Weight

These are the things that make it hard to get out of bed in the morning, that weigh down on you like a craggy boulder crushing you with sharp edges.

We used to live in a poor neighborhood of a big city. Not poor as in working-class or blue-collar, but poor as in food stamps, prostitution, drugs, and drive-bys. People were killed in the gas station two blocks from our apartment. A bullet from the street came in through a wall and hit our downstairs neighbor in the hip. On the corner of our block, a girl was killed when she stumbled into crossfire between two drug dealers.

In this neighborhood, there was a fortress of an apartment building. In this apartment building (not ours) lived people who were only in the neighborhood temporarily, usually students or professors, and who were all white. A big fence surrounded the yard behind the apartment building, but it was a fence made of wrought iron and you could see through the pillars to what was inside. In the yard was a big playground structure. Nobody from the apartment building used it. Probably too afraid to let their children outside. I was walking past it one day, and saw two little neighborhood boys standing on the outside of the fence, staring in at the playground. They were probably five or six years old. Just stood there staring. I watched them for awhile, heart breaking, and then I kept walking, knowing there was nothing I could do. When I turned around farther down the street and looked back at them, they were still there, still staring.

There were no other playgrounds in this neighborhood that I ever saw. Driving by an abandoned lot one day, bordered on one side by an abandoned brick building and on the other by a gas station frequented by toughs driving old American cars, falling apart but still equipped with rims, I saw children bouncing a ball off the old brick wall. This was where they played and how they played, bouncing a fifty-cent rubber ball off a wall adorned with a huge Miller Lite ad.

But they were playing, not running with gangs, not dealing drugs. You take hope where you can get it. What gets me down is the helplessness I feel - even if I had Bill Gates' money, could I ever begin to make a dent in even just my little city, much less all the cities in all the countries in the world where children suffer?

Heavy Bass

We listen to hip hop while changing into our wetsuits, the car radio blaring, the doors open. It's almost time for a new wetsuit, but I'm reluctant to give it up just when it's gotten stretched out enough to make it easier to put it on and take it off. I've learned how to change faster, to keep up, even though I was never good at deck changes. Once the wetsuits are on, we pull on our booties, pick up our boards, and head down to the ocean. If we surf on the south side of our usual spot, the walk down to the ocean is covered with rocks. They prick our feet through the booties; walking without the booties would be miserable. If the waves are good, we're excited, practically running.

We've seen a lot of things while surfing. Dolphins, sometimes. Seals pretty frequently. Once a large crab, Dungeoness maybe, trying to dig a hole in the sand by doing the twist. We were heading down to the water one day when we saw a starfish, big and orange, lying on the beach. It had been washed in by the waves, and it had been lucky - we had found it before any predatory birds had, or a curious dog. My husband put it on the deck of his surfboard, by the nose. He paddled out with it past the waves, only letting it drop into the water once we were outside the break. Why paddle it out? I asked. Why not just toss it back into the water? I wanted to make sure it dropped into the water somewhere deep enough so the birds wouldn't get it, he said.

In an aquarium in the Bahamas I watched a starfish lose an arm to a crab. In Norway I watched a crab lose a leg to another crab; the losing crab skulked to a corner of the tank. The winner proceeded to eat the leg. Animals are cruel by nature. But then, cruelty is subjective. Maybe it's a term that only has meaning when survival is not at stake. When I was younger, I had a fish tank, fairly large and full of fish. But one day I woke up and all the fish were on the floor. They had jumped out somehow, my father said. I was only six and this haunted me for years, that my fish had committed suicide.

Although maybe it was foul play. Around that time we'd had a cat. A fat, fat cat who was meaner than mean. I had long scratches up and down my arms. We named the cat Doughnuts, because he liked to eat them. He would steal them from our plates, scratching his way to his prize. My parents were disturbed by his bad nature and gave him away. Years later, on an island in Greece, I would be scratched by yet another cat, this one black, that I had been feeding bits of fish off my plate. And I still wouldn't understand, why something I loved and was trying to care for would want to hurt me.

Cats, starfish, dogs, birds. And the world keeps turning round.

Getting Older

After the sun sets, but before the light has faded from the sky, even the most familiar places seem new and exciting. Driving down a street I've driven down a million times, the traffic lights look brighter, the neon signs pop out from the shadows. Maybe it's because, in my memories, this is the time of day that I would usually arrive in a new city when traveling. I used to love airports and the sensation of heading off somewhere unknown. It's different now that I'm older. Now, airports project stress rather than promise. It's a little like losing Disneyland - the last time I was there, I felt too old for it; it wasn't the happiest place on earth for me anymore. Is there anything left of my childhood in me?

