The story goes like this…
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Cherry Ink: What I Haven’t Told You
when you need to say it to someone…or everyone…or no one
The story goes like this…
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Remember when we were 11 and I dared you to sneak into old witch Craghorn’s haunted garden and touch the forbidden pear tree? You just laughed at me and walked away. The night before, I’d carved our initials on that tree. I wanted you to see it. I wanted you to see that I was willing to risk it all for you. But you never did see, did you?
I hate my toes. Always have. I never show them, not even at the beach. Flip-flops? Strappy summer sandals? No way. For me, it’s strictly closed-toed shoes, or, if I really want to get comfy around the house, socks. I wonder what it feels like to have fresh air irrigating my feet, sand tickling my toes, or nail polish coloring my lower digits. But I don’t dare find out.
I am scared shitless to give birth to you, Little Watermelon. Everyone keeps telling me I’ll forget all about the pain the moment you’re set in my arms, but that doesn’t make me any feel better. I mean, think of it this way. If I told you someone was going to beat you within an inch of your life and then throw you in boiling oil and then peel off all your skin – but don’t worry, you won’t remember a thing when you come out of your coma, would that make you feel better?
I have an idea about inventing something. Maybe even getting a patent. So I can’t get into the details yet.
Someone put a note in my locker today: “You are hot.” What the hell am I supposed to do with an unsigned love note? Besides, with my luck, my mother probably put it there to make me feel better about myself. But just in case it’s from the guy I hope it’s from, I taped it to the outside of my locker and added, “You are right.”
Who Am I?
When I was in high school, second semester, senior year, I had just arrived home from a very exciting, unusual high school experience. I was bored with the drudgery of high school classes. And then I discovered Sociology, and an instructor who was very inspirational. One of the first things I learned in Sociology was a concept that helped me understand myself and others, known as “The Looking-Glass Self.” It is: “I am what I think you think I am.” Think about it. We are in very many ways defined by what we think other people think about us. Maybe that is good, and maybe it is bad. In my case, I think I need to live up to the high expectations people have always had about me. It is a high bar. The reality is, I always hit their high bar. I never hit my own.
My mind races with ideas, creativity, unusual thoughts, love, desire, and helping to be a part of all the happiness around me. So I write — I write what I know and about who I love. The ideas become stories, the creativity is addictive, the unusual thoughts become intriguing dissertations, the love is bound to me, the desire is heightened, and the happiness helps me — so I write.
My First Love, Asian-Style
I met her online. We messaged each other frequently and then exchanged our cell phone numbers. We called each other whenever we got the chance and talked for hours. But she was not from my city; she lived 10 hours away. We saw each other on webcam only.
Six months ago, on my 21st birthday, she called to wish me a happy b’day – and to say her parents had arranged a marriage for her. I was shocked. I told her how deeply I loved her. She answered, “Good-bye forever,” and cut the phone. She would not pick up, no matter how many times I called her back.
Ten days ago I got a call from a friend of hers. It was the wedding day. But she didn’t get married. She committed suicide instead.
She was my first love.
The Technology Dilemma
I often believe that technology is dehumanizing, making us distant, anonymous, et cetera.
But I have been reflecting on that after a reunion with high school friends, some of them who graduated in the ’40s, ’50s, ’60s and ’70s. Those of us in that time zone easily let 30 or more years slip through our fingers without talking to each other. Why? No technology! THEN, we needed permission for long-distance telephone calls or, HORROR, pen, paper and STAMPS!
Today’s kids have e-mail, texting and cell phones (perhaps the equivalent of long-distance calls). They have the freedom of easy communication. So there you have it.
Ode to the Turtle
I’ve always felt a great fondness for turtles, somewhat of an affinity. Exactly why, I can’t be sure; maybe because I was such a fan of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as a child, or maybe because they are nature’s perfectly protected animal. It’s home and its defense go with it everywhere, and at the drop of a hat the turtle can withdraw itself from the dangers of the external world and huddle inside itself. The price it pays for this ability is that the turtle carries the burden of its defense, and so moves slowly in a much faster world. But this never troubles the turtle, which moves forward resolutely and without distraction to compensate for its guarded pace.
I’m somewhat of a late bloomer myself, and have always resented the hares for their strutting and great shows of hurry when they have nowhere to go. Although I hesitate to call myself slow, and scoff at thinking of myself as steady, I do tend to identify more with the tortoise in hoping that I win the race.
Nail Clippings
As the blades snap together, your ears tune into a crack and two soft taps. It happens so fast, there’s no way you could’ve kept your eye on the tiny projectile.
Let’s see, the first tap, more than likely, was the product of it hitting the toilet; the second tap, it hitting the wall. Or the tub. Or the vanity.
You kneel down and smooth over the small green rug with your open hand. Your fingers swim through a sea of wet fiber. It’s not here. Putting your nose to the floor, you study grayish-green grout lines cutting apart smooth white tiles. Here and there, you stop to dissect small knots of hair and grit with your one finger. No luck.
This is like a fatal car wreck without a single witness. Under the light of the moon, with the blacktop reflecting the pink glow of road flares, an investigator will re-create the scene. Now, here, in the bathroom’s fluorescent glow, diffused by this cloud of steam choking the air, you must conduct your own investigation.
Your foot was here, like this. You held the clippers here, at this angle. So, the trajectory would then be;to the right. Toward the wall. It would have first hit the wall.
Then the toilet?
Wrong Choices
I was 17 when I started drinking. I’d just gotten my results in the newspapers saying I passed my exams and didn’t have to go back to school anymore, a place I hated. When I got my results I was in schoolboy heaven; the next day, however, I was in grown-up hell with my first hangover.
The following year I had to go to the army for my military training, which wasn’t voluntary. I started going to the pub on the base, where I picked fights because, you see, alcohol brings to the fore that which the mind suppresses, or at least that is what I would be told years later in rehab.
By the time I got out of the army and started my apprenticeship at a big steel company, alcohol and I were buddies, and fighting became second nature. I knew I had to stop but didn’t know how. So I did the next best thing: I substituted that addiction with another one. I’d heard you don’t fight when you’re on ecstasy, the “love drug,” and that was what I wanted, to stop fighting. What they didn’t tell me was that prolonged exposure to drugs makes you paranoid, so when that happened, I went right back to the alcohol. And then to drugs and alcohol at the same time.
I ended up killing a guy in a bar fight. He died on the way to hospital. I was charged with murder. The choice was mine to say no, but I made the wrong one.
If I Could Do It Over
It was just before nine o’clock on a warm June night in 1966. My grandfather was working the 3-11 shift at a paint plant in Newport when the ping of a hammer, a timid tap in a room stinking of kerosene, sparked a fire. Flash of flame, no time to escape: my grandfather and two other men were adjacent to the vat.
As the story goes, he stepped outside, lit a Pall Mall, and popped the huge blister on his stomach. “I think you better call an ambulance.”
With 80% of his body covered in third-degree burns, he spent nine months in the hospital and nine months at home with a full-time nurse. His hearing was ruined from massive doses of powerful antibiotics, and he ultimately lost his right foot.
When I knew him, he was demanding and unhappy, a man with a limp and two hearing aids. I learned to hate his call: “Jenny, got a minute?” I was definitely not a Jenny, and what if I didn’t have a minute? It was the typical stupidity of youth. I wish I could go back and treat him with kindness and empathy, to understand what was destroyed in the fire.
In my dreams he’s back in the old house, living off hot dogs and root beer, not yet clued in to his own death. He tries to call me, jamming his thick, arthritic fingers into the phone’s dial. No luck.
Once Around the Park
On most days I walk once around the park and write 30 words about it, like this –
Grove Avenue, anti-clockwise, 12 noon:
On a bench under bare trees and winter sun sits a couple all in black except for her scarlet lipstick and the crimson can of Coke from which he drinks.
Southerland Road, 11 am, clockwise:
A blackbird with a muddy beak flicks through leaves. He reminds me of a gentleman working down a shelf of secondhand books, taking one up, opening it, putting it back.
