Paper Chase (part 4)

Michael and I kept in contact, still talking on the phone trying to figure out how to keep our friendship without a romantic link. The problem was we were like magnets that gravitated towards each other every time we were in a close proximity. While we kept our personal distance he was consistently the one who talked with first thing in the morning and the last one I talked to at night before I slept. With my heart broken, but not shattered, I tried to remember that this was no ordinary break up, he was still my very best friend, and I wanted him happy. That was until one night while we were on phone talking about how we would continue on being each other’s support system, while he and I figured out our next step. I hadn’t realized it until later, I was in the mindset that we were on a break, while he was in the mindset that we were in the midst of break up. Our communication didn’t answer the detailed questions that each of us had, but rather dealt with day to day events, that didn’t really affect the other. We were talking about whom we had seen, what had been funny and our plans for the weekend, when I said, “It’s going to be weird when we actually go out with another person. I am not sure I will be able to look at another man and not think of you. It seems so odd, don’t you think?” There was silence on the other end of the phone. “Michael?” I asked waiting for him to reply. Still there was no answer on his end of the line. “I know it’s weird to think about, but I am sure we will figure it out.” The next time Michael spoke he did so in almost a whisper, “Kel, I am seeing someone. I met her at a party last weekend.” I stood, stunned at how soon he had met someone, feeling like a complete fool that I had thought it would take more time. It had only been a couple of weeks since we had split up. “Wh-wh-what?” I stammered. “I’m sorry. I thought you should know. I didn’t want to tell you over the phone, but I wasn’t sure how I would tell you,” Michael said quietly, with a nervous shaking to his voice. My anger that I thought was merely grief took hold and ran my out of control mouth. “You are already seeing someone? It’s only been two weeks since we went skiing!” I started getting louder. “How is that even possible? You told me you needed time to figure things out. You said you were confused, that you weren’t sure what to do for the future and you were going to spend time alone and you are already with someone?” I was shouting now, my voice audibly shaking along with the rest of my body. “You are certifiable, do you know that? A team of psychiatrists couldn’t fix you and your ridiculous selfishness! How can you just jump from one person to another without a second thought? How is it possible that I didn’t see this coming, you and your narcissistic, completely self absorbed need to use people for your own benefit? Who the hell are you? “ I felt like I had run directly into a brick wall. Michael stunned by my outburst remained silent on the phone. I was stunned myself at how I had behaved, the words that had shot out of my mouth as if propelled by an air gun. In that moment I did what had become a habit and blamed myself for what I was sure, absolutely certain anyone else in the world would have seen from a mile away. I just stood holding the phone, God smacked, with a look of utter surprise, not knowing what else to do. “Kel,” Michael pleaded, “I never meant to hurt you.” And there it was the unknown ending of us come to light. He had delivered the clichéd line used by men the world over, but now it was directed at me like a laser beam. His voice, the sadness, the despair of the situation continued to ring in my ears as I hung up, continuing to be glued to one spot. Once again, my radar for men had been proven to only spotlight those who would ultimately hurt me. Mean to or not, he had taken my very tenuous self esteem and stomped out what little life it held. I had been talking to him in my basement, pacing until the bitter end, and it was a bitter end as I clung to the dead phone wondering what I was going to do now that he was gone. I realized, fearfully late, that I no longer had Michael in my life. He had moved on, leaving me alone. I walked up the stairs to the main floor, hung up the phone and laid on my bed. I was so shocked by the turn of events I couldn’t even cry, I just laid there looking at the ceiling that needed paint. The person I had counted on as my emotional touchstone had left the building. That moment of lying on my bed, just staring at nothing was a turning point, a moment of abject confusion and clarity, a time when I knew if I didn’t take control of myself, I would be in jeopardy of turning hardened, bitter with no hope of reprieve from the cynicism that would encase my soul. I was scared, but not of being alone, but of being a victim of my own anger, my own mind numbing trap of spending years, wasting precious time, rattling around in my own head about how I had gotten hurt again. I got up, got some paper and my favorite pen and sat down in the dining room. I gently place the tip of the pen on the pure white paper and began to write. Words poured out of me like a water faucet left on unattended. Great gushing thoughts and emotions ran down my body through my pen to the empty pages below. Page after page I wrote, hand cramping, I couldn’t get it all out fast enough. Pages scribbled from top to bottom began to fill the table. I stabbed the last period at the end of the last sentence of the last paragraph and finally looked up. Hours had past and I had to get ready for work. Morning had sprung while I was busy excising the hurt that had inhabited my heart. I surveyed all the writing that covered every inch of the table and floor space around where I had sat. I shook my ink stained, aching hand as it tingled from overuse to awaken it for the day. The children would be waking up, so I had to put on my game face. I was still hurt, still reeling from the night before, but I felt as if somehow I would figure out what was next for me, without Michael in my life. I didn’t know why I knew, but I did know in that moment that I was going to keep waking up, having to face my life as it was and if I didn’t move forward, I would definitely be left behind.

The Book Will Resume This Friday

To all my beloved readers, I humbly apologize for being tardy with the next installment of the book. It will be returning this Friday. I plan to much of my weekly writing on the weekend. While I remain extremely grateful for my recent employment outside the writing world, I found myself slightly overwhelmed and then it happened...I got sick. I had just been thinking how lucky I was not to get ill and how healthy I had been for such a long time, when WHAM! I got steam rolled over by a virus that knocked me to my knees. A week long fever and hacking cough reminded me once again just exactly how human I am.
I look forward to picking back up where I left off. Since I am doing other things full time now, I will be keeping up on the book on the weekends until my shift, shifts once again to part time.
Much love to you and your loyal support. I so appreciate how much you entrust me with your precious time and energy.
Know I think of you and remain truly grateful, daily!

Paper Chase (part 3)

We continued to talk for a few weeks, as we had done for years. Michael was the first person I talked to in the morning, and the last person I spoke to at night. We had always talked openly about any subject, but with my heart worn and hurting, I could no longer listen, I had no ears left anymore. Michael reassured me this would work out for the best, he just needed time. We didn’t live together, we didn’t share expenses or property or anything of physical value, except time, so time away meant the only thing he and I shared was gone. I knew Michael was hurting, too, but the truth was I was unable to take that part in. I had too much of my own stuff to even consider taking his feelings on, too. One night while on the phone he was saying how much he “cared” about me, how he was trying to figure things out for himself and I swear to you, I snapped. I grabbed my kids, who had taken off their shoes and socks, thinking they were in for the night and got them in my car. All the phone calls, all the talking had gotten to me, and I needed to know where I actually stood in my relationship with Michael. I had thought he loved me. It’s what I had thought and acted on, but as I put my barefooted, very confused kids in the car for the short trip to Michael’s house, I no longer knew and I wanted an answer to my very simple question. Michael and I only lived a few minutes away from each other. I had made the trip to his house a million times, but this time as I drove, I felt a gnawing in my stomach. I was not then nor am I now a confrontational person. I hate confrontation of any kind. It makes my stomach twist up into knots and if there is any way to prevent it, even avoidance, I always try and go that route first, but I had shifted into a gear I was not only uncomfortable with , but one I would be in for some time after I got to Michael’s house. I was taking the bull by the horns and getting rid of any ambiguity. My relationships until then had tons of wishy/washy, give and take, ambiguity to them. I had allowed myself to be in situations where I would not take any stand, even when I was knocked off my feet, but this time I had to know.
I knocked on the door of Michael’s house, nervous, but determined. While the kids waited in the car, I saw the door open and Michael who I had not seen in person since the kitchen incident stood in front of me. “Tell me you don’t love me,” I said hoarsely. “What?” Michael asked stunned to see me. “You need to tell me you do not love me. Just say it so I can get on with my life and I am not sitting here waiting for you. Say it!” I was keenly aware that I needed to keep my voice down so my kids would be unaware of what I was doing, but I demanded an answer. “Kel, I…”Michael looked tortured, looking at the ground as if he were a punished child. “Say it, just say it!” I began to get louder. “Come in, just for a minute,” Michael tried to quell my growing anger. “I can’t, I have kids, remember? Just say it already, say you don’t love me.”
I saw tears in Michael’s eyes as he looked up and whispered, “I don’t love you.” His eyes never wavered from mine, as he looked straight at me, not flinching, not moving, I saw what I had come for and that it was time for me to go. I turned on my heel and left, getting back in my car and drove back home. I got the kids ready for bed as they asked me a million questions about what had just happened. I answered as truthfully as I could, trying desperately not to take them down the path I was on. “Michael won’t be around for awhile. He is busy and I was just saying good-bye. It’s O.K., he’s still our friend, but he just won’t be coming over anymore.” “Not even to babysit while you go to school?” one of my little ones asked. “No, not even for that. We’ll find someone else to do that. It’s going to be alright. Mommy is just going to miss him, but we will be fine.” I tucked everybody into bed, went to the bathroom to wash my face and promptly threw up. I rested my head on the porcelain and prayed. Actually, it was more like begging, “Please, let this be enough already. Please, God not one more thing for now. I am not strong; I am not able to handle this. Please not one more awful thing…” After sitting there for a few hours, I got up washed my face and went to bed. I knew in that instant it was time for me to wave the white flag on men, and just give up. It had crystallized for me that my judgment was not only impaired when it came to relationships, but non-existent. God and I were finally on the same page, we both felt I had had enough. I no longer required getting beaten over the head with the obvious because of the blinders I had chosen to wear. Feeling very sad, but somewhat resolved that I would be alone, possibly indefinitely, I drifted off to sleep. I pictured myself living in my little house, stepping over piles of junk mail that would be stacked from floor to ceiling, surrounded by a thousand cats, while I could be seen wearing a very large flowered hat doing my very best impression of Miss Havisham.

