Adventure Philosophy

(Written in June of 2010)

On my way to Boston this past week, I lost my cell phone at 20,000 feet off the ground, right above, oh let’s say, D.C. You know the feeling, don’t you? The world shrinks to the size of the airplane seat. All other problems of the universe gape at this moment of isolation—the sacred cell is missing. The connection to safety has been severed bringing that tickle of terror in the top of your torso, a flutter of fear in your heart.
I groped in the dark recesses of my carryon bag, around an obstacle course of lotion bottles, books, pencils, hair brushes, and headphone cords which laced like tentacles around my hand. My fingers crawled at least three times across every inch of the bag, grasping in vain for the plastic phone.
Pulling everything out onto my lap, I pushed down the impulse to panic. Finally, I repacked my bag and settled back in the seat, resigning myself to the reality that my phone had been crushed in Atlanta by one of those carts that take elderly and obese people from terminal to terminal, or was currently being pawed by a greasy fingered, unattended child who was at that moment making expensive calls to random parts of the world.
Looking out the window at the Monopoly landscape below, I shrugged; I was still alive and gliding toward the Maine coast, a lobster, and spending time with the friend sitting next to me. This newly discovered inconvenience was just one more layer on my adventure.
Here lately, that’s how I’ve regarded any deviation from the ordinary—and sometimes, yes, especially the ordinary itself. If I’m not in the hospital, in jail, or the morgue, I’m just fine (this attitude having been cultivated during any number of my unintentional jaunts around the bad part of Atlanta). I’ve seen what worry can do, seen it devour joy for breakfast, contentment for lunch, and common sense for a snack in between. I want no part of this destructive tendency for myself—not anymore. So instead of allowing worry to control me, I sit back and see what’s in the adventure for me to enjoy or learn. Irresponsible, unrealistic you call me? Maybe; but I don’t think so.
My choosing to view life’s perturbing moments as an adventure is really no different from another person’s tendency to view them as a drama or a crisis. I’d rather face my life as an adventure—for as uncomfortable, disappointing, or inconvenient as this life may be, everyday IS an adventure waiting to happen. Please don’t mistake me for a starry-eyed romantic or a dramatic, or—good grief— for Anne of Green Gables. I know just what kind of world it is in which I dwell: it’s got no room for another person just out of reality’s reach. So let me explain.
Adventure—what does it mean to you? For a long time, the word held an expansive definition to me. Erroneously, I assumed that an adventure was a life or death quest of National Geographic proportions with an exotic backdrop. A few years ago, though, the word took on a new meaning to me. Perhaps it came from getting too many people frustrated with my carefulness or tendency to panic. Or maybe I just got tired of nearly losing control of my body functions whenever I was forced into a new situation.
I lived the first eighteen years of my life wrapped in a chrysalis, of sorts, if only, perhaps, a chrysalis of protection. Homeschooled and awkward, I, convinced of my inability to survive outside the protective silk, was content to stay wrapped inside. I’ve often wondered if a butterfly left in its chrysalis would fade or mold.
A year after I graduated from high school, plagued with debilitating fears and a sense that things couldn’t possibly be worse, I worked as a counselor at a summer camp for special needs people. There I was exposed to individuals and circumstances that helped me poke my head out of the chrysalis to a world that would indeed accept me, a world that I could survive in and that I was curious about. Thinking back on it that was the perfect place for my emerging—a place where everyone was accepted.
My next step was a butterfly’s equivalent of flying off the branch where it had been drying its wings. When I went to college, God began to further help me overcome my fear by providing patient friends who coaxed me off that branch that I had been chrisalised on for those years. They helped me step outside my comfort zones and take part in things that I hadn’t before. I won’t lie—it took a few times of stumbling for me to realize that the leap was worth a fall.
I stopped looking at what could happen, and started looking for what might happen—many things could happen (meaning have the ability to happen)—no doubt, disaster is just a strand of grace away. But what might happen (denoting my permission) depends upon two things: my willingness to accept an adventure when presented with one and my initiative to make an adventure happen—no matter how scared I am of it.
Adventure, after all, has very little to do with the venture itself and everything to do with the danger, the fear that you perform in spite of, no matter how small or innocuous it may be.
When an adventure stares me in the face, I have to take it up on its challenge. Whether it’s a jet ski idling in water which very easily could drown me. Or a raw oyster which potentially could induce vomiting. Or an empty seat beside a handsome man which could turn out to be yet another episode of social awkwardness. Taking on adventures has become an intricate part of who I am. I’ve even come to peace with being directionally challenged, reasoning that it’s just a means of meeting wonderful people when I stop and ask for directions.
But along with understanding that life is full of adventures, I’ve come to view life as a grand adventure itself. I’ve begun to understand what is in me—the capacity to explore and with exploring to understand some greater aspect of the world around me and, most excitingly, of who God is and what He has done in orchestrating my life story.
Everything happens for a reason. Now, I don’t mean a preemptive reason—I don’t believe that God slashes your tire so that you can avoid an accident down the road. But I believe that in that slashed tired you can learn patience, you can share Christ with the person who helps you change it—which of course would be the greatest adventure of all.
I won’t say there aren’t days when I don’t wish to be living in a future chapter or to turn the page back and rework the plot minus a few ‘adventures.’ I won’t say there aren’t still moments when fear overwhelms me, when worry wears a hole in my gut. But it’s when I can wholly leave behind the chrysalis of worry, fear, or insecurity that I can finally see the bigger picture that I am meant to change and be changed on this planet, even if not for this planet. And it’s through those moments of danger or discomfort or unsureness that I am formed and transformed. Life is an experience and if you’re not going to experience it fully, you might as well just curl up and die.
It’s this sort of opportunity that I see, peering out the bus window just now on my way back to the Boston airport. It’s how I look at the empty seat next to me where a passenger might choose to sit at the next stop, where a smile could launch a conversation that could cultivate a friendship that could last for a lifetime. Even the unknown is an adventure.
By the way, I found my phone lodged between me and my seat buckle when I stood to leave the plane in Boston. For as much as I’m always thankful for an adventure, I’m glad when discomfort or inconvenience can be averted.

Labor

Every teacher, no matter how devoted, reaches a point in the semester or year when she’s had it, when the students have got to go, when the break is the only impetus driving her to function. This describes me at the end of each semester. In most cases, I want the students to leave so badly that it’s not until weeks later that I feel the full sadness of their absence. While most of my classes behave as an angel band, some of them can be regular devils. Some of them fight me; some of them love me; but all of them need me. And the semester depletes me of strength.
When I close my office door, with them gone for the semester, and with the last paper graded, the last grade posted, and the folders thrown away in jubilance, I take some time to lie back and rest from my work, glad that another class has gone forth. Inevitably, I ponder the painful 14 weeks of laboring to push mature, grammar savvy adults into the world. I think of the ones who miscarried-—left my class before I was able to teach them all they might have learned. Others cross my mind who were stillborn, as ignorantly dead as when they entered my class, achieving just what they had decided when first they claimed their seat—-failure. But the ones I hold to are the ones who, through a tight uncomfortable squeeze, persevered—and survived.

I never understood it—-the way that I’ve heard the cries of a woman in the last stages of natural childbirth, experiencing the most excruciating pain she might feel in her life, yet, not days later, with the baby swaddled next to her heart, she looks up and says, with a smile, “I can’t wait to have another one.”
But what about the pain? I wondered. What about the nausea, the discomfort, the inconvenience, the exhaustion? It never made sense.
Until one day, the sentiment became clear. Not a week after the last student had vacated campus, while I was cleaning out my desk I found my rosters. Fingering them, I grew excited about the rosters that would come to me next semester; my fingers itched to hold them, to peruse the row of names and imagine who each student will be. What trouble will they bring? What blessings will they bestow? What struggles will I help them overcome? What way will I watch them grow? What will they learn or reject? I visualized walking into the classroom and looking over the rows of faces all gazing up at me with guarded eyes suppressing curiosity.
And just like that, the labor of the previous semester vanished as I folded the roster and sighed, “I can’t wait to have another one.”

