I am a rock

Random fact about Claire: this was one of my favorite songs as a little girl. I don’t know what that says about me. I still really like it.

A winter’s day
In a deep and dark December;
I am alone,
Gazing from my window to the streets below
On a freshly fallen silent shroud of snow.
I am a rock,
I am an island.

I’ve built walls,
A fortress deep and mighty,
That none may penetrate.
I have no need of friendship; friendship causes pain.
It’s laughter and it’s loving I disdain.
I am a rock,
I am an island.

Don’t talk of love,
But I’ve heard the words before;
It’s sleeping in my memory.
I won’t disturb the slumber of feelings that have died.
If I never loved I never would have cried.
I am a rock,
I am an island.

I have my books
And my poetry to protect me;
I am shielded in my armor,
Hiding in my room, safe within my womb.
I touch no one and no one touches me.
I am a rock,
I am an island.

And a rock feels no pain;
And an island never cries.

I fail at being a girl

I think there is such a thing as girl skills. Some women just seem to exude these skills the moment you meet them; cute clothes, perfect hair and makeup. Their nails are manicured, and they have nice purses. They have girl skills.

I don’t have girl skills.

I’ve never been a very good shopper. I get tired of looking after about an hour, I won’t wear certain colors, and my wardrobe is rather basic. It’s a normal trip to a clothing store for me when a friend leaves with several bags of clothing, and I carry my one bag containing a plain black t-shirt. It’s not that I don’t try to look, but it doesn’t interest me. And that floral printed hoodie? You can forget it. I’d rather take that plain baseball tee, thank you very much.
And I’ve never had my nails done. For one, I play bass, so having claws is out of the question for me. Aside from that, it seems like a big waste of time and money to me. I finally had my first pedicure four months ago, at the tender age of 26. One of my best friends was very pregnant at the time, and all she wanted for her baby shower was a pedicure with the girls, and dinner afterward. I was lured by promises of beer at the restaurant.
Sure, for work I’ll straighten my unruly hair and put on a little make up. I’ve learned a few tricks to looking like I possess girl skills in public. I use the sacred trio of looking awake: mascara, blush on the cheeks, and lip gloss. I feel intimidating when I wear it. It’s like I’m denying my true inner nerd, presenting a fake shell of girlyness. Please don’t believe what you see, mumbling boy that wants to buy Mario Kart – I really am like you.

I don’t think my mom ever really accepted my lack of girl skills. She herself was a bonafide hippy; she never shaved her legs, she didn’t wear make up, and for awhile she spelled the word woman as “womyn”. But I was always encouraged to play with dolls instead of read comics. She bought me a hair curler when I was fourteen. I never used it. She would throw away my Tesla shirts, and black jeans held together with duct tape. Maybe it’s something that a mom wants for her daughter, to have girl skills, ready to be used when called upon. I never figured out how to even mimic them until after I moved out of her house.

Before I got married, all my guy friends used to talk about how lucky my future spouse would be. What more could you ask for then a girl who loves relaxing on the couch with a beer in one hand and a video game controller in the other? And it’s true while my husband isn’t nearly as into video games, comics, and other assorted nerd activities as I am, he likes me for who I am. It’s ok with him that I don’t need a set of summer and winter makeup, that I can fit all my stuff into a small duffel bag when we go on a trip, and that I’d rather rent a funny movie and stay home then go out dancing. It doesn’t take me long to get ready to go anywhere, and if he wants to just go hang out with his friends for the night, it’s fine by me.

I don’t have girl skills. I fail at being a girl. But at this point, I think I’m ok with just being me.

The mother of all tomato plants

Let me start off by saying that I love to garden, really I do. I get a lot of joy out of watching my flowers bloom, or picking fresh produce from the backyard. This last spring and summer were no exception. In February I started raising heirloom tomatoes from seed, mainly brandywine and rose, old amish varieties. They started their lives out innocently enough, as little seedlings on a windowsill. I know people say you can’t raise good tomato plants that way, but it seems to work out fine for me every year.

