Gesture.

The other morning, Oliver was awake and I was asleep and he was bouncing: "Wake up, wake up". I groaned and rolled over, just as I heard the familiar click of my glasses being moved on our head-board shelf. I lurched awake, afraid Oliver was playing with them. Instead, he handed them to me: "Here, Mommy, here are your glasses". And I don't know what about that single gesture has struck me so, that almost a week later it pops into my mind and I am overcome and touched and, strangely enough, consumed with the relief  I felt that day. It's a profound moment when the children you spend so much time and energy and resources loving, actually begin the growing-up process of loving you back.

Maybe I am a Simple Girl After All

It’s always warmest in the morning. The heat finally decides to kick on, rattling in that familiar pleasant way that I normally can’t hear because of the daily ruckus, the soundtrack of living with a toddler—the squeaky bike wheels of his tri-cycle, the high pitch tenor of his little boy voice. I can hear it now, because Oliver is at school and Penelope is sleeping. The remains of breakfast (eggs, hot, sweet, strong coffee, perfectly buttery wheat toast) are scattered across the coffee table. The DVR has one less show. It’s not even 9:30 and I’ve already gotten my ‘me’ time. I am warm, full, reeling off the high of a terrifically good rerun of How I Met Your Mother. I’m almost tempted to wake the baby, that’s how ready I am to start the day (and I haven’t even had my meds yet).

This is what I’ll miss most when I go back to work.

I’m surprised at how fast the days go. I’m surprised at how centered I feel. I’m surprised at how happy I am. My future has always centered on a career. Working somewhere, at least to build a resume. I don’t want to be 35 and starting a career. But as of now, my career has no meaning. I enjoy it but it’s just a paycheck. It’s convenient and flexible and just what I need in a job. Not that we could afford it, but I imagine what it would be like to just let it go—to never go back. In two years, what would I have to show for myself? A clean house? Groomed children? Don’t I need more than that? I thought I did.

Maybe I’m still in the glowing bliss of new baby. As of now, if we could afford it, I would let it all go. I have to remind myself that the core of my being is not court clerk, but writer. I’ve been doing more writing home with two kids than I ever have working 32 hours a week.

The universe has a way of changing things, of fitting together the different pieces of your life in a way that makes sense. First, I just have to admit how badly I want to stay home. I’m shaking in my boots (ok, mis-matched socks)—but fear is a good thing.

OK, universe, I admitted it. Now do your thing.

Sand-Dollar Magic

I believe in karma as a whole and real entity. So much so it rules my every decision: how will this affect me, what am I putting out into the universe that will either boomerang back blessings or negativity? So much so that Anthony has started to talk 'karmic juju' as he calls it--and I find him weighing decisions with the same measure of reasoning.

He has a knack for finding things. One year on the beach, Robert lost our only car key in the sand. We refer to this story (only recently with humor, even though it occurred probably five years ago) as 'hide-the-key-find-the-key. Anthony was the one to find the key, probably saving Roberts life (Amanda was about to kill him!). I have a sand dollar about my kitchen sink, once perfect but now cracked from Oliver's sink play, that I always push together to look deceptively whole. He found this perfect sand-dollar on the beach of Tybee, our home away from home. He has a gift for finding things, a gift that I find adds whimsy and magic and a little bit of romance into our life.
Amanda had made a comment once or twice about wanting a sand-dollar so my mission this vacation was to find her one. Anthony spent all of yesterday in the ocean, scooping sand between his fingers, searching for the one perfect sand-dollar.
He found one, then another, then another: but all of them alive. In the course of the afternoon, he probably found 10 perfectly round, unblemished sand-dollars, all brown and slowly inching up the palm of his hand. I could see the wheels turning in his head as he weighed the karmic pros against the cons.
Finally he says to me: "What kind of karmic juju will I be putting into the universe if I kill something just because I like the way it's corpse looks?"
Touche. And he put them back, one after another.
"The universe will reward us," I assured him. "Before the week is done."
This morning I woke up to an empty house. Everyone except for me and the kids are spending the day on a boat deep-sea fishing. I had a text from Anthony, telling me to go outside and look at the railing to the left. He is always one to leave me a surprise, especially because I was feeling a little blue about being left behind.
I padded out onto the porch and started laughing. Covering the white railing right outside my bedroom window were probably 35 perfectly bleached-white sand-dollars. My brother was the one to notice them, evidently they have been there the entire time but because they blended perfectly with the color of the porch, were unnoticed until last night.
Or.
I believe in magic, I believe in karma and I believe in the power of the universe. While I can acknowledge that the sand-dollars were probably there the entire time we've been here-- I also believe that somehow they were left for Anthony and me, a reward for his kindness, a reward for our respect for life. I feel moved, even in this moment, by the magic of that sight, moved by the magic that Anthony always seems to bring into my life.



Now if we can get even one home in one piece, that will be it's own kind of miracle :-)

A Thousand Miles Away From Dirty Bathrooms

When I leave for vacation, I usually like to clean my entire house. In fact, I'm so manic and OCD, I often can't pack until every room is clean and every stitch of laundry is washed and put away. This is both deceptive and quite a feat (you are probably thinking that I live like this all the time--but really, it takes vacation to get me to clean; and the house is so dirty from only vacationing once a year that it is quite an undertaking).
This year, the manic didn't set in, but the panic did. All I can think of when I think of home is this yellow spot beneath my bathtub. But with this heat (108 last Sunday), the 4th of July Holiday, flying solo at work and being 6.5 months pregnant, I haven't much felt like cleaning. I gave up the idea of coming home to a perfectly clean house, gave in to the limitations of being pregnant (i.e. I suck at life for 9 months) and left Friday night with the fear that I might not be able to let it all go.

Good news: its gone. We traveled about 2 hours from our destination Friday night and took our sweet time getting to vacation home in Fort Morgan, right past Gulf Shores. I'm not going to lie--not going to Tybee was a throbbing heartache--but I have to say, this Fort Morgan house is just what I need. It's so quiet here. The beach on a Saturday afternoon was practically deserted. The waves are small, but perfect for the little ones riding them. The water is so clear you can see the bottom and their is a nice ankle-deep sandbar a few feet out that makes you feel secure in the fact that you or the kids are not about to be swept out to see. It's serene, rejuvenating and not a fraction as hot as Georgia! Aside from the cringing southern accent Anthony has affected since we are in Ala-damn-bama, it has been delightful so far. And we're only just beginning.
Tony, Julie and Brookyln arrived late last night. The immediate friendship between Brooklyn and Oliver just about melted me to gooey-hormone-induced bits. She is the tiniest thing (although almost as tall as Brookyln--we grow 'em big in our family)--so petite and lovely. She has the most delightful little sing-song cadence and pronouces Oliver as "I-Love-Her". This morning she kept saying, "I-Love-Her is a-sleeping" as in, she calls herself, "Brook-a-lyn".
Becoming an Aunt is about the greatest thing, second only to becoming a mother. These little children, little genetic extensions of yourself, are one of the greatest joys of my life. More than getting away from dirty bathrooms--I was so excited to spend time with little Miss Brook-a-lyn, to get to know her and to earn her love as I have with the others. She adores Oliver, follows him around and copies everything he does, down to his whining about being copied. We haven't taken the two to the beach yet--it's been a lazy morning--but can't wait to see what this day brings!
I'm trying to turn the time-counter off in my head. Some years I get so hyper focused on "this time next week I'll be home" that I can't live in the moment. Adderoll has helped me tremendously with that. And I have to remind myself that I am usually very happy to head home, back to the routine of my life, refreshed and renewed. But then again--I'm usually returning home to a clean bathroom :-)

Acute.

