All Adither

Leave some if you can

 

So, why did it amuse instead of infuriate you when the man under the Ballard Bridge stuck his face in your open car window and said, "Hey Beautiful, hey babeeee. You can kidnap me any time", then let loose with a Louis Armstrong-esque laugh, proceed to amble to the bus stop and flip open a girlie mag?

You are a bundle of contradictions. And not always in a good way.

*

Downtown Saturday you saw a sketched out guy huddled over a garbage can, attempting to mix a cocktail of liquids he found in the bottoms of paper cups. He was making a show of it, as if he were behind some shiny bar rattling stainless steel shakers and dipping glass rims in shallow dishes of salt.

Then there was Captain America in Capitol Hill, with the marionettes and creepy flute, bashing a Barbie on the sidewalk. He had a small bowl of coins that said, "Leave some if you can, take some if you need."

*

Back in your sleepy neighborhood, you are getting ready for school to start. Second grade for Max. Kindergarten for Claire. Only other parents understand the magnitude of this. Kindergarten. Both kids in the same building for six hours per day. Time! Ohmygod, TIME. You have so many plans for it that your head whirls.

*

Sunday, you and the family went on your annual blackberry forage. It had been a rocky week for you and J. Exceedingly rocky. It was good to be out all together. To be kind to each other. To watch your kids get excited about something as homey as picking berries.

*

Your sister had surgery Monday. Big surgery. Like, remove-several-organs surgery. Though the two of you don't talk often, you thought of her all day and hoped she wasn't afraid or in much pain. You love her. You wish you talked more, though you mostly blame yourself for being out of touch.

Bad eggs

The squeal of metal on metal woke her just before dawn. Through the open bedroom window, carried along on a cool, silty breeze, she could hear the train that snaked along the lake's north shore.

In the haze of half-sleep, she thought the squeal was her son calling from his room, “I’m reeeeeeeady. I’m reeeeeeeady.”

Ready for what?

As she came to, she realized her son’s voice was the diesel locomotive. She sighed, relieved.

And then, as she was curling her spine into a comma, preparing to drift away again, she remembered what she’d told her husband late the night before. She'd said, “This afternoon, for lunch…I fed you a rotten egg.”

Roland had been close to sleep. But she heard his red-graying hair scratch the pillowcase as he turned his head. “What? Why?”

“Well, I didn’t know it was rotten, of course. And it wasn’t, exactly. It was recalled.”

“What do you mean ‘recalled’?”

“For salmonella.”

“Great,” he said. “That’s just great.”

Now, the sky was just beginning to brighten. The crows hadn’t begun their infuriating squawking yet, like a slack bow across loose violin strings. But other birds began to chitter.

Avoiding looking at her slumbering husband, she got up and crept downstairs. She wished she’d woken earlier, for the meteor shower that was supposed to have happened. But as it was, the few hours she'd slept hadn’t been restful.

She went onto the back deck and tucked a drying beach towel around her knees. It smelled of fish.

Truthfully, she was a little smug about having fed Roland the tainted egg. He’d been on the nasty side lately, too quick to sneer at her and reprimand Jack.

Roland would probably be fine anyway. The man never got sick.

After staring up at the light gray sky for a while, she found sleep trying to overtake her. No, she told herself. No. Not now.

She heard movement in the kitchen. She turned, and through the screen door saw Roland pouring club soda into a glass. “What?” she said.

“Just, you know, feeling a little queasy.”

She pulled the raspy towel up around her hips. Good, she thought.

There was a shattering. Then a “Damn it to hell!” from Roland.

She stood to help, but he waved her away, “I’ve got it.”

There were the muffled sounds of Roland bumbling around, searching for dishtowels and sponges, the snapping of drawers and cupboard doors.

It wasn’t long before six-year-old footsteps padded down the hall above them. Roland had woken Jack.

*

“Stay back!” Jack’s dad yelled. “Stay way, way back. There’s glass all over the floor. It could cut your feet.”

