He made money writing about travel in NYC. He never said much about it.
He’s dead because of spaghetti and meatballs. One of those Friday night All You Can Eat Spaghetti Specials. See, he had a glass of wine or two and forgot about his heart. Then he ordered the spaghetti. His heart was a problem before. Attacks, shunts, balloons, bypass, I don’t remember. Maybe all of it, maybe none, but there were problems.
Which didn’t deter donuts either.
His letters over the winter would go on and on about money making schemes. Maybe he’d convert the mothballed Grand Manan ferry into a hotel. They only wanted a mil for it. Maybe the family would move into a tent and rent their 1844 house to a carpenter who would finish the renovations for rent. It was one of those houses, like you could see from one end to the other through the plaster lath, the half demoed walls. And somehow you could see up through the floors to the attic too.
The heart attack came not long after he finished the Friday Night Spaghetti Special. He made it to the hospital but died there. I wonder what he would have written about that event. Such a good writer. We wrote letters to each other over the winter. At his service I told the stories about the ferry, and his house plans, and everybody laughed. They all knew what a dreamer he was.
The cold New England winters found their way into the house too. It was too much for his widow, with two young children, and after Bob died she sold the old house Bob loved and moved to town.
That description of old Maine houses placed me perfectly. Great setting. A gem of an excerpt. "...what a dreamer he was." I wouldn't mind if people remembered that about me. I'd say not bad.
Actually Bob's house was in western Massachusetts, the Berkshires. But it could have been in Maine. I owned a house like this myself, in Maine, probably partly why Bob and I were good friends.
We had a country home in the Berkshires, in Richmond, between Pittsfield and Tanglewood. Which is neither here nor there but I felt the need to say it.
No one, not even Mamma, ever told me about this. She told me lots of things, Mamma, but never about this, about how I could avoid it or welcome it, depending, about how I’d feel about it, about how long it would last.
But here I am, in the middle of it, or maybe it's still the start. Am I happy? Too soon to tell, probably. Maybe I’ll get used to it. Am I comfortable? As comfortable as you’d expect, given the circumstances.
Mamma told me so many things, I guess she forgot about this. It’s understandable. With all she had to deal with, some things were bound to fall away. Like Jake. And Baby Louise. But we managed to move on, once we became comfortable with what had happened. Twice, it happened.
Mamma wasn’t as careless as all this makes her sound. She had so much to deal with. I already said that, I know, but it’s worth repeating, so you understand that when this happened, and I was surprised, I want you to understand that I don’t blame Mamma for not telling me about it. Anyway, how could she have known that I’d be here at this particular moment and that circumstances would be just right, as it seems they were? I mean, I’m probably fated to go through this, right? It’s always been in the cards for me, given my life, and Mamma’s. My eyes are blue, my hair is blond, and this was bound to happen.
Mamma tried to run from the tide once. She thought it was funny, wanted me to laugh. First, the tide went out and it was easy to run from it, and I did laugh. But then the tide turned, it came in, came in very quickly, and she couldn’t run fast enough. From my seat in the lifeguard chair I saw her wave as she went out. All I could do was wave back. Wave, wave, wave.
So now, you see, now that it’s happened, I can’t ask Mamma about it, or why she didn’t tell me it would happen, since she must have known it would, given me, given her, my blue eyes, my blond hair. I'll have to wait and see how it turns out.
"I'll have to wait and see how it turns out." Something tells me you've been over to Story Club today? The waving from the water reminded me of that poem by Stevie Smith. "I was much further out than you thought, and not waving but drowning."
That poem is a miracle. Every time I read it, I know exactly what's coming, but every time, every single time, it takes me by surprise. I almost know it by heart, and yet it's a total surprise. I guess she must have found for it the perfect rhythm of revelation.
Yes, I was reaching a point where I didn't know what to do with this and I thought of the latest Story Club discussion. I guess it was meant to be. As for Stevie Smith, thanks for bringing that poem up. Have you ever seen the movie with Glenda Jackson, "Stevie"? It came out in 1978.
I lot of evocative little mysteries in this piece. Jake, Baby Louise, and why is blonde hair and blue eyes means something. But I will just enjoy wondering.
He said: Sure! There are all kinds of restaurants just right here on the street!
She said nothing.
He said: How about Chinese?
She said (and laughed): But you don't like Chinese!
He said: What do you mean I don't like Chinese?
She said: Can we please stop with the He said She said tags?
OK.
Aaah! That's a relief!
So why don't I like Chinese?
Chinese makes you ill. It's all that glutamate they put in.
Well, here's a Tandoori place. They cook in a clay oven.
With more chili than I can stand. Anything Indian, it's no-no for me.
Yeah, but they... Forget it. How about English?
English? You kidding?
French then?
If you're loaded.
No. But look! Over there, Italian!
OK, just as long as...
It looks good. Let's go in and see. Good evening. Do you have a table for two? Thank you.
I wonder what I can bear to eat on this menu. Maybe just a dessert.
Well, I'm going for a nice big spaghetti Bolo. Fill me right up to the gills.
Spaghetti?
Oh. I was forgetting. You don't like spaghetti.
I hate spaghetti. I hate it with a deep, all-consuming hatred that will not be brooked. I'm sure I told you that before.
Well, there are other things on the menu...
I hate spaghetti so much I can't stand the smell of it! The sight of it slithering around between fork and spoon as people pretend to know how to eat the disgusting stuff and then suck the strands between their greasy lips into their slathering mouths and get sauce all over their porky chops SO DON'T YOU DARE EAT SPAGHETTI IN FRONT OF ME!
.............
Yes, yes, we were just leaving, sir. My friend's rather tired, been a long day... Thank you, good evening...
She got a cab and went home, he went back into the Italian place and humbly ordered double spaghetti Bolo. I don't think their relationship (whatever it was) went any further.
A psychic once told me – well, I don’t think that he was a psychic. He could have been and he wanted me to believe that he was psychic but mostly I think that he was one of those people who hang out on the border between inappropriate and creepy.
He told me that I was deeply troubled. The occasion for this pronouncement: I had just vomited on the boardwalk in Santa Cruz. I was on the boardwalk during the lunch break on the first day of a three-day conference I was attending. After I vomited, this man, who was also attending the conference, but who I did not know at all, handed me a greasy napkin from his fish and chips, looked intently at me without blinking, and said, “You vomited because you are deeply troubled. I have unique insight and with your permission, I will help you uncover the source of your troubles this weekend.” I didn’t respond. Instead, I went into a dirty restroom on the beach where I washed my face and cried.
A few hours later, my stomach agreed to remain quiet enough for me to drive myself back home, so I abandoned the conference.
I don’t think that I was then, or am now, any more deeply troubled than the average person. I suspect that everyone, if you probe them enough, will find something that they are deeply troubled by. You know, “most men live lives of quiet desperation.” Lately, I think it isn’t even quiet desperation. Just watch the nightly news and you’ll be a raving ranting flood of desperation inundating everyone you meet.
I also think that if you want to explore the cause of your troubles, you need to be on your toes. Strangers with greasy napkins might be just the ticket but it is important to pay attention to your gut before you commit to anything.
That opening line is so great. "A psychic once told me – well, I don’t think that he was a psychic." Ha! What realm are we in when a story opens this way? Love it.
At my local shop, on the noticeboard was a small card with a a telephone number, and 'Deirdre - Clairvoyant', written across the top in marker pen. I mentioned it to the elderly man who tended the til. 'She also advertises in the pub,' he said. 'She's had a poster up outside the gents for a seance. Last time I was in there, I paused outside the loo while drying my hands on my trousers, and I noticed that a strip of paper had been pinned across the poster, and in handwriting was the message, 'Sadly cancelled due to unforeseen circumstances,' he shrugged. 'Honest truth.'
