August 20, 2012

“Do you buy books,” I asked. 

“Yes,” she said. “Just take the hand cart and bring them back.” She walked out from behind the counter, gesturing to a man playing on his phone who didn’t look up but stood and followed her to the folding table.

“Nobody buys cassettes anymore,” she told him. “I bet you paid hundreds of dollars for this.” She held up the black book in one hand, Rich Dad, Poor Dad in gold and purple ribbons. He grimaced. “CDs,” she said. “I can sell CDs all day, but I just buy cassette tapes for cheap, sell ‘em for cheap.”

The book buyer flashed her sapphire contacts at me unsmiling.

I stammered. “I -- my car, it’s full of books not in boxes.”

She laughed. “Why not?”

“My kids--they did it for me.” 

Grinning, she glanced down, then back at the man with gray-black hair. “I’ll be about twenty minutes. I’ll come out to your car, I guess.”

I had been riding around with a trunkful of books for about a week, the dank of unopened pages permeating the circulated air. Ess-turns and steep inclines had shifted the piles, sometimes spilling into the back seat. But I had agreed to down-size, the collection I had begun from forever ago cut by two-thirds. 

When she was ready for me, the woman waddled out, her long sleeves clinging as the black fabric became blacker with perspiration. 

It was terrible the way she handled each book, reading each title, feeling its weight, making horrible piles. I wanted to rescue some, to snatch one back and tell her “that’s staying with me.” And the urge to say something, to eulogize each one somehow was ever in my throat. That’s one from my last year in college. I was studying French then. I read that one three times. I wished I could close my trunk, tell her to forget it, and drive away. 

But I stood there as she sorted, silent and pathetic. She slowly filled a shopping cart. 

“You must be a teacher,” a man with a pug dog who was exiting the store commented as he passed behind us. I nodded. “I can tell from the titles.”

Blushing, almost choking, I glanced at my feet and swallowed before refocusing on the sorting. And I felt sorry for the ones she didn’t choose, wanted to love them again, give them a place again in my home. 

In the end, there were 5 piles. “Ninety-one dollars,” she said. 

“Okay.” 

She turned to write the receipt. “Some of them are only worth fifty cents,” she explained. “The non-fiction ones, no one buys. Well, some people, but not really. I have to buy them at half of what I pay so I make a profit, you know. How much did I say again?” 

“Ninety-one,” I said. 

“Yes, that’s right.” She continued writing. 

I took my note to the cashier, who counted out the money in fives. At least I got something, I thought, tallying the hundreds of dollars those books represented. I wanted to hate her and that place. But I knew I could not bring my books back to their shelves. I had to make room, had to donate the rest to GoodWill, where I got nothing, not even a donation receipt. 

May 30, 2012

"What is perfect?"

The dress looked strange on, like it had a life because of my body, but not my life. It’s own life, like mine had been taken over. Remember Patrick Swazey and Whoopie Goldberg in Ghost? Like that, like it just needed a medium to become what it truly was or used to be. Like it had a purpose. 

I never look in the mirror and think my clothes have a purpose above providing a covering for my body, so seeing the dress take over was a shock. It was me, but more than just me. It was a concept that formed over time, a symbol of a lot of things I don’t necessarily believe in, a precursor to a lot of things I do. 

The dress originated with the scalloped necklines of Sleeping Beauty and the glittering fabric of Cinderella’s gown, with tabbed paper dresses for paper dolls, with the only time I was asked to be a flower girl when I was five and the crushing disappointment of the wedding being canceled. Christine Sullivan married someone else a long time later, but the wedding-that-didn’t helped un-form my understanding of what it was to get married: the concept of The Dress.

I didn't attend many weddings as I grew and matured. The first I really remember was when I was about eighteen and the bride was eight-months pregnant in a knee-length pink tent. My first involvement in a wedding was for my sister’s, and all I really remember from that day was sitting at the bar drinking champagne. Her dress was beautiful and everything was quite perfect, except she was a stress case.

No wonder it took me so long to marry. And when I did, my dress was handmade and very simple, costing no more than $200. I decided not to worry so much that time and gave all of the decisions to my fiance, who pulled off a pretty good party. I got to enjoy my wedding, even if I didn’t participate much. Sometimes I wonder if that’s why it didn’t work: because from the beginning, I didn’t take the wedding that seriously.

