Unpronounceable

Now I spend
My days and nights
Looking at
A depression on the sofa
And over time it flattens out
But I am still depressed

Your name it is unpronounceable
Distorted and illegible
I never figured out what that was
If I couldn’t then I know I never will


-They Might Be Giants

Where that place used to be...

Although I’m no longer religious (at all; I’m an atheist now) a place that I will always hold dear to me is Kansas Christian Church, in Kansas, Illinois. I tell people that I was raised in that church, and it’s true; I spent many hours in that beautiful building, not only learning about the Bible but forming bonds with a community in a way I have since found very difficult in any other setting.

I started attending that church in 1983 when, at the age of 8, my mother, sisters and I moved from Virginia to Illinois to live with our grandmother. Our mother was dying, our dad was in no condition to take care of us, and that was what was decided. My grandfather had been the preacher there in the ‘60s; he died suddenly in 1970 but my grandmother stayed on and continued to live and worship there.

When I was young, my favorite church experience was a Wednesday after-school group called J.A.M. (Jesus and me) where we’d have games, snacks, and lessons that were fun. As I grew older, there were more serious times; Sunday school and small groups and Bible studies for teenagers wanting to get more serious about their faith. I also spent many Sundays volunteering in the nursery, helping take care of little ones so their parents could attend services. Sunday nights were middle and high school youth group, where I had not only a great group of friends, but also a youth pastor who was funny, talented, and more generous with his time and love than I even appreciated at the time.

The building itself was full of memories for me – not just the usual Sunday worship, but all the other events: potluck dinners in the basement, revivals, funerals, weddings – including my own first wedding. I can recall so many individual moments in that place, and in the tapestry of my adolescence, it features prominently.

A few years ago, the church burned nearly to the ground. The morning after it began, I was getting updates on Facebook throughout the day. I wept that day – a lot. Although it was no longer a place of belief for me, it was still a monument to how and where I grew up. And it was, within a matter of hours, gone. The beautiful stained glass windows - shattered. The sturdy brick I thought would last forever – crumbled. The plaque commemorating my grandfather’s service there – melted into oblivion.

I was back home recently and walked through the newly built church for the very first time since the old one was destroyed. I knew it would feel strange but I wasn’t prepared for the rush of emotion that swept through me as my sister walked me through and showed me the gorgeous new building. Tears sprang to my eyes as I kept thinking, “This isn’t it.” I always said, when I was a believer, that it wasn’t the building that was the church; it was the people. And while that is still true, those bricks and windows and beautiful wooden pews and brass fittings meant something to me. And they are gone, for good – just like my faith was, long before the structure ceased to be.

In a way I am glad I live so far from home; I’m sure being there would make it difficult to be honest about who I am now; a non-believer. And it would be sad for me to be in that new church building from time to time as I know I would have to be, realizing I was standing in the same spot but in a completely different place. And so I will keep my memories and live in my present, grateful that I can keep them separate most of the time.

The church on my wedding day in 1995...

Me at the piano - about age 16 or 17

The night of the fire

The aftermath

Friendship: A Precious Collection

When I was younger, I felt the same way a lot of "not popular" girls felt: guys made better friends than girls. I don't know why - I had some really good girlfriends in high school, so it's not like I didn't know how to form, navigate, and enjoy those female friendships. But there was something about guys - like I could tell them anything. As I look back now I think maybe they were interested in being more than friends with me, and maybe that was why it was so easy for me. It probably was not for them.

At any rate, now that I am 40, I have done a lot of thinking about my female friendships. There is something about those relationships that is almost ethereal in nature; I am not sure how well I can put it into words, but I'm certainly going to try.

Relationships change - all of them do. Some of them survive the changes; some do not. Some are bound by geography or even just a sense of proximity, but some last long after the physical and metaphysical connections are frayed or even severed. In fact, ten years ago, I don't think I'd have believed I'd have a friend for 10 years or more. I thought I'd learned the nature of friendships was that they come and go, and to just enjoy them while they lasted.

But my very best friend in the world - we've been friends about that long, and I don't expect it to end, not ever, not even when one of us dies. And it has not always been smooth sailing. There was a time I thought our friendship was ruptured for good - when I married my soon-to-be ex-husband. She knew he was not good for me, and was unwilling to support me in the marriage. Clearly, I did it anyway. And she made her peace with it but never with him. And she turned out to be right, and never once has said, "I told you so." Instead, she held me in her heart through my tears.

