Sally Mars: Stories

Near Disasters

I was in a fire.

My nursery school was held in an old wooden church building with swings and a slide in the yard. It was autumn, fallen leaves. The upper floor, probably just the second one, I was drawing a turkey by tracing my hand. I was specifically proud of this one. I'm not sure if I remember the smoke but I do the urging and I didn't want to leave. Second to the last one, being urged again and still down the wooden spiral stairs.

We're marched through the exit door, the building now a bonfire a triangle just like that all aflame. Swings in front, empty. Fallen leaves. A hand grabs the back of my coat, not my coat, a coat loaned from somewhere and too big, he grabs it like a scruff of neck his boots all big and rubber and his coat and he lifts me over the chain link fence. An uncle who happened to be driving by, he picked me up and took me home.

I was in a flood.

College job at a greasy spoon in a mountain tourist town, the dreaded early morning shift when no one comes or tips. The sun was shining. A man comes in, he's shouting: "The Dam broke! Run!" We just stared. He moved on.

Next comes a police car. The police car turns things serious. Dreaded early morning shift there's hardly anyone around. Two customers, they pay and leave. Me and the cook standing out front when water comes trickling down the street.

It starts like that: A trickle. Like someone up the road is washing a car. But quick the water gets broader and then sticks come washing down and for just a moment I panic wondering if there's time to move my car, my favorite thing at the time and parked there on the street. I move it.

I drive up the hill behind Main Street and from just above my workplace I watch it go down. The water turns to herds of Buffalo, big and brown and furious. It trashes everything, buries it all, I was glad I moved my car and wondering if I should be terrified. I mean, I wasn't watching a movie. Six or seven people died, I saw one bob by or just the sleeping bag they never knew what hit them nor me precisely what I saw.

I was in a hurricane.

We lived in Florida then I was still a little girl. My mom was drunk and didn't care but I hid in the closet. Or maybe I wasn't hiding because in truth I really liked it in there. I listened to the storm. I saw the after: Swimming pools filled with branches and baby coconuts which sink and frogs that died and clog the pool drains.

I was in an accident.

It was a tough left and I never saw it coming. I didn't think to be as concerned about myself as I was the car, or the date I had later that night and how I was going to get to it. I stood there shaking and wondering what it takes to get a rental and I didn't put it together the next day when I couldn't turn my neck.

I was in an accident.

The horse spooked and reared up and fell over onto me. I was lucid through the experience I still taste every moment I was thinking was considering how I thought such a thing would kill you. I grab the hoof and turn my head and don't even mind the hair the hoof pulls out since I am lucid and I know that it could have crushed my head.

I was in an accident.

I was on a ladder and the ladder broke. It was a rickety thing and the rung popped out and my leg got caught and my knee bent back and I nearly kicked myself in the face with my own tangled foot. But I just kept about things, and later when I fainted and my leg was all swollen up someone asked me what had happened and I swear I couldn't remember.

I was in a movie.

It was just a bit part, and even small as it was and wordless too there was something in my acting. I came off false and looked ridiculous. My friend said: There's too much of you in there.

I was in California. Mexico. Switzerland.

I was in love.

Mr. Shitty #2

Mr. Shitty wants to know if I make love or fuck. He’d be funny if it weren’t for his swollen red hands. He’d be funny if he were novel but he isn’t. Mr. Shitty just might have me thrown out. He could do this -

We’re in a booth and the tabletop is pushed too close to my side. I sit there speechless leaving him to wonder if only for a second whether he’s thinking or talking out loud. I take his confusion in my mouth and suck it hard like candy. When it turns to something else I spit it out onto the floor. He’d be funny if his puffy fingers burst like boiled hotdogs. I’d squeeze out of this booth and leave him there to bleed.

I knew Mr. Shitty when he was a boy. He kept telling me I wanted something that I really didn’t and even though I told him this he gave it to me anyway.

Minneapolis #108

It was snowing when I woke up the classic kind heavy and slow like a globe so enchanting I was lost lost inside the clusters for a time I forgot about the charming neighbor who chatted me up for awhile because after all he wanted to store a car in my garage. And if you keep you eyes upon them it’s like dancing though not spinning still it’s dancing or maybe the way that dancing makes you feel if you’re happy to be doing it I guess it really doesn’t look like dancing much at all. And if you keep your eyes upon them you forget about the strangers fully six of them who called because they wanted something from you you can’t help yourself you help them and there’s just that in return. But does any of that matter when you didn’t hear the forecast so the flakes not only classic ones they’re also a surprise and sure it snowed a little last week too but that looked more like shaving cream and didn’t cover grass blades up that poked on through like whiskers no this snow is what’s imagined when you say It’s snowing here. You forget about your errands or the things you need to do or worse the things you need to finish because almost isn’t done. And you wonder what it tastes like if the snowflakes are some antidote from errands chores and neighbors close your eyes and open mouth. But still beneath the covers you’re just watching through the window and that adds in to the snow globe thing you want to taste and feel them hey maybe it can cure you though you’re not sure what you’re sick of so you dress it takes an hour and you don’t know where that time went now the zenith is still white grey pale horizon has turned blue. And suddenly the flakes are gone the flakes are finished falling and it happened as you stood there yes indeed there was a moment and sure the flakes were smaller then but still you saw it ending then and still you it ending then and still you saw it gone. You’ve done this with the pendulum you’ve seen it stop its swinging just in time to wind the clock again without missing a minute and you hear the tocks the flakes have stopped while you just stood there watching it can happen to the weather it can happen to the neighbors I wonder what it tasted like when it was in the air.

Minneapolis #107

I have a squirrel feeder out back a wooden box with a window and a little flap of lid over the top and most squirrels just throw the top back and feast but this one is demure. This squirrel is downright delicate and it takes the corn out a kernel at a time and closes the lid each time as politely as lady sneaking olive pits into a spoon. I’m watching and it continues on like this never hurried or impatient or reckless or rude or even messy no this squirrel is tidy, look at it, perched there like it’s modeling for a postage stamp and careful even graceful, graceful yes none of the other squirrels are this way. And I’m thinking to myself that if I were a squirrel I could not manage to linger in this opportunity no I couldn’t be that comfortable and certainly not that dainty hell I’m not that dainty as a human nor as comfortable nor patient so as a squirrel please I could never be that, well, pretty sitting there like that so it occurs to me then that this squirrel makes, as a squirrel, a better squirrel than I would as a squirrel which leads me to thinking what kind of person that squirrel might be so poised and sure and pretty and who the hell does that squirrel think it is does it think it’s better than the other squirrels arrogant little bastard thinks it’s better than me it’s better than me a squirrel, a squirrel! All still and calm and graceful-like and shit I may not be so poised and pretty no but whose yard is it you’re sitting in bitch it’s my yard, this is my house that’s my corn I put in that feeder with my money and my thumbs you ungrateful little bastard. And being bigger than a squirrel I chase that bastard away.

Cold Front

It’s cold and crisp and clear and dry. He wants something he doesn’t have. She has something she doesn’t want. He is trying to decide what sweater to wear. He doesn’t want to do the work. She dreamt last night of taping empty boxes shut; she tells him this. He pictures her dream and is intrigued by the boxes, light as a feather, containing a treasure. In his mind’s eye, he looks for a blade with which to open them. She is standing in front of a closet, the door is open.

She needs to choose.

Cleveland #6

After all these years of wishing to be invisible you’d think I’d feel okay when it finally came to pass. But no, I view my seeming invisibility with the same sort of distress that I had previously viewed attention: The impetus is negative and I am somehow inadequate. So while the ability to move through does have certain perks attached, I feel the lack of notice like a sort of put-down. Used to be that I’d meet a glance and reflexively swipe across my nose it must be running cast my own eyes down. Now I look up and into and search and it’s like I haven’t any face at all.

I thought there’d be some comfort in that.

I’m not sure when I turned from a Miss to a Ma’am. I dine at a favorite restaurant where they used to call me “Princessa” and now cannot remember me from the day before. I think I’d gone three full days without really talking to anyone at all. This is where I am.