Setting Myself Straight

I've had a rough few months, trying to deal with the psychological fall-out from giving up my high-salaried, high-status job to staying at home and making zero money. When we were buying the house, insurers, lenders, etc., would put my occupation down as "homemaker." And that has never been the woman I thought I would be.

It hasn't just been psychologically difficult. I've also been extra worried about money, lately, with the recent acquisition of a frighteningly large mortgage. To top it off, my husband is in the process of changing jobs and taking a pay cut. I'm exceedingly happy for him - it's an opportunity he's really excited about and should be better hours-wise than his current job - but still worried.

And so, many, many times, I've wanted to give up and go back to work. Work was hard, but in many ways, it was the easier route. I'm good at climbing ladders, at working hard, but in an already-existing framework. Law was easy that way: go to law school, graduate, go to a firm, work your way up the ranks. The format was there and all I had to do was fill in the blanks.

But yesterday, driving around in the hills and thinking about how to go about finding another legal job, one that wouldn't drive me crazy, it occurred to me that life is bigger than our frameworks. Life isn't a pre-printed form where you fill in the blanks. It's a blank page, where you create whatever it is you want. So I need to start creating, and focus on creating, and not keep trying to run back into the hole it is from which I emerged. I've been like Plato's cave people, only too eager to settle for the shadows. I don't want to be that anymore. I want to be enlightened. And screw other people's opinions. It's not their life.

Yeah, the money thing is more difficult, but it'll work out somehow. Sure, I made good money as a lawyer, but is that the dollar amount I would put on my life? Surely my life is worth more than that.

Making a Place

Especially when we first moved in, it was hard to think of this house as ours. I kept thinking about the person who used to live here, what he used each room for, how he lived, what he thought about as he looked at and touched and used the same things that we do now. People, or maybe me in particular, spend so much energy keeping other people at a distance. We put such a premium on privacy, on personal space. It's strange to think that no matter what you do, though, your life will be touched by someone else's, sometimes a stranger's, in fundamentally intimate ways. The house or apartment where someone lived the dramas of his life, where someone breathed his last breath, is the house or apartment you inhabit and fill with the flotsam and jetsam of your own life. It seems strange to have what feels like a strong bond with someone you will probably never know.

When I think about this, I think that maybe I should be more open to meeting strangers. Who knows what kinds of bonds we might share? I've always been the kind of person who does what I call "circling the wagons": only certain people, my family and close friends, are in the circle, and everyone else is on the outside, being guarded against. I am cynical and suspicious of people unknown to me. I do not easily let people in. It's self-protection, but how effective is it really? There will always be people whose lives will touch mine in ways that I cannot guard against.

Learning New Things

I have only been a homeowner for a few weeks now, and I have already learned so much. All about retaining walls and sump pumps and grout - phrases whose meanings were unknown to me until very recently. I have also developed new attitudes, about rain, for example. We were hit by an unexpected shower this morning (although it is now sunny and cloudless outside). And, upon waking to find rain outside my window, I didn't feel nostalgic or depressed. Instead, I thought, Great! Now my plants will get watered and I can put off figuring out the sprinkler system for another day!

Foodwise

We've become highly domesticated. Since purchasing the house, we spend almost all of our free time doing things to it. (LOVE the house, but I have to admit that I'm aching to surf.) First was the moving, then the furnishing and fixing up (still ongoing processes). Stores which I have gotten to know very, very, very well: Home Depot, Costco, Target, and Ikea (a great place to buy mirrors). Especially Home Depot, which I visit every day. During yesterday's visit, we bought a lawnmower and the husband mowed our lawn for the first time! We've spent time planing doors, installing shelves and towel rods, tending to the garden, etc., but the lawnmowing was what made the house really feel like ours.

Moreover, today we had our first dinner guests. I made pork chops with a soy-honey glaze, accompanied by baby carrots sauteed in the same, and mashed golden potatoes with pan-roasted garlic. And a banana-nut concoction for dessert. Simple but satisfying.

Home sweet home.

Lost

I'd applied for a job and had gotten an interview, which happened earlier today. It went fine, I suppose, although I was told not to expect to hear back for a little while. Which was also fine.

What I feel now is not nervousness or anticipation, but aimlessness. My life progresses in fits and starts. Sometimes I feel like I live in a cocoon, and reality touches me only briefly. And each time it does, it hurts. I took a seminar in college - some psychology or communications thing - in which I learned that the twenties are the era in a person's life when his or her identity is being shaped. Thus, it is a turbulent time for most people. I think about this a lot, and about the professor who taught it to me. She had written me a recommendation for my law school applications. I wonder if she anticipated the turbulence that fills my life now.

