Amy Alaska

Anchorage, Alaska.  A brief but intense three-month friendship.  We were fifteen years old.  Two girls brought together by a chance meeting through my then boyfriend and our desire to live outside of difficult family circumstances.  Gloria and Amy.  While I was yet living with my mother, it would be roughly another year before I ran away and figured out a few things for myself, she was already independent of her mom.  Living with her big sister.  Working.  Taking care of herself.   Making her own choices: the over-the-top ones many teens would consider outside the watchful eyes of parents, enough said, and the dicier decisions, like would her money go toward rent or groceries.

I liked everything about Amy, from her freedom to her big rocker hair and her generous use of mascara and eyeliner.  She was the skinny that I wasn't.  She reflected the cool head-banging style of the times.  It was the eighties, so her jewelry was brightly colored in geometric shapes.  Tight acid-wash jeans.  Structured jean jacket.  Amy loved, loved, loved Bon Jovi.  Her boyfriend at the time had the prerequisite layered long rocker dude tresses.  Me and my rather bland wardrobe, complete with low-profile hair and hyper-scrubbed face, made the yin to her yang.  We were physical opposites.  But I longed to express a bit of my wilder side with a little nudge from her.  I actually remember hanging out with her one afternoon after her shift at the downtown Burger King, feeling so much older in my dark kohl-rimmed eyes ringed with a double-coating of mascara.  She'd even divulged her secret for creating the perfect eyelashes -- separation with a safety pin.

At first glance, an outsider might believe her to be tough, jaded, living for herself.  The outsider would be wrong.  Amy's heart was wide open.  Even toward her absent mother who created the situation which caused Amy to leave in the first place.  She was strong.  A girl fending for herself in the big hostile world had to be!  Her sense of responsibility and work ethic were admirable in one so young.  She had a decided soft spot for many of the homeless and troubled people who set up camp in and around her fast food job.  A few cheeseburgers may have made their way into hungry grateful hands.  And she was a great friend.  Swapping dreams, heartaches, and laughs with equal candor and earnestness.  No judgment.  No questions.  Just the promise of good company.

But as was the status of my life at that time, all good things must come to a sudden and swift end.  Two of my younger siblings, Gary and Rebekah, ran away.  The third, John, asked to go to our father's in Washington State.  It was me and mom.  As an adult, I can understand her need to hold on even tighter to the last child under her parental thumb as I wriggled and struggled beneath her.  At the time, I only understood my own need to escape her nomadic life of faith and the unknown.  One day we were there in Anchorage, living in a low-rent apartment with friends, and the next we were gone.  Off to another state.  And into a surprising new chapter which would unfold in stranger ways than I ever thought possible.  But the gist of it for this story: Amy and Gloria were no more.

Fast forward past California and Mexico and Nevada, skip through Washington, pan and scan over Israel, and take a tight shot of me graduating from Livingston High School.  California.  Again.  Two years after finding a way to leave the moshav in the Golan Heights where my brother and I had been sent by our father to again live with our mother.  Except for my BFF for life from Colorado, Laurie Geiser, there were no girlfriends from my wandering past who remained in my life.  In fact, I would ditch a full-ride scholarship to UC Santa Cruz to resume my connection with Laurie and escape pressures from well-meaning family members who understood very little of who and what I was.

Through details sketchy in my memory, Amy and I reconnected for a time through letters.  She was in Arizona.  We caught up.  Swapped stories on the happenings of the years now between us.  She filled me in on our common pals.  I'm sure we promised to remain in touch.  And then our lives, mine first, were taken over by those little things which almost always rule us human beings: babies.

That brings us to the here and now in Middle Tennessee.  One online night two years ago, while perusing MySpace and wondering just what the heck to do with it after posting umpteen pictures and selecting the perfect background, I decided to search for past connections.  Aside from Laurie and her extended family, including the handsome first cousin I married, and my 9th grade high school English teacher, there was nary a handful of names at my disposal.  I thought of Amy,whose last name I could not recollect, and I thought of my ex-boyfriend, John.  His last name was in there.  After asking my husband if it was okay to search, I gave it a try.  In minutes I had his page.  I was curious to know if John was all right.  If he had made it through the crappy trenches of his own life.  We'd all been a rather mixed-up motley crew back then.  It was him who put me in touch with Amy and vice-versa.  He'd found her in a small town by the name of Smyrna.  He wanted to know if I'd heard of it because it was in . . . Tennessee!

