Pantoum: Fruit of the Gods

The pantoum is a form of poetry that evokes a dreamy sort of incantatory mood because lines from one stanza must be repeated in the next stanza throughout the poem creating a rather intense repetitive scheme that seems to dance in circles. The pantoum originated in 15^th century Malaysia but has never quite achieved the popularity of the sonnet, the haiku, or the villanelle in poetry. In addition to the repetition of specific lines from one stanza to the next, some poets insist on an abab rhyme scheme. Poets also take the liberty from time to time of changing the repetitive lines just slightly so that the core of the line is repeated, but the line may vary just slightly from the line in the previous stanza. That said, here is the somewhat complicated format of the pantoum, which requires a four-line stanza but does not limit the number of stanzas.

So, the second and fourth lines in each stanza are repeated in the following stanza, becoming lines one and three in that stanza.

Stanza 1:  4 lines, ABAB rhyme scheme

Line 1

Line 2

Line 3 

Line 4

Stanza 2:

Line 5 (repeat of line 2 in Stanza 1)

Line 6 (new line)

Line 7 (repeat of line 4 in stanza 1)

Line 8 (new line)

All the stanzas proceed in this fashion, with lines 2 and 4 of each stanza becoming lines 1 and 3 of the following stanza until the last stanza (there is no set number of stanzas required and the poet determines how many stanzas he/she needs). The final stanza then returns to pick up the two lines from the first stanza which have not been repeated anywhere else and are then repeated in the final stanza. Line 3 from the first stanza becomes line 2 of the final stanza and line 1 of the first stanza becomes the final line of the final stanza.

Final Stanza:

Line 2 of the previous stanza

Line 3 from the very first stanza

Line 4 of the previous stanza

Line 1 of the first stanza

Pantoum: Fruit of the Gods

Called golden apples or the fruit of the Gods by Greeks,

The orange is a sultry vamp dressed in a dimpled coat

To protect its provocative flesh from anyone who seeks

To taste its succulent body, to nuzzle and tickle its throat.

The orange is a sultry vamp dressed in a dimpled coat.

Paris gave one to Aphrodite as the most beautiful goddess of all,

To taste its succulent body, to nuzzle and tickle its throat,

But Hera and Athena got jealous and flew into a frenzied squall.

Paris gave one to Aphrodite as the most beautiful goddess of all

In turn she gave him Helen, another man’s wife, as his prize,

But Hera and Athena got jealous and flew into a frenzied squall.

Hera and Athena thought Paris should suffer for being unwise.

In turn she gave him Helen, another man’s wife, as his prize.

The couple then fled to Troy to fan their adulterous lust.

Hera and Athena thought Paris should suffer for being unwise,

So the two green-eyed ladies turned Troy’s towers into dust.

The couple then fled to Troy to fan their adulterous lust,

While a tricked-out Trojan horse delivered Troy up to defeat.

So, the two green-eyed ladies turned Troy’s towers into dust,

Then slunk away to Mt. Olympus to savor revenge so sweet.

While a tricked-out Trojan horse delivered Troy up to defeat,

Hera and Athena gathered golden apples to savor and enjoy,

Then slunk away to Mt. Olympus to taste revenge so sweet,

Sipping on golden nectar above the toppled towers of Troy.

Each goddess ate an orange, soothing her wounded pride,

Protecting its provocative flesh from anyone who seeks

To discover what can happen when goddesses are denied,

Called golden apples or the fruit of the Gods by Greeks.

Cherry Pie

By Liz Zuercher

            I waved goodbye to my son, Chris, my daughter, Jessie and her husband as they drove away together.  As their car disappeared around the corner, I turned around to look at my house - the broad front porch with the swing James and I sat on as teenagers falling in love, the bright white paint my father always insisted upon, the dark green shutters and deep red door my mother loved, the big yard my brothers and sisters and I played in.  It was all still there, still the house where I grew up and later raised my own family.  The house has stood witness to all my family’s comings and goings, the births and deaths, the joys and sorrows.  Now there was just me - and the house.  For the first time I could ever remember the house did not give me comfort.  It just looked big and empty and lonely.  James, my only love, my husband of thirty-nine years was dead and buried.  What was I supposed to do now?

            I walked up the steps to the front door, but I couldn’t go inside.  Instead I sat on the porch swing and rocked back and forth.  The swing’s chain was squeaking and I caught myself thinking, I have to have James oil this chain.  I shook my head as if that would jar James out of my head, but of course that was impossible.  If you’re fifty-nine years old and you’ve been with the same guy since you were fourteen, he’s never going to be out of your head or your heart, even if he was no longer there to hold your hand while you sat together on the swing.  I stroked the empty spot next to me and kept on swinging. 

This time last week I never would have thought that I would be sitting alone on the porch swing, a widow who has just seen off the last of her family after her husband’s funeral.  But there I was.  You just never know what life is going to throw at you.  Just when you think you have everything figured out, that your life is pretty darned perfect, wham! Here comes a monkey wrench.  Damn it, James.

The late afternoon October air was getting a little chilly, so I stopped the swing and decided to face my empty house.  Just as I was getting up, a car screeched around the corner.  That could only be Georgie.  She never goes anywhere without a grand entrance.  Sure enough Georgie’s car came to an abrupt halt in front of my house and out came my three best friends in the world.

“We brought dinner,” Georgie said, holding up a pizza box.

“And wine,” said Kate, a bottle in each hand.

“And ice cream,” said Louie.  “And our jammies.  We’re having a sleep over.  Just like when we were kids.”

            I think my house felt just as relieved to see my girlfriends as I was.  We could stave off the loneliness a little longer.

* * * * *

            My girls, I always called them.  These days that phrase has been used to refer to breasts, so I sometimes feel a little funny talking about my girls.  People get the wrong idea.  And if they don’t think I mean my boobs, they think I mean my daughters. But I only have one daughter, and I only have two boobs.  I have three girls: Georgie, Louie and Kate.  I’ve known them since we all first set foot in Mrs. Finch’s cheerful kindergarten classroom.

I was the scaredy cat of the group, clinging to my mother’s skirt until she pried my fingers loose and gave me a gentle nudge into the classroom.  My father took a picture of me on our front porch before school that day.  I looked like Alice in Wonderland in my pale blue first-day-of-school dress with the smocking on top that my mother made for me.  Tiny roses were appliquéd around the edges of the white Peter Pan collar.  It was very much like my Easter dress, which had been pale yellow with daisies on the collar.  I had a blue headband holding my straight blond hair back away from my face, and I had on white socks with patent leather Mary Jane shoes that I remember were a little too small and a little too fancy for kindergarten.  The next day I begged Mama to let me wear my Keds instead.