Claremont Road, anti-clockwise. 3 pm:
A boy not yet five wears a knight’s helmet and a cloak, carries a plastic sword and rides a hobby horse. His mother dutifully makes clip-clop sounds behind him.
Claremont Road, anti-clockwise. 5:30 pm:
The only warm colour in the park is the caramel brown cider bottles on the bench between two boys who probably shouldn’t have been drinking on a school night.
Sutherland Road, clockwise, 8.30 am:
The gales have put things out of step. A blast ruffles the feathers of a feeding crow, making him jump; and a commuter, mack belt flying, jogs for his train.
Belgrove, anti-clockwise, 10.30 am:
A greyish toy lamb enjoys the sun on the warm tarmac while a little girl swings. Her mother on the next swing waits for her family to grow up.
The last time I was unhappy, I went to a coffee shop and had for lunch hot chocolate with whipped cream and marshmallows and a slice of chocolate cake.
It felt like a comfort and a punishment at the same time.
Dialogue From My Call-For-Fire Military Class
Instructor: To identify! (shows a picture of some old-ass soviet piece of junk not unlike ours)
Class: TO IDENTIFY!
Instructor: Lieutenant Yates, your mission.
Me (almost immediately): Golf 13, this is Hotel 24, fire for effect, shift known point 8, over.
Class: (mumurs)
Instructor: Lieutanant Yates, you sure you want to do that?
Me: Did I stutter? Over.
Instructor: Whatever.
Me: Direction 3400, left 140, drop 200, over.
(rounds impact dead-on the target)
Me: Oh, yeah.
Snow Day
Remember back in elementary school when it would snow, and they’d close it all down for a day or so? Remember that anticipation you felt when listening to the radio or watching for it on TV? Remember that feeling of absolute joy you felt when your county’s name flashed across the screen, or was read by the announcer? That sort of absolute joy only felt by a kid with no cares in the world?
That’s how I feel right now. Only I made my own snow day. It’s midnight, and I’m not going to class tomorrow. I feel like that more and more this semester, whenever I decide to be a lazy person and not get up to go to class.
The Prop Blast
I have a brigade level prop blast on Friday.
The “Prop Blast” is the name given to a giant hazing ceremony that my unit here in the 82nd Airborne has in order to “initiate” its new officers. Basically when you jump out of an airplane, the first thing you feel is the engine’s exhaust throwing you sideways; it’s not a very pleasant feeling. Hence, the name of the ceremony. It’s kinda like one giant frat pledge. Here are a few highlights:
- It starts with a physical training (PT) test at 0500
- Moves on to a written test
- Then an obstacle course (I heard something about having to bring goggles because of paintball guns)
- We each have to bring a raw egg … what for, I don’t know
- We have to memorize every single brigade’s history in the division (a 15,000 soldier-size unit … not gonna happen)
- And massive amounts of alcohol, I presume.
The Popsicle
Late one afternoon, I had to take a couple of extra buses to do some light shopping. Feeling more tired than usual after my radiation treatment, I was anxious to finish up quickly and get home to an early bed. As I was rushing across the street to go to the bank, I noticed a young woman with her four- or five-year-old daughter talking with a homeless woman who was sitting on a black plastic trash bag surrounded by her few belongings. The homeless woman was holding half of a red popsicle in her right hand and a dollar bill in her left, her face bathed in joy.
Something made me stop a moment while still within hearing distance. The mother must have asked this woman a question. The answer was, “I believe in happy moments…like this popsicle and the little girl who just gave it to me.”
I could only imagine that when the little girl saw her mother give the lady a dollar, she wanted to share something too. And all she had was her popsicle.
The Crystal Bowl
While riding the subway one afternoon, I became engaged in conversation with two sisters who were reminiscing about a recent holiday spent at their mother’s house. Their mother owned a beautiful, expensive crystal fruit bowl, an heirloom that had been passed down from generation to generation. It was centered in a place of honor on each recipient’s dining room table only on special occasions and holidays. When these two sisters were very little, they’d sometimes reach out with sticky fingers and touch the bowl where the light made rainbows dance. Their mother would smack a hand and say, “Don’t touch that bowl, it is special. It belonged to your nona’s nona.”
During this recent holiday, the toddler of one of the sisters reached across the dinner table to touch a point on the crystal bowl. The mother of the little girl slapped the child’s hand and repeated the words of her own mother: “Don’t touch that bowl, it is special.” The little girl began to cry, more in surprise than hurt.
Suddenly, the child’s grandmother got up from the table, pushed her chair back, sighed, and stared thoughtfully at the crying child for a moment. Then she opened one of the dining room windows, pushed out the screen, and tossed the bowl out the window, fruit and all.
She turned back to her stunned family with tears in her eyes, walked over and placed her hands on the weeping child’s shoulders, and announced in Italian, “Mia piu, mia piu” (never again, never again). I never want to see another child cry over an old piece of glass. I am sorry that I did this to you and I’m sorry that my mother did it to me. It will continue no more.”
As the train thundered to a stop at Sullivan Station, the sisters got off, and I never heard how the rest of the family reacted to this startling event.
Swim Test
I passed the combat water survival test this morning. Basically you just pick up a rifle and put on the load-bearing equipment and jump into the water, one way or another. There are four events. Not too hard, except for the fact that you try to cram 30 swimmers into one section of the pool. In other words, if I smacked you on the stomach, kicked you in the head, or spit in your face during the swim, I apologize. It was crowded.
And now I’m hungry. Which is kinda weird because I just know I swallowed about half the pool during the swim.
Dream Leak
Every dream finds expression. Sometimes they leak from our eyes.
Fear
When I was eight years old, on an early June afternoon, another eight year old girl who lived a few miles from me was abducted on her way home from school. She was found murdered in a culvert just blocks from her house.
I remember my Mom watching me walk to school the next morning, which she had never done before. I could sense her fear. It was the first time I can recall really being scared.
Shortly after this incident, I had a nightmare that the girl’s killer was in my room. I dreamed that he was hiding behind my bedroom door and I was facing certain death. The murder was never solved, so I have no idea what the killer looked like. But in that nightmare, my eight year old mind had a detailed image. The murderer was…Mr. Clean.
In my dream, I slowly pulled the door back to reveal him standing there with a broom. Mr. Clean was sweeping my floor!. It took many years before I could buy any of his products.
I know I’m not alone. There must be at least one person out there who is scared of Aunt Jemima…
Scaring My Priest
I’m friends with the clergy at my church, and one is to me as a father, but I go a few towns over for confession. I started this practice when I was in high school after telling Father Pat this story in confession, only to watch his eyes widen then narrow:
I was a senior, walking down that high school hallway as I’d done so many times before. It was late, after practice, and I had my dirty tee shirt, socks and jockstrap rolled up in a white towel under my arm. Though I showered, I was still sweating a bit as I rounded the corner to the stairs that lead to the exit. As I ducked under the banner that spanned the hallway and announced the homecoming dance, I was greeted by what, to my 17-year-old brain, was a very amusing site. Here were two sophomores – theater kids – one with long black, the other with long blond hair. The blond kid had this green blindfold on and was walking while the other kid commanded, “Left…a little more left…right…”
“Whatcha doing?” I asked.
The blond kid stopped, pushed up his blindfold and looking at me with one eye, grinning. “It’s a trust walk. We’re learning about trusting people.”
“Interesting concept. Can I give it a try?” I asked.
“Sure!”
So I started Blondie, re-blindfolded, down the hall. ” Right, left, a little left, hard right.” Bam! Blondie walked smack square into the lockers on the right side of the hall.
“What the f–k, , man?” Blondie said.
“What’s the matter with you?” his friend said.
“What did you say you were learning?” I asked.
The blond kid says in a low voice, “About trusting people.”
“So,” I hissed with derision, “what didja just learn?”
In my convoluted teenage logic, I was teaching them an easy lesson that I learned a very hard way, about the value of trust earned, and the penalties if given casually, but I doubt they saw it that way at the time. My priest certainly didn’t see it that way (25 Hail Mary’s, and an act of contrition).
