Made Up

Today is my step-mom's birthday. We don't generally get along. Or rather...maybe we don't specifically get along, but do okay as long as we keep it general.

In honor of Mom's bday, here's a specific memory that keeps floating in like a recurring dream. When I was little, I liked to watch her put on her make-up. I would sit on the toilet seat lid while she stood at the vanity and put mascara on her eyelashes faster than anyone should be whipping a wand around their eyeballs. She would dab a runny, tan cream onto her fingers then disappear it into her face. And she would pop her pink Mary Kay eye shadow brush into her mouth to get it wet, and dab it into a smoky brown, a silvery white. When I got old enough to get my own Mary Kay eye shadow set, the colors were enchanting and inviting in lavenders and green. But I never got used to the cool feeling of spit on my eyelids.

Sometimes I would ask my mom not to put on makeup before we went out because she looked so much prettier to me without it. After she washed her face, you could see the tiny fractures in the skin under her eyes. I could see the set to her mouth, and hear it talking before she ever said a thing. I didn't know how or why, I just felt more at ease when I could see her face glower and glimmer this way. She looked happier when she smiled, angrier when she scowled.

I think of that often when I put on my own makeup. I was never a big fan, and still don't love standing in front of the mirror giving time to my own web of fractures increasing monthly under my eyes. But I get it, what my mom did back then, when she was the age I am now. I look better with a little cosmetic help. I look presentable. With concealer and some eyeshadow, and color on my cheeks, I direct people to the pretty, not the weary, or wary, or love worn, or ambitious, or lonely. I cover the tracks, gloss the lips, and smile into public view, knowing that if there were a little girl on the toilet seat lid watching me cover what she knows is real-er than pretty colors and subtle distractions, I might feel a little more revealed.

But there's not. So I creep, y'all. Sneak.

What the Body Knows

Ye olde break-up and ye olde therapist have had me circled by events past, so much so that I don't know which way to turn to transform them. Ye olde writing teacher says that you have to create chaos in your story so that it can then be ordered. In recent weeks, when I turn to what I know to order chaos in my current life story, I see a shadow or a skeleton looming at me, saying, "wanna fix that? Use me." I see a whole circle of them around me. By shadow or skeleton, I mean certain events from life and youth that have taken up residence in my habits, and lurk there like they were bonafide me. 

And the thing about that is they are. Till they are not. Those habits we pick up to handle our lives in weird moments stick with us and we forget that they still look and feel exactly like the workaround they were when we first used them...forget they are just tape on the glasses to keep them on your face, but dern, you look like a nerd that way. 

So there're all these shadows and skeletons around me every time I reach back to pick a tool out of my resource bag to "fix" something emotional. Something that is usually blocking something else really flipping cool in my life, like happiness or success at work, or a lovely lover happy to play fair and fun.  

Last weekend, I could see this circle in my mind. It was agony. How do I freaking evolve, goddamnit, if I can't see past these creaky bones? How do I make different choices when Bones and HooHoo are chattering at me like chickens on speed? Running in circles.

Today I went to ye olde chiropractor. I was there a long time. He worked on one hip. Then another. He unwound one creak in the neck. And then another on the other side, half way down. When we were done, he said, "It's like you're unwinding in a circle. Your body is moving through these places it got stopped, resetting and then moving on to the next one in a circular motion."

He just raised his eyebrow and patted me on the back when I mumbled, "HooHoo and Bones."

*

Liberated

My first trip to San Francisco, I was 19 and found a 1st ed. The Fountainhead, by Ayn Rand. I was blissed out at a coffee bar, belly-up and as far from suburbia as I had ever been. A guy asked me what I got. I held the book in its thin paper bag like it was my dead mother's last possession, recently unearthed.

I was embarrassed to tell him it was Ayn Rand, San Francisco being such a liberal city, and told him so. He was older than me by 20 years and suggested that because SF was such a liberal city, it would be just the place to share that kind of thing.

