After one of our dynamic monsoon deluges in September, I took a photo of a single drop of rain at the end of a leaf of the mesquite tree that resides in our backyard. Recently, I magnified the drop and, lo and behold, there was the reflection of the world upside down with the sky and clouds at the bottom, the fence reflected at the side, and trees showing above, or rather, below the fence.
I am no scientist, not physics, nor biology, or chemistry, so I cannot tell you why this raindrop reflects so perfectly the world around it – but upside down. I call it a wonder, a miracle of nature, and I’m good with that explanation. It is, in fact, beauty; a beauty that goes unremarked if not examined closely.
Raindrop hanging from end of a mesquite leaf
Raindrop magnified, showing the world around it.
Rain, a miracle in the desert, ushers in a plethora of natural marvels. Grass sprouts up on heretofore barren ground. Flowers, waiting for the moisture, bloom with exuberance. Our mountains, usually in a variegated wardrobe of browns, tans, gold, and grey, turn green. Our air is flooded with the intoxicating smells of the creosote bush and acacia tree. The scents bring with them feelings of serenity. Scientists say the volatile oils of Sonoran Desert plants produce some of the most healthful scents in the world.*
Everyone smiles after a torrential monsoon – it just happens.
Last week I read an essay called Radiances** by Grace Little Rhys. In it, she extolls nature through the innocent observations of children; the radiance of sunlight, of jewels, of rainbows, and of flowers.
“Do you love butter?” say the children; they hold a buttercup under your chin, and by the yellow light that rises up from it and paints your throat, they know that you love butter.” *
We left monsoon season and are entering fall. I can’t say I miss the heat, but I do miss the thunder, the lightning, the cloudbursts, the drama, and the smells of monsoon. I’m so happy to have this photo of the drop of rain that captures the world after a downpour. I will look at it often, in wonder, as I await next year’s monsoon.
As a prelude to this story, my grandmother in Kansas once told me that buffalo were walking through the living room of her house. She said the past is alive even though we can’t see it, and the future is there also. We are prisoners of the present with blinders to the flow of time. It was a concept that I, as a seven-year-old, couldn’t wrap my head around, but it stayed with me all these years. When I read this prompt, that old memory came to mind. I wrote about the intersection of time for a ten-year-old girl and her eighty-year-old self.
Looking a little lost, a ten-year-old girl, born and bred in Wichita, Kansas, wandered through an outdoor marketplace in Tucson, Arizona. She was supposed to meet with a woman who knew her in Kansas, but she couldn’t remember why or who. A woman, old enough to be her grandmother or even great-grandmother, came up to her and took her hand.
Initially, the girl pulled away. “Who are you?” Her voice trembled.
“I am the future you,” the elderly woman said gently.
The girl’s heart picked up a rapid beat. Am I dreaming? But when she looked into the woman’s eyes, she felt an unexplainable recognition. The woman was her, a stranger with gray hair and a wrinkled face, and yet she saw herself. How is this possible? The marketplace around them seemed to blur, sounds faded, and the people became indistinct.
The woman quietly walked the girl to an open park area where a picnic was set out on a wooden table. Chicken salad sandwiches on toasted bread, chocolate chip cookies, fresh orange slices, and chocolate milk – exactly what the girl loved.
“We only have a few minutes. Then the veil that separates our time will come between us again. Do you have any questions for me?” The woman asked.
The girl’s mind raced with questions. How could this be? She glanced around, hoping to find something that would make sense of the situation, but everything remained surreal. She wasn’t afraid, but she was uncomfortable.
“How can this happen?” The girl asked in a whisper.
“Time is a relevant thing. Time is not linear; it flows back and forth, in and out. Sometimes the past, present, and future intersect, and that is when you can meet yourself.”
“How old are you? Or am I?”
“I am eighty.”
The girl appraised the woman, looking her over. She didn’t look feeble or sick. Eighty is sooo old.
“I can live to be eighty?” She queried.
“Indeed, and beyond. I caution you to take good care of yourself because it is not easy to be eighty, unless you are in good health.”
“Why do you, I mean, I live in Tucson? My whole family lives in Kansas. “
“You will live in many places and, after years of traveling, you come to Tucson. The mountains feel like home, so here you stay.”
“Do I become a great writer?”
“You already are undeniably a writer. Great is a subjective matter. Just continue your love affair with words. Keep your journals, poems, and short stories. They will mean more, and more as you get older.”
“Do I have a horse?”
“Not now, but you have had horses during your life, just as you wished. Be patient.”
“Do I get married?”
“Yes. You marry the love of your life who sticks with you through thick and thin.”
“Do I have a family?”
“Yes, you have three children, grown now, but they are close. And you have a grandson.”
The girl became skeptical. “How do I know you are me?”
“Remember when you were six and ran away from home after a snowstorm? You didn’t have your heavy coat or boots. The snow lay in a thin layer on the ground. You were mad at Mom. She wouldn’t let you go out to play in the new snow because the afternoon was getting darker. You walked out the door when your parents weren’t looking. You didn’t really have any place in mind to go, maybe to your friend, Lois’s house, or to Jimmy’s. But you knew they would call your parents and tell them, so you hunkered down next to the old brick grocery store around the corner at the end of your block and waited.”
“What was I waiting for?”
“A good idea to pop up. It took many years for you to learn to rein in your impulsive inclinations. Your “mad” began to go away though, when you started to feel the cold, especially in your feet, since you only had your slippers on. Then you heard your father’s voice calling. He easily followed your footsteps in the snow.”
“How do you know all that?”
“I’m you, remember? Dad’s voice made you feel all warm again, and you rushed to him. He picked you up, wrapping you in a blanket he had with him, and carried you back home. Mom had cocoa ready for you.”
The tears welled up in the girl’s eyes. How did this old lady know those details?
“There are many unexpected twists and turns throughout your years. That’s called life. Remember, you have the strength to overcome any obstacles. Be brave. Find ways to be useful to others. Trust yourself and live each day to the fullest with an open heart.”
“Thank you,” the girl said. She sensed the old woman was leaving. The scene around her faded, and she was back in her bedroom in Kansas.
I was an only child for eight years until my baby brother joined the family. I was a sweet little girl with big blue eyes and curly brown hair. I was the fairy dust of my father’s dreams and the sunshine in my grandparents’ and great-grandparents’ world; the first grandchild in my Mom’s family and the first girl grandchild in my Dad’s family. My aunts and uncles thought I was adorable. In short, I was spoiled.
And then there was the other me. I was contrary when confronted with chores I didn’t want to do; “forgetting” or ignoring them. I filched small items from the neighborhood grocery store and drug store. My mother made me return with her to the store, apologise, then she paid for the item, and made me give it back. Never could I enjoy the plunder from my piracy if my mother found out. I told whopper lies – stories I believed enhanced my ordinary existence. I cheated my younger cousins at games. I had a big imagination and lived in my own world. My mother knew that side of me, and she did her best to curb my larcenous tendencies and squelch my imaginative versions of reality. She made me account for the misdeeds she discovered. I learned to be devious, so some were undiscoverable.
I was a tomboy who climbed trees and made mudpies with the boys in the neighborhood. I didn’t play with girls. No matter how hard Mom tried to make me a girly girl, I couldn’t find fun in role-playing with dolls and paper dolls. I preferred action, playing cowboys and Indians, kick the can, and hide and seek with the neighborhood boys. I rode my imaginary horse up and down the street and groomed him in our garage. Those were the roles that shaped my days.
