It was a simple gesture. A delicate hand extended as she passed by the table where he sat gripping a plastic cup. He met her outstretched hand—just for a moment and then let go—this husband of almost fifty years. He sits in the booth in a black wind breaker and gold chain, reacting as if he expected this gesture, when of course he did not. But these chance moments are things they are prepared for, have both come to expect. There is not the slightest hesitation as she passes by and extends her hand—and he reaches out to touch it—making her way among the decorated tables, the unleashed children and the lilting balloons. This grandmother, this mother, this wife. Her hips undulate under a long purple sweater as she navigates the chaotic terrain—and he watches her for a moment, and turns his attention back to us.
And suddenly I am choked with tears. Do I want pizza? Cake? I shake my head, look toward the window, toward a sunny day and the promise of new things. How can I say—in the middle of this children’s party—that the gesture I just witnessed rings like a death knell in my ears, thrums on my newly put-together life. My own history ushered out in cardboard boxes, in things tossed to the curb, in papers signed—just before the door pressed shut behind me. I carried many of those storied possessions to my new life, but they became mute and unholy things when I lifted them from the box and unwrapped them. They resist the new landscape, sit stiff and uncompromising. They will not belong here…
Later, Karen and I will sit on lawn chairs just where a sudden afternoon sun bullies the flagstone path in front of her house. It is too early for this kind of muscle—it is only March after all—but we are grateful for the brute strength of it. Behind us, up the steps, the kids play behind a glass front door. We are two Holden Caulfields here on the warm stones, gone underground for a few quiet minutes on a Sunday afternoon. We stretch our legs in plain sight of the neighbors, lean back in our chairs, and yet there is a sense of isolation, of aloneness on this suburban street, each house cradling its own family story, its own developing history.
Closing my eyes, I lift my face to the sun and remember my mother lying in a scant patch of sunlight on the crippled porch of a rented house all those years ago, blankets pinned to the posts to block a cutting April wind. We were hungry for so many things back then...
You cannot recreate history, I say.
After a moment, Karen agrees, and lifts a wine glass to thin pressed lips. We are characters in this new story together; we wait to be narrated, move as the plot begins to unfold. So many years erased... And even through our raucous stories, our whispers--shared on a day like this when spring has come early and the sun warms an exposed breastbone--we know only that we were this back then, we were that. But we are something very different now…
We turn and look at each other for a moment and laugh. Behind us, in the house, are the playful cries of children who have not yet discovered us here: two women in jeans and boots, legs crossed at the ankles, living our unexpected lives. Sipping wine from two filmy glasses when we should be doing other things.
Later when he calls, we have moved inside—the sun vanished, the children nipping at our two-inch heels. Karen and I sit for a moment at her table, the Sunday night chores undone. Dinner, baths, lunches for tomorrow. Such an unrecognizable life sometimes… She yells to her son to turn down the TV; I tell my boy to put on his shoes. And the man on the phone says he is back now, back to his current life after a weekend lumbering around the quondam one. I do not know where to put that history, he says, trying to explain how he feels. I recognize the disquiet in his voice and ache to tell him that I am looking for that place, too—that I witnessed a simple gesture at a children’s party that snatched my history from the place I’d stored it, and left it dangling just beyond the grasp of my outstretched hand.
***
Monday, March 8, 2010
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Fire
When my father tries to set the house on fire, I’m sitting in the back seat of our rusty Chevrolet in my Catholic school uniform, a little plaid number in a cheerless black and green. It’s a warm, bright day—almost fall—and my mother’s in the front passenger seat with a flowery kerchief tied over her dark curls, the smoke from her Tarreyton snaking up out of the open car window. She twitches involuntarily a couple of times like she does when her nerves act up; but other than that, she’s quiet, her eyes trained on our house. Beside me in the back seat, my brother sits thumbing the tires of a Hot Wheels car.
Where’s Daddy? he whines. It’s getting hot in the car, and the burnt paper smell of my mother’s cigarette is giving me a headache.
He’s coming, my mother says.
And there he is: bolting down the pinched, cracked sidewalk that runs along the side of our house. He dashes like his pants are on fire, and I’m surprised when he jumps in the car and yanks the shift into drive that no flames follow him. We take off down the quiet street, tires screeching, just like something out of a Mannix episode—and my mother’s head jerks back from the jolt of our indiscrete getaway. Mrs. Askew, our next door neighbor, puts down her newspaper and stands up from her front porch glider to see what all the commotion’s about—while my brother and I squeal from the back seat.
But he is inept even at starting fires. The rags he soaked in gasoline never sparked at the back of the house, never caught, and that sorry-looking cottage with the holes in the linoleum is still there, still lilting to one side like someone with a bum leg, when we come back a few hours later. I’ll be a sonofabitch, my father says, punching the dash, as we inch around the corner onto our street. My mother heaves a sigh, but I can’t tell if it’s a sigh of relief or disappointment. Of course my brother and I had no idea that day that our father was trying to burn down the house. Because even then, even at the tender age of six, I would have understood how futile it was to burn down a rental. The goddamn fool that he was…
A year later he gives her a toaster for Mother’s Day. We only used it a few times before the thing ignited, and my mother tugged the hot cord out of the wall socket with a startled shriek. I stood in the kitchen, wringing my hands, certain that the blaze my father couldn’t start in the back of the house would consume us now—in the form of the Sunbeam Radiant Control toaster on our kitchen counter. She was relieved, happy even, when the cops came to confiscate the toaster after a bunch of donated items that were supposed to be raffled off at the radio station where my father worked came up missing. Here, she said, when the uniformed men knocked at the door. Take it. And while I didn’t like the idea of two men with guns at their hips standing sentinel-like in our kitchen, I was glad to see the toaster go. After the officers left, my mother wiped up the crumbs that had escaped the toaster and then lit a match to a Tarreyton with a trembling hand.
