Marjorie and Renee recovered their composure. They stopped laughing, the tension of the language lesson dissipated.
“That was fun,” said Renee, dabbing her eyes with a silk hankerchief.
“The lesson or the laughing,” Marjorie said. They were still sitting like schoolgirls at Renee’s dining room table.
“Both.” Renee got up and moved toward the sitting room. “Let’s have some tea. I’ll go ask for tea.”
Marjorie followed her friend. She plopped down in a soft chair and looked out at Renee’s garden, a fantasy of flowers and shrubs bearing red and orange blossoms. Even the path was lined with blooms as pale as fresh snow. How did Renee manage to make this all for herself, Marjorie wondered. She could barely point to the space around the pond and say flowers. Not which kind, not what grows here, not what is possible. The view of the garden was a view of her own failure. Another failure here. She lacked imagination. Had she ever have it.
“You look so serious, my dear. The tea will be here in a moment.” Renee said, and sat down opposite her friend. “So should we do our homework together now?”
“God, I can’t think any more. Eleven vowels, how will I remember them? Actually not the sounds, the letters.”
“The first time I studied with a tutor, I put my book next to my bed. That way I looked at the chart when I woke up and before I went to sleep.”
Another easy solution in Renee’s life. “Perhaps I’ll try that. I can imagine Ash’s comment when he sees these scribbling lines next to the bed.”
“He’s the one who wants you to speak.”
“Only because he doesn’t want to have to come fetch me from the police station when I get lost again.”
“Planning on getting lost, then?” They laughed together. It hadn’t been funny, getting lost. Marjorie had never been so frightened.
“What would have happened if they hadn’t found me, or they hadn’t figured out how to reach Ash.”
“Stop it, everything works out. There’s a way. Maybe another year here will wear down your fears.”
Now Marjorie did more than laugh. A choking sound came from her mouth. “Another year here and I’ll be mad.”
Now Renee laughed.
Friday, May 6, 2011
In the Middle of It - Jackie Davis-Martin
My daughter died in the middle of the night, in the middle of the month, in the middle of her life. The following things were tilted, off balance: her placement in the country—the opposite coast from where I was; my own placement in life—on the far side of a lifespan; her placement in her parents’ life--parents she’d never seen in the same house, her attention split between her mother and her father; the fact that she was the youngest in the arrangement she grew up in: her brother and I alternately nagging at her or leaning on her.
Her library’s physical position was at the far end of the upper hall of the elementary school; it sat over the offices, the gym, the cafeteria. It was the central hub of all the classes. The young, and younger, children rotated through each day, learning research on the bank of computers in the middle of the room, checking out books from the circulation desk, sitting around the bright blue rug with alphabet letters she’d persuaded the school to buy for the reading circle.
She was relegated to be in the middle of her friends’ romances, marriages, the family frictions, covering both sides, staying safe; she was never a central player.
It seems odd.
She absorbed my mistakes, my discards. She visited from time to time another man I’d married; she felt bad for him; she attended the funerals on my behalf of parents of my friends, of old relatives. She kept my old brownie pan, the colander, clinging to an order that would be there if she stayed in place; she kept peace with her brother, keeping us all in touch. When I stayed with her, he’d call, and she’d pass the phone to me, back to her, to me, to her.
I think she felt something would happen, something had to happen, if she just kept at it, kept up the balancing.
Her life ended in medias res, in the middle of things. It was intrusive to invade that space, to catch her caught off-guard, as we all did, walking into the middle of her life, pulling through her closets, her drawers, her papers. We—her friends, my husband, my sister, I—all jumped right in, right in the middle of her life and got rid of it once and for all.
“But I wasn’t finished—” I can hear her say. “I’m in the middle of boards; I’m in the middle of paying for this computer; I’m going out tomorrow!”
I found out in the middle of the morning, between the two classes I was teaching, in the middle of my own petty life. “I wasn’t finished!” I cried in my head: “Our relationship has been so worked out; I think we’re really friends, now—it can’t be, it can’t be over yet. We’re in the middle of our plans—”
We were. We’d just talked about what we’d do when I flew out in two weeks: Longwood Gardens, maybe the Philadelphia Orchestra. On the chair of her bedroom were arranged clothes for the evening she never got to see: new slacks, a sparkly top.
She’s been removed, strangely. I remain in the middle of the loss. There is no journey; there is no destination; there is only the coping, the staying afloat, somewhere here in the middle.
Her library’s physical position was at the far end of the upper hall of the elementary school; it sat over the offices, the gym, the cafeteria. It was the central hub of all the classes. The young, and younger, children rotated through each day, learning research on the bank of computers in the middle of the room, checking out books from the circulation desk, sitting around the bright blue rug with alphabet letters she’d persuaded the school to buy for the reading circle.
She was relegated to be in the middle of her friends’ romances, marriages, the family frictions, covering both sides, staying safe; she was never a central player.
It seems odd.
She absorbed my mistakes, my discards. She visited from time to time another man I’d married; she felt bad for him; she attended the funerals on my behalf of parents of my friends, of old relatives. She kept my old brownie pan, the colander, clinging to an order that would be there if she stayed in place; she kept peace with her brother, keeping us all in touch. When I stayed with her, he’d call, and she’d pass the phone to me, back to her, to me, to her.
I think she felt something would happen, something had to happen, if she just kept at it, kept up the balancing.
Her life ended in medias res, in the middle of things. It was intrusive to invade that space, to catch her caught off-guard, as we all did, walking into the middle of her life, pulling through her closets, her drawers, her papers. We—her friends, my husband, my sister, I—all jumped right in, right in the middle of her life and got rid of it once and for all.
“But I wasn’t finished—” I can hear her say. “I’m in the middle of boards; I’m in the middle of paying for this computer; I’m going out tomorrow!”
I found out in the middle of the morning, between the two classes I was teaching, in the middle of my own petty life. “I wasn’t finished!” I cried in my head: “Our relationship has been so worked out; I think we’re really friends, now—it can’t be, it can’t be over yet. We’re in the middle of our plans—”
We were. We’d just talked about what we’d do when I flew out in two weeks: Longwood Gardens, maybe the Philadelphia Orchestra. On the chair of her bedroom were arranged clothes for the evening she never got to see: new slacks, a sparkly top.
She’s been removed, strangely. I remain in the middle of the loss. There is no journey; there is no destination; there is only the coping, the staying afloat, somewhere here in the middle.
In the Middle of It - Kate Bueler
In the middle of it. I am the middle of a conversation of reunited lovers after twenty years. I find myself by the happenstance, the providence, the fate of life. I am not either said lover. Just a bystander who can't move from this seat. Stuck here. Because what will happen next seems like it might be too good to actually move. Scene begins as: man walks in start of beard sprouting, motorcycle helmet in hand, he glances at me and gives me a half soft smile. He finds a seat behind me. A moment or two pass. And then she walks in. In the business causal attire of work. Full of movement and talking. He raises up to meet her. Embracing her around her shoulders. I just never thought I'd see you again. In person. He confesses. In quickness she responds guess you have been giving that a lot of thought. And I'm in. In the middle of this. Because what will happen next is what movies are made of. Not the kind you can rent old school at the video store or netflix or hulu. No the real life of reuniting. I must watch. And see.
And so it begins. The man waits as she orders. She refuses his offer to buy her coffee. She talks at a rapid pace to all those around her, a co-worker, the barista, and even me when I get up for a moment. He sits waiting patiently. To sit across from her again. And then she returns to the seat. They are behind me so all I can hear is their words now. No facial expression or movements. The NPR radio show of love affairs lost. And found.
She begins. And talks and gives the synopsis of her life the last years. Fast and furious and the gentlemen rarely speaks. He tries to give her a morsel of him. But she refuses. The bio of places she has lived. The CV of jobs she has acquired. The snapshot of starting her witty yoga site and her current job. He takes the pause as an opening, when I was shooting those kids. My own eyes crinkle. Oh he is a photographer. And then it gets interesting when the job interview pauses and real life begins. It begins in a story where she realizes her sister set him up with someone after they broke up. I can't believe she did that. I am still going to talk to her about it. Years past not mattering. Are you single? The nod happens but I can't see behind me just in the pause in the back and forth. Next to the discussion of marriage and kids. Have you done it? Will you do it? Conversations of years had before. And had again. She never married and never wanting kids. Until now maybe. I would shit my pants every time I thought a serious boyfriend would want to get married. I would freak out around the holidays. I am not a commitphobe, but scared. Him marrying a woman due to the realities of immigration. I did get married. But it wasn't a real marriage. We treated as dating plus legality. And more words in between until he said we treated it as a real marriage. Everything was great expect the one part that always worked with everyone else. The sex. I thought she would come around. I thought she would open up.
And as I listen and write down on my napkin my only piece of paper a great on the fly notebook. I can't help but think what happens next. Next for them. In this talking. In this reuniting. In this thing called love. But although I am in the middle of it, I got to get up and go. To do what I have to do. In the middle of their thing, I needed to move on to mine. And in watching them. I find faith and remember my own lost loves. Reuniting doesn't mean happily ever after but it fixes the space broken in disconnection. I walk away and feel lucky to have seen. Someone else's reality. In remembering my own.
And so it begins. The man waits as she orders. She refuses his offer to buy her coffee. She talks at a rapid pace to all those around her, a co-worker, the barista, and even me when I get up for a moment. He sits waiting patiently. To sit across from her again. And then she returns to the seat. They are behind me so all I can hear is their words now. No facial expression or movements. The NPR radio show of love affairs lost. And found.
She begins. And talks and gives the synopsis of her life the last years. Fast and furious and the gentlemen rarely speaks. He tries to give her a morsel of him. But she refuses. The bio of places she has lived. The CV of jobs she has acquired. The snapshot of starting her witty yoga site and her current job. He takes the pause as an opening, when I was shooting those kids. My own eyes crinkle. Oh he is a photographer. And then it gets interesting when the job interview pauses and real life begins. It begins in a story where she realizes her sister set him up with someone after they broke up. I can't believe she did that. I am still going to talk to her about it. Years past not mattering. Are you single? The nod happens but I can't see behind me just in the pause in the back and forth. Next to the discussion of marriage and kids. Have you done it? Will you do it? Conversations of years had before. And had again. She never married and never wanting kids. Until now maybe. I would shit my pants every time I thought a serious boyfriend would want to get married. I would freak out around the holidays. I am not a commitphobe, but scared. Him marrying a woman due to the realities of immigration. I did get married. But it wasn't a real marriage. We treated as dating plus legality. And more words in between until he said we treated it as a real marriage. Everything was great expect the one part that always worked with everyone else. The sex. I thought she would come around. I thought she would open up.
And as I listen and write down on my napkin my only piece of paper a great on the fly notebook. I can't help but think what happens next. Next for them. In this talking. In this reuniting. In this thing called love. But although I am in the middle of it, I got to get up and go. To do what I have to do. In the middle of their thing, I needed to move on to mine. And in watching them. I find faith and remember my own lost loves. Reuniting doesn't mean happily ever after but it fixes the space broken in disconnection. I walk away and feel lucky to have seen. Someone else's reality. In remembering my own.
In the Middle of It - Jennifer Baljko
He sits on the couch, comforting her with long strokes through her blonde locks. He knows she’s prone to momentary lapses of insanity. He’s been in the middle of this before. Not just with her, but with other women too. He doesn’t understand this frequent emotional imbalance. Strong women weakened by the world, not the whole world, just their narrow sliver of the world. An only when something seems to spin off its axis. Something they can see, something he almost never sees. He’s learned it’s better to just sit still and hold her. While he sees the black and white answer, he leaves the whole thing in whatever shade of gray she’s in. Better for him to keep quiet, not offer a new perspective or a solution until she asks for one. And, even if she asks, his answer, he knows, will be influenced by the tone in her voice, and if her claws are drawn. She walks the feline line between lioness and kitten. He must do the same. Or so he thinks. His experience says so. He lets her ramble on, but stops her before the tears come. That’s too much drama for him. Instead he offers to make her tea. He rests her head on the pillow and lets her wander down her darkening path. He won’t let her see him rolling his eyes and secretly shrugging his shoulders. He takes a brief refuge, knowing when he returns, he’ll have to say something – something she may or may not want to hear.
The Most Private Thing - Maria Robinson
The most private thing that you can destroy the photos, the pictures of your lover that you once savored and slept with under your pillow. They can all be flung into tiny floating pieces at the end of the relationship. They could be torn brutally dissected and cut up into tiny black and white dice with your mother's sewing scissors, or you could rip them up as tears are flowing down your cheeks in between shuttering heaves. Instead of utter destruction, you might also isolate them in your house, that is to say purposefully hide them while you're tipsy and then forget where they are hopefully forever. You could also save them, close at hand, to remind you of your youthful folly, your baby love and the life that you dreamed of that got away.
The Most Private Thing/Skin - Elizabeth Weld Nolan
This private thing
lives in public
wrapping blood
and liver,
heart and bone
in fragile armor
to guard us.
Sensing enemies,
it hurls armies
against invasion.
We hardly know
our resident warrior.
It transmits bulletins
by the second:
soft chair, rough floor,
smooth shirt, harsh seam,
cold foot, warm hugs,
cream on sores,
rash from leaf,
forefinger smoothing
quivering bird wing,
thorn alert. This messenger,
this Hermes, speaks
privately until death.
lives in public
wrapping blood
and liver,
heart and bone
in fragile armor
to guard us.
Sensing enemies,
it hurls armies
against invasion.
We hardly know
our resident warrior.
It transmits bulletins
by the second:
soft chair, rough floor,
smooth shirt, harsh seam,
cold foot, warm hugs,
cream on sores,
rash from leaf,
forefinger smoothing
quivering bird wing,
thorn alert. This messenger,
this Hermes, speaks
privately until death.
The Most Private Thing - Donna Shomer
A Death in the Family
Tied to my finger
is remembrance.
Acid-colored
ribbons so tight
there’s no removing them.
So I make fists, or
put hands behind
my back or sit
on them.
Jeweled dagger through my heart -
it protrudes.
To pull it free would mean
bleeding out. It would be
fatal. So
no tight blouses
and not too
low-cut.
Tied to my finger
is remembrance.
Acid-colored
ribbons so tight
there’s no removing them.
So I make fists, or
put hands behind
my back or sit
on them.
Jeweled dagger through my heart -
it protrudes.
To pull it free would mean
bleeding out. It would be
fatal. So
no tight blouses
and not too
low-cut.
The Most Private Thing - Judy Albietz
Lily’s older sister Mary was the most private thing in her life. Mary was eleven years older than Lily. When Lily was really little Mary sometimes let her sleep in a cot in her room where she read stories—sometimes making up some of her own. Lily loved it when Mary babysat her. When Lily was around 6 and Mary was 17 years old, Lily started noticing a few odd things about her oldest sister. Nobody in the family said anything, not even her other older sister, Grace, who was eight years older than Lily and who teased her relentlessly. Lily somehow knew she couldn’t ask her mother about Mary. And she wouldn’t dare say anything to anyone outside her family. Mary dressed differently from other girls her age. Her skirts were too long. She wore glasses that weren’t in style. Mary was the slowest walker in the world. It was always as if she was wading through molasses—but in a graceful sort of way. Lily was 7 and Mary was 18 when she left for college to become an artist. Lily was crushed that her favorite big sister just jumped up and left her like that. She wrote letters to her to try to keep her in her life. Mary wrote back, sometimes with funny stories she made up.
She missed Mary’s funny way of eating her cottage cheese, scooping it with a spoon she held like a shovel. When Lily was 10, Mary came back from college with someone named Andrew, who Mary said she was going to marry. That summer, two days before the wedding, Andrew drove in from Detroit in a snazzy convertible. He asked Lily if she wanted to sit in the car. Lily really didn’t want to, but decided to be friendly. Sitting in her parents’ driveway with Andrew didn’t seem so bad. But then Andrew leaned over Lily and opened the glove compartment. He reached in and pulled out a gun. “This is a very private thing,” he said. “Don’t tell anyone about it. It will be our secret.”
She missed Mary’s funny way of eating her cottage cheese, scooping it with a spoon she held like a shovel. When Lily was 10, Mary came back from college with someone named Andrew, who Mary said she was going to marry. That summer, two days before the wedding, Andrew drove in from Detroit in a snazzy convertible. He asked Lily if she wanted to sit in the car. Lily really didn’t want to, but decided to be friendly. Sitting in her parents’ driveway with Andrew didn’t seem so bad. But then Andrew leaned over Lily and opened the glove compartment. He reached in and pulled out a gun. “This is a very private thing,” he said. “Don’t tell anyone about it. It will be our secret.”
The End - Anna Teeples
Melon wrapped in prosciutto seemed so ordinary now. My mouth was still savoring the best pesto I had ever had in the little Cinque Terra town of Vernazza Italy. Now the melon appetizer hardly registered on the delight scale. Morsels of our late lunch were still lingering and I secretly hoped we might want to have dinner in the same place to inhale more exquisite creamy pesto.
