by Annabeth Leong
My childhood was shaped by hustling, which is maybe why I feel some resistance to this topic, and to the entire concept of the word.
I grew up with no clear idea of how money worked or where it came from. For a living, my parents did… nothing that I could see. A lot of times we were poor. I heard them fighting about money. I remember them screaming over sums like two dollars.
On the other hand, they both knew how to come up with cash when they really needed to.
My mother had a wealthy husband before she met my father, and I saw her occasionally selling items of jewelry from before, then buying things like a new crib for my baby sister.
Mostly, though, my dad was the one who would mysteriously show up with money. It was always burning a hole in his pocket. There’s a kind of money that you have to spend fast. So, I’d be yanked out of a life of living on spam and ramen noodles and suddenly spend a week at the Sheraton Makaha resort, eating every meal in the lavish hotel restaurant and getting horseback riding lessons every day.
I think a key thing about the hustling lifestyle is the awareness of that gap, that transition. One day, you’re in clothes from the Salvation Army, and the next you’re buying Armani. I recognize this mentality in a lot of hiphop music videos.
For example, look at the structure here, in TI’s “Go Get It”:
The video shows the rapper in two distinct settings: one at home in the neighborhood, and the other in a lavish mansion. The two visions inform each other. In the neighborhood, he dreams of the mansion. And the life of the mansion is given meaning by the memory of the neighborhood, and the specific contrasts between the two situations.
I’ve never seen this in people who are just wealthy or well-off. They don’t seem to have that constant outlook of having one foot on each side of the river. I think hiphop gets criticized for being materialistic (for example, in songs such as Lorde’s “Royals”) partly because people don’t understand that this fantasizing about material possessions has to do with a certain experience of poverty and need.
My dad seemed to enjoy those weeks at the Sheraton Makaha in a simple, uncomplicated way. He wanted as much of that as he could have. He did everything he could to make them as frequent as possible. He had no impulse to stash things away and live a modest and more stable life. For him, it was all or nothing, another mindset I associate with hustling.
For me, though, it was all incredibly uncomfortable. The sacrifices we made when we were poor stung but also felt false. The luxuries we enjoyed tasted strange to me. Nothing ever seemed to fit on my body. I did not live for the fat life. I didn’t know what I was. It was hard to know the truth of our situation.
So I have weird feelings about the idea that hustling is good or virtuous. To me, there’s something distorted about the constant drive it requires, the feeling that you’ve got to put, as TI says, “hustle over all.” I don’t like bouncing between feast and famine. I don’t have the ability to sustain the energy hustling requires, and I can’t handle the heights and crashes.
Showing posts with label memoir. Show all posts
Showing posts with label memoir. Show all posts
Thursday, January 28, 2016
Thursday, July 2, 2015
Secret Faultline
by Annabeth Leong
I must have seen her in class before, could never have failed to notice the sharp blue of her eyes, set off expertly by the tones of the vintage dresses she wore. The first time I remember seeing her, though, she was naked except for a thick towel wound around her torso, held in place with nothing but a negligent tuck of fabric.
I was new at the college, looking for friends, and I’d gone to visit her roommate, who seemed like a nice girl. I don’t remember a damn thing about what the roommate said. I just remember this girl, traipsing into the middle of the conversation, leaning against the divider that led to her half of the room, and my awareness of her bare, pale legs, the lovely shapes of her chin and cheeks, and everything only slightly hidden by the towel.
She had a free and knowing laugh. I wanted her to like me right away. Her very existence felt like a dare. She was bold and artistic and I had to match her. In the space of a few minutes, we agreed that she should come to my room the next night and draw me naked. I do remember the roommate being surprised by that decision, maybe impressed and maybe suspicious. I couldn’t think of much besides the person I wanted to be. A brave person. A person who took my clothes off in front of this girl as boldly as she let the towel slip gradually down her chest as we talked.
***
There is always an unspoken agreement in relationships, a secret faultline. Its terms are rarely drawn up with formality, but I think of it as the original promise. Breaking it gets you thrown out of the Garden of Eden. I’ve often wondered why I always seem to want the one forbidden fruit, even amid an embarrassment of fertility. But it’s human nature. If there is an original promise, most people are compelled to break it eventually.
***
So this was mine: I was special as long as I was never like the others. We took long walks through every hidden wild place that city had (men leaning out of cars to leer and shout to her girl you bounce when you walk), and with each step she mocked her would-be lovers. Lust for her was simple-minded, unworthy by nature. Despite the sexual feelings she inspired everywhere she went, only music could arouse her.
I laughed uneasily at her side, never confessed to the dreams I sometimes had of dashing myself against the rocks of her lips and teeth, where so many others had crashed before me.
She tolerated the knowledge of my promiscuity with bemusement and light condescension. She was a follower of Artemis, made powerful by virginity. We were to be best and devoted friends--fierce, pure, and united against all others.
She was a lioness at my side, never tame, safe only as long as she never smelled the blood of my weakness. A hint of admitted desire and she would have turned on me, torn me open.
***
I have sometimes had lovers who made me feel powerful in my desire. My thighs become thick and tireless, my arms bulge with muscle, my fingers are long, my hands large but not so much that they cease to be clever. Fucking is athletic. I climb, I gasp, I laugh with the joy of victory.
I know sex doesn’t have to be a weakness. I can fuck from love, from strength, from courage. Nakedness can be a statement of fearlessness, of innocence, of trust.
There are others, though, who make me feel ugly and vulnerable. Desire is base, and I can’t control it. Wanting diminishes. I am full of holes. I am a wanderer seeking to bury myself in any home I can find. I am no better than any other mere human because we’re all like that. We’re all like that.
***
She did naked yoga in the room we shared. She talked all the time about how much she loved my hugs. I took her to a party once and let her pick my outfit. She put me in a vest, a fedora, suit pants, a tie, and then she dressed so femme it made me ache. I gave her my arm as we stepped into the music-filled hall, full of wary pride, and then remembered I never learned how to dance as lead.
As long as I wasn’t in love with her, I was her constant companion, invulnerable, allowed to remain beside her when all others were banished.
On Valentine’s Day, her room filled with flowers, their rotting sweetness like corpses of the fallen. She laughed at the silliness of boys, and it tempted me to ask what she thought of girls. But I knew her by then, enough that I suspected she made everyone think they might hold the secret key to her heart, her body. How many times had a boy confided in me that she just needed X or Y, a thing he could give that other suitors had not? As much as she wanted me to join her in making fun of these deluded boys, I knew better. I was a hair away from being just like them, from letting myself hold the arrogant belief that I knew what she needed, from giving in to weakness.
***
But fuck, she always seemed to know what I needed. What I wanted. Many years after college, when we hadn’t spoken in a long time, she invited me to spend a weekend with her and a lesbian couple she felt sure I’d love to be around. She told me she had a silver pitcher she wanted to use to wash my feet, that she wanted to rub them. She said she missed my touch.
You have to know me quite well to know what this offer was like for me. I had been secretly agonizing about my sexual orientation for several months at that point. I have a foot fetish. I had imagined touching her so many times. I had never told her any of this.
If this had come from another girl, I would have thought my dreams were coming true. Instead, the old wariness returned, the fear of spilling blood in the water.
***
The last time I called her, my stomach churned as we talked. I wanted to be someone brave. Within me, I could feel ghosts of an old self stirring, a girl who didn’t mind causing trouble, who knew the truth makes messes but never hesitated. I was going to confess the things I’ve written about here.
By then, the friendship seemed broken anyway, and I didn’t want to return to it in the form it used to take. And I had broken to the point that I couldn’t wear the familiar disguises anymore. Too much reality burst out through the seams of any lie I tried to stitch.
