In case of 2007: Fall, Exercises

When I was seven, Jurassic Park was released into the world. Of course we weren’t allowed to watch such things. My sister was nine and even she didn’t see it until two years later. For some reason, though, the stories I’d heard about the movie haunted me. I saw clips, little clips about it on TV. I drew pictures of dinosaurs, and my older cousins terrorized us by hunting us down as raptors.

I don’t know if it was this way for everyone, but that craze seemed to last forever. It was four years later by the time I actually saw it. 1997. We were in the basement. I’d long since gotten a minute-by-minute retelling of the movie from my sister. And, even so, the film surpassed what four years of an overactive imagination could create. I don’t remember if this is true, if I said something about it right then, or if I could pinpoint that moment as being when I decided to make movies. I was already a writer. But Jurassic Park set me to fire.

*****

On Christmas Day – I was probably about 14 – my mother told my grandparents that my sister was a better writer than me. I don’t know if, even then, my dreams of writing had solidified. But I know now that writing has always been so entangled in every part of my soul. It was the way she said it, a slight incline of her head at my own false assertions. I was trying to impress upon my grandparents just how talented Lisa was. But when I said she was better, I didn’t mean it.

My mother meant it. I don’t know if I so much cared about being worse than Lisa – she was older, of course, and she was Lisa. It was just an assessment of me, by my mother, that declared me unfit to pursue my deepest longing.

*****

Three swings, all about a foot from the ground and then one baby swing, dangling by wound up rusted chains. They’re framed in yellow, garish, bright, rectangular. Someone built this playground, but they forgot the grass. Instead they’ve tried to keep the city out with chain-linked fences, drab brick, and dry mulch.

Spider-vein cracks in the greentop suggest earthquakes, past and future. In the inescapable angles of a Los Angeles sunset, towels sway on the clothesline.

No one but me knows this family has a baby. What a thing, what a beautiful chore, to roll up that last swing, raise up the baby so she can fly, suspended, tiny fists waving, all almond eyes and black bean little toes. She can sway, dancing, to the tumble of sirens.

I want that. I want this – four swings, a slide, four walls, and a city to keep at bay. And the breath of a baby in October. And a pumpkin.

I demand that, if I can never have the grass.

In case of BOB DYLAN

Well. I’m back. And even I can’t believe all that’s happened in the last couple months. I’m reeling in the shock of it, the joy of it, and the mystery of it all. My life is radically different…and amazing.

Here’s an enumerated list.

1. Screenplay. I finished my screenplay, the screenplay that kept me away from this blog, on June 22, and I sent it off to Forceful that night. (Still waiting to hear from him, so don’t get excited.) Looking back on that process, though, gives me great pride. I worked my butt off. I wrote daily. I wrote pages and pages and scenes and scenes that wound up in the trash.Sometimes, I would sit and stare at my computer for hours without writing a word. At other times, I would write ten pages in two hours.
   
   To borrow an idea from Madeline L’Engle, I feel more NAMED. I feel like a radio, picking up waves, playing the song of the universe. I feel like I know what I’m supposed to be and do. I feel strong, important, alive. Pages and pages of more thoughts on this later, inevitably.

2. Good food. Shortly after I quit writing on this blog, I came down with some kind of strange internal disease. After some debate, days of pain, and a trip to a doctor, I decided it was linked to my gallbladder and/or pancreas. Obedient to research on the matter, and at the suggestion of the aforementioned doctor, I cracked down on my diet. No more two cups of coffee a day. No more fattening foods, including chocolate and all forms of refined sugars. No more beef or fowl, and no dairy or eggs, even. Nothing processed. And I became a vegetarian – well, more like a vegan – for two weeks. Not a single slip. The pain wasn’t worth it.
   
   After that, I started working little things back into my diet. Cheese came back. Fowl, so as to get my protein. And by the time my sister’s wedding rolled around, I was doing well enough to eat cake at the reception. The gall bladder/pancreas thing? Pretty much gone now. However, what I found out through the whole thing was that GOOD FOOD MATTERS. Giving up eating shit was like…well, torture, at first. But after a while, I felt so good that I stopped craving the bad stuff. I feel lighter, better, healthier. Plus, cooking is AWESOME. So much fun. And I love knowing what’s in the food I’m eating, you know? Let’s hope this lifestyle change is here to stay.

3. Michael. Michael came to California on June 23, and then we both went to Ohio on June 25. Getting to see him, here, in my world? Indescribable. So good. SOOOO different than I thought it would be. (In this case, the “good” and the “different” are unrelated, “different” being fundamentally neither positive nor negative.) I just can’t get over it. I’m dating him, and we’re happy, but we can be such strangers to each other at times. It’s been eight months now – going on nine – and how can I learn so much that’s new, really new to me? And the new things are delightful, wonderful, but NEW?!? How can that be?
   
