Shoelace

          Mom was the other shoe, but the other shoe is gone now.  Perhaps she’s marching off by herself somewhere, in the other realm, exploring uncharted lands single-footedly.  I like to think, sometimes, that maybe she’s having fun on her own, that she doesn’t miss us and so won’t be bothered still by the tedious proceedings of our lives.  Clouds must be lighter to walk on than pavement.  But even on pavement she was the leading foot, and I guess we fell out of line when she ceased to step.

          I am the shoelace, now, that pulls together the parts of what remains.  I know I am the shoelace because when I see the girls at school lacing up their sneakers, I think, there is Jamie on one side and there is Dad on the other.  The girls at school are always lacing up their shoes, especially the younger ones in Jamie’s year, because they tie loose butterfly knots and the knots come undone.  I watch them and I want them to pull harder, so that the sides touch over the dividing tongue.  I lace my own shoes tight.  I lace them so tight my feet hurt by the time I get home.  I lace and lace but there are always gaps where the tongue peeks through. 

          Home has become a habit.  Dad is tired most of the time.  The crease lines around his eyes that got there from laughter are sagging from disuse, and a new crease has set into the space between his eyebrows that I want to iron out.  He sits at his computer in his foldable office chair in the living room, which is also the dining room and also the room he calls his office, of our apartment, working out the details of the fund management business he is trying to start.  He thinks he is a failure.  I tell him not to think that.

          The strength comes, perhaps, from the memory that it was once different and the hope that it will be the same if I just string harder and close the gaps.  I remember one night when my palms were sweaty and the plate slipped, and Dad said “butterfingers” and Jamie laughed and laughed and helped me clean up the mess of mashed potatoes and even the gravy.  I stretch myself because I want moments like that again. 

          Jamie is usually sitting at her computer when I go in to bring her her dinner in the evenings.  She takes dinner in her room because she doesn’t have time to eat with us.  I don’t know what it is she’s working on that she can’t leave her computer.  When I ask, she starts yelling about privacy.  Sometimes when I go in to bring her her dinner, Jamie is banging on the drum-set Dad couldn’t afford to buy.  She wanted to learn percussion, so Dad bought her the whole set – the base, the symbol stand, the snares, and the big vertical one that you strike by stepping on a pedal with your foot.  Sometimes when Jamie is banging on them, I tell her that maybe she should use those things that you put on the ends of drumsticks to make the banging a little quieter.  I am thinking about Ed and Louise downstairs who are old and are always taking naps.  Jamie tells me that she won’t get the full effect with the mufflers and that I don’t understand anything about music, so I should just leave and please shut the door.  She bangs louder as I try to explain about Ed and Louise and I can see that it is no use, so I leave and shut the door.

          We don’t see Jamie very often because she only comes out of her room to make trips to the refrigerator in the kitchen.  The refrigerator is about three feet from her door-handle.  When we moved into the apartment a few years ago, Jamie wanted the master bedroom.  It has a small walk-in closet and a bathroom attached to it, so I guess there is really no reason for her to come out.  Dad’s room is the smallest because he wanted me to have the big window.  He said it would be good if I put my desk by the window so that I can have lots of light when I study.  Studying is important, he says, so I try hard at it when I can.  Dad and I share the bathroom in the hallway.  

          I see Dad in the mornings.  He gets up before we go to school and makes eggs.  He tries to make them a different way every morning so that he can know how we like them.  Sometimes he makes pancakes because he’s heard that all the younger generation like pancakes and will eat them for breakfast.  Dad is always preparing a variety of things for Jamie, but I don’t see why he keeps doing it because she never eats anything he makes.  “Everything you cook is too salty.”  Jamie likes snack bars and the diet bars that some of the girls carry around at school.  “Even your pancakes are salty.” 