To my left, Dee laid on one of $2Euro yellow and white stripe cheap cotton beach towels that she bought in the equivalent of an Italian 7-Eleven store. The difference was this happened to be at the end of white sandy beach and inside an ancient soft pink salmon stucco building and oozed character and stories from every shelf and display. I looked down at the $5Euro bathing suit that I was wearing and was grateful I would not ever wear it again in front of anyone I knew.
Kevin, CeCe, Dee and I had decided to hike from Vernazza to next northern town of Cinque Terra, Montrose al Mare. We knew the five Mediterranean towns were connected by a hiking trail. We did not know several important details before we began our spontaneous and whimsical hike. First, this trail was the steepest of all the trails and I was certain we were on a billy goat path since there were several spots which one slip of the foot on the uneven rock path would result in a deep plunge onto small rock ledges. We decided to hike right after lunch in the bright sunny, humid part of the July day and forgot to bring water. Last, we were wearing flip-flops. Not exactly the right shoes for steep rock hiking. It was an adventure yet full of breath taking views of the multi color deep blue sea, the olive orchards and vineyards. We stopped to find shade and take pictures often.
Ninety minutes later, we landed in the tiny fishing village parched and determined to immerse ourselves in the beckoning water. It was like a siren from the sea was luring us directly to her. CeCe had discovered the $5Euro one size fits all bikini bathing suits. The three women, all very different shapes and sizes, chuckled as they compared how the string bikini covered certain areas better than others. We all opted for the swim top not ready to bare our breasts to the world. Our one rule for the rest of the day was the pact of no photos. We agreed to tell the story but absolutely no evidence would exist of the humiliating skimpish suits.
Before landing on the towel next to Dee, I floated for what seemed like hours in the sea. My arms dangled to my side, feet drifting below the cool water and my belly and chest stretching upward towards the divine sun, spilling happiness all over my softly closed eyes. I floated far away from the shore and people. In that spiritual moment, a voice awakened inside and cooed at me, “You will leave your life of computer work behind. Today.”
I did not panic as warmth moved through my body like honey. I did not want to ever move from that spot in the sea. The voice whispered again,
“You are an artist and will trust your path. Trust your journey from here forward.”
My mind was still in the hypnotic state. I would agree to anything. The worry and panic was over. This is all I needed to know right now. The rest would come later. I was moving on.
“George, I am on a beach in the Mediterranean. Can you hear me OK?” I said.
“It’s great to hear from you. I can’t wait to hear all about your sabbatical.”
“I know, there is so much to tell you about. Listen, I have decided, I am not coming back to work.”
That was it, the end of an eighteen-year career in the computer industry that had served me amazingly well. My summer retreat to Italy had been the exact prescription for restoring my life. I could finally breathe and felt the pressure leak away from under my shoulder blades. Feeling the inner declaration still resonating inside, I knew I could keep worry and doubt away for a long time. Divorce done, son off to college, career quit, heart healed, I was ready to live again.
To my left, Dee laid on one of $2Euro yellow and white stripe cheap cotton beach towels that she bought in the equivalent of an Italian 7-Eleven store. The difference was this happened to be at the end of white sandy beach and inside an ancient soft pink salmon stucco building and oozed character and stories from every shelf and display. I looked down at the $5Euro bathing suit that I was wearing and was grateful I would not ever wear it again in front of anyone I knew.
Kevin, CeCe, Dee and I had decided to hike from Vernazza to next northern town of Cinque Terra, Montrose al Mare. We knew the five Mediterranean towns were connected by a hiking trail. We did not know several important details before we began our spontaneous and whimsical hike. First, this trail was the steepest of all the trails and I was certain we were on a billy goat path since there were several spots which one slip of the foot on the uneven rock path would result in a deep plunge onto small rock ledges. We decided to hike right after lunch in the bright sunny, humid part of the July day and forgot to bring water. Last, we were wearing flip-flops. Not exactly the right shoes for steep rock hiking. It was an adventure yet full of breath taking views of the multi color deep blue sea, the olive orchards and vineyards. We stopped to find shade and take pictures often.
Ninety minutes later, we landed in the tiny fishing village parched and determined to immerse ourselves in the beckoning water. It was like a siren from the sea was luring us directly to her. CeCe had discovered the $5Euro one size fits all bikini bathing suits. The three women, all very different shapes and sizes, chuckled as they compared how the string bikini covered certain areas better than others. We all opted for the swim top not ready to bare our breasts to the world. Our one rule for the rest of the day was the pact of no photos. We agreed to tell the story but absolutely no evidence would exist of the humiliating skimpish suits.
Before landing on the towel next to Dee, I floated for what seemed like hours in the sea. My arms dangled to my side, feet drifting below the cool water and my belly and chest stretching upward towards the divine sun, spilling happiness all over my softly closed eyes. I floated far away from the shore and people. In that spiritual moment, a voice awakened inside and cooed at me, “You will leave your life of computer work behind. Today.”
I did not panic as warmth moved through my body like honey. I did not want to ever move from that spot in the sea. The voice whispered again,
“You are an artist and will trust your path. Trust your journey from here forward.”
My mind was still in the hypnotic state. I would agree to anything. The worry and panic was over. This is all I needed to know right now. The rest would come later. I was moving on.
“George, I am on a beach in the Mediterranean. Can you hear me OK?” I said.
“It’s great to hear from you. I can’t wait to hear all about your sabbatical.”
“I know, there is so much to tell you about. Listen, I have decided, I am not coming back to work.”
That was it, the end of an eighteen-year career in the computer industry that had served me amazingly well. My summer retreat to Italy had been the exact prescription for restoring my life. I could finally breathe and felt the pressure leak away from under my shoulder blades. Feeling the inner declaration still resonating inside, I knew I could keep worry and doubt away for a long time. Divorce done, son off to college, career quit, heart healed, I was ready to live again.
The End - Christa Fairfield
It is the end my friend.
The circle at the tip of the i.
The cross at the end of the t.
The dot at the end of the sentence.
It is the end my friend.
Like the blue caboose in my long lost favorite book.
Like the red reflector of the bike my great grandma gave me.
Like the dented bumper of my first car.
It is the end my friend.
The last gondola ride of the evening.
The final day in Rome.
The set down of the plane in San Francisco.
It is the end my friend.
It is the final tear of the romance.
It is the first sign of forgetting.
It is the lighting of the candle.
The end my friend.
The circle at the tip of the i.
The cross at the end of the t.
The dot at the end of the sentence.
It is the end my friend.
Like the blue caboose in my long lost favorite book.
Like the red reflector of the bike my great grandma gave me.
Like the dented bumper of my first car.
It is the end my friend.
The last gondola ride of the evening.
The final day in Rome.
The set down of the plane in San Francisco.
It is the end my friend.
It is the final tear of the romance.
It is the first sign of forgetting.
It is the lighting of the candle.
The end my friend.
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
What She Remembers Best From Childhood - Christa Fairfield
“You know what I remember best about my childhood?” Liz asked her youngest daughter Debbie.
“What?” she asked with a tone of actual interest. Debbie’s thirteen year old frame was petite and athletic. Her blonde waves were strapped down with a red bandana to keep them out of the way of her Monday afternoon chores.
“Going fishing with your Grandmother,” she answered. “Here let me take that.” Liz reached for the wet cloth Debbie had been cleaning the refrigerator shelves with.
Debbie’s strong red hands dropped the cloth in the kettle full of warm water her mother extended. She rubbed her hands together. wiped them on the denim shorts and tucked her hands in the pockets.
“I don’t really have many memories. Not like you girls.” Liz dumped the water in the sink. “We didn’t have the money and my parents didn’t care what my childhood was like.”
Debbie had moved to the dinning room adjacent to the kitchen. Her mother’s word circled around each piercing like some school yard taunt. She smiled at her mother but wanted to reply, you mean unlike you who takes us places then makes them hell.
“You and your sister have seen so much.” Liz continued. “Here sit next to me for me a minute and well take a break.” Liz pulled out one of the wrought iron stools tucked under the counter that divided the kitchen from the dining room.
Debbie started to pull the stool out.
“Honey, get my cigarettes for me. They over there.” She pointed to the counter next to the frig. “And the ash tray out of the dishwasher. Thanks.”
Debbie sat down on the stool next to her mother. I could use a cigarette she thought. Wonder what she would do if asked her for one. For a brief moment Debbie imagined that her mother would say sure and then recount how she started smoking at an age earlier than Debbie’s thirteen years.
“Why don’t you get us some of the fish to snack on.” Her mother said. “And some lemonade.”
“Sure,” Debbie said. She took the Pepperidge Farm Cheddar Fish box off the pantry shelf where it was filed next to the Graham Crackers and Triscuts
“What?” she asked with a tone of actual interest. Debbie’s thirteen year old frame was petite and athletic. Her blonde waves were strapped down with a red bandana to keep them out of the way of her Monday afternoon chores.
“Going fishing with your Grandmother,” she answered. “Here let me take that.” Liz reached for the wet cloth Debbie had been cleaning the refrigerator shelves with.
Debbie’s strong red hands dropped the cloth in the kettle full of warm water her mother extended. She rubbed her hands together. wiped them on the denim shorts and tucked her hands in the pockets.
“I don’t really have many memories. Not like you girls.” Liz dumped the water in the sink. “We didn’t have the money and my parents didn’t care what my childhood was like.”
Debbie had moved to the dinning room adjacent to the kitchen. Her mother’s word circled around each piercing like some school yard taunt. She smiled at her mother but wanted to reply, you mean unlike you who takes us places then makes them hell.
“You and your sister have seen so much.” Liz continued. “Here sit next to me for me a minute and well take a break.” Liz pulled out one of the wrought iron stools tucked under the counter that divided the kitchen from the dining room.
Debbie started to pull the stool out.
“Honey, get my cigarettes for me. They over there.” She pointed to the counter next to the frig. “And the ash tray out of the dishwasher. Thanks.”
Debbie sat down on the stool next to her mother. I could use a cigarette she thought. Wonder what she would do if asked her for one. For a brief moment Debbie imagined that her mother would say sure and then recount how she started smoking at an age earlier than Debbie’s thirteen years.
“Why don’t you get us some of the fish to snack on.” Her mother said. “And some lemonade.”
“Sure,” Debbie said. She took the Pepperidge Farm Cheddar Fish box off the pantry shelf where it was filed next to the Graham Crackers and Triscuts
What I/he/she remembers best about childhood - Donna Shomer
hot uncomfortable sand
sun in the eyes
protected with
lies and half truths
and chocolate icebox cake
up the steep stairs
father’s study
the crow’s nest
warm wood
deep chairs
an attic
a man’s place
to hide.
sun in the eyes
protected with
lies and half truths
and chocolate icebox cake
up the steep stairs
father’s study
the crow’s nest
warm wood
deep chairs
an attic
a man’s place
to hide.
What I Remember Best About Childhood - Jackie Davis-Martin
To get to The Carr Sisters School of Dance we had to take, from our house, a bus, which we caught at the bottom of the slag hill, then a streetcar from the intersection near the Westinghouse plant, to Braddock, where we got off on the main street below and climbed several blocks up the brick and tree-lined streets to the dancing school, to the house. I say “we” but it was “me,” “I,” that made this trip several times a week from the time I was eight to maybe sixteen.
My sister went to dancing school some years, and some years she didn’t want to, although I can recall standing with her, our little suitcases in hand. Maybe it’s because she, an old woman now, too, has recreated the scenes. “Do you remember standing at that roadside alone for the streetcar? Wasn’t it dark? Wasn’t it lonely? How could mother have let us do that?”
I widen my eyes and shake my head. I’ve no idea. “Times were safer then,” I volunteer. Now that I think about it, my mother probably saw us—or again me—as capable. My sister was three years younger and, as I said, in and out of dancing school. Or maybe my mother was saving the carfare.
The Carr Sisters School of Dance was run by two of the Carr sisters—the oldest, Marguerite, whom we called Margie, who was thin and had a pointy chin and curly light hair and who always wore black trousers that draped and a black top. She had skinny legs, she told us; she never wanted to be in tights. The youngest Carr, Audrey was shapely and cute and wore tights and dancing outfits. Audrey taught acrobat or ballet, but mostly Audrey played the grand piano for our exercises and our routines. Between Margie and Audrey were about six or seven other sisters, none of them affiliated with the school, but whose pictures, with those of their brothers, adorned the vestibule. “The Train of Carrs” the captions read of old news clippings, of the dancing family: 7 girls, 3 boys, all lined up in stages and dressed alike. Sort of Vaudeville, I guess.
The school was in an old Victorian—a place so grandly different from our own tiny house—that we were happy to be there. One had to walk up a sidewalk from the street; there was a gate or iron fence around the house. The front porch was broad and held two large swings at either end, those wicker sofas suspended from chains. Inside the door—a glass insert, like Tiffany—was a small hallway, a vestibule, with Audrey’s desk, (we paid Audrey; she kept the books) a fireplace, a small sofa, a table. It was elegant, even there. Behind the vestibule was a dressing room—a room surrounded by sofas where we changed our shoes and left our coats.
If we had to go to the bathroom we mounted the great curving staircase that separated these two rooms to a bathroom larger than our living room at home. Some of the family (Margie? Audrey? Who knew?) lived in rooms up there—off that hallway—up more stairs, but we knew we weren’t supposed to go exploring.
The dance studio itself was the conversion of the house’s parlor and dining rooms that made up the rest of the first floor. It was all mahogany and high ceilings and mirrors and windows, the grand piano at one end; the barre along another. The floors were wood and there were pocket doors. Audrey hammered out the exercise music on the piano, which I can still hear in my head, while we did warm-ups. Margie was skilled at tap. Their belief was that one had to study it all and so we dance students went twice a week, alternating between tap, which I loved, ballet which was pretty, and then, when we got older, toe, which I was never good at, always being heavy, and acrobat, where I watched the lithe gymnast types effortlessly do their backbends, their splits. I struggled.
But I stayed with it.
My Dad had once gone to school with Margie or one of the Carrs, the reason he thought of the place when I asked, at six, for dancing lessons. We lived closer, then, and then we moved to the place that necessitated all the traveling.
There’s a certain irony to the elegance of this school, to the discipline and love that came from it: it was located in Braddock, Pennsylvania, a town so dilapidated it almost fell off the map when the steel mills closed.
My husband once sought me out while I was cooking dinner. “Hey, Hon!” he called. “Come here! There’s a show talking about revitalizing Braddock. Didn’t you grow up around there?”
My sister went to dancing school some years, and some years she didn’t want to, although I can recall standing with her, our little suitcases in hand. Maybe it’s because she, an old woman now, too, has recreated the scenes. “Do you remember standing at that roadside alone for the streetcar? Wasn’t it dark? Wasn’t it lonely? How could mother have let us do that?”
I widen my eyes and shake my head. I’ve no idea. “Times were safer then,” I volunteer. Now that I think about it, my mother probably saw us—or again me—as capable. My sister was three years younger and, as I said, in and out of dancing school. Or maybe my mother was saving the carfare.
The Carr Sisters School of Dance was run by two of the Carr sisters—the oldest, Marguerite, whom we called Margie, who was thin and had a pointy chin and curly light hair and who always wore black trousers that draped and a black top. She had skinny legs, she told us; she never wanted to be in tights. The youngest Carr, Audrey was shapely and cute and wore tights and dancing outfits. Audrey taught acrobat or ballet, but mostly Audrey played the grand piano for our exercises and our routines. Between Margie and Audrey were about six or seven other sisters, none of them affiliated with the school, but whose pictures, with those of their brothers, adorned the vestibule. “The Train of Carrs” the captions read of old news clippings, of the dancing family: 7 girls, 3 boys, all lined up in stages and dressed alike. Sort of Vaudeville, I guess.
The school was in an old Victorian—a place so grandly different from our own tiny house—that we were happy to be there. One had to walk up a sidewalk from the street; there was a gate or iron fence around the house. The front porch was broad and held two large swings at either end, those wicker sofas suspended from chains. Inside the door—a glass insert, like Tiffany—was a small hallway, a vestibule, with Audrey’s desk, (we paid Audrey; she kept the books) a fireplace, a small sofa, a table. It was elegant, even there. Behind the vestibule was a dressing room—a room surrounded by sofas where we changed our shoes and left our coats.
If we had to go to the bathroom we mounted the great curving staircase that separated these two rooms to a bathroom larger than our living room at home. Some of the family (Margie? Audrey? Who knew?) lived in rooms up there—off that hallway—up more stairs, but we knew we weren’t supposed to go exploring.
The dance studio itself was the conversion of the house’s parlor and dining rooms that made up the rest of the first floor. It was all mahogany and high ceilings and mirrors and windows, the grand piano at one end; the barre along another. The floors were wood and there were pocket doors. Audrey hammered out the exercise music on the piano, which I can still hear in my head, while we did warm-ups. Margie was skilled at tap. Their belief was that one had to study it all and so we dance students went twice a week, alternating between tap, which I loved, ballet which was pretty, and then, when we got older, toe, which I was never good at, always being heavy, and acrobat, where I watched the lithe gymnast types effortlessly do their backbends, their splits. I struggled.
But I stayed with it.
My Dad had once gone to school with Margie or one of the Carrs, the reason he thought of the place when I asked, at six, for dancing lessons. We lived closer, then, and then we moved to the place that necessitated all the traveling.