Well, Smyrna is a stones throw away from Murfreesboro.  Turn right off of Thompson Lane, head down Broad Street, and cruise on into one of my favorite cool confection stops, Karin's Custard, on the outskirts of, where else?!, Smyrna.  You tell me what the odds are of THAT happening?  Turns out Amy had taken up residence here about eighteen years prior to our mutual discovery of one another.  Our initial marathon phone call revealed that she, too, had a daughter named Ashley.  Her Ashley was  one year behind mine.  Another interesting coincidence.  Further talking over a lengthy lunch, the first of not nearly enough, exposed a long line of similarities in family issues and experiences over the course of our divergent adulthoods.  It was incredible.  It IS incredible.

Today we met and dined at the only Indian food joint in town, The Clay Pit, and broke naan together.  Her daughter, fresh from an overnight return trip via Wisconsin, tagged along.  She is a lovely girl.  Amy has done more than good there.  Now, we know one another's kids as she met mine earlier on.  We continue to forge new avenues in our renewed friendship through easy-flowing hours of talk, talk, and more talk.  Next Monday, we have a date with Julia Roberts at the local movie theater.  Yet another commonality between us since we were both compared to JR back in our separate days.  (We've long since developed our own unique looks, indepenent of the draining comparisons to glamorous movie stars!)  Oh, and Julia gave an interview once, early in her career, where she joked about the dangers involved in her habit of using a safety pin to separate her eyelashes in between coats of mascara.  Hah!  Cue The Twilight Zone music.

That's the story folks.  How a three-month stint twenty five years ago turned into the neighbor practically next door.  I knew Tennessee was good for something.

This Is My Son

I touch hair, thick, dark, downy new.
This is my infant son.
This is his rather large nose which seems so right on his wrinkled face.
I joke that it caught in the womb and delayed his passage into the world.
His father cries unabashedly, a rarity, because there is no third cleft.
Instead, a protuberance heralding his only boy.
So unexpected but joyously welcomed in the wake of 'wishful hoping.'
We got what we wanted.
This day is a pleasure.

I touch hair, thick, dark, full of curls.
This is my toddler son.
These are the sturdy legs which cut short a safe baby existence for a wanderer.
I laugh at how he never crawled but went from a stilted bug to an upright walker.
His father crows proudly, many times over, that his boy took off at ten months.
Perhaps he will be a football player.
His sisters are thrilled to chase and be chased by their little brother.
We have what we wanted.
This stage is such fun.

I touch hair, thick, dark, damp at the neck.
This is my young son.
These are the tears which fall like an endless salty rain when he learns his cousins died.
I weep along with him as the safety of his childhood mantle cracks at his feet.
His father holds back, for the moment, concerned at the possible emotional cost.
It is okay for his small boy to fall apart.
All of us will be right there to tenderly put him back together.
We never wanted such tragedy.
This chapter is endless.

I touch hair, thick, dark, long and wavy.
This is my adolescent son.
These are his expressive brown eyes which alternate good humor and frustration.
I worry over him as we pray and read together under the cover of each gifted night.
His father hugs and kisses, always there, glad to be a part of this time.
How he so loves his good boy.
Our little band is moving along in the aftermath.
We need to want again.
This is rebuilding.

I touch hair, thick, dark, closely cropped.
This is my teenage son.
This is one of the suddenly enormous feet which finally eclipsed mine as the longest.
I roll my eyes at his propensity to argue every little nothing with his similar mother.
His father knows the angst, they are men, that drives his boy to mayhem.
But his antics are not okay.
The growing third child loudly pronounces his presence.
We want him to learn silence.
These years are wild.

I touch hair, thick, dark, product enhanced.
This is my college son.
These are the well-shaped ears which hear the significant beating of his own pounding drum.
I hold my breath against the lapping waves of concern holding my anxious heart hostage.
His father reminds the boy, he knows, about drinking and girls and grades.
Trips for games come soon.
Who knows if student loans will bear fruit in this one?
We need him to want this.
This time is costly.

I touch hair, thick, dark, in place.
This is my married son.
This is the broad expanse of masculine shoulders which will comfort his partner in life.
I toast to the transfer of power and personality that signal the end of my main job.
His father understands, all too well, the burden his boy will now shoulder.
Did he prepare him enough?
The reception delivers every promised drop of celebration.
He got what he wanted.
This day is bittersweet.

I reach for hair, thick, dark, but it is not there.
This is my long-distance son.
These are the heavy duty miles between us which separate the physical and the emotional.
I sigh under the sure knowledge that his busy life demands him to be there and present.
His father accepts it, what else can he do, missing the boy who is now all man.
Technology and trips sustain them.
At least he doesn't blame us entirely in the raising for his faults.
We had what we wanted.
This here is our now.

Renewing My Commitment To No

You ever had one of those moments where you said YES to something and about five minutes later you realized you should have said NO? But, of course, you didn't reverse the decision. Maybe you felt obligated to the person. Maybe you thought no one else would step up for the need. Maybe you took pity on the situation and its principal players.