The weakness I’d always feared she would exploit--I didn’t see how it could hurt me now. I meant to pull it out into the light, to show her faultline and let her laugh if she wanted to. But she cut off the words before I could say them, and even as I bent over the sidewalk, body heaving with anxiety, I wondered if she had an old weakness that matched mine.
I must have seen her in class before, could never have failed to notice the sharp blue of her eyes, set off expertly by the tones of the vintage dresses she wore. The first time I remember seeing her, though, she was naked except for a thick towel wound around her torso, held in place with nothing but a negligent tuck of fabric.
I was new at the college, looking for friends, and I’d gone to visit her roommate, who seemed like a nice girl. I don’t remember a damn thing about what the roommate said. I just remember this girl, traipsing into the middle of the conversation, leaning against the divider that led to her half of the room, and my awareness of her bare, pale legs, the lovely shapes of her chin and cheeks, and everything only slightly hidden by the towel.
She had a free and knowing laugh. I wanted her to like me right away. Her very existence felt like a dare. She was bold and artistic and I had to match her. In the space of a few minutes, we agreed that she should come to my room the next night and draw me naked. I do remember the roommate being surprised by that decision, maybe impressed and maybe suspicious. I couldn’t think of much besides the person I wanted to be. A brave person. A person who took my clothes off in front of this girl as boldly as she let the towel slip gradually down her chest as we talked.
***
There is always an unspoken agreement in relationships, a secret faultline. Its terms are rarely drawn up with formality, but I think of it as the original promise. Breaking it gets you thrown out of the Garden of Eden. I’ve often wondered why I always seem to want the one forbidden fruit, even amid an embarrassment of fertility. But it’s human nature. If there is an original promise, most people are compelled to break it eventually.
***
So this was mine: I was special as long as I was never like the others. We took long walks through every hidden wild place that city had (men leaning out of cars to leer and shout to her girl you bounce when you walk), and with each step she mocked her would-be lovers. Lust for her was simple-minded, unworthy by nature. Despite the sexual feelings she inspired everywhere she went, only music could arouse her.
I laughed uneasily at her side, never confessed to the dreams I sometimes had of dashing myself against the rocks of her lips and teeth, where so many others had crashed before me.
She tolerated the knowledge of my promiscuity with bemusement and light condescension. She was a follower of Artemis, made powerful by virginity. We were to be best and devoted friends--fierce, pure, and united against all others.
She was a lioness at my side, never tame, safe only as long as she never smelled the blood of my weakness. A hint of admitted desire and she would have turned on me, torn me open.
***
I have sometimes had lovers who made me feel powerful in my desire. My thighs become thick and tireless, my arms bulge with muscle, my fingers are long, my hands large but not so much that they cease to be clever. Fucking is athletic. I climb, I gasp, I laugh with the joy of victory.
I know sex doesn’t have to be a weakness. I can fuck from love, from strength, from courage. Nakedness can be a statement of fearlessness, of innocence, of trust.
There are others, though, who make me feel ugly and vulnerable. Desire is base, and I can’t control it. Wanting diminishes. I am full of holes. I am a wanderer seeking to bury myself in any home I can find. I am no better than any other mere human because we’re all like that. We’re all like that.
***
She did naked yoga in the room we shared. She talked all the time about how much she loved my hugs. I took her to a party once and let her pick my outfit. She put me in a vest, a fedora, suit pants, a tie, and then she dressed so femme it made me ache. I gave her my arm as we stepped into the music-filled hall, full of wary pride, and then remembered I never learned how to dance as lead.
As long as I wasn’t in love with her, I was her constant companion, invulnerable, allowed to remain beside her when all others were banished.
On Valentine’s Day, her room filled with flowers, their rotting sweetness like corpses of the fallen. She laughed at the silliness of boys, and it tempted me to ask what she thought of girls. But I knew her by then, enough that I suspected she made everyone think they might hold the secret key to her heart, her body. How many times had a boy confided in me that she just needed X or Y, a thing he could give that other suitors had not? As much as she wanted me to join her in making fun of these deluded boys, I knew better. I was a hair away from being just like them, from letting myself hold the arrogant belief that I knew what she needed, from giving in to weakness.
***
But fuck, she always seemed to know what I needed. What I wanted. Many years after college, when we hadn’t spoken in a long time, she invited me to spend a weekend with her and a lesbian couple she felt sure I’d love to be around. She told me she had a silver pitcher she wanted to use to wash my feet, that she wanted to rub them. She said she missed my touch.
You have to know me quite well to know what this offer was like for me. I had been secretly agonizing about my sexual orientation for several months at that point. I have a foot fetish. I had imagined touching her so many times. I had never told her any of this.
If this had come from another girl, I would have thought my dreams were coming true. Instead, the old wariness returned, the fear of spilling blood in the water.
***
The last time I called her, my stomach churned as we talked. I wanted to be someone brave. Within me, I could feel ghosts of an old self stirring, a girl who didn’t mind causing trouble, who knew the truth makes messes but never hesitated. I was going to confess the things I’ve written about here.
By then, the friendship seemed broken anyway, and I didn’t want to return to it in the form it used to take. And I had broken to the point that I couldn’t wear the familiar disguises anymore. Too much reality burst out through the seams of any lie I tried to stitch.
The weakness I’d always feared she would exploit--I didn’t see how it could hurt me now. I meant to pull it out into the light, to show her faultline and let her laugh if she wanted to. But she cut off the words before I could say them, and even as I bent over the sidewalk, body heaving with anxiety, I wondered if she had an old weakness that matched mine.
Thursday, March 26, 2015
Pride and Joy
by Annabeth Leong
I first encountered her at the tobacco shop and wine bar on the downtown strip. I was technically too young to be in there, but no one questioned me. I smoked Gauloises in an effort to seem sophisticated, but I've always contained too much innocence to hide things like the way she made me feel. She was olive-skinned and tall, strong-jawed and gorgeous. All that faded, though, when the song came.
I was a little girl when Stevie Ray Vaughan first sang that song, so I didn't learn it from him. I learned it from this woman, and the sound of its opening bars is inextricably associated with the thrilling shock of hearing her belt out these words about a female lover. I've heard plenty of women sing songs that way now, taking the words written by a man and not changing them to make them "right," but at the time the audacity seemed incredible. Hearing her declare herself "her little loverboy" opened my eyes to something I'd never been able to describe.
I was obsessed and foolish. The town was small, and I could hear and recognize her voice from a block away. I could walk up and down the downtown strip and listen for it. I could hang out after a show and hope she'd say that I could ride with her to the all-night diner. I could wish for a kiss that never came, wonder if the truth that seemed to live inside her singing voice also lived within her heart. Was this all a ploy, or was there something being confessed here?
***
"You could be friends with women, but you sleep with them, too." The therapist's voice was faintly accusing, and my mind could fill out the rest just fine on its own. I was a slut who slept with too many men, but I was worse than that because I slept with women, too. Not only that, the fact that I wanted to sleep with women was ruining my friendships, making me untrustworthy.
This wasn't only the therapist's idea. I'll never forget the school trip where the girls protested about having to share a room with me. I remember the girls who wouldn't come over to my house and the places I wasn't invited. And before that, I remember other untrustworthy women—the aunt who was only whispered about, her name never mentioned except in tones of disgust, because she'd left my uncle to be with women; the friend of my mother's who had destroyed their connection by declaring her love.
And later, my constant feeling of being a spy. "What's there to worry about?" someone would say as she whipped off her shirt. "It's just us girls."
All that is shame, not pride. All that is grief, not joy.
They were mixed up together for so long. I remember the first time I woke up with a girl, my heart pounding in fierce celebration of everything we'd discovered the night before. We drove around and did ordinary things, but the world was no longer ordinary. I was in her car! She was breathing next to me! But then she almost hit the car in front of us, and it felt like a divine warning that we'd better not get too cocky.
