Batter Up!

Two hours spent sitting on aluminum bleachers outside an aluminum fence housing eighteen boys wielding aluminum bats is, for me, excruciating.

In spite of a somewhat chilly wind, the sun was blazing today, and I dressed accordingly, offering up as much winter-white skin as decorum allowed. The kind of warmth only God can provide got me through the third inning. As our pitcher walked his fourth batter in succession, I watched an opposing player lope home for an unearned score, and reassembled my limbs for maximum exposure. “You can do this!”, played like a mantra inside my head.

Blessedly, the game ended just as I feared ennui would surely overtake me. As I struggled not to remember that this was just a practice game, and that the regular season still stretched before me, Shane emerged from the dugout. We walked, arm-in-arm, towards the concession stand and lunch, while he rehashed his performance. And, I remembered; the warmth of my skin as it browns is nice, but this is my favorite part of baseball season.

I Feel Lucky

The advocate working at the rescue center wasn’t completely honest.

We were looking for a boxer. We left with a shepherd-mix.

“Look! See the way she uses her front paws? I’m sure she’s part boxer! She has to be!”

It really didn’t matter. She had already spoken to me through limpid brown eyes that said, “I’ve seen a lot of things I’d rather I hadn’t.” We had much in common.

She was thin. Despite the “impeccable care” provided by her previous owner, heartworms had invaded her body, dictating she ingest large amounts of poison over several weeks which the veterinarian hoped would kill the worms before killing the host.

Lucky did what she’d always done. She survived.

She rode, stoically, in the back seat on the way to her new home, and upon arriving, acted as any dog would when introduced to new environs. Loping from room to room, she encountered my six-year-old son, who felt the exuberance of his new pet down to the ends of his fingers which he attempted to wrap around Lucky’s head in pursuit of a sloppy dog-kiss. What he got instead, was a nip to the nose, and as I attempted to calm him I looked into sad, brown pools of regret and wondered who felt worse, the biter or the bitten. The large scar over Lucky’s left eye assured me she knew the humiliation of attack.

She barks a lot, sounding off anytime a walked dog parades in front of the house. And, it isn’t necessary to look out the window to know that the pot-bellied pig is grazing in the grass across the street. Lucky is always on guard.

Our other two dogs give Lucky a wide berth as she has, on separate occasions, let each of them know she is boss. And, if their play gets out of hand, it is Lucky who steps in to referee a peaceful conclusion. Lucky’s maternal instincts survived the surgery evidenced by the tattoo burned into her lower abdomen.

The office is quiet as I read what I have just written. A scraping sound grabs my attention, and I turn to see Lucky standing at the door to the puppy’s metal-fenced crate. She lifts her paw, resting it against the wire until I reach out to open the door.

The eyes she turns on me tell me all I need to know as she lowers her head and slowly enters the space. She lies down, looking at me once more, before placing her snout on her fawn-colored paws.

Strange dogs parade by our house unannounced. Revelry ensues in another room, unabated. Lucky curls up inside a small, secure space, and rests.

Southern Snow

Snow falls as thick, fluffy, wads of ice that slap the tops of puddles left by yesterday’s rain.

The grumbling sound of thunder accompanies the shouts of children undeterred from summer pastimes, as a baseball splits the flakes on its way to a tobogganed batter.

Paddled cactus fronds bend with fluffy, white weight.

Birds jump about leaving three-pronged impressions in the green and white lawn, while, seeing them, the dog pauses at the back door, unwilling to brave the blizzard despite the temptation.

But, he watches.

From his perch in front of the windows, his ears perk as he watches white stuff fall from a pewter colored sky, covering everything it touches. He watches hooded, mittened children run and play, and gather slush, crunching it between hands they no longer feel, before hurtling it at the nearest unsuspecting target. I wonder what he thinks…

I join him at the window, and wrapping myself in my own arms as a guard against the icy glass, we marvel at the wonder and beauty of a southern snow.

Are You Really Gonna Eat That?

“You’re actually going to eat that?”

Gingerly, careful not to touch it’s fiery lip, I slid the bowl of steaming cream-of-chicken soup out the microwave.

