Ramblings

Free Write Friday: Rocks

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One day, before the cancer resurfaced, before the papery pale skin that transformed her into a childhood memory, she told the young girl that stones with a complete circle were special. She taught her how to search for them along the rocky shore, barnacles and seaweed camouflage carpeting like a mold.

They’d stroll along the Sound, down a woodsy steeped path, down from the musty cabin, faces groundward, searching for the wishing stones. Sometimes a clear white ring signaled upward, demarcated from the the concrete grey base of an oblong rock.

Decades later she teaches her own daughter: look for the one with the ring, the sign of infinity round and round. Hold it in your hand, warm it, keep it. Or return it to the ocean; give it a new life among the rolling waters.

They like to collect the different stones, squat and oblong, granular and smooth. Such varied colors from the surface of the earth. They turn them over in their hands, so different. One small and delicate with a child’s tensile skin; the other spotted, weathered from decades of existence. They each make a wish, the girl tossing into the sea, the woman holding on, relegating her hopes to her pocket.

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Free Write Friday: Beach Run

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I step onto the sand, fine and sinking under the weight of my upright frame. Feet imprint as sand spills over my running shoes, mesh fabric not immune to the elements. I hurry to where it is more compact, recent tide receding to give way to damp beach, level and accepting to the jogger.

A quarter mile down, I reach my stride, rushing Pacific to my left, chilly and predictable in the June morning fog. I like that the sound lures me to its wake, wary seagulls, dormant sand dollars waiting just ahead. The Pacific teases with its name, as if it would be peaceable, cooperative. Instead, it is a force to be adhered to, to acknowledge fully.

I nod at other joggers as we pass, feet wet, gait off from the usual city asphalt run. I don’t wear headphones, don’t rush my cadence. Running on the beach is a gift to the senses, to the muscles, sinewy body substance aligned with nature.

Ridges appear from waves past, uneven ground bumpy beneath my feet. Shallow water from recent tides remains in places. I’m used to hopping over puddles, formed after a midnight Seattle rain. But this is different, diffuse, a slight impediment, a refreshing coolness.

I pump my arms, lift my legs, admire the burn of the muscles, the arc of the tree line in the distance, knobby evergreens gesturing to the sky. At a mile and a half I turn, make my way back down the coastline. Salty sea air igniting my lungs, the gentle cushion of compact sand accepting my footprints, my mark as I travel back from where I came.

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Free Write Friday: Vaporetto

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I crane my neck to see the plastic sign mapping out the boat’s destinations as it pulls up to the dock. Circular markers dot stops marching along a primary color, like a linear road. It takes me a day to realize the N line only runs at night, the 5.1 and 5.2 don’t always drop me off at the stop closest to my hotel.

I climb aboard, daypack pulled snugly to my side, and finesse my way to the opposite railing. There is seating down below, past the nook reserved for large suitcases, for strollers. But I prefer to stand above, let the wind whip my face, my wide brimmed straw hat. Down below the sticky air suffocates, bare legs adhere to the plastic seafoam green seats. Summer vacation is no time to confine oneself to the bowels of a water bus.

Tourists on the deck lean over to capture a selfie, to catch a glimpse of the picturesque narrow canals, balconies brimming with wisteria, with dangling vines. It’s a dying, decaying city, a vestige of extravagances past. The city is sinking, its permanent inhabitants driven out by high costs and impracticalities. There’s beauty and sadness in the grandeur, in the loss, in the transformation into a spectacle for outsiders.

The more helpful attendants announce the stop as we arrive, shouting “Zattere!” “Ferrovia,” maybe even a helpful “San Marco” or “Piazzale Roma – Bus Station!” for the tourists. Usually, though, you simply have to scan your way through the crowd to find the bright yellow banners, black lettering painted on each stop, indicating the location. Much in Italy is charmingly lackadaisical. This is both refreshing and irritating to high strung Americans.

I read in a guidebook that in the evenings the vaporettos thin out: less people, less tourists as visitors return to their massive cruise ships in the harbor. But I found crowds at almost all times of day and night, the sticky sardine feeling of being packed in with weary travelers, shimmer of sweat trickling down their backs, each odor distinct but difficult to pinpoint. The evening breezes at least provide relief from the glaring sun, from the thick air. The lights of the baroque buildings bounce off the Grand Canal, reflections disrupted by gliding vaporettos.