Jack looked around. His eyes felt scratchy. “But I want milk.”

“You’ll get your milk in a little while. For now, just stay away. Or better yet, go back to bed. It’s only five-thirty.”

Jack’s mom’s voice came from outside, “Come sit here with me.”

He didn’t want to. He had to pee and he wanted milk. He drank milk every morning first thing. He went to the sliding screen and pressed his forehead against it. His mom patted the cushion next to her. She had his Spider Man towel on her legs.

He felt that fuzz in the air again. Like when he laid down in the patch of milkweeds out back. Only this wasn’t a good fuzz. It was crunchy and crackly.

Without taking his forehead off the screen, he shook his head.

His dad said a bad word and, when Jack turned around, he was sucking bright red blood from his finger.

Jack didn’t know why his mom wasn’t in there helping, putting a Band-Aid on his dad’s cut like she did for him. He thought it had something to do with the fuzzy air.

*

Roland ran his finger under water as cold as he could stand. His stomach churned and he couldn’t believe Jack was already awake. He’d be impossible by middle of the afternoon. At least, assuming Roland felt decent enough to go to work, Samantha would be the one dealing with it. She’d caused this uproar, after all.

Once, a few years ago, she’d fed him expired sour cream and he’d spent a whole night vomiting up chips and dip. He should remember to doublecheck everything in the fridge. She was so sloppy sometimes.

Suddenly, the room spun. Roland crouched and grabbed the edge of the sink.

He opened his eyes, what he assumed to be, a few minutes later. Sam was bending over him, holding Jack on her hip, his small, pale feet dangling.

“It’s the fucking egg,” Roland muttered, rubbing his face.

“I think it’s the blood,” Sam said. “Remember when you passed out after that blood draw during your last physical?”

Sam was always laughing at his squeamishness. It was true, she was the one who tended to Jack when he was hurt, who donated her O negative at Red Cross drives up at the township hall every fall, and who watched, without flinching, horror movies and surgical TV shows. But Roland wasn’t so wimpy as to blank at the site of two drops of his own blood, was he?

She offered him a hand, but he ignored it and pulled himself up using the cabinetry. His brain was a pen spinning across a desktop. His desktop. That he needed to sit behind in less than two hours. He had a presentation early that afternoon, a power-point deal about social media and marinas.

“I want eggs,” Jack said. “Scrambled. Mommy, make me eggs.”

“Not today. Waffles?” she said and nuzzled his ear.

Jack jerked his head back, disgusted by her affection.

Roland almost laughed, but instead got out the Dust Buster and proceeded to make a great, whirring, satisfying racket cleaning the rest of the glass.

Sam had perched Jack on the edge of the counter while she pulled frozen waffles from the freezer. As she dropped them into the toaster, Roland snatched up the box and searched for the expiration date.  It was four months in the future. “Okay,” he mumbled. “This time.”

Samantha turned to him. “Do you have something you want to say to me, Rol? And I don’t mean about eggs and blood and waffles. Something else?”

Roland had a sudden, aching desire for coffee. Hot and black. “What are you talking about?” he asked, intentionally gruff.

“I’m talking about how you suddenly hate me. And this family.”

He glared at her warningly.

“And don’t give me that look. Not after you just dropped the F-bomb in front of Jack.”

My God. She was giving him the opening he’d fantasized about for months. Should he take it? Dive through as if he were escaping a burning building?

“I don’t hate you,” he said. He cupped one of Jack’s feet in his palm and held it. His sole was cold and sticky. Roland reclaimed his hand and stuffed it in his robe’s pocket. “Or this family. But.”

He saw Sam cringe. He’d started it, though. May as well see his announcement through. “She makes sails at a loft downtown. She rides this bike, bright green with a wicker basket out front,” he demonstrated with his hands the perfect roundness of the little basket and felt himself begin to smile, stomach ache forgotten. “She has pots and pots of strawberry plants and she raises chickens.” Roland realized how ridiculous this last remark sounded and made himself shut up.

