Author: Deb Zuroski

Who Is Your Home?

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It’s windy today. Leaf sparrows skim along the ground, more quickly than their bird selves, and then take to the skies with less elegance, directionless, in fact. They rustle without risk, drawing the attention of my neighbor’s cat. He has killer instincts without the mental acuity to recognize bird from leaf. It’s a pleasure, truthfully, to watch him expend his boundless energy on something that is already dead.

My next door neighbor – the 90-something man – is a little mad at me but he can’t yell at me because I’m helping him with something. As such, when I was talking with him yesterday morning, he told me (very loudly) how angry he is with … ahem, SOMEONE ELSE (me, he means me) because they don’t rake their leaves.

I was so delighted by this interaction that I have been telling people about it since yesterday. I’m not going to start raking my leaves either. This spring, my BIL will be helping me transform my yard into a pollinator garden. Perhaps that will please my neighbor (it absolutely will not). 

There will be a walking path in the new garden so he can bring his wheelbarrow through my yard – which is almost exactly the size of a postage stamp. He is, in fact, pleased about the path, which might also encourage the mail carrier to stop stepping on my flowers (it absolutely will not). 

It’s Friday evening and I am dumfungled. Every word I write is the most words I’ve ever written for a single story. Every additional minute I live is the longest I’ve ever lived. Each of my heartbeats adds to the longest stretch of heartbeats …. You know where this is taking us, right?. Some weeks feel like a combination of achievements and hurdles. I suppose it’s yin and yang but right now it feels more like being shot and poisoned.

There’s a poem – I Saw Emmett Till This Week at the Grocery Store – that I think about often. I won’t interpret it for you here. Like all poems, it is best that you read it for yourself, take from it what speaks most clearly to you. I’ll say only that it shouts to me in a melancholic whisper that hurts every time I read it. As it should.

Poems are strange that way. Every day I read poems that speak to the particular moment I’m experiencing. Is it just the right poem finding me at the moment it’s most needed or is it me taking what I need from those words? Who knows? If you don’t like poetry, may I suggest that you aren’t reading the right poetry? There are so many types. Don’t be fooled into thinking that the only good poetry is dead poetry. Please. Shakespeare was great and all but have you ever read In Praise of My Bed?

As the snow falls here in Pittsburgh today (don’t get me started. I’m very bitter), novel revisions are underway – yes, I removed my agency from that sentence but I am, in fact, the one doing the revising. At this stage of the writing process, though, I feel as though my characters are in charge of telling their story. The novel – written from the butler’s perspective – is called The Butler Loves the Governess. It’s set in the very early 1800s and includes some rather delightful love letters. 

Anyway, I’m only the conduit. The butler is always trying to take charge of the story telling. Our arguments have been … interesting. For example:

The butler: I need to prove my love for the governess.

Me: Hmm. And what do you have in mind? 

The butler: I’m going to hold up the mail coach that she’s riding in.

Me: ….

The butler: I’ll need a pistol

Me: What?

The butler:  And a mask.

Me: Eamon, this is not a rewrite of The Three Musketeers

The butler: What kind of story is that? Do they get pistols?

Me: Well, actually, I think they use swords

The butler: SWORDS! Yes, swords. That’s a great suggestion. Much better than pistols.

Me: [drops head to desk, sobs]

Mostly, it’s been a delight, even if none of you ever get to read it. Of course, I fully intend to keep asking agents to consider it. I’m water on a stone, you know. Eventually, I will wear them down. 

I’ve been listening to a lot of new-to-me music this week: Oh Wonder, Josie Man, Madison Olds, 5SOS. I think my current favorite song is “Tattoos Together” by Lauv. I’ve only listened to this song like a million times this week. I think it encapsulates that teenage feeling of temporary but eternal love, how frantic and deep that emotion seems at 17 or 18.

Eamon’s calling to me again. I think he wants to “discuss” how he’s going to pine for the governess in this latest scene – it’s a new chapter that I’m adding near the end of the book at someone’s request. He doesn’t know this yet but he’s going to write a bunch of letters that he won’t be able to mail because REASONS. These new letters are going to be full of piney, angsty grief. It’s going to be delicious. Got to go do that right now!

Much love.

Who Is Your Home?