Paper Chase (part 2)

The next thing on my list was to dye my hair a dark red. I have red heads in my family. I so envied them their difference, their uniqueness in the way they stood out at the reunions amongst the blondes and brunettes. I wanted, needed to feel different even if it came out of bottle and lasted only for a little while.
Lovey and I went hair shopping in our local drugstore. We searched the isles for the right shade of red, something a bit dramatic without the Bozo overtones. It took several hours and two boxes of dye to get my hair to what I thought was the perfect color of auburn. I blinked back the surprise when I first looked at myself. “You look good,” Lovey assured me now that the damage was done. I definitely looked different, but I felt the exact same. Lovey watched me as I perused the mirror looking for something beyond my hair. I stared at my eyes, my face to see if any other differences had appeared. “How do you feel?” Lovey asked. “I feel a little different,” I lied. Lovey hugged me knowing I was lying and just let me have it. She didn’t push me for anything more than that. It’s why I love her so much, she never pushes me to be or say anything I cannot be in that exact moment. She is somebody, who to this day, allows me to feel what it is I need, rather than what it is that should be expected.
Our time was so limited, so short. We squeezed in every activity that required my bravery to try and start my life over again mid stream. Lovey knew what I was up against. She reassured me until the very moment she had to go and board her plane back to Boston. She had to return to work and I had work, school and my kids. Our busy lives didn’t allow for much face time. Most of relationship is phone based, small intimate phone calls from faraway places, where we laugh, talk, encourage and love each other. Without her there to hold my hand, I wondered how I would survive, but for Lovey she never questioned that I would. There was not a single drop of doubt on her face, in her demeanor. She knew for certain I would figure it all out, alone if necessary, and the kids and I would somehow make it to the next phase. And I would be doing it with dark auburn hair, a very red and painful ear, and the memory of her holding my hand.
Michael was very much a part of my life during this time. He sort of floated in and out in waves. He was not at all sure how to handle Danny’s death or handle me handling Danny’s death. Everything felt surreal, out of balance. He tried to be my friend, my confidante, the strong one I could lean, but it was all so big. We were getting closer as the months passed. Soon it was the holidays and we were spending all of our free time together. I was working two jobs and going to school, so I needed as much help as I could get with the kids. The kids were having their own struggles trying to figure what and whom to trust. They knew Michael well. He is Betty’s Godfather and had always been around, but this was different and they were resistant to any more changes in their lives. They tested him to his very limit. They acted out because children are not resilient; they are tiny people who do not have the life experiences to assure them of success. Michael tried his best to be a good babysitter, but my kids are smart and they have ways of torturing those they do not want around. I reminded him that he was the grownup and in charge, but I could see the glint in their eyes and they plotted their revenge on whatever babysitter would try and tame them. Part of me found this very funny. My children, so smart, so very clever were very good children. They were generous and kind and the best human beings in my life then and now, but when they are ornery, well all bets are off.
By Christmas time Michael and I were seeing each other exclusively again. Another dance was being played out between us. He, the confirmed bachelor, found my life to be overwhelming. I the family oriented one, found the silence in his house to be deafening. Together we were a good match, but the combining of lives had some side effects that were difficult for both of us to take. We spent the holidays together, and in a blink January had arrived. Michael’s birthday gift to himself, being a bachelor he managed to celebrate with or without a partner, was to go skiing in upper New York. He did it every year, with friends and female companionship. The previous years it was me he would take, where we would ski, celebrate life and eat cake. I took a few days off, packed my skis, got babysitters, dog watchers and cat feeders and went away with him for a long weekend of adult fun. I loved getting away with Michael, forgetting all the pain, all the constant responsibilities, all the never ending interruptions. With just him and me, we could spend real time together enjoying each other’s company, being ourselves, having fun.
I blinked again and it was time to go home and face my life again. I had had a wonderful time. I enjoyed simple pleasures of falling snow and wind in my hair. Friends were there laughing, playing, it had been just what I needed to feel like a woman, a real live female. I have loved being my children’s mother, but I had become acutely aware that it couldn’t be my only role in life, if I wanted to live fully.
We had been home for a couple of days when Michael was in my kitchen. I was feeling warm and safe and somewhat comfortable. My feelings were growing by leaps and bounds. I felt so connected to him since our ski trip and I looked over at his face and smiled. I had just walked in from school tired from a long day of study and driving, and he had been at the house waiting for me. I noticed he wasn’t smiling. His eyes were sad, with his mouth down-turned. “Kel, we have to talk.” I felt my stomach seize. My entire body clenched knowing I was about to hear something hurtful. Michael wasn’t looking at me, but past me, the way one looks when they are about to rip your heart out. And then that is exactly what he did. “I can’t do this. I am not cut out for any of this. I care about you, I do, but this is not going to work.” I stood there in my tiny kitchen with my mouth open, glued in one place unable to move. “Where did this come from?” I stammered. Michael had tears in his eyes and I felt my face flush, hot, burning, as if struck by a fever. We talked for few minutes after that, he said he had been thinking about it for a while, he needed time to figure things out. “When did all this happen? My God we just got home from the ski trip? Were you getting ready to dump me back there? I feel so used.” And I did feel used. I felt like he had used me as his personal female stand in, as if I were some kind of convenience food item he could pull out of the freezer at his whim, so he was not alone. “I didn’t use you, I care about you.” Anger was welling up inside me at the words ‘I care about you’. I knew exactly what that meant. It meant I was good enough until he was ready to go, until he could find someone better, that’s what it meant. I care about the homeless, but I didn’t invite them on a vacation and sleep with them. I was more than just hurt this time, this break-up. I was furious for allowing myself to get caught up in Michael’s inability to commit. It was legendary, his way of never following through; at least it was with me. We had broken up and gotten back together so many times, when people found out we were dating they instantly got bored. I stood and watched him walk out of my kitchen, tears running down my face feeling as though, every single time I started to feel secure about anything the rug would immediately get ripped out from underneath me.

Paper Chase

It was the year of heart break, of breaking down and ultimately breaking free. We had buried Danny that October. “In 1997 Danny died and was buried”, she said with dramatic effect. On the third day, nothing happened. That’s the thing about real drama, it isn’t dramatic at all. There is no orchestration to impact the scene, there are no great shows of attention, no crowds gather, not a sound can usually be heard when the unthinkable happens. My friend Jim and I have had this conversation during our times of non-drama, drama. We have both felt the isolation, the silence, the utterly banal state of existence in a time in our lives when we were changed forever. Is it ironic? At the time, humor escapes me, but later, well after the suffering has taken place, I tend to go toward the funny with maudlin delight.
Michael being my resident best friend at the time of Danny’s death did me a solid and gave my other best friend, Lovey, a plane ticket to fly to Cleveland. She flew in from Boston to see us, the kids and I, all shell shocked. As if a bomb had gone off in the house and our faces were frozen into the exact expression the moment of impact we stood in front her motionless, waiting for anyone to free us from the icy prison of heart break. She swept in with love, laughter and lots of hugs, trying to evaluate how far gone we really were. She gave us exactly what we needed at the precise time we needed it… love, buckets, barrels, cascading watery free falling sheets of love. The kids clung to Lovey, as if she were their life line to anything normal, or even human. I was struggling myself, so having a mom type stand-in was the perfect gift for them and me. At night when the kids would go to bed, Lovey and I would talk about the details of me, my life and Danny. “Oh, Kel, I am so sorry.” I looked at Lovey with tears in my eyes knowing she already knew every thought in my head. She had known me since college and we had lots of late night conversations. I never held back from her. With her and my friend, Precious, I had no boundaries. If it was a thought in my head, it fell out of my mouth. They have been like sisters to me since the day I met them. They are as much family to me as my kids, or my own parents and my biological sister. I have told them or they have witnessed firsthand every bad, awful, wonderful, hateful, loving, destructive, productive thing I have ever done. We all have lived in other cities, but never have we truly been separated. That’s how I knew they were my family, as well as my friends.
“I have to get out of this!” I nearly panted as I paced talking to Lovey. “I feel like I am completely trapped in my own skin. I want to do something to make me feel something. I don’t think I can take one more day of feeling numb.” Lovey looked at me full in the face. She mirrored the sadness I felt back to me. While I couldn’t see me anymore, I could still see her. And by seeing her, I knew exactly what I looked like. My fingers unconsciously reached up and rubbed my eyebrows. Lovey touched her own face as she continued to watch me and I realized I was about to rub my own eyebrows completely off. “It’s a bad habit,” I said to her.
“Just think of the money you will save not having to wax them,” Lovey joked back. She made me laugh.
“God, I really needed you. It’s so depressing around here. I have no idea what to do with all of it. I don’t want to cry in front of the kids, making them feel like they to comfort me while they are grieving their dead dad.” Lovey again with a smile, a wonderful soft smile said with absolute love, “You are a great mother. We should all be so lucky to have you. You will get through this. You always manage to get through the really hard stuff.”
“What if this time I can’t?” I asked her with complete sincerity. “What if this time I fall off the cliff and never come back?”
“Kel, you are so strong. You will get through this just like you have gotten through so many other things. You didn’t think you would survive the divorce either, but look at you, here in your own house!” For a moment she paused, knowing this time was different. Danny and I weren’t just separated or even divorced, this time he was dead. Lovey looked up at me from our ratty old couch, “Listen”, she said so softly I almost had to lean in to hear her, “I know this is different, I do. What do you want to do?”
“I want to get my cartilage pierced and dye my hair red.” I had a defiant look on my face and Lovey immediately noticed how determined I was. “O.K.,” she said with trepidation, “I kind of get the piercing, but why red hair?”
“Because it’s something Danny would never had let me do when he was alive. Even when we were divorced I still stayed inside the ‘acceptable’ box so as not to piss him off. He’s gone now. I can do anything I want. I want out of the box.” I looked at Lovey with pleading eyes. I wasn’t really asking for her approval, but I certainly wanted it, or at least her support. Lovey nodded with complete understanding. The next day we went to the mall where she and my kids watched my first step of crawling out of box.
My children, best friend, Lovey and I were all standing in the middle of the isle in the mall waiting for my turn to get my ear pierced. The girl had gone through all the instructions and asked me to sign a waiver. “You sure about this?”Lovey asked just double checking to see if I had a change of heart. “Yeah, I am sure. How bad can it be?” I said smiling at our little adventure. Then the piercing girl asked me to sit down on their piercing stool, wielding her gun in my direction. “Oh it can get bad for some people. I think it’s the big crunch at the end that makes them queasy; ya know, when the pointy part goes through their cartilage it gets kinda loud.” I must have looked nervous because Lovey and Christy were playing with a teddy bear they used for tiny kids who were getting their ears pierced, when they both looked at me and offered up the bear. I’m not really proud of this, but I took the bear. I squeezed the stuffing nearly out of the bear; the young girl took the gun, placed it directly next to my ear and pulled the trigger. I heard a muffled crunch and thought we were through, when she stopped me from getting up; “Hey!” she called out, “We are only half way there.” It was the next sound I heard that nearly made me vomit. She hurriedly pushed the earring all the way through as I heard this awful crunchy, breaking sound that finished with a pop. The bear, fully mangled by my twisting hands, was handed back as Lovey promised to take us all out to dinner. I looked at Lovey and she at me; together, we fell out, tripping over each other, laughing.

