the end of the summer

I wrote him a desperate, wordy letter that said, "the summer's almost over and I wanted to tell you I love you." It really didn't say that exactly-- I was around nineteen and not nearly articulate enough for that. I thought it said that, but really I probably wrote something like, "I just wanted to say I miss you and I hope that you don't hate me because of the bad way we split up" or something awkward/uncool to that effect (I probably should have apologized for the threatening Sharpie sign I put on his car that declared my hate-- that happened at the beginning of the summer, when such displays of crazy seem like a great idea).

I may or may not have included bad poetry about how I hate/the sound/ of crickets/because now/ when I hear their August moan/I'm not kissing you/I'm all alone. (Will someone invent a special time machine that transports us to these moments of abysmal, naked longing so we can edit them and make ourselves...well...less abysmally naked?)

This time of year, when it's hot and bright and I'm tan and busy, I think about July romances and the cliche of the weepy goodbye: teenagers leaving summer camp boyfriends behind, the kisses wet on their memories like grass; people breaking up before going to college; the crackly burn of a vacation hook-up soon fizzling to a hazy flashback-- an anecdote told to a friend over melting ice cream.

I walked with my friend Allison around her neighborhood last night. It was so steamy out, you could see the moisture rising off the grass, and our quiet chit chat in the little parking lot behind the bank somehow sent us both back, reeling, to that age where the summer and all its promises and drama was all that was going on.  She said that she felt just like she did when she was a kid, and she would go swimming all day in someone's pool, and then go back to someone's house for a sleepover, all tired from the sun yet ready to disclose the deepest recesses of her soul to whatever best friend of the moment was with her.

It's just that muggy, distinct summer air: so August. 

So today I'm remembering that first real broken heart. How it got wound up like a wristwatch, beating with love, how he pulled the pin, stopping time, or so it seemed. 

A few nights after I sent that ill-advised letter, I sat on my back porch and tried to explain to my father: I hate the end of the summer.

I had that veneer of bitterness and resolve. But I knew it would happen all over again, probably the next summer.

the bluejay

I went for a jog a few weeks ago and met a jarringly beautiful blue jay huddled next to the Livingston High School air conditioner, the latter which rumbled and rattled as cheerleaders and soccer players waited in droves to get picked up by their parents.

"Wow, look at that!" I couldn't help but stop and watch. He was bright and chubby and about the size of my hand; he looked almost like a fake, a beady eyed plush toy left behind by some dog or toddler. But when he shook his head a tiny bit at the commotion around him his real-ness was confirmed.

The kids around me were unimpressed and soon scattered. Tired from trying to jog in the heat, I took a break on the cement stairs outside the high school gym, where I could catch my breath and observe the endearingly plump little guy, now on my immediate and intimate line of vision.

He was so still for so long I started to think that I imagined that he moved and that he's actually dead, propped up against the air conditioner as his final resting place.  With my foot, I nudged a piece of popcorn his way (high school kids always leave bird-friendly litter around). He sat stoically.

I thought, is this bird dead? If so, it just happened; he's about as alive-looking and fresh as I've ever seen. What kind of bird doesn't want popcorn, right under his beak?

I must have sat for a solid fifteen minutes in that sunshine, trying to figure out if he was alive or not. Every jogger and person with a stroller that went by, I wanted to say, there's a dead or dying bird here, I think. We have to do something. We have to call someone.  But of course I didn't. I mean, what could I do? What could anyone do? That's just life.

The whole thing was so strange. Eventually I went back to my jog, thinking I'd check that spot again on my way back. But I ran home a different way and eventually forgot, until about three days later when my husband and I shared a bottle of wine and I told him about it. I felt bad about the whole thing for some reason-- maybe the notion that I can be moved by a certain moment of connection and then just forget about it. I guess that everyone, everything has a right to die with dignity and privacy-- but also to be recognized, to be seen. It just seems sad that the whole world passed this bird by at the most important moment of its existence, maybe not including its own birth from the egg or its first flight.

I went for a walk the next morning and sure enough, there was a little pile of bones and some feathers where my friend stood four days before. 

As I passed by, I thought: what a brave little thing. I saw you. I saw.

I Ate You, California

My husband and I went to California for nine days; it seemed the most obvious choice with the impending costly rotation of home repairs/improvements and my biological clock and all that (that's said with playful irony meant to make you admire our hip disregard for playing by the rules! that's how we roll!)  Just when I thought I was the most financially foolhardy person in my relationship, Dan took me on a whirlwind tour of Central California and we literally ate our way down Coastal Highway 1.  No regrets! Here's the epicurean highlight list (strangely, I only gained like 3 pounds):

