Tag: Fact

Let me tell you a story

~ Christi ~ 14 Comments

My mom always prefaced the story with,”You were such a sweet little Catholic schoolgirl,” as if that meant that I should always and forever be above such things. That fact was the crux of the story, for her. I had, in my defense, only just started kindergarten at Sacred Heart Elementary. And I had absolutely no idea what I was doing.

The way she told it, it was dinnertime on a weeknight. I guess that made it a school night. She was in the kitchen preparing dinner. I was outside playing with a neighbor boy. Commuters made their way home from work, passing by our house and slowing down for those three — yes, three — speed bumps in the road by our apartment building.

She turned away from the stove for a minute, or maybe she looked up from setting the table, and she saw us. We were lying on the grass, atop a hill behind our house, immediately next to the street. Cars were passing inches from us. I was underneath him, he was on top of me. We both had our pants down. Undies too.

My mom dropped her spoon — or her napkins — and came running outside. This, I remember. “Chris!” she yelled. It had that particular ring to it, that tone that can only be articulated by one’s mother, that pitch that can only be reached in anger. In seconds, the neighbor boy was up and off of me, our pants were pulled up, and our deed was forever set in stone.

My mom had a dark sense of humor, and she found this event to be really funny. She liked to tell the story, and she did tell it, over and over again until its telling became more real than the real thing. I don’t remember that day on the hill, only my mom’s rendition of it. But I’ll tell you this: I do remember that kid next door. His name was Matthew, and he was a lot of fun.

Present tense: Kindergarten, day two

~ Christi

Gabe came downstairs dressed and ready for kindergarten this morning, his second day of school. That’s my paycheck and my yearly bonus these days. Especially since I had been prepared for the worst — he just as easily could have woken up grumpy and crying, right?

“Good morning, sweetheart,” I told him. I hugged him and tousled his hair. “What do you want for breakfast?”

“Cereal,” he said, happily.

As I poured Shredded Wheat into a bowl and got him a glass of milk, I asked, “Are you excited about school today?”

“Yeah!” he said, obviously really happy about school.

I’m so excited for him. I can literally feel how ready he is to be at school, learning. When I look at him, I can clearly remember being in kindergarten myself. I was thrilled with my teacher, with being taught.

Kindergarten had a different effect on my daughter, Anna. She loves to learn, but she reacted badly to the demanding full day of school. Each afternoon she turned into a little monster, calling me names, hitting, and generally falling apart at the seams. Most days she ate dinner in her pajamas and went to bed early.

Gabe is calmer about school. He is more settled than his sister and generally just a happier guy. I wish that I understood exactly why. After school yesterday, he gave me a full play-by-play announcement of the day. I loved it. He spent ten minutes trying to figure out the pronunciation of his music teacher’s last name.

This morning, on the way to school, he and Anna had an argument. “Anna called me an idiot,” he called, a few steps ahead.

“Idiot?” I asked. “Anna, did you learn that word at school?” Great. “You guys, idiot is a terrible thing to call each other. Let’s not start the day that way, okay?” I asked. They laughed.

At school, a friend with a son in Gabe’s class stopped to say hi. “Gabe’s translator is here!” she said cheerfully. “Gabe whispers everything, so Evan calls out what he says,” she explained.

“That’s funny. I told Gabe to do the same thing for Evan,” I said, laughing. “Whenever Mrs. C. says something in Spanish.”

“Great idea!” she said.

When I hugged Gabe goodbye before the bell rang, I told him to use his loudest voice today at school, to pretend he’s yelling at Anna when he talks in class. He said he didn’t want to.

 

Edit me, a revision

~ Christi ~ 2 Comments

I haven’t always known how to edit. I have a master’s degree in English lit, but my education did not prepare me for my career as an editor. No, I learned to edit afterwards, on the job. My process is one of many, I’m sure, but I want to tell you about it. It sheds some light on what I’m seeking from this blog, I think.

Before I begin to edit something, I try to learn from the writer what they expect in the final product. I gather the appropriate style guide, dictionary, and any other reference materials. I find a quiet place to work uninterrupted. I take a moment to clear my mind and focus on my work. For me, editing is almost meditative. I need to completely focus on the writing, turning each word, each phrase, over in my mind to ascertain its meaning and clarity. I try to make my queries objective, to be minimally invasive in the writing.

