Archive for the ‘Blog’ Category

Pivotal Moments: Publishing

Posted: August 9, 2020 in Blog
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When I was a kid, I wanted to be a writer. I read everything I could get my hands on and wrote short stories and envisioned myself someday rubbing elbows with Stephen King and Dean Koontz. Now, Carl Hiassen. Wouldn’t that be a highlight?

The father questioned me about this once, oddly curious what skill set I might acquire through this work. It appeared to him to be a means, not an end.

“I want to be a writer,” I informed him. “Like Stephen King.”

He snorted derisively. “You better find something else you’re good at if you want to be able to pay your rent.”

That was the end of that conversation. As things in our house had a pattern of doing, it never came up again. I stopped writing altogether after his death–there was too much energy to put into surviving to wonder if I’d ever meet Stephen King. I did exactly as he suggested–I found a job that paid my bills and put away the writer fantasy for a long time. Even better, I found jobs where I could write, albeit technical writing and not nearly as entertaining as storytelling, but it was something.

If y’all have talked to me you already know I didn’t set out to write a book when I started writing Urban Tidepool. I was simply collecting memories and laying them out, sharing with my spouse and a few very close friends. I guess it doesn’t matter so much that I didn’t mean to write a book because as I continued along, it was definitely shaping up to look like a book. So I bought some artwork and imagined it on shelves in bookstores and available as a download.

It was a slow, excruciating process to pour those memories out, then hold each one up like an offering to the group of beta readers. Would this new information have any effect on the friendship? And what of the people who worked with me? Our donors? Our agency stakeholders? What would they think?

The process was two-fold. The first pass was always to evaluate the writing. Did I express that clearly? Did it have typos? Are there any awkward sentence structures? That was the easy part. The second pass was more personal and was more about emotionally and mentally processing what the readers had just read and what I had recently written. How could these things have happened? Why wasn’t anyone watching? Why didn’t someone stop this? Parts of the story are difficult to read so you might imagine how difficult it was to write and then evaluate. For example, in reading the story of the death of my mother when I was seven, are there any typos? Are the sentences well structured? It was far easier to take that higher level overview and make corrections than it was to re-immerse in the event to be able to describe it, then be able to talk about why it was happening and why it could continue.

I finished writing in 2013 and put Tidepool away. It was a rattlesnake curled up on my driveway and I knew if I got too close, it would strike. I put away the thought that I might be a writer, let alone in the calibre of Stephen King. There it sat, on the closet shelf, for seven years.

Early this year, I decided this was the year I would get it moving again. Behind the scenes, I’ve been working on edits and a few minor updates. I gathered everything I needed to launch a Kickstarter campaign and not quite two weeks ago, the campaign went live.

In 11 days, I raised 100% of the budget goal, so my project is a go. The campaign ends on September 11th and I’ll take my orders to print. I’ll put my book, this ten year project, into people’s hands late this summer, or early in the fall.

Hey, Dad! Are you watching? I did what you said and I got the job that lets me pay the bills, and guess what? I’m a writer now too!

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To order a copy of the book or just support the Urban Tidepool Kickstarter campaign, you can find me here. Click on the link and it will take you to my project.

https://www.kickstarter.com/discover/advanced?ref=nav_search&term=Urban%20Tidepool

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Lavender Graduates, Class of 2020

Posted: May 17, 2020 in Blog
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Yesterday, I had the honor to address the Youth Outlook graduates, Class of 2020. It was our first Lavender ceremony; typically we attend when the schools have them and invite us. Since we knew many of our drop-in center members were not going to be able to attend a commencement, let alone a Lavender ceremony given the disruption to our routine brought by COVID 19, we wanted to celebrate our 8th graders, high schoolers and associate degree recipient. Cheers to the folks who are taking their next steps starting today!

Hello, Lavender Graduates Class of 2020!

Greetings, parents, family and Youth Outlook friends!

I wish we could be doing this in person. We have these moments over our lifespans that are pivotal, that we remember for a long time, sometimes forever. If we were doing this in person, I’d tell you thank you for inviting me. I wouldn’t be here unless you invited me. Isn’t this the oddest thing that Youth Outlook invited you all to your own graduation? So…since I haven’t exactly been invited this feels more like being included in one of the most important milestones you’ll experience.

When the program leaders and I started talking about convening this ceremony, we were busy dividing who was going to do which job to help get us ready. I would tell you that I offered to keynote nonchalantly, but the truth would be more that this was something I really wanted to do. When so much of what we take for granted is out of reach, it felt so important that we show up for your graduation and celebrate …so it wasn’t really an offer—I asked to do it.

Before we consider where you might go on your next adventures, let’s take a moment to consider where you’re coming from. Y’all have wonderful history. Y’all have beautiful, talented community. You’ve started to meet that community in the drop in centers, but that only soooo the beginning.

Youth Outlook launched just a couple of years before our Associate’s degree recipient was born in 1998. As I got started in my new job here, we were looking forward to a new show called Will and Grace that actually had openly gay characters. Our college students have been around long enough to see that show in its first run and then in its remake over the last couple of years.

An associate degree recipient is part of the graduating class born mostly, if not entirely, in this century.  That’s kind of a fun fact to own. The number one song in the country in the year 2000 was Breathe by Faith Hill. Looking back over what has happened since you arrived, that may not be simply a song title. It is an excellent suggestion for how we’re all going to get through a global health crisis brought to our doorstep.

There are some interesting tidbits to LGBT history and what topics folks of different generations will recall.

Kids of the 80s—a lot of the drop in center staff folks– will recall the beginnings of HIV and the panic that struck the gay men’s community, and the support that poured in from the lesbian community to take care of our brothers. They will remember the emergence of the bisexual and transgender identities in a new and more assertive manner—people who had been key members of the LGBT movement from the beginning who were rightly insistent that their existence stop being written out of our culture. Our reflection on the night of June 28, 1969 had become a movement, a demand for our recognition as a community and a culture, one in which we refused to be defined by the limitations of a public health crisis.

Consider that. …Our demand for recognition as a community and a culture in which we would not be defined by the limitations of a public health crisis. Consider the headlines we’ve been greeted with for the last three months. If our history is any indication,you will not be limited by this.

Kids of the 90s grew up in the era of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”, a decision that was meant to keep military folks safe and closeted, and it was suggested to us that safe and closeted was an improvement over a dishonorable discharge. And then…then it happened. Then we had Ellen.

We know that what we see today is not how things got started. Ellen’s decision to come out publicly in 1997 was unprecedented. Her show was canceled. The actor who played opposite her couldn’t get work for a year after playing her role. Oprah, who played her therapist in that episode, got hundreds of messages telling her to go back to Africa.

When I moved to IL in 1998, this area was soooo different from what I was used to. The western burbs were devoid of rainbow anything. I had never lived anywhere that LGBT people were so invisible. Well into 2002, when some of our high school graduates were born, school representatives often refused to speak to me, or hung up on me, or argued with me about the very existence of LGBT youth. Over and over, I was told that high school students were too young to know if they were LGBT. Or if there WERE LGBT students in a school, the counselors got them help, making it immediately clear that having an LGBT identity equated needing help. Sometimes I countered that comment with my own question—Get them help? How about if they just want to make friends?

There was exactly one GSA operating in DuPage County. There were none in any of the other counties Youth Outlook serves and the thought that middle schools at some point might launch them was out of the question.  Well, until you came along. Students were regularly told that they couldn’t take a same gender date to prom. When a faculty member at another DuPage County high school organized the first ever gay prom, the subsequent public outcry called for her termination.  The demand that LGBT students stay safe and closeted, very much like Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, was so loud, it often drowned out the rumblings of support from faculty allies.

That was your lifetime, high school and associate graduates.

Right as you were arriving was when our movement started to gain traction and we were pushing back against those recommendations that we stay safe and closeted and obedient.  In April 2000, estimates say up to a million people gathered for the Millennial March on Washington,rainbow- flag- waving, pride- tee- shirt wearing or no-tee-shirt-wearing, respect- demanding queers. You arrived to the queers in full rebellion and I suspect some of you came into this world already waving your own rainbow flag!