I can't remember all the times I tried to tell my myself
To hold on to these moments as they passCounting Crows, A Long December

The thing is, I'm acutely aware of my happiness. So much so, that it pains me, physically pains me. Sometimes I think, this time tomorrow something could have happened to any of them. In my mind, it's always a car accident--but it could be anything, really. An illness, a tragic shooting, a faulty beam, an angry person. Time is such a funny thing: it almost feels malleable, like if you want something to change so badly you can almost will it to rewind, like pressing a button on the VCR, bending the fork with your mind.

I don't know what's worse, being blindsided by tragedy or being acutely aware every second of how perfect and whole it is, only for the knowledge of how fragile life (and people) are--to haunt you every day. It's like being able to see EVERYTHING or hear EVERYTHING, it almost blinds you to it, deafens you. Sometimes I am frozen in fear at how deeply I am in love with the people in my life. I'll be enjoying a small everyday moment and it will be as though a camera has clicked in my mind, taking a picture, my heart content and full. And I think, I'm probably never going to know happiness like this again--because once one of them are gone, the key players in the film strip of my life; nothing will ever be the same. I will never be the same.

Sometimes it feels as though I'd rather be oblivious than so acutely aware. Because it could change so quickly, everything could change. And I know I can't go on being so happy. It doesn't seem fair. Perhaps, like always, I'm just preparing myself for the worst, hoping it won't sting as much. And one day when it does change, I can console myself with this: at least I enjoyed every second of it. At least I never took a single moment, a single person for granted. At least I'll have the memory of an unbroken heart.

The Apple Doesn't Fall So Far from the Tree

Half days at work are hard for me. Because a half-day at work means a half-day at home and pregnant-Libby is tired and slightly impatient. And Oliver is a handfull, and that's putting it mildly. Last Tuesday, my battle with Oliver was this: he kept sticking a domino in his butt-cheeks and calling it a tail. Of course, I kept telling him no and trying to explain about A. it's gross and B. it could really hurt. He wouldn't stop doing it though and continued to prance, naked, with a domino sticking out of his butt-cheeks. That's just Oliver. I couldn't stop laughing, but that's just me.

I've been thinking a lot lately about Penelope and the kind of kid she's going to be. The Universe has been sending me signs and, ultimately, I fear, trying to prepare me for another child of Oliver's caliber. A co-worker who doesn't usually stop in my office, came in to say hello and congratulate me on my pregnancy. This is how out conversation progressed:

CW: You know, God makes your first child easy so you'll have more children.
Me: I could stab you in the throat.

Because Oliver isn't easy. He's insane and a constant challange. When people ask me, "How's your son?" My automatic response is, "Crazy". Sometimes, I'm not even listening when they ask me. It's like driving to work in the morning and forgetting how you got there, it's that automatic. You could ask me at 3 in the morning, "How's Oliver?" and he'd be crazy, even if he's asleep!

And so I've been hoping that Penelope will be my sweet, quiet, tag-a-long child; the one that doesn't give me guff when I tell her not to climb on the slanted roof of the playground (or better yet, doesn't even think about climbing onto the slanted roof of the play-ground); who doesn't feel the need to rearrange furniture, roll up rugs and put paint cans inside the dryer; who isn't intent on testing every boundary and treating rules as theories, not because he's a bad child, but because he's one who doesn't want to take your word for it.

But the truth is, when I really get down to it: I  love  that my child is different. He's curious, bright, independent and coordinated (he's been scaling the cabinets for snacks since he was 18 months old. He can balance on a rolling chair like goats on the narrow side of a mountain.) He keeps me entertained, makes me laugh until my gut hurts and leaves me so very exhausted that sometimes I can hardly function. At the end of the day, I wouldn't want him to change at all. Because he's interesting, unique and spirited. And when Penelope comes,  I secretly wish that she be just like him.

He's got his reasons for doing the things he does and far be it for me to question it. I'm just a long for the ride, so grateful to be his mother. And besides, as his Aunt Ama pointed out last night, "Deep down, don't we all want a tail?"

He gets his sense of humor from me. He gets the nose picking from his father.

Say Hey, I Love You.

Sitting at dinner tonight, Oliver reached out and smoothed my hair. In that moment, it dawned on me, we are teaching our children not only how to live, but how to love. The way we love our children is the way they will love others, the way they will love their children. I've noticed recently, Oliver, little copy-cat that he is, copying the way I comfort him. If I mention that I don't feel well, he will come over with the sweetest look on his face and start scratching my back, smoothing my hair, patting my face and saying, "Everything will be alright, Mommy. I always make you feel better." And it's true, he always does.
What is so profound is that this child, who is only 41 months old, can register my love and reciprocate. And it makes my heart burst to know that the little things I do for him, like absentmindedly scratching his back as we watch Alvin and the Chipmunks for the umpteenth time, is expressing my love in a way he understands. I make him feel better. And one day he will grow up (sniff) and love his children and partner in the same way. It's just another little way that the love we have for our children makes us immortal. The love we teach will live on, will comfort children of future generations, will make my great-grand-children know that everything, will indeed, be alright.

The Second Time Around

The second time around isn't as bad as the first. We have more children in the family so I am no longer the sitting duck, all eyes on my ballooning stomach. My parents don't call everyday or even every other day with a, 'how are you feeling?'. I forget sometimes that I'm pregnant until I feel a kick or am so tired at the end of the night I can do nothing more than find the bed before sleep. For the most part, I am incredibly happy. I won't dread being pregnant again (yes, I said again), because other than about 5 or 6 bad weeks (as opposed to last times 40)--I've felt like a normal, happy, person. I've felt like myself. And it's probably because of this guy:

Oh, who am I kidding? It's because of these guys:

The only looming cloud of darkness is my house, which I sometimes wish would just burn up while we're at the park or something, so I could just start over. Yes, very heartless thing to wish when so many homes do  burn up. Don't blame me, blame the parasite in my womb filling my head with crazy thoughts. Anyway, the only way one thing will get done is if a hundred other things get done, and at the end of a very long day after work, after picking up Oliver, after dinner (usually cooked by Anth: Thanks, Sweets) with Oliver following behind me "helping" by lining up his freezy-pops on the floor, declaring they won't melt and renaming them stop-lights (damn you, Curious George!), you can see how it's hard for me to get anything done.