Revoke My Girl Card
I’m a bad girl. Not a “bad girl” in a sexy way; rather, I do a bad job of being “girly.”
I am subjected to conversing with members of my sex all the time, but the thing is, I don’t get what the heck most of my peeps are talking about. I spend most of the time smiling, nodding, and getting in one or two smart-ass comments so it looks like I’ve been there the whole time. I’m starting to feel guilty that I could care less about “what guys are thinking” and “how many calories are in pudding pops.”
Seriously, these are conversations I’ve witnessed or have been forced to be a part of because I physically can’t pick up my desk, bar stool, or my seat on the subway and move it somewhere else. I’ve decided I can no longer live a lie and I need to confess a few things.
1) I have never dieted for bikini season/ wedding season/ hunting season by “starving” myself. When I don’t eat I get a headache and my hands start to shake. How can that be attractive?
2) Pastels hurt my eyes.
3) There is no secret product that gives me thick hair or skinny legs. It’s called genetics. I swear I’m not withholding information as a way to one-up you with my beauty regime.
4) I hate shopping. The thought makes my stomach churn. In fact, I just learned that Pucci is not a typo for Gucci.
5) Most of the time, when someone tells me they are about to PMS, I take this as a lame advance apology, warning me for the bitchy behavior that they will soon be displaying.
6) I didn’t know what granny panties were until someone asked me why I wear them.
7) I have never craved chocolate or ice cream.
9) If you have to constantly tell people how amazing your boyfriend /husband/partner/fuckbuddy is, it eventually starts to sound like the only person you are trying to convince is yourself.
10) Babies are loud. I don’t look at one and think, “Oh how cute.” I think, “How heavy is it?” I don’t want to hurt my back if I’m expected to pick it up and coo and cuddle with it. I can barely feed myself; how am I supposed to feed a baby?
11) Apparently, as I was typing this someone was talking to me. I didn’t hear anything until they yelled, “You don’t listen. You’re like a MAN.” So add that to the list then. But chances are, they were talking about some girly crap I could care less about.
The Season For Love
I love the fall. There’s something so cozy about the whole thing. Fall makes me want to be in a couple.
So, I’ve got a date tonight. Not excited. At all. I want to be looking forward to this date, trust me. But I have never met the guy (blind date) and he wants to pick me up from work in his car and get something to eat. Nice idea in theory, but also the MO of a murderer. What if he’s s a crazy person? Who in the city drives a car anyway?
I told him to pick a restaurant, and we can meet there. He got all bent out of shape because I wanted to meet him somewhere, “like I didn’t trust him.” (Yes Alex, I’ll take Obvious Assumptions for 500 dollars!) Well, I don’t know him. What does he expect? I was taught “stranger danger” as kid. No matter what, I was told never to get in a car with a stranger…even if they did promise candy- even if they had “Alexander the Grape’s” or “Fun Dip.” As a child of a dentist, either one of those candies were liquid crack to me.
So maybe tonight won’t be awful, but odds aren’t great that this is going to be awe-inspiring. Oh, who knows what will happen, but if you get invited to the wedding, don’t mention this post. There really is something about the fall that is romantic – and by romantic, I mean “I need a damn boyfriend.” And by, “I need a damn boyfriend,” I don’t mean dealing with a moody guy that I’ve never met. God, I love the fall…
A Bad Sign
I hate that I yawned during my morning gear-check this Saturday. It’s a sure sign that I brought my burdens to bed last night again and didn’t get a full night of rest. I should know by now that burdens hog the covers. Now my yawn is yet more baggage for a run preferably traveled light. How dare the stress of my job invade my run, the one escape in my life that seems untouchable?
The Class Assignment
1,001 1,002 1,003 1,004 1,005 1,006 1,007 …
My son’s teacher is requiring the class to write down every number from 1 to 1,000.
… 1,008 1,009 1,010 1,011 1,012 1,013 …
Instead, my son has to write down 1,001 to 2,000.
… 1,014 1,015 1,016 1,017 1,018 1,019 …
Apparently he’s in the advanced group?
… 1,020 1,021 1,022 1,023 1,024 1,025 …
On the first day he got up to 1,120.
… 1,026 1,027 1,028 1,029 1,030 1,031 …
At that pace he’ll be doing this for nearly two weeks in class.
… 1,032 1,033 1,034 1,035 1,036 1,037 …
It’s not a punishment. It’s a class activity.
… 1,038 1,039 1,040 1,041 1,042 1,043 …
He loves it. I can’t stand it.
… 1,044 1,045 1,046 1,047 1,048 1,049 …
War of the Toilet Seat
I have been told the exact same reason from every girl who has screamed at me for it, and it has got to be one of the stupidest admissions that I have ever heard in my entire life: “We don’t always look before we sit down, and sometimes at night we don’t even turn on the light.”
For Baby…Or For Underslept Parents?
I walked to the CVS Pharmacy and noticed some product placement in with the baby supplies. At the end of the aisle, after you pass diapers, wipes, ointments, bottles, teethers and pacifiers, is a six-foot-tall rack of Red Bull energy drink. I don’t think this is a coincidence. I’m amused at the thought of the marketers sitting around saying, “We’ve done Formula One and Nascar, and we’ve got the whole extreme sport thing covered. Who else will buy this?”
The Wedding Card
It was during one of my clown classes that I figured out what I wanted to write inside the card I made for a friend’s wedding.
In the class, we did an exercise called “Experience,” where you imagine that someone from your life is going to be leaving on a boat the next day, never to return. You do a guided meditation about spending the night talking with them, driving them to the boatyard in the morning…and then at the last moment, you go with impulse and run up to the end of the dock to shout one last thing.
And this is what came to me:
Take care of her!
No-Frills Bra Shopping
I went to a “corsitorium” today for bras to hoist the hooters. Back in New York, they used to have proper corsitoriums for dames with generous racks. Older dames who chose your bras for you. This non-diva was a riot. She was in her 80s, a handsome woman, reminiscent of the days in New York when pickles were purchased in barrels, a very Lower East Side kinda dame.
After throwing me in a room, she told me to take my top off so she could stare at the twins. Five minutes later, in a thick Russian accent, she said, “I be back. You wait.” Upon her return with three highly unattractive brazatskies (bras), she placed the bra over each arm, pushed me over, hoisted my girls into the bra, locked that bitch up, and straightened me up.
Four bras later, I said, “Okay, I think I have what I need. I’ll take these.”
“No more bras for you?” she asked curiously, almost as if I’d betrayed her.
“No, I think I’m good,” I said. It was hysterical.
Halifax in March
Dear Winter,
Drop Dead.
Love,
Ben
Grocery Shopping Blues
I spent twenty minutes at the grocery store today, looking for one thing: dried breadcrumbs. First instinct: baking needs. Duh. You don’t SERVE dried breadcrumbs, you use them to make other things crunchy.
So there I am…pacing back and forth trying to balance my increasingly heavy basket, my sugar-free non-fat caramel awake tea misto, and my rage while Suzy homemakers bumped into me repeatedly with their carts because I was blocking the ever-important flour.
I would have given up, but it was the only thing left that I had to pick up for tonight. Long story short, you’ll find dried breadcrumbs next to the instant rice and Sidekick pastas. Right – because dried breadcrumbs are basically instant meals. Duh.
Winter Haikus
the crystalline trees
sway back and forth in the wind
their branches break off
glittering snowflakes
trapped in the glowing streetlight
suspended in air
Ode to a Hostess Fruit Pie
O sweet Hostess Fruit Pie,
how I doth covet thee
your flaky, sugary crust encircles me
and
your unnaturally purple blueberry filling beguiles me
but why, o why, sweet pie, if you please…
why must you contain
480 calories…?
(coming soon, Ode to Frozen Combination Pizza from the Vending Machine)
Why English Is Hard to Learn
“Ough” in English language can be pronounced eight different ways. The following sentence contains them all: “A rough-coated, dough-faced ploughman strode through the streets of Scarborough, coughing and hiccoughing thoughtfully.”
