In the gym where my children take gymnastics class, I sit on a ledge of cubbies, looking out beyond a short fence, much the way people observe the flamingos  at a zoo. I watch my daughter spring from a trampoline, the pole of her body, a green shoot with an edge. I watch my son, ignoring his coach’s instructions as soon as the coach turns his attention to another child. I noticed the round parachute made up of a rainbow of triangles. With small, almost unnoticeable sturdy cloth handles running along the perimeter.  I remember the joy, unbridled, when invited beneath the balloon we made of it, raising our arms, up, up up, then in a dash, sitting on the very edge of the perimeter. That moment when you sit beneath it, like being inside a fort of sheets or beneath an upturned canoe. It’s an extraordinary place that kind of cradles our idea of what childhood should be.

Why though did that particular image stand out to me above all other? Because I want so much to create that winsome world now for my own children. The cocooned world of filtered light, softened voices, safety nets, and magic. Not the kind of magic that requires potions or poorly written spells that our witch of the week will get wrong, turning herself into a Mongoose, but the magic of our everyday. It feels safe to live beneath a parachute, always there to remind you of rainbows, that you’ll continue to fall, just next time, fall better.

Cave walking, I’m told, has everyone making grunting sounds in one form or another. Ahh, can you believe people lived like this?  Oooh look over here, this must’ve been a bedroom.  Can you imagine? Where would I put my purse? Those are adults trying to pretend how a life was lived. Not adults looking for the adventure of what they could create there. They are imagining in the wrong direction. Does this resonate with anyone? I’m not sure I’m explaining it right. But I believe we come to a point where we stop looking everywhere and instead look where it’s been most practical, and most accepted as correct, so we move toward that. Flip it. How would you now live there?

Returning to the initial “why” Why did that one image in a gymnasium full of unusual rituals and equipment, stand out for me? What does that tell you about who I am, that I picked that image above all others?

My answer:Because that parachute 1) was always a time to finally get to sit… a definite #1 for Moose. 2) it provides softness and whimsy, a sense of delight, like a first snowfall. The light changes beneath a parachute, sounds travel differently. You can whisper and it will go a long way. I love that there are these small things in our lives, things we encounter daily, ordinary nothings that have the ability to be the beginning of an everything. The cardboard box. Exactly.

We should strive to find more of them, everyday objects that reconnect you to a part of who you were when the world felt enormous, and life felt safe and secure, bundled. Looking for extraordinary in ordinary is what we should all strive to do.

Adults find rides back to their childhoods by reliving them with children, but I can relive it from here, across a gymnasium, with both children in separate arenas, I can live in here for a while, imagining myself under that tent, feeling the cool air on my face as the balloon of our parachute deflates. But more than that, I can take it with me and look for more everyday magic. I want to be the mom that sets the dinner table UNDER the dinner table! Closed intimate spaces, darkly lit, a librarian with a special glass story time lamp, they’re all the warmest memories of my childhood. Making a tent in my parents bed, then picking callouses off her feet as I massaged them with Kerri lotion and Lea rubbed poppa’s head with a paper towel. “It’s too greasy otherwise.” I love that. I love those weird funky life of memories and want to make them as often as we can.

I’ve enrolled in a writing workshop because it works for me. It’s the only way I actually get writing done. I workshopped both Straight Up and Dirty and Moose. It’s just something I need. Our first class, the instructor began with a free-writing prompt. Just write for fifteen minutes, whatever comes to mind. Here’s the prompt.

WRITE ABOUT YOUR NAME
Students had questions. What about our name? It’s history, how we feel about it, who we’re named after? What? “Whatever you want, whatever it means to you.”

I invite you to share your own here, remembering it’s an exercise that opens you. So, don’t judge yourself on it or spend time editing it. I think these prompts are always surprising. Don’t think too much, just go.

♠ ————————- ♠

It was freshman year, but at Barnard we didn’t say “freshman.” The preferred term was “first year.” As we avoided words implying male assumptions, we were also to be clear on this: we were girls no longer.

“Excuse me,” I asked of a woman who resembled a high-functioning addict, or librarian, “do you see that girl over there by the benches? Do you know off hand if the building to her right is Sulz—“

“What did you say?” I was startled by the prick and wave in her voice, the words lancing at me with the teeth of a hookworm. And to look at her again, I was surprised she wasn’t cloaked in robes peering at me through her monocle, clucking her cheeks into a disapproving pout.

“Is that Sulzberger or Milbank Hall to her right?”

“To her right? Wrong, dear. Wrong altogether. If you’ve matriculated to college, then you are no longer a girl. Barnard is a place of women.” Then she turned, striding onward. I like to imagine that she tripped over her imaginary train.

Got it. First year. Woman. As in, “Yes, I’m a first year woman enrolling in Acting Pompous 101.”

