women

Live(r) Your Life

Deb Zuroski, , , , , 2 Comments

I’ve spent so much time in hospitals that I have that instant clarity of meeting an old acquaintance and falling into conversation as though you’ve never been apart. No matter which hospital you are in, the smell, the sounds, the directions (follow the arrows for elevator E, bring your ticket for validation, show your ID to enter the building) are basically universal. 

And yet, despite that deep familiarity, there are things I always forget – the way patients wait for hours, the texture of the food, the unique kindnesses of the support staff, the emotions that fill the air, leaking from various open patient doorways – grief, panic, fear, acceptance, relief. 

Roomie 1, the OG, had already been in the hospital for a week when I arrived. She was angry, her mood emanating from her like a toxic gas. I celebrated her return home for her benefit and mine. #2 roomie was very elderly, stuffed into my room for the night for observation. She’d fallen out of a car and was pretty banged up. Roomie 2 was beloved by her family. She had so many phone calls and visitors that I wanted to remind them that she was supposed to be resting – and so was I. But she wasn’t even there 24 hours so I left my bitchy comments on my side of the floor.

My third roommate, let’s call her Marietta because that couldn’t be farther from her real name, arrived from another high monitor unit in the hospital. She was very sick. The hour was late. Her care team was with her into the early hours of the next morning. There’s no privacy in hospitals so, since I couldn’t sleep, I listened to the conversations. The staff talked to her, asked her questions. She frequently didn’t know what was going on, wasn’t aware of some of the care decisions that had been made. 

At some point, I was able to put together enough pieces to realize that she’d been unconscious, unable to consent to some of the care she received. We were in a high-monitor surgical oncology unit so it’s not that surprising. Things come up during surgery. My care team and I went through the major decision forks that could appear so that they would know what I wanted before the anesthesia was administered but that isn’t always an option. 

Eventually, her care team left for a few hours but the doctors round early. They arrived to talk with her before the sun was above the horizon. The discussion was one I’ve experienced. Hospital familiarity can be reassuring – sounds and codes don’t make me anxious but there’s a certain food served in the cafeteria that I can’t smell without feeling a cold sweat on my forehead. 

Anyway, she asked when she’d be shut of all the bags she was wearing. If you don’t know anything about these, just google ‘ostomy bag’ and you’ll have a general picture. Since Ken had colon cancer, I know quite a bit about ostomy bags because he was supposed to get at least one. While I sat in my curtained-off alcove, the doctors explained that she was entering palliative care. 

Have you any idea what it feels like to be sitting on your uncomfortable hospital bed, no headphones, unable to easily move around because you have four brand new and very sore holes in your abdomen, and nowhere else to go anyway, listening to a young doctor tell the unseen woman beside you that she is dying and there is nothing they can do to stop it? He kept saying “let’s focus on making the time you have left as pleasant as possible.” I know he meant well. I do. I had forgotten, perhaps on purpose, that this is another part of being in hospitals. 

Ken’s care team would use phrasing like “keep him comfortable” and “most potential for extending his awareness.” I wanted to go through the curtain and ask her if she understood what they were saying, though I could hear her tears. I also wanted with an all-consuming passion to be ANYWHERE ELSE. There are no exits from a locked unit but if I’d been allowed to walk unaided, I might have become a human ISS, traveling the unit hallways for the foreseeable future. 

We weren’t friendly, exactly. It’s hard to become even acquainted with one person (me) constantly resisting the connections that the other (her) continues to offer. We talked a little bit, occasionally. Each time I struggled with a task, she’d make strange offers of assistance – and what exactly are you going to do to help me, occupant 2 of Room 899B? Your care team won’t allow you out of bed so quit asking me if I need help. 

Because I can’t help you. I can’t.

I took many walks with a walker or when I could manage it, just holding my IV octopus – I had five active lines. Basically I was constantly tangled in or tangling things, some of which hurt when you tug on them. There was a young man, later 20s probably, taking the same walks I did, though he had a single room and wasn’t guilt-walking the corridor to hide from his terminal roommate. Like I said, it’s a surgical oncology unit so unlikely he was there to get a bunion removed. His gait was better than mine. He’d been walking longer. We’d pass each other on the route. There was little maneuvering room so occasional clipped wheels were common but we never spoke. 