“Who?” Sam asked, her usually placid face contorted. Confused.

“Well, Julia,” he said. Of course, Julia (a proper woman's name, by the way). But then, Sam didn’t know about Julia until just this moment. She hadn’t been the one pining and daydreaming about Julia for the past year. “Julia. The one I’m–,”

“The one you’re what?”

The waffle popped up from the toaster. Sam grabbed it and savagely buttered it. Jack sat next to her, his eyes wide, his hands over his ears.

That is when Roland decided to stop. “We’ll talk later,” he said, and left the kitchen, still sucking the blood from his gashed finger.

Their whole lives

The last combat brigade is coming home from Iraq. Which is to say, the active phase of our war there is over. Still, some 50,000 troops stay behind to continue advising the Iraqi military.

Snug in my little Seattle cocoon, I've been almost completely removed from what's gone on in Iraq. I've read news stories. There was the occasional young man I knew three times removed who'd gone over to serve. That's the extent, though, of my immersion into the operation that's killed many thousands of Americans and Iraqis.

On the day I went into labor with Max, March 20, 2003, the headlines, in 120-point sans serif, screamed that we'd gone to war. It was all anyone talked about. 

I was in triage at Swedish hospital and the nurse assigned to me didn't have the innate sensitivity to keep quiet. 

I cared about sending people to war. I did. Even doubled over, clutching my swollen gut as contractions gripped me three in a row before easing so I could catch a breath, I cared.

But, I was bringing forth a new person and I didn't want to, couldn't bear to, hear about the ravages of the world as I silently grimaced through giving birth. Finally, from somewhere inside the haze of pain, I found my voice.

"Enough!" I said to the nurse, my husband, and anyone else within earshot of my curtained off room. "No more war chitchat. Please!"

They hushed. And I folded back into myself, hoping beyond hope we were doing the right thing by bringing a child into these times.

Later that day, after Max was snuggled in my arms, J. went out and bought a couple newspapers sporting the headlines I found so disturbing a few hours earlier. We still have the papers around here somewhere. Maybe I'll dig them out and show them to the kids. "Look," I'll say. "This war has been going on your entire lives. And now it's over."

Sort of.

You are three

 

All Adither! My poorly named blog. You're three! In August of 2007 I started you, intending you to be a place on the internet to house my writings. Somewhere I could direct potential agents or friends who occasionally asked to read my stuff.

As early as my first entry, though, I got into the hyperbole of you a little too much. I kept you light. Light as helium. You garnered more comments back then. More traffic, too.

Because of you, I was offered and I accepted three writing gigs (will I ever stop hating the word gig?). You've drawn some odd requests and pitches, as well. Which only caused me to love you more. You've allowed me to meet other bloggers from across the country, and even make some good acquaintance-friends.

In Winter of 2009 I started to go through something a little dark (and also light and bright and kind of fantastic). Your mood turned. Your posts became small, writhing stories that readers did not respond to as well. You inspired emails from people wondering if I was okay. You were my outlet. Though I could not express everything I wanted through you, I was able to drop breadcrumbs (wheat, rye, pumpernickel), and that was enough to keep me sane.

You do not have the mass appeal of some blogs, but that's okay. I've turned you into my creative dumping ground. Which is exactly what I've needed these last three years.

I don't know how long I'll keep you. But, right now, I cannot imagine giving you up.

And thanks so much to everyone who's come by, whether you've let me know or not. It's made all the difference.

Happy three years, you. You've changed my life.

Long ago

Just some old photos I found at my parents' house last month. Me. Summer. 1972?

I was dark and tangled even back then. 

Insert smiley emoticon here.

These were taken on Lake Charlevoix. We rented a little cottage for June, July, and August. I remember the cottage as a damp, squat, rectangle made of bricks. It was across the road from my grandparents' golf course and still holds kind of legendary status in my memory. I don't know if my sister had been born yet. But I look like I could use a sibling.
 