Mom was tolerant to a point and tried to keep the tornado in bounds. Once however, I stretched her last nerve to the breaking point. We lived in a small house with a living room, dining room, and kitchen, as well as two bedrooms and a bathroom in between.
One Saturday afternoon, in my fourth year on the planet, Mom called me in from playing in our backyard. I had been strictly told to stay clean for dinner because my aunt and uncle were coming. I was covered head to toe with dirt. Exasperated, Mom wanted to give me a bath before dinner. She ran a tub of warm water with bubbles, then had to attend to something on the stove in the kitchen. I stripped down, ready to get in the tub. Then I thought of a plan to liven up bathtime. I went to my room, got my goldfish bowl down from the dresser, and took it into the bathroom, where I dumped the three fish, their castle, and plastic greenery into my bathwater and climbed in.
Mother came in and exclaimed in horror, “Diana, you can’t put goldfish in a bubble bath. You can’t bathe with fish.”
“Yes, I can. See.” I responded.
Mom pulled me out of the tub, scooped up the goldfish, and put them back in their bowl with cool water. I pitched a fit with muddy tears running down my cheeks. Mom cleaned me off and wrapped me in a towel. She stood with her hands on her hips, shaking her head, her bosom rising and falling rapidly, making the bright red flowers on her dress dance before my eyes while I awaited my sentencing. In the hall next to the bathroom was an alcove where the telephone, a black rotary dial affair, stood like a black Madonna in its dark green niche. Mom turned to the alcove, picked up the phone receiver, and spoke with harsh authority.
“Give me the number for the Indian Reservation,” she said in her harshest voice.
Standing before her, in a towel with water streaming from my little body, my knees shook and felt jello-like. “What are you doing? Who are you calling?” I inquired.
It sounded ominous. The Indian Reservation? What did they have to do with getting a bath? From Saturday serial movies, I knew that Indians were a fierce band of people who had bows and arrows and scalped little children. Family legend had it that there was Indian blood on my father’s side. My mother had accused me more than once of being as wild as one of those Indians.
With a dark look, phone still in hand, my mother said to me, “I give up. I’m done with your mischief. I’m sending you back to the Indians. Maybe that’s where you belong. They’ll come pick you up.”
“No, mommy, please. Don’t send me back to the Indians,” I pleaded.
I sensed a hesitation on her part.
I continued, “I’ll be good. I’m sorry. I won’t put goldfish in my bath again.”
“You promise? You’ll behave? You’ll mind me?” She took the phone away from her ear.
“Yes. I’ll try my bestest.” However, sensing her willingness to give in, my fervor began to dissipate. I saw her anger subside when she thought her threat worked. I began thinking, mmm, Indians do have horses, and I always wanted my own horse.
It was certainly not the last time I created havoc, caused her frustration, consternation, and aggravation. She maintained her vigilance, but my father was always ready to redeem me. I didn’t feel I was doing wrong. It was my natural inclination to color outside the lines. I resisted rules, but stayed within barely acceptable boundaries. I make this confession because I mended my ways, reviewed my sins, contritely and retroactively asked for forgiveness.
Unfortunately, the goldfish didn’t survive the night, a weight my soul has to bear.
I remember the old woman in black, a raggedy gray shawl with long purple fringe pulled close around her straight shoulders the only color on her. A dusty gray cloche hat pulled down so low that only dark circles suggested her eyes. Her long dress was patched. I remember her smell, sweet and strong like incense. I remember her smile, sad. I remember the spell.
I was on my way to meet a friend, Shelby, at Starbucks. The strange woman stood, a black crow in a hummingbird aviary, on the sidewalk near the store. She didn’t fit into my safe suburban world. As I neared the crone, I looked into her weathered face, eyes set deeply. One eye was sharp, black, and shining; the other was silvered. The silver one fixed my attention.
“You are not loved at home.” Her voice was soft but clearly directed at me. The back of my neck bore a thousand tiny charges. Was it a kind of recognition of her or of her words? Her thin hand reached to pull at my arm. I paused, recoiling slightly.
“Excuse me?” I queried.
She took my hand in hers and smoothed the palm, holding my fingers straight, but kept her eye on my face. I remained mesmerized.
“Yes,” she said. “But love is there. Remember seven.” Then she dropped my hand, still looking at me unsmiling.
I glanced down the sidewalk to see if anyone was watching us. Was this a prank? Three teen girls approached; their overlapping staccato phrases punctuated the air. They flowed around us like water around a rock and walked into Starbucks. I looked into the Starbucks window where Shelby waved and motioned me to come in.
The enigmatic woman peered past me as if I were invisible and shook her head.
“Remember seven,” she repeated. “A dark eye and long stride.”
I went into the coffee shop and joined Shelby.
“That was creepy,” I said after Shelby and I exchanged hugs.
“What?”
“That old woman stopped me, and I think she said Luke didn’t love me.” I had a strong urge to have someone affirm his affection for me. Hal and Shelby were our oldest, dearest friends and knew how solid our marriage was.
“Do you know her?”
“I’ve never seen her before. She certainly doesn’t look very ‘our town’.”
“That’s for sure. What are you going to order? I’ve only got thirty minutes before I have to pick up Karri after cheer practice.”
“Mmmm. Double shot mocha, venti, with cream.”
Two years later, I was in Great Falls, Montana with my friend, Kate, at the Great Western Art Show. I accompanied Kate to five of her last six shows. This year her husband, Sam, was coming along. I missed last year when Luke and I separated. Hal and Shelby dissolved their marriage, too. A coincidence? Luke and Shelby married within two months of our final decree. I was in divorce and best-friend-betrayal recovery, grateful to have this trip as a distraction.
We were setting up Kate’s exhibit in a gallery room of the hotel when I looked across the room and my neck tingled with those tiny charges again.
“Kate, do you see that old woman?” I nodded my head in a direction across the room.
“The one in black? What about her? She stands out in this crowd, ominous looking.”
“I swear I’ve seen her before, back home, a couple of years ago.”
“Lots of people follow artists shows around the country.”
“She wasn’t at a gallery. She was on the street.”
“How do you remember someone you saw on the street two years ago?”
“Because she stopped me and predicted my divorce.”
“What? That’s crazy.”
“I know. And I didn’t remember it until I saw her just now.”
“I didn’t know you frequented fortune tellers.”
“I don’t. She was just standing on the street outside Starbucks on Main and stopped me to tell me I was not loved at home.” I couldn’t shake the perplexing feeling.
“That’s eerie. Come on, let’s get this finished. I want to get ready for the dance tonight.”
The show opened the next day and, as a tradition, the sponsors threw a party for the artists and spouses the night before with food, drinks and a country band.
Dance music drifted across the open field. The bandstand threw light out over the dancers as they gyrated in the grass near it. More dancers further away were lit by the full moon. Kate and Sam invited me to accompany them to the dance. They saved me from spending a dull evening on my own in the hotel. Sam, Kate, and I swirled around each other in our own dance form. We laughed, giddy and happy. A hand tapped my shoulder.
“Would you like to dance?” he said.
“I am dancing.” Keeping the rhythm, I turned to face him.
