Back in middle school, I had a group of girlfriends.
We loved each other, but sometimes – inevitably – we’d fight.
Once we stood at the right angle intersection of two hallways in the high school.
Our friend A. and our friend B. were fighting and it was escalating.
A. stormed off fuming down the hallway.
We watched her.
B stormed off too.
Down the same hallway.
In the same direction.
We watched her go.
We watched her walk angrily away. Then she stopped. And she turned around. And she came back to us.
“A. just went that way! There is no way that I’m going that way too!” she announced.
Then she stormed off down the other hallway.
Filed under: Punctuality
Let me just get this right out there: I should have left the house earlier. By at least 5 minutes. I’d intended to do so all along. But then I spent just a little too long savoring my tea and laughing out loud as I read Overheard in New York.
I sped off down the bike lane to the school, grateful that most of the trip was downhill. I locked my bike and rushed into the building and down the hallway. I glanced at my cell to confirm the time: 8:28 AM. I was going to make it on time!
Then I walked into the classroom and the teacher was already talking! The room was full and all eyes were on her.
“You see,” she said after a pause, “I have a strict policy. I start my class exactly at 8:30, whether everyone is here or not.”
I blushed all the way to my seat where I fished my cell phone out of my bag. It now said 8:29 AM.
“I don’t abide lateness,” she said and pointed at the clock at the far wall of the classroom. It was black and white with thick arms, tick, tick, ticking away. By that clock’s measure you could indeed argue that it was already 8:30 AM. I glared at that clock in hatred, willing its hands to back up just 30 seconds.
I stared back at my cell phone again. 8:29 AM.
“But I was on time!” I wanted to shout, “AT&T says so! And a lot of people use AT&T!”
I wanted to say, “You don’t believe me? Look at my cell phone!”
I forced my frustration at the supposed injustice off my face. How could I fight over a matter of 60 seconds even if now she would brand me as the-girl-who-was-late-on-the-first-day-of-class. I had to surrender and acknowledge defeat. When it comes to time, it was her clock that was going to matter, not mine.
Filed under: Small Things That Take on Epic Proportions
Yesterday I mowed my lawn. I keep telling people this as if it’s akin to having written an award winning play. And I know I will feel the same way when I defrost my freezer.
I look out at the lawn. Some of it is brown and ravaged by August. Other patches such as the area protected by the shade of a tree are happily green. All around the height is uniform. It looks neat and kempt. A black cat keep sidling over to the front steps, plopping herself down and enjoying the domain.
I believe that she and I are both just basking in the view of trimmed grass and the absence of brown leaves littering the driveway.
I’m microwaving leftovers and drinking tap water and thinking of everything that’s about to begin, but hasn’t just yet. For now, I am proud of the lawn.
It was too early in the morning. We threw our luggage from our vacation in the trunk of the cab. Our cabbie loped to his seat. I put my hand to my mouth to cover a yawn.
Outside the windows all was dark. I was ready to be home, ready to unpack my bags and wash my dirty clothes.
We drove through quiet leafy streets and emerged onto the freeway. City lights of Dallas streamed past. Tall buildings towered above our heads. I looked up and thought of TV shows. Red tail lights streaked in front of us.
“There are secrets to driving a cab,” said our cabbie after swearing at a city bus that had just cut in front of our van. “The problem is all these idiots out there. Bus drivers are the worst.”
“Uh huh,” said my boyfriend. The lanes spread out around us, like ribbons getting progressively wider.
“Twenty-one years driving and I’ve never been in an accident…that I’ve caused,” continued the cabbie.
I squirmed inwardly. “Just get us to the airport,” I prayed, glancing at my watch.
“The first rule is this,” said the cabbie, “And my grandfather thought I was an idiot for this – I drive with both feet. No one drives better than me.”
I scrunched my face up and was glad that I was directly behind his seat. I stared out the window at chain restaurants and gas stations partially covered by the gray concrete of the highway.
“And the second rule is not to get angry.”
I thought back to 60 seconds ago when he’d cursed at another car.
“See, I get upset. I let it out, but I don’t let road rage rule me. Once I say my piece, I let it go. I don’t keep it up. Once these two cars – a cab and another car were racing each other down the road. I don’t know how it started. One of them did something to the other and they just couldn’t let it go. So they’re speeding down the road at 100 miles per hour. And one car bumps into the other and the other car crashed head-on into the concrete barrier. I don’t have to tell you what it looked like. I don’t have to tell you that he died. So me, that’s why I don’t get angry.”
I closed my eyes.
“Wow,” said, “Wow, that’s intense.”
“My roommate says I have anger management issues because I say it like it is, but I say no I don’t. Because you can’t keep it bottled up inside you. I say it and then I let it go. Same thing with driving. Maybe you piss me off but I don’t let it affect how I am on the road.”
I’ll never like talking – or hearing – about car crashes when I’m speeding down the highway.
The sky was growing lighter. I looked at my watch and wondered how far away the airport lay.
In ten minutes time our friend is coming to pick us up to take us the airport. I plan on presenting him with half a container of fresh blueberries, saying, “You must please eat these on my behalf!” Blueberries are the sort of fruit that you can’t let go to waste. I’d feel so awful returning home ten days from now and opening my fridge to see them covered in mold.
There’s this little nagging list of things in my head that I kinda-sorta wanted to do before leaving. Some things I’ve already checked off, like explaining to my neighbor about the sprinkler system. Others, probably won’t get done, like packing cute little sandwiches in ziploc bags to take on our first flight. Like emptying my inbox of all e-mails so nothing was left outstanding. Like writing this post so that my friend J would have something to read this morning. Nevermind that it’s already afternoon.