1.  Clams in San Francisco's Chinatown: "you can't order two. they're huge," said Dan. I showed him! I showed them all!
2.  Dark chocolate hot fudge sundae in Ghirandelli Square: to be fair, Dan had most of it. In fact, he suggested two separate tables so he could have alone time with his ice cream.
3.  Half Moon Bay: Lobster Roll at Sam's with views of the sea and attractive people. A few days and many miles later in Golden Gate Park, just when I was saddened at the cost of the Japanese Tea Garden, I spotted Sam's Mobile Food Truck and shrieked. I never thought I'd  see that lobster roll again. It was like the ending of The Color Purple when Celie finally sees her long lost sister and they sob in each other's arms.
4.  Cinnamon pull apart in Carmel-by-the-Sea-- the only thing we could afford there....it was hot and sweet and gooey (I'll let you insert a joke here like 'that's what she said' etc)
5.  Avocado and Asparagus Eggs Benedict at the Apple Farm Inn in San Luis Obispo
6.  Grilled Corn with Chili Powder at Farmer's Market, San Luis Obispo
7.  Cindy's Backstreet Kitchen in St. Helena: Artichoke with impressive garlic lemon aioli that changed Dan's feelings on spiky vegetables. I didn't have the heart (no pun intended) to tell him that aioli is just hot mayonnaise.
8. And finally...turkey and fig jam sandwich in Napa Valley at some fancy, beautiful winery...the taste of which was not spoiled by my tipsy fall down a four foot ditch. Damn you, peach tree. Damn you. I was just trying to take your picture.

the bubble game

Recently I went over to my friend Allison's and watched her daughter blow bubbles in the sun-dappled yard. The game, of course, is to run into the bubbles head-first to break them. She would express disappointment and then start to whine, then smile when Allison would blow another one for her and then she could do it all over again.  Promptly forgetting the irritation of the previous tragedy of the bubble that went before, she runs like around in the paradox of the bubble game: you can't love the bubble too long, you must rush to break it. 

Her joy/disappointment cycle is dizzying and remarkable. This is everything. Happiness in a flash, then it's gone, only to re-form, in a slightly different shape. Last spring we paid a hefty price to slash some tree branches that were dropping acorns on my roof and inchworms into my morning coffee on the deck; I'm irked at how soon those branches grow, marring the tidy bend of the tree with puffs of green. It's only another five years, I bet, before those branches are humping my roof again, making trouble. 
Until then, I'll enjoy this perfect moment on my deck, right now.  The sky is perfect. The coffee is perfect.

Here we go, chasing down those bubbles to break. The next one will be rise up like the moon, so beautiful.

Nesting

A family of not-so-cute birdies have made a home in a tiny hole where some siding of my house has disintegrated off. They built a sort of duplex-nest right on the other side of the wall where we sleep in our bedroom.

"I told you so," I said to Dan at the crack of dawn a few weeks ago when the birds heralded the 'morn with loud tweets (and I mean old-school-tweets, not Kanye tweets). These tweets were so raucous they sounded fake, like a gaggle of teenagers were standing outside my house, drunk and shouting.

"You NEED to destroy that nest," I cried for the umpteenth time. But I know why Dan won't do it:
A) It requires getting a ladder (and personnel) much taller than the ones we have; I'm not sure how to get up that high, actually.
B) Dan doesn't have the heart to pull the nest out and displace the baby birdies.
C) Awww! 

"I'm not a killer," he said, rolling over and blissfully going back to sleep, leaving me to ponder the metaphor (birds/nests/home/marriage) in my deep, time-wasting way.

I've been manic, getting my house in spring shape. I want a new kitchen, especially, but frak it, the cost. Better to hoard the nest egg for the great unknown future.

As I type this, this black-feathered, arrogant bird LITERALLY flew by my window and stopped for a second on the phone wire. She's looking at me. She has a huge twig in her mouth. She's heading to the hole. She's going to make that nest bigger. She's such a bitch!

Dinner with Norman Bates

I showed my "The Nature of Evil" classes the movie Psycho last week, hoping to finally win those frisky bastards over with my coolness and intelligence ("hey guys! I bet you didn't know that movies can be analyzed like books! this is going to be so fun! did you know that's chocolate syrup going down the drain in that scene?" to which some of them promptly replied, "I don't watch anything in black and white.").   I think the unit went quite well, actually. The kids had no idea that Norman and his mom were one and the same, and it was fun to watch them puzzle the whole thing out. A few kids ventured that the combination of implied violence with Norman's cross dressing was ten times more upsetting than any overt horror movie they've ever seen. And the archetype of "Mother/Monster" in this age of helicopter parenting...dare I say...hit home for some of them.

The thing about Psycho that's apparently all-the-rage in the psychoanalytic film community (one step above the Shipwreck-exploration community in terms of coolness) is to look at the house and Bates Motel as representations of Norman's mind: the basement, where he stashes his mom's corpse at one point, as the darkest, most secret/carnal place (the ID?); the ground floor, where he lives as normal and quiet man who eats candy a lot (superego); and the top floor/bedroom, where he internally battles/argues externally and internally at the same time with his mom's corpse (ego?).  Something like that. You could rearrange all that and still be right. It gets so confusing.

