Black and Sun

We have entered the realm of adulthood; we are no longer renters. Today we own a house.

 And, to seal the deal, we also now have a dog:

No 2.1 kids, but we instead have a triad of cats.

Tonight we spent $3500 on appliances. They’re stainless. Putting our tax refund to work.

We are living the American Dream…

My Nana, gone now from this world, ashes in a marble box… 

I knew you as a child knows anything: deeply, inextricably – but without understanding. Knowing, as one knows the feel of carpet between her toes, the smell of rain; but without understanding why, how, who…

Your camel coat in the winter; gold bangles on perfectly manicured hands. Smiling, always, in photographs; you radiated warmth and love and joy. Unconditional love. Unconditional joy. You represented the good witch, the fairy godmother, bearing sugar plums and presents. Presents for no reason, presents because it made you happy to give them.  

You introduced me to sweetness:  my first birthday cake – strawberry – age 4.

You observed that we shared the same favorite ice cream flavor (butter pecan).

You stocked your freezer full of blueberry blintzes and chocolate croissants for my visits.

You gathered fresh mangoes from your neighbor’s tree and kept them for me peeled and cut-up in baggies. Forever mangoes taste to me like warm mornings on a Florida sun-porch, accompanied by apple juice in a crystal wine glass.

Milk, which I hated, was made palatable by serving with a silver straw.

You bought me prom dresses and designer jeans. You permed my hair.

You had a lilt in your voice like a smile when you spoke.

You used to sing to me:

I’ll be loving you Always
With a love that’s true Always.
When the things you’ve planned
Need a helping hand,
I will understand Always.

Always.

Days may not be fair Always,
That’s when I’ll be there Always.
Not for just an hour,
Not for just a day,
Not for just a year,
But Always.

Literal child that I was, I couldn’t help but point out, “but Nana, you won’t be here always…”

To which you would smile and answer, “that’s true, I won’t be here always. But I’ll still be loving you from up there…”

Up where? Where’s up there?

What does a child really know of her grandmother? The grandness of the woman, but not the woman within.

She loved opera and jewelry and mink coats. I loved her opera, jewelry and mink coats. I loved her. But as I got older, the question nagged at me, “who’s her?” Who is the woman within my grandmother?

She used to love a certain photo collage that hung in the hall with images of herself as a child, my mother as a child and me. She used to reflect on how we all looked so much alike. I agreed, but didn’t. Three generations of blond tow-heads, but so, so different. I found my mother’s eyes peering out of the gentle face of her father, gone before I was born. But I couldn’t find mine.

It wasn’t until years later, as Nana’s memories had already begun their escape, that I found an old photo of Claire. Of Claire the young woman that lived somewhere burrowed within the grandness that was my grandmother. Claire with a thin, long face. Pensive, quiet. As I studied this picture, I wished I could speak to this woman; this woman about my age, newly married, perhaps questioning the world around her. It was in this picture that I realized I never really knew my grandmother, but also realized that I did.

The process of knowing a person continues on long after she is gone. My Nana is woven into my memories, mapped into the texture of my psyche. Lingering in the riddles of my DNA. As I move through the stages of life, I come to know Nana less, but know this woman Claire more.

She is me. I am her. Our ancestors, those that love us, those that we love – they do not leave us.

Claire Messel Kopff Antman 
September 15, 1917 - October 22, 2007

Weather moved in today, cold front rained down during the night and we woke to the first fall/winter chill in the air. Temperature dropped 30 degrees overnight and then the rain cleared to reveal bright, crystal clear cool ether air.

Feels like Halloween. Pumpkins are out.

When the wind blows the trees make a sound like:

SSSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHH…

Shh, hush you now down to sleep.

I’m sitting on the front porch with a clove and a glass of red wine. Patty Griffin on the stereo:

Ain’t nothing left at all in the end of being proud
With me riding in this car, and you flying through the clouds

SSSSSHHHSHHHHSSHHHH…

Occurred to me the other day
You’ve been gone now a couple years
well, I guess it takes while
For someone to really disappear

Today my heart is big and sore
it’s tryin’ to push right through my skin
I won’t see you anymore
I guess that’s finally sinkin’ in

And I wonder where you are, and where the pain is when you die

And I wonder if there was

Some better way to say goodbye… 

Tonight my Nana floated up into that bright, clear ether air. My Nana died. 5pm she said goodbye, without a word. My Nana who’s been leaving us for the last couple years - Alzheimers, the long goodbye. This evening her body finally sighed its last sigh, spirit floated away while she slept. 