That first-day-of-school night when Daddy tucked me in and asked me how I liked school, I rattled on and on about everything I’d done and everyone I’d met, especially the three friends I’d made.

“There was Georgette.  She’s got so much red hair!  It’s all curly around her face. She wants to be called Georgie.  I wish my hair was curly like Georgie’s.  And Katharine wants to be called Kate.  She brought a camera to school!  I want a camera, Daddy.  And Louise had flowers in her hair, like a crown.  She wants to be called Louie,” I said, stopping to catch my breath.  I gave my father a puzzled look.

“What’s wrong, Emma?” he said.

“Why don’t I have another name to be called?  Why am I just plain Emma?”

“Baby, there’s nothing plain about you or your name,” he told me.

“But Georgie and Kate and Louie have fun names they got to choose.  I want a fun name, too,” I whined.

“Well, what do you want to be called, then?” Daddy said.  “What should your fun name be?  Chatterbug? Scooter?  Peanut?” He giggled a little bit after each “fun” name and shook his head.  Then his eyes got wide and he smiled,  “I know! It’s Snickelfritz!”

At that he tickled me so hard I screamed with laughter until I yelled Uncle and he finally stopped.

“Okay, to sleep with you, Miss Snickelfritz,” he said with a big grin.

“Emma,” I said, settling down under the covers.  “Call me Emma.  Snickelfritz sounds silly.”

I guess even then the four of us knew who we were and what we should be called.

Though Louie keeps changing the way she spells her name depending on the numerological influences of the moment, she’s still my ethereal, good-hearted Louie, who went off to UC Berkeley, married Franklin and embraced the Haight Ashbury scene.  I’ve given up on keeping track of which spelling she’s using, so she’ll always be Louie to me, not Looee or Looey or Louee or whatever else she comes up with.  I can count on her to be ready with a hug and a novel, positive spin on life. 

Georgie went off to New York for a boy and an acting career.  She could have come back a sophisticated Georgette who had no time for someone like me who stayed put in Troy Hill, but to me she’s the same warm, wild, witty Georgie with the unruly red hair, who makes me try new things.  

And Kate has photographed wars all over the world for God’s sake.  She could be a worldly Katharine bored with such a cautious childhood friend as me, but she has never been anything but my brave, adventurous, no nonsense Kate, since I met her that first day of kindergarten. She sees through the baloney to what’s real in the world.  

As for me, I stayed put here in Troy Hill, married James, raised a family and never strayed from being Emma.  No, that’s not true.  I became James-and-Emma for forty-five years.  Until last week.  Now I’m back to being just Emma, whoever she is.

By different quirks of fate my girls are all back in Troy Hill now, living in their family homes just like I am. We’ve lived our lives apart for most of our years, but now we are together again.  And, boy, do I need my girls now!

* * * * *

            The four of us sat at my kitchen table and ate the pizza in silence.  A bite of pizza stuck in my throat and I took a big gulp of the red wine Kate had filled my glass with.  

            “Easy there, Emma,” Georgie said.  “We don’t want to have to carry you up the stairs to bed. We’re too old for that nonsense.” At that, she took a big drink from her own glass.

            I smiled at her and said, “You mean you didn’t bring sleeping bags to lay out on the living room rug like we used to do?”

            “ Wow, remember when we used to do that?” said Louie. “It seems so long ago.”

            “It was long ago,” said Kate.  “And so much water under the bridge.”  She looked really sad to me, like she was the one who had just lost her mate.

            “In some ways it doesn’t seem so long ago,” Georgie said.  “Do you ever feel like you’re a teenager again?”

            “Except instead of zits, we have achy joints and hot flashes,” I said.

            “And bum knees,” said Kate.

            “And jowls,” Louie said.  “And gray hair.”

            “Speak for yourself,” Georgie said.  “No gray hair for me – ever.  I’ll be a red head until they plant me in the ground.”

            The girls all looked at me, uncomfortable with the turn in the conversation.  

            “It’s okay,” I said.  But the ache in my chest was starting up again.  For a minute I’d let the reality of my situation fade into the background.  With the girls around me I did kind of feel like a teenager again.

            “We were so carefree back then,” Kate said.  “So full of possibilities.  Do you ever think about the choices you made and wonder if they were the right ones?”

            “Never,” I said.  I’d had just the life I wanted – a husband I loved, children, a beautiful home. I’d been happy until now.

            “Always,” said Georgie.  “Sometimes I’d like to go back and have a do-over, a Mulligan in the life choices department.  I wonder how things would have been different today, if I’d gone to college, or to Hollywood instead of New York, if I hadn’t fallen for that creep, Buddy.”  Georgie sounded so unsure of herself, and I thought I saw worry in her eyes.  Where was her wild spirit, her zest for life?

            “It’s pointless to do that,” said Louie.  “We did what we were supposed to do, what the Universe meant for us to do.  Besides, we can’t change all that.  We can only learn from it and look forward.”

            “Screw the universe,” Kate said with such vehemence that we all stared at her in disbelief.  We knew she didn’t think much of Louie’s airy-fairy views, but she’d always respected her right to have them.  This sounded like a personal challenge.

            “What are you all looking at?” Kate said.  “You haven’t seen what I’ve seen.  You don’t have any idea what your precious universe is like.”  She emptied her wine glass and poured some more.

            “No one said it was all sunshine and roses out there,” Louie said in that calm sweet voice she uses when we just aren’t getting the big picture, but I could see that tears were threatening to well up in her eyes.  So unlike Louie.  I wondered what was going on with her.

            We sat there for a moment, all of us staring at the empty pizza box as if all the answers to life’s mysteries were there.

            “I need a sugar fix,” said Georgie.  “What did the church ladies bring, Emma?  There must be something decadent we can have.”

            “There still some of Lola Metcalf’s double fudge layer cake,” I said.  “And lemon bars and I think there’s some cherry pie.  And there’s the ice cream you brought in the freezer.”

