Seeing Ghosts

Packing up to leave a coffee house on my circuit, I decide to purchase a delicacy before departure when I glance right and see my old boyfriend sitting at the counter. He’s not supposed to be here – he lives nowhere near this locale – and I’m not supposed to care because we broke up five years ago. Only seeing him casually sitting there is like seeing a ghost sunbathing. You can’t help but be startled.

We met over hot beverages. Accidentally. A crowded coffee house with too few tables. I pulled an empty chair into no man’s land trying to balance my drink with my reading material, no surface for support. A guy with bleached-out hair and the coolest fountain pen offers to share his table. I say thank you and slide over. He’s scribbling in a spiral notepad and I’m lusting over his pen.

“Cool pen,” I say with all the suave in the room. I flash my drugstore variety Sheaffer at him and say, “I love fountain pens.”

“Me, too,” he replies, and he starts sharing the history of his pen while demonstrating the way it moves across the page and pointing out the fine crafting of its nib.

Five months later he vanishes without warning, without a word, and takes my heart with him.

The in between part from pens and coffee to disappearance are messy and involve shared living quarters (mine), loaned money (mine), and the destruction of trust (also mine.) He resurfaced two years after his departure to apologize and repay his debt. By then I was accustomed to living without a heart, so after the initial jolt of hearing his voice, talking to him had little effect on my pulse.

But seeing him today oddly did.

I alter my direction and exit the coffee house via the side door leaving the thought of food inside. And now, with an empty stomach, I’m digesting. That man sitting with his coffee was the first person to sit me down and tell me that I must write. As he said the words handing me back my pages of a meandering novel/memoir-type concoction, I smiled and shyly shrugged off his praise. And then he upped his level of seriousness to stern and said, “I mean it. You Must Write.”

Without offering me a roadmap, he insisted on my taking the journey. His adamance got my attention and along with my own desire pushed me to abandon the working life I’d been living. Over time I concluded that this was the purpose of his entering my life, for after the blow of his disappearance that left me paralyzed for months, I needed to find positive meaning. I’d been certain that he was my reward for the hard work of healing after a troubled marriage, but then he was gone.

Seeing the ghost reminds me of the good he brought out in me, how I was lighter and funnier, risky and playful. I was kind to myself then, more tolerant, more accepting. To lose that when he left stung, but I finally believe that he had no intent of hurting me, that his abrupt departure was simply a dramatic display of his own problems.

And suddenly I feel forgiving. I consider other hurts of my life and I recognize how I could have minimized the pain, how I could have stood up for myself better. Receiving hurt in silence is wrong. If we’re not willing to stand up for our needs and wants, how can we expect others to honor them?

So, seeing the ghost has pushed me through forgiveness and made me stand up straighter. My rescuing days are over unless it involves my child, my dog, or strangers who fall onto subway tracks (hey, I, too, can aspire to greatness.) I feel a smile that can’t be squelched. And I can’t wait to see who shows up next, spooky or fleshlike.

Tags: ghosts, relationships, forgiveness

Sisyphus Has Nothing On Me

There’s something that’s coming between me and my sanity and it’s called my much neglected mail, the mail that stacks up because I’ve paid the immediate bills but before me sits that semi-necessary stuff that really should be sorted into my overstuffed file cabinets because there are rumors floating around that someday I just might need it, like in case of an audit or a purchase malfunction or if I ever find myself with a shortage of reading material (impossible!) or I just don’t know why.

Going through the stacks semi-weekly, I manage to toss about half of what was left over from the previous week because the offer expired or the event has passed or the election is over and I never did read those recommendations because the ones I found online were much easier to access because they didn’t involve climbing the mail Mt. Everest.

When I purchased a shredder, I envisioned my path to clean-counter heaven. There’s nothing like a new toy to enlist participation in a dreaded chore. The whizzing, the whirling – I saw junk mail disappear before my eyes, but I faced the daily arrival of the postman and like Sisyphus could never get over the hump.

I hear the tips roaring in. Tackle your mail the minute you walk through your door! File immediately! Nothing gets to remain on your desk/table top!

Brilliant advice, but my file cabinets are exploding. Each time I must file something new I don’t want to wade through all the old to figure out what can go. That’s double duty. I got it into the file cabinet once. Can’t it just reside there forever?

It could if I owned a million file cabinets and lived in a palace.

I could go paperless and get all my bills and statements via email, but I don’t trust that yet, which is a shame because my computer is a beauty to behold – organized and neat – with all its endless folders. If I forget where I filed something, I can just do an easy search, and there it is dancing before me saying, “Here I am. Here I am.” Furthermore, if longevity is what I’m after, I’m certainly more likely to rescue an external hard drive in the event of a fire than fifty file cabinets (okay, two, but once they’re beyond the size of a shoe box, numbers don’t mean much.) We’re talking fire and running and grabbing animals and photos and children. Old credit card statements? I don’t think so. So maybe I must rethink my skepticism here.

The biggest obstacle between me and relief is the tax audit. I’m convinced that as soon as I toss my old financial records, the Tax Man will knock at my door and wag his finger at me as if he’s been lurking in my alley peering through binoculars into my window to detect the perfect moment to strike. Ironically, I don’t even know if the papers I save would prove anything on my behalf. I have a creative way of tracking my expenses that has little to do with receipts. Still, I have faith in my system, mostly because it’s mine.

In an effort to force my hand, I placed all my unfiled mail upon my bed with the mandate, “No sleep until this is dealt with.” Unfortunately, my mind has a mind of its own, and with one grand gesture it found a spot in the corner of my room screaming for company. That corner is no longer lonely.

My file cabinets still overflow, my shredder is silent, and the Tax Man must lurk a bit longer. If there’s ever a fire in my home there will be no shortage of fuel, and I’m convinced my obituary will read, “Death by mail.” When people ask, “Given the opportunity, what one luxury would you offer yourself?” I answer, “Forget the daily massage. Forget the gourmet restaurants. Give me a secretary.”

Tags: mail, filing, Sisyphus

Finding My Home

I’ve gone offline and started submitting more pieces to print media. Romping through newsstands looking for a fit is enough to bring a female essayist to tears. I have little to say about make up and diets. Actually, I have a lot to say about make up and diets, but what I have to say would get me banned from women’s magazines. Besides, content aside, I can’t stand the stench left on my hands from touching those perfumed pages. Do these magazines really speak to my species?

I have much to say about the journey of the parent, but so far I’ve noticed that in-print documentation of the experience appears to end before the kid’s age hits double digits. My tales of encountering puberty don’t fit next to toilet training. Parents of teens don’t read magazines geared at parents anyway. We’re so ecstatic to have more freedom that we mostly just drop our kids at the movies and go read a novel or hang out with friends. If we’re feeling especially entitled, we may sneak in a massage. We return to pick up the kids and ask them if they smoked while we were gone. We then practice reading body language. I must find a publication interested in this phase of the parenting journey, the stories that reflect as much about our learning as that of our offspring.

Despite previous attempts, I’ve been discouraged by those in the know from further submitting to the NY Times op-ed page – the paper I read – because supposedly I need a bit more fame in my corner to get printed there, even if it’s fame only in the eyes of the NY Times. Instead, I’ve been nudged to the LA Times, which I no longer read. I will look there again.

I can’t deny my grandiosity. I’ve submitted to publications I’m too shy to confess to here despite my blog title. If they take me, I’ll shout it from the moon so you’ll certainly know.

I’ve been told not to look for a fit for my writing, but to find a place I could imagine writing for. This frustrates me. I’ve spent all this time looking for my voice, and now I’m supposed to tell it to shut up and be someone else. “These magazines have a format,” my ears hear. “Don’t try to get them to bend for you.”

“Why not?” I want to scream. “Isn’t that the point of creativity and originality? If we all speak the same cloned voice, why not just program my computer to write?”

Wait, could I do that? Go spend a week on a tropical island and have my computer write for me?

“But of course not,” you say.

“I know,” I reply, while fantasizing ever so briefly and imagining turning the idea into a tidy short story.

I will keep writing. I will be mindful of publications and what they print. I will send stacks of essays appropriately modified to places that may wish I’d never been born. I will poke and prod and pray and hope. And I will offer a finder’s fee to anyone who points me to a publication I haven’t considered that ends up taking me. Ready, set, go.

Tags: writing, publication

Beyond Memory

To ease our access to history my mother pulled our home movies from the closet and transferred them to disk. As I pop DVDs into my player, images of my mother in her youth move before me – parading coyly before the camera, in a cowgirl costume dancing with friends, posing with her brother – and I sit transfixed meeting a person I’ve never known.