My bliss increased. My fingers felt the hard cover under the brown paper. Liberation.

Hm. Liberated. Liberty. Library. Libreria. Libro. Libre. Book. Freedom. You could mix them up without knowing it. Knowledge = freedom. There's a topic for another day.

A Bench & So Much More

Queen of Denial

PEMA: My boyfriend is a real sweetheart.

GRANDMA: You better hold onto him.

We eat a few bites and stare off into space.

GRANDMA: Good friends are good to have.

- - - - -

On nature's monthly arriving the day of my 20 year HS reunion...

GRANDMA: I'm sorry that had to happen to you today.

PEMA: I'm glad it happened at all.

GRANDMA: Well, you weren't expecting it not to, were you?

PEMA: No. But I'm always glad to see it.

GRANDMA changes subject.

Hoops and Rewards

Speaking of money and getting personal (weren't we?), I made a big breakthrough in therapy today. I'm so happy to be in therapy again. It's been a lot of years since the last bout, and sanity is worth the investment. The absolutely glorious thing, is that therapy is not just sanity-inducing, it's personal growth. Big fat life lessons learned, with the perspective of somebody outside my head, equipped with brainaical skills, willing to push me through my fortress doors out into the bright of day, the bright of life. Yes, I write for Hallmark, dammit.

Today's breakthrough...I walked in and told my therapist it was over. I ran out of money for therapy. I have to come back when I've got a stronger foundation and extra money for such a thing.

The parenthetical to this is that all week long I've been pining over the school program I left in New York eight years ago. EIGHT YEARS AGO. Holy Jeez. I thought I was over the regret, but New York keeps coming up in the hot weather, in my city walks, in conversation, photos on Facebook. I miss the people I left. I miss the dream I stepped off of, thinking I was stepping further into it by leaving. I am jealous of the success my peers are achieving in their faraway states and camaraderie. I want to be achieving it with them. Practicality states that survival is success and the pace of both for me is just a little slower than the others I'm comparing myself to. But the fact is, I don't have any babies or marriages or award-winning plays under my belt, no fancy grants or creative foundations tripping over themselves to give me development money. Not yet anyway.

I love it when thoughts that seem just along for the ride in life and its circumstances tie right into a day's therapy session. So I tell Ken-the-therapist that it's over and he tells me based on the six or so sessions we've had and the voluminous heat of each of them, that it'd be an apropos time for me to bolt. Ah, yes. I agreed. If only I WANTED to bolt. But I wanted to stay, I just didn't have the means. Then all of a sudden those New York thoughts came breezing in, remembering I left in part because I thought I was going to lose it, and I needed to be in a familiar place if my mind was going to go...so that I could survive the fall. I didn't have the means to survive it. NYC was new, as were my friends and my circumstances. Who would take me in if I crashed? Who could I ask for help if I didn't have a fight in me left?

It's all very melodramatic isn't it? I was in a dramatic arts program, if that redeems me at all. But it's true. I felt a niggling sense of doom, and a faraway call to find a nest, find it fast, and prepare to lose my head.

The parallel of needing help, and not having the means to acquire it, came clearly into view. Even the time span that I've been here in Portland, following another dream, is the same time I was in NYC following that dream before I felt the foundation begin to shake.

Ken-the-therapist nodded as I pulled this all together. Threw in sage words. And offered me a deal I couldn't refuse. Breakthrough: I'm staying in therapy. I'm getting the help that's supporting my creative brain and my business success...and lest we forget, healthy relationships with men, boyfriend in particular. It feels, I feel, relieved. I feel really good. And I feel like I made a different choice than the sad, regretful one I made to leave New York.

As for missing places in general, I've been doing that a lot lately.

