Author: Brittany

Organic Tirades

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“Please tell me this won’t last forever,” I say in desperation.

Utterly weary of the last week, I laid my head in an easy rest while Chase drove us to dinner. Not that I would be able to eat. I had hardly gotten a bowl of cereal down for all the adrenaline raging through me like an angry river. I’d spent days avoiding Facebook, cramping my hand with journal entries and searching the book of Job for any semblance of an answer to my plea.

I’d taken medication for over three years, been through cognitive behavioral therapy (a lot of mumbo jumbo to say that I changed my thinking) and was feeling free. Plus, I was up on the big organic and vitamin supplement scene so I thought, pshh, totally got this under control.

Chase, didn’t really see the need in spending double the money on produce, God bless him. I, in contrast, thought I might die if our apples weren’t pesticide-free, hormone-free, antibiotic-free, gluten-free, tree-free, and apple-free (?).

“But we’ll surely get cancer and suffer a slow, painful, and otherwise ugly death if we don’t rid our pantry of junk.”
“An apple, is an apple.”
“No it’s not. It’s an apple, and MORE. It’s poison.”
“You’re going to end up dying from the stress of worrying about it before I die of the so-called chemicals.”

And then I found myself six months in whispering, I can’t do this. That’s all it took for my equilibrium to kick off balance, my belt to need tightening, my anti-anxiety pills to become my avenue for getting out of bed in the morning.

“Exercise,” my doctor said. Gladly. With my heal on your nose. How, when I feel like Snow White in that scary forest every second I’m awake? Sure, I’ll do a little jog really quickly.

Do I think organic eating is wrong? No.
Do I think certain diets like salt-free, sugar-free, or gluten-free don’t make a marked difference for some people? Not at all. Sometimes a simple change in what we consume can reverse a debilitating ailment.

It’s the extremism that bothers me. It’s the fear, and thinking I could control the outcome.
Fear of illness.
Fear of pain.
Fear of suffering.
Fear of death.

The medicine finally did it’s thing and now you’d be lucky to pry a Dr. Pepper from my clenched fists. Two years later I’m more me, and less psychotic about toxic celery. 

I’m going to get sick from time to time. Maybe even terminally someday.
I will have pain, the physical and the heart-rendering variety.
I will likely suffer in some way.
And well, we know how the story goes.

So why not have a double cheeseburger and some brownies along the way?

 

Excuse Me

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It was dusk, I didn’t need a jacket yet, and I was splurging on a little coffee when I saw him.

White graced his chin showing the age of wisdom. He could have had grandchildren, or no children. Perhaps he was a retired astronaut or a
war veteran or both.

But with his head leaning back against a corner he let his mouth drop open, wide and unashamed. Completely asleep.

He shouldn’t have gone for decaf.

Buying Groceries is not on the Adventure List

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My back is in a slump except for the few times I remember to sit up. There’s a trash pile, a file pile, a paid pile, and a tax pile hovering around my computer.

This takes me to days in my mom’s office when I’d walk in like I owned the place. It smelled of her Avon perfume and paper. I’d sit down across from her in roller blades I’d worn while riding my bike the few blocks and one busy street to the campus where she worked, lucky to be alive after such nonsense. M&M’s would rattle in my grubby hands and I’d watch her as she counted money, typed with the click of her nails, and sifted through stacks of documents. She always had a jar of fingertip moistener, what basically resembled fat chapstick. Straighten, sort, sort, dip. Sort, sort, sort, dip. I never had that kind of precision. I was more of a pull it out in a crumpled mess kind of kid.

Our basement was cold, and dark, and all that basements should be. Scary. But with the light on it was manageable. So I’d go down there to recreate that scene. Mom would save outdated and unusable checks for me, let me borrow some stationary she’d cut with an industrialized slicer that gave me nightmares about chopping off my hands. I’d set up our card table and scoot my knees under it with all my supplies: a calculator, a pen, my official business voice, and a professional aura. I would suggest these kinds of games to my cousin. “Let’s play store.” Or, “Let’s play house.” He was a red-headed farm boy who just wanted to use his BB gun on the chickens (which nearly got us both a whippin’ once) and watch the cans turn black in the trash fire near the edge of the woods. He didn’t really have time for my petty imagination. So I learned to sword fight, climb trees, and shoot at rats, and never understood why pretending to buy groceries wasn’t on our adventure list.  

