Category: Miscellaneous

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Peach Sap

Sunday afternoon I was sitting gratefully under the shade of a pecan tree, whose leaves are shaped like a peach tree’s leaves, in my estimation. We grew up with an old peach tree in our yard, but I think trees prefer to be called “mature,” instead of old. Our peach tree was perfectly situated behind the old carriage house, which had a low slanted roof from the back grading up toward the front of the building, which my parents used for lawnmower, tiller and large garden tool storage and a workshop for my Uncle Tom when he would visit in the summer. I could pretty easily get myself up into that peach tree and climb its super sticky branches onto the back roof of the carriage house. The tree’s branches were just tall enough to offer my tiny self and her book a modicum of shade over the just-right-sized spot on that scalding carriage house roof. The downside to being up there was, of course, the sap stuck to my fingers, which then smeared from page to every turned page.

There was also the day I discovered our cat’s — it was either Cupcake’s or Twinkie’s — collar wedged up in that peach tree, which he’d promptly gone and configured himself out of the moment Mom brought him back from a very embarrassing (for him) trip to the Vet. Being butt-less in the wilds of outdoor cat living was an ego-blow he had to face head-on, no collar to announce his coming. He may have lost the fight that landed him at the vet and cost him both his tail and his derriere, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to walk around with his head held in place for him. I am pretty sure the day I discovered and delivered that missing cone to my mother was the last time she ever paid for any pet’s veterinary needs again. We were always a menagerie; there were just too many of us not to be.

In the sixth grade our classroom moved outside for a week — it was called Camp Greentop — and (thank you, Google, I just learned that) from 1957 through 1996, every student in Frederick County, Maryland, “enjoyed the opportunity to make a national park their school.” Another fun fact just learned by me 30+ years after attending Camp Greentop is that it was the second of three camps designed and built in the Catoctin Mountains, with the third camp of that 1930’s construction era being Camp David. My time at that camp as an excessively skinny prepubescent girl predisposed to climbing sappy trees to enjoy quality alone time with her books (and none of her seven siblings), was both enlightening and embarrassing.

We went on actual nature hikes for class, looking at and learning every type of leaf associated with every type of tree that our precious slice of the Catoctin Mountain showcased. We were shepherded late at night onto a large open field, most certainly with a fairy ring in its center, for a class of star-gazing, learning and looking for the constellations visible on a late starry night in May. We scoured the woods for flowers and poison ivy, touching and picking none of them. Also I peed my pants during one of our day hikes because I was a new 12-year-old who didn’t know who to tell or who to ask or where there might be a tree behind which I could — no, I could not — hold it. And, no, I didn’t, couldn’t, tell anyone. I relocated myself to last in line and raced my way back to my cabin as soon as I was back in camp, surreptitiously swapping my under and outerwear before my high school senior counselor found me for mess hall responsibilities.

It turns out that I was in the stingingly painful throes of my first ever bladder infection, but I didn’t know that until I got home at the end of my week at Camp Greentop, bringing with me my wonder and my shame, racing to the laundry room to put my under and outerwear into the washer, an extra scoop of soap to be extra sure no one would know. I wanted to climb up the peach tree with my book du jour, get covered up in sap and sticky fingers, surrounded by leaves I now knew were: deciduous. Instead, our 60-year-old babysitter sent me with her husband to see our family doctor, also a man. So my longing to climb up the peach tree and pry loose my embarrassment to leave it behind was never realized. I got spotted immediately by our old babysitter, who was probably just matronly and mature and understood things I couldn’t see or say. Mrs. Perry was perfectly-situated to ask me where there might be a tree behind which I might be hiding. Cupcake or Twinkie, whichever brother it was who got his butt bit off in that late-night fight — turns out that he and I aren’t cone wearers after all.

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Bees and Birds

Bumblebees spend their days banging into my window and into each other — it must be something to tumble through life because you’re just so happy to be in it — you touch everything in your flight path, albeit frenetic to the outside observer.

The mama hummingbird outside our kitchen window splits her time between nest sitting and food sourcing for the babies she’s sitting on top of. We keep a pair of binoculars on the counter next to the sink for 24-hour surveillance of the life flitting back and forth in front of us. The nest she built gets just as many views from us as she does; its craftsmanship at a mastery level my knitting only dreams of attaining in this lifetime of needles clicking. Curt’s Aunt Carol recently told me, casually of course, that I’d have to knit faster if I ever hoped to finish anything. She’s right, of course, but I do have a track record now of beginning projects being completed, begging the beginning of something new, which is where Aunt Carol was sitting next to me — at another beginning.