And it is many years later—a lifetime later—that I am on the sixth floor of Williams Street when the two planes hit. It’s another warm bright day, much like the day my father tossed his book of matches and ran. And I run, too, this day in September. But the similarities end there. He is dead a couple of years by now, the obituary landing in my inbox a few months after he was cremated. Two paragraphs, single column, summed up his second-rate life. He had no children, the obit said. And I have my first child kicking around a willing belly as I scramble over the Brooklyn Bridge, mouth agape, the taste of ash on my tongue. I do not want this child born into the world of fire, of burnt plastic and flesh; I feel the heat of fleeing souls behind me. And for months afterward I dream dreams of smoldering fires—under my desk, in the closet, under my son’s sheltered crib…
And he has seen everything lost to flames, has been awakened by fire to collect his family, like so many stones, to escape into a cold night. Just moments before the roof caved in… They watched the blaze from across the road, witnessed a history erased—and yet even that night, he said he could see beauty in the destruction... Which I cannot imagine, which I could not do. Because all that heat is a dangerous thing, a powerful thing—with a strength that is more than this faltering me, this clamoring me, with her memories of fire and flames.
***
Where’s Daddy? he whines. It’s getting hot in the car, and the burnt paper smell of my mother’s cigarette is giving me a headache.
He’s coming, my mother says.
And there he is: bolting down the pinched, cracked sidewalk that runs along the side of our house. He dashes like his pants are on fire, and I’m surprised when he jumps in the car and yanks the shift into drive that no flames follow him. We take off down the quiet street, tires screeching, just like something out of a Mannix episode—and my mother’s head jerks back from the jolt of our indiscrete getaway. Mrs. Askew, our next door neighbor, puts down her newspaper and stands up from her front porch glider to see what all the commotion’s about—while my brother and I squeal from the back seat.
But he is inept even at starting fires. The rags he soaked in gasoline never sparked at the back of the house, never caught, and that sorry-looking cottage with the holes in the linoleum is still there, still lilting to one side like someone with a bum leg, when we come back a few hours later. I’ll be a sonofabitch, my father says, punching the dash, as we inch around the corner onto our street. My mother heaves a sigh, but I can’t tell if it’s a sigh of relief or disappointment. Of course my brother and I had no idea that day that our father was trying to burn down the house. Because even then, even at the tender age of six, I would have understood how futile it was to burn down a rental. The goddamn fool that he was…
A year later he gives her a toaster for Mother’s Day. We only used it a few times before the thing ignited, and my mother tugged the hot cord out of the wall socket with a startled shriek. I stood in the kitchen, wringing my hands, certain that the blaze my father couldn’t start in the back of the house would consume us now—in the form of the Sunbeam Radiant Control toaster on our kitchen counter. She was relieved, happy even, when the cops came to confiscate the toaster after a bunch of donated items that were supposed to be raffled off at the radio station where my father worked came up missing. Here, she said, when the uniformed men knocked at the door. Take it. And while I didn’t like the idea of two men with guns at their hips standing sentinel-like in our kitchen, I was glad to see the toaster go. After the officers left, my mother wiped up the crumbs that had escaped the toaster and then lit a match to a Tarreyton with a trembling hand.
And it is many years later—a lifetime later—that I am on the sixth floor of Williams Street when the two planes hit. It’s another warm bright day, much like the day my father tossed his book of matches and ran. And I run, too, this day in September. But the similarities end there. He is dead a couple of years by now, the obituary landing in my inbox a few months after he was cremated. Two paragraphs, single column, summed up his second-rate life. He had no children, the obit said. And I have my first child kicking around a willing belly as I scramble over the Brooklyn Bridge, mouth agape, the taste of ash on my tongue. I do not want this child born into the world of fire, of burnt plastic and flesh; I feel the heat of fleeing souls behind me. And for months afterward I dream dreams of smoldering fires—under my desk, in the closet, under my son’s sheltered crib…
And he has seen everything lost to flames, has been awakened by fire to collect his family, like so many stones, to escape into a cold night. Just moments before the roof caved in… They watched the blaze from across the road, witnessed a history erased—and yet even that night, he said he could see beauty in the destruction... Which I cannot imagine, which I could not do. Because all that heat is a dangerous thing, a powerful thing—with a strength that is more than this faltering me, this clamoring me, with her memories of fire and flames.
***
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Friday Night
It was a Friday night all those years ago that he didn’t hear no. It was summer, and the cicadas were making a racket beyond the open windows. It was hot, muggy. They lived in the basement, he and his wife and their three kids. Trying to build a new home—and the money ran out. That Friday night, like so many others, the dehumidifier brayed in the corner, over by the sliding glass doors. Nothing but darkness and the reflection of the living room beyond that smudged glass. Until… those headlights ricocheted up the drive. He was home early—his wife still lipsticked and perfumed at the party, lifting a long stemmed glass, catching a glimpse of herself in her new black dress in the mirror behind the bar. She was a pretty woman.
