Just Shut Up and Ride

Having been reminded this last weekend of physical frailties in general, and the tensile strength of your average pair of capris specifically, I lean against the back of the bus seat, willing myself to relax after a full day of work.  It is particularly after a good stiff Monday that I find myself with the bearing of an irritable Theodore Roosevelt, so I slump a little – just a little! – and think soft, abstract thoughts.

The bus driver, a portly man looking suspiciously like a biker-ish version of Sebastian Cabot, has the most elaborately macramé-ed earring I have ever seen.  A vivid blue, it dangles past his shoulder, swings as he turns his head to check his mirrors.  A tiny bell from the end of it rings as he calls out the stops.

“Next stop, Spring Street.”

I wonder about people, about the patches on their jackets, about the tattoos on their arms, the memories and stories behind them.  There was a man on the bus last summer, a thin, rough-looking man, pocks on his cheeks, his thinning hair pulled into a pony tail, the thighs of his jeans wearing through over the pockets.  Among the visible tattoos on his arms was the head and upper torso of a smiling child with what appeared to be dates inked in a filigreed scroll at his wrist. 

The tattoo of the smiling child was too heart-breaking to consider, and so I wrote it down, to consider it another time.

I wonder, now, if the earring has that sort of sentimental value.  Did a permanently capitalized She from his past make it for him?  Did he buy it at an art fair?  Did he find it?

We don’t know, do we?

And we won’t.  As they will not know about us.

Pleased to Meet Me

According to the scrolling marquee at the front of the bus, today’s date is 10/23/34.

I turn away from it, return to my Springtime Revelry, required of all Minneapolitans, wherein we gaze lovingly at the green, green, green of a well-deserved spring.

It’s October, 2034, you say.

I feel as if I should be more concerned about that.  My bills, for instance.  Am I current?

Or perhaps it’s 1934, in which case I am earlier for work than I’ve ever been. 

I am struggling with which scenario I prefer when the bus comes to a stop.  A young woman settles into the seat next to me. 

I wait.  It’s been a full two seasons since I’ve last seen her.  Does she still do it?  Will she do it now?  I can wait for – I pull out my phone, check the time.  I can wait for another nine minutes.

I got all morning, lady.

And just like that, my patience is rewarded.  She opens her purse, pulls out a small zippered bag from which she pulls out a small bottle.  From this bottle she squeezes perfect, candy-button sized daubs of lotion onto her fingertips.  Dab. Dab dab dab.  The ends of her fingers dance, lightly, across her cheeks, her chin, up on to her forehead and down the line of her nose.  Dab.  She isn’t rubbing.  She isn’t smoothing.  It’s far more delicate than that.  Her fingertips touch delicately upon her flesh.  She is young, she is moderately attractive, and dagnabit, her skin is hydrated and dewy and it’s going to stay that way.

I look out the window.  I want to stop her, want to tell her that she is going to look as young as she does right up until she doesn’t, that with bone structure like hers, moderate attention to her diet and exercise, she will be judged much younger than she is, right up until she isn’t.

I look back, quickly, to see her carefully, oh so carefully, massaging the lotion into her face.  She doesn’t stop until two minutes before I get off the bus.

What year is it?

It’s both sooner and later than we think it is.  

Do-It-Yourself Takes on Further Meaning

They don’t tell you how much work it is, living alone.  All this maneuvering of furniture, lifting of heavy things.  And the garbage!  Did you know that I am forced to take out my own garbage?

All those things we don’t think about.  All the little things that we never noticed another person doing.

The first few months are a blur now: cleaning, unpacking, de-bugging.  The previous tenant had, apparently, never opened the windows, never turned on a light.  The cobwebs, or, as I came to know them, “grandma’s undies”, hung from the ceiling, the corners, clung to the baseboard in dingy, drooping failure.  And the bugs!  The bugs were numerous, adventurous little creatures.  There were those that I couldn’t identify, things with pincers or too many legs, things that took up residence in nightly dreams of climbing and falling.

And as all things do, it changed.  The house was scrubbed, the crunchy little beasts are now homeless. 

A large rug covers the stain on the carpet.  A wooden galleon with a clock in its belly sits on the mantle, telling time with a self-satisfied hum. 

I love my place. I admire the wooden shutters over the seven windows in the living room.  I marvel at its high ceilings.

I lay back on the couch, stare at the coffered living room ceiling.  Someone has painted it a rather vibrant yellow, and I picture myself on a ladder, paint in my hair, a damp rag at the ready.

I live alone now. 

It’s far more work than I remember, but things are looking up. 

On Keeping My Eyes Open

I was very small.

“You have to keep your eyes open,” she said.

I assured my grandma that I would. 

“Not everything is what it appears to be, but His eyes are always open.”

I smile.  “Agates look just like regular rocks,” I said.  “And remember those flies that look like bees?”

And in my mind’s eye, I can see her hand come toward me.  I close my eyes as she slips a work-worn hand under my chin, open them to smile at her as she bends down to give me a kiss…

I went to two funerals on Saturday.