I miss the rosewater ice cream in Hollywood, and my old mob of cohorts at 415 in San Francisco, and the Fritz Blitz festival selection committee in San Diego, and my friends and the the foothills and ocean running path and the ocean itself in Santa Barbara. Melissa Lion wrote a cool book called Upstream. In it a teenage girl comes to grips with a devastating loss, and in her healing progress realizes that what she misses is who she was. I miss that sometimes, in the gap between what I am and what I'm becoming. Thing is, I've been becoming for a lot of months now, and I forget who I am in the meantime...making me remember who I've been and miss myself.

Curious, if I didn't think so much of myself, I'd think I were a narcissist. ;-)

Thanks for hearing my breakthrough today. It's a big one and I am happy. I feel older. By two days. At least.

The Little Line Was Blue

The month of July has potentially seen the most transformative days in a row of my whole adult life. I could be wrong. I have had some swerves and misses. Some direct hits. My friend/boss died in a plane wreck. I moved to another state. I left 15 years of day-jobbing to leap into doing bizness for myself.

But two weeks ago I peed on a stick and turned it the faintest shade of blue. It was so light blue, the little line predicting the rest of my life, that the digital readout read, "Not Pregnant." My girlfriends, however, are all sorts of savvy. Peeing on sticks is a national sport in some households. Every last symptom under their belts, they know when the jig is up. And these pros in the field suggested I pee on another one, then bust that thing open with a hammer to read it the good old fashioned way: White strip. Thin blue line. You can only have the hormone in your system that turns sticks blue if you are pregnant, they said. Even if it's a tiny bit blue, you're 100% knocked up.

So I got out the hammer. Opened a fresh test. Peed. And waited. Three minutes later, it read, "Not pregnant." I got down on the floor and bashed that digital thing open. What did I pull out? White strip. Thin blue line.

Here's the calendar of events.
Wednesday - My boyfriend and I break up.
Friday - I'm four days late. I pee on a stick. It's negative.
Saturday Night - Pregnancy jock girlfriend instills doubt about my negative.
Sunday Morning - Pee on the stick. Doubtable shade of blue. But blue. No. Can't be. Yet.
Sunday - Six days late.
Sunday Night - Undeniable symptoms. Come to Jesus. My very molecules changing everything I know. Pema Teeter, This Is Your Life! I'm telling you, everything changed. I woke up the next morning recommitted to my core values, my spirituality, my purpose in life.
Monday Morning - Can't eat breakfast. Tastes funny. Nauseated. Make appointment for doctor.
Monday Mid-morning - Period comes. Seven days late, and one transformation later.

Now that we have the calendar down, I'll go back and tell you about the boyfriend. We broke up because of my complaint. I felt like I didn't exist for him, that I was a convenience, and that he was wholly self-absorbed. I tried hard to be a good girlfriend, being open and understanding, slow to judge, slow to anger. Simply put, he was in a better relationship than I was. And based on weeks prior, each of us battling to be satisfied in our worlds, he seemed happy to head for the door once I opened it.

Then I asked him to come over to help me with something. He brought flowers. Truce, he said. I told him I was four days late. His eyes got gentle and settled into me. He watched me a while with a slight upturn in his mouth. He said quietly without ever looking away, "Okay." He went out and came back with a bottle of wine, a box of pregnancy tests, and a bag of donuts. We clinked glasses. Hugged. Then I peed on the stick. We hugged again when it read negative, and amid all the relief, I felt sad.

That was day four. As the days progressed, we talked and talked. Not about being late or pregnant, but about what had us break up. I was traumatized by the event that kicked it off for us, and so I called him each night my head was spinning, to ask him to help me through it. Every night he would. So by night-six and morning-seven of my thin blue line journey, he was right there with me, offering whatever he had, to let me know he was with me all the way. Want me to go to the doctor with you? I will. Want to marry me for my insurance? We could have a courthouse wedding. He showed up in ways I had doubted he ever could. Just days after I had doubted him so completely as to call it off.