          I don’t see Jamie at school very often because she’s two grades below me and we’re usually in different wings.  But I noticed that some days our lunch periods overlap so I’ve started to keep an eye out for her.  Like today, she walks in talking to a girl with a red bandana tied around her neck.  I think Jamie sees me but she says something to the girl and they start walking away, so I shout “Jamie!” and the girl with the red bandana turns around.  I walk over to them, carrying my lunch tray with a glass of milk that I’ve filled too much to the top.  All this time, I’m thinking, I’m going to spill the milk, I’m going to spill the milk.  The girl with the red bandana raises her thin eyebrows at me.  “Nice sweater,” she says.  She catches Jamie’s eye and smiles.  Jamie is looking down.  “Thanks,” I say.  I ask them if they want to have lunch with me, but they say they are having lunch with friends, so I go over by the window with the big oak tree and notice the milk on my sweater as I sit down. 

          After we get home, after dinner, Dad and Jamie are fighting again.  I’m in my room trying to fall asleep when they bump into each other in the kitchen. 

          Bumping into anyone in the kitchen is inevitable because Dad is always making tea which means the kettle is always boiling.  Sometimes it just goes on whistling and shouting because Jamie thinks Dad will get it and Dad thinks I will take care of it but I am in the shower trying to untangle my mess of hair.  So they scramble for it at once, and the confrontation is of course inevitable. 

          And we are all making trips to the kitchen because we are all needing food.  Sometimes when I go into the kitchen I forget what it was I came to get, so I stand there and look at the magnets on the refrigerator.  Most of them, Mom bought when she was alive.  We don’t use them for anything anymore because none of us really makes grocery lists or daily notes or family announcements.  The magnets are just there, stuck to the refrigerator. 

          So Dad and Jamie start fighting again and I curl up under the covers because it’s cold.  Dad is asking Jamie how was her day and I hear the refrigerator door stick as Jamie pulls it and says he forgot to buy her tuna again.  Dad says that well he’s sorry but maybe the world doesn’t revolve around her.  The refrigerator door shuts with a suctioning noise.  “Well maybe if you knew how to be a better parent, you would actually remember for once.”  I search under the covers for Tipsy, the bunny Mom gave me when I was three.  His ears are flopping down as usual.  I can imagine Dad shaking his head and sighing.  His eyes look sad.  Jamie’s door slams.

          Tipsy is looking at me like I should go and do something.  So I get up in my pajamas and walk over to the living room/dining room/Dad’s office and find Dad sitting in his foldable chair with his head in his hands.  I pick up one of the old magazines on the coffee table and sit down on the couch.  It is one of Jamie’s.  I turn over pages while looking at Dad.  It is the first time I notice that his hair is graying.  “I think you’re a good parent.”  Dad lifts his head up out of his hands and sighs.  “You know, Liz.  Sometimes I really just want to give up.”  I set the magazine back on the table.  Dad has his head in his hands again.

          I go into Jamie’s room and she’s looking at some sort of old photo album that she flips shut when I walk in.  I ask Jamie what is she looking at and she tells me it’s none of my business, so I am quiet for awhile.  Then I ask her if she wants to have a midnight meal.  We used to have midnight meals, Jamie and me, when we were little and used to play chef.  We also used to have a house, then, and we would sneak downstairs after lying with our eyes open in the dark for hours to make sure everyone was asleep.  We’d sneak downstairs and start pulling out all the pots and pans we needed for our meal.  Somewhere in the midst of our preparations, our clanging and banging would wake Mom up and she’d come into the kitchen to see what we were up to.  “We’re making a midnight meal!” we’d tell her.  We knew it was too late for her to stop us, so she’d begin clanging and banging with us, and we’d be happy to have someone who knew the ways around the kitchen.  So now when I ask Jamie does she want to have a midnight meal, she lifts her head up off the pillow.  She blinks.  What would we make, she wants to know.  I am thinking about strings.  “Spaghetti,” I say.  Jamie shrugs.  “If you make it I’ll eat it.”

            I go into the kitchen and try to think where to begin.  Pots and pans.  Noodles, long strings of noodles.  Boiling water.  Tomato sauce in a saucepan.  Milk.  I stir and wait and wait and knock on Jamie’s door to tell her I’m done.  I start spooning all the spaghetti onto a plate and mixing it with the sauce I’ve made. 

