Monday, May 14, 2012
May 14, 2012
Anna wants her brother's attention. Says, "James-James" two times in a row with urgency. I love to hear this.
The other day, James took a toy and hit Anna's head. He was seated on the couch and her head was laid against the end of the sofa. Upon his hitting her, I took his hand in mind, laid a finger on it, and gave a firm, "No-No. No hit." He then looked at me, scooted himself off of the couch, then gave his sister a hug. I was so touched to see that at only 20 months, his young mind already was able to register that when we hurt someone, we say that we're sorry. And the beauty of seeing him communicate this without words. Only with a hug.
The days of recovering from hernia repair surgery are dragging, dragging. By the time I can finally pick up James again, I wonder if he'll still even be interested in being picked up. I pray that he will. I miss the feel of him, of his weight against my hip as I stand with him in my arms.
Sunday, May 13, 2012
Mother's Day 2012
May 13, 2012
Mother's Day
On this day I woke to the sounds of my children bouncing and giggling on my bed where I slept in.
Anna who is five, and James who is inching up on 20 months, shrieked with excitement at getting the chance to get in bed with Mommy and build forts under the covers and toss pillows around. I can't think of a much sweeter wake-up call.
The day was beautiful. We all slept in, unfortunately causing us to miss Sunday school, and then we talked ourselves into missing church, too, so that we could make a drive to the nearby state park, Little Olcmulgee. They have a really amazing restaurant that serves a tasty buffet filled with seasoned meats and vegetable casseroles, and a sea of desserts that makes it almost mandatory that a hike on the trails must follow the meal so that the sugar can be burned off.
Down came the rain, so we didn't stay for the usual hike, but instead took a pair of full, tired kids home who were "played out" after their visit with the park's kids' area gift shop where they hugged every stuffed animal imaginable and fingered nature-themed toys in their busy, little hands. Coming home was a magical gift for me, too - I had two and a half hours of uninterrupted painting time. I worked on painting over an acrylic class assignment with oil paint and made dramatic improvements to the piece. It's hanging in what is now our artist's studio, as of today (setting it all up for me was another mother's day gift: my request), and I'm so pleased with the transformation that it made from class-project-boring acrylic, to the now more sophisticated purple-fusia, oil based finished piece. A flower pot and some roses peeping out. A simple piece, but the colors came out well.
And after painting - we all went to the nearby softball field and enjoyed the fenced-in convenience. Even the dogs came and dribbled a ball across the vast, open space. I walked for exercise and had the chance to watch my angels at play. James, toddling across the red mud where the plates were left behind, stomping his small feet in the mud puddles left over from the earlier-rain. His fists raised and full , clasping the dense, red mud in his tight little hands. And Anna, like a painting herself, scurrying to and fro with her brother in tow, dancing barefoot in the mud puddles, whispering to herself a story that only she could understand. And my husband: tall, broad-shouldered, focusing on the ladybug kite he had brought out for the kids to fly, finding that he enjoyed watching it snake in and out of the breeze even more than the kids did.
This was heaven under a dark-clouded sky on mother's day. I go to bed tonight feeling incredibly blessed, much more so than I deserve to be. Thank you, Lord, for my family, and for the blessing of motherhood.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
A Good Mommy-Day
May 18, 2011
I want to write about today because it was a really good day. Tonight I go to bed feeling like I was a good mother. I cooked with Anna - we made egg salad and tomato soup. Simple, but she enjoyed peeling the shell off the eggs and stirring the soup. There was no arguing or demanding, and Baby James played on his own, wheeling around in his walker, babbling and grabbing Anna's art off the walls while we cooked. I felt peaceful, and capable. Even a little domestic. I introduced Anna to an internet site for kids called Starfall (Starfall.com) and she was entranced by it, taken away to new worlds of learning letters and making stories, clicking on funny icons and singing animals. I cleaned the kitchen while she played her new games. I felt successful and loving.
I put happy kids down to bed tonight, nursing a tired baby and hugging an excited little girl who got to play like she wanted on the computer.
I want to remember today. Today I felt good at being a mommy - something that doesn't happen often. I thank God for this unexpected gift. The gift of today.
I want to write about today because it was a really good day. Tonight I go to bed feeling like I was a good mother. I cooked with Anna - we made egg salad and tomato soup. Simple, but she enjoyed peeling the shell off the eggs and stirring the soup. There was no arguing or demanding, and Baby James played on his own, wheeling around in his walker, babbling and grabbing Anna's art off the walls while we cooked. I felt peaceful, and capable. Even a little domestic. I introduced Anna to an internet site for kids called Starfall (Starfall.com) and she was entranced by it, taken away to new worlds of learning letters and making stories, clicking on funny icons and singing animals. I cleaned the kitchen while she played her new games. I felt successful and loving.
I put happy kids down to bed tonight, nursing a tired baby and hugging an excited little girl who got to play like she wanted on the computer.
I want to remember today. Today I felt good at being a mommy - something that doesn't happen often. I thank God for this unexpected gift. The gift of today.
Saturday, May 14, 2011
Tea at the Museum
May 14, 2011
Took Anna to a museum for her first time today at the Altmaha (sp) art museum in Vidalia, GA. It was a tea for mothers and daughters. She liked the experience. I loved it. I dressed her up in periwinkle dress and white jacket and wore my plain old clothes, sad that I didnt have enough time to dress myself up a little, too. It was fun being around art and culture today; it's been a good while since I've been to a museum. Anna played musical chairs and didn't like losing. She almost won. That last chair did her in. She got to pick out a free piece of art for coming to the event and came home with a print of a yellow monarch butterfly.
Baby James turns 8 months tomorrow. Not crawling yet, but loves to jet around in his walker, chasing after Anna. He got his first tooth in - a bottom right - at 7 months. He's sitting up but frequently falls backwards. He is a joy, and he and Anna worship each other.