And it is a Friday night more than thirty years later when I see him again. I have no idea tonight that I will look down and find him there, like a UPS package on the front step that I didn’t sign for and don’t recall ordering. I’m up in that snowy town in a red dress, high heels; it’s winter and I am happy. There are specials written in white chalk on a board, the pungent smell of garlic, of olives cured in virgin oil. I sit in the corner with a man, and we have been revealing our own diluted histories, driving several hours in the car to get here tonight. We sip wine and watch while we wait. The Gypsy Kings play from hidden speakers, and in this room tonight, we are all beautiful, feted people haloed in candlelight. And then she says to me, You’ll never guess who’s here…
The headlights snap off and I hear the thud of a single car door over the din of the dehumidifier. The TV is on, the volume turned low. Blueish-white images bounce along the moist concrete wall and there is the lonely sound of muted canned laughter. He steps inside, scraping the sliding glass door along the rusty track until it shuts with a click behind him. When he sees me he grins, and I stand up—the couch cushions hot and itchy against my bare legs. I tug at my shorts and wonder how I will get home when he is the only one here. He puts his hand against a chair to steady himself and then comes over and leans in close. The hair on his arms prickles my own new skin and I hope he doesn’t notice when I pull back. He's not much taller than me, but his muscles strain against the thin cotton t-shirts he wears when he picks me up on his blood-red Harley. My parents wave and go back to their lawn work as I mount the back of his bike, lifting a newly-shapen leg up over the seat and settle behind him, my hands at his waist, just above his belt. That night, he breathes heavily, stinking of too many drinks, as he struggles to unleash a plastic baggie from his front jeans pocket, his thick, short fingers working to wedge themselves into such a tight crevice… Finally he holds up the baggie, and smiles as if he has unveiled some rare precious stones. Do I want to smoke? Down a short, damp hallway, his three kids dream their muddy dreams…
And so tonight I follow her over to the banquette where six strangers are gathered. They manipulate silverware, lift stemware to their quiet mouths, chew, laugh. Cathy, she says to the gray-haired stranger, you remember my daughter Rachel. And the worn-out woman and I search each other’s faces to find what might be coaxed into memory. I remember the pretty woman in the black dress, the woman who sniffed at the moist air that night when she finally came home—but I do not recognize this old woman in the gray hair, the glasses. She smiles at me. Rachel, she says warmly, extending a thin, corrugated hand that settles in mine for a moment, and then retreats. Two of her three kids are there beside her, but I do not see memory in either face, or the faces of their spouses. It’s good to see you, I say. They tell their stories, and I smile at the strangers collected here—and then I ask the woman if they ever finished building their house. And she says, Oh God yes. Many years ago. And when we have exhausted all that, I ask if her husband is here—and she seems surprised and points to the man opposite her, his back to me, his head at my breasts as I stand there. Slowly, a withered man with white hair and the blue eyes that I remember turns around and looks up at me... He lifts an unsteady hand, which I grasp, and then I move on.
We both cough that night while we smoke—and there is danger everywhere on this summer night. It suspends itself from the ceiling, drips along each wall, wafts through the thick, moist air. Beyond the sliding glass doors our image is reflected back at me in a murky, dreamlike way. He turns the joint around and blows smoke into my open mouth, this nearly middle-aged man, and me with my new breasts, my freshly bloomed hips pressing with a certain urgency against the pockets of my shorts. He smiles a wanton smile, a demanding smile, his blue eyes trained on me… And then there’s the rough pattern of the couch cushions against my legs, my back, and the weight of him—and the sound of no, no, no like a siren that he doesn't hear…
And tonight I return to the corner where he is waiting, and sit down beside him. Lift my wine to parched lips with a steady hand. See that man over there? I ask. And he nods. From across the room, I can see the man’s back. Can see the weight of that night settled along his slumped shoulders, roosted in the folds of his neck. That pitiful old man and his memories. Hungry, biting memories…
***
And it is a Friday night more than thirty years later when I see him again. I have no idea tonight that I will look down and find him there, like a UPS package on the front step that I didn’t sign for and don’t recall ordering. I’m up in that snowy town in a red dress, high heels; it’s winter and I am happy. There are specials written in white chalk on a board, the pungent smell of garlic, of olives cured in virgin oil. I sit in the corner with a man, and we have been revealing our own diluted histories, driving several hours in the car to get here tonight. We sip wine and watch while we wait. The Gypsy Kings play from hidden speakers, and in this room tonight, we are all beautiful, feted people haloed in candlelight. And then she says to me, You’ll never guess who’s here…
The headlights snap off and I hear the thud of a single car door over the din of the dehumidifier. The TV is on, the volume turned low. Blueish-white images bounce along the moist concrete wall and there is the lonely sound of muted canned laughter. He steps inside, scraping the sliding glass door along the rusty track until it shuts with a click behind him. When he sees me he grins, and I stand up—the couch cushions hot and itchy against my bare legs. I tug at my shorts and wonder how I will get home when he is the only one here. He puts his hand against a chair to steady himself and then comes over and leans in close. The hair on his arms prickles my own new skin and I hope he doesn’t notice when I pull back. He's not much taller than me, but his muscles strain against the thin cotton t-shirts he wears when he picks me up on his blood-red Harley. My parents wave and go back to their lawn work as I mount the back of his bike, lifting a newly-shapen leg up over the seat and settle behind him, my hands at his waist, just above his belt. That night, he breathes heavily, stinking of too many drinks, as he struggles to unleash a plastic baggie from his front jeans pocket, his thick, short fingers working to wedge themselves into such a tight crevice… Finally he holds up the baggie, and smiles as if he has unveiled some rare precious stones. Do I want to smoke? Down a short, damp hallway, his three kids dream their muddy dreams…