Since you joined us, we have seen the end of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. We have seen the end of the Defense of Marriage Act. In 2000, Vermont become the first state to legalize civil unions between same gender couples and in 2015, we saw the outcome of the Obergefell lawsuit, allowing same sex marriage.

When we do public speaking about LGBT youth, we often speak of their challenges. Today, let’s flip that and talk about your courage. College students arrived here when we were in an uproar over Y2K. Everything was supposed to crash and life as we know it was supposed to stop because of computer coding. It was one of those pivotal moments. And yet here we are.

High school graduates, if my math is correct, you are the first class born into our yet again new world post 9/11 when our country was attacked on our soil. Everything crashed and life as we knew it stopped. For days, our skies were empty, our roads were empty and there was a short stretch where we didn’t even know where our president was, because he’d been squirreled away. In that uncertain time, your moms brought you into the world. You are the first generation of people to arrive after that pivotal moment.

8th graders, you arrived as the state of Illinois banned discrimination based on sexual orientation. You arrived to a rebellion in high gear, and you have introduced to the rebellion causes that needed to be added—your generation is the wave that is redefining gender as a dynamic concept, paving the way for the gaybies and the queerlings that follow to have a much smoother path.

Class of 2020, all 3 levels of you, we commend you for your monumental courage. You are, from the start, warriors and survivors and this blip on our radar…this current public health crisis will not hinder you and it certainly will not be what defines you. I am quite happy to imagine a world in which you lead the decisions that protect us from such situations—a safer, kinder, more compassionate world. For that, I thank you in advance. We need you. We need your courage.

As you head out on your next adventures, remember this. Take it with you today that you have an intricate cultural history as part of the LGBT and allied community. You belong to a movement where you…where we…have always been recognized as an important part of the effort, where we are warriors working for social change, sharing our knowledge and our sense of belonging with the next generation down, and the next, and the next.

To summarize:

Remember your history.

Remember that you are a key part of the movement that helps shape our shared future.

Remember that you are a warrior and a survivor.

Even though you are a warrior, remember to be kind. We all need each other to be kind.

Remember you have a tribe.

Remember to be someone else’s tribe. We need that too.

Remember the world according to Peter– Glitter is an acceptable hair product, art supplement, and drink mixer.

Remember Faith Hill’s suggestion and BREATHE when things feel like a rollercoaster.

Most of all, remember how very highly we think of you and remember that you are loved.

Congratulations, Lavender Classes of 2020, and welcome to the rebellion!

Lav grad

Love a Social Worker Today

Posted: March 1, 2019 in Blog
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Friends and starfish supporters and starfish supporters who are also friends, it’s National Social Work Month! Did you know such a thing existed? I’ve been in the field for three decades and this may be the first time I’ve ever heard of it!

For chuckles, I thought it would be fun to scan some of my old posts and see where and why I mentioned being a social worker. Professional pride? I am, for sure, proud of being in this profession. There was a tone of that here or there, but more noticeable, I think being a social worker has put a little edge into my humor. Hard to imagine, I know, but I think it might be true.

Since my Urban Tidepool blog is the intersection of my career in social work, my midlife culinary degree, and the work of writing my first book, I wanted to share some of the rays of light and insight brought to my life by this incredible career. I hope these will bring you a smile.

Tis the season where I’m writing evaluations for the student interns that work with me and I am reminded of some of the invaluable pieces of information that other interns have taken from their placements—the importance of not calling your supervisor “dude”, the fact that not everyone in social services is trying to get one over on you and they might even genuinely like you, what is the pea and the shell game, the definition of epic clusterfuck, when NOT to use the term genderfuck, how to stop drive by hugging, and of course the ever popular question, do penguins have knees?

Two social workers who like to cook. Me: “Nothing feels as good as dirt against your hands when you’re gardening.” Karen: Skeptical look. Me: “Okay. Think of it like cookie dough…cookie dough against your hands.” Karen: “Cookie dough isn’t dirty.” Me: “Dr. B, ya got me there.” She taught me everything I know about differential diagnosis.

Getting ready for a weekend trip. Deb: “What animals are you seeing this weekend? ” Me: “Winter Dolphin. And Kathy Kempke.” Silence from the hallway. Then Deb: “Now THAT is a Facebook post!”

Yesterday, I followed a pick up truck from a home repair company down Orchard Rd. It was printed on both sides and the tailgate “Christian Owned Since 1975”.
Today I’m considering having this printed on my doors:
“Atheist Driven Since 1981. I use this vehicle to get to my atheist job as a social worker where I work with people of all faiths and have keys to 5 (count em–FIVE) churches, then to go back to my atheist owned home, where I walk my atheist owned rescue dogs, chat with my neighbors who have a variety of faiths, and make sure to pay my atheist taxes every year.”
I’ll need bigger doors.

I always wanted a job where I could say, “Wheels up in 30!” I’m a social worker. I bungee-corded a Big Wheel to the roof of my car.

We call it social work because “The art of cleaning up after heartless jackals who don’t care whom they traumatize” doesn’t fit on a diploma.

As a career, social work is messy. It’s hectic. Anxiety-producing. Sometimes you don’t have time for lunch or even to run to the restroom. It’s painful. People you care about hurt. You might hurt. You will have days when you can barely breathe through sadness. You will also feel joy. And connection. And pride. And passion. Then you’ll realize you still have to pee and you’re hungry.
Welcome to social work!

Today’s observation, hanging out with another social work foodie. “Empaths are the tofu of the emotional world.”
Was there ever any question?

Did you hear the one about the atheist social worker who ran the non-prophet agency?

At my last job, whenever I couldn’t reach my supervisor, I would offer (threaten, really) to go across the street to Family Court and file a PINS on myself. That’s Person In Need of Supervision petition for you non social worky types. Oh…the possibilities…

Started to text Deb “be home asap”. It didn’t space and auto correct put in homicidal. There you are, words of encouragement from your friendly neighborhood social worker. Be homicidal. Well played, auto correct!

At dinner last night, from my favorite social work boss: “You’re such a goddamn social worker.” Taught me everything I know, she did!

During supervision with the Youth Outlook intern, discussing young people and behavior disorders– Me: “Okay, here’s my recommendation. If any of the other Youth Outlook staff EVER call out, “Damien, it’s all for you!’, and leap down the elevator shaft wearing a noose, you have my permission to hold that boy down, shave his head and find those three sixes.” Anne the intern, when she was done crying: “Thanks, Nance, I’m sure this advice will take me far in my career.” Maybe I should have mentioned that my clinical social work years are far behind me??? Nah….more fun this way!

At the Sprint store at lunch time: Clerk: “If you’ll tell me the name of your first pet, I can associate this purchase with your account.” Me (thinking quickly because the account is under Deb’s name)…and I give her the only name I can think of. Which ends up being wrong. I call Deb, while the clerk waits patiently for me. She suggests another name. Also wrong. Now I’m ready to scrap the whole thing and ask, “How the hell many pets HAVE you had?” And Deb gets all excited and gives me one more name…which works. The clerk just looks at me and says dryly, “I see you learned something new today. Ain’t love grand?” Your social work tip for today–family secrets can cause you a longer wait at the Sprint store.

One of my better observations of my skill set from today’s meeting with a board member: “This is ACCOUNTING. I’m a social worker! Don’t ask me about this! Give me a good conversation any day with someone with schizophrenia…or you…”

Repost from Maxine for more chuckles for my social work friends: “My inner child is a fit-throwin’, shin-kickin’, principal’s office-sittin’ nightmare.”

Setting up a Nancy Mullen page for work. How social work-y! I can finally friend myself!

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2018, A Year in Silliness

Posted: January 3, 2019 in Blog
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A couple of years ago, I did a blog post that was just a collection of silly social media posts that I had put up in the previous year. People enjoyed it and I enjoyed doing it, so I decided we needed a repeat performance. I hope it brings you a few chuckles. It certainly did for me.

