The Package

A mysterious package from my mother is often one of the first signs she’s approaching or in the midst of a manic episode.

“I sent you a package!” she’ll exclaim. But much like her mind, the packages are disconnected, jumbled, and have no real connection to the receiver. I’ve described them as looking like someone emptied a junk drawer, threw a shipping label on it, and sent it on its way. Sometimes, for no logical reason, she’ll send them express, spending more money on shipping than what the contents of the package are worth.

I’ve received boxes of half-rotten fruit, broken mugs (because she doesn’t wrap breakable items), and what seemed like a lifetime supply of nail files. The packages usually indicate trouble. “So, your mother’s been sending me some packages…”

Oh no, I’ll think. So it begins

I used to beg her to stop, tell her they were a waste of money and time and that I didn’t need anything, but I’ve since learned that trying to reason with my mother is about as effective as banging my head against a wall. I’d probably, in fact, make more progress with the wall.  She lives in an alternate reality, one in which, she thinks, someone might want to receive some juice boxes or $7 in the mail.

There’s no arguing with someone who’s in an alternative reality, no reason or logic will be understood or prevent them from mailing you a banana. I’ve tried. I’ve tried also to convince her to take care of herself, to do what she needs to do to manage her illness, but she prefers the reality she’s created, and as hard as it is to watch her take residence there, I know I can’t live there with her.

It’s her birthday today, I called her, knowing that she’s not well, and that it would probably be hard to talk to her. I wished her a happy birthday. And although it’s her birthday, apparently she had a surprise for me.

“Oh, Doria, I sent you a package, but it got returned to me, maybe I have the wrong address?” she asked.

“Don’t worry about it, Mom, I really don’t need anything,” I said calmly.

“But I spent a lot of time picking things out for you,” she said.

I smiled to myself, and instead of getting upset, tried to imagine the humor in what could possibly be inside the box.  And of course, I grieved. I grieved the loss of my mother, the mother I needed but never really had, and the mother-daughter relationship I’d always hoped for.

“Okay, Mom,” I said, “Thank you.”

I’m not sure if I’ll ever get the package. My mother’s not well, and she’s disconnected and her gears are spinning rapidly, but not getting her anywhere. But if I don’t, the gifts of courage, strength, resilience and compassion she’s given me are much more valuable. They won’t ever go out of style, and I won’t have to throw any of them away.

Happy Birthday, Mama. And thank you for the gifts that keep on giving.

 

That’s Not a Great Idea…

My friend Katie is one of the smartest people I know. She was in the National Honor Society throughout high school, never got anything below an A in college, and could ace a test without studying and after drinking two bottles of wine the night before. She graduated at the top of her class from one of the top public health master degree programs in the country and has published research. Oh- side note- she regularly does things like gets lost in her own neighborhood, locks herself out her apartment, loses important items, and gets on a train headed in the wrong direction.

I guess you could call it absent-minded, or flighty. Her father used to jokingly refer to her as an idiot savant, and in high school her mother once asked her if someone else did her homework and she just put her name on the paper. We’ve been friends for over 20 years, and I understand their confusion. Katie’s also fiercely independent and adventurous, and in our younger years, this combination of traits made for some interesting stories. My role in our friendship has often been the rescuer or voice of reason, especially when we were younger and drinking was involved.

She’s kind, a helper, and tends to trust almost everyone. These are all great qualities, until they find you about to check into a sketchy hostel in a seedy neighborhood in San Francisco where a drunk man name John offers to help wake you up in the morning because you don’t have an alarm clock. We were in our earlier twenties on this particular road trip, right before we owned cell phones (imagine that!) and it’s one of the many times I suggested, “That’s not a great idea.” Get in the car now, we’re not staying here.”

I’d sometimes get calls from her on her different trips and adventures and when we lived in different places.

“I was in Austin last night at a bar and I met this guy, he was really friendly and started telling me a story and then we went for a walk outside near some train tracks…”

“Um, that’s not a great idea.”

“So, I was in France by myself and I met these friends…”

“I’m not sure what you’re going to say next, but I’m guessing it was probably also not a great idea.”

There are many great stories, the time we found ourselves in rural North Carolina at a mechanic, which was basically a guy’s house in the middle of nowhere. His name was Ralph and it wasn’t the first time I’ve asked her, “You do realize there’s a possibility we could get murdered here, right?” There was a night she gave several friends and I a drunk but very accurate history lesson of the Christmas tree that Nova Scotia gifts to Boston every year, while wandering around the streets of Boston drinking from a mug of vodka.

But perhaps one of my favorite Katie stories happened when we lived together outside Boston in our mid-twenties. Katie had gone out into the city to meet a friend, someone she’d previously dated off and on. She’d had a few drinks, they had an argument that made her upset, and she left and took a cab home. These were the days of “cash only,” and on the way home, Katie realized she didn’t have any. So, she proceeded to have the cab driver stop at an ATM machine, which happened to be out of cash. She then directed him to stop at another, which was also “out of cash.” By the third ATM, she realized perhaps the city of Boston was experiencing some type of cash crisis and told him to drive her home and she’d go up to the apartment to get her checkbook.

