Month: August 2023

I Guess I Looked Lost

Deb Zuroski, , Leave a comment

The shadows this morning are making a face on the awning across the street. It looks oddly like it’s frowning but I can’t imagine what an awning has to frown about. Especially not early on a Tuesday morning, when the air is crisp and the streets are busy with pedestrians and vehicles. Doesn’t an awning spend its life watching over a doorstep? What could be better than activity to help pass the mundanity, the tedium of hanging over a door all day, every day?

An older woman arrived at the coffee shop a few minutes ago. She chose a table by the big bay door and sat, looking between her phone and the life passing by outside. A bit later, another woman arrived and they smiled the way people do when they have a level of familiarity that bypasses traditional greetings. Do you know what I mean? No need for hellos. They move right into conversation with a laugh about parking and then walk in unison to the counter to order drinks.

The artist is drawing a woman silhouetted against the bay door. Her hair is that ‘riot of curls’ that one reads about. It’s secured back from her face with a small silver clip. As with most of the people here, she is facing a laptop. The artist is focused on his notebook, his pencil making strokes on the page as she sits so still she could already be a work of art hanging on a wall. 

Someone asked me today where I was going to end up. Honestly, the question – maybe the wording – confused me. Thinking more long term than he was, apparently, I answered, “hell, probably.” It turns out that he was, in fact, thinking more immediately than my eventual death. As he told me, he was trying to give me directions. I guess I looked lost – sometimes I am but aren’t we all?

There are so many lantern flies swarming around today that I am a little repulsed. Usually, I’m not a bug hater – bugs are just bugs. But the entire side of a building in PIttsburgh’s Oakland neighborhood was moving this morning, so covered in lantern flies that the wall itself seemed alive. Since our community isn’t home to any lantern fly predators, we have some work to do. I’m envisioning a chicken release in the hardest hit areas, in the way that we have goats remove invasive vines. Will the cure – thousands of chickens – end up being worse than the illness – hundreds of thousands of lantern flies? I guess we’ll find out if we take my suggestion.

College kids are back – yesterday, I saw a young person wearing a white designer tshirt with inflatable nipples. Today, I spotted a pink shirt with, I don’t know, maybe 10 or 12 small white teddy bears attached to it. What do we think? Would it be uncomfortable to sit with teddy bears all over your back? 

The sound of snoring occasionally interrupts the Reggae music playing through the speakers. It’s – the snoring, not the music – coming from a middle-aged man sitting in the conversation circle. His head is propped on his arm, which is propped on the sofa behind his chair. At some point, he’s going to wake and look around, wondering if anyone noticed that he was asleep. Sir, we noticed. We don’t care. Sleep all you want. I’m glad you’re comfortable.

Much love.

I Guess I Looked Lost

To Have the Audacity of Barbie

Deb Zuroski, , , , , , 3 Comments

The catbirds have gone silent. Every morning, lately, a young hawk begins calling as the sun peeks over the horizon. Hunting, I assume, though only the hunted and the hawks really know. She woke me again today, a few moments before my alarm reminded me not to burrow back into the pillow. The day is too full for extended sleep to be an option. And so, the day begins.

Walking in the early morning light the mile or two back from the mechanic where I left the car, I saw a man eating a boxed meal in the portico of an abandoned building. He’s made a home there, his bedding tucked under the roof, shopping car(t) parked next to his sidewalk-driveway. There’s no garbage pick-up, of course, but he’s keeping his very public little home tidy, his trash collected in plastic grocery bags and stacked neatly. He’s chosen an excellent location for his residence. The portico is barely visible from the street, essential for his safety, since the city regularly harasses those who are too public about their unhomed status. 

He’s living in one of the neighborhoods that needs healthy revitalization, not gentrification. I suspect, though, that the local government finds gentrification more financially beneficial. Until that changes, another community will lose its personality and culture to cookie-cutter high-rise apartments funded by greedy VCs and politicians. 

The neighborhood used to have a common grocery store, not a particularly safe one, unfortunately, but at least it was affordable. That store was torn down to make room for … another apartment building. Now, the primary grocery option is a Whole Foods, a store that reinforces the idea that food deserts are often, very specifically, places where the available food is not affordable. It’s remarkably effective – and completely lacking in human decency – if the goal is to remove financially fragile renters from a neighborhood. 

Three blocks beyond ‘portico house’, the neighborhood changes naturally as the landscape changes. That’s where I often spend the day. There are several local coffee shops, plus that national union-busting place (you know the one). Things have begun to change too at my favorite third place. I understand with horrible clarity how very irrelevant it is to desire the status quo. The world does not ask permission to change. People don’t either and isn’t that the worst betrayal? To expect everyone to stay where they are when, in reality, you will always, always be running to catch up. 

