July 2017 – Yellow Brick Missives

July 25, 2017

Subtle Luxuries

The movie soundtrack blasted into the deepening night through the open windows. Dim lamplight cascaded across the Art Deco sideboard, tripping across slivers of missing veneer—chipped teeth in an otherwise full smile.

Earlier, I drew the curtains to filter the sunlight, closing out the world. I dozed off into the blanket of heat somersaulting through the cottage, JoJo nudged against me, gently rapping my hand with her scarred leg for more dutiful attention. My mind, exhausted, melded scenes together from the day, stitching an epilogue onto the afternoon.

Nearly thirty minutes later, I tumbled off of the sofa dazed, determined to attend to my growling stomach. Bowl in hand, I shuffled outside, stopping at the drip drip drip of the leaky spigot—the bucket beneath brimming from the day-long drops. I carted it along with the bowl, swung back the warped garden door, and emptied the water beneath the bush beans and snow peas, the flowering squash and struggling tomatoes.

Romaine leaves pulled off easily, and I tossed them into the bowl along with a few long beans, peas, and hearty, slightly browned mixed greens. I filled the bowl with water, letting everything soak inside while I ventured back out into the heat.

I left my bag and grabbed my keys, wallet, and phone, and started up my car—the entire metallic body caked with cherry pits and dried juice, leaves and twigs forming a mosaic across the hood. None of it rolled off as I drove the short way uphill for cupcakes.

A street fair filled the entire downtown junction, and I weaved through families gorging on sweets and sizzling kabobs, and perused the dollar books; a sign on the store’s door read, “Honor system. Deposit money in mail slot.”

With my two cupcakes boxed, I headed home, listening to the car shudder and groan down the steep hills, crunching gravel between hot rubber and cracked asphalt as I turned onto my street. I descended back down into my overgrown haven, and JoJo greeted me like it’d been ages, not twenty minutes.

I fixed my salad. I watched my movie. I ate my cupcakes. I gazed at the sunset. I stood at my kitchen sink in the dark, the dishes done in a matter of minutes.

The yard was dark. JoJo was tucked into bed.

I switched off the fans and collected her toys, depositing them back into their bins.

I walked into my room and shut the windows. A spray of browning flowers from a recent wedding sat in a deep green Floraline vase atop my dark-stained bureau—palm fronds throwing shadows up the uneven wall like pointy fingers. The air was heavy with the fragrant sogginess of floral decay.

I sat on my bed and considered the evening, filled with such quiet, full moments: my beloved, subtle luxuries—fuel for a life unburnished.

July 12, 2017

Love Me Tending

The dead man’s garlic hung from the antler rack of the deer I killed when I was sixteen—a subtle homage to southern rites of passage adorning my laundry room. Soiled, damp roots dripped lazily from the fragrant, amorphous white bulb, the long green stalk yellowing at the top. Once dried, the roots and stalk will be trimmed off, a few cloves set aside for re-planting, and the rest stored—a humble beginning to my fall larder.

Around the time I was filing divorce paperwork last year, the man had plunked a garlic clove into the pot’s clayey, rock-filled soil; nine or so months later, he was dead, with scavengers like me rummaging through his home and expansive, overgrown yard.

Tucked within a matted mess of domestic detritus and weeds beneath the rotting, listing front deck, a brown ceramic bowl had caught my eye. Caked in dirt with an interior white glaze, the piece hadn’t been used for years, at least not as a bowl. I flipped it over and ran my fingers along the bottom inscription, the potter’s name, “Michael.” As I pushed further into the sagging cabin, I recognized nothing resembling a potter’s supplies; even still, I liked to think of it as Michael’s home.

Putting a name to a place reminds me of the life spent stewarding it. It translates to self-governed territory—a place all our own.

And there, as I peered over the hilly property extending down into a thick tree line, a distant memory replayed in my mind, something that I’d always remembered, but was never sure of why.