Memory Bank (conclusion)

By the middle of my senior year I felt stronger. Toxic, as the boyfriend from home will now be referred to, had caused me more pain than even I could take, so I was plotting my way out. We did the dance of how he would change, how I would stop talking, how we would become anything other than ourselves to the point where I could not take it for one more minute. One evening in my parents house he came over to talk, but he didn’t talk, he never talked, he just sat in front of me staring at me with what I can presume was contempt and hatred. Once again I was charged with ruining another life, his. As we sat at the kitchen table I started telling him my feelings when he reached across the table, or more like lunged at me and covered my face with his hands. It was as if I had woken up out of a bad dream. In order to save myself, something that felt foreign to me by this point, I pushed him off to keep him from what I feared may be an attempt at suffocating me and screamed for him to get out. I yelled that my parents were due home any minute and he had to go. Stunned as if I had electrocuted him, he jumped back and skulked toward the door. I threatened to kill him if he ever came near me again. He left and all I felt was relief. I wasn’t sad that he was gone; I was just overwhelmed with the feeling of wanting to live. I didn’t contact First, as I had thought I would. I was feeling too humiliated at all of it, each bad decision, each purposeful wrong thing hung over me like a cartoon anvil I felt certain would crash down on me at any time. I spent more time in my room, isolated from my friends and activities. I would pull out the letters First sent me, toying with the idea of what I would say now that I felt like I was a broken version of the person he had originally met. I pictured myself writing him, “Dear First, I have completely and utterly fucked things up and fucked us over. I hurt you deeply and while I could not be sorrier, I want you to know I did it with intention. I am damaged goods now and I was wondering what you were up to.” I would pull out his pictures and stare at them. Seeing his smiling face brought calm to my tornado of a life. I wondered if he were happy. I assumed he had moved on and was now seeing a beautiful girl, smiling at her, planning their future. Time and again I would pull everything out to touch things, see his face, wear the necklace he gave me, sitting long enough to imagine I was with him, trying to breathe him in once again. I would even pick up the phone briefly, but ultimately cowardice would rule and I would put everything back in a box. I had reduced First to living in a box, much like I had done to myself. I had imprisoned both of us. I spent even more time on my floor crying trying desperately to let First go. He deserved to be freed from the dark, dank box I had reduced him to. I wondered if First thought of me. What did he remember? Was the pain I caused us all he was left with? My mind believed he had the same feelings that I had, where I had ruined everything in order to not ruin his life.
I was in high school as a senior doing my thing, looking normal, living broken, playing in band, singing in choir, trying my damndest to fit in. I only had a few more months of school when I would have to start making big decisions on my own. I should have felt free, but what I felt was lost. I had no idea what I wanted to be, or where I wanted to go, or who I was. Each day closer to graduation brought another unique set of questions I did not have an answer for. I briefly dated another boy from school who dumped me a week before prom. I made him take me anyway. He sat at the dance thoroughly pissed to be there, definitely pissed that he was with me, and never really talked to me again after that. I had given up First because I could not see him taking me to prom, so I was going come hell or high water. Was it worth it? Isn’t that what we ask ourselves every time we muck things up? Was it worth living the high school dream of going to prom? No. With First I was happy. With the senior boy who was forced to take me in spite of how he felt, I felt sad, unwanted, unloved. Even I could see the pattern by then. No First=me with every slap dick in a fifty mile radius. Even the few boys who tried to win my hand, so to speak, had no chance. I was planted like grass to the path I was on. The way was shut and no one was getting in. As high school ended all I could feel was numb. If truly I was victim, it was at my own hand. I had set my life up to allow myself to be hurt in every way imaginable. I made choices at the “y’s” in my road to take me into the belly of hell. I chose despair over joy, danger over security, and ultimately self destruction instead of self confidence. I had done this to myself. Although I will not take responsibility for other’s actions, I had no choice but to take the hard look at how I got there and why I stayed for so very long, putting myself in peril time after time. I was a coward. I believed every bad thing ever said to me and wouldn’t give the good things a moment’s thought.

My resume states quite clearly that I studied Philosophy at Ohio University. For all intent and purpose, I did, unless you caught a glance at my grade point average. That low ball number shows I didn’t study much of anything. I hadn’t wanted to go away to college right after high school. I wanted to work for a few years and get on my emotional feet before I headed out on the next leg of my journey. My mom, bless her heart, had no choices for college when she grew up. Being a poor female, she had the right to remain silent and do secretarial work. All she ever wanted was for us to get out and experience things for ourselves. All I wanted was to work, make a little money and figure out who in the hell I was. We had reached an impasse. I gave in because I had no back bone, no sure willed argument against it. I had no ideas of my own, or ability to make a decision. I originally balked at going, but my mom kept repeating, “If you don’t do it now, you may never get another chance.” She ended up half right. I went, flailing through college as if I was wearing clown shoes. I picked the first major that seemed even remotely O.K. and joined a sorority. I loved being in the sorority, though, it was one of the best decisions I made while I attended. The girls were smart, fun and kept me out of trouble. They became my family away from home. I obviously didn’t love every single one of them, but they were a good group. They were people to hang with, talk with and share life space. My freshman fall semester, I lived in an all girl dorm. It was the age of preppy. Nothing I owned looked as if I weren’t homeless. I was a baggy jeans, t-shirt kinda girl, and I was surrounded by an Izod, popped collar set. I wanted what they had, but I realized much too late it had nothing to do with clothes, or money or what they owned in the external. What I sought was the kind of clean cut all American happy look they seemed to convey. The preppy kids did not look like the broken, they looked as though they would get high paying jobs, marry people who would love them, have houses filled with children and lots and lots of love. What I was looking for was me, only a different me than the one I created for myself. Over winter break I found an outlet store that carried the very clothes I thought would make me feel “normal”. They were seconds and not at all the best full price shirts, but I so desperately wanted to break free of the confines of who I thought I looked like that I scrounged together enough money to buy a few precious things. I wore them proudly, collar up so I would look like the people I tried to emulate. I can’t honestly remember if it was after winter or spring break when I got an unexpected call, First on the other end of the phone. “I am coming up to Marietta College and I want to see you.” Marietta was on the way back down for O.U., so there was real hope I could make this work. “I’ll be there.” My parents were very skeptical of me driving alone before school started. Where would I stay? Why was I going? What would we be doing? They had questions and a lot of them. I had blown my parents trust to bits when I dated the other guy. They hated the boy from my hometown. My mother in particular never trusted him, and after we dated a while, I had changed, visibly and emotionally. My mother sensed that something was terribly wrong, but I wouldn’t tell her anything. I denied anything being wrong; I lied to her about him so many times she was hesitant to believe me about anything. I can’t remember what I told her about my trip to Marietta. My gut tells me I probably lied about that too, but I didn’t care this time. I felt no guilt, just a desperate need to see First again at any cost. I knew if my parents found out I had lied it would open up another can of worms for me, but I felt justified in my own mind. I drove the three and half hours to see him down the long stretch of highway, through the valleys, wishing the car would go faster. I felt real fear going on this trip, though. There was no doubt I had hurt us both. Would he forgive me? Would he see all the scars I now bore? Would I… was it possible to be me again, when I was so unsure of who I was, anymore? These questions plagued me during my drive. When I got to the college there was First standing in a parking lot. In that instant I knew I had to be brave enough to find all my answers. I would not take the coward’s way out and I would face him, if for no other reason than I felt like I had no choice. All the initial awkwardness fell away and I saw him, the him I had dreamed of a thousand times. I saw that he had scars of his own. His hair was disheveled, and his clothes showed the strain of the long trip to Ohio, but his smile, his eyes, they showed an older, more mature, version of the first boy I had ever loved. I noticed the sadness in his eyes that came from someplace very far from where we stood in that parking lot. I knew as he looked me hard in the face he saw it in mine, too. We had both earned our place on earth the hard way. He was the literal version of the starving artist. I had a few dollars and wanted to go somewhere to eat. I didn’t understand how he could not afford a pizza, that it was a luxury item for him. When I asked him, he turned to me and spat out, “You are acting like a spoiled sorority brat.” I reeled back from his comment and he quickly grabbed me into his arms and begged for forgiveness. I knew he didn’t really mean it, he was just tired and worn thin. He didn’t know that my clothes were as a much of a lie as what I had told my parents about where I was going. We didn’t know the details of how hurt we both were from making wrong turns since the last time we had seen each other. What we were certain of was there was still love between us. We leaned into each other holding each close, knowing the clock was once again ticking and our time was limited. That night we slept in the freezing cold in my car. His friend was camping nearby. We were both small and could fit on one seat of the Chevy Impala I was driving. We didn’t talk much that night. We hugged each other, kissed, held hands, and traced our fingers on each other’s faces. We watched each other sleep, listened to the sound of our breath as we inhaled in tandem. It was all so innocent, so striking in contrast to the life and lie I had been living. The sun rose and again and someone was leaving, but this time it was me. I went back to school and almost as if it had all been a mirage my life went directly back to where it had been. It was the very last time I would ever see my beloved First.
During the really gut wrenching moments of my life I searched for First. When I was due to give birth to Betty and I had made out my will, signed the last legal document, I wrote letters to all of my friends, including First. I didn’t have his address anymore, but I wanted to write the words just in case someone else could find him. When I was going through my divorce, once again I picked up the search, but had no luck finding First. One night in a rage Danny had burned every love letter I had ever gotten. He threw the whole entire box of keepsakes in the fireplace and said simply, “Get over it.” With no address or phone number to go by, I did what I could to find him, until it seemed destiny had once again played it’s hand and I was not find him then or ever. I had given up hearing from First. The moments I thought of him the most were when I was dating and he was the bar that other men had to reach. In my youthful ignorance I thought I destroyed all the lessons, all the moments that had meant everything. But the voice of First could not be silenced. His voice would stay in my head when I was feeling so alone, I felt I might die from it. I thought of him when it looked as though a man wasn’t going to treat me right. First became the beacon I followed to find my own heart, so one day I would have it give. One day, I found a man who loved me. He loved me as First had, completely. The greatest gift I ever got from First was the ability to recognize that love doesn’t come often, so it truly is better t have loved and lost than to never have loved at all. I learned that lesson so well, that I married the only other man who saw me all the way to my heart, my darling Michael.
First is happily married now. He is peaceful and funny and most of all happy. Just as I had, he learned the lessons of love and held close to the girl who would see all of him. Together they created their own happy ending.