It was a red auditorium with a small stage, black walls, and overhead lights. The class—maybe fifteen of us, men and women, first years and sophomores—was scrabbled across theater seats, our eyes to the professor. He was a young post-grad with two small beads strung into a thin braid, all choked into his low ponytail. Once you’ve seen him pulse through rounds of butterfly stretching in running shorts, “Professor” seems like a sub/dom role-play term. He let us call him David, though we weren’t told to do so directly.

What David required of each of us was a grand performance of our name. “One at a time, three minutes to prepare, who’s first?”

Crickets.

“It’s a mnemonic device,” he said, “Make us all remember your name”—then with a hushed voice he added, “And you. Make us remember you.”

Debra Katz got on all fours and twitched her nose, seductress like, slinking across the stage, purring Katzzzzzzz.

Jeff lit a cigarette puffing smoke rings. “Jeff,” he said from stage left as if his name were the baseline of a song. More rings, stage right, “Jeff.” Center stage, “Jeff.”

A perky Alyssa cheered her way through a hand-slapping, leg-kicking, cheer leader fit. Today, I’m quite certain, she’s the annoying as fuck girl who continually interrupts your workout to see exactly how many more minutes you have on the elliptical.

As other students performed, I sat in my chair, half entertained, half brainstorming. Make us remember you?

I could flash everyone, certainly, which would work if I had an unfortunate last name like Fallis or Milk. But I had “Stephanie,” met with “Tara” (Yes, like the Plantation, but I can’t think about that now.), rounded off with “Klein” (as in Calvin). What could I do with that? Give a performance of a top fashion designer pulling a fall collection from Tara’s finest twigs and salvaged gourds?

I had it. I’d cut myself down to my smallest denominator, offering the class my monogram.

“You know, like steak. The one you ordered well done because you’re afraid of death. No, don’t fancy dead moo? Then may I suggest your regular? Right, the one you order ground and pounded with cheese because you’re happy to slaughter a bloody mother while lapping up her milk. Cheers, it’s all Kosher to me. That is until you order me. Order me to come sit my sweet bottom right here, on your lap? Well done indeed, though if you’re set on ordering me, you’d better start with a please and a fat tip.”

Which in its own deranged forced way got the laugh, though that might’ve been to do with my impromptu decision to recite my lines with a British accent. Still, I got that laugh, which made it a memorable first year for me. It was then that I decided to pursue the stage, promising myself never to use a stage name. Stephanie Tara Klein would be someone to remember.

Finish this sentence for yourself:
“Wouldn’t it be interesting if…”

People sometimes ask where I work. Do I have an office? Do I work in bed? Yes, and yes, but I do my most productive work A) drunk-ish and B) sober, in cafes. My most favorite place in the world, the bookstore, is another work spot. While there, I do what I do best: eavesdrop.

One afternoon, two men in ties sat with their Fourbucks, interviewing candidates on the hour. One of my favorite job interview topics: “So, what do you do for fun?”

The woman who slips into the chair across from the suits is a widow, an employee at USA Mortgage, and a nudist. Her second husband introduced her to it.

“So, what kinds of things do you do, exactly?” These men are straighter than arrows. They don’t know what to do with themselves as they fidget and exchange glances, all eyebrows.

“Normal stuff. We have dances.”

“And everyone’s naked?” He’s whispering.

She’s not. “Oh, sure, yeah. That is the point.”

“What kind of music?”

“Forties music, Frank Sinatra, big band.” Swing. All I can think is swing. “Any song you want to hear. We have a DJ.”

“Can you say, what kind of people belong to this club?”

“We have judges, military, nurses from Bastrop. It’s such a diverse group, and hey, no tan lines. My husband is on board of directors. I was on the counsel. If you want, I can get you a visitor pass… we go every week. They do a background check on everyone, and there’s no sexual exploration. This is a family club. You want to do sex stuff, you do it in a private cabin, if you have a cabin, but this is not that type of place.”

“What kinds of things do you do there, other than dancing?”

“Everything. Chili cook-offs, volleyball, holiday potlucks. Ooh, and we have Bare Buns Runs. Though some women wear jog bras for that one.”

“How far is the race?”

“It’s a 5k racing series.”

“With shoes?”

“Uh huh.” I can’t even imagine the chafing situation.

“What does the winner get?”

“An anatomically correct statue.”

“What’s it made of?”

“Wood.” (The men are choking down their laughs at this point)

“Made of wood, hand carved. Well, isn’t that something?”

“When you’re not naked, what do you do for fun?”

“Cross stitch.”

“Does your current job know that you’re a nudist?”

“You kiddin’? My nickname at USA Mortgage is ‘Buffy’.”

“Well, wow. Thanks.”

