I Need

I need to go to the park and spin on the merry-go-round. I need to play on the swings. I need to slide down the sliding board. I need to walk through the deep leaves in a long patchwork skirt.

I need to rollerblade and juggle at the same time, as bubbles are blown towards me.

I need to drive around for no reason. With my knees. I need to open the window so that when I cry, my tears are blown away. I need to do this whilst listening to Birdsong, and think the moment is deep. I need to not use the word whilst; I would not have used it then. I also would not have used a semicolon correctly.

I need to carry band equipment back and forth on a cold tuesday night, after everyone else has gone to sleep. I need to stop and appreciate that moment. I know that it won’t happen again. I need to hop into a stranger’s van and ask them their name. They will answer me. It is pouring.

I need to hold hands with hundreds of people in an open field. I need to walk two miles in the rain and stop to watch a deer cross my path. I need to laugh near an open fire.

I need to sleep on the hard ground, next to a different fire, with different drums in the distance.

She's Leaving Home

Driving home from happy hour last night, I looked at the already-darkening sky and thought about leaving. Not leaving anywhere in particular, just the idea of leaving; doing this, I realized something about myself--I’m really good at it. Leaving, that is. I’ve left lots of places.

I left a music festival once--The Gathering of the Vibes. It was a terrible, terrible place, so overcrowded that people began to resort to things that I won’t even mention on here...let’s just say there were issues with the facilities and leave it at that. It was almost a hundred degrees out and tens of thousands of people were camped in an open field. I was supposed to be working, but everything was so out of control I realized no one was going to bother to try to find me. A brief but violent thunderstorm put the sound system out of commission for a good long time and turned the already befouled field into a mud pit. I was out of there.

I left a pagan gathering once--Womongathering. I still have the little clay woman used as an ID badge--I was supposed to be working there, too--hanging from my rearview mirror. I left Kripalu, a yoga center in Western Massachusetts, after only four of the seven days I was supposed to be there--yep, you guessed it, working. I never knew there could be such sensory deprivation in a place like that, and it drove my 22 year-old self mad. And then there’s my most recent leaving incident this past summer, which I never would have predicted.

I left all of these places for the same reason--because I was unhappy. There was always a different reason for my unhappiness--trust me, the ‘facilities’ at Kripalu were so far superior to those at The Vibes it isn’t even fair to call them by the same name--but unhappiness is what it always boils down to. I left because I was unhappy. And--I left because, well, I could.

But what happens when I can’t leave? This is where my thoughts took me last night, on the way home from happy hour, looking at the sky not at the road. What happens when the thing making me unhappy isn’t even a thing that is leave-able? What about when the thing that is making me unhappy isn’t even a THING? What then? Where do I go now?

Ten Years

Last weekend my husband and I visited Washington, D.C. to attend the National Book Festival.  The day of the festival could not have been less conducive to enjoying and outdoor event; it was cold for late September and no matter how hard I willed it to stop, the rain simply would not let up.  After seeing only three authors speak--he saw James Patterson and John Irving, I went the YA route like a good middle school teacher and listened to Lois Lowry and Sharon Creech, and we watched Julia Alvarez together--we gave up and retired to the Smithsonian.  

Having previously attempted to use the restrooms in the Natural History Museum only to find a mysterious line formed at the front door of the museum itself, we decided instead to take a quick tour through the American History Museum, thinking the line situation must be unique to the more popular museum.  We were wrong.  The line was not mysterious.  It was the same line that snaked around the plastic airport security ropes in front of every single museum and public place in the District of Columbia.  We visited the Pavilion Shops in the Old Post Office, and were met with the same metal detectors, the same conveyor belts, and the same grumpy men in uniform with plastic purse-probing sticks.  

Wet and cold, I was beyond annoyed.  I was indignant.  How could they do such a thing?  Didn’t this seriously affect the amount of people that would visit the museums?  And, more importantly, did this mean I would no longer have easy access to clean, marble-tiled restrooms any time I wanted?  After all, these were the same buildings I used to walk through to get from the Mall to the Ariel Rios building on my way back from lunch.  The same buildings I’d run into to pick up a Degas print umbrella for my mother to bring home as a birthday gift.  The very buildings I’d been to so many times, unfettered by lines or national security...ten years ago.

It really had been that long since I’d been there.  The summer of 2000 was the summer I spent in D.C.  I wasn’t yet old enough to drink, and the world was a much different place.  Ten years ago.

We toured the museum, though it seemed that in those ten years the building had changed; more than the simple addition of various security devices, most of the things that made the building beautiful had been ‘renovated’.  It was cold and stark, more like the National Gallery than the grandma’s attic of Americana it had once been.  Ten years.  So much had changed.

