Everything I Need to Know I Learned Waiting Tables

If you’ve ever woken up in a cold sweat realizing you forgot to bring mustard to table 3B, you may have waited tables. If you’ve ever paid for your own birth control pills with a roll of nickels, you may have waited tables. If you can read faces, memorize legal documents, calculate complex equations in your head, juggle time management for a small empire, run in heels and make the happiness of others your number one priority, you have definitely waited tables.

My first job at the age of 16—beyond my mother’s metaphorical apron strings—was as a Waffle House waitress. I had been in my mother’s employ for some time but she’d gotten the idea that my “attitude” might be improved by working for someone else. She was right. The summer after my junior year I was hired by an actual man named Bubba and even though he’d be busted and fired on drug related charges before the summer was out, I was to learn a lot under his care. For example, almost immediately I learned that it’s possible to smoke through a tracheotomy while frying eggs and flipping bacon, that themed juke boxes are the second cousins of water torture and that you can actually wear a bonnet and an apron at the same time without dying of eternal shame.

 As the months passed surrounded by that smoky orange, yellow and brown décor, I learned some other stuff, too. I’m now of the opinion that just as nursing students are required to attend AA, sociologists, anthropologists and students of the mental health field should be required to work in food service. Because nowhere is the truth of human nature more apparent than between a fork and its mouth. Serving people from every walk of life—or at least those willing to eat potatoes that have been smothered, covered and chunked—I learned how to make small talk, big talk and when to hold my tongue. I learned how to keep my head above water even when it felt like I was drowning in the weeds, what it meant to serve  and the importance of withholding judgment—at least until after dessert. And, as an aspiring writer, I learned how to pay attention to detail, that what I remembered and what I said mattered and how to get by on what I could bring home each day      

My next stints waiting tables were with the aid of a liberal arts degree—on a dude ranch in Colorado, at a five star resort in Arkansas, on a cruise ship in Alaska and then, lastly, at a small tavern within walking distance of my own house back home. Each was a continued education in communication skills, life lessons, gratitude and humility. And when I finally met my future husband I was relieved to discover that he passed muster: he’d waited tables at Pizza Hut on Jeff Davis Highway during Little League season. And I have no greater respect than for anyone who could survive that.

It’s been a long time since I’ve worn an apron, bonnet, tuxedo, cowgirl hat or life preserver but every time someone brings me hot coffee or a plate full of dinner, I know I will never forget what it felt like  when the tables were turned.  

Goodbye, Good Girl

Photos by V. Haggard, Photo Illustration by Joel Smith

We were obedience school drop-outs. Never having been a dog owner before I accidentally enrolled in the Marines when I would have preferred the Peace Corps. The general gave us choke-chains and barked orders. We rebelled, dropped out and did it our own way which was pretty much no way at all-- but did involve lots of hotdogs and licking. Rescued from an abusive situation by old friends, I’d agreed to foster Alizé, the red nosed pit named after a malt liquor for one weekend- nearly 13 years ago. It was 2000, I was 24, my future husband and I had been dating for one month and we’d all just finished reading the first in the Harry Potter series. We renamed her Hermione, though that went through a million permutations: Miami, Mione, Her-me-own-ee, Mayan, a detail that did not escape our attention when we made the heart-wrenching decision to have her put down on 12/21/12, the date the Mayans supposedly proclaimed The End of the World.

For us, in many ways, it was. She had been a flower girl in our wedding, a garland nestled between her short blonde and white locks. She’d adopted first our kittens—allowing them to nurse and knead her-- and then a few years later our son, allowing him to ride her and teach her spelling words. As a couple we had few memories separate from her—from the largesse of holidays and anniversaries to the mundane of the everyday—sleeping, eating, walking from one room to another. She was embedded in the blueprint of our lives, sometimes in the foreground, sometimes in the back, but as constant as the foundation. When I mentioned that she’d ferried me from my early twenties into my late thirties, my eight year old son said, “Think how I feel, mom. I’ve never had a day in my life without her as my dog.”

The impact of this first up close and personal death on our son was profound. Usually disgusted by hugs and kisses he began to seek them out, uncovering a deeply affectionate side of himself that hasn’t vanished since. He elected to orchestrate her funeral, selecting red roses to hand out to each mourner to be placed on her grave. He wrote a eulogy on his new dry erase board: “You were the best sister I ever had. You were so sweat [sic]. I will miss you forever.” My father brought donuts and a roasted chicken. Several friends came with readings for the graveside. My step-father, father and husband wept openly as they shoveled dirt into her grave and through my own tears I was grateful that my son had such remarkable male role models and that every one of us had the chance to love our dog fiercely enough for such grief.

We received a beautiful outpouring of support—phone calls, cards, detailed experiences from others who’d been through this before, an anonymous donor even paid for a portion of our vet bill. Even so, in the days that followed I wrestled with the terrible feeling that I had failed her—not only in her death (a choice I willfully never imagined having to make)-- but in her life. She was the only person I had never once tried to be anyone else around. She saw me at my most selfish, ridiculous, small and ugly--without judgment or recrimination. She was the keeper of my secret selves, a witness to the worst of me—but also at times the best. Discovering what really matters, what’s truly important, what should come first, I feel as if I was just learning how to love her half as well as she loved me and I hadn’t managed to keep her alive long enough to finish learning—in other words, forever. We may have been obedience school drop outs but our dog was one magnificent teacher.

How to Find Love When One Thousand Donut Holes Are Not Enough

Start by learning what love is not. Learn the hard way. Find out that love is not defined by temper tantrums, drunken stupors, screaming hysterics, underpants left fetchingly on anyone’s front lawn or any of the other flu-like symptoms associated with that first rosy blush. Nor can love be ordered, tracked or dropped off by courier on an agreed upon delivery date. Hallmark and the Bible may make stabs at defining love but you’re going to have to live into your own, more particular versions of this word all by yourself.

Discover that no combination of Schlitz Malt Liquor, Carlo Rossi red wine, Old Crow whiskey, Marlboro Reds or little multi-colored pills equal love. Not really. Nor do barbeque potato chips, chocolate éclairs or lemon meringue pie. Glazed donut holes do not good lovers make. You may have no idea if love is an action, a feeling or an ideal, but you do learn that anything you can swallow, ingest or throw back up, probably isn’t love at all.  

Read that in order to truly love anyone or to be truly loved by anyone you must first learn to love yourself. Wonder what that means, exactly. Practice the affirmation, “I love myself the way I am” in the mirror, without sticking your tongue out, gagging or adding any clauses, footnotes or addendums.

Put all of your complicated, unresolved feelings for X, Y and Z onto the page instead of into your mouth. It’s more important to get the next page than to have the last word.

Accept that Prince Charming couldn’t have had more than two or three hundred lovers in his lifetime and that none of them were you. Even Jane Eyre had to wait until Mr. Rochester was blind and broke before they could get it to work. Practice loving your own assortment of imperfect, scarred, tender heartbreaks and misadventures, especially the ones that demanded you tear everything apart before you could build again.

Learn to look for love in unexpected places. Blow a kiss to the man in the elephant nose mask who wishes you a Happy Father’s Day in the dead of winter. Accept a flower from the woman in the wheelchair who looks like she’s been waiting all day just to hand it to you. Bring bittersweet chocolate to friends who have recently suffered loss, illness, heartbreak or tragedy. Recognize when you leave that love attached to your coat and followed you out the door.