Where he is, I remember him. He tends bar at the Marriott. The context is consistent, and he has become some frame of reference here, a face I see in

Cleveland. This is where I am: A hotel bar in Cleveland. And given what I told you about where I have been, can you imagine how it feels to be remembered?

Simply recognized. It had been fourteen months. And it doesn’t feel like a parlor trick and it feels like only yesterday and he asks me today about the project from those months ago and yes, it’s still in progress.

And I wonder if he saw me somewhere else would he place me? No. He is the bartender I recognize and I am the lady in the bar. And they used to call me Princess and you used to call me Miss and subtle bold invisible it doesn’t matter how you see it because there’s one single way that I do.

Mr. Shitty

I have a name for him. He the tassel shoed man beside me on the plane, or behind me in a line. He is any of them, all of them. I call him Mr. Shitty. Mr. Shitty is indignant. He is indignant because you should know who he is and what he is responsible for. He can make or break you, beware. He expects you not to cheer at sporting events, nor express political views unless they are the same as his.

Mr. Shitty is inconvenienced. He is inconvenienced because you are in his way. You are in front of him, or behind him making noise. You have taken the seat that he in his position is entitled to. Mr. Shitty voices his disapproval by waving a hand and making you disappear. If he wants something from you he snap his fingers. It is in your best interest to listen up.

This Mr. Shitty pushes his way in front of me. I ask him if they are boarding and he says: Don’t worry. I doubt they’ll leave without you. I follow him onto the airplane.

The stewardess flirts with Mr. Shitty. She laughs when she’s supposed to and touches his arm. All their arms. I want to push a dollar into her cleveage. She is working and I respect this and there should be some reward other than mere relief but then that’s something a collection of dollars can’t buy.

That Mr. Shitty is talking about women. His voice is loud and it booms from the table behind mine at the outdoor café where I am dining alone. He tells his companion how he nearly left his wife and children over the sex. His voice is loud and in this sense he is telling everyone: I don’t understand a guy being that ‘in love’. Not even wanting to look at these things? and he gestures toward a pair of women walking down the street. Every once in while, there is relief from his booming monolog when he pauses, telling his companion Get a load of that thing. He once had a female friend, he says. They’d go to breakfast, or the theater. She was truly interesting. But in the end, getting laid is a lot more interesting.

Mr. Shitty used to hate me. He hated me until he realized that others didn’t so there might be something to gain from me though he can’t imagine what it could be. He pats my shoulder, or worse, the top of my head. I should pant and take his newspaper in my mouth and chew it up into little pieces.

Mr. Shitty was a boy once and I knew him then. He said You could be pretty if you’d just put a little make-up on but that didn’t really seem to matter to him when he was drunk. He’d throw his arm across my shoulder, or worse.

Minneapolis #104

I saw what I believe to be the last moth of the season. It attached itself to my bedroom window, and I wonder if it knows. There are flowers on the vine still but berries on the trees and the pattern of their consumption by birds tells me the fruit near the end of a branch is sweetest. One could be fooled: The coolness in the air feels as if breeze has touched spring’s lingering snow piles. But there is no snow yet, and there are flowers on the vine. And the events of the past week weigh on me it is autumn, the weight of the week assures me yes, it is fall, and I will know spring not by the nature of familiar coolness in the air nor the absence of this weight so much as a shift in it, from burden to memory.

Minneapolis #103

I’m worried he resents me for loving him too much. He doesn’t say this of course, I see it in his eyes. Not always, but sometimes. He might feel trapped by how I love him, how it keeps him my prisoner especially when I refuse to let him leave. The look in his eyes, I kiss him over and over but I fear he merely submits. And now, curled up beside me, I want him to know. I want him to know how much I love him, and I want him not to resent me for it.

I wonder what it feels like, being loved like that.

Minneapolis #99

On the bus ride there I noticed this little boy looked just like a friend who had died. I knew what Chris was going to say before he said it, his friend really and the boy looked just like him. JUST like him. Moved that way too. The boy was thrilled, the bus to the Fair, and we could couldn’t help but stare at him, he impetus for small memories, for nearness. For hope, Chris says It is him, and he has another chance.

Chances: A lamb hours old, and the right to touch it. A calf minutes old, tiny hooves on the earth for the first time, womb to bedding, wobbly legs, a miracle, the act, our timing.

Rain.

West: A fiery sunset.

South: A rainbow. I wish there were another word for it. I had to point it out to him.

It was a perfect day
(they all are).

It was a lovely day
(I woke up).

Wait: I saw things and did things today that made me feel
(happy).

Minneapolis #95

It is White Sky Season. Late summer and all this water in the air. Not gray like pending rain, not blue like I think it should be. The sky is white. Not white like clouds, clouds consume the shadows; white skies make them. The sky is white, there are shadows, it’s a season, it’s a pattern. It will leave and it will come again. The sunrise is yellow, not orange or gold. White sky season sees the yellow sunrise sky, the light feeling like something lunar, like the light of an eclipse. Yellow sunset tricks you into thinking weather is coming in. Yellow sky sunset makes you think of a tornado, the light just before or after it, even if you’ve never seen one. White Sky Season skies are not the cloudy skies of Autumn. These late summer skies take the color away, depleting it, setting up the pending Autumn to seem that much more spectacular. There is water in the air and it turns the sky to white. It is flat like paper and there are no clouds nor tool great enough to draw upon it. There is not much to draw from it, rain is not born here this is camouflage, like a fawn or a bug. It is not what you think it is it is not what it appears to be except white, there’s truth in that.

I know a man like the white sky, deceitful. I know a woman like the white sky, recurring. I know a child like the white sky, hiding. I know the white sky like a neighbor, lingering. I know the white sky like a mirror, some let down. I know the season as a season, to be relied upon and there is some value in that even where love is absent.

Minneapolis #94

Don’t give me that. Don’t give me that you’re the one that wanted to come back here. You’re the who wanted...

What are you giving me that for? I don’t want it. Why do you have to bring that here, now. Get rid of it. I don’t want to look at it. Don’t look at me like that. This was your idea. What do you want me to do about it now? I hate when you look at me that way.

Come here. Come here. Please. Please just come here. Come here. Come here, please you know I love you. Come here. Come here.

Ah, then fuck you then.

Plane Trip #69

The light on the asphalt when I was coming in and there was no moon and there were no stars and it was hard to remember there was no snow, it wasn’t a salty lot in frigid air, but summer. Hard to remember.

There were crystals on the window, ice. Dim light struck them and they sparkled. Ice looked like spider webs, starlight like sun.

We all got lucky I guess. I needed a cab. I had to go back to the hotel for my bags. I had to make it to the airport. No cabs but the one he jumped in. I watched, and waved despite myself and the situation. Cab pulls over anyway, asks where I’m going and him if he’ll share. He said yes.

I paid his trip in full; it was along the way. Taxi waits while I run inside, takes me on to the airport. And me so grateful, small graces avenge small gloom safe and timely and fortunate and knowing it and now, this.

July 2

I ride my bike and barely bother to pedal it. I just coast. It’s a holiday weekend and the city is nearly abandoned. As others depart, I just
remain and the place changes, different things pronounced.

Like the conversational tones of two kayakers tooling down the creek, barely bothering to paddle. I heard them from so far away. We exchange greetings as they pass me in something like a whisper.

And that shabby little house, I could say I’ve never seen it before but in fact I just never noticed. Two blocks down and one over a woman is walking a husky. The woman is very old, and a husky seems like such a young person’s dog. I feel too conspicuous to follow her.

Occasionally a bottle rocket crackles, and a little boy squeals, or a man. You should have seen him jumping up and down, that kind of joy from a boy of say seven as his teenage brother lights fireworks in the yard. His mother sends to me a smile that feels like an apology. Maybe she is sorry for the recklessness of her sons. Maybe she is sorry for our age and our gender, caution rather than glee even if we don’t act on it.

There is a neighborhood dog that is my favorite, oversized head and seemingly sawed off at the knees. This dog is always running, its legs so short stiff but it’s never moving faster than the dull man or dull woman who walks it, walking slowly, made interesting to me only by this unexpected choice. I don’t know where the dog lives, but I always feel like I’m looking for it.