Our curiosity that our neighbors (whose house is the backdrop for the hummingbird’s nest) might — or must — wonder if we’re scrutinizing them with our round-the-clock laughter that tumbles and tangles together like two bumblebees on the back porch: the bounce effect of belly laughs only ever begs for more.

We spent the last four days in New York City, bumbling our way through the City That Never Sleeps. We took the stairs underneath 28th and Park and swiped $2.75 each (that’s the current rate to ride the MTA) to get on the 6, which would take us to the 7, which would take us to the B, all of which would take approximately 28 minutes. But this was the wrong 6, heading in the wrong direction, so we exited through the same turnstile we’d just paid $2.75 each to enter. We walked up the stairs to 28th and Park, did the Hokey-Pokey, turned ourselves around, went back underground, swiped another $2.75 each, and stared at the same wrong 6, heading in the wrong direction. Rinse, lather, repeat — back through the turnstile, but this time I asked the MTA attendant sitting in his box for help and when we walked topside to come subterranean and swipe another $2.75 each, I did it with confidence and verve. Start spreading that news. . . I’m looking at the same wrong 6 for the third time! and the MTA guy is looking at us shaking his head waiting for his moment in the subway break room to talk about the two bumpkins from Birmingham who spent $16.50 in a ten-minute swiping spree to figure out how to cross the street NYC-style: by actually physically crossing the street.

Bumbling, tumbling, and laughing our way through life is the lesson we keep learning from the bees and the birds who fill our windows and our hyper-focused lenses with reminders that through the lens of someone else’s window is the funniest and most fun way to be:  just so happy to be in it — you touch everything in your path, albeit frenetic to the outside observer.

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Tofu and the Three Ghosts

My immediate future is bringing me a delicious stir-fry for dinner. I started preparations for that future several hours ago when I removed the tofu from the freezer and set it on the counter to thaw. I learned the hard way that frozen tofu doesn’t actually unfreeze itself by sitting in the fridge overnight or for 24 hours. Not gonna happen. But counter-sitting for the tiniest amount of time — like an hour or an hour and a half — the package is leaking like a sieve! And do you know what’s so funny is that I wrote leaking as l-E-E-k-i-n-g, because I was also thinking about leeks. I’m often thinking about leeks in my future, full disclosure, although I’m not planning to include leeks in tonight’s stir-fry.

When, about two hours ago, that formerly-frozen tofu showed all the signs of being ready, I liberated it, along with what always seems like a gallon of water, from its sealed package. I own square dinner plates that individually weigh five pounds. No joke. These plates are not messin’ around. I do not own a tofu press, unless you count my homemade press built out of eight dinner plates piled on top of one rectangle of tofu, their combined weight approximately 40 pounds. That tofu will be good and squeezed in my near future.

I sometimes fear looking farther afield than tonight’s supper plans, much like Scrooge when he said,

“Men’s courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, they must lead . . . . But if the courses be departed from, the ends will change. Say it is thus with what you show me!”

I can see the perseverance of other plans playing out — my birthday trip to the beach, my weekly conversations with my far-from-me mother, my completing my repeat reading of my favorite Dickens’: David Copperfield, and no matter how much my boyfriend doth protest (he doesn’t at all, actually) our protagonist will not magically become the magician David Copperfield incarnate at the story’s end. Although, wouldn’t that have been a triumphant foretelling of future’s tidings by Master Dickens, himself?

What else might the future bring, unchecked and unchanged as our behaviors and patterns and choices might be right now? The crystal ball’s illuminations are so dreary as to wish me right back to Kansas with a dog of my own to hold and to unsee such tidings. Supper plans, be they stir-frys or salads, mean nothing next to the harrowing pile (not that we would pile them, but imagining them that way isn’t difficult) of bodies, dead at our own doing, our own civil war being fought and waged in the hand-picked and preferential battlefields — in the classrooms of children, in sanctuaries of peace, and even in the produce aisle.

I know I’m future-gazing, but that future has me turned around, looking behind me, remembering a picture taken of my then-five-year-old sitting on her school bus looking at me through the window with the grin of all grins, her moment of ecstasy was that moment. Nothing else compared to that future in which she had arrived, fully-prepared, in complete ownership — and the look of triumph on her face will be one I never forget. I do have the picture, but I don’t need to look at it; that face is forever in my heart and in my head.

Yesterday’s future moment seared in my mind forever: an image of a similarly-aged to my once-little girl, her face looking through the school bus window, tears of sheer terror running down her cheeks, her future forever-changed, no triumph or victory awaits.

