For You Girl

Okay. Totally made me cry in the cafe.

Defining A Movement by Katherine Center.

Goodbye Old, Semi-Reliable Friend

Its' gone. A stylish car with character. That was always fun to drive. Things started going way wrong with it in the past 5 years. There was the time the air conditioner went crazy and released a terrible smelling something into the car. We got the heater/air conditioner fixed but then it only worked on like levels 2 & 4 (maybe). Plus the knob wouldn't stay on. There was last year, the night I met Dorothy in person for the first time ever and we went out to the theater and the back window fell down into the door and wouldn't come up again, and so, I had to rely on the dicey security of the parking lot and put all the carseats, etc. in the trunk. Not sure what Dorothy thought, but she was polite and encouraging. Then the door handle fell of the same door. Then we got it fixed and it fell off again. We took it back, got it fixed again. And it fell off. Then we gave up. The window was also fixed only it never went down again. And you couldn't open the door.


And then, this year, yes, came the disparaging remarks from friends which I'm really sorry the poor Passat had to hear. She did her best. This was a very fine car in it's day. And she was, as I said, very fun to drive. There was the night we went up to 120 on 280 to get away from some weird guy who was cruising me at 2am in an area where someone had been shot a few weeks earlier. She never left me stranded on the Bay Bridge during the evening commute like another car I could mention.

Well, she won't have to hear those unkind remarks again. She is gone. Gone. And I? I'm no longer a Driver. Now it's all Zoom! Zoom! Automatic. I miss driving a stick. Kristin Linklater once made the observation that I was very fond of the shift. And it is true. I am. Truly. I am a stick shift girl.

Ghosts

Just saw the woman who gave me the worst news I've ever received in my life. Pushing her grocery cart through the store. I passed by her once and swung back around to look at her again. She looked so familiar and yet I couldn't quite place her. She passed me in the baby food aisle then turned her cart around maneuvering it between me and an elderly gentleman who was contemplating the cereal. Looking at a jar of Pumpkin pie puree, it came to me. We passed each other in the frozen food section. And again in dairy, in produce, in cheese, in meat and in bread. And each time my stomach turned over and my knees felt weak. I couldn't stop looking at her face.

Because what never occurred to me before is this: what it must be like for you. To deliver such news over and over again. To say those words so many times, so many times that you'd never remember all the faces of the people you'd delivered it to. Words so devastating that if any of its receivers passed you in the grocery store and remembered you, they'd pretend you didn't exist. Would wish you did not. What conversation is to be made?

Oh, it's you. Remember when you...made that little call...quite a time wasn't it?

What must it be like to be you? You whose job it was to bring the news, to make the call, to hear the sobs on the other end of the line, to say the I'm sorrys, the no one likes to hear such newses. You who've said the same words so many times that I could hardly think you'd still mean it - the I'm sorry. The calm voice cool with professional distance and sincerity tinged with the absolute impossibility of the outcome of your news being anything other than what it was. The sentence irrevocable. It was you who said the words, so powerful - no incantation could be stronger, more life altering. So powerful, that even now, 7 years after, the sight of you makes the blood automatically drain from my body and I feel like collapsing on the floor. Over and over. Baby food, frozen food, dairy, produce, cheese, meat, bread.

Checkout. Checkout. Checkout.

This falling down inside as I remember that moment on the phone. And the realization that it is only that very moment that I share in common with the person who heard those words as they exited your mouth. That the person who heard those words was washed away by them never to surface again. Such are the effects of time travel.

Compounded Daily

Driving past Scottsdale on our way to Flagstaff I noticed an interesting new business and pointed it out to Roger.

Me: Child Mortage. That building says Child Mortage. Hmmm-
Roger: Hey, Carter. We have a new consequence for your bad behavior.
Me: Let the money just roll in.

Tell It

For many months after Leta’s birth I felt like I was going through an identity crisis, even after my hospital stay when I could think about things more clearly. I didn’t know I was going through it then, but I had many symptoms of a mid-life crisis, including excessive drinking and lashing out at the most important people in my life. I can look back at those months now and see what was going on, that suddenly I was a mother, but didn’t feel like I thought mothers were supposed to feel. It was as if overnight I had gone from working in the mail room to becoming the CEO, and I had no idea how to run a company. I didn’t want to run a company. (More here.)