When Your Bedroom Disappears

Posted on November 19, 2015 by admin under Guest, Losing Place

Days before, I found the phone number by searching the address on the Internet. A young woman answered, listened, and graciously agreed to give us a tour of our childhood home.

When the day arrives, my older sister and I drive familiar roads in a rental car. We’ve traveled from opposite sides of the country to this point in Illinois; she from Massachusetts, me from Colorado. Park Ridge is one big suburban grid of long, mature tree-lined streets and sidewalks on the northwest edge of Chicago. I roll down the window and whiff the familiar aroma of fresh cut grass mixed with airplane exhaust from nearby O’Hare Airport. It is the smell of roots and flight.

The rental car engine goes quiet by the curb in front of the two story brick bungalow at 704 South Crescent Avenue. Our parents raised the four of us kids here; three sisters and a brother. This was the address on all official forms and most letters addressed to me from 1973 to 1989; from Gerald Ford to George H.W. Bush.

We ring the doorbell on schedule, and a young, upper-class mom answers the door, smiles, and invites us in. We politely walk through renovated rooms where I am tossed between a sense of happy familiarity and disorienting displacement.

We walk through room upon room of fresh paint and updated designs: The front entry minus the cuckoo clock, the living room minus the teal carpet and large flowery wallpaper, the front sitting room minus the TV and plaid couch, the upstairs plus air conditioning, the kitchen plus new appliances and a stunning renovation. We linger in the kitchen and I notice the one big minus. They knocked out this wall, she points and explains, we wanted to make the whole space bigger. That wall once divided the kitchen from my bedroom. Every morning I used to lay in my bed on the other side of that wall, listening to my mom’s early morning WMBI radio programs and dishwasher clatter.

Now the wall has disappeared and my bedroom evaporated entirely, replaced by functional upgrades and a redesigned floor plan. I lost the container that had been crammed full of my girlish years,

the hanging macramé plant holders,

clouds of Love’s Baby Soft Jasmin’ perfume,

the sound of tiny nocturnal pet hamster feet running on a creaking wheel,

the wind-up jewelry box ballerina spinning in front of a tiny mirror,

the puffy pink gingham quilt my mom sewed,

and the way I always slept beneath it facing the door,

the muted bass of bands like Boston booming from my brother’s bedroom,

a closet full of off-limits clothes my little sister borrowed anyways,

that one spot on the floor by the cast iron radiator where I sobbed over boys that I loved,

a secret drawer full of seashells and saved letters,

midnight poetry taped to my window.

Gone. The inner sanctum of my childhood entirely dematerialized.

Why do I feel so sad? It’s just a room, I say to my sister as we drive away. She nods. Gets it. Siblings hold pieces of each other’s’ history.

We head out of town and curve through neighborhood streets, past the red and white marquis of the Pickwick Theater and the stadium lights at Maine South High School. By that park swing, I feel the sway and twirl of the six-year-old version of myself. In that parking lot by the high school band door, I feel the wild heartbeat rush of my first kiss; under that one elm tree, the between-two-worlds melancholy of twenty-something. And somewhere around the corner on my way back home, I find the room of my childhood again.

Rooms are the containers that hold the past, for good or ill. They are the spaces that store roots and fragments of who we were, the lives we have lived. Writer, author, Frederick Buechner describes it this way:

“But there is a deeper need yet, I think, and that is the need—not all the time, surely, but from time to time—to enter that still room within us all where the past lives on as a part of the present, where the dead are alive again, where we are most alive ourselves to turnings and to where our journeys have brought us. The name of the room is Remember—the room where with patience, with charity, with quietness of heart, we remember consciously to remember the lives we have lived.” *

Sometimes my little sister and I end our texts or emails with the first line from Harry Connick’s song, “Forever, for Now.” “Meet me on the corner of close and soon,” we write. Then, “oxox” we sign off. Over the years, we’ve come to shorthand it. “Meet me,” we say and understand in a way only siblings can.

Meet me.

Meet me in the place with no address.

Meet me where the remnants of a past still live in pieces and fragments unclaimed, shared by few, in a room no longer contained by walls.

The name of the room is Remember.

* Quoted: Frederick Buechner, A Room Called Remember: Uncollected Pieces (1992)

* * * * *

“When Your Bedroom Disappears” is by Kelley J. Leigh. Kelley is a mid-life writer and mom of four sons. Kelley’s home base is a quirky little mountain town in Colorado where she writes openly about intimacy issues and recovery in marriage and faith. Find her over at www.kelleyjleigh.com and on Twitter: twitter.com/KelleyJLeigh

Ink, Blood, and Tears

Posted on November 16, 2015 by admin under Guest, Losing Place

I got off the bus at my new school and saw the parking lot filled with cars. This was nothing like my former crowded, noisy, urban Philadelphia high school with the dark stairwells and constant police presence. I’d never seen so many Ford Tauruses in my life. Some even had monograms on the doors. I didn’t even have a bike. I had a skateboard. A skateboard. I couldn’t even do an ollie, but for me, my board was transportation. It had worked in the city.

