Lou's View

Mrs. Godbold on the Bosphorus

2011-05-20T12:13:00.000-07:00

My mother does not like being cold. We have that in common. She especially does not like being cold on choppy water in the middle of a large estuary on what was advertised as a ‘river tour of Istanbul.’

“This is rubbish!” declares Mrs. Godbold. “The banks are so far away I can’t see anything. And the tour guide’s accent is so thick I can’t understand a word he says!”

Her American friend, Gloria, who is a dead ringer for Virginia Woolf and equals her intellectual courage when it comes to learning Cyrillic script or mastering the cornemuse, braces herself in anticipation of an International Incident.

“Ees everything okay, ladies?” inquires the ingratiating tour guide.

“No it isn’t!” replies Mrs. Godbold. “I want to get off!”

“But we don’t make any stops.”

“Too bad!” says Mrs. Godbold and stomps down to the lower, enclosed deck. A second of hesitation before she is joined by the entire viewing deck who eagerly drink Turkish coffee from the little snack bar, relieved finally of squinting at distant banks.

Mrs. Godbold and Gloria decide to penetrate the souk in search of bargains. Gloria has it in her mind to buy a Turkish coffee pot. Mrs. Godbold gives her the drill: “Look down, Gloria and keep your mouth shut.” The woman who speaks six languages fluently and is an expert in medieval music willingly acquiesces to Mrs. Godbold’s undisputed superiority when it comes to handling the natives. Being Deputy Head at a private school where students are still addressed by their surnames turns out to have been all the preparation Mrs. Godbold needed.

“44 lira,” says the young man when Gloria disobeys instructions and shows interest in the only Turkish coffee pot yet to be found.

“I beg your pardon!” says Mrs. Godbold, taking Gloria by the arm.

“44 lira,” repeats the young man.

“Yes, I heard you,” says Mrs. Godbold, “but I’m not paying that. Give me your best price.”

Gloria is casting covetous looks at the coffee pot from behind Mrs. Godbold’s body.

“That is the price,” says the young man smoothly, “44 lira.” And he smiles the knowing smile of someone who has faced down British tourists in the past. The guidebook instructions about bartering always crumble before the ingrained dislike of conflict… But then he has never met Mrs. Godbold.

“Come on, Gloria!” sings Mrs. Godbold, leading her away by the arm. “We’ll go to the stall down the street.”

“But I really wanted that one!” whispers Gloria, urgently.

“Okay!” calls the young man. “42.”

Mrs. Godbold strides back to the merchant.

“30.”

He is momentarily taken aback.

“35,” he counters.

She holds out her hand. “I’ll shake on 32.”

Gloria gets her coffee pot.

Flushed with success, Mrs. Godbold goes on to beat down a street urchin selling a headscarf and a surprised café owner who finds himself haggling over a can of Coca Cola.

After a truly profitable afternoon, the two ladies are growing weary of the maze-like streets and the constant calls from vendors standing in doorways.

“Ladies! Ladies! Come and see my carpets!” “Jewelry, good prices, ladies!”

One vendor makes the mistake of addressing my mother as “darling.”

Mrs. Godbold stops stock still in the middle of the narrow street. Gloria plucks nervously at her friend’s elbow.

“Oh no!” says Mrs. Godbold, wheeling on the unfortunate merchant. “You don’t call a British lady ‘darling.’”

“Ees good English, no?” says the man, confused.

“It’s too familiar!” reprimands Mrs. Godbold, walking on. Gloria shoots the man a sympathetic look and hurries after her.

Finally they burst out of the streets to an open space on the riverbank. One of the clamorous vendors has followed after them, importuning the ladies with a litany of items and prices and not-to-be-missed bargains.

“Do you want to buy a carpet?” demands Mrs. Godbold, rounding on him.

The man steps back in confusion. “No.”

“Some jewelry?”

“No.”

He spreads his hands in a nervous apology, backing away into the noise and confusion of the souk. Gloria laughs.

“I do love your sense of humor!”

“I wasn’t being funny.”

Middle Aged Spectacles

2011-05-13T17:30:00.000-07:00

“I have frames, but I need progressive lenses,” I tell the young woman carrying the clipboard. Her ponytail flips and rests over the crest emblazoned on her sweater. Order of the Arrogant Retail Assistant? A royal warrant to dispense overpriced spectacles with attitude?
“These frames are too small for progressives,” she informs me authoritatively. I might believe her except for the fact that I already have progressives in them. Apologetically, I inform her of this fact. She seizes the glasses and holds them up to the light.
“These are not progressives.” Well, that is certainly perplexing.
“I got them from Kaiser,” I counter, actually beginning to doubt my own judgment.
“Fine!” she says, swiveling on her heel, “I’ll get the lab to check.”
The ponytail bounces to a backroom and then triumphantly flicks its way back to me.
“The lab manager says they’re not progressives,” she says, handing me the glasses. We now have a small audience of people awaiting the attention of the supercilious assistant. “I’ve worked here for four years and I can tell you they’re not progressives.”
“Young woman,” I say, using the expression for the first time but deciding to turn advanced age to my advantage, “You may have worked here for four years but I am the one wearing the glasses and I can assure you they are progressive lenses.”

Suffering from a distinct lack of confidence in the retailer, I head back to my healthcare provider. They can indeed provide me with lenses, and happily at $400 less than the outrageous price quoted by ponytail. All is going well until I attempt to leave the parking structure.
“That’ll be $2.”
I fish in my purse and come up with eight quarters.
“That’s 40c.”
“Excuse me?”
“You gave me nickels.”
Bloody stupid currency!
“I’ve been here twenty years and I still can’t tell the difference between the coins,” I trill in what I hope is a charming way, seeing as I am now likely to be taken for a crook or an idiot. She decides on idiot.
“The quarters are bigger,” says the young girl, holding up an example just to complete my mortification.
“You’ll laugh,” I say (although it’s unlikely from the look I’m getting), “But the reason I’m here is because I need new glasses.”

The Other Woman

2011-02-02T08:21:00.000-08:00

Mango slices
of your heart -
sweet, juicy
and slipping
from my fingers

My lips
close around
air -
an empty chair
beside me
at sunset

“… we would
go out and dance
listen to some music
hit a couple of wineries…”
you dream,
getting to the part I like best,
the part that makes me cry:
“Then we would go home.”

Last Chance at Normal

2011-01-17T15:03:00.000-08:00

The guard at County Jail is bemused and bewildered by my presence. It is not often he sees an eight-and-a-half-month pregnant white woman dressed in exuberant Sunday Best coming to collect an inmate. After I make the startling admission (in a British accent, no less) that I am married to the inmate in question, I waddle over to the red, molded-plastic bench, which rises in a smooth curve from floor to wall (presumably to prevent prisoners' wives and mothers from throwing furniture should they feel inclined to start a riot). I lower myself next to the only other occupant of the bench, an older señora who is bowed over her feet, sniffing.

“Buenas tardes,” I say politely. She responds without raising her head. I lean back against the wall and close my eyes, instinctively resting my hand on the ledge of my belly. Since the baby turned I can feel a hard heel thrusting against my ribs like a swimmer waiting to push off from the side of the pool. Don't come yet little boy, I pray. County jail would not look good on the birth certificate.

“He tried to kill me with a knife.”
I jerk open my eyes. The señora has turned her face towards me.
“He was high on PCP. My son,” she explains as I frown in confusion. “He's twenty. He was prendido and he tried to kill me. Then he took off all his clothes and jumped through the window,” she adds, turning back to her feet.
“Ay, que si,” I acknowledge, closing my eyes again and thinking of my own life in the past fourteen months, “Increible, verdad?”

“Franco. Francisco Franco!” calls a male voice. So he gave his real name this time. He has a criminal record under his nickname, Pancho, as well as his street name, Frank. His family uses his middle name, Javier, because that's the only identity that's never been arrested. I lever myself to my feet and waddle back to the window. Stamping some papers, the guard twitches his moustache in a smile. “I'm letting him out first,” he says, glancing down at the mound that separates me from the counter. It is definitely a ‘you're-one-of-us’ smile, coupled with a ‘what-the-hell-are-you-doing-with-that-scum?’ raised eyebrow.

Suddenly there is a clanking and the wall slides back to reveal what appears to be the empty stage of an opera house. A line of men stand shackled together at the wrists, bright lights glinting off their chains and reflecting in the shiny floor. From the dark reaches of the high ceilinged area, more clanking and a line of female prisoners, also chained, makes its way across stage. At any moment I expect the two lines to converge in a choreographed chorus. Instead, one of the women lifts her shirt and flashes her boobs as she passes the men. There is cheering and whistling, and in the middle of the commotion, the familiar thick black hair and moustache of my husband crossing the footlights and walking quickly into the waiting area. He looks from side to side, as if expecting a huge hand to reach out and grab him at any second, and then focuses on me with a delighted grin:

“Reyna! You are the persona mas de aquellas that I know. You're aw-right!” He grabs my elbow and hustles me out of the jail, still smiling and shaking his head. When we get outside he says, “There must have been fifty people ahead of me! They let me out because of you, La Reyna de Inglaterra!” He chuckles gleefully. “You're firme, man!”

Once I have maneuvered my bulge under the steering wheel, and we've negotiated our way through the rush-hour traffic on Cesar Chavez, I am able to get a better look at him. He has a three-day growth of beard, and now that the initial exhilaration is wearing off, he looks thin and haggard. His case was dismissed and the only thing on his mind at this point will be to ‘get well.’ Three days into withdrawal and stranded downtown. As my day in the office had drawn to a close, I pondered the inevitable outcome of his release. Despite my intentions to get on with my life, I found myself thinking that if he could only get past the fourth and worst day maybe he could really kick this time. If only I could only get him back to his father's house maybe he would be clean in time for the birth. Do this like normal couples. Have a father for my son.

That's how I find myself on the freeway to Bell Gardens with a recently released pinto who is rubbing his arms to keep warm and dropping hints about being hungry. We stop off at McDonald's but half way through his burger he starts looking around for an exit, a sure prelude to trouble.

#

“Oye, Luisa! Pull in here, mija!” He thrusts his arm in front of my face, pointing to the mercardo close to his dad's house. “I need to speak to my friend.”
Hanging out the window, he whistles to a scruffy-looking guy who is circling the deserted parking lot on his bike: “Quióboles, brudder!”
“Órale, carnal! I thought you were torcido, man.”
“Nel. My heyna sprung me!”
They both laugh and the guy gives me an appraising look through the open window before they break into rapid-fire caló (slang) making it impossible for me to follow.
“Andele. I'll meet you outside my cantón,” says Pancho wrapping up the exchange.
“Al rato,” says the guy over his shoulder, giving me another leer through the windshield.
“What was all that about?” I ask.
“We're going into the Alcance Victoria program together. There's a home where I can kick.”

#

Jefe, or ‘boss,’ as Pancho calls his father, is pleased to see us in his quiet, contained way. After offering us un chanate (not that Pancho appears in need of caffeine), we sit in the small living room, arranged on three sides around the blank TV screen. If it weren't for Pancho poised on the edge of his chair and the stiff conversation, you might think that this is a normal family visit of a son, daughter-in-law and soon-to-be-delivered grandson. Only there has been nothing normal about my life for quite some time. Without a word, Pancho springs up and into the bathroom. Jefe and I exchange looks. This is where Pancho's stepmother keeps the syringes for her diabetes. The toilet flushes. Pancho streaks into the bedroom where there's a telephone.

“I'm calling el programa,” he shouts. There is another conversation peppered with 'carnal's, and as Jefe goes to investigate, Pancho races past him and out the back door. “I'm going to get some chicle,” he calls over his shoulder.

Chewing gum? Does he think I still fall for all this rubbish? Jefe and I collide at the door as we make our way after him. Jefe stops at the end of the house, holding the wall, doubled over by his smoker's cough, I continue on into the alley, cursing my office shoes and swollen ankles, one hand braced underneath my belly. Enough with Pancho's lies! I'm determined to bust him this time. As I hobble round the corner, I spot Pancho coming out of a house and stuffing something into his jacket pocket.

“You're not going into a program, you just wanted to score!”
“Of course I want to get down,” he says angrily and then looks away, his anger turning to dejection. “Reyna,” he groans, “no te aguites, mija; don't be mad. I did call the connection, yes, but first I had to go get the feria.”
He pulls open his pocket and withdraws a bunch of one-dollar bills.
“The guy who lives here owed me money.” His voice trails off into a sigh. “Ahorita ya! ‘I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired.’ Take me to the program. I'm ready to do this for us.”
He waits until I hestitantly point my bulk towards Jefe’s house.
“I just have to pick up mi licensia,” he says quickly, “I left it with the connection.”

I am used to this arrangement. Eye glasses and ID cards left with the drug dealer as collateral against future payment. I wonder if the social service agencies have ever figured out why their clients lose so many pairs of spectacles. We walk to the furthest end of the alley, Pancho with his stiff Charlie Chaplin gait and me like a ship at sea rolling behind. Hallelujahs emanate from the Good Shepherd church on the corner (Pancho would have gold status if they awarded customer loyalty points for their rehab program), but Pancho dives into the house next to it. I wait in the gathering dusk, listening to the a cappella chorus floating on the air like a love song, “Bendito sea, bendito y alabado sea, bendito sea…” until Pancho at last returns, triumphantly waving his license.

#

The Alcance Victoria house is in a part of Bell Gardens I have never visited before, dominated by a large green. Parking the car by the expanse of black grass, I become aware of garish lights and the sound of revelry coming from behind the dark trees. “Carnaval,” says Pancho, following the direction of my eyes, then hurries across the street to a lit-up house, its interior rendered shockingly naked by open curtains and windows. When I catch up with him, Pancho is straddling the living room windowsill.

“Francisco!” I hiss, but I can already see that despite being flooded with light, the place is deserted.
“I think I hear someone in here,” he says, disappearing into a back room.

I wait nervously outside the bank of windows until he comes back into the living room, readjusting his jacket.

“Did you steal something from in there?” I demand, incredulous at the speed and nonchalance with which he negotiated someone else's house.
“No!” he retorts indignantly, climbing back through the window. “Chale, mija, there's no one there.”

On the way back to the car, he hands me a scrap of paper with an address etched in heavy pencil. It is for another program, another home where he can kick he tells me, but first he has to use the restroom.

We trudge across the grass towards the lights of the carnival. Cinco de Mayo, of course! Everyone will be there, eating pork rind chicarones and elotes – white corn slavered with butter and mayonnaise, dusted with cheese and chile. Families: children on fathers' shoulders, mothers with arms wrapped around husbands' waists; happy, complete families. And then there's us, making our way towards the public restrooms that hunch outside the circle of light and laughter. The grill of the men's side is chained half-closed but there's still space enough for a non-pregnant person to crawl through. In the gloom, I see a kid filling a water balloon at the sink.

“I've messed my pants,” floats Pancho's voice from the stalls. “I'll be a while.”
Heroin has that effect – vomiting, diarrhea – but only when you first use. I wait until the kid leaves.
“Liar!” I shout between the bars, “You're shooting up!”
I want to go in and throw open the stall door, to reveal him in all his deception and iniquity, but there is no way I can squeeze my belly past the grill.
“You want me to show you?” his voice demands.

I turn away. The stench is so bad perhaps he is telling the truth. Then I hear a quiet cough on the other side of the wall. Creeping back to the grill, I see his figure crouched in the shadows, one arm extended into the flickering colored light from the doorway, a needle pushed into his vein.

