My very first act as a single woman came roughly thirty minutes after Sam moved out. It was the first Sunday in May, and after three weeks of prevaricating, Sam and I had agreed—or descended, or whatever we call these things—to part. He’d taken all of his clothes and left, and I took the dogs, whose custody I was awarded, for a walk out behind our old farmhouse. The walk is an old skitter trail that my neighbor Bob is now making into a beef farm; at this time he’d gotten about half the posts sunk for his fence, and the gravel pits were still gashes among the trees. It had been a rainy spring, and I was wandering along feeling a dramatic kind of self-pity when I heard a sound ahead of me: a rhythmic, splashing sound. I walk the dogs on a double hitch, which means that they have to practice teamwork, and this time, they’d teamworked themselves into a five-foot deep gravel pit pool, gotten caught on a branch, and were now doing their best to drown histrionically. May in Maine is not a time for blithely hopping into any body of water that doesn’t have a rubber ducky nearby, but as the dogs were the only beings that didn’t currently appear to loathe my existence, I waded in to my ribs, unhitched them, and then sloshed back home covered in mud, checking periodically to make sure that the brown rivulets between my toes were sediment and not leeches. I was cold, runny-nosed, none too keen on life.
But that’s not my point. My point involves my chickens, who were waiting for me to return, bustling about inside their little chicken tractor, which had wheels and which I dragged across the yard daily in order to give them a shot at some fresh grass. Rosalind, the head chicken, was a nasty bit of goods who’d peck anything that came within range and who also hogged all the raisins. She was a Barred Rock, but the rest, Lily and Pertelotte and their friends, were laid-back Rhode Island Reds, who squatted obligingly to be picked up, refrained from pecking their own eggs, and cheerfully shared raisins like a harem sharing a sultan. The chickens and I had never been what one might call close, but I enjoyed the music of their brooding sounds as I passed, and their excitement when I came by with a watermelon rind made me feel magnanimous and important. So the chickens had a good chuckle when I came splashing up the field, past the pond, and towards the house.
The next morning I had to go to work. My husband had moved out, I hadn’t told a soul, my life was a shambles, and I had to go teach 18 year olds with life-threatening cases of Senioritis about World War I poetry. Score. It was also my job to feed the chickens, something Sam had done in the mornings. Except when I went out, they weren’t waiting for me. At least, not as such.
There were feathers scattered all across the tractor’s reach, and there was the kind of silence best described by Byron when he was going on about Sennacherib, as in, the destruction of. My pink Birkenstocks got soaked by the long grass (apparently people who are on the brink of divorce don’t mow their lawns), and by the time I lifted the lid of the coop where the chickens slept, I knew what I’d find.
The sight was dismal, and I was arrived too late. It was easy to see what had happened. Rosalind laid in the doorway, clearly having tried to block the attacker from entering. The brave chicken had lost her head for her trouble, and it laid beside her in the wood shavings. The others were in a huddle at the other end of the coop, a tangle of feathers and stiff yellow legs. I lowered the lid of the coop, washed my hands, and went to school. How was your weekend? people asked. How was yours? I’d reply with a hideous attempt at a grin. I couldn’t force out a Fine. I could barely make my mouth move.
That afternoon I brought a shovel and two trash bags outside. I dug a hole in the corner of the field, making three starts before I found a place with few enough tree roots. I discovered that sandals are inappropriate footwear for shoveling. I discovered that my body weight, even when I jump, will not do much to stick a shovel into ground it doesn’t want to go into. I discovered that mosquitoes really love it when both of your hands are too busy to swat them. Then I had to collect the chickens. First Rosalind’s head, then Rosalind’s body. She was cold, stiff, and bony, and I couldn’t do it; I just… shuddered. I stood there staring at the corpses as if willing them to hop into the bags, but nothing happened, and I certainly didn’t get any braver. Finally, I said something totally meaningless. I said something my father used to say, and which always drove me crazy. It was his filler phrase, his fallback for his longwinded diatribes on the phone, when I’d be saying, “Yep. Uh-huh,” and looking longingly at the clock, or my dinner, or Sam, when we still looked at each other longingly. I took a deep breath and said, “It is what it is,” and popped them, one after another, into their Hefty shrouds. All my squeamishness vanished in that moment; I didn’t even hold them out from my body; they were just things I was picking up. Chicken parts. The bags were not chicken-proof, and halfway across the field, their claws started to break through and scratch my legs with each step. But I got them to the grave, tossed them in, and covered them with dirt. I laid a dead tree on top to protect them from the neighbor’s Chesapeake, and I said, “Goodbye chickens.”