I notice on some of the dog groups I belong to that people often give their dog a voice using baby talk. After I noticed that, I realized that if I were to “voice” Mylo, she would sound like an indignant Dame Maggie Smith. And Chip would sound like Gomer Pyle.

I always feel thinner when I take the trash out.
Admit it. You do too.

Step one. Make a Roo. Ok. But what does this have to do with making a cheese sauce?

Roo

 

The 2018 goal (cuz it’s not a resolution): To try to find the humor in more things.
You have been warned.

I’m trying a new technique for bonding with the dogs. Every time they get up to go into the kitchen, I follow them. So far, it’s working very well.

The nice man at Home Depot just showed me how to change out electrical outlets and light switches. I can’t wait to blow my eyebrows off!

The highlight of today- I was visiting a friend’s house and I put hand lotion on my alligator paws while I was in the bathroom. Then I realized I was unable to turn the doorknob and was stuck in the bathroom. I knocked on the inside of the door and started calling, “Kellie? Jules? Brittney? Crystal? Can someone open the door? Let me out?” No one answered, so I called Kellie’s cell. Around then, my hosts and their friends started looking for me but I was laughing so hard, I couldn’t even answer the first time they called for me.
Yeah. And I’m going to change light switches and electrical outlets. As soon as I figure out how doorknobs work!

Best conversation this week–

Karol: “I bought a copy of the Stonewall documentary to show the kids at group but someone stole it when it was delivered. Can you believe someone would steal a movie right from the front of my house?”

Me: “Can you imagine the surprise of the person who stole it? They probably thought they were walking away with a porn flick with lesbians in giant hair and nails like manicured daggers waiting for whatever delivery guy with bad 70s jazz playing in the background, and they got a documentary about the queers throwing molotov cocktails in Greenwich Village!”

I woke up at 4 a.m. mumbling, “Thank you for being here. The sign-in table is just over there.” Do I even have to tell you that those lazy bones dogs did not get up and sign in?

While watching the winter Olympics–Yeah. Watch me do a triple-triple. In my house, that’s when I trip over all three of my feet and knock three things off the counter on the way to the kitchen.

How I see myself as a social work advocate. grizzly

How I suspect others see me as a social work advocate.

muppet bear

Children, gather round. It is now time for Uncle Nando’s annual tradition of buying and planting something in the berry family….blue or rasp…so I can forget where I put it and mow over the teeny sticks in June.

Things that make me go hmmmm at 3 am…If a reporter from only one newspaper shows up at an event, is he considered a member of the medium?

I don’t know if it was meant to, but all of this talk of bracket busting inspired me so I tore some curtains down.

Chip has a nice smile–kind of like a game show host. I think he might be the Chuck Barris of doggy daytime TV.

“My aquatic prowess is impressive. I move like a manatee with a hangover.”

Lindsey Vonn tore her ACL and now she’s in her 6th Olympics competition. I tore my ACL and now stairs frighten me. Go figure.

Creeping Charlie would be more aptly named Running The Hell All Over the Place Charlie.

It’s Lesbian Day of Visibility 2018. If I get anymore visible, NASA will be able to view me from space.

While presenting at the PADS staff meeting today–
Carolyn: “And please don’t hesitate to interrupt us and ask us questions. Even just half questions that you’re still working on how to word. Don’t worry about embarrassing yourself. What is said here, stays here.”
Me: “I’m going to come at this from a point of view I learned from my sister-in-law. There are no strangers, only friends I haven’t met yet. And since we’re all friends, I’m planning to go out of my way to embarrass myself.”

Went to see the new Candice Bergen, Jane Fonda, Diane Keaton, Mary Steenburgen movie. Afterward, folks were choosing which characters they related to. We had two Candice Bergens, one Jane Fonda, one Mary Steenburgen. Then someone asked me which character I would be.
“Unfortunately in THAT line up, I am Dr. Derrick–the man from The Princess Bride.”

Sometimes I like to tell Chip about the day he found me, lost and wandering around Tails Humane Society, and he took me to the desk and paid them all of the milkbones he had in his pockets to keep me and then I was his person. He likes that bedtime story.

Urban legend research:
June 26, 1963
It is rumored that JFK’s best cold war speech, given his pronunciation and his accent, was a declaration that he was, in fact, a jelly doughnut. And apparently proud of it.
This tickles me. Stories conflict about whether he really said it, but even the idea tickles me.

On the phone, trying to refill Chip’s insulin syringe prescription.
Very polite automated system: “Sorry. This phone number is not associated with that prescription number.”
Really? Has he been calling in the refills himself on a different line for three years?

Indiana Jones movies…the reason I was confused as a young queerling. It’s Pride month, y’all!

It’s possible that the agency you work for is just too gay when a board member mentions starting an event with a champagne toast and one of the staff says, “Champagne Toast! Yassssss! That’s my new drag name!”

“Tell me the story about the day when I was only half a dog high and you took me to that little visiting room and I climbed up on you and fell asleep and you knew you were my person???”35082691_10213910996362563_4734562726368509952_o (1)

Youth Outlook’s 20th anniversary is coming up quickly so I am already figuring out what to wear. It’s formal this year. So I have decided on a black table skirt, tube socks, green stilettos (to go with our theme) and, of course(so I don’t hurt myself), Yak Tracks.

I’ve often thought that Mylo is smarter than I am. In the meantime, Chip is out in the yard, eating dirt. We’re a well-rounded family.

Jurassic World…I don’t think I’ve ever been more distressed over an imaginary brontosaurus during a volcanic eruption that never happened on an island that does not exist.

Great cloud formations on the drive home! I saw a unicorn, the dude who claps the coconuts in Search for the Holy Grail, one of the M&M guys, and Timon and Pumba.

Youth Outlook volunteer: “Nance, I can’t do that meeting ’cause I have concert tickets.”
Me: “Oh, ok. Who’s playing?”
Youth Outlook volunteer: “Jimmy Eat World.”
Me: “That’ll be fun!”
Pause.
Youth Outlook volunteer: “Uhhh…you actually know who that is?”
Me: “Yep, I play their 45s on my old phonograph with the crank handle.”
Don’t mess with me, son. I invented being a smart ass.

A new definition for faceturbating. (Did you know there was an old definition?)
Anyway.
Faceturbating: [FAYS-ter-bayting]
noun; the practice of trolling people you do not know on social media (usually the friend of a friend) by posing what appears to be a valid question so that you can them how wrong they are when they answer and start an argument

Verb; the act of getting off on telling people you do not know how wrong they are with the intention of starting an argument

Variation— Faceturbator: noun; a person who engages in Faceturbating

Today it was mansplained to me that I’m a little bit crazy for thinking that Roe v Wade could be overturned and that Stormy Daniels might not go away easily, potentially putting her at risk of further arrest, harassment or even injury. After 32 years in the mental health field, thank god there was a man to tell me what I think on social issues.

Me: “I think I broke the lawnmower. It doesn’t self-propel anymore. It just me-propels.”
Brian: “Let me take a look.”
I am so in awe of the rare species Humanamus Fixemupalus!

I spent the night tearing up old socks to make bandages for the Second Civil War and then some smart ass handed me a bottle of Liquid Bandage.

I tried this outfit today but it was so hot, the grapes turned into raisins.carmen miranda

The portajohns on 88 have all blown over. Now THERE’s a job no one is going to want.

My friend Andrea’s dog, Finn, goes to the library and lets little kids read to him and might be an extra in a movie.
Chip dug a crater in the back yard and ate a bee.
I’m so proud.

There’s a box with a unicorn head poking out of it in my garage. Every time I park, I feel like I’m in a queer version of The Godfather.

I bought some cedar blocks to leave in my dresser drawer because I like them. Now I’m being followed by three homeless gerbils who think I smell familiar. If you see me today, try to avoid mentioning it.

Attention, Walmart shoppers. There is a dog wearing Buddy Holly sunglasses panhandling at the parking lot entrance. I repeat. Dog. Buddy Holly sunglasses. Panhandling. That is all.
Really…that was quite enough!