Look into the face of the kitten, the child, the old man holding the door open for you at the gym even though he’s older than God and walks with a cane. But don’t clutch at these new, fresh faces of love and try to keep them for your own. They may bite, drool or hit you in the rear if you grab too much, too fast.

Finally, remove “unreciprocated love” from your lexicon. Try on new terms until you find one that fits like a perfectly tailored dress. Eat away your preconceived notions-- along with your donut holes. Be humbled, blown away, changed entirely by the new words that come to define you. But remember, when you feed the ones you love, don’t forget to feed yourself.

Off the Island: A Search for Simplicity

As we approach the time of year when my personality feels most divided, I’m half inclined to shave my head, give away all of my possessions and head for the hills while half of me yearns to hand paint candy canes and beg Mr. Claus to take me as his mistress. I don’t consider myself a Material Girl, but who am I kidding? “Gimmee gimmee gimmee! Gimmee some more,” is my heart’s true song. However, it’s not the stuff I crave so much as the frenzy. In my mind’s eye December is a month of binging and gorging, stuffing it in and packing it on. In January comes atonement, fasting, pumping iron and making resolutions to need less of the stuff I spent the last month hoarding. How much can I do before I feel like I’m finally done?  The answer-- if I’m honest—is never, ever enough.

            So this year I’m hoping to approach things a bit differently. I’ve abolished credit cards and booked writing retreats for two weekends leading up to the Big Bang instead of camping out at the mall trying to determine if this mug full of bath beads will really prove to my (mother/step-mother/mother-in-law) how much I love her (I really do!). I will no longer be dragging my husband to the craft store on All Hannukah’s Eve to start assembling grouted marble sun dials on our dining room table at midnight (apologies to anyone who’s received any such home-made “craft”). I’d like to wrap my mind around this bizarre concept of Keeping it Simple.

            Despite an emphasis on quality time over quality stuff, most of my holiday memories from childhood blend into a montage of What I Got: the longed for Rubik’s Cube, the surprising mix of a Ken doll, walkie-talkies and Born in the USA, the real gingerbread house under the tree that I loved too much to eat and let the cats pee on instead. Still, of all this bounty, the year that stands out most vividly did not center around what I got or gave but where I was and who I was with.

My traveling companion and I were, as usual, nearly broke and, as usual, had no idea where we’d spend the night. It seemed that all of the shops in Europe were closed for Christmas Eve and by the time we found an open hostel we’d finished most of the crust of bread squirreled away at the bottom of our packs. We were, by American standards, starving. The hostel concierge took pity on us, giving us directions to a soup kitchen free for travelers and the homeless. At the moment we were both. I expected the basement of a grungy YMCA, not the medieval banquet hall we stumbled into an hour later. Torches lined the walls; vats of potatoes, platters of meat and carafes of wine adorned the tables. Vaudeville singers danced on the stage and other homeless travelers danced all around. Unbeknownst to us, we had just discovered Christiania, a hippie squatter commune in central Copenhagen fashioned around an abandoned military barracks. Actual heaven could not have been better. We danced and ate and sang and made merry, feeling the holiday spirit—and many other kinds of spirits too. The next day, with snow falling softly all around, we made a pilgrimage to see the Little Mermaid, beautiful and perfectly contained on her rock in Copenhagen Harbor. I wish our Christmas story ended there and not with getting kicked out of our hostel later that night or ending up on a subway with the Hungarian Mafia on New Year’s Eve but that’s another essay. I’m sure gifts were exchanged at some point but I don’t remember a single one of them.

            Now, for better or worse, unlike the Little Mermaid, I don’t live on an island. I live with people that I want to cram full of as much happiness and stuff and cheer as possible—even if it means driving us all mad in the process. This year I’m hoping that giving myself the gifts of sanity and simplicity will be the gifts that keep on giving.  

Dancing (Fool) Queen

A few days ago I found myself dancing in the kitchen and then like a leaky faucet, I spread to the living room. I just couldn't stop—what do you call it?—grooving? getting down? None of the words fit because they weren't familiar. Until two months ago when I started taking a range of dance fitness classes, unless I was trying to get a certain unnamed someone’s attention by flailing in front of the television, I did not dance. Now I do it unintentionally, almost like I have dance-Tourrete’s often in the car when I allow myself the guilty pleasure of listening to a top forty station (my equivalent of reading celebrity fashion magazines in the dentist’s office). Why is this such a shock? Because not being able to dance has been an important cornerstone in the foundation of the monument I've built to all the things I can’t do.

Also on the list? Singing. A voice teacher once told me I was tone deaf, which I- and many others- had already suspected. When I told my mother, who’d made a habit of singing with me in the car everyday, she sighed heavily and said, “Well, I tried.”  Who told me I couldn't run? Who didn't? It seemed like everyone, including my very best friends laughed when I more-than-walked. I laughed with them while internally adding another brick to the Temple of Can’t. I still sing to myself and I do occasionally run—especially when I see my son’s bus rounding the corner--but dance combines more complex elements—rhythm, coordination, confidence and grace. More than anyone with a rigid structure of shame and self-doubt can juggle on the dance floor.

Perhaps my anti-dance stance started somewhere around elementary school when I came in last place in the school dance competition. Or maybe after hearing that my moves fall somewhere between Elaine’s on Seinfeld and Sarah Silverman’s impersonation of an old lady freaking out at a Bar Mitzvah. In any case, I was still willing to try at 16, when my mother, in an attempt to keep us kids safe off the streets and safe from sex and drugs, started a “Teen Square Dance Group.” Yes, I wore her matching square dance outfits but even more outrageous than me outfitted in hillbilly frills was the fact that my friends—my cool, alternative, punk rock friends--actually came out to do the dos-e-do. I still don’t know whether to be forever grateful or forever mortified. Maybe I didn't stick with dance because, flawless as my mother’s plan was, I still managed to find sex and drugs-- another routine altogether.

Several years ago when I explained my disabilities to my therapist, she made a compilation of my favorite songs, writing “You CAN run, you CAN sing, you CAN dance” on the CD in black sharpie. But restructuring the foundation is more difficult than building it. Still, as someone who helps push people to their creative edge for a living, advocating for exploration beyond the comfort zone, I realized I was a hypocrite for staying safely in mine. Although I stumbled into my first dance class in years thinking I’d shown up for gentle yoga, I returned on purpose. And I fell in love. I have never laughed, sweated and salsa-ed with more happy reckless abandon in my life. It’s not necessarily that I’m getting better with each class, it’s that I care less if I suck. When I leave, I feel glorious. Like a dancing queen.  

At a recent parent’s coffee, I told one of the moms that I'm going through this bizarre phase where I don't care how stupid I look flailing around in a spandex polyester blend behind glass walls. She smiled at me and said, “I hope it’s not just a phase.” I do, too.

Don't Judge Me By My Mercedes Benz

Because I hot glue-gunned an anarchist Barbie to the hood of my first car—a $500 Honda Prelude---and could start it with the end of a spoon, I should probably consider everything that’s come since an upgrade. But I don’t. Because I judge a car not by its safety, drivability or current inspection, but by its cover. It has to be cool.

But would my keen judgment hold up when the rubber hit the road? I was afraid that it would not. So, when Prudence, my beloved VW Beetle bit the dust and my mother-in-law, an angel of mercy (AKA the only grandparent with enough cash at the ready to bail out an errant child--clearly not the one related to me) gave us money to buy a new car, I forked over her $3K to buy a Mercedes Benz station wagon.

