Cigarettes smeared with lipstick. My mom says she used to like watching my grandmother smoke because of her long, elegant fingers. It was a shock to me to find out my grandma had lung cancer when I was 12 because she had stopped smoking around the time I was born. She had it, though, and hers was the second funeral I attended. My uncle had died of a heart attack 8 months earlier. He was 42 and a lawyer. There were rumors he had a malpractice suit looming over him. I don’t know if those were true. But I remember sitting in my aunt’s living room in a circle with family and friends, either before or after the funeral. A neighbor was talking about her 3 or 4 year old daughter who wanted to get a bunch of helium balloons together so she could fly up and go see Dan in heaven. I cried at that story, tears openly sliding down my face. My cousin told me later she was surprised I hadn’t gotten up and gone into the bathroom. No one needs to see that type of thing was the message.
I don’t know if I still believed in God at that point in my life, but if I continued to after I would have thought he was a cruel bastard. I attended half a dozen funerals between ages 12 and 17. A classmate who was accidentally shot by another classmate, a kid I babysat for who was severely disabled because of a car accident a few years earlier. His dad had taken him along the winding roads toward Horseshoe Bend. No carseat. No seatbelt. The dad survived just fine. The first time I babysat the child and his brother, I heard his parents asking as they left, “Did her friend tell her about him?” I think my friend had, but the parents hadn’t really told me what was going on with their child. “Sorry, we broke him.” They didn’t say that.
A 14-year-old friend I had gone a school trip to Russia with. Killed in the passenger seat when she and her brother were driving to see the new mall, the first mall ever in Boise. On that trip I think she may have been one of the cool girls who teased me but I’m not sure. I don’t think she was, but one of the girls who did make fun of my Garfield pajamas was at a funeral when I was 20. Her sister and her sister’s boyfriend had been killed on the road up to Riggins. A big-rig hit them head-on. Stacey was at her sister’s funeral and I hugged her and hugged her. The boyfriend had been a fellow RA at college. I sat in on one of his shifts that week. His dorm had the smart people in it (the academics, I should say). They were quite docile.
I told my mom at a certain point that I was done being sad and I wasn’t going to cry anymore. This was after my grandmother. It was hard to pull off but I was relatively successful. Mom could always see the strain in my eyes, though.
It was a surprise to me to grow up and realize I wouldn’t be going to a funeral every year or six months. Part of me keeps waiting for the terror to start again. The slow, lumbering, floral-arrangement-and-ham-and-cheese-sandwich-laden terror of another expression of grief without expression. A community coming together to look at themselves and wonder who’s next. I had a theory about the Mormon families I grew up around. They had too many kids. Kids who got hit by cars at 5 and killed, were riding in cars with their teenage friends and killed, were playing with guns and killed. It’s OK, we have a few more. Plenty to go around.
I wish I had ended on a lighter note. Happy Thanksgiving. :)
Wednesday, November 27, 2013
Wednesday, November 13, 2013
'The moment I heard...'
The moment I heard about the earthquake I was standing in a field full of cows. My cell phone rang. I had no idea I even got cell reception out here. At first a cow mooed and I couldn’t hear what was coming across on the line (do cell phones have “lines”?). Then I heard a voice, faintly familiar, telling me something had happened. I should have been there when it did but I wasn’t. I was here amongst the cows.
When I was 9 I was in a 7.5 quake in my home state of Idaho. I was standing at the bus stop when I heard a car approaching. No, it must be the bus. No…WHAT IS THAT?? The ground below me started moving. Ground wasn’t supposed to do that. I heard my mom calling to me from the house. She yelled my name and I started running to her. I looked down briefly and I could see the ground rolling beneath my feet. I felt like I was on the moon.
One morning the cows from the pasture in back got loose. My mom noticed them when she walked out to get the paper with her flashlight and suddenly saw a big white face in the beam. The cows were cool, though. I imagine the grass tasted good.
When I got the news about this earthquake I realized it didn’t bother much as much as I might have in the past. I’d been through several quakes since living in Southern California, including on in Redondo Beach when my chair rolled softly on its wheels and the door to the patio swung gently. A couple of years ago I was working at the U-T on Easter and I thought I was going to die when the quake struck. The building is on rollers, so the quake went on and on and on. This was the big one, I was sure of it. Especially when my colleague said, “It’s not stopping.”