            I started to get up and get the desserts, but the girls all jumped up at the same time to forage in the fridge and cupboards for sweets. Georgie ate cake.  Louie had pie, and Kate dug into the rocky road carton with a big spoon, just like she’d always done as a kid.  I picked at a lemon bar, not feeling very hungry any more.

            “What would you do, Kate, if you were eighteen again and just out of high school?” I said.  “What would you change?”

            She shook her head and took another bite of rocky road. “I have no idea,” she said.  “I can’t imagine ever doing anything else but what I’ve done.  I was always so sure, even as a kid, that being a photojournalist was the only thing I was meant to do.  But what I wonder is if it was right for me.  Was it the best for me?  Here I am now, on the verge of sixty, and my body is broken and keeping me from doing what I love.  That makes me so frustrated and angry that I wish I’d never even picked up a camera and headed to the war zone.”

“You don’t mean that,” Georgie said.  “You wouldn’t be you without your camera.”

“But did I have to take pictures of war?  Why did I do that?  What was the point in all of it?” Kate said.

            “In all of what?” I asked.

            “The wars.  The pictures.  The horror. What was the point?  And did it make any difference at all to anyone, the work I did?”

            “Of course it made a difference,” Georgie said. “Your work was important.  People needed to know what was going on over there. You showed people that.”

“I’m not so sure anyone cared about what I showed them.  Did all those horrific photographs change anything in the world?  I doubt it. People are still killing each other all over the world.  So what difference did my pictures make to anyone?  Except maybe to me.  The only difference all that work made was to break me.”  

Kate was getting really heavy with all this talk.  I tried to think of a way to change the subject, but right then I was pretty much broken, too.  And I hadn’t even been to war.

“If you want to talk about making a difference in life, what about my life? How much laundry detergent do you have to sell on TV commercials to make a difference?  Talk about a waste of a life,” Georgie said.  Georgie was always a little overly dramatic, but this was way more serious than her drama usually tended to be.  

            “No life is a waste,” said Louie.  “We’ve all made a difference in one way or another.  We just may not realize what that way was, and it may be entirely different from what we thought we were doing.”  She looked down at the cherry pie and scooped up another bite.  “Like this pie,” she said.  “If you’re having it for the first time, it looks so sweet, but when you get it in your mouth it’s the tartness that makes you take notice, not at all what you’d expect if you’d never had a cherry pie.  It’s sweet, yes, but it has a bite to it, too, and that’s what makes it special – the contrast.  So you have another bite to make sure you are right about it, and yep, it’s sweet and sour, just like life.  You think it’s going to be one way, and it turns out to be the opposite.  And the surprise of it makes it all the more interesting.  You just have to go for it.”  At that she stuffed a big forkful of cherry pie into her mouth and said, “Mmmmmm.  So good!”

            “Huh?” said Georgie.  “We are so teenagers again!  And Louie has just given us the cherry pie philosophy of life.  Instead of a box of chocolates, life is like cherry pie, so dig in!”

            We all started laughing, even Louie, and once the girls get started laughing, there’s no stopping us.  I laughed so hard my jaws ached and tears streamed from my eyes.  I’d cried a lot in the past week, but these tears were like healing waters flowing down my cheeks, washing away a tiny bit of pain.

            Once our laughter trailed off, we sat there quietly, each of us lost in her own thoughts.  I looked up at the kitchen wall clock.  It said 8:30, and I had to bite my tongue before I blurted out, I wonder why James is so late tonight.  Suddenly, I felt like someone had sucked every bit of life out of me. I looked around at the girls and couldn’t summon the oomph to even interact with them.  I had to be alone in my house with my memories of James.  Nothing else would be right for me, I knew.

            “I need to go to bed,” I said.

            “Sure.  We’ll all get our nighties on,” Georgie said.  “And we can camp out in the living room like we used to as kids.”

            “I don’t think so,” I said.  “I love you all for being here with me, but I think I need to be alone now.  I have to do it sometime.  It might as well be now.  And I’m just so worn out.”

            All three of them looked at me with concern and love in their eyes.

            “Are you sure?” said Kate.

            “Yes,” I said.

            “Okay,” Louie said.  “We’ll just clean up and then we’ll go.  You can head on up to bed if you want.  We know the way out.”

            I nodded and left the kitchen to the girls, my wonderful girls.  As I climbed the stairs to my room, I could hear them whispering to each other as they did the dishes.  I knew they were worried about me and wanted to stay with me, but I also knew they would do whatever I wanted them to do, whatever they could to help me.  No one could help me now but me.  And right now the only thing I needed was sleep.  

I brushed my teeth, put on my nightgown and climbed into bed.  I pulled the pillow from James’ side of the bed into a hug and curled around it.  As I closed my eyes, I heard the front door close and Georgie’s car pull away.  I felt uneasy about my girls and our conversation.  Life was changing for all of us.  Each of us seemed to be at a crossroads, like a second adolescence.  We’re not who we used to be.  How could we be the same at sixty as we were at sixteen?  We all have decisions to make about what comes next. 

My own next chapter – the one where I am the main character instead of the supporting cast – was beginning.  I had visions of cherry pie right before I drifted off to sleep.  Sweet and sour, Louie had said, like life.  This was most definitely the sour.  I wondered how long it would be before I tasted the sweet part again.  I couldn’t even imagine.

Post Office Craziness, or I Have Hope

Let's pretend that it's last Monday - May 11th - I wouldn't mind getting that week back... so here's my belated post... been thinking about the post office lately, and 45's determination to get back at Jeff Bazos (forget the rest of us)... so here goes...  and to help save the post office and even have fun, go to PHOTOSTAMPS.COM to make your own stamps with your pictures.

And check out this John Oliver piece on the post office: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoL8g0W9gAQ

******************************************************************************

Getting rid of the post office? Really? No more mail? Or does our fearful leader intend that his friends will open competing mail services that one could subscribe to for an arm and a leg and maybe a first born child?

You might even have a greater than 50% chance of receiving your item and it would be delivered in whatever the heck time-frame his friends feel is appropriate for the unimportant lower classes. And of course, if they lose an item there would be no recourse because of course everything for big business, and who cares if your Aunt Margie doesn’t get her birthday present or her card or her meds? If she were only magnificently rich, she’d have someone to get those things for her, or be able to afford a top notch, top cost option.