I heard her clomp up the three stories to our apartment, burst in, drunk, crying, and exclaiming, “I have to pay this cab driver, and I don’t have any money on me, and I don’t know where my checkbook is, and ALL THE ATMs ARE OUT OF CASH!” I quickly surveyed the situation, found my checkbook, went down and paid the cab driver, and then helped her take off her cowgirl boots. They were her favorite boots at the time and she could never manage to figure out how to get them off her feet after a few drinks.

The next morning, we rehashed the events and she asked, incredulously, “Can you believe all those ATMs had no cash!?”

I smiled, “Katie, did you just recently deposit a check or something?”

“Well, yes, but on Thursday and…”

“You know sometimes it takes a couple of business days to clear right?” I asked. “And those don’t include weekend days, so, do you think maybe you just don’t have any money in your account?”

Not surprisingly, she didn’t. She’d deposited a live check from work, and since it was back in the day, none of the money was available for withdrawal.

Katie and I once made a pact if we were still single by the age of 40, we’d just move in together and be platonic life partners. It seemed like a pretty decent plan, we both like independence, freedom and traveling, and other people’s children. We figured we’d maybe enjoy those things, but do it together in case we needed an emergency contact for something. We both found ourselves single again in our late thirties. She’s been dating someone for awhile now, I like him but I did let him know his presence has altered my alternative life plan. Thankfully he’s agreed to let me live in a tiny house on their property someday if necessary.

He probably thinks I’m kidding. But I hope he determines it’s a great idea.

Eat and Poop

Left to Right: ‘Iva, Amy, Toni, and Melino in Tonga

My cousin Amy lives in Tonga, a tiny kingdom in the South Pacific. After she graduated college, she was stationed there during a stint in the Peace Corps and met Toni, her now-husband and a native Tongan. They lived in San Francisco for awhile, but eventually decided to return to Tonga for an easier and different pace of life. It wasn’t a bad idea, really, as it’s an island paradise and everyone in the family now has a beautiful and exotic place to visit. http://www.thekingdomoftonga.com/

It’s a very different lifestyle, but Amy has adapted well, immersed herself in the culture, figured out how to build a house, and gave birth to two children in a third world country without batting an eye. I’m not sure how she’s done this, but she’s smart and resourceful and I’m proud to be related to her.

My aunt and uncle and her sisters visit every year at least once, and Amy is usually able to come spend a month in the US near the holidays, with her two children, ‘Iva and Melino. A few years ago, in preparing for Amy’s visit, my cousin Sara bought two goldfish as pets for her niece ‘Iva. Sara’s plan was to just have them for her niece to enjoy during their visit, then release them into the fish pond in her front yard. ‘Iva was two years old at the time, so naturally, she named the fish “Eat, and “Poop.” Eat and Poop were fun for her during the visit, but after they returned to Tonga, Sara became a little obsessed with taking take of them.

Sara’s an animal lover and natural care-taker so she started researching water temperature, filtration systems, and though her plan was to put them in the fish pond immediately after Amy’s visit, she got attached and Eat and Poop became members of her household for much longer than she intended. One day, she finally decided it had gone on too long, and she was ready to release them into the pond. She did, but because they were used to being confined in a small space, they stayed huddled together in a tiny corner of the large pond while adjusting to their new habitat.

This made them much more visible to predators. And shortly after their release into the pond, and in a strange twist of their names sealing their fate, Eat and Poop were quickly scooped up in the beak of a Blue Heron circling overhead who took a fresh shit next to the pond immediately after swallowing them and flying away.

Paintball Pain

The Vice President of Sales and Marketing for the company I used to work for described getting his sales team together at a central location and making plans as “herding cats.” He’d shake his head and say: It’s like herding cats. He was right. Dealing with them as a group was not unlike Romper Room.

Billy, did you remember to check into the hotel? Joe, do you need help using google maps? Where’s Dan, he keeps disappearing, can someone find him?

I worked in marketing, so it was my job to provide the sales team with “support,” which during a bi-annual sales meeting involved a lot of explaining how to download an email attachment, access the Wi-fi in the building, and printing out and explaining things that had already been emailed to them at least 5 times. I got along well with them for the most part and just accepted these meetings would be a frenzied shit show of events and activity for a few days.

One year, for extra fun, someone decided a paintball outing would be part of the scheduled activities during the sales meeting. Because what better idea than to give a bunch of super competitive dudes, some of whom most likely don’t like each other, a bunch of guns and let them go at it? I didn’t have to participate in the actual paintball shooting, but I thought, Ah, what the hell?  As we herded the cats and rode a bus to the range while drinking from coolers of beer, I wondered if that was a smart decision.

I got a little nervous during the safety demonstration, realizing that is was possible to really injure someone if you weren’t paying attention. Since the guys regularly weren’t always the best listeners, this seemed cause for concern. During the practice “freestyle” warm-up, most of the group formed an alliance and as far as I could tell, tried to kill the one guy everyone found annoying.