It would be nice to make some dramatic claim: that in that moment, I let go of my fear— something nice and declarative. In a sense, I suppose this is true. Since that day, I’m able to face the fat spiders in my shed who teasingly threaten to drop on me when I’ve got an armload of firewood; snakes in the compost; the dark and whatever’s in it when I walk the dogs at night; angry rottweilers who chase my bike; Vicodin-doped students who could pick me up with one hand; venom-tongued colleagues; skunks— which, I’ve discovered, are what is in fact in the dark when I walk my dogs at night; and the inexplicable dead mice that populate strange parts of my house-- like the laundry basket-- without a flinch. But this has not come without cost. These fears have stepped aside to make way for something much bigger elbowing its way in. This is the reason I buried the chickens alone, the reason I was the only one there to plunge in to rescue the dogs.
The other day, I scooped up a chubby stranded spider from my classroom windowsill and set him on a potted plant in the hallway. “How can you do that?” shuddered half the class. I looked at their hunched shoulders, raised as if to ward off something as insignificant as the bugger’s tiny little legs. You just wait, I thought, but said nothing.
30 March 2008
27 March 2008
Christmas is Draining
What, one may ask, does someone like me, living alone with a fixed income, a term always sure to conjure up shuffling old ladies in bathrobes, whose lives are no more their own, put on her Christmas list? Since it would be an exercise in futility to ask for, say, a midnight blue Jeep Wrangler, or for a man who looks like Eddy Merckx before he stopped “riding lots” and succumbed to all those Belgian waffles, or for the man who had recently broken my heart to develop a condition in which he was perpetually trailed by packs of sexually excited male dogs, I had a very short list. Mainly, I wanted tea from Upton Tea Imports. But before I could utter the words “Sword of the Emperor,” or “Da Zhang Shan,” my mother sniffily told me that she wasn’t about to waste her time figuring out what kind of tea I’d like, and so my list was reduced to nothing, a non-list. I learn from my mistakes, however, and next year I will be able to ask, with total certainty, for sulfuric acid.
So my kitchen sink clogged again. A week before Christmas. When Sam was living here we used to argue about my tendency to let small bits of food get down the drain. So the real pisser about this latest problem was the fact that somewhere, Sam was gloating about how right he’d been.
The grocery store in our town sits across from the Small Mall parking lot, where, when I was in high school, the kids used to do their drug deals. This was until the local P.D. caught on, so now the Small Mall is the place, as far as I can tell, for legal activities like engine-revving, wheelchair racing, and seeing who can get the hottest girls to lean on their hoods, which is somewhat, I imagine, strategically similar to choosing sides for gym class. Bobo gets some girl with a name like Hepetitia, who’s pretty hot, but Bubba gets Absinthia, who brings her three friends. Soon the gathering of cars is like a beach full of sea lions, horny and loud, filling the early evening with their mating cries and recordings of “Free Bird” and “In Da Club.”
The day after Drano bottle #1, my lower-level seniors, my 12-2s, were doing research when one said, “I saw you go into Hannaford yesterday.” I nodded; my refusal to make a grocery list means that I hang out at the grocery store at least three times a week, so my appearance there is hardly news. “Getting the old coffee brandy?” said Cookie. I shook my head, but they all waited, a room full of eighteen year olds in Carhartts suddenly eager to hear about my purchases. Of course, since they were doing research essays, they would have been just as eager to discuss toenail clippings—anything to get out of writing papers.
“I was getting drain cleaner,” I told them. They relaxed; this was something they knew about.
“It’s probably hair,” Drew said.
“It’s in my kitchen sink.”
Drew eyed the length of my braid, which reached my belt. “Yeah. It’s still probably hair.”
