On my weekends home, I have been drowning myself in home redecoration. I refinished a dresser into an entertainment center, I took the drawers and made them shadow boxes. I repainted, refinished, reorganized. And then I sat and nested. And it was nice to feel so peaceful with my surroundings.
I also scored at TJ Maxx last week and found these dainty plates in the shape of romaine lettuce. It must be romaine lettuce, for the leaves are long and have a deep vain. Nothing in this world quite does it for me like a beautiful place setting at the table.
My style is mish-mash. It is colorful, and full of patterns.
I am waiting to hear back from the Appalachian Fiction Writers Contest, as well. My submission was non-fiction, but embellished to make it fiction. I really tried to write for the judge, too.
Here is my story:
Lubriderm and Channel No. 5
I remember the night of my first panic attack vividly. I thought I was dying.
It was the 80s and I was in
That night, I slept in my grandmother's guest room. I could never sleep well in that bed because of her virgin white comforter. Or maybe it was the fact that the bed was so hard, so narrow, so sterile. She always threatened me never to stain that white comforter. This put me in a precarious situation, for I was an 8 year old girl who spent her evenings bouncing on the neighbor's giant trampoline barefoot. I spent my nights terrified of dirt stains and drool spots.
I remember the sensations I felt that night: a string attached to the inside of my belly button, pulling back. I didn't feel nausea, but I felt tense and busy in my stomach. I remember not being able to hold my legs still. I remember a pressured chest. I remember racing empty thoughts. I don't remember what I was thinking, but I remember thinking that I was about to die. I yelled for her.
She came in, knelt by my bed, and the room filled with the smell of Chanel No. 5 and Lubriderm.
She was frustrated, unable to identify my ailment.
So we stayed up talking. And the subject finally came up.
“Do you know who Jesus is,” she started. She was still healthy enough to sit on her knees at the side of my bed. I can still see her upper lip twitch the way it always did. She had deep, deep wrinkles around her lips. And that lip just twitched, kind of like Elvis. And I can still see her hands, her fingers that never completely extended, clasped in some sort of dramatic prayer. And I can still see the paper towel and bobby pins she used to cover her hair every night, so not to disturb the fixed curl she got at the hairdresser’s once a week.
“If you don’t believe in Jesus, you go to hell. And that is a very bad place.”
She sputtered bright and busy descriptions of burning pits, people screaming, and pain.
“Jews don’t believe in Jesus, Ginny,” she said. “And that is why I worry about you so much.”
This was a very appropriate bedtime story for a little girl with anxiety.
She always had a way to always worry about me. She worried about my weight. At 8 years old, I was only allowed to have half a can of Coca-Cola a day. And no snacks. At 8 years old, I was going to get real fat. And then no boys would want me.
I snuck slices of bologna when she wasn’t looking. I would open her brownish-yellow refrigerator door, and stick my little Jewish fingers inside for pork bologna.
She worried about boyfriends. She worried about an 8 year old getting a good boyfriend.
I worried about disappointing her. Or disappointing anyone. Like my mother. And my Rabbi.
I remember the week of my bat mitzvah. My grandmother came to stay with us in
She would always bring out a nice suit, in pale mauve with lace trim. The skirt would hit right below the knees. And the jewelry. She wouldn’t leave the house without her mountain of diamond chips on the right hand, and her sapphires on the left.
Oh, and don’t forget the smell of Lubriderm and Chanel No. 5.
Two days before my bat mitzvah, she leaned across the table as I opened another mazel-tov missive and whispered her favorite question: “how much money did that one send.” I told her in a not-so-subtle voice, and also told her my running total. For a twelve year old, $3,000 was enough to live on forever.
And my mother overheard. I tried to fight back that day. I was unsuccessful. It was wrong of me, anyway. After all, who hits a mother who spends all this time planning a nice bat mitzvah party for you?
And I spent my bat mitzvah morning perfecting the art of costume makeup, hiding the blue and purple shadows under my eyes.
My rabbi and I talked about this incident the day after it happened. He looked at me as we entered the main sanctuary in the synagogue, and you want to know what he said to me? He said:
“You know, if this had happened during biblical times, your hands would have been cut off. No one raised a hand to their parents.”
You know how you feel after a good cry? Can you close your eyes for me, and just place yourself in a moment where you had that after-cry feeling? You breathe a little different. You breathe a little deeper. You feel like a weight is off your chest. Or maybe your lungs breathe with gratitude that you didn’t die from drowning in tears; your lungs remind you that you can breath. Can you feel that?
I felt that way on the day of my bat mitzvah. I had been feeling that sensation for three solid days. I had been feeling that sensation ever since I calmed down from that fight-the one about the money and my bat mitzvah and the mazel-tov missives. They all had checks for $50 inside those envelopes. They smelled like perfume counters in department stores, which is what all the ladies at the synagogue smelled like.
I think I have felt that way so many times. I think we all have. We are all victims. We all have a sob story. We all have something about us that places us on the margins of our own communities.
But back to that sensation: the crying one. I don’t feel it that often in my life anymore. I haven’t escaped the evangelical rhetoric: Bush is in office. And bruises go away, but memories leave lasting scars. But I can still cry. I can still let it pour and pour and pour. And the anxiety is still there, haunting me at the weirdest times of the day in front of my computer, or during dinner at a nice restaurant, or even in my sleep, or on trips to the holy land.
The last time I felt that sensation---you know, the crying sensation----I was in
I had been traveling with a group of 40 people for days, exploring all corners of the country. And no matter how far away I tried to get sometimes, I never had a chance to just be alone, and absorb what I was experiencing.
And then I went to the Kotel. It was night. The Al-Aqsa glowed gold behind the wall. A mosk glowed green immediately to the right. And though there were hundreds of people surrounding me, some walking backwards from the wall, some standing and rocking back and forth in deep prayer, some yelling at children in Hebrew, I was just alone.
I felt a pressure on my chest, similar to the pressure I felt on that night when I was eight years old. And my neck was craned back, just taking in the massive wall in front of me. I quivered like you do when you sob uncontrollably.
The memory is in slow motion, with low resolution. My memory is recorded with sepia graininess.
I walked with each step intentional. I could feel the ball of my foot hit the ground, and then the roll of my arch and toes. I glided through people and prayers.
And then, my hand just reached out and touched this space of the wall between two women’s heads. It felt grainy, but strong. And old. My emotions were new and fresh, and were streaming down my face. Hot, hot tears dripped off my cheeks. The two women parted, and I just fell into this holy place. I wasn’t in
My cheeks rubbed against this cool, ancient rock. I placed my lips on the rough earthen stones, smashing my nose against the wall. I could feel the rock become wet with my tears. My eyes were cool and they felt the breeze as I looked up, seeing a distinct contrast between the wall and the dark sky.
And everything around me became ok. Everything was suddenly full with the capacity to forgive. And that is what happened.
And the wall smelled like everything good in this world. Including Lubriderm and Chanel No. 5.