Or maybe you need to JUST SAY NO! Seriously. Let's practice it here. no. No. NO. NO! Got it? Get it? Goo-o-o-d. Now, repeat it back to me with enthusiasm. Like you mean it. As if you believe you possess the inalienable right to lob such a response back upon the asker. Maybe if you practice this mantra enough times . . .

. . . I'll catch on!

Yesterday afternoon, while surreptitiously trying to absorb multiple drops of perspiration against the brown satin side of my strapless bridesmaid gown in the middle of a full-on vow renewal ceremony (I kept referring to it as a 'vowel renewal'), I reminded myself of how very useful the word NO actually is. As these drops made their way down the entire length of my inner arm and collected at my elbow, I reiterated to my inner service-oriented self that I should learn to use NO at least as much with others as I use it with my kids.

Roughly two and a half months ago I was cold-called by a woman at my church who I barely know. Her mother was recuperating from a rough stay in the hospital; one of several she has endured in the past year or so. I believe it's congestive heart failure or something equally serious. So, this woman, let's call her Jan, tells me how she is having a vow-renewal ceremony because her mom was unable to be at her wedding 7 years ago; and, she, Jan, weighed over 200 pounds at the time. She regales me with tales of people unable to be in the ceremony, and then she pops the question: would I take the place of a gal who had to bow out? Without thinking that perhaps if I asked my husband, or phoned a friend, or polled the audience, I might have received advice to the contrary, I blurted out, "Yes." I felt sorry for her mom. And, really, how big a deal was it to simply stand next to Jan at the front of the church while she and her husband repromised themselves to one another?

Almost immediately she replied, "Oh, good. You can pick up your dress at 'David's Bridal.' My bridesmaids get a discount. You only have to pay $100." On the other end of the phone, I balk -- bridesmaids? -- but stand my ground. Big, HUGE mistake! That $100 dress ended up costing me, and thus my family, $220 by the time I added the sash, a last-minute alteration to the bust because there was no size 6 available, and a special strapless bra to create a wee bit of dimension where none actually exists. Granted -- confession time -- I put off fitting the gown and purchasing it until last minute because I thought, er, maybe hoped, Jan would realize this was all a bit much and cancel. Foolish thinking does NOT remedy a comedy of errors.

In the meantime, though the date was scribbled on my calendar for July 18th, I promptly forgot how quickly that would arrive. And, I neglected to contemplate how it would affect my big trip out West to see my brothers. Between the family road trip to and from Wyoming, and bringing my mother-in-law back with us for the entire summer, and all the sundry business of kids at home and the like, I procrastinated just enough (again wondering if the event might be cancelled, called due to rain or heat or lack of funds or some equally acceptable reason) that my plane ticket ended up costing me double the miles I'd planned on redeeming.

See how those ripples on the pond expand?

Fast forward to July 17th. I'm fresh off the plane after 18 days in California. The double-dip bride's phone number is defunct; I don't know what tailor she used. Facebook comes to my rescue and a brave seamstress, friend to my pastor's wife, tackles the last-minute job. I'm going to pay her well for her troubles! I finagled an appointment, again through a reliable friend, with an expert colorist to begin the restoration of my platinum blonde locks to brown so as not to appear to peacockish at the ceremony. She's not cheap. I leave her a generous tip.

Two hours later, Jan calls to say the 'wedding' must be postponed as her husband had last-minute oral surgery and they are low on money. The date is moved to August 1st -- two weeks away. We're still in the race.  Sigh-h. On the plus side, the seamstress will be very pleased to make a bit of money: she did a fantastic job. I recommend her. And, the Tres Amigos which appeared out of nowhere on my bottom lip, three nasty enormous oozing cold sores, would have time to heal.

Screech! Back up to late June. I've already missed the bridal shower that her ill mother planned for Jan; I was in Wyoming. Attendance was low. By now, I realize there are individuals who feel this entire endeavor is a bit unconventional in a negative way. Not appropriate by societal standards regarding such things as vow renewal ceremonies. Maybe a bit advantageous. Not well thought out. This had not occured to me. Now, it is the Sunday before my big adventure out-of-state. Jan approaches me to follow-up on another cold-call: that had been a query about going on Saturday night before the nuptials, the day after I returned home, to cook at her house because she decided to prepare all of the food. Fried chicken. My instincts did kick in here. I told her no over the phone. But I would make a dish of some kind to go with it. She could let me know. Well, she let me know.