Memory Bank (part 8)

The drive home was long, boring and unexciting. With vacation over, I sat in the back seat daydreaming of First. He was literally first and foremost in my mind. Part of me was unbelievably happy, while the rest of me sat in miserable silence. His life was one of an adult, while I was still very much a child, going to high school, being in marching band wearing that hideous hat with a feather plume. As if being in band wasn’t nearly dorky enough, they dressed up in wool uniforms that never were the right size and hats with chin straps. I tried to picture First in my hometown with me. I sat thinking of what it would be like if he were to move to Ohio. How would it work out for us while I was still in high school? Not having enough mature brain cells to paint the picture of romance meeting reality, I let it all go and just thought about the time I had just spent with him. The biggest thing for me was all the talking we did. My insignificant experience with boys was that they didn’t talk much, which having me around, was horrifying for them, because all I did was talk. Being shy at that point in my life was not my issue. First kept up with me verbally, bantering back and forth, and saying highly intelligent things that were so funny. I never felt like the conversation was lopsided like I did so many other times. There was this flow to things, an order of sorts, where we just were exactly as we should be. I wasn’t self conscious around him either, which I felt during our time together. Instinctively, I knew I was different around him than I had been with other males. I was neither intimidated nor disinterested. It was evident to both of us that he was smarter, more experienced in life, but I never felt as though he talked down to me. If I didn’t know something, I asked. If he knew the answer, he told me. It was such a simple way to be. I watched the landscape slide by my window in a blur thinking I wished all of my life were as easy as it was with him.
Once we were home, I unpacked and settled into the life I knew. I had to learn how to drive, get ready for my nerdy band camp, and survive summer in a new house. We had just moved to the opposite side of town earlier that year. Even though I had grown up in my hometown all my life, being separated from the only home I knew was disconcerting. The house was bigger, so my grandmother could move in. She had Parkinson’s disease and could no longer live on her own. My room sort of looked like my room, but newer, a little bigger and it smelled of fresh paint. The carpet was plush between my toes, a lovely champagne color, as I walked around in bare feet. I paced in my room, feeling very anxious about First and if I would hear from him. I tried to busy up, occupying my mind with high school stuff, but the truth was I felt changed, I felt different as if somewhere between when I left my sophomore year and got home from vacation I had become something other than just a high school girl. The feelings I had were bigger than boyfriends from my past. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but I knew I would not be the same person who had gotten into my parents station wagon a few weeks earlier.
True to his word, First wrote, and called. He was the exact person I had thought he was. I knew I loved him, but wondered if he felt the same lightning strike I had. We talked about everything. We couldn’t seem to get the words out fast enough. He did love me. He felt the same as I did. I had not imagined things, or blown things out of proportion because he felt it too. First soothed my anxious heart many times over the summer. As weeks slipped away I began to doubt whether our relationship was feasible. First drove up to see me later in the summer. I clung to him as the child I was. Reality played no part in how I was feeling. I didn’t give a damn about anyone or anything but being with him. In our family home, it felt weird having him there, but I felt normal when it was just him and me. When we could spend time just the two of us, it all felt as if the pieces fit, as if we were precisely in the right spot, in the right time. Once again, First had to leave, taking all of my love with him. Again I mourned. And then I did something I still regret to this day. I took all of my childish insecurity and actively chose wrong over and over and over. My actions changed both of us irrevocably, but this time it was no divine intervention, it was no lightning strike. This time I allowed fear, anxiety, and selfishness to run the show. What I did would hurt both of us right to our cores.
I talked obsessively about First. Remember the first time you fell in love? Remember how you felt as though you had won the lottery? It was my mind set everyday all day. But there was a caveat; I whined incessantly about not having him around. I went from happy to hand wringing in under thirty seconds. I can’t remember if I asked for advice or just got it anyway, but the next thing I knew everyone in my inner circle began telling me how ridiculous I was for thinking I could have a boyfriend his age, with that much distance between us. “Do you seriously think he is going to want to take you to prom? Good God Kellie, he is in college.” “There is no way he isn’t having sex with other people. Look at how old he is.” “If you make him move up here you will ruin his life.” “Ruin his life…” became the constant voice I heard time and time again. In my head I wondered, “If he moves will I ruin his life? Will he think I am worth it? What if we break up and he hates me forever for ruining his life? What if he discovers I am nothing and he moved away from his friends and family for nothing?” At sixteen one can become a tortured soul and I certainly did. I spent countless hours telling myself I was not worthy of First, or his love. I chose to listen to bad advice from ill informed people. Where I was confident, happy and able to follow my gut instincts with First, on my own I became a human wrecking ball, destroying everything in my path. I did not want that for my beloved First. I knew he deserved everything, I felt he certainly deserved better than me. He deserved someone who could stand in their truth and feel confident about their decisions, not some snot nosed, wimpy sixteen year old who couldn’t drive. I told First we were breaking up because I wanted to see other people. I told him the distance was too far. I lied.
We did indeed break up. First, always being a gentleman told me he understood. I was crushed. My heart was truly broken and I felt little consolation with having saved First from a fate of being with me. We left things alone after that and I went back to being a miserable teenager. I ended up dating a guy who had dumped me the previous year, arbitrarily. I was a good girlfriend doing what I was told, going on dates, going through the motions of what “normal” was supposed to look like for a high school junior. I let it slide the first time my resident boyfriend told me to shut up. I was shocked initially because First would have never done anything like that, but this was different so I said nothing. I muffled my cries the first time I got hit by the boy who was close to home. I was indeed having lots of firsts, but none were happy. I accepted that this boyfriend wasn’t so smart, he was dangerous. I forgave him each time he raised his hand to me, screamed at me or called me names. I felt I deserved it. I punished myself for hurting First, for thinking I should have the happiness I felt around him and for what I’d done. I knew I gotten it wrong, but felt as if it were too late. I thought I had ruined everything, so it was best to let it go and accept that what I had was all I could ever hope for. I stayed in that abusive, hurtful relationship for years. I let my own insecurities, feelings of worthlessness, steer my course. It was a terrible relationship, if you can even call it that. He was a drug addict and I was his whipping post. There were many nights when I would lay in my bed thinking of First and the love I gave up. I thought of him falling in love with another girl, living happy, all of his dreams coming true. I would lay there closing my eyes so tight the tears would squeeze from my lids in forced hot streams, running down my cheeks, soaking my pillow, staining it black with mascara. The following summer I looked into the stars and wondered if First were looking too. I sat out on our deck just star gazing wondering if I would ever get out of this self imposed prison and find happiness one day. I looked out over the horizon and felt a shiver up my spine. It was a physical whisper of sorts; a reminder that once, a long time ago a boy loved me for exactly who I was. In that moment, I began to remember who I had been before my most recent “reality” had set in.

