Unstyled Life

I devoted a ridiculous amount of time over the last two weeks deciding between a real or artificial Christmas tree. I researched, polled, and surveyed. I priced checked, measured, and consulted with die-hard fans of each. Only the Due Process Clause has received more extensive analysis. Eco friendly versus cost effective versus aesthetics, it boiled down to whether I could erase from my mind a career-day visit from a police officer in the 3rd grade. He stood up in front of the class and told us to make sure our parents took care of our Christmas trees because they burn down houses all the time. Woosh!

“You won’t be even be alive to worry about all your melted presents.”

Well, thank God for small favors.

We bought an artificial tree on my birthday (this one) and while I have always wanted a real tree, it’s for the best, and not just because I want to live to see Christmas. Both the Mister and Mikey have severe allergies, and I didn’t want to risk making them uncomfortable, especially now that I am Day 3 without sugar and flour. My mood is such that I would laugh at their sneezing, spare their swollen, watery eyes a dismissive glance, and wave my fist in the air while roaring, “You don’t know suffering, weaklings!”

The fact I have withdrawals is proof sugar and flour reek havoc on my system. They are toxins. I don’t get the shakes by passing on carrots. I never fly into a rage when artichokes are out of season and green beans don’t make me paranoid. But three days off sweet treats leaves me surly, prone to criminal conduct.

On Thursday I pulled out of a Target parking lot and allegedly blocked the line of sight of a withering octogenarian in a Buick Lesabre. He rolled down his window and started waving and screaming at me with all the righteousness of a man who has never committed a traffic infraction.

Not today, old man. Not today.

It took every last ounce of self control to keep from inviting him to shuffle to the back of the parking lot and settle our disagreement mano-a-mano. Instead, I fantasized about sliding across the hood of my car, landing like a cat next to him, and knocking the rug off his head.

When I got home, I pieced together my tree, plugged in the lights, and called it a day, but not before taking a picture with my new iphone and posting it on Instagram. I’m PancakesFries if you would like to follow me. I don’t know what I am doing and so far have only posted hostilities and what I eat. They are related. Tree zhuzhing and photographing will have to wait until the sugar leaves my system and takes with it the fiery, white hot rage. I wouldn’t want to set the tree on fire and melt all the presents.

 

Unstyled Life

I’m sitting at my desk, alone in the family room, listening to the chorus of “A Spoonful of Sugar” on repeat. If I turn my head to the left I can see the Mary Poppins DVD menu on our TV screen. Mary and Bert and a handful of penguins are dancing what is meant to look like a waltz while they wait for me to press play. They are indefatigable with their constant swirling and waxy smiles. I’m not so easily influenced. I watched Mary Poppins once today with a sick Nicholas. I get up and turn off the TV. The silence is loud and welcome.

It’s time for me to write, but I don’t know what to say or how to say it.

I haven’t written much about my friend, Helena, since her parents died in June. There isn’t much to say other than they died; it sucks; she’s sad; we still can’t believe they’re gone. I could walk to her parents’ house, but I haven’t. During the months of July and August I was there almost daily feeding her father’s hummingbirds while Helena visited her mother’s family in Sweden for a memorial service. Later, she spread her parents’ ashes in Utah with her uncles from her father’s side.

Those days feeding the hummingbirds were both peaceful and unsettling in that double-edged way of an empty house. I would often stand at the sink and lose time watching 20 birds flit from feeder to feeder. I knew the skinny one would get pushed aside by the one with the ruby throat. The squat one didn’t like to feed with birds on either side. The rest dipped where they could, squabbling amongst themselves for a place in line. Eventually I turned and told the boys to gather their things when the hairs on my neck stood up for no reason.

Two weeks ago Helena trudged up the stairs of her childhood home carrying several designer handbags, a designer organizer, and a mink coat from the 80s. Her parents, especially her mother, had a flair for drama, for excess. Helena grew up to be the opposite in a classic reactionary measure. The irony that they are gone and she is left alone to handle a house bursting with, in her mind, unnecessary possessions hasn’t escaped her notice. Honestly, she’s rather pissed about the whole thing. Amused, disgusted, and exhausted, she later sent me a short email I haven’t stopped thinking about since.

