The timer is beeping for a cake I have already taken from the oven. I knew it was done because the smell shifted ever so slightly; from sweet to a hint of acridity. I forgot to turn off the timer and so had to leave my computer to press the button, beeping annoyingly, even though the cake was long pulled, resting on the countertop, cooling. The beep feels random and intrusive. The cake is already out! The time has already past! I have settled down to write and must get up again! The interruption irritates me. My nose is sharper than the recipe. I know to trust my nose, but use the timer every time, as if the marriage of science and art will protect me and my creations. I could defer to a set recipe time alone, but that would miss the point, cakes are about flavor, and although there is a science to baking, it is really an art. Each cake I bake is slightly different, even though I follow the same worn 3X5 card recipes I have for years. We discuss the differences like oenophiles ruminating over wine, “This one is (softer, sweeter, richer, spicier) than the last.” So it is with stories, they change with each telling, adding a little bit of this or that as suits the moment, the ingredients are all available, but the combination shifts on mood, care, attention, and how well I stocked the larder.
My mother is a story teller. I have heard her stories over and over, I have incorporated her words into my own, she appears throughout my writing. I co-opt her. For me it is an expression of love, but I worry that if she were to read what I write about her she would be dismayed, that she can be rendered ugly, or targeted cruelly, or simply used as a device for my own literary pursuits. I am afraid that when I write about love, the fear or pain that cloaks the deeper message will obscure it and she will miss the point. I love my mother. But I fear telling her the truth or including her in the fullness of my life. Even though I am older now, and she is older still. Even though she probably knows everything I am afraid to tell her. We are stuck she and I in an adolescent pattern, I insisting to be fully understood, she just trying to love me. Some days, on the phone, over long distances I feel my impatience with her roil in my stomach. Even as I love every moment we spend together, even as I fear living on this planet without her. I hate myself for my arrested development. I feel the shame of acting fifteen when I am nearly fifty. I hate her in these moments for her unabashed love. But I know her deeply too; she is perplexed by my anger and my distance, still there after all these years, waiting to pounce and accuse her of imperfectly meeting my needs. I am a mother now too, and I understand her better than I did when I was a child. I love in a similar pattern, deeply, despite obnoxious behaviors, despite the need to individuate, despite your wisdom and their arrogance. For in the end the bond we share of flesh and memories, of nine months co-joined, of Thanksgivings and Chanukah and all those High Holiday services, of her pulling me from the ocean at five, and me returning the favor to her at seventy, is the deepest love of my life.
Saturday, October 13, 2007
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Watch This
Dear Mayor Sanders,
I do not know who you are. I do not really know your city - except for a few vacation trips when my children were younger. But I do know people. And I do know what courage looks like. Mayor Sanders, you are a hero. There will be a time, later, when people are looking at history, trying find exact moments of change, and they will come upon you, and your wife - being real, being parents, being human and say "This man stood up and did what we all hoped for, he reminded us that we are people - not machines, not arms of a party, not one thing in public and one thing in private, but fully integrated humans, that have difficult decisions to make, that have to go home and eat dinner at the dinner table, that have daughters to love, and careers to tend, and wives to hold in the night." We forget these things in this era of big politics. We forget that the world is not made up of ideologies, but rather of human beings, looking for love, belonging, and comfort in an often cruel world.
I am struck by the timing of your decision. We have on one side of the continent, a man, another politician, from another part of the world claiming that there is no homosexuality in his country. And in hearing his words, my heart falters, thinking of the fate, of his constituency, people like your daughter, my nephew, my dear friends, wondering what their lives must be like. And last week, toe-tapping stories from your contemporaries in stalls in men's bathrooms, we have done this in our country, forced closeted rituals on our children and adults, denied certain unalienable rights, as you said, basic civil rights. We are all worthy of love. We all deserve a chance to love. It is a civil rights issue as you so beautifully, honestly and eloquently stated.
I saw in your face a man who was terrified. Terrified perhaps that your career would end. That wrath would be evoked from the very political party that supported you for 30 years, that put you in office. I saw in your wife, in her handing you a glass of water, stony resolve, love and pride mixed with fear, knowing that what you were doing together was both right and revolutionary, but also frightening and life changing. You should be proud. That your daughter will know your love. And you will be loved by so many for your courage. Do not let the voices that confront you drown out those that support you. And brace yourself for a future that you cannot in this moment predict. I wish you peace of heart and mind in this process. I imagine it will not be easy.
Mostly I wanted to say thank you. You will serve as an example to me, to this country and the world. There are moments in history where regular people are called to do great things. This was your moment.
With Great Admiration,
Sunday, August 19, 2007
A Day in the Life
“I think you have Asperger’s syndrome” she says, putting down her magazine.
“Hmmmm,” is his reply peering over the top of his laptop. They are sitting across from each other as they often do, but in separate worlds, delivered on glowing screens and printed sheets. A friend noted that their living room resembled an internet café. “What are you reading?”