Memory bank (part 7)

I do not have permission to use the dark haired boys’ real name, and while I thought of giving him a traditional male name other than his, I could not for the life of me think of a suitable alternative. In this regard I shall call him First, because he was the first man in my young life to see me, I mean really see me as a person, a whole human being, unique and utterly dorky unto myself. That is how I felt around First, as if no one had bared witness to my life until he showed up. We spent only days together because he was due to leave just as we had gotten there. The wondrous time we had was based on mere hours when broken down rather than weeks or years. We walked the beach, spent hours talking, holding hands, kissing under the stars, reveling in the serendipity that had brought us together. Under no other circumstances could it have been possible for us to meet. First lived in another state having travelled hours to the beach with his friend before he was to go off into military training and head back to college. I lived hours away from his home back in Ohio, doing little except being sixteen and living small in my small town. I knew then as I know now how exceptional our time together was. First was no minor fling, no summer romance to be soon forgotten after the leaves had begun to change their color. He was a man who effected me so deeply, so profound was my love for him it would change me forever. I watched his face constantly. It was as if I knew I must memorize every expression, every crinkled brow, every tiny nuance of his face, so I could carry it with me long after he departed. I had never laughed as hard as I did with First. His brilliant mind, gentle hands and warm smile made me feel as if I were home, home in a way where I could be me in my fullest possible extent. First made me feel extraordinary. I had never felt that with anyone before, not my family, not my friends, not a single person had the ability or talent to see so far into my heart that I felt I could be anything I wanted without apology. It was such a gift, this love, this untimely surprising freeing of my soul and heart. I bloomed around him like a tightly wound bud, just waiting for the sun to shine on me long enough to allow me to open. It may sound as if I am waxing poetic, but it was this love where I discovered what poetry was, why some wrote so eloquently about the object of their desire. First was indeed a lightning strike, a singular moment in time that altered my interior landscape, moving my mind in the direction of optimism, finding hope where there had once only been a darkened void, I was too afraid to explore.
My God given gift, the one I was blessed with so long ago in the moment I was born and continues to be the thing I am most grateful for is knowing the importance of when divine intervention has taken place. So many times I have been made aware of when important things are happening around me. This was the case with First. I knew in my mind, my heart, that something big was happening and I shouldn’t ignore or reduce it to a simplistic coincidence.
Before I knew what to do or how to handle it, First had to go home. Our time together was up and it was time to let go of his hand. With big sloppy tears in our eyes that fell out over our faces he packed up his camping gear and was gone. We had exchanged information as one would do during an automobile accident. At sixteen all I knew was fear. First assured me he would not forget me, he would call, write me, do anything he could to keep us together at least in spirit until we could be together for good. I wanted to believe him. I felt such desperation as he prepared to leave that we would certainly not be able to make this work. My mind much like my world and my hometown was small. I felt the cruelty of having met what certainly felt like my other half, just in time to let him go. My parents could not understand the depths of why I was grieving so much over a boy, a simple boy met on vacation, especially when our time together had been so short. I became defensive, so I was teased about my immaturity; my naivety was mocked by those who knew nothing of what I felt. It’s funny how when we get older we forget how much we can feel when we are young, before the world teaches to be guarded, closed off, or “realistic”. In years to come, I would become the very thing I despised in the adults in my teenage life. I had been reminded of these feelings, these strong, mind melting feelings that only the unmarred can have, when I became a mother. I would witness my own children go through similar things as I monitored my “realism” in order to spare them what most would consider inevitable. They would get hurt as I did. They would cry and be broken open as I had. I knew with my God given gift I needed to be there in that moment with them, saying only how sorry I was they had to go through it. I had learned, and it would be one of the many lessons First had taught me, just by being in my life.

Memory Bank (part 6)

At sixteen years old there were certain things I was sure of. I was absolutely certain my dad would skin me alive if I did anything illegal, I knew my mom expected nothing short of absolute lady like behavior, and I was positive there were boys somewhere around the beach. My world back then was so small. It’s funny how big everything seemed at the time, and now how, looking back, it was all so very small. Even I was so much smaller. I had barely broken a hundred pounds, and considered myself to have very large thighs. I never bothered to stop and really look at myself in any real sense, seeing that I had muscular legs, not fat ones. I saw every pimple, every stray hair, and every mole every single infinitesimal thing that could be viewed with the naked eye, then actively decided to dwell on my imperfections rather than the positive aspects of who and what I was. I was still more tomboy than girl, liking to play rather than date. I had had boyfriends, but found myself stunned at how much they wanted of me and how fast they wanted it. It was all about making out and acting like I didn’t want to, which now I see how I felt forced at times to be more woman than I probably was ready for. I have seen it in my girls, as a mother, too, all this pressure to be more adult than one wants to be. I was free from boyfriends at this time, not really wanting the hassle of having to keep up the appearance or the maintenance of a relationship, but I felt lonely often too. I guess it remains true throughout our lives that we always want what we don’t have. After all the initial arrival procedures were taken care of, I was free to wander the campground and see who was there, and by who I mean males, the red blooded surfer types who often showed up, tanned, blond and searching for a summer fling. In those initial moments of coming back to our favorite place for the last time, I was thinking a fling, a summer romance would be perfect for me. No strings, no long term anything, just a few days of summer sun, a few nights of star gazing and a little kissing if it seemed right.
Kim, my older sister, and I went up to the store that housed laundry facilities, snack food and a few pinball games to catch any other teenagers who might be around. We walked in and looked around and saw two guys. I say guys because they weren’t really boys, they were college students and they looked older. One was fair haired; the other had dark hair and brown eyes. We sized each other up and right away I could tell the fair haired one was looking at Kim. To be honest most boys or guys, looked directly at Kim and didn’t even notice I was in the room. Noticing they were more mature, I figured they would vie for her attention, leaving me to play pinball and remain ignored. I was used to being invisible in rooms with males when my sister was present. Where I was goofy, smirking, with a thinner, flatter, more boyish body type, not popular among young men, my sister was athletic and curvaceous. She filled out her bikini with ease while I had to keep mine from riding up my straight frame. Kim had naturally curly hair that wound loosely around her face, while mine was poker straight, much like the rest of me. When we traveled together, boys immediately noticed Kim. I could be standing right next to her completely engulfed in flames and they wouldn’t have flinched. Seeing the guys, I figured I might as well busy myself up with doing anything else rather than making the effort to talk to them since Kim would be the object of their affection. We all briefly said. “Hi” looking awkward, when I noticed the most incredible thing. The dark eyed boy was looking at me. I stood in front of him looking at his face for the sign of boredom that usually showed up right after the initial greeting. He held my gaze. He began talking to me. In my head I was wondering what he wanted, if he thought by talking to me it would increase his chances with my sister. I had lived through plenty of that also, where boys would befriend me in hopes of getting to her. We talked, laughed and joked, when he smiled this incredible broad smile showing all of his perfectly straight teeth. I’m a teeth person, so I noticed it right away. Big white smiles are so sexy to me. Even dating much later in my thirties, teeth and hands were my thing, the stuff I noticed right away. I think it has something to do with hygiene. My dad was meticulous about his hygiene, so I always looked for the really clean guy. The dark haired boy had the nicest smile I had ever seen. There was something so warm about him, too, the way he looked right in my eyes, they way he spoke to me saying funny things making me laugh, when I felt so awkward. My other big knee melting weakness is smart. If the guy is borderline nerdy smart, then I melt like a pat of butter on a hot skillet. The dark haired boy was smart, I mean really smart, the kind of smart where I had to ask several times to what he was referring. I knew even then, what I am most definitely certain of now, that one can only be truly funny if one is smart. The dark haired boy had a razor sharp wit, this abundant intellect that had my jaw open and possibly drooling. While I could plainly see he was handsome, what drew me in was how funny he was, how intelligent he sounded, how incredibly unique he was. What I was witnessing, what I was encompassed by, was what I like to call a lightning strike, when something so rare happens, I know in that instant it might never happen again. I felt the electricity between us, so raw, so real, so intoxicating, I didn’t even notice when my sister and the fair haired boy took their leave.

Memory Bank (continued part 5)

I was sixteen years old the last summer we went to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. I didn’t know it then, but it would be the last official family vacation we would ever take together. I had started going there when I was twelve. I knew nothing of the ocean back then. My father announced we would be traveling to the Carolinas, South to visit friends and then on to North Carolina to the beach where we would spend the remainder of that vacation. At our friends house I was shy, awkward and I thought they talked funny, these people who I had grown up with in my hometown in Ohio. A middle son, Wesley pronounced naked as necked, separating the last syllable out as “ed”. I asked him to repeat it several times, when his older brother who had kept some of his fluent Ohioan language skills explained it for me. “Ooooh,” I said back finally understanding this foreign tongued boy. He might as well have been speaking French for all the information I was able to gather through his thick drawl. By the time we were scheduled to leave I had made friends with them again after having been apart for many years. I was not anxious to go to the beach where I feared sharks and jelly fish would certainly attack me the minute I hit the water. We drove well into the night when we finally arrived at the desolate place. My immediate reaction was to sob. I couldn’t see anything that even remotely resembled the lovely place my dad had described from an earlier visit he and my mom had taken. For him it was a sanctuary, for my twelve year old mind it was hell. It was pitch black as he had to maneuver a smaller camper onto the cement pad. There were no trees, no woods as I had always been surrounded by when we went camping. There was nothingness. I could hear the crashing waves just beyond the sand dunes and a storm was brewing off the coast. I was scared; terrified of what I could not see and things I could only hear that made my imagination go wild. I cried myself to sleep that night, only to wake up and discover we landed in Oz.
Swollen eyed and still very upset to be brought to what I was sure was some God forsaken place, I rubbed my eyes and slowly climbed down from the bunk with the small air space. Get up too quickly and I would have knocked myself unconscious. My parents had a pull out couch they made up and slept on, which the moment they got up they had to promptly put back together so we all had some place to sit. The smell of breakfast, fried eggs and bacon hung heavy in the salty sea air. The breeze blew the curtains back and forth through the windows and the sun was shining high in the sky, lighting the new world we had landed in. I walked outside and saw my dad, sitting fiddling with fishing tackle and poles. “Good morning, Weepy.” My father grinned at me, waiting for my full reaction of the place he couldn’t wait to take us to. I felt my stubbornness creep into my face, as I tried not to look as excited as I was. My instinct was to run at break neck speed toward the ocean to see it, smell it, squish the sand between my toes. Moping, I went over to a camp stool opposite my dad instead, making sure I was continuing to wear my scowl, so as not to reveal any indication that he had been right bringing me to the apocalypse. “You know,” Dad started out saying, “I know you are not nearly as unhappy now about being here as you were last night.” I squinted my eyes hard back at him trying to prove once again how wrong he was. Dad grinned ear to ear at me. “Give it up, kid. I am on to you. I know you can’t wait to go to the beach.” He was right, I was dying to give up my bratty facade and go to the beach, but I still wasn’t a hundred percent sure I was thrilled to be here, though if I had had to make an educated guess, I was fairly certain he was right. I continued to pout and went back into the camper to see my mom and avoid Dad’s gloating. After breakfast we all went to the beach with chairs, sun screen, cans of pop, a book for mom, fishing equipment for Dad and inflatable rafts for Kim and me. Dad went over all the new rules for swimming in the ocean. “This is different, it is salt water so don’t swallow it. Stay close to shore and if you get caught in a rip tide, swim with the current. Do you understand me?” We both nodded in agreement that we understood everything he had just laid out, but for me, I was so distracted by the water, the waves as they crashed into shore, the sea gulls flying over head scouring the beach for anyone foolish enough to feed them and the boys who were on surf boards, just beyond the second break. I would have agreed to almost anything at that point in order to get cut loose from my father’s current lecture hold.
By the end of our stay I was crying because we had to leave. The place that once seemed desolate, barren and isolated, as if it were cut directly from a science fiction movie was now someplace I wanted to move to and live forever. I swam in the ocean every day, my hair turning a white blonde as my skin darkened by the day from the sun. I sat on the edge of the water digging for tiny clams, so I could race them with the new friend I had met, Nancy. I kept one clam in a bucket while we were there, naming it Clamintine. She/he was my best racer. I would put in fresh sea water and kelp every day in her bucket, so she would stay alive long enough to race that afternoon. I would dig her up from the bucket’s bottom and throw her into the pool we had dug, by hand for our races. She continued her winning streak until the day we had to pack up and head out on the road. My last day, I took Miss Clamintine, the best clam in the world, and set her free in the shallow edge of the crashing waves. Come to think of it, I shed a tear over that too. Thinking back I realize now, I was kind of cry baby. Scary things made me cry, sad things made me cry, happy things made cry, sentimental things made me cry. Dad really shouldn’t have been so worried about me taking salt water. It turns out I had already gulped in my fair share.

