What if?

Obama's coming tonight.

I had to park way down on Broadway, by the old railway station, across from 2nd Baptist to get to yoga. Every parking space was taken by 5:30 pm. I cut through the alley for a few blocks, padding across the bricks on my disintegrating eccos, carrying my yoga pants. The sun was setting. The whole town bathed in golden light. The old Bell South building lit up like the temple of Solomon, amber against the clear blue sky. It's warm this evening. People were drifting South along the streets towards campus. All sorts of people. There's this happy feeling in town--it feels quiet but charged. It feels like Easter morning, only a little more carnival.

After yoga, the sun had set, but the feeling in town was the same. Everyone I saw smiled at me and I smiled back. I got some ice cream (chocolate orange sorbet) and went across to the Dakota, called Jay from the house phone.

"I just called you." He said.

"I figured."

"Are you downtown? I feel one hundred years old. We were shooting in the woods all day--three miles in three miles back--boom jib camera all on my back. I don't know whether I'm cut out for this."

"Are you going to go to the rally?"

"No...that whole crowd thing..."

"Me either."

His phone went dead then and he hung up.

I went home. Lilly and I watched The Office. I went back to working on my research proposal.
Then, Lilly suddenly said, "I want to go."

"Go where?"

"To see Obama. I want to go."

I looked at her. Shrugged. "Okay. Let's go."

All the sudden she was on fire to leave, nagging us. "Come on. Hurry. "

"Jesus, Lilly."

Nick dropped us off. We started walking toward campus, getting caught up in the flow, the crowd, going faster and faster. I called Jay. "We decided to go."

He laughed. "Me, too!" I could hear the crowd over the phone. "I'm here, too! You won't be able to find me--but I'm here, too."

But we did find him. That's the funny thing about Jay and I. We always make the same decisions--turn right, turn left. We instinctually follow the same path. Jay took turns lifting Lilly and I up on his shoulders, and I could see Obama--far away.

It was a nice crowd. Easily 50,000 people. Everyone polite. Everyone happy. Good feeling. I hope he wins.

The thing is, though, with Obama, I always expect him to say something else. I don't know what it is. But somehow, I don't get what I expect. It doesn't move me. Maybe I'm cynical, maybe I'm tired. But the words don't roll. The words don't ring. Just about--but they never go over the top. Almost...almost...

Well, we'll see. I hope he wins. I hope he keeps his promises.

We need a lot. We need so much.

I want this to be the country of the kind. I want the hungry fed. I want there to be dignity for the poor. I want us to be reasonable. I want the hate to disappear. I want things to be...real again. I'm tired of turning on the television and seeing these fake lives. I'm tired of our aspirations centering on material gain instead of ideals. I want there to be earnest young men running around college campuses again. Where are all the earnest young men?

I don't know. I want change, but I'm afraid to even hope for it. Something in me has copped to the fact that politically, I don't count. That the best I can do is duck and cover, and scrape out some small place for me and mine.

What if things were fair again? What if that was the expectation? What if the poor weren't villified? What if? What if? What if one out of three people didn't get cancer? What if our sick were cared for? What if we woke up again to the conviction that if we wanted to, we could make a difference? What if we didn't have the inner certainty the cards were stacked against us from the beginning?

Interesting.

That's my 1/2 hour.

That's my 1/2 hour.

My 42nd Birthday

It was my birthday yesterday. I got sick.

I dropped Lilly off at her school, did my accounts. Every day, I look at how much I have to spend and how far I am in the hole. I am about 1200 in the hole this month. I had a bill from the university I wasn't expecting, and Elka had to get repaired.
"Next time, " Stavros says, "please to bring me the car for the roof before the rain storm!" $435. Brakes, windshield wipers, and roof. I was okay driving it without the wipers and brakes, but you gotta have the roof working in Little Dixie in October. It rains all the time.
I was doing pretty well until that bill. But, guess what! I had enough in savings to pay for it! It didn't go on a card--so I consider that a small victory.
I watch Lilly walk into the school--it's an old red brick building downtown. She's getting too thin. She has almost straight A's this quarter--the first time ever in her life. Hard classes, too. AP European history, Latin...but she just keeps losing weight. Every time I go back to school, Lilly falls apart in some way. It's this constant gnawing worry. No lightness possible. I watch her walk up the stairs, jeans hanging off her. Then I pullout into traffic. My parents wanted to take me to breakfast at Ernie's. I don't really have the time to go--I have to work on my research proposal and really need the time--but, I think. It's my birthday and having breakfast with my aging parents is more important in the universal scheme of things than going to the library and working on my research proposal.

As I pull into the left-hand turn lane, a pick-up truck turning right across the street from me by Senior Hall slams on its brakes, and a bicyclist goes down under the wheels. She hits her head on the bumper and sort of rolls and twists in a forward tumble onto the street.