“Yeah!”, I answered. “It’s only got one-hundred-twenty calories.” I pushed the red and white can in her direction.

Slowly stirring to break up small clumps of chickeny goo, I looked up to see a look of utter distaste on Susan’s face.

“What?”

“I just never saw anyone eat it. I mean I use it in recipes and all, but I’ve never actually eaten it.”

I slowly walked the hot soup to my designated spot at the break table and joined another co-worker who was arranging chicken salad atop a concoction of apple chunks and red pepper strips.

“Apples and peppers?”, I asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Oh yes!”, she exclaimed. “I make my chicken salad the same way I make my potato salad. I dump in anything I can find in my refrigerator.”

I sat with that a while before turning the conversation back to the soup.

Sipping first, I offered, “I just remembered how I got started eating cream-of-chicken soup.”

Two interested faces turned my way.

“My mother used to give it to us when we were sick. She started with chicken noodle, and when that stayed down, we graduated to this.” I slurped another spoonful.

“And ginger ale!”, I said after swallowing.

“My mother gave us ginger ale.” Susan concurred, still casting a doubtful eye in the direction of my bowl.

“And not even good ginger ale, just regular ginger ale. It was one of my favorite things about being sick.” As I spoke, I flashed on the sickroom of my childhood.

Days spent home from school were spent in the bed, and Mom had a television, reserved for just this occasion. After my sisters had left for the bus stop, she pushed it in on the rolling cart it lived in. It was the only time we ever had the television all to ourselves. The door to the bedroom remained closed unless she opened it to bring in ginger ale, soup, aspirin, and/or Pepto-Bismol. I think about those days often, even thirty-plus years later. It was the only time I had Mom all to myself, and the time when she seemed the most caring.

“We had broth.”, I realized Susan was speaking.

What ensued was a discussion of forgotten culinary delights. The fish sticks that were a mainstay of many a baby-boomer’s Friday night, as Mom finished applying her lipstick, while Dad left to pick up the baby sitter. The SpaghettiOs, which Mom later insisted she had never served us at the picnic table while on vacation at the beach. But I can still remember how good they tasted paired with pan-fried luncheon loaf. And pimento cheese! Specifically toasted pimento cheese sandwiches and the pimento cheese toast Dad baked in the oven on Saturday mornings.

We came away with the realization that dietary habits have changed drastically over the past thirty years, and probably for the best. At the same time though, I wonder at the loss of simplicity and routine inherent in the foods of our childhood.

Our children may have a finer grade of food, but I wonder if it loses something in the translation. My children never experienced the camaraderie of Friday nights in front of the television, watching the same sit-coms for years on end, after finishing a plate of breaded, compressed fish parts. They won’t remember the anticipation of smelling the scent of rosewater that preceded Mrs. Jordan into the house, or the sense of awe when Mom finally emerged from the back of the house, having traded her uniform of polyester pull-ons for a skirt and heels.

A cherry armoire hides my son’s television from view, but it’s always there. When he stays home from school, he does so in the bed, watching the same television he always watches. And the door to his bedroom remains closed until I open it, bearing a glass of ginger ale, a cup of soup, or ibuprofen.

A couple of weeks ago, I took a day off to spend with my son. I called him in for lunch, and as he washed his hands, I filled his plate with greasy, brown fish sticks.

“Mom! We never eat this stuff!”, he exclaimed through a grin.

“Is it ok?”, I asked.

“Yeah!”, he exuded.

Yeah…

These Dreams

Dusk had fallen. A large, vintage, light-colored car sat atop a hill on an ice-glazed driveway from my past.

The car began to roll and I turned to face an opaque sheet of ice-encrusted glass, through which only misshapen splotches of muted colors were visible.

As I fought to hold the steering wheel steady, I felt the rubber beneath me try, and fail, to find leverage on the slick slope.

The street I entered was lined, on either side, by an assortment of vehicles of similar age, but varying color. Someone was having a party.

I felt a moment of horror as I realized I had to travel, in reverse, between the icy rows. I wondered how I would do it, even as I did. As I maneuvered through my panic, an unobstructed yard, full of lush, green, perfectly manicured grass appeared through my back passenger-side window. All I had to do was get the car to that yard, and my journey would be over.

