A hundred pairs of eyes

Hundreds of crickets watched us from the darkened ceiling as we moved through the cave led by a guide with only a flashlight and a thousand facts about the cave.  The guide was an older woman with wrinkles at the corners of her eyes and sandy blonde hair tucked behind her ears.  She had 30 years of experience leading groups through protected areas of national parks and caves.  The pay wasn’t great and the days were long, but she somehow still found pleasure in the work.

It beats getting stuck in a cubicle farm, she would have explained if anyone asked about her longevity as a ranger.  Not that she wasn’t looking forward to retirement because she was, very much, looking forward to spending her golden years between the mangroves and beaches of Florida, which she would have added if anyone would have asked.  

She stopped at an open area in the cave and waited for the slowest members of the group to catch up.  It was a limited mobility tour and between the older adults and toddlers with their caretakers, everyone was slow.  In spite of the weight of the baby bump, I am proud that we were able to hold our own and were not the very last stragglers of the gang.

“Kids, come up here.  I want to show you all something.” 

She had a secret smirk on her face as she watched parents trustingly bring their children towards her.

“There’s room right around here.  Come on, squeeze together everyone,” the guide said.  

Herding the tiny humans forward, the kids moved into a tight semi-circle around the guide and in front of the adults.  Everyone stood with wide eyes, limited by the unfamiliarity of the cave and the darkness.  The air was dry and cool, giving away nothing with a breeze that didn’t exist.

“I bet you think we’re alone in here, right?” she asked.

The kids shouted different answers, not as easily prompted as she expected.

 “Oh, I guess we’re holding hands now.”

She looked down in surprise, twin brothers stood on either side of the guide.  They had each grabbed one of her hands and stared absently off into the dark space beyond the beam of her flashlight.

The guide quickly regrouped and shook free of one of the boys. 

“Sorry, I need this hand,” she whispered to him.  

“Follow the light,” she said in her full voice to the audience.

Swinging the light directly overhead, she illuminated a writhing mass of large crickets clinging to the ceiling with their skinny legs and testing the air with their antenna.  She panned the ceiling with the light revealing a city of crickets temporarily on hold.  They watched us calmly and waited for us to leave as we gasped and squirmed in their presence.  

We were never alone in the cave.  In fact, above or below ground, we are never alone.  Sometimes, we just don’t know where to look to find a single pair of eyes when there are actually hundreds waiting and watching to see what we will do next.

A Double Win

It’s Sunday morning, my husband has won another prize.  He is the most winningest (is that a real word?) person that I know.  Of course, it helps that he enters into every drawing and contest from around the country.

I can only imagine what the outcome of this announcement will bring to our front porch in the next few weeks.  The poor mailman has dragged packages of all shapes and sizes to our door and amazingly he still waves and smiles when he sees us in passing.

“We only have an hour to claim it, so we have to go right now.”

Blankly, I stare at him.  I am still in my pajamas and sipping a cup of coffee on the couch while he is preparing to collect his latest prize.  This one crummy cup of weak coffee is the only adult pleasure that I am still allowed and I. Need. It.  Sometimes, I wake up early just to get started on my one cup of the bitter nectar of life.

“I cannot go anywhere until I finish this coffee.” I declare firmly.

“Mmmm…..” he whines impatiently without words and waits three seconds.

“Ok, how about now?”

I sigh, there will be no peace until the prize has been claimed.

“Let me brush my hair.”

I change into a clean pair of leggings and t-shirt, my uniform as of late, because regular pants, shirts with buttons and dressing up in general is for regular sized, non-turkey-sized-baby carrying people, and we set off.  After a very long waddle down the road, we finally arrive at a brewery where I collapse into a chair while my beloved makes his way to the counter to collect his much-deserved prize.

He returns to the table with a double win, a Kurt Vonnegut book and an order of a Cuban inspired brunch.  We devour a stack of pancakes infused with guava jelly and topped with freshly whipped cream and a plate of fried eggs with a side of sliced mangos.  What’s yours is mine and what’s mine is mine, I secretly think and pull the book towards me across the table.

