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Sun spots

 

I spend my days, lately, moving from one sunny spot to another. Standing with my arms draped over a fence, enjoying the warmth on my face. Then the brightness shifts, a shadow tumbles over me.

So I seek out a stretch of brick wall that still seems habitable. And I soak in heat from the concrete. Again, darkness displaces light.

Maybe that bench, I think, glancing up at the clouds to judge how long I might have.

Tentatively, I creep forward and sit. After a while, I relax, confident this site will be illuminated for a few more minutes yet.

I try not to look toward the sky, or at the play of sunlight across the asphalt in front of me.

It is my nature, though, to fidget, at least a little, to speculate, to check the treetops and the look down the road. Accept? Enjoy? I can for a little while. But not for long. Not forever.

There's this

There's a small girl on my leg

her fingers wrapped around my thigh

holding tight

There's a boy showing me this creation

that drawing

wanting me to listen

listen

listen!

There's a cup of coffee waiting to be drunk

It'll sit there a while

and cool

There's the dryer beeping–

the big, expensive dryer that, when I think about it, I'm lucky to have

There's the deadline I need to meet

by Saturday

It makes me feel useful

There's the sun (!!!)

peeking out for a second

I fight the urge to to hope it sticks around all day

and try to enjoy the bright moment

There's the laptop

square and white, like a box of candy

beckoning with its news and people and weather forecasts

There's the silty smell of ocean

beckoning in another way

There's me

feeling too many things

thinking too much

Laughing 

Groaning

Weeping

Shaking my head

at all this

An inevitable green

The first part of this story, Greener Grass, can be found in my right sidebar under I Like To Write.

*****

Tamara followed Brad and Paul down the street, dazed, nauseated. That was when she felt pain, a sharp tug low in her gut that made her stop and grab Paul's shoulder.

*****

Craig Bergstrom sat in an adirondack chair, the tops of his bare, pale feet visible through blades of green grass. He drank a Widmer Hefeweizen, his laptop balanced on one knee. 

Jacquelyn had the kids that afternoon, getting new shoes at Kohl's. Or something. He didn't know and he, frankly, didn't care. He was just glad she was spending some time with them. That she was being an actual mom for a while.

He was also glad for the chance to watch his grass grow while he got a little blogging done.

He could see, through Tamara and Dave's sliding screen door, Caitlyn, Josh and Eli zipping around. He heard their shrieks and laughter. A high school-aged girl ambled back and forth. 

Craig wondered about it. He hadn't talked to Tamara in a couple days. Maybe she was sick or visiting her dad in Columbus or something. Still, seemed like she would've mentioned a trip when he was over there. She always wigged out so drastically about those stupid treks to Ohio. The packing and the interactions with her dad, who seemed pretty ornery, how the kids would deal with the drive.

Just then, Angel Telkowsky's black BMW motored up the road, smooth as a warm Black and Tan. He could just barely see the outline of her, through the tinted windows. She talked into a headset. Her long fingers fluttered at him.

He waved back, a sudden, ridiculous cheerfulness rising up in his chest. Like he was in high school and a pretty  girl had acknowledged him.

He stood, clutching his laptop to his side, and craned his head to watch her car wind around the subdivision.

Then she was gone. He imagined her stepping from her air conditioned BMW, striding into her cool, airy house, slipping into a tepid bubble bath. He sighed. He sat back down. He made circles in the grass with his feet, liking the way the blades grazed his soles.

Jacquelyn took more pride in the yard than even he did. Though she was less interested in the lawn and more into the beds of peonies and roses and the hanging planters of geraniums.

To Craig, the flowers just highlighted the grass, punctuated it with some color. To her, the lawn was the path that drew one's eye to her flora. She spent almost all her free time out there, moving plants around, plucking, dead-heading, weeding. 

She was critical of Craig for dumping chemicals all over the place to achieve his perfect carpet. But why had scientists created fertilizer and weed killer, he thought, if not to use? If not to cultivate flawlessness?

His mind jumped to Tamara again. Not flawless, for sure. But he missed her when he didn't see her every day. She was a little rough around the edges, a little brash, but also, passionate. Smart. Always pointing out things he couldn't see for himself. And he liked that she was maternal, but not matronly. She didn't wear sweats everyday, like half the moms he saw at the playground and in the school yard, but she gave her kids a lot of herself. Of her presence at home. It was hard. God knew it was hard, and she did it anyway.