(He was so adamant they wouldn't melt that I refused to put them in the freezer. I had to show him I was right. Because they are package in plastic, he still wasn't convinced they melted even though the floor was COVERED in the melted condensation. Oh well, it's what I get for trying to be a know-it-all with a three-year-old.)
I spend my evenings hardly putting a dent in the To-Do mountain and I'm trying not to let it get me down. I have an incredible family and network of friends-who-are-family who are always offering to come over and help. But we are filthy creatures, even before we had a twister-of-curious-destruction stepping on our heels, and I am simply too embarrassed to let anyone pass our doors.

All you Mom's out there (I'm giving a major shout-out to my Sis-in-Law Britt), I don't know how you do it!

That's probably the only thing the same in the second time around--the constant stress of a dirty house, dwindling months and a list of to-do's that grows longer by the day. But compared to my last pregnancy, the dark, dreadful, depressing 9 months of Oliver's inhabitants in my womb, I'll take a dirty and messy house, gladly, and without (much) complaint.

Twenty-One Weeks, carrying high and happy.

I Hear the Bells

I've resisted the urge to update as I've been the in throes of first trimester. So unless you want to continually hear about how much I hate (HATE) being pregnant, best I keep it zipped for a while. School has been difficult in that I've seemed to have lost the passion for it that I once had (i.e. I've lost the energy to maintain that passion). So it was my final reading day (and you know how much I LOVE to read my stories out loud. Ahem, not at all). It's the night before and I haven't written a thing, haven't even picked out a prompt to mentally mull over, to digest as I drive around and shop and live. I'm at stage one. I vomited up something, deciding I'd edit it it Wednesday (day of class) while at work. I spent maybe two hours tops on this piece. My professor hasn't been a fan of my stuff so far and my classmates haven't been too keen on it either. Looking back, I think I've been more focused on the prompt than the potential story to manifest. I went into class bashful and a little nauseous, thinking I was going to get reamed for my poorly written story. Wonder upon wonder, couldn't have gotten a better review, and as I'm leaving the classroom, the professor says, "Really great job. If you're still interested in grad school, revise the story a little and add it to your portfolio".
I walked out slightly dazed and confused and feeling just a tenth of the elation that I would normally feel. At least I felt some of it--which is incredible since I've been feeling a whole lot of nothing other than fatigue with a dash of despair. The lesson learned from this is that I'm still a writer, even when pregnant, even when I don't care (well, I still care a little), even when I'm frazzled, even when there is nothing in the world that makes me feel normal. It's nice to know I'm still in there. Somewhere.

Here's the story for your reading pleasure. My two-hour creation.

“Destroyed”

               Twenty minutes ago, Augustus Spooler would have considered himself to be a very fortunate man. After just finishing a very precise and costly demolition, his pockets were fat from payday and his machines freshly washed. With the help of his foreman, Gerald, he unloaded his equipment from his flatbed truck, locking them securely in the outdoor garage. He waved goodbye and walked eagerly across the open field towards his house, unusually dark in the distance. His wife, Maggie, should be home and he looked forward to seeing her, to telling her about his day, to hearing her laugh and watching the dark hair fall across her face.

               The grass was tall and needed cutting. It left bits of clinging seeds to his pants. The wooden gate creaked loudly as he passed through it, into his yard. Nights like tonight, Augustus Spooler liked to stop and succumb in awe of his life, to marvel at the two things he built instead of destroyed: his marriage and his house. But any feelings of sentimentality left him suddenly. The sky was black and his house was still. He wondered where Maggie was with an impending queasiness.

Twenty minutes ago, Augustus Spooler was excited to tell her about the news he received today. He was going to be on the cover of Demolition Magazine. They’d sent an interviewer out to cover the tricky demo of a dilapidated, historic hotel and to ask him questions about his life. He told them he was a destructive boy, fueled more by curiosity than ill-intent. He told them a story about how, when he was six months old, he kicked the wooded bars right out of his crib, cracking them down the seams. He told them about how, in tenth grade, he took a science experiment a bit too far and ended up blowing up his parent’s garage. Yes, Augustus Spooler had a knack for destruction. He was renowned for it.

The ram-shackled hotel was sandwiched between two brand-new multi-million dollar condos. Augustus watched it fall with pride, leaving nothing more than a dusty film on the neighboring beveled glass. It was no surprise to anyone that Augustus Spooler became a demolition man. All the curiosity, all the nervous energy channeled into the proper way to knock down a building. Once harnessed, he had the skill to carefully craft the most perfectly executed annihilation. He ended the interview by talking about Maggie, the only women he ever met that intrigued him more than the blooming smoke of collapsing buildings.

He was surprised to find the back door locked. He jiggled the handle, looked through the window, but Maggie wasn’t in the kitchen. He pulled the keys from the side of his stiff coveralls and let himself in. He left his hard hat on the kitchen table and opened his mouth to call out to her, but his voice escaped him.  He frowned at familiar jacket hanging on the back of the kitchen chair. He was strangely unmoved as the reality dawned on him. He had suspected for a while, the truth finally confirmed by the trail of mixed discarded clothes that led up the stairs, towards the bedroom.

He walked outside, still dusty from work, his goggles still clipped to the inside of his shirt. In the garage closest to his house, he found what he was looking for, it’s engine still warm from being unloaded. It was like second nature to Augustus, his hand cupping the perfectly round knob, probably, he thought absently, very similar to the way the man upstairs might be cupping his wife’s breast.

Twenty minutes ago, Augustus Spooler would have considered himself a sane man.  But now, elevated in the tall machine, he could see their shadows in the yellow lamp light as he slowly made his way across the field, towards the house. He could see her clearly as he drew near, watching with a detached fascination, his wife post-coital with the neighbor that she’d been sleeping with for months. Her dark hair was pulled back, out of her face. She was sweating, smiling, oblivious, content.

He had never considered what it would feel like to be leveled, to empathize with the buildings he took pride in reducing. He himself was shaking on his very foundation, feeling the windows of his reality breaking, shattering. His own walls were quaking, crumbling. His life reduced to rubble in a matter of moments. Yes, Augustus Spooler had a knack for destruction, but he had never once, before now, been destroyed. Pulling back the knob, he twisted the level and let the steel ball fly right into the heart of their bedroom.

2nd Prompt for Workshop: "The First Birthday"

“The First Birthday”

For Squish

Little Professor, they call him, his family. He tucks his hands behind his back and walks slightly slumped forward, like an aging professor giving lecture. His Aunt buys him a tiny pair of monocles and the plastic is rough on his one year old face and hard against his fat, little nose and stabs the soft spot behind his pliable little ears, but they laugh, and slightly scare him with bright flashes of light. Say cheese, they say, grinning like fools. He takes off the glasses in his fat little hand and chews on the rim. Bits of black flake off and his Aunt, who giveth, taketh away.