On the lot, I’d admired the Mercedes, the way you would admire a woman who can casually rock a fur coat and a tiara. My husband had researched cars in the vicinity with the devotion of a lawyer studying for the bar, so when he said he’d found the best bang for our buck I believed him. I knew I was likely to choose a car based on its color. I was hoping for something red. I decided to trust the motor head.

As the silver Mercedes purred down the road during the test drive, I felt like I was trying on a glass slipper and I was shocked to find that it fit. “Well hello, Priscilla,” I heard myself say. “Miss Priss!” said my husband. “Perfect. Just like you. High class and high maintenance.”  Who me? I thought. This was the kind of luxury mobile to make customized picnic baskets with real silver and glass stemware just to keep the spare tire company. Maybe, I thought, it was time for me to step it up. “Yes,” I said.

But when I got Prissy home, I crashed--- mentally. “My God, what have I done?” I felt nauseous, the kind of nauseous that comes with gaining 3,500 lbs. of European metal. Looking at the sleek, upscale Mercedes from our junky paint peeling front porch made me feel as if a younger, thinner, richer stepsister had just moved in.

  “It’s just not me,” I wailed to my husband. “It’s so big! I feel like I’m driving a houseboat!” “OK. Let me get this straight,” he said back. “‘My Mercedes Benz just isn’t me.’ Wow. Somebody has real first world problems!” And then he took out the measuring tape to prove that Prissy’s only 2 feet, 3 inches longer than compact, adorable Prudence. Still, that 27 inches felt more like a full grown man than a kind of long baby.

Since he didn’t get it, I decided to talk to more sophisticated people. People who would understand my terror of driving around like a rich, uptight, conservative, suburban mom. My girlfriends. They howled with sympathy. One offered to launch a Kickstarter campaign to have naked girls and metal bands airbrushed on the side. Another said I’d better order some radical campaign bumper stickers, stat. Even my therapist friend suggested not that I grow up and get over it, but that I start socking away money to have it painted cherry red. 

While I’ve appreciated their ideas, I’ve also begun to entertain the notion that I’m suffering from a deeper ailment than the make and model of my car. Listening with heartfelt attention to people with real problems helps. Being grateful that I have a driver’s license and a car that I can mostly afford to put gas in helps. Loading my son and his friends and a few small motor boats and some livestock into the back while they befriend the city from the rear-facing backseat helps. But mostly, being forced to acknowledge that my car doesn’t define me anymore than my wardrobe or bank account, reminds me that I can’t judge other people by their cars or their clothes or their bank accounts either. And that is good. Still, I hope to learn my next life lessons from the front seat of a two-door flame-red Challenger, racing stripes optional. 

Female Chauvenist Pig

          Once upon a time on a dude ranch far away, the big boss man, tired of all the fussing and chest beating between the sexes, made the wranglers and cabin girls switch roles for a day. We girls wrangled the horses while the cowboys stayed at the lodge to do the dishes, serve the meals and make the beds. Of course we did everything perfectly—even if I did tie the wrong knot and let one horse out for a little joyride—only to come down the mountain and find that all of the beds had been made—twice. The wranglers had put new sheets on right over the old ones. Still, we had to grudgingly admit that the western Freaky Friday was a valuable lesson. We saw how the other half lived and began to appreciate them more for it.  

            Which is what has been happening around my house lately, if in a more long term, less organized way. While I’ve been working longer hours, my husband’s been picking up more of the grocery shopping, cooking, cleaning and childcare.  A few weeks ago, after getting home from a particularly long day I found myself standing in the midst of a pile of half crocked art projects, found objects from the river and science experiments gone wrong. I tried not to hyperventilate. “Why isn’t my dinner on the table? Why is this house such a mess? What have you been DOING all day?” And then it hit me as I flashed on all of the stereotypical scenarios of the working dad berating the stay-at-home-mom. My God, I thought. It’s happened to me. I’ve become a female chauvinist pig!

Though I’ve always considered myself a progressive, modern woman—a feminist-- I’ve recently started to examine what’s really brewing beneath the surface of the buzz words I’ve dressed myself in. And what I’ve uncovered is at least as much cave woman as modern woman. “Me, Jane! Me want big man to kill buffalo, pay mortgage AND take care of kid!” Beneath my “let’s not stereotype according to our gender roles” façade, I secretly think my husband should be responsible for the lion’s share of the finances, all of the manual labor, a lot of the household chores and half of the childcare. In other words, not only do I want to have my cake and eat it too, I want to eat it with two scoops of honey vanilla ice cream, hot fudge and wet walnuts. Who doesn’t?  

            I love the tri-fold sense of empowerment, freedom and creativity I get from my work, but deep down part of me feels I should do it only because I want to—sort of for fun-- not because I have to. I should also get lots of room for me-time, self-exploration and mini vacations—while he pays the mortgage, does the dishes and checks over the homework. When and if I do choose to work, I should come home to a hot meal, a sparkling house and a foot massage. Not that I provided any of that for him when he worked all day. Oh, no. That’s when I pulled the feminism card. But thankfully, my husband is a feminist, too. He’d be just as happy to give me all of the responsibilities I’d like to give him. Which is why, in a sometimes civilized, sometimes barbaric way, we’re doing our best to work it out—so that we can both have it all—or at least a little tiny bit of each part of most of it. Without score sheets or time cards, we’re dividing up the work it takes to run a marriage, house and family in as egalitarian a way as possible.

To get a sense of the division of labor, at least in the childcare department, I recently asked an impartial judge for his opinion. Well,” said our son, “it’s 50-50. Actually, it’s 51-49.” I didn’t ask who got the extra 1% because of course, to keep everything in perfect balance, I still need to believe it’s me. 

Mid-to-Late-Thirty-Something

That's my cake. 37 candles. Count 'em.

I knew I was getting older when I had a come to Jesus moment with my dental hygienist; a few weeks shy of my 37^th birthday I rededicated my life to flossing. Once upon a time my crucial decisions hinged upon song lyrics or lines from literature. Now they are tempered by a desire to remain intact.

Words and art and music still motivate me, but now living long enough to see what motivates my son plays a role, too. If you’d told me as a teenager that I’d be amongst the first of my friends to get married and have a baby I would have cut my own hair and eaten it, instead of just cutting, bleaching and dreading it. I not only wanted to grow up to be a writer, I wanted to grow up to be a bitter, detached, maybe alcoholic, perhaps starving writer with no strings attached and no obligations to anyone.

Just prior to my Dorothy Parker years when I was still in the single digits, my friends and I played a game called “Fresh out of College” in which we acted out glamorous lives involving high heels, convertibles, boyfriends and, most importantly, unchecked freedom. More often than “eat your vegetables” my mother said to me, “Don’t wish your life away,” encouraging me to slow down, breathe and enjoy the perks of childhood. I, however, wanted to manage my own life, one in which, if the spirit moved me, I could stay up all night eating candy. When I finally reached the magical age of Old Enough to Move Out, I didn’t stay up all night eating candy, but I did stay up all night doing everything else. Naturally, there was a price to pay—a debt I owed well into my twenties. Those experiences both shaped me and gave me a deep well to draw from. I don’t regret any of the detours I’ve taken along my path--- nor do I want to retrace them.

While my twenties were about taking the world apart, putting it back together, marrying a man, having a son and finding myself as a writer, my thirties have been about the marriage of writing and reality. But I’m not only uncovering the occasional pearl of wisdom, I’m unwinding sticky, tangled knots of red tape. A recent hallmark of maturity is my willingness to tackle tax returns, health insurance, a business license and the DMV--- God forbid all on the same day. My current goal is to dot the i’s and cross the t’s—while still trying to write a sentence worth reading.   

