They threshed the field's long golden grass while I was gone this last week. Now all that's left is a wild turkey picking through the leavings and just below the fence, a tangled knot of Queen Anne's lace.
Everyone complains that the summer heat came too early this year without realizing that summer is here. The new green leaves of spring trees deepened and darkened into baked green - a hot, kiln-fired color. The final blooms on the magnolia turned a waxen buttery color, and the petals hang heavy and limp. Only after a rain does the melting Southern heat relent, turning briefly to a mist that rises from the road, the smell of ozone and wet burned things.
It's that sudden oppressive heat that descended when we weren't looking that reminded me of year ago: a surprisingly mild evening, late twilight, cool enough to go outside without losing your breath. How we walked slowly through the grass that felt fleshy and alive. And then the next day that came with merciless heat, even in the earliest hour of the day, when we pushed ourselves into the car with death at hand.
Who could breathe in such humidity and tears? The hot damp flush of despair rising up my throat, staining my neck, my cheeks. Who could avoid choking on thick air and salt water?
Who could forget the bright clear light that slanted through the windows, the dry, dead wheatness of the grass, the fervent green of the trees that he must've seen just before he closed his eyes?
Who could not wish, even a year later, for a gentle twilight and cricket song to soothe the sadness of missing him?
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
On Lost Love, a Year Later
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Requiescat in pace, Kudzu
My dearest, my most beloved Kudzu, may you rest in peace.
May you rest knowing that you were loved to the greatest depths of the human heart. May you rest knowing that you were and are cherished.
May you rest knowing that your constant companionship warmed even the loneliest, the most sorrowful of hours. May you rest knowing that you were light in a dark and sometimes unkind world.
May you rest knowing that your presence brought joy, comfort, happiness, peace. May you rest knowing that you were all things good (even when you were bad).
May you rest knowing that beyond pet, you were family, as much my lifeblood as anything. That you were my very heart.
May you rest, fully restored to your gray fuzzy bellied glory, with no scars or marks or patches to evidence of your illness.
May you rest knowing that you will never have to endure my picture-taking ever again.
May you rest after your long and hard-fought battle. Having been so brave and true, holding on for so long for me, so that I could accept that it was your time.
May you rest knowing that I never wanted you to die, except that one time you ate my blue merino wool J. Crew sweater (and even then, not really).
May you rest, weary traveler, from all those thousands of miles on the highway between here and North Carolina that would have been so much longer without you.
May you rest, knowing that you will never have to be stuck in the car with me in the McDonald's drive-in in Leland, North Carolina while I have a panic attack over the holiday weekend traffic.
May you rest knowing that you will be remembered in repose on the windowsill, on the kitchen towel, under a blanket nestled against my stomach.
May you rest gently purring or making sleepy kitty noises as you slumber. With your snaggletooth hanging out.
May you rest with my gratitude for having never eaten my eyeball as I feared you would.
May you rest having served me well with the greatest devotion and loyalty - no matter what mistakes I made in life.
May you rest from leaping onto the cabinets, the countertops, the bookshelves, the bed with sprightly grace.
May you rest with an endless supply of spider plants whose leaves you may nip to your heart's content.
May you rest from strewing toilet paper from the downstairs bathroom into the kitchen.
May you rest, never to be forgotten.
May you rest, my darling. May you rest from exhaustion, from pain and from this namelessness that has consumed you.
May you rest in the hands of the Heavenly Father who made you.
My dearest, my most beloved Kudzu, may you rest in peace.
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Hover:
An intransitive verb
to waver
As between life and death. Between numbers that show increased and then diminished red blood cells. The equation never balancing out. Always faltering between where it should be and far worse.
to linger uncertainly in a nervous or solicitous way
I lay in the floor next to him, observing the rise and fall of his breath. I touch his fur lightly and feel his warmth. I watch how he moves, looking always for his untroubled agility, light steps, inherent feline grace. I study his eyes. I note the color of his tongue, how much he eats, his insatiable thirst because of the steroids. The near constant scrutiny exhausts me and makes me restless.
to remain suspended over a place or object
Holding in the heartbreak most of the time until it ekes out, slides down my face, trembles on the edge of my chin, holding until the salted weight is too much.
to move to and fro near a place
We shuttle back and forth between home and the hospital. Work and the hospital. The waiting room and the exam room. The ICU and the outpatient services. The ongoing rotation of doctors and residents and students who carry the thickening file from the front desk to the discharge desk.
