sun worshipper

The sun and I, we go way back. 

I am a water baby, born into a swimming pool somewhere in California. The consistencies of my youth are remembered by two glorious elements: Sun, and Water. 

I found rare silence and solitude in the depths of the pool. How long can you hold your breath? My long dark hair, bleached golden by the Sun, the ends shimmery like fish's tail in the water. My skin, a warm light-roasted coffee color, an exact replica of the caramel skin of my father. My Dad, a sun-worshiper too.

The Water. A mesmerizing, serene blue, which, when uninhabited, was without a ripple in it, allowing me to manipulate its surface however I wanted. I would dive deep into the pool and imagine myself driving a car straight into it. It was probably too shallow to be diving like that. But the danger of the dive excited me. 

Now I have no swimming pool, and my doctor says I must avoid the Sun. I want to shake her and say, but the Sun and I are friends, we go way back. I'm a water baby, my father's daughter; burnt like coffee, sweet like caramel. I can't resist the Sun. Its warm, seductive rays. My body vs. my brain. Which one do you think will win? 

But this is not 1996. Here, halogen lights replace the Sun, in a windowless doctor's office on floor twenty two. Of course, I say. I'll stay away from it. I'll go to work, get married. Pay my bills, have some kids. Put on sunscreen. Drive safely. 

As I'm leaving, the woman at the front desk says something about insurance, and I stare at her like she has three heads before nodding my head dutifully. Because now I'm an adult. 

When did everything change? I can't remember anything happening between back then, and right now. 

I am a water baby. No water and I am drowning. 

just happy

Shoot. Somebody important has just asked me why I'm not writing anymore. "Maybe you're too happy," she says, like it's a challenge, daring me to agree. I have just told her I am "doing great" three times in a row. 

I scoff at her suggestion like happiness is the devil. “Must be work,” I grumble, appropriately hateful. But I love my work.

You could just be happy, she says again, her face kinder this time. She wants that for me. Anyway she already knows I am in an embarrassingly fulfilling stage of my life. She knows because I have told her. Embarrassing because complete happiness is kind of a silly thing. Right?

You could just be happy.

I think about being just happy; letting all the goodness that surrounds me each day sink in through my skin and go straight to my heart, pumping out just happy blood throughout my entire just happy body, but that doesn’t seem fair. Because, there’s Syria and The Middle East, there’s “Donald Trump” and nuclear weaponry and the goddamned future of America. But also: there’s the sweet daughter of a car mechanic, her blue eyes staring wildly at me tonight in line at the grocery store. Nobody has brushed this child’s hair in years. Something tells me he is a single dad. Something about how his daughter looks at me.

Her seven-year-old face when dad’s credit card doesn’t go through. His rough hands fumbling through a beat-up wallet. Try this one, he says, as if the entire world depends on it, because it does. Hmm, not that one either, sir. Those cards just don’t seem to be working. Do you have any cash? The daughter, now she’s crying.

I am going to have a heart attack in this Safeway.

So this is what happens when I try to write a happy story. You could just be happy, she says.

But that doesn’t seem fair.

nothing + everything

We walked uphill for a while. The tall yellow Aspen trees were striking against a backdrop of a confidently blue sky.  It was like all of the magical places I read about as a child – the Secret Garden, Narnia, Oz –  had unified together to create this extra-fantastical place. I felt quietly happy. This must be what true happiness is, I thought. Peacefulness.

Finally we stopped and looked at the trees around and above us, coming together like a roof over our heads, protecting us from nothing and everything all at once. It was a moment that I’ll try to remember forever. Two enchanted friends brought together in life by some extraordinary being – some higher power – or maybe just by coincidence.

The occasional rustling leaves were the only sound we heard for a while. We were unnaturally still in this natural setting, stunned by the silence and humbled by the beauty in everything. After a minute or two she turned and looked at me, her smiling face shining and exuberant in the golden light. “Should we put something out into the universe?” she asked. She had a way of challenging me, even when she wasn’t trying to.

Yes, I smiled, feeling overwhelmed. Looking at her carefully, as if to warn that I would pose an even more difficult question, I quietly asked:  

“But what do we want?"

That was the day I wished for you. 

this is where

Fall is so romantic, isn’t it? It’s so romantic. 

Something about winter being on its way but not quite here yet is romantic. Like the honeymoon before a marriage. It’s all fun, right now. It’s just fall, and it’s just fun.