Eventually, I’d have to return to my room. There’s no place else to go – bed, sitting upright, or chair, also sitting very upright. Marietta would launch a possible conversation grenade at me and I’d answer briefly before muttering about a nap or a sponge bath. In the early morning hours of my last day, we were both propped up in our spaces as the hospital began to come awake. “Can I say something?” she asked through the thin barriers of our privacy curtains. 

“Sure,” I said, sure that she was going to comment on her life or my evasiveness.

“Your daughter ….” She paused a moment. “Well, she’s beautiful but that’s not even what I want to say.” I heard her fidgeting. “You’re lucky. She’s wonderful. And I can tell that she loves you very much.” 

God help me. I wanted to cry, was determined not to cry, didn’t cry. I am so very lucky. She’s right and I know it. My children are amazing. Mostly, I asked them to stay away from the unit. We spent so many months, painful, traumatic months in hospital rooms. They did not need to see me beside a woman who is the living embodiment of their dad’s illness and future death. 

I thanked her and was quiet again. There aren’t good words to tell a dying woman that my blessing isn’t her curse. There are almost no good words to say to someone who is dying. When I left later that day, I walked around the curtain to meet her. She’s older than I thought, looks vaguely like a well-known comedian. Her hair, short like mine, is a vibrant color, startlingly against the hospital bed. 

When I spoke, she said, “Oh, you’re the woman behind the curtain.” 

I nodded and held up two unopened water bottles I had left. “You want my extra water?” I asked her. 

She smiled at me, her eyes tearing up again. “Yes, thank you,” she said. “Go. Live a joyful life.” Marietta waved her arm above her head like she was cracking a stage coach whip before a team of horses. “Go now. Live.”

Much love. 

Live(r) Your Life

The Last Red Leaf

Deb Zuroski, , , , 4 Comments

Okay, who shortened October and November? The last time I checked in, the leaves were beginning to flame and temperatures were dropping. Bad news: I was just outside. There’s one tree on the street yelling “I’m still gorgeous” with its bright red leaves while all of the surrounding plants have covered themselves in a shroud of gray silence to wait for spring.  

My pneumonia was confirmed – ground glass opacities in the lungs, in case you’re interested in the details. I’m better, still coughing but no longer struggling to inhale. When I go out, I make the occasional announcement – asthma, not covid – or wave my inhaler around if I happen to have a coughing spate. 

In fact, I’m feeling so healthy I had the opportunity to take my neighbor shopping. She wanted to go to Marshall’s but doesn’t like to drive on the highway. Since I’m soundly somewhere between her kids and grandkids age-wise, I have the pleasure of being her chauffeur. After shopping, she treated me to an iced tea and a bagel (and a little bag of biscotti to share). We sat for an hour and talked. I think she likes to go with me because I’m a new audience for her stories. She has led an amazing life and is an excellent storyteller so, honestly, I don’t mind.

Also, FINALLY, after eight weeks of coughing, I felt well enough to drive to Erie to see my not-my-aunt Ginny. She said that she thought I was mad at her since I haven’t been to see her in so long. She has cognitive decline, as I mentioned before, and thought my last visit had been before Christmas. I showed her our most recent selfie together. She didn’t remember, of course, but it made her feel better to know that I do usually visit regularly and that I wasn’t mad. (I don’t talk about illness because it just makes her fuss and worry.) 

The sad thing about her decline is that I can’t give her anything physical to comfort her because she loses the memory almost immediately after I leave. I visit her because I know it makes her happy in the moment and because someday it will be all I have left of her. And while that might sound melancholy, I really just mean it as a truth. All of us will one day exist only as a memory for someone else. 

Perhaps we should all work to make that memory a good one.

Much love.

The Last Red Leaf

Cough

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Cough. Cough. Cough. Holding up a hand in the universal “give me a minute” gesture. Cough. Cough. Co..cough. Ahem. 

