Will She Think of Me?

I’m sitting on a ratty sofa with torn spots, picking at threads with my fingernails as I sit and sip my lavender and mint tea. The mug is un-extraordinary. A glass cup, filled with brownish-green liquid and a string that hangs over the side with a tag on the end telling you what delectable combination of herbs went into this heavenly brew that I enjoy breathing in the scent of just as much as drinking it.

My legs are tucked under me and instead of studying or reading or browsing Facebook, today I’m simply basking in the aroma of my favorite coffee shop and studying all the sounds and figures around me. It’s a dull hum that I mostly tune out, occasionally honing in on specific conversations happening around the room. It’s like being underwater, but then suddenly being able to separate a fraction of the conversation of the couple playing chess at the table next to you. They’re discussing their quantum physics class and berating the TA for “not knowing fuck about physics.” Just as quickly, their voices fade as my attention is jerked into the corner where a group of college girls is laughing suddenly and loudly because a boy in a letterman jacket has just spilled hot coffee on his crotch and is jumping around, smacking himself as if he were putting out a fire. I try not to let them catch me smiling behind my teacup. My hands are wrapped around the cup and the steam continues to fill my nose with beautiful hints of chamomile and lavender and mint. I look away before the embarrassed college boy catches me watching as he storms toward the exit.

I hear the bell above the door jingle as he exits. I’m back underwater. All the noise melds together, creating a symphony of individual voices, chairs scraping, doorbell jingling, espresso machine hissing, grinder grinding, change hitting the bottom of an empty tip jar.

Then, I see her. All the sounds come to a sudden halt. I am no longer underwater. In fact, I’ve never seen with more clarity or heard anything more crisply. She’s leaning over a book and her long, curly red hair frames the book’s edges on the tabletop. She pushes her hair back behind her ear and I can hear her singing softly to herself. The green crocheted beanie she’s wearing stands in stark contrast to her hair, which appears to be on fire. As if she senses my gaze, she stops singing and begins to look around. Her eyes find mine and I automatically want to look down or turn away, but I can’t. I have been captured by the depths of the Universe that stare back at me from those green eyes. She smiles, shyly, and lets her hair fall back across her face as she turns back to her book. But I know that something has changed. Something in the cosmos has shifted at that moment and even if I never see her again, I will know that for a moment, she was mine. I will remember that moment—that connection of souls--forever. Someday, when I’m sitting by the ocean, watching the blues and greens mix intoxicatingly together, I will remember those eyes. Someday, when I’m sitting around a bonfire with friends, the fire will remind me of the girl with fire for hair, covered in a green beanie. Someday, when I’m old and rotting away—I will remember the passion and the heat that rose from my belly to my ears when I looked into that woman’s soul.

Will she think of me?   

Louis

My friends and I were walking downtown in Nashville one night when I was a student at Trevecca. We used to love to go downtown and just walk around Broadway and do touristy things and raise hell.

Except, we weren't allowed to drink and could be expelled for it-and believe it or not, they had people downtown watching for it-so we had to raise hell sober.

On this night, there were about 5 of us that had made the trek up and down Broadway, smashing ourselves between tourists, elbowing drunks that got in our way, rolling our eyes at drunken bridal parties staggering down the row wearing bedazzled crowns, sashes, and drinking from penis-shaped straws. We finally reached the end where Bridgestone Arena is, which is far less crowded than Broadway proper.

I remember it being really cold that night. I remember passing a man who stood, bundled against the wind with a sign at his feet. We were all laughing and having a good time, but something pulled me back to the man. My friends circled like vultures wondering what in the world I was doing. I walked back to where this incredibly large man was standing with his head hanging down. I told him my name and asked if I could shake his hand. He was tentative. He probably worried what people would think of the intentions of a large, homeless black man talking to a tiny white woman on a side street off Broadway. I say tiny, I was 5'4" and still, this man towered over me.

I asked him where he was from. "Memphis, ma'am."

What's your name? "Louis, ma'am."

 I asked him to look at me in the eyes. It was like gazing into the Universe and being unable to speak or tear my eyes away.

Finally, I said, "Louis, my friends and I have just left Broadway and are headed home. I'd love to buy you a gift card for a meal." He shook his head. "No, ma'am. You done done what nobody else done all night.” “You looked at me like a human being."

I asked him where he would be sleeping tonight. "I know a place."

Many in the unhoused community are very protective of where they sleep because it can be dangerous for other unhoused people to find out and try to overtake their space, or for the police to find out and remove them from their space.

Louis started to cry. I asked him why he was crying. "You remind me so much of my daughter. She passed a couple months ago and I never got to say goodbye."

I stood like my feet were buried in concrete and I was unable to move a muscle. It hit me solidly in the gut and knocked the wind from me.