She is my go-to girl, and I am hers. We understand one another in a way that probably no one else in this world does - no family members, no spouses, no other friends. We find each other in times of trouble, knowing whatever we've said or done, there will be no judgment, just acceptance. We'll seek one another's counsel on matters that we dare not share with anyone else. We find laughter in terrible moments, and cry with each other over everything - happy, sad, frustrating, angry, celebratory.

She is a bottomless pit of "interesting" - I will never stop being fascinated by her. It's a good quality to have in a friend.  She has the most open heart of anyone I know and I always wish that I could be like her in that way. And, sure, she gets hurt, but it doesn't stop her. It's one of the things I admire most about her.

This woman and I  - we have weathered so many storms together. Bad marriages, sick children, wayward children, personal health crises, financial difficulties, problems with other friends. We've gotten frustrated with each other and sometimes even mad at each other. But we always, always loved each other.

The kind of unconditional love that she has shown me, I don't know if I've ever quite received from anyone not related to me. I hope that I do that for her - I certainly try to. Neither of us is perfect (and honestly, we don't try all that hard to be because we both find it boring), and we accept one another with all our flaws and chinks in the armor and liver spots and scars.

I feel the need to add this: we do not live anywhere close to each other, so our friendship is not based on geography (although you could say it is somewhat based on the metaphysical proximity...we hang around the same places online!). In fact, we met online first, and it was several years before we met in person. She is in Kentucky; I am in New Mexico. But phones and the Internet keep us close in those many moments we cannot be physically near each other.

And, she's not my only friend. She's my very BEST friend, to be sure, but I'm blessed to know a lot of women who know me, love me, and want to spend time with me. There is a beauty in a collection of women being women together, dwelling in our gender and our shared and common life experiences, laughing and talking and enjoying friendship with others who understand.

I still have guy friends - of course I do; they are indeed capable of deep and meaningful relationships that don't involve sex. And they are dear to me. But my, what my girls do for me. They are my sisters, mothers, daughters, cousins, and everything in between, fulfilling me in ways that bring out my gratitude for a full and amazing life. They are, quite simply, precious.

Be brave, survivor.

Some days, it is harder to follow that advice than others. And yet, tonight on a drive through a dark, rainy night with slick shiny streets to an urgent care with a split-lipped son, I saw those two words. One car had a license plate "BEBRAVE" and another had "SURVIVR." How could I not turn that over in my mind a time or two?

Being brave, and counting on my history as a survivor, should come easily. In a way, it does. It's my practical Midwestern upbringing saying, "Girl, just get on with it."

But today, I see losses on the horizon stacking up. Fears that may or may not come true, but the hints of them have me in quite a state. And it's not that I think any of it will break me; no, I am wiser than that. But it feels like they will all hit at once, and I won't know how to cope or what to do. Just when I felt like maybe my life was coming together again - BAM! Another hit.

I need to get better at discarding the things that don't matter. No matter how much I want some things, they have proven to not be good for me. In the back of my mind, I think, "But it could get better! What if you were supposed to say yes this time? What if you miss something?" And I know it's faulty thinking - yes, anything COULD happen, but not everything is likely to. And if I could learn to do that, it would certainly ease some of the anxiety about events swirling around me.

And so...tonight I will gather my thoughts and my fears and my few stray tears, and I will read a book and kiss my boys and close my eyes and find the courage to survive another day.

Mistaken

Not being able to replace someone 

is not the same thing as missing her.

Windows of time

Tell me your story
And I'll tell you mine
I love what we do
In these windows of time.

I want to hear
Of your whole lovely life
The good, bad, and boring
And even your wife

I'll open to you
The things that you seek
I'll show my world
With no need for mystique

But don't be afraid
If some tears do sneak out
I feel it all deeply -
That's what life's about

So tell me your story
And I'll tell you mine
Take my hand and my heart
In these windows of time.

Not Little Women

There are 4 of us girls, babies our mother had, each from a different father. We don't look alike. We probably sound a little alike. But it seems we are each almost more like our fathers than our mother, in appearance anyway. I'm as white as they come; my two middle sisters are half Mexican, and the oldest is white like me. I'm tall; the oldest is very short, and the middle two are average height.