“Maybe a different dance?” He cocked his head and smiled. Dark brown eyes glinted in the lunar light.
I stopped. Kate and Sam became a couple and whirled away from me.
“A dark eye,” she had said, “and a long stride.” Those words from the crone came to my mind.
I sized him up. Long legs in Levis – maybe six foot two, definitely a long stride. Interesting.
“I’m with friends,” I said, looking over my shoulder to find them.
“They don’t seem to need your part in the dance. We’ll keep an eye out for them.” He took my hand and put his arm around my waist. When his hand met mine, an electrical shock consecrated the connection. I was immediately at attention. I looked around not for Kate, but for the crone.
A chance encounter on a hot September evening, or was it?
I was steered by a strong lead into the middle of the dance floor. He put his face against my hair and the strong scent of musk and pine infused my senses. The dance was effortless, like being guided by remote control. I didn’t particularly like partner dancing but hey, this was great. We danced until the band began to pack up. We barely talked. I was swept into his realm unconsciously. The time flew by. I looked around for Kate or Sam. I didn’t see them. Sam told me they might leave early, but I could call if I needed a ride. My dance partner asked if he could drive me back to my hotel.
“I don’t really know you.”
“You’ve spent two hours in my arms. What more do you need to know?”
“I mean…”
“Ok, call your friends and I’ll stay here with you until they come get you.”
I pulled my cell phone from my pocket and called Kate’s number. No answer. I called Sam’s. Same – no answer. That was strange. They knew they had to give me a ride back. I wondered where they were.
“Let’s go to the parking lot, maybe they are there waiting for me.”
“I am here with the Art Show, too. I’ll be happy to take you back to the hotel.”
“You’re an artist?”
“I’m a painter.”
“Where is your exhibit room?”
“Second floor, near the end of the atrium, where the sculpture exhibits are.”
“Kate’s a sculptor. Her room is on the first floor just below you.”
“I thought I recognized her. I’ve seen her work. She’s good. This is the first year I’ve been invited to participate in the Show.”
I was feeling a little more comfortable, but still wondering about Kate and Sam.
They were not in the parking lot. Their car was gone.
“Well, okay,” I said. “I guess I’ll go back with you.”
“Want to go to the bar for a drink before we go to our rooms?” He asked as we walked into the hotel lobby.
“No, I’m concerned about my friends. I’m going up to see if they are back. I need to turn in anyway. Tomorrow will be a busy day. Kate usually gets a lot of customers the first day of the show, sales and commissions.”
“Okay. I’m sure we’ll see each other again sometime this weekend. By the way, what’s your name?”
“Laura. What’s yours?”
“Septimo.”
“That’s unusual,” I said.
“I come from a large Italian family. I was the last child of many, and they ran out of names, so they gave me a number.”
This morning, as we took our slow walk around the neighborhood, Ken mentioned that he thinks he can make it to our anniversary later this week. He has been a warrior for ten years in a battle with Parkinson’s, a movement disorder that takes his mobility away piece by piece. He is doing a heroic job of staving off the predicted progression, or should I say regression, of the disorder. We celebrate each and every milestone.
This week will be our 122nd anniversary. Yes. We have had 121 anniversaries so far. We were married sixty-one years ago – twice. Our first marriage, in January, was an elopement before Ken left for spring training in Lakeland, Florida, as a Detroit Tiger rookie. Then, eight months later, in September, when he returned from the baseball season, we were married in church with friends and family as witnesses. We have celebrated twice a year since; thus, it will be our 122nd anniversary. We kept our first wedding a secret until twenty years ago, and that’s another story.
Of course, we went through years of thick and thin, bounty and scarcity, as all long-term relationships do. We raised three kids and countless pets. We were on the brink of divorce at one point, separated for several months. The divorce was unsuccessful; we stayed married another forty-eight years (96 anniversaries) so far.
Chocolate cake with butter cream frosting and peanut butter roses
When first married, we lived simply. I remember peanut butter sandwiches (no jelly) were my lunches at work, sometimes they were dinner too. We lived in apartments in Washington, Florida, and California. Between baseball seasons, we took whatever jobs we could find. Minor league baseball players were only paid during the season, and it was a minimal wage not meant to get one through a year until the next season.
One apartment had a bedroom so small that only a twin-size bed fit. We both slept in that bed, me in the crack next to the wall. Ken was a 200 lb., six-foot-one strapping young fella whose feet hung over the end. He barely fit the bed at all, but we couldn’t imagine sleeping separately. At one time, we lived in a trailer in Florida that had been modified to add bathroom fixtures with a toilet in the living room and a shower in the kitchen. Oh, well – young love doesn’t make note of such inconveniences. We were happy to be together.
In 1966, we would walk with our new baby in a stroller down the hill into town from our suburban apartment to spend $.50 for two ice cream cones. It was an extravagance. We couldn’t drive to town because we couldn’t afford to use the gas in the car that Ken needed to go to work. At that time, gasoline cost less than $.50/gallon. Our two cones were the price of a whole gallon of gas. (Today, gas costs around $3.00/gal, and so does just one ice cream cone – inflation?)
We continued in the American dream to acquire a house with a mortgage and two cars – actually moving in the same city five times. Over the years, the houses became bigger and the cars nicer. Our kids thrived through school and sports, left home for college and lives of their own, and we became empty nesters. During those years, we lived in Bellevue, Washington.
Ken had a career in the home building industry, and after the kids were all in school, I took jobs doing admin work in a variety of companies, including our own. My jobs were mostly time fillers with no career aspirations – a way to make extra money for fun stuff.
One year, we left our jobs, sold our house and furniture, took our kids out of school, and went on a road trip through forty-eight states as well as a few provinces of Canada and Mexican states near the border of the United States. A challenge full of memories I wouldn’t trade for any amount of money.
We had friends, threw great parties, traveled extensively, and did everything we wanted to do. We had a sailboat and cruised the waters and islands of the Pacific Northwest alone together and with friends. We led a very privileged life and still do, but in a more modest way. We are back to simplicity, not quite the peanut butter lunches variety. We moved to Arizona nearly thirty years ago. Our lives are circumscribed by age and lesser abilities, but still full of friends and family. We have an abundance of gratitude for the abundance of our memories and each day we are given.
Happy One-Hundred-Twenty-Second Anniversary, Ken. I love you.
One of my favorite philosophers, Jimmy Buffett, titled one of his early albums, Living and Dying in ¾ Time. There is a rhythm to life and there a rhythm to death. This is the chorus of his song Nautical Wheelers sung in ¾ time.
And it’s dance with me, dance with me, Nautical Wheelers
Take me to stars that you know
Come on and dance with me, dance with me, Nautical Wheelers
I want so badly to go.
In the 1970s, the Nautical Wheelers were a square dance group in the Florida Keys who danced the nights away under a tent. The song is about living life to the fullest, embracing the present with spontaneity, celebrating with people who live in joy.
These days, with news of friends and family dying, I’ve been thinking a lot about death. I am in the time of life when expiration dates are imminent. Baby Boomers are at the edge of eternity, and even those much younger reached the finish line ahead of me. The number of goodbyes has increased at a startling rate lately.
