Small Kindnesses

I was at the post office filling out some labels, listening to the conversations behind me. There was a women in line with three boxes.  She ran into an acquaintance as far as I could make out.

“Oh, yes, my son’s over in Iraq. I’m sending these packages to him.” Her friend said, how wonderful. As I turned around to take a peek at the women, I saw an Indian man at the counter. He appeared to be in a hurry. There were two older women in saris waiting by the exit door.

I got in line with my goods. The woman put her son’s boxes up on the counter and the hurried man said had stopped next to her, “I’d like to pay for the shipping.”

“Oh no. I couldn’t possibly…”

“I insist. It’s the least I can do.” He patiently waited for all of her packages to be labeled properly.

This stranger had his family wait so that he could pay to ship this woman’s son’s care packages over to Iraq.

The kindness of strangers.

Happy Memorial day to all of the men and women who fight for peace, in a world that needs more kindnesses.

Never Bet Against My Son

39 weeks pregnant. It was a Wednesday evening and the weight of a ten pound baby had dropped.  I was in to visit my doctor, the last visit before the scheduled c-section the following morning. She put me on all of the monitors, and as I was getting ready to leave, she came back in.

Something didn’t look right. This was my baby that I was told was not a viable pregnancy. Then they found a tear in the uterine lining that at my age, 36 at the time, was a large concern. The tear was substantial enough that the doctor recommended I not tell anyone of the pregnancy. The tear was a concern until 6 months.

The doctor had already shook my hand, said she’d see me tomorrow and left the room. She came back. She wanted to run another test.

They hooked me up to the monitor, her face scrunched up, brows knit. She saw me watching and smiled.

“We’re going to have a baby tonight.” She smiled at me.  She must have forgotten I had seen the other look.

“What’s wrong?”

“The baby’s heartbeat is not what we’d like, and I think it’s under stress. Have you noticed any fluid leakage?”

“No. I mean, not that I noticed.”

“It’s possible you’re losing water. It’s not important. What did you have for lunch?”

“Salad. Oh, and cheese popcorn. Much cheese popcorn.”

“How much salad? What was in the salad?”

“Broccoli, lettuce…”

“Okay, you’re going to head over to the hospital. We’re going to keep you on the monitor and try to hold out on delivering.”

“Why?” I switched from scared to her peer. This baby was coming out tonight. Now was better than later. Let’s get down to it. I had already had one c-section and the thought of another one…I shut down and went into business mode.  It’s my defense. I must have appeared calm and collected as she now elaborated more than she should have. I’m very convincing in that mode.

“You have eaten the worst possible thing as far as digestion goes. It takes the longest to digest, and when we’re dealing with anesthesia…if you throw up, you could inadvertently choke and we don’t want you inhaling broccoli. That would be very, very bad.”

She was out the door and I was off to the waiting room where my husband sat smiling at me.

“How’d it go?”

“How’d you like to meet our baby tonight?” His nothing-rocks-my-world demeanor was in fact rocked. I filled him in. He was giddy and nervous. He covered the nervousness quickly. Our son was at the sitter’s. My parents had come in the day before to help my husband with our son. We have no one here to help, not the type of help that a new baby, a toddler and a small girl traveling between two houses requires. I put past experiences behind me, and thought yes, they would help. This is what parents do.

I called them on my mother’s cell phone as we parked and were walking from the parking lot into the hospital. I was excited to say we were having the baby tonight. I hated the planned out part about a c-section. Actually, I hated everything about a c-section. But my doctors were very convincing about the high risk associated with large babies and things going wrong, things that can never be fixed. So, it tickled me that this baby was calling the shots. Tonight it was.

“Mom? We’re having the baby tonight! I need you and Daddy to pick up J. at the sitter’s.” I was out of breath as we walked. Oh, did I mention that I was in labor but didn’t know it. That was the other part the doctor had mentioned. I didn’t know that lower pressure that started low and ran along the top curve of my bump was a contraction until she told me.  Having never gone into labor, I just thought it was the muscles stretching with the weight of a large baby.

“Oh my goodness! Lyra let me call you back. We’re getting pulled over by the police.” I could hear her nerves. Her southern accent was thick when she was stressed.  I also knew a key thing about my mother. She hadn’t heard me. This may sound bizarre, but I’m not exaggerating for a story. She. Had. Not. Heard. Me.

“Mom. Listen. I have to go into the hospital. We are 45 minutes away, and I cannot get J. You need to write down the directions.”

“I can’t right now. Can I call you back?” In the background I hear my dad muttering, her voice getting short with me as it does when my demands are too great.