There’s a certain irony to the elegance of this school, to the discipline and love that came from it: it was located in Braddock, Pennsylvania, a town so dilapidated it almost fell off the map when the steel mills closed.
My husband once sought me out while I was cooking dinner. “Hey, Hon!” he called. “Come here! There’s a show talking about revitalizing Braddock. Didn’t you grow up around there?”
What She Remembers From Childhood - Anna Teeples
I liked her name, Karen. So different than my own which to me, sounded like it was from another country or an ancient time period. Her name represented all the things that I wanted to be. She was spunky, had a chestnut color to her skin that was sprinkled with freckles and her soft wavy brown hair lightened in the summer. She was like a little fairy pixie with attitude.
If the week went well at school and home was too chaotic, it was easy to convince Mom that I was asked to spend the night at Karen’s. It only took a little more creative manipulating to get a real invitation for a sleep over. One thing that I remember most about being at Karen’s house was a car. Her dad drove the most beautiful car I had ever seen in my life. It was a pale yellow convertible 1970 Alpha Romeo Spider. We would watch him drive down the street from a long day at the newspaper with the top down and I thought, “He just is not your regular kind of dad.”
Years later my husband and I would try to describe an average regular dad. These are the men that would finally take a few days from the office to cart the kids to the local amusement park. They would don a pair of madras shorts, with a clean t-shirt and pull the outfit together with their black work socks and a pair of dress loafers. I always wanted to pull them aside and suggest a nice pair of comfy Fred Perry tennis shoes.
Karen and I went for a ride one time in ‘the car’ after we had our license. It was pure pleasure, feeling the air whip our hair and shimmer over our faces. We sang out in terrible harmony the words of Michael Jackson’s “Rock with You” and re-glossed the lips with Bonnie Bell lip-gloss at every red light. The Alpha would haunt me for years. It was the car that would cause me to stop in the middle of a sidewalk. I would re-live those moments of pure joy. I still secretly desired to own the senseless but gorgeous car. Perhaps it's a bucket list item.
If the week went well at school and home was too chaotic, it was easy to convince Mom that I was asked to spend the night at Karen’s. It only took a little more creative manipulating to get a real invitation for a sleep over. One thing that I remember most about being at Karen’s house was a car. Her dad drove the most beautiful car I had ever seen in my life. It was a pale yellow convertible 1970 Alpha Romeo Spider. We would watch him drive down the street from a long day at the newspaper with the top down and I thought, “He just is not your regular kind of dad.”
Years later my husband and I would try to describe an average regular dad. These are the men that would finally take a few days from the office to cart the kids to the local amusement park. They would don a pair of madras shorts, with a clean t-shirt and pull the outfit together with their black work socks and a pair of dress loafers. I always wanted to pull them aside and suggest a nice pair of comfy Fred Perry tennis shoes.
Karen and I went for a ride one time in ‘the car’ after we had our license. It was pure pleasure, feeling the air whip our hair and shimmer over our faces. We sang out in terrible harmony the words of Michael Jackson’s “Rock with You” and re-glossed the lips with Bonnie Bell lip-gloss at every red light. The Alpha would haunt me for years. It was the car that would cause me to stop in the middle of a sidewalk. I would re-live those moments of pure joy. I still secretly desired to own the senseless but gorgeous car. Perhaps it's a bucket list item.
Unmasked - Jennifer Baljko
Soon, in a few weeks, there will be a big Baljko event in Barcelona. Two of my siblings are coming to visit me. One has been here before. The other decided, on a whim this morning, to join the fun, and make her first transatlantic flight. It will be great to see them, but there is a slight apprehension starting to seize my heart as well. Too many Baljkos in the same room can be a dangerous unmasking of primal, territorial clawing. We tend to play nice most of the time, in three or four hour stretches. But a week together could swing us straight back to the 1980s when the seven members of my immediate plus the dog, two cats, and whatever other mascot happened to find it’s way through the floor boards or into an empty cage duked it out for a sliver of privacy and a healthy does of personal expression. As adults, we live in vastly different worlds, and often have little in common except blood ties. So the momentous task of understanding who we are in the face of each other becomes a strange tilt-a-whirl ride set up on a tightrope dangling over a cliff. Each eccentric behavior brings on a heightened sense of black sheep weirdness, united under the umbrella of collective upbringing.
With Kid Gloves - Judy Albietz
“You don’t have to treat me with kid gloves,” Lily told Sam. “Tell me everything about what happened to Josh. Don’t leave anything out.”
“I do not understand what you say. I cannot wear gloves. I do not have hands.”
“Sorry. That’s just an old expression my mom uses. It means I do not want you to treat me like a child. I want you to tell me everything you know about Josh’s disappearance. Don’t leave anything out … no matter how awful it is.”
“Lily, the only thing we know is that Josh’s brain was captured by people living outside Borealis, in the future.”
“How did they do that?”
“We know these people do not have the power to travel through time. Therefore, they could not bring his whole body into the future. However, it appears they have the technology to capture and bring brain waves from the past. We think they did it by following the path of the radio signals from the cell phone Josh used when he communicated with you from the past to the future—through the Time Portal.”
“Why did they take—him—his brain? What do they want with him? How do we get him back?”
“We have not figured that out yet.”
“I do not understand what you say. I cannot wear gloves. I do not have hands.”
“Sorry. That’s just an old expression my mom uses. It means I do not want you to treat me like a child. I want you to tell me everything you know about Josh’s disappearance. Don’t leave anything out … no matter how awful it is.”
“Lily, the only thing we know is that Josh’s brain was captured by people living outside Borealis, in the future.”
“How did they do that?”
“We know these people do not have the power to travel through time. Therefore, they could not bring his whole body into the future. However, it appears they have the technology to capture and bring brain waves from the past. We think they did it by following the path of the radio signals from the cell phone Josh used when he communicated with you from the past to the future—through the Time Portal.”
“Why did they take—him—his brain? What do they want with him? How do we get him back?”
“We have not figured that out yet.”
With Kid Gloves - Bonnie Smetts
No man can possibly admit this. You like your wife to need you. You want her to be delicate, easy. You want her to stand on her own feet as well. But not too much. You don’t want her to complain and whine. You want her to have ideas and not acquiesce too quickly. But in the end you want her to agree.
You want to watch her from afar as she charms your friends with her quiet humor and quick wit. Her beauty of course, that’s never been a problem with Marjorie. She’s lovely: light and elegant, long-limbed. Her hair is a bit bland, but bountiful with just enough rebellion to get loose from those tight chignons she’s taken to wearing. I guess that’s Renee’s influence.
Renee’s not an especially good influencey. Good in that she’s full of life and doesn’t complain. Bad in that she’s got too much of a mind of her own. I doubt she consults Jacques when she changes Nico’s nanny or orders furniture from Paris. Or decides to take my wife to see the native festivals.
Now I’ve got Marjorie a ball of nerves. I hate feeling like I must handle her with kid gloves, lest she explode in anger or fear or whatever causes her to cry and lash out at me. I don’t want to spend another moment on this. I’ve got people who are misbehaving up and down my command. Not just the native workers, some of my best. Not just the lower workers but the managers. Men who I thought were dependable, at least would follow the company protocol and our plans. Letting a whole team start building another line miles from where we’d designated. Impossible to accept, and yet they’ve begun. What am I to do? Call them off it. And lose the work they’ve done. The metals would be stolen in a fortnight. No, and so I seem weak. I must reprimand the manger in a way that sends a message to anyone else giving favors to their village, their relatives, whomever else they want to pay off.
I must keep up appearances so home office never learns of this. How to write the progress report and hide exactly where the construction is being completed. My secretary must write something for me. He knows how to hide and change the truth.
Marjorie will never understand what goes on, here in the company, here in this country.
You want to watch her from afar as she charms your friends with her quiet humor and quick wit. Her beauty of course, that’s never been a problem with Marjorie. She’s lovely: light and elegant, long-limbed. Her hair is a bit bland, but bountiful with just enough rebellion to get loose from those tight chignons she’s taken to wearing. I guess that’s Renee’s influence.
Renee’s not an especially good influencey. Good in that she’s full of life and doesn’t complain. Bad in that she’s got too much of a mind of her own. I doubt she consults Jacques when she changes Nico’s nanny or orders furniture from Paris. Or decides to take my wife to see the native festivals.
Now I’ve got Marjorie a ball of nerves. I hate feeling like I must handle her with kid gloves, lest she explode in anger or fear or whatever causes her to cry and lash out at me. I don’t want to spend another moment on this. I’ve got people who are misbehaving up and down my command. Not just the native workers, some of my best. Not just the lower workers but the managers. Men who I thought were dependable, at least would follow the company protocol and our plans. Letting a whole team start building another line miles from where we’d designated. Impossible to accept, and yet they’ve begun. What am I to do? Call them off it. And lose the work they’ve done. The metals would be stolen in a fortnight. No, and so I seem weak. I must reprimand the manger in a way that sends a message to anyone else giving favors to their village, their relatives, whomever else they want to pay off.
I must keep up appearances so home office never learns of this. How to write the progress report and hide exactly where the construction is being completed. My secretary must write something for me. He knows how to hide and change the truth.
Marjorie will never understand what goes on, here in the company, here in this country.
Keeping It Secret - Melody Cryns
Tonight I walked into my favorite coffee shop in downtown Mountain View and ordered a double mint mocha, just like old times. And Blue House, the acoustic rock band of two gals and a guy are playing their lovely music and singing…
“It’s my life, here I am…take a moment to share my history!” Brian sings…it’s a song he wrote and I love it. It reminds me of writing, sharing our history, every time I hear Brian sing that song, Marline playing the other acoustic guitar and singing harmony and Amy on bass…
Aaron is working at the counter – he’s been here at the coffee shop ever since I can remember…when I used to bring Megan here and she was just a little red headed, freckle faced kid. He always threatened to sell Megan to the gypsies and she’d laugh and swing on his outstretched tattooed muscular arm…
Now Megan is 18 and that young girl has disappeared, and I haven’t ordered a real double mint mocha in about two years – you know, all the calories and the sugar. But tonight I decided I had to get a double mint mocha. Aaron said, “with whipped cream?” And I said yes, with whipped cream.
It’s just one of those nights. I’ve had a rough day filled with car trouble…overheating issues. I haven’t had car problems like this for a while now. Ever since my kids were younger and I could never afford a decent car.
So I sit here at the coffee shop listening to Blue House remembering my little girl who is now grown…and how it was, and how some things just never seem to change.
I look out the window and see the tree branches and the shining lamps and the tables and chairs outside, just as they always were…and Aaron’s still here, and so is Shadow…and Blue House is still playing. And I’m still sipping on a double mint mocha. And my car has air bubbles, so they say…at least it’s not a blown head gasket.
“It’s my life, here I am…take a moment to share my history!” Brian sings…it’s a song he wrote and I love it. It reminds me of writing, sharing our history, every time I hear Brian sing that song, Marline playing the other acoustic guitar and singing harmony and Amy on bass…
Aaron is working at the counter – he’s been here at the coffee shop ever since I can remember…when I used to bring Megan here and she was just a little red headed, freckle faced kid. He always threatened to sell Megan to the gypsies and she’d laugh and swing on his outstretched tattooed muscular arm…
Now Megan is 18 and that young girl has disappeared, and I haven’t ordered a real double mint mocha in about two years – you know, all the calories and the sugar. But tonight I decided I had to get a double mint mocha. Aaron said, “with whipped cream?” And I said yes, with whipped cream.
It’s just one of those nights. I’ve had a rough day filled with car trouble…overheating issues. I haven’t had car problems like this for a while now. Ever since my kids were younger and I could never afford a decent car.
So I sit here at the coffee shop listening to Blue House remembering my little girl who is now grown…and how it was, and how some things just never seem to change.
I look out the window and see the tree branches and the shining lamps and the tables and chairs outside, just as they always were…and Aaron’s still here, and so is Shadow…and Blue House is still playing. And I’m still sipping on a double mint mocha. And my car has air bubbles, so they say…at least it’s not a blown head gasket.
Blowing Off Steam - E. D. James
He moved quickly through the galleries absorbing the intensity of the work lining the walls. In half an hour he would meet the woman and rid himself of the weight he’d been carrying. The tourists around him stared at the pieces listening to some over educated voice tell them why they should like what they saw. Arch had no such filters on his mind. Every second was crystal clear, illuminated by the adrenaline surging through his veins.
They were following him. The watchers in the galleries would pretend to take no notice of his passing, but he would see them discreetly hit communicators at their belts and whisper as he passed. This made him feel comfortable. He wanted to lure them into complacency. Wanted them to feel secure that they had him under control, knew his every movement. He wanted them to feel that way right up until the moment he lost them and made his move to meet the one who had been chosen to receive the truth.
He allowed himself a moment to wander back to the days his mother would drag him through these very galleries in her endless quest to raise him up with culture and knowledge. She had instilled in him a boundless curiosity, and it was that curiosity that led him to this day.
Seven months ago it had just been some random streaks on his plates. Satellites were always crossing his plates and at first he took no notice. But then a pattern emerged. His scans for other planets that might have the conditions that were right for life to exist had instead exposed a network of satellites in geosynchronous orbit over the major cities of the world. A network that the government claimed didn’t and couldn’t exist. And yet it did.
They had made it clear that they would stop at nothing to protect their secret. First his privileges at the observatory had been curtailed. Then his grant had been revoked. Now they stalked him day and night.
They were following him. The watchers in the galleries would pretend to take no notice of his passing, but he would see them discreetly hit communicators at their belts and whisper as he passed. This made him feel comfortable. He wanted to lure them into complacency. Wanted them to feel secure that they had him under control, knew his every movement. He wanted them to feel that way right up until the moment he lost them and made his move to meet the one who had been chosen to receive the truth.
He allowed himself a moment to wander back to the days his mother would drag him through these very galleries in her endless quest to raise him up with culture and knowledge. She had instilled in him a boundless curiosity, and it was that curiosity that led him to this day.
Seven months ago it had just been some random streaks on his plates. Satellites were always crossing his plates and at first he took no notice. But then a pattern emerged. His scans for other planets that might have the conditions that were right for life to exist had instead exposed a network of satellites in geosynchronous orbit over the major cities of the world. A network that the government claimed didn’t and couldn’t exist. And yet it did.
They had made it clear that they would stop at nothing to protect their secret. First his privileges at the observatory had been curtailed. Then his grant had been revoked. Now they stalked him day and night.
Blowing Off Steam - Kate Bueler
Blowing off steam. Blowing of steam has been my newest favorite pastime. I spent many good years of my life running and swimming and doing it for fun but mostly within the confines of team and invitations and flip turned into a baton hand off until I reached adulthood. I loved sports. I loved the ability to feel freedom in the pounding against my legs as I speed up at the end of every run. My father had taught me this trick that even after a jog you run fast and hard at the end. And believe you me it came in handy in the races of life both competitive or not. The wheels of myself going more quickly and feeling as if they might give out but on the brink of letting go- the freedom of speed- the freedom of myself. That I could get it anytime I needed it. And running. Running became a way to pound out the discomfort of adolescence and the way I spent my afternoons for many years of my life. And it helped that I was good at it. Not the best of the best but good enough to be choose for the relays and to place.
But somewhere in my relationship with running we became distant in our feelings toward one another. I dreaded doing it. And did it. Only for that scholarship. I didn't feel freedom anymore. When I put on those shoes to run- I felt dread. Dread for being awake so early. Dread for not being able sleep in. And dread for the practice I'd have to later that day. Running became a job. And the chore of it sucked the pleasure and flying from my bones and muscles and left was the feeling of contempt. Contempt I had for one of my first loves of my life. We had changed. We both had. So after my final season of my running career, I did what anyone would do or so I thought. I gave up exercise. I took up drinking and partying and smoking and being an undergraduate like everyone else. Reverse psychology on myself didn't work as I planned. Me and running broke up and she didn't come after me when she saw the back of my body sway back and forth surrounded by friends and the smoke of ways to forget her.
I didn't miss her. I didn't care about her. And I kept my relationships with my new and more exciting friends until one day I woke up and realized. Something was missing. The blowing of the steam. Could never be replaced in alcoholic binge drinking that left me more clueless than I began and apologetic and hurting the next day. Smoking could only be cool for so long and soon the honeymoon wore off and I was addicted. Me the athlete addicted to cigarettes. Blowing off the steam- I needed it. I needed the release and freedom of the movement of my feet faster and harder and longer than I thought I could. I needed the pound of my chest in and out and rattling me to let go and learn again. I needed the sweat pouring down my face and head and limbs with my reddish face to remind me. That I am athlete and the blowing off the steam has always been my freedom. So I didn't call up running. I decided to try something new someone who would give me everything I had before because I was too scared to run. And that is how I found yoga. Yoga and one day I would find myself when I needed it most after a hard day of hearing others pains of life that I laced my shoes up and ran. Again.
