The Past Is a Discovered Country But Poorly Understood

I try to remember the girl I was in this picture, but it isn't easy. (And yes, I've blogged about one of the fellows in this photo, never you mind who.)

The picture here was taken only after about two or three days in Bulgaria as a Peace Corps volunteer. It was July 4th and I hardly knew any of my fellow volunteers. Over the next 2 years perhaps we got to know each too well in some ways and not nearly enough in others.

Seventeen years after that photo, I have no idea what has happened to any of the gentlemen in the photograph beyond this–one married a Bulgarian, one had to be psycho-vaced out of the country and perhaps his Bulgarian girlfriend joined him later, and another married his fiancee. Or so I heard.

But the other day I a particular memory of one long Peace Corps night that didn’t take place in Bulgaria came to me as vivid as yesterday (why do memories sometimes surprise us like that?). I was in Bratislava, Slovakia (a lovely cit, by the way). The time of my flight out of Bratislava and back to Sofia, Bulgaria meant spending the night in the Bratislava train station.

From one in the morning until six in the morning there are only a few men hanging out at the train station. I was the only westerner and the only woman. I walked around to stay awake. I smiled at no one. In my memory there is a lot of white and empty space. I would sit on one bench for a while and then move to another. I bought shots of coffee and techno music blared through speakers. Every man watched me get up move from one place to the next. One man spoke to me, but I didn’t speak Slovak, so I shrugged and turned away. The train station felt like the only place in the universe and the only question that returned to mind was whether any woman should ever travel alone.

No friend or family member knew where I was. This was before (can you remember this life?) before cell phones and so many laptops. There was no one to call if help was needed.

And still when I think about being 25 years old, without one bit of technology within reach, no knowledge of the language around me, at four in the morning, being watched by a few men in flashy suits or tattered, too well-worn clothes, while I struggled to stay awake, I wonder why sharing my writing is scarier.

That makes no sense, does it?

I wish I’d spent that night in the train station writing.

Asking for Trouble

When I say to her, “That’s a pretty bracelet,” she says, “Thanks! I bought it from a Christian jeweler!”

When I say, “I like the painting over the fireplace,” she says, “Thanks! I got it from a Christian painter!”

And I confess, I want to say, “Oh, well, thank heaven it wasn’t a Muslim or a Jew!”

Supporting people who share your values, worldview, or however you’d like to phrase it is something I do, too. If certain businesses slap certain political bumper stickers on their work trucks, well, I figure they don’t mind losing certain segments of the public. Fair enough.

But I don’t usually announce it. And if the item in question is art…I have no idea of the politics or beliefs of the artists whose work hangs on my wall or most of the books on my shelves.

Why are these adjectives necessary? I don’t want to be called a mommy-blogger or a woman-writer. It’s like saying, non-moms and men need not read. You-people-not-like-me go away. This is probably why I’m having a hard time trying to decide what kind of writer I am. It seems like cutting off other possibilities or, worse, readers. You know, the type of person who looks at the label and knows that label is all she needs to know. Oh, I don’t read that.

Of course, maybe we want some people to go away. And those labels can help me decide what to read so that I don’t read anything that disagrees with me!

I should read more people who challenge me and shows me where I might be wrong or at least shines a light on a world I haven’t bothered to see before. What have you read that challenges you?

Understanding Character

at Joe's

I walked toward the door of Joe’s thinking my worries were over. Not that my stomach didn’t twist a bit. That Guy might be there. But that was silly. He’d had one disagreement with the owners, been accused of bothering female customers, it is only in my writer imagination that he’d be in there.

I open the side door and can see Barista M. at the counter and I can see That Guy out of the corner of my eye sitting at my favorite table. My stomach drops. He knows I complained about him.

Barista M. looks at me wide-eyed. I get the counter. That Guy is sitting perhaps six feet behind me. M. leans in and says, “He’s here.”

“I know. Um, I’ll a…” I get my wallet out.

“You want me to make him leave?” she asks.

I shake my head. He isn’t doing anything. He has a right to be there if he isn’t bothering anyone and I don’t want a scene.

“Are you okay?” she asks.

I think about my dogs, taking Sundae back to the shelter, my Porter Dog diagnosed with a heart condition and could go into cardiac failure at any time, my school with my classes at overcapacity, my student crying everyday on the edge of a breakdown, my husband’s food poisoning last week and son’s near concussion, the afternoon of arguing with my son, and I don’t have any time to write because I’m swapped with papers to grade, and I don’t want to face some guy who’s got his ego out of whack.