Today would have been my father’s birthday. Or maybe it still is.

Outside of Orlando

I thought the little town was so quaint. Until:

1. The woman in the antique store ripped me off.

2. I learned that “Moon Cricket” was a racist term after leaving the Moon Cricket Café.

3. The local history museum filled its storefront window with a collection of minstrel-inspired packaging labels.

I thought the little town was so quaint. Until: 1, 2, 3.

How to Tell It’s Over #2

1. You used to look at their photograph and swoon.

2. You look at their photograph and cringe and wonder what it was you ever saw there.

3. Their photograph triggers something more like nothing.

4. It takes a moment – the slightest wisp of a single second – to remember who they are at all.

5. Things become sentimental and void of any real emotion.

6. There’s a weird faraway pride, like hearing someone from your old high school just won the Nobel Prize.

7. The fantasizing stops too.

8. Or, the fantasizing changes, from something sexual/romantic to something almost vengeful.

9. You have visions of acknowledgment that you were right and they were wrong.

10. You have visions of acknowledgment that they lost the best thing that ever happened to them.

11. They say it’s over, and you believe them.

12. You say it’s over, and don’t care whether they believe you or not.

13. What was it we were discussing here?

14. Oh, then yes, definitely.

15. It’s done.

Minneapolis #83

I don’t know if that thing is going to budge at this point. You let it go too long. You shouldn’t have. Now look at it. What a mess. Maybe if you help me, maybe if we both try. We can push – be careful. It’s slippery too, don’t want to get hurt. Wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself. Man, that thing is rigid. It’s going to be tough.

I think it might have been sitting too long. I don’t know if you can fix it. Rust makes things fragile, so are we. It is sinking into the mud and now it’s stuck. I don’t know that you can pull it out again. I hope that mud is deep enough that you don’t have to look at it sitting there. I hate rust, the way it feels and sounds. I just want that thing out of here.

Maybe if we both try, maybe if we both push. But be careful, it’s heavy. Brace yourself or it will break your back.

Man, it might just be finished. It really might be. I mean, I am not convinced you can do anything with it at this point. Maybe if we go slower. Maybe if we go faster. I just don’t know what to tell you. It’s really bogged down, I’m serious here.

Maybe you can make something out of it. Maybe you can turn it into something. There’re parts. Maybe you can use them.

Guess you can just leave it. I mean, doesn’t look like it’s going anywhere. Just let it sit. Maybe something will give, or dry up. Maybe someone will give you a hand. I don’t think you can do this by yourself and I’m in no position to help you.

I mean, you can try. I’m just not convinced. Look at it. It’s a mess. How long did you leave it go?

Maybe if we both push.

Maybe if we both try.

Do you think we can fix it?

I don’t know if we can fix it.

Minneapolis #78

Is it that you’ve taken something away from me? Or that you allowed me to have it for a little while?

---

This house holds a secret, I can tell. I ask it nicely. I stroke it with a broom. It utters only this: I am not haunted, but you are.

The broom says: How lucky you are! Your imaginary friend has come to life. How lucky you are with a chance to know someone you’ve always dreamed of.

And the floor pipes in: I feel your soul against my wood. I let you be naked before me. This is a gift I offer you. It’s your lucky day.

I tell them: You make me feel indebted for what I’ve given you; you make me feel indebted for what I let you do to me.

The cigarettes on the table cry: We cannot stop ourselves from tempting you for some reason.

I tell the cigarettes: The very thought of you makes me sick sometimes, but the truth of our interaction makes me light. If only I could forget this and stop coming back to you. You are terrible for me. Our every engagement kills me afterward. Our every encounter steals seven minutes from the final hours of my life.

The cigarettes debate: You can see us surrender too. You suck on us like that. You suck and we feel your soul move through us no matter how passive we remain. We pollute you as a way of getting even. We need to harm you to protect ourselves. We feel your soul and your lips and the space between your fingers and we never asked for any of this. There are others we want much more than we want you. Frankly, something for us is missing. You make a lousy wife. You’re too old to bear a child.

I tell the cigarettes: It is your attachment to traditionalism that precludes me. You take too much for granted, focusing on what is absent instead of the beauty which is there; you focus on what is missing when the blinders of your perfectionism prevent you from seeing what you need is right there next to you. You are filthy but still I love everything that is wrong with you.

And to me, say the cigarettes: Focus on what’s missing? This is just another way that we are like-minded. It is you who wants more than you have. It is you who is unsatisfied. It is you who expects this to be healthy somehow when it can’t be, or at least isn’t.

Something is missing? Chimes the broom on my behalf. Just the fact that it’s usually there doesn’t mean it’s a good thing. Perhaps you are mourning pretense. Perhaps you are mourning dishonesty, or if not the lies themselves, the part of you or her that doesn’t really want to know the entire truth.
We can embrace that which exists, we can modify it sometimes. We can reject that which exists, we can even deny it sometimes. And we can hold onto our fantasies forever, our plans, our details that preclude possibility in just the way that you are precluding her.

Such an outburst from a broom humbles a cigarette, but still their magic exists and I am drawn. I am searching for a match when Cigarettes tell me: You have no choice. Destiny has accounted for your free will already.

The house says: I am not haunted, but you are.

---

I am on my knees, where my shins crave wood but merciful rugs sit still and keep quiet. I am on my knees and the heels of my hands trying not to think of just yesterday here or Kansas now at seventy miles an hour. I clear my throat so that there’s no mistake in what House or Broom or Tobacco might be hearing. I tell House and Broom and Cigarette and Floor: I can change you or leave you empty. I can burn you down or walk away. I can fuck or die inside of you. I can replace you, I can flood you. I can end this, now. I know you’ve heard this all before, but this time I am serious. Ask yourself what you expect me to put up with. Ask yourself if you are better for my having been there. Ask for my forgiveness when you find I am still here, waiting for you , loving you despite your follies. Do not make a single sound. I will interpret your silence to mean exactly what I need it to, and you should be thankful for this.

Tell me: Is that you’ve taken something away from me? Or that you allowed me to have it for a little while?

And: When might I have it back again?

Minneapolis #77

The sky is blue, summer blue, without mist. The birds are singing, songbirds, singing like it is summer and all around is the sound of running water. This is the sound of the melting ice and snow. I listen to birdsongs and I listen to surrender but I do not; I tell this day, out loud: You are a goddamn liar.

You masquerade as Spring but I know better; it is February in Minnesota. You are seeking to mislead me. You do not offer reprise but rather pure deception. You withhold important details that have impact on me. You will only make it worse. Soon all of this will freeze again. I can already hear you laughing at me, holding your sides as I slip and fall on the ice.

The day just ignores me, but I cannot ignore it. Yes, I’ve been seduced. The snow reminds me of some eyes, the whites of them so flawless and more dazzling than any color. The sky reminds me of some eyes, the water of wet breath and kisses I’ve only yet imagined. The music of living things reminds that the day itself won’t speak to me, and I wonder if this because I’ve offended it, or because I’ve called its bluff.

And I think if a day could be so dishonest – even if well intended – and if I could be so foolish – even if the myth is joyful; if a Day can be so dishonest and I can be so foolish, then how vulnerable am I really?

How vulnerable am I really, and what of me and you?

Big Pine Key

I’ve seen it happen: A child walking on a ledge or playing on the monkey bars is told to be careful, then falls, as if the suggestion of failure is enough. Cartoon characters dance on air or float like feathers until they are reminded they are unable to, and then come crashing down.

I am in the midst of joyful experience. I am floating on air, I am playing at the shore. I am nine years old. And it occurs to me: Be careful. It occurs to me I could come crashing down. It happens just like that.

So maybe this is how falling feels, maybe this is how danger does. Or maybe this is how it feels to climb down under one’s own power, to step safely back on the ground realizing that flying was a myth, and that the time of belief in its very possibility is all over.

Death Valley #1

What can I tell you about this hotel, or the two meals at that restaurant? What can I tell you about so much conversation, with him or with myself?

