Fish on Land

Davis Retreat

I spent the last 2 days in Davis. It was wonderfully warm and still there. Everyone dresses casually and is friendly. Lots of tanned skin and flip flops. It was lovely. I actually stood outside, unshaded, in the 90+ degree weather, sipping my icy drink and soaking in the warmth. I lounged in my hotel room and watched way too much bad cable TV. I took an insanely long shower and didn’t care that I used 2 big towels instead of scrimping and using only one. The complimentary breakfast included fresh waffles cooked on the spot. I was in heaven. It was a solitary and restorative break.

I worked my butt off too. Both days, I spent long hours in our Davis office with engineers in preparation for a huge product launch. The office in Davis is totally laid back. Even the managers there are chill, the CTO joking with everyone. After 2 days, it was time for me to return. I missed my sweetie and my home creature comforts and I was tired. I imagined my life if I lived in Davis and how much less stress there would be. Then I did a reality check. The main reason that I like it there so much, is that I am removed and in a bubble. There are no meals to be cooked or bills to be paid or people to confront. It’s a perfectly neutral and safe place. My frazzle level has been at a steady high alert for quite some time. Simple isn’t in my vocabulary. I’ve posted here about a lot of painful and terrible things, but there are new and wonderful things to talk about too:

1. My cousin just married a guy who really loves and adores her.
2. My totally lovable brother-in-law and his wife are the proud parents of the first grandchild in the family.               
3. Our dear friends Joe and Dhea are also the proud parents of a healthy and beautiful baby boy.
4. My brother is, more and more, growing into a thoughtful, patient and loving person.
5. My brother’s daughter, my only niece, seems to be growing into a smart and healthy little girl, despite her mother’s intentions.
6. My other cousin is soon-to-be-engaged to her long time boyfriend.

So there are lots of good things happening around me, lots of new and precious life, lots of hope for a future.

The Incredible Shrinking Woman

I hate myself. It’s not just a Sunday feeling, but it definitely rings loud and clear on these intoxicatingly warm and drowsy Sunday afternoons. I want to disappear, I want to shrink, like Lily Tomlin in The Incredible Shrinking Woman. I am bending, like a rotting tree, from the weight of this bottomless grief and I want to be translucent and invisible.

I hate myself when I climb out of the shower and the water rivulets running down my face are met with the steady salty stream already present. I hate myself because my Mom is incompetent. I hate that, despite my complete understanding of this, I entrusted her with my brother Russell’s safety. I should have known better. I don’t know exactly what I would have done differently. My mom is someone who should never have been a mother. Her children used as tools to make men stay, to trap them to her. Her lack of care for her kids placed me, at the age of 11, in a house with a violent drunk who had octopus hands. Her hate for herself made it continue for 7 years, until I left at 18. I was gone many years before that. My mom was the last person to talk to my brother Russell, before he left and was murdered. He's been gone for 6 months exactly today. I am physically ill and shrink from the pain, I can’t eat and the hugs from my husband remind me that I’m hollow.

I live in two worlds. The one where I go to work and get things done. The one where I meet deadlines and argue with people about design decisions. The one where I see friends and seem maybe even happy. The other world encroaches, like a timid cockroach, when I am home and when I sleep. When I stare at the shadows, the ceiling, the wall and find no relief. I cry every day. The thinner I become, the better, it means that my hate is creating change and that I might shrink enough not to feel anymore and be done with this.

Father's Day

“So a horse walks into a bar,” my seven year old niece begins her joke, “and the bartender says, “Why the long face?” Her perfect moon face turns up to me, eyes crinkled shut and her jack o’lantern smile beaming. We’re driving to breakfast for Father’s Day. My dad asks if I read the article in the New Yorker about aging. “It’s pretty bleak, ” he says, looking out the window, to some faraway place. He returns and catches my glance in the mirror, “There were letters to the editor the next week, doctors wrote letters, saying that the article was a matter of perspective.” There’s a glint of humor in his eyes, but concern hovers there too.

Once seated at the restaurant, the waitress starts to take our drink orders, my uncle Jaime suddenly looks up from his yellowed paperback and says with absolute certainty, “CORONA!” The waitress looks to me to confirm, waitresses always look to me to confirm. Here we are. My dad, my uncle, my brother, my husband, my niece and I. We’re in a curving booth at Canter’s, the famous Canter’s Deli on Fairfax, to celebrate. My food arrives and I stare at it, wondering why I ordered lox, it’s so pink and slimy. I take a bite and lose my appetite. My brother James stares at his corned beef hash and keeps asking my husband if his double meat pastrami sandwich is good. James admits that he should have ordered what Charis ordered. I tell James that Charis’ food always looks good, it’s inevitable, Charis just orders good stuff. On our way out, my dad indulges us at the bakery. We order turnovers and cookies and chocolate rugulah and éclairs. My schizophrenic uncle stands outside, leaning on a meter, smoking a cigarette.

On the way back, the pastry boxes tumble around. No one can seem to hold them in place and there’s no room on the floor or in the back of the car. We drive slowly and I remember my life here, passing streets and neighborhoods that used to be mine. I can’t even come up with a good place to eat breakfast anymore. It’s been 10 years since I lived here. My niece asks why I left. As we get ready to leave, she holds on to me and whines, “Don’t go, just stay here. Why do you have to go?” Her dad stands in the driveway as we leave. She’s jumping and skipping around him, her thick straight hair suspended in the air, as if frozen, landing briefly on her shoulders before floating back up.

Back and Forth

Do you still listen to the Cowboy Junkies
on a worn out cassette?
You resisted technology, and many other things, despite your knack for them. 

You have a son, I know.
He is 12 or 13 now.
Curses if he has your sad green eyes
instead of duffle bag blue, like your brother.   

Certainly things would have worked out differently,
Your child would be 17 instead of 12.
The same age I was when I met you.   

We might have caught my brother too,
with the earth brown eyes,
sad even when he smiled,
instead of watching him return to the ground at 20.
The same age you were when you met me.

Write Away

Writing is sacred to me, there’s little that’s more powerful than the written word. Stories, both true and imagined, are how we form our identity and come to an understanding of this earth. There’s truth in the shortest sentence, if it comes from your genuine self. It survives whispers and thoughts and becomes immortalized on the page. I am, as I’ve mentioned before, writing less than usual and less than I like. Many things are out of my control, I feel. Sometimes it’s my mood and sometimes it’s my work load that prevents me from writing. I blame no one. I wish I was inspired.

Earlier this week, after a morning appointment, I was walking down a busy street in Berkeley. A young and seriously out of shape guy with a floppy mop of hair walked out of his 3 story apartment building across the street and took a few steps. He hurled a black pair of tennis shoes up in the air, watching as they caught the telephone wire. They lurched as one shoe fell faster than the other and bobbed as the wire gave a little from the weight of the tied laces. He stared at them for a moment and then started walking back in. He turned around as he walked, to see if anyone was watching and stared at me. I stared back. With a nonchalant but clumsy air, he walked back in to his complex. I looked back at the hanging shoes and noticed that next to the newly hung black pair, there was also a hopeful pair of white tennis shoes dangling about a foot closer to the building.

A few weeks ago, after dinner, we were driving with some friends. One of them asked what it means when shoes are dangling from a telephone wire. I mentioned that I had always heard that it meant you could buy drugs on or near the corner. Someone else said that it meant that someone had died recently. Maybe it means both.