Self-Reliance

You start off smart, gathering tools and planning. You’ve waited long enough, ignoring the annoyance of the never-properly-installed under-cabinet Lazy Susan that has shifted so that it rests too far to the right thus preventing the right-angle shaped cabinet door from closing. But today you are ready. You want a remedy.

You remove all pantry items from the top shelf of Lazy Susan (you drop the article because today it has a personality and is just ‘Lazy Susan’) claiming “I’ll put everything back in a more organized fashion so that I will actually know what keen food options lurk behind closed doors instead of saying to my son, ‘We have no food in the house. Eat something from the freezer or make yourself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.’” You reach for the Phillip’s head screwdriver and for a minute wonder who Phillip was, or is it Phillips? You loosen the screw and slide Lazy Susan’s upper shelf to the left so that its right angle lines up with the cupboard’s opening right angle. You spin it a few times because you know it has a tendency to migrate to the right.

It stays in place.

You rearrange all food items so that rice offerings – “I really bought two kinds of jasmine rice?” – and boxed Italian sauces – “If its ‘best by’ date was six months ago can I count that as a recommendation rather than a health warning?” – and all those canned things like water chestnuts and canned coconut milk that sounded good at the time but are unlikely to ever get eaten are grouped with their peers. After clearing the counter and nearly applauding the beauty you’ve created in your organization, you give Lazy Susan a spin.

It lines up exactly where it did before the process started, preventing cabinet door closure.

Hell if you’re going to remove everything again. You’ll just sit on the floor and wedge your left hand and arm under the shelf to support it while you loosen the screw with your right hand just a bit to reposition the shelf once again to the left. You face inward so that you can’t see the idiot light flashing behind your back screaming, “Bad idea!” You turn the screw one turn, and whoa, the shelf heavy as can be – you think? – slides down and crushes your left hand and arm. You try to pull it out, but you’re wedged in. You try to lift the shelf saying, “Think like a mother with her child stuck under a car!” only you can’t muster the same rescuing power for yourself as you could for your kid. Your heart starts to race and you realize you’re pinned and your hand is really starting to hurt and the pressure across your forearm is moving towards numbness and you can’t reach the phone and no one would come if you cried out because there is no one.

You close your eyes close to panic. You let out a groan and a yelp for dramatic effect. You pull again. Nothing. Panic builds. You look to your front door as if a fireman is bounding up the building’s stairs to save you, but all is quiet. You breathe fast and then go for a deliberate inhale. You tug hard and fast and glare at the shelf with all the anger and hatred you can access, and your arm comes free. You place it in your lap and see the deep line that adorns the top of the hand. You breathe relief. You’ve set yourself free, but with the freedom of your limb comes the freedom of your tears. You realize how bad it could have been, trapped with no one coming, circulation cut off. You cry with the pain, but mostly with the embarrassment of your actions and the knowledge that there was no one to rescue you from your own stupidity.

You banish the budding tears and wipe away those that escaped onto your face. You stand and yank all items off the Lazy Susan, cursing your inept and uncaring contractor. You adjust the shelf one more time compensating a little extra to the left. You don’t put any food away, thinking, “Now would be a good time to come up with an innovative menu to use all this.”

But you can’t. Not quite yet. So you leave it all strewn about the kitchen as if you’ve just done a major shopping trip to replenish the earthquake kit. You head to the bedroom where you lie down next to your Chihuahua who as much as he would have liked could not have been your Lassie.

And you wonder if you do it all yourself because you were born in the 60s and taught to be self-reliant or if it’s just your personality. You wonder why the thought of calling out for help was as painful as the compressing shelf on your arm. And you think about how there are now courses to teach women to learn to receive, to ask for assistance, to be less self-sufficient because apparently we’ve tipped the scale so far in one direction following the promise of an equal society that we didn’t know we’d passed middle and are doing too much on our own.

So here we are trying to learn how not to prove that we can do it all by ourselves. We struggle with accepting the idea that needing someone is okay because we’ve thought we should want rather than need, that our independence was seductive, that we are our own best helper. And maybe we are, but my self-reliance has turned me into an island. Sitting on the floor, trapped, I both needed and wanted.


addendum: Upon relating tale to teen son, he interrupts and asks, “So you just started taking things off the shelf to liberate yourself?” I paused. You see, when in the midst of panic, you really can get stupid.

Tags: relationships, independence, Lazy Susan

How Did We Get Here?

Like Dorothy singing ‘Over the Rainbow’ we imagine a better place because there has to be, because this can’t be it. To solve the dilemma of not here, not now, you think to convene a town hall meeting, but you don’t want to invite all to attend because you know there’s poison out there and you always recognize it too late, once it already circulates through your blood. You cut your finger to bleed yourself, and you think of leeches doing a job of good over harm. They’re black and ugly and you prefer the poison to their cure. How many times you’ve preferred the poison.

You don’t believe this is life intended. More like a rollercoaster that’s jumped its tracks and flies out of control still diving and twisting and turning out of habit, not because its wheels are held to do so. Everyone’s going crazy. Smiles drug induced because we’ve forgotten the art of conversation. We race past those with little voices not slowing to hear as we build walls of protection to keep out what we most need. Our filters are clogged and we no longer can distinguish the good from the bad. We run when we should walk and sit when we should dance. We’ve lost the ability to navigate, so we cruise like automatons unable to feel breezes and sunrays. Our skin burns, and we don’t know. Our lips grow cracked and dry, and only after the fact do we apply balm, a mere band-aid to the dysfunctional life society breeds when progress takes us backwards.

Dreams offer visions of marshmallow clouds but awakeness burns our retina. “Glaring pain,” you said, or was it I? Did I speak of the pain the last time we lunched or did I offer encouragement and platitudes. “It will all be fine.” But is that true with no one at the helm? Can we just trust the drive without a driver?

The only thing that keeps me going beside the dictatorial rant of the ticking clock are the images of fantasy. The small lives of microscopic proportions. The couch talking to the pillow. It’s the maybe’s and the could be's that I love. They ignore the clock for it doesn’t speak to them. They reside outside in a world they’ve conjured from knowledge through resistance. “We need not follow,” they say. “Your rules aren’t ours.” And I want to echo their words. “Your rules. Your rules.” No one cares about my rules. My rules unsanctioned sit on the steps of the pool tapping toes against water wanting to play. The fight in me diminishes and I think of running, but sprinters don’t carry suitcases and I have a dog. Once you’re in you can’t easily get out. That’s the fine print on the back of the birth certificate. No one flips the document until it’s too late.

Not too late. What would not too late look like? More no’s, perhaps. Shoulder shrugs. Why explain especially to ears that don’t listen? Cashing in and cashing out. Remembering sudden death that suddenly makes the money look sufficient. Yes, plenty to live until tomorrow. But you plan beyond tomorrow and then walk around in concrete shoes, box-like and ugly. “Who designed this fashion?” you ask, but passersby whiz in their dainty collection. They don’t feel your weight, but they also can close their eyes to slaughtered animals and eat meat, to bloodied children and wave the flag. Your eyes don’t close as easily so the pain sneaks in via your pupils. Too late you shut your eyes. Too late because the images are within and no matter how tight you squeeze your eyelids, you can’t stop seeing.

When you put color upon the walls you blot out the images, lulled into rhythm by the up down up down of the saturated bristles hued in the color du jour. When all the walls are covered, you panic because how now will you escape? You skittle through your house looking for scuffmarks on baseboards saying, “Hold on. I’ll fix you,” but you know the baseboards are fine and you’re fixing yourself. They know it, too, but don’t mind a sprucing up layer of white. “Spring time,” they say.

But then the baseboards are clean and all that’s left is to wash the brushes. Paint mixes with water and goes downstream trailing color like a road map. “Follow me,” it says, and you do until your feet are muddy and your legs are tired. You sit on the banks of the jungle river and sigh, “How did I get here?” And then a chorus echoes from behind thick vines singing, “How did I get here? How did I get here?” A musical erupts around you and you’re on stage with a smiling audience filling the theatre. The crowd sways involuntarily caught up in the music and you invite all to sing along, and soon an entire auditorium is singing, “How did I get here?”

The music ends and you take a bow. The orchestra packs up instruments as the audience exits through doors at the back, left, and right. Streams of people forget about the chant and forget about the questioning and get back on freeways to drive the speed of the car ahead of them. We once listened to radio but now we mostly talk on cell phones, which apparently is much better than actually driving over and seeing the person whose voice comes through our earpiece. If we’re with them we can’t do anything else, and in the religion of multitasking that would be a sin.

“Sinner!” they scream as they stone me, for I held a dinner party with no purpose of moving forwards. I refused to denounce my crime during sentencing, so the judge was harsh. “You’re sentenced to forever,” he said, which I found vague. “Forever what?” I tried to ask, but my lawyer shoved an elbow into my side, which made me buckle and lose my wind.