 Anyway, it made me think about my own basement, which, according to the metaphor, represents some savage and hidden part of myself. So, I'll tell you something. I have not been in my own basement for at least a year. I quickly ran down there when Dan was in Chicago to make sure there was no flooding during some rain (and to assure myself there was no chupacabra waiting down there to eat me. hey, you never know). But I hate my basement and part of my psychic/spiritual healing project for this summer is to confront this basement head on.

Thus, according to Freud, my refusal/fear to spend time "in my basement" means I've been avoiding the dark side of myself. I'm experiencing shame. I'm afraid of conflict. Have you been in my basement? It's really yucky. I'm so lucky Dan does the laundry. The basement is everything I'm insecure about regarding my house all consolidated into one space: all mess, all wrong.

When we bought the house, that basement was dry as a bone, and tidy. I fantasized about making one of those charming "laundry stations" that they show in Good Housekeeping with the blue appliances, tiled folding tables, adorable baskets, etc. (Dan deserves the best).  The day we moved in, I kid you not, a friggin' MONSOON came in and filled that damn basement with puddles and a family of fat, selfish mice with old school politically incorrect Mexican sombreros saying "hey Gringo, you got some cheese???" (Dan said that once. That wasn't me) and mildew. I DID NOT SIGN UP FOR THIS.  We left our apartment in West Orange to get away from mice, now I have them here? When our sump pump malfunctioned later on that year and Dan tore up the carpet revealing a dingy concrete floor, I promptly decided never to go down there again.

Is this whole thing a metaphor, Norman?

Like certain aspects of my psyche, there are some places I don't like to go. It seems like a  cliche, though, the fear of the underworld/Basement Monster, that's really just a fear of me.

Side note: if I were to kill people, I would do it dressed as Norman dressed as his Mother, just to stump/challenge the detectives. I would like to be played by Salma Hayek in the movie.

the swimsuit part of the pageant

I don't know why, but last night I went to Marshall's with Dan and my inclination was to purchase two bikinis (one cutesy, one sexy)  that were somewhat inappropriate for my body type.  I get this strange rebellious streak when it comes to bathing suits. It feels natural and right for me to be as bare as possible at the beach without causing too much attention on myself. In other words, after carefully combing my subconscious and my conscious mind I decided that I really don't want the world to think I'm grossly misinformed over my own body's limitations. There are women on the beach that I see, full figured and sloppy in their postage stamp bathing suits, and think: what is she thinking??  I can be just as snotty and judgmental as the rest of them. Ninety percent of the time, you'll see me stretched out on my towel, all classy in my navy blue one piece with the tummy-slimming panel. Or in my elegant strapless brown one that says to the world.....well nothing. It says nothing. It says, "don't look over here. I'm plump. I'm not here to be hot. I'm here to swim." (that's a low blow regarding the brown suit. It's actually pretty cute. It's just sometimes I want to be the girl in the bikini even though my body isn't quite on board).

Enter the scandalous scraps of bargain store sexiness.

When I put those bathing suits on in the safety of my dimly lit bedroom last night, I know what I'm thinking. I'm thinking I'm practically naked and I like it. I felt sexy: how bizarre. I loathe my body most days. I have issues, believe me. Why did I feel so awesome strutting around in a bikini, with my soft belly gently dipping over the ridge of the bikini bottom? (I originally typed "flopping" but decided that was too mean). I know I look like the "before" picture in one of those diet pill ads. It's really just my stomach that's the technical problem. Call it genetics, call it candy. I have a really soft, protruding stomach. And no kids yet. I don't even want to think about what will happen when I have a baby. I have a few spidery stretch marks on my hips and on the side of my breasts but those are actually not so bad. They are in the exact place where the side straps of the bottom usually cover. My arms and legs are passable. My belly button is a tragedy, though.

One suit is from Jessica Simpson and it's actually pretty modest: a bandeau top with cute buttons, and a sort of boy short bottom. The problem is the short cuts a bit too much into my hip, leaving a slight indentation. You wouldn't notice it unless I told you to look, because there's a pretty busy pattern going on there. I'm pondering buying a different bottom to go with the top if I can't lose the magical 10 pounds likely required to make the shorts fit better.

The second suit is a Tommy Hilfiger bikini with polka dots. A flimsy triangle bikini top and an adjustable bottom with side bows. Very skimpy. It requires a tan, some Xanex, and a truck load of sass. Even my husband, who would support me if I suddenly decided to assassinate a world leader, said carefully, "that bathing suit is definitely making a statement. People will be looking at you."

The villagers are watching, said Foucault. Or was that someone else? I wonder what kind of swimsuit Foucault would wear. Probably something really small. He was French.

I go through life, like most women, wanting to be seen and un-seen at the same time.  I want to be the woman on the boardwalk with the ice cream cone and the maxi dress, leaving no doubt to the world of my charm, wit, education. That woman needs no validation. But I also want to be that girl in the tiny swimsuit, standing at the water's edge, brown and soft and womanly.

She's full of mischief. She's a little bit inappropriate. She's making you say: what is she thinking?