When we were little girls, we naturally spent a lot of time together. We were all girly girls. Christmas in our house was like Mattel threw up  - Barbies and Barbie paraphernalia everywhere. On holidays our mother would attempt to dress us somewhat alike. Our babysitter made us each a Holly Hobby doll, each according to our size. We each had a first holy communion in the Catholic church, complete with white dresses, tights, and veil.

When we fought, it was nearly always the middle two against my oldest sister and me. I don't know if it was because the middle two look alike and we didn't, or what. I didn't even realize my dad wasn't their dad until my parents split up. It just never occurred to me, even though they were brown. Their "real" dads were not a part of our lives, and I, an innocent kid never imagined they might have another father somewhere.

My sisters have always been a huge part of my life. From making me an auntie for the first time at age 13, to telling me about periods and boys, to sharing motherhood with me, they have been there. Of course with 4 girls there will be fights and drama; even with all of us in our 40s, that still happens. But beneath it all is love. You don't fight with people you don't love; it isn't worth the effort. At least, not for me.

We've all suffered our various trials, starting with losing our mother when I, the youngest, was 8 years old. And as we grew up, the tribulations added up. Mental illness, financial problems, abusive men, sick children. We've been through it. And yet, the four of us - we smile and shine. We laugh and drink and play. We tell the world, "Fuck it; I got this."

But make no mistake: we weep, we fall, we crumble, we melt. But the substance running through us, whatever that thing is that makes us wake up, take another step, another risk, another try -  there seems to be a lot of it. Because through our darkest fears, our scariest realities, our driest seasons - we keep going, loving, doing, being.

I love these women more than I ever knew when I was younger. They were my first best friends, my worst enemies, my tormenters and my protectors. They can take me down, bring up, sit beside me and hold me in a way no one else in this world can.

They are

My

Sisters.

A Brief Interruption

I won’t go back
To that place
Where I thought, hoped
That you might be
Him
I can’t erase
The things you said
Critique without
Compliment
Judgment without
Understanding
You only care
About You
You are the center
of Everything
Everyone
And when you’re not
the world is wrong
You fuck
and then judge
And let no one
Truly close
You delight in being vague
Your communication currency is
   Grey
       Or Twilight
          - Neither clear nor good nor bad, just
Undecipherable
So I ask questions
I open my heart
And you crush it.
Or at least…try.
But I know this:
I am better than that
I deserve more
I demand it
And someone luckier than you
More open than you
More loving than you
Will have the prize that is me.

I just don't know

A song I have been listening to over and over again lately (so much so that I spent an hour trying to pick it out on my piano and finally got some of it) is called Jericho, another song by Mary Chapin Carpenter. It is hauntingly beautiful, with nothing but a piano accompaniment. But the words, as usual, are what gets me...and especially the very last line:

"For if love is a labyrinth, then my heart is Jericho."

That has never been me. But given my circumstances lately, I wonder if it is. But maybe I need a little bit of Jericho to protect me in the labyrinth.

The problem is I don't want protection. I want the twists and turns and dead ends and peril that makes the glorious prize at the end worth it. And I want someone who feels the same.

Grief

I don't know what got me to thinking about grief the other night. For a long time, it was just so much a part of who I was, that I didn't think to name it: grief was life. Life was grief. And then...then the rest of my life happened. And it really wasn't too bad: lots of additions, fewer subtractions.

I learned grief at such a young age: when I was 8, I learned my father had done some Very Bad Things. As a daddy's girl, it was devastating. And yet, I loved him. And this revelation came in the midst of my mother fighting breast cancer, which she ultimately lost. They split a few months before she died. A defining moment in my childhood, indeed.

Then when I married for the first time, I was lucky to have an amazing mother-in-law. I was ecstatic. I was sure that was my 2nd chance at having a mother. And not long after my wedding, she fell ill as well. Just over a year after my wedding, and 3 weeks after the birth of my first child, we lost her too. I was devastated. It was a good year before I didn't often spontaneously burst into tears, missing her.

And then...then a long time passed, with no serious losses. A divorce, yes, a loss. And grief. But not the grief that comes with  death.