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Free Write Friday: Campo San Polo

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Young children scamper across the square chasing balls, bold pigeons and unsuspecting tourists. I sit on a lacquered red bench under a low leafy tree, oblong salmon colored berries just beginning to sprout from its branches. The cover from the high afternoon sun is welcome.

Tourists stroll past with their Burano lace fans, their high-end shopping bags. A man with a walker all dressed in white leans forward as if about to fall over, as if about to kneel in prayer. A child sleeps in his mother’s arms as she reclines on the steps, a yellow bike leaning against the stone structure.

I should move on, get going. But it’s pleasant here, if a bit too noisy. I hear Italian and Russian dialects, I think. The occasional English words from a British or American tourist are too distracting but a foreign language doesn’t have the same effect; the musicality of their native tongues almost a background nicety.

Grey stones of irregular shapes make for uneven ground. The two boys jostling for a soccer ball, bouncing it against the sepia brick buildings, don’t seem to mind.

An elderly man shuffles across the square wearing cushioned sandals, a sky blue plaid cap. He turns, just barely, and shakes his head at something, I don’t know what. Maybe the crying child, maybe the rushed tourists. Maybe his own arthritic knees that are clearly causing him pain. He pauses for a moment as he looks over his shoulder, as if he’s taking it all in, as if he’s remembering something. Then he straightens, and hunches, and realizes it’s time to move on.

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Free Write Friday: Trapeze

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I arrive first, check in. Dark paneled walls open into a large central space. Elevated platforms flank either end, steel ladders climb toward the beamed ceiling. A roped net cradles the entire space, bordered by a balcony for onlookers. I imagine a medieval theater, a galley of spectators, gaping at the show below. It reminds me of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, remade in London along the Thames, just meters from the original.

It is a show, after all, a novel experience. I see a group of girls taking turns, climbing the ladder, swinging on the suspended bar, hanging upside down by their knees, then letting go, trusting they will be caught by the professionals mirroring their trajectory. My friend appears at my side. We watch them in awe for a moment, then agree: they must’ve done this before.

Our turn. We line up with our fellow students, five of us inching into middle age: mommas and businesswomen, divorcees and professionals. On the wooden bench in front sit five preteen girls, emerging into adulthood, a Girl Scout troop on the rise.

They fit us with belts, like corsets. (“You wouldn’t want to slip out of it,” the instructor warns as she pulls the belt tighter.) I can’t breathe but I can’t tell if it’s the mental anxiety or the physical constriction causing my respiratory distress.

The women make nervous chatter as the girls listen attentively to the instructors. Why didn’t we just go wine tasting? We haven’t swung on monkey bars in decades. “Listen up!” One of the teachers admonishes us. They review how to hold onto the platform scaffolding with one hand and grip onto the trapeze bar with the other. We stand barefoot on a wooden beam a foot off the ground to simulate the platform. We learn to lean forward, bend our knees, take a leap at command.

“As soon as we say ‘hup,’ you jump.” I wonder why they don’t say “go” or “jump,” but “hup” does seem fitting somehow. It’s how I feel: a quick inspiration, like I’m about to dive underwater, like I’m sucking in to get that corset on, like I’ve just been frightened or surprised to an extent that breathing in and out in normal cadence is no longer possible. “Hup.”

She explains that really all we need to do is follow their commands. Do the right action at the right time and all’s well. “Hup!” We jump, we swing. “Knees up!” We pull our knees up and over the bar. “Hands down!” We let go, arch our back, squeeze our legs to the bar. “Hands up!” Grab the bar again, swing our legs back through. “Then you just tuck your knees when I tell you and you’ll naturally go into a backflip, landing in the net.” I think: natural and backflip are not two words I’ve ever used in the same sentence.

We shift nervously from side to side, glance up to the net, to the platforms above as she speaks. It seems unlikely that we’d accomplish all she suggests with the right timing, the correct cadence. “If you do everything at the right time, in accordance with our prompts, you’ll hear this sound.” She rings a cowbell attached to a large beam. The sound reverberates through the hall. My mouth is dry. “If you get a cowbell before the last half hour of class, then you can try for a catch with the instructor.” One of her colleagues, wearing a T-shirt and short leggings waves her hands at us amicably.

