The Valley of Unforgiveness

Well, I've been wanting to post this since Sunday night, late. But I needed to get over the initial shock so that the words would come to me.
I went to the valley this weekend. Yes, you locals know what I'm talking about...Lebanon Valley...you know, the racetrack.
Holy sh*t, what a circus. What a f*cking circus.

I went with my gentleman friend (the irony will reveal itself, don't worry) the Sisco kid. We had tickets in the family section, a smart move on his part because I can't even imagine how the evening would have unfolded if there was even a drop of beer involved.

The stands at the valley are divided into sections, designated by color. While we were waiting in line to hand over our tickets you can imagine the first thing that caught my eye, besides the children toasting over sized marshmallows over a garbage can fire in the parking lot.

"Um..." I pulled on Sisco's shirt. "Does that actually say 'Black Section'?"
"It actually does," he said, laughing nervously.
"Nice."

We made our way to our "seats" and as we got closer it became very clear that not only were we in the family section, apparently we were in the Big n' Tall section as well. There were the seats (basically numbers spray painted on wooden planks). In front of us, was an older fella, reclined all the way back, his comfy seat grating harshly against my knees which were spread as far as they could go (well beyond what even I would consider obscene, and I rode on the back of a quad that day, so I should know).

Behind us, same thing. My back was literally resting between this guy's thighs. Suddenly, I wished for a beer...or laudanum.
The evening was shaping up nicely. The sprint cars, averaging about 130 mph that night, kicked up more dust than a stud at a desert rodeo. In fact, by the end of the evening I had so much dirt on my face that there was an actual outline of filth on my nose outlining where my glasses should have been.

And, let's not forget the people watching aspect of this cultural gem. The main drag (i.e. food, t-shirts, more food and a piss troth) was littered with New York State's finest. Sisco got a a coffee you could pave a parking lot with and we leaned against a closed 'Sausage' booth, amazed.
"We should go," I said, barely able to contain my expression of horror.
"No, no, let's just wait here," he said, sipping his Creamora poison. "I want to take it all in."

So we did. We watched a 400 lb hobbit of a man hover over his pizza with almost coital desperation.

"See, see," Sisco said. "A couple of pieces of Wonderbread, some ketchup, some government cheese...that guy's in heaven right now." And he was right. The big hobbit was focused and clearly happy. And thankfully he had tucked in his t-shirt and cinched his black jeans at the waist with a belt that might as well have been a shoelace.
"Thank god he has a belt," I said. "That would've been a close one."
Yeah.
I won't mention the bathrooms, except to say that in the stunned silence on the ride home Sisco spoke up.
"I would rather burn my a**hole shut than have to take a sh*t in that bathroom." He shook his head. When I stopped laughing, which took about 5 good minutes, I nodded my head furiously.
"You know, I think they have a special souldering iron for that kind of job...I mean, I think they even sell them here."
"Yup," he kept his eyes steady on the road, spitting into an empty Monster can.
"You know," I said watching the stream of tobacco spit leave his mouth, "People in glass houses..."
"Whatever, babe."

We swung into the trailer park to get the kids from my brother's place. Lucian's face was all smiles and covered with BBQ sauce.
"I had ribs," he said sleepily as Sisco carried him barefoot to the car.
"I'm glad, buddy. Now go back to sleep."
The car ride to the house was punctuated by the acrid, very fresh scent of dog sh*t.
"Of course, why not?" I was laughing hysterically, unable to breathe.

I should also mention, in an attempt to distract myself from my precarious position between Weebil One and Weebil Two I tried my first plug of Copenhagen...not the city. Our friend Skeeter who was with us saw the can and whistled, saying, "Hoo hoo, you got a real man there, Nichole. That stuff's old school."
Within five minutes I had a plug in my bottom lip. I actually like it...a lot. Just as the numbness was settling in, Skeeter made vomiting gestures with his hands and mouth.
"What," I mumbled, trying to keep the tobacco in my mouth.
"It's gonna MAKE YOU SICK," he said over the roar of the cars.

I spit it out reluctantly.

Blood type?

It's difficult to avoid type casting, even when there's no stage involved. We do it all the time. This person acts this way so they must be this way. That person lives that way so they must be that way.

It isn't fair. But, wait for it, who said life was fair? Can you hear your momma talking right now?