Mosaic

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Today, I was talking to one of the baristas at the coffee shop and we agreed that we were not in … er, top form, let’s say … in our 20s. He can’t understand why anyone was even friends with him. I’m not sure why I’m still alive. We did stupid things in our youth. Some of us are still doing stupid things in our middle age. Ahem. 

Anyway, I’ve been thinking a lot about viridianmasquerade’s thoughts: 

What are the experiences, who are the people that make up my mosaic? I still sometimes sing a version of The Christmas Song that a friend and I wrote to celebrate McDonalds, particularly their chicken nuggets. We were 17 and I had a terrible, no-good, very bad job there (that often provided free food at the end of the night). Every Christmas, when Bing Crosby starts singing The Christmas Song on my playlist, I think about sitting at the lunch table with her and another friend as we wrote our new lyrics. ”Happy Christmas to all and please stop back again.”

Did you know that tuna – in water, of course – is my preferred bulk-up protein? When I was a bodybuilder many years ago, Joe, from a dirty little place called Joe’s Gym (still operating in my hometown), taught me the calf exercises I still use and encouraged me to eat tuna after every workout. 

When I was 21, two friends and I traveled to Cancun and nearly got ransomed or sex-trafficked or possibly murdered by two young men we met there. There is a certain (popular) song that I can’t hear without thinking of that trip and the drive deep into the heart of the jungle on a single-lane dirt road while the radio blared top 40 songs. 

My favorite banana bread recipe came from a woman I met after grad school. It was her grandmother’s recipe. My friend, and colleague at the design firm, wrote it out for me late one weekend afternoon while we sat in a local restaurant and ate grilled cheese and bacon sandwiches followed by a shared slice of caramel apple pie a la mode. I haven’t seen that woman in 30 years but the recipe is still great. 

I turn on lights – or use the flashlight on my phone – as I walk through my house because my father made me afraid of the dark when I was a single-digit child. He’d hide in dark places throughout the house and jump out at me. He’s been gone for 14 years (and I moved out 35 years ago) but I still turn on lights wherever I am.

All the wooden spoons my mom used to punish us are long gone. She even broke one of them on my back when I was still shorter than she was but as mouthy as someone twice her size. I remember her advice every time I use one: don’t let wooden spoons soak in water. Wash them by hand with a damp cloth. Even now, that’s the way I wash my wooden spoons, though I’ve never hit a child with one. 

Much of the music I listen is from someone’s recommendation: Affordable Floors, Steely Dan, Sufjan Stevens, Orville Peck, Creepy Nuts. Those songs and those people all included in my story because of a casual suggestion that they probably don’t even remember.

So many people make up that mosaic … it’s mostly dark colors, deep blues and chocolate browns, colors of sorrow and grief; but there are a few bits of lightness to add some beauty to the whole miraculous mess. Also, it’s important to note that it isn’t finished yet, not for a good while. At least, so I hope.

Much love.

Mosaic

Clean Plates And Other Crimes

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My not-my-Aunt Ginny was doing pretty well this week, on my first visit of 2023 (I started the year with Covid but finally am safe to visit with her). She didn’t know me during my visit but also (a little bit) she did, which made for some of our more unusual conversations. I showed her a recent picture of me with my eldest son. She was surprised by how adult he is and asked if the woman in the picture is his wife. Friends, this is the picture I shared:

Later, she asked me what my mom thought of another picture. My mom would have loved it, so of course I answered that way, pretending for a bittersweet moment that Mom lived to know my children and my sister’s children, that she was alive to share a meal with me and to be recalcitrant about something I wanted her to do. 

Sharing a meal … that’s what I miss most. Not even her cooking, really. I miss the act of sitting together, talking about everything and nothing, eating food that someone else cooked for us. She used to love to go to a little tea shop in Erie. We didn’t even get tea. We’d get sandwiches and she’d have coffee. And we’d just spend a little time in each other’s company. 

For her, it was a major indulgence, an act of defiance against something though I never knew what. Possibly, probably, my father.  He was very controlling. She was afraid of him and most everything, really. Once I was old enough to see a future that wasn’t under my father’s control, I would tell her that I would treat her to lunch when I visited but she became ill while I was still in graduate school. We ended up having very little time for tea shop sandwiches.

Not-my-Aunt Ginny prefers companionship while she eats. When I arrived a little after noon, I found that she had not yet received her lunch tray. It was delivered about 10 minutes after I got there and something in not-my-Aunt G’s world converted that tray to a meal I had ordered for myself. From her perspective, we were in a restaurant and that meal became dinner out. It took some convincing but I finally got her to believe that the tray was for her. 