Sometime in that week, he asked if I was sure about wanting to break up. The afternoon of day-seven, leaving the doctor's office with him and a negative pregnancy test, I couldn't help but ask myself, "What's important?" We broke up because he wouldn't show up, in my estimation. And then, at a time like this, he shows up like a house afire.

A few days later we had a conversation about what we want in a partner and a relationship. It turned out we want each other. We were two single people living in a relationship a couple of weeks ago. Then we saw what was possible from what seemed inevitable. And we like each other a whole lot better. I for one like myself a little better, too. My therapist (good time for one of those right about now, wouldn't you say?) suggested that I had shown up in ways I never had, asking my (ex-)boyfriend for his help, being angry at him out loud, pulling him into my process to make it our process. So for all my complaint about his not being there in the relationship, apparently, neither was I. We need each other, people do. I guess if we don't offer, we don't get.

It must have been a big week for transformation in the cosmos. Because that weekend, I went to a Fire Starter group session with Danielle LaPorte. She said, “Go farther on your blog. Keep it personal. Take it a little crazy.” She said a good many things to all of us entrepreneurs awaiting enlightenment. And can I say, my world wasn’t just rocked. It was cracked, wide open like that damned pregnancy test, splintered and exposing what matters: White strip. Thin blue line. Me. Positively on. Being what’s possible. Seeing who I am. What I am. What I bring into the world. Pregnant with possibility. So just do it already. It’s time to give birth to it all.

Dirt Where You'd Least Expect It

When I lived in New York, I had a lot of surreal experiences. Like the time I walked past a huge advert pic of a swimming pool and actually smelled chlorinated water on hot cement. And that first week I was there in that raucous loud city, seeing a homeless, deaf teenager, and imagining what NYC would be like without sound...I think it would be like being under water.

And there was the time I saw construction in the street. They had the road ripped up and I could see the dirt underneath. Dirt. Brown, sandy earth. In Manhattan. I stopped and stared before I realized I was gripped by the surprise of nature holding us all up.

Saw the Mannahatta Project today and it reminded me of that surprising earth.

*

Tools To Live By

My friend and colleague, Jillian, was over yesterday, giving me counsel on my life architecture.

We were talkin story and she told me about how, after a big change in her life, she got rid of almost everything she owned...appliances, furniture. She wanted to keep it simple. So she didn't buy a TV. She made her coffee on the stove.

I was totally vibing on her story, drawn in like, yeah, I get it. Cathartic. Get rid of that stuff. And then I remembered my own moving story--story of moving, that is.

I am in New York to be a student, from San Francisco where I had a job. To get here, I have sold or trashed 75% of the possessions I laboriously accumulated between the ages of 19 and 30. Rent and tuition paid in the big city, I am so broke I am manufacturing air. I eat a lot of canned beans at this point in my life. You can buy 'em cheap and season them well, toss in an egg (yep an egg) and have a super high protein meal that lasts till lunch time.

That is, if you can open the can. Simplified and broke, I don't have a can opener. (Does this sound like a theme to anyone?) But I have a tool box.

I spend a week opening my nightly can of beans with a screwdriver and hammer. When I finally receive the student loan check and go to the store to buy a can opener, it is the best $1.27 I ever spend.

Dinner With Grandma

My grandma is the only person I've ever seen eat a taco like a sandwich.


When I tell her that, she asks me, "What are you eating?"
(She can't see what I'm eating because she is blind.)
"A burrito."
"What's a burrito?"
(She doesn't know this because she's from Missouri circa 1910.)
"Everything that's in your taco rolled up in a tortilla."
"That's why I've never had one. I don't like those flour tortillas."

We are quiet a while. She and my grandpa used to come to this Taco Bell together a long time ago. They used to bring my brother and me here on get-out-of-the-kitchen nights. I loved the yellow paper my burritos came rolled in and the cheese shredded in super skinny slices. Grandma's vision has dimmed over the years. I am fully sighted. But we're both seeing the same history in our minds.