My husband led me around, and I got to see the gunboat Philadelphia, which I had heard all about on my guided tour of Lake Champlain this past August--it was not impressive, unless you count how impressive it is that something so big, ugly, and poorly constructed could ever float.  He then steered me towards an exhibit called ‘The Price of Freedom: Americans at War’, which had the requisite flute and drum music playing softly in the background as we entered.  The exhibit started with the French and Indian War, continued on through the Revolution, the Civil War, past all of those little wars the middle school history books skip--you know, like World War One--and continued up to the present day.  I have to admit to being a little bit bored, though my husband was entranced, and insisted on reading a lot of the little words written on the walls.  I was briefly entertained by a POW exhibit that was appropriately dark and cave-like, as well as by the Vietnam display which featured a full-size helicopter complete with helicopter audio that would have made my 7th grade social studies teacher jump under his desk.  But then we got to what I realized later was the end, where we encountered two large rusty pieces of metal--crumpled pieces of the supports that once held up the twin towers.  

To be honest, I don’t even know if that’s what they were--supports, that is--that’s what they looked like to me.  I didn’t read any of the little words on the wall there.  I just stood there, stunned, torn between the physical urge to cry and the logical voice that told me I had no right to cry, no right at all, as the most my life had been affected directly by this was having to stand in a line to get into the building to look at them.  

I had just walked through an account of an entire history of our country and all of it seemed so irrelevant, so old, so...boring.  And with one step I entered it, became a part of it, and realized that the last time I stood in this building, those pieces weren’t there.  Ten years.  So much had changed.   

      

Corduroy and Calico

During the summer I spent working at the EPA, I carried a purse that I had made out of corduroy.  It was mossy green with a burgundy calico strap.  On the front I had affixed a tree; it was almost smurf-like in its perfection.  The trunk was a solid brown, and the cloud-shaped puff of leaves a more jewel-toned green than the corduroy of the purse itself, but the same calico pattern as the strap, with small asterisk designs throughout.  I had spent a great deal of time on it, and I loved it.

This purse had gone with me everywhere, across state lines, to concerts, through entire relationships.  It even went on the interview that got me the EPA job.  But there was one threshold it could not pass--the rubber belted metal detector.

I had boarded the metro in New Carrolton, made my way to D.C., travelled all the way up the staggering height of the escalator--not a very difficult feat, as any escalator passenger will tell you--and made it to my destination.  Twice.  Maybe three times.  I know it was not my first day, but I also know that it wasn’t far from it.  I entered the building, said hello to the hot, dread-locked security guard who was overly friendly towards me--he once bought me a bouquet of roses being sold by a homeless man just outside of the building, who I was also friendly with--and put my bag on the conveyor belt.  

It was one of those moments of painful clarity.  Something changed about my vision--I zoomed in on the purse as it slowly made its way towards the little rubber curtains; I will never understand the purpose of those curtains.  And then my vision widened.  Not enough to be able to look away, but just enough to provide a perspective.  

Every single other bag on that conveyor belt was black.  And leather.  Supple leather.  There might have been one or two brown ones, but they, too, were supple and leather.  My bag was a corduroy and calico wart on the face of the U.S. government security system.  I was utterly embarrassed.

I went to the Prince Frederick Wal-Mart that night and bought a plastic-and-shiny-plastic black handbag.  

That purse is long gone as well, just as long gone as the corduroy and calico bag with the tree on the flap.  I slowly worked my way up to low-end designer handbags that I can’t even afford, that drive my husband insane.  But never once have I wondered ‘Why?’ 

I Am Everything That Is Wrong With the World

I suggested we go to Applebee's for lunch.  I have piles of books and scholarly magazines that I honestly want to read, yet spent my two free hours today watching television.  When I watch television, I watch tivoed episodes of ABC Family's Secret Life of the American Teen.  Sometimes I do this while eating Wawa subs, which I love.  My garden is well past its prime, yet I continue to let it grow, and by 'it' I mean 'all of the weeds that are overtaking it'.  I think I'm a writer yet only write blogs, and an occasional ill-conceived personal narrative that I do not even post in blog format.

But there is hope.  I still have yet to drink a milkshake whist eating a cheeseburger.  And that, at least, is something. 

Romancing the Corn

       I’ve been giving some thought today to the word romantic.  I use the word a lot, at least in my head, and am beginning to wonder when the idea of romance expanded to include so many things that have nothing to do with interpersonal love.  For example, one might use the term ‘romantic’ to describe a moonlit walk on the beach.  That’s a classic example, and it does, in fact, involve two people in love; unless you prefer to take romantic walks on the beach with, say, your dog...but that’s a completely different issue that I’d rather not think about.  However, many other things can be considered romantic.    Moving to Paris to live in a studio apartment and paint--doesn’t that sound romantic?  Spending a year living in solitude in the wilderness, like Thoreau or Abbey, to write and reflect on the nature of life, well, that’s pretty darn romantic.  In both of these instances, one is alone, yet the word romantic springs immediately to mind.  The problem with this is that it is not the actual apartment in Paris that is romantic in and of itself.  It is not the cabin on the lake or the trailer in the desert that is romantic. It is not the reality that is romantic--it is the idea of these things that is romantic.  