Just like brunch, The Sirens of Titan is exactly what I need to remember to take life less seriously but not for granted, to dream of adventure and travel, and to consider that we might not have any control over our path in life, but we can control our attitude, our sense of wonderment and how we treat those who walk along side of us during our short time on Earth.

Time Management Monday

Running late, like usual, I punch the gas and feel the car lurch forward and kick through the gears.  It will make little difference; I look at the clock and am already late.  Later than late, by my quick calculation. 

Earlier in the year, I set the clock ahead five minutes to trick myself into hurrying.  Unfortunately, I out-tricked myself because I am always late and the ploy immediately lost its power.  I will reset the clock when Day Light’s Savings goes away or comes back, depending on how long I wait. 

It’s a non-stop fight against the clock that starts as soon as I hit the snooze button and lasts until the end of the day when I try to negotiate a deal with the alarm for the next morning.  I read books and blogs about time management and constantly employ new strategies to stretch time, but like a gambler, any minute I make has already been spent and must be used to repay old debts.

I blow through a yellow light and race around an old Honda.  An ancient woman is at the helm, barely able to see over the steering wheel.  She may be driving by memory because it seems that she is unable to see through the dark sunglasses that cover most of her face.

Ahead a line of cars forms in front of a red light.  I slow down, not interested in starting a chain reaction of cars, each separated only by a few inches and good bit of luck.  

Pow, pow, pow, I can hear the smashing in my mind.

Then the faint sound singing drifts into my car.  The windows are up and volume of the radio is low.   Yet, there it is.  A man’s rich voice floats through the morning air and fills my otherwise empty vehicle.  The source is not far behind, a man walks up the street, half wrapped in a grungy blanket, wearing a ripped t-shirt and boxers.  He only carries a strange tune and nothing else in his hands.  The blanket unwraps and drags along the sidewalk behind the man.  

He leads with his open mouth singing “Hallelujah” and passes the line of cars without noticing those watching him with a confused sense of admiration and shock, concern and wonder.   

At the green, I gun it again.  

I look in my rearview window with a sudden regret and desire to do something.  The man continues on his path, pulled jerkily onward by an invisible string.  I briefly consider calling for emergency help before deciding to do nothing and return to my fight against time to leave the man alone in his. 

A Better Way to Joy Ride

Rosa was on the phone when I quietly knocked at the door and walked into the room.  The lights were low and the blinds were down.  It took a second for my eyes to adjust to the darkness in the middle of the day.  The place was wrecked, shoes were haphazardly kicked off in a pile by the door and clothes were crumpled on the floor.  A box of fried chicken was on the table next to a Big Gulp drink with napkins and ketchup packets mixed in with a stack of mail. 

Rosa sat straight up, stiff as a board, in an old brown reclining chair.  She wore a nubby bathrobe and her short, dark hair stuck out in every direction like she was just seriously electrocuted and should be on the way to the hospital instead of sitting in a chair furiously scribbling away at a notebook.    

As I approached, it was clear that she deep into something messy.

“I’ll come back later,” I whispered, not one to interrupt unless it was absolutely necessary, and started to retreat towards the door.  Rosa held up a pudgy finger, indicating for me to wait one minute. 

“Ok, I’ll call back tomorrow and speak with the officer,” she growled into the phone.    

Angrily shaking her head, she looked up at me with one eye to ensure that I hadn’t snuck out as she made final arrangements for her appointment tomorrow.  

Ending the call, she dropped the phone onto the notebook on her lap with a disgusted sigh.

“Sounds like I don’t have a car anymore.” 

She waited with a dramatic pause, gauging my interest.

Unable to resist the bait, I took the hook, line and sinker, and casually asked for clarification.  

“What in the world happened, Rosa?  I didn’t even know that you had a car.”

“First, do you think I can drive right now with my legs like this?”

I scanned her face, she was serious, and then dropped my eyes to her painfully swollen feet and legs poking out from underneath of her long bathroom.   

“No, I don’t.  Shouldn’t those be propped up?”

She ignored the question and continued.

“Well, I didn’t think so either, but I just learned that my car was traveling the wrong way on a one way street back in my home town, crashed into a few parked cars and was then abandoned on a side street and the police wanted to know if it was me.”

“So, you did have a car?”