SSSSSSHHHHHHSHHHHHSSSSHHHHHSHHHHHHH…  

Another pleasant throw-back to my childhood conjured up by Austin Fall: pecans.

In elementary school, during these same months of Fall, we used to spend our recess time stomping on pecans with our penny loafers and eating the delectable nutmeats inside. At least until our teachers scolded us…don’t eat that, that’s dirty! Which we of course promptly ignored once the teachers turned their attention to more important concerns, like the boys clobbering one another at the other end of the playground.

Finding sustenance in the trees and bushes and sidewalks of home or school is perhaps one of a child’s most primal pleasures.  It’s what we’ve been programmed through evolution to seek out, and yet, in our modern world where food is found at grocery stores and restaurants but surely not at the roots of a tree, it’s a surprise and joy to find something on the ground that you can actually put in your mouth.

And walking down the street to our local café, stomping on pecans along the way, I find myself revisiting this childhood pleasure in force.

Do I miss New England Fall this year? Maybe a little. But only a little. Austin Fall suits me just fine.

We turned off the air conditioner last night, and opened the windows. Austin blew in on the wind and the cats went wild. Fall in Austin is a subtle change; shorts and flip-flops haven’t yet disappeared. It’s still hot, but less so. And the air smells different  - dryer, cleaner. When I went swimming this morning, the pool was icy cold; the wind made crumpled ripples on the water and blew my kickboard rambunctiously into the fence.

With the windows open and the Austin Fall blowing in, I become nostalgic. I think of coming home from school and finding the windows thrown open, and my mother’s exuberance at the first non-humid day of the year. I think of making Halloween decorations after school and walking house-to-house selling Ascension Day School Haunted House tickets. I think of myself standing on the back of the couch, looking out the window, whining that I’m bored and asking when kindergarten will start. “In the Fall,” my mom says. “When is it Fall?” I ask. “When the leaves begin to fall from the trees,” says mom. “Oh. Look, the leaves are falling now! Is it time for school to start yet?”

Mid-last fall - about this time last year - Den got word that one of his oldest friends, a friend from elementary school, middle, high school, his first childhood crush in fact, who later resurfaced as an adult friend post-college years, continuing on into the present, had a lump on her leg. She thought she’d hurt herself exercising, but it just wouldn’t go away. So she went to a doctor, whereby she learned that she had a rare and agressive form of sarcoma.

She told us - her extensive network - about this in an email, the tone of which was both gravely serious and optimistically upbeat. What she didn’t say in that email is that a sarcoma diagnosis is nearly always a death sentence, no matter how advanced your crack team of oncologists. Perhaps she didn’t believe it then. Perhaps she truly was optimistic. Perhaps she was shielding those she loved from cold reality. I don’t know; I never got to know her that well.

In May she died, after multiple surgeries and a thwarted attempt at chemo. Not before being reborn as something part legend and part spiritual guide and networker from the ether yonder.

At some point during that frightening winter or spring as she waged a war of optimism and hope on that evil spreading, masticating lump, she began sending weekly Thankful Friday emails to her network. It was something she had apparently started years before, and in the darkest weeks of her illness she resumed the old habit, blasting her hope and thanks out to her massive network of family and friends-new-and-old. And after she died, her network continued. Every Friday flurries of email stream in to [Jens-Network].

Over the last couple months Den’s Thankful Friday missives have taken on a sort of celebrity status, growing by the week in flourish, depth and, ahem, creative license (I note, only because they are often stories I was actually present for, and seem to be much more interesting in the retelling).

Liberated from the yolk of a day job, Den is finding the writer that once was. The writer that was once upon a time when he acted in the Proscenium Circus with young Jen Doran, back when he was discovering first love and setting neighbors yards on fire with coffee cans of gasoline. Below is last week’s Thankful Friday installment for [Jens-Network]:

“Hi! Excuse me! Hi! Sorry to bother you but did you happen to see a small, white poodle with super curly fur while you were out walking tonight?”The cab of the pick-up was dark but we could see that it was a thirty-something male leaning out the window with his friend/girlfriend/wife looking wide-eyed and semi-hopeful in the seat next to him.