In my cell I reflect on my choices and wonder if I’d really earned punishment or if I’d just landed in a parallel reality when I finally got to slow down. “Maybe I need to be more specific in stating my wishes,” I think, but it hardly matters now for it’s too late to undo the confusion.

I reach for a piece of black coal upon the stone floor, rub it between thumb and index finger. I then turn to the blank slate of the prison walls and start to write myself out of my reality one coal mark at a time.

Tags: life, reflections

All I Want for Christmas is an Industrial-Strength Paper Shredder

I’ve drunk the Kool-Aid. The fear of God has been bred into me. My mail stacks up and my file cabinets are overflowing. I’m afraid to throw away even junk mail without shredding it first. Never in my early childhood dreams could I have imagined that my simple name and address would be of value, and not because I’m a celebrity and people are interested in coming to gawk, but because someone could want to become me, at least in the steal-my-identity financial sense.

I haven’t actually tracked how name and address results in five credit cards and a car lease, but I’ve heard the horror stories. Why I end up responsible baffles me. My friend could easily prove she wasn’t the woman receiving unemployment checks issued to her social security number in someone else’s name at a different address. Did that get her off the hook? No. Or the MasterCard account opened in her name by someone who wasn’t her, a suspected inside job at the issuing company. A lawyer simply told her that her best option to clear up her – uh, someone else’s – debt linked to her identity was to declare bankruptcy. She did and left the country. (For other truly romantic reasons, but still.)

So now I sit over a paper-eating machine begrudgingly shredding pieces of mail that should be of no interest to anyone. I waste time and energy – both mine and that of the electric kind – and at the end of it all, all I’ve succeeded in doing is theoretically protecting myself from some unknown thief. I willingly put locks on my door, but this other kind of protection I don’t understand. The territory I must guard is so vast and so invisible that I can’t imagine successfully defending it, at least not on my own.

I suspect someone else should be in charge of this.

Perhaps if the crime were more vigorously investigated and prosecuted the benefit of it would vanish. Perhaps if regular folks like me had a shred of protection from this practice we wouldn’t all have to buy shredders. If someone steals my car and crashes into a street-load of pedestrians, I’m not carted off to jail. If someone steals my identity and goes and buys that car, too bad. The debt is mine. Logic, please?

We now are offered identity theft insurance. Why should we pay for crimes perpetrated in our name but without our knowledge?

Recently a friend of mine was talking about cleaning out her files. With the average shredder disposing of six sheets at a time, she figured she could spend the next year shredding for protection. Her husband offered to burn the papers in their barbeque. I suggested the fireplace despite the fact that spring has arrived. Then we discussed whether she wouldn’t be adding to pollution from this mass burning. Endless shredding versus air pollution versus potential identity theft. Can we get an intervention here?

Some believe the shredding of junk mail is an exercise in over-caution, yet another friend of mine insists that is how her identity was snatched, which led her down the path of clearing her good name for months. When this happens one can only guess the origin of the thievery, so now we examine all our identifying documents and ask, “Could it be you? Could you betray me?”

Others say that they refuse to live in fear, and I was one of you until last year. I tossed my mail into the trash figuring the likelihood of a dumpster diver barreling to the bottom of a twelve-unit condo building’s garbage heap and poking around through rotting food and dirty disposable diapers was unlikely. But then I discovered that we could put mixed paper into our recycling bins, and being the God fearing environmentalist that I am (exaggeration noted), I started depositing papers and cereal boxes inside a tidy bin that smelled just fine. Suddenly I saw my papers as actually inviting theft, as if I’d placed them in an ornate and calligraphy-addressed envelope and sent them out to Mr. & Mrs. Identity Thief.

I bought a shredder.

It was fun for about twelve minutes. Commercial shredders fill up fast and require constant bag replacement. A financial statement ready for disposal requires two to three passes to reduce it to the six-sheet maximum. Sometimes I get cocky and feed in a few extra pages. When it shreds to a halt, I get to learn how to use the ‘Reverse’ setting, pulling my half-shredded identity from its clutches as if rescuing a treasured body part from the teeth of a shark. (Less blood, of course.)

I’ve made it through my recent mail, but my file cabinets are due for a purging. I honestly can’t face the task. One acquaintance suggested watching TV as I shred claiming it could be relaxing. At that moment I decided he wasn’t very bright. “Ah, the serenade of the shredder burying the dialogue of ‘Without a Trace.’” (Guilty pleasure revealed.)

Please, oh Federal Government, come up with a system to protect your citizens. Free us from endless shredding and endless guarding of who we are and where we live and where we bank and how we paid for last summer’s vacation. Let me run free through the wind, hair flowing behind me, carefree and spewing my personal data for all to hear. Let me shift my worries to something that betters the world, or better yet, you can go ahead and wipe out world problems while you’re at it. (A girl can dream.)

In lieu of the above, please deliver an industrial-strength shredder to our multi-car communal garage and set it conveniently to dump into the recycling bin. If it weren’t springtime, I’d ask Santa.

Tags: identity theft, paper shredder

Possibilities

I want to talk about the cows, but not just about the cows, but about how they reached out to save me, the cows that need saving, the cows that live impossibly crammed in pastures of dirt off Hwy 5 between Los Angeles and San Francisco awaiting their slaughter.

Every time I drive past the cows that live so innocently, grazing, walking around amongst one another, it breaks my heart. They have no idea. One time I’m driving past, and a bunch of fresh young calves have joined the herd. As I look at them I think ‘pack’ instead of ‘herd’ because to me somehow ‘pack’ implies choice, an intentional coming together. I’m funny that way.

So the young calves have joined, and they’re romping around, running on super skinny legs, buoyant and playful. And they make me laugh out loud. I stop to go near them, stop in a place I never stop, and I walk towards the fence that imprisons them, look around, wonder how to liberate them. I glance down to my left and see a large stone that would require both my hands to lift it. And I do. I pick it up and start pounding the wooden stake of the fence trying to hammer it into the ground. I imagine that if I keep hitting it over and over it will vanish into the earth and the cows can run free and escape their death. But I’m not making any progress with the post. It doesn’t give at all, and the cows see my trying and we speak with our eyes. “I want to save you,” I convey, but they tell me to save myself. They tell me to take the rock and move on.

And I do because I sense the cows know something. I cradle the stone in my two hands and it becomes my heart, and I walk holding my heart out in front of me like it’s an offering. I’m not really surprised when I meet the cowboy even though I don’t really like cowboys. We face each other, and suddenly my heart/rock becomes a balloon filled with helium and it soars into the clouds.

So there I am left to decide, do I follow my heart or stay with the cowboy? In an ideal world my heart would lead me to the cowboy or to a cowboy or to someone as available as the cowboy. With my balloon heart soaring towards the clouds I can’t be certain where it is headed and where it will take me if I follow. Will it continue to climb high or will it veer off to the left, take a sudden dive and land me in a quiet field of wildflowers? It could happen just like how the innocent, penned cows told me to save myself. It’s all in the listening and the looking, the messages and signs around us daily, the ones we miss because we rush past in a predetermined hurry to stay on a schedule that we create not imagining the wise cows and soaring hearts.

While the cowboy is cute and standing before me, I opt to follow my heart, for flying without wings is an experience not to be missed. I will myself high and extend my arm to catch the teeny string tail of the heart balloon. With two hands I cling to the string and look down at my dangling feet remembering those years on the monkey bars with too-weak arms, where kicking of legs propelled me across the overhead railroad track of hot grey metal coated with the grimy sweat of elementary school primates. I kick my legs to direct the balloon as I kicked my young legs to move me forward towards my playground destination.

The cowboy grows tiny on the ground beneath my swaying legs, and I lift my head. Before me I see forever, knowing it’s forever even though I’ve never seen forever before and couldn’t have previously described what forever looks like. But here it is: forever is limitless hope. It contains every color and every dream, every motel and every rest stop. It offers the previously seen and the yet to be imagined. It’s both bumpy and flat at the same time and yet is not contradictory. Forever is like the universe with no foreseeable end. Forever promises things it can’t prove. Forever demands faith. Forever appears like a board game of fresh rules, a descent into a land once unknown but when you finally enter makes all the sense in the world.

Gliding beneath the balloon heart I get lost in sensation as cool wind slaps my bare legs and swirls my hair into a beehive. I want to offer the view to the cows, for they live too close to the ground. “They deserve this,” I think, “because they thought to save me first.” I wish them free once again, not wanting to soar at their expense.

Now that I am out of his sight the cowboy vanishes, for he was never truly real but merely a roadside mirage. Thankfully I didn’t stay to hold his hand. As a city girl, I made the right choice. The heart balloon twirls riding the air currents like a surfer on a wave. Finally we touch down in a vast field of dry California weeds. After the brief life in the sky, solid ground feels foreign and unsteady. I shake out my legs and work through a quick jig to find balance. Tall grass tickles my legs, the kind of grass the cows like to eat. I wonder if I can fall in love while the cows stay penned. It seems unfair, even if it’s what they wanted for me.

