spine

Moments

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A familiar song comes on, or I have a dream, see an object -- a Spice Girls CD, a riveted belt, a statue of Mary, a gay pride sticker -- and I start thinking of people I haven't seen since high school, people I was fiercely close to for a year, or two, or 10, and have since lost touch with despite the communication tools at our fingertips. I remember the conversations, the hilarious inside jokes with origins neither of us know, the birthdays, the tragedies, the solemn secrecy and sacredness of our connection to each other. And when I get like this I want to pick up the phone and call that person and tell them I remember it, and miss it, the openness of us. But I know that if I called now it would be in the middle of something, it always is, and it wouldn’t be the same because I’m not the same; I’m just nostalgic. So instead I wish them well, keep walking, wake up, finish listening to the song.

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I am walking through a battlefield with a colleague. With the enthusiasm of a third grade teacher introducing a wide-eyed class to Roald Dahl's genius, our boss is giving us a tour of Gettysburg. We drive from one prominent spot on the grounds to another and then park and get out to hike. He tells us, reverently, about the strategies used on Little Round Top. He describes the guns that were used, the failures of the day, how 50,000 people died. And as they begin walking back to the car and I stand staring over the hills and valleys (which, my boss takes great pleasure in telling me, were once soaked with blood) I think about it. Fifty thousand people. I think of losses in my life, of how terrible and raw everyone feels when even one person they know has died, and it becomes so real, that all those people died there in a matter of days, and for some individuals that meant their brothers and friends and fathers all died together. How more than 1,818 people from the U.S. have died fighting in Afghanistan in gunfire helicopter crashes and IED explosions, and for some people those numbers are not numbers, but brothers and fathers and husbands. How terrifying death can be, almost as terrifying as life.

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I am sitting outside on the front steps of my apartment, looking up at the stars. My mother's voice through the phone is telling me not to worry, that everything will be OK. She tries to relate what I'm going through to an experience she once had when she was younger, how she and one of her college roommates were close friends but she just lost touch with her over time. I hear the pause when she realizes it's not the same, not even close. Her kindness and the obviousness of her pity overwhelm me. Staring into the night I wonder what I’m supposed to do, what else I could possibly do. Later, I give up.

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The waiting room walls are grey, with carpeting that looks so clean you'd never know it was from the early '90s if you weren't familiar with early '90s doctor's-office carpet prints. I'm trying to be polite as the woman in the chair next to me makes conversation. She is telling me she's a skin cancer survivor, just here for a followup, though. She seems strong, independent, fashionable, funny. The kind of woman they'd profile in some magazine, talking about how awesome she is for surviving her cancer and all. I can't help but be jealous of her; of the two of us she is definitely the cooler person in the room, and she must be over 70. "What are you here for? I hope it's nothing serious; you're so young." I blush and stare at the doorway, realizing I have to say it out loud. "No, nothing like that," I say. "It's for my face." I point (right, as if I really need to point) at my cheeks ridden with acne and rosacea. "Oh." The awkward pause. Yes, I'm at a dermatologist for my 25-year-old loser acne, because I want my face to look normal, and not because I am facing a life-threatening illness. Judge me. "I wonder how they'll fix that," she muses, eyeing me and leaning forward, like seeing my pock marks close up is going to help her answer her own question. "Maybe with lasers." Great. My uneven, spotted skin is so hideous that the first thing to come to people's minds, the only logical method of repair available, is lasers. I laugh and say "I'm sure they'll figure something out." This feels oddly personal, and a tear comes to my eye. I tell it to fuck off because it's not like I have cancer or anything. They call the woman's name, Joyce, and she gets up and walks toward the door. Before she goes through it, she turns around and smiles at me. "Good luck, dear."
 

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I am waiting in a cathedral in the middle of Cologne, Germany. It's been a year since my last visit but the vaulting ceilings and columns have not changed. It is enormous and strangely quiet despite the hundreds of tourists pacing around, snapping photos. I sit in a pew. I thank God for watching over my family, and suddenly think of people who say things like “We’re family,” when they are talking about people who are business associates or people they need something from at the moment. People who are nothing like family. Family is warm and strange and acidic, and family means fierce support and love intertwined with bouts of frustration and sometimes (yes it’s extreme but) hate. It’s calling someone and being both instantly relieved and irritated by the sound of their voice, it’s constant and unconditional love in the back of your mind, giving you advice you didn’t ask for and didn't know you needed. I smile, thinking of a joke of my brother’s, and try not to burst out laughing.
 
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A straight pin forces its way under my skin and I think ouch! but stifle my objection while the Russian woman who is altering my wedding dress tugs at the extra fabric around my waist. I am trying to stand up straight and feel elegant and act ladylike, but she continually pokes me and shouts things to the other seamstresses. Suddenly she addresses me directly. "I need to open the lace," she says, pointing. "Um, OK. Open the lace?" "Yes, I need to open lace to make more better. Right now this is like this, but if like different, make more better." I stare at her reflection in the mirror as she repeats this to no avail. "You not understand what I'm saying?" she offers. "No," I say. "OK. I explain. See this here? This with the flowers? This part? That's lace." We are both silent. Really? "Yeah. Yes. I do understand what lace is." "You do?" "Yes. I do." "OK, so I need to open the lace." I finally just ask how much opening the lace will cost, she tells me, and I decide it's worth paying to avoid whatever argument we are having right now. She wanders out of the room, probably to bring back more sharp objects, and leaves me alone in a hallway lined with white doors. I turn back to the mirror and see myself again. I am wearing my wedding dress.

I think of everything that means and try to breathe.

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