“Sure, sure. And, so you know, I don’t do casual Fridays. That’s just too confusing for me.”

THE END

And, my day is made.

Pork Jowels with Polenta at Parkside

At first smell: it’s as if apple pie had a one night stand with Wilbur
At first bite: Wilbur has been one lazy porker, sunning and snacking on Fern’s corn

The pork is soft, as it should be. Not ropey, not spreadable. Appropriate. The accompanying molehill of polenta lacks seasoning, but the sauce is vibrant—a dinner companion of a sauce, one you’d imagine is comfortable asking for a table of one, reading a book, smiling at the people who shoot glances of “party for one” pity. It stands on its own with wisdom, technique and a sense of history.

The meat feathers, like an outstretched wing. All the flavor is in the glossy wine sauce, a reduction of veal and chicken stock, mirepoix, thyme, fete (a Moroccan spice?), and to my surprise, chardonnay.

The polenta is a good ole country girl with farm values, who can drink the milk from a cob of corn, milking everything for what it’s worth. Appropriately toothsome—each grain easily separated, garnished with celery leaves.

No one likes to talk about it, but there’s something to be said for fat. It’s round. It’s soft, it’s basically the womb. And it’s safe to say, it’s comfort. This dish tastes like the kind of home you see in happy cartoons with red barns and roosters. It’s home, not mine, not yours, but a universal home built around the communal table, where people gather, hold hands, bow heads in prayer, and recite blessings, not rote, but gloriously sung out in praise of the bounty.

scad art

A short at the Savannah Film Festival, Girls Named Pinky has stayed with me. Not so much the actual film, but the Q&A session with the director afterward. Before I go there, here’s how the notes I’d scribbled in the dark read (a drip-feed of information):

Irish bar. Hermit asks for another dark one.
Ominous music, everyone checks out woman, hear the sound of her skirt.

* Scenes in bars invite us into the world of possibility—of a stranger walking into your life—of the illicit—no one will know. THIS, this moment, this afternoon, this can become a part of who I am, what I know about me, for me alone. A secret me that no one who knows me has to know.

A dance with a stranger
Rock so softly with you
Well, aren’t you just full of surprises?
A disco ball.

We’re warned, when a bartender tells a handsome customer that the woman at the bar is with a different guy every night, not to mention that she has a husband. A hermit at the end of the bar drinks another dark one.

Woman returns to bar from bathroom, smoothing her skirt. It’s the first time we see her. We hear ominous music, the fabric as it rubs against her thighs. Watch out.

Handsome customer makes his move, gets too aggressive, and our hermit saves the day, taking a right hook, landing on his back, but still driving handsome customer off.

Hermit offers to buy her a drink. She tells him she’s the one who should be thanking him. They agree to a quick one, even though, he admits, he shouldn’t be drinking either… he’s diabetic. You know this is as close as he’s gotten to a woman this striking. She tells him over a quick game of darts that tonight’s a special occasion: she’s leaving her husband Danny. She shares with our hermit that she heard her husband whispering on the phone. “Pinky” she whispers. He looks confused. “That’s her name. She’s probably from Texas.” Audience laughs.

She drinks some more. He offers to drive her. Wait, in the parking lot she swears she sees his car. Oh, God. Danny ain’t out of town. Oh, shit. Now what… ahh, car, wrong car. Whew.

Because she’s still afraid Danny is in town, hermit offers to help her sober up at his motel room. Ha ha.

Diabetic. Again. Should have taken insulin two hours ago. Makes me think something bad will happen to HIM.

She gets naked. Sex is shown in silhouettes against a wall. Moaning.

You’re kind. Hope I get home now before he does.

Morris. Mr. DeBruno. Yeah, it’s done.

We then see that hermit guy’s tattoo says PINKIE.

Kills her. Falls asleep on her.
Dead in hotel.

Gives money to handsome customer from earlier on his way out… handsome guy goes up the motel steps with cleaning supplies.

END

What I loved most was this, a question that sat with me long after the Q&A session: What makes an effective twist—and, more specifically, what elements make up the art of misdirection? Topics like this fascinate me and make me want to fill out a school application. I LOVE learning techniques like these. The director didn’t get into any of this, only commented on how he kept tuning and tweaking the film with this in mind. Here’s what stands out to me when I examine my notes above:

1. Make the victim seem like the bad guy. She’s danger. Ominous music. Other characters warning others (and us the audience) to watch out.
2. And this is why I wish there were a class, or maybe why I need to watch more movies, looking for this misdirection… when they throw in the random person, and you think, aha, must be him… to mix things up. In the above, it was the missing husband. Would he show up? Would he catch them? Is he following her up to his motel room? See how the questions come? That’s built, that’s technique. That’s what I wish someone could just hand over to me and say, HERE. I’ve got instinct, but I adore techniques.