I'm not good at letting go of things. Just this morning, my guy came home from his walk, the same walk I would take after my coffee and quiet time.
"I saw a little coyote pup, by the school on Bigelow," he said. He said the tiny pup was high up on a ledge, looking to jump down, and that I should look for it. Heading out, I kept my eyes peeled, checking bushes and ledges around. When I rounded the corner to the street where the pup sighting was, I saw a man sitting on a small stool, filming what seemed to me to be a stuffed animal. As I neared, I could see that it was a puppy, all curled up and still near the sidewalk. As I approached, the creature didn't stir, and the man put his camera away. He said the school principal had called animal control.
"What do you think will happen to the pup?" I asked.
He said he wasn't sure. "It could be a dog," he said. I didn't correct him.
"Thank you for doing this," I said. "People have completely screwed nature over," I added as I stepped away, but he looked at me blankly.
I don't think the pup will make it, but I will keep trying to imagine that the Animal Control will save it instead of kill it, and then when it's all better, release it into the wild, although that seems unlikely.
Now I must go to work and try to shake it all off, seeing this injured baby animal, but I know I won't be able to.
Hard thing to shake off, especially for the sensitive souls around here, of which you are one. I'm hopeful that animal control will take that little pup to a wildlife shelter for re-hab, but who knows. Life can be brutal in the animal kingdom, for all of us.
“People have completely screwed nature over,” I added as I stepped away, but he looked at me blankly.” This sentence says so much about society’s disconnect with nature.
In 1969, we moved from Maryland to suburban New York, so that my Dad could take a corporate exec job at the Westvaco company, which still owns an imposing skyscraper on Park Avenue. I remember once when my father somehow left his briefcase at home, and I took the train to Grand Central, walked up Park Avenue and delivered it to him, feeling utterly cool and grown-up. I loved that he worked in that building, but he didn’t. He just wasn’t the kind of person who played well the office politics endemic to the corporate world., and I think that had something to do with why he was let go in 1971.
He was good at making lemonade from lemons, though, and decided it was time to leave the suit-and-tie world behind and start his own business, which meant selling industrial paper bags wholesale. To convince himself losing his job had been a good thing, he announced we were going out to dinner to celebrate.
Now, this was a big deal. We never went to out to dinner because 1) there were five of us kids and that was expensive; 2) my mother was French and an excellent cook, and as my father often correctly noted, we could never eat better out than at home. Perhaps that was why he chose an Italian restaurant in New Rochelle, Procaccino’s.
I was excited, because I loved Italian food. That is to say, spaghetti. I loved loved loved spaghetti. As a very short and skinny kid who was indifferent to most food, even my mother’s, spaghetti would get me in the house promptly at 6 even on a summer day when we were madly playing.
So of course, when the waiter came to me, that’s what I ordered. “Spaghetti.” The imperious waiter was bemused, telling me all orders came with a complimentary side of it. “No, just spaghetti,” I said. My father gamely intervened, pointing out all of the glorious alternatives as yet unknown to my tastebuds. Not usually a stubborn or disagreeable child, I was oddly adamant. “Just spaghetti, please.” The waiter looked at my father, who shrugged. The waiter shrugged back, and that’s what he brought me.
Halfway though this huge plate of pasta I would never finish, I had the thought it wasn’t as good as my mother’s, and I should have ordered something else.
We always got a kick when Laura or Rob Petri referred to living there. They were are big rivals in Mount Vernon in basketball. And they had a really nice mall -- enclosed, unlike Cross-County in Yonkers. (Though there was a John Wanamaker there. Which my mother said delightfully in her French accent, making "John" into "Johnny.")
Something about your remark says "First, bad marriage" to me. Unless you somehow went to Iona.
Did not go to Iona.... I moved to New Rochelle from the city at nine months pregnant, and suddenly found myself in the most boring bedroom community of all time, with a crying baby and no friends or family. I'd given up my job at a magazine in mid-town Manhattan, thinking I'd be a happy stay-at-home mom. It was a rough go--I'd never cooked, cleaned, or changed a diaper! Had no idea what I was doing and was the loneliest person you ever met! Desperation city!
When my parents moved from Chile to Denver my mother had just had me (her fourth) and my father was selling encyclopedias door to door. There was just enough money to eat, but nothing else. (The had so little furniture when they sold the house, prospective buyers assumed they'd already sent everything ahead.) My mother loved having little children to live through, but she was so lonely! Had no opportunity to make any friends, and certainly no other French women. Luckily my Dad was a very helpful husband, but after just a year, they high-tailed it back East. It wasn't until Rockville that she really started to make friends, but the late 50s were really brutal. So I feel for you, sister. (As you can surmise, I interviewed my mother a lot over the years and internalized all her stories.)
I did work for a summer at the Sbarro's right next to Bloomingdales in NY. I got to eat lunch there every day, so got to know Italian food well. Never learned how to make pizza though, just recite "Coke, Tab, Sprite or Root Beer" for 4 hours straight.
In gratitude, the woman named her daughter Mitzi. Mitzi had sort of saved the mother's life. Not that Mitzi knew anything about it.
The mother, Zelda, crossed off the weeks on a homemade chart in the kitchen, 32,33, 34 then spread mint chocolate chip over the hot grilled pork chop. She'd have that for lunch, dinner too. She looked around for a mirror then remembered she'd binned them all. Breath, sigh, relief.
In the living room she watched the ice cream pool around the strip of edge fat, looked up to catch her reflection in the tv screen. She ordered her eyes to look away. They disobeyed, and the picture morphed to scenes from high school dances. She demanded they close, that seemed to work. But the sound was still on–sniff, snigger, sneer.
Her mother called around midday asked what she was wearing, 'That pretty polka dot frock you bought. So comfortable.' The pyjamas were brushed cotton so she wasn't lying about the comfort. It was the Mary Tyler Moore show afternoon re-run that took her to the precipice. She looked over, a long way, but so inviting.
From somewhere she summoned the energy to change channels and find live action from the World Petanque Championship. It was the final. Mitzi Miller her hero up against a rank bad'un and a long way behind.
Zelda would see Mitzi around town. Nice lady, big smiles, always on roller blades and eating crepes. Mitzi had faced obstacles: severe myopia, physiologic tremors, aggrevated winner's guilt but she'd overcome them; leaning into intuition and sense of smell, discovering lemon drops eased the tremors, imagining opponents as hyenas crowding baby zebras. Mitzi's cri de couer was 'there's always a way.'
Zelda sent out rays of love and good vibrations and, transfixed, watched as Mitzi boule by boule, hyena by hyena, fought back to victory. Tears rolled across Zelda's blotched cheeks as she watched her hero–blinking happily and trembling—lift the trophy.
She switched off the tv, rushed upstairs, found the polka dot dress.
"In the living room she watched the ice cream pool around the strip of edge fat, looked up to catch her reflection in the tv screen. She ordered her eyes to look away. They disobeyed, and the picture morphed to scenes from high school dances. She demanded they close, that seemed to work. But the sound was still on–sniff, snigger, sneer."
Such a fantastic, terrific paragraph. I love Zelda sending out rays of love and good vibrations, and I love that Mitzi's obstacles include aggravated winner's guilt. So many fine points in this story.
oh, so much fun! And really well done. Those weeks being crossed off... And then, that perfect ending. (And i love the way pétanque always pops up in your stories.)
Mitzi had faced obstacles: severe myopia, physiologic tremors, aggrevated winner's guilt but she'd overcome them; leaning into intuition and sense of smell, discovering lemon drops eased the tremors,
I said, “You’re also an astrologer?” She nodded. She said nothing about her clairvoyance.