“Sorry. No, we haven’t.”

Indeed, we had seen no such dog fitting said description. The woman’s face, blanketed in darkness, now a stark charcoal-rub caricature of one long, heavy, angst-ridden sigh finding release in complete and utter exasperation.  They loved this dog.

“But if we do see her we’ll definitely call you.”

“Thanks.” And this is where the human brain in recall goes all ‘funny’, mine at least, “Her name is ‘Waffles’ (…maybe…) and she got off her leash and jumped the fence about an hour ago. My name is ‘Mike/Bob/Sam/Joe/Frank/Your Name Here’ and my number is 512-4bleep6something-wha?4random#blahblah.”

Perhaps its a mutant strain of genetics called ‘Hope’ that we think we’ll actually remember any helpful information in moments like these… in one ear. Processing. Processing. Please hold. Then out the next. Goodbyyye, useful memory! Off to the dustbin of personal history with you!

But I assure you for the rest of our evening stroll Heather and I were ever so watchful. Oh, absolutely, the next day whenever I found myself out in the neighborhood on a break, I looked in fanatic earnest for that small, white, curly-haired pup, too.So, get this.

On the drive down North Loop Avenue the following afternoon, making my way to the post office, I spotted a dog pulling a short length of chain behind it and fitting the EXACT of those described specifications:

Small. Check!

White. Check!!

Curly Haired. CHECK!!!

Poodle! My stars, CHECK-CHECK-CHECK-CHECK!

There goes “Cheerios” on the loose! Or, Waffles or Cookie or Mike or Joe Bob… what was that phone number again?

<<Screeeeeeeeeech!>>

“WAFFLES! STOP! HERE GIRL! GODDAMNIT, WAFFLES, STOP!” but like any smart dog being barreled into by some lunatic braking two tons of hurtling steel she took off like a lightening bolt underneath a fence and into somebody’s back yard.

Zip-Zing-Poof!“

No, Waffles, come back! Its me, your buddy Den, the guy who just spoke with your ‘mum & dad’. Just last night… stop. They miss you…”

I wasn’t about to give chase, either, as, to my knowledge, many Texans have a fondness for gun ownership. I can only imagine someone seeing an idiot ‘Yankee’ leaping around on their property screaming about breakfast foods making for some fine target practice…

“Sumbish’ came right at me, officer, crazed look in his eyes, hollerin’ nonsense about flapjacks ‘n such. So I flattened ‘im …like a pancake.”

Now, how often does this happen, though?  Actually finding someone’s lost pet (most likely anyway) and having the opportunity to actually do something about it?  Here was my cosmic lottery moment. I was going to shine in the universal spotlight (”I’m ready for my close up, Mr. Demille.”)! Would there be a reward? Yes, of course, there would be: the screams of familial joy and teary cheeked laughter, a lapping little pink tongue swabbing a weeping child’s face, deus ex machina ~ Christmas in September for everyone ~ !!! <<insert SFX angels singing upon high here>>

Alas.

I’m afraid this story does not have the traditional happy ending to it; I did not reunite ‘Waffles’ with her family; she did not come back to me when I called and called.  The court may note, however, that I did brave one very excited phone call to a completely jaded Austin City police department.“

You what now? Lost your waffles? Sir, you do realize this call is being recorded, right?”

The whole affair did bring me to a most unusual observation, though.  From that moment on I found myself noticing every single dog that was not on a leash walking around the streets that day (more than you might think in a city with a strict leash law).  I was strangely intrigued by this phenomenon for reasons to follow.Mostly these dogs all looked perfectly content sniffing every stick and leafy bush while four-legging it along, tongues lolling and tails wagging. But some looked just plain lost, too. Detached and searching for something or someone. Some obviously outright scared: jerky backward glancing heads and nervously tucked-away tails.

So, what was stopping me from pulling over to the curb and picking up one of these friendlier beasts, taking it home, and calling it my own by giving it a name?