When I edit, I pay complete attention to the writing in front of me. The words become the most important thing in the world to me, if only for the brief time that I am editing them. I seek to understand the words, in the smallest sense – of spelling, punctuation – to the largest – of theme and message. As an editor, I care more about being present for the writing than about changing it in any essential way.

So, edit me: Read my words. Give them your undivided attention. Offer me your constructive criticism or your compliments. Am I who I think I am? Or, as I suspect, is there more to me than that?

I Don't Like Mondays Blog Hop

Welcome to my blog. Now go do whatever you want.

~ Christi ~ 5 Comments

Hi,

I’m glad that you’re here. I’m new to blogging, and I love seeing more and more readers here, reading the words I’ve written. I like sharing my stories and thoughts. Every new comment gives me a rush. For the first time in my life, I feel like I’m doing exactly what I want to do when I want to do it.

You ought to try it too. In fact, why don’t you try it right now. Stop reading my blog. Close your laptop. Put your phone away. And go do something that you really want to do.

Close your eyes for a moment and think it over. What do you really want to be doing right now? Maybe its something that you think you can’t do, shouldn’t do. Maybe what you think you want to do is really something that you’re doing to please someone else. Maybe you think what you want to do is a waste of time or money, or maybe you think you can’t because you might fail. Maybe what you want to do might hurt someone else.

You may have valid reasons for not doing what you want to do right now.

Now, stop thinking about those reasons. Try to limit your thinking as much as you possibly can. Just go do what you want. Try it. It feels amazing, I promise.

Then come back and tell me about it, please.

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2013/08/22/daily-prompt-first/

Why Marissa Mayer rocks

~ Christi

Have you heard about Marissa Mayer’s two-page spread in the September issue of Vogue magazine?

Photo (c) Mikael Janssen from Vogue
Photo (c) Mikael Janssen from Vogue

She looks gorgeous, doesn’t she? And you know who Marissa Mayer is, right? She’s the new CEO of Yahoo!. She also worked her way up the food chain at Google, a self-declared girl geek who says that she just likes to code. Maybe that’s true, but she’s definitely done a lot more than coding in the past few years. She obsessively helped design Google’s front page. She got hired at Yahoo!. She became a mom. Within the year, she posed for the photo above.

I like Marissa Mayer. She challenges herself. She’s tough. She demands a lot. Did you hear that she recently reversed Yahoo’s work-from-home policy? Maybe that’s a little harsh, but she’s right there working too. She says that she likes to be in over her head, that when she pushes through that feeling, “something really great happens.”

I hope that Marissa Mayer is enjoying all the debate over her photo spread. She strikes me as someone who would. She’s earned her place at Yahoo!, fair and square, no one is questioning that. And her commitment to her young family is clear. What I find most impressive about Marissa Mayer is her commitment to herself. It’s hard to juggle so much, and it’s often hard to enjoy what we’ve accomplished in the moment. Vogue managed to capture an image of a woman who is unapologetic about celebrating herself. Ladies, we all should follow her lead.

 

Want to hear about a party?

~ Christi ~ 13 Comments

The first time remember my sister cheating was the summer that I turned nine. My niece, nephew, and brother-in-law were strangely absent, off visiting faraway family.

She had a tryst with the neighborhood handyman. His name was Victor. He had three little girls, one older than me, the other two younger, and he brought them with him for the three days he was with my sister. I joined them, playing all day, sleeping in a heap on the living room floor at night.

For months, maybe even years, before the actual deed, she used to flirt with him from her lounge chair on her patio. She’d be in her swimsuit with the straps pulled down, sunning herself while he mowed the lawn around her. Even then, at my young age, I knew what was happening. I sensed the ephemeral lines being crossed, the invisible limits breaking. They laughed a lot. It felt like fun.

What made her decide to go through with it? I suspect it was his sudden availability, the finalization of his divorce. Did she worry for the fate of her own marriage? I suspect so, but she flagrantly defied it. She traded the rush of those three days for her own well-being – she stayed at home with the kids, my brother-in-law earned the paycheck. She traded the illusion of happiness for the excitement of temporary anarchy.

