Resolutions

On the eve of the year’s most spectacular Eve, one can only ponder the possibility for resolutions.

First things first: I resolve to put 10% of my monthly income into my IRA or my Savings Account for an entire year.

I resolve to throw myself a fabulous birthday party in January:
a) Because I haven’t done that in years, and
b) Because it’s on Friday the 13th and a full moon.

But what’s really in me?
What’s digging around under my skin, deep into my heart, thick as blood?

I have learned that strangers know no shame. I have learned that friends can make great lovers. I have learned that with some people, there is just something, almost animalistic, unexplainable – it may be a smell, maybe the way he sweats or how he laughs deeply, maybe the way his nose feels behind my ear or they way he keeps his word, maybe it is a poem he writes or something he whispered, and sometimes – I’ll admit – it is the way a man wears his Carhartt’s.

But I want to stop needing approval from a lover. I am enough. I must believe this, not to the extent that I am island, but definitely to the extent that I am my own person.

Then,

I want to let love come back to me, fill the scars, make a new bed, sew a stitch where the quilt needs mending. I want love in me like a natural disaster, flooding, sliding, unstoppable, inevitable, beautiful and painful and real, sacrificial. And I want it to be life-long.

Body Work

It is hard, after eight days on the road and very little physical activity, to love my body right now. I drive thirty minutes into town just to work out. After over two thousand miles on the road, this feels like a breeze. Two-thirds of the way through my run I feel my bum ankle start to ache dully. Rather than push it, rather than condemn myself, rather than doing something I might regret – I actually get off the treadmill this time and finish early. I step on the scale before entering the women’s locker room and read a number similar to the one I read before the holidays, For this, I congratulate myself – until the personal trainer (and my friend) Jason hollers across the weight room: “Katey, grab the scale out of my backpack there, it’s more accurate.”

I oblige but to my dismay, I come up with a number that is twelve pounds heavier than the first scale. “I like the other one better, Jason,” I shout back as I sling my towel over my shoulder and head for the shower room.

Tomorrow I will dress up and wear sexy underwear, if for no other reason than to feel better about myself. After my workout, I might even write my thank you cards at the café instead of at home, just so I can be out and about in the world and get some face-to-face human interaction. Then I’ll come home and call my massage therapist for an appointment.

I refuse to make a New Year’s resolution about changing my body; been there, done that. What I am is what I am. I did not choose my genetic makeup and I cannot reset my metabolic rate. I work out because it feels good (when my ankle doesn’t hurt) and I like the way running shapes my muscles. Losing weight happens as a result, but if I make that the end-all-be-all I only end up feeling worse about myself.

Thirteen Hour Detour

At the last minute, we decide to drive southeast to Richmond, Virginia rather than staying safely inland on I-81. "We'll surprise them!" my parents and I chorused, as we all agreed on the change in plans and left a cheerful message on my other Uncle's message machine. "We're on our way! Don't go to any trouble! Just staying for one night!"

The short version of the day is this: It took thirteen hours to travel 440 miles. Don't bother doing the math; just imagine the speed of a tortoise on barbituates. What we were thinking when we decided to take I-95 two days after Christmas is beyond me.

We drove through New York City, where I pressed my nose against the glass and gazed at projects in the Bronx and imagined another life for myself. We must have spent at least three hours getting through the city. Even the new buildings still under construction were dirty. Newark and Trenton were like cracked ribs along the way; they slowed us down but we refused to reevaluate our route, foolishly imagining that the traffic would subside as we traveled south.

We spent an ungodly amount of time in Delaware; this, my friends, is difficult to do. Relatively speaking, Delaware might as well be the size of a piss puddle in Texas. Somehow it took us over two hours to cross the grand Delaware Memorial Bridge - a punishment for which we payed $3 at the toll booth. Is it me, or is something backwards here?