“The New Yorker,” she says with no small amount of urgency, knowing that her periodicals lend credence to her argument; Vanity Fair and the New Yorker being highly valued contributors of the popular press variety, much more so than People or even Time and Newsweek. You can leave them in a bathroom say, turned to a particular article, and maybe they will be discovered and read. This is never true for her downloaded white papers clipped together and piled in various locations around the house. No one is interested in them. Reading, in this house, is categorized and ranked for both status and entertainment. It is both public, in magazines, books and printouts, and private, confined to the various screens each family member has adopted. And reading itself is ranked, being a number one activity for four of the family members and falling to two and even three for some of the others, much to her dismay.
“What’s the matter with me now?” he says without looking up. He is remembering his other equally compelling diagnoses, doled out article after article. Unlike the traditional predilection of medical students, she does not assume symptoms, instead she assigns symptomology to those she loves.
“Dives deep into projects ignoring the world around them.”
“Check.”
“Ummm odd and uncomfortable social interactions.”
“Check.”
“Subject expert on esoterica that they feel compelled to share with others without obvious regard for interest level.”
“Oh common, we both do that one. Remember that time you were obsessed with juvenile gang activity and were giving your friends pointers on what to look for at the movie theater. I would imagine there was a dip in revenue as your anxious and now educated friends kept their kids home as a result.”
“I was just telling them the truth”
“I know dear. But most people prefer to not know. Not knowing is easier. Maybe you have Asperger’s too.”
“It’s on a continuum,” she says, by way of explanation that feels more like an assignation of acuity. Hers, as always, less acute than his.
“So what’s my prognosis this time?” he asks, curious to see what is in store. When she was convinced of his Adult ADD, she begged him to consider returning to the Ritalin of his youth, an option that he firmly rejected, favoring instead to continuing to enjoy his hyper-focus and all of its attending rewards. Depression, her next shot at fixing him, felt more flat, his response, that she was the one that was depressed and that he was actually quite happy being himself, left her uncomfortable and unsettled. Dependent Personality Disorder brought some comfort as she folded laundry and meal planned while he sat glued to his computer screen, happy as a clam. “I’m not Dependant,” he said at the time, “as much as you are dependable.” He loved her. He loved her activity and her scholarship. He saw her diagnostic abilities as a kind of parlor game. Entertaining and short lived.
“Well, it is chronic,” she explained with some resignation.
“No cure?”
“It seems as though someone, Dr. Asperger himself I suppose designated it as a syndrome, as opposed to just another way to be human, and then someone else placed it on the spectrum of Autism, which has no cure beyond socialization skills building and such, shyness and social anxiety I would imagine are on the continuum too, higher up. This article doesn't talk cure, although the guy mentions antidepressants and Valium.”
“What are we to want me to do with this?” he asked, mentally preparing for her not so subtle subtle hints for self improvement that would inevitably follow, not only as part of this conversation but for the next time interval, the interval between this, and the inevitable next perfect diagnostic moment.
“I’m not sure. The guy in the article liked knowing his condition had a name.”
“I don’t feel like I have a condition. I feel like I wake up in the morning and live my life.”
“I know honey, that’s part of your condition, not having an ability to reflect on it.”
“I do reflect, I understand your lack of appreciation for this or that trait of mine. I understand that certain things about me drive you crazy and some doctors have assigned some medications to possibly reduce or relieve those traits, which might possibly make you more comfortable, but also less comfortable if the side effects caused other less familiar traits to emerge. It just seems like a trade I am not willing to make. This is who I am, Sally. It seems that maybe someone needed a category for me so they would feel better. I actually feel fine.”
She is quiet, flipping the pages, "They recommend that new movie. The one where the thirty year olds play high-schoolers, it’s a kind of male bonding movie. Maybe we can see that tonight."
“Hmmmm,” is his reply peering over the top of his laptop. They are sitting across from each other as they often do, but in separate worlds, delivered on glowing screens and printed sheets. A friend noted that their living room resembled an internet café. “What are you reading?”
“The New Yorker,” she says with no small amount of urgency, knowing that her periodicals lend credence to her argument; Vanity Fair and the New Yorker being highly valued contributors of the popular press variety, much more so than People or even Time and Newsweek. You can leave them in a bathroom say, turned to a particular article, and maybe they will be discovered and read. This is never true for her downloaded white papers clipped together and piled in various locations around the house. No one is interested in them. Reading, in this house, is categorized and ranked for both status and entertainment. It is both public, in magazines, books and printouts, and private, confined to the various screens each family member has adopted. And reading itself is ranked, being a number one activity for four of the family members and falling to two and even three for some of the others, much to her dismay.
“What’s the matter with me now?” he says without looking up. He is remembering his other equally compelling diagnoses, doled out article after article. Unlike the traditional predilection of medical students, she does not assume symptoms, instead she assigns symptomology to those she loves.
“Dives deep into projects ignoring the world around them.”
“Check.”
“Ummm odd and uncomfortable social interactions.”
“Check.”
“Subject expert on esoterica that they feel compelled to share with others without obvious regard for interest level.”
“Oh common, we both do that one. Remember that time you were obsessed with juvenile gang activity and were giving your friends pointers on what to look for at the movie theater. I would imagine there was a dip in revenue as your anxious and now educated friends kept their kids home as a result.”