And yes, I like to eat ice cream. After a few months of spending their lives indoors at night, and outdoors in the sun during the day, it was time for these plants to dig their roots into some real soil. I picked out a couple nice ones, and gave the rest of the plants away to friends and relatives.

After a couple months in our backyard, we had no tomatoes. The people I’d given plants to were reporting huge, gorgeous tomatoes coming from their plants. Mine had lots of yellow flowers, and no tomatoes. I chalked it up to a bad spot in the yard, and decided not to move them. I’d deal with it later, and likely compost the plants at the end of the summer.

October came, and Justin asked me, “Claire, have you looked at the tomato plants recently?” I told him I’d kind of been ignoring that area of the yard (mainly because I didn’t want to deal with it). He replied that I really needed to go do some work back there. More specifically, he said the tomato plants had to go. I picked a Friday off of work to dig them out of the dirt, put on some old clothes, and grabbed my shovel. I wish I’d thought to take a picture in the beginning, but this is roughly one third of the way through.

The tomato plant was about the size of a small cubicle. No tomatoes all summer long, but this thing was huge. It was the mother of all tomato plants. I ripped into with with vigor, tugging on the plant, or literally hacking at it with a pair of gardening shears. I’m fairly certain I pulled something in my back doing it. On top of that I was so allergic to something that day, that at one point I had to come to terms with the fact that snot was just going to come out of my nose, and there was nothing I could do about it. And deep within the bowels of the plant, I found the greatest insult to injury ever known to man.

Curse you tomato plant, curse you.

Reasons why we’ll never be close

1. Because when I needed you the most, you said helping me was “inconvenient”.
2. You only call once every few months.
3. Since I moved down here I’ve driven up to visit you at least five or six times, you’ve come once.
4. Remember that time we went to therapy together to try to be closer? You stopped coming after the third session, because apparently it clashed with your schedule all of a sudden.
5. You took someone else’s kids on an expensive vacation to Hawaii this year. We’ve never gone on any trips together.
6. When I ask why you lost your job, you say it was “political” and are unwilling to explain it.
7. You are completely unwilling to talk about details of your life, or your feelings. As far as I can tell, you may in fact be a robot.
8. One time you and my aunt were arguing about me, because she couldn’t understand why you didn’t want to spend time with me. Instead of talking it out with her, you dragged me into the middle of it because apparently I was supposed to tell her that your lack of commitment didn’t bother me.
9. Your wife emails and calls me more often than you do.
10. When we danced at my wedding, you said you loved me, and I cried. I cried because it was the only time I’ve ever thought you meant it, even for a second.

But really, it’s because you’re my father, but you’ve never been my Dad.

A blind eye

I like to think of myself as the kind of person who will always help out someone in need. That bum outside the grocery store who needs a few bucks, or a sandwich? Sure, I’ll help. The local food bank is doing a canned food drive? I can come up with a bag of soups.

Today at the grocery store an elderly man struck up a conversation with me. He started by asking if I had a sister that lived in town. I replied that no, I didn’t, and told him that in fact I don’t have any siblings. This led into a fairly long discussion of the pros and cons of having siblings or of being an only child. After awhile, his cell phone rang and he excused himself to answer it, and I smiled and said goodbye. I got the rest of my vegetables, I checked out, put my groceries in the car, and walked back up to the store to put my cart away. His car was parked right in front of the store, and he was just sitting in it. Perhaps he was waiting for someone, I thought. After a few seconds, he turned the key in the ignition. The car sputtered a bit, but didn’t start. I stood there for what seemed like ages, trying to decide what to do. Should I ask if he needed help? Would that be seen as being nosy? Did this happen to him all the time? What if he was too embarrassed to ask for help? I walked back to my car, still watching his, to see if it would finally start moving and leave the parking lot. A million thoughts raced through my mind. I need to get the groceries home; but what if he never gets help; surely he can call someone on his cell phone? I left. I went home.

And I still feel like a terrible person. Would it really have taken me that much to just walk up to his window and say, Sir, do you need help? I feel like I turned a blind eye to his suffering. Is it less painful to simply turn away from someone else’s trouble or pain, rather than be a witness? In the back of my mind, I’m still wondering if he’s sitting in that parking lot.