Today I sit paying bills near those piles, uneven and leaving hardly a space for breakfast bowls on my table. I deduct, calculate, and proudly stamp my envelopes with leftover poinsettia postage. It’s real now, this office work. The money actually comes out of the account, the checks must be in numerical order or I get in big trouble with my register, and papers are filed for sanity’s sake. Parts of this I enjoy: great penmanship on those lines and in those boxes, organizing everything into folders, the pen resting in my hand as I search for something. But as I know myself better, clerical work has never been a fit.

So thanks, Cousin, for showing me a few things. I needed a real adventure.  

 

The Other Side of Valentine’s

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Holidays are as real and authentic as celebrity. They aren’t.

Jerry and Elaine are spending a quiet evening on the couch. We know in this season two episode that they are friends who used to be lovers. But when a steamy channel on the television makes Elaine pull the remote away from Jerry they start to entertain how to mesh these two worlds together. They come up with a list of rules so the tricky lines won’t cross, but neither of them can foresee “the birthday” that will test the limits of these new boundaries.

“I’m in a very delicate position,” Jerry tells George. “Whatever I give her, she’s going to be bringing in experts from all over the country to interpret the meaning behind it.”

Oh, the expectation.
Later as Elaine reaches for the floral paper and the big red bow that I know Jerry did not create, things take a turn.

“Just the fact that you remembered me is everything,” Elaine says. (Uh, huh)
“Of course I remembered. You reminded me every day for two months.”

Tissue paper is tossed, she holds her breath in anticipation. And then her teeth bare like an angry wolf.

“Cash? You got me cash?” The “sh” lingers like a hiss. “What are you, my uncle?”

There’s a question I’ve been wrestling to answer. What do I do when my expectations fail? Stop wanting good things? Become the ultimate cynic?

How do you survive this day when “we need to talk” leaves a gaping hole in your Friday night and your heart?
When you have to turn your back to the empty pillow on the other side of the bed because you can’t endure that hollow space.
When you feel like every frog prince is actually just a frog and you are weary of kissing warts.
When infidelity makes you want to burn every piece of lingerie in the photoshopped window of the mall.

Love is not Rad 4 U conversation hearts.
Love is not crimson confetti.
Love is not chocolate with mysterious orange filling (Ooo, is this a typo?)
Love is not fickle about a lost job, no make-up, cellulite, grey hair, or no hair.
Love is not one night.

Love is pulling over to a stranded woman and a blown out tire.
Love is holding your daughter’s hair while she gets sick in a big silver bowl.
Love is asking more than “how are you” but really meaning it with the way we settle in to hear the answer.
Love is putting down the phone and looking into eyes.
Love is shoveling snow beyond our own sidewalk.
Love is squeezing the fingers of a soul that has been invited Home.
Love is nails in the hands and your name on His lips.

Expectations will likely leave me disappointed, especially if I think a bag of Butterfinger cupids will fulfill, though they come close. But I won’t stop hoping for connection and love and friendship, to see and be seen.

I just want to learn how to look beyond wads of money.

Dirt Under My Nails

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“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.” – C. S. Lewis

Water cascades down stone tiles, there is certificate upon certificate in frames on the walls, and a background of piano keys that do nothing to stir my soul. I’m waiting on a leather sofa across from a wooden screen. It looks Asian, but I’m as unsure of this as I am of the knee-high boots and yoga pants I’m wearing. The assistant is doing a checklist of all my supplements, poking her pinky around an iPad. I’m immediately defensive because I know how I’ve been slacking.
“Well, I take fish oil every other day.” She reminds me about the benefit of a daily intake.
Yes, I know. Should I take this while my oldest snarls her acidic tongue at her brother or when my youngest begins to scream like someone has pierced her with an arrow? Just wondering, because really, I’m grateful to be out of bed.