The first death I recall was my grandfather, Jesse Pottle Davis, 1888-1952, at the age of sixty-four, when I was six. I knew him, spent time with him, and loved him but was too young to understand death. It wasn’t until my father got down on his knees to hug me as close and hard as he could, crying, that I understood the depth and meaning of grandpa’s loss. My dad was my strength, and to see him so wretched was a life lesson. Dad died eleven years later at the age of fifty-two and my heartbroken reaction was much the same as his had been. The deepest sense of loss and agony. After several years of cardiac illness, his death from a massive heart attack was sudden and, I’m sure, painful
We are all living and dying. It is a fact. I recently started a journal titled 4,000 Days, not about counting forward days but counting backward from 4,000. I gave myself four thousand days to live, with a caveat for bonus days should I live past ninety-one, which is entirely possible. I did it after reading a poem by a friend titled Happy Birthday in which he comments that birthdays are not about accumulating years, but ticking them off toward the inevitable. Some people I shared the poem with found it a depressing thought. I found it to be funny and comforting in an odd way. The point is to make the most of each day as you count them down. A reminder to live each day. No one is given a timeline, a date certain. Even cancer patients are given hope and a range of time to look ahead. Our appointment to meet the hereafter remains a mystery to us. Thank heaven.
Many years ago, a psychic told me I’d live to be one hundred thirteen. At the time, I thought that sounded great. There is a definite difference between being alive and living. As I age, I’m experiencing losses I didn’t anticipate then. The loss of friends and loved ones. The loss of physical stamina. The lessening of my senses. I’m wearing out. If I lived to be one hundred thirteen with all the pieces and parts intact and all the energy of a forty-year-old, that would be great. But I discovered that isn’t in the plan. An old saying I read once said, “I prayed to live a long life, but I forgot to pray for good knees and a sound mind”. My full-time job now is to stay as healthy and active as possible so my long life (it is already pretty long) is not as a suffering, doddering vegetable in a wheelchair, but as a lively, engaged human who still enjoys each day.
My grandmother, Mabel, 1891-1977, lived to be eighty-six. The day she died she had driven one of her “old people” to their doctor appointment and to run errands. Her “old people” were ten or so years younger than she, but needed help. Grandma was there to help church friends and neighbors whenever she could. After Grandma was widowed, she lived with and cared for her parents until their deaths. When her two sisters and brother were widowed or divorced, they returned home, one by one, to all live together once again. It was a circus of the elderly who acted like teenage siblings most of the time. Grandma went home that day after taking her friend out and told her sisters she didn’t want dinner. She was feeling punk. She went to her room, laid on her bed, and died. Death came in its own time with no announcement.
My great aunt Molly, 1902-1999, told me something shocking on her 90th birthday. I was at her birthday party in Cheyenne, Wyoming. The house was full of friends and neighbors who came to celebrate her. She was very active in her church and community and in good health. She was on a bowling team and enjoyed going out for beer and pizza. As I was leaving, I told her I’d try to be there to celebrate her ninety-first.
She took my hand in both of hers, looked into my eyes, and said, “I hope I’m not here.”
I was astonished. “What do you mean?” I asked.
“Everyone I care about is gone. I have been left behind, and I want to go,” she said.
Here she was surrounded by people who cared about her, and she didn’t want to live. Her husband had died. Her only child had died, and all of her lifelong friends had died. Even in the midst of a loving community, she felt alone. She didn’t get her wish; she lived to be ninety-seven.
Now that eighty is upon me, I understand what she meant. Not that I’m anxious to die. I have lots of things I want to do yet, and I have the health to keep going. But I understand her perspective. It seems that every month I hear of another one, two, or three friends or acquaintances who passed over. I have no fear of death but a little of dying. I don’t want pain to be part of the process, and I know that is possible.
I’ve come to equate dying with being born. Both are struggles, voyages into the unknown. Both make major changes in existence. First you are in your mother’s warm dark comfortable womb with all your needs met instantly. Then you are pushed and shoved through a narrow opening into the light, bright, noisy, world with strangers around you, hands moving over you and a sense of loss of your warm safe world. It is a violent change. There is nothing smooth or easy about birth either from the baby’s or the mother’s perspective. It is a struggle to become a physical human. Slowly your soul must learn how to inhabit this new form with its new demands. Your brain must reach for new understanding. Your body needs to learn to be autonomous.
Touch can be painful, sound can be painful, sight can be painful at first. It takes some getting used to. Then you live a life of ups and downs as you learn to navigate our world and stretch to learn what “being” means. It takes a while. For some more time than others. We all learn through experiences, the trauma, the pitfalls, physically as well as emotionally of being a person. That is balanced by the highs, the joys, and the pleasures of our body’s sensual life, along with the spiritual and intellectual journey our worldly life demands – it’s a big undertaking.
The body contracts illness or is broken, there is heartbreak, your spirit suffers on your journey through life. If you are lucky, plucky, and resilient, your life is relatively smooth. Then there are those who go through agony in their earthly existence. Who is to say which path you will be on? Which tune will lead your dance?
And then we die. We all die, no matter if we’ve enjoyed the journey or experienced hell along the way. I’ve heard firsthand stories of those who died and returned to the living. I’ve read stories of people who are pulled toward the hereafter and are given the choice to come back to our world. All the descriptions I’ve heard or read make the passage into death seem a lot like the passage into life. Being drawn into an unknown world.
My mother told me that she experienced something like that shortly after I was born. Her appendix ruptured, and they rushed her into emergency for an appendectomy. She was given an anesthetic and left her body. She said she floated above the doctors, looked down at her body and watched them operate. Then all went quiet again, and she knew she had to come back to her life, so she returned to her body and her brand-new baby girl.
Before she died at the age of eighty-four, Mom expressed to me on more than one occasion that she had a beautiful life, a fulfilling life. I was with her when she received her diagnosis of colon cancer. She chose not to take treatment. The doctors said she would live four to six months without it.
She thanked them and said, “I’ve been given my ticket home and I’m ready to go. All I ask is to be kept as comfortable as possible until the end.”
My mouth was dry. My eyes were dry. My heart overflowed with love and the painful knowledge of her impending death. When we got back to the car, it was hard to speak, but I had to acknowledge Mom’s courage. I told her I was grateful to her for making the decision so willingly and quickly. Then the tears began to flow. I said I believed she saved herself and the entire family the stress, the anxiety of watching her go through painful treatments. She was always gracious, thoughtful, and above all, decisive in her life, and she continued that to the end.
She lived four months. She made a list of “last things to do” (Mom was a list maker). The list included going to her favorite restaurant for a margarita, having a ham sandwich from Honeybaked Ham, seeing the movie “Chicago”, and spending time with her granddaughter, who flew in from Seattle. She wanted to see the new office my husband and I moved our company into (even if it meant going upstairs, which was very hard for her), and about ten more things I’ve forgotten.
Mom resided in an assisted living complex, in a one-bedroom apartment about one mile from our house. I went there every morning before work and in the evening after work to visit and comfort her. I spent more time on weekends. She didn’t want to come to our house, but wanted me to stay with her and talk, mostly about my life. I had a friend interview her and write some of Mom’s memories down. We had talked a lot about her life and memories, but I wanted her to speak without me in the room to see if any new memories were triggered by new questions from a stranger. My friend, Linda, gave me a lovely transcript of their two meetings.