The day after Drano bottle #3, Travis asked, “You get your drain clear yet?” The fact that I hadn’t caused them some amusement, and they offered their usual suggestion that we use English class to take a field trip to Ms. Mouse’s house and fix the problem. When I made the unlikelihood of this contingency clear, they suggested that I call a plumber.
Calling a plumber, however, fell into “the easier s. than d.” category, for a number of reasons. The first was the financial aspect. I hadn’t been to the dentist since before my wedding; I certainly didn’t have cash to throw around on something as whimsical as a sink full of putrefying water. There was also the condescension. I hate being told what to do. I especially hate being told what to do by men to whom I’m about to hand over a check. I know now that I shouldn’t have let half a tomato, some peas, an apricot, and some shredded zucchini go zipping down the drain. I’ve learned. I don’t need to be reminded of that by a guy who will track mud all over my floor. And finally, I hate making appointments. I hate calling and begging repairmen to come out to my house, but only after school because there’s no one else to let them in during the day. Sam used to do that stuff.
So I didn’t call a plumber. Instead, I used the same bowl for everything, and rinsed it in a minuscule stream of water that gradually made the seas rise to the brim of my sink. I also emptied about a bottle of Drano a day down into the murk, but to no avail. I asked the man at the hardware store for advice, and he offered me something he said would work, though it had what he called “a slight odor.” When I raised an eyebrow, he said, “Open your windows and it’ll go right away.” Neither of us brought up the fact that open windows in December in Maine are hardly homey and Christmas-y.
The Bottle of Death, as I came to think of it, came in a sealed plastic bag, with so many warnings that Tolstoy himself would have yawned and suggested some edits here and there. My first step was to empty the sink with a bucket, and I came comically close to dousing my Uncle Joel, who had quietly showed up at my door and was standing in my path as I wound up my pitching arm with a bucket of stagnance. Once I had recovered from my near miss with Stooge-like antics, we agreed to tackle the job together.
At the risk of turning this into a 1930’s murder mystery, I offer brief logistics of the scene. My kitchen has two doors, which sit directly opposite each other; one leads to the front lawn and one goes out back through the shed. The rest of the house is only accessible through a single door from the kitchen to the living-- and other-- rooms of the house. Joel slit open the bag, opened the bottle, and poured about half the contents into the sink. The immediate effect was impressive; smoke poured out of my sink as if fleeing a 1980s music video. We stood watching for a minute, taking in the effect. Then we both ran, spontaneously, for a door, him out the front, me out the back. To an outsider, it would have appeared that we’d both remembered urgent appointments elsewhere, like the White Rabbit.
I haven’t retched like that in a long time, and I’m sure it was good for my digestive system to get a bit of a workout. The “slight odor” the maniac at the hardware store described was the type that sneaks down your throat, bursts into your lungs, and proceeds to wreck the furniture. The dogs wouldn’t even go back inside. My kitchen had suddenly become the site of a war movie; instead of mustard gas, we were dodging sulfuric acid, attacked from all sides.
Joel and I shouted to each other from each door. “Should I get a fan?” I called.
“Okay, but take a deep breath before you come in.” I did, and ran for the living room. I ran out of breath before I could plug the fan in, and had to dash for the front door, gasping, bent double on my icy steps. Joel took over, swept in a breath of air, scouted for an outlet, and charged in, installing the fan with the no-nonsense determination one must have seen in the old commanders at Normandy. I passed the remainder of the evening standing on my front step as snow fell pleasantly about me, covering my red fleece pajamas with a festive touch. Hand me a holly sprig and I could have been one of a series of portraits of Christmas cheer: the baking of gingerbread, the hanging of mistletoe, the pouring of sulfuric acid.
The bottom line is, the stuff worked. It made my pipes too hot to touch, it made me lie awake with the window open all night long, and it turned my stainless steel sink a shade of pink reminiscent of The Cat in the Hat's tub, but all in all, my kitchen sink is now as free and clear as a mountain spring. My cats, should they feel the urge, could have pool parties in the thing.