During those days, we kids were in charge of ourselves. I barely remember seeing my sister at all. We girls ran wild outside. We played at the park, rode our bikes. We ran outside in the rain. We braided each other’s hair. Did we eat? I suppose so. I vaguely remember Froot Loops and pizza, maybe barbecued chicken at some point. We definitely drank Kool-Aid. I did not go hungry.

Music blared from the radio at all times, in my memory. This was mid-80s, and my sister was a fan of James Taylor, Carly Simon. Ironic, right? Nevertheless, the party atmosphere pervaded. I had a lot of fun during those three days.

My mom was in and out of the picture. I recall the grownups drinking beer and playing cards while we watched movies in the next room. Strangely, even though we lived just a few doors away, I don’t remember ever being at home during that time. Perhaps my mom felt that she had to watch over my sister as she ventured down this strange path. Maybe she wanted to keep all memory of it out of her home. I think she liked seeing me in the company of so many little girls, almost but not quite like cousins. She wanted me to have that, never mind the illusion or the downside.

I loved playing with those girls. I can still remember the feeling of being included in their group. It felt like butterflies and rainbows, but sad. I knew that what was going on was wrong. I missed my nephew, my longstanding buddy. I wanted to twist the scene like a Rubik’s cube and make it all better. I wanted to make it suddenly right. I wanted to erase my complicity. I wanted fun to be just fun. I wanted to put my family back together and somehow still have the three little girls and nice Uncle Victor. I wanted the impossible.

Have you read this?

~ Christi ~ 1 Comment

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Tree of Codes by Jonathan Safran Foer

It was a birthday gift from a friend who reads this blog. Thanks, S. I liked the book very much. I also like that you get my project here. You understand me.

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The book is a work of art, its narrative cut, literally, from the pages of another story, The Street of Crocodiles by Bruno Schulz.

Tree of Codes works, loosely. It is an exercise in taking away, a practice of editing. The result is a translucent tale, bordering on illegibility, that includes as it excludes.

Here are a few good lines:

– “children greeted each other with masks on their faces”
– “we passed the chemist’s large jar of pain.
-“a face from which life was walking, a pale network of lines on an old map of distant lands wandering over memories which would suddenly blow away.”
-“he became almost insane with mother.”

The story is somewhat strange and dreamlike. Reading is difficult but quick. It leaves me wondering about the rest of the story, the scraps of edits tossed on the ground in the process, not to mention the whole wide world excluded from the original text of The Street of Crocodiles.

So, have you read it? What did you think of it? If not, you should check it out.

Undertow and ice cream

~ Christi

Note: This is a story about my Aunt Rose Ann, my mom’s younger sister. My mom told me this story many times as I was growing up, and I am still very careful at the beach to this day.

“Don’t go out too deep,” Mother said, putting the thick white sunscreen on my face. “Make sure you can see me, do you understand?” she asked, serious. Her mouth drooped at the edges. “I can’t swim out to come get you, Rose Ann. Stay with your sister and brother.”

“Yes, Mother,” I shouted, running away across the sand. I jumped into the waves to cool off my feet. “Carole! Let’s play!” I called to my sister, who was walking along the edge where the water met the sand.

“Let’s pretend that Norman is a monster coming to get us,” I said, kicking the waves. Norman was ahead of us in the deep water, riding the waves in.

“Okay,” she mumbled, still walking.

The next time Norman rode a wave in, I ran up, jumping the wave. “Aaaahhhh!” I screamed into his face as he got close. I splashed him in the face with water and then ran away. Carole watched from where she was, laughing.

“Hey, watch it, Raggedy Ann!” Norman said, wiping the water out of his eyes. He turned and swam back out past the crashing waves. He didn’t ride the next few.

I walked along the beach away from Carole, jumping the waves as they came. After a while, I turned around. I could still see her. She had bent down to build a sandcastle. Maybe I’ll go help her in a minute, I thought. I liked jumping over the waves, though. As I got farther away from my sister and brother, I passed two girls the same size as me, splashing each other. I joined them, laughing as they splashed me back.

“Let’s play mermaid,” one of them said.

“Yeah!” I said. “Let’s pretend we are beach wrecked and we can’t move until a prince comes and kisses us to give us our human legs,” I said. I like to make up stories to go with games. We all found a spot on the sand and started burying our legs. The sand felt cool and heavy on my legs.