I hear voices. A woman and a little girl clutching a balloon walk towards me, backlit by the carnival. “The other side!” I wave them away, not caring what they think about this exotic creature resembling a hippo dressed for a church social and gesticulating wildly. They change direction, twisting their heads to stare at me.

“Liar!” I spit back through the grill and fling the slip of paper through the opening. “No me chingues, Pancho! Don’t fuck with me!” I march off as best I can, hampered as I am by heels and bearing our progeny.

“Luisa!” comes the muffled shout, and a few minutes later the sound of running. “You don't have to call me a liar,” he remonstrates from behind. “Did you see a needle in my arm, mija?” he pleads, catching up, “Did you actually see a needle!”
I stop and allow him to come level with me.
“Yes, Francisco, as a matter of fact I did!” and then stalk off in an ungainly fashion towards the car.

His face appears at the window as I am locking my door.
“Reyna, ay! Wait!” His hands grip the roof, his face contorted in pain. “I'm sorry, Reyna, I'm so sorry. It's not me, it's the addiction!”
I wind down the window half way, and he tries to squeeze his arms and head through.
“You're a tecato, Francisco, and always will be!” I slap off the hands that are attempting to massage my shoulders and wind up the window again.
“I know I messed up,” comes his muffled voice, “but I'm going to stay in this home right now.”
I start the engine.
“I would have told you about shooting up. This is just one page, let's turn it.”
I put the car into drive.
“I know I had a golden opportunity and messed up the nice tardecita today.” He is crying now. “It's just, it's been twelve years.”
Through the smeary pane, I study the drawn and shabby man who is my husband.
“No one's ever touched me like you,” he mouths, hands and face pressing white against the window. “You found me, Reyna. Don't let me go away,” his hands slipping and falling as I drive off, his voice fading. “Get me before I go away.”

A White Person's Experience of Racism (because who else's experience counts?)

2011-01-11T17:35:00.000-08:00

“Today we are going to discuss cultural diversity,” says the parent trainer, hitching his pants against his crotch. Elvira gets the impression he is nervous. Meanwhile, Moira is rubbing her shoulder, wondering if the baby-sling is doing permanent damage to her shoulder muscles.

“Racism is a system where the white people hold all the power and privilege,” says the trainer. Elvira nods, but is confused. Didn’t he just describe the United States? Is he saying that’s wrong or that’s just how it is. She decides on the latter.

“I am SO tired of feeling guilty about privilege,” says Moira, crossing her legs under her on the chair. Two children later and she still has a body that looks good in tight yoga pants, and a chic bob that brushes against the fine bones of her chin. Elvira is wearing stretch pants that look like they’re being modeled by the Michelin man and her hair is dyed a lurid shade of magenta. Somehow that didn’t matter when she was making breakfast for her children this morning, but suddenly she feels the opposite of confident mother and neighborhood aunt. She should have remembered that these white people always look like they stepped from a magazine. Twenty years in Los Angeles and she still wouldn’t know where to buy their kind of clothes. Perhaps the stores are in the shopping malls Elvira is too intimidated to visit. Her children don’t have the same problem, spending all their money on movies and hot dogs and music that would frighten the devil, but they have never brought her back anything from their Saturday trips to the mall. She doesn’t mind really – the clothes don’t come in her shape anyway.

“I feel like I need to apologize for being born white,” says another participant, arrested for a moment in her consumption of a rice cake. She unscrews the cap of her metal canteen and gulps some water. “It’s not like I asked to be born with privilege and power.” Other participants nod in agreement. Elvira wants to say something, only she’s not sure what. It feels like she is holding onto some information that’s an important part of this discussion, but it takes too long for her to formulate the idea and by the time she’s practiced it in her head in English, the conversation has moved on.

“The thing is,” says the white woman sitting next to Moira, “just because you see the outside doesn’t mean you know my story. I may have been born with privilege, but I had a totally screwed up childhood.” The women around her and the trainer pull a sympathetic face. Elvira thinks about her childhood. Lots of noise, lots of laughter, but not a lot of time for her feelings on any matter, let alone her right to exist, to have an opinion. Some things don’t change. Except the laughter. These white people take themselves much too seriously.

“And when I try to get my child in the car seat,” sobs one of the participants, “I have to struggle with not getting angry and forcing her.” There is a suitably appalled silence. “I want so much to respect her needs and feelings, you know, her right to take up space, but it’s so HARD!”

As usual, the parent training has turned into someone’s private therapy session. Getting your kid into the car seat? Is that all you’ve got to be worried about, thinks Elvira. I wish I had your life.

(Photo by Gerard Castaneda)

Answering Back to Mama, Papa Church

2010-11-11T09:13:00.001-08:00

I recently joined a new church – quite a brave thing to do considering that most of my experiences of church have been unhappy ones.

But this church gets it! The pastor wants to reach out to the ‘unchurched.’ I figured I was doing him a favor by showing up and drinking his coffee and saving him the trouble of coming to find me. And if he wants the unchurched, then he must have realized that there are REASONS people stay away that go beyond doubt or wanting to live an evil life. Take Christian culture, for instance.

In Britain, I found myself a pawn in the Reformation battle. Yes, I know we were supposed to have sorted that out over five hundred years ago, but when I met a group of Christians at the age of 18 and wanted the kind of alive faith that they had, it made sense to go to their church, despite the fact I’d been raised Catholic. The Church of England couldn’t wait to dust off some ancient piece of liturgy and have me read out to the congregation that I “renounced the Church of Rome” – and then promptly forgot I existed.

Moving to America, I discovered that being a Christian was far more complicated than I had ever imagined, and far more American. Depending on which church I attended I was variously expected not to drink alcohol, to socialize around pot-lucks, to vote Republican, and to have a frilly cover for my Bible (for men this is optional).

Now there are very many good people who grew up this way and are perfectly at home in this culture. An anthropologist by nature, I attempted to immerse myself in the dominant culture, but every now and then I would trip up and use the wrong vocabulary. It was okay to say 'Jesus,' but ‘Lord’ was much more acceptable. (This is true in Britain too, where we actually have lords.) God forbid I should use expressions like ‘God forbid.’ And ‘covering’ was no longer tarpaulin, but the means by which a man could boss around a woman, or church leaders their congregation.

Which brings me to the next problem. If you consider it, the church is very patriarchal, in the sense of being a parent (I’ll leave the misogyny issues aside). Our parents are supposed to give us guidance and structure. If that were all the church did, we’d be okay. Unfortunately, many parents are actually much more interested in using various methods of control to get us ‘to behave.’ Sound familiar? Imagine if a parent acted like the church in dictating how their teenagers dressed, spoke and acted. And now imagine what kind of teenagers we would produce. Sullen, rebellious, insecure, afraid that their parent’s love was conditional and motivated only by the threat of the withdrawal of that love, rather than any real inner motivation to behave as their parents desired.

Which is pretty much my experience of the church. Conform. Do it our way. Why? Does there have to be a reason why other than I said so? All this kicked in as I sat in the membership class of my new church and was told that I would have to stand in front of the congregation and answer in the affirmative to three set questions. Not that I had any real issue with the information they were getting at, just that I would once more be forced to fit a Christian mold dictated by another person (or denomination) and respond to words that didn’t really describe how I felt in order to be considered a ‘good Christian.’

How did we get from this loving group of people who greet me with warmth and affection to an exclusive membership (in the sense I felt excluded)? And how did we get from Christ, who is our brother, and his body on earth (more brothers) to a controlling parent of a church?

I tried to explain to the pastor, who in a quite loving way said, “No problem! You don’t have to become a member.” But don’t you see that puts me once again on the outside? I’ll freely admit that my childhood contributes a lot to how I perceive all this, but what about all the other unchurched who were not brave enough to walk through your doors? Perhaps they have parent issues too. Or Christian culture issues. Or have just woken up to the fact that they don’t need to be parented and controlled, they just need some brotherly love.

The irony is that Jesus never said we would recognize his followers by their church membership card, but by their love. And despite the cookie-cutter style of the membership process, I have felt a lot of that at my church. But what a shame I will never get to share myself honestly and authentically with my brothers and sisters in Christ.

The Honest and Authentic Louise:

1. Do you profess before the congregation that Jesus Christ is your Lord and Savior.

Yes. Well, most of the time. Not the nights I wake up and wonder if I am in fact delusional and would have been better served seeking worldly success. Nor the times I try to explain the doctrine of salvation and realize that what I’m saying really does sound like I’m delusional. And I’m not sure I would put what I believe in that language anyway. It’s more like I believe in God and despite my distinct aversion, he keeps leading me back to Christianity and Christians, so I either have to conclude he’s a sadist, or this really is truth. I’d much rather be a Buddhist. I’d get a lot less flack from my non-Christian friends if I were a Buddhist. Don’t you hate belonging to a group that’s considered self-righteous, hypocritical, judgmental, and mentally unsophisticated - often rightly so? I do.

2) Do you renounce evil and affirm your reliance upon God’s grace to live as a follower of Christ.

To this I can say a hearty “yes!” Renounce evil. But wait, does that include whisky and if so, how much? Would one glass be okay or if, very rarely, I have a really bad week and I go to bed a little tipsy, is that evil? Do we have a common definition? Is it my evil or your evil that counts here? Because if it’s your evil, we might have a problem, depending on where the church stands. Where does our church stand? That’s never been made clear. We avoid questions around abortion and homosexuality, thankfully, preferring to be defined as a group of people who gather around Jesus and not by whom we exclude. Excellent! But how does this fit in to what I’m declaring ‘before the congregation?’ If I have qualms about singing to God that 'I will raise my Ebenezer' when I’m not even sure what that is, then I have a lot of qualms about renouncing evil when we’re not agreed what that is.

But God’s grace this is something I can agree on. All right. I’ll stand up in front of the congregation and say that I believe in Jesus - most of the time - and that I’m completely down with the God’s grace part.

3) Do you promise to serve Christ in the church by supporting and participating in its service to God and its ministry to others to the best of your ability?

Well that depends. If I have to stand in a circle outside Trader Joe’s singing choruses to the embarrassment of both us and the shoppers, or partake in street theater, or go up to people with a rose or a tract that says ‘Jesus loves you’ or ‘God has a wonderful plan for your life,’ then respectfully, no. I have a T-shirt in every color for that. In fact, I’m pretty burned out on service and ministry. But if you mean will I go up to someone in church who looks lonely or sad and give them a hug, I can do that. If you mean will I give someone a ride home, yes I can do that too. Maybe it shouldn’t read ‘to the best of your ability’ because Bible school, YWAM and various Christian ministries have ensured I am truly able, just not willing anymore.

Noreen's Birthday Lunch

2010-05-26T16:37:00.000-07:00

Glamour is in short supply in Noreen’s life. Her son had briefly been engaged to a French girl but after being brought up on Velveeta cheese he could already foresee problems in the marriage and called it off. Noreen and her husband took a Caribbean cruise when he retired, but he contracted food poisoning on the second day and had to be flown back home. She had kept the brochure and stuffed it guilty behind the sofa cushions if he ever came in while she was gazing at all the destinations and tours they had missed. It wasn’t his fault he was allergic to foreign food and the upsetting of routines. That was Howard, a man of routines.

But today is Noreen’s birthday. She did her research at the local AAA branch in Anaheim and came away with a purse stuffed with ideas that finally solidified around a restaurant in the upscale suburb of San Marino. It was an hour’s drive, but Howard had promised to take her anywhere she liked for lunch, except the Queen Mary because he still had bad associations with ships.

Following the hostess outside to the terrace, Noreen beamed with pleasure. It was just as she had imagined it – white tablecloths, elegant women, and wasn’t that the actress? The one in the commercial for… “Give me a minute and I’ll think of it,” she whispered conspiratorially over the table to Howard. “But she’s big. Chewing gum, I think.”

Howard feigned interest. He was hot and his polo shirt stuck to his back. He had been hoping Noreen would chose lunch at the beach when he’d offered – somewhere casual where he wouldn’t have to tuck in his shirt or wear polished shoes. However, he was a good husband and Noreen’s awed happiness couldn’t fail to affect him. Perhaps he would suggest a chocolaty dessert after lunch, knowing that she’d never order one if he didn’t pretend he was going to share it. Not that her weight watching was doing much good: The whole outing was nearly aborted when she discovered she couldn’t do up the waistband of her skirt. They were only saved because she found a black and pink two-piece she’d bought for the cruise. The large tropical print seemed a little over the top among the sedate diners, but Noreen always did have flair, he’d give her that.

At exactly the same moment, Noreen was also thinking about the tropical flowers, wondering if the famous actress had noticed her matching pink toenails. What a relief she hadn’t let the girl in the salon go for the orange. Famous actresses would probably pick up on details like clashing toenails – after all, it’s part of their job to look glamorous.

Noreen clasped her napkin more tightly in her lap. Isn’t this exactly what she’d dreamed of? Lunching with the jet set of San Marino? She was so happy that everything seemed to hum with her delight. The sprig of fresh mint in her ice tea, the crisp uniforms of the waiters, even her husband’s freshly shaven chin seemed to be reverberating with song. If I could only hold on to this moment, thought Noreen, stuff it in a glass jar and screw the lid on tight, then I would have somewhere to visit when the FedEx man passes my house and the neighbors pile suitcases into a taxi, something to inhale on days when the air conditioning whirrs and I feel like I’m in a terrapinium. But Noreen, despite her frequent flights of fantasy, is at heart a practical woman. She decided to steal a menu and frame it when she got back home. She couldn’t risk the famous actress seeing her steal one of the teaspoons.

Unreasonable Women

2010-03-21T17:56:00.000-07:00

Rupert believes himself beset by unreasonable women. The last one pummeled him with her fists, shocking his old-school sensibilities by requiring him to use force to defend himself. Then there was the former girlfriend he visited in Los Angeles who swooped and shrieked, her pashmina extended like a pair of black wings, until he was more than glad to pack her off in his chauffeur-driven car, back to the ghetto she claimed was bohemian but in his eyes was just grotty.

She called him, still furious. “You are attracted to romantics, girls who want to believe the best of people, because they are the only ones who could overlook your behavior. But eventually your manipulation and deviousness show through and they realize they haven’t found a savior, someone to protect them from cruelty and ugliness, but that you embody, make a skill even, of the very cynicism and selfishness they detest. That’s why they leave amid tears and recriminations.”
“Preposterous!”
“You see a hard-headed girl, someone who’s a little more skeptical would immediately see you for who you are and give you a very wide berth. Or maybe they’d be willing to make a deal with the devil, but they’d certainly never LOVE you!”
“I’ve obviously upset you.” This line works well for him. Moral high-ground in the sense of sounding willing to take the blame but actually just accentuating the distance between his high place of moral certitude and the groveling emotional display at hand.

Really, he can’t understand all the fuss. A bottle of vintage champagne had caused the misjudgment of informing her about the women he had been rogering while she was living with him. One of whom was now the mother of his illegitimate child.
“You didn’t use condoms!”
Clearly.
“You might want to play Russian roulette with your life, but you had no right to do that with mine!”
“I had to do something! You were refusing to sleep with me.”
She seemed to consider this, then grabbed her pashmina from the back of the chair and proceeded to prance around in what appeared to be a Red Indian war dance.

He chortled at the memory. Women! Totally unreasonable. It’s the hormones. Nutcases every last one of ‘em.

Neither House nor Home

2010-03-10T18:07:00.000-08:00

Bob doesn’t know how it happened. One day they were laughing down at the pub, the next screaming at each other. She got their daughter, he got their cat (but he, of course, pays for both of them.)