I haven't blogged in a while. My writing and thought processes are very rusty. I'm exhausted most days. Hopefully I can do some writing every day, even if just a little. I don't want to forget these days, these moments, with my children.
Took Anna to a museum for her first time today at the Altmaha (sp) art museum in Vidalia, GA. It was a tea for mothers and daughters. She liked the experience. I loved it. I dressed her up in periwinkle dress and white jacket and wore my plain old clothes, sad that I didnt have enough time to dress myself up a little, too. It was fun being around art and culture today; it's been a good while since I've been to a museum. Anna played musical chairs and didn't like losing. She almost won. That last chair did her in. She got to pick out a free piece of art for coming to the event and came home with a print of a yellow monarch butterfly.
Baby James turns 8 months tomorrow. Not crawling yet, but loves to jet around in his walker, chasing after Anna. He got his first tooth in - a bottom right - at 7 months. He's sitting up but frequently falls backwards. He is a joy, and he and Anna worship each other.
I haven't blogged in a while. My writing and thought processes are very rusty. I'm exhausted most days. Hopefully I can do some writing every day, even if just a little. I don't want to forget these days, these moments, with my children.
Monday, August 24, 2009
"Pet Shop" Chapter x
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.
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.
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.
Friday, October 10, 2008
Till Death Do Us Part: The Joy of Name Changing
Draft 1
I got married so I’m in the process of changing my last name. Did I mention that I got married three years ago? Yes, three years ago, in a church garden in the oppression of July Savannah heat. A few days before that, when my fiancé and I went to apply for our marriage license, the lady looked up from her small reading glasses and asked, “Last name, please?”
I had been fairly certain (I use the term “fairly” in its truest sense) that I would take my husband’s last name when I got married and became his wife. I should actually say that I made that assumption, and then pushed it out of my mind, afraid to entertain it too much because I might back down. I was an independent woman, and considered myself a feminist, but I thought it was kind of exciting to become known by my adored husband’s last name, so I thought that when the issue finally came up officially, I would feel caught up in the moment and say “yes, that name is spelled “b-e-l-l”. But when the woman with the small reading glasses stared up at me, and she looked so official, I panicked. My response came out like an adolescent, anxious grunt: “No,” I looked from her to my husband, “I can’t do it. I’m keeping my own last name.”
My husband and I had discussed this, and the topic of keeping my name had come up, and he had always been supportive, encouraging me to do what felt right for me. I had thought that that loving support was enough to make me want to take his name, but when the time came, it wasn’t.
The woman looked between me and my husband and appeared to be nonverbally communicating that this was an issue that didn’t concern her, this dilemma, and that she simply needed to record a name and get us out of her office. So out I walked still Donna “B_ _ _”, and terribly relieved.
I toyed with the notion of hyphenating for a while, but knew I would tire quickly of making people utter my last name at such great length: “B _ _ _ - Bell”. Especially since I was a teacher. How in the world could I force my students to say that every time they needed my help or attention? And the idea that friendly consolers suggested – of taking on my maiden name as my middle name, and dropping the middle name I had since birth. The thought of doing that on the day of the name change didn’t help much either, and the notion that I would never again get to be “Donna Lynn B_ _ _ -,” the name on my cute little cross-stitched plaque that hung in my bedroom most of my childhood, reduced me to tears. Where would that little girl go? I simply couldn’t find any place to feel comfortable about this name change.
As we walked out the door, I squeaked out through a stuffy nose, “when we have a child. I’ll make the change if we have a family.”
So flash forward three years. I am now the new mother of a six-month-old whom I am in love with: baby Anna, last name “Be _ _ _”. And so the day has come. Or “came”, I should say. I am actually behind according to that utterance about changing the name when a family began. Like so many other times, I kept finding reasons and excuses not to begin the name changing process. For one thing, it would be a heck of a lot of work; everybody knows me as “B_ _ _”; I don’t have time to see about it, etc. But the reality of it was that I didn’t want to do it – still – because it was painful. In fact, I couldn’t believe how emotionally trying the whole notion was for me. So many women had made this change, and never thought twice about it. Or at least that’s how it seemed to me. Why was I not as undaunted? Why did this have to carry so much emotional weight for me? Why did the mere thought of it almost always send me into tears?
I had been spelling and pronouncing my last name for people all of my life: “B_ _ _” – that’s b as in ‘boy’-_ - e”. I felt embarrassed of it most of my life for one reason or another: it wasn’t very aesthetic sounding; because my father was the superintendent of schools and saying that was my last name immediately stigmatized me and connected me to him. But the fact is, it was my name, and love it or not, it belonged to and identified me. I had won awards in that name, applied for and gotten accepted into college and graduate school in that name; bought my first house in that name. I was proud of that name, and of what I had accomplished while wearing it. I eventually became so proud of and attached to that name that I became impervious to any jokes people could make in its pronounciation, and I had become so strong in my own identity that at that point in my life, it was my name more than it was my father’s name. I had come into my own, and I was proud of the person I had become. I had been years into the evolution of such self-assuredness, and I like it.
Piece still in progress. To be continued.
I got married so I’m in the process of changing my last name. Did I mention that I got married three years ago? Yes, three years ago, in a church garden in the oppression of July Savannah heat. A few days before that, when my fiancé and I went to apply for our marriage license, the lady looked up from her small reading glasses and asked, “Last name, please?”