***

My paternal grandfather, whom my sister and I called Pop-Pop, had died and we were back in the Poconos, sorting through the home he, my grandmother—Mom-Mau—and our father had built. Having faced the hard reality that she wasn’t well enough to live alone in the mountains, Mom-Mau had reluctantly agreed to sell and move with us to Alabama. We kept only what we could fit into two cars; everything else was to be sold with the house.

Our parents had instructed us to comb through every closet and box; children of the Depression, our grandparents had squirreled away rolls of cash, many locations of which my grandmother had long forgotten. I rolled back one of the blond hallway closet doors and thumbed through a line of Pop-Pop’s clothes, most of which were nearly pristine plaid dress shirts and pants from the 70s. Never a clotheshorse, he was most comfortable in a pair of paint-spattered overalls—the knees faded and frayed from repeated wear—and a V-neck Sears tee shirt, rounded out with a pair of off-brand Velcro shoes. I reached inside each pocket, and passed on to the next; with each article I shoved behind me, a waft of Jade East writhed in my nostrils, and I could almost hear his signature cackle drifting in from the living room’s squeaky, threadbare sofa, entreating us to pull his finger.

Nearing the end of the line, I unclasped a buttoned pocket, reached inside, and pulled out a few neatly folded twenty-dollar bills. I got up and wandered into the kitchen where my mother stood reviewing cabinet contents, wrapping particular items in newspaper. I handed her the bills and she put them in a shoebox, which held a couple wads of other found money, along with loose change that was to be rolled. I surveyed the kitchen walls, and walked over to the sink, looking down through a cutout into the bar area where we used to place Yahtzee and cards. Above it hung a tiny painted skillet that read “Mary’s kitchen.” I took it down and handed it to my mother.

“Look, we can hang this up in our kitchen.”

She looked down, considered it momentarily.

“Absolutely not.”

Stunned by her forcefulness, I resolved then and there—as the laminate countertop as my witness—to save everything. From various vantage points around the house, I watched every trip my parents made to the curb with armloads of filled boxes scheduled to be picked up, and snuck out soon thereafter, pilfering little keepsakes and squirreling them into my bag along with other objects from around the house. Within thirty minutes, my small bag brimmed with tchotchkes, things only a child would take: a ceramic cowboy boot; hand-painted owl and quail lawn ornaments; tiny curios from Japan that’d filled the large front picture window; Pop-Pop’s empty cologne bottles; his Velcro shoes; his cufflink case filled with old watch faces, mismatched cufflinks, and wrapped razor blades; a Hull planter unearthed in the backyard; and a shoebox filled with ashtrays and defunct cigarette lighters. I wanted it all—feeling a growing dread that leaving one little scrap of their lives would mean we were leaving them entirely.

With a dollop of magical thinking, I assumed I could shove every piece of their material lives into a tiny knapsack turned bottomless magic hat. But soon after I shoved a tripodal, barrel-shaped magazine rack into the back of our van, I realized that we were already at capacity. I sat in the back room—my room when Laura and I visited—and stared at the dark mahogany-stained midcentury furniture with triangular knobs, the largely empty chests, and mourned the imminent loss of it all.

The clinking of glassware being boxed up in the kitchen filtered down the carpeted hallway, and I stared at the slim, portable television sitting atop a cart at the foot of the bed. Even though the television only played in black and white, I’d watch “I Love Lucy” and other such shows before going to bed, thinking how luxurious it was to have a television in the bedroom. I flipped the knob over, and jumped when something in the back panel popped, a thin plume of smoke billowing out of the display.

Moments later, parental olfactory senses kicked in, and my mother called back from the living room.

“Is something on fire back there?”

“The television just exploded.”

“Well, great. Unplug it and throw it out in the garbage.”

I watched the smoke for a minute, and then carted the television outside, tossing it into a box of miscellaneous, broken household items.

By the following morning, only a few curbside boxes remained—the rest having been tossed into the backs of laden station wagons and battered pickups.

As we backed out of the driveway for the last time, I pulled off the house sign; years later, I realized that, in a literal sign of his frugality, Pop-Pop had opted to flip the number 2s to make 7s and added a tail to a P to make an R, rather than buy the additional letter and numbers.