Out in the suburbs, I’d tried to skate to the mall but only got about four blocks away when I encountered a county road. With a 55 mph speed limit. I tried for about 15 minutes before I gave up. This was a real-life game of Frogger I was not willing to play.

I was 17 and had lost too many places to count: foster homes, schools, churches, playgrounds. But this was the worst so far. I’d made this move alone. Three weeks before, I’d had a family, my own room, my chair at the dinner table, my hook on the coat rack. But when they discovered I was cutting, they sent me to the hospital. My foster family of 7 years felt they couldn’t handle me anymore, a social worker told me. I wasn’t going back. My parents couldn’t even tell me themselves. They’d gone on vacation.

I was too old to place, and I was going to age out of the system soon, so I was assigned a bed in a Supervised Independent Living facility managed by the children’s home handling my case. It was in a suburb of Philadelphia, an apartment with a roommate and a Residential Adviser. I was supposed to be learning life skills like banking, shopping, getting a job, making a budget, cooking for myself, doing my own laundry. I wasn’t great at most of those.

You’d think I would’ve reveled in this staged independence, but I didn’t. This was just another address I wouldn’t even have for a full year, and it felt like a punishment after my psych stay. I was removed from the home I’d lived in for middle school and junior high and taken from the city I loved. I would spend my senior year of high school, and my last year as a child, with strangers.

One afternoon a week I took the R2 train into Philadelphia for my counseling appointment. I don’t remember the building or the therapist. What I do remember is wandering the streets of Old City after my appointment, getting a soft pretzel and Pennsylvania Dutch birch beer at Wawa and just walking.

I would head toward the Delaware River and pass through Christ Church Burial Ground at 5th and Arch, where Benjamin Franklin and four other signers of the Declaration of Independence were buried. It was usually deserted except for tourists throwing pennies on Franklin’s grave for good luck. The earliest legible marker is from 1723. It was the perfect place for a suicidal teenager to spend hours alone. My time there didn’t make me want to die, in fact, it had the opposite effect. I felt at home there, comforted by a sense of permanence and presence.

I didn’t have much in the way of family or stability or even a future, but I had cobblestone streets, colonial flags, comforting row homes, historic markers, marble stoops with ornate cast-iron boot scrapers and hitching posts. And it wasn’t just the beauty I saw that made it home, it was the ugliness too. The empty lots, abandoned houses, broken windows, Free Mumia graffiti, and the box cities under the highway were the landscape of my heart. The soundtrack that sung in my head was the rumbling, shrieking el trains and the sparking, clattering trolleys. I claimed it for myself and it was all mine. Even Ramona Africa and the houses firebombed by Mayor Goode during the MOVE tragedy, consuming almost 4 city blocks, killing 11 people, and leaving 240 people homeless. They became a part of me, seared into my brain by flaming buildings seen on a cast-off motel TV with a tuning knob.

What little estranged family I have left in Philadelphia decreases by the year, but it’s not the people that draw my thoughts and my heart there. It’s the land–baptized by Franklin’s printing ink, revolutionary blood, and my own tears.

And William Penn in the distance, watching over it all. He prayed for his city to be preserved from those who would “abuse and defile thee, that you mayest be kept from the evil that would overwhelm, that thy children may be blest of the Lord.“

Tammy Perlmutter writes about unabridged life, fragmented faith, and investing in the mess at her blog Raggle-Taggle. She is the founder of The Mudroom, a collaborative blog making roo
m in the mess. Tammy writes flash memoir, personal essay, and poetry, leads writing groups, and preaches on occasion. She lives in Chicago with her husband, Mike, and daughter, Phoenix, who has been called “the most interesting girl in the world.” She is the force behind Tammy’s blog series: “Life Along the Spectrum: Weird and Wondrous Tales of Everyday Autism.”

Photo is by Michael Perlmutter.

Leaving Home {part one}

Posted on November 13, 2015 by admin under Guest, Losing Place

I remember the emptiness of the moving truck after I backed it up to our garage in northern Virginia. I parked that behemoth, the largest truck they had, and walked quietly around to the back. I lifted the gate and pulled out the ramp. My two oldest kids ran up and down the clanging metal, jumping around in the back and leaping from the wheel wells, shouting their names and marveling at the echo.

I remember that echo.

The emptiness was everywhere. The trees were shedding their leaves. The immaculate houses looked down on us disapprovingly, like a row of unhappy teachers,, their shapes dim against the slate gray sky. I felt like those beautiful houses (or perhaps their occupants) held us in contempt – we had not been able to make it there. We were not good enough.

