I waited up by my window most of the night. He never came.
I kept vigil long after my eyes were weary and the school day lay only hours away before me, still thinking, hoping he might show. So many times I saw the phantom, bleary headlights outside of my peripheral vision from the position I held against my bedroom window: chin resting on knuckles, back of head leaning against the cold weather-proofed window, trying to prop inside a pose that wouldn’t pull my hair by the pressure of the weight of my head. The inevitable hair pulling saved me from a crooked, feverish fragment of sleep which would have awakened me in a state of discomfort that I would carry the next day to school. Trying to concentrate on algebra with a crick in my neck on a Wednesday morning: trying harder to figure out why he didn’t think it worthwhile to come to my house, as he had said he would, than the effort I would give to trying to figure out the quadratic equation which meant nothing when compared to him, meaningless and flat on the white page. Algebra meant nothing when compared to the way he looked at me.
“You gonna be at home tonight?” he had asked in the midst of my scrubbing down of the feeder mices’ overcrowded aquarium home.
“Should be,” I answered, trying to sound casual, as if I was not shaken by his unexpected overture.
“Billy and I might come by”…he paused…”tonight.”
“Sure. Ok.” I took one of my yellow bleach-scented rubber gloved hands and wiped away the dangling stray bang that threatened to block my view of him as carefully as I could without making contact with the parts of my fingers which had touched the rodents’ urine-saturated home. It was a funny thing. I was cleaning up after mice, mice who would be eaten by unforgiving reptiles, and in the midst putrid odors and small-animal squeals that would make most people cringe, I felt pretty. Maybe even a little desirable. The feeling was not an intentional one – perhaps more accidental, like any other moment in which one is not prepared for something nice to sneak up and find us in the middle of an unflattering daily task.
“Ok, so maybe we’ll see you.” He looked down, my view of him now of only his white cap, like there was more he wanted to say, and as if he wanted to explain to me exactly why he had decided to invite himself over to my house on a school night and out of the clear blue sky almost as much as I wanted him to explain it to me.
A pause.
“Hello,” someone called from the front of the store. “Is anyone able to answer a question? I’ve got a sick fan-tail goldfish who needs some help.”
His eyes met mine again, and we half-smiled at the interruption, like some sort of pseudo-defining moment had been interrupted. I held up my gloved hands like a doctor does after surgery. “Guess this one is yours,” I shrugged with a smile.
“Yeah.” A tipping of the white Pet Pros cap and one last short gaze of intensity into my eyes, and then he was gone.
Monday, August 24, 2009
Thursday, August 6, 2009
After the Visitors
Watching my father drive away, crouching in the right direction to see through the window of the front door; seeing the slow, deliberate movement of his small, white truck roll over the gravel; feeling the tears burn against the pink of my eyes, and then turning around and deciding now what do I do. I cry because I can hear the phantom laughter of my sisters’ children who no longer roam these halls, scouting out toys with funny sounds and which are easy to tip over. The depression is instantaneous and engulfing. I am surprised by its swiftness.
I run a slight fever – left behind by family with a head cold and a lingering fuzziness behind my eyes. So I lie down. Seems like the logical thing to do. Daughter is in day care. Husband at work. I pine away for days like these to be alone, and yet today, I grieve the absence of others.
Lying in bed, looking up at a towering, white ceiling which has loomed down and looked out over other people’s history, other people’s families’ flaws and secrets, I trade my relief at renting the house – no ownership responsibilities – for apprehension of its void. For me, it is a black hole, a nothingness of history. For it holds the history of several generations, but it does not hold mine…
The tears fall, each one a lost memory of a house sold off to another family, who treat it better than we did. My memories are locked inside there, nonrefundable, nontransferable to this older, whiter, quieter rented house…
I run a slight fever – left behind by family with a head cold and a lingering fuzziness behind my eyes. So I lie down. Seems like the logical thing to do. Daughter is in day care. Husband at work. I pine away for days like these to be alone, and yet today, I grieve the absence of others.
Lying in bed, looking up at a towering, white ceiling which has loomed down and looked out over other people’s history, other people’s families’ flaws and secrets, I trade my relief at renting the house – no ownership responsibilities – for apprehension of its void. For me, it is a black hole, a nothingness of history. For it holds the history of several generations, but it does not hold mine…
The tears fall, each one a lost memory of a house sold off to another family, who treat it better than we did. My memories are locked inside there, nonrefundable, nontransferable to this older, whiter, quieter rented house…
Monday, July 20, 2009
The Surprise
young adult novel excerpt, rough draft
I sat and watched the other merchants setting up. My work was done and I stood back to admire the perfect display of business cards, t-shirts, and dog bandannas all announcing “YOUR PET’S BEST FRIEND” to the people who would walk by once the doors were opened and the merchants’ gathering had begun.