I think human nature (or animal nature) dictates that we must, in order to survive, take the other beings that we see and meet and put them into little mind categories. That way we know what to expect every time we come in to contact with that "being." Our brain is reminded, the Rolodex of the mind lights up, and as we are carrying on a conversation about the weather or work or kids, the lists and lists of categories are running full speed. There are two engines working and, I would say sadly, the inner engine prevails.

"Hey, how was work today?" comes out of the mouth, but the mind says, "Hey, when the f*ck are you gonna ask me about my day? They told me you were a selfish prick, but wow."

Or, "Wow, thanks for making dinner, that was great." Backlog: "So weird that you made dinner because I pegged you for the kind of guy that rarely has a clean pair of boxers to wear."

These, of course are milder examples of what the inner dialogue is capable of. Then, oh then, there is the nitty gritty stuff.

"Oh, wow, you still have back pain, huh? That sucks, it's been forever." Translation: "Your back is f*cking fine, but I'm thinking your addiction to oxy is what's getting in your way."

Or, "Oh, he doesn't want to play football anymore? Why? I thought he loved it." Becomes: "Whatever, that kid's wanted to play since he could walk, you're just too damn lazy to drive him to practice. He's gonna be a quitter just like you, you keep this up."

I don't know exactly what the origins of these categories are, but they are merciless, I guess, just like nature. There is no room to expand, or to be surprised, or to forgive if the walls are unmoving. The player will always be a player even if he falls in love. The addict will always be selfish, even if he has compassion bursting out of his chest. The icy b*tch will always keep a cool glare, even if she's been smiling for more than half her life.

But let's say we get rid of all that. We rise above what we think we know about someone, even above what our guts tell us...let's say we smash the Rolodex with a Louisville and suddenly decide that the categories aren't worth it. Ahh, so freeing, so new...
The danger (or I daresay the outcome) is that it may be too late. We are a reflection of ourselves after all.

Stick to your post

I am increasingly intrigued by Facebook posts. Status posts, mostly. In an earlier blog I bemoaned the illusive, non-tonal world of texting. No nuance, no nothing, no answers. I think I am beginning to feel that way about Facebook.

Imagine that, a writer who despises the written world of emoticoms and IDKs and ROFL...you get the point. Insta-chat is hell, again because you just never know what the f*ck the chattee is really trying to say.
I guess, because I am approaching stubbornness like a fly moves to sh*t, that I'm just too old fashioned for these cold, technological devices which are supposed to convey major feelings like pain, joy, love, and sometimes hunger. The end result of texts and chats is basically indifference. Dangerous, unattached indifference to the world and the people living in it.

I like flesh. I like seeing the corners of eyes crinkle at fart jokes. I prefer the warm breath and the mangy morning hair to any beep I get on my phone. I am human, and so, because I live this mortal stasis that I was born into, I love human things.

However, and this is a big however, I do enjoy reading my friends' Facebook status reports. Again, they are obtuse, but there are some funny ones. They fall into loose categories; melancholy, obtuse, hysterical, and, my personal favorite, plain ridiculous. Who knows if these people posted it for the moment and forgot or continue to carry these odd thoughts for 19+ hours. I mean, "I love donkeys", what does that mean? Just seeing it is absurd and, of course, you gotta wonder...Also, "My nipples are hard" is a favorite so is "Checking out my new trim."

It's a field day out there people! Some of the comments I want to post would get me fired from any job and put on a list, I'm sure. But, man. I love, too that my 13-year-old nephew has changed his relationship status to "single." How the f*ck can you be single when you can't even drive or do laundry? Who knew?

FYI, as much as I am amused by the status updates there are two things you should never, ever, ever post because they are so annoying I want to PUNCH MYSELF in the face when I read them; song lyrics (especially cheese-ass love songs about pain and breaking up) and loooong spiritual paragraphs about what epiphany you had that day, and posts about being bored. That drives me nuts!

Poop is acceptable, especially when referencing food poisoning or a new baby in the house, so is self-deprecating sarcasm.

But never post the stripped down truth. That is crossing the line. That comes with weight and suddenly your little secret smile becomes a thing to glare at through aquarium glass.

But don't post that either.

The uproar

I had a friend in college, she was from Puerto Rico. She was about 5 feet tall on a good day, and at the time that I met her she was still a little round thing because the semester before she was nearly to term with the child she was carrying.