But somewhere in my relationship with running we became distant in our feelings toward one another. I dreaded doing it. And did it. Only for that scholarship. I didn't feel freedom anymore. When I put on those shoes to run- I felt dread. Dread for being awake so early. Dread for not being able sleep in. And dread for the practice I'd have to later that day. Running became a job. And the chore of it sucked the pleasure and flying from my bones and muscles and left was the feeling of contempt. Contempt I had for one of my first loves of my life. We had changed. We both had. So after my final season of my running career, I did what anyone would do or so I thought. I gave up exercise. I took up drinking and partying and smoking and being an undergraduate like everyone else. Reverse psychology on myself didn't work as I planned. Me and running broke up and she didn't come after me when she saw the back of my body sway back and forth surrounded by friends and the smoke of ways to forget her.
I didn't miss her. I didn't care about her. And I kept my relationships with my new and more exciting friends until one day I woke up and realized. Something was missing. The blowing of the steam. Could never be replaced in alcoholic binge drinking that left me more clueless than I began and apologetic and hurting the next day. Smoking could only be cool for so long and soon the honeymoon wore off and I was addicted. Me the athlete addicted to cigarettes. Blowing off the steam- I needed it. I needed the release and freedom of the movement of my feet faster and harder and longer than I thought I could. I needed the pound of my chest in and out and rattling me to let go and learn again. I needed the sweat pouring down my face and head and limbs with my reddish face to remind me. That I am athlete and the blowing off the steam has always been my freedom. So I didn't call up running. I decided to try something new someone who would give me everything I had before because I was too scared to run. And that is how I found yoga. Yoga and one day I would find myself when I needed it most after a hard day of hearing others pains of life that I laced my shoes up and ran. Again.
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Changing How it Turned Out - Kate Bueler
Changing how it turned out. I didn't know how it would turn out yet. But I had pieced together snapshots of scenes in my mini series of my mind. A melodrama of my heart and hope for the future. The qualities I liked in him played perfectly in this short by me. See I have a girlhood crush syndrome that my early 30s hasn't seemed to break. I get crushes on strangers. On the barista. On the neighbor. On the friend. On the dude I made out with once. Excitement from the first time, the first time feeling the taste of infatuation dances around me as I skip on the way home. I can't shake the excitement I feel for someone in the beginning. The beginning of anything. It might be my favorite part of it all.
I guess part of my giddiness is for the lightness I feel for the real thing. The real thing that does warm me beyond the beginning to the depths of companionship. I used to fall hard and fast but took a vacation from the every moving fast bullet train to the very slow one making every stop. And it first it was fine. It was okay. But boredom started to seep in through my pores. I still wanted adventure. I still wanted intrigue. I still wanted to feel my heart pump with excitement. The slow train was slow. And I wanted more. But how to walk of the line of want I want long term and what I desire short term? Can I have both the excitement and stability as I walk on this tightrope of love with my heart jumping in and out of my chest to my sleeve and back again?
I don't know. But I do know. I need vacations. Vacations from the slow train. I pull the stop and jump out and try something new. Unplanned and spontaneous. And so easy just to be. And then I feel the warmth of another around me soothing the need for now. But later as the scenes of the future play out. Sometimes I want more scenes. I want more snapshots. And I can't help but wonder how it will turn out. In thinking about it, can I change how it will? Or the faith I feel in things coming together allows me not to change anything at all. See sometimes you meet someone while on vacation from the things you are supposed to be doing that makes the excitement and wonder grow inside as you think what will be next. For you. For him. And the excitement tastes good and I force myself not to wonder how it will turn out. Or to change the ending. I just want another line. Another paragraph. Another chapter. Of this book.
I guess part of my giddiness is for the lightness I feel for the real thing. The real thing that does warm me beyond the beginning to the depths of companionship. I used to fall hard and fast but took a vacation from the every moving fast bullet train to the very slow one making every stop. And it first it was fine. It was okay. But boredom started to seep in through my pores. I still wanted adventure. I still wanted intrigue. I still wanted to feel my heart pump with excitement. The slow train was slow. And I wanted more. But how to walk of the line of want I want long term and what I desire short term? Can I have both the excitement and stability as I walk on this tightrope of love with my heart jumping in and out of my chest to my sleeve and back again?
I don't know. But I do know. I need vacations. Vacations from the slow train. I pull the stop and jump out and try something new. Unplanned and spontaneous. And so easy just to be. And then I feel the warmth of another around me soothing the need for now. But later as the scenes of the future play out. Sometimes I want more scenes. I want more snapshots. And I can't help but wonder how it will turn out. In thinking about it, can I change how it will? Or the faith I feel in things coming together allows me not to change anything at all. See sometimes you meet someone while on vacation from the things you are supposed to be doing that makes the excitement and wonder grow inside as you think what will be next. For you. For him. And the excitement tastes good and I force myself not to wonder how it will turn out. Or to change the ending. I just want another line. Another paragraph. Another chapter. Of this book.
Changing How it Turned Out - Anna Teeples
I need to fry some bananas. I got nothing on today's prompt and I know that when I am stuck on writing, you write anyways. It was a day full of tough messages to people who needed to hear things that they did not want to hear. Somewhere in all of this muck, I know I am changing something. Like a giant splinter stuck in my soul needing to work it's way out. And now, the splinter is out and there's a small tender wound needing attention. I finally have that space to rediscover some of me that has been caked in mud. At the end of a long day, when you are feeling worn out and broken, you gotta change the day.
I picked up my little battle worn skittle, turned on the gas burner and sprayed a fine layer of oil. I peeled a banana and sliced the knife through the long length of the yellow meaty center. I placed a half on the hot surface with a sizzle. Sprinkling a dusting of cinnamon while smelling the sweetness ooze into the air, I wait patiently as the sliced side caramelizes just a bit before turning it over. In a matter of minutes, my mouth is watering and anxious for the first bite of warm banana. The beauty of this wonderful delight is the un-necessity of any other accompaniment, no need for chocolate or ice cream or warm dripping caramel. Just bananas, fried bananas. A perfect ending to soul shifting day.
I picked up my little battle worn skittle, turned on the gas burner and sprayed a fine layer of oil. I peeled a banana and sliced the knife through the long length of the yellow meaty center. I placed a half on the hot surface with a sizzle. Sprinkling a dusting of cinnamon while smelling the sweetness ooze into the air, I wait patiently as the sliced side caramelizes just a bit before turning it over. In a matter of minutes, my mouth is watering and anxious for the first bite of warm banana. The beauty of this wonderful delight is the un-necessity of any other accompaniment, no need for chocolate or ice cream or warm dripping caramel. Just bananas, fried bananas. A perfect ending to soul shifting day.
Changing How it Turned Out - Melody Cryns
We live in a lovely little home amid trees and flowers with a garden, slightly unkempt in front. The house looks like an English cottage – it’s the house I passed by almost every day those few months we lived in San Jose near the Rose Garden neighborhood. But the house isn’t in San Jose – no, it’s right by the beach in Santa Cruz. We can walk to the beach with the harbor and the lighthouse.
My mother, who thankfully quit smoking when she was younger, is still around and comes to visit often. Megan invites her lovely friends over. She’s almost finished with high school and is graduating at almost the top of her class. My older kids are all very successful and happy, well adjusted young adults. I am making a living as a teacher and a writer, and I’m not stressed out about work at all. Every day I walk down to the beach with my ukulele and the dog and let her play in the waves – and I play my uke on the beach, sometimes alone and sometimes with all of my uke playing friends.
We make trips to San Francisco often, and usually stay at the Seal Rock Inn which overlooks the Cliff House and Land’s End – or we stay at Melissa’s house in Twin Peaks. I always travel down Highway 1 to get to San Francisco because who’s in a hurry?
Although I do have to teach at certain times, I’m pretty much free to do what I want and go wherever I want – I can always make ukulele jam get togethers and acoustic jams, and of course, there’s always time to sit and write.
If I want to take a nap in the middle of the day, I do it – lying down on a hammock in my lovely backyard.
Of course, I have a wonderful dependable car that never causes any problems at all – a BMW that gets me to where I want to go in no time at all, a zippy little car with all the bells and whistles anyone could want. Sweet car!
I’ve already published a book and another one is coming out soon. I’ve got it made in the shade, oh yeah! I’m going on a book tour soon with my ukulele so I can play music, sing and read from my writings. Life is really good – there’s always someone at the house to take care of the animals, and my daughter is so incredibly responsible. I trust her totally and completely. Oh and how can I forget my wonderful, hot loving boyfriend who is always there for me? He even travels with me and pays his own way and everything!
Sigh…
As I sit here and listen to Beatles music, I smile – thinking of how my life could have been, wondering if I truly would have changed the path if I could have.
I live in a one-bedroom apartment in Sunnyvale off El Camino with my incorrigible 18-year-old daughter Megan. She needs to get her act together and finish high school – and get a job of course. Our little dog likes to bark at everyone that walks by our apartment, and I had to leave her alone today because Megan’s off gallivanting around in Monterey, or Santa Cruz – not sure where. And she doesn’t want to come home. Not that I blame her, but still.
My little car overheated on the way to Sacramento for no apparent reason and the last time we lived in a house was when we lived in Oregon – but it was a sort of run-down house on a cul-de-sac just outside Salem, Oregon.
Mom passed away back in 1997 when the older kids were teenagers and Megan was only four, right before I fled from Oregon and moved back down to California with all of my kids – driving a piece of crap old Chevy Cavalier car that my son’s friend had given us – that was after the last car had broken down before that one.
We ended up having to move several times to dodge the high rents in the San Francisco Bay Area, and one time just because there were too many teenagers hanging around my place. There were always too many teenagers hanging around my place.
Now here I sit listening to Beatles music, wondering where Megan is and if Jen will be okay – that’s Jeremy’s girlfriend. She was so stressed out about the pregnancy and moving that she went on disability and she’s having a rough time. Now that my older daughter Melissa is getting a job, will she be able to start paying me back? Will she be able to pay off that bail bond I still get phone calls for because apparently they have my name and number?
My mother, who thankfully quit smoking when she was younger, is still around and comes to visit often. Megan invites her lovely friends over. She’s almost finished with high school and is graduating at almost the top of her class. My older kids are all very successful and happy, well adjusted young adults. I am making a living as a teacher and a writer, and I’m not stressed out about work at all. Every day I walk down to the beach with my ukulele and the dog and let her play in the waves – and I play my uke on the beach, sometimes alone and sometimes with all of my uke playing friends.
We make trips to San Francisco often, and usually stay at the Seal Rock Inn which overlooks the Cliff House and Land’s End – or we stay at Melissa’s house in Twin Peaks. I always travel down Highway 1 to get to San Francisco because who’s in a hurry?
Although I do have to teach at certain times, I’m pretty much free to do what I want and go wherever I want – I can always make ukulele jam get togethers and acoustic jams, and of course, there’s always time to sit and write.
If I want to take a nap in the middle of the day, I do it – lying down on a hammock in my lovely backyard.
Of course, I have a wonderful dependable car that never causes any problems at all – a BMW that gets me to where I want to go in no time at all, a zippy little car with all the bells and whistles anyone could want. Sweet car!
I’ve already published a book and another one is coming out soon. I’ve got it made in the shade, oh yeah! I’m going on a book tour soon with my ukulele so I can play music, sing and read from my writings. Life is really good – there’s always someone at the house to take care of the animals, and my daughter is so incredibly responsible. I trust her totally and completely. Oh and how can I forget my wonderful, hot loving boyfriend who is always there for me? He even travels with me and pays his own way and everything!
Sigh…
As I sit here and listen to Beatles music, I smile – thinking of how my life could have been, wondering if I truly would have changed the path if I could have.
I live in a one-bedroom apartment in Sunnyvale off El Camino with my incorrigible 18-year-old daughter Megan. She needs to get her act together and finish high school – and get a job of course. Our little dog likes to bark at everyone that walks by our apartment, and I had to leave her alone today because Megan’s off gallivanting around in Monterey, or Santa Cruz – not sure where. And she doesn’t want to come home. Not that I blame her, but still.
My little car overheated on the way to Sacramento for no apparent reason and the last time we lived in a house was when we lived in Oregon – but it was a sort of run-down house on a cul-de-sac just outside Salem, Oregon.
Mom passed away back in 1997 when the older kids were teenagers and Megan was only four, right before I fled from Oregon and moved back down to California with all of my kids – driving a piece of crap old Chevy Cavalier car that my son’s friend had given us – that was after the last car had broken down before that one.
We ended up having to move several times to dodge the high rents in the San Francisco Bay Area, and one time just because there were too many teenagers hanging around my place. There were always too many teenagers hanging around my place.
Now here I sit listening to Beatles music, wondering where Megan is and if Jen will be okay – that’s Jeremy’s girlfriend. She was so stressed out about the pregnancy and moving that she went on disability and she’s having a rough time. Now that my older daughter Melissa is getting a job, will she be able to start paying me back? Will she be able to pay off that bail bond I still get phone calls for because apparently they have my name and number?
Death - Jackie Davis-Martin
In general...there's no point in writing hopeless novels. We all know we're going to die; what's important is the kind of men and women we are in the face of this.
-Anne Lamott
Claire didn’t know what kind of woman she would be in the face of death. She hadn’t thought about it. It was even an odd consideration, later. I will be strong. I will be the sort of person whom others will marvel at. I will be private.
Anne Lamott was more likely referring to the characteristics one exhibited facing one’s own death. And, more likely, she was using death as a metaphor for crisis or catastrophe, or the “trouble” that the character faces. And in a story it’s not death that’s important, it’s the character’s reaction. Will she be noble? Will she be a mess?
Claire was a writer, one who had dodged real death in stories, substituting instead some other crisis—money, sexual tension, even, as she got more philosophical, the meaning of life, of certain actions one would take. Some of her friends wrote stories where family hovered at bedsides, or consulted anxiously with doctors. A few had near-death experiences, of high risk.
In these stories, the risky people survived to tell the tale. The family dealt with the bravery of the old man or the old woman who had lived a long and meaningful life and spoken something important at the end.
They could all discuss the reality of what had been written.
What happened, though, was that death came to Claire, and Claire had to face it. She didn’t know that facing it showed what kind of woman she was one way or the other. Take today, for instance, a small anniversary of that death. If she were writing about it, or re-creating such an event, she would certainly substitute something other than the golden sky outside her windows, the light tingeing the houses on high hilltops, sun glinting from windows like the spangles on the dance costumes both she and her daughter loved. She wouldn’t use that detail, though, because it didn’t fit the sadness she felt.
In a story she would have her character stand at the window and marvel that the beauty of the sky turning pink and blue and gold was still hers, that the birds’ chirping was comforting, something to truly listen to, and therefore of great value. She would have her character note the majesty of the lighted pillars in the garden across the street, the lights lighting the light of day just breaking, the stillness and silence of a day not quite under way.
In reality hers—Claire’s—was underway and, although she looked out the window at these things, she looked past her daughter’s pictures, and thought two things: Who was she? And why isn’t she here? Mostly she thought, Is it possible, really? Claire’s character wouldn’t mention that she couldn’t bear to look at those pictures, nor bear to remove them, since such wavering would show unsteadiness. People who looked for ready themes would pounce on that: denial. Claire disliked ready themes, exhibiting, at times, another of them: anger.
None of these behaviors was pretty, or of high character.
She’d pour herself another cup of coffee, strong and black and halved with milk, and write what she was trying to understand of life and death.
Anne Lamott. Claire didn’t know anything about Anne Lamott. What had she endured? But a writer didn’t have to endure, first hand. The writer’s job was to imagine.
And imagining, pretending, was the reality that made sense. Claire could pretend to be Claire, for instance. She would be brave because people liked to be with others who were brave, who were gay, who showed strength of character.
The other characters would like Claire better, feel more at ease, if she became a character, and not her true self. They’d like her better if they didn’t truly know the importance of what she was going through; they’d prefer her character to show strength in the face of this.
This.
This.
-Anne Lamott
Claire didn’t know what kind of woman she would be in the face of death. She hadn’t thought about it. It was even an odd consideration, later. I will be strong. I will be the sort of person whom others will marvel at. I will be private.
Anne Lamott was more likely referring to the characteristics one exhibited facing one’s own death. And, more likely, she was using death as a metaphor for crisis or catastrophe, or the “trouble” that the character faces. And in a story it’s not death that’s important, it’s the character’s reaction. Will she be noble? Will she be a mess?
Claire was a writer, one who had dodged real death in stories, substituting instead some other crisis—money, sexual tension, even, as she got more philosophical, the meaning of life, of certain actions one would take. Some of her friends wrote stories where family hovered at bedsides, or consulted anxiously with doctors. A few had near-death experiences, of high risk.
In these stories, the risky people survived to tell the tale. The family dealt with the bravery of the old man or the old woman who had lived a long and meaningful life and spoken something important at the end.
They could all discuss the reality of what had been written.
What happened, though, was that death came to Claire, and Claire had to face it. She didn’t know that facing it showed what kind of woman she was one way or the other. Take today, for instance, a small anniversary of that death. If she were writing about it, or re-creating such an event, she would certainly substitute something other than the golden sky outside her windows, the light tingeing the houses on high hilltops, sun glinting from windows like the spangles on the dance costumes both she and her daughter loved. She wouldn’t use that detail, though, because it didn’t fit the sadness she felt.
