I'm

Turning 25 soon. A quarter of a century old. Somehow, when I was 23 I felt very young, like there was no rush to get anywhere, plenty of time for everything and nothing. I don't really know what happened ot 24. Somehow, I went from 23 to 25 and 25 just seems so OLD. Now there are only 5 years left till 30, and by 30 one has a husband, a family, a career, a life, a pension plan, etc etc etc. I have a boyfriend, but will we get married? Who knows. The family has certainly turned the pressure on. A year ago, I was still young, I shouldn't rush into things, I should make the right choices, but this year, it's time to start seriously thinking about my life, my family, my biological clock. It's like some kind of switch has been flipped in my parents and grandparents genetic code and now the constant pressure of "well, where is this going? has he asked you to merry him yet? what are your plans together? 25 is not young you know, you don't want to wait until you can't have children". It's like a vice closing in on my head.

And me, up until a few months ago, mentally I still felt I was 19. I was in my "early twenties", I was "starting out", I had "everything ahead of me." And now I'm wondering where my career is going, where my relationships are going, where the hell my maternal instinct is--im 25 and have no desire for children. I'm wondering when I got old. I'm wondering when birthdays turned into introspective evaluations of one's life instead of cakes, and presents, and friends. I'm wondering how some people manage to stay 19 well into their 60s. I'm wondering how I've suddently turned 50 at 25.

The title came to me on an airplane

Soul Hysteria

Hey, Hello, you there??

What’s the matte….

HEEEEEEEEEEEEEELP! Let me out! You gotta get me out of here! I can’t, I can’t, I can’t take it anymore! Get me out! Get me out! Get me out! Get me out!

What? I…,what’s going on?

What do you mean what’s going on? I’m telling you, I can’t take it anymore. You have to get me out of here. I’m trapped. Fucking trapped in this death hole. I am suffocating I tell you. You are killing me, you hear that? Killing me!!! Get me out of this place! Take me somewhere else! New York, Africa, Buenos Aires, the fucking north pole for all I care. Anywhere. I don’t care just out of here!!!

Hold on. What happened? What, I mean, I thought…

Are you deaf???? I am telling you, GET ME OUT OF HERE! Now! I can’t stand it.

I can’t go on like this. I can’t anymore. God, I can’t breathe. I feel like I can’t breathe. I can’t think anymore. This place, this town, it’s suffocating me, us. I want to live you hear me??? I want to live!

God! Shh! Shh! Oh god, just stop yelling! Give me a second. Jeez. Ok. Well, I thought, you know, I thought we talked about this, I thought you understood, I thought you were content?

Content?? Do you even hear yourself? Do you want to live your life content? You think we are content? God! Not content, slowly becoming extinct. Extinguished. No more, hollow. That’s what’s happening. Content. Fucking mind numbing. You numbed me into submission, into this bottomless pit of hopelessness. I never thought I’d get out again, so sure, fine be content with what you’ve got. How long did you really think I could talk myself into believing that if I just got that next pair of pants, or that shirt, or watched that night’s show, well it’s the little pleasures in life huh? Hey, you almost had yourself convinced that you are some sort of freaking island, can exist on your own, with no significant human contact, just go to work, come home, eat, friend, hey, well, pssshh, if you can’t join them, just look away. Why expect something else? MURDERER! Murderess to be more precise. You are trying to kill us. God, I was almost gone you know that? I almost resigned myself to this. To this oblivion. Do you remember that dream about being the housewife and backing cookies and actually putting a ribbon on the husband’s morning paper? It almost started to look good! Get me out! Let me out! You hear me? This is not ok. It is not ok anymore. It will never be ok! NEVER! NEVER! NEVER! NEVER! Let me out! I’m ordering you too! Take us somewhere else before it’s too late, and soon it will be too late, you understand? We need to get out of here. Go, Go, Go, Go, Go, Go, Go.

I know. You are right. I just, I’m, I’m lost. I don’t know what to do, what do you want me to do? You know I tried. I feel like I’ve hit my head against every possible wall, looked everywhere, what DO YOU WANT ME TO DO?