Inside the house, rooms were either empty or had stacks of boxes huddled in their centers. I walked through the rooms to make sure we hadn’t forgotten anything. There, the third-floor room we brought Sam home to after he was born with that perfect knot in his umbilical cord. There, the room I painted pink for the girls. There, the kitchen with its marble countertops, the countertops we had leaned against with friends on late summer nights, the countertops that held me up when I told Maile the business wouldn’t take us through the winter. We were drowning in debt.

We didn’t breathe so much as sigh. I felt like a failure, unable to make enough money to keep my family in the place that we loved. I felt lost and fragile, as if one more tiny bit of bad news would be enough to send me over the edge, into the emptiness of midair.

That emptiness was everywhere. Including inside me.

* * * * *

My wife later told me a story about those last days in Virginia. Last nights, actually. She woke up after midnight to the sound of nothing. Our children were all sleeping, the neighborhood outside was silent. There was a large window by the bed that looked out over our tiny back yard and into the tiny back yards of the houses behind ours. Street lights threw dim shadows on to the ceiling, drowned out the stars.

My wife woke to a ball of anxiety about what was happening, about our business going under and all the debt weighing us down, about us having to leave a place we loved and move our family of six into my parents’ basement 150 miles away. She slid out of bed, down onto the floor, and put her face in the plush carpet.

How can this be happening? God, how can you let this happen?

She heard the closest thing she’s ever heard to an audible voice from heaven, and it echoed in her mind, one phrase reverberating and growing.

This is a gift.

When the phrase faded off into the darkness, disappearing beneath the whirring of the ceiling fan, my wife shook her head.

Well, she muttered, it’s a pretty shitty gift.

She stood up off the floor, crawled back into bed, and went to sleep.

* * * * *

I can’t decide which is easier, packing up an entire house and moving truck on your own, or having your entire community come out and help you do it. The first is physically difficult, nearly impossible. The latter is emotionally difficult, nearly impossible.

We walked beside friends carrying our boxes, our furniture. We laughed and joked about how only the best of friends help you move because everyone hates losing friends and everyone hates moving. We let one of the guys take over the truck packing duties, and he wielded his engineering skills like a champion-Tetris player. The door to the behemoth barely shut, but everything was in. That slamming sound was it. The latch clicked. The lock connected. Our four years in Virginia were nothing more than a closed door.

We hugged them, perhaps the closest friends we had ever made, and we promised to stay in touch, though we knew it was unlikely. They walked off into the night, one family at a time, and we went back inside the empty shell.

I can’t remember if we spent that night in the house, slept on the floor, and left the following evening, or if we drove off after our friends left. It seems like something one should remember.

What I do remember is making the three hour drive to our new locale through the pouring rain. I led the way, alone in the truck, my wife and our four kids in the minivan behind me. I remember the way the headlights of oncoming cars streaked down the windshield.

That was one of those drives I’ll never forget, when my thoughts weren’t deep inside me, but out in the open, like residue on my skin. There was a tangible sense of loss, as though someone had died. One phrase kept circling back through my mind over and over again with the rhythm of the windshield wipers.

Now what?

I remember arriving at my parent’s house – it was quiet there. They were away. We left our stuff in the truck and carried the sleeping kids to their new beds in the basement. Our new home. Our new life.

Our “gift.”

***

Shawn grew up in a ramshackle farmhouse with one of those enormous porches where he would sit and read far too much for a boy his age. Across the street was everything he could ever need to live an adventurous childhood: an empty church, a large cemetery, a winding creek. Every book he read during that time is set, in his mind, somewhere in that square mile.

The Rumor of Bears

Posted on November 11, 2015 by Jennifer Pelling under Losing Place

My mother tells me that we only went to camp a few times before the tornadoes came. How can this be? I remember it all so vividly. Then again, how could I forget a place so full of real and imaginary bears? I was only a young child.

‘Camp’ was my Uncle Davey and Aunt Sue’s hunting cabin in the northwest corner of Pennsylvania, generously shared with extended family like me, my mom, dad, and two little brothers. It was about a two hour drive, due north, on winding Allegheny mountain roads, and as a town kid from a smallish city, it was my very definition of middle of nowhere.

When dad turned off the paved road and onto gravel, I knew we were almost there. Now the real adventure began–the rutted road was barely driveable, and our van inched and bounced along until the green and white cabin was in sight. Camp! Camp! Let us out! We pulled onto the grass (there was no driveway), fell out of the van, and begged my parents to hurry-up-and-unlock-the-door. Inside the musty smell of damp wood, un-aired linens and old furniture filled our nostrils, and my brothers and I ran through the three small rooms, drinking in everything familiar and forgotten.

At camp, there was no running water, so we carried jugs down to and up from the spring. At camp, there was no television, so we hiked to the big rocks, went spotting for deer, and cooked mountain pies in the campfire coals. At camp, there was an outhouse, so you ‘held it’ through the night and held your breath during the day.

And just behind this outhouse there were berry bushes, frequented–it was said–by black bears. Early in the morning, I would wake up, wishing-with-all-my-might for an indoor bathroom, and picture them–hiding behind the outhouse, waiting for me.