“You can take it easy for a few,” Mike, my boss said. “It’ll be a while until everyone gets here.”
“Ok,” I lowered my head, hoping he wouldn’t ask me why my eyes looked funny. Dammit if I hadn’t decided to wear make up that day. I had spent most of the night trying to figure out how to make my eye lids and mascara look like the girls in the movie stars magazine. No matter how much I worked at it, I couldn’t get the effect to look like anything other than grey splotches around my eyes.
I leaned against the aquarium behind me, feeling its vibrations as it gurgled. I couldn’t understand why management had wanted to set up an aquarium for the occasion. It was a lot of cleaning up to do for an event set to last only a few hours.
“I want to work this area,” a lady called out at a volume that embarrassed me. She reached out with ridiculously long finger nails and picked up a business card. “Hmmm…” she said, unaware of how potent her perfume was as she spilled her curls upon my table where she leaned down to examine a business card. She could hardly balance it between her fingers for the intrusion of her scary looking finger nails, and as a result, it slipped out of her grasp.
Sarge, the store bird who also came along to help advertise our business, evidently didn’t like the sudden move of the eccentric looking lady. “SQUAWK!” he screamed out at her, warning her to keep away.
“You got a live bird here! Hey, Jamie, they’ve got a live bird over here at this table!” She sang out, disappearing with the business card she finally managed to stick between her fingers.
“I know, Sarge.” I said, lifting him onto my arm. “WANNNNNK!” he hesitated. “Step up, come on,” I urged. For a moment he looked docile, as if my inclination to cuddle him was a warranted one, but before I could recognize otherwise, he took his beak and tore into my arm. I looked down to see two bite marks which were turning from lavender into rosy-pink.
“Ouchh!” I quelled my yelp of pain into a whisper. Better not to call negative attention to our business. I had been warned repeatedly before coming not to do anything to make the store look bad. “Fine, get on back up there!” I scolded the unpredictable bird, and when I saw the blood forming a pool inside the nook of my elbow, the tears I had been fighting all day long finally gave themselves permission to emerge.
My heart felt as if it was forcing its way through my neck and throat. I turned my back to the merchants who worked with busy hands and deliberate expressions to set up their stations. God, please let me get a handle on this…Please don’t let me have swollen eyes in front of these important business owners, in front of the people who will be in here in a little while. “AAAAACKK!” Sarge scourged, unaffected by my need to pray. Please…I pleaded to the gurgling aquarium and the fish who paused from their swimming to study me through the glass.
How come they don’t have to know…what it’s like to be embarrassed in front people. How come they get to live free of such humiliation?
Finally feeling that I had taken all the time I could afford to collect myself, I turned around. And just at the right time. I felt the mood change within me in such a palatable way that it was overwhelming. In an instant, my flush from fighting tears transformed into a rapid heart rate, and all was forgotten.
“Well, well…” he said, approaching my table in a slow, cool saunter, carrying a large aquarium gadget over his right shoulder. “They must have needed pretty faces to help advertise.”
Oh, God Oh God, Oh God. I think the boy that I am in love with, the one who is too old and experienced, and who I dream about almost every night, just called me pretty.
I sat and watched the other merchants setting up. My work was done and I stood back to admire the perfect display of business cards, t-shirts, and dog bandannas all announcing “YOUR PET’S BEST FRIEND” to the people who would walk by once the doors were opened and the merchants’ gathering had begun.
“You can take it easy for a few,” Mike, my boss said. “It’ll be a while until everyone gets here.”
“Ok,” I lowered my head, hoping he wouldn’t ask me why my eyes looked funny. Dammit if I hadn’t decided to wear make up that day. I had spent most of the night trying to figure out how to make my eye lids and mascara look like the girls in the movie stars magazine. No matter how much I worked at it, I couldn’t get the effect to look like anything other than grey splotches around my eyes.
I leaned against the aquarium behind me, feeling its vibrations as it gurgled. I couldn’t understand why management had wanted to set up an aquarium for the occasion. It was a lot of cleaning up to do for an event set to last only a few hours.
“I want to work this area,” a lady called out at a volume that embarrassed me. She reached out with ridiculously long finger nails and picked up a business card. “Hmmm…” she said, unaware of how potent her perfume was as she spilled her curls upon my table where she leaned down to examine a business card. She could hardly balance it between her fingers for the intrusion of her scary looking finger nails, and as a result, it slipped out of her grasp.
Sarge, the store bird who also came along to help advertise our business, evidently didn’t like the sudden move of the eccentric looking lady. “SQUAWK!” he screamed out at her, warning her to keep away.
“You got a live bird here! Hey, Jamie, they’ve got a live bird over here at this table!” She sang out, disappearing with the business card she finally managed to stick between her fingers.