Every fucking wall? Bullshit! You’ve been sucked in. It’s like a black hole this place. It’s sucked you in, drained all your energy, all your substance, and you even tried to give it mine. Tried to convince me this is the way things should be, that I should accept them, find the joy in them. Even tried that “People in Africa are starving and dying so what are you complaining about” thing? Now, yes, I know, I feel for those people in Africa. But let me ask you something, where does it say that if people in Africa are suffering you have to be suffering too? You are not Jesus Christ for fuck’s sake, at least not that I know of, and until I have evidence to the contrary I tell you, I want to live!

And ok, I know about the disappointments. But what did you think? Just because you have some sort of delusional belief in ‘’good things come to those who wait?’’, well I am telling you, I am not waiting around anymore. This waiting, all you are doing is killing me slowly. You cannot be suspended in space. You won’t make a choice. I am making the choice for the both of us. Do you hear me??? I am going to keep screaming and screaming and screaming until you start listening to me! GET ME OUT! LET ME OUT! GO! GO! GO! GO! GO!

Oh my god! What have I done to us? I don’t know anymore, I don’t know how to go on anymore, why now? Why did you start this now?

Look. Shh. Shh. I know. I’m sorry I yelled. I know that in the end, it’s just you and me. You and me kid and no one else. I mean maybe people come and go, and maybe some stay longer, who knows, maybe one day someone will stay forever, but at the end of the day it’s still just me and you, and frankly sometimes, it’s just me, or just you, so hey, no point alienating the only person you can count on, huh? But this also means we gotta look out for each other. I know you tried, I know it just got to the point of sink or swim, and not to say that you didn’t thrash around, but we are freaking sinkin’ kid, and I know you can see it, I know you know, and I also know that you are terrified cause you don’t know what to do, and not like I know either, but look, if we can’t swim here, if we can’t make it here, why not try it somewhere else? Why insist on this? I don’t know that it’s fruitless, but who knows? Try something else! GO, GO, GO. I know it’s scary. I know you’re thinking to yourself ‘’well it’s not like I did that great here, and here I at least know some people, and can read the map, and have finally figured out what time the buses actually run, and now you want me to pick up and go to some weird place?’’ I know it’s a lot to ask, but you and I both know it’s the only way. And it’s not running kid. It’s not. It’s trying something new. Looking outside the box. Whatever made you think you have to stay in this box? Is that why you tried to keep me in it? Well, guess what? We are not boxed in. Turns out, you, me, we are not the type. How long have you been trying? Any day now huh? Any day you will learn how to conform, to ‘’be like’’? Is that why you’ve been sick for the last sixth months, nauseated, wanting to curl into a little ball and drown in the fake world of television? Because your own world revults you? And yet you try and try and try to somehow make yourself, and me accept this world. Why kid? Why?

Maybe I am a coward?

A coward? Hmm, well let’s say you are, although I don’t really know kid, sometimes I really think you are, and sometimes, well, I wonder if just by deciding to continue to exist you have expressed a certain type of bravery. Yeah, I know what you are going to say, that maybe it’s the other way around, that maybe in those most desperate moments, when you and I had those long silences, maybe then because you didn’t jump, or didn’t pull the trigger, or didn’t swallow those pills, you took the coward’s way out. We are never going to know. But here is the thing—this is the way I am thinking. For whatever reason, we chose not to. We are still here. So here we are. So what are we going to do now? We are just going to sit here? You didn’t do it kid! Let’s not regret it, huh? Ok, here is I guess the best example I can think of. You know that fear, that utter fear you have when that plane engine starts making that noise just as it starts right down the runway? That minute, minute and a half before the plane takes off, that total, utter, uncontrollable terror? Yeah, of course you know. Well, nevertheless, you get on that plane. Again, and again, and again, and again. Why kid, why? I’ll tell you why! Because you want to live your life. Sure, ok, you could stay on here, never again have to experience that fear, but you risk it, you get on it. And sure ok, I know what you think to yourself, you think ‘’big deal, for most people getting on a plane isn’t even a traumatic event so big fuckin’ deal for me!’’, but listen, you know how many times we’ve talked about how all people are different, and you the only thing you can base comparisons on is basic humanity? Well there you go.

