Pinks

I just started watching Modern Love.

For those that don't know, Modern Love is a New York Times weekly essay post, a pod cast,  a miniature story section called Tiny Love, a book, and a recently renewed for a second season Amazon series.  It takes the stories that have been submitted by readers and honors them with either published essays, or mini movies, or stories you can hear being read through a channel as you ride the subway, or board a plane. It is part of the style section on the Times, and the section you should turn to, skipping the headlines, that makes you feel good first before turning back to educate yourself.  The innocence of the style section, all superficial and chatty, is just the thing sometimes.

It reminded me of my early 20's.  I was going to school in Sacramento, working during the week, and taking as many classes as I could and still stay just under the advisors' radar for unit overload.  I was in my own apartment, having skipped the drama of the dorms for the drama of two story apartment life in a slightly less than upscale neighborhood, but one that had a pool. One bedroom, one bath, ground floor, spectacular view of the parking lot, no air conditioning.  But I also had a boyfriend who lived in Oakland, and I spent as much time with him over every weekend as possible.

On Sunday mornings when I was there, we always woke early.   There was a cheap little bodega around the corner in Oakland that had not very good pasties, and even less good coffee, and we would grab both, then pick up the Sunday San Francisco Chronicle just to get the Pink Section. 

For those that remember, that was the part of the paper officially called the Date Book. It might still be a thing, but I have not picked it up in years to find out.  It had all the entertainment, happenings, listings, style, movie reviews (praise to the Little Man!), and anything else entertainment related you wanted to know.  We would take our coffee, and pastries, and our newspaper back to bed, and that was how we decided the day.  If the Pinks told us about something interesting, we would get re-dressed, and head out.  Day concerts, art openings, festivals, street fairs, anything really that caught our attention that was close enough (SF was okay, Sausalito was too far) and free (that was an important criteria) then off we would go. If nothing appealed to us, we usually stayed in bed for the rest of the day, reading through the other parts of the paper and enjoying the aspects of poverty and youth.

So Modern Love is not quite like that because the Pinks never really concentrated on the personal aspect of anything SF related, and stuck to the public view of art and entertainment.  I can appreciate that; every paper has its own brand, but it would have probably kept me in bed even longer if I could have read a little of the SF loves stories along the way. It didn't matter though, because we were our own little love story, and it was a perfect slice of fleeting happiness I still think of.

I will probably binge watch the rest of the season over a weekend here soon, and maybe binge watch Season 2 as well.  And I think I will write an essay about periods of love I have been lucky enough to have in my life, and submit them for consideration.  I am super happy I can still think of love as something worth seeing, hearing, and celebrating.  I hope I continue to notice. 

Prophet

 I am currently in possession of the world's worst snow globe. Yes, there is a story.

There is nothing vulgar about it, or even trashy.  It does not have drug paraphernalia or any kind of sexual reference as the snow glitter.  As a matter of fact, it would probably be just meh to most people, if they noticed it at all. But to me, it is now, and always has been, the most hilarious snow globe ever.  

It is a Jesus.  The base of the globe is the upper half of the body, with arms and a staff. Inside the globe is the head.  Yes, the Jesus head IS the snow globe.  It is like a Jesus in an astronaut suit, or in a scuba diving helmet. All rosy pink cheeks and plastic combed beard. It is the perfect fake Jesus, with the perfect fake glitter snow floating in the perfect glycerin water.

Until I saw a picture of it this year.

See, the globe was a gift my son gave at the last minute to the woman my children's father is married to, Christmas about 10 years ago.  It was legit the most perfect, and also the least thought given to any gift ever in the history of gift giving.  My children, not raised with any particular faith, only know the superficial meaning of Jesus as relayed to them via their stepmother's sketch relationship with the Christian faith.  

So I have laughed at this thing for the last decade or so, always pretty indignantly, but still with the full on Catholic mentality that I was raised in rearing its ugly head. How anyone could make, much less buy, then be gifted to cherish a resin and water Jesus-in-a-glass-bubble was beyond me, and so completely ridiculous, I had to laugh or I would have cried.

This year, about November, when the decorations start coming out (because this only comes out at Christmas apparently) my daughter showed me (via a text photo) that half the water in the globe was now gone, and what was left was now a disgusting rust and gray color, and that the Jesus now looked like it was drowning in a kind of flooded puddle , but only a little worse because the head out of the water did not have the benefit of the liquid magnification, and it looked cut in half and kind of dismembered from the rest of the swollen bottom part of the face.