Despite the rumors, I never saw a bear in those berry bushes, or (thank the Lord in heaven) in the outhouse. To see a real Pennsylvanian black bear, I had to wait until we ran out of milk and bread. Then we climbed back into the van and bounced our way to the store.

The closest convenience store doubled as a mini-zoo, with animals in cages in the parking lot. There was a fox who was always hiding, and friendly deer you could feed. There were several other smaller animals I have forgotten completely, and there were… bears. Two bears, in steel cages, pacing back and forth, tracking us with small round eyes. Stay close to us, my parents warned, though the bars were thick and the bears well-fed. We stayed close. For a time.

When I was about seven, the bears were suddenly gone, and my parents said they heard someone shot them ‘out of pity.’ Shot them out of pity? This made absolutely no sense to me. If someone was so worried about the bears, why didn’t they just let them go? My parents just shook their heads sadly and let go of their tight grip on our hands. Go on, they said gently, go see the deer. After that, we still came to get our bread and milk, but the parking lot wasn’t so magical anymore.

I was left only with the rumor of bears. And soon, I was left only with the rumor of camp.

On the last day of May in 1985, a week before my eighth birthday, twenty-one tornadoes touched down in Eastern Ohio and Western Pennsylvania. One of these raced through the woods behind my aunt and uncle’s hunting property, shifting the cabin two feet on its foundation, disappearing the outhouse, and turning over the berry bushes. The cabin was spared, but ‘camp’ was ruined.

We visited only once after the tornadoes came, and I can still see it all with my eight-year old eyes. The mountains, stripped bare. Trees turned into toothpicks; trailers flung like toys across the fields. The root balls of the trees towered above my head, ugly and unbelievable, and we couldn’t hike to our beloved big rocks because of all the destruction, blocking every trail. Thirty years later, I’m still not sure I’ve gotten over the shock.

Where can the bears live in a such a world?

Photo by Jethro Taylor

The Grown Up

Posted on November 9, 2015 by admin under Guest, Losing Place

Two years ago, I entered adulthood. Not by virtue of turning eighteen; I’d already done that. I found myself at thirty-one, untethered. Until then, I’d led a life of quiet habit and order, hoping that eventually I’d be recognized as a great talent. But I tired of waiting and so I quit my normal routine, church, and several lifelong friends.

There were now gaps in my weekly habits. I went around industriously filling them up by hanging out with people I hoped would become my friends, getting involved in bad romances, and spending money I didn’t have. I tried to get several people to marry me. Along the way I learned that the last thing that will endear you to someone is to suggest marriage in the first three weeks of a relationship.

My problems were threefold: I was not married (and badly wanted to be), I was a writer who did not write, and I was not in the kind of job I dreamed, when I was in college, that I’d have at thirty-one. Instead, I worked in a sleepy realty office, reading ebooks all day long, and dreaming of being the next Barbara Pym.

I tried to solve these problems by switching to a new job in downtown Hartford that promised a more lively environment, and moving back to my parents’ house. I’d spent the previous five years with roommates who married and moved regularly, which meant I always had to find a new place to live. Living with my parents again—in the basement no less—felt like a big step backwards. I continued seeing one of the well-intentioned but frightened men I was trying to convince to marry me.

But what had happened? Why had my life curdled and become so wretched? Why was I walking around in a desolate daze of dreariness?

Most days at at my new job, in the well-appointed office on the eleventh floor of a posh skyscraper, I forced back tears while balancing spreadsheets. My job performance suffered, something that had never happened before. I grew despondent.

I could not sleep, partially due to perpetually analyzing my life with its dearth of accomplishments and partially because I spent most of my non-work hours with the boyfriend I was afraid to leave alone for fear he’d have time to assess me and conclude we’d be better off apart.

I wanted peace, but I was heading toward an internal crisis of massive proportions. It was like drowning but not wanting to call attention to the shameful fact that I couldn’t swim.

Finally, in a fit of desperation, I told the boyfriend that I needed to be alone for good. I told my bosses I would start work an hour later in the mornings and make up for it in the evenings—I decided that time to read and write in the mornings was essential for my recovery. I began reading Madeleine L’Engle’s book Two-Part Invention, a memoir of her early artistic development and later marriage to her husband, the actor Hugh Franklin. I began writing in earnest. I began to listen to the advice of my worried parents asking me to sleep and eat more and go to writers workshops.

The nascent grown-up in me began to move, struggling for breath and life.

I had tried to extend my adolescence for years: the naive expectation of what I thought life should be. I thought it’d be an easy, pain-free way toward accomplishment, like the stories of people getting discovered by a famous producer and becoming famous overnight.

I quietly put the adolescent away in a shopping bag I used to deliver used clothes to the thrift store. She would be happier companioning a younger person, anyway.