Watched an infomercial with the sound off. If I understood correctly, if I buy THAT product right now (!), I can look like Cindy Crawford at 53. Or a cantaloupe. I’m not sure. They kept showing me both. Since I didn’t look like Cindy Crawford in my 20s, I doubt I can look like her now. Therefore, Cindy Crawford is trying to sell me something to make me look like a cantaloupe.

Some of my friends are such good allies to the LGBT community, I forget sometimes that they aren’t LGBT themselves. They’re not queer. They’re close to everything queer but they don’t live here. They’re the suburbs of Queer.

Put my spex on and they broke in half. I now have two monocles with ear pieces. It’s a very distinguished look.

I’ll need a quart of pumpkin spice gasoline for the lawn mower. I get confused at this time of year…

Kurt: “Are you going to complete the outfit with a petite clutch?”
Me: “The only petite clutch I understand is the one next to the brake.”

The good news! I figured out how to commune with my spirit animal.
The bad news! He bites.

I haven’t gone shopping yet this week so I ran out of bread. Crouton sandwiches are about the cutest little things I ever did see.

I took the juicer out to tinker with a recipe. My observation for today–there is a reason we cannot just buy banana juice.

I ordered some of that Crepe Erase. Now I got a pile o’ nekkid bananas and Nutella on my plate. Damn infomercials.

I’m writing a musical about my life and I’m calling it Forklift Driver’s Gender Neutral Offspring.
I’ve already invited Sissy Spacek to direct.

I reprogrammed the Roomba for long-distance travel. I arrive in Naperville in about 3 days. See you there!

What is this alleged almond bark you speak of? I’ve never heard them make a sound.

I mixed up the Static Guard with a can of lemon Pledge. I’m still a little static-y but my polar fleece jacket is fabulously shiny and lemony fresh.

Being a child of the 70s prepared me for the world in unique ways. For example, I usually carry a books of matches, a bobby pin and a deck of cards in case someone unexpectedly wants to make a deal. I keep an eye out so I ALWAYS know where the beef is. I know who shot JR and I’m ready to talk. And my car is completely outfitted in the event that some stranger pulls up alongside me at an intersection and says, “Excuse me, Sir. Do you happen to have any grey poop on?” We can talk later about this tendency people have to call me Sir all the time.

I finally finished the make-over on the guest room. For those of us who journeyed through long coming out processes in the 70s and 80s, these rooms are also occasionally called the “dummy bedroom” where the “roommate” sleeps, with whom we are “just friends”. I’ve decided to keep that term even though I live alone, in an effort to convince me that I’m friends with myself. Closet humor. It’s been a long time!

Wishing you a year of much laughter and silliness~

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Formative Days

Posted: October 18, 2018 in Blog
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Formative Days

It’s been more than three years since my divorce, but I still find comfort in some traditions that my fabulous ex-wife introduced to me. In this case, I mean the Jewish tradition of the memorial candle, or yahrzeit candle, lit on the day of a loved one’s death to celebrate their life. I am also deeply appreciative of the idea of lighting the way for them to a happy afterlife.

October is a challenging month. Starting with the memorial for my favorite aunt, my Aunt Connie, at the beginning of the month, then moving on to the memorial for my sister-in-law, landing here on the memorial of the father’s death, and ending with the memorial of the death of the brother with whom I grew up at the start of November. It is, as I have observed in a prior post, one long yahrzeit candle burning.

Formative days stay with us long into adulthood in unusual bits and pieces, as we have heard recently from trauma specialists. This experience bears out for me less in the realm of significant hurts, because so many of the bruises (though not all) fade into the blur of days as recurring events, but more in the realm of significant losses. Formative losses endure for a lifetime.

Today is the day of a formative loss and, as is my practice, a yahrzeit candle burns in the kitchen. I hesitated to write this post, then wondered why, because I’ve already written it in much detail in Urban Tidepool. And what the hell…I’ve written several humorous posts over the summer. A serious one will provide some balance.

Share a walk with me through a formative day, just shortly past my 17th birthday. I’ll appreciate the company.

 

An excerpt from Urban Tidepool:

October 1982

I called him in sick that morning. It’s usually the other way around, the parent calling the kid in sick, but that would be really unlike us at this point. The call itself was uneventful.

“Pennsylvania Refrigeration, may I help you?”

“I’m calling Charlie Mullen in sick.”

That was that. He really wasn’t feeling well; no lie today. I knew that. He had mentioned not feeling well the night before. The fact he wasn’t doing shit to take care of himself wasn’t lost on me. A small “I told you so” floated on the edge of my awareness. Try giving up smoking like the doctor told you, I thought. Try not eating the stuff they told you not to eat. Maybe you’d feel better.

As I returned the handset to the cradle, the phone rang. I grabbed it again. My friend Kathy asked if I had been given the message that she had her parents’ car this morning and she was driving us to school. Could I be ready in ten minutes?

Of course I hadn’t gotten the message. I’d been off making a 10 p.m. dog food run. I ran from dining room to basement, searching the dryer for a pair of my uniform socks, and then back upstairs to the bathroom. I wasn’t in too much of a hurry to pause at his bedroom door, though, and ask, “Did Kathy leave me a message that she was picking me up for school?”

He grunted, half awake. “Oh, yeah. Last night.”

“Awww…Dad, you are such an asshole!”

He didn’t answer.

I showered, spooned out some of the dog food rallied on the emergency Alpo run, kissed the dog and met Kathy on the front steps. We lived in a neighborhood of one-car families. It was a big deal to get the family car for school, avoiding the hassle of a Septa bus, or—God forbid—the Grays Ferry school bus. I was not going to miss this. We were seniors! With a car! As I picked up my work clothes, I contemplated calling out a good bye. He was probably asleep again. Besides, Michael might wake up and bitch about being disturbed—or slap the shit out of me. I didn’t need that. Never mind. I locked the door behind me.

Kathy greeted me with her usual morning announcement. “School blows.”

I could only agree. Six weeks into senior year, we were already counting days mostly unremarkable in their sameness; same uniform, same nuns, same resented expectation that we not think for ourselves. The good part of the day started when my work shift at McDonald’s did.

October 18th was a beautiful day in South Philadelphia, still warm, with shortened sunshine slanting earlier, heralding fall. By October we had golden sun, not the white sun of midsummer that made the asphalt melt and heat shimmer up off the pavement, playing tricks with your eyes. The walk from the bus stop to McDonald’s was pleasant, even enjoyable, and my leftover irritation with the father softened. I hadn’t missed my ride, hadn’t been late to school, all was well.

I changed into my uniform and clocked in without a minute to spare. I loved closing shift. I especially loved coming in directly from school, skipping that whole going home part. This was my second year at this job, my part-time, as-close-to-forty-hours-a-week-as-I-could-manage job. I had been promoted to manager last spring. Maybe it was being able to exchange the nasty polyester crew uniform for the cotton button-downs that the managers wore. Maybe it was not having to wear the crew hat that never looked right no matter where I put it on my skull, earning me the nickname “Helmet Head” from the regional manager. Maybe it was just that the regional manager had a nickname for me. Whatever it was, this was my favorite place.

A few minutes before 8 p.m., the phone by the manager’s desk rang and one of the guys on grill called me to pick it up. I expected the father and was surprised to hear Marie’s voice.

“Have you talked to your father today?”

“No, I came right into work from school. Why?”

“I’ve been calling the house and it rings and rings but nobody answers.”

“Okay. Let me call and see if he answers. I’ll call you back.”

The phone in our house rang endlessly, surely long enough that even with his hearing loss, he would have heard it. He would have rolled over or coughed or something, and the ringing two rooms away would have pulled him the rest of the way into consciousness.  My stomach tightened.

Turning to the other manager on duty, I said, “I gotta go. Something’s up.”

A friend from my neighborhood had just clocked out at the end of her shift, and she offered me a ride. We didn’t think to turn off the radio as we drove. As it had been for weeks, the theme song from An Officer and a Gentleman played.