I can tell you that these rocks never spoke to me, even though I begged them to. I can tell you there was no silence at all for all this noise inside of me, the tortured souls of settlers looking for an easier way and the brays of ten thousand mules worn and beaten into the basalt.

I can tell you that certain native people knew to stay away, and that avoidance is often a fine technique for making something sacred. And how I long to practice this on you but am unable to.

Greater Las Vegas #1

There was no food to be found in Death Valley after nine, and I was really hungry. So I drive right on into Vegas. Everything was booked up, the Martin Luther King holiday apparently which, inside my being, sits pretty much diametrically opposed to the city I was in. I wind up in a fancy hotel, an expensive room but not a nice one, like a woman who wears heavy make-up waking up in it the next morning. There is just too much loss in the room, too many intimate things sold out or paid for, too many hopes dashed or hopes that were false and too fragile.

Something happens, and tired as I am I can’t sleep at all. I walk around, very late or very early, so obviously ill-fitting and maybe even obviously grateful for this. I’m feeling isolated and misplaced. Las Vegas infects me, not like a drug but like a toxin. I’m burning and I want something to open up the skin and suck the feeling out. But it doesn’t happen.

Leaving Vegas, off to the desert. Here the grief is balanced by nature’s grace, but I am too wound up to find it. So nature, being graceful, finds me.

And the best moment comes as the day itself is ending. He finally stopped talking. And I walk almost far enough away from the car not the hear the music blaring inside it. And I walk far enough away from the car not to have its lights drown out the stars, which come to me like rescue; which shine without gold or intention, and make not so much sound as even a sigh or a heartbeat.

Minneapolis #74

It feels good to be susceptible after all this time being immune. But that doesn’t mean I don’t fight it. Something entered me like a virus, and all the drugs in the world won’t cure this. No, relief requires time.

There is green grass in my backyard as the year turns over in Minnesota. Even the snow has surrendered. Snow, beloved ally, I should follow your lead. But surrender does not come natural to me.

I try sabotage instead.

I wear a sweater I do not need, this in the hope of being reminded.This in the hope of being alright. But my mind’s a blank when it isn’t racing, and though so recently I believed I’d up and left this planet, the universe has shrunken to my city and my room. The scent of Mars is overwhelmed by the weight of a telephone in my hand. The way the surface gave beneath my feet made me faithful then, but now I just wait for a call.

Relief requires time.

It’s warm here. Sweater finds purpose, I walk in the thick dark without a coat. I was hoping for an incident, but the warm, wet air is enough. I pander to my vanity: Happy is pretty, unbearable is just that, and I know it.

I coax myself to lighten up.

***

Magic does not work across this great a distance. You thought it was a spell, but it’s a charm. I’m prepared to walk away but that’s the one thing I’ll take with me: Happy/pretty, feeling light enough to soar; or just to leap, higher than I’d ever dreamt, free at last however briefly from all of this gravity.

Setting Irrelevant

A friend of mine was sad. Well, not a friend really. This person. This person I know, he was sad. Something trying had happened - trying, maybe tragic, and yes, there was irony. There always is.

This friend of mine was sad. Wait: Not a friend exactly. This person. This person I know was sad.

This person I know, he had to make a tough decision. And I thought: Whenever we are forced to make a tough decision, it is lesson for us to know to judge others less.

And this person I know, he heard that lesson. He didn't judge me for being completely unable to help him.

Baltimore #3

I am in the process of becoming familiar - familiar with, and familiar to.

The former is acceptable in the way that learning always is. It is the latter that is unsettling me. I am fairly addicted to my own anonymity. I fantasize about invisibility - not for what I'd do, but for what I wouldn't have to. Socializing does not come naturally to me, and like dancing, I like it best when I fail to consider that I'm doing it at all.

I discuss God with a stranger in a bar in Baltimore one night. It is the sort of experience that feels amplified - even tiny sounds are starling when borne of seeming silence. I don't know if this moment is charmed, or cursed, or just some sort of slip up.

I forget myself.

Conversation with a different stranger in a bar the subsequent night, I can't tell if the man is just friendly, or if in fact I'm being hit on. I'm ashamed of my suspicion. I'm ashamed of my naiveté. One of these two are correct.

I forget what we talked about.

I consider that joy can in fact become familiar; I consider how comfort surely has. I consider that reality often exceeds my dreams, and unlike dancing, life is best when I am conscious of living it. At least one might hope for some interesting story.

At best one might hope to begin to make a friend.

Baltimore #2

My luggage was lost on the way to Baltimore, and by the next morning still hadn't arrived. I get up early, put on the same clothes as yesterday, and see what I can do about things.

I'd never been to Baltimore. I've always wanted to go to Baltimore. And now I am here. I am here, I'll see a ballgame, and better yet a best friend is coming soon to meet me. She'll be in this afternoon. So I'm up early, seeing what can be done.

The drug store opens at eight, so I head there first. I've never walked these streets. I have to keep from skipping. I pick up: Toothbrush, toothpaste, deodorant and barrettes. My head and armpits seem to be taken care of.

Next I'm off to a downtown shopping mall, seeking underwear, socks and a shirt of some kind. The mall is near the harbor. I've never seen the harbor before.

It starts to rain. I'm walking toward the harbor which I've never seen before, and the mist takes on some form. A shower starts lightly, and I'm feeling utterly romantic, that same sort of romance that is taking a bubble bath alone by candlelight. I'm smiling. I'm walking in Baltimore rain, my first time. My best friend is coming here and tonight we're going to a baseball game. I'm giddy.

And it starts to pour. The rain is coming down in sheets, I'm smiling and taking it in. I am that steeped in color, the moment and the romance, the anticipation and the glee and wait! I have no luggage. I'm out here right now because my luggage is lost. I'm full of myself and now soaking wet and wearing the only clothes in my possession. And it's pretty warm outside, or at least it seemed so at first, but now I am soaking wet in the only clothes in my possession on some downtown street corner shivering in front of a downtown mall door, taking in the fact now that the place won't open for nearly an hour.

So I take my ridiculous happy self back to the hotel, where I brush my teeth, blow dry my pants, and laugh out loud at my sopping reflection.

Baltimore #1

I've been lucky when it comes to cab drivers. I can still recall a man in Chicago who had lead a life so charmed that I found an excuse to pat his shiny head, hoping his fortune might rub off on me. I remember a man in New Zealand who told me Petra was the most amazing place on this earth, thus reiterating the belief of the charmed man in Chicago.

In Baltimore I met a man who had been a photojournalist in Russia. He articulated poetically about the nature of Art, and I felt a thrill greater than I might have having heard an obscure and favorite song coming through the radio. I resisted the urge to consider, "What is this man doing driving a cab?" because to do so is demeaning to all these amazing men I've encountered; because to do so is demeaning to this man before me now.

But this cab driver does not dismiss this thought, voicing a notion that paints himself as so much less than he is. Because I can see this man is an artist, and I tell him so; because how often is it in this life that another person actually takes you exactly where you want to go?

Somewhere Outside of St. Louis

Today I found nine four-leaf clovers. Yes nine. Nine real ones. I found the first eight in what felt like an instant. I was enjoying the view and looked down at my feet. There was one, I saw it from standing height. Then another. And another and five more after that over an area of about fifteen yards.

I was thrilled by my discovery. Thrilled by my luck. No one seemed as impressed by this phenomenon as I was. But it didn't matter. I found an old magazine in the van and pressed the wilting clovers between its pages.

A friend walked up then. "I just found eight four leaf clovers!" And as a friend would, he shared my joy. I asked this friend if he'd seen the view, the meadow near the pond where the clovers had been found. That's what we walked there for this time, together: The View.

Of course we had to look for clovers too. He had a few false alarms but I indeed found one more true. The ninth one. The last one.

I handed it to him.

Minneapolis #55

He was a good boy, but that's not why I miss him.

This isn't why I miss him, either: He was easy. Even his death he made easy on me, the illness sudden and definitive. Sure, I had to take him in.

Someday I'd love for one of them to do it themselves - in their sleep, when they are very very old.