We drive back and forth between my parents' house and my house. We move furniture, small boxes and mow the lawn. We flutter through the rooms briefly and then depart, leaving a hollow echoing shell.
to hang, fluttering in the air or on the wing without moving in any direction
At times in this endless free-fall, I force myself to stop thinking about any of it - the lack of answers, the mounting expenses, the mortgage I'm paying on a house I don't inhabit - and I coast. I gather him in my arms and hold him so that I can absorb his breath, his heartbeat, his purr, his sleek black fur. I hold him and we stay there in that moment with no yesterday and no thought of tomorrow. Only warm, weightless safety.
to fluctuate around a given point
Life is driven by Kudzu. The times we must administer his medication. Leaving work every evening and coming directly home-do-not-pass-go to spend time with him. Fitting myself in the spaces where he lays - by the water bowl, snugged up to the vacuum cleaner, on the old coffee table in the spare room. Bending myself into the small spaces just to be close to where he is.
to be in a state of uncertainty, irresolution or suspense
No one knows why but suggests the answer may lie in the bone marrow, that deepest place where we have looked before and found nothing. The doctors want to invade again and look for those terrifying diseases that will give a name to what is sapping his strength. But I'm not sure that I can. I'm not sure that I can put him or me through that.
We go to the doctor again on Tuesday to check his red blood cell counts. And they will give me too little information and want me to make something of it. To decide what to do next. Which gamble should I take? And does it matter, when I feel like, in the end, that death holds all the cards? My next play is a faceless card, gripped tightly, being pushed toward the table with fear, hovering there, unable to let it fall and finish the game.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Father's Day
"It feels like I swallowed a baseball," Dad says.
"A baseball? That's not good," I say.
"Now don't get all excited. I'm not having a heart attack."
***
Two hours later, we are in the van - Anna is driving, and I'm in the passenger seat. It's raining. Mom and Dad sit in the second row of seats. They are holding hands. Dad shifts again and again in the seat. At exit 12, he tells Anna to put the hazards on.
The windshield wipers slice through the tense silence. There is nothing to say. I lean forward in the seat, willing the van to go faster. The speedometer needle tickles against 90. The hazards tick on and off. Rain pelts the windows.
Five more exists pass. Dad asks how much longer. Mom asks, her voice trembling, "Can we call for a police escort?"
Anna's voice comes out flat and hollow. "No...they won't do that anymore."
***
When we get off one highway and onto another closer to the hospital, I call Justin. He is waiting in the ER dropoff with a wheelchair.
Dad is laboring to breathe, his face greying. He is scared. Concern and fear are etched in every line on Mom's face.
I want to scream. I want to throw up. I close my eyes, squeezing the threatening tears out to wet the fringe of my lashes. "Please, God," I pray silently. "Please, please don't take him. None of us can bear it."
***
The ER is chaos. The walking wounded limp and roll and cough and sputter through the aisle. Wheelchairs weave through the crowd, driven by harried orderlies. They do not have a room. Dad is taken back into a hallway to be settled on a gurney. Only Mom can go with him.
***
In the aftermath, those settling moments of quiet heavy realization, me, Anna and Justin sit on little square chairs. Crammed together in silence. Each of our minds are torn: between what is happening now and the fate of our father, and what was happening nearly four months before in the very same ER.
Anna sits quietly between us. I don't know whether to say it or say anything but his name - Ronnie.
***
It is not a heart attack. The EKG is clear; the blood gas is devoid of the telltale enzyme present during cardiac arrest. They order a chest x-ray and a CT scan. We wait.
***
Hours later, they have still not seen a doctor. I make a few phone calls. Justin opens his briefcase, pulls out the crossword puzzle books he keeps for airport waits. I begin filling in the tiny squares with letters. He and Anna work logic puzzles - as though making sense of a set of facts will make sense of what's happening.
***
The x-ray shows pneumonia in the lungs. Just barely. But it is there. When Justin delivers this news, Anna looks as though she will crumble into a million pieces.
***
Dad is admitted to the hospital for the night and finally transitioned into a room in the ER while waiting for a private room to open elsewhere. I go back to see him. He is weak and tired. But still in good humor. The phlebotomist is looking for veins in the crook of his elbow. She runs fingers to his wrist. "You've got some good ones down here," she says. "Well, honey," he replies. "You just pick you one out."
***
Outside his room, the shift change is taking place. I see a familiar face. The charge nurse is now the woman who told us that Ronnie died. Of all the nurses in the Atlanta hospital, it is her. My stomach burns and my heart aches. I want to run from the building.
***
Anna never goes back into the ER. I know she wants to, but she cannot. It is too soon. It is too much. And she has nothing with which to fight.
***
Sunday morning, Anna and I listen to her church service on the internet. The preacher talks about light in dark times. "Is anyone in dark times?" he asks. We pretend not to notice each other crying.
****
By the middle of Sunday, we have a guesstimated diagnosis of pericarditis: an inflammation of the heart's lining. The inflammation increases the amount of fluid around the heart and squeezes it - resulting in pain under the breastbone, intensified by drawing deep breaths.
We have a Father's Day lunch - Dad on hospital food. Anna and I order take out. We celebrate with mini-Snickers. We try to laugh. We know we are at least all together. We are hopeful that there is light in the darkness.
