We've walked the whole day, just like the previous four weeks. We stopped to eat or for the bathroom. Well, the bathroom is most of the time just behind some bushes. We are walking. A lot of other people were taking the train or buses, and they are free for us, just as the food and the beds are free, but we decided to walk our way, all the way to the capital. Like the old revolutionaries who had to march through much worse terrains and under constant threat of ambush. At least we will walk, with just our old comrade shoes. We never stopped to admire the country side or the forests or even the distant mountains. We just keep walking. We travel from one welcome center to the next each day, planning carefully so that we maximize our walking distance and still get to the next welcome center by dusk. After dusk, who knows what evil lurked in the dark.
It's almost five, the sun is still warm and quite far from the distant mountains in the west. A young man is coming towards us. We've not seen too many people on the road. There have been peasants and other wanderers walking like us. We are walking around the country to see all the great monuments to the Revolution, and everything is paid for by the munificent government. But we never stop to talk to anyone. We don't talk to anyone in the welcome centers either. You just don't talk to people. You just don't. You don't want to end up saying things you will regret later, especially if it's so easy nowadays to misinterpret, often deliberately, what you say, and then you are off to the public humiliation and possibly much worse for your counter-Revolution views, real or misinterpreted. So we keep our mouths shut about anything except, maybe, the weather, which is getting colder as we ascend the mountains.
The young man stops and asks us where we are going. We told him that we are going to the next welcome center down the road. He shakes his head. He is about eighteen, nineteen, age of my students. Of course, I don't have any more students; our great Leader has told them to stop studying and just go around the country admiring the great monuments of the Revolution and help root out enemies of the state, of the Revolution, of the people. He is not studying, obviously. But he has a huge smile on. He has three pins on his gray blue shirt, pins of our Leader you work hard to earn. Upon hearing our goal, his smile fades a little and he tells us that the center we want to lodge in is closed. We have heard that some centers do close without notice, but we somehow don't want to believe that this one is going to close. If it does, it would be very bad as the following one is far and will be reached in the dark. We ignore the young man's warning and ask what he is doing. He is going to another center. He says he is not sure if he will be let in because he is just a peasant, never been a student or a teacher, qualifications for being let in the centers. We wish each other good luck and we continue our way.
About forty minutes later, forty minutes of more silent walking and inner thoughts and ignoring the changing landscape around us, we reach the welcome station. My heart sinks. The boy was right: it is closed. Suddenly, I start to feel the cold wind lurching into my bones and the ever slanting sun descending more and more. I suddenly can see the surrounding becoming more orange. Then I see my panic mirrored in my colleague's eyes too. We both instantly take a look at the map, as if somehow by some divine help of the great Leader the next station is closer than we had originally thought. No, it's still the same distance written on that little piece of paper.
There's no time to lose. We pick up our pace and start walking. Instead of the pleasant and introspective way that I've been carrying in the walks of the past four weeks, now I am full of worries. I normally worry a lot, worried about food, about being targeted for public humiliation, about my Mother, and who knows what else. And before now, I have been slowly getting used to the idea that I need not worry. But now, panic rushes in my veins and moving those cold feet faster. The blueness of the sky is darkening, and the shadows are stretching. We are in a foreign land, suddenly. There is no one on the road and not in the fields. I can hear our panting as we quicken our pace. But our pace is slowed down gradually but the rising mountains.
The sun is setting. I used to paint, oil paint, the Western way, the modern way, as opposed to the traditionalist way of watercolor. I would have loved to admire the sun setting over the mountains with all the cirrus clouds hovering over quite happily. Here, in this company of two people, there are no happy thoughts. Only worry. And as soon as the sun disappears over the mountains, the road becomes dark. It is still distinguishable, but everywhere else is pitch black. And within a few minutes, the cold wind becomes more fierce and biting. We come from the warm south, near the sea. And although it's not that far away, the altitude is very different and so are the people.
"If there are bandits we will certainly be dead," says my colleague. I chuckle and say, "In these times there can't be bandits; all the evil people would have already been executed by our Red Guards." I try to assuage him as well as myself, but there is a part of me that doesn't believe what I had just said. Then they came. Not the bandits, but the patches of snow.
After passing a hump in the road, before us lay patches of snow that in the short distance away merge into a field of whiteness. I've never seen snow before, except in movies. Now I get to walk on them. My colleague murmured more panicky complaints. So we will die of the cold? In the snow. I remember reading a short story about a Russian man struggling in the snow and succumbed to it when he fell asleep from extreme fatigue. I start to imagine ways to avoid falling asleep, though now I am not at all sleepy, just worried and my feet are tired as well as cold. The sound of my feet in snow is unpleasant. It is screechy, like I am stepping on a doomed mouse. Then it becomes slippery. How I have always wanted to see snow, and to taste it, to play with it. Now I am just annoyed by it. It slows us down and threatens bodily injuries. It's like a bandit except it exacts not money but energy. Our shoes are helpless on the icy road.
"How much longer, you think?" he asks. I give him a big grin, though he is too preoccupied with his walk to notice it. I say probably not too long. But I have no idea. My job is to assuage the world's pains and worries, but I don't know what to do with mine.
"Hey there!" a familiar voice calls out. We freeze for a moment, torn between fear of an attack and relief from company of another. We turn to see a shadow coming our way from a road that intersects ours. We are relieved to see the familiar face, the familiar smile. No, it's not our great Leader whose face is everywhere except the barren countryside. Our young friend somehow appears from nowhere. He asks what we have been doing. We tell him, much to our own chagrin, that he was right about the closure of the welcome center and now we are rushing to the next. He immediately sees the helplessness and despair in our faces and tells us with a rejuvenated smile that the next welcome center is not far at all. And he actually lives in the village where the center is located. He is on his way home, anyway.
"So they didn't let you in?" I ask him.
He shakes his head but shrugs off any remaining disappointment. He, probably like most peasants, are just grateful that our Revolution had saved them from millenia of misery. Being treated still less than the city people is nothing compared to famine. And so onwards we three go. The wind is whipping more strongly and the snow is becoming deeper. I can't see much now. The twilight and the stars and the useless crescent moon are all we have for light. There is no electricity out here, let alone street lamps. I see the two shadows walking before me and that is all that matters. We remain quiet. I am tired, very tired, and hungry. I didn't eat much at lunch today because the free lunch consisted of moldy porridge. Usually it's not that bad, but today it was so horrific. I actually gulped half of it down just to be polite, but I couldn't deal with the rest. Food is scarce, even if free, so throwing away any food is at best disrespectful.
After making another turn, I see lights ahead. And I hear a sigh of relief from my colleague. I can hear the smile on his face, I can hear his teeth showing, I can hear his heart beating faster. And when we finally arrive in the center, we welcome the warmth inside. And warm it indeed is, because there are so many people in there. That's probably because a lot of people who would have stayed at the previous center also had to move to this one. It's like a zoo. There is barely space on the floor (forget a bed) to sleep in. But there is an additional problem. Blankets.
There's almost a riot going on in which all these men are ganging up on the center manager demanding for blankets. There probably isn't enough, but to make things worse, the manager, fed up with the verbal abuses lashed at him, closes his doors to the people.
I start thinking about the long night ahead. Despite the warmth now, once the lights are turned off and people crawl in their own insulation, the whole place will be cold. And the night will get much colder. I've never been to such a cold place, but I can imagine, just using my brain. My colleague is equally despondent. We get our ration of food (amazing that there is some left) and we return to our little space.
But that same familiar voice calls out to us again. We turn our heads to that genuine smile. The young man is calling us from the gates of the welcome center. We walk over and see that he is carrying two blankets. He says, with a gleaming smile, "The manager is my uncle. I told him you're my friends, and he gladly gives me two blankets for you. Here." In my country, to get anything more than subsistence you need to have connections, but we generally are talking about positions in the government or extra ration coupons for fancier things like cooking oil and extra salt. But I never thought about friendship as a way to keep me warmer than some of my comrades. I was grateful without words. I ask him, "Is there something we can offer you in return for this invaluable service?"
He thinks for a moment and then says, "You said you are from Canton? I heard that the Cantonese pins of our great Leader is the best. Do you have one?" We smiled, the biggest smile the whole day, probably the whole trip, despite the cold wind that freezes all your muscles. We each hand him one of our few pins. I take a last look at the pin before it goes to its new owner. It is, indeed beautiful, and that makes me feel a little better about our paltry reciprocation to his generosity. Although he didn't give us anything he owned, he gave us his company at the time of so much uncertainty for two strangers in a strange land. And most of all, he thought about us; he knew there was no blanket given out and he thought about us. It's been a very lonesome journey, full of introspection, but sometimes, it's good to connect with another human being, it's good to be thought about, to be someone in someone's lives, especially in a world where you can't trust anyone.
Friday, October 30, 2009
Thursday, October 29, 2009
KitchenAid
She is still sitting in the kitchen, looking at the recycling bin where the gift wrap is stuffed in. It was for the gift her husband had given to his daughter, her step-daughter, earlier this evening. He's now snoring in bed; she can hear him in this otherwise very quiet house in the middle of the forest. The city girl had left and is now probably just arriving in her tiny apartment with the huge machine.
She still has a grin on. She can't say she loves her, but they have a cordial relationship. Her grin is final stage of the evolution from her surprise and eye-rolling, before later, probably, everything disappears and this episode won't remain in her mind much more than just something funny to bring up later. Maybe at her wedding, if she ever gets married, that poor girl.
She puts her chamomile tea down and looks at the crumbled up gift wrap again. Purple with silver stars, not your typical Christmas wrapping, but still, it's what she likes, that young woman who was a teenager when they first met. When they first met the teenager was shy, and the woman was not any less nervous, even though she was an adult. She had heard so much about the little lady from the man she had started dating and that things had gotten serious quite quickly. He had been a divorcee for nearly ten years before they met. She now remembers that first day when the young lady shook her hand with her cold, clammy little hand, softer, full of suspicion like her eyes. Then the young lady presented her with a box of chocolate chip cookies, which were the best she would ever have. Later she soon found out that the girl did this because her dad begged her to, to get her to like her future step-mother, to impress her because she loved chocolate. Did she do it out reluctance? Probably not, because like every food, you can't make a great cookie with spite, but rather only with love. The woman sitting in the kitchen is no cook, but she enjoys good food, and before she had met her future step-daughter, she was told by her future husband many many times how great a cook and baker the daughter was. And it was from this line of culinary excellence that she learned a bit about the life of this girl, who saw her parents fight and be angry and be bitter before she turned 4 when they finally separated and tore the girl's soul in two. She remembers a touching moment when she was in her future husband's arm, when he told her the story of the sugar cookie.
It was three months after she turned five, about half a year after they informed the little girl of the "divorce", which meant her parents no longer lived together, probably won't be kissing or hugging each other. That day he was feeling miserable, feeling angry, bitter, and even hateful. He lost his daughter in the settlement where his lawyer told him he had no chance of winning custody with him being unemployed. But he got to see her whenever he wanted. Still, he didn't because he was so ashamed of his failure as a husband as well as father that he couldn't see the girl's face without breaking down. So after the first few weeks of the settlement, in which he saw the girl daily, he started to see her less. He knew that her ex-wife and others only interpreted this as an obvious sign that the man was a bad father, as well as a bad husband. So the less frequently he went to see her, the less he wanted to see his treasure.
That day he was just sitting in his bed. Thank God he was never a drinker, but there was also no other way for him to release his pain. He cried a lot, and for a month now he hasn't gotten out of the house. He hasn't really eaten much. His Mother would travel hours to get him food, but she was shunned, though being a Mother, you never get discouraged from taking care of your own creation. Besides her he hadn't seen anyone, and not even the trees outside.
Then the bell rang. And after it kept ringing he dragged himself out of bed and went to the door. He saw his treasure standing there, with the trees of the forest in her background, plus the red SUV where her mother must have been waiting impatiently. It was a gentle autumn day and the trees were on fire with their red and golden leaves. He couldn't believe his eyes. Maybe he's still sleeping in his depression dreams. She was still very short, looking at him with a big smile. He lowers himself to her height and gives her a big, long hug. There was immediate shame. Her little girl came to see him, when he should have been going to see her. Then he asked, "What are you doing here, Pumpkin?" Obviously to see him, the lazy sloth that never showed up the past month. She said, "Mommy said granny isn't making you her special sugar cookies anymore." "Granny" is not his mother, but his ex-mother-in-law. She continued, "I thought that's why you haven't been coming to see me because you wouldn't get sugar cookies from her. So," she said, as she showed her a basket covered with a purple cloth with white flowers stitched on it, "I made you some. I asked Granny for the recipe, and I made it like I saw her do it before."
The engine of the SUV was now off. But he didn't notice. What he noticed was the girl's innocent and beautiful eyes. Then he looked at the basket and saw the strangely shaped yellow disks. Tears started flowing down as he wrapped himself around her, almost violently. "Are you all right, Daddy?" she asked, "Are you hurt?"
He was too ashamed to let her see his tears, his twisted face. The pain was coming out now, thanks to this five-year old girl who managed to make sugar cookies. When the pain subsided, he released her. He was smiling now. He takes out a cookie. It was still wet and doughy inside the disk and nearly burned around the edges. The taste of egg yolk is still discernible and the edges crumble easily. But he wasn't paying attention to these details. These details came years later when he and his ex-wife became friends and she told him how the cookies really were, not how he remembered it, which was the most amazing cookies in the world. And ever since that day, he would look forward to seeing his daughter and her baked goods. She had been baking ever since than, and regardless of how good her baked goods really were, he was her biggest fan.
Now many years later, now that he has a different life and a woman who can really share a life with him, now that she is about to go to college, he gives her her first KitchenAid stand mixer, the soul-mate for any serious baker. When she unwrapped it on this very kitchen table where her step-mother is sitting now with a grin, she started crying. She remembered immediately the sugar cookies, about how much she had missed her dad thinking he didn't come because there were no more sugar cookies for him. How it was the beginning of their baker-eater relationship that lasts till today. He started crying too. It's been a very long and tough road since that day when his own, five-year old daughter rescued him from his self-deprecating misery. Father and daughter held on to each other in front of this red, emotionless machine for a good couple of minutes while tears flowed afresh.
She knew about the sugar story, but she thought it must have also been because she was going away to a college far far away. But it was still to cry over a machine, over a distant memory.
She still has a grin on. She can't say she loves her, but they have a cordial relationship. Her grin is final stage of the evolution from her surprise and eye-rolling, before later, probably, everything disappears and this episode won't remain in her mind much more than just something funny to bring up later. Maybe at her wedding, if she ever gets married, that poor girl.
She puts her chamomile tea down and looks at the crumbled up gift wrap again. Purple with silver stars, not your typical Christmas wrapping, but still, it's what she likes, that young woman who was a teenager when they first met. When they first met the teenager was shy, and the woman was not any less nervous, even though she was an adult. She had heard so much about the little lady from the man she had started dating and that things had gotten serious quite quickly. He had been a divorcee for nearly ten years before they met. She now remembers that first day when the young lady shook her hand with her cold, clammy little hand, softer, full of suspicion like her eyes. Then the young lady presented her with a box of chocolate chip cookies, which were the best she would ever have. Later she soon found out that the girl did this because her dad begged her to, to get her to like her future step-mother, to impress her because she loved chocolate. Did she do it out reluctance? Probably not, because like every food, you can't make a great cookie with spite, but rather only with love. The woman sitting in the kitchen is no cook, but she enjoys good food, and before she had met her future step-daughter, she was told by her future husband many many times how great a cook and baker the daughter was. And it was from this line of culinary excellence that she learned a bit about the life of this girl, who saw her parents fight and be angry and be bitter before she turned 4 when they finally separated and tore the girl's soul in two. She remembers a touching moment when she was in her future husband's arm, when he told her the story of the sugar cookie.
It was three months after she turned five, about half a year after they informed the little girl of the "divorce", which meant her parents no longer lived together, probably won't be kissing or hugging each other. That day he was feeling miserable, feeling angry, bitter, and even hateful. He lost his daughter in the settlement where his lawyer told him he had no chance of winning custody with him being unemployed. But he got to see her whenever he wanted. Still, he didn't because he was so ashamed of his failure as a husband as well as father that he couldn't see the girl's face without breaking down. So after the first few weeks of the settlement, in which he saw the girl daily, he started to see her less. He knew that her ex-wife and others only interpreted this as an obvious sign that the man was a bad father, as well as a bad husband. So the less frequently he went to see her, the less he wanted to see his treasure.
That day he was just sitting in his bed. Thank God he was never a drinker, but there was also no other way for him to release his pain. He cried a lot, and for a month now he hasn't gotten out of the house. He hasn't really eaten much. His Mother would travel hours to get him food, but she was shunned, though being a Mother, you never get discouraged from taking care of your own creation. Besides her he hadn't seen anyone, and not even the trees outside.
Then the bell rang. And after it kept ringing he dragged himself out of bed and went to the door. He saw his treasure standing there, with the trees of the forest in her background, plus the red SUV where her mother must have been waiting impatiently. It was a gentle autumn day and the trees were on fire with their red and golden leaves. He couldn't believe his eyes. Maybe he's still sleeping in his depression dreams. She was still very short, looking at him with a big smile. He lowers himself to her height and gives her a big, long hug. There was immediate shame. Her little girl came to see him, when he should have been going to see her. Then he asked, "What are you doing here, Pumpkin?" Obviously to see him, the lazy sloth that never showed up the past month. She said, "Mommy said granny isn't making you her special sugar cookies anymore." "Granny" is not his mother, but his ex-mother-in-law. She continued, "I thought that's why you haven't been coming to see me because you wouldn't get sugar cookies from her. So," she said, as she showed her a basket covered with a purple cloth with white flowers stitched on it, "I made you some. I asked Granny for the recipe, and I made it like I saw her do it before."
