She & Me

It's strange--funny--fitting--how undifferent I am from her. As though I am a bystander, I can see her, albeit in low definition: the overlarge feet propped on the table, the hips hidden in the box-like chair, Seventeen magazine splayed over angled (but, more than that, rounded) knees. Head down. Defenses up.

Hearing this song now--"She would change everything for happy ever after"--two near-simultaneous sighs hit me: the first is that of a woman who will never be 14 again, who would not turn the pages back to 1998 for a thousand good things; the second is that of the 14-year-old who is still here, the girl who is less changed than she thought she'd be nearly two decades later years later.

In a weird flash of imagination (powered by a few too many Doctor Who episodes) the 14-year-old, ensconced in her comfort zone, evaluates the newly arrived thirtysomething uncomfortably scanning books on the shelf the way adults do when in the lair of adolescents--distracted but not. She has not thinned out the way everyone said she would--everyone said she would, and that is just not fair--but her hair is better and while traces of acne remain, the face is more smooth than scarred. She has learned to dress better, though hints of her never-caught high school trends remain: jeans that brush the ground, shirts that fall to her hips, statement earrings. She wears glasses now. Strange. When did that happen? The teenager squints, swipes at her nose. But there is no denying this is the same woman; her height helps to distinguish, but see too how she pulls her bottom lip up when she smiles to hide the unpretty teeth--dead giveaway. She'd recognize that anywhere.

The thirtysomething, her attention caught, angles her eye over the book to refresh her memory. Is it any wonder this girl would earn an English degree, when her high school hangouts were the theater and here, the second floor of the library, perched between the six and seven hundreds of Dewey. The pictures in the magazine--impossibly long-legged girls with gloss-shined lips and platform-inverted feet--taunt her in secret years before she would learn they taunted everyone, even the glossy, the leggy. She is here because there are other people here--not friends, but a passing glance would make it seem so. She shows a studied relaxation, but it is too stilted to be real. It will buckle at the shift of any number of variables. It's nearly painful to watch.

 Love yourself, the thirtysomething wills across the room, the book settling back on the shelf. Stop being certain that you are an object of amusement. Stop playing a role and free yourself. Walk across campus without a crowd. Be funny for the sake of making yourself laugh. Take ownership of those words that scrape and sting--fat, awkward, poor--or take their sting from them. Find those small powers you have (of words, of compassion) and exercise them.

Because this woman you so ache to become is already sitting there with that magazine. She's wrapped up in those adolescent layers as much as anyone, but she is already peeling back and discarding the pieces that don't work anymore. She will become the girl with the notebook full of quotes, the girl who forgives her father, the girl who falls in love and loses but doesn't die, the artsy girl with confidence built from grace. She will blush less and laugh more and stand instead of leaning. She will not be perfect--and she will in some ways bear no resemblance to this dream-adult you're aiming for, but she'll find those dreams were ones you grow out of the way you used to love Prince Philip but now it's Rider Strong or nothing.

If I could only crouch down, rest my chin on the arm of the chair to whisper to her. But that's part of the deal, isn't it? We wait for our own selves. There's no rushing, no shortcuts. She will find these things to be true, but no sooner, no easier than I did the first time. How do I still remember that first walk alone (insignificant and huge, remembered so perfectly), when the only sound in the world was my hurrying feet in the grass and I was sure every window was filled with eyes. Arriving into class, I regulated my breathing to find that no one had noticed. I remember knowing that he was leaving and in love with someone else--and months later seeing him and feeling only a tinny reverb of old emotion. A teacher looking me in the eyes and saying, "You do this well. Do it more. Never stop." Standing in front of a graduation crowd speaking, laughing, hearing their laughter echo back. Nearly indiscernible steps toward a new (but not as new as I'd imagined) version of me.

The teenager looks up again from the magazine to find that the thirtysomething is gone--sort of. She thought she was talking to her, but it must have been voices from downstairs. A song flits out on the edge of her head, almost heard: "She's just the way she is, but no one's told her that's okay." Weird. She shrugs, and turns the page.

Endnotes:

- the song is Jon McLaughlin's "Beautiful Disaster." It's fantastic, and it's written, I'm quite sure, about every teenage girl ever. Listen to it here.