“You aren’t hearing me.” I had to stop walking, we were now in the hospital. Normally I would shut down at this point but I had to get her to understand me. My lifelong quest. It wasn’t about me, it was about a three year old who was at the sitter’s and would be terrified to not have either of his parents. My stomach squeezed, my heart raced. Lyra do not go into labor, I repeated over and over again to myself. “Okay. Put Daddy on the phone.”

“Lyra! The policeman is walking up to the car. I just can’t deal with this right now! Can’t someone else do it?” Then to my father, “Why did you make that U-turn?? You saw the sign!”

“No! No one else can do it. I need you to do this! Put the cop on the phone. Right now. There is not a cop in the world who would give you a ticket. Let me talk to him.”

To my father, “She wants to talk to the policeman. Yes, I told her that.” Then to me, “Look, we can’t right now.”

My husband is motioning to me. I am bent at the waist leaning against a railing. My breath is labored. He says, “Hang up. It’s you and me. We’ll do this.”

“Forget it.” I say and hang up on her. I am sobbing, holding my belly.

My husband’s cell phone rings five minutes later. He’s trying not to be angry for me. “No, I’m just going to run back and get him. No big deal…uh huh…yes, of course, it’s a better idea.” He hangs up.

They check us in and get me hooked up. The doctor had called ahead, and the lack of waiting said all I needed to know. The baby was still under stress.  The heart rate was too low.

My husband smiled at me, and said, “Okay. Now that you’re settled. I’m going to run home real quick, pick up J., drop him off with your parents at our house, and I’ll be right back.”

“You can’t leave me. It’ll take 45 minutes each way. What if you aren’t here when they cut me open. I can’t do this by myself.” I was having a panic attack.

“It won’t take me that long. You are going to call one of your friends, calm down, and I’ll be back before you’re off the phone. You will not have this baby without me. I know you.”

I called one of my best friends who was out to dinner with her parents. She put me on speaker and put the phone in the middle of the table. They had me pretend that I was out to dinner with them. I told them all what happened after years of hiding the shame of not having an average parental situation. No one judged. They told me what a wonderful husband I had, what a wonderful family I was creating, and to remember that I get to decide what kind of mother I would be. It would be about my kids, always about my kids.

They stayed on the phone until my husband got back, an hour and a half. He told me my son was fine that I wasn’t there. I told him he was lying, that my son had panicked, and had freaked out when he left too. He said nothing but looked at me.  A mother knows.

A few hours later, I went into surgery and within a half an hour later, my second son was born. They injected my IV with a heavy-duty painkiller right after they held the baby up for me to see. A warm happy filled me, even as I stared in amazement at this little boy, a boy!, who looked exactly like his big brother. Their resemblance freaked me out, not to mention that I didn’t know until that moment that I thought he was a she.

When they brought the baby back after the tests, I started to shake violently. I couldn’t hold any part of my body still. My skin and scalp began itching like nothing I had ever felt. I was having a reaction to the painkiller. I couldn’t hold the baby, because I was afraid I would drop him. My husband sat next to me holding that baby for the three hours it took for the medicine to wear off. He held his cheek up to mine as my head shook up and down, a junky coming off of a bad trip.

I didn’t hear from my mother until they showed up late the next day. She never apologized, as she didn’t think they were wrong. We never discussed it, as we never discussed anything that happened. She did mention to my husband, “I was trying to talk to her, but you know how Lyra gets. She just wants to hear what she wants to hear.” He walked away and I applaud him for not fighting my battle. As a kid she would do this with my friends. The ones who are still my friends walked away as well. There is something about family that no matter how I may feel, I don’t want anyone to knock them down and put me in a position to defend them. That only makes it worse. The good ones know this, and know how to support me without knocking down people who I love, but I just don’t like very much of the time. They know enough to say “that isn’t normal” and “it isn’t your fault”.

I got the husband, and the third baby, the one that they kept counting against. I have a family that I try every day to do it differently without knowing how. I try and fail. I try again. I say “I’m sorry” a lot. As my husband says, “We do the best we can with what we have.”  Yes. We do.

“

Never and Always

I have an issue with the words “always” and “never”.  At best they’re lies.  At worst they are a verbal construct of condescension and a failure of the imagination. Even worse than those words is when they are preceded by the word “will”. Give me someone who says what they will always do, and I will give you a scenario where if they stand by their comment they are a liar and a fool.

That being said I will do my best not to be a liar and a fool.