Our first introduction was at the Institute for Advanced Thinking. We were part of a cohort of 10 therapists – 9 men and Paula. Paula was a Thought Therapist, a dance therapist, as well as a clairvoyant and astrologer. I wanted her.
She knew of my lust. Her smile indicated things might happen. “Not until I am assured of your worthiness,” she said one day during a practice session. “What’s your birthday? I’ll cast your astrology chart.”
Soon, I learned that with my Sun in Gemini, I had a strong urge for self-expression. “Well, nothing new there,” I noted. “Shut up and listen until I am done.” Paula was sharp with her tongue. She also noted that I was a curious fellow and was interested in having my finger in every pie. Yes, I thought, this time keeping my mouth shut, her pie. She shot a look at me. My sphincter tightened.
She also informed me that I had a changeable and diffuse nature, which she saw as a deficit to my character. “You waste energy by taking on too many, umm, things,” again shooting me a narrow glance. She smiled then and said, “But you have Gemini with ascendant Leo, which makes you a true humanitarian. I notice how friendly and outgoing you are. You’re very self-aware. I like those things.”
Good, I thought, I am getting somewhere. But that thought was quickly dashed, again with a critical eye shot at me. “Look,” she said, “I thought you were interested in me reading your chart.”
“I thought you wanted to assure yourself that I was worthy,” I retorted.
“Maybe. With your Sun in the tenth house, you like to work toward a goal.” Smiling again. “But you’re uncomfortable in any position where you must take orders from someone else. Hey, I know my strengths and weaknesses. Both are that I like to give orders.”
"Only one, you’re going to have only one," she was authoritative.
"One what?" I asked. "One husband, one car, one house, one career, one life, one death, one what? " I was aggressive.
I didn’t want to be told I was limited to one anything. There is always a second cookie, a third cup of coffee, another pair of shoes.
"One child," she responded softly, irritatingly composed.
A psychic she wasn’t. In those days, anybody with dreadlocks, hoop earrings, or a flowery triangle bandana tied on her forehead could be mistaken for a psychic. In those days, we searched for an inkling into what was laid out for our future. In tarot cards, in tea leaves, in runes, in palm readings, in the IChing. We laid out tarot cards in a spread, turning them over for insight into love, career, personal growth. Major and Minor Arcana symbols and images such as the Fool, Death, Pentacles, Swords, Knights, Pages or Queen predicted everyday life situations.
We threw three coins for the IChing, consulting horoscopes for the location of our planets' houses, we availed ourselves to the ring/chain trick: all that belief in the Occult, in the guise of assurance from the Cosmos, confirmed what we suspected: our future was not in our hands.
From a chain we dangled a ring onto our palms. If it went back-and-forth like a pendulum, you were going to have only one child. If it circled fast around and around on the palm, you would have many more children. When the ring and chain predicted I was going to have only one child, I dangled the ring and chain on my other palm. It swung back-and-forth firmly.
"That’s ridiculous. I’m gonna have three kids, at least two." I said. But how was I to know? That was the last time I consulted a supernatural force.
Decades later, when my one and only child was a teenager, I looked for an answer outside of myself, hoping for counseling about how to manage his erratic behavior. I threw the three IChing coins. Calculated the trigrams. Reversed for changing lines. After many paragraphs of confusing advice, esoteric connections to Nature, advice about my higher power, reading changing lines, my IChing reading advised, "Being calm, like a stone at the shore, is the only way to move ahead." Something like that.
Well after a half hour of consulting the Oracle, I did feel calmer.
I remember all that divination madness. You were supposed to cast the IChing every day. And never pronounce it I Tching but I King. Otherwise it didn't work.
I remember Lennon singing "I don't believe in IChing!"
I’m not good at whistling. Also, I’m not good at snapping my fingers. Pretty much any skill that calls for melody eludes me. I am, however, very good at getting chosen last. I’m also good at pretending I don’t care. But riding on the coattails of the winners, that I can do.
We had to choose an instrument in elementary school. The flute was lightweight and peppy. Plus because there were so many girls who chose the flute, I could wiggle my fingers and pretend to play along on the hard parts. I never got caught.
By High School, I got cut from orchestra because there were already too many good flute players. “What do I have to play,” I asked, “to get back in?” Answer: the French horn. The opposite of lightweight. Not peppy in the least. I lugged it home on weekends, stared dolefully at it in the corner of my bedroom.
Although the French horn in Scheherazade by Rimsky-Korsakov has a beautiful solo, I never got to solos. My major performance was at high school graduation for the class ahead of me when I play the percussion part to Pomp and Circumstance for all 1,000 students marching into the auditorium. Do you know how many repetitions of Pomp and Circumstance that requires? Can you imagine what your lips would feel like after scrunching them into the metal mouthpiece of a French horn and playing three notes over and over and over? To say nothing of the spit collection.
Earlier, in middle school, when I was still playing the flute, I had a solo on stage. I wore a tomato-red wool suit that my mother had made. In the spotlight, I blushed bright red, sure I looked like a tomato playing a flute. The girl after me who was to play a piano solo threw up her spaghetti dinner all over the piano. That was definitely worse than being a tomato playing a flute.
Today, my flute is in the middle drawer of my desk. Every once in a while, I take it out, try to coax out a note. Turns out I’m good at hearing music in my head, the lush dramatic themes from Scheherazade, Lara’s theme from Dr. Zhivago. Today, I watched a performance of Scheherazade on youtube. Turns out the French horn player and the flutist play a call and response with the same melody.
I am no good at spacial relationships. I can get lost in my own neighborhood. I can’t tie a balloon or wrap a present. A college friend once described me as someone who would shove a dollar bill into the coin slot of a pay phone. I once attempted to cook beans in a sieve. It’s an embarrassing deficiency but I’ve learned to live with it.
Yesterday my primary care doctor referred me to a hematology oncologist due to abnormal blood test results. I plugged my lab results into Chat GPT and let it go to work. The bot tried to be reassuring but the bottom line is that the numbers are scary - it’s looking like bone marrow cancer. But there’s a chance I only have “smoldering multiple myeloma,” not full blown cancer. That’s really what it’s called - “smoldering.” The word delighted me even as I began seriously pondering my own death not as an eventuality but as something barreling toward me.
My appointment next week is in one of those huge medical complexes next to the hospital with a bunch of buildings and parking garages to choose from. I’ll go really early to allow myself to get lost, which I surely will. I’ll drive around and around looking for the right building, while my bone marrow is at worst, on fire and at best, merely smoldering.
Wim, I'm so sorry. Very much hoping for a mere smolder. (Also hoping that ChatGPT got it wrong. I plugged in medical numbers and words when I had a physical problem and the answer I was given by Chat GPT turned out to be completely wrong.) Thinking of you. On a writing note, i loved the first paragraph of this piece!
As a coda to Mary's Chat GPT experience, my uncle. who was a MASH surgeon in the Korean War and a GP for the rest of his life, gave me this very valuable advice when I was first diagnosed with cancer over 30 years ago: "Don't look at statistics. Statistics are for populations; you are an individual and your experience will be individual." Looking back, I think following that advice spared me from a tremendous amount of unnecessary fear and worry. (Not that I didn't still manage to manufacture a huge amount of fear and worry all by myself . . .) I think if he was alive today, he'd say, "Don't give Chat GPT too much consideration. It's looking at masses of information and going for the most likely answer, but you are an individual and individuals don't always have the most likely situation or the most likely experiences within their own situations."
As a two-time cancer dancer, my thoughts are with you. I found it all rather unnerving. Also, that getting lost thing and general clumsiness-- right there with you, although I don't think there is any correlation between lack of spatial awareness and cancer. Will be sending you lots of positive energy as you wait for your appointment.