Hey. How are you? I have pneumonia (probably but the doctor isn’t exactly sure). I know what you’re thinking but it’s really not Covid. Trust me on this. I even spent an entire day in the hospital, getting every manner of test and breathing treatment. That particular experience sucked all of the enjoyment out of the day, and I say that with all gratitude to the healthcare workers who did their best for me. 

It’s not my first asthmatic rodeo (does that work?) but it’s annoying me more than usual. I’ve been home for two weeks with very occasional trips to the pharmacy for meds and marginally useful cough medicine. My rear has, I believe, taken the form of the recliner in which I spend most of my coughing hours. 

Although I wasn’t diagnosed until a few years ago, I’ve probably had asthma my whole life, with, as I’ve mentioned before, many thanks to my parents and their lifelong smoking habits. Bronchitis was a frequent diagnosis in my childhood. If I had a dollar for every spoonful of the mysterious turpentine-smelling cough syrup that my mother forced on child-me, I’d still shiver every time I now drink the somewhat less horrible-tasting orange liquid from the little Dayquil cup. 

Mostly, I stay silent – talking leads to coughing. Breathing leads to coughing. Pretty much everything leads to coughing now that I think about it further. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking – not so much about coughing, though, oddly, it has occasionally entered the mental discussion. 

All of my silence has allowed much time for my brain to over-produce words that have gone unsaid. It’s a difficult position for someone like me, unable to talk and mostly lacking the physical energy to type. [Coughing takes a remarkable amount of energy.] What does one do with one’s words when there is no outlet for them all? 

So, yes, I’ve been thinking about all sorts of things while I endure the many fine side effects of prednisone … like sweating. That’s a fan favorite. O.O The advice for enduring the sweating? Wear a strong anti-perspirant. Really. And yes, I’m both enduring the prednisone sweating and thinking about the unpleasant aspects of sweating while I cough up my lungs. 

Here’s one of the experiences I’ve been thinking about – many years ago, when I was a grad student, I had to attend a dinner at a professor’s house. All of you current and/or former grad students understand the political importance of attending academia-issued dinner invitations. It was fine, I guess. I don’t remember most of the particulars, including what we ate. 

What I do remember with remarkable clarity was the three-plus hours we spent with the professor’s husband, learning about his favorite hobby – antique clocks. It was very cool, at first, you know? Talking to a much older gentleman who was so eager, so excited to show all of us “young people” his workroom on the second floor of their house. His workbench was wooden, a darker wood that matched the floor. The room was cluttered and softly noisy with clock sounds. 

If only the discussion had ended after a reasonable amount of time. Instead, perhaps because his spouse already knew or simply didn’t care to listen further, he – with so many words unspoken in his own head – trapped seven or eight grad students in his workroom and kept us there for hours as he expounded. We students, with homework to complete and classes at 8AM sharp, struggled to stay on our feet, squeezed together in a room that seemed to shrink as the hours passed. I remember being so tired that I was making little mental negotiations about just closing my eyes for a moment. Because we all know how that goes. 

He’d be delighted to know that I still remember the clocks and even have a few of my own, now. I hope he never realized how desperate we all were to leave when the last clock chimed midnight and he arose from his stool to send us on our way. 

Much love.

Cough

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 ….

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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 ….

To My Mother

Deb Zuroski, , , , , 1 Comment
Mom’s high school grad picture

Happy Mother’s Day, Mom. 

You left us 26 years ago on a cold day in January. The 9th day to be specific. At the time, there were three grandbabies. You met all three though, I’m sorry if this hurts you, they never really knew you. 

Now there are six grandchildren – three boys and three girls. I talk and write about you but it’s not the same. Of course it isn’t. How could anything but your presence paint more than a rough portrait of you? 

I’ve told my daughter – almost 25 years old now – all about your sewing skills, your drawing ability, your fashion sense. She asks sometimes what you would think of something she made. Like the blankets she crocheted. I told her that my sister and I taught you to crochet when we learned in our Home Econ class in high school. 