"I almost died laughing at Orin eating a tostado," she says.
"Why's that? How'd Grandpa eat his tostadas?"
"He had such a long nose." (And now she's laughing.) "Couldn't take a bite without getting it in it!"

Good Things Return to Good People

...so the card says. It continues:

"...And so it goes with you. I came across this treasured vase of yours as I was packing to move towards the city you were moving away from when you parted with this piece. But now you are reunited."

I couldn't figure out who or what was sending me a box from New Jersey. The moment I saw the circular stripes inside the bubble wrap, I knew who the box was from. Barbara. Barbara! My vase! The vase!

The story of the vase goes like this. In college, $20 was a lot of money. A LOT. Several days of burritos. Even more of coffees. More still of proper dinners made from groceries from the market.

But one day, as I passed the vendors in the main quad, I fell in love, IN LOVE with a ceramic vase that sat among the handiwork of a local ceramic artist, on his portable wooden shelves. It was a long, lithe thing, dressed in blue-hued stripes in circles around its top to bottom. It was delicious. It hummed in my hands and I couldn't put it down. So I dropped the $20, choosing beauty over hunger for perhaps the first time.

Years of my love of this vase had it travel with me from city to city, until I was in New York and moving back to the West and realizing I had no place for the vase, and no heart to see it broken if it didn't survive the trip one more time.

So I gave it or I sold it to Barbara. I don't remember which. She had was just moving back to New York from San Francisco, where we had come to know each other. It was sad sad sad to part with the vase I had loved so dearly. But she took it and treasured it and understood its story.

And then, yesterday I open a mystery box to discover that Barbara, in her recent move, has found time and joy and inclination to pack it up and send it back to me. The vase.
What is that they say? If you love something set it free? If it comes back to you it's yours. If not, it was never meant to be.

I can't tell you the laughter from deep in my gut that came from seeing the stripes in their bubble wrap, the recognition of what was going on here, the remembrance of how freaking downright cool Barbara remains.

Thank you Thank you Thank you, little vase for finding your way back and Barbara, for the presence of mind and heart that understands the meaning of a few blue stripes and the history of a hungry $20.

Good Things return to good people. Good people return to good people. Thank you, Barbara.

"Debra"

So, anybody who's followed along knows it's been a rough month. I still haven't emailed back the really cool people who sent nice messages reaching out in what's been a very sad time. (Until you kind folks do get that personal email back, THANK YOU for your note and thoughts and love. You haven't gone unappreciated.)

A few weeks ago, one of the vmails I get is Regina, friend from forever years ago, technically 15 but more like 10,000. She's my sistah. She leaves this message. I've spoken to hardly anyone in my tired grief, and she says, "I know things have been hard, but when you're ready for a fun story, call me."

When I call her, she says, "I met a guy. He's your type. I told him so. Then I told him about you and he seems not to care you're a state away."

I can ALWAYS count on RP to stir up a party.

Fast forward to the email I get from said guy-who's-my-type. We correspond here and there with the knowledge I'll be in Portland in a couple of weeks for a b-day party: funny email conversations, curious diction. When the PDX weekend arrives, I lose my glasses on the way there, and instead of meeting Mysterioso as planned, I have to get an eye exam and a pair of new specs on the fly. Regina makes an appointment for me...at Sears Optical.

So I get off the plane and head for...Sears. Destination of diplomats and champions, queens and Kennedys. And it occurs to me that all is not lost. Transportation and schedules point to the best rationale: Steve, the man I haven't met, Guy-Who's-My-Type, Sr. Mysterioso de Portlando, should meet me at...SEARS. I call him. He's down. Our first glance is a reflection in the mirror as I'm trying on frames. And forever emblazoned on the brain is this song, by Beck:

Enjoy. (There are two versions, because the second one is TOO funny to miss.)
"Debra" by Beck
"Debra" by Beck and a woman who rivals him in cool

Good Marketing for 411

PEMA: Hi, this is Pema.