***
The cardiologist comes in and says, yes, he thinks that the problem is pericarditis. An echo cardiogram to be sure that there are no abnormalities. A stress test to make sure the heart is functioning properly. This name, the assurance that it is treatable, eases the tension in the room.
***
Late in the afternoon, Anna insists that Mom needs a break from the hospital. Dad is doing better but assured another night in the hospital. I tell them to go, that I'll stay with him. Shortly after dinner, Dad falls asleep. I lay on the rock-solid excuse for a couch reading the 2004 Fodor's guide to London.
The phlebotomist comes in to collect for another round of blood gases. "Dad," I say gently, touching his shoulder. "They need to take some more blood."
While the phlebotomist goes about donning the latex gloves and stretching the band that makes Dad's veins bulge, the new charge nurse comes in. "What has he been doing," she asks me.
"Sleeping. I just woke him up to have blood drawn."
She pulls out the monitor that he's been wearing around his neck and says that his heart rate is up over 160 bpm. "What should it be?" I ask.
"We'd like it to be 80."
My mouth goes dry.
I look at Dad. He turns to the nurse, "You're scaring me."
"Well," she says, "You're giving us a scare."
She leaves the room. I can see the fear in his frame, the way he tenses against the bed. "Please, God," I plead once more. "Please no."
***
Hours later, the red light is still flashing on the monitor. The number drops to 117 and flashes back up to 130, 140 and then 108. The erratic heartbeat is all over the board.
Anna, Mom and I sit on the couch together. I lean against Mom's arm. With her free hand, she pushes my bangs out of my eyes and tucks them behind one ear.
***
Anna and I head home. The nurse has just been in to tend to her "problem child." She calls the cardiologist on call who agrees to send his PA. This is not uncommon, she assures us; for us, the whole scenario is uncommon.
By the time we reach Anna's house, Mom calls and tells me that the medicine the PA ordered over the phone has taken effect. The monitor is now showing a steady green light. And an exhausted Dad has already fallen asleep.
***
Overnight, the pericarditis seems to lose its grip. Despite another 3 a.m. episode of "atrial flutter", his color returns. He is more himself. A nurse helps him take a pseudo bath and washes his hair. By 11 a.m., they have let him know he will be discharged.
I got up at 5 that morning to ride back to Athens with Chris, who is taking a class at UGA. This news of the discharge is like the letting out of a long-held painful breath. Everything inside me starts to collapse.
Chris comes and picks me up and takes me home. I fall asleep on the couch for an hour.
***
Around 4, I hear the door open. Dad comes in, looking tired and worn. He has a three-day beard salt-and-peppering his face. He's walking a bit slowly and looking for somewhere to sit down. "Hi, Daddy," I say. "Welcome home."
***
At 9 o'clock, we all head for bed. All of us are exhausted beyond comprehension. Before I go to my end of the hall, I take care to hug both Mom and Dad, tell them I love them. As if I needed another reminder how swiftly the tides can change...the sense of having narrowly escaped catastrophe burns inside me, spurring me to live for a few moments with the knowledge of how the story could've ended.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Weeds
For Ronnie, lawn maintenance was nearly a religion. He mowed, edged, watered, fertilized and weeded. I can remember him talking about needing to tend the yard like one would speak of nurturing a child. He labored over it in the warm months and planned for it in the cold ones.
So when the weeds began encroaching on the front lawn after he died, it became almost an assault on his memory. Anna's mentioned the weeds frequently to me; they seemed to be feeding on her grief, popping up across the lawn and in the straw beds stretching around the yard's perimeter.
On Saturday morning, she and I decided to tackle the front yard. She sat near the sidewalk and I sat near the road, and we each methodically plucked weeds from between the blades of sod. The sun moved higher; we scooted a path back and forth across the lawn, leaving a trail of weeds atop the grass behind us.
And as we broke apart the fragile roots of those tiny but persistent weeds, we uprooted the thin barrier between casual words and those that reached deeper down.
"Does it seem like a long time," I asked. "Or like it was just yesterday?"
She sighed. "It depends. But most days, I just think about how long it's been and I wonder how I made it this far."
"I really missed him this week," I said. I hesitated to say this...did she want to hear how I missed him? A feeling that undoubtedly paled in comparison to her own sense of loss. She was silent.
"And...and when I think of him-" I pushed on - "I think of him chuckling. I can still hear him chuckling." My voice was quavering at this point and tears were sliding down my flushed cheeks.
"Me, too." I could tell she was crying, too. "You would never expect his laugh to sound like that."
"No," I laughed - a watery, thick kind of sound.
And it went on like that. She would tell me something she missed, and I would respond, and vice versa. Sometimes we laughed; sometimes we cried more. Our muscles were aching. The sun grew hotter, burning my shoulders and her forearms. And we kept on pulling, weed by weed, discarding those unwanted plants in heaps of green tops and spindly brown roots systems.
