Barefoot Iowa

Of all the writing classes I’ve taken over the years, nothing taught me more about the terribleness of adjectives as listening to audiobooks.

I caught myself, so distracted by adjectives, unable to fall asleep.

Throw adverbs in there too.

As I listened to Strawberry Spring by Stephen King to fall asleep, I caught myself waking up.

I had to Google what year he wrote it because I knew damned well he advises writers not to over-use adjectives, adverbs, descriptors and/or passive voice.

And Strawberry Spring is practically the opposite of that.

I realize writers mature. Their writing matures. Their voice grows up as they grow old. But wtf, Steve.

The sentence that made me sit up and yank out my earbuds was this, “I blundered out to see who had been drafted,  combing my hair with both hands and running the fuzzy caterpillar that had craftily replaced my tongue across the dry roof of my mouth,”

I’m fairly certain no one should ever use the word craftily in any way, shape or form.

Fucking craftily.

I felt craftily assaulted.

So, I did the Google and found the original publication date of Strawberry Spring to be fall of 1968, when Mr. Steve was 21. I guess he gets the pass.

But I was still distracted. I proved Stephen King had at some point acknowledged his assoholic over-use of unnecessary descriptors but I wanted to know his evolution.

What about Stephen King, circa 1978? 1988? ’98, ’08, ’18?

1978 example, from The Stand: “That wasn’t any act of God. That was an act of pure human fuckery.”

I don’t think I need to go on from there. He obviously figured the shit out.

But what about other writers? Good, bad and indifferent writers?

“Contransmagnificandjewbangtantiality,” James Joyce can fuck right off. You don’t get to just cram all the things into one word and call it good. Granted, I’m biased. I fucken hate Ulysses.

“We were the people who were not in the papers. We lived in the blank white spaces at the edges of print. It gave us more freedom.
We lived in the gaps between the stories,” I should retitle this whole thing, IMHO, because in my honest opinion, Margaret Atwood is to perfection what James Joyce was to verbosity.

“There is a loneliness that can be rocked. Arms crossed, knees drawn up, holding, holding on, this motion, unlike a ship’s, smooths and contains the rocker. It’s an inside kind–wrapped tight like skin. Then there is the loneliness that roams. No rocking can hold it down. It is alive. On its own. A dry and spreading thing that makes the sound of one’s own feet going seem to come from a far-off place,” Toni Morrison, Beloved. Also perfect.

“It’s so hard to forget pain, but it’s even harder to remember sweetness. We have no scar to show for happiness. We learn so little from peace,” Chuck Palahniuk, Diary

“The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it,” Terry Pratchett, Diggers.

“They ran so fast their hair whistled,” The Brothers Grimm, The Golden Bird.

I can’t find words to describe how bored I am with this for now.

There are repercussions. Some are real. Some only feel real. Five seconds ago I learned the name for this is the Zeigarnik Effect.

“People remember unfinished or interrupted tasks better than completed tasks,” ~Bluma Zeigarnik.

I was going to take the writing of this seriously and dig out the laptop. Write. Save. Edit. Rewrite. Save. Edit. Make it a complete thing.

Then I decided, no.

If this ends up incomplete, well, that will be one of those secret secondary meanings that are only found by people who look for them.

If you find the secrets, welcome.

If you don’t, don’t worry. There will be words enough for something.

My job left undone was to teach the baby how to sooth herself to sleep. The other was to wake herself to optimism.

She is a teenager now and her circadian rhythm is fucked up like a soup sandwich.

She is not my baby. She is my baby’s baby. But when my baby brought her baby home, she brought her home to my house.

Before that, there were 4.5 weeks in the NICU. I never left them. I would set an alarm for 2am and I would walk from my daughter’s new-mommy hospital room in my drug store pajamas to a bassinet where a tiny strawberry blonde fairy child lay, hooked up to tubes and wires and IVs, and I would feed her.

We made plans.

She practiced how to suckle-swallow-breathe but she would sometimes forget to breathe. So I would talk her through it. And she would listen. With her big, preemie, bright blue eyes, she would look into mine while I talked to her and she slowly started to get the hang of things.