“You’re really hung up on that, yes, I had a car back home. I left the keys with my roommate for emergencies only and now he is missing and my car is in the junk yard.” 

Her dark eyes flashed with anger, “Excuse, I need to make some more phone calls.”

The next day, her door was open as I passed by in the hallway.  Light streamed in from the windows and the clutter was gone.  Her shoes were lined up, her clothes were put away and there was no trash to be seen.  Her hair was pulled neatly back with a wide headband displaying a pair of very dainty, unpierced ears.  She scrolled through images on her phone and laughed to herself.  Noticing my shadow darkening her door, she waved.

“Hey girl, come on in.  What’s going on today?”

I wanted to ask the same thing of her regarding the grand theft auto situation but held my tongue.

“Wondering about my car?” she asked.

Feigning shock at her mind reading ability, I confirmed her suspicions with a nod and again took the bait.

“What happened?”

She threw her hands up with a smile, “We worked it out.  He knows what he did was wrong, but there’s no use fighting over it or staying mad.  I can’t afford to waste my energy like that, if I didn’t forgive him hate would build up and stay right here,” she lightly pounded at her chest with her fist.

“Right here,” she emphasized.

“It would make me sick when I am in here trying to get better, to be better.”

Unable to stop myself, I gushed with partially informed questions.

“But if you drop it, how will you get him to pay you?  Will insurance cover the damages?  What did you tell the police?  What did he tell you?  How will you get around?”

In the midst of this flurry of questions, there were two questions that I didn’t ask but most wondered about the answers, how and why did you forgive him?

She held her hand up to stop the questions, “I’ll figure that stuff out.  Its going to be ok.”

Reassuringly, she nodded and patted my hand.

“Really, its going to be ok.”

Suddenly, I was left with a sad emptiness where a surrogate anger had rushed out, like water from a broken cup.  There is another way to get better, to be better, and it starts with deciding to put the sword away.  

 

Make Believe World

The man walked into the office, dragging his feet and with his head hung low. His clothes were the same ones that he wore the day before but now wrinkled and stinking of smoke.  A woman sat at a desk with pictures of cats around the computer screen.  There were so many different felines, it was hard to imagine that they all belonged to her but not impossible.  Remember the show, Hoarders.

Nodding her head in acknowledgement, the woman sighed.   She looked up at the clock on the wall, as a not to subtle sign of her annoyance.

“I know I’m late,” he said and sat across from the woman.

Like a tidal wave crashing down on the shore, the smell of alcohol hit the woman’s nostrils as the man spoke.  He belched and filled the room with more of his unprocessed booze and bodily fluid smells.

“Huh, huh,” he laughed as the woman inwardly gagged.

The man continued without blinking.

“I went to a hotel party last night and time got away from me. I woke up, looked at my watch….”

He pulled his sleeve back to show his bare wrist where a watch might have been if he wore a watch, demonstrating how it might have happened and went on, “Oh shit, I’ve got to go.  And I came straight here.”

There was no mistaking the pride in his face. Was it because of the good decision that he made on how to spend his day or that he had just awoken in a strange hotel room after a hotel party with a roomful of strangers?

Unable to stand the woman’s silence, he shifted uncomfortably in his chair and stared at a stain on the wall, at his shoes, at the cats; everywhere other than the woman’s face.

“Hey, at least I’m here.”

Would he use that line on an employer if he was an hour and a half late, still reeking of his night of debauchery? Did that work with his parents and the mother of his son?

The woman laughed to hide her sadness, to give her a moment to collect her thoughts, but her eyes still spoke. Disappointment is a powerful emotion that is hard to hide, destructive and unnecessary when it comes about because of unrealistic expectations.

She thought what do you want me to say? That everything is going to be ok? That your addiction isn’t going to destroy what is left of your life?  That you still have to hit rock bottom before committing to change?  There is no rock bottom.  There is just a bottomless pit into which you are falling deeper and deeper unless maybe this will be the day you reach out for a rope to begin the long, hard challenge of climbing back towards the light.

“Yes,” she affirmed the man. “At least you are here.”

On the meaning of life

Life has no meaning. Each of us has meaning and we bring it to life. It is a waste to be asking the question when you are the answer.

Joseph Campbell