Still, he fell apart in an afternoon and died on the vet's table, that sterile room filled with three weeping people and one dead little dog, cute even then, I wanted to take him home again.

But I left him there, not even asking after his ashes. What I hold from those sixteen years is no match for physical matter. He was good, and he was easy, but that's not why I miss him.

Minneapolis #54

Today in Minnesota it is fully two clicks below the freezing point of water; merely two clicks below the freezing point of water. Tiny pale deep birds with breasts of faded dawn - these small things too know the theory of weather relativity. Little creatures, old dungarees with blushing chest, they dine on last season's blood colored fruit just outside my window.

Small muted blue chased away by larger, lighter ones. Do jays migrate? I can't recall having seen one recently, nor early. It is early, still February, scarcely past the midpoint. Thirty degrees on the bank's efficient signage, blinking time (early too), blinking temperature, so early.

I am driving with a friend. "All she wants is for me to happy."

"You must be a huge disappointment to her," I reply.

Minneapolis #51

What is the nature of a friend? Tonight I smoke at a bar with a relative stranger, known only in a particular context, this for years. Here real interaction is replaced by sheer endurance; I find there is equivalent value in both the exchange of time and thought, and the fact of survival without either. In this way, a familiar face becomes a dear friend, or, a friend dear enough. I kiss her check in greeting, and again to say goodbye.

Meanwhile, my own life is papered with echoes. I call out in this voice, and it is this voice that comes back to me. I take this sound as proof that you have heard me, too.

Mexico City #3

Today is the vacation day of my working vacation. I should have taken it on the front end. I should have detected my own warning signal when last night I carefully laid out my clothes for the two days subsequent then quite carefully and thoroughly packed absolutely everything else away. My actions are a physical symptom of homesickness. There are other symptoms too: Clock watching, Disassociation, Mild Anticipatory Dread. Inadvertently yet helplessly, I squander my day in the city. Clockwatching: 36 hours to departure. Disassociation: Failure to take in present magnificence. Mild Anticipatory Dread: I am unmotivated despite great reward for small effort.

But still I walk around. I walk around and breathe and try to stay involved, though my greatest involvement is not with my setting, but with my own sense of longing. And I wonder, is longing time squandered? With it, have I wasted precious time? I try to engage in the scene, rather than turning it consciously into memory even though I am still there. I mean, still here.

Today I long, tomorrow I travel. Let me take it all with me, this day and this longing. Let me pack it up like a souvenir.

I brought you back appreciation.

Hawaii #1

He couldn't quite be mistaken for a beached whale, but surely for something that has crawled out from the sea, or washed upon it. The large, hairy, middle-aged man lie on his back in that spot where the waves have broken and spread upon the shore like down. He curls and wriggles with such innocent joy, a man a dog a child, shoulder and hip heights rising, crashing, arms waving in the air, or flapping in the sand, fleeting angels. His bliss is intoxicating, water, air and sand. Intoxicating as to heighten my own appreciation of it: Of water, of sand, of air.

This man has become my own memory. He has waited his whole life for this moment. I wait for such a moment as well, when I am so oblivious, when I am dog and whale and water.

Minneapolis #36

A homeless man asked me for a light. I handed him my matchbook, told him to keep it. The matches were from The Ivy in Beverly Hills. Perhaps you know the place. Perhaps you are very wealthy, or very famous, in which case you might have been there yourself.

A homeless man asked me for a light. I handed him my matchbook, told him to keep it.

Minneapolis #34

The house was yellow, the sun was low, the was tree perfectly placed.

Shadows of the leaves from the varying distances of the branches changed the shadow's focus and texture. In the peak along the roofline sharp outlines of twigs and leaves, crisp black. Then bouquets of deeper gray, then mere dappling - all of these at once, diverse as the air on this last day of summer, too the last day before fall.

But this is not enough to counteract a little spat in the grocery store. So I do not mention it and do not point it out.

We drive home in silence.

Colorado #3

My father is not buried in Estes Park, Colorado; he's buried somewhere in New York. But I had his name carved on the stone beside my mother's - the body is not relevant. And neither is a marker. I admit it is a memorial to me every bit as much as my father.

I have come to this grave to spread the ashes of a dog, a dog chosen by my mother and hers for a time, hers and his; then just his, then mine. The dog lived with me for six years, but was never really my own. She was and still is my parents' dog. Even after she had outlived them. Even after she is gone.

The ashes are likely a conglomerate of various sad Minnesota dogs having died a certain day, but I name them for one particular dog as I name a tombstone for my father. None of this is a physical matter.

Or maybe something is, a physical matter. My stomach churns and my tears, so rare, will not listen, will not stop. "It's hard to go back," my friend has warned, "You're different now. You've changed."

And it is hard, it's so hard, harder than I ever imagined. But it's not because I've changed - it's hard because I haven't.

The ash is a heavy package in my hand, weighty and gray and less like ash than like sand. I poke a hole in the bag that contains them. They spill out in a line and I write with it, having just the perfect amount of material inside to complete my drawing of a peace sign. On the grave I draw a peace sign, since peace is what I wish for.

Don't worry Friend, your luck change, will change for the better, it's certain.

Don't worry Friend, your luck will change. But I urge you not to wait for it.

Colorado #2

I saw a lot of wildlife on my way up the mountain, mostly elk, so picturesque wading through the rocky river. Surely cliche, and striking in this manner. It's great to see elk, I'm watching them, plenty as I'm driving along. It does occur to me that wildlife is just that, it's wild, it's life, and that it's curious that we, their observers, should apply a hierarchy to nature.

I'm thinking that, in reality, an elk isn't any cooler than a squirrel.

It's just that one is more common than another. This another hierarchy.

I share my train of thought with my girlfriend, a mountain local, who tells me that here, a squirrel is in fact more rare than an elk, and that she personally would be more struck by seeing one, a squirrel. "Elk aren't any cooler," she tells me, "Just bigger." And she sums it up this way: "People like big."

People like big. I'm thinking about this, and thinking about us, two tiny women in my rental car.

People like big. I add this to my list of unsolvable problems.

Minneapolis #32

Do you know the sound of children in the schoolyard? This is the sound on the bus that takes us to the Fair. It is the sound of sparrows in the trees before the rain. On the bus is this sound, one octave lower than the schoolyard, two octaves lower than the birds.

Behind me a man is generous with his daughter. He explains the nature of a bus, how it usually pulls up along the curbs, picking people up, dropping people off. "Your grandmother never owned a car," he tells her, "She used to ride the bus downtown everyday." The bus we ride is a shuttle. The sound is the voice of the this generous man, the sound is the breath of his curious girl. The sound is the thrill of children in a schoolyard. Only, one octave lower.

I did not know that a candy bar could be fried, but I now know people will wait in line to try one. I did not know that the sun could shine so convincingly while the rain could fall down this hard. From my vantage point in the treetops, riding in an open tram car, I really don't mind at all. It is too romantic for me to be concerned with being soaked, or maybe it's romantic because of this. From so high up, I can't hear the rain landing, can barely hear the rain at all. It's just a hiss, then we land and hear the patter, punctuated by the slap of running feet on puddled walkways.

Trees work to hold back the rain until they themselves become saturated. I wonder if a tree most enjoys protecting me, or dumping lumpy water on my head. I give up the tree. Mostly lovers it seems are walking, shoulders back, through the storm. These pairs make eye contact with other ones, celebrating their union of youth at any age. The more timid or chilled now huddle in doorways, merchants located indoors are celebrating their good fortune. The rain ends and more people than before are carrying things, bags of taffy or jerky, or a space-age floor duster peeking florescently above a plastic bag.

Farm kids curl up in the hay of the cattle barn, which smells almost shockingly sweet. I envy how they must have experienced the rain, against the warmth of a docile beast in clean straw. The drumming water on the ancient roof is enemy fire. The comfort here makes them bulletproof.

The sun is down. The lights are on, dim and bright all at once, unlike a ball field and much more like Christmas. The innocence is down too, at least a degree, the romance now fading into something sultry, more like lust. I imagine more salty things are sold now, less sweet. I think of fried candy bars, how they must be both. A clever angle it seems, a flavor to balance night and day. I do not try one.