- seriously, Rider Strong. It's not too late to make this work. Call me.

Neutering Creative

I just read the other day that to-do lists aren’t a good idea—something about not prioritizing time, wasting time, focusing on crossing things off more than doing what’s important.  I don’t know.  I guarantee that I was avoiding something when I read that article.  Maybe office hours, or getting a snack for my kids, or grading this shit-ton of essays in front of me.  I didn’t actually read the article.  I skimmed it.  It was bullet-pointed, which was helpful.  Anyway, that was just a roundabout ways of saying that I still write a to-do list every day. I sure as hell was avoiding my to-do list when I was reading that article about not creating to-do lists.

Here’s the to-do list I wrote today:

(10/1)

·          Create

o   Quiz for sentence variety

o   Assignment for Flight character comparison

o   Peer review template for ENGL 2290

o   Discussion board for ENGL 1117

·         Grade

o   Finish 1117 essays

o   0950 papers (DO IT! DO IT!)

·         Other

o   Figure out if you need to stop at TJs

o   Write an essay for Chelsia’s thing

Section #1 is fine, no hiccups and a few new assignments written.  A morning of Shovels and Rope radio on Pandora, a granola bar, some coffee. A colleague and I yell back and forth across the hall, our normal Wednesday routine.  Sometimes he talks about the Kennedy assassination conspiracy.  Sometimes I talk about how I can’t believe anybody still gives a shit about the Kennedy assassination conspiracy.  Then the 0950 papers hit.  I’ve been avoiding them for a week in one fashion or another.  They make an appearance on at least five to-do lists.

Paraphrased Assignment: 

After watching the TED Talk on creativity in schools, respond to the following: Do you believe that your creative side has been nurtured in school?  In what ways do we promote and encourage creativity?  How is creativity discouraged in education?

I have been grading these papers for three hours—three sections of the same course taught back to back to back.  They take a long time to grade. Fragments. Missing articles. Sentence structures that confuse me for days. One student has crossed off the more common “I” form of the pronoun and replaced each one on a worksheet with the “i” variety. Pages and pages. 

   

“i believe yes that there is creativity in school.  my creative was neutered.”

The line rises off the page, out of the madness of crazy syntax. Neutered vs. Nurtured, a few misplaced keystrokes away, the wrong choice on "Spelling Suggestions." It goes on, paragraph after paragraph—neutered creative.  I laugh, call across the hall, yell for anybody who will listen: neutered creative, neutered creativity.  The Chronicle of Higher Education forums come to mind—“Best student sentences, Fall 2014.” It’s an easy mark, a cheap laugh after hours of writing need concrete example here and transition needed and unclear phrasing in the margins. In the margins of this student’s paper, I want to ask, “Did it hurt to get your creative neutered?” But I hold back.

The fact is that I know the answer to the unintentional question posed by this student’s typo. Yeah, it hurts to get your creative neutered. Years after getting out of an MFA program in Idaho, the most creative writing I do on any kind of regular basis is in the responses to my fiction student’s stories.  And I can feel it, the flattening out, the dullness. It’s strange how easily some things fade away, how the crisp edge of words and the charge of language becomes a day filled with tinkering with topic sentences. I have my excuses, and they’re boilerplate: full-time teaching gig, five classes a semester, maybe four preps, a houseful of kids, a hole in the ceiling that needs fixed because a squirrel keeps getting in our attic. But it’s all bullshit.  The squirrel thing probably isn’t bullshit.  That bastard has been tormenting us for months, maybe years.

 I miss the brain-buzz and pure joy of writing the words dust and roadhunt and cloudbank.  I miss how writing those words can make me feel the piece of land that cuts between Minnesota and South Dakota.  

So, to-do lists. I have an extra spot on mine now.

And I can cross off the last thing on today’s list and write tomorrow’s.

Coming home today, the wind lifted under my jacket. The chill ran through me and rattled my bones. I was grateful for the empty garage. A little gift to get out of the weather. The house was quiet. Even the dog wasn’t greeting me. A blustery day with a silent transition.

