On Water (Guest poem by Hannah Pasz)

I love the water

The way it flows to its own rhythm

Unbothered by the world around it

To be true, I envy water

When I was a kid, I loved baths

The bubbles

To be true, I wished to never get out

Just maybe

If I stayed in the bath long enough

I could become a mermaid

And live in the water

Now I’m older

What once was childlike wonder

Is now optimism 

But who has time for that in the pressure pushing world?

Instead of swimming

I tan

Instead of pretending

I watch movies and watch while others pretend

Instead of dreaming

I scroll

So scared of being embarrassed in front of my peers

I swim over

To the appealing world of grownups

But the grownups stare across the ocean

Wishing they could swim back time

As I kick across the ocean

My mermaid tail fades

Into the trendiest sandals

And as I step onto the new land

I look into the water

I see myself waving goodbye

My old self 

I used to love the water 

On Breasts

The mammogram waiting room is the great equalizer.

Growing up, I frequently spent weekends with my Godmother. We lived outside of Chicago and my parents would send my brother and me to her Gold Coast apartment via the train - sans mobile devices -to stretch us a little and shift the scenery from our small-town lives. My Godmother embodied sophistication and freedom, her refrigerator was lined sparsely with the now-deceased soda brand Tab, Lean Cusines and skim milk - trivial items next to silky, rich, intentionally chilled French skincare.  She’d guide us through her neighborhood, down the aptly named Rush Street in the height of the 80’s, draped unapologetically in a real mink coat, a fresh Virginia Slim balanced between her long fingers. Rush Street was an artery of after-dark indulgence. Smokey, boozy, perfume-filled air floated over tables clinking with glasses, echoing with bold laughter and unbothered cursing. It felt like I could never open my eyes wide enough to take it all in.

“Look for the banker shoes,” she’d say.

Even at that age, I understood the essence of what she meant. At the time, the term largely encompassed men – successful men who could afford sharp, shiny shoes. Special shoes.

I scanned the mammogram waiting room. Women – mostly my age – shifted in their chairs, clad in ill-fitting pink, cafeteria worker smocks, tied in two places so their breasts could be released efficiently when called to service. It’s collective, this experience. Democratized. We periodically triple check our braless fronts, ensuring those sneaky mams haven’t escaped before their time, folding our arms over ourselves, smiling at each other kindly. Knowingly.

The door swings open.

“Rachel?”

She jumps up quickly; her laptop clunks on the floor. She pats herself down for her glasses, which are already perched on her head.

“Oh boy, sooner than I thought, so sorry! Sorry, let me just get all of this. I brought so much stuff, just wasn’t sure how long the wait would be. I brought too much, always do. So sorry.”

We smile empathetically and nod in alignment, as if to say, “we do that too. We take up space too. We’re sorry too.”

We’re scared too.

I looked down, past my untethered breasts, at my shoes – some of my favorite Nike sneakers. They say, “I’m a mom but I used to walk to work in the city with Kings of Leon in my headphones.” I scanned the room, taking in the spectrum. Soft, pliable ballet flats, smart, quietly confident loafers, edgy suede ankle boots, clackety-clack mules, nearly naked strappy sandals; and power-stance pumps – all broadcasting different messages to the world. It’s a luxury, this choice we’re given – to decorate our outsides, to curate the version of ourselves we want others to see. Even if our outsides don’t match our insides. Sometimes that’s the point. We bring bags of crap to the mammogram waiting room to keep the volume of noise exactly where it needs to be. To keep reality at bay. We’re all connected in this quiet effort to stay separate from one another. To pretend that certain kinds of life won’t happen to us.

The heavy door swung open, as every head popped up in anticipation. Rachel returned and gathered some lay-of-the-land information before resuming her wait.

“They’ll call you shortly for an ultrasound. Bathroom there. Water and snacks over there.”

“Microplastics,” I muttered, nodding toward the water bottles, certain the pink smock beside me would share in the irony. She smiled charitably.

“Megan?”

“Megan?”

I jolted up, fumbling for my book, glasses, phone, my toxic hospital-issued water bottle and apologized profusely. “Sorry. The wait was shorter than I thought. So sorry. Be right there. I always bring too much stuff.”

A gentle hand, attached to an arm wrapped in a pink smock touched my shoulder, as a woman leaned in.

“Same.”

On Mice

“You have all day.”

We were driving home from an event – a book tour I was anticipating for weeks. I sent him the link and billed it as a date night, knowing it wouldn’t be his thing. But that’s partnership, that’s marriage. Doing the thing that isn’t your thing. He’s conscious and generous about our varied interests – his more easily digestible within our current suburban midlife position: golf, paddle, highly unnecessary adult softball. Mine are slightly more abstract: sourdough starter development, meditation, a deep desire to tour a salt cave.

“Where…when do you want to go to a salt cave? There’s a salt cave?”

He tries on various faces that convey interest. Eyebrows lifted, head tilted, corners of the mouth turned up. Next, just one corner.

“I’ll look that up; we’ll find a great one. Salt caves.” He repeats it - it’s so forgettable the term could leave his mind before he can Google it.

Our date nights are increasingly important. The kids are older and more independent, so leaving them is terrifying. Parenting requires a new level of awake now, from caregiver to coach, therapist. Shaman. Everything we do in their presence is a synchronous dance of being completely ignored while examined under a microscope. Meanwhile, we project unresolved and unprocessed cognitive warfare on to them. The universe arranged it like this, so we begin to unravel all of the wires – like that ball of Apple chargers in the junk drawer that we pretend we don’t see every day – in the middle of our lives, just as our children emerge as opinionated, embodied, impressive albeit argumentative young adults. The comedic design of it is that we all must live in one house together and survive, like the Hunger Games.

The author who hosted our sexy date night published a book of essays and was touring to share her thoughts on opening to the creative process. I’ve been searching for my own process, denying that it’s probably (definitely) somewhere in the junk drawer ball of wires. “Intellectually, I get it,” I told him. “I know what to do, I just can’t get my brain to do it. I can’t get my body to do it. I don’t have the time or space to write.”

He looked confused. “You have all day.”

It must be serene, a mind like that. Logic. Structure. Reason. No mice scurrying in the walls at night, scratching behind the plaster of his thoughts, indicating some kind of impossible need. Through the windows of my home, the needs are clear; sink is full of dishes, the laundry pile is high, everyone is h(a)ngry and needs to be driven somewhere and then immediately picked up again. There’s a bounty of emotional needs as well, clingy dog included.

I made a deal with my mind mice. They’ll stay noisy and scratchy but will wait patiently for my kids to launch, at which point I’ll grow out all of the gray hair on my body and head, buy the sweetest little cabin in the woods, toss my phone in the creek and write all day long, willing my marriage to survive it.

But that won’t happen if I keep on my current comfortable path. Time is an excuse for fear – the same fear that prevents me from unraveling the ball of wires to learn what kind of electricity can really flow through them. Doing the thing is the only way to do the thing, so here I start.

Onword.