The George Washington Bridge and D.C. altogether must have taken four hours. It was a disgusting experience. City after city, mile after mile, we dragged ourselves down the interstate at snail's pace, hoping, praying, that my Uncle Mark would be home (suspciously, they had not returned our calls).

Rest Areas were akin to the twilight zone. Televisions blared, babies screamed, people became fat just entering into the slosh and squish of the disgusting fast food mazes. It is utterly disorienting to be in a place where not a single soul intends to stop. Everyone is either coming or going. Today I learned that Hell for me would consist of a series of turnpike rest stops, revolving doors, clocks with noisy second hands, Yankees fans, and overpriced salty peanuts.

It turns out that Uncle Mark did get home in time, arriving with family in tow just ten minutes after we pulled into his driveway. My teddy-bear cute cousins rolled out of the car like doughnut holes down a slide and filled my arms with giggly hugs. Of course we were welcome, of course they got our messages, of course, of course, of course.

Within minutes the kids were in bed and the adults clinked wine glasses in the kitchen. Mom decided to have Scotch on ice and her brother joined her. Tomorrow? Seven hours, if all goes well, and we'll be back in the cradling arms of the beloved Black Mountains. It's been a fascinating trip, full of love, boredom, generosity, gas guzzling, friendship, and some good old R&R.

The Northern Loop

I left the house before sunrise today in order to drive three hours north to Hennicker, New Hampshire to see my dear friend Tara and her newborn baby Aiyana. Creeping barefoot through the silent kitchen, I momentarily relished the darkness and silence of the early morning. For the first time since Thursday, not a television, radio, video game, or cell phone could be heard. In the distance, I recognized the call of a wild turkey family.

Sixty minutes into the drive I approached the blessed exit for Northampton, Massachusettes - the Asheville of New England - and considered exiting for an Irish cream mocha from Haymarket Cafe. When I lived in the Berkshire Mountains, Northampton was an hour's drive from the old apple orchard my friends and I called home. On weekends, if we weren't hiking the AT, we'd hit the road and lounge around Northampton for a day. The Haymarket is still the first and only place I've been able to write a complete short story. Inspiration abounds in the cafe, perculating from customer to customer like water through coffee grounds - the end result being addictive, seductive, desirable.

Realizing the time of day, I pressed on for the Vermont state line where rests a gigantic Welcome Center that is open twenty-four hours a day. I knew for certain that I would find Green Mountain Coffee there, straight from the source. To my dismay, however, free beverages were not served. I hesitatingly joined a line of groggy-eyed customers to place my vending machine order for a cup of the famous coffee. For the record, drinking coffee from a vending machine goes entirely against my Coffee Consumer Code of Ethics. However, the need for altertness on the road and my desire to drink Vermont coffee in Vermont overrode my disgust in the machine and within five minutes, I was cruising down the interstate once again, this time with a warm smile on my face and steamy cup in my hand.

For two more hours I drove north, cutting a tiny triangle across Vermont, then billowing up the New Hampshire mountains through fog and across icy rivers that surged with crushing anger over frozen banks and eddies. Travelling skiers were in abundance as were "oldies" radio stations - the only reception I could get on the dial. If the Rolling Stones, the Police, and Van Morrison are oldies, well fine with me - I rocked out all the way to Tara's doorstep, arriving just after 10:00 a.m. You know you're in New Hampshire when you see "Moose Crossing" signs every five miles and the edges of state highways are embellished with snowmobile tracks. God I love that state.

Tara looked different when she opened the door, her hair now four inches longer than the last time I saw her. She still maintained her knowing smile and startling olive green eyes, but there was a look of serene wisdom in her profile that I had not seen before the birth. We spent hours chatting, looking at photos of the birth, walking alongside the river, and discussing the pros of cloth diapers. Happily, I have a favorite image of Tara in my mind's eye that I will cherish: When Aiyana finally relaxed her twelve-day-old body enough to fall asleep in her mother's arms, pink face and fingers rounded and nestled just so, Tara looked down at her beloved newborn calmly at first, and then suddenly her face burst into a cheek-cracking smile of pride and wonder. "She's just so sweet. I'm so in love," she said.