Then he just began to talk as if we were old friends. "I came here from Memphis to find my daughter. She lived here with her children. I wrote her letters her whole life, but her mama either took them or she didn't want them. She was 33. I sent her a card every year for her birthday. Then, a few years ago, I lost track of her, but I knew she was here. I came here a lookin' for her. Just a few days ago, I found out she's dead. She had cancer. Some kinda lady cancer. They tell me she didn't suffer."

I was listening to Louis talk and tears were flooding my vision and streaming down my face. I told him how sorry I was that he couldn't see his daughter before she died, but that I believed beyond a doubt that she knew he loved her.

Then, I asked Louis if I could hug him. I don't like to be touched sometimes, so I always ask others before I touch them. He looked at me like a white-eyed, frightened feral cat-prepared to bolt at the slightest movement. He nodded. I stepped closer to him. I hugged him around his belly, which was no less than 20 shirts layered on top of one another. He smelled like body odor and faintly of booze. As I stood there and we held each other, I felt tears hitting the top of my head. We embraced for less than a minute, and I stepped back.

He held my hand in his big, sand-papery hands and placed a silver cross into my palm. "This was hers. Her name was Evie. You remind me so much of my Evie." I told him that I couldn't accept such a precious gift, but that I was honored that he even wanted to give it to me. He insisted. He said that I was the first person to pass by him who treated him like a human being and he believed that his daughter would want me to have it. I hesitated, but I took the cross. I carry it every day. Every day, it is a reminder of the gift of compassion and the gift of truly seeing one another.

We are often in relationship with people where the power differential is not reciprocal. Sometimes, this is by design. Other times, it is because we live in a cruel, hard world and we can’t see that we are marginalizing our very own precious brothers and sisters. The people we push to the edges are often the ones with the most to offer. You see, Louis didn’t need my gift card for a hamburger nearly as badly as I needed to be reminded of the power of humanity. What Louis needed was for someone to look at him in the eyes and tell him that his life is of value. He needed another human being to hear him—to truly hear his story. He needed to share his pain with someone and say how much he loved his daughter and the regret he feels that he couldn’t see her before it was too late.

But, we are all so caught up in our own “stuff,” we tend to walk right past Louis and never even notice the forgotten soul standing in the cold with a sign at his feet.

But, then occasionally, we have an opportunity to look each other in the eyes and be mesmerized by the vastness of the Universe and love within one another. And hopefully, one day, when you are like Louis, you will have something of value to share with a young college girl walking carelessly down Broadway—as if she hadn't a care in the world—that is, until she sees you. 

Budgies and Burials

When my sister and I were 8 years old, my mom allowed us to get pet parakeets that we’d been begging for, for basically forever. At least, that’s how it felt to an 8-year-old who walked by the pet store in the mall every so often and saw those cute little chirpy birds.

Finally, for our birthday, we could get one each, on one condition—that we took sole responsibility for their care. Feeding, cleaning the cage, sweeping under the cage for shells…the whole lot was up to us. We heartily agreed and left the pet store that day with a bright yellow and bright blue parakeet. I was a bit of a nerd as a kid—into science and I poured over the Encyclopedia Britannica set that we had on our living room bookshelf—for fun.

My sister immediately named her yellow bird “Sunshine.” I rolled my eyes. “How original…” I’m sure some sort of physical scuffle ensued. Then I went back to the encyclopedia. I decided that my bluebird would be called “Budgie,” which I learned was French for “bird.”

Budgie and Sunshine lived happy lives together in a tall pen in our laundry room. We would occasionally let them light onto our finger and bring them out of the cage to sort of pet if you can really call it petting a bird. It was more like smoothing its feathers and hoping to God that it didn’t shit on your hand. Budgie got handled far less than Sunshine, which is what I believe is at least partially responsible for Sunshine’s early demise.

One morning, we woke to a squawk that was much louder than usual. We went to the cage, and Budgie was having a nervous breakdown because Sunshine was lying on his back with his feet straight up in the air, in the spot where he must have perished.

My sister was terribly distraught, and I was a little bit grateful on the inside that it wasn’t Budgie. Like somehow the competition of keeping our birds alive was over and I had won. I know. It’s sick. But, I also loved my bird and was thankful he or she was still alive. We never did determine the sex of either bird; however, I think that I read somewhere that the blues are mostly female and the yellow are male. The name “Budgie” was androgynous enough to cover either gender identity.

We decided that it was only right to give Sunshine a proper burial. We decorated a shoe box with ornate jewels and Lisa Frank stickers. I’m almost sure that I sprayed perfume into the box. My sister put Sunshine’s “toys” in the box with him/her. We put the lid on the box and wrote his/her name on the top.

We were ready. We walked outside and found the perfect spot beside a tree in the yard where we would be able to see the grave marker. We had dressed appropriately for Sunshine’s funeral. We had a prayer and dug the hole. My mom placed Sunshine’s casket into the hole and we covered it with dirt. 

