Cold Comfort

His name was Noel. In spite of everything else I’ve blocked from my consciousness over time, I still remember that clearly. I also remember his last name, though I’ll omit that here to spare him any professional mortification. I mean by now, he’s most likely a prestigious attorney. Or a doctor, or a respected CFO. Without a doubt, Noel has matured into a prosperous, even more charismatic, even more dashing middle-aged version of himself. Early on, it’s obvious that some people are just destined for that sort of thing.

Maybe you knew a guy like Noel when you were in college. Tall, dark, great GPA. The kind of guy who always came across as utterly flawless and impeccable -– no matter how profusely he might sweat during his weekend jogs around campus; no matter how mud-spattered he became following a game of touch-football on the quad. Whenever Noel would make his way through the student union (invariably flanked by a horde of half-envious but admiring male buddies who were less muscled, less intelligent, and less handsome), female eyes would furtively rise from their books the moment he came into view; then drop back to inconspicuous levels if he even happened to glance in their general direction. Observing this little ritual in action was like watching a silent version of the wave at a Super Bowl playoff game, but even more pathetic and without the $9 beers and free tee shirts.

The reason that all men secretly loathed Noel, and all women secretly loved him, wasn’t because of his white, even teeth; or his strong, square jawline; or his expertly cultivated stubble. It wasn’t because of his abundant mane of mocha-brown hair; his clear and perceptive sapphire eyes; or even the rugged little tattoo -– the tattoo!! -– of an arrowhead on his left forearm. Don’t get me wrong, it had something to do with each of these things. But the main reason Noel reigned as THE GUY on campus was because in spite of all this, he was genuinely a very nice person. Nobody could figure it out. Here was this college junior who looked like a cross between an Olympic gymnast and the cover of an Avon Romance; and yet he was just an extremely decent, studious, friendly individual who was almost annoyingly equal-opportunity when it came to interacting with other students. It incensed the guys -– and entranced the girls -– to the point of lost sleep, but for entirely different reasons.

This is the only way I can possibly explain how someone like Noel wound up having dinner with someone like me. Actually, what it came down to was one part fortuitous twist of fate, one part genuine desire to assist, and two parts wanton misunderstanding. The resulting recipe for catastrophe played like an extremely unfortunate outtake of The Bachelor.

Basically, it all started with a particularly demanding advanced-level economics class. Noel and I wound up as project partners when each of our respective team members dropped the class in a panicked mid-term bid to salvage their overall GPAs. In reality, this course -– like anything containing even a whisper of math in any form -– was way over my head. I’d actually planned to exercise the mid-term drop option myself, until the very moment Noel ambled over and sat down next to me. What followed was the sustained mental equivalent of frenzied intellectual dog-paddling on my part, characterized by laser-focused attempts to follow every single syllable that fell from our professor’s lips. Such attempts were interspersed with somber, random contemplations like, “Does this sweater accentuate my waist?” and “Crap, am I even wearing deodorant today?”

About three weeks before our final presentation was due, Noel came down with a terrible cold that had been going around campus. This caused him to miss several classes in a row, plus a key review session with our teaching assistant. All this meant that Noel needed to catch up on multiple pages of lecture notes in a hurry. As a result, I found him waiting for me on the front steps of my dorm one day.

Noel asked if we could sit down together so I could help him go over all the material he’d missed. I mean, that was the general gist of what he said. As his face continued to move, what I mostly remember thinking about was how I looked in my new boots; and the fact that he smelled exactly like fresh, clean laundry. Also whether I was nodding in an alluring-yet-intellectual way; and if I should maybe re-arrange my hair over one shoulder; and then oh my gosh he’s done speaking now. Noel stood there blinking expectantly for about three seconds. This may not sound like a lot of time to you, but it’s an eternity when the campus equivalent of Apollo is waiting for you to utter something coherent.

“Koslow’s Cafe” is what I’d heard, along with something about meeting there tomorrow night so we could discuss our presentation strategy. Now of course this was not a date. Of course it wasn’t. Of course not. This was simply a serious, studious, impossibly suave and studly young man asking me out to a restaurant. Yes, I heard myself say in my best offhandedly coy tone of voice -- we had a date.

Complications arose when I awoke the next morning with a raging sore throat and a stuffy nose. Undaunted, I made a beeline to the drugstore before my first class for cough drops, tissues, decongestant, orange juice, and what the heck, some new lipstick and a bottle of perfume. I was feeling nearly human when it came time to get ready for my rendezvous at Koslow’s. This involved a 95 minute wardrobe, hair, and makeup session so zealously intense that I was halfway down the block before I realized I’d forgotten my backpack.

When I arrived, Noel was waiting for me in faded jeans and a crisp white shirt that perfectly accentuated his bronzed complexion. He held the door as we walked inside, then pulled my chair out when we selected our table. So intent was I on appearing fully alert and uncongested that I barely paid attention to the waitress. Moussaka, I mused, scanning the menu. That sounds exotic. When our meals arrived, I daintily prodded the various layers of eggplant, ground beef, and tomato sauce with my fork as Noel chatted engagingly about liquidation differential and capital loss coverage ratio.