My Northern loop was not over yet, as I dashed from Hennicker heading southeast in the direction of Boston. At the last minute I had decided to give my cousin Angela and family, who live in Derry, New Hampshire, a surprise visit. Her husband didn't even know that I was in Connecticut for the holidays so when I walked into the house unannounced the look on his face made all the miles of the day worthwhile. "But I thought you were in - " he paused, then finished, "North Carolina."

Twelve hours after departing, I pulled up the long gravel driveway in Durham and was greeted briefly by my Uncle and family. With cousins Blake and Evan gone, much of the electrical equipment still lay at rest in the house. Almost four hundred miles, three cups of coffee (Vermont, Tara's, Angela's), and over half a dozen smiling faces later, and I was back where I started: tiptoeing through the kitchen barefooted, in the dim natural light in a surprisingly quiet house.

A Dog's Life

Milo and Remy, two Springer Spaniels, arrived at my Uncle's house on Christmas Day, along with their owners Mark, Jeanette, and daughter Sara. Milo is older by eight months and was adopted by the family first, so he gets first dibs over the dog dish according to unwritten canine law. Remy, who is only one-year-old, is shorter with a longer tail nub, but otherwise an absolute replica of his buddy. Together, the two are like Shakespeare's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, mentally connected in a sort of dumb, cute, irreplicable way.

To honor the day, Milo is dressed in a patterned red bandana, which he tolerates surprisingly well. This gives Remy a strategic advantage over food droppings because whenever Milo passes through a room, under a table, or alongside someone's leg, he is spotted immediately and his cover is blown.

"Oh, woojaboojawookahnullypooky!" squeals his beloved owner in adoration. "Yes, a boojahboojahdoo, I love you!"

Milo warms to her touch but keeps one eye on a small piece of smoked turkey which, unbeknownst to everyone else, has been dropped on the floor by my younger cousin Blake.

"Oh, but he is so cute, so cute, so cute, Mom," the daughter says. "Oh Milo, we loooove you." She joins in the petting frenzy and Milo is pleased, but now split-brained in turmoil about the piece of smoked turkey just begging to be licked up off the floor.

Slowly, almost tediously, Remy gets up from his perch at the base of his other owner's feet, glances at Milo, lopes under the table, and laps up the smoked turkey. Milo's butt and tail wriggle with excitement as he tries to manuever free from his owner's adoring caresses, but does not act fast enough.

Operation Shutdown

My Uncle's house in Connecticut has central heat and flush toilets, two full showers, a dishwasher, a pool table, spare bedrooms, a weekly visit from a Maid, and a television bigger than a walk in closet. Compared to my cabin, this house feels like a seething factory of both efficiencty and waste, comfort and gluttony. I am at once physically at ease yet tense in the hyper-modern environment. I am simultaneously grateful for the refuge and family, yet I remain uncomfortable with the lack of physical and mental activity amongst family members (myself included).

I am used to stimulation, engagement, activity of the mind - not Operation Shutdown.

Don't get me wrong; I love my family. My Aunt and Uncle work their petite, athletic asses off at very dignified work (one teaches graduate level biology at Yale, the other is a top terminal illness doctor). My cousin Evan worked with me for several hours today on his dreaded college essay. He is ADD and collegiate lacrosse team bound (we reviewed his folder of personal letters from coaches all over the East Coast today). The other cousin, Blake, is growing into a handsome young man, a fine writer, and a soccer and lacrosse goalie with regional reputation. There is a lot to be proud of here.

But three televisions in one house? All on at the same time?
Computer games with machine guns?
Three cell phones, a pager, and the constant flow of seventy-five degree pre-heated air?