The engine of the SUV was now off. But he didn't notice. What he noticed was the girl's innocent and beautiful eyes. Then he looked at the basket and saw the strangely shaped yellow disks. Tears started flowing down as he wrapped himself around her, almost violently. "Are you all right, Daddy?" she asked, "Are you hurt?"
He was too ashamed to let her see his tears, his twisted face. The pain was coming out now, thanks to this five-year old girl who managed to make sugar cookies. When the pain subsided, he released her. He was smiling now. He takes out a cookie. It was still wet and doughy inside the disk and nearly burned around the edges. The taste of egg yolk is still discernible and the edges crumble easily. But he wasn't paying attention to these details. These details came years later when he and his ex-wife became friends and she told him how the cookies really were, not how he remembered it, which was the most amazing cookies in the world. And ever since that day, he would look forward to seeing his daughter and her baked goods. She had been baking ever since than, and regardless of how good her baked goods really were, he was her biggest fan.
Now many years later, now that he has a different life and a woman who can really share a life with him, now that she is about to go to college, he gives her her first KitchenAid stand mixer, the soul-mate for any serious baker. When she unwrapped it on this very kitchen table where her step-mother is sitting now with a grin, she started crying. She remembered immediately the sugar cookies, about how much she had missed her dad thinking he didn't come because there were no more sugar cookies for him. How it was the beginning of their baker-eater relationship that lasts till today. He started crying too. It's been a very long and tough road since that day when his own, five-year old daughter rescued him from his self-deprecating misery. Father and daughter held on to each other in front of this red, emotionless machine for a good couple of minutes while tears flowed afresh.
She knew about the sugar story, but she thought it must have also been because she was going away to a college far far away. But it was still to cry over a machine, over a distant memory.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
The Return
A little over two years now, she'd know because she counted the days. The greatest blessings were the few letters she got indicating that he was still alive, at least when the letter was written. But then every day, for a long time, she dreaded a visit by the army, or a more impersonal letter from them, bearing the worst news.
They met a while back at a dance hall. Yes, it's like in a movie, but really, where else would a teenage girl meet a teenage boy when both are such shy people in a rural town in Connecticut? That's what she tells her grand daughter now. She gives the teenager the ginger tea with a teaspoon of the honey from her apiary, the one she had started while he was away fighting in the Pacific. She tells the curious teenager the story because finally the young lady asked why she keeps bees.
"Because your grandpa loves honey," she said.
"So you were hoping one day when he did return safe and sound you would have honey for him? That's so sweet!" said the much younger version of her.
She smiles but doesn't answer. She was busy that year, helping with the war effort while the men were out and about killing and being killed. She resumed her story, saying that they had met at that lovely dance, the last one in high school. She had always noticed him, and apparently he did too, but all those years they did little more than say "hi" to each other. There was something about the finality of high school that added anxiety to their hearts. The slow dance came on and he, shaking, asked her for the dance. They were both shaking. "And you can't dance when you're both shakin'," she says to the curious young lady. "Then I said to Robert, 'Ain't you nervous?'" And he looked at me just real surprised and said, 'Why, yes, Ma'am'" She pauses for a smile and then said, "'Well, I'm just about shaking out of my booties. You wanna just go out an' chat?'"
So they chatted outside. It was a cool summer night. Music was still blasting and other teenagers were all running around, giggling, or just fooling around. But that was the night they said they wanted to be together. Neither one of them were going to college, expensive and not so necessary for them or their families. He was just going to continue working on his dad's farm, and she was just going to see what happened. But she was hungry for knowledge. She read a lot, a lot more than some of her colleagues who had wealthy enough parents to send them to college. For her, as long as she could have access to books, the world was fine. And now, something else happened. Her heart opened up and it was a strange and exciting feeling.
"His parents were all right with me, and Father thought he was OK because his family had land. But both families were really strict and we were followed and watched every moment. But then one day we concocted a plan. Father and Mother knew that I was reading about bees and apiaries. So I told them I wanted to go visit Casey's apiary down the road and maybe learn to start something new. They knew Casey, a good neighbor and old friend of theirs. For them, I was in good hands. And I did go to Casey's but Casey's is an old man who didn't know anything about me and Robert. I went down there, stood with Casey for a while to learn how he handles stuff. Asked him to explain everything while I was looking out for signs of Robert. He showed up behind the big cypress tree exactly when we said we would meet. Then I told old Casey that I was hungry and if I could help him prepare lunch. He of course said he would do it all by himself. Asked what I wanted so I told him something really complicated and hard to make, and of course, still offering to help. He brushed my offer of help aside and told me to just hang out in the apiary where it was cooler. As soon as he left, Robert came in."
She stops at this point and looks at her grand daughter, who was smiling, though sick. "So you guys made out?" she asks.
"Well, it was dangerous and exciting for us...." she pauses.
"Then Robert wasn't too careful.... Or we weren't."
Seeing her grand daughter understood, she continues, "When Robert found out that I was pregnant with your Mother, he cried, but then, accepting his role as a man, he said he would marry me.
"Both families were surprised at the marriage proposal, though neither one knew the real motivation. They weren't too happy, seeing that we were still too young and were together for only a few months."
She pauses and lets a storm of emotion pass by before continuing, hiding it with her gentle smile. She then says,"I figured as long as I had Robert by my side, everything would be OK. I was scared to death, but I thought I at least wasn't alone.
"But then the war got worse and your grandpa got enlisted. And by the time he was ready to go, I could no longer hide my inflating belly. And then the earth opened up and spat out all sorts of anguish for me. I was devastated that Robert had to go, but then both families cursed me for having conceived a child before marriage. I guess these country bumpkins were still smart enough with their arithmetic to figure out your Mother's conception happened before the wedding. Maybe that's somethin' they teach them in Baptist church."
She swallows a gulp of memories and continues with two attentive eyes on her, "My Father told me to never show my face up again. We were living in this hut on Robert's farm. After Robert had left, his family told me I was shaming them by being there. Especially with the neighbors seeing my big belly. I don't even know if the neighbors figured out when the baby was conceived. They asked me to leave before the baby could be born, I guess so they didn't have to feel they were evicting a child. I cried on the road and asked God to either send Robert back or send me and my baby to heaven. Instead He sent old Casey. He was on his way back home and saw me sitting there by the road. I couldn't tell him why I was there with my one bag of belongings. He didn't ask. He took my stuff and walked me to his home. He told me I could stay there for as long as I wanted. I don't know why he offered it until one day a few months later he told me he never forgot how happy he was the day I came on my own will to listen to him talk about his apiary. I never told him that it was just an excuse, that he was a vehicle to some ungodly scheme. He was the only one besides the doctor who saw my baby born. And for the first year your grandpa was fighting far far away, old Casey took care of me and taught me everything he knew about the bees. I also helped him because I could read all these magazines that he couldn't, being illiterate, that added more knowledge not only to bee handling but also his house and stuff. He also took care of your little Mom while I was out working temp jobs during the war. During the second year I had enough money to move out, but not far from Casey. He was my only friend. Neither family still talked to me, except a few times with Mother sent notes asking how I was. She couldn't be loving; I guess it wouldn't suit God's will. Someone told me once that family feuds get resolved the moment the baby is born. But I guess as long as the baby is invisible, nothing gets resolved. I told your grandpa early on where I was. The few letters I got from him were treasures because from them I knew he was still in love with me, that he was looking forward to returning to see your Mom. And everyday I would cry thinking if he wasn't killed and his body scattered somewhere no one even could find."
She grips her grand daughter's hands and finishes her story, "But you know, Honey, it's funny how pain works. After two years of being alone except with the help of old Casey, after two years of almost daily fear and tears and hard work and taking care of a baby, it was strange how the routine of pain reveals itself as really just a routine the moment the source of the pain disappears. When your grandpa finally showed up, my suffering disappeared but then there wasn't some excitement to balance it. There was this stranger, almost, showing up. He wasn't really the person who created all this emotional pain. I mean, he's the same person before, just slightly changed, a little thinner, but still smiling. Apparently he never even made a shot; they were on missions but it was towards the end of the war and he was in places we had already conquered. He never caught up to the big battles at the end. And when they dropped those two atomic bombs, he just shrugged and said good bye to his buddies and came back. So it wasn't like he was a changed man for the worse like many soldiers. But to me, my first thought was, who is this man I am hugging and now kissing? It didn't feel right. But what was I going to do? He was my husband, and he was back to this family I had built for two years. And soon he found a job to support us and I lost mine because women were no longer needed now that the men were back. So my whole life just changed because this man, and other men, came back.
"But I did find something to do, to remind me of this brief life I had without the stranger in my life. Eventually I learned to live with this man, who was really different but at least pleasant and stable, which was more than you can say about most country folks here. Since I lost my job, I started going back to old Casey's apiary. And then old Casey got too old and decided to leave us all to be with God. He did leave me the apiary and the land. Robert decided to just start farming on that little piece of land. That's what he does best: farming. He wasn't too good with the job he had in town. But I didn't complain. All I needed was the apiary. So that was what I enjoy doing the most every week. To be with the bees."
They met a while back at a dance hall. Yes, it's like in a movie, but really, where else would a teenage girl meet a teenage boy when both are such shy people in a rural town in Connecticut? That's what she tells her grand daughter now. She gives the teenager the ginger tea with a teaspoon of the honey from her apiary, the one she had started while he was away fighting in the Pacific. She tells the curious teenager the story because finally the young lady asked why she keeps bees.
"Because your grandpa loves honey," she said.
"So you were hoping one day when he did return safe and sound you would have honey for him? That's so sweet!" said the much younger version of her.
She smiles but doesn't answer. She was busy that year, helping with the war effort while the men were out and about killing and being killed. She resumed her story, saying that they had met at that lovely dance, the last one in high school. She had always noticed him, and apparently he did too, but all those years they did little more than say "hi" to each other. There was something about the finality of high school that added anxiety to their hearts. The slow dance came on and he, shaking, asked her for the dance. They were both shaking. "And you can't dance when you're both shakin'," she says to the curious young lady. "Then I said to Robert, 'Ain't you nervous?'" And he looked at me just real surprised and said, 'Why, yes, Ma'am'" She pauses for a smile and then said, "'Well, I'm just about shaking out of my booties. You wanna just go out an' chat?'"
So they chatted outside. It was a cool summer night. Music was still blasting and other teenagers were all running around, giggling, or just fooling around. But that was the night they said they wanted to be together. Neither one of them were going to college, expensive and not so necessary for them or their families. He was just going to continue working on his dad's farm, and she was just going to see what happened. But she was hungry for knowledge. She read a lot, a lot more than some of her colleagues who had wealthy enough parents to send them to college. For her, as long as she could have access to books, the world was fine. And now, something else happened. Her heart opened up and it was a strange and exciting feeling.
"His parents were all right with me, and Father thought he was OK because his family had land. But both families were really strict and we were followed and watched every moment. But then one day we concocted a plan. Father and Mother knew that I was reading about bees and apiaries. So I told them I wanted to go visit Casey's apiary down the road and maybe learn to start something new. They knew Casey, a good neighbor and old friend of theirs. For them, I was in good hands. And I did go to Casey's but Casey's is an old man who didn't know anything about me and Robert. I went down there, stood with Casey for a while to learn how he handles stuff. Asked him to explain everything while I was looking out for signs of Robert. He showed up behind the big cypress tree exactly when we said we would meet. Then I told old Casey that I was hungry and if I could help him prepare lunch. He of course said he would do it all by himself. Asked what I wanted so I told him something really complicated and hard to make, and of course, still offering to help. He brushed my offer of help aside and told me to just hang out in the apiary where it was cooler. As soon as he left, Robert came in."
She stops at this point and looks at her grand daughter, who was smiling, though sick. "So you guys made out?" she asks.
"Well, it was dangerous and exciting for us...." she pauses.
"Then Robert wasn't too careful.... Or we weren't."
Seeing her grand daughter understood, she continues, "When Robert found out that I was pregnant with your Mother, he cried, but then, accepting his role as a man, he said he would marry me.
"Both families were surprised at the marriage proposal, though neither one knew the real motivation. They weren't too happy, seeing that we were still too young and were together for only a few months."
She pauses and lets a storm of emotion pass by before continuing, hiding it with her gentle smile. She then says,"I figured as long as I had Robert by my side, everything would be OK. I was scared to death, but I thought I at least wasn't alone.
"But then the war got worse and your grandpa got enlisted. And by the time he was ready to go, I could no longer hide my inflating belly. And then the earth opened up and spat out all sorts of anguish for me. I was devastated that Robert had to go, but then both families cursed me for having conceived a child before marriage. I guess these country bumpkins were still smart enough with their arithmetic to figure out your Mother's conception happened before the wedding. Maybe that's somethin' they teach them in Baptist church."
She swallows a gulp of memories and continues with two attentive eyes on her, "My Father told me to never show my face up again. We were living in this hut on Robert's farm. After Robert had left, his family told me I was shaming them by being there. Especially with the neighbors seeing my big belly. I don't even know if the neighbors figured out when the baby was conceived. They asked me to leave before the baby could be born, I guess so they didn't have to feel they were evicting a child. I cried on the road and asked God to either send Robert back or send me and my baby to heaven. Instead He sent old Casey. He was on his way back home and saw me sitting there by the road. I couldn't tell him why I was there with my one bag of belongings. He didn't ask. He took my stuff and walked me to his home. He told me I could stay there for as long as I wanted. I don't know why he offered it until one day a few months later he told me he never forgot how happy he was the day I came on my own will to listen to him talk about his apiary. I never told him that it was just an excuse, that he was a vehicle to some ungodly scheme. He was the only one besides the doctor who saw my baby born. And for the first year your grandpa was fighting far far away, old Casey took care of me and taught me everything he knew about the bees. I also helped him because I could read all these magazines that he couldn't, being illiterate, that added more knowledge not only to bee handling but also his house and stuff. He also took care of your little Mom while I was out working temp jobs during the war. During the second year I had enough money to move out, but not far from Casey. He was my only friend. Neither family still talked to me, except a few times with Mother sent notes asking how I was. She couldn't be loving; I guess it wouldn't suit God's will. Someone told me once that family feuds get resolved the moment the baby is born. But I guess as long as the baby is invisible, nothing gets resolved. I told your grandpa early on where I was. The few letters I got from him were treasures because from them I knew he was still in love with me, that he was looking forward to returning to see your Mom. And everyday I would cry thinking if he wasn't killed and his body scattered somewhere no one even could find."
She grips her grand daughter's hands and finishes her story, "But you know, Honey, it's funny how pain works. After two years of being alone except with the help of old Casey, after two years of almost daily fear and tears and hard work and taking care of a baby, it was strange how the routine of pain reveals itself as really just a routine the moment the source of the pain disappears. When your grandpa finally showed up, my suffering disappeared but then there wasn't some excitement to balance it. There was this stranger, almost, showing up. He wasn't really the person who created all this emotional pain. I mean, he's the same person before, just slightly changed, a little thinner, but still smiling. Apparently he never even made a shot; they were on missions but it was towards the end of the war and he was in places we had already conquered. He never caught up to the big battles at the end. And when they dropped those two atomic bombs, he just shrugged and said good bye to his buddies and came back. So it wasn't like he was a changed man for the worse like many soldiers. But to me, my first thought was, who is this man I am hugging and now kissing? It didn't feel right. But what was I going to do? He was my husband, and he was back to this family I had built for two years. And soon he found a job to support us and I lost mine because women were no longer needed now that the men were back. So my whole life just changed because this man, and other men, came back.
"But I did find something to do, to remind me of this brief life I had without the stranger in my life. Eventually I learned to live with this man, who was really different but at least pleasant and stable, which was more than you can say about most country folks here. Since I lost my job, I started going back to old Casey's apiary. And then old Casey got too old and decided to leave us all to be with God. He did leave me the apiary and the land. Robert decided to just start farming on that little piece of land. That's what he does best: farming. He wasn't too good with the job he had in town. But I didn't complain. All I needed was the apiary. So that was what I enjoy doing the most every week. To be with the bees."
Monday, October 26, 2009
River Fog
She mumbles something incomprehensible, just stopping by reality before returning to her slumber. He strokes her hair a little. She is his mermaid, the enchanted woman lying next to her merman, who is sitting upright. He strokes the only hand exposed in the blanket, the only thing warm around him, besides her serene face. She is sleeping and doesn't respond. He smiles and gently gets up from their little bed inside this little boat. Last night a strange squall entered the estuary and kept them awake for a good hour after going to bed. He was asleep when it happened. And by the time it died down, he remembers holding her very tightly. The squall put him in a strange mood that didn't disappear in the sleep. He's still in that mood. He wants to write, all of a sudden. Something. But he doesn't want to disturb her. They are both tired, and at least the one who can sleep should be sleeping. He puts his old college flannel jacket on, then his sweatpants. He can see from the ice patterns on their windows that it was still below zero outside, but not too much below. He skulks to the kitchenette and puts his heating element in his mug and quietly pours some water in it. Every moment seems a long story. As he watches the line of water making a connection between his water bottle and the mug, he sees twinkling letters, sparkling in the blue light of dawn. In the same matter, the gentle, rhythmic sounds from outside, things bopping against the boat, against the mooring, but ever gently, he hears each sound and takes each in like words of a story, of a poem.
He sits on the stool while the heating element begins to heat up the water. And by the time the water is steaming, sparkles and sparkles of thoughts have transpired through his wide awake mind. He unplugs the heating element and rests it on the counter. After putting in a tea bag he takes the warm mug of unsweetened tea with him as he walks quietly, and without disturbing the little boat, without disturbing the mermaid asleep in her magical spell. He closes the door behind him and enters the little foyer, where the cold of the outside meets the semi-civilization of warmth inside. He puts on his boots and then takes a sip of hot tea. And another. And before the next sip is also swallowed, he continues to enjoy the poetry of the little sounds in this quiet morning.