The rear wheels gained entry, jumping the concrete curb with a “thud-thud”. The car turned with the interruption, and came to a stop perpendicular to the house behind the grass, and finally, I exhaled.

While I am assured by those who should know, that I do indeed have them; I rarely remember my dreams. Even if I manage to retain some small portion of a night-time visit from my subconscious, it is usually gone by lunch. I have had two dreams in the last week which have, since slithering out of my darkest recesses, remained vivid, and firmly planted on my frontal lobe.

Though they usually evade my memory, dreams, as a whole, fascinate me. The fact that our brains continue to work, even as we drift into an altered state of consciousness during which we have little to no control, is a marvelous mystery. And, I do believe there is much to learn in what our simplest selves have to say.

I stand alone in my bedroom. Through the open door, I watch a woman moving about the den.

A confrontation ensues, just outside my bathroom, and it becomes obvious that the woman I’ve been observing is holding something I value. I attempt to take it from her, but she refuses to relinquish the prize. She mocks me with her patience. The only raised voice is mine, and, physically, she is much stronger than I.

As I wrestle with her, my image appears in the mirror over her shoulder. My face is twisted, angry, and ugly. And then I look at hers. But hers, too, is mine, calm, serene, and pitying.

The path I am traveling is treacherous, but with careful attention, will bring me to a better place. And, when I get there, I will have decided which “me” I want to be.

“Is it cloak n dagger
Could it be spring or fall
I walk without a cut
Through a stained glass wall
Weaker in my eyesight
The candle in my grip
And words that have no form
Are falling from my lips”

Martin Page & Bernie Taupin

Sudsy Serenity

As a kid, I hated washing the dishes. As I recall, the chore was assigned a week at a time, except for the weeks when my sister developed an odd case of eczema on her forearms. The doctor advised she keep those arms clean and dry, and I saw the hand-writing on the wall…

Dishwashers weren’t what they are now. There was no pot-scrubber feature, or handy disposal to get rid of all the “baked-on residue”. And, my mother was a real stickler about rinsing. Did I say rinsing? She called it rinsing, I called it washing. It wasn’t a simple matter of holding the dish under running water. My mother’s idea of rinsing involved steel-wool and plenty of elbow grease before sliding the dish between the guides. Even as I child, I thought this ritual cumbersome, inefficient, and a serious waste of time better spent riding my bicycle/Dodge Rambler, or talking on the telephone.

In high-school, my American History teacher directed us to write a personalized version of the Declaration of Independence. Before handing mine back, she had drawn a large, red “A” just above the title “My Declaration of Independence from Dishwashing”. Later that night, I offered the paper over my father’s full belly, just as my mother’s voice called from the adjoining room, “Stacye! Dishes!”.

My first home away from home was a charming, though antiquated, farmhouse on the outskirts of town. There was no dishwasher, which given my experience, only simplified the process. I washed, and God dried.

I moved, later, into several different homes with working dishwashers that I never used. I proved to be a very capable dishwasher, and as my children grew, I assigned the chore, a week at a time. They washed, and God dried, while I carried a basket of laundry outside to hang in the sun.

It wasn’t until my children were old enough to visit their friend’s homes that they began to question our routine.

“Mom, we have a dishwasher. Why don’t we use it?”

Stretching both arms out in front of me, I answered with a smile.

“Because I have a dishwasher, and now I have three more!” I finished by running one hand through my child’s disheveled hair, only slightly muffling the answering groan.

Ten years ago, I met and married a man who came with a built-in daughter and roommate, in addition to the usual appliances. The merging of our two families created a dish-dirtying machine that overwhelmed my shiny, chrome double sink. The age of mechanization began, and might have continued had it not been for financial doom and gloom.

Recent pay cuts, worthless retirement accounts, and media driven panic encouraged me to look at ways to reduce my expenses. I cancelled my mail-order DVD account, informed my son that dinner out would henceforth be viewed as a “treat”, and decided to delay buying the pair of noise-cancelling headphones I’d been eyeing. I arranged to have a clothesline strung between two immense, sturdy, southern pines, and declared the dishwasher off limits.

