Merry Christmas to all.

She laughed, her cheeks flushed, each time we reconvened at my clipboard. The names of her five children, along with their ages, were listed there on the form, empty boxes next to them to hold my carefully drawn checkmarks.

‘This is not what I expected at all,’ she told me, flustered, her eyes flashing to tables heaped with Barbie dolls and Magna Doodles, to the great milk crate library of children’s books along the back wall of the gym.

I asked her what she had expected. She waved her hand and looked at nothing in particular. ‘I thought there would be bags ready, you know, for each kid.’ She didn’t think she would be able to choose what to give her children for Christmas.

I could tell she felt uncomfortable, embarrassed to have me escorting her around Santa’s Toy Shop, the enormous Christmas giving project held in my town each year. I did my best to hang back, letting out the rope on my escort belt as much as I could without losing her in the bigger than usual crowd. I felt uncomfortable managing her, this woman whose immense love for her children spilled out through her smile.

I watched as she muscled her way through the bustling gym. She turned tractors, manicure sets, teething rings over and over in her hands before placing them tenderly into her box or returning them to the heap. I pictured soapy, minty bedtimes,her fingers working quickly, crossing hair over hair, double-looping rubber bands with shimmering green baubles, the piping hot dish of baked mac & cheese flaked with Lay’s.

‘She’s their mom,’ I thought. ‘Who am I to determine when she’s finished, when her quota for small, medium, and large gifts has been reached?’

I held the clipboard at my side. I spoke her children’s names with reverence.

I touched her shoulder gently when she laughed and told her to take her time.

I’ve been thinking about her a lot since my own mom and I volunteered last weekend. I’ve been thinking about how she scoured that gym for anything Twilight (to no avail) and how she had to put back a teddy bear because one of her daughters was over the age-limit for stuffed animals. I’ve been thinking about the Taylor Swift CD she said would be a ‘huge hit back at the house’ and the ballet recital she told me they had that afternoon.

What I can’t stop thinking about, more than anything, is how ordinary she was in her gray sweatsuit not unlike my black one, and how the chairs in the roped-off check-in area overflowed with people just like her, waiting for the next available escort.

I won’t see my dad this Christmas. This is no different than any of the past eight Christmases. I don’t know what it will take for this to change. I don’t. But I think of him, especially at this time of year. I picture him at his house with his wife, wearing the same ratty burgundy slippers he wore twenty years ago, even though I know they’ve been retired.

I remember the winter he wrapped the plaid flannel scarf extra snug around my face, saying, ‘Someone was generous enough to give you this scarf’, before doubling it back to knot it at my chin.

Tomorrow will be filled with family and with food. We’ll cheer or groan with each make or miss of balled up wrapping paper into the Hefty bag.  The fire will crack and we’ll bust wide open as my mom’s new kitten chases the feather on the stick around the room.

I will feel full and blessed and I will think,  as I do every year, about how that mom got to be there in that gym and about how my dad got to be so far away.

******************************

Wishing you a safe, warm, and wonderful holiday. I’ll see you on the other side of Christmas, with a great big announcement you won’t want to miss.

xoxo. ~Erika

 

Coming out: scary, but wonderful.

My Google Reader dished up a scrumptious treat today that I can hardly wait to share with you. Meet Lacey and Jessica. Lacey heads Lacey Stone Fitness (as seen on the Today Show and Dr. Oz) and Jessica is Jessica Clark, British supermodel and lesbian lifestyle webhost.

Lacey and Jessica are engaged.

TO EACH OTHER!

I don’t know what rock I’ve been under not to know about this gorgeous, articulate, OUT couple, but you can bet your toaster oven that I’ll be checking in with them regularly, especially after viewing the following video from their blog. It’s a great piece on coming out, a process they characterize as “scary, but wonderful”.

(Coming out, that is; the video itself is not scary at all.)

As a fan of all the coming out, I give you Lacey & Jessica. Enjoy!