Hello, Petal.

Suckle.

There you go.

Swallow.

Nice work.

Breathe.

That’s the way.

The breath didn’t always happen when it should. Sometimes it happened during suckle. Sometimes it would happen during swallow. Sometimes lights and bells and buzzers would fill the room with flashess and noises and summon the nurses who taught mommy and me about feeding tubes and what bolus meant and breathing tubes and what aspiration meant.

O2 levels. Internal body temperature regulation. Pneumonia.

Eventually she got her little tiny self together and regulated and she came home like a champ.

I over-grandmothered like I over-mothered and for awhile, the world was right.

When you’re the mom and you’re alone, it is frightening and exhausting and it feels as if life will always only ever be you and the baby. This is one of life’s lies. But it’s okay because no matter how old or grown the child becomes, you will love them forever. Even if you will also miss them for the rest of your life.

When you’re the grandma, you’re not alone. The baby is there. You’re a team. There’s no fear. Exhaustion is exhilarating. Everything is familiar. This round, you know it won’t last. So you look longer, you sing more, you don’t worry about holding too much or too long. You rock, and cuddle, and even though you know it won’t last, you know you will love this child forever. You won’t miss them because you plan to be there and present for absolutely everything.

Unless, somewhere along the line, you leave the job undone.

I taught The Babe how to get to sleep with me to soothe her. She knew I would be there when she closed her eyes.

Grandpa taught The Babe how to wake up happy and loved and optimistic for a new day because he would be there when she opened her eyes.

When you become a grandparent, you do it the way you wished you had when you were the parent.

When my baby and her baby moved into their own home, The Babe fought sleep every night. She prolonged waking every morning.

Because Grandpa and I forgot to teach her how to do it without us.

Mama had to do twice the work to get The Babe to sleep. She had to do twice the work to get The Babe up and out of bed each day.

Because Grandpa and I forgot to teach her Mama how to do it without us.

The Babe would cry and refuse to sleep if she didn’t come to my house. Sometimes I had to sing to her on the phone.

This is the part of the story where there are gaps.

Objectives were forgotten. Pushed aside. Procrastination happened.

People died or left or lost their minds and mixed up in all of it was a formerly strawberry blonde baby fairy girl who couldn’t sleep at night and couldn’t wake up during the day.

And there are a thousand things that went wrong that could be described here but never really explained correctly and, really, there would only be excuses because the truth is it all comes down to things left half done.

That might actually be a symptom of something or other. For me, it’s a symptom of tired. I have no idea how much sleep I’ve had in the last two days but the earworm in my head is those guys from Jaws singing, Show me the way to go home, so I’d say, Not much.

My eyeballs feel like they’re full of sand,  I have a cute new kitten (I do not need another kitten) and the thoughts racing through my head have lost a sock and a shoe but they keep on running. They alternate with staring at this cuter than shit kitten with my mouth open.

I’m going somewhere fun this afternoon and anxiety is not with me. (Too tired). Instead, I’m counting down the minutes until I have to get in the shower. It’s weird. I feel as if I’m being unkind to my anxiety by not paying attention to it. Maybe I’ll cut my hair. (No).

The lecture I’m going to give The Babe in the car on the ride to the fun thing plays over and over in my head. It’s a home movie. Like Red Dragon without Edward Norton. She’s going to hate it but I’ll have her captive in a car so I will not hate it.

I met an Edward yesterday. I don’t like him. Eddy, if you’re reading this (doubtful) I see you, buddy. Your aura is the color of steak knives. I bind you from doing harm, I bind you from doing harm, I bind you from doing harm.

I had an urge to write, so I’m writing. My curiosity said, Oh, this will be a fuckn hoot. (It’s not). (It reads as if I need medication). (I do). It’s not medication time yet. Medication time is just before shower time so I can be clean and free from anxiety for the fun thing I am going to do.

I’m going to fall asleep in the car.

First truth: As far as teenagers go, I’m glad I didn’t have to raise myself. My mom and dad were pros, they knew how to handle me. Get around me. Put a stop to my shitheadedness when necessary.