In a story she would have her character stand at the window and marvel that the beauty of the sky turning pink and blue and gold was still hers, that the birds’ chirping was comforting, something to truly listen to, and therefore of great value. She would have her character note the majesty of the lighted pillars in the garden across the street, the lights lighting the light of day just breaking, the stillness and silence of a day not quite under way.
In reality hers—Claire’s—was underway and, although she looked out the window at these things, she looked past her daughter’s pictures, and thought two things: Who was she? And why isn’t she here? Mostly she thought, Is it possible, really? Claire’s character wouldn’t mention that she couldn’t bear to look at those pictures, nor bear to remove them, since such wavering would show unsteadiness. People who looked for ready themes would pounce on that: denial. Claire disliked ready themes, exhibiting, at times, another of them: anger.
None of these behaviors was pretty, or of high character.
She’d pour herself another cup of coffee, strong and black and halved with milk, and write what she was trying to understand of life and death.
Anne Lamott. Claire didn’t know anything about Anne Lamott. What had she endured? But a writer didn’t have to endure, first hand. The writer’s job was to imagine.
And imagining, pretending, was the reality that made sense. Claire could pretend to be Claire, for instance. She would be brave because people liked to be with others who were brave, who were gay, who showed strength of character.
The other characters would like Claire better, feel more at ease, if she became a character, and not her true self. They’d like her better if they didn’t truly know the importance of what she was going through; they’d prefer her character to show strength in the face of this.
This.
This.
The Place Where She's Most Uncomfortable - Elizabeth Weld Nolan
I am visiting the house of a stranger. The couch and chairs in the living room are covered with plastic made to fit their yellow contours. Doilies and coasters cover each little table where family photos stand at attention in their upright frames.
A purple and black portrait of Jesus over the fireplace shows him hanging from the cross in a drawing that could be taken from a graphic novel, so lurid are the colors. The only cabinet holds china dishes and a collection of girl dolls, their little bow mouths bright red against their white faces. They are dressed in long gowns of another century. The legs of the furniture stand in little cups on the pale carpet.
I press my knees, clad in blue pants, together. My ankle bones touch. Then I notice: There are no books. Not one. No, there is one. A large Bible with a white leather cover, sits on a round table by itself on top of a lace runner. I smile at my hostess, the mother of my college roommate who is rebelling against everything. I have been listening to her for a year, and I see, in this, my first visit to her house, that with all her opinions and philosophical rants, she has told me nothing about her family.
``I don’t usually invite people,’’ she had said in our dorm room, pulling on her (illegal) cigarette.
``Thank you, Mrs. Whickett, for having me,’’ I say.
``We’re glad to have you, dear,’’ she says. ``We’re so curious about Mary’s friends from college. So you’re from Massachusetts?’’
``Yes, ma’am. The Boston area.’’
``What church do you go to there?’’ She looks excited and a flush comes across her pale cheeks.
``The Unitarian Church. I helped run the Sunday School in high school.’’
``Sunday School!’’ She looks pleased and glances at Mary who lounges (or slips off the plastic?) on an armchair. ``Do you read Scripture with the children?’’
``Well,’’ I shift on my own plastic, ``we make sure they know the Bible stories.’’
``The New Testament?’’
``Both,’’ I say. ``We study all religions.’’
``Unity Church, did you say?’’
``No, Unitarian. We believe in one Creator. That’s why that name.’’ She sits up straighter. I think she’s actually wearing a corset under her flowered dress. It’s hard to believe she’s the mother of my casual roommate or that my intellectually voracious friend came from this house.
``Do you take Jesus for your Savior?’’ she asks sternly, suspecting the worst. She’s right.
``Well, not exactly,’’ I say, realizing I’m about to go over the edge. ``We believe he was a great teacher and historical figure.’’
``Oh my dear,’’ she says, ``let me help you understand the truth.’’ She reaches for the Bible and opens it. Mary sits up quickly.
``Mother,’’ she says, ``we have to go out. We’ll be back for dinner.’’ She stands and signals me.
``Uh – thank you, Mrs. Whickett. See you later.’’ As we go out the front door, I go limp with relief .
``Did I do all right?’’ I ask.
``Great,’’ she says and grins at me. I can see we are not going to talk about this, and that we never will. ``Let’s go to the movies.’’
She puts her arm through mine, and we swing into the freedom of the fresh winter air.
A purple and black portrait of Jesus over the fireplace shows him hanging from the cross in a drawing that could be taken from a graphic novel, so lurid are the colors. The only cabinet holds china dishes and a collection of girl dolls, their little bow mouths bright red against their white faces. They are dressed in long gowns of another century. The legs of the furniture stand in little cups on the pale carpet.
I press my knees, clad in blue pants, together. My ankle bones touch. Then I notice: There are no books. Not one. No, there is one. A large Bible with a white leather cover, sits on a round table by itself on top of a lace runner. I smile at my hostess, the mother of my college roommate who is rebelling against everything. I have been listening to her for a year, and I see, in this, my first visit to her house, that with all her opinions and philosophical rants, she has told me nothing about her family.
``I don’t usually invite people,’’ she had said in our dorm room, pulling on her (illegal) cigarette.
``Thank you, Mrs. Whickett, for having me,’’ I say.
``We’re glad to have you, dear,’’ she says. ``We’re so curious about Mary’s friends from college. So you’re from Massachusetts?’’
``Yes, ma’am. The Boston area.’’
``What church do you go to there?’’ She looks excited and a flush comes across her pale cheeks.
``The Unitarian Church. I helped run the Sunday School in high school.’’
``Sunday School!’’ She looks pleased and glances at Mary who lounges (or slips off the plastic?) on an armchair. ``Do you read Scripture with the children?’’
``Well,’’ I shift on my own plastic, ``we make sure they know the Bible stories.’’
``The New Testament?’’
``Both,’’ I say. ``We study all religions.’’
``Unity Church, did you say?’’
``No, Unitarian. We believe in one Creator. That’s why that name.’’ She sits up straighter. I think she’s actually wearing a corset under her flowered dress. It’s hard to believe she’s the mother of my casual roommate or that my intellectually voracious friend came from this house.
``Do you take Jesus for your Savior?’’ she asks sternly, suspecting the worst. She’s right.
``Well, not exactly,’’ I say, realizing I’m about to go over the edge. ``We believe he was a great teacher and historical figure.’’
``Oh my dear,’’ she says, ``let me help you understand the truth.’’ She reaches for the Bible and opens it. Mary sits up quickly.
``Mother,’’ she says, ``we have to go out. We’ll be back for dinner.’’ She stands and signals me.
``Uh – thank you, Mrs. Whickett. See you later.’’ As we go out the front door, I go limp with relief .
``Did I do all right?’’ I ask.
``Great,’’ she says and grins at me. I can see we are not going to talk about this, and that we never will. ``Let’s go to the movies.’’
She puts her arm through mine, and we swing into the freedom of the fresh winter air.
The Place Where He's Most Uncomfortable - Maria Robinson
It was Stan's second full day in Tel Aviv. He'd woken up in the middle of the night and walked into a wall. He smashed right into the reality that he was not at home in New York on West Side Drive. Miriam had screamed when she heard the thud and turned on the bedside light. " Stan, Stan, are you alright? You're in Israel, Stan". Stan had found his way to the toilet and she could hear with sound of a light fountain. Holding him by the forearm, she ushered back into the unfamiliar bed in his wife's 'sabbatical" apartment.
The Place Where He's Most Uncomfortable - Francisco Mora
At the top of a hill, the lane next to the taxi was moving in a steady stream. The taxi waited, twenty cars away from the light in the left-hand turn, waiting for a covered green. In the taxi, Jason turned to look looked at the cars flowing by. His thinking entered into that momentary disorientation that happens when you look at a moving and stationary object simultaneously. He didn’t say it, would he, he couldn’t know without saying something, or would that send the cabbie into rage like the one yesterday? Jason would be late though, and they would say ‘you’re always late’. He hates that but slightly less than sitting in a cab that’s going to be late and not making a suggestion he knows without doubt would make them early.
Jason’s thought had to, so it did get out, “you know, it’s a lot faster if you go straight here and turn left up at El Dorado a couple blocks because,”
“But you can get stuck right there in this intersection if someone crosses the street. That’s why I didn’t go that way.”
That’s true. But how many people walk in LA? He didn’t say it.
“You’re the boss, man, I’ll go straight, no problem.”
“It’s your call, really. I’m always open to new ways of getting around to avoid jams, which you guys always how to do.”
Jason stared and tried to focus on the poster behind the passenger seat in front of him of local restaurants in Silverlake and Los Feliz near downtown. The driver wasn’t unfriendly, assertive maybe. However, the exchange was enough to make Jason’s neck automatically go into spasms–side effects of chemotherapy on the brain’s command center. Then the neck and the shoulders started.
The cab reactivated Jasons’ authoritative personality and his prowess as a fine driver, professionally trained, to race cars and motorcycles for the fun of it. Driving performance was something Jason had taken for granted until illness made him dependent on other drivers and taxis. Come to think of it, though, taxis might not be the place where he is most uncomfortable.
He thought about the joke with his wife, that the worst part of the chemo sessions (even the surgeries to get tumors out of the neck and the hips) wasn’t the feeling of black substrate moving in his veins instead of nourishing red blood. (That river of void.) The worst thing was dealing with his father’s driving, that lurching tank plodding out of Cedars-Sinai. That broke all records. They had to break the arrangement made when Jason was twenty-four, that Jason would always drive, to avoid disastrous clashes. Dad, according to Jason, used the brakes more than the gas, and created dangerous situations—which wasn’t true.
Jason’s thought had to, so it did get out, “you know, it’s a lot faster if you go straight here and turn left up at El Dorado a couple blocks because,”
“But you can get stuck right there in this intersection if someone crosses the street. That’s why I didn’t go that way.”
That’s true. But how many people walk in LA? He didn’t say it.
“You’re the boss, man, I’ll go straight, no problem.”
“It’s your call, really. I’m always open to new ways of getting around to avoid jams, which you guys always how to do.”
Jason stared and tried to focus on the poster behind the passenger seat in front of him of local restaurants in Silverlake and Los Feliz near downtown. The driver wasn’t unfriendly, assertive maybe. However, the exchange was enough to make Jason’s neck automatically go into spasms–side effects of chemotherapy on the brain’s command center. Then the neck and the shoulders started.
The cab reactivated Jasons’ authoritative personality and his prowess as a fine driver, professionally trained, to race cars and motorcycles for the fun of it. Driving performance was something Jason had taken for granted until illness made him dependent on other drivers and taxis. Come to think of it, though, taxis might not be the place where he is most uncomfortable.
He thought about the joke with his wife, that the worst part of the chemo sessions (even the surgeries to get tumors out of the neck and the hips) wasn’t the feeling of black substrate moving in his veins instead of nourishing red blood. (That river of void.) The worst thing was dealing with his father’s driving, that lurching tank plodding out of Cedars-Sinai. That broke all records. They had to break the arrangement made when Jason was twenty-four, that Jason would always drive, to avoid disastrous clashes. Dad, according to Jason, used the brakes more than the gas, and created dangerous situations—which wasn’t true.
Keeping it Clean - Bonnie Smetts
Shadows dancing across his office wall had caught Dr. Sarin’s eye. He stared out the window at the trees whipped by the wind. His hand ran over the familiar grain of his wood desk and remembered his wife’s back and the shape of her spine. A year is along time to miss someone. He missed her company. Why hadn’t he been tenderer toward her. He remembered caressing the thickness of her legs and running his hands over the smooth firmness of her face.
Papers out of order on the far edge of his desk caught his eye and interrupted his memories. The sun shown on the sheets and without thinking he patted them into a stack. He moved the jar that held his pencils just to the right distance from the papers. He moved the blotter to align with the warn edge of the desk. He slid back from the desk.
His bookcase, he’d neglected his bookcase filled with titles from school and everything since. He’d added titles without thinking where they might best go. Someone had shoved several books on top of the ordered ones, horizontal stripes of color fighting the rhythm of the rest. He set about making order, moving one and then another, and then moving one and another again. It was like a game, like one of those games his friends played when they met. Chess or whatever they called it. Move here and move there. Keep the black markers one the white squares, or whatever they did.
It occurred to him that he might like to join them. He usually sat to the side and talked and enjoyed smoking with his friends. Rearranging. Would it be about arranging and rearranging? He pulled two books from the shelf and set them on the edge of the desk. They were of no interest to him. He must find someone to whom they would be.
Papers out of order on the far edge of his desk caught his eye and interrupted his memories. The sun shown on the sheets and without thinking he patted them into a stack. He moved the jar that held his pencils just to the right distance from the papers. He moved the blotter to align with the warn edge of the desk. He slid back from the desk.
His bookcase, he’d neglected his bookcase filled with titles from school and everything since. He’d added titles without thinking where they might best go. Someone had shoved several books on top of the ordered ones, horizontal stripes of color fighting the rhythm of the rest. He set about making order, moving one and then another, and then moving one and another again. It was like a game, like one of those games his friends played when they met. Chess or whatever they called it. Move here and move there. Keep the black markers one the white squares, or whatever they did.
It occurred to him that he might like to join them. He usually sat to the side and talked and enjoyed smoking with his friends. Rearranging. Would it be about arranging and rearranging? He pulled two books from the shelf and set them on the edge of the desk. They were of no interest to him. He must find someone to whom they would be.
Keeping it Clean - Arilia Winn
If you're not a very clean person no one will want to marry you
If your room is not clean no one will want to marry you
If you don't have a white smile, no one will want to marry you
If you don't have a small waist no one will want to marry you
If you can't cook, no one will want to marry you
If you can't get pregnant, no one will want to marry you
If you can't remember to shower and stay fresh, no one will want to marry you.
If you don't remember to be polite, no one will want to marry you.
No one will ever want to marry you. Break any of these laws and you will be just like the rest of the women in this world, a bunch of belligerents.
Madam Ceri was the toughest of all. I didn't realize it at the time but all of here if this no one this nonsense, made sense.
It was her job to set us straight, and she did.
I'm 25 now and I always make sure that I stay clean and look nice. One day I want someone to marry me.
If your room is not clean no one will want to marry you
If you don't have a white smile, no one will want to marry you
If you don't have a small waist no one will want to marry you
If you can't cook, no one will want to marry you
If you can't get pregnant, no one will want to marry you
If you can't remember to shower and stay fresh, no one will want to marry you.
If you don't remember to be polite, no one will want to marry you.
No one will ever want to marry you. Break any of these laws and you will be just like the rest of the women in this world, a bunch of belligerents.
Madam Ceri was the toughest of all. I didn't realize it at the time but all of here if this no one this nonsense, made sense.
It was her job to set us straight, and she did.
I'm 25 now and I always make sure that I stay clean and look nice. One day I want someone to marry me.
Keeping it Clean - E. D. James
The stainless steel table gleamed beneath the bright examination room lights. The cranes body was stretched out in the center. It’s feathers gleamed from the cleaning it had been given when it was brought in from the field. The cranes body appeared shrunken to Olivia. She couldn’t tell if it was because it had lost weight due to its illness or if it was merely fact that its death had emptied it of the vitality of life. She photographed the body from several angles, focusing especially on the areas around the cranes beak and anus that were reddened by some unknown irritant.
After she had finished photographing the basic condition of the body she pulled on a mask and latex. She lay the crane on its back and positioned the light so that its breast and torso were brightly illuminated. She picked up a scalpel from the table to her right and then paused for a moment with blade just above the feathers. There was something about cutting into a wild creatures body that always disturbed Olivia. She knew it was irrational. She would chop a roasted chicken with a cleaver without flinching. She loved carving a turkey, carefully cutting the breast meat from the bone and separating the drumstick and thigh with a knife that cut through the tendons and popped the joint of bones apart. But there was something about violating the body of an creature that had been wild and free that was different from preparing a domesticated animal for dinner.
She slit the bird from the neck to the anus, laying it open. She used towels that she placed along its sides to keep its blood from dripping onto the floor. She reached into the body cavity and carefully felt each of the major organs. As she worked her way from the heart and lungs down to the gizzard and intestine she moved from a place where she was wondering why the bird had died to wondering how it stayed alive for so long. The digestive tract was looked as if it had been eaten away by some microscope swarm of piranha.
After she had finished photographing the basic condition of the body she pulled on a mask and latex. She lay the crane on its back and positioned the light so that its breast and torso were brightly illuminated. She picked up a scalpel from the table to her right and then paused for a moment with blade just above the feathers. There was something about cutting into a wild creatures body that always disturbed Olivia. She knew it was irrational. She would chop a roasted chicken with a cleaver without flinching. She loved carving a turkey, carefully cutting the breast meat from the bone and separating the drumstick and thigh with a knife that cut through the tendons and popped the joint of bones apart. But there was something about violating the body of an creature that had been wild and free that was different from preparing a domesticated animal for dinner.
She slit the bird from the neck to the anus, laying it open. She used towels that she placed along its sides to keep its blood from dripping onto the floor. She reached into the body cavity and carefully felt each of the major organs. As she worked her way from the heart and lungs down to the gizzard and intestine she moved from a place where she was wondering why the bird had died to wondering how it stayed alive for so long. The digestive tract was looked as if it had been eaten away by some microscope swarm of piranha.