I also love the fall colors. The reds and yellows and oranges make me want to cuddle up with you and give you a big squeeze and fall asleep on your shoulder before you start snoring and I have to scoot away.

Also, you look horribly mismatched in this season. What is with the green flannel underneath the size-too-small black cashmere sweater? It’s not a good look, but it makes me think I could love you forever.

You are out hunting but I still hate duck. I will always remember a few nights ago at dinner at our friend’s house when you asked me to try some, and reluctantly I did, and right before we went to bed you whispered, “Thank you for trying the duck.” I will remember that forever because it reminded me of that Jonathon Safran Foer quote. “I am doing something I hate for you. That’s what it means to be in love.” I didn’t sleep at all that night. Only because I was afraid of the quote.

I have some bad news. You know that book, titled This Is Where I Leave You?

Of course you don’t know the book. I could fall in love with that, too, and we could laugh about it in the cold air, as the wet yellow and red leaves stick to the bottom of our boots, my frozen hand in yours.

The title of that book makes me want to cry. I didn’t mean for you to fall in love with me. I never thought you would.

Maybe it’s just the season. Fall is so romantic.

This is where I leave you.

beautiful ruins

-I don’t know, she said. Sometimes I don’t feel special at all.

-Nonsense. You are special. Everybody knows that.

-But I just read this book, she said, about these magnanimous characters whose lives were reduced to nothing. This famous actress lined up for greatness. Ends up a widowed theater teacher in small-town Idaho, dies of ovarian cancer. You know, all these larger-than-life characters – these people in their twenties – thought they were going to live big colorful lives, on the coast of Italy or on stage or in Hollywood or on Wall Street or something, because they thought that they were different, and they WERE different, but, then life happened and their dreams got away and they stopped chasing whatever it was that made them feel alive. Take me, for example. I used to think I wasn’t ordinary. In fact, I used to be sure that I wasn’t. I am so obviously different, I would think. But these days, I have to ask how many people, how many “burn-outs,” thought that that they were different, special, extraordinary, and now they work a day job and are in retail or insurance or some other silly, shitty, arbitrary, black-and-white, colorless thing, and they never

(He interrupts her)

-You are very important. I have to think that you have some substantial impact on everyone that you meet.

-That is really nice of you.

-It’s true.

-That makes me feel better. I think I am sad when I feel ordinary, so thank you for making me feel special.

-You are special.

(Pause)

Actually, you are extraordinary.

amen

And just like that, it was summer.

It’s the greenest I have ever seen this place. The air is cool at night. The sun stays out past curfew, striking the sky with defiant yellows and oranges. There is live music everywhere, all the time. It’s not even good, but I want to cry with happiness. I want to break all the rules. How I forgot about the cricket buzz, the chirp chirp chirp, the late-night energy and the drinking, the vibrant life in everything, the new friends and the old ones, that early morning sunrise. I have freckles again. And I'm sweating through my dress, sticky with booze and heat and easy, breezy laughter. “Cute freckles,” he says. “Welcome back,” I laugh.

We have new neighbors. Everybody says hello. It's nine thirty p.m. and there’s rap music coming from that place a few doors down. The dog is barking. The kid is crying. That couple is holding hands, radiant with the exciting newness of their sweet, comforting relationship. “How ya doing?” they nod as they pass our porch. “It’s summer,” I shrug, smiling and embarrassed. They’re charmed by my sincerity.

Is the red brick on those houses always that red? The trees always this glorious? The sky so captivating / the air so airy / and the roses oh-so-rosy?

That weepy Ben Harper song. She’s only happy in the sun.

And all of God’s people said:

Hallelujah, Amen.

twenty four

The funny thing was that I had everything I wanted. It started with my room. I had a room of one’s own, a room that I’d always hoped to create. So much white, so much simplicity. “A place where I could really write,” as the writers say. And I had the kind of friends that people die for, the kind of friends who constantly surprise with what life has taught me must be pure, unconditional love – friends who cooked me dinner and thought I was spectacular and answered the phone on the third ring. I always thought that was a testament to my friendships. My friends answered the phone when I called.

But the amount of “more” that I wanted was scary, and so juxtaposed the sweet, easy simplicity of the room I loved so much. In theory, I was happy. “She designed a life she loved,” the gift said, and I suppose by then I had. But I wanted the American idea of more: the car with leather seats, the locker room with eucalyptus steamed towels; the uncomfortable, expensive shoes. How predictable I had become, a misguided rat late to the never-ending race. But not too late to join it.