“Come on, girls!” a man called to my new friends. “Time for lunch!”

“Alright, Daddy,” they answered at the same time.

I glanced down the beach. I could see Carole in her red swimsuit, building her sandcastle. I stayed for a few more minutes buried under my mermaid tail, then I jumped up and ran back to the water. I stood in the waves, letting them crash on me. I liked the stinging feeling. After a while, I turned the other way and let the waves crash on my back. Then I looked to find Carole, but she wasn’t there anymore. I started walking to find her. I passed more kids, more parents in chairs on the sand. I didn’t remember passing any of them before, but I wasn’t worried.

As I walked, I made up a song. I liked to do that whenever I was by myself. “Waves, waves, try to get me, waves,” I sang. “You can’t reach me, waves, you’re too slow.” As I sang, I ran away from the waves onto the sand.

I sang and ran farther and farther. I did not see Carole or Norman, or mommy. I started to feel thirsty, so I kept walking. The other kids playing in the water started to sound really loud, so I put my hands over my ears.

Where were they? I wanted some of the juice that Mother packed. I wanted my butter and jelly sandwich, too. Did Mother leave without me? I started to get angry. I ran faster, my hands still on my ears. I could feel my heart pounding hard in my chest. All of a sudden, I got tired of running, so I sat down. I kept my ears covered. I looked but didn’t see Carole on the sand. I didn’t see Norman anywhere in the water. Mother was not sitting on her chair by our colorful blanket. They all left me. I started to cry.

I cried for a while, getting louder.

After a while, a lady with a baby came over by me. She sat down and put her arm around me.

“Are you okay?” she asked. Her eyes looked scared, but she was smiling. She looked nice, nicer than Mother. Her baby was cute. He pulled my hair. “Sorry about that,” she said, taking his hand off my hair.

“Air!” the baby said, reaching for my hair again.

“It’s okay,” I said, wiping my eyes and handing him some of my hair. “I like babies.”

“Okay, then,” the lady said. “Sweetie, where is your mother?” she asked.

“I don’t know. I think she left without me,” I told her, even though I didn’t really think that. Maybe if she believed me, she’d take me home with her. I’d like a baby brother.

The baby brushed my hair on his face, laughing. I liked him, and I tickled his foot.

“She left without you?” the lady said, surprised. “I don’t think so. She must be around here looking for you.”

“No, she never looks for me,” I told her. “She’s always mad at me and she’d probably be glad if I was lost forever.”

“No, young lady, that’s no way to talk about your mother,” the lady told me. Now her mouth turned down at the edges like Mother’s did. “Let’s go look for help,” she said, standing up and lifting the baby into her arms. “Come along.”

I walked with her but a little apart, up the beach to the lifeguard chair. The lady spoke to the lifeguard for a minute, and he stood up and waved some red flags in the air.

“He’s calling the police officer for help,” the lady told me.

A few minutes later an officer walked down from the boardwalk. He looked hot.

“Hi, there, little miss,” he said to me. He was friendly. If I had a dad, I’d want him to be like that.

“Hi,” I answered. I should have said sir, but I didn’t.

“Where is your mother?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. Why did everyone keep asking me the same questions? “She left without me,” I said.

“Don’t be sassy, now,” the lady said. Her little boy was struggling to get down.

“Do you know your name, young lady?” the police officer asked me. Of course I dp. I’m four and a half.

“It’s Rose Ann,” I said loudly. “My mom is named Dora but she likes to be called Dorothy. My sister is Carole Lee and my brother is Norman. My dad was Sam but he died in the war when I was a baby. I never met him.”

“Well, that is too bad, little miss,” the police officer said. He looked sad. The lady made a clucking sound with her tongue and reached over to rub my back. “Listen, Rose Ann,” I’m going to take you back to the police station to wait until we can track down your momma.”

“Okay,” I said. I like adventures a lot and this sounded like a good one. I was excited.

“Wait just a second, alright?” the lady said, and carried her baby over to the ice cream cart nearby. She bought two ice cream cones and handed one to her boy and brought the other one to me.

“Oh, wow!” I said. “Thanks!” Mother hardly ever let me have ice cream. I unwrapped it and started eating.

“I’m so sorry to hear about your dad,” the lady said. She looked very sad.