There hadn’t been much time to contemplate life, leaving college halfway through his degree to help his father with the house building company. “That’s what we are,” said his father, in his stout Nottingham accent, “Builders of houses – homes – not some swanky developer putting old ladies out on the street or buying up dockland to build yuppie penthouses. Nay, lad. Remember that we are house builders and you won’t go far wrong.” And then he died, leaving the business to his son, who would rather have continued with his English Lit. degree, but there you are. One moment you’re discussing the meaning of life in student digs, the next you are watching your mother dress a corpse in his favorite tie and walking down an allée of doffed hard hats.

Sybil, the cat, is a comfort to Bob. He can come home any hour he chooses, connected as he is to the office via Internet. Often he returns mid-afternoon, picking up Sybil and holding her close to his nose, the soft white fur tickling his nostrils and making him long for human hair, soft hands, a silk wrap…

He doesn’t know how it happened – the Bulgarian women. He misguidedly went on a site that offered, "Meet your ideal match," and instead met Eleonora, and Leila, and Mira, who insist on sending him virtual teddy bears and satin hearts on Facebook. Gemma now, she’s a bit of all right. Boobs like ripe summer fruit and legs up to her armpits, but he doesn’t know how that happened either – South African women posting pictures of themselves in jaunty sailor outfits or in scanty dresses. He supposes there are a billion women out there who consider a 46 year-old property developer (“House builder, lad, house builder”) a good catch. Never mind that he sometimes gets caught up in the mystery that we are the only animals that can contemplate our mortality, that biology has produced Shakespeare and tears and a propensity for sunsets…

He opens his laptop to find “Alexandrina has sent you a kinky gift.” The economy must have dropped another couple of points in Bulgaria. Naturally, a kinky gift warrants a second look, but Bob doesn’t really go for the plucked and oiled curves of pornography. It’s like looking at motorbikes – all sleek molded perfection but cold and hard underneath.

He doesn’t know how it happened, how he became the Master of Kittylitter and the object of affection for skinny Bulgarian women sitting in Soviet era apartments in sunglasses and jeans. “Have my own tool belt,” he types onto the website, wondering if he might snag an English girl if he baits his trap with irony.

A Lover of Beautiful but Unstable Women

2010-03-05T14:01:00.000-08:00

“Daddy, you’ve got an email.”
“Hunh?” Michael glances at his laptop, but Tilly has swiveled it to face her at the table.
“Who’s ‘LA Lou’?”
“Oh, just some work thing, probably.” Or one more desperate middle-aged woman, Michael thinks, inexpertly dislodging French toast from the frying pan. I don’t know why I let my friends talk me into it; it’s not as if I’m really in a position to start a new relationship, what with the filming schedule and Tilly at the weekends…
“It says she’s a TV drama en-enthus-iast and would love to meet you when she comes to London.”
“Tilly, don’t you know it’s rude to read other people’s mail?”
Tilly pouts. “I was just practicing my reading,” she says disingenuously. Michael wonders if this is a learned behavior or if her mother has bequeathed her with the dissembling and manipulation gene.
“Okay, eat your breakfast now or you’ll be late for school.”
“Daddy?”
“Yes.”
“Why does she think your glasses are sexy?”

#

“Michael!” The very gorgeous Hazel is leaning over his desk.
“Haze! Sorry, I was miles away.” Actually, with a Vietnamese girl he’d met at Bar Italia. He was buying his breakfast bagel when he’d seen her reflection in the mirror behind the counter dipping a finger into cappuccino foam and licking off the chocolate flecks. I can’t help it, thinks Michael, I am essentially a painter, “Very visual,” then realizes he’s spoken out loud. He jabs at the set designs spread before him. “Very, erm, visually interesting.”
Hazel looks at him quizzically and shifts one hip to perch on his desk. “I don’t think you’ve heard a single word I’ve said. What’s the matter? Is it Nadja? Is she being difficult about Tilly again?”
Nadja is Michael’s ex-wife. A beautiful but unstable actress. I am a lover of beautiful but unstable women, thinks Michael, noting the exquisite landscape of flesh down the back of Hazel’s jeans. God, a black lace thong. Too bad she’s much too together to be his type.
“Ahem! I’m not your type, Michael.”
He refocuses guiltily on her face. Is she a mind reader?
Smiling, she shakes her head. “You men are so predictable.”
“Sadly, we are at the mercy of our hormones. But I’ve sworn off women, remember?”
“What about that Chinese girl I saw you with this morning?”
“Vietnamese, actually. Nice girl. A dancer.”
Hazel raises both eyebrows. “What she do? Give you a card with her number and a discount on a lap dance?”
“How d’you know?”
“About the discount?”
“About what kind of dancer she was.”
“Because this is Soho, Michael! You really are a disaster when it comes to women.”
“I thought she looked vulnerable.”
“That’s the trouble with you – you romanticize women. You have to learn that we’re just the same as you only without, you know, that thing.” She gestures towards his crotch. He crosses his legs protectively. “What you need is to meet a nice woman, an equal. Someone who can be a real partner.”
Michael thinks about all the unanswered emails from nice women on the dating website. I’m just too much of a romantic, he thinks. There’s something so prosaic about hanging out your shingle and matching yourself to someone else’s religion, hobbies, retirement plans…
Especially as he never plans to retire.

#

The soccer match is on full blast, Michael sprawled on the couch in a dirty T-shirt and sweat pants that have seen better days. At first when the doorbell rings he doesn’t hear it, the shrill sound indistinguishable from the whistles and the roars of the football crowd. Now in a lull he hears the insistent buzzing and jumps up, spilling the packet of pretzels. Damn! Who can it be? He runs a hand through his hair which only succeeds in making it stand more on end. Pulling the drawstring tighter around his belly, he staggers to the door. A female shape stands behind the rippled glass.
“Good afternoon. I’m sorry to disturb you, but I’m with the South Downs Flora Defense Fund. I wonder if you will join us in the fight to protect native species by banning the planting of non-native flora,” she says, proffering a clipboard of soggy signatures.
She is young, perhaps late twenties, her long black hair weighted by the misting rain and sticking in strands to her face. Tiny drops of moisture bead her eyebrows, her eyelashes, her lips, and he has a sudden impulse to kiss them away. He checks out the long, rain-darkened legs of her jeans, which are stuffed into clumsy Eskimo boots. She’s staring up at him with a rapt expression.
“You’re Michael Bessinger, aren’t you? I was a film student at Brighton and Hove College before I left to work for SDFDF. You came to lecture us on TV drama?”
“Yes, come on in! You’re getting soaked,” he says, realizing now why he recognizes her. Another beautiful but unstable woman.

Must Have Own Canoe

2010-02-27T19:12:00.001-08:00

Peter shifts the newspaper off the small dining table. Right! No good putting off the evil hour. He opens the laptop, catching his reflection in the screen. Not bad, really, for fifty-seven. His wife had hated the cropped hair – said it made him look like a thug – but the woman had run off with a bloody property developer who dresses in open-neck shirts and loafers: So much for her taste!

He angles the computer screen to get rid of irritating reflections. Nothing really feels right in this flat. He keeps banging his head on kitchen cupboards and striking his elbow on the shower walls. But no use moping around. Better get down to business.

“Seeking woman not afraid to get her hair wet,” he writes. Clarissa never understood his wanderlust, was more the sort of hotel-with-a-beach kind of girl, whereas he wanted to trek the Himalayas. Nothing to stop him now! He types energetically, trying to put the image out of his head of Clarissa and her tanned Lothario sipping gin and tonics on a sun-baked terrace. After paying off a mortgage and putting the kids through uni Peter couldn’t compete with a villa in Ibiza and a thirty-foot yacht.

“Someone for the weekends – a ‘cupboard girlfriend’,” he writes, wondering if that looks odd. It’s what he said to his daughter Gemma when there was that unfortunate business with the married man. Clarissa was all for having a first grandchild but, “You can’t just put a child in the cupboard when you’re tired of it,” he warned Gemma. Turns out Nature knew best in that instance; not that Clarissa didn’t get her grandchildren eventually. He smiles remembering the holiday cottage in Cornwall, all three grandchildren jumping on their bed in the morning. He doesn’t realize it, but a tear is rolling down his cheek. How do you fit a girlfriend into that scenario? How do you repair a life torn down the middle? “Buck up, old chap!” he says aloud. Getting maudlin. Life’s an adventure, carpe diem!

Weekdays he doesn’t have much use for company. When he finally looks up from his accounting clients there’s usually only time to rush down to the little Thai place before they close and order something from the sweet-smiling waitress. Other chaps might ask her out, but Peter would say an English girl is more reliable. “Decent and loyal,” he types. Someone with blond hair called ‘Ginny’ or ‘Sarah,’ who reads the Guardian and knows how to fix a Pimm’s.

Trouble is, even with a weekend-only partner it’s going to be difficult bringing anyone back to the flat. The sitting room’s all right, furnished with a few odds and ends from the house, and Emily came to help her dad hang curtains, but the bedroom’s a bloody disaster. “I suppose he’s got his canoe in there with him,” Clarissa is reported to have said, which is a typical exaggeration but the limited space around the bed is jammed with a sleeping bag, rolled-up tent and two backpacks.

He uploads a picture of himself in a furry hat among a group of smiling Sherpas. That should give a girl the right idea. He hears his wife’s brittle laughter. “I could be better at expressing my emotions and saying what I am feeling,” he adds, in the interest of full disclosure; “Can worry about unimportant stuff.” Like the roses he’d tended for twenty-five years. Would the new owners of the house know to cut them back before winter? “Divorced eighteen months ago,” he finishes up. “Hurt very much at the time, but over it now.”

The Philosopher

2010-02-25T20:09:00.000-08:00

Milky light bathes the bookshelves. It is late afternoon and the French windows opening onto the garden are drafty with birdsong. The vapors of varnished floorboards have not yet been displaced by the plump sap of summer. Philip smoothes the page of a book, words hopping like fleas around his fingers. He should get up and close the windows, pour himself a Scotch, but the peace is too precious. Poets and philosophers circle him, waiting for him to surrender into their ashen arms but something tick, tick, ticks inside of him. Is it his wind-blown heart or is it the hope that standing on illustrious shoulders he will finally see over the wall of random living to enlightenment? He shivers and closes the book, wishing that tonight he could be a lover of women, not wisdom.

Lonely Heart

2010-02-23T19:55:00.000-08:00

Billy Braithwaite tucks his scarf into his coat. Bloody parky waiting for the bus on this street corner! The wind whips round the chip shop and carries with it the snow on the moors, salt ‘n vinegar crisp packets, a sniff of something curried.

He wouldn’t normally be going to the shopping centre in this weather if he could help it, but the website says it will ‘increase his chances’ of being selected. Billy finds it hard to imagine that his image will inspire passion. He thinks of blond secretaries in London or ‘fit bits’ who frequent the local pubs and can’t believe that his unruly hair and Yorkshire wind stippled complexion will inspire love, but he’s doing it for Her - the one who will see through the black and white photos of design consultants and the heavy spectacle frames of the arty types and rest on him, an honest man, “Because I'm a warm, caring sensitive soul who will give everything to the right person.” He worked hard on that line. Surely she will see. He is willing to give his everything. No games. Surely that means something.

Life is not a dress rehearsal, he mutters, once he positions himself in the photo booth. Momentarily, he wonders if he should undo his scarf. No, he thinks, leave it as it is. This is no rehearsal, this is the take.

(Photo used with permission www.photo-zen.com)

The Rise and Fall of a Radical Christian

2010-02-07T15:29:00.000-08:00

By anyone’s standards I am certifiably insane. I sold my apartment and when my consulting projects dried up, lived off the proceeds, waiting for my agent to sell my book. It’s not ignoring the ‘Don’t give up your day job’ part that makes me fear for my sanity, or even the misbegotten hope that I could sell a book in today’s ‘crowded market,’ but that it signaled another period in my life where I became the radical follower of a radical God… and seemingly destroyed myself in the process.

The first time this happened, I gave up my worldly belongings, my job in a management consultancy firm and went off to become a missionary in Spain. Two years later, I had made about two ton of marmalade from lemons donated by local nuns, watched the clothes we were supposed to distribute to the poor pile up to the ceiling, and had been accused of harboring an evil spirit because I had dared to ask a simple question: “Shouldn’t we be doing something?” Apparently not, because I was sent home with a flea in my ear and very little to show for my sacrifices. My church leaders, who had never liked the idea of tithing people to missions in the first place, had only one thing to say: “Told you so.”

It took me several years searching through the world and its riches (in case I had been mistaken and that’s where happiness really lay) before I was ready to try radical faith again. “Why not just ordinary faith?” you ask. “Why not church on Sunday and the occasional good deed?” Why indeed, but I am a person of conviction. If you tell me people are going to hell without Jesus, I’ll become a missionary. If you tell me that what pleases God is feeding the hungry and giving shelter to the homeless, well then, I’ll volunteer at a homeless shelter on Skid Row. Which I did. I gave up my job in the movie industry (recognize a pattern here?) and took a pay cut to train as an HIV counselor. This time I can point to lives that I touched – the homeless and rehab program men with whom I prayed, the Latino population who finally had someone in the medical department who spoke their language. By the time I met Francisco, I was radically invested in the lives of these men and radically attracted to someone who had beaten heroin addiction to become the darling of the Mission, loved by staff and program men alike. He was going to be sent to Mexico to head up a ministry there and I wanted nothing more than to go with him. So we got married. Six weeks later, I discovered he was radically addicted to heroin once more.

The Mission disowned us, my parents were hysterical, my film world friends had long since dropped away. A friend from missionary days invited us to stay with her in Arizona to “get Francisco away from his connections.” (You see how little we understood about heroin addiction and the likelihood of such a plan succeeding.) By now pregnant, I had once again lost all my worldly possessions and, after I began the task of raising a child on my own, all taste for radical faith.

Eighteen months ago, I was finishing my book about my marriage and my subsequent descent into hell when I grew wistful for the days when I really did believe God had ‘a future and a hope’ for me. Right on cue, my Arizona friend called excited about a new move of God’s Spirit. “It’s revival!” she said and that is exactly what my soul needed – to believe again in a powerful God who could use me to bring his love and purpose to people’s lives, not least my own.

I should have known better than to take the radical route again, but true to form, I withdrew my book from the agent, believing that the behavior of some of the Christians in my story would only reinforce the cynicism people feel towards the Church. So, having sold my apartment, here I was with time and money and, when I woke each morning, a delicious anticipation of the divine assignments I would receive that day. I volunteered with a team doing outreach to transsexual prostitutes and quickly saw the flaws in the organization – but not before I had donated a large sum of money. I threw myself into the events at a mega church (bible studies, prayer meetings, small group leadership training), tithed an even larger sum of money – and received impersonal mail asking for more. I eagerly supported volunteers and graduates from the church-run rehab center by taking them out for lunch and on shopping trips, covering a late car payment… and got burned every time. I started a bible study in my home for the local trasher and her seven children, but the kids grew bored with coloring Sunday School pictures and the mother was too exhausted from dumpster diving every night.

Undeterred, I prayed, I fasted, I read my bible sometimes for six hours at a time; I even tried to learn the ancient Hebrew alphabet! Once I prayed in tongues for three hours straight, hoping for a breakthrough. (I was still trying to write an ‘uplifting’ book at this point.) Everywhere I went, I talked about God and prayed with people.