Domino Effect

I work six hours a day at a publishing office in the summers. The day starts at 8. The first hour typically gets eaten up with “good mornings” and chatting with my coworkers. Our office is one big open room with lots of desks lined up against the wall. We frequently chat during the days about randomness, all in an effort to retain our sanity or stay awake. The next 3 hours creep by, slowly, like the last little bit of shampoo crawling out of the bottom of the bottle. For someone who during the semester is on her feet most all day chasing tardy papers, listening to sob stories or lecturing myself hoarse in front of a classroom, sitting for 4 hours straight is something akin to torture for me.
And then 12 o clock comes and with it my 45 minute lunch break. My steps are always a little higher when I come back from lunch because I know when I get back I’ll have only 2 hours to go. And because I know Dr. Bowman will be at the desk next to me.
Dr. Bowman who works as a writer in the summer months, comes into work after lunch. In the school year, he’s a political science and history professor—-and an all around know it all. He’s a middle aged man, refined and intelligent and gentle. And Dr. Bowman doesn’t talk—-he booms. Even his whisper carries enough percussion to bounce off the back wall of our open office. He has a head full of thick salt and pepper hair combed over neatly to the side. His forehead is pressed in a perpetual wrinkle, as if he’s always thinking hard about something, and his smile is tight, as if he opens his lips too far his dignity might fall out.
He drinks his coffee from a Minnie Mouse thermos, the only one he said he could find in his cupboard; yet this doesn't seem to perturb him. He smiled, "Eh, I told my wife, 'At least the girls will get a good laugh out of it.'" That's what he calls my coworker Faye and I: ‘the girls,’ even though Faye is over forty and I’m, well, I’m closer to being a girl than Faye is. But that’s just how he is-—there’s something classic about Dr. Bowman.
But what I love about the man the most is our afternoon game of ‘dominoes.’ It’s an interesting tournament, seeing that he doesn’t even know we’re playing. You see, some people enjoy setting up a row of dominoes and sending them tumble. Something about seeing how one thing leads to another fascinates them. And it’s the same for me. Only, I don’t play with dominoes; I play with Dr. Bowman's knowledge.
Dr. Bowman knows a little bit about everything: politics, science, theology, history, current events, you name it. Every so often, when boredom overwhelms me, I think of a question to ask him. Something simple, such as: “Have you ever been to Europe?”
I put down my pencil and throw an inward celebration when the game begins as he turns his chair toward me and crosses his legs. He proceeds to answer that he has indeed not been to Europe. But his answers are never as simple as yes or no. Oh, it might be that simple at first, but I wait. Because inevitably, he’ll pause to gather his thoughts, licking his teeth, as intellects do to bide time. But then somehow we end up with him hiking a mountain in North Carolina with his elderly dad. We go all the way around the world, with him being the tour guide along the way and me drinking in every word, as if he’s one of those kiosks at a museum that I can merely touch its screen and have it rattle off information.
Another day, I asked him what the difference was in amendments and changes to the Constitution. That conversation ended with a lecture on Congress's salary, Sam Adams, prohibition, a reading of the amendments to the Constitution, and somehow a reference to the Spanish Influenza of 1918.
An inquiry about what time he gets out of classes for the day can end with a philosophical discussion of the book of Nehemiah.
An innocent question of whether he’d ever been to Old Faithful took us to Hawaii where he had grown up visiting the Dole Pineapple factory as a boy.
I'm sure that he's the only coworker in the world who can take a conversation from clown phobia to regulation of health insurance in under 2 minutes.
I don’t know what I’ll ask him tomorrow. But I can’t wait to watch the dominoes just tumble away.
Sometimes I worry that I bother him with my random questions. But something about the gleam in his eyes when he’s giving me more information than I asked for lets me know that he sort of likes the break from his work too.
And that just maybe he likes dominoes just as much as me.

Peaceful Wish for Love

I closed the cover of Peace Like A River, feeling somehow like I was waving goodbye to a good friend. How in the world could I let myself get so attached to a stack of paper and ink? Books rarely leave such an impression on me, and yet I found myself drawn again to open the cover of the book and return to the first page.
As I settled into my chair, it occurred to me that I want to marry a man like this book, a man I can’t wait to spend time with; a man who, when we’re apart, I reflect upon. I want my husband to be a man who never fails to surprise me, beautiful and inspiring in simple and unpretentious ways that cause me to see things that otherwise I would have taken for granted. I want a man with power contained within an unassuming cover, a man whose message is wise and authoritative without being forceful or coarse.
As I continued thinking, the thought broadened. I want my marriage to be like this book: a pleasant throw back to more elegant times when people lingered over the lines without whisking past the words; when they knew within their deepest heart that those words would endure for eternity because of the love woven through each line.
I want our story to be like this novel, to abound with faith, simple pleasures, miracles of the everyday sort, a compilation of simple days and simple events viewed through eyes that can see God’s grace and beauty in it all.
I want our union to be a pleasant walk through the pages of our life, each day a journey, a quest, an adventure, spreading truth and care to all around us, all the while, realizing that life is fragile.
But what am I saying?
It’s just a book.

One less regret: Ask

Professional Writing class in my senior year of college revealed to me my niche of writing: nonfiction, particularly essays, profiles, and feature articles. I enjoyed indulging peoples’ propensity to talk about themselves, enjoyed feeling chills run down my spine when I heard them give me what I knew would be my concluding quote. But I loved crafting all the quotes, double checking the facts and seeing my subjects' faces when they read the article. Listening to people tell their stories and then retelling them became my passion.
Telling other peoples’ stories was what I wanted to do with my life, though I was unsure of exactly how. The final semester of my senior year, I was offered the position of director of a magazine at a university in my town. But, sigh, one thing led to another and this teaching job was also offered and, well, here I am. And I’m not complaining. It’s been incredible. I mean how many unpublished, unmaster degreed people can put on their resume that they’ve already taught writing in a college?
But here recently, I’ve been restless with my teaching. I teach about writing all day long; I make a living by telling kids what to do and what not to do in order to write well—as if there’s some kind of formula. The other day I began to wonder if one day I will become like a dried up old pen—always talking about writing, but not having any ink in me to produce my own work. There isn’t a day that I don’t walk into the classroom, full of passion, yes, but feeling thoroughly inadequate because I’m inexperienced in what I’m teaching. I’m repeating notes, rather than sharing experience of what it’s really like in the writing world. That wears on you after a while.
Maybe, just maybe, it’s time to launch out and find a job doing what I love. Maybe I should start seeing the potential others see in my writing. But I know that if I want to ever find a job in writing, I’m going to have to hone my skill. I haven’t written an article or profile of anyone in years. I have a list of ideas to write, but as is typical of me, I’ve been too scared to pursue them, scared that the people would refuse, scared that someone would laugh at the notion that I wanted to write a profile without having a place in mind to publish it.
But finally the other day I realized that if I ever want to have a writing job, I have to be aggressive. I have to practice. And the only way to do that is by taking the opportunities that I have in my life right now.
For about 6 months now, I’ve had a person in mind to interview: Miss Johnny, a lady at the USO who has volunteered since the 40s drawing sketches of the servicemen who come in. I thought she would make an interesting person to write about. After several more weeks of waffling, I finally called my manager at the USO this week and asked for the contact information. Rather than getting the patronizing response I expected, the manager was thrilled and thought an article about Miss Johnny would be a great idea.
But I have a list of questions waiting to ask her, a pencil ready to write, and one less regret.
Who knows where this step will lead.

A Better World. . .

I spotted this shot on the side of an abandoned building in my hometown. It epitomizes my feelings toward media in general--that I can do without it. That the world would be a better place without the Bachelor, America's Got Talent, Survivor, 101 Ways to Leave a Gameshow, and the thousands of other pointless shows that we watch while neglecting to truly experience life. If you watch these shows, don't take offense. I have the right to dislike them as much as you have the right to like them.
Besides, TV bashing might not be what the artist had in mind at all. Perhaps, he was trying to say that when life doesn't have television people end up spray painting old buildings.

One less regret: Tree

I’ve been alive for 25 years, 6 months, and 4 days now. During that time, I’ve missed out on a lot of things--not because they weren’t offered, but because I didn’t pursue them. Whether it was a relationship or a roller coast ride, a good sale or a good shot, an answer or an adventure, I've let a great many good things slip right on by because I was too afraid to take advantage of them. I began contemplating this on my last birthday. 25 years, I thought. It was my first really significant birthday. The other significant birthdays have always been joyful—the beginning of a new thing. 13, 16, 18, 21. But 25—that’s the beginning of the end of the beginning. It’s melancholy. And I remember thinking, distinctly, I want to make memories—not regrets in my life.
If I started now never making regrets, I’ve made enough in the past 25 years to keep me sullen for my next 50. I have things to do with my life. I’m not sure what yet. But every painting starts with a stroke. A stroke a day makes a portrait of a life. And in each stroke I can make sure that I have as few dark colors of regrets as possible by taking every chance I can to make someone’s world better, to make my own world better even in the smallest of ways.
So, I figured that I’d start a special kind of post here on the puddle—the one-less-regret post. Here is the first.

My camera has become one of the means of reversing regret and opening opportunity. So many times in my life I’ve wanted to snap a photo of something but didn’t want to inconvenience the person driving the car by asking to stop, or didn’t want to stop myself and risk potential embarrassment of having people stare while I took a picture of a ladybug on the ground. Slowly, I’ve started taking a stand for what I wanted. I've started stopping to snap.
While I was in Atlanta a week ago, Nic and I were driving down a country road. I spotted this tree standing alone out in a field of wheat, surrounded by a barbed wire fence. I could have moved on, not said anything to Nic. But I did and we stopped. These are a few of my new favorite pictures. And one less regret.

Dock

God is not that feeling of balance you get from sitting real still in a canoe, afraid to move ‘cause you might tip over. No, He’s the dock. Sometimes He’s the rope to save you when you’ve fallen out. But He’s always the steadfast thing. The steady thing. The sure thing. Not for a moment. Not for a temporary time. But for eternity.