Lesbian Love “Coming Out” Ep 107 from lacey stone on Vimeo.

Safety in inches.

I did my last bit of Christmas shopping today, which included a quick jaunt to our neighborhood house of libation to pick up a bottle of wine for my sister-in-law. The cars in the lot spilled out into the street as all walks of life scurried to collect their jugs of E & J Gallo and cases of Bud. One woman staked her place in line with two full carts of booze, circling her cargo like it was the last heap of fresh kill after the apocalypse. (I picked another lane.)

I hate going to the liquor store alone. Talk about being a fish out of water (pun intended, I think). Usually, when I have to go without Jenn, I head straight to the shelf with the Wollersheim wines, grab the blue bottle with the pretty label, and bury myself in my collar so as not to attract attention to my total ineptitude for buying anything else.

I missed the entire era of my young adult life when I should’ve been pounding rum runners and dancing topless in my friends’ basement rec rooms. While my peers could sniff out a keg in the blanched Alaskan wilderness, I could barely spell it.

I blame my naiveté on my parents. They went out of their way to scare any genes out of my cellular make-up that might have predisposed me to a taste for the drink.

When I was eight and they were volunteer EMTs, they drove me out to the crash scene after one of their early morning calls. “That’s where the kid’s head hit the trunk of the tree,” said my mom, in that preemptive ‘I told you so’ tone reserved for vigilant mothers. ‘See that blood splattered there in the grass?’, said my dad, gesturing to a solitary amputated headlight and a twisted swath of chrome.

Turns out, this lesson served a dual purpose, as I’m also a zealot when it comes to seat belts.

To cover their bases, they also took me to the psych ward when I was eleven. My 14-year old cousin, who mere hours earlier had complimented my shoes at our 4th of July picnic, was strapped to the silver railings of the gurney, cackling and clanging, reeking of cheap beer and tequila.

However sobering, my parents’ message to ‘never, ever drink because drinking is not cool’ became a bit warped somewhere in my psychosocial development. They succeeded in making me deathly afraid of the unfinished plastic cups of Miller Lite at family picnics, but failed to stamp out my belief that the kids sneaking sips from them were way more cool than I ever hoped to be.

Sure, my cousin wailed like a deranged wino strapped to that gurney, but she was older than me and knew a thing or two about shoes! Sure, those kids wrapped themselves around the tree in the dark, cold countryside, but they sure had a blast in their rec room beforehand!

Sure, the woman with the bloodshot eyes ahead of me in line today paid for her jigger of wild turkey in dimes, but look at her key chain! She has a Beemer!

(I hope she doesn’t turn around and laugh at my same bottle of wine that I’ve bought here nineteen times before.)

The first time I drank, I was 22. A friend and I were wrapping up a particularly intense day, so when we flopped into the booth at Applebee’s, I ordered a margarita rocks. Oh, how it seduced me with its lime tangy-ness and rim of sparkly salt. I gulped it down and ordered another one. My friend smiled her biggest closed-mouth, arms-crossed smile across the booth as I ordered the second shaker. That’s the last thing I remember.

She delighted in telling me the next morning that the two margaritas had actually been doubles and that, doing the math, I’d downed four margaritas during our hour-long meal.

My first night of inebriation was a complete accident.

I wish I could say that my second night of inebriation was blueprinted in advance, but alas, my naiveté followed me into my final year at college.

Another friend and I represented our group (unnamed here to stave off legal action protect the innocent) at the annual Chancellor’s Open House that October. All I have to say is, who allows waiters with trays of bubbly to roam willy nilly at a campus open house?

I remember my first glass going down easy, without the standard issue warning buzz. The next thing I remember was stepping in someone’s vomit at a Roots concert six hours later. Thankfully, the missing hours were documented by friends who commandeered my camera.