I think it’s safe to say that integrating all of my selves will be a life long mission.

This week, my husband, excited that he remembered to take the trash to the curb on the right day was immediately besieged with shame for feeling excited that he remembered to take the trash out on the right day. Personally, I feel like Super Woman if I manage to return my library books on time. To be fair, early on, neither of us had overwhelming expectations for ourselves. By thirty, I thought I’d be divorced and homeless and he thought he’d be dead, so we’re in unimagined territory, accepting responsibility for lives we never thought we’d have. And it’s a beautiful, albeit, messy life.  

 I have younger friends that could run for president and older friends that could use a babysitter. Me, I’m both. I have a house, a family, a career and a beautiful community of friends and acquaintances but my husband didn’t give me the superhero name “Fatal Leap” for nothing. Ask me to balance my check book accurately or look at me funny and I need all the help I can get. In the midst of learning to balance the responsibility, the creativity, the beauty and the chaos, I still want to stay up all night eating candy. But before I go to bed, I’m going to brush—and floss-- my teeth. 

Breast Invasion

Breasts are magical. They have the power to transform girls into women, babies into children, and men into…well, everyone with breasts has their own version of that. My own arrived suddenly, like extra terrestrial twins on a pleasure cruise forced to make a crash landing when their ship went down. I woke up one morning with a brand new atmosphere and gravitational pull. I still occasionally check for moons, rings or anything else that will allow me to apply for separate status in our solar system. Compared to my chest, poor little Pluto never stood a chance.

My extra endowment is not without its ups and downs. I have never had to wonder what it felt like to be a twiggy model with the figure of a 12 year old boy, which is a plus, but I did have to visit a special garment store where I was introduced to womanhood by a hunchbacked old lady with a measuring tape. That “bra”—or what my husband refers to more accurately as my “over-the-shoulder-boulder-holder” was reminiscent of a medieval torture device, if torture devices had more straps and levers. When it accidentally caught fire on a ranch in Colorado I did not mourn its lost. My back, however, did. I’m still amazed Victoria’s Secret doesn’t employ a team of engineers working around the clock to solve the world’s large breast crisis once and for all.

I finally saw the twin’s true virtue when I used them to feed my son, but since he has no memory of nursing, he recently asked if we could give it another go. “Get your own!” my husband yelled which may well be my son’s quest one day. But since he is a confirmed only child, and my chest is in retirement from its service as a food bank, I have started to think about them differently once again. Especially when a tender, sore spot in the one on the left struck the fear of God--and breast cancer—into a place right next to my heart. 

To avoid the dreaded mammogram, I choose an alternative route, scheduling my first ever breast exam with certified clinical thermographer, Eleina Espigh, owner of Virginia Clinical Thermography in Glen Allen. Former executive director of the Virginia Osteopathic Medical Association, Espigh co-located her private practice with a massage therapist three years ago and entering a room more like a spa than a sterile, white lab immediately puts me at ease. Espigh answers all of my questions, explaining that thermography is a noninvasive diagnostic technique used to monitor changes in skin surface temperature. “People are becoming more aware of the dangers of exposure to radiation inherent in a mammogram, and seeking out thermography as a safer alternative,” she says. And though she also uses thermography to effectively diagnose pain, fractures and other injuries to the body, the larger percentage of her patients seek out thermography to detect breast cancer in its earliest stages.

After I fill out the paperwork and Espigh explains that today’s exam will establish a baseline to be followed by regular checkups, she asks me to take off my shirt and raise my hands above my head. “Your breasts are quite large,” she says, “but there are worse problems to have.” We laugh, and as she takes pictures from the front, back and side, she points out dark orange streaks on the computer screen that match the tender spots on my chest. I have fibrocystic tissue, she tells me, a common condition that may be treated by simple dietary changes. A board certified thermalogist will interpret the images and confirm what Espigh tells me in a detailed report that I’ll receive later that week, but for the moment, I thank her and my lucky stars, that for the time being I don’t have to adapt to any new alien invasions. The ones I’ve already had are enough for this lifetime.

To schedule a thermography appointment, visit www.vathermography.com, call 804-454-4540 or visit the Virginia Thermography Clinic at Good Foods Grocery in Gayton Shopping Center the last Saturday of every month.  

Born Here, Been There: American, East Coast & Southern

Over the last several years the same Feng Shui consultant has told me twice, in no uncertain terms, that there is no hope for our house that can be bought by charms or rearranging of pillow placements and that the best thing for us to do is to move, preferably yesterday. Both times I’ve agreed with her. There’s baggage here, ghosts, my parent’s past and my own, not to mention structural and aesthetic repairs that seem to be well beyond our scope. But, much as my mind is made up to get out of dodge for a full 24 hours after she leaves, we stay. 

It’s as if she’s told me to step out of the quicksand. She’s right; I just can’t seem to do it.

Mulling over my plight with a friend I heard myself say, “I’m just not like all these white Westend women!” Maybe because she’s from California the truth was more obvious to her. “But you ARE a white Westend woman!” she said. It was an epiphany. Not having an excess of national, regional, cultural, house or any other kind of pride, my geographic identity is something I’ve wrestled with most of my life.  

At the predominantly African American elementary school I attended in Church Hill, there was little I could do to hide the fact that I was white and Jewish—especially after my mother’s classroom Hanukah presentation. But after being transferred, I didn’t feel like I fit in any better at the almost entirely white conservative school in my own neighborhood where I was the only kid who didn’t vote for Ronald Reagan in our class mock election.

At school in New York, one had to dig deep to unearth my southern roots. Southerners were backwards, redneck racists who spent all their time reenacting Civil War battles-- if they weren’t too busy eating grits. I was busy eating grits, but if I’d been in the Civil War, I would have gone Union. Likewise on the dude ranch in Colorado, I was loath to admit my East Coast origins. Easterners were neurotic academic snobs who didn’t know how to brew a decent cup of cowboy coffee or saddle a horse. I had to learn both the hard way. Living in Italy, I did my best to disguise the fact that I was American. Americans wore fluorescent visors, ugly fanny packs and brayed like donkeys in the museums and churches meant to honor the dead. My ruse was successful until I opened my mouth, effectively butchering the native tongue of Dante and Boccaccio in a single espresso order. 

But I have a feeling if I’d moved to Mars I would also have tried to refute my humanity.

As hard as I tried to leave my American, East Coast, Southern roots behind, they pulled me back, not only to Richmond, but to the house I grew up in. Maybe my mother buried my placenta in the backyard. Maybe the souls of the cats we’ve put to rest out by the fence line steal our breath while we sleep. Maybe I accidentally married my house when I married my husband. Maybe I’m trying to straighten out my childhood by raising my own child in my old bedroom.

Whatever the reason, I’ve not only ceased trying to divorce myself from my hometown, I’ve fallen in love with it, too. Just as one can’t get to know everything about another person in a single lifetime, the city where I’m from will always offer more to discover. Even though a trip to the grocery store can be like attending my own high school reunion, Richmond has more interesting neighborhoods and quirky personalities than a dysfunctional family has alcoholic uncles. My definition of love has always been wide, but coming back to stay has allowed it to grow deep. The castles I build in the sky might spring from quicksand, but at least I’m finally proud to say they’re mine.  