I have a friend, had a friend, Diane, who died with ALS. I cannot think of a crueler way to die, inch by bodily inch, with your mind and will still intact, watching yourself diminish. Diane took tap dance lessons at forty. She learned to play the piano at the age of fifty. She played everything from classical masterpieces to show tunes to Christmas carols. She hiked, traveled the world, and threw wonderful parties. Her annual Christmas party had a guest list that grew each year because people she knew clambered to listen to her play carols and sing along. For two years after her diagnosis, she made every effort to continue all that until her body no longer responded to her will. She put everything she had into those last years. Her greatest pleasure, she said, toward the end, was being with her friends.
She embodied the joyful rhythms of life for seventy years. Eventually, every part of her body was disabled, only her eyes moved. Her mind never dimmed. She communicated by a computer that she directed with her eyes. She was loved by many. A four-foot-ten dynamo, she was engaged in living and loving life until she was stopped by the ugly shadow of ALS threw its shade over her. Finally, she made the decision to pull the plug on her oxygen machine and gave her husband the day and time. Family gathered around her at home to say goodbye and express their love. Her beloved chocolate lab, Diamond, was there.
I miss her, her energy, her laugh, her brightness. I mourn that her light was extinguished too soon. She is with me in memory. Photos of us on trips, golfing, rooting on the UW Huskie football team at stadiums across the country, spa vacations, and things we bought on shopping trips together are part of my everyday life. The big copper coyote she bought as a housewarming gift when we moved to Arizona hangs on the guestroom wall; the crazy Christmas tree that sits on high-heel shoes that I decorate each year; the matching raincoats we bought in San Francisco (hers was hunter green, mine red). We were supposed to go to the football game in the rain, but decided to stay in the hotel to watch it on TV, and didn’t wear the coats at all on the trip. (Our husbands braved the game wearing big green trash bags.) So many reminders of her and our friendship are sprinkled like glowing stardust through my life.
Everyone has a different reason for wanting to be alive or allowing death to come on its own terms. I want to live with as much umphh as my friend, Diane, and with as much purpose as my grandmother, Mabel; then I’ll die with no regrets, and hopefully, with as much grace as my mother.
“Please, please let’s go for a walk”. Her eyes fixed on mine, never wavered.
“But Sable, it’s nearly 90 degrees outside and the humidity is hovering around 70 percent. I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
“Please,” she repeated with those expressive eyes.
“Ok, a short walk. Go get your leash.” I gave in. It was early enough on a July Saturday that the pavement hadn’t become too hot for her paws. I pulled out of the drawer her soft, protective paw boots, which she doesn’t like but will accept if that is the price for a summer walk.
Sable pirouetted and ran to the laundry room, where her harness and leash are kept on a blue wooden peg, two feet from the floor, just the right height for her to reach.
Sable is a dog of indeterminate ancestry. She is neither wolf nor shepherd, hound nor terrier. She is approximately 20 inches tall and weighs 25 pounds, with short fur of a rich, deep brown hue, hence her name. She has a narrow white collar that dips onto her chest like a small white pendant, and a short black velvet muzzle. Her small black ears stand at attention as if waiting for a signal. The mold was definitely broken when she was born. I don’t think there can be a duplicate. I wish I could have her cloned because she is the most perfect companion ever, and I know she has an expiration date.
Her golden eyes are alive with the vocabulary of a college professor. They communicate very effectively, and what she can’t convey with her eyes she passes to her tail. If her tail can’t make you understand, then her whole body gets into the act, quivering, pointing, circling, or hopping foot to foot. Sable is an active listener and patiently absorbs any manner of conversation from religion to geology, movies to politics. She puts her paw on your leg in affirmation or her chin on your lap if you are sitting. She rarely disagrees, but can let you know if she is unhappy with a low guttural sound or quiet mewling.
Sable is a rescue. A real rescue. Three years ago, on my way home from a meeting across town, I drove past her little form sitting in a puddle in a vacant lot on the side of Tanque Verde Road during a monsoon. Abandoned. She couldn’t have been more than a few weeks old, too young to have run away from home on stubby little legs and too plump to have been a feral dog. She had been living in someone’s home, fed regularly, and then disposed of for an unknown reason. How does a person abandon a helpless puppy near a busy street in a storm? She looked confused. I pulled over in the nearest safe spot, got out of the car, and walked back to her through the downpour. She was shivering, not from cold but from fright. Back in my car, I sat with her in my lap, giving her sips of water poured into my palm from a water bottle. She lapped it up little by little until nearly half the bottle was empty. She stopped shivering. I put her in the passenger seat on an old towel that I had thrown into the car in case I was caught in the predicted downpour. She immediately curled up and went to sleep. She didn’t move for the thirty-minute trip home to a suburban community outside Tucson. Once in the house, she explored each nook and cranny and pronounced that she was indeed home by jumping into my lap, reaching up to lick my face, then jumping down and peeing on the floor in front of me. The deal was sealed.
As all pet parents know, the creatures have a way of creeping into our hearts and taking residence in our minds. They become a priority, especially for a single person. I know Sable will be there to greet me with enthusiasm each day when I return from work. She doesn’t care if it was a good day or not because, for her, my presence makes her day great. She doesn’t withdraw with silent moodiness like my ex-husband if I don’t read her mind. She accepts the attention I give her with total love. Sometimes, I become absorbed in the day-to-day demands of my job or social relationships. She is always there when I resurface to the moment, waiting patiently with full devotion.
Sable is small enough that I can take her with me when I run errands. She loves car rides. She hops into her booster seat and waits to be snapped into the harness. I am able to take her into most of the stores where I shop. She sits obediently in a cart or walks quietly by my side. She ignores entreaties to leave my side, but accepts friendly pats as her due. I can’t take her grocery shopping in the store, but I can do pick-up. She knows the delivery girls at Fry’s, eagerly anticipating their friendly greeting. She loves a stop at the bank, knowing as we approach the drive-up window that she will get a treat. She delights in her puppucino at Starbucks. She appreciates my Sirius XM music, especially the Elvis channel. Sometimes we go for a longer ride to the mountains or to visit friends in Carefree. She passively watches the scenery, but when she hears a big rig eighteen-wheeler approach, she gets all excited, stands up in her seat, and watches for it to pass, ears pricked forward and tail waving ninety knots to nothing. I think in a former life she was a long-haul trucker.
Recently, she has learned to tolerate my friend, Colin. He has become a regular visitor, and she was very stand-offish at first. Now she grudgingly makes a space for him next to me on the sofa if he stays after dinner. He knows she has first dibs on wherever she wants to lie. He learned very quickly that he needed to accommodate her preferences.
Luckily, he has Marcus, a big yellow tabby cat, at home, so he understands the pecking order for guests in an animal’s domain. I’ve met Marcus. He is very sweet in his catty way. His green eyes pierced me, searching the depths of my reliability. He sat out of arm’s length, assessing me and, I’m sure, questioning my motives for being in his house. He allowed me to stroke him on his terms. He walked away with a tail held high as if to say, “You’re ok, but don’t let this go to your head. It is a temporary situation.” He is the product of a broken home and a custody battle. He was shuffled from home to home for about six months until Colin’s ex decided she didn’t want the responsibility. According to Colin, Marcus is shy of any other commitment.