If I’d had to raise me as a teenager, I’d still be in prison.

I thought I was sneaky and I was. But my parents were better.

I thought I was a rebel and I was. My parents were already bored with rebels by the time I came along.

As the youngest of six, I didn’t stand a chance of developing any long lasting legal troubles or drug or alcohol issues.

But I gave it one hell of a try.

As far as teenage friends go, I wouldn’t have put up with my shit.

There is one girl, who shall remain nameless to protect myself, in case she grew up to be a lawyer.
I know for a fact I was a shitty friend to her. When I was fifteen, I’d say I was spending the night at her house, then sneak out her bedroom window and run around town. I left her behind. To be fair, she did have some qualities (or lack of) that kind of earned her a bit of shitty-friend business from me but that’s beside the beside. To protect her guilt, I’ll call her Sour.

I ran around with another friend. A partner in crime. My folie a deux.

To protect her guilt, I’ll call her Sweets. She was bad and so was I. She was the Joan Jett to my Lita Ford. Yes, it includes anything you can imagine. If you’re old enough to remember them or care. In a nutshell, I loved her. And I wanted to beat the shit out of her. I know she felt the same because we tried to beat the shit out of each other once and we both decided that was enough for both of us. That bitch could hit. Hard. The best I hoped for when we called the truce was that she thought the same of me.

One summer night I told my mom I was spending the night with Sour, snuck out her bedroom window and met up with Sweets. It was a beautiful night. The temperature was one of those Iowa summer things, when you can wear a long-sleeved hoodie and cut off jean shorts and feel like a sexy little wayward immortal shithead.

We each had an unopened can of beer and a pack of smokes in our hoodie pockets and we were both sipping on already opened beers and smoking our cigarettes like we were the first dumbfucks to ever drink beer and smoke cigarettes. We each had $3 for the midnight showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

As we walked across the parking lot to the cinema, my mom pulled up and put an end to our bullshit.
She took Sweets home, took me home, and I was grounded from hanging out with Sweets. Sour’s mom forbid her to hang out with me and I settled back to be grounded forever because I was guilty as fuck.

About a month later, my dad called me in to talk to him at his desk. He asked questions. I answered with all the actual truth because, seriously, my parents probably invented gps tracking chips for how much they were onto my shit. I thought they were psychic, telekinetic, omnipotent and, to be fair, pretty fucking cool.

“Tell me about this movie,” my dad said.

So I spewed it all.

It was all about the movie.

Sort of.

It was about Frankie and bone-in corsets and glitter platform shoes. It was about putting my hair in a ponytail and dressing like a butler. It was about learning the script, word for word and throwing toast and rice and an entire theater of idiot teenagers squirting each other with squirt guns indoors and singing all the songs. Dancing all the dancing. Being all the beings.

It was about being a boy and a girl or both or neither all at once and for two hours every Saturday night it was, not only okay to be outlandish or dandy, it was encouraged and embraced.

I cried.
He listened.

He said, “How many times have you snuck out to see this movie,”

And then I did tell a little lie and low-balled it with 42 because that’s right around the number I’d lost count and bad enough for whatever was coming.

I don’t know if it made me feel better or worse but he said, “It is obvious this means a lot to you. You’re mother and I are going to give you permission to go to your midnight movie every Saturday. The only stipulation we have is, that you understand there is no reason to lie to us about anything, really. We understand you probably will anyway but please, don’t lie about things that could put you in danger. We’ll drive you and whoever goes with you there and back. Our job is to keep you safe. Your job is to help us do that.”

Second truth: One summer when I was around thirteen, my dad’s whole family had a family reunion in Terre Haute, Indiana.

This family reunion was the real deal. I met cousins and aunts and uncles I never knew I had.
The cousins and aunts and uncles I already knew went too. It was massive.

Our central meeting place was Aunt Leona’s house. Before that, I didn’t even know my dad had a sister named Leona.

It was Leona who gathered us all there. She’d, “Found Albert,” and we all had to go meet Uncle Albert. My brothers sang Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey every time someone mentioned him. They also sang Let ’Em In every time someone knocked on the front door.