My house was dark. Not a single light shone, despite it being full dark outside now. The front door was locked. Chills ran down my back and arms. Above me, the dog jumped down to come greet me. From the direction of the thud, she was in the father’s room. I relaxed a little. Navigating a few steps around the couch arm, I flicked on a lamp and went up to see how he was feeling. The door was closed halfway. I pushed gently, reaching for the wall light switch.

“Dad?” I stepped into the room. “Dad?” I stopped beside the bed, put one hand on his shoulder and shook once. “Dad?”

The information flooded in all at one time.

Sight.

Sound.

Touch.

Overload.

He lay on his back, with his feet crossed at the ankle and his hands folded together on his stomach. His fingers were waxy white. Bloodless. I was the only one breathing in the room. His shoulder under my hand was cold. When I shook him, his head rocked slightly to one side but the muscle did not recoil. I looked down into his face: the slack jaw, the pallor, and a detail that I didn’t speak about until more than fifteen years later. Oh God. His tongue was black.

I backed away, shut the light off, closed the door. I learned later that one of the neighbors heard me scream, although I was never aware that I did. This was it. I had known for months it would happen exactly this way. Years ago last night, I went on a dog food run so I’d have something to feed her this morning. Upon arriving home I sat in the car, idling at the curb, staring at our front windows and thinking, It won’t be much longer. He’s so sick. I knew. I always knew it would be me that found him. And years ago last night, I did the familiar, unwanted practice run in my head that I had been doing for months. Now it kicked in automatically.

I dialed 911. “I need an ambulance.”

“What is your emergency?”

“My father has had a heart attack.”

A few more questions followed that blurred together. I didn’t feel any emotion, only hands shaking so badly it was hard to dial the phone. I called my brother, The Major, and my sister-in-law answered. I called my sister’s house, where my brother-in-law answered. Both siblings were out. I left the same message. Send them—I think our father is dead. Still disconnected, I called the father’s girlfriend. Jesus, had it only been half an hour ago I’d spoken to her? How could that be possible?

“The paramedics are on their way, but I think he’s dead.”

“Oh no. Oh no. Oh no.” She was crying. Why wasn’t I? “We’ll come. I’ll find a ride.”

Marie was half an hour away, even if she had a ride and walked out the door right now, but I agreed she should come. I wanted her here. After seven years of dating the father, she was a part of this. I refused to call my brother Michael. Him, I didn’t want here.

“Okay. Come.”

Hanging up, I knew I couldn’t stay there alone. As I had practiced in my imagination, I made one more call to my aunt’s house. “My father has had a heart attack. I think he’s dead. Can someone come and stay with me while I wait for the paramedics?”

I don’t remember who answered the phone, but the first person in the door was my cousin Doreen. She was eight months pregnant. Oh God. She’s gonna have that baby right here!

The paramedics arrived next, and I took them up to the father’s room. I hovered in the doorway to see what they would do, but they asked me to wait downstairs. My Uncle Dick, definitely no fan of the father, and Joe, my cousin Maureen’s husband, came in on their heels and Uncle Dick went upstairs with the paramedics. Why him but not me? They announced they would take him to the hospital.

“He’s not dead?”

“You should get ready to go to the hospital.”

My cousin David came in, out of breath. He took one of my arms and Doreen took the other. David said softly, “Let’s walk up the block to Maureen’s house.” We needed to figure out how I was getting to the hospital, who would be taking me and staying there, since The Major and my sister were both at least an hour away.

A few houses away, Mr. Forsythe, summoned to his front porch by the flashing ambulance lights called to us, “Are you okay, Nance?”

David answered. “She’ll be okay. We have to go to the hospital with Uncle Charlie.”

My cousin Maureen greeted me with a hug and stood with me as I splashed cold water on my face. I didn’t know where she and her husband Joe had been when my call came in, but she obviously already knew what was happening down the street. “Here, take this. You need a’ be calm if you’re goin’ to the hospital.” She pressed a glass of water into my other hand and prodded me to sit down at the kitchen table.

I was just placing the water glass on the table when the phone rang. It was Joe. Maureen relayed his words. “He’s been pronounced dead. The paramedics had to wait for the doctor. No one’s going to the hospital.”

David, sitting on one side of me, held my right hand. Doreen gripped my left. I didn’t hear anything beyond that. No no no no no no no no. I couldn’t tell if I was saying it out loud. I wasn’t making any sense. Someone said they were sorry. No no no no no no no. David and Doreen held my hands, squeezing them, kissing them. Maureen stood behind me, her hands on my shoulders and the back of my head. No no no no no no no no.

Of course he was dead. He was cold. I had known. They hadn’t wanted his child there when they took his body away. His fingers were bloodless. How could he not be dead? I had known. But he had looked asleep. He had looked peaceful in his boxers and his strappy t-shirt with his hands folded on his belly and his feet crossed, and it didn’t matter what I had known because I wanted to believe we were going to the hospital. It should hurt, shouldn’t it? Dying should hurt. He looked asleep. His fingers… bloodless. I squeezed my eyes shut as hard as I could, but I could still see them. I had known. No no no no no no. They were never going to take him to the hospital. It’s possible I howled. Don’t all wounded animals?

It was close to 10 p.m. when my sister arrived. I sat with a comforter wrapped around me and a cup of hot tea in front of me, so cold my whole body shook. Just two hours ago, I had been comfortable wearing a hooded sweatshirt, unzipped, with the sleeves pushed up. This was cold like the middle of February, and the comforter and tea kept my shivers at bay with only marginal success.

I tuned into some of the back and forth about where I might sleep that night. Did I really want to go sleep in the same house where my father had just died? Would I be okay? I didn’t belong at Maureen and Joe’s. I needed to go home.

Pat walked with me, retracing the steps that Doreen, David and I had taken just a short time ago, hoping I was wrong, knowing I was right. I thought I was ready. I hadn’t anticipated the surreal feeling, walking into the living room, seeing the father’s shirt draped over the back of a chair and his shoes on the steps where he had left them.

Overload.

Disconnect.

The room spun. I staggered two steps and Pat caught me. The lump in my throat exploded and an animal-like sound swelled out. Pat sat down on the couch, pulling me with her. My head rested against her shoulder, the father’s shirt in my line of vision. The noise kept going, that animal sound. It took several moments to become aware that I was making it. No doubt about it this time. I was howling.

I was afraid I wouldn’t sleep, but the next disconnect came and I welcomed it. I prayed for it. Please take this away. Please make this stop. Several times during the night, I started to surface toward consciousness. Each time I became aware of an overpowering pain in my chest, quickly followed by no no no no no no no, words I saw in neon print on the back of my eyelids. My vocabulary was gutted. It was the only word I could manage.

*********

Formative days, like today, bring back floods of memories and sometimes the tiny candle flame struggles against the weight of darkness that lacks words.  In four years, I will be as old as he was on the night of his death. He has been gone now more than twice as long as I knew him.  On formative days, I remember that before I referred to him as “the father”, I called him Chuckleberry and when I was very young, he would clap his hands together backwards and bark like a seal to make me laugh. As a single dad after the mother crossed over, he taught me it was okay to eat cold Spaghettios from the can to avoid making extra dishes. He wore brown shirts with black pants and when I’d comment on him being no slave to fashion, he gave me an answer straight out of the Shit My Father Says manual:  “What?! It’s clean!”