He is naked, except for a diaper. He touches the doughy warmth of his stomach, fingering the pink, suckering scar that seemed to appear one morning, after waking up from a deep, unsettling sleep. It hurt, made him cry, made him itch, but now it’s a mound of rounded, healing flesh. He touches it with his wet finger and it changes color. His brother and his cousin dance around him, zooming cars and racing them along the wooden side-table that lies against the window. The room smells like apples and his mouth waters.

His Mother picks him up and takes him from the room, the rest of his family following. She sits in a chair, in front of a cake, the sweet smell distracting and alluring. Happy Birthday, they sing, flashing lights and laughter and cheers, but he is mesmerized by the sweet, cloudy-thick frosting, puffing up in multiple colored ridges, not dissimilar to his own scar. He touches the frosting, but it doesn’t change color; instead it indents, his finger disappearing in the sticky sweet. In the center is a single hot, orange flame, dancing on a candy-stripped stem, dripping wax. He reaches towards it with intense fascination before a gust of air from his Mother’s mouth snuffs it out.

His Mother takes a bit of frosting and dips it on his tongue. It is so startling sweet, he forgets about his missing finger, about the vanishing flame, drawing his hand to his mouth, large fists of dark, red cake crumbling to the floor. They let him eat, let him stuff his rounded cheeks full, until drool stains his chin and his chest and his rounded tummy with long, stringy drips of diluted red.

Fingers wind around his slender arms, his mother holding him tightly. He looks around, dazed from the consuming task of eating, to find the room empty. He touches the side of her face; she doesn’t smile, looking off. He smells something, something like the graying smoke from the candle, but stronger, thicker, darker. His mother rises, holding him tightly by his waist. His family appears as quickly as they vanished, but they are not smiling, they are not singing.

His cousin is crying. His brother his crying. Their hands leave black, sooty prints on the door as they are ushered out through the garage, into the yard. The room is hot, his mother coughs. They follow behind them and he winds a fistful of his mother’s hair in his hand in quiet fright as darkness, as thin as air, but thick with menacing life, emanates, swirling towards them with bubbling, outstretched claws.

His family gathers in the front yard. He watches the scary, black smoke fill the house, room to room, becoming one with the clear, dark sky as it rises. A noise, a boom, shatters glass and his shock. His face crumples, his vision blurring with thick, panicky tears and he hides his face in the scratchy wool of his Mother’s sweater. From behind his barely open eyelids, he watches the licking flames rise up, blossoming like a blistering, orange flower from the window, seemingly devouring the house in one tremendous, monstrous chomp.

              

"Seven Days to Begin Again"

“Seven Days to Begin Again”

On Mondays, Gray Porter plays a two hour set at the Blue Dog Saloon. He’s played there every Monday for the past year, despite the fact that the bar has changed hands to three vastly different owners. Originally the spot for progressive rock, it had a short lived stint as a reggae club where Gray’s Monday night gig was widely unpopular and unpaid; it is now more of a hipster hang-out, peddling over-priced coffee alongside organically brewed beer. On Mondays, every Monday, Gray performs to a sea of Mac-books and horned rimmed glasses, to people who listen to their headphones instead of him and who never clap when his set finishes; Gray hardly notices. He sings every Monday, despite the audience or pay, to the empty chair marked reserved at the table center left.

               “That was really great, Gray.” The waitress winks at him, her long, false lashes fluttering. She leaves him a drink with her number scribbled in black on the napkin. He smiles, nods in thanks before finishing it in one long, desperate gulp. He leaves the glass on the napkin, the ink smearing from the condensation, the numbers illegible and diluted as he leaves the club, heading home.

               Except it wasn’t his home, it was his brothers. Gray leaves his keys in the green, clawed bowl in the foyer; the one that sits underneath the wedding picture of Joey and Liz. He pauses, briefly, before the sting of reality really starts to radiate, before the pain of remembering sears like a hot poker through his mind, bubbling like a blister, leaving him raw, exposed, and scarred.

Gray hates that picture. Partly because he knows the smiling coifed groom is a fraud, and because Liz doesn’t look like Liz with her hair pinned back, her eyes shielded by a small tuft of veil. She’s smiling in a small way, like’s she’s won a prize in a contest she didn’t enter. But ultimately, Gray hates the picture because he’s in it, in the back ground, fuzzy in the field behind them, unaware at the time that he was caught in the frame, downtrodden and alone, a shadowy blemish in an otherwise perfect image. There were a dozen other photographs of them, standing in the field, better pictures even, in Gray’s opinion; ones truer of Liz, with a bigger, brighter smile, ones without the sulky figure in the background. But this was the one Liz choose to blow up and display in the hallway, parading his heart-ache for the entire world to see. A reminder every time his keys clinked loudly in the bowl of the reality of his life.

When he looks at Liz in the picture, he tries not to see the demure bride, but instead how she was, is, really, somewhere inside the cancer-riddled body. Honey-colored hair, straight, coarse, always down, enveloping her rounded, smooth shoulders. One tooth that’s crooked in the front, an imperfection she tries to cover whenever she laughs, guarding it balefully with the slip of her hand. A laugh that knocks Gray breathless, full and deep, like a cold river running through, purifying, cleansing. Tiny, little green chameleon colored eyes, that absorb and change depending on her mood, but naturally the mixed, hazel color of herbs. They widen, Gray notices, whenever he walks in the room, black vanquishing the green…

               “You’ve got to stop looking at her like that.”

               Gray jumps, startled, embarrassed. Kate sits in the middle of the dark stairwell. She tilts her head in the same fashion as Liz, a trait, Gray thinks, is the only similarity the sister’s share. His voice waivers on the question. “Like what?”

               “Like you love her. Like you’re in love with her.”

               Gray laughs half-heartedly but Kate remains unmoved, unconvinced. He sighs, a mixture of exhaustion and defeat, briefly glancing at the picture. “Is it really that obvious?”

               She nods.

               “Do you think Liz knows?” 

               Kate shrugs. “Women always know.”

               Gray thought he hid it well. His stomach wrenches, his heart quickening. “Do you think Joey knows?”

               Both sets of eyes immediately divert to the door off the landing. It is closed, sometimes locked.  A small, electronically-colored glow seeps from under the door, flashing, but hardly ever going out. In the quiet, they can hear Joey clicking his mouse, occasionally cursing under his breath.

Kate is beautiful, like Liz, but harder. She’s been different lately, Gray had noticed over the past few weeks, her eyes tired, distant. The swift jolt of resentment changes her face completely, illuminates it. She sneers, bearing a grim line of straight, white teeth. “Joey.” She chews his name, wrinkling her mouth in disgust, and then says, as if spitting him out: “Joey doesn’t even know she’s dying.”

On Tuesday night, Kate cooks dinner. Gray watches in bewildered amusement as she sautés and dices and boils. Kate’s husband Tom arrives around six and joins Gray, beer in hand. Gray knows something is up, because Kate adamantly refuses to cook, her own brand of feminism—and Tom generally doesn’t come to the house if he can avoid it. Death and dying aren’t for everyone. Even Joey joins them, lured down by the appetizing and unusual smell of fresh ingredients, wafting from the kitchen. Tom attempts to jump-start small talk while Gray peers out the kitchen door and up the stairs, wanting a quick peek into the office that’s hardly unoccupied.  Kate snaps her fingers, annoyed, and points a long rigid finger, sending the three in the direction of the dining room.