After she left, I wrote in my diary, "I had real sex last night," and then I ripped out the page, tore it to bits, and burned it because I was afraid of my mother discovering it in the trash. It makes me sad to think of that. I wish I had the record of that morning. I remember the painstaking care I took trying to describe my fear and excitement.
***
I feel unqualified to take this twist on this topic. Apart from the gay sex, I've lived most of my life as straight. That's the punchline to a joke somewhere, right?
I once made a girl fall in love with me by buying her a bottle of her favorite scent, which was hard to find before the internet. She was on vacation, and I went to store after store looking for it. When she got back, I wrote her a note to go with the bottle, in which I said, "I wanted to tell the cashier, 'I'm buying this for my GIRLFRIEND.'" She melted and told me that was exactly the right thing to say. But a week later, I had freaked out and locked myself away with a boy.
I could be bold, but I was too cowardly for pride. I was sure that all my desires were wrong—not just the ones for women, but all the things I thought about while I got myself off.
If there's anything that does qualify me to write this way, it's this: I understand why pride is necessary. I have torn myself and others up with shame. I have let people use the word "they" around me, both because I was afraid I didn't belong and because I was afraid I did.
***
"She's shaking." People love to point it out, I think because it's cute to them. But yeah, I'm shaking. I'm on my knees in front of a woman at a BDSM convention.
"I'm shaking because I want this so much," I tell her. I feel like her little loverboy.
What nobody knows is that when I sit back down after it's over, I keep shaking for the next hour. The person next to me tells me, "That was sweet," and all I can do is nod. I go home and lie in bed and shake. For days, I shake whenever I think about it. I'm shaking right now.
***
I'm still not sure what to call myself. The first time I wrote about this subject at The Grip, someone on Twitter described my writing as queer, and I jumped all over that as if, like Adam, they could name me. That felt like permission, and I desperately needed permission.
To me, having a name does matter. If something is a pride and joy, it's got a name. The things I'm afraid to name are things bound up with shame.
And there is something about wearing a thing in public, which I still struggle to do. It was truly dangerous where I used to live. The girls I slept with back then—when we went out together, we pretended to be friends. Then later, I just pretended to be friends.
There was a woman I loved who was my pride and joy. Whenever people realized we'd showed up somewhere together, I wanted to grin and brag. Being in her car, her house, having plans with her—my heart grew larger from every little thing. But I didn't want to touch her. Not like that. I would tell you if you asked. I would cry and swear to it. It was only after I lost all claim to her that I had to admit what I wished the claim had been.
It is only recently that I have been wearing this out in public, making it clear about myself in various ways, spoken and gestured. I volunteered to run an LGBTQ meetup for an event a participate in. I may not be able to say which of those letters is mine, but I'm damn sure one of them is. I feel sheepish about all this, embarrassed to admit how the once-ordinary world is changing around me, afraid that if I confess to the perfect peace in my heart it might come out the wrong way.
It's not that I don't care about specific people, because I do, but it's also not as simple as being struck down by love. I wanted to walk down the street without hiding and being afraid. Pride and joy, even if I'm shaking again.
I first encountered her at the tobacco shop and wine bar on the downtown strip. I was technically too young to be in there, but no one questioned me. I smoked Gauloises in an effort to seem sophisticated, but I've always contained too much innocence to hide things like the way she made me feel. She was olive-skinned and tall, strong-jawed and gorgeous. All that faded, though, when the song came.
I was a little girl when Stevie Ray Vaughan first sang that song, so I didn't learn it from him. I learned it from this woman, and the sound of its opening bars is inextricably associated with the thrilling shock of hearing her belt out these words about a female lover. I've heard plenty of women sing songs that way now, taking the words written by a man and not changing them to make them "right," but at the time the audacity seemed incredible. Hearing her declare herself "her little loverboy" opened my eyes to something I'd never been able to describe.
I was obsessed and foolish. The town was small, and I could hear and recognize her voice from a block away. I could walk up and down the downtown strip and listen for it. I could hang out after a show and hope she'd say that I could ride with her to the all-night diner. I could wish for a kiss that never came, wonder if the truth that seemed to live inside her singing voice also lived within her heart. Was this all a ploy, or was there something being confessed here?
***
"You could be friends with women, but you sleep with them, too." The therapist's voice was faintly accusing, and my mind could fill out the rest just fine on its own. I was a slut who slept with too many men, but I was worse than that because I slept with women, too. Not only that, the fact that I wanted to sleep with women was ruining my friendships, making me untrustworthy.
This wasn't only the therapist's idea. I'll never forget the school trip where the girls protested about having to share a room with me. I remember the girls who wouldn't come over to my house and the places I wasn't invited. And before that, I remember other untrustworthy women—the aunt who was only whispered about, her name never mentioned except in tones of disgust, because she'd left my uncle to be with women; the friend of my mother's who had destroyed their connection by declaring her love.
And later, my constant feeling of being a spy. "What's there to worry about?" someone would say as she whipped off her shirt. "It's just us girls."
All that is shame, not pride. All that is grief, not joy.
They were mixed up together for so long. I remember the first time I woke up with a girl, my heart pounding in fierce celebration of everything we'd discovered the night before. We drove around and did ordinary things, but the world was no longer ordinary. I was in her car! She was breathing next to me! But then she almost hit the car in front of us, and it felt like a divine warning that we'd better not get too cocky.
After she left, I wrote in my diary, "I had real sex last night," and then I ripped out the page, tore it to bits, and burned it because I was afraid of my mother discovering it in the trash. It makes me sad to think of that. I wish I had the record of that morning. I remember the painstaking care I took trying to describe my fear and excitement.
***
I feel unqualified to take this twist on this topic. Apart from the gay sex, I've lived most of my life as straight. That's the punchline to a joke somewhere, right?
I once made a girl fall in love with me by buying her a bottle of her favorite scent, which was hard to find before the internet. She was on vacation, and I went to store after store looking for it. When she got back, I wrote her a note to go with the bottle, in which I said, "I wanted to tell the cashier, 'I'm buying this for my GIRLFRIEND.'" She melted and told me that was exactly the right thing to say. But a week later, I had freaked out and locked myself away with a boy.
I could be bold, but I was too cowardly for pride. I was sure that all my desires were wrong—not just the ones for women, but all the things I thought about while I got myself off.
If there's anything that does qualify me to write this way, it's this: I understand why pride is necessary. I have torn myself and others up with shame. I have let people use the word "they" around me, both because I was afraid I didn't belong and because I was afraid I did.
***
"She's shaking." People love to point it out, I think because it's cute to them. But yeah, I'm shaking. I'm on my knees in front of a woman at a BDSM convention.
"I'm shaking because I want this so much," I tell her. I feel like her little loverboy.
What nobody knows is that when I sit back down after it's over, I keep shaking for the next hour. The person next to me tells me, "That was sweet," and all I can do is nod. I go home and lie in bed and shake. For days, I shake whenever I think about it. I'm shaking right now.
***
I'm still not sure what to call myself. The first time I wrote about this subject at The Grip, someone on Twitter described my writing as queer, and I jumped all over that as if, like Adam, they could name me. That felt like permission, and I desperately needed permission.
To me, having a name does matter. If something is a pride and joy, it's got a name. The things I'm afraid to name are things bound up with shame.
And there is something about wearing a thing in public, which I still struggle to do. It was truly dangerous where I used to live. The girls I slept with back then—when we went out together, we pretended to be friends. Then later, I just pretended to be friends.
There was a woman I loved who was my pride and joy. Whenever people realized we'd showed up somewhere together, I wanted to grin and brag. Being in her car, her house, having plans with her—my heart grew larger from every little thing. But I didn't want to touch her. Not like that. I would tell you if you asked. I would cry and swear to it. It was only after I lost all claim to her that I had to admit what I wished the claim had been.