“I was just telling them the truth”
“I know dear. But most people prefer to not know. Not knowing is easier. Maybe you have Asperger’s too.”
“It’s on a continuum,” she says, by way of explanation that feels more like an assignation of acuity. Hers, as always, less acute than his.
“So what’s my prognosis this time?” he asks, curious to see what is in store. When she was convinced of his Adult ADD, she begged him to consider returning to the Ritalin of his youth, an option that he firmly rejected, favoring instead to continuing to enjoy his hyper-focus and all of its attending rewards. Depression, her next shot at fixing him, felt more flat, his response, that she was the one that was depressed and that he was actually quite happy being himself, left her uncomfortable and unsettled. Dependent Personality Disorder brought some comfort as she folded laundry and meal planned while he sat glued to his computer screen, happy as a clam. “I’m not Dependant,” he said at the time, “as much as you are dependable.” He loved her. He loved her activity and her scholarship. He saw her diagnostic abilities as a kind of parlor game. Entertaining and short lived.
“Well, it is chronic,” she explained with some resignation.
“No cure?”
“It seems as though someone, Dr. Asperger himself I suppose designated it as a syndrome, as opposed to just another way to be human, and then someone else placed it on the spectrum of Autism, which has no cure beyond socialization skills building and such, shyness and social anxiety I would imagine are on the continuum too, higher up. This article doesn't talk cure, although the guy mentions antidepressants and Valium.”
“What are we to want me to do with this?” he asked, mentally preparing for her not so subtle subtle hints for self improvement that would inevitably follow, not only as part of this conversation but for the next time interval, the interval between this, and the inevitable next perfect diagnostic moment.
“I’m not sure. The guy in the article liked knowing his condition had a name.”
“I don’t feel like I have a condition. I feel like I wake up in the morning and live my life.”
“I know honey, that’s part of your condition, not having an ability to reflect on it.”
“I do reflect, I understand your lack of appreciation for this or that trait of mine. I understand that certain things about me drive you crazy and some doctors have assigned some medications to possibly reduce or relieve those traits, which might possibly make you more comfortable, but also less comfortable if the side effects caused other less familiar traits to emerge. It just seems like a trade I am not willing to make. This is who I am, Sally. It seems that maybe someone needed a category for me so they would feel better. I actually feel fine.”
She is quiet, flipping the pages, "They recommend that new movie. The one where the thirty year olds play high-schoolers, it’s a kind of male bonding movie. Maybe we can see that tonight."
Wednesday, August 8, 2007
Sunday, July 22, 2007
The Cocktail Party
“Look, it tends to be something different with me. I tend to feel the attraction and then put a feeler out there. Like a signal or something, a gesture, like ‘I know that you know that I know kind of thing’; a look, or a shrug of the shoulder. And there’s a way, if you catch my eye, that I can see the twinkle of recognition. That’s the hook. That’s the moment that I know it’s just a matter of time before I reel you in. So I kind of bait these hooks, I catch myself doing it; I just bait the hooks and cast them out and wait. Sometimes it works immediately, and sometimes it can take years. But once that hook is out there, I always get my mark.”
“What’s the challenge?” I said running a ring around the top of my wine glass, my own hook I suppose the ‘soft finger working a circle’ hook. “What’s the challenge if you know it works so well? You come off as a guy that knows it works well, so like while you’re working me, like now, like having this conversation with me, you’re working me now, this is a flirtation, right? So if you know you’re going to get me anyway. Like why all the set up. Why not just ask? ”
He lowers his eye lids, blinks, but does not answer. Not trapped. Not the response of someone cornered. He’s taking his time. He’s working. He’s working me.
“So you’re working me, and in a way it’s working,” of course I can’t stop, I’m on a roll now, “I’m flattered. You’re handsome, there’s been this thing, you’re right about it, that’s been there between us for a while, dormant and then in bloom and then dormant again.” I’m thinking about narcissus now, the flowers, and then the myth and then this man, this impossible man, another impossible man playing with me, knowing that this is going absolutely nowhere.
He sees my eyes flicker or my attention wane or something I can’t exactly figure out but his instincts are sharp and he pounces.
“Like when we argue, over politics, or art – you’re so fucking opinionated for a woman. You’re so ready to fight. It’s so refreshing and frustrating. Yeah so when we’re at it, it’s like we’re fucking don’t you think? A kind of verbal fuck, right there, right in front of everybody, you and me having it out.”
“You’re quite presumptuous.”
“Tell me it’s not true. Tell me the energy isn’t there.”
“That’s not the point!”
“God, then what is the point Stella? You can pretend all you want, but you do it too. We’re the same you and I.”
“Yeah whatever I’m sick of being like you.” And I leave walking off toward a table of hors d’ouvres.
“I saw you taking with Jerry,” this is my husband circumnavigating the room meeting up with me at the shrimp cocktail. “Heated as usual? You guys should get a room.”
“Shut up Harry!” God, men I am so sick of men. I have no idea how I got so fascinated with them to begin with, they are a never ending source of complete frustration and misery. But oh are they cute!