And so tonight I follow her over to the banquette where six strangers are gathered. They manipulate silverware, lift stemware to their quiet mouths, chew, laugh. Cathy, she says to the gray-haired stranger, you remember my daughter Rachel. And the worn-out woman and I search each other’s faces to find what might be coaxed into memory. I remember the pretty woman in the black dress, the woman who sniffed at the moist air that night when she finally came home—but I do not recognize this old woman in the gray hair, the glasses. She smiles at me. Rachel, she says warmly, extending a thin, corrugated hand that settles in mine for a moment, and then retreats. Two of her three kids are there beside her, but I do not see memory in either face, or the faces of their spouses. It’s good to see you, I say. They tell their stories, and I smile at the strangers collected here—and then I ask the woman if they ever finished building their house. And she says, Oh God yes. Many years ago. And when we have exhausted all that, I ask if her husband is here—and she seems surprised and points to the man opposite her, his back to me, his head at my breasts as I stand there. Slowly, a withered man with white hair and the blue eyes that I remember turns around and looks up at me... He lifts an unsteady hand, which I grasp, and then I move on.
We both cough that night while we smoke—and there is danger everywhere on this summer night. It suspends itself from the ceiling, drips along each wall, wafts through the thick, moist air. Beyond the sliding glass doors our image is reflected back at me in a murky, dreamlike way. He turns the joint around and blows smoke into my open mouth, this nearly middle-aged man, and me with my new breasts, my freshly bloomed hips pressing with a certain urgency against the pockets of my shorts. He smiles a wanton smile, a demanding smile, his blue eyes trained on me… And then there’s the rough pattern of the couch cushions against my legs, my back, and the weight of him—and the sound of no, no, no like a siren that he doesn't hear…
And tonight I return to the corner where he is waiting, and sit down beside him. Lift my wine to parched lips with a steady hand. See that man over there? I ask. And he nods. From across the room, I can see the man’s back. Can see the weight of that night settled along his slumped shoulders, roosted in the folds of his neck. That pitiful old man and his memories. Hungry, biting memories…
***
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Speaking in Tongues
Outside my bedroom window this morning was the sound of tiny bells jingling, or a belt gone bad in the engine—I couldn’t tell which—but suddenly I remembered the bird that awakened me most mornings back in that old house on the hill. Back when my life was tightly put together, like the interlocking pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. There were three windows in that bedroom at the top of the stairs, and each morning I heard the call of a spirited bird, chirping the same message over and over. And there were days that I welcomed his message, and days that it pecked at the nerves below my skin. And while the message was the same—a whistled staccato—it was me who heard it differently, lying in bed each morning, the sun muscling its way past the blinds, past the black & white toile. Every morning that bird said the same thing to me, said the same thing to an indifferent world, and sometimes I understood him, and some days I did not.
Once there were many messages flashing on a muted black machine. We had climbed two flights of narrow stairs on a late August night. The messages came one after another, a caustic beep announcing the end of each one: how sorry they were to hear the news, how sorry they were about the killings. And he and I standing there, numb, forgetting even to turn on the lights. We listened and listened and listened. And then sat on the edge of the bed and waited for the dawn.
There is a message from Chris for several days on my phone. I am busy working, driving, cooking, reading, taking care of my son—and then I finally call her. When she answers, I hear the melancholy in her voice: this friend of 20 years. How we have laughed at the world, smug in our awareness, our belief that music can change certain things. And she is painting the living room of a lovely Craftsman, rolling milky gray over the walls while she cries. Is this all there is, Rachel? she says. Her voice catches. Just this? And I fumble around my tongue, knowing that she is both right and wrong, but then again I hold fast to my illusions, seeing them as the stepping stones along an uncertain path. I put one size-10 foot upon one and then the other, and most days this brings me joy. I imagine her rolling the paint over the walls, can smell the intensity of it, feel the flecks of paint on my arms. And I want to tell her that this, too, can bring joy, the simple act of moving that roller over a steady wall. But instead I tell her about the message I found in a fortune cookie long ago, which I keep in the back of my wallet: “When you row another person across the river, you get there yourself.” But Chris knows that I have grown tired of all this rowing, tired of the extra weight in my boat—and she scoffs at this with the gut laugh that I remember. Who are you kidding? she says—and we hang up.
When I call her back a week later, she doesn’t pick up. And I have left her three messages so far.
And on a cold night before leaving, the usual email with an unusual message. She says…what? That I have had opportunities that she has not—and knowing that, makes it hard for her sometimes. This is what she means, of course, but she types out something very different. Something that wounds, something that sneaks into all my unprotected places and stretches itself out. I close the laptop that night and turn out the light. Drown the message in darkness. This is the same woman who took me to a downtown hotel where they spoke in dizzying tongues, where they heard the message of God--while I heard only the echo of my own footsteps hurrying toward the door...