Through the rain-streaked car windows, I looked at the remaining sagging boxes, and the house. I couldn’t save it all; I couldn’t save the house where we had so many memories. All of it would be entering a new chapter without us, with new authors rewriting the future.

***

The wind blew up the hill where I stood, dislodging faded chip bags that’d been snagged within the bramble below. Behind me, one of the estate sale coordinators began boxing up unsold items, and bagging up the irredeemable, battered bits. I stooped and plucked the garlic-filled planter out of the ground, rocking it side-to-side until it dislodged, worms and centipedes squirming in the damp, grassless vacancy beneath.

I looked back up at the sagging cabin, assured it’d be razed within the month. Beside it sat my small pile of items—mostly planters, along with a Fire King milk glass mug, and Michael’s bowl. Together, it’d all become written into the story of Gay Gardens—from the ending of this quaint hideaway to the beginning of mine, from being saved from the dump to helping save a dump.

It’s through the process of trying to save Gay Gardens—or at least mapping my chapter onto it—that imbues the unimposing, rotting cottage with significance. And by using items that’d once helped revive other such oases, I gain a greater appreciation for the time, work, and energy expended in making a house a home—something personal, captivating. A refuge.

In my rear-view mirror, Michael’s cabin faded from view, and I noticed before I rounded the bend that a line of caution tape was being pulled across the driveway. As I do with all estate sales, I went to Michael’s to feel the stories, to suss them out from the piles of stuff, like a psychic conjuring spirits from a crystal ball; to wonder about the people before me; to use it as an exercise in mindfulness, of recognizing that, some day, something similar will happen with the things I’ve reclaimed from the darkening corners of history, rescued from the trashcan’s precipice—and have new life breathed into them as the light of another life in the world flickers out.

Back home, I cleaned up my finds, and sought out Pop-Pop’s cufflink box. Opening the worn, leather case, I smiled at the hodgepodge of contents—recalling the ubiquity of JFK’s countenance gracing nearly every room of their home.

I shuffled around the cufflinks and tie clips, and made mental notes to actually use them down the line. An unopened red box of Durex razor blades sat in one corner, and for kicks, I opened it to see if they’d actually fit my Merkur. Atop my bathroom counter, I unscrewed the razor and loaded in a blade, tightening the housing until the old blade was tightly sandwiched. With my shaving brush in hand, I coated my stubble, recalling how I’d watched Pop-Pop do the same before heading to the American Legion for drinks—always wondering what it’d be like to have a beard. As I ran the razor across my chin and up my cheeks, I quietly hummed one of the television jingles he’d always burst into—usually after returning from the Legion.

We feed our doggy Thrivo,

He’s very much alive-o,

Full of pep and vim!

If you want a peppy pup,

You better hurry up,

Buy Thrivo for him!

***

Each of my mini adventures reminds me that we have one shot, that we’re each but one grain of sand passing through the hourglass of the cosmos. And as crushing as that realization can sometimes be, I also use it as mental fuel to drive my intent to craft a life that’s perfectly imperfect: where viney Pothos leaves silently creep across paint-chipped, weathered surfaces; where Mom-Mau’s hand-knitted blankets hold shelf space, their fibers worn, the folds hole-pocked; where geraniums offer up their peppery fragrance in the rising heat, their leaves arcing toward the light; where wavy glass panes keep the rising damp at bay for another day; where rhododendrons heave upward, through cracked, hardened earth, bursting into the world’s bright days with fluorescent green leaves.

Where the home I’ve made sits perfectly silent, tended—its cracked-framed windows opened, the sounds of me rooting in the garden drifting up into the outermost rooms, leaving the interior spaces silent, still: waiting to fill with laughter and life.

July 3, 2017

Brushing Up

Weaving through the roundabout, my Toyota’s front end wheezed and groaned—mechanical harbingers of exorbitant maintenance bills—the volume rising as I hit a pothole, jarring the nearly life-size wooden macaw from its perch on the backseat.