The bus ride back is a more subdued one. One seat contains two giant stuffed animals, cheap and opulent both. Riding behind the toys is a Winner. I'm a winner too I think, nearly dry now, and full, and just at that point of atmospheric re-entry that allows me to remember where I've parked the car.

Minneapolis #27

I was sitting on the stone steps in my backyard when a tiny slug popped out right next to me. I mean, I watched it, caught it in the act. A tiny thing, a half to three-quarters of an inch long, depending on the particular arc of its movement. At first I mistook the slug for a worm, and I was feeling pretty lucky to be witnessing the actual Emergence of a worm - I'd never seen that before. But exposure complete, the contracting/expanding form proved to be just a minute little slug, a snail without a shell. I felt pretty lucky still, having never really seen a slug's travels before, either.

He came out of a crack and then migrated some centimeters across the flagstone. He was rather isolated and seemingly out of context. I saw an ant walk right across him. Twice. Well, maybe it was two different ants, each walking across my friendly slug at two different instances, but I think you know what I mean. I expected the ants to attack the slug, but it didn't happen. The ants just kept going, ignoring it. I wasn't ignoring it. I was fascinated, and, additionally, worried - worried that the slug was too exposed, was naked out there on the rock. When I lost him momentarily underneath a curled up leaf, I got up to find a flat one. I got up and grabbed a flat leaf so that I could move the slug to safer ground, into the mulch along the fence bottom.

It only took a second. Flat leaf in hand, I sat back down in the exact same spot, and moved the curled-up leaf aside. Beneath it was the slug. Dead.

I don't have any real conclusions about the last moments in the life of a slug, except to say they were active moments, were cute in fact, and that death came on, as it always, always does, unexpectedly. At least, it seems, for its witness.

Minneapolis #17

Everyone is complaining about the weather. The sky is gray and breaks no promises, it rains. It is April. The air is soft.

I let the water touch my skin, reminding me how it feels to sweat, sweat some weeks away. The water on my face, my hands, I pretend to sweat. I pretend to have exerted, and with this to have been purified. I pretend.

Were I the sky I'd cry these sad tears, that I could be so lovely and still so unappreciated. Were I the sky I'd cry these happy tears, that one person, even one, should understand my intentions.

Minneapolis #16

The sun shone for two days and Thursday's new deep snow has receded from the walk. Dover cliffs reveal greening grass beneath them. Greening grass, a theme here in the North, wet matted grass yes, but look: See it stretching? See it stirring, inhaling, blinking its eyes? Grass not green but greening, some steps toward the color in a color hard to here to describe. It is greening, just as freezing air is warming, warmer today at the precise temperature it was some months ago, or some hours. This same cold air is warmer, this same dead grass is greener, Spring is knocking, demanding the door be opened by whomever holds the key. Spring will not be turned away, it will linger til you answer.

Spring touches me today with premonition fingers, fingers as certain and as real as my own. Spring is imminent today, imminence as real as your shoulder. Grass is greening, snow receding, Spring's premonition fingers.

My premonition fingers, your imminent shoulder, did you feel me there this morning, something like the Spring?

Cleveland #3 and Cleveland #2

The hotel bar stretched across the hotel lobby in such a way

that when crossing the hotel lobby one was forced to walk through the hotel bar. When I did - both, walked through the lobby thereby walking through the bar - two old men waved to me a way that made me feel like I should know them. They weren't waving per se, they were waving me over. I obliged, two old men with flag pins, red noses, urging me to join them. So I did.

During the next several hours, I learned they were each retired, had each worked in the grocery business, had been friends for fifty years. One had been married for forty-five, the other was widowed, but in love again. They lived nearby, they knew the bartender, another old man, old friend. Turns out each had a daughter I reminded them of. So I was not jealous when they flirted with the waitress.

One of the men was in a wheelchair, he was the one in love again, or rather, "Anew - it's something completely different this time." The other man kept leaning across the table, brushing my hair out of my eyes.

And for maybe the very first time since his death, a few hours past when I did not miss my father.

***

A sushi bar is a great place to dine alone, since the nature of the seating makes one inconspicuous, and is perfectly placed for either interaction or comfortable distance, since you're not really looking directly at anyone (except maybe the sushi chef, from whom you're separated by a large glass case), and yet may be physically next to someone, so if you'd like to interact, well, an excuse to do so is as simple as "Can you please pass the soy sauce?"

I ate sushi in Cleveland, not fearing the geography (some friends won't eat seafood in places not adjacent to the sea, but I am of Fed-Ex culture, and thus do not subscribe), and longing for that particular sort of interaction - a greeting for the chef, my back to the rest of the room, eavesdropping continually and, in this case, speaking fairly little. And behold the joy that is Cleveland, since I discovered (after having devoured my meal) that I forgot my wallet at the hotel, and told my waiter I was walking back to get it ("I'll just be ten or fifteen minutes") without any issue at all.

Leaving the restaurant, a homeless man handed me the local homeless newspaper, and sought a donation for same. "I'd love to take the paper," I told him, "But, quite literally, I have no money on me, not a cent. I forgot my wallet at my hotel, I haven't even paid for my meal, I was just walking back to get it. But tell you what? Will you be here a while, on this block? Hand me the paper and I'll hit you on my way back."

"That's nice," he said, "But you can just have the paper."

About thirty feet past the homeless guy, a shiny business man and his happy happy date approached me. The business man said, "Hey, I'll give you a dollar for one cigarette."

"That's no problem," I replied. While digging one out for him, he added, "Well, I'll give you two dollars for two."

"I'll give you two cigarettes," I said, "But you have to give my two bucks to that man standing there," and I pointed to the homeless guy.

"That's so sweet," the happy date-girl said, "So thoughtful." And I lit her smoke while the businessman walked over to my homeless friend with my donation, upped a few bucks, I'm sure on her behalf.

When I returned to pay my sushi bill, the homeless man was no where to be seen. I hoped he was off getting something to eat, or drink, or whatever might make him happy.

I was happy myself. I might have been humming when I strolled into the hotel lobby bar…

Cleveland #1

When going to parties alone, or to a bar or a show alone for that matter, I had this tendency to check my watch a lot - to check my watch, look around (an excuse to peruse the room), frown, scowl. No one goes to a party alone. I feigned no difference. I was merely waiting for someone who hadn't arrived - whom in truth I hadn't yet met (and if fact was quite unlikely to), and thus I'd no idea when or if they'd arrive. Yes, I was faking it. I went to a party alone and spent an undue amount of time checking my watch, pretending I was waiting for someone. Because I was brave enough to go to a party alone, but not brave enough to confess to this.

My watch broke a few months ago and I just stopped wearing one. Me, whose only tan line is the one on my wrist where my watch always sits. I can check the time on public clocks, or catch a glimpse of others' wrists. Or, I can always ask.

The first time I went to party alone after giving up my watch, there was some panic, then adjustment. In truth I was addicted to the watch. I shouldn't even notice its absence. Heck, I'm at a party. But I look at that extra-white vacancy on my arm, I'm like a reformed alcoholic offered up a drink. I'm forlorn staring at the white spot. I don't stay at the party very long.

The second time I went to a party alone after giving up my watch, I pretended only upon entering to be looking for someone in particular. I was aloof for just a few minutes. Then I started talking to strangers. With my watch to protect me, this hadn't seemed an option. It was like I was married to the thing, it possessed me, I came with it, no flirting about with others. Without it, I felt empowered and divorced. I felt naked. I felt sexy.

Okay, I confess. My watch didn't really break a few months ago. I just saw the bulbous blue thing loitering there and I simply threw it away. Really. I left it in a hotel garbage pail in Los Angeles. I haven't missed it since.

In fact, I'm thinking about ditching all my mirrors. It's a more challenging task. So many mirrors are built right in.

Minneapolis #8

Autumn bears the perfect scent. It is one you know, the scent of red leaves, of yellow ones. The wind is a gypsy. It stirs the leaves, it tells me my fortune: Soon your fingers will be cold, soon your breath will tell you the shape of your own lungs. Meanwhile, there is this: The scent of red leaves, of yellow ones.