They seemed to cover everything when we started. But by the end of the afternoon, the lawn was a clean stretch of green sod, pristine and trimmed. Just like Ronnie would've wanted it.
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Running on Empty
I've been operating under the misconception that grief gets better day by day, inch by inch. The truth is, it's three steps forward and two steps back. Or maybe it's that everything is forward, it's just that some of the forward motion still hurts like it's fresh all over again.
With unexpected death comes unexpected emotions. I've been withdrawn. I don't know what to say or do. I've clung to solitude and the shelter of family. Because when I'm alone or when I'm with them, I'm with someone who feels what I feel.
I feel guilty that I'm being neglectful of friends. I know everyone's life is still going on and that good and bad things continue to happen. And besides that guilt, there is the guilt that I'm a little bit frustrated that my own life isn't going on. Everything is focused on getting through this time, which means we're supporting Anna, which I want to do. But this weekend was the first in over a month that I've been at home, and I resent a little bit (it's so hard to say aloud) that I was just starting to think about getting out there and getting a life and now life is different.
I'm fighting it all, too. I'm fighting the solitude. I'm fighting against myself to seek other people out and talk to them. I'm fighting the guilt. I'm fighting these feelings of frustration that seem so selfish and wrong. I'm fighting and fighting until there's no fight left.
And that's where I was when I got to Thursday - having tossed and turned through another restless night, having fought through the feelings all week. And I crashed. I just crashed. I almost didn't make it through work.
That's when I realized that I can't run like this for weeks at a time. Because day by day, inch by inch, it will get better. But the road is so long, that it's going to be many, many weeks before we get down it. I can't run on empty for all that time. So whether it's two steps back, whether it's selfish, I've got to take some time to focus on myself or else I'm just going to have a complete breakdown and be stranded along this long road, no good to anyone.
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Calendar Girls: The Posts of 2007
This year, 2007, was among the most turbulent, most emotional, most awful years of my life. Amidst the chaos and the despair, there were, of course, some bright shining moments of euphoria, like Dillon's grand entrance into the world - which changed everything about our lives. And on top of that, I decided to change virtually everything about my own life.
Looking back through the posts of '07, I realized just how much I've been through, and how much I've grown. And changed. And cried. And I figured the only way to review '07 was through the posts that said it best, brought to you by the calendar girls of the year.
Right now, I'm looking at 24 more hours in the year, and I'm not sorry to be closing the books on this one. I'll be holding my breath as the clock ticks toward midnight tomorrow that '08 will turn out to be a better year. Happy New Year, y'all.
January: A Very Happy Announcement
February: My Life the Democracy
March: Georgia on My Mind
April: Leaving: Part One
May: Taking the Long Way (or the Unplan Plan)
June: The Girl Who Lived
July: (Untitled)
August: Sister Mary Sunshine Gets Sucker Punched
September: Handle It
October: Shoreline
November: On Meeting People
December: Bones
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Don't Panic
Thoughts pell-mell like so many colored kites jagging in storm winds...tugging to get free of their lines, giving slack and then straining, but all the time held tight by a single unyielding thread. Colored blurs flapping, the sound of a playing card on bicycle spokes. A loose thread unraveling, the reel coming free.
Lines tangle. Kites crash.
One singular sensation
It starts with...
...thrumming blood, right ear, so hard I press my finger in to make sure the drum won't burst
...sharp tightness, central chest, pinching beneath the bow of my sternum
...dull nausea, stomach pit, slick and threatening...
Pleasemakeitgoaway
Fight the pricking tears. Fight the gag reflex. Fight the breath coming so fast that is never enough. Fight the claustrophobia of mind.
AndIdon'tknowwhy
Wracking shivers but I am not cold. Or maybe I am. I am numb and feeling everything amplified - a sense of irrational imploding. Attempting sleep, but in the darkness, all I can think is
Pleasemakeitgoaway
If I fall asleep, it is to wrestle like David with an Angel, restless and overpowered. And when I wake, it is to purge.
Justtomakeitgoaway
AndIdon'tknowwhy
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Sunday, July 22, 2007
Thursday, July 19, 2007
All Hallows Eve
In just over 24 hours, I will have Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows in hand. I'm ready. I've dutifully reread, pondered, conjectured, debated and predicted what will happen in the final installment of the Potter series. Whatever the case, tears will be shed - I've stocked up on Kleenex. I've touched base with my fellow Potter aficionados for last-minute predictions and the terms of engagement over the weekend o' reading (any calls must be answered with the chapter number so as not to spoil the plot).
Rowling has said writing Potter was the experience of a lifetime. Indeed. It has given us all something to argue about and discuss and believe in and imagine and frankly, love more than you should love people who don't exist. And while I am nearly breathless with anticipation, I am already dreading the post-Potter depression. That it is The End.
