Glass, fall, river, ring

He lost his ring in the river. His platinum wedding band. It was there somewhere between the bridge and the falls, but that was a long stretch.

Who would have thought his hands would shrink in the cold water. It was there when he started, and suddenly he noticed it was gone. She'd never forgive him. He needed a plan.

He would hire a team of divers to search the river! Every muddy wallow and algae-covered rock. Though he wasn't sure they'd ever find it he had to try. She'd kill him if she didn't think he'd done everything in his power. He'd drain the river if he could.

They had only been married a few short months. Thinking about their wedding day, it seemed he was just an observer watching the scene from above. He watched himself shower and dress. He watched himself walking down the aisle before it all began, bridesmaids and groomsmen wheeling around him. He was out of control--at their mercy. Stand there. Smile. Say this.

They were married in her church, a modern building of angles and glass. Her priest a small little man who was too fond of red wine. Going to church to these people was like putting on a hat--a Sunday bonnet of wisps and trim, nothing to keep his head warm. It had been years since he had been in a church. But he remembered the dark wood, the smell of the oil they used to polish the pews, the way the darkness in the room forced his eyes toward the ceiling in search of light. Here, in this church, fluorescent lights ensured he could see his neighbor's brand names, their glassy stares.

He's taken this trip on a Sunday too. It was almost impossible to get her to let him go. She didn't much see the value in floating down the river with his buddies and a six pack each when the good lord called. He he argued it was just one Sunday and he would be back in church next week and maybe he'd even think about going to that progressive dinner she'd been talking about.

This was a punishment. A sign. Maybe he should just go tell her that. Forget the divers. He would say he had a moment with God right there on the river and he understood the importance of church now. It would be better than weathering her anger.

Learning about sex

I
My Sunday school teacher is Larry. He is a gray, long man without children of his own. On Sundays, he teaches us about the Bible while all the grown-ups are in church. There's me, my best friend Ann, a girl named Candy who's the daughter of the minister, and some boys.

Larry about talking about Jesus's mom, Mary. He keeps calling her, "the virgin Mary."

"What's a virgin?" I ask.

The room stops. Everyone is looking at Larry who is now a shade of pink.He looks at me for a moment before he answers.

"It's when a woman has never had intercourse."

"Oh." I nod. I don't know what intercourse is either, but somehow I know I should not ask. Larry has moved on to something new and eveyone's eyes are locked down on to their Sunday school books.

II
My cousin Shelly and I play Barbies. We set up a whole Barbie house--making coffee tables from ashtrays and beds from the little boxes my mom gets her checks in. We spend more time setting up the house and dressing Barbie than playing with her.

Shelly is three years older and knows more than I do. Like one time I told her about meeting some boy by the creek and one of them pulled his pants down and showed me his penis, but she told me I must have been egging them on. She listens to Van Halen. She has one of their tapes with an angel smoking a cigarette on the cover. If I had that tape, I would hide it, but Shelly just leaves it out for her mom to see.

She tells me we have to undress Barbie because Ken is coming over. She makes them lie together on the check box. She makes noises for them.

"MMMM. Ah. Smack."

Shelly calls this "making love."

When she leaves I keep setting up the Barbie house, and now it's hardly worth it to dress her because I just have to undress her for Ken. Making love is the only thing she really does besides sit next to her coffee table.

I start asking my mom to buy me records. I want Oliva Newton John's Physical. I ask for a 45 of Survivor's "I've Been Waiting." Then I take my records over to Ann's house and we listen to them on her Mickey Mouse record player.

Harvest time

I found myself waiting to dig through the moistest earth, where I knew the most potatoes would be, like a child waits to eat her most favorite kind of candy last. I've never grown potatoes before. Once I started digging, I found dozens, lying under the earth like treasures.














I love this time of year. The watering is done. There's nothing more to tend to, except the harvest.

Oh yeah...and making jars upon jars of pasta sauce with all the tomatoes.

You're telling me about energy?

It's like I am a dog--my body turned slightly away from him and I do not make direct eye contact. I see he is wearing a plaid shirt, and that the pitbull is in the doorway and another man in dreadlocks stands behind the pitbull, but I do not know the color of the first man's shirt. He is saying things at me, things about positive energy and how animals can sense your energy, and he understands--stereotypes and all--but it's all about staying cool, you know?

The pitbull is in the doorway but it wasn't just moments ago. It was muscling its body toward me silently. I saw it and yelled.

"Hey! Hey! Your dog!"

And the man in the plaid shirt came running yelling "Vicious! Vicious! Get inside!" He was slapping and pulling at her.

I just want to get away. It is a dark night and it is too late but he is lecturing me as his precious Vicious hovers just inside the house.

The most important thing I have to do today: a book meme

Via Elizabeth:

1. One book that changed your life: Writing Down the Bones, by Natalie Goldberg.

2. One book that you've read more than once: The House of Mirth, by Edith Wharton.

3. One book you'd want on a desert island: His Dark Materials trilogy, by Phillip Pullman (it's technically three books, but oh well)

4. One book that made you laugh: High Fidelity, by Nick Hornby.

5. One book that made you cry: The Color Purple, by Alice Walker .

6. One book that you wish had been written: The book that I will write someday. But if it were already written, I'd just have to write another one.

7. One book you wish had never been written: The Fountainhead, by Ayn Rand

8. One book you're currently reading: Undaunted Courage, by Stephen Ambrose

9. One book you've been meaning to read: Other Electricities, by Ander Monson

Two things I thought of today

1. A co-worker of mine recently lost her older brother. Her parents were both long passed away, and this left her with only one surviving family member, also a brother. It occured to me what that must feel like...only one other person in the world who shares that special family bond. Who knows exactly how you grew up and those certain things your parents used to do. How, in the midst of that loss it might make you feel closer to those that are left.

I still have both parents, my brother; the people who have known me for my whole life are still here. I just saw S. and when he was here, I couldn't help thinking about that scar he used to have on the bridge of his nose. It's gone now (my mother--semi-obsessed with erasing physical flaws--had a doctor sand it down). I'm one of the few people that remembers that scar. We share a similar mental topography. The same corridors, kitchens and basements line our memory.

But, what I thought today, is that I wonder if the knowledge that they are still alive makes me free to travel the world, to live far away, to wander in my thoughts away from my family. Will I feel more tied, more relucant to put so much space between us when some of us are gone.

2. I was reading Cary Tennis' column in Salon, Since You Asked, and learned that there is an unspoken "tradition" among men in communal bathrooms. Men leave reading material for the men that visit after them. I asked T. if this was true, and he said "Yeah...I guess so." What's up with that? How is it that men get indoctrinated into this tradition, but it doesn't carry on with women? What does it mean, exactly? It's rather intimate, actually. It's like "Hey, I read this while I pooped. Now you can read it while you poop."