His Whole World

Luke killed the engine of his ‘85 Ford pickup, silently praising the truck for lasting one more day. A long day at work—but not really long enough. There was still so much to do in the fields. He’d had to lay off 3 of his workers a month ago because money had gotten so tight. Their absence left him pulling their weight of the work himself.
Opening the door against the wind, he stepped out of the truck and looked up at the dark sky. A storm was definitely thinking about happening. But he didn’t mind; summer thunderstorms meant rain—rain was good for the crops. After grabbing his lunch box from the bed of the truck, he plodded toward the front porch with the burden of a man older than his 28 years.
The wind chime hanging from the overhang on the porch chimed out a frenzied cacophony in the wind. On the other side of the porch, the little Coke can airplane’s propeller was spinning. He chuckled, thinking that, had he loosed it from its wire, it would have sailed away. To where? he wondered. As he stared at the plane, slowly, he realized that he was stalling. Stalling to go from one storm into another.
He stepped up onto the concrete porch at the door, leaned against the posts, and kicked his boots against the top step to knock the mud from them. He wouldn’t be called a ‘careless slob’ twice. The door was unlocked and once inside he untied the boots and left them sitting beside the stacks of newspapers and dead potted plants in the foyer. As he walked into the kitchen, he hoped that she’d be waiting for him. He always hoped for that, even when there was never nourishment for his hope. But tonight, maybe. After all, she hated storms—especially being alone in them.
Instead, he predictably found the little light over the sink left on in the empty kitchen. Releasing a heavy sigh, he trudged across the dirty linoleum to the microwave. Inside, he found a covered plate of a casserole and steamed broccoli. He pressed the minute button and walked to the fridge. Pulling a glass from the dish drainer, he weighed it in his hands thoughtfully—one of his parents’ cups. He filled it with milk from a Tupperware pitcher in the refrigerator then turned to look out the kitchen window. The curtains writhed in the breeze coming through the screen. It was dark, but by the dusk to dawn light, he could see the branches of the oaks bouncing in a frantic rain dance.
“It’s looking bad out there.” Her soft words behind him sounded a bit scared, a bit angry—as if blaming him for the weather. When he turned, his wife was hugging herself, standing barefoot in boy shorts and one of his old t-shirts which was falling off one shoulder. Her hair was pulled back sloppily in a ponytail. She walked over to the beeping microwave, opened the door and stuck her finger in the casserole. Satisfied with the temperature, she set the plate down on the table and sighed. “Come eat, ‘fore it gets cold.”
Enough things are already cold in here, Luke thought. He didn’t move toward the table, watching as she turned to go back in the bedroom.
“Sade.” He felt desperate for her presence. “Will you sit with me? Please.”
She stopped, standing with her back to him long enough to make him doubt that she would concede. Finally, she walked back to the table.
He pulled a chair out for her and she sat down stiffly, staring down at her fingers.
He sat on the other side of the table and smiled a bit unsurely, feeling as if they’d just made a step toward—something. He stuck his fork in the casserole and took a bite. “Mmm. This is really good, sweetheart.” The words sounded contrived, as if he were flattering a stranger; the compliment was met with silence. So he took another bite. Why’d I think it’d be any different from any supper for the past 8 months? Or had it been longer? He’d lost count of the time since he and his wife had stopped almost all communication except for the absolute necessities. She slept upstairs in the guest room—she had moved her stuff up there one weekend while he was out of town for a conference. It hadn’t really surprised him—they’d stopped touching months before that—right after the doctor confirmed what Sade said she already knew: her body would never bear the children she carried in her heart.
She’d turned inward, refusing to let Luke hold her while she sobbed, curled up in the bed next to him. Some days she stayed in her room, only getting up to fix him meals which were usually left in the microwave. When she did laundry, it was left in piles on the living room floor for him to sort through. He knew she blamed herself for something where no blame was due. Somewhere in the darkness she’d been wandering around in, he knew that she had begun to blame him too.
Looking at her now broke his heart. She looked tired, her eyes hollow, but he couldn’t take his gaze away from her.
She picked at a string on the hem of the t-shirt, took a deep breath and launched the words, “Luke—I—I want a divorce.”
He had known it was coming. It’s not like he hadn’t had warning. But somehow the sudden proclamation pummeled through his heart, leveling the little mounds of hope, restoration, and determination he had built.
“I don’t want it anymore. And I don’t know how to want it. And—you say you do, but—” her lower lip started trembling when she looked up at him.
He could tell she couldn’t bring herself to accuse him of that. Without looking at her, he set down his fork and took a sip of milk to wash the food down around the lump forming in his throat. Before setting the cup down he held it at eyelevel, remembering his parents and the hope they’d had for his and Sade’s marriage. Dad had lifted one of these glasses at their first anniversary dinner—hoping for simple things to keep them happy. That had been 3 years ago—6 months before his mom died from breast cancer and a year before his dad died from a heart attack in the field. Sade and he had moved from their little apartment in Birmingham into the old farm house soon after his dad died so that Luke could take over managing the farm. Had he hoped that moving into his parents’ house would somehow give him and Sade the happiness that his parents had? As if happiness had been left behind like a glass flower vase beneath the sink.
No doubt, their marriage had been pocked with grief—the death of his parents, the unexpected responsibilities that no young couple should have to accept, the disappointment of barrenness. But happiness had been there—once. He was sure of it.
At least in the beginning.
They’d met over 10 years ago at the county fair in East Birmingham. He was inside one of the livestock exhibits with Edith, a heifer he had raised since she was a calf. Now she was getting ready to give birth to a calf herself. Though they always tried to plan when the heifer would deliver, it had just been sheer luck that it happened on Tuesday of the fair. Luke hated making Edith a spectacle, but the people loved the live birth exhibit. He had posted signs commanding silence and had enforced it. But when the calf slid out, the crowd applauded, breaking the silence. He set the spindly calf in the clean straw and looked up at the surrounding people that he had, for the most part, tuned out. That was when he saw her standing at the front of the crowd, right up against the fence. She had tears in her eyes, focused not on the newborn calf, struggling to figure out what strange place he had been deported to, but at Luke, his shirt soaked and arms slick from the amniotic fluids and blood. Her hand covered her mouth as if to dam emotions that wanted to overflow her heart. Finally, coming to herself, she held up her camera as if to ask for permission. He waved his hand toward Edith and the calf; they were the show after all. As she snapped pictures, in that moment, Luke knew he wanted her, if for no other reason than because he didn’t know why.
He turned to Edith, soothing her and patting her flank, thankful that someone was appreciating the animal almost as much as he. When he looked back, the woman was gone. He frowned and stood, grabbing a towel off the fence at the back of the pen.
“Good timing.” His dad came in behind him and put his hands on his hips, looking down at the calf. “Did it come easy?”
“Yes sir,” Luke wiped his arms on the towel, grinning. “She did good. It’s a little bull.”
“You did good, son.” His father clapped him on the shoulder. “Go get cleaned up. I think your mama hung some clean clothes for you in the back of the truck.” He began moving straw around with a pitchfork.
“Dad—would you mind if I walk around for a little bit?”
“Sure son.” His father looked over his shoulder. “Did you see something you wanted?”
“Yes, sir.” Luke grinned and took off for the truck.
While he cleaned his arms and pulled on the clean shirt, he practiced his lines. What would he say when he found her? Or what if he didn’t find her? He pushed that option from his mind. He would find her.
And he did—she was inspecting the flower display not far from their exhibit. When he finally got up the nerve to start a conversation, he forgot all the lines he had practiced—and it turned out he didn’t need them. The conversation was easy, like two old friends who had always known one another. A corndog and a cliché Ferris wheel ride later, he had her number. Sade was her name. Her eyes were the color of clover, and freckles spattered her nose and cheeks. Her mane of auburn hair hung in a messy bun. And with her turquoise sequined top and designer jeans, she was a sparkly trinket he wanted to take back to show his mama.
She said she’d fallen in love with his passion for what he was doing and his joy for when life started. And two years later when he took her out to the dock by his parents’ pond and told her he didn’t have much but proposed anyway, with fireflies as witnesses, she had said he would be all she’d ever need.
Unlike Luke, she had gone to college, getting a degree in Cosmetology. Though a city girl, she was adaptable to their visits to his parents’ farm, while he struggled to fit in the traffic of Birmingham, and never quite nailed the pronunciation of macchiato. She had built a clientele of people who wanted her to style their hair, and was planning to start her own salon in Birmingham. A week after his dad died, when Luke announced that they needed to move to the farm, Sade had been reluctant to uproot herself. It was too far for her to commute from the farm back to her beloved Birmingham.
Maybe that’s when the darkness began to rise. Maybe it had been the overload of grief remaining still in this house with all the furniture left from his parents. Maybe it was the cultural shock of moving from all her friends and Starbucks in Birmingham. Maybe—
A bolt of lightning cracked outside, slicing through his thoughts, bringing him back to the present storm.
Sade walked to close the window. He watched her in silence, waited for her to continue.
She stood leaning on the sink, her back to him. “This isn’t what I wanted. It’s not what you promised—”
“I promised you that I’d take care of you and love you—”
She whirled around. “That translates to me nice things, a nice life. ” She threw up her hands “Not 4 o’clock milkings, and hand-me-down 100 year old farm houses.” She gazed at the table furiously, “and ugly old glasses.”
Luke wrapped his hand around the glass at the side of his plate.
She crossed her arms and they fell silent as she tried to gather her thoughts. She breathed shallow breaths, as if not wanting to stop now that she had started. “And time, Luke. I thought that love meant time. But you’re always so busy with the farm—”
“Sade, this farm is our life.” He was trying to stay calm. “It was Dad’s life—”
“But Luke you’re NOT your father. You haven’t been able to make this farm run like him—”
Enraged, Luke slammed his fist on the table. “I’m trying. Okay?”
She blinked at his sudden ferocity, and then fell sullen. “It’s easy for you.”
“Easy?” His voice tightened. When did he ever once make his life seem easy? Picking up where his dad left off—trying to keep not just a farm but a legacy from folding—none of that was easy.
“We have one truck and you take that with you every day. I can’t even leave the house.” Her voice raised into a whine. “Why can’t we move closer into town?”
“You KNOW why I don’t wan—why we can’t move. This farm and this house—”
She interrupted him, throwing up her hands and rolling her eyes. “There you go again. This farm. This house. Those things mean more to you than I do.”
He stared at her, a disgusted feeling rising in his stomach. Perhaps he had been simplistic in his planning of bringing her out here. Idealistic for believing her when she’d said he would be all she’d ever need. He figured they’d start a family—that she’d be the sexy barefoot mama of his children. But when they moved out here, and rather than children came grief, and the farm started falling behind with him working to keep up, let alone get ahead, he realized that his wife didn’t know what to do with herself. He had just assumed she’d be happy hanging laundry on the lines. That she’d want to learn to can and quilt like his mama had. But even after 5 years of marriage she didn’t know even half of what his mama had known about sacrifice—about what really mattered. And somewhere along the line he hadn’t had time to show her.
But he couldn’t stay angry at her for her selfishness. This pathetic person was not the Sade he knew—it was a monster formed in the darkness of grief, self-pity, and blame. And he was determined to tame it with patience.
“I never promised you that this life would be easy when I brought you out here.” He reasoned.
Her voice was raspy and tight. “You never told me it’d be this hard,”
He turned back to his plate and said softly, “Things will look better tomorrow.” Wanting that to be the last word, he shoveled a fork full of broccoli in his mouth.
“That’s what you always say.”
He clinched his teeth tightly for a minute, and then set the fork down and turned to her. She was looking at him as if a bit scared that he would erupt. He took a deep breath and smiled. “You’re right, sweetheart. Maybe we’ll go into town tomorrow evening; we’ll have a nice dinner, and figure this out.”
She stared into his eyes for a minute, as if surprised by the kindness. Then she unfolded her arms and shuffled back toward the bedroom, wearily. At the doorway, she stopped and looked over her shoulder. “It doesn’t matter, Luke. I think we both wanted something different out of life. We need something more—”
“More than what, Sade? Each other?” He saw tears pooling in her eyes. Her breathing was rigid.
Slowly, she nodded and disappeared into the darkness of the next room.
Luke ran a shaky hand through his hair. Her confession had shaken him to his core. How could it all be over just like that? But it wasn’t just like that. He’d seen it coming. He could have done more. But what—
A bolt of lightning exploded, making him jump. Tumbling clatter let him know the wind was kicking the trashcans around outside. Walking over to the window to inspect the back yard, he heard the cows mooing in the barn. He needed to calm them. After putting on his boots, he barely got the screen door open against the wind. He braced his body against the force of the gusts assaulting him all the way to the barn. Once inside, he began murmuring to Edith and the other two heifers and the chickens that were clucking their concern. Edith walked over to him, her brown eyes wide with fear.
“Shhh, girl. It’s okay. You’re safe in here.” He patted her nose, rubbed her neck trying to imagine what life would be like without the farm or the animals or land. Honest living, his father called it. Though Luke wasn’t so sure he’d call what he’d been doing living. This farm had meant so much to his dad and his dad had meant so much to him.
“She doesn’t understand, girl.” he murmured to the cow who seemed comforted in his presence even though the wind was still rushing over the roof. “Whatcha think? Is she’s right? Should we call it quits?” the cow bobbed her head about. Luke chuckled, grabbed a pitchfork and started spreading some fresh hay in the stall. “Dad and Mom would be disappointed, you know. But the truth is, I can’t imagine life without the farm.” Suddenly, he thought of what Sade had said about the farm being more important to him than she was. He leaned against the pitchfork, realizing deeply what he had thought he already knew. “But I can’t imagine life without her, Edith.” He set the pitchfork against the wall and walked back over to the cow. “No matter what that means, I can’t imagine not having her in my life.”
Something thumped against the wall of the barn and he realized he needed to get back inside before the rain started. He gave the cow one last hard pat on the flank. “Y’all’ll be all right in here. Storm’ll be over soon.” Opening the barn door was strenuous. The wind’s shoulder pressed against it. Debris swirled in the air—leaves, hay, branches. He discovered one of the shutters from the house had blown against the side of the barn. Shielding his eyes with his arms, he pressed toward the house.
But over the wind roaring through his ears and the clatter of the wind chime on the porch, he heard it. A louder roar somewhere in the distance.
He stopped and looked toward the noise that seemed to be all around him. What he feared was illuminated by another bolt of lightning. A swirling funnel cloud was racing toward the barn, a massive pillar of strength and terror.
Luke broke into a run, yelling, “Sade, Sade, get out here.” As he opened the screen door, the wind caught it, tearing it off its hinges.
“Luke,” She was already racing out toward him, squinting in the wind blowing through the open doorway. “What’s going on—”
“It’s a twister. We’ve got to get to the storm cellar now.” He grabbed her hand and ran out the already opened doorway. Out in the wind with debris flying all around them, he knew they’d never make it around to the back of the house and get that cellar door open and closed against the suction and pressure of the wind. He held her to him, shielding her with his body and pulling her toward the only other place of shelter he could think of, the big front porch with a crawl space under it. “Get under the porch. Hurry!”
She clambered into the tiny opening, wailing in fear as the roar got closer. Luke looked back toward the barn one last time, the dust slicing at his eyes.
Sade screamed his name under the porch, pulling at his legs. Tearing his gaze away from the barn, he pulled himself under the porch and felt for her, pulling her to him, stroking her hair. “It’s all right baby, it’s all right.” She was sobbing and he felt her heart pounding through her back. “It’ll be over soo—” Suddenly the yard light went out, leaving them in the pitch black. He squeezed her tighter as he heard the sounds. Wood splintering. Creaking metal. The cows bawling.
She sobbed, “Luke, The animals—”
“It’s all right.” He spoke around the lump in his throat, past his breath shortened by fear and adrenaline. “Sade, whatever happens. I love you.” He pressed his face into her hair.
“I-I love you too.”
And then they it was upon them and they heard the sound of life being uprooted right above them as glass shattered; the ground rumbled beneath them. Things collapsed around them, on top of them.
She screamed.
He held her for what seemed like forever.
And then the roar was passed.
“Wh—what’s going on?” She whimpered.
He listened for a moment before assuring her, “It’s over, sweetheart. It’s over. You okay?”
He felt her nod, and then she began sobbing again. “What are we gonna do?”
“Shh. It’s okay. We’ll stay under here for now. We don’t know what’s out there and don’t have any light to see by.”
She drew a shaky breath, begging him to do what he’d wanted to do for months. “Hold me, Luke. Just hold me.”
They sat silent, neither asking questions that they knew neither had the answers to. At some point, weariness pressed them against the cool earth, and they slept.