He is never the first to wake up, let alone get up. He much rather enjoy sleeping, and then wake up to the sounds of the mermaid making breakfast. She complains quite often that he's too lazy and never makes her breakfast. He tries to win back her heart every morning with a kiss she almost never can resist or be charmed by. She is just too in love with him even after all these years to resist. All these years, the last three of which had been in this boat, this sailboat that takes them to a freedom few people really understand. While they have work on land, every evening they come back here, meet in the safety of the estuary, and the magic happens again. Obviously, they spend a lot of time on land too, but every night, when they are tired or just want to be together, they are here, sheltered from the world, sheltered from the outside. It's a wonder that such tiny enclosure doesn't drive them insane and turn them on each other. They had many fights before, but not since they started living in the boat. They haven't figured that out. There must be something in the boat, something about the sound around the boat.
He thinks about this as he takes another sip of the cooling tea in his palms. His nose is probably all red now, sitting out in the subfreezing temperature. The morning fog is still lingering but he can see a little bit of the colorful foliage on both sides of the river. It's his first time out in the boat at a little after dawn in the middle of autumn. The New England morning is sobering, but he isn't freezing, not in his body. He is enjoying every breath that enters his nostril, tightening the inner membranes and drawing a squeezing sensation. As the fog slowly clears, very slowly, he can start to see the neighboring boats. No one is sitting out, probably all tired from the rush of adrenaline from the squall last night.
His mind returns to that strange mood again. The mood that begs for a pen and paper. Or his laptop. Words want to burst out, and maybe that's why he hears and sees words in every little detail that's happening. When the world quiets down for you, you feel like on a stage and want to say something, if only to fill the silence. Silence has come to them many times, especially at night, when they are sitting, apart or together, and saying nothing. But she has always been there during those silent moments. He has always noticed her, felt her presence. But last night, as he held her tightly while the boat rocked, sometimes rocking violently, a thought came to his mind. They have been through much rougher storms and in the sea, outside the safety of the marina. But the thought never happened to him. Perhaps because in all those occasions, they were too busy making sure they wouldn't capsize. Never had such violence visited them while they were in a safe place. The howling wind, the explosive sound of hard objects crashing into one another, and the fierce rain that poured over them. All familiar except in the context of where they were.
He was holding her, and she was also holding him. She is not the kind of mermaid that needs a prince to rescue her. He taught her how to sail but she is now just as good as he is, and she has completed solo in sailing competitions as well as in the team with him. He held her as much for her protection as for asking it from her. But then, after a big crashing sound nearby, the thought came to his mind of losing her.
After that he almost didn't hear very much or sensed very much of the loud but really harmless noise outside. What would the world be like without her, he felt, not wondered. Then he was too tired from sleeplessness that he dozed off.
There were no dreams.
Now he is here, outside all alone, in this quiet waters, and the fog's slow clearing allows the colors of the New England autumn to reveal themselves like a growing fire. The sky is a faint blue, no clouds, apparently. He drinks his last sip of tea, very cold by now, and he lets his mind follow the path of the tea through his esophagus and into his stomach. A chill shakes him a little. He is now cold even as the sun slowly burns through the fog. The words come in less and less frequently. He stands up and slowly walks towards the little door. Before he opens it he looks around and sees all these words on each leaf of the chilly autumn morning, melting away in the strengthening sun, and he shudders once more before going inside to find his warmth.
He sits on the stool while the heating element begins to heat up the water. And by the time the water is steaming, sparkles and sparkles of thoughts have transpired through his wide awake mind. He unplugs the heating element and rests it on the counter. After putting in a tea bag he takes the warm mug of unsweetened tea with him as he walks quietly, and without disturbing the little boat, without disturbing the mermaid asleep in her magical spell. He closes the door behind him and enters the little foyer, where the cold of the outside meets the semi-civilization of warmth inside. He puts on his boots and then takes a sip of hot tea. And another. And before the next sip is also swallowed, he continues to enjoy the poetry of the little sounds in this quiet morning.
He is never the first to wake up, let alone get up. He much rather enjoy sleeping, and then wake up to the sounds of the mermaid making breakfast. She complains quite often that he's too lazy and never makes her breakfast. He tries to win back her heart every morning with a kiss she almost never can resist or be charmed by. She is just too in love with him even after all these years to resist. All these years, the last three of which had been in this boat, this sailboat that takes them to a freedom few people really understand. While they have work on land, every evening they come back here, meet in the safety of the estuary, and the magic happens again. Obviously, they spend a lot of time on land too, but every night, when they are tired or just want to be together, they are here, sheltered from the world, sheltered from the outside. It's a wonder that such tiny enclosure doesn't drive them insane and turn them on each other. They had many fights before, but not since they started living in the boat. They haven't figured that out. There must be something in the boat, something about the sound around the boat.
He thinks about this as he takes another sip of the cooling tea in his palms. His nose is probably all red now, sitting out in the subfreezing temperature. The morning fog is still lingering but he can see a little bit of the colorful foliage on both sides of the river. It's his first time out in the boat at a little after dawn in the middle of autumn. The New England morning is sobering, but he isn't freezing, not in his body. He is enjoying every breath that enters his nostril, tightening the inner membranes and drawing a squeezing sensation. As the fog slowly clears, very slowly, he can start to see the neighboring boats. No one is sitting out, probably all tired from the rush of adrenaline from the squall last night.
His mind returns to that strange mood again. The mood that begs for a pen and paper. Or his laptop. Words want to burst out, and maybe that's why he hears and sees words in every little detail that's happening. When the world quiets down for you, you feel like on a stage and want to say something, if only to fill the silence. Silence has come to them many times, especially at night, when they are sitting, apart or together, and saying nothing. But she has always been there during those silent moments. He has always noticed her, felt her presence. But last night, as he held her tightly while the boat rocked, sometimes rocking violently, a thought came to his mind. They have been through much rougher storms and in the sea, outside the safety of the marina. But the thought never happened to him. Perhaps because in all those occasions, they were too busy making sure they wouldn't capsize. Never had such violence visited them while they were in a safe place. The howling wind, the explosive sound of hard objects crashing into one another, and the fierce rain that poured over them. All familiar except in the context of where they were.
He was holding her, and she was also holding him. She is not the kind of mermaid that needs a prince to rescue her. He taught her how to sail but she is now just as good as he is, and she has completed solo in sailing competitions as well as in the team with him. He held her as much for her protection as for asking it from her. But then, after a big crashing sound nearby, the thought came to his mind of losing her.
After that he almost didn't hear very much or sensed very much of the loud but really harmless noise outside. What would the world be like without her, he felt, not wondered. Then he was too tired from sleeplessness that he dozed off.
There were no dreams.
Now he is here, outside all alone, in this quiet waters, and the fog's slow clearing allows the colors of the New England autumn to reveal themselves like a growing fire. The sky is a faint blue, no clouds, apparently. He drinks his last sip of tea, very cold by now, and he lets his mind follow the path of the tea through his esophagus and into his stomach. A chill shakes him a little. He is now cold even as the sun slowly burns through the fog. The words come in less and less frequently. He stands up and slowly walks towards the little door. Before he opens it he looks around and sees all these words on each leaf of the chilly autumn morning, melting away in the strengthening sun, and he shudders once more before going inside to find his warmth.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Alice in Wonderland
The music started when the food had just started making its way to the different mouths and the wine had just started filtering through the different souls at this and other tables. The year is this one, the month is this one, and the day is today. It's tonight. It's the longest running fundraiser in Connecticut. Most people have followed the even for a while. But one couple, I've heard, over there at table number 23, have been coming since the the first time they tried raising money for charity. It was a very different charity back then, a different America, but the guests were still more or less the same, mostly Italian Americans. This couple didn't know each other then, forty two years ago. It was at the second fundraiser that they started talking. It was like in the movies. He was a dashing America-born Italian man still has a bit of an accent inherited from his parents. She was just half, or a bit less. Her father was from the Irish side. They started talking at the bar, and like in the movies, he charmed her, she fell in love almost as soon as he fell in love, and by the third fundraiser they had wedding bands on.
They are playing still more or less the same oldies from Italy from back then. The singer and the live band is having just as much fun as the old timers. Surprisingly, it's the younger people who are too embarrassed to go on the dance floor. But the old folks don't care. And especially not Helen and Joey. They have grand children now, though they aren't here this year, living far far away on the West Coast where there are far fewer Italian-Americans. They are happy here. They come here because it makes them remember their youth. The bar's interior has changed over the decades, but for them, the moment they walk in together, they can see themselves again, sitting there, both so nervous, and yet so hopeful. Decades have passed since then, waves of hope and despair, the usual calamities and joys of life, forty one year since they first met. Their only complaint was having missed each other the year before.
They can't have the sweets their are dishing out later because they are diabetic, but they are grateful that they can eat all this wonderful Italian food that, though is a proud and integral part of their heritage, rarely makes its way to their lives. They live a very American, purely American, life now in a nearby town where most people think Italy has just pasta and pizza. They are still proud that they could understand Italian, though not because of their parents, who refused to Italianize them lest they didn't integrate in their native country, but rather over the years being close to Italians who did speak their Southern dialect with one another, especially the newer immigrants who were much more proud of their mother land than the earlier Italians.
The music is of the right beat, the right loudness, and the right voice is singing like the old stars used to. Helen had her hair done just the day before. It's the typical old lady's hairdo, puffy, to hide the thinness of it. Unlike most ladies of her age on the dance floor, she was extraordinarily thin, but not sickly. While her peers over the years were gorging themselves with pasta and meatballs and everything else fat and starchy, she did her best to keep her youthful slenderness. She worked out just until her bones and joints started causing pain and even then she watched what she was eating. Her husband never complained and always adored her. She couldn't understand why her only daughter, Rosa, had such trouble with men. She always said, "Women these days are too picky for their own good and just too busy to fall in love." Her daughter has managed to divorce twice and is now as lonely as before. Her grandson comes from her eldest son, who works in real estate; she thinks he's the most boring person in the world, but at least she never has to worry about him. He may not adore her wife nearly as much as Joey adores Helen, but boring Benito gets by with life.
The first songs are slow ones, drawing the old, romantic couples to the floor. Helen falls again for the forty-first time in this ballroom into the arms of the aging but still protective embrace of her husband with whom they've gone through so much. When was it that she stopped remembering that long ago he used to beat her. When was it that she stopped remembering that he had stopped bringing her flowers but instead beer home to drink in his own solitude. Or that time when she threatened to go back to her mother. That was a long time ago, and nearly as long, the last time she thought about it. She hardly thinks about the past, which is something her girlfriends do a lot, more and more each day that passes. She enjoys being in Joey's arms. Joey is a short man with skin like prunes but whose color is still that golden olive tone. Old people's spots? Who doesn't have them? She just enjoys being in his arms. She just enjoys the idea that they could make it another year and another and another so that she could keep being in his arms. They don't get to do this any other time. When they go home later, they will just be sleeping in their separate beds just because it's more comfortable. They've been doing this for, "Gosh, I can't remember", she suddenly thinks. She tenses a little at the thought. At this magical moment, once in a year moment, why can't they have it another time? She realizes how much she loves being in the arms of her husband, how much she loves his musky scent that has changed so much over the decades. And yet, when they go home, before going to their different beds, they wouldn't be cuddling, they wouldn't be telling each other something they already know and take granted for. Why not say it? Why not say it now. She surprises him by squeezing his hand a little tighter and looks at him. Her cheeks even wrinklier when she smiles at him, and he smiles back. He recognizes that smile; it's the one they would have when they enter the bar, which they would do later, almost as a ritual. But even at the bar they wouldn't say what she was wondering why they don't say at home or any of the other 364 days of the year. She looks at him more intently, her eyes start to burn with a fire he nearly doesn't recognize. But he does. There's nothing she would do that he doesn't recognize or isn't at least familiar with. He is only surprised when familiar things happen at unfamiliar times.
"I love you, Joey," she said to him as the melody of their song lingers a bit, quiets a bit.
"I always have loved you, Ellie," he said. He is wearing a black suit and a red tie, which drapes over his big tummy he's carried for the past twenty, thirty years.
And they move a little more slowly, and he brings her slender body a little closer to his soft tummy. They didn't say anything to each other then, but they both thought about the same thing, a surprise: for some reason, they no longer feel a need for the ritual, to go in the bar together, to see the image of their first conversation forty one years ago. They'd just keep dancing, even after the night is over, and look forward to remembering things yet to come.
They are playing still more or less the same oldies from Italy from back then. The singer and the live band is having just as much fun as the old timers. Surprisingly, it's the younger people who are too embarrassed to go on the dance floor. But the old folks don't care. And especially not Helen and Joey. They have grand children now, though they aren't here this year, living far far away on the West Coast where there are far fewer Italian-Americans. They are happy here. They come here because it makes them remember their youth. The bar's interior has changed over the decades, but for them, the moment they walk in together, they can see themselves again, sitting there, both so nervous, and yet so hopeful. Decades have passed since then, waves of hope and despair, the usual calamities and joys of life, forty one year since they first met. Their only complaint was having missed each other the year before.
They can't have the sweets their are dishing out later because they are diabetic, but they are grateful that they can eat all this wonderful Italian food that, though is a proud and integral part of their heritage, rarely makes its way to their lives. They live a very American, purely American, life now in a nearby town where most people think Italy has just pasta and pizza. They are still proud that they could understand Italian, though not because of their parents, who refused to Italianize them lest they didn't integrate in their native country, but rather over the years being close to Italians who did speak their Southern dialect with one another, especially the newer immigrants who were much more proud of their mother land than the earlier Italians.
The music is of the right beat, the right loudness, and the right voice is singing like the old stars used to. Helen had her hair done just the day before. It's the typical old lady's hairdo, puffy, to hide the thinness of it. Unlike most ladies of her age on the dance floor, she was extraordinarily thin, but not sickly. While her peers over the years were gorging themselves with pasta and meatballs and everything else fat and starchy, she did her best to keep her youthful slenderness. She worked out just until her bones and joints started causing pain and even then she watched what she was eating. Her husband never complained and always adored her. She couldn't understand why her only daughter, Rosa, had such trouble with men. She always said, "Women these days are too picky for their own good and just too busy to fall in love." Her daughter has managed to divorce twice and is now as lonely as before. Her grandson comes from her eldest son, who works in real estate; she thinks he's the most boring person in the world, but at least she never has to worry about him. He may not adore her wife nearly as much as Joey adores Helen, but boring Benito gets by with life.
The first songs are slow ones, drawing the old, romantic couples to the floor. Helen falls again for the forty-first time in this ballroom into the arms of the aging but still protective embrace of her husband with whom they've gone through so much. When was it that she stopped remembering that long ago he used to beat her. When was it that she stopped remembering that he had stopped bringing her flowers but instead beer home to drink in his own solitude. Or that time when she threatened to go back to her mother. That was a long time ago, and nearly as long, the last time she thought about it. She hardly thinks about the past, which is something her girlfriends do a lot, more and more each day that passes. She enjoys being in Joey's arms. Joey is a short man with skin like prunes but whose color is still that golden olive tone. Old people's spots? Who doesn't have them? She just enjoys being in his arms. She just enjoys the idea that they could make it another year and another and another so that she could keep being in his arms. They don't get to do this any other time. When they go home later, they will just be sleeping in their separate beds just because it's more comfortable. They've been doing this for, "Gosh, I can't remember", she suddenly thinks. She tenses a little at the thought. At this magical moment, once in a year moment, why can't they have it another time? She realizes how much she loves being in the arms of her husband, how much she loves his musky scent that has changed so much over the decades. And yet, when they go home, before going to their different beds, they wouldn't be cuddling, they wouldn't be telling each other something they already know and take granted for. Why not say it? Why not say it now. She surprises him by squeezing his hand a little tighter and looks at him. Her cheeks even wrinklier when she smiles at him, and he smiles back. He recognizes that smile; it's the one they would have when they enter the bar, which they would do later, almost as a ritual. But even at the bar they wouldn't say what she was wondering why they don't say at home or any of the other 364 days of the year. She looks at him more intently, her eyes start to burn with a fire he nearly doesn't recognize. But he does. There's nothing she would do that he doesn't recognize or isn't at least familiar with. He is only surprised when familiar things happen at unfamiliar times.
"I love you, Joey," she said to him as the melody of their song lingers a bit, quiets a bit.
"I always have loved you, Ellie," he said. He is wearing a black suit and a red tie, which drapes over his big tummy he's carried for the past twenty, thirty years.
And they move a little more slowly, and he brings her slender body a little closer to his soft tummy. They didn't say anything to each other then, but they both thought about the same thing, a surprise: for some reason, they no longer feel a need for the ritual, to go in the bar together, to see the image of their first conversation forty one years ago. They'd just keep dancing, even after the night is over, and look forward to remembering things yet to come.
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Night Rain
The chatty man is now quiet. When he was driving she kept him company, both because he's interesting and he needs to stay awake. They are in her ten year old Subaru, still carrying the scars of a break-in from a few weeks ago. The stereo is still missing, and the passenger door, though locks tightly, still sticks out a little so that the wind that caresses the the sides of the car at high speed creates a loud and deep sound on this quiet highway. They switched places at the first rest stop out of the city. She knows he was trying to stay awake to keep her company, even though he had warned her that he might fall asleep and she encouraged him to do so. As soon as she put her hands on the steering wheel, the droplets became bigger and fell more rapidly. And by the time she got onto the highway, the sound made by the broken door was muffled by the pounding of the rain on the windshield. And as if that wasn't bad enough, huge trucks of different sizes and logos started appearing. They have caught up the truck traffic as she sped through the rain past three in the morning.
