Small Talk

The lady in front of us in line at the grocery store is having a love fest with the cashier. While my husband unpacks our cart, I watch the two of them gushing on each other. I love you, the cashier says. I love YOU, the lady says. They hug each other over the grocery bags. You have a good day! YOU have a good day! When the transaction is complete, they’re still saying I love yous. 

I want in on some of this love, I say, and the cashier immediately lights up. You got it! I love you! She tells us it’s her and her husband’s 38th anniversary today. 

That’s great! I say. Happy anniversary! And then we start talking kids and grandkids as she weighs our grapes, wrangles our toilet paper. I can hear my husband chuckling behind me. We recently had a conversation about social interactions, and I know he’s studying this one. 

What happened is it has occurred to him that he's had very little live human contact with people outside our house (me), since March 2020, when he was sent home to work remotely, and now small interactions feel like big ones. So, for example, he will go to the gym, and a stranger will say, Are you using that machine? And my husband will say, No. 

And even that feels like it's a little too much. 

Meanwhile, I’m out every day at the library talking up a storm with pretty much everyone who walks in the door, and this includes six-month-olds. Okay, I have to tell you about this six-month-old. The mom has been coming in with the three-year-old big sister (Daisy) to story-time, first as pregnant person and then as a person hauling around a baby carrier, until it seemed like one second went by, and Boom! there was a baby in her arms while I chatted it up with Daisy, the usual small talk you have with a three-year-old.

Me: Ooh, I bet you’re a good big sister!

Daisy: Yes.

Me: What’s your little sister’s name?

Daisy: Evelyn.

Me: Hi Evelyn!

Evelyn: _____.

This went on for maybe three months, until one day last week Daisy came up to my desk to get her sticker, followed by Mom holding Evelyn, and I said Hi to Evelyn how I always do, but this time Evelyn said Hi back. I almost fell out of my chair. The mom said that Evelyn just learned how to say it, and now she’s practicing on everyone. And she was. The whole time the family was down in the Youth Department, I’d lock eyes with Evelyn wherever she was in the room, and she’d say, Hi and give me a wave. 

Each chirpy Hi was a little charge zinging directly into my heart muscle. A person. A small connection. And who knows, flash forward fifty years and Evelyn will be holding up the line in the grocery store. 

That was weird, don’t you think, my husband says, as we walk out the door, the cashier calling out, It was so nice to talk to you! and me, laughing, saying, It was so nice to talk to YOU!

Oh, yeah, it was most definitely weird. 

But it's the kind of weird that makes you laugh. The kind that reminds you it’s not too late to jump in and how nice it is that there are still so many reasons to love the crazy world. 

When I Was Eight

I made up worlds 

because the one I was living in was intolerable, scary, crazy. You could only take so much of it before you’d go crazy yourself. For example, something really bad would happen, and you’d say, Hey, this bad thing happened, and the ones you told would say, No, this did not happen, 

or, 

Okay, it happened, but it wasn’t really that bad Why do you always have to make such a big deal out of things just shut up about it. When I was eight

I would not shut up about it. But then, after a while, I would let it go and mostly shut up about it. When I was eight 

I wrote stories about little girls who were broken, run over by cars or dying of exotic diseases and one was even mauled by a bear, but all of the little girls ultimately triumphed by healing. When I was eight 

I escaped into books. The books were all fantasies. Time travel and amazing other worlds and kids solving mysteries and what it’s like to live in a happy family. When I was eight

I played outside, swinging on swings and riding my bike and climbing the crabapple tree in the backyard before it was chopped down. Last night 

I woke up in the darkness, panicking. I was eight again and the world had gone crazy, the people in charge didn't know what they were doing and there was nothing I could do about it. In the morning

I played in the vegetable garden and read some of the book I’m reading, The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride. Like all good books that seek to reflect our world, it’s about darkness and it's about love. I took a long, meandering walk with the dog, and we played together in the flower garden. 

And then I wrote some words, the truth, even though it is scary. And strangely, I felt better. Or maybe not so strangely, because ever since I was eight

the world was what it was, is what it is, and I have learned how to live in it. 

When I was eight

Today 

Notes from an Alternate Reality

First, I need to just get this out of the way: I don’t like the version of reality we all seemed to be trapped in, the one where the world is boiling over and the supreme court is off the rails and the presidential race is let’s just say it, cuckoo nuts. I don’t want to write about this. I don’t want to think about this. I suspect you don't want to read about this, at least not from me, so here we both are. 