Even when I try to fit in, to be one of the cool kids, to walk up and down the aisles at my local liquor store with my head raised and my collar open, I lack the internal mechanism that helps so many others to pace themselves. It doesn’t help at all that I’m a bona fide lightweight. Even if I knew how to pace myself, I’d be under the table before I could hiccup ‘I think I should might be have switch to Diet Coke now please.’

Since Jenn entered my life, my risk of being arrested for shifty or disorderly conduct has decreased greatly. Not only does she lead me by the elbow through the liquor store, she’s trained me to consume my wine from the pretty blue bottle in inches. This has become such a normal addition to our vernacular that, upon arriving at holiday gatherings, relatives ask me how many inches of wine I would like in my glass. A friend even brainstormed the idea of opening a wine bar called Inches.

They all chuckle at my expense. ‘How lame funny! She drinks in inches!’ I’m sure that’s what they say when they think I’m not listening, but I’ll tell you what — if photographic evidence has taught me anything, it’s that my naiveté cannot be left unchecked. Tthere’s just no telling what might happen.

I’ll take my safety in inches, thank you, and I’ll let Jenn buy the booze.

Our love affair with Fruit.

‘...we can change the face of life/just by looking at another point of view/there’s so much to know/and so little to fear in love/we can make it through/we can make it through.” from Burn by Mel Watson

**********

Every couple has a band they consider to be their band. I know that if Jenn were reading over my shoulder right now, she would undoubtedly interject:  

          “What’s this ‘our’ business? They were mine first!”  

Mutual friends had warned me about Jenn’s fanatic love of Fruit, the sensational indie pop trio from down under. ‘She stalks them,’ they said, alarmed and in unison. Smitten as I was with my newfound lobster, I shrugged, soupy-eyed and doubtful of their admonitions. 

Then Jenn took me to my first Fruit show where, during intermission, one of the three women in the band looked up uneasily at Jenn and said, ‘Oh, hi. It’s you.’ I thrust my CD and Sharpie at her, violating personal and, I’m sure, international boundaries.

I figured Jenn was so far into her obsession – being recognized by a semi-celebrity from another hemisphere and all – that I might as well join her.

I thought I knew what it meant to appreciate music as art. Turns out I didn’t know a damn thing. Meet Susie Keynes, Mel Watson, and Sam Lohs, the smokin’ hot, incredibly talented women of Fruit.  

Fruit, Halsted Market Days, Chicago 2005

A true superfan, Jenn brought one of their CDs up to my apartment on our first date.   

‘You’ve got to hear this high note!’, she urged as we settled into the couch. 

What I heard was indeed one of the highest high notes ever, not to mention an incredible fusion of pop, rock, and jazz with such exquisite harmonies my toenails curled. 

The lyrics were poetry, attuned to exactly what I felt in that moment with this adorable, enthusiastic, flippy-haired girl panting in the direction of the  stereo next to me.

‘I never knew what this love was gonna do …you shine the light that takes away my darkest night…when I think of you, like the sun, you fill up my senses…mamma mamma mamma mamma mamma…you never told me it was gonna be this good.”  

Soon after Mel blasted the last note of Mamma Mamma, we drove in separate cars to meet the aforementioned mutual friends for cards & wings. I popped the CD into the player to continue my introductory lesson in all things Fruit. 

There it was, the clear, sexy, controlled alto of Susie Keynes, inviting me to put my tray table up and bring my seat forward because, as she said, we were about to take off. Having familiarized myself with Susie’s repertoire over the years and having met her in person a few times, I am more than happy to do anything she asks, anytime she asks it. 

It’s okay. Jenn knows. 

And besides, if Jenn’s jealous of my Susie crush, I’m almost positive that she’s jealous of me, not Susie. (See Exhibit A; note their matching tanks.) Just in case, it helps that my cheating heart was ears were redeemed when we included one of Susie’s lines from Wind Blows on our wedding save-the-date cards:  

‘I just want to love you with a love that opens doors.’   

