Tag Archives: taking risks

Teaching My Daughter the “A” Word

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By Kris Krug at http://www.flickr.com/photos/kk (http://www.flickr.com/photos/kk/491716195/) [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

By Kris Krug, via Wikimedia Commons

Vivi came to the dinner table tonight dressed like Iggy Pop, except her shoes have built in disco lights and her skinny jeans were bright pink.  Topless as Iggy in his heyday.  Okeydoke, don’t forget to put your napkin in your lap, dear.  (And if you are too young to know who Iggy Pop is, he’s that grizzled punk in the pic.  Abs of Steel…and heroin.)

She asks at least 100 questions a day and sometimes they go like this:

“Mama?  Is ‘dammit’ a bad word?”

“Yes, sweetie, that’s a grown up word.”

“So only grownups are allowed to say dammit?  Kids are NOT allowed to say dammit, right?  If I said dammit I would get in trouble.  Dammit is not a word…”

“Yes, and stop trying to find ways to say it.”

Then 30 minutes later, she grows frustrated with a toy and brings it to me.  She plops it in my lap and says, “Mama?  Will you say dammit for me?”

She’s what we call a handful.  My Pop would have called her a sport model (and they would have gotten along famously).  Every time my dad looks at her, he starts to squalling because she reminds him so much of me at this age.  For this very reason, I have apologized to both of my parents in the last month, because if I was just like this at the age of five….DAMMIT.

{As I was typing that, she stalked out to the den for the third time since lights out and complained that she can’t sleep.}

It’s been a combative evening because she sassed Daddy and lost her bedtime story.  Even though that consequence was made very clear at several junctures, she was devastated when the punishment was pronounced.  While G was in there trying to calm her, she started hollering and moaning and whining.  That’s when I swooped in with some careful parenting words (courtesy of 12 years of therapy).  I said, “Sweetie, I understand that you are upset and that makes you want to cry.  But you cannot scream because it wakes up Carlos.  It’s quiet time now.  I love you and good night.”  I choose my words carefully with her because I never want to tell her how to FEEL, only how to ACT.  I can’t stand hearing things like “don’t be mad,” or “don’t get upset” or the like.  Go on and feel however you feel, but sometimes you gotta curb how you act.

There are two important “A” words that our children learn:  “appropriate” and “authentic.”  Appropriate is all about how to act, all that stuff we teach them that boils down to “behave yourself.”  I was so obsessed with appropriate when I was a kid that I checked out etiquette books from the library.  I may have only been in the fifth grade, but I knew how to identify a fish fork and address the Pope in written correspondence (Your Eminence).  In second grade, Mrs. Angley made us write sentences if she heard us say “ain’t.”  By the end of the year, I got worried that I hadn’t had to write sentences, so I intentionally said ain’t in order to fit in.  Appropriate is about living up to what other people expect of you–whether it’s the Pope or the second grade.  Appropriate has its place and proves very useful as you navigate the wider world.  It’s good to know how to act…as long as it doesn’t become an act.

That leads to “authentic.”  I wish I had read more library books on authentic but I wouldn’t have been sure where to begin.  Authenticity is rooted in knowing your feelings, valuing them just as much as the feelings of others, and expressing them…appropriately.  Unfortunately, I got so wrapped up in being appropriate that it never dawned on me that I had a right to be authentic, too.  When I first started going to therapy, my therapist asked what I wanted to accomplish.  I hemmed and hawed and namby-pambyed, but then I said, “You know what?  I want to learn how to say ‘F*ck You’ if that’s what I’m thinking!”  She assured me that was a specialty of hers. Let’s just say we’ve made great progress in that area.

I had a telling authentic experience a few weeks ago when I took Vivi and Carlos and Huck to the dog park.  A rambunctious little dog jumped up on Vivi.  She squealed and turned her back.  I told the dog, “No!”  He jumped on her again so I got between the dog and her and said “No!” with more force.  When the dog jumped again, I grabbed its collar, pulled it down and shouted “NO!” in its face (just like an alpha dog would do–sharp and immediate correction).  Its owner came flying over–I assumed to apologize and retrieve her dog–then started yelling at me for touching her dog!  Oh, it was ON.  Somebody hold my baby and somebody hold my earrings.  Toe to toe, necks a-poppin’, hands flapping and HOLLERING.  We were yelling so loudly that everyone in the dog park stopped to listen.  Even some of the dogs.  Even G’s ex-wife who was there with her dog and husband.  Ahem.