I will never

1. Wear a lanyard of work keys and an ID around my neck.
2. Wear a fanny pack.
3. Tear down a writer for their attempts.
4. Lie about my age.
5. Back down when intimidated.
6. Tell a child they are chunky, putting on a few, or getting thick. Just because you don’t say fat, doesn’t mean a kid doesn’t understand you.  They do.
7. Tell an adult they are chunky, putting on a few, or getting thick. Just because you don’t say fat, doesn’t mean a person doesn’t understand you.  They do.
8. Wear white walking shoes (please, oh, please don’t let this one become a lie).
9. Stop before this book is done to my full ability and talent.  It may never be published, but it’ll be finished.
10. Tell my kids to go into business because it’s practical. Never ever.

I will always

1. Look you in the eye when you’re talking to me.
2. Embarrass my children.
3. Wish I was a size smaller.
4. Want to be a writer.
5. Want to be in a band.
6. Want to be a better mom, a better human being, a better steward of this planet.
7. Hate talking on the phone.
8. Be loyal to my friends and their secrets.
9. Ride my kids about their manners.
10. Be in awe of my husband.

A Dating Story With Beer in Mason Jars

We were juniors in college and the six of us rented a house on Mill St. Around the corner was a dive bar that sold beer by the pitcher and amnesia out of cheap liquor bottles. They didn’t ID.

It wasn’t a college bar, it was a neighborhood dive and they had karaoke every Wednesday. The winner won a pitcher.

Every Wednesday, a few of us would go, the more adventurous two or three, and we’d down a pitcher, some liquid courage before I’d get up and belt out a song. We’d get a free pitcher.  Now, I’d like you to believe it’s because of my stellar singing ability, but actually it was a blue collar working man’s bar, and we were a group of young girls.  Of course I’d win.

This one particular night, after a few songs, a younger man approached me and told me how much he loved my voice. His name was Sean and he seemed nice, so after much convincing I agreed to go out on a date with him. He called the next day and we confirmed plans.

I got dressed up and we went to a country bar. Let me clarify. I thought it was a country bar, but it was a trucker country bar. Imagine my surprise years later when the bar was featured on Oprah during a segment on Truckstop Trixies. At the time, I couldn’t put my finger on what was awry and I was all of 19. I was overdressed and drinking beer out of a Mason jar which in some bars would be kitschy. This was not that bar. I was being watched from the moment we walked in which made Sean proud, and me feel like a shrimp invited to a cocktail party. Sauce anyone?

He didn’t want to go, so I finally convinced him that we’d have more fun at my house. I knew that’d get me home safely. Sure enough it did.

Of all nights, no one was home. I flipped on the TV on the way in, telling him to make himself comfortable, and rushed to the bathroom. I locked the door. Now the guy himself didn’t make me nervous, I just didn’t know how to get rid of him at this point. I had planned on giving a roommate the SOS look, which any girl from any culture will recognize immediately and formulate a plan. I had to go to Plan B, the stomach issues excuse.

I came out of the bathroom and he was not on the couch. I glanced around, unsettled, but still not out of my zone.  The karate I had been taking gave me a small level of confidence and I didn’t run around telling people I knew it. I sat on the couch where he had been watching MTV. I heard the toilet flush upstairs, but stayed rooted to the couch, hoping it was a roommate, disconcerted that it was him and he was wandering around my house enough to find the other bathroom. I saw his sneakers and jeans descend the steps before I saw…his naked chest? He raised his eyebrows twice. He must have practiced in the bathroom mirror. Did he think he was in a porno?

He swaggered over to me. Did I mention he was a thin, Irish guy, cute in an anemic sort of way, but someone who should never under any circumstances swagger? He came over, kneeled in front of me, put his hands up in the air and started swaying to the music. His torso writhed like snake. He started rotating his hands around in a circular fashion and then thrusting his hips at my knees.

I sat dumbfounded. When the surprise passed, I bit my lip trying not to laugh. That was a mistake as he then bit his lip, some sort of mating dance had begun.

The screen door opened and in walked my roommate. L. is the scholastic wonder, the yin to my yang. She looked at us, he turned his head, saw her and continued. He really did think this was a porn movie.

I gave her my widest-eyed look whenever he shut his eyes, which was most of the time in this particular love dance. She shook her head and headed up the steps. She thought I wanted him there. Lovely. She didn’t catch the look and I was too afraid of hurting his feelings to make it more obvious. I was initially concerned about the situation, up until the dance. But then I realized how socially inept this poor soul was and I just wanted him out without humiliating him.

“Oh Sean, you have to go!”

He opened his eyes, puzzled. How could he leave when our love was so clear?