My Favorite Metabolic Pathway: Oxidative Phosphorylation
Do you see the athletes run? | Do you see the children crawl? | Every soul beneath the sun — | Ox phos fuels them one and all. | You can’t see inside their cells; | If you could, here’s what you’d see: | Small cigar-shaped organelles | Synthesizing ATP. | Matrix protons get pumped out | To the intermembrane space. | Then they take an inward route | Through the ATP synthase.
Overheard
I was in the emergency room with a family member today. We were ushered into an area with gurneys separated by blue curtains. On the other side of our curtain, I overheard a nurse, an older woman, and a man whose voice was cracked with age and frequent, raspy coughs:
Nurse: Okay folks, let’s see what we can do here. You know the drill…
Man: I sure do, honey. I’m your best customer!
Nurse: (laughs) You sure are and we love you.
Man: Watch out, my wife’s right here…
Woman: Come on now, stop joking, honey. Rest your lungs.
Nurse: All right, let’s start the questions. Have you fallen recently?
Man: Yes. In love.
Woman: Oh yeah? With who?
Man: Next week is our 61st anniversary.
Nurse: Wow! That’s something to celebrate.
Man: We’re going to have burgers from “In and Out.” I took her to a burger joint for our first date. She stole my heart over a cheeseburger. She’s my queen of hearts.
His voice cracks, but it’s not from coughing.
Unexpected Ride
I was assaulted on the train on Monday evening. I had the temerity to try and sit down on a seat onto which a chappy was spilling over. After generally mouthing off at me when I just plonked my bottom on the chair and suggested he move up, he swung around and punched me full in the face. Police reports, a trip to Accident & Emergency, and a second hospital visit later, I have a fractured orbital bone (the bottom-of-the-eye-socket one), a lovely ripe bruise and a couple of days off work to recover.
It’s not the first time my fair features have been tested. I was mugged at knifepoint a few years ago in Reading. Thankfully, that just resulted in the loss of birthday presents in my wallet and a huge welt on my chin, though I found it difficult to go out alone at night for a surprisingly long period after it happened. I hope I can face the trains over the next few months since they’re rather central to me reaching work!
The best bit was that after the thug left the train, everyone was lovely. My friends from work helped me off the train, gave me tissues to stop the bleeding, and called the police. I went back to my friend Helen’s house, and she looked after me, went with me to A&E, sat there the whole time rabitting away to keep me company, and then gave up her bed so I could get some sleep. The hospital staff were also really friendly.
Designing Life
An ergonomic coffee cup, a waterproof restaurant menu, a bullock cart… amazing designs. But can anyone churn out a design for life, please?
I’m slowly discovering that my life design is my own responsibility, but creation and implementation are team activities. My co-creators include close friends and complete strangers. My teachers include sages like Mother Nature, and professors like emerging technology.
So while I try to design my life consciously, I also try to be open to life’s designs for me…
Things I’m Giving Up for Lent:
Cookies that have lost their fortunes,
fortunes that have lost their joy,
tears with salt that stings,
stings that don’t come from bees,
words with edges that wound,
wounds without kisses,
afternoons without naps,
naps without dogs,
a heart beating in anger,
anger laying blame on others.
An Egg of Despair
It started in the classroom. The students were baby birds sitting in desks, mouths open for the inchworms of knowledge I dropped into their gaping beaks. In the beginning, their wet feathers revealed tender skeletons. As their downy plumage sprouted, they screeched for more: cockroaches of compassion, beetles of love, caterpillars of entertainment, and centipedes of speedy, spoon-fed answers. How can a teacher keep pace with growing grackles?
The First Time I Met My Shadow Self
You made yourself visible to me at a later stage of life. Out of a scribble of words about old age , you popped from my brain, touching me under the sternum, your fingers – cattails in the breeze – fetching me your secrets, tigers in the dark. My censor’s buzz-kill was no match for the joyride of your feline prowess. Downhill we ran toward our dream’s high tide. I rode your waves until morning’s harpoon hooked me back to reality’s high noon.
A Vocabularly Preference Lesson
J’Adore:
crimson
slice
smear
pepper
unduly
J’Abhor:
narwhal
puss
jiggle
fecund
Preakness
Heart-Plus
There’s a little symbol I draw in my margins, in my notes, on my planner, and incorporate into pretty much any piece of art I create. It’s a little heart with a plus-sign just to the right of it.
This teensy hieroglyph has the uncanny ability to make me feel good. When I’m in pitch meetings, I draw it all over my notes – pitch meetings can be stressful and the heart-plus reminds me that contributing more love (to myself and others) works 100% of the time. That’s what the little plus-sign next to the heart means to me. In a very down-to-earth, non-lame way, it says, “Let’s go with more love.”
I didn’t invent the symbol myself. I saw it on the highway a long time ago, and I still see it when I take I-80 home to Iowa. Spray-painted on a concrete overpass somewhere in the western part of the state is the heart-plus symbol. I saw it years ago, sprayed in white paint, clearly visible in a driving rainstorm. I thought that it was a lovely thing to spray on an overpass.
I figured it was a love letter to someone, maybe even a marriage proposal. Or perhaps it was a memorial for someone who died on the highway. Whatever the case, a few years later there was another one right next to it. Two heart-plus symbols watching over I-80.
Saggy Bum Syndrome
I’m worried that my bum is sagging slightly. I’m not sure if it actually is or if it’s all in my head. I’m hoping that it’s all in my head. It’s just I’ve turned a year older and I’m obviously a little freaked. Or at least I’m a little freaked about the prospect of a saggy bum.
I exercise and take care of myself – therefore this should not be happening to me.
Plus my bum is my crowning glory. Some mornings it is definitely more impressive than my face.
Maybe it’s my eyesight that’s the problem or my mirror? Whatever it is I have to get to the bottom of it. No pun intended.
If I Could…
…go away and know that my parents wouldn’t worry, I would. I would sell everything I own and move to a faraway place and just start over. Be a new person. New name and everything.
Having Dreams Realized
So apart from massive culture shock – in a very good way – I managed to realize one of my life-long dreams in my first hour of being in Morocco. I have always dreamt of riding on the baggage carousel. Like the one that, back home, has all those stickers telling you that under no circumstances are you allowed on.
I don’t think I’m alone. I’m sure most of you have wanted to ride on the great luggage round-about. It’s okay to admit; it doesn’t make you any less hardcore or grown-up. Anyway, I digress.
Somehow my luggage got stranded on the middle island, and I had to ride the carousel to collect it. In Morocco it’s okay. No one jumped out to arrest me. No one screamed at me. No one really cared.
Don’t Ask Me Why
for some reason i thought of him today.
for some reason i went to his myspace.
for some reason i decided i miss him kinda.
for some reason i sent him a msg.
for some reason i know he won’t respond.
for some reason i already feel bad about that.
for some reason i do stupid things that make me feel bad.
for some reason i can’t help myself.
for some reason the misery it brings feels like comfort.
As I sit here next to my parents, who have been married 50 years, I realize I wouldn’t mind being in love. Someday. Even if just for that one day.
The Bouncer Chronicles
I get a lot of fake i.d.’s. Some of them are really good quality, some of them aren’t. But no matter what, they’re always missing something. Whether it’s UV ink, a hologram or a signature, they’re missing something.
For instance, I’ve received a lot of fakes from Kentucky lately. They’re missing the UV ink and they’re usually pressed paper. Pressed paper is just that; it’s two pieces of heavier stock paper pressed together to make it feel like a real i.d. It can be pulled apart after a little wear and tear. It’s a dead giveaway.
A lot of these kids put their real name and information on these fakes. I’ve even taken away i.d.’s from kids who put their real address on them. It’s a no-brainer when you look at a Kentucky i.d. and they have a Michigan address. People are that stupid.