I won.  By god, I WON.  I may be the same woman who tells Vivi to watch her tone and speak quietly in a restaurant and raise her hand in class…but DAMMIT.  Don’t get up in my face with your crazy little dog or I will take my fish fork and I will cut you.

It’s a delicate balance–to teach our children to speak kindly and respectfully…but to be kind and respectful to themselves, too.  It’s important to be appropriate, but it’s essential to be authentic.  If I teach Vivi anything, I hope she learns to be authentic first and appropriate second.

Oh, and about the lady at the dog park?  The next week, Vivi and I took Huck (and he didn’t eat a single duck).  As we were walking back to the car, Huck lumbered over to another leashed dog and sniffed hello.  I let him and the other owner let her dog…and we looked up and realized it was HER!  I gave her a big ole smile and kept walking.  Nice as pie.

The Kindness of Strangers

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The story of Samantha Manns’ has been making big news this week.  She is an 18-yr-old woman who has committed to performing 89 acts of kindness in memory of her grandmother, who died at the age of 89.  There’s even a Facebook page where she shares the story of each of the kindnesses and how they affected the recipient and her.  I think this is an absolutely lovely idea!

After Richard died, I thought about ways to “pay back” some of the kindesses that we had received along the cancer journey.  One kindness that jumped out at me, thanks to his leukemia diagnosis, was the overwhelming amount of blood and platelet transfusions that were always there for him when he needed them.  By my calculations, he had received 156 pints.  I spoke to the local Red Cross staff and they appreciated hearing a “thank you for what you do,” but the debt was still there to all those people who had donated blood.  Richard didn’t believe in debt, so I decided to find a way to pay back all those pints.  The hospital where I work does regular blood drives.  I talked to the organizers and we agreed to have an “honorary” blood drive where you could give your pint in honor of someone you knew who had received blood products.  It was a heart-warming success!  Each donor filled out a heart that dedicated their blood in honor of their loved one.  The Calkins gave blood in memory of Abraham, many friends gave in memory of Richard.  My boss had never donated blood before, but rolled up his sleeve for this event.  It turned out that he was O negative, the universal donor…and he’s given GALLONS since then.  The 156 pints of blood that Richard had used in 10 months were paid off, back in the bank and ready for the next person who needed them.

Richard had a gift for small kindnesses and great kindness.  He lived the Scout Oath of helping all people at all times.  That’s how we met! Tomorrow is the eighth anniversary of his last day.   Some measure of kindness left the world along with him and I want to make sure there is enough in the bank when people need it.  Look around today for a kindness that is yours to give.  Help someone find their way.  Give an encouraging word to a stressed out mom.  Thank a stranger for the work they do.  Offer your jumper cables.  Then tell us about it here in the comments so we can all share in the joy!

“A good deed is never lost;

he who sows courtesy reaps friendship,

and he who plants kindness gathers love.”

–St Basil

Be Nice to Your Wife

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Jamie Calkin's

“The Globe” by Jamie Calkin

I’m not sure what I think about clairvoyance, but here’s a story that points towards yes.

Our coffee date went so well that we decided to go out for dinner a few days later.  The plan was that we would meet at The Globe, a downtown Athens bar for grownups, then come up with a plan from there.  I love The Globe because they have rocking chairs inside, lots of Scotch, dark leather couches and Irish music, but not too loud.  My kind of place.

I got there first.  I ordered a drink and claimed one of the rocking chairs in the front window.  I was nervous, even though we had already spent hours talking to each other.  Richard came down the sidewalk a few minutes later and I remember how he took a deep breath and blew it out just before he reached for the door handle.  It made me think that he might be a little nervous, too.

We talked for two hours in those rocking chairs.  It was getting towards 7:30 and we still didn’t have a plan for dinner.  He had been looking at his watch on and off for the last fifteen minutes.  I asked him if he was in a rush to get somewhere.  He said, “Well, I need to ask a favor.  I’m got to go call my grandmother–my parents usually call her every day, but they’re in Italy and I promised that I would check in on her.  She’s 90 and goes to bed early so it will be too late to call her after dinner. I should call her before we go eat.”