I am back in my home, surrounded by my things and my documents and my photographs - all the records of my life. Today they look so unfamiliar. Digging through one of the folders in my files, I came across memos I had written, and a piece of a story. And I thought, This isn't bad. In fact, maybe it's even pretty good. But, who am I, writing this? Who was I? Sometimes the writing works, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes the tormented artist in me escapes to the surface: the fragile, vulnerable, fundamentally weak and fearful person in me of whom I am deeply ashamed. I spend a lot of time and energy keeping her down. I only want to be the calm, rational, strong and aggressive me. I know which me is more valued, at least in worldly terms. But who would I be without the other me? The me that I can't help feeling is the truest me?

Simple

Had lunch with a friend today, someone I haven't seen in awhile. Back when we saw each other all the time, I never thought we were particularly good friends, and we aren't, not in the sense of people who care deeply about each other. But he makes me laugh and we have a lot in common. We joke around, and hanging out with him is never boring. He restores my faith in the belief that men and women can, after all, be friends.

History

Those long days of nothing to do, got in the car and just kept driving not knowing where we were going till we ended up in San Francisco, right at Fisherman’s Wharf. Walking amongst the crowds and crowds, separating us, buffeting us, you reached out to take my hand.

You forgot. We’re not supposed to touch. We’re not supposed to feel too many things we’re not supposed to feel because our roads are going separate ways and I can’t afford to remember guitar strings on cloudy November nights, your face bent over mine. Holding me like you were afraid to hold me I was afraid to let you hold me, knowing that it couldn’t have been any other way.

I think about you a lot, all the time. You cooking in my kitchen at three o’clock in the morning as I slept upstairs; coming in to wake me, you told me I smelled of sleep and babies, but mostly good things.

You on the other end of a phone line as night ebbed on, because we had so much too much to say and so much left unsaid.

You knew me. I trusted you so much with so much almost with all of me, but I couldn’t, I couldn’t, I couldn’t, you know you knew I couldn’t. We’re too different, our lives are too different you are going somewhere different from me.

We would have killed each other. Do you really think so? Yes yes I know so please don’t make me go there please don’t touch me no no there are no NO!

Your face over the guitar strings, when you’d look up at me just so and I could feel the world zoom in on us on my heart caving collapsing beating too strong.

Your face over the guitar strings, when your voice would blend somehow with mine and you reached out gently so gently too much too gently to brush the hair back from my face.

I thought you knew. And maybe you did. That there were too many reasons why not and the only reason why was the feeling of your hand over mine as you taught me to strum.

It’s gathering dust, under my bed, the guitar you bought me taught me to play. I don’t write any more don’t write music anymore because there is no one left to see to hear to care to understand.

My best friend, I have to let you go I have to let you go and I can’t can’t can’t can’t.

Do you remember countless hours dragging you around I have to find the perfect dress I’m so fat don’t be stupid you’ve got great legs you’re such an idiot you’re really pretty. Your foot is the same size as my hand my gosh you’ve got small feet let’s go jogging you’re kidding right I don’t jog c’mon! I’m going to get fat if you won’t run with me okay we’re going to run let’s at least run somewhere and get something to eat can I come over I really need to talk please don’t leave me alone I’m so scared let’s study chemistry I think you’re beautiful you’re such a beautiful person and you have a great heart YOUDON’TKNOWME! WE’RE TOO DIFFERENT, WE’RE DIFFERENT PEOPLE, PLEASE DON’T LEAVE ME, DON’T LEAVE ME I’M SO SCARED I’M SO ALONE, what am I supposed to do without you? Raining, it’s raining the smell of sidewalks after the rain, that’s what I love really I just love the rain and feeling it soft on my face raining in Baltimore you know it is could you stand to be three thousand miles away I can’t believe you flew to New York to see her I can’t believe you’re going out with him YOU’RE SUCH A JERK! You know you love me for it and maybe I do, but NO!

Sushi as in you want me to eat raw fish? It’s good trust me when have I ever lied to you? Not a good question to ask me if you’re trying to get me to do something don’t hit me don’t touch me keep your hands to yourself buddy friendly teasing your face as you drive and the way you palm the wheel do you know how much how very very much I want to say, and how very little it really is that I want to say?

Eulogy

My grandfather's hands were steady enough to pop a cyst on an infant's eyelid with a needle. With those hands, he built a surgical practice from scratch through will power, hard work, and brilliance, the brilliance that let him be first in his class in medical school. He was a kendo master and a clever linguist with a dry wit. He made people laugh, and he made them afraid. He had a deep voice and a fierce temper: his children did not sit down at the table until he had first been seated and served.

His philosophy on children and child-rearing was that children benefited from doing without. Then they could withstand whatever deprivations life threw at them later on. Or, if they were fortunate and life gave instead of withholding, they would appreciate all the more what they were given. As a child, my father rarely had a new pair of shoes. When the old ones wore out, he would patch the soles with whatever he could.