My brother George brought thousands of dollars worth of fireworks and he lit them all off over the 4th of July holiday while we all learned what the fuck happened with Albert that made him such a big deal.

In my thirteen-year-old head I got it narrowed down to, my dad’s dad, Otis had been married a bunch of times and had a bunch of kids and his first wife had been a widow and she married Otis and brought along her kids. Albert was Otis and Mamie’s youngest. Mamie died giving birth to Albert.

Otis scattered the kids all over to various relatives, leaving some with this grandma or that aunt, etc. He left Albert with a neighbor and went off to Indiana to set up house near HIS mother, Grandma Shanks, and when he went back to get Albert, Mrs. Wiskow had absconded with him.

Then Otis met my grandma Georgia and that’s enough of that confusion.

Leona found Albert like 50 years later. He didn’t even know he wasn’t Albert Wiskow.
He changed his name back to his actual name, or whatever it is a person does if they find out their own self isn’t the own self they thought they’d been.

Uncle Albert was pretty cool. Aunt Leona was a bit intimidating. There was an Uncle Bill, an Aunt Louise, aunts Loretta, and Mamie and Laura.

Since 13 is a great age for snooping and eavesdropping, that’s what I did. I listened to all those familiar and unfamiliar grownups tell familiar and unfamiliar stories.

One new story that made me stop and listen was told in whispers when one of the sisters was out of the room.

“She’s still pretty fragile about it, isn’t she?” someone said.

Someone else said, “I can’t imagine being anything but after all that tragedy,”

Another someone asked, “Did they ever catch the ones who did it?”

Leona said, “No. Whoever it was got away with it.”

It took a bit of listening but I learned Loretta’s daughters were named Patricia and Barbara and one December in Chicago, Loretta gave her girls some spending money and permission to go see a midnight showing of an Elvis Presley movie, watched them get on the bus to go and never saw them alive again.

They were found a month later, naked and dead in the snow beside a guardrail. The person who found them said at first he thought they were mannequins.

Barbara was 15, Patricia was 13.

Between the time I learned their story and I turned into a shitweasel, I had forgotten about them. My guess is, I owe a debt of gratitude to the Grimes sisters for making me pull my head out of my teenage angst and calm the fuck down.

Thank you to Barbara and Patricia Grimes.

I still have a heart. It’s in the freezer, stuck to a Tombstone.

Some days I chip it out, blow off the frost and check to see if it still functions. So far, there’s nada. It’s been awhile.

That’s not to say I’m sad. I’m not sad. I’m no longer in mourning. There is no day to day missing of anyone. I can’t say I came through it unscathed. My metaphorical heart is frozen, after all.

But I’m no longer sad.

I’m not mad either. I was that for awhile. I enjoyed mad enough to carry that around a very long time. It wore out its welcome just like sad and I sent them off together, blubbering and cursing.

Nothing is broken anymore. Dented and bruised, maybe, but not broken.

I’ve been thinking about my girl. The remembering does not make me sad either. The remembering makes me happy. The remembering is why I am okay with right now.

Her first name for me was Nomina. We couldn’t figure out what in hell that meant for a short while and then her mama and I figured it out together.

Her mama and I would point to her mama and ask, Who is this?

She’d say, Mama.

Then we would point to me as ask, Who is this?

She’d say, Mama.

We would say, not the mama, grandma.

She would say, nomina.

Not The Mama.

I liked that name for me.

For some unknown reason, when she gave up calling me Nomina (one of those things that broke my heart before I put it in cold storage) she called me Gato.

Spanish for cat.

Then I was Gru. Then gramma. Now, since my babe is no longer a babe, I’m grandma. Or bruh. Sis. Grrl.

My names for her still come into play because I’m trying to teach her grandmas get to be as weird as they want for as long as they want. Some days she’s still The Babe.

Some days she’s Petal.

Some days she’s Bug, Toots, Braby, Broby or Bruh.

She still experiments with demands.

They still don’t work.