While she’s eating, I always make up an excuse for why I can’t share her food but she can be pretty persistent. Sometimes I tell her that I don’t like the type of food she’s having. Sometimes I tell her that I just ate and am not hungry. Not-my-Aunt G doesn’t care to hear those excuses. She hates food waste, not surprising since she lived through WWII. 

It would drive her crazy that we aren’t members of the clean plate club. Sure, the origins are understandable and waste is a horrible thing. However, I think it’s important to recognize, to acknowledge, that eating the crust of my bread did not, in fact, make my hair curly. If I could, I would tell my Grandma Myrtle (who died when I was 17), that I finally figured out it was a lie, bold-faced, in fact.

It is also accurate to note that starving children do not want my leftovers. They would, in reality, benefit from compassionate food policies that value human life over profit but I’m pretty confident, having eaten it myself, that they would not enjoy that last half-scoop of tuna casserole with peas and carrots.

Be kind to someone today, possibly even yourself.

Much love.

Clean Plates And Other Crimes

Neujahrsbrezel

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If you work on the street near a coffee shop, what are you going to do? Get a coffee from there, of course. When my daughter worked at the competing coffee shop nearby, she said that they had frequent visits from the area workers.. 

Sometimes, they’d even swap products: burgers for coffee, baked goods for coffee. She claims though that the Apple store employees did not give her charge cords for coffee. That’s the deal I would want  especially since the coffee is equal in value to the drinks.

There’s a big jewelry store down the street from the coffee shop. Yes, I know where your mind just went. Wouldn’t that be the deal of the century: jewels for coffee. Sadly, that’s not where my story is headed. It’s raining today but the security guard who works at the jewelry store needs his coffee before the store opens. 

As he leaves here, I see him pause for a moment, possibly a mental debate, before he crosses the street to the bakery. A few moments later, he’s leaving the bakery with a bag and his drink. It’s raining, though, so now he has a conundrum. He wants to eat his treat but he hasn’t enough hands to hold his umbrella, the coffee and the treat, especially not while he’s eating said treat. 

What’s a person to do? I’ll tell you. He leans the umbrella on his shoulder, propped against the telephone pole, while he unwraps the treat but holds the bag around it, possibly to keep his fingers from getting sticky. Now, he can stand at the corner, eat the treat and drink his iced coffee without getting wet. Genius.

The bakery has been busy since they opened early this morning. Some people are buying neujahrsbrezel, which, in case you aren’t familiar, is a sweet pastry shaped like a pretzel. It’s quite popular in Pittsburgh and supposedly brings good luck in the new year. I could use some good luck though I don’t think it will come by way of a pretzel.

How, in particular, do I know who is buying neujahrsbrezel? The box is a dead giveaway. Most people who leave the bakery carry either a small waxed bag or a square box. The pretzel is large, decidedly so.

A young woman in bright yellow rain boots is leaving the bakery right now. She has a stack of three pretzel boxes and then a smaller bakery box. The woman has to look around the side of the top box to see where she’s going but her smile is bright. She’s looking forward to whatever event those pretzel boxes are going to.

The diner next to the bakery is packed to the doors with customers. Some are waiting under the overhang, trying not to get wet. When the door opens, clown-car-esque, a hoard of people spill out and the external group squeezes inside.

As I’m watching the diner, Chocolate Moose, the dog, not the candy store, walks up to the coffee shop with a tall, older man. After the man ties the dog to the bike rack outside, he enters the coffee shop. Since I’m sitting by the door, I ask if I can pet his dog, of course. The man is quick to tell me he’s just watching the dog for a friend. He’s flustered so I ask again if I can pet the dog. He says yes and calls to me as I go outside … “Chocolate Moose,” he says. “The dog’s name is Chocolate Moose.” 

And that’s how I find myself squatting in the rain beside Moose, scratching behind his ears. He’s a sweet young chocolate lab (of course), enjoying the rain and puzzled about why the walk has paused in front of this store. 

Technically, dogs are allowed to enter the coffee shop to get their puppuccinos but Moose is not very well-behaved. I’d call him overly loving. That’s why he’s sentenced to sit outside. He doesn’t understand why he can’t go up to every single individual in the coffee shop to ask for pets. That confuses me too because … DOG. Anyway, my day can continue joyfully now that I’ve spent a solid five minutes in the drizzle with Moose.