I saw the trash on the floor. Damn-that’s why no doggie greeting. I can count the number of times on one hand that this dog has hit a trash can. I guess she had an opinion on our solo excursion this week. Boredom, rebellion and then apparently panic when I got home. I called her and she came slinking around the corner. I love dogs. Instant confession and remorse. She and I cleaned it up together as I gave in to the knowledge that we would be taking quite a few walks around the yard tonight. My fuzzy rebel has the most sensitive stomach in the world. Oh joy. So much for out of the weather.

Usually my house is full of sound and people. My wife and I live with my Mom. There is a pretty constant stream of action, opinion and laughter. This week, as they are both out on adventures, I had been looking forward to the quiet. A brief pause where I could do whatever I wanted with my time. Cook what I wanted, go to bed whenever. I am intrigued by my reaction. I lived alone for over 20 years -Now I have been together with my wife for 10 years. If it wasn't the kids in our house it was a brief stay by her parents. A few months we had our kids and grandkids under our roof. And now of course we have Mom. She is lively and funny and keeps me on my toes. I always have these grand hallucinations of what I will do when I am on my own for a few days. This idea of reasserting my independence. The first day is grand, until dark. Then I am grateful for the dog and the security system. This house makes a lot of noises, even with the tv on. I am queen of the castle until bed time. A good soak in the hot tub and I settle down in the blankets. I smell my wife’s skin on the sheets and reach for my cell phone. Hearing her voice helps but I find my feet roam the covers all night, looking for that soft foot they snuggle right before dropping off. I remember again that I have been domesticated. Ensnared. I am hopelessly and completely in love. The other part of my heart is out of my touch, sight, sound- roaming around in the world without me. I think that is the true gift of these times. The reminder of how quiet the house used to be when I came home to just the dog. Before I knew the comfort and laughter, how complete a heart could feel when it is truly well loved and enmeshed with another. I forget that sometimes, when money is tight. When I am feeling lazy, or tired and she wants to finish a project or rearrange the furniture. But all it takes is one night. One quiet evening of house creaking and foot wandering to remind me. I am blessed beyond all measure. Blessed beyond all bills. Blessed beyond family drama and job loss and car problems. Beyond grief and sickness, blessed beyond frustration, and human nature and pain. My soul has found its other. And nothing will ever be the same again. Thank God. I reach for my cell phone. 5 days to go.

Sleep Auction

I slept through kindergarten, more than once and my father, a fair and diplomatic man, let me sleep. After I crawled from my pink canopy bed, I found my daddy in the kitchen and he knelt down in front of me, looked into my weeping eyes and said, "You are the one who chose to sleep." Even at the tender age of five, I knew that he did not understand my deep-rooted relationship with dreams  as alive as he.

I am quite convinced that I met my sleep quota for life early due to frequent teenage sleep-fests. The hours of Kodachrome dreams, the fly-and-swoosh, slo-mo-running, alarm ringing, rushing to get to class on time, out of breath during roll call, late for first period again, easy sleep, deep sleep, unappreciated sleep, teenage nights are long gone.

And forget about the nap. The anywhere, anytime, youthful snooze is extinct. After endless nights of sleeplessness, a nap is just another form of self-torture. A tired four-year-old refuses even the most posh, in a bed, during the day, lights out, curtains drawn, maybe mommy will read a book and sing a song nap. I would pay good money for an uninterrupted twenty minutes on a cold cement floor.

Last spring I fell asleep in the car, closed my eyes "for five minutes" and woke up two hours later. I was supposed to be swimming, in a class that I paid money for, a graded class, a graded university class. I accepted the two hours, felt like five minutes, hope nobody saw me, can't believe I slept through a class at forty-one nap as a gift to myself.

Oh sleep, where art thou? Do you find it disheartening that I am blogging instead of dreaming? Have mercy and sell me a simple eight-hour block of shut-eye.  Do I hear seven?  Six?  Will you give me five, five, five, four-and-a-half? Sold!

Stealing Other People's Stories

All my Oscars have been for screenwriting. 

I’m reasonably sure this is true. 

Maybe way back, back before I traded in my plans of acting for a stage manager’s headset and binder, maybe I accepted a few for acting. But the overwhelming majority of my wins have been for writing stories that were filled in with famous faces and spread thickly across screens in dark rooms full of strangers.