The sun sliced through the darkness of their cavern. Luke woke, stiff and aching, unsure of when he fell asleep and halfway forgetting where they were. Then he remembered. Eager to survey the damage outside, he leaned over and smoothed his wife’s hair back from her face, murmuring in her ear, “Sade. It’s morning.”
Her puffy eyes opened and she gazed around confused.
“Remember? The twister?” Seeing recognition on her face, he continued, “We need to get out of here.”
She sat up and watched him as he looked at the side opening, obstructed with branches and wooden poles that he recognized from the porch. He kicked at them, shoving an opening large enough for them to squeeze through. When he had crawled out, he helped her stand then straightened to look around.
The view caught his breath. What had been the barn lay in mounds on the back field. What had been their home was strewn across the yard, and collapsed in a heap—the porch roof had fallen directly on top of the porch they were under.
Sade covered her mouth with a shaky hand, stifling tears. “What are we gonna do?”
He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her to him.
Somewhere in the branches of a toppled tree, a bird welcomed the new morning over the wreckage. Luke let his gaze pan once more over what he had thought would be his future, now just wood, glass, wires, steel, hay strewn all about.
Then the rising sunlight glinted off something by the clothesline post. He stared at it for a moment before realizing what it was: one of his mother’s brown glasses, unbroken, pristine, full of clear rain water.
Luke breathed in deeply, remembering his wife’s question. He gripped her shoulders against him and felt her—his whole world in her form. Quietly, he said, “We’ll just have to start over.”

Life skies

Some friends are like the moon—-reliable, unmovable so that you can set the seasons of your life by them. Others are like those constellations that come and go, consistently illusive, but there nonetheless. But some, a few, are like shooting stars—-brilliant and real, but fleeting-—a flash of light across the sky of your life. And there’s something about those that you’ll never forget.