It is only recently that I have been wearing this out in public, making it clear about myself in various ways, spoken and gestured. I volunteered to run an LGBTQ meetup for an event a participate in. I may not be able to say which of those letters is mine, but I'm damn sure one of them is. I feel sheepish about all this, embarrassed to admit how the once-ordinary world is changing around me, afraid that if I confess to the perfect peace in my heart it might come out the wrong way.
It's not that I don't care about specific people, because I do, but it's also not as simple as being struck down by love. I wanted to walk down the street without hiding and being afraid. Pride and joy, even if I'm shaking again.
Thursday, March 12, 2015
The Illusion of the Never-Changing
by Annabeth Leong
In times of deep grief, I fear that if I begin crying I will drown in an ocean of tears. I will lie on my couch forever and never get up again to go out to the park or to the mall or to wash my dishes. If I so much as whisper the names of those I have lost, the howling will tear me apart on its way out. I must fight the wall of sorrow that threatens to close me off from the rest of the world forever.
In times of deep joy, I fear that the slightest motion of my pinky finger might destroy the thing that is growing between us. With my head on your shoulder, I want to stop walking or even breathing. In this moment, I have all I want—I'm not even worried about the sweaty acrobatics we could get up to naked. I want to rest here forever.
A person is not an object at rest.
And so a moment comes when I can no longer hold back my grief and the tears begin, rolling in and out of me like a tide. I find I am not in the middle of the ocean. I am on the shore, buffeted but still standing with toes sunk into the sand. I get up and go to the park, sit on a sticky, rickety set of bleachers, and cry while the sun strokes my face dry.
And so I get a crick in my neck and have to lift my head to check the expression on your face. I learn all your names and meet your parents and engage in tortured descriptions of what I actually want from you, only to change my mind six months later and try again. We fuck, sometimes giggling, sometimes sobbing. Sometimes I can't come and other times I can't stop coming. Each time I return to you, I find somewhere to rest my head. Tonight, I turn my cheek to fit it on your thigh. It feels different every time. In the back of my mouth, I taste the way it used to feel.
I don't think a person can stay at rest.
Sometimes, I think I have the answer. I've got my work flow figured out. The words will run out of me like water from a carefully calibrated faucet. They aren't flooding me, and they aren't trickling. Now that I know how to do this, I will never have to struggle again. If I stay in motion just like this, I can write perfectly forever.
Sometimes, I think I'm going to get trapped. When you get on the marriage train, it's an express, not a local. A ring is on my finger and people have been invited. I look back toward the depot where I began the journey—in a state of love and naivete, I believed I wanted to take this ride all the way to its conventional end. But now here I am, and I am going to wear white and my stomach will swell and I will have babies and I will be safe and secure except for all the silent hate that people seem to grow. If I stay in motion just like this, I'm going to wind up thwarted and bitter forever.
A person is not an object in motion.
And so I discover that sometimes the words do flood. Sometimes, they come so fast I choke on them. They tell me things I'm not ready to hear and they keep me up all night, drugged and confused by unrelenting revelation. And sometimes, my heart is empty and barren, and I sit and very carefully type the word "the" and then very carefully erase it. Every law I thought I'd learned has been repealed. In both cases, I am eventually reduced to starting over, reinventing who I am and coming up with something new to say.
And so I discover that as relentless as the marriage train seems to be, there are a thousand decisions along the way. I can go to the doctor and have my IUD taken out, and then panic and start researching sterilization. I can discover that I don't want to be hit anymore, not even if it makes me come. I can discover that I want to be touched, even if it makes me cry. I can care for another person in intimate ways that I never thought I would be willing to care for someone. I can be cared for, so much that it becomes okay for me to walk down the street holding another person's hand. Every word is reinvented.
I don't think a person can stay in motion.
The concept of inertia as applied to people contains so much implied helplessness. The reason an object at rest will stay at rest, or that an object in motion will stay in motion, is that the objects in question don't have internal motivation. Inertia is a natural law of resistance to change, a requirement that force must be applied from the outside. But my self is full of struggle. My limbs will not be still. And when the journey becomes long and hard, I must rest my head.
In times of deep grief, I fear that if I begin crying I will drown in an ocean of tears. I will lie on my couch forever and never get up again to go out to the park or to the mall or to wash my dishes. If I so much as whisper the names of those I have lost, the howling will tear me apart on its way out. I must fight the wall of sorrow that threatens to close me off from the rest of the world forever.
In times of deep joy, I fear that the slightest motion of my pinky finger might destroy the thing that is growing between us. With my head on your shoulder, I want to stop walking or even breathing. In this moment, I have all I want—I'm not even worried about the sweaty acrobatics we could get up to naked. I want to rest here forever.
A person is not an object at rest.
And so a moment comes when I can no longer hold back my grief and the tears begin, rolling in and out of me like a tide. I find I am not in the middle of the ocean. I am on the shore, buffeted but still standing with toes sunk into the sand. I get up and go to the park, sit on a sticky, rickety set of bleachers, and cry while the sun strokes my face dry.
And so I get a crick in my neck and have to lift my head to check the expression on your face. I learn all your names and meet your parents and engage in tortured descriptions of what I actually want from you, only to change my mind six months later and try again. We fuck, sometimes giggling, sometimes sobbing. Sometimes I can't come and other times I can't stop coming. Each time I return to you, I find somewhere to rest my head. Tonight, I turn my cheek to fit it on your thigh. It feels different every time. In the back of my mouth, I taste the way it used to feel.
I don't think a person can stay at rest.
Sometimes, I think I have the answer. I've got my work flow figured out. The words will run out of me like water from a carefully calibrated faucet. They aren't flooding me, and they aren't trickling. Now that I know how to do this, I will never have to struggle again. If I stay in motion just like this, I can write perfectly forever.
Sometimes, I think I'm going to get trapped. When you get on the marriage train, it's an express, not a local. A ring is on my finger and people have been invited. I look back toward the depot where I began the journey—in a state of love and naivete, I believed I wanted to take this ride all the way to its conventional end. But now here I am, and I am going to wear white and my stomach will swell and I will have babies and I will be safe and secure except for all the silent hate that people seem to grow. If I stay in motion just like this, I'm going to wind up thwarted and bitter forever.
A person is not an object in motion.
And so I discover that sometimes the words do flood. Sometimes, they come so fast I choke on them. They tell me things I'm not ready to hear and they keep me up all night, drugged and confused by unrelenting revelation. And sometimes, my heart is empty and barren, and I sit and very carefully type the word "the" and then very carefully erase it. Every law I thought I'd learned has been repealed. In both cases, I am eventually reduced to starting over, reinventing who I am and coming up with something new to say.
And so I discover that as relentless as the marriage train seems to be, there are a thousand decisions along the way. I can go to the doctor and have my IUD taken out, and then panic and start researching sterilization. I can discover that I don't want to be hit anymore, not even if it makes me come. I can discover that I want to be touched, even if it makes me cry. I can care for another person in intimate ways that I never thought I would be willing to care for someone. I can be cared for, so much that it becomes okay for me to walk down the street holding another person's hand. Every word is reinvented.
I don't think a person can stay in motion.
The concept of inertia as applied to people contains so much implied helplessness. The reason an object at rest will stay at rest, or that an object in motion will stay in motion, is that the objects in question don't have internal motivation. Inertia is a natural law of resistance to change, a requirement that force must be applied from the outside. But my self is full of struggle. My limbs will not be still. And when the journey becomes long and hard, I must rest my head.
Tuesday, December 16, 2014
"Set Goals, Smash Them" by Suz deMello
I'm new here on Oh, Get A Grip! so I might as well let y'all know who I am and what you're dealing with.
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I saw the above graphic on Facebook a short while ago and downloaded it immediately. It's printed out and in my office placed so that whenever I look up from keyboard or monitor, I see it. It's on my screensaver, and if anyone asks me what's up, I send it. It is just sooo me right now.
