Before my senior year of high school, knowing I couldn’t take another summer of babysitting,
I started filling out job applications. I finally got two interviews, both on the same day – McDonald’s and Ponderosa Steakhouse– conveniently located across the street from each other. McDonald’s rejected me; Ponderosa became my first paycheck. Ponderosa had recently changed their female employees’ uniforms from a hideous polyester skort, cowboy shirt and hat, to a hideous polyester brown jumper with a printed polyester blouse which shared its fabric with a headband. And the nametag – my Ponderosa Steakhouse nametag, SEMA, embossed in white and stuck there-on. I was official. I loved having this job. I sucked at this job. The set-up was like a cafeteria line, with a meat order taken at the front of the line, followed by stations of various sides, before ending at the cash register. My first station was drinks and rolls, the most remedial of the stations. Simple tasks – put the rolls onto a tray, place tray in the giant baked potato oven for 60 seconds, remove from oven, paint with melted butter and dump into warming drawer. As for customer interaction, also simple – ask them what they want to drink, give them what they want to drink, and hand them a butter-bathed roll on a plate, with a pat of butter on the side. My biggest problem was keeping track of the rolls once I put them in the oven. Tray after tray of what more resembled hockey pucks than rolls, tray after tray tossed into the trash. I cannot, to this day, explain how I kept that job for more than a week. But I did – I was there for nine months, and if you’d asked me at the time, I would have told you, I loved that job.
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I never saw it coming. The nurses warned me while going over the release checklist – reasons
to call: excessive crying. “You, not the baby,” they clarified. I laughed. I wasn’t home 20 minutes before the crying began. Mine, not the baby’s. No one else took it very seriously, so I tried not to either. “You’re so tired,”everyone pointed out. “Just hormones,”was another plausible explanation. “You’re overwhelmed,” I was reminded. I wasn’t sure if these comments were meant to placate me or modify my behavior, or maybe just to say this is all normal and you’re fine. But I didn’t feel fine – I felt like I’d fallen down a hole, and it was dark with steep sides and no apparent way out. And the more time passed and the less anyone seemed to notice I was in that hole, the more I settled in there, and the less I tried to climb out. Ian’s pediatrician was the first to ask, to really question, was I okay? “It can be very lonely,” was all she needed to say; I started crying again. The desire to conquer the hole took time, and it wasn’t a straight path. Doctors, faith, meditation, medication, pilates – I worked hard at it. I still work at it. It’s not simple, not for anyone. I didn’t know it then, but I do now. That every other person out there is fighting a battle, and maybe that battle is just to get through the day. And sometimes the battle is lost. And it’s nobody’s fault, and it was never for lack of trying. Everyone who knew Michael might not have known he was fighting, but they don’t doubt that he fought, and that he tried. Everyone who loved Michael will love him always, and miss him forever. I have always loved TV. TV is magical.
When I was very young, I believed it was real. That Marcus Welby was a doctor, that Laura and Rob were really married. But then confusion set in when Laura changed her name to Mary Richards and moved to Minneapolis, leaving Rob and Richie behind. Only then did I realize it was made up. And I loved it even more. I loved Mary Richards; I wanted to be her – but not in Minneapolis. I already lived in a winter place; why couldn’t she live in NYC, like That Girl? I also wanted to be That Girl, but without the meddling father and goofy boyfriend. I was in love with Bill Bixby, both as Eddie’s father and David Banner. I was raised on TV dramas. Little House on the Prairie, Emergency!, Gunsmoke. I preferred ridiculous comedies – The Monkees and The Partridge Family; I snuck upstairs to watch Soap on my parents’ TV. I rushed home to watch “Afterschool Specials” on teenage alcoholism, pregnancy, the occasional STD. In my 20’s I loved Marshall Herskovitz – Thirtysomething, then later, My So-Called Life and Relativity, though they each lasted only one season. I adored unusual characters like Mary Hartman and Molly Dodd. I once saw a few minutes of Everybody Loves Raymond – funny show, but too real. And as reality TV flourished, I gravitated more to the most unreal TV, that which has the least to do with my real life. Buffy the Vampire Slayer remains my favorite show ever; absurdly violent dramas like Sons of Anarchy, True Blood and Copper currently keep me riveted through short but ruthless seasons. And while I'm amazed by American Ninja Warrior and will watch almost anything on HGTV, I’m always up for a mindless episode of H.R. Pufnstuf. I put up a good fight, though futile, and was sent to Catholic school in grade seven.