So what might the future bring? It took Scrooge three visits from three different specters to understand and to grasp the reality that in order for the future to change, he had to change his right now — his behavior, his choices, his opinions, his rhetoric, his investments and his collaborations.

My future is bringing lots of delicious dinners, for sure, but my future-gazing also has me constantly turning around, looking behind me, around me, avoiding places of public gatherings for any purpose: churches (okay, I don’t go to churches for other reasons, but still. . . ), movie theatres, and concert venues.

My tofu and my heart are leaking today, both of us releasing our water-logged selves of the grief that seems to be the ever-present ghosts of our past 24 years, our present living nightmare, and our future accumulation of more senseless murders. But perhaps the ghost’s visit yesterday will be the one that scares us into a different future and we can all get off this carousel, whose only mounts are intricately-painted forms of PTSD, Terror and Grief, whose patina of money, freedom, thoughts and prayers is worn down to the original surface showing through in broad patches. My future self is done crying and done being dizzy.

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The Leaf Heist

Carl’s cleverness (and to be completely open and honest with you, I’m not sure how clever he truly is because there’s Carla to tell you about, and I mean no disrespect to either Carl, himself, and certainly none toward Carla) was no match for his wife Carla’s self-anointed deservability. Their 25 years together had at least taught him this much: what Carla wants, Carla gets. Sometimes (most times, more like) that getting was both Carl’s responsibility, as well as his shame. You see, Carl carried things, inside his chest, and he’d learned a long many years ago not to share those carrying sort of things with Carla, because well, Carl didn’t like to think back on it, but the quick remembering of it was enough to tuck all those feelings and such right back in again. So he just carried them quiet-like.

Carl wasn’t what you’d call a big man, no. He kept himself trim in most things: speech, hair, tucked in his shirt at all times, no matter absolute what, and truth be told, even tucked in his shoulders when he spoke to you, his eyes always looking just beyond, beside, or below your own. Learned to keep trim, he did.

So when Carla said she needed, no must have and deserved, some freshly-fallen and perfectly-gold Gingko leaves for her annual and every-year different Christmas display, Carl could hardly protest, now could he? It was at him she directly looked and her eyes didn’t look anywhere but directly, piercingly through you. You know she had this habit, or maybe it was just her way, of forcing your eyes to look directly at her eyes, except one of her eyes was permanently crossed so where were you supposed to look? Seems embarrassing to admit it, but I know personally how awkward those stare-downs with Carla can feel, and then imagine old Carl over there every single day, being stared at every time old Carla wants something. Not for me, says I, but I know this one isn’t about me. Don’t mean to sidetrack you here, but I just feel for that old Carl.

So anyways, here’s Carl in a stare-down, forced and all, with Carla over and about these leaves. What even in the Sam-hill is a Gingko leaf, says I when Carl confesses his latest, or newest if you will, errand. Mission, more like, says I, because this is Carla we’re talking about.

“Well well that’s the question to answer, isn’t it?” he asks me back. “I hadn’t thought of that at all,” he says, and I think to myself, that Carl is so small, I think sometimes.

I’m no professor, lord knows, so I don’t myself know about a Gingko leaf, but gold I know, and I know we’ve got more than plenty of gold leaves littering the ground of the entire town these days, but these days are numbered, mind you. I says this to Carl, because if he’s been given a mission, to be sure it came with a due date. No disrespect to Carla, but I’ve been there on some occasions of those stare-downs, and I know I, myself, don’t like to get caught in the cross-stares, and I’m starting to think maybe this is when I’ve watched Carl shrink a bit, if a man could shrink, just a bit.

I can see the worry on Carl’s face. Who wouldn’t be? And we know the only person we — or he, because I’m certainly no part of this, except for the parts Carl shares with me, which aren’t many, but I’ve seen the faces, you know — can ask for clarification is also the only we person we can’t ask. Carla, of course, is who I’m referring to. But believe you me, we can’t, just can’t, ask about a Gingko leaf.

Carl figures, and I figure he’s right, he’ll just load up the supplies he needs: a rake (which to be sure was the shortest-handled one I ever have seen in all my born days, which makes me wonder has Carl never had to rake leaves before?), a garbage bag, and a tank full of gas. I offer to ride along, as a sort of leaf-spotter, you know? And we head out up and down neighborhood streets, just looking for some yellow leaves, but not just any yellow leaves, figuring, and I think rightly-so, that these must be a special yellow leaf. And most folks don’t have so many leaves, anyway, or if they do, they’re so far back from the road, so it’s awkward, you know?