This would not do.  Even as I laughed at the sadness of the situation, the idea of my favorite terrible gift being in such bad shape got to me. And like any good ex-wife would do, I asked my son to steal it so that I could repair it, and he could give it back in a second round of holiday giving on the tenth anniversary of the horrible occurrence.

No good deed goes unpunished, or something like that, because here it is almost March, and the globe has now been repaired.  Granted, it was a truly fuck my life kinda saga, with a crack in the original (possibly the cause of the gross water to begin with) and two other globes being acquired and broken before the one the head is now submerged in finally became a reality.  There was glycerin to buy, snow to replace, appropriate glue to spread, and a new rustic fabric scarf to create to cover up the slight ridge on this fourth globe that is just slightly too big for the body base. But, at least not broken or disgusting anymore.

And so it is done.

But, oh, there is more. (There is always more.)

Even with all the slightly annoying work this globe has cost me, I don't actually care if she gets it back at this point.  See, a bit over three weeks ago, she was arrested for domestic violence against my ex. I have been told she pushed him down some stairs, and attacked him.  Apparently this was not the first time, just the first time my son was there, and pulled her off his dad, and the police subsequently became involved.  My 18 year old had to protect his dad, which I understand, but at 18, the possibility of him being arrested instead of her has not escaped all the spin my brain could do when I found out. Me now fixing something that belongs to her, that was a gift from my son, some how feels gross, and emotions closer to disgust rather than humor. Everything I had believed about her, and her fake piety and perfection just whipped around and left my ex's and my (albeit adult) children vulnerable and justice involved.  I feel sorta powerless and sad, and a now pathetic but fixed snow globe is too trivial and yet importantly poignant at the same time.

I will hand the globe to my son at some point over the next week and let him decide if he wants to smash it, throw it at her, or quietly put it in the decoration box.  I have done everything I can to allow him to make the next decision.  The story is too weird to not be funny, but too sad to ever make fun of again.  I kind of just want it out of my house. 

She pleaded not guilty at the arraignment.

Roulette

 Russia invaded Ukraine today. 

That should be the top of everyone's list for terrible events and collective human tragedy.  It is not like we didn't know this would happen.  All truly awful human rights violations started with men just like Putin convincing other men like him to some how violate everything we know about how to actually be a decent human.  It has been happening all over the Middle East for just about forever.  It is happening in Somalia.  It is happening in North Korea.  It is happening in Laos, and in Burma, and Tibet.  It is happening all over Africa and South America, and in parts of Australia.  And let's be realistic, it is happening in Texas and San Francisco.  Because when people are ever seen as less than people (Alabama, I am looking at you) then the people who are doing the violations have already been given reasons to stay in the power structures created often by folks turning a blind eye.  So it is with Russia, so it is with Wyoming.

But that is just the political rant I couldn't get away from as I thought about what I would write about. Because all of the invasion news today came to me from one of my clients. He actually started shaking his head when he came in my area, and instead of saying hello, or any kind of other usual polite agreement, he said "So, World War III just started.  I am glad I won't remember it".

While remaining calm, secretly freaking out inside, I asked him to explain what he meant.  He told me the current event, with a trained soldier precision and devoid of all emotion, and said he would not fight in this one.  He had done his tours already.  So I asked about why he wouldn't remember it if this was going the way of all terrible wars, and he said that he has just read a report explaining why he was having trouble with short term memory, as he touched a green folder he had brought with him.  He opened the folder and took out a page and handed it to me.  I asked him if he wanted me to read it, and if he wanted this on the official record or not.  He said, yes, read it, but for now, not to put it in his notes.  I agreed.

On the page was a summary of a diagnosis of deteriorating and irreversible brain damage, progressive, and more than likely caused during his time in service from repeated brain trauma. There was no expected reversal of current memory loss symptoms, and no treatment that would help slow the damage progression other that what was already being done.  He said there was more, outlining what was being done, and what he should seek to help with accommodations.  More importantly, to him, a safety plan for when the day came he would not remember how to keep himself safe without first reading it.  He needed as many people in his life as possible to read it, so that he would have a safety net as things got worse.

I did all the usual things I would normally do with a client for the next 45 plus minutes, and thought about how the news of the Ukraine seemed small and distant compared to the man in front of me.  There would be more people in the future who would be getting the same green folder, with the same diagnosis, because we hadn't yet figured out how to not send people to war.  Us. Them. The world bullies. The bystanders.  All of us, stuck repeating a history we already know the end to, and my client would no longer know a thing about it. Or about his childhood friends. Or about his marriage. Or about what he had for lunch.  