The thing is I know you are right. You are strong, powerful, you believe. I feel bad for you. Being stuck inside of me

You are not afraid of me. You are afraid of our potential. Responsibility. You are just afraid. You are tired. Overwhelmed. Perhaps unimpressed by the perks of living. And hey, I tell you, often, I am not that big a fan of this whole life business here. But as long as we are here, I am not going to let us wilt away in some black hole of suburban banality. And for the record, I am very proud to be stuck inside of you. I know we have our differences, but overall, I think you are a good person. Some days I hate you, and some days I absolutely cannot understand what the hell you are thinking, why you seem to want to stab yourself in your own back over and over and over again, and sometimes I think it’s probably my fault, I whisper in your ear way too much and I know many times you hate me for it, but hey, kid, at the end of the day you make me proud (well, most of the time).

And you know what? I don’t know why you insist on separating us so much. I am not strong, I am not powerful, I am not a believer. You are. If you weren’t, it wouldn’t matter what I thought. The problem is you try to reverse yourself. And well, for your sake, and for my own sanity, enough is enough. We are not the downtrodden kid! We are not the tired! We will not be the abandoned puppy waiting for a home! Get that leash kid, brush your fucking tail, and we are off to find ourselves our own little dog house! You hear me? We are going! Getting out of here! Going! I will not take no for an answer! No more! I will haunt you and scream at you and yell at you over and over and over and over and over and over again until you get it, until you are so tired of me you will do it just to please me, until you can think of nothing else! I will not let you ruin is kid, I will not let you forget who you are and where you want to go, and I will not let you slowly grind me into a meaningless little pile of ashes. I am back kid! I’m not going anywhere! And as for you, you get your act together, and you get ready, cause we are going! We are at least going to stick our head into that tunnel kid-who knows, maybe there is a light at the end, but just in case, bring a flashlight and some dynamite!

*******

all rights reseverd: MK 2006.

Menachem's blog

So a coworker of mine has a pretty cool blog. And one day he is probably going to be something famous or other, and you can say you knew him when, so check it out...especially Menachem's blog. See the link on the right of the page, entitled, "My Artwork."

Urban Hermit: Part 2

********

The conference was dragging on and on. They were now listening to a woman from an African country whose name she hadn’t caught, discussing her country’s progress at helping women get something that resembled medical treatment after complications from illegal abortions.

She tapped her foot. Checked her watch. Checked the schedule. Ah, coming up was a presentation on child brides by a woman who had herself been pushed into a type of servitude to her mother-in-law when she had been married off at the age of 12 by her family because 3 daughters and no sons was just much to much.

And then a woman from a South American country talking about maternal health and care, another from Southeast Asia spearheading a cervical cancer program, another African talking about women and AIDS, etc., etc., etc.,

She looked around. A room full of women. A few men: the two camera guys, the Dr. Something in charge of the Acronym that was sponsoring this conference, and Dr. Something else, VP of another Acronym that was a “partner and participant” in many of the projects and efforts being discussed.

Not surprising, she thought to herself.

Ok, so two more hours of presentations, a half an hour for questions, and then back to the office, to write up the article, file it, wait for the editor, pack up, and head home.

Ah, home. She could not wait to get home, turn on the TV to something like “Charmed.”
She was so looking forward to 10 or 12 hours of total and utter oblivion. Where women and children and suffering and AIDS and child-brides, and world leaders who cared about none of them, didn’t exist. Where day after day after day of listening to millions of presenters and reports of the world going to hell didn’t exist either.

Ahhhhh.

She looked up. Somehow, she had missed the switchover between the African abortion woman and the child-bride one. She was speaking about rescuing girls from unwanted marriages. Tales of brides being burned by their in-laws for, what was it, some sort of insurance?

For God’s sake!

Here she was, a woman, listening to women talk about the plight of women to other women. Ok, well, she would write about this. She would get some good quotes. She would fit in the plight of women all over the world into 700-800 words. She would call the Administration and try to get a comment out of some man as to why it cares so little about women. No, she would be transferred to a voicemail where she would leave a message knowing that the chances of getting a call back were better than the chances that man somewhere in Africa would actually use a condom when fucking some prostitute to protect his wife from HIV infection. Know what happens when the wife got AIDS? The husband would blame her of infidelity and probably beat her and leave her to raise their 30 children while she wilted away from a disease that was eating her up because our government and her government couldn’t get their act together and get her the drugs she needed. Because the drug companies insisted that this woman was too stupid to figure out how to swallow some pills properly, while leaders on her continent insisted that there was no proven connection between HIV and AIDS and looked the other way as women who admitted to being positive were stoned to death in their respective townships.