Discover the Moon

My nephew some months ago, in the amazement and curiosity that only a two year old can display, pointed at the moon, wondering “What is it?” When his parents told him ‘that’s the moon,’ he spent the next weeks with his little neck craned back, his finger pointed, calling its name, as if it were his very own Easter egg, hidden in plain sight.
“Where moon?” he asked frantically, when a tree or building obscured the lunar sphere as they drove in the evenings. When it became visible again, he’d smile with relief and say, “Oh, there moon.”
At night, he refused to go to bed, perhaps for fear that if he stopped watching, it would disappear. Or maybe because he was just so fascinated by it, that he couldn’t tear his wonderful little gaze away from the window.
For two years he had benefited from its light. Two years it had beamed without his acknowledgement. But he was thrilled to find it—as if his discovery was necessary, somehow, for its existing, as if no one had ever discovered it before, as if we hadn’t already walked upon it.
A child is the bravest of explorers. Everything is something to be discovered. He has no fear, sets no boundaries for his creativity. The world is a very old new place, much like the moon. It’s born anew with each child born.
Just like my nephew, I want to discover the moon, to wrap myself in a two year old’s curiosity and encounter the world for the first time. For only then will I find in this very old world the new vision of things to write about.
But unlike my nephew, the intrepid explorer, my discovery is often impeded by fear. Too many others have already found the things in the world— every subject has been touched, every emotion plumbed, every idea expounded. I’m too scared of being embarrassed to gape at things I’ve lived beneath, around, for 25 years. I’m terrified that others will find my discoveries too simple, will laugh at my ponderings and personal enlightenments.
Far too often, I long for material to write yet am too proud to discover my world and all the wonderful routine subjects in it for the first time. I’m afraid of what it will cost me—settling to find my awe in what I know in the here and now instead of the what might be and what I don’t know.
But the truth is that first I must discover the moon, before I will ever walk on it.

.

Accident Report

Clint enjoyed his job as general manager of Bass Pro Shop. Really, he did.
He’d started working as a sales associate when he was 20. Six years later, (on a recommendation from his retiring manager “for his responsible and capable tendencies and ability to adapt to and manage any given situation”) he’d been offered the position of general manager. He hadn’t been sure if he was ready for it—after all, he’d never really been the kind of person to like confrontations, or unpredictability. And it was only AFTER he accepted the position did Jim, the manager that Clint had inherited this job from, give him two pieces of advice.
“Clint,” Jim had said, wrapping his arm around Clint’s shoulders and steering him toward the carp pond as if they were father and son discussing life matters, “this is a recreational facility. A big boy toy store. So don’t take your job too seriously.” Then he stopped walking and looked Clint in the eyes. His voice deepened.. “But take your customers seriously, son—always. And never underestimate what they’re capable of.” Though it sounded dramatic, like instruction for dealing with big game, Clint had followed it to the letter and it had worked for a year now.
But in that year, Clint had seen exactly what Jim was talking about. Customers presented him with all species of situations not addressed in his managerial protocol handbook. Once, a woman brought a trapped raccoon into the store because she thought the Bass Pro Shop could take it off her hands. But when Clint kindly explained that they weren’t an animal refuge, the woman opened the cage, with a spiteful smirk, let the animal loose and then sashayed out of the store. The coon clambered to the top of the mountain goat exhibit, and sat there hissing while Clint helped the animal control people wrangle it into a cage.
Another time, he helped revive a woman who fainted when she was caught off guard by the taxidermied cottonmouth in a display by her foot. Clint had cleaned up a pile of deer guts that had fallen off the back of a pick-up truck in the parking lot. He had fished flip flops out of the fish pond. Had politely asked men who were casting lines from the fishing department over to the women’s clothing section to stop.
In other words, customers themselves were about as unpredictable as any of the big game or hobbies that his store helped them to dominate. And in a place where testosterone raged sometimes out of control and bragging rights were not merely unwritten law, but a constitution to live by, Clint had never quite overcome the fear. The fear of the overpopulation of an unpredictable, sometimes aggressive species of customers. It stayed with him when he was drinking coffee in his office and the phone rang. It twisted his gut every time his name came over the intercom. It assaulted him when he heard a customer say ‘excuse me’ right behind him. He even had nightmares of worst case scenarios. Making and keeping his customers happy was Clint’s lifelong goal. ‘Cause at his core, he assumed that really, he simply feared confrontation with corporate and the consequences of unhappy customers.
Incidentally, confrontation and consequences were all that Clint could think of right now as he stood holding an accident report form. He watched the woman sitting at the table across the café with her back to him, her arms crossed as if she were cold. Her short brown ponytail still dripped, forming a small puddle on the floor behind her. A sack of wet clothes sat by her chair.
“Hey, Clint.”
Clint jumped slightly as Brad, one of his floor clerks, walked up next to him holding out a fleece Coleman blanket from the camping section. “Here’s that blanket you wanted. Oh and this.” He held out a plastic bag containing a digital camera still seeping water from the cracks in the camera body. “She doin’ okay?”
“Yeah.” Clint released a sigh that sounded pitiful even to him.
“Don’t worry about it, man.” Brad said, as if he could sense Clint’s tension. “It’s not like this is the first time somethin’ like this has happened. Remember those idiots a couple years ago on Youtube?”
“Yeah, but they meant to do it.” Clint rubbed his hand across the auburn goatee on his chin, a gesture he reserved for times when he didn’t know what to do. “Man did you see how scared she was?”
“Could be worse.” Brad grinned. “She could be dead.”
Clint shot him a death glare and grabbed the blanket and bag out of his hands. He nodded toward the girl. “Who knows what in the world she’s gonna say—or want.”
“Eh, maybe it won’t be as bad as you think. Bite the bullet and get it over with.” Brad clapped him on the back. “Good luck, boss. And let me know how this one turns out.” With a chuckle, he walked back to the camping department leaving Clint alone with his cramping stomach.
Clint stood for another thirty seconds, trying to determine his approach. Overcompensate. If we give her what she wants upfront, maybe that will hold off a lawsuit or even out of court costs. He remembered from his days of watching Davy Crockett as a boy that with enough charm, you could tame a grizzly. So with a well-rehearsed smile spread across his face, he approached her table. “Hey there. Look what I’ve got.” He wrapped the blanket around her shoulders “This’ll help warm you up. It was Robyn, right?”
She nodded, accepting the blanket eagerly. But her face remained sullen.
A bad sign. “You doin’ okay?” He pressed, settling in the seat next to her, hiding the plastic bag with her camera under the table.
“I’m fine.” She fingered the price tag dangling from the blanket just beneath her chin. Wincing at the price, she dropped the tag as if it were hot. She tried to recover by looking over at him. “Um, thanks for the change of clothes.”
Marlene from the ladies clothing section had fixed her up with a dry pair of jeans and a t-shirt. “Do they fit okay?”
“They’re perfect. But, um—” She looked down at the outfit, “how much will all this cost me?”
Clint stared at her blankly, not wanting to underestimate the simplicity of the question, yet marveling at its innocence. “Oh! No, no. You can keep those. No charge. In fact, is there anything else that I can get for you?” He looked around for something else to offer her and spotting the snack bar, asked, “Are you hungry? Want some water?”
“I think I’ve had enough of that for today.” She coughed, as if a few drops of water still remained in her lungs.
He wasn’t sure whether to laugh or apologize. She was either severely disgruntled or just sarcastic. Gotta feel her out a little more.
“Oh, and—” she gave him an apologetic glance. “I’m sorry about—the fish.”
Clint sat up straighter and blinked. A customer was apologizing to him? “Oh, d-don’t worry about it.” He crossed his arms on the table and leaned forward. “We’re gonna mount him and put your name on the plaque as the fisherman who caught him.” He saw her smile slightly. Charm boy, charm. Works every time. “Although, I gotta say, your technique ranks right up there with throwing dynamite in the lake.”
“Yeah, well, technique wasn’t exactly on my mind at the moment.”
“No, I guess it wasn’t.” This seemed like a good enough transition into what he was really there for. He pulled a pen out of his shirt pocket and clicked it open. “Look, I need to fill out this accident report. Can you tell me what happened?”
She groaned, putting her head in her hands. “It all happened so fast. I was taking a picture from above the tank, but my foot slipped on the waterfall spray and then— ” She stopped, as if she couldn’t bring herself to repaint the scene. “And then splash.”
He pressed a little harder on the pen as he wrote, hoping that she’d overlook the fact that technically it was their fault that she went over. He’d been telling corporate that they needed to redirect that waterfall spray. It settled right there on the floor at the landing.