As he was leaving, he picked up the green folder and says for me to remind him to tell me what was in it the next time he is in my office, and that I should read the summary sheet.  He had already forgotten that I had read it, so I just said that I would ask him again, and that he could always share anything he needs me to know.

After he left, I started to look up the news, and see if I could find a press statement from the White House.  But then I didn't, and just sat there for a while instead, knowing that remembering to look up a news report was a luxury.  Russia would take care of itself, and the world would either learn the lesson or not.  I had time for figuring that out.  

By the time I read the news, listened to the speeches, watched some videos, and formed the opinion about the world I wrote about above, the best question I still had today was I wondered about my client, and which one of us was the lucky one this time around.

 

Plenty

I was gifted a book tonight.

It is completely random.  I did nothing to earn it except be born close to the giver’s birthday, which had been the extent of the contest for receiving the prize.  It is a cookbook from which tonight’s recipe was taken (delicious by the way), that now was being lovingly passed on.

I should explain here that this was at my monthly bookclub meeting.  And by bookclub, I mean a group of women who suggest books every month, then throw a dinner party with wine and talk about the book (or books) for five minutes.  

There is no pretense with this club at all.  We meet. We eat. We drink.  We sometimes read.  Books are what bring us together for the evening. It is divine.

I am a relative newcomer to the club.  About a year and a half in, but with most of the members being friends for a decade or more.  But within the timeframe of the 2.5 hours we are on someone's couch, or around a dining table or firepit, we have all known each other forever. 

Topics are unique but universal.  Tonight it ranged from Vietnam vets, to gardening tips, to bosses that make us crazy.  We also talked about health issues, and deaths, and children. We talk sex.  We talk politics.  We talk art and literature and history. We could switch from talking and laughing about stolen car parts, to an upcoming surgery with a kind of grace that only comes from camaraderie and deep, deep affection.  We have all had successes and failures.  We have all had joys and heartaches.  We have all known pain and survival.  We notice each other for our clothes, or our make up, or our hair, and are quick to share what we have done and who helped us get that way.  We give each other tips on where to get the best decomposed granite for our patio walkways, and where to buy the best warm scarves. For the suspended time crammed into the few hours on a Wednesday night, we are kindred, timeless.

So my promise and my plan, since I was gifted the cookbook (and to be honest, the entire lot of us are book hoarders) is that I would cook one of the recipes (maybe one that is already page marked, even) and share it online in our private chat group.  If it is especially delicious, maybe I would bring it to the next month’s meeting and share it with the group.  

When I am done with the book (which happens sometimes, even with our hoarder tendencies) I will pass it on. We do that in this group, because of course we do.

Thank you,sisters, I am grateful.

Uncharted

I am planning a summer vacation.

I am also planning to cut my hair.

Those two things are battling for importance on my to-do list.

My mother is turning 90 this year.  There is a party being planned that will coincide with another birthday, and a wedding anniversary thrown in the mix.  It is going to be an event.  Think huge venue.  Think catering deposit.  Think hotels need to be booked for out of area attendees. Think every family member invited.  Think Vienna.

The whole thing is happening in Vienna. Yes, Austria.

My mother grew up in Vienna.  Her family, but for my brother and myself, live in or near Vienna. And by near, I mean that they would need a train or plane ride of less than a few hours.  Me, not so much.  I am looking at 15 plus hours just on the plane, with a couple transfers, and booking a hotel from California.  My mom is traveling, too.  My brother will travel with her, but she could easily, even at 90, do it alone.  They will stay with family, in rooms converted from sitting rooms or hobby rooms to bedrooms for the duration.  I will not.

This is not because I could not get someone to give me a room.  I am sure my uncle or auntie, or one of my dozen or so cousins who own apartments would put me up. They would even be gracious about it. But the truth is, I don't want to. At least I think I don't want to. I am kinda thinking I want to do this alone. But I am not sure.  Stick with me here, I will try to explain.

My last several vacations have been with my ex boyfriend.  We were together for just shy of five years, depending on how you count, and all of our trips, while seemingly collaborative, were really my ideas.  We went to DC for cherry blossoms and the Smithsonian.  We went to New York, via train through Chicago, for a Broadway show and a little romp around the city to iconic movie locations (think Rainbow Room and Serendipity III cafe).  We went to Dallas for Valentine’s, only to get caught in the Snowmageddon. We went to concerts, and Vegas, and Kansas City.  We went to the Liberty Bell and Constitution Hall when he lived in Pennsylvania for a year. We went to baseball games. We drove across the county when he moved back. With the exception of a random weekend the first year we were together, most of the trips were because of conversations that went something like “Hey sweetness, wanna go somewhere? Sure, where? How about (fill in the blank)? Ok.” with a mixture of already thought up desires, and a little bit of online research.  I thought it was a joint effort, but not really. Vacations in my head have always been journeys to see what could happen.  He was about destinations, and for lack of a better way to say it, he was completely unwilling to take the journey. 