She looked at her notes. Sixty percent of those infected with HIV/AIDS in Africa are women. Twelve million orphans. 35% of the population infected in Tanzania.

Her head began to throb. This conference was really dragging on and on. Of course this was all important.

She was just always amazed and horrified by the amount of pain and suffering in the world. Just watching the evening news, she couldn’t remember the last time she had heard anything good. She was beginning to conclude that in fact nothing good ever happened in the world.

It would start with the local news, which would review who had been killed, run-over, stabbed, or robbed that day. Then the local weather people would inform the audience that it was either going to be an unseasonably hot or cold day, that there may or may not be rain, and it may or may not be the same tomorrow.

Then the “world news,” or really the “what the United States did in the world today” news would come on and review who had been executed, terrorized, hijacked, earthquaked, or mass murdered in what part of the world that day. Oh yes, and once in a while they would actually throw in a feel good story about yet another way huge corporations have figured out how not to pay taxes (Uncle Sam would be so proud of those little buggers) and how the Administration shrugged in dismay in front of the press while giving their cronies a thumbs up in the back of the dining club where the press and the “little people” (i.e. anyone who had not robbed, exploited, and lied their way to the top) were not allowed.

And so on.

Now they were talking about fertility rates. Way too high in some places, not enough in others. Too many kids, not enough food, not enough going to school, not enough vaccines.

She remembered a show she had recently seen on some woman who had had something like seven children. This was after she had already had one kid. The woman had infertility treatments because she was having a hard time conceiving and found out she was carrying septuplets. She decided to keep all the babies, not to selectively abort any of them. That she could understand-as a mother this woman just couldn’t choose which of her future children would live or die. The woman decided to leave it up to god, or destiny, or whatever. Understandable.

What she could not understand is what would ever compel people to infertility treatments in the first place. This couple especially. They had already had a kid. If they wanted another one and couldn’t conceive, did it ever occur to them to perhaps adopt? This woman, she had used religion as her reason for not aborting--you see, she told the reporter interviewing her, a life begins at the moment of conception and as such she could not possibly think to abort any of the fetuses. Once they were born, the kids were offered full scholarships by two religious collages.

She was so sick of people selectively using religion. This woman, religious and god fearing as she was, was it not written somewhere in the bible to help other human beings? To do good deeds and help those in need?

So let’s review. Millions and millions of children in the world, who through no fault of their own, have been abandoned by people you can’t really even refer to as their parents. Maybe it’s because a girl was just not what the family wanted, or maybe the mother realized that on the 3 cents a day that she was being paid at some plant where she worked she could not even try to support a kid, or because the sailor that had gotten drunk and then beaten up his pregnant wife had made her reconsider altogether if she wanted to A) be married to him, B) have his kid. So here are these millions and millions of children, with no parents, no futures, living in orphanages, or foster systems, who would be so happy to have a home, two parents, someone to tuck them in at night and maybe read them a bed side story, just to be given a chance, a chance to try at life, and what does a good Christian do in such a situation? Well, apparently the good Christian goes to a fertility clinic (which, by the way is not mentioned as an acceptable method of reproduction in the bible) and instead of giving seven children who already exist a chance at a future, this good Christian goes and brings seven more into an already over-crowded world.

Yep. That she could not understand. She could never understand those arguments about having a child of “your own.” As if taking care of, feeding, playing with, growing with, laughing with a child, worrying about him/her when he/she started to walk, learned how to ride a bike, went to school for the first time, had his/her heart broken, did not make the child your own. Of course it did!

People wanted to pass on their DNA, their characteristics, wanted to have their “own flesh and blood.” What a fucking selfish reason to have a child. Having children should be the most selfless act one ever does. Taking on the responsibility of a child means acknowledging that certainly for the next 18 years, and probably for many yeas after that, you will never again be number one, someone else’s needs will have to come first, and that you will probably have to give up those nice vacations on a beach in Bermuda, for Mickey Mouse Ears and Tea Cup rides.

Own flesh and blood. Selfish bastards. Millions and millions of kids without parents. Millions of kids waiting for someone’s finger to hold on to and someone to teach them how to smile. But noooooooooooo, people have to have their own.