This was before we all had phones with us all the time, children.  Try to imagine!

I understood perfectly (and he got points for being a kind and conscientious grandson).  He told me that he lived in the apartment building right around the corner (I could see it from the window), so we could go one of two ways:  he would get me another drink and leave me there at the bar while he went to make the call, or I could come with him and we could go straight to the restaurant after he called his grandmother.  Then he said the words every woman loves to hear:  “I promise I’m not an ax murderer.”  Who can argue with that logic?

It’s a good thing that man was so honorable and trustworthy because I sure as hell made stupid decisions around him.  OF COURSE I agreed to go to his apartment.  Good grief.  Idiot, party of one.

I occupied myself on the couch with his cat, whose name happened to be “Richard Nixon.”  He had never given the cat a name, just called it Cat, but one of his liberal friends was cat sitting one time and insisted that the cat have a name so she could love on it and coo to it, so he dubbed her (yes, Nixon was a girl) “Richard Nixon.”

Richard (the fellow, not the cat) called Sadie from the other room.  A few minutes later, he came back looking really perplexed.  I asked if everything was OK.  He shook his head as if he were clearing a cloud and replied, “Huh.  She must have had me confused with my cousin because right before we said goodbye, she said, ‘Be nice to your wife.'”

I never got to meet Sadie, but four years later, Richard gave me her ring when he proposed.  It was the diamond Jack had given her in 1927.  She had worn it for 75 years.  It turned out she was right–he was nice to his wife, that day and so many others.

A Bucket, A Baby, A Ball Gown

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very_old_computer

Me, looking for love in 2001.

March 8, 2001.  I wanted to celebrate the fact that I hadn’t been murdered by the stranger who had picked me up on the side of the road when my car broke down.  And since I was single again and he had a cute butt, I decided to celebrate with him!  I did a little research first.  Now kids, gather round because MeeMaw’s going to tell you a story about a time before Google!  No Facebook, no YouTube, no Twitterverse.  Since I couldn’t google him, I had to Altavista him.  It’s a primitive mating ritual.  I found him on the University’s faculty list…so that checked out.  I linked to a couple of his posted class syllabi…he really did teach in the business school.  I found a copy of his CV and all the education and jobs he had told me about were there and in order.  No unexplained gaps that might mask an incarceration or long term psychiatric stay.  I found a couple of fraternity pictures (hazy and scanned because our phones only made calls back then) and he appeared to be aging well.  Oh, and on the bottom of his resume, he listed “Eagle Scout,” so that explained why he stopped to help an old lady with a busted car.  

I made a note to myself that I might have a couple of teensy trust issues (or a promising future in stalking) then I emailed him to see if he’d like to have coffee some day.  He said yes.

This was a green and growing time of my life.  The day of the coffee date, I was talking to my friends Craig and Tom about things we’d like to do in our lives (we didn’t even have the phrase “Bucket List,” kids!).  It dawned on me that we were doing a whole lot of talking and no acting.  Dreams stay dreams until you put them on a To Do List.  I arrived early to Jittery Joe’s coffee shop and happened to have my notebook with me, so while I waited for Richard, I wrote down what I called my Life List–50 things I wanted to do in my life.

The first thing I wrote, without hesitation, was “be someone’s mother.”  Next was skydiving and white water rafting and sailing the Greek Islands and skinny dipping and learning how to do a card trick and owning a cashmere sweater and teaching someone to read and wearing a ball gown to a real ball and hiking the Appalachian Trail and sleeping in the desert to look at the stars and learning the constellations and eating all the shrimp I ever wanted in one sitting and reading a story out loud in public…you get the idea.  It was a solid list and I was excited about it.  In mid-scrawl, I felt someone standing near me and looked up to see my new friend.  He pulled out the chair opposite me and asked what I was writing.  Instead of hiding it or trivializing it, I told him.  His response?  “Let’s hear it.”