My grown-up was far more peaceful than the adolescent had been. Yet real peace was elusive for me. I think it is stated best by Gerard Manley Hopkins who wrote: “O surely, reaving Peace, my Lord should leave in lieu/ Some good!/ And so he does leave Patience exquisite,/ That plumes to Peace thereafter”. I clung to patience as a new adult. Peace could come later after patience laid its groundwork. Patience helped me start writing a book. Patience sat with me when loneliness made its frequent visits.

My grown-up showed me how to sit, to work, to choose to be alone, to be silent sometimes, to avoid bad relationships, to say “no thank you”. She showed me how to accept sleep as a friend and not a thief of time. To not get tipsy every time there was wine present. She showed me the promise of good work that only my hands could do.

****

“The Grown-up” was written by Elena Shekleton. Elena lives in Denver with her husband, the artist Dan Sorensen. She is currently working on a novel and a book of fairy tale short stories. Elena loves hiking in the Rockies, and exploring the breweries and book shops in her city. Her apartment is now free of roaches.

Homeless Stuff

Posted on November 6, 2015 by Mary Peterson under Losing Place

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At closing time, we count the daily till. $22.50 in coins and small bills.

During our time volunteering in the store that day, five people made their way through the door. A young man, clearly mentally ill, rambling in a stream of consciousness. A single mom, in cowboy boots and a white t-shirt, prowling through the clothes. A woman with a long, gray braid down her back, carefully eyeing the mess that I’ve created. A talkative man walking with a cane as he searched the store for yarn; his companion standing near the front of the store trying to be patient.

Folks making ends meet.

In our little town, where many are struggling, that is a feat.

A ragged copy of the poem “Footprints” is thumbtacked askew to the wall under a detailed plastic crucifix. An indication of origin and intent.

We’ve thought about washing the front windows. “I’m not sure the glass is strong enough for a deep cleaning,” Mom fretted.

The landlord recently made some repairs after the vintage tin roof gave way, sprinkling insulation dust over a third of the store. The improvement added fresh paint to one wall, bringing the number of visible paint colors to seven.

I try not to wrinkle my nose in judgment when I walk through the front door. I try to remember the committed souls who volunteer their time to keep the doors open, and the humble funds that are poured back into community. But looking around kicks my “fixer upper” streak into high gear. “We should have a day of service,” I blurted out a few weeks ago, “and get rid of some of this stuff that will never sell.”

There is plenty that won’t sell. A constant stream of assorted junk and treasures arrives on the doorstep. To sort one from the other requires discerning eyes and a fair amount of heavy lifting. With a holder for floppy disks in hand, I ask, “Is this junk or will this be vintage at some point?” Hard to say.

The clothing racks are made from 2 x 4’s and silver pipe and wire. Functional and clunky, not beautiful. I spend an hour digging clothes out of a garbage bag and hanging things that pass my two second scan. Many have initials or a name marked in black Sharpie on the collar. Later, scanning the obituaries in the weekly newspaper, I recognize the letters. His earthly belongings were for sale before his body was laid to rest.

Everything in the store once had a home, perhaps even an important purpose or a place of honor. For a buck or two, they might have a home again. The confines of the thrift store are a temporary shelter, an in-between place. I pick up a decorative mirror with cracked edges from a crumpling box to set it on the display table. My image is reflected back at me. I, too, am in an in-between place.

The store is a place of creating small pockets of order within chaos. It is work that serves but doesn’t demand. It is what I can do right now.

I find a pair of black shoes in my size and slip $2 into the register.

I’ve always had a heart for the homeless.

Mary lives in her childhood home at the base of a small mountain range in southern Arizona. She is daily torn between “inside work” (i.e. consulting and coaching maternity homes) and “outside work” (i.e. home improvements and helping her dad.) She is a founding member of You Are Here and a regular contributor.

Announcing New Writing Fellows!

Posted on November 4, 2015 by admin under Announcements

Our first year at You Are Here stories has been an adventure and a delight. From the very beginning, we loved the idea of inviting a range of people to share their experience around common themes, but until we dove in we had no idea how rich and rewarding the story-sharing experience would be.

As we began to dream together about year number two—how we might expand our perspectives, engage new voices, and invigorate our collective explorations of place—it seemed fitting that we would invite new Writing Fellows to join our core team.

Some of these faces will not be new to you. Most of our new Writing Fellows have guest posted here in the last year. They immediately got what we were up to and wanted to be a part of it. Others might be unfamiliar, but they each have somehow been a part of our broader storytelling community, and we have great admiration for their hearts, minds, and ways with words. Whether or not you know them already, we’re sure you’ll be drawn into their experiences and viewpoints as they share about their unique places in the world.

In November, you will see stories by some of these Writing Fellows about their experiences with “Losing Place.” Next month, all of these new team members,along with the You Are Here regulars you have come to know, will share stories under the theme “Finding Place.” We hope you’ll come back again and again.