Memory Bank (continued part 4)

My favorite times when traveling with my dad during our longer trips to the Outer Banks were when we would arrive at the campground. There were strict rules of propriety for those of us not in the driver’s seat; no one was allowed to leave the campsite until the trailer was firmly propped into place on the cement slab. My dad had to back up our comically long trailer onto a thin strip of cement surrounded by nothing but sand. The scruffy dune covered landscape offered little to those who dared bring a trailer nearly the length of the slab. One false move in either direction would lead us to a catastrophic place of being stuck in the sand. My sister, Mom, Grandma and me would get out of the car as my dad carefully used two large mirrors bolted on the side of our station wagon to maneuver his way onto the slab. He literally had to inch the trailer in sharp right angles backing up our parade float until he reached the very edge of the slab. As he made several attempts to get the trailer into position we could hear a string of swear words coming from inside the driver’s seat from my dad. Most was garbled by wind and distance but faint grumblings of the most offensive language made its way to our ears as Grandma winced at her son’s verbiage. Kim and I laughed, hiding our faces from Mom and Dad’s view, knowing we would be chastised with a deathly look if caught. It was such stereo typical family moment for us as we heard our dad yell obscenities as my mom desperately tried to direct him onto our new home for the next couple of weeks. Entire comic movies are made by such events, and I knew why even as a kid. Once the trailer was put into place, jacks had to be set up, leveling had to be acquired and the car had to be detached along with the giant side mirrors bolted to our station wagons sides, he used for driving. The check list of what we had to accomplish was long and involved and there was o leaving until all the work was done. We each had a set of jobs and we set about the work of setting up camp. The last thing that needed to be done before we could shower off the long car ride was to lower and brace the canopy over the patio area of our campsite. Once that was accomplished the unpacking portion of the trip began as chairs were moved outside in order for us to get to our bunks. Mom would head to the kitchen area and start setting up her organized station where she would have to produce meals from a miniature model of what we had at home.
My dad to his credit took our last trip there when I was 16 and my sister was 18. He was surrounded by his mother, his wife and his teenage daughters. The amount of estrogen in that small place was palpable. The only other male was the dog, who stuck to my dad, I think of fearful of all the females in close proximity. As my sister and I had grown into young women our packing became a greater ordeal than the trip itself. As small children we had been limited to beer boxes my dad had gotten from a store. These boxes had flip tops and we were told to pack only what fit into these boxes that would allow the lids to be closed tight. I didn’t need much when I was little so packing light was fine by me, but as a young woman, I had a blow drier, curling iron, make-up, hair products, multiple bathing suits and enough clothes to change outfits at least three times a day. The skill set my sister I had to acquire was to squeeze as many outfits into these small boxes as possible. I could fold clothes into tiny little packages no bigger than a can of spam. Shoes were bent and tightly shoved into the sides and I insisted on extra bags or containers for make-up and accessories. At first Dad balked at the idea of more stuff going into the already cramped quarters, but eventually he caved like a house of cards knowing the trip would be miserable if he forced us to leave all of our accoutrement at home. Nothing made my dad more miserable than having to listen to the incessant bickering, bitching and whining of teenage girls. While we had learned which buttons to push in order to maintain our femininity, my dad learned which rules to fully enforce in order to maintain his personal peace and quiet. My father having worked for an entire year just to get these two weeks off in the summer was not about to throw away his sanity on a blow drier.

Memory Bank (continued part 3)

The drive itself took nearly 14 hours depending on the weather and the whininess of yours truly and of course the dog. The dog, when we had one to take, became the biggest issue. While my dad showed little compassion for the humans in the car, if the dog needed water, a bathroom break or some fresh air we would stop on a dime. I had to hand it to my dad, he did have a heart as big as all outdoors, you just needed to wag your tail and have kibble for dinner in order to truly see it at all times. The car rides for me were pure torture. I was a nervous, no strike that I am a nervous person, or at least that is what some people call it. I have been called anxious, energetic, boisterous, hyper, and on a very diplomatic day enthusiastic. I am all of those things, so sitting for hours doing anything for me is a real chore. The writing is different because I don’t usually have to watch the clock. I sit down and start writing and before I know it the clock shows that hours have passed. Since getting older, I only truly notice the passage of time when I go to get up and proceed to fall flat on my face because my legs have fallen asleep. I am not writing this as comedic effect, it has happened, where I have been so engrossed in the work of writing, I haven’t seen the day turn into night, and my body has decided to sleep without me. When I work at the bar, getting off the bar stool gets really interesting. Either one can hear cracking, popping and groans or a devastating “kersplat!” Which means I am lying face down on the floor as the dogs, who originally came to investigate now see this an opportune time to lick my face and sit on my back. So, yeah, sitting for me is as painful now as when I was a kid/teen person, but for different reasons.
Back in the car, I fidgeted until I heard my dad threaten to leave me at the next available stop. I popped my gum, played little games by myself, read, drew and eventually asked one hundred thousand questions of my parents about everything under the sun. “Where did you go to elementary school? Did you have more than ten friends in school? Did you go to your Grandma’s house on weekends like we do? Did you always know you wanted kids? Do you like cats? What would you do if a million cats showed up at our house and they were all starving?” I asked a lot of questions. I asked enough questions of my travel weary parents that it made them want to change their answer about always wanting kids. I made my terrible situation everybody’s terrible situation. The only defense I have is I like to share. The only time I would calm down and relax for a minute was when we would pass the most spectacular scenery. I got to view mountains, tunnels that dove under the water and went on for miles, bridges that I could not see the end of in the beginning, pastures of green grasses and fields full of corn and other vegetables. I saw hundred year old barns, massive hotels, brand new construction, and small towns that were only notable by the one blinking yellow light in the center of town. Gas stations still had soda machines with real glass bottles, diners made every meal from scratch and candy counters had candy that cost under a quarter. The further south we went, it seemed the further we were from things that had progressed into pollutants. In the south there were still so much of a time gone by. For me it was the best part of the trip, seeing how different we all are, though we live in the same country where others view as one. Accents shifted from flat under-toned inflection to a more rolling lilt, a southern twang to a full on drawl. In mere hours we would be transcended from one culture into another, all while rolling along in our station wagon with the long trailer tied behind us. The people were the most interesting thing in the world to me, how they dressed, what they said, why they said it, where they lived, if they liked where they lived. I may not have had the nerve to ask them all those questions, but I certainly had them in my head, rolling around, just waiting to see if they were answered by actions or words without being asked. There have been times when I wondered what people saw in me? You know how someone will meet you for the first time and get the entire first impression of you wrong, just by a look or word? Did people think my direct gaze was judgmental or did they see the one hundred thousand questions in my eyes? I have always wanted to ask someone who remembered meeting me for the first time, someone not from my hometown, where my reputation as a complete dork hadn’t proceeded me. I was riveted by clothing that hung in stores. Different parts of the country wore different things. It’s not to say there weren’t places where we could generic things, but there were times when clothing was geographically specific. We don’t have that now, thanks in part to the superstores that are now everywhere and the internet. But once upon a time, we were different people living in one country who liked the fact that we were different. There was a time when everything wasn’t homogenized to death diluting cultures into watery puddles to be stepped through as we make our way into the future. I have gotten disheartened over the years as we become a single type of people, mostly because cultural stories are the most interesting, the most educational, the most emotional, and the most diverse. I am not one who believes that evolution is the same as dilution. Growing smarter yes, but I like the history that hangs around our necks as an adornment of who we are becoming.
It was how different the boy looked, the easy way he smiled, how comfortable he seemed in his own skin, that caught my eye at first meeting. When he spoke I was tuned in completely. His wicked smart sarcasm had me riveted. Then he laughed, out loud bearing his brilliant smile and I melted like a fudgesicle on a hot day.