Mom on her wedding day, 08/25/1956

You were always a quick study, learning new skills at will, though never giving yourself credit for the effort that takes. Instead, you beat yourself up your entire life for not going to college. I’m not even convinced that you wanted a college education, though you totally could have done it. I know that your mom wanted you to go to college, perhaps because that wasn’t an option for Grandma. 

My kids all know about your green thumb, Mom, about how you could get anything – except violets – to grow. Do you remember how I used to tease you because I could grow violets? I was so proud of being able to do something you couldn’t do. Having a special touch with violets made me feel 10 feet tall. Somehow, after leaving home, I completely lost my skill. I haven’t been able to keep a violet alive since I was 20 years old. Rather suspicious, don’t you think? 

You also taught me about secrets, though it may have been an unintended lesson. I’ve never met a better secret keeper than you. In truth, it’s unlikely I ever will. My children learned, instead, the danger of secrets. We are open books, thinking, perhaps, that talking is a better way of living. I don’t blame you. I doubt that there was any generation more emotionally unavailable than the children of two world wars (my grandparents). How could you possibly be open when your own parents were so stoic, so remarkably inaccessible?

I miss you every day, you know. When I pull out your cookbook or the recipes written in your elegant script, I think about what it was like to work in the kitchen with you. Your pies were the stuff of legend. No one who bought them from the many, many bake sales for school events and Girl Scouts ever knew how often you cried while you made the crust. No matter how much you fussed that you’d lost your touch, each crust was perfect, flaky and delicious. I’ve never – even using your recipe and your rolling pin – made a crust as good as yours. 

My eldest son has stood beside me – 5 inches taller with a full beard – to make pies just like you and I did. Strawberry, apple, rhubarb, key lime, lemon meringue – we’ve made them all. Do you remember how much you hated the graham cracker crust that we made for strawberry pie? You’d say, every time, that the graham cracker flavor was overbearing. And I say, every time I make one, that you never liked that graham cracker crust. What do you suppose my kids will say when they make strawberry pie in their own homes?

Sometimes, when I make a meal using a recipe that isn’t yours, I’ll look at your version just to remember, again, what it was like to sit in the kitchen doing homework while you and I talked. My kids don’t do homework on the kitchen table with the tablecloth rolled back. They work on laptop computers in their rooms. But they know, because I’ve told them, what it was like to sit there talking to you until Dad got home. How, if I was fast enough, I’d run to my room before he saw me and took a swing.

It’s not your fault, though. I get that you couldn’t figure out how to stop him, that you were protecting yourself too. I’m only a little mad at you for putting your own safety ahead of mine. I’d have put your safety first too, you know. If only you’d asked. You didn’t intend it but you taught me about my own strength. His hands hurt me so much less than they would have hurt you. I’m mostly at peace with it – well, with some of it anyway – and I hope you are too. 

You were never able to forgive yourself for any of your humanity – your flaws, your choices, your life. I hope you have found peace, wherever you are. One time, shortly before you died, my son held your finger and you said to him, “Remember me.” 

It was a lot to ask of him – barely 1 year old when you died. It was a lot to ask of me, too, really. Sometimes I feel like I was just an adult-in-training when you died; but I have kept you alive, in my own way, through my own memories. Perhaps that is enough.

Love you forever, Mom. Happy Mother’s Day.

Back row: My grandparents-C. Park and Marion Graves
Front row: Charles Park Graves, Jr, Mary Ann Graves Ainsworth (my mom), Patricia Graves Thorr, William Graves
To My Mother

A Scoop of Birthday Cake Ice Cream To Go

Deb Zuroski, , , , , , 2 Comments

I’ve been working on a blog post for days. DAYS, I tell you. Something hasn’t clicked though and all of those words, thousands of them, have gone to the digital trash heap in the cloud. (IYGIYGI)

Recently, I got into a … verbal altercation … with someone. This is unusual for me. I am not the kind of person who invests in that sort of drama. It shook me, if you want to know the truth. The woman, unfortunately for me, works at a store that I go to relatively frequently and now I’m debating whether I can return. I may be leaving the country and changing my name.