Snap

Dear marginally-creepy guy at the gas station in Fremont,

I had just put $15 worth of 76 in my car and was pulling out when you appeared this morning, walking with a backpack looped over your shoulders. You spotted me and held up your finger, as in don't-drive-off-yet. Then you motioned for me to lower my window.

I thought, What? Is there a nail in my tire? Is something terribly wrong that you need help with? I briefly considered talking to you. I decided, No. You're not bleeding. And I don't care if my tire is slowly deflating. No. I shook my head and rolled forward.

It was over in ten seconds, yet I drove off angry.

As a girl, as a younger woman, I would've stopped to find out what you wanted. Even though I'd never seen you before, I would've figured you're an older man, you must know best. My mucky gullibility would've sucked at my ankles and held me fast so I'd hear you out.

A story: There was a summer when I was twenty and living in a Detroit suburb. I had just been fired from my job as an intern at a local magazine. I left the office in a frantic flurry, wanting to grab my things and get the hell out. 

I jogged to catch the bus that would take me back to the house where I rented a room. As I sprinted, the bus passed my cross-street a good half mile ahead. It would be an hour until the next one. The walk home would take about an hour, too. But moving was better than standing, so off I went.

The afternoon was overcast and cool, and while I strode through the flat, endless blocks that connected St. Claire Shores to Grosse Pointe, the clouds fell to the ground. Umbrella-less, jacket-less, I was drenched. By the time I hit a stretch of businesses about ten minutes from where I lived, my hair hung in heavy, wet ropes, my clothes stuck to me. I was humiliated, sodden, and miserable.

Suddenly, a respectable looking middle-aged man burst from an office and called to me. I turned around, because that's what I did then. The man must have something important to tell me, after all, some business with me. So I pivoted.

That was when he began his schtick about modeling. He was a "photographer". Would I be interested in posing for him? Preferably in a swim suit or maybe even naked. Could he give me a ride the rest of the way home? Please? It was no trouble, really. His car was right out back.

Meanwhile I was shivering, still embarrassed about having lost my job, wondering how I'd pay to live the rest of the summer in Grosse Pointe. I also knew that, if I was dumb enough, I could end up some sort of victim to the unctuous phony standing before me.

Luckily, I did not to take the ride. I did not give him my phone number. And, after several minutes of standing under an awning, refuting and refusing a man I'd never met, and finally walking away, a trusted friend's brother saw me, swerved up to the sidewalk, and let me in his front seat.

Back in my room, I changed clothes, wrung out my hair and sobbed.

It had been a hard day. But the thing that bothered me, above all, was that I'd stopped, I'd turned around. I'd wasted energy and dignity standing face to face in discussion with a man who was clearly not simply kindly, or concerned. I owed him nothing.

There have been other stories, too. Stories that make me squirm to remember because I wasn't strong enough or confident enough to say No and keep my course.

And, gas station guy, you may have liked the looks of me or thought I seemed like an easy target, but I owed you not a damn thing either. I'm double the age I was that summer in Grosse Pointe and if you're not a friend, if your eyes are etched with lines the least bit menacing (because, I'm sorry to say, sometimes we must make snap judgments), I won't stop for you. I won't open myself up to you.

Move along.

Summer

 

The best thing about summer is having time to hang out with the kids.

Watching them both jump into the pool for group swim lessons yesterday was a beautiful sight. Something we've struggled a long time and paid a lot of money to achieve. Their new confidence in the water filled me up and almost made me cry.

We've churned a lot of ice cream and played way too many games of Uno. There is no homework about which I have to nag and no setting my alarm in the morning. I wake up when Fruit Bat strides into my room, his eyes bright and rested.

The worst thing about summer is having time to hang out with the kids.

I crave some sort of structure. Which I usually rail against. But with kids, at least a modicum of it is necessary.

They are awake until 9:30 every night. They want my attention all. the. time. I don't have much space in which to write. I have to take them with me to the grocery store, which is almost comical in its chaotic misery. Please mom I want this and this and let's get that over there and can we go look at those and I'm just going to stand right here obliviously while people try to push their cart around me.