Thank you, Kevin, and all who offered support. Well, it turns out that I do have multiple myeloma (bone marrow cancer), which is of course scary and life changing. The good news is - black humor alert - I had absolutely no problem finding the building.
Glad you found the building (love your black humor). Very, very sorry and saddened to learn of your cancer diagnosis. May you be lifted by the love of family and friends, including your comrades here at What Now, as you work toward a renewal of body and spirit. Thinking of you--
Wim, I want to add my voice to what Mary said about your first paragraph. A compelling and potentially fun story to write.
That said, I’m sorry the Chat Bot delivered news that may be smoldering or not. Either way, I’m sorry to hear this, and I hope it’s one of the times the AI monster is completely wrong.
A psychic once told me that my future was in the stars. Who can argue with such a vague promise? But I do drive a Subaru. The Subaru logo is six silver stars set against a dark blue oval. Translated from the Japanese subaru is associated with the word for the Pleiades, the six stars in the constellation Taurus.
The Japanese attach great significance to the meaning of company names. I was once asked by a Japanese businessman to explain the origins of our startup company logo, a single capital “E” that gradually faded to nothingness. We had given absolutely no thought to what it represented. I explained that it was a visual metaphor for our biological treatment process that transformed liquid waste to carbon dioxide and water. Two years later the company ran out of money, was sold and faded from view. A psychic could have predicted that.
Subarus are reliable, unglamorous vehicles that change gradually from model to model, year to year. The flat four engine will go for miles. Owners whose vehicles surpass 500,000 miles become members of the “Moon-and-back Club.” According to the Cowboy State Daily, a 2001 Subaru Legacy owned by Marty Simonich is approaching a million miles. Marty’s legacy will be to drive to the Pleiades where he will appear to us as a seventh celestial body.
Hundreds of years from now, when Earth is visited by Alien Archaeologists, they will discover Subaru logos in our midden heaps. From this they will conclude that we were the final destination of an ill-fated intergalactic expedition that perished in an inhospitable climate. This discovery will generate tremendous interest in academic circles and tour groups and the promotion of interstellar cruises. An entire infrastructure of Lost Expedition Theme Parks will be created that will sell replica Subaru logos and where psychics will tell eager patrons that their future is in the stars.
I love where this one starts and goes! It reminds me of my earlier prompt where I suggested a person write and just see where it leads. Great job! By the way, I looked up Subaru and what's amazing is that in Japan they see just 6 six stars, while elsewhere, you can see seven. Which is why the Pleiades is often called the Seven Sisters. I never would have known this without your piece here this morning!
Thanks Mary. This was a fun one to write, I had no idea where to take it at first. Thanks for the info on the seven sisters - or is it the six sisters and Marty? :)
A short time ago I was alerted to the fact that one of you is a terrabiscuit.
I was alerted by my senior chief of staff Dr Jeremy Sprockett, who has monitored the movements of all ten of you for the last 13 minutes. Using his Time Brain authority he can take one minute of your data and times it by 13, with mathematics.
This had led to 3 of you being handy bagged. Three people have small plastic bags put over each foot. Please follow the music to the next location
No I didn’t pay them. I was locked into a building with the palmist and had not asked the other one.
the least they could do is say something wonderful and vague. Then I might’ve gone back.
I did get a paid astrology reading once, family holiday on a health farm, my Dad paid a lady because she was a celebrity and had written a renowned book on the subject. She was wrong about everything. It was like she was looking at a negative of my tastes and personality. She was obviously a lovely gentle person and I didn’t want to burst her bubble too badly, so I mumbled not exactly, and thanked her a lot, and ran off to get a carrot and celery juice. I’d done an astrology experiment at school and that hadn’t yielded anything resembling truth either. But I’d still read my stars, hoping it’d say something exciting this week
“Well, you’ve done it, Peter,” Melissa said. We had ordered coffee and croissants in the coffee shop downstairs, and she seemed to be enjoying hers. “No one has ever told me a story like this. Ever.” She pointed at me with her spoon. “You should eat something.”
“I can’t eat,” I confessed. “I remember this coffee shop being good, but something about the food seems … off.”
“So you’re planning to live on shrew now? Raw shrew, that’s what you should have ordered?”
I looked at the menu.
“I wasn’t serious,” Melissa said, taking it out of my hands. “It’s not on the menu. Look, Peter, this is a crazy story. If you weren’t my oldest friend, I’d say you were pulling my leg. But I know you wouldn’t do that. So therefore, you must be telling the truth, and therefore, it must have been some kind of hallucination? Fugue state? Psychotic break? I don’t know what to call it.”
“No, it happened.”
“Peter, you need help.”
“I do, yes.” I broke off a piece of the croissant, lifted it toward my mouth and set it down again without eating. “But not the kind you think.”
“What then?”
“I don’t seem to be … I’m not good at being human anymore. Was I ever?”
“You were a perfectly fine human. Not the least bit wolflike.”
“It might have been coyote,” I said. “Or one of those coywolf mixes. Definitely canine, anyway.”
“You were not the least bit canine. You didn’t even like dogs.”
“I may need some help becoming human again.”
“Can I get you folks anything else?” asked the waitress, who I realized had been listening to the whole conversation.
Bob is dead. He was a terrific writer.
He made money writing about travel in NYC. He never said much about it.
He’s dead because of spaghetti and meatballs. One of those Friday night All You Can Eat Spaghetti Specials. See, he had a glass of wine or two and forgot about his heart. Then he ordered the spaghetti. His heart was a problem before. Attacks, shunts, balloons, bypass, I don’t remember. Maybe all of it, maybe none, but there were problems.
Which didn’t deter donuts either.
His letters over the winter would go on and on about money making schemes. Maybe he’d convert the mothballed Grand Manan ferry into a hotel. They only wanted a mil for it. Maybe the family would move into a tent and rent their 1844 house to a carpenter who would finish the renovations for rent. It was one of those houses, like you could see from one end to the other through the plaster lath, the half demoed walls. And somehow you could see up through the floors to the attic too.
The heart attack came not long after he finished the Friday Night Spaghetti Special. He made it to the hospital but died there. I wonder what he would have written about that event. Such a good writer. We wrote letters to each other over the winter. At his service I told the stories about the ferry, and his house plans, and everybody laughed. They all knew what a dreamer he was.
The cold New England winters found their way into the house too. It was too much for his widow, with two young children, and after Bob died she sold the old house Bob loved and moved to town.
So good!!! And what an opening line! (and of course, the spaghetti, finding its way in there...) And then, the closing. Love this one, Tod.
Thanks mg.
Tod, the way you begin this: so matter of fact. He's dead. He was a terrific writer. Made his money writing about travel in NYC.
But he never said much about that. I love how this switches to all his schemes in his letters and that matter of fact "such a good writer."
A life lived in writing failed or abandoned schemes. Such a good writer--
This is so well done. I hope he enjoyed the spaghetti.
I believe he did. He enjoyed most things.
Lovely.
That description of old Maine houses placed me perfectly. Great setting. A gem of an excerpt. "...what a dreamer he was." I wouldn't mind if people remembered that about me. I'd say not bad.
Actually Bob's house was in western Massachusetts, the Berkshires. But it could have been in Maine. I owned a house like this myself, in Maine, probably partly why Bob and I were good friends.
We had a country home in the Berkshires, in Richmond, between Pittsfield and Tanglewood. Which is neither here nor there but I felt the need to say it.
Awesome remembrance of Bob the Travel Writer.
Bob's house was in Worthington. Near the big corner.
Wait a minute. Is Bob real? Your story was so incredible I was sure you invented it.
Very real. English major graduate of Amherst College. Travel Industry writer. Husband, father, dreamer.
Great character, great story Tod! He was a terrific writer, and he died anyway. Life is so unfair.
