Month: November 2015

Questions From Her Father.

In response to the engagement, her father emailed a series of Mark-related questions.

——–

So I have questions.

1.  Do I have to play catch with him now?

2.  Will we have to spend time in the garage fixing cars?

3.  Can I boss him around, and make him get things for me, like hammers and beers?

4.  Do I have to give you away?  I won’t do it!  You’re MY daughter.

5.  (Why’s he so graspy anyway?)

6.  Will he be driving recklessly and causing me to stay up late, worrying?

7.  Do I have to make sure he knows how to shoot a gun?

8.  Will I be going to Disneyland with him?

9.  Do I have to buy him an ice cream every time I buy you one?

10.  I don’t have to talk to him about girls or anything like that, do I?  I don’t want to.

-jd

She very much loved these questions, which were especially funny since her father did not play catch or fix cars or drink beers or shoot guns — although it was true he did love Disneyland and worried very much about reckless driving. 

She emailed him with her own set of questions.

1. Do I have to cook?

                   1a. If so, does Instant StoveTop count? (I remind the jury:
It did for our Thanksgivings.)

2. Will we still get to sit around the kitchen table, talk for hours, and laugh until our stomachs hurt? 

3. Will we still get to play hangman with Odelia, who I hope will continue to misspell words so it’s impossible to avoid the hanging? Bonus if she continues to misspell words like “Moron.” 

4. Will Mark and Odelia fight over who gets to make the tea now?

5. Can I have more time? I need more time. I can’t be grown up yet. 

6. What if our families can’t stand each other? Can I let you all fight it out yourselves? 

7. Are you still going to lecture me about flossing and brushing my teeth? 

8. Will I ever learn to look for the hand towel in the kitchen before dripping all over the floor? Will Mark get irritated with me and hand me the towel now? Because I’ll miss bugging you.

9. Do I really have to wash my socks every time I wear them?

10.  What am I supposed to do now? 

11. Can we go to the planetarium instead of having a wedding? 

12. Alternatively: Can Whoopie Goldberg be the Voice Of God at the wedding? She does a great job at the planetarium.

-e

——–

She wished she could keep emailing questions forever.

All manners of new things.

What happened was:

After they got engaged, she felt increasingly anxious about the things she usually felt anxious about and began to worry about all manners of new things she’d never worried about before.

She began thinking she should do things. And, since she really had no idea what things she should do, she thought the first thing she ought to do was research what things exactly needed to be done. 

It turned out there were practical things like rings and ceremonies and parties and invitations and dresses and hairstyles, and surrounding these practical things there were other things like debates she was supposed to have with various people about what and which and when, and who – including who should do x or y but not a or b – and discussions about whether the whole thing should be about this or that and/or not-about-that or not-about-this. And of course, there was the cost of things. 

She should look up places that had various wedding-related items and advice, she thought. And so she could make the proper decisions, she should probably look up the meaning of things. For instance the different parts of the ceremony, and whether a particular part should be included or excluded based on its meaning and whether it made sense for her, for them. She should talk to the minister. Not that they had agreed on who he was yet, but John-the-minister was also Aida’s husband and a friend, and it’d be nice to have him officiate, which is what she thought they called it. Officiating? She was not Episcopalian necessarily, but she’d been to his services now and again. And mostly, he was down-to-earth, born and raised in Queens, hilarious and smart. He once, just on his way out to conduct a funeral, walked around the living room that she and Aida sat drinking tea, and dressed in his formal minister attire, swung a set of cow-bells, predicting that no one would really know if it was appropriate or even really care if he just started wandering around the funeral with the cow bells, swinging them as though they were incense at a Greek Orthodox or Catholic Mass. “They wouldn’t even think it was crazy if I did this,” he said, swinging them around, the cowbells clanking loudly and hurting all of their ears. This is why she loved John.

She should ask if he would speak about Carl Jung at the wedding because John-the-minister loved Carl Jung and she did too, and that would be quite fun, she thought and better than the regular religious messaging. Maybe he could reference Star Wars, too. Or at least Joseph Campbell.

There was so much to learn and decide and none of them were particularly appealing to spend her time researching, she thought. Except maybe talking with John, who was always fun to talk to anyway.

Perhaps she ought to see if the neighborhood bar would allow them to take over the place and have a dance party. Although she had never really envisioned doing anything other than going to a courthouse someday, if she ever really even envisioned that, she did have fantasies of hosting a killer dance party. She liked to dance very much.

She realized only then that she hadn’t felt anything about it.

It was only when her father asked: “How does it feel?” that she finally felt something.

It was the first time she had asked herself or looked to find the answer.

She felt her eyes become teary, felt her voice crack.

I feel like it’s time, she said.

Remember yourself.

When her mother came to visit, she watched and listened and up in the guest room on the third floor she sat on the bed with her laptop and searched for apartments on Craigslist.

And when she was about to leave, she hugged her daughter, pressed a list of addresses scribbled down on a piece of scratch paper into her daughter’s palm. In the margins, scribbled contact numbers and monthly rents. A rough budget.

You can leave, she told her daughter. You can do it. You are stronger than you feel. 

Remember yourself, she said.

Despite & Because

Her friends wanted to know exactly what it meant. She was all too vague and cryptic. Did she WANT to be elliptical and difficult? They asked.

But — she thought — wasn’t it like that for everyone? Doesn’t everyone look for answers in certain places and not others, getting in their own way despite, and because of, themselves?

The house. Part I. [Spring 2006]

Unlike the rent controlled apartment she would leave behind, the house was large.

She would learn very soon not to forget her water glass. And on the odd occasion she would forget, she would learn it was far easier to pour another, rather than spend time looking. There were too many floors, too many rooms, to search.

She marveled at the prospect of having a bedroom separate from a living room, separate from a kitchen, separate from the dining room and the office. There were rooms enough to have guest rooms and rooms enough that some remained empty. Empty rooms. It was unbelievable, really.

Out front there was enough of a porch to fit rocking chairs or a swing, something she’d fantasized about more than once: herself on some rocking chair or porch swing, reading on warm afternoons. And it seemed to her that the back deck off the kitchen was made for the gas grill that she would most certainly buy to make teriyaki chicken and shrimp kabobs.

There was dirt. In both the front and back yards, and she imagined what she would plant in it. Ivy. Definitely ivy, she thought. Of course, she hadn’t forgotten she’d managed to kill most every plant in her rent controlled apartment, and everywhere else she’d lived over the years. Maybe this dirt would be different, she hoped.

The two cats, Guido and Pants, would easily become comfortable in this large space, she thought. Finding their little cubbies and hiding places, their window seats. They would make good use of stairs and slippery hardwood, chasing one another, losing and regaining their footing, sliding around until weary enough to sprawl across patches of sunlit floor.

She didn’t know it yet, but later, she would have her own cat, too. She’d name him Taco, and he, too, would easily adjust to the mighty quarters, make himself at home. She would love that cat like crazy.

She worried as much as she marveled. It was her nature.

But she had hope. Had she known to, she’d have hoped there would be enough water to fill all the water glasses she would lose. For now she hoped the dirt would be different and kinder. She hoped for sunny afternoons passed on the new porch swing, for lots of kabobs of all sorts and pleasant neighbors. She hoped that, like the cats, she would find her cubbies and hiding nooks when she needed them, her sunlit patches to sprawl and soak in the warmth. She hoped she would find her place there.