This morning, his email is there--a familiar name--and I am in no hurry. Two simple sentences, just twenty-four words, that say he wants to help in this terrible mess. And I can feel his goodness, his caring--and it makes me cry, makes me want to say thanks for those 24 words, but I do not know how. I type out the words and erase them with the backspace key because the message won't be bottled.
And I sit here tonight, on a winter evening. Beyond the window, there is only night time and raw branches. I check my cell phone, my email. They write in code, speak in tongues—this thing called language is so difficult sometimes... And I remember that man at his table on the street. He studied my open palm, traced one craggy finger along my storied creases, and said, You have an overwhelming desire to communicate… And I want to say many things on this cold January night; I want to send many messages. I want to say that I believe in words—even those I don’t want to hear, even those fleeting ones that I chase after in my own unruly mind. That I believe in love, even if I have lost it. In your forgiveness when you are ready. I believe in all manner of things—despite this cold night, despite the darkness and silence out there.…
***
Once there were many messages flashing on a muted black machine. We had climbed two flights of narrow stairs on a late August night. The messages came one after another, a caustic beep announcing the end of each one: how sorry they were to hear the news, how sorry they were about the killings. And he and I standing there, numb, forgetting even to turn on the lights. We listened and listened and listened. And then sat on the edge of the bed and waited for the dawn.
There is a message from Chris for several days on my phone. I am busy working, driving, cooking, reading, taking care of my son—and then I finally call her. When she answers, I hear the melancholy in her voice: this friend of 20 years. How we have laughed at the world, smug in our awareness, our belief that music can change certain things. And she is painting the living room of a lovely Craftsman, rolling milky gray over the walls while she cries. Is this all there is, Rachel? she says. Her voice catches. Just this? And I fumble around my tongue, knowing that she is both right and wrong, but then again I hold fast to my illusions, seeing them as the stepping stones along an uncertain path. I put one size-10 foot upon one and then the other, and most days this brings me joy. I imagine her rolling the paint over the walls, can smell the intensity of it, feel the flecks of paint on my arms. And I want to tell her that this, too, can bring joy, the simple act of moving that roller over a steady wall. But instead I tell her about the message I found in a fortune cookie long ago, which I keep in the back of my wallet: “When you row another person across the river, you get there yourself.” But Chris knows that I have grown tired of all this rowing, tired of the extra weight in my boat—and she scoffs at this with the gut laugh that I remember. Who are you kidding? she says—and we hang up.
When I call her back a week later, she doesn’t pick up. And I have left her three messages so far.
And on a cold night before leaving, the usual email with an unusual message. She says…what? That I have had opportunities that she has not—and knowing that, makes it hard for her sometimes. This is what she means, of course, but she types out something very different. Something that wounds, something that sneaks into all my unprotected places and stretches itself out. I close the laptop that night and turn out the light. Drown the message in darkness. This is the same woman who took me to a downtown hotel where they spoke in dizzying tongues, where they heard the message of God--while I heard only the echo of my own footsteps hurrying toward the door...
This morning, his email is there--a familiar name--and I am in no hurry. Two simple sentences, just twenty-four words, that say he wants to help in this terrible mess. And I can feel his goodness, his caring--and it makes me cry, makes me want to say thanks for those 24 words, but I do not know how. I type out the words and erase them with the backspace key because the message won't be bottled.
And I sit here tonight, on a winter evening. Beyond the window, there is only night time and raw branches. I check my cell phone, my email. They write in code, speak in tongues—this thing called language is so difficult sometimes... And I remember that man at his table on the street. He studied my open palm, traced one craggy finger along my storied creases, and said, You have an overwhelming desire to communicate… And I want to say many things on this cold January night; I want to send many messages. I want to say that I believe in words—even those I don’t want to hear, even those fleeting ones that I chase after in my own unruly mind. That I believe in love, even if I have lost it. In your forgiveness when you are ready. I believe in all manner of things—despite this cold night, despite the darkness and silence out there.…
***
Monday, January 11, 2010
I'm Telling
I confess that I fear aloneness—but not the kind you’re thinking of. I like the sound of my own breathing, of my own solid footsteps on these hardwood floors, the lively splash of water in the bathroom sink in the morning, the tick of the wall clock in the hallway at night. I like the hush of an empty house and the joy of bare feet on the coffee table and the slightly dusty smell of the book in my lap. Diet Coke spilled over ice into a glass, something salty while I read. When it gets dark outside, the first thing I do is close the blinds so no one can find me here....
I also like how my mind packs up and takes itself to different places when no one's around. I need only that space—where the world cannot see me; and even sometimes when they can, but when they are not paying attention. Often the hum of music acts as a runway, and I do not feel the lift-off, do not recognize the pulling away from a demanding ground. I go where I go unknowingly, yet willingly. But it has not always been like this. Many years ago I tried to train my mind to stay put—but it would not. And then she explained that it was a way to protect myself, and so I came to recognize this flight as a treasure, a gift…
And yet they feel sorry for me at times: Rachel alone over there—as I lie naked on the bed, listening to the silence of these walls, my hands cupped behind my head. I like the shape of my toes from this angle, the curve of my hips, and how my breasts respond to the cool air moving over my skin. Above me is a muted crack, just beneath the surface of the ceiling, and it runs the width of my room. As I study it, it reminds me of the schism of my two lives: one lived on the street, in the office, at a friend’s house; the other here in the silence of my empty house. And I do not fear either.