I know, but if wasn't unfair, there wouldn't be anything to write about. : )
No one, not even Mamma, ever told me about this. She told me lots of things, Mamma, but never about this, about how I could avoid it or welcome it, depending, about how I’d feel about it, about how long it would last.
But here I am, in the middle of it, or maybe it's still the start. Am I happy? Too soon to tell, probably. Maybe I’ll get used to it. Am I comfortable? As comfortable as you’d expect, given the circumstances.
Mamma told me so many things, I guess she forgot about this. It’s understandable. With all she had to deal with, some things were bound to fall away. Like Jake. And Baby Louise. But we managed to move on, once we became comfortable with what had happened. Twice, it happened.
Mamma wasn’t as careless as all this makes her sound. She had so much to deal with. I already said that, I know, but it’s worth repeating, so you understand that when this happened, and I was surprised, I want you to understand that I don’t blame Mamma for not telling me about it. Anyway, how could she have known that I’d be here at this particular moment and that circumstances would be just right, as it seems they were? I mean, I’m probably fated to go through this, right? It’s always been in the cards for me, given my life, and Mamma’s. My eyes are blue, my hair is blond, and this was bound to happen.
Mamma tried to run from the tide once. She thought it was funny, wanted me to laugh. First, the tide went out and it was easy to run from it, and I did laugh. But then the tide turned, it came in, came in very quickly, and she couldn’t run fast enough. From my seat in the lifeguard chair I saw her wave as she went out. All I could do was wave back. Wave, wave, wave.
So now, you see, now that it’s happened, I can’t ask Mamma about it, or why she didn’t tell me it would happen, since she must have known it would, given me, given her, my blue eyes, my blond hair. I'll have to wait and see how it turns out.
"I'll have to wait and see how it turns out." Something tells me you've been over to Story Club today? The waving from the water reminded me of that poem by Stevie Smith. "I was much further out than you thought, and not waving but drowning."
That poem is a miracle. Every time I read it, I know exactly what's coming, but every time, every single time, it takes me by surprise. I almost know it by heart, and yet it's a total surprise. I guess she must have found for it the perfect rhythm of revelation.
it's an incredible poem
Yes, I was reaching a point where I didn't know what to do with this and I thought of the latest Story Club discussion. I guess it was meant to be. As for Stevie Smith, thanks for bringing that poem up. Have you ever seen the movie with Glenda Jackson, "Stevie"? It came out in 1978.
haven't seen it! will look it up. Thanks!
"not waving but drowning". I was thinking of that too. I couldn't remember where it came from.
Mama tried to run from the tide once is also a great opening
Love "wave wave wave"
Thanks, Dinah.
I really find the last paragraph very poignant and strong.
Thank you, Aparna.
I lot of evocative little mysteries in this piece. Jake, Baby Louise, and why is blonde hair and blue eyes means something. But I will just enjoy wondering.
All those repeating its! Keeps me wanting more.
Interesting. I didn't notice the its, but was aware of the 'about this' repetitions. Thanks for pointing them out. I like 'em!
She said: Hey! Let's get something to eat!
He said: Sure! There are all kinds of restaurants just right here on the street!
She said nothing.
He said: How about Chinese?
She said (and laughed): But you don't like Chinese!
He said: What do you mean I don't like Chinese?
She said: Can we please stop with the He said She said tags?
OK.
Aaah! That's a relief!
So why don't I like Chinese?
Chinese makes you ill. It's all that glutamate they put in.
Well, here's a Tandoori place. They cook in a clay oven.
With more chili than I can stand. Anything Indian, it's no-no for me.
Yeah, but they... Forget it. How about English?
English? You kidding?
French then?
If you're loaded.
No. But look! Over there, Italian!
OK, just as long as...
It looks good. Let's go in and see. Good evening. Do you have a table for two? Thank you.
I wonder what I can bear to eat on this menu. Maybe just a dessert.
Well, I'm going for a nice big spaghetti Bolo. Fill me right up to the gills.
Spaghetti?
Oh. I was forgetting. You don't like spaghetti.
I hate spaghetti. I hate it with a deep, all-consuming hatred that will not be brooked. I'm sure I told you that before.
Well, there are other things on the menu...
I hate spaghetti so much I can't stand the smell of it! The sight of it slithering around between fork and spoon as people pretend to know how to eat the disgusting stuff and then suck the strands between their greasy lips into their slathering mouths and get sauce all over their porky chops SO DON'T YOU DARE EAT SPAGHETTI IN FRONT OF ME!
.............
Yes, yes, we were just leaving, sir. My friend's rather tired, been a long day... Thank you, good evening...
hahahhaha! Something told me you'd take me up on this one.
I felt it was dangling on a hook just for me.
TOTALLY
"hatred that will not be brooked." WOW what a line.
There's a lot of it about...
Vraiment funny! I guess we all saw you with the spaghetti. But you left us on a cliff there. Did they finally go hungry ?
She got a cab and went home, he went back into the Italian place and humbly ordered double spaghetti Bolo. I don't think their relationship (whatever it was) went any further.
John, I love this. There’s no way to eat spaghetti without looking barbaric. Fun!
All alone at home with a can of Heinz...
No, let's be serious.
You're making me hungry for spaghetti.
Slurp slurp
Great story. I think I might be off spaghetti for a few days now.
Hahahaha—the “he said, she said” tags! And I love the slathering mouths and their porky chops! Well done!
Thanks Angela! (Were it to be done, t'were best done as gross as possible, no?)
John, I'd a feeling you'd go for the spaghetti!
Natch!
Oh gosh. I love the word Natch. Gonna plant it in my story.
I haven't got copyright on it. It's all yours!
“She said: Can we please stop with the He said She said tags” Nice!
A psychic once told me – well, I don’t think that he was a psychic. He could have been and he wanted me to believe that he was psychic but mostly I think that he was one of those people who hang out on the border between inappropriate and creepy.
He told me that I was deeply troubled. The occasion for this pronouncement: I had just vomited on the boardwalk in Santa Cruz. I was on the boardwalk during the lunch break on the first day of a three-day conference I was attending. After I vomited, this man, who was also attending the conference, but who I did not know at all, handed me a greasy napkin from his fish and chips, looked intently at me without blinking, and said, “You vomited because you are deeply troubled. I have unique insight and with your permission, I will help you uncover the source of your troubles this weekend.” I didn’t respond. Instead, I went into a dirty restroom on the beach where I washed my face and cried.
A few hours later, my stomach agreed to remain quiet enough for me to drive myself back home, so I abandoned the conference.
I don’t think that I was then, or am now, any more deeply troubled than the average person. I suspect that everyone, if you probe them enough, will find something that they are deeply troubled by. You know, “most men live lives of quiet desperation.” Lately, I think it isn’t even quiet desperation. Just watch the nightly news and you’ll be a raving ranting flood of desperation inundating everyone you meet.
I also think that if you want to explore the cause of your troubles, you need to be on your toes. Strangers with greasy napkins might be just the ticket but it is important to pay attention to your gut before you commit to anything.
That opening line is so great. "A psychic once told me – well, I don’t think that he was a psychic." Ha! What realm are we in when a story opens this way? Love it.
At my local shop, on the noticeboard was a small card with a a telephone number, and 'Deirdre - Clairvoyant', written across the top in marker pen. I mentioned it to the elderly man who tended the til. 'She also advertises in the pub,' he said. 'She's had a poster up outside the gents for a seance. Last time I was in there, I paused outside the loo while drying my hands on my trousers, and I noticed that a strip of paper had been pinned across the poster, and in handwriting was the message, 'Sadly cancelled due to unforeseen circumstances,' he shrugged. 'Honest truth.'