Monday, for the first time in over ten years, I washed our dishes by hand. It didn’t take long to wash a couple of plates, a few glasses, two coffee mugs, and several pieces of cutlery. It took even less time for me to realize why I had clung to this routine for so long.

Drinking glasses danced amidst soap suds, colliding with an occasional gentle clink, and causing me to notice that there was no other sound to interrupt my thoughts. The simple act of running a sinkful of dishwater had cleared the room of those fearful of being called upon to dry, leaving me free to consider our dinner conversation, to mull over my day, and to plan for the next.

Humming tunelessly, I dragged the sudsy dishcloth over the face of a plate, appreciating the sense of accomplishment and purpose inherent in so simple a task. I placed the steaming dish into the dish rack I’d kept in case of emergency, and left the drying to God.

Older People

I try to avoid labels, all labels. But, I particularly dislike the label we apply to any human blessed with longevity. The term “Senior Citizen” is a misnomer on a number of levels. After all, an older person may not be “Senior” at all. He might be a junior. And what is the significance of “Citizen” here? Aren’t we all citizens? We don’t call babies “Newborn Citizens”. We wouldn’t refer to a forty-year-old as a “Midlife Citizen”. The mere idea sounds awkward and ludicrous.

I have heard the argument that the term “Senior Citizen” was borne out of respect for a person’s advanced age, but I’m not buying it. I believe the term to be market driven, much like the terms “Soccer Mom”, “Gen-Xer”, and “Baby-boomer”. Unfortunately, as the media makes use of these catch-phrases, the terms become part of our collective consciousness, morphing images born as marketing tools into stereotypes with inherently negative connotations.

I don’t like the word “elderly”, either. As soon as it reaches my ear, it becomes another word entirely, registering in my brain as “feeble”. Left with few options, due to my own semantic prejudices, I refer to those “of a certain age” as “older”.

I enjoy older people. I always have. As a young child, one of my best friends was our next-door neighbor, Earl Witcher. I wish I had a dollar for every time my parents told the story of my running, with arms out-stretched, from our driveway to his, shouting “Ale! Ale!”.