Now I’m in the bathroom, fixing my make-up, not feeling particularly beautiful nor perfect, hating parties, hating myself at parties, wondering what the fuck I am wasting my time for, wondering what I would be doing at home. Maybe sitting with my dog and playing solitaire. I love solitaire. I love how hard it is to pull together a happy family.
I run into Rene’s husband. Joe. He is lurking as only Joe can do. “God, I’m awful at this.” I say to Joe. “I think I am too intense for the cocktail party set, I think I am too intense for everything. I think I am only OK at work where it is OK to be intense. God, give me a conference room and a flip chart and I am an animal, but a glass of chardonnay and a room full of acquaintances and I fall apart.”
“Yeah I was like that too,” says Joe, “until I realized that the best way to endure these things is to not say anything of any great value. Just more or less look interested but don’t volunteer much.”
“But then why come?” I ask in earnest. “Really is it worth the time and the anguish?” I realize now I am breaking his rule regarding intensity and value, but still, he seems like he has a clue.
“Adrienne likes it, she likes coming, she has a good time,” he says.
“Does she really? Or does she just say she does? Does she come home and do the play by play? Does she freak out over what she said to whom and who might not like it? Or does she gossip about what people said, I always worry that people gossip about me later. Or does she worry about drinking too much, has she found a way to pace herself?” clearly the whole intensity thing is lost on me.
“I dunno. Sometimes we talk about it and sometimes we don’t.”
“I don’t think I can do this.”
“Think about making it trivial,” says helpful Joe, “It really helps.”
Why bother! Is what I’m thinking. Why bother with the hair and the make up and the outfit and the heels, oh god the heels. Why bother with the drinking and the banter. I imagine when we were single it felt a bit like a mating ritual, but now we’re all paired up. So there’s really nothing to be gained.
Jerry again, in front of the cheese plate, “What are you drinking?”
Me, “Chardonnay. I’m trying to pace myself. I’m thinking of switching to something red, slow myself down.”
“Why?”
“Don’t want to get sloppy.”
“I love it when you get sloppy.”
Nice. Worst fear. My sloppiness is obvious.
“Fuck you Jerry.”
“You know I’m your biggest fan.”
“Whatever that means,” I don’t even want to know what that means. Like maybe someone else is not my fan. Like what does biggest mean in this context? Like what am I supposed to do with that.
“What am I supposed to do with that Jerry?”
He shrugs and walks across the room to his wife, cupping her ass as he looks over his shoulder at me. He is playing. Nothing is on the table. It’s his way.
“God that Jerry drives me crazy.” This is Amanda, my best friend. “What a slut. I don’t know how she deals with him.” this from a woman whose husband is a hound himself.
We are all hounds.
“What’s the challenge?” I said running a ring around the top of my wine glass, my own hook I suppose the ‘soft finger working a circle’ hook. “What’s the challenge if you know it works so well? You come off as a guy that knows it works well, so like while you’re working me, like now, like having this conversation with me, you’re working me now, this is a flirtation, right? So if you know you’re going to get me anyway. Like why all the set up. Why not just ask? ”
He lowers his eye lids, blinks, but does not answer. Not trapped. Not the response of someone cornered. He’s taking his time. He’s working. He’s working me.
“So you’re working me, and in a way it’s working,” of course I can’t stop, I’m on a roll now, “I’m flattered. You’re handsome, there’s been this thing, you’re right about it, that’s been there between us for a while, dormant and then in bloom and then dormant again.” I’m thinking about narcissus now, the flowers, and then the myth and then this man, this impossible man, another impossible man playing with me, knowing that this is going absolutely nowhere.
He sees my eyes flicker or my attention wane or something I can’t exactly figure out but his instincts are sharp and he pounces.
“Like when we argue, over politics, or art – you’re so fucking opinionated for a woman. You’re so ready to fight. It’s so refreshing and frustrating. Yeah so when we’re at it, it’s like we’re fucking don’t you think? A kind of verbal fuck, right there, right in front of everybody, you and me having it out.”
“You’re quite presumptuous.”
“Tell me it’s not true. Tell me the energy isn’t there.”
“That’s not the point!”
“God, then what is the point Stella? You can pretend all you want, but you do it too. We’re the same you and I.”
“Yeah whatever I’m sick of being like you.” And I leave walking off toward a table of hors d’ouvres.
“I saw you taking with Jerry,” this is my husband circumnavigating the room meeting up with me at the shrimp cocktail. “Heated as usual? You guys should get a room.”
“Shut up Harry!” God, men I am so sick of men. I have no idea how I got so fascinated with them to begin with, they are a never ending source of complete frustration and misery. But oh are they cute!
Now I’m in the bathroom, fixing my make-up, not feeling particularly beautiful nor perfect, hating parties, hating myself at parties, wondering what the fuck I am wasting my time for, wondering what I would be doing at home. Maybe sitting with my dog and playing solitaire. I love solitaire. I love how hard it is to pull together a happy family.
I run into Rene’s husband. Joe. He is lurking as only Joe can do. “God, I’m awful at this.” I say to Joe. “I think I am too intense for the cocktail party set, I think I am too intense for everything. I think I am only OK at work where it is OK to be intense. God, give me a conference room and a flip chart and I am an animal, but a glass of chardonnay and a room full of acquaintances and I fall apart.”