How to Be Happy

Le lit défait  (The Unmade Bed) by Eugene Delacroix

            Don’t read articles about how to be happy. Wait until your friend reads them and then take her hostage until she reveals what actually works. Recoil as if from a screaming toddler when she tells you that in order to even get out of bed each day you should really make a gratitude list. Don’t scrunch your face up, stick your tongue out and decide now’s the perfect time to get a new friend.   

            Spend the morning in bed wondering if your journal can even contain such multitudes. Don’t curse your husband for using the last of the milk and the nondairy creamer. Take a multi-vitamin and drink your coffee black. You’re going to need it.

Start with the floor furnace. Realize that if it hadn’t died last winter you would never have known the sweet smell of kerosene or the sound of a rocket readying for blastoff when the replacement forced air heater you call the ghettoblaster suddenly ignites in the next room. Think of all the opportunities your family has had to grow closer and more fire retardant huddled around its fluorescent orange flame.

Next, be glad you were raised on food stamps because now when you have a dollar you know what to do with it. Daydream about what you could do with it and then be grateful for your magnificent imagination.

Thank your lucky stars that the hot, rich guy in the silk scarf dumped you so you don’t have to be some dumb trophy wife in a boring city like Paris.

Thank God that your prince wears coveralls instead of shining armor. Be glad he refused to get a regular, full time job because if you hadn’t had to find work you’d be lying on the couch watching cable, instead of curled up in bed thinking how superior you are that you’re not. You’d be able to afford cable but you’d be watching Toddlers and Tiaras, trying to figure out how to force your son into a huge blonde wig so that he could curtsy on the catwalk instead of attending first grade while you engage in a meaningful line of work that brings you great joy. 

Thank God you were broke when you wanted to get that divorce.

When you see the thirteen inch scar stretched across your side, remember that if you were tough enough to survive going under the knife you can probably survive another year of filing federal income taxes.  

Thank God that you have a friend who’s always bouncing off to exotic, foreign lands so that you don’t have to get all those nasty shots or wait in line at the post office to renew your passport in order to own powerful looking tribal dolls or beautifully hand-painted ceramic plaques that say “Shalom Y’all.”

Be glad that you still live in the house you grew up in because you never have to waste precious time changing the information fields when you reorder address labels. And that being so rooted has made you part of an intricate network of friends and relatives that steer you back onto the right course, holding your hand through the detritus and rubble until you’ve finally uncovered  the faintest glimmer of the silver lining.

Consider getting dressed for the day and then be grateful that since getting laid off from the office you can work from home.

            Walk back into the kitchen to see if milk has magically reappeared in the fridge and resist the temptation to throw the “Every Problem Contains a Gift” magnet in the trash. Tape it to your forehead, instead.

I Was a Teenage Bisexual

When my step-brother and I were high school juniors we each made an announcement one night at a family dinner. “I’m bisexual,” I told “the parents” as we called them then. “And I’m dropping out of high school,” said my step brother. “Oh! Well isn’t that wonderful?” they exclaimed, my dad launching into a story about hitchhiking to Florida from rural Virginia, finding work in an orange juice factory and returning home to make straight A’s after the acid ate away the soles of his boots. Later, my own mother stopped just short of rubbing her hands with glee. She’d already introduced me to her friends who wore short hair and flannel: she was prepared. My brother did want to pursue a life of unadulterated freedom and I was as curious and nervous about girls as I was about boys; however our parents’ reception knocked the wind out of our sails. After graduating high school, my brother went on to college and in the end, I married a man.

But not before exploring my options first. My friends were smart, beautiful, creative, funny and kind, making them obvious choices over, say, the hairy boy who reeked of Drakkar that asked me to accompany him to Red Lobster. In high school, I did date boys and even had a boyfriend--- although I refused to name it that then, shunning labels like the pledge of allegiance. I didn’t want to be easily pinned down or classified— none of us in our rag tag group did. Banding together, we created a category of our own— just like millions of other suburban fringe kids around the country. Just as soon as I tried on one identity I outgrew it, like a haircut or jeans. A part of me secretly longed to be the cheerleader adored by the football team, but falling just short of that, I did a 180. Bleached dreadlocks and a girl one week, crimson curls and a long-haired boy the next.

For me, one size did not fit all.

And then, my junior year abroad in Italy, along with my first apartment, I had my first girlfriend--- I think it was a course requirement at our particular liberal arts college. I still refused to use labels, but after moving out of the homes of our host families and in with each other, we were more than roommates and more than friends. We shared not only espressos and homework assignments but living expenses, and beds. I wrote poems for her. She painted me. We gave each other jewelry. We took weekend trips to remote villas, exploring both the country and largely hidden sides of ourselves. It could have been that we were young and in a foreign country, but I count it as one of the most romantic and devastating relationships of my life—certainly one of the few that has taught me the most. It was far from perfect, but that’s why it fit perfectly into my life.

A few heartbreaks and (mis)adventures later, I’ve chosen—at least from the outside and compared to many of my friends-- a fairly straightforward life, one that includes marriage, motherhood and a mortgage in the suburbs. Most days I feel lucky to have found another person I want to spend my life with; I can’t imagine not having been allowed to do so based on his gender or mine.

Yes, my parents made it more difficult to rebel, but I am infinitely grateful to them for their acceptance of my choices regarding not only who to be, but who to love. I have little doubt that I would have done everything I was going to do anyway, but doing it with their blessing went a long way.

Religious (Mis)Education

Now that my son has begun to successfully navigate the world of public education I’m grappling with the idea of introducing him to a religious one. I have my own spiritual connection with the world around me and I pray constantly: Dear God! Thank God! God Dammit! And my favorite, Thank God Dammit! I love folklore and myths and stories and some of the most interesting are found in the Bible--Old Testament or New. But must we leave the gates of our own Garden of Eden for him to gain knowledge about God?

My son, like me, is Jewish because his mother is. And like me, he has more than Jewish blood running through his veins. I’m not sure if the fact that I never dated Jewish men is due to random chance or the Jewish cotillion I attended in middle school where none of my dance partners reached my chin, but like my mom, I married a goy. Whoever and whatever my son chooses for himself as an adult is fine with me. But right now I’m as hesitant to thrust him into the world of religion as I’d be to force him to visit just one booth on Career Day. I think it’s perfectly fine for a person still missing their two front teeth to aspire to be a wildlife biologist, organic farmer and bowling alley repairman in equal measure. And I’m just as hesitant to make him choose a single path to God.

However, as much as I want to spare him the dogma, I worry that he might miss some character building, too. My mother and I attended a New Age Church until I hit puberty when I suddenly found myself at synagogue wearing a Star of David. My first Sunday School teacher, a guard at a juvenile detention center, seemed to derive real pleasure from explaining, in great detail, the labor pains of childbirth. Our teacher the following year regaled us with horror stories about the Holocaust. My next and last teacher dedicated the entire year to suicide prevention, which, in retrospect, was probably a good idea, but not much fun. And, other than teaching me the Hebrew alphabet, I don’t remember our rabbi discussing anything other than the political and socio-economic details of The War in the Middle East.

All of which made the trappings of Christianity on my father’s side pretty tempting. She never said it, but I had the feeling my Grandma wanted me saved, not to be a better living girl, but a better dead one. The trilogy of romantic adventure Jews-for-Jesus books she’d given me when I was twelve were successful as page turners, but not as missionaries. By then I was already studying for my Bat Mitzvah and couldn’t squeeze Jesus into any picture other than the fluorescent velvet one I later bought to hang on my dorm room wall. But I always felt a little jealous of my Grandma’s certainty about salvation, not to mention the endless abundance of lemonade and sugar cookies her church handed out like blessings.