But I fear aloneness of another kind—the one that comes from being separated from history, from milk drawn from an old pail. I am energized by these many new faces, their eyes, their stories, and the different ways they try to reveal themselves—and hide from me. They want me to understand their essence, but only the shiny parts that they have Windexed, the parts that they have reconstructed and rehearsed. The scary stuff gets tucked into a back pocket, pressed to the bottom of a chaotic purse…
Yet there are times when I’m overcome by the desire to strip down and stand before you in my nakedness, palms open to your inspection. To show you first what scares me most—it’s as much a defense as anything—so you will put away your weapon. But when I stand there, plaintive, open, and my jokes flutter like lint into the carpet; and my tears for being hungry, for discovering my own humanity in a photograph, a painting, a poem, are something from which you turn away—to text, to lace a tired shoe—I feel my aloneness… Yesterday I heard the Muscle Shoals rhythm section on my iPod like a train coming on—and there were only strangers on either side of me, and I ached to have someone to turn to who would touch my arm, who would know why my skin tingled from that sound. It was Jeff who said listen, Rachel, all those years ago. Listen. And this young girl from a small town, moved alone to the city, listened... heard... felt... And he is dead these past many years, and I have kept walking.
And the scene in Tolstoy where the narrator switches to the artist’s perspective—and we both cringed, understanding that dark insecurity, that unbridled confidence, all in the time that it takes to open the door. But he is gone, too, the man who would understand that—who would cast a knowing look from across a crowded room when the air felt thick, felt full of the weight of so many stories, so many people working to be heard. I know what you’re thinking, Rachel, his look would say. And I knew that he did...
But there is no more of that.
This summer I will stand alone at night and listen to the rush of unseen waves along a craggy beach in North Truro. It will be windy and close to midnight, the moon like a quiet pearl in the sky. In the distance, the lonely call of the harbor lighthouse and a few scattered lights from P’town. I will feel around in the dark, trying to touch the shadows. And maybe I will even whisper to the wind how joyous and inconsequential the ocean makes me feel sometimes... This is of course what we used to say—and one time many years ago we made a fire on the beach, and I could see his steady profile, looking for things out there. Our lips were quiet that night because they didn’t need to move. And I heard him and he heard me...
***
I also like how my mind packs up and takes itself to different places when no one's around. I need only that space—where the world cannot see me; and even sometimes when they can, but when they are not paying attention. Often the hum of music acts as a runway, and I do not feel the lift-off, do not recognize the pulling away from a demanding ground. I go where I go unknowingly, yet willingly. But it has not always been like this. Many years ago I tried to train my mind to stay put—but it would not. And then she explained that it was a way to protect myself, and so I came to recognize this flight as a treasure, a gift…
And yet they feel sorry for me at times: Rachel alone over there—as I lie naked on the bed, listening to the silence of these walls, my hands cupped behind my head. I like the shape of my toes from this angle, the curve of my hips, and how my breasts respond to the cool air moving over my skin. Above me is a muted crack, just beneath the surface of the ceiling, and it runs the width of my room. As I study it, it reminds me of the schism of my two lives: one lived on the street, in the office, at a friend’s house; the other here in the silence of my empty house. And I do not fear either.
But I fear aloneness of another kind—the one that comes from being separated from history, from milk drawn from an old pail. I am energized by these many new faces, their eyes, their stories, and the different ways they try to reveal themselves—and hide from me. They want me to understand their essence, but only the shiny parts that they have Windexed, the parts that they have reconstructed and rehearsed. The scary stuff gets tucked into a back pocket, pressed to the bottom of a chaotic purse…
Yet there are times when I’m overcome by the desire to strip down and stand before you in my nakedness, palms open to your inspection. To show you first what scares me most—it’s as much a defense as anything—so you will put away your weapon. But when I stand there, plaintive, open, and my jokes flutter like lint into the carpet; and my tears for being hungry, for discovering my own humanity in a photograph, a painting, a poem, are something from which you turn away—to text, to lace a tired shoe—I feel my aloneness… Yesterday I heard the Muscle Shoals rhythm section on my iPod like a train coming on—and there were only strangers on either side of me, and I ached to have someone to turn to who would touch my arm, who would know why my skin tingled from that sound. It was Jeff who said listen, Rachel, all those years ago. Listen. And this young girl from a small town, moved alone to the city, listened... heard... felt... And he is dead these past many years, and I have kept walking.
And the scene in Tolstoy where the narrator switches to the artist’s perspective—and we both cringed, understanding that dark insecurity, that unbridled confidence, all in the time that it takes to open the door. But he is gone, too, the man who would understand that—who would cast a knowing look from across a crowded room when the air felt thick, felt full of the weight of so many stories, so many people working to be heard. I know what you’re thinking, Rachel, his look would say. And I knew that he did...
But there is no more of that.
This summer I will stand alone at night and listen to the rush of unseen waves along a craggy beach in North Truro. It will be windy and close to midnight, the moon like a quiet pearl in the sky. In the distance, the lonely call of the harbor lighthouse and a few scattered lights from P’town. I will feel around in the dark, trying to touch the shadows. And maybe I will even whisper to the wind how joyous and inconsequential the ocean makes me feel sometimes... This is of course what we used to say—and one time many years ago we made a fire on the beach, and I could see his steady profile, looking for things out there. Our lips were quiet that night because they didn’t need to move. And I heard him and he heard me...
