Crazy After Wendy Rawlings*

*A response to Wendy Rawlings' essay "Let's Talk About Shredded Romaine Lettuce"

The bar on the Monday night is perfect.

The crowd is sparse like grapes in the bottom of a bowl.

Like the last few pieces of lettuce at the sad end of your Cobb.

I am not the only one who is a alone when I cruise in a few minutes after nine having come from an added-late and much-needed therapy session intended to stop the pendulum from swinging with such polar energies.

I’m so tired.

The bar is a place I go, but not usually where I would find myself in an hour so nigh to sleep, so early in the week, and a drink is not usually what I reach for after an hour of sharing my secrets.

It just seems cheap.

But when you miss your train by moments, you kill an hour.

When you are in your thirties, and single, and alone, and wearing a suit and wingtips, and just coming from therapy where you shared your secrets, you sometimes come to your favorite bar even when it’s just a sports-like bar, but a sports-like bar that has always been very friendly to the gal at the end of the bar so much so that one time the printed tab from the machine said “gal at the end of the bar” because they don’t know my name because I think being a regular is both good and very very bad.

What’s great is that you are feeling crazy – both for being crazy and for feeling crazy. And that just hours before the therapy and the bar, you read a recommended piece of experimental non-fiction. A piece which made your sadness deeper. A piece that made your sadness deeper because it was about how everyone (literally everyone, asshole) has it worse than you because you are not shitting blood, or fearing that your daughter’s body is quitting its job, or working a shift in total darkness; a shift that falls on the outskirts of when the sun rises and sets. A shift that the whole time you are earning your money you are inhaling poison.

Because you are not doing any of those things, but you are still going to therapy.  In a squat office building, in a white neighborhood, you are learning life lessons from a pretty, intelligent, kind woman with multiple degrees who tells you to have compassion for yourself, even though you are not inhaling tiny glittery bits of metal that are chewing up your lungs, or shitting blood.

But the bar knows that you are feeling crazy, and feeling crazy for feeling crazy, so as your wingtips cross the sticky threshold of the nearly empty space, the bar serenades you with Patsy Cline, reminding you (with zero subtlety) about the Crazy.  The Crazy in your mind that you fear is in your heart, or wherever is deeper than that.

Its just the end of the tune though, the last chorus, just enough to make you feel uneasy about your own reality and to remind you that you have never ever written one single fucking song about a woman who broke your heart.

The locally brewed beer, the beer close to your regular beer but different enough to make you feel like you are making choices, is cold, even though the pint glass itself seems smaller than it should be, like it knows that you shouldn’t be drinking this beer on this Monday when you are feeling this crazy.

After Patsy finishes her reminder, but before Hootie and before Blues Traveler, the bar gives you one more gift. A Counting Crows song - one that touches all your crazy - in all the places it is restless and resting, and says to you in the clear and prophetic voice of Adam Duritz, the private therapist of your youth, “This is the you that you have always been.”

The Window-In-Process

We sat on the hardwood floor of her sparsely furnished apartment, sipping chamomile tea, occasionally grazing hands or knees, and talking quietly as the slow-setting June sun darkened the room.

I brought my face close to the edge of the steaming jar of tea in my hands to smell the flowers floating at its surface and raised my eyes to the window-in-process that occupied the entire north wall of the room. Three pieces of glass - woodwork, sealants and fillings left visible. All the bones exposed.  It was beautiful.

She was beautiful, too, and I was anxious. I thought about the window. I thought about her. I thought about writing.

The details collected. The smell of the tea, the exposed woodwork of the window, the angle of the sun, the energy of our close proximity. Her. She sighed heavily, ran her fingers along the ridge of her hairline where her hair was pulled away from her face, looked at the window and looked back at me.

Seated on the floor, in her workout clothes and inquisitive eyes, she told the story of the window. The landlord had knocked it out, letting the glass fall to the ground three stories below. He covered the gaping hole with a tarp the week that it was 40 degrees in the Chicago that refused to warm. The beautifully vulnerable skeleton of the window became much more complex as she spoke.