            Jamie comes out of her room to get a bowl and a fork and watches me finish evening out the sauce in the spaghetti.  I bring the plate over to the dining table and ask Dad would he like to join us for a midnight meal.  Jamie has followed in front of me at this point and is sitting at the table with her bowl.  My palms are sweaty. 

            Dad is at his work again, hiding all the sadness I must have imagined in a look almost of anger.  He has not heard my question so I open my mouth to ask him again if he would like to join us for midnight meal, when Jamie tells me to just serve the spaghetti already.  Dad’s brows furrow as he types faster and faster on his keypad.  Jamie’s fork is rapping impatiently against her ceramic plate and I cringe slightly at its metal scrape.  The lights seem to flicker.  Another metal scrape.

            Another excruciating hair-raising metal scrape.

            The plate flies and I don’t even notice until it hits the wall on the opposite side.  Then I flail my arms out to catch it but it has already landed and the sauce is everywhere, sliding down the wall and seeping into the carpet.  Jamie has stopped rapping her fork against her plate and is looking at Dad, who has looked up from his work. 

            Dad gets up from his foldable chair and comes over to observe the mess for a moment.  He brings a fist up to his eyes to rub them in a tired way.

          “Butterfingers,” he says.  He rubs his eyes again. 

          Jamie takes a minute to make sure she’s heard right, then her laugh is almost immediate.  She has expected him to say something about the stain it will leave in the carpet.  She has expected a mess.  Jamie laughs and Dad’s weak smile boldens.  “Such a butterfingers!”  Jamie is practically shaking from laughter now and I’ve forgotten all about the spilled spaghetti, until Dad comes over to help clean it up, and Jamie bends down to scoop some up with her hands.  I retrieve the plate from where it has flown and hold it out as we reassemble the strings of spaghetti, Jamie on one side and Dad on the other, then Dad on one side, Jamie on the other.    

Reflection on Creative Non-fiction

I am sitting in a Coffee Republic in a small town called Seven Oaks just outside of London, writing this reflection. I have just stepped out of a historical site – Ightham Mote, a house built in 1377, and I feel as though I am really reflecting, so far removed now from the place and time of my writings of the past few weeks.

I enjoyed this unit tremendously. I think much of it had to do with the exploration of self and the reflective aspect and nature of the genre. Writing some of the exercises during this unit and doing the longer pieces gave me assigned time to think about myself, which I thought quite uplifting, in a way, because we, as students, are so busy these days that we hardly ever have time to contemplate—really contemplate—things such as our childhoods or moments that have shaped us. Writing about these moments gave me an opportunity to get in touch with myself, and I think I needed this.

The idea that came up during this unit that sticks out most to me is the sense of urgency that should be present in one’s writing. Every piece we write should feel like it had to be written.

This “writer urgency” developed, for me, when I wrote my long creative nonfiction piece about my mom, memory, and stories. It felt like a piece that, when I was writing it, was just waiting to be written. It was therapeutic, in some ways, to write, because it needed to be told and I never let it be, for almost three years.

I have also begun to explore the process of revision more attentively, a process which I have largely neglected prior to this. It is very helpful to go into a piece and look for images that can be developed, narrative voices that can be changed. In my long piece “Under An Umbrella, Safe From The Rain”, I explored (after meeting with you) one word (“sanctuary”)and began to open a new layer to my story – a layer that already existed there, but that I hadn’t yet brought to the fore for the reader. I’m not sure I do this fully, yet, due to the time constraint, but I believe this to be a piece I will return to.

I mentioned to you that I am a slow writer. And I find it frustrating sometimes to do exercises in class that I don’t finish, so I usually ponder on them afterward and write them in completion (or as close to completion as any exercise can get) on my own time. But I think I could improve on this point: to just get my thoughts down and practice having words flow more easily from my pen.