“I know, Sarge.” I said, lifting him onto my arm. “WANNNNNK!” he hesitated. “Step up, come on,” I urged. For a moment he looked docile, as if my inclination to cuddle him was a warranted one, but before I could recognize otherwise, he took his beak and tore into my arm. I looked down to see two bite marks which were turning from lavender into rosy-pink.
“Ouchh!” I quelled my yelp of pain into a whisper. Better not to call negative attention to our business. I had been warned repeatedly before coming not to do anything to make the store look bad. “Fine, get on back up there!” I scolded the unpredictable bird, and when I saw the blood forming a pool inside the nook of my elbow, the tears I had been fighting all day long finally gave themselves permission to emerge.
My heart felt as if it was forcing its way through my neck and throat. I turned my back to the merchants who worked with busy hands and deliberate expressions to set up their stations. God, please let me get a handle on this…Please don’t let me have swollen eyes in front of these important business owners, in front of the people who will be in here in a little while. “AAAAACKK!” Sarge scourged, unaffected by my need to pray. Please…I pleaded to the gurgling aquarium and the fish who paused from their swimming to study me through the glass.
How come they don’t have to know…what it’s like to be embarrassed in front people. How come they get to live free of such humiliation?
Finally feeling that I had taken all the time I could afford to collect myself, I turned around. And just at the right time. I felt the mood change within me in such a palatable way that it was overwhelming. In an instant, my flush from fighting tears transformed into a rapid heart rate, and all was forgotten.
“Well, well…” he said, approaching my table in a slow, cool saunter, carrying a large aquarium gadget over his right shoulder. “They must have needed pretty faces to help advertise.”
Oh, God Oh God, Oh God. I think the boy that I am in love with, the one who is too old and experienced, and who I dream about almost every night, just called me pretty.
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
The Fleas
Rough Draft
They appeared one day out of nowhere it seemed. Or maybe I had noticed one or two – a stray one which hopped from my fluffy-grey shampooed cat onto my arm; another which had innocently hitched a ride from the yard – and simply hoped they would just go away on their own, disappearing from my sight and my memory as if we had never even met. Benign little house-guests who wished me no harm…
I don’t recall the exact moment that they took over our house and my sanity. I just remember the little bites that became a familiar, itchy decoration around my ankles. I told myself this unattractive wound display was from the gnats that were undoubtedly finding a way into the house when my daughter took her toddler time dancing in and out of the doorway on the way to our grocery runs and visits to our yard to play frisbee with the dogs. We had just moved into this house and had inhabited it only a few months. While it was an old house, still –wasn’t there a warm-up period before vermin and stubborn insects decided to seize your new home?
“Ants, Mommy,” my daughter would reach her tiny finger down in a pointing motion to her little leg, following it with an “I itching…”declaration much to my frustration. I had worked with animals and had flea outbreaks in my home before. Not a pleasant experience. Still, I didn’t panic. Instead I proudly kept a grown-up head about me: “We’ll have to have someone come and spray,” I stated flatly to my husband, ignoring the horror of my memories with flea infestations before. This time will be easier. Last time we waited too long to take care of the problem.
It was a simple matter of sitting down with a telephone book and a few minutes of quiet. Toddler-free for an hour, I could search the pages of pest control gurus until I found our guy. The one who would make the expanding problem of the fleas who reproduced their families and grand-families in our home history.
They appeared one day out of nowhere it seemed. Or maybe I had noticed one or two – a stray one which hopped from my fluffy-grey shampooed cat onto my arm; another which had innocently hitched a ride from the yard – and simply hoped they would just go away on their own, disappearing from my sight and my memory as if we had never even met. Benign little house-guests who wished me no harm…
I don’t recall the exact moment that they took over our house and my sanity. I just remember the little bites that became a familiar, itchy decoration around my ankles. I told myself this unattractive wound display was from the gnats that were undoubtedly finding a way into the house when my daughter took her toddler time dancing in and out of the doorway on the way to our grocery runs and visits to our yard to play frisbee with the dogs. We had just moved into this house and had inhabited it only a few months. While it was an old house, still –wasn’t there a warm-up period before vermin and stubborn insects decided to seize your new home?
“Ants, Mommy,” my daughter would reach her tiny finger down in a pointing motion to her little leg, following it with an “I itching…”declaration much to my frustration. I had worked with animals and had flea outbreaks in my home before. Not a pleasant experience. Still, I didn’t panic. Instead I proudly kept a grown-up head about me: “We’ll have to have someone come and spray,” I stated flatly to my husband, ignoring the horror of my memories with flea infestations before. This time will be easier. Last time we waited too long to take care of the problem.