Before she and I came back to the apartment for tea and to stare at the window, we walked the length of her neighborhood city park. We enjoyed a perfect picnic of green foods and red wine in our skimpy summer clothes. We got close, but not too close. I was trying to be vulnerable. This is who I am. This is what I think. These are my hands and feet and legs. I wanted to write about vulnerability.

When the sun had finally set, we stood in the dark apartment and I packed my things to leave. We held each other tightly - briefly - at the door, and I said nothing of her pulled back hair, or her eyes, or the way our hands and knees grazed. On the way home, I wanted to write about the picnic, the tea, the girl. 

Instead, I wrote about the window. 

2014 Great Lakes Snail Race

There’s a lot you can do with a white board.  You don’t have to throw them away and start over like with poster boards, and they keep their shape and don’t need any tape.  I used to write everything out and my block writing was pretty good, but mom said to cool it on the killed trees.  She gave me a white board, an eraser, and a rainbow pack of markers last Christmas and said to go nuts.

I’m known for my signs more than the games.  Last year the town newspaper took a picture of the 2014 Great Lakes Snail Race!! sign Dad and I designed.  That was a great sign and even though it was on paper mom let me keep it - but only if I didn’t let the fame go to my head.  

There are signs everywhere if you take the time to look for them.  Lemonade stands and tag sales and even some kids collecting for charity - though I’m not sure I’d trust their poster.  But ours was the first famous sign.  

We weren’t expecting it.  A lady pulled a small black car with a smashed passenger door half way into our driveway and hurried over to the lawn where Dad stood.  She wore black shoes with a tall spike in the back and walked crooked across the wet grass.  I was hunting snails nearer the street when I first saw her.  She shook Dad’s hand and looked closely at the poster.

My dad’s a designer.  He must be a good one because he is always busy with a design project.  When I first thought up some games he told me that a man must have a passion.  I asked him about his passion and he said without thinking that he liked to design.

He isn’t good at designing games.  I tried to get his help with a wild bird scavenger hunt, but said that no one had that kind of time.  But he did help with the sign.  For the bird watch he helped me to center my letters so that the poster was balanced.  He told me that sometimes less is more and that white space (even though the poster was yellow) wasn’t always a bad thing.  That I only needed to draw a few birds instead of ten.  He was careful and slow with the ruler, marking start and stop spaces with quiet breaths, leaning in so close I could feel the soft fur of his arms as he dragged a thick marker across a pencil sketch.  

I had already found some snails but I told Dad I hadn’t because the sign was finished and I didn’t want him to leave for work.  He suggested ants or squirrels, saying we could get some cheese and lure them out of the tree.  

“That’ll be fun.  And they’re fast.  It’ll be fun to watch them run.”

But I didn’t want to run.  I wanted him to stay, and snails seemed a good way to buy some time.  

The lady stayed with my Dad for awhile - pointing at me with a sharp, pink finger - laughing at something my dad was saying.  I wanted her to leave, but the sticks on her shoes dug deeper into the ground and she wouldn’t stop laughing. 

I ran over to them both - my dad’s face red and eyes wide.  

“Hey bud, this is a reporter.  She wants to do a story on your little game.”

“It’s my passion,” I said.

“What’s your passion?” she asked in voice that sounded more like a whistle.

“Design.”

“Oh?  That’s impressive!  How old are you?”

I didn’t like that she was still there and I asked her what she wanted.

“Don’t be rude,” Dad said laying a hand on my shoulder.  His hand was heavy and I knew he’d have to go to work.

“Not many kids your age have a passion!” 

She was going to make me famous.  She had a camera and worked for a newspaper and said I was special but I wanted her gone.  Because of her I had left the real snails back on the other side of the lawn and wasn’t sure they would still be there.  