And then my father died. To say our relationship was complicated is probably an understatement. But the things that happened when I was a child had dimmed in my memory; he was a wonderful grandfather and a good dad to an adult daughter. I couldn't have asked for more: generous, fun, kind, and had chosen a lovely partner who I am closer to than ever before. And then he left - far too soon. He was supposed to see his grandchildren grow up, and know his great-grandchildren. But he can't.

He.

Is.

Gone.

I was not prepared for how much I would miss him - for how his death would bereave me. Though his death was sudden, it shouldn't have been completely unexpected: he'd been ill off and on with various ailments. And during those times of serious illness, I thought in a way, I might be relieved if he died. But I have not, not for one minute since he passed away, felt relieved. All I feel is loss and grief, and the sense that he was not finished. WE were not finished. But we are, and I can't change that. I cannot put him back together, and hug him and talk to him and hear him shout "Jessie!" the way that only he could.

One thing I have learned is that grief will not wither on the vine. You can ignore it, you can pretend it doesn't exist, you can move on in smiles and jokes and trips to the grocery store and episodes of your favorite TV show. But grief will always find you.

It found me in the grocery aisle when  a Lynyrd Skynyrd song came on. It found me late at night when I found a selfie he'd left on the computer I inherited from him. It found me in a photo of him as a young man. It found me in the moments of my sons' lives when all I could think was, "I wish he was here." Grief finds you; do not be fooled that you can trick it into never unlocking your front door just because you've gotten on with your life.

A song I listened to over and over again shortly after losing my dad is called "Learning the World," by one of my favorite songwriters, Mary Chapin Carpenter. Mary gets it in a way that I wish more people would:

Grief rides quietly on the passenger side
Unwanted company on a long, long drive
It turns down the quiet songs and turns up the din
It goes where you go, it’s been where you’ve been

And pushing your empty cart mile after mile
Leaves you weeping in the wilderness
Of the supermarket aisle
And in the late night kitchen light it sits in a chair
Watching you pretend that it’s not really there

But it is, so it is and you ask
Are you predator or friend
The future or the past?

It hands you your overcoat and opens the door
You are learning the world again just as before
But the first time was childhood
And now you are grown
Broken wide open, cut to the bone

And all that you used to know is of no use at all
The same eyes you’ve always had have you walking into walls
And the same heart can’t understand
Why it’s so hard to feel
What used to be true
What’s now so unreal

But it is, so it is and you say
I wish I were the wind so that I could blow away

Grief sits silently on the edge of your bed
It’s closing your eyes, it’s stroking your head
The dear old companion is taking up air
Watching you pretend that it’s not really there.

Moving on, through, under, over

Oh, but life can be cruel and difficult.

My coworker moved house last week. She had been trying to buy the home she was renting, but her financing fell through (to do with something she discovered during her recent divorce after a very long marriage). Now, normally moving house is just stressful and expensive. But in her case, it was downright heartbreaking. Soul consuming. Gut wrenching.

See, she and her family moved into that house about 5 months before her middle child, her only son, was killed in a plane crash at the age of 14. She was forced to leave the last place her son lived. Even though they'd only been there a few months, leaving the last space he dwelled in was devastating for her.

She and I have talked a lot about this and about how difficult it is leaving that place where she last saw, heard, touched her beloved boy. My heart absolutely goes out to her. I can't tell you the number of times I have just wanted to put him back together and present him to her, so she can once again hear him call her "Mom." Oh, how I wish I had that power.

On top of the moving, she got a cold, so she was dealing with physical illness as well as a stress so deep and so engulfing that she wondered if she needed to quit working and go on disability. Her losses run deep - her son, her marriage, and her eldest daughter going away to college 8 hours away.  But she is making it through, day by day.

I brought her a bottle of wine today, along with a card. I found the card from some that the Epilepsy Foundation had sent to me; the cards were all paintings done by people with epilepsy. This particular one featured differently colored human shapes, piled up in sort of a pyramid, lifting up the one on top. I felt it appropriate, hoping she is feeling lots of support.

I specifically picked out a wine from Chile,  and I told her the reason why: it is one of my favorite places on earth, and holds good memories of a place filled with beauty, kindness, and the friendliest folks I've ever met. And I wrote that I hope she finds that in her new place - a place to build new memories and fill with amazing people. I think she will, if she can make it through this really, really difficult time.