And the journey continues from my parents as teens freshly in love before the promises of forever to my sister’s arrival. She appears serious and observational, the dramatic demonstration of the personality she still inhabits. My brother comes next, altering the family balance and casting the players into new roles. Finally I appear causing yet another shift.

I watch myself as a baby and a toddler living a life of which I have no memory. “But that’s me,” I think to myself. It’s so foreign, so inaccessible. It might as well be someone else’s life. And I can’t help but wonder how to calculate the value of what I can’t remember.

Seeing my family before my existence, in motion, offers a kind of understanding that anecdotes, still photos, and description will never provide. The way my mother walked as a teen. How my grandfather always mugged and performed for the camera using whatever props were at hand – a garden hose, a diving board, another person. His spirit of play greets me in a way that I never experienced in the flesh. Unknown faces appear representing an unknown story. It’s a tease. I want to dig deeper, to sit my mother down and ask questions.

I continue watching and come to a gap in the history. Life between my third and eighth year doesn’t exist. “Mom, there’s nothing of all the roadtrips we took when I was four.” I say. “Sun Valley. Crater Lake. Nothing.” And her simple response of, “Really?” rather than, “You’re kidding? We were shooting movies all the time,” leads me to imagine that the films aren’t missing from the neatly labeled and organized box of 16 and 8mm treasures.

If the cameras stopped rolling, what altered my parents’ need to preserve our adventures and milestones on film? Had they recognized they would not go forward as a family? Had the unraveling begun? Or was it just the syndrome of an aging family where the tireless documenting slows down?

1969 and 1970 present two offerings: my sister’s high school graduation and a random day as I played with my two dogs. Then all the recorded moving history ends, as did our family unit.

I think of the closet of home videos of my son. Will he recognize the day his parents split up by the sudden absence of his father in the videos? Will the visual shift speak poignantly or appear as a simple marker in our family’s history?

And I see that I owe my son the preservation of his father in this time, that since the camera lives in my hands, I should film his dad whenever he appears, whenever they are together, or in the least, hand over the camera to them to capture their own moments. My son will want to remember.

My mom asked me to edit the films she gave me, to compile them in a neat and tidy way, to remove the boring and the blurry, but I can’t get myself to do it. Out of focus or repetitive, lingering or chaotic, all are precious moments, and I don’t want to lose any of them. Adults often say to children, “I was once a kid, too, you know.” The viewable proof is breathtaking.

Tags: home movies, memory, family

Tagged: I’m It

I only did this for Cover because I love her writing and sort of considered it an invitation. But, I won’t be tagging anyone to follow because it feels like supporting the draft, which I oppose. (Either that or I lack blogger spirit.) However, if you want to be tagged by me, consider it done. I won’t deny it. Even under oath.

Five Things:

1. I seem to always get my car washed two days before it rains. Two days. After waiting months to do the deed. So if you live in Los Angeles and want to make plans that are weather dependent, monitor my car washing. I think I’m more reliable than the nightly news.

2. My thirty-year-old boyfriend took me to my senior prom. Beforehand, he bought strawberry daiquiris in a posh restaurant that my friends and I shared. Nearly thirty years later, I’m still attracted to thirty-year-olds. Either I live in a time warp, my soul has a permanent age of thirty, or there was something very magical in those daiquiris.

3. The only regret I have in life was trying to put on overalls in a small bathroom at age eight. A piece of advice: never attempt this by bending rapidly at the waist as you reach behind to fling the strap over your shoulder. I collided with the sink and spent the next ten years in a dentist’s chair as a lab rat before the days of perfected bonding. Better advice: don’t wear overalls unless you’re a farmer.

4. I speak four languages, one quite well (English.) My ability in the other three (Russian, Italian, French) is deteriorating at an alarming rate. Luckily, I came up with a handy solution: blending. When I put together what I remember of the three, it comes out as a delicious Esperanto-imitation, yet more flavorful and with a far more sordid history. I give lessons upon request, though don’t expect to get much use of it in the real world. You will, however, have the opportunity to see the look on the ticket seller’s face at Gallerie dell'Accademia when you ask to purchase one adult and three children’s tickets in ‘Italian,’ prompting her to respond, “What language do you speak??!”

5. My right shoulder barely functions, supposedly due to overuse at a young age. I question the simplistic diagnosis, suspecting instead a war wound from a past life (hence part of my resistance to the draft.) I think a spear was involved. Don't worry, I've learned to compensate nicely with weird body contortions.

And despite all that I’ve shared here I am profoundly private, except in the company of alluring strangers and alcohol. You’re been warned. Onward.

Watching the Detective

I suspect I wasn’t born a detective. I suspect my occupation was cultivated in my youth. However, as with many of life’s mysteries, I’ll never know, will I?

As I went about my young life climbing and playing, racing the neighborhood, shooting unpopped popcorn through a peashooter at parked cars, things were happening around me. Things no one was talking about. Things I was blind and deaf to. I embodied innocence in a not so innocent world.

In my third grade year, the bomb exploded in my upper middle class home. Climbing from the rubble, I watched as my parents came and went in shifts. I learned about hospitals of the physical and psychological kind. I learned that asking questions might not get you answers, especially if you have no way of knowing which questions to ask.

So much was going on in my world that I didn’t even know how much I didn’t know, but eventually my subconscious caught on and planted the seed that if you want to know anything, you better pay attention. There are signs, my subconscious warned. Only the savvy and the attentive will know.

The Detective was born.

I imagine what I’m not hearing and what isn’t being said. I look over my shoulder, search for clues and signs and indications and hints. I take notes. Friends come to me, my skill at detection well known, and ask, “What do you think it means?” My powers of observation and analysis are well respected. I offer answers. I serve the people.

And I’m tired.

I’m tired of not trusting in what I don’t hear. I’m tired of imagining what is being said between the lines. I’m tired of waiting for the next bomb to drop, in believing that if I’m more vigilant in my detection I can get out of the wake of the explosion before I end up in the rubble again.

I used to see my story as one of survival, of making the best out of the bad, of using adversity to hone independence and create a pocket of powers. And all of that is true, but more is true as well.

Children should not be protected from all that is bad. Absence of information and explanation creates a lack of trust, for once the curtain is pulled aside and the protected learns the truth, he doesn’t know what to believe in the future.

If you want to protect your children from a lifetime of healing, let them heal in pieces from the beginning. Share pain in small doses. Share truth in age appropriate terms. This does not mean bleeding all over the child. A child can choose to drown saving a parent. Throw your child a life preserver first. But do not protect with lies. Do not mask reality with well-rehearsed smiles and fairy tales.

Unless you want to raise a detective. A suspicious, somewhat-paranoid detective. A detective who will blame himself for his lack of belonging and trust. A detective who will always be searching, for there is undoubtedly something to be found. There certainly was in this detective’s childhood, and while one can’t blame the budding detective for not unearthing clues at such a young age, the detective may always believe that the clues were sitting waiting to be discovered. He may not believe it in his head, but he may somewhere deep in his soul.

But take heart. It’s not so serious. The Detective has fun. The Detective figures out movies before the rest of the audience. The Detective seldom says, I never saw that coming.

The Detective even has enough savvy to eventually figure out what’s been nagging him for years. The Detective can turn his detective powers on himself. It’s the beauty of living. Everything moves and changes. The absolutes are the beginning, not the end.

Tags: parenting, detectives

Dance Partners

Forgiveness and I are not close. I’ve never really understood the terms of the friendship, so I haven’t reached out and invited Forgiveness into my life in any grand way.

While Forgiveness has made short visits such as after a minor misunderstanding or slight – the kind that mends easily with an “I’m sorry” – for big injuries of the recurring kind I have mostly shunned Forgiveness by saying, “I need to know how and why.” And so far, Forgiveness has mostly defaulted to clichés, such as ‘to forgive is divine’ or ‘it’s for your own good.’

Of course, I know Forgiveness is good for me. In theory. But sometimes I feel that Forgiveness wants me to assume the entire burden of the friendship. In becoming buddies with Forgiveness without first having tea with Understanding, mustn’t I simply swallow Hurt?

When the way through pain is visible, it is easy to dance with Forgiveness. But when pain is disorienting with no clear path to release and Forgiveness casually calls, how can I act all cool and jaunty and step onto the dance floor? To link hands and prance feels so disingenuous.