It’s true, honey. I want to love YOU with a love that opens doors!

Fruit isn’t so much a band as it is a philosophy. Most of their songs incorporate the themes of love and compassion, presenting a musical manifesto for all of us to create peace, kindness, and a better world through each other. Fruit portrays humanity at its best and at its most vulnerable, unafraid of the extreme possibilities of connection and loneliness in our lives.

They treat these subjects with grace, negotiating the tension of their message through gorgeous tracks like this one, the phenomenal, hope-filled anthem, Burn. 

We cried the first time we heard it.  

  

Fruit provided the soundtrack for the first few years of our relationship. We danced to Alameda and belted Cherish. We rocked our air guitars at the explosive  5:17 mark on All This Time, thrashing our short flippy hair around, missing doorjamb concussions by inches. 

What makes Fruit truly special to us is that all three of them identify as lesbian. It’s almost not worth mentioning because it’s such a small part of their presentation. It’s just nice to listen to a love song, sung by a woman about a woman, without having to convert pronouns and genders in our heads. 

Thus, it was easy when we heard them perform Peace at that first show we attended together down in Rockford. The auditorium dated back over 100 years, with stunning blond woodwork and a concert space clearly erected before the advent of microphones. We arrived super early, as superfans do, and chose seats in the balcony for the best acoustics. Just as the lights dimmed, however, Jenn spotted two seats front and center and we dashed for the up close & personal experience. 

Toward the end of the night, Susie strummed the opening notes of the song that would become our song. It moved us so much that we held hands in public, one of the few times we’ve ever felt safe enough to do so. We looked at each other when it ended and agreed, telephathically, three months into our relationship, that Peace would be our wedding song. 

 And so it was, performed by three of our friends in formal wear under a large white tent on a perfect September afternoon. 

   

The last time we saw Fruit perform was in the wood-panelled backroom of a college bar. We invited my parents and some friends, excited to share our treasure with them. 

Two things sucked about that night: Sam had laryngitis and they announced their year-long hiatus, effective immediately. That was in 2006. 

They’re still on hiatus. 

For a long time after that night, it was too hard to listen to them, knowing that their days of creating music together were likely over. They lived in my iPod for quite awhile, collecting dust next to Whitney Houston and Vivaldi. 

But something, perhaps nostalgia, perhaps a Foo Fighters song, made me scroll to the F’s recently and there they were, Susie, Mel, and Sam, unchanged, rocking the stage, unfurling harmonies that still curl my toenails after all this time.

Listening to them again transports me back to my magical beginning with Jenn and I smile, soupy-eyed and in love, all over again.

*If viewing in a reader, click through to post for music.

  

Running on hope, holding up the world.

The holiday season serves as a lap marker for me, that pristine line on the track where time is measured and recorded, where, at the end of the race, the ribbon snaps against the heaving torso of the runner, his arms splayed in euphoric victory, holding up the world.

We expect the race to end because that’s what races do.

*****

Five years ago, my brother began to swell. Fluid filled him from the bottom up, an army of ounces colonizing territory after territory in

          his feet, his ankles, his calves,

          his thighs, his waste, his abdomen, his chest.

Before he entered the hospital the first time, he visited me at my apartment, a sort of willful last act of normalcy and wellness. I remember that we sat on the floor because that was the only place comfortable enough for the sixty pounds of fluid that had inflated his trim, athletic frame. I don’t remember what we talked about that morning, just that we spent the time together.

That was before we knew what was happening. Before I knew the starting gun had fired.

In the weeks that followed, so did the tests and the doctors and the questions until, ultimately, our family lexicon had no choice but to admit cirrhosis, terminal, and transplant into membership. He spent four days in the hospital that first time and all I could do was try to cheer him up. I wheeled around his room in his wheelchair, crashing clownishly into the vinyl visitor chairs and tray table at every pivot. When he slept, I watched him, my eyes squinted in the flannel light of the over-the-sink fluorescent, wondering why he had been drafted for this particular marathon, while I had been spared.