She’s pretty sick of doing things by herself now but she doesn’t want anyone else to clean her room either.

Since 14 is highly flammable, her grownups sometimes discuss how they should behave around her. So as not to light that spark.

I infuriate her by staring at her randomly.

Bruh, she says.

I give her the long blink like the cats do.

What do you want?

I say something she considers ridiculous like, Sometimes I stare at you like I love you because I do.

I say it in Dug the Dog’s voice from Up.

She doesn’t know I see her attempt to hide a grin.

Or maybe she does. Either way, I’m okay.

When I first noticed she was growing up and moving on from grandma, I was sad.

Of course I was.

She was my broken heart, in person form.

I am not sad now about the loss of her. Not because I don’t miss her, I do. Not because I don’t love her, I do.

I’m not sad because this is what all those lessons were for. I haven’t lost her. She has become who she is.

Learning to wait, finding patience, being forgiving of things that are beyond the control of whoever.

She has learned all of the things.

If she forgets one now and then, well, so do I.

But no way will we forget each other.

Because, even though she could have zombie stomped all those ants when she was four, she didn’t. And neither did I.

That’s my plan.

I’m more Scottish than Irish but I can’t pronounce caoineag. Plus, there’s the alliteration to take advantage of.

Bean Nigh would have the alliteration but no one else would be able to pronounce it. I’m not into laundry either, so I’d prefer not to spend my eternity as a little screaming washer woman.

I’m not even going to consider the Welsh version. No one can understand Welsh. Not even the Welsh. (Sorry, Wales but you know it’s feckin true).

Banshee or bean nigh, my lack of luck would have them all shortening it to a nickname and I’m not having any, “Oh, that’s old Beanie. Can you hear her?”

If I succeed, I want none of that.

I’m not all that good with Celtic mythology (obviously) so I’ve probably got this all wrong anyway. But from what I hear, to hush a banshee, you’re supposed to brush her hair. That is something I could get into.

Keening, I could do.

I could do a bit of wailing for a good hairbrushing.

A banshee is supposed to bring news of a death, so maybe get those hairbrushes ready. Once I’m on the other side, that is.

Don’t fuck with the fae.

I asked it why god hates me. Lowercase. Of course it autocorrected to uppercase and sent me straight into a Jesuit Priest.

I’m a pagan.

I was being cynical.

I’m genX. I only half care. (Fellow genXers know, half caring is basically defcon 2).

But this Jesuit priest… is a liberal. (Any of my non-liberal friends, just take a deep breath. It’s me, you’ll be fine).

And he was not on fire.

I did not burst into flame reading what I expected to be shit because what else would a cynical genX pagan expect.

Instead, I’m going to do what I said I was not going to do here and share quotes. With his name included. Because, copyright laws. And, he seems nice.

Jim McDermott, America Magazine, writer and Jesuit priest told me to sit down and talk to God (uppercase, I suppose I can give in there). Fifteen minutes per day. Or every other day. Or once per week. Or month. Or every other Tuesday, who cares.

He said it didn’t matter if my version of God was an old gray-haired white guy or a blue multi-armed goddess, or a cat or a tree or the freaking eastern wind.

He said the important thing is (here comes the quote), “Imagine God is smiling at you in an, ‘Oh, my God, I haven’t seen you in so long, let’s grab a coffee,’ kind of way.”

He said he wanted me to see someone who was smiling at me as if, “I am watching the sun rise and it is you,”

And voila, I’m cured. Depression over.

Just kidding. I’m still mentally mind-fucked.

But I did learn I sincerely miss with my entire being, the smile he mentioned.

I remember that smile. The smile that says, Oh, hey, hi! I missed you!

I’ve seen that smile on living people. They’re all either dead now or off smiling at other people. Now the people I see usually look at me like, “Ugh. She’s still in that mood.”

Which does not improve my mood.

Or they’re looking at their phones. (I hate to be that guy, but seriously folks, it’s a problem).

I’ve smiled that smile at living people. Apparently, my “the sun rises and sets in your ass” smile, scares people away.

Now, I am afraid to smile that smile because when I do, people go away. Plus, I hate my fucking dentures.