"Shit," I think.

I start to get out of the car right there, but then think about all the other people in back of me. I drive over instead, pulling onto the sidewalk and get out, running to where she's fallen.

"Call 911" I tell the stricken driver. (Just like in the training video!) Then I make her lie down and stablize her neck. She's completely coherent. "I knew that." she tells me. "I knew I should do that. I'm a physical therapists. I know you!" Her pulse is racing, but not too fast. She doesn't appear to have any injuries. I put my jacket under her and put another coat over her and wait for the calvary to arrive.

"Don't move," I tell her.

The fire truck arrives and the paramedics get out. I get out of the way. This bald guy in carhart overalls kneels over her and places his hands on either side of her head. Then the ambulance from Crockett County Hospital--our nemesis--arrives and this sort of fat, middle-aged guy gets ou.
"Stand up." He tells her.

"Don't you think you should put a collar on her, first?" I ask politely.

"Ma'am," the bald guy says to me, "please leave this to the professionals. We know when she needs a collar."

She needed a collar. Right away. C2 fractures can destablize--look okay--then, crack, hi! You're a quadraplegic!

But I'm not going to get into it. I gather my coats and leave before they can get my name or interview me. I've done my duty.

But I'm angry. I call my unit educator. Tell her the scenario. "She needed a collar, right?"

"Of course she needed a collar."

Crocket County Paramedics. Bunch of morons. Horrible hospital. There was a van wreck 3 years ago--18 illegal Guatemalans. Crockett's ambulances were first on the scene. Took them to Crockett first, before ours, Crockett turned them away. Refused to even triage. Some of the victims were level 3's, could have been easily treated at Crockett--we lost precious, precious time, sifting through them, transporting them across town--a woman died, bled out. If we'd gotten her in time? If Crockett had done their job instead of practicing wallet triage...no legal risk, right? They were only illegal aliens. How on earth do you call yourself a nurse and do that? How do you wake up and look at yourself in the mirror?

Then I get to Ernie's. My parents aren't there. But my friend Alice (Alice the doctor who hung up her MD pretty much and now communes with plants) is. With a handpainted table cloth.
"Figured you'd be here on your birthday."
We wait for my parents. I finally call. They forgot. I'm their only child!
"No worries--" truel. Actually, I'm relieved. I didn't have time for a long horrible breakfast at Ernie's, smiling at my mother's snipes.
But they arrive anyways.
My mother launches into it right away. "It's just ridiculous that you're encouraging Nick to apply to all these colleges. What is he going to be? A history teacher? He should go to community college. You can't afford it. He'll never be able to afford it. This whole thing is stupid."

The tirade continues through breakfast. My mom. The mean fairy.

Alice excuses herself. She gives me a hug. "I love you like a sister, " she whispers, "I don't know how you ended up okay."

I don't react, eat my breakfast. My stomach hurts. Kiss everyone goodbye. Go to the library.

Xavier's best friend, Saul, has tracked me down, I find. He's emailed me a picture of himself, taken on a train in China. Golden fields behind him. I look at the picture and so much comes rushing back. Like a ghost wind over grass. Saul. Creaky and dear. Prematurely grey. Cuban. Jewish. We both loved Xavier equally. In a way, we were more partners than Xavier and I ever. United in our caretaking. 10 years since I've seen him. Oh, there was so much that I loved in Miami and left behind.

"How are you? Happy birthday."

Nick calls me. He's skipping school to take me to lunch. No studying today! What do you do? I go to lunch with Nick at Nino's. We get the soup.

I decide not to go to the library. I go to the Dakota instead. Lilly calls me and informs me she's going to hang out downtown with her friends. Okay.

The Dakota's internet doesn't work, so I walk over to the Pear Street Bohemia--another coffee shop--a little more upscale than the Dakota---leather couches, fake fireplaces. That sort of thing. There's only one table with an outlet. I plant myself there, and immediately, the guy at the next table starts hitting on me. This used car salesman type. I mean, he won't stop talking. God. I try all these sort of polite ways to shut him down. Finally, I text Jay to come over. He does. Pick-up over. But so is studying.

Lilly comes by the Bohemia, we go home and go for a run together. She literally runs circles around me, but I make about three miles--pretty good for not running for 2 weeks.

Nick is working on his college essay for Tulane. He's blocking it.

I have a date with Jay. He's made dinner, but I can't eat anything. He gives me this beautifual card with nice loving things written inside. I don't understand why he can write "I love you" but can't say it. Oh well. You take what you get. He gave me a silver and white turquoise bracelet, nestled in desert sage and lavender that he picked in the Nevada wilderness. I'm definitely running a fever at this point, but find it in me to make love anyways. Funny how that works. Saul pops into my mind, briefly, right afterward. I send a blessing. I never feel guilty about things like that. The subconscious is exactly that...sub.