When my Grandma died and bequeathed me- her only Jewish grandchild- the golden crucifix she’d worn for as long as I’d known her, I was touched. I tried to put it around my neck but found that I could not wear it any more than I could belt out the hymns at the Gospel Chicken House where my father brought me once, on a whim. There the hootin’ hollerin’ foot stompin’ good time was almost enough to make me run and dunk myself in the river. But not quite.

And this year as the holidays approach I feel less of a need to shake who I am than ever. I struggle with routine so Hanukkah is eight times more difficult to celebrate than Christmas, but once again we’ll do it all. And though I don’t really think my son needs anyone to tell him what to believe, it’s likely I’ll pass on my almost supernatural love of New Years Eve, when the hope for reinvention and the promise of a clean slate—if only on my calendar— seems even more miraculous then the resurrection.

Thank You Letters to Bad Boyfriends

Having recently survived our ten year wedding anniversary, my husband tells me that he’s going to write a book about marriage called, “So, I Have to _____ You the Rest of My Life?”

“You’ll open it,” he says, “and there will be only one word inside: ‘YES.’ He laughs. “And then the back cover will say ‘Deal with it!’”

While he’s finishing up his bestseller, I’m hard at work on a project of my own. An old-school letter writer, I’ve saved several trash bags of mail in the attic corresponding to color-coded ribbons by person and place. I’m also a borderline hoarder of stationery with more post-it notes and postcards than notches in my bed post. And so, in an effort to both clean out my desk and apply the principal of positive thinking that suggests one write “thank you” on each bill, including those to the IRS, I have decided a new generation of letters are in order. Not to pen pals or congressman, not to my teen self, my senior self or my yet to be reincarnated self, but to a certain order of human that had a direct impact on my personal evolution. Genus: Ex-boyfriend, Species: Bad.

But why spend time writing letters to creatures such as these when there are bills to pay and books to write? To find closure, to seal the deal, to put a stamp on it. To decode the pattern and find the common thread, the one that runs through me, even still. To get in at last, the final word---in writing, even if the addressee is now unknown.

I need only deviate slightly from standard block form.

Dear Fill in the Blank:

Hi! How are you?? I’m writing to thank you for changing my life! Remember how you whipped out three things on our first date and the only one I wanted to touch was your gun? How, after dating for three months you never learned how to spell my name, how you read my stories and told me I really needed to travel, taped underwear models to your walls because you thought they looked like you, pretended not to recognize me even while running from the police, went to Hooters instead of returning my call, told me I drove a shitty car when I told you that I loved you?

Well, I’m writing to thank you, to thank you for making me the stunningly incredible woman that I am today. Sure, there were bad times, but we had our good times, too. For example, if you hadn’t been exactly who you were, there’s a chance I’d be with you still. If you hadn’t left me- or made me leave you- I would have found nowhere else to go. You gave me something to push against, something to become better than. While cracking open my heart, you formed my character, straightened my spine, and toughened my skin. You illuminated the darkest parts of me, the ones that needed light the most. In the end, not only did you give me something to work on and laugh about; you gave me world class material. To repurpose the famous quote by Tolstoy, “Happy relationships are all alike. The terrible ones will give you something interesting to write about for the rest of your life.”

So, thank you, bless you and God speed. I hope you learned as much from me as I learned from you.

PS: Can I have your forwarding address?

As I lick the envelopes shut, sealing a few with a kiss and cursing the others, my husband reminds me again that water always seeks its own level. This is a bitter sweet pill to swallow, the one that brought me to him. And so now it’s time to write the next frontier of thank you notes-- living acts of gratitude both to him and my son, who remind me on a daily basis that not only are boys red-blooded human beings, but I am too.

The Ancient Art of Camping: Reluctantly Claiming My Birthright

Camping should be in my blood. It should be my birthright.

After all, I was conceived in a tent on my mother’s birthday in the middle of October above the valley that would become my namesake. As a girl, my dad took me on many long trips into the mountains where, between campfires, my friends and I were allowed to run wild, shooting bows and arrows, creating our own battle cries and imaginary worlds. We ate hotdogs and marshmallows, running through the woods in our nightgowns like feral cats. Even when we were miserable, we were happy. I remember cracking my eyes open in the pre-dawn light surprised I hadn’t frozen to death, and on weekends at home directing the AC vents into my face to recreate the feeling.

I was no Girl Scout (unless you count being a Brownie for a year in hopes of getting s special rate on the cookies) but my Dad taught me how to pitch a tent, gather kindling, build a campfire and hold onto the rails in the back of the pick up while he sped down the mountain. My mother too had a taste for nature, giving me a grand tour of KOAs from here to Wyoming, stashing a certain yellow “Homemade Soup” grocery bucket in our tent for after-hours emergencies.

In my early twenties I roughed it with the best of them. I knew how to wash my whole body in one small sink and thoroughly enjoy a meal of half-cooked rice and crunchy beans. Chain-smoking while hiking without coughing was a point of pride. Camping, back then, was cool. And, hiking boots over long johns beneath beaded, ratty dresses, I was the height of cool.

So I’m not sure when exactly I started connecting more deeply with my mouse than other woodland creatures. Or when Netflix, Tivo and Xbox became easier to operate than an oil lamp or a Sterno. Or when G-Mail and Facebook began to offer more lifeblood than sunsets and gargling brooks. Or why my husband is more prone to hunting aliens and zombies than our dinner.

In our most recent power outage (AKA: Armageddon) when I was sent reeling back to my nature-baby-with-no-status update-roots I had a come to Jewish-Jesus moment. I’d been out scavenging like a cockroach for WiFi through the crumbs of Krispy Kreme and coffee grounds. “Why, oh WHY don’t I have a Smart Phone?” I’d keened, feeling dumb indeed. But my son had a different reaction. “Let’s go camping!” he said.

“OK,” I said, because although this sounded about as fun as eating steel wool, my hair had already started to dread, making me nostalgic for the olden days. “If we’re going to be this gross we might as well go camping!” I said. My husband pulled his truck into the yard and we started to throw stuff from the inside out, including the Incredible Hulk sleeping bag that had given me nightmares as a child. We packed everything but the kitchen sink—or anything else that might need to be plugged in.

Even without power, something switched on as soon as we got to our campsite. Instead of feeling dirtier, I felt like a swath of static electricity had suddenly been stripped away. We went skinny dipping in the river and made our own pit for a fire. Although we ate food from wrappers, it tasted better- like we’d earned it. When we finally lay down in our bags, it wasn’t quiet and dark—the moon was bright and the crickets were loud. There was a lot going on in those woods--- a whole lot more than I had remembered. I was glad I’d gotten unplugged long enough to let it soak back in.

And I’m proud to say that I not only survived sixteen full hours away from civilization, but my son, who will turn seven the week of Halloween, now knows how to do everything the Pope knows how to do--- in the woods. It’s his birthright, too.

Making Peace With the M-Word

Last year I stood in front of the same judge three times. Even though I wasn’t on trial for murder and the judge looked more like my uncle than my executioner, I burned with shame. I felt like a common criminal, but knew I was actually something worse. A woman who had not only been convicted of speeding in a school zone but one who had no idea how to handle her money.