I know a friendship with Forgiveness can liberate me. I know it’s like saying, “[Whoever] didn’t mean it.” But what if [whoever] did mean it? Or what if [whoever] doesn’t care about repeated insults? Must I then simply try to have a threesome with [whoever] and Forgiveness? Isn’t it kind of slutty if you’re not really into it?

I have a long way to go in developing a healthy relationship with Forgiveness, but I’ve decided to at least try a few dates. Maybe with some time spent together, we can learn the fox trot.

Tags: relationships, forgiveness

Take a Walk with Me

Despite my inviting faux-down comforter and several soft pillows, if I toss down the TV remote onto my bed, my dog scurries over, circles, and plops right onto the device. It’s hard plastic. With protruding buttons. It can’t be comfortable.

Most say that men have a more passionate relationship with remote controls than women do, and since I have a male dog, I attribute his behavior to his gender. But honestly, I think it’s damn weird.

Speck has strong affection for my cell phone as well. If I’m lounging on my bed with my cell lying beside me, Speck sneaks over, glances about surreptitiously, drops down, and situates his head right upon the phone. He concludes by wrapping himself in the headset cord as if he’s trying to floss his whole body.

I’m not one to deny my housemates their pleasures, but I’m a bit uncomfortable with my dog’s infatuation with technology. Maybe I’m just bothered by the fact that I can’t ask him about it and get any kind of reliable response.

I want to get down to business, to write interesting and insightful things, yet all I can do is look out the window and notice how the sunlight is hitting the palm fronds. I sway with the gentle movement of the leaves in the breeze, the afterbirth of the tremendous wind that was here a few days ago. I tell my mind, “Focus. Vacation is over,” as if I were ever really on vacation. My son was on a vacation and I jumped aboard as if I’d been invited, neglecting the necessity of having to have something to vacation from. In my inventive way of thinking, I decided that as long as my son was sleeping late in the morning, so could I. If my son was staying up late doing frivolous things, I could turn to him as my role model. It was party season, and I wasn’t about to be left out.

But today school is back in session, and my body knew without any formal ceremony. I awoke on schedule before six a.m. to darkness and quiet. For a brief moment, I mourned the end of permission to do nothing. I reached for my laptop on the nightstand, booted up, and raced through my morning reading of key New York Times articles with one eye on the clock. As if programmed by the military, I knew when it was time to pull myself from bed, stumble towards the bathroom for the morning ritual, and then move to the kitchen to feed the offspring.

After depositing my son at school, I went to one of my favorite coffee shops to write, but just as I was settling in, the speakers filled the room with Shirley Temple singing “On the Good Ship Lollypop.” I know they were going for unexpectedly hip, but I found the attempt unsuccessful. I dove into my laptop bag for my headphones only to discover they weren’t there. I was hostage to the young lass’ voice.

Turning to my laptop, I tried to imagine anything other than a four-year-old tap dancing, but Shirley wouldn’t be ignored. My coffee was growing cold with neglect, my ears were screaming for a song of this era, my fingers wanted permission to meander, and the tauntingly delicious pastries in the case were mocking my healthy resolve.

Like a refugee seeking a new country, I quickly packed my belongings, and ran for the door. “There’s a better world out there,” I told myself. “Go find it.”

Only guilt jumped in and reminded me that today I am to be focused in a way that will forward my goal of something. That’s the problem, the goal has grown murky. The goal of career success is being replaced by – catch your breath – the goal of romance success.

“You’re not allowed to talk about that now,” my inner critic interjects. “I’ve warned you about this.” And Inner Critic has, only finally, I may stop listening.

I have been singing false independence for far too long, the I-don’t-need-a-relationship mantra to keep me firmly planted on my own two feet because I hate the word ‘need.’ Only, my feet aren’t the problem. My heart is.

Last night, an old flame rang me up. We always settle into nice conversation, and suddenly I am reminded of how nice an easy connection is, how with someone by your side, all the other life goals have a chance of cozying up to perspective. After such a lengthy period of singledom – so long that if I revealed the duration you might panic on my behalf and organize a search party for my next mate – I have begun to question my ability to find romance again.

So once again, I am faced with the question of balance. I have been convinced that establishing a new career will calm my inner longing, but now I wonder. If that were to be secured, would I then just look for the next missing ingredient? How do we find contentment?

Love.

I blush just typing the word. I want to be anonymous in confessing the longing, but if Speck can unashamedly profess what he loves, maybe I can take yet another hint from him and come clean with my desires.



And maybe I can even invite them in.

Tags: writing, love, romance, relationships, pets, technology

Complicated Relationships

Writing and I are arguing a bit right now. Some days I'm in love and other days I want to break up. Today I'd rather spend time with coffee and have an illicit affair with someone else's novel.

I know every relationship goes through troubled times so I’m determined to stay patient. After all, it is the new year, and though many leap forward with rash decisions disguised as ‘resolutions’ I know better. I know that while I’m happiest with guarantees and promised futures, that the creative life seldom offers such comforts.

My relationship with Writing is, however, straining my relationship with Bank Account. Bank Account was spoiled for many years, indulged with weekly deposits of escalating amounts. Such attention made Bank Account feel loved and nurtured. Now it wants to know why I care for someone else more.

It’s hard to convince Bank Account not to take it personally, that I wish things could have remained how they were.

“Peoples’ needs change,” I told Bank Account the other morning. “While I loved our healthy run, my dedication to you was interfering with my relationship with Inner Peace.”

Bank Account doesn’t understand for it sees my monthly stress while paying bills. It thinks Inner Peace has me duped, that I’ve fallen under the spell of the guru chant of ‘Find your true path.’ I try to convince Bank Account that this bumpy patch in our relationship is temporary, but Bank Account interrupts me and asks, “Are you trying to convince me or convince yourself?”

I never knew Bank Account was so savvy. Clearly while I’ve been off pursuing some new avenues, Bank Account has been reading, which brings me back to where I started. Writing and I are fighting today. I’m going to go read. If I call it ‘research’, maybe Bank Account will cut me some slack.

Tags: writing, career change

Chipped Away

experiences come at us like a sculptor’s tool
injury, hurt
the unexpected collision,
a troubling encounter.

as pieces
of our form fall away
we imagine
we are losing who we are.

but maybe
those who enter our lives,
who take a small swing,
are indeed the sculptors

the ones who seek to get to the heart
like Michelangelo
chipping away at the unnecessary
to find the essence within.

Yesterday I closed my eyes and saw myself as a piece of marble with chips flying off of me. As I examined the experiences of life, suddenly the hurt hurt less, and the dismantling felt more like a gift than any kind of loss. I thought of Michelangelo and the slaves.

Visualizing particles falling through the air like confetti, I felt enormous appreciation for all that I’ve been through.

I welcome the new year and the opportunities it will bring.

Tags: Michelangelo, New Year's

Going to the Well: The Beginning

The holidays bring up feelings of nostalgia, memory, the past. The experiences we didn’t know we’d ever think about again, the ones we thought had served their purpose, that were merely a piece of the puzzle adding to the picture of the present.

I find myself looking backwards, thinking of the first time I traveled to a tiny village in Siberia called Kolybelka, the car bouncing down the bumpy, unpaved road. We pass a string of ducklings trailing their mother, pass houses of green and blue – not shades but the conventional Crayola crayon colors, primary and strong – odd housing colors for American-trained eyes. The dirt road, wooden fences, horse drawn carts, the sense of quiet and calm – it is as if I’ve driven into the 1800s, and when my boyfriend bursts into a huge smile and says, “This is my village,” I laugh thinking he is joking.

While our lives were different – him a Soviet citizen, me American; him a resident of Moscow, me a Venice Beach dweller – until that moment, I don’t think I appreciated how different different was. I’d made room for our language barrier by devoting hours to study and conversations mediated by a Russian/English dictionary. I’d imagined what it must be like to live behind borders that didn’t let you leave. I’d understood the difference between abundance and not enough. But I hadn’t imagined this.

We round the corner and slow. Faces peer from a window of the house on the right. We’d ridden a train from Moscow for two and half days and then climbed into a car for a three and a half hour drive courtesy of my boyfriend’s brother-in-law who met us at the train station in Novosibirsk before the sun came up. At sunrise, we stopped in the middle of a cornfield, stood behind the open trunk, and toasted with a shot of Vodka. Thinking of the imprecision of our travel, I look towards the house and wonder how long the eyes in the window have been awaiting our arrival.