We spent the next hour talking about the things on my list.  There were a few that he had done (skydiving, skinny dipping, Greece) that he highly recommended and a few things he had done (sleeping in the desert) that he didn’t want to do again.  It was a great first date!  And guess what?  Over the first few months of our relationship, we knocked several things off that list!  Because he knew that they were important to me–I had claimed them.  I had declared that I would devote energy to the pursuit and he believed me.  Here are some of my favorites:

  • Skydiving.  A couple of guys at work talked me into joining their skydiving adventure at Skydive Monroe.  Best $200 I ever spent (except maybe on therapy).  Richard went along to cheer me on then decided to join in.  We went back to the house and ate strawberries and champagne and I couldn’t stop giggling.  I giggled for three days.  My stomach still lurches if I recall that moment of letting go into the void.  And you won’t believe how quiet it is when the parachute deploys and you’re floating.
Robert Doisneau, Kiss at the Hotel de Ville (1950)

Robert Doisneau, Kiss at the Hotel de Ville (1950)

  • Sharing a long kiss on a crowded sidewalk.  After 10 years with someone who didn’t believe in PDA and after one too many Robert Doisneau posters in college, I put this one on the list.  We crossed it off one day after lunch, right downtown as hundreds of people walked by.
  • Cashmere sweater.  On sale for $50!  Still have it because it’s red and tight and makes me feel sexy.
  • Give a gift to my college.  While I was redoing my beneficiaries after the divorce, he suggested I make Wesleyan a beneficiary.  Done and done!
  • Own a piece of original art that I love looking at every day.  I bought a painting in a silent auction for a literacy group.  It’s still hanging in my bedroom.
  • Learn the constellations.  I bought myself a book by H.A. Rey, the same guy who wrote Curious George…also an astronomy buff!  Orion is a friend to this day.
  • Skinny dipping and sailing the Greek Islands.  That’s a longer story for another day, but let’s just mark it a two-fer!

There were things we didn’t get to.  Things I still have on my list.  Things I’ve done on my own or with someone else.  But the lesson that sticks with me was that I knew, right from the start, that this person would honor my dreams.  It meant that I had to put them down on paper and put them out into the universe, but I had a partner who thought them important.

bucket baby

Baby…in a bucket!

When I found myself divorced then widowed then still childless at 36, I believed that #1 on the list would never come true.  The Baby Store would have nothing but empty shelves.  I spent many nights looking up at Orion and crying over this “fact.”  Then one day, I went back to my Life List and read it again.  The first entry didn’t say, “Have a baby” or “give birth.”  It said, “Be someone’s mother.”  I could do that on my own.  I resolved that, if I hadn’t met anyone with whom I wanted to have children by the time I was 40, I would adopt a child.  Once that was settled, the space in my heart that had been occupied by fear eased up a little.  And guess what happened a year later?  At 38, I had a perfectly healthy baby.  Then another one at 42.  I know there are people who struggle to get pregnant later in life, but there are also people who don’t!  If you are feeling hopeless about growing older and having children, focus on being someone’s mother.  There are many paths to motherhood and they don’t all pass through your uterus and they don’t close down right on schedule.

I’ve been thinking about that list a lot today because I was reading an interview with The Bloggess and it mentioned The Traveling Red Dress Project. A few years ago, Jenny bought herself a wildly inappropriate and impractical red ball gown because she wanted to know what it felt like  “just once, to wear a bright red, strapless ball gown with no apologies.”  She bought it, enjoyed it then shipped it around to her friends and online community so that they too could experience the joy of wearing a stunning red ball gown.  One woman wore it to celebrate overcoming her agoraphobia…the pictures are awesome.  I still haven’t crossed off my “wear a ball gown” item on my list (and I was beginning to second guess it after Jennifer Lawrence almost bit it at the Oscars) but it might be time.  Vivi and I can go out in the grass and twirl until we fall down.  I am someone’s mother and we are prone to twirling.

Would you do your Baddest Mother a favor today?  Write down five things you want for yourself.  Start believing in them.  Then jump!