Tags: fact meets fiction, cows, fantasy

The Weight of Words

Sipping a cup of coffee, you consider what people do and where people go and what phrases appear in the descriptions of these life events, and you remember the time you witnessed a child’s caution and you concluded, “He didn’t want to get in trouble.”

In trouble. What a phrase.

In trouble, as if it’s a dish cooking on the stove. A pot of trouble. Stovetop trouble bubbles furiously like tomato soup being cooked over too high a flame. But it’s trouble, so it’s not that it’s angry. Bubbling is just one of trouble’s characteristics, for trouble is never completely stagnant. Trouble tends to rumble like a hungry stomach wanting attention.

In trouble, as if it were a place like a small town. Kind of rural with a tiny main drag, a Western town, or maybe more desert-like. Not much water around trouble. The sign on the edge of town says ‘TROUBLE, elevation 11 ft., pop. 57.’ You cross the border the sign marks and you’re in Trouble. You spend some time there, meet the locals, and drink at the saloon because you’ve always wanted to pass through swinging doors with ‘Saloon’ stenciled overhead. You shop at the ‘Five & Dime’ because you haven’t been to one in a long while and it sparks a fond childhood memory. The woman at the cash register ringing you up invites you home for supper because in Trouble strangers don’t remain strangers for long.

Around the table, the food is fine and the family is simple with a working wife, two children, and the kind of husband who would find himself in this small town, a man who used to roam the highways shaking it up and lifting his fist until he found himself in Trouble. You finish your meal and play Parchisi in the living room and you thank your hosts as you leave through the front door.

After a couple days – or is it hours? – you leave Trouble just as you arrived: casually, without much thought.

When people ask where you’ve been and you answer, “In Trouble,” they scrunch up their faces with concern. ‘In trouble’ is the kind of answer kids and criminals give, and you’re neither. In the 1950s a pregnant unmarried woman might use the phrase, or at least the gossiping neighbors would. “She got herself in trouble.”

Being in trouble speaks of going against the rules and getting caught. Being in trouble links with punishment. But after your detour to the small town, those two words will forever sound sly when they crop up in conversation like they’re winking with a bigger story to tell.

Tags: expressions, language

A Year Later

We often encounter markers of time’s passage. Birthdays, anniversaries, New Years. For me it’s the annual trek to see David Sedaris at UCLA’s Royce Hall. Wednesday night was year seven for me, if memory serves. Assorted friends often recount the time they were my guest, sitting beside me, laughing till their stomachs hurt, grabbing at key phrases and tales to stash away for future recall, to facilitate a laugh on demand. Each year around the beginning of April, my phone rings with a caller inquiring, “Who are you taking to David Sedaris this year?” It’s a subtle way of asking for an invite to secure one of the most sought after tickets in town.

Last year my son was my date, the night David Sedaris asked my then twelve-year-old to introduce him on stage, a simple request that lead to a memorable evening. Following that night, I wrote a piece about the adventure and then boldly mailed it off to David along with a thank you and a photo I’d snapped of him with my son. Not long after, I received a warm and witty reply full of details of his recent vacation with his boyfriend that included an anecdote about a midget bouncer at a bar. In order to respect the privacy of personal correspondence, I’ll leave it at that. Beside, you may read about it someday in The New Yorker.

When April rolled around this year, I found myself starting to dream about David Sedaris, odd dreams of nervousness as if I might forget to attend his reading. The morning of the event I worried that I would leave the tickets tucked in my living room drawer or would somehow lose them on the way to UCLA. Weird anxiety, I confess.

My son was to be my date again. We arrived at UCLA early with the plan of seeing if my son could say hi to David. And I really mean, ‘my son.’ I’ve more than let go of the idea of a budding friendship with the admired writer. That rapport belongs to David and my teen with me as a mere observational bystander.

We entered Royce’s lobby and looked for the woman who had taken us backstage last year. No walkie-talkie wielding employees to be seen, I considered approaching the box office and asking for assistance. A table sat in the lobby selling books, so we first wandered over to catch a glimpse of the offerings. My anxiety must have blinded me to the long line snaking from the table, but finally after observing all the books for sale and noting that I owned all except those by an author David was promoting, I glanced left. There sat David signing books. Pre-show. Calm as can be.

“He’s right there,” I said to my son. “Let’s get in line to say hi.”

We waited patiently, the only patrons not holding a book for signing. The line moved slowly, David taking the time to talk with each fan, sharing a personal moment with an anecdote attached. Finally we reached the front of the line. I pushed my son ahead of me and took a step back.

“Hi,” he said. “I’m Anthony. I don’t know if you remember me, but I introduced you last year.”

“Anthony, hi. I was thinking about you,” replied David. “You wanna do it again?”

“Sure,” said my son, and David reached for his wallet, pulled out a twenty, “Your stage fee,” he said, and handed it to my son. “Could you sign it?” my son asked, and he did. Anthony had doubled his earning potential in one year, but it hardly mattered. The ten was neatly tucked in his bedroom drawer and the twenty would take a place beside it.

David told us to meet him back at the table in twenty-five minutes. This year he’d be signing books right up until show time. As we stepped away, my son said, “‘Stage fee.’ See, I told you that’s what he said. Not ‘stage pay.’” I wondered if my son was requesting an edit of last year’s piece.

A UCLA Live employee offered us to wait in the green room and eat David’s food. “He never eats it,” she said, but this year we decided to just linger in the lobby. When time came for Anthony to go backstage with David, I didn’t follow. In the passage of a year, I’d seen that this was my son’s moment, that he deserved a private interaction with David to find the words he would say on stage, that I didn’t need to hover and interfere. David had been kind when I’d said hello, but just like last year, I felt his discomfort in small talk with me. And I was fine with that. Really. We are strangers who pass each other once a year, usually with me in the audience and David on stage. That is the natural order of things, at least for now.

As my son disappeared through the lobby by David’s side, I entered the auditorium. Despite the ban on photos, I’d been given permission to snap away while my son was on stage, so I pressed against a pillar up front to the right and waited. I peered into the wings, and finally I saw David and my son arrive deep in conversation. David saw me standing within view and pointed me out to my son who waved and looked really happy and relaxed. I appeared oddly conspicuous standing with my tiny digital camera in hand. In this age of fear, I wondered if anyone found my behavior suspicious, and I launched into a fantasy of my being jumped as the lights came down and I snuck forward camera ready to capture a precious moment. I’d lift the camera and threaten with a flash of light, be tackled by a well-meaning patron or usher, get removed from the theater, and miss my son’s moment.

Of course, none of that happened. The lights went down, my son emerged, I snuck forward and snapped largely worthless photos with my pocket camera’s weak flash just as my son said, “No photos, videos, or recordings.” Like last year but with the modification of a few words and a deeper voice, he told everyone to turn off “cell phones and pagers and anything annoying.” He added his praise of David as a writer who’d told him a funny story about kidney stones backstage.

And then he was done and replaced by David on stage.

I took my seat climbing over fans who seemed annoyed, but when Anthony took his seat beside me, my status was instantly elevated as if those around us were thinking, “Ah, she must be his mom.”

After David read his first piece, he paused, and like last year, thanked my son for his courage to come on stage with little warning in front of a room of nearly two thousand people. He then went on to say something like if he had a kid, he’d want him to grow up to be like Anthony, that anyone would want their kid to grow up to be like Anthony.

I couldn’t agree more. And I thank David Sedaris again for a wonderful evening and memory.

Tags: David Sedaris, UCLA Live, Royce Hall

A Semblance

She sat down at the table and tapped the seat beside her. “Sit down, denial,” she said. “We need to talk.” She proceeded to praise denial, the often maligned guest in the room, for following a week of achievement and well being, she realized what she had done best was to dance with denial, denial in the form of the unspoken self-critique, denial in the form of the over-obsessing worry sidelined, denial in the form of pure celebration of what is.

In waltzing with denial, she glided through life with ease, found new energy to greet life, spent time doing rather than imagining.

With denial’s urging, she gave her life a makeover. When the new furniture arrived unexpectedly in boxes with the declaration “Some assembly required,” she chuckled rather than groaned. “Just like life,” she said. “Assembly required.” So as she placed part A next to part B and joined them with screw C, she saw her life coming together. And when she stripped the paint off the layered and tattered closet doors getting down to the core in order to start fresh and build back up, she again saw her life paralleling the journey. The old layers of trash and garbage stripped away for new color to emerge. And with all the work done and pictures newly hung and the bed freshly made, she sat herself down and leaned against supportive pillows. She looked at the masterpiece she’d created and understood the newness before her. Some assembly required indeed.



(to see a before shot...go here)

Bowing to the King

When you place a beating heart upon a throne and adorn it with a crown, like any other ruler it gets mighty full of itself and starts bossing around others. The body parts gather to listen, for the heart’s been away for a while and like any admired traveler that returns from a lengthy journey, its subjects wanted to hear a good story.