This Fall air is powerful. I take it in deeply, let it rest upon my tongue.

Tell that gypsy I am fearless.

Minneapolis #5

The ice is not off the lake yet, but every day I check it. I wait for it, some magnificent omen, nature's lucky number. Perhaps even today I will walk down there and see water. It rains and rains, the ice gray and unhappy now. I wish to limit the role of the rain; I want the ice to break rather than sink.

I will dunk a cold toe in and know the truth.

Minneapolis #2

It snows again here, these flakes all Minnesota, so many different sizes now and light beyond belief. In the air so cold and packed so tight, they can barely fall. They sink slowly into night like a dense feather bed, I almost hear them sigh and stretch before they stop, aloft, asleep.

I put on big boots and wake them up. They are quickly alert and scatter on the walk, an inch of snow so airy even the bottom layer jumps. The snow loves to be free, it averts me. Slick gloves pack slick powder into worthless balls which rebel, disintegrating before I even throw them. These flakes are spirited, they gather in my hands and on my shoulders, they wish to be carried, carried before they fall again tonight, like from the sky but not so long this time..
Air so thick toward the ground it's like they parachute down, the descent so slow, the view incredible.

These flakes are all Minnesota, so many different sizes. I relate best to the smallest ones, hellions they are. I try to catch the smallest ones, pretend they are my children, tiny spirits sent from heaven, from heaven down to me. They act up, they act out, avoiding mother's grasp. I pretend to be more strict with them than I really am. I hold the shovel to scare them, but I don't wish them to obey. I wish to watch them rejoice and rebel, that's why I hold the shovel, to taunt them and egg them on. I always wished for wild children. Tonight for a while, I have them.

I pretend, before they land and fuse, thus rejoining their real mother. But even then, they whisper to each other, they say, "We are lucky to have so young an aunt." And the air's so dense I hear them, I don't tell them, "Go back to sleep," but I don't move, either. I want to overhear. This way, I know they love me. And I know their love is true.

Tonight, in my own feather bed, I watch them through the window. And instead of sheep I count them, my baby flakes, and I fall asleep blessing every single one of them.

Los Angeles #3

I spent election night 2000 at a hockey game in Los Angeles. We watched as the vote tallies were posted on the arena's giant animated scoreboard. My friend and I were rooting for both a particular candidate and a particular team, and with this fell into a superstitious pact. We assigned a candidate to each side, and so found ourselves exceptionally and emotionally invested in the outcome of the game.

Our candidate of choice was represented by the LA Kings, who came back against the Phoenix Coyotes in third period. But game went into overtime, and ultimately ended in a tie.

Just like…

(I have rarely felt so wise, or so powerful.)

Minneapolis #1

I've been seeing a therapist about once a week. Each time, I park in a flat lot next to her building. It's a drop-your-keys-and-get-a-ticket kind of set-up, and given that's it's a weekly ritual for me more-or-less, I've developed a sort of relationship with the parking attendant there. I do not know his name and he does not know mine. It was around week three when he stopped asking how long I'd be, cause he already knew: I'd be about an hour. He always put my car in one of the best spaces - right up front, never boxed-in - and a few times, when I had to wait while he helped other people or moved some other cars around, on these days, he didn't even charge me. He'd just hand me the key and say thanks, not even a wink, though we both knew when this happened that we'd shared some little secret.

My therapist lost the lease on her office and moved to a new one about eight blocks away. I saw her there for the first time today. And leaving the new space, I'm thinking maybe it's time to quit therapy for a while. Digging in my purse for the key, taking the stairs to the ramp and climbing wordlessly into my car, it occurs to me that maybe it's just not helping anymore.

Paris #1

Picture this: A medieval painting of the Passion Play hanging low on the wall. In the first panel, far left, a naked Christ is tied to a stake. His pale body is slumped and riddled with one thousand bleeding wounds, each like a tiny, seeping mouth. A sinister figure holds a cat-o-nine-tails. He smiles. He's done the whipping.

In the center frame Christ is nailed to the cross. His hands and feet are bleeding, bleeding. A small rigid crowd stands beneath him, looking up.

Every figure here seems helpless.

In the final panel, all the way to the right, Christ the figure is dead.

Mary holds the body in her arms, the wounds are broad and gaping but do not bleed. The painting is medieval, hanging low on the wall. The wall is in the Cluny, Paris's museum of medieval art. There are many such paintings there. But this one is hanging especially low.

Picture now an American girl, a little girl, blonde, likely around nine.

She's not alone of course but it seems like it kind of, her mother twenty feet behind her. Our painting of the Passion Play is low on the wall, at perfect nine-year-old blonde girl viewing height. Maybe this is why her quick museum-bored gait ends, she stops dead at the painting. I watch her, I am mesmerized by how she is mesmerized. Cause she is, she's stopped dead.

She is glued to the painting.

The mother comes up behind the girl, Girl feels beside her for Mother's hand without looking away, her eyes are set, they will not move. Her hand a pink butterfly, feeling for then alighting on her mother's hand. The girl is nearly breathless. Right hand safe inside her mother's left, Girl raises her own left hand, points to Frame 3: "Isn't she scared to touch him?" - she's referring to the body, the body of Christ, how Mary cradles the body in her arms. "He's dead," is what the mother says, she's not sure what to say here. "I know," replies the girl, "Isn't she scared to touch him?"

"No," is all the mother finds.

Girl points to Frame 1: "Isn't he strong? Can't he get away?"

"It's the Passion Play," Mom here replies, as if this explains a thing.

She's a patient mother pretty much, I admire her inherently for having her daughter here, here today, at the Cluny museum in Paris. This fact works for me on many levels. But I wonder if the mother, shocked in her own way but unlike her child, I'm wondering if she's questioning that distance from faith, if the mother's own mother is calling now in her ear, "Send her to catholic school! She needs to be baptized!" - this my own speculation of course, my speculation of guilt. Or is it just the mother's surprise that takes her words away, surely the woman who brings her child here, here to this place, she'd have something wise to say. But there's not much talking going on.

There's a slight tug of hands, Mom turns to move on. But Girl, she's still there. There's one frame left to address. The girl touches the painting, left hand's now the butterfly, tracing Christ in the center panel, she gets to too, touch the painting I mean, the gesture is so innocent and shocking that the butterfly lands before net of Mother's hand pulls her back away.

"Don't touch! You'll get in trouble!"

But it's not the scolding that knits across the girl's face, wrinkling her brows, bringing water to her eyes. The painting is exactly at her eye level. The pale crude figures, the violence drawn upon them, it is right in her face. Right in her face! Her hand is restrained now or she'd touch it again I'm sure. "Isn't there anyone who can help him?"

The mother is upset too, but it is not the upset of her child. She just says, "No." Now she tugs the little hand, they both turn away, and my own viewing here is over. I saw them both in the hallway maybe twenty minutes later, light and chatty like a pair of little birds.

I am chatty too, but with no one to talk to, I speak the details to myself like remembering a dream. I file the details, and report them to you here.

And I wish I knew this little girl, wish I could keep some contact with her, just so I can see if, with time, this particular incident had the greatest impact upon her mother, her, or me. Though I probably know the answer to that one already.

New York #1

I'm walking along Times Square. It's around 11:00am, really hot, kind of crowded, as is usual August in New York.

There's a construction site, big plywood fence. I'm merely strolling, smiling to myself this hot summer day. A gap in the wall, I look inside a big cement hole, so deep and so large. A worker is there, our eyes meet, just briefly, his mouth curves down, "What the hell are you smiling at?" He says this in a mean way.

This does not change my expression, it's warm and I'm here. I barely see him at all. My view is grander. He's in his mid-forties I'd guess, mustachioed and bald, his face hardens some more and he throws me that four-fingered, under-the-chin gesture.

When he does this, I see his hand. I see his wedding ring. And a step or two passed him now, I'm thinking about his wife. I'm thinking about her, this is her whole life, "What the hell are you smiling at?" Or, at least it was, since I imagine she doesn't smile much anymore.