I hope your 2022 included a Chocolate Moose equivalent and that your 2023 introduces many of the same.

Happy New Year!

Much love.

Neujahrsbrezel

Outgrown

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It was Christmas eve and slightly below zero. Add in the wind chill and it was about -25F. I was on my way to my son’s house to pick him up. I’d offered to drive him to and from work because of the temperature. He usually walks; but as any northerner knows, temps this low can injure or kill a person easily. 

There were people waiting at the traffic light beside the Aldi grocery store as I pulled up to the intersection. I watched, thinking how cold they must be. The wind gusts were so strong that the people swayed a bit as they waited for the light to change. 

One of the women took off her scarf. As I watched, she wrapped it around another woman, tucking, then unwrapping and re-wrapping until she was satisfied that the other woman would be warm as they waited. 

I couldn’t see much of them, bundled as they were against the cold. Were they friends, siblings, lovers, mother and daughter? It doesn’t matter. The love was clear in that woman’s behavior. It wasn’t her sacrifice. It was the careful way she wrapped, then re-wrapped the other woman in the scarf. 

Her actions reminded me in that deja vu way of a winter night many years ago. I was at a stupid party off-campus at the rugby player’s fraternity. The party was continuing but I had an early shift at the country club. As I got ready to leave, he took my scarf from my hands and wrapped it around me just like that woman on the sidewalk. 

He was, for sure, more than a little tipsy and I was as sober as ever. That’s the thing about non-drinkers – we’re always sober and thus often remember things that reside in a fog for others. How would 20-year-old me feel if she knew that thirty years later a woman on a street corner on a cold winter day would bring back that wisp of memory of a pretty boy from so long ago? 

The leaf-birds were all blown from the trees by last week’s heavy winds. Now the branches are empty of those last brown leaves that clustered like sparrows in small groupings on our neighborhood trees. It’s a stark, rather lonely reminder that we are still in the early days of winter. The dark of January and bitterness of February await. 

The coffee shop is warm, though, and bright. Pedestrians are back, striped Sephora bags swing from their forearms, coffee cups are clasped in their hands. Fred the dachshund hasn’t passed by yet. He usually walks his owner every day but the cold temps or perhaps a trip for the holidays have absented him from the sidewalk outside the shop. 

A man walks by holding three cups in his hands. He’s with three young women – his daughters? – who are weighed down with bags from Cheeks and Lululemon and Apricot Lane. He looks tired but I hope he’s also delighted to be included in this shopping trip. This snapshot of his life – as I’ve crafted it, of course – reminds me of this quote: 

We can drink hot tea and talk about
the future, how hard it is to be outgrown.

From Mother Talks Back to the Monster by Carrie Shipers

As I wait in line for my iced black tea (medium in a for-here cup), a woman rushes up to the lady in front of me and they hug. I don’t know what they say to each other. It’s mostly in Italian but the sentiment is clear through their smiles, if not their constant touches. They are glad to see each other. I wonder why we wait until the holidays to come together?

Along with all the holiday visitors in the coffee shop, there are many familiar faces. One that is missing today, we’ll call him Andrew (because that’s his name), comes in most days to draw. He sits in near stillness, often leaning back in his chair, his drawing hand holding a pencil, moving over a pad. Who has he sketched in his time here? Does he make up stories for his subjects like I do? 

Last time I saw him, I was here late and he had fallen asleep, his head tipped back against the brick wall. It was closing time and the manager asked me, as I was leaving, if Andrew had awakened yet. “No,” I said and we exchanged a smile. Sometimes the third place is better than home, even when your eyes are drooping. 

The coffee shop traffic has not stopped today. Right now, there’s a family ordering drinks and laughing with the barista. The man has an arm around the woman. Their child, a teenager, is smiling too as they search through the coffee cup beside the register. It’s always full of free stickers that vary by the season. My computer is currently festooned with small Dancer, Rudolph and Ho-Ho-Ho stickers, courtesy of that coffee cup. 

The floor is cold where I’m sitting. My table is near the person-door, where the floor is brick and there’s the barest hint of a breeze from under the big garage door that will remain closed until next spring. It’s always warmer in the back but also more isolating. I like the activity by the register. Usually, I pop my earbuds in and listen to music (right now it’s an oldie, Tears for Fears, “Everybody Wants to Rule the World”) while I write. If I get stuck I can look up and be entertained by the activity around me. 