I’d expected a place of exalted honor for delivering heart back to its home, but I was quickly pushed to the back of the crowd, my view obscured by arms and livers, a gallbladder or two, and even an overgrown ear. Heart stood high and claimed knowledge the other body parts were too ignorant to know. I didn’t like heart’s pompous tone, so I pushed out of the crowd and decided to wander along the highway that bisected the vast nothingness of undeveloped terrain.

Fields spread wide on both sides of the road, and I wondered why heart had asked to return home rather than enjoy wildflowers and discarded aluminum cans. One could learn a lot about travelers by studying the trash they threw from their windows. I could never do that, brazenly toss my garbage from a car, not since those anti-littering ads starring the crying Indian in full headdress. Years later when attending a university that once had an Indian as a mascot, I learned of the sacrilege of dressing an actor in Native American religious wear to cheer on a football team or for use in advertising campaigns. I think that may have been one of the key things I learned in college.

The two-lane highway was void of all cars, a simple dotted line dividing it into its two parts. I stayed to the right and walked mimicking the invisible flow of traffic, but I longed for a car for company, for life on a highway without cars was lonely and unexciting.

Restless with my walk and curious about how heart was getting on, I turned around. I heard the echo of heart passionately spewing from the throne, thinking it rules the body, getting all bossy and dogmatic about the importance of its role including mandates that it must not be neglected. Meanwhile, brain sits on the sidelines shaking its head – its head? itself? – anyway, shaking in amusement over heart’s overblown self-importance. On the other hand, brain relates to feeling all knowing in its role. It, too, has wanted undying admiration.

When the gathering of body parts ended and heart had said its piece about love and passion and paying attention to when it beats hardest, the crowd dispersed and brain saw its opening. It walked over to heart and asked to talk, defying the protocol of requesting a formal audience. Heart was initially suspicious remembering the last time the two of them had gotten into it over what heart called a failed romance and brain called an act of stupidity. The chill and silence between them had lasted for weeks until they were forced into an encounter at a whole body symposium. In each other’s presence they’d both finally conceded the value of the other and had agreed to a truce, though with notably less enthusiasm than was required to peacefully coexist.

But since brain was approaching nicely this time and heart was feeling generous in light of a warm welcome home, well, heart warmly embraced brain.

They stood in silence before each other for a moment. Finally heart opened the door. “You wanted to speak to me.”

“Yes,” said brain, but brain was uncertain how to begin.

“Well?” prodded heart.

“Well, I just wanted to say that I’m sorry for challenging you all these years, for trying to diminish your importance.” Brain paused.

Heart waited.

And then brain started to weep, a role usually played by heart. Heart softened, stunned by this shift in brain. Heart had wanted this for brain for so long, a letting down of its guard, a willingness to melt. In another era, heart might have been smug, but not today. And in an embrace, heart and brain finally realized they were on the same side.

Margaritas and Sushi

Last night I sat beside two men at a sushi bar, the ones who struck up conversation by asking how a margarita, which I was drinking, goes with sushi as opposed to the traditional sake or beer, and to whom I responded, “Well, I guess I’m always a bit of a rebel, but besides, it’s only vegetarian sushi, a veggie roll, so it’s kind of like having a margarita with a salad.”

These men next tried to draw me in with, “So, what do you think of Hillary for president?” And I told them that I refuse to talk about the presidential election at this point, that I’d rather these elected officials go do the current job they’ve been granted, that I could gather far more information about them by watching them perform as senators and civic leaders than by hearing them on the campaign trail. And besides, whoever has my attention at this point is completely irrelevant because eight months from now they could be long gone following a presidential race implosion.

So they got me to talk a little bit about the campaign, but my heart and head weren’t feeling political. I’d come for food and drink and the noise of the room.

The men started maligning assorted public figures as I sipped my margarita and dipped my not-tightly-enough-rolled sushi into soy sauce and wasabi, watching the rice and shredded carrots leak from the middle to create a textured landscape in my dish. I lightly continued my sideline participation in the conversation and eventually tossed out with a smile that I was certainly more liberal than they were, at which point they grabbed onto ‘liberal’ and told me what I believed, how I wanted to take their hard-fought-for money and hand it out to bums and partiers.

Despite the words, their tone was not aggressive and I took no personal offense, for from my perch on the counter-high stool I was relaxed listening to how others think. We were in communal drinks and sushi mode and I had no need to be right or understood. I uttered a few phrases that contained words like “not everyone starts on equal footing,” but I never let the softness leave my face for these men had come to their opinions long ago, as had I. I did say that if my neighbor is living better, I live better, that giving more isn’t a taking from me but a bettering of community. But I said little else. I didn’t discuss how far reaching ‘liberal’ goes for me because they set it in the corner with money and I didn’t uproot it to bring it to the table with justice.

Near the end of the trialogue when they suggested switching the conversation from politics to religion, which brought a huge smile to my face and the comment, “I don’t think we want to go to religion,” the man closest to me leaned back and spoke to the woman on my other side. She dismissed his question, “Are you a liberal?” with, “I’m a capitalist!” and they giggled together – really giggled – and I offered to switch seats since they seemed much better suited to each other as opposed to gentle dissenting me who was sliding into mentioning those who work very hard but may not be blessed with a mind best suited for navigating society’s complexities. I pointed out that I don’t take credit for the way my brain makes things easy for me, that I only take a little credit for what I do with that brain, but even then… I trailed off.

I didn’t go into my philosophy that I’m not certain I can take any credit for hard work because my brain is what pushes me to do what I do, and I was born with the brain I was born with. I did say, though, to the man who was certain that I wanted to take his money and give it to lazy partiers, that he may have a head for business while I know someone who works very hard but who has a head for art and music. When given a task he digs in, but forced to find his own way in a world of commerce he becomes a little immobilized, not from lack of desire but from being blessed with a different skill set. The sake drinker paused at that one. I saw a glimpse of new thought cross his face. His head even nodded a bit, though perhaps involuntarily.

I paid my bill, said good-bye to my accidental dinner companions, and walked out into the cool night air with a huge smile on my face. “I’ve grown,” I thought. “I didn’t need to strut my stuff or get stern and argumentative. I could simply allow that we would never see the world the same way.” I walked with a fresh understanding of how hard it is to get those with differing views to have the same conversation. I realized that maybe it’s okay to not even try to discuss the details, not when we’re all sitting firmly in our chair of belief. I didn’t make friends while dining, but I didn’t make enemies either. I wasn’t angry at their assertions about me, or their stances that I didn’t share. In talking to them, I simply saw ‘different’ sitting beside me. I understood that they feel they’ve earned what they have, and those who haven’t achieved as much don’t want it with the same will and determination. I don’t agree, but now I at least know what conversation lurks below the surface, and a night out gathering information and experience is always a blessing.

Tags: politics, liberal, growth

Gravity Killed Kurt Vonnegut

Gravity killed Kurt Vonnegut.
At least that’s how I heard it
as I drove in my car.
Complications from a fall, they said.
From a fall.
Not illness.
Not old age.
His own body hitting earth
did him in.

Despite plane crashes
and slips from rocky cliffs
I’d never thought
of gravity as a murderer.
What grounds me can kill me.
When I next lose my footing
I will think of Kurt Vonnegut
and the simplicity of his farewell.

Tags: Kurt Vonnegut, gravity, falling

The Life of a Sound

Until I got quiet and listened in a way I never do, I didn’t know of all the sounds, the voluminous sounds that when allowed to be heard jockey for attention like schoolchildren in a room with arms reaching towards the sky waving to say, ‘Pick me! Pick me!’

The sounds want to be heard, hateful of their dismissal as white noise.
Imagine how they see us, the inhabitants they dodge or bounce off of as they move to gather in a wondrous corner of a busy street to share their tales of adventure.

Sometimes they want to go unheard, for sounds have private moments, too. They can feel sad and small, seek to take up less space and go unnoticed. The life of a sound is seldom considered, but when I listened with clean ears, I understood, and I no longer complain about the noise.

Tags: sound, noise, listening

The Highway Confessional

I hit the road, well, really the air, and landed on rich red clay that spent all week trying to henna my feet. When it came time for me to head home, the clay tried to come with me not knowing how good it had it where it was. But aren’t we all that way, unable to appreciate the beauty that greets us daily, the beauty we grow accustomed to?

On the road I tasted a life rich with quiet. The phone never rang, no messages to check, no email to answer, no news to read. I unplugged by choice, and once breathing this air, I said, “I can’t go back, at least not to what I’d become.” Over there, I remembered the me I once was: adaptable, flexible, curious, in movement, in conversation, gasping in laughter, pushing myself right up against the edge of tears in experiences richly felt.

But I had to come home. My life is here. However life and I had a little chat, and we’ve both agreed to change. I promised to walk forward more and detour less, for while detours are delicious, they can evolve to distraction, a reason not to cross a much-desired finish line. I have some finishing to do. In exchange, life offered to lend a hand, to keep me mindful of the present and not allow me to obsess about the unknowable future. Life offered me delusion, for only in delusion can I walk the path I have chosen. Life also offered to prod me to action, which has thrust paint swatches onto my bedroom walls and paint stripper onto my bedroom doors. These days, everyone gets a makeover.