I’ve even taken an i.d. away from a girl who walked up with a doorman from another bar. He said she was good, but I carded her because I didn’t know her. Turns out she had a fake and was in his bar all night. The picture looked like her, the age was right, but there was no UV ink on the license. I asked for a second proof and, even though she had plenty of cards in her wallet, she didn’t have anything with her name on it. So I kept it. The doorman from the other bar apologized and said they don’t use UV lights on i.d.’s, so he didn’t know. Understandable.
I take the job more seriouslt than others. If you don’t want me to, then pay me even more money. I can forget a lot of things when the moneys right. Things can be cleared up that way too. But until the day comes when I’m paid to let in the “right” people I’m still the same old me. The asshole.
An Open Letter to the Wife
Dear Wife,
Please don’t buy me a Barbeque for Father’s Day.
Yes, I know. How? Because I saw the tabbed page of barbeque recommendations in one of your women’s “contemporary lifestyle” magazines. You know, the ones that gives makeup advice and then informs you to start your own off-shore bank account if we happen to argue over who’s doing the dishes.
Don’t ask me why I was looking through it. Okay, there was an interesting article about low-cost organizing ideas (ice cube trays as a change holder? Genius!).
And instead of those “fun activities” they suggest to do on Father’s Day like “dad and child wash the car together,” “dad and child clean out the garage together,” “dad and child build an indoor spa with inside locking door for mom project,” etc., let me offer my own creative and unique ideas for Father’s Day:
* Family picnic at the park and then permitted to sleep the remainder of the day. And for dinner you serve me popcorn chicken dressed like slave-girl Princess Leia.
* A visit to Medieval Times so I can practice on my Sean Connery accent. You know, the one that closely resembles my Colonel Sanders accent. Family “Knight Rider” marathon. And we can all ask KITT for more snacks by talking into our imaginary watches.
* Get Rock Band for Wii so the 3 of us can play. But only if they have Def Leppard, if not then forget about it.
* Anything that involves at least two of the following together: circus, rodeo, monkeys, fried chicken, fully potty-trained 2-year old, one million dollars (after-tax.)
Your loving husband,
Tony
Who I Am
Everyone at school thinks I’m Mr. Cool, but I’m not, not really. If people knew what I’m really like, they’d be surprised. And disappointed. I have to go to parties and drink beer and play on the lacrosse team just to keep my image up. I’d rather spend my free time just hanging out with you. But if I didn’t do all that other stuff, you probably wouldn’t give me the time of day. So, if it lets me spend Saturday nights with you, I’ll keep pretending.
Bedtime Pastorale
they call it a knowing smile
and I am a victim of it,
a poor slow beast, drawn,
predicted, already read by a
far quicker and more responsive
flicker forward into her reward,
led once more down a garden path
into a verdant dream of thighs and sighs
then released into vacant sleep
as she reaches for her reading glasses.
I Am From
I am from Australia. I am from blue ocean, yellow sand and hot sun. I am from “G-day mate, how yer goin’?” I am from animals that jump and fishes that kill. I am from clean air and big yards with rusted swings. I am from heat so fierce it can fry an egg on a paint tin left in the sun. I am from waves that pick you up and throw you around and around until your lungs burst and your head is ground into the sand. I am from deserts and rainforests and ranges and gorges. I am from red earth that flies up and settles on your skin like a tattoo. I am from ancient times. I am from fire and corroboree. I am from the rivers and the dried up riverbeds that cry out for salvation.
I am from my father’s house. I am from white rendering and Italian tile. I am from the smell of spaghetti that makes your mouth weep to be fed. I am from my grandmother’s rosary beads. I am from Ave Maria and French horns. I am from rose gardens and the smell of frangipani. I am from the sound of crickets in the night.
I am from a sister who held my hand. I am from a mother who weeps for the sorrow of the world. I am from a father who paints with his camera. I am from strong women. I am from a quince tree in the backyard. I am from bike rides and gumboots in the creek.
I am from nightmares of tidal waves. I am from a prisoner of war grandfather. I am from pig farmers and professors and musicians and carers. I am from the stage. I am from the pen. I am from my high-heeled red wedding shoes. I am from my aunt’s violin. I am from love.
An Open Letter to the Guy On the Crowded N Train Who Wouldn’t Take Off His Backpack-
Dude,
I know that it’s a sweet backpack; there’s no denying that. It clearly holds a lot of stuff and it’s really, really orange which probably means that people can see you when you’re lost in the forest. Never mind the fact that, at least when I saw you wearing it, you were in Brooklyn, which isn’t really a place known for its dense stands of trees and thick foliage.
Also, you are doughy, pale and had the look of a mid-level office manager about you, which leads me to believe that the last time you were “in nature” was that time you caught the Sting concert in Central Park. Look, the point is, I doubt that you’re a park ranger or a forestry expert or anything that would actually require you to wear a backpack such as that (though it is totally sweet, of course).
But it’s not my place to tell people what to wear or what makes them look like a sad little man who misguidedly funneled his midlife crisis into some unfortunate luggage, as opposed to a new car or a pretty 20-year-old.
I do, however, think that I can comment freely on the fact that you refused to take off your backpack during the morning rush-hour commute, despite the fact that it was the size of an old-model VW Beatle and was knocking down whole swaths of passengers every time you shifted your body weight.
Dude… not cool. Everyone on the train was staring at you with murder on their minds. That kind of collected, focused hate is going to give you cancer, and it will be all your fault for wearing a large backpack in a crowd. Do you want that? No, no you don’t.
So… yeah. Glad we had this talk. Oh, before I sign off, one more thing…If I see you with that backpack on the train again, I will set it on fire. The backpack, I mean. Sweet though it is.
A Brief Word on a Hot Day…
We are currently living inside a bottle of Tabasco sauce on fire in Satan’s efficiency apartment located in beautiful, downtown Death Valley during the part of the Apocalypse where the Sun explodes all over everyone like a can of soup that’s been boiled unopened on a dorm room hot plate during Summer classes.
An Awkward Miracle
I parked my car at her house, turned it off, and turned to look at her.
She was gorgeous.
In this brief moment at the end of the evening, no one wanted to move. I couldn’t not touch her, so I reached out my hand and ran it through her hair. It was darker and longer than I’d ever seen it before, reaching all the way down to her shoulders before it bent slightly in directions, just barely hiding the curve of her neck. My hand ended on her cheek, and, looking at her eyes, I did what I usually do in this situation.
I froze.
Seriously, a car? I’ve never had a first kiss in a car, and I don’t intend to start now, I thought. But then again, this is the most perfect situation ever. There’s electricity, chemistry, sparks, magnetism, and, hell, Van Der Waals’ forces in her eyes. She’s practically made of charm quarks.
No, something doesn’t feel right. It’s the car. Maybe when I kiss a girl she needs an airbag for her heart, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to have a first kiss with someone while she’s wearing a seat belt.
With that awful joke, the moment ended. I put my hand back by my side, she shifted in her seat, and it was over. And if I’ve learned about first kisses, it is this: when the first-kiss moment is over, you can’t force it back. It’s done. You just have to wait until it comes again, if it ever does, and that time, you can’t hesitate.
Damn it.
—
She had been so excited for me to visit her when she was home in Cleveland from grad school in California. She came up with a whole list of things to do. And then, something occurred to me.
“Are you asking me on a date?” I asked. It’s worth checking, once in a while, just to see.
“Yes. Actually, I think I am.”
I didn’t even blink.
“Well, lets make it a third date, then. First dates are awkward and uncomfortable, and all the fun happens on the third date.”
“Okay! Third date it is!”
Well, now. So much for me being awkward and uncomfortable. Every once in a while I pull off this kind of smooth, unruffled, totally confident flirting-type shit, and it’s like Luke Skywalker getting a glimpse of the force. Watch out, Darth Awkward. I will vanquish you yet.
—
We’d been friends for years, and I’d had a crush on her for a little while, but there were always timing issues, as though Cupid couldn’t quite get the hang of Microsoft Outlook.
When we met in college, I paid her no attention because she was my friend’s girlfriend, and that’s definitely not how I roll. Even when they broke up after he left for grad school, and he convinced us to hang out, it was strictly platonic. We spent time together, we’d knit together and watch movies, but our hearts were each set on someone else.