Today, that activity includes a child squealing two tables away. He’s thrilled with something, though I can’t see what it is. There’s another group blocking my view of the table, though I can see the little boy’s blond head and a bit of his smile. 

A woman stands beside him. She’s thrown her arms out in a theatrical jazz hands gesture, making everyone at the table laugh. That’s what she intended so she smiles, delighted with her success. It’s a heady thing, making people laugh. 

As I walk back to my seat from the bathrooms, I notice a man playing chess on his computer. The man at the next table has a background picture of a stunningly beautiful woman. He has a window open. It’s positioned on the screen so it doesn’t block her face. I hope, and in the story I tell myself, it isn’t a coincidence. 

Don McLean’s “Vincent” is playing now. That seems a suitable song for ending the day, don’t you think? 

Much love.

Outgrown

Chocolate Chip Couples

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Boxed Christmas cookies that were not chocolate chip

Someone walks by the coffee shop wearing a hoodie that exactly matches the color of the sky today. It’s winter-chilly, though most of the week has been warm. The people walking in this neighborhood wear a mix of clothing that screams “we have no idea what today will bring.” 

Think I’m exaggerating? The man who just walked by the bakery is wearing shower shoes. The woman walking toward him has on a winter coat, hat, and gloves. Truly cold days are easy to spot because people who have cold drinks carry them in gloved hands. Apparently, I am not alone in thinking there is nothing worse on a chilly day than carrying a cold drink in a bare hand. 

It’s the perfect day for the parking police. I want to knock on the window and remind people to pay for their parking. Instead, I watch as the ticket writers wander the sidewalk every hour or two, sliding the slender white dread under windshield wipers of the guilty. One day, an overly confident fellow attempted to negotiate with the parking police. They don’t care. Really. 

The bakery is particularly busy today. I assume people are purchasing for holiday parties and gift-giving. Yesterday, a woman brought a tray of cookies in for the baristas. They were delighted, hurrying over as soon as the woman left. I could hear the soft “oohs” and “aahs” at my table across the room. Everyone loves a treat. 

A man has left the diner across the street and, stopping in front of the bakery window, is now looking at the goodies while discreetly scratching his butt. Hehe. Yes, I have memorialized this for all internet time, not to embarrass this man though. You don’t know who was feeling rather itchy this morning and he’ll never know that I documented his transgression from politeness. 

I write about it because it was a delightful moment of absurdity. The sun shone directly on his jean-clad rear. He outlined himself quite effectively, all dark blue clothing against a light background of the bakery window. He felt so anonymous and truly he was. However, he was also as visible as if he’d stood under a spotlight. I love people-watching!

My favorite thing, lately, about the coffee shop is the number of couples visiting. Just now, a young woman came out of the restroom and accidentally passed her person without noticing. Of course, he saw her and stood, catching her attention. I only noticed because his chair pushing back created a loud noise that caused me to look up, just in time to see him give her the sweetest smile, the smile that says “I wanted it to be you. I watched to see who it was. To my surprise and delight, it was indeed you.”

When I left the coffee shop earlier today to grab lunch with a friend, I saw a couple sitting on the sofa with their baby. One person was working on a computer, not, technically, paying attention to person two but their shoulders pressed together. 

Yesterday, there were two people sitting at a table, very close to each other. He was MONOPOLIZING the conversation, holding her hand, leaning toward her over their coffee cups. 

I’m not 100% sure that they were going to continue being a couple – she wasn’t doing as much leaning in as he was, IFKYK – but it’s fun to watch the attempts at connection as well as the actual connections. Honestly, give me the confidence of a middle-aged white man who thinks he’s scoring with the pretty lady at the coffee shop when he’s totally striking out. 

A few weeks ago, I sat on one of the conversation sofas across from a couple snuggling, head of person one resting on the thigh of person two. They were sharing stuff on their phones and laughing. I have to note, however, that if Grumpy Barista had been working, there would have been no lying on the sofa. Grumpy Barista does not allow feet to be anywhere but on the floor or crossed on your own knee. This is a fact. I have seen Grumpy Barista scold many patrons for having impolite foot manners. 

Double Chocolate Snowballs

I suspect that my stories suggest to you that I spend my day staring at coffee shop visitors. This is a falsehood. I do not stare. I look subtly and return to my computer screen before discreetly glancing again. 