Some days I can’t bear. Period. There is no fill in the blank because it’s all of it, that is overwhelming me. The fake waterfalls, the operator music. This forced ambiance and I, we’re not clicking. I want the casket because everyone standing at my gravesite makes me feel heavy. Impenetrable? Yes, please. I think I won’t survive unless I lock up my heart.

I’m angry? Oh. I’m angry. Why?

My pen keeps going on the page, words are coming like crumbs dropped along a path so I find my way. I follow them.

Longing. I’m longing for something. Probably connection. It’s always that. And security. A place to let down. Somewhere that is safe, and all this Fung Shoo isn’t it. Give me the smell of cattle, move my neighbors no less than two acres on all sides, let my face feel the sun through a labyrinth of branches and the grass tangle itself in my hair until my arms grow goose bumps from the shifting winds of storm fronts. Give me country, where I most often hear the voice of God.

“Do something that makes you out of breath. Run up the stairs instead of walk, dance with your kids,” my doctor tells me. “Punch the mattress.”
This, gets my attention. I’ve learned recently that out of the three types of reactions: flight, fight, or freeze, I fight. I’m a fighter. So the coffin isn’t actually going to work for me. Maybe for a quick nap, because who can’t use one of those from time to time? And after a little rest I’ll kick back the lid, dig into the dirt until my fingernails are caked, and climb to all the relationships who love me enough to do death with me, to vulnerability.

Gloom and doom, we have some business to do.

 

 

It’s Allowed

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In an outfit I would never pick and one she always wants, the eyes of my youngest dart between two movie cases. A duo of princesses, each the heroine of their own story, and each role models I love her idolizing. But she cannot choose. I see her mind working, back and forth, afraid to pick one over the other because dang-it, they are both great.

“Actually, I just want to take both of them upstairs,” she finally decides, not really deciding at all but procrastinating the inevitable.
“Okay, sure.” I laugh under my breath.

On my bed, the struggle is the same. Location change hasn’t made it easier, but finally she goes for it. “This one. I’ll do Brave next time.”

I love this, the way she likes more than one thing and then knows what she wants. Except it could be, that after watching the one she’s chosen, she’ll wish she would have picked differently. She may regret the yellow dress and grossly oversized Beast. She may get halfway through and think, lots of red hair and a bow is the story my heart wanted today.

Choices, we have to make them. And sometimes I want it all when only one disc can fit into the player. Other times I go for one thing and regret it or find out it was the wrong direction.

So?

Failure, we try so hard to avoid it. And why? Because it’s hard, it’s painful? But guess what, it’s allowed. It is okay to fail, have regrets. Some of the best personal growth I’ve encountered has been through failure.

“Watch.” She looks at me to make sure my eyes are not on the computer, my phone, or scrolling the pages of an electronic novel on my device. “Watch,” she says again.
I look up, arms folded to communicate that I’m not busy.
Multicolored, magical lights are sprinkling around him. His claws are turning to toes, light pouring out of every one. He’s wrapped up in his own cape, swirling.
“He’s gonna be different. Watch.”
I am, baby girl. I promise I’m here. 
Again with the back and forth of her eyes, from me to the T.V. “See?” What she’s really asking is, Mommy, pay attention so you can anticipate what I am anticipating. Are you? Do you get this about me?
She grins with her whole face when the prince stands before the princess.

It wouldn’t have mattered which one she went with, even a wrong choice can be an abundance of lessons that will change us for the better. It may hurt like hell, those bundle of regrets, but it isn’t wasted. It forces us to grow deeper roots and become better people.  

I’m a Buffoon

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All I could think in those moments when my name would be written on the board was, my cheeks are saying more than I ever would out loud. I hate that scene from grade school when I would be called out. There was no dunce hat on a stool in the corner, but it sure felt like it. My friends, my crushes, my nemeses were all inwardly raising their eyebrows at the mention of those syllables my parents gave me at birth. It’s her, I imagine them uttering. Gah! The shame.