That said, I'm going to soak up every minute until midnight tomorrow, anticipating it, thinking about it, feeling excited about that perfect moment just before I open the cover of the book. Until then, the blog will be dark. Enjoy it, Pottermaniacs. I'll see you on the other side.
Friday, July 06, 2007
28
Today is my 28th birthday. Let's look take a leaf out of Trelawney's book and see what happens when the fourth house is occupied (i.e. when you're a Cancer).
My domicile is the moon, my detriment is Saturn, my element water, which could be why I cry a lot. I am creative, have a retentive memory such that the last time I played Trivial Pursuit, I had to play two game pieces because I won so fast. I am a homebody and family-oriented, which is why I live with my parents and plaster the blog with my nephew. I am moody (at best), untidy, indecisive as all get out, overly sensitive and clingy. I am loyal, nurturing, sentimental, dreamy and romantic, as indicated by my reading genre of choice. I am a lover of wit (a.k.a. STGD) and food - although, I'm supposed to be able to cook well, but really I just eat well. And lastly, Cancer is the ruler of the breastplate so Cancers are typically "top heavy." This explains a lot.
Happy Birthday to me, little moody crab that I am.
Sunday, July 01, 2007
As Meg pointed out recently, having the blog often presents a predicament over what parts of life to chronicle. And sometimes, leaving life events off the blog feels odd when you know they're what are coloring that moment in time. I've struggled over whether or not to blog about what happened to me last week, and if I did, how to blog about it. To tell the whole story or just the essence. In the end, for better or for worse, I decided to blog it because I couldn't seem to get past it to write something else.
On Wednesday, Mom and I drove to Atlanta to stay with Justin and Eva for the night so that they could go out on a date while we kept Dillon. The night before, their oven element had burnt out (read: caught on fire), and Eva asked me to ride along with her to get the replacement part. And it was a totally normal sunny hot June afternoon.
When we returned and pulled into the garage, Eva rolled to a stop, put it the car in park, and we heard a very strange noise. A noise of something bumping up under the car. The sort of noise you hear when a cardboard box is caught underneath the car. She turned off the motor. We both exited the car. And it was no longer a totally normal sunny hot June afternoon but a blur of panic and anguish and andrenaline.
Seizing underneath the car was Justin and Eva's cat, Booker. I could tell it was bad. I yelled at her to get Mom. He was under the middle part of the car, and I'm not even sure how I reached him - I have bruises on the top of my feet where I pressed them to the concrete trying to get him. And when I did get him into my arms, he stilled and was quiet and there was blood in his mouth and coming from his nose and his pupils dilated and I laid him, as gently as I could in my panic, in the backseat and got in the car.
I don't know how many times Eva backed from the garage and pulled forward trying to get angled out of the driveway before I said, "You can't drive." I ran inside to get Mom, told her I didn't think he was going to make it as she passed me.
Inside, I looked at my hands and forearms spattered with blood and blood down the leg of my jeans. I washed up and then I sat in the floor in front of Dillon in the Exersaucer and wept. When Justin called the house, I told him Booker had been hit by a car, for some reason, unable to confess that it was Eva and me. Cowardly, I know, but I had to hold it together while in sole possession of Dillon.
When they came back forty-five minutes later, Eva told me he had died instantly and that the vet said all his subsequent movement was reflex. We scrubbed the car and the garage and my pants and wondered over how this had happened.
I haven't been able to stop replaying it all in my head. To try and sort out what exactly did happen, examine the forensic evidence and reconstruct the incident. And in doing so, determine the million points along the timeline at which, if we'd only done x differently, it wouldn't have happened. But the truth is, it isn't possible, no matter how many ways you write the equation, to prevent all terrible things from happening. No matter how careful you are, how closely you look, how slowly you're going, how many times you've pulled in before, the fact that we just didn't see him. And on top of it all, between the lost dog and the car accident and now this, I am unable to shake the feeling that some terrible karmic energy is hovering over me and that somehow I'm to blame for making this happen.
Justin loved Booker so much. He entered their lives as a stray when Justin was in grad school, and they started to feed "Myrtle" who looked terribly dirty and mangy. Until one day, they took him to the vet and found out "he" wasn't a "she." Booker had a tiny meow that earned him the moniker Mr. Meepers and so much fuzz on his back legs that we used to say it looked like he was wearing chaps. And he loved to sit on Justin's stomach and knead and knead. He let Dillon pull his hair, sitting calmly while we extracted Dillon's fist from his fur. On the day he died, he'd been sunning on their back deck and played with the neighborhood kids.