As I climb from the car, the rural quiet is interrupted with squeals of joy as my boyfriend bounces from one set of arms to the next, the urban university student returning to the nest. The eyes shift to me, the first American – and possibly foreigner, according to the local paper – to set foot in this village. Through the introductions, I repeatedly say, “Privyet!” in my expanding Russian. I opt for the familiar ‘hi’ over the more formal “Zdrastvutye” because I know that my tongue might get twisted on the polite greeting.

I am the first girl my boyfriend has ever brought to his village since leaving eight years earlier for his army service in East Germany, which was followed by his move to university in Moscow. At twenty-six, his family worries that he’s not yet married. At twenty-nine, my culture still allows my singleness but is definitely curious about my pursuit of a long distance relationship born two years earlier on a Soviet-American Peace Walk, a venture that created a traveling city of 500 Soviets and Americans that camped from Odessa to Kiev for one month, culminating with a celebration in Moscow. My boyfriend was the first person to approach me on the tarmac at 3:00 a.m. when we touched down in Odessa after 30 hours of travel, a trip expanded by lengthy flight delays endured by a circus of travelers that included a rollerskater who refused to remove his skates even as we traversed from one flight to the next across the polished floors of the Moscow airport.

When my to-be boyfriend approached bleary-eyed me, he offered a flower or a flag – the memory escapes me – and said, “Unfortunately, I don’t speak English,” and when I replied, “Your English is very good,” he repeated, “Unfortunately, I don’t speak English,” the one complete sentence he had learned. We took our language inventory, and despite the combined total of six, we didn’t have one in common.

But over the next thirty days our romance developed as we struggled through broken attempts at conversation and shared flowing exchanges via interpreters. When the time came for us to say good-bye – a good-bye that felt more final than any other I’ve experienced in my life – I could only pretend to believe we would ever see each other again.


…to be continued…

Tags: Siberia, Soviet-American Peace Walk, relationships

Resolute

My dog operates like Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, stashing his meds under his tongue and then depositing them elsewhere later. Half-tablets of Glucosamine Chondroitin show up in assorted locales – under the dining table, camouflaged by a multicolor area rug in the living room, discarded near the foot of my bed. One time, not to be bothered with movement, my dog simply removed the supplement from his food bowl and dropped it alongside the dish in an overt display of defiance, as if saying, “Don’t let this contaminate the good stuff.”

It’s hard to explain to Speck that the medicine is for his own good, that his joints will thank him later, that due to his trick knees if he doesn’t chew and swallow, he may end up with arthritis. Of course, if I could explain it to him, he may request to see the research proving the effectiveness of the medication. He may pull up studies with contrary conclusions in order to challenge the benefit of ingesting a tablet whose taste he clearly finds disgusting, for this dog rejects nothing outside this medication. My dog eats dirt, for God’s sake, revealing that he does not have the most discriminating palate.

On the days that he can’t be bribed to take his medicine willingly, I pry Speck’s mouth open to shove the tablet inside, and I think of my father who always says he doesn’t have time to attend to his failing knees, who claims that work calls and there are countless demands on his time. I say that none of those things will matter if he’s unable to walk, that suddenly he will see that he has all the time he needs to attend to his health. I point out how much more he could do if he could walk more easily, how life would be richer.

I don’t say that it’s not fair to ask others to fetch things for him off the dining room table as he sits perched in the easy chair in the living room because he has a hard time standing up. I don’t point out that when he decides he doesn’t have time for physical therapy, he’s assuming we’ll have time to come to his rescue when the option for therapy has passed. I do say that if the roles were reversed and I were neglecting my health he’d be outraged and lecture me that nothing takes precedence over care for our own bodies, how if I argued he would call me stubborn and sigh with frustration. And in response he nods.

When a month goes by and he still hasn’t returned to physical therapy, I give up and let my thoughts drift to what kind of older person I will be. It’s hard to watch our parents age, to see their limitations grow, to see ourselves next in line. As if offering a warning, my body showed me the effects of neglect the other day. After some weeks off from an already scaled down exercise regime, too busy and too distracted to be bothered, I felt the neglect undeniably piling up. I called to my son, “Let’s do the stairs today.” He agreed. We donned our exercise clothes and hopped in the car.

Falling in line behind the other climbers, up, up, up we go. It starts easy and quickly gets difficult. Just steps from the top, my lungs are trying to leave my chest as if convinced they could get more air on the outside. I’m startled by how quickly I have declined, that even as a former competitive athlete I don’t have much in the bank. We complete our routine – up and down a few times – legs trembling before sweat can even appear. Despite the difficulty I feel proud that I am back on track.

The next morning I wake up and can barely stand from bed. I’ve done the stairs before, so I feel completely betrayed by my body’s reaction. By sheer coincidence, the elevator in our building is out – we live on the third floor – and we face the long Christmas weekend with no chance of repair for days.

Trying to walk down the stairs to my car, I feel a hundred and two years old, pain surging through every muscle I never knew I had, and suddenly I want to call every old person I’ve ever mocked and apologize. I swear that as soon as I recover, I’m back to a routine that includes the stairs regularly. Suddenly it’s simply about being able to function, about picturing myself traveling the world and facing Machu Picchu or some other equally demanding physical challenge. I’m unwilling to be the one who waits at the bottom for the others.

Days have passed and I’m still hobbling, the elevator is still broken, and Speck is still spitting out his medicine. Soon it will be the New Year. While part of me wonders if I will ever achieve prime form again, ‘Do stairs’ will be high on my list of resolutions. ‘Find flavored Glucosamine’ will be close behind. As far as prodding my father back to therapy, well, maybe I'll try to replace that goal with acceptance because some mountains are too high to climb.

Tags: resolutions, Glucosamine, pets, aging

Tis The Season

I never knew shopping at Borders during the holidays could be the new thrillseeking experience. Pulling into the parking lot, I see cars attempting to exit backed up deep into the underground structure, the occasional driver creeping over the center divide to face oncoming traffic, trying to peer ahead to figure out what is causing the departure holdup.

I am the face these daring drivers encounter under the ‘oncoming’ label, requiring me to demonstrate precise driving skills in order to avoid a holiday season, head-on collision. While a quick calculation informs me that such an accident would raise the interest in the ‘Guess what happened to us this year?’ greeting card enclosure (if I actually did one), I decide to opt for safety over drama. I move slowly and cautiously and snag a primo parking space thanks to my remarkable parking karma that materializes spots just like the onscreen movie-parking phenomenon.

Entering Borders, I can’t help but notice the lengthy line awaiting checkout. Holiday shopping in full swing. And I’m actually glad to be a part, having left my bah humbug home with my dog who has buried himself beneath covers seeking shelter from the recent chill that has arrived beachside, the kind of chill that will never make national news because no one much cares about the impact of fifty degree weather on thin-skinned Southern Californians.

I wander the store wrapped in wool coat and scarf fulfilling my consumer duty of impulse purchases from the bargain table. What thirteen-year-old boy doesn’t need to learn to juggle? Or a hardbound, black spiral notebook of staff paper for the budding composer? But of course. Ooh, I spy a book for mom, and the year’s running out so best pick up a new wall calendar. I arrived as chauffeur to a son in need of wheels and will leave as a sherpa.

But oddly, I am enjoying myself. I feel as if I’ve joined the club of revelers and celebrants. My cynicism is off hiding as I stand inoculated against its snarkiness by commercially packaged holiday cheer. In order to not be late for a dinner reservation, my eyes dart from the check out line to my watch. I’m cutting it close, so I slip behind the other eager purchasers in line. From where I stand, I can barely see the cash registers, but my anxiety over the time is quickly refocused because Borders is not run by fools. All along the check out line are tables of additional potential impulse purchases. Held hostage and in shopping glee, I pick up a book on how to combine Hanukkah and Christmas celebrations as if my family isn’t lifetime masters of the practice.

“We could get this for Grandma,” I say to my son. The book shows menorahs of candy cane candles and displays matzoh balls as snowmen. It’s kitschy enough to nearly mandate a purchase. But as I consider adding this book to my pile, the line picks up and starts moving. I toss the book back on the table, saved from a purchase I would definitely regret. A Christmas miracle…or is that Hanukkah?

And then I see the offering of all things optimistic, the perfect smile producer. Five feet ahead, a neat little sign affixed to a pole reads, ‘Average waiting time from this spot five minutes.’

“Look, just like Disneyland,” I say to my son, but it is the woman in front of me who laughs.

Borders smartly plays us again. The sign works, for I instantly stop worrying about the length of the line. My body posture relaxes. I no longer feel rushed. ‘We’ll make dinner,’ I tell myself, believing the sign. Borders has sold me trust and optimism.