I grew up on funerals:  The elderly, the young, babies and children.  The smell of flowers and Lutheran potluck, red-rimmed eyes and black clothing.  

I weep openly at funerals, not for the departed, but for those left behind, for the bewildered woman seated at the front who will wander into the living room next week with an unopened jar of pickles, forgetting for just a moment…

The next day, I go grocery shopping.  I pull into the parking lot, park nose-to-nose with another car.  Her grocery cart sticks out, just a little, and she smiles at me as she moves it closer to her own car, ensuring that I won’t accidentally hit it.  Overhead is a bright blue sky; and while the uncharacteristic 47 degrees is a treat, the warmest it’s been for perhaps six months, it is a somber day, a funeral-hangover of a day.

The woman in front of me is loading the last of her bags as I exit my car. 

“I hope I’m not in your way,” she says, smiling.

I smile back.  “No, no, you’re fine.”

I see the box in her back seat, and the words are out before I can stop them.  “Is that a peacock feather?”

She turns to look, then looks at me oddly.  “Yes,” she says.  “I’m not sure why I have it.  A friend gave it to me along with the rest of the junk in that box, and I just loaded it into my car today thinking I’d drop it off at a thrift store or something.”

The wind lifts, and I push the hair out of my face.

“Hey,” she says.  “Would you like it?  I think it’s for you.”

And I hear my grandma’s reminder.  And I know this woman is right. 

“Yes,” I say.  And then I laugh.  “I don’t know why, but yes.”

I approach her, and she reaches into her car.  She holds the feather out to me.  "Looks like an eye, doesn't it?"  She puts a hand on my shoulder, and I do the same.

Her dark brown eyes look into mine.  “Have a blessed day,” she says.

And for a moment, I feel my grandmother’s hand under my chin. 

Hope, and the Dispersal Thereof

I once found myself in the Caribbean with my brother.

I believe it was St. Lucia.

Have you ever hung out with Kevin? You should. He’s one of the more sincere BS artists you’ll ever meet. Kevin is the devil’s advocate, the turd in the punchbowl, the handsome man you suspect may be pulling your leg.

He is. Pulling your leg, that is.

Except when he isn’t.

Both Kevin and I tend to attract lonely people, and we did on this vacation. Perhaps it was because we were having fun, perhaps because we looked like people that would listen, perhaps because we looked like people who were drunk.

It’s not important. What was important was the moment Kevin asked Jean-Claude to sat down.

Jean-Claude was a very black man with very white teeth, a man whose face spoke of sadness. He tried to sell us a variety of cheaply made trinkets in a rush of words, more than three-quarters of which whistled into one ear, around my brain, and back out my other ear without my understanding them.

Kevin threw himself into the moment.

“What am I gonna do with this stuff?” Kevin asked. “Seriously. Jean-Claude, aren’t you tired, brother? Let’s relax. You want a beer? Here, you run and buy Pearl and I here a beer, and buy yourself one, too. You wanna?” Kevin handed him a twenty.

Jean-Claude’s sad eyes took in the money, looked at Kevin and I, and left.

I took a long pull off one of the beers we already had in front of us. “Think he’ll come back?” I asked.

“Of course he will,” Kevin said, lifting his arm to display a dozen necklaces. “I’ve lifted half his inventory.”

Sure enough, Jean-Claude returned.

And stayed.

We had three beers apiece with Jean-Claude, or “Jay-Say” as he insisted we call him, on Kevin’s dime; and while his island patois was not easy on these Minnesotan ears, his story came out as the hour grew later and the steel drums played. His mother had just died. He had three younger sisters still in school. He worked during the day, sold trinkets at night.

He looked up. What did we think? He got by, but it wasn’t enough. Should he go back to school?

Kevin put a hand on J-C’s arm. “Brother, you need to go to school. Make yourself the go-to guy here. Work on your English, give ‘em that big smile of yours, and use that brain. It’s all going to be okay. I know it. Say it with me: it’s going to be okay.”

J-C smiled. “It’s all going to be okay.”

“That’s right,” Kevin said. We raised our last beers, clinked.

We left about an hour after that. With handshakes and hugs, J-C went his way and we went ours.

We walked away from the outdoor bar. “That was real nice,” I said, “all those things you said to J-C.”

“Wasn’t nice,” he hiccupped. “Was true. It’s all true, and I hope he believes it like I do.”

We stopped walking and stood for a moment, a streetlight overhead, the ocean in front of us. Strange Caribbean stars blinked overhead.

Kevin, a full foot taller than me, smiled down.

“It doesn’t cost anything to give people hope, you know.”

Wherein Pearl Becomes Conscious, or Look, You Little !!#@$%, I Said "MOVE OVER"!

As part of a social experiment in 8th grade, our political science class had a general election. As a result I, along with other classmates heavy on charm and short on real action, was voted into office.

Whereupon we were promptly moved to better living quarters.

