Towels, Waiting

Now and again, I remind myself that Ruby Tabeata, the main character in the Beat Street Series, wants to be a poet when she grows up, like the Beat poets around her (Allen Ginsburg, Jack Kerouac, Gregory Corso, Amiri Baranka, Charles Bukowski, Elise Cowan and many more). 

I love writing Ruby's poetry and trying to jump into her generation's style and language. But today my own poem started forming because of the times we're in.

Towels wait patiently to be folded, unmoving cotton letting me know 

They can't sustain being thrown onto the top shelf of the closet and that

Eventually they'll fall down and dirtify themselves, meaning I'll have to wash them again and lose the time I so desperately covet

Even though coveting is one of the deadliest sins

I can only fold, fold, fold fold fold

Keeping fear from wrapping wet, hairy arms around my throat like a long-dead lover come to snuggle again 

And like a shrink who understands you, he smiles and waits for me to talk and I do, spilling it all like peanuts into his lap. Boys and girls, I say, my husband contracted shingles  many years ago and that migrated to his eye.

Doctor fixed it and we thought we were done

But anxiety got him too in the age of Coronavirus and after a long protracted cold

The monster returned to attack his peripheral vision 

Ah, but there's always more in a doctor's office and the doctor sez so, spilling his own peanuts

This virus could migrate to the other eye or even the brain, and I say God forbid to myself so the doctor won't hear me

Instead he rattles off this week's menu like a waiter: surgery and in-office injections

Towels are waiting patiently to be folded, and I fold them

Because it is one of the only things that makes me breathe right now

In, out, fold, smell the clean

A kind of meditation for the meditation averse
Folding, folding, folding fold while I look out at 

Calm blue glass lake outside as we 

Hide away out here pretending the world can't get at us

Every day waking to say, will he get better but he isn't yet 

Towels are all neat on the shelves now

Just like when we first moved in so full of hope

The way all possessions look when you unpack them

Waiting for death, waiting for Guffman, waiting for love, it

Doesn't matter.

They will always be waiting.

'Til we're ready to fold them again

*****************************************************************************

I'll leave you today with a group of great middle school books that includes Dragon Future from my writer pal Kandi Wyatt, as well as The Beat on Ruby's Street:

https://www.raeknightly.com/post/middle-grade-treasures-book-promotion-for-young-readers-april-25-may-25-2020

Woman with towel photo: Debs (ò‿ó)♪

Out of Comfort Zone Into Kayak

Apologies for not writing sooner - I ran away with my darlin' this week to the Keys to celebrate his birthday and get out of Dodge, which in our case means the snowiest February I can remember. (Probably one of THE snowiest in decades and longer).

We found a place with a chlorine free pool (win) and a turquoise bay that instantly lifted our spirits. Sea kayaks were on shore and while I wanted to get in, something (fear) was holding me back.

I'm not even sure why, so I don't know what to tell you - except the idea of tipping over and falling in right in front of a bunch of strangers was activating all my anxiety neurons.

I have way too many of those.

So every day I would look at the kayaks and tell my guy (Pete) we should take one out, and then find some excuse not to. There were two kinds - tiny one-person kayaks and then the two person ones. He said if I felt safer on the two-seater, that was fine with him.

Finally, on the next to last day we were there, I said we HAVE to do this and we have to do it NOW. We signed a release (if you drown, etc., the lodge is not responsible) and I brought my paddle and life jacket to the shore line.

Pete had taken out the one-seater, and was holding it for me.

"Why are you holding that one?" I asked. "I thought we were supposed to be doing the two-seater."

"I think this will be easier," he said.

I didn't know what to say. On one hand, I could see it would be easier to steer my own boat, so to speak, and on the other, my anxiety was doing a steady drumbeat in my head.

I decided to go for it and threw the life preserver into the little kayak. I climbed in, thinking about an Isak Dinesen story where the heroine keeps trying to prove to her new husband that she is fearless and does crazy things like standing on the edge of a cliff. And of course I was also in Hemingway country.

I am nothing like that - though I wish I was. I thought of times when I really WAS fearless - and wondered where that went as the years went on.

I think some of my anxiety started when my son was small and I overworried about every little thing. I wanted him to be adventurous, and he did turn out to be; but I worried just the same and I think that sent my caution into overdrive.

I picked up the paddle as Pete turned the kayak around. And what I found was that it was incredibly easy to steer and I was in no danger of capsizing. He jumped into his kayak and we went round the bay, hugging the shoreline, and I wondered why it had taken me so long to do this.

Today I'm waking up to piles of snow and ice outside my window, but in just a few months, the lake near our house will thaw. Northern lake style kayaks are different than sea kayaks, but just having been in one taught me I can do it and should at least try.

All of which is to say I think the universe is telling me I don't have to hang back as much as I do these days. And that a little risk doesn't just have to be present in my fictional characters like Ruby in the Beat Street Series.

It can live in reality, too.

Photo: Mine


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Getting Out of Fear Street

Fear. 

Stress. 

Depression. 

Anxiety.

How do we teach our kids to deal with them? I always think it’s best to model, not teach, and I haven’t done a very good job of dealing with these issues myself. My middle-of-the-night-worrying track record is excellent, which is to say, I’m a mess at 4 a.m. and it takes at least an hour to calm down if I’m really upset.

I try prayer, I try meditation, and it works somewhat, but never completely, especially in the middle of the night. I do better in the day when I can work on a play, book or column. Writing seems to help in ways most other things don’t, and I guess it’s always been that way.

I remember flying to Canada once and someone next to me started talking about a terrorist who blew a whole in the airplane in the exact same row where I was sitting. An infant was killed after this happened.

Of course, I couldn’t just turn off my mind after hearing this story (even though I wanted to smack the person who told it to me, knowing they were just the messenger… but still). Instead, I started writing a story, and somehow it helped enough to get me to calm down for the remainder of the flight. “It’s called writing to save your own life,” my friend Jorie says. I agree.

I also remember flying next to a woman who was having a huge anxiety attack while the plane went through some turbulence. She asked me for help and I managed to get her to think of other things, just by talking about them. We even became long-distance writing friends for a while, which I think was cool.

I think I’ve also told a story on this blog about a young boy who was extremely anxious when his dad put him on a bus to visit some other friends or relatives. I managed to think up a story to tell him and the rest of his trip worked out pretty well when we started talking. Even though I probably only helped him a little; it just felt right and I’m glad I could be there for him.

So, back to the FEAR stuff (I do love the series title Fear Street because I think we all spend a lot more time on that street than we want to admit.) I’m dealing with it this week, and have been for a while, and am still trying to get through it. Maybe one of the best ways to do that is share it with other people and learn about how they get through it.

But whenever you read instructions about how to deal with crises, they always say “Keep calm,” or “Don’t panic.” Good luck with that, I want to say! Someone once told me he thought most of life is about muddling through, and I’d say YES to that, at least for emergencies (but probably everything else too). He was a great friend and colleague who died from cancer.

Before he died, though, my friend married the great love of his life and traveled around with her. He didn’t have a long time but I think what he had was golden. And though I miss him terribly I’m very grateful for what he showed me: find the people and places you love, and be with them and around them as much as possible.

It doesn’t kill the fear, but it can sure give you a way to fight it. For a while.

… For more on helping kids deal with stress and anxiety:

What to Do (and Not to Do) When Children are Anxious

Anxiety, Fears and Phobias

Helping Your Child to Face Fears

Illustration: Jackson O'Brien Muenster