Keeping it Clean - Jennifer Baljko
Rosa leaned in the doorway and watched Oriol take out all the silverware from the drawer closest to the sink. He piled the soupspoons, butter knives, forks, and scissors on the countertop, and then took out the plastic container that housed them and placed it on the table. She watched him dampen a paper towel with a spot of soap, and begin the meticulous task of cleaning out the crumbs that may have slipped into the tray these last days.
Oriol had mannerisms neither of them could explain. Some sort of obsessive-compulsive behavior he had inherited from his grandfather, his mother had once told him long ago when he was still a boy. Rosa hadn’t seen many of those traits in her husband, only tiny slivers of oddities in all their years together. Nothing special had raised flags before. But, since the accident, Rosa noticed with alarmingly frequency how instinctively the ticks would suddenly show up. Keeping the silverware drawer clean, for instance, had now become an almost daily pre-occupation. Ten years ago, the poor man didn’t even know which slot held which utensil; Rosa would often find knives in the fork slot after Oriol tried to “help” her in the kitchen.
“So much stress weighing his heart down,” she thought sadly. She sighed quietly. Rosa knew better to interrupt his routine, to sour his mood. She wrung the dishtowel she was holding, and slipped out the kitchen, leaving her husband alone with his mental fixations.
Oriol had mannerisms neither of them could explain. Some sort of obsessive-compulsive behavior he had inherited from his grandfather, his mother had once told him long ago when he was still a boy. Rosa hadn’t seen many of those traits in her husband, only tiny slivers of oddities in all their years together. Nothing special had raised flags before. But, since the accident, Rosa noticed with alarmingly frequency how instinctively the ticks would suddenly show up. Keeping the silverware drawer clean, for instance, had now become an almost daily pre-occupation. Ten years ago, the poor man didn’t even know which slot held which utensil; Rosa would often find knives in the fork slot after Oriol tried to “help” her in the kitchen.
“So much stress weighing his heart down,” she thought sadly. She sighed quietly. Rosa knew better to interrupt his routine, to sour his mood. She wrung the dishtowel she was holding, and slipped out the kitchen, leaving her husband alone with his mental fixations.
Something Illegal - Judy Albietz
This afternoon my 2 ½ year old grandson announced, Bubbe, come on … time to take a nap. Read some books.” So, for the next half hour, we read about robots, penguins and trucks. He helped me turn the pages. He filled in some of the words since he remembered the story from last time. Then he wanted us to sing some of the Beatles and Peter, Paul and Mary songs we sang this morning while he ate his oatmeal. He finally settled on his personal favorite, Puff the Magic Dragon. He has most of the words memorized, particularly the part about painted wings and giant rings making way for other toys. His parents told me they aren’t wild about his learning this song. It truly is from a generation they don’t understand. They said they think the song is about pot. They’ve got it all wrong. It’s about a dragon and the little boy who was his friend and how the boy grew up and how the dragon missed his friend so much that he had no choice but to sadly slip into his cave. “Bubbe, what happened to the magic dragon?”
I started to tell him that the dragon was still there, in the cave, waiting for his friend to come back and play with him. But then I saw he’d fallen asleep. He had his bear tucked under his chest and he was hanging onto my little finger. I was glad I could wait for another day to answer his question at least with a partial truth.
I started to tell him that the dragon was still there, in the cave, waiting for his friend to come back and play with him. But then I saw he’d fallen asleep. He had his bear tucked under his chest and he was hanging onto my little finger. I was glad I could wait for another day to answer his question at least with a partial truth.
Something Illegal - Christa Fairfield
A nest egg. Yeah that’s what she needed. But unless she was willing to buy a gun and doing something illegal, Vi didn’t see that in her future. And, with her luck she would hold up a 7-11 immediately after their money drop or a bank with an AARP tour of retired FBI agents.
Sitting on the increasingly heated bench, popping gum wads off the sidewalk with the tips of her new Vince Camuto sandels, she concided that maybe she should have bought a cheaper used car and kept some money for car insurance. She should have known that a UPS truck would back up over her precious car fourteen days after driving it off the lot. Who wouldn’t expect such a thing.
“You need to be prepared for the unexpected, Violet.” Her father had told her the night before as she sat drinking the last glass of white zinfandel on her parents four-by-four cement back patio.
“Spect your right, dad,” Vi slurred tipping back the last of the wine and licking her licks. “But right now, I think I’ll go to bed,” she pushed the white molded chair back and dislodged herself, “and dream of better unexpected things.”
Sitting on the increasingly heated bench, popping gum wads off the sidewalk with the tips of her new Vince Camuto sandels, she concided that maybe she should have bought a cheaper used car and kept some money for car insurance. She should have known that a UPS truck would back up over her precious car fourteen days after driving it off the lot. Who wouldn’t expect such a thing.
“You need to be prepared for the unexpected, Violet.” Her father had told her the night before as she sat drinking the last glass of white zinfandel on her parents four-by-four cement back patio.
“Spect your right, dad,” Vi slurred tipping back the last of the wine and licking her licks. “But right now, I think I’ll go to bed,” she pushed the white molded chair back and dislodged herself, “and dream of better unexpected things.”
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
How She Imagined It - Jennifer Baljko
She slid down the hallway, her socks of the fashionable not matching variety providing little resistance against the hard wood floor. One sock pink and orange, the other blue and white. She twirled around in her lime green and cotton white frilly skirt, yanking down at the pockets of her gray sweatshirt sweater. She sang some off-beat song she invented, something how she imagined how lunch would be and how there would be chocolate later. She’s 8 years old. Few things of great importance matter, but at the same time, everything matters and all at once everything is very important. She spins around her heading with foreign ideas she’s picking up in a foreign country. Her thoughts flit between what she thinks she knows what’s real and what she’s learning could be a different reality. Her twinkle with possibility.
How She Imagined It - Anna Teeples
Three weeks later, Chance walked out of the “Divorce Center” office door. Everything about this place she hated. The stained brown shag carpet, the thirty-year-old fake walnut wood desks that chipped at the seams, the stacks of messy banker boxes in every corner and the awful amber multi-sided hanging light pendant in the corner. Mark wanted to move things along quickly and with a short-term marriage and no children together, they hardly had time to co-mingle assets.
Feeling grimy and sleazy, getting a cheapo quickie divorce, the mediator inferred that somehow she wanted this. Chance didn’t want a divorce. In fact, what she imagined was that at the mid-point of her life she would be settling into a relaxing semi-retired life with her new husband as her only son went off to college. Over the last year, it was clear that Chance was willing to tolerate Mark’s rage. Somewhere along the way she had given up on being happy with her partner and was willing just to ride the dead horse. Mark was absolutely the dead horse. He talked about death, about wanting to quit. To the outside world, he appeared to be jovial and carefree. Yet the more intimate side relieved that he was miserable, and felt he had no purpose. He just wanted out, to walk away, back to his life as man with his own personalized barstool at the neighborhood pub. This life worked for him and he liked it.
Feeling grimy and sleazy, getting a cheapo quickie divorce, the mediator inferred that somehow she wanted this. Chance didn’t want a divorce. In fact, what she imagined was that at the mid-point of her life she would be settling into a relaxing semi-retired life with her new husband as her only son went off to college. Over the last year, it was clear that Chance was willing to tolerate Mark’s rage. Somewhere along the way she had given up on being happy with her partner and was willing just to ride the dead horse. Mark was absolutely the dead horse. He talked about death, about wanting to quit. To the outside world, he appeared to be jovial and carefree. Yet the more intimate side relieved that he was miserable, and felt he had no purpose. He just wanted out, to walk away, back to his life as man with his own personalized barstool at the neighborhood pub. This life worked for him and he liked it.
What She Got Out of It - Christa Fairfield
The indulgence was beyond her discipline. She wondered the cobbled streets inhaling the humid aroma of time past swirled with this Tuesday. She licked her lips. Her eyes darted to the rough stone walls that drew her fingers. How could this city have preserved itself while her seventies suburban box was nearly falling over. The difference between quality construction and worthy architecture.
She stepped up to the gelato counter. God she loved this little exterior invitations to indulge in the creamy sweet goodness. What would she have today? She reviewed the flavors chocolate, hazelnut, vanilla. She realized she was working her way through the flavors every day. If she didn’t take anything else out of Venice, she at least got calories. Rich, delightful, stick to your hips calories. It wasn’t just the gelato there was the pasta, the risotto, and polenta mixed with fruits of the sea that she had only seen on the cooking channel back home.
Fragola, she struggled to pronounce to the boy’s efforts at English. Grazie they offered in unison. She turned east seeking the window of carved wooden everyday objects. Was her favorite the bundle of balloons or the coat rack with a man’s coat and hat appearing to hang but actually one with and smooth connected umbrella carved in as if it were propped against the rack. The warm hues of reds and gold’s felt alive. If it weren’t for the ever-present voice of her mother who was long passed reminder her “not to touch”, Carol would have caressed the masculine piece.
She stepped up to the gelato counter. God she loved this little exterior invitations to indulge in the creamy sweet goodness. What would she have today? She reviewed the flavors chocolate, hazelnut, vanilla. She realized she was working her way through the flavors every day. If she didn’t take anything else out of Venice, she at least got calories. Rich, delightful, stick to your hips calories. It wasn’t just the gelato there was the pasta, the risotto, and polenta mixed with fruits of the sea that she had only seen on the cooking channel back home.
Fragola, she struggled to pronounce to the boy’s efforts at English. Grazie they offered in unison. She turned east seeking the window of carved wooden everyday objects. Was her favorite the bundle of balloons or the coat rack with a man’s coat and hat appearing to hang but actually one with and smooth connected umbrella carved in as if it were propped against the rack. The warm hues of reds and gold’s felt alive. If it weren’t for the ever-present voice of her mother who was long passed reminder her “not to touch”, Carol would have caressed the masculine piece.
What She Got Out of It - E. D. James
The envelope was the same as the first two. White. Cheap. No return address. Postmarked from Blagoveschensk in Siberia. After the first one she had investigated what connections to her work there might be in Blagoveschensk. She found that the Amur branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences had a facility there. It leant credibility to what the envelopes contained, but it didn’t answer the question of who had sent them.
The first envelope had contained three photographs were notes in ledger regarding radiological experiments conducted in a Soviet gulag prison in the early 1950’s. Audrey had taken the photos to the Russian language department at U. C. Berkeley to get the pages translated. The notes were an accounting of hospital beds, thermometers, spirometers and other equipment that were shipped to an unnamed camp.
The second envelope had contained a list of peoples names with dates. A note accompanying the list stated that the names where prisoners who had been killed in the radiological experiment. The note was printed in block letters with thick black marker. Both of the envelopes had also contained notes written with the same blocky style stating that Olivia’s life was in danger if she continued to be a part of the Arkhara project.
She pulled her simple silver letter opener from her top drawer and slid the thin tip up under the flap of the third envelope. She carefully slid the blade along the fold neatly cutting the envelope open, then set down the opener, and pulled the contents out. A photograph of an old graveyard with a few graying wooden crosses sticking up like broken teeth from a field was on top. She could see nothing identifying where the photo was taken. The second sheet was another of the notes with the blocky lettering. This one was more blunt than the previous two. It read, “You will be killed before you can leave for Siberia if you do not resign from the project immediately. Please heed this warning.”
The first envelope had contained three photographs were notes in ledger regarding radiological experiments conducted in a Soviet gulag prison in the early 1950’s. Audrey had taken the photos to the Russian language department at U. C. Berkeley to get the pages translated. The notes were an accounting of hospital beds, thermometers, spirometers and other equipment that were shipped to an unnamed camp.
The second envelope had contained a list of peoples names with dates. A note accompanying the list stated that the names where prisoners who had been killed in the radiological experiment. The note was printed in block letters with thick black marker. Both of the envelopes had also contained notes written with the same blocky style stating that Olivia’s life was in danger if she continued to be a part of the Arkhara project.
She pulled her simple silver letter opener from her top drawer and slid the thin tip up under the flap of the third envelope. She carefully slid the blade along the fold neatly cutting the envelope open, then set down the opener, and pulled the contents out. A photograph of an old graveyard with a few graying wooden crosses sticking up like broken teeth from a field was on top. She could see nothing identifying where the photo was taken. The second sheet was another of the notes with the blocky lettering. This one was more blunt than the previous two. It read, “You will be killed before you can leave for Siberia if you do not resign from the project immediately. Please heed this warning.”
What I Got Out of It - Lisa Jacobs
“You’re so American Michael said to me. Michael was Canadian. Canadians are pleasant and genuine. Good people. Canadians are good people. Americans too, but sometimes a bit too arrogant, and not enough aware of what they don’t know.
Michael and I were friends; he worked for a Jewish human rights NGO (nongovernmental organization, sometimes also referred to as civil society organization, or CSO, although this is a more recent label) and I worked for the World Health Organization, or WHO. As in double u; H; Oh. Not “who”. Very gauche to call it “who” in global health circles.
We were at a dance to benefit something in Uganda – I’m not sure what it was, whether a women’s capacity building and empowerment program, an orphanage, a school, but it was a good cause. And, with a lot of partying Africans comes a great dance party. Only problem was, the light was too bright. We were in the basement cafeteria / large room with lots of fluorescent flood lights. Not conducive to dancing. But nobody seemed to be in charge of the lights; nobody took action.
So I went out in search of the light switch. I found a large panel, near one of the doors to the hall. I fussed and found a good combination – hall lights bright, dim lights in the room. More people started dancing.
That is when Michael called me out for being an American. Apparently only an American would have the ‘chutzpah’ to turn the lights off, without authorization. Everyone else was disappointed with the ambiance, but didn’t think it was up to them to do something about it.
Michael and I were friends; he worked for a Jewish human rights NGO (nongovernmental organization, sometimes also referred to as civil society organization, or CSO, although this is a more recent label) and I worked for the World Health Organization, or WHO. As in double u; H; Oh. Not “who”. Very gauche to call it “who” in global health circles.
We were at a dance to benefit something in Uganda – I’m not sure what it was, whether a women’s capacity building and empowerment program, an orphanage, a school, but it was a good cause. And, with a lot of partying Africans comes a great dance party. Only problem was, the light was too bright. We were in the basement cafeteria / large room with lots of fluorescent flood lights. Not conducive to dancing. But nobody seemed to be in charge of the lights; nobody took action.
So I went out in search of the light switch. I found a large panel, near one of the doors to the hall. I fussed and found a good combination – hall lights bright, dim lights in the room. More people started dancing.
That is when Michael called me out for being an American. Apparently only an American would have the ‘chutzpah’ to turn the lights off, without authorization. Everyone else was disappointed with the ambiance, but didn’t think it was up to them to do something about it.
Poison - Jackie Davis-Martin
Poison. How can a veteran English teacher, such as I am, not think of Hamlet when she thinks of poison? Hamlet: The Poisoned Kingdom was the title of one of the reels I borrowed from the Country Library that lent out such things—a wonder, I thought in that day (although “wonder” associates itself with The Tempest)—for teachers to show their classes. That was in the 70’s, even before, in New Jersey, and, as I see it from my old perspective here, aloft in my third-story San Francisco flat, it was a time of Technicolor simplicity.
I realize the time wasn’t simple: life was fraught with tensions, mostly about money, many about sex. Then there was the raising of the children, which I saw as somewhat incidental to my job as a teacher. The classroom always came first; if the kids had school off, they came to my high school classrooms with me. They tagged along behind me to the rehearsals in the auditorium. As toddlers they sat huddled in the back seat as I dropped off the debate team members at their homes.
“You’re always reading Hamlet,” my young son said. “What’s it about?”
So, I told him the story of Hamlet, while he cuddled against me, sucking his thumb. He was probably eight. He sucked his thumb late. And he followed Hamlet.
The king has poisoned Hamlet’s father the ghost tells him. Hamlet must revenge. He doesn’t want to, though, not really. So he delays while the king gets the upper hand. In a moment of frenzy he kills the wrong person, Polonius, by stabbing blindly through a curtain.
(My son removed his thumb, holding it wetly for a moment in front of him. “Polonius. He’s the old guy, right?”)
Yes. The father of Hamlet’s girlfriend, who drowns herself in despair. The Poison? Enter the girlfriend’s brother, seeking his revenge. He’ll use a poisoned foil to duel Hamlet. The king will prepare a poisoned chalice (“That’s a big metal goblet for wine”) to give to Hamlet, just in case. But it doesn’t work out: the two duelists wound each other in an exchange, the queen drinks the poisoned chalice, and Hamlet, realizing, shoves the rest of the wine down the king’s throat and then stabs him with the poisoned sword for good measure.
Hamlet thought too much. Hamlet cared too much. Hamlet suffered too much. Or, the part I liked best: Hamlet loved his mother too much. (As a mother, I didn’t see the harm in that.) But he didn’t stand a chance in that place so contaminated with greed and selfishness, so corrupt with decay, like Yorick’s skull, which he handles thoughtfully.
Poison is Hamlet.
I know, I know. It’s also Snow White, or the Sleeping Beauty. It’s in lots of things: Browning’s poetry, Madame Bovary, Arsenic and Old Lace, Hitchcock mysteries.