               Liz is already at the table, wearing a dress that devours her and a costume quality Marilyn-blonde wig that is slightly skewed a-top her normally bald head. Gray stifles back a laugh as Liz tugs it straight on either side. She smirks, casting her eyes away from Joey, uncomfortable in the chair next to her and gives Gray a friendly wink as she brings the oxygen mask to her gaunt and ashen face.

               They eat and both silence and unease descend upon the table. Gray loses his appetite and sets down his fork. Kate, feeling as though everyone should feel honored by her effort, peppers the uneasy silence with snide comments about how no-one is eating and by repeatedly badgering everyone, except for Liz, how they like the peas, the steak, the sweet, soft rolls. The non-responsiveness of the table places Kate on her frequently mounted soapbox. She’s half way through her tirade about the link between woman’s oppression and the rise of popularity of Martha Stewart cookbooks when Gray can’t take it anymore. He opens his mouth to speak, to tell Liz that no one wants the equivalent of a last supper, even if cooked by the feminist messiah herself; and to encourage her not to give up, that he hasn’t and Kate hasn’t…but Joey speaks, and all heads snap in his direction.

               “What is this all about, anyway?” Joey motions towards the table cloth, the candles. Gray points to Liz’s wig as an additional observation. She takes it off and throws it at him, her laugh a diluted version of the original. Gray chucks it back at her, completely unsettled by its dampness and how small she looks without it.

Liz gives Kate a pointed look. “Hell if I know. This is all Kate’s doing.”

Everyone stares at her in expectant silence. “Shall we guess?” Liz suggests.

Gray goes first. “Sex-change operation?”

“You have cancer?” Liz chimes in and everyone flinches. Liz rolls her eyes and shrugs her tiny shoulders.

Joey smiles, an unusual occurrence. “You’ve become a republican?”

“You wish,” Kate says with exaggerated disgust. She looks at her hands, at Gray, at the candles. She doesn’t look at Liz. Gray wonders if she really does have cancer. It’s hereditary and fast, striking without warning. Kate has that distant look about her again, she squirms and goes white and covers her mouth as if she’s about to be sick. Tom takes her hand and she pauses, locking eyes in such a lovely way Gray feels a little intrusive. Kate takes a breath, a small sip of wine, and looks her sister straight in the eye. “We’re pregnant.”

Liz covers her mouth and squeals hoarsely, the only one who reacts, momentarily strengthened by joy. She leans over and pulls Kate into a hug. Kate is stiff, emotionless and looks to Gray. He forces an encouraging smile, but for him, the world has shifted slightly off its axis.

                “I’m so incredibly happy.” Liz sobs into her polyester hair. Gray quietly congratulates Tom with a handshake over the table, forcing a smile as a fresh wave of grief he doesn’t entirely understand overcomes him. Joey rises, expressionless, and quietly leaves the room.

               Liz continues to pepper Kate with questions, questions, questions; questions about the baby Liz will never get to meet. Questions about the future (the future without Liz). The underlying reality is pressing down on all of their chests. Except for Liz, her joy is unfaltering and Gray is unable to detect any hint of underlying sadness. The questions and plans continue long into the night, until Liz grows ill and Gray has to take her in his arms and carry her to bed.

Wednesday is a bad day for Liz and for Gray and for Kate. Not for Joey, Gray thinks hotly as he wipes bile from Liz’s chin. He hadn’t left his office since after dinner the night before.

“You don’t have to do this, Gray.” Liz is angry today, her weak voice acidic. “I’m not your responsibility.”

               Gray turns away to ring out the towel in a basin of water. He wipes a wet cloth across her forehead and she moans with relief.

               Her scalp is pin-pricked with sweat. “He’s not strong enough to see me like this: sick, dying and weak. He can’t handle it. He stopped looking at me the day we found out about my expiration date. You should have seen the look on his face when I showed him my bald-spot, right after that first round of chemo. He was disgusted. He is disgusted. But who wouldn’t be? I mean, look at me.” She holds up her bone-thin arm. It reminded Gray of a featherless bird wing.

               Gray looks pointedly in her eyes. “You are anything but disgusting.”

               Liz holds his gaze for just an instant, before her eyes fall away. “Well, you’ve always looked at me differently than Joey does. He likes his women to have an air of mystery,” she says with a clipped, resentful tone. “Nothing mysterious about a woman who has a hard time controlling her bowels.” She laughs bitterly and shakes her head. “I’d be embarrassed if I wasn’t so exhausted.”

               “There’s nothing to be embarrassed about,” Gray assures her, watching her face carefully. They so rarely spoke of Joey, and now Gray understood why. It was too painful, for both of them. But how does she really feel? Gray wonders, about him? About Joey? She curls on her side, in tremendous pain, denying, yet again, Gray’s offer of pain medicine. “You know how I feel about that stuff,” she says through gritted teeth. “I want to be here, until the very end.”

               “How are you feeling?” Gray asks.

               “Isn’t it obvious?” she asks dryly, before doubling over again. She grabs his hand and squeezes tightly. She begins to sob quietly, turning away.

Gray climbs into her bed, holding her tightly against his chest. “Do you want me to get Kate?”

               Her body loosens, the pain subsiding for a moment. She gasps for breath; her entire body is sweating and trembling. Gray is sick from how insignificant she feels against him, weightless, like a child. “No,” she says. “What I want is for you to talk to Joey.”

Gray leans against the headboard. No, he thinks, I can’t.

“I need to know…” Her voice gives out, she closes her eyes and her breathing alters, her eyelashes fluttering. Gray touches her face and she startles slightly. She whispers, like an after-thought, like the last words uttered on the cusp of unconsciousness: “I’m only afraid he’s going to be ruined with regret once I’m gone.”

It’s as if she’s stabbed him, Gray tightens his arms around her, his heart faltering from the acuteness of her blunted words. He knows intimately how it feels to be ruined with regret. He kisses the smooth top of Liz’s head and decides that no one, not even his flawed brother, deserves to feel the way he’s felt since the day Liz entered his life.      

At four forty-five am on Thursday morning, Joey climbs into the passenger seat of Gray’s van. They ride in silence for the twenty miles, Joey staring restlessly out the window, Gray white-knuckling the steering wheel. They stand in silence in the bays of the dilapidated warehouse, far enough from the other delivery people that they were spared from small-talk, but close enough to see the delivery truck appear, kicking up dust and rocks as it trembles along the road, stopping at the mouth of the semi-circle of people waiting impatiently in the damp morning. The back door of the truck is opened, creaking along the hinges, the stacks of newspapers land hard on the graveled ground. Gray waits for the initial rush of clamoring to subside before he and Joey begin to count the stacks, lifting them by their plastic bundles, stacking them on top of one another in the opened back of Gray’s van.

