your legs now,” joked a friend as I rooted in my bag for pajamas and knocked a pink plastic razor to the floor. “Just because you’re sleeping in a room with five guys.”

“Well, if ever I needed to shave…”

Rumor had it that I’d be sleeping with the tall guy, Jeff, on the big air mattress but he ended up on the floor with the rest of them. With Mike and Jeremy. Scott. Tall Dan on the foof. Me. The air mattresses fit together like a jigsaw puzzle, a cushion of air on the floor to rest their weary, drunken heads.

"Were you cold?" asked our hostess, peeling her eyes open around noon-thirty.

"Nah. There were four guys on the floor, spooning."

I stuck to the plastic of my mattress. For the third night in a row, I stuck to the plastic of my air mattress. The fitted sheet didn’t seem to fit, nor did I. My feet hung over the edge, dangling into space and time. It was perfect.



Tag: Sleep

Challenging

He reminded me of a friend with his clear blue eyes, thick brown hair, ripped jeans.

He started a recording business with friends. They own their own studio in midtown, spending twice my rent on two small rooms with boards and instruments and a sound booth. They use phrases like "the last time he was in Africa" and "when we were in Lisbon."

He met my friend in South America. He was there doing sound on a film. I've heard that my friend's cat made it into the film but I haven't seen it. The film. Or the cat, for that matter. The cat's still in South America.

He's younger than me, the recording artist, producer, mixer, the boy in the plain white T-shirt. The sports sandals. A rubber band around his wrist. He made me think of places I wanted to visit. Places I wanted to live. Things I wanted to do.

Nobody dreams of being a financial analyst or consultant or training specialist as a child. Little girls don't tell Barbie that she'll be paying for repairs on that pink plastic Corvette or that she'll do so by selling her soul to the man and working nine to five or eight to five or eight to seven every day, worrying about work on the weekends, taking calls on vacation.

Owning a sound studio and traveling the world to meet and track down bands is cool.

We drank beer without him. I think that somebody was supposed to call but it wasn't me. I did call a friend in town for training. We met on a corner in the Lower East Side. I shouted "I'm kitty corner across from Whole Foods" into my phone as she said "I'm alone in New York" and "we hear the same sirens."

I believe the proper term is "cater corner" or "quatre corner" but it doesn't matter. I say "kitty" and she found me, us. Our friend.

A lot of friends found us throughout the night and would the rest of the weekend. One girl wouldn't make it because of a last minute trip to Uganda, to save the world or whatever. Another girl had just flown back to San Francisco. A couple of boys – men – were in Korea teaching English. Some people just wouldn't or couldn't make it. Life got in the way. But people did fly in from as close as Boston and as far as Africa. It would be good.

They would challenge me, my life, the decisions I've made, this group of idealists, of RPCVs, of fair traders and sound mixers and international aid workers who drink and roll their own cigarettes, play other peoples' guitars in other peoples' living rooms and carry notebooks and cameras everywhere. Who know what it's like to have money and to have nothing at all and to try to give back to the country where they served. It would be fun. So far, it is.


Tag: Friends

Desire

There I sat, in the corner of a crowded Brooklyn apartment reading 3-inch square after 3-inch square of little yellow Post-it® notes, trying to figure out where my car was, how to get out of the apartment, and how three of us would share a single set of keys.

There was a box of leftover pizza in the fridge. A pitcher of water. The cookies and banana bread that I brought. Other than that, the kitchen was empty. (Is empty. Even the pizza's gone by now.) I was starting to get hungry, but none of that worried me.

I slept poorly, waking often. Too hot. Too cold. Painfully aware of others, the boys shifting, the couple on the mattress in the room next door. Coming into the room for clothes. The computers. To explain the maze of Post-it® notes on the table.

None of that worried me either.

When I awoke, I felt better. Calmer. Happier. I was with friends. I wasn't at work or at home in my mold-infested, air conditioning-free hovel. I was in someone else's third-floor walk up without air conditioning and loving every second of it.

I logged into the computer, scanned through my email and stopped at the Word of the Day.

desideratum \dih-sid-uh-RAY-tum; -RAH-\, noun;
plural desiderata:
Something desired or considered necessary.

Desire seemed a loaded word, fraught with sexual tension, but there was more to life than that. Than the erotic. That was actually the last definition on Dictionary.com.