All in all, it was the best part of my Christmas. The family gathering at which I was all too aware of being newly spouseless thanks to my family's tradition of Not Talking About It, the church service at which the minister stuttered through a sermon on the potential outcome of Mary aborting Jesus, and the perpetual and obstinate silence of my phone, were all enough to make me consider moving to some desert town in northern Mexico and waiting to be kidnapped, but my clogged drain got me through. It gave me an ally in my uncle, and it forced me to fight for my survival. I laid awake all night refusing to give in to the fumes. I’ve had many nights without sleep, and I’ve had many nights in which, temperatures notwithstanding, I thought I’d shiver out of my body, but this was the first time in a long time that I laid awake for no other reason than a putrid stank. It was neither merry nor bright, but it was my doing; I was in my house, with my dogs, my cats, and my stench, and I was still alive. I could tell by the shivering.
So my kitchen sink clogged again. A week before Christmas. When Sam was living here we used to argue about my tendency to let small bits of food get down the drain. So the real pisser about this latest problem was the fact that somewhere, Sam was gloating about how right he’d been.
The grocery store in our town sits across from the Small Mall parking lot, where, when I was in high school, the kids used to do their drug deals. This was until the local P.D. caught on, so now the Small Mall is the place, as far as I can tell, for legal activities like engine-revving, wheelchair racing, and seeing who can get the hottest girls to lean on their hoods, which is somewhat, I imagine, strategically similar to choosing sides for gym class. Bobo gets some girl with a name like Hepetitia, who’s pretty hot, but Bubba gets Absinthia, who brings her three friends. Soon the gathering of cars is like a beach full of sea lions, horny and loud, filling the early evening with their mating cries and recordings of “Free Bird” and “In Da Club.”
The day after Drano bottle #1, my lower-level seniors, my 12-2s, were doing research when one said, “I saw you go into Hannaford yesterday.” I nodded; my refusal to make a grocery list means that I hang out at the grocery store at least three times a week, so my appearance there is hardly news. “Getting the old coffee brandy?” said Cookie. I shook my head, but they all waited, a room full of eighteen year olds in Carhartts suddenly eager to hear about my purchases. Of course, since they were doing research essays, they would have been just as eager to discuss toenail clippings—anything to get out of writing papers.
“I was getting drain cleaner,” I told them. They relaxed; this was something they knew about.
“It’s probably hair,” Drew said.
“It’s in my kitchen sink.”
Drew eyed the length of my braid, which reached my belt. “Yeah. It’s still probably hair.”
The day after Drano bottle #3, Travis asked, “You get your drain clear yet?” The fact that I hadn’t caused them some amusement, and they offered their usual suggestion that we use English class to take a field trip to Ms. Mouse’s house and fix the problem. When I made the unlikelihood of this contingency clear, they suggested that I call a plumber.
Calling a plumber, however, fell into “the easier s. than d.” category, for a number of reasons. The first was the financial aspect. I hadn’t been to the dentist since before my wedding; I certainly didn’t have cash to throw around on something as whimsical as a sink full of putrefying water. There was also the condescension. I hate being told what to do. I especially hate being told what to do by men to whom I’m about to hand over a check. I know now that I shouldn’t have let half a tomato, some peas, an apricot, and some shredded zucchini go zipping down the drain. I’ve learned. I don’t need to be reminded of that by a guy who will track mud all over my floor. And finally, I hate making appointments. I hate calling and begging repairmen to come out to my house, but only after school because there’s no one else to let them in during the day. Sam used to do that stuff.
So I didn’t call a plumber. Instead, I used the same bowl for everything, and rinsed it in a minuscule stream of water that gradually made the seas rise to the brim of my sink. I also emptied about a bottle of Drano a day down into the murk, but to no avail. I asked the man at the hardware store for advice, and he offered me something he said would work, though it had what he called “a slight odor.” When I raised an eyebrow, he said, “Open your windows and it’ll go right away.” Neither of us brought up the fact that open windows in December in Maine are hardly homey and Christmas-y.