Several months later, despite having deleted every copy of my book and thrown away the notes (because this is how radical and insane people behave), God graciously hit the override button on my misplaced zealousness and miraculously unearthed a copy of the manuscript. Restored to my purpose, I began to revise my book. Meanwhile, I continued my daily prayer walk around the neighborhood. One day, a little woman popped her head over a fence and told me a sorry tale of poverty, abuse, abandonment... Irresistible to a radical co-dependent like me! I spent the next four months helping her out of the hole she had dug for herself, not realizing that the life she hated was the consequence of serious delusion - a princess complex - so taking her out to lunch to ‘cheer her up,’ buying treats for her children, introducing her to my (new) church of wine-drinking bohemians, did nothing but confirm that this was the life she was entitled to, and I was the agent of God who had made it all possible. Which worked well in the sense that she agreed readily to being baptized, not so well when I blew up one day, finding that even the most radical enablers can finally run out of patience.

That’s it! That’s all I have to show for eighteen months of radical obedience – a book my agent, dispirited by the contracted market, doesn't even attempt to sell; empty coffers I had believed God would refill if I were faithful (radically so) in tithing; a few people who may or may not have been better off before I tried to help them; and, watching my neighbor at church drinking her wine and hugging the people I had only just begun to know, the sense that I am the villain, the Bad Christian, for harboring the same kind of resentment you feel as a teenager when your kid sister shows up to a cool party and ruins everything!

In this mood of ‘life is sucky, Christian life is suckier still,’ I went yesterday to pick up some groceries from the Armenian store. As I was placing the items on the checkout desk, an old woman barged in front of me. The streaks of orange dye in her thin white hair reminded me of my grandmother, long dead. She was wearing a shabby cardigan over a cotton dress that revealed a few inches of lumpy, grey leg warmers. A small girl pulled on her, displaced from the beat-up stroller by a large loaf of bread. They appeared to be discussing the bananas the little girl was trying to put on the counter but in a language I didn’t recognize. It wasn’t Armenian because the checkout girl was unable to communicate her protest when the old lady suddenly upended her purse, cascading pennies onto the black conveyor belt.

I sighed and raised my eyebrows at the two men waiting behind me. The young checkout girl was valiantly attempting to count all the coins, but this was going to take a while. A woman in hunter-green cashmere and a gold necklace swooped down out of nowhere.

“No, you can’t pay with this. You have to go to a bank.” She thrust a Tupperware bowl at the checkout girl and motioned her to scoop up the pennies.
“Is money!” said the old lady, her sunken face confused and defiant.
“No! You have to take it to a bank,” repeated the Armenian owner, indicating the bowl of pennies the checkout girl held between them. The old lady made no move to take it, her lips working over toothless gums.

All through this encounter I had become aware of the song playing in the background. “…You raise me up, so I can stand on mountains...” Wasn’t that a song I’d heard at church? Or was it more New Age inspirational?
“You raise me up, to walk on stormy seas…” Oh, surely not! Despite the misgiving that I had suddenly found myself in the middle of a cheesy movie, the ceiling rose, the walls expanded, my ears began to ring, and I knew what I had to do.
“How much is her bill? Perhaps I can pay it for her?”
The checkout girl’s eyes opened wide with surprise. Understanding the significance of the proffered notes, the old lady grabbed my hand and kissed it effusively, making me turn a lovely shade of pink. I patted her shoulder awkwardly.
“…You raise me up to be more than I can be.”
The checkout girl was now trying to foist the pennies on me.
“No, thanks! I’ve got to go. Let her keep the change.”

“…But when you come and I am filled with wonder
Sometimes, I think I glimpse eternity.”

Averting my eyes from the little scene behind me I raced for the door, in a hurry to get to my car so I could let loose the long, shuddery sobs inside of me. He knows. He thinks it’s sucky too, all those people who’ve let me down. Radically faithful or full of doubt, he doesn’t care because he’s never stopped having faith in me.

Letter to my son

2010-01-31T14:29:00.000-08:00

“Some parents and their children bond over museum visits or sporting events. We bond over wringing out hand washing,” I joked. “Such is our life.”
“The life you put me in!” you said, with an undercurrent of accusation.

“At least you’ve got one!” I said to your retreating figure. But what could you understand of that?

I have always known how hard it would be, raising you alone. I was under no illusions. No teenage girl hoping for someone to love her. No broody, nearly-out-of-eggs career woman dreaming of stenciled nursery walls and cradling a warm, talc-scented head. I knew it would be a struggle and one that you would probably never understand and certainly never thank me for. But I did it anyway, I gave you life because you already existed and it wasn’t my job to contradict what was so evidently and powerfully a force beyond my control.

I’m sorry you don’t have the things your friends do, that you are ashamed to invite them over because your mother sleeps on the sofa and dries clothes by hanging them from the furniture.

The fact is you have so much. You just don’t know it yet. And one day you’ll be proud of me, I hope, that I’ve made it this far when so many times everything inside of me has wanted to give up, fold in, fade out. I hope you’ll never get to feel my loneliness, anxiety, the guilt that I can’t do better for you. I’ve tried my best, and when you’re a parent you’ll know that’s all you can ever do – get out of bed, try your best and hope that you, my child, will do better. But know that no one, no one, no matter how successful at this business called life, could ever have loved you more.

The Honorary Jew

2010-01-21T15:43:00.000-08:00

“Goldberg? Ms. Goldberg?”
“Er, my name’s Godbold. Are you calling me?”
“Right this way, Ms. Goldberg. Now if you’d just take a seat I’ll pull up your medical record.”
“God-bold. My name’s Godbold.”
“Now let me see, Goldstein, Goldsmith, we don’t have a 'Goldberg, Louise.'”
“That’s because my name isn’t Goldberg.”
“I’m sorry, I just glanced at it briefly. Let’s see, Goldbold.”
“Actually, it’s God, Godbold.” I attempt a smile, “Can’t confuse God with gold,” (at least, not if you’ve been listening to the series on idolatry at my church.)
“Uh-huh.” She doesn’t look convinced. Perhaps she’s set up an altar to a golden calf in the staff lounge.
“The name means, ‘good and brave.’”
“Oh, you’ve done that genial-ology thing?”
“Er, no.”
“Your family told you?” she asks suspiciously, perhaps thinking they’d got it wrong and it was Goldberg all along.
“Yes. My family has lived in Britain since about the year five hundred.”
“Ah, they went through the Holocaust and all that?”
“No, we’re Anglo-Saxon!”
“Oh, sorry, I thought you said you were Jewish. So, Ms. Goldbold, what is the reason for your visit today?”
“Regular check up.”
“Okay.” She types something into the computer. “And what is your first language?”

Bad Platitude (with apologies to Rupert Brooke)

2010-01-18T17:49:00.000-08:00

“Idols can be many things, in fact, anything we put before God. I’m not talking carved wooden statues here, but a spouse, a career…”
“Addictions,” suggests some bright spark.
“Yes, addictions.”
“Like smoking?” asks Ohio Dave, knowing our speaker tonight has struggled and failed with giving up. There is a murmur around the room. It’s good-natured ribbing, but with a barb. Is Ohio Dave going alpha male on us?

I lean further back on the sofa and gaze at the fairy lights wrapped around the gantries. Safe in the magic of my woods I lay and watched the dying light… We are in a rehearsal space, a fitting venue for this bunch of disenfranchised bohemians who don’t exactly like church, but can’t seem to entirely escape the imperative to meet with other Christians either. At least, that was the crowd until a gaggle of putty-faced theological students arrived. How do I know they’re theological students? Well, first they wear earnest expressions and second they look really stupid trying to play the drums. I do too, but I have the good sense to leave the bongos to those with rhythm.

“You see, idols can’t give you real comfort, or validation, love, whatever it is you’re looking for.”
(“No-oh,” I imagine the group sing-songing their agreement.)
“These things can only be found in God,” continues our speaker.
(“Ye-es,” I hear the group chorusing, like a bunch of kindergarten kids, but wait! Someone is actually going to state the obvious.)
“Yeah, and like, when you’ve got all those things, it’s like, ‘Now what?’” says a guy grinning and shaking his head at the idea that anyone could expect to find fulfillment except in God.

My hand shoots up, but the speaker is droning on about God’s sufficiency. Finally he can no longer ignore the arm stuck in the air.
“But what about when he isn’t?!” I say, sitting up straight so everyone can hear me. “What about when God isn’t sufficient?” My mouth starts to wobble. Oh no! Too much red wine. My indignation is spilling over into tears.

I remain upright at the edge of the sofa, waiting for the tide of words coming out of the speaker’s mouth to run up against some beachhead I recognize. It takes me a good five minutes, but I realize he’s talking about suffering. He takes a comment. Then another. They’re all talking about suffering and how we don’t understand it and, ho, aren’t we glad we didn’t always get the things we prayed for, and sometimes depression can lead to secondary depression because we blame ourselves about being depressed (is he talking about me?) and the rest I lose because it’s either not relevant or just the same clap-trap, trap-clap, quacking platitudes.

I take a swig of wine and collapse back against the sofa, the blue pin-pricks of light blurring and swimming overhead. And I knew that this was the hour of knowing, and I should find soon in the silence the hidden key of all that had hurt and puzzled me…

The speaker is annoyed. I’ve derailed his agenda and it’s time to wrap up. Someone taps me on the shoulder. Ohio Dave.
“He should have stopped and prayed,” he says, retrospectively directing events. “I understand how you feel because I hurt in that way too. I’m going to pray for you.” Before I can realize this doesn’t mean later – at his house, a safe distance from me – a hand is clamped on my forehead. Fortunately, his prayer is short, but when I look up a woman is hovering in front of me.

“I wanted to share a vision I had. I think it’s for you. Well, it was for me, but I think it’s for you too.” She settles in to describe walking through a fiery furnace and Jesus waiting on one side (because he’s coming to the east gate of the Temple, she tells me, as if that explains everything). The noise of a fool in mock distress, crashing and laughing and blindly going, of ignorant feet and a swishing dress, and a Voice profaning the solitudes...

“But we’re going to Glory, such glory!” she concludes. “It doesn’t matter what happens in this life.” Oh God, she thinks this is about suffering too. Didn’t anyone hear me? Oh no, of course they didn’t – I wasn’t given a chance to speak.

My new neighbor is as skeptical as I about whether ‘pie in the sky when you die' is really of any comfort.
“God’s a bastard,” he confides, and then tells me the story of a friend dying of cancer.

“Okay, thank you,” I say, jumping up. “No more counseling, no more praying!” I watch them draw together in concern as I walk to another group. Oh, for goodness' sake! Now I’m going to be known as The One With Emotional Problems. Emotional, yes, but I blame that on the red wine. And secondary depression, of course.

The speaker drifts in our direction, not sure of what to say to me. “Ah, here’s the man with all the answers,” I say, sardonically. Unsurprisingly, he abandons the attempt at conversation and instead annexes the friend who brought me tonight.

“I don’t buy all this ‘You haven’t been in my shoes, so you can’t understand,’” I hear him protesting. Your flat clear voice beside me mouthed cheerful clear flat platitudes… My friend rolls her eyes in my direction, a signal to go.

“It wasn’t about suffering!” I shout into the night air as we hurry down the dripping sidewalk to her car.

You came and quacked beside me in the wood.
You said, "The view from here is very good!"
You said, "It's nice to be alone a bit!"
And, "How the days are drawing out!" you said.
You said, "The sunset's pretty, isn't it?"
* * * * *
By God! I wish…I wish that you were dead!

You're a Long Time Dead

2009-12-30T13:59:00.000-08:00

The telephone rang while she was brushing her teeth. Let it go to message, she thought, seeing ‘Anonymous’ come up on the screen. These annoying people who don’t let you screen your calls.

“… So I was wondering if you’re free for coffee,” she heard over the electric toothbrush.
Gil! I was just thinking about you!

What she had actually been thinking as the toothbrush pounded her gums was that he would be the person she would call for on her deathbed, this loyalest and dearest of friends. Of course, his wife wouldn’t allow her anywhere near should the situation be reversed. Sometimes she wondered what he had told his wife. “A comet streaking through the sky,” was how he’d once described her and a couple of other women whom he had known and lost.

She spat and rinsed and considered what her response should be. There were errands to run and work to do, but that deathbed scene was still in her mind. Incautiously, she picked up the phone and hit ‘last call.’

“So where should we meet?” he asked.
Mentally she went through the options: Café Figaro, but that was too far west, and anyway the coffee was too weak. Fix, but there the coffee was too strong.
“The only place with good coffee is Trader Joe’s,” she pouted. “But then we’d have to stand and make nice with the samples lady.”
He laughed on the other end of the line. Not only was he unfailingly loyal, but he laughed at her jokes too. An idea formed in her mind. She knew he loved adventure and relied on her to come up with the unexpected.
“What time do you need to be back?”
“Oh, two.”
That was four hours from now. Adventure it was!

Drawing up to the gates at The Huntington Library she held her breath and then exhaled in relief to see that it was open before noon. Not that it mattered really; the streets in this part of town were more lush than the regular city blocks and theirs was not a friendship that needed more than sharing a view of leaves through a windshield to be happy.

At the ticket booth she whipped out cash and paid for both of them. It was her idea, so it would be her treat. It was an extravagant gesture seeing as he was a successful lawyer and she an unemployed writer, but it was part of their code – to act like equals. Sure, she let him open a door for her, but then she would open one in return. He knew enough to let her.

“Everyone likes the cactus garden, but I like these winding, secret trails,” she said, darting off under the trees. “Look, look!” she cried excitedly, spotting the camellias beside the path. A shocking pink and a subtle, blushing egg-custard. It was too early for the camellias to be in full bloom, but on a December day they seemed the very generosity of God.

The trail led them into the Zen garden, where milling visitors gazed at neatly raked designs in the grey stones. It was as barren and cold as Brighton beach.
“That’s next for me in my spiritual journey,” he announced. “Meditation.”
“I can’t see the point of emptying your mind. I’d rather it be filled with color, like those camellias.”
“Yes, but you’re not supposed to have all those thoughts and colors charging around. Meditation is a way of achieving peace, slowing things down.”
She was doubtful. Peace was the luxury to savor thoughts, not to obliterate them. “You know, all that yoga and meditation and stuff. It started out as a way for old Hindu men to deal with their mortality. They believed you only had a certain number of breaths and so by restricting them you would live longer!”
“I believe that too.”
“I believe in an allotted span, but not that if I hold my breath I’ll somehow stop the clock! You’re a long time dead. I want to live as fully as I can while I’m still here!”

Their circuit had brought them to the cactus garden.
“You wanted to know why I can’t join Facebook,” he said. “My wife is on it and she would see all my friends – she’d be very threatened by you.”
Being cast as a femme fatale was actually quite flattering until he added, “We even argued about me staying in touch with Sue and Tiffany.”
Sue was in her sixties and probably grey-haired by now. Tiffany was fifteen and Gil’s goddaughter.

They sat down on a bench facing a slope dotted with the brilliant vermillion of Red Hot Pokers – an impressionist masterpiece in ridged and feathered oils.
“But why is she so jealous? I know some men can’t be trusted, but you would never betray your wife.”
“Ah, you see that’s because we’re not normal. Most people would think that you and I, like this (he motions to the companionable gap between their shoulders), is not normal. They’d attribute something else to it.”
She pondered this looking up at the branches overhanging the bench. Dark fronds like ungroomed whale’s teeth against the blue, blue sky. She was suddenly very sad.

“It’s funny,” she thought, “There are some moments that could tip from extreme sadness to extreme happiness.” She willed the moment to tip but it was suspended like the excruciating pause, the chronic hesitation, before the free-fall of orgasm.