At 3 am I wake up, head pounding. Mouth dry. Feverish. I call into work. Sleep in. Too sick to even drink coffee.

It's grey and cold. Now I'm home. Lilly is doing situps. Postal Service is playing.

42. That's what I did on my birthday. And that's my 1/2 hour.

Homecoming

Nick is back from Tulane. He went there with his grandfather. I think they had a good time. They took a streetcar to Bourbon street and had alligator sandwiches. But he's not talking too much about it. I think the whole college application thing makes him very nervous.
My friends say it's good that he feels secure enough to go away. I'm not sure how we'll pay for it. He got a 31 on the ACT, which is enough for him to get a full scholarship to our state university, so that may be it.
I've never been to New Orleans. I feel really terrible that my dad is the one taking him on college trips instead of me. I shouldn't have gone back to grad school. It's too much. 8 weeks ago I was really happy, feeling like I'd bet on all the right horses. Now I'm a mess. Lilly got her braces off, and dropped 8 more pounds. Her periods have stopped.
"Lilly's too thin," my mother says on the phone tonight, stating the obvious. "I took her out to eat and she only had a peanut butter sandwich."
My mother is having trouble with Nick growing up, too.
Both of my folks retired this year, and they're going crazy. They paved over their entire front yard with decorative bricks. They also put up a gazebo, decorated with party lights and artificial autumn leaves. Then they turned their attention on me.
My mom showed up at my house at 6 am on Friday.
"What are you doing here, Mom?"
"I'm going to sit with Lilly."
"Lilly's sixteen."
"You're putting Lilly in danger. You shouldn't be working weekends."
I finally convinced her to go, but not before she'd made me late to work.
I told my friend Ileana about it at work. I knew Ileana in Miami and she remembers me vaguely--which is just fine with me. My days as a club rat were fine, but nothing I really want showing up in my life here. She probably feels the same way. Except for the cafe con leches, we don't talk much about Miami at all.
"Just love her," Ileana tells me. "My mother just died. Heart attack. I'd just been on the phone with her."
How much more Ileana can take, I don't know.
She has four children under 6. Her husband is sick. I think he's dying. She won't tell me what he has. I'm guessing AIDS. No income. She took a paper route. She gets up at 2 in the morning on the weekends and takes the kids with her to deliver papers. She just had a miscarriage. Everytime it seems like they've hit the bottom, the bottom drops out.
"What do we do?" Wiz asks me.
"Did you know about the paper route? That's why she's late all the time."
"Oh, Christ."
He doesn't tell the House Mom when she's late. We just cover until she gets here.
We've got a troubled crew. Lots of single mothers. Marcy's kid's in rehab, Sara drives an hour to get here, is in grad school full time, has two little kids, and is going through a divorce. Phoebe's boyfriend is a quadraplegic, and an asshole. She's having an affair with Baggins. Anne(the one who hid my cup)'s husband has cancer, they think. They don't really know. Carmen just lost her second pregnancy.
I'm amazed at how cheerful and resourceful everyone remains. How we can all still smile and give. The people I work with are nicer than I am. They're better and faster and kinder. I'm really lucky.

My mom showed up again this morning.
I didn't say anything. Just a nice hello. I kept putting on my makeup.
She left after about 15 minutes. "I'll come back and take her out to breakfast." She tells me.

I don't know...
That's my 1/2 hour

Sangha

I think I wrote already about my disappearing Sangha.

Not that I was the most diligent member.

Zazen was usually held at 7am or 5:30pm, and if you're a single mom, it's sort of hard to explain to your kids they will have to find an alternate way to school so you can go sit. So I would go when my kids were out of town, but then I started seeing Jay and staying out at the farm when they were away, and, when it really came down to it, I didn't want to crawl out of his warm arms and drive 25 minutes to the zendo, not when sleeping there is so rare.

Oh, sometimes my heart just aches for a normal life and another adult to curl up with.

So, my visits became even rarer. And the last time I went, there was a sign on the door. "Final practice will be May 31 at 7am."

It was June 16th. So I called. No answer. And sent an email. No answer. Then, in Little Dixie fashion, I sent a nice little card through the mail. "Hope all is well." No answer.

What had happened?

The house is on the way to Lilly's best friend's house. So I drive by it frequently. A "for sale" sign appeared.

It's strange, you know, because I almost never went. I usually get up at 5am and sit in the peace room in my basement, or, now that Nick has started sleeping there, I sit on the bijar in front of my bed. I light my incense, sound the bell, but in my heart, I am somehow connected with both New Moon Dharma Zendo and Hokukuan. I sit in both those places, too. And with no Hokukuan, somehow, my practice felt very lonely. And a little crazy. I felt a little bit marooned.

