Measuring Pain

After six days of lying immobile on the living room floor, watching Tyra Banks, getting sicker and sicker from a mysterious flu-like illness, I was dragged to the ER against my will. In triage, the nurse was kind as I explained my ailments. Looking down she gestured small slips of paper taped to the side of a filing cabinet.

"Can you tell me, using this scale, how much pain you are feeling right now?"

My eyes traced the children's scale first and I thought about the children too young to explain their pain in terms of numbers, pointing to the frowning, crying face in hopes someone could make their pain go away. Feeling sad for sick kids, I moved my eyes to the numbered, adult pain scale asking me to rank my hurt from 1-10.

Looking at the numbered scale, barely able to think through the pain I was terrified I had let progress beyond repair; I couldn’t help but think about Eula Bliss’ non-fiction piece “The Pain Scale". Thinking about “The Pain Scale” reminded me that I was missing class. At that point, the pain of obligation, or the pain of possible failure was greater than the dull cramp in my back or the searing slice through my head when I moved my eyes. I pictured the worlds of "Grey's Anatomy" and "House" and all the death, surprise tumors and incurable illnesses each show featured weekly. Last year the Washington Post reported that between 20 and 25 million Americans tune in each week to watch the sex and drama filled "House". If those 20 to 25 million Americans were also in the ER, waiting to hear the cause of their Tyra Banks filled days of pain, fevers and chills, would they also be thinking about the fictional Seattle Grace Hospital and Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital of TV fame?

I refocus on the scale. I can't think of what kind of pain would cause me to point to the 10. I can’t think about what a “high tolerance” means. Over the course of my illness the pain gradually grew and each day I had accessed the pain by comparing it to other pains: Getting my nose pierced. The tattoo on my hip. Food poisoning. Getting my heart broken. This doesn’t hurt that bad.

Because I was thinking about "The Pain Scale", Grey's Anatomy, my tattoo mile-markers, bad Chinese food and broken hearts, and not solely my current discomfort, I pointed to the 3.

The Mower

Alice had a thing for manicured lawns. Tight cross-hatch patterns to be precise, and she tried everything to emulate the downy green runways of the nearby neighbors. But she couldn’t seem to steer it the same way Christopher’s father could, with his valley of grass six blocks over. She tried a mower of old, with its loud belt and wheel rotations. The one’s that backfire and masticate the green threads until a home’s focal point, the show and tell of an entryway, appeared flat and finished. Roadway paint. That was in part the look she was going for, which she could achieve, but she wanted the coarse, imprinted lines of manual achievement. Mr. Adams’ lawn had lines in perfect symmetry; in and out loops that inspired confidence in invited guests. She was adept at the task. The home was maintained. There were patches of flowers, crude cross-bred bouquets she purchased pre-grown, and tall trees that were sheared some, when necessary. But the blade running lines were never visible, or misaligned or terribly out of focus. So they switched to a modern model, at Christopher’s behest because Alice had too many times since nicked her ankle or shin, enough to warrant worry and once requiring three stitches. Their new make performed much the same way and Alice took to blaming the elements; the mud, sod or soot that was procured to produce the grass. It was an easy argument to make, and one of Christopher’s own coaxing so that the chore itself would be less demanding on her.

There were points of procedure to her mowing. Her mother had lupus, and, as such, was always in hat. Alice learned to thwart the sun at a very early age and grew in the habit of wearing an oversized sun shade, usually loose and drooping in the summer seasons and at most points outdoors. Her hats made her visible, as she pushed the machine across the yard. There was a ketchup stain on the front brim, slightly sticky, from their morning breakfast. Christopher made an omelet. She, hating omelets, and even more their nausea inducing egg scent, shook some frozen potato patties onto a cookie sheet for when she finished mowing. She started early to escape the smell of egg, but in so doing, hurried past Christopher who was just then shaking the ketchup bottle. There was a smear of the viscous paste above her eye. She also hated ketchup.

“It was an accident,” he said, still shaking.

“It smells like shit in here.”

And she started up the mower for the third time that week.

Brooklyn

Overflowing shelves of records where Dylan, Zeppelin, Louis Armstrong and the Beach Boys commune together in quiet. A player of records yearning for a spin. Sturdy and heavy antique furniture. A gathering of guitars hidden in closets, in alcoves, on high shelves, waiting for an impromptu sing-along. The Oxford English Dictionary. The Chicago Manual of Style. Endless cookbooks. Three French presses and a baby crib in the back room. Baby-proofed outlets a well-loved sowing machine. Cabinets full of seasonings and spices. The fullness that comes to a space that does not hold a television or microwave. The claw foot tub and a dingy window casting warm light into the open kitchen.