They fold and slip the newspapers into orange bags, all the while Gray’s mind is whirring and grinding, like a machine off its track, warring within itself, fueled and demented by anger, regret and indecision. Unsure how he could stomach mending the relationship between his undeserving brother and the girl Gray loves more than anything, more than music, more than oxygen or money, more than Joey ever could. Gray grits his teeth, swallows down the anger and, for once, wishes he were alone. Joey had evaporated, had holed himself in that goddamned office doing God knows what. Joey was the one who had given up gigs, sub-letted his apartment and taken up odd-hour jobs in order to help keep Liz out of hospice. And yet. He studies his hands, concentrating on the perfect three fold of the paper. But how could he deny her, Gray asks himself, it this is her final request? He always knew loving her was wrong; and as Gray and Joey shut the back door of the van, their hands smudged black with print, Gray knew without a doubt, that this is his own special kind of torment, the consequence of loving someone he shouldn’t.

               Gray drives and Joey tosses, always neatly hitting the doorstep, never the door. The precision and the silence is the norm, but on this particular morning, Gray is suffocated by it: the slap of the paper on concrete, the slow meandering of his car, up a street and then down, and then on to the next, the tension in the car mounting, crippling.

 “What are you doing up there, in your office, night after night?” Gray doesn’t mean his voice to sound so accusing, but he is bolstered by a general feeling of carelessness. “She’s your wife, man, and Kate and I are the ones taking care of her. You just float around like nothing has changed, like she isn’t suffering, like she’s going to be there, when you finally get your shit together…”

               Joey doesn’t move his eyes from the window. He exhales as if he’s been waiting for these questions, as if it’s some kind of relief. He throws the paper a little too hard. It smacks against a mailbox and lands in the road. Gray stops the car in the middle of the street, puts it in park and sighs. “Look, man, it’s been hard on all of us…but if you have a problem, or you need to talk about something…”

               Joey looks at him with a mixture of confusion and guilt. Gray is more embarrassed than mad. “I mean, I can see how porn can be an escape, but it’s taking over your life…I haven’t even mentioned this to Liz…she’d be heartbroken if she even suspected…” Gray shakes his head, “Or if Kate were to ever catch wind of this...” He exhales sharply with the thought.

               Joey’s face twists oddly with understanding, the corners of his mouth pulling down. Gray frowns; bracing himself for the confirmation of Joey’s perverse ill-doing. Instead, Joey bursts out in loud, robust laughter.

His eyes are clamped shut, one tear squeaking out the corner. He holds his stomach, gasping for breath between words. “Porn? Really? Is that what you all think?” His laughter is a relief to Gray, who chuckles, unsure of what this means, slightly stunned at how different Joey looks as he is laughing.

Joey composes himself, wiping at his eyes. He rolls the newspaper in his hand, and he looks at Gray, and they see each other, probably for the first time in years. Gray can see the sleeplessness in Joey’s red-rimmed eyes, the worry carving deep lines into his face. Gray listens as Joey talks, the words spilling out of him, the shape of his shoulders almost lifting from their slouch. He’s looking for a cure, he informs Gray, searching for more time, for something, for anything. He talks of a clinical trial in Switzerland, of drugs you can buy illegally off the internet, shipped from Canada, that have added months to patients’ lives. Gray realizes that Joey seems unaware of time, of the progression of Liz’s illness and Gray’s heart swells with a deep, encumbered sense of pity.

He doesn’t want to say it, doesn’t to be replaced, doesn’t want to be the one to help his brother understand her. Gray’s throat burns and he thinks of her face, her swollen eyes, her uncertainty and knows that despite all the reasons he doesn’t want to, he will. He will do whatever it takes to make her happy, to help her die in peace. “She doesn’t need all that now, man,” Gray whispers. He turns his face towards the window, clamping his eyes shut. His voice is a whisper. “She just needs you.”

Joey is quiet and vacant again. They sit in the silent, idling car for a long time; the newspaper rolled tightly in Joey’s fist twisted and frayed at the ends.  Gray begins to wonder if he had gotten through to him, if anyone could, when Joey finally looks at him, his eyes alit with grief.

 “She’s dying.” Joey hides his crumpled face in his hands, his voice thick with defeat. “Fuck.”

On Friday, the hospice nurse is to come and Liz banishes Kate and Gray from her room. “I don’t need you,” she says. She’s tired and wearing her Marilyn-wig. Even it’s beginning to wear thin, balding at the sides. “Get out of this house,” she orders weakly. Go to a movie. Meet some new people. Get a life.”

“Do you mind if I stay?” Joey calls from the doorway awkwardly.

Liz nods, bewildered and glances towards Gray. She smiles appreciatively. “Of course you can.”

The nurse arrives and Kate and Gray take their leave. They only get as far as the front porch steps before they realize that they have nowhere to go. Kate is still wearing her pajamas.  She’d slept over the night before.

“Doesn’t it bother Tom when you don’t come home?” Gray asks.

Kate considers this. “No,” she says with a degree of certainty. “He works a lot, he’s hardly ever home himself. Besides, he realizes it’s only temporary….”

Gray flinches and Kate covers her mouth and shakes her head. “I didn’t mean that.”

“It’s true, though.” Gray swallows hard. “It’s only temporary. It’s nice of him to understand that.”

Kate nudges him softly. “Got an extra newspaper laying around in that creepy van of yours? We could go see a movie or something.”

Gray doesn’t like to leave if he can help it.  “I don’t even know what’s playing.”

Kate smiles playfully, but her voice is sad. “Well, we could go to a bar or something. You look like a daytime drinker.” She drops her eyes. “It might give you a chance to meet someone.”

Gray arches his eyebrow. “Liz put you up to this, didn’t she?”

“Busted.” Kate laughs half-heartedly.

Gray looks at the sky, unsmiling. “I don’t think there’s anyone else out there for me to meet,” he answers somberly. Kate frowns, unnaturally concerned. He attempts to keep his tone light. “Why don’t you go get a life and stop worrying about mine?”

Kate grins sadly and points to her stomach. “I’ve got one growing inside me. Isn’t that enough?”

The next door neighbor is mowing the grass. The motorized hum is a nice distraction from the somber mood they share. Kate looks at her watch. Gray wonders when the nurse will leave, suddenly remembering the cream for Liz’s rash, at the pharmacy.

“We forgot to pick up her prescription,” Kate says.

“She’s almost out of Gatorade. I can run by the store on the way to the pharmacy this afternoon.”

Kate suddenly remembers something. “Can you drive her to the hospital next week?”

“For her CT?”

“Yep. I have a prenatal appointment. But, I’ll be in the area; I can get her another one of those electric throw blankets that she likes so much…”

“One for upstairs and one for down?”

“Exactly.”

Kate shakes her head and chuckles. Her hair falls in her face, her eyes closing slightly.  “What’s going to become of us once she’s gone?