We turned away and began to sing “I’ll Fly Away.” What other song would you possibly sing at a parakeet’s funeral??

We turned back around to say our final goodbyes, but the hole had been uncovered and the lid was missing. Upon further investigation, we discovered that Sunshine’s body was also missing. That box was as empty as Jesus' tomb on Easter Sunday. Queue perfectly in sync turn to the left and screams as my sister’s cat, Scratch, was happily carrying Sunshine into the woods.

Budgie died soon after, as parakeets are tribal birds and are meant to be paired with at least one other bird. I think his funeral was far less elaborate and the hole was dug much deeper for his coffin.  

Lessons learned:

• Birds are fun to look at
• Birds are very messy
• Birds have about a 2-minute poop span from the time you pick them up unless they’re nervous—then, you’re screwed
• Pets live, and pets die.
• The Lion King was right—there is a circle of life. Scratch proved it. 

Nothing Smaller Than Your Elbow

I remember the first time I saw rain from a distance. It was mesmerizing and beautiful. Sheets of translucent liquid poured onto the hills across the farm. Clint and I were sitting on the hot tin roof of his house and gazing across the fields. “It’s about three miles away,” he said. “How do you know?” I responded. “Just do.” I took his word for it and began to scan the sky in search of a rainbow. There had to be one since it was such a brilliantly sunny day and there was rain nearby. I found it. The rainbow’s colors poked its barely visible fingers above and through the top of the tree line at the bottom of the cow pasture. “There,” I said, as I pointed at the colors. Clint took my hand and wrapped his bony fingers around mine. Our palms were sweaty from leaning against the roof in the midsummer heat, but neither of us minded. We sat there until the rain slowly approached, and then began to fire small pellets of water onto our heads. We couldn’t wait much longer, or the roof would become a dangerous slip and slide that ended with a 50-foot drop to the ground. Clint leaned over and kissed my cheek, and then we made our way, carefully, across the roof and back into the window to his bedroom.

I was drawn to Clint for the same reason I must run my hand across the open flame of any candle I see. Clint was dangerous. Clint took risks. Clint did the “wrong” things. Whenever his parents told us we couldn’t take the four-wheeler out for joyrides, we plotted to wake up well before dawn and sneak off into the woods, pushing the four-wheeler out of earshot before hopping on and spending a few hours riding like crazy. Even though we both knew the dangers of smoking, we rolled up magazine papers with grass from the field and filled our lungs with the acridest, disgusting thing I’ve ever tasted. (Hopefully not amassing too much damage to our lungs in the process) When his aunt was not in her barbershop, cutting old people’s hair, we would sneak in and jiggle the old-timey coke machine until we both had ice-cold beverages to drink behind the barn. With Clint, I felt like we did all the wrong things and it made my world just a little more “right.”

I find myself reminiscing about the summers I spent with Clint and his family as a kid. I got into a lot of trouble over those summers, but it sure was fun. Dare I say that any punishment I faced for our shenanigans was “worth it?” Yeah. I’d say that. Because during those times, I learned things about myself that I would not have learned otherwise. I learned that doing the “wrong” thing is often how we figure out how the world works.

So very often, these days, I find myself drawn to the “wrong” things, or thinking about things the “wrong” way. Well, I’m here to say to those that believe there is a right or wrong way to think, “Kiss my ass.” I believe that we are all created by our Creator to think differently, act differently, and generally, be different.

News flash: I am different. I’ve always been different. More than likely, I’ll always be different. I’m coming to terms with that.

Being different can be very lonely. When the people I am surrounded by are thinking about the world so differently than I do, I feel very much alone. When I feel things so deeply that I don’t have words for it, people don’t understand me. They are afraid of my difference. When I am overwhelmed by the heaviness of the world, people don’t understand why I don’t just “shake it off.” “It’s not your problem,” they say, “it’s not yours to feel.” They do not understand that I feel it anyway.

I’m an ENFP. Every time I’ve taken the analysis, there’s never been a variance in the results—for each category, I am extremely E, N, F, and P. I’m an extrovert. I’m intuitive. I’m a feeler. And I’m perceptive. This is the way I see the world. I think if I had a choice in the matter, I’d probably choose to be an ISTJ. Which is exactly opposite of what I am. Funny, huh. We always want to be or have what we aren’t or don’t have.

There are very few people in my life that “get it”. I am so thankful to have found those people that do, and I treasure those relationships more than anything in the world. I guess my “E” is just feeling a little bit isolated in the midst of this journey. Hence, the writing. Writing helps. It always does.

So, what’s with the title? I got the end of a q-tip stuck in my ear once when I was cleaning them. I had to have it removed by a doctor. I asked the doctor, if not a q-tip, what should I be using to clean my ears? “Nothing smaller than your elbow.”

I still use q-tips to clean my ears. It may be the “wrong” thing, but it feels so right!