Taking poison must be harder than stories make it seem.
But people use it metaphorically, as did Shakespeare. “He was poison.” “What a toxic thing to say!”
But let’s end this: my kids grew up, I moved away and began again, one of the steadying influences in my life the fact that Hamlet stayed. He settled into new classrooms. We all grew old, one of us died. There was no poison in my life: none. I mean, real poison.
I realize the time wasn’t simple: life was fraught with tensions, mostly about money, many about sex. Then there was the raising of the children, which I saw as somewhat incidental to my job as a teacher. The classroom always came first; if the kids had school off, they came to my high school classrooms with me. They tagged along behind me to the rehearsals in the auditorium. As toddlers they sat huddled in the back seat as I dropped off the debate team members at their homes.
“You’re always reading Hamlet,” my young son said. “What’s it about?”
So, I told him the story of Hamlet, while he cuddled against me, sucking his thumb. He was probably eight. He sucked his thumb late. And he followed Hamlet.
The king has poisoned Hamlet’s father the ghost tells him. Hamlet must revenge. He doesn’t want to, though, not really. So he delays while the king gets the upper hand. In a moment of frenzy he kills the wrong person, Polonius, by stabbing blindly through a curtain.
(My son removed his thumb, holding it wetly for a moment in front of him. “Polonius. He’s the old guy, right?”)
Yes. The father of Hamlet’s girlfriend, who drowns herself in despair. The Poison? Enter the girlfriend’s brother, seeking his revenge. He’ll use a poisoned foil to duel Hamlet. The king will prepare a poisoned chalice (“That’s a big metal goblet for wine”) to give to Hamlet, just in case. But it doesn’t work out: the two duelists wound each other in an exchange, the queen drinks the poisoned chalice, and Hamlet, realizing, shoves the rest of the wine down the king’s throat and then stabs him with the poisoned sword for good measure.
Hamlet thought too much. Hamlet cared too much. Hamlet suffered too much. Or, the part I liked best: Hamlet loved his mother too much. (As a mother, I didn’t see the harm in that.) But he didn’t stand a chance in that place so contaminated with greed and selfishness, so corrupt with decay, like Yorick’s skull, which he handles thoughtfully.
Poison is Hamlet.
I know, I know. It’s also Snow White, or the Sleeping Beauty. It’s in lots of things: Browning’s poetry, Madame Bovary, Arsenic and Old Lace, Hitchcock mysteries.
Taking poison must be harder than stories make it seem.
But people use it metaphorically, as did Shakespeare. “He was poison.” “What a toxic thing to say!”
But let’s end this: my kids grew up, I moved away and began again, one of the steadying influences in my life the fact that Hamlet stayed. He settled into new classrooms. We all grew old, one of us died. There was no poison in my life: none. I mean, real poison.
Poison - Kate Bueler
Poison. It was hard to know what was the man's poison as he entered the cafe door first opening the hard wooden framed glass and then the thin screen to step into the room. It was hard to know what the man's poison had been or would be. There he stood as my eyes shoot him a look up and down the look of junior high in adulthood moves across my face. I am judging him. I am laughing at him. In my head. There stands a man in a full black trench coat that reaches to the end of his calfs and sunglasses that never moved from the position on his face on his nose resting there. In one hand he has an oversized blue bucket and in the other a pint glass. What was this man's poison? What had willed him to dress in all black and bring in his accessories of a bucket and a pint glass? Was he coming in from a long night gone terribly wrong or right? Was he mourning the loss of something? Was he there to fix something? Was he on his way to fight crime welding a bucket and a pint glass?
This man is why I love this city. You never know what you will see. Weird here is just plan normal and weird anywhere else would never turn a head here. I stare at this man and watch him interact with the barista as if he is wearing the uniform of his sunday best or workout clothes. He acts normal. For this is normal for him.
I can't help but wonder about him so much that when he leaves my inquisitive mind that can't be held still goes to the barista, a man with an unkept beginning of a beard, a v neck shirt with a small hole on the top, and a longish torso and wide shoulders of masculinity. Whats with the dude and the bucket and the pint glass? He smiles and his eyes lighten as he throat reverberates in laughter. Oh he comes in that outfit everyday- and he always has that pint glass. That pint glass he stole from us. I try to get it back every time. But even when I take it away from him. He leaves with it. Not sure how. When I'm not looking. It is weird I don't take a plate from a restaurant and bring it back when I return. And the bucket- I offer. He extends- he is always working on something and sometimes its a bucket or something else. He comes in everyday. Everyday in that trench coat and glasses caressing the pint glass.
And that is where asking makes sense. I have no idea what this guy is made of- I have no idea his poison. But what I do know is he brought me and barista and others the free entertainment of uniqueness. And that I like to drink. Daily. With or without a pint glass in hand.
This man is why I love this city. You never know what you will see. Weird here is just plan normal and weird anywhere else would never turn a head here. I stare at this man and watch him interact with the barista as if he is wearing the uniform of his sunday best or workout clothes. He acts normal. For this is normal for him.
I can't help but wonder about him so much that when he leaves my inquisitive mind that can't be held still goes to the barista, a man with an unkept beginning of a beard, a v neck shirt with a small hole on the top, and a longish torso and wide shoulders of masculinity. Whats with the dude and the bucket and the pint glass? He smiles and his eyes lighten as he throat reverberates in laughter. Oh he comes in that outfit everyday- and he always has that pint glass. That pint glass he stole from us. I try to get it back every time. But even when I take it away from him. He leaves with it. Not sure how. When I'm not looking. It is weird I don't take a plate from a restaurant and bring it back when I return. And the bucket- I offer. He extends- he is always working on something and sometimes its a bucket or something else. He comes in everyday. Everyday in that trench coat and glasses caressing the pint glass.
And that is where asking makes sense. I have no idea what this guy is made of- I have no idea his poison. But what I do know is he brought me and barista and others the free entertainment of uniqueness. And that I like to drink. Daily. With or without a pint glass in hand.
Poison - Maria Robinson
Instead of getting really really old, how about poison?
I'll dress up to the nines in a black cocktail dress, high heels and pearls and make my way to the swishy bar at the W Hotel. There, I'll camp out with tequila shots and flirt with all comers.
And when I reach the end of the night, I plop those strichnine capsules down into my last drink. The white billowy curtains in the front of the doors will flutter one last time as the revolving doors turn and then I'll be gone.
Saturday the Chron headline will tell it all.
I'll dress up to the nines in a black cocktail dress, high heels and pearls and make my way to the swishy bar at the W Hotel. There, I'll camp out with tequila shots and flirt with all comers.
And when I reach the end of the night, I plop those strichnine capsules down into my last drink. The white billowy curtains in the front of the doors will flutter one last time as the revolving doors turn and then I'll be gone.
Saturday the Chron headline will tell it all.
What Happened Next - Bonnie Smetts
Marjorie couldn’t help what happened next. Shivers ran down her back and propelled her away from the snake and out into the crowd. She couldn’t control her revulsion to the reptile or the terror at what might happen next. She pushed out of the knot of people and walked.
She didn’t know she had been walking until a rush of saris startled her. She stopped and let people stream around her. One direction all she could see was colors and people and more people. In the other direction the same. The group that hid the snake charmer had disappeared. She did not recognize the curled top of one pandal from the one further away. How long had she been wandering. Where was Renee.
She took two steps in one direction. She stopped. The sounds overcame her and the people passing on the street began to stare. Or were they simply staring at her staring desperately at them. She turned as if on a pedestal. Not one thing looked familiar. She stepped again, praying she’d see something ordinary and familiar. Renee or Ash or a miracle.
Panic, deep and hot rose from her feet. Not panic at seeing a snake, not at kind that could come and go in an instant, but searing and infinite. She was lost.
“Marjorie, Marjorie.” Renee’s cry broke through her fear. “Marjorie.” She moved toward the sound of her name. She pushed into a group of women who were laughing and carrying one. Right through the middle of them. “Marjorie.” Her name drew her along. “Marjorie.” But her name began drawing away, gaining an unbearable distance. “Marjorie.” She pushed her way through the crowd following the diminuendo of her name. She screamed. “Reneeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.” She stopped where she was and screamed. Everyone around her backed away; they stopped and looked with embarrassment at the white woman screaming in their midst, in the midst of their celebration, in the midst of a happy time when people did not scream in fear.
She didn’t know she had been walking until a rush of saris startled her. She stopped and let people stream around her. One direction all she could see was colors and people and more people. In the other direction the same. The group that hid the snake charmer had disappeared. She did not recognize the curled top of one pandal from the one further away. How long had she been wandering. Where was Renee.
She took two steps in one direction. She stopped. The sounds overcame her and the people passing on the street began to stare. Or were they simply staring at her staring desperately at them. She turned as if on a pedestal. Not one thing looked familiar. She stepped again, praying she’d see something ordinary and familiar. Renee or Ash or a miracle.
Panic, deep and hot rose from her feet. Not panic at seeing a snake, not at kind that could come and go in an instant, but searing and infinite. She was lost.
“Marjorie, Marjorie.” Renee’s cry broke through her fear. “Marjorie.” She moved toward the sound of her name. She pushed into a group of women who were laughing and carrying one. Right through the middle of them. “Marjorie.” Her name drew her along. “Marjorie.” But her name began drawing away, gaining an unbearable distance. “Marjorie.” She pushed her way through the crowd following the diminuendo of her name. She screamed. “Reneeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.” She stopped where she was and screamed. Everyone around her backed away; they stopped and looked with embarrassment at the white woman screaming in their midst, in the midst of their celebration, in the midst of a happy time when people did not scream in fear.
What Happened Next - Vanessa Hsu
What happened next took a few weeks of rehashing and piecing together by the five of us to finally nail down, a causal sequence of events and a somewhat orderly timeline of the events that happened. It was surprising to me how difficult it was. If I had to describe it in three sentences, like I did to the police, I would just say: “They came in and robbed our house in the middle of our BBQ. I guess we had left our door halfway shut to not bother going back downstairs.” There, I did it in two. If I had to add a third, I would say, “this kind of thing shouldn’t happen here, should it?”
In reality though, between my sister and her husband, myself and two of the earliest arriving friends, Mona and Jack, it took us several to remember all the details and resolve the conflicting ones of what happened after the four men, spastic, seemingly as or more nervous than we were, came in with guns pointed and ski masks on. We had the usual minutes, perhaps a few quarter hours, after the fact where everyone looks around, eyes shooting in a few different directions and the creeping sensation in our skin slowly subsided (at least that’s the way it was for me and how I thought everyone else felt). Then there was the obvious, “let’s call the police” and before we even did that, we looked at each other and had to slowly pull the information out of each other, were they three guys? Four? Did we think they had accents? What build were they? Guys, guys, really do we have to start racially profiling? No, that’s not what we’re doing, we’re being factual. Bickering – the leftover stress spilling over to our scared psyches into silly arguing. Then we had to try to remember what was taken, what was taken? Laptops, jewelry in a few boxes, stuff in wallets. That was difficult too, how is it so easy to become so hazy?
Then the cops came, and feeling like we were doing something about it felt better, and not having had our locks broken in helped the feeling of security sink back in a lot faster, and having others around, sirens, note-scribbling, people measuring distances on the floor and reciting our inventory back to them – it felt better because we had to pretend we weren’t shaken and shake off the confusion and fear.
And then followed a week of silence, everyone staying back in their own routines, getting back to them and not speaking much about it, until we had dinner again at a restaurant this time (public place, just in case it was our party of five which brought bad luck, I thought and then mocked my superstition). But we had to fill out a detailed police report, so what happened in the few minutes after the four (really, four? Not three?) walked in? We sat down at dinner and tried mapping it out. It was both amusing how hard it was to remember, and it was also strange how foreign and distant the events felt.
It started like this, they said, “everyone, freeze!” and came in pointing in different directions, standing in a semicircle with their backs protecting each other. I’m sure they saw that in a movie somewhere just like we had. And then, what happened?
In reality though, between my sister and her husband, myself and two of the earliest arriving friends, Mona and Jack, it took us several to remember all the details and resolve the conflicting ones of what happened after the four men, spastic, seemingly as or more nervous than we were, came in with guns pointed and ski masks on. We had the usual minutes, perhaps a few quarter hours, after the fact where everyone looks around, eyes shooting in a few different directions and the creeping sensation in our skin slowly subsided (at least that’s the way it was for me and how I thought everyone else felt). Then there was the obvious, “let’s call the police” and before we even did that, we looked at each other and had to slowly pull the information out of each other, were they three guys? Four? Did we think they had accents? What build were they? Guys, guys, really do we have to start racially profiling? No, that’s not what we’re doing, we’re being factual. Bickering – the leftover stress spilling over to our scared psyches into silly arguing. Then we had to try to remember what was taken, what was taken? Laptops, jewelry in a few boxes, stuff in wallets. That was difficult too, how is it so easy to become so hazy?
Then the cops came, and feeling like we were doing something about it felt better, and not having had our locks broken in helped the feeling of security sink back in a lot faster, and having others around, sirens, note-scribbling, people measuring distances on the floor and reciting our inventory back to them – it felt better because we had to pretend we weren’t shaken and shake off the confusion and fear.
And then followed a week of silence, everyone staying back in their own routines, getting back to them and not speaking much about it, until we had dinner again at a restaurant this time (public place, just in case it was our party of five which brought bad luck, I thought and then mocked my superstition). But we had to fill out a detailed police report, so what happened in the few minutes after the four (really, four? Not three?) walked in? We sat down at dinner and tried mapping it out. It was both amusing how hard it was to remember, and it was also strange how foreign and distant the events felt.
It started like this, they said, “everyone, freeze!” and came in pointing in different directions, standing in a semicircle with their backs protecting each other. I’m sure they saw that in a movie somewhere just like we had. And then, what happened?
What Was Behind the Door - Judy Albietz
Since time had no meaning in the darkness, Josh couldn’t tell how much time had passed since the lights went out. He wasn’t even sure if he’d been conscious the whole time. He wasn’t receiving any of the normal signals from his body. No thirst or hunger pangs. He felt numb. Even though his brain rumbled with anxiety, he couldn’t feel his heart pounding with fear. All he sensed was that he was there—suspended in space, watching the nothingness around him. Over and over again, he reviewed the thought that he might be dead. Then he worried that he might still be alive. He dreaded whatever was going to happen next. He hoped something—anything—would happen to break the monotony.
He heard a snapping sound to his right and the outline of a closed door appeared. It was as if someone had drawn the door on a blackboard with white chalk. He would have gasped if he had a voice. He didn’t think it was possible to be even more possessed by fear. He didn’t want the door to open. At the same time, he was panicked it would remain closed, keeping him in the dark.
It was now or never. He had to make a decision. He had to somehow will that door to open. It was the only way he would ever hear her voice again—see her face again.
Even before he finished this thought process, Josh found himself on the other side of the door. At first the sunlight was blinding. After a few seconds he was able to look out on the scene around him. This was the world he had earlier seen on the panel. He sensed movement in his body. He was able to bend his head down. The nausea returned as he looked at his hands. legs and feet. They were not his.
He heard a snapping sound to his right and the outline of a closed door appeared. It was as if someone had drawn the door on a blackboard with white chalk. He would have gasped if he had a voice. He didn’t think it was possible to be even more possessed by fear. He didn’t want the door to open. At the same time, he was panicked it would remain closed, keeping him in the dark.
It was now or never. He had to make a decision. He had to somehow will that door to open. It was the only way he would ever hear her voice again—see her face again.
Even before he finished this thought process, Josh found himself on the other side of the door. At first the sunlight was blinding. After a few seconds he was able to look out on the scene around him. This was the world he had earlier seen on the panel. He sensed movement in his body. He was able to bend his head down. The nausea returned as he looked at his hands. legs and feet. They were not his.
What Was Behind the Door - Elizabeth Weld Nolan
Each door keeps secrets.
I hold my breath the moment
before I reach, touch,
Turn the knob, push an inch,
Then wide open. I know,
For instance, the back hall
Will be dim, innocently furnished
With brooms, dust pan, wine rack,
The door to the little elevator
That comes from the garage.
But. There could be a body
Slumped against the wall,
An intruder waiting
To spring, enter and steal,
A flood leaping or fire raging.
Instead, so far, I find
Silence edged by the even hum
Of the refrigerator
On the other side of the wall,
Comforting tools of keeping house.
Until I come, next time.
I hold my breath the moment
before I reach, touch,
Turn the knob, push an inch,
Then wide open. I know,
For instance, the back hall
Will be dim, innocently furnished
With brooms, dust pan, wine rack,
The door to the little elevator
That comes from the garage.
But. There could be a body
Slumped against the wall,
An intruder waiting
To spring, enter and steal,
A flood leaping or fire raging.
Instead, so far, I find
Silence edged by the even hum
Of the refrigerator
On the other side of the wall,
Comforting tools of keeping house.
Until I come, next time.
What Was Behind the Door - Melody Cryns
Everyone always knew me as the fun, happy-go-lucky kid without a care in the world, careening down the street on a skateboard and swerving away from anything or anyone that got in my way – Opening the door into my consciousness is another story altogether because it’s not easy.