It was a simple matter of sitting down with a telephone book and a few minutes of quiet. Toddler-free for an hour, I could search the pages of pest control gurus until I found our guy. The one who would make the expanding problem of the fleas who reproduced their families and grand-families in our home history.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Goodbye
Journal Entry: 5.25.09
It was our parting of ways at security check. The tears sneaked up on me. I fought them fearing that I would remind my brother of our mother, but he didn’t seem to mind.
“I love you,” I hugged him, clenched fists wrapped around his back. “I love who you are.”
Fumbling through baggage check, keys, a jacket, zip-lock of toiletries, neatly ripping shoes off. Alone. No more sister to play. Now I travel solo, longing to feel the swing of my brother’s long arms brushing at my side, showing me his Boston pace of life, mid-conversation, pointing.
Lunch: Pan-Asian cuisine on a Styrofoam plate, a flat Coke to sip. My table amid the cluster of the grand eating area where everything echoes inside a flurry of dialects. Hearing conversations, the tilt of a head, the jingle of a phone.
Aboard flight 1279. A window seat. The sensation of my brother’s reaching for me still fresh. The 60s age flight attendant wipes away her grey bangs, demonstrating exits and flotation devices with a weak smile. I am glad to hear mutual southern accents which will fly with me into Charlotte, and then eventually, on to Savannah, where an empty house, which wears a FOR SALE sign, waits for me.
I lift off, wondering if my brother watches me from his loft where he can see every mode of transportation leaving and entering the city, every beginning and every end.
“Goodbye,” I say to the patch of window behind my left shoulder which looks out upon my last view of the Boston sky line. I turn as far left as I can so the girl wearing dangly earrings seated beside me can’t make guesses about the reason for my tears. I am not leaving behind a love affair or seeing someone off to war. I am just sorry that my time with my brother is over; my little brother, no longer little, but a man; an architect who holds our memories of a complicated, younger time mutually in his hands.
It was our parting of ways at security check. The tears sneaked up on me. I fought them fearing that I would remind my brother of our mother, but he didn’t seem to mind.
“I love you,” I hugged him, clenched fists wrapped around his back. “I love who you are.”
Fumbling through baggage check, keys, a jacket, zip-lock of toiletries, neatly ripping shoes off. Alone. No more sister to play. Now I travel solo, longing to feel the swing of my brother’s long arms brushing at my side, showing me his Boston pace of life, mid-conversation, pointing.
Lunch: Pan-Asian cuisine on a Styrofoam plate, a flat Coke to sip. My table amid the cluster of the grand eating area where everything echoes inside a flurry of dialects. Hearing conversations, the tilt of a head, the jingle of a phone.
Aboard flight 1279. A window seat. The sensation of my brother’s reaching for me still fresh. The 60s age flight attendant wipes away her grey bangs, demonstrating exits and flotation devices with a weak smile. I am glad to hear mutual southern accents which will fly with me into Charlotte, and then eventually, on to Savannah, where an empty house, which wears a FOR SALE sign, waits for me.
I lift off, wondering if my brother watches me from his loft where he can see every mode of transportation leaving and entering the city, every beginning and every end.
“Goodbye,” I say to the patch of window behind my left shoulder which looks out upon my last view of the Boston sky line. I turn as far left as I can so the girl wearing dangly earrings seated beside me can’t make guesses about the reason for my tears. I am not leaving behind a love affair or seeing someone off to war. I am just sorry that my time with my brother is over; my little brother, no longer little, but a man; an architect who holds our memories of a complicated, younger time mutually in his hands.
For Sale
draft in progress
“Hello,” I whisper to the walls, cupping my knees to my chest with a small sense of embarrassment that I am speaking to an empty house.
I am sitting in the middle of a room of the house that I no longer live in, here because I catch a flight tomorrow morning to visit my brother in Boston, and I needed a place to stay overnight. For $1,400 a month in mortgage payments until it sells, I get to visit Savannah and sleep on the last piece of furniture we have in the house – a piece left intentionally so that my husband and I can return to it anytime we like, and so that I can occasionally spend the night. It is like a very sophisticated type of camping.
I stare up at the old ceiling, gently rocking, seated Indian-style, and ignoring the discomfort of my backside bones jutting into the unforgiving wood floor of the room where I napped for survival, and where we conceived our daughter, then the room where I later nursed her, crying out in howls from the pain of her suckling. A room with soft colors, magnolia flowers in a frozen dance, framed on the wall, soft lamp-light singing a warm hum; the room where we spewed sickness and laughter; questioned movies with complicated plot-lines from our queen-size bed. The room I fought most of my depression, which lived there for four years with us, and too, lives with me now in our new home.
So strange to be here now, to walk the floors of this house we prayed to buy, and now pray to sell.