55 cents is what it now costs to send a note or birthday card or bill through the mail no matter where it is going – even to Hawaii. One can send a letter that is 1 ounce or less to England for a mere $1.20. That is about 1/5 the price of a vente latte with almond milk. What would 45’s friends charge - $1.20 for a "second-class" stamp to get your bill paid (they'll all be considered 'second-class,' though they might have a different service for their 'first-class' friends), and $20.00 to send that 5 pound birthday present to your friend and have it take a week or two (a large flat rate box that would take 2 days is about that amount now)? Maybe an extra $10 if you want to insure it…

With no more post office I wonder if we’ll even be able to get a bill or a package or a birthday card. Will this kill our small towns? Even Fed Ex and UPS often give over that last leg of the journey to the post office.

How will you pay your bills? How will you even get your bill if there is no mail service? If you don’t have internet, you’ll have to actually go to your local gas company or electric company or water company every month in order to pay your bill, and even to know how much the bill is. Unless they are going to call everyone to tell them; that is not going to happen. Will they just decide that they cannot serve these out of the way communities any longer because there is no way to get paid for the service, and their offices are generally farther away. 

Goodbye gas, electric, water in small towns in the middle of our great country. We can make America the wild wild whatever again. Dig your own well and put up some solar panels or those “cancer producing” windmills to get your own power.

How will people who are ill or old and shut in be able to get their medications? Maybe we can figure out how to use plants and herbs to heal ourselves and get rid of the pharmaceutical companies (that wouldn’t necessarily be all bad). Will Amazon take over the mail service? I’m sure that they can.

If 45 is trying to hurt Jeff Bezos, he may be, instead, giving him a new avenue in – the mail street. Trying to hamper and hamstring someone who is creative and savvy is not really very clever. I wonder if Bezos already has a team working on it.

It’s like 45 is saying we’re going to close up the mouse hole and that will fix our problem. His minuscule intellect is not aware that the mouse can come out a thousand different ways.

I love my mail. I love getting my Netflix DVDs, I even love getting my circulars that tell me who has a sale on avocados or bananas or strawberries. I love getting snail mail – I don’t get much, but recently a friend wrote me a LONG handwritten letter that reminded me of the hundreds of letters I used to send and receive over the years. It was the only way my boyfriend and I, who lived 3000 miles apart, could tell one another how much we loved each other. I’m glad that we couldn’t just text or e-mail. There is something about sitting down and thinking out what to say, and writing it carefully so that it could be read (my hand writing’s been atrocious my entire life), that is quite delightful.

And all those amazing and wonderful stamps. I have stamps with Disney villains and Toy Story heroes. I have stamps with birds and flowers and planets and rock stars. Stamps with scenes from the revolutionary war and the civil war. I have stamps with Regan’s face and Shirley Tempe’s face, Scientists faces, and Latin Musician's faces.

If 45 takes away our post office, I am sure that someone will come up with something, because Americans are nothing if not creative problem solvers (at least some of them - usually the younger ones). But our 55 cent days may be over. Some of the post office's financial troubles are because the Post Office was hamstrung and limited in some of their financial matters. Check out the John Oliver segment for more on that. 

So my friends who have refused to pay their bills on line might be forced to move into the 21^st century.

45 can try to kill the real American spirit, but as long as there are inspirational leaders and light bearers like Barack and Michelle Obama inspiring us to keep our dreams alive, his royal darkness cannot completely take over.

It might be advisable, however, to start focusing on what we want rather than what we don’t want. The blessings rather than the curses, the joy rather than the pain and fear, the possibilities rather than the downsides. If we can do that, we can probably keep our post office or get something even better. I have hope.

Wishing by Susan Matthewson

“When you wish upon a star

Makes no difference who you are

Anything your heart desires

Will come to you…” *    

I am a dreamer,

A chaser of rainbows,

A builder of castles in the air,

A wool gatherer,

A baker of pie in the sky,

A smoker of pipe dreams,

A wisher on a star.

I have a hankering

For the fantastic and the fanciful.

As a child I wore my mother out

With my wishing and wanting.

I wished I was Cinderalla.

I wished I was Sleeping Beauty.

I wished I had a pony.

I wished I had a kitten.

I wished I lived in a castle.

I wished I could fly to the stars.

When mom took me to see The Nutcracker ballet

I replaced Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty

With the Sugar Plum Fairy.

My heart’s desire was to be a ballerina.

I wanted to plié and pirouette

Like the Sugar Plum Fairy in a sparkly pink tutu

Across a fantasyland stage of twinkling lights,

Surrounded by a bevy of ballerina flowers

Wearing soft pink clouds of net and sequins, 

Wafting like petals on the lilt of a breeze

As the music soared up into the ceiling rafters.

Actually, what I really wanted

Was that sparkly pink tutu

And a pair of pink satin toe shoes.

I believed the tutu and toe shoes

Would turn me into a ballerina,

A Terpsichorean vision in pink.

But mom knew better.

She quoted that old saw:

“If wishes were horses,

Then beggars would ride.”

Her message was clear:

Wishing gets you nothing;

Work for what you want.

Sometimes, she should have added,

Sometimes it gets you what you want.

Sometimes wishing paves the way—

After all, mom bought me that pink tutu

With pink ballet slippers to match.

And I didn’t do a lick of work for it.

I learned to work, eventually.

Pink tutus and satin toe shoes

Don’t come cheap and

Moms aren’t always around to provide.

But I remain a dreamer and a wisher.

You still can find me off on a chase,

Sometimes after a wild goose,

Sometimes after a rainbow,

Searching for a pot of gold.

Look out your window one night.

You may see me swinging on a star—

Twinkling amid the moonbeams

In my pink tutu and satin toe shoes.

(*Song Title: "When You Wish Upon A Star"  written by Harline and Washington from the Disney film Pinocchio).

November 7, 1970

Okay, this is the first installment. I still don't know if this is going to be a short story or the start of something bigger, but it's the start of something.

 ***

Suzanne stares out the dirty window of the decrepit Detroit city bus, watching the slum roll by. When she'd boarded the bus with her best friend Mari, they'd been excited and talkative, but the tedious stop-and-go traffic and the cloud of marijuana smoke hovering over everyone's heads has put them half-asleep. Suzanne jerks awake when the bus driver slams on the brakes, and throws out her hands to save herself from a face-plant on the seatback in front of her.

"Hey man, what the fuck!" yells the guy in the Uncle Sam top hat across the aisle, but the driver pays no more attention to the grumbling crowd than he pays to the cloud of smoke. "I think I'm getting a contact high," says Mari. "It's the only kind I can afford."