So when the big one hit it seemed kind of anticlimactic. I learned that no one I knew was hurt, the damage wasn’t quite as bad as had been predicted, and now it was over. It finally happened. No more hearing, “Why would you want to live down there with the earthquakes and the pollution and the crowds and the…”
There weren’t any crowds where I was standing now, unless you counted the cows, of course. I tried to approach one but she lumbered off when I got close. Cows aren’t cuddly, contrary to popular belief. Cows are cows. Big, soft, and slow.
I thought about the Idaho quake again recently when I viewed some home videos my brother had transferred to DVD. My husband watched with me and commented on how my childhood seemed idyllic. Except for that my stepdad would say things (on video) like, “Rachel, it’s time for you to put your boots away” … “before I throw them away with everything else.” I was quite compliant. Too compliant, I think now, until I’m reminded that kids have to do whatever they need to do to survive. Put up with emotional abuse that’s impossible to explain because it causes no visible scars. There are no cracks in the stairway like what happened at the U-T building. Walking down the stairwell I realized that it could all come tumbling down on top of me. Everything was built on fissures that we just couldn’t see until something got shaken up. I got shaken up. I left the paper 3 months later.
On Facebook a friend posted that she was receiving the command to “rest” from the universe, even though she felt like she should be out doing, doing, doing. A guy responded that value was only through action. Doing, doing, doing. What happens when you’re done doing?
It feels like the building is shaking. Does anyone else feel that? Maybe it’s just someone next door. I always like the response, “It’s just a truck going by” when there’s actually an earthquake happening. Trucks aren’t that powerful, not even the triple trailers my husband seems so impressed with when we see them in Idaho. Nothing is more powerful than the little cracks in the surface that might bust open at any given moment. I’m kind of curious to see what’s underneath. Maybe just more of the same.
When I was 9 I was in a 7.5 quake in my home state of Idaho. I was standing at the bus stop when I heard a car approaching. No, it must be the bus. No…WHAT IS THAT?? The ground below me started moving. Ground wasn’t supposed to do that. I heard my mom calling to me from the house. She yelled my name and I started running to her. I looked down briefly and I could see the ground rolling beneath my feet. I felt like I was on the moon.
One morning the cows from the pasture in back got loose. My mom noticed them when she walked out to get the paper with her flashlight and suddenly saw a big white face in the beam. The cows were cool, though. I imagine the grass tasted good.
When I got the news about this earthquake I realized it didn’t bother much as much as I might have in the past. I’d been through several quakes since living in Southern California, including on in Redondo Beach when my chair rolled softly on its wheels and the door to the patio swung gently. A couple of years ago I was working at the U-T on Easter and I thought I was going to die when the quake struck. The building is on rollers, so the quake went on and on and on. This was the big one, I was sure of it. Especially when my colleague said, “It’s not stopping.”
So when the big one hit it seemed kind of anticlimactic. I learned that no one I knew was hurt, the damage wasn’t quite as bad as had been predicted, and now it was over. It finally happened. No more hearing, “Why would you want to live down there with the earthquakes and the pollution and the crowds and the…”
There weren’t any crowds where I was standing now, unless you counted the cows, of course. I tried to approach one but she lumbered off when I got close. Cows aren’t cuddly, contrary to popular belief. Cows are cows. Big, soft, and slow.
I thought about the Idaho quake again recently when I viewed some home videos my brother had transferred to DVD. My husband watched with me and commented on how my childhood seemed idyllic. Except for that my stepdad would say things (on video) like, “Rachel, it’s time for you to put your boots away” … “before I throw them away with everything else.” I was quite compliant. Too compliant, I think now, until I’m reminded that kids have to do whatever they need to do to survive. Put up with emotional abuse that’s impossible to explain because it causes no visible scars. There are no cracks in the stairway like what happened at the U-T building. Walking down the stairwell I realized that it could all come tumbling down on top of me. Everything was built on fissures that we just couldn’t see until something got shaken up. I got shaken up. I left the paper 3 months later.
On Facebook a friend posted that she was receiving the command to “rest” from the universe, even though she felt like she should be out doing, doing, doing. A guy responded that value was only through action. Doing, doing, doing. What happens when you’re done doing?
It feels like the building is shaking. Does anyone else feel that? Maybe it’s just someone next door. I always like the response, “It’s just a truck going by” when there’s actually an earthquake happening. Trucks aren’t that powerful, not even the triple trailers my husband seems so impressed with when we see them in Idaho. Nothing is more powerful than the little cracks in the surface that might bust open at any given moment. I’m kind of curious to see what’s underneath. Maybe just more of the same.