She caught herself. That rage, she did not know how her body could have so much rage. Wanting to be a parent was a natural instinct (well at least most people). She should not get so angry that people, women in particular, hope to do what millions of women have been doing for hundreds of thousands of years-having and raising offspring.

And still, she couldn’t help but think about how different the world was not from that one of the ancient mothers that paved the way for where humanity has stumbled to today. Eons ego, women struggled to raise even one healthy child, and millions of women in most parts of the world still struggle today; all the diseases Western society thinks have been eradicated as childhood killers, they are all still around today. Except now, there are so many people in this world, and so many childless parents. Darwin said species adapt to their environments, should not humans somehow adapt to taking care of unwanted offspring?

That wasn’t the lesson the evening news taught society. The message about events from around the world made humanity’s attitude pretty clear--if it’s not your own, it doesn’t matter. It did not matter that women were being mistreated in Afghanistan by the Taliban for ten years until “our own” got attacked by men who had used Afghanistan to plan the attacks.

Suddenly, not only were the women in Afghanistan being abused and repressed, they were also being used as excuses by the most powerful nation in the world to bomb the very same people they had helped fund during a time when someone else was the real enemy and threatened “our own.”

She definitely had a migraine now. Time to go write that article. Review the global plight of women in 700-800 words. So what else was new?

Urban Hermit: Part 1

I am beginning to arrive at the conclusion that I am, in fact, a hermit. I wonder what the female version of a hermit would be—a hermitess? Well, sticking to the rules of the general conduct, which currently seem to equate professionalism and validity with reference to one self only in the male form (I heard Sharon Stone refer to herself as an “actor” on TV the other day), I will just call myself a hermit.

How, you may ask yourself, am I a hermit, if I am talking about seeing Sharon Stone on TV the other day? Aren’t hermits people who have removed themselves from society, gone into the woods somewhere, and build themselves a world where no decent human can exist? The word Hermit brings to mind either Gandhi or Ted Kazinski. Now clearly, Gandhi wasn’t a hermit, but he was thin, denied earthly possessions and the like, something clearly associated with Hermits everywhere…

And, I have to agree. I don’t know why, but even as a child, a story that my grandmother read to me about a hermit really stuck in my head. Well, not the actual story, but the word hermit. I mean, how many four-year olds really know that word? As a child, I always imagined a hermit to be someone living in a cave somewhere; in fact I was convinced that all caves were inherited by either Robinson Carusso or hermits (and one could make a pretty good argument that for a while there Robinson Carusso was himself a hermit). Hermits were always men, always had very long beards and hair because clearly caves do not come equipped with salon styling equipment. They also always had a stick of some sort, perhaps a cane or a shaft, on which they always leaned. And, of course, all hermits had that crazed look in their eyes; you know they all glanced from side to side as if expected to be attacked at any moment.

Sometimes among them, there was a different kind of hermit. This hermit looked exactly the same- same overgrown hair and large stick to lean on, he also chose the cave as his preferred domicile- however, this hermit did not have the same eyes as the rest. This was a wise hermit. A hermit who had removed himself from society, (see the others had been banished or had runaway) on his own free will in order to contemplate the meaning of life and become infinitely wise. This infinite wisdom was of course revealed in his gaze, which instead of the jumpy twitchiness of the others, was full on enlightenment and a twinkle or two of sarcasm. I always pictured this hermit sitting next to a fire, contemplating, perhaps with a dog, or bear, or llama by his side. (Ok, so maybe not a llama, but what’s to say a llama wouldn’t make a good companion? I think any wise hermit should keep a llama around. Not only can it be used as a mode of transportation around the hermetic domain, but if sheared, its wool can provide some warmth during those cold cave nights.)

But I seem to have digressed. And you are now probably thinking to yourself-great, a brief history of the hermit. But what does this have to do with anything? And how am I a hermit if I am talking about having just seen Sharon Stone on TV? I go on and on about hermits being in the woods, away from people, prancing around with llamas…

Well, dearest one, this is the whole point. It is possible that I have discovered, through myself, a new kind of hermit. You know that whole saying: “if it looks like a duck, and talks like a duck, and walks like a duck…”, well what if it is in fact all those things, but in the end, it is not in fact a duck? What if it is just some sort of duck-like thing, that other ducks may mistake for a duck, and sometimes it itself thinks it’s a duck, and yet it is not a duck.