"Gloria, Gloria . . . " she pursued me out the door, "I decided what you could make." There is a slight pause, so slight I feel I may be mistaken, "Fried chicken and potato salad." Deadpan delivery in her very loud, slightly strange voice. I stutter-stepped but handled it, "No, NO, I can't make fried chicken," for possibly 50 people on my own dime in a state of jet- and emotional-lag, "but I can make baked mac n' cheese and potato salad." She feigned surprise at my unwillingness to fry the chicken, gushing that I was such a good cook, then informed me that she hated mac n' cheese, and stated potato salad would be fine, but with Miracle Whip and relish. No onions. That's how she likes it. I agreed. I planned to make that one and ask my mom to whip up a medium batch of her special mayo recipe for the 'other side.' (Mom delivered her beautiful bowl of Southern comfort hours before I was informed of the cancellation; my husband and I ate it every day, twice a day, until it was gone. We only like her recipe.)

The Sunday before the rescheduled date, Jan's husband tells me how he wanted to create a slideshow but can't figure out how to get pictures of their wedding onto a disc via his phone. He was clicking pictures of pictures, yet in their album pages, with his cell phone. Being the honorable bridesmaid that I am, I volunteered to take them home, scan them, and create a DVD for him. No problem. I do it. Jimmy and I discover how to use our Apple computer's photo program. Very cool. Time consuming.

The Sunday of this ceremonial pursuit, I am once again approached with a desperate need. They lost their wedding music CD. I realize they had planned on using the same one from 2003, but had only begun the quest for it the night before. There was a list of songs and a request to download them -- I used up my meager I-Tunes account funds -- and put them in order on a CD for that very afternoon. During the time we planned to rest a bit, cut veggies for a tray, gather the dress and food, arrange the cut flowers I volunteered from my garden with fern fronds in four large vases, and round up the supplies my daughter would need to do the bride's hair. Yes, Jan asked if I could do her hair. Hair-illiterate me volunteered my daughter. My lovely spouse of 21 years -- all without a renewal ceremony, than you very much -- compiled that disc. Guessing, correctly, on two ballads without artist's name attached. Again, no valid phone number. No way to reach them. He and my son also assisted in the set-up and clean-up of the affair. I love them all the more for it!

I was denied the use of my $15 pale blue sash that I had ironed earlier because the other bridesmaid didn't have one. The other bridesmaid also had a wardrobe malfunction: her dress did not fit, leaving at least a foot wide swathe of worn white girdle showing in the back where the zipper could not join the fabric to its regularly scheduled meeting place at the top. With copper safety pins from the sewing kit I brought along for possible emergencies, I neatly pinned the brown satin edges to the dingy inner garment, feeling rather sorry and amused at the turn of events. The woman, quite full-figured and generously endowed in the bust line, insisted that just a week ago it had fit like a dream. (My little brother, upon hearing this story, erupted, saying that must have been some week! HE said it.) Nothing else could be done. She limped down the aisle -- her leg was broken and still in a bulky contraption -- with as much dignity as she could muster. I followed in old wedge sandals -- couldn't afford shoes -- with my left big toe all bandaged up to hide the fungal infection I had uncovered beneath my nail polish two nights before. The sweating had already begun courtesy of OTC meds I took earlier to combat an oppressive sinus headache; this went well with my muddled medicated brain and ringing ears. We were a classy affair.

Despite a few, by now, trademark Jan-moves during the ceremony -- awkward stretches of several songs as we all stood or sat watching the principal players stare at each other, an interruption of the kiss to demand that the crack baby they are attempting to adopt from a friend who has had two other such children be brought to the stage for the moment -- it was all over rather quickly.  (And, after all, she was just being the bride -- second go-round or not.)   Her mother was present, wheezing and dewy from the heat and exertion on her ailing body. I think she was happy to witness it all. But I could tell she was aching for a nap, too.

We rolled out the food. Three burgeoning disposable aluminum pans of baked beans. Two small same pans of those little weenies wrapped in packaged dough and baked. No fried chicken. And, besides the 10-pound batch of Miracle Whip potato salad my mother-in-law graciously prepared this time around before she returned home to Colorado, there were two other batches of it! Erroneously, I believe they all had onions. Even mine. I forgot! The veggie tray laid out with my daughter's assist -- in the packing, I failed to ask for help, and in my garage it fell to the ground, sending bell peppers and cucumbers onto the little rug in front of the extra fridge, causing me to scream in frustration, but we sprayed and rinsed everything, and reorganized quickly back into a presentable array.

My baked special recipe mac n' cheese was a hit . . . once we were able to free it from the oven. Somehow, the door had been locked, the latch refused to give, and it took a screwdriver and several people with multiple attempts, my son included, to take apart the door, after breaking the handle. That was pure hilarity. One of the highlights of the entire event in my mind. That and the pics the pastor's wife snapped of the before, during, and after. The cake, courtesy of the mom on crack, was not what the bride wanted, but it was tasty. Satisfied my sweet tooth.