And it’s getting to be where dusk is waxing and we’re not going to be able to spot yellow after much longer. And then he and I see them at the same time: like a pot of gold at the end of rainbow, except it’s not raining outside, but there is rain coming tomorrow; my knee already foretold me that much. And we pull over, stealth-like, and Carl parks his minivan in the road, at the end of the driveway, and I just hope no one needs to come in or out of that drive, that’s all I’m saying.

Carl jumps out of the driver’s door — pops the hatch, grabs his short-handled rake (and I’m going to be completely open and honest with you here, but I was laughing out loud) and he proceeded to run up the drive, but only halfway, leaving the hatch open behind him, and I stayed right where I was because I was just there for leaf-spotting and saw that I spotted those leaves and my purpose was complete, and what was I going to do but get in the way of the only rake Carl had?

And that’s when I looked up the drive and took in the whole house on the hill before us, the driveway we squatted on, and saw someone working at her desk in the front window, lights fully on, staring out at oblivious Carl raking furiously away. I bet he thought he was cellophane, a stealthy retriever, but it was obvious to me this was his first ever heist of golden leaves, and I speak from personal experience here. And he scurried into the yard, pulling more leaves onto the driveway, and I could feel his heart beating faster, louder, as we — no, he — raced against the daylight, but most loudly in his own trimmed head against Carla’s deservedness, and he would not be berated for a failure. Not this time.

Carl rushed back to the open hatch, grabbed his white trash bag, hurried back up half the steeply-inclined drive, and with one hand holding his trash bag and the other scooping and shoveling leaves in record-time into the same bag, he left behind more than he took. Truth be told, he made more of a mess in that woman’s driveway than when he arrived. I’m just gonna chalk that up to complete inexperience with leaves and the raking of them, but that’s just me observing. And he flat-out took, without permission, but every demand would be met, Carla’s I’m sure you know. And there she was, waiting in their short flat driveway to receive and to see those golden leaves on his return.

Mission accomplished.

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Acorns and Oak Trees

There’s a massive oak tree in my backyard. I didn’t know it was there, or more accurately, that it was an oak tree because of course I knew the tree was there. But there’s a difference in knowing something exists in physical form, taking up space, doing whatever it is that trees in my backyard do, and in knowing there is a Mighty Oak in my backyard whose canopy covers the entirety of my back deck and beyond into the side yard.

Let’s rewind the clock for a brief moment so I can tell you how I came to know of this Oak’s existence, or perhaps more accurately, how the Oak made its presence known to me.

I live on top of a hill, which hill is at the top of the town in which my mailing address resides. I am tagged and attached to that zip code and to that street number, both of which comprise my mailing address.

Side note, when I submitted a change of address with my last move, which of course resulted in my now residing in the house on the hill with the Mighty Oak out back, apparently the US Postal Service weren’t the only ones I notified. So interesting how networks work, right? The behind the screen scene of sending and receiving and communicating and connecting and coordinating the happening of things fascinates me, even when I’m not thinking about it at all!

Back to out back.

In late September when the weather is at its perfect and peak combination between day and nighttime temperatures we bask in the back deck outdoor eating opportunity. We plug in the string of lights we have strung across the deck and which lights interlace the beams of the grape arbor gracing the entire southwest corner of said deck. Underneath this grape arbor resides a rectangular table with glass top I bought from my friend’s found-in-her-basement-pile. There were six chairs to complete the set and I bought bright and big new cushions, gold + blue + porcelain white, which have now in six months’ time, collectively absorbed more rain than all the bathtubs I filled for personal soaking in as many months. I love baths.

Back to being on the deck.

I heard the first acorn drop in the middle of a September afternoon when I happened to be walking through the family room. The family room is deck-adjacent; they share that outside wall, and the sound was so loud to startle me from my focused-with-a-purpose walk into the kitchen. I probably needed to replenish my tea for the afternoon hours yet remaining at my desk. I like to brew a matcha tea latte or an apricot green tea blend to stimulate my brain in spite of the sinking sun.

After that first drop landed loud, they were everywhere and at all times falling, acorns from heaven, as it were. I know Moses said that’s where the manna comes from, right? Anyway, acorn drops became the background musical accompaniment to my entire day and even the lullaby that woke me in the middle of the night. Constant contact with the deck, with the roof, with the steps leading up to (or down from, depending on which direction you’re walking) the same deck. That deck was littered and laid with a brand new seasonal carpet on whose surface to walk would require an insurance policy against it.