So let’s say that there is someone who looks human, walks human, talks human, lives in human society, and yet it somehow exists entirely outside of it.

K, don’t start to worry. At this point, I am not going to break out with some sort of complicated mathematical voodoo about three dimensional planes and how things can exist outside of themselves if only x=y in some other form of geometry that only people with an IQ of 400 can understand. I have trouble calculating 30% off a ten-dollar shirt.

Well, you might say, this whole duck thing just sounds like the story of the ugly duckling. You know the ugly duckling thought it was a duck, but it was really a swan, and it was at the wrong place at the wrong time, and it probably felt waay out of place with the other ducks, so it was an outsider, but then it found its fellow swans, and everything turned out for the best, so this whole thing that looks like a duck is just an outsider who landed in the wrong lake. (Whew, that was one long thought).

How do we usually describe someone who does not fit in? As an outsider, a loner, a stranger, a foreigner perhaps. But it seems to me that even outsiders, foreigners, loners, have a place or some sort of group that they belong to. Foreigners come from somewhere, and wherever they come from, there they are not foreign. Loners are grouped into category of people who either choose to or are forced to by lack of social skills or some other factor to spend more time by themselves than with others. And so on…

So eventually, the aforementioned ugly duckling/swan found his own lake with his own kind and I presume lived a happily-ever after swan life.

But let’s say that it had turned out that the ugly duckling was not in fact a baby swan, but something else all together. A duck-type creature that fit none of the stranger/foreigner/loner categories mentioned above.

How to describe someone who fits no of these categories. In human terms, someone who exists within human society and yet is not a part of it? Who walks the walk, but does not talk the talk? Who gives appearance, but in reality isn’t? Someone who constantly observers because the way to participate seems blocked and inaccessible?

Here is where my whole hermit idea comes in. That person is a hermit! That is what I have decided. An essential and necessary part of the definition of being a hermit, in my opinion and that of several dictionaries, is that the person is isolated from human contact/society. Well, I have arrived at the conclusion that it is possible to exist in a society and be isolated at the same time.

Thus, I present to you the idea of the modern hermit.

Amenities such as microwaves, central AC and heating, and a two-car garage have been added to the cave. Products such as styling gel, and moisturizer, and flower-scented shampoo have been added to the grooming habits. The walking staff has turned into SUVs, scooters, and even those little machines where all you have to do is stand and lean and it walks for you. And the companion, whether it be a dog, bear, or llama, can spend a lovely weekend relaxing at a special pet spa where it gets treated much nicer than 60% of the world’s population ever do, should the hermit decide to take a little weekend trip to a neighboring forest glen, or as it may be now, suburb. The hermits rag’s have turned into designer jeans, jackets, underwear from Victoria’s Secret that when placed under the designer jeans will reveal just the appropriate amount of thong and butt to achieve the desired level of modern independent woman, because as we all well know women, can only express their independence by showing off as many body parts as possible pretending not to realize that they are in fact showing off said parts.


Despite all these improvements, despite the luxuries and perks of modern life, hermits still exists, and walk among us. Perhaps because there is so little wilderness left, of perhaps because the wilderness that is left is probably a malaria infested swamp, or maybe because hermits got sick of living in rags in caves, hermits have moved into the cities, or maybe found themselves trapped by them.

Or maybe the hermit craft has gone into disrepute. I have never head of any Hermitcolics Anonymous meetings. Well I guess there wouldn’t be any considering that one of the requirements of being a hermit is limiting interaction with others. So if someone prone to hermititude was born, where would they go in modern times? Where does a hermit-in-training go to learn the way? Maybe some hermits are like a confused teen-ager: they have not come to accept that they are a hermit, have not come out of the proverbial hermit closet.

So, that is my whole point. I think that maybe I am one of these. A hermit. A city-dwelling hermit. So in order to figure out if I am a hermit and to let you understand how us city dwelling hermits manage to fit into your world, where here you go...

PS. I was just thinking, do you think that real hermits, the fundamentalists, you know ones that live in caves and such, well, how do you think they feel about the internet? I mean they don’t talk to anyone because they isolate themselves from anyone who could talk to them, but what about chat rooms and Instant Messenger? I once saw this commercial about an order of Monks who had taken a vow of silence. Well, these sneaky little commercial monks figured out a way around this little obstacle by instant messaging each other. So, if a monk in Tibet wanted to send a picture of himself and his llama celebrating the winter solstice by wearing cool little party hats, could he email it to his friend in the Amazon? Hmm, just food for thought….