Once the tablecloths were thrown away, the clean plastic glasses salvaged, and the flowers transferred from my vases, our Yukon loaded with the cooler and sewing kit and hair products, we made the quick wagon-train trip to Woodbury to drop off my mom's car. And then my handsome man, decked out in his crisp white shirt and blazer, took me out to dinner. No fried chicken. We dined at the new hot dog eatery just down the road from our house. I had the Polish dog; Jimmy ate the Coney dog; Zachary ordered the hot wings with fries but we huffed our way through more of them than he did. Believe me when I say we introduced an element of class to the joint that our son described as "possibly a family-friendly bar?"

All of this was mine for the bargain-basement price of an unassuming Y-E-S.

Focus Part 3

But in the later rehashing of this story to his sister, Gary does not feel stylish.  Not one single solitary bit.

He is defeated. Disappointed. Disheartened.  "I try.  Every time, I plan to do good.  And then it gets near," I can hear the brokenness in his voice, "And I f-ck it all up!  Every time!"  This isn't true, but he loses sight of the smaller successes in the viewfinder, unable to zoom in on them.  In my fatigue, I give in to a personal rant on all of it. “You must like it on some level, because you give in!” I struggle for breath, releasing the need to fix him, and allow myself to feel something just for me, “You’ve got people who love you. In the past two weeks, you’ve had yourself more visits than most of your fellow patients will ever receive in years, if not their lives. People gave up on them a long time ago!” This is not new to him. There’s not too much I could say that he would not instantly recognize as truth. It’s the putting it all into play that trips him up. We are both silent for a long moment. The dialogue to the final half hour of “Slumdog Millionaire” is rolling across the TV screen, some previous hotel inhabitant having selected the closed caption option during their viewing.

Finally, he blurts out that deep fear he can no longer contain, “It’s YOU!” he yells across the wires or satellite signals or whatever modern gadgetry conveys his sounds to my ear over the distance between us, “It’s you! I don’t care much of the time. I want to but I don’t. I don’t know how to change all that. But you . . . you care. You always care. If I mess up, it don’t matter to me. I do it all the time. But it hurts you. I can’t live with that burden, that responsibility. It’s too f-cking much!” He’s crying now. I take a deep breath. One breath at a time is good advice for anybody.

I sigh, “Gary. You can’t worry about that. My caring is a part of my opening myself up to you. It goes with relationships. It goes with love. If one opens up to another, exposing the mess and the muck along with the charming and cheery, then yes, hurt can get in. Most times, hurt WILL get in. But I accept that. I’m okay with that. I make that decision!” I’ve hit my stride now, “You hurt yourself much more than you ever hurt me when these things happen. When I hurt, I can run to one of the many lovely and accessible people in my life, spill it out, gush it forth, let her rip. I’m comfortable. I’m free. I have a husband and children and a home at the end of the day. That’s some pretty cushy hurting I do. I’m not discounting it. Just qualifying it against your situation.”

It was then that the new image was borne.

The new love.  My epiphany on the plane over Nevada. The deeper love set apart from my personal emotion and its interpretation of the fact. This previously unknown-to-me love attached to a larger body, a creator with a vastly greater grasp of the underlying issues which snake through every situation, each motivating factor, all inducements to give and surrender and confuse. How could I find fault in the fallout of my connections with those around me when fallout is exactly what we should expect from one another when we actively choose to love? I’d always known this on a semi-conscious plane, but I hadn’t yet pinned it to my fridge or pressed it between the pages of my scrapbook or enlarged it for framing.

Before moving on to more trivial subject matter lest we both went blind in the searing light of such openness, I gave it one last try, “Gary, you so hate to be like everyone else. But it’s fear. And we all have it. We all act on it. You fear what might be, unable to see that far ahead, too acquainted with the failures of the past, so you nip it in the bud before it begins. You say you plan to do it but duck out in the end. I say you NEVER planned to do it, only gave it lip service, because . . . " he needs to see it.  Before we hang up, he's got to understand this one thing, ". . . you love me, but you don’t love yourself.  You don't value yourself.  Not enough to truly plan and execute.  Deep down, you believe you don't deserve it, so things turn out that way. You've got to figure that out.  Unravel the twisted maze of self-hate.  I can’t do that for you. Can’t give it to you. There you walk alone. And try. Just like THE REST OF US!”  And then we did move on.  There will be more of this.  It's what we do.