I had been fairly certain (I use the term “fairly” in its truest sense) that I would take my husband’s last name when I got married and became his wife. I should actually say that I made that assumption, and then pushed it out of my mind, afraid to entertain it too much because I might back down. I was an independent woman, and considered myself a feminist, but I thought it was kind of exciting to become known by my adored husband’s last name, so I thought that when the issue finally came up officially, I would feel caught up in the moment and say “yes, that name is spelled “b-e-l-l”. But when the woman with the small reading glasses stared up at me, and she looked so official, I panicked. My response came out like an adolescent, anxious grunt: “No,” I looked from her to my husband, “I can’t do it. I’m keeping my own last name.”
My husband and I had discussed this, and the topic of keeping my name had come up, and he had always been supportive, encouraging me to do what felt right for me. I had thought that that loving support was enough to make me want to take his name, but when the time came, it wasn’t.
The woman looked between me and my husband and appeared to be nonverbally communicating that this was an issue that didn’t concern her, this dilemma, and that she simply needed to record a name and get us out of her office. So out I walked still Donna “B_ _ _”, and terribly relieved.
I toyed with the notion of hyphenating for a while, but knew I would tire quickly of making people utter my last name at such great length: “B _ _ _ - Bell”. Especially since I was a teacher. How in the world could I force my students to say that every time they needed my help or attention? And the idea that friendly consolers suggested – of taking on my maiden name as my middle name, and dropping the middle name I had since birth. The thought of doing that on the day of the name change didn’t help much either, and the notion that I would never again get to be “Donna Lynn B_ _ _ -,” the name on my cute little cross-stitched plaque that hung in my bedroom most of my childhood, reduced me to tears. Where would that little girl go? I simply couldn’t find any place to feel comfortable about this name change.
As we walked out the door, I squeaked out through a stuffy nose, “when we have a child. I’ll make the change if we have a family.”
So flash forward three years. I am now the new mother of a six-month-old whom I am in love with: baby Anna, last name “Be _ _ _”. And so the day has come. Or “came”, I should say. I am actually behind according to that utterance about changing the name when a family began. Like so many other times, I kept finding reasons and excuses not to begin the name changing process. For one thing, it would be a heck of a lot of work; everybody knows me as “B_ _ _”; I don’t have time to see about it, etc. But the reality of it was that I didn’t want to do it – still – because it was painful. In fact, I couldn’t believe how emotionally trying the whole notion was for me. So many women had made this change, and never thought twice about it. Or at least that’s how it seemed to me. Why was I not as undaunted? Why did this have to carry so much emotional weight for me? Why did the mere thought of it almost always send me into tears?
I had been spelling and pronouncing my last name for people all of my life: “B_ _ _” – that’s b as in ‘boy’-_ - e”. I felt embarrassed of it most of my life for one reason or another: it wasn’t very aesthetic sounding; because my father was the superintendent of schools and saying that was my last name immediately stigmatized me and connected me to him. But the fact is, it was my name, and love it or not, it belonged to and identified me. I had won awards in that name, applied for and gotten accepted into college and graduate school in that name; bought my first house in that name. I was proud of that name, and of what I had accomplished while wearing it. I eventually became so proud of and attached to that name that I became impervious to any jokes people could make in its pronounciation, and I had become so strong in my own identity that at that point in my life, it was my name more than it was my father’s name. I had come into my own, and I was proud of the person I had become. I had been years into the evolution of such self-assuredness, and I like it.
Piece still in progress. To be continued.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Picking the Bones, Draft 2
“I’ve heard rumors for years that Grandma Burgess kept his clothes, but I didn’t believe it.” Lisa, my oldest sister, sucked in her breath from across the room. We rushed to where Lisa knelt upon our father’s musty carpet, her arms outstretched, holding a tattered shirt out from her body as if the ragged piece of clothing might infect her with a strange disease. Her mouth open in shock, she eye-balled it up and down.
Resting the shirt over her arm, she pulled an accompanying pair of worn denim overalls from the green, hard-shelled suitcase that had exhaled the burned cinnamon smell of my grandmother’s house when she’d opened it.
I hardly noticed the rest of the suitcase’s contents. I was mystified. Unfolding the shirt, my eyes fastened on two jagged rips that showed signs of trauma to the shirt from its front to its back. I placed several fingers through the large rip over the front pocket and watched them wiggle through clean to the shirt’s back. I studied the shirt and its great tears singed around the edges with blood-brown flecks of color like deep tea stains.
“His name was Julian,” Lisa pulled herself up from the carpet that had soaked up my father’s stale cigarette smoke. “He was Grandma’s first born son…her voice trailed off as her eyes now skimmed the set of overalls, “… he was killed by lightening.”
“In these clothes…” I whispered.
A black and white photograph, aged but sturdy, had fallen out of the folded overalls revealing the face of a young boy wearing a smile tinged with a smirk. I liked him immediately and if we had known each other, we would have built forts together in the woods and been friends.
Entranced, my sisters and I studied the photograph until Jill, the second oldest, spotted further clues on the picture’s underside, erupting into our pensive moment with “turn it over!” where we found the very short story of this young man in my grandmother’s scrawled cursive: “Julian Aldon Burgess. Oldest child. Was killed by lightening as he walked down a country road one summer from returning a corn planter to a neighbor in June, 1933. He was thirteen-years-old.”
“Julian Aldon,” My voice slowly released the soft vowels. We smiled.
“Like Ava,” my sister said.
“Ava Aldon.” I held his picture close, looking for details of my daughter’s face in it. I had given her the name so that she and my brother could have something to share. My brother and I had built forts together in the woods and been friends. I had been so pleased by the name. Now it held much more meaning than I ever imagined.
Holding in my hands the faded blue fabric – the material and tangible loss of life – feeling its rips where the lightening bolt seared through it and robbed the life and heart beating below its threads – captured and held my imagination. Who was this young man who would have been my uncle, my father’s only brother? Did the buttons of this shirt give him a fit on the morning he struggled to put them through the holes with distracted fingers on the day that would be his last?
Dang it, Mama, I’ll be there in a minute!