Here is the longer piece: Under An Umbrella, Safe From The Rain

Shorter piece: Catching Dragonflies

Stranger Study Short (I am really not happy with this piece and have not revised as much as I would like. I think I neglected it more, time-wise, to work more on my other pieces which I thought had more potential): An Average Stranger

Response to a writer: Thomas Lynch

Braided in-class essay that is not creative nonfiction, but that introduced me to a form that I like enough to employ for my longer piece: A Cat-like Affair

Excerpts & Exercises from my journal:
A History of Glass
On Storms
Smoke
Public Bus
Pitcher
A Brief Meeting (a beginning only)
Road to Nepal (a beginning only)

Rough rough draft of long piece

I scanned the entire volleyball court for her, only to find her sitting on the sidelines. Her eyes were closed. Movement danced around me on all sides, but my eyes were locked on her motionless figure. What’s wrong? I asked. In her right hand was a container of Advil, in her left, a bottle of water. Mom never takes pain relievers. What’s wrong?

I don’t want to start here, but I must adhere to the truth. For the truth is, this is where it begins. I don’t want to begin here because I don’t want her death to be the trigger for my memory of her life. But I’ve slowly come to realize that only in death does life have any real meaning anyway. It is the fact that there is a definite end that makes each standing moment stand. Moments are remembered. Death first, then immortality.

She was brilliant, he says. He shakes his head. Head of the class. My dad wraps his large hands around his mug of tea and drinks. He sets the mug gently on the table and, with his hands still wrapped around its circumference, looks down into it. I remember, he begins. He is now reading the tea leaves, but these are tales of the past…

She used to wear her hair in two braids and never paid me much attention. I was from the country, you see. A country boy. Your mom, she was a city girl. But not like the other city girls, you see. None of that haughty pretention, that strutting around the streets as if a foot above everyone else, looking down. No, she was grounded.

Let me tell you something about stories. It’s something I learned, telling them. Words are magical. They make things…last. Moments exist in eternity, eternally – over and over they unfold and refold. And people never die, in stories. They just keep on living.

I took the Advil out of her hand and she opened her eyes at me. A headache, she said, and smiled. She set the bottle of water down and cradled her head with both hands. Her eyes were shut again. Just a bit of a headache. And despite the smile that rested lightly on her lips, I caught a leak of pain in her expression.

She never paid me much attention because no one paid me much attention. He laughs, takes another draught of tea. You could say she was the first, in fact, to even chance me a glance. And, just like that, he is lost in his sanctuary of memory.

She said she would be O.K., but Dad and I knew something was off kilter, decidedly amiss, somehow not quite right. It was a topos of the world turned upside down. It’s a feeling you get when you know someone well. Well enough to know that she never gets headaches. Well enough to know that she never takes pills. That she never sits on the sidelines.

We put her in the car and drove her to the hospital. Before we arrived, she fell unconscious in the backseat. When we got to the emergency room, they had to put her on a stretcher.

The doctors here decided that my mom needed to get to the neurological center downtown. We’re putting her on a helicopter, they said. Wheels aren’t fast enough. Just before they wheeled her onto the helicopter, they asked me if I had anything I wanted to say to her. I just stared. If you have anything you to say, she might still be able to hear you. I had nothing, so they strapped her into the helicopter.

We were in the same class and we were paired up because she was the best and I had the most dire need for improvement. My dad chuckles. I remember, once. We were getting onto a bus. Or she was getting onto a bus, rather, and I was curiously following her. Accompanying her, if you will.

When Dad and I arrived at the neurological center, people were already expecting us. We made a move to sit in the waiting room, but they steered us to another space – our own waiting area, separate from everyone else. We were told to wait there, shut off. Distanced. I seated myself in a chair and tried not to think much.

It was pouring rain that day and I didn’t have an umbrella, otherwise I would’ve given it to her. We were standing in the middle of the bus, holding onto what we could, when she turns to me and says she’s had enough. I’ve had enough of you following me around! she says. Off you get! There is not enough room on this bus.

At some point, a doctor walked into the room.

Perhaps this is how life goes. We think, sometimes, that life can fix itself. This can’t be happening to me because it can’t be happening to me. We rely on the doctors of our lives to take care of things that go wrong, that are beyond our control – our capability, or knowledge. Monthly physical: all systems in full health. But what if we get a bad report? What if the doctor delivers only bad news? What if there is nothing we can do to make him tell us something else?

