I no longer recount my dreams to the spouse because one morning he said,
“What is the matter with your head, woman?”
To which I had no response.
Last night I was urinating in a restaurant, hovering off the side of my chair, hoping no one would notice.
I was giving a dying rat sips of water by squeezing a damp paper towel over his freakish gray face.
I was wandering, lost, lugging my severed leg.
But one perfect night I was in Italy, at a little restaurant on the side of a cliff. I was watching the light change, and laughing, laughing, laughing.
One of our campsites–without my brother’s addition.
For years we slept together in one tent,
All six of us
Plus cat and dog.
As the youngest, I was tucked into the seams, farthest from the snoring heap of dad…
An unfortunate location on rainy nights.
When he hit high school, middle brother learned to sew.
Out of ripstop nylon and seam-sealer, he carved a modicum of personal space for the hours between dish duty and daybreak.
Groggy and stiff from hugging the lumpy terrain, we drank Tang out of Solo cups, stamped our feet to keep warm, and crammed back into the Chevy for the next 500 miles.
The word potluck makes me anxious, even now that I am old enough to have scheduling conflicts.
I can still feel the warm weight of paper plates sagging precariously in my hands,
Odd juices running together as I make my way
Across gray, industrial tiles,
Fluorescent lights blazing upon:
Norwegian Chop Suey
Potato salad slathered in Miracle Whip and pickle relish
Jello with grated carrots and cottage cheese
Fruit salad with Cool Whip and marshmallows
Hamburger Helper
Broccoli with Cheez Whiz
“Hot Dish”
Anything involving a can of cream of something soup
Or canned peas
And then, at the end,
Mincemeat pie.
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In case you’re wondering “Wait! What’s wrong with pie?”…let me assure you that real mincemeat pie involves meat. Like rump steak and beef suet. As well as piles of sugar and raisins. Don’t believe me? Click here for a recipe.
At last we wrest ourselves from gravity’s firm grip
And hurtle upward in our magic flying chairs.
The world expands.
Ant-sized creatures turn tiny switches,
Illuminating the place we just left like fireflies.
Ears pop;
Carts roll;
Bladders press against belts buckled low and tight.
Strangers brush limbs and stretch backwards into each other’s laps
without embarrassment or apology.
Reasonable standards plummet
to new depths–People magazine and snack packs and Bridezilla–
Because, now jaded,
Teetering in a tin can six miles off the face of our planet seems unremarkable.
The hours must be whiled
by any means necessary.
**Many thanks to Louis C.K. and last night’s flight for inspiring whatever that was.
“Sometimes I think you have to march right in and demand your rights, even if you don’t know what your rights are, or who the person is you’re talking to. Then, on the way out, slam the door.” – Jack Handey
For years I laughed at Jack Handey’s inane musings on Saturday Night Live, all the while thinking he was a character created for the show.
Not so; he’s real.
Not only does he live and breathe; some people take him semi-seriously. Recently, a friend forwarded an essay to me from the New YorkTimes: “And Now, Deep Thoughts About ‘Deep Thoughts.‘” In it, Kathleen Rooney asserts that Jack Handey is the perfect exemplar of contemporary poetic thought. Say what?
I swear I’m not making this up. It’s an engaging read, and the comments are worth a squiz as well (including this one: “I googled myself and decided this is not a person I want to know.” ).
Though I understand the author’s point, I agree with one of her critics. The author has conflated wit and poetry, which–though not mutually exclusive–are definitely not the same thing.
Here’s what I do know, though. Every time I read one particular sentence of his, I think about how absolutely flawless it is:
“The face of a child can say it all, especially the mouth part of the face.”
I got up at 5:20 today, and haven’t stopped since, so I would rather poke my eyes out with a hot stick than sit down and try to write something right now.
You might also be wishing that I never, ever pledged to post daily for thirty days straight; apologies in advance.
In the absence of any other coherent thought, I have decided to pass along a valuable piece of information that I received a couple of days ago.
I had mentioned a dead hamster in a post–“Hamsty”–who was well-photographed before we laid him to rest in a Hamsty-sized sleepsack, with a tiny pillow, in a tiny coffin.
It was tasteful and surprisingly moving for a rodent funeral.
I have recently been informed as to how real Vikings send their dead pets to Valhalla, however:
There is nothing I like more at the end of a long day than my bedtime routine.
I don’t answer the phone in the midst of it; I don’t even like to answer questions. I might nod, but I don’t listen to anyone or anything. I am off-duty.