“Yeah I was like that too,” says Joe, “until I realized that the best way to endure these things is to not say anything of any great value. Just more or less look interested but don’t volunteer much.”
“But then why come?” I ask in earnest. “Really is it worth the time and the anguish?” I realize now I am breaking his rule regarding intensity and value, but still, he seems like he has a clue.
“Adrienne likes it, she likes coming, she has a good time,” he says.
“Does she really? Or does she just say she does? Does she come home and do the play by play? Does she freak out over what she said to whom and who might not like it? Or does she gossip about what people said, I always worry that people gossip about me later. Or does she worry about drinking too much, has she found a way to pace herself?” clearly the whole intensity thing is lost on me.
“I dunno. Sometimes we talk about it and sometimes we don’t.”
“I don’t think I can do this.”
“Think about making it trivial,” says helpful Joe, “It really helps.”
Why bother! Is what I’m thinking. Why bother with the hair and the make up and the outfit and the heels, oh god the heels. Why bother with the drinking and the banter. I imagine when we were single it felt a bit like a mating ritual, but now we’re all paired up. So there’s really nothing to be gained.
Jerry again, in front of the cheese plate, “What are you drinking?”
Me, “Chardonnay. I’m trying to pace myself. I’m thinking of switching to something red, slow myself down.”
“Why?”
“Don’t want to get sloppy.”
“I love it when you get sloppy.”
Nice. Worst fear. My sloppiness is obvious.
“Fuck you Jerry.”
“You know I’m your biggest fan.”
“Whatever that means,” I don’t even want to know what that means. Like maybe someone else is not my fan. Like what does biggest mean in this context? Like what am I supposed to do with that.
“What am I supposed to do with that Jerry?”
He shrugs and walks across the room to his wife, cupping her ass as he looks over his shoulder at me. He is playing. Nothing is on the table. It’s his way.
“God that Jerry drives me crazy.” This is Amanda, my best friend. “What a slut. I don’t know how she deals with him.” this from a woman whose husband is a hound himself.
We are all hounds.
Saturday, July 21, 2007
One From the Archives 2002
A Tourist in New York
January 2002
I.
Are we different they ask? They are somber. They are quiet. Like a dog, kicked, they cower in a corner of themselves. Eyes watching. Brows twitching. They wait.
The cabs no longer honk their horns. Even now I hear a bird sing. We jumped when a box hit the ground. There is fear. But a new kind.
There is no petty larceny. No pickpockets. No muggings. No sirens. No jackhammers. No wolf-whistles. No whistles at all. Gone are the pulsing cars with blaring bass lines. People are polite. Polite! A construction worker said excuse me as I pushed by his shoulder on the corner of 6th and 19th. Excuse me. I’m sorry. And he moved over to let me pass.
I spent a significant amount of time wondering what was going to happen next.
II.
The prevailing winds send a cloud of ash and dust up the avenue. A gray, acrid haze hangs in the air. Motes of white, like dandelion fluff float and land invading our eyes, our noses, our throats. The wind blows cans and friends into the street. I point my nose high like a dog sniffing the wind for rabbits.
Is it a fire? We need a radio but use the cell to call a friend. What is it? No one knows and we think again of the unseen hole guarded by red ticket holders. We were barred entry and instead looked up at the impossible sky.
The smoke drove the joy from our day. The winds swept us uptown to more mundane dangers. Death by taxi cab. Death in the park. The unbearable burn of the cold.
We bought mugs of orange soup and sat with the dog, dreaming of aliens.
He never wants to go out I thought. That dog never wants to go outside.
III.
Tattered flags are flapping from cars and off poles in my neighborhood. I saw them too in Harlem. On Queens Boulevard. We feel like patriots and hold our breath as the plane bumps and grinds its way back home to the unreasonable beauty of California.
Halfway home my breath comes easier knowing the fuel tanks have lightened their load and we are beyond the danger of being recommissioned as a missile.
I am ready to go home. I miss my children, my husband, my dog, the boredom, the laundry. I miss the tranquility. I close my eyes and anticipate the memory of eerie stillness in the city that I love like a parent, a brother, a friend.
Times Square and no horns. Stuck in traffic, in a cab for God’s sake. For hours.
Nothing.
Patience.
Breathe.
January 2002
I.
Are we different they ask? They are somber. They are quiet. Like a dog, kicked, they cower in a corner of themselves. Eyes watching. Brows twitching. They wait.
The cabs no longer honk their horns. Even now I hear a bird sing. We jumped when a box hit the ground. There is fear. But a new kind.
There is no petty larceny. No pickpockets. No muggings. No sirens. No jackhammers. No wolf-whistles. No whistles at all. Gone are the pulsing cars with blaring bass lines. People are polite. Polite! A construction worker said excuse me as I pushed by his shoulder on the corner of 6th and 19th. Excuse me. I’m sorry. And he moved over to let me pass.
I spent a significant amount of time wondering what was going to happen next.
II.
The prevailing winds send a cloud of ash and dust up the avenue. A gray, acrid haze hangs in the air. Motes of white, like dandelion fluff float and land invading our eyes, our noses, our throats. The wind blows cans and friends into the street. I point my nose high like a dog sniffing the wind for rabbits.