With U2 screaming through my head, the word reminded me of the poem I loved a lifetime ago, succumbing to an angst-riddled teen moment and buying a copy for my bedroom wall. I was never one for posters or girlish tchochkes, little glass figurines and the like, but something about that calligraphied poem on a background of pink struck me.

Even today, a decade and a half later, I could probably recite it.

Desiderata, by Max Ehrmann
Go placidly amid the noise and the haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.

Bits of it anyway. The Word of the Day inspired me to go and find the rest.

As far as possible, without surrender,
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even to the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons;
they are vexatious to the spirit.

If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain or bitter,
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs,
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals,
and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love,
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment,
it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be.
And whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life,
keep peace in your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

Cheesy, I know, but not bad words of advice to a girl in her formative years. Not bad words of advice to a woman on the brink. Strive to be happy; it is still a beautiful world. These are thing desired. Considered necessary.


Tag: Desire Desiderata

Baking

"I'm stressed," I said as I placed the eggs on the counter next to the baking soda, shortening and flour. I left for a second, found a pound of unsalted butter and returned to my stash. "Stressed."

The man behind the counter, a lazy-eyed man who seems to work all day every day and tries to talk me into a bottle of wine or two with every purchase, lifted an eyebrow.

"Why stressed?"

I scrolled through the mental Rolodex of issues and settled on the easiest.

"My car."

"What's wrong?"

"Transmission."

He groaned softly. We chatted as he rang up the staples. He tried to talk me into a nice small sedan. I shrugged and said I barely drove.

"What are you going to do?" I asked as he bagged the eggs, the flour, the shortening and baking powder and butter. I smiled and wished him a very good night.

Four and a half dozen cookies and one loaf of bread later, my apartment, my tiny little apartment with a broken A/C, sweltered, topping out at something close 350-degrees Fahrenheit. The dough started baking itself on the counter as I sweated through my thin cotton T and the skirt I'd worn to work. Through my apron. Into the hair swept into a sloppy bun on top of my head.

I forgot about the flour on my nose when I walked to the store. I stuck my nose in the bag; it smelled a little funny from the freezer. I tossed the first batch and started all over again. New flour. New shortening. New butter and eggs and baking powder.

Brownies would wait until morning. Afternoon. Evening. I couldn't quite stand any more. My feet were tired. My legs. My soul. The baking helped.

I would sleep in a vanilla, banana, chocolate haze. I would share the cookies with family and friends on the trip to New York, in the crowded apartment where we'd sleep on the floor for days. Nights.

I would share the bread. The cookies. The brownies.

We would laugh. Fight. Forget about the car and work and DC. Forget about everything but friends. Food. Music.


Tag: Baking

Breakdown

"I don't know what to do," I moaned, wrapping my arms around my knees and rocking gently. "I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do."

This seemed a marked improvement to shouting "F*ck" at the top of my lungs, which I did earlier, scaring my neighbors. I can hear every word and every step from their apartment upstairs. They seldom hear me but for that one very loud, very drawn out syllable.

They didn't bother to investigate.

Eventually, I found myself on the couch, flipping through channels unseeing, and curled up repeating the phrase, "I don't know what to do."

My brother called from somewhere on the road.

"Your car just doesn't want to go."

"Where are you?"

"I don't know. Somewhere on 95. There was traffic and then it didn't want to go. It kept stalling. The traffic's gone but I can't seem to get it into or out of first or second gear."

"I've never had that problem before."

"Well, it exists. I'm on the highway and it exists."

"I don't know what to tell you to do."

"I'm just going to try to drive home. I might be there in a couple of hours. I'll call you if I get home."

I didn't know what to do. Call him and tell him to stop. Rent a car and drive somewhere up 95 looking for a disabled Jeep. Give him the rental and wait? Let him drive home, possibly causing even more damage to the car?

I googled "Jeep" and "gear" and "stalling" but hadn't a clue as to what I found. I wasn't a mechanic or even remotely mechanically inclined. I couldn't diagnose the problem based on a three-minute conversation. I had never encountered it myself.

And so I sat and rocked. Unable to do anything but wait to find out whether or not he made it back safely.

It wasn't really the car. I was already tense when he asked if he could borrow it. I was already hanging on by a thread. I think it snapped when the phone rang.

I called again.

"Is it moving?"

"Yeah… Now it doesn't want to go into any other gears. I'm going to have to take it right into a shop."