"Just watch the nightly news and you’ll be a raving ranting flood of desperation inundating everyone you meet." Truer words...
I love the life wisdom of paying attention to your gut because of the throwing up. Nice!
The greasy napkin would have done it for me.
I ALWAYS listen to my gut.
I'm not good at letting go of things. Just this morning, my guy came home from his walk, the same walk I would take after my coffee and quiet time.
"I saw a little coyote pup, by the school on Bigelow," he said. He said the tiny pup was high up on a ledge, looking to jump down, and that I should look for it. Heading out, I kept my eyes peeled, checking bushes and ledges around. When I rounded the corner to the street where the pup sighting was, I saw a man sitting on a small stool, filming what seemed to me to be a stuffed animal. As I neared, I could see that it was a puppy, all curled up and still near the sidewalk. As I approached, the creature didn't stir, and the man put his camera away. He said the school principal had called animal control.
"What do you think will happen to the pup?" I asked.
He said he wasn't sure. "It could be a dog," he said. I didn't correct him.
"Thank you for doing this," I said. "People have completely screwed nature over," I added as I stepped away, but he looked at me blankly.
I don't think the pup will make it, but I will keep trying to imagine that the Animal Control will save it instead of kill it, and then when it's all better, release it into the wild, although that seems unlikely.
Now I must go to work and try to shake it all off, seeing this injured baby animal, but I know I won't be able to.
Hard thing to shake off, especially for the sensitive souls around here, of which you are one. I'm hopeful that animal control will take that little pup to a wildlife shelter for re-hab, but who knows. Life can be brutal in the animal kingdom, for all of us.
I hope they do, too. It’s a brutal pile on these days.
so much to let go of....
love the dialogue
Thank you, Dinah!
“People have completely screwed nature over,” I added as I stepped away, but he looked at me blankly.” This sentence says so much about society’s disconnect with nature.
Thanks, John! If I’d had time to rewrite it, I wonder if I would’ve cut that out. But I’m glad someone felt it.
In 1969, we moved from Maryland to suburban New York, so that my Dad could take a corporate exec job at the Westvaco company, which still owns an imposing skyscraper on Park Avenue. I remember once when my father somehow left his briefcase at home, and I took the train to Grand Central, walked up Park Avenue and delivered it to him, feeling utterly cool and grown-up. I loved that he worked in that building, but he didn’t. He just wasn’t the kind of person who played well the office politics endemic to the corporate world., and I think that had something to do with why he was let go in 1971.
He was good at making lemonade from lemons, though, and decided it was time to leave the suit-and-tie world behind and start his own business, which meant selling industrial paper bags wholesale. To convince himself losing his job had been a good thing, he announced we were going out to dinner to celebrate.
Now, this was a big deal. We never went to out to dinner because 1) there were five of us kids and that was expensive; 2) my mother was French and an excellent cook, and as my father often correctly noted, we could never eat better out than at home. Perhaps that was why he chose an Italian restaurant in New Rochelle, Procaccino’s.
I was excited, because I loved Italian food. That is to say, spaghetti. I loved loved loved spaghetti. As a very short and skinny kid who was indifferent to most food, even my mother’s, spaghetti would get me in the house promptly at 6 even on a summer day when we were madly playing.
So of course, when the waiter came to me, that’s what I ordered. “Spaghetti.” The imperious waiter was bemused, telling me all orders came with a complimentary side of it. “No, just spaghetti,” I said. My father gamely intervened, pointing out all of the glorious alternatives as yet unknown to my tastebuds. Not usually a stubborn or disagreeable child, I was oddly adamant. “Just spaghetti, please.” The waiter looked at my father, who shrugged. The waiter shrugged back, and that’s what he brought me.
Halfway though this huge plate of pasta I would never finish, I had the thought it wasn’t as good as my mother’s, and I should have ordered something else.
Bambino stupido.
Live and learn. Love all of your old family stories! (I spent four looooooong years in New Rochelle at one point in my life. Felt like four hundred.)
We always got a kick when Laura or Rob Petri referred to living there. They were are big rivals in Mount Vernon in basketball. And they had a really nice mall -- enclosed, unlike Cross-County in Yonkers. (Though there was a John Wanamaker there. Which my mother said delightfully in her French accent, making "John" into "Johnny.")
Something about your remark says "First, bad marriage" to me. Unless you somehow went to Iona.
Did not go to Iona.... I moved to New Rochelle from the city at nine months pregnant, and suddenly found myself in the most boring bedroom community of all time, with a crying baby and no friends or family. I'd given up my job at a magazine in mid-town Manhattan, thinking I'd be a happy stay-at-home mom. It was a rough go--I'd never cooked, cleaned, or changed a diaper! Had no idea what I was doing and was the loneliest person you ever met! Desperation city!
When my parents moved from Chile to Denver my mother had just had me (her fourth) and my father was selling encyclopedias door to door. There was just enough money to eat, but nothing else. (The had so little furniture when they sold the house, prospective buyers assumed they'd already sent everything ahead.) My mother loved having little children to live through, but she was so lonely! Had no opportunity to make any friends, and certainly no other French women. Luckily my Dad was a very helpful husband, but after just a year, they high-tailed it back East. It wasn't until Rockville that she really started to make friends, but the late 50s were really brutal. So I feel for you, sister. (As you can surmise, I interviewed my mother a lot over the years and internalized all her stories.)
So wonderful that you got all of her stories
Oh Mary. That sounds so sad.
You should have gone to Mamma Leone's. All the spaghetti in the world passed through that place.
I did work for a summer at the Sbarro's right next to Bloomingdales in NY. I got to eat lunch there every day, so got to know Italian food well. Never learned how to make pizza though, just recite "Coke, Tab, Sprite or Root Beer" for 4 hours straight.
Pork Chops & Polka Dot Dresses
In gratitude, the woman named her daughter Mitzi. Mitzi had sort of saved the mother's life. Not that Mitzi knew anything about it.
The mother, Zelda, crossed off the weeks on a homemade chart in the kitchen, 32,33, 34 then spread mint chocolate chip over the hot grilled pork chop. She'd have that for lunch, dinner too. She looked around for a mirror then remembered she'd binned them all. Breath, sigh, relief.
In the living room she watched the ice cream pool around the strip of edge fat, looked up to catch her reflection in the tv screen. She ordered her eyes to look away. They disobeyed, and the picture morphed to scenes from high school dances. She demanded they close, that seemed to work. But the sound was still on–sniff, snigger, sneer.
Her mother called around midday asked what she was wearing, 'That pretty polka dot frock you bought. So comfortable.' The pyjamas were brushed cotton so she wasn't lying about the comfort. It was the Mary Tyler Moore show afternoon re-run that took her to the precipice. She looked over, a long way, but so inviting.
From somewhere she summoned the energy to change channels and find live action from the World Petanque Championship. It was the final. Mitzi Miller her hero up against a rank bad'un and a long way behind.
Zelda would see Mitzi around town. Nice lady, big smiles, always on roller blades and eating crepes. Mitzi had faced obstacles: severe myopia, physiologic tremors, aggrevated winner's guilt but she'd overcome them; leaning into intuition and sense of smell, discovering lemon drops eased the tremors, imagining opponents as hyenas crowding baby zebras. Mitzi's cri de couer was 'there's always a way.'
Zelda sent out rays of love and good vibrations and, transfixed, watched as Mitzi boule by boule, hyena by hyena, fought back to victory. Tears rolled across Zelda's blotched cheeks as she watched her hero–blinking happily and trembling—lift the trophy.
She switched off the tv, rushed upstairs, found the polka dot dress.