We met in a sociology class. Oh the irony...both of us waited until senior year to take a research credit, and here we were, last semester of undergrad, in a room full of bright-eyed freshmen who still carried backpacks to class. By senior year I knew to bring a toothbrush, condoms, and Maker's Mark. Priorities people...oh, and the Zippo my bother gave me. Maria had my number from the get-go. She saw the indifferent look on my face, smelled the booze that was still oozing through my pores, and knew, for some strange reason, to whisper to me in Spanish while I tried not to puke on my desk, either out of boredom or being hungover.

She told me about her one true love, Alejandro, with whom she had the baby. I told her every detail of my tumultuous engagement to a Pakistani physicist, and the subsequent rebound attempts at love. She listened to my crude tales, I was honest with her, had nothing to hide, and she just laughed at stories, mostly of the flagrant alcoholism and getting laid by men from every continent; how this one never drank, this one didn't have forks, that one cried like a woman...I told her everything. I had not yet learned, or perhaps I had dropped along the way, the idea that shame was something I had to keep with me. I did not believe in shame then. It was something other people had that kept them from having fun, from living.

Maria called me la jalea, the uproar. When I told this to my daughter tonite (just the uproar part, not that she, Anna, was indeed a product of all of this interesting living) she laughed so loud and with such honesty I started laughing.

"Mom, Mom, that's perfect!" She licked the chocolate ice cream from her messy lips.

"Why? Do you even know what it means?" I watched her new earrings glint in the dying light of the sun. She was almost a woman then. We were almost women together.

"Because, it's so true. You're a brainspeaker. Whatever happens in your brain goes straight to your mouth. Every single time."

"Is that a bad thing?" I licked the ice cream bowl we were sharing.

"It is if you don't like the f-word." At this I laughed.

"You are correct, Anna, and I'm working on it."

"I know. Besides, every time you use it, it's in some funny way. Just don't use it so much, Braintalker!" She howled at her little joke.

I wish Maria could have seen this. That there I was 10 years later, with the child of one of my bad men, somehow content, laughing about being utterly inappropriate like children often are.

I will, of course, continue to at least try to curb the f-bomb. A small price to pay for having left shame on the curb for the others to pick up.

Brain shells

Remember that old, cheesy story about footprints in the sand? You know, you can find the narrative on some shellacked slab of cheap pineboard. A picture of the sand with one set of footprints...they sell them at carnival stands and country fairs, and I think that my late grandmother had several variations of the story hanging in her tiny house, next to the velour Elvis rug and minuscule spoons from different states.

Yes, I agree, that is a story for another time.

In my more cynical days (I know what you're thinking, holy sh*t, she was actually MORE cynical!?) I thought that the footprint story was a load of religious garbage. The cheese factor was too much to even comprehend.

What so, you suddenly look at your life that YOU have been living and suddenly you're supposed to believe that the time where you see one set of footprints, the times where you thought, no, you wished that the Great Earth would swallow you whole just so that you would not have to face another brutal day in this f*cked up coil, those are the times that god carried your (my) sorry ass? Who in their right mind would stop by a pile of sh*t on the beach and decide to pick it up and lug it around until it transformed into something of worth?

Exactly, right? Apparently, god, Mother, Father, the Great Spirit, whatever you want to call it, is quite the mechanic and picking up junkers is just part of the fun of the job. Of course, this still does not account for the misery that you (I) dragged ourselves through, knowing we were entirely alone, waiting for the sand that we were sobbing in to finally be engulfed by the merciful sea.

No such luck. The great hobo of fate managed to sling all of that weight over his shoulders and keep walking down the beach, whether we liked it or not. That's not to say that we were carried gingerly or with any kind of maternal care. I'm fairly certain being lugged around was not Cinderella's carriage ride, but what the hell, it's better than nothing, right. We're breathing, right?

With reluctance, and still cynical, I have to believe that this is all true. Last night (actually all day yesterday) I fretted and prayed over my son. The boy who doesn't even sit still long enough to eat ice cream lay lethargic for the entire day, rattled by fever and dehydration. I finally took him to the emergency room, carrying his limp little body in. He was shaking with fever.

I was shaking with fear. It was an alone moment. Very dark, very scary, very decisive. You know what happens then...I began to beg. Just a small voice repeating the same thing over and over again, "Please heal him. It's not time yet. Please heal him. Let him be ok. I'm not ready."