"Can you take it to Arlington?"

"I don't know," he said with a pause. "I was hoping to just glide it into the city."

"Just bring it to my house and I'll take care of it."

"OK."

I hung up and screamed again. I sat on the couch and cried.

In a few minutes, I would shower and change. I would walk to where the car finally died, blocks from my house, stopped by a red light and unwilling to go on. I would call for a tow truck. I would call the shop. I would move the car from one mechanic to another, two tows, in as many days, the second and third in two weeks. Two sets of diagnostics.

Hundreds of dollars and several days later, I still don't know what's wrong. I don't know how much it will cost. I don't know when it might be fixed or how I'll get it when it is. I don't know how I'm getting to New York. I don't know anything but it will be fine.


Tag: Car problems Jeep Transmission

Let it go

"Do you want to do… something?" I asked. I was tired of feeling sorry for myself and sick of sleeping to avoid thought. I needed to do something, anything.

"Like what?"

"I don't know. See a movie?"

"Oh, yeah. Do you want to see Transformers?"

Suddenly, my weekend changed. My outlook changed. The film was cheesy and loud and completely over the top. I loved it. I cheered for Optimus Prime and booed Megatron and the Decepticons. Shia LaBeouf made me laugh and some of my tension faded.

On the way home, we stopped for pizza from a slice shop between my house and his.

"What's up, bro?"

"Hey, man. This is my sister."

"Really?" He looked from smiling face to smiling face as we stood and grinned at the man in the gold chain, the man with the smile who shook my hand warmly. "Really?"

He teased my brother about eating so much pizza; he was apparently a regular. They talked about the night he, the pizza guy, would actually take off work and hit the town with my brother and friends. He gave us free soda, free pizza and the friendliest smile I'd seen in a long time.

"Come back if you ever need anything," he told me as we left.

As I crossed the street, I reflected on the weekend. It felt like a particularly bad weekend but I realized I could focus on whatever I wanted - positive or negative. It was up to me. As I walked, I started listing highlights of the weekend.

Birthday party, Target date, drinks with friends, a barbecue, dinner, party and movie. Some overlap with friends. Some distinct. Some of the people I didn't even know. Some were planned, others impromptu invitations.

I flirted. Without regret, without expectation.

I laughed. Hard.

I danced in the middle of a dining room in the middle of the night. I twirled in the dark with a man from Kenya, another from Bethesda, a girl from Maine, swinging to music from my college days.

I would regret the bucket o' soda at the movie and the caffeinated beverage with my pizza keeping me jittery and up half the night. I would have to deal with car problems and health concerns for days, weeks to come, but on the walk, free pizza in hand, I had a choice. I could let it bother me or I could let it go.

I decided to let it go.

Let Go
Frou Frou

drink up, baby down
mmm, are you in or are you out
leave your things behind
'cause it's all going off without you
excuse me, too busy you're writing your tragedy
these mishaps
you bubble wrap
when you've no idea what you're like

so let go, jump in
oh well, whatcha waiting for
it's alright
'cause there's beauty in the breakdown
so let go, just get in
oh, it's so amazing here
it's alright
'cause there's beauty in the breakdown

it gains the more it gives
and then it rises with the fall
so hand me that remote
can't you see that all that stuff's a sideshow

such boundless pleasure
we've no time for later now
you can't await your own arrival
you've 20 seconds to comply

so let go, jump in
oh well, whatcha waiting for
it's alright
'cause there's beauty in the breakdown
so let go, just get in
oh, it's so amazing here
it's alright
'cause there's beauty in the breakdown

Tag: Stress

Sticks

"What are those?"

"Sticks," I replied in shock.

One minute we were driving cross town. The next we were witness to a group of men beating each other with sticks.

"Should we call the police?" I asked.

"Somebody else will," said the man with whom I shared my cab. He laid his head back against the seat as I watched in horror.

A large group of men ran, stopped, at the corner by the Verizon Center, with fists and sticks flying. T-shirts were torn. Blood flowed. We waited for the light to change.

The man directed us to his apartment. His dorm. Georgetown Law. Sirens blared in the background.

"See, someone called the police."

The law student handed over his cash and crawled out of the cab.

"Who does that?" the cab driver asked, speaking for the first time. I didn't know if he meant the aspiring lawyer or the men with sticks. I didn't have an answer.