Kathy had already spent a year there; after a scandalous 7th grade at the public middle school she was shuffled off to St. Paul’s, as if it were a convent. She didn’t care – as long as it wasn’t an all-girl situation, she was fine. But when I started 7th grade, she had already moved on to high school, so I was on my own. On my own, and not Catholic. Granted, Episcopal – about a pitching wedge from Catholicism but still, not Catholic. The “Hail Mary?” The rosary? Crossing yourself? I had no idea. So I learned the words, attended Mass, and copied the person next to me saying, “amen,” when the body of Christ was offered. One day a Priest asked me a question and I didn’t know the answer; he yelled at me and I confessed I wasn’t Catholic, which very obviously earned his contempt. Another time, we all marched over to the Church to test the newest innovation in Confession. No longer to be an anonymous experience – whispering through a wall to the priest on the other side – it would now be face-to-face. You would sit in full view of the priest and he of you. It was meant to foster a greater sense of comfort, a more personal experience. I brought a book; I was exempt. I was pleased to be exempt. I didn’t want to confess anything. I’d rather have the Priest hate me for what I had no control over rather than for something I had purposefully done; I didn’t need an agent of God poking around in my business. Episcopalians silently confess their sins to God; they know the value of discretion, and He already knows it all anyway. I love my first sip of coffee in the morning. I love teaching Pilates.
I love being a student of almost anything. I love sparkly jewelry that doesn’t cost much. I love Jane Austen books, but I really love Jane Austen movies. I love watching those movies when everything else in life is so upside-down and unpredictable because, in the movies, everything is going to be okay – the Dashwood sisters get theirs, as do the Bennet sisters and Anne Elliot. I don’t understand avarice. I understand even less the desire for fame for the sake of fame. I love black and white movies. The Big Sleep, Casablanca, Manhattan. The lack of color imparts both a softness and an edge, especially to the characters. Would Elsa or Mrs. Rutledge have been so compelling in color? Well, probably. I hate sweeping generalizations. I hate neighborhood associations which dictate mailbox colors and the disallowing of tree houses. I love Halloween. I love dressing up. My favorite is still when Mike and I and Noelynn and Ian were The Incredibles. I love Mike, Noelynn, and Ian. I love sweating when I’m exercising. I hate sweating when I’m not. I love my cat, even though he bites my legs and the legs of my friends who look after him when I’m out of town. I hate when things get caught on other things. Like when the blow dryer cord gets caught on the drawer handle and when I yank it free, the drawer comes out and falls on my toes. That happened recently. I hated that. I love to drink water, but hate being in water. I love that I finally learned how to swim, but I hate swimming. I love writing these 300 words, and I really love the fact that you read them. Aunts and Uncles came and went all summer long. Uncle Jack and Aunt Joyce, Aunt Millie,
Uncle Jim, Aunt Dorothy and Uncle Delbert. Most names I remembered only as long as they were in our house. Some stayed one night, passing through, on course to an actual vacation destination. Some had campers which they parked in our back yard. The campers were a lively group. There was an uncle who played the accordion while the adults sat around on folding lawn chairs and drank Schlitz and sang along. Some nights were cool, some hot and sweaty. Either condition, the mosquitoes swarmed. For those who stayed in our house, Kathy and I would give up our beds to the grown-ups, spreading our sleeping bags on the green, deep-pile, shag-carpeted living room floor. If there were kids visiting, they would carpet camp with us. One of the visiting Aunt/Uncle-combos had a son, Jimmy. It was from Jimmy that I learned the truth of the Aunts & Uncles – that none of them were actually related to us. He told me there were probably raccoons living in the wooded lot next to my parent’s house and did I want to go with him to see? I didn’t yet realize that: 1. raccoons are nocturnal and therefore not to be found during the day; and 2. if an older boy is trying to get you to go into the woods, raccoons are the last thing on his mind. When he tried to kiss me, I was horrified and told him as much – “we can’t kiss – we’re cousins!” He laughed at me – “we’re not cousins, we’re not related at all.” I forget if he lost the desire to kiss me because I was obviously an idiot, but that little interlude ended then and there. I care very little about the exterior.