Reality for one:

(Ripped from the ‘The Daily Texan’ headlines)

‘HYDE PARK DOG NAPPER APPREHENDED! LOCAL RESIDENTS DEMAND ‘SEND HIM TO THE POUND’! Baffled Culprit Babbles, “But I Just Love Waffles!”‘

Or, more likely…

Heather: “You what? We can’t take in a … a DOG!”

Dennis: “But he looked so lost and fluffy and…”

Heather: “Well, what about the cats? You think they’re going to approve of your drooling new pal?”

Or, hello? Were these dogs even lost to begin with? Big presumption that!

But the more pressing and personal reason I wouldn’t just abduct any old stray is my problem with this one concept: past identities. Better still, unknown but evolved histories. And I don’t mean ‘does it have its rabies shots yet’ either.

(Wait! Look! Up ahead! It’s my point!)

When we become untied from what is our comfortable lot in life we can easily find ourselves wandering. Unleashed, undefined and sniffing for some sort of familiarity. Tail sometimes wagging, sometimes tucked between our legs. Moving to a new state (and a *very* unfamiliar culture to boot), I can attest, is a damningly near perfect example.

Whether it be physically, or philosophically, some of us can wander passively or actively. By either standard we might one day catch ourselves staring long and hard into what we thought was the same old trusty looking-glass but, in a sudden burst of clarity, declare, “Holy bejesus! Who was this “Me” that whole time?” (why I’m still not used to discovering this notion after having moved so many times is still a complete mystery to me I might add).

From the distance that ‘all-things-familiar’ had kept me *from* ‘Me’ I had successfully tricked myself into thinking ‘this is, in fact, the real Dennis’ (no small bit of irony there methinks - hmmm, objects in mirror closer than they appear, eh…?): Career minded, hard worker, solid & productive member of society, blah-bahdy-blah-blah blaaah. You know, those little boxes kind of things packaged together so neatly that aid in defining ‘who we are’. On the surface these can be informative road signs to be sure. But, deeper?

More to the point, we, also, have our given names and complex histories as foundation, but to everyone else we’re certainly only mere strangers. Tabula Rasa: Blank Slates. Strays waiting to be picked up and given a new name. A whole life unexplained to someone - better tell it right in the few short impressionistic strokes you’re allowed, or else! 

…How dare they?

The thought of delivering a personality portrait rich in the poetry of joy, tragedy, wisdom, love, hate, ritual, heroics, discovery, falling down, getting back up, being a good friend/husband/wife/father/ mother/lover, being a terrible friend/husband/wife/father/mother/ lover and so on and so on, to one more person can be just … daunting.

And at my age. Sheesh. This? Again?

“You, my fair weathered new Acquaintance, don’t *deserve* to know me!”  Let the Righteous be heard! Amen.Yes, indeed, ‘jumped the fence about an hour ago’ have I by relocating to another city.

Some of us can experience this wandering by simply getting a new job, or going off to a new school or even by a short stay in a foreign country. And for those of us who have undergone the nonsensical and unspeakably cruel fate of losing someone we loved so dearly we are forced back into finding ourselves all over again. This, without doubt, is the most bewildering Wandering of them all (You have my respect, my admiration and my shoulder whenever you may need it).

I am feeling my own stray-ness now. I am fortunate enough to be wandering by choice (actively) for at the moment I have slipped my neck from out under the collar of familiarity and I am looking about in gleeful wonder with a certain level of amazement… and, yes, with fear, as well. 

This in time, for better or for worse, will fade into a warm, fuzzy pastiche as things begin to glue themselves back into place. My comfort zone’s pillow will get fluffed and, unawares, the collar will find itself fitting snuggly once more around my neck. My head restfully will plunk itself down drugged by modern life’s ‘Soma’. But what great insight one gets to see from this vantage ~ let me just enjoy the view for one more moment.

Then remind me exactly just what right do I have to give a stray a new name and call it my own?“

Here, Waffles, are you lost? Or, just out for a walk…?”  

Yesterday evening after a day spent cleaning the house and swimming and doing yoga in the sunshine and cooking and eating Pilipino Eggs (eggs over rice with fried garlic and green chilies soaked in vinegar and salt) and napping on the couch, Dennis and I took our bikes out just before dusk and biked down to Central Market and ate gelato outside, lazily reading the Sunday paper while a jazz band played till it started to get dark and then we got back on our bikes and road home, serenaded by a chorus of cicadas.