Looking for the White Knight

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So, my therapist has been talking about me to other clients.  I’m totally cool with that–it’s in a good way.  It’s like what Ellen Gilchrist said about her family’s reaction when she writes about them:  “They don’t care what I write as long as I say they’re good looking.”   The story that my therapist shares with others is the one I wrote about yesterday, when I met my second husband by the side of the highway when he stopped to rescue me.  She tells it to people who are rebuilding their lives and wondering if they’ll ever find someone to love.  The advice she gives them and that she gave me when I was rebuilding after a divorce was this–focus energy on YOUR life, not who you’ll share it with.  Plan the life you want, down to every detail and when you have it in place, you’ll be able to see the person who fits into it.  Don’t worry about looking for them first.

white knight

I had spent 10 years trying to make myself into a person who could make a life with the person I had picked out when I was 22 years old.  The problem was, Fartbuster didn’t much like the world because he was smarter than everyone else in it and didn’t see the point in bothering.  I had to get smaller and smaller and smaller to keep him comfortable.  For example, I told him I wanted to get back into writing and he said to go for it.  But when I came home at 8pm after my writing group, he was all pissy “because there was nothing for dinner.”  Ummm, you’re a grown man with a debit card, a car and an Arby’s.  Feed yourself.  I wanted to travel.  The only place he would go was England because we spoke the language.  He ended up SCREAMING at the snack bar lady at Stonehenge because there was no ice in his drink. I told him I wanted to have kids and he said that he really didn’t see how they could be worth the effort–we would have to run the dishwasher more often.  His number one concern about having kids was that I might gain weight. Yeeaaaaaah, I’m not making this up.

Still.  When it was over, I felt like I was starting from square one and I’d never catch up and get to have the life I wanted.  The Baby Store was going to be all out of babies by the time I got my act together!  The Happy Store would be closed for renovations!   I needed to FIND SOMEBODY and do it quick.  My therapist told me to pump the brakes.

My first assignment was to visualize the life I wanted.  Not in generalities like “I want to find love, ” but specifics:  do I want to come home and cook dinner or go out to eat?  Do I want to listen to music and talk or eat in front of the TV while watching CSPAN?  Do I want to go to bed early or late?  Do I want to exercise?  How?  Do I want to spend weekends with family or camping in the woods?  What color should the bathroom towels be?  Where do I want to go on vacation?  What do I want to do for holidays?  Every sentence had I as the subject…not we.

I started living my own life.  I cooked lasagna for one.  I put on a swimsuit for the first time in 10 years.  I went to the beach with my family.  I tried tequila shots for my 32nd birthday.  I went to movies on Sunday afternoon, all by myself.  I threw parties and went to parties.  I bought season tickets to Chastain concerts.  I volunteered with my college and a literacy project.  I joined a writing group.  I attended the Unitarian church.  I read all day or walked all day or shopped or slept or stared out the window.  I planted daffodil bulbs.  I walked my dachshunds.  I did a lot of work on myself.  I went on some dates and turned some others down.  I woke up one morning whistling.  I realized that I was happier on my own than I would have been if I were still married.  That was a really good day.

And what do you know?  A few days after that, my car broke down and I met Richard.  Our lives bumped up against each other’s and it worked.  Love plopped right into my lap when I had quit chasing it.  I think Nathaniel Hawthorne compared happiness to a butterfly.  If you chase after it, it will always elude you; but if you sit peacefully, it will sometimes alight upon you.

For years, I thought of Richard as the White Knight who swooped in and rescued me.  He was my reward for the miserable decade I had tolerated.  When he died, I was PISSED.  Not at him, but at the great scale of justice that had taken away my reward, my rescuer.

But here’s the thing my wise counselor pointed out.  There were two people who met on that cold and blustery day by the side of the highway.  Two stories.  One of those people was going to get sick and one of them was going to die.  One of them was in need at that immediate moment, but one of them would have a much greater need four years down the road.   Richard, brave and capable as he was, would need someone courageous and stalwart and true beside him for that great fight…and it turned out to be me.  I was his White Knight.  We rescued each other.

If you are feeling like there’s no white knight coming to the rescue, look more closely…it might be you.