Wednesday, November 6, 2013
'I took the slow road home'
I took the slow road home. Why was it slow, you ask? I’m happy you asked because it doesn’t make much sense, does it? Why is one road slower than the other? Doesn’t it depend on the traveler of the road, not the road itself? What made this road particularly slow was that it was winding. Long and winding. No, not that road, although I did see a lot of Paul McCartney last night on the PBS Jimi Hendrix documentary. It was nice to see him applauding someone other than the Beatles.
I took the slow road home that night because I wanted to savor the moment. The road was dark, yet light enough that I could see the moss on the rocks and the moon trickling through the trees. I walked down the path that reminded me more than a little of the place Little Red Riding Hood sauntered down with her picnic basket. I always imagined that story in the daylight, though. Interesting because it’s a story about deception and loss.
I took the slow road home because I wanted to see what Robert Frost meant when he chose the one less traveled by. I didn’t encounter any travelers along the way that night, though I did hear an owl hooting and I swear I saw a mouse scamper in front of me. I don’t think it was blind. And there was only one.
I took the slow road home because I had an epiphany in a dream last night that time doesn’t exist. It’s only our perception of it that makes it real (perhaps it was a fever dream brought on my daylight savings lag). What would happen to our perception of time if we lived on a disk instead of a sphere, hurtling through the universe randomly with the sun on one side for a bit, then the other, flipping around at odd times. We’d be trying to dry clothes in the sun when suddenly darkness would engulf the yard. Damn. What time would it be then?
I took the slow road home because I wanted to hear that song one more time. This was before MP3s and YouTube, after all. My life revolved around KCRW anyway. Might as well take another turn around the neighborhood to rock in my Nissan Sentra.
I took the slow road home because the fast road was traffic-jammed. Think about it.
I took the slow road home because I didn’t want to get home too quickly. Then they might be suspicious. Better to leave them wondering where I was than provide proof I existed. Who wants to be monotonous when they be mysterious?
I took the slow road home because it’s hard to write a narrative in first person, apparently. Last week it was easier when we had a character to write about. It was easier to put words and actions into her life than to think of this “I.” Who am I? Am I a character? Someone told me once I should be a standup comedian. I couldn’t tell if he was joking.
She took the slow road home because she wanted to see what was there. It had been several years since she’d returned to her hometown and things were different. Where once there were cow pastures there were now Ikeas. Where wide open spaces gave off the faint scent of green there was the smell of rain on the pavement. The slow road had become fast. Her life kept on spinning. Back and forth and back and forth, and back to a place that no longer existed.
I took the slow road home that night because I wanted to savor the moment. The road was dark, yet light enough that I could see the moss on the rocks and the moon trickling through the trees. I walked down the path that reminded me more than a little of the place Little Red Riding Hood sauntered down with her picnic basket. I always imagined that story in the daylight, though. Interesting because it’s a story about deception and loss.
I took the slow road home because I wanted to see what Robert Frost meant when he chose the one less traveled by. I didn’t encounter any travelers along the way that night, though I did hear an owl hooting and I swear I saw a mouse scamper in front of me. I don’t think it was blind. And there was only one.
I took the slow road home because I had an epiphany in a dream last night that time doesn’t exist. It’s only our perception of it that makes it real (perhaps it was a fever dream brought on my daylight savings lag). What would happen to our perception of time if we lived on a disk instead of a sphere, hurtling through the universe randomly with the sun on one side for a bit, then the other, flipping around at odd times. We’d be trying to dry clothes in the sun when suddenly darkness would engulf the yard. Damn. What time would it be then?
I took the slow road home because I wanted to hear that song one more time. This was before MP3s and YouTube, after all. My life revolved around KCRW anyway. Might as well take another turn around the neighborhood to rock in my Nissan Sentra.
I took the slow road home because the fast road was traffic-jammed. Think about it.
I took the slow road home because I didn’t want to get home too quickly. Then they might be suspicious. Better to leave them wondering where I was than provide proof I existed. Who wants to be monotonous when they be mysterious?
I took the slow road home because it’s hard to write a narrative in first person, apparently. Last week it was easier when we had a character to write about. It was easier to put words and actions into her life than to think of this “I.” Who am I? Am I a character? Someone told me once I should be a standup comedian. I couldn’t tell if he was joking.
She took the slow road home because she wanted to see what was there. It had been several years since she’d returned to her hometown and things were different. Where once there were cow pastures there were now Ikeas. Where wide open spaces gave off the faint scent of green there was the smell of rain on the pavement. The slow road had become fast. Her life kept on spinning. Back and forth and back and forth, and back to a place that no longer existed.
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