“We really only have today,” she said, thinking again of the deathbed and glad that they were building memories before the regrets of a last parting. She saw that scene so clearly in her head. She wondered what is love when you already fear its loss? She wondered what other people would attribute to it.

© Copyright 2009 Louise Godbold

Bitch-slapping my way to hell

2009-12-28T13:05:00.000-08:00

“So I wasted my time taking you to that interview at Safeway’s because you weren’t serious about getting a job!”

I throw my bag in the back of the car, irritation overwhelming me like primeval slime, sucking me back to an older, primitive self.

“What do you mean not serious?” she says from the front seat.
“You never went back on Wednesday like they said.” I put the keys in the ignition and turn to her. “What, do I have to take you everywhere?”
“That’s not fair! Anyway, you said you wanted to come; that you wanted to check it out for yourself.”

It’s true, I gritted my teeth to explore the world of ‘front end management’ and ‘courtesy clerks’ just as my mother had when my father was ‘farting around’ trying to get a movie made. Grim bravado in the face of Fate and lack of funds, and not a little interest in martyrdom.

“You can’t pay fifty-five dollars to get your phone fixed,” (she had said with an air of tragedy that things were “a little tight”) “but you won’t go out and get a job!”
“You have no idea what my life is like. You make judgments but you have no idea!
“So tell me then. What is your life like?”

At this moment there’s very little that I have not heard about her life, her crazy husband, her uncooperative kids, the child services court case that I had importuned a lawyer friend of mine to take on for free, growing up with a schizophrenic mother, her snake-like siblings… I have heard it all, over and over, in these last few months.

“I don’t have to defend myself to you! Why should I have to explain things to you?”
“Because I care about you, because I want to understand, and because I don’t want things to blow up in your face – but they will if you don’t go out and get a fucking job!”

So much for Christian love. In the summer I willingly slipped my shoulder under this load, believing that God had a purpose for her life and convincing her of that too. Or did I? Did I convince her? I’m not even sure why she’s coming to church with me this evening. Is it just the red wine and bohemians associating her with a life she always believed could be hers – a belief she still clings to in her thrift store glamour and riding in my car?

“I’m very busy; you have no idea how busy my life is.”
Oh yeah, I think, sweeping the yard and moving the piles of junk from one place to another. But oops! I’ve actually said it.

“You’re so judgmental! I don’t have to explain myself to you. I feel like I’m under interrogation.”
“That’s a circular argument. You can’t give me any good reasons, can you? How do you expect people to help you when you won’t do anything for yourself?” I think of my friend giving up paying clients, the temptation that had briefly, wearily floated across my mind to pay the cost of getting her phone fixed.

“Well, don’t help me! I never asked you to.” She slams the door and walks towards the warehouse building that is our church. I get out, arrange my scarf and as she shouts something at me, get back in the car and lock the door. I drive away aware that I’ve handled this all wrong, that I gave in to my anger and frustration and that I’m about the worst Christian on the planet. To confirm that, I’m going home to drink neat whisky. She can find another chauffeur tonight.

© Copyright 2009 Louise Godbold

The Practice of Knowing Nothing

2009-12-24T13:23:00.000-08:00

This is where it all started, one of those ‘portals’ my friend keeps talking about – places where heaven invades earth. She now keeps company with a hundred foot angel and is regularly transported into God’s throne room when not engaged in astral travel to the Kalahari Desert. She calls it ‘normal’ Christian behavior. “But I don’t see angels,” I tell her, wondering if I belong to a lesser class of Christian.
“You will,” she consoles me.

I’ve driven on Bonnie Brae many times, noticing the handshake exchange of drugs, the shuffling people waiting on corners, but I’ve never come this far down and if I had, I’m sure I wouldn’t have picked out the whitewashed bungalow with a porch and sloping roof from the other small houses.

Our guide arrives in a Toyota Corolla and parks across the street. She is a small Filipina with wiry hair and a square nose. Mama Rice heaves herself out of my passenger seat, leaning heavily on the car door. She is dressed for this expedition in full African garb, including a colorful scarf knotted on her head. I am all in white. My friend (the one with the angel) recommends it, along with fasting. The way I spill food, the combination of the two is probably good advice.

“I’ll just open the door and let you in. Would you mind if I left you alone for a while? I have an errand to run,” says our guide.
Mind? Left alone in the house where the Pentecostal movement began, where the Holy Spirit came down just as in the days of the apostles? Mama Rice and I can’t believe our luck.

We climb the concrete stairs to the small porch - the original one collapsed under the weight of the crowd when William J. Seymour preached to the people gathered in the street below. That was a hundred years ago. Now I only see a few Latino kids playing behind the high metal fence in the yard opposite.

Inside, I immediately feel at home among the small proportions and glowing wooden floor. My British sensibilities relax around history, as if they’ve finally found somewhere to earth themselves in this city of shiny surfaces and beauty that only goes skin-deep. William Seymour’s bible sits in a niche, propped open at the book of Acts. On the wall hangs the monochrome image of a bearded and serious-looking African American in a suit. Mama Rice looks over my shoulder and then at the neighboring picture of Seymour’s wife. When the Holy Spirit finally fell on the small group of believers who’d been praying for revival, Jenny Seymour sprang up and played the piano, even though she’d never taken a lesson in her life. The celebrating and singing spilled over into the street, the believers praying in their new ‘tongues’ – the ‘language of angels.’

Our guide has gone. I run my hand over the small upright piano trying to breath in its memories, then pace around the small sitting room, hoping that the sacredness will seep up from the floor and into my shoes. Mama Rice has started to pray, uttering loud guttural sounds that rise into a rebuke, and stamps her feet on the polished floor. I almost expect to see a tongue of flame on her head, but instead through the open door see the Rehab Center perfectly framed by the porch.

“Come here, Mama Rice!” Her ululations grow even louder as she stands behind me and sees the place where she has been volunteering for the past two years. Recovering drug addicts and the homeless flock to her GED classes where she instills the missing ingredient in their life: hope. It would seem that God is making a connection here, one that is not making a lot of sense to me because Mama Rice and I have wept over some of the things that happen at the Rehab Center – despotic administrators, sexual harassment, the usual mix of phonies and hypocrites who creep into every Christian institution and give it a bad name.

Exhausted by her exertions, Mama Rice has collapsed into a wooden chair. I come over and sit at her feet, laying my head in her lap. “I feel I should apologize to you, repent on behalf of the white people who shut William Seymour’s ministry down.” The first integrated church was bound to attract criticism, although people who lived through the revival don’t blame racism for its downfall, but the fact that William Seymour abandoned his practice of waiting on God with a box over his head. Does that sound silly to you? God uses the things that are foolish to confound the wise. Good thing I remembered that, because just as I am kneeling at Mama Rice’s feet, tears streaming down my face repenting on behalf of white people, two more visitors walk in, followed by our guide.

The tour of the house is brief – just a kitchen, two small bedrooms and a parlor, all empty of furniture. Finding ourselves back in the sitting room, our guide tells us how the house is made available to church groups on Friday nights for all-night prayer meetings. Once she was sent for in the middle of the night because fire trucks had been called to the house; the neighbors reported seeing flames coming from the roof. Of course, there was no fire. She tells us of a miraculous healing that happened right here when she was praying with a group of tourists. I tingle with anticipation, ready for anything, but when we conclude our visit with prayer there are no fiery tongues, no angels, not even an orb of light or a stray feather floating down.

I call my friend. She’s just been to a conference to see someone who oozes anointing oil when he preaches. From his feet. Seems like God has gone into show business. The Holy Spirit is supposed to lead us into all truth. Must be that I haven’t received this new, ‘second anointing’ because I don’t know what to believe anymore.

#

I am invited to give a book reading in Phoenix by my friend, our lady of the angels. She’s gone all Catholic on me. Not that I have anything against Catholics, I was raised one after all, but for a Southern Baptist to be talking about St. Joan of Arc and her spirit guides with reverence is a bit of a departure. In the morning, my friend comes into my room wearing walking shoes. “You want to go to Hummingbird Hill?”

Of course I do! This is where she saw the angels with construction hats and then there was some kind of Tolkien Last Days battle between angels and demons and it gets a bit mixed up in my head after that, but sure! I’m game.

We walk to one of the outcrops of rock that spring up out of the Arizona desert like giant monopoly pieces. She seats me on the ‘throne’ – a broken rock that resembles a seat. From here, she and the ‘prophet’ saw Jesus coming on a wagon. (Actually, that was a bit of linguistic confusion because the prophet is German and she was saying ‘Wagen’ when she meant ‘chariot.’) We are silent for some time. “Do you see the angel?” my friend asks softly. I squint my eyes at the opposite hill, but see only bare ground and a Wal-Mart at three o’clock.
“What’s its name?” I ask, having learned this much from the revival crew. Todd Bentley had an angel called Emma. She would go off and get him money. Nice! Except that this sounds, well, like God’s retired and everything’s being run by the angels.
“‘Acceptance.’” Then her voice goes all deep: “Do not analyze, do not question, just accept the things I am going to show you this day.” Her voice returns to normal. “Thank you, Jesus.” By this I know it is a ‘word’ for me from God.
“Was the angel lying sideways, with long wings?” I ask, picturing the angels you see on Christmas cards.
“Yes! Yes, you saw the angel! Woo-hoo! Praise you Jesus!”
I’m not entirely convinced, but I’m not willing to give up my first angel sighting if there’s half a chance I am finally seeing into the supernatural realm.

#

This evening, we are visiting the German prophet and her partner. Apparently, the German prophet detected a need for emotional healing because at the book reading yesterday I teared up remembering the person God created my husband to be, the person he was before he started the trail of self-destruction that ended our marriage… fifteen years ago. Having written and rewritten a memoir about it, I’m feeling pretty purged of any lurking emotional hurts, but it’s hard to argue with a prophet, particularly when she talks like an SS officers in an old war movie.

Seated in the all-white living room of the prophet, I am beginning to feel a little uncomfortable. All eyes are on me.
“Your desires are not God’s desires,” rumbles the prophet’s partner in a deep baritone. His dark eyes lour at me from under bushy eyebrows. He’s a banker from Houston and reminds me of my uncle. But I think my uncle’s nicer.
“God says that you must not look back!” comes the German prophet’s clipped voice. (Ve haf vays of making you speak!) But I’m a memoirist, how am I supposed to give readings and write more books if I am not to look back? “You haf to give up your husband,” (I thought I did when I divorced him thirteen years ago) “… Ah, yes,” she continues, “I am seeing it now: God says you haf to move out of your neighborhood to be healed.”

My neighborhood? Where I have prayed faithfully for the people in my street, even started helping one lady whose husband ran out on her. She saw my faith in God and wanted it for herself. She comes to my church now. But even if there weren’t the evidence of God at work, I love my neighborhood – the mixture of bohemian and barrio. It’s perfect. Where else could I live?

I start to cry. “Look, God,” I say, deciding to go straight to the source. “I give you back my book – again – and my husband,” (I let out a little sob, all this ‘husband’ business is reminding me that I don’t actually have one, haven’t for a long time), “…because he sure isn’t any use to me!”

The prophet springs out of her chair. “Yes, God, do your healing work,” she croons as she puts her arm around me. I wait for more tears, but the little sob was all I could produce. I’m in danger of becoming a grave disappointment.

When they realize that it’s all over, I excuse myself and go splash cold water on my face in the white tiled bathroom. I sink down onto the white mat and stare randomly at the white scales. I am feeling all the old anger and rebellion that got me thrown out of the missionary society… and the Skid Row mission… and one or two churches. The anger is against the feeling of being manipulated and forced to believe an Alice in Wonderland scenario where God, the being I know as God, is stuffed into a teapot and poured out by the Mad Hatter.

#

“I don’t know, Lou-Lou,” says my British friend, “I’m not one to say because I’ve got a fag in one hand and a drink in the other, but I think if God’s telling you anything it’s “Don’t follow people.”” Her voice – husky and slightly slurred – confirms the picture she paints at the other end of the telephone. But when Jesus ate with Republicans and sinners, er, publicans and sinners, I doubt all of them were entirely sober as they listened to the man who called himself the Son of God.

“I just don’t know what to believe anymore,” I wail. “All those things we took on because they sounded spiritual, covenants and fasts, formulas for prayer… and the stories of God moving supernaturally, raising people from the dead – I don’t know what’s true and isn’t!” I go back to the Bonnie Brae house and my repentance on the part of white people. Was that just hocus-pocus too?

“Look, Lou, you’re worried sick about your friend and the whacky things going on in the church,” she says, drawing on her cigarette, “But it’s not your responsibility. God can handle it. He knows what he’s doing.”

Maybe she’s right; it’s not my responsibility to figure it all out. Maybe God keeps pulling me up short and allowing me to see the inadequacy of my understanding so that I don’t put my trust in formulas, movements, man… Maybe he allows the church to be flawed, deluded even, so that I have to keep coming back to him. He shatters my religion and replaces it with live, real-time relationship with the eternal and unfathomable I AM. And the humbling recognition that I understand nothing.

© Copyright 2009 Louise Godbold

The Sleep Consultant

2009-12-07T11:17:00.001-08:00

“I’m looking for a twin bed,” I say, hesitating in the doorway, “… for my son,” I add, not wanting to signal ‘Given Up On Relationships’ (which my flat shoes and lack of make-up probably already have).

Before me stretch acres of showroom, empty except for the salesman who is bounding towards me in a lurid tie. I must be the only person who makes big-ticket purchases three days before Black Friday – but my error doesn’t hit me until later.

“We have these three models,” he gestures to the beds immediately in front of me, “and then there’s our own brand,” he says, pointing to a Papa, Mama and Baby Bear set up. He notes the look of confusion on my face that is introduced every time I have to make purchasing decisions. I hate shopping. I hate even more the decision-making process, which will ultimately result in a sleepless night wondering if I made the right choice. “Why don’t you try them?” he hints, like a kindergarten teacher giving gentle cues. I tentatively sit on the first bed. “No, you can’t test a bed that way,” he says, sounding a mite less patient but still smiling, “You have to lie down.”

Now I know that extras in Sit ‘n Sleep commercials do it all the time, the woman lying down in her high-heels and matching purse and the husband turning towards her, smiling and nodding as if it’s the most natural thing in the world to be replicating your moments of greatest privacy for the viewing public. But I’m all alone and the salesman is hovering over the end of the bed like a mad scientist getting ready to fit me with electrodes. “Very comfortable,” I say primly from my reclining position and spring back to my feet.
“But does he sleep on his back, or does he sleep on his side or his tummy?” the salesman asks, exasperated by my unwillingness to play the extra game.
“His side,” I admit warily, unready to assume the fetal position in a vast showroom like a babe burrowing under the dry leaves of the proverbial woods. He senses my hesitation.
“Well, I’ll leave you to try them out!” he says, plastering back the smile. “My name’s Douglas, Doug, and I’ll be right over there.” He points to a desk at the side of the showroom as if I’m a child who needs to be reassured. But wait! I’m about to be left floundering in a sea of beds with no discernible difference between them, and only unintelligible signs declaring things like ‘Hb&F extra’ to guide me.
“But what about all the other beds?” I ask, gesturing to the pillow tops stretching to the horizon.
“Oh, I showed you the three cheapest ones,” says Doug. “They get more expensive as you go further back in the showroom.”
“Well, you sure pegged my demographic quickly,” I joke.
“I’m a salesman, it’s what we do,” he says proudly.
I am suddenly incensed that a balding man with a badge that says ‘Sleep Consultant’ and a fat tie with the photograph of two children on it (probably not even his own) should have written me off so quickly.
“I come from a very wealthy family in England, you know!” It’s out of my mouth before I can stop myself. (A lie, but being the ancestral kings of Suffolk has to count for something.)
“And I’m a neurosurgeon,” he says with a straight face.
“Really?” Times are hard.
“No.”