The same flush happens every time I stumble upon one of those lists. You know the ones: 100 things to never say to a bearded woman; 15 things to avoid saying to someone who’s just been bit by rabid monkeys; 5 ways to encourage a friend who has decided to live solitary in the woods for two years. All right, not quite like those but I think you get the picture. Every time I see one I fight the urge to raise my hand in a guilty plea of confession. It’s me, this list is going to expose all my ignorance.

Yep, nearly 10 times out of 10 I’ve said the wrong thing to a hurting person. If I haven’t said it, I’ve thought it. My only saving grace is that there might be more on the list I haven’t said than ones I have. I scour through the items doing a mental check.

I said that.
And that, but that one isn’t so bad. I mean, it’s true.
Oh. Oh dear. This one’s bad. I need to make a call, and offer my firstborn.

But can I take a second for us nincompoops? I get it. I’ve been through enough crises and traumatic events to know how grating the wrong comment, the total missed mark, the insensitive feels. It sucks. And I also know that on the other side, in the space where we come eye to eye with you who are in knee-buckling pain, we desperately want to go there with you. We want to see it, feel it, and come alongside you in it, even though it’s like we’re groping for a light switch in a dark room. With grief that can mold into different shapes at any given moment, with processes that are never alike in two people, it’s difficult to know what the exact right thing is at the exact right time.

I had a friend who was depressed. I’ve been there and I thought I knew what I was doing with her. I texted, invited, said I’d be there to talk it out because that’s what I have needed in those situations. More people. She, was the opposite. I actually Googled: How to Love Someone Who’s Depressed. It turns out she needed blankets wrapped over her head and groceries in her pantry without ever stepping into a store. She needed quiet and sleep and presence without any demand of words she didn’t have. 

So know, we buffoons who you want to slap, we care.

And at least we’re saying something, even if it’s the wrong thing. Teach us the language. Plus, you never know when someone might have great shaving tips.

 

My Pulse Tells The Story

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Odds are good that my neck was fluttering like the wings of a hummingbird. I didn’t see it. I didn’t have to with the way my pulse rocked my body.

“Downstairs. Now.” I shoo everyone behind ushering hands and a controlled voice. The same one I use when one of the kids gets too close to a campfire or we are under a tornado warning. The one that says, listen up, this is important, I mean business.

“Why?” they ask at full attention.
“Because Dad is losing cookies he didn’t even eat. He’s sick.”

Someday we will sit around a fireplace with their future spouses in cable-knit sweaters holding spiced cider and they will be telling these stories. Mom was always walking around in rubber gloves, spraying bleach until we couldn’t breathe and in such a panic. I will laugh at myself, charmed at how they tease my silly ways. Because even now I know how ridiculous I am.

We were with friends a few nights ago. Count 4 adults and 7 kids and you know why we’re in this predicament.
I sent a text, “Little one has a fever, sorry.”
My girlfriend sent on back, “We have tummy issues, sorry.”
This is when my joints lock and I forget to breathe evenly. I try to remind myself that I will take the slime as it comes, if it comes. I vow not to monologue a series of what-if scenarios that will force me into a catatonic state. I shut my eyes and whisper, you can do this, and try to believe myself.

Instead, I did what any self-respecting phobic would do and slept head-to-toe next to my husband. Hey, at least I stayed in the room. But I wasn’t risking any midnight cough attacks in my direction that might warrant a bend over the toilet the next day. No.

Tired when I lay down, it wasn’t long before I was watching the moon edge its way over my pillow in a striped pattern through the blinds. Thoughts raced. And the more I tried to settle down the worse I got.

Calm yourself, muscles.
Balance out, breaths.
Trust Him, heart.
Do your magic, small round pill of heaven from my psychiatrist.