A much more pleasant reality is the mini vacation I'm on with my husband in Washington DC where our daughter and son-in-law live. So far we have eaten many gourmet meals courtesy of our son-in-law, who is a chef, (a special shout out to his turkey burgers—so good!), taken early morning walks through their neighborhood’s impressive community garden, and played indoor mini golf. (I won! Okay, I tied for first place with my son-in-law. My strategy was "what the heck, just hit the ball and don't worry about it," and that seemed to work for me.)

We also went to a Washington Nationals baseball game. During the three innings we were there (it was 97 degrees with a heat index of 105 and we're lucky we lasted that long) we got to see two homeruns, snarfed down Dippin Dot ice cream before it melted, drank multiple bottles of water, and took many sweaty, red-faced pictures of ourselves. It was fun! 

And then we headed back to the apartment to do what we all really wanted to do, which is watch the Tour de France. I had never watched the Tour de France, and up to this point, knew nothing about it. I still don't really know that much about it, but the gist is every year teams of bikers bike around France for three weeks. Our son-in-law grew up in Paris and is a huge fan and was a big help explaining the finer points.

Like, why there are some bikers wearing different colored shirts. The yellow, for example, is worn by the fastest rider, but that can change throughout the race depending on your time. And white is worn by the best performing younger biker. And then there's a multi-colored polka-dotted shirt for the best sprinter? or is it the best climber? Never mind all that. 

What I like about the race is how mesmerizing it is to watch the group of bikers moving together as one. They look like a flock of birds, diving and soaring, as they swerve around sharp turns through quaint-looking French villages and climb up into the Alps and then it's back into the villages with the teeth-jarring cobblestone streets. 

While we were watching, we got to hear the dubbed backstories, the previous years' harrowing moments when bikers banged into each other or someone's bike broke and they skidded out and caused a pile-up and the time a biker had to have his face rebuilt. It's brutal when it isn't so beautiful.

Which is a good tagline for life these days, don't you think? with the extreme weather and the dismantling of human rights and so much depending on a contest between a bumbling elderly gentleman and a carnival barking wannabe dictator, and meanwhile, over here you have someone carefully tending their cucumber vines in the community garden and perfectly seasoning a gourmet turkey burger.

I know no one asked me, but I want to live in the place with the cucumbers and the burgers, the homeruns and the frothy minigolf waterfalls, the world where everyone I love piles on one enormous couch together and cheers as the bikers roll by.  

Surprised by Vegetables

I forgot what I planted in the vegetable garden. I mean, I have a vague idea but not the particulars. Usually, I keep a little booklet, detailed grids of all of the flower beds and garden plots in my yard. I used to go all in with it, drawing out pictures and coloring everything in. Now, it's just a scribble. Notes for next year. What worked and what didn't.

For example: Don't plant this doofy variety of tomatoes again because they vine all over the place and hardly produce anything worthwhile. Or, this kale is great, but give it more space. Or, move the peonies before they get overtaken by the raspberry bush.  

Anyway, this year, I never mapped out the vegetables. What happened was it was going to rain, and I was trying to get all the seedlings into the ground before it started. I did get everything done, but ran out of time for my note-taking. I'll remember! I'll write it down later! But then a rabbit ate half of the plants (which plants? the cucumbers? the peppers?)

So, I planted other plants in those spaces (intending to write that down soon, but first, I had to put the fence up to keep out the rabbit). And later, interestingly enough, some of the rabbit-chewed plants came back to life (the beans? a pepper, but what kind of pepper?)

Totally unrelated, I've hit upon a new way (for me) to write a book. For the record, other ways that I've written a book: 

1. Write a big messy draft with no plan at all and rewrite the whole thing multiple times. 

2. Write a detailed synopsis and veer away from it spectacularly.

3. Write a draft in a 30-day rush and spend three years reworking it.

4. Handwrite like a madwoman in a notebook and transcribe on my laptop. 

5. Dictate, via the voice feature on my phone, and email myself the blathery output to revise.

This "new" way is a combo of some of the others, but with a twist. The original plan was to dictate the next scene while I walked the dog each morning and fine tune it in the afternoons. Instead, what I found was that I got further ahead in the whooshing out of dictation and further behind in the fine-tuning, so now I'm a mix of treading water and swimming forward through uncharted waters, both so far ahead and so far behind, and somehow straddling the present and the past at the same time. 

