Sunday, February 16, 2025

What's Real

I read something about how when a country is slipping into authoritarianism, it’s hard to know what’s real. Things move fast and it’s too much to take in. For example, the federal workers all getting fired and what will happen next to schools and healthcare and food safety and human rights and the national parks. But before you can respond to that, 

there’s some new drummed up outrage about the Super Bowl halftime show or what we’re supposed to call the Gulf of Mexico or what if we conquer Greenland and rename it Red White and Blue Land. It's nutty, 

and they want us to be confused and turn on each other like in that old Twilight Zone episode where something crashes on Maple Street and the lights flicker and all the neighbors rush out, afraid, and next thing you know, everyone’s ready to kill the quiet guy who owns a telescope and likes listening to the radio. The last shot in the show is a space ship hidden at the edge of the town, the aliens joking about how dumb people are. 

But this is me, turning on others. 

I took a long walk even though it was raining and went out to lunch with a friend. I ordered a cake to celebrate the last day of a beloved coworker who’s served the library for eleven years, and I gave out Valentine stickers to little patrons at the checkout counter and noticed an older woman eyeing me, and I offered her a sticker, and she said, Me? You’re giving me a sticker? 

And I said, sure, why not? and she took one and stuck it on the back of her hand. Another patron was watching all of this, so I offered one to him too, and he said, I don’t want a sticker. But then he said, okay, I’ll take one for my grandchild. He ended up taking three. 

I went home and read a memoir by Ina Garten who is the Barefoot Contessa cookbook writer. I had never read any of her books or seen her cooking show, and honestly, I thought the book looked silly and not like something I would ever read, but I got caught up in her story about her crappy childhood and how she went camping for six months in Europe with her husband and they were broke and could only spend five dollars a day but that was enough to eat good bread and fancy cheese, and years later she was able to buy an apartment in Paris, and I was so happy for her. 

I was smiling like a goofball when I finished the book, and now I want to give a copy to all of my friends. Something about the fantasy of it, the following of your dream, when we still believed that we lived in a world like that. 

Maybe we do still live in a world like that. Or maybe we could. It was real once, why can’t it be real again?  

(a picture of a loved one climbing a mountain in a national park, in the time when people dreamed of climbing mountains in national parks and cared about the people working in these beautiful places) 

Sunday, February 9, 2025

The Wrong Week

All week, each week, since the start of the new year, I was trying to write, and all week, each week, I could barely manage to sit down at my desk. I was not reading the news, but the news broke in and ground me down. I’d write a few sentences and delete them. I’d push a paragraph around. How could I write at a time like this? I should be making phone calls and marching in the streets. 

I wrote a paragraph. It took me an entire afternoon. It was like trekking up a mountain. I vowed to start earlier the next day, but the next day, I couldn’t even open my computer. I joked to my writing partner: Looks like I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue. She didn’t get the reference. It’s from the movie Airplane, I said. 

A guy in the control tower is anxious about a plane that’s going to crash, and every time we see him, he’s more worried. Looks like I picked the wrong week to stop smoking, he says. And the next time, Looks like I picked the wrong week to stop drinking. This all culminates with him admitting he probably shouldn’t have recently quit sniffing glue. 

I don’t know how this applies to me. I don’t smoke and I rarely drink. I have never sniffed glue. Something about the look on the guy’s face, though. It’s a look that says This is too much. I can’t take it. But also, this is so awful and absurd, I have to laugh. (And then he flings himself out the control tower window.) Maybe you have to watch the movie to get the joke.  

Anyway, I went back into my writing project and almost immediately shut it down. The problem, my writing friend told me, is that what you’re writing is too dark. You can’t write about dark things and live with dark things at the same time. 

Okay, I said, but what am I going to write about? Meanwhile, I was living my life, 

working at the library and going for walks with my deaf dog whose elderly body is now splotted with fat-deposit-y bumps. I went to the doctor because I have a lump on my back and I was thinking (cancer?) but it turns out it’s a lipoma, which is a fancy way of saying “fat deposit.” 

And then, I went to a hearing place to have my hearing tested because I’m always saying, WHAT? to my husband or to the toddler patron at the library who’s trying to tell me why he likes shark books with actual photos in them rather than drawings, and also, he wants to show me the bandaid on his thumb, 

and it turns out I have minor hearing damage, but it’s nothing too serious. "For your age," the absurdly young doctor adds. 

I realize that my dog and I are merging together. 

So, now I don’t know what’s next for me. Chasing squirrels? Compulsively licking my leg? I almost wrote, butt, but I didn’t want to gross you out. Although, maybe I should write it because it makes me laugh. 

The world is dark and the plane is coming right at us, but look at me behind the window, entertaining myself with my own silly words. 