I hear the city sounds outside, the jagged harmonies of living I have left behind, traded off for another life where the squeals of villainous car stereos have been replaced by songs of pixie birds who build nests in unexpected places.
Ghosts always inhabit the homes we used to love. I sit here now, hearing Anna’s phantom cries releasing from her small blue room to the right, like a sound effect for a stage play, and the scene has ended, and all has gone dark.
“Hello,” I whisper to the walls, cupping my knees to my chest with a small sense of embarrassment that I am speaking to an empty house.
I am sitting in the middle of a room of the house that I no longer live in, here because I catch a flight tomorrow morning to visit my brother in Boston, and I needed a place to stay overnight. For $1,400 a month in mortgage payments until it sells, I get to visit Savannah and sleep on the last piece of furniture we have in the house – a piece left intentionally so that my husband and I can return to it anytime we like, and so that I can occasionally spend the night. It is like a very sophisticated type of camping.
I stare up at the old ceiling, gently rocking, seated Indian-style, and ignoring the discomfort of my backside bones jutting into the unforgiving wood floor of the room where I napped for survival, and where we conceived our daughter, then the room where I later nursed her, crying out in howls from the pain of her suckling. A room with soft colors, magnolia flowers in a frozen dance, framed on the wall, soft lamp-light singing a warm hum; the room where we spewed sickness and laughter; questioned movies with complicated plot-lines from our queen-size bed. The room I fought most of my depression, which lived there for four years with us, and too, lives with me now in our new home.
So strange to be here now, to walk the floors of this house we prayed to buy, and now pray to sell.
I hear the city sounds outside, the jagged harmonies of living I have left behind, traded off for another life where the squeals of villainous car stereos have been replaced by songs of pixie birds who build nests in unexpected places.
Ghosts always inhabit the homes we used to love. I sit here now, hearing Anna’s phantom cries releasing from her small blue room to the right, like a sound effect for a stage play, and the scene has ended, and all has gone dark.
Friday, May 15, 2009
Love & Theraflu
Draft 1 - in progress
It all started over flowers and lemon flavored Theraflu. I think I realized I really loved him through the haze of a dizzying cough suppressant. We had first met at a housewarming party hosted by a friend who said I needed to get out more. An overworked middle school teacher, I dragged myself from my Sunday afternoon nap to attend her soire, hair in no particular style, make-up half applied, showing up with Sunday sleep still in my eyes.
“I’m Jim,” he said from across a table that was too small for the five of us who crammed our chairs around it.
“I’m Donna. Nice to meet you.”
He worked for a college and wanted to know if I would be interested in teaching adjunct English courses. Our new friendship was a professional one. No promises. No disappointments. He was courting a few girls he had met since he had moved to Savannah; I was wearing garlic around my neck to ward off relationships after the latest one I was recovering from. Life as a middle school English teacher was exhausting. The students drained every morsel of energy I had, leaving weekends for only sleep, grading papers, and couch recovery.
The last relationship was a turning point for me. I had reached age 29 and while on a trip with him to the U.S. Virgin Islands, I leaned over a railing that overlooked the most beautiful azure island waters and asked God that if there was no one right for me in this world, to please simply give me the ability to accept it and live a good life.
I received an email while in St. Thomas. “It’s Jim. Just wanted to say hello and see if you’d like to get together sometime.” I decided not to respond until I returned home again. My head was muddled as I re-traced my prayer.
I’ve learned there’s nothing like swearing off boyfriends to assist you in finding the right guy.
Once I let go of expectation of men and decided that it would be enough for me to simply get hired by this guy to teach for his college, it all became easy. On our first “pseudo” date with a group of friends, I fell on my face while trying to crawl over the picket fence that surrounded a Tybee Island lighthouse. I pretended the fall felt fabulous and nursed my embarrassment into the next morning.
“You fell in front of him?!” the math teacher across the hall cackled.
“Ok, I know. He thinks I’m a complete buffoon!” I squealed in a mix of laughter and horror.
“No, I think you’ll marry him.”
Evidently my fall only endeared him to me. On our first official date he came to my house and brought over fried seafood to-go from my favorite restaurant. After dinner, we went outside where he played Frisbee with my dog, and he belted me in the eye with an overzealous toss.
“What the heck happened to you?” Delores gasped the next day from her post awaiting the morning bell at the sight of my eye.
“The guy, I saw him again. He accidentally nailed me with the Frisbee.”
She folded her arms and smirked at me. “You are definitely going to marry him.”
******
“Just lift your head. Now sip.”