Focus is not automatic. Not if the most artistic rendering is desired. Any good photographer knows that. Adjustments are made. Lenses are switched. F-stops come and F-stops go. There is an experimentation of light and shadow, color and line, depth and sharpness. And, out of every hundred or so attempts, there emerges, victorious and exultant, the perfect shot. I’m grateful for this one, found as it was among the discards of past days, weeks, and months.  There will arrive in Gary's life a moment where he shuffles through the discards at his feet and draws out the one worthy of tucking in his album.  He'll stick it somewhere between the shots from his visit to Africa with mom and the candids of us kids as little cuties living in Alaska back in the 70's. 

Focus.

Focus Part 2

By the time 3:30PM rolled around -- I had arrived almost on the dot of the 10:30AM starting time for weekday visiting hours -- only the two of us remained in the naturally lit room of round tables with four chairs apiece, two microwave stations complete with the standard bathroom-grade brown paper towels this recycling queen went through in the tens for use as plates, napkins, and ‘rags’ for spills on the floor and table, and the four soda/water/Gatorade/snacks vending machines hawking their contents at $1.25 a pop. Today seemed to be a day for fathers and sons. Namely ageing fathers coming to see their adult sons. The strange dad who regaled his boy with meandering murmurs about the Soviet Union’s missile capacity in the 80’s and the budget of Afghanistan’s country versus its army and the reasons a trust fund must be handled by someone other than a nebulous female figure neither Gary or myself could accurately pin down, was the last to leave other than us. (As with a few other ‘stand-out’ paternal figures we’d witnessed over the days and hours of our extended visits, we hypothesized that this man may, indeed, be a large part of the reason for his son's stay at the psychiatric hospital, or perhaps the reason the young man wasn’t trying harder to effect a departure from the institution.)

The kindly Three Stooges in non-armed police officer uniforms behind the glass, ensconced in their all-knowing kiosk of security cameras, key rings, latex gloves, and mounds of paperwork and manuals, allowed us five extra minutes past the prescribed cut-off point before opening the doors to our separate exit points. Me to my locker, punching in CLEAR 1121 KEY to free my purse and iPhone, and on to the heavy gates capped in barbed-wire which would escort me back to the outside world; him to the waiting pat-down from Moe or Curly – he forgot to mouth the special toothpicks I slipped him (my one small act of rebellion against ‘the man’) they were confiscated from their lodging place above his left ear – before returning to the fenced-in compound where clients generally mill about their days.

The final visit is not given a full voice. Much like the way in which Harry Potter is discouraged from speaking the name of Lord Voldemort by those around him (I hope you understand this literary reference to some degree), speaking too loudly the exact occasion of the visit is not desired. Instead, furtive glances at the clock high on the front wall, the slow packing of the significantly lighter food bag, and wide smiles, bordering on grimaces, hide sighs of surrender to the truth creeping ever closer, frame by frame, to the forefront. Promises to call, followed by promises to answer, reminded us both of the phone contact we are now allowed in quantity on a daily basis.

Though he’s working on mastering his reactions to situations which stir his anger, Gary often stumbles after family visits. They are too bright with emotion in the viewfinder. Memory snapshots held to the light are too vivid a reminder of what he has not had in over seventeen years. They work in a negative manner on a brain yet in need of retraining. He desires desperately to act as he wishes as opposed to how he often does. So on this evening of the day of our last visit, as I lay on my hotel bed basking in the cool air emanating from the window AC unit, he called to discuss the downward spiral of his afternoon.

Wards Q3 and Q4 were expecting important legal system bigwig visitors later in the week, so janitorial staffers were mopping and waxing the normally scuffed and scuzzy floors for appearances’ sake. The clients, as they are called at this hospital, were ordered outside for the duration of the cleaning. At some point, Gary, who for the last few days has been unusually tired, even after a rare full night’s sleep, hoped to sneak back in to his room. “NO!” said staffers as they themselves walked across the now gleaming surface, “Remain outside.” The inner anarchist within him rose. He questioned the reasoning behind why their feet would not sully the floor but his feet and the feet of his peers would. I know he’s most likely screaming in colorful sentences punctuated by profanity by now, past the point of reason, engulfed in his distrust of authority, and awash in the despair which has colored his entire adult existence.  This is not entirely unique in a forensic psychiatric ward of sixty-five males.  Nor is it very effective.