Moving on … not-my-Aunt G has expressed her passionate appreciation for chocolate chip cookies on many occasions. I frequently bring the requested cookies to her but I warned a couple weeks ago that I would be bringing Christmas cookies throughout the month of December. 

When I visited earlier this week, I brought double chocolate snowball cookies. They have a deep cocoa flavor, lightly sweetened by powdered sugar. Honestly, they are incredible. Not-my-Aunt G was horrified. As she said, they were not chocolate chip cookies. As such, she absolutely refused to even try them. Hehe. Don’t worry. They won’t go to waste. And, lesson learned, I will bring her chocolate chip cookies on my next visit. And shortbread bites. I am incorrigible.

Time for cookie baking. Talk to you again soon.

Chocolate Chip Couples

Forgotten

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Deb and not-her-Aunt G

On Wednesday, I spent the evening with my not-my-Aunt G in the skilled nursing facility. It’s her permanent address now. The cognitive decline she masked so well in her home of 40+ years is painfully visible. Sometimes she knows that she’s confused. She has the cruel moments of clarity that remind me what I am losing but more often she is almost a stranger or perhaps, I am to her. 

She was sitting on her bed, her preferred seat, and I was teasing her by sitting in her wheelchair, using my feet to steer myself around the room. She was laughing and called me her ridiculous boyfriend. Not-my-Aunt G rarely recognizes me these days but the boyfriend label was a bit of a surprise, I have to say. I asked her if she knew who I was. 

She looked at me with those dark, deep-set, green eyes and said again, “You’re my boyfriend.” There’s a lot to unpack with that statement, right? How do I even respond? Do I, as current thinking suggests, just meet her where she is and play along? On Wednesday, that was hard to do. Usually, it isn’t a problem because I maintain my identity. It’s just our location that changes – we’re on Parade Street, we’re working at a deli, we’re in her house.  

This time it was different. She was lost somewhere in the past. I told her my name. She didn’t recognize it. I mentioned some other people she knows but they too were not familiar. She was afraid, telling me that we were in a “bad neighborhood.” She knew she was safe with me but she kept asking me not to leave her, to please take her home, as though I were about to abandon her in a place where she wasn’t safe. She was trying not to cry, standing at the entrance to her room, waving at me. I had to go. The doors to the wings of the SNF were already closed for the night. Her night nurse promised to check in on her regularly. Would that even help?

Her experiences melded with mine as I drove home – a long dark drive on a mostly empty highway – to a cacophony of voices and sounds in my head. How many times have I left someone in a place they didn’t want to be? How many more will I experience? And what will happen when it’s my turn? Do people avoid visiting nursing homes because they fear the elderly or because they fear their own mortality, their own lonely futures?

Next time I see her, not-my-Aunt G will not remember the details of this latest visit. That’s probably a kindness. It would be better, of course, if her strongest memories were more joyful, if those memories influenced her current experiences. That doesn’t seem to be how it works. Instead, she talks about her mom as though we’re both teenagers and her mom is struggling to stretch their income to feed everyone. 

It’s hard to shake these thoughts. It’s the worst time of year: cold, darker. There’s pressure to feel or pretend a joy that is probably antithetical for many of us. After every visit, I listen to my noisy thoughts as I drive – the sounds of the elderly crying out for a help that no one can provide, the fear in my not-my-aunt’s voice, the dismissal of caring but criminally overworked caregivers. The sounds of my husband, my mother-in-law, my mom, my grandmothers blend like car noises on a busy street. 

What’s the answer? If only I knew. I visit not-my-Aunt G selfishly because it gives me comfort to see her, even though she is nearly lost to me. It is a melancholy choice. It’s so easy to remember people the way they were. Actually participating in their current lives definitely offers unexpected gifts but spending any time among the forgotten elderly will change you in ways you can’t choose and probably wouldn’t. 

On my next visit, I’ll take a half dozen Christmas cookies and since I make a huge selection of cookies throughout December, I suspect that I’ll get to continue giving her new varieties all month. I’ll wear my holiday socks and tell her stories that I’ve already told her. Perhaps I’ll play a different role next visit. I don’t much like being her boyfriend but maybe we can work together at that deli, making turkey sandwiches.

Wishing you good health and good friends this holiday season.

Much love.