It's a maddening mess. But it's fun! 

Meanwhile, outside in the garden, every day it's a new surprise, the mystery plants spilling over the fence and twining around each other. A cucumber plant that might be a melon? Not a pepper plant but a tomatillo plant? I stake and untwine the best I can, vow to write it all down as soon as I figure out what I've grown. 

Or not. 

Keeping Busy on the Longest Day of the Year

I wanted to light the cherries on fire, but it turns out I'd bought the wrong kind of accelerant. The recipe called for cherry brandy, but I'd substituted cherry whiskey, and apparently cherry whiskey does not ignite. So, that was a big bummer. The dessert (cherry cheesecake bars) still ended up being delicious. Also, the lemon cookies. 

I am not what anyone would call a baker. Somehow, despite my best efforts, I always make a mess. Flour on the floor, dribbled egg on the counter, batter spatter on the walls. And everything seems to take ten times longer than I plan. Pitting cherries, for example. Ridiculous. Even with a cherry pitter. 

Still, I pitted my way through. The prep work for a celebration takes time. I wanted to take time. This is a new practice for me. Living in the present moment, rather than ruminating over the past or worrying about the future. In the present it was the Summer Solstice, and my husband and I had invited several friends over to mark the day. It's a thing I've wanted to do for as long as I can remember, but then inevitably, I forget. 

This goes back to my English teacher days, reading The Great Gatsby so many times I can practically recite it, random lines jumping out at me and sticking in my head, like this one, said by the bored, breathy Daisy Buchanan: 

"Do you always watch for the longest day in the year and then miss it? I always watch for the longest day in the year and then miss it."  

Anyway, this year I decided once and for all that I would not miss it. In addition to the lemon cookies and non-flammable cherry cheesecake bars, I whipped up a batch of fruity drinks. Everyone brought some variation of a fruity dessert, and we all sat outside on the patio. This week we were having a Heat Dome and the temperature was 95 degrees, but whatever. We pitted through it. I had read somewhere that a good conversation starter is to ask people what's keeping them busy lately. 

The question had all of us talking well after the sun set about volunteer projects and books and gardening and kitchen renovations and getting-a-kid-off-to-college, while also managing to pull in stories about a trip to Prague, a whale breaching off the coast of New Jersey, a theory about why women have big hips, and how lawns are dumb and why not just turn the whole thing into a perennial garden. 

Before we knew it, the longest day of the year celebration was over and we were divvying up the leftover fruity desserts and saying our goodbyes. Only a few days later, and I am already wanting to jump ahead to next year’s Summer Solstice. I know I know I need to live in the now, but forgive me if I make one small note: 

Next time go all in with the brandy and set the cherries on fire. 

(cherries, not igniting) 

Celebration, after the sunset

Brunch

On the patio watering flowers, I saw a bird, and we both stopped and looked at each other. The bird was bright yellow, and it was funny how he cocked his head and stared at me. I don't know how else to explain it except to say that it felt like he wanted to tell me something. He didn't. Instead, I took his picture, and he flew up into a tree. 

But the whole thing was unsettling. How bright yellow the bird was and the cartoon-like expression on his face. I sent the picture to my friend Natalie, who is an avid bird watcher, and said, What is this? 

She wrote right back: It's a canary. Probably someone's pet who escaped. It might need help. 

Oh my God, I said. Because it all made sense then. Poor bird. He WAS trying to tell me something. Also, I felt like a ding dong. I know what canaries look like! I just never expected to see one hopping around outside on my patio. Anyway, it was too late. The bird had flown off, hopefully, to find help from someone else. 

Stop beating yourself up about it, Natalie told me. It was a few days later, and we were having brunch, and I was still ruminating over the bird. And then I was ruminating over some news I'd read about how there's a bill going through the Ohio Statehouse that would force public libraries to keep objectionable books away from patrons under the age of 18. It's not clear exactly what "objectionable" is, but anyone can file a complaint about any book. 

If they did, you'd have to keep those books hidden behind a desk or wrapped up in paper, and parents would have to give permission for their kid to check a book out. Oh, and if a library worker broke that rule, the state could charge them with a crime and defund the library system. 

What is this? I said to Natalie, because in addition to being an avid bird watcher, she works in government, and therefore, she is my go-to person for what's happening politically in the area. 