The flowers he’d brought over sat on the table, and the Theraflu steamed
It all started over flowers and lemon flavored Theraflu. I think I realized I really loved him through the haze of a dizzying cough suppressant. We had first met at a housewarming party hosted by a friend who said I needed to get out more. An overworked middle school teacher, I dragged myself from my Sunday afternoon nap to attend her soire, hair in no particular style, make-up half applied, showing up with Sunday sleep still in my eyes.
“I’m Jim,” he said from across a table that was too small for the five of us who crammed our chairs around it.
“I’m Donna. Nice to meet you.”
He worked for a college and wanted to know if I would be interested in teaching adjunct English courses. Our new friendship was a professional one. No promises. No disappointments. He was courting a few girls he had met since he had moved to Savannah; I was wearing garlic around my neck to ward off relationships after the latest one I was recovering from. Life as a middle school English teacher was exhausting. The students drained every morsel of energy I had, leaving weekends for only sleep, grading papers, and couch recovery.
The last relationship was a turning point for me. I had reached age 29 and while on a trip with him to the U.S. Virgin Islands, I leaned over a railing that overlooked the most beautiful azure island waters and asked God that if there was no one right for me in this world, to please simply give me the ability to accept it and live a good life.
I received an email while in St. Thomas. “It’s Jim. Just wanted to say hello and see if you’d like to get together sometime.” I decided not to respond until I returned home again. My head was muddled as I re-traced my prayer.
I’ve learned there’s nothing like swearing off boyfriends to assist you in finding the right guy.
Once I let go of expectation of men and decided that it would be enough for me to simply get hired by this guy to teach for his college, it all became easy. On our first “pseudo” date with a group of friends, I fell on my face while trying to crawl over the picket fence that surrounded a Tybee Island lighthouse. I pretended the fall felt fabulous and nursed my embarrassment into the next morning.
“You fell in front of him?!” the math teacher across the hall cackled.
“Ok, I know. He thinks I’m a complete buffoon!” I squealed in a mix of laughter and horror.
“No, I think you’ll marry him.”
Evidently my fall only endeared him to me. On our first official date he came to my house and brought over fried seafood to-go from my favorite restaurant. After dinner, we went outside where he played Frisbee with my dog, and he belted me in the eye with an overzealous toss.
“What the heck happened to you?” Delores gasped the next day from her post awaiting the morning bell at the sight of my eye.
“The guy, I saw him again. He accidentally nailed me with the Frisbee.”
She folded her arms and smirked at me. “You are definitely going to marry him.”
******
“Just lift your head. Now sip.”
The flowers he’d brought over sat on the table, and the Theraflu steamed
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Not Yet Titled
Starting Draft
A time. A family. It was the 90s, and I was twenty.
I remember feeling nervous and afraid - a mother who had pointy ice-pick eyes, even when she smiled, and who often wasn't smiling for or at me.
I remember the smell of moth balls from a Chinese grandmother who also never smiled at me even MORE than the mother never smiled at me. She scowled and said ugly things about me in jagged syllables and shrieks that she thought I couldnt understand. I could not understand her Cantonese, perhaps, but I understood her cutting body langage, flickering looks of disdain, and the way she managed to pretend her hearing aid wasn't working when I tried to simply nod my head in a personal way toward her that intimated I was trying to communicate. The only person who made me feel welcome in that home was the dog, an overweight sheltie who also looked a bit confused most of the time, but never seemed to complain: he was fed exotic Asian cuisine under the table and patted with spiny fingers often enough to make do.
I was there because a boy of twenty was in love with me and wanted me there. For hours, I would sit around and be the only Not-Chinese person on the premises, and it is an understatement to say that this made me feel uncomfortable. I had never in my life been met with anything but warm hugs and welcoming invitations by most people's parents, but this home was a __________. Their terse, shrieking syllables intimidated me and even though the boy who loved me would always say "that's just how they talk in their language" I would shudder and watch the clock to see when it seemed late enough to politely finish the meal and get out of there.
It hadn't always been this way. I entered the situation thinking that because the boy loves me, his family will too. They will be excited to learn about me, the white American girl who has introduced their son to standard American living and they would find intrigue in my southern accent and love for pizza and hamburgers and the way my blond hair fell at my shoulders. I have no idea what land I was living in, to think such niave things, but I did. It didn't take long before three things happened: 1. I fell in love with the food they prepared -- mmm... better than any elegant Chinese restaurant could prepare, 2. I fell in love with the boy, and 3. sitting alone in the living room under the smoldering eyes of the Chinese matriarchs made me feel like I was going to wet my pants from nervousness.
Years passed. Little changed. Conversations that were already hard to have grew harder. It initially had been a worthy sacrifice because of the boy who loved me. But then with the passing of those years, my blond, white American mystique started to wear off, and gradually I became just as uneasy under his gaze as I had been with the family-women of his life. It seemed they wanted him to marry a woman like him, and I was different. I expected him to fight it, to raise his galliant hand in the air like a character from a novel and lash out to them that he LOVED me and would NOT conform to their rigid cultural expectations!