This is my brother’s story and I respect his privacy. I can talk about the facts, like how the specialist projected a transplant five years out from diagnosis. I can talk about the typical progression of cirrhosis, that before the liver fails, the kidneys fail and the risk of heart attack and cancer balloons. I can tell you what any medical textbook will tell you and I can tell you that we wait.

We wait for him to get sick enough to be eligible for a new liver.

We wait for the ribbon to be stretched across the track, while he completes his unchosen race.

Beyond those things, I can talk only about my own feelings of helplessness, guilt, and terror. I try to be rational and optimistic. I believe in the law of attraction and that positive thinking begets health and prosperity. But still, these dark, worried feelings sneak up on me, hooding me from behind and drawing the cord tight around my neck.

This is my little brother, the one whose bunk was below mine. The one who stood on tiptoes to peek over the top-bunk railing that same morning every year whispering ’Santa came!’, and ‘Hurry up!’ and–

          DAMMIT!! WHY HIM?!!

I’ve said I would take it from him in a heartbeat, that for all the years he’s protected me, now it’s my turn. I’ve asked, ‘why not me?’

The thing is, I already know.

I know why him and not me, if it had to be either of us. He’s taught me why these past five years.

*****

My little brother has endured more these past five years than I’ve endured in thirty-two. He’s endured footlong needles draining liters from his abdomen. He’s endured CT scans and endoscopies and failing diuretics. He’s endured pain that lays him out, the setting aside of plans, and uncertainty of existential proportions.

He’s endured elements that I would stand no chance of surviving and, still, he keeps running the laps, ticking the line with each pass, never stopping or crumpling to the grass, always hoping that the next line will be the ribbon.

Despite the loitering reaper with his red carpet and engraved invitations, my little brother confounds his doctors. Five years out from diagnosis and he’s not much closer to needing a transplant than he was five years ago. Somehow, its progression has slowed.

Of course the disease within him is real. Of course he struggles through it daily. Of course the slowing of the inevitable feels bittersweet at times.

But none of these things take from him the hope of savoring his first post-op beer, of returning to school, finding a whipsmart, loving wife, or hoisting his future children onto his shoulders at the zoo. My brother breathes hope and refuels on hope.

Whether he feels it’s a choice or not, my brother runs on hope.

*****

This time of year always stirs what’s magical to life. One of our traditions growing up was to set out our favorite stuffed animals so that Santa could make them come alive while he unpacked his sack of treasures under our tree. I remember how excited my brother and I felt knowing that, for one night, Bumble-lion and Basketball Jones would be alive.

It’s the same feeling that stirs in me now, when I’m able to undo the hood enough to see that what my brother embodies is not disease, but health.

The holiday season serves as a lap marker for me, that pristine line that marks not just one more year of my brother’s life, but one more year of his living.

Eventually, the race will end, as all races do. I will be there at the ribbon when the time comes, his relief runner, his cheerleader, his sister, whoever he needs me to be –

raising my arms as he raises his, together, holding up the world.

********************

This post was inspired by the BlogNosh Magazine blog carnival honoring the Tide Loads of Hope program. When I told Jenn I wanted to write a post about hope, our conversation went like this:

Erika:  So, you know the Tide Loads of Hope program?

Jenn:  Of course I do.

Erika:  What is it then?

Jenn:  It’s when you buy the Tide with the whatever color cap and they do somebody’s laundry.

Close enough. The Tide Loads of Hope program is a a mobile laundromat offering laundry services to families affected by disasters. Read more stories of hope and, better yet, share your own story of hope over at BlogNosh.

Oh, and buy a T-shirt while you’re at it! They’re not self-cleaning, but the proceeds go to help people in survival. And because it’s about more than loads of laundry. It’s about hope.

Hopey holidays!