He wished Jacquelyn understood how valuable a mom's time was to her children. But then, if she wasn't out there earning most of the money, he'd have to get an office job himself, would have to do his blogging on the side while he spent most of his days writing ad copy or managing mind-numbing projects at some insurance company.

So, their marriage suffered, he supposed. Because of his unwillingness to do a typical 9 to 5. Because of her unwillingness to spend more time at home with the kids. Because of his friendship with Tamara.

But it all seemed inevitable right then. He was powerless to change any of it. It was, he thought, as it should be. As it had to be.

*****

Tamara, leaning on Paul the whole way, made it back to Brad's apartment, where she went immediately into the bathroom with her bag from CVS.

Blood. Not much yet. But soon.

She tore open the pregnancy test and peed on the stick. She wanted to see the double line. She knew. Of course she knew that something had been alive in there. She wanted confirmation though. Irrationally. Crazily.

To her surprise, within a minute, the faintest second line did appear.

Dazed, she closed the toilet lid and sat down on it, staring at her stick. At evidence of the baby that would never be.

Her throat closed up.

Then she shoved the stick back into the plastic bag, splashed cool water on her face and went and laid on Brad's couch. To wait.

Sliding walls

For all of us, there are a few select people we let into our lives. Really let in. Sometimes the reasons are obvious: a common love for certain books, a shared lust for This American Life and good margaritas, a mutual admiration for how the other conducts his or her life.

But I also like to think there's something a little cosmic in the connection. Some sort of star-crossed "meant to be".

Whatever the reasons, we form bonds. They start off flimsy and tentative, but thicken the more we give: information, time, respect.

And then, inevitably, we hurt each other. A wall slides into place with a scraping concrete thud, leaving the two people on opposite sides, either looking for a way over, or turning their backs with arms crossed, faces set in stubborn grimaces.

I am, probably, especially guilty of this. J. often accuses me of defensiveness.

But everyone lets it happen. We sense that we've been too welcoming and we start with the trowel, the brick and mortar. Or, once it's built, we are afraid of scaling the wall, of risking a long, painful tumble over the other side with no one to catch us.

So we navigate these relationships. We say things. We hurt people. Walls slide between, and hopefully screech away again, like scenery wheeled across a stage.

Hung over

Lying on the couch...vaguely hung over but mostly happy at the moment. 

Not hung over, so much, from the drinks consumed last night (while on a quest to improve my marriage by going on regular dates with J.) Hung over, more accurately, on cake and frosting and gray skies and leafless branches.

Dehydrated by a child sick this past week, by too many festivities, by not enough time to put words to screen.

Out the window...two squirrels chase each other good naturedly up and down a tree...playing follow the leader more than engaging in some aggressive mating mission. The sky, slightly brighter now, with melon undertones.

I'm hoping we can go to the beach. That I can sit on the sand with a cup of tea and watch the kids poke through tide pools.

A little woozy from a boy and a girl over-stimulated, who release their stress by whining and snapping and, in the case of Kitty Cat, sobbing over an inside out sock.

I can sometimes picture Fruit Bat, already, as a teenager--sullen and barky and condescending (with occasional flashes of self-possession). Other times, he is all little boy with his dinosaurs and his planets and his sticker books.

Yesterday morning I was ready to run away...over the mountains, into the Puget Sound, to Portland, anywhere. Now, in my depleted but recovering state, I want to be here to see what everyone becomes. How my relationship with J. evolves, how Kitty Cat will someday simply reach her hand into her sock and pull it rightside out, how Fruit Bat will morph into a young man, how long those squirrels can twirl around the trunk of tree.

A breakfasty green

You can find the first part of this story, Greener Grass, in my right sidebar under I Like To Write.

*****

It pissed Tamara off that she was portraying this delicate woman. When she, in fact, was not so fragile. When she, in fact, didn't even know if she would keep on with this pregnancy.

At the diner, they found a booth toward the back, upholstered in black vinyl with white piping. The table was turquoise. A bottle of Heinz ketchup and the requisite glass and chrome salt and pepper shakers gave Tamara something to do with her hands while she waited. Waited for the waiter and listened to Brad and Paul, who had moved on to the subject of bread pudding.