Her sharp gasp pulled him out of his reverie. “I just remembered. Did my camera—?”
He stopped writing and set the plastic bag in front of her. “Sunk to the bottom of the tank. We dipped it out, but it’s probably dead.” He hurried on. “But we’re gonna take care of that for you too.”
Lifting the bag to inspect the camera, she shook her head. “It was a 300 dollar camera! I don’t expect you to pay for it.”
“Don’t worry about it. You’ve been through a lot. We want to take care of you.” He jotted down the expense of the camera in the margin of the report.
She set the bag down and eyed him for a minute. “All right,” she smiled, as if resigning to this and any future kindness. “Thank you.”
Her smile made him feel better. She was small and, well, cute. Some mascara was smeared around her eyes and— Focus Clint, focus. He cleared his throat and went back to filling out the accident report. “So why did you come in to the Bass Pro Shop today?”
She chuckled, remembering the simplicity of her visit. “I was looking for a pink Browning buckmark for my car. But you didn’t have any.”
A buckmark? She looked so unassuming. As if she might have a hobby making jewelry or scrapbooks. That’s right. Those were the ones Jim told you to watch out for. Better keep her happy. “Well, we’ll get you a pink buckmark, even if we have to special order it.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“Nah, we want to take care of you.” He slid the paper over to her. “Here, can you fill out this top information for me?”
As she concentrated on filling in her phone number and address, he asked, “So what do you want with a buckmark? You hunt?”
“Me? Hunt?” She burst out laughing. “No. I just like the fact that I’m making a statement.”
“What kind of statement are you trying to make?”
She filled in the last space before passing the pen and paper back to him and then smiled coyly. “I support the right to bear firearms. And I like to keep people guessing.”
“About what?”
“Most of them don’t think of me as a buckmark kind of person.”
You got that right, Clint thought. “So what kind of a—”
“Good grief, do they really have to stare?” She put her hand up to block the side of her face closest to the people in the café. “I should have sold tickets.”
Clint looked over his shoulder. A twenty something year old guy, who looked as if he sincerely didn’t realize that capitalizing on someone else’s trauma was ethically in question, pointed to his high-tech phone screen and laughed. “I was filmin’ the fish tank when you fell in,” he yelled over to her. “I got it ALL on video. Just uploaded it to YouTube.” As if this were meant to calm her.
“Great.” She squinted at him, her voice brittle with sarcasm. “Thanks for lettin’ me know.” She pulled the blanket closer around her.
Clint moved his chair around to block their view, and reached out hesitantly to touch her arm. “Hey, don’t worry about them. They’re just ignorant rednecks.”
“That’s redundant.” She snorted. “Ignorant. Rednecks.”
He loved the way her intonation barely changed with each statement, no matter what her emotion was. “That’s right. So give ‘em a break.” He grinned. “Besides, I have to admit, watching you cling to the side of that tank, screaming, ‘Will they bite?’ was pretty darn hysterical.” When she cut her eyes over at him, he hurried to clarify, “NOW—of course—it wasn’t THEN.”
“Well this IS Bass Pro Shop.” She snapped. “Aren’t y’all supposed to have exotic stuff in here? I mean, you could have had piranhas in the tank for all I knew.
“They’re Grouper.” He said, dryly, attempting to keep the conversation light. “Grouper don’t bite. What cracks me up is that you were in a 10 foot tank and you can’t swim, but you were scared of the fish?”
“How did you know I can’t swim?”
“Because in between yelling about the fish, you were also screaming, ‘I can’t swim.’ And then there were the tell tale signs of the sinking and struggle and gasping and—”
“All right, all right.” She rolled her eyes but couldn’t stop the grin. “I have an overactive imagination. The only thing more mortifying than falling in a fish tank at the Bass Pro Shop is being systematically stripped of my flesh in front of an audience. A docile death like drowning didn’t occur to me as a worse option.”
“You’re taking this pretty well.”
“Eh, you either laugh or cry. Why waste the body fluid? Things like this just happen to me.” She reached up and loosened the ponytail, casually. A trickle of water splashed onto the floor. “I’m always looking for an adventure, but catastrophe usually finds me first.”
“Are you a connoisseur of near death experiences?”
She thought for a minute then shook her head. “I think today was the first life threatening one. But you know, the petty little things. Flat tires, getting lost in the bad section of Atlanta, being accosted by angry herons—that kind of thing.”
He grinned, hoping she had more stories to tell. Anything to give him an excuse to—Clint, get a hold of yourself. She’s a customer. Get her in, get her out before she suits you. Business, boy. Business. His smile disappeared. “You could have drowned you know.”
“Ya think?”
He ignored the sarcastic comeback and suppressed a grin, trying to remain professional. “That wouldn’t have looked good for Bass Pro.”
“I think people would have thought worse about the retard who fell into your fish tank.” She looked down at the tag she was fiddling with again.
“Y-you’re not a retard, Robyn.” He assured her softly. “Anyway, we’re really glad you didn’t drowned.” There that sounded professionally distant.
“Glad I could help you out.”
He needed to get out of this conversation while she was still in such a compliant mood. Looking down at the accident report in his hand, he said, “Well, I think I’ve got all the info that I need here. So if you need someone to drive you home or if your clothes need to be dry-cleaned, or if you want to stay around for lunch at the Islamorada—anything—you let me know and we’ll take care of it. My office is right through those doors.” He patted the table once and stood. “Have a great day, Robyn.” Well, that was easy. Letting out a sigh of relief, he headed out of the snack shop.
“I could suit your butt off, you know.” Her voice still held the same almost bored intonation.
Clint was sure that he lurched from stopping so fast. Whoa. Where did THAT come from? Slowly, he turned to face her, his stomach cramping, his mouth bone dry.
“That water up on the floor—” she cast a glance toward the waterfall ledge “clear violation of safety code. I know I slipped on it.” She crossed her arms and let silence punctuate her meaning. “I’m seeing emotional damages out the wazoo.”
The almost exotic unreadability that had intrigued him so much before, seemed almost dangerous now as he tried to gather some thoughts, some response. Respect the customers—they’re intelligent creatures. With this one especially, he knew he couldn’t bluff any longer. And surprisingly, he realized that he didn’t want to.
Pulling the chair back out, he sat down. “You’re right. It was our fault.” He pulled a business card out of his shirt pocket and held it out to her. “And if you want to—pursue this further, here’s my name and number.”
She took the card and looked at it for a minute, then slid it back across the table with one finger. “Good thing you’re takin’ such good care of me already.”
He sat there confused, searching her eyes, as if they were a compass that would tell him exactly which direction this entire scenario had just taken.
Finally, she grinned. “You need to chill, Clint. We aren’t all out to get you. Besides—I mean, I got a new outfit, a Browning buckmark, a new camera—possibly lunch and anything else probably short of carting home one of those boats you got out back. What more could a girl want?”
Clint wasn’t sure why he wasn’t more annoyed at her obvious strategy to unnerve him. Nor did he understand why he proceeded to say, “I really do want you to know how much I’m sorry. I’ll never forget the way you held onto to my neck like a wet cat when I pulled you outta that tank and carried you to the back room.”
She laughed, brushing a strand of now almost dried hair behind her ear.
“No, honestly. I’ve never seen anyone that scared and embarrassed before. You shouldn’t have had to go through that.”
“And yet, you’ll go home and watch the video on YouTube and laugh your stinkin’ head off.” She predicted, shaking her head in disapproval.
“Oh, yeah. Probably go back to my office right now and watch it. Probably post it on Facebook and show it at the company Christmas party, too.”
“Do I get compensated for supplying the entertainment?” She twirled the piece of hair around her finger.
He thought for a minute about his comeback. It wasn’t professional, but then again, very little in the past fifteen minutes had been. “I live by the bay,” he blurted out, pushing the business card back toward her. “Why don’t you call me sometime and you can come over and let me teach you how to swim just in case any of your other adventures take you around water?” He held up his hand as if swearing. “No piranhas or flesh-eating trout or vicious grouper or hidden YouTube video cameras.”
She fingered the card. “Promise?”
“You bet.” He winked. “And if there are—I’ll take care of you.”
“And what about YOU?” She raised an eyebrow. “Are you dangerous?”
He wasn’t even sure where, but somewhere along the way the game had changed. Like those hunters who tell stories of becoming the hunted. And, strangely, he didn’t mind the swap. Because for all that this girl talked about wanting adventure, Clint had a feeling that she was herself quite an elaborate adventure. She was unpredictable. Risky. And for once in his life, he didn’t turn and run or offer more amenities, bribing the impulsive moment to pass him by. This girl looked as if she’d be extremely displeased if he answered, ‘no.’ And since customer satisfaction was always his goal, he leaned forward, rested his arms on the table and smiled confidently. “Oh, you’re in luck, ma’am. I’m one big adventure just waiting to happen.”