But still, flip flops and iced coffee and cold beer drunk in the setting sun.

It's mostly good.

Visitors

I hear the soft jangle of a charm bracelet (wind chimes?) as I drive my car. The woman who sits next to me (there are two, one in the backseat) doesn't seem to notice. I cock my head, squint my eyes. What is it?

Then I realize the sound is the ethereal peal of a hearing aid. It rings, its notes trilling up and down like alien communication.

*****

I'm making another meal. Another god forsaken dinner. This is what I sound like in my head: "Okay, I have to zest a fucking lemon. Fuck, the grater is dirty in the sink. I'll just give it a quick rinse. Wait, was raw chicken in here last night? Now I have to wash it. Boil the water. Get the corn going. Shit, I still need to shuck it. It looks old, it looks rotten. DAMN it. Still need to zest the fucking lemon..."

The food. It is so tiresome.

At least I have the music of the hearing aid to distract me.

*****

Sneaking my wine, sneaking my internet. Bad hostess. Bad.

*****

I drop off the two women at Pier 55 for their boat ride. I watch as they shuffle up to the booth to buy their tickets. They are so darling. So willing.

The car is so quiet.

The ache

Her mind was upended splintery apple crates, rotten bananas that drew fruit flies, rusty pipes spewing rusty liquid, entrails. She couldn't shake it, that day. 

Because she knew, whichever path she chose, she'd suffer. Her children and husband would suffer. Even her parents, her aunt Dolores. They would all suffer if she went down the rocky track, off to the left. The one that wound behind the old barn, not the paved, well-worn road out front everyone hoped she'd stay on. The stretch maybe even she, herself, wanted to stick to.

She was being metaphorical, of course. That was how she coped with unpleasantness. By gathering metaphors, sometimes ridiculous, inane comparisons from the depths of her diseased brain.

Tommy came out of the house, the screen door slapping shut behind him. He strode up to her lawn chair, where she sat with a light blanket over her knees. She wished he'd handed her a sweating glass of lemonade, but then, she couldn't expect too much.

Even from there, she could smell the sweet hay in the barn, the not so sweet smell of the two horses.

His knees cracked as he crouched down next to her. A cool breeze ruffled his hair. "What are you thinking about?" he asked.

"The ache."

"I keep wishing this had never happened."

She shrugged. She couldn't say that exactly. Certainly, if it hadn't happened, her life would be more laundry drying on the line, soft nuzzling of mares' noses, harvesting peas and carrots from the garden. But she knew that, because of what she (they) were going through, her life held a certain richness it wouldn't otherwise.

Standing, Tommy said, "You have to do what you think is best."

"I know." She couldn't voice to him her fear of losing the respect of everyone she held dear. It would sound petty. But, Land, she wanted the ache to go away.

Later that night, when the sky had turned from gilded yellow to oily blue and Tommy was working on the irrigation hoses out back, she went up to their bedroom and packed a few things. She gingerly grabbed her faded red duffel and left the house.

She took the long way around the back of the barn. Tossing away everyone's decent opinion of her, she was leaving Tommy and going to Him.

On a grassy mound, just below where swallows swooped in and out of the barn's rafters, she laid out the picture of her almost grown children with her parents when they'd all gotten together at the Dells the year before. She laid out her bible and Tommy's shotgun.

She just wanted the ache to go away. She wanted the tumor, spreading like slithery octopus legs, to stop claiming her mind.

Before she did it, she sat cross legged, closed her eyes and smiled as the wheaty-sweet breeze swept over her face. Then she whispered to Him that she was ready.

We are young

The kids and I are in Northern Michigan, hanging out in my homeland for two weeks.

I haven't lost my temper with Fruit Bat and Kitty Cat at all. Not once. Despite that they can't seem to adjust to the 3-hour time difference, they've been flexible and sweet and have proven they are mostly good company. I'm proud of them.