The Bottle of Death, as I came to think of it, came in a sealed plastic bag, with so many warnings that Tolstoy himself would have yawned and suggested some edits here and there. My first step was to empty the sink with a bucket, and I came comically close to dousing my Uncle Joel, who had quietly showed up at my door and was standing in my path as I wound up my pitching arm with a bucket of stagnance. Once I had recovered from my near miss with Stooge-like antics, we agreed to tackle the job together.
At the risk of turning this into a 1930’s murder mystery, I offer brief logistics of the scene. My kitchen has two doors, which sit directly opposite each other; one leads to the front lawn and one goes out back through the shed. The rest of the house is only accessible through a single door from the kitchen to the living-- and other-- rooms of the house. Joel slit open the bag, opened the bottle, and poured about half the contents into the sink. The immediate effect was impressive; smoke poured out of my sink as if fleeing a 1980s music video. We stood watching for a minute, taking in the effect. Then we both ran, spontaneously, for a door, him out the front, me out the back. To an outsider, it would have appeared that we’d both remembered urgent appointments elsewhere, like the White Rabbit.
I haven’t retched like that in a long time, and I’m sure it was good for my digestive system to get a bit of a workout. The “slight odor” the maniac at the hardware store described was the type that sneaks down your throat, bursts into your lungs, and proceeds to wreck the furniture. The dogs wouldn’t even go back inside. My kitchen had suddenly become the site of a war movie; instead of mustard gas, we were dodging sulfuric acid, attacked from all sides.
Joel and I shouted to each other from each door. “Should I get a fan?” I called.
“Okay, but take a deep breath before you come in.” I did, and ran for the living room. I ran out of breath before I could plug the fan in, and had to dash for the front door, gasping, bent double on my icy steps. Joel took over, swept in a breath of air, scouted for an outlet, and charged in, installing the fan with the no-nonsense determination one must have seen in the old commanders at Normandy. I passed the remainder of the evening standing on my front step as snow fell pleasantly about me, covering my red fleece pajamas with a festive touch. Hand me a holly sprig and I could have been one of a series of portraits of Christmas cheer: the baking of gingerbread, the hanging of mistletoe, the pouring of sulfuric acid.
The bottom line is, the stuff worked. It made my pipes too hot to touch, it made me lie awake with the window open all night long, and it turned my stainless steel sink a shade of pink reminiscent of The Cat in the Hat's tub, but all in all, my kitchen sink is now as free and clear as a mountain spring. My cats, should they feel the urge, could have pool parties in the thing.
All in all, it was the best part of my Christmas. The family gathering at which I was all too aware of being newly spouseless thanks to my family's tradition of Not Talking About It, the church service at which the minister stuttered through a sermon on the potential outcome of Mary aborting Jesus, and the perpetual and obstinate silence of my phone, were all enough to make me consider moving to some desert town in northern Mexico and waiting to be kidnapped, but my clogged drain got me through. It gave me an ally in my uncle, and it forced me to fight for my survival. I laid awake all night refusing to give in to the fumes. I’ve had many nights without sleep, and I’ve had many nights in which, temperatures notwithstanding, I thought I’d shiver out of my body, but this was the first time in a long time that I laid awake for no other reason than a putrid stank. It was neither merry nor bright, but it was my doing; I was in my house, with my dogs, my cats, and my stench, and I was still alive. I could tell by the shivering.
Well hello...
Well, it was bound to happen. Having done everything else on the road to trying to get published, I discovered (via a literary agent, no less) that there was one final frontier: blogging. Though I shrink from the idea, it seems possible that a potentially view-able place to write might give me a little more structure and responsibility when it comes to writing. I might, for example, write with regularity. I might write with the intention of finishing one project before moving on to the next.
In general, these are the pages for my observations on newly single life as a woman in the sticks. Though the only blogs I know that don't make me want to gag are written by people who've done something interesting, like live in a third-world country, or post photos which I would otherwise never see, refusing to subscribe to Facebook, I will attempt to make this a worthy read.
Here goes...
In general, these are the pages for my observations on newly single life as a woman in the sticks. Though the only blogs I know that don't make me want to gag are written by people who've done something interesting, like live in a third-world country, or post photos which I would otherwise never see, refusing to subscribe to Facebook, I will attempt to make this a worthy read.
Here goes...
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