[Sidebar: While it can be awkward, I’ve found the bathroom is the best place for accepting. The steamy mirror creates a glow similar to that of stage lights; your wet hair is easily swept into something classic or cutting edge; the towel can be cinched to sveltify the waist and press the girls into some sort of cleavage. I’ve done a lot of research, and this is where I’m coming down in the discussion: bathrooms are best.]

...Keep reading here.

What Remains

What Remains

 

I can’t say she ruined my life. I can’t say she didn’t love me. I can’t say she didn’t change me.

 

Thirty-one years ago, I was 26, newly divorced, and had a three-year-old daughter.

               

                I fell in love with her. Or something I thought was love. Maybe it was only lust, but not physical lust. Lust for what I thought was a life filled with spontaniety and fun and not the grueling life of being a mother and a wife. Or what I thought was a grueling life.

                Skye turned my world upside down. She drove a Trans Am. She did a lot of coke, and she sold a lot of coke. And she lived with another woman whom she claimed was only a roommate.

                I ditched my daughter with my ex-husband. Or a babysitter. For nights on end.

                I did a lot of coke. It made me feel good.

                We went on a lot of road trips to nowhere.

                I spent countless nights in her canopied bed.

                I lost a lot of weight.      

                I did whatever she asked me to do.

                She grew marijuana in a secret grow room in the basement.      

                She grew paranoid.

                We ripped out the plants, took them to a second-rate motel and dried them on screens.

                We put the unusable parts in garbage bags and put those garbage bags in the trunk of my car and we drove them to the dump.

                We went to a lot of bars. We went to a lot of house parties. We drank a lot. We sold a lot of dope.

                I missed work. A lot of work. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t drink anything but chocolate milkshakes.

                I didn’t care. About anything. Or anyone. Except her.

We were together a year and then we weren’t.

 

She went to prison.       

She got out of prison.

She couldn’t stop doing coke. She couldn’t stop what she did.

She still drove a Trans Am. She had a new lover.

She died in the Tucson desert with her lover. Murder. Suicide.

 

I can’t say she didn’t change me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

               

               

Lead Us Not Into Temptation

     I was born in the fifties.  It was such a confusing world, even then.  By the time I was six, it was the sixties.  Being raised in a religious cult-like sect made it even more confusing.  When I was nine we moved to the suburbs, a very exciting event.  There were about three models of brick homes, or homes that looked brick, anyway.  Ours was the plain vanilla box version but we were very proud of it.  We had a corner lot on the corner of Linda Sue and Leonard Lane.  Since my father’s name was Leonard and my oldest sister’s name was Linda ,it was meant to be.  We had a fenced yard and an incinerator where we burned our trash once a week.  There was a clothesline where our mother hung clothes to dry and we kids made tents, flinging blankets over the line, shining flashlights in each other’s eyes after dark, telling scary stories. 

     Being a religious kid, I gawked at the neighbors’ sophisticated ways, my mouth hanging open, greedily drinking in a world I couldn’t imagine, but secretly longed for.  We dressed like the Lord’s people, so I felt dowdy, plain, and even naked, next to Binky and Pat, the neighborhood’s party couple.  Binky was a pro baseball player and he and Pat had a sleek convertible parked in their driveway.  Pat wore scarves and sunglasses before Jacqueline Kennedy did, looking glamorous with her nude lipstick and matching nails.  Binky and Pat threw rip roaring parties with another neighborhood couple, Lou and Betty.  Once, in the early morning hours, I saw Binky, clearly intoxicated, wandering down the street, Pat on his shoulders, whooping and hollering.  Betty and Lou stood on their concrete porch laughing and waving cocktail glasses as the rising sun cast a pink glow all around.

      I doubt my parents were invited and even if they had been, they would never have attended such a “worldly” event.  We were the chosen people, the implication of which made us better than other people, people like the Binky and Pats of the world.  We were better in a sad sort of way, because we had to sacrifice a lot to be God’s people.  Instead of having fun, we had to be examples. 

    But at the swimming pool, I stole quarters from beneath other people’s towels.  I shoplifted candy from Duckworth’s, slipping it beneath the bathing cap I twisted nonchalantly on my fist. 

     I was that kid. 