Which is why this time around, I want the right dress, even though I know the dress doesn’t make the marriage. And I want nice flowers, even though the first time my flowers consisted of my mom tying up some gardenias for the one bouquet I carried. I had no bridesmaids, no ring bearer, or flower girl. There was no chapel or wedding coordinator or centerpieces, not even assigned seating. 

But this time is different.

So I try on dress after dress, believing I'll find “the one,” just like it happened with my betrothed. Each dress looks amazing, amazingly enough. There are no bad dresses, but none that are mine yet. I try on taffeta and silk, chiffon and lace. There are flourishes and crystals, gathers and bows. Some are so heavy I can't zip up the back. Others are so tight I'm hardly able to breathe. When I finally find the dress, my mom says, "That's so you," and the thing that occurs to me in that moment is that it reminds me of my first dress--that strapless ivory brocade, made to fit just me.

This dress is eggshell-white and strapless, too. It wraps flatteringly across the bodice and flows into a chiffon pool at my feet. But the line is straight across and it curves tight to my body with industrial orange clips at my spine. And here's what I realize: I am still that person, that "fool" who made all those mistakes the first time. I'm never going to not be her, never going to stop being her. And this thing I'm going to do with this guy I love may end up exactly the same, with me feeling like the biggest jerk in the world, trying to put the pieces back together again.

But here's the thing, there is no perfect. There's just flawed, fucked-up me who failed the first time and wants it so bad I'll keep trying again to get it right. Besides, it's almost just as likely end up with my happily ever after as long as I try like hell to make it work. At least that's what I tell myself when I can't sleep at night.

April 20, 2012

Hey, Look At That!

“There’s something so liberating about traveling alone.”

Yesterday, I heard this on the radio, and remembered having told it to myself many times. But it’s not really true. Yes, the voices of my everyday life simmered down and I was able to hear my own thoughts without all that outside clamor, but now that my life is much fuller than it was then, I realize how thankful I am for the noise. I say this while sitting at an outdoor cafe all by my lonesome: something I haven’t done in months. 

Men like staring. Women with children side sad looks my way. But I hear everything like I wouldn’t if I were with someone else--the clink of a fork, the generator’s hum, Oh Sherrie, our love. Hold on, hold on. I find quiet space, calm, and I remember some of the places I’ve been alone. On the beach in Roses I watched the sun smear dirty red with a single glass of Sangria. I contemplated the holding-hands couples as they strolled past me down the boardwalk, and thought, that’s not me anymore, as I acclimated to the prospect of getting a divorce. I hadn’t told my ex-husband yet. The trip was like a primer on aloneness: how to be again with only myself. 

Later in Barcelona, I searched out paella. Leaving the security of my Las Ramblas hotel room, I braved the strange crowd and street performers: a band of capoeira acrobats with drums and Edward with foil Scissor-hands. Past the flower stalls and fruit vendors, I descended the steps to the Metro. It was rush hour, and the car was full. Try as I did, I couldn’t make out my high school Spanish from Castilian. I counted the stops to the sea, where I walked from restaurant to restaurant holding up one finger and hoping someone would seat me. When a kind man finally did, I felt so grateful, I ordered enough food for four. 

But somewhere in that sense of being completely helpless, I found what I was looking for in Spain. It was in Gaudi’s fantastic space, Parc GUel, that he made from recycled tile and broken dishes, and in the house he built for his family, La Pedrera, where the empty center is tiled so that it replicates the sense of being beneath the ocean. Those spaces reminded me what work there is ahead of me, and that my creativity might outlast my momentary loneliness, my impending husband-less-ness. 

Leslie Castle was my very first trek alone. On a tour bus with strangers, I in my window seat watched the clammy bog beyond. At eighteen I was stretching my legs for my first walk-about away from my family, who had no interest in the obscure place or the hours-long, winding-roads drive. I remember glancing inside at the old wood, but spending most of my time exploring the lakeshore in awe of the strange gray structure, so different from those I’d become accustomed to seeing at home. It was cold. And I remember it less because I enjoyed it, more because I made myself do it. 