Memory Bank (continued part 2)

The boy I wrote about earlier…the boy, the boy, not quite man, not really a boy, the artist, he was the first male person to love me. I was on vacation with my parents, a teenager, a blond skinny, sinewy youth, full of piss and vinegar. I was innocent, the kind of innocence that allowed a genuine sweetness of character, a youthful, naive belief that most people were wonderful. I hadn’t yet been completely convinced of the evil that can lurk in dark corners. I had not experienced all the shocking horrors of adulthood. I still believed in love back then. I had seen things, sinister things that taught me to be careful when things became obvious, but I had not yet seen the ones who smile as they stabbed me in the heart. I still had the watery impressions of real love being the kind where couples walked along the beach holding hands, laughing at nothing but each other, telling secrets, kissing in the moonlight. The boy, the incredible dark haired boy, who had a smile that lit up an entire sky, he proved all my childish ideas to be true. Not once did he shatter my illusion. He created for me a dream state that would carry me through some of my darkest hours. He gave me the most priceless gift, the most precious part of himself, he gave me his whole heart first and then he gave me hope.
Being a teenager, a girl no less, I was allowed about 50 feet from my parents when we were at the beach. I was allowed as far away from my father as his whistle. The moment I couldn’t hear and respond immediately to his high pitched whistle, I was going to be in the kind of trouble that epic novels are based on. My father was serious. For my dad to have to wait a minute longer than he had to meant a lack of respect for him, it meant I was disrespecting his place in our family, and that was a no-no. I had done that, pushing those buttons until the veins in my father’s forehead stood out at attention, throbbing visibly in front of me. I had seen his eyes squint hard as he fought the temptation to throw me in the direction of where he wanted me to be, so there were no great excursions, or going “out”. There was only going up to the store at the front of the camp ground. Even the campground itself was far removed from any town or gathering places. It was Rodanthe, North Carolina, near Cape Hatteras. Our family had gone there every year for vacation for years. We left right after school was out in June, to bask in the sun, walk the white sand, fish off the pier, and surf in the waves and for me, scout the new talent every year in the form of teenage boys. The boys at eh beach with their tanned skin, no shirts, athletic builds, carrying surf boards, laughing, showing off for the bikini clad girls on towels who were quite literally laying in wait. Summers on the beach were the best. In the evening we would walk the beach, the moon so bright no other light was needed. Stars reflected off the waves created a double vision of sorts; everywhere you looked whether up or down you could see heaven.
We lived in a camper for the two weeks we were there. Our trailer was big, sleeping 6 with a bathroom, kitchen table and a sofa. It was a large cumbersome sheet metal house on wheels that my dad had to drag behind our station wagon through the mountains of West Virginia, down the hills of Virginia over the bridges, past the sand dunes to our vacation spot at the KOA in Rodanthe. My grandmother, the operatic genius of her time, rode in the back seat with my sister and me. Grandma was not a good singer, but she could hit high notes, when she thought my dad was driving too close to the car in front of us, that made the dog cover his ears. I would say it was comical watching all of us pile into the station wagon with the long trailer hitched to the back, but trust me, no one in that car was laughing. My mom would read from travel books she had collected over the prior decade as we passed “significant” places. My father wouldn’t stop to let us use the restroom, so stopping to sight see was absolutely out of the question. Every year my poor mom would gather her travel books, dog-earing the places she most wanted to visit. Every year she would ask my dad if he would stop just his once to allow her to see the place she had read about, and every year he said the same thing, “We’ll see…” Which of course meant no, but Mom remained hopeful right up until we hit the bridge to go over to the beach. She would be at the ready reading aloud how fascinating the world’s largest ball of string, or battle ground for under achievers was. She read about historical homes built in hopes of having a visiting president that actually showed up, or towns full of rubble of historical sites no longer in existence. Mom had legitimate tourist sites but having her read the obscure stuff, the really obtuse out of the way stuff that no one else knew of, not even the town’s people, well, that was our entertainment for the trip. “Did you know the first officer killed in the civil war had a servant that had aspired to live in this town?” Mom would ask sincere in her endeavor to educate us. We would all shake our heads in answer, as she dove, bifocals first, back into her reading material to pull out another gem. “Did you know the first glass factory used sand that came from a beach just 45 miles from here?” “Did you know that when Virginia became a state…” poor Mom would continue her reading with a question and answer period long after the rest of had fallen asleep, except for Dad who listened to the road and Mom.

Memory Bank

No one likes being a complete dork all the time and I am no exception. I have these moments in my life when I have, in my naivety, been a complete an utter dork, in ways that remain visceral in my memory bank. I will tell you the harder I try not to be a big dork, the more glaringly apparent it is that I will always be a big dork. You would think I would be immune to the embarrassment I cause myself. But alas it is not to be. And to add further insult to injury, I am incapable of hiding a single emotion. My face can turn approximately twelve shades of red, depending on the severity of my ignorance. I say ignorance, because with me there is never any malicious intent. My ineptitude has reached epic levels of success that others merely dream of achieving. My mother always said, “If you are going to do something, do it well.” I am not sure how proud she would be of me about this, but at least she can console herself with the fact that I took her wise words to heart.
I didn’t know squat about art, the etiquette reserved for the art world or what it all meant. I knew an artist at the time of this story. He was a lovely creature with a big heart and sharp wit. Art was his world, not mine. He did sculpture. He had tried to explain to my young and empty head the intricacies of his work, but in truth, I usually just stared off into space like a deer caught in headlights. More on him later in the chapter.
Sometime after he and I had lost contact with each other, I found myself drifting into a college art gallery. I was killing time, more than I had an innate curiosity about what the gallery contained. It was cold outside and I was waiting for a friend to come and meet me. It was dark, early evening, when I saw a glow of lights coming from a windowed building. To be honest, I really don’t remember which friend or even where I was, which college I was at. My friends were scattered all over the state, so I drove to see them whenever I could.
So there I was dressed very casually in raggedy jeans with large holes in them, a t-shirt and a jean jacket, surrounded by people who wore dress clothes, suits with ties, cocktail dresses and name tags. Evidently the show was of some importance to the artists who were exhibiting their work. Most of what was on the walls and in the gallery were abstract pieces. Not knowing anything of their world, I had little appreciation for their efforts, or the deep meaning of the pieces they had spent a considerable time creating. I walked slowly in front of each piece, some paintings, some sculptures, and distractedly gazing, wishing time would pass and my friend would hurry and come get me. In the center of the room there was a metal sculpture, a large leaning piece of metal with a patina, lacquered finish shining perfectly smooth. It caught my eye, so I went in closer to have a better look. I had never before seen a metal sculpture that wasn’t outdoors. This was the first time I had witnessed a piece of such weight and magnitude, indoors on display. It appeared warm to me, as if glowing from its own heat source. I stood before this hunk of metal that had been welded, chemically altered, shined to a perfect finish mesmerized by the scale and curve of it. It had a feminine quality to it. It had great sweeping curves, a large rounded piece at the top, almost like a head. At first, it looked reminiscent of a praying mantis. As I stood there my mind wandered to the friend who I knew did metal work also. I pictured him making something like this extraordinary thing of beauty that hovered over me. The distant hum of low toned conversation could be heard as a white noise somewhere behind me, but I was transfixed as I stood grounded to my place next this thing, this weighted, glistening thing, I could not take my eyes off of. I was completely absorbed, unaware of my surroundings as I continued to stare. Time seemed to utterly stand still for me. Without thinking, without even knowing why, I reached my hand out and touched the sculpture. As I stood with my hand gently placed on the largest curve of the melted female, I suddenly saw out of the corner of my eye some guy, some very infuriated guy storm over in my direction. As if glued to my position, I didn’t move and I didn’t remove my stray hand; I stood cemented right where I was.
In an instant he slapped my hand away, off his work and began screaming at me. “Are you some kind of idiot?” He was yelling at the top of his voice. I felt the blood fill my face. My eyes wide as tears began to build up, I stammered and stumbled backward. “Don’t you ever touch my work again!” He spat at me. I watched, horrified, mostly at my own stupidity, as the tiniest string of spittle connected both sides of his mouth. He then proceeded to pace around his piece mumbling to those around him what “fucking moron” I was. I had bumbled my way several feet from the incident when an older gentleman came over to me as I stared at the floor, realizing I no longer knew where the exit was. Once I again I was glued to my spot, but for reasons remarkably different than before. “I have been watching you” the man said. I looked just high enough at him avoiding his face but seeing his name tag that said “Dr.” something or another. Immediately my mind knew he was a professor, a faculty member of this world I was such a foreigner to. “Everybody is watching me, sir” I said directly to the ceramic floor. Not looking up, I had no idea of what his reaction was on his face or where this conversation was about to go. I envisioned myself being dragged away to art jail, for committing unspeakable crimes. I pictured myself standing before a beret wearing judge who sentences me to life, cleaning paint brushes, barring me from ever entering another gallery as long as I live. The well dressed professor, in a warm tone, then said the most amazing thing. “In view of the fact that you now know not to touch the art, your response is quite a compliment for the dickhead that created it.” Relieved and grateful for not having been arrested, I stood still for a moment as the professor took his leave. I wanted to giggle, but my fear superseded my humor. The angry dickhead came over to me again, only this time he asked leaning in, “What did he say to you? Did he mention my work? Did he say if he liked it?” Motionless, I said nothing. I found myself smiling as I made my way out, quite literally backing out of the gallery, making my exit back out into the cold. I stood on the sidewalk, breathing in the cold, trying to get my heart to stop racing. A few moments later my friend showed up. “Have you been waiting long?” “No”, I said, as the blood had finally started draining from my face. We exchanged hugs, as he said, “You know if you were cold there is a gallery right there you could have gone in. I hear there is a show tonight. A friend of mine is showing their senior work there.” We were walking away from the scene of my crime when I turned to him and asked,”What kind of art does your friend do?” I silently prayed that this anonymous friend wasn’t the dickhead sculptor. As I pleaded in my head, “Please,please,please…” I heard my friend say,”He’s a painter, oils, I think. I am not sure. I don’t know much about that stuff.” As we continued to make our way downtown, I thanked God or anyone else willing to listen that I hadn’t just embarrassed and humiliated myself, but inadvertently taken my friend with me down Alice’s rabbit hole.
Since that time, I have never and I do mean never touched another piece of art, regardless of how engrossed I became. Alert the museums, sound the alarms at the galleries, all art work is safe from the infamous art toucher.
Did you hear that? I swear it sounded like a collective sigh coming from the museum district.