So while I was at the library, I started trolling through the campus calendar, looking for other buddhists. College students are always into buddhism, right? And sure enough! There was a campus buddhist association. Met Wednesday afternoons. It didn't say whether it was Zen or not, but I went anyways. I got there early, sat on a bench outside the room, waiting.

And then I heard people coming up the stairs, I heard Seido's warm Boston voice and with his alcoholic "heh heh" I've always thought he was a bit of an ass, a little arrogant, a little lost. Tarred and feathered with that East coast snobbery that judges before it even knows what it's looking at. And I was so happy to see him.

He looks a little frayed. He's grown himself a little beard and let his hair grow in. He doesn't look as crazy, but he looks a little sad. His eyes are bright and black and have that bemused look my burn patients have when they come back to visit. He looks like he's been through something.

"Are you okay?" I ask him, after we get through our pleasantries.

"I'm okay, I guess." He says, with the 'heh heh'

Afterwards, he walks out with his students. With his cape. A cape! The best of us are fools.

He had a great image in the talk he gave today--that we're only looking at the world through our experience--like using a vanity mirror, holding it front of our faces so we could interact with others, but only peripherally, while keeping our eye on ourselves at all time.

So true. I'm guilty of this. Me who started sitting because I thought it would keep me from getting wrinkles (it has). I try to offset this with service, so at least I'm not doing any harm, but this blog is like that--it's a vanity mirror.

Oh, man. What do you do? Who ever knows anyone? Who ever knows you? I love him anyways, that he is still doing this, keeping this going, sharing himself and his teaching. I sat today and felt I'd accidentally made it home.

That's my 1/2 hour.

Mormons

It's late and I should really go to bed. Lilly and I spent 3 hours tonight shopping for a homecoming dress. It's really hard to find a dress in this town. There are only about 6 stores that carry dresses. Lilly got invited at the last minute by her friend, Milton Hollingsford, otherwise known as Hollingsford. For years I didn't know his first name. Hollingsford is the youngest son in a big Mormon family here in town. Apparently all the boys are called by their last names by their friends, so when you call the house, according to Lilly, it can get confusing.
Hollingsford is in love with another girl, Lilly told me. "Why don't you go with the girl you really like?" she asked him. "Don't be an idiot, Hollingsford. Take the girl you like."
He got pissy. "It's complicated, Lilly. Just be my friend and go with me, okay?"
Whatever. Hollingsford just left St. Xavier's to go to public school this year, and has done nothing but hang out at St. Xavier's. We don't think he likes his new school very much.
He used to be sort of dorky--the kind of kid who would show up at parties and spend all his time in the kitchen talking to me--not that I mind that--but then he learned how to play base, grew six inches, got his braces off, and took care of his acne. From my ancient perspective, I would say that Hollingsford now qualifies as Very Handsome.
"Oh, yuck, gross." Lilly says, when I mention this to her. "He's mormon."
I don't really see what this has to do with anything. All religious systems are equally insane. So what if he's mormon. He can still be handsome. I tell her so.
"Oh, I don't know," she says in this new petulant tone she's developed this fall. "They're all so toothy and do-right."
Okay, toothy and do-right was a big turn-off to me at sixteen. At forty-one it's interesting. I know there's a lot of buzz about the religion, but honestly, I like every mormon I've ever met. Good family values. Nice. Easy to talk to. They all seem emotionally stable.
One of our residents is mormon. One morning he said, out of the blue, "I've been thinking about you, Haley. What you need is a nice husband. Your life would be a lot easier if you were married. You're such a nice person. You should get married."
"Why, that's a great idea!" I said brightly. "I never thought of that. I'll start looking right this minute."
"Come to my church. We'll get you married off." He said.
I bet.
But you know, it kind of hit me in a soft spot. I know he was being kind. I didn't have the heart to tell him about the zen.
In the world, I'm mostly even and friendly. I'm sort of nondescript, too, but I'm pretty and clean with shiny, honey-colored hair and short clean nails. At first glance I do seem like I would be a great wife. I'm funny, and I listen really well, and I'm generally pretty good at smoothing over conflicts.
But anyone who knows me for awhile eventually realizes that I'm all twisted and lonely and tortured, etc. I'm Virginia Wolf without the talent, and too self-centered to ever put rocks in my pockets and float out from shore. Or...sink. Who will ever get close to this voluntarily? Not a soul.
It's okay. It is what it is. I do what I can. I try to make myself my own partner. I wish I'd pick up my god damn socks. I look at myself in the mirror. No sags or bags. No wrinkles. But some fine lines, all the sudden. Like the ghost of a web around my eyes. It'll go, the prettiness, eventually. It has too, right? And then I won't have any cover. Scary.
That's my 1/2 hour. I'm going to smear renova all over my face now.