Is it a fire? We need a radio but use the cell to call a friend. What is it? No one knows and we think again of the unseen hole guarded by red ticket holders. We were barred entry and instead looked up at the impossible sky.
The smoke drove the joy from our day. The winds swept us uptown to more mundane dangers. Death by taxi cab. Death in the park. The unbearable burn of the cold.
We bought mugs of orange soup and sat with the dog, dreaming of aliens.
He never wants to go out I thought. That dog never wants to go outside.
III.
Tattered flags are flapping from cars and off poles in my neighborhood. I saw them too in Harlem. On Queens Boulevard. We feel like patriots and hold our breath as the plane bumps and grinds its way back home to the unreasonable beauty of California.
Halfway home my breath comes easier knowing the fuel tanks have lightened their load and we are beyond the danger of being recommissioned as a missile.
I am ready to go home. I miss my children, my husband, my dog, the boredom, the laundry. I miss the tranquility. I close my eyes and anticipate the memory of eerie stillness in the city that I love like a parent, a brother, a friend.
Times Square and no horns. Stuck in traffic, in a cab for God’s sake. For hours.
Nothing.
Patience.
Breathe.
Thursday, July 19, 2007
So much for therapy - fiction (sort of)
“Look at us,” he said, “We’re time travelers!”
I was trying in that moment to reconcile the face in front of me with the child I had left behind 40 years ago. Left but never left. Left but have a spent a lifetime searching for. “Who are you?” was what I was thinking but what I said was “You look like your father” which was true enough and he said “You look like Rayna Star” which was an amazing compliment since I had not been Rayna Star for 30 odd years trading off husbands and last names in a series of new identities each one taking me further and further away from Tailwind Lane. The home of my youth. The last place I used Star to define me.
“I am old,” I said. “I was molested by a priest” was his answer. “After we moved away.” and so it was out there. The missing forty years. Just like that. I said nothing. I had been talking about my trauma and my mistakes now once a week for twenty years. There was nothing about them that was interesting to me anymore but still I plopped down $130 a week to go over them. Week after week. Year after year. The same stories. “I’ve been in therapy for twenty years” I said in an offering of solidarity. “I just quit,” he said. “How many times can you drag the garbage to the curb?” I hugged him then. Or wanted to. Instead I let go of my own sacks. Just put them down then and there. “I loved you,” I said. “And I you,” he answered. And I said, “I don’t think I ever recovered from losing you.” And he said, “Me either.”
There was never that moment. That ‘Now What?’ moment. The moment where everyone recognizes in awkward self consciousness the horrible lapse in judgment that led to the reunion. The moment where the fantasy past and the realistic present collide. I expected we would have it. Reinforced my coping skills with positive and affirmative internal messaging. Shored up my diminished self-esteem. Provided exit strategies and possible outcome scenarios in order to rehearse comfortable escapes and soft landings. I prepared with mental imaging of my support network, the current partners, friends and professionals that could help me process the shame and disappointment that I might be feeling if this opportunity, like so many others, did not play out the way I expected. I calculated minutes to hours to dollars ratios to project a cost analysis of recovery due to yet another hair-brained emotional recovery plan gone array. But it was all for naught. Despite my best efforts to plan for self-sabotage and implement a self-soothing recovery plan, none of my usual machinations were called for. We had fun. Although I had thought that I would never in my life experience it again in such a pure and innocent manner.
This is what happened:
After forty years of interruption, we met, we remembered, and we laughed.
I was trying in that moment to reconcile the face in front of me with the child I had left behind 40 years ago. Left but never left. Left but have a spent a lifetime searching for. “Who are you?” was what I was thinking but what I said was “You look like your father” which was true enough and he said “You look like Rayna Star” which was an amazing compliment since I had not been Rayna Star for 30 odd years trading off husbands and last names in a series of new identities each one taking me further and further away from Tailwind Lane. The home of my youth. The last place I used Star to define me.
“I am old,” I said. “I was molested by a priest” was his answer. “After we moved away.” and so it was out there. The missing forty years. Just like that. I said nothing. I had been talking about my trauma and my mistakes now once a week for twenty years. There was nothing about them that was interesting to me anymore but still I plopped down $130 a week to go over them. Week after week. Year after year. The same stories. “I’ve been in therapy for twenty years” I said in an offering of solidarity. “I just quit,” he said. “How many times can you drag the garbage to the curb?” I hugged him then. Or wanted to. Instead I let go of my own sacks. Just put them down then and there. “I loved you,” I said. “And I you,” he answered. And I said, “I don’t think I ever recovered from losing you.” And he said, “Me either.”
There was never that moment. That ‘Now What?’ moment. The moment where everyone recognizes in awkward self consciousness the horrible lapse in judgment that led to the reunion. The moment where the fantasy past and the realistic present collide. I expected we would have it. Reinforced my coping skills with positive and affirmative internal messaging. Shored up my diminished self-esteem. Provided exit strategies and possible outcome scenarios in order to rehearse comfortable escapes and soft landings. I prepared with mental imaging of my support network, the current partners, friends and professionals that could help me process the shame and disappointment that I might be feeling if this opportunity, like so many others, did not play out the way I expected. I calculated minutes to hours to dollars ratios to project a cost analysis of recovery due to yet another hair-brained emotional recovery plan gone array. But it was all for naught. Despite my best efforts to plan for self-sabotage and implement a self-soothing recovery plan, none of my usual machinations were called for. We had fun. Although I had thought that I would never in my life experience it again in such a pure and innocent manner.