When it came time to dig into our class notes, I noticed that I’d scarcely touched my food. Wanting to help clear some plates away, I took one final bite.  

My sneeze, I’m pretty sure, took both of us by surprise. One moment I’d been chewing; the next, I’d felt an inconspicuous sinus tickle; and then I found myself staring across the table into the stunned blue eyes of Noel. Most of my Moussaka mouthful was splattered across the front of his crisp white shirt, accented by some soggy bits still clinging to his forehead.

I’ve willfully forgotten most of the rest, except that we skipped dessert. And I covered our check. And we got a C on our presentation. And Noel caught another cold.  

#

instinct

She gets up in the morning and she stands at the sink while she flosses and brushes her teeth, and sometimes she frowns or she sighs. I watch her pace to the closet and rattle plastic hangers above my head, then walk from room to room as her tall black shoes make tiny clicking sounds on the tile. The way she moves is quick and impatient and choppy. It gives me an unsettled feeling, just seeing her stalk around like that, hurrying down the hall looking for keys or an umbrella or a jacket; loading the dishwasher and tugging open the blinds; speaking in short staccato sentences as she gets ready to head off to work. At times like this, I usually go behind the couch. 

I like to lie down back there. It’s shady and quiet, and the carpet is soft, and I can put my nose up close to the air-conditioning vent. Once in awhile when nobody’s looking, I might knock a throw pillow down on the floor and prop my head beside it. Sometimes I’ll nibble an edge or a corner, just a little bit, but the minute my name is hollered I know enough to stop. I curl my tail behind me, and feel the morning sun against my face; and I sigh, and think about how much I like chicken. 

I think about other things too, most days: the way the wind chimes ring outside when the house is hushed and still; the way the grass smells in the evening when I go out for my walk after dinner; the way my favorite chew toy would squeak, and squeak, and squeak, so that I would hold it between my paws to make it squeak and then squeak some more, until one day it began to make raspy wheezing noises and had to be sewn back together with two different kinds of thread.

I think about how nice it is, each night, to sit in the living room with my family; and to sleep on my round quilted bed that’s cushioned and clean and dry. It’s the place I feel safest, really deep down, except for when I hear thunder coming and try to crawl beneath the nightstand or the big brown maple dresser. Every day I wake up and find something good to eat in my bowl, and nobody ever tries to take it away, or to bother me while I’m eating it; and sometimes, not very often but once in awhile, it turns out to be chicken.

I think about her as well. I wonder if she ever has feelings like mine when she’s rushing all around, or talking in that tense and rigid way, or resting her chin on her hands and looking scared or sad. I wonder if she thinks about what it’s really like here. It’s bright in the summer and warm in the winter. There’s enough room to walk around and even, sometimes, to run; and I can sit on the back of the loveseat and look at the trees out the window; at the way their leaves and branches dip and shift in the wind; and at that gray squirrel who always rests on the biggest branch and twitches his tail while staring back methodically. If something on the countertop is waving around in an interesting way, and I jump on a chair to look, nobody stays mad for too long. And if I need to have a bath, I get a treat.

Sometimes she presses a button on the table and we hear all kinds of beautiful music, or she reaches beneath a lampshade and there is soothing light, or she turns a knob on the stove and the house is filled with wonderful smells. Today the neighbor’s tortoiseshell cat sat cleaning its paws by the screen door all morning long, and I got to bark and growl and dance around, even though the cat didn’t seem to notice very much, or care. 

It was a good day.

I don’t really understand her fear and anger. I stay nearby and try to make things better, though it doesn’t always seem to help a lot. She talks about things that might happen in a week or a month, and her eyes look large and worried. She mentions things that took place a long time ago, way back before I can even remember, and she looks stricken and ashamed. 

It’s clear to me that somebody cares for us here. I can’t make out a lot of the words she uses, but maybe she doesn’t believe this. Maybe she doesn’t realize that I would fight to keep us all safe, if that’s what it truly came down to. I’m not sure it would make much difference though, because I don’t think she always feels secure or protected, at least not really deep-down. I watch her when she sits in the chair by herself, and she looks at the floor and she sighs, and the mood that surrounds her is dark and heavy and filled with dread.

But then each day, every day, before she opens the door and leaves the house in the morning, there is one thing more that she does. On the wall in the foyer is a small object made out of wood: two simple brown sticks, one sitting crosswise over the other. She pauses for a moment, and stands very still, and murmurs quiet words or simple phrases, and touches her fingers to this object before going out.

It seems pretty obvious that it’s meant to open something.

see

In the back corner of my garage, buried beneath a frayed and faded area rug just next to the blue recycling bin, is a black wrought iron arch. This arch used to sit atop a tall gate that opened into the front yard of the house where I grew up.

I suppose I should mention that it was really just a townhouse (a phrase uttered so often by my world-weary father that it now jumps out of my mouth automatically, like a single word, "just-a-townhouse"), and a pretty small one at that. My parents moved in right after I was born, following the loss of another baby girl who would have been my sister. At the time, both of them were intently focused on fresh starts, new beginnings, bigger things to come. This house, just a townhouse, was supposed to have been a mere stepping-stone on the way to something better.