Kate looks at Gray, and he looks back, both searching for an answer from the other. Kate rubs her slightly bulbous stomach pensively and Gray tries to imagine a life not revolving around Liz. Unfathomable, he decides sadly.

At five, the nurse leaves the house and Joey calls from the door: “You guys can come in now,” he says. His face is ancient with saddness. “We need to talk.”

Saturday, Liz asked to be moved to the living room. The only television in the house is on, but she isn’t watching. Instead, she stares out the window, lost in the undiluted blue of the early summer sky. She doesn’t have long; Joey reported the day before, out of ear-shot, even though the nurse had heavily sedated her, the pain too much, she finally gave in to the comfort of oblivious sleep.

Saturday morning, she was better, but unplugged herself and asked to be moved downstairs, to sit by the window. Joey carried her, Gray watching pitifully from the bottom of the stairs. In the late-afternoon sun, Gray can see death settling over her. She is peaceful and painfully beautiful, her skin almost porcelain in the light, her eyes reflecting the clear color in the sky.

The house is quiet. Kate is napping on the couch. Joey is locked away, the report the day before causing a fresh wave of denial, of fruitless searching on the World Wide Web. Gray sits in the corner and quietly strums his guitar.

               “Do you still play at the Blue Dog Saloon?” Liz asks him. Gray is afraid because, despite being unhooked, she is no longer in pain. Her expression is clear, free of fear. She has spent most of the day in quiet recollection.

               Gray nods.

               “I remember the first night I met you.” Liz continues to stare out window. She smiles and her pallid face is transformed. “You were playing a gig at the bar that night.” She sighs wistfully. “You were magnificent.”

               He yearned to tell her the same, her magnificent face illuminated in the residual spotlight. He hadn’t realized at the time that she was sitting next to his brother, who was lost in the dark shadow of the club; that she was the girl he had never met, but heard a lot about. Joey had called her, ‘the one’. Gray didn’t know he was coming to the show, didn’t know the girl who caught his eye, the girl he fell in love with at first sight, was soon to be his sister-in-law. Instead he says, “You were sitting at the table, center left.”

               “It was my idea to see you play. Joey had told me what a talented musician you were, but I wanted to see it for myself. I wanted to see you play before I met you. He put off our introduction for a long time.” She turns her head, and looks at him, her green eyes serious.

               Gray’s breath is caught in his throat. “I remember.”

She is looking at him in a way she never has, brazened with dying. Her voice is flat. “He didn’t want me to meet you, you know.”

               Gray doesn’t react. His fingers pluck the strings, a song he wrote for her.

               Liz sighs and looks away, closing her eyes. She leans her head against the window pane and smiles. “Your song reminds me of swimming,” she says.

              

               Sunday, Liz is swimming. Against all protest, logic and better judgment, Kate strips off Liz’s gown. Besides the purple and black bruises on her arms from the tubes from the chemo, her back is clear, her skin a milky opalescent, blue veins at the surface, her spine knobby and protruding. Her breasts are shockingly round and buoyant, the only revealing trace of youth. Other than her breasts, it is hard to determine whether she is old or young. She is hairless, shapeless but graceful. She is dying, she is smiling, elated with excitement, her eyes reflecting the color of the water, of the sky.

               Gray and Joey hold her up as Kate slips the rubber, yellow floaties up her arms, past her elbows. With trepidation, Joey and Gray release her into the water and are silent with surprise as Liz’s arm rises and falls, a perfect stroke in the calm, clear water. It is a miracle, Gray marvels. She is swimming.

               Kate quietly slips off her dress. She glides into the water, rolling over onto her back. She strokes in sync with Liz; Liz who is dying, Liz who is smiling, Liz who is swimming, one lap, and then another, effortlessly. Her body is ravaged, every bone stretching out skin, protruding, creating a shape that is both ghastly and wonderfully pure.

               She looks like a baby, Gray thinks. Undeveloped, unformed. The beginning. He watches, witnessing her transformation, her acceptance, the smile taking hold of her entire face, her entire being. She is dying, she is smiling, she is swimming, and Gray starts to believe that maybe as she dies, she will begin again. And in a single moment of clarity, Gray considers that maybe the same could be true of him.

               On Monday, Gray cancels his show at the Blue Dog Saloon.

"Survivor's Guilt" #2

Beyond Words. Create a brief fragment of an epiphany, a moment beyond words, beyond explaining, in which a character sees the necessity of change (59).

“Survivor’s Guilt”

The television is on but she’s not watching.  Her eyes settle on a moving spot on the wall, a palmetto bug taking refuge from the rain, its shiny-petaled wings reflecting the lamp’s yellow light. Her mind is elsewhere, lost in the destitute gully of unfeeling, where she has resided for months. Catatonic in her emotions, yet physically carrying on. She eats, she runs, she is unfeeling. She stares at the moving spot.

It is still storming; it has been storming for days, for weeks. The long strand of hurricanes off the coast sent its fury inland. Her husband, like the rest of the town, prepared by nailing boards across the windows, stocking the fridge with bottled water, a quart of ice cream, two loafs of bread. The house smells like freshly sawed wood and the windows rattle unmercifully. Somewhere in the distance, sirens blare.

The old house creaks as it resists the wind. She stares out the window between the slits in the wood, at the glorious anger of nature. She gasps as if the storm said her name; she rises as if it were calling to her. She touches her face, feels the sensation of skin on skin as if she’d just come to in a foreign body, marveling at the ability to feel. To feel anything.

She turns the television off and slips out of the warm house, crushing the scurrying bug under her heel, leaving its twitching mass smeared on the Persian rug. Her legs carry her with eager purpose into the yard. The wind whips furiously; her night gown melts around her, rain stinging the exposed skin.

She smiles and lies flat on her back in the grass, surrendering to the storm, to death. And in that moment, she vows to feel it, to feel it all—including the dead emptiness of loss, the feeling she’d been avoiding since the accident several months back. The clouds swirl and lightening illuminates her upturned face and she is awestruck with an over-whelming sense of peace. Peace because I’m ready, ready to die.

A white hot streak strikes nearby. She hears the sizzle; sees the flickering of lights in the neighborhood. Thunder booms and a freight train roars and she trembles beneath the enormous sound.

She opens her arms like an angel, waiting for fate to step in, for the mistake of her survival to be made right, for the world to exist as it should have: without her in it. She longs for death, aches for it in her bones, in her long-suffering soul. It’s time.

A large oak encompasses her in its shadow and quakes, the roots seemingly closer to the surface than before. It rocks steadily against the fierce winds and she wonders dumbly if it will fall on her. As the earth trembles beneath her, she feels fear, a foreign emotion. Unbelievably, the wind roars harder.

She silently begs for Mother Nature to make her death painless and quick. The new-found fear replaced with desperation. I can’t go on living like this. Trapped in one devastating moment; a moment she cannot bring herself to accept.

The rain is so thick she can hardly breathe with her face exposed to the heavens. She’s feeling faint, her body gradually numbing to the cold. She quivers like the oak, breathless, and resists the urge to curl, to fight. Destiny is calling.

