Lullaby Jumpstart

Wednesday, December 29, 2004

Finding That Moment Divine

I look for signs. In my life, at work, on the bus. It keeps my day from droning, and, in light of recent events, keeps me from focusing on the enormity of things global and local. Gives me a smidge of joy. But this year, on my way home for Christmas, I felt only the slight panicky dread that I normally attribute to Thanksgiving. My head couldn’t catch up to that thing the pumps my blood.

Within two days of arriving at home, I found myself already wanting to go back to work, a place I would rather keep away from. I called old friends from high school, trying to catch a movie, or coffee, or even just a quick hello (a pulse). I talked to machines, instead; voicemail, calling services, disconnect notices. I left a series of desperate messages to one friend, Ginger, resigning myself, ultimately, to the demise of our friendship. After my fourth call, a woman picked up finally and told me in the most unenthusiastic of voices:
“Ginger doesn’t live her. This isn’t her number.”
“Oh?” I questioned. “She doesn’t?” Ginger must have forgotten to pay her bill.
“No.”
“So you’ve been getting all of my messages then?”
“Yes...all of them.”
“Oh…well…sorry.”
“It’s okay. I hope…I hope you find her. Happy holidays.”
“You too.”

Great, I thought, I have friends in the city…I just can’t find them. As promising as spending a whole week with my family was, there were new developments that I couldn’t quite get over. Starting with my brother.
Levi, my cherished sibling, had decided that he would prefer living without that luxury of electricity. Which wouldn’t have been so bad, I guess, except, in order to deal with the decreasing temperature he had covered his windows with several layers of black plastic and insulation. The result? Not a single drop of sunlight reached the interior of his apartment. His plants were dying and when you woke up in the morning you couldn’t even begin to guess what time of day it was. I was informed upon arriving that I would be staying in his extra bedroom.

My mother. My mother had moved into a cute little studio apartment right next to the town library. Which works toward her advantage but leaves me stranded from anything social or anyplace where noise can generate. But noise had become a thing of the past for my mother, as she had grown increasingly deaf over the year. It had become a game with me, I guess. Saying something at an almost inaudible level, just to see if she would ask me to repeat what I had said, or attempt to answer it anyway.
Ex.
“Mother do you want me to open the walnuts or the cashews?”
(pause) “Yes…that would be good.”
“What would be good?”
“Whichever you choose?”
“You know I don’t care.”
(Pause) “I’m sorry…hon…what did you say?”
And so it would go…on and on. I suppose it makes me cruel, but if she is not willing to admit she has a problem, then I am not going to compensate for it.

My father. Still deceased, but somehow his presence always lingering.

And my grandmother. She is now on oxygen treatments daily (delivered to her home by “a nice Jew” as she calls him.) Her apartment is plastered with no smoking signs everywhere, but she seems to think that the rule only applies to visitors and not her. I suppose in her mind she thinks she is breaking even.

I tried to look for the signs, but holiday gloom had taken me over. I finished my Christmas shopping in record time, not really bothering to search for the perfect present. I wrapped them hastily, something I am truly awful at and usually become enraged, throwing bows and invisible tape in defiance, while trying to accomplish. And I settled in to resign myself to a slow and dreary week.

And then, the first miracle.Ginger’s mother, Priscilla, a woman I had always admired, gave me a call from out of the ether. She was working for a little store supported by the United Way as a fundraiser for the community center she ran, and I once worked for. She wanted me to come visit her and the mall was within walking distance from where I was stationed.As I walked into the store, I was flooded with angel ornaments and mason jar candles. Tinny Christmas lights and Burl Ives on the radio. And Priscilla. Her was shorter than normal and darker, but she still had that same smile. Her eyes, I could see glowed a little less than usual, but upon spotting me they lit up instantly. I immediately felt embarrassed.We talked for hours (no on was shopping, so she didn’t really have to work). We caught up on the community center and her children, my friends, and her life in general. She had taken a second job as a waitress to add to her holiday budget and was looking to run for City Council again (twice defeated as my hometown is uber-conservative.)I invited her out to dinner on the provision that she would drive and she accepted.