He did this for a little while.
A time. A family. It was the 90s, and I was twenty.
I remember feeling nervous and afraid - a mother who had pointy ice-pick eyes, even when she smiled, and who often wasn't smiling for or at me.
I remember the smell of moth balls from a Chinese grandmother who also never smiled at me even MORE than the mother never smiled at me. She scowled and said ugly things about me in jagged syllables and shrieks that she thought I couldnt understand. I could not understand her Cantonese, perhaps, but I understood her cutting body langage, flickering looks of disdain, and the way she managed to pretend her hearing aid wasn't working when I tried to simply nod my head in a personal way toward her that intimated I was trying to communicate. The only person who made me feel welcome in that home was the dog, an overweight sheltie who also looked a bit confused most of the time, but never seemed to complain: he was fed exotic Asian cuisine under the table and patted with spiny fingers often enough to make do.
I was there because a boy of twenty was in love with me and wanted me there. For hours, I would sit around and be the only Not-Chinese person on the premises, and it is an understatement to say that this made me feel uncomfortable. I had never in my life been met with anything but warm hugs and welcoming invitations by most people's parents, but this home was a __________. Their terse, shrieking syllables intimidated me and even though the boy who loved me would always say "that's just how they talk in their language" I would shudder and watch the clock to see when it seemed late enough to politely finish the meal and get out of there.
It hadn't always been this way. I entered the situation thinking that because the boy loves me, his family will too. They will be excited to learn about me, the white American girl who has introduced their son to standard American living and they would find intrigue in my southern accent and love for pizza and hamburgers and the way my blond hair fell at my shoulders. I have no idea what land I was living in, to think such niave things, but I did. It didn't take long before three things happened: 1. I fell in love with the food they prepared -- mmm... better than any elegant Chinese restaurant could prepare, 2. I fell in love with the boy, and 3. sitting alone in the living room under the smoldering eyes of the Chinese matriarchs made me feel like I was going to wet my pants from nervousness.
Years passed. Little changed. Conversations that were already hard to have grew harder. It initially had been a worthy sacrifice because of the boy who loved me. But then with the passing of those years, my blond, white American mystique started to wear off, and gradually I became just as uneasy under his gaze as I had been with the family-women of his life. It seemed they wanted him to marry a woman like him, and I was different. I expected him to fight it, to raise his galliant hand in the air like a character from a novel and lash out to them that he LOVED me and would NOT conform to their rigid cultural expectations!
He did this for a little while.
Friday, January 16, 2009
The Tan
Draft in Progress
It started as a goal to simply "knock the white off." That was it. I only wanted to give myself a healthy glow so my legs and arms, the color of bleached sidewalk, could fit the description of "sunkissed," to innocently match the highlights of my hair. I had given up tanning beds. I was 25 and the reality that I couldn't bake in the sun forever was upon me. You better start now. I had told myself. It is perfectly avoidable to not have to look like another over-baked 30s-age woman-fighting-to-stay-girl spreading a set of white teeth on the inside of a leather smile.
So I took to artifical tanning. I learned the art of liquid tanning on QT, the cheap brand of tanning cream which turned everything orange in its wake, compliments of my mother, who modeled for me how to color-code every limb, including the use of a paintbrush was spread across even those digits so that no part of the body was still showing the shame of The White. The white skin: it must be destroyed,and the fake tan was the cure.
It started as a goal to simply "knock the white off." That was it. I only wanted to give myself a healthy glow so my legs and arms, the color of bleached sidewalk, could fit the description of "sunkissed," to innocently match the highlights of my hair. I had given up tanning beds. I was 25 and the reality that I couldn't bake in the sun forever was upon me. You better start now. I had told myself. It is perfectly avoidable to not have to look like another over-baked 30s-age woman-fighting-to-stay-girl spreading a set of white teeth on the inside of a leather smile.
So I took to artifical tanning. I learned the art of liquid tanning on QT, the cheap brand of tanning cream which turned everything orange in its wake, compliments of my mother, who modeled for me how to color-code every limb, including the use of a paintbrush was spread across even those digits so that no part of the body was still showing the shame of The White. The white skin: it must be destroyed,and the fake tan was the cure.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Night time: The Search for My Mother
Rough Draft
Tonight my daughter fell asleep in my arms in the darkness. She'll be two in a few weeks, and settling her down for sleep is like trying to pin down a wet goldfish. We rocked in our teal green chair that is so soft it swallows you, and somehow we succeeded. After some babbling and giggling and the jabbing of her fingers in my mouth through the darkness, she finally succumbed to the rest she needed after a busy toddler day.