Sometimes formative days have gifts. It’s just a little extra work to find them.

dad2

dad1

dad3 

On Being a Pudgy Carbon Based Wonder

Posted: September 19, 2018 in Blog
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Yes! Let’s talk about this! Fat shaming happens. A lot. By the medical profession. It doesn’t help. It creates an immediate disconnect between patient and provider.
A couple of years ago, I ruptured my ACL while biking. I tore up everything inside my knee. I was referred to a specialty doc for the reconstruction. During my first appt, he looked at me and asked, “What do you do to keep active?”
I said, “I bike and I’ve been working on a couch to 5K program.” I was so proud of that couch to 5k thing. I was, at the time, more active than I had been in years and feeling pretty good about it, the whole ACL rupture notwithstanding.
Dr Banana Fingers waved his hand dismissively in front of my torso and said, “Come on. You’re not a runner. You’re a softball player.”
My jaw dropped. No. I’m not a softball player. I’m not a great runner but it involved moving my sneakers in front of each other in rapid succession–what most folks would refer to as running. Also, to note, when I injured my knee, I was not playing softball. I was riding a bicycle, which I like to do. A lot. For long distances.
I’ve joked about this in other blogs but it is a serious and ongoing issue. I look like everyone else in my family. We are short, sturdy, often stocky, and middle age is not kind to us. No one in my entire family could ever qualify as thin, except for perhaps the mother, in her last stages of cancer when her body was wasting. I do not require shaming to remind me that I look like my family.  What I expect of my doctors is to be treated respectfully and to work with me to live in the healthiest, and most comfortable manner that I can, in this body I came into this time around. This body bikes. And gardens. And likes yoga. And likes walking the dogs. And it STILL looks like everyone else in my family. Name calling doesn’t cut it, Doc.
But I digress. On a follow up appointment, post-repair, the nurse who brought me to the assigned room gave me the wrong shorts to put on for the exam. Dr Banana Fingers arrived, looked at me still wearing my jeans, then opened the door and yelled–and I do mean he YELLED–down the hallway, “HEY, CAN YOU BRING BIGGER SHORTS?? SHE NEEDS BIGGER SHORTS!”
I had two follow ups left after that appointment. I never went back. I will drive 45 minutes to the ortho clinic in the next town over before I will step a pudgy foot back in that clinic.
We don’t talk openly about this topic–either the need for the empathy based discussion or the disconnect.  When my primary doc asked about how things were going with the specialist, we were in the middle of addressing something else, I knew her time was limited and I wasn’t going to waste my appointment time talking about the poor experience with Dr Banana Fingers.  I think if she had more than the requisite 15 minutes…which is, truthfully, always more like 7 or 8 minutes….we might have some conversations about other important issues.
It is, of course, not just the medical profession going on the attack over this topic. About three weeks ago, a strange man in a Starbucks parking lot shouted at me that I was too fat to fuck. Again, the complete denigration of some stranger’s body is the go-to verbal abuse. Yup, yup, I got it. Your entire view of me is this single aspect.
Fat is a big queer issue. I’m going to save that tangent for its own blog.
In the meantime, I’m sorry your view is so limited. That’s like going to the theater for a night out and sitting behind the pillar that holds up the balcony. There are significant pieces of that show (and of people) that you won’t get to see.  I am a pudgy carbon based wonder and I’m sorry that all you can see is the pillar. Have you considered moving to a different seat?
fat-shaming-woman

Notes on Homesteading and Rugby Shirts

Posted: September 6, 2018 in Blog
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The storms this past week have been hard on my peach tree. I watched all through the spring as the hard, fuzzy golfballs grew, blushed, developed an ever-so-slightly detectable give. They all come into peak at the same time so there’s one week each summer that is dedicated to collecting and processing, and the Ball jar collection on my shelves and in my freezer starts to increase.  One of my best recipes is my own creation—Uncle Nando’s Pee-Wee Jam. It’s a peach kiwi combination, and totally worth the effort of homemade.

I don’t really fancy myself a farmer. I adore the idea of homesteading but my job reality is that I also appreciate the convenience of running to the store for goat cheese because my only contact with goats is on Facebook when friends leave them on my page. There’s a definite leaning toward goats in pajamas, but that’s never a deal breaker.

So I was looking forward to this week of collecting and processing and my expanding family of canning jars. I waited for the first round of storms to pass to venture out in the yard. Once the rain cleared, it immediately became beastly hot again, so all of the outdoor entomos were present in full force.

I practice organic gardening. I say I practice because it always seems to be a learning curve and is sometimes more successful than others. I guess that means I practice organic peaches and cherries too.  The peaches can get a tad sunburned, making their little shoulders a little rough (and who can’t relate to that after a certain age?), and just as they reach peak, I have to wave off the gnats and the ants and sometimes the bees.

Did I mention that I’m not so much of a farmer?  The idea makes me chuckle. I wouldn’t know most large bugs from a new Fiat. Does it walk? Does it fly? Does it have a stick shift?  As long as it doesn’t bother me, I don’t mind sharing.

This week, when I made my trek to the back yard for picking day, it was already way too warm for a  post storm day. I took my handy green bin and stood beneath the weighted branches, looking my favorite tree up and down. Most of the ready-to-be-picked fruit lay in the mulch and grass, knocked free of their stems by the previous night’s torrential downpour and winds.  A few remained stubbornly attached and I reached for those, confidently waving off the gnats that joined me for the adventure.

It wasn’t a huge surprise they’d been knocked down, since earlier in the day, I noted that all of the portajohns in the construction zone on the tollway had blown over sideways.  Peaches are somewhat lighter and less intimidating than your average portajohn.

On the first reach, I noted new winged friends. Oh….they were pretty. I hadn’t seen such critters before. They were black and white striped, hovering over some of the damaged peaches. I wondered what kind of fruit fly they were. There were dozens of them. Maybe hundreds.  I shooed a few off the peach I wanted to put in my bin. They moved amiably over to the next available fruit or settled on ones on the ground. I shooed again. They moved again, yielding territory and their food to me.  I thanked them. I also complimented them on their snappy white and black striped rugby shirts. I told them they were very dashing. They buzzed happily and we worked together for a little while longer.

Later that afternoon, with the remaining peaches reclining comfortably in the kitchen, I popped onto Facebook for a minute. The first thing I ran across was a meme about Yellow Striped Stingy Things, depicting all kinds of bees.  Curious, I opened a new screen and did a quick search for black and white flies.

Rut ro. Did I mention that I’m not a farmer?  Yyyyyeaah.  I’m quick like that. They weren’t flies.  Not even close. They’re bald faced hornets, and they can be aggressive when their food source is at risk. Like…you know…when you’re standing under their peach tree, competing with dozens of  them for fruit and trying to shoo them away.

Why would they have been so reasonable?  Then I started to laugh. There was fermenting fruit on the ground under the tree.  Fermenting fruit. Wine, dammit. They were drinking and eating peach wine. The little bastards were so happy because they were drunk!

THAT’s why I recognized them! They were like a group of rowdy, winged, drunk Irishmen who just want to buy you a pint and sing with you!  “Heeeeyyyyyy, mate! Pull up a peach tree! Sit on that rock and have a nip!” I know those guys! Oh hell, I grew up with those guys!

Not too much survived the storms this week. We won’t have any Uncle Nando’s Pee-Wee Jam.  I waited all year for what I would make this week and got blindsided by an enormous, unexpected storm that wiped out most of what I’d been waiting for. It happens. It is a good thing I’m not doing the serious homestead thing. I’d be sunk. But I did make some new friends who were wearing very snappy black and white rugby shirts and got a good laugh in the process, which beats the hell out of a trip to the ER any day!

Have a day of silliness, friends!

peaches

Indoor/Outdoor Entomos

Posted: August 17, 2018 in Blog
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Here’s a familiar topic for my readers. It’s summer, after all. How could we get through a whole summer and I haven’t done one entomo post? So I have to do it. Many posts back, we determined that I have entomophobia—the fear of insects. Not ALL insects. Centipedes. Specifically, house centipedes.

https://urbantidepool.com/2014/12/16/if-you-knew-what-bugged-me/

https://urbantidepool.com/2017/03/27/bad-ass-adulting-in-entomo-season/

It’s even been a subject of Facebook posts for me. “Somewhere in a parallel universe, there’s a bug version of Criminal Minds playing out and investigators are standing over dismembered centipedes saying, ‘Given this level of overkill, this is clearly the work of a centiped-acidal maniac.’  Yes. Arrest me now.”

I do battle with the entomos at least once a year. My new and growing friendship with the Orkin man makes a statement that is clear and concise and includes none of the stuttering that I am prone to when I speak to someone I think is cute. (Slow down, Tiger. That’s a story for another day.) Plainly, entomos are not welcome here. I come by this phobia honestly after summers spent with my brother who was stationed in Mississippi and then in Florida where bugs were so big they should have been assigned their own zip code.  I now choose to live in the land of blizzards and subzero temps for a reason: minimal bugs.