Safety first, am I right?

That carpeting — and my cautious covering of its distance to take the trash out — is what caused me to look up as if for the first time. Where was this abundance coming from? And that’s when I really saw the Oak for the first time — as an actual Oak! My mind exploded considering that this one massive tree was born out of one tiny acorn such as were now littering my entire 1000 square feet of deck.

Everything this Oak Tree needed to become and to be exactly who it is — thriving and living and giving of its current abundance — was contained within just one of these tiny acorns.

This tree, which has been behind me all along, made its resourceful, resource-full and resource-filled Self known to me in an out loud and like a juggernaut kind of way. I see you, Mighty One. I finally see you and I won’t unsee you now.

As a quick post-script, most of the acorns are now gone, disappeared one at a time, and I imagine them taken, tucked away and stockpiled by each of the families of squirrels and chipmunks living in my backyard, just like this Mighty Oak. Look at all the living going on here! Look at each of them in their resourcefulness and not one of them doing anything other than exactly what they’re born, wired, and know instinctively to do, which instinct is all they know.

My pause and wonder is looking at myself now. What if I stopped questioning and overthinking and doubting myself and just allowed my inner wiring to operate itself? Believing that what I’m not seeing behind the screen of my own eyes is a well-tuned network of sending and receiving and communicating and connecting and coordinating the happening of things? All the things of my massive living loving life? It’s all here already, the seeds long ago planted and now grown into me giving away, dropping, and sharing the abundance of mySelf.

I hope you get to stand underneath the canopy of my resource-full love.

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I Believe In Magic

I believe in magic.

And moonlight.

And the witchery that is womanhood — the BEING of a woman. I’ve seen it written that “we are the granddaughters of the witches they forgot to burn,” and I sometimes wonder why (women) — why (I) am so overlooked, so talked over, dismissed, talked about, told I intimidate, told to tone down, told I’m too much, had my words — which I weave out of and from the magic in me — the magic that IS me — taken, consumed, and used, to transform (his) very world, and then witness the credit for said total transformation claimed by a him and not the potion my Love brewed and which he guzzled down, while his eyes consumed me. 

I believe in magic.

And moments.

And with meaning, I stepped onto the North Carolina coast at midnight on May 27, 2021, and there she was in full view, the oceanic pull of her splendor casting its luminosity on me was instantaneous. Overcome with her beingness, of being in her presence, of my Self awareness in all of my own beingness, I burst into tears. And my tears mingled with my bigness, for which my Being is the sacred container holding all of Me.

Moonlight is magic. 

I believe in magic. 

And the magic of a seed, planted in a row, underneath a taut string, stretched from pole to pole, stretches beyond its original container and grows and grows, giving greenness and good-ness, and the garden glows with the abundance of what started in a simple and small buried shell. 

I believe in magic.

And in Me. 

And the bigness of my Love, of my container and my capacity to hold not just for and as Me, but for all those who have, and have yet, to pass through the magic of my Loving, of my Knowing, of my Holding. What does this magic of Me feel like? 

My magic is me no longer overlooking my Self, no more staying silent while words and worlds are being discussed over and around Me; I will not dismiss my own inner witch or her ways; if I am to be talked about, it is I who will do the talking, and “intimidation“ is yet another iteration of the age-old hunting and burning for that which you are incapable of experiencing. Tone up, not down. My muchness IS my magic.

To experience the moonlight, just step with intention onto her shore. She is here to flood and to cover you with every shimmer of her splendor, illuminating beautiful You. 

I weep at the potency of my own spells. 

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Planked Awareness

The aged wooden planks beneath my sandals reverberate just enough with each step to ignite my almost anticipatory sensory system, which is apparently the factory default setting in this body of mine. Sounds, smells, every leaf brand new to me as if for the first time, although I have been walking this same boardwalk plank through this ever-shifting bog garden for at least as long as many of these trees have been stretching toward their crowded skyline. 

I lean over the edge of the railing, putting as much as possible of the presence of the boardwalk behind my direct line of sight, minimize other visitors whose presence is audibly known, and initiate a manual fade on that feed line taking more concentration against my already-bogged sensory system. I’m looking for the knobby knees of the Bald Cypress trees that have gathered here, collected themselves into their own community amongst the ducks, the almost-always shallow side swamp to the larger but still-connected lake of some collective committee’s making, and down-stream and almost hidden from the other deciduous, but dirt-dwelling trees. 