“The fear of this is much more paralyzing than the reality,” I said to Chase. I entertained the idea of just making myself vomit to prove it couldn’t kill me. And what is death? This is what the experts advise when I’m doing catastrophic thinking. “Go into it. Answer the ‘could’s’.” Well, then, it’s about two minutes of horrible and then it’s my favorite movies or a nap or a great book until the next two minutes of horrible. It will not do me in, though it will be uncomfortable. I will not die.  

“How’s the family?” I text today. “Long night?”

No survivors.

But something changes in the hope of my morning. While I consider isolating in an encapsulating, germ-repellant suit or living out my years in rubber gloves, I find hope.

Truth is, I’d rather be sick with a close friend, than sterile without one.

 

What Do I Say?

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Weaving my way around this drive-thru Starbucks is like a game of Pac Man. I’m inside lugging 15 pounds of notes and books, a computer and one small power cord to my phone that does not make or break the weight, but can be the deciding factor of whether I will still get emergency calls from the school about forgotten lunches. So I keep it.

I see moms pulling out all manner of Crayons and Hello Kitty coloring pages. There are meetings between Metros and women who are avoiding the highway in this mess of snow. Which is quite pretty from my view over a steaming mocha.

“Would you mind if I share this table with you?” I ask her.
“Oh, absolutely. I’m leaving soon anyway.”

Lovely. There are reasonable people in this society.

Her hair is chopped with texture that doesn’t happen right out of bed. She highlights her makeup around the dark lipstick she’s chosen to accent her emerald dress. Her knee-high, black, healed boots are professional, with sass. And she has the personal skills of a great salesman. Someone who works with people, likes people, makes people her business.

I’m guessing, of course.

“The snow is much prettier from here,” I say.
She doesn’t hesitate. “I know. The highway is still closed.”
“Oh, it is?” I wouldn’t know. I only see it when I’m finding a Costco. And I don’t watch the news because all I need in the morning besides strong coffee, enough Pop-Tarts to split three ways, and a drop-off lane, is the school cancellation number.
“My husband was here but he thought he’d give it a try. He’s still sitting.”
Yeah, I’m with you. I’d rather be stuck in a coffee Taj Mahal too.

She didn’t ask what I’m doing here. I didn’t offer. What do I say?
Well, I’m writing a book. (I know. Who isn’t? Yes, I do realize the statistics.) My second try. The story, the idea, gives me chills. I believe in it and some say I’m great with words. I have almost 4,000 of them but they could all be bad. I’ll probably get lots of rejection letters but you know what? I’m doing it anyway. Because if I could write my own headstone whenever the time comes that I need one, it would say: She Held Nothing Back.

 

 

Whoops Abound

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Whoops and hollers abounded this Christmas when the kids opened a Wii they didn’t even know they wanted. Inwardly, Chase and I were whooping too. We are not forerunners on the technology front. We live simply in this way, without satellite or cable, with movies we borrow from the library or rent for $1. It was a decision we made in protest to all the family time that was being robbed by Wipeout and American Idol. Still, we open the lid of our Toshiba when we want a Parenthood fix but the Wii, let’s just say it was a big hit.

My son is a Mario extraordinaire. A fanatic.

My daughter, the little one, she holds the remote and shouts like she’s part of something big. She is.

My other daughter, the oldest, she tries. Oh how she tries.

It is such great entertainment when they play together. My older daughter will often die on her first jump, a single slide, an erratic I’m- just- going- with- full- force attitude. It’s hilarious. But even funnier is the way she’s perfected “Button A.” The button that puts you in a bubble. Milliseconds from a painful death in rolling lava and she bubbles herself. Midair and heading for the enemy, she floats. It’s genius, really. Until her brother dies. Until he has to be in a bubble too. Because then the game is over.

I feel like I’m in a bubble right now. A writing bubble. I might come out for a snack or to ensure that no is strangling anyone else. I do what I have to, and not much more because I’m dangling above everything in my own space. While the kids jump and run and fight enemies below me, I am hovering with 26 letters and a passion.
In this space, my characters are like real people, the intersecting story of their lives, a part of me. I know them. I like them. And I think you will too.