Suzanne laughs. "Tell me about it. Smokin' other people's, and now, secondhand at that."

"How you feeling, Suzanne? You getting stoned?"

"Could be. I feel pretty good."

The light turns green. The bus heaves and shudders, and Suzanne lets go of the dented metal bar above the ripped seatback in front of her and settles back. The bus resumes its hissing down the wet asphalt, and she stares out the window again, looking down at the slush-spackled cars and at the gray lid of the sky above, threatening more November snow.

Suzanne and Mari are on their way downriver, heading for the Ambassador Bridge. There's another Student Mobilization rally against the war, and Canadian students from Windsor are going to meet American students from Detroit in the middle of the bridge and -- what? Shake hands, wave "U.S. out of Vietnam" posters, dance? Suzanne doesn't know the plan, or even if there is a plan, but she and Mari are willing to be a part of the newspapers' crowd estimate, their body count. Plan, no plan, plenty of kids always show up to the protests anyway. Suzanne figures if boys are getting their balls blown off in the tunnels of Cu Chi, the least she can do is go to a rally and chant. The draft is scooping up eighteen-year-old boys, and Suzanne, at sixteen, wants to make sure there will be plenty of intact boys left for her to date. She read the phrase "enlightened self-interest" someplace, and she's putting the concept into action.

The bus rolls down Jefferson, past the waterworks, past the Belle Isle entrance, past the downtown office buildings and Cobo Hall. There's a fair amount of traffic for a Saturday on the riverfront. They rumble under the freeway, past the Tunnel to Canada signs. A black bus slowly creeps next to Suzanne's window, every head in every window wearing an incongruous baby blue helmet. The city bus riders grow quiet.

Mari leans toward Suzanne. "Riot cops," whispers Mari.

"They look so weird," murmurs Suzanne. "They look like a carton of robins' eggs."

Mari grins. "You are most definitely stoned."

Their bus groans to a stop and the doors pop open. The skunk weed cloud inside meets the Zug Island factory stink outside as everyone shuffles off the bus. Mari precedes Suzanne down the stairs. "Oh, damn!" she yells as her foot sinks ankle-deep into the gutter. "Watch out for the slush!"

They're heading toward the bridge, heading toward the crush of high school students, Black Panthers, White Panthers, Wayne State University students and professors, union organizers, welfare rights organizers, Vietnam Veterans Against the War, undercover FBI agents, radical priests and nuns, dopers, mental patients, and the riot cops guarding the bridge from all of them.

The wind has picked up, blowing out of Canada, and Suzanne shivers. She's wearing the only jacket she owns, a black crinkled-fake-leather short jacket that looks totally cool -- but between the outer crinkly shell and ripped inner lining lies a thin layer of dryer lint. That's what it looks like, and that's what it feels like, Suzanne thinks, and wishes she had doubled up on sweaters underneath. Or maybe hit the Salvation Army store the previous week while she still had enough money from her after-school job to buy a used winter coat. Of course, that would have left her short on food money, which was why she hadn't done it. She sighs and walks a little faster. The crowd is in sight, and the more people, the more heat.

"Wait up!" Mari had fallen behind. Suzanne halts and turns, a little embarassed.

"Sorry!" She was thoughtless sometimes. Or just lost in thought most of the time. Another bad habit to work on.

Cassie: The People I Come From

By Liz Zuercher

I wanted to tell you about the people I come from – about where I grew up and what I ran away from at eighteen.

I’m sorry, I guess I should introduce myself first.  My name is Cassandra Marie Petersen, Cassie for short.  I’m forty-five years old and single.  I live by myself in a two year old condo.  No husband, no children.  Not even a boyfriend, for Pete’s sake.  Just me and my mortgage, which about now is pretty suffocating.  When I bought the place, I was raking in the dough.  But now that the real estate market is in the dumper, so’s my income. 

Oh, did I tell you I sell new homes for a living?  Living.  Is that what this is?  I go from the condo to the sales office to the condo to the sales office to the – well, you get the picture. Fun, huh?  It’s getting a little old, and I’m beginning to wonder how I ended up in this situation. What’s more, I wonder if I’m stuck in this rut for the rest of my life.  Sometimes it feels that way.  I only have myself to depend on, after all.  I have so many responsibilities.  I can’t just quit, can’t just chuck it all and try something new.  Can I?  

Lately, I’ve been mulling over the decisions I’ve made along the way, trying to see where I went wrong, what I could have done differently.  There must be some point at which I could have chosen a different path and ended up in a happier spot.  All the what-ifs and if-onlys of life are what I’m searching through.  I figure if I could pinpoint where I made the wrong choices, I could change course now. But it doesn’t work that way, does it? You’re faced with a crossroads and you select a road to travel.  Even if you don’t end up liking where that road takes you, you can’t go back to the original crossroads.  There’s too much overgrowth on the path by the time you try to go back.  You have to either accept where you are or find a way to change it going forward.

Here’s the problem.  I’ve gotten what I always said I wanted.  I’m on my own.  I’m responsible for myself and no one else.  I make my own decisions and earn my own keep.  “Better to be lonesome than sorry,” Grandma Elsa always used to say.  But she never said anything about how to avoid being lonesome AND sorry.  That’s where I am right now.  What do I do about that, Grandma?

Did I say that out loud?  Sometimes I talk to Grandma Elsa when I’m trying to figure things out.  I talk, but she never answers me.  I don’t believe in ghosts or spirits or things that go bump in the night, so I don’t really expect Grandma’s voice to come out of the blue. But it would be nice if she could give me a hint, a little nudge.  She’d be telling me to believe in myself, and I do.  At least I used to.  Oh, for Pete’s sake, this is getting so depressing.  See what I do to myself?  Snap out of it Cassie!  Sometimes I think I’ll end up an alcoholic like my parents, but I’m stronger than that I tell myself.  I can do this by myself.  I can. But do I want to?  I used to think so, but lately everything I used to think I wanted looks thin and gaunt.

         So, back to my people, the ones I come from.  I’ve been thinking about them a lot lately and what I might have inherited from them, how they may have influenced the path I took and the choices I made.  Not my parents – they’re lost causes, cautionary tales.  I hope I’m not like them.  I’ve been thinking more about my grandmothers, how different they were and how I’ve taken something from each of them, whether I wanted to or not.