Like sex and religion, money has always been a vexing, contradictory and elusive topic. It involves numbers which alone endeared itself to me not at all. As a child, even as we shook out couch cushions for spare change, my mother drilled into my head that I could do or be anything I wanted. Living on food stamps was no reason not to reach for the stars. She encouraged me to align my future with my dreams rather than my savings. I accepted a scholarship and early admittance to the college of my choice, which happened to be the second most expensive college in the country at the time.

I arrived at school proud of my scrappiness and ability to make something out of nothing. But eventually rubbing shoulders with children of millionaires rubbed off on me. I wasn’t sure I wanted what they had; I just knew I didn’t have it. Money became an emotional barrier which separated me, at least in my own mind, from certain circles. No matter how many times I tried to balance the relationship between my self worth and my bank account, I always came up short. Eventually I started using credit cards not only to make ends meet but to make me feel a little better about myself. At first it was just a tiny charge, to take the edge off. But like a drug, after repeated use, I became dependent.

Finally, three years ago when I got laid off from my desk job, I quit credit cards cold turkey. But not only did I stop using them, in order to buy groceries, I stopped paying them, too. And it turns out credit card companies don’t like it when you do that, even if it’s for your own good. But rather than deal with the mess I was creating, I hid from it. Confronting my lack of funds meant confronting my lack of worth. I couldn’t see how one didn’t equal the other.

When I got sued- a fiscal version of the DUI- I resisted the urge to bury myself under the covers--- or under the ground. Miraculously, instead, I asked for help. I researched. I made phone calls. I sent emails. I peeked into the dark, terrifying corners I had created, mostly in the top drawer of my desk where stacks of unopened mail teemed like the head of Medusa.

In the end, a friend and former lawyer generously offered me her and her husband’s assistance. But not before I’d sobbed on the phone, admitting how ashamed I felt. “Oh Valley,” she’d said, “Credit card debt? Please! Last year I had two different friends convicted of embezzlement!” If she had been Mother Teresa absolving me of my sins, I could not have felt better. My friend and her husband’s combination of nonjudgmental kindness and belief in “paying it forward” helped pull me out of not only a monetary hole, but an emotional one.

My problems didn’t vanish when I faced them, but amazing things did begin to happen. Money actually started to come in through work that I actually loved. I no longer felt like I was spending my last dollar each time I pulled out my wallet. And I realized I have more to offer than the sum total of my pockets--- or anyone else’s.

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of talking to a judge aspiring to be a writer—outside of the courtroom. As we talked literature, I realized I felt neither criminal nor less than. I realized that he and I stood on common ground, sharing equal footing. And that’s a feeling money can’t buy.

Confessions of a Secret Smoker

I smoked my first cigarette on the rooftop of one of my dad’s fan apartments when I was eight and he was in the shower. But I didn’t fall desperately in love with smoking until ten years later when a friend lent me a clove during a reading at the Nuyorican Poets Café in New York City. The next day I bummed a Marlboro Red from a boy I hoped would not only lend me his cigarette, but his confidence. Not to mention his exclusive, intellectual brand of love. He lent me his cigarette. I became a pack a day smoker overnight.

When I decided to quit drinking five years later, I told my mother that I was going to wait just a few more years before I quit smoking too. “Fine,” she said, “but would you rather cut your arm off all at once or bit by bit, in pieces?” I decided she had a point. Instead of using gum or the patch, I used an old wiffle ball bat. Beating my couch senseless and crying hysterically for a month did the trick. I was a non-smoker once again. And after writing a long, heartfelt letter about the necessity of living long enough to be there for his children- and grandchildren- my dad quit, too. Good riddance of a nasty habit, I thought. Other than salivating a tiny bit when someone struck a match on the big screen, I didn’t miss it at all.

Until one morning after a storm last summer when I found a miraculously intact package of Black Clove cigarettes in the street next to my car. They had not only been run over, but rained on. I picked them up, ran into my backyard and smoked the entire pack. And then went out to buy another. I knew it was bad. I knew it was wrong. I knew that I never wanted my son--- or any other young person I knew—to see me smoking. Despite this and despite knowing everything that everyone knows about the side effects of tobacco and nicotine, I couldn’t not do it.

Smoking created a smokescreen that neatly hid the things I was hiding from. It reconnected me to the 18 year old girl I’d left behind and badly missed. It gave me a sense of ownership over my time and space, even if that time and space was stolen in furtive puffs next to the dumpster in my backyard. Best of all, smoking cured me of a nasty case of self-righteousness I’d developed the decade prior.

Other mothers in the neighborhood smoked openly while waiting at the bus stop. Now I could no longer think of myself as more highly evolved than they, but still I wondered how they managed to have no shame at all. Shouldn’t they be crouched down behind their dumpsters like me, trapped in an ever quickening cycle of craving and shame, pleasure and remorse?

I knew I had to quit but the idea seemed in the same vein as moving alone to Siberia in the middle of winter. I couldn’t imagine any other way of introducing such a quick rush of pleasure into my life. And, since there were now other actual people living in my house, a wiffle ball bat was no longer an option. I would have to find something meaningful to not only replace the cigarettes, but the ritual they created. I joined Twitter. When that failed, I dug a garden. I took up running. Slowly, these things and others--- making connections through words and people--- began to seal up the place the smoke had filled. I no longer felt the need to hide quite so much or so often—from others or myself. I didn’t have to wonder if I smelled like an ashtray, what kind of example I was setting for my son or if I was going to hack up a lung after dinner. I stopped being so quick to judge others by their vices, reentering a world defined by its many shades of gray. Still, every time a storm passes over our house, I find myself scanning the street to see what may have washed ashore.

The Wire Saved My Marriage

While waiting tables in my early twenties I became determined to learn, once and for all, the difference between a date and a one-night stand. Another waitress and I swapped dating advice books wrapped in brown paper bags at the cash register, hoping people would think they were something less humiliating, like drugs.

One of the books suggested that the basic character defects men had fell into two categories, a profound duality that encompassed all of the subtle complexities of life. Type A Men were axe murderers or pimps who refused to tell you their last name and arrived to pick you up with a police escort. Type B Men cleared their throats a tad too loudly when they were, on occasion, ten minutes late to pick you up. It was up to you to decide which kind of man you could live with.

Well, the man I wanted to live with did not have any problems at all. He was perfect. I had only known him for a few weeks and I’d already dreamt about him twice. In the first dream we’d sailed around the world visiting exotic locales on a wooden sailboat and in the second, we’d run a marathon side by side. At the end of the marathon I’d been so exhausted I’d flopped down in the dirt to sleep and he’d put his hand under my head to use as a pillow. This was a man I wanted not only to eat popcorn with, but to marry.

And amazingly, despite the counter-intuitive suggestions I actually took from the dating books, we did go on a date and we did get married, a year later to the day.

But there was a wee bit of territory my reading had not covered. Not only, I discovered, were there more than two types of men, but sharing a life, a house, a mortgage and a child with one of them was a sure-fire way to uncover a Dewey Decimal system worth of categorical flaws of my own. I had vowed to stick with one man for the rest of my life before knowing exactly who I was or what kind of life I wanted to live.

Nine years in, I began to blame him.

And so, last spring when I was ready to move out, my husband was ready to help me pack. We decided to visit a marriage counselor first. It was clear that we still loved each other but that the whole living together thing wasn’t going to work. My husband said it best: “I’d like to date Valley again after our divorce.”