By the end of it, he has grabbed a heavy chair and dragged it up and down the halls, scraping the tiles and ruining the newly waxed finish. He leaves destruction in his wake. Once he returns to his room, an alarm is sounded by an anxious staffer. No less than twenty employees, his psychiatrist among them, arrive at his door. They request that he come with them to the solitude room. He refuses to exit with that many bodies flanking him. The good doctor begs to know the exact nature of the episode. When informed, by Gary, I suppose, he turns on his heels and departs, fuming that this was a complete waste of his time and NOT the reason he thought his presence was requested. Gary's ‘green’ card, the highly coveted Grounds Card, the card to outside and the gym and the library, was pulled. Until Monday, he learned this morning, thank the Lord. It could have been much worse. Later in the evening, during the monthly celebration of multiple birthdays with a shared cake, one of my brother’s friends – Atticus, a handsome muscled young man with a chiseled face sporting a precisely manicured beard who obsessively exercises each and every day for almost the entire day – stops by to laugh and commiserate, commenting, “Man, you’ve got STYLE!” Atticus has nutted up a few times, himself, once losing his privilege card for over a month. That’s a whole lot of running in place!

(Third Installment Tomorrow)

Focus Part 1

(**A 3-part entry written during the flight home on Friday July 16, 2010.)
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I headed for California that last week in June with an eager heart. I was positively brimming with tender love for my husband and children and friends, my mother, those I was leaving behind for the next eighteen days. The love I housed for my two younger brothers awaiting my arrival on fertile Western soil was more fierce and protective. All of it familiar but enhanced. The act of travel, of my physical self moving from one place to another, had sharpened my senses. As if the focus on a camera had suddenly shifted from a blurry image to a perfect view of lines, curves, and colors. The noisy background fell away, and a clear foreground revealed details previously naked to the human eye.

Thus, the petty concerns between man and wife, the weight of daily drudge and toil, lost their grip as the very bond which propels earnest married couples through these minutiae became visible. The countless moments of irritation and exasperation, of confusion and allusion, of yin chasing the tail of yang, ceased to incite my ire: maternal links merged together in perfect artful thirds – Ashley, Sarah, Zachary -- comprising a harmonious picture. The measured minutes of repetitive chores, the humble hours of cooking and exercise and garden and church and state, they transformed from solitary pixels to a cumulative cohesive image. I was able to step back and realize the panoramic shot which is the sum of my past, present, and future.

So, it is surprising -- and yet not, given the continuing revelations this life opens up to me like a new envelope of freshly developed photos -- that as this miraculous metal bird lifted up and over the sand and stone of the Nevada landscape, I would discover a brand new intensity of affection for my people, for people in general, for the beauty and pain I contemplate each and every day. Below me, the texture of earth shifted from drab, tan, and relatively flat, to layers of painted browns rising in craggy waves which resembled an enormous colony of oysters jutting from their metamorphic bed. Inside, it felt much the same. In an instant, I went from comprehending the level of love beneath my emotional surface, to reveling in the epiphany that it had magnified into something not instantly recognizable but immediately welcomed. It was invited in to stay. And it became me. Again. My comfortable, wide open, fully encompassing, messy-at-the-borders, Kodachrome, hold-the-phone, I-wanna-go-home, never-want-to-be-alone love.

If I can be so bold as to trace this heightened wellspring of feeling back to its origin of evolution, the moment when the lens caught the image and held it within the bowels of the camera, awaiting either a digital signal of interpretation or a tray of developing chemicals ready to convey negative results, I peg it at roughly 10:45 last night. I was holed up in room 226 of the Quality Inn & Suites in the California valley burg of Vacaville. Yes, you read right: cow town.

Girlfriend, my fantastically wonderful 3Gs iPhone, was performing her nightly duties, namely facilitating a call between me and Napa’s most colorful new citizen, my little brother, Gary. Her capacity for multi-tasking continued to impress me as I plowed my way through a virtual pile of downloaded e-mails on two accounts AND perused the endless walls and pages of that vast Internet social village also known as Facebook.

Our seventh and final visit had gone down earlier in the day. We filled our bellies with Mountain Jim’s combination pizza with extra cheese and loads of yellow banana pepper slices, and a freshly baked cherry pie, complete with decorative heart cutouts in the top crust, from Jantz’s Bakery and Restaurant in Merced. I evaded total domination by such foods with a decent Raley’s Grocery on-site prepared tray of sushi rolls -- a food item which grossed out my brother.  Gary’s request for a two-pack of Hostess chocolate cupcakes, a long-John cream-filled donut, along with my own addition of an apple-laden bear claw, rounded out the moderate gluttony. We ambled our way through another slow but enjoyable game of Scrabble: I won, though that does not contribute to the storyline in any way. My brother points out that spouting off that one has emerged triumphant in a competition over a mentally ill opponent is not altogether worthy of boasting. Yeah, says he on the losing end! Unless the patient exists in a lithium- or Seroquel-induced stupor, he or she is often heads-and-shoulders above the rest of us in the intelligence category. So, as I was modestly stating before Gary interrupted . . . I WON!

