Glibbertysmidgeon

When the earthquake hit Sri Lanka, I was having Christmas dinner with my family. While the news reports about the tsunamis striking 11 countries started rolling, I was asleep at my sister’s house. I first heard of the disaster when Kris called me down from her attic workroom on Monday afternoon. By the time I had descended the stairs the news update had ended, and someone had changed the channel.

“Isn’t William in Phuket?” Kris asked. I thought a minute.

“He didn’t say where he was headed, but he usually goes to Phuket when he’s in Thailand.”

We speculated on how we might find his itinerary, and I went back upstairs, hoping that he had gone to Bangkok instead.

The next morning, a friend called to ask if I’d heard from William yet. This friend believed that he had, in fact, gone to Phuket. Later in the day, I phoned William’s parents,

“Hi Paul and Maureen, this is William’s friend, Patti. I was just wondering if you’ve heard from him yet.” Suddenly, the gravity of the situation struck me, and I began to bluster, “I’m sure he’s just fine, but I was wondering if he’ll be coming home early…”

I ended the message by leaving my phone number and absurdly wishing them a happy new year.

We ate lunch, ran an errand, and then headed back down to Seattle, where we had dinner plans with two of Kris’ brothers. During the drive we began phoning friends to arrange times when we might visit with them.

“…How ‘bout coffee in the morning? We’re going to the aquarium with Jason and Presley tomorrow…William will be home on Friday, and we were going to spend some time on New Year’s Eve with him. How’s your schedule on Thursday?”

“…We have to give William’s car back on Friday, so whoever hangs out with us on Saturday has to be our chauffer…”

As we were passing through Everett, I suggested we check on William’s house. He’d left us the keys, but we hadn’t yet taken advantage of his offer to stay there.

“We should check the mail and stuff.”

There wasn’t any mail- he must have notified the Post Office to hold it. There wasn’t any note for us, either. Or any itinerary lying on the coffee table. Without William, the house seemed lonely, and much too quiet. We paced around the cold house, picking up pictures of William- with his daughter, with his sister, with a friend. I put a note on the refrigerator, and Kris and I sat down on the couch and looked at one another.

“You want to go over to Jason’s house?”

When we arrived at Jason’s, a news story was playing footage of the tsunami- the first we’d seen. We were stunned by the images of the destruction, and the death toll. We’d had no idea of the magnitude of this disaster.

Now, as I dress for dinner, I think back on that fumbled message to William’s parents with regret. I hope he really is in Bangkok, sipping a whiskey sour and watching the whole thing on television.

UPDATE: William was not on Phuket, and is home safe.

Last weekend, Kris and I drove out to Long Island for a birthday party. I noticed that there were a lot of those yellow stickers that say “Support our Troops” on the backs of the SUVs and BMWs that we encountered along the way.

These stickers offend me. The message I read is “You don’t support the troops because you don’t have a sticker like mine.”

Putting up stickers and ribbons strikes me as a preachy way to make our safe selves feel better about all those men and women that are dying in Iraq, but I don’t see how they do anything for the troops themselves.

A pet peeve, I confess. Still, my reaction makes me wonder.
What does it really mean to support our troops?

During the second world war, the government gave very specific instructions. People were told to ration food, learn first aid, restrict travel, collect scrap items, conserve rubber, and conserve fuel. I am sad that we have not been given any such instructions for this war.

In lieu of any official instructions, I’ve compiled my own small set of “Support our Troops” ideas.

• Donate money to the USO to help buy calling cards so they can phone home for the holidays.
• Donate unused air miles so soldiers home on leave can fly home from the military bases.
• Contribute to Homes for our Troops: They help injured vets adapt their homes for accessibility.
• Contribute to the Wounded Warrior Project, which works to help wounded veterans adjust to life as disabled civilians.

As American citizens who owe our freedom and lifestyle to the sacrifices of soldiers past and present, it is our duty to watch their backs in any way we can. To me that means more than sending money to good causes or slapping on a yellow sticker. We all also need to:

• Follow the war closely.
• Be aware of the number of casualties- both deaths and injuries.
• Pay attention to any complaints, concerns, or fears the soldiers voice, and honor their requests
• Ask ourselves daily, “Have we sent them to fight in service to a cause that is necessary, and worth their precious lives?”

The optometrist said it’s only a slight astigmatism, that he’d probably only notice it when reading, or using the computer, or when he’s especially tired. We went to pick out glasses the same day, because Kris stares at his computer a lot.

“Maybe I’ll read as fast as you now.” He joked.

When the glasses were ready he sped into the city to pick them up while I finished packing for our Christmas trip home. On the ride out to the airport, I kept looking at him. He ignored my stares and thought his own thoughts. Since I was driving I could not stick my nose in his ear and exhale loudly, lick his face, or do any of the other petty annoyances that usually win his attention; I just kept peeking. I was surprised by how much I liked them. And by another reaction that I couldn’t quite place.