I smile out loud and my laughter bounces off the nearby bamboo, dense in the aggregate knowing of its usefulness amidst any negative (and obviously completely false) rumors that sometimes get dropped by a passing robin too self-absorbed with his own shade of red to be bothered by what his beaked notes might mean to the wide-open ears of the bamboo below.

Next to me (and invited into my self-constructed cone of connectivity) on the elevated boardwalk, as I lean into my lean (those cypress nodes are consuming all of my attention), Curt points to a beautiful tree above my head and asks whether I know its name, his tone clearly indicating he is not asking, he is teaching. I do not recognize what appears to be a beautiful evergreen foliage, delicately interlacing her way through the intricate and interconnected branches of the treetop she calls her own. 

His grin immediately fills all seven acres of this luscious green garden space as he announces, “It’s the Bald Cypress!” 

My delight and my shock startle the birds in the branches above. I am immediately aware that this anticipatory sensory system I call my own has failed to focus on the two necessary parts of one self-sufficient ecosystem. The Bald Cypress’ knees so captivated me I did not overlook, but actually under-looked the very creation of this majestic multifaceted dweller on earth or underwater achiever. I am internally brought to my own knees, my sensory system recalibrating in real-time, coding my newly-propagated desire to always look in as many directions as the cypress stretches itself: up, down, around, under, and over me. I shift my lean back into full-standing alongside the Bald Cypress, my sandals exit the boardwalk planks; I leave only the remnants of my laughter to contribute to the aging of the planks.  

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The Great Alone: A Fringe Reader’s Review

Kristin Hannah is a very popular author. I tend to read on the fringe of that popularity awareness spectrum. I do not typically navigate the same reading trends and lanes as all the other people out there reading. And by “all the other people out there reading” I mean most of the people, and would include in that list all of the people that I know personally. I stumbled across a much-recommended historical fiction novel — The Nightingale — set during World War II. Admittedly this is my weakness, the kryptonite of reading genres for me. I downloaded the Audible version and was transported so quickly to 1939 France that I barely had time to grab my head scarf to avoid detection from the German soldiers as they descended on the countryside. 

Yesterday I finished reading my second Kristin Hannah novel, The Great Alone. Is it historical fiction if it’s set in a time inside of my own lifetime? Strange consideration. Let’s say this one is NOT historical fiction. It’s just set in the 1970s in remote Alaska. Spoiler Alert: there’s a murder committed. Bigger spoiler — because I’m not writing any of these meandering and meaningless thoughts to protect you from the fictitious plot of a book whose reading I will never get back my time — the murder of the man is committed by his wife. There that’s out, now let me tell you some more details.

Said murderee is a Vietnam vet with severe PTSD. He beats his wife like no rug should have to tolerate and blames his erraticism and bad behavior on things like the weather and yeah, that’s about it. The weather.

The murderer is his wife and the mother of their only child, a daughter. Never ever, not once, in their probably 20 years together does she resist, complain, fight back, or even leave. Until the day she kills him. Two shots with a rifle into his back.

Why? What triggered (intentionally used that word for dramatic effect) her to suddenly explode (another intentional entendre) and very deliberately kill the self-proclaimed love of her life? 

Kids. Am I right? A mother’s love — there’s nothing to compare it, except of course, only all the mothers’ love on prominent display daily, from the Grizzly watching out for her cub to the beaten, trodden-down, misunderstanding love mother in this made-up story that could be as real as you and me. Her husband was beating her daughter in front of her. Why? Beating her because she said out loud she was pregnant. Love caused that. This is a love story, no doubt, any way you peel back the chapters or pile them on top of each other. Love keeps showing up like it’s the through-line giving oxygen to the very pages on which the story is written. 

Love: the messed up and completely impossible to understand abusive kind.

Love: the fill your whole heart until it spills over and leaks into your every corner for your child kind. 

Love: the young, tender, sweet passing notes in class and sneaking out at night for a breath of you young and innocent kind.

Love: the fierce and large wrap you in my arms because my heart is big enough to hold this whole town kind.

Love: the no matter what you say or do I will always love you kind.

Love: the weathered and wisened and regret-filled rear-view awareness while looking at what’s right in front of me after all these years kind. 

Love: the I can’t explain what or why you behaved in the ways you did but I forgive you kind. 

Love: the natural ebbs and flows of that which surrounds, protects, and provides kind.

And I am here for love. Always. So there’s that endorsement from me.