Love

I fell in love a few weeks ago.
The moment I stepped from the van, my heart commenced its love affair with the lusty salt smell associated with the sea. There are stories in this place, I thought as we walked across the gravel parking lot. Inside, I hugged myself against the chill of the freezers, as I pressed my way through the crowd of people gathered around the front cases. And there I fell in love—with fish heads, their milky eyes staring pitifully at me through the glass; miniature squids, resembling some kind of rubber bath toys; slabs of scarlet salmon and metallic-skinned tuna; and brilliantly colored fish eggs—orange and green, shining like plastic beads on a dollar store necklace. I cheered on humongous lobsters fighting their way to the top of the tank, climbing over others who, resigned to their fate, lay on the bottom. I stared for an unacceptable length at the large-nosed Italian man perched against a stool, calling order numbers into a microphone and thanking customers at full volume for their loyalties. Yes, I fell in love with a seafood market.
I’d heard the name of the place in many conversations, each time hearing others rave about the seafood market and its restaurant. As an avid seafood lover, it seems strange that my reason for finally visiting was far from purchasing my favorite food. Instead, I visited the shop under the most curious of intentions—not to buy seafood, but to sample scoops of gelato, the smooth and marshmellowy textured Italian ice cream. If it weren’t for my world-traveling friends who knew of Italy’s delectable desserts, I’d have never gone. I certainly wouldn’t have guessed to find such a delicacy in a place like that.
Patty and I surveyed the tubs of dazzling colored gelato and sorbets: pistachio, raspberry, hazelnut, butter pecan, peach, coconut, and all the average flavors. We sampled several, and then ordered a scoop each, she savoring raspberry and I the fresh white coconut.
At the check-out counter, I flinched at the young cashier’s rudeness when she snatched the ticket angrily out of Patty’s hand. Eyeing Faye, I took a step back, feeling an awkward moment about to unfold. Faye rarely tolerates rudeness and the fallout of her intolerance can range anywhere from mild scolding to cruelty. Surprisingly, she said nothing.
The more I watched the woman, the more I realized that she wasn’t an everyday-run-of-the-mill rude worker. There was a world behind the counter that I knew nothing of and I felt distinctly as if we were being punished for the crimes of others. In addition to us, she took out her frustration on her bubble gum, smacking it, gnashing and chomping it. Her eyes looked sunken, tired, as if she’d forgotten to put on eye liner—or just hadn’t cared to. Then, from no apparent provocation, she began to delineate her trial of the snowbirds.
How she hated snowbirds who hauled their old selves and money down South—the way she talked—with the express purpose of tormenting her.
“They threw their trash in my tip jar.” She lamented, picking up the plastic container much like the one holding my gelato only with ‘Tips’ written in pastel marker across it.
Patty and Faye had walked away by now. But as I stepped up to the counter, the woman was far from finished. “One lady was looking at the shirts and then she came up here and said, ‘I’d buy a t-shirt if it was a ‘reasonable price.’’ She grabbed my gelato container, scanned it into her register and then slammed it down on the counter and said through clinched teeth, “I had to get this—“ She reached under the counter and for the briefest moment I pictured her pulling out a super soaker squirt gun or an Uzi. Instead, she held up a hardcover book and pointed to the title.
“Just to keep me from killing them.”
I read the cover silently: “The Love Revolution by Joyce Meyer.”
She shook her head wearily and stuffed the book back under the counter. “$1.25.”
Unsure of how to respond, I held out my money and smiled, happy to have been a sponge to absorb some of her frustration. I wished her well in her quest for patience and hoped for a swift migration of her invaders. Then I walked away to join my friends out at the van.
Love will always call you back. And it did. A few days later I returned to the market. I browsed the same route—staring in at the fish; watching the lobsters who had yet to figure out a way to escape the tank. Then I made a wish list of crab dips, and cheeses, seasonings from the world over, and exotic flavors of hummus. I tasted a sample of pistachio gelato, the color of a million smooshed peas. Then tasted the hazelnut—and predictably ordered a cup of coconut.
At the counter. I smiled to see that she was working again. She didn’t remember me, but when I asked, “Are the snowbirds gone?” her eyes lit up with recognition.
“Well, they’re gone, but now we’ve been invaded by spring breakers.” She sighed and swiped my deli ticket under her scanner. “I figured out that I’m just burnt out on this job.”
“How long have you been working here?”
She scrunched her face as if calculating. I expected her to reply with a copious length; perhaps she was in the owner's family and had been working there since she was a little girl, or—
“A year.” She replied. “I’ve been here through two tourist seasons.”
I fought back a snicker at her lack of endurance, until she explained, “I’m getting ready to start college and the personality test I took said I didn’t have a personality for being a cashier.” She threw her hands up. “There you go.”
“What are you going to college for?”
“To be a dental hygienist.” She beamed, as if she had told me she’d been accepted to some elite university where she would learn to cure the common cold.
My mouth fell open for a moment while I tried to formulate a way to tell her what I was thinking. “I can’t explain it, but you LOOK like a dental hygienist.”
She looked at me doubtfully.
“No, really. I’d let you clean my teeth.”
This time she laughed;
So excited that I’d fulfilled my mission, I said, “See you later,” and started walking away.
“Hey.” She called. “You forgot your gelato.”
Rolling my eyes at myself, I grabbed the container. “Thanks.”
I walked out of the store, smiling because she had no idea that the gelato was only an excuse for what I had really gone back for—to see if she was there, to hear more of her story. Just outside the door, I sat down at the table and took a bite of the cool gelato, content that I’d found what I went for.

Cereal Therapy

He sat across from her looking as if he’d be more comfortable in a plastic booth at Whataburger than a leather chair at this Olive Garden table. But he had told her to choose her favorite restaurant. So here they were.
Staring at the menu, his brow was furrowed as he gnawed fervently on his lip. She couldn’t tell if he was nervous about pronouncing those Italian dishes or if he was calculating the price of the meal.
It was her job to make him comfortable, so she folded her menu and asked, “What looks good to you?”
“Um, not sure.” Seeing that she had already put down her menu, he scanned the menu more feverishly. “Geez, you know what you want already?”
“I usually get the same thing every time. Lasagna Fritta.” She sipped her water.
“I’ll uh, probably just get the spaghetti and meatballs.” He laid down his menu and fell silent, looking down at his overturned wine glass, as if wishing it were full.
“So, Billy tells me you work on cars, Dusty.”
“Um, yep.” He picked up the straw wrapper and started fiddling with it.
“I think that’s one of the most enduring occupations ever because people will always need to drive and cars will always break down. It’s a symbiotic relationship.”
"Um, yep. That’s what I always say.”
“I always wanted to learn how to fix my own car. I mean a good mechanic is hard to find. They usually try to trick you into getting a new motor when all you needs is an oil change.”
“Yep, some of ‘em.”
He was trying to be involved in the conversation, she’d give him that much. But even she was bored of her own conversations. To spice up the conversation, she decideed to mention her occupation. That always seemed to work. “I work at Victoria Secret.”
“That’s real nice.” He looked out the window, unfazed by the information.
Good grief! Billy had sent her on pity dates before, but this was by far the worst. That girl must’ve torn his heart out; he practically had a DNR tacked on his forehead. It wasn’t as if she ever thought it would work out between them. Or even that she had come out with him under those pretenses. She smirked, looking out at the parking lot. No, nothing would work out between them, not with that monstrosity of a truck he drove.
This guy was clearly in distress and needed something more than small talk to get his mind off his problems. He needed therapy.
She needed to perform a test to see just how bad it was. First, the silence endurance test: see how long a stretch of silence could go before it bothered him. She sat back in her seat and watched him patiently, like a lab worker might observe a specimen.
After three minutes passed, he still just stared out the window. It was clear that this would go on for as long as she decided to remain silent. He wasn’t initiating conversation anytime soon. Next came the observation test.
“Look at that rain coming down.” She grinned.
“Uh, huh,” he nodded.
“Cats and dogs.”
“Mm hmm.”
She shook her head, squinting at the sunlight streaming through the blind. Her diagnosis was complete.
Just then the waiter walked up. “Y'all know what you want?”
“Yes. We do.” She stated matter-of-factly. “We’re leaving. Come on, Dusty.” She gathered her purse and opened it, handing the waiter a couple dollars.
“But, but—“ Dusty sputtered. “Look. I’m sorry I’m not good company—”
“Dusty, it’s all right.” She laid a hand on his arm across the table. “Any man who can’t tell a rainy day from a sunny one is clearly still in love and needs to talk about her. C’mon. Let’s get you out of here.”
He followed her, weaving in between the tables to the front door.
“Wh-where are we going?”
“To my place. I’ve got a box of Cap’n Crunch at my house. Cereal is a comfort food.” She stopped to let him catch up. “And a bowl of cereal on my back porch definitely isn’t a date. You need to talk. I’ll listen.”
When he had helped her climb into his truck and gotten in himself, he looked over at her still a little confused. “H-how did you know?”
“Apart from the obvious signs?” She chuckled softly. “Billy always sends his buddies my way right after one of them breaks up. I generally know how to help them get over their girls. But you—you’re just hurtin’.” She reached over and patted his hand.
“Let’s go. The Cap’n’ll help you feel better.”
For the first time that evening, he smiled.