They took the brand new baby and toddling son north to Alaska for fishing season, leaving for the summer high ceilings and white woodwork on the ground floor of a Brooklyn Brownstone's neat railroad apartment.

Loitering in their temporarily abandoned home on a pre-rain Saturday morning in July, I imagine myself filling their closets with my dad's old velor sweaters that I love unconditionally but rarely wear and picture myself sitting cross-legged at the low wooden kitchen table. I write honest letters to friends of my youth while my tea smokes steam into the dusty ray of light that shines across my fingertips. With my blue-ink pen, I paint portraits of buying flowers for the party and collecting chipped coffee mugs. I sit up straighter in my grandfathers old wooden desk chair. I let my hair grow longer and pull it back in a low ponytail, which my girlfriend sweeps softly to the side to kiss my neck each evening when she comes through the front door.

Away from the Brownstone, standing on the steps of our new Dupont apartment on Swann, I can already imagine my dad's sweaters hanging in our tiny, shared closet and decide to buy flowers for the kitchen.

Sorry All

For those of you who have been keeping up with your short form bloggers we apologize, as we have both had serious computer troubles and have additionally been traveling. I'm back in the country now and Hula's making her way to the states as I type. We'll be back online soon, and better than ever!

love,

MeanJean and Hula

On Posture

I can tell by his walk. He’ll arrive home late to count steps in his head. One, two, three, one two, one. He smells like Crest and tonic.


I can also tell by the pattern of his feet. He almost shuffles and he’ll be singing rock. Sometimes he says nothing, and sometimes too much. He gets angry when I purse my lips. He’ll scream and I’ll scream and soon he’s saying ‘you don’t know who I am, you made me this way you bitch, you fucking bitch, you stupid fucking bitch!’ I cry, I kick, and I especially yell back. Get away from me! I’m leaving, I’m leaving right now! I’ll pull on sweat pants and run from room to room looking for my shoes.


Sometimes he’ll follow me, stamping his feet. ‘Go! Go! You’ll never go! You’ll never leave!’ And when I leave, he pulls his arms out- big massive arms, gorilla’s hands. I duck and sprint. Most times he’ll push me against the wall so hard that I’ll bruise. He’ll leave me there to run and block the doorway. Sometimes he laughs, a sad, low laugh, and how I scream! ‘I’ll call the police. I’ll call them on you. I’ll tell them to take you away!’ If my roommates hear, and they always hear, they’ll look at the doorway, me on the floor, and return to their room. The next day they’ll tell me how horrible he is, and why am I with him, and there has to be something better for you out there?


Mostly, I don’t know how to quiet him. How to sit him still so that I can take a drive- a long one smoking cigarette after cigarette. He insists he won’t go to bed without me. I decide to wait until he falls asleep so that I can make my escape. I’ll sit upright in bed while he makes spitting noises in his sleep.


Sometimes I’ll fall asleep, curled tight, as far away from him as that small bed will allow. I’ll sleep for three hours, sometimes four. Then I wake to run.


Oh and how I run! There’s a trail that expands 80 miles to St. Louis and I always think I can make the trip. But I’ll run six or eight or ten miles. When I’m out of breath I think, crap… now what?


But then I dress for work and by this time he’s already moving in the bed. He sits up straight and mumbles ‘sorry, sorry, I’m such an idiot. I’m really sorry.’ I’ll bit my lip and look to the floor. Don’t answer him, don’t answer... ‘I’m going to work’, and I always curse myself for saying that. He jumps up and buttons his jeans. ‘I’ll drive you’. He’ll run around the house, picking up my uniform, brushing his teeth, singing some song.


We drive in silence. I ask him for a cigarette and ash, ash, ash without really inhaling. When we stop he’ll breath deeply. ‘I love you. I love you so much.‘. I turn to face him to tell him that I’ll walk home. I wish I hadn’t because I see him blow me a kiss and know I’ll return.