He is now quiet. His head dips down every now and then, his lips part, but the rest of his body, slouching, is immobile. She takes a look at him, just to be sure that he's really sleeping. Then she focuses her attention back on the road. There are hardly any cars, and the few that are there seem to be too much in a hurry to care about the dangerous conditions of the road and the trucks that make it ever riskier to speed past or between them. It was her first time driving from the city, her first time in the city, and until the honking and the traffic rattled her mind, it was also her first time driving in the Big Apple. Having spent her entire life so far in the mountainous, sparsely populated Northwest, these few hours in the city were quite an adventure. Her great sense of adventure was surely tested, but also rewarded. It wasn't about any particular event, sight, person, or anything concrete, it was the experience that is slowly crystallizing into an image in her mind now. The pouring rain is battling with the wipers, and the view in front of her is never entirely clear. It's almost like an impressionist painting; even more modern than that because against the gray background is just one color: red. The color from the rear lights of the cars before her. And her memory of the city, of her first time in this confusing city, is also being painted at this moment.
She wants to savor not just the experience, but the process of watching the experience being painted in her mind. She hasn't said much to the chatty man, who grew up in the very city they had just left. She thinks he is interesting, not the very least has attitudes not entirely familiar to him. Like the city he is in many ways unfamiliar but friendlier than expected. Despite the constant honking that greeted her but seemed entirely normal to him, the city gave them a parking space as soon as they started searching. The people they met at the dance, the main reason for which they went, were very friendly, though a large number aren't even from New York. He is a stranger to her in many ways. They only know each other in terms of the dance, and only today they had a chance to talk when they were driving to the city and having their dinner together. He had been asking a lot of questions about her, but he wasn't reserved about answering her questions either. But it was all rather superficial until just before the dance he made a comment about how she never joined any sororities. He told her a belief he had based on a quote from some famous book whose name she by now has forgotten. He told her that it's better to live your own life imperfectly than to live perfectly the imitation of someone else's life, a criticism of any cliques like a sorority. She didn't respond to that, but the words stayed with her, and his voice too.
The city has a lot to show, it's true. But with all that offering, it's difficult to understand what you really want out of it. She was excited to go to the city, and she left it without harboring any disappointment. But what is it that she wants now from the city? Her thoughts were forming and being wiped immediately like the water on the windshield. Her thoughts start to distract her from her driving and she gets too close to the truck, resulting in pressing the brakes fast enough the wake up the previously quiet man slouching next to her. He puts his left arm on her right one, and mumbles his question, "You OK? OK driving?" He's worried that he's not being a good company. She assures him that everything is all right.
Then he disappears again to some place resembling sleep but probably not quite. She doesn't understand if there is any connection between them. They aren't even friends, at least not the way she's used to. When she dances with him, she feels safe, comfortable, as if she's with her best friend living still on the other side of the country. She has told him a lot about her friends and a little about her family, and he hasn't said anything about his world. But flip side is that that one statement about how to live your life, sharing his belief, was something she never could imagine sharing with him. She doesn't know how old he is, what he does for a living, and the only reason she knows where he lives now is that she had to pick him up. It's strange how we share different things with the other person depending on our own background, our internal customs, and our trust in that other person. We often don't even think about these factors; our hearts delivers commands without words.
She is glad he is asleep. She needs her time alone now. She doesn't always know she needs time alone, and often she is surrounded by people and almost never does that bother her. And yet, when she does get time alone, like now, she realizes how much she misses it and needs it. At least to pain the experience of those few hours in the city she has only seen in movies.
The last exit before entering their little sleepy town flashes in front of her. And magically he wakes up. Although she hasn't figured out yet what connection she has with this human being that has just returned from his slumber, she is happy that the evening went well. It's now nearly 4AM, the rain at some point has died down, and she is just happy to be home. Her new home.
He is now quiet. His head dips down every now and then, his lips part, but the rest of his body, slouching, is immobile. She takes a look at him, just to be sure that he's really sleeping. Then she focuses her attention back on the road. There are hardly any cars, and the few that are there seem to be too much in a hurry to care about the dangerous conditions of the road and the trucks that make it ever riskier to speed past or between them. It was her first time driving from the city, her first time in the city, and until the honking and the traffic rattled her mind, it was also her first time driving in the Big Apple. Having spent her entire life so far in the mountainous, sparsely populated Northwest, these few hours in the city were quite an adventure. Her great sense of adventure was surely tested, but also rewarded. It wasn't about any particular event, sight, person, or anything concrete, it was the experience that is slowly crystallizing into an image in her mind now. The pouring rain is battling with the wipers, and the view in front of her is never entirely clear. It's almost like an impressionist painting; even more modern than that because against the gray background is just one color: red. The color from the rear lights of the cars before her. And her memory of the city, of her first time in this confusing city, is also being painted at this moment.
She wants to savor not just the experience, but the process of watching the experience being painted in her mind. She hasn't said much to the chatty man, who grew up in the very city they had just left. She thinks he is interesting, not the very least has attitudes not entirely familiar to him. Like the city he is in many ways unfamiliar but friendlier than expected. Despite the constant honking that greeted her but seemed entirely normal to him, the city gave them a parking space as soon as they started searching. The people they met at the dance, the main reason for which they went, were very friendly, though a large number aren't even from New York. He is a stranger to her in many ways. They only know each other in terms of the dance, and only today they had a chance to talk when they were driving to the city and having their dinner together. He had been asking a lot of questions about her, but he wasn't reserved about answering her questions either. But it was all rather superficial until just before the dance he made a comment about how she never joined any sororities. He told her a belief he had based on a quote from some famous book whose name she by now has forgotten. He told her that it's better to live your own life imperfectly than to live perfectly the imitation of someone else's life, a criticism of any cliques like a sorority. She didn't respond to that, but the words stayed with her, and his voice too.
The city has a lot to show, it's true. But with all that offering, it's difficult to understand what you really want out of it. She was excited to go to the city, and she left it without harboring any disappointment. But what is it that she wants now from the city? Her thoughts were forming and being wiped immediately like the water on the windshield. Her thoughts start to distract her from her driving and she gets too close to the truck, resulting in pressing the brakes fast enough the wake up the previously quiet man slouching next to her. He puts his left arm on her right one, and mumbles his question, "You OK? OK driving?" He's worried that he's not being a good company. She assures him that everything is all right.
Then he disappears again to some place resembling sleep but probably not quite. She doesn't understand if there is any connection between them. They aren't even friends, at least not the way she's used to. When she dances with him, she feels safe, comfortable, as if she's with her best friend living still on the other side of the country. She has told him a lot about her friends and a little about her family, and he hasn't said anything about his world. But flip side is that that one statement about how to live your life, sharing his belief, was something she never could imagine sharing with him. She doesn't know how old he is, what he does for a living, and the only reason she knows where he lives now is that she had to pick him up. It's strange how we share different things with the other person depending on our own background, our internal customs, and our trust in that other person. We often don't even think about these factors; our hearts delivers commands without words.
She is glad he is asleep. She needs her time alone now. She doesn't always know she needs time alone, and often she is surrounded by people and almost never does that bother her. And yet, when she does get time alone, like now, she realizes how much she misses it and needs it. At least to pain the experience of those few hours in the city she has only seen in movies.
The last exit before entering their little sleepy town flashes in front of her. And magically he wakes up. Although she hasn't figured out yet what connection she has with this human being that has just returned from his slumber, she is happy that the evening went well. It's now nearly 4AM, the rain at some point has died down, and she is just happy to be home. Her new home.
Friday, October 23, 2009
Cafe Scene
He's cheap; he never leaves a tip. This guy is also cheap, and he never has cash on him, so we have to pay a little bit of what he gives us to the credit card company for his convenience. This woman always talks on her cell while ordering, and for her alone we have had heated debates over whether to enact a policy of no order taking while customer is on the phone. Then there's the old man who comes in and asks the same questions every time about what we offer, as if our menus change daily. What is he hoping for? He never has divulged what he really would like, but he is always a bit frustrated and disappointed when he finally decides on the same plain scone and cafe americano while a beeline forms behind him. He has a knack of ordering when only one of us can be at the register. Then every week at some randomly assigned day, this man always in his bicycle gears, looking all sexy in his tight spandex, orders some cheap drink with his bike goggles still on.
My job is boring, which is why I notice these things about people. Most people are unmemorable. The quirky ones get my attention more. And they repeat themselves. I guess we should be grateful that these quirky people are repeat customers. And they aren't all cheap. There's this professor-looking guy that orders two, yes, two, pastries and the best espresso in the house, and he does this with a real smile to me, and only to me, for some reason, and with a generous tip, which I have to share with my colleagues whom he never smiles to, though he manages to nearly catch me every time he comes in. Imagine, me, a high school dropout girl who gets the attention of an Ivy League professor. Or maybe he's not a professor, just some other quirky weirdo who dresses up and acts like one. He asks me always how my day is, then he tells me his while I prepare his espresso. Today he said he read that some famous German, or was it French, philosopher said something, which he quoted, that made him think about the value of today's commerce. To be sure, I actually find this sort of thing interesting. Hey, most anything's more interesting than grinding espresso beans and moving scones around. I can't remember what he said, but somehow, it made me think about how big a world it is out there. Not sure why today. Maybe it's fall and the leaves are falling and we are all in the thinking mode. Maybe I've had it with this job that makes me wonder where my feet can go beyond the routines.
Sometimes, like today, I count the hours. After the morning rush not much happens. Interestingly, the "professor" comes in just when the crowd clears, so we get to chat a bit. I try not to sound stupid just in case he is a professor. But I try also not to sound I am smarter than I really am. Anyway, I counted around one hour after the professor left this guy came in. He seemed sullen. My heart mentally rolled my eyes because he would be a non-tipper and might be rude, from my experience with people whose morning is starting badly. He looked at me, and he hesitated. He ordered, and I wasn't sure if he didn't speak English well or just awkward or both. He was Asian, and you can never tell if they are native speakers or fresh off the boat. He then said something I couldn't understand at first. He repeated, "Are these photographs from here?" I looked and somewhat found myself surprised that there were photographs hanging on our walls. "Yes, they are from New Haven," I answered as I was filling up his cup with hot water for his tea (surprised! Asians). He then said, a bit more confident, "I mean, are these photographs taken by people of this coffee shop or from outsiders?" "Outsiders?" I thought, what a strange choice of word. I replied, handing him the cup of hot water and the bag of organic jasmine tea. While he searches for his, well, credit card, he asked, "Can I give you some of my photos and if you're interested maybe you can hang them up?" "Oh my God, Asians and their photos!" I thought. I said, "Well, the manager would be the one you should talk to, but he's not in today." He's almost never in. He has three other coffee shops in the area.
There's no one else in the coffee shop now, except another quirky weirdo who virtually lives here; he orders the cheapest cup of tea and sits by the window until we close! I could just see how boring the day would be. I looked at the Asian guy and said, "Do you have your pictures with you?" Expecting a "no", I was surprised to see that the well prepared Asian man nodded. He paid first, put his food on the closest table, and then opened his bag. I walked around the counter and told him we could sit at the table. Very bad protocol; I should be working, but somehow today I felt I deserved a break of boredom.
Fancy laptop. I was half expecting a bunch of photographs, but this being a place of fancy learned people with money, our Asian buddy has his silver laptop open. I don't have a laptop. I know how to use a computer, but I don't own one. How can you afford it on a tips? He opened his album and voilà.
They were portraits.
"Who are these people?" I asked.
"Monks."
"From where?"
"From India, Nepal, Tibet, and the rest of China," he answered, a little nervous.
"Why monks?" I asked.
He was quiet for a little bit. Then he said, "I am a Buddhist, and I wanted to capture the world of people who are important to my religion."
A Buddhist.... Of course, Asians are Buddhists. But I stopped thinking about him. I unconsciously took over the keyboard and at my own pace went through his photos. I wasn't even aware until later on that customers had arrived and my lazy coworker Sarah had to take care of them (God-forbid!). I was walking somewhere not here. I was reading words from these faces, these eyes, all gray, black and white, I was there almost with the mountains or the temples or the poverty that I never imagined existed. How did he make me do it, this Asian man, how did he make me travel in his photos? How did he tell a story without saying a word, without describing where he was. He was quiet, as if physically disappeared, but I knew he was there all this time, like a quiet companion walking with me while I was enraptured by the scenery, the joy, the pain, the suffering, the celebration.
After that he took another, I don't know how long, bit of time telling me about his travel. He then noticed the time and apologized for taking my work time for his benefit of telling someone about his story. I didn't know what to say. I never had someone apologize for making me feel good about the world. He then leaves me his email address, asking me to give it to Dan, our manager, if he might be interested. I told him I would tell him how, well, "wonderful" the pictures were. But for the rest of the day I tried finding a better adjective in my head. Something better than "wonderful." I was hooked, but on what? Not sure. I was liberated, somehow, to do what, equally unsure. But my heart was beating faster and heavier than normal the rest of that day, and I noticed a lot less about the people who were coming in the coffee shop and the even weirder people in the bus.
I have to go somewhere. And I think there's plenty of spaces in the world for me feet to fill.
My job is boring, which is why I notice these things about people. Most people are unmemorable. The quirky ones get my attention more. And they repeat themselves. I guess we should be grateful that these quirky people are repeat customers. And they aren't all cheap. There's this professor-looking guy that orders two, yes, two, pastries and the best espresso in the house, and he does this with a real smile to me, and only to me, for some reason, and with a generous tip, which I have to share with my colleagues whom he never smiles to, though he manages to nearly catch me every time he comes in. Imagine, me, a high school dropout girl who gets the attention of an Ivy League professor. Or maybe he's not a professor, just some other quirky weirdo who dresses up and acts like one. He asks me always how my day is, then he tells me his while I prepare his espresso. Today he said he read that some famous German, or was it French, philosopher said something, which he quoted, that made him think about the value of today's commerce. To be sure, I actually find this sort of thing interesting. Hey, most anything's more interesting than grinding espresso beans and moving scones around. I can't remember what he said, but somehow, it made me think about how big a world it is out there. Not sure why today. Maybe it's fall and the leaves are falling and we are all in the thinking mode. Maybe I've had it with this job that makes me wonder where my feet can go beyond the routines.
Sometimes, like today, I count the hours. After the morning rush not much happens. Interestingly, the "professor" comes in just when the crowd clears, so we get to chat a bit. I try not to sound stupid just in case he is a professor. But I try also not to sound I am smarter than I really am. Anyway, I counted around one hour after the professor left this guy came in. He seemed sullen. My heart mentally rolled my eyes because he would be a non-tipper and might be rude, from my experience with people whose morning is starting badly. He looked at me, and he hesitated. He ordered, and I wasn't sure if he didn't speak English well or just awkward or both. He was Asian, and you can never tell if they are native speakers or fresh off the boat. He then said something I couldn't understand at first. He repeated, "Are these photographs from here?" I looked and somewhat found myself surprised that there were photographs hanging on our walls. "Yes, they are from New Haven," I answered as I was filling up his cup with hot water for his tea (surprised! Asians). He then said, a bit more confident, "I mean, are these photographs taken by people of this coffee shop or from outsiders?" "Outsiders?" I thought, what a strange choice of word. I replied, handing him the cup of hot water and the bag of organic jasmine tea. While he searches for his, well, credit card, he asked, "Can I give you some of my photos and if you're interested maybe you can hang them up?" "Oh my God, Asians and their photos!" I thought. I said, "Well, the manager would be the one you should talk to, but he's not in today." He's almost never in. He has three other coffee shops in the area.
There's no one else in the coffee shop now, except another quirky weirdo who virtually lives here; he orders the cheapest cup of tea and sits by the window until we close! I could just see how boring the day would be. I looked at the Asian guy and said, "Do you have your pictures with you?" Expecting a "no", I was surprised to see that the well prepared Asian man nodded. He paid first, put his food on the closest table, and then opened his bag. I walked around the counter and told him we could sit at the table. Very bad protocol; I should be working, but somehow today I felt I deserved a break of boredom.
Fancy laptop. I was half expecting a bunch of photographs, but this being a place of fancy learned people with money, our Asian buddy has his silver laptop open. I don't have a laptop. I know how to use a computer, but I don't own one. How can you afford it on a tips? He opened his album and voilà.
They were portraits.
"Who are these people?" I asked.
"Monks."
"From where?"
"From India, Nepal, Tibet, and the rest of China," he answered, a little nervous.
"Why monks?" I asked.
He was quiet for a little bit. Then he said, "I am a Buddhist, and I wanted to capture the world of people who are important to my religion."
A Buddhist.... Of course, Asians are Buddhists. But I stopped thinking about him. I unconsciously took over the keyboard and at my own pace went through his photos. I wasn't even aware until later on that customers had arrived and my lazy coworker Sarah had to take care of them (God-forbid!). I was walking somewhere not here. I was reading words from these faces, these eyes, all gray, black and white, I was there almost with the mountains or the temples or the poverty that I never imagined existed. How did he make me do it, this Asian man, how did he make me travel in his photos? How did he tell a story without saying a word, without describing where he was. He was quiet, as if physically disappeared, but I knew he was there all this time, like a quiet companion walking with me while I was enraptured by the scenery, the joy, the pain, the suffering, the celebration.
After that he took another, I don't know how long, bit of time telling me about his travel. He then noticed the time and apologized for taking my work time for his benefit of telling someone about his story. I didn't know what to say. I never had someone apologize for making me feel good about the world. He then leaves me his email address, asking me to give it to Dan, our manager, if he might be interested. I told him I would tell him how, well, "wonderful" the pictures were. But for the rest of the day I tried finding a better adjective in my head. Something better than "wonderful." I was hooked, but on what? Not sure. I was liberated, somehow, to do what, equally unsure. But my heart was beating faster and heavier than normal the rest of that day, and I noticed a lot less about the people who were coming in the coffee shop and the even weirder people in the bus.
I have to go somewhere. And I think there's plenty of spaces in the world for me feet to fill.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Shadows in the Atlantic
Not far from where she is standing is the Vegas of the Northeast. For most people New Jersey is about the casinos at Atlantic City, or the airport that's close enough to New York that you are flying or leaving from New York, even though it's really New Jersey. But what else is New Jersey. She came to this little known state in the shadows of the big metropolis that she, of course, knew about since childhood. Her father disappeared when Hurricane Mitchell whipped through her small country. She was a teenager in love with a boy from her school she wanted to marry. But the hurricane changed it all when her family was forced to move out of their destroyed home and into the reluctant hands of her aunt. Her mourning for her father's disappearance, presumed dead had to cut short, as well as her mourning for loss of all her hopes with that boy. His name was Luis. Her dreams seemed to have just gone up with the hurricane and landed in tatters somewhere else in Central America.