We anticipate the day when we might introduce Sable to Marcus. Sable loves everyone unless they demonstrate by action or harsh words that they are untrustworthy. I insist Sable is open to any relationship, and he claims Marcus would be okay when he gets to know me a little better. There is a hesitation about the right moment to make the introduction. If it doesn’t go well, what will it mean to OUR relationship? We are taking our friendship slowly toward a deeper connection out of deference to our four-legged roommates. It is probably a very good thing to move slowly since both of us were burned in the past. Basing a romantic life on the acceptance of our pets, maybe, not so much.
The secret sauce of a long marriage is the memories that connect two hearts and minds. Such is the case when Ken and I watched a TV show last evening. We mostly watch British TV because we find the stories and series more interesting. Less about shoot-em-ups and car chases – more about relationship building among characters and good writing. BBC, Acorn, and BritBox are our go-to platforms. Ken mentioned that we don’t have to visit England because it is in our home every day. It feels so familiar.
The title of one episode in the series, Professor T., was A Fish Named Walter. When the name came up on the TV, we looked at each other and started laughing. Not because it is a funny name, which it is, but because it relates to a dog who once upon a time adopted us. Is that a stretch? Not really. This is the story.
In 1982, we went to see the movie On Golden Pond. Norman Thayer, played by Henry Fonda, fished the pond near their summer home in search of the large fish he named Walter, that evaded being caught by him for years. One summer, he took a young boy, Billy, with him fishing, and they finally caught Walter. Norman insisted they throw him back.
The day after we saw the movie, we took a walk to our Medina neighborhood park and were talking about the film as we walked around its shallow pond. Engrossed in conversation, we were surprised when a small golden retriever popped up from the middle of the pond, swam toward us, shook itself off, and followed us around the path. We hadn’t seen the dog enter the pond, just pop up and swim out of it. We looked at each other and, laughing, said, “That must be Walter.”
We tried to discourage the dog, thinking it must belong to someone near the park, but it followed us all the way home. It didn’t have an identity tag or collar, so we couldn’t contact an owner. At that time, we had a six-year-old black lab, Quincey, but decided to allow the dog to stay with us, half expecting it would return to its home. Quincey and the new dog managed a friendly connection.
We continued to call her Walter even after we realized she was a she. Her name probably should have been Zsa Zsa or Marilyn. She was a stereotypical ditsy blonde, sweet and friendly, with soft brown eyes, golden locks, and a constant wag. The vet said she was a mature two or three-year-old mixed breed, mostly retriever, with no evidence of abuse or starvation, and she had been spayed. Someone had taken care of her. She had good manners. She didn’t jump on people, bark, or bite. She was house-trained. Our three kids instantly loved her, and she returned their affection.
She hung around the house, never leaving the yard, for weeks. Our yard wasn’t fenced. Our lab never left the property, and Walter seemed to like being there. We thought that if she had another home, she would eventually go back to it. After a couple of months, I bought a collar for her with a tag that read,’ Hi I’m Walter. If I am lost, please call Diana or Ken at 744-3374′.
Walter began to explore the neighborhood, always returning by dinnertime. I received calls occasionally from nearby people and some as far away as two miles, asking me to pick up our Walter. They usually had a chuckle in their voice when they said her name. We were trying to figure out how to keep her home. Our property was fairly large, and we didn’t like the idea of a fence, but we thought about making a dog run.
One Saturday afternoon, as I was getting ready for a party we were hosting, I received a call from a neighbor who lived around the corner. “Come get Walter,” she said. “She was hit by a car.” Ken went to pick her up to take her to the vet, but she had died. The end of our sweet Walter.
A sad story, but one that nonetheless makes us smile. Walter adopted us, lived with us, and loved us for a little over a year, until her wanderlust took her into danger.
As it happens, we watched On Golden Pond for the second time on TV just a few weeks ago. Seeing the title of the Britbox series’ episode made it all fresh in our minds. It was an emotional movie that had a very different meaning for us as 80-year-olds than it did as 30-somethings. We are both older now than the actors were when they played the old couple. Katharine Hepburn was 75 and Henry Fonda, 77.
Swallowtail: “In the East, adults fly primarily in late spring and summer, but this butterfly is more common in late summer and fall in the South and Southwest. Where lack of freezing temperatures permit, the female adult may fly continuously. In lowland tropical Mexico, they may be found in any month.” – Encarta
Emerging abruptly from a deep sleep to respond to the insistent tone of his phone, Michael heard, “I miss you, Michael. I’m lonely for you. I’m lonely for Moses.” Her voice, a low purr, curled into his ear and sent blue electric currents crackling through his body.
“No, Janie, not again,” Michael struggled to keep the groan out of his voice. He got up in the dark from the rumpled king-sized bed and walked into the living room, his phone to his ear. He couldn’t bear to have her in his bedroom again, even on the phone. He turned on the lamp and slumped onto the couch. The cat followed him, stretching and yawning.
“What? Not again, what?” she asked.
“Do you have any idea what time it is?”
“I don’t know what your clock says, but I know it’s time for me to hear your voice, smell your sweet sweat, touch your warm skin, and roll up next to you in bed.”
“It’s 5 AM.”
“I want you here with me. I need to be close to you. Everything is good, but with you it would be great.”
“Funny, Moses and I had a long talk just last Sunday, and we decided to move on. We took every trace of you to the dump.” He reached across the coffee table and turned her smiling photograph onto its face.
“We can start over. I’m ready now. I found the right place.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m in San Diego this week, but the place is Santa Lucia. It’s a few kilometers south of Puerto Vallarta.
“You must be some kind of witch. You call just when I’ve reclaimed my life; when I finally decided I can live without you.”
“Oh baby, that’s….”
“No, Janie, I mean it. I’m not following you anywhere again. You left Memphis for Canyon, Texas, and I followed. When you suddenly up and left Texas, I followed you to McCall. When the tall pines of the Idaho woods smothered you, you took off again. I followed you here to Tucson, and this is where I’m staying. Trying to keep hold of you is like trying to catch mercury between your fingers. It’s impossible not to mention dangerous. I’m done.”
“Do you still have my paintings?”
Michael looked to both sides of the new tin mirror at the intensely colored acrylics. One was of a woman looking through an archway toward distant purple and rose-colored hills, stroking a green cat. The other showed a naked woman with long black hair astride a vivid scarlet horse galloping across a field of bright orange and blue poppies.
“No,” Michael said. “I replaced them with seascapes, the calm of crashing blue and gray waves.”
“My pictures might be worth something someday. I wouldn’t throw them out just yet. I’m in California for a one-woman show at the Smithson gallery in La Jolla. I have an agent. I’m selling prints to tourists in Mexico. I mean, really selling. I finally found the place I imagined and have been painting since I was twelve.”
“You found the place with purple mountains, red horses, and green cats?”
“Don’t be obtuse. Mexico is bursting with colors. And smells and laughter and…I’m home now. This is what I’ve searched for. Now all I need is you. You and Moses.”
Michael looked down at the big gray-striped tomcat that had been weaving in and out of his legs. Moses sensed he was the topic and flopped down on the top of Michael’s bare feet, his white mittened paws around his ankle, looking up at Michael.
“Moses isn’t interested in more travel. He told me he likes Tucson. I like Tucson. I’ve got a good job here.”
“You’re a poet, Michael. You are a poet who writes stupid technical manuals for a company that produces war machines for an oversized, out-of-control fascist government.”
“How do you know I still work at Raytheon?”
“Did you quit?”
“No.”