Technically, I was not at fault, as she started it. Nonetheless, I have gone over my own behavior (a post-mortem, you know) and I think I could have handled the situation more effectively. Blergh. There’s nothing to be done other than to determine whether I can bring myself to go back to that place again. Conflict sucks.

I’m at the coffee shop, working on a book. Up until today, it’s been going well, making me laugh, though this afternoon I spend most of my time reflecting back the light of a blank screen or pressing delete to erase badly constructed sentences. I sigh and look up to see a couple in line to get drinks. They’re turned toward each other, laughing, bits of their bodies touching in that way that couples sometimes have. It’s as though their whole beings are slightly magnetized so that if they’re close enough, their bodies automatically make contact – two fingers, their shoulders, even their hair. It’s so lovely to watch the dance of their connectedness.

The day itself is sharply melancholy in that way a day can be. It’s beautiful – warm with the crisp scent of spring and the bright light of a cloudless sky – but all of the things that make it beautiful are things that, in the coin flip of daily life, also create the perfect conditions for melancholia.

Groups of people gather, their chatter incessant, almost boisterous. A couple sits at the window, their hands clasped on the table. As they get up to leave, she takes his arm and snuggles into his shoulder before he slips his arm from her grasp and, instead, takes her hand, twining their fingers together. They walk out of the shop smiling at each other. 

Someone asks to take the extra chair from my table. I’m alone, of course, so it’s empty and available to them. I nod and they slip the chair into place at another table, one that already has six chairs stuffed around it. Now those people sit around the tiny table. It’s so small that their ring of chairs creates a moat of knees encircling the table. They too are loud with the found joy of their togetherness, sipping lattes, hot teas, espressos, and a loan Americano.

Enough of this mood. I head home and make my youngest a meatball sub for dinner. He’s delighted by my attempt to alter the energy of my day but I still haven’t accomplished that. Fine. I can do better. I text my daughter and offer her and her roomie free ice cream. I defy anyone to feel gloomy with handmade ice cream. 

They meet me at the ice cream shop. It’s called Treat, apropos for an ice cream shop. I get a scoop of salted caramel, though the lavender raspberry was a very close second. My guests get mint chocolate chip and a combo of creamy peach and lemon drop custard. It’s all great, honestly. Unfortunately, it is also unsuccessful at releasing me from this funk. Ridiculous. If even a scoop of ice cream enjoyed on a shady bench can’t brush the dour mist from my gaze then it might be smarter to just start again tomorrow. 

There’s no point in continuing to write comedy when the words flowing from my fingers lack even the wit of the grave.

Hoping that tomorrow brings me counsel and you delight.

Much love.

A Scoop of Birthday Cake Ice Cream To Go

Magnolia Petals

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There’s a weird muddle of things in my head. I may have expected the month change to clear that muddle. Alas, it remains in place. Happily, though, the rain that washed away the last of March brought April in a glorious fluster, pranking us with a day of wind storms. I fully expected that my beautiful magnolia, which blooms for less than a week every year, would be bloom-less by Saturday’s end. Surprisingly, those soft white blossoms have held on. 

I know my neighbor is watching out his window (there’s no curtain so I actually do know this) to see if he can get out his petal-removal tools. Every year, magnolia petals cover my yard (and part of my neighbor’s) in a whitish brown blanket which he then inevitably leaf-blows onto my yard before the day reaches noon. (He brought out the leaf-blower yesterday though there were not yet any petals for him to blow. It matters not to him; he finds many reasons to wield that leaf blower. How he loves that thing.)

Leaf-blower’s wife is also quite elderly and terribly lovely, both in her heart and in her face. Today, she told me that her son’s been coming over every weekend lately to help out around the house. Isn’t that lovely? Okay, now to Paul Harvey this story. Her son is nearly 70. I forget, sometimes, just how old she is – 93 next month, she proudly tells me. What a gift that is. I would offer up significant tribute to have my mom alive and as healthy as my next door neighbor. I would, in fact, be delighted to visit Mom every weekend and help out around the house.