Well my friend…I’ve spent the day looking at the petrie dish of my parents’ life, known as the boxes from Lake Arrowhead. The fact that everything has a musty smell just seems to add to the experience. I think everyone’s goal in life should be to not end up in a box for others to analyze.  But the good news is that a lot of progress is being made on the stuff front. Now if I could just sell some cars I would feel better. I still don’t sleep that well but I’m learning what I feel like when I’m getting overdone[...]. So I’m figuring out this new life of mine. I’m excited to have you and Becky over next Saturday evening…we should have fun.

You’ve heard time and again that you can’t take it with you, that in the end the stuff doesn’t matter. You know that, logically, because it’s an obvious truth. But until you pull every last thing from the recesses of an empty home and lay it out to catalog, you really have no idea.

Old tubes of mascaras. Eyeshadows. Almost empty bottles of aspirin. Expired lotions. Moth eaten sweaters. Uncomfortable sofas. Bills, paid and unpaid. Unread books. Shirts that don’t fit, are no longer in style, or you never really liked. Someone will one day run their hands over your possessions and make an assumption you won’t be there to refute.

I find it disconcerting that someone will find an empty Impressionist address book on my desk and wonder when I became a fan of Cézanne when, in truth, it was a gift from a friend I will never use. If they open my hall closet by the front door, what will they think of my piles of art and ill-fitting coats? Surely those who love me will realize I only wear the red one, even though it’s three sizes too big. And what does it say that I never took the time to alter a coat so that it fits my form in a flattering way, that I let the cuffs drag my knuckles and the waist swing wildly when I walk?

They will open my makeup drawer, pause, and then say, “I don’t remember her ever wearing green eyeshadow.”

The most alarming thing about Helena’s parents is that they weren’t hoarders. They were positively average. The horror in visiting is knowing I am walking into a house of mirrors. Each duplicate kitchen utensil is my own. Each ill thought furniture purchase belongs to me. The library of unread books are inscribed with my name.

Perhaps this is why I acted like a self righteous twit during the Missoni for Target melee of last week. I wanted to tie people up with their Pakistani produced chevrons and drag them over to the house with the hummingbirds so they could witness what happens when you buy to fill a hole instead of feed a passion. I’m guilty of wanting the ridiculous, too, which made me all the more upset. Glass houses are woefully inconvenient.

Helena found dozens of cards from over the years where she offered to help her parents purge and organize. They were appreciated and acknowledged, but the offers never accepted. Now she is alone in that house and getting rid of everything they couldn’t take with them. “I finally get to help them purge, but it’s because they’re both dead. This isn’t the way I wanted it to happen.”

It isn’t the way I want it to happen, either. I suppose I can start by donating to Goodwill that address book.

Update: I ended doing something about all my stuff.

 

Unstyled Life

On Tuesday I cut a rose from a bush suffering under the high heat of noon. You’re supposed to clip roses during the cool, early morning, but there is nothing cool about September in southern California. It was hot enough, firmly triple digits, that by all accounts I did the anemic rose a favor.

The favor, if it’s possible to grant one to an object without a central nervous system, was a side effect of my selfishness. I went out into the heat not to save the rose from burning, but because I couldn’t bear to be in that kitchen, standing over that sink, washing those dishes, with that soap I should have never bought, one more minute without going insane. My eyes needed to rest upon on something worth watching.

There are days when monotony soothes and routine feels like the gentle, rhythmic pat you give a newborn drowsy with milk. On other days the sameness of it all flexes strong up your spine and settles languidly around your neck. You can go for days before you realize you’re choking.

It’s the same whether you are staring at a pile of dishes or a looming deadline at work. What is simple becomes impossible. Too much.

I held the rose tightly as I snipped the stem to fit my small vase . Only when I opened my hand to drop the it into water did I notice the thorns. The rose dangled from the pads of my fingers. I shook it loose onto the counter.

By Thursday the rose opened, a gently scented chalice ready to hold thoughts that don’t belong. I worked through the bowls and plates, past the glasses and utensils, until the sink once again reflected clean. Only then did I notice the three tiniest of spiders weaving in and out of petals. There is a world within a world outside your own when you take the time to look. One spider moved fast across a faded, burned section of rose, back and forth, back and forth, caught in its own routine. I thought it was a good choice. The imperfect spots are the most interesting; they must make an exciting road to travel for spiders.

Would that we could all think like spiders.