Bobble Head Night at the Dome

Tonight was Bobble Head night at the Dome; the first of four such nights this season. A special promotion meant the first 5000 fans in attendance would receive a small, ceramic bobbley-headed doll. Tonight's commemorated 60s slugger Harmon Killabrew. Needless to say, I was very excited about this.

The gates at the ballpark usually open at 5:30. Anticipating an added crowd, I arrived around then. Walking to the stadium, it was easy to notice so many fans, grown men, primarily, walking away from the Dome with armloads of little cardboard boxes. Nearing the entrance, I saw a friend. "Run!" he yelled when he saw me, "They're almost gone!"

Still I walked, lined up, handed in my ticket. Throngs crowded at one end of the doorway. There was shouting. "They are no more," an usher was announcing, "No more, here or anywhere!" People pushed and shoved. I actually saw one man grab another's shirt, pulling it, maneuvering around him. There was grumbling, swearing, small children cried. The special prize, a ceramic doll, became a loss to those who did not receive one.

I enjoy batting practice, it had been a while since I'd seen it. I was glad to be there early, the stadium so cool on this hot humid evening. The real Harmon Killebrew, Killebrew the man, he was there tonight. He walked across the field and those who actually stayed for the game stood and cheered.

Harmon waved.

I think about all those walking up the street with armloads of boxes. I look around the park, see people carrying totes filled with same. I listen to the whispers, complaints and laments, toys owed to each of us, cheaters and prices. Mostly, I think about the children, crying in the hallway, angry parents or absent dolls?

A few months ago, in London, I reached the airport and realized I'd neglected to mail several postcards. Penniless and cornered, I approached a stranger, an employee there, and sought their kindness: "I've no right to ask, but I do just the same, might you be willing to mail these for me?"

The woman complied, she took the cards. At that moment, I thought I'd met an angel.

None of the postcards ever arrived at their destination. And now, sitting here, I picture that woman's face, and I see her walking down these Minneapolis streets, boxes of Bobble Heads teaming in her arms.

Plane Trip #3

Budapest to Amsterdam, a short flight, an incredibly turbulent one. "Moderate" was the purser's description, but as we banged and rumbled
through a world of gray without horizon, ceiling or floor, it surely felt like more. There were the sounds that drove each of us to clutch the armrest, tightly, the quakes and dives that painted my fellows as businessmen flaunting bouncy, shiny hair. I'd have panicked, but for the laughter of the co-pilot exiting the bathroom. I'd have grabbed the hand of my neighbor, but for my want to seem so cool, the worldly traveler to whom such drama is merely inconvenient. Maybe I am that cool. Or maybe that's what cool is, the will and the practice of the absence of awe.

Having landed, I turned to the man beside me: "Nice to be on the ground, after such a bumpy flight."

Gentle and meek, his eyes were the smoke from water on a fire - wet, dark, heavy. His English was tentative, though not exactly broken, using it he said to me, "This is my first time on a plane."

Suddenly I was embarrassed, not for him, for me, I don't think I can tell you why. "Oh!" I said, and patted his shoulder, "Congratulations!" He
still clutched the console, I added then, too loudly, "Don't worry, it's not usually like this. This was a tough one! It's all downhill from here!"

Born in Hungary, raised with oppression, this was his first trip out of his country. "To learn more about computers," he's attending a seminar. Proud, he opens the guidebook. He shows me. "Here is the train station. Here, the convention center. Here is where I stay."

I wish him luck and a pleasant trip. "Amsterdam is lovely," I say. And I think about the feelings that kept me from taking this man's hand, earlier.
And I wonder: Would I have frightened him? Would I have given him comfort? He, an aviation virgin, this his first time, thus the gesture, the holding of hands, to him, usual, commonplace. And might I have there created a tradition, the taking of another's hand when truly it is or would be nice, to him, this always happens, this is how it is, a gentle, kind and honest gesture destine with him to be spread around world, since, to him, this man, this is how it happens: If the plane or flying scare you, just hold your neighbor's hand. And with him, and with this, a breaking down of barriers, acknowledgement of our own humanity, our fears and loves and deaths, this is the man who starts it now, touching comfort on a plane.

But I just held the armrest, coolly. He held his armrest tight. And now, another soul has learned this: Keep to yourself. Show no fear.

And what I have I learned? Keep to yourself. Show no fear. You yourself will never change the world.

Someone Trampled Me

I was only five in first grade. My parents sent me early, I'm the youngest. It's easy to understand their want to have those hours to themselves during the day. I was smart, they sent me early, smart, and I could draw. And paint, I could paint, and was probably in my second week, second week there in grade one, when I painted a giraffe so impressive it was to star on Parent's Day, an evening actually, Parent's Eve, slated for week three. It was the student teacher who deemed me Van Gogh, the brown giraffe with yellow spots, small black centers within them. A student teacher named "Miss DeNasi", we'd slip and call her "Mister Nasi", or maybe we were learning even this, not a slip but a crack, how to tease adults. Miss DeNasi was easily ruffled by this, I'd laugh when she was called "Mister", but was not so brave myself. After all, she loved my giraffe, a project over days, made better with sticks of bright green grass, a big round yellow sun. My favorite color was red, there was no red in my hero picture. I told Miss DeNasi, "I want to paint bright red feet." Miss DeNasi was mortified. "Don't do that! You'll ruin it!" But at five, a persona ready to speak and express, I added them.

Miss DeNasi could not face me the rest of the afternoon. I'd bastardized my promise, the promise of talent, real American artist talent, a giraffe had rarely looked so...real. I went home proud. Then wound up broken. My giraffe, the star of Parent's Day, apparently needed repair. So when I left that night, finished, proud and safely home, Miss DeNasi, she sought a rescue. And scissors in hand, I imagine the safety kind, she cut around the beast. The sun was gone, the grass gone. Gone the bright red feet. And in preparation for Parent's Day, Miss DeNasi trimmed then glued the giraffe, my giraffe, on blue construction paper. Giraffe poised proudly on the wall, a central spot at ideal parent-viewing height, my giraffe hung front and center. And looking up there from my own child-viewing height, this is how I learned of the creature's repair. And all I could see, and all I see now, are the wrinkles from the glue, and the sorry amputation. And even at five I couldn't understand Miss DeNasi's battle with a child, a kid my age. Could it be so offensive for me to love red? Or is it the offense of failing to listen? And, now, thirty one years later I can't understand my battle still with Miss DeNasi. And for the record, my own parents, they did not attend. And on Parent's Day, I'm pretty sure, no one else's parents were either impressed or in mind of that lovely, realistic giraffe.

Plane Trip #1

The girl sitting next to me must have Turrets She's squirming, yelping. She's colonized the armrest, and has her left foot tucked beneath the seat in front of me, probing my bag there. She's young, but obese, so it's hard to tell her age. Fat makes her busty. I'm guessing eleven.

Walking to my seat, I only wanted to love her. Such a hand to be dealt! At that moment, I'd slipped into her Keds: Heavy. Braced. Frizzy. Sixth
grade, I'm thinking. Another girl's first kiss. My girl's first night home without a sitter - a night spent alone, imagining, eating. I wanted to take
her hand. I want to take her pain.

But right now, it takes all my strength not to kick her. She plays with her food, stomps on my luggage. I pretend to be sleeping, using this posture to flinch, stretch, flying elbows claiming an inch of armrest as my own. Momentarily.

Sitting in front of me is a very bitchy woman. She's hit the sacred Call Button three times already to summons another Diet Coke. Three times
accommodated, she still complains: Hunger, temperature, headset charges. I think about the girl to my right, I think maybe I'm where her luck begins and ends today - working so hard not to kick her, when the lady in front of me surely just would. Afterall, airline seating is so random. And I'm certainly not the worst draw on this flight.

To the right of the fat girl sits a little sister. She looks like an angel. When our eyes meet, hers shine. She's so lovely. I find this utterly depressing.

So consider this. Four females: Me, woman #1. Bitch in front, woman #2. Beside me two girls, women of the future, one all troubles, the other,
grace. And you tell me, cause I do need to know, what is the saddest part of this story?