As a young mother, I was blessed to live next door to Ruby Kitchens, a hard-scrabble, deeply southern woman of indeterminate age, though her tight, pewter-colored perm suggested at least sixty. Ruby loved babies, which was lucky as I proved to be a prolific bearer. She loved to hold them, sing to them, and make faces at them. And, I enjoyed a rare empty lap as I watched her love them. For eight years we shared a driveway, and our markedly divergent lives, becoming dear friends. When the walls began to close in on my burgeoning family, visits were less frequent, but no less enjoyable. The children she helped me to raise are adults now, and Ruby has been gone for many years, yet I still think of her several times a week.

~~~

Joy is a spritely eighty-five, though if you ask her, she isn’t a day over eighty-three. Lucie turned eighty this year, passing the day in the hospital bed she has occupied since she was seventy-eight.

Joy came to work in our office three years ago, and within weeks had become one of my favorite things about weekdays. Last February, Lucie was the first hospice patient assigned to my care. I fell in love on sight.

Joy runs circles around most of the much younger employees in our office, coaxing productivity out of office equipment most of us have never learned to use, and doing it with a smile. Lucie is paralyzed, from the neck down, as the result of a stroke. She lays, a helpless, horribly contracted heap, in the center of her twin-sized world. She is completely dependent on others to meet her needs, and she doesn’t mind telling you what they are. I rarely visit without a small container of vanilla ice-cream.

Joy hums. You don’t so much look for Joy, as listen for her. The one time Joy isn’t humming is when she is talking, and she loves to talk. Her conversations usually surround some form of culture; she might recommend a book she’s just finished reading, or review a night at the symphony or an afternoon spent at the museum. An avid “Dancing with the Stars” fan, she loves to rehash the latest episode while stirring hot chocolate mix into a cup of steaming hot water.

Lucie’s eyes are usually closed when I enter her room. I’m careful to bend close before I say her name quietly, while softly touching one tiny, bony shoulder. Despite her efforts to open them, her right eye never fully cooperates, prompting my perch on the left side of her bed.

“Miss Lucie? It’s Stacye…” I encourage her to wakefulness.

“Hey!” She exudes enthusiasm in a voice barely above a whisper.

“It’s Saturday, Miss Lucie, February twenty-first, almost spring-time! How are you doing today?” I slide one hip up onto the bed, feeling the egg-crate mattress beneath its thin cotton covering.

“Oh…I’m alright…” She answers every time.

I stand, and move to draw the drapes.

“You want these open, don’t you Miss Lucie? Look at that gorgeous sunshine!”

I return to the side of her bed.

“Are you eating?” At last check she weighed less than seventy pounds.

“These people don’t cook right.” She answers with a lop-sided sneer and averted eyes.

“It’s not what you’re used to, is it?”

“It sure ain’t!” Images from an earlier visit, remnants of camouflage-colored puree decorating thick, institutional stoneware, fill my head.

White noise, from the television she insists must play at all times, accompanies our words. Sometimes I carry the conversation. Raised by a father whose green thumb was more of a necessity than a hobby, Lucie loves to hear about my garden.

And, when she’s up to it, Lucie has stories to tell. Hours, spent at her bedside, have taught me much about life in pre-integration Atlanta, as she takes me along on the bus ride across town to “care for a white family”. Most interesting, though, are her ruminations on Lucie; Lucie the daughter, Lucie the independent woman, Lucie the single mother. The injured cadence of her voice urges me closer, as she shares her disappointment in the father of her only child who “…left, and never came back”.

Two framed photographs provide the only break in the institutional green of our surroundings. Lucie’s grandson smiles through an eight-by-ten rectangle of glass. And, just underneath, hangs a six-by-four photo of his infant son, also known as “the baby”.

“Did your grandson bring the baby to see you this week?”, I ask as I dab at the unbidden tear falling from an eye that won’t quite open.

“Nah…”, she answers. “He’s busy…”

“Well, I bet he’ll be here next week!” I rise to leave, readjusting the blankets displaced by my hip.

Bending, I kiss her shiny, cocoa-colored forehead.

“I’m going now, Miss Lucie. I’ll see you next week…”

“Alright…”

“I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

“Worry Beads”

As a civil engineer working with a large real estate firm, my father was part of the boom that built Atlanta during the 1960’s. It was in this way we came to know the Kwechs, a family of Chicagoan transplants. They talked funny, slathered both sides of their sandwiches with butter instead of mayonnaise, and ate pickled fruit. They were also Catholic, which was my mother’s way of explaining Mrs. Kwech’s habit of pinning a handkerchief into her hair before entering a church.

As we sat down to a Thanksgiving dinner featuring butter molded into the shape of a lamb alongside pickled peaches, all five Kwechs made a mysterious hand-motion after “the blessing”. Fascinated, I studied the motion and practiced it; thinking it “neat”, until my mother reprimanded me. This was the first time I heard the word “sacrilegious”.

Of course, my mother’s horror only served to accentuate the exotic nature of this mysterious faith. Obviously, the Catholic Church was much more holy than the garden-variety, Southern Methodist church I’d been brought up in.