Grandma Elsa

         Just like her neighbors and friends, Gertie, Fanny and Ida, my Grandma Elsa Winchester swept her big front porch every morning at eight o’clock, no matter what. She told me it was good to start the day out in a clean space, that when you went out your front door, you should feel like your house was in order.  Of course, she kept up the inside, too, but it was the house’s face to the world she was most concerned about.  In a small farm town like Colfax, Illinois, people put a lot of stock in what they can see with their own two eyes. 

Grandma Elsa wasn’t what I ran from.  If she’d still been alive when I was a teenager, I might still be in Colfax, married to a farmer and mother to a passel of kids.  No, come to think of it, I probably wouldn’t have stayed even then, but I might have stayed longer, if I could have sought refuge in Grandma’s warm tidy house.  I might have gone on to the University of Illinois, before I struck out on my own. I might have done a lot of things, if my father hadn’t been a mean drunk and my mother a simpering one.

If the people of Colfax had been paying attention to my family, they would have seen the turmoil inside my childhood home.  Maybe they knew what went on behind that farmhouse door, but if they did, they only talked about it in whispers.  They never intervened.  Of course, country people are hesitant to step into other people’s business.  It’s not seemly to interfere, go where you’re not wanted.  We were all taught that.  But we were also taught to be good neighbors.  I guess sometimes the line between being a good neighbor and interfering is a pretty fine one, especially if no one asks for help. 

 Grandma Elsa taught her daughter, Grace, my mother, the merits of good housekeeping and the pleasures of a joyful home, but she couldn’t teach her how to deal with a man who abused her.  Mom didn’t have the fortitude to stand up to such a man, or the confidence to turn her back on him when she should have.  Instead, she tried to appease him. She worked to make a home he’d want to come back to at night with a good hot meal that he’d look forward to eating at the end of a day in the fields.  It was never enough for him, though, and it nearly killed her more than once.  Little by little, her spirit was extinguished, until she could no longer hold herself together without her rum-spiked coke and cigarettes.  Grandma Elsa couldn’t help her only daughter find her way.

But for my sister and me Grandma Elsa was a safe haven.  She was round and soft and no sharp angles.  She was warmth and fun and caring.  She was everything I didn’t get at home, everything I craved from my mother.  I could never figure out how my mother missed out on those qualities as she grew up in Grandma Elsa’s house.  Maybe she had them once.  Maybe life’s twists and turns took them away from her, or buried them deep.

What did I inherit from Grandma Elsa?  I used to think I was warm, fun and caring, too.  I don’t know anymore.  There was an ease about her.  She had a way with people and a pithy saying to cover every situation.  She made people smile.  I can do that with my customers – put them at ease, make them feel at home.  But I’m not so sure that’s the real me.  It’s becoming harder and harder to put on that smile with strangers and welcome them. I have to dig deeper to find my inner Elsa.  Is she still there?  Or am I more like Grandmother Petersen?

Grandmother Petersen

Vera Baldwin Petersen wouldn’t let her grandchildren call her Grandma Vera or Grammie or Nana or any other endearing grandmother nickname.  She insisted on being Grandmother Petersen or just Grandmother. She had all the sharp, hard angles Grandma Elsa lacked. Behind her back my sister and I called her The Witch. But from today’s vantage point, I have to admit she was a force of nature. She was steel and ice, grit and determination.  She knew what she wanted and she went after it.  And what she wanted was the respectability of being a Petersen.  

The Petersens, my father’s grandparents, immigrated to the United States from Sweden in the late eighteen hundreds and being farmers, they found their way to the flat rich soil of Central Illinois, where others had come before them.  Many Scandinavians ended up in Minnesota, but my father’s people stopped in Illinois where they established their homestead.  They worked the land and had five sons, bringing them all up to be farmers, too.  Little by little they bought more land when it became available, until they had several farms across the county, on which they installed their sons when they married. The Petersen empire some of the locals called it.  Their plan worked well until Vera Baldwin came along and stole the heart of Johannes Petersen.

Vera Baldwin’s family lived in town, the wrong part of town.  She possessed a strong will and a deep desire to rise above her heritage, a heritage that included the most infamous of Colfax citizens, Old Man Baldwin, who had cold-heartedly murdered three people, including a thirteen year old girl he’d been accused of molesting.  Old Man Baldwin was only a second cousin to Vera’s father, but the connection clung to her nonetheless.  People in town had a habit of curling their lips just the slightest amount when the name Baldwin was mentioned.  Memories run deep in a small town.

Even as a child Vera plotted her escape from Colfax, but in those days escape was difficult for a girl.  The second best thing to leaving town on her own would have been to marry someone who’d move her away from there.  That didn’t happen either.  Strangers didn’t come to Colfax and hardly anyone left town.  It was a farm community. People stayed put.  They worked the land and passed it along to the next generation.  Opportunity to meet someone who’d take her away from there was next to nonexistent. So she settled on the third option – find someone very respectable to marry and assume his mantle of respectability. No family in the county was more respected than the Petersens, so Vera set her sights on a Petersen.  

Johannes wasn’t her first choice.  She liked the looks of his brother Henrik better, but Gloria Wissmiller scooped up Henrik Petersen and the others were either too young or too old and already married.  Johannes it would be and Vera planned her campaign for his heart.  She flirted.  She played hard to get.  She batted her eyelashes and made sure she was always walking where he was walking. She dressed in colors that made her look her prettiest.  To be honest, she was not a beauty, but there was a spirit about her, a spark, that appealed to the boys.  And there was a little bit of danger to her, not the least of which was the family history, a murderer in the closet so to speak.  Though Vera wanted to leave that association behind her, she knew enough to embrace it when she needed to.  She knew how to scheme and she was an expert at pulling the wool over the eyes of her prey. 

Long story short, she managed to reel in Johannes Petersen, who had his own issues and was itching to find a way out of his parents’ house and onto his own spread. The only way his folks let a son move out was if they got married and needed a place of their own.  So the inevitable followed, and in spite of the fact that Johannes’ mother had grave misgivings about the suitability of Vera Baldwin for her son, Johannes and Vera married as soon as he finished high school. He was a year ahead of Vera, so she dropped out of school to become his wife, keep his house and bear his children. They had a modest white house on a one hundred sixty acre plot of land across the road from his family home.