I've run into people I haven't seen since high school. I watched a woman walk down the sidewalk, a hat in her hands, with a strip of hair lining the lower half of her skull. The rest of her scalp, covered in soft fuzz, was exposed to the summer breeze.

We've fed fish and pigs and "helped" my dad at his farmer's market. We've gotten sand in our ears and mouths. We've splashed in sprinklers and flung a frisbee to and fro, watched a small-town parade and swirled orange sparklers through a twilit night. We've ogled fireworks from my parents' porch, three miles from the bay where they were detonating. It was perfect. The sultry wind was wild and we could see dark silhouettes of trees lashing, set off by red and purple lights.

I've sorted through old photos, the ancient, chemical smell of the paper shrill and pleasing all at once.

These days are big. Heavy with meaning. 

I'm trying hard to appreciate this time, while the kids are young, but old enough so I can breathe and think (sort of) and my parents are young and I, compared to what the future holds, am still young. 

I'm afraid, though, I can never give these weeks the reverence they are due. 

Only in retrospect, will they shape themselves into memories, some clear, some not, but all bearing the weight they deserve.

Poem store

 

"God. No," D said, turning a full circle in the small, salmon-colored kitchen he and Janice shared. "I refuse to do the market again today. You got, what? Sixteen bucks last weekend?"

"That's a bag of groceries," she argued, pulling her scarf into a tight knot.

"From where? The Food Bank?"

"Safeway! Anywhere!" She was so tired of his pessimism, of his suggesting she get a job as a barista or, if she insisted on writing for a living, to pen manuals, brochures, something corporate and practical. She imagined doing such work and she couldn't breathe. Her ribs creaked until she almost screamed, "Holland America offers world class cruise ship deals to destinations such as Alaska, Australia, New Zealand, and so much more!" It was the kind of drivel she wrote Before.

And she was not going back to Before.

"C'mon, D," she said. "I like it. It fuels me."

He ate expired, powdered, malted milk from a jar as if it were cereal. Licking his spoon, he leered at her and said, "I'll fuel you." 

She gazed at this guy with lips caked white, tongue flicking out to lick them.

"I'll just go by myself," she muttered, packing her portable Smith-Corona into its case and squaring blank sheets of paper against her stomach. She hoped the older couple would come back, the ones who were no younger than 80, who held hands as they ambled around. She wanted to type them a haiku or two. In fact, she'd been writing in her head as she lay in bed the night before, D, in his sleep, mewling next to her.

Vintage Love, you two

navigating years through wilds

of tangled habits

Okay, maybe it wasn't the most brilliant thing she'd ever composed. But it was heartfelt. She turned away from D. She couldn't imagine walking through the Farmers' Market together decades from then, she still fond enough of him to wind her fingers through his.

"Do that," he said. "Go alone, come back home and we' ll count all your money."

Pulling on her black rubber wellingtons, she went out into the overcast morning, the air so gray and heavy it clung to her like cobwebs. Janice didn't care. It was good to get out of the dirty apartment. Away from her boyfriend.

The wooden crate knocked her knees as she walked. She crossed Market Street, strode past Swedish hospital (the sliding doors whooshing open as she passed, belching out the white scent of antiseptic) and found her way to Ballard Ave. Her usual doorway was occupied by a guy playing bongos. So she moved down a couple blocks.

Upending the crate, she sat on it, put out her sign, slowly extracted her typewriter, and scrolled in a sheet of paper. She wished she'd thought to get coffee on her way.

A breeze ruffled her empty page. She knew from experience it could be a half hour or more before anyone stopped and inquired about her services. She'd get some looks, would be the object of a few photos, but it would take someone several revolutions around the market before they'd stop, ask for a poem and pay the two-dollar fee. She was mostly a curiosity.

She started typing, something nonsensical just to make herself look busy. That Sam I am, That Sam I am, I do no like that Sam I am.