“That was my roommate who is so pissed at me.  We aren’t…supposed to have men in the house. She’s very religious.  Very religious.  I’m so sorry, but you really have to go.” I hopped up on the couch where I was sitting and scrambled over him.  I ran upstairs grabbed his shirt, ran back down and told him how we’d do it again, but with school and all I didn’t really have time to date.  But boy, oh boy, this was so much fun.

I talked quickly as I ushered him to the door, locking it behind him, his shirt only half on.

I went up to L.’s room and we explicitly discussed signals, why the female population has them, and how important they are. I explained that the look of rapture on my face was a look of shock, and she needed to brush up on these very basic things. I drew her a facial signal diagram for reference.

Cell Phones, A Blind Date and the Mushy Gushy

“Are you…Erika?” He asked me embarrassed. A handsome, young guy dressed in a trying-hard, well-ironed casual shirt. It was sold under the casual marketing regime.

I had just gotten my coffee, during a Lyra-designated break at work.  I sat at the bar rail at my coffee shop overlooking the concrete side wall of Union Station. I was checking my e-mails on my phone, and it was the pause that I heard more than the question.  I heard the question, after I heard the pause, realizing he was indeed talking to me.

“Me? No…”

“Oh, man.  I am so sorry.” He was humiliated which seemed strange to me.

“No, really that’s okay.  Not Erika though.” I went back to my phone as it was an awkward interchanged for the poor guy, and one of those times that you really didn’t know how to stop the awkward.  He wandered off. He was in his early thirties by the looks of him, late twenties by his demeanor.

Not long after, a couple sits down next to me, side by side angled towards each other but more toward the same wall I was facing.

“…I know right?? That’s what people don’t get about why Chicago is the best city in the world.  The best, am I right?”

“Well, yeah, um…”

“I mean, our winters do last forever and you know, whatever, but when we get these eighty degree days, it’s like the world is out!”

Oh, I had to see her. The enthusiasm, the joie de vivre, I had to get a peek at this young girl in her overzealous glory. I swung just a bit to my right, and peered over my phone.  I recognized Mr. Summer Casual sitting right next to me, his back to me.  Facing him was…Erika.  A blind date.  Of all the luck. I am sad to report, I had to get back to work, and I don’t know how far they made it past the weather, but I wish tiny, petite, brown-haired, exuberant Erika and Mr. Casual all the best.

I smiled all the way back to work, because it reminded me of my husband. We had made a date, but not a date. We were in the same, loosely called, running club. We had met at a couple of different races but only in passing. Usually by the time I’m done, the fast people had already had their food (and beer if it’s a good race) and were on their way out. The running group had online message boards and at one point he had mentioned a book.  If I recall it was Harold And the Purple Crayon. I e-mailed him, just a quick note about how that was one of my favorites and before you knew it we were sending messages back and forth all about books, recommendations, new books, old books.  My head was exploding with joy just to find someone, anyone to talk to about books.

I’m the book reader in my circle of friends, and no one I know in Chicago really reads, not voraciously.  With books, it’s always been me, alone, and when I start talking to someone who loves them as much as I do, I’m energized, invigorated. Some time passed of daily e-mails, all day long, and I went out on a limb.

“We should get together sometime and talk about this over a beer.” I hit send, and panicked. He sent back “How’s Friday?”

I was a giddy school girl. I lived in a northern suburb and he lived in a southwestern one, so we picked a bar in the middle. Now, I’m always early. Always. I didn’t know where I was going as well, and have no sense of direction so I got there with plenty of time to spare.

There he was sitting to the side of the entrance on a short wall which I initially thought was so sweet.  Then I saw it.  He was talking on a cell phone. Now you have to understand. It was 2003 and to my knowledge I was the last holdout on the cell phone revolution. I knew of all the practical reasons to have one, but the idea that someone could get in touch with me at their whim, bugged me.  The truth is, it still does. If I was out and about, I didn’t want people to be able to reach me. I liked the idea of being solely there for whoever I was meeting. If we had gone to the effort to meet up, they deserved my complete attention. Ironically, now in 2011, I am never far from my phone with internet service. I still feel the same, but life has intervened.

There he was on his phone, and all I can think is Ugh. This should be quick. My life was complicated enough, and I did not need another issue. Oh, yes, judgements were made, my friends. I parked in a side lot and walked around and he waved to me holding up a finger, wait a minute, it said. You’ve got to be kidding me I thought. Okay, this is totally a buddy thing, I knew that.  I knew that, right?

“I am so sorry.  That was my daughter calling to say goodnight. My mom is watching her.”

“Oh! Of course, of course.” With that we headed into the pub.