But Vera wasn’t satisfied.  She did enjoy some of the respectability she’d craved, but because she lived out in the country and didn’t get to town that often, it was difficult to show off her new status to those who had disrespected her.  Church was what she settled on to elevate her status further. She joined the Missionary Society of the Lutheran Church, and sang in the choir, planned church socials and taught Sunday school.  She wasn’t sure she believed in all the gobbledygook the minister said, but she was good at putting on the proper expression, and slowly her reputation as a pious woman grew.  She began to believe it herself – she was a pious woman, but it wasn’t necessarily God she was pious about.  She was her own altar.  She was what she worshipped most.  

After a while she settled into being Mrs. Johannes Petersen or Vera Petersen, instead of Vera Baldwin or even Vera Baldwin Petersen.  She was on her way to the respectability she’d always sought. Only one thing was missing – a grand house in town that would show everyone what her position in the community was.  She started in on Johannes when the children were still in grade school.  It took her until my father, her middle child, was about to get married before Johannes finally agreed to build the house in town.    

By the time I knew my Grandmother Petersen she had hardened considerably and was ensconced in her trophy house in town – the brick house that Johannes built for her, the one that didn’t belong on the street of modest white clapboard homes. There were two garages, an expansive front porch, a screened in summer house and a grand central staircase in the foyer with a crystal chandelier ordered from Sweden.  She was on top of the social heap in Colfax, if there was a social heap.  She was a trendsetter, if there were trends set in Colfax.  People looked to see what Vera Petersen was wearing and what kind of plants she put in her flowerbeds.  Then they followed suit, if they could afford to do so.  Most folks, though, could only look on in envy.  Or disdain.  

Yes, Vera had certainly achieved her goal.  By that time no one in town even remembered Vera was a Baldwin.  For that matter, the whole sordid history of the Baldwins had faded into the back reaches of ancient minds.  Except for Millie Baldwin’s house, the one where her uncle the murderer had lived when he committed the crime and that Millie inherited, living there as a spinster.  People gave the house a wide berth, but mostly because Millie was a little spooky, not because anyone remembered the story of Old Man Baldwin.  Kids called it the haunted house, because Millie let it fall into disrepair and could be seen occasionally peering out from behind tattered lace curtains.  As for Vera, she was careful to distance herself from Millie and her house.  She’d worked too hard to establish herself to purposely remind anyone of her Baldwin blood.   

To many in Colfax Vera’s efforts to be on the cutting edge, to be a leader in the community, fell flat, though.  They thought she was a little uppity, too big for her britches, and if they smiled and nodded their heads in seeming respect when she passed on Main Street, behind her back they were clucking that she was stuck up and heartless.  

I was in their camp.  Never hers. What I never could understand was why God would take a lovely woman like Grandma Elsa before a hard-hearted ice queen like Grandmother Petersen. She scared me when I was little, and even if she were a shriveled old woman of one hundred and I was still living there, she’d scare me today.  At the very least she’d make me shiver a little bit.  I don’t know if she’s still alive.  I haven’t stayed in touch with my family.  I don’t know if any of them is still alive.  It’s easier that way.  Less painful. 

In some respects knowing Grandmother Petersen explained why my father had turned to alcohol.  Maybe my mother, too, though I blame my father for that.  Neither one of them could ever do anything to suit Grandmother Petersen, and she insinuated herself into every aspect of our lives. She had lots of rules, so many I could never remember them, and sometimes I thought she made them up to fit the situation, to throw us off balance.  She was very good at that.  I never felt a sense of equilibrium around her.  Neither did my mother.  Neither did my father, come to think of it.  He was powerless before her and always backed down.  

I never tried to understand my father.  It didn’t seem worth the effort then.  Now that I’m older and have some distance from the whole situation, I think he was probably a tortured soul who could never live up to his mother’s expectations.  Maybe he reminded her too much of the Baldwin side of the family, the part she had worked so hard to bury.  The Baldwins were drinkers.  The Petersens weren’t.  The Baldwins didn’t amount to much.  The Petersens were supposed to be solid citizens.  

Karl Petersen was definitely more of a Baldwin, and that meant Grandmother had no use for him.  It meant she also had no use for his wife and children.  That was fine with me.  I had no use for her either.

The older I get and the more distance I have from Colfax and my family there, the more I see what the people I came from have passed on to me.  I always swore I was nothing like Grandmother Petersen. I was way more Grandma Elsa.  But I see now that was wishful thinking.  Yes, I can be warm and caring and fun like Grandma Elsa, but I also have Grandmother Petersen’s drive, her determination and singularity of purpose.   She longed to better herself.  She longed to get out of that town, and when that didn’t seem possible, she found a way to shed her past, her heritage, and make a new life for herself.  Isn’t that what I did?  I hated my situation, so I ran from it.  I put it behind me and created a new life for myself.  What I wonder now is whether, like Grandmother Petersen, the effort has hardened me the way it did her.  I hope not.  Help me, Grandma Elsa. 

Lost by Nancy Grossman-Samuel

“How about if I return the stuff to Walgreens and pick you up after your manicure?"

"Sure. That sounds great. Good idea.”

“Okay. See you later,” you say walking out of the nail salon.

You saunter down the street looking at the shops along the way. A woman is leaning into a car saying “Here, this is a sample.” You look over to see a pretty middle aged woman handing half a cupcake that looks an awful lot like the old Hostess Cupcakes with the white swirls down the middle to a middle aged man who is waiting in the car. You are taken aback expecting the cupcake to be handed to a kid. Ah you think, adults are allowed to eat cupcakes. I would like a cupcake. Maybe, if I hadn’t been pigging out so much during the last few days, I would let myself have one! But a cupcake from a cupcake shop shouldn’t look like a Hostess Cupcake that I could buy at a gas station!

You walk on, looking at the shops. Quaint, pretty, your friend had called the shops here a little che che which probably meant expensive. There was a tea shop that looked cute, and you think that maybe after your sister’s nails are done you could go there and have a cup of tea together, but upon further inspection, you notice the closed sign. Too bad, you think because it would have been a nice thing to do after a manicure and returning obsolete items, things that might have wound up in your suitcase and then in a pile on your kitchen counter until you either gave them away, returned them, or just stuffed them into a drawer.

The day was warm and humid but not unpleasant. You are proud of yourself for coming up with the idea of returning the art supplies. You purchased them thinking that they could be used to decorate the picture board you were making for your great uncle’s memorial service. But as it turned out, your sisters decided that the pictures were enough, and that extra decorating would be unnecessary, even a little ‘ungapatchka,’ her great grandmothers Yiddish word describing something that is ridiculously over decorated or excessively ornamented.