Moments earlier, I’d left a yard sale where the air was heavy with the aroma of freshly laid manure.

“Sorry about the smell!” the seller’s friend shouted as I exited the car, crinkling my nose.

“No worries,” I responded.

I’d actually just spread similar smelling compost around the bases of struggling plants in my garden, willing the nutrients to trickle down and enliven their withering bodies.

As I made my way into the yard, I noticed the seller was lifting crates packed with items out of her glutted garage. After perusing the first couple of items, I spied a tag from an antique mall I frequented, lifting it to read the item description.

“Oh, and don’t pay any attention to the prices on those tags,” she called, setting down a box. “They’re just for history. They’re not the prices.”

I later learned that her mother had a booth at the antique mall, and had recently died, leaving her daughter to purge the unsold items.

Judging from what I saw, I regretted not having more cash. But since it was the end of the month and I’d be left with just a couple of bucks in my bank account after rent was drafted, I reminded myself I didn’t need anything else—that this was just for fun. Residing in an area where the cost of living is constantly climbing, and where I barely make ends meet, my fun must be measured strictly in dollars and cents.

Eying a green-tinted bean pot, I lifted it up to confirm my suspicion; it was Frankoma. I considered asking how much it was, but refrained. For a few weeks I’d mulled over the idea of starting an little online shop, re-selling cheap yard sale finds like this one. But I was wary of amassing items and having them sit while I hashed out logistics for this potential, highly unprobable venture. It reminded me too much of my fifth grade get rich quick scheme: manufacturing necklaces made from perforated shells I’d hoarded from a trip to Destin, stringing them together with mint-flavored dental floss. I’d rationalized that the mint smell would make the necklaces seem more authentic and tropical. In the end, I only sold one for five dollars to a kid named Lee, and ended up with three massive buckets of shells bleaching in a corner of my room. My gums, however, were resplendent.

I lowered the pot back down onto the throw, and moved through the other items as another picker showed up.

Immediately, I recognized the woman would be a headache-inducing nightmare for the seller. Barely entering the thick of it, she lifted up a baby doll with a melted head and demanded to know how much. I quietly continued, watching her out of the corner of my eyes. Item by item, she slowly amassed a pile, including the Frankoma piece. I nodded over to her as she picked it up, mentioning that it was a good score and throwing in a bit of history about Frankoma.

After that, she asked me about every single item she considered, prefacing each inquiry with some derivation of, “Since you seem to know a hell of a lot about this stuff…” During a lull in the questioning, the seller confided to me, “Yeah, I should probably eBay a lot of this stuff. But I just want it gone, you know? It’s an energy thing.” Her tone fading to a whisper, her eyes watering as she turned away.

I nodded and said I completely understood. Whenever I make a decision to shed something, I want it gone immediately; I quickly grow to loathe and resent the space it occupies.

A few other folks pulled up, and I wound my way back to the few things I assumed I could afford with the couple of bucks I had in my pocket—the macaw, and a thin artist’s palette. Since the macaw was on a stake, I intended to use it as a plant anchor. Three dollars later, I walked them back to my car, the sound of the bargain hunter’s booming voice drifting after me.

***

As I reached into the backseat with my free arm to shift the macaw back into place, I spied a plastic chair coming into view on my right-hand side. Closer, I noticed a paper sign reading “Fun stuff for sale” duct-taped to it, a sloppily painted red arrow pointing down a narrow alley.

I glanced down the shadowy lane as I passed, but didn’t see anything remotely resembling fun. But as I crept up to the end of the block, I circled back down the other side, determining where the alley ended and if I could see anything from a different angle. Still nothing. I circled the block again, debating whether or not to venture down the alley, before deciding to park.

As I passed the chair and followed the arrow, I told myself that I wouldn’t be entirely surprised if I came upon a naked man swirling a cracked wine glass and wearing a furry horse head with “fun stuff” painted in dripping red across his hairy, mole-covered, protruding gut.