And then there’s the other confusion. Here. As in here. Today is the one-year mark of this site, and we’re having some relationship issues. Here has become a detour rather than a forward march. In the clarity of away, in the over there, I couldn’t deny it. I couldn’t ignore all the hours I leap around the internet visiting other voices while the finish line waits with hands on its hips, looking at its watch, wondering what’s taking me so long. I have things calling, and I’m not sure how to reconcile my confusion.

So if I seem distant and unavailable, recognize the behavior as my dance with processing. How can I stay and not have an affair with distraction? How can I leave and turn my back on those I’ve met and what I’ve learned?

Tags: travel, reflection

Heart and Fear*

Fear entered my heart, sat down on the sofa and put its legs up on the coffee table. “Long time no see,” fear said. Heart looked on suspiciously. “Well that’s not entirely true,” fear continued, “is it?”

Heart didn’t want to answer, not particularly happy to see this uninvited houseguest. Heart had been cleaning – dusting, actually – and whistling in a nice pitch that reflected calm and contentment. Fear sensed this and swooped in before things got out of hand.

Recently, having seen itself in a new light, heart had undergone a transformation. “I’ve kind of got it together,” it told its friends the other night over drinks at the local watering hole. Its friends had nodded and smiled. They’d seen the shift but had waited for heart to bring it up on its own. Heart continued, “I remember fun and relaxation and feeling good about myself. I don’t want to lose this.”

So when fear showed up, heart froze and grew stiff. “So you’re done with me, eh?” asked fear.

Heart smiled, “Oh, do you think I’ll ever be done with you?”

“Still…” fear slid in.

“Still,” repeated heart.

“I can see you don’t want me around anymore,” fear said.

“Well…” said heart.

“Go ahead, say it,” jumped in fear. “Say I don’t serve you anymore. It happens to me all the time. You’re not the first.” A tear leaked from fear’s left eye. Heart started to soften and thought to invite fear to stay.

“You’re very good,” said heart wising up quickly, nearly duped by fear’s ploy. Fear’s tear retreated back into its eye socket. Humiliated and angry, fear stood abruptly.

Watching fear leave through the door, heart felt warmly nostalgic. They’d been together a long time, and it wasn’t like heart to turn its back on a friend. But heart had to be honest and admit that fear had been no friend. Loyal, yes, but fear had clipped heart’s wings, and heart, wanting to fly, knew this relationship must end.

“Good-bye, fear,” heart whispered for no one to hear, and went back to cleaning and whistling a sweet tune.


*an accidental homage

Tags: transformation, fear, Art & Fear

Gone Fishing...

...minus the fishing part. (though writing is a lot like fishing. you throw out a line and see what bites.)

Be back in a week or so with a bit of a tan and a bounce in my step. Cheers...

On Pause: Where the Physical and the Mental Sip Tea

I’m on pause, that place of immobility where even attempts at action result in pause, such as repeatedly hitting the play button on the DVD remote that offers no result unless you count ‘staying as is’ as a result, the unacknowledged and much maligned result that if properly examined is as much of a result as any.

Got that? Reach for tea. Sip. Continue.

I battle pause due to my overdeveloped relationship with forward. Forward is my buddy. We toast often, glancing back over our shoulders at where we’ve been. In our religion, we pray to next. ‘As is’ is tough for pause skeptics. Believers try to tell us of its value, and we smirk saying, “I don’t want to simply live like a dog and accept,” even though of course we would. We just don’t know how.

I think of treadmills. Inconsequentially. The moving and unmovingness of those wannabe sidewalks make me smile and that is a tiny departure from pause, kind of like one frame forward on the DVD. Undetectable progress, perhaps, but progress nonetheless.

Smiling is good. Smiling beats its opponent.

The paddy wagon knocks at my door, but I say I’m busy learning about pause, so I can’t come to the door right now. Have you ever seen a paddy wagon? They move in a staccato kind of way as if they haven’t caught on to 24fps. Those of you in video world should insert 30fps thinking, but I’m old school and I think in film. We are a dying breed, I am warned, as if I didn’t know that, as if I thought forever lived in my DNA. Well, maybe it does. In my DNA. But in this case that indicates that my DNA isn’t really me because while my DNA can live forever, I cannot. I am a dying breed. Just ask anyone who still develops film. And if you find that kind of logic circular, I invite you to join me on the treadmill where circularity is welcome and appreciated.

Pause is interesting, I say to Forward as my tea reaches a comfortable temperature. Forward replies that pause looks a lot like insanity.

Bah humbug, I retort because no one likes a killjoy.

The tenor of this discussion indicates a need for vacation, a change of scenery, which some would interpret as challenging pause to a duel. While I’m not a fighter, ‘duel’ has an appealing romantic quality to it, so I nod, and say, “Yes, yes. That is what must be done.” Pause, I take you on.

In other words, I’m going on vacation. Sort of. A writing vacation in the company of others who wield pens. Far, far away where palm trees sway and I will learn the hula. If you think all of this has been crazy, picture me doing the hula. If that image doesn’t scare you, you’re not properly informed.

Tags: writing, brain hiccups, vacation, workshops

Fringe People

You know fringe people. We glide amongst you down city streets. We drink coffee nearby as you pour through notes and scratch out reminders preparing for your next engagement. You laugh joyously with a friend as she details last night’s misadventure, and we watch. We see the sad child-eyes when a parent gets too angry. The dog running off-leash, he is in our visual care.

Some seek the comfort of being enfolded while fringe people need to reside in the outer position, a place that allows the freedom to flee at the first hint of danger. You invite us to join, and we accept, yet even when there we observe.

We play with our duality, the ability to participate and watch at the same time. Inside and outside simultaneously, we try to explain. You smile and nod but aren’t certain you understand. And we know this.

When others say they struggle to be alone with themselves it is our turn with confusion, for intimacy with our thoughts is what we know as home. Sometimes we feel guilt for our place on the fringe, as if we’re defying the biological imperative to bond. And then we ease into our thoughts and recognize our hard wiring as our imperative. With an inhale and an exhale we accept.

Tags: self-acceptance

The Wild West

New street-side accoutrements are popping up in my adjoining neighborhoods, and I’m certain I’m witnessing the birth of a cultural revolution. I’ll call it ‘Governance by Guilt.’ Children raised in certain households will recognize the method.

Our cars are outfitted with accurate, visibly placed speedometers, yet on my daily commute I now am greeted by large monitors that display the speed of approaching cars on a screen directly below the speed limit. Most of us knowingly speed, so confronting us with our transgression is hardly illuminating. On the other hand, the public shaming aspect of this tactic is highly effective. I can’t help myself. As I see the device looming in the distance, I slow down, an involuntary reaction to ward off criticism.

Those monitoring our streets are onto something. We will start driving slower, at least when facing these signs. We may not actually ever drop so low as to hit the speed limit, but each one of us will determine our own acceptable level of disobedience and tack that number onto the legal maximum. After all, this is already fairly common psychology amongst freeway drivers. Take a poll. Most believe that driving 5 mph over the speed limit on freeways isn’t even speeding. “You can’t get a ticket for that,” these drivers will say. I dare not counter, “Of course you can,” because that is not a welcome response. Furthermore, no one ever goes just 5 mph over the speed limit anymore. That’s so 1970s.

In Los Angeles, we’ve basically adopted the attitude that you can drive as fast as traffic will allow because it is such a rarity to see a clear street that when we do we feel as if we’ve landed on open course day at the race track and just let it rip. (Please note, around schools such behavior is frowned upon even by the most diehard of traffic whiners.)

What I find most disconcerting about this trend is that drivers will actually begin to drive more slowly and then traffic will back up even worse in LA. We just don’t need that. Road rage will peak, and we will be in the news for all kinds of bizarre incidents.

What I’d really like to know is why the 30 mph limit is so widespread. Have you ever tried driving 30 mph? It feels like you aren’t moving. The close second is 35 mph, which I just consider a typo. 40 is more like it, but when we encounter 45 mph, we begin to see the word ‘reasonable’ instead of numbers. Unless of course, it’s on a freeway ramp, in which case we tell ourselves, “I can easily take that turn at 60.”

Despite my discomfort with these devices, the most laudatory aspect is that they’re solar powered. It’s amazing how a city can innovate when motivated. In the spirit of forward thinking, I think my city should mandate solar powered contraptions everywhere. Hanging off buildings, powering streetlights, running the gas pumps at gas stations. Wouldn’t that be a nudge to the energy industry?

In the meantime, I’m off to reset our alarm clocks. Due to the trickledown effect, if I’m going to start driving the speed limit, it’s going to require my leaving home earlier in the morning. It was one thing to begin daylight savings sooner this year, but forcing me to drive slowly and wake up even earlier? I just don’t know how much change a person can take.