M offers to let me have a room all to myself. The coffee house has three rooms, the main room, the cellar, and the boardroom. People can reserve the two side rooms for meetings or events. The cellar was closed of because they’d been redoing the floor. “You can have the whole room to yourself. They finished it today but we weren’t going to open it until tomorrow.”

“That’s not necessary. I’ll take my latte.” I hand her my coffee card. She doesn’t take it. “No. I got it. Are you sure you’re okay? You look upset.”

I tap the coffee card on the counter. I tell her about the dogs and my son’s bad mood and I don’t forget That Guy is 6 feet behind me facing the counter. M and I talk. She makes my latte. Then she says, “Wait here.” She zips out from behind the counter and around the coffee house. She finds a table in the boardroom out of sight of my favorite table. She carries my coffee for me as I lug my purse, computer bag, and stack of papers to grade. “I’ll make him leave,” she says.

I shake my head.

ABout 10 minutes later M comes into the room to tell me That Guy has left. “Are you sure?” I ask. “He said bye,” she replies.

I go to my favorite table, a while later two friends show up and join me. We have fun talking while I grade grammar tests.

Later, M tells me the owners had also talked to That Guy about his coming in, sitting at a table for hours, and not buying anything.

That was all last night. This afternoon I stopped by Joe’s again for a quick coffee before picking up my son from school. Different baristas were working. “Hey,” says Barista S., “did you hear we kicked That Guy out?”

“What?”

Barista K nodded. “L. did it. He was acting weird…”

“Looking at women,” added S. “L. made him leave.” He swings his arms for emphasis.

“Um, when?” I ask.

“Days ago.”

“Days?”

S. nods. “Yeah.”

“But he was here last night,” I say.

Both S. and K. say, “What?!”

“You mean, ” I say snapping the lid on my coffee, “he got thrown out and he still came back? Sh*t. Sh*t. Sh*t. Who the hell does that?”

“We’re talking to D,” says S.

“He knows I complained, you know,” I say. I tell them D. let him know it was me who complained.

“That’s bad,” S. said, shaking his head. “D. doesn’t think sometimes.”

*

If I were writing a story about a guy like this, I’d know his motivation. I’d know what he wanted and why. If you wrote a story about a guy like this, what would you have his motivation be?

If you accidentally swallowed leaches with your soup…

If you could give guilt a physical form, what would it be? Pick any emotion. What would anger be? Or love? Or apathy?

One month ago, we got a second dog. Our first dog, Porter, is now 14. We got him 13 years ago at the animal shelter. A Corgi mix, he is an awesome dog, but not really fast enough these days for a seven-year-old child.

Sundae, our second dog, also came from the shelter. A sweetheart and Jack Russell Terrier mix. 4 years old already. Shy and anxious to please, dropping to the floor and curling into a ball if she thought she might possibly be in trouble.

My son loved her. He fed her from his hand. He walked her. He slept with her by his side. He told everyone about her. He used his allowance to buy her a toy and a new collar. “She’s really my dog,” he kept saying, “and I’ve got to be responsible for her.”

Then one evening he leaned in to give her a hug and she bit him. She put a hole in his lip. Blood coated his gums and teeth. He screamed, and when he could talk, a cold cloth on his lip, his eyes swollen, he looked over at her and gulped, “I love her.” He scrunched his eyes close. “She doesn’t love me!”

Sundae was sitting on the bed, looking cowed, shivering so hard you’d think she’d be rattling. My husband and I exchanged the kind of looks parents exchange when they know things aren’t going to end well & they don’t know what to say to the kid.

In the morning, my son said he wanted to give Sundae another chance. Maybe he’d startled her, he said. Maybe once she got more comfortable, she’d be nicer. Most of the time she was nicer. She loved to be with someone, sitting in a lap or close to.

When I was bitten by a dog as a kid, my grandmother got rid of the dog the next day. But that was a Siberian Huskey that could rip out your throat. My son picked Sundae up and carried her around. “It’s okay,” he say. “I know you didn’t mean it. You just don’t trust us yet.”

She growled at him the next day. At night, if he rolled over and disturbed her sleep, she’d wake up and snap the air. Never at my husband or me, but at our son, and he’d jump back, eyes wide. “She doesn’t love me, Mom,” he said. Then he’d pick her. “I love you, Sundae. I’m going to take care of you.”