I have come to romanticize an idea in my own life--the idea of a garden.  Notice that I did not state that the garden itself is romantic.  It is quite the opposite.  In fact, in the creation of our first garden this spring, my husband and I fought over the silliest of things, simply out of frustration.  But we were working towards some romanticized ideal.  Surely once it was built and we were reaping the literal fruits of our labor, then there would be something magical, something primal, something romantic about sharing in the food we created.  Having realized the creation of a garden was not at all romantic, we looked forward to the next step.

This morning and afternoon I spent cooking a meal made primarily with food grown in this very garden.  I decided that it would be quite romantic to go out, pick the food, gather it in my skirt, and bring it inside to prepare.  Quite to my dismay, I discovered there is very little magic in the de-stringing of string beans.  On my list of Things that are Dull and Mundane, that chore is near the top of the list.  Making fresh pesto from the stalks of basil that I chopped down--I’m going to have to label that tedious.  And don’t even get me started on the corn.  My husband went out and picked and gathered, only to pull back the stalks and silk to find the most snaggle-toothed corn we’ve ever seen.  But we’re still serving it for dinner tonight.  Maybe I’ll cut some fresh flowers and light some candles, and we can see if an accidental flaming hydrangea and a screeching smoke alarm are romantic.  

Relaxation

       All I wanted to do was relax, near water, on sand.  The beach was too far away to qualify as relaxing--how relaxed can one really get after driving for three hours, knowing that the drive back will be just as long? But lakes--Pennsylvania has a lot of little lakes. (Though we are not as quaint as Vermont, which I recently learned has a website devoted to ‘swimming holes’.  Seriously?  Swimming holes?  Who uses that term anymore?) So off we went, to visit a pseudo-local lake about 45 minutes north east.

I knew it was a bad idea before we left.  In the summer, we typically don’t do anything or go anywhere on the weekends.  Weekends in August are for those poor souls who have to work during the summer.  From June until September, we do everything on weekdays between the hours of nine and four.  But this summer, something unusual happened.  It rained.  For days and days on end, it rained.  And there was one bright, glimmering, shining day in the middle of many days depicting lightening bearing clouds on The Weather Channel homepage--Saturday.  So we went to the lake.  It was a bad idea.

Please recall that relaxation was our goal.  We were immediately met with traffic--first with the traffic out of town.  There was a car show, and we smiled and laughed thinking we were leaving the crowds behind.  Then we arrived at the lake--correction--we arrived in the town that is near the lake.  And there was traffic.  

An hour after leaving, we pulled into the parking lot of the promised lake.  It was packed.  There were mini vans as far as the eye could see.  If I had not just sat in traffic for thirty minutes on both sides of a major mountain range, we would have turned around immediately.

But instead we got out and spread out our blankets.  I changed into my bathing suit in a changing room that only I could possibly be ok with, having spent years using public port-o-potties at hippie music festivals, typically with a wicked hangover on a ninety degree day.  My husband--who I love and am thankful is still married to me after many outings such as this--dutifully carried the low-sitting beach chairs into the water, so we could lounge, presumably in a relaxed fashion, with our feet in the lake and our asses dangling mere centimeters above the water.  I grabbed my book, sat down, and prepared to relax.

That’s when I heard it.  The screaming.  It was terrible.  It surrounded me from all sides.  Literally--in every direction, there was screaming.  The screaming of dozens of children.  They yelled, they ran, they whooped, they generally were very, very loud, and very, very noticeable.  They were everywhere at once.  It was a giant, mewling mass of kids under the age of nine.  Correction--it was a giant, mewling mass, and a smaller, calmer, more tired-looking mass of parents who could not have cared less.  They simply arrived--much like we did, after sitting in the same traffic--laid out their blankets, as we did, and set their kids free.  All of the children ran into the lake at random intervals.  No child simply walks into a lake.  And running into a body of water is very splashy business, and none of it was lost on me or my book, with which I was supposedly relaxing.  Several kids boogie boarded into me, despite the clear lack of tide or waves that would justify a boogie board.  Finally one admittedly very cute child inched closer and closer to me until he could finally reach out and grab my foot--his whole reason for inching--and I gasped and smiled at him, all the time wondering if his mother was watching.  If she wasn’t, he could easily have drown in the seven inches of water; if she was, she should have stopped the inching before he got even remotely close to my-foot-grabbing-distance.  Either way, she deserved to be slapped.  

It was at this point I realized something--it must be really hard to be a teacher.  I love my job--I really, truly do.  I don’t even especially love it in the summertime--I’d much rather be in my own classroom in November, working, than on a lake-beach in the middle of August. The reason for this is very simple--in my classroom, no one grabs my foot.  No one boogie-boards into me, and no one, I repeat no one, screams.

Thirty-seven more days until school starts.  I cannot wait.