We got there at 7:30. We talked nonstop, or rather I did and he interjected here and there. We talked books, and books, and life, and books, and writers, and life, and when the bar closed, not wanting it to end, not sure what was going on, but knowing above all else we didn’t want it to end, so we proceeded to Dunkin Donuts. There we sat on the curb in the parking lot drinking coffee until four in the morning. At the end, I gave him a hug. Nothing more.  And all I could think was that I wanted to talk to him for the rest of my life. I wanted someone who looked me dead in the eye the entire time, who never tired of hearing me and who had a cell phone because his daughter called to say goodnight whenever she wasn’t with him.

It’s been a long time since I’ve thought about that, about that us. We get so wrapped up in life and the kids and the jobs, and as much as I thank him for all that he does it can never be enough.

I’m also thankful for Mr. Casual thinking I was Erika. Because if he hadn’t, it would have never reminded me of that night. And my husband. And the way eight years later he still makes the best eye contact of anyone I’ve ever met.

Weeding, Mulching, and Planting, Oh My!

Friday, I posted a quick pitch idea over at Betsy’s. For those of you who know me, you know that this goes against everything. Whenever I discuss my book in any form, the idea deflates like a day old helium balloon. Latex, not mylar. Obviously.

Ideas are such touchy things. There was a Dr. Who episode (suffice to say that I never watched it until last year when my husband convinced me, and if memory serves, that’s all it took.  I proceeded to watch the back episodes starting with David Tennant up through the current Matt Smith episodes, and barring Mad Men it is my favorite show.) where the alien creatures were called the Silents. Frightening things, modeled after Edvard Munch’s “The Scream”.  Nothing should look as much like that painting as this creatures do.  The premise is that after you stop looking at them, you cannot remember anything about them or anything that was happening.  The good guys devised a system where they implanted a recording device in their hands, so when they were with The Silents, they’d record a message for themselves.  If a red light was blinking under the skin in the palm of their hand, they’d know to check their message which inevitably would say something along the lines of “Get the F*ck out of the room you’re in.” Disconcerting when you have no recollection how you could leave a message for yourself like that. Terrifying.

Right, so back to the point, sharing a pitch made me feel very much like I was in that episode. It was frightening to put it out there, and it wasn’t quite right. The idea is there, but I mentioned the granddaughter who doesn’t exist, at least not in the form that my pitch would have her exist. It’s an addition to the overall structure, an addition that is massive. Just so I am clear, massive.

The comments were more helpful and more incisive than I could have hoped. They touched on plot issues I knew I had, some missed the mark (my fault because of the pitch) stating that it was really Elsa’s story, which I sincerely hope is wrong. I have spent two years on Doris’s story. It’s all about her and everyone else weaves around her.

I came out knowing just what I needed to do. I sketched out the changes/additions/subtractions at work on a scrap of paper.  Then I folded it neatly, and placed it in my bag. It has been awhile since I’ve been chomping at the bit to get in there, but there I was.  I planned to get up at 4am each day on the weekend, grabbing two and if lucky three hours before the kids got up.

And as with the best laid plans, life happened.

On Friday night we had 9 cubic yards of mulch delivered covering a large chunk of our driveway. We began weeding the front Friday night, the younger kids gathering sticks, my stepdaughter and I weeding, and my husband following behind with the mulch. After my kids were in bed, my much neglected husband and I watched a delightful movie called “Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench”. After staying up late, the kids slept in until 7am, as did their mother, and we had two hours of game playing before heading out into the yard at 9am. I thought maybe I could jot a few ideas down while they watched cartoons, but they must have sensed it. I never turn down a board game.

We spent our day in the yard. Weeding, mulching, me doing my Mommie Dearest interpretation after having quite enough of my six year old’s whining. I entered drill sargeant mode, including a full lecture about how “you are part of this family and need to chip in and are you kidding me and maybe for a change it’s about doing some work” and on and on and really if the kid had any sense he would have just helped to get his mother to shut the hell up, which is what the rest of the team really wanted.

Alas. Mother fail.

Sunday rolled around, and we weren’t done. Not even close. Tomatoes were planted, herbs planted, all gardens were mulched. The kids helped pick out the smallest Redbud tree (twelve dollars?!) I’d ever seen, Charlie Brownesque, and that little guy was planted. My husband, the man never once complaining, dug up four more overgrown shrubs, and then replanted with two of these strange grass-like evergreens, that are soft to the touch.