The doctor walked into the room and strode purposefully toward the chair in which I sat. His manner was cool, steely. Braced, is the word. His eyes fixed steadily on me as he advanced, and mine likewise followed him in his approach. When he reached my chair, he placed one hand on the armrest and knelt down so that he was perfectly eye-level with me. And when he spoke, it seemed I was listening to a news anchor, looking into a T.V. screen, through the lens of a camera.

Brain aneurysm, he reports. Less than 1% chance of survival.

Everything is going well in life, and then, at some point, a doctor walks into the room.

And he asks me: Do you believe in miracles?

I was shocked, of course. Enough so to obey. So the bus stopped, I got off, it closed its doors behind me and continued on. And suddenly I found myself standing in the rain! I was just standing in the rain.

That’s what stories do. They keep people alive. But words can never become the person, can never recreate every aspect of his multi-faceted character. But what else do we have? Words can last even after the memory fades. So, slowly, the person becomes the stories, because the stories are all that are left. It’s imperfect immortality, but it’s the closest we can get.

My dad has finished his tea so that all that is left now are the tea leaves. He is smiling down at them as he recalls…But she came back. I must have been standing there a quarter hour at that stop, so wet my bones felt wet. But there she was, stepping off the return bus, carrying the umbrella I’d given her so that she wouldn’t get rained on.

My dad is quiet for a minute. He looks up. I reach over for the kettle of hot water, and refill his mug of tea.

Dialogue Exercise: Sophie, Or Prince Fred

“I think I should put you in bed, Sophie.”

“But Simone! You can’t go to sleep in the middle of a tea party, you just can’t. And also I think you forgot, but my name isn’t Sophie it’s Prince Fred and besides, you can’t leave the castle unless I let down the gate over the moat and the moat has water-dragons in it so I don’t think you should swim across it. You should probably just wait until I let down the gate—this is the moat here, all the way to the end of this hallway (I can stand in it because I feed the water-dragons so they know that if they eat me they won’t get any more food even if they get to eat me because they’ll get even more food if they don’t eat me) and this room is the castle and I’ll pretend I’m letting down the gate when I go like this.”

“Okay Soph—Prince Fred. I shan’t cross your moat lest I be eaten, but could you please let down your gate. It is two hours past your bedtime and I fear the king and queen may be back at any minute.”

“The king and queen, the king and queen! A ring and a bean, the king and the queen!”

“Prince Fred. Do you want to be in trouble with the king and queen?”

“I’m never in trouble because my mom and my dad like me too much so they are always taking my side.”

“Oh really.”

“Yes. Sometimes I even just pretend to be asleep when they come check on me and then when they leave I make a fort with my blankets and think about a lot of things.”

“You make a fort with your blankets?”

“Yes, I do, and sometimes I take my little flashlight that’s on my keychain and read and sometimes I just make shadow puppets but that’s sort of hard sometimes because I have to hold the keychain like this with one hand and then I can’t make eagles because I need both hands to make eagles and eagles are my favorite because you can pretend they’re flying when you go like this. See?”

“I see. So maybe we can go to your room and set up a fort so that you can make shadow puppets and I can hold the flashlight for you.”

“What a great idea! And then I can show you all my special blankets and the quilt that me and my mom are making and I get to pick out the squares of fabric and she sews them on. It’s really neat.”

“That does sound neat. Okay, you go brush your teeth while I put these teacups away, alright? Can you brush your teeth on your own?”

“Yes but maybe you should help me put the toothpaste on because sometimes I put too much and then my mouth gets really foamy and my dad tells me I look like a mad dog.”

“Okay. You get everything ready and change into your pajamas and I’ll be right there, sound good?”

(unfinished as of yet)

100 words (/223 words): smoke

My grandma is an eighty-year-old Chinese woman. Petite. Small feet. She stands at 5’0’’. Her hair, which is pure white, is cut short (because it is more practical that way). And she mends my socks in her spare time.

On this particular day, she is over at our apartment, mending my socks at the kitchen table. I am reading quietly beside her, and the balcony door is open, letting in summer air.

In the midst of my meditations, I become aware of an increasingly noticeable smell of cigarette smoke. My grandma looks up from her sewing as it seeps into the apartment through the screen door.