I whip out my credit card. “I’ll take the most expensive of the three you showed me.” (It’s my mother’s money anyway. Compared to my own finances, I wasn’t lying about my family’s wealth.)

I leave the showroom a chastened woman. All my years in social programs, working hard to dispel the impression of being the privileged white woman, I’ve obviously become too good at it! But the saddest thing is that somewhere deep in my European psyche I believed that ‘good breeding will always show,’ that I can dress in clothes from discount stores and still retain an aura of ‘genteel poverty.’ Oh, how we deceive ourselves. Dissed by Doug the Sleep Consultant.

© 2009 Louise Godbold

Rattlesnake Red

2009-09-01T10:09:00.000-07:00

“Hungry, homeless, please help.” The crumpled cardboard sign belongs to a grizzled black man sitting on the post office steps. He’s been hungry and homeless for at least the fifteen years I’ve known him.

“Hello, my old friend!” I greet him, not knowing whether he’ll recognize me and certain that he won’t recognize my son.
“Is this…?” He asks, incredulous, smiling at Josh. Yes, the young man who towers over me is the baby I used to cart around in a car seat.

“You haven’t changed at all!” the homeless man tells me. A lie that my hairdresser and bright lighting could dispel. I wish I could say the same for him. His black hair is now tiny whorls of white, emphasizing the caramel color of his eyes and skin. Once upon a time he used to stop me outside Rite Aid and ask for money. My answer was always the same:
“I won’t give you money, but if you’re hungry I’ll buy you something to eat. Or maybe you’d like something to drink?”
He would ask for soda – Dr. Pepper’s – and sometimes a snack can of tuna with crackers.

As the years went by, Rite Aid changed hands and I migrated to other stores, but I would always see him pan-handling outside the post office, or standing in the middle of the street turning his smile on the drivers of cars stopped at the lights. In the last couple of years, I’ve noticed the genial demeanor has been replaced by drunken confusion, watched him staggering in the street and in danger of being sucked under by the passing cars. The last time I saw him, he was sitting on the pedestrian island in the middle of six lanes of traffic, cup extended but eyes unfocused. “He’s so out of it,” I remarked to Josh. “Poor old guy. He’s just getting worse and worse.”

Fortunately, today is a lucid day. “This is just until I get my retirement in November,” he tells me, nodding at the sign and cup perched on the steps. “I worked twenty years for the railroad – Southern Pacific.”
“Will you stay here?” I ask, meaning Los Angeles, but he interprets the question differently.
“Oh yes, otherwise how would I see all my friends? Not that,” he says, nodding again at the sign, "The people who talk to me, who give me a little bit of their heart.” He clasps a hand over his chest. “That means more to me than the money.” Suddenly his eyes brighten and he mimes holding a steering wheel. “When I get my retirement, I’ll take you in my limo to Hollywood and we’ll get us some Chinese food.” He looks at Josh. “You like Chinese food?”

We marvel about how long we’ve known each other – so long that I was hugely pregnant with Josh when we first met. “And my mother. Did you meet my mother?” (Her presence was a fixture of Josh’s early years and almost grounds for a divorce according to my father.)
“Yes, I remember your mother. Tell her Rattlesnake Red says hello.”

For a moment, I picture my mum among the rain and cowslips of Normandy, her neat clothes and the tea trays lined with lace cloths, and cannot imagine a less likely pair of acquaintances.
“Yes, we will,” I say, glad that I at least now know his name.

When we get in the car Josh asks, “What kind of name is Rattlesnake Red?”
“I don’t know. Sounds like a poker player to me.”
Josh is quiet for a while.
“I wonder where he sleeps at night.”
We ponder this in silence. Finally Josh says, “Do you think he’ll still be there in ten years time? When I’m in the police force, I want to get to know the community like that.”
The community of the homeless and substance abusers. The ones the police usually move on or hassle because they make the neighborhood unsightly. Good for you, Josh, good for you. Rattlesnake Red must be a fairy godfather who gifted you with compassion at birth.

© Louise Godbold

Sunday update

2009-08-09T22:36:00.000-07:00

For those of you who didn't make it to the service tonight...

The Word was brought by Dib and her husband, Ellen (they're Australian), who revealed many things I hadn't known before, such as, the kingdom of heaven is like a knit and that Jesus went around healing lippers.

I got into a bit of trouble over dinner when I was questioned by one of the guests - an elderly lady dressed in hat, pearls and a white frilly dress.
"I overheard that you're a writer. What is the name of your book?"
I hadn't foreseen situations like this when my agent suggested the current title.
"Ahem. Our Lady of the Condoms."
Fortunately, it appears the old lady was deaf.
"Have you spent much time in the Congo, dear?"

© Louise Godbold

Saint Louise

2009-03-14T19:42:00.000-07:00

Sunday is the feast day of Saint Louise - patron saint of disappointing children and people rejected by religious orders. Well that would explain a few things!

My Son, the Violent Homosexual

2008-12-10T19:16:00.000-08:00

“… responded to another student’s insult with violence,” says the message. Actually, it is about seven minutes long but since it is all in French, this was as much as I could decipher. Josh, Josh, Josh, what have you been up to now?

Unable to raise my son via his cell phone and a text message (“Call me – now!”), I am forced to return the Dean of Student’s call. Josh’s transgressions are listed:
“The other child mocked his LAPD T-shirt and Josh reacted with violence,” she explains. Uh-oh! Not the LAPD T-shirt. The other child is probably in casts. “And,” she continues, “this wouldn’t have happened if he’d been wearing his sports shirt. The teacher says it’s the third time he’s forgotten it. And when I asked him for his Carnet de Correspondence,” (the book they use to communicate with parents) “he told me he’d lost it!” she states, resting her case. Obviously he’s a hardened criminal who is hiding other transgressions recorded in his CDC, is the presumption.
“And how is the other child?”
“I have him and his mother in front of me now.”
“Did he need to go to the doctor?” I ask, wondering if I need a lawyer.
“No, it’s not broken.”
“What’s not broken?”
“His finger.” Finger! I mentally readjust the amount of blood in the scene at the other end of the phone.
“His finger.”
“Yes, he was crying for an hour. He was in a lot of pain.” Hmm.
“Who is this other child?”
“Lucien.” It all becomes clear to me now. Lucien the cry baby, Lucien who is taller and stockier than Josh but acts like he’s five years younger. I’ve heard about this kid. Josh says he’s gay, but then the kids call anything they don’t like 'gay.' In my day Lucien would have been called a 'sissy' and anything we didn’t like 'spastic' – a term that is just as discriminatory and unkind, and was just as hated by our parents. But that’s the whole point. It wouldn’t be a cool word if your parents LIKED it. Duh!

I am summoned to a 3 PM meeting with the Dean of Students. She asks me and my son to take a seat at the end of the trailer she shares with yard staff and a parade of curious kids looking for water, soccer balls and if they hit the jackpot, humiliated mothers and their contrite sons. By this time I’ve managed to establish via a phone conversation with Josh that the insult was no more than the usual joke about a T-shirt that to the French proclaims 'I am gay.' (The slang for homosexual is 'un pede' – short for pederast – and it’s not hard to get from there to 'la pe-de.') His response, he assures me, was also no more than the usual retaliation, a playful shove. He didn’t mean to bend Lucien’s digit, as the French so delightfully call it. The Dean of Students is not in the mood for excuses. It’s ninety-eight degrees today and she spent the first hour of this insufferable heat listening to Lucien’s wails. She is about to launch into some serious remonstration when I intercede for my child.
“It was an accident. Accidente.”
“I didn’t hear ‘accident’ this morning. I never heard that word once.”
“So who’s saying it isn’t an accident?” I demand. (My blood is up now.) “Lucien and his mother? Why does this school never believe my son? It’s his word against Lucien’s. It’s not just!” Injuste is a word fortunately that I know in French and I am determined to bandy it about to good effect. The French never listen to you unless you get a little bit emotional, and besides which, I am sure I am streets behind Lucien’s mother and her earlier performance. “It’s always the same with this school! Toujours la meme chose!” I had been practicing that one in the driving mirror. But the French are nothing if not democratic and Lucien is immediately sent for.
“Bonjour madame,” he greets me obsequiously. Two of his fingers are in a brace.
“Tell us what happened,” instructs the Dean unwisely, unleashing a long, whining tale. When he arrives at, “I insulted Josh,” I jump in quickly before we can get to the part rated M for violence:
“But it was an accident, Lucien, yes?” He looks around uncomfortably.
“Er, oui.” Right you little swine! Why didn’t you say so in the first place!
“All the same, I’m still giving Josh three demerit points,” pronounces the Dean.
“And what about Lucien?”
“Yes, yes, he has three points too.” Not for long, I imagine. Not when his mother comes back for Act Two.

Josh and Lucien are dismissed. The Dean still looks ticked off. “It was horseplay,” I offer, using Josh’s term, which unfortunately does not translate into French as it is my turn to discover.
“Why is Josh so keen on the LAPD?” The Dean looks up from her notes quizzically. “Is it a prestigious profession in this country?”
“Er, no, not exactly. I think it’s because he doesn’t have a father,” I am about to start my whole ‘looking for a father figure in the macho culture and structure of the police force’ psychoanalysis, but she jumps in ahead of me.
“Yes, this is what I thought! This is why he reacted so strongly to the insult.” No, no! She’s got this all wrong!
“He wasn’t insulted; it’s just something they all say to each other. It was a joke. Teasing. Taquinerie.” That is one of the new words I looked up in the dictionary and then wrote on a post-it and stuck inside my bag, just in case.
“I was told this was a big problem last year,” she says, “the kids calling each other homosexual. We are vigilizing it.” I like that French verb, I shall adopt it: Vigilize world peace.
“So when Lucien teased him, Josh was, he…” I’ve run out of post-it note words, so I put my hands on my hips and play-act someone being mock angry.
“Yes, yes, possibly these movements are provocant,” she says, in her mind still fighting a battle against rampant homophobia. “But to respond with violence is inacceptable.” It’s no use, she pegged my son as a violent homosexual due to my inadequate single parenting and there’s nothing I can do to change her mind.

In the yard, I see Lucien standing next to a tall, thin woman whose sundress reveals very white skin. There is something of the aesthete about her, which makes me think she’s either a church deacon or an academic. I can’t bear it that she believes my son is a bully because her namby-pamby son wanted attention and cried foul.
“I’m Joshua’s mother,” I say proffering my hand, “and I just wanted to tell you that I completely understand that your son calling my son a homosexual was a joke.” In other words, there is about as much reason to believe that the insult was real as there is to believe that my son deliberately attacked yours.
“Oh, yes, yes,” she agrees. “I only came to the school because they said he’d been hurt. I think this is something the children should sort out between themselves.” Ah, a sensible woman! I am prompted to kindness.
“I’m sorry for any anxiety you’ve been caused and, of course, I am sorry Lucien hurt his hand, but it was an accident.” I say the last part looking directly at Lucien who is standing to one side.
“I think the school needs to work on this issue of language. Lucien’s always saying, “Oh, I can’t wear that T-shirt because the kids will say it’s gay.”” Of course it’s gay. He’s gay. Doesn’t the mother realize this? “And I feel I should tell you, madame, that your son has un vocabulaire tres riche.” I almost say thank you, that he probably acquired it visiting his grandmother in France, but there’s something about the way she says “riche” that stops me:
“What do you mean, rich? Vulgaire?”
“Oui, vulgaire,” pipes up Lucien. What a nasty little prig! I’m sorely tempted to bend back the fingers of his other hand.
“Probably when you are not at home he picks it up from the television.” When I’m not at home? Like, out with my boyfriends? Because that’s what single mothers do, leave their children unsupervised while they continue to make rash and imprudent choices for their lives. “Last year my son came home using language I could not allow in the house. We have young children around! Other mothers have told me the same thing.” My heart sinks. Not only is Josh a violent homosexual but now he has a potty mouth to boot.

“Lucien is as bad as anyone else!” declares my son indignantly in the car. He does not fight the charge of bad language, just insists he does not use it inappropriately (like around me, when he’d suffer the consequences). I drive home berating myself. I did it again, accepted what someone else said about Josh instead of believing him innocent until proven guilty. Maybe somewhere deep in my soul I resist the idea that I could really have such a wonderful, if not perfect at least as near as is humanly possible, son.

One day later, and I am taking Josh and the recovered CDC to the Dean for formal documentation of the demerit points. She writes in the book with the frigid air I thought had somewhat thawed during the discoveries yesterday. Over Josh’s shoulder, I see Lucien and his mother coming up the path to the trailer. The Dean sees it too.
“You had a meeting with Lucien’s mother?”
“Yes.”
“Well, it would be nice to keep me informed.” What? Then I realize I’ve mixed up my tenses again. She’s asking if I have a meeting with the mother now. I want to explain, but another wave of students arrive with clamorous requests and crowd around her desk.

Back in the yard, Lucien’s mother has obviously decided to delay her visit to the Dean and is talking to the Number One Gossip on Campus. My Honda Civic is parked right between their twin black SUVs.
“Bonjour,” I sing out, looking the gossip in the eye as I walk between the two women. I’m sure she is speculating about how Josh is growing up delinquent, deprived of the proper paternal guidance and discipline. How I dislike these smug women with their luxury cars and luxury life-styles that afford them the time to stand around judging others. I am proud to be a single mother, I remind myself, proud that I’ve done it all on my own. Poverty is an adventure, a private joke against the wealth and privilege that could have been mine. It is a truth serum for revealing the hearts of others: Do they like me for who I am or for my status? Do they want to be my friend because they enjoy my company or because I’m useful to them?

“Mum, I would just leave it,” says Josh, seeing me write this. “It’s making you sad and upset.” This morning, I installed a portable air conditioner on loan from a friend. I warned Josh that it eats electricity. When I go into his room, I discover he has switched it off despite the fact that the house is still ninety degrees. He can’t make up for my humiliation today so he does what he can – saves electricity. I look at him in wonder and decide that even if no one else can see it, I am the richest, luckiest mother in the world.

© Copyright 2008 Louise Godbold

Harry and His Friends

2008-09-26T11:52:00.000-07:00

"Do you have a seat?” asks the usher.
“Well, actually I was looking for someone who looked all alone to sit next to them,” I reply, feeling virtuous. Also, because for the month or so that I’ve been attending this church, many times I have sat with empty seats beside me feeling conspicuously alone. Previously that would have provoked a complaint that the church is unfriendly, except that a couple of Sundays ago – when I was still trying to get used to the fact that I was once again surrounded by Christians as an unfortunate by-product of having had a real and powerful experience of God in this place – a geeky looking man started to talk to me and I ignored him completely. “I don’t want you,” I said angrily in my head, “I want God. So leave me alone!” When visitors raised their hands, of course, he was one of them. And when the sermon was about being a church that was generous with our smiles as well as our money, the message finally sank in: I am the church. The fact that I’m sitting in these pews means to this man beside me and anyone else who walks in here, I am the church. If I want a friendly church, I have to be friendly. If I want a church that sees the people who are alone and sits next to them, it starts with me.