This is what happened:
After forty years of interruption, we met, we remembered, and we laughed.
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Beauty
I do not spend a lot on my appearance. I’m forty-nine years old. I look my age. My hair is frizzy and has grey in it. I had it blown out once and could barely tolerate the attention. The next day I took a shower and the frizz returned. No one told me that $40 could disappear in an instant in your morning shower. I don’t get my nails done. My hands are a mess. I pick at my fingers. When I worry about my work, it shows on my fingertips. My mother told me that lovely fingers are important. That you speak with your hands. That people judge you by your nails. I wonder what my judges say about my ratty fingers. I can never seem to have all ten digits at the same nail length. Once I tried hard to maintain them, to see if it would make a difference. But invariably one or the other would break and I would have to start the process all over again. It was distracting. I can’t be bothered. I have stopped. And my neck sags in a way that makes me angry with gravity. And my eyebrows are full. And I have a stomach that wasn’t flat before I had children and now has given up hope. And I can’t seem to wear high heels for anything longer than a few hours at a stretch. I am a short woman who wears flat shoes. People have to bend over to talk to me. They look like ostriches or giraffes. I look like a baby bird stretching out my neck to meet them.
I recently read an article about women who spend $1 – $2,000 dollars a month on their appearance. I do not have $1,000 to $2,000 per month to spend on my appearance and even if I did I am not sure that I would. But I know many women who do. I see them at the grocery store. I see them in fancy cars. I see them pushing food around their plates at restaurants. They make me feel self conscious when I order dessert.
I am upset with these women. I assume they are as well educated as the next person. That she reads the paper and watches TV. I am upset that she has become so seemingly vacuous. That her appearance seems to be her main concern while we live in a world where our food supply may be tainted, where people are bombing each other with their bodies as weapons, where poor people and people of color factor jail time into their life’s journeys. Somehow none of this seems to matter to this woman. To her, it is all about hair and eyebrows and nails. I am furious with her. I have been furious with her for a while. She makes me feel ugly and poor. Part of my fury is personal. She seems so preoccupied, which I seem to take personally. In fairness to her I must admit I am also preoccupied, we are all preoccupied with something I suppose. I am also obsessed with her. Maybe as obsessed with her as she is with herself.
This woman drives me crazy. She makes me feel inadequate but also superior. I pity her her high maintenance, even as I envy her her beauty. She and I have a complicated relationship. I imagine she hardly notices me, as she is looking down her long straightened nose. She might see me as a garden gnome, she might laugh haughtily at me, she might think I’m slovenly, she might feel superior. I am not sure. I am not sure what she sees or what she thinks. And I must admit I have never asked her. It is the same with the woman under the veil. I don’t know that much about her either, but I think about her all the time too. Armies of women, hidden behind walls of cloth and cosmetics. Hidden from each other and the world.
On the heels of the $2,000 a month (every month – this is a regular thing) woman article, I read another article asking if America is ready for a trophy wife in the White House. This one came with pictures of said wife, looking as if she were out for the night with her father and her child. My stomach knots. I am obsolete. I can no longer find myself in the news. People like me are not newsworthy. We disappear. I assume there are quite a few of us. I wonder why we have kept our mouths shut. This is a free country right? I don’t feel free, I feel invisible. Like the women under veils. We could be powerful force but are irrelevant. How has it happened that we are irrelevant? Looking like me has become an embarrassment. A social liability. As the American lifespan increases I face the second half of my life feeling as if there is no place for me in it.
Some of the 2K a month women are single, perhaps hoping it is not too late to find a mate. Some are married to attractive men who may or may not have roving eyes. I wonder if their men miss the face they fell in love with. I wonder who these women see when they look in the mirror. All the faces end up looking the same to me. Like those veils. They hide the woman inside.
I recently read an article about women who spend $1 – $2,000 dollars a month on their appearance. I do not have $1,000 to $2,000 per month to spend on my appearance and even if I did I am not sure that I would. But I know many women who do. I see them at the grocery store. I see them in fancy cars. I see them pushing food around their plates at restaurants. They make me feel self conscious when I order dessert.
I am upset with these women. I assume they are as well educated as the next person. That she reads the paper and watches TV. I am upset that she has become so seemingly vacuous. That her appearance seems to be her main concern while we live in a world where our food supply may be tainted, where people are bombing each other with their bodies as weapons, where poor people and people of color factor jail time into their life’s journeys. Somehow none of this seems to matter to this woman. To her, it is all about hair and eyebrows and nails. I am furious with her. I have been furious with her for a while. She makes me feel ugly and poor. Part of my fury is personal. She seems so preoccupied, which I seem to take personally. In fairness to her I must admit I am also preoccupied, we are all preoccupied with something I suppose. I am also obsessed with her. Maybe as obsessed with her as she is with herself.