VOICE: Hello, I'm calling from Pacific Bell Yellow Pages, the world's largest opportunity to list your business...

PEMA: Okay.

VOICE: I'm calling to update your information.

PEMA: What information?

VOICE: We're the world's largest directory blah blee blah blih bloo....I'm calling to update your business name, address--

PEMA: Whose listing?

VOICE: I believe the last person I spoke to was...Susan.

(silence)

VOICE: Maybe Susan used to be there.

PEMA: What business are you looking for?

VOICE: (Irritated) Pacific Bell Yellow Pages. We're the world's largest phone book, best way for your business to be found by customers seeking your services gurgle blah blah brbrbrdd...

PEMA: No, what business are you calling? What listing are you calling about?

VOICE: Allied Architects.

PEMA: Wrong number.

VOICE: Oh. Sorry.

Sweet surprises are good

This is where I was headed today.A pretty drive over the hill from Santa Barbara to visit my friend, Ezron. We were headed to a movie and then a hike.

When I got there, it was late for the movie, he said, and I had to get back kind of early, so we got in his car. "Where are we going?" I asked.

"The casino," he said.

He works there as a videographer and after two years of knowing him, I'd finally see where he works. We got out of the car and the valet took it away. I followed him into the pretty hotel lobby and he said, "We're a little late, they might get mad a me a little bit."

"Should I turn off my phone?" I asked. Maybe they started some kind of show?

"If you want." He shrugged and smiled.

Then we were in front of the spa and he was saying to the girl at the counter, "We have a 1:10 appointment."

"Are we getting massages?"

"You are. See you in an hour."

And he left.

He led me to the jowls of heaven and left me there defenseless in the maw of delight.

Such a surprise it was, so completely out of left field, me standing there barely kempt in hiking clothes and a pony tail after weeks of too-tired-to-look-cute, entering a flute-music-overhead spa with ladies used to luxury.

Have you ever tried using a tissue face down on a massage table with your face sticking through one of those padded donuts? Once on the table, I cried.

So so sweet. And no more shoulder kink.


Photo credit

Normalish

Finally did laundry today. Cleaned my room, washed dishes. Talked to Grandma on the phone.

I posted my furniture on Craiglist, too, clearing out space. Suddenly it seemed imperative to be rid of every last thing I don't use or don't like, likening those things to that awful itch from the tags in my sweaters that I can't take out because the damned things will unravel, so I scratch, absentmindedly unhappy. Then I commenced wondering at the wisdom and folly of buying a $2,000 desk. It doesn't have to be $2,000. But it could be. To redirect my emotions to a desk I will love so much I can call it a companion. My friend, who also lost Michael, just bought a baby grand piano. That totally trumps my desk. But he was her bff, so bring on the baby grand.

Body . Spirit

Michael Klein, 1970 - 2007
Islas Secas , Dawn of Time - End of Time

Another Country

I sat on the Mission steps tonight. Conquerers always get the best real estate. Just before sunset. Cloud cap over the sky. Distant ocean. White plaster and red tile roofs of homes in the foreground, and the main thoroughfare moving with cars. A few tourists.

I watched the cars head toward home in the twilight. And in them imagined people of another country. I am the tourist. In their land. Watching their way of life, imagining their foreign language thoughts as they plan dinner, mull over the day, look forward to seeing their kids. A habit I know but at present am set abroad from.

I go home to cook dinner for myself for the first time since before Christmas. Conversations outside of work are still hard to focus on; language goes all watery before they're through. Grief is another country.