Over and over and over. Because nothing else exists in that moment. Lucian survived, I survived. We finally went home, both crawled into bed exhausted, and listened with fear and some comfort to the other breathing in the dark.

The 49 percent

I had a massage yesterday. Oil, hot rocks, deep tissue, you name it, I had it. The masseuse was a tiny woman, probably half my size, clothes the size of sandwich bags. But, man, did she have some tough little hands. Of course, as always, my neck was of great concern to her. Or maybe even grave concern.
"Oh my god," she said, slathering jojoba on the damaged terrain of my non-sloping, non-feminine shoulders, "are you a lawyer?"
I laughed through the ripples of pain shooting up through my head. "No, I'm a writer."

"Ahhh." I could feel her nodding her head vigorously. "A writer. So that means you're broke most of the time and you can't get out of your own way."

"Exactly."

I live my life twice. First in the actual events, second, in the retelling of fragments of events. It is in the retelling, fictional or not, that there is a grain of hope. No sprout, no water, just a grain needing earth to germinate. At times, it seems dishonest, writing a character from my real life. All of the true details are there; hard working, hard living, Marlboro smoking, angry man with a past that no historian would want to uncover. He (and this could be any man in my family, and some friends) is hopeless in the real world, unable to get out of his own f*cked up way. But in a story, maybe in a closing chapter, he redeems himself, even just a little bit. Maybe he quits drinking, or maybe he brushes his daughter's hair or tells his son that he's proud of him.

Maybe if I write it, it will happen.

You are probably gagging by now, on the naivete of this chain of thoughts. But why not live in the maybe, the part of maybe that exposes a horizon much deeper in color and texture than we ever thought possible in real life. Why the f*ck not?

I was ripped out of my thoughts by another question. Apparently, in a half sleep and high on peppermint oil fumes, I said something about never wanting to be married again, about how I was bad at it, and how I am VERY done wanting to have children.

"So, are you a man-hater?" She set a scalding rock on the back of my neck. It sizzled for just a second.

Hmmm.

"No," I said flatly. "I love men. I understand them. More than I do women, sometimes. It's the ones who've got no b*lls that I have trouble with. The ones with no integrity, the ones who don't keep their word."

"Well, maybe you could write the gutless ones into better people."

"I wouldn't even know what they would look like as stronger people," I said with a tinge a bitterness.

"Maybe they would look like you," she laughed.

"God, I hope not," I said.

The fine line

I'm not sure if it's a result of becoming a bit (note: I did say a bit) older and maybe wiser (again, a bit) but I am having a little trouble distinguishing between what I think is stupid and what I think is brave.
Who knew that there was such an intimate relationship between stupidity and bravery?

Stupidity is the act of having little to no quickness of the mind, due esp. to lack of sense or knowledge.
Bravery is the act of facing something courageously, and enduring it.

Now, you tell me that these two aren't intrinsically related!? It would seem you would need one in order to have the other, at least in any circumstance that involved major risk, such as, let's pull from an old classic, falling in love.

Yeah, you heard me. I went there; falling in love.

More specifically, falling in love at my age after several disastrous relationships with infidel academics (oh yes, people, I did find the panties under the bed, condom wrapper, you name it. I guess he thought that since I was 5 months pregnant I couldn't see the floor), one self-immolating marriage, and groping around at the bottom of a bottomless swamp for the last 10 months. Giant cliched walls have gone up, there are no doors for folks to get through, the windows are too high to really see what's going on inside, the mama bear is foaming at the mouth trying to protect her cubs at all costs, food is scarce, you get the point. In a place like this, love is a luxury.

So is stupidity.

And yet, we do it. Over and over again, stepping over the burning damage of the last wrecked boat (maybe reciting a Blake poem), looking for the near-open rose on the battlefield. And this is where stupidity takes a front seat...or bravery. It is the thing that tells us, when we see the rose, our scars throbbing as we approach it, to set down the gun. To take the helmet off in deference to the sight before us. To untether the magazines from our chest and breath.

I guess, in that moment, it is neither brave nor stupid. What determines either is what happens directly after that. If you get 45 rounds to the chest, I suppose it's stupidity. If sniper fire whizzes by your head and the Claymore goes off just near enough to splatter mud on your face...and then you retrieve the rose, it must be bravery.

The risk, every single time, is in the not-knowing.