My family later visited Blarney Castle to kiss the stone. And even though my sister-in-law was drama-ing out, even though my dad had a shit fit about nothing, we all took turns. When it was mine, I lay on my back, shimmied past the ledge, the stone at my sacrum, and trusted my family to keep a firm grim on my ankles. I’m not sure about the promised gift of the gab, but I am sure that back-bend opened me up. For once I stopped being a sullen, angry eighteen year-old whose family embarrassed her to blush red. I stopped caring about what other tourists thought or the danger in dangling backwards, so high off the ground. There was bliss in being together, joy in being part of a whole. 

Almost twenty years have passed since that trip to Ireland. I have visited a multitude of places alone, and I admit it has been somewhat liberating. But in Rome, I sought out other travelers, preferring a San Franciscan’s itinerary to my own. In Florence, I followed an eye-glassed doctor to the old bridge and climbed the duomo trailing his frayed bermuda-shorts. Charles Bridge in Prague would not have been so scrutinized without an Emily from Zelienople, PA, and I may not have even visited Vienna without the girl from Louisiana.   

And my most recent trip to Disneyland with my fiance and his children, barring amnesia, will prove to be unforgettable, not just because I almost had a breakdown. The night we rode Grizzly River Run so many times we were soaked from head to toe, I recalled how having fun builds relationships. And on our last day my fiance’s son finally overcame his fear of California Screamin’, and gravity pulled our cheeks in every possible direction. I remembered how important patience is, how everyone grows at his own rate, in his own time. 

Traveling alone means I miss out on every one else’s excitement, fear, and boredom. It means being faced with only my own, which isn’t always a bad thing. But I’ve done it so often and tried so hard to convince myself that traveling alone is better, even though when I really examine my experiences, there are very few trips I’ve truly made alone.  

Of course the wrong travel companion can be even worse than being alone, and having to bend to the will of children can be extremely frustrating. But there’s something to be said for watching kids realize they aren’t the only beings in the world and remembering the transformation I made from that same, self-obsessed place. It’s humbling. And it requires grace--something I had to find for myself when my world was up-ending. Besides, there’s something extremely gratifying about pointing so that another looks, and something equally empty about not being able to. 

February 13, 2012

Coda

“Are you okay?” his silhouette came hazily from the lighted kitchen. 

I was sitting in the dark again, transfixed by my phone, trying to cuddle up against myself. I didn’t want to tell him it wasn’t going to work--how his ideas of me as a happy housewife would never come true, how I couldn’t agree to financial ruin by prenup. 

“No,” I said. “Not really.” 

He knelt in front of me, picked up my chin with his hand. “Did I do something?”

“Maybe. I don’t know.”

I was afraid of saying ‘yes,’ afraid of having to say what I was thinking.  Because it’s easier to silently resent than speak truth--at least in the short run. But I’ve never been very good at hiding my feelings and my passive aggressiveness always ends up being worse than the plain act of opening up. Bursting open is much messier, I’ve found. 

So against my greater compulsion to meld into the leather sofa and disappear, I stood and let him lead me to the kitchen. 

“We have different ideas about finances and roles,” I blurted out. “I don’t think it’s fair to have a prenup that says I get nothing if we divorce--it’s not what I did for my ex.” 

I was of course, staring at the cabinets, intentionally avoiding eye contact, as if that could keep us from breaking up. 

“I never said that,” came his voice during a pause in my litany of reasons why--the hypothetical pregnancy thing and how we agreed I wouldn’t work the first few years, the fact that what’s made in the marriage should be split at its end.

“But you did, I heard it.” I didn’t want to be right, but I didn’t want to be senile either. “You said, if I took half of everything, you’d have to start over again.”

“I was speaking hypothetically, and I said repeatedly that I didn’t know what I thought about prenups. I was just talking about the concept, and after hearing your concerns, I think you’re right. We don’t need one.”

The heat of blood blushing subsided, my skin relaxed, and my shoulders softened. I looked into his moss-colored eyes and remembered who he was.

Because I often become disoriented in the labyrinth my mind creates. I make movies in my head based on other lives, hear things that were never said, assume things that should not be. No, I’m not psychotic or schizophrenic. I am hormonal. I am a woman. And I have been burned before, which means I am violently protective of me while concurrently maintaining a deep desire to connect and be vulnerable. Okay, maybe I'm a little schizophrenic. 