My brain is starting to go numb. My back muscles have now woven a taught sailor's knot extending from the base of my right shoulder blade up to the base of my skull. I am not walking or moving my body anywhere. There is no wood to chop, no half a mile walk to the mail box, no excuse to move much more than a few inches to get another piece of chocolate, another glass of wine, another meal when I'm not even hungry.

Have I really become such a fragile creature, like a salamander touched by salty hands, now slowly melting from the outside in, eventually resulting in total pH meltdown? Can I lift only my fingers to type, but not to open the door - go on a walk, jump-start the brain, kick up some snow? Where are my midnight sky and snowflake stars, crunch-crunch oak leaves and cakling squirrels? For that matter, what about some nice, family-friendly Christmas Eve traditions? I have become a total creature of habit, my mountain cabin a bubble ecosystem, my breath of creativity tied to Carolina hemlock boughs with finely spun wolf spider thread. Spin me home, spin me home, spin me home!

The Garden State (Part 2)

Betty has fallen and broken both her hips since I saw her last but is surprisingly strong and full of color. Now she uses a walker. Seeing the way she bounces up from the couch with ease, however, makes me wonder whether the walker is a psychological crutch more than anything else. Al is the same - deep in thought, blind, stubborn, and psychologically trapped in a time and place that no longer exist.

"He's always been self-centered," cousin John said last night. "That's it. He makes Betty cater to him, doesn't do a damn thing for himself. They would have died if they stayed in the city. I had to pull him by his rotting teeth out of that apartment." John's face is worn with disgust and he waves his hands firmly to the side, mentally setting his father as far away as he can. "His behavior is pathological."

For the first time I am forced to come to terms with the other side of Al - a side that reveals a withered man terrified of leaving the physical and mental worlds he has known since his birth. New York City is and always has been both a place and an ideology, a destination and a sub-culture. All Uncle Al wanted to do was be born and die there. He was priveleged with the former, and resents that he won't have the latter. Having heard John's deposition the night before, I find it hard to look at Al with the same "paint the world with frosting" eyes that I once did.

"Writing is an art no harder than ditch digging," Al says. He is eating half and egg salad sandwich and food smears between this teeth and lips embarassingly. I'm slightly disappointed and concerned with his statement, because for the first time he is repeating himself. After all, he made the same analogy when I called him on the phone in August. "Did I ever tell you about the poet Gray?"

In fact he has, but this time I am prepared because I looked him up. We recite the lines together, my healthy voice filling in where the raspiness of Al's trickles down his throat and cannot escape: "The boast of heraldry and the pomp of power, and all that wealth 'ere gave, and all that health 'ere gave, alike await the finaly hour, the paths of glory lead but to the grave."

After about an hour of visiting, Dad walks Al downstairs to meet the bus for his eye appointment. Betty and Mom and I squeeze together on the couch, a triplicate of Nyhan profiles that would have made my grandmother proud. WIth Al gone, Betty confesses that she is pleased with the move and couldn't feel better about their new living conditions.

"And oh, there are so many activities to do here!" she exclaims. "Once I get off this walker, I'll be ready for senior trips!" She pats her arthritic hands up and down on her knees enthusiastically.

By midafternoon we hit the road, heading further north to Durham, Connecticut where my aunt, uncle and cousins live. We inch through slow moving traffic, like thoughts through a narrow canal in the mind, and I contemplate why it is that our culture is so terrified about the end of life. We're all driving there anyway, each at our own speed, but inevitably toward the same end.

The Garden State (Part 1)

I awoke eager to see "the garden state" in daylight for the first time in years. It took twelve hours of continuous driving to arrive at cousin John's door, and leave it to him to make every mile worth while. It turns out that the garden state is a winter wonderland this time of year (so, no gardens), appropriately, but the scenery of John's personality was sufficient to round out my experience.

John is actually my second cousin, and the only child of great Uncle Al and Aunt Betty who lived for many decades in Manhattan. This visit is brief, but necessary, as John is planning to take us to Al and Betty's new assisted living home in New Jersey.

