People of the City: Central Park

He is thin, wiry, the septuagenarian's version of gangly. He looks ready to be puffed away, like the puff of his white hair which despite his best attempts is escaping from beneath a beige baseball cap, like the fluff of milkweed pods bursting. Black pants, running shoes, faded plaid shirt under a gray down vest. His face is pale and deeply lined. Tired. His face is a sigh at the end of a long day. His face is a sigh for a memory that lies down next to him every night. A memory that turns to a bitterness in his coffee the next morning, when light comes in his kitchen windows and the comforting dark of her memory can no longer be drawn about him. His face was a sigh for her.

Right now, though, as he passes the bench where I sit in Central Park, the memory lines break into lines of frustration as he gives a sharp tug to the red leash in his left hand. The Scottish Terrier at the end of it has sat down on the sidewalk, facing the way they just came, and is refusing to move. With a barely audible huff, the man walks gingerly back to his dog. He bends down to lift it, turns it around to face the right direction, sets it back down, and begins his forward journey again. Immediately the Scottie turns and pulls in the opposite direction. This is repeated four or five times, each time they get a foot or so nearer to my bench.

As I chuckle, the man looks up. Wearily, even apologetically, he smiles and says, "He doesn't want to go home."

Sometimes, I Am Startled Out of Myself,

by Barbara Crooker

like this morning, when the wild geese came squawking,
flapping their rusty hinges, and something about their trek
across the sky made me think about my life, the places
of brokenness, the places of sorrow, the places where grief
has strung me out to dry. And then the geese come calling,
the leader falling back when tired, another taking her place.
Hope is borne on wings. Look at the trees. They turn to gold
for a brief while, then lose it all each November.
Through the cold months, they stand, take the worst
weather has to offer. And still, they put out shy green leaves
come April, come May. The geese glide over the cornfields,
land on the pond with its sedges and reeds.
You do not have to be wise. Even a goose knows how to find
shelter, where the corn still lies in the stubble and dried stalks.
All we do is pass through here, the best way we can.
They stitch up the sky, and it is whole again.

"Sometimes, I Am Startled Out of Myself," by Barbara Crooker, from Radiance. Copyright, Word Press 2005.

Subway Fare

[This is a weekly post where I talk about whatever I happen to be reading at the moment. No book too great or too small to be read. Since most of my reading happens on my subway commute, I'm calling it Subway Fare.]

Yesterday a friend gave me this book. There's nothing better than having a friend over for breakfast and she turns up with a bag full of books for you to read on your commute. She put this one in my hands and in retrospect I guess I went all Frollo on her, mustering a pained face full of distaste and saying something peevish like "What---is---this---peasant---trash." On the strength of her masters degree in literature, she rolled her eyes and said, "Ignore the cover, you'll finish it in an afternoon."

OK, I will say to no one's surprise and with no animosity to our author Ms. Clare, this certainly did not hit the New York Times list on account of the exquisite writing. Here's a taste of the exposition technique:

He'd asked her to stop calling him Uncle Luke about a year ago, claiming that it made him feel old, and anyway reminded him of Uncle Tom's Cabin. Besides, he'd reminded her gently, he wasn't really her uncle, just a close friend of her mother's who'd known her all her life.

GEE, THANKS FOR MAKING THAT CLEAR, EXPOSITION. "Besides, he'd reminded her gently for the sake of any third party who might ever read the story of their lives and wonder how he and Clary are related since obviously there is no way she has FORGOTTEN unless she is like that girl in 50 First Dates and can't remember ANYTHING, he wasn't really her uncle."(Also, Uncle Tom's Cabin!? Is it possible that a human person who has been alive on the human earth for any amount of time could have only ONE association with the word "uncle" and that it would be a 19th century sentimental protest novel?? Like, how long did you ponder that one, Clare?)

With that minor caveat, I am ready to admit that there are a lot of sexy magic people, which is really why YA fiction exists and NOBODY is complaining about that. Certainly not this girl.