Did he step into the denim over alls and click their clips together with reluctance at knowing he faced the cumbersome corn planter dressed in a long-sleeved shirt, constrictive and suffocating in the unforgiving Carolina heat?
It’s rainin’ Julian. Now you be real careful walkin’ home.
My sisters and I looked at history, sitting in my hands. We stood frozen, the mood much different from earlier when we had thrashed through boxes in an eager frenzy, giggling at letters we’d found tucked inside bags and boxes which were written to Santa Claus that my parents had saved; balancing the fine line between laughter and tears when we discovered something personal: an old love letter or poem; a piece of clothing we’d forgotten existed.
Now we were solemn, heads bowed as if at a funeral – it was one, of sorts – dividing the contents of our childhood home into separate houses after our parents’ divorce, picking through items like scavengers; and now viewing the last pieces of clothing a young boy wore to meet his death. We stood faced with a dilemma: we came here to decide which sibling takes what. Who would get Julian?
How funny that such an uncanny item – the blood-dried, fire-tinged clothes of a dead boy – could be something that we all wanted. Yet we did. The sense of it filled the room, as did Julian, who had joined us in the unsealing of his clothes. Perhaps the courage of his smirkish, tight-lipped smile inspired me to break the silence.
“I would really love to have them,” I said, adding tentatively, “if it’s ok with you.” My eyes bounced back and forth between each sister.
So eager to make my drive back home to Savannah with these clothes in my truck, I continued my plea, resorting to pulling from my bag of tricks: “help a teacher: donate supplies”, the bargaining chip I had used many times to persuade the donation of pens and pencils and to entice businessmen into being guest speakers inside my English literature classroom.
“The students...” I spoke in a listless, it-would-be-a-shame-voice, “could be so inspired to write at the sight of these clothes.”
“Never mind that." Lisa sighed with some resignation. “You should have them anyway,” She smiled. “Ava is his name sake.”
And so with that: sold. I became the new owner of Julian Aldon’s last clothes. The experience of bringing them back into the light and to life inside my classroom for the students’ writing explorations awaited. And most importantly, the story waited like ripening fruit, to be shared with Ava someday.
I drove home to Savannah, singing to my radio, the story of Julian, Julian Aldon, stirring in my head.
Meta-text: What this Cadet has Learned
The experience of taking this class has been as enchanting as it has been enlightening. During these two transforming weeks, my writing has evolved from fair to good, but I’m still working toward great. Some of the most important lessons I’ve learned include allowing myself permission to write “with the door closed” as King’s memoir taught so that I can evolve toward allowing myself to consider writing also with it open for an audience. My private struggle is the challenge of learning to write with the door closed and still not harshly judge it before it even has the chance to make it out of the door. Reading the King book helped me to learn to let go of that stronghold a bit.
Another important lesson I learned: avoid adverbs. This has been a huge revelation, as I had not realized what dead weight they are to a piece of writing. I’ve come to realize that they are excuses to avoid dialogue or use of stronger verbs and adjectives in my writing, and how much more effective it is to let other parts of speech and language devices carry me. It was interesting and challenging to learn to rely on these adverb-alternatives more.
This class helped me to meet a goal I came here hoping to achieve: narrowing down my writing focus. I’ve written decades of journal entries, but never knew how to authentically craft a real story from them, and certainly not a story that could have qualities worthy of publication. The result of not knowing how to narrow my focus was the feeling of an assembly-line mentality with my diary, frantic sometimes to capture every single day’s tiny detail. Ughhh, this makes writing exhausting!
This perception ultimately drove me to stop writing all together, using work and motherhood as the excuses. The lessons in this class taught me to give permission to myself to set writing boundaries; that it’s ok to focus on only a “snapshot” of my life, or of the day or moment, without having to cover the entire journey.
From this class I was reminded of the importance of minimizing, and that sometimes writing a simple sentence is the best choice.
First draft – 10% = second draft as King wrote…or something like that?
I know my writing muscles have strengthened simply because I've used them rigorously while I've been here, and my writing has benefitted from the most involved creative writing revisions I have ever made. Prior to this class, the only writing that I gave this much correction and attention to included cover letters for jobs; I would pour hours over those, but never gave my own creative writing this much necessary and worthwhile attention. I feel proud of not giving up on a piece of writing simply because it frustrated me and needed a million changes!
From this class I learned how to be a more effective writer – and I hope (I’ll let my reader be the judge) – a more entertaining and interesting one, too. It has indeed been a rare and wonderful experience to participate in both the Low Country Writing Project and to live in a barrack among the cadets at the Citadel! The memoir on that experience is next!
Another important lesson I learned: avoid adverbs. This has been a huge revelation, as I had not realized what dead weight they are to a piece of writing. I’ve come to realize that they are excuses to avoid dialogue or use of stronger verbs and adjectives in my writing, and how much more effective it is to let other parts of speech and language devices carry me. It was interesting and challenging to learn to rely on these adverb-alternatives more.
This class helped me to meet a goal I came here hoping to achieve: narrowing down my writing focus. I’ve written decades of journal entries, but never knew how to authentically craft a real story from them, and certainly not a story that could have qualities worthy of publication. The result of not knowing how to narrow my focus was the feeling of an assembly-line mentality with my diary, frantic sometimes to capture every single day’s tiny detail. Ughhh, this makes writing exhausting!
This perception ultimately drove me to stop writing all together, using work and motherhood as the excuses. The lessons in this class taught me to give permission to myself to set writing boundaries; that it’s ok to focus on only a “snapshot” of my life, or of the day or moment, without having to cover the entire journey.
From this class I was reminded of the importance of minimizing, and that sometimes writing a simple sentence is the best choice.
First draft – 10% = second draft as King wrote…or something like that?