The kids found the stones hidden under mulch which make a path leading from the front yard to the back. The stones were swept, the flower pots planted. At the end of it all as a storm loomed, we got out the sprinkler and the two boys went nuts running through it. My stepdaughter, caught between the kid in her and the merging young adult decided she didn’t feel like going in with them.

There was only one thing to do after two days of my yelling at these three lovely kids.  I tore off into the yard, my son and daughter, saying “What are you doing??” as I ran through the sprinkler fully clothed.  She was right behind me and the four of us spent a bit of the afternoon running back and forth sopping wet. My husband laughing at us. After she was fully incorporated to the mix, I bowed out gracefully and had a seat at the patio table.  My husband emerged from the house carrying two beers.  We sat and watched the kids.  All I could think was about how damn lucky I was.  I spent two days riding these kids, and all it took was for me to run through a sprinkler and all was forgiven.

They are so much kinder and gentler than me. I need to study them better.

Now the immediacy of the changes to my book has passed as I feared it would. The fact is that I could take that time and write, hole up away from my family. I know my husband, he’d do anything to support me. But were something to happen to me tomorrow, the kids need those memories of us and the sprinkler. They could do without my rampages, but it comes with the territory of being close to me. As they get older, I’ll have three that care less about little things like that, water shooting high into the air, and I’ll have plenty of time then.  If not, well, then not.

As for tomorrow I’ll fight the deflation of my idea, and hope that it’s been mulling when other people were my priority.  Maybe my ideas are like a fine wine. Maybe. I get an hour in the morning and for that, I’m grateful.

I just wish I had that recorder in my hand and the little red light was flashing to remind me.

I Get By With a Little Help From My Friends

I Get By With a Little Help From My Friends

There may be a day where you’re uncertain because your mom made your costume and you really wanted the one from the store. You find out that you can’t bring your light saber, because according to school rules, it’s a weapon. You may feel that you look more like a monk than the Jedi who you know you are.

So you’re the different one and a little self-conscious about it. Then you are out there, and you’re surrounded by your friends when you see something has gone awry and you are just the man to fix it. You take care of the job, because that’s what Jedi’s do.

Being surrounded by writers who are all different and some so much better than you, can be distracting and discouraging at times. It’s hard to cop to, but some people are so damn good at what they write that the comparisons we sometimes make are hard to admit, even to ourselves. But we each have something, some reason we’re writing what we’re writing, something we are bringing to the table that no one else could. Your execution is unlike anyone else’s. Your life, your history, the good, the bad, the skeletons that bust out of the closet every now and again, it is all you. The same plot in two different hands equals two different stories.

And that’s what it’s all about, the stories.

So admire your friends for their gifts and talents, but respect the costume you’re working on. We are all on our own path, but we’re so lucky to have Jedi’s to fix our costumes along the way.

After all, they don’t know what you know.

Your mom can move houses with her force. And no one knows that she’s a Jedi too.

The house used to be next door...

Write it out the best you can. Then count on the fact that your friends will be there to help you no matter what. Because I will be.  And I know how to use the force if need be…

Eating To Numb

Hunger.

I’m a salt/fat person. Lately I’ve been on a chip binge. Historically, this is not good, less for my figure or lack thereof, and more for the status of my state of mind.

When I can’t express myself, and feel overwhelmed, outraged, dazed and confused, I eat or I should say, I overeat. Looking around Union Station, I have to say that I’m not alone. We have become a nation of overeaters, of kids with weight-induced diabetes. I see kids walking with their parents and it breaks my heart. You can see the unbroken circle. It doesn’t have to be this way, but as a society we’ve somehow decided that it’s okay. It’s okay to be miserable. It’s okay to sit and watch hours and hours of television. It’s okay if you eat as long as you don’t make someone else uncomfortable with what you have to say or who you are.

It’s not okay. I was raised to stuff my feelings in so deeply that if asked, I wouldn’t have been able to say what they were. It was all so internalized and I knew that while I was chewing, I wasn’t thinking.  While I was putting chip after chip in my mouth after school, I was keeping my mouth occupied and shut. That was just what was expected of me.

A point of note, I’m not heavy. I’m heavy for me, but in the generally scheme of things I’m smack-dab in the middle. I’m lucky about that. I have my mom’s side of the family’s bone structure. I’m tall and I must have one hell of a metabolism as only approaching forty, is it starting to catch up to me. Many people have it worse. I know that. But if there’s anything I cannot stand it’s when you’re feeling badly, and made to feel worse about it because someone else has it worse. Someone will always have it worse. No matter what it is, you have a right to what you feel, and how you feel it.