Then, through the line of booths that held cheese and root vegetables and rustic breads, she saw the old couple. She wanted to call out to them, to ask why they weren't holding hands that particular day, but, of course, she didn't. She kept pecking out letters that turned into words and then sentences.

"Hey," D set his guitar case on the sidewalk next to her crate. He always changed his mind and showed up. "How's business?" He rubbed his hands together to warm them. Over her shoulder, he read what she'd written. "What the hell's that?"

"I'm just warming up," Janice said. She stopped and wrapped her arms around her middle. Why'd he have to be such a buzzkill? Always criticizing and ridiculing what she did. She tried thinking back to what had attracted her in the first place. She remembered the guitar playing. The lovely, melting way he could coax songs from his Yamaha. The first time she saw him play, she'd thought, Someone who can bring forth music like that is made of depths and peaks so vast I have to scale them. There were his eyes, too. Chocolate milk brown that used to look at her as if she were some siren with glistening feathers.

But that frigid morning she placed her cold fingers on the keys again and it was as if they moved of their own accord. They typed, I want to be done.

D had begun tuning his guitar, had opened his case and pushed it out in front of them. He glanced again at her paper and chuckled. "So soon?"

"It's been almost three years."

His creamy eyes dilated with confusion.

She typed, I want to be done with us. Each letter clattered like a gunshot. She realized she had no idea how he'd react. If he'd start shouting or crying or trying to talk her out of it. She knew, though, there was no persuading her to change her mind. The sudden decision felt right.

Quietly, he said, "Me and you?"

She nodded. The sound of bongos drifted down the street.

Just then, a couple came up to her. Not the old people, but a guy and a girl who looked to be in their late teens. Self conscious laughter spit from their lips. The girl dug a couple bucks from the pocket of her tight jeans. "We want a poem," she said.

D carefully replaced his guitar in its case, snapped the clasps, and walked away.

Janice watched his back retreating, saw his stocking-capped head disappear in the crowd. She cracked her knuckles, sighed, and said, "Okay."

She wrote the haiku she'd planned for the old couple, changing the words slightly.

Brand New Love, you two

navigating wild hearts, bodies

simmering. Good luck.

She pulled the paper out with a zipping sound and waved away their money. "No charge," she said. "Just...you know...pretend there's no before and after."

They gave her strange looks, but thanked her and went on their way. She rolled in new paper and started typing again, smiling, her fingers flying like hungry swallows.

Here we go again

Image courtesy Spondicious.com

This photo is how I want my writing to be. Dark. Light. Austere. Intense. Delicate. Guileless.

I'm back to submitting my manuscript around. So far 1 submission and, from that, 1 request for the full manuscript.

Please, God.

 

Raving

Wherein I get all crazy fangirl and write a post about a concert.

But it wasn't just any concert. It was Imogen Heap.

Tickets on sale a couple months ago. Row GA! I was excited. Until someone told me GA means General Admission. Dumb Ass.

I don't make it to shows much anymore. The late, the standing, the hot.

Imogen was worth it.

I hadn't looked forward to a concert that much since I saw Michael Jackson in the Pontiac Silverdome when I was 15.

This was better. Watching, stupified. Inspired. Crushing. Happy.

Close enough to see the tiny microphones taped to the insides of her wrists and individual strands of her insane hair.

To catch the virus of wanting to create. To become so sick with it for a few days I have a hard time focusing on kids and work. Hallucinating that I possess an eighth of the gumption someone like Imogen does.

Drifting, veering, trying.

The curious barking of the dog in the nighttime

You are trying to sleep. A dog barks from far away. It is not a direct hindrance to your drifting off, but the yelps punctuate your thoughts. Unhappy! With! The! Day! Marriage! Is! Crazyhard! You press the pillow more tightly over your head. You think of the demure peach pills in your bathroom that could send you down sleepy river in fifteen minutes flat. But you don't want to rely on them. They're fine for sometimes. But this. This is just run of the mill anxiety. Hormonal blues. You will resist the peach pills.