Even so, there was a moment near the end of that year when, despite myself, I started to feel for her. Aside from writing about it briefly at the time, I ignored it. She didn’t want a relationship, and, like I said, most of my romantic daydreams were directed elsewhere.
After college we went separate ways to separate coasts. We dated other people. But recently, as the frequency and duration of our phone conversations increased, I started to realize one thing:
She’s exactly the type of girl I need in my life.
—
“Oh my goodness, she’s exactly the type of girl I need in my life.”
That’s what I was thinking to myself on that day in Cleveland, as we breezed through our “third date.” There was lunch, some shops, a scenic cemetery, more shops, dinner, and a sports bar for football and beer. And, slowly, piece by piece, she was melting my heart away with sweet romantic nothings. Like for example:
“I’ve been reading this book about physicists lately, and it’s terribly interesting.”
This one was followed, several hours later, by this gem:
“Oh sure, I like football. I used to watch it all day on Sunday. Can you explain to me what linebackers do?”
And, last but not least:
“Let me buy you a Dortmunder Gold.”
Now look. Like I’ve said before, there are no hard and fast rules to making me have a crush on you. Nobody’s perfect, and I don’t expect you to be. But if I already know that a girl is spectacularly fun to spend time with, and she’s definitely the cutest girl ever, plus she’s mind bogglingly smart, the battle is half won.
But then when you start being interested in physics, football, and quality beer, I’m lost. It’s over, there’s nothing more I can do to keep myself from being utterly twitterpated. And it wasn’t long before what I was thinking to myself had changed a bit:
“Oh my goodness, she’s exactly the girl I need in my life.”
—
While I walked her to the house, I was thinking about how much I wished I had just kissed her. When she opened the door and we tumbled inside, I was just thinking about how much I wished she was my girl.
And when she turned and looked up at me, dark eyes sparkling the same way Pop Rocks feel in your mouth when you put in, like, way too many, I didn’t think about anything.
I just kissed her.
Jane Goes on a Date
So this lovely young gentleman took me for drinks the other day. On top of being nice and interested in me – something that can be difficult at the best of times – he has a lucrative career and dimples you could park a Cadillac in. Naturally, I was immediately smitten. He also seemed incredibly intelligent – until we had this conversation:
Dimples: My family is pretty great, but my parents seem to favour me over my sister. It’s hard because Jane and I are just so different.
Me: Oh, your sister’s name is Jane, too?
Dimples: Yeah. Why, is your sister named Jane?
Damn. I guess you can’t win ‘em all.
Sonoma Night
Looking up one perfect night on a hill in Sonoma, I remember seeing all the stars squirming around in the sky like countless spermatozoa, each trying to be the one to fertilize the moon.
Memories of a Drug Habit
I remember taking every bit of it in, pushing the whole world out, and forgetting, just forgetting. I remember feeling the claws of death slowly rake down my heart while its tongue toyed with my ego. I remember looking for an answer to my aching feelings, yet finding only my misery smiling back at me.
I remember watching countless misunderstandings, lies, and regrets pile up on one another like a great heap of gaunt corpses. I remember all the times I stared at the blank ceiling wondering when it would end and why it had to end.
I remember being so baffled as to why everyone wasn’t doing it like me. I remember taking it in like pure oxygen, drinking it down like water from a spring, sniffing it as deeply as a flower, touching it as carefully as a lover’s skin, loving it like a child, and dreaming of it when it was all gone.
I remember being high enough to look down with pity upon all the stars in the cloudless night sky. I remember feeling like a god. I remember a voice that said stop or die. I stopped, but don’t ask me why.
Real Fear
One day when I was a child, the headline of our local paper read, “THE KILLER BEES ARE COMING!” This frightened me to tears, for I believed these bees were going to come and kill my family and me. My mother’s labored attempts to explain to the contrary made little difference.
Around this same time I also had difficulty falling asleep at night because of my fear of a full-scale nuclear war happening. It just didn’t make sense to me that there was absolutely nothing you could do about stopping one, and nowhere you could run to escape from it. One night during the height of this obsessive fear, I actually witnessed a missile rise up from the ground and arch through the atmosphere. My heart dropped out of my chest like a brick and tumbled end over end into the abyss that opened up beneath me, ready to swallow me whole. I thought the end was surely near.
Later that night, we learned that the launch was only the unannounced test-firing of an unarmed missile. Still, I will never forget that night, the bright light flickering in the distance, the cracking rumble from that massive engine’s thrust, the white, voluminous, billowing exhaust trailing its trajectory through the heavens, and the sense of terror for a young boy who could not find any safety in a world gone totally mad.
Finding My Religion
When I first discovered Wicca, I was looking for a religion close to the one that my grandmother would have been into. She was 100% Native American but was denied her tribal card when she married outside her tribe. I researched Native American religions but found very little information, and the closest thing I found was Wicca.
I studied, read, and talked to people about that religion. Then, when I turned 19, I cast a spell with my boyfriend-at-the-time so that we would conceive. We had been trying for two years, and I hadn’t gotten pregnant yet. The night we cast the spell, I got pregnant with my daughter.
I will admit that I didn’t know much about casting spells, as this was my first one. I didn’t realize that the spell continues on until it is canceled; thus, I got pregnant 18 months later with my son!
In September 1966 – the start of my 7th-grade year- I participated in a desegregation experiment in my hometown of Hattiesburg, Mississippi. I spent the next few years at a mostly white school, where I was spat on, routinely threatened, called “nigger”, laughed at, insulted, ignored and shunned by my classmates. But far more frustrating for me was dealing with insensitive and mean-spirited teachers. Here’s just one instance:
I sat in my history class one morning trying to maintain some interest in what the teacher was trying to teach. Actually he was not teaching at all. He was reading word-for-word from the textbook, as he always did, while leaning back in his seat with his legs resting on top of his desk, dressed in his purple and gold coach’s wind suit.
This particular morning, he was reading a passage about the harshness and cruelty of slavery. Suddenly and uncharacteristically, he stopped reading in mid-sentence and slammed the book face down on the desk. His face turned as red as a beet. He told us that slavery was not a hardship on slaves, and besides, the slaves did not have the intellectual skills to do anything else but to work on the plantation. He insisted that the plantation owner needed to make money and that slaves needed a decent place to live, so as far as he was concerned, it was a perfect arrangement.
I could not believe what I was hearing. I began to feel something inside of me that went beyond anger. It went to that place in all of us where we just want to explode and totally go off on someone. What I was feeling was rage, quickly approaching the point of explosion. Accompanying the rage was an equal amount of anxiety, as I could feel the butterflies starting to fly uncontrollably all around my insides. I wasn’t going to let him get away with such stupidity, so I just blurted out, “You are wrong and slavery was wrong!”
Just before the bell rang, he told me that I did not know what I was talking about and that I had better not ever contradict him again.
Total Escape
One of the all-time bests moments is that instant where the boarding door closes, and you have to shut your laptop and power down your cellphone, and you’re irrevocably cut off from the world. For a day, a week, a month, your outgoing voicemail message says, “I’m sorry, but I’m in Timbuktu and won’t be able to get back to you in a timely fashion. Please harass my assistant/business partner/underpaid intern instead.” You are, in other words, off the hook.
Sign of the Times
Tonight while walking the dog and listening to nothing but the music in my head, I got tired of the song stuck in there and reached into my pocket to advance to the next track.
Changes
I had discovered what being transsexual meant when I was doing a biology research project as a sophomore in high school, and instantly realized that I had found the words to describe the turmoil I had been struggling with since puberty – I felt that I was female, yet I had been born in a male body. Although I discussed the issue with my parents, we came to an impasse – they could not understand how I felt, and did not want to allow me to change. I came out to my high school almost exactly three years ago, at the end of my junior year; at that point, I was able to finally switch over and begin living my life honestly as myself, but without the approval of my parents.