But I must question, did anyone really clock the wait time from that spot? Imagine a Borders’ employee, stopwatch in hand, calculating the exact place in line where five minutes would occur. How likely is that? But it doesn’t matter. I am so touched that Borders wants to calm us – and prevent bitching and moaning, not to mention a shoppers’ riot in its store – with this magical little sign, that I can’t stop smiling.

When the line speeds ahead, I celebrate Borders’ accuracy. It was definitely less than five minutes. In front of the cashier, I feel as if I’ve fully crossed over into holiday spirit. It may not be as exciting as climbing into a car for Space Mountain, but it’s not a bad place to be.

Tags: shopping, Borders, Disneyland, Christmas, Hanukkah, holiday spirit

I am a Diamond

My iPod woke me during the night as if it needed to tell me something. At first I wasn’t willing to listen, disturbed by the call to wakefulness via a tune playing from speakers across the room.

“Huh?” I thought.

I saw the glowing light of the iPod screen announcing its operational status. Still disoriented by sleep lingering in my body, I reached for the tiny remote sitting on my nightstand, fumbled over the buttons, and hit 'off.' I set down the remote and rolled over, eager to return to dream state. Within seconds, the music started up again, and once again I reached for the remote. I clicked 'off,' and before I could even place the remote back on my nightstand, the music started again. Like a comedic tug-o-war, I repeatedly hit 'off' and the iPod repeatedly rebounded to life. It was not to be silenced.

I stood in a huff and marched towards the device, pulled it from its speaker base, and laid it flat on my TV stand in a triumphant ‘Take that!’ I returned to bed and slept through the night till morning.

Had the evidence of the horizontal iPod not greeted me when I woke, I might have thought my memory of the incident a dream, but there it was, lying prone as if knocked out, unable to move. I kind of felt sorry for my dear iPod – it looked helpless and rejected – but it had disrupted my sleep, which I consider rude and insensitive.

Later, I started detailing the incident with amusement to my son when he asked, “What song was playing?”

“‘I Am a Diamond’ by Antigone Rising,” I replied, and as the words floated towards my son, my eyes unexpectedly started to tear.

“Which song is that?” he asked.

The disk sat in the CD player of my car, so I turned on the car stereo and found the right track.

“I am a diamond and I cannot be broken…” sang the car speakers.

I spent the next five minutes trying not to cry in front of my son as I motored him to school. After dropping him curbside, I drove off and returned to the top of the track. I played it three times before pulling over for coffee. My iPod had been trying to speak to me, and I just didn’t want to listen. I exerted all my effort to keep the message away, a message that should become my mantra.

“I am a diamond and I cannot be broken…”

Lately I have felt very broken, inexplicably broken, the kind of broken that no one else can see or feel.

Music reached out to me in this way once before. The night of my stepfather’s funeral, I came home, crawled into bed, and thought, “How can I best help my mom?” She was feeling very broken, paralyzed by sudden loss. As the question completed in my mind, a tinny little piece of music started playing somewhere in my bedroom. I sat up, looked around, unable to identify the source. The sound drew me towards a chair against the wall, a chair used as my depository of stuff. The drop zone.

A few odd items lay on the chair, and the music seemed to be coming from beneath them. I burrowed through the pile and found a tiny, windup music box, a replica of a wrapped present adorned by images of butterflies that my mom had passed to me to play for my infant son. It housed her favorite song, Edelweiss from the movie The Sound of Music.

I hadn’t seen the music box since depositing it on that chair the previous year, evidence of the out of control state of my room. I didn’t even know it was there. For it to leap to life after being untouched for a year was quite startling. In order to get it to play, one must wind the little lever on the bottom a few times, and when it runs out of juice it stops. There is no on/off switch.

That night, without calculation I thought, “She should start taking piano lessons.” I can’t say why that came to me. My mom hasn’t played piano much since my childhood, but a baby grand occupies a big chunk of her living room, mostly as a stand for framed family photos. With the butterflies on the box – the symbol for transformation – it was all too neat and tidy for my rational brain, yet it felt so true that I didn’t question it.

I told my mom of the experience the next day. She nodded, listening, trying to hear. This incident took its place behind a long list of mystical things that had happened since my stepfather’s funeral.

Now, eleven years later, my iPod is talking to me. I can attribute it to chance or coincidence. Perhaps a neighbor with an extraordinarily powerful remote on the same frequency hit play. Perhaps the iPod was coincidentally parked on that song. Anything is possible, but it doesn’t really matter, because in my fully awakened state, I am finally listening.

“I am a diamond and I cannot be broken…”

And the next time my iPod leaps to life on its own, rather than seeking to silence it or figure out how it happened, I plan to lie back and take in the words.


* (the actual name of the song is Broken.)

Tags: iPod, Antigone Rising

Formerly Known As

Saturday night and I’m navigating through Los Angeles on my way to a concert in Hollywood. ‘The Avalon,’ I say to myself looking at my tickets. ‘I’ve never heard of the Avalon.’ I know the street location well, but the club name is a mystery to me. As I get closer, my radar clicks in and I say, ‘Oh, The Palace.’

I don’t know why The Avalon is presumed to be a more appealing name than The Palace. Apparently, new owners think renaming the nearly eighty-year-old venue whose marquee has displayed a series of names reflecting Hollywood history through the years – but has been called The Palace since the early 70s – is a smart move. Or maybe these owners just wanted a chance to stamp their own mark. In the least, I know that renaming is a trend. A disturbing trend.

The Universal Amphitheater is now the Gibson Amphitheater, though ticket broker websites post ‘formerly known as the Universal Amphitheater,’ which begs the question, if the venue was so well known that we’ll be lost without the prompt of the previous name, can’t you just leave the original name intact? Yes, the complainers will die off and the next generation will be born into the new name, but as the youngsters age, the name may change another six times. Then they, too, can join the fun of playing ‘Name That Venue.’

The Irvine Meadows is now the Verizon Wireless Amphitheater (doesn’t that just roll off your tongue?) Candlestick Park is now Monster Park.

When can I start screaming?

Could you imagine if people changed their names with the same regularity? ‘Who?? That’s ‘who’?? Ohhhh…’

What’s the point of a name if not for identification? Oh, right. Publicity.

I understand as arenas pass from one owner to another, the company buying the locale wants its name on the marquee for advertising power. Great. We remember your name but have no idea where we’re going. The benefit of that is what exactly? Can’t you buy an arena, keep the name, and just plaster your banners everywhere inside? Oh wait, the plastering happens anyway. Do you not understand how we mock you as we watch musicians onstage and see wireless ads on every surface in the room? Do you not understand how this annoys us and may prompt us to switch to a less intrusive competitor (if only one existed)?

How’s that for a marketing campaign: We bought the arena, but left the name intact.

Talk about a new fan base.

Imagine if parents were as fickle with names. ‘Well, we tried Jack, but that didn’t really take, so we switched to Austin.’ Or, ‘We got a sponsor for our son, hence the name change.’

That’s it. We could start auctioning off our kids as real estate, a new way to procure money for the college fund. Sure it would be confusing if three PacTel’s registered for kindergarten, only to register in second grade as Airtouch (a much better name, I might inject), followed by Verizon two years later (the name evolution of my cell provider due to mergers and acquisitions), but hey, if it’s to make a little money, what’s the big deal?

While I can tolerate the merger and acquisition name changes much like I make adjustments for marriages and resulting hyphenates and adoptions, I still can’t accept the disregard for the historic value of venue names and the lack of understanding of ‘a time and a place for everything.’ I’m happy to have a cellphone under the Verizon label, but I much prefer to visit a venue with a more romantic name. I need not be reminded during every journey of the corporate sponsorship of the world.

These name changes paint over the past and rob us of a connection to history, relegating it to the results of Google searches. If a small venue on the verge of disappearance changes its name in an attempt to secure survival, I can understand, but when a corporation imposes its name in an act of self-promotion – even if it paid for the right – I see the behavior as brazen and disrespectful.

‘Simple economics,’ you say.

‘I know,’ I respond. ‘But it makes me sad.’

Call me a romantic.

The practical side of me wants a solution as to how to impact corporate behavior in this arena (pun intended.) If mockery alone could succeed, I’d lead that revolution, but these corporations have a very thick skin. And we can’t launch boycotts of the venues, for if ticket sales drop, the company will just sell off the arena prompting yet another name change (ouch).