Paul crowed, "They have it. I NEED some. Holy crap."

Brad said. "Dude, what the hell? Stale bread, milk and raisins?"

"Stop talking dirty, man," Paul said. "Doesn't that sound good to you TaMARa? Bread-fucking-pudding?"

"Sure," she said. "But I don't want any right now." She turned her coffee mug over and waited for a guy with longish black hair, who grunted, "Morning" out of the corner of his mouth, to fill it.

One cup, she told herself. She ordered a runny fried egg over corned beef hash and a cheese danish on the side.

"Put it away, girl," Paul said, guffawing. "It'll be good for you both."

Tamara shot him a look that said Shut Up. You promised you wouldn't rat me out.

He saw it, she knew he did. But he just emptied three sugar packets into his coffee and guzzled. He belched his way through a story then, about the cafeteria food at his college and how delicious the home fries and roast beef were.

After they ate, Tamara, high on coffee and sugar, vibrated with energy and good will. Queens! God! New York City! She still couldn't believe it! She could wander the day away if she wanted! Buy a book and read it in the park! Sleep! Sit in Starbucks! The possibilities were endless! She loved these two guys! These two good guys who'd taken her on, no questions asked!

A short time later, though, she started dragging, started thinking about money and hygiene. She asked Brad and Paul to wait while she ducked into a CVS and bought a pregnancy test, a toothbrush, deodorant and a tube of wintergreen lifesavers.

The reality of her family, waiting half a country away, tapped at her like a mechanical knock at perfectly spaced intervals, like some sort of Chinese water torture.

She tried not to think about them. But then she saw a purple plastic hairbrush that was an exact replica of Caitlyn's. She noticed a display of shaving cream and wondered if Dave needed any. She smelled baking bread in the air outside the store and thought how much the kids would like it if she brought home doughnuts.

Ambivalence

For a while it seems all right. And then, suddenly, it does not. It is all you ever wanted, at first. And then it is nothing of what you want.

You think of the phrase: Be careful what you wish for.

You've always, in the past, scoffed at this. How could your wishes ever lead you down a wrong path?

But they can...of course they can. They can lead you through thickets of blackberry bushes, when you thought you were headed for a clear trail along a smooth, curving shore. They can take you up rocky cliffs when all you hoped for was to stroll across a flat meadow.

And there is more heartbreak, more exhilaration, sometimes, than you could've imagined. Each way has its own obstacles, its downed branches or washed out foot bridges.

Each way, too, in its familiarity, bores you. You think, what about that trek over there, through the trees? Surely it is more scenic, more adventurous, more satisfying.

But the people on that path, whose wind-breakers you occasionally catch glimpses of, think the same of your way.

For a while, again, it is all right. You're able to see what you have. Really see it. And then, suddenly, you can't. You deserve something awful, you think. Something that will shake you up and show you how good and easy you have it. 

Because it is one of those days when you're low on gratitude.

And why should you, of all people, with your warm house and your closet full of clothes and your cupboards full of expensive food and your loving family, be entitled to a single day like that?

Alternative food entities I'd like to thank

Having a child with severe food allergies is, as you've heard me whine ad nauseum, its own unique challenge. Events and meals that others take for granted as fun and delicious, become peculiar minefields.

There are some things we avoid, in which we would probably otherwise partake, if it weren't for my son's issues. Eating out as a family, for one. We occasionally do this, but not often. There are a very small handful of restaurants I trust, and perhaps it's because the kids are more like squirmy rodents at the table than actual human beings with manners, but we don't frequent food establishments much.

Ice cream socials? Out.

Pizza parties? Can't really do that either.

But, with the help of friends willing to go the extra mile (or buy the expensive cake mix), we manage to make it to lots of birthday parties. We also are able, thanks to some amazing companies, to provide Fruit Bat with treats so delicious that he barely knows what he's missing.

I'd like to thank (and provide a little exposure for):

-Cherrybrook Kitchen. They make amazing cake mixes that are dairy, egg and nut free. The chocolate mix is better than any Duncan Hines or Betty Crocker on the market.

-Amanda's Own. Tasty nut, egg and dairy free chocolate. This is the only place from which I can order chocolate bunnies. And I'm incredibly grateful to them.