She asked for a picture of dad and I and after we took it gave Dad a card.  He shook her hand and they kept talking, even as I walked away.  I needed snails for the race because without them I would never be famous.  But it wasn’t about that.  It took awhile, but I found the snails, and even with them we never raced.  Dad was called to work and the reporter still ran the story.  

I raced them myself and it took a long time, but that’s because snails have no passion.  They have no where to be or things to prove.  They just have to move and wear their shell and sometimes have a famous sign written about them.  But I swear the more you look at them, the more they change.  So it’s better to have a board you can erase.  It helps get Dad when he’s around.  It keeps from cutting down another tree.

Waiting

When Creative Nonfiction magazine posted the theme and call for submissions for its summer issue I was inspired.

“Waiting”

I knew so much about Waiting.

There is a detailed and ever-growing chart in my mind that captures the things that I’m willing to wait for (public transportation) and the things that I am not (pasta to boil).

I have measured my weeks in New Music Tuesdays (now New Music Fridays) waiting for new records to drop so I can wrap myself in that new album for days, let it sink into my skin, find the line or lyric that changes me a little bit. Lose myself in it.

I’ve thought so much about how long we waited for fossils to become fuel, Redwoods to grow, for us to become us - even if we didn’t know that we were waiting.

I know about waiting for summer in a wintery Midwestern city, for a beer to get exactly the right amount of cold, for the truncated cherry of a cigarette to burn the soft edge of a finger. For the sun to rise signifying the long end of a sleepless night. 

About waiting for extinction – that of rare birds, magnificent whales, and of our own people.

About waiting futilely.  For plastic bottles to deteriorate somewhere in a Nevada landfill. Or for your dad to get better.

I told my partner that I was going to write a piece to submit for the issue.

“Why?” She asked sadly. “Because you are always waiting for me?”

I thought about the almost five years I had been waiting for her to be good to me. I almost thought about the lies that I had not yet learned.

“Yes. For that reason, too.” I thought.

Endless Winter

As February draws to a truncated close, temperatures drop and the final days of January begin. I rotate my coat rack so the denim and fleece move toward the back, wrap a scarf around my neck and zip the double layers of my ski-coat. The night to make my resolutions is around the corner. I assess my level of success and disappointment and promise to avoid the same mistakes next year. 

Beyond that proclamation of a better year lies Christmas.  Snowflake and tinsel decor frame the doorways of my favorite bookstores, unavoidable holiday tunes dance a fine line of entertaining and depressing.  I gift my loved ones inexpensive sentiments of presents. Symbols of love or friendship or co-workerness. Soon after, when I shop for those trinkets of my affection, I find some joy in finding just the right gifts.  I stress about my limited funds and do endless math to figure out where my money goes. I decide to start saving more aggressively after the holidays. 

When Thanksgiving comes around, I savor the extra days off work, but find myself bored with all the free time – so accustomed to my jam-packed days. I take Metra home to the suburbs, but forget the pie I won at pub trivia in my refrigerator. I prepare to be challenged by my brother.   

On the Metra back home on Sunday night, my bags full of clean laundry and leftovers, I plan for a vast array of Halloween costumes that I won’t wear because Halloween will fall on a weekday, and I just go to work as usual, but I wear socks with black cats and buy some candy for my team. That night, I try to find something Halloween themed on TV, and feel shock and surprise that tomorrow is already November 1^st. 

I wonder what happened to summer and why I feel like its been winter forever already.

Let's Not Rush This

My mom gives me a dog for my ninth birthday. She says, “There needs to be some father figure in this household” as she fits as collar around his neck. He’s a Bernese Mountain breed with a lame hind leg and fur that sticks to your hands if its was hot. Mom says he needs an ID ‘straight away’ and asks me his name.
“I don’t have a name yet,” I say.
She rolls her eyes and stops working the collar. “It’s just a name Andrew,” she says.

Mom gets like this. Exasperated is the word Dad uses. She breathes loudly through her nose and starts tapping one foot.