The Night We Had No Heat

The February night I helped her move into the new apartment on the North side of Chicago we found there was no heat. The apartment was as cold as the street had been, without the insulated warmth of snow, but there was nowhere else to go. We unpacked boxes and drank wine until our eyes grew smaller and shiny. We read poetry aloud and drank more. The wine stayed cold no matter how long it was cradled in our hands and we continued talking, sitting on the hardwood, kissing between phrases, pretending I wasn’t flying home in a handful of hours.

I could see The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock as it swam through the crisp air from my parted lips, floated around the built-in bookshelves we were slowly filling with her memories, and gently sank down over her face like a warm spring mist. I wrapped myself in those words to stay warm. I’m sure I spilled my Riesling. Her smile sparkled as she laughed and we snapped photographs commemorating The Night We Had No Heat.

The little cat ran from room to room hopping in and out of emptied packing boxes demonstrating the dexterity of kittenhood, making her own heat and making us coo and laugh. Finally, when morning neared, drunk on white wine and stiff with cold, we slid into bed fully dressed and held each other. We squeezed in tight under the heaviness of the down comforter. The way our legs lay layered like a twisted bread loaf we clicked and stayed warm as the digital clock ticked away the hours of night.

In what felt like minutes the alarm ripped us from the safe womb of our drunken sleep. We had slept too well. We had slept too late. My flight across the country was leaving in an hour. I silently searched for my shoes in the freezing darkness, unable to imagine sleeping again without her. I did not miss my warm apartment. I would have chosen her over heat but the flight was booked and I was headed back to DC. My plane took off, and she stayed in Chicago. Her heat didn’t come back on for weeks.

Cistern

There’s a large rectangular cistern outside her bedroom window. It’s eight feet long, by four feet wide, and about five feet deep. She’s seen it before, she’s sure, and not at the new sixteen theatre omniplex, and not in daylight, certainly not at night. It was just as she remembered it, or thought she’d remembered it. Where was this memory coming from? It was hollow and dark, this large cistern. Somehow its size made the earth look plastic. When she reached for a handful the soil collapsed gently, in her palm. It was grainy and soft like velvet rice or the things she‘d mistakenly leave outside in the rain. She held this earth in her hand that molded and sealed like wax. This soft, firm substance had a climate all its own; it warmed, it pulsated, and it entwined itself in her fingers like living branches, or a latex glove, or another human hand.


She only saw her hand move behind her, and then felt a gentle pull as she watched the cistern move further away. Looking down on this small pile of dirt she saw her mother’s pale hand. It was dusted with that same earth that looked metallic in the sun. They walked backward in small, sturdy steps. When back on the porch she looked again to her mother’s hand, still in her own, clean, peach, nails intact, and so very hot. It seared at the touch, her mother’s hand, and she quickly removed her own- salted and peppered with that same earth. It smelled of her body, and sauerkraut, and rusted iron. It felt like wet grass and weighted pollen and a sunburn. When she went forward to return it to the hole the cistern was gone and the back door swung shut.

Weathering Change

I never understood the urgency of listening to the morning weather. As I understood it, I wore shorts and t-shirts between May and September and boots and a coat between October and April. The intricacies of the weather escaped me like midday snowflakes on the windshield of our Dodge Caravan.

A wind chill.
A heat index.
Chicago’s 32 degrees. 16 degrees. Negative 8 degrees.
A fog advisory.
Ozone awareness.
A high pollen count.

Without a grasp of anything beyond hot and cold, I never understood my mother’s need to listen to the morning weather report at exactly 7:10 on her favorite oldies radio station every day. The nagging, whining and fighting of my brother and I was forcefully sssshhhhed at this time so the weatherman could have the stage for 30 seconds. It was a moment in her morning routine as important as brushing her teeth or hooking her bra. She didn’t work outside. Her car lived in the garage. Why did she care so much about the weather?

20 years and 700 miles removed from those memories, when my alarm quietly buzzes close to my face each morning, the cats have been chasing each other for hours and Lauren has already showered.

My lazy daily routine is quick and careless. I don’t dry my hair, apply makeup or eat breakfast. I brush my teeth, shower and watch the news at 7:56 each morning on WJLA. I never miss the weather.

Meteorologist Brian van de Graaff guides me like a coin-seeking palm reader grabbing my hand on the streets of New York City. Forecasts of windy, sunny, or partially cloudy like life-lines or love-lines help me predict my future and plan my day. I pack a long-sleeved shirt, an umbrella, or sunglasses. I wear boots or plan to eat my lunch outside. I prepare my mind for a day that will inevitably feel out of my control.