You get to the corner of the street where the green Starbucks mermaid shouts loudly her presence, and whose tables are crammed with people drinking coffee and tea, talking, and working on computers. You turn left remembering that you haven’t had a non fat vente latte in weeks. You remind yourself that you feel better when you don’t drink coffee, and that you’ve saved many dollars by not purchasing them nearly daily during the last month. You really want one, and the idea of the warm cup in your hand, and the smell of coffee that never tastes quite as good as its smell promises, entices you. You take a deep breath. You are on a mission. You are returning unwanted items. You are being responsible. You stand there for a moment. You look left and see a hill that looks somewhat familiar, then you look right and think Is that the street we drove down to get here? I think so… You talk slowly to yourself out loud as if you are trying to untangle a ball of memories that won’t quite come apart the way they should. You look from left to right, behind you and ahead of you, but you just are not sure. You turn up toward the hill, and your eyes dart from side to side, up and down, you look behind you. You do not see the car anywhere, but it is a rental, so perhaps you are mistaken as to the shape or make. You think to yourself, that’s ridiculous. I’ve been driving that car for two days. I’ve been parking it and finding it all that time. It’s a black Volkswagen Jetta, with New York plates. There is no vehicle fitting that description anywhere in site. You decide to walk to the end of the block but your heart begins to race and you are feeling slightly light headed.  You do not spot your car. You stand there; still; confused; your hands on your cheeks in a silent Munch-like “Scream.”

You put your hands down, close your eyes and force yourself to breath slowly and evenly. You open your eyes and see some people who just passed you on the other side of the street, and who are looking at you as if they are not sure if they should ask if you’re okay. You smile at them reassuringly, and then look around at the banner for a Memorial Day event hanging across the street behind you. You grab your cell phone from your pocket and look at it as if it will give you the answer you want. You squeeze it tighter and tighter. Your breathing is ragged again, and you try to slow your rapid breathing and heart-rate by saying to yourself  I can call my sister if I really can’t find my way back to the car. I’m not really lost. The nail salon is that way. I can walk back. Oh God, oh God, oh God. How much of my brain has dissolved? Oh God, I’m going to forget everything. What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I remember where I parked the fucking car?

You are angry and scared and frustrated. You have been worrying about your memory for months, maybe years. It’s taken up a lot of your thinking whenever you forget the smallest thing. It’s like a demon that has come to haunt you, and you just can’t stand it. Not now, not here. Your sisters are here. You don’t want to be a burden. You don’t want to seem confused to anyone. You don’t want to be confused.

You again look around. You can feel your feet sweating in your sneakers. You are trying not to seem like a lost five year old, but you know you want cry. You want to wail out loud I’m LOST!!! Somebody please help me!!!! But you know that is irrational. You feel good knowing that you should not do that. You know that will not help. You have not totally lost control of your senses. You bite the left side of your lip and then your nails. You grab the phone tighter and walk a little further. You panic and think All I need to do is get back to the nail salon. I need to go now while I can remember where I came from.

You seem to walk out of your fog and remember that you are in Englewood, New Jersey. It is daytime. You have your cell phone. Your sister has her cell phone. Her phone number, which you do not have memorized, is in your phone. You can have her get you. You can sit at Starbucks and have the latte.

No. The fog, it seems, has really lifted and you decide that you will go back to the salon. You are a little calmer. You can make light of it. You can tell your sister that you don’t remember where you parked. You can make a joke of it. You walk faster, and faster. You just want to make sure you can get where you are going. You are sure you’re going in the right direction. You see familiar store fronts, the Starbucks, the cupcake shop, the tea shop. They are familiar. You are fine. You see the nail salon. You look in. Your sister is sitting there laughing with the manicurist. You walk in, and she looks up at you, surprised. You lean over and say in as light hearted a manner as you can. Oh boy, I cannot, for the life of me remember where we parked!

“Did you make a left at the Starbucks?”

“yeah.”

“Did you make a left at the end of that street?”
               “Right! No."

You slap your hand on your forehead as if to say I could have had a V8!

"I didn’t see the car, so I just came back. I figured you’d remember.”

She laughs and says, “Of course you don’t remember. You were on the phone talking to your friends. You weren’t paying any attention at all. You were just following my directions! Do you think that will get you to stop talking on the phone when we’re driving?!"

"No," you laugh.

She shakes her head and smiles. You walk out. Of course you think. I wasn’t paying attention. I’m fine. You walk quickly past the Starbucks making the left. You look behind and the sign is there over the street. You keep walking in the direction you first went, but you go further. You are more confident now and you get to the corner, aware that you are holding your breath slightly. You look down the street, and the car is there. You cross the street, and go to the passenger door. The meter has expired, but you lucked out. No ticket.

You get into the car and drive to Walgreens. You easily remember how to get there. You’re surprised. Perhaps you were being a little dramatic. Perhaps your brain is intact and not melting after all. You smile, and listen to an oldies New York radio station. You sing along with the Credence Clearwater Revival band. You haven’t heard this song for years, many years, and yet you remember every lyric. You get to the store, almost unaware of how you got there even though you went only once, and you easily and effortlessly return the items. The salesperson is kind and asks no questions. All is well. He doesn’t want to put the money back on your credit card because it takes a lot longer, so he asks if you will take cash. You tell him you will.

You both laugh about nothing in particular, but it’s a nice exchange.

Your phone rings. It's your sister. She is done. You tell her you’ll be there in just a few minutes, and that she should look out for you near the Starbucks. You get there easily. No problem. Very easily. You drive back to the hotel, and your sister tells you she thinks you’re going the wrong direction. You are sure that you are right, and this makes you feel even better. You are right. She’s surprised, but you are not. You knew this. You start to wonder why you give yourself such a hard time and why you move straight into panic when things seem a little off.

You decide that next time, if there is a next time, you will pretend to be Alice, on an adventure in Wonderland. You will be kinder to yourself. You will know that you are fine, and that these lapses of memory are just little tests to see how kind you can be to yourself, and how easily you can focus on the good things in life rather than the problems. It’s what you want for yourself. You’re just not always good at it. This will be a test of your own personal emergency broadcast system. All will be well. All is well. You know that.