Hence, it was a surprise to me this week while I was changing laundry from the washer to the dryer to be rushed by an entomo with way too many legs.  I’m certain he was snapping and snarling at me, as they do, unless you find them wearing a shower cap and standing in the bathtub with you. It totally brings out the butch warrior in me. I can neither confirm nor deny the things that may or may not have happened right at that moment of us recognizing each other.

  1. I squeaked at a pitch that I will never be able to reach on a normal day
  2. I grabbed hold of my pant legs and hiked them 8 inches above my sneakers
  3. I got on the phone and booked a cruise to Alaska
  4. I stomped on it so hard I thought I may have sprained my ankle
  5. A, B and D

If you picked E, sorry. I’ll send you a postcard from Anchorage.

No, seriously, if you picked E, you may now have an image in your head that won’t go away for days. My apologies. You probably did not wake up this morning wondering if I ever wear Life is Good quarter socklets in a smashing cadet blue color. But there they were. In my defense, when I cleaned up the mess, I had to wipe extra legs off my sneaker and I won’t get that image out of my head for a while either. I think you got the better end of the deal with the socklets image.

Anyway…

It was right at that moment that I realized that this was not an ordinary house entomo. This was a garden entomo, the kind I see when I dig or move something that has been sitting on soil for a while. This guy did not belong in the house.

I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t a fleeting touch of regret as I contemplated about 42 twitching limbs. His, not mine. (You’re welcome.) I mean, what if he wasn’t really snapping and snarling at me? What if I only THOUGHT he was snapping and snarling at me but he was lost and confused on a tile floor and he was running toward me to wave me down and ask directions? Just like our dads did when we got lost on vacation. (Yeah. Don’t get me started there.) Or maybe it’s like that spider meme—What if that spider you just killed thought you were his roommate? Sure, you didn’t think about that. You only think about yourself.

Don’t judge.

Sometimes, I guess, the best you can do is hike your pant legs 8 inches above your sneakers and squeak and try to carry on. It’s all in a day’s work for a bad ass who’s trying to adult. Or (more appealing) we can just plan to meet in Juneau. That’s good too.

fear

 

Lesson from a Barefoot Panhandler

Posted: June 15, 2018 in Blog
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There’s almost always a panhandler at the parking lot entrance to the office supply store across town. It’s rarely the same person, so I think the people who station themselves there must stake claim with a first-come, first-serve approach. Sometimes there’s one person. Occasionally there are two people together. Sometimes the person has a backpack and a tent or a scruffy pet. I’ve seen folks in their early 20s. I’ve seen folks who are probably in mid-life. They’re out there in blazing heat and bitter cold. The dog-eared, cardboard sign, a flap from a box with a Sharpie scrawled message to passersby,  is ubiquitous.

“Homeless. Anything helps.”

“3 kids, please help.”

“Trying to get home.”

“Please help. God bless.”

I stopped by the office supply store yesterday toward the end of my work day.  I had eleventy million things on my mind that I needed to do. Running plans for how my evening would go and when I would put together the tee shirt bags I wanted to create, I got back in the car and pulled up to the light at the entrance/exit of the parking lot.

As you might expect, there was a panhandler on the corner. If I happen to be carrying cash, I share a dollar or two, or a bottle of water in the summer, or a cup of coffee in the winter. Whatever their reason for being out there, heat stroke and frostbite probably don’t figure prominently into their plans. Yesterday, I was so caught up in the planning for the supplies I had just purchased, I forgot to pick up a bottle of water for the man on the corner.

The panhandler was standing by the first car in the stop light queue when I pulled up. He was maybe mid-20s, bearded, wearing a dark tee shirt with some kind of graphic on the front which was obscured by the worn cardboard sign he was holding. I sat at the red light long enough to notice the little pile of his backpack and his sneakers kicked off in the dust on such a beautiful afternoon. I looked at him again—mid-20s, bearded, barefoot with his pant legs rolled up to mid-calf. His feet were a couple of shades lighter than his legs and they looked soft and unsuspecting standing there on the curb of the midway.

He started to walk toward my car, keeping about 3 feet to the side. As he got closer, I rolled my window down and before I could speak to him, he spoke to me, stopping near my door.

“You look mad. Are you mad?” he said gently.

“Who? Me?” I asked.

“Yeah, you. You look mad.”

“Oh. I was just thinking about something.”

My eye swept up and down. There was something about him being barefoot that riveted me. He wasn’t that old…maybe 23 or 24. He could have been an NIU student. Maybe he WAS an NIU student. I wondered who he had been before he panhandled, barefoot in the Office Max parking lot. The questions were quick and blurry. Where had he gone to high school? Did he have a prom date? Did he ever play baseball and go out for pizza with his team when they won? Who dropped him off for his first day of kindergarten?  Did anyone touch his tiny baby feet and speak softly to him? He had feet, he had been a baby, someone brought him onto the planet.  Who was this man before he came to this parking lot?

The red light changed to green. The car ahead of me pulled forward.

“Hey! Don’t be mad, okay? It’s a beautiful day!”

I looked into his face. He broke into a smile, disarming, uneven teeth appearing through his beard. He didn’t come any closer to my window. He wasn’t asking me for anything—he just wanted to talk. I couldn’t stop my own smile in return. His eyes crinkled at the edges and he flapped his sign at me.

“Have a blessed day!” he called, still smiling.

I waved to him, also still smiling, and he shrunk in my side view mirror as I drove away.

Don’t be mad, okay?

I pondered that, struck by his words. I hadn’t been mad. I was simply pre-occupied with something I wanted to get finished for work.  Today. I wanted it done today. It reminded me that an old boss, my favorite boss, used to tease me about how she could always tell if I was thinking seriously about something because it looked like I wanted to kill everyone around me. It took her three years to realize that expression meant only that I was thinking hard, and not that I was homicidal.

I have said for many years that the Universe gives me EXACTLY whom I need at EXACTLY the time I need them. It’s all a matter of listening to the messages.

When I got home, I put the project materials away until morning and took the dogs out to the back yard. I dragged my miniature dirt digging toys out of the garage and made container gardens for my driveway. When I finished that, I sat in my favorite Adirondack chair with a book and a soft drink and listened to the cardinals call up and down the street. I let the project slide from my thoughts and took some time to absorb one of the last evenings of spring.

I got a gift from a strange man who was asking for spare change and I had given him nothing.

It’s a beautiful day. Indeed, it was. If you watch, the Universe brings you EXACTLY who you need EXACTLY when you need them. If you’re really fortunate, as I was yesterday, the Universe will bring you a barefoot panhandler with a charming smile, who will remind you to slow down and just BE. When that happens, don’t be mad, okay?

barefoot

 

 

Cresting Gently

Posted: May 27, 2018 in Blog
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A yahrzeit candle burns on my counter today, a gesture borrowed from my fabulous former spouse’s traditions and one to which I have gotten quite attached. Today is the 45th anniversary of the mother’s crossing. As I’ve aged, the tumult of this day has diminished and now it more likely and more often leaves me reflective, cresting gently over waves of questions for which I have no answers.

What little memory I retain of her is captured in Urban Tidepool. It is comparatively short, bittersweet, and shadowed by tremendous loss about which it almost never felt appropriate to speak. As a young person, I became acutely aware of how answering any question about her could bring a conversation to a standstill. Some families don’t discuss death easily. Some families and other folks struggle even harder to discuss the loss of a parent with a young child, to help it make sense (don’t worry, it doesn’t), to offer some kind of comfort. Kids pick up those cues sometimes easier than adults think they do, especially the sensitive kids. We understand that it makes conversation easier if we simply don’t speak of those topics, so adults don’t find themselves scrambling for what to say and fearful that they’re about to put their foot in their mouth. Not wanting to create that awkwardness, wanting to protect remaining parents and other people around us, we learn quickly not to bring it up.