Unfoldmentarianism

I sit here and wonder, "What will I blog tonight?"
and then immediately see that I'm alive and well, living a vibrant life and wondering why I'm even wondering, "what will I blog tonight?"
As I type, the kittens torpedo through the room. Good traction on the carpet, those claws. My margarita buzz wears off, kind of melting down my sides. The song Dov and I "wrote" or rather "allowed" in the moments I followed it out of my mouth, hums in me. The pictures of Michael I saw on other people's blogs cling to the insides of my skull. Lisa asks why she didn't use her guest-blogger time to ask where are all the good guys for this good woman (er, me). Tania watches TV in her Obama earrings made from Sculpee. I wear an uber-soft robe in a comfortably lit room. My work, especially at present, is difficult but rewarding. I grow.
What will I blog, indeed?
Let me sit here and think about it.
I'll get back to you.

P.S. Lisa left the kitchen tonight, where she was making Mexican food, to meet me out for Mexican food and margaritas. Then she asked me kind questions and remembered historical funnies. Then she sprang for the bill. Lisa is an old friend who's been around for the growth. Lisa is cool.

The Car

PEMA: We're here to-- Do you have a-- What were we telling them?

KURT: That we, uh, that...

KHAN is listening intently in the huddle we created, waiting for one of us to finish a sentence.

KURT: Our friend and colleague parked his car here before Christmas and then died in a plane crash and we're here to pick up his car.

KHAN blanches.

KHAN: I'm, my gosh, I'm--

We are blocks away from LAX. In KHAN's eyes, you can see him calculating, trying to recall news briefs, flipping through imaginary etiquette books, while we all stand in this circle in the parking garage wondering what to do next.

At the counter, I pull out the death certificate from my notebook. I pull out my ID.

The longer I wait for the people to find the key, to type in the date Michael parked, to find the car in the lot, to call each other on the intercom and disappear and reappear and give me more forms to fill out, the more closed-in my vision gets. My breath is shallower by the moment and my fuse is short. I see only a wall of keys on the valet board behind the counter. The very large lips of the young woman helping me. The piercing in the side of her lip, like a metallic beauty mark. The people on either side of her looking forlorn and unsure of what to say or do. I am stoic against the tears that want to come, in waves.

I get the keys. Valets have pulled the car out front. Kurt and I hug. We cry. I get in.

How do I start it?? The radio comes on with the car and plays a commercial of a new show Michael invested in. I get out and tell Kurt the synchronicity. I go back to the Mini, and I can't figure out how to adjust the seat or see the odometer or open the windows. My brain is too fogged from the black interior, the tears on the reverse slide down the back of my throat, the impossibility of mental focus on these simplest of mechanics to get me out of this garage.

I am finally out, I pull into the sunlight. And immediately I drive to the side of the road. The tears are heavy and my breath is jagged. Fucker. Jerk. Dammit. This is *not* my drive. This is his view and his scent. The performance hum under my ass and my feet is HIS ride, his familiarity.

The wheel under my hands is glossy wood and a paper-smooth leather. Its contours cradle my grip. There is life here all around me and under me. I am breathing it and applying myself to it, and moving with it.

I drive fast. Fast in his fast little car. Change the radio when I hear music he wouldn't like. Dance wildly in the driver's seat. Absorb the man in his absence.

The Bus Ride

I used to ride the bus to work and wish that on the 20-minute Express, I could muster the courage to stir up an exciting collective debate, about politics, our community, current issues. Instead of opening a book or staring out the window, the newest rider would lean in and ask what we were talking about today.

This memory popped into my head in the recent days since my friend died. Our journey through life is like a bus ride. Some people get on when you're already in progress, and sometime later they get off; but in that ride you've been changed. You've participated in a rousing discussion, you've engaged in fearless dialogue, you've provoked the social experiment that lies in you and everyone waiting to play with you if you're courageous enough to just play. You've utilized those spare 20 minutes. For good! And learned something you never knew about yourself and the person next to you and the person next to that one. And before you know it, all those 20 minutes are stacked into days and weeks, a lifetime; and the bus door opens, and a passenger waves goodbye, and he gets off at his stop, while the buzz he stirred in your bus continues, and your journey, continues.