“There. Come to Santa Lucia with me. Poetry will fair drip from your pen. It’s magical. It’s cheap to live. And I’m making money now. Bring the trailer down. We’ll park it on the beach. We’ll eat mangos and shrimp. We’ll make love on the beach in the afternoon. We’ll play in the surf. We will…”
A momentary image of Jane, naked on a beach, nearly scuttled his resolve. He pulled back with a snap. “I don’t live in the trailer anymore. I sold it. I live in a real house.”
“You bought a house?”
“Well…lease-purchase.” He squinted out the window to the backyard, where dawn was beginning to streak the sky with pink and gray. “I have a yard, a saguaro, a lemon tree, and a brick wall.”
“Brick walls enclose tiny brick minds.”
Michael cringed a little. “If just once you had told me you wanted to move, we could have discussed it.”
“I didn’t need a discussion. I needed to leave. You would have planned and plotted. You are so anal. No sense of adventure. That’s what’s wrong with your poetry, too. You need Santa Lucia. It will break down all that shit in you and set you free. I was suffocating. By the time you made an analysis of our situation, I would have been dead. I didn’t know where I wanted to go…just away. It took me a while to find Santa Lucia.”
“Two years. Why did you call now?”
“It’s not two years.”
“Yes, Janie, it is. You left three Augusts ago, and it’s now September.”
“Clocks and calendars, calendars and clocks, tick tock, tick tock,” she chanted.
“Real world stuff,” he replied.
“Please, please come see me in San Diego, just for a day or two. I’ll be here this whole week and next weekend. It’s only a few hours’ drive, or I could pick you up at the airport.”
“Are you still living in the goddess-mobile?”
“Umm-hmm, mostly. But I have a studio on the second floor of a building in Santa Lucia. Its balcony overlooks the street, and I can see the ocean. Some days I paint outside, sometimes inside, depending on the light. I walk everywhere, so my rig stays parked by the beach. I’m sorry you sold the trailer. It worked so well in my daydream. We won’t both fit in the goddess-mobile long-term. We need more room than that. There’s a house not far up the beach from where I park that’s for sale. I’ll look into it.”
“Don’t bother. I’m not coming to Mexico.”
“I think you’re being too hasty. You should at least come for a visit. A teeny short visit. Then if you loathe it, you…”
“Hear me out. I’m not going to Mexico for a week, a day, or a minute. You can sell any dream to me if I give you enough time. Your time is up. I’m staying here. I’m happy, even proud, that you are selling your paintings. But you broke that last little piece of my heart when you left this time. I don’t have one to give you anymore.”
“There’s a marina too. We could buy another sailboat like we had on Payette Lake. Only we’d be warm all the time and could sail every day.”
“You’re not listening. I don’t care how beautiful it is. I don’t care how much you want to be with me. I don’t want to be with you anymore. I’ve broken the habit.”
“What happened to soulmates and undying love?” Jane asked. “You promised me you would forever be my family. Remember all those nights when I had the nightmares without end about when my parents died. You held me and told me you would never turn away.”
“You left me, remember? More than once.” Michael started to pace the kitchen, dining room, and living room with the phone to his ear.
“I didn’t leave you. I went looking for me, and unfortunately, I was always out of town,” Jane said. “But now I’m found. I promise I can stay put now.”
“Your promises aren’t worth much anymore. You promised that the desert would be your eternal home when you came to Tucson. Now you’re by the ocean for Christ’s sake,” Michael paused. “And I don’t speak Spanish.”
“You’ll pick it up. I did. It’s so musical, it’s easy.”
“The answer is still no,” Michael said. “I’m going to hang up now. Please don’t call me again. Have a nice life and congratulations on your success.”
Michael ended the call. He didn’t want it to ring again and, in his heart, prayed it would.
He couldn’t go back to sleep. It was Saturday, and he planned to play golf with Keith at 10:00. He fed Moses and let him out for his morning prowl. He shaved, got into the shower, and washed his hair. As hot water ran full force over his scalp down his back and legs, he let himself imagine lying beside Jane in the warm white sand with salty waves lapping over them, making love to her in the sunshine. He thought he heard the phone ring but when he turned off the water, he heard silence.
“Get yourself together, man,” he said aloud. She’s a figment of your imagination, a phantom. Just when you think she’s there, she’s gone again. It’s never going to work out.
Swallowtail Butterfly: “In the East, adults fly primarily in late spring and summer, but this butterfly is more common in late summer and fall in the South and Southwest. Where lack of freezing temperatures permit, the female adult may fly continuously. In lowland tropical Mexico, they may be found in any month.” – Encarta
Michael remembered when he met Janie at a diner on a Memphis spring morning ten years ago. She was 18 and he had just celebrated his 21st birthday the night before. His head felt a little thick, and his eyesight and hearing were not too dependable. She offered him coffee, but he didn’t hear her the first time.
“Hi, I’m Janie. I say, you look like you could use a whole pot instead of a cup,” she said, bending down a little into his line of sight, her scoop-necked tee-shirt allowed a peek of her breasts.
“What?” Oh, yeah. Give me some coffee, please.” There was a caring look in her gray-green eyes.
“I hope it was a good time you had, not a bad one,” she said over her shoulder as she went back to the kitchen.
He watched her sashay away, swinging her tightly jeaned bottom in a deliberate invitation. His head hurt, but not too much to read the proposition. It was 4 AM, and he hadn’t been to sleep all night. His friend, Tim, brought him to Jim Bob’s All-Night Diner for a birthday breakfast, then left him in a booth while he sought out the facilities to relieve a churning stomach. Tim, the sober one, the designated driver, had eaten something during their all-nighter that sent him into the bathroom every twenty minutes. The other partygoers had been dropped at their homes to sleep off the celebration. All five planned to meet again at the racetrack later that day.
“Here you go,” she said when she came back with a pot of coffee, two cups, and a bottle of aspirin.
“How do you want your eggs? With eyes or without?”
“No eggs, just toast.”
“You need protein to sop up some of that barley pop. How about scrambled and a side of country ham?”
“No, I really don’t want eggs. Thanks for the aspirin, though.” He took two pills and swallowed them with some coffee.
“Is your friend coming back?”
“He’s feeling a little rough, but he’ll be back.”
“Shall I bring him eggs, too?”
“Just the toast, toast only.” Michael looked around the restaurant. He was the only customer. He could see the cook through the pass-thru window at the kitchen. A few minutes later, she was back with a plate of scrambled eggs, hash browns, ham, and two plates of toast. She put them down in front of Michael and stood with her hands on her hips.
“Now, you eat as much as you can. The sooner you get something in your tummy, the faster you’ll feel human again.”
“What is your problem? I said I just wanted toast. Take the rest of this back. I’m not paying for what I didn’t order.” His head throbbed at the exertion of making this statement.
The girl slid into the booth across from him. “It’s okay. I paid for it. Just eat what you can, I’ll eat the rest. What’s your name? I’m Janie. I don’t think you heard me when I told you the first time.”
She sat and watched him eat, taking bites off the hash browns herself. The cook yelled at her once to get back to work, and she ignored him. He said he’d call the manager, and she said that was fine.
“You don’t want to lose your job, do you?” Michael asked.
“Not much of a job. I was just doing this until something better came along, and it has.” She looked directly into his eyes and smiled.