 

Unstyled Life

Behold, the magic that is the first week of school. Two parent teacher meetings, two soccer practices, one choir practice, one room-parent meeting, one doctor’s appointment, one swim party, one night of takeout and four nights of dicey dinners. I’ll have to rewash those toss pillow covers.

September is officially here.

Here is how I know I am past the point of logical thinking.

• I start tossing my keys on the entry table. Normally, I hang them up directly to the left. No additional effort or steps are needed so even though I came home and was about to turn around and leave again, there was no reason for me to toss keys around like confetti.
• I would never leave a book with a dust jacket at a precarious angle. I try to keep them in good condition.
• Junk mail is easy to get rid of, so I rarely let it pile up. And yet!
• That left pillow on the bed? With the buttons facing the wrong direction? Gah.

I know there are bigger messes online than this, but for me this is chaos that leaves me feeling overwhelmed and anxious. That entry table! All I need to do is get started. Pick up one thing. Like dominoes, that starts a chain reaction and before I know it, everything is back in place in roughly an hour. Really, it’s not that bad. I know this, theoretically.

Hmmm. Now that I think about it, the state of our home is my reaction to the abrupt and aggressive change in our schedule. I canz handle many new thingz? Getting up early, multiple after school events, and the bumpy process of learning a new routine has me craving time to regroup. I cleaned the fish tank yesterday, and that has been hanging over my head since Monday. It’s a start.

I had to convert the pictures to black and white before my eyes exploded.

 

Unstyled Life

I found a hand painted fan, dozens of romance novels, and two art projects from my senior year in high school in the bedroom of my childhood home.

My parents bought me the fan in Spain the summer before 8th grade. I practiced until I could open and shut it with a flick of the wrist. I practiced until the fan appeared to open on will alone. I felt ridiculously bad ass. I was 12.

I listened to Steve Miller Band on repeat my senior year in high school. Clearly. Also in heavy rotation was The Police, Bad Company, Elton John, The Eagles (possibly my favorite band ever), Billy Joel, The Cars, Van Morrison, Bruce Springsteen, and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. I liked O.M.D. in the 7th grade, Grandmaster Flash in the 8th grade, Cyndi Lauper in the 9th grade, and The Cure in the 10th grade. Boy, did I like The Cure. Most of the other 80s music I could do without. I never liked Duran Duran.

I married a man who adores 80s music and can name that tune with only one note from the synthesizer. He married a woman who reads romance novels. In a sense, we’re even.

I found love letters, cards, and the beginning chapters of three different stories in a lock box in our garage. The Mister had to break it open because we couldn’t find the key.

I annoyed him this week with all the letters and memorabilia. He’s too polite to say anything, but I can tell. A trip down memory lane is best traveled with the people with whom you shared the journey. He liked looking at the pictures of me in high school, but there’s only so much enthusiasm a guy can muster for an “I don’t like you” letter written to your then 14 year-old wife.

There were also dozens of love letters from this boy. Wow, that boy. His letters were funny, sweet, and filled with 15 year-old bravado. Everything was possible, everything worth trying. He was invincible. We were invincible. (We weren’t.)

I found the story chapters at the bottom of the box. I wrote them when I was 14 and in my sophomore year. I know this because sophomore year I wrote in all capitals and thought my handwriting looked sophisticated.

Oof.

Bubble writing notwithstanding, the stories are terrible. I haven’t been able to make it past the first paragraph on the first page of each.

Alexandra (preferably called Alex) woke up to birds singing, people talking, breakfast cooking and the terrible fact that school had started once again. She looked at her alarm clock. It read 6:00. She hadn’t been up this early since school. Now, she had to get up at this time every morning for who know’s [sic] how long!

I don’t know, Alexandra. Maybe until your next school break?

Just…no words.

Ah, well. I flicked fans, listened to music, exchanged letters with boys, and wrote terrible stories I thought were brilliant. I did all of it completely and without qualm well over twenty years ago.

The youth gets together his materials to build a bridge to the moon, or, perchance, a palace or temple on the earth, and, at length, the middle-aged man concludes to build a woodshed with them.

                                                                     —–Henry David Thoreau

Getting older is a strange proposition. On one hand, I don’t feel almost 40. (I don’t think I look almost 40, either.) On the other hand, you couldn’t pay me to relive my teens or twenties. I am happy where I am. I am happy with my life. There are things I would do differently, maybe a decision or two I would like to unmake, but I didn’t build a woodshed. That much I know.