Her beating heart is louder than the storm and she knows she’s about to die. The pelting rain washes down her nose, her mouth, stings her open eyes. She starts to cough but fights it; the rain sits heavy, stagnant, deep within her lungs.

The winds change, swirling, twirling. The air becomes hot and suddenly she is almost deafened by a sound so loud it is unrecognizable. Debris flies weightlessly, dancing strangely as it is demolished against itself. She watches with a morbid fascination. It is too late to run, even if she wanted to. But in the low-lying ground of her yard, the wind seems to caress, swirling over instead of through her. A trash can, a mail box, a lawn ornament spin in the shadow of the sky.

She clamps her eyes shut, too frightened to witness her own demise. She says goodbye to her miserable, empty life, emotions churning inside almost as violently as the storm: elation, anger, prayers for salvation, but mostly for death. May it be less painful than life.

And as quickly as the storm intensified, it dissipates. She cautiously opens her eyes and stares up into the hastily moving black clouds, dumbfounded. The storm has raged on and on for days. I was supposed to die. A bird chirps cheerily in the oak above her, every branch still intact, life emerging all around.

The rain lessens into a soft, swirling mist and, much to her immediate dismay, she can breathe again. She kicks her feet in agitation, her shoes filling with mud and grass; she pounds her fist against the earth and lets an angry growl echo in the silence. She doesn’t even startle the birds—she hears the high-pitched cheeps of a nearby nest; every creature is relieved that the worst is over—every creature except her. The miserable clouds thin to reveal a pink and blue sunset underneath. She blinks back tears and rain in confusion. I was supposed to die and I didn’t. I thought I was supposed to die. She sits up, astonished that the peace continues to linger within her. She’s staggered with relief, yet she is trembling, more afraid of life than death. She touches her face again, the sensation remains. And in a passing moment of frustration, she vows to stay in the wet, cold earth until she catches her death.

But then, as if being mocked by the Universe itself, a single ray of sunshine pierces through the sky, warming her face.

Performance Anxiety

As I mentioned before, we are required to read a loud a piece of flash fiction inspired by a prompt from our text. Today is my first round and I'm terribly, terribly nervous. Sickeningly nervous. Reading out-loud has never been my strongest skill. I'm usually a bit braver--but the sudden onset of fear has left me slightly air-headed and unfocused.

Me: What's the worst that can happen?
My Head: It'll dawn on you in the middle of your reading that your fiction is crap. It's melodramatic crap.
Me: That seems unlikely. Every time you read it, you get that strange buzzing feeling. That's a good sign.
My Head: But there is going to be one moment of complete silence once I finish. No one wants to be the first person to speak.
Me: It's a lot to digest. They're just trying to form an opinion.
My Head: That one kid's going to be a douche.
Me: Yep.
My Head: They're going to judge me. They're going to see through me.
Me: You're probably freaking out because this one scene is based in your novel. And if they hate this, you'll over-generalize and apply it to the one piece of art your sunk your heart and soul into.
My Head: Jeez, I'm such a writer.
Me: You know it's never as bad as it seems. You'll look back on this and laugh at how freaked out you were. It's going to be fine.
My Head: You always know the right thing to say. But I still want to vomit.

Jeez, I need to get a grip.

You Can Just Call Me Sloth-Claws

There is only one word that can properly sum up the way I feel about the two classes I'm taking as my first week of classes comes to a close...

Monday nights is Contemporary Fiction Craft with a teacher who has the potential to be a mentor. I've only had male teachers and thus been dissatisfied with their short and guy-like responses to my other-wise delightful, if not slightly emotionally loaded, emails. They're just not giving me what I want. I don't want coddling--but maybe a little slight encouragement, maybe someone who believes in me, sees my potential and desires to take time out of their busy schedule to be my mentor (no pressure or anything).

This teacher  has a Ph.D and has published novels and is currently in the process of editing a novel that is to be published next year. She made reference to her friends in publishing. She told us about her novels and her style of writing. She made the annoying film major stop talking in the terribly fake British accent. She did all of this with out a hint of pretentiousness. And pretentiousness is like the minor to any creative writing student.

(Honestly, I think every writer has a touch of it. It's our defense mechanism, our furry sloth claws that help with the otherwise slow and painful process of making our mark in the literary world. It's when you corral us solitary and ego-driven writers together that the pretentiousness spreads like the bubonic plague.)

Wednesdays is Narrative Techniques. Out of the twenty people, there are maybe four I don't know. That's a great feeling--reminded me of the first (and only) semester of graduate school. By the end of the semester, we were all so tight I didn't want to leave and I still keep in touch with a few of them. I hope it's that way in the creative writing program. Three of my favorite people from Intro. to Creative Writing are taking it. About half of my Monday class is also in there (including the guy I wanted to shoot with what Anthony described as "mind bullets". "No", I corrected him, "real bullets".)

There's definitely a difference between us Creative Writing folks and those who are minoring in it. They take it a little less seriously,  try a little too hard and aren't quite as reverent about literature and writing.

For example: we took a look at "A Double Negative" by Lydia Davis. This is (seriously) all there is to this work:

''At a certain point in her life, she realizes it is not so much that she wants to have a child as that she does not want not to have a child, or not to have had a child.''

OK, so confusing, yes. But take a minute to dissect it--and you'll discover the genius behind one sentence that has conflict, theme and debatable meaning.

So the loud-mouthed-journalism-major pointed out that if she brought something like that to class, the teacher would tear it to shreds. She also mentioned that she's written things exactly like that.

(Eyes rolled around the room)

Someone pointed out that a writer has to learn the rules before they can break them. Someone else (so nicely) pointed out that a writer has to earn a reputation for being  exceptional before something like this would be widely accepted and not questioned and scrutinized for typos.

I'm glad I'm friendly with all the people in my class--because that's probably most of the socializing I'll be doing this semester. In Contemporary Fiction Craft, we have to read and journal--generally 15-20 handwritten pages of notes per novel--as we "read like a writer". Also a group presentation, mid-term and final.

In Narrative Technique, we are to turn in one creative writing piece a week. One a week! Three times this semester I'll have to read one of my pieces aloud and then be critiqued by my peers. There was an audible gasp from the back of the room (ahem, me) when that was announced. But after seeing the dynamics of the class (and all the familiar faces), I'm not near as scared as I thought I'd be. Also due, one reading response on one of the three-ish short stories we have to read a week.

It is a lot of work. But I'm really looking forward to it. Being forced to churn out something creative once a week is exactly why I returned to school. This semester is going to be a kick in the ass...

......but it's gonna hurt so good.

(Editors note: While my one reader out there may note that I am, in fact, pretentious, I would have to argue with the fact that pretentious writers don't use words like "Amaze-balls". I am thoroughly aware of my own inadequacies as a writer. Don't worry about pointing them out to me. No, really, please don't. Because then my sloth claws will have to come out and it will be on like Donkey Kong.)