I also learned, people are not gods. Or Gods.

And neither am I.

So, thank you, Father Jim the liberal Jesuit. You weirdo.

Thank you for being the answer to a random, half serious Google search just to tell me it’s okay if I’m a weirdo too.

If I go to jail because I sit outside in front of a tree smiling like a horror movie for fifteen minutes, somebody find that guy for my bail money.

who says get out of my house. Randomly, when least expected.

I’m too tired to jump out from anywhere to yell oogedy-boogedy.

I’m just going to stand in the hallway between the bedroom and the bathroom at 3am so the choice is to walk through me or walk all the way around the house to the other bathroom door.

I’m going to be the reason the new residents pee themselves in the night while they’re half asleep.

I’m going to sit on the basement bottom step and whistle until they come down to see there is no one there.

I’m going to step on every creaky stair.

I’m going to leave the closet doors open.

I’m going to stand at the kitchen window every night until the sun sets.

I’m going to sit on the front porch every time it rains.

I’m going to sleep in the cubby hole upstairs and make noises like squirrels.

I’m going to be behind them every time they look in the mirror.

I will be the ghost of my house. And when they say it isn’t my house, I will be stronger and almost visible.

Watch me.

In a short while, my son (my sweetheart) will pick me up and take me home for the last time. I was going to write about it after but I find myself needing to tell myself, You will get through this. One more time.

I could have said no. I could have said I can’t handle seeing my house that is no longer my house. I could have said let it go.

At first I did say all that. Because there are no fairy godmothers or benevolent witches who will magically appear and say, “Don’t go, you live there, silly, you won’t be able to leave. Let us give it to you so you may have it forever and for free,”

Then I thought, this is my chance.

I could say yes.

I do not have to chain myself to a termite chewed post in the basement. But it is okay to want to.

I can walk through it one more time before it is gone forever even though I’ve done that before. When I did it the last time, I did not know it would be for sale again and I could have one more chance to see all the cabinets my dad built himself.

I can smell the musty basement one more time.

I can touch the catalpa trees.

I can say goodbye to the 500lb concrete planter I left in the front yard because I could not lift it to take it with me the last time I left.

I can see the little bedroom upstairs with the magic of electricity finally in it.

I can look out my mom’s kitchen window.

I can look out the window of my old bedroom.

I can touch the cold porcelain of the claw foot tub.

I can see the absence of the garage, the mystery of why someone took the front door and replaced the back door with it, my mother’s absurd under-the-sea decorations in the basement half-bath, my father’s old workshop, the secrets only I know.

I can visit my ghosts.

So I said yes. I will go.

I plan to discuss my absence with them, although, I am sure, they already understand.

I plan to lean into their longing and close my eyes and tell them, “I know you.”

I miss you.

I remember you.

My only wish is this- please, to whoever is in charge of these things, let them lean into me and tell me the same things.

Softly but firm.

Please dear holy of whatever is holy, let my ghosts be home when I visit.

Tell them I am on my way.

These are the things I must let go. And these are the words I must use to do it.

Like a spell.

“We can’t do that for you because we couldn’t do it for the others. We don’t want them to resent you if we give you more.”

I understood. I accepted. I worked to earn. I put in the time. I attempted to do extra.

They resented me anyway.

They said I was given things. Handed things. That life was made easier for me because I was last. That I was spoiled to make up for my accidental arrival.

The only one who didn’t resent me was the felon. He said, “I don’t give a fuck if you take them all for everything they’ve got. I’m nobody to them.”

But he did not hold it against me when I didn’t.

And he didn’t laugh at me.

He just shook his head and told me being soft hearted would kill me some day.

Today is that day.

So, I am putting these words out there into the ether so I can let them go. They spread like a virus for too long. Today, they become my spell.

Goodbye words that are not true. Goodbye resentful attitudes. Goodbye the shame of being an oops and a glitch and a wrinkle in the what-have-you of whatever blessed thing they had before my arrival.

I bind you from doing harm.

I bind you from doing harm.

I bind you from doing harm.

Yes. You.