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.
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