As I sat in the dark, noticing the shapes the moonlight made through the window, I also noticed how amazing this feeling must be. My daughter must feel so secure, so serene, getting to fall asleep almost every night in the safety and comfort of her mother's arms. I thought about how much I wished that I could do the same.
Even in our 30s, as mothers, we still yearn for our mother's arms. Maybe even more so than we did when we were typically supposed to. It is a primal feeling that never goes away. I once read an article that referenced a child who had been burned. The essay described how he cried out for his mother - even knowing that she was the one who had burned him. Even the fire couldn't extinguish the flame of yearning for the child. This struck me as critically profound.
My mother's arms are not available. But it is not by circumstance, but by choice. Only, if you asked her if they reached out for me, she would insist YES - YES, of course they do. Of course she does what she can. Of course she would do more if she lived closer, if she weren't in her 60s and now "less capable";if she weren't trying to function with an "old" car which struggles to keep running; if she only had more "down time"... if....if....if...
My mother told me and my siblings when we were kids that she never wanted to be called anybody's grandmother. She worked hard to look as unlikely as possible to even fit the description of mother. We learned early that her arms were not open, and the shop wouldn't likely "open" at all. Deal with it.
I make a point to hold my daughter and allow her to find sleep in my arms most every night. Although the day time is busy, I reserve the right for her to drift into dreams each night with my smell the last thing she remembers before falling asleep. I do this because I wish it had been done for me, and because if I could make my mother be the mother I want - the mother I need - I would do this in her arms now every so often if I had the chance.
I look down at my daughter in the darkness as we rock, wondering what it must feel like to completely let go, to know that Mommy is here...you can check out now...Mommy is in charge. Of everything.
I lay my daughter in her crib, stomach down, and hear her exhale at the motion. Tonight, like every night, I conclude this time with the resolution that if I can't have this from my mother, I'll make things right in the universe by giving it to my daughter. What else can you do? As Sue Monk Kidd wrote at the end of her novel The Secret Life of Bees, we all have to find the mother inside of us. I'm in the middle of my journey, searching, hoping. Trying on who I am as a mother, seeing what fits and what colors look the best. I pray my arms are always open, no matter what the size or season.
Tonight my daughter fell asleep in my arms in the darkness. She'll be two in a few weeks, and settling her down for sleep is like trying to pin down a wet goldfish. We rocked in our teal green chair that is so soft it swallows you, and somehow we succeeded. After some babbling and giggling and the jabbing of her fingers in my mouth through the darkness, she finally succumbed to the rest she needed after a busy toddler day.
As I sat in the dark, noticing the shapes the moonlight made through the window, I also noticed how amazing this feeling must be. My daughter must feel so secure, so serene, getting to fall asleep almost every night in the safety and comfort of her mother's arms. I thought about how much I wished that I could do the same.
Even in our 30s, as mothers, we still yearn for our mother's arms. Maybe even more so than we did when we were typically supposed to. It is a primal feeling that never goes away. I once read an article that referenced a child who had been burned. The essay described how he cried out for his mother - even knowing that she was the one who had burned him. Even the fire couldn't extinguish the flame of yearning for the child. This struck me as critically profound.
My mother's arms are not available. But it is not by circumstance, but by choice. Only, if you asked her if they reached out for me, she would insist YES - YES, of course they do. Of course she does what she can. Of course she would do more if she lived closer, if she weren't in her 60s and now "less capable";if she weren't trying to function with an "old" car which struggles to keep running; if she only had more "down time"... if....if....if...
My mother told me and my siblings when we were kids that she never wanted to be called anybody's grandmother. She worked hard to look as unlikely as possible to even fit the description of mother. We learned early that her arms were not open, and the shop wouldn't likely "open" at all. Deal with it.
I make a point to hold my daughter and allow her to find sleep in my arms most every night. Although the day time is busy, I reserve the right for her to drift into dreams each night with my smell the last thing she remembers before falling asleep. I do this because I wish it had been done for me, and because if I could make my mother be the mother I want - the mother I need - I would do this in her arms now every so often if I had the chance.
I look down at my daughter in the darkness as we rock, wondering what it must feel like to completely let go, to know that Mommy is here...you can check out now...Mommy is in charge. Of everything.
I lay my daughter in her crib, stomach down, and hear her exhale at the motion. Tonight, like every night, I conclude this time with the resolution that if I can't have this from my mother, I'll make things right in the universe by giving it to my daughter. What else can you do? As Sue Monk Kidd wrote at the end of her novel The Secret Life of Bees, we all have to find the mother inside of us. I'm in the middle of my journey, searching, hoping. Trying on who I am as a mother, seeing what fits and what colors look the best. I pray my arms are always open, no matter what the size or season.
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