We’d chosen super light frames, with small, rimless lenses. The glasses are nearly invisible. And yet.

At the airport food court we ate teriyaki while a jazz trio riffed on White Christmas, and I watched him from every angle. He finished eating and sat quietly, eyebrows slightly raised, lost in his own thoughts.

And there it was.
He looked exactly right, sitting there daydreaming in his subtle eyewear. Somehow, the glasses complemented his thoughtful expression. Wearing them, he looked intelligent, gentle, and dreamy.

His look suddenly a perfect reflection of his nature.

If you’ve been through it as many times as I have, you can feel it coming.

There’s a certain slowdown, a growing loss of momentum. Management is distracted. There’s talk about the long term direction of the team, but there isn’t any work for you to do today. Or there is work, but nobody is asking when you’ll have it done. Maybe the others don’t realize it, but they respond to the mood. There’s time for talk at the water cooler. You’re not the only one who doesn’t have a deadline.

It was a relief today when my boss took me into her cube and asked, “Do you want to know what’s going on?”

December is the killing season. In the last 7 years, I’ve been laid off at Christmas 4 times. I’ve come to look forward to the holiday with equal parts anticipation and dread. Can I buy him that warm coat, or should I be trimming The List instead of the tree?

This year, the news was surprisingly good.
The company has asked all consultants to take a hiatus until the end of the year, starting Monday. We can come back to our jobs in January.

Even better, the hiatus coincides with my trip home for the holidays. The company has simply extended a planned vacation for three extra days. Sadly, some of us weren’t so lucky. 25 consultants packed their things today and said goodbye for good.

Two of them are people I know.

After they left I sat at my desk, editing a document. I was glad to have a hard deadline. But as I sat there, feeling amazed and grateful to have survived another Christmas at my good job, I couldn’t help thinking back on those two goodbye hugs.

They came to work like any other day. By lunchtime they had walked out into the cold with their scarves around their noses, and their futures as open as the windswept streets.

I used to think that I could fly.

When I was young, my cousins and I played on Grandma’s farm down in Oregon. After the harvest when they burned the hay fields, the three of us would spend our afternoons chasing wind devils. Those tiny spirals of wind, like mini-tornados, became visible when they carried the ash. We caught our share of wind devils, be we never assumed that our failure to fly was because flight was impossible. Though our toes never left the earth, we chased those grayish funnels with the enthusiasm of dogs chasing squirrels, certain that sooner or later we would time our landing right, and we’d be up, up and away.

In those days I also believed that an invisible owl lived in the head-sized knothole in the old oak that stood in front of the barn. I used to talk to that old owl and there were times when I felt sure I’d heard him answer.

When I was really small, I believed that everything buried in the earth returned to heaven, so my sister and I wrote letters to God and buried them behind the garage. When we went looking for them later they were gone, and we were pleased that God had gotten our messages.

In high school, my beliefs were somewhat less optimistic. I believed that married people secretly hated each other, and that nothing good was ever going to come of my life. In those days I lived with my mother and her fourth husband, and I’d seen enough to know that our kind of people didn’t win the Publisher’s Clearinghouse, and we didn’t go to Disneyland. When my high school counselor told me what classes would prepare me for college, I took them. I may have been a cynical girl, but I was still an obedient one. I took two years of typing and three years of Spanish before it occurred to me that I could go to beauty school instead of college. After that, I filled my elective periods with ceramics class and A.V. I liked throwing pots and developing black and white film, so I took both of those classes a second time. I didn’t have any plans to become an artist- those kinds of dreams were for The Lucky People, not for the likes of me, I just liked taking the classes.

My future- when I imagined it- would be stunted by a drunkard husband or several sullen children who talked back to me and refused to make their beds. I would probably work at the Safeway store or J.C. Penney, and if I was lucky enough I’d have a dog.

One year after graduation, I was on my way to having just that kind of a life. I was working at a Chevron station in Washington State, and trying to figure out how to get away from the young man I was dating- the young man who punched me in the gut and called me a slut, and who had recently given me my first black eye.

When I applied for the job at the Chevron station I’d heard that they hired a lot of college students. At my interview, I made sure to tell the owner that I was thinking of attending Western Washington University in the fall. When he called me back he said that while he’d really enjoyed our interview, he was looking for a full time cashier. I quickly told him that I’d decided to work for a year so I could become a Washington resident before starting my education. After that year passed, the station owner took me for a walk around the lot.

“Kathy and I, we think of you like a daughter.” He said, calmly filling his pipe. “We’re both concerned because you’re not going to school.”
He told me if money was the problem, that they would lend me money that I could pay back, interest free, after graduation.

Nobody had ever spoken to me like that. The next week I registered for classes, and filled out my financial aid paperwork.

When I graduated, I went to Disneyworld.

Note: This piece was published in the March, 2004 issue of Penwomanship.