I know my writing muscles have strengthened simply because I've used them rigorously while I've been here, and my writing has benefitted from the most involved creative writing revisions I have ever made. Prior to this class, the only writing that I gave this much correction and attention to included cover letters for jobs; I would pour hours over those, but never gave my own creative writing this much necessary and worthwhile attention. I feel proud of not giving up on a piece of writing simply because it frustrated me and needed a million changes!
From this class I learned how to be a more effective writer – and I hope (I’ll let my reader be the judge) – a more entertaining and interesting one, too. It has indeed been a rare and wonderful experience to participate in both the Low Country Writing Project and to live in a barrack among the cadets at the Citadel! The memoir on that experience is next!
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Draft 3: The Day After
I turned the key and pushed the door open with a weary shoulder, flecks of sleep crumbling from my eye lashes into sore eyes. It was too early to be awake. I was met at the door by reliable and familiar sounds: the clanging of the bell against the glass door behind me, the clamoring of agitated birds, flipping of cedar shavings, howling barks, and stern squawks. The animals heard my movements and the cacophony began.
Someone’s here…
The stench of urine and slightly sweet smell of birds carried me from the door onto the stretch of tile floor into the back storage room which smelled of the parrot’s messy slumber. I placed my sandwich in the fridge and spotted zucchini waiting to be diced. The iguanas must eat. Why do they have to eat such troublesome food?
The light of the shop looked different to me. A fluorescent bulb had died casting a shadow over the looming saltwater tank displayed behind the cash register counter. “How do you clean that thing? It’s huge!” customers would revel, pointing, their eyes tracing it from top to bottom, side to side, keeping the slow rhythm with the lazy swim of neon fish. With the bulb out it radiated an eerie glow.
“I don’t clean it, Ma’am. We have guys here who do that.”
Something stuck in my throat; it felt dry, as did the roof of my mouth. I realized my hand was still inside the iguana tank and one of them was making his way up my wrist. With force, I flung him off and his small, wiry body hit the glass. That was mean. I didn’t feel gentle today. I just needed to get the job done: open shop, last the day, and go home.
It was odd to open the shop alone but to feel crowded while doing it. Creatures peeked out with expectant eyes at every turn. Snakes disturbed from sleep thrashed out of nowhere and hundreds of fish eavesdropped from inside their gurgling homes. This morning they were all rising to the tops of their tanks beckoning like baby birds for me to sprinkle their morning feast down for them. I stared at them blankly. Today I could not feel compassionate toward them, or toward anything in the store.
They blurred into shapelessness and I fell hypnotized by the hum of aquarium filters.
A scroungy bark complained that I had not yet made my way to his corner, and I realized that I needed to feed and clean the pups and kittens. The growls, chirps, and scratching sonance of the animals played their normal orchestra, but I was far away. How could they open the store today? It’s offensive. Don’t they care that somebody has died?
I opened the cage where the scruffy white terrier who wasn’t selling greeted me with over-enthusiasm, such enthusiasm that he knocked over his water bowl, making a wet mess of my shirt. At almost three months, he was beginning to outgrow the cage. I pitied him and would often let him run around the store as I cleaned to allow him a break from the confinement. We had become friends. I set him down, and ecstatic to be free, he catapulted toward the kittens’ cage, interrupting their calm vigil. They hissed and Terrier gnashed his teeth. Havoc ensued: screeching, squawking, whipping of wings, of tails; the kittens growled and Terrier did the only thing he knew to do in response to all of the frenzy: he peed on the floor.
“No!” I scolded. He tried to take off in a sprint as if a reaction from me was a playful invitation. “Damn you, I said no!” I jerked him up by the scruff and glared into his eyes. He let out a yelp from my squeeze. My glare turned into shame. I held him to my chest and felt his hair press like a curly rug under my chin. I will not cry. I have to open this shop in thirty minutes. I will not lose control.
Still facing me were the tasks of cleaning bird cages, sweeping away the piles of birdseed, changing sandy litter pans, feeding the fish, scooping deads. The dead fish must be disposed of, every day. First thing. Never open the store to customers without having scooped the dead.
I felt sick. The space around me began to shrink and look dreamlike. I made my way to the small sink and counter reserved for bagging fish for customers. It was cleared of the usual clutter of pet care supplies. Room had been made available for leisure. We had toiled all day, relieved to take a break.
Upon the space sat two empty Coke cans, the tabs pulled off, and a pile of empty boiled peanut shells. Our peanut shells. He'll never hear these sounds again. Or see this spot where we put our work aside. Or say my name. Or say anybody's name.
I hugged my shoulders. Fell to my knees. The sobs came, like choking.
Someone’s here…
The stench of urine and slightly sweet smell of birds carried me from the door onto the stretch of tile floor into the back storage room which smelled of the parrot’s messy slumber. I placed my sandwich in the fridge and spotted zucchini waiting to be diced. The iguanas must eat. Why do they have to eat such troublesome food?
The light of the shop looked different to me. A fluorescent bulb had died casting a shadow over the looming saltwater tank displayed behind the cash register counter. “How do you clean that thing? It’s huge!” customers would revel, pointing, their eyes tracing it from top to bottom, side to side, keeping the slow rhythm with the lazy swim of neon fish. With the bulb out it radiated an eerie glow.
“I don’t clean it, Ma’am. We have guys here who do that.”
Something stuck in my throat; it felt dry, as did the roof of my mouth. I realized my hand was still inside the iguana tank and one of them was making his way up my wrist. With force, I flung him off and his small, wiry body hit the glass. That was mean. I didn’t feel gentle today. I just needed to get the job done: open shop, last the day, and go home.