Lucky Number Seven

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mile 7March 6, 2001 was a bright and blustery day.  While driving down Hwy 316 to work, my radio died in the middle of a song.  As I stared at it in confusion, the whole car went whoooooooomp uhhhh waaaaahhhhhh.  I steered over to the shoulder of the road and rolled to a stop, right next to mile marker 7 outside of Bethlehem, Georgia.  With my heart rate rising, I tried to crank it–nothing.  Turned off the dead radio then tried to crank it.  Nothing.  Adjusted my rear view mirror then tried to crank it.  Nothing.  Damn it.  Took key out, looked at it, put it back in.  Grrrrr.  I popped the hood, propped it up in a stiff wind then inspected the engine.  Yep, the engine was still there.  (That was the extent of my mechanical diagnostic skills.)

It was freezing out there, so I sat on the passenger side away from the cars whizzing by me and stared at my shiny new cell phone.  I was alone (not “on my own” but ALONE) in the cold cruel world.  Who to call?  My daddy was two hours away, my brother lived closer but was at work.  My husband was now my ex-husband and my guy friends…well, most of them knew less about cars than I did.  I was just about to walk down the highway to the gas station over the next hill when I saw a car slowing to pull in behind mine.  The next few moments are lost in a blur of relief and babbling.  Someone was there to help!  I was saved!  By the time he stuck his head under the hood and leaned over to wiggle wires, I had calmed down enough to have my first cogent thought about the man who would one day be my husband:  “Dang…nice butt!”

ACK!  What was I THINKING??  This man was a good Samaritan  helping out a damsel in distress–he was probably someone’s dad or husband or an off-duty cop or something.  (In my own defense, he did have a spectacular skier’s butt.)  His head was still buried under the hood, so I checked his left hand for a wedding ring.  There wasn’t one.  Okey doke!  I gave him the once over.  Lots of cute things.  Tee hee.

He moved his car around to face mine and got the jumper cables set up.  He said, “So, are you a law student?” and pointed to the sticker in the back window of my car.

“Oh, no.  My ex-husband.”

“Your husband?”

“My EX-husband.”

“Ah.  I just asked because I teach at the business school, right by the law school.  Thought I might have seen you around.”  And so our conversation began.

He got my car started.  Since we were both headed in the same direction anyway, he offered to stay behind me in case it died again.  Once our convoy was heading back down the highway, I got my head together enough to realize that he was a really nice guy and this might be my lucky day.  I didn’t want him to see me preening, though, so I slid my hand across to my purse, extracted a lipstick and applied it surreptitiously without looking in the rearview mirror.  Sneaky minx.

The car stalled again just outside of Athens.  He stopped and jumped me…I mean jumped it off again.  He suggested I drive straight to the battery store and get them to check it.  He followed me there.  That didn’t work, so I drove to the mechanic and left my car there to get the alternator replaced.  He followed me again.  They needed to keep the car for a few hours and I had a class to teach that afternoon.  My good Samaritan offered to drop me at work and like a total blooming idiot who had never seen a single episode of Nancy Grace, I hopped right in.  That’s when it hit me exactly how “on my own” I was–I had gotten in the car with a total stranger and no one knew where I was.  I kept my hand on the door handle and planned to tuck and roll out the door if he tried anything crazy and was going under 20mph.  He didn’t.  He delivered me right to the front door and we exchanged business cards.

As luck would have it, my boss was walking by the entrance as I stepped from the car at 11am.  He smiled and said, “Glad you showed up to work, Kiddo!”  I told him about my morning adventures then I showed him the name on the business card.  “Why does this name sound so familiar to me?” I asked.  As a fan of DC Comics, he took one look and guffawed.  “You just got rescued by a superhero–Robin!”  Yes, my good Samaritan’s real name was the  same as Batman’s sidekick.

That night, in my gratitude journal, I wrote:

  • Zoe smells so good when she is wrapped up in a warm towel after a bath
  • my new blue shirt
  • when my car died on 316, I made a new friend when Richard stopped to help
  • I needed help with a jump and I got an aerospace engineer with a PhD in finance and Virginia Cavalier manners
  • teaching 20 people in a fun class
  • I can make it

stop-and-smell-the-roses

Taking Flight

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Distrail

Distrail By Brocken Inaglory (Own work) , via Wikimedia Commons

Oh, serendipity.

This is an excerpt from my first travel journal, begun when I was rebuilding my life after a heartbreak.  I had met a lovely man who would become my husband, but I didn’t know that yet.  I also never dreamed he would become my late husband.  