But Kristin, I am no longer here for your storytelling, for your doom and your gloom, for your foundation of, and dependence on, grief, hardship, tragedy, death, despair, and darkness to turn every page. Seriously. No relief. And it got to be comical. Can we even end the story without another maddeningly dark plot twist at the eleventh hour? No, apparently we cannot. So with approximately one chapter remaining, our heroine — the surviving daughter whose life was saved by her mother’s murder of her father — is thrown into JAIL for a late-life confession by her DEAD mother for the killing of her also very dead husband. 

Was it murder? Yes. Justified? Also yes. In the end did I even care? Not a damn lick because I just wanted out into the real world where Love lives in, as, and through me. 

But if you’re looking for a good World War II recommendation I will hook you up.

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The Summer of 1997

It was the summer of 1997: cash in-hand was money; the prolific use of debit cards didn’t exist; CDs were being ripped and sold on the black market (I definitely bought from that market); Celine Dion and Whitney Houston were still singing to us;  Bill Clinton was at the start of his second term; Princess Diana would die at the end of this summer; DVDs were brand-new technology; the internet existed, but only just — access to the World Wide Web was limited to your dial-up connection and google had yet to be coined a verb.

In June of this year I moved back to Russia for what would become a summer never to be forgotten. 

My US-based company had a teeny-tiny satellite office located in Moscow, Russia, employing two or three Russians max, plus one American expat and his wife, who were in their mid-20s like me and my husband. We all spoke fluent Russian. I was sent over to train the teeny-tiny office staff on some data entry work our US office wanted to delegate and we allowed three months in Moscow for that very purpose. The American expat would make arrangements for our housing while we were in-country and I just needed to show up, passport and work Visa in-hand, ready to work.

Having lived in Russia previously, although never in Moscow, I arrived with  my rose-tinted glasses of loving everyone firmly perched on my nose and completely oblivious to the harsh fear-based system of what life in Russia actually looks like. 

Newly-arrived in our rented for the summer apartment I was surprised to see the rooms literally bulging with the landlady’s belongings, as if we had a key to someone else’s home but I didn’t want permission to be there. Had they left in a hurry, carelessly cramming their personal effects underneath the mattress believing my lying on top of their pile wouldn’t disclose their secrets in full view? The lingering layer of grease atop every single surface in the flat belie their claims to cleanliness and order. Unpacking meant keeping my suitcases open and accessible because there was no space, nook or cranny available for my belonging or belongings. 

Where to place my computer monitor and the beast of a tower needed to operate it? Plugging in to the local landline in order to connect, patiently, with the office nine hours behind me now required planning and hope that the phone here would be connected, dependent on a real life operator deciding my worthiness of connection. 

And so it happened on a summer’s eve that we went for a walk, exploring our neighborhood, hoping to find a street vendor selling some of our favorite tasty treats and we realized we were walking distance from Gorky Park, known back in the heyday of the Soviet era as an amusement park and gathering place for families. 

Our excitement quickly turned to disappointment and then concern as we found ourselves in a desolate has-been space, not kept up or even safe for after-dark strolling. Deciding quickly we would rather be in the grease-filled apartment figuring out supper than here in the middle of Gorky Park uncertain as to who or what we might encounter, we retraced our steps back to the flat where all of our possessions were locked behind two doors and five keys. 

Placing the first of our five keys in door one, lock one, it was immediately apparent something was wrong. The door was locked, yes, but from the inside. Someone was inside the apartment and we couldn’t get in!

Knocking and banging on the door from the inside out to us we could discern the voice of our landlady and her husband — yelling at us that they would not let us in, they were calling the police, what was ours was now theirs and they knew what we were up to!

What in the actual HELL was happening?! 

Remember, 1997. I’m in the middle of Moscow, Russia, where the KGB and the Mafia are interchanged for one another as seamlessly as tit for tat. This is the land where an American goes missing and no one blinks because they don’t even notice. 

Heart pounding, I plead through the door for her to please open, please talk with me, please explain what happened, why is she upset? What is her concern? Can we discuss this? 

No! The operator at the phone company called her, told her how frequently I’m plugging into “that computer thing” and “I know what you’re doing here! I know what you’re trying to do.” 

Dear god, what is she talking about?! 

“I have already called the police! They are on their way. You will be arrested. I am confiscating your computer.”

No discussion. No earlier call. No indication that this was coming. What is she afraid of? Accusing me of doing? Having me arrested for what?! 

My heart is pounding louder than my thoughts.

Can I just have my stuff? My suitcase? Keep the damn computer; it doesn’t belong to me anyway. I swear I’m only working. I’m only connecting with my office in the US. Are you worried we won’t pay the phone bill? Is that what this is about?! Are the police really necessary? 

Where can I go? 