Forgotten

Train

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The color lightens for some of us on the silent smoothness of this train. There are occasional interruptions, the lonesome call from the train, hushed snores from a passenger sleeping upright, a rustling as someone digs through their bag. 

There are houses visible out the windows on the left. The view on the right is better, a mix of brush and small trees taking over ground once occupied by humans. The buildings are broken, the windows dark without glass to reflect the snow and early morning light. The yellow bricks are covered now with creeping vines and the painted initials of street art. 

The tracks flow beside the river, metal and wood paralleling water, movement of the train making the water seem still in the early sun. Seven geese swim sleekly through the green gray water. The lines of their bodies make a different kind of V, a rippled reflection of the sky. 

As the river slows, small patches fuzz like a window with a layer of frost, not frozen exactly but ready to be so. Watching the river this way, on this moving train, offers up little gifts: two dogs, one brown, one black and white, standing together at the river’s edge; a small herd of deer in an open field across the water, a painting in the early morning art museum of my life here on this train. 

The ground opens as our speed increases. Our movement makes the sun seem to flicker as we pass by the filter of trees and brush. If I lean down a bit, it shines directly into my eyes, brilliant yellow white against a watercolor sky. There’s no snow here, the ground red brown with fallen leaves. 

I look over at my companion. He too looks out the window, a silent watcher of a silent scenery. There’s something peaceful about the gentle rocking of the train, the curve that causes all the passengers to lean slightly right or left. 

This journey is toward something. It adds a promise, a hopefulness unlikely to be fulfilled but right now no one questions it. Instead, we all face forward…looking toward that promise, that possibility without the cynicism of reality to dim the morning light.

Happy Thanksgiving to those who celebrate.

Much love.

Train

Socks and Soothes

Deb Zuroski, , , , , 2 Comments

I’m procrastinating this morning. I *should* be perfecting chapter one, now that the novel is done. Instead, I am doing anything that will enable me to avoid working on that damn chapter. And by anything, I really do mean ANYTHING, including writing the book review that I have tried to write three times previously. I hated the ARC so much that I’ve been writing my feelings. That’s a bit like eating my feelings but fewer calories, more mean words. 

It’s been weirdly beautiful in Pittsburgh which doesn’t seem fair since the AQI was 223 on Friday and above 150 yesterday. Shouldn’t Mother Nature send us apocalyptic imagery to warn us of danger? Instead, she’s been giving us glorious clear days with warm temperatures to entice us outside to be poison  …. Hold up. Nice play, Mother Nature. Well done, you.

I’m working on a craft article – also a procrastination strategy except for the money aspect, of course. Writing about writing is difficult because the advice will always be the same. If you want to be good at anything, including writing, you need to dream about it, think about it constantly, and hope. No, no. Sorry. I was thinking about something else. If you want to be good at something, you have to do it over and over and over again. That’s it. 

You won’t necessarily become good by practicing a lot but you’ll definitely get better. I, for example, will never be an opera singer but I can get better at singing by singing. My youngest son knows this because I do it all the bloody time and he is … unsympathetic to my goals. Also, I haven’t improved much, to be fair. That won’t stop me, though, because you should not ever let external voices stop you from trying to reach your goals. 

Socks, the puppy who lives a few doors down from us, likes to hold his own leash when he walks every morning at about the same time that we leave the house. Yes, that’s right. A golden retriever puppy – maybe three months old? – goes for a walk on my street every morning and holds his own leash. I don’t know why but that feels like the external realization of my life goals – doing what I want and holding my own leash while I do it.

My therapist retired. She told me that I’m the client she has known the longest, which should be awesome but feels like it is probably depressing. I don’t feel depressed about it but I suspect that if I were to talk about it, other people would give me that look, the one that says “god damn, you’re actually crazy.” Shouldn’t we spend our lives working to be better, healthier versions of ourselves? God knows that I’ve had the kind of life where that sort of work should be a constant. 

Thanks to the toxicity of our healthcare payment system and our social rhetoric, mental health is viewed as something taboo or dangerous. By having a therapist, I’m telling the world that there is something wrong with me. Well, there is something wrong with me and you should all thank me for trying to reduce its impact on you. HA

Many, many college students frequent the coffee shop where I am now. Coffee shops didn’t really exist when I was a student (before the time of the dinosaurs). My college had a very smoky, basement dive where I could get a crappy sandwich except that I was dead broke 100% of the time, so, instead, I brought PB&J to eat while I sat there and did homework. It was my favorite hangout but before I discovered that place, I was close with another student. We went to high school together and had the same major for a bit. I had four different majors in college so it wasn’t an extended closeness but memorable. We used to study in the library together, near a table of engineering students. I didn’t realize until much later in life (yesterday) that engineers in the 1980s rarely saw women in their classes. It explains a lot. 