This is going to get ugly…

We then divvied up into teams to play a game, blue team vs. red. Much like the corporate world, it was survival of the fittest as each person tried to take out a member of the opposite team during short, timed sessions. At the end of one of the sessions near the end of the game, one of the sales guys, Rick, for some reason that’s still unclear, decided to shoot me point blank in the lower back/hip area. I believe it was an accident, he was hopped up on adrenaline, saw me and just reacted quickly, without really thinking. But he was standing about 3 feet away from me.

“JESUS, WHAT THE HELL?” I yelled, out of shock and pain. I’d never played paintball before and have a pretty high pain threshold, but getting hit by pellets to me felt like getting pelted with rocks. And getting shot point blank made my body momentarily go numb.

“Oh my God, I’m so sorry,” he apologized profusely. He was, but the damage was done, and resulted in a bruise on my hip and lower back roughly the size of a small cantaloupe. Shortly after this, I bowed out to regain feeling in my body and make a beeline to the food before everyone else got there.

I’ve never been hit by a truck before, but when I woke up the next morning, I decided I understood what it must feel like. It hurt to move, and in addition to the largest bruise I’d ever seen on my hip, my legs were covered in bruises the size of softballs. It was a Friday, and the last day of the sales meeting. I dragged myself to work and limped to my desk. The Vice President saw me and asked “How’s it going this morning, you doing alright?”

We had a good working relationship and similar sarcastic views, so I wordlessly lifted the back of my shirt just a bit to reveal the mega-bruise. “Jesus…” He put his hand over his face, lowered and shook his head, and walked away muttering something under his breath. This was his standard reaction to many things that happened there.

Looks like one of your cats escaped the herd and temporarily went batshit crazy, and now the lower half of my body is numb.

But the best possible reaction came from my co-worker Kelly. Kelly was laid back, cool, funny, and Southern as they come. I would never want to mess with her, as I’m sure she knew how to do things like load a gun at top speed and skin a raccoon with her bare hands. I was thankful she liked me. She asked me how everything had gone the night before; I told her the story and showed her the bruise. And in her best Southern drawl, she asked:

“Oh HELL no, girl, you know what I would’ve done?”

“What’s that?,” I asked.

“I would’ve shot him…IN THE NECK,” she said the last part slowly, and with emphasis. I laughed. Then she repeated:

“IN…THE…NECK,”  slowly and walked away.

And to this day, I wonder if she was talking about a paintball gun.

 

 

 

The Jumper

When you’re 27 years old, even if you happen to be a teacher, it’s my personal belief you should not have a denim jumper on rotation in your wardrobe. It’s actually my personal belief nobody should EVER have one, but I can’t save the world from poor fashion decisions; and honestly, they do look pretty comfortable.

When I was 25, I lived with my friends Katie and Kristen. They were both teachers and I couldn’t believe the amount of time and energy that went into their work. Teaching is an admirable and sometimes thankless profession and I give major props to anyone who does it.

I also couldn’t believe that Kristen owned and wore a denim jumper. The first few times I saw it I thought maybe it was for a special event in her classroom, “crazy sock day,” or “wacky hair day,” because surely that was why she saw fit to wear it. But it wasn’t, it was comfortable, and practical, and “teachery.”

I’ve always had a decent fashion sense, and was working for a department store at the time and I felt it was my responsibility to tell Kristen that she should probably light it on fire. But perhaps in a more polite way. I don’t remember exactly how it happened, but eventually I strongly “suggested” the jumper be retired.

Listen, you’re 27, do you ever want to go on a date again? You’re introducing this jumper into your wardrobe at least three decades too early. Please stop.

And so, because people tend to accept my fashion advice, the jumper went away. It’s become a running joke in our friendship, “Remember the denim jumper?” Kristen and I lived together again a few years later, and I became something of her personal fashion policewoman.

Can we talk about the sweatshirt with the penguin? Oh, right, it’s a classroom full of fifth graders, maybe it’s okay, but please take it off after you come home.

I don’t think you can wear capri pants with socks. Also-those socks are cute, but they have math equations and apples all over them, so, you know, maybe wear pants that cover them.

While volunteering recently at a thrift store that benefits a Children’s hospital, I was unpacking donations and came across the ugliest Christmas jumper I’ve ever seen. It is definitely homemade, most likely previously worn by a teacher, and the perfect size for me. Because it couldn’t be sold in the store (because it’s hideous), and I couldn’t stop laughing when I saw it, for $1.50 I am now the proud owner of my own ugly Christmas jumper. And as soon as I saw it, I thought of Kristen and laughed out loud, “The Jumper!” I texted her to let her know of my good fortune, and her response below was exactly what I expected.

Kristen is an excellent and talented teacher. Her students love her and stay in touch with her years after they finish her class. She has a passion for teaching and education and I’ve seen firsthand the difference she’s made in many kids lives.

And I suppose the only real thing I have to offer is to make sure she’s doing it while wearing matching shoes.