About twenty feet down, a small driveway opened up to one side, and I noticed various items strewn across a few tables and broken fishing poles propped against a fence. I didn’t see an attendant until I was fully in the backyard.

The middle-aged man was shirtless, wearing a faded hat turned backwards. As he turned at my approach, I noticed he had plumber’s crack, and patches of thick upper arm hair.

I mumbled a greeting and quickly pored over the items, recognizing immediately that there was nothing I wanted. But he kept getting closer, making the situation all the more awkward. I felt slightly hemmed in, my southern politeness chiding, “Be respectful and give this shit another once over,” while my intuition screamed, “WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN AN ALLEY WITH A STRANGER? RUN!”

“Clearing things out, huh?” I said, forcing a casual tone.

“YEP YOU KNOW JUST TRYING TO MAKE ROOM FOR HER STUFF,” he boomed, motioning to a chair barely visible around the corner, presumably occupied by some unseen figure. Mother perhaps.

The way he spoke suggested an urgency to everything.

Rusted tools and tarnished silver covered one table, with a few boxes beneath housing moldy Judy Blume books, and a disturbingly old tome simply titled The Human Body—the figure on the front skinless, with exposed sinews and bulging eyeballs.

He noticed me reviewing the books, and shuffled even closer, his sagging bellybutton nearly level with my ear.

NO ONE BUYS BOOKS ANYMORE. THEY’RE ALL PLUGGED INTO THEIR PHONES AND THOSE THINGS YA KNOW?”

He made a winding motion around his ear. I nodded and said it hurt my heart that books weren’t being read as much, even though I’d just read an article about how Millennials are opting for print books over audio or e-versions. But this was all about placation.

When he turned away, I used the opportunity to put a little more distance between us, and reviewed which items could possibly be of use. I was desperate for a diamond in the rough—something that I could snag with the two dollars I had in my wallet.

“What about the extension cord?”

“AH THAT’S FIFTEEN DOLLARS.”

I tried not to laugh in his face. Judging from the taped up sections, anyone who used it would probably be electrocuted the moment the prongs touched an outlet. I inched away from it, but he moved quickly, sidling up next to me, forcing me back toward it.

“YOU KNOW WHAT THIS IS DON’TCHA?”

What you tie your victims up with?

I looked on vacantly, screaming inwardly.

“IT’S A HUNDRED FOOTER!”

“Oh, wow.”

Quickly, I pivoted to an adjacent table and rummaged through a pile of dull files, and considered how many bodies the rusted saw next to them had dismembered.

A faded yellow radio on a nearby table began playing a song with incredibly explicit lyrics, and I tried to inwardly hum something uplifting.

“THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE THE HALLELUJAH STATION!”

He ran over to the radio and turned the song down, muttering about the obscenities before returning to the shaded corner and mumbling in the chair’s direction.

If I ran now, I’d probably at least make it out of the alley, and then I could hit my car’s panic button before he pulled me back into the alley’s dark reaches, back to Mother.

I turned and stepped on a piece of gravel, which crunched loudly and ground beneath my Birkenstocks. He redirected his attention from the radio to me, and began charging back. To deflect whatever commentary—or knife thrust—he had ready, I grabbed the closest thing and asked about the price.

What about this brush?

Its wire teeth were bent, misshapen, and rusty, and its plastic body scuffed and cracked. It was garbage, and I hoped it was less than three dollars.

“UM YEAH THAT’S TWO DOLLARS.”

Hallelujah!

“Great, um, I’ll use it for my grill.”

I didn’t have a grill.

“OH MAN I DIDN’T EVEN THINK ABOUT THAT AND I JUST BOUGHT A GRILL CLEANER.”

He ran over to a pile of tools propped against a rotting shed, as if to prove its existence.

“WHEN THE HANDLE BROKE OFF OF THAT I JUST SAID FUCK IT.”

I pondered how he’d broken the handle—most likely forcing his latest victim into a bath, scrubbing dirty, filthy hair from their supple skin, chiding in a sing-song voice that Mother demanded a clean canvas.