Without much pre-planning, ten works of mine have been published this year. Not all of them have been new stories, but all of them are good. Without ego, I can say that I maintain high standards and regularly meet them.
But this year--even I surprised myself. The earlier part of the year was dominated by my Ellora's Cave publications: Queen's Quest, Rakes in Tartan, Sherlock's Scandal (which became an Amazon bestseller), Kinky Toes, Blood is Thicker..., and Bridling his Vampire.
I had anticipated that the rest of the year would be fairly mellow, with me working on the last novel of my Highland Vampires series.
Wrong. This is where the "smashing goals" part comes in.
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November through early December were insane. I had shepherded a new anthology group into life and we were busy writing, editing and planning our first publication, a boxed set of holiday tales called the Naughty List, which includes one of my short stories, Viking in Tartan. The boxed set was published on December first and is doing well.
I had been working on a writing manual, Plotting and Planning, for awhile before I remembered that November is NaNo month. For those of you who have never heard of it, NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month, when thousands form support groups to write an entire book in only one month--a task that's entirely beyond me as I am just coming out of a prolonged period of writer's block.
When I realized that NaNo month was upon us, I scurried to get Plotting and Planning prepared. For the first time, I used an outside company for uploading and am processing that experience. I decided I wanted to put out a print copy of both my writing manuals for the Christmas gift-giving market. The ompany doesn't like to do printed books, stating that they don't make money from print books.
So I did it myself, acqainting myself with Photoshop. There were a number of snags along the way. An online class I took on PS proved to be a useless time sink. Createspace's conversion process alters the book design undesirably--I'm still working to overcome that glitch for the large print version.
I'm very proud of About Writing. It has a lot of what I've learned since 1996, when I started this particular creative journey.
Despite the hassles, I like the independence and control over the finished product I get from DIY book publishing.
I also like working with groups. I was lucky enough to be invited to contribute to the latest volume of What to Read After Fifty Shades of Grey--it's volume eight. I provided a fictionalized memoir of my experiences in BDSM. Perilous Play and the rest of the anthology have done well after its publication on November 23d.
Set goals, smash them... Yep, I think that anticipating six works in 2014 and ending up with ten qualifies.
What's next for 2015? Who knows? Given what happened in 2014, I make no predictions.
Here's a little more about me:
Best-selling,
award-winning author Suz deMello, a.k.a Sue Swift, has written
Her books have been
favorably reviewed in Publishers Weekly,
Kirkus and Booklist, won a
contest or two, attained the finals of the RITA and hit several bestseller
lists.
A former trial
attorney, her passion is world travel. She’s left the US over a dozen times,
including lengthy stints working overseas. She’s now writing a vampire tale and
planning her next trip.
--Find her books at http://www.suzdemello.com
--For editing services, email her at suzdemello@gmail.com
--Befriend her on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/SuzDeMello
--She tweets @Suzdemello
--Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/suzdemello/
--Goodreads: http://bit.ly/SuzATGoodreads
--Her current blog is http://www.TheVelvetLair.com
Thursday, July 31, 2014
The Place Where My Heart Is Buried
by Annabeth Leong
I found it for the first time in the middle of a hot night. I'd been on a long walk through forbidden places—the cemetery, the city government complex, the golf course. As much as I would have sneered at the golf course by day, darkness transformed it into something grass-scented and fantastical. Sometimes I went on these walks with a friend, but this time I'd gone alone, and this time I picked up a tail on the way back through a bad neighborhood—a collection of young guys who mumbled to each other and laughed menacingly and turned every time I turned.
I knew better than to run. I fingered the switchblade I carried in my pocket, but I've always been honest with myself, and I knew that even though it made me feel tough I didn't actually know how to use it. I just liked the weight of it, the rhythmic swing of it along with my steps. Keeping my apparent cool, I made my way to the narrow downtown strip where things would still be open, planning to duck into the first unlocked door I found.
The guys followed, but they didn't close the distance, so I kept walking until I came across that door I'd been looking for. Even before I stepped through it, I felt the tingle of fate in my belly. This was one of the times in my life that turning left instead of right changed me forever, and sometimes in my memory it is as if that pack of guys goaded me to that place according to the machinations of divine purpose.
Stepping in, I found a set of smoke-filled rooms populated by a collection of beautiful misfits. Punk music blared from the speakers and everyone was drinking black coffee and chain smoking and making out with each other indiscriminately in corners, on the couches, and on the floor. In the front room, they had a poetry slam going, and in the back room they were playing chess. I ordered a coffee from the Robert Smith lookalike behind the counter, and I was too embarrassed to ask where they kept the cream and sugar, so I drank it black. I drank coffee black for the next ten years.
I had read about places like this, and seen glimpses in movies, but I had never before believed this could be real outside of fiction or histories starring ex-pats and the lovers of Anaïs Nin.
This is the place where my heart is buried. Today, the building has been demolished along with the dirty park beside it, both replaced by patio seating for an upscale sports bar, but on that spot of earth I fucked and loved and cried and shouted along with dozens of bands and was shamed and saw my lovers in the arms of others and performed my poetry to acclaim or to mockery and was praised and shouted at and became someone.
It's hard to know which stories to tell. I told one for my 90s post, and I can't think of that place without remembering those two lovers in particular. I still have a photograph of my golden-eyed man from those days—I'd forgotten that he'd fried his hair to an unnatural orange, but I can still lose myself in the shape of his profile. And after the place closed, he kept the key to the door and wore it around his neck, as if we might someday find another door to that same place, with a lock that would whisper open in response to a familiar touch.
When I found that place and those people, I was still coming out of the shadow of an abusive relationship. I remember confessing to my new friends in a dark whisper that my ex had told me I belonged to him forever, and that a part of me believed that and was afraid that he'd come after me. The golden-eyed man beside me wrapped an arm around my waist with a lewd, proprietary expression that left no doubt that we'd been fucking. "Well," he drawled, with no fear in his voice at all, "I guess I'm playing with another boy's toys." Everyone laughed, and it's the last time I can recall feeling afraid that way.
It wasn't all perfect, of course. There was the night I was yelled at by a wild-eyed woman furious that I'd pointed out a poem she'd written about her ex to her ex. There was the night a few of us started having a threesome in the back room and it turned into a fight instead. There was the night the owner backed me into the building's small kitchen and kissed me hard enough to cut my lips with his teeth, saying that the two of us were like Kerouac and LuAnne and clearly it was inevitable that we should fuck, as I winced at the scratching of his beard and fought to get away.
But there was also the night a woman came to read her poetry and stood up tall in one corner and declared, "I never apologize for my work, and I never explain." I'm still in awe of that one, and still trying to live up to it.
In our nostalgia posts over the past couple weeks, there's been the suggestion that nostalgia is about happy times, but I don't think it is. I was in a deep depression for much of the time I hung out at this place, but my feelings are all vivid in my memory, the sadness bright and sharp and the joy desperate and full of adrenaline. I remember that I knew even then that I would one day feel nostalgia for that place and time, and that this fact made me laugh with dark irony because I struggled to get through each day and longed, at the time, for a different nostalgic past.
I think nostalgia is a byproduct of becoming and change. I wasn't happy then, but I was moving. I was learning something about who I needed to be, even if many of the lessons were messy and painful. And because I was so screwed up and confused, I was free to transform. Nostalgia, for me, comes when I feel too finished and I start to miss those times of seismic upheaval, those times of possibility.
I wasn't the only one changed by that place. Anyone who used to hang out there still speaks the name of it in a hushed tone, still trades stories, still proves cred by what they witnessed and participated in and when.
Our whole town was changed by it, and even though its physical form has been obliterated, I still see the echoes when I visit my family. On my last trip, I sat in another coffee shop a few blocks from where the old one was and watched a beautiful woman in a silk corset with hair dyed bright red, and I knew that in those days, she would have been with us.