After all the devastation and loss she has endured, I want that for her, more than anything.

How Much Time Do I Spend in Nature? (another prompt from the NYT)

The short answer? Not enough.

I think my love affair with nature started when I was very young. I was born in a small town in West Virginia called Big Chimney. There was a river behind our house, and creeks in various places. Being outside was a fact of life when the weather was nice (and even when it wasn't). Some of my earliest memories are with my older sisters, catching crawdads in a creek or sucking on honesuckle flowers we plucked from vines during an evening walk. In fact, the scent of honeysuckle to this day takes me back to my very youngest days that I remember - it positively transports me to a place I loved.

With 4 kids, my parents couldn't afford lavish vacations. We spent our free time camping, fishing, or at the beach. We were constantly interacting with our natural world - digging worms in the yard for bait, wandering the woods on a camping trip or being dragged around a botanical garden so my photographer-hobbyist mother could take a million pictures.

And even when I moved to my grandmother's house, her little town offered many chances to interact with nature. She kept a huge garden and several fruit trees - we rarely bought fruit or vegetables because we grew it all, and canned or froze everything we couldn't immediately use.

I spent my free time riding my bike out in the country. I was outside every chance I could get.

And now, as an adult, living in the most beautiful place I have ever lived - it's all around me. The Sandia and Manzano mountains still captivate me. I love hiking in the foothills - I delight in the occasional lizard sighting, I marvel at the desert flowers, and inhale air that is so fresh and clean and pure.

There is so much beauty in this world that it makes me want to weep at times. The colors, the sounds, the textures and tastes and sheer aura of it all together is just incredible. If there is a church for an atheist - nature is it for me. It's my church. And I wish I had more time to worship there.

Do you think you're brave? (writing prompt from the New York Times)

Ah, of course I picked an easy prompt: yes, I think I'm brave. No question about that.

The funny thing is, it is things least likely to really hurt me that I tell people I am afraid of - scary movies, snakes, and zombies - that I actively avoid. Shut up, I know avoiding zombies is not an active decision!

I started off brave - I had to be. Watching my mother fight cancer and her husband, watching my family explode when I was just 8, moving to a completely different part of the country sharing a classroom with kids who'd all known each other practically since birth? That was scary.

I navigated my way through a serious trauma in my childhood to what was, as I look back on it, a pretty idyllic upbringing. I didn't have everything I wanted but I certainly had everything I needed. And I had the best thing of all: a fearless grandmother to raise me.

Oh sure, she was not one to take risks - she warned us all the time about all the mights and woulds and coulds. And whenever someone asks me what is something I'd change about the way I was parented, that's about the only thing I would change. But she stood mentally healthy and optimistic despite life really trying to knock her down.

I'm the same way. I think I'm brave because at my age, I know the hard things that happen. I know there are a million ways to break a heart, and plenty of them have nothing to do with romantic love. I know living means a risk of dying, loving means a risk of hurting, and the hundred little decisions we make every day can have consequences you won't know until much, much later. I am brave because when it counts, I don't take the easy way. Oh, it might take me a little while to gather up my reserves and get off the established path, but I always do eventually.

I'm brave because I do take risks. Most of the time they are pretty calculated, but I do take them. I took a risk moving 1000 miles from friends and family with a man I very much loved at the time. I took a risk leaving him when I had next to nothing to keep myself and my children afloat. I took a risk when I tried marriage again later, and it fell apart too. I'm currently taking risks thinking maybe, just maybe, I'm not a complete moron at love and relationships and that I might still have something to offer.

But really, bravery isn't about never being afraid. I'm afraid plenty. I'm afraid when my son is on a weekend camping trip without me, and what if a really bad seizure and injury occurs. I'm afraid when I get a mammogram every year. I'm afraid when I get a new project at work that I haven't seen before and I want to do so well and I worry that I won't.  I am afraid when I speak honestly with someone about something I know they will not want to hear. Oh yes, there are things I am afraid of.

But I continue to participate in this life making choices every day that aren't always the easy ones. I continue believing in myself enough to do that, because...

I.

Am.

Brave.