"In the living room she watched the ice cream pool around the strip of edge fat, looked up to catch her reflection in the tv screen. She ordered her eyes to look away. They disobeyed, and the picture morphed to scenes from high school dances. She demanded they close, that seemed to work. But the sound was still on–sniff, snigger, sneer."
Such a fantastic, terrific paragraph. I love Zelda sending out rays of love and good vibrations, and I love that Mitzi's obstacles include aggravated winner's guilt. So many fine points in this story.
Thank you, Kevin.
oh, so much fun! And really well done. Those weeks being crossed off... And then, that perfect ending. (And i love the way pétanque always pops up in your stories.)
Thanks, Mary.
And good news I've bought a second set of boules. They'll be there when you put in an appearance.
You know it's gonna happen one of these days!
Mitzi had faced obstacles: severe myopia, physiologic tremors, aggrevated winner's guilt but she'd overcome them; leaning into intuition and sense of smell, discovering lemon drops eased the tremors,
Love!
Thanks, Dinah. Lemon drops are much more powerful than people think.
Love the details—the binned mirrors, the polka dot dress, the discovery of lemon drops (great medicine imho).
Thank you, Angela
incredible details. I just loved reading this.
Thanks, Aparna.
A psychic once told me that she knew me already.
I said, “You’re also an astrologer?” She nodded. She said nothing about her clairvoyance.
Our first introduction was at the Institute for Advanced Thinking. We were part of a cohort of 10 therapists – 9 men and Paula. Paula was a Thought Therapist, a dance therapist, as well as a clairvoyant and astrologer. I wanted her.
She knew of my lust. Her smile indicated things might happen. “Not until I am assured of your worthiness,” she said one day during a practice session. “What’s your birthday? I’ll cast your astrology chart.”
Soon, I learned that with my Sun in Gemini, I had a strong urge for self-expression. “Well, nothing new there,” I noted. “Shut up and listen until I am done.” Paula was sharp with her tongue. She also noted that I was a curious fellow and was interested in having my finger in every pie. Yes, I thought, this time keeping my mouth shut, her pie. She shot a look at me. My sphincter tightened.
She also informed me that I had a changeable and diffuse nature, which she saw as a deficit to my character. “You waste energy by taking on too many, umm, things,” again shooting me a narrow glance. She smiled then and said, “But you have Gemini with ascendant Leo, which makes you a true humanitarian. I notice how friendly and outgoing you are. You’re very self-aware. I like those things.”
Good, I thought, I am getting somewhere. But that thought was quickly dashed, again with a critical eye shot at me. “Look,” she said, “I thought you were interested in me reading your chart.”
“I thought you wanted to assure yourself that I was worthy,” I retorted.
“Maybe. With your Sun in the tenth house, you like to work toward a goal.” Smiling again. “But you’re uncomfortable in any position where you must take orders from someone else. Hey, I know my strengths and weaknesses. Both are that I like to give orders.”
She was smiling and edging toward me.
I saw how quickly a psychic could read minds.
Or, more likely, how quickly a psychic could read faces.
Its nine lives, right?
"Only one, you’re going to have only one," she was authoritative.
"One what?" I asked. "One husband, one car, one house, one career, one life, one death, one what? " I was aggressive.
I didn’t want to be told I was limited to one anything. There is always a second cookie, a third cup of coffee, another pair of shoes.
"One child," she responded softly, irritatingly composed.
A psychic she wasn’t. In those days, anybody with dreadlocks, hoop earrings, or a flowery triangle bandana tied on her forehead could be mistaken for a psychic. In those days, we searched for an inkling into what was laid out for our future. In tarot cards, in tea leaves, in runes, in palm readings, in the IChing. We laid out tarot cards in a spread, turning them over for insight into love, career, personal growth. Major and Minor Arcana symbols and images such as the Fool, Death, Pentacles, Swords, Knights, Pages or Queen predicted everyday life situations.
We threw three coins for the IChing, consulting horoscopes for the location of our planets' houses, we availed ourselves to the ring/chain trick: all that belief in the Occult, in the guise of assurance from the Cosmos, confirmed what we suspected: our future was not in our hands.
From a chain we dangled a ring onto our palms. If it went back-and-forth like a pendulum, you were going to have only one child. If it circled fast around and around on the palm, you would have many more children. When the ring and chain predicted I was going to have only one child, I dangled the ring and chain on my other palm. It swung back-and-forth firmly.
"That’s ridiculous. I’m gonna have three kids, at least two." I said. But how was I to know? That was the last time I consulted a supernatural force.
Decades later, when my one and only child was a teenager, I looked for an answer outside of myself, hoping for counseling about how to manage his erratic behavior. I threw the three IChing coins. Calculated the trigrams. Reversed for changing lines. After many paragraphs of confusing advice, esoteric connections to Nature, advice about my higher power, reading changing lines, my IChing reading advised, "Being calm, like a stone at the shore, is the only way to move ahead." Something like that.
Well after a half hour of consulting the Oracle, I did feel calmer.
Such a good story!
I remember all that divination madness. You were supposed to cast the IChing every day. And never pronounce it I Tching but I King. Otherwise it didn't work.
I remember Lennon singing "I don't believe in IChing!"
That put me off it.
Fascinating story, Aparna!
I’m not good at whistling. Also, I’m not good at snapping my fingers. Pretty much any skill that calls for melody eludes me. I am, however, very good at getting chosen last. I’m also good at pretending I don’t care. But riding on the coattails of the winners, that I can do.
We had to choose an instrument in elementary school. The flute was lightweight and peppy. Plus because there were so many girls who chose the flute, I could wiggle my fingers and pretend to play along on the hard parts. I never got caught.
By High School, I got cut from orchestra because there were already too many good flute players. “What do I have to play,” I asked, “to get back in?” Answer: the French horn. The opposite of lightweight. Not peppy in the least. I lugged it home on weekends, stared dolefully at it in the corner of my bedroom.
Although the French horn in Scheherazade by Rimsky-Korsakov has a beautiful solo, I never got to solos. My major performance was at high school graduation for the class ahead of me when I play the percussion part to Pomp and Circumstance for all 1,000 students marching into the auditorium. Do you know how many repetitions of Pomp and Circumstance that requires? Can you imagine what your lips would feel like after scrunching them into the metal mouthpiece of a French horn and playing three notes over and over and over? To say nothing of the spit collection.
Earlier, in middle school, when I was still playing the flute, I had a solo on stage. I wore a tomato-red wool suit that my mother had made. In the spotlight, I blushed bright red, sure I looked like a tomato playing a flute. The girl after me who was to play a piano solo threw up her spaghetti dinner all over the piano. That was definitely worse than being a tomato playing a flute.
Today, my flute is in the middle drawer of my desk. Every once in a while, I take it out, try to coax out a note. Turns out I’m good at hearing music in my head, the lush dramatic themes from Scheherazade, Lara’s theme from Dr. Zhivago. Today, I watched a performance of Scheherazade on youtube. Turns out the French horn player and the flutist play a call and response with the same melody.
This one cracked me up. It reminded me of last week's prompt! Except that you managed to get spaghetti in this one...
You could see that spaghetti really lit up people’s imagination! who knew?
I am no good at spacial relationships. I can get lost in my own neighborhood. I can’t tie a balloon or wrap a present. A college friend once described me as someone who would shove a dollar bill into the coin slot of a pay phone. I once attempted to cook beans in a sieve. It’s an embarrassing deficiency but I’ve learned to live with it.
Yesterday my primary care doctor referred me to a hematology oncologist due to abnormal blood test results. I plugged my lab results into Chat GPT and let it go to work. The bot tried to be reassuring but the bottom line is that the numbers are scary - it’s looking like bone marrow cancer. But there’s a chance I only have “smoldering multiple myeloma,” not full blown cancer. That’s really what it’s called - “smoldering.” The word delighted me even as I began seriously pondering my own death not as an eventuality but as something barreling toward me.