Of course, about 15 minutes after her chat with me, Mrs. and Mr. Leaf-blower got into a robust bickering argument that caused me to slink gracelessly into the house to avoid making eye contact with either of them. (Close proximity is one of the many delights of city neighborhoods.) Usually, their arguments are funny but today’s involved some questions that are not safe (i.e., do you think I’m stupid?). I did not want to stick around in case he actually answered her.

I’m a week into car-lessness, resulting in some delightful snafus, for example, when I ordered Chinese food for pick-up from a restaurant two miles away. A roundtrip walk of four miles is not the problem. A backpack filled with chicken lo mein is. I borrowed a car for food pick-up. 

As I walked this morning, I met another neighbor whose dog is Max. I am sorry to report that I have no knowledge of the neighbor’s name. He claimed, during our Max adulation session, that he spotted a kestrel sitting on our street sign. I cannot confirm the sighting, sadly. I can report, however, that Max licked my palm. Achievement unlocked.

Many, many students have come into the coffee shop today, some of them debating the merits of wearing orange. I’m assuming that they’re talking about protesting but I can’t tell if there is a walk-out underway or not. Last week’s swattings here were devastating. There’s been a lot of chatter since about what it’s like to sit in lock down for five or more hours. Trauma does not require gunfire so much as the fear or anticipation that it is coming. 

The kids are leaving now. I’m seated at my favorite spot, inside the coffee shop but right by the door. The big garage door is open to today’s promise of later warmth. The sky is the color of my mom’s eyes, though it holds less sorrow and fewer clouds.

One of the fun things about my current seat is the bouquet of scents that I get to experience. Let’s start with the knowledge that the coffee shop shares this street with a Sephora, a L’Occitane, a hot yoga studio, AND a gym. In addition, lots of people “sneak” their pizzas, burgers, and cinnamon rolls in here … lol. As if we don’t all smell the food, the musky sweat, the overindulgent flowery perfume. It’s a delight for the … scentses (sorry, sorry. I tried to stop my fingers from typing that but they insisted).

I’m procrastinating right now because I’ve written myself into a doorless and windowless room. I am completely stuck. While my subconscious is working on unsticking myself, I’ve been paying attention to the stories around me. 

Across the street, a new business is going in where the Piatt/Sotheby’s used to be. Contractors painted over the street art on the side of the building. I couldn’t even tell you how long the art was there. It was lovely, a single scrollwork word painted in a multitude of colors that wept like tears. I know street artists accept that their work is temporary but I felt a little like weeping, too, when I saw what the contractors had done.

A young woman comes to the coffee shop pretty regularly, as I would know, of course. She reads whenever she’s here and sometimes makes careful margin notes in tidy, blue-inked writing. What does she think of the books she’s reading? Her expression, particularly her eyebrows, is very fluid. She has a fun face to watch, though I’ll bet she doesn’t know it.

It’s Tuesday, so the pizza shop across the street is closed. I wonder if the shop owner knows how many disappointed customers pull firmly at the door and then try again, as if the door will magically open on the second tug. It never does, you know? It’s a little like pushing the elevator button a second time, as though a second push will cause the elevator to arrive faster.

Many artists work at the tables here. One in particular likes to sketch in pencil. We’ll call him Andrew (because that’s his name). He usually comes into the shop in the evening so I only see him occasionally. If I’m lucky, he’s seated where I can watch him and try to guess which customer(s) he’s sketching. (Sorry, Andrew; I swear I’ll never tell your latest muse that you’re drawing them.)

There’s an older man at the coffee shop today who comes in frequently to talk to young women. I think you know what I mean but if you don’t, I will make it clearer. This older man likes to have the attention of younger women directly focused on him. He’s not harmless, though I know it is tempting to use that language. Men who make women uncomfortable have ALREADY done harm. Such men make women think carefully about where they will go, what they will wear, whether they should leave. Nothing about that suggests harmless. 

I talked today to the mechanic who is repairing my car. He called me ‘honey.’ He doesn’t mean anything by it, does he? Except that he never calls his male customers ‘honey.’ I’d be completely fine with the mechanic, if he can’t simply call me by name, using the same pet name for me that he uses for his male customers. And vice versa. Of course, I didn’t correct him. The power dynamic isn’t equal because he’s got my car in his garage. That ‘harmless’ pet name is nothing and yet it’s also everything.