The Worst Advice I Ever Got

I love my mom so much because of who she is and how she thinks. I actually, think she is brilliant, most days. There have been a few misses in her words of wisdom to me over the years. Those moments when she says something I am sure she will regret down the line, I have to tell you, are some of my favorite moments with my mom. Maybe it's my love of insanity, when completely normal, moral, thoughtful people lose their crap momentarily and say something horrendous at the exact precise moment that requires the complete opposite. I am not talking about hate speak, my mom does not have a single hateful thing about her. I am talking about word salad that makes its way into a conversation, when things are so screwed up the other person is nearly speechless, but comes up with some innocuous doozie that makes me laugh.
The doodle, a self portrait, by yours truly came from a time while I was going through my divorce living in an apartment with my kids, and my whole world was falling to pieces. I was working overtime, absolutely sleep deprived from working night shift, and finding myself embroiled in a do or die battle in the divorce proceedings. I was deep in the heart of Murphy, living his law to perfection. I was calling my mom a lot in those days, and nothing, absolutely nothing I said was hopeful, or happy or even completely sane. I would be crying one minute, angry the next, depressed five seconds later, all while my mom searched her brain for something she could say that would mean anything to me. Bless my mom's heart, with all she had heard, with everything she knew about my desperate situation, this is what came out of my loving mother's mouth,"Look, I know you are unhappy, but put a little lipstick on, fix your hair it will all be fine." Mouth agape, I hung up the phone and proceeded to laugh so hard I peed, just a little. O.K., so Ghandi she ain't, but I knew in that moment my life had gotten to be too much for mom too. She worried about what would happen to me, too. My expectations were to talk things out to her and for her to come up with some brilliant insight, which she was able to do at times, but she was also very connected to me and scared to death about what I was facing. I hadn't considered how my life falling apart was affecting her, even for a single second it had not occurred to me what it was like for her to watch the pain her child was in. Her horrible advice, which she laughs at now, was the time when I saw how ridiculous my expectations were, and the burden I put on my mom to try and stay objective. There was nothing objective about my life for my mom. Having kids who are now adults, I see exactly what she was going through. This delicious moment in time still makes me laugh. I relish these crazy idiosyncratic snippets of our relationship.
I confess, I didn't do what my mom said to do, for fear that my scribbling all over my face from pure frustration would alert some to consider having me put away, however, she wasn't all wrong. Over a period of time, I really did start taking better care of myself. I did start wearing make-up again, my crying had ebbed to a slow stream, versus the rushing rivers I had when I first separated from Danny. I really did get my hair done. Mind you it was at the salon school for half price, but I did make an effort to try and act like a normal person, once again.
Nothing happened in the immediate to change my doomed perspective on what my life had become. What I learned from my mom from the worst advice I ever got was, things did get better. I eventually became happy again. Time, although it didn't heal everything, had done a lovely job of closing my open wounds. So should you just put a little lipstick on and try to feel better? Yeah, I guess it couldn't hurt, but stay away from shaving your legs for awhile. Sharp objects for those who are going through a bad time in their life is definitely not a good idea.

Inappropriate Garnish

My mother and I were sitting outside of her house in Ohio talking when she was telling me about how a friend of hers served up a potato casserole no one would try because she had used pimento on the top of it as a garnish.
“You would eat it, wouldn’t you?” my mother asked as if it were a ridiculous notion for me not to. “No I wouldn’t,” I said defiantly, “The pimento would stop me in my tracks.”
“What are you talking about it? That’s ridiculous, you just scrape it off, the rest is fine,” my mom admonished my lack of bravery at trying pimento covered potatoes.
I gave up that argument with my mother as I so often did when I was certain she would have no appreciation for my having my own opinion. The truth is I would avoid those potatoes like the plague. I would take one look at the casserole and desperately wish the cook had not covered it in red squishy things to try and make it look like it was something other than just a potato casserole. Maybe her friend thought plain old potatoes were too boring to serve at the function. Was it a formal function that required a more distinguished dress for the food? Did the casserole complain of being cold so she felt obligated to cover them up? Whatever the circumstances that I was not made aware of, I am certain I would not have partaken of the dish due to its inappropriate garnish.
My grandmother was famous for shoving inappropriate things into Jello. Every family event Grandma would whip up some jello that outwardly looked delicious and refreshing until you took in a mouthful and found yourself chewing some sort of shredded vegetable that she had shoved into the center. It was shocking to my system every time she did it and she did it every time. You would think I would learn to avoid the Jello surprise after several attempts, only to find myself gagging and choking on roughage that had been encased by the jiggling mass. But alas it was not to be. My hopeful childlike nature refused to believe she would ruin every Jello dish with more horrifying and grossly unappetizing vegetable scraps. My feeling is simplicity is often the best garnish for any occasion. Better to serve something recognizable, than to expect one’s guest to scrape something off, or worse still, spit it out in a napkin.
I know why my mom thinks I would try things regardless of the inappropriate garnish that is used to disguise the obvious. She raised me to be polite and sneaky. She would deny the sneaky part and say it is heresy to say I was raised that way, but it is true. I was raised to take “no thank you helpings”, of food that I would never in my right mind eat even in the event of starvation. I was raised that it is better to choke something down than let the hostess know that I am deathly allergic to the main course. All my mother cares about when it comes to food, is good manners. One ambulance ride to the emergency room does not provide a reason to refuse good food that someone else has slaved over. I have had more arguments with my mother about people sticking weird things in food than I care to recount. “Why did they have to put dried mangos and pepperonis in the same salad?” I would look desperately at my mom for any kind of reasonable explanation. “Because it makes it look enticing. Now be quiet and grab a small spoonful so the hostess doesn’t feel bad.” My mom begins to put a tablespoonful on her own plate.
“If I eat that I will feel bad, how about that? Why is it O.K. for me to feel like crap? Can’t we just say I am a vegetarian?” I continue to plead. “With ribs on your plate?”Mom shakes her head at me as if I were an idiot. “I could say I am saving them for Michael”, I explain.
“He’s twelve hundred miles away in Houston Texas! Really, Kellie, it wouldn’t kill you to try something new.” Mom continues down the buffet line putting small dollops of unwanted food on her plate that she has no intention of actually eating. I watch my polite mother as she makes very obvious faces of disgust at some of the things she is “trying”, and I can’t help but wonder if we are doing the hostess any favors. Others in the same line have no problem snubbing the odd combinations that look unappealing, so why do we have to pretend to eat it? “If it’s that bad,” my mother continues, “just spit it in a napkin.” I look again at my mother and say flatly,”My napkin isn’t big enough. I have a question for you; wouldn’t it be easier and nicer to ignore the unrecognizable, so the hostess doesn’t make that mistake again? It seems kinder to quietly let her know that garbage pot pie is not an appropriate dish for any affair.” My mom looks at me with utter disdain, “Well that is just rude. Be quiet and put the salmon stuffed with pickles on your plate.”
I am a foodie, who has great appreciation for new and exciting cuisine, but I cannot reconcile myself to eat things that are far from interesting combinations and more like found table scraps blended together. My family is famous at reunions for having the best and worst dishes at the same table. One can help themselves to the most delectable treats to the disgusting treachery, all on the same paper plate. I do try and be polite, but I think my mom has gone a bit over board trying to not hurt someone’s feelings. There just has to be a middle ground between devouring the delicious and hacking up the inevitable fur ball due to the unknown. There have been buffet lines where I have literally run out of napkins to spit in. As I dive below the surface of the table, I really don’t think I am fooling anyone, as I repeatedly cough and sputter meat and vegetable shreds into an already soggy and disintegrating single ply napkin. I also think people notice that I have as many napkins on my plate as I go to throw it away as I did original food stuff. My family is smart and knows basic math. It doesn’t take a rhubarb and mozzarella pie chart for them to see I haven’t eaten what was on my plate.
My mom tries again to convince me that it is more about my genetic stubborn streak, from my father, of course, than my want to eat what is appetizing and takes a different tack. “You eat weird things all the time. Your father and I can’t eat half the stuff you make when we visit your house.” “It’s called seasoning, Mom, and it’s not weird. People have been seasoning their food since the beginning of time.” I feign interest in the ongoing bullying to eat the brown gravy covered asparagus she has plopped onto my plate. “What exactly is that?” I ask her desperately trying to understand why as a woman in my forties I still have to eat things that smell like my sons dirt covered socks. My mom looks at me and then breaks into a huge fit of giggles. “I have no idea…maybe it’s something they saw in a magazine.” “’Composting Made Easy’?” I garble out, as I double over, trying not to spill the goo covering my drooping paper plate. Both of us look at each other and lose it. Laughing hysterically, we make our way back to our table and begin the spit fest that has become our ritual of “being polite”. If there was a prize handed out for best manners in an awkward social situation, my mom would win, hands down, every year for the rest of her life. It is pure genius watching her “look” as if she has actually eaten half of what is on her plate. She should give speeches and do seminars on how to avoid bad food while maintaining the deliciousness of it, while practically starving because she hasn’t eaten enough of anything to fill the stomach of a starving child. I do know her Achilles heel, though. My mother hates Lima beans. I am not sure what horrifying event took place in her past, that has her so up in arms about the little green devils, but I know for certain she would rather die of starvation than eat a Lima bean. Sure enough I spot a Lima bean casserole on the table and elbow my mother, as I head point to the crusted edges of the dreaded baked Lima bean gunge. I notice the sprigs of parsley carefully put on top as if to hide the awful beige mess underneath. “You should try that you, know…” My mother’s face twists in horror as she says without remorse,” I will not put that on my plate. That is just wrong.”