False Start

Pissed off and broken
Harsh words spoken
Get out of my life
No - come back,
Be my wife!
Get out of my head
This feeling's not dead
I meant what I said
But did I?

The Lump

This is fiction I wrote several years ago.

She turned on Blue’s Clues for them, and made sure they each had a drink and a snack. One was sinking into the recliner, and the other stretched himself out across the sofa.

“Can you guys be good for just a little while so Mommy can take a shower?” she asked, with a hint of warning in her voice.

“Ok, Mommy.” They turned their attention to their snacks and started singing along with the TV, “We’re all looking for Blue’s clues…”

She smiled and walked to the bathroom, knowing there would probably be a mess or two to clean up when she got out. She left the bathroom door cracked open, in case they needed her, and turned on the water for her shower. She stepped out of her clothes and removed her hair clip and glasses. She tested the water, and seeing that it was warm enough, stepped in the tub.

As she started getting her hair wet, she began her usual routine of racing thoughts. She remembered she had to sign up her older son for soccer today, and get the water bill paid. She saw the caulking in the tub needed fixing, and made another mental note to get that done this week. As she poured out the last drips of shampoo from the bottle, she was reminded that she was out of shampoo, soap, and rice. Rice? Where did that thought come from?  Oh, now she remembered. She wanted to make rice for dinner last night and realized, halfway through cooking everything else, that she didn’t have any.

She sighed and took a deep breath. It just never ends, she thought.

She looked up at her shower card, the one that reminded her to do monthly breast self exams. There was a circle to punch out for each month, and she noticed she hadn’t done her exam this month yet.

“Now’s as good a time as any,” she muttered to herself. It was all a matter of routine, really, so she could tell her doctor she actually did them. She never expected to find anything there. Sometimes she thought she was too healthy – maybe if she was sick, she could get a break!

She moved the fingers of her right hand slowly over her left breast, feeling all the way up to her underarms, and gently circling the whole breast, from the outside in. As she continued examining herself, her thoughts ran back to the weekend’s events, turning over in her mind the various friendly exchanges she’d had.

She moved to her right breast, feeling gently all around with her fingers flat, just as the card said to. I really need to get the kids some new jeans, she thought. They all have holes in—

What was this? Her fingers stopped. She was sure she just imagined what she felt. She gently ran her fingers over the same spot, and there it was again. That spot was harder – and it didn’t move. Tears sprang to her eyes.

Don’t panic, she thought. It’s probably nothing. Most of the time it’s nothing.

But she couldn’t help it. She remembered her earlier thought about wanting to be sick. She remembered the hundred mundane details that all the sudden didn’t seem so important. She remembered watching her father cry when the lumps in her mother’s breasts started the slow process of killing her.

She wiped a tear away, and turned off the shower. She took a deep breath and grabbed the nearest towel, carefully drying herself while trying to avoid that breast.

She couldn’t keep it in. She shut and locked the door, turned on the bathroom fan so the children wouldn’t be able to hear, and she sobbed into the towel.

It never ends, does it? Maybe I was wrong, she thought. Maybe it does.

Falling.

I heard somewhere (or maybe I read it) a long time ago that you fall for someone because of the way you feel when you're with them - not necessarily just the way you feel about them. I think there is a lot of wisdom in that.

When I'm with someone who doesn't really make me feel good about myself, it's hard to maintain interest or desire. We all want to be loved and cherished and adored a little bit, right? So when we do that for someone else, and it feels as though it's either not noticed, or not reciprocated, or both, we start to wonder if it's worth pursuing any longer. And the older I get, the less willing I am to give myself away for nothing or close to it.

It's a real shame, because sometimes two people are a great fit, but somehow one or both just do not know how to make the other feel significant.

Dunno...can't figure it all out tonight, I guess.

Odd Bedfellows

She was often surrounded by people and yet, somehow, the loneliness was crushing. How could such an invisible thing cause such a strong reaction, not just in her mind but in her body as well? Nothing worked right anymore – her appetite dwindled to nothing, her muscles ached, she was so tired but could never sleep. Betrayed by even her own self, she lay there on the bed, weeping silently.

She glanced at her phone on the bedside table. Text messages flashed on the screen. Her friends were concerned. But she couldn’t bring herself to read, let alone answer. She could guess what they said.