As a romantic, I have wistful thoughts more than concrete solutions. The best I can come up with is self-serving acquiescence. I have a very talented musician as a son. He's lusting for a new electric bass for Christmas, and I see a baby grand piano in his future. In order to facilitate these dreams, I think I could get used to calling out ‘Ibanez!’ or ‘Steinway!’ when seeking help with the groceries. It's hardly a solution, but this way I can send my son to college, and maybe with the help of a fine education, he can come up with a solution of his own.

Tags: mergers and acquisitions, corporations, concert venues, names

The Wedding Toast

(I have never before written about another blog, but sometimes we must break with protocol for a special occasion…)

There are three kinds of people in this world, those who see a problem and imagine a glorious solution and are energized by the vision; those who see a problem and feel despair and crawl into their cozy corner and hope it goes away; and thirdly, the ones who won’t even look at the problems, who won’t consider their existence, for the thought of such existence inconveniences their lives.

Jen and Mad fall into the first category. They take charge, plunge forward, elicit the aid of others, and look to stimulate change. They have the ability to start a movement, and results follow behind them like fans of the Pied Piper.

I teeter between group one and group two, often exhibiting the qualities of those who get overwhelmed by all the social injustice in the world. During certain sprints of action, I can reach out, speak, organize, and hope, but then I must go back to my corner and recharge. I feel the world’s pain so deeply that I ache, and I can’t always come forward and act.

So today I toast Jen and Mad for their relentless pursuit of justice, for their eternal strength in seeing the possibly that lurks behind the despair, for knowing that ‘enough’ is what most of us have, and ‘not enough’ is what most of us do. But rather than giving up on us, this lovely couple has called us to action to fire up the part of us that believes. And I propose that in honoring their union, we don’t leave the reception feeling that we’ve done enough, but go back to our lives remembering the call to duty, to look for the little ways during our daily routines where each of us can try to improve the world, to make it more just and more equitable, to take a moment to help someone suffering or to speak to the defense of others in need. We need not turn our lives upside down to accomplish this goal. We need not be full-time aid workers. We can simply be hopeful inhabitants of the planet, those who can imagine a better world.

To Jen and Mad…and a better world...

Tags: social justice

Angels in Odd Packages

The nicest man I’ve met in months – maybe years – came to my home to kill cockroaches. The irony is not lost on me.

It’s hard to admit that a few uninvited guests have found their way into my home. I stand in shame just like the fastidious parent who receives a call from school, “Please come pick up your children. They have lice.” We think that pests indicate improper grooming or cleaning. We have a hard time accepting ‘roaches happen.’

Only one roach at a time has appeared in my home, usually late at night when on a whim I return to my kitchen with a snack in mind and flip on the lights. Nothing kills a late night craving faster than seeing a little cockroach scurry across your kitchen floor.

At first I lived in denial, convincing myself that a single stray had found its way into my home. I killed it and felt relief. Then a friend and her husband came for dinner, and another roach got wind of my impromptu feeding and decided to make an appearance, a profoundly disturbing addition to any dinner gathering.

“You know, if you see one, that indicates more are hiding in your walls,” my friend informs me in a calm voice. “They could have come home in food from the market. That happens all the time.”

The look of horror that crosses my face and my, “I can’t handle this conversation,” quickly followed by an involuntary shudder that races through my body prompts my friend’s husband to intervene as his wife threatens to continue. “Hon, I don’t think she wants to hear any more about this.”

“I was just saying—”

“Look, it’s like how you feel about mice. Would you like me to start talking about them?”

“I had a mouse here once,” I started.

“Okay, enough of this,” my friend jumps in, the calm in her voice gone.

Cockroaches continued to visit about once a week – sole travelers out for an adventure – and I decide to take action, sending an email to all the other residents of my building inquiring as to whether anyone else had uninvited guests. Quick replies of, “No, not here,” fill my inbox making me feel depressingly singled out. After two days, the neighbors directly below me write, “Oh yeah, we’ve had them since last year, but not many. Suddenly they’re back.”

Since last year?

Not only are the roaches back, they’ve decided to expand their sightseeing. While I certainly wish my neighbors had acted upon their infestation when it started and kept the little buggers from paying me a visit, complaining won’t help at this point. I call the pest control people and schedule an appointment.

Today Oscar arrived. I have never encountered a cheerier man, which only proves that the quality of your life is not based on the quality of your job. He kills bugs for a living – probably mice, too – and walks into the room as if he’s the most blessed person on the planet. He played with my dog and talked about growing up in this neighborhood, revealing that his brother had been shot and murdered twenty years ago about six blocks from my home, prompting his mother to sell their house. He shared this information with a neighborly casualness, not one to wallow in past pain.

So while Oscar arrived to kill the creepy crawlers in my kitchen, he waltzed in and killed my sour mood, the one that took root after an unpleasant family reunion for Thanksgiving, the day I was to honor all that is good in my life, but instead, having celebrated amongst the whiny and the depressed, only served to take me down to their level.

For two weeks I’ve been trying to bounce back. I’ve made mental lists of all I appreciate. I’ve read books to alleviate my mood and get me away from myself. I’ve strolled in the sunshine and cuddled with my loving dog, the dog that yesterday appeared to sense my sadness and crawled upon my lap and rested his head on my chest as if to say, “I know, I know. But I’m here for you and I love you.” He didn’t demand his usual midday walk that invariably interrupts my most productive moment. He didn’t cry for a cookie. He didn’t place his needs before mine. He just stayed close, maintaining body contact with me for hours as if trying to infuse me with good energy to push out the bad.

But despite all these efforts, my sadness remained. I thought of my mom’s question as to whether I would be hosting Christmas morning again this year, the question I sidestepped not wanting to sound snarly and cynical.

And when my father asked last night what we should do for the holidays, I had to ask, “What do you mean by ‘we’?” fearing the inclusion of those I cannot name. I capped my question with, “I’m still recovering from Thanksgiving.” He wanted to know more, but with my son in the backseat I said that we should carry the conversation over to a different time. I wanted to say, “No gathering, no way. I’m looking to be adopted by a new clan.”

But when Oscar the roach man came today he began to exterminate the lingering gloom. He brought little traps that he hid in the backs of cupboards, out of sight, but there to serve. And as I recline comfortably with my dog still pressed to my side, I picture my residue sadness lured from my body, migrating towards those traps, getting stuck, unable to come back to nag me. I picture Oscar returning as promised in two months to remove the used traps, my home pest free, his carting away the captured pain and poison. I picture him rubbing my dog’s head and shaking my hand as he moves out my door.

And I picture myself Christmas morning wearing a smile, sitting with just my son and my dog, or maybe with an invited friend or two, fresh baked muffins cooling on the counter, a shining California morning streaming through our glass doors and our high windows with views of the ocean. I picture the presence of joy and the absence of sadness, and I picture Oscar surrounded by love. Thank you, Mr. Roach Man. You are my angel.

Tags: angels, cockroaches, family, holidays

Fences

The fences have gone up, the annual act of man that signifies the approach of winter in my beachside town. The waif-life barriers magically block the migration of sand towards the boardwalk, leaving the beach intact and able to withstand the assault of high tides and aggressive waves.

Much is made over the nearly identical year-round weather of Southern California, but these fences attest to our climate changes. Every year when the fences arrive, I know the ocean is getting ready to roar. And every year when the fences are pulled up and tossed into the backs of trucks, I know our moderate winter is over.

How fitting that these fences actually look like markers stuck delicately in the sand, hardly seeming like a potent force against a storm. But they serve to protect us year after year. And they serve as a marker of time, an indication that another year is rolling by.

The skies often grow darker around the time the fences go in. We might still have an unseasonably warm day, the kind that makes Easterners move west after watching the Rose Bowl on TV where we’re all dressed in shorts while they must don snowshoes and winter coats to dig their cars out of the driveway. But despite this national advertising, we do have winter.

After the fences go up, Venice grows quieter. Only locals stroll the boardwalk walking dogs and staring out on our beloved view of the ocean. We live the shorter days and the grayer skies, the cooler weather that requests a sweater and maybe even a scarf. We even wear closed shoes. We move more slowly assuming a subdued mood.

Hopeful vendors still line the boardwalk, though they often let days go by where they stay away. As the season progresses, my dog’s walks grow shorter, his thin coat leaving him to shiver, his stubbornness refusing to wear a sweater. I most often walk on the sand in the winter. The solitude is meditative, the beach more personal in the cold, a place of reflection rather than a playground. Nature’s sounds dominate those of humans. The sky poses dramatically for photos, punctuated by clouds and colors that get washed away during the bright heat of summer.