“Well, that’s it. Let’s get started.” We look at each other, confused, mouths still gaping from the prospect of “catch.” We’ve had about five minutes of training. They want us to just get up there and do that?

Thankfully, they’ve already assigned a lineup, with the Girl Scouts going first. I figure, we’ve given birth, we’ve survived medical school, we’ve cared for multiple tantruming toddlers; we can do this.

I thought the height would be the issue, looking down from above, the prospect of having to let go. But it’s not the height that gets me; it’s the performance, the need to listen, to follow directions, to do what she says – the expert – holding the rope far below, tethered to the belt that constricts, that saves.

I climb the ladder, sweaty palms, beating chest. I make small talk with the instructor on the platform who unhooks the carabiner attached to my belt from one rope and secures it to another. She hands me the bar. It is weathered, wrapped in white tape, frayed all around from gripping hands over months, maybe years.

“Lean forward.” She’s holding onto my belt from behind. I’m to grab the bar with my other hand, let go of the platform scaffolding. Trust. I hesitate, then follow the command. “Good, now belly forward.” I protrude more, the safety belt digs in.

“Okay, now bend your knees… Hup!” Knees bent, I hesitate. Can I do this, just jump? “Hup!” She says it again, into my right ear. I hear her. It doesn’t compute. Something doesn’t compute. I look down at my red toes, freshly pedicured on an outing with my seven year old daughter the day before.

“Hup!” This time I leap, free flying, not falling. I’m soaring forward, arcing across the air.

“Legs up!” I hear it from below but I’m already moving, too early. I jumped the gun, didn’t wait for the command. I did that at track meets sometimes in high school. Spiked shoes aligned just so in the starting blocks. At the ready, all set, then GO! Too fast, too jittery, I anticipated and missed.

In trapeze, anticipation is to your detriment. The timing off, the trajectory all wrong, I struggle to get my legs up and over. Finally I do, muscles burning. “Okay, hands off!” My hands loosen, then drop unceremoniously. I am a wet noodle. I am hanging, undone.

“Okay, grab the bar again. Legs down. When I tell you, you’re going to tuck your legs and you’ll backflip into the net.”

Still skeptical, I consider rebelling, like one of my predecessors. Just let go and fall straight down, as if into a river from a rope tree, feet first, nose plugged. But instead I follow directions this time, tuck in my knees and, wonder! I’m flipping! I fall back into the net with a smile on my face.

***

I’m one of only four to achieve the coveted cowbell, the last of the group to do so. One of the instructors quickly pulls me aside to go over the drill. All the same sequence, but after I let go of the bar with my hands I arch my back, thumbs out, hands shaped like an “L,” and look behind me, towards the instructor who is swinging from the other platform, ready to catch. When she says so, I straighten my legs and fly. No reaching for her, nothing left for me to do. All I need is to follow instructions, release from the bar when it’s time.

It sounds so simple, so elementary. And when I watch the girls before me do it, arms chalked up, faces eager, it is. As I climb the ladder, I sense eyes on me, I sense heart pounding, I sense performance, a desire to succeed.

My first attempt I fall. I don’t arch my back enough, I’m looking down, not behind me where I should. My left calf hits the bar on the way down. Instead of grasping me, the instructor’s hands splay open, empty and reaching. I fall into the net, disappointed.

“We have time for one more try each.” I rub my sore Achilles as I tumble off the net. I have to try. Just one more.

As I climb the ladder, I think: Is this stupid? What if I’m really injured? What if it’s my Achilles? I have a long-planned trip to Europe, leaving the end of the week. What if I need surgery? But I can’t let it go.

I empty my mind. Everyone is watching. I’m the last one. One of the Girl Scouts yells from the galley, “Go, Birthday Girl!” I let it all go. I listen. “Hup!”

And it’s seamless, the flying. “Knees up!” “Hands off!” “Legs off!” I don’t reach. I don’t worry. She catches me and I soar.

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Free Write Friday: Fish

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My dad is a fisherman. For decades he wakes predawn, slurps his miso soup under the lone pendant light hanging above the kitchen table. My mom sews mesh pockets into his fishing vest, fashioned for easy portability of his catch as he climbs the steep hill back to our Hawaii home. He says he likes the quiet, the peace, the solitary sunrise. To the fish he is a hunter, to the ocean he is miniscule. He is a witness to simplicity, to grandeur, to the significance, the impermanence of it all.