   As Michael say, “It’s like knowing half a person. The half I know, I know very well. But the other half has been so hidden until now.”
   
   In any case, we are learning. And we’re excited to be learning. Onward and upward!

4. Lisa and Lin’s Wedding. What can I say? It was beautiful. It was incredible. It was just about perfect.
   
   It was also 100% STRAIGHT CRAZY. The days leading up to the wedding were some of the most stressful, busy, manic days of my life. The sheer number of crafts and projects! I can’t even describe it. But was it worth every minute?
   
   Yes. Yes and yes. A thousand times over.

5. Job. Well, it happened. Oggy let me go.
   
   It was kind of mutual, if you want the truth. He and I discovered months ago that I was wrong for the job. When he hired me back in January, he thought the studio needed someone administrative, managerial. But as it turns out, the studio needs someone sales and business. I’m not that person. I’ve never been that person. And I’ve never claimed to be. So it was only a matter of time before Oggy’s need to pay his bills won out over his love for me. This happened on Tuesday, July 7. Less than a week ago. Incredibly, though, I already have a new job. It’s nothing fancy; it’s at a cool little coffee shop here in Monrovia. It’s part-time. It’s minimum wage. And it won’t fix all my problems. But I’m so happy. In all honesty, Oggy did me a favor.
   
   Plus, now I may even be able to go back to teaching my kids. Can you imagine? Serve coffee to hip locals? Teach my beautiful, inquisitive Asian children? Do you have any idea how fulfilling that would be?!? I should have quit at the studio long ago.

Which brings us up to where I am now. What do you guys think?

That’s right…

The times they are a-changin’!

In case of BLOOD TIES

This is my brother.  He is neat.

But tonight, he's asleep in the ICU at the Hospital.

For anyone that doesn’t know, Alex has been going through some pretty scary stuff lately.  He developed some weird symptoms about six weeks ago.  His torso was strangely numb.  It didn’t make sense.  He told my dad.  My dad was worried, but said nothing.

Then, on a Thursday – two weeks ago from today, exactly – Alex woke up and had trouble moving his legs.  My dad took him to the doctor.  The doctor drew blood and ordered a CAT scan and an MRI.

It was the first time I’d heard about any of this.  And suddenly it really looked like my brother had MS or, worse, that he had a tumor on his spine.

I couldn’t wrap my mind around it.  That was a horrifying weekend.

My brother is 18.  He’s the star of the cross-country team.  He’s long and angular, built to run.  Just like my dad.  He’s the lead in the school musical.  He has a lovely tenor voice and a beautiful girlfriend.  I’m frightfully proud of him.

But with this sudden threat of slowly debilitating diseases and cancer, I’ve started remembering that my brother wasn’t always cool.  And it wasn’t just that he was neutrally neither cool nor uncool.  He was ACTIVELY UNCOOL.  He was a downright GEEK.  My brother used to be a natural klutz, socially awkward, incredibly misunderstood. 

We used to call him the Master of Disaster.  In his childhood, he split his gums open and had to get stitches IN HIS GUMS on two completely different occasions.  There’s also a home video in which toddler Alex picks up a kitchen knife and ALMOST falls on it.  I mean, every single time you watch it – though you know it all turns out okay – you still want to grab the knife away, or catch him, or something!  No, Alex, put the knife DOWN!

Plus, Alex was the kid that EVERYBODY tried to ditch.  Like, Lisa and I are going out to do something.

Mom:  Take Alex with you.

Me:  No way!  He’s too little.

Mom:  Well, you can’t leave him ALONE.

Me:  Watch me!

Lisa:  (feeling vaguely guilty) He can play with…Ben…

Though, of course, we always LOVED Alex.  But he had trouble fitting in.  In fact, for a while it seemed, we were his only friends.  We were very imperfect friends.  But we were stuck with him.  So we made it work.

But then, abruptly, it seemed…Alex grew up.

He did this mostly when I wasn’t looking. 

And the second I realized it was happening, that I was in California, and that Alex was coming into his own…

And that I was missing it…

This is my brother.  My BROTHER.

Some people AREN’T friends with their siblings.  But I never wanted that for us.  I wanted – WANT – to be a part of his life. 

And I want his life to continue.

Anyway.  It turns out that Alex doesn’t have MS.  And he doesn’t have cancer.  But he does have a mass on his spine – or did, until this morning.  The mass is a birth defect.  Alex has probably had it his whole life.  It’s a cluster of blood vessels that, about six weeks ago, started to rupture and bleed into his spinal column.  This is still very bad.  It can cause nerve damage and, obviously, a loss of motor skill, etc.  And it still requires – required, past tense – spinal surgery.  Risky.