Holding Booker after the accident, knowing that life was literally seeping out of him, was somehow intensely profound for me. I'm sure some people will read this post and think it ridiculous, with all that's going on in the world, that I was so shockingly affected by a dying cat. But somehow, it was a reminder that the innocent suffer for no apparent reason. That in an instant, something that brought great joy into this world was gone. That there is no rhyme or reason to it. That it's not anyone's fault. And perhaps worst of all, that something like this, some inexplicable terrible thing, will happen again. Sooner or later. And there's nothing I can do it stop it. Death creeps up; it lurks around the corner. Whether it comes for the pets or the people that you love, when death comes, you just have to live with it.
Sunday, June 03, 2007
Leaving: Part Four - Going Back
The Return Trip: Observations & Experiences
* It is an entirely different trip when driving east first and west second. Either way, it is still a long, long drive.
* Coldstone Creamery's cake batter ice cream is sinfully good.
* Downtown Wilmywood is still there - I saw it, walked its streets, smelled its river.
* There is nothing like the dark theater, Coke Icees, and a good friend on either side to pass a rainy Saturday.
* I do not wish to see the movie Joshua, as the preview nearly made me cry with fear.
* Waitress is so wonderful and funny and heartbreaking that I can't stop thinking about it.
* I did not look at my office, as I know it is no longer mine. I did help myself to a complimentary Diet Coke and Skittles from the conference room table.
* The emergence of K. Lo.'s personality is extraordinarily entertaining, between the use of the Red Robin crayon box as a cell phone and her constant parade of dance moves. Bonus moment was hearing her say "yum" when fed potato soup.
* STGD's porch is a good thing with its ferns and flower boxes and the creak of the porch swing and a beer in hand and Lenny looking for lizards and the breeze and the rain. And us laughing. Always laughing.
* Weirdly, it has not rained here or there since I left. Last night, it poured both places.
* Uninterrupted girl time to discuss hair (cuts, color, and styling tips), fashion, boys, and life in general is very important to the soul.
* Mel's cat Oliver has something urgent to say. I only wish I knew what it was.
* It is a bittersweet reminder how good it is to have friends to share a meal, a movie, a magazine, a moment.
* My Southern accent is baaaack.
* Grace Street is occupied now but mine in my heart.
* Still some ghosts lurking in Wilmywood.
* Thanks to Mel, Penelope, STGD, and The Boss for kind and insightful life advice. (And to Mel for letting me crash...)
* Nothing could stop the tears as the riverfront disappeared in the sideview mirror crossing the bridge out of town.
Monday, May 21, 2007
Octagonal Oddities
Tagged by Pen to reveal 8 weird things about myself...as if what I write everyday doesn't qualify.
1. I am obsessed with trees. I have in my closet a branch of a weeping cherry tree that used to reside in our backyard and was cruelly cut down because it grew into the septic tank. At Berry, there was a holly tree that grew outside my window, and in Wilmywood, the giant ancient oak outside the Grace Street house was mine all mine. Trees make me feel peaceful and contemplative. Something to do with my name, perhaps? Or maybe I was an Ent in a former life.
2. I feel bad when I am not part of a cultural phenomenon. I feel guilty about the fact that"Smells Like Teen Spirit" was one of the most formative songs of my generation and I simply wasn't that into it. Clerks and Mallrats? Never seen 'em. The Simpsons? Not that funny to me. It makes me feel like a lesser member of the human race, like I'm not being a team player because I'm not participating. It's one of the main reasons I watch American Idol.
3. I like to have the same conversations over and over again, particularly with my mom. If we've talked out a situation once, we've talked it out 100 times. Sometimes we even use the same phrases. There is no answer, no resolution to these conversations. They are just familiar terrain that we like to explore over and over again. Like we need to say, "Remember that rock from yesterday?" Yep, I remember.
4. Embarrassingly weird, but Sister Act Two: Back in the Habit always makes me cry at the end. I'm serious. Those kids singing "Joyful, Joyful" and beating out the giant choir from St. Wherever, and I am in a puddle. Oh, Whoopi.
5. I don't like to listen to music unless I know the words. When I get a new CD, I listen to it at least twice with the liner notes in front of me. I've got to get a hang of the chorus, a thread of each verse in order to build on it until I know all the words. Perhaps this is why I cannot get into jazz. And as a second to this, when I find an artist that I like, I feel compelled to get all of their music even if I only like one song. I want to own them - all of them - and know all the words. This is how I like music.
6. I only like art that looks like something. I know this is incredibly low-brow and unhip of me. But if I'm going to hang it up, I need to see something in it - a cloud, a dog, a barn. It can be abstracted, but there's got to be something there. I'm sure there is great meaning in Pollock. But I don't want it on my wall.