What is my story? I mean, really? Just the other night, I sat at an Irish Pub in Belmont with Belo, my fellow student at NDNU – we had shared our stories and words in graduate creative writing classes – his story the most amazing of all – Belo was assaulted in San Francisco while working at a bar in the Castro in San Francisco and, as a result, he is now completely blind. His memoir and stories revolve around his journey and begins two weeks after he realizes he is now completely blind and his life has changed drastically.
Belo’s stories were always among my personal favorite – he’d have me or someone in the class read, and at the student readings when we all got to read for 20 minutes, his reader was right before me. I hadn’t actually seen Belo since we graduated last May – so reconnecting with him and my professors finally was truly inspiring.
So there we sat in the Irish pub, me, Belo and Kerry, one of our professors who really wants me to pursue my children’s fiction story, “The Fate of Stubs” about the young girl in San Francisco who can’t have a three-legged guinea pig. The story takes place in the 1960’s in San Francisco, of course. But in the end, I went for the creative nonfiction about the struggling single mom with four kids – there are so many stories and people say that sometimes reality is stranger than fiction.
Among my stories in my massive collection, 250 pages of which formed into my creative thesis for my master’s program, reside so many struggles, fun, music, love and adventure – and the door creeks open in certain areas, letting my consciousness in, allowing a bit of light and insight – yet the door hasn’t burst wide open yet. I’m opening it rather slowly – my mother always said I was stubborn and that I always did everything in my own time.
Well, c’mon. I’m going to be a Grandma and still I haven’t done anything with all the material I have. It’s time. I used to promise my kids when we struggled and sometimes barely had enough money for groceries or rent, “Some day, I’ll publish a book and we won’t struggle anymore, and we’ll be able to go on real vacations and have a lot more fun!”
My kids were so trusting, they believed me. They believed in my dream…but really it was a way to keep the hopes alive that we wouldn’t lose our place to live, and the dream always burned in my heart…yet I wasn’t able to quite get my hundreds of words out there, get them over the edge.
Last year when I read from my work, I looked out on to the people at the beautiful Ralston Hall Mansion at NDNU in Belmont – and I saw, mixed in with students, my son Jeremy and my daughter Megan, my friends, Phoenix and Debby – and my long-time friend of 30 years, Heidi, who had flown down from Washington to be there for my reading. “Do you want me there for the reading or the graduation?” Heidi had asked. Of course the readings…that’s what’s really important.
Two of my kids couldn’t make it – so when I read the first piece about leaving Germany with the kids to start a new life as a single mom when the kids were young, who did I look straight at? Jeremy. Then I read a piece about trying to get out of the house with three kids in grammar school and a full-time job ending with the “Bong Incident,” a very funny piece about finding a bong in my kids’ bedroom and throwing it out a second story window.
The stories are there, and the door has opened – but what is it about, really and truly?
Melody grew up in San Francisco in the 1960’s right near the Haight Ashbury – she and her friends and siblings played among the hippies and the sounds of conga drums beating and constant music playing, along with smells of patchouli and pot blended with the eucalyptus trees in Golden Gate Park. Melody always pictured herself being independent and living the Bohemian life – she told her mother she admired the people standing on street corners playing guitars because they were doing exactly what they wanted to be doing. Of course, Melody’s Mom, although she was cool and loved the Beatles and the Grateful Dead, freaked out.
But life didn’t work out the way she expected it to, as often is the case. Melody married a guy in the military she met on a BART train going from San Francisco to Hayward – and ended up living in Germany for several years.
Then a few years later, she left Germany with three kids, $200 and seven suitcases and ended up being a struggling single mom. Yet memories of her childhood never left her – both the good and the bad, nor did the music or her love for the Beatles…as she and her kids struggled to survive in a harsh world that wasn’t always kind to single moms, there was always music, fun and adventure. She has a fourth kid along the way and her mother passes away suddenly – and they make a big move from Oregon to California, close to San Francisco where Melody grew up.
What is my story? I mean, really? Just the other night, I sat at an Irish Pub in Belmont with Belo, my fellow student at NDNU – we had shared our stories and words in graduate creative writing classes – his story the most amazing of all – Belo was assaulted in San Francisco while working at a bar in the Castro in San Francisco and, as a result, he is now completely blind. His memoir and stories revolve around his journey and begins two weeks after he realizes he is now completely blind and his life has changed drastically.
Belo’s stories were always among my personal favorite – he’d have me or someone in the class read, and at the student readings when we all got to read for 20 minutes, his reader was right before me. I hadn’t actually seen Belo since we graduated last May – so reconnecting with him and my professors finally was truly inspiring.
So there we sat in the Irish pub, me, Belo and Kerry, one of our professors who really wants me to pursue my children’s fiction story, “The Fate of Stubs” about the young girl in San Francisco who can’t have a three-legged guinea pig. The story takes place in the 1960’s in San Francisco, of course. But in the end, I went for the creative nonfiction about the struggling single mom with four kids – there are so many stories and people say that sometimes reality is stranger than fiction.
Among my stories in my massive collection, 250 pages of which formed into my creative thesis for my master’s program, reside so many struggles, fun, music, love and adventure – and the door creeks open in certain areas, letting my consciousness in, allowing a bit of light and insight – yet the door hasn’t burst wide open yet. I’m opening it rather slowly – my mother always said I was stubborn and that I always did everything in my own time.
Well, c’mon. I’m going to be a Grandma and still I haven’t done anything with all the material I have. It’s time. I used to promise my kids when we struggled and sometimes barely had enough money for groceries or rent, “Some day, I’ll publish a book and we won’t struggle anymore, and we’ll be able to go on real vacations and have a lot more fun!”
My kids were so trusting, they believed me. They believed in my dream…but really it was a way to keep the hopes alive that we wouldn’t lose our place to live, and the dream always burned in my heart…yet I wasn’t able to quite get my hundreds of words out there, get them over the edge.
Last year when I read from my work, I looked out on to the people at the beautiful Ralston Hall Mansion at NDNU in Belmont – and I saw, mixed in with students, my son Jeremy and my daughter Megan, my friends, Phoenix and Debby – and my long-time friend of 30 years, Heidi, who had flown down from Washington to be there for my reading. “Do you want me there for the reading or the graduation?” Heidi had asked. Of course the readings…that’s what’s really important.
Two of my kids couldn’t make it – so when I read the first piece about leaving Germany with the kids to start a new life as a single mom when the kids were young, who did I look straight at? Jeremy. Then I read a piece about trying to get out of the house with three kids in grammar school and a full-time job ending with the “Bong Incident,” a very funny piece about finding a bong in my kids’ bedroom and throwing it out a second story window.
The stories are there, and the door has opened – but what is it about, really and truly?
Melody grew up in San Francisco in the 1960’s right near the Haight Ashbury – she and her friends and siblings played among the hippies and the sounds of conga drums beating and constant music playing, along with smells of patchouli and pot blended with the eucalyptus trees in Golden Gate Park. Melody always pictured herself being independent and living the Bohemian life – she told her mother she admired the people standing on street corners playing guitars because they were doing exactly what they wanted to be doing. Of course, Melody’s Mom, although she was cool and loved the Beatles and the Grateful Dead, freaked out.
But life didn’t work out the way she expected it to, as often is the case. Melody married a guy in the military she met on a BART train going from San Francisco to Hayward – and ended up living in Germany for several years.
Then a few years later, she left Germany with three kids, $200 and seven suitcases and ended up being a struggling single mom. Yet memories of her childhood never left her – both the good and the bad, nor did the music or her love for the Beatles…as she and her kids struggled to survive in a harsh world that wasn’t always kind to single moms, there was always music, fun and adventure. She has a fourth kid along the way and her mother passes away suddenly – and they make a big move from Oregon to California, close to San Francisco where Melody grew up.
Sunday, April 10, 2011
The Memory I Wouldn't Let Go Of - Vanessa Hsu
There was a particular taste to mangoes that summer. They would spew juice, the stringy fibers in the fruit barely holding up as soon as our teeth sank in, and our hands would end up enveloped in orange pulp without even pressing that hard. Sometimes they'd be much sweeter than others, bordering on overripe -- there were so many mangoes that we would pick them up from underneath the tree shades instead of beating them all down with a stick while still hanging.
There was a particular smell to the air before the rain too (but it was always right before raining) -- thick and muggy, stuck to our nostrils. We'd try to cut through the heat with ice cream overdose, but even the ice cream would have trouble dripping down the few feet to the ground. The melted layer around the still-iced ice cream, thick like the air around us, would sluggishly slide down its own surface, eventually release and suspend itself midair for a few seconds, and then finally, forming a multicolor drip painting on the concrete below our feet. It seemed that everyone was eating and painting and raining ice cream.
The taste of the rain was also different. It was tropical rain -- a mesh of humidity surrounded us at all times and when it decided to fall, it was a delirious release, curtains of water, layers upon layers of delicious heavy drops so big our ice cream paintings would vanish in a second and the mangoes still on the ground were beaten down to pulp, releasing their sweetness as the fragrance that would then envelop everything around us.
It was nature's assault to my senses that summer, and the smells and tastes are stuck on me.
There was a particular smell to the air before the rain too (but it was always right before raining) -- thick and muggy, stuck to our nostrils. We'd try to cut through the heat with ice cream overdose, but even the ice cream would have trouble dripping down the few feet to the ground. The melted layer around the still-iced ice cream, thick like the air around us, would sluggishly slide down its own surface, eventually release and suspend itself midair for a few seconds, and then finally, forming a multicolor drip painting on the concrete below our feet. It seemed that everyone was eating and painting and raining ice cream.
The taste of the rain was also different. It was tropical rain -- a mesh of humidity surrounded us at all times and when it decided to fall, it was a delirious release, curtains of water, layers upon layers of delicious heavy drops so big our ice cream paintings would vanish in a second and the mangoes still on the ground were beaten down to pulp, releasing their sweetness as the fragrance that would then envelop everything around us.
It was nature's assault to my senses that summer, and the smells and tastes are stuck on me.
The Memory I Wouldn't Let Go Of - Lisa Jacobs
The first memory I have of my overwhelming insecurity was when I was 5 years old. 5 years old! Are children that young supposed to feel so insecure? My friend Sophia, who had to be my friend because we were born 8 days apart and our moms met at the playground and our older siblings were friends, was inviting me to her new friend Liane’s house. Sophia went to a different elementary school from me because we lived in different school districts, although only two blocks apart. And Liane apparently had a phenomenal collection of Barbie’s. I really wanted Liane to like me because I wanted to play with her Barbie’s. I only had one, and I didn’t have any cute outfits or dreamhouses or cars – my mom sewed the few outfits I could dress her in. So as I walked to Liane’s house, I looked down and saw the freckle I hated on my right wrist. I covered it, and decided I would keep it covered when I met Liane. It was ugly and I didn’t want her to decide she didn’t like me because of my ugly freckle. The freckle is barely noticeable now, surrounded as it is with all of the other freckles that have popped up over the years.
It wasn’t until I was 13 that all my fears about being a loser were confirmed. Really and truly confirmed. I was a freshman in high school (one year younger than my peers because I had skipped a grade in elementary school) and I had to ride a long bus ride from the Marina district to Lowell High in the Sunset. My sister was a senior that year, but we never sat together on the bus. We would always sit in the single seats, on the right side of the bus. My friend Sarah, who lived in the Richmond, would sometimes catch our bus, and sometimes not, later in its route. Sarah had gone to a different middle school than I had; we met in a summer program and I was excited to be her high school friend. She had a whole group of cool friends – some of the girls even had boyfriends. Sarah didn’t. She was a big girl, like me, but she was a jock, and I wasn’t.
So on this fateful day Sarah’s group got on at their stop and I left my single seat to hang out with them for the rest of the ride in the back of the bus. That night, my sister told me that as she was sitting at an open window, she overheard Sarah say, “Oh no, there’s Lisa” when Sarah spotted me on the bus. My sister thought I should know this important piece of information. I didn’t blame her; it was useful to know that I was not liked. I never hung out with Sarah and her friends again.
It wasn’t until I was 13 that all my fears about being a loser were confirmed. Really and truly confirmed. I was a freshman in high school (one year younger than my peers because I had skipped a grade in elementary school) and I had to ride a long bus ride from the Marina district to Lowell High in the Sunset. My sister was a senior that year, but we never sat together on the bus. We would always sit in the single seats, on the right side of the bus. My friend Sarah, who lived in the Richmond, would sometimes catch our bus, and sometimes not, later in its route. Sarah had gone to a different middle school than I had; we met in a summer program and I was excited to be her high school friend. She had a whole group of cool friends – some of the girls even had boyfriends. Sarah didn’t. She was a big girl, like me, but she was a jock, and I wasn’t.
So on this fateful day Sarah’s group got on at their stop and I left my single seat to hang out with them for the rest of the ride in the back of the bus. That night, my sister told me that as she was sitting at an open window, she overheard Sarah say, “Oh no, there’s Lisa” when Sarah spotted me on the bus. My sister thought I should know this important piece of information. I didn’t blame her; it was useful to know that I was not liked. I never hung out with Sarah and her friends again.
The Memory She Wouldn't Let Go Of - Elizabeth Weld Nolan
The young woman stood on the flat deck of the catamaran in her bathing suit holding the boom as if it were a ballet barre. He held the tiller with a light hand and guided the little boat through the breezes of the Sound, watching her go through her routine.
Feet in first position, ankle to ankle, toes apart making a V. Slide out into a point, back, out. Demi plie at the end. His fond gaze warmed her. He had said he always wanted a dancer. She was an amateur, but their shared enthusiasm for her ambition bonded them, kept her going to classes and looking for a group to perform with.
They formed a complete two, complete in the summer air on the sparkle of waves, under afternoon clouds that swelled in the blue sky and climbed as the wind strengthened and the boat picked up speed. He moved the tiller deftly, at ease with the speed of the wind and capturing its energy with the sail. He sailed intuitively, his muscles moving easily under his skin, as if he never had to be taught. His brown skin gleamed in the sunlight and his thick brown hair fell over his eye.
Her movements and the sweat that trickled down between her breasts encased in the red bikini top promised them both the intimacy to come later in the day, another thread in the new secret bond that grows between newlyweds. She felt him watching her brown legs stretch and lift, her knees thrusting forward over her bent legs like his warm hands stroking her, his gaze, her receiving it, the promise of lovemaking to come.
He turned the boat to a deserted shore. No buildings in view, no people. She jumped onto the sand and hauled on the crosspiece of the bow. He joined it and they hauled together until it slid high up away from the little waves lapping on the sand. The tide was going out.
They worked together without speaking. He hauled the sail down and they rolled and tied them. She coiled lines and stowed them under the seat. She took the canvas bag with the food, sleeping bags, blankets and clothes to the beach. She spread it under a tree near a bush, arranged the goods and food around the edge of the blanket, a little home, a girl playing at keeping house.
He sat cross-legged on the blanket, watching her set out the food, watching her in her new role as caregiver, wife, no longer taking care of herself only. She knelt to her task feeling her role as pleasant, arousing, happy, never wondering why she relinquished her independence so easily, or when she would feel it again. For now, these bonds felt delicious, as did his hand stroking her spine and pulling her towards him. They embraced, tasting each others’ brown salty skin, and fell to the blanket, kissing. For now, this was enough.
Feet in first position, ankle to ankle, toes apart making a V. Slide out into a point, back, out. Demi plie at the end. His fond gaze warmed her. He had said he always wanted a dancer. She was an amateur, but their shared enthusiasm for her ambition bonded them, kept her going to classes and looking for a group to perform with.
They formed a complete two, complete in the summer air on the sparkle of waves, under afternoon clouds that swelled in the blue sky and climbed as the wind strengthened and the boat picked up speed. He moved the tiller deftly, at ease with the speed of the wind and capturing its energy with the sail. He sailed intuitively, his muscles moving easily under his skin, as if he never had to be taught. His brown skin gleamed in the sunlight and his thick brown hair fell over his eye.
Her movements and the sweat that trickled down between her breasts encased in the red bikini top promised them both the intimacy to come later in the day, another thread in the new secret bond that grows between newlyweds. She felt him watching her brown legs stretch and lift, her knees thrusting forward over her bent legs like his warm hands stroking her, his gaze, her receiving it, the promise of lovemaking to come.
He turned the boat to a deserted shore. No buildings in view, no people. She jumped onto the sand and hauled on the crosspiece of the bow. He joined it and they hauled together until it slid high up away from the little waves lapping on the sand. The tide was going out.
They worked together without speaking. He hauled the sail down and they rolled and tied them. She coiled lines and stowed them under the seat. She took the canvas bag with the food, sleeping bags, blankets and clothes to the beach. She spread it under a tree near a bush, arranged the goods and food around the edge of the blanket, a little home, a girl playing at keeping house.
He sat cross-legged on the blanket, watching her set out the food, watching her in her new role as caregiver, wife, no longer taking care of herself only. She knelt to her task feeling her role as pleasant, arousing, happy, never wondering why she relinquished her independence so easily, or when she would feel it again. For now, these bonds felt delicious, as did his hand stroking her spine and pulling her towards him. They embraced, tasting each others’ brown salty skin, and fell to the blanket, kissing. For now, this was enough.
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