But she was determined to find new dreams. Partly it was fueled by her growing resentment living at her aunt's place and depending on her aunt's family. She couldn't stand seeing her own mother subjected to the daily psychological abuse of being a failure, and of course that accusation of failure often spread to her. "Like mother like daughter, I guess", her aunt would tell her uncle. They wanted to marry her off so she wouldn't be "leeching" off them anymore.
Her dad, who loved her dearly, told her that she should never marry a man unless there was so much love in her that her heart could burst for him. She thought she found that man in that boy. Her heart, she felt many times, nearly burst. But the death of her father froze her heart. And the forced move shook it further. She had written to him many times, but there had never been an answer. Maybe his house was never rebuilt either. Maybe he had forgotten about her. She only beginning to understand men when Mitchell washed away everything she had.
But it was her aunt and the stifling atmosphere in which she lived that drove her to her only goal: to get out of this miserable country, find a job in America, and send enough money back to liberate her mother and her little sister from this abusive house. For the next four years she studied like a man woman, reading all the books she could, and trying to understand all the possible ways to get into the United States. She didn't want to do it the dangerous way via Mexico and paying some stranger insane amount of money. She was educated enough in all ways to understand the risks were not worth it. After wall, her goal was to be prosperous, not dead in the Mexican deserts somewhere.
Hurricane Mitchell thundered through her town and pushed her country, as the president back then said, forty years backwards. That was eleven years ago. She made it. She was able to learn enough English after those four years in high school to get the test scores needed to study at a small American university in Tucsan, Arizona. She saved enough money to buy herself a plane ticket and a little more for starting her life there. It wasn't easy, those four years. And the next four years were even harder, getting adjusted to the new country, all alone, and working whenever she wasn't studying, to pay for school as well as sending money back.
She was very proud of herself. She achieved her goals, with her own determination and hard work. All the while she was holding out hope, though she hadn't realized it until recently. that her dad was alive somewhere, that one day, her American telephone would ring and her father would be talking, finally finding his way back to her. And that day she would return to Honduras, with all the extra money she had saved, to help rebuild the country along with her dad. That day still hadn't come.
But it was close. One day the phone rang and it was the voice of a man who sounded so much like her dad that she nearly jumped. She was working in the computer lab as someone people went to ask computer questions. Usually nothing happened and she was working on her senior thesis when the phone rang. The man wanted to know the hours, and she took some time to answer. Later, that man appeared. He didn't look like her father, but did look like him when he was a lot younger. Most importantly, he had that smile, that comforting smile she recognized in her father, whose smile always assuaged her. She was an extremely attractive woman, and many men had tried to win her heart since she made her way to Tucson. But she was determined not to let love get in her way of accomplishing her goals. But here she was, wondering if her father was looking at her. This man's smile disarmed her like no one else could. She felt safe even before knowing this man's name. For all the years of struggle in this foreign land where she refused to take roots, she felt for the first time safe. She always burst out in tears when he started talking, sounding so much like her father. And he spoke to her in Spanish in the most gentleman-like manner. There had been men who tried to be a gentleman to her in order to win her heart, but it never worked. Her walls were too tall for them, scalable only by her own father, or someone similar enough.
Looking at the the seagulls still in midair, Pilar remembers that day when her future husband came in the computer lab. And her anger starts to bubble again. She resents how life doesn't allow her to do what is obviously the right thing: her goal. She doesn't understand why despite her best judgments, life has to force her into detours. Not "force". Tricked. She has done everything willingly. She fell in love with Ramón, whose only dissimilitude to her father at that moment was his name. They graduated together and he got a job in this little dinky town of Kingston, New Jersey, where his family lives. That he was a family man was a positive trait. That his Puerto rican family accepted her without much begrudging, despite her being a foreigner, was another acceptable plus. That this dinky town is boring and the people's minds slower and lazier than those of the seagulls is a problem worth overlooking when you have love. That you marry at the age of 24 is not that abnormal even in the godless Northeast. And for sure, the first year they were extremely happy.
The sound of steps on the old boardwalk draws her attention away from her angry memories. She now has to put aside her resentment that after that first year the fights started, the condescension from him and his family grew more frequent, and her loneliness grew by the day. She looks at him in the eyes. She smiles. His smile is shy but many folds bigger, deeper. He's happy. They aren't on a date; he has never seen her before until now. And what a surprise. For him she must be the most beautiful woman in the world. But before even that, he had felt a connection to her just as she had felt it from him. He is looking for a dream car, a Mustang S281. She was supposed to help him by looking for dealers in New Jersey for him. He has traveled from some other dinky town she had never heard of in Connecticut. But through email, they started talking more than just Mustangs. It has only been a week, but their daily, multiple email exchanges have allowed her for the first time in this country to express her sorrow, her loneliness, but framed not as some pathetic immigrant story but as barriers to a determined woman.
He, on the other hand, isn't an immigrant, though not a native either. He comes from a country she knows of but never imagined visiting but would love to visit one day. It's the country of the conquistadors that put the European blood in her. His stories about his fascinations with cars in Valencia opened her mind like no other time has. Someone from Europe, all the way from Europe, shared something in common with her. She never thought about that. It's not that Spaniards can't be car aficionados too, but she never expanded her horizon to beyond Honduras and Tucson (and now Kingston). This man was exotic. This man was not like her but from a distance she can actually reach. Not only is he European, but also he's a professor at the University of Valencia. She is a graduate of a small, inexpensive college in Tucson and now works as an inventory manager at the local Walmart. He didn't look down on her, but rather opened up so many other images of the world to her. He teaches psychology and has told her so much about his work in such an accessible way that she actually thinks psychology is the most interesting thing in the world now. He also tells her about his travels in Europe, about the politics in his country and his continent. She has found herself interested and engrossed in everything he said.
It's like discovering the ocean after living 27 years in a valley surrounded by insurmountable mountains. There's so much more to life, she realizes. Not only so much more than this pathetic town of Kingston, but so much more than even her own dreams. What if life offered more than just getting enough money to send back and to bring back. What if, life offered more than just being with a father who might not really exist anymore?
She looks at his blue eyes as he looks shyly to her green ones. They smile. There's a temporary distance between them that quickly vanishes. They don't hold hands. Not yet. Too personal.
She is still married.
Kingston is a small town.
"So you want to go visit this first dealer?" she asks, with a smile that feels relaxing, that feels hopeful. The disgust she has with her life, with her marriage, with the people who reject her here, that disgust is now washed away in the briny wind of the cold Atlantic coast. She has only set up appointments with two Mustang dealers. The day is young. They will have finish within two hours. He, she has determined, won't be driving back to his dinky Connecticut town tonight. While her husband is again on a visit in Puerto Rico for again an indefinite amount of time, she for the first time since Mitchell, will feel the world can finally embrace her. She's not in love. She doesn't have to be. The door to her heart has finally started opening, and she is the only one who needs to enter it from now on.
But she was determined to find new dreams. Partly it was fueled by her growing resentment living at her aunt's place and depending on her aunt's family. She couldn't stand seeing her own mother subjected to the daily psychological abuse of being a failure, and of course that accusation of failure often spread to her. "Like mother like daughter, I guess", her aunt would tell her uncle. They wanted to marry her off so she wouldn't be "leeching" off them anymore.
Her dad, who loved her dearly, told her that she should never marry a man unless there was so much love in her that her heart could burst for him. She thought she found that man in that boy. Her heart, she felt many times, nearly burst. But the death of her father froze her heart. And the forced move shook it further. She had written to him many times, but there had never been an answer. Maybe his house was never rebuilt either. Maybe he had forgotten about her. She only beginning to understand men when Mitchell washed away everything she had.
But it was her aunt and the stifling atmosphere in which she lived that drove her to her only goal: to get out of this miserable country, find a job in America, and send enough money back to liberate her mother and her little sister from this abusive house. For the next four years she studied like a man woman, reading all the books she could, and trying to understand all the possible ways to get into the United States. She didn't want to do it the dangerous way via Mexico and paying some stranger insane amount of money. She was educated enough in all ways to understand the risks were not worth it. After wall, her goal was to be prosperous, not dead in the Mexican deserts somewhere.
Hurricane Mitchell thundered through her town and pushed her country, as the president back then said, forty years backwards. That was eleven years ago. She made it. She was able to learn enough English after those four years in high school to get the test scores needed to study at a small American university in Tucsan, Arizona. She saved enough money to buy herself a plane ticket and a little more for starting her life there. It wasn't easy, those four years. And the next four years were even harder, getting adjusted to the new country, all alone, and working whenever she wasn't studying, to pay for school as well as sending money back.
She was very proud of herself. She achieved her goals, with her own determination and hard work. All the while she was holding out hope, though she hadn't realized it until recently. that her dad was alive somewhere, that one day, her American telephone would ring and her father would be talking, finally finding his way back to her. And that day she would return to Honduras, with all the extra money she had saved, to help rebuild the country along with her dad. That day still hadn't come.
But it was close. One day the phone rang and it was the voice of a man who sounded so much like her dad that she nearly jumped. She was working in the computer lab as someone people went to ask computer questions. Usually nothing happened and she was working on her senior thesis when the phone rang. The man wanted to know the hours, and she took some time to answer. Later, that man appeared. He didn't look like her father, but did look like him when he was a lot younger. Most importantly, he had that smile, that comforting smile she recognized in her father, whose smile always assuaged her. She was an extremely attractive woman, and many men had tried to win her heart since she made her way to Tucson. But she was determined not to let love get in her way of accomplishing her goals. But here she was, wondering if her father was looking at her. This man's smile disarmed her like no one else could. She felt safe even before knowing this man's name. For all the years of struggle in this foreign land where she refused to take roots, she felt for the first time safe. She always burst out in tears when he started talking, sounding so much like her father. And he spoke to her in Spanish in the most gentleman-like manner. There had been men who tried to be a gentleman to her in order to win her heart, but it never worked. Her walls were too tall for them, scalable only by her own father, or someone similar enough.
Looking at the the seagulls still in midair, Pilar remembers that day when her future husband came in the computer lab. And her anger starts to bubble again. She resents how life doesn't allow her to do what is obviously the right thing: her goal. She doesn't understand why despite her best judgments, life has to force her into detours. Not "force". Tricked. She has done everything willingly. She fell in love with Ramón, whose only dissimilitude to her father at that moment was his name. They graduated together and he got a job in this little dinky town of Kingston, New Jersey, where his family lives. That he was a family man was a positive trait. That his Puerto rican family accepted her without much begrudging, despite her being a foreigner, was another acceptable plus. That this dinky town is boring and the people's minds slower and lazier than those of the seagulls is a problem worth overlooking when you have love. That you marry at the age of 24 is not that abnormal even in the godless Northeast. And for sure, the first year they were extremely happy.
The sound of steps on the old boardwalk draws her attention away from her angry memories. She now has to put aside her resentment that after that first year the fights started, the condescension from him and his family grew more frequent, and her loneliness grew by the day. She looks at him in the eyes. She smiles. His smile is shy but many folds bigger, deeper. He's happy. They aren't on a date; he has never seen her before until now. And what a surprise. For him she must be the most beautiful woman in the world. But before even that, he had felt a connection to her just as she had felt it from him. He is looking for a dream car, a Mustang S281. She was supposed to help him by looking for dealers in New Jersey for him. He has traveled from some other dinky town she had never heard of in Connecticut. But through email, they started talking more than just Mustangs. It has only been a week, but their daily, multiple email exchanges have allowed her for the first time in this country to express her sorrow, her loneliness, but framed not as some pathetic immigrant story but as barriers to a determined woman.
He, on the other hand, isn't an immigrant, though not a native either. He comes from a country she knows of but never imagined visiting but would love to visit one day. It's the country of the conquistadors that put the European blood in her. His stories about his fascinations with cars in Valencia opened her mind like no other time has. Someone from Europe, all the way from Europe, shared something in common with her. She never thought about that. It's not that Spaniards can't be car aficionados too, but she never expanded her horizon to beyond Honduras and Tucson (and now Kingston). This man was exotic. This man was not like her but from a distance she can actually reach. Not only is he European, but also he's a professor at the University of Valencia. She is a graduate of a small, inexpensive college in Tucson and now works as an inventory manager at the local Walmart. He didn't look down on her, but rather opened up so many other images of the world to her. He teaches psychology and has told her so much about his work in such an accessible way that she actually thinks psychology is the most interesting thing in the world now. He also tells her about his travels in Europe, about the politics in his country and his continent. She has found herself interested and engrossed in everything he said.
It's like discovering the ocean after living 27 years in a valley surrounded by insurmountable mountains. There's so much more to life, she realizes. Not only so much more than this pathetic town of Kingston, but so much more than even her own dreams. What if life offered more than just getting enough money to send back and to bring back. What if, life offered more than just being with a father who might not really exist anymore?
She looks at his blue eyes as he looks shyly to her green ones. They smile. There's a temporary distance between them that quickly vanishes. They don't hold hands. Not yet. Too personal.
She is still married.
Kingston is a small town.
"So you want to go visit this first dealer?" she asks, with a smile that feels relaxing, that feels hopeful. The disgust she has with her life, with her marriage, with the people who reject her here, that disgust is now washed away in the briny wind of the cold Atlantic coast. She has only set up appointments with two Mustang dealers. The day is young. They will have finish within two hours. He, she has determined, won't be driving back to his dinky Connecticut town tonight. While her husband is again on a visit in Puerto Rico for again an indefinite amount of time, she for the first time since Mitchell, will feel the world can finally embrace her. She's not in love. She doesn't have to be. The door to her heart has finally started opening, and she is the only one who needs to enter it from now on.
Images of the Street
I am walking down through time and imagination. The old style stairs in a young building that attempts to invoke austerity of traditional education. As I float down the winding stairs I see a relic from the predecessor of this building. The previous gym. How odd. A piece of the brick from the past with another building etched onto it. I could almost see the athletes, all men, all white, working out and training in that little etching. And finally I have landed a little awkwardly onto the ground floor from four flights towards heaven. A hint of sunlight finally penetrates into the building through the exit door. My task here is done. I prance out like a deer that had just narrowly escaped the claws of a lioness dying of hunger. Today suddenly has been a beautiful day, the sun contrasts the rain of yesterdays, the warmth against the windy cold, and the smiles on people against sullenness in my memory. I hop on my bike and my muscles forbid me from going too fast. So they can rest and so I can enjoy the fairy tale.
A man sits on a bench. He is lost, I can see from his eyes. He sits in front of the city's old cemetery where people from famous statesmen to fallen soldiers are buried. He won't be buried there. He's neither a hero nor a leader to anyone. He has simply already buried himself in the grave of his own uselessness. I can see the moths fluttering out of his soul as the last caterpillar metamorphoses from his humanity and escapes, leaving an eaten out shell no more substantial than the skeletons behind him.
In front of me, nearly getting run over by me, are a couple, old, and I can't tell what race they belong to. It's as if their race is changing like the turning kaleidoscope. Each smile or frown, just a slight twitch of each strand of muscle, turns them from one ethnic or racial group to another. Talk about multi-racial couple! They seem lost. They just came out of the cemetery. Did they come back the dead? They mind as well; they seem lost in this modern world, and worse, they have no map, no direction in this town unfamiliar to them in space and time. I zip past them and they hardly notice me.
A man before me walks and is singing at the same time. His smile is so fantastic that I can almost see what has made him so happy. I see a circus of people and events that are all happy, jolly, and all wishing him the best. There are clowns that remind him of his own silliness. There are animals that dance in a circle to bring him peace. There are strangely shaped but gorgeous women blowing him kisses. And in the center of it all, the ring master opens his heart showing a welcome so warm that embarrasses the sun that had finally crawled out of the clouds.
A bump on the sidewalk redirects my attention back to my bike ride. And when I reach the end of the block, end of the block that encompasses the cemetery, I see reality set back in. It's raining on the other side of the street, where college sullen students hurry to their next classes now that they had just left one, where car drivers are impatient but helpless as the students risk their lives jay-walking all over, where my life resides and all its trouble and some of its joy await me. I take one last look back. I don't see the young man of the circus, the walking dead couple, or the hollow man anymore. It's enough that I've seen them. It's time to move on.
A man sits on a bench. He is lost, I can see from his eyes. He sits in front of the city's old cemetery where people from famous statesmen to fallen soldiers are buried. He won't be buried there. He's neither a hero nor a leader to anyone. He has simply already buried himself in the grave of his own uselessness. I can see the moths fluttering out of his soul as the last caterpillar metamorphoses from his humanity and escapes, leaving an eaten out shell no more substantial than the skeletons behind him.
In front of me, nearly getting run over by me, are a couple, old, and I can't tell what race they belong to. It's as if their race is changing like the turning kaleidoscope. Each smile or frown, just a slight twitch of each strand of muscle, turns them from one ethnic or racial group to another. Talk about multi-racial couple! They seem lost. They just came out of the cemetery. Did they come back the dead? They mind as well; they seem lost in this modern world, and worse, they have no map, no direction in this town unfamiliar to them in space and time. I zip past them and they hardly notice me.
A man before me walks and is singing at the same time. His smile is so fantastic that I can almost see what has made him so happy. I see a circus of people and events that are all happy, jolly, and all wishing him the best. There are clowns that remind him of his own silliness. There are animals that dance in a circle to bring him peace. There are strangely shaped but gorgeous women blowing him kisses. And in the center of it all, the ring master opens his heart showing a welcome so warm that embarrasses the sun that had finally crawled out of the clouds.