One day, I was walking to our usual table and the guys stopped me. They wanted to know where my friend was. Now, you know, I’m a fairly mouthy person. It might even be safe to say that my personality is BIG MOUTH. This is an important point because, as a 20 year old, I catered to these cute boys for months, flirting and the whole deal, and what did they say when I showed up on the second floor of the library without my bestie? “Where is SHE?” 

If life were a movie, my rage would have caused them to disintegrate. Instead, because they were 20-something boys, they were just confused by my frustrated response, my ‘80s version of “seriously?”. It’s worth noting that those are the men who post on Reddit now talking about how completely clueless they were in college. Yes, yes, you were. Stupid men. 

As far as I know, my friend from those days had zero interest in those boys. She was brilliant, had a full ride and is massively successful these days. I, on the other hand, had a partial scholarship and no idea what I wanted out of life. Still don’t honestly. I did know, however, that I was very interested in one particular boy at that table. I don’t even remember his name, have no idea where life took him, but I do remember that feeling, most particularly that feeling of not being the one he wanted. 

After I told them all to go to H-E-double hockey sticks (I didn’t swear back then), I moved on. There was a super-cute rugby player. Need I say more? He was also a genuinely nice person and I hope that he too is massively successful at whatever he ended up doing.

What did I learn in college? I learned that rugby > engineering. 

Much love. And sorry for the title. I couldn’t help myself.

Socks and Soothes

School(ing)

Deb Zuroski, , , , 2 Comments

It’s a strange day at the coffee shop. Saturdays are always busy in a walking community but today is a mean day, a liar, promising summer’s warmth through its brilliant blue sky but delivering a chill breeze that has many people shivering. 

A husband scolded his sundress-wearing wife for not bringing a jacket. She laughed, soothing a baby in a stroller, and told him that she’d forgotten it. (Yeah, man, she’s already got a lot going on; don’t be mean.) A young man took his sweatshirt off and gave it to a girl, helping her adjust the collar so she looked just SO in it. Then, he walked with her, a little smile on his face. It was surprisingly sweet on this mean day.

A woman approached an older, graying man and asked him if he was who she thought. He bowed. It was rather charming. He was, in fact, who she thought. I didn’t recognize him but I probably wouldn’t recognize Chris Hemsworth if he sat down across from me. This gentleman was not, by the way, tall enough to be a Hemsworth, in case you think I’m hinting something. He seems Pittsburgh-famous, which would still be meaningless to me. I once attended a dinner party with a famous retired Steeler (it was Franco Harris) and had no idea. 

An absolutely beautiful, tall (6’4″ maybe) Asian man walked by a bit ago wearing a full-length black trench coat. He returned a little later and hovered outside the coffee shop, looking like a member of a boy band. It made me laugh. I just finished reading an ARC about a pop star who goes incognito, as if that’s actually a thing. It seemed like our mysterious trench coat man was waiting for someone because he stood, phone in hand, watching the pedestrian traffic. I have no idea what happened to him because I was working and stopped watching him. Perhaps his security team showed up and whisked him away. 

The leaves are swirling on the sidewalk, occasionally taking flight or falling from the trees that line this street. I will have to shake the small yellow leaves from my jacket when I eventually stand. They linger, sticking to the soft, dark blue cotton, a rather lovely contrast, a temporary fall brooch.

There’s a melancholy isolation to sitting here. Occasionally, I see someone I know. We nod, say a few words of greeting before I return to my computer and they go about their journey. I am, though, also invisible. Groups of people meet like the tide rolling in to meet the sandy beach and break apart again just like the tide drawing back. There’s a rhythm to all things, isn’t there? I suspect that the ocean does not see the individual fish, either. 

If we are each, truly, invisible, what is the lesson? To be less invisible? I don’t think so. I think the lesson may be that we need not worry over — or more importantly be changed by — the thoughts and opinions of others. If, after all, we are invisible, then our actions matter to no one but our individual selves. Perhaps, on the next mean day, I’ll give that a try.

Much love.

School(ing)