I am not feeling nearly so virtuous when I find myself placed next to an old lady in a wheelchair sitting alone in the back row. “The usher says you speak English and Spanish,” I try gamely. She answers something in a feeble old lady voice. “Are you Latina?” I ask. She says something and looks to me for a response. Heck, I don’t understand a word she’s saying. “Okay,” I improvise, tucking the blanket closer around her, although for all I know she may have asked me to take it off.
“Do you have any money?” I understood that. Please don’t tell me this sweet old lady it hitting me up for cash!
“Only for the collection,” I say with forced joviality.
“I wish I could help you dear, but I don’t have any money.” The poor old soul is confused. Or perhaps not as confused as I think. I am currently living on a loan from my mother and I really don’t have any money. Maybe she’s perfectly lucid and as frustrated as I am at our inability to communicate. We both resume watching the preparations at the front of the church for a service that is taking WAY too long to start. Groups of attractive young people gather and re-form. There is much greeting and smiling and tossing of long blond hair. Why are so many of the women blond? For that matter, why does the whole church look like they spent last night at the Emmy awards?
I hear the reedy voice: “Where are you from?”
“England.” No recognition. “United Kingdom? Great Britain.” Now she looks confused. Can a person be from three places?
“You speak very good English,” she says, kindly.

A wheelchair is parked on the other side of the old lady. A completely bald man sits hunched over, his head twisted in my direction. He wears thick glasses and has slack, rubbery lips, but somehow this endears me to him. One hand rests on his bald pate, moving slowly back and forth as if asking himself how he came to be in this wheelchair, unable to raise his head.
“Hello,” says the abuela.
“Hello,” he manages through thick lips, appearing to smile. I like it that the old lady has given up on me and is concentrating on welcoming her peers.

Finally, the lights dim and the music starts. Now don’t get me wrong, I think it’s wonderful that there are so many talented musicians in the church, that gifted technicians work to produce lighting and sound worthy of a professional concert. The kids (that is, anyone under forty) love it, and I can’t wait for the day my own son throws off his agnosticism and is blown away by rap music in church. But I have to say I find it hard to worship God when I can’t hear the sound of my own singing, when I don’t know the songs, when, just as I think I’ve got it down, there is a guitar solo and I’m left mouthing words when no one else is. I hate clapping along – it makes me feel like I’m at a children’s party watching a tired entertainer bend balloons, or on a cruise ship listening to an out-of-tune dance band and trying not to notice the people leaning over the side. So there I am, feeling all bristly and superior, when I notice that the guy in the wheelchair has twisted his head some more to see the monitor and is singing along to the rap music and, with just about the only mobility afforded to him, is clapping his hands.

I remember last Sunday when I was going through a similar oh-no-here-comes-the-loud-music moment, watching another old guy grab onto the back of the chair in front of him and pull himself up. The liver spots on his bald head reminded me of my granddad. He turned to me, clapping his bony hands, with a big smile on his face that said, “Come on; let’s worship God!” I bet the old guy in the wheelchair today would love to spring to his feet if he could. I bet the old lady would love to clap her hands if they didn’t tremble ineffectually under her blanket. How can I not stand up and lift my hands to God, if this dear old man makes such effort to follow the words of songs that are as new to him as they are to me? I’m sure we’d both prefer Amazing Grace, but there you are. And when the music veers off into the inevitable solo, the man in the wheelchair continues to clap, undeterred.

A helper comes to retrieve the wheelchairs at the end of service. He squeezes the old guy's shoulders, hard, the bent body jerking into an upright position under the attack. The helper is behind him and can’t see the old guy’s face. To me, it looks as if he’s in pain – the rictus of his mouth certainly doesn’t suggest he’s enjoying it.
“What is this gentleman’s name?” I ask the helper.
“Harry.”
“Harry,” I say, bending down beside him, “I just want to tell you how much you ministered to me. Clapping along,” I add, feebly. What I want to say is, How much you ministered to me by praising God when you’re stuck in that body, not able to do anything for yourself. He takes a while to process why his clapping would cause this tearful middle-aged woman to crouch at his side. He grasps my hand more tightly and pulls me closer into the collapse of head and shoulders.
“I was a Baptist,” he’s saying, “but forty years ago when I came to a Pentecostal church I came alive.” Indeed you did, Harry. More alive than me, that’s for sure.
An usher offers the old lady a lollipop. She looks at him suspiciously.
“I don’t have any money.”

Copyright © 2008 Louise Godbold

The Upswing

2008-07-15T21:43:00.000-07:00

After describing the pit into which my life had fallen in the last blog entry, I wanted to record the marvelous reversals in fate that have occurred since Sunday.

“Please represent me, because you’re the only agent who could cope with me.” The agent to whom I’d sent the first 50 pages of my book responded to this pathetic plea by agreeing to take me on, but at my own peril. He recommends I don’t fall for his flattery and continue my search for The Perfect Agent. I don’t know if he’s any good at selling books, but anyone who describes himself as the descendant of an Irish horse thief and whose latest addition to his skill set is growing hair on his ears, sounds just perfect to me.

My mother is less easily impressed:
“I’m very suspicious of these people – “I’ll make you a star, I’ll get you into modeling” - How much do you have to pay this agent?” she demands.
“Nothing. He just takes a commission when I sell the book.”
“You see!” She is very canny, my mother. “Are you sure he’s reputable?”
“No, he’s entirely disreputable, that’s why I like him.”
“What?”
“No, seriously, I checked him out with a friend in the publishing world who said this guy has a great reputation for spotting talent and developing it, and that he’s someone editors in the business respect.”
“I don’t know… you’re such a worry to me - you’ve always lived so close to the edge. Why couldn’t you have been a dentist?”
“Because I’d have been bored on the first day and wired someone’s teeth together just for the heck of it.”
“I should never have had children, I should have bred poodles,” she laments.

My son, with all the world-weariness of a 13 year old, says he’ll congratulate me when the agent has read the rest of the book.

But my mum did send me an email this morning in her terrible, tortured typing, entitled “apresent” and saying, “I,ve sent some cash and hope your luck changes soon. It WILL. Love Mum.xx (I guess getting an agent doesn’t register for her as the Best Thing That’s Happened To Me Since My Composition Was Read Out To The Class In Junior Two, like it does for me). She’s lovely my mum. Her heart’s in the right place and God forbid she should ever change - she provides me with an inexhaustible source of material.

My other inexhaustible source of material, my health care provider, did not disappoint. Today, after four days of getting a recorded message when trying to obtain my biopsy results, I finally called member services, who managed to put me through to Debbie, the advice nurse in dermatology.
“Debbie! I was beginning to think you weren’t a real person!”
“Yes, well I’ve been on vacation. So there we are.”
There we are indeed. Stress-related illnesses are obviously low on Kaiser’s list of preventable diseases.
“You HAVE got skin cancer,” she says after rustling through the notes. Visions of my coffin being carried through the street. “But it’s only superficial.” How can you only superficially have cancer? Is that like being a little bit pregnant? “Nothing like the melanoma you had before.”
“Before?”
“Yes. Wait a minute, what’s your name again? Louise? Okay, I read that wrong. There was just a suspected melanoma. Anyway, the doctor will be contacting you about taking it off.”
“It is off. I have a great big hole in my back. The mole’s in a little bottle somewhere.”
“Little bottle,” she repeats, testing out the 't's.
“Yes, Debbie.”
“Okay. Well, I’ve been on vacation. So there we are.”

After this conversation, I spent an interesting afternoon getting up to speed on legalese and contract law. My new agent suggested I wrote the contract as I didn’t like the one he offered me. Smart man, that agent; I’m fixing his contract boilerplate even now. I am just wondering if it’s all still legally binding if you get rid of the “hereafter, herein, and hereofs.” Is it like a spell and these are the magic words that give it power? As a lover of language, but no lover of obsolete Elizabethan English, I’ve taken them all out, which probably means I’m completely wasting my time because any lawyer will look at it and snort: “This cannot be upheld in law because people can UNDERSTAND it! What were you thinking?”

Things are looking promising on the job front too: I had a telephone interview for a job in Palo Alto, where I would be working as a Program Officer for a relatively new foundation. I would have a portfolio of 50 grantees, including some in developing countries. Groovy! I’ve always wanted to get into International Development, but so far have been unable to convince anyone I have the qualifications. Luckily, this foundation seems more gullible than most. So I’d better get working on that contract, because hopefully I will soon be busy packing up my house (or rather, what’s left of the furniture once I’ve got rid of the various items that serve as Flea HQ) and moving to Northern California. When I pick up my son from the airport after his trip to London, the conversation will go something like this:

“Hello, darling. Did you have a nice time?”
“Yes.” (Teenagers only answer in monosyllables.)
“We have to go to gate 15.”
“Why?”
“So we can board our flight for Palo Alto. But don’t worry, I brought your Junior Police Academy certificate and the Joseph Wambaugh’s books will follow in the crate with our furniture.”
“Furniture?” He is so taxed by the attempt to communicate in multi-syllables the iPod earphones pop out of his ears.
“Yes, the coffee table.” Registering his frown. “It’ll be fun! A whole new adventure. And then there’s always the book deal to look forward to. Perhaps we can use the money to buy you a bed.”
“God!” he mutters, and rams the earphones back in his ears.

You Know Life is Sucky When...

2008-07-12T12:42:00.000-07:00

You panic when you hear a Californian bank has failed
And then realize you don’t have any money to withdraw anyway

The pulled muscles in your back hurt too much to sit
But you can't lie on the floor because of the fleas

Your sister sympathizes about the washing machine that broke
But you don’t have a washing machine
(It was the computer, fridge/freezer and car that broke)

The doctor gives you a number to call for your biopsy results
And it is answered by a recorded message
For two days
And counting…

You’re supposed to be enjoying time for yourself
But cry when the store clerk asks if you miss your son

You ask the eight ball if you’re going to get that job
And the eight ball doesn't work

Passing the Sniff Test

2008-07-05T17:49:00.000-07:00

Her email address reads: Penelope Davis, Ph.D. This may be the first clue that my future boss may be a little hung up on appearances. Other information was not forthcoming, despite a series of increasingly urgent emails. This is how I end up sitting in Starbucks one hour before the client interview, during which I am to represent myself as the Project Manager for a project about which I am remarkably vague. But $40K a year is no small incentive, especially as I’m seriously unemployed right now.

Twenty minutes later, a tall white woman comes through the doors talking animatedly into her Blackberry. She stops two feet away and despite my smile, continues to stare into the middle-distance: “No, just include it in the proposal with the other… I know, but we have to get this out today. I’ll see when I’m back in the office… Okay, bye.”
“Penelope?” She turns to me blankly, as if surprised that the only other white woman in the place should turn out to be the Program Evaluator from England.
“I need to use the restroom,” she says, pivoting on her four-inch heels.

I have to admit to feeling a little pissed off. Terribly busy people think that being terribly busy is a legitimate excuse for inconveniencing other people who obviously have less busy and therefore less-important lives.

A flash of shiny magenta blouse crosses my vision as Penelope plops down in the armchair opposite. She pauses, looking quizzically at my face, then proffers her hand. “Penelope Davis. Pleased to meet you.” I shake the outstretched hand and then wait as she rearranges her Jimmy Choo purse on the table in front of us. I know it’s Jimmy Choo because each corner has a large, shiny gold hinge emblazoned with “Jimmy Choo.” I guess the ostentatious bag serves the same purpose as the email address – lest we forget.

There is now only twenty minutes before we have to leave for the client’s office, so I start straight in with my questions: Why no parent measures?
“Well, the program is not for high-risk youth, so we wouldn’t expect behavior changes,” she answers, with the tight smile of someone who’s just been asked to deposit money into an account in Nigeria. “It’s what we call high cost, low yield data.”
“But as a parent,” I go on, refusing to be intimidated by the academic bling, “I know that any changes in my child, I’m going to notice them first. Besides, with only the staff and students as data sources, don’t we need to triangulate?” Hah! Stuff that in your Jimmy Choo!

Penelope puts her arms into her black jacket – a signal we need to leave? Preparation for a showdown? Does she have the tasseled mortarboard to match? She appears to be wearing the star from the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree on her jacket, or maybe it’s a hi-tech device that is even now broadcasting live to the American Evaluation Association, offering further evidence of my attempts to bring the profession into disrepute. “We’ll also be using a standard assessment tool,” she fixes me with that same cold smile, tapping her finger on the proposal document. “We have 17 research assistants we can send out to the sites.”

Seventeen research assistants? This is definitely the time to ask. “Your partner said forty thousand dollars when he first spoke to me. Am I still in the budget for the same amount?”
“Ah, yes. That’s something else we changed. You’re now in for thirty thousand.” She registers the flinch. “If that’s okay.”

But we don’t really have time to discuss whether I can coordinate this project (including the legion of research assistants) on only five hours a week, because it’s time to set off for the interview. Circling the client’s building, I wish I had paid more attention to the parking instructions. The entrance to the underground parking proclaims, “Only for the clients of the Curacao supermarket.”

I am expelled from the elevator directly into the office, in full view of the people assembled in the conference room to my right. Dr. Davis turns her head without disturbing a single perfect strand of her orange Cleopatra haircut. “I thought I was in the wrong place!” I exclaim, dumping my pile of papers on the table, “Solamente para los clientes de Curacao!” A handsome Latino man at the table looks up and smiles when he hears the Spanish. Dr. Davis seems to be suffering from indigestion. Recovering, she launches into the pitch:

“We have conducted many multi-site evaluations, including a National Youth Survey,” she says, lowering her lashes in false modesty, “and can help you achieve model program status.” Hang on! We don’t know this program warrants model program status. In fact, we know nothing at all beyond the opinion of a District Supervisor, who told Penelope the program is "good." The previous evaluation only proved that while the kids remained in the program they were kept off the streets. Amusement arcades do the same thing. But after being asked exactly how many after-school programs she has evaluated, Penelope turns to me.

“People work in social programs because they believe with all their heart and soul they are making a difference… Well, it’s certainly not for the pay!” This raises a laugh. “So I ask the staff what tells them there is a change – even if it’s a smile on a kid’s face – and help them to measure that change. I don’t believe in the approach of some academics who come in with a whole bunch of assumptions and then try to impose their framework of outcomes and measures to prove some theory, and completely miss what’s really going on. I’m not interested in publishing, I’m interested in making programs the best they can be.” The Latino man, who turns out to be the Program Director, nods his head. Penelope has become red in the face.

“Of course, we’re not going to make Louise do anything she doesn’t like,” her smile oozes like mango sorbet around the room – sweet and chilly, “That’s why we’re here! I’m not an academic, I’m a clinical psychologist, so I don’t need to publish, but,” she continues in a hushed, serious tone, “to become a model program the evaluation has to be published in a peer-reviewed journal and” she looks hard at me “we have to use standard instruments in order to pass the sniff test.” Which I apparently don’t.

I spend the rest of the hour kicking myself for pitching the project all wrong, then resenting the fact that Mrs. Choo had not taken the time to prepare me. When it’s all over, the Program Director and I drop into easy conversation on our way to the door. “So you work in South Gate and Huntington Park? They’re my old stomping grounds,” I tell him.
“Yeah, we’re doing some really exciting work, organizing the parents and families.” I look at him, astounded.
“Why didn’t we talk about this during the meeting?”
“Oh that? That was just data,” he says, confirming that there are things Dr. Davis and her standard instruments will never find out.

As the elevator door closes over Penelope’s face (which still maintains the professional expressionlessness of the clinical psychologist, but only just), I am left wondering if I could ever have worked under this Over Achiever who is philosophically at the opposite end of the spectrum when it comes to evaluation… and fashion accessories. Then I wonder if I’m not interested in publishing after all: Godbold, L. A. (July 2008). Passing the Sniff Test: A Case Study on How Not to Win Evaluation Contracts.