A bump on the sidewalk redirects my attention back to my bike ride. And when I reach the end of the block, end of the block that encompasses the cemetery, I see reality set back in. It's raining on the other side of the street, where college sullen students hurry to their next classes now that they had just left one, where car drivers are impatient but helpless as the students risk their lives jay-walking all over, where my life resides and all its trouble and some of its joy await me. I take one last look back. I don't see the young man of the circus, the walking dead couple, or the hollow man anymore. It's enough that I've seen them. It's time to move on.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Video Game
The boy is already wearing his Halloween gloves, black with figures of hand skeleton on it. It probably glows in the dark too so he can enjoy this macabre sight before he falls asleep. His playmate had just left to get on his bus to his school. And within a few more minutes, the little boy's bus will come too.
They call him Jimmy. You know because his mother would scream out "Jimmy, don't go too far." But today she hasn't screamed out at him or anything yet. She's standing where she always stands every school morning: right in front of the bus stop. She doesn't notice that Jimmy is now trying to find something to occupy himself now that his playmate has left. When he was here, Jimmy would play a game of imagination. You see, the bus stop is in front of this house that has a trench. It's a rather clean trench, so the kids would go in there to play. Of course, Jimmy's Mother is so oblivious of her son's doings that even if the trench were littered with broken bottles from last night's drunks she wouldn't care. She's too busy now.
Today's game was based on a movie Jimmy and his buddy had seen. They didn't intend on watching that movie, but since no one at Jimmy's house cared, they saw scenes from the movie Jimmy's brother was watching at the moment. Jimmy's brother had three things in life at the moment to do besides eating and sleeping: working at a car wash on the other side of town, blasting his raggaeton wherever he went as he peers out to whistle at pretty girls of all races, and watching the most violent movies Hollywood could dish out from its shallow plate of creativity. He was watching some recent movie about some white hero fighting a group of brown skin soldiers from an evil army from some land far away. It didn't matter that Jimmy and the rest of his Hispanic family were brown skin too. Action is action. Jimmy and his buddy was mesmerized by the deft and skills of the hero in sneaking up on his adversaries and cutting their throats or throwing a dagger or something at them. Normally, Jimmy's grandmother would come in and tell Jimmy to stop watching. But today his grandmother is having her hair done. She isn't very old, but she wants one of those puffy styles that attempt to bring youthfulness to those whose hearts are aging.
The hero manages to slaughter all the brown people, but not the leader, who, being also brown, was very tricky and managed to slash an apparently non-fatal wound on the back of the hero. Jimmy was still. He thought that was the end. But of course, we, adults, know that Hollywood couldn't give that as the ending to Jimmy's brother. Needless to say, the hero gets up somehow, fights with bad leader, and brilliantly kills him. He did so by climbing up a wall where he could see the leader and down he jumped on him with his machete.
The brother saw Jimmy watching the end of the scene and got annoyed, knowing that Jimmy wasn't supposed to be watching it, and cursed at Jimmy to tell him to get lost. Jimmy, being the loudest boy in the block, complained and complained as he led his friend out of the dim, depressing living room. But the scene stayed with him through the night and in his sleep.
So the next morning as soon as Jimmy met up with his buddy again to wait for the school bus, they started re-enacting and making up parts where their memories failed them or that they didn't see it. They pretended that the trench where all the fallen leaves and branches from the autumn wind were sitting was like in the movie. Jimmy was the white hero and his equally brown buddy was any of the evil soldiers hunting down Jimmy. They were multiple shootings with fingers and feigned screams of death as the soldiers, one by one, played by the same little brown kid, dropped dead. But unlike the movie, Jimmy and his buddy were shouting, not only to make the scene more interesting, but also to tell each other how to act it out. "No no, you stay over in the corner and pretend to ambush me!" screamed out Jimmy. And when his buddy tried to ambush him, he shot at him immediately with his finger. Another soldier dead. "Now walk along the stairs!" commanded Jimmy, and as soon as his buddy got to the bottom of the stairs and therefore the bottom of the trench, Jimmy, hiding behind the corner, lunged at him and "slit" his throat with an imaginary knife. Jimmy's buddy was not only very compliant to Jimmy's directing, but also a very good actor. His death was as real as a five year old's adaptation of an adult's violent death can make out.
Jimmy's Mother, in the meantime, still didn't notice Jimmy's creative directing. She has been doing this for four months. Normally her mother would be doing this because she had to work. But four months ago she was laid-off. Some blamed it on the economy, but she thought it was the blacks whose unions didn't like a Hispanic woman like her. She hadn't really been trying to find a job, and her son never helped her drive to any job that required driving. He didn't think much of her, his mother; after all, their father left her, and she never showed much attention to her two boys. Her attention for the past four months had been on her phone, which she had bought just before she got fired. It was an amazing phone because it had games on it, and it could have more games too if she was willing to buy them and download them. So she spends her free time, like waiting for the school bus with Jimmy, playing her games. No one called her; she had no friends and all her family except her own mother had forsaken her long ago when she got involved with a man before she was married. Her mother was able to look beyond their Catholic restrictions and helped her as much as possible, but sometimes she wondered if by helping her so much she wasn't poisoning her by spoiling her.
While Jimmy's Mother continued playing her game, trying to get to the next difficulty level, Jimmy was about to pretend smothering another soldier played by the same boy. Then the big, yellow bus arrived. The little evil soldier escaped his doom by running back up to the ground level and saying good bye to Jimmy as he ran into the bus. The whole street was suddenly in a big commotion because the school bus lights were blinking and no traffic could flow by the bus. There was honking and angry shouts from drivers who could not see the cause of the traffic jam.
Then the commotion died as the bus carried away Jimmy's buddy. He wasn't shouting anymore, as there was no one to listen to his director's commands. Jimmy is only five, almost six, and he already wears glasses. No one else in the family has glasses, but Jimmy has big, cheap glasses. He slowly glided one of his hands along the railing that prevents people from falling into the trench. He does this back and forth, from the end of the railing to where his mother is leaning. He wouldn't go so far as touching his mother. He would just turn around and glide his hand on the rail as he walked the other way. And he continued this for a few repetitions. Then he stopped and looked into the distance, and had a thought, which brought him a smile. No one saw that smile because no one cared. Not his mother, and not all the busy and annoyed drivers who have to wait for the traffic light that was regulating the morning rush hour.
Jimmy imagined the bad leader was in the trench. He imagined that the bad leader was sneering, holding his slick machine gun, thinking he had cornered our hero. But Jimmy was smarter, or at least, in his mind, his role was smarter. Jimmy climbed up the railing and looked down at the trench and saw his enemy, the last to kill. He got to the top of the railing very slowly, careful not to alert the enemy below, who was moving slowly along the trench hoping to surprise the hero that he thought was at the end of the trench. The railing is cylindric, so it was difficult for Jimmy to get balance. But his goal was to be able to stand on the top of the railing and jump down to stab the bad guy. He levered his little body up so at least his four limbs were still on the railing. He was smiling more and more now. What a surprise the bad guy would get! With his whole body propped up in the air and all his four limbs holding on the railing, he started raising his right arm. No problem. His smile grew larger. It didn't matter that by now the bad guy probably had made it to the end of the trench. Time had stopped for Jimmy. He now just had to raise his left arm and then he might be able to stand on the railing with his two legs. Just like in the movie!
The cars started honking again, but that didn't bother Jimmy's mother. She is still wearing her hold badge from her previous work place. She lied to them about having lost the badge. She is still wearing it today. It had her name on it, Ines, and her photo taken on that day when she proudly started working there two years ago. She didn't notice that her little son had made it to the top and slipped and fallen into the trench. His scream of agony was coincidentally muffled by the much louder screams of the frustrated cars. She was at a point in the game where she either will advance to the next level or lose the game because she only had one life left and if she could advance to the next level she could gain another life.
She cursed when she died. Jimmy's bus finally arrived at that moment, and she turned to call Jimmy. Jimmy was next to her, his face a little dirtier than when he had left their house, and his knees and right elbow were bruised, but you couldn't see that underneath his cheap clothes. She said to him, "Your bus's here". Jimmy doesn't speak Spanish, but even if he did, no one would hear him. He ascended the yellow bus, and the familiar driver smiled at him and said, "C'mon Jimmy, hurry up, we're running late already." And with all his silenced pain in his little body, Jimmy dragged himself to his seat. Only then, did he start crying, quietly.
They call him Jimmy. You know because his mother would scream out "Jimmy, don't go too far." But today she hasn't screamed out at him or anything yet. She's standing where she always stands every school morning: right in front of the bus stop. She doesn't notice that Jimmy is now trying to find something to occupy himself now that his playmate has left. When he was here, Jimmy would play a game of imagination. You see, the bus stop is in front of this house that has a trench. It's a rather clean trench, so the kids would go in there to play. Of course, Jimmy's Mother is so oblivious of her son's doings that even if the trench were littered with broken bottles from last night's drunks she wouldn't care. She's too busy now.
Today's game was based on a movie Jimmy and his buddy had seen. They didn't intend on watching that movie, but since no one at Jimmy's house cared, they saw scenes from the movie Jimmy's brother was watching at the moment. Jimmy's brother had three things in life at the moment to do besides eating and sleeping: working at a car wash on the other side of town, blasting his raggaeton wherever he went as he peers out to whistle at pretty girls of all races, and watching the most violent movies Hollywood could dish out from its shallow plate of creativity. He was watching some recent movie about some white hero fighting a group of brown skin soldiers from an evil army from some land far away. It didn't matter that Jimmy and the rest of his Hispanic family were brown skin too. Action is action. Jimmy and his buddy was mesmerized by the deft and skills of the hero in sneaking up on his adversaries and cutting their throats or throwing a dagger or something at them. Normally, Jimmy's grandmother would come in and tell Jimmy to stop watching. But today his grandmother is having her hair done. She isn't very old, but she wants one of those puffy styles that attempt to bring youthfulness to those whose hearts are aging.
The hero manages to slaughter all the brown people, but not the leader, who, being also brown, was very tricky and managed to slash an apparently non-fatal wound on the back of the hero. Jimmy was still. He thought that was the end. But of course, we, adults, know that Hollywood couldn't give that as the ending to Jimmy's brother. Needless to say, the hero gets up somehow, fights with bad leader, and brilliantly kills him. He did so by climbing up a wall where he could see the leader and down he jumped on him with his machete.
The brother saw Jimmy watching the end of the scene and got annoyed, knowing that Jimmy wasn't supposed to be watching it, and cursed at Jimmy to tell him to get lost. Jimmy, being the loudest boy in the block, complained and complained as he led his friend out of the dim, depressing living room. But the scene stayed with him through the night and in his sleep.
So the next morning as soon as Jimmy met up with his buddy again to wait for the school bus, they started re-enacting and making up parts where their memories failed them or that they didn't see it. They pretended that the trench where all the fallen leaves and branches from the autumn wind were sitting was like in the movie. Jimmy was the white hero and his equally brown buddy was any of the evil soldiers hunting down Jimmy. They were multiple shootings with fingers and feigned screams of death as the soldiers, one by one, played by the same little brown kid, dropped dead. But unlike the movie, Jimmy and his buddy were shouting, not only to make the scene more interesting, but also to tell each other how to act it out. "No no, you stay over in the corner and pretend to ambush me!" screamed out Jimmy. And when his buddy tried to ambush him, he shot at him immediately with his finger. Another soldier dead. "Now walk along the stairs!" commanded Jimmy, and as soon as his buddy got to the bottom of the stairs and therefore the bottom of the trench, Jimmy, hiding behind the corner, lunged at him and "slit" his throat with an imaginary knife. Jimmy's buddy was not only very compliant to Jimmy's directing, but also a very good actor. His death was as real as a five year old's adaptation of an adult's violent death can make out.
Jimmy's Mother, in the meantime, still didn't notice Jimmy's creative directing. She has been doing this for four months. Normally her mother would be doing this because she had to work. But four months ago she was laid-off. Some blamed it on the economy, but she thought it was the blacks whose unions didn't like a Hispanic woman like her. She hadn't really been trying to find a job, and her son never helped her drive to any job that required driving. He didn't think much of her, his mother; after all, their father left her, and she never showed much attention to her two boys. Her attention for the past four months had been on her phone, which she had bought just before she got fired. It was an amazing phone because it had games on it, and it could have more games too if she was willing to buy them and download them. So she spends her free time, like waiting for the school bus with Jimmy, playing her games. No one called her; she had no friends and all her family except her own mother had forsaken her long ago when she got involved with a man before she was married. Her mother was able to look beyond their Catholic restrictions and helped her as much as possible, but sometimes she wondered if by helping her so much she wasn't poisoning her by spoiling her.
While Jimmy's Mother continued playing her game, trying to get to the next difficulty level, Jimmy was about to pretend smothering another soldier played by the same boy. Then the big, yellow bus arrived. The little evil soldier escaped his doom by running back up to the ground level and saying good bye to Jimmy as he ran into the bus. The whole street was suddenly in a big commotion because the school bus lights were blinking and no traffic could flow by the bus. There was honking and angry shouts from drivers who could not see the cause of the traffic jam.
Then the commotion died as the bus carried away Jimmy's buddy. He wasn't shouting anymore, as there was no one to listen to his director's commands. Jimmy is only five, almost six, and he already wears glasses. No one else in the family has glasses, but Jimmy has big, cheap glasses. He slowly glided one of his hands along the railing that prevents people from falling into the trench. He does this back and forth, from the end of the railing to where his mother is leaning. He wouldn't go so far as touching his mother. He would just turn around and glide his hand on the rail as he walked the other way. And he continued this for a few repetitions. Then he stopped and looked into the distance, and had a thought, which brought him a smile. No one saw that smile because no one cared. Not his mother, and not all the busy and annoyed drivers who have to wait for the traffic light that was regulating the morning rush hour.
Jimmy imagined the bad leader was in the trench. He imagined that the bad leader was sneering, holding his slick machine gun, thinking he had cornered our hero. But Jimmy was smarter, or at least, in his mind, his role was smarter. Jimmy climbed up the railing and looked down at the trench and saw his enemy, the last to kill. He got to the top of the railing very slowly, careful not to alert the enemy below, who was moving slowly along the trench hoping to surprise the hero that he thought was at the end of the trench. The railing is cylindric, so it was difficult for Jimmy to get balance. But his goal was to be able to stand on the top of the railing and jump down to stab the bad guy. He levered his little body up so at least his four limbs were still on the railing. He was smiling more and more now. What a surprise the bad guy would get! With his whole body propped up in the air and all his four limbs holding on the railing, he started raising his right arm. No problem. His smile grew larger. It didn't matter that by now the bad guy probably had made it to the end of the trench. Time had stopped for Jimmy. He now just had to raise his left arm and then he might be able to stand on the railing with his two legs. Just like in the movie!
The cars started honking again, but that didn't bother Jimmy's mother. She is still wearing her hold badge from her previous work place. She lied to them about having lost the badge. She is still wearing it today. It had her name on it, Ines, and her photo taken on that day when she proudly started working there two years ago. She didn't notice that her little son had made it to the top and slipped and fallen into the trench. His scream of agony was coincidentally muffled by the much louder screams of the frustrated cars. She was at a point in the game where she either will advance to the next level or lose the game because she only had one life left and if she could advance to the next level she could gain another life.
She cursed when she died. Jimmy's bus finally arrived at that moment, and she turned to call Jimmy. Jimmy was next to her, his face a little dirtier than when he had left their house, and his knees and right elbow were bruised, but you couldn't see that underneath his cheap clothes. She said to him, "Your bus's here". Jimmy doesn't speak Spanish, but even if he did, no one would hear him. He ascended the yellow bus, and the familiar driver smiled at him and said, "C'mon Jimmy, hurry up, we're running late already." And with all his silenced pain in his little body, Jimmy dragged himself to his seat. Only then, did he start crying, quietly.
Monday, October 19, 2009
Familiar Strangers
I have five minutes to finish my sweet cheese croissant and orange juice before I have to run to class.
Run to class. I am not a student, but for the next hour, I will feel like one. The exhilaration of sprinting to class and wondering what exciting or boring stuff awaits me. I've always enjoyed learning, and now I get to learn without the pressure of grades and what-will-the-others-and-parents-think-of-these-grades. I am auditing a class today. I do my homework, and take tests and so far I've been doing pretty well.
It's just like in college. Except that in college I couldn't often afford to buy a croissant (and forget about sweet cheese version) and an orange juice. I worked in addition to studying.
But who was I?
I look out the big windows of this Au Bon Pain. There was also an Au Bon Pain smack in the middle of the Square. I have a lot of memories from that place. But right now I am not thinking or recalling them. I look out these huge windows and see the people walking by. I notice a few undergraduate women walking by. They seem so mature and still have their youthful beauty. But my memories of my peers during my undergraduate years were not of the same image. I was afraid. There was so much fear when it came to women. But don't we heterosexual men all have that problem? But still, it's interesting to look at the young nineteen, twenty year olds walking in front of me, behind these large windows as if I were watching a movie about my past, some twelve, thirteen years ago. And I can't believe how I couldn't see these human beings around me as being simply students, mature students, young women, thinking about the future while trying to enjoy the scholastic present. I see the couple of faces in front of me as extremely approachable. But I remember I would never really dare to talk to similar faces. I would approach those with the nerdy, nearly unattractive by social norms, awkward faces; in other words, those who I saw were at my level of shunnability, rejectability, what have you. Now I do see one or two ladies who walk before me who seem too shy, bookish, hiding behind their unfashionable glasses, clothes, books, and very introspective, not because there is necessarily anything interesting about their inner world, but rather, they can't stand the reminder that the outer world has shunned them in every way except their academic achievements.