It’s nice to have solid things in your life – like airplane flights – that represent change and don’t give you that much time for dillydallying unless you want to watch them fly by over your head without you. And if you haven’t finished dealing with all the details, then oh well. As long as you’ve got your passport, you better just hop on board and daydream of blueberries.
Filed under: Rain
Today I believed the weatherman when he said it would rain. I believed him as if he was a high priest with a direct line to the weather gods. At a 90% chance, you’d think the odds were good wouldn’t you? Still, I biked to work. All day I felt glum that I wouldn’t be able to bike back home. And then at the end of the workday I looked at the gray – but dry – sky in befuddlement. I returned home without a single drop of rain falling on me from the sky as I pedaled. I felt so disappointed.
I always prided myself on knowing myself well. Even if I sometimes acted irrationally, I could usually figure out what was behind my actions. I knew my weaknesses and strengths and tried to behave accordingly. But, then this morning at about 2 AM, events were set into motion that made me wonder who on earth I was in fall 2007.
I couldn’t sleep last night. My brain was restless, thinking a thousand thoughts a minute. The thought popped into my head, “I wonder if I should find my passport just to be prepared for flying to Belize on Friday.” The last time I left the country was a trip to Costa Rica in October. I hadn’t thought much about the passport since then. I’d already begun a pile of items that I knew I wanted to take on the upcoming trip: New Yorkers I’ve been saving up for the plane ride; a new bathing suit ready to be debuted on Central American beaches; my sports wristwatch. “The passport certainly belonged in this pile,” I thought and realized that I would never get to sleep unless I had placed it there.
So, a little groggy, I ambled downstairs and began looking for the passport in the usual spots. I knew it was last in a ziploc bag with foreign currency. There are some shoeboxes where I usually keep important documents and random electronics and I looked through these. Et voila, I found the ziploc bag! Coins jangled inside, but there was no passport. Perplexed I searched an entire bookshelf worth of papers. Some organized and in 3-ring binders, some loose. And I searched through two bags of crap that I keep meaning to organize. Still nothing. I searched through another cabinet where I keep all my art materials and store all my letters. Nothing. By this point at least 45 minutes had passed. It was 2:45 in the morning and I was feeling anxious.
I texted my boyfriend, “I can not find my passport.” He called immediately because he’s often awake at these godawful hours. “Where could it be?” he said. “That’s the thing,” I replied, “I thought I knew.” I looked online to discover that to replace a lost passport I’d have to make an appointment, drive to Houston, take a number and wait. And I damn well better have my birth certificate and a driver’s license with me.
Problem was I didn’t have a certified copy of my birth certificate, just a photocopy. And I was born in Massachusetts so this would require some finagling. That and the fact that I had 4 days left of work and I had intended on actually working, not taking a crazy drive to another city.
So I kept searching. I flipped through every single book on two bookshelves. I looked through all my suitcases, through my paper bags of receipts that I one day I swear I’m going to sort. Through every single magazine I’ve kept since 2005, unable to throw them away. Through my CD collection and my DVDs. Through my toolbox. Underneath my couches – which despite the dust – are remarkably clutter free. Finally, at 4:15 AM, I acknowledged defeat and sunk into my bed, my heart beating fast.
This morning at 7:15 AM, I began again. I started with my bedroom – another sweep through my bookshelves. Hey, I even looked underneath the rug, underneath mattresses. Listening to NPR, I heard about the hurricane that’s supposed to hit Houston within 24 hours. I called my boyfriend, “Won’t you please come over and help me look?” I started water for tea. I called work, “Yeah, I’m going to be late,” I said. I went back downstairs and began the search again. I figured, “Why not my drawers? Maybe I put the passport in with my socks?” I was rummaging through these, underneath an enormous bag of unused clothes hangers when he arrived.
“Will you make me some tea before anything else?” I said. As he poured evaporated milk into the tea cup, I glanced at three Ikea drawers full of spices and dried beans. “Hmm,” I thought, “I haven’t tried here.”
I opened the top drawer containing liquorice and daal, a couple packets of Emergen-C and trail mix. My hand felt the plastic of a ziploc bag underneath it all. I pulled it out, holding my breath in tightly, and there wrapped up in a photocopy of itself, was my passport. I exhaled loudly and almost did a jig with glee.
“That’s funny,” said my boyfriend, “I thought that drawer looked suspicious. I was going to check there after I finished the tea.” He put a scoop of sugar into my mug.
Now why hadn’t I known myself well enough to look there at 2 ‘o’ clock in the morning? Seriously, what was I thinking?!
Filed under: Dreams
On Saturday morning, the alarm went off reminding me to go outside and set the sprinkler on the front lawn. A few minutes later, slightly damp, I crawled back in bed. I sleepily set the alarm for another 30 minutes and closed my eyes again.
Immediately I began to dream that I was walking with my brother:
“I fear that you think I’m repressed,” I said, “I fear that you believe I’ve got it all wrong.”
The day felt frozen, no trees swaying in the wind, no change of light as clouds floated in front of the sun. The day looked cold, but it was just neutral. We were home, but I had never been down this path before.
“It feels good not to be angry,” I said. And he told me how I always was the one who did everything right, did I know how that felt? “But I didn’t mean to,” I said.
We’d been in a dark, gray building together with others and I had asked him to come out for this walk. I was surprised he had agreed to be alone with me.
The stillness of the grass and the air felt calming. As though we had all the time in the world and I could tell him everything I always wanted him to know. As if we might fully comprehend, almost as if through osmosis, what the other was saying.
My alarm went off and I roused myself from sleep to go outside again and turn off the sprinkler. The day was already bright, hot and sticky.
Back in bed, I tried to find the dream again but couldn’t.
Awake I can remember the quiet path we were walking down like a memory, even though it doesn’t exist outside of that dream.