Our counselor was skilled enough to avoid taking sides while making us both feel heard. I’m sure that she offered lots of helpful advice, but one suggestion stood out. She asked us to rent and watch HBO’s “The Wire.” Every night. Together. Even though we weren’t speaking during the day and were sleeping in different rooms at night.

It seemed like such an absurd suggestion that I was willing to try it. And eventually, through five complete seasons of Baltimore cops chasing, arresting and building intimate bonds with Baltimore drug dealers, my husband and I began to inch closer together on our chair and a half. Compared to McNulty’s relationship with his ex-wife, ours didn’t seem so bad. I began to realize that, married or not, I’m still responsible for running my own race. Having the chance to rest my head on my husband’s shoulder at the end of the day is a lot better than demanding he carry me through it.

And now that we are celebrating our ten year wedding anniversary this June, we can’t agree on which series to watch next. But, I would say that’s a Type B kind of problem to have.

Sometimes I Miss My Uterus. Period.

(Frida Kahlo Uterus Plushie compliments of Regretsy)


It still catches me off guard.

Suddenly, I find myself craving a cheeseburger smothered in chocolate. I start to miss people I never even liked. At the same time, I’m convinced I could teach a week-long seminar called “F-You! Recovery From People Pleasing.” Immersed in a strange blend of fierce and tender, maternal and homicidal feelings, I cry at soft rock and infomercials. I unbutton my jeans and wonder if it’s that time of the month. From 13 until 31, the seismic shift in my emotional landscape was signaled by a monthly red flag-- that arrived in my own underpants. But not anymore.

Four years ago, my period vanished with a bang. On Cinco de Mayo in 2007, I was T-boned at an intersection on the way home from getting a mani-pedi at a salon downtown. I don’t normally care about my nails, but I had just had my sixth miscarriage and a thoughtful friend felt like I needed a little extra TLC. At the time of the accident, there was still a baby inside me, scheduled to be removed, along with my uterus, at the end of the week. On the stretcher, I held onto the one positive thought I could conjure: “My cuticles looked great!” But everything else looked pretty grim. After getting my bangs and bruises bandaged up, I checked back into the same hospital, three days later, for a hysterectomy.

In most regards, I was more than ready to part ways with my uterus. For as long as I could remember I’d suffered terrible pain from fibroids. And six miscarriages was six too many. Because my uterus was sent to pathology the same week my family car was sold for parts at the city junkyard, I decided I would not be looking at minivans. That Mother’s Day, I chose the most adorable hunk of metal with wheels I could find in the tri-city area: a 2003 diesel Volkswagen New Beetle. And my son’s car seat fit perfectly in the back.

Slowly, over the last few years, I have come to terms with raising an only child. The grief I initially felt at not being able to give him a sibling has been replaced by acceptance, relief and even gratitude. I know now how fortunate we are to have one vibrant, beautiful, healthy boy. And honestly, I really don’t miss poop-filled diapers, sleepless nights or trying to get work done with another human being attached to my ankle. At six, my son is a full-fledged human being who is actually quite fun to hang out with. I am an extremely lucky mom. And I think that my shiny tomato red bug is as good a trade-in on my uterus as I am going to get.

But sometimes, to my surprise, I actually miss having a period. Without its regularity, my life often feels like one long run-on sentence. I don’t miss the monthly cocktail of ibuprofen and acetaminophen, the heating pads, the boiling hot Epsom salt baths that took the pain away as long as I was in them, but there are things I do. I miss the excuse and the explanation, the cycle, the rhythm, the idea of the blood in my body being connected to the moon, to the tides and to the women with whom I spend my time.

A few months ago, I took my son to the play area of the local mall. As I watched him jump repeatedly off the head of an enormous green turtle, I started to cry uncontrollably. And then it occurred to me. I texted a girlfriend. “Do you have your period?” I asked. “Because I’m crying at the mall.”

“Yes,” she texted back. “And I’m crying at home.” Immediately, I felt better. I felt connected to something bigger than myself, part of an invisible network of support accessible to me if I asked for it. I was still all me and all woman... with a little help from my friends.

Escape Artist: How Not to Write a Book

First, have a deep and abiding passion for cheap motels.

Second, have an idea for a book that you are sure will save your family from imminent financial collapse and wrest you from the emotional despair of having never achieved your potential.

Next, decline an invitation to a fancy writer’s retreat at a villa in France and instead Google “cheap motels” in your own vicinity. Consider, for a minute, booking the gem with the online reviews that boast cockroaches, mold, vomit, stained sheets and the final, winning comment: “If this is the only place you can stay in this city, go to a different city.” Chicken out and book, instead, the motel with the broken hairdryer. Use the $50 visa gift card your mother gave you for Hanukkah to confirm the transaction. Invite your girlfriend, who shares your conviction that Calgon will never be enough to take you away. Mark the dates out in your calendar with a sharpie so that in order to change your plans you will have to go to the store and buy white out, which you refuse to do, due to your office supply addiction.

As you pack, reminisce over all the places you’ve ever slept—from damp sleeping bags in soggy tents to hostel bunks to the executive suite in the Opryland hotel where your family was once upgraded on a lark. Remember how you dumped a whole bottle of shampoo in the Jacuzzi and then sniffed the sheets of the king-sized bed whose last occupant was Jon Bon Jovi. Get called “Klassy with a K.” Honor that truth.

Sing “Rambling Fever” loudly in the car before abruptly pulling into the parking lot which you have clocked at 2.1 miles from your own driveway. Drive an extra .2 miles to pick up a menu from a Chinese restaurant so that you will be able to shave 8 seconds off your dinner order. Check into the motel as the clock strikes three. You don’t have a moment to lose. Great things, you know, happen in pressure cookers. Put your laptop on the desk next to the motel stationery and then put the motel stationery in your purse.

Draw the curtains and take in the stunning view of the Auto Zone. Remember that you are close enough to home that your mother could drive by and wave at you through the window. Redraw the curtains. Unpack your red silk robe, because when else are you going to wear it? Forget to wear it. Spend the next twenty-one hours in your track suit. In the bathroom, put the package of Folgers in the miniature coffee maker that is small enough to put in your purse. Don’t put it in your purse. Drink the bathroom coffee out of a Styrofoam cup like it’s an Italian espresso.

Plan the bulk of your time around snack breaks. Where else would Jarlsburg cheese scooped up with a pita chip taste so good? Between the cherries and the olives, open your laptop. Decide that instead of a book, what you really need to write is a book proposal. Write three zingy chapter titles and as a reward, take a field trip to the lobby for more coffee. Back in the room, turn the lights out and switch on the battery-operated candle you brought for ambience. Sit cross-legged with your girlfriend, each on your own queen sized bed. Expose your deepest secrets. Re-plan your life. Consult your tarot cards. Laugh your mascara off. Open the mini-fridge and debate over which box of chocolate to open first. Fall into a coma like sleep completely uninterrupted by your dog, your cat, your husband or your son.

In the morning, write frantically for 15 minutes before running down to the all you can eat Waffle Bar. Use three or four packets of syrup. At check out feel like you are turning in your wild side with your room key. Bid a teary farewell to your friend who you will see next Thursday. Make the most of your 2.1 mile drive home to reflect on all you have accomplished. Listen to your husband explain that after helping your cousin move and cleaning up the vomit of the dog who devoured what was left of your chocolate stash, he fielded a call from your ex-boyfriend who drunk-dialed you from Europe in the middle of the night. Thank him profusely.

Then, start planning next year’s trip. Make it a tradition.

Published in Belle, April 2011