Now I am not saying every place we went was perfect.  We literally slept on the floor of the airport in Chicago because our train was so late (like 14 hours late) we needed to cancel our last leg and fly to NY or miss our Broadway ticket. The train was uncomfortable , and the food was only adequate to keep from starving. Kansas City was hot. Vegas was hotter.  It rained to the point of being drenched and flooded in DC. And in Dallas, well, it was just the weirdness of the year, and there was not much to do in deep snow with a high of 9 degrees. The road trip through California gold country had us in motel rooms that were truly sketch, and the best thing we found to do on the coast road trip was skeeball in an arcade that had creepy orange lights with gnats hovering and crashing in large swarms around them, making the shadows seem extra spooky.  But in all that time, I was laughing, and enjoying the company, and taking pictures, and laughing some more.  Memory building, at its finest.

But it had a darker side I never really acknowledged.

I always had to ask permission to do things. There was always something more important he might have to do. Realistically, he never suggested alternatives, but the answers were often “no, I don’t want to do that” without any explanation or options for other things.  I spent hours wandering around casinos by myself, or sleeping alone in a hotel room while he gambled.  I didn’t go to the museums I wanted to in DC or New York because he didn’t like that art, or that history, or those events having never done them. We didn’t get off the train because it was too much of a hassle for only a few minutes at a random stop. We didn’t stay at Coney Island because of a broken phone screen.  We didn’t go on the ferry around the Statue of Liberty because he had seen it and there was water. We didn’t go up into towers because there were stairs, or down into caves because there were ladders, or across bridges because they were too high. We got off at the wrong stops (that he wanted to get off at)  for places because I couldn't possibly have been right about the directions he was sure I had messed up. We left every baseball game early. He had to be the one to drive.  He vetoed off-beat restaurants, and off the beaten path attractions, and unplanned festivals that we came across. There was anger about closed restaurants, and broken room locks, and boats that rocked too much.  There was anger about orders that were wrong, and tired waitstaff, and having to wait. And always there were snarky remarks, and barely veiled insults, and absolutely zero gratitude. I eventually, maybe even naturally, stopped asking, and just gave in to the required compliance.   I stopped making decisions because they would always be wrong anyway, and I was sure to know it with the sulkiness, or the heaviness of just how unhappy he was about absolutely everything. Unhappy and angry and I could do nothing about it if I didn’t want to be the target.  And I was the target often, just subtle enough so it was unnoticed by others, and certain to be denied by him.  That left us doing nothing, because without my planning, without my enthusiasm to experience, he had no ideas of what to do (besides restaurants, because admittedly he was always good at restaurant reservations), and certainly not any ability to convey it even if he had. I had given in to all my codependent past behaviors and hadn’t even noticed.  

Even today (yes, today, about 20 minutes ago), when he texted me, he was completely unwilling to do anything more, be anything more. Everything consistently transactional (I had dropped off his keys and an article of clothing he asked for while I was in SF over the weekend), with him attempting complete control, but still being clueless. It makes writing all this down (since I was in the middle of writing it all down when I received the text) even more important.

But what does all this have to do with planning this summer’s vacation?  Glad you asked.

I don’t want to have anyone else telling me what I need to do while on a trip, but it has been so long since I made any real decisions without deferring to someone else's desires that I am having a hard time deciding about it at all.  Do I stay in Vienna for just the party, or for longer?  Do I stay in a family space, or do I find a hotel?  Do I go over to Portugal? Italy? Germany? France? Spain? Do I go by train? Is it cheaper to decide once I am there? Do I stay in a B&B or a hostel or a posh hotel? Do I bring gobs of checked luggage, or like a pair of jeans and some laundry detergent? Tourists, rental cars, maps, souvenirs?  Fuck me, when did I forget how to do this?  And fuck it if I am going to let anyone else decide this time. Even in my near catatonic reaction to my own vacation plans, I know that much.

So I am stuck.  Grand adventure to a once in a lifetime party, or taking out a tape measure to see if my hair is long enough to donate?