Tim came out of the restroom, looking pale green, glistening with sick sweat.
“I can’t drive, old buddy. I’m too fucked up. Can you get us both home?”
“Don’t worry. I’ll take you home,” Janie said, taking the car keys Tim held out to Michael. “Hey, Howie. I quit. See ya in the movies.” She undid the apron and laid it on the counter.
The cook came out sputtering oaths. “Damn it! You can’t just quit like that. The breakfast crowd will be starting in a few minutes.”
“Call Shirley. She likes the overtime. Bye.”
She dropped Tim off at his apartment, then took Michael home to sleep off the beer. She sent him out with his friends for the afternoon while she stayed at his apartment. He figured she’d be gone when he got home and was surprised to find a birthday cake, ice cream, and a tiny gray and white kitten when he returned at 9:00 that night.
“What’s with the cat?” asked Michael.
“He was hanging out in the parking lot at the grocery store when I walked over to get the cake mix and ice cream. He said his name was Moses and he was wandering in the wilderness. I decided to bring him home for your birthday. He might not want to stay, but he’ll let us know later.”
They made first time love for hours that night, discovering the pleasures of each other’s bodies.
“Are you homeless?” he asked the next morning.
“Not entirely. I could go back to my Uncle Bill’s, but I’d rather not. His job is done now that I’ve graduated from high school. He is the school drama teacher and a sweet old queen, who loves everything Elvis. But I’m tired of hanging out in fairy land. You will find I’m very useful around the house, I can cook, and I don’t eat much. I do think Moses is homeless, though, so why don’t we offer him a permanent gig?”
She and Moses stayed with him for the next year. She exaggerated the ‘I can cook’ part of her resume. She was good at boxed cakes and boiled hot dogs, but Michael decided to do most of the real cooking. Nevertheless, she didn’t eat much, and she was handy around the house. She could fix any appliance that got sideways, and she was fun between the sheets.
Janie had no end of interesting stories to tell of her adventures as an orphan in the custody of various relatives and near-relatives. She was born in Texas but lived all over the U.S. Her parents were murdered in a home invasion when she was six. She witnessed it from a hiding place in a closet through the louvers on the door. The effects of that trauma were still showing up in her life, even though she had been cared for by a loving family.
“They all tell family stories from a different point of view, and the heroes and villains change depending on the narrator. I’ve been shuffled around several states. I have a very complex view of my family.”
Janie got a job at a craft store while he continued working at the local newspaper and finished his degree in creative writing. She bought materials for painting and showed him on canvas the colorful world that was in her head. She said she had painted since she was a little girl, and it was as important to her as breathing. He read her his poetry and introduced her to his parents.
Then one day, he came home from work to find a note.
Gone Greyhound back to Texas, maybe, it read. I’ll call when I find out where I am. Moses will keep you company until then. Love, Janie
That was the first of her escapes.
“I wasn’t abused or a sex slave or anything exotic,” she once told him. “My relatives were good to me, but because of one circumstance or another, no one could give me a permanent home, so I was passed around. I lived with five families until I stayed with Uncle Bill, who got me through high school. I’ve been on my own for a while now. Aunt Betty in Louisiana was my favorite. She bought my first art supplies when I was ten and encouraged me to draw and paint. She gave me my passion.”
Michael thought Janie would eventually settle, and they might even get married, but like a nomadic butterfly, she would only light for a short time, then fly off again. They rarely fought, and she never left mad. She seemed to have little capacity for anger. He never knew why she left. She just left.
It was to Texas that he first followed her, a little town called Canyon. And it was in Texas that they acquired the goddess-mobile. It started life as a used 1982 Toyota truck with a camper shell. Inside the camper, Jane hung beaded curtains, made devotional alters for her Buddha, golden plastic Ganesh, serene Vishnu, and an eclectic collection of saints. She was ready for any possibility, if the hereafter came calling.
Michael installed a foldout bed, camper-sized refrigerator, and a sink with a 50-gallon water tank. He put in outlets for a microwave and hotplate. In the cab, Janie glued statues of saints, Joseph and Francis, a St. Christopher medal, a plush Garfield with rosary beads around his neck, assorted rocks, leaves, and seeds she collected in her travels, on a piece of green faux fur that covered the dash. She painted designs and quotes around the outside of the truck and camper:
“In Goddess We Trust”
“In the morning, I bathe my intellect in the stupendous and cosmogonal philosophy of the Bhagvat Geeta…Henry David Thoreau
“I’ve always wanted to be somebody, but now I see I should have been more specific.” — Lily Tomlin
“Mediocrity thrives on standardization.” “The only difference between a rut and a grave is the depth.” “A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.” — William James “Reality is just one of my many options.”
They used the goddess-mobile for camping trips and inspirational journeys to cleanse their minds from everyday humdrum. Michael drove the Camry his father bought him after college, and Janie had custody of the truck. It amused him when curious strangers approached Janie when she parked her unique vehicle near a grocery store or in a shopping mall. He knew she loved the attention.
Michael got a job again with a small local newspaper, and Janie taught crafts at an elderly care center. Moses kept his people supplied with affection and dead rodents.
“Mrs. Whipple, our ninety-year-old Scrabble champion, has a sharp tongue on her,” said Janie one day after she came home from the center. “She scolded me today in front of the entire ‘Natural Materials for Greeting Cards’ class for living in sin. She said a woman’s only security is a good marriage, and why wouldn’t my young man commit to me?”
“And what did you tell her?” asked Michael.
“I said commitment is for institutions, and I wouldn’t put anyone I love in an institution.”
It felt like a normal life to Michael, and after nearly three years, he had begun thinking in terms of marriage.
“Janie, why don’t we get married?”
“Is that a proposal or a real question?”
“Well.”
“Well.”
“Okay. Janie, will you marry me?”
“Nope. But I’ll love you to the end of my days on this planet and beyond.”
“I think we should get married.”
“I don’t.”
“What’s your reason?”
“No reason in particular, but ‘no’ wins the discussion – no marriage. I don’t see the point. People get married to please other people. We’re happy just the way we are. Aren’t we?” She gave him a meaningful stare.
“I think people get married because they want to tell the world they promise to share the rest of their lives and love together.”
“Let’s hire a sky-writer.”
“Don’t be flip. I’m serious. I think we should consider the idea. What about having children? We’ve never talked about it before. Do you want to have kids?”
“Maybe. I don’t hear your parents clambering for an official ceremony and grandchildren from your loins. I think they secretly hope that you will eventually find some nice girl and have a real family.”
“What makes you think they don’t like you?”
“Oh, I think they like me, okay. But I don’t think I’m a prime prospect for official daughter-in-law. I’m not like Judy or Helen, your brothers’ wives. I’m a little too out there for them.”
“They treat you with the same respect as they treat Brad and Mark’s wives. They love you. They always talk about how clever you are, and talented. They hung that huge picture you painted them for Christmas last year in the living room for all to see. I think showing off a picture of persimmon, teal, and gold coyotes prowling a shopping mall is telling the world they approve of the painter.”
“It matched the throw pillows on their white leather couch.”
The next day, he came home to find the note.
Need to see evergreen trees and mountains. I’ll call you when I find them. Love, Janie.
She took the goddess-mobile and left Moses.
This is part of a short story about Michael and his wandering love, Janie. The story continues in the next post.
wonkagranny 