We also want to take this opportunity to say a big thank you to Sam Turner and Jonathan Bower, founding members of You Are Here, who are cycling off the core team.

With that, please help us welcome the 2015-16 You Are Here Writing Fellows!

Shawn Smucker
Shawn is an author, co-writer, and blogger, and he lives with his wife and their five children in the small city of Lancaster, PA. Having grown up in the country, he’s rather awestruck at how the city can provide such a powerful place for contemplation. On any warm day, should you be walking down James Street, take a peek at 41 West and you might see him writing away on the porch. If you’re not in the area, you can find him at shawnsmucker.com

J. Nicole Morgan
Nicole lives near Atlanta, Georgia, surrounded by the trappings of suburbia and many, many oak trees. There’s a nature preserve across the street from a big box store, and the rippling creek and rocky path are a welcome place to retreat. Nicole works-from-home-or-coffee-shop as both a ministry assistant and as a freelance editor. Connect with Nicole on Twitter or at her blog.

Meredith Bazzoli
Meredith has spent her whole life orbiting around Chicago and its suburbs. She currently resides just west of the city with her husband Drew, who grew up a Hoosier. She never thought she could marry one of those. Meredith calls herself a “recovering teacher” and has taken a break from inner city education to write, perform improv comedy, and tutor. Wherever she can, Meredith seeks to start conversations about the life we stuff under the bed and keep off our Instagram feeds. Join the conversation on her blog.

Ed Cyzewski
A former New Englander now temporarily in Columbus Ohio, Ed is an author and freelance writer with an obsession for vegetable gardening and hockey. When he isn’t chasing after his two very busy young sons, Ed can be found writing from the same cafe six days a week with a mug of light roast coffee. He is the author of Coffeehouse Theology; Pray, Write Grow; and A Christian Survival Guide. You can find him online at www.edcyzewski.com or on Twitter.

Amy Maczuzak
Amy spent the first 18 years of her life craving a home base. Since graduating from high school, Amy has found home in the hills and valleys of western Pennsylvania, ultimately settling in Pittsburgh. She works in Pittsburgh’s East Liberty neighborhood, as a member of the marketing and communications team of the CCO, the campus ministry that changed her life during her college years. Amy loves reading, drinking good coffee, and spending time with friends, family members, and her cat, Charlotte Brontë.

Elena Sorenson
Elena lives in Denver with her husband, the artist Dan Sorensen. She seems to always have a book and journal in hand, even at parties and the movies. In particular, she can’t get enough of Victorian novels and murder mysteries, and can often be found sitting on a camp chair on her apartment balcony, absorbed by treacherous outlaws or spirited wives and daughters. Elena is a freelance writer by day, and a fairy tale and fantasy writer by night and early morning. New to Colorado, she blogs about exploring life as a Connecticut Yankee in the wild West at actyankeegoeswest.wordpress.com

The Future Syrah

Posted on October 26, 2015 by Cara Strickland under Scent & Place

I stood with the bottle in front of me, corkscrew in hand. The note on the bottle, written in my own handwriting, told me that it was “not to be opened before May 22, 2015.” I cut the foil, and slowly rotated my key into the cork.

Five years prior, I was getting ready to leave a job at a local winery as the summer waned. It was my first post-college job, the answer to the question about “what I was going to do” after graduation. I attended a small conservative Christian college, and I got quite a few raised eyebrows when I said: “I’m going into the wine business.”

The long hours and the free wine created an experience I will never forget, but not a sustainable one. My career in the wine business was short.

As I worked my way through the summer, getting more comfortable with our wine offerings and going tasting with co-workers on the weekends, I noticed that my sense of smell was heightened. On evening walks, I could smell subtle flowers and herbs. I was overwhelmed by the smell of laundry. I could sense the faintest hint of smoke in the air.

That summer, I went on a few dates with someone new. I’d always fallen into relationships somehow, skipping the first few steps of courtship. When he asked me to dinner, it was my first real first date. He came to pick me up and we walked a little ways to a restaurant not far from my parent’s home. We sat on the patio and talked and laughed without looking at the menu. I kept smiling apologetically at our server, but if he was frustrated with our indecision, it didn’t show. Finally, we ordered a bottle of wine.

It was a Washington Syrah, smooth and supple. I hadn’t yet learned then that when I drink wine, I like to eschew the hard edges. I look for something silky that touches my tongue tenderly without a trail of tannins. This was one of the wines that taught me that, one sip at a time. That Syrah is still in my top ten wine experiences.

During my summer of wine, I looked for a way to commemorate the momentous nature of that season. I decided to buy a bottle of wine to store for five years, opening it near the anniversary of college graduation. I consulted my wine stylist, a person I still keep on speed dial, a local wine whiz who occasionally chills bottles for me when I text him so that I can pick them up later. He suggested that a Syrah would hold up well over time. Washington is known for her Syrahs and it seemed the perfect choice, something that would remind me of lunch breaks in the vineyards and my swirling glass in the evening after I got off work, paired with oyster crackers.