There, at the front of the class, we lolled about on extra-large desks. Members of the high school football team peeled organic pomegranates for us, and we were carefully talcum-ed before exertion, lest we chafe.

We were, of course, thoroughly convinced that we, the elite, were deserving of these things.

Meanwhile, our constituents were forced toward the back of the room, their desks pushed together in overly friendly and possibly unhygienic groupings. Cries of “heeeeey, no fair” went unheard; teeth were bared in boisterous and vicious acts of aggression; and correct penmanship was disrespected in wanton, territorial displays against the left-handed.

My campaign promises, whatever they had been, were quickly forgotten, not only because I was an eighth grade twit but because those of us on “Mount Olympus”, as our neighborhood was called, quickly came to political differences with those on “Cannery Row”.

Arguments ensued. Friendships were forever altered, but for crying out loud, couldn’t the people in the back of the room see that we deserved all that extra space?

It was a far cry from yesterday’s yoga class.

There I was. Wedged between Amy and The Guy What Smells Like Cheetohs, mere inches from six people, while the row ahead of the row ahead of me had full range-of-motion rights.

Look at them, up there! Why do they get special privileges? How come the sweat around their mats is from them only? Look at them, with their breathable air and their smiley yoga faces!

No fair!

It is part of the practice, of course, to set aside petty annoyances, to tune out that which does not serve us in pursuit of serenity and a good stretch.

I close my eyes, do my best to ignore Stinky and Fuzzy and Sweaty and the other yoga dwarves crowding my mat.

It was then that I remembered Social Studies.

I had this coming to me.

Wendy, wherever you are, I’m sorry that I didn’t work harder to make more room for the desks. I’m sorry that I suggested that if you worked harder that you, too, could get elected and move to Mount Olympus.

And I’m sorry we traded that one time and I kept your painters pants.

It’s been 30 years, but I finally see the error of my ways.<

I Look Familiar to Me, or Winter’s Old Already

The world is a different place when the windchill is far below zero. 

Frankly, if you don’t have to go anywhere, just don’t.  The smart money is on staying indoors, anyway. 

Staying vigorously, sternly indoors.

It is Day Two of a brittle four-day siege.    

I responded to Day One by sorting through mounds of domestic paperwork and wearing flannel pants. 

Today?  I am waiting for the plumber – and the lesson that I know is coming regarding cast iron pipes and feminine hygiene products.   I have mentally begun composing the text that I will send to the gals in the downstairs unit and am wondering if it would be inappropriate to do it in rhyme…

It’s Day Two of Four. 

I have time on my hands.  

And, apparently, my hands on my face.

I don’t know when it started, but there I was, around 3:00, 3:15 yesterday afternoon, the sound of the wind coming through the gaps in the windows, just hanging around, feeling my face. 

Absentmindedly, thoughtlessly feeling my face.

Did I say it was far below zero outside? 

Things get weird in Minneapolis about this time of year.

“Like a peach,” I think smugly.  “I feel like my grandma.”

My grandmother’s face, finely pored and as soft as a baby’s bottom: the woman was as kind and as pure of heart as they come.  She was a farm woman, a woman of flower beds and home-cooking, of fresh crisp linens and endless, smiling patience.

“They don’t make them like that anymore,” I think.

But apparently, they do.

Because now that I’ve taken a look, I can see my grandma’s face in the mirror.

Those are her soft cheeks.  Those are the crinkly lines at the corners of her eyes when she smiles. 

Holy moley.  I can see my grandma’s face in the mirror. 

Not all of it.

Not yet.

But there she is, smiling. 

Waiting.

Like I said:  it gets weird in Minneapolis at this time of year.

I’ve Been Selling My Words Lately. I Thought You Should Know.

You’ll probably want to sit down for this.

You comfy?

I’ve been writing on the side.

Cheating on you.

It’s not the same, of course. They want to hear about things to do in Daytona Beach, nutritious root-vegetable recipes for those frosty-aired days in January, and the reason your commitment to quit smoking in the new year is really going to work this time. 

Frankly, I feel cheap.

Until the money transfers, that is.

Hey, I see you there, imaging all the zeroes.  Hot and cold running peppermint schnapps, heated electric couches, fur-lined moustache cups.  I’m thinking of having my elbows polished Tuesday, just because I can.

Look.  The offer came up, polite conversation, yah-de-yah.  Certain questions were posed, certain answers proffered, and the next thing you know, you’ve got a 24-hour deadline in front of you and you’re staring blankly out a window scrubbing your mind for different ways to describe vacation settings.

Honestly, it’s fabulous work.

Paid to write!  You may not know this to look at me, but I can sling the old word song.  I write just for fun.  I make notes in cookbooks (Willie eats this by the handful!) and leave notes for myself in my pockets (Do you know why six is afraid of seven?)

I write for my own amusement.

But when called upon to write about 12 Healthful Tips for the Dog Park, I, sir, answer the call.

People ask me, “What do you do?” and I always tell them that I’m a writer.  

And what does a writer do? 

She writes, even if it means 24-hour turnaround times.