“Don’t be so exasperated mom,” I say, but that just makes her more. Now she’s pulling on the collar and the dog lets out a small whine.

“Can I think about it? I need time,” I say. She nods but it doesn’t seem enough so I add, “I need to see what kind of dog he is.”

I know what she’ll say. She’ll say, “He’s a Bernese Mountain dog!” but that’s not the point. I need to know what name will fit. Dad says I’m such an Andrew and Mom says she gave me the name so I hope she’ll understand how important this is.

“Well what are we going to call him while you make up your mind?”

“Dog?” I say, and she lifts her hands up like the criminals do with cops and says, “whatever you want.”

It doesn’t take long for me to meet Dog. Or maybe I should say all of Dogs. He’s not a ‘straight shooter’ as mom would say. He’s actually everything. He can be sad or mad or quiet. Like yesterday, Mom had me wait in my room when Dad dropped me off. Dog ran into my room - crashing into my legs, licking my ankles. He was really, really happy. Then when the shouting started Dog froze, his eyes look wetter and he pushed his face up against mine as we sat in the corner quietly, listening.

It comes to me that same day. It’s a good name and I am excited to tell Mom. “I’ve got a name for Dog!” I say.

“Oh?” She’s at the computer reading something without her glasses. She doesn’t look up.

“Proteus,” I say.

She scrunches her face in a way that makes her look small and says, “Prometheus?”. From her tone I can tell she doesn’t like it.

“No!” I say, getting exasperated myself. “Proteus.”

“What is that?”

“It’s a Greek sea god,” I say. She spins around and her eyebrows sat high on her face.

“Mom, Proteus changed into anything he wanted. He was a changer,” I say. Still she looks confused. Dad was right when he said Mom just didn’t get it.

“Like a Transformer, mom!”

She speaks slowly and gives me a weird look. “Did your Dad teach you this?”

I watched it on the Transformers DVD extras but I didn’t want to tell her that. Instead I say, “I can read Mom”.

Her mouth is open and she looks as wounded as Proteus, when he was just Dog, that day they were fighting. I bite my lip and looked to Proteus. That was only yesterday.

I think she might say no, give him an easier name and I start thinking up a good backup when she says, “How do you spell it?” and I have to admit I don’t know.

Virginia is For Lovers

We were on fire. 

We touched each other’s elbows and hips fluidly and constantly like we were strung together with silk. Our unrehearsed lines hit every time with bursts of laughter. The kisses between us were offered and sought simultaneously. It had been the best weekend of our relationship, maybe of any relationship that I had ever been a part of.  I’d loved you since the day we re-met, but this weekend I understood what it meant to be loved.

Even though you didn’t know anyone but me at the wedding, you pinned your confidence to your chest and revealed yourself to be everyone’s best friend.  You followed and fed and watered me and made me feel smart and sexy and wanted. You made everyone else want you; if only to be treated the way you treated me.

In the hours we weren’t together I let the maid of honor convince me to drink from a tiny bottle of cake-flavored vodka in the back seat of a limousine. It burned going down, but I felt confident and loved and a part of things.  Eventually, I felt a little drunk. You watched me walk down the aisle from your white folding chair in the grass, the Virginia vineyard spread out behind us, all of us with our fingers crossed that the October sky wouldn’t open up with rain.  It didn’t. The bride was beautiful, and there was no rain, and I fought tears as my friend wed the man of her dreams and I locked eyes with you across the crowd.

That night we danced. Your hand stayed on my hip. You let me drink wine with abandon; you held your own empty glass for hours ensuring you were lucid enough to take care of me.  Late into the night, you guided me to our room before I got sick, and were sweet when I woke up a little embarrassed.  You held me and offered to drive the rental car back to the airport so I could relax.

I’m sure that everything you pointed to on the drive north to DC was beautiful. The old farmhouses, the new sprawling single-family homes, the ways the hills dipped, lush and green, behind the trees.  I didn’t see much of it. My head ached with the memories of the night before, and when I closed my eyes, all I could see was you.