I am truly, unexpectedly happy to be back in a warm southern clime. 

Tonight’s adventure took me back to Wholefoods. Central Market is fabulous, but Wholefoods is my happy place. Wholefoods is to me what Tiffany’s is to Holly Golightly. Always has been, even back in Boston. But the Bowie’s Barbecue counter at the Lamar Street Wholefoods is my very, very happy place, full of happy people and chatty counter assistants who give me free cobbler, free frosted mugs of root beer and free smiles and conversation. It’s my favorite place to eat when I’m in Austin alone. Which I am for another 3 days.

Dinner tonight: a brisket wrap with so, so hot fresh green chilies, pickles and onions; a frosted mug of organic rootbeer; lots of sampling and education on tea varieties (particularly the ancient pu-erh variety) across the way at the tea counter; and then, because even after all the tea and rootbeer my tongue was still sweating from the oh-my-god-so-hot chilies, a cup of fig orange/chocolate chipotle gelato (there are so many yummy flavors you have to sample at least two at a time).

Walking back with a full belly, I paused as I crossed over Shoal Creek on 5^th Street…the sound of the cicadas and the warm, soft air on my bare arms suddenly made my heart leap. I’m home. imhomeimhomeimhome, beat my heart. imhomeimhomeimhome, chirped the cicadas. All this time in my head I’ve been thinking I’m a northerner, but my heart knows I’m…I’m right where I’m supposed to be. Where the cicadas chirp in the summertime, where the air is warm and velvety soft, where people are kind, even if they do talk kind of funny…even if I’m starting to talk kind of funny again too…

It may just be about finding contrast. I went to Burlington, Vermont in search of a home away from Lafayette. And Burlington with its beautiful mountains and hardy hippies was a gracious, gentle home to me in my college years. I went to Boston to find a home when I retreated lost and heartbroken from New Zealand. But Boston was all hard knocks and tough love and never could find it in itself to be a home. I came to Austin to find a home away from cold, surly Boston. And I’m home again. Back where I started. Go figure.

I’m in my happy place.

1. I moved to Texas. ?! I’ve been telling people that we’re moving to Austin. Austin, which is the liberal oasis of the south. The dot of blue in a sea of red. Austin which is hip and funky and smart and cultured, and the number 3 film city. But since I’ve been down here I’ve started to notice a lot of references to Texas. Which I’m finding somewhat horrifying. Holy shit! Did I just move to Texas??!

2. There are more Taco Shacks than Starbucks. Which isn’t to say there aren’t a lot of Starbucks. But there’s a Taco Shack of some sort on nearly every corner. Plenty of cheap food in these parts. I’ve heard that Austin perhaps isn’t as strong on the food scene as some other cities – meaning the chichi variety, not the taco/margarita bar sort, which are great. And apparently there are no good Italian restaurants. But there’s a reason for that. Rather than going to restaurants, the foodies just go grocery shopping…

3. Home of the Whole Foods mothership…and then there’s Central Market. Good lord. It’s like nothing I’ve ever encountered. Ever. They say that when foreigners visit America for the first time the thing that really bowls them over is our supermarkets – the sheer variety and endless options they offer, aisle after colorful aisle. But the average American supermarket is like a CVS next to the Austin variety. I thought I was dazzled by the Whole Foods (barbeque bar! Gelato bar! Beer alley! Chocolate fountain! rows and rows of nothing but chile peppers!), but people kept saying that Central Market is where it’s at. So I ventured out tonight for a few provisions. All I can say is that I was lost for an hour and a half, dumbstruck, wandering around in circles. I emerged with a basket of very expensive, very unnecessary gastronomic delights: fresh unpasteurized lemon juice; warm cranberry, walnut and apple bread; Beurre D’Isgny butter (salted with coarse rock salt); coriander goat cheese; and rooibos, chocolate and coconut tea. We thought we were moving to Austin for a lower cost of living, but I suspect our grocery bills will prove to be ginormous!

It’s official: we’re moving to Austin. Details to come…