7. I am obsessed with my left-handedness. I like to note what activities I actually perform left-handed...writing, eating, drinking, painting my fingernails, repelling.... I make note of anyone around me who is left-handed - store clerks, waiters, delivery men. I acknowledge it, like we are somehow comrades in arms because of our left-handedness. If I'm watching a movie, I will notice if an actor is left-handed. And I have to say it out loud. "Diane Keaton's left-handed!" (This during watching Baby Boom with my dad last weekend.) It is like being part of a secret society to me - and yeah, Hendrix is in it with me.
8. I see shortening people's names as a sign of affection. And some people hate this and find it a real insult that you would shorten their name. My friend Niki and I have been friends since first grade...back then, we were Nicole and Ashley. But as years went by, it shortened and shortened until we were Nik and Ash. And we used to joke that some day we'd just be letters. I also call STGD by the first letter of his first name which is "T". There are exceptions to the rule - names that simply don't lend themselves to being shortened or people who simply don't fit the acceptable shortening. But really - if I cut off most of your name, it's because I love you.
Tagging the hometown gals - Nik, Andi and Megan.
Thursday, May 10, 2007
Leaving: Part Three - The Office
This little paperweight sat on the small conference table in my boss's office. It was a Magic Eight Ball of sorts for the business types with answers like "Buy" and "Fire Someone." I used to sit at the table in her office and spin it and spin it while we were talking, letting my finger fall in the grooves to slow it down. On my last day, I went in to take a picture of it, and it just happened to be right on the line between "No" and "Go For It" which I thought was an ironically perfect answer to the question of me leaving.
I have been known, on occasion, to complain about my job. But I suppose that's par for the course if you're human and employed. The reason everyone loves The Office and Office Space is because in some way, we can relate to the horrors of the 9-to-5 existence. While I complained about whatever was going wrong that day, that week, that year...I still really loved my job. And I loved my office - including the carnival tent painting that my boss bought at an auction after I fell in love with it and was gracious enough to let me have in my office. And I loved the beautiful, beautiful iMac G5 (seen below). I had a marvelous time sitting in that chair - especially when I had visitors in the chairs opposite mine. (STGD, Susan, Allison, Lauren - that means you.)
I got my job by the allignment of Venus and Mars when Saturn was in the 7th house. I simply called all of the firms listed in the Yellow Pages and was invited to send my resume to this particular firm. I can remember the day I interviewed, and I was standing on the opposite side of Princess Street and talking to my mom on my giant Nokia cell about how petrified I was. Particularly because it felt like I'd been looking for a job forever, and I was two seconds from considering Hooters. My boss called to offer me the job on a Sunday, and I started Monday week - October 29, 2001. I worked part time during grad school, and then moved to full time after I graduated.
Over the years, I worked in three different offices with more than 50 clients and almost 25 different people. There was a little turnover problem, and then some of those people are still at the office, picking up where I left off. Maybe one of them is in the club chair on the right, which sits in the lobby (I wrote "our" lobby and then revised) . It's a good place to sit if you need a little sound advice from Miranda. You could find me there at some point during every day. And on the wall is Wilbur/Ferdinand - a happy pig smelling the tulips. I loved that pig. And the lamp that STGD turned on every morning because no one else would and the bowls of candy. When I first started, I remember telling Mom, "There's always chocolate in the office!"
And really, in the end, you have to consider what your send off is like, and I couldn't have had a better one. A photo of me from karaoke was turned into the Ashleypalooza graphic (and thanks to STGD, I look foxy!). It was applied to t-shirts (including one for the office dog!) which everyone was wearing when I arrived at the party. If you ever want to feel a little famous, I suggest getting a group of your friends to wear your face on a t-shirt. There were daiquiries and hula hooping attempts and lots of photos taken. There was the copy of the funny quotes we keep in a book for me to take away. And the beautiful scrapbook of photos and memories. I've looked at it about 50 times since I left.
The goodbyes at the end of this party were among the hardest I had to say. I spent more time with these people over the past few years than I spent with my own family. Every day. Coffee, lunch and sometimes dinner. They were my family away from family. It was an unforgettable experience - all almost-six years of it. And they are unforgettable people. And the end of the party was the first "big ugly" cry I had during the leaving weekend.
I've still been doing some work for them during the transition. And every time I call, I feel a little sad that I'm here and not there. Not getting my second cup of coffee. Not yelling at my boss from my office. Not sitting across the desk from STGD starting out working and ending up looking at Perez Hilton. But I like to think a little of me is left behind. A little ghost of me making too much noise and bad puns and piling up papers and draining the coffee pots and coercing everyone into quitting their diet for the day to go to Chic-Fil-A. Typically, that's what I did.
Sunday, April 29, 2007
Leaving: Part One
Yesterday was so brutal. The packing. The disposal of unwanted items that, for whatever unknown reason, you've kept neatly tucked in a drawer, a closet, behind the door. Dividing belongings between storage and temporary life at my parents' house. But the worst part was the leaving. I'm quite sure that the impact of it will come to me slowly. That the next week will be the subsequent parts of leaving that I need or want to express. But today, there is just the first part, the iconic part, the length of time no more than five minutes long that was everything.