And I fear so much because I have never recognized myself in anyone the way I see myself in him. He is my mirror. He is my north. 

***

A few weeks later he got down on one knee and asked me to marry him. And the finger that bears the most beautiful thing I’ve ever owned reminds me constantly that with this love comes great responsibility. I am to be a partner and a step-mother. And I must do whatever I can to vanquish those characters my mind creates, to allow enough room for myself to grow and change while embracing the stability we're attempting to create. 

Again, my mantra must be balance, must be listening, must be releasing. Without these, I struggle to be present. And this is where true happiness lies: right here, right now.  

January 12, 2012

"Pickles and Parachutes"

It was past nine when he got home last night from a meeting that ran late. His daughter had fallen asleep holding my hand, and I’d had to pry it from her little fingers. After washing up, we lay head-to-foot and he rubbed my arches. It was late. My teary yawns came like steady contractions. 

“Baby,” I said. “I need to tell you something serious.”

“Okay,” he nodded. 

What bothers me isn’t the children or how they are always more important than us. It isn’t becoming something between a mother and a nanny--continually washing clothes and dishes, chauffeuring and counseling, consoling and scolding. It isn’t them at all; I can count the moments I feel overwhelmed on less than a half a hand. With the children it’s mostly a simple, perfect balance: they need me to be stable and I need them to be a little crazy. 

Instead, I’m concerned about the concept of marriage and all the details that go with it. He’s been talking prenup, how he was so lucky with his ex, how she only took a house and nothing more, how she could have ruined him by taking half. And though I’m not looking at marriage in terms of what I might gain financially, I also don’t want to be in the same position I was after my last go round. 

My ex was the home maker: cooking, cleaning, and not working. We did not have children, so most of his time was spent watching television. But he supported me emotionally through the loss of my father and the growth of my business. I gave him half, which was fair, but was it? Looking back I still think it was, even though the ordeal financially pickled me. I’m still trying to lose the vinegary aftertaste.

And prenups, in general, are distasteful to me. Why get married if you’ve got an escape route? But I understand his argument that it’s an insurance policy against either of us going crazy or changing beyond the ability of the other person to keep up (the second I learned well from experience). And I get that he wants to keep what he earns, especially since he’s much wealthier that I right now. But if we’re a team our two sides are supposed to merge. That means what’s made during the marriage should be split equally at its end. From the earning side of that equation, I gave it up--why should it be any different now? 

We’ve already talked about how he wants me to stay home for at least four years before our hypothetical child goes to school, which I’m fine with. So what if we procreate, then divorce? What happens to me when I’ve been financially idle for long enough to not have anything, and I’ve signed a prenup that says he keeps it all? I’ll be a kosher dill with even less time to recoup.

There are other issues, too. Financial issues, personality issues, an imbalance of power that I’m not always comfortable with, even though I said I wanted a man who takes charge. 

“You don’t have to work, Baby. You can just stay home. You can write.”

“Stay home?” I say, incredulous. “The thought never crossed my mind.”

“And it never dawned on me that my wife could contribute. It’ll be nice,” he says unconvincingly. 

Flags start snapping, big red ones, in my mind. How are we going to get through this? Sure, we love each other, but maybe we shouldn’t get married. Maybe we shouldn’t have kids. Sex, money, and remodeling: the top three reasons couples divorce. We’re already facing the last two and it hasn’t quite been nine months. 

“We should see a counselor,” I say. And he doesn’t cringe, doesn’t blink.

“Sure. Okay,” he answers. 

What does it take for a marriage to survive? And if we’re all in, does it mean we cease being separate? If I meld, where do I go? And if I’ve historically been the breadwinner, can I be a good follower? Does submitting mean I’m weak or incapable? Is the alternative that we ‘date’ indefinitely? Can either of our personality types handle that kind of surreality? These are questions I don’t have the answers to. 

Our coming together is complicated: a moving, breathing thing we must tend to, be gentle with, be kind about. There is always an end, even if it’s not at death that we’ll part. So maybe he gets a parachute if we divorce. If so, I get one, too.