"He's always been my favorite cousin," Mom says to me when John steps out of the room to use the bathroom between jokes and galoshing glasses of wine.

John is over six feet tall with a growing keg belly and a loveable, full-of-cheek face. His skin is Italian olive and rosy pink, accented by deeply graying hair.
When he laughs, his arms freeze in motion and he tosses his head back gregariously as a widening smile spreads across his face. It is as if he is tossing the love of the world back into himself when he does this, drinking it up like the Greeks after a long evening of elegant debauchery.

"You've gotta try this, try it, here, try it, it's unbelieveable, God help us," he half-hollered across the kitchen island last night.

"It's about five different types of rum, garnered with pineapple chunks that have been saturated in it for two weeks.

Two bites of those puppies at about two-hundred proof each and you're done for."
He pours my mother and I a shot of the concoction. The evening roars onward like a blues cruise through the Caribean. John takes one solo after the next, guiding our midnight band through politically incorrect jokes, herioc stories of pediatric miracles (his speciality), and memories of the legendary Nyhan family from which he descends.

In the morning he is alerty yet slightly hungover. My parents and I are adorned with books, bottles of wine, and promises of gatherings at his house in East Hampton as we load up the car. Dad rides with John in the new Audi, its seamless ivory body gleaming under frostbitten sunlight. Mom and I follow behind them in my dirty, dependable Chrysler.

It takes fifty-five minutes to drive forteen miles through interstate traffic to Fransiscan Oaks, Al and Betty's new assisted living home. Despite his jolity, John has made it clear that he disapproves of his father, my beloved Uncle Al. This is the only part of our visit that I cannot resonate with. As we enter the sterile yet homey doors of Fransiscan Oaks, this thought tugs at my conscience and I am unsure what to expect once we all get in the same room...(to be continued)

Corvallis Bound (Part 2)

The wooden double doors were heavy and dark, like a fairyland castle entrance. Unsure of proper frat house etiquette, Lindsay knocked on the doors and a loud, hollow sound resounded through what sounded like a narrow hallway.

No one answered. It was, after all, the middle of the morning. Presumably people were in class.

She knocked again, this time more insistently. I remember the white of her knuckles pressed against the deep grain of the wood and how they stood out against the chilly, wet air. After about ninety seconds, a blonde haired, blue-eyed strapping young man came to the door. It swung open wide on its hinges and gently creaked.

“What’s up?” he asked sleepily.

“Is Jeff around?” Lindsay asked slowly. I remember watching her as we entered this unfamiliar territory together. Around the city, we were a team – we knew what we wanted, where to get it, and whom we wanted to be with. We had our fantasy party bubble and had no reason to burst it. But Super Skip Day in Corvallis was different. I was curious to see how Lindsay would behave around her coveted boyfriend, how he would respond to our surprise visit, and what the inside of a frat house was like anyway.

Within an hour, we had located Jeff on campus and the two lovebirds went for a walk across the campus greens. I skirted off, preferring to find my own way around and tactfully give them their privacy. I wondered back to the frat house and invited myself in. This time, no one was around so I perused the dining hall, bulletin board, and photo wall. At one point a young woman in a hot pink tank top and flare bottom jeans careened down the stairs, around the corner, and down the long hallway to the wooden doors. She sobbed recklessly and held her face in her hands. The doors slammed firmly behind her.

When all was said and done, Lindsay and I found our selves back in Portland and hustling through the metal school doors just in time for seventh period. I had glimpsed a small part of the mysterious college world and decided it was unbedazzled. Snobbishly, I remember being happy about my enrollment in a private college and thought to myself that the town would be much smaller, the campus greener, and the number of students less daunting. When I got home Mom asked how my day at school was.

“Oh, alright,” I sighed.