-Enjoy Life Foods. The one and only snack/granola bars I can find in area stores. Both kids like them too. Whole Foods has also just started carrying their chocolate bars and I now have a cupboard-full.

-Sunbutter. The best peanut butter substitute you'll ever find. Honestly, I can't tell the difference.

-Trader Joes. For their semi-sweet (dairy-free!) chocolate chips and their own brand of Sunflower Seed butter, which is also very good.

-Ener-G Egg Replacer. Which allows me to whip up waffles and pancakes just as good as their eggy counterparts.

15 years ago, it's unlikely that Fruit Bat would even have food allergies (the rate has more than doubled since 1997), but since he does, I feel so lucky to live in an era of online shopping and alternative grocery stores.

Thanks to them, my heart doesn't break nearly so often.

A desperate Green

You can find the first part of this story in my right sidebar, under I Like To Write.

*****

"When are you coming back, Tamara?"

"I don't-" she stammered. "I don't know yet. I'll tell you though. I'll tell you right away when I know. It's just that...I'm not done yet."

It took every ounce, every thread of Dave's patience not to throw the phone, not to break a goddamn plate or squeeze one of her precious champagne flutes until it shattered in his hand, left blood coursing down his wrist and into the sleeve of his sweatshirt. "Done? With what?" he asked.

All he could imagine was her fucking some other guy. Some other guy who was touching her in places only Dave should've been allowed access. He thought of her naked breasts, her perfect, naked breasts, sagging a little after three babies, but still round, still incredibly responsive. "Why'd you call? If you don't have any answers for me."

"Because," she said, her voice hitching up. "I wanted you to know I'm safe. That I'm thinking of you. That I haven't just, you know, taken off with no idea of the consequences."

"The hell you haven't," Dave said. "You don't know what's going on here...what it's like."

She laughed then, a deep, throaty gurgle that rose and rose until it finally stopped, and she said, "Oh, I think I know what it's like."

He pressed the hang up button (so much less satisfying that slamming the receiver into its cradle). Then he dropped the phone into the garbage disposal and flipped the switch.

The blades crunched and rattled and, ultimately, jammed. Dave smiled. When he looked up, he realized all three kids were watching him. "Broken," he said. "Oops." He waved their gazes away. "Waffles'll be done in a minute," he said.

He lurched for the iron then, threw it open and speared the blackened waffle with a fork. He tossed it on top of the phone in the sink and blasted it with water.

Calmly, he poured more batter and vowed to watch the clock this time. Three minutes. No more.

He supposed he should look into childcare. Of some sort. He needed to work. The pump station wasn't going to rehab itself and, since he'd been awarded principal status on the project, he had to step up. His boss, wouldn't exactly understand if he called in and said his wife was on a respite in New York and he had to babysit the kids. For an undetermined amount of time.

He finished cooking the waffles, dumped on some maple syrup and let the kids eat them in front of the TV. Then he started scrounging for Tamara's address book.

"Daddy!" Caitlyn called. "Daddy! Mommy puts powdered sugar on my waffles. I want powdered sugar." Passing through the family room, he pointed at her and said, "If you don't like what I  made you, go get yourself something else. I have stuff to do."

He finally found the pink, leather-bound book on top of a pile of clothes in the laundry room. Which was weird. But, whatever. He searched, unsuccessfully, for Rachel's number. He flipped until he saw Megan Roth, the daughter of his secretary.

He called her and she agreed to come at noon and stay until dinner time. At least he could go into the office for a few hours. Thank God. Thank God. He needed out.

It took most of the morning to rally the kids to dress themselves, eat and drink, brush teeth, comb hair. He didn't know why they weren't more self-motivated. What Tamara let them get away with that caused them to drag and argue and negotiate like they did.

He forced them all outside then, uncovered the sandbox he'd built a few years back, pulled up a lawn chair and started sorting through a work binder while they played, threw sand at each other, screamed.

*****

Tamara stepped from the shower, its floor dirty gray. She dried herself with a small, scratchy towel, grateful to finally feel clean. She hadn't eaten a decent meal in over a day and her stomach was bucking, her intestines a little slack, but she was scrubbed, at least.