Eyebrow Diaries

2008-05-30T12:25:00.001-07:00

Last night, I was supposed to go with a fellow poet to an open reading that only happens every two months. I hate open mike readings because you have to listen to so much execrable poetry (about yeast infections or beatnik rhythms that don't seem to be about anything but never come down in inflection). However, my friend Jan got her own reading out of it last time - okay, at the Sunland-Tujunga library, which proved to be a white Republican outpost, but a reading none-the-less. I also feel a bit of a fraud, as I rarely write poetry nowadays, preferring prose. I was wearing the same sweats that I pulled on that morning, my hair needed washing, but my eyebrows were outstanding, having discovered that shaping eyebrows not only makes me feel like a groomed LA woman, but it is a great distraction from The Meaning Of Life, which seems to be eluding me recently.

So there I was, unwashed hair in a ponytail, pink lip gloss to complement the graceful arch of my eyebrows and actually quite looking forward to reading a couple of pieces, when Jan rang to say the reading had been cancelled. I flirted with the idea of suggesting we go over to the nearby Damon's anyway for their famous Mai Tais and steak, but I never drink Mai Tais or eat steak - it would just have been the thing to do in situ, if you understand. Like eating ice-cream on piers, or chips out of newspaper in London, or drinking Retsina in Greece and realizing that it smells (and tastes) like paint stripper when you get it home. Instead, I watched "So you think you can dance," and in the commercial breaks undid all my good work with the eyebrows by Going Too Far. I now have uneven eyebrows that look chewed at one end and very surprised at the other. It could be the inspiration for a whole new look: "Marcel Marceau?" they'll ask. No, Louise Godbold before the grooming police confiscated the tweezers.

To make things worse, the eyebrows didn't provide sufficient distraction and I was forced to consume half a bottle of red wine and half a jar of peanut butter. (I think it was the sight of all those young and beautiful bodies doing things that I couldn't even do when I had a young and beautiful body.) I woke up in the night with a sore throat and a deep heaviness. The fact it was 3 AM and the consumption of wine could explain that. However, the conditions persist and I believe it is my body finally giving way under the strain of the recent weeks... months... years. But I can't give in yet - not if they have an open casket and my eyebrows haven't grown back in.

And you guessed it, all this procrastination is in order to avoid a real project: I'm rewriting my book in chronological order as the fifth agent just rejected me on the basis that "the reverse chronology doesn't work for us." Of course, once I've done that, they'll find some other reason to reject me, but I gain satisfaction from narrowing their options.

Top 10 Favorite Signs In My Neighborhood

2008-03-13T18:20:00.001-07:00

1) Served in a hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurant: Homlet.
If you retranslated it back to French, would it mean "little man?"
2) Coming onto my son's school campus: Drive slow.
I wonder if the class on adjectives and adverbs is next semester?
3) Painted on the Amtrak platform: Stand in back of the line.
What happened to the perfectly good word "behind?" Was it considered too rude?
4) The name of an Armenian coffee shop: Ancient Grounds.
How appetizing!
5) The name of a Cambodian bar: Little Joy.
A place to cry in your beer.
6) Elvis dress shop.
Elvi really should punctuate or she'll perpetuate the myth he's still alive.
7) Outside La Parrilla restaurant: A real Mexican kitchen.
That has many scratching their head, but it's the literal translation of the French word "cuisine."
8) On the left rear bumper of a laborer's truck: Passing side.
On the right: Suiside.
9) Legal Bookstore.
What would the illegal one sell?
10) Outside the library: Literacy class ->

Am I An Alcoholic?

2008-03-12T20:27:00.001-07:00

He looks deep into my eyes. "I read your blog."
"Oh yes?" (Thank goodness it's not just my mother.)
"I've been in therapy 4 years myself."
"Oh?" (Hells bells! He's telling me this on our first date?)
"I thought your writing was fiercely honest. I just wanted to tell you that."
"Thank you!" That's more like it! A man who recognizes my fearless self-revelation. But wait a minute, what the heck did I write?
"So how long have you been in recovery?"
"Me? Recovery? Ha-ha ha-ha!" Gosh, he's serious. "I'm not in recovery."
"Oh! So, it's still a problem then?"
"What?"
"The drinking?"

Suddenly the disparate parts of my flow-of-consciousness writing come together in my head, not, as I intended, a poem to those great and profound moments in life that as human beings we long for and at the same time want to suppress because of their sheer sweet agony, but as it obviously appears to my readers – a confession of alcoholism!

So, to all of you who read my last blog entry and have gone strangely quiet, I am not an alcoholic. Although, if my writing continues to get me into this much trouble, it soon might be the only way to pass the long lonely hours. Hic.

Saving A Life

2008-03-11T12:53:00.000-07:00

When women alcoholics are in recovery, the hardest thing about sober living is having sex without booze. I just thought you might like to know that.

Hemingway wrote with a glass of whiskey at his side: obviously he was not married to someone like me, or he would unaccountably keep finding his glass empty.

The other day, we whirled and twirled our way through a dance class until we hit a moment of hushed stillness. We had put our hearts in our dance, stretched them through our upraised hands into the clouds and let them go as prayers. There is a silence that comes over the soul after that. "One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began," said my heart, "though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice." No, not my heart, a woman reading Mary Oliver:

"But little by little,
as you left their voices behind...
... there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do--
determined to save
the only life you could save."

By this time, tears were streaming down my face. I feel like the canary that has been living with a dark cover over its cage. I sing and sing and then realize no one can hear me because I am only singing in my head. My words are read by random visitors to my site (and a few regulars, God bless you!), but my book lies unpublished, my heart unseen.

The funny thing was, after all that emotion, the first thing that popped into my head was, "God, I need a stiff drink!" So quick to bury the very moments that make life meaningful because they are almost too hard to bear. Almost. I came home and wrote my blog.

Thank you for continuing to read me. Thank you for saving my life.

Separation

2008-03-03T09:49:00.000-08:00

"I don't want to go!" My son looks on the verge of tears, something I've become accustomed to, as well as the pimples and the faintest, faintest shadow on his upper lip.

We are sitting on his bedroom floor, surrounded by a sleeping bag, back pack, snowboarding helmet, silk long-johns and discarded wrist guards and gloves.

"I said I didn't want to go!" Now this is news to me. When my mum offered to pay for the school ski trip, he seemed happy enough. When I parted with $100 in Big 5 Sporting Goods, he did not demur. On this occasion, I am relieved that any hesitation about cancellation is not selfishly motivated on my part, nor has nothing to do with plans to spend four blissful childless nights with the man of my dreams because, despite Cupid's best efforts, he has yet to appear, if ever.

"Come here!" I say, and he crawls into my arms. I savor the moment, stroking his elbow and sniffing his peppery hair, planting a few quick kisses before he remembers he's a preteen and any signs of affection herald a perilous descent back to the days of Barney videos and food cut into shapes.

The dilemma is that the gloves no longer fit over the wrist guards - something we hadn't thought to check out since last year. And he can't wear his goggles over his glasses, so he has the choice of being blinded by the sun or smashing into a tree. Problematic, I agree, but then life's not perfect.

The next morning dawns sunny and with a pleasant edge of chill. I rouse my son with a John Belushi (drinking chocolate with coffee - terminology straight from jail, so he'd better not use it with his LAPD buddies) and pack his lunch. His bags wait by the door. I throw on some clothes in case the carpool is late - we can't risk the bus leaving without him. I'm still in the bathroom when the carpool arrives. I hasten out to help my son with his luggage.

"I don't need you," he calls from the door, hoisting the backpack onto his shoulders and snatching up the other bags.

I watch from behind the screen as he throws the bags into the trunk. No, you don't, I think. But I'm here just in case.

Well Woman

2008-02-27T13:28:00.002-08:00

"What drugs you take?"
"Pardon?"
"What drugs. You take."
I am being cross-examined by the Kaiser nursing assistant who somehow skipped the role-play class where you learn to be empathetic to your client's need for privacy and tact.
“Smoke?”
“No.”
“Drink?”
“Yes.” I allow myself a little defiance, despite the “JESUS LOVES ME” in chunky letters around her neck.
“One drink a day,” she concludes and makes a note. How did she arrive at that? Is it because my hands are not shaking and my lipstick smudged? For all she knows, I’m hiding empty bottles down the back of the sofa.
"Sex?"
"Er, female?"
"No. You have sex?"
"Every now and then."
"Men?"
No, sheep and pigs, is what I want to say, but I don't think my humor will translate well into Armenian.
"You put on gown, opening to the front." With that she disappears and I am left to wonder how to fasten the gown without strangling myself or cross-hatching my breasts whilst doing nothing to cover them.

The well-woman check-up is something I dread. It's not the physical discomfort (although I'm not a fan of the part when they sandwich your breast between two waffle irons), but the loss of dignity. And no one knows how to do that better than Kaiser.

"Next!" It's time for my mammogram. Holding the sides of my gown across my chest, I walk jauntily into the room. Got to put on a brave front, so to speak. The technician looks at my chest from under lowered brows, then without a word snaps the current plastic tray out of the machine to replace it with something that looks like it was made to hold earrings. Okay, I know I'm not well-endowed, but no need to make a big production out of it.

Back in the waiting room, I bond with the other señoras clutching gowns. "Ella esta muy mala," glares one of them at the technician who has just emerged from the room. The technician glares back. I leave as the señora is ushered away, grateful that I will be spared her screams.

Tender as Love

2008-02-17T08:31:00.000-08:00

Your touch
sets incandescent
molecules
to swim in my blood
a shiver of atoms
fizzing
through the layers
of my skin

your hand
slips warm against
bare back
brushes my belly
in a frisson
of nerve endings
popping
their delight

on a landscape of shoulder
I pillow a kiss
pressing soft
like the curves
I fold against you

your nose seeks
my mouth
lips breathe in
the distance
between
longing
and sweetness

and your fingers
move the hair
from my cheek
tender
as if not a dance -
tender as love

Update on my ex

2008-02-15T10:15:00.000-08:00

Alma, my sister-in-law as was, told me that Francisco is the pastor of a church near the border in Juarez. He’s doing well, she said, calls twice a month full of energy.

I could imagine it well. The Francisco I fell in love with. The man of God with a call to the Mexicans. But what happened? That was my future too. How come I am here in LA, raising a son by myself? Why did God abandon me? I wasn’t the one using heroin. I wasn’t the one who lied and deceived, the one who broke into houses or stole everything a person had, including their belief in God.

Why am I now the one subsisting in the struggle for money, rolling out the dreary routine week after week so my son can be fed, housed, educated. How wonderful that God has worked miracles in Francisco’s life. I am sure he thanks God with great enthusiasm before the congregation. But what about us?

I gave Josh the news on the way home from school.
“So, if he’s clean and doing well, perhaps he can come live with us.”
“No-o!” I shudder.
“But I want a dad.”
I inform Josh that Francisco has remarried.
“Does he have children?”
I don’t know.
“Doesn’t he care about me?”
“That’s what I said; I said, “Alma, does he ask about Josh?””
There is a silence in the back of the car. When I turn round, Josh is crying. He’s 12. He never cries.

Tea is for Trouble

2007-12-28T18:38:00.000-08:00

Last night I had occasion to lie awake on the kitchen floor (my billeting since Mum arrived and was awarded the sofa bed) and to consider the British reaction to trouble, which is:
• Remain calm
• Crack jokes
• Make tea

And it seems to me that during this Christmas period we’ve been getting through an awful lot of tea.

Tea is for Truncated Sleepovers:
The reason for my kitchen floor reflection (and for being awake in the dead of night) was having sped along the deserted freeways of Los Angeles in nightdress and sweat pants to rescue my son who was having an asthma attack, unbeknownst to his sleeping hosts. Many sleepovers have ended in this fashion; in fact, I wouldn’t recognize many of the parents from Josh’s school if they weren’t in their pajamas. Nor they me.

On the way home, my son turned a worried face to me: “I’m sorry, Mama,” he said, putting his hand on my wrist and using the name that fell into disuse at about the time he learned to fasten his own shoes.
“It’s not your fault you’re sick,” I smiled back at him, dismissing memories of the blessed hours I had spent in his borrowed bed before being summoned by his call. When we arrived home, Mum had put the futon in the kitchen and lined up two cups and a spoon. I put the nebulizer together, while Mum put the kettle on. Tea-making is the Brit’s instinctive response to crisis – so much so, that a nurse once told me there is a huge problem in England, where accident victims arrive at the hospital needing surgery, but have to wait to go under the knife because of all the cups of sweet tea they’ve ingested from kindly neighbors.

Tea is for Ticker:
The morning after my mum’s arrival, she sat in bed holding her left side. “I didn’t sleep a wink,” she said. “I can feel my heart thumping against my ribs.” If this wasn’t alarming enough, she then announced: “I was thinking during the night, if I go while I’m here, I’d like my ashes to be scattered in Huntington Gardens.”
“Don’t be silly, we’re not members anymore - we'd have to pay admission! You’ll be fine after a cup of tea.”

Tea is for Toilet:
The phone rings on Christmas morning. “It’s probably the family ringing from England,” says Mum, excited.
“Good morning, Luisa, it’s your neighbor.”
“Merry Christmas!”
“I’m afraid it’s not so merry; the drain outside your bathroom has popped its cap and there’s sewage everywhere.”
“Mum, English breakfast or Ceylon?”

Tea is for Terrible Food:
Since Mum bought her ticket back in August, I’ve been saving my pennies to celebrate Christmas in style with dinner at the Ritz Carlton, Huntington. The hotel offered its usual discrete Christmas cheer, the mellow glow of wooden paneling offset with red velvet bows and evergreen garlands, and sedate clusters of armchairs and leather sofas in recessed lounges. The waitress in the dining room was just friendly enough to remind us we were in America, but professional enough to remind us we were enjoying a Fine Dining Experience.

“Ooawwhh! I’m Minnie Moush!” came a loud male voice behind me. Uh-oh! Someone’s had too much to drink. I discretely turned my head under the pretext of adjusting my earring and saw a long-haired gentleman with a two-pointed folded napkin on his head. He half-rose from his chair as a party passed him on their way out of the restaurant: “Lovewly famahly! Lovewly!” The Maitre D hovered close by and whispered something in his ear. “They wan’ me to leaf!” the long-haired gentleman informed the dining room. “I’m a Cuban exile. Why’m I always have to leaf. The people in this country are not warm, not warm!” he complained to his partner, who sat transfixed with rapt adoration, or as a result of technical difficulties with his long white scarf, it was hard to tell which. The Cuban exile settled down, and we went back to enjoying The Ambiance, provided by a classical guitar player whose music continued even when he stopped to shake hands with a departing guest.

The amuse bouche arrived. Chilly vichyssoise in a martini glass. A mouthful of cream is not the way to amuse my bouche or even tantalize my taste buds, but the night is young… Josh was reading his book, which is how he passes time at Michelin star restaurants, so he missed the Cuban exile, who on his way back from the restroom had stopped in the entrance next to the guitar player and was doing a slow-motion Flamenco dance, and then bowed in “Nameste” salute to the rest of the diners, who, although not amused by the chef’s efforts were very much taken by his. The Maitre D hovered nervously in the general vicinity under the pretext of pouring my mother’s champagne, whipping the white napkin from around the bottle as if what he’d really like to do was wrap it round the Cuban’s neck.
“I didn’t realize we were going to have live entertainment,” said my mother archly.
“Madam, I do hope you are referring to the guitar player,” replied the deadpan Maitre D.

How could we have been so naive? Sweet Baby Shrimp Salad with Kumquats, