What Time Is It?

Tick. Tick. Tick. I don’t know why I never noticed it before, but my watch is noisy. It’s a perfectly serviceable and fairly new Timex. I bought it because it goes with all my clothes and the hands on the face are large enough to read without my glasses (almost).

But while I was in the store it never occurred to me to hold the pesky thing to my ear and listen. Watches don’t make noise anymore, do they? Mine does.

We have a stately grandfather clock in the family room. It chimes majestically every quarter hour, Westminster in miniature. Unlike my wristwatch, it is a comforting sound. It swings along gracefully, as if to say there is all the time in the world. No need to rush, one day will follow another in its own good time.

But for some reason, this watch drives me crazy. It might be because it’s strapped to my body like an albatross. Perhaps it’s the nature of the sound itself – all tinny and shallow - that seems to nag rather than reassure. Hurry up! Slow down! Too late! Too early! Never quite the right time.

Maybe it’s not the watch that’s the problem. Tick. Tick. Tick.

Those Eyes: A Fantasy

“I’ve been waiting a long time for this moment,” she says, smiling seductively as I make myself comfortable on her sofa. She begins to undo the tiny pearl buttons of her blouse, exposing the delicate lace hidden beneath. “A very long time.”

Of course she has. I know she wants me. They all do. I’m a good-looking guy. We’ve worked side by side all these long months. I toyed with her at first. Who wouldn’t? She’s exquisite. Her streaming raven hair frames a face blessed with absolutely perfect features. But her eyes – those piercing black-brown eyes – overwhelm your senses. They pull you into their liquid depths, threatening to drown out every desire but hers.

And who needs that? So I dumped her. It’s not as if there wasn’t plenty out there to choose from. In my business, beautiful women are everywhere. Most of them are like me. We know life’s short and opportunities are fleeting. We usually agree to have a good time, kiss good-bye and move on. But not her. She was always watching.

She approaches me now and leans over my reclining form, allowing the blouse to slip off her shoulder. I swallow the icy champagne she hands me, noticing the contrast between the light bubbly wine and the dark, exotic woman speaking to me now.

“The anticipation has been so sweet. Now that it’s about to end, I’m almost sorry,” she says.

Suddenly she snatches the empty glass from my hand and flings it passionately against the wall, where it shatters it into a million pieces. I close my eyes and everything goes black.

And then, of course, comes the applause. A roaring chorus from the audience as I hold my position a little longer for dramatic effect. It’s closing night and I can tell that we’ve given our best performance. And it’s none too soon for me. I can’t wait to be rid of her. All these months of pretending have taken their toll on me. I’d planned for us to have one parting fling at the cast party, but now I’m not so sure I’m up to it. In fact, I’m starting to feel pretty dammed odd. What was in that glass anyway?

She leans over me and whispers so no one else can hear, “Actually, I’m not sorry at all.” My eyes spring open for one last time and I look into the mad, inky depths before me. Then it all fades away.

Rejection

Another day, another rejection letter. I’m getting used to it. At first, job hunting was fresh and exciting. Even a rejection letter was a thrilling event. But as the sad responses piled up week after week, it became depressingly tedious. And like the stages of grief, I find myself moving through a wide range of emotions: anger, frustration, sorrow, self-pity, and a nagging sense that I’m an old fart loser. My husband remembers that one of his college friends papered the walls of his dorm room with rejection letters. Though I don’t possess that kind of in-your-face youthful chutzpa myself, I admire the sentiment.

So - if a sign of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result, it’s time to determine what I’m doing wrong so I can put an end to this depressing spiral. On second thought it might be easier to have a go with corrective pharmaceutical intervention. Hmm . . .

Permit me to provide some background. Some years ago I notched up a bachelor’s degree in business with a concentration in finance from a highly regarded institution (Go Pack!). 4.0 GPA. Suma Cum Laude. Voted Most Likely To Succeed. Doesn’t that sound promising? So when I saw a job post for a part-time entry-level bank teller, I thought my prospects were pretty good. Apparently not.

It seems I made one very big mistake. Thinking my stellar achievements would safely simmer on the back burner (forgive my hubris), I detoured off my personal Yellow Brick Road for a few years to focus exclusively on raising a family. The career counselors advise against this. By the time I returned to the twenty-first century version of Oz, the Emerald City had been turned into a Super Wal-Mart. Dorothy was all grown up and working back in Kansas at the helm of a venture capital firm. The Wal-Mart is not hiring. (I checked.) Dorothy has outsourced HR to the same people who turned me down for the bank teller job. It’s discouraging.

Fortunately I’m the kind of girl who believes in happy endings. If the final step in the grief process is acceptance, I’m ready to accept whatever opportunities lie before me. But I’m hanging on to the pharmaceuticals just in case.

Here Comes Cameron

“Here comes Cameron,” we’d say.

Over the years we’ve attended dozens of Friday night football games at our daughter’s high school. We’d settle in the parent’s section on cold, hard bleachers, primarily there to support the marching band of which they were both members. The band students gathered in the adjoining section playing pep tunes, cheering for the team, talking and laughing endlessly. They were a close group of friends.

Invariably, somewhere along the line a tall lanky fellow bounded up the steps and plopped down beside us. Cameron was comfortable talking to anyone. If I saw him at the grocery store where he worked part-time, he’d stop whatever he was doing to come over and say hello. When yard work piled up beyond our ability to manage it ourselves, Cameron would round up a friend or two and come work alongside us, doing the heavy lifting.

He was always on the go, full of more dreams, plans, and goals than some people dare in a lifetime. And there was just enough adolescent mischief mixed in to make him entirely human.

When we learned of his death in a motorcycle accident at the age of 20, we were devastated. Time has passed since that heartbreaking day and our grief has begun to heal. In its place are precious memories of this special young man.

Look out heaven, here comes Cameron.

Adventure

“You don’t get out much, do you?” a friend asked.

Once again, I’d been exposed for the entire world to see. We’d been enjoying a relaxing girls’ lunch, catching up on all the news about family, men, and shoe styles.

And then it happened. I said, “I’ve never tried it” one time too many. Why couldn’t I learn to just sit there with a mysterious smile on my face? Look how well it’s worked for the Mona Lisa all these years. I’m just not that adventurous. We’ve gone to the same vacation beach house for about twelve years. By the time I head over to the cool new restaurant, there’s a FOR LEASE sign hanging in the window. I wait for movies to come out on DVD.

It’s embarrassing. My idea of a good night includes a mug of Sleepy Time Tea and listening to classical music recorded by the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields.

But I need to store up material for these feminine tell-alls. Something that will keep me from looking like a complete brick in front of my friends.

So when a sign appeared at the local shopping center that said “Hot Yoga. Ten Sessions for $10,” I thought that I might finally have something to report in the cheap thrills department. Sign me up.

After a brief phone call giving me the outline of the Bikram workout, I showed up early one Saturday morning. A group of ten or fifteen of us assembled in a Zen-like waiting room. From the newcomers they collected the aforementioned ten bucks and gave us a few forms to sign. There was lots of small print about how I wouldn’t sue them if I didn’t have a good time. Should have been a clue. We then moved on to an exercise room quite different from any I’d ever seen before. The walls were dark, the lights were low, and it was friggin’ hot. I’m talking summertime in Miami, menopausal hot flash, didn’t you pay the electric bill so we can turn on the damn air conditioning hot. I was beginning to get the Hot Yoga idea. The regulars took their places close to the front of the room and began stretching in rather suggestive poses.

A large calm man entered the room and fiddled with the thermostat. Thank God. Then he reported that he had adjusted the temperature to bring it UP a bit to the optimal 95-105 degree range. Swell. I’d paid ten dollars for a first class ticket to Hell.

He discussed the routine we would follow for the next hour or so, demonstrating the poses carefully and with reverence. He explained that we might experience mild sensations of light-headedness. I tried hard to follow along but to tell the truth I felt like an idiot. I could see in the mirror that my face was bright red, I was sweating profusely, and my hair was frizzing into a giant Afro reminiscent of the Jackson Five. This is not a good look for me.

Then the large calm man said the most ridiculous thing I have heard in some time. “At this point in the exercise, it is normal to feel nauseous.” That was when I packed up my sweaty old beach towel and headed home. I do not want to be part of any universe in which vomit is normal.

I stepped outside and breathed deeply of the beautiful 70-degree morning. I couldn’t wait to get home and take a nice cool shower. The next time I get together with my girlfriends, I’ll have a new experience to share. But in my book, adventure is vastly overrated.

Doodling

Do you think it’s significant when you hear the same little known theory uttered by three different people on three different occasions within the same week?

The first time I heard it, I tipped my head the way our dog sometimes does when he’s listening carefully to us speak. He’s very interested in the words, but it takes time for him to process their meaning. The second time I heard it, I suspected there was some conspiracy and that the two speakers had somehow been in cahoots. But the third time, I decided to think about it more carefully.

It’s one of those simple ideas you probably heard in a high school English class, but didn’t pay much attention to, because at the time you were doodling a picture on a note you wanted to pass to your best friend when the teacher’s back was turned. I should have paid attention.

The theory states that in the literary world, with its countless millions of stories, there are very few unique plots. Arguments continue as to the exact number, but the pattern of fictional narratives boils down to this: birth, problem, struggle, resolution, death. I may have missed a few details during my doodle fest, but I think I‘ve got it about right. The saga is fundamentally the same, because human existence is essentially the same. We may think our troubles are bigger, nastier, and more painful than everyone else’s (I am certainly guilty of this), but we’re all traveling down the same road in one manner or another with just a few tweeks in scenery and wardrobe.

I was pondering all this as I sat in a church recently, surrounded by people I care about. Churches are good places to think about things like this. Whether it’s a baptism, a funeral, or one of the events in between, we’re all here together. And that’s the point. As in literature, the story may be the same, but the only thing that keeps us moving toward the resolution, that keeps us from giving up during the dark days, and enhances the rejoicing on the good ones, is the cast. Regardless of what role they play, the characters make all the difference. The hands we hold, the shoulders we cry on, and the laughter we share - especially the laughter - combine to create a tale worth remembering.

So when I heard this same theory repeated three times this week (and you do tend to listen more carefully to subtle hints while sitting in a church), it made me wonder if I need to take more notice of the characters in my own life. I thought about how often I get so busy with the details of the plot, that I forget to reach out to the people who make the story worthwhile. Maybe it’s time again to doodle a note.

The Garden Tour

This weekend my friends and I gathered together, formed a caravan, and enjoyed a favorite tradition: the Garden Tour. Armed with cameras and notepads, we tromp through the yards of patient gardeners, hoping to find inspiration and secrets for our own gardens back home. I usually return with both a zest to improve my own landscape and a nagging doubt that it will ever measure up to what I see there.

The garden locations are identified with ribbon-strewn signs. In previous tours, a strict schoolmarm-type of Club member would welcome us with exhortations to stay on the path and follow the signs please! She was very protective of her sister’s home. Along the way we encountered the owner, usually a lady of advanced years with rough hands. She would lovingly gesture towards particularly interesting specimens, interchangeably calling them by their common and botanical names, with the intimacy of friends who have known each other a long time.

But this year I noticed a change. At the first house, a gentleman stood unobtrusively nearby to assist with our questions. He and the homeowner were “partners” in the garden design. At the next house an effervescent lady with manicured nails and a chic outfit stood on the path. She pointed to the magnificent house addition, which had taken a year to complete. The garden had been installed in three months. She referred questions to the landscaper. I thought it was particularly gracious of him to refrain from offering a business card. Surely next year he would need to move on to a new project, leaving this one behind like a woman abandoned for a new trophy wife. Another garden was elegant, perfect, and institutional. It had no soul. There was no one around to comment on it. I guess the design team doesn’t work on weekends.

The highlight of our day was a home of enormous proportions. The Club member who greeted us giggled and admitted that she was unable to answer any actual gardening questions. “Isn’t that an awful lot of collagen in her lips?” my friend whispered as we strolled by. We are keen observers. The lady of the house was wearing flip-flops. She does not garden, but her husband does. We spent most of our time admiring the interior of the extraordinary home, which had been generously opened for our enjoyment. In it I was delighted to find the husband-gardener so that I could query him about the vegetable garden design. His polo shirt was embroidered with the words Duke Basketball. The stitching was in Carolina blue. Can I trust his advice?

Rain began with a vengeance and we decided to call it a day. As I pulled into my driveway, I noticed that the dogwood I received as a Mother’s Day gift some years ago was in full bloom and that the azaleas we’d moved several times were finally thriving in their beds. I looked around and realized I felt a sense of peace and contentment that was comforting. I was home. Maybe this was the best tour ever.

Squirrel Battles

We live in the suburbs on a nicely wooded lot in a neighborhood we love. The birds sing, the bunnies hop, and it is not at all unusual to see a family of deer strolling through the yard as we walk out to get the newspaper in the morning. It is a bucolic setting that surrounds and comforts us, an insulation from the chaos beyond our gate.

One of the first things we did upon arriving here many years ago, was to hang a bird feeder. We set it just outside the window by our kitchen table, and the sweet little birds that gathered each day delighted us. Cardinals, finches, chickadees and many others flocked to the simple feeding tube, which we faithfully filled with the best black-oiled sunflower seeds we could find.

And then the squirrels arrived. At first we didn’t mind as they helped themselves to a nibble or two in happy harmony with our winged friends. But as time went on, things began to get ugly. The greedy squirrels began to monopolize the food source, scaring the timid little birds away.

We struck back. We acquired a high tech, battery operated, Yankee Trader Squirrel Flipper. It still had the pretty tube, but the metal resting place was designed to rotate rapidly and toss any creature that weighed more than a pound or so. We were in business. We roared with laughter as the little buggers were foiled time and time again in their efforts to drain our seed. Ha, ha! Take that, evil tree rats!

But hunger is a powerful motivator. Somehow the members of the on-going parade of rodents discovered that if they persisted long enough, the battery would wear down, pause, and finally die so they could empty its contents again. They would dig their little squirrel toenails into the wood of our deck railing, stretch their scrawny arms out and hold on to the metal perch for dear life until it yielded to their labors. I pictured them going back each day to squirrel headquarters, reporting their progress to a potbellied commander in military garb who chomped fiercely on a smelly cigar. “Aye General, we took casualties, but I think the next brigade should accomplish the mission,” one would say, while massaging his bruised shoulder.

We yelled at them, we banged on the window; we released our dogs to frighten them away. But the reinforcements appeared in an endless procession and the birdseed disappeared ever faster. Finally, my husband discovered a way to raise the contraption just beyond their reach. Victory again for the humans!

The score is now Humans-2, Squirrels-1, and it is embarrassing to admit how proud we are of our triumph. For a day or two, peace returns to the scene and we smile contentedly at one another over our breakfast cereal. Then we notice a lone four-footed scout sitting on the deck. Just sitting. He does not attempt to reach the seed, he does not move, he just sits with his back turned to us, appraising the latest development. After a few moments, he scurries away. My husband and I exchange a glance. We may have won the battle, but the war rages on.

My Day

Today is Friday. I am at the Mall. I am at the Mall on Friday because Friday is my day. Or as I like to think of it: My Day. This has always been my little secret. Well, I guess it’s not a secret anymore because now you know. But there you have it. It is My Day.

My Day began about twenty-four years ago with the arrival of our first child. Since I was home all day - every day - with this little dumpling, life had taken on a rather predictable repetition. Like using shampoo. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. Only with children it was: Bottle. Burp. Change. Repeat. So one day was pretty much like another. I began to feel a bit numb. One Friday, when our first child was three months old, I packed her up, went to the Mall and had a cup of coffee. It was lovely. So as a kind of therapy I developed My Day. I would save the things I liked to do (or least minded doing) for Friday. Sometimes if there was room in the budget, My Day included shopping for little luxuries. Like underwear that did not have small animal characters on it. Sometimes it was a trip to the home improvement store for a new flowerpot. Sometimes if the budget was a little tighter, My Day included a nice cup of tea in a cafe without a playground. The babies were always with me, of course. But it gave my week a kind of anchor to hold on to. Chances to stop for a moment, change the routine, and look around a little. It probably kept me sane.

As the years went on, I held on to My Day. I developed a loose set of guidelines. I never go to the gynecologist on My Day. Never. I allow myself to reschedule to a day other than Friday if necessary. I have often compressed My Day into one fleeting hour or so during particularly hectic weeks. I sometimes have lunch with dear friends on My Day. But only the dear ones. I save up the little errands and projects that give me pleasure, knowing that on My Day I will be able to throw myself into them with absolutely no guilt whatsoever since I have spent the rest of the week doing everything else. I still include my babies sometimes on My Day for lunch or shopping. Now that they are all grown up those days are the most precious of all. Sort of a passing of the My Day torch, which I hope they will carry on as well.

We all need a My Day.