***
Saturday, January 2, 2010
Breath
She says that night that she is ready to be tossed in a box and put in the ground. This blonde haired lovely, this woman who has grown up alongside me. She sits on my couch with her reconstructed breasts, her tattooed nipples, her concentrator roaring over the strains of 70s music that the two of us have selected on the TV—that goliath machine giving her life, breath. Her quivering hand slaps at the length of hose, angling for more slack in the line, so she can move around a bit—and I see in that one quick movement that this would defeat me, being tethered like that, held down. But my lungs open and close like new, polished windows—me who has drawn smoke into their sponginess, and she has not. And her lungs are sealed shut, painted over by something unknown that picked her out of the wind and confiscated her breath--until she thought she would suffocate, she said, lying there undiagnosed in a sterile room in that Upstate town. She lay for two whole weeks, struggling for breath, while the nurse smiled, the doctor scribbled notes on a board at her feet, and the candy-striper asked if she wanted a treat. I can't breathe, she said. I really can't breathe...
That night she sips her wine on my couch and touches a trembling finger to a painful, teary eye. A side effect of some pills, and of course she knew it would attack her. We cover the eye with a $4.99 patch from the CVS, and it angers me to see her like this. Yet there is no one here to holler at, to threaten; no manager to page. Just the two of us on my couch on a winter night, and the din of her concentrator--and the empty package that the patch came in. I watch her, as each punch comes: she stands up, fists curled—this woman of the farm, born on the gentle side of things. This woman whose soul is a delicate thing--all cotton candy and grace—she stands stoic and strong as the punches keep coming and coming and coming. And what did I know, back then when we lived together in that town. I thought she was too quick to cry and asked so little of life. She stayed behind, listening to her own footsteps, waiting for love—while I boarded a bus that would take me to wide open places that I demanded all kinds of things from. And still, even tonight, she has hope that love will come, that it will come and find her because, after all, she cannot find it with one patched-over eye.
That night we drank wine and she could not see, and she said she hopes she won’t be blinded. Her doctor, when we called, was smug in his own steady breath, his own sober hand, and told her to use eye drops, hanging up the phone to turn back to his wife, to his ESPN. And my sister-in-law leaned her head back against my cotton twill couch cushion and struggled to open one ravaged eye to a doleful eyedrop from my steady hand. I stood over her, thinking how we had ridden all those waves from girlhood to the brink of middle age--and yet we never imagined this…
Tonight I am sitting on the same couch, and it’s quiet in here. She is back home, tethered, the roar of her concentrator something that has faded, for her, into the background, like the forgotten blush of new love, as the years go by and life is pumped into her nose one single pulse at a time. The transplant people tell her to keep her own lungs for as long as she can—as if there is any choice. Outside my living room windows tonight, a winter wind rages, rattling windows and banging against the summer things I forgot to take in from the patio. I listen, my bare feet propped on the coffee table, as the wind doubles back and launches itself in a chaotic dance that reminds me of the precariousness, the chaos, of life—of all of us getting knocked around one day at a time, breathing in and breathing out, until we are done.
***
That night she sips her wine on my couch and touches a trembling finger to a painful, teary eye. A side effect of some pills, and of course she knew it would attack her. We cover the eye with a $4.99 patch from the CVS, and it angers me to see her like this. Yet there is no one here to holler at, to threaten; no manager to page. Just the two of us on my couch on a winter night, and the din of her concentrator--and the empty package that the patch came in. I watch her, as each punch comes: she stands up, fists curled—this woman of the farm, born on the gentle side of things. This woman whose soul is a delicate thing--all cotton candy and grace—she stands stoic and strong as the punches keep coming and coming and coming. And what did I know, back then when we lived together in that town. I thought she was too quick to cry and asked so little of life. She stayed behind, listening to her own footsteps, waiting for love—while I boarded a bus that would take me to wide open places that I demanded all kinds of things from. And still, even tonight, she has hope that love will come, that it will come and find her because, after all, she cannot find it with one patched-over eye.
That night we drank wine and she could not see, and she said she hopes she won’t be blinded. Her doctor, when we called, was smug in his own steady breath, his own sober hand, and told her to use eye drops, hanging up the phone to turn back to his wife, to his ESPN. And my sister-in-law leaned her head back against my cotton twill couch cushion and struggled to open one ravaged eye to a doleful eyedrop from my steady hand. I stood over her, thinking how we had ridden all those waves from girlhood to the brink of middle age--and yet we never imagined this…
Tonight I am sitting on the same couch, and it’s quiet in here. She is back home, tethered, the roar of her concentrator something that has faded, for her, into the background, like the forgotten blush of new love, as the years go by and life is pumped into her nose one single pulse at a time. The transplant people tell her to keep her own lungs for as long as she can—as if there is any choice. Outside my living room windows tonight, a winter wind rages, rattling windows and banging against the summer things I forgot to take in from the patio. I listen, my bare feet propped on the coffee table, as the wind doubles back and launches itself in a chaotic dance that reminds me of the precariousness, the chaos, of life—of all of us getting knocked around one day at a time, breathing in and breathing out, until we are done.