But it went smoothly.  And tonight, I know, though slumbering in a deep haze of pain and painkillers, Alex will pull through. 

If you know him at all, you are lucky. 

But my sister and I are the luckiest.  We’ve gotten front row seats to watch him, to watch this KID, beat it all.  He beat accidents, beat injuries, beat bullies, beat abandonment, beat everybody on his cross-country team, and now…

Now we get to watch him beat potential paralysis and death.

Alex, I love you.  Fight, Bud.  Fight.

In case of GROUP THERAPY

Hi, I’m Tricia.  And I’m a wedding addict.

(mumble mumble)

Hi, Tricia.

It has been…four minutes since my last geek out. 

(weak applause)

For most of my life, I didn’t care about weddings.  They were always the same awful things:  stuffy, boring, cheesy.  They were copies of copies of copies.  Tradition.  Formality.  They required uncomfortable clothes and uncomfortable conversations with distant relatives.

But then, in September, my sister got engaged.  And she started to plan.  That’s when I geeked out for the first time.  She sent me this link: www.stylemepretty.com.  And she told me that she was thinking of getting married in a barn.  A barn!  Good grief that’s cute, I thought.  So I clicked on the link and I saw that weddings could be beautiful.  Tradition?  Formality?  No.  Weddings could be classy.  Weddings could be THE GREATEST THING EVER.

Since then I’ve been geeking out every day.  My sister created this wedding blog of her own (http://writtenbliss.blogspot.com).  And now I pretty much live there.  She’s got all these pictures of up the adorable little brown paper envelopes she’s going to send her invitations in, and some really wonderful stories about guestbook conversations, and two perfectly GORGEOUS inspiration boards. 

Plus, I’m totally IN this wedding.  It’s not even that I’m going.  I’m the freaking MAID OF HONOR.  Which means that I get to stand there next to my beautiful sister in her good-grief-that’s-cute barn and hold a bouquet and everything.  And everybody – but everybody – we know and love is going to be there.  And since I realized that?  I’ve started geeking out at least once an hour.

I’m kind of ashamed to admit it.  But I can’t help it!  She designed this whole incredible monogram for the invitations and she bought this dress and now she’s sending me links with more amazing wedding blogs, like www.eluckyme.com and www.weddingbee.com, plus a whole host of other links for photography and cakes and decorations.  So what am I supposed to do? I’m wedding obsessed!  It’s all I want to talk about weddings to everyone!  All the time!

And the worst part?  I don’t even want to quit.  At all.

(shocked murmurs)

That’s right.  I’m not going to quit.

I've gotta go geek out.

Excuse me.  (leaves the podium)

In case of THINGS THAT ARE STILL TRUE

July.3.2007
For the beauty of the earth

There is so much grace in the world. It’s so funny to me how we are always given enough grace. Always.

I say that it’s funny because I think life is generally comedic. Even when it’s sad, there’s an element of humor, of joy, of promised restoration. Even when you feel so low. Even when you don’t know if a situation will end well. Even then.

I went to a wedding on Friday. Beth described the evening as “romantic,” which just happened to be the perfect adjective. We all stood on the front lawn, bare legs and shoulders, toes eased out of uncomfortable shoes. It was one of those firefly evenings, in spite of California.  The suspense of gold champagne in glasses, hovering between mouths and fingertips. The elderly and middle aged (their eternal moments still shining, but stuck in some previous era) gravitated toward the house, sat indoors on the antique furniture, discussed, I don't know.  Politics, maybe. Maybe marriage. I’d like to give them credit, knowing they were once us and that someday we’ll be them.

But we were not them on Friday. Almost everyone under the age of thirty draped themselves on the front porch, cotton and silk dresses flowing down from one stair to the next.  It was like -- I don't know -- a declaration to the world that we were standing on the brink, the edge, perched and ready for our chance, but still indulgent, enjoying one another while we could. Laughing.  The wonder was not then and will not be lost on us, not for years.

Even a wedding, which some might think is the end of being reckless, is heroic, epochal! How could anyone be so brave to love so deeply? How could anyone sit on the steps in the waning sun and laugh when we have lost wallets and keys, minutes and hours, built and burned bridges, inflicted and felt wounds? And some of us have lost friends. And some of us have lost faith. And some of us know that the house we’re sitting on will deteriorate, succumb to entropy, and that so many circumstances are, even now, not kind and not warm and not forgiving. How dare we dance, loop arms around waists, lick chocolate frosting off our fingers?

Why was I sent a quiet friend to sit with me, unjudging, when I have been so wrong? Why was I even allowed to hold the hand of someone I hurt so deeply?

Grace. Only grace.
There is so much grace in the world.