This woman drives me crazy. She makes me feel inadequate but also superior. I pity her her high maintenance, even as I envy her her beauty. She and I have a complicated relationship. I imagine she hardly notices me, as she is looking down her long straightened nose. She might see me as a garden gnome, she might laugh haughtily at me, she might think I’m slovenly, she might feel superior. I am not sure. I am not sure what she sees or what she thinks. And I must admit I have never asked her. It is the same with the woman under the veil. I don’t know that much about her either, but I think about her all the time too. Armies of women, hidden behind walls of cloth and cosmetics. Hidden from each other and the world.
On the heels of the $2,000 a month (every month – this is a regular thing) woman article, I read another article asking if America is ready for a trophy wife in the White House. This one came with pictures of said wife, looking as if she were out for the night with her father and her child. My stomach knots. I am obsolete. I can no longer find myself in the news. People like me are not newsworthy. We disappear. I assume there are quite a few of us. I wonder why we have kept our mouths shut. This is a free country right? I don’t feel free, I feel invisible. Like the women under veils. We could be powerful force but are irrelevant. How has it happened that we are irrelevant? Looking like me has become an embarrassment. A social liability. As the American lifespan increases I face the second half of my life feeling as if there is no place for me in it.
Some of the 2K a month women are single, perhaps hoping it is not too late to find a mate. Some are married to attractive men who may or may not have roving eyes. I wonder if their men miss the face they fell in love with. I wonder who these women see when they look in the mirror. All the faces end up looking the same to me. Like those veils. They hide the woman inside.
Wednesday, July 4, 2007
Eight Dollar Eggs
It started with the mouse actually. He died. I didn’t believe anything anyone told me, before that. I thought people were way too precious about things like food and water – way too cautious like it was some new form of narcissism, all this food and environmental awareness. Like I read today in the New York Times that there is a market where you can get a dozen eggs for eight dollars a dozen. Eight dollars. So I was thinking about who would buy those eggs and what would happen if they were right and all the other eggs were contaminated and let’s say we all died from contaminated eggs and who would be left? All the people roaming the earth would be the people who one, could afford eight dollar a dozen eggs and two, cared enough to buy them – or maybe two should be knew they existed because until I read the article I never knew eight dollar eggs existed. They must be some eggs. I’m just a person who doesn’t want to be killed by food. Food and terrorists. If anyone told me ten years ago that I would be afraid of food and terrorists I would have told them they were crazy. Now it’s all I can think about.
Eight divided by twelve is sixty six cents and let’s say, a dollar divided by twelve is eight cents so that’s a difference of fifty eight cents. So by not choosing to spend and extra fifty eight cents an egg I could be dead, but if I could find those eggs, and eat them instead of my bargain eggs, which by the way, I drive out of my way to buy special, I could be living with the other people who are in the know about egg poisoning. I know it’s hard to believe but fifty eight cents seems a small price to pay to stay alive. Although I imagine the other people might get on my nerves a little. But I’d still be alive. I can’t vouch for the quality of life or anything since I would imagine there aren’t many of those eight dollar eggs around and after they are gone I have no idea what you’d eat and basically the rest of the world plus all the animals might be dead except the in-the-know foodies that you pass sometimes at whole foods that always seem to have unlimited money to buy organic stuff all the time. Where does that money come from, and the time to do the research? Like do these people work, or do they just spend whatever time and money they have looking for the perfect white eggplant and non poisonous eggs because they know something we don’t know? Really, it was in the New York Times. Everyone is going to want those eggs.
So the mouse. I was home reading the mail and I got that little print out that you sometimes get from the utility company which makes you worry about all the trees they cut down to make the paper for them. This one included a little graph of some kind that said that they had decided to change the chemical composition of our water. And that as a result the levels of arsenic were going to up, but not to worry because they were still safe levels. And have a nice day.
I didn’t think much of it, and we were mostly drinking bottled water then. This was before someone told me that the bottles were worse for the environment than the water was for us, so back then we were still using bottles although this mouse, my kid’s mouse was on the tap – it was easier to fill his bottle that way. I didn’t think much about the arsenic levels, I just noted it, in the way you note things, in the “how do they decide a safe arsenic level” kind of way. So the mouse, Arthur, was a feeder mouse. Little. We saved him from being eaten by a snake. We were proud of that. He cost fifty cents although the cage and the little spinny wheel set us back about fifty bucks. Anyway, he was sweet. Ran a lot. We had to WD40 his wheel or he would keep us up at night. He was not a pet per se as much as a form of visual entertainment. So we didn’t interact all that much, except to clean the cage, and change his water and feed him. And we watched him run in circles. But after the water changed, this mouse was not the same. Really not the same. He started growing lumps. And started bleeding from his ears. And I called the water company and asked if anyone else was dying from their arsenic changes and they said no, no one. But I never believed them and this poor mouse ended up dying a horrible death. We buried him in the back yard. But I still feel bad. Maybe he would have survived on bottled water.
The water that we brush our teeth with every day killed that mouse. He was the first indication that something had gone terribly wrong.
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