(Second Installment Tomorrow)

Nutting Up

My youngest brother and I are writing a book.  It's based on the years of relationship between us since he began his interminable stint in California county jails and state prisons.  Between us are more than ten years of back-and-forth letters.  They provide invaluable quotes and emotional background, as well as timeline information.  Now that he's made the transition to the State Hospital system, additional chapters will chronicle the progress and pitfalls of his transitory life there.  Transitory because the plan is to see him through successful treatment so that a societal integration is possible for him.  Those that love him and understand his entire story want to see him on the outside.  Permanently.  And, in good mental and emotional health.  We shared a broken childhood; I have faith in the shared whole adulthood which will one day soon be ours.

One of the steps in putting together a non-fiction book is the query letter.  The contents of this succinct missive must include such things as why I'm best suited to spearhead this project; the uniqueness and necessity of the niche it fills; and any qualifications which bolster the assumption that I can actually put pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard, and create a cohesive document.  Attached with this letter, an initial outline of the book, plus a researched market analysis of sorts, and a few sample chapters must also be included.  Ah.  No problem.  My summer project.  And my summer almost gone!

Thus far what we have is a storage container of organized-by-year letters, highlighted in parts, and a random collection of partial chapters.  And the endless information and ideas circling in this foggy but active brain of mine.  While it's time for me to knuckle down and get this query letter package out in an effort to secure an agent/publisher figure, it's also time for Gary to move ahead with one of his assignments in this huge endeavor of ours.  It's a doozy but necessary for the content and flow of our shared writing: a glossary or dictionary or an actual chapter of definitions regarding the expressive vocabulary he constantly uses in his conversation and writings.  And I don't mean the liberal F-bombs which often drop with resounding splendor in the middle of particularly passionate moments in his speech.

Street life, jail, prison.  They have a language all their own.  The same as specialized vocations, workplaces, regions of a country, close families.  Words and descriptions which make sense to those engaged in similar lives, in like efforts, but can leave the outsider scratching their head as they attempt to string the familiar with the unfamiliar in an effort to follow the thread of conversation.  Being a lover of words, both written and verbalized, I find it all endlessly interesting.  And I believe readers will feel the same way as their new knowledge allows them deeper access into a world desperately in need of being understood.

Case in point.  'Nutting up.'  Take a reasonably calm guy.  At least one who's somewhat in control most of the time.  In prison.  Or in a psychiatric facility.  He may or may not have an actual mental illness or disorder.  Put him under an inordinate amount of pressure in a situation he's tried to handle repeatedly which continually seems to end on a low note.  Failure.  Or plain old exacerbation -- a continued irritation of the area, so to speak.  An endless scratching of an infected mosquito bite.  At some point, it all becomes too much to shoulder: the dude 'nuts up.'  Irritation turned temper.  Disquiet morphed into rage.  He loses his grip on what would be the best thing to do and, instead, goes on a rampage.  Decides to rip the arms off a common room chair and take on a squad of police officers without regard to the obvious outcome.  Run around a room full of fellow patients, angry because there were no chips with your lunch, and wrench the air conditioning vent, and the yards of metallic duct work behind it, from the ceiling.  Often, the losing of one's mind for a quick minute results in the loss of a significant privilege.  Isolation from others.  The inability to leave the confines of the cell or room for the airspace of the yard or grounds.  Generally, by the next day, maybe even the next hour, regret fills the hollow space left in the wake of the incident.  An enhanced blowing off of steam.

These examples aren't Gary's.  But he's definitely had his own experience in this arena.  I've seen him through more than a few.  Life in a pressure cooker ain't easy.  As if I even have to say it.  Just look at the news.  Pretty sure 'nutting up' crosses institutional lines.  Ironically, I sit in MY corner of the Starbucks in Napa, California off of Soscol Avenue, mere blocks from the state-sponsored room-and-board facility which is the present home of my brother.  During my visits, I sleep in an old building in which married nurses once lived.  Ladies who tended the needs of the patients of the hospital set on the sprawling tree-dotted grounds which encompass the Napa State Hospital.  Right this very moment, on the other side of the large bank of windows to my right, sits a casual group of men and women. A close-knit group of Filipino's, some sporting ID badges clipped to colorful scrubs, who now fill that role for my brother and others in his situation.  It's clear they have agreed to meet on this balmy Friday evening after work.  Sharing cigarettes.  Sipping iced coffee drinks.  Swapping stories.  Slipping back into regular life among the basically emotionally balanced folks out here on the other side of the barbed wire fence.  Could I do what they do? 

Could they do what I do?

I'm certain one or two of them may make it into our book.

Until I get to that chapter, I'm open to any suggestions or ideas concerning the letter or timeline . . . or even your descriptions of my qualification for this major undertaking.