And then rushing up the stairs are my co-worker American expat and Sergei, the Russian who works with him. They received a tip-off phone call that something was going down at our apartment, that we were being used as pawns in the larger Mafia-played game of business in Moscow. 

Quickly, go down and get in Sergei’s car. Leave the premises. Don’t worry about your things. Remove yourself before the police arrive. The rest will be taken care of. Go. NOW!

And heart-pounding crouched down from the back seat of the dark car I watch the police storm the building, a long pause of time, and then Sergei carrying my suitcases out and quietly placed in the trunk, and with a tap on the roof of the car the driver takes me away, only turning on his headlights when we are three streets gone.

Is Big Brother still watching? He definitely was in 1997.

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I’m Back

Something just came over me. I am no longer in control, but someone or something is definitely in control. My senses tell me enough to know I’m not, oddly enough, out of control; I’m just no longer the one in charge. I immediately wonder if I ever have been in control and wander down the philosophical rabbit hole that does nothing but distract me from right now. Damn. Right now. I’m back. 

Assessing my situation and feeling the corners of my mouth turn up into a smile remembering the Borg episode from Star Trek. Not so funny now but still one of my favorites. Was that from the original series? Or the Next Generation? maybe one of the movies because those are so well done. Benedict Cumberbatch as Kahn was genius. His birthday was a couple of weeks ago — same day as Lori’s — and it’s funny that still pops up on my annual calendar from how many years ago did my daughter place it there? Ten? Shit. I’m back. I’m back.

Who taught me that technique? Was I in a training program for this very situation? Do I know what to do? Geez — what if I’m like Jason Bourne? OMG was that series based on real life events? Clearly they didn’t screen me too well because can you even imagine me as an assassin?! Laughing over here. That’s really funny. I mean — not real, right? I couldn’t even punch David in the face when he was wearing full head gear, taught me how to throw the punch and TOLD me to do it! I CRIED. Good grief. Kill someone on command? Not too likely. Laugh, love, hug on command — definitely my vibe. Shit. I’m back. I’m back. Again.

Get your surroundings. Get some information we can use here. Where is here? Who is talking to me? Do you hear voices? I mean I’m full-blown having a conversation here. Who are you?

Who are you?

You know what? It doesn’t matter right now. Let’s all quiet and calm down. Take some deep breaths. Focus on here. Right here. Breathe? I can’t!! I can’t breathe! Oh, wait, yes, yes I can. Just not easily or through my mouth, or maybe it’s my nose. Dear God, do I have a face?!

Yes, you have a face. What do you think someone just took your face? Now I’m laughing.

Well, wasn’t there a movie with a face swap? I don’t think I saw it but I remember the title had something to do with faces. I’m not convinced it can’t happen.

Face swapping — pretty sure that’s only on your phone. Remember when you face swapped with the Pope?! OMG Hilarious!

Yes! I used his image from the Pope Pop I bought at the Vatican souvenir shop! We laughed real tears at that one. And I’m back. 

Still don’t know anything in this moment other than I now have a hankering for some bruschetta — screams Italy, doesn’t it? I should make some; I’ve got all the ingredients: fresh basil, fresh tomatoes, olive oil. Bread. I need some decent crusty bread. I don’t think I can pick a favorite — oh, yes, yes I can. The tomato salad in Agerola. I know it wasn’t technically bruschetta, but close enough, right? Is my mouth watering? What is wrong with my mouth? Shiiit — seriously guys (are you guys?) something is wrong here. Very wrong. I don’t think I can talk. Are we not talking? I am so confused right now. I’m back. I’m back. 

But where am I? Who am I? I know who I am. Do I have a face? What happened to my mouth? It’s dripping. Something is dripping. Is it my mouth? Am I awake? Can anyone hear me? I don’t think anyone hears me. Am I alone? What is that pressure on my arm? Why is my arm being squeezed? Who is touching me? I don’t want to be touched. NO! Don’t touch me! NO! I’m back. I’m back. Be here now.

I hear you. What? I’m sorry, what? It’s all over? What’s over? What happened? Do you remember that episode of I Love Lucy where she drinks the vitameatavegimin? I love that episode. I read her biography last year. Lucy’s. Listened to it, actually. Her daughter narrates it and I didn’t laugh as much as I thought I would. I cried, actually. Very sad. It’s hard. Being famous. Getting what you want. Maybe? Right. I’m back. I’m back. 

I do love Lucy. I really do.

Oh, hi Mom. We’re going home now? But I can’t drive myself. I’m definitely not in control. What are these? My wisdom teeth?