So, the thing about this current chip binge, bag upon bag, all at work, all from a vending machine lest my kids pick up my habits which terrifies me, the thing is that I am eating myself to numb. When I overeat this crap, I feel horrible afterwards. I’m sluggish and my stomach hurts. My running joke is that I’m bulimic without the purging part.  Funny, huh?

There are dynamics in my life that I have no control over. I know many people think that if you want change, you make change, but it just isn’t the case.  Sometimes you have to do what you have to do, and any change would effect one of the most important people in your life. You work a job, that once again, yes, lucky to have, but it bleeds my soul dry. There’s something to be said about that, and something to be said for not feeling guilty about it.

The last couple of weeks, the old habits have come back. Being that my other crutch used to be not eating, flip-side of the same coin, I suppose this one is better. They both make you feel the same in the end. The habits have come back because I’m trying not to feel. Even as the food I’m chewing is hard to swallow because of the lump in my throat, I am aware I’m not crying.  That’s the goal, to control the feeling, to numb it down, to make it go away.

It doesn’t. Today as I was thinking about the things I cannot change, I ate bag after bag of chips, stuffing it all down. I was touched by less a memory and more of an overall calm, the feeling I used to get when my best friend would pick me up in high school and get me out of the house because I couldn’t take it anymore. It was safety and clarity and it came to me.

When I’m feeling good, I’m a little bit hungry. I’m more alert, and more involved in my life. If you’ve ever run distance, there is a pure hunger you get from burning too many calories. It is a wonderful feeling. It isn’t an emotional hunger. It is a physical hunger. I thought by now, I’d be done with this madness, this bizarre, messed up relationship to food. Physical hunger is not the enemy. Emotional hunger is. I’m eating because I’m not dealing with things, and even if they cannot change, I can reframe them.  I can choose to reframe them because I’m not the same person I was. I need this because I need to get back to eating things that sustain me and don’t break me down.

I saw Jonathan Franzen interviewed and he said that when he finds himself avoiding something he’s writing, something that he’ll do anything not to write, it means he has to dig deeper.  His feeling of being uncomfortable is a sign to him that he’s getting to the good stuff, the true stuff, the stuff that hurts. That’s what writers do. They say the things others don’t have the words for.

That’s the hunger that we should be feeling. You have to be hungry, hungry for life, for adventure, for pleasure, for pain. All of it. We all have crutches, but as writers we can’t afford to not feel.  We can’t afford to use them and take away the thing, the one thing that could make our writing brilliant.  Yes I said it.  Not good, not great, but fucking brilliant.  It is the ability to feel the emotions that cause us so much pain, that bring us the pleasure as well.  It is the extreme of that, if we can get it down just so, with just the write words, that will bring magic to the page. If I’m working hard to stuff down the bad stuff, I am tempering the great stuff. This isn’t a dress rehearsal.

When my writing isn’t working, it’s because I am writing a nice story.  When it is working, I’m jabbing at that sore tooth with my tongue. That’s really writing.

I can’t have it both ways.  I can’t sit around numbing myself down, and expect to reach a level of honesty I need to be a writer and a mother and a wife worth my salt.

So, I’m done. Tomorrow is a new day and it’s time to feel it all. Then it’s time to write it brilliantly.

A Story in First Lines

“I told you last night that I might be gone sometime, and you said, Where, and I said To be with the Good Lord, and you said, Why and I said, Because I’m old, and you said, I don’t think you’re old.

Having written “the End” to this story of my life, I find it prudent to scamper back here to before the beginning, to my front door, so to speak, and to make this apology to arriving guests: “I promised you an autobiography, but something went wrong in the kitchen.”

Like most people I lived for a long time with my mother and father. I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974.

I have been afraid of putting air in a tire ever since I saw a tractor tire blow up and throw Newt Hardbine’s father over the top of the Standard Oil sign. When my nose finally stops bleeding and I’ve disposed of the bloody paper towels, Teddy Barnes insists on driving me home in his ancient Honda Civic, a car that refuses to die and that Teddy cheap as he is, refuses to trade in.

The news about Walter Berglund wasn’t picked up locally—he and Patty had moved away to Washington two years earlier and meant nothing to St. Paul now—but the urban gentry of Ramsey Hill were not so loyal to their city as not to read the New York Times. In later years, holding forth to an interviewer or to an audience of aging fans at a comic book convention, Sam Clay liked to declare, apropos of his and Joe Kavalier’s  greatest creation, that back when he was a boy, sealed and hog-tied inside the airtight vessel known as Brooklyn, New York, he had been haunted by dreams of Harry Houdini.  A green hunting cap squeezed the top of the fleshy balloon of a head. 