When my wine stylist suggested that particular varietal, I knew that I would buy the same vintage as that first date. I wrote the date it was to be opened on a yellow sticky note in the shape of a star before covering it in tape.

That bottle followed me from my parents house to the light-filled one I rented with a purple-painted porch. Every time I went to find something to open, for a date or dinner with friends, I noticed that gently sloped bottle, designed for Syrah. It lay in my wine rack, surrounded by bottles of table wine, Perrier, and other special bottles, waiting for its moment. Though new jobs, publications, relationships and breakups tempted me, I never reached for my corkscrew.

This May, I brought the bottle back to my parents’ house and my mother and I made bruschetta from fresh tomatoes and basil. I opened the wine to let it breathe and immediately, I recognized the scent, my nose still sensitive to all of those stimuli. The wine had mellowed over time, but there was no mistaking it. Even though that restaurant has closed and reopened twice under different names, I was back on that patio with my cardigan draped over the back of my chair. I was hopeful about post-college relationships and jobs and life.

I poured myself a glass, a little nervous that five years was too much after all, that this wine was history. One sip was all I needed to realize that the future Syrah was not ruined, as I had feared. She had not passed her prime sometime in the midst of those years. In fact, she was smoother than I remembered.

***

Cara Strickland is a freelance writer living in Spokane, WA. She writes about food, faith, singleness and relationships for a variety of publications in print and online.

She’s delighted that her current career allows her to drink wine (and write about it).

Swabbing at Memories

Posted on October 21, 2015 by admin under Guest, Scent & Place

For years, I shot up nightly. Didn’t matter where I was, I had a small vial, a hypodermic needle and an alcohol swab. I had to have my “fix” at the same time every day, so if I was at a friend’s for dinner I’d take my stash into the bathroom and do what I needed to do.

Sure, I could be off by a short time, but I was compulsive about maintaining the consistent schedule. If that meant that I had to quietly excuse myself from a picnic in order to go to the car and dose up, I’d do it. I even fashioned my own sharps container out of a small Tupperware container until I got home and could dispose of the needle. On my dresser sat the official version– the one I got each month from the pharmacy. With one or the other, I could safely dispose of the tools necessary to administer meds for infertility.

“Super ovulation” drugs are meant to crank up the volume on the normal cycle of things. Where a woman’s ovaries might typically release one or two eggs of a size sufficient to be found by certain swimmers, the drugs took me from your basic medium size scramblers to a dozen or more extra jumbo free-range beauties. Basically they helped provide a larger, more enticing target for the swimmers. The drugs also helped create a cozy den in which those two crazy kids could get to know each other.

Every day for half of the month, I’d administer the injections. Open the alcohol swab, inhale that fresh, sharp scent and reach for the needle. For balance, other days featured numerous extractions, as I had blood drawn every few days to see how things were progressing. The smell of those alcohol swabs before the blood draw was somehow sweeter because it meant I was closer to an answer.

And then I would wait.

The reminder alarm would continue to go off each evening, and I swear I could almost smell it. I became one of Pavlov’s dogs. Only I didn’t salivate, I hallucinated the smell of rubbing alcohol. Most months, I was betrayed with a crimson enemy confirming that the target wasn’t cute enough, the swimmers weren’t charming enough and the party den wasn’t alluring enough.

But I needed to wait until three days after the betrayer had left, in order to begin the cycle anew.

Those days of waiting were roller coaster rides of a different kind. The highs were stacked up ridiculously tall, strengthened by brand new hope for the coming month. It was like the fresh feeling of a brand new backpack on the first day of school. Hope and possibilities abounded. This one’s going to be great. This one’s going to work.

My stash – the drugs and the supplies – became my tools. Tools I prayed God would use to help my husband and me be fruitful and multiply. I prayed over all of it. From the prescription, to the box delivered by UPS, to the tiny glass vials of what looked like very expensive water.

My routine became part medical intervention, part sacred ritual. Though the details would change each day, a typical evening went like this:

Wash hands – Father you know the desires of my heart; let them be fulfilled through this process – Gather supplies – Lord, thank you for this medicine and the doctors who use it on my behalf – Swab injection site – Please, please, please, please, please (and yes, I believe that is a holy prayer) – Injection – God, I am in your hands; I trust in your wisdom that you have a plan for me.

I remained in God’s hands, continuing to trust in his plan for me as I stayed on the roller coaster for five years. As I approached the top of each month’s ride, the combination of excitement and dread built up anew until I reached the top and had to wait in that in-between space that seemed to take forever. Most months I was sent crashing downhill at breakneck speed, spun around until I was dizzy and confused, and ushered to an exit where I came to a stop, exhausted and shaking.