Don't worry about it, she said.  

But I was still worried about it. I was thinking about the book I read recently about the collapse of society and how one of the characters said to another one of the characters: "History is a silent record of people who did not know when to leave." 

While I was thinking about this, I was eating French toast with whipped cream and syrup. I rarely eat this kind of food anymore, and my head felt like it was detaching from my neck and floating away. It didn't help that I'd drunk multiple cups of coffee. Every time the waitress came by our table, she'd top off my cup. 

Natalie explained how the legislative process works in Ohio, and I ate two sausages to balance out the sugar rush, and then I drank a glass of water to dilute the caffeine. It's slow! she said. This particular anti-library bill is only sponsored by one guy and no one else has even signed off on it! 

Yet, I said. But I had to admit I felt a million times better. 

We quit discussing the yellow bird and crazy potential laws in the state of Ohio, and talked about our latest writing projects. Did I mention that Natalie is a New York Times Best Selling author? Anyway, she is. And as you can imagine, she was helpful on this subject too. 

After brunch, I checked my neighborhood's social media page where I’d posted about the yellow bird. I was hoping that whoever had lost the bird would chime in. Instead, there were comments about various sightings. People who had seen him in their feeders and playing in their bird baths. It wasn’t the news I was hoping for. 

I am not a person who is good with uncertainty. Will the yellow bird find his way home? Will the crazy book banning bill become a law? Who knows. If I ever run into the bird again, maybe I will ask him. 

Yellow Bird

 

French Toast 

Natalie's new book. Potentially banned? 

Help Is on the Way

At the grocery self-checkout, my husband and I are pros. We have a system. I scan. He packs the bags. But we are at a new grocery store (for us) and the system is not working. When I scan and he packs, the machine freezes and the light blinks on: HELP IS ON THE WAY. But we don’t need help, I say to the clerk who comes over to help us. We know how to do this.

I say it the second time the light comes on and the third. The problem is the machine, I tell the clerk. And the fourth time—the problem is the sensor thingy under the bags! It thinks we’re not placing the item in the bags because we’re using our own bags?! Or it doesn’t recognize a second person doing the bagging?! Maybe we are too fast for it! The fifth time, I am sweating.

Each time the clerk comes over, he replays the tape, I guess to prove that we’re scanning and packing properly? WE ARE! Okay, the sixth time the light comes on, I admit it. It’s all on me. In my flustered sweaty state, I forgot to weigh the grapes before my husband placed them ever so carefully into the bag. But the seventh time, I TOTALLY weighed the bananas, I promise!

The clerk rewinds the tape. His name is Daniel—I see from his nametag, which I finally read after interacting with him another dozen times—and he is giving us a master class in how to deescalate a crisis. As I am raising my voice and one second away from tossing my bananas and stomping out of the store, he’s there again, talking us through it, patiently rewinding the tape and resetting the machine, joking about how if it didn’t mess up, he would be out of a job.

You’re doing great, he says. Keep going.    

I am trying to channel this man later as I talk with a friend who is going through a crisis much more serious than an exasperating grocery store experience. It’s anxiety, and it zaps her when she least expects it, spiraling her out and shutting down her usually bubbly self. I love this person so much and I want to swoop in and fix things for her.

I can’t fix things for her.

This is where I could say something metaphorically clever about how having trouble with the self-checkout at the grocery store is like having a panic attack. But that would be stupid because it’s not the same thing at all. I have had panic attacks before and it felt like I was dying. In the throes of my anxiety, I couldn’t see the hands that were reaching out to help me. I didn’t believe the hands were there. That is the evil trick about anxiety. It leads you to think you are alone in your suffering.

My husband and I finally finished checking out at the grocery store. It only took a couple more assists from Daniel, right at the very end when I was trying to wrangle loose oranges and then when I was trying to pay by credit card, swipe or tap, and oh my God, Daniel, just DO IT FOR ME. He didn’t, but he was immediately standing beside me with his same patient smile, saying, Look at you, you’re getting the hang of it now.

Ha ha Daniel, we both know that you are kidding. But weirdly, it helped.

The thing about stupid metaphors is sometimes they work. When my friend calls later, I tell her I am here for her and she will get through this. A friend said this to me once. 

Come to think of it, SHE’S the friend who said it to me, so we both know that it is true.

 

(Daniel is not shown in the picture but trust me, he's there)