Like my car, and my unease when the interior is dirty or filled with crap, regardless of the shininess of its outer surface . And my house. Yes, I like the outside to look good, not overgrown with vines or weeds, paint falling off. But it is indoors where I live, where my life happens. That’s the part I want to take care of, make pretty or practical or just easy to navigate. That’s what I want to write about – the interior. The core of it, the intimate places where people live and breathe, fight and love. I live on the inside, always rattling around in my own head. Interiors are the story. Look inside the house, look in the rooms, at the pictures, in the refrigerator, the bar. No bar? Well, that’s a big tell right there. Come to my house and you’ll find not just a bar, but a whole pub room. But then look in my refrigerator and you will find mainly healthy foods. No bags of chocolate covered peanuts, no oversized Reese’s peanut butter cups. You won’t find those in my kitchen cabinets – because I hide them, in the filing cabinet. Next to my desk. But nobody knows about that. Scrape away what is on top, break the shell and find the real treasure. Who was the first person to break open a coconut and discover both meat and milk? What compelled that individual to take the time and make the effort to seek what was inside such a hard, hairy, ugly thing? People continually surprise me and leave me to wonder at their motivation. What makes some casually mean, others unfailingly kind, and that one, in particular, so hell-bent on throwing people away and living in misery? My mother referred to her hometown in Ontario as “home.” As in, “when we are home
next week, we’re going to visit your drunken grandfather.” I resented this reference; home should be where we lived – her husband and daughters. It’s easy to see now that I was being overly sensitive, but I’m also certain that she likely persisted with that reference knowing it hurt my feelings, and Kathy’s as well. As for my father, tough to say. And yet, I now find myself using the word “home” when planning a trip to Oswego, and it startles me. I grew up there, went to the schools, lived in the house where my mother still lives. I had friends, fell in love (more than once), had an apartment and a job. And after I left, I’ve always gone back. I very much miss my friends there, and those whom I love. Yet despite all of that, it never felt like home. Maybe it was because of the gray skies, the everlasting winters and 20-minute summers. Or maybe it was how I saw the Lake – vast and icy cold, the rocks slippery with moss – intimidating and a little ominous. I knew I had to leave, like the town itself wanted to eject me. I wasn’t close to my parents or even my sister then; there wasn’t enough there to construct a shelter, much less a home. And I always held back; I never gave all of me to anyone or anything, much less any place. My friend James dubbed me “aloof” when I was 14, and I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a compliment. I often think it took me a ridiculously long time to grow up. Sometimes I'm not sure I'm there yet. But I do, finally, feel at home – wherever I am. Ian wants me to ride the Griffon at Busch Gardens.
“Mom, you have to face your fears.” But I have faced my fears, many because of him. He made me face my fear of reproducing that which I hated in myself – anxiety, anger, bouts of darkness. He made me face my fear of becoming a parent, which I had a better example of by watching Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom, than by observing those who raised me. He made me go into the ocean, where I felt little besides fear, full of creatures which look upon me as I do the centipedes in my bathtub– “you don’t belong here, so I am going to have to kill you now.” And those fears I had already faced – Ending my first marriage, six years in – fraught with disagreements, two people going in opposite directions. I was afraid to leave, afraid of hurting my husband, disappointing our families, friends, not to mention, Jesus. I was prepared to be alone – preferable to the loneliness of an unhappy marriage. Then marrying again – a man with whom I was much better suited, but a possible flight risk at the time. I faced my fears by moving to Richmond, where I knew no one besides the person I came with. I faced my fears by taking jobs for which I had no qualifications, but enough smarts to fake it until I figured it out. I face my fears every day – don’t we all? I don’t have a theme.
No focus area, no brand, not even much of a clever title. All I have are words, 300 – maybe less, never more. They are my words, and if you choose to read them, I promise to keep it simple and honest. I’m sure you will find recurring themes, things that loom large in my not-large life, that which is most important to me. Family, books, Pilates and my psychotic cat. Friends, music, sleep, and my psychotic mother. And love, of course. I currently own a 12 year-old-boy, so that will pop up, as will my sweet sister and my inability to smell anything. It sounds boring already, I know. And I’m telling you up front, I’m not cool and never will be, even if I take up smoking. Nor am I edgy or provocative or a vegetarian. But I’ll tell you the truth, my truth, and sometimes it might be yours, too. If it is, you can let me know. I believe in connections; I believe there is great strength in connections, and in the solidarity it gives us and the energy we share with each other. I suppose if I were to have a theme, that would be it – that we’re all in this, we’re all here – now – so we should make the most of every interaction. I try to choose kindness; not be an asshole. I try to show up on time (really, I do), be considerate, say thank you and mean it. I believe it’s important to shut up and listen. To say what you mean to say, while you’re still here to say it. Maybe it will help someone else to hear it; maybe it will help you. And finally, assume nothing. Because, it seems, the unexpected waits around every turn. |
AuthorI was born in Oswego, NY, "I had always wanted to be a writer, but was impeded by the belief that to be a writer one had to be extraordinary, and I knew I wasn't. By the time I was ready to give up my academic career I had realized that while books are extraordinary, writers themselves are no more or less special than anyone else." The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield Archives
March 2024
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