Two cigarette butts fall from the above balcony onto ours.

“Goddamn black people,” my grandma says loudly. She wets a thread and continues to sew.

What? I stare at her. What did you say, grandma?

“They must be black,” she says matter-of-factly. And in my shock, and abhorrence at her ignorance, I lash out. I fold my book and march to my room, shut my door, unwilling to have anything further to do with her.

But she made moon-cakes, that night, to make up for it. It was the wrong time of year to be eating moon-cakes, but she hand-made them and delivered them to my room where I was shut up, busy being ashamed of her.

Stranger Study (extended piece)

I’ve been fiddling around with this a lot and finally decided it was time to post. I am not sure about this piece…the form, and especially the ending. Also, it’s only 185 words. Anyway, here it is (untitled as of yet):

He is average.

Eyes, cue, and ball align. He pulls his arm back, strikes the cue ball. Misses the pocket. Straightens up.

Average height.

He stands, eyes level with the light that hangs from the ceiling, that glows softly onto the pool table. Indifferently attentive is his manner, as he watches his opponent take his turn. Reservedly comfortable, he plants his feet, sets his stance, shifts his weight.

Average weight.

Not a football player, surely, nor an equestrian. What, then?

He prepares his play.

(A slight hesitation, unsure of whether he is solids or stripes.)

In the game of billiards, one is able to gather something about a person’s character. People calculate; he doesn’t calculate. He simply rests one hand on the table and hits the cue ball with the cue (always the same force, same motion), neither precise nor overly sloppy, never an extreme expression crossing his face.

Average looks.
(by anyone’s judgment)

Girls pass by, look, don’t linger.

His own eyes scan the table casually, indifferently attentive.

An eight ball is left.

He hits it, rolls it down the middle of the table.

a stranger study sketch in audio

a recording of my “physical description” stranger study sketch:

http://ia341010.us.archive.org/1/items/strangerstudysketch/stranger.m4a

100 words: pitcher

Blending things was part of growing up. At home, in the kitchen, we always blended things. We were constantly blending. My sister would throw in the strawberries as I spooned in the yogurt. She would think there was too much yogurt and so would throw in more strawberries which I then balanced out with more yogurt. It was a constant balancing, canceling, process, by the end of which we’d forget who had started.

When the lid finally went on, we took turns hitting the buttons. We didn’t just blend, we’d mix. Stir! C h o p. Puree. And we poured straight from the blender as if it were a pitcher. That’s how we served: by pitcher-blender. And when we’d had enough for the time being, we’d put the blender with its blended contents into the refrigerator and unplug the base that had no function while its other half was playing pitcher.

Stranger Study

Sketches (3 sentences each):

1) physical description
He is average. Average height, average weight, average looks by anyone’s judgment. His hair, the common shade of medium-dark, is an average length, and his eyes are an average brown.

2) movement
In the game of billiards, one is able to gather something about a person’s character. People calculate; he doesn’t calculate. He simply rests one hand on the table and hits the cue ball with the cue (always the same force, same motion), neither precise nor overly sloppy, never an extreme expression crossing his face.

3) insert me
I am explaining to him the law of centrifugal motion and he looks at me over the top of his sandwich from which he is taking a bite and nods, sets it down, nods. I ask if he’s understood what I’ve just said and he holds up an index finger to indicate that he’s chewing. So I scan the room as I wait and by the time he’s done and my eyes return, he seems to have forgotten the question and is taking another bite.

A History of Glass

I accidentally scrubbed the fishbowl too hard with a Brillo pad (those sponges with steel wool (a tangle of metal fibers) on one side) when I was cleaning it, so that now I can’t see the fish as clearly.

I want to scrub it until it breaks down into what it is made up of, (how does sand become glass anyway?), but that process can’t be reversed, of course, so the glass just gets less and less transparent—arbitrary lines mar its once smooth surface.

I want to stick metal rods in the sand in the middle of a lightning storm and collect the newly-forged glass, and break it into shards, and break the shards into shards, and wear those shards down with a Brillo pad until it becomes sand again.