So I've been reading it on the subway. (And in parks. And in my apartment.) But I usually hide the cover.

(Because I still care about what people on the subway think of me because most of them are so well dressed and might be models. I'm sure this is something I will grow out of when I have children.)

P.S. I just read a line that says, "Her voice was like honey poured over ice." Ugh.

Too Late the Phalarope

"Yet it comes to me that it is not the judgment of God but that of men which is a stranger to compassion; for the Lord said, go thou and sin no more." -Alan Paton, Too Late the Phalarope

The feeling of finishing a book that tips you into a better world and a better self and a greater heartbreak.

Valentine's, Tina Fey Style.

Some of us don’t really go in for Valentine’s Day. Because it’s annoying and cheap and the wait to check out at Walgreens is at least five minutes longer than usual. 

So this year, thanks to Tina Fey’s 30 Rock, I have decided to celebrate Anna Howard Shaw’s birthday!

To brush you up on women’s history: Anna Howard Shaw was a bold and courageous leader of the suffragette movement in the United States and a staunch defender of peaceful civil disobedience. (Thanks, Wikipedia.) Obvi worth celebrating. So, on this the 166^th birthday of Shaw, I present to you: 10 Ways to Celebrate Anna Howard Shaw Day.

1.      Reconsider your current life goals. If you are a woman, and alive, you owe it to us all to win and keep on #winning. You should be the winningest broad you can possibly be. Think you like where you are right now? THINK AGAIN. Until you have started a movement of suffrage, got an MD, and become the first female to be ordained into the Methodist church, you are just not trying hard enough. I mean, seriously, look at yourself and ask yourself are you living up to the life Shaw died for you to have? (Technically she died of pneumonia, but the main thing here is that she is dead and she would want you to do some epic shit.)

2.       Play Famous Women of the World Trivia! Make face flash cards and play it with all your feminist friends! Or try THIS incredibly difficult Famous Firsts in Women’s History trivia. If you ace this, I hope you work for the government. It would make me feel better about our collective future.

3.       Call your mom/grandma/aunt/surrogate. Unless you’re Kyle XY, your family is largely responsible for who you are today. So I’m betting that – even if you don’t realize it – there is a woman in your family whose strength, tenacity, wit, charm, guts, overall badass factor brought you here today, O great feminist that you are. And yeah, housewives of the fifties were some strong-ass women. So thank her. And spend time with her.

4.        Go to TheMonastery.org. Get ordained.

5.         Refuse to acknowledge when people say “Happy Valentine’s Day!” to you. At most, give them a, “What? OH! You mean Anna Howard Shaw Day!? Yessss, dahhhling.” Then kiss them on both cheeks and walk away quickly.

6.       Dot your “i”s with hearts. THIS IS THE ONLY DAY that you, as a self-respecting feminist, can get away with such indescribably appealing behavior. Scribble those hearts with the full force of all your hatred towards the entrenched crises of everyday sexism and Kim Kardashian.

7.       Stop trying to sabotage that girl that you can’t stand just because she’s a teeny bit smarter, prettier, funnier, and has more friends than you. You know the one I’m talking about. The Venn diagram of this girl’s friends and your friends overlaps fairly significantly, but her circle tends to be slightly better dressed and more musical than yours. But on this glorious day of feminine self-actualization, seriously, you have to let this go. Because you know when you hate on her, you’re really just cock-blocking yourself. Stand by the sisterhood.

8.       Have a DIY “Consent” Panty Party! Everybody picks a consent-themed slogan (such as “Ask First, DUH" and adheres it onto their favorite pair of underwear! Because, ladies (and gents, because you guys can fight for rights too) – we all know the suffrage movement of our day is fighting rape culture. And that I am actually serious about.

9.         Write 1,000 love notes to Tina Fey thanking her for recognizing Anna Howard Shaw Day and setting all of us free from the chains of February 14.