Face

Another musing:

Face, you look tired today face
I saw you on TV and frankly you looked haggard
I've never seen such bags under your eyes
Cucumber slices can do the trick face, the puffiness is not becoming

That gleam you always had, it seems to have gone missing face
You know that twinkle in your eye he used to love?
Your eyes are filled with sadness now,
Such suffering, it made me want to look away

Your lips, they smiled wanly face,
The corners tried to lift into a semblance of a smile, but fell apart half way,
As if the huge exhaustion of pretending to be happy
Was just too much for you to bear, face

I used to know you face,
Your cheeks used to turn red, oh, you were so easily embarrassed, face
And now you blush because you know you are just faking face,
Even your nose seems to be strained by all that breathing you must do

I want to tell you something secret, face
I saw you sneaking in a little smile when that reporter called you "Miss",
I saw you've not been using that anti-aging cream to
''make those laugh lines disappear'', tisk tisk my dear face

I saw how beautiful they made you face
The years of joy and laughter sneaking into your exhaustion
Those lines, they whispered to me things were not always so,
I know you face, you cannot hide from me

And now I see you in the mirror, there just above the dressing table, face,
The sadness, its there in your eyes again
Remember when he used to play connect the dots with your freckles?
Ah, there's that sneaky twinkle and the devilish smirk

Don't worry face, I won't tell anyone…

About my grandmother

The older I get, the more I begin to appreciate my grandmother as a woman, a human being, a person with 75 years of wisdom.

The morning was cold. Nothing unusual. Except it was March. Also not so unusual. Except for the ice. There is a word in Russian for that kind of ice; translated directly it would come out to “naked ice” or “bare ice.” What it means to your average pedestrian is ice everywhere. Ice, ice, ice. It’s called bare ice because there is nothing else. The sidewalk is all ice. The side of the sidewalk is ice. The road is ice. Nothing to hold on to. Everyone shuffles, not walks, shuffles along in tiny goose steps. Every once in a while a person starts to flail his or her arms around trying to regain balance, and if the unlucky soul is coordinationally challenged, well thank god that fur coat provides at least some padding.

She was freezing. She got out of bed and put on her fur slippers, wrapped herself in a robe, and walked over to the stove. She opened the door to the stove and peaked inside. The ambers had died out over night, as they always did, so while she fell asleep warm and comfy, she always woke up in a little ball, curled at her husband’s side. The pregnancy had made it more difficult to curl up, but at least the added weight helped keep her warm. She threw a few logs and briquettes into the stove-had to put in enough to heat the house all day so they did not come home to a floor covered in ice and had to wear their coats all night long.

Her mother had woken up by then and had put on her own fur shoes and robe and was pulling on the front door, making her way to the outhouse. This was the life they lived-wood-fired stove, no running water, outhouse. She found nothing strange or abnormal about this. She knew no different.

She really, really, really, really, did not want to go to work that morning. Not that she did not like her work. And even if she did not, it would never have occurred to her not to go. It was just so cold and she had been working such long hours in that overcrowded clinic, and now there was a flu epidemic going on. She saw 20, 30, 40 patients a day, so many that after a while they all began to blur and she forgot whom she had told to rinse with baking soda, who walked away with a prescription for some throat wash, and who had thrown up all over her floor. She had been promised a transfer. A transfer out of the in-patient clinic to a less crowded department, where people were seen by appointments and patients said “thank you,” at least some times…

She trudged along the road to her clinic, bundled, bubbling along the road, trying to balance the weight in her stomach by slightly leaning back. She was in good spirits, as she usually was. The day was sunny, and she actually sometimes liked the ice because she pretended she had ice skates on (which she knew she would likely never be able to afford) and she imagined herself in the Olympics, painting perfect figure eights on the skating rink. She would wear a nice costume, with fur-trimmed cuffs and color, and have bright white new skates with shiny blades, and as she made her perfect figure eights, the audience would clap and the judges would look at her with awe…

“Morning Dora,” she was startled out of her reverie by the waiting room attendant.