Am I projecting my past suffering on them? Maybe. I also notice young men. I notice one with a lot of acne on his face, busy walking fast, not looking at anything, but not looking forward to much either. He's late to his class, and I wonder if my five minutes are up. His acne reminded me of my own self-consciousness. Did my girlfriend in college notice my acne? But she never really loved me, so maybe she did. I also see two young men walking more at ease, one laughing while the other talking very exuberantly. I saw men like this in my school back in those years, and I avoided them, not because they did anything to me, but because I was too upset that I couldn't be like them, that I had to hide, that I could only approach girls that these guys would definitely, I thought, not even see.
Who was I? The people walking in front of me in their different paces and different demeanor are weaving a picture on this glass silver screen. Someone is showing a reel of my college life that I haven't really thought much about.
I see another young woman. She's blondish, seems athletic, not dressed particularly fashionable but definitely very much at ease in this Ivy League environment. And I can imagine her walking into the dining hall of my "house" (as my college calls dorms). I would be sitting alone at my usual spot where I found safety but rarely companionship. I would look at her from a distance and assumed she was from some clique I could never connect to, that she would never even notice I have been sitting in the second row from the center fountain on the left side for the past year or two years (I lived in that "house" for three years). Now, I see this woman walk by, who is probably younger than even my own little sister thirteen years my junior, and I can not see anything unapproachable about her.
As I stand up and clean up the mess I have ended up with on this table, I look around. There are many non-students in this Au Bon Pain. But none seems unapproachable. I see a young woman just a little younger than me walk in. She looks like a busy consultant or lawyer stopping by before a meeting. As I walk towards the door she passes me by. She is quite beautiful, and has this air of I-am-too-busy-for-anyone-looking-at-me. But somehow I don't shudder, my inner-self doesn't have the urge to run away. And I know that if a man around my age walked in, I wouldn't be jealous that I can't be like him. I wonder what changed.
I hop on my bike, and now I am truly a college student, flaunting traffic rules and rushing to my class on campus. Something has changed, and I wonder what else needs changing.
Run to class. I am not a student, but for the next hour, I will feel like one. The exhilaration of sprinting to class and wondering what exciting or boring stuff awaits me. I've always enjoyed learning, and now I get to learn without the pressure of grades and what-will-the-others-and-parents-think-of-these-grades. I am auditing a class today. I do my homework, and take tests and so far I've been doing pretty well.
It's just like in college. Except that in college I couldn't often afford to buy a croissant (and forget about sweet cheese version) and an orange juice. I worked in addition to studying.
But who was I?
I look out the big windows of this Au Bon Pain. There was also an Au Bon Pain smack in the middle of the Square. I have a lot of memories from that place. But right now I am not thinking or recalling them. I look out these huge windows and see the people walking by. I notice a few undergraduate women walking by. They seem so mature and still have their youthful beauty. But my memories of my peers during my undergraduate years were not of the same image. I was afraid. There was so much fear when it came to women. But don't we heterosexual men all have that problem? But still, it's interesting to look at the young nineteen, twenty year olds walking in front of me, behind these large windows as if I were watching a movie about my past, some twelve, thirteen years ago. And I can't believe how I couldn't see these human beings around me as being simply students, mature students, young women, thinking about the future while trying to enjoy the scholastic present. I see the couple of faces in front of me as extremely approachable. But I remember I would never really dare to talk to similar faces. I would approach those with the nerdy, nearly unattractive by social norms, awkward faces; in other words, those who I saw were at my level of shunnability, rejectability, what have you. Now I do see one or two ladies who walk before me who seem too shy, bookish, hiding behind their unfashionable glasses, clothes, books, and very introspective, not because there is necessarily anything interesting about their inner world, but rather, they can't stand the reminder that the outer world has shunned them in every way except their academic achievements.
Am I projecting my past suffering on them? Maybe. I also notice young men. I notice one with a lot of acne on his face, busy walking fast, not looking at anything, but not looking forward to much either. He's late to his class, and I wonder if my five minutes are up. His acne reminded me of my own self-consciousness. Did my girlfriend in college notice my acne? But she never really loved me, so maybe she did. I also see two young men walking more at ease, one laughing while the other talking very exuberantly. I saw men like this in my school back in those years, and I avoided them, not because they did anything to me, but because I was too upset that I couldn't be like them, that I had to hide, that I could only approach girls that these guys would definitely, I thought, not even see.
Who was I? The people walking in front of me in their different paces and different demeanor are weaving a picture on this glass silver screen. Someone is showing a reel of my college life that I haven't really thought much about.
I see another young woman. She's blondish, seems athletic, not dressed particularly fashionable but definitely very much at ease in this Ivy League environment. And I can imagine her walking into the dining hall of my "house" (as my college calls dorms). I would be sitting alone at my usual spot where I found safety but rarely companionship. I would look at her from a distance and assumed she was from some clique I could never connect to, that she would never even notice I have been sitting in the second row from the center fountain on the left side for the past year or two years (I lived in that "house" for three years). Now, I see this woman walk by, who is probably younger than even my own little sister thirteen years my junior, and I can not see anything unapproachable about her.
As I stand up and clean up the mess I have ended up with on this table, I look around. There are many non-students in this Au Bon Pain. But none seems unapproachable. I see a young woman just a little younger than me walk in. She looks like a busy consultant or lawyer stopping by before a meeting. As I walk towards the door she passes me by. She is quite beautiful, and has this air of I-am-too-busy-for-anyone-looking-at-me. But somehow I don't shudder, my inner-self doesn't have the urge to run away. And I know that if a man around my age walked in, I wouldn't be jealous that I can't be like him. I wonder what changed.
I hop on my bike, and now I am truly a college student, flaunting traffic rules and rushing to my class on campus. Something has changed, and I wonder what else needs changing.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Dancing without Moving
There are many ways to dance with a woman, and it depends so much on the woman you are with. Her experience, her physical built, her trust in you, her trust in herself, her love and understanding for the dance, the music. And many other factors. But you always start with a smile. And in such informal setting, as opposed to a serious milonga, you chitchat a little even if you don't know each other. You probably have already started this while sitting down. You sort of do this to lower her natural walls with strangers, especially men. Trust is important in the dance. In Argentina you would stand up while the lady remains seated, and you'd take her hand and gently guide her to stand up.
But then after that much more than trust is in play.
She has these beautiful dark eyes, and thick, dark eyebrows of the exact, correct width to complement those eyes. She has a disarming smile. After all, your lady of these few songs is not the only one whose trust needs to be built. Do you trust her?
Her smiles, as I said, are beautiful. A little silly, but beautiful, but not so gorgeous that you think you are not good enough for her. The way she dresses also is wonderful but not intimidating. And her whole body language confidently says she wants to dance with you. And in this case, me. Now I trust her even more because we've danced before. I am familiar with her embrace. It's soft, it's genuine. Sometimes tango is just a little more than a four-minute hug with a friend, a special friend, and a friend of the opposite sex whose attraction is solely based on the music.
I offer my gentleman's left hand, and as she puts her hand carrying her trust in that hand of mine, I wrap my right arm and my whole torso around her body in a way a father would gently but confidently embrace his most beloved daughter. But she is not in anyway a weaker partner; she is a woman being embraced by a man who will be conducting an impromptu dance solely based on the music and the whims of the interaction of two human beings. I can smell her skin and am reminded that she is a woman, that a woman, a confident, beautiful, and fun woman is now in my arms and we are ready to get on the road for a brief but important ride.
Every dance is important, or should be for me. No matter how inexperienced the woman is, I asked her to dance because I wanted to enjoy the next few songs with her. And this woman I especially enjoy dancing with. Though we've only been dancing for a few weeks, she has made me feel extremely comfortable. Being a man, I am naturally more inclined to have performance anxiety than the lady I am dancing with. And it is very comforting to know that this lady enjoys dancing with me.
We are wrapped in this embrace that speaks words. We are quiet. We are muted. But our embrace says how much we already enjoy being in each others' arms even though our legs haven't started moving yet. We aren't a sculpture frozen in time. I am talking to her with little movements. I am telling her already how much I am enjoying the music with her. To be able to speak through dancing, and dancing with out mobility, this experience requires not words but, well, experience. I suddenly don't see her face, I don't imagine her face, even though I know very well what her beautiful face looks like. I suddenly see music, and feel music, but with her, as if I can see her face in music, just as I can see a painting of a person. And I move ever so slightly but noticeably with the little parts of my torso, the little movements of the rib cage, the slight shifting of one of the arms, the shoulders, but all to the music so she understands well what I am speaking of, she, too, can see me in terms of music.
Then the intention is set. She knows I am about to take a step, but she also knows, based on the agony that the violin has just started, that she will have to suffer the agony of anticipation. She is all ready to extend her well trained right leg sideways but she remains with me. Our axes haven't moved, just that I and the music are slowly, agonizingly, preparing her to prepare for the movement. She knows when I will step with her, when I will move our axes together to start the first step: the music says it, the violin will stop its torturing cry. Really, it's only a few beats, only a couple of seconds, but for us it is an eternity, almost.
And finally, the violin ends and the bandoleon erupts a beat. But I don't step to shift our axes yet. And she is about to cry out her need to break this tension that she also enjoys so much. And only when the bandoleon erupts again, I take a forceful but not abrupt step, and we both enjoy the immense relief from the tension that has prevented us from hopping into the first step. And she is so very beautiful; I can see it with my torso, I can see it with the music that suffuses us into ethereal notes. And she tells me she loves being with me, not with words, but simply by raising her left arm that had been wrapped around my upper back to just a little bit on my neck, where skin touches skin like strangers talking for the first time: trust.
But then after that much more than trust is in play.
She has these beautiful dark eyes, and thick, dark eyebrows of the exact, correct width to complement those eyes. She has a disarming smile. After all, your lady of these few songs is not the only one whose trust needs to be built. Do you trust her?
Her smiles, as I said, are beautiful. A little silly, but beautiful, but not so gorgeous that you think you are not good enough for her. The way she dresses also is wonderful but not intimidating. And her whole body language confidently says she wants to dance with you. And in this case, me. Now I trust her even more because we've danced before. I am familiar with her embrace. It's soft, it's genuine. Sometimes tango is just a little more than a four-minute hug with a friend, a special friend, and a friend of the opposite sex whose attraction is solely based on the music.
I offer my gentleman's left hand, and as she puts her hand carrying her trust in that hand of mine, I wrap my right arm and my whole torso around her body in a way a father would gently but confidently embrace his most beloved daughter. But she is not in anyway a weaker partner; she is a woman being embraced by a man who will be conducting an impromptu dance solely based on the music and the whims of the interaction of two human beings. I can smell her skin and am reminded that she is a woman, that a woman, a confident, beautiful, and fun woman is now in my arms and we are ready to get on the road for a brief but important ride.
Every dance is important, or should be for me. No matter how inexperienced the woman is, I asked her to dance because I wanted to enjoy the next few songs with her. And this woman I especially enjoy dancing with. Though we've only been dancing for a few weeks, she has made me feel extremely comfortable. Being a man, I am naturally more inclined to have performance anxiety than the lady I am dancing with. And it is very comforting to know that this lady enjoys dancing with me.
We are wrapped in this embrace that speaks words. We are quiet. We are muted. But our embrace says how much we already enjoy being in each others' arms even though our legs haven't started moving yet. We aren't a sculpture frozen in time. I am talking to her with little movements. I am telling her already how much I am enjoying the music with her. To be able to speak through dancing, and dancing with out mobility, this experience requires not words but, well, experience. I suddenly don't see her face, I don't imagine her face, even though I know very well what her beautiful face looks like. I suddenly see music, and feel music, but with her, as if I can see her face in music, just as I can see a painting of a person. And I move ever so slightly but noticeably with the little parts of my torso, the little movements of the rib cage, the slight shifting of one of the arms, the shoulders, but all to the music so she understands well what I am speaking of, she, too, can see me in terms of music.
Then the intention is set. She knows I am about to take a step, but she also knows, based on the agony that the violin has just started, that she will have to suffer the agony of anticipation. She is all ready to extend her well trained right leg sideways but she remains with me. Our axes haven't moved, just that I and the music are slowly, agonizingly, preparing her to prepare for the movement. She knows when I will step with her, when I will move our axes together to start the first step: the music says it, the violin will stop its torturing cry. Really, it's only a few beats, only a couple of seconds, but for us it is an eternity, almost.
And finally, the violin ends and the bandoleon erupts a beat. But I don't step to shift our axes yet. And she is about to cry out her need to break this tension that she also enjoys so much. And only when the bandoleon erupts again, I take a forceful but not abrupt step, and we both enjoy the immense relief from the tension that has prevented us from hopping into the first step. And she is so very beautiful; I can see it with my torso, I can see it with the music that suffuses us into ethereal notes. And she tells me she loves being with me, not with words, but simply by raising her left arm that had been wrapped around my upper back to just a little bit on my neck, where skin touches skin like strangers talking for the first time: trust.
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Uneasy Heart
She looks out the little window into the rainy openness where runways greet planes full of departing or arriving strangers. The outside is a gray vastness with the metropolis's skyline in the distant horizon. She has never been to that city yonder; she is just in this airport to change planes. Around her, in this warm, economy class cabin, is a lot of chattering in English and Dutch. A child is screaming in a distant aisle. A man now sits down next to her.
His arrival startles her. She realizes that it's now or never. Soon everyone will have entered the plane and the main cabin door will be closed. That would be too late.
Her alabaster hands now are just pale with a tinge of purple, and they are shaking more. One of them suddenly rises to push the attendant call button. Nothing after the beep. They are probably too busy with the arriving passengers. She pushes again. And after the third attempt, a middle-age lady with a slightly annoyed face arrives with a forced smile and asked what the young woman wanted.
"I need to get off the plane," she said.
The attendant asks her to repeat, being understandably dumbfounded.
"I can't make it. I need to get off and go back," she said.
"Are you sure? You know you will have forfeit the whole...."
"I know what I am doing. Please just have my checked in bags removed from the plane. I will take care of the rest."
After a few more failed attempts of dissuasion, the attendant notifies the proper people and lets young woman get her carry-on out of the overhead compartment. The noise dies down noticeably. But she doesn't care. She doesn't want to see what is happening around her, if anyone is staring, much less what anyone is wondering. She walks down the aisle, bypassing the families and then business men who are still streaming in. She feels better now. It doesn't matter if the decision is wrong or right, at least a decision is made. It is no longer gnawing her soul as it had been happening on her way to this city she has never seen or care for.
This is a city at the end of its glorious era as the center of America's auto industry, the pride of yesteryear's success of the most proud nation in the world of a recent past. It is gray and made of pure steal, and it is slowly decaying as the world for the past decade had been turning its attention to what was deemed new economic regions. This city contrasts her life but also is linked to it. She is a rising star, represents still the hope this country still has because despite its economic slowdown, it still has the most brilliant men and, more importantly, women in the world. She represents one of those women. She received a scholarship a few months ago with all the money she needs to go do her own research in a country that has been getting more and more attention from the world at the expense of a city like Detroit, whose skylines in the distant horizon seems to be rotting away in the mist and engine fumes of the airport. She just graduated from a college few in the world, or this country, has heard of, and her hard work and brilliance, among other laudable reasons, earned her the coveted scholarship.
"But why India?" her mother asked a few months ago. Same question were posed, explicitly or implicitly. In the same way, the old management of Detroit's auto industry kept asking why they should innovate, why they should consider "greener" cars, why they should keep making huge, American cars because they believed that was what Americans would always want. Why do something different? Why do something so different that it at the very least irritates the heart?
The answer to her mother's question, or answers, didn't matter. Her aunt had been shaking her head ever since she found out about the news. And the shaking bothered her mother even more than it bothered her, but the effect on her mother quickly made things worse. Her mother would cry and lament that her only daughter was going to such dangerous, dirty, despicable place. One day, while at a family gathering, the subject invariably came up again. The young woman's aunt, pretending not to know that she was within hearing distance, was speaking to her husband, the young woman's uncle, "I didn't know they would give so much money to a graduate of a Southern school that I don't think anyone from the scholarship office had ever even heard of. And what business did they have sending a Southern woman to a God-forsaken land like that?"
The day was hot but not humid. Traditional Southern iced tea was being passed around more often than water or soda. The beautiful house was made possible by the successful career of her uncle as a pediatrician, a profession not only full of money but also full of pride. Her aunt doesn't need to work, and she busies herself anyway with her new grandson. Needless to say, her aunt is very proud of what has happened in her life, a successful husband and a daughter whose success is proven by the screams of the newborn. It didn't matter that her daughter always seemed exhausted and constantly fighting to pay attention to the new creature she had bought to this world. Her family was a success.
What the young woman wanted to do with her scholarship seemed, then, very idiosyncratic, to say the least. Although the South has been modernizing, looks are easier to change then minds. No one really supported our heroine's earlier decision to go to college. But that at least wasn't so strange. More and more Southern women went to college, and some even got a job from it too. But to do something crazy like doing research in some country where you don't even have many stereotypes was too much. It was too much for her mother, but when her mother heard her sister talk like this, she felt ashamed of her own daughter.
And in place of pride, this shame was very visible to the young woman. When her aunt was saying these words, the young woman was talking to her cousin, the one who had recently claimed the grand prize of being a mother. She brushed it aside, as she always had done. She noticed the change of expression her mother's face. It got gloomier. Angrier. Sadder. No, her mother should have stood up for her, should have expressed her pride. But like many previous occasions, she didn't have the strength to support her own daughter. By now she's used to her mother's perceived weakness. It bothered her, it saddened her, but she would bear it, like all the other disappointments and frustrations she had to bear with her family.
Then she her gaze was drawn to someone else's face, someone whose equal measure of disappointment and sadness and frustration with her decision would mean much more to her. And her heart sank seeing that he, too, heard what her aunt had just said. They have been arguing about this issue too, and now, his face also changed expression, as if in unison with her mother's.