My primary concern when I came to Caltech was to leave all of the baggage and labels from high school behind, and just be an ordinary member of the Caltech community. In high school, I was seen as trans first, and as a student second; people constantly commended me for my courage in coming out, rather than for my academic and extracurricular pursuits. I didn’t feel that it was courage; instead, it was an act of desperation and need that forced me to become more true to myself.
* * *
My emotions are in a weird state right now. I think I’ve stopped being nervous about the surgery – I’m just anxious to have things over with. I’ve also started thinking about a lot more ‘big picture’ stuff now that all the minutiae of planning and logistics are over with. I’ve lost so much – my parents, my friendships from my swim team; I’ve fallen out of touch with people from high school. I’ve spent all of my life’s energy and all of my financial resources working up to this point, and it’s about to be here.
I’m guessing most of this is normal, but at the same time, I do feel a pretty keen sense of loss. One of my favorite authors (I’m struggling to place which book this is from) mentioned something about grief being like one’s hair when swimming – when you stop swimming, all of your wet strands of hair catch up to you and gather around you. I’m dead certain I want the surgery – I really don’t feel any hesitation. I just wish that things had gone differently with my parents, and that I hadn’t needed to sacrifice so much in this long process.
* * *
I put my birth certificate change form in the mail today along with the certified copies of the name change, the order for issuance of a new female birth certificate and sealing of the old one, a copy of the old certificate, and $36. After I get the new birth certificate, I think a ceremonial burning of the old one is in very good order.
* * *
(6 months post-op}
It’s been the happiest 6 months of my life, even with all of the pain involved in the process. I like the person I see in the mirror and feel confident and comfortable in my own skin. I feel as if I’m living for the first time, instead of hiding. The next 6 months, and indeed, the rest of my life, are going to be even more wonderful.
A Legacy Resurfaced
Things have a way of coming round again. It’s my youngest son’s first birthday tomorrow, and that carries the potential for discord – my wife and I also have a two-year-old daughter. Giving presents to her brother alone, something she’s never experienced, was looming as a problem. Then I thought of my great-grandmother, and everything has fallen into place.
My great-grandfather migrated to Australia from England before the first World War, survived the debacle in Turkey, married and eventually settled in a small tourist town on the south coast near Melbourne. Poppa Potts had lied about his age to join the army, and when he made it to the coastal strip, he nearly built the local pub by himself. He was that sort of guy – happy to tell the tall tale, eager to build. After he retired from carpentry he built model chairs, boats and the like out of wooden pegs. Very clever.
And Nana Potts was at the centre of her small community, when it really was a small community, before Melbourne’s suburbs began to spread out into it. When I was a very small child we moved north, so I didn’t get to see much of them, but twice a year Nana would do something that should have stuck more firmly in my memory, though it’s only properly surfaced now, over three decades later. For my brother’s birthday she’d send a package with one present for him and something small for me. On my birthday it was the opposite.
There’s something to be said for communitarianism like that, for understanding how relationships work and trying to smooth them over. It’s not about greed or commercialism. It’s about sharing, and learning to do it as an adult, to help other people out.
So we’ll be doing the same for our kids, because we want them to remember that for every special moment in their lives, someone else might feel a twinge of sadness. That’s my great-grandmother’s legacy.
I have been emotionally dead for years. My confidante/best friend is gone and the light went out the day she died. I haven’t felt that any other human could be trusted with my secrets. Too much weight to put on my child. He is still a boy and he doesn’t want to hear about his parent’s weaknesses at this age. He will figure it out in time, and when he does, he will also know I am not superhuman.
A wee bit of light in the tunnel today. An old friend has surfaced. We shall see. Is he the trustworthy soul that will help light up my eyes again or is this what we can expect while aging? Will it hurt again?
The Pragmatist Speaks Out
Shortly after my wife and I got married, we started trying to have a child. My wife was 38 when we started trying to get pregnant. Shortly after she turned 39, we visited some fertility specialists. The first fertility person said there was absolutely no way we were going to have kids that were biologically ours. No chance. No hope.
The second fertility specialist told us we could *possibly* have a child, but that the odds were very, very slim, and we were at a much increased risk for having a miscarriage. He told us that fertility treatment probably wouldn’t work, and that we shouldn’t have unrealistic hopes.
Around this time we changed our brand of toothpaste, as the toothpaste. Then four weeks before we were to start fertility treatments, my wife got pregnant. Nine months later, a healthy baby boy was born. He’s now over a year old, and is healthy and cute and a damn lot of fun.
We’ve told this story to many of our friends and family. What have we heard from them?
“I guess you proved that doctor wrong.”
“Had you changed your diet?”
“There must be something in your water.”
I retort that it was the toothpaste. I think this effectively makes my point, which is:
There’s no way to put a causal relationship on any of this. We had a baby, even though the odds were against it. Millions of women have my wife’s condition. Thousands of them will become pregnant. Less than half of those thousands will carry their baby to term. My wife happens to be one of the lucky ones, and we remind ourselves that every day. That’s the only viable conclusion.
I tell this story to anyone who tells me that reiki “works for them”. That echinacea “cured their cold”. That homeopathic belladonna “cures their son” every time. Pass it around, would you?
Undamaged
I have found myself over the last several months drawn toward the pictures of the child I was before the damage began. Before my father began his betrayal. Before I began reminding my mother of the trouble I was. Before I reminded her of my father. Before I formed my own opinions that differed from her own. Before I began seeking and creating ways of removing myself from her presence and household once my father left.
The pictures of the child I was and the child I grew to be become markedly different as I grow older. It’s in the eyes somewhere. Some spark or fire grew steadily dimmer until you have to look hard to see a light anywhere in those small eyes. When I look at the Undamaged photo, taken when I was still indeed undamaged, I smile because I am reminded that the flame was only hidden while it needed protection.
Oh, Kiss Me!
My first kiss was with Michael Something-or-Other, both of us aged four, in a homemade fort made out of a quilt thrown over a clothesline. I gave him my allowance, he showed me his wang, I decided he was good enough for me to kiss. (I’m talking about kissing HIM, not his wang. Geez, I was four.)
My worst kiss was with Rickey N. – he ripped up my lips with his braces and smooshed my face so hard I thought he was actually going to push his braceface right through the back of my head. Kisses shouldn’t cut a person. I’m just saying. I mean, I like a little pain with my pleasure but I don’t need you to draw blood. I’m not Angelina Jolie.
My funniest/weirdest/most disturbing kiss came from Steve S. – it was our very first (and last) kiss and it took place outside my friend Kathy P.’s house, on the hood of her car (klassy). Steve came at me with his eyes half-closed and his lips cartoonishly puckered and when he got to my mouth – HE BLEW INTO IT. Hard. Why? Oh, that’s a lovely question, to which I have no answer at all. He gave me a raspberry – inside my mouth. It was one of the more unpleasant experiences I’ve encountered so far in my life. The funny thing was, he apologized profusely afterwards and claimed he didn’t know what possessed him to do it. ONLY WOULD HAPPEN TO ME.
My saddest kiss was actually two – kisses on each of my cheeks from my dying Grandfather, to say goodbye.
My best kiss is the one I haven’t had yet, but am waiting for…
You and Me Endlessly
G roovin’… but not on Sunday afternoon. It was 9:30 on a weekday night in June, and I was leaving work to head home…. I did not want to go home…. I don’t want to go home still.
I was the last one in the gym at work and had stretched out my routine as far as it my body would let it, and there was not anymore procrastination to be had. Steel door clanking shut behind me, the bright moon careened recklessly off the reflective glass of the faceted 3 story building, sending nighttime shadows in all directions. I walked, still sweating, up the deserted path to the lot. As I walked I saw a man in the building, walking in the same direction. He walked just like my father. (My dad walked like Jason Bourne though a Paris street; quick, boxy ‘Shotokan’ staccato steps, but with a graceful flow in his arms and shoulders. Fast, purposeful and defiant….) It was twenty yards before I realized it was me, reflected in the glass by the moonlight. I was humbled, seeing him in me…. and in thinking, I pictured him leaving the refinery after a second shift, walking like me, towel and dirty clothes rolled under his arm, heading home to my mom. At home my mom would be in a house coat an curlers, waiting diner and a kiss before turning into bed anticipating her own 7am start at a local factory, us kids… in bed or watching TV. I thought of her and wondered what she would think of the mess her remaining son had made of his life.