 

     We didn’t own a television set, so I had to see the local kids’ show in Denver, Fred and Fay, and others, like The Man From U.N.C.L.E., Leave It To Beaver, and Superman, at my friends’ houses.  Once the magic box was on, light and shadows flickering across the forbidden screen, I was mesmerized.  My friends, accustomed to its spells, often had to physically pull me away and out of the instant trance I would fall into as soon as a favorite show came on. 

     “C’mon!” they might yell.  “Yoo-hoo!”

     They waved their hands in front of my face and laughed at my inability to see or hear anything but the sights and sounds emanating from the screen. Reluctantly, with much yelling, shaking and pulling, I would drag my attention away from the magic.

    “Huh?” I might mutter, eyelids blinking in confusion.  Sometimes they had to just go stand in front of the set or turn it off to release me from its spell.  I felt guilty then, as though I had just secretly masturbated or something worse.  As far as my parents knew, I was outside playing.

     We lived in a magic time.  We kids ran up and down the streets of the suburbs hooting and hollering, wearing towels like Superman capes, playing hide and seek, Red Rover, Mother May I, even as the street lights blinked on, dark fell, and one by one, we headed off to our respective homes and bedtime.  Every Halloween we went trick or treating. It’s all mixed up together, how the times were changing then. 

     President Kennedy was shot.  I was in fourth grade and we all laid our heads on our desk in a moment of silence.  I was too young to understand anything but the dead silence underneath the quiet sobbing of my older sisters as it echoed through the rest of the day, the weeks, and months, even years that followed.  It was like a warning, that silence, full of dread, covered over by the hysteria to come:  the manic flood of young people, the blasting beat of rock and roll accompanied by the drifting sweet smell of patchouli oil and marijuana, into the streets.

     When relatives from small towns out of state came to visit, my parents took them for a drive down Colfax so they could see the long haired hippies.  They’d come home shaking their heads, muttering disgust.  I watched their consternation from the corners of my pre-pubescence, my stomach twisting with the clashing mores.  My head ached with wanting. 

     My friend’s brother was sent to Vietnam. My friend had scant information, garnered from conversations by adults not meant for her ears.  My sister skipped school and, in a family scandal of huge proportions, was featured on the front page of the Rocky Mountain News wearing a mini skirt and picketing to change the school dress code.  She had become sick of kneeling down before the school authorities to have the distance between the hem of her skirt and the top of her knee measured.  My friend and I had no words for the fear we felt for our siblings, unnamed worries circled our heads like vultures.

     One sister got married and moved away.  The other sister joined the hippies on Colfax.  I worried about the neighbors, who were going to hell, because they didn’t know the Truth, weren’t God’s people. 

     It didn’t seem fair.  Plus I was struggling, just like David facing Goliath in the Bible story. 

     When I went to Carol and Cheryl’s house to play, we got into their big sister’s make-up kit and I brushed mascara on my eyelashes, smeared lipstick on my lips. Their parents both worked so we had the house to ourselves. Cheryl and Carol put on records by Bobby Darin, again raided from their big sister’s stash, and we danced so hard to “Dream Lover,” replaying it over and over, that we fell, exhausted onto the floor, breathless with giggles.  Then I tried to scrub all the makeup off before I went home where my parents could see it. 

     I loved dancing to Bobby Darin, Chubby Checker, and James Brown at Carol and Cheryl’s house.  They taught me (or tried to teach me) how to do the Twist, the Mashed Potato, and the Frug, among other dances. Their parents weren’t religious and their older sister was an endless source of inspiration. I liked mascara and lipstick; I who had been forbade even clear nail polish.  Carol enticed me into playing girlfriend and boyfriend.  We placed our hands in front of our lips and fervently kissed. 

     Like I said, it was all very confusing.  Dancing and makeup were considered worldly in the Truth. My public face was kept scrubbed, clean of adornment.  Scissors, true to biblical instruction, had never touched my waist length hair. My dresses, hand sewn by my mother, reached the middle of my knees.  Man would soon land on the moon.

     Age thirteen, I huddled in my bedroom, listening to the Monkees, “The Last Train to Clarksville.”  At fourteen, babysitting, I discovered the Beatles and “Hey Jude.”  NaNa Na Na Na.  Hey – ay-ay-ay Jude, I sang. 

     I thought I might die, the way my heart pounded against my ribs day after day. 

     Everything, it seemed, was denied me.