My grandfather's philosophy on grandchildren was similar. For the most part, he took no notice of them. Except for me. One of my earliest memories is of being carried on his shoulder. I would sit perched on one shoulder and he would march around town with my legs dangling on his chest. At home, he would carry me this way over to the big freezer that sat outside. In this freezer he kept Andes mints. To this day, Andes mints are still my favorites. Even after his stroke, when he sometimes didn't remember people's names, he never forgot mine.

The force of his personality was such that other people paled in comparison. He was always the most substantial presence in a room. He made a heavy imprint on people's lives. On his first wife, who died young. On his second wife, my grandmother, who suffered in silence for long years. On his life-long mistress, who bore him ten children. And on his children, whose lives continue to be shaped by his actions.

I loved him, but I didn't know him. The only real memory I have of him involves those chocolates, and the heavy watch he always wore, and the cane he carried until his stroke made him unable to walk. I wish I had known him better. I mourn for the stories I will never hear. I mourn.

The Drill

The most important tool for a new home owner is a power drill. With a full set of drill bits, which can be purchased at Home Depot for about $15.00. We bought the bits after we received the drill for Christmas. As with the grill, it was a gift that I only belatedly came to appreciate, but the drill has already proven its worth. It enabled us to put in shelves, an additional lock on the front door, assemble furniture quickly....

It is, however, important to note a caveat: learn how to use the drill before you actually attempt to put holes in the walls of your new house. It will save you some grief. Tired of waiting for my husband to get home, I decided to use the drill myself to do some minor household project. How hard could it possibly be? Insert bit, press button. Easy-peasy in theory, but in the practice of it, I put some dents in the wood of our front door, scratched up the paint a bit. :( I also broke one of the drill bits (but don't tell my husband).

At least I escaped physically unscathed, which is more than I can say for some of the other projects I've undertaken.

Signs

Yesterday, while standing in the backyard of our new house, we saw a hummingbird alight on a branch of a small tree. It came to rest on the tree, and then sat completely still. Neither of us had ever seen anything like it. The hummingbird stayed for maybe five minutes, and then it flew to a nearby tree, where it started dipping its head down to this tiny, cup-shaped thing. We didn't realize what it was at first. I thought maybe it was some odd sort of flower. And then the tiniest little bird's head popped up! Two little baby hummingbirds, in a hummingbird nest. In our backyard!

Where Are You?

Today I realized that I don't laugh much. I smile a lot, (which has its own problems), but I don't laugh much. I seem to remember that there was a time in my life when I used to laugh a lot, but I can't remember when or why or who it was that used to amuse me so much. I wish I could find them again, though.

A Hardening

I learned that my grandfather had died while standing at a sticky yellow pay phone in Monterosso al Mare, looking out over the Italian Mediterranean. Sunbathers filled the beach, lay out on rocks poking out of the ocean, strolled by with gelato in cups and cones. No one spared me a glance, despite the tears rolling down my face. I was just one more American tourist, and the Europeans looked over and through me by habit. Just one more American tourist in a place only recently popular to Americans.

When his funeral took place, I was in Santorini. It was the end of the season in Greece, and the streets of Oia and Fira were empty. The sun, though, was as strong as ever, and the ocean, the caldera, as beautiful. Between those things, a grief-filled event taking place on the other side of the world had no hold on my imagination. My grandfather's dying, even death itself, seemed impossible.

My favorite uncle was the one who had a kind word for everyone, who thought that his nieces and nephews were the smartest, handsomest people anywhere. The summer that he died was the summer that I got married. That summer, I was working hard to get in shape before the wedding. I swam three or four times a week with my future sister-in-law, an ex-water polo player. One night, I was returning from the pool, and had just pulled my car up into the driveway, when my parents burst through the front door and came running over to me. My mom was in front, and her face was contorted. I didn't have to ask what had happened; as soon as I had opened the car door, she said, "Your uncle is dead. Drowned!" He had drowned in his backyard pool. My parents, worriers by nature, had been waiting for me to get home, their grief compounded by their anxiety for me, this nasty coincidence of our contemporaneous swimming. For years after, when I swam I was afraid, not that I would also drown, but that I would see my uncle somewhere there in the water with me. I could not get near a pool without seeing him floating facedown in it.

When he was buried, I was in Kauai. No one had wanted the wedding to be put off; too many people were coming from too far away. No one had wanted us to miss our honeymoon, either, and so we went, and I cried every night. It's a testament to the island that, despite my grief, I still loved it there. Of all the many places I've been, Kauai is still the most beautiful. And yet, death was believable there.

Why am I sitting here remembering these things? What do I want? I don't know, myself. Sometimes I turn over old hurts like sharp stones, almost savoring the feel of the edge in my hands and the tickle of the blood starting to run. Forgiveness, maybe.