Sunday, February 2, 2025

Dispatches from the Edge

Last night I saw the moon, a splintery smile, and beside it, a bright star. Venus, my husband said, and I thought, I should take a picture, but I didn’t. It was cold outside and dark, and that morning the mourning dove couple had come back to nest on the back porch, which feels too early, and wrong, like they know something we don’t. Is this the beginning or the end? Each moment I pinball between hope and dread.

Let’s get the dread out of the way first. It’s awful and centered in my stomach, a sick churning that won’t go away with the usuals, the cups of honey chamomile tea, the "let’s escape into the books," and please, for the love of all things holy, don’t tell me to calm down. I am angry 

and I don’t know where to put my anger. Once when I was a teenager, I slammed my bedroom door, opened the door and slammed it again, and again, screaming, raging, until I was spent and collapsed on my bed, folding back into myself, letting it go. That kind of anger scares me. But the glossing over of it scares me more. 

Listen to the hope part. 

Tummy time at the library, the babies on the yoga mats, how they bob their heads and coo. The farmer at the farmer’s market sharing his recipe for carrot greens. (Who knew you could turn them into a pesto?) Friends over for dinner and dinners out with friends. Face-timing with our grown kids, all of them safe and well and how lucky we are. 

And did I tell you about the three-year-old patron at the library who’s read every construction book we own and how I hold the new ones back for him? He comes in every other day with his nanny, but Friday, he visited with his mother. Is that the nice lady? I heard her say to him. The one who finds books for you? The little boy nodded and smiled at me. 

I make these lists, every day I make them, the things that I know are good. I have quit lying to myself. And I won’t lie to you, even though I know it will make both of us feel better. 

We are on the edge, but the edge comes with a smiling moon and mourning doves.  






Sunday, January 26, 2025

An Escape

All week it’s arctic-cold, and the dog (no fool) refuses to go for walks, so I bundle up and brave the weather myself, picking my way carefully over black ice, shivering alone with my own thoughts. Why does it feel like the world keeps folding in on itself, 

repeating the same mistakes? I don’t want to know any more terrible things. The list I have in my head is already long enough. Instead of looking at the news, I read a novel. It’s a mystery by Dorothy Sayers called Gaudy Night. Published in 1935, the book is a perfect escape. Clever and funny, it makes the world outside my window disappear. How have I forgotten this trick? 

Open a page, drop in, and I’m in England, where there’s a lunatic on the loose at a women’s college, and our main character Harriet, a well-known mystery writer, has been called in to solve the case. Harriet’s got it all under control, until she doesn’t. She teams up with her detective friend Peter (apparently in the last book, Peter saved Harriet from the gallows, fell in love with her, asked her to marry him, and she refused. The whole thing is maddening for both of them). 

I have no idea where this book is going. Is it a mystery? A romance? Meanwhile, there’s an unsettling situation brewing in Germany, but this is barely mentioned. The characters don’t know what’s coming and I love that for them. They stroll around the college hashing out the case, reciting poetry at each other and earnestly discussing the role of educated women in society. There’s one weird moment where Peter buys Harriet a dog collar because he’s afraid someone wants to strangle her, and the dog collar… will keep that from happening? (I know. WEIRD. But I can’t stop reading.) 

I take breaks to coax the dog out, give up, and walk the block fast, the world of the book filling my head, and for now, keeping the other one at bay.


  



Sunday, January 19, 2025

The Car Ride

When I was sixteen, I caught a ride home from work with a psychopath. I was tired and smelly. (I worked at a steakhouse) and all I wanted to do was get home and take a shower. I didn’t know that the guy was a psychopath. But what else do you call it when someone laughs as they speed up to hit a rabbit that’s hopping across the road. (I can still see the dying rabbit flopping in the middle of the street.)  

There was another person in the car and she thought the whole thing was completely fine. No big deal. (She liked the guy), but I was crying in the backseat and wondering if the world is crazy. Spoiler alert: the world is crazy, and somehow, maddeningly, I’ve found myself stuck in the car again. 

I know what you’re thinking: Buckle up. 

Also, someone who doesn’t like the guy should probably grab for the wheel. 

I’m sorry to break it to you, but I am not that person. I’m not strong enough or fast enough, and the truth is I’m tired of buckling up. I want out of the car. Sometimes I imagine myself sixteen again, but this time, I bum a ride from someone who isn’t a psychopath. 

Or, I walk home. 

It’s not that far. Maybe two miles? And only a small dark stretch through the woods. I make up stories in my head to bide the time. I take deep breaths and keep my eyes on the moon above the trees. 

When I come across the rabbit flopping, I scoop her up in my jacket. I can’t always save her, but I try. 