I found it for the first time in the middle of a hot night. I'd been on a long walk through forbidden places—the cemetery, the city government complex, the golf course. As much as I would have sneered at the golf course by day, darkness transformed it into something grass-scented and fantastical. Sometimes I went on these walks with a friend, but this time I'd gone alone, and this time I picked up a tail on the way back through a bad neighborhood—a collection of young guys who mumbled to each other and laughed menacingly and turned every time I turned.
I knew better than to run. I fingered the switchblade I carried in my pocket, but I've always been honest with myself, and I knew that even though it made me feel tough I didn't actually know how to use it. I just liked the weight of it, the rhythmic swing of it along with my steps. Keeping my apparent cool, I made my way to the narrow downtown strip where things would still be open, planning to duck into the first unlocked door I found.
The guys followed, but they didn't close the distance, so I kept walking until I came across that door I'd been looking for. Even before I stepped through it, I felt the tingle of fate in my belly. This was one of the times in my life that turning left instead of right changed me forever, and sometimes in my memory it is as if that pack of guys goaded me to that place according to the machinations of divine purpose.
Stepping in, I found a set of smoke-filled rooms populated by a collection of beautiful misfits. Punk music blared from the speakers and everyone was drinking black coffee and chain smoking and making out with each other indiscriminately in corners, on the couches, and on the floor. In the front room, they had a poetry slam going, and in the back room they were playing chess. I ordered a coffee from the Robert Smith lookalike behind the counter, and I was too embarrassed to ask where they kept the cream and sugar, so I drank it black. I drank coffee black for the next ten years.
I had read about places like this, and seen glimpses in movies, but I had never before believed this could be real outside of fiction or histories starring ex-pats and the lovers of Anaïs Nin.
This is the place where my heart is buried. Today, the building has been demolished along with the dirty park beside it, both replaced by patio seating for an upscale sports bar, but on that spot of earth I fucked and loved and cried and shouted along with dozens of bands and was shamed and saw my lovers in the arms of others and performed my poetry to acclaim or to mockery and was praised and shouted at and became someone.
It's hard to know which stories to tell. I told one for my 90s post, and I can't think of that place without remembering those two lovers in particular. I still have a photograph of my golden-eyed man from those days—I'd forgotten that he'd fried his hair to an unnatural orange, but I can still lose myself in the shape of his profile. And after the place closed, he kept the key to the door and wore it around his neck, as if we might someday find another door to that same place, with a lock that would whisper open in response to a familiar touch.
When I found that place and those people, I was still coming out of the shadow of an abusive relationship. I remember confessing to my new friends in a dark whisper that my ex had told me I belonged to him forever, and that a part of me believed that and was afraid that he'd come after me. The golden-eyed man beside me wrapped an arm around my waist with a lewd, proprietary expression that left no doubt that we'd been fucking. "Well," he drawled, with no fear in his voice at all, "I guess I'm playing with another boy's toys." Everyone laughed, and it's the last time I can recall feeling afraid that way.
It wasn't all perfect, of course. There was the night I was yelled at by a wild-eyed woman furious that I'd pointed out a poem she'd written about her ex to her ex. There was the night a few of us started having a threesome in the back room and it turned into a fight instead. There was the night the owner backed me into the building's small kitchen and kissed me hard enough to cut my lips with his teeth, saying that the two of us were like Kerouac and LuAnne and clearly it was inevitable that we should fuck, as I winced at the scratching of his beard and fought to get away.
But there was also the night a woman came to read her poetry and stood up tall in one corner and declared, "I never apologize for my work, and I never explain." I'm still in awe of that one, and still trying to live up to it.
In our nostalgia posts over the past couple weeks, there's been the suggestion that nostalgia is about happy times, but I don't think it is. I was in a deep depression for much of the time I hung out at this place, but my feelings are all vivid in my memory, the sadness bright and sharp and the joy desperate and full of adrenaline. I remember that I knew even then that I would one day feel nostalgia for that place and time, and that this fact made me laugh with dark irony because I struggled to get through each day and longed, at the time, for a different nostalgic past.
I think nostalgia is a byproduct of becoming and change. I wasn't happy then, but I was moving. I was learning something about who I needed to be, even if many of the lessons were messy and painful. And because I was so screwed up and confused, I was free to transform. Nostalgia, for me, comes when I feel too finished and I start to miss those times of seismic upheaval, those times of possibility.
I wasn't the only one changed by that place. Anyone who used to hang out there still speaks the name of it in a hushed tone, still trades stories, still proves cred by what they witnessed and participated in and when.
Our whole town was changed by it, and even though its physical form has been obliterated, I still see the echoes when I visit my family. On my last trip, I sat in another coffee shop a few blocks from where the old one was and watched a beautiful woman in a silk corset with hair dyed bright red, and I knew that in those days, she would have been with us.
Thursday, May 22, 2014
In the Teeth of the Endless Now of Desire
by Annabeth Leong
Midnight, and the older man I lived with was working the night shift. I couldn't sleep. All I could think about was the food in the freezer, the mushrooms in particular. Large and breaded, they came out of the oven crispy, salty, and filled with a rich juice that I craved.
Twelve mushrooms were left in the half-full bag. I got out of bed and stepped into the darkness of the empty house. I preheated the oven, took out the bag, and placed one—just one—on the baking pan.
The bag had to last, so one was all I could allow myself.
***
I have lived without sufficient food several times in my life, always for no good reason. When my parents got divorced, there was a while where my father forgot to feed me and I was afraid to ask him to. Though there could have been food, there wasn't, and I eventually got bold enough to make a habit of searching the house for money until I found enough to order pizza. Perhaps not the smartest solution, but I was a pretty small kid and that was the best I could come up with.
In this case, I'd run away from home as a teenager and wound up living with this man. He worked as a manager at a 24-hour gas station, and I worked an illegal number of hours after school and on weekends, so there ought to have been enough money for food. However, I was utterly under his control, and I turned my paycheck over to him as soon as it was cashed. I had no money of my own, he was able to eat food while at work, and he'd proven strangely unwilling to buy food for me. About once a month, he grudgingly took me to an all-night grocery store and bought oatmeal packets, frozen food, cartons of eggs, and canned soup. Then the game commenced.
Usually, I had one packet of microwave oatmeal in the morning before leaving for school. Then at school when lunchtime came, I shamelessly begged boys to buy me something from the cafeteria. My favorite was the chicken rice burrito, which cost $1.75 and would relieve my hunger better than anything else I was likely to get. I'd never thought of myself as the type of girl to ask guys to buy me things, but I was desperately hungry enough that I didn't care anymore.
After school, I begged some more, and if I was lucky the man I lived with would pick up a sandwich at a fast food place and allow me to eat half of it for dinner. What I didn't get was my own plate. I had to content myself with bites off his, and he salted everything he ate so heavily that his meals seemed covered in frost.
***
When the oven timer went off, I ran to the kitchen. The mushroom had expanded from the heat, puffing up into something delicious and golden. I knew I ought to cut it into tiny pieces to make it last as long as possible. I was weeks away from the next grocery trip, and I'd already eaten half the bag of mushrooms. Instead, I couldn't resist. I popped the mushroom in my mouth whole, caring nothing for the way it scalded me, my heart and soul focused entirely on the juice of it washing over my tongue as I bit in.
It wasn't enough. I was starving, and I had to feel that sensation one more time. I got out the bag again and eased one more mushroom onto the baking pan.
***
Hungry as I was, I had no self-control. I am very aware of how poorly I calculated my actions.