Instead, I will publish this blog. 

And, amazingly, I made one decision.

I have a hair appointment tomorrow.

Zen

Today's lesson.

The  city was still sleeping as the overnight hotel clerk took back the key, said thank you for the stay,  before we ventured out.   It was sunny and cold and still. The perfect winter day of cloudless sky, with the kind of crisp that keeps your hands in your pockets, but your face turned up,  basking for a moment before the wind of the next storm blows in.

It had to be that early, or the quiet of the tea garden could be missed.



I have been to the tea garden dozens of times. School trips as early as ten years old. Later, sneaking away across the park, leaving my high school classmates lounging on the steps of the academy of science, bored, waiting for the bus. Play dates here and there with tourist-designed friends. Even more recently leaving my ex's bed, him still asleep on holiday Mondays or random Fridays. While I eventually would try to share it with him, the magic needs both willingness and surrender. (I usually returned with Starbucks, snuggled back in before he knew I was gone.) Alone in this adventure more often than not.

It was a purposeful trek, because the gift of the garden, if I listened carefully, was always there, and I knew it. Always patient, as if it was waiting to reveal just one more piece of its secret for me in exchange for my early morning sacrifice. I never knew what it would be, but it always happened.  Today was no different.

My daughter and son were with me, also with their faces to the sky and hands in their pockets. Our conversations were quiet, and respectful, (even when the squirrel stole the cookie), deep, about things related to wishes and desires if all things were perfect. We talked about homes, and gardens, and the work that went into them. We talked about the types of gardens we were attracted to, and why.  We agreed that the tea garden was special in its deliberateness,  and how attempting to create one would have to be selfless, because only long after countless hours were spent would its real beauty be seen. The garden would have to be a person's purpose, the intimate reward being the effort of the job. The results could maybe be discovered by others, but maybe not. You could not force it. The garden demanded patience.  The garden demanded work.

True to the way things happen when I put in the effort, the garden revealed itself to me through their words.

Here's what I learned: If there are things I want to create, it would have to be the work I do to reveal myself. I would have to be like the garden. Patient with myself to see results, to share results. I would have to get up and listen in the quiet moments for what was being taught. I would would need to be willing and eager, but surrender to the process. 

And even more like the garden I would have to be deliberate, and public, but without me knowing if anyone would ever feel the magic or not.

So I present today's blog. Not because I need it to speak to anyone,  but because I need to practice both willing deliberate actions and constant surrendered patience if I ever hope to share results.

I hope tomorrow is just as quiet, just as crisp, with my face wanting to turn to feel the sun. I am not gonna wish for squirrels, but I might make some tea. I hope remember today. I hope the garden's lessons are portable. I hope I listen.

Dodge

I had a  dream nightmare about you.

We were in your car, and you were driving too fast on a really long wooden pier towards a docking platform for a ferry we were going to catch. The ferry wasn't there yet, and I kept asking you to slow down. This went on for a while. We were over the water a long time.  I was asking you over and over to just stop, get out, watch the water together for a while. You wouldn't.

Eventually you looked over at me, then sped up and crashed through the rail at the end, plunging the car, and us, into the water.

As the car went down, I reached my hand over and unclicked your seatbelt, then unclicked mine and started pushing on my door until the water balance allowed it to open. I swam up, and over, and reached a ladder that ran the depth of the  piling on the edge of the dock, and climbed out.

The water was really deep, but crystal clear, as I looked back down to surface level to see the car now sitting on the bottom, full of water and sunk, weirdly still running. I could see my open door. I could see you were able to move, but you just sat there, still revving the engine and banging your hand on the steering wheel.  I knew you were completely unaware that you were drowning, and very angry that the thing you had always thought you had been in control of was failing you.

There was no one else around, empty dock, no boats on the very still ocean. Eventually the ferry pulled in and blocked my view of the car.  I got on, and the ferry pulled away. I could make out the car for a little while, but then I stopped looking and went to the front of the boat.

I woke up and I cried. You know how that works. You have been there for them.



One day I hope you figure out how to stop being angry long enough to realize the car is going nowhere.  Your seatbelt is unbuckled. Your door can open if you push on it, and the other door is already open. Even if you can't swim there is a ladder on the dock, and you can, if you want to, climb out of the water. 

The ferry isn't coming back, and I'm gonna be fine even after the crash you caused. But maybe someday you will realize you owe me an apology because I tried, and you will know how to reach me. 

Dry off first. There is probably a pay phone at the far end of the pier.

I loved you.