“I can’t breathe. This lawsuit is killing us.” She knew she needed to be there for Mary, but not today. It wasn’t in her.

“Goddamn teenagers. I am failing as a mother!” Anna could always be counted on for drama with her daughter.

“I hate him.” Sister Connie and her boyfriend/boss.

It was all too much. She just wanted to feel good and her usual strength for those around her was more absent than water in Death Valley.

She wanted someone to ask  - really ask, and really hear – how she was doing. She wanted to be told she was pretty, worth something, desired, admired. She ached to be found worth pursuing in a real way with real words and real voices and a real touch and feel. She wanted to be more than a distraction.

And yet she held back. It’s going to hurt again, she thought. It’s always going to hurt again. She felt her imperfections earned her the injuries large and small, and never really believed she deserved more than that. She'd been told that by people she loved and respected, so it had to be at least partly true, right? It just seemed that for so many people, there was just no room for error anymore. Missteps cost much more than they should. Communication was simultaneously very cheap, and very expensive.

Drying her eyes, and begging herself for the strength to rise, she made a plan to make peace with the loneliness.

And then her phone rang. 

She dropped it in the glass of water on her night stand.

Red Faced

August 20, 2015   6:00 pm

Writing prompt, The Writer’s Idea Workshop, p. 36

Embarrassing moment in high school…


When I was in high school, I dated this guy named Mark. He was actually my first “real” boyfriend, though not my first love interest. We started hanging out when I was in 9th grade, and he was in 11th. I hadn’t been part of this group of friends before, and it being a small town, I’m still kind of surprised it happened. We just seemed to gel.

Mark took an interest in me first. He asked me out, and I accepted. Little did I know this did not sit well with the girls in the group, who were all jealous. They thought I swooped in and “stole” the man, the favored prince of the group. In this little clique, I believe the girls way outnumbered the boys. I, being a naive 14 year old, had no idea I’d done anything wrong in reciprocating Mark’s interest until much later.

At any rate, he took me on a date to his Tae Kwon Do instructor’s house, that night gave me my first kiss, and everything grew from there. Before long we were “going together.”  We made out a lot - a LOT! - but I was unwilling to go much further than hands under the shirt. I thought he was ok with this.

I found out wrong (one of many times I was wrong about many things). One evening after school, my sister Heidi came to talk to me. Whereas I was a 9th grade nerd, she was 3 years older than me and very popular. We didn’t have the same circle of friends, but she still kind of looked out of for me.

“Jessica,” she said with concern, “did you know the whole school is talking about you?” I had no idea, of course - see naive (and incredibly religious, and pre-Internet) 14-year-old. “I don’t even know how to tell you this. Did you know Mark cheated on you?”

I can’t even remember exactly how I felt. I do recall I’d felt some distance between us but I wasn’t sure what it was about  - I certainly didn’t believe he’d cheat on me.

“Angel Bottom gave him a blow job.” Now, at this point I was STILL very naive. This was pre-internet, remember? I thought a blow job=sex. As in, full on intercourse. I was crushed. I mean, once I found out what it actually was, I was still crushed, but yeah. Angel, one of my close friends in this group, filled in where I would not, and my boyfriend was more than happy to accept her charity.

The next morning I had to go to school. I was sad, upset, humiliated. The whole school knew, apparently. Even our other close friends, who had chosen NOT to tell me. My very best friend, Liz, said it just wasn’t her place (did I mention she was jealous I was dating him?). So I didn’t really want to go. But go I did, because in a high school of 90 kids, you don’t skip without your guardian knowing.

Normally Mark picked me up in his old ’75 Ford Grenada (primer gray!) on his way to school and I rode with him, even though I only lived a block from school. That morning I left before I knew he’d get there. He got to school and found me in the hall and asked why I hadn’t waited for him. I didn’t say anything, that I remember. I just put his class ring in his hand; I had it covered in yarn at the back and had been wearing it, as girlfriends did then (do they still do that? I don’t know!). There were students all around us passing this way and that, on their way to class. It was all I could do not to cry in front of everyone.

To his credit, he did seem very remorseful. And later that year we tried getting back together but it just didn’t work for very long for a lot of reasons. I probably never should have tried after that. But I’m a forgiving person, especially when it comes to someone I love, and a little part of me will always love that guy.