Tags: Los Angeles, speeding, driving

Relativity: the Exhale

[a tidbit on the heels of Relativity, which is required reading for this to mean a thing...]

After she disappeared through the door, he reached for the paper napkin that she’d delicately placed against her lips, and drew it to his nose to see if any scent of her remained. All he smelled was aroma-of-brown-napkin, the distinct scent that indicated a bypassing of the crucial bleaching phase towards purity.

“Or impurity,” his mind interjected. “Bleach is hardly pure.”

He shook his head to shut up his dissenting thoughts, and reached into his coat pocket for a pen. And upon the napkin that had touched his lover’s lips, he started making a list of the pros and cons of their relationship.

She, on the other hand, required no list for guidance. As she exited the coffee house, their life together receded into the background as her eyes focused on the path ahead. Without hesitation she moved forward through determined pedestrians as if part of a virtual reality game, leaning left, leaning right in order not to collide with the fast walkers. Each time she succeeded with minimal sideways momentum, she gave herself a point. By the time she reached the end of the block, she’d scored eleven to the pedestrians’ three.

“Not bad,” she thought. But when she saw the empty bench before her, she crumbled onto it. She thought of starting over and how people turned to newspaper want ads, to page after page of desires and needs. She moaned. She wasn’t organized enough to condense her wishes into a single concise ad.

Tags: fiction, relationships

My Concern is Your Concern

Dear Sitemeter,

I am worried about you, which is kind of a way of saying I’m worried about myself. And no, not all of my relationships are thus structured, but I think you can handle my honesty because we have never pretended that ours is a two-way relationship.

You have refused to share stats with me for three days. I tried emailing your master to determine if you were ill, but I received no response. Either your master is off at a prolonged happy hour, you are truly ailing and master is thus preoccupied, or as a non-paying customer I am of little concern. I don’t know which of these possibilities I would most embrace.

The truth is that with you out of commission my stalking behavior is hampered. I can no longer discover which kind souls are sending me readers, and therefore I cannot hop back to them and say ‘thank you.’ I like to be gracious, so you see you are harming my reputation by making me seem ungrateful.

I don’t know how long I can let you malinger. At what point do I end our relationship and find a new stalking partner? Have you ever done this to others? I hope you will reply and let me know how to proceed.

Thank you.
Your loyal blog writer who is slowly going mad

UPDATE: the impersonal response snatched off sitemeter's blog...

s25 - Update
We are aware of delays and lag on s25 and are doing are [sic] best to resolve it. In this case we had a particular site that has been running a promotion, nearly quadrupling their traffic. We’re working on relocation [sic] this site to another server. We expect to see the lag dissipate over the weekend.

Thanks,
The Sitemeter Team

Yes, I am part of s25. I can assure you that I am not the site behind the snafu. Quadrupling my traffic would register less than a passing 18 wheeler on the Richter scale (we Californians do care about that Richter scale.)

But really, running a promotion to increase traffic? Interesting. I could use a little more lovin'. Now, what can I offer??? [thinking cap put on and plugged in...]

In the meantime, I've have taken your suggestions and am stepping out on sitemeter. Statcounter, are you ready to dance?

Tags: sitemeter, blogging, stalking

Going to the Well: the First Good-bye

[continued from Going to the Well: The Beginning]

Remembering Our First Farewell – September 1988 – Moscow Airport

The first time I said good-bye to Yuri, it felt final. I blurted out proclamations of reunion, but deep down didn’t believe a word leaving my mouth. In 1988, the barriers between our countries – the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. – remained strong and required many negotiations with bureaucrats to circumvent them.

The Moscow airport was bustling as the 270 American peace walkers searched out Soviet counterparts, our companions of thirty days, to say good-bye. Together we’d navigated propaganda, language barriers, constantly changing schedules. Conspiracy theories had circulated of the Soviet organizers intentionally upsetting our orientation to keep the politics subdued. We’d debated and discussed it all.

But at the boarding gate on our final day, none of that mattered. We’d formed strong bonds that seemed to mock the proclamations of the Cold War. The finality of the hugs hurt deeply, and months later when studying a photo of Yuri and me saying good-bye, I couldn’t deny our pain filling the frame.

The Americans put off boarding as long as we could.

After the final hug, swallowing the suppressed tears, I climb onto the plane and stumble towards my seat as the nearly three hundred American peace walkers around me move towards theirs. When the plane takes off, I am in silence, squeezed into my seat, the air oppressive with the sadness of hundreds of good-byes.

Once aloft, the restrictions of the seats too formal, we throw our bodies onto the bulkhead floor to huddle in small circles, ignored by Soviet stewardesses who simply don’t care.

We play oneupsmanship with the stories of our good-byes, detailing how we rid ourselves of our worthless Rubles by stuffing them into the pockets of our grateful Soviet friends, the ones we were leaving behind a barrier open only to departing foreigners with proper passports. Many of us discover we’d showered the same group of Russians with our money, leaving them like strippers with bills tucked into g-strings.

Our sadness turns to laughter. I’d given all my money to Yuri and he’d looked shamed to accept it. But it truly was just paper to me, Americans unable to convert Rubles back to dollars, and Rubles of no value outside the borders of the Soviet Union.

As I recalled those final moments with Yuri, our frantic words of meeting again, of his band coming to the U.S. on a cultural exchange tour, our voices gaining speed in the excitement of the dream, I had to wonder. Two countries filled with such hatred for each other, could they ever be bothered to sanction such a fantasy?

So two years later, as I stood before Yuri’s family in his tiny Siberian village amidst the hugs and squeals, Yuri exploding with laughter, it just couldn’t have been more surreal.

Within days I came down with a stomach bug, and as I tried to rush to the outhouse in the middle of the night, I threw up all over his mother’s vegetable garden. This after my first night when I’d nearly suffocated due to some inexplicable allergic reaction. As I felt my lungs filling with fluid, my wheezing growing louder, Yuri broke out a pane of the window to allow some untainted air into the room. But it didn’t help, and I moved onto the front porch in the cold night trying to breathe wondering how I was going to survive.

For the next two weeks, I slept in an unheated outer room with a sweatshirt over my face, the seemingly fragile American girl undoubtedly a mystery to this rural Siberian family.

Ever since that night on the porch, I’ve had an inexplicable image of dying in a fire, the time unclear, possibly a century earlier in that village. Perhaps before I’d continued with my relationship with Yuri, I should have read that as a sign.


…more of Siberia and beyond to come…

Tags: Siberia, Soviet-American Peace Walk, relationships

Relativity

“It’s not working,” he said. “The way you’re living life is not working.” He’d sat her down gently, intending to break the news over an hour’s worth of coffee, but once faced with the task he leapt in unable to contain himself.

She glanced up from her steaming brew knowing he needed no prompting to continue.

“You see, I’ve been watching you, and your ‘trying’ is misguided and quite pathetic. You’d be better off sweeping all day.” He hadn’t meant to sound so harsh but her unwillingness to launch a defense before his brutality started fueled his ire. He used to know a fighter in her, but that person was gone. Before him sat a passive being of small attempts. He wanted his old lover back.

She reached for one of those petite plastic thimbles of milk, pulled off the foil top, and added it to her coffee. She had given up the substance years earlier, but now faced with an attack, she decided to distract herself. Reaching for the wooden swizzle stick, she created beautiful swirls that reminded her of images she saw on Nova.

“You have so much,” he offered. “Not everyone is offered such a repertoire upon landing on the planet.” She nodded involuntarily. He no longer was playing fair, tugging at her subconscious. But it hardly mattered. This conversation had no end, so there could be no winner.

She glanced up from her art and met his eyes. “What would you prefer me to do?” she asked. “Apparently the tenor of my existence is an annoyance to you.”

“I’m not here to prompt drama,” he retorted.

“Of course you are,” she said more calmly than intended.

“You see, this is the kind of thing I’m talking about. You won’t fight for yourself any more.”

“No, I won’t,” she replied. She reached for her coffee cup and took a sip. The milk congealed on her tongue due to an unpleasant chemical reaction with her highly acidic saliva. At least that’s what she told herself. She wasn’t much interested in the realities of science for they didn’t contain the romance she needed to thrive. She reached for his cup of black coffee and took a sip to cleanse her palate, and then reset the cup in front of him. “Thank you,” she said. “I needed that.”

He assumed she meant the coffee. He didn’t know that his words had sparked her memory of romance. She stood from the table, and reached for her satchel. “I suspect that I’m done here,” she said, and left unceremoniously through the door.

Tags: fiction, relationships, romance, coffee

No Warranty Required

“At my age I don’t need a warranty.” That’s what the man said standing beside me at the counter as he ordered his new eyeglasses, rejecting the offer to protect his lenses. He punctuated the sentiment with a chuckle that made us all smile.

I studied him. Trifocals. A slow gait as he walked to pick out new frames. Every statement ending with a poke of humor.

The technician asked him if he read a lot, to which the man answered, “Yes.”