***
Monday, December 28, 2009
Magic Shoes
It’s New Orleans night in our little apartment raised three floors above the bums who sit on the stoop downstairs. Talking in loud gruff voices, they leave empty bottles of Wild Eye in the vestibule which I will find tomorrow on my way out. I throw the front windows wide open, inviting in a summer night of drunken voices and the rush of cars along the street below. A horn interrupts some woman singing oh baby yeah to a pulsing rhythm which fades like an echo as the traffic light changes and the car pulls away. I chop tomatoes, celery, peppers, onions into the pot, and they sizzle against the heat. Thick chunks of andouille sausage dressed in spices and a rich pork stock—the cornbread bakes, and flushed with the heat I sing along with the Professor, Tipitina tra la la la. The lazy piano pulls me in and I turn up the volume, and the guys on the street raise their voices. I can picture them rattling their awkward limbs in defiance of 4/4 time, as they pass the Wild Eye with sticky lips trying to sing. I stir the old silver pot, releasing a spicy incense that struts with the city’s late night din like a festival in this downtown hotbox tonight.
Down three flights of narrow stairs, he works kneeling over newspaper in a dimly lit basement, dribbling red, blue, yellow, purple in chaotic strokes over old black shoes secured last week from the second-hand store.
The pot simmers, and I sit on the couch flipping through a new book I bought with rent money from a shop window on Central Ave today. The Professor sings headin’ out baby headin’ out honey chile, and page by page, I ease my way into the world on my lap. One writer says in words that mix with my own steady breathing that she has reached the age where she is doing things for the last time... And suddenly I am not afraid anymore, her image standing before me with cotton candy hair and a neck gathered in loose, creamy folds--and the rent man goes away.
And there he is like a child stepping off the bus, holding up his Jackson Pollock shoes; he waves them through the air like flags. I shake my head and laugh, stir the spicy stew. They are worried about our future, saying music and books won’t buy benefits, living room drapes, or a washer and dryer. I tell them not to worry, that I’ve adorned the windows with plants so the sun can come through, and his parents had lots of benefits which changed nothing for them in the end. I wash things out by hand sometimes and leave them by the open windows to dry.
Love the shoes, I say, and he explains that he will wear them whenever he writes or plays out—and the bums downstairs raise their raucous voices in celebration. He sets the painted shoes by the open windows as the slightest breeze tickles the back of our necks. Another horn blares, a muffler-less car guns angrily at the light, and he picks up the guitar and strums the new song he’s written today: ten songs in ten days. Always a goal. We’re short fifteen dollars in rent and he throws his head back, adding his voice to the late summer night.
That night, we ate steaming bowls of Cajun stew over rice, and thick slices of cornbread warm from the oven, as the shoes dried by the open window. I remember someone bellowing into the payphone on the corner, and then hearing the bums yell back. And the Professor sang oh yeah baby I done run’d out of money. I told him that night how much I liked his new song. And I knew that the next day, long after all the state workers had trudged home, that there would be another festival in some dark, smoky room with neon beer lights and dollar drafts, and that he’d wear his new shoes. That he’d sing We talk of New York, we talk of New Orleans, we’ll all be going there soon. And, at the time, all those years ago, I believed him--as he passed the hat, praying for rent.
***
Down three flights of narrow stairs, he works kneeling over newspaper in a dimly lit basement, dribbling red, blue, yellow, purple in chaotic strokes over old black shoes secured last week from the second-hand store.
The pot simmers, and I sit on the couch flipping through a new book I bought with rent money from a shop window on Central Ave today. The Professor sings headin’ out baby headin’ out honey chile, and page by page, I ease my way into the world on my lap. One writer says in words that mix with my own steady breathing that she has reached the age where she is doing things for the last time... And suddenly I am not afraid anymore, her image standing before me with cotton candy hair and a neck gathered in loose, creamy folds--and the rent man goes away.
And there he is like a child stepping off the bus, holding up his Jackson Pollock shoes; he waves them through the air like flags. I shake my head and laugh, stir the spicy stew. They are worried about our future, saying music and books won’t buy benefits, living room drapes, or a washer and dryer. I tell them not to worry, that I’ve adorned the windows with plants so the sun can come through, and his parents had lots of benefits which changed nothing for them in the end. I wash things out by hand sometimes and leave them by the open windows to dry.
Love the shoes, I say, and he explains that he will wear them whenever he writes or plays out—and the bums downstairs raise their raucous voices in celebration. He sets the painted shoes by the open windows as the slightest breeze tickles the back of our necks. Another horn blares, a muffler-less car guns angrily at the light, and he picks up the guitar and strums the new song he’s written today: ten songs in ten days. Always a goal. We’re short fifteen dollars in rent and he throws his head back, adding his voice to the late summer night.
That night, we ate steaming bowls of Cajun stew over rice, and thick slices of cornbread warm from the oven, as the shoes dried by the open window. I remember someone bellowing into the payphone on the corner, and then hearing the bums yell back. And the Professor sang oh yeah baby I done run’d out of money. I told him that night how much I liked his new song. And I knew that the next day, long after all the state workers had trudged home, that there would be another festival in some dark, smoky room with neon beer lights and dollar drafts, and that he’d wear his new shoes. That he’d sing We talk of New York, we talk of New Orleans, we’ll all be going there soon. And, at the time, all those years ago, I believed him--as he passed the hat, praying for rent.
***
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