It was odd to open the shop alone but to feel crowded while doing it. Creatures peeked out with expectant eyes at every turn. Snakes disturbed from sleep thrashed out of nowhere and hundreds of fish eavesdropped from inside their gurgling homes. This morning they were all rising to the tops of their tanks beckoning like baby birds for me to sprinkle their morning feast down for them. I stared at them blankly. Today I could not feel compassionate toward them, or toward anything in the store.
They blurred into shapelessness and I fell hypnotized by the hum of aquarium filters.
A scroungy bark complained that I had not yet made my way to his corner, and I realized that I needed to feed and clean the pups and kittens. The growls, chirps, and scratching sonance of the animals played their normal orchestra, but I was far away. How could they open the store today? It’s offensive. Don’t they care that somebody has died?
I opened the cage where the scruffy white terrier who wasn’t selling greeted me with over-enthusiasm, such enthusiasm that he knocked over his water bowl, making a wet mess of my shirt. At almost three months, he was beginning to outgrow the cage. I pitied him and would often let him run around the store as I cleaned to allow him a break from the confinement. We had become friends. I set him down, and ecstatic to be free, he catapulted toward the kittens’ cage, interrupting their calm vigil. They hissed and Terrier gnashed his teeth. Havoc ensued: screeching, squawking, whipping of wings, of tails; the kittens growled and Terrier did the only thing he knew to do in response to all of the frenzy: he peed on the floor.
“No!” I scolded. He tried to take off in a sprint as if a reaction from me was a playful invitation. “Damn you, I said no!” I jerked him up by the scruff and glared into his eyes. He let out a yelp from my squeeze. My glare turned into shame. I held him to my chest and felt his hair press like a curly rug under my chin. I will not cry. I have to open this shop in thirty minutes. I will not lose control.
Still facing me were the tasks of cleaning bird cages, sweeping away the piles of birdseed, changing sandy litter pans, feeding the fish, scooping deads. The dead fish must be disposed of, every day. First thing. Never open the store to customers without having scooped the dead.
I felt sick. The space around me began to shrink and look dreamlike. I made my way to the small sink and counter reserved for bagging fish for customers. It was cleared of the usual clutter of pet care supplies. Room had been made available for leisure. We had toiled all day, relieved to take a break.
Upon the space sat two empty Coke cans, the tabs pulled off, and a pile of empty boiled peanut shells. Our peanut shells. He'll never hear these sounds again. Or see this spot where we put our work aside. Or say my name. Or say anybody's name.
I hugged my shoulders. Fell to my knees. The sobs came, like choking.
Monday, July 14, 2008
The Day After
Draft 2
I turned the key and pushed the door open with a weary shoulder, flecks of sleep crumbling from my eye lashes into sore eyes. It was too early to be awake. I was met at the door by reliable and familiar sounds: the clanging of the bell against the glass door behind me, the clamoring of agitated birds, flipping of cedar shavings, howling barks, and stern squawks. The animals heard my movements and the cacophony began.
Someone’s here…
The stench of urine and slightly sweet smell of birds carried me from the door onto the stretch of tile floor into the back storage room which smelled of the store parrot’s messy slumber. I placed my sandwich in the fridge and spotted zucchini that waited to be diced. The iguanas must eat. Why do they have to eat such troublesome food?
The light of the shop looked different to me; a fluorescent bulb had burned out casting an atypical shadow over the looming saltwater tank displayed behind the cash register counter. It was its own universe, all its contents super-sized.
“How do you clean that thing? It’s huge!” customers would exclaim, pointing, their eyes tracing it from top to bottom, side to side, keeping the slow rhythm with the lazy swim of fish the colors of neon: a graceful Disney-faced Puffer, flirty Clownfish, and deadly Lion Fish who lived there. With the bulb out it radiated an eerie glow.
“I don’t clean it, Ma’am. We have guys here who do that.”
Something stuck in my throat; it felt dry, as did the roof of my mouth. I realized my hand was still inside the iguana tank and one of them was making his way up my wrist. With force, I flung him off and his small, wiry body hit the glass. That was mean. I didn’t feel gentle today. I just needed to get the job done: open shop, last the day, and go home.
It was odd to open the shop alone but to feel crowded while doing it. Living things peeked out with expectant eyes at every turn. The bowing up of a distracted snake or exotic lizard would thrash out of nowhere from homes that were too flimsy. One time while taking store inventory, along with a product count, we had to count all the animals in the shop, including fish that were in constant motion. We came up with the number of about 210, and this morning they were all rising to the tops of their tanks beckoning like baby birds for me to sprinkle their morning feast down for them. I stared at them blankly. Today I could not feel compassionate toward them, or toward anything in the store.
They began to blur and morph into shapelessness and I fell hypnotized by the hum of the aquarium filters.
A scroungy bark complained that I had not yet made my way to his corner, and I realized that I needed to feed and clean the pups and kittens. The growls, chirps and scratching sounds of the animals played their normal orchestra, but I was far away. How could they open the store today? It’s offensive. And this headache must go away. I cannot get through the day with this headache.
I opened the cage where the scruffy white wire-hair terrier who wasn’t selling greeted me with over-enthusiasm, such enthusiasm that he knocked over his water bowl, making a wet mess of my white tee-shirt. At almost three months now, he was beginning to outgrow the cage. I pitied him and would often let him run around the store as I cleaned to allow him a break from the confinement. He and I had become friends. I set him down where he took off immediately toward the kittens’ cage, interrupting their calm vigil. They hissed and Terrier gnashed his teeth. Havoc ensued: screeching, squawking, the whipping of wings, of tails; the kittens growled and Terrier did the only thing he knew to do in response to all of the frenzy. He peed on the floor.
“No!” I scolded. He took off in a sprint as if a reaction from me was a playful invitation. “Damn you, I said no!” I jerked him up by the scruff and glared into his eyes. He let out a yelp of hurt from my squeeze. My glare turned into shame. I held him to my chest, his rough coat like a coarse rug pressed under my chin. I will not cry. I have to open this shop in thirty minutes. I will not lose control.