I stumbled on this piece this  morning and its simple joy and excitement took my breath away then handed it back to me.  That woman was learning to take risks–on paper, in real life and with her heart.

Friday, November 9, 2001

Griffin

Every journey begins at home.  I am lying in the narrow iron bed at home and all is as it usually is.  Moxie is asleep downstairs in her crate; Gay coughs from their bedroom; Cassie whines at the door, just wishing she could be in here with Zoë and me.

I have a new travel clock and its ticking has captured Zoë’s attention.  Maybe it is strange for her to be aware of time passing by.

My first trip since Gay bought me this beautiful journal in New Orleans.  It is stiff and clean but the paper feels so rich as it slides beneath my hand.  Tomorrow, Baltimore and two nights with Richard.  I want to eat crabs, drink wine and sleep curled together with him.

So that is where this record of my travels begins—home, a narrow bed, a ticking clock.

November 10, 2001  8:00am

Flight 1044 Atlanta to Dulles

This is a haunted route.  Any plane to Washington DC has that sense of foreboding, drums in the distance or the eerie wait for night to fall so you can see the location and number of your enemy by their campfires.  Knowing one bad thing has happened and waiting for the next.

The dark-skinned man in the row behind me was stopped at the gate and his duffle bag rummaged while an embarrassed looking woman swept a metal detection wand over him, his outstretched arms and head dropped to his chest.  His shining gold wedding ring made the wand chirp.  We white women in line looked away.

Cabin lights dim and hands reach for the overhead light buttons, reflex.  I cut it close this morning, just at the gate 10 minutes before we leave.  Two flight attendants cut in front of me at the metal detector line, and when I said, “We can’t go anywhere without you!” they were thrilled to hear “someone nice.”  Maybe things are getting back to normal–I said, “Fuck you” to a stranger this morning when he fussed at me for walking the wrong way.

9:00am

One hour later and we haven’t moved an inch. This, too, is traveling—pointing yourself in the right direction and waiting for the wind to catch hold.  The pilot has reassured us that it’s a mechanical problem with the plane’s attitude monitor.  That’s so true.

10:10am

Off the right wing of the plane, there is a round white glow, the size of a small pond, that follows us on the ground.  I know it is our reflection, the angle of the sun, the same angle that makes the shadow of my hand across this page. But it is sweeter to call it an angel, to see something merry in the way it twinkles over rooftops, treetops and the flat shimmer of water in the Chesapeake Bay.

November 11, 2001  5:45pm

Baltimore—Richard’s bedroom

We had lamb in masala sauce with Mandy and Steve last night.  Listened to Marilyn babble as she served us from a plastic tea set.  Holding hands with Richard as we walk down the dark streets.  Making love on new sheets.

This morning, we ate sticky rolls and talked about going to Europe next month.  Watched a wreath being placed on the tomb of the Unknown Soldier.  I felt sad for the people left behind and he felt proud for having gone.  And lucky for coming back.

We walked around the harbor, watched the seals having lunch.  One seal named Lady looked a lot like Zoë.  We ate crackers and cheese by the water and watched the jellyfish sparkle when the sun hit them.  We sat in the prow of the water taxi and the spray wet my feet, but we snuggled together, our ears touching.  We joked with the gatekeeper about places for me to spend Richard’s money.

We drank coffee and lingered in the warm coffeehouse but suffered the clatter of the bathroom keys chained to old hubcaps.  We talked about other people’s problems.

And here I sit with a glass of wine in my solitude…and just as I write that, R opens the door and he and the kitty spy on a real writer at work.

He carries things for me.  He endures shopping for a Christmas ornament.  The first thing I saw this morning was the vulnerable curve of the back of his neck.  It’s been a good day.  It’s been a “we” day.  We started the day talking about football and we drove home talking about theoretical math and epenthesis.  Sometimes he explains, sometimes I do.

This is supposed to be my travel journal and here I am writing about a person.  But the best part of today was exploring the world with someone and exploring each other too.  Inner world, outer world.  Richard explained to me that theoretical math allows you to simulate reality and test variables.  I told him that writing does the same for me.