So not only was I buying a garbage brush, but one that was broken to boot. I eyed the hole in the center of the plastic body where the handle had broken off, doing my best to avert his steely gaze.

“Well, this will do it!” I shouted, extending my crumpled two dollars.

“OK GREAT.”

He grabbed them with his roughened hands and shoved them into his pocket.

I turned and darted away, walking quickly to the street—all the while waiting for his hairy arm to pull me back, a chloroform-soaked rag pressed to my face, the brush falling out of my limp hand onto the alleyway, like the pearls from Bruce Wayne’s mother in the original Batman.

Sunlight glanced across my face as I skittered past the “fun stuff” sign and jumped into my car, pressing the accelerator.

***

JoJo twirled and barked at the macaw as I planted it in the center of my elephant ear plant’s pot, taking care to tie the most unstable stalks to the stake. I wiped the macaw down with a damp cloth and stepped back, smiling at the bright, chipping paint—wondering about where it came from, the stories it carried.

I tossed the wire brush into a bin of home improvement tools, and laughed to myself at the absurdity of the whole exchange and that, in retrospect, it wasn’t the wisest move. I wondered if he’d sold anything else.

Heading out to my garden, I grabbed a bowl I’d snagged at an estate sale months before. Its roughened glaze and off-kilter shape had struck me, and I imagined the potter who’d made it, who’d scrawled their name into the base. In the other hand, I toted my partially filled kettle, and planned to use the leftover water from the morning’s tea to refill the bird bath.

Rounding the corner, I stopped suddenly. Harriet, my resident Northern Harrier hawk, stood squarely in the middle of the bird bath, cleaning her beak in the little water that remained. The wind ruffled her plumage and she shook droplets all over herself. Within moments, she took flight, fracturing small twigs in the trees above, sending squirrels darting in all directions, barking frantically at her ascent. I waited for a moment, and then filled the concrete bath—a lone puff of down floating on top of the glassy pool.

Pod by pod, I plucked peas from their wispy stalks, tossing them into the bowl atop romaine leaves. I nudged baby cucumbers and eggplants and strawberries slowly budding on their vines, willing them to bulk up—to make the end of the month seem a little less wanting.

With my bowl full, I turned to head inside, and smiled at the streak of pink emblazoned across the gray sky; a beautiful farewell to another day gone.

Inside, I cut up everything and made a salad, positioning myself with it in front of one of my fans along the sun porch’s window bank. The heat was subsiding, but the cool air was a necessary, enlivening jolt; I still had things to do—writing to complete, art projects to start.

But I just stared out at the green, watching the light fade from the sky, trying to remind myself that I have to stop racing around from project to project lest I miss the beauty of quietly simple moments. There’s a certain fullness to my life that comes from embracing the world on a very basic level, of recognizing that I’m one tiny cog in a vast, pulsing world of bizarre creatures—tormented, suffering, vulnerable, jubilant.

As I do every night before I lay down to sleep, I reminded myself how fortunate I’ve been to have the opportunity to bring some of my goals to fruition, and to keep working toward others, especially now—when so many have so little, and our country is descending further into darkness. I usually murmur this to myself while looking at a glass jar I mended as a high schooler—aspiring to be an archaeologist, which I was able to be for nearly a decade—which contains fortunes from long since crumbled cookies.

It always reminds me that, though each of us may feel like a distinct, lonely shard in a fractured mirror, only by mending ourselves into a stronger whole will we be able to protect the future we know is within reach, that’s worth the fight.

***

Embedded in the most mundane moments of a given day, there’re stories of how we’ve swept the suffocating cobwebs off our weathered pasts, refreshing them with a coat of paint—liberally brushing on vibrancy and radiance, reflecting the color we know our lives can bring. But the only way of adding them to the blindingly fantastic kaleidoscope of humanity is by sharing them—reminding one another that we’re not alone.

That each of us has the power to bridge the gap between calamity and creation—sparking beauty, love, and connection, the promise that permeates every atom around us.

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