I pressed the button on the key fob and the Explorer lit up and unlocked. Left foot on the ground, I threw my right leg over the unneeded step rail and onto the leather seat. Key in, three electric motors whirred and all the windows and moon roof were opened into the warm summer nights air. A piece of gum and selection of theme music for tonight’s voyage… Rascals… and doing fifty through the empty plant I was soon released on the general public. Baroquenhorse rides, another runner in the night. I could have been doing eight …I could have been doing eighty… through the old farm roads, now lined with Mac Mansions the house monster had spit out into that farmer’s corn fields. I was lost in thought and time until I hit the Turnpike toll and sped up and around the ramp. I topped out at eighty five for this lonely ride tonight and spent most of it musing over the feel of the wind in my left hand as I held it out the window. I could feel the wind. It was tangible. It blew my hand off course as I tried to move it. But I could not see it, anticipate it with my senses or grasp it. It took its own course in spite of my will or efforts. I had no influence. The CD plays…”I can’t imagine anything that’s better…The world is ours whenever we’re together. There ain’t a place I’d like to be instead of….. Groovin’”
Like the wind in my hand I had no influence on, my home greets me with the uncut lawn, the garbage and sink full and a large pile of fresh bills on the kitchen table. The kids are out. As I place my keys, watch and wallet on the fireplace mantle, my wife sleeping on the couch, turns and drunkenly slurs, “sspaghetti is on the stove….”
I stood frozen looking at her as she lay. She is a pretty woman. I gave so much. Perfection is a dream, I know, but, oh, just a little effort. It shouldn’t be like this. As a team, so many of weights would have lifted easily, so many mistakes we would have dodged……. and dreams…. dreams we could have made and met…..and in so doing bonded deeply together. What we could have had. What we should have had…. damn…. what we got….. If she had just tried…just a little…..
“Life could be ecstasy, you and me endlessly . . .Groovin’ “
Near-Death Experience
I nearly killed Stephen Hawking once. I turned the corner of Pembroke Street in my little red Renault and there he was, in the middle of the bloody road. I tell you, he’s a terrible driver.
That might have ended my academic career, don’t you think? Can you imagine the headlines?
The worst thing is, after I parked the car and stumbled into the department, rather shaken, I confessed my near-miss to a colleague.
“Oh” he said. “I wouldn’t have worried. He did all his best work twenty years ago”.
Tale from the Dish-Washer Chronicles
I was running from the walk-in fridge to the kitchen, attempting to scourge the remains of the week’s perishables with rapid-fire cleaning. We all wanted to go home before 2am. I had a pile of fishtubs- shallow, square plastic storage buckets – to open and then dump the hidden food scrappings in the trash, sanitize the box, repeat. I was moving quickly, in a rhythm of peel open, toss, rinse, wash. Wilted brown lettuce, clanking chicken bones, stale crusty bread crumbs, greasy remains of beige fleshed fish.
I opened my last box so quickly – 1:40 a.m. – that I almost didn’t register what I was looking at. The nude head of a lamb, pink flesh glistening and mottled with red blood stains. Naked peels of ears hanging shrunken on its scalp. Its huge globous eyes, staring blankly, were beginning to ooze in a gelatinous gel. It looked surprised, to be found there by me, so early in the morning. It was as if I disturbed it from a deep fishtub sleep. And it stopped me in my tracks for a moment – we stared at each other – a fleeting contact with the reality of the food chain – until I disengaged my eyes and with a quick flip of the wrist, tossed the head into the trash, stuck the box into the sanitizer, and finished mopping the floors. A fleeting, but jarringly surprise encounter.
When I finally got home and into bed, exhausted, it took me a minute to get the image out of my head: those unflinchingly black eyes, staring out of the dumpster behind the restaurant, watching the black night turn to morning.
Waiting
When he first left, I would wait. Every Friday night for three months, I would pull a kitchen chair up to the big window in the living room and wait. By ten o’clock, my mom would forcefully remove from the window and send me to my room. Even then I would wait. Lying in my bed, the room dark, I would wait for the sound of my father´s boots clomping across the kitchen floor. I would wait for my door to creak open, to see the silhouette of his face in the doorway.
During this waiting I would plan what I would I do when he returned. Initially, my plan was to run into his arms and sit on his lap. I would snuggle against him ,smelling his sweat and the oil from the chainsaws he ran all day. He would smooth down my hair and call me pumpkin. But as the weeks turned into months, my plans shifted. I would refuse him love. I would make him realize how much he needed my love.
Eventually I stopped waiting.
About six months after he left, I learned that I had received a scholarship to attend a Girl Scout camp. I was very excited, as I had never been to a summer camp. Thoughts of the camp crowded out thoughts of my father, but sometimes late at night I felt a familiar longing to hear his boots against the floor.
About a week before camp, my dad called my grandmother. He wanted me to spend the summer with him and his new family. I was overjoyed until I found out he planned to pick me up the night before I was to leave for camp. My mother left the decision up to me but made it clear that she thought camp was a better option. But camp seemed pale in the warm glow of the knowledge that my father wanted me. I chose him.
Friday came slowly, in the way that anticipation makes time freeze. Finally, the time came to go to my grandmother´s house. My mom, my brothers and I walked over, holding grocery bags with my clothes. At my grandmother’s, I packed my few clothes into her big blue suitcase. I ate supper with my grandfather, and then pulled a chair up to the window. I watched a slow summer sunset give way to increasing black. Every breath I drew took hours to fill my chest and escape again. Finally, my mother walked me home.
As I lay awake, I imagined my Girl Scout friends in their bedrooms, anxiously awaiting their first week-long camp. They would rise early to pile into a van. I would rise early to wait for yet another day.
Fairy Folk
I don’t remember much about believing in Santa. But fairies…now I believed in fairies for a long time.
Often, I lived in places where there were lots of wooded areas. I remember little hollows against huge fallen logs covered in green moss. There were trees everywhere, allowing bits of light to fall onto the leaves. I spent hours in the woods, reading and writing. I would look for fairies, look for signs. I thought I could hear fairies singing and whispering when I followed tiny creeks. In my mind, I built villages for the fairies. I used to leave bowls of milk out.
As I grew older, I had to will myself to still believe in fairies. Then, at last, I could no longer do even that. Belief is a fragile thing. A moment captured in a crystal. Shattered so easily.
Home
The silence is deafening. I forget how silent the presence of snow makes everything. My room is dark, lit only by the glow of the best early Christmas present ever: my own miniature pine tree, complete with gingerbread ornaments and off-white ribbon.
I am covered over with a white down comforter and a fuzzy apple green blanket. I look across my covered feet to the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves lining the wall and a giant Georgia O’Keefe painting of my favorite flower. It smells like home. It smells like candles and pine and woodsmoke and snow. I wish I could bottle it and take it with me wherever I go.
As the clock downstairs chimes midnight and I hear a horse whinny in the backyard and my body is still warding off the negative-two temperature’s chill, I can’t help but think that it sure is nice to be home.
Imperfect
Everywhere there are scars.
With a dear, elderly family member, one you’ve watched age, you know all too well what the folds of skin hide, the scars and liver spots and the signs of roads travelled roughly.
And so it is with this house: the old wavy glass bubbled and fractured in its agonizing, inexorable flow to the ground; the signs of rot, new and old, around the corners of things; the imprints of towel racks and toilet lids smoothed but not obscured by coat upon coat of paint; pits in the walls and floors; gouges in doorjambs. Around the rims of rooms the floor is dotted with the little footprints, hasty and frenetic, of old carpet tacks. The edges of windows, too high to touch, are darkened with the pocks left by a century of makeshift window treatments.
But still, this house is home.