I wanted to suggest we take her back to the shelter, but they euthanize dogs, and I couldn’t bring myself to do it. But then she growled at my son’s best friend. “Sundae isn’t allowed to play with your friends,” I said, shutting her away in another room.

The next night, my son went to pet her and her growl sent him jumping back. He stared at her a while. “Mom,” he said, “I’ve been thinking about something for several days.” he stopped. “I didn’t know how to tell you.” He got up and moved further away from his dog. “I don’t think I want to keep Sundae.”

Some friends suggested animal trainers, but I read what ASPCA says about biting dogs and I wasn’t optimistic. And you never know if a dog is cured of biting. All you know is that they haven’t bitten anyone…yet. What if I had to call someone’s mother and tell them our dog had bittent her child?

But Sundae adored me. She’d follow me. Sit in my lap or under my chair. “She trusts us, Mom,” my son said.

We took her back to the shelter today. “How will she feel?” my son asked. “Will she wonder where we are?” He gave the shelter her favorite pillows and the toy he’d bought her.

I cried at the shelter. My son didn’t cry until much later this evening. “I want Sundae back,” he said. “Why did we have to take her?”

I can’t keep a dog that bites my child, but I think of there in that cage, so small and alone, wondering where we were. The whole month we had her I thought she looked at us as if we weren’t really her family, that we’d leave her too. Maybe dogs don’t think things like that.

We could’ve tried to find a home for her, of course. But she has heartworms. We’d have to pay for the treatment and then give her away or hope someone else would pay for the treatment–someone else without kids. And the treatment isn’t cheap. Worth it if we’d keep her for years. But… but this… but that… feels wrong, like I’ve just done the wrong thing.

A terrier rescus group called me from the shelter. They had questions about her before they decided if they could take her from the shelter for a foster family. Because she’s bitten someone, if they don’t take her, she’ll probably be euthanized. I didn’t ask what they decided. I’m a coward.

If we hadn’t adopted her in the first place, she might’ve been taken in by someone without children. She’d be safe and cared for. She’d be okay.

But that thinking doesn’t get you anywhere.

If we hadn’t adopted her… if she hadn’t been left on the streets in the first place… if we had waited another week to go to the shelter… if I wasn’t me…

If I’d started writing seriously 20 years ago… if I tried harder to get an agent… if I worked harder…

All those ifs are bound to make a person sick to the stomach.

And that’s the end.

suspicious behavior at Joe's--please note master storytellers and wary bystander

I went to Joe’s today to buy coffee and breakfast tacos. One of the owners, D., was working the counter, and he asked if I had a moment to talk.

D. talked to That Guy on the phone. They’d had some other issue with him–”weird” chimed in D’s partner–but he also talked about me. D. told That Guy that he’d bothered me. He told him to not do it again. And he told him if he heard one more complaint about him bothering anyone, he wouldn’t be allowed back in the coffee house.

That guy replied (and of course this isn’t an exact quote, being second hand and all), “I just thought she was attractive. I was making conversation. I wasn’t being sexually aggressive.”

D. said, “I didn’t say you were sexually aggressive. I said I didn’t want you bothering my customers–you don’t stare at women like that.”

That Guy hasn’t been back to Joe’s. But he does I know I complained.

I imagine he will tell his friends how he’d struck up a friendly conversation with a woman in a cafe and she got all freaked out, complained, and now he can’t go back to that coffee shop because she got everyone to believe he was some sort of rapist.

Women! You can’t even talk to them!

If I can’t control what some strange guy in a cafe thinks about me, there’s no hope for what people will think of my writing.

How many words tells a story?

One of my students has decided to write a novel. He’s 20 and French. His novel is a thriller with a dash of sci-fi. The premise is great, and the writing can really come together if he gives it the attention it deserves.

I’ve never had a student want to write a novel. Or at least, I’ve never had a student confess to wanting to and actually putting forth real effort. This student has written eight chapters already, and I read them in class during the moments students have to work quietly at their desks.

He has no clue how the publishing industry works. This makes him extremely optimistic about his novel’s future.

Then there is the student on the other side of the room. Today I said to him, “I want to believe that you are less interested in doing the work quickly and more interested in doing your work well.” For once he looked chastened and focused on his paragraph.