And then a series of unforeseen and sustained financial hurdles forced us all to stay put; me along with my parents who gradually grew more disillusioned, distracted, distant and bitter from one day to the next as this tiny house crowded around us and seemed to crush their spirits. When we finally began to depart, many years later, it was in the way that brittle leaves fall from a diseased and dying tree: my father moved out after the divorce, I moved out after college. Only my mother still remains there, growing older and more fragile every day; and she's preparing soon to box up her belongings and be on her way. These belongings, I'm certain, will include several dusty snapshots of a smiling family that, so far as I can recall, actually existed once upon a time.

And so when the fence and the gate were damaged recently after a violent thunderstorm, I made a point of retrieving that arch. It's rusted and weathered and scuffed and faded, but its proximity -- even buried, as it is, in my garage -- provides a peculiar sense of comfort. Just sitting there, all by itself, it prompts memories of popsicles, trick-or-treating, summer vacations, tooth fairy nickels, dog-washing, firefly-catching, campfire cookouts, birthday songs, and Christmas mornings in one tumbling, contended, buoyant jumble. Though of all these countless memories, the best and clearest of all involves the giant lilac bush that grew across the street, sharing its signature springtime scent each year. I remain absolutely convinced, to this very day, that the fragrance of lilacs captures and recreates the simple anticipation and laughter of childhood, suspending it in the air like jewel-colored fruit on a vine.

The thing is, I've found that I really need these memories. They help to camouflage another, more acrid and sinister recognition; one that whispers furtively about the dissolution of dreams, the frustration of adulthood, the shame of falling short. In my numerous moments of doubt, it cruelly insists that I've utterly failed to push beyond the meager station my parents managed to attain; the one that engendered such destructive disappointment.

This is because my husband and I, for several years now, have lived in a townhouse. Not a cottage on the lake with a big backyard. Not a sunny split-level with a breakfast nook and a whitewashed picket fence, or a hammock in the trees, or a walk-out finished basement. Just a townhouse.

My patient, supportive husband reminds me – correctly, and at regular intervals -- that this is a decision we've made together, one that facilitates other choices in our lives; choices that allow us to extend our worldly impact and direct our focus outward. I, too, repeatedly remind myself that any form of shelter deserves our abundant gratitude; that much of the world's population would give a great deal for a solid roof overhead, clean drinking water, medicine, family, food.

And yet in a country that's bursting at the seams with prosperity and expansiveness and material success in nearly every direction, how difficult it can be to exterminate our own arrogance, to control our zeal for comparison, to surrender our human ambitions, to relax our grasping fingers, to eliminate from our vocabulary that harshly judgmental, prideful, stinging, accusing four-letter word.

Just.

Over the numerous years that my husband and I have lived here, I’ll admit that I've experienced less-than-grateful moments during which I've compared myself, relentlessly, to my own family and where they ended up. It's worth noting that these moments concentrate my attention – wholly, mercilessly -- on the "have-not" aspects of existence, creating their own free-falling spiral. Eventually, these mental bouts of self-castigation work their way around to what is, somehow, the most painful jab of all – the idea that I'll never be able to plant my very own lilac bush beside an entrance gate that's topped by a wrought iron arch. 

I was reflecting upon this recently, our troubling human tendency to focus on what we don't have. I was pondering these things as I walked outside to tend the small container garden that lines our front walk. This is something I've done probably hundreds of times, each and every summer: watering this clay-potted smattering of blooming red geraniums, begonias, petunias and marigolds; lost in my own private thoughts; never paying much attention to my surroundings. On this particular occasion I'd arrived home late from work, just after sunset, and I stood there hooking up our garden hose in the deepening twilight.

And as I moved among the pots with my watering can, I was suddenly struck by the overpowering aroma of lilacs. The scent hit me so forcibly, in fact, that I stopped in my tracks, convinced that I was simply reliving another long-lost memory. I looked down at the shadow of our hedges silhouetted against the porch light; hedges that flowered purple in the spring. Hedges that, up until now, I'd utterly dismissed, assuming them to be some variant of wisteria or spiraea or hydrangea. Except that in this moment I now leaned down, and gazed straight ahead into the darkness, and took another experimental sniff. Lilacs -- definitely, without a doubt, lilacs. All this time, planted right here in front of me, blooming every year as they patiently awaited my notice. 

How often our human senses, subdued by shame and pride, indignation and ambition, can fool our perceptions and steer us in the wrong direction. How easy it is to grumble through our days, overcome by such a wall of frustration and resentment that it entirely overtakes our field of view. How blind we can become to the things that bloom before us. Sometimes the sun needs to set, I think; sometimes we need to walk for a time in darkness, so that another sense can take over, with greater truth and purity, and reveal to us what our weakened eyes could not.

In the end, it's true that families can dissolve. Photographs can fade. Gates can splinter and crumble and fall down. Yet still, after all, a single arch remains -- a silent connection, a serene reminder that curves protectively like a sentinel over each of our rocky and winding paths. Weathered with time, rusted yet whole, never losing its shape, lovingly forged from iron.

"Do not doubt in darkness what you've been shown in the light."

- Dr. V. Raymond Edman