He regales with stories of almost being swept away: a riptide, an irritated eel, an aggressive ulua he fights to reel in, almost to his own demise. He says if he has to go, this is the way he prefers: swallowed up by vastness, not dust to dust but water to water.

Mom waits for him on the beach, latest novel in hand in the grey dawning light. They leave just as the tourists saunter onto the sand with their bright towels, their sweating coolers, their rented snorkel masks and fins.

We run to him when he arrives home, rinses off his fishing gear and his salt water soaked tabi boots, a type of Japanese shoe with a split toe and rubber sole. He proudly displays his catch as he transitions to the galley kitchen, deftly cleans and fillets the fish, readying it for that day’s dinner.

He settles in the turquoise armchair to prepare his fishing pole and reel for the following day. His clothes dry in the afternoon sun as his lids lower for a siesta.

Most nights Dad pulls out the deep fryer, lowers the breaded morsels into the sizzling oil. We three kids wait impatiently at the kitchen table for him to place a large plate of freshly fried fish next to our bowls of calrose rice, of pickled daikon radish. We complain about having the same meal every night for six summer weeks on end.

Now I crave fish, expect it, miss it when we make a pilgrimage to the Aloha State. I never learned the skill, had the temperment, the patience, the passion for catching fish. Nearly 80, my dad still wakes before the sun, ventures out to commune with, to capture the sea life. My dad, he is a fisherman.

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Free Write Friday: Sculpture

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I settle at a table under a small tree. Leafy shadows dance on the tabletop, circular and marked with a giant “e.” Cyclists pass on the path before me, leisurely tourists on rented cruisers, road bike commuters eager to get to their destination.

A woman dressed in black lays out a large wool blanket on the grass. Eyes closed, palms up, she reclines onto her back, her face, her posture an offering to the sun that warms overhead. Everyone seems content on a day like today, gratitude easy for a city freed from months of grey with sun glinting off emerald waters, ferries crisscrossing and sailboats venturing to the horizon.

Pedestrians stop to consider the sculptures in the park. I hear a woman point to my table, the adjacent tree and benches. “It spells Love & Loss,” she explains to the elderly man hunched at her side. A glowing ampersand rotates above the installment on the other side of the tree. She goes on: “The tree is actually the ‘v.’ It spells ‘Love’ from this perspective on the path. If you climb the hill and view it from there, you see the word ‘Loss.'” He grunts in response, unimpressed.

I sit and write on the “e,” consider the love, the loss that marks a day, a season’s transition. The people pass, they soak it all in. Another person stops to consider the art: “I think it’s supposed to spell out ‘Love,’ but I’m not sure where the ‘e’ is.” She puzzles over this with her companion. My notebook, my novel, my bag, my water bottle are strewn over the ‘e’ as I work.

I gather all my things, make room for the hidden letter as a tanker ship enters the bay. I climb the grassy hill. Time for a new perspective.

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Free Write Friday: Flight

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A toddler is whimpering a few rows in front of me, the cries familiar but blessedly not emitting from one of my own children. Crystals form at the edge of the triple-paned window, a patchwork of tan fields replacing snow-capped mountains below.

I relish the window seat as we cross the country, no one chatting at me, no requirement to interact. The three women traveling alone in my row are not interested in conversing. We pull out our novels, our iPads, our Bluetooth headphones to mutually ignore via podcast. It feels luxurious, this solitude in flight, this lack of responsibility.

I do wonder about the strangers that fill the narrow seats behind me, that line the rows in front. What are they doing? Where are they going? Where are they from? Are they heading home or on vacation or on business? Are the cramped quarters with scant sustenance and stale recycled air an annoyance or a reprieve from daily monotony, the chores of home life?

I’m most curious about my seat mate but I don’t make small talk until we’ve almost landed. I saw her credit card when she bought a Tom Douglas chicken curry bowl deceptively wrapped in aluminum foil, reminiscent of a TV dinner. Block letters eked out “Fred Hutch,” indicating the large cancer research institute famous in the Northwest. I wonder, is she a MD, a PhD? Is she a researcher or a clinician? Does she have children?