As I write these muddled thoughts, my big old pup is dreaming on her sofa (it’s really my sofa but … never mind). Sometimes, at night, she dreams so loudly in her kennel that I can hear her snuffling noises in my room on the next floor. She runs in her sleep, too, which, when she’s in her kennel, can be quite noisy, though it never seems to wake HER. This afternoon, she snored on my sunny deck, her belly pressed firmly against the warm wood. I believe there may have been rabbits or squirrels in her dream but who’s to say it wasn’t just a romp across the yard that got those feet moving.

Much love.

Magnolia Petals

Are They Empty, Those Promises?

Deb Zuroski, , , Leave a comment

It’s such a day here. Full of that unfulfilled promise of better days to come. We all know that promise won’t be kept but it doesn’t stop us from believing, just for today.

One of the Apple Store guards is across the street right now. He’s standing in the doorway of the salon, eating an apple fritter from the bakery. Don’t ask me how I know it is an apple fritter. I just know. OKAY?

I’m not sure why he chose to stand in the salon doorway, other than it’s out of the way of the pedestrian traffic but still allows him to watch all the people passing by. He should have brought one of those collapsible seats because there is a lot of traffic today, a lot to see.

My favorite of the sights is people meeting unexpectedly. That just happened a few minutes ago. A young man was seated at the tables outside, in front of the big garage door, when another man called out and ran across the street to him. Such a smile he was wearing. I couldn’t see the seated man’s face but he must have smiled too because, if anything, the man crossing the street smiled wider. This is why I say there’s a promise in the day – unexpected joy.

A woman just walked into the coffee shop. She did not get a drink. Instead, she sat at one of the small circle tables and opened her bag. It’s full of books from the store next door. She peeked inside, like she hadn’t just bought those books, like she couldn’t wait to unwrap the present in front of her. (Isn’t that what books are?)

I’ve been joking with one of the new baristas – there are always new baristas because it’s a difficult, thankless job – about gathering a group of women to discuss the weather with Mother Nature. I figure we outnumber her so we can probably take her, right? (Yes, I’m aware that I sound like those men who totally think they could fight a wolf and win.)

Anyway, so today, when I saw her, she said that our threats must have been successful because TODAY. See. She thought about our discussion. We are indeed each a part of another’s mosaic. 

A big group just came out of Pamela’s Diner. One of the women is wearing a winter coat, hood up. Meanwhile, a young woman passing that group is in a half shirt, you know, the underboob kind. (I would totally have worn those shirts 35 years ago.) If I had to decide the temperature by looking out the window, I’m not sure what I’d do … layers?

A young man just walked by me to take a prime seat by the window as it was vacated. This is important so just hear me out … there is a lot of scent description in books – cooking smells, nature, you name it. I write those descriptions too but I don’t usually pay attention to the smells around me when I’m sitting in the coffee shop. (Okay, except for yesterday, when my son joined me after his shift at the diner. He totally smelled like pancakes, a thing he didn’t particularly appreciate when I told him.)

Just now, however, as that young man took that perfect seat, the strongest scent of Axe wafted behind him. And then a girl sat down with him. She’s cute. She makes him smile. He has dimples when he smiles. I hope she notices those dimples, notices that he likes her. I hope she doesn’t mind the Axe cologne. (She doesn’t seem to.) He’s wearing a bright white shirt with delightful multi-colored dots across it, like the very beginnings of a pointillism painting (or perhaps the shirt one wore while creating the actual artwork).

At another perfect seat by the garage door, a woman sits with someone who seems to be her son. She’s listening intently as he talks. He’s a surprisingly still talker, his arms mostly in his lap or resting on the table. There’s an iced coffee in front of him that he’s barely sipped. As I watch, I realize that tableau could be me with one of my kids. What a gift it is to watch a child reach adulthood, to learn a person – perhaps myself – through their many phases. 

Much love.

Are They Empty, Those Promises?

Who Is Your Home?

Deb Zuroski, , , , , , Leave a comment

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?