“The lenses aren’t positioned right for reading. They’re too low.”

“I just tip my head back,” the man said and demonstrated with a gentle movement of lifting his chin. So easy in his dialogue, not a single complaint crossing his lips. He never said, “My old glasses weren’t right? You mean, I could have read more easily?” He simply said, “I just tip my head back.”

He was there alone, this man, the epitome of peace and acceptance. He selected new frames in thirty seconds. No meandering. No time wasted obsessing. He didn’t ply the employee with questions. Just a simple, “These are light,” as he cradled his new frames in his palm.

I wanted to know this man, wanted to ask him how he’d found calm, how he learned to casually toss around his mortality. His energy was infectious. I wanted to be him.

We never had that conversation. I never got his name. He vanished in the brief moment that I looked away.

Being Someone Else

The black canvas bag sat pressed against the walkstreet wall, top open and displaying its contents to the sky as if waiting for someone. I walk up cautiously, look around, expect an owner to be hovering near by. But I am alone. I hesitate to touch the bag. What if someone appears and thinks I am a thief rummaging for booty?

The street remains silent and the bag calls, so I bend down and tentatively push around the visible contents looking for a wallet or some identification. A walkie-talkie lays inside with a strip of orange tape sporting ‘Glam’ penned in black Sharpie. I pick it up, push a few buttons, but total silence. I imagine the bag having been grabbed off a messenger’s bike, rifled through, and left for dead.

I figure there is little I can do, so I stand and continue towards my home thinking, ‘Someone else will take care of this.’ But then I think, ‘Someone else? Aren’t I someone else?’

I run inside my home, grab my dog awaiting his walk, and head back out. Facing the bag once again, I further study its contents. Hair tape, sewing kit, boxes of safety pins, fabric pouches. I think, ‘Make up and hair person.’

I step away from the bag and move towards the Venice beachside boardwalk, my eyes scanning for evidence of a film crew. A few blocks north, production trucks stand gathered in a parking lot. I go into a slow jog dragging my dog with me.

“Hey,” I say, arriving next to a location trailer. “Did anyone here lose a black bag, probably hair and make up, with a walkie-talkie inside? One that said ‘Glam’ on it?”

“Let me ask,” the crewmember says, and disappears into the trailer. A second later he yells across me to a woman on my left. Suddenly she’s at my elbow.

“Yeah, the bag’s ours,” she says.

“Well, it’s down on my walkstreet if it’s still there. I’ll show you.”

She grabs a bike to get there in a hurry, and I start running beside her, rushing my Chihuahua who’d really like to stop for a pee. I point out my street, and she races off.

When I arrive on my block, she’s huddled over the bag. “Well, the cellphone’s gone, but it seems like everything else is here.” She thanks me enormously, scratches her name and number onto a piece of paper in case I discover the cellphone, throws the bag over her shoulder, and hops back on her bike and pedals away.

It was so simple.

When immediate danger calls, conscience and instinct kick in and we race into burning buildings, call 911, gather around an injured stranger. But when confronted by an inconvenient, non-emergency – the abandoned possession, the driver stuck by the side of the road – we call up the imagined ‘someone else.’ It’s easy not to stop and slow our pace of life.

But this time I did stop and was rewarded with satisfaction for reaching into a stranger’s life and lending a hand. I breathe in being someone else, and in the future will listen very differently if my mind tells me, ‘Someone else will take care of it.’

Tags: community

Reflective Appreciation

If you come here often, you may know that I seldom participate in comments on my own blog. When I set out on this enterprise ten months ago, I was attached to an archaic idea of how I should approach my writing. This was my personal op-ed page, and who on the op-ed pages comes back to post-comment on what they wrote the first time around?

Well, nowadays, the writer’s response is common practice at papers like the NY Times, yet I have still largely refrained despite this green light from above.

My silence in my comments is not a lack of appreciation for all of you who do comment. Quite the opposite. I’ve been allowing that to be your arena to talk about me, uh, in front of my face. I didn’t want to interfere and trample the conversation, which is ironic because I love visiting blogs where the writer participates in these exchanges. With that in mind, I may have to reconsider my self-imposed policies.

But on to you. I want to clearly state how much I appreciate your coming here to read my words and how much your feedback means to me – including when you disagree with what I’ve written, for your thoughts encourage me to examine my words and opinion and to consider whether I have presented my views as intended. I also want to thank those of you who have helped promote my site via your site. Meeting new readers is why I’m here, and I couldn’t do that on my own.

When I launched this site, I intended to work on cultivating my voice. I envisioned crafting articles that I could eventually place elsewhere. I never planned on digressing into personal pieces that would clearly live only here, but as it goes, writing begets whatever the hell it wants. As a result, you’ve had glimpses of me I never knew I would write or post.

My one year blog anniversary will arrive in early April. At that time, I will see where I am with the blog. Sometimes this site prompts me to write and sometimes it takes me away from long-term objectives that deserve more focus. For now, I’ll take the wait and see approach. I hope you’ll keep coming back and sharing your thoughts with me and others.

With deep appreciation…

Tags: comments, blogging, readers

On Addiction

Like the last two participants in musical chairs circling the final remaining seat, my son and I hover over my laptop. Yesterday our 20” desktop iMac put itself to sleep – actually, knocked itself out completely by shutting down – and when my son approached to do his homework, it refused to wake up. I tried to come to the rescue, but none of my tricks worked. I suspect exhaustion and a condition of under-appreciation (the computer, I speak of.)

The power supply on this machine went out once before and needed to be replaced, so I figure we are going down that road again. Only this time there is no old backup computer waiting to be called into action. That one died an overdue death months ago leaving behind its unsheathed hard drive on my desk like a tombstone.

With the iMac off in repair land, the sole remaining computer in the house is my laptop, which I guard like it’s my third child after teenaged son and undersized dog. I share my son and pet more easily than I share my laptop, for it is my personal zone, the guardian of my two-dimensional life. A virus here would knock me out more than one in my own body.

But homework really did call, so I relinquish my machine to my son and then go into full-blown withdrawal. While I’m not on my computer all the time, knowing it’s out of reach makes me start to salivate just like when you declare a lover off limits and (s)he suddenly becomes more appealing. You may not call this person for weeks, but just add the mandate that ‘You can’t!’ and the jonesing begins.

I tell myself, “This is good. I can’t go strolling endlessly on the internet. I’ll pick up one of the many novels piled on my nightstand. I’ll file papers. I’ll redesign my bedroom. I’ll do sit ups – yes, sit ups – and stretch my hamstrings,” because in an act of positive thinking I’ve been visualizing my hamstrings loosening and allowing my hand to wrap comfortably around the bottom of my foot as my forehead rests relaxed upon my knee. Yes, with less time on the computer, I could achieve that.

The other half of my brain rejects the vision of loose hamstrings, instead having a vision of laptops, more laptops, endless laptops, saying, “This house cannot exist on one computer. Buy your son a laptop!” Apparently my alter ego is a consumer.

After hearing of this fantasy, my son has the good sense to suggest that a second laptop is a mighty pricey backup for the desktop computer, but then I mention the words “built-in iSight camera” and the consumer side of my brain has an instant ally.

“We are spoiled,” I tell my son. “We are whining about sharing a computer.” Actually, I’m whining. He just grabs the laptop and runs. I can call him back, but then I’ll have a brooding teen to add to the drama, so I let him go. The computer is his lifeline to his friends and without this connection he could literally go into shock. I have books and pen and paper and really shouldn’t be suffering such severe withdrawal.

But that’s the funny thing about addiction. It doesn’t listen to logic. And now with all the gadgets in our lives, we have so many more things to be addicted to and so many more things that can break to test our resilience. Cellphones that go silent, cars that won’t run, elevators that sit still, DVRs that reject our programming. Simple life can barely be remembered.

I feel the absence when my luxuries abandon me. But when I abandon them, when I travel to distant lands where these tools are better replaced with a Swiss army knife and a map, a comfortable pair of shoes and a well-designed backpack, I feel liberated. I just don’t know how to locate that feeling in the fast-moving world I inhabit daily.

Word finally arrived that our iMac will be on vacation for another “three to five days,” a casually tossed off declaration from the technician surrounded by more computers than he can dream of. In the span of my life, that’s not much time. In the span of my teen’s, an eternity. And while I could challenge his addiction and deny him access to my laptop, instead I will challenge my own.

Tags: addiction, iMac, computer

Beyond the Double Zero

A lot of ire was expressed when the ‘double zero’ size was released. Here was the evidence that women were getting smaller and smaller, striving to attain unreasonable sizes and weights.

But I am a double zero and would like to come to its defense. Sort of.

When I was in high school in the 70s, I wore a size 6, and I weighed about two pounds less than I do now. Slowly, I diminished to a size 4 without shedding an ounce. Five years ago when I was five pounds less than what I weigh now, I wore a size 2.