“Morning Olga,” she replied. Other doctors sometimes asked her if it bothered her that the attendant did not refer to her as “Dr.” or “Comrade Dr.” as attendants were expected to, but she said it did not bother her. “Dr.” always made her think of some stuffy, important man, with pockets full of who knows what. Yes, she was a doctor, and of course, she was proud of it, but “Dr.”, she was too young for that.

“Lots of sick ones today,” said the attendant.

She nodded. She knew she’d better hurry and change into her doctor’s robe, find her stethoscope, and call in the first patient, but she so wanted to savor those few quiet moments in her office before the flood of coughing, sneezing and wheezing filled her world.

She stretched, leaned on the heater-boy it was nice to have central heating, heating that did not require coal shoveling—it wouldn’t be proper she mused, as the white doctors’ coats would get all sooty. She couldn’t help but giggle as she pictured the head of the department, a very fat woman, trying to lean down to shovel some coal..

“Hello doctor, apppchooooo!”

The patient came in on her mid-giggle and so it began. The day was long but this one flew by a bit fast than the ones before. When she got sick of listening to the patients whine on and on, she would slip her hand into the pocket of her coat and feel the little envelope she had been given by the department head in between patients. This was her half-monthly salary.

It was not much, as doctors got almost nothing in those days and in that place (not that later on in life she would make much more), but still it would put food on the table, and buy some coal, and put a little away towards the running water and heater they were planning to build into the house, so unlike their first child, their second child (a girl she hoped) could wash her hands with warm water whenever she wanted to (or almost!).

She curled her fingers around the envelope. Hard earned money. It was the best feeling. Knowing that you had earned this money yourself. Knowing that every single Kopek had a sneeze, a wheeze, and a walk along the ice behind it. Knowing that you were contributing to the family, carrying your own weight and not being a weight on anyone else.

She decided that perhaps it would be better to put the money in her purse so she would not forget it in her doctor’s coat when she hung it up in the evening. She carefully put the envelope in her purse and forgot all about it as the parade of patients continued into the late afternoon.

The walk home was a lot less fun than that in the morning as the sun was no longer shining and she had to concentrate very hard not to slip. She walked into the house and was so glad to feel the warmth of the pre-heated stove on her face. Her mother had been the first one to come home from work and so had been the one to face the cold house, coal shoveling and dinner starting. She could enjoy the luxury of an already heated house and an almost prepared dinner.

And on top of all this, she remembered it had been salary day! She took off her coat and boots and slipped her hand into her purse to take out the envelope with bills in it.

Her hand felt all around and yet she could not locate the envelope. She opened the purse wider and peered in. She found her glasses, lipstick, handkerchief, stethoscope, but no envelope!

As she stood there in disbelief, it slowly dawned on her that someone, at some point during the day, must have gone inside her purse and stolen her salary!

Stolen! She could not believe it! She felt so stupid-it would not have occurred to anyone else to simply leave the money lying around there like that for anyone to take! So many people coming in and out, the confusion, the noise, she might as well have given it to the robber! And people these days had no scruples, and to rob her! A doctor! A pregnant doctor! Who was paid so little anyway, whoever stole the money must have spent it that very night on Vodka! Uggghhhhhhhhh!

She felt such anger and hurt. Not because they could not live without the money-even thought it would certainly put a big strain on their finances till the next pay period-but because she had worked so hard and diligently, treated all those people, and then one of them, or maybe a doctor or a nurse, steals her money, the little money they paid her!

She sank down on the floor, right there in the entry way and began to cry. Her mother came over and tried to comfort her, telling her that this was not the worst thing to happen and it was in the end just money, but she cried and cried and cried, crying at her naiveté, crying at the people who had stolen her money, crying at the unexpected nastiness that had slipped into her life.

When her husband came in later that evening and found his wife by the stove, cheeks streaked with tears, he had no heart to admonish her about not leaving money like that in her purse and being more careful, but hugged his pregnant wife and told her not to worry, he would take on extra hours and the prison where he was moonlighting on the weekends as the prison doctor to make up for it.

She did not worry long about the money. Soon the incident was almost forgotten, except for a sting she would carry with her for a long time; never again would she be so carefree and light around her patients. From then on, she made the attendant call her “Doctor.” And always, always put her purse into a little drawer in her office, the key to which she made sure to keep in her coat pocket.

“Happiness is not around us,” she would tell me many years later. “Happiness is only within us.”