Throughout the flight she studied a sheet of paper with neat type and mumbled quietly to herself. She must be giving a talk. I bet she’s a mom, no time to practice her lecture until she’s suspended 10,000 feet in the sky, away from the demands of making dinner and wiping noses, of sticky fingers and work reports and piles of laundry and school paperwork. I want to know her all of a sudden, understand who she is and where she’s going. I venture a question as the landing gear deploys below.

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Free Write Friday: Loose Tooth

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She avoids brushing her teeth, the bottom central incisor hanging on by tender roots, too delicate for her seven-year-old sensibilities. She eats oatmeal and yogurt, asks for Tylenol to dull the constant ache and budding anxiety. “I don’t think I can go to school today,” she announces, brow stern, eyes pained. “My tooth, it just hurts too much.” We convince her, mouth still full of baby teeth yet to be discarded, in order to finish elementary school before adulthood she’ll have to learn to endure.

The first tooth was lost in dramatic fashion on a cross country trail in the middle of Washington’s Methow Valley. Our family paused for a snack of dried mango, parents and three children irritable from a wrong turn, traveling on rented skis much farther than anyone intended. Gnawing on the leathery fruit, our eldest suddenly exclaimed. Her mouth ajar just an inch, thumb and forefinger gripped a tiny nubbin, crimson blood dripping onto the late winter snow. We celebrated and paid her the going rate. Some friends said a dollar, others said two.

Now at home, her second loose tooth dangles and each day is a struggle. She can’t eat this, can’t brush that. I venture a suggestion: maybe Mama could help wiggle it out?

I remember my own dad reaching into my barely open mouth, gripping onto my jiggly tooth; the anticipation, the rush with extraction. My own daughter is crying now, she craves resolution but is loathe to let me complete a task that could cause even momentary agony.

“Use a tissue!” she cries. I defer to her wishes and lay a tissue over her dangling incisor as she backs away from me, eyes wild as if I am a monster from a nightmare that once haunted her slumber. I speak gently, grip firmly, twist slightly and then it’s out.

Her eyes brighten instantly, her mouth widens with an authentic grin. She forgets about the blood, the raw nerves, grabs the tooth from me and rushes downstairs to write a note to the fairy, requesting an exchange for funds. She’s saving up for a unicycle, likes to hand cash to the homeless people holding cardboard signs on the city streets. She bounds down the stairs with her treasure in hand, carefully scribes her request, tucking it under her pillow in anticipation.

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Free Write Friday: Breakfast

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Growing up, sugary cereals were only allowed for special occasions in my family. If we were on vacation my parents would succumb to the pleas of their three children and buy an eight pack brick of miniature cereal boxes: Sugar Pops, Apple Jacks, Frosted Flakes. We’d line them up on the dining room table, barter and trade and bicker as siblings do. My favorite was Honey Smacks, neon cartoon frog jubilant on the front, ready to leap. I liked the caramel flavor, the bean-like shape of the kernels in my small mouth.

***

My mom would always wake with us, sit at the breakfast table no matter how early, clad in her cotton nightgown and cushioned slippers. The lone overhead light shone like a spotlight in our eat-in kitchen. I remember her stirring a pot of Cream of Wheat on the stove, my much older brother off at college, my younger brother still slumbering in his bed. I don’t remember talking much; we were both slow to articulate upon waking. The warmth of her presence, the hot cereal sweetened with a dollop of brown sugar, was the best kind of start to brave a new day.

***

In residency we’d all gather for morning sign-out to discuss the overnight events on each patient under our care. Those of us on call would grab breakfast as soon as the hospital cafeteria opened; if one was tending to a patient, writing an order, responding to a page, the other would collect their food for them. We all knew the preferences of each other, constant companions for 36 hour shifts, 3 years of working 80 hour weeks together. You get to know how a person takes their coffee, how they like their oatmeal. There were cheesy eggs, regular eggs, strips of bacon, big vats in steel containers heated under red lamps. I liked getting a plate of scrambled eggs with a scoop of white rice, a couple of soy sauce packets tucked in my scrub shirt pocket. I’d mix them all together as I joined my colleagues for pre-dawn sign-out, a makeshift comfort food after an exhaustive night of work.

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