Corvallis Bound (Part 1)

Senior year in high school, Lindsay had a boyfriend who was a freshman at Oregon State University. He was Marine Corps bound and difficult to decipher. The ins and outs of their long-distance relationship dominated many late night coffee shops talks between Lindsay and I.

Our favorite spot was down on Northwest 23rd avenue (now called “trendythird” by old school Portlanders who despise gentrification) under the misty light of the Coffee People awnings. Coffee People is a local Portland chain whose slogan is “Good Coffee, No Backtalk.” On 23rd they are camped right across the street from Starf**ks so our anti-corporate egos often swelled with delight over our excellent taste.

One night Lindsay lamented that she hadn’t seen Jeff in over six weeks. It was time for some nookie. It was also time for the ultimate skip day. Two months from graduation, senioritis was as contagious as herpes. Lindsay and I were both accepted into our top colleges, no major exams or papers were slated for the next day, and both of us were off work. I sipped my double-tall-Mindsweeper slowly and dared to suggest a scheme for what later went down in our history book as Super Skip Day.

“Do you think we could get to Corvallis and back between second and seventh periods?”

Lindsay slammed down her double-tall-Irish-Cream-mocha and glared at me in anticipation. She took a long drag off her Marlboro Red then slowly let the corners of her mouth turn upwards.

“Holy shit. Yes. YES!”

There were a lot of details to work out, not the least of which was what our excuse would be if we got pulled over by a State Trooper (speeding was necessary in order to get back in time for seventh period). Would we surprise Jeff? Whose care would we take? Where would we meet? Which tapes should we bring?

By 8:55 a.m. the next morning we were screeched around the onramp and cruised onto I-5 South. Within sixty minutes were had made the ninety mile drive and pulled up along side the Sig House. This would be the first time either of us had set foot in a fraternity house, and as high school seniors rearing to go to college, we felt we were walking into our future lives as college freshman. What would it be like inside?…(to be continued)

Skipping School

Lindsay was a brunette and had silky, straight hair that went down to her shoulder blades. Having played soccer together for ten years, conveniently Lindsay and I also happened to dive into our rebellious, angst-filled phases at the same time too.

“It’s Pantene hair, Lindsay, face it, you’ve got the look,” I used to say. This was in high school. I looked up to her because she was, in my innocent eyes, prettier, thinner, troubled, intelligent, and an excellent writer. To me, Lindsay got to experience some of the things I never experienced until college because she was all of these things – and then some. And being her best friend, I got to live vicariously through her highs and lows. Most of the time, I loved it.

Our respect and friendship was mutual until around sophomore year in college. Lindsay looked up to me because my family was, according to her, perfect, loving, understanding, and hip. She admired that I was a thinker and a writer as well. She loved my sense of humor and my lack of hesitancy with emotional issues.

“Fuck it, let’s skip fifth and get hair dye. Do you wanna?” she used to say.

“Of course I do,” I’d reply. And sometimes we’d do just that. Other times we’d speed all the way across the Willamette River via the Burnside Bridge to the East side where it was ten times easier to buy cigarettes and alcohol as a minor. No matter what we did, a quick stop for espresso was always in order.

“We got skeels,” she’d say as we bounced my ’87 Plymouth over the triple speed bumps in the student parking lot. “Back just in time for sixth period.”

At first skipping classes gave me anxiety. But I was a straight-A student and tired of being straight-laced. I had my own car, knew my way around the city, and somehow kept my absences just low enough to stay out of harm’s way. It didn’t take long for the rush of the real world to replace my school-girl jitteriness. Besides, what we could learn in 48 minutes cruising around the city seemed a hell of a lot more important than fill in the blank tests or answering the questions at the end of each section in our Social Studies textbooks. It was no coincidence I would become and advocate and contributor to the experiential education movement years later.

Do you have a favorite story about playing hooky?

Brace Yourself

Today has been a rainbow maze of junk and love and clocks with noisy second hands and ice chunks and live lobsters, to name only a few things.