The silence of snow, thought the man sitting just behind the bus driver.  He has the ability to imagine himself a minor incident in the lives of others.“

Thanks to all of our participating books and authors.  In order: Gilead- Marilynne Robinson, Bluebeard- Kurt Vonnegut, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit- Jeanette Winterson, Middlesex- Jeffrey Eugenides, The Bean Trees- Barbara Kingsolver, The Straight Man- Richard Russo, Freedom- Jonathan Franzen, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay- Michael Chabon, The Confederacy of Dunces- John Kennedy Toole, Snow- Orhan Pamuk, The Auto-Graph Man- Zadie Smith

Idea shamelessly stolen from Tahereh Mafi.

Lost in Music and Words

I pulled out my guitar tonight.  It’s covered in dust. It took me but a few chords before my fingers were burning. It took me at least 6 months last time before I developed callouses worthy of being able to play for a solid half an hour.

I got the guitar as a present 10 years ago. I took lessons for just shy of a year and was  getting to where I could play a song I liked that sounded similar to a song I liked, when I met my husband and moved out here with an immediate family. Life changed, priorities changed.

I had just gotten the guitar into a semblance of in tune tonight, when the boys came out of nowhere. They “helped” me strum, then came the pick, then away went the pick, then they each had a turn with it on their lap and my moment was up. Time to remove The Toddler’s nail polish (or nail paint as he calls it), get the kids ready for bed.

And I’m just a little sad. I’m reading The Element a recommendation from MacDougalStreetBaby and as soon as I began reading it, I knew why it was recommended to me. The idea of the book is learning what your “element” is and how to surround yourself with people and ideas so that you can lead a fulfilling life.  To be fulfilled you need to be in your “element”.

In order to find out what it is, you really look at the things in your life that make you tick.  What are you doing where time flies by without you knowing it? What do you do that brings you more energy and not less? Where is the friction point between your passion and your talent?

I am a creature of extremes. My old guitar teacher owned a guitar store. On Fridays, a group of people would get together and jam.  I would show up and listen, occasionally singing.  Now, I can carry a tune, but I’m no rockstar.  I can belt things if they fall in a very small lower range, but I’m that girl that has the choir voice. I’m pitch perfect, but no Stevie Nicks. This never stopped me because they were a bunch of 50 year old men who once a week got to jam out to some Beatles and none of them sang.  I was the singer by default.

But here’s the thing, I try to write here, in this space, and bring anyone who reads it up, including myself.  That doesn’t mean I am this glass is always full person.  It means I strive to be that person. I write to help myself as much as help anyone who might care to read it. But what I want is to be a rockstar. I don’t want to be the choir voice as lovely as they may be.

When I was learning guitar, I had finally got a song that I loved down. I had driven out to New York for a friends wedding and played it for the friend I was staying with, one of my nearest and dearest. I finished and the look on her face made me feel like a million bucks. But she had heard me sing before, and honestly, everything I’ve ever done, every story, every poem, every everything I’ve showed her she has loved whole-heartedly.  She’s that friend, the one who is practical, the yin to my yang, and loves to live through my mania. She’s one of the few who can handle it when the flip side comes out.

My husband, before he was my husband, flew out to meet me at another friend’s house after the wedding festivities were over. I was nervous, but really wanted to play him the song.  I played it, and he smiled and said it sounded really nice. Nice. I pushed it, because I needed to hear what I was afraid he’d say and he said something to the effect that I had a beautiful choir voice. Now, the thing is, I know that to be true. But I didn’t want to hear it, and I really wanted him to hear something amazing and unique.  It broke my heart and now 8 years later I don’t think I’ve ever played anything like that for him again. The reason that I adore him? He’s honest.  And it killed him that he hurt me. Alas.

I’m terrified that I’ll live my life being average. I’ve run two marathons, slowly. I’ve played piano, saxophone, and guitar, and studied voice. I’m not a rockstar. I write and write and write and reread knowing that what I’ve written isn’t there.  It isn’t what I mean to say, it isn’t how I want to say it. I’m not looking for a pep talk, I’m just trying to push through the frustration I feel in trying to find what it is that I excel at. And I’m so scared that it’s nothing.

Sometimes, you get so lost having children.  And sometimes you get so lost just existing on this planet. Sometimes you just want to be Nabakov. Sometimes you just want to be the rockstar.

Do any of you feel like you’ve found your element? Or are you lost like me? Maybe I just haven’t searched far and wide enough and I’m stuck on the same things I’ve always been stuck on hoping that the wanting will make it happen.  Maybe I’m a stellar trapeze artist…