My mother gave me $10 once when I went to visit her—enough for a lot of dried oatmeal at the grocery store—but instead of trying to make the bill last, I took it to an Italian restaurant downtown and spent it on a meal of homemade focaccia bread, house salad, fresh pasta with marinara sauce, and a cup of tea. I performed precise arithmetic to figure the most food I could order while still leaving a fair tip. I chewed as slowly as possible, caught up in the transcendence of butter, flour, and tomato sauce, and for a brief time I felt free. Still, within the space of an hour the money was gone, and I was hungry again so soon after that.
When people criticize the buying decisions of those on food stamps or other government assistance, I remember that pasta. I knew it was stupid to buy it, but I can't explain how compelled I felt, how starved I was, not just for food, but for that experience of food. My brain chemistry seemed to change when I was desperately hungry. It was as if the future didn't exist. There was only the endless now of my trembling hands and cramping gut.
***
Fuck. The second mushroom gone in another single bite.
I needed the moment of eating it to stretch out longer. Why had I swallowed? Couldn't I have instead held it in my mouth until it utterly melted?
I went back to the freezer and got out the bag again. The mushrooms poured from it freely. Ten, and the bag was empty. I counted the ten on the baking pan, arranging and rearranging them, struggling with myself.
If I eat them now, I won't have them later. If I eat them now, I won't have them later.
I put them back in the bag. I put the bag back in the freezer. I paced the house like a caged animal, then rushed back to the kitchen.
One mushroom, gleaming on the baking pan, crowned in ice crystals, object of my unutterable desire.
The mushrooms took a long time to cook, so I'd been at this now for over an hour. I knew I'd suffer in school the next day. In a rush of abandon, I reached for the bag, and four more mushrooms joined that single edible jewel. Five. Half of what remained. I told myself that was a reasonable compromise, and stuck the tray in the oven yet again.
***
I knew he would be angry if I ate all the mushrooms. The man I lived with was often scolding me for taking two oatmeal packets instead of one, for wanting to boil a second egg when the one we'd shared had left me wanting, for taking money from other men so I could buy food.
There are 157 calories in a packet of instant oatmeal cooked with water. There are 78 calories in a boiled egg. There are 24 calories in a single breaded mushroom, and the packaging for the kind I used to like lists the recommended serving as eight.
I was no glutton, I was simply hungry. And even if I was a glutton—even if I was—what sort of sin is it to eat 16 breaded mushrooms when the package says eight will do?
***
I slowed down and ate the next five mushrooms as if they were the finest red caviar. Tiny slices, tiny bites, counting the times I chewed, and yet my hunger did not abate in the slightest. Anger flashed through me. I didn't care anymore whether I would be scolded. I didn't care if there was no food left in the house at all after that night. In a flurry, I cooked the rest of the package of mushrooms and made a packet of oatmeal. It was after two a.m. and I ate that food with nervous relish, getting away with it for the moment because I was alone.
I knew this meant I would have no mushrooms the next night, or the night after that, or the night after that, but I just couldn't think about that anymore. When desire overwhelms, the only time that exists is now.
***
Much later, after I got away from this man, I went to the grocery store and bought myself seven packages of the mushrooms. I wanted them available to me with no barriers. I wanted to eat them until I got sick if that was what I felt like doing.
I'd had a little while to recover by then. There had been enough to eat for a couple months, and I'd already gained thirty pounds. I could think straight for the first time in years.
I went home and poured one entire package onto a baking pan, shivering from the luxurious rumble of that multitude of mushrooms hitting the surface. I was so excited to finally be able to do this, a thing I had dreamed about on so many nights with such great intensity.
The oven timer rang and I arranged the mushrooms on a plate and took them to the table. I took a bite of the first one, closing my eyes in anticipation of that rich burst of juice, but it never came.
There was a little salty water and an anemic crunch to the breading. The mushrooms tasted of cardboard and little else.
That was the worst moment. It was then that I realized that these mushrooms I had craved and fought for, this food that was my ultimate indulgence, this thing I would have sold my soul for if given the chance—it wasn't really very good at all. I'd just been that hungry.
Midnight, and the older man I lived with was working the night shift. I couldn't sleep. All I could think about was the food in the freezer, the mushrooms in particular. Large and breaded, they came out of the oven crispy, salty, and filled with a rich juice that I craved.
Twelve mushrooms were left in the half-full bag. I got out of bed and stepped into the darkness of the empty house. I preheated the oven, took out the bag, and placed one—just one—on the baking pan.
The bag had to last, so one was all I could allow myself.
***
I have lived without sufficient food several times in my life, always for no good reason. When my parents got divorced, there was a while where my father forgot to feed me and I was afraid to ask him to. Though there could have been food, there wasn't, and I eventually got bold enough to make a habit of searching the house for money until I found enough to order pizza. Perhaps not the smartest solution, but I was a pretty small kid and that was the best I could come up with.
In this case, I'd run away from home as a teenager and wound up living with this man. He worked as a manager at a 24-hour gas station, and I worked an illegal number of hours after school and on weekends, so there ought to have been enough money for food. However, I was utterly under his control, and I turned my paycheck over to him as soon as it was cashed. I had no money of my own, he was able to eat food while at work, and he'd proven strangely unwilling to buy food for me. About once a month, he grudgingly took me to an all-night grocery store and bought oatmeal packets, frozen food, cartons of eggs, and canned soup. Then the game commenced.
Usually, I had one packet of microwave oatmeal in the morning before leaving for school. Then at school when lunchtime came, I shamelessly begged boys to buy me something from the cafeteria. My favorite was the chicken rice burrito, which cost $1.75 and would relieve my hunger better than anything else I was likely to get. I'd never thought of myself as the type of girl to ask guys to buy me things, but I was desperately hungry enough that I didn't care anymore.
After school, I begged some more, and if I was lucky the man I lived with would pick up a sandwich at a fast food place and allow me to eat half of it for dinner. What I didn't get was my own plate. I had to content myself with bites off his, and he salted everything he ate so heavily that his meals seemed covered in frost.
***
When the oven timer went off, I ran to the kitchen. The mushroom had expanded from the heat, puffing up into something delicious and golden. I knew I ought to cut it into tiny pieces to make it last as long as possible. I was weeks away from the next grocery trip, and I'd already eaten half the bag of mushrooms. Instead, I couldn't resist. I popped the mushroom in my mouth whole, caring nothing for the way it scalded me, my heart and soul focused entirely on the juice of it washing over my tongue as I bit in.
It wasn't enough. I was starving, and I had to feel that sensation one more time. I got out the bag again and eased one more mushroom onto the baking pan.
***
Hungry as I was, I had no self-control. I am very aware of how poorly I calculated my actions.
My mother gave me $10 once when I went to visit her—enough for a lot of dried oatmeal at the grocery store—but instead of trying to make the bill last, I took it to an Italian restaurant downtown and spent it on a meal of homemade focaccia bread, house salad, fresh pasta with marinara sauce, and a cup of tea. I performed precise arithmetic to figure the most food I could order while still leaving a fair tip. I chewed as slowly as possible, caught up in the transcendence of butter, flour, and tomato sauce, and for a brief time I felt free. Still, within the space of an hour the money was gone, and I was hungry again so soon after that.
When people criticize the buying decisions of those on food stamps or other government assistance, I remember that pasta. I knew it was stupid to buy it, but I can't explain how compelled I felt, how starved I was, not just for food, but for that experience of food. My brain chemistry seemed to change when I was desperately hungry. It was as if the future didn't exist. There was only the endless now of my trembling hands and cramping gut.
***
Fuck. The second mushroom gone in another single bite.
I needed the moment of eating it to stretch out longer. Why had I swallowed? Couldn't I have instead held it in my mouth until it utterly melted?
I went back to the freezer and got out the bag again. The mushrooms poured from it freely. Ten, and the bag was empty. I counted the ten on the baking pan, arranging and rearranging them, struggling with myself.
If I eat them now, I won't have them later. If I eat them now, I won't have them later.