10.      If you are over 18, BE SURE YOU ARE REGISTERED TO VOTE. Seriously, I’m ashamed of you. Everything she died fought really hard for.

Feel free to share your own ideas of how to celebrate in the comments!

Post-Grad Angst

When I was in high school, I was super responsible. Wanted to be more on top of stuff than the next person, seem put-together. I watched people, learned quickly, decided that I would do lots of hard things, was ambitious and idealistic, blah blah blah. So I have this self-image, right, that I'm like super mature and responsible and probably ahead of my peers in that arena.

Dude, as if!! Post-college life hits me and I seriously can't do anything right. That's not totally fair to myself, because I mean I have a good job and good friends and I even tithe and stuff. ALL THAT ASIDE, I have to say----it takes me weeks to get shit done.

Exhibit A: My sister's wedding/Christmas/now-birthday present. (Keep in mind she got married LAST June and Christmas was in December. It is now coming up on June again and her wedding/Christmas/birthday gift still sits on a box in my bedroom in Chattanooga. She doesn't live anywhere near Chattanooga.)

Exhibit B: My dad asked me to transfer the title of my car to myself three weeks ago. This wasn't a surprise. He has been gently nudging me to get my own car insurance for a few months and then we got to the point where he just has to transfer the title. So he literally puts EVERYTHING together for me and mails it to me with a wonderful print-up explaining to me literally everything I need to do.

And yet I still manage to screw it up. I go to the wrong place first and offer up my file full of personal information. The nice little lady behind the divider looks at me with some alarm and sympathy and says, "Now, sweetie, who told you you were supposed to come here?" Come to think of it, no one. I just came to the place where I assumed I had to come.

Three locations and thousands of forms later, I have my own car title. (Some of this was not my fault and was simply the beauty of bureaucracy at work.)

For now those are my exhibits. But they make me wonder what seventeen-year-old me would think. She'd probably laugh and be relieved I turned out to not be too uptight.

It's a Wonderful Life

I have a little house.  It is kind of a box.  It has six rooms with a kitchen and bathroom attached.  The floor in the front rooms slants away from the floor in the back rooms.  When I sit with my back against the couch, my legs go downhill.  I think the house was once filled with water and faced with the problem of how to drain itself.  The walls are all unsure about which way they are supposed to tilt, so they do as they choose and try not to match the angle of their windows too closely.

Three girls live in this house with me.  And, together, we have undertaken to make this house a home.

I am Mary Bailey in my mind.  I can hear the deep celestial voice narrating my life, and see her athletically wallpapering as I brush paint onto my own walls.  It fits, since she is my inspiration for everything.

I think I may have reached a manic state of homemaking.  Every morning, I brief the cadets (ie, Hutton and Oatis, my roommates) on the day's activities.

"Did you see the grass outside?! The Round Up worked! Today we are planting the garden! And we need to finish painting and buy mulch and get curtain rods and light bulbs! and oh I almost forgot! the kitchen smells funny so we need candles! and can we get some furniture for the dining room because I hate it right now! and we need to do the dishes also and clean out our windows and do we have a hammer?!?"

Of course, only one or two items from the morning's list actually get accomplished by evening. But each day, a bright change is felt and seen.  My room painted.  A curtain up with twinkle lights.  The windows cleaned outside the kitchen.  Wall hangings going up.  Blankets appearing.  A piece of furniture rearranged.  Added.  Each change is a beacon raised for beauty, a buffer against chaos and dirt and darkness and, of course, ants.

As any good thing, it takes time and I want to jump ahead of myself.  But as the time slowly creeps along, the house not only transforms visibly, but begins to take on that unmistakable, though invisible, mark.  THIS IS THE WORK OF MY HANDS, it says.

This is my 320 Sycamore.

I did NOT take this picture crooked.
Yes, the door is THAT crooked.