On the way to the diner, she told me she had to stop off at the Center and drop the day’s receipts into a safe.At the center, things were busy. People were wrapping presents in a flurry and talking of holiday plans.
“Priscilla,” I asked, “Who are they wrapping presents for?”
“Oh..we adopted a family. Bosnian refugees. A mother and three children. Soldiers stormed their home…it was awful.”
“What happened?”
“They…well…they…shot the father and grandfather and aunt in front of the children. They fled their home and found Red Corss workers on the street. Somehow, a Bosnian father here in Columbus, heard of their story and brought them here to the halfway house.”
“Oh…oh my god.”
“They’ve never celebrated Christmas before so we asked for donations. Enough for two presents a piece and a stocking stuffer.”
I looked out across the tables set up in the center. They were covered in presents. Two hundred at least, only half of them wrapped.I caught my breath.
“That will surely be enough for them?” (Not meaning for it to sound like a question)
“The rest we’re donating, but they will have plenty.”
She turned to her volunteers, “How long have you guys been going?”
“Three hours so far,” a heavy-set woman with frosted hair grumbled. “And I still have to wrap the rest of mine tonight.”
Priscilla turned to me with a smirk on her face, “Feel like wrappin’?”
I said nothing, but grabbed a pair of scissors. All in all, I must admit, the presents I wrapped looked horrible. Baggy on one end or not enough paper in the middle. Rips in the corners of the presents or flaps left open. But the conversation was pleasant and Sheila, a woman I had worked with two summers ago, had made some of the best fudge I had ever tasted. The time passed quickly and I found myself, for the first time in days enjoying myself.

After we had finished with the presents, Priscilla and I had our dinner. We talked of family and divorce and loss and pain. I knew why I had come home.

The second miracle came with two feet of snow. My brother, born blind in one eye, injured the other at work, when a metal shaving cut close to his retina in three places. Even though his apartment was only six blocks away from my mother’s, he decided to stay with our mother over the holidays as he could no longer drive, and was, hopefully temporarily, legally blind.

Over the course of single night, two feet of snow collected in the streets. Snow trucks couldn’t keep up and the city itself was closed. After only a day of being with my family, cooped up in a tiny apartment, I was already stir-crazy. I realized I had the perfect out. I had left my clothes and belongings at my brother’s apartment. After half an hour of convincing my mother that I would be okay if I walked to his apartment (it was only six blocks away) I made the snowbound trek. Levi asked me to grab clothes, a razor, and his X-Box (only the essentials) for him and mom yelled after me to bring back a snow shovel. I didn’t know how I would carry all of my belongings, my brother’s and a snow shovel but rather than risk the chance of one of them joining me, I agreed.

The trip over to my brother’s apartment was uneventful, if not long. The sun was still out and I had to make extra turns to avoid closed streets and snow banks. I packed my clothes and my brother’s X-Box in haste and began looking for his snow shovel. I could only find a regular garden shovel, but assumed in these times of crisis a shovel was a shovel. By the time I had left my brother’s apartment, with two back-packs and garden equipment, the sun had set (which I couldn’t have noticed as my brother’s windows were still covered).

Halfway back to my mother’s house, I somehow got turned around. I was now treading, knee-deep, through virgin snow down unplowed streets. I came upon a plow embankment up to my shoulder. On the other side of it was Franklin street, my mother’s street. To double-back and walk around it would have added at least a half hour to my trip, and it was now cold. So I decided, in my infinite wisdom, to scale it. I reached the top with ease, a little breathless, but victorious. Immediately I lost my footing and tumbled down the other side, ass-end to the street. The snow was soft enough that it didn’t hurt but the shock of the knocked me onto my back. Or I should say my back-packs leaving me propped up strangely at a 45 degree angle. Snowflakes filled my face and I found myself laughing. Not giggling. Not chuckling. But a full guffaw, snorts and all. I laid there for minutes. Cars passed and honked at me angrily, as I was laying sprawled on one of the only accessible streets in the city. A woman rolled down her window to ask if I was okay. I could only laugh and snort and wave her on. Deciding not to make the trip (pun intended) a total waste, I made a snow angel in the middle of the street and wrote my name over the angel with my finger. I finished my journey back to my mother’s place and told them nothing of my fall, but left them to wonder why I was so wet.

There are signs. I just didn’t know where to look for them. They came, unexpectedly and reminded me…there is joy.