I put them back in the bag. I put the bag back in the freezer. I paced the house like a caged animal, then rushed back to the kitchen.
One mushroom, gleaming on the baking pan, crowned in ice crystals, object of my unutterable desire.
The mushrooms took a long time to cook, so I'd been at this now for over an hour. I knew I'd suffer in school the next day. In a rush of abandon, I reached for the bag, and four more mushrooms joined that single edible jewel. Five. Half of what remained. I told myself that was a reasonable compromise, and stuck the tray in the oven yet again.
***
I knew he would be angry if I ate all the mushrooms. The man I lived with was often scolding me for taking two oatmeal packets instead of one, for wanting to boil a second egg when the one we'd shared had left me wanting, for taking money from other men so I could buy food.
There are 157 calories in a packet of instant oatmeal cooked with water. There are 78 calories in a boiled egg. There are 24 calories in a single breaded mushroom, and the packaging for the kind I used to like lists the recommended serving as eight.
I was no glutton, I was simply hungry. And even if I was a glutton—even if I was—what sort of sin is it to eat 16 breaded mushrooms when the package says eight will do?
***
I slowed down and ate the next five mushrooms as if they were the finest red caviar. Tiny slices, tiny bites, counting the times I chewed, and yet my hunger did not abate in the slightest. Anger flashed through me. I didn't care anymore whether I would be scolded. I didn't care if there was no food left in the house at all after that night. In a flurry, I cooked the rest of the package of mushrooms and made a packet of oatmeal. It was after two a.m. and I ate that food with nervous relish, getting away with it for the moment because I was alone.
I knew this meant I would have no mushrooms the next night, or the night after that, or the night after that, but I just couldn't think about that anymore. When desire overwhelms, the only time that exists is now.
***
Much later, after I got away from this man, I went to the grocery store and bought myself seven packages of the mushrooms. I wanted them available to me with no barriers. I wanted to eat them until I got sick if that was what I felt like doing.
I'd had a little while to recover by then. There had been enough to eat for a couple months, and I'd already gained thirty pounds. I could think straight for the first time in years.
I went home and poured one entire package onto a baking pan, shivering from the luxurious rumble of that multitude of mushrooms hitting the surface. I was so excited to finally be able to do this, a thing I had dreamed about on so many nights with such great intensity.
The oven timer rang and I arranged the mushrooms on a plate and took them to the table. I took a bite of the first one, closing my eyes in anticipation of that rich burst of juice, but it never came.
There was a little salty water and an anemic crunch to the breading. The mushrooms tasted of cardboard and little else.
That was the worst moment. It was then that I realized that these mushrooms I had craved and fought for, this food that was my ultimate indulgence, this thing I would have sold my soul for if given the chance—it wasn't really very good at all. I'd just been that hungry.
Friday, July 20, 2012
Selling My Heart
by Kristina Wright
The stories I find the hardest to write, to finish, to edit are the ones that are the most personal. The ideas that tap-tap-tap at the back of my brain until I put down some words on paper and then step back and read what I've written... only to delete them or close the file and bury it in some "Works in Progress" folder on my hard drive.
I should say, it's never fiction that causes me this angst. Even fiction that might possibly be based on some true life event doesn't make me falter, fingers poised over the keys, wondering, "Should I write this?" For better or worse, I am a fiction writer at heart and though I may wail and moan about how a particular story or book is driving me mad, at the end of the day it's still fiction and I have some emotional distance.
No, it's the nonfiction I write that are my problem children. These nonfiction blog posts and essays are far more intimate glimpses into who I am than any piece of fiction I write. And so, I find it hard to finish these bits of literary DNA, harder still to share them with the world. It's like taking a scalpel and slicing open my chest and peeling away the flesh to show you vein, muscle, organ and bone. And though I can stitch myself back up when you are done poking and prodding and making sense of my parts, the scar remains as a reminder that I was open. Exposed. Vulnerable. Forever changed.
I have written some things here at Oh Get a Grip! that I never imagined I would share. For awhile, I adopted a persona of fearless writer-- nothing was too personal to share. That's laughable, of course, because even on my best day I am not half as fearless as some writers I know. I may put the words out there, but there's always something I'm holding back. Always some emotional truth I keep close. I may give you a glimpse of an ultrasound, but I hide the scalpel.
One of the most personal-- and therefore hardest-- piece to write was my post about my mother's death: July 25, 2007. I probably spent longer writing that blog post than any fictional story I've written since. That piece is a problem child for me, still, because I know what I intended for it to be and what I had to cut to make myself comfortable posting it. I have reread it a few times-- the words that I edited out lost forever-- and I know it's honest and true and that I have sold my heart as Fitzgerald would advise. And yet, and yet...
I long to take my problem children out of the darkness and line them up in a row-- these stories that I keep buried because they rest too close to main arteries-- and then I long to put the scalpel in the reader's hand and say, "Have at it. Here I am. See it all." And maybe that's why, as I near the fifth anniversary of my mother's death, I find myself more and more drawn to the idea of writing a memoir. Not a journal that I can tuck away in my underwear drawer or a blog post that only scratches the surface of the truth, but a memoir for the world to read (should the world want to, of course). Do I dare? Is it worth it? The fact that I ask the questions tells me I should and it is.
My life has been filled with stories that are problem children. They are still here, tucked inside my heart, waiting for the slice of the scalpel that will reveal them.
The stories I find the hardest to write, to finish, to edit are the ones that are the most personal. The ideas that tap-tap-tap at the back of my brain until I put down some words on paper and then step back and read what I've written... only to delete them or close the file and bury it in some "Works in Progress" folder on my hard drive.
I should say, it's never fiction that causes me this angst. Even fiction that might possibly be based on some true life event doesn't make me falter, fingers poised over the keys, wondering, "Should I write this?" For better or worse, I am a fiction writer at heart and though I may wail and moan about how a particular story or book is driving me mad, at the end of the day it's still fiction and I have some emotional distance.
No, it's the nonfiction I write that are my problem children. These nonfiction blog posts and essays are far more intimate glimpses into who I am than any piece of fiction I write. And so, I find it hard to finish these bits of literary DNA, harder still to share them with the world. It's like taking a scalpel and slicing open my chest and peeling away the flesh to show you vein, muscle, organ and bone. And though I can stitch myself back up when you are done poking and prodding and making sense of my parts, the scar remains as a reminder that I was open. Exposed. Vulnerable. Forever changed.
I have written some things here at Oh Get a Grip! that I never imagined I would share. For awhile, I adopted a persona of fearless writer-- nothing was too personal to share. That's laughable, of course, because even on my best day I am not half as fearless as some writers I know. I may put the words out there, but there's always something I'm holding back. Always some emotional truth I keep close. I may give you a glimpse of an ultrasound, but I hide the scalpel.
One of the most personal-- and therefore hardest-- piece to write was my post about my mother's death: July 25, 2007. I probably spent longer writing that blog post than any fictional story I've written since. That piece is a problem child for me, still, because I know what I intended for it to be and what I had to cut to make myself comfortable posting it. I have reread it a few times-- the words that I edited out lost forever-- and I know it's honest and true and that I have sold my heart as Fitzgerald would advise. And yet, and yet...
I long to take my problem children out of the darkness and line them up in a row-- these stories that I keep buried because they rest too close to main arteries-- and then I long to put the scalpel in the reader's hand and say, "Have at it. Here I am. See it all." And maybe that's why, as I near the fifth anniversary of my mother's death, I find myself more and more drawn to the idea of writing a memoir. Not a journal that I can tuck away in my underwear drawer or a blog post that only scratches the surface of the truth, but a memoir for the world to read (should the world want to, of course). Do I dare? Is it worth it? The fact that I ask the questions tells me I should and it is.
My life has been filled with stories that are problem children. They are still here, tucked inside my heart, waiting for the slice of the scalpel that will reveal them.
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