Sunday, January 12, 2025

The Argument

It was a long, hard week with snowy days and the dreary weather, and my husband and I were struggling with the same head cold, me with a sore throat and him with a runny nose, and then it flip-flopped, and I had the runny nose and he had the sore throat, and one morning I slid 

and fell on the sidewalk on my way into work. We'd had an argument earlier and I cried when I fell and cried more in the car as I backed out of the driveway, but then my husband called me and we talked it through and it was painful 

but I knew I would survive the painful feelings, and anyway, it was better than the alternative, what I would've done in the past, which is pretend I didn't care and simmer about how I was right and that was the important thing, which side was right. Maybe the fall jarred some sense into me. There are no sides.

It's only us living our lives together in the dark and silly world, blowing our noses and making each other tea. Later, we forgot what had set us off in the first place, maybe being a human who's sick with a stupid head cold, but whatever it was, no argument between us ever means the end. We got better 

and bundled up and drove in the snow to the grocery store. On the way the traffic stopped in both directions and who knew what was happening ahead. My husband slowed, stopped, and we craned our necks, looking. Suddenly, a dog came trotting down the center of the street, weaving between the cars, and I gasped, bracing myself for a hit, but there was no hit. 

People were pulling over and stepping out of their cars, someone carrying a leash, someone waving a treat, all of them moving cautiously toward the dog, circling, corralling him away from the busy road and onto a side street. When the traffic started moving again, we drove past slowly, watched the dog bend toward the treat, the kind strangers leaning in, 

and I was thinking about random things, like why did I assume the dog would be hit and who were these people driving around carrying spare leashes and dog treats? And wait, why do I keep forgetting that no argument between us has ever meant the end?







Sunday, January 5, 2025

The Type of Person

I am the type of person who wears necklaces. Which is interesting, because up to about a week ago, I was not that type of person. I do not wear any jewelry, except earrings, occasionally, and my wedding rings. But during covid, I stopped wearing those. Too germy, I thought. And no more make-up (the masks), and I stopped coloring my hair. And this is probably too much information, but I quit wearing a bra. I mean, who cares. I wasn't going anywhere. 

Every morning, I would wake up at whenever time, and maybe or maybe not change out of my pajama pants and into an old pair of sweats. I rotated between two T-shirts, toss offs from my daughter, that were over-sized and had been washed so many times they were soft and holey and I loved them. 

Just the other day I was cleaning out my closet, brutally purging everything I hadn't worn in a few years and came to those two t-shirts, and a wave of dread and terror and comfort and nostalgia washed over me. I left the T-shirts hanging where they were. But back to being the type of person who wears necklaces--

this was over New Years, and my husband and I were visiting with long-time friends, a tradition we've had for twenty-five years (except 2020 when we set up a Zoom, which was fine, but also, it sucked, and we vowed never to do that again). 

When we first met, the mom and I had little boys who went to the same preschool, and while we'd wait to pick them up, our toddler daughters would parallel play with each other. Flash forward to now, and my friend's daughter is getting married in the fall and had a wedding dress appointment at a fancy shop, and while we were waiting for the appointment, we were browsing the racks, and I was wearing a necklace. 

The necklace was one I'd made several months ago (Was that several months ago?! I do not understand how time works anymore.) My daughter made one too, and then, over Christmas, I noticed she was wearing hers every day, whereas I had only worn mine once. 

I like this necklace, I told my friend, while we were browsing at the fancy shop, but I'm not the type of person who wears necklaces. 

Why can't you be that type of person, said my friend. She was holding an absurd-looking orange purse that was covered in sequins and beads, and she said, Wouldn't it be funny if I bought this purse and used it as my lunch bag for work? I could put my tangerines in it. She looked at the price, and said, HA HA, No!

But I said, Who cares, you should buy it. Every day when you go to work with your tangerines, it will give you joy, and then I told her a story about the time a mutual friend and I were shopping at a make-up counter at a department store a million years ago, and the salesperson showed us a battery-operated mascara wand that you could turn on and it would make a buzzing sound, which struck me as so ridiculous, I couldn't stop laughing. When the salesperson said it cost 85 dollars, I almost peed my pants. My friend said, You have to buy it. Look how happy you are. 

But of course, I said, HA HA No! A few months later the friend sent me the mascara out of the blue. I laughed every time I used it, and now that I think about it, it's probably one of the top five gifts anyone has ever given me. 

Good question, I said to my friend who was still holding the silly orange sequined purse. Why can't I be the type of person who wears a necklace? 

You can, said my friend. Just wear the necklace and wah lah, you're a necklace-wearer. Her daughter was over by the wedding dress section, and my daughter and the daughter of the friend who'd bought me the mascara a trillion years ago had joined her, and I was having a hard time making sense of it, the little girls grown up and here together, and where had the time and mascara gone, and what if everything could be so simple, where you say something and do something and wah lah

it comes true.

My friend put the purse down, and when she wasn't looking, I scooped it up and bought it for her.