Boys

At times Cam hated hanging out with them—-times like, oh, right now, when, as seniors in college, Troy and Jeff were flirting with the high school girl making sandwiches behind the counter at Arby’s. Ty was making stupid comments to the girl at the register who clearly had heard every line a frat boy had to offer.
Cam wondered sometimes what it would be like to walk into a restaurant and sit down to have intelligent conversation with his friends—he smirked, Having intelligent conversation with them would be as awkward as wearin’ a burgundy sweat suit to an Auburn game.But these guys—the Core Four as they called themselves—had been his buds since grade school, through high school and now college. They hadn’t grown up that much since high school. But instead of abandoning them and going in search of that bridge from boyhood over to manhood, Cam stood in line at Arby’s in the middle of Auburn, Alabama, listening to Troy and Tyler try to extract from Jeff exactly how long it had been since he had changed his underwear.
Lucky underwear is a subjective term, Cam thought—seeing that the only lucky person involved was the party who hadn’t exerted the effort to change it. A day count didn’t matter past a certain intensity of odor—one that he was familiar with since Jeff had ridden over here with him.
Cam had tried to understand why he couldn’t bring himself to separate from them. Maybe he felt that he’d lose his identity—and yet he didn’t want to be identified with them. Maybe because he was afraid that if he left them, he’d never find anyone else who would ever accept him the way they did—but they didn’t accept him when he started talking about grown-up things like making a budget or getting a Master’s degree or making a resume. He wasn’t sure what made him stick with them. But more and more he felt that they were a burden, more like an eternal babysitting gig than his friends.
He ordered his number 3 in an apologetic tone to the woman at the register. When she handed him his receipt, he thanked her to compensate for his friends’ inconsideration and walked over to fill his cup with Dr. Pepper.
At the drink island, the underwear conversation was still in progress.
“You wearin’ your lucky boxers?” Jeff asked him. He grabbed too many cup lids in his hurry and flippantly tossed the extra four in the trash can.
“No, Jeff.” Cam sighed. “I stopped wearin’ them our sophomore year and funny thing—the Tigers have done just fine.”
“But it’s the principle of the thing, man.” Jeff clapped his hand down on Cam’s shoulder. “You do it for the team. Where’s your Tiger pride?”
“It might as well have been you that poisoned the oaks.” Tyler chimed in.
Cam had learned over his three and a half years in the communication disorder major at Auburn University that if you ignored people, they’d stop talking, eventually. In theory this always worked. With these guys it was a fifty/fifty success rate. This time, an Auburn game on the TV saved him, since anything with orange and blue caught his friends’ attention like red catches a bull’s. They went to sit in a booth along the back of the restaurant to wait for their order numbers to be called.
Ignoring the ensuing conversation about the game, Cam surveyed the restaurant. For a Sunday evening, the place was busy. A family still in their dress clothes from their Sunday evening service sat right behind the drink island, with a screaming three year old smashing curly fries in her hair.
A group of black ladies in red hats congregated by the door, waiting for their orders and talking noisily among themselves in animated conversation.
Another table of college students occupied a table in the corner, involved in conversation that elicited eruptions of laughter every so often.
The TV blared sports news above the din of the small restaurant.
But there by the window, right under the TV sat a young woman in jeans and a t-shirt; she was probably about his age or a little older—Cam couldn’t tell. She was alone, eating her curly fries daintily, tearing each coil in half before dipping one end in ketchup and popping it in her mouth. While she chewed each bite, she turned her attention to a small notebook on the table beside her sandwich wrapping. She scribbled something in it and then reached for her beef and cheddar again. Each time the sauce touched her fingers, she wrinkled her nose in disgust and reached for a napkin which, once desecrated, she would ball up to join the snowstorm of napkins surrounding her at the table. Something about her solitude in the middle of noise struck him with an emotion he couldn’t identify. It wasn’t strong enough to be desire—maybe the cousin of desire—jealousy. Her ability to be alone, but confident, to exude a maturity in identifying with herself intrigued him.
After taking the last bite, she stretched her legs out to rest on the seat across from her and concentrated fully on the notebook.
Cam jumped, startled when the other three friends burst out as the Tigers scored a basket.
The girl turned to look over her shoulder at the boisterous table, smiled, but then repositioned herself in her seat so that she was turned even farther from them, as if their noise were offensive to her solitude.
“Cam—hey man. Did you see that? Cam, hey. Where are you?”
Cam blinked and turned to look at Troy. “Uh, I’m right here.”
They looked toward the girl he’d been staring at and Troy let out a loud painful sounding snort. “REALLY, man. REALLY? Her?”
Cam attempted to nonchalantly defend himself. "What are you talking about?” He picked up his cup and drained it of the soda as his friend snickered to one another.
“Order 97.” The woman at the counter called the familiar number.
“That’s my number.” Cam jumped up, greatful for the escape.
“Looks like the shortest way up there is beside her table.” Ty laughed.
“Wait—someone get him a pen.” Jeff threw a napkin at Cam. “Don’t forget to ask for her number.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Cam grabbed his empty cup and made sure to walk around the other way to the counter. He gathered his tray, but when he turned around, his heart jumped to see that the girl stood throwing away the wrappers and napkins into the trashcan. She stopped right next to him at the drink dispenser, waiting to let him fill his cup first.
“No, you go ahead.” He insisted.
She stood on her tiptoes to watch the cup fill with Dr. Pepper, and when it had almost flowed over onto her fingers, she pulled it off and pressed the lid back on. “Thanks I, uh, hope your Tigers win.” She nodded toward the TV, and smiled.
Before he could tell her just how disinterested he was in the game, she called a cheery ‘Thank you,’ to the workers behind the counter and bounced—that’s what it was, as close as he could describe it—bounced trot out of the restaurant. Making sure that the guys couldn’t see him past the small divider between the drink island and the seating area, he craned his neck to watch as she backed out and pulled away. He grinned when he saw in the corner of her back window a Crimson Tide A. I wonder what else we’d disagree on?
Walking back past her table, he spotted the closed notebook with a pink and yellow design on it lying on the chair next to where she had sat. She must have left it when she was gathering her wrappers. Glancing back at the guys to make sure they were preoccupied with the game, he picked it up, trying to decide what to do. It was above him, of course, to snoop and read another person’s private writings. But he couldn’t stop himself. He wanted—no, needed to know what had preoccupied her in the silence. As if something written in that notebook could teach him about breaking free.
The pages were filled with penciled words in wide, loopy handwriting. Opening to the first page, he saw a plan for a budget. Surely that wasn’t what had preoccupied her. Let it go, boy. Take the notebook to the counter. You’re better than this. And yet he flipped further into the book. He found a list of books about writing labeled “to read.” Maybe she’s a writer. He flipped to the back of the notebook, searching for the last entry. He found the beginning of a journal entry.
“I’m sitting in an Arby’s in Auburn. Been a long weekend—visiting the family in South Carolina and realizing how much I’ve changed and they’ve changed since I last saw them. It’s kind of funny—I’m listening to a group of 20 year old guys up at the counter talking about how their friend hasn’t changed his underwear since last week. Silly boys. I wonder if they’ll ever grow up. But they’re cute.”
Cam stopped reading, his face turning red. He felt as if someone had taken a snapshot of him picking his nose and displayed it in the middle of Times Square. As if he’d stumbled upon someone replaying a video of his life that he hadn’t known they had recorded.
But these thoughts were confined in a stranger’s notebook—not plastered on Good Morning America or the front page of the National Inquirer. Why should he care what a random woman had thought of him? Why should it matter what she thought of him?
But it did matter. Snapping the book shut he walked over to the table and sat down, ripping open packets of sauce and squeezing it onto his sandwich. How could she not see that he had been standing off to the side? That he hadn’t been flirting, or giving input in the loud underwear conversation? I’m not even dressed like them. He looked over at his three friends wearing baggy shorts and t-shirts in contrast to his khaki pants and a polo. The more he thought about it, he fumed, unsure of the object of his anger.
Jeff jerked him out of his mounting fury when he kicked him under the table. “Look, Cam! Your girlfriend’s back.”
Jeff nudged Troy with his shoulder and they both burst out laughing.
She looked a bit frantic as she walked over to the table where she had been sitting, looked on the drink island, and even pressed open the trashcan, searching for what he knew he had already found. She hurried over to the lady behind the counter, and when the woman shook her head and the girl looked as if she might cry, as if her worst nightmare had just come true. She stood for a moment in the middle of the room looking lost, then in resignation she bit her lip and turned toward the door.
Cam gripped the notebook on his lap, struggling to know what to do next. But just when she reached the door, he made the decision.
Springing out of the booth, he called, “Hey, is this yours?”
She whirled around with relief on her face until she saw who the rescuer was. She blushed, horror tightening her jaw when she saw the guys behind him snickering.
“I just found it over—”
Before he could explain, she snatched it out of his hand, angrily. “Glad I could show you guys such a good time.” She called past him to the others, “Laugh it up, losers. You're just like your stupid Tiger team.” She shot Cam a sarcastic gaze before spitting out, “Thanks a lot.” Then turned on her heels—and this time, trotted out of the restaurant.
He stood in place by the drink island, wishing that he could explain that he wasn’t like them.
And then as if he’d finally diagnosed his problem it settled in. He was them. He was with them. His presence condoned them.
“Dude, what was HER problem? Callin’ us losers.” Troy stood from the booth and started toward the door. “I’ll show her who’s a loser.”
Cam grabbed his arm as he marched by. “Let her go, Troy. She probably thought we read her notebook.”
“Let go, man.”
Cam tightened his grip and raised his voice. “It’s not like you would do anything to her if you caught her anyway.”
Troy turned his anger on Cam. “You’re always actin’ like you’re so much better than us.” He jerked his arm out of Cam’s grasp. “And you know what? I’m about sick of it. What’s your problem?”
“My problem? You want to know what my problem is?” This was it—the moment Cam had been stashing inside for a long time. But he decided to speak slowly. “I’m a senior in college. I’ve got a full time job to get myself through. I’m trying to figure out what I’m going to do when I graduate in May. But I have three idiots for friends who don’t seem to care that life is coming faster than they can grow up. Okay? So there. That’s my problem.” He felt the need to clarify a step farther. “You guys are my problem.” The words felt horrible coming out, but once he’d said them the truth felt so good that he continued.
“And another thing. I’m a communication disorders major, but I don’t need a degree to diagnose what you guys have.” He pointed toward Troy. “You—you’re obnoxious.” Looking at Tyler he said, “You’re immature. And you, with your lucky underwear—” he wrinkled his face in disgust at Jeff, “you’re just gross.”
Without bothering to gather his food, he pushed out the door and climbed into his Jeep, processing through the anger and emotion of the scene. He had just peeled off what had been his best friends since childhood. Had just left behind the best part of his boyhood and teen years. And it hurt like ripping a band aid off a hairy arm. But—wasn’t that the point? If becoming a mature adult meant making painful or uncomfortable choices, then let this be the first.
He backed out of his parking space and pulled around the side of the building, driving slowly past the window where he could see them, stuffing their mouths with fries, eyes glued to the TV as if nothing had happened. Almost as if he had never even been a part of them. He shook his head and drove off. I wonder if they’ll ever grow up?