But this year it’s different. Eighty-degree temperatures arrived after the fences went in. Fresh crowds arrived in skimpy clothes moving with playful strides. And the fences stand as if they have nothing to do, no purpose to serve. The skies stay bright and sunny. The sea stays calm.

The fences feel embarrassed. I know it. I know they’d rather be lying around than standing falsely at attention like military police sent in to quell an anticipated student uprising. Such cops stand tough and strong and secretly wish they were on their couches watching a game or playing with the latest video invention. Their opposition doesn’t warrant their arrival. Their opposition is just flexing. And while it’s possible that things could abruptly turn ugly, just like a storm could suddenly hit the Southern California coastline – the only way our storms seem to arrive, sudden and on the heels of hideously hot winter weather – to lurk around, to wait for such an occurrence, feels pathetic, an act of wishing for exactly what most hope doesn’t happen. Your presence feels as if it’s inviting disaster rather than protecting against it.

In the quiet, the fences turn their attention to each other. Where Venice meets Santa Monica, the fence styles change. Venice’s are metallic and tough reflecting the historic posture of the city, while Santa Monica’s are casual and wooden reflecting a lack of concern.

While Venice is growing in wealth, Santa Monica still has the upper hand. You’d expected the newness and the shine to live in the more affluent city rather than in the Venice of aged grit and decay, a decay that itself is decaying and being replaced by shiny and fresh and recently built, transitioning Venice from its place on the fringe to a desire for societal respect.

At the border, the two styles of fences look at each other deciding whether they can be friends or whether they must stand as foes boasting of the respective assets of the cities they guard. They can’t help but assume the competitive posture, for they’ve been bred as guardians, as protectors, not as friendly welcomers.

But after some time, the fences of Venice and Santa Monica realize that on the quiet days, they only have each other, that they can boast and strut, but the reality is that they share a common goal.

They both want to go home early, assume a cozy spot on the couch and share a few beers with friends. They don’t want to stand in wait.

And when the season ends, they may even decide to grab a meal with one another. After all, they have a lot in common, and it would be a nice way to spend the off-season.

Meanwhile, I'll wait for winter to arrive, my coat hanging by the door ready for duty.

Tags: Venice Beach, winter

It's Criminal

Corporations run our lives. Examples surround us. Cell service providers convince us to speak with more frequency to those within our network, secure that the accrued minutes go nowhere, not costing us a thing. We postpone calls until after 9 p.m. in order to drop into our nighttime minutes. My friendships with people on Verizon have soared while those with service on Cingular or Sprint have become casual and less significant. As I lobby my friends and acquaintances to switch to Verizon to form that cozy little network the cell companies promote, I figure I should be on payroll.

Willingly I fall for my cell provider's propaganda to stave off the price of a few more minutes. But we don’t always face the corporate assault with choice.

I’m a regular recipient of concert promotions via email. I find an event I desire, click, and leap to an opportunity to purchase. When an event is popular, a little stress kicks in as you request tickets and await availability. It’s part of the game and leads to fairy tales.

Once upon a time I sought tickets to a popular concert. Navigating to the Ticketmaster website, I’m greeted by the restriction: MAXIMUM PURCHASE – FOUR TICKETS. Four tickets. But I need five. While I know the limit is an attempt to fend off scalpers, can we finally admit that scalpers can’t be beaten? They will win. Always. If we want to round up all the scalpers, let’s get together and launch a sting operation. We go to Craigslist. We click on tickets, one stop shopping for illegal ticket resales. As the saying goes, ‘It’s not brain surgery.’

I call Ticketmaster’s 800 help number.

“Hi,” I say. “I want to buy tickets for the Red Hot Chili Peppers, but your website says you can only buy four tickets.”

“That’s right,” the Ticketmaster representative responds.

“But, uh, it’s for my son’s birthday and I need a total of five. Is there any way I can do that? I mean, I’m not a scalper or anything.”

“Well, if you have two credit cards with two different billing addresses, you can buy eight tickets,” he explains.

I explain the complications of enlisting a friend to help in this process, that the tickets going on sale will be gone in a flash online, so I can’t wait and come into an in person Ticketmaster location, and if I do it as two transactions online, our seats won’t be together.

“That’s our policy,” he reiterates.

I hang up and tell my son he has to cut a friend. And I flash on my friend with a family of five, imagining Little Jenny’s potential desire to attend a concert with a maximum ticket purchase of four and her mother turning to her and saying, “Which sibling would you like to leave at home?”

I see my friend sitting down her three children, her husband hovering behind her, to explain that one must assume the role of Cinderella and stay behind and clean while the rest pile into a car dressed for an evening out. “Ticketmaster believes I should only have had two kids,” she says in closing.

“Sarah’s the youngest, so she should stay home,” the middle child cries. “Besides, she was an accident.”

“Who told you that?” my friend questions, eyes drifting over to curious Sarah.

“You did,” replies the oldest, secure in her place in the pecking order.

“Maya should stay home since she’s the oldest,” cries young Sarah. “She’s the only one allowed to be home alone.”

“Good point,” says John, the father who desperately wants to volunteer to stay home so that he doesn’t have to sit through a performance he has no desire to see, but he remains silent not wanting to provoke an evil stare from his wife.

I know scalping is a serious problem – well, maybe not in relation to global politics and escalating health care costs – but this four-ticket limit is ridiculously rigid. The limit of four tickets doesn’t stop scalpers. They have a network of a zillion all partying together and buying four tickets. When the company implemented its four-ticket policy for popular events, did it really not consider families of more than four members? Or friends who want to go out as a group? Is everything about dissuading crime?

And then I realize that it is. Many of our nation’s policies are defensive acts in anticipation of abuse of a system. And while there are plenty of abusers who have put these actions in motion, where are the escape clauses for the law abiders? When we give up our liberties to fend off an enemy, can’t we see that the enemy has won?

And no, I’m not getting political. I’m not talking about the Bush administration and how we’ve been scared into accepting previously unthinkable policies. I’m not saying the terrorists have won because Bush keeps trying to convince us to walk around in fear, handing over rights as the price of admission to this country. I’m not saying any of that.

All I’m saying is that Ticketmaster should let me buy more than four tickets for a popular concert. Really. That’s all I’m saying.

Tags: Ticketmaster, family planning, scalpers, politics, Red Hot Chili Peppers

To Flow or Not to Flow

Day Two of National Novel Writing Month. Creativity breaks down and weeps. The pledge I’ve taken to write a 50,000 word novel in the thirty days of November is the same as binding my typing hands in metaphorical handcuffs, courtesy of NaNoWriMo, the perfectly condensed name to lure a graduate of Stanford, a university where all locales are shortened in similarly ridiculous ways: Hoover Tower – Hoo Tow; Memorial Auditorium – Mem Aud; Boat House – Bo Ho.

With NaNoWriMo, I feel right at home.

By Day Three, Creativity, accompanied by Shame and Fear, is curled up in the corner moaning and trying to sleep, determined to wait out the month-long sentence as if imprisoned in a cold concrete jail cell, clinging to fantasies of the day of liberation, eager to rebelliously bound back to life come December and parole.

It pains me to see Creativity suffering so, especially since I brought on the condition. To nudge Creativity out of its depression and worry, I write and write. I write anything. I write everything. I dance between two stories rather than sticking to one, combining the word count for posting at NaNoWriMo as if two stories could march towards one ending. My process focuses on numbers over content. I consider assembling and inserting shopping lists into the middle of the each tale, a definite ‘kill two birds with one stone’ approach. My writing is looking very odd.

On Day Five, Creativity comes to life, coaxed from its haze by coffee and a sugarcoated pastry. But as with any bout of energy brought on by such delicacies, Creativity plummets into low blood sugar after a short digestion period and returns to resentment over the pressure of my commitment. Stubbornly, it retreats to its corner until I offer to strike a deal.

I consider my options. Like a defendant on trial, I stand and raise my hand. Moving into the co-starring secondary role of judge as only a schizophrenic writer can, I call on myself.

Defendant blurts out in military formality, “Permission to not succeed, sir!”

As judge, I nod in understated affirmation. Defendant sits down and allows a small, triumphant smile to take form. Relief. I’m released from my pledge. I can go back to life as normal.

Only the shaking off of responsibility in the way a wet dog dries its coat is new to me. Honoring my commitments, crossing the finish line, every incarnation of such behavior, is my norm. My obsession. Giving myself permission to not cross the finish line is unfamiliar.