Just the sunlight coming through the curtains

I have very few memories from when I was a kid. I’m not sure if its typical childhood forgetting, or if my brain pushed a lot of it out for my own good. All I have are bits and pieces, which is probably typical to a certain extent.

There’s one memory from my childhood that has always been vivid in my mind. I’m about four years old, and it’s early morning. I’ve woken up, and I’m standing in the hallway looking out on the living room, but my mother hasn’t noticed me yet. The living room in the duplex we lived in had two tall windows looking over the backyard, with green curtains over them. My mother is opening up the curtains slowly, letting the sun seep in over the brown carpet. In my four year old mind, I feel like I shouldn’t disturb her, but I don’t know why. She stood there for what seemed like the longest time, just looking into the green of the backyard, bathed in the sunlight.

One Day More

Today I was offered a job at a place that I really really like. Needless to say I said yes, and I’m looking forward to it! I’m going in to fill out my paperwork after the doctor’s appointment tomorrow.

One day more until I find out the lab results, and I can’t get this song out of my head.

My heart is in my stomach

The doctor’s office just called to schedule a follow up.

Nice receptionist lady: Hi Claire, we need to schedule a follow up appointment for you! Are you available this Thursday at 10:45?
Me: Yeah, I think I can work that out with my job. (I pause for a moment while the gears in my brain grind away) Wait, does that mean my lab results are in?
NRL: They did come in, and they’re abnormal. The doctor wants to go over them with you.
Me: Oh…ok.

I hoped and hoped they would find something, and now I’m scared of what the lab found. You know that feeling where it’s like your chest is in your stomach? As soon as she said “abnormal” I had that.

Are we there yet?

I often wonder when we, as women, will start loving our bodies. When will we all cease to be too thin, or too fat, or too whatever reason we find to deride ourselves? Everyone knows a lot of this is due to the media. There are women in hollywood five or six inches taller than me that wear my same size. And of course, it’s forbidden that they age or look imperfect in any way.

Dear reader, I had a conversation the other day that infuriated me, and I want to share it with you. Names changed to protect the innocent (and not so innocent).

Helen: It was the one sister that brought it by, you know, the one that used to be kind of fat. But she looked really good, she’s lost a lot of weight!
Me: Who?
Helen: You know, the one that used be kind of a big girl. Course, her other sisters are so thin I’m sure it doesn’t help. She’s the middle sister, I think.
Me: Carrie is the middle sister.
Helen: Yes, that’s her!
Me: I really had no idea she’d lost weight. (Author’s note: this is someone I see on a weekly basis). Or maybe I just didn’t notice.
Helen: Well, I told her she looked really good, and I asked her what she did to lose all that weight.
Me: What did she say?
Helen: She said she stopped eating.
Me: …
Helen: She said she really liked food, so she just had to stop eating as much.

Helen is an avid exerciser. She’s also a workaholic, spending twelve plus hours a day running her business. Yet she drags herself to the gym five days a week without fail. She also rarely eats “junk food”. You know, all that really delicious stuff like cookies or ice cream. Maybe Carrie really did lose weight, but I really did not notice. She’s a beautiful girl, and she was a beautiful girl before she apparently had to just like food less.

What really disturbed me about that conversation was that to Helen, Carrie saying that she “stopped eating” was an acceptable answer. And that to me, is why we we’ll never all come to love ourselves. We don’t need Hollywood in order to hate our bodies when the message that thin is the only way to beautiful is only a phone call away.

In a Landscape

I drop down through the clouds and into the forest, my movement slow, almost suspended. The earth is coming up to meet me. My bare feet land softly on the forest floor. I take two breaths, inhaling my surroundings. It is daylight, and the pine trees are stretching up to the sun. I cast my eyes up to the sky to gauge their height and I am blinded. Rubbing my eyes to clear the spots that blur my vision, I look back down. Pine needles litter the charred earth. The trees here are bare in some areas, the victim of a fire. Blackened stumps and missing limbs dot the view in front of me. A flash of movement catches my eye. A wolf’s head peeks out from behind a tree and then disappears just as quickly.

They’re watching me.