That evening they returned to their little house they'd lived in for four years. It hung almost precariously on the cliff overlooking one of the bluish valleys of this part of the Appalachian mountains. The sun had set an hour ago but the sky still whispered a soft lullaby of twilight as if the memories of the day could not yet be erased. Other houses, though invisible, showed their presence with shy streams of smoke emanating from the darkening hills and forests. The evenings are chilly here, especially compared to the young woman's aunt's city closer to the sea. it did not feel like summer here, though the richness of the forest could suggest neither winter nor fall. The temperature took its steady and inevitable path downwards as she finished fixing something up. There was, as always in these Southern gatherings, plenty of food, even at the house of her aunt, who tended to work on the stingy side of things. But they had to eat, and she cooked regardless of how full they were or how rich or poor; she never appreciated restaurant food more than her own home cooking. But that was the only thing she allowed herself to share in common with the stereotypical Southern woman of a humble background. Her fiancé sat in his couch, but this this time he wasn't watching TV or reading his comic books. He was quiet, and he even forgot to turn on the light, which she had to turn on for him. She didn't say much, though she felt her anger boiling to the rim. She didn't know why she was angry. She had been angry the whole day. She had been angry for the past months. She probably had been angry for a long time.
She almost didn't want to announce that she made warmed up some biscuits from the earlier gathering along with some ham and stir-fried vegetables from the previous day. She had wanted to make something with the avocado, but today all her love and creativity in life suddenly went on vacation. She wished she were on vacation. She wished at that very moment to be in the airplane to that horribly scary place called India. She almost didn't announce that food was ready.
But she did.
And he hesitated, as if pretending not to hear her just to let her know how displeased he had been, but he relented and mumbled, "Comin'."
"Still upset?" she asked?
"About what?"
"You know what."
There was silence. Then he finally answered, "You think everyone is wrong.... I respect that."
"No you don't," was what she wanted to lash back. But she held her tongue that wasn't really tasting the otherwise delectable ham, albeit extremely salty.
The last of the twilight had by now been absorbed in the darkness and the clouds that had hidden from the sun the whole day had conquered surreptitiously the skies above the valley. The only thing visible outside from the inside is the porch illuminated by the incandescent light. For a second when the forks were not touching anything but food, the only sound that sliced through the silence was the sporadic murmur of their cat. Their cat, which was really his cat but cherished more by her, wasn't aware that she was leaving him. But if he did, would he also show his displeasure? But she wouldn't have cared as much. She loved the cat, and in some ways, more than anyone else in the world, but somehow she didn't feel any desire to please him.
But she wanted to please the human male in front her who was pretending to eat. He wasn't looking at her and probably wasn't noticing the food he was shoveling in his mouth. They had gone through so much together, they had had many previous fights and this wasn't the worst one, in her opinion. But somehow she was angrier than she had been in the past, or at least it felt that way. She wanted him to be happy, and she invariably felt the weight of guilt for having chosen to go to India, or even guilt for having won this scholarship.
Why not? Why not be proud to have gotten a college education and just work here, get married as they had planned, have a family that would be infinitely better than the broken one she had had all her life. Why wasn't that enough? Guilt was growing now, encompassing the room and extinguishing all the already dim light that she had to turn on one by one.
They talked about other things, carefully avoiding the topic of the day or just India. But once they were done putting the last morsel in their mouths, he stood up and went back to his couch. There was no offer to help putting the dishes away, let alone washing them. He was in his own world again, and her anger grew large enough to overshadow her guilt. She made plenty of sounds while cleaning up, the clanging of the dishes, the throwing away of food. Then she stood in front of him and asked, "You don't want me to go. Say it!"
He didn't dare to look at her. He was already ravaged by the guilt of his own selfishness. But he didn't understand her, didn't understand how someone engaged to him would disappear to a foreign country, disappear to pursue a short term goal. He said, softly but audibly, "If you go, we will be through. I just know it."
There was no explanation needed. She realized she agreed with him. She realized she knew too little about him and too much about their relationship to know that what he said was right. The cat yawned as if he had heard this all, that all the drama they had had just now had reached its climax and she had to decide if it was a turning point in their lives together or a new beginning.
She is now waiting for the ticket agent to issue her a new ticket back home from Detroit. Her mind is now clear. They have won. They all have won. They have managed to dissuade her from her erred ways. Her attempt to be someone different is now vanquished. No matter how wrong it felt, she is now going back home. Strangely, she doesn't feel closer to her fiancé. She doesn't feel they have a brighter future now. On the contrary, she feels nothing has changed. Later she will probably realize that they were through whether she went to India or not. But now she just feels very little. No anger, no frustration, no sadness, not even relief. She just wants to get her ticket and go home. She just knows they will all be relieved, though not happy. People who have subdued the desires of others don't feel happy, just relieved.
After rechecking in her collected luggage she sits in her numbness for the flight to begin boarding, which is not for another two hours or so. There is still no regret, no anger, nothing. She looks out the huge windows of the waiting area into the planes that are leaving or parking. A lady sits down next to her, and she greets the young woman in the Southern accent familiar to her.
At that moment she feels a sudden built-up of feelings and her alarms go off. She desperately tries to build a dam, and as it has been the case most of her life, she succeeds. Her feelings are now kept at bay, like the tides that constantly menace Amsterdam. They chitchatted for a little while, then the conversation dies away. Finally, she boards and would never see that nice, friendly lady who reminds her of her home, the home she is returning to. She sits at her window seat, makes a real or imaginary space for herself away from the world. She buckles up immediately and turns her face to the window. It is already evening. The sky is pitch black because the rain clouds still lingered even though the rain has stopped. It is her and the lights outside, the finite space that allows her plane to take her back home. And when the plane lifts off, that feeling of losing your footing the moment the tires of the mega machine detaches itself from earth, her dams collapse and her tears pour out into the wild city of Amsterdam, the city of unconventionality, the city that would have been her stopover to an unconventional journey. Being different means less acceptance, means away from the comfort of those who make up part of your life. If that lady had found out that she was going off to such a scary adventure alone against the wishes of her family and fiancé, she probably would not have wanted to connect with her. And this thought nearly chokes her in the little space of her own safety. In this nearly full flight, she is left alone in her aisle to her years of loneliness, years of neglect, years of disconnectedness from especially those whom she loves the most. They will be relieved to find her. They don't even know at this point that she is returning. she will find the airport empty of love. Her mother won't be there to greet her being relieved that by the will of God her daughter had returned to the right path and that she wouldn't be harassed any longer by other members of the family by this recalcitrant and daring young woman. Her fiancé would not be there either, but he is already out of her life. Then there is no one. It is by her own efforts that there be no one in the airport to greet her. She would go to her mother's home in a taxi, and then later drive back to her precariously hanging little house in the mountains.
Now there are not thoughts. Just the flooding of Amsterdam, drowning of everything present by the tidal wave of the past.
His arrival startles her. She realizes that it's now or never. Soon everyone will have entered the plane and the main cabin door will be closed. That would be too late.
Her alabaster hands now are just pale with a tinge of purple, and they are shaking more. One of them suddenly rises to push the attendant call button. Nothing after the beep. They are probably too busy with the arriving passengers. She pushes again. And after the third attempt, a middle-age lady with a slightly annoyed face arrives with a forced smile and asked what the young woman wanted.
"I need to get off the plane," she said.
The attendant asks her to repeat, being understandably dumbfounded.
"I can't make it. I need to get off and go back," she said.
"Are you sure? You know you will have forfeit the whole...."
"I know what I am doing. Please just have my checked in bags removed from the plane. I will take care of the rest."
After a few more failed attempts of dissuasion, the attendant notifies the proper people and lets young woman get her carry-on out of the overhead compartment. The noise dies down noticeably. But she doesn't care. She doesn't want to see what is happening around her, if anyone is staring, much less what anyone is wondering. She walks down the aisle, bypassing the families and then business men who are still streaming in. She feels better now. It doesn't matter if the decision is wrong or right, at least a decision is made. It is no longer gnawing her soul as it had been happening on her way to this city she has never seen or care for.
This is a city at the end of its glorious era as the center of America's auto industry, the pride of yesteryear's success of the most proud nation in the world of a recent past. It is gray and made of pure steal, and it is slowly decaying as the world for the past decade had been turning its attention to what was deemed new economic regions. This city contrasts her life but also is linked to it. She is a rising star, represents still the hope this country still has because despite its economic slowdown, it still has the most brilliant men and, more importantly, women in the world. She represents one of those women. She received a scholarship a few months ago with all the money she needs to go do her own research in a country that has been getting more and more attention from the world at the expense of a city like Detroit, whose skylines in the distant horizon seems to be rotting away in the mist and engine fumes of the airport. She just graduated from a college few in the world, or this country, has heard of, and her hard work and brilliance, among other laudable reasons, earned her the coveted scholarship.
"But why India?" her mother asked a few months ago. Same question were posed, explicitly or implicitly. In the same way, the old management of Detroit's auto industry kept asking why they should innovate, why they should consider "greener" cars, why they should keep making huge, American cars because they believed that was what Americans would always want. Why do something different? Why do something so different that it at the very least irritates the heart?
The answer to her mother's question, or answers, didn't matter. Her aunt had been shaking her head ever since she found out about the news. And the shaking bothered her mother even more than it bothered her, but the effect on her mother quickly made things worse. Her mother would cry and lament that her only daughter was going to such dangerous, dirty, despicable place. One day, while at a family gathering, the subject invariably came up again. The young woman's aunt, pretending not to know that she was within hearing distance, was speaking to her husband, the young woman's uncle, "I didn't know they would give so much money to a graduate of a Southern school that I don't think anyone from the scholarship office had ever even heard of. And what business did they have sending a Southern woman to a God-forsaken land like that?"
The day was hot but not humid. Traditional Southern iced tea was being passed around more often than water or soda. The beautiful house was made possible by the successful career of her uncle as a pediatrician, a profession not only full of money but also full of pride. Her aunt doesn't need to work, and she busies herself anyway with her new grandson. Needless to say, her aunt is very proud of what has happened in her life, a successful husband and a daughter whose success is proven by the screams of the newborn. It didn't matter that her daughter always seemed exhausted and constantly fighting to pay attention to the new creature she had bought to this world. Her family was a success.
What the young woman wanted to do with her scholarship seemed, then, very idiosyncratic, to say the least. Although the South has been modernizing, looks are easier to change then minds. No one really supported our heroine's earlier decision to go to college. But that at least wasn't so strange. More and more Southern women went to college, and some even got a job from it too. But to do something crazy like doing research in some country where you don't even have many stereotypes was too much. It was too much for her mother, but when her mother heard her sister talk like this, she felt ashamed of her own daughter.
And in place of pride, this shame was very visible to the young woman. When her aunt was saying these words, the young woman was talking to her cousin, the one who had recently claimed the grand prize of being a mother. She brushed it aside, as she always had done. She noticed the change of expression her mother's face. It got gloomier. Angrier. Sadder. No, her mother should have stood up for her, should have expressed her pride. But like many previous occasions, she didn't have the strength to support her own daughter. By now she's used to her mother's perceived weakness. It bothered her, it saddened her, but she would bear it, like all the other disappointments and frustrations she had to bear with her family.
Then she her gaze was drawn to someone else's face, someone whose equal measure of disappointment and sadness and frustration with her decision would mean much more to her. And her heart sank seeing that he, too, heard what her aunt had just said. They have been arguing about this issue too, and now, his face also changed expression, as if in unison with her mother's.
That evening they returned to their little house they'd lived in for four years. It hung almost precariously on the cliff overlooking one of the bluish valleys of this part of the Appalachian mountains. The sun had set an hour ago but the sky still whispered a soft lullaby of twilight as if the memories of the day could not yet be erased. Other houses, though invisible, showed their presence with shy streams of smoke emanating from the darkening hills and forests. The evenings are chilly here, especially compared to the young woman's aunt's city closer to the sea. it did not feel like summer here, though the richness of the forest could suggest neither winter nor fall. The temperature took its steady and inevitable path downwards as she finished fixing something up. There was, as always in these Southern gatherings, plenty of food, even at the house of her aunt, who tended to work on the stingy side of things. But they had to eat, and she cooked regardless of how full they were or how rich or poor; she never appreciated restaurant food more than her own home cooking. But that was the only thing she allowed herself to share in common with the stereotypical Southern woman of a humble background. Her fiancé sat in his couch, but this this time he wasn't watching TV or reading his comic books. He was quiet, and he even forgot to turn on the light, which she had to turn on for him. She didn't say much, though she felt her anger boiling to the rim. She didn't know why she was angry. She had been angry the whole day. She had been angry for the past months. She probably had been angry for a long time.
She almost didn't want to announce that she made warmed up some biscuits from the earlier gathering along with some ham and stir-fried vegetables from the previous day. She had wanted to make something with the avocado, but today all her love and creativity in life suddenly went on vacation. She wished she were on vacation. She wished at that very moment to be in the airplane to that horribly scary place called India. She almost didn't announce that food was ready.
But she did.
And he hesitated, as if pretending not to hear her just to let her know how displeased he had been, but he relented and mumbled, "Comin'."
"Still upset?" she asked?
"About what?"
"You know what."
There was silence. Then he finally answered, "You think everyone is wrong.... I respect that."
"No you don't," was what she wanted to lash back. But she held her tongue that wasn't really tasting the otherwise delectable ham, albeit extremely salty.
The last of the twilight had by now been absorbed in the darkness and the clouds that had hidden from the sun the whole day had conquered surreptitiously the skies above the valley. The only thing visible outside from the inside is the porch illuminated by the incandescent light. For a second when the forks were not touching anything but food, the only sound that sliced through the silence was the sporadic murmur of their cat. Their cat, which was really his cat but cherished more by her, wasn't aware that she was leaving him. But if he did, would he also show his displeasure? But she wouldn't have cared as much. She loved the cat, and in some ways, more than anyone else in the world, but somehow she didn't feel any desire to please him.
But she wanted to please the human male in front her who was pretending to eat. He wasn't looking at her and probably wasn't noticing the food he was shoveling in his mouth. They had gone through so much together, they had had many previous fights and this wasn't the worst one, in her opinion. But somehow she was angrier than she had been in the past, or at least it felt that way. She wanted him to be happy, and she invariably felt the weight of guilt for having chosen to go to India, or even guilt for having won this scholarship.
Why not? Why not be proud to have gotten a college education and just work here, get married as they had planned, have a family that would be infinitely better than the broken one she had had all her life. Why wasn't that enough? Guilt was growing now, encompassing the room and extinguishing all the already dim light that she had to turn on one by one.
They talked about other things, carefully avoiding the topic of the day or just India. But once they were done putting the last morsel in their mouths, he stood up and went back to his couch. There was no offer to help putting the dishes away, let alone washing them. He was in his own world again, and her anger grew large enough to overshadow her guilt. She made plenty of sounds while cleaning up, the clanging of the dishes, the throwing away of food. Then she stood in front of him and asked, "You don't want me to go. Say it!"
He didn't dare to look at her. He was already ravaged by the guilt of his own selfishness. But he didn't understand her, didn't understand how someone engaged to him would disappear to a foreign country, disappear to pursue a short term goal. He said, softly but audibly, "If you go, we will be through. I just know it."
There was no explanation needed. She realized she agreed with him. She realized she knew too little about him and too much about their relationship to know that what he said was right. The cat yawned as if he had heard this all, that all the drama they had had just now had reached its climax and she had to decide if it was a turning point in their lives together or a new beginning.
She is now waiting for the ticket agent to issue her a new ticket back home from Detroit. Her mind is now clear. They have won. They all have won. They have managed to dissuade her from her erred ways. Her attempt to be someone different is now vanquished. No matter how wrong it felt, she is now going back home. Strangely, she doesn't feel closer to her fiancé. She doesn't feel they have a brighter future now. On the contrary, she feels nothing has changed. Later she will probably realize that they were through whether she went to India or not. But now she just feels very little. No anger, no frustration, no sadness, not even relief. She just wants to get her ticket and go home. She just knows they will all be relieved, though not happy. People who have subdued the desires of others don't feel happy, just relieved.
After rechecking in her collected luggage she sits in her numbness for the flight to begin boarding, which is not for another two hours or so. There is still no regret, no anger, nothing. She looks out the huge windows of the waiting area into the planes that are leaving or parking. A lady sits down next to her, and she greets the young woman in the Southern accent familiar to her.
At that moment she feels a sudden built-up of feelings and her alarms go off. She desperately tries to build a dam, and as it has been the case most of her life, she succeeds. Her feelings are now kept at bay, like the tides that constantly menace Amsterdam. They chitchatted for a little while, then the conversation dies away. Finally, she boards and would never see that nice, friendly lady who reminds her of her home, the home she is returning to. She sits at her window seat, makes a real or imaginary space for herself away from the world. She buckles up immediately and turns her face to the window. It is already evening. The sky is pitch black because the rain clouds still lingered even though the rain has stopped. It is her and the lights outside, the finite space that allows her plane to take her back home. And when the plane lifts off, that feeling of losing your footing the moment the tires of the mega machine detaches itself from earth, her dams collapse and her tears pour out into the wild city of Amsterdam, the city of unconventionality, the city that would have been her stopover to an unconventional journey. Being different means less acceptance, means away from the comfort of those who make up part of your life. If that lady had found out that she was going off to such a scary adventure alone against the wishes of her family and fiancé, she probably would not have wanted to connect with her. And this thought nearly chokes her in the little space of her own safety. In this nearly full flight, she is left alone in her aisle to her years of loneliness, years of neglect, years of disconnectedness from especially those whom she loves the most. They will be relieved to find her. They don't even know at this point that she is returning. she will find the airport empty of love. Her mother won't be there to greet her being relieved that by the will of God her daughter had returned to the right path and that she wouldn't be harassed any longer by other members of the family by this recalcitrant and daring young woman. Her fiancé would not be there either, but he is already out of her life. Then there is no one. It is by her own efforts that there be no one in the airport to greet her. She would go to her mother's home in a taxi, and then later drive back to her precariously hanging little house in the mountains.
Now there are not thoughts. Just the flooding of Amsterdam, drowning of everything present by the tidal wave of the past.
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