It is time to go. The apartment is empty, just like it was the first day that I saw it and fell in love with it and begged my landlord to let me put a deposit down even though she wanted me to think about it over the weekend. I walk through and say goodbye to the porch. Goodbye to the bathroom and bedroom and living room. And then I go to the kitchen window, the one with the big sill that I sat in and talked on the phone, or thought, or dreamed or cried, or simply stared out into the darkness of night and lost myself. I put my hands on the glass and curl my fingers around one of the cross bars of the frame. And I lean my head against the pane and I cry. Slowly, it becomes a sob - the heart-wrenching, gasping, from the bottom up sob. It is loud and painful. My mother puts one arm around my waist, and I sense that it is both to comfort and to support. I am coming loose. Then in one breath, I stop for a moment and say, "Okay." I step away from the glass, turn and walk from the kitchen.
As I reach for the door of the apartment, I turn one last time to look. I see myself in the gilt mantle mirror - face red, eyes swollen beyond recognition, my nose a bright cherry under the brim of my cap, and I say, "Goodbye" and I leave.
Friday, April 27, 2007
Emotional Forecast
Overcast and cloudy...Chance of precipitation 100%...General area is on a flood watch...Officials recommend securing an emergency supply of Puffs...Sixteen minutes from a serious emotional front marked by rising pressure (i.e. departing from the office)...Expect turbulent weather with a brief calm (party time)...Severe showers again late tonight and most of tomorrow...Due to the weather, the blog will be unplugged for the next 48-hours...Take cover...
Saturday, April 21, 2007
Tears
1) Sunday, 10:36 p.m. Intersection of 17th Street and Shipyard Boulevard. Following baked ziti and The Sopranos at Tom & Mel's.
2) Tuesday, 4:12 p.m. Office of The Client. Following presentation of embroidered tote bag. This is the first semi-official goodbye.
3) Saturday, 1:33 a.m. Martin Luther King Parkway. Following Girls' Night with Pen & Mel. Listening to "How to Save a Life."
Sorry, I'm commenting up a storm here. My short(ened) list:
1. When Hedwig died (sniffles)
2. When Dobby died (confused sniffles)
3. When Percy came through the portrait hole (choked back sobs)
4. When Fred died (more choked back sobs)
5. When Snape died (open, ugly howling)
6. When Harry realized he was going to die (back to choking)
7. When his family came out of the ressurection stone (open sobbing)
Curiously, I stopped crying there. Didn't cry at Harry's death-- but I think because I sort of knew he wasn't dead?
I also didn't cry at Harry's death, but I think I also knew that he wasn't really dead (or just wasn't willing to accept that he might actually be dead).
I cried the most at Dobby's death. I am just the kind of person who needs to process and I had enough space with that one.
The most tear-inducing moment of all, though, was when Harry's family came out, and particularly when he asked his mom to stay close to him. That was such a beautiful scene. I'm going to cry just thinking about it.
snape dying.
sure it's probably bcs when i took that sorting hat test i came up slytherin but still. it was specific and clear and not a cliche... and it was nicely done.
Oh god. I cried through the whole thing.
1. The dedication ("and to you, if you have stuck with Harry until the very end.")
2. The epigraph ("Bless the children, and give them triumph now.")
Yes, that is where I began crying.
3. Cried for Hedwig, natch.
4. Cried at Harry's parents' graves.
5. Cried when Ron left; cried when Ron came back.
6. Cried a lot about Luna's bedroom ceiling.
7. Cried when Dobby died (somewhat hysterical at that time).
8. Cried when Percy came back, even though I thought it was a little cheap.
9. Wept while McGongagall arranged the battle of Hogwarts. Just.so.damn.in.awe.of.her.
10. Cried over Snape's memories.
11. Cried in the King's Cross station over Dumbledore's final words.
12. Cried through most of the final battle...
I was pretty much already crying when we learned of Fred's, Remus's and Tonks's deaths. I'm not excluding them from the tears.
I agree, I was really touched by the dedication!
*Hedwig's death was violent, brutal, sudden, unexpected, senseless and made me mad and cry at the same time!
*Dobby's death was also a complete shock and I was glad we had the time to process it as well.
*I was really touched by Luna's ceiling as well!
*Definitely sobbed as Harry was watching the Snape memories and realizing he had to die. That was the most affecting and emotional for me. I was accepting, but so deeply saddened. And his walk alone back to the forest and being struck down. I didn't doubt that he had actually died and was still crying at point.
I actually didn't cry when Fred died. And I wasn't that affected by it for some reason. I was more sad to loose both Lupin and Tonks, actually. very weird. I would have been an emotional wreck if it had been Mr. or Mrs. Weasley, though.