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A few times, the roller coaster rides indeed ended with the desire of my heart: I became pregnant. The fear of the never-ending-ride gave way to grateful, giddy joy when I was able to step off the platform of constant cycles. My heart pounded loudest of all when I heard the heartbeat of my own baby, and my heart broke hardest of all weeks later when the heartbeat stopped.

It took several months – physically and emotionally – to get back on the roller coaster. But I eventually climbed back on and resumed my nightly rituals, perhaps with a tad more urgency. Wash hands – Father you know what I want; Where’s the needle? – Thanks for giving me another shot! (Sometimes humor is what got me through.) Swab, swab, swab – Please let this work; Injection – I’ve done all I can do, it’s in God’s hands. Round and round I went until the doctors gently suggested that the ride was likely to always end at the same empty destination.

That was six years ago, and I still sometimes struggle when I see a pregnant woman (which, by the way, to wannabe-momma me, seems to happen almost daily). But God has been faithful. I used to have to pray away envy – Lord let me happy for her, (i.e., not secretly “hate” her) – and now I can truly pray for her well-being – Father keep her safe and healthy that she might raise a child who serves you.

I still have a long way to go. But whenever I happen to catch a whiff of rubbing alcohol, I smile. Sometimes it’s bittersweet and those roller-coaster days seem like a dream. But I like to think that God is answering my prayers in some small way by reminding me that he is not done with me. He continues to help me heal. The fact that he might use the smell of an alcohol swab to encourage me to keep trusting and seeking him? I take delight in that.

* * * * *

Patricia Alderman’s passions include serving and doing life with those in her church community, maintaining the home she shares with her floppy-eared beagle, and getting her hands dirty in the garden. She also solves many of the world’s problems while relaxing with a skein of yarn and a crochet hook. She can be found online at patriciaalderman.com and @patricialderman on Twitter.

“Cotton Ball Clouds” photo by Swerz on Creative Commons

A Thorn In My Side

Posted on October 19, 2015 by Mary Peterson under Scent & Place

“AAAAAAhhhh-chooo!” (That’s me, sneezing!)

My eyes water.

My nose runs.

Desperate thoughts drive me to find the quickest access to a Kleenex.

Yep, I’m the girl with wadded up tissues in her purse, the girl with skin that is raw and sore from from wiping her nose with toilet paper or a napkin in a pinch.

I have allergies.

My eyes begin to itch.

My throat begins to scratch.

Clumsy fingers scramble to unlock medication from it’s protective bubble and I wait eagerly for it to take effect as I gulp it down. pollen-allergies-clip-art-1909082

A whole chain of events is triggered with a simple inhale. Unseen particles of fragrance or pollen float around in the wind until they find their way into my nose. Then, I’m a goner.

Recently, I moved away. Remarkably, my allergies were gone. But now, they are back with a vengeance. Thus, I must sadly conclude that I’m allergic to home.

The landscape that I call home is loaded with plants who have adapted to survive. Unrelenting desert sun forces native plants to develop a toughness.

The most annoying are sand burrs, a long grass that looks innocent enough but secretly lodges nasty little spikes into soft spots in your skin. In an effort to avoid a carpet full of prickers, brought in on shoelaces and rubber soles, we choose to fight against the persistent plant and its painful thorn. Eradication from the surrounding area is our goal.

Dad starts with a flamethrower as his instrument of destruction, attempting to conquer the seed pod by a fiery death. After hours of work, contained to a small patch of land, he declares defeat. “The plants are too green,” he grumbles, “the seeds just fall on the ground and I’m wasting time and fuel.”

Mom advocates for weedkiller, the heavy duty kind that comes in a five-gallon jug from the feed store. As the sickly orange fluid pours into the plastic sprayer, the odor wafts up. It’s a cross between vinegar and cough syrup. Not pleasant. Strapping the plastic jug of poison to his back, Dad walks around the front of the house, carefully directing the nozzle to the dreaded plant. As the poison does its work, we discover that killing the plant just knocks the burrs to the ground. Next year, we will pay the price.

Shovels are our last hope. Hauling large garbage barrels to the edges of the back yard, we point the steel tip at our target, the shallow roots of the grass. My dad and I, with gloved-hands, walk slowly through the field, analyzing each weed and attacking our common adversary. With a light shake to remove the dirt from the roots, we toss the de-earthed plants into the black plastic of the bin. Pressing my arm down to compact the growing stack, the smell of cut plants and dirt and plastic merge and begin to tickle my nose. Two sacks later, we darkly joke that we could play an awful trick on a neighbor by leaving a bagful of seed heads in their grass.

By that time, I am a wreck. Those hours, spent in close relationship with the native weeds, did a number on my allergies. Between the hot sun, the allergies in full force and the stickers working their way into my socks, I am grumbling between sneezes, brought low by an unseen enemy.

“AAAAAAhhhh-chooo!”

I take off a glove, remove a thorn from my fingertip, and dig a Kleenex out of the pocket of my stained work jeans. At least the tissues smell of baby powder and momentary relief.