Recently I went shopping for a new pair of jeans due to the disintegration of my old favorites. I tried on assorted styles in different stores. Finally I found a pair I liked. The size two hung on me. The size zero fit fine, but I didn’t like the overly distressed color of that specific pair. There were no other size zeros in that style, so I grabbed a double zero on a whim. I pulled them on with no trouble, but they felt a little snug, and I wanted a pair to lounge in. I stuck with the zeros despite the color I didn’t love. I figured they might grow on me.

And grow they did. After twenty minutes on my body, I could slip off the zeros without unbuttoning them. They sagged and bagged everywhere. Jeans stretch, but this was extreme. I wish I’d left the store with the double zeros.

The problem is not the double zero. The problem is size inflation, a marketing trick to make women feel better about our bodies when shopping. I am no giant, but I am no wisp of a woman either. At 5’ 2”, my weight usually fluctuates between 105 and 110, appropriate for my height. And I remain in the same clothing size through it all.

The frighteningly thin super models do set an unrealistic standard, and if you’re five foot ten and wear the same size as someone five foot two that is the problem to be discussed. But as long as size inflation continues, please don’t deny me my double zeros.

The bigger concern is the continuing message that a women’s worth is in her appearance. Virtually every woman’s magazine focuses on beauty – even when the motto is ‘accept yourself as you are.’ As ‘yourself’ you can still look pretty, and the magazine points out how, supported by countless ads to back it up. Some magazines reject this emphasis with more of a focus on politics or feminism, but if you stroll past a newsstand, the overwhelming message from the covers of women’s magazines is appearance, appearance, appearance.

Where are the magazine covers celebrating aid workers or women with small businesses, innovative teachers or dedicated community leaders? When will we routinely see covers adorned by women representing the breadth of female contributions, those that reside outside beauty and celebrity? And when will the press stop reporting what a woman of power wears to a meeting?

Quite simply, when will we modify the message of what it means to be appealing as a woman?

I find it impossible to be immune to these societal pressures. As much as I strive for achievement in my chosen field and seek to contribute to society, the message that comes through the loudest is that my primary goal should be to work on my appearance. And this is why size inflation works in selling clothes. We will accept even blatant manipulation to feel better about how we’re measuring up.

If women were routinely and widely celebrated for reasons outside our physical appeal, the size of models would matter less. The size of clothing would matter less. If female role models from every arena of life graced the covers of magazines, women and young girls would receive the message that we have more to offer than a perfect body and a nice wardrobe.

Tags: double zero, women's magazines, clothing sizes

From a Lump of Clay

When I lived a life of wide-open space, I spent hours in a potter’s studio hunched over a spinning wheel, legs in a ‘v’ to accommodate the machine before me. Arms tensed, hands gripping the moving blob of moist earth, I pushed and positioned trying to convince the clay to give over its will to me and become the shape I desired. I endured many frustrating battles before I learned to move with the clay rather than against it.

The chilly, concrete-floored studio became a relaxing and peaceful place to escape into during my long stretches of unreserved time between freelance jobs. I developed a specific wardrobe for this room – clay-encrusted, turquoise blue high tops and faded cutoffs. I had discovered it was easier to wash clay off of skin than out of fabric, and the assorted splatters on the high tops became a journal of the various colored clays with which I’d experimented.

I haven’t been back to the studio since my son was born thirteen years ago. Those wide-open spaces of time don’t exist in the same way. When emptiness sits before me, I feel the pressure to fill it with useful and productive over pleasure, but when I pull out my ceramic creations of the past, I feel longing. And last night when I served my son dinner in one of the bowls that usually lives high up in a cupboard more as a memory than as a daily life participant, he said, “Nice bowl,” in the offhand way a teen pays a compliment, and I thought of the studio again.

Pottery was good for me. The studio offered a built-in community of artisans and explorers. We’d share tips and marvel at the results of glazing experiments. At the wheel we’d sit in silence and watch our clay spin round and round. While the professional potters greeted a fresh chunk with a specific result in mind often requiring the use of a ruler to create a matched set, I went off in spontaneity, saying, “Bowl,” unconcerned as to what precisely would emerge.

A lot of (un)fortunate friends received my pottery as gifts, and eventually I'd created too much to store in my home. But I couldn’t halt the output because going to the studio was the only time in my life that was about process over results. The doing really was more enjoyable than the outcome. I was not in the studio to create cups, pitchers, bowls, and plates, but to experience the meditative pleasure of getting lost in spinning clay, to see a creation grow before me, to laugh at the miscalculations while also marveling at the unexpected.

As much as I tell myself to experience life as process, that doesn’t come easily to me. I always return to my goal-oriented perspective, certain I’ve spent enough time in process and now deserve to luxuriate in splendid results. But in remembering how joyous I felt in the potter’s studio, I seek to implant that vision in my mind to make it readily available upon request. Whenever I start to feel impatient awaiting results, I will picture myself at that potter’s wheel content and mesmerized. No matter what activity I am engaged in, I will strive to overlay the image of the potter's studio and chant the mantra, “Process, baby. Process.”

Tags: pottery, process

Two Halves Making a Hole

Mary is a different person when her husband is around. Not bad. Different. She’s not unique in this shifting of identify. You know because you’ve met her. Over lunch when her husband is off at work, she spouts opinions and speaks with animation. She makes snide jokes. She has an edge that sparkles like a piece of broken glass.

In the company of couples with her husband by her side, Mary becomes a wife. Caring, nurturing, a little quieter in speech. Not bad. Different. And she knows it, though she doesn’t speak of this transformation because Mary doesn’t want to sound like she’s complaining by admitting that a part of her vanishes when she touches shoulders with her spouse, even when the touch comforts, even when it confirms her partnership.

For two halves to become a whole, Mary thinks part of her must sit on the sidelines. She has never told her husband because she doesn’t know how to respond to the imagined arrival of his crooked eyebrow of confusion. Instead she maintains her private side like a secret garden watered by daydreams.

Mary feels happy knowing she has a good life and a loving marriage. She tells herself that the part of her that questions is leftover from an earlier time. What she doesn’t know is that her husband has the same conversation with himself. He loves Mary, yet wonders who he’d be on his own and has fantasies of grander adventure and bigger risks.

Mary’s husband also transforms in the company of couples. He leaves crude jokes outside on the curb even though everyone would likely laugh. Instead of navigating into appropriate conversation, he finds his focus drifting away as if the room has less of a hold on him. Fortunately, his body remains behind to smile and insert well-timed questions, but his spark is weak. He is not complete.

The other halves of Mary and her husband await their turn. They hope that someday they, too, can join the party. But if two halves make a whole, what do two wholes make?

Miraculously, Mary and her husband share that thought on the same day. They shuffle to the breakfast table. Both reach for the pitcher of orange juice at the exact moment. Their hands touch. They don’t pull away. And they stare at each other and wonder what it means to be a fraction of a larger part.

Tags: fiction, relationships, marriage

Dreamscape

“[Of course we make jokes about marriage because] the enormity of being responsible for another person’s life [devastates us.] ”


The lead-in was vague, drifting away. Maybe less important, maybe swept up in ethereal dream movement unwilling to wait for me to focus. The tag equally so. But the middle part, ‘the enormity of being responsible for another person’s life’ might as well have been tattooed on my forearm, those words refusing to be forgotten.

I woke up in heart-thumping panic because an actor on stage had spoken this phrase in my dream, and it was as if it had to be remembered. Two of us exiting the play commented on the line because it spoke to us so deeply.

I have no idea why.

Sunrise hours away, I insist on writing down the words telling myself, “Do this now. Do not go back to sleep first.” I am certain I am plagiarizing, remembering something rather than mining my own thoughts, because when have I ever used the phrase ‘the enormity of’? Sitting in the dark, I actually think, “Do I use the word ‘enormity’?”

But I want to listen to my dreams and my passionate response because when dreams wake you up, they want your attention. Yet I don’t know about his phrase. Where does it come from? What does it say?

The dreamscape is a faux European land of concrete and trains and underground passages. Lots of underground passages. Hued by overhead greenish lights and ticket takers in tollbooth cubicles. I miss a train, get on the next, and then travel too far. I’m not alone. Some mystery friend is by my side.

‘the enormity of being responsible for another person’s life’

I am responsible for my son, but he does not live in this dream. The mystery companion? An appendage whose resonance fades upon waking.

My husband and I lived our marriage as two very independent people. Too independent. Safely detached. We found in each other exactly what we needed: another who let us be free. Too free. We weren’t trapped in each other. We were barely tethered. Too free.

I’ve wondered if marriage and I will have a reunion. For the me who is now, it would have to be different. I’d infuse the vows with some dependence, with the freedom to need the other, to trust such needing wasn’t needy, to proclaim a responsibility for each other’s life. An enormous declaration. In a good way. For it would be by choice. The enormity of being responsible for another person’s life: a commitment to love that deeply.

Unless my dream returns to comment, I can only pretend this to be the message. Or, I can choose it to be.

Tags: dreams, marriage, vows, love