It never ceases to amaze me how a woman can feel, for example…spiritually fulfilled sitting in a crowd of 1,000 people listening to live Celtic music with her eyes closed while sitting on her hands because they’re cold…and two minutes later feel…utterly defeated by the habitual tendency of growing impatient with ambiguity, sexual undertones, and projected disappointment over a friendship with someone who isn’t even there at the time.

I’ve had to take generic nighttime Sudafed for the last four nights in order to fall asleep (hacking cough is still persistent). I’ve been told this can cause instant, temporary depression. Oops. I’ve also been ovulating for the last four days. I’ve been told this can cause instant, temporary depression (back aches, irritability, pimples, fatigue – take your pick). Notice a theme here?

How can one microscopic egg drifting through a fallopian tube create such a life-sized roller coaster? Seriously folks, pound for pound, George W. Bush might be the “most powerful man on Earth” (I won’t say what else he is), but a female egg packs a lot more punch than that sack of potatoes ever could. Imagine if all the women in power, all over the world, were ovulating at the same time. And we’re worried about nuclear war? Weapons of mass destruction? Global warming?

We need to start talking about the cycles of the moon!

Film Oddities

Whack Job #1:
Myrtle lives in West Palm Beach, Florida. A few years ago she met her soul mate, “Cotton.” Cotton is a chicken. But not just any chicken. He is a Japanese Cotton Chicken. He sits at the table for meals. He even eats Big Macs. Myrtle made him red satin diapers with removable cloth liners so he doesn’t have the shame of uncontrollably shitting all over the house. Cotton’s feathers are silky and fluffy like a baby birds and extend all the way down to his claws.

Yes, I have seen a chicken with hairy feet. It is an unsettling sight (not to mention the way she kisses him, and how her red dress matches his diapers).

Whack Job #2:
Robin is a chicken lover. He says, “I’d be honored the day someone calls me chicken.” He knows how to do the mating dance. He roots around in his back yard, blue denim overalls like makeshift feathers, clucking and clawing at the dirt with his companions. Robin can even crow like a rooster. His imitation is eerily precise. But he doesn’t have tail feathers, and no matter how hard he tries, Robin will never lay eggs.

Yes, I have seen a man aspire to become an animal that pecks for food in piles of its own excrement.

Whack Job #3:
Bethany never thought she’d be famous. But then again, she hadn’t met Valerie the hen when she thought that. One cold winter night in Maine, Bethany called her hens in to roost. “Here chic chics, here chic chics,” she cried. They clucked and waddled their way home god speed, except for hen number seven (later named Valerie, as in valor).

Long story short, poor hen number seven had hypothermia and was frozen under the rickety yellow pine porch and Bethany’s dog had to haul her out. After three hours of mouth-to-beak resuscitation, the chic was saved and Bethany was on a fast track to fame. Live interviews were even broadcast in Russia, Nepal, and Moscow.

Moral of the stories?

The PBS film A Natural History of the Chicken says more about chicken owners than it does the little cluck-clucks themselves.

Winter Wonder Party

My car slides on thick ice halfway up the driveway to the party. I should have been in bed hours ago.

BAM!

I hit a rock. Nothing major, but enough to send me back down the driveway, sliding in reverse, where I resolve to park and walk the rest of the way. I walk a quarter of a mile up, through ice and snow, then up twelve railrod tie steps, I push the sliding glass door open and am greeted by a rucous:

“Kaaaaaaatey!!!!!!!!!!!” Cheers all around. House pets howl. Toasts ensue.

I am, after all, four hours late to the party. Everyone is drunk or on their way to it, which is good - because it means that no one notices I have not brought an appetizer or a party activity. Previously, the hostess warned me that this would be my admission to the party.