Not long ago, an acquaintance walked into my entryway and stared at a photograph I had taken of my daughter holding her pet hamster. “Is that guy dead?” she asked me.
I suddenly felt very, very uncomfortable.
“Uh, yeah,” I said, unsure whether to feel embarrassed or ashamed. I picked both.
She looked at it for a long, uncomfortable moment before announcing: “That is sooooo Scandinavian.”
I had no idea what she meant, but since I’m 100% Norwegian, I figured she might be on to something. It was time to investigate.
I have relatives who swim daily in the ocean off the coast of Oslo, and run around their mountain cabin naked in the middle of winter–no doubt after a good dose of Aquavit. I can assure you that this is not what it was like for me in my childhood home. My parents are the sort that drink a thimble-full of red wine for medicinal reasons, and comport themselves in a dignified manner at all times. I think I’ve heard them raise their voices three or four times in my entire life.
Growing up, I was carted off to Junior Sons of Norway on Saturdays, where I learned the Norwegian national anthem–which I can be easily enticed to sing, with great enthusiasm–and Min Hatt, Den Har Tre Kanter (My Hat, It Has Three Corners, a deep and lyrical song, as you ca imagine). I was fed Lutefisk (fish soaked in lye) once a year, and taught to say grace in Norwegian whenever we excavated the dining room table and broke out the china.
I associate my ethnic roots with a palate-numbing dose of pickled herring, passed like treasure in a tiny, silver-rimmed dish at Christmas dinner. In fact, Christmas arrived with a long list of Scandinavian things I can’t and/or won’t eat: Swedish meatballs, fruit soup, lefse, herring, rice pudding. (Sorry, Mom. I love you.) My mother would hide an almond in the rice pudding, and whoever found it got an extra present on Christmas Eve. I loved this tradition, but despised rice pudding. I would shove a spoonful around on my plate, and if I couldn’t find a nut, try to reorganize it in a polite way which simulated ingesting an honorable amount.
But I think it goes much deeper. Those Norwegian immigrants were unflinching, hardworking, stoic powerhouses in the face of the adversity and desolation of the Plains. In fact, my name was plucked from Ole Rolvaag’s Giants in the Earth, a chronicle of Norwegian immigrants in the Midwest. I have visited his house multiple times, read articles, and listened attentively to stories about him, but I have never, ever been able to make myself read the book. Here’s why: from Wikipedia, “The novel depicts snow storms, locusts, poverty, hunger, loneliness, homesickness, the difficulty of fitting into a new culture, and the estrangement of immigrant children who grow up in a new land.” What’s more, I heard my namesake has a paralyzing case agoraphobia.
“Is it true Beret goes crazy in the book?” I asked my mother. “Why would you name me after a character like that?”
There was a quiet pause.
“She really pulls it together in the second book,” my mother said, finally.
In the very back of my sister’s closet was a tall, quilted dress bag. It was made of pale pink plastic and filled with my mother’s fancy dresses.
One was a Dutch-blue satin dress she had worn in her best friend’s wedding. It was off-the-shoulder, tea-length, in a simple and flattering style I don’t associate with bridesmaids’ gowns. I loved the feel of the fabric as the flared skirt swayed and brushed against my legs.
There was a floor-length pink gown that had been chopped and altered, once for my sister on Halloween, and once for me when I played Glinda in the fifth grade musical. It had a scratchy layer of tulle over the top, which was uncomfortable, but extra glamorous.
There were several more dresses, but the only other I vividly recall was the one my mother had made for a tea dance in high school. It had a brocade bodice and a wine-colored satin skirt. It was simply divine. That one I put on repeatedly.
If no one was around, I liked to sneak a pair of white gloves from my her bedside table, the ones with a tiny flower of seed beads on each wrist and an impossibly small button.
Then I might poke through her jewelry drawer, the bottom of which was covered with a flat of egg carton material, so each item could be investigated and laid reverently back into its soft gray cup. I might try on everything, but I always ended up with a single strand of pearls from my Grandmother.
One day in high school–nearly a decade since I had played dress up–I happened upon the dress bag in the closet, and decided to try on that tea dance dress once more.
What happened next is difficult to articulate. Each seam fell exactly into place and the hemline was perfect. I stared in the mirror and was overwhelmed by a creepy sensation. It was uncanny. Not only had my mother made the dress, and tailored it perfectly to her frame, she had made me, too. Suddenly the concept of genetics was no longer textbook essays and double helix diagrams. It was concrete and intensely physical. She made me.
I know she had help; I get it. But it wouldn’t have been the same to try on my father’s trousers.
Bad Parenting 101 