Still facing me were the tasks of cleaning bird cages, sweeping away the piles of birdseed, changing sandy litter pans, feeding the fish, scooping deads. The dead fish must be disposed of, every day. First thing. Never open the store to customers without having scooped the dead.
I felt sick. The space around me began to shrink and look dreamlike. I made my way to where there was a small sink and a counter reserved for bagging fish for customers. It was cleared so that room had been made available for leisure.
Upon it sat two empty Coke cans, the tabs pulled off, and a pile of empty boiled peanut shells. Our peanut shells. I hugged my shoulders. Fell to my knees. The sobs came, like
choking. The animals shrilled, shaken and unprepared. Even they had never heard such a sound, guttural and primal, like their own shrieks when injured.
I could eat these things all day, mmmm, mmmmm!
Please – stay here and do that. Don’t leave.
I peeled and popped another peanut into my mouth. It’s nice we’re slow on customers. I never get time alone with just you. Even as you downed your Coke, traded cigarette for mouthful of peanuts, you were handsome. I pretended that your four years ahead of me and experience beyond mine didn’t matter. You had better things to do than finish cleaning a pet shop with a girl of sixteen who’d only been kissed a few times. Your work was done.
I watched you leave, yearning.
Smearing away the tears with my index finger, collecting myself, breathing again. I approached the shells and empty cans and weakly re-composed. The last minutes of this place, where he had been as permanent a fixture as the displayed words PET SHOP above the entrance, belonged only to me. My grief turned into a flicker of gratitude: the pebble of strength that I needed to make it through the day. I slipped a peanut shell into my pocket and felt its salt still fresh inside my fingers. I pulled down the string to light up the sign: Open. The customers were waiting.
I turned the key and pushed the door open with a weary shoulder, flecks of sleep crumbling from my eye lashes into sore eyes. It was too early to be awake. I was met at the door by reliable and familiar sounds: the clanging of the bell against the glass door behind me, the clamoring of agitated birds, flipping of cedar shavings, howling barks, and stern squawks. The animals heard my movements and the cacophony began.
Someone’s here…
The stench of urine and slightly sweet smell of birds carried me from the door onto the stretch of tile floor into the back storage room which smelled of the store parrot’s messy slumber. I placed my sandwich in the fridge and spotted zucchini that waited to be diced. The iguanas must eat. Why do they have to eat such troublesome food?
The light of the shop looked different to me; a fluorescent bulb had burned out casting an atypical shadow over the looming saltwater tank displayed behind the cash register counter. It was its own universe, all its contents super-sized.
“How do you clean that thing? It’s huge!” customers would exclaim, pointing, their eyes tracing it from top to bottom, side to side, keeping the slow rhythm with the lazy swim of fish the colors of neon: a graceful Disney-faced Puffer, flirty Clownfish, and deadly Lion Fish who lived there. With the bulb out it radiated an eerie glow.
“I don’t clean it, Ma’am. We have guys here who do that.”
Something stuck in my throat; it felt dry, as did the roof of my mouth. I realized my hand was still inside the iguana tank and one of them was making his way up my wrist. With force, I flung him off and his small, wiry body hit the glass. That was mean. I didn’t feel gentle today. I just needed to get the job done: open shop, last the day, and go home.
It was odd to open the shop alone but to feel crowded while doing it. Living things peeked out with expectant eyes at every turn. The bowing up of a distracted snake or exotic lizard would thrash out of nowhere from homes that were too flimsy. One time while taking store inventory, along with a product count, we had to count all the animals in the shop, including fish that were in constant motion. We came up with the number of about 210, and this morning they were all rising to the tops of their tanks beckoning like baby birds for me to sprinkle their morning feast down for them. I stared at them blankly. Today I could not feel compassionate toward them, or toward anything in the store.
They began to blur and morph into shapelessness and I fell hypnotized by the hum of the aquarium filters.
A scroungy bark complained that I had not yet made my way to his corner, and I realized that I needed to feed and clean the pups and kittens. The growls, chirps and scratching sounds of the animals played their normal orchestra, but I was far away. How could they open the store today? It’s offensive. And this headache must go away. I cannot get through the day with this headache.
I opened the cage where the scruffy white wire-hair terrier who wasn’t selling greeted me with over-enthusiasm, such enthusiasm that he knocked over his water bowl, making a wet mess of my white tee-shirt. At almost three months now, he was beginning to outgrow the cage. I pitied him and would often let him run around the store as I cleaned to allow him a break from the confinement. He and I had become friends. I set him down where he took off immediately toward the kittens’ cage, interrupting their calm vigil. They hissed and Terrier gnashed his teeth. Havoc ensued: screeching, squawking, the whipping of wings, of tails; the kittens growled and Terrier did the only thing he knew to do in response to all of the frenzy. He peed on the floor.
“No!” I scolded. He took off in a sprint as if a reaction from me was a playful invitation. “Damn you, I said no!” I jerked him up by the scruff and glared into his eyes. He let out a yelp of hurt from my squeeze. My glare turned into shame. I held him to my chest, his rough coat like a coarse rug pressed under my chin. I will not cry. I have to open this shop in thirty minutes. I will not lose control.
Still facing me were the tasks of cleaning bird cages, sweeping away the piles of birdseed, changing sandy litter pans, feeding the fish, scooping deads. The dead fish must be disposed of, every day. First thing. Never open the store to customers without having scooped the dead.
I felt sick. The space around me began to shrink and look dreamlike. I made my way to where there was a small sink and a counter reserved for bagging fish for customers. It was cleared so that room had been made available for leisure.