I pour myself a glass of wine and watch the current activity: See If You Can Walk Across the Room With A Quarter Stuck Between You Ass Crack (Pants On) and Drop It Into A Glass Jar. I arrive at the climax of the game. One contender remains and has just successfully pinged the quarter into the glass jar. The man, a joyful adult in his fifties with galloping grey hair and Santa’s belly, raises two arms in the air like a champ. Yes! He has qualified for the final round.

This activity is followed by body shots, which takes me back immediately to Mark Stribling and Whitman College. We never dated, yet we carried an indescribable body shot dynamic to parties that left crowds howling for more. A party favorite was when our body shots started in a chair and ended with both our feet in the air. Imagine that .

The party digressed into small, very drunk chatter but still maintains an air of maturity. Most people discuss philosophical issues about their own lives, or big-picture stuff like how children teach us profound lessons and what life was like before Vietnam. That’s not to say that my conversations weren’t interrupted by occasional random phrases that seemed to momentarily dominate the room (ex. “PENIS JOUSTING!”).

Why and how do I end up at this party? The truth is, I know almost every person in the room and call them close friends. They’ve just finished teaching their hearts out at a school I used to work for and are celebrating the end of the semester. My parents are included in this bunch and I’m actually proud of that.

I leave early (the cold has still got me) but feel oddly fulfilled. After three snow days, there’s nothing like a total social waterfall to re-initiate one’s self back into “reality.” The gravel roads are still too icy and I debate: Hike half a mile in eighteen degree weather on an icy road while carrying a backpack up to my cabin? Or crash on the couch at my folks’ house just two hundred yards ‘round the bend.

I choose the latter because I can drive my car almost right up to the back door of the house. I don’t need my headlights to finish the drive. The moon is full and reflects off the snow like a mirror in the noonday sun.

Sage Advice from a Writing Friend

We are snowed in up on Patton Thicket. Going anywhere would require walking half a mile through snow and melting ice, and then, where on Earth would I go anyway? It is a day that begs for writing.

I rally just enough mental energy to begin an essay for my MFA application to Naropa University. Last week I pondered this essay for an entire afternoon, without arriving at a topic sentence, a hook, or even a pale glimpse of structure. Today is different. The essay goes smoothly because it has been steeping for a week and is finally ripe with all the right words.

When I finish, I bake a chocolate cake to get myself up and away from the computer. Then I call Mendy, my writer friend and peace activist. Mendy’s inspirational coaching is quite possibly the reason I had the courage to leave my teaching career and plunge into writing. Her influence on me will surface in my life for decades to come.

“How is your book?” she asks. I sigh, then tell her the truth.

“I haven’t been able to touch it since I didn’t get the Arts Council grant.”

“Oh.” She is thinking, digging around in her heart for advice.

“But I have a title, and a structural concept. Now I just have a lot of holes to fill in. At least I know the holes have limits though.” This is how I speak when I am unsure about something I’m passionate about – very vaguely. “The trouble is, I’m not convinced my chapters are long enough.”

“Your chapters are done when you’ve said everything you have to say,” she begins. “Your memoir does not require research. It’s all about the heart and it always has been. That’s why people can relate to it. That’s why what you say about adolescence is timeless even though you’re writing about life in the nineties.”

We go back and forth for almost an hour. I pose questions, she coaches me in response. She checks to make sure I’m getting out enough, treating myself to different activities that stimulate the non-word parts of my existence. I ask about her poetry, her partner’s book, her plans for a degree in Fayetteville. She’s stuck on an article for a local paper and I’m able to offer advice.

“Give specifics about the women poets you know, but provide enough inspirational material to excite readers who’ve never heard these women before. This editor wants a polished piece that will fit right in with her theme of the month. She knows your work and you’re submitting early; give her a good fit and she won’t be able to turn you down,” I offer. She says she’ll write the article this week and send it off.

The cake is finished cooling on the rack by the time we hang up. I make up a recipe for chocolate-peanut-butter icing and get a giddy head rush from tasting the real confectioner’s sugar (it’s no coincidence that it looks like cocaine).