I wonder now if my mother, alone in her single motherhood, lusted after that control the way I do now. Knowing what she could expect when she walked out the door was one step up on a life that had succeeded in throwing her for loop. Understanding loss, paying the bills, and feeding the kids were all up in the air - but she would never let the universe catch her without an umbrella.

A Post-Modern Family

At a certain age, when you are removed enough in time or removed enough in distance, you permit yourself to expand your definition of Family. It takes stepping back; re-envisioning. Allowing yourself to pick and choose the elements that comprise this new post-modern, 3D image with the word “Family” imprinted on its tiny gold plaque in the way you sift through vegetables at the local co-op in this city you did not grow up in. Lauren and I shopped for the first Thanksgiving we would host together.

My hands were pushed deep in my pockets, thoroughly involved but relentlessly sleepy, and Lauren pushed the drifting cart while skimming a nail-bitten finger down her lengthy list of ingredients, referencing recipes torn from the soft glow of high-end home-maker magazines. She asked my opinions on possible dishes we could serve our guests (in addition, I supposed, to the keg I had so thoughtfully arranged). We were more than just a settled, living-together couple—suddenly we were Family. We were spending "the holidays" together.

We turned the corner pushing our overflowing cart in the midst of the produce section. A middle aged man delicately stocking oranges excitedly exclaimed in our direction.

"You two sure look like sisters!"

I awkwardly ducked behind a pile of edible greenery to avoid the inevitable. I heard Lauren reply with fake incredulousness. She loved moments like this.

"Uh, no...that would be illegal."

The confused man first asked her to repeat herself then hesitated...

“Oh, I get it."

Lauren kissed my face, letting all of the suburban moms and dads know what happens when you let your daughter go to a Liberal Arts college.

Thanksgiving arrived 48 hours later. DC’s free agents, who chose not to (or did not have the option to) share this traditional meal with the family dictated by their similar double helices, filled our first floor apartment. Everyone was thankful, as evidenced by a wall of post-it notes unabashedly expressing our gratuity for cats, ice cream, the upcoming end of the current presidential administration, booze, love, and family—both the one we were each born with and the one we built; carefully constructed the way tiny birds build nests from toothpicks and apple seeds.

"The Book Store"

It was on the second station of Japan’s third largest mountain that they agreed to stop loving each other. Izuichimonya Mountain was popular for pilgrimages, but in the off season, on the remote western island of Shodoshima, there were only a few hikers. The weather was unseasonably warm. So much so that she was without coat and he had only a cotton shirt. He had packed seven clean pairs of socks.
Having read and highlighted his hiking guide she was prepared for snow. She loved the stuff and focused on the mountain wide-eyed, hands at the hips, in a stance that appeared genuine. Of course she feigned this posture so that he would regret the words not sooner spoken. Goodbye. A ‘this is best for both of us’ adage. So she stood as she did, partly in punishment. One part. The other to convince herself of her footing, there, on a mountain, with a promised seven hours of movement.
Within five hours they had agreed on a spoken settlement. She, the dog; he, the business with half the profits of their two year partnership paid to her as soon as they descended, flew home and unleashed their respective keys. The dog was with his mother, 13 hours behind. He tried once to touch her back, though as he did she adjusted her camp sack to sit squarely on her shoulders. He grazed nylon as she had a habit of walking too fast. Five hours up and two down, she stayed the lead.
Trouble was, she was without map, without experience, without want or will to climb mountains. She liked cobblestone streets. When traveling she’d always shop for novelty items; buddhas in bibs, jade tiger statuettes with needle sharp teeth, to display in their shop. Now she had a rolled tapestry in her bag, a camera, 202 pictures full, keys, his unwashed undershirt and a book. Thick. Blunt.
That book wasn’t debated in property assignment but would be, when they reached flat ground to find it laying face-up, a kilometer or so off course near the train turnstile. She checked her bag- couldn’t recall having thrown the thing and he, heated, assumed responsibility. He said I threw it in anger. She said I threw it in disgust and the book became their child of divorce and the riotous unraveling of their business. 412 pages and they even resorted to taking separate flights.

The Summer of 400 Challenge

Not that the challenge ends in the heat of summer, but it begins here. Two women explore short form writing in both fiction and nonfiction every Monday. Stay Tuned.