I am a Jack-of-all-churches, and master of none. I have studied most of the major religions, and many of the lesser known. Faith, as a practice, fascinates me. So it is, that almost forty years later, I understand that much of the mystery of the Catholic faith isn’t so much a matter of secrecy as it is ritual. Still, compared to Methodism, one of the least imaginative religions ever practiced, Catholicism piqued my interest.

It’s aura lies in its accoutrement; priests in fine robes with satin sashes and impressive head-gear, an assortment of ranked deities, confessionals, and, of course, the rosary.

The first rosary I ever saw was made of rose quartz. I remember thinking it beautiful. Respecting my mother’s admonition, I never considered I could own one until learning that Catholic’s don’t own the patent on the rosary. It seems that this, like so many Protestant traditions, is a practice borrowed from a much older religion.

Buddhists, too, worry rosaries, or malas, during prayer. Traditionally consisting of one hundred and eight beads, a mala is used to keep count while reciting a mantra in meditation. Elizabeth Gilbert elaborated on this tradition, beautifully, in her book “Eat, Pray, Love”. In the book, she points out the symbolism of the number three, inherent in the Buddhist mala. She refers to the number of beads, one hundred and eight, as the perfect number because, while being divisible by three, its individual numbers add up to nine, which, when perfectly divided, also amounts to three, a number of importance in many religions; as in Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

After reading, and being inspired by, Ms. Gilbert’s book, I ordered and received a Tibetan mala. One hundred and eight, perfectly symmetrical, wooden beads line up along a piece of ordinary twine that, purportedly, has been blessed by one or more Tibetan monks. The beads came protected by a tiny satin, hand-embroidered purse, and they reside within the confines of my over-sized, designer hand-bag.

Today, after receiving several prayer requests from an assortment of friends, residing in a variety of locales across the globe, I retrieved the beads. They rode in my pant’s pocket for most of the day, and now, are secreted against my chest.

Oils, from my hands, lend a new-found gleam to their wooden faces, as my touch reminds me of their purpose, and I pray…

Through the Eyes of a Child

At eight years old, Lisa dwarfed the desk she leaned upon. Her eyes moved quickly, and side to side, as she read intently from the textbook in front of her.

“She doesn’t even know I’m here.”, Helen thought as she passed the child.

“Child”, the word repeated in her brain as she reminded herself that the person at the desk was, indeed, just a child.

“Then why do I feel so self-conscious?”, she continued the conversation with herself.

This child wasn’t just any child. This child was the boss’s child. Imagined snippets of Lisa’s privileged life played in the form of colorful magazine images inside Helen’s head, as she fed paper into the fax machine.

“What must she think of me, a grunt in her father’s office?”

“Look at the way she studies so intently! She hasn’t moved in minutes! Is this the result of parenting? Is this the effect of having a stay-at-home Mom?”

Helen stood in front of a historically moody fax machine, listening for the sounds of successful transmission, as an image of her own back presented in her head, and she wondered what the child thought of her bulky, discount-store sweater.

A piercing squeal signaled her success and Helen stole a glance at Lisa as she left the room. The child’s head still hung over the book, allowing a curtain of perfectly coiffed, shiny blonde hair to shield her face.

The conversation continued as she made her way back to her cubicle.

“She probably doesn’t see me that way at all. She probably didn’t speak because she’s shy, and I am an adult, and maybe she just doesn’t talk to adults.”

Realizing she needed another copy, Helen turned on her heel upon seeing the crowded bulletin board over her desk.

“This job is embarrassing. It takes no skill.” As she navigated the cubicle maze, the conversation began again. “That child studies that way so that she will never have to work in a place like this!”

Arriving at the antiquated copier, she raised the lid and mitered the paper on the glass.

“But she doesn’t really know what you do! For all she knows, your job is very difficult, requiring lots of skill and education!”

Helen lowered the lid and pressed the button. An image of her boss’s den filled her head as he sat upon an oversized, expensively upholstered ottoman in front of his studious blonde daughter. “We buy this education for you so that you never have to work for someone like me.”

Lights flashed as the mechanism traveled back and forth underneath the glass.
“This isn’t about her, you know. This is about you. That child has no idea what you do or why. But, you do.”

A flood of images filled Helen’s head as she retrieved both copy and original, beginning with that goofy graduation picture, complete with rakishly tilted, white mortar board. She saw an image of her first, hopelessly addicted, husband, and a succession of mindless jobs she worked at to support her children. She saw the jalopies she drove and the unimaginative boxes she’d lived in, and the puzzle began to come together.

She barely noticed the co-worker she side-swiped while rounding a corner of the maze. His “ ‘Scuse me…” brought her head up and she dashed off a smile that stuck as she realized she’d bought it.

Years of negligence and name-calling had left their mark. She saw herself as others experienced her, strong and aloof, yet, caring. Her smile deepened as she realized the permeability of her guise. Her perceived strength was nothing more than a perfected defense mechanism.

Unmasked by and eight-year-old, she filed the copy, and then the original.

Trapezoid

He runs his fingers through my son’s hair.

“Did the printout help you? Can you recognize a trapezoid?”

And, that’s all I need to know…