Upon it sat two empty Coke cans, the tabs pulled off, and a pile of empty boiled peanut shells. Our peanut shells. I hugged my shoulders. Fell to my knees. The sobs came, like
choking. The animals shrilled, shaken and unprepared. Even they had never heard such a sound, guttural and primal, like their own shrieks when injured.
I could eat these things all day, mmmm, mmmmm!
Please – stay here and do that. Don’t leave.
I peeled and popped another peanut into my mouth. It’s nice we’re slow on customers. I never get time alone with just you. Even as you downed your Coke, traded cigarette for mouthful of peanuts, you were handsome. I pretended that your four years ahead of me and experience beyond mine didn’t matter. You had better things to do than finish cleaning a pet shop with a girl of sixteen who’d only been kissed a few times. Your work was done.
I watched you leave, yearning.
Smearing away the tears with my index finger, collecting myself, breathing again. I approached the shells and empty cans and weakly re-composed. The last minutes of this place, where he had been as permanent a fixture as the displayed words PET SHOP above the entrance, belonged only to me. My grief turned into a flicker of gratitude: the pebble of strength that I needed to make it through the day. I slipped a peanut shell into my pocket and felt its salt still fresh inside my fingers. I pulled down the string to light up the sign: Open. The customers were waiting.
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Book Review of Stephen King's "On Writing: a Memoir of the Craft"
“…The most valuable lessons of all are the ones you teach yourself. These lessons almost always occur with the study door closed” (240).
This is perhaps the most meaningful sentiment that the “on writing and life” memoir of famed novelist Stephen King shares with its reader. The book, which contains personal snapshots of King’s life and practical advice on creating one’s own toolbox of writing resources, ranging from gathering ideas for writing as well as how to most effectively tell and sell the story, is a fun and enlightening read for anyone who wants to become a better writer.
Perhaps the book’s most striking quality is how conversational and humorous it is. At every opportunity, King speaks to his reader directly: “So ok – there you are in your room with the shade down and the door shut and the plug pulled out of the base of the telephone” reminding his reader to “[never] wait for the muse…your job is to make sure [it] knows where you’re going to be everyday…” (153)
The personal intimacy in which King addresses his reader is ever-present, making it a challenge to read the book without feeling like Stephen King is speaking individually to the reader in a friendly and personal one-on-one encounter over a beer or cup of coffee.
Readers might go into the first pages with a bias: Stephen King: the horror story writer; what he could have to say to me, a teacher/mother/baseball player “on writing” other than to dole out suggestions on how to successfully give a reader nightmares? Quickly, the reader begins to see King as a surprisingly normal person who wasn’t born into a glamorous literary lifestyle, but worked thankless jobs to get there, once“…dyeing swatches of melton cloth purple or navy blue” and happy to move down to work in the basement “…where it was thirty degrees cooler” (49). Through King’s descriptions of sweaty third shifts and reminiscence of “…the nail in my wall [which] would no longer support the rejection slips” we get the intimate look into the life of a man who took no short-cuts but simply worked hard to become the kind of writer that people want to read.
Perhaps the book’s only downfall is that its use of coarse language removes it from the young readers’ book list, but for the mature reader, the language adds to its authenticity, characteristic of King who writes: “The point is to let each character speak freely, without regard to what the Legion of Decency or the Christian Ladies’ Reading Circle may approve of. To do otherwise would be cowardly as well as dishonest” (185).
From King’s childhood until his collision with personal crisis, with the help of “Tabby”, the wife he adores and his “I.R” (Ideal Reader: each reader must decide who that is), King shows his audience that one cannot “open the door” to publication until he has written with the “door closed first,” where mistakes can be made and ideas can be born.
This is perhaps the most meaningful sentiment that the “on writing and life” memoir of famed novelist Stephen King shares with its reader. The book, which contains personal snapshots of King’s life and practical advice on creating one’s own toolbox of writing resources, ranging from gathering ideas for writing as well as how to most effectively tell and sell the story, is a fun and enlightening read for anyone who wants to become a better writer.
Perhaps the book’s most striking quality is how conversational and humorous it is. At every opportunity, King speaks to his reader directly: “So ok – there you are in your room with the shade down and the door shut and the plug pulled out of the base of the telephone” reminding his reader to “[never] wait for the muse…your job is to make sure [it] knows where you’re going to be everyday…” (153)
The personal intimacy in which King addresses his reader is ever-present, making it a challenge to read the book without feeling like Stephen King is speaking individually to the reader in a friendly and personal one-on-one encounter over a beer or cup of coffee.
Readers might go into the first pages with a bias: Stephen King: the horror story writer; what he could have to say to me, a teacher/mother/baseball player “on writing” other than to dole out suggestions on how to successfully give a reader nightmares? Quickly, the reader begins to see King as a surprisingly normal person who wasn’t born into a glamorous literary lifestyle, but worked thankless jobs to get there, once“…dyeing swatches of melton cloth purple or navy blue” and happy to move down to work in the basement “…where it was thirty degrees cooler” (49). Through King’s descriptions of sweaty third shifts and reminiscence of “…the nail in my wall [which] would no longer support the rejection slips” we get the intimate look into the life of a man who took no short-cuts but simply worked hard to become the kind of writer that people want to read.
Perhaps the book’s only downfall is that its use of coarse language removes it from the young readers’ book list, but for the mature reader, the language adds to its authenticity, characteristic of King who writes: “The point is to let each character speak freely, without regard to what the Legion of Decency or the Christian Ladies’ Reading Circle may approve of. To do otherwise would be cowardly as well as dishonest” (185).
From King’s childhood until his collision with personal crisis, with the help of “Tabby”, the wife he adores and his “I.R” (Ideal Reader: each reader must decide who that is), King shows his audience that one cannot “open the door” to publication until he has written with the “door closed first,” where mistakes can be made and ideas can be born.
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