Children are an excellent example of that. But despite my years of experience being surprised by the various children in my world, I am still continually left stumbling along behind as they roar into their days with apparent fearless abandon. I am (probably not so) secretly constantly on the verge of a gasp with relief and admiration at their audacity.

Where did mine go? I’m absolutely certain that at one point in my life, my dear, so beloved mother was also gasping at my audaciousness. Now, instead of moving fearlessly to new cities where I have no connections, I find myself whining about the lack of black iced tea at my coffee shop. Nothing to fear – they steeped tea just for me since they’ve run out of the already-brewed stuff. And how embarrassingly privileged that is.

Over the weekend, I made a bunch of bracelets. One of my favorites from the Barbie movie is “Humans only have one ending.” There’s something reassuring about knowing that I only have this one life and that it’s on me to continually make a damned effort to do better. 

Another favorite, and the one on my wrist today, is a modification of the Barbie scene in which Barbie tells an elderly woman, “You’re beautiful.” And the woman responds, “I know.” 

And you are beautiful. I hope you know that.

Much love.

To Have the Audacity of Barbie

If You Don’t Stand For Something ….

Deb Zuroski, , , Leave a comment

Let’s talk about uncomfortable experiences. 

Not long ago, someone close to me made a racist remark. While I was unhappy with his comment, it was not out of the realm of possible given that our conversation was already going south. I called him out. We had a fight. I think we’re not currently speaking. I mean, I’m speaking to him but I don’t think he’s reciprocating. 

Yesterday, I was at a restaurant when my server made a racist remark. What she said reverberates through my brain even as I type this but I will never repeat it – not ever. The situation with her was a little different. I was talking to my lunch companion. We were discussing the word piddlin’, which, depending on your community, either means “trivial” or “peeing.” (Isn’t language hilarious?) The server wasn’t even part of the discussion.  She was dropping off the check. She looked at me, made her racist comment like she was asking if we wanted a refresh of our iced tea, and then stood there, waiting for my response. 

Friends, my companion and I were so surprised we just stared. She doubled down on her racist bullshit and I gobbled like a turkey. I swear to god there were no words in my head. I have no idea what I said next. In my head, NOW, I have ALL THE WORDS. Regrettably – and I do regret it deeply – then, I had no words. None. I was a blank slate of horror, confusion, and disgust. 

My privilege, as a white woman, means that I can walk away from this event and take no action. Nothing will happen to me. Nothing will happen to her. In reality, it’s unlikely that her opinions will be changed by anything I say. But had I spoken up, she would – at the very least – have known that I am not a safe person to say those words to. Maybe a negative response from me would have meant that she’d consider, in future, before sharing her racist opinions with the next customer. 

I can’t let that experience go unchallenged. Maybe I didn’t have the words then, but I definitely have them now. And I’ll be using them tomorrow. What will happen after that? We’ll see, won’t we? All I know at the moment is that I won’t be doing nothing. 

Now for something completely different ….

There was a very young boy at the coffee shop this morning. He was with his dad who, apparently, never had responsibility for him before. Dad kept saying, “keep your voice down” and the little guy kept saying “NO.” And my stomach muscles hurt from laughing as hard as I did. Isn’t it time for men to realize that they aren’t doing women a favor by “watching the kids?” Yo, men, that’s called parenting. Seriously, how was that man so unskilled at talking to his son? I’m delighted by the interaction and hope that child tortures his dad relentlessly until his morning nap, the dad’s not the kids. There’s no way that kid is going to sleep anytime soon since Dad just bought him multiple doughnuts. 

I bumped into an indie author at the farmers market yesterday and told her which of her books I’m currently reading. Her stories are at the top of the spice rack, if you know what I mean, so she was a little embarrassed but in a good way, I think. For her, it was probably a little like going to see a movie with your adult child and discovering that there’s a sex scene. I know what she wrote. She knows I know that she wrote it. Hehe

Right now, my primary task is supposedly working on my novel. I AM working on the novel. Unfortunately, a significant amount of my typing, thus far today, has involved the backspace key. And not because I keep making typos. There was a rager across the street last night and it was still going hard at 4AM. So much drumming. If there’s a hell, I’ll definitely be on the drumming floor for all eternity. Usually, I like a good beat but it seems that today, at least, I’m that person, the curmudgeon who can’t appreciate an intense urge to drum before the sun arrives.

Much love.

If You Don’t Stand For Something ….