For years I have practiced yoga intermittently. Vinyasa yoga. I didn’t choose this flowing form of yoga. It chose me. Serendipity. The proximity to my home of Sacred Movement, a friendly yoga studio, paired with my ignorance of the vast array of yoga options lands me in Brad’s class.

At first I struggle. I must absorb the classroom routine, the names of poses, learn the etiquette, face my limits. Over time Brad’s way becomes familiar. I no longer must remind myself to breathe rather than hanging onto the air inside my lungs as if I’m an inflated balloon that will shrivel and die if I exhale.

“Take a vinyasa,” Brad instructs, referring to a series of flowing poses. “If you always take the vinyasa, don’t. Hold downward dog instead. If you never take a vinyasa, do.”

Brad knows that breaking your routine offers new perspective. If you must always do more, try doing less. If you always do less, stretch and see what it’s like to do more.

When I consider NaNoWriMo, I examine what I gain by sitting down in the corner instead of sprinting for the finish. I see that I give myself choice. I see that the world does not end when I choose to renounce a pledge. I see what I have accomplished by simply trying.

My timid participation in NaNoWriMo has allowed me to move forward on a story that has been hovering above me for months. Some new characters introduced themselves. A story is taking shape. I am reconnecting to fiction.

I have never been a sprinter. I prefer distance running, for I embody endurance over speed. Just ask my high school cross-country coach. In November I’ve written a lot of words. Most do not count towards NaNoWriMo. But they count to me. And they count to Creativity and my someday novel. Both respect my decision to fail at NaNoWriMo. Both understand that my writing process requires some seasoning.

I'm glad that I gave NaNoMoWri a shot, but I'm mostly glad that I gave myself permission to extend the process. Maybe I can try for NaNoWriDecade. That’s more my speed.

Tags: NaNoWriMo, yoga, writing, creativity, Stanford University

When Our Past Appears

Last night I dreamt about my college boyfriend, not because I’m being wistful or nostalgic, and not because of anything metaphysical and spiritual. He arrived in my dreams because I ran into his unbeknownst-to-me ex-wife, and in response to my simple, “What are you doing here? I thought you lived up north,” she blurted out that she and my ex have been divorced for ten years, that they’d both remarried – him to the prison guard of his girlfriend (I must clarify that!) – and that he has lost his license to practice medicine.

Picture my jaw hitting my chest. Literally. Envision teeth and tongue, and my gaping mouth spewing shock and awe. It couldn’t have been pretty. Unable to mask my curiosity, I whipped out a pen and said, “We have to talk.”

“Oh, you had no idea?” she asked.

“Uh, no.”

I'd lost touch with them years back following their move and my misplacing their change of address card. By that point, our friendship had been reduced to an exchange of Christmas cards. It was natural to let it slide.

She gave me her number and trust me, I will call. This is the woman who immediately followed on my heels after my breakup with said boyfriend. He and I ended on good terms. We recognized we were heading in seriously different directions (I obviously had no idea to what extent! Prison guard of girlfriend? I must clarify that sentence.) Boyfriend and I cried through our breakup discussion, dissecting if we were really through, if his journey into medicine and mine into the arts were at the core of our growing lack of understanding of one another, if his need to rise at dawn and my need to roam clubs of music and film and performance and poetry had to be so at odds. The pain of saying good-bye drained the air from the room.

One year later, he invited me to his wedding. His wedding. ‘Gee, that was fast,’ I thought to myself. ‘Is the paint even dry on my new apartment?’

But that was just figure of speech. He and I had never lived together. I did move months after our breakup – for reasons completely unrelated to my relationship status – yet not into an apartment but a group home. No, not that kind of group home. The kind that every neighborhood dreads – five previous strangers living under one roof where every room in the house becomes someone’s bedroom and three cars are parked in the driveway and two on the front lawn. In a good neighborhood. A really good neighborhood that should be immune to this kind of vermin moving in.

We weren’t exactly vermin. One of my roomies was a progressive canvasser for some nonprofit that eludes my memory. Another was a fulltime staffer at the Mondale campaign. And then there was the mystery couple upstairs – the mechanic and his girlfriend who only came out of their room to abandon dirty dishes in the kitchen sink, leaving them there long enough to invite real vermin to move in.

I lasted ten months in this communal living situation until the cat of my canvasser roomie left a giant dead rat outside my living room/bedroom door. Maybe I should have focused on the obvious affection of the cat in leaving me her prize, but all I can remember was my disgust and the refusal of that cat’s owner to leave work early in order to deal with the dead rodent.

“Get Greg to do it,” he said through the phone.

“Greg’s more freaked out than I am,” I replied. “He’s standing pressed against the hallway wall holding a broom in front of him as if the rat might spring back to life and attack.”

“Oh, geez,” our pot addicted roomie wailed through the phone. “Well, I can’t leave until eleven. I’ll deal with it then.”

My traditional ex-boyfriend would have come between me and the rat, but he was living the med student life in corporately developed Irvine, CA, the city so meticulously designed that it refused to house thrift shops. The previous year, when looking for Halloween costumes, boyfriend and I inquired where we might find a used clothing store, and a kind woman managing a local shop explained, “Oh, they don’t allow thrift shops in Irvine. You’ll have to try Costa Mesa.”

Ex-boyfriend was becoming a doctor in calculated perfection while I was receiving dead rats on my doorway. Our lives really had diverged.

Twenty years later, this man is divorced from the woman who sat me with the band at their wedding. He is apparently in with the prison crowd and no longer in possession of his license. This is clearly a time to launch Google into action.

I use his name, his profession, and 'lost license.' I omit the prison tidbit figuring that may just clutter the search results. And there he is. A bit heavier. A bit gray, and apparently walking quickly to avoid a TV camera. The accompanying article details how he’s had two DUIs and performed surgeries with alcohol on his breath leaving a trail of lawsuits and insurance payouts. Patients provide horrible details of misconduct by one of the greatest loves of my life.

And everything shifts for me.

My initial smug response when encountering his wife gives way to sadness. To memory. To traveling through Europe for two months with this guy straight out of college. To our successful division of labor. To the absence of fights and the times of shared laughter. To romantic gestures. To fumbling our way through language adventures of food shopping in Austria with minimal German skills, and to his insistence that I debrief the wine merchant in Bordeaux with my classroom French so that he can purchase countless bottles of wine to carry back to the U.S. My boyfriend accumulates so many bottles that he must remove all his possessions from the stereotypical backpack of the European train-hopper, only keeping T-shirts to serve as buffers to prevent breakage. Everything else gets abandoned in the small European hotel room, wine the most precious commodity.

And twenty years later, the DUIs bring him down. All I feel is sadness, and the healer in me believes I could reach out and save him, imagining he’s still the twenty-three-old who told me of the practical way he approached both of his parents’ deaths when he was a teen, imagining that he’s still the one who introduced me to the waterbed I kept for almost twenty years, imagining he’s still the one I once felt I couldn’t be without, until I no longer felt that way.

Last night he climbed into my dreams and graced me with compassion and remembrance. The voyeuristic amusement of his troubles vanishes. My mocking voice that spoke for the me that felt so easily replaced following our breakup quiets, the same me that scoffed at his perfect marriage to the perfect woman who sewed Denver Bronco table cloths for a Super Bowl party I attended at their home shortly after their marriage, table cloths that convinced me that he’d married the right woman because I would never do such a thing, would never care in that way, would not be the homemaker he craved in his traditional values, would not give him the six kids he later confessed to wanting. Six.

In looking at his cozy home, I believed he had found his life and would coast till he died. I never imagined any trouble. I gave him a pass on messiness. I revealed my naiveté.

I want to call his ex-wife for the details of his disintegration, but my questions will no longer be posed with the intent of gathering gossip. I’m grateful for the dream that silenced my insensitivity and brought me back to a place of humanity. I want to know what happened to someone I once so adored, how it could happen, to ask if she thinks he’ll ever find his way back.

It’s hard to see someone move on effortlessly and quickly from a relationship you deemed as one of the most significant of your life. My journey from smug to caring has reminded me how common it is to want a person who hurt us to hurt. My initial feeling of vindication in hearing of my ex’s failed marriage showed me I was holding onto feelings of unjust dismissal, even following a breakup that I initiated. Twenty years later I put those feelings to rest. Finally.

I hope my former love can heal and help those he’s harmed and find his way back to the life he always wanted. And I hope in the future I won’t want others to suffer so that I can feel better. I hope I’ve learned at least that much.

Tags: past, memory, lovers, breakups