“It’s okay,” I told her. “I’m used to it.”

The police officer took my hand and started to lead me away. “Thanks, now, Ma’am,” he said to the lady. As we walked away I glanced over my shoulder at her and her baby. I wished I was leaving with them, that they were my family. The lady was super nice, way better than Mother. I bet she would never leave me at the beach.

When we got to the police station, Mother was there with Carole and Norman. She was crying and so was Carole. Norman looked bored. Carole hugged me tight, saying “I’m so glad that you didn’t drown.”

Mother looked at me with her usual gloomy eyes, and said “Why didn’t you stay where I asked you to?” She sounded so angry.

“Ma’am, the undertow is very strong today,” the officer told her. He put a hand on my shoulder. “It could have happened to anyone,” he said. “But you are a very lucky young lady,” he said to me. “Please be careful and stay with your family from now on, alright?” he patted my shoulder. I wished I could stay with him here at the police station. Maybe I could be a police officer in training.

 

 

I hate mirrors

~ Christi ~ 6 Comments

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I don’t have a lot of mirrors in my house. There are the usual ones above the sink in the bathrooms, and one full-length in my bedroom. Don’t get me wrong, I like to look nice. I spend the requisite half-hour in front of my mirror each morning, putting on makeup and blow-drying my hair. I check to make sure that my outfit looks good before I leave my room. You know, the usual stuff.

But seeing my reflection throughout the day has never been high on my list of priorities. Once I check in the morning, I’m pretty much set for the rest of the day. Unless it’s date night or girl’s-night out, I just don’t look in the mirror on purpose. It’s no big deal, but every once in a while if I catch a glimpse of myself that isn’t quite right, I feel bad for the rest of the day. So I try not to let that happen.

But if this blog were a mirror of me? Well, I think it’s obvious that it would be cracked, shattered into hundreds of tiny slivers, held together as if by magic. Each shard would reflect a different angle, a separate moment, a fragment of me. You’d glimpse my dark hair here, my green eyes there, my smile, my tears, my memories each locked in its own little piece. All together the pieces would barely make sense; you might not grasp just how usual I am in reality. You might think that you know something about me, and then you’d blink or change position, and that image would vanish, replaced by another, equally powerful one.

And me? I’d be behind the scenes, rearranging the shards like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle just to short out your assumptions. Don’t ever believe what you read online.

 

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2013/08/14/daily-prompt-reflections/

 

I can spell crazy

~ Christi ~ 18 Comments

“I can spell crazy,” I said to no one in particular. I was in the car with my mom, my brother-in-law, my nephew, and my niece. We were returning from a visit with my sister at Sheppard Pratt, a relatively spa-like mental institution.

“How?” my nephew asked.

“C-A-R-Z-Y,” I answered, proudly.

“Carzy?” My brother-in-law laughed from the driver’s seat. His booming laughter was contagious, and so an inside joke was born. For years, we all used the word carzy to describe whatever was beyond crazy, things that were hilariously weird.

I remember that drive home well; we made the trip more times than I like to admit. The steadily repeating patterns of light and dark from oncoming highway traffic mimicked the waves of sadness at leaving my sister behind — again. My baby niece slept in her car seat between my nephew and me. I used to sing to her, making up the words as I went along. I imagine that the grownups would have been annoyed at my little girl voice intruding on their thoughts, but I don’t remember anyone ever telling me to be quiet.

I remember those trips to the hospital so clearly: eating cafeteria meals in the fancy dining room among other patients and their families, lounging on wingback chairs in the parlor accompanied by piano music from the corner, running on the immense lawn outside, chasing my nephew. And always my sister, who seemed so happy in spite of her increasing girth and the increasing frequency of her stays. I remember it feeling almost, but never completely, normal.

I remember the cold steel fear of my sister’s craziness rubbing off on me. I remember being afraid of losing her at the same time that I was afraid to know her. I remember wanting desperately to protect my nephew, just a few years younger, from the pain of letting go of his mom after each visit. I remember the sadness that pervaded all of us like a damp winter chill.

So the laughter in the car that night is clear and bright in my memory. It was joyful. Carzy. It was the good beating out the bad. It was sanity speaking up for itself. It was an eight-year-old girl telling anyone willing to listen that she would never, ever be crazy. It was my secret code.