My appointment next week is in one of those huge medical complexes next to the hospital with a bunch of buildings and parking garages to choose from. I’ll go really early to allow myself to get lost, which I surely will. I’ll drive around and around looking for the right building, while my bone marrow is at worst, on fire and at best, merely smoldering.
Wim, I'm so sorry. Very much hoping for a mere smolder. (Also hoping that ChatGPT got it wrong. I plugged in medical numbers and words when I had a physical problem and the answer I was given by Chat GPT turned out to be completely wrong.) Thinking of you. On a writing note, i loved the first paragraph of this piece!
As a coda to Mary's Chat GPT experience, my uncle. who was a MASH surgeon in the Korean War and a GP for the rest of his life, gave me this very valuable advice when I was first diagnosed with cancer over 30 years ago: "Don't look at statistics. Statistics are for populations; you are an individual and your experience will be individual." Looking back, I think following that advice spared me from a tremendous amount of unnecessary fear and worry. (Not that I didn't still manage to manufacture a huge amount of fear and worry all by myself . . .) I think if he was alive today, he'd say, "Don't give Chat GPT too much consideration. It's looking at masses of information and going for the most likely answer, but you are an individual and individuals don't always have the most likely situation or the most likely experiences within their own situations."
As a two-time cancer dancer, my thoughts are with you. I found it all rather unnerving. Also, that getting lost thing and general clumsiness-- right there with you, although I don't think there is any correlation between lack of spatial awareness and cancer. Will be sending you lots of positive energy as you wait for your appointment.
Wim, you wrote this almost a week ago, so maybe the appointment is imminent. I hope the news is good.
Thank you, Kevin, and all who offered support. Well, it turns out that I do have multiple myeloma (bone marrow cancer), which is of course scary and life changing. The good news is - black humor alert - I had absolutely no problem finding the building.
Glad you found the building (love your black humor). Very, very sorry and saddened to learn of your cancer diagnosis. May you be lifted by the love of family and friends, including your comrades here at What Now, as you work toward a renewal of body and spirit. Thinking of you--
Thank you so much, Mary ❤️
Wim, I’m sorry to hear about your diagnosis. Strength to you, and continued success in finding your way without problem.
Wim, I want to add my voice to what Mary said about your first paragraph. A compelling and potentially fun story to write.
That said, I’m sorry the Chat Bot delivered news that may be smoldering or not. Either way, I’m sorry to hear this, and I hope it’s one of the times the AI monster is completely wrong.
My best to you.
A psychic once told me that my future was in the stars. Who can argue with such a vague promise? But I do drive a Subaru. The Subaru logo is six silver stars set against a dark blue oval. Translated from the Japanese subaru is associated with the word for the Pleiades, the six stars in the constellation Taurus.
The Japanese attach great significance to the meaning of company names. I was once asked by a Japanese businessman to explain the origins of our startup company logo, a single capital “E” that gradually faded to nothingness. We had given absolutely no thought to what it represented. I explained that it was a visual metaphor for our biological treatment process that transformed liquid waste to carbon dioxide and water. Two years later the company ran out of money, was sold and faded from view. A psychic could have predicted that.
Subarus are reliable, unglamorous vehicles that change gradually from model to model, year to year. The flat four engine will go for miles. Owners whose vehicles surpass 500,000 miles become members of the “Moon-and-back Club.” According to the Cowboy State Daily, a 2001 Subaru Legacy owned by Marty Simonich is approaching a million miles. Marty’s legacy will be to drive to the Pleiades where he will appear to us as a seventh celestial body.
Hundreds of years from now, when Earth is visited by Alien Archaeologists, they will discover Subaru logos in our midden heaps. From this they will conclude that we were the final destination of an ill-fated intergalactic expedition that perished in an inhospitable climate. This discovery will generate tremendous interest in academic circles and tour groups and the promotion of interstellar cruises. An entire infrastructure of Lost Expedition Theme Parks will be created that will sell replica Subaru logos and where psychics will tell eager patrons that their future is in the stars.
I love where this one starts and goes! It reminds me of my earlier prompt where I suggested a person write and just see where it leads. Great job! By the way, I looked up Subaru and what's amazing is that in Japan they see just 6 six stars, while elsewhere, you can see seven. Which is why the Pleiades is often called the Seven Sisters. I never would have known this without your piece here this morning!
Thanks Mary. This was a fun one to write, I had no idea where to take it at first. Thanks for the info on the seven sisters - or is it the six sisters and Marty? :)
ha!
A short time ago I was alerted to the fact that one of you is a terrabiscuit.
I was alerted by my senior chief of staff Dr Jeremy Sprockett, who has monitored the movements of all ten of you for the last 13 minutes. Using his Time Brain authority he can take one minute of your data and times it by 13, with mathematics.
This had led to 3 of you being handy bagged. Three people have small plastic bags put over each foot. Please follow the music to the next location
Love this story! "A terrabiscuit." "Time Brain authority." "handy bagged." I want to look at the inside of your brain!
JDA the story you posted and took down was one of my favorites of yours!!!
Ok I’ll repost. I woke up and there it was.
No I didn’t pay them. I was locked into a building with the palmist and had not asked the other one.
the least they could do is say something wonderful and vague. Then I might’ve gone back.
I did get a paid astrology reading once, family holiday on a health farm, my Dad paid a lady because she was a celebrity and had written a renowned book on the subject. She was wrong about everything. It was like she was looking at a negative of my tastes and personality. She was obviously a lovely gentle person and I didn’t want to burst her bubble too badly, so I mumbled not exactly, and thanked her a lot, and ran off to get a carrot and celery juice. I’d done an astrology experiment at school and that hadn’t yielded anything resembling truth either. But I’d still read my stars, hoping it’d say something exciting this week
Great riff.
Geez, that "Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried" is some powerful story.
Right? It's amazing
[Part 4 of story]
“Well, you’ve done it, Peter,” Melissa said. We had ordered coffee and croissants in the coffee shop downstairs, and she seemed to be enjoying hers. “No one has ever told me a story like this. Ever.” She pointed at me with her spoon. “You should eat something.”
“I can’t eat,” I confessed. “I remember this coffee shop being good, but something about the food seems … off.”
“So you’re planning to live on shrew now? Raw shrew, that’s what you should have ordered?”
I looked at the menu.
“I wasn’t serious,” Melissa said, taking it out of my hands. “It’s not on the menu. Look, Peter, this is a crazy story. If you weren’t my oldest friend, I’d say you were pulling my leg. But I know you wouldn’t do that. So therefore, you must be telling the truth, and therefore, it must have been some kind of hallucination? Fugue state? Psychotic break? I don’t know what to call it.”
“No, it happened.”
“Peter, you need help.”
“I do, yes.” I broke off a piece of the croissant, lifted it toward my mouth and set it down again without eating. “But not the kind you think.”
“What then?”
“I don’t seem to be … I’m not good at being human anymore. Was I ever?”
“You were a perfectly fine human. Not the least bit wolflike.”
“It might have been coyote,” I said. “Or one of those coywolf mixes. Definitely canine, anyway.”
“You were not the least bit canine. You didn’t even like dogs.”
“I may need some help becoming human again.”
“Can I get you folks anything else?” asked the waitress, who I realized had been listening to the whole conversation.
And so the journey continues....!!
Off-prompt, but I just watched this talk about stories and thought I'd share with all. Back later with something apropos to spaghetti or maybe rotini.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJfBYz6tab8
"we do not tell stories as they are. We tell them as WE are." Anais Nin
What a great quote. (Also--his voice is so beautiful, I could listen to him all day. thank you for posting.)
Thanks Kevin. I loved this.