She thought about her towels at home: sage green and thick. Always smelling of that fucking laundry detergent. She sniffed the towel she held. Nothing.  Blessedly free of scent. Who cared if it abraded the tender skin along her jaw line, the skin that always thinned when she was pregnant. Who cared about any of it.

She combed out her hair, pulled on the black skirt and one of the tops she'd taken from the woman in Milwaukee. Milwaukee. It might as well have been Singapore for how far she felt from it.

Suddenly she dropped into a crouch, hair dripping down her back. She covered her mouth with a clean hand. What in God's name was she doing in New York staying with an apartment full of guys she'd never met?

Then, as abruptly as she'd broken down, she stood and draped her damp towel over the shower bar. She was just there, that's all. Events conspired and she'd followed her instincts or her fear or whatever. And there she was.

"Can we go get breakfast?" she asked Paul as she emerged from the bathroom.

"You need food?" he asked, looking more alarmed than he ever had in the 30 hours she'd known him.

"Yeah, kinda."

He jumped up, yanked a sweater over his head and asked Brad, "Dude? Is there a diner around here somewhere? A coffee shop or something?" Then to Tamara. "You want a real breakfast? Like eggs and stuff? A diner. Yeah, a diner."

Tamara nodded and crossed her arms over her middle. "Eggs would be good," she said. "French toast, maybe?"

Brad stood, grabbed his wallet from a bedroom and stuffed it into the pocket of his khaki shorts.

It felt great to walk, to be out of the apartment and on the street. They went a few blocks, past squealing, hissing garbage trucks and nondescript brick buildings. Sun shined through cracks in fences, through sporadic trees, down alleys, and lit their faces, lent a buoyancy to the outing that would've been missing on a gray, rainy morning.

Paul and Brad talked about a friend of theirs named Mateo who was fishing in Alaska. They joked and whooped a little and Tamara bobbed along beside them. And then a pickup truck passed, it's exhaust spewing big, black puffs.

Tamara tried to hold her breath, but the stench got in, her stomach seized, and she threw up over the curb. When she looked up, wiping her lips with the back of her hand, Paul was lighting a cigarette and Brad gaped.

"Too much drink last night?" he asked.

She shook her head, "Nah. I just need some food."

"We're almost there," he said. "Can you make it two more blocks?"

"Totally," she said, and they trooped forward, though not as blithely as before.

Too early

You wake just shy of 4am. Your throat hurts. You swallow and swallow and try to ignore the scratchy sear. You get up, fetch juice. It helps. A little.

The full moon shines through black tree branches onto your face. You like it.

You try to drift off again. 

Your daughter wakes a short time later, with similar pain, similar respiratory issues. She will call you into her room three times before you give up on sleep, take a shower, brew strong coffee.

You are thinking in second person. Sometimes verse. Which is not like your usual first-person prose, but you go with it.

The snippets are kind of nice. They are all your brain can handle. Your whole day will be in snippets, thoughts clipped by your children's chatter, curbed by fatigue.

But, days like this are okay once in a while. Sometimes, when you're overly tired you appreciate more. You can't see the big picture so you focus on Little Things. Like caffeine and dry socks and deadlines already met for the week. Your daughter's warm, sour breath as she snores next to you. Your son's increasingly stringy body that he occasionally hurls in your direction and allows you to squeeze.

You think about contentment. Other parents on the playground. Are they all as smugly gratified as they seem? No. You're sure this isn't true. Everyone has their insecurities, their regrets, their fears. You wish you could see into their minds, like staring into Japanese glass floats people sometimes find along the beaches of the Pacific. Or maybe you don't. But you wonder why you're always reaching, spluttering for shore. How others hide their own reaching and spluttering so well.

There are a few things you have to do.

You can't get away from preparing meals. Getting kids ready for school. Coaxing them, with your raw voice, into doing things they don't want to do for themselves. And then making a few calls. Driving here and there. Always laundry. And dishes. 

Lamenting a bit.

You wish you'd stuck with learning guitar in your twenties. You wish an agent would fall in love with your manuscript. You wish you'd picked up french. Or Galician. Something pretty. You wish you could make decent sourdough bread.

See? Disjointed.

Disjointed and grateful.

Sleepy, finally, when it's inconvenient to be, but appreciative.