The assignment was to write a list of family members who are important to you. Pick one person from that list and write a paragraph describing your relationship.

The student who can never stay focused for more than two minutes at a time asked, “Three sentences are enough, right?”

The budding novelist across the room said, “If that’s all the relationship is worth.”

Indeed.

Be brief and concise. Sure. But how many words is any story worth?

The Unexpected

My son and I walked up the concrete steps after spending about an hour walking around a nearby pond, taking pictures of action figures, and watching a woman and her sons try to get a frisbee out of a tree. The sun had come out from behind the clouds turning the air sticky. The walk up the steps from the water had worn me out and I was out of breath.

At the top of the steps I saw a student who I’d not seen in a year. She’s a facebook friend, but she didn’t post much. I hadn’t kept up with her except for the comments she left on my photos. She’d always been polite and earnest if a bit odd. The other students never liked her much.

Of The Great Gatsby she’d said, “But why does he cheating if cheating is wrong?” and a few minutes later, “He must leave his wife because Daisy is very beautiful.”

So I see my student at the top of the stairs and I’m out of breath and my son is running up ahead, and I realize, just as my student sees me, that she is in a wheelchair. And as I cheerfully say,” Hello! How are you doing?” I realize that she no longer has one leg.

And my brain dashes about wildly trying to process this information as if it could cram this news into my skull and out would come the correct response in 3 seconds.

Haven’t you ever been in a situation where you desperately and quickly want to say the right thing and you know you’re going to fail?

On the bright side, I can use that feeling in my writing.

Cover Yourself

When I tell people I teach English as a second language, they usually say, “Oh. You speak Spanish?”

“No.” I wait a beat. “Most of my students don’t speak Spanish either.”

My students come from Mexico, Chile, Argentina, Colombia, Venezuela, Brazil, Spain, France, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Turkey, Pakistan, Taiwan, China, Thailand, Japan, and South Korea. In other terms students have come from Vietnam, Indonesia, Burkina Faso, Madagascar, India, Russia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Serbia, Bosnia, Poland, Georgia, Germany, Guinea, Kenya, Morocco, Libya, Guatemala, Panama, Bolivia, Uruguay, Cuba, Peru, Syria, and Qatar.

I’ve probably forgotten someone, but you get the idea.

There is that moment when you ask a student where he or she is from. He might say, “Turkey.” And you can say, “Wow. I’ve been to Istanbul. What an amazing city!” Or she might say, “Japan.” And you could say, “Oh, I hope to go there one day.” Or the student might say, “Iraq.” And your brain stumbles over what you should say. I settled for momentary confusion “Iraq? Well, that’s great,” followed by adequate recovery, “It’s good to meet you and I’m glad you’re here.”

One field trip I was walking with a student from Vietnam and we met a Vietnam vet. They got along very well. Another term I had a female student Bosnia in class with a male student from Serbia. He’d been a soldier. They never sat together. And I’ve had a student from China correct a student who said she was from Taiwan. “No. You are from China!”

I’ve seen Muslim students hug our Jewish teacher and listened to them share jokes about not eating pork. I’ve seen a Japanese student marry a Korean student, and a Thai student hit on every female nearby no matter where she was from. “You are very pretty. Sit next to me. Please!”

If I can’t make a living writing and making art, this is the best job ever.

A few weeks ago, I was looking for a particular student. Her friends were in the corner of the school’s lobby. Ten Muslim women, some sitting, a few standing. One is dressed in jeans and a long sleeve shirt and her brown hair is down to her shoulders. Some of the young women wear the hijab. Of those few, a couple have strands of hair pulled free while most have every bit of hair hidden away. Two women are completely veiled, and I can see only their eyes.

I thought I was used to being around veiled women. Happens every day. One did take me by surprise by complimenting my hair. I guess I had this idea that if there is part of my body I’m not allowed to show, I wouldn’t go complimenting other women on those parts…but hair is different. And I’ve always been obsessed and unhappy with my hair.

But in that closed in corner with a group of veiled women looking at me, I felt exposed. And a bit like I was doing something provocative. The audacity of bare arms and hair. And I felt like I used to as a 6-year-old girl approaching nuns in their habits.

I teach several of these women writing, and while I lead my class like I’ve always done, there is that tiny noise in my head that I may be encouraging them to expose themselves. Where will that lead?

Where does it lead once we go into a world we haven’t been before and expose ourselves?