Saturday there was sun. Everyone seemed happy. Too happy? Shinyhappy, their faces tilted up to the bright sky, as they made comments like, Enjoy it, this is our summer. Your neighbor clipped mint from the backyard for mojitos. The kids played and played in the creek, which is really a drainage ditch, but they don't know the difference.

Sunday was a sharp contrast. Nonweather. You all went to Home Depot so your husband could buy a giant post on which to hook a zipline for Fruit Bat and Kitty Cat. A good dad. You made playdoh, which kept the kids busy for about an hour. You tried not to read into your husbands every footfall, every snap of the cupboard door, each time he wouldn't look at you when you wanted him to.

Only! Two! More! Weeks! Of! School! Holy! Shit! You feel sorry for whoever lives next door to the house with the dog. You wonder about summer. How will you entertain the children? How will you work? And, more importantly, write? How will their constant presence not drive you insane? How can you enjoy the days with them so you can look back on the summer of '10 fondly?

You contemplate starting an anonymous blog so you can say what you really want. You dismiss the idea. If you did, the words and the bad energy would still be out there in the universe. You try to imagine to what extent you bug the crap out of your husband. You know you must. With your silences and then your talking too much and your constant desire for "free" time. He's too nice to tell you, though. Just as well, because you don't really want to know.

Slipping from bed, you pad across the floor in time to the staccato barks. You find the bottle of peach pills and dump a few into your hand. You break one in half and swallow it, bitter remnants lingering on your tongue.

Back between the sheets, your mind quiets almost instantly. The same thoughts hang around, but they're mellower, less insistent. You fall asleep and dream that your teeth fall out into your hand. You used to have that dream a lot when you worked for two controlling publishers at a magazine. Back then, you looked up the meaning of the dream (something you're not wont to do, but did because the dream recurred so many times), the description explained that losing your teeth signifies powerlessness. Or fear of change.

You think about the dream several times the next day, but can't reckon what it has to do with your daily life. As far as you know, you don't feel especially powerless. Nor do you fear change. So you let it go. You get on with things, relieved the dog is silent.

Escape

As I trudged from my house to the bus stop Friday afternoon, I thought, If you saw a woman walking down a suburban road pulling a suitcase behind her, would you assume the worst? I wasn’t running away, though, so much as taking a two-night break.

Early as usual, I waited for the Metro. Rain pattered the top of my umbrella like static. I could see the Sound from where I stood. I felt silly there, on that patch of grass in the middle of nowhere. But I liked it too. The damp air, fresh and salty. The beginning of a small adventure.

I took the bus to the train to my friend Stacy’s Honda Civic and we roamed Portland. Pork tenderloin, goat cheese, scones, red velvet cake, thick coffee, low, gray skies, more rain, little shops. Soft cats, impossibly supple and comforting. A big, sweet, black dog, drugged, recovering from surgery.

I found my parents, who had come into town for a wedding. Their presence was part of the reason I picked that particular weekend to visit. We met at the Farmer’s Market, sprawling and lovely and misty with flowers and nuts and vegetables. I bought 20 dollars worth of morel mushrooms. I remember hunting them as a kid in Michigan.

I’ve hardly spent time with my mom and dad in the last seven years that didn't involve Fruit Bat and Kitty Cat, that had nothing to do with soothing crying babies, discipline, food prep, and constant entertaining. It was nice. More than nice. It was comfortable and lively. I didn’t want Saturday to end.

And Stacy. Sweet Stacy, who drove me over the bridges a million times without complaint. She’s one of the easiest people I know. With the barest refrigerator. We can talk forever. Just not about cooking. Which I didn’t want to discuss anyway.

On the way home I wrote, wrote, wrote. A man with yellow nails and yellow teeth and a greasy smell sat next to me. He was friendly. But I didn't much want to talk.

Home now. Games of dominoes, which I keep losing. Morels waiting. Squirming happy kids. Splitting a bag of chocolate chip/sea salt cookies with J.

Seattle, even darker and rainier than Portland had been.

Home.