Traveling that path myself in the years following, I found the sudden stall of a discussion painful. I found the expression—THAT LOOK—on some grown up’s face unbearable. It does not occur to a seven year old brain that you, yourself, have not caused that stall or that look. Both the stall and the look are byproducts of the fact that we simply don’t discuss death easily.

I am glad to see that some schools have moved away from the practice of “Make this card for your mother for Mother’s Day”. For the first couple of years after her death, my teachers would dutifully do the art class on the Friday before Mother’s Day and deliver that directive.  I would sit there, clutching my crayons like prayer beads, staring at blank construction paper.

“Draw a picture of you and your mom doing something you like to do together.”

My wheels would turn.  Was that based on how the mother could move around before she got sick and the doctors taped her insides to her outsides and she couldn’t really do much? Sometimes it was hard to hug her. If I hugged too tight or at the wrong angle, I encountered a rubbery bag attached to her stomach at just about the level of my head and we all knew right from the moment her insides got taped to her outsides that we had to be super careful how we touched her so we didn’t hurt her or tear the rubbery belly-wanna-be off. Should I draw a picture of trying to hug her? How would I draw a picture of that THING, whatever it was?

Eventually, each teacher realized that I was sitting there like a deer in headlights and offered this suggestion, in an effort to be helpful. “Make a card for someone you think of like a mother”. Usually there were a couple of sidelong glances from other kids sitting nearby—I was the only freak who didn’t have a mother.

That early, I was a pretty decent rule follower even though I was a terrible artist, so I complied, and drew something with a vaguely female stick figure and a shorter, gender non-specific kid, and put some check mark birds in the sky and a big sun, and a flower or two.  I don’t remember that I ever identified who the “someone you think of like a mother” was.  Other kids took their check mark birds and stick people home and taped to them to the front of their stick-figure refrigerators. Mine went in the trash as soon as I was out of line of vision of the teacher.  You cannot patch the bleeding mother wound by making a card for someone else on Mother’s Day and it was torment to be expected to do so.

One of the most difficult things as I aged is that I have almost no independent memory of what she looked like. I can bring up images of her face, yes, but they’re images that I also have on film in an old box somewhere.  It’s not the same as being able to remember her face on my own.

Several years ago, I watched a great Mitch Albom movie called For One More Day. If you haven’t seen it, the premise is that a man has a car accident while on his way to kill himself and in the space where he exists while waiting for the paramedics, he lives an entire day with his mother who had died years prior. I loved it. When the movie ended and I was getting ready for bed, I observed, “Wouldn’t it be weird if that happened? I mean, it’s been so long, I’m not sure I’d recognize her if I got to see her again.”

My dream that night started out in one of my favorite locations—I was in a library. There was a man there with me. I knew the man just well enough to feel comfortable with him and chat.  He asked me if I would go somewhere with him and it was easy to agree, feeling that comfortable. We traveled. It was not a linear travel where we progressed from the library to our next location, but more of a whirring, things-got-blurry and then we’re at our destination kind of travel that dreams are good for.

Our destination was the house I grew up in, where I have not lived for 35 years. It looked exactly as it did when I was a kid, and not as it does now, having driven by it a few summers ago. My travel companion and I stepped inside without knocking. No need to knock. We were going home. We crossed the enclosed porch and stepped into the living room, through the heavy, varnished oak interior door that still had Venetian blinds with maroon webbing covering the single window. Up one step. At that point, my travel companion nudged me to go further and he was going to stay in the doorway.

I took another step into the room. Straight ahead of me, past the furniture that wouldn’t have been there anymore, stood both parents on the opposite side of the dining room table. I noticed it was the old dining room table, the one we had in the house when the mother was still alive, not the one we replaced it with when I was in the sixth grade.  The father stood in front of the picture window that overlooked the concrete pad that passed for a backyard in our neighborhood. The mother stepped away from him and came right up to the edge of the table on her side.

Ignoring my travel companion, I approached the table from my side of the room, keeping it squarely between the mother and me. At the time of this dream, she would have been gone probably 37 or 38 years. The father would have been gone 27 or 28 years. She stood for a moment, then leaned down and rested on her elbows on the tabletop, never breaking eye contact with me.

I had forgotten that movement. She used it when her back hurt, leaning over to take the weight off her spine. I hadn’t thought about the simple position and the tilt of her head and the way her one hip raised when she bent down because of her scoliosis for probably three decades.

Neither one of us moved. Neither one of us spoke. Our eyes locked and I could see every line of her face. I saw and remembered a little mole. She didn’t have to say anything. Just staring at her face, seeing her eyes…she had beautiful eyes…I felt a rush of warmth like I have never experienced. So loved. So known. So THERE.

When I woke, I thought I might lose the dream, as some of them do have a tendency to get fuzzy and fade away the next day. That hasn’t been the case. I’ve retained this dream in detail for years. I retain the image in detail and I fear less that I wouldn’t know her if I, like Mitch Albom’s character Chick Benetto, got a chance to spend another day with her.

There are still questions, as I said. I would have liked to get to know her as a person. Parents aren’t really people when a kid is 7. I would have liked for her to get to know me as a person. I would have liked to create memories, not live through a lifetime with only memories.

I wonder if we’d have been able to hang out after dinner sometimes and have coffee. But not that nasty instant stuff. Yuck.

I wonder if I could have stopped by and visited with my dogs.

I wonder if she would have liked if I cooked for her and brought her stuff from my garden.

I wonder if she would have emailed.

I wonder if I could have told her about my job and the amazing kids I work with and the incredible staff people I’m surrounded by and if she would have known how lucky I feel that this has been my path without her.

I wonder if she noticed when I threw those drawings away in the early days.

Sometimes I wonder if she would know me after all of these years—the days of being a skinny 7 year old with perfect vision are almost a half century behind me. At those moments, I take out the dream and I revisit our old house in South Philly and I look into her eyes and at every line on her face. I crest even more gently over this question because now, down to the bottoms of my socks, I do know the answer to that.

 

An excerpt from Urban Tidepool:

Now she sat up, drawn and bony, but alert. She looked at me with an expression I didn’t understand. “Do you want a Lifesaver? They’re in the drawer there.”

I found tangerine Lifesavers in the nightstand drawer and unstuck one from its litter mates. It hadn’t even fully dissolved and suddenly it was time to go. I wanted to hug her, wanted her to hug me. There were bars in the way, and beyond the bars, tubes and wires connected to big, beeping machines.

My “Bye, Mommy,” was soft, carried on a wave of tangerine Lifesaver.

“Bye, baby. I love you,” again with the expression I didn’t understand.

We returned to the routine of news over the phone or what the father brought home after a visit. Chick and his family left for Virginia. I missed the mother so much there weren’t words for it. I could probably count on one hand the number of nights I hadn’t slept with her in the past couple years. The bed was big and there was no one on the sheepskin mat to call me Grasshopper at the end of Kung Fu or hold my hand while we watched Twilight Zone.

My cousin David and I scraped up enough coins, literally overturning couch cushions to find them, to buy a packet of flower seeds at the corner store. We scratched at the compacted dirt in what passed for a garden in front of our house—an ugly dirt square surrounded by an uglier hedge—gouging out the shape of the letters in her name. When she finally came home, there would be flowers blooming in the shape of her name. Anne. It was my name too, but everyone called me Nancy. We dumped hundreds of tiny seeds into tracks we made with a table spoon and pushed spoonfuls of dirt on top of them. We didn’t know to water them.

… Who knows what was said for the service or even the eulogy? I huddled against Pat and focused on not crying. (Just don’t cry. Just don’t cry.) Bye, Mommy. (“Do you want a Lifesaver? They’re in that drawer.”) I stared at the casket, set in the center aisle, and the singularly absurd thought struck me that I’d never see her again. We had said good bye.

A few rogue tears escaped. Nauseated and fighting tunnel vision, I followed the casket back out of the church when it was over, Pat holding my hand again. On the periphery, my classmates stood like fun-house mirror shapes, still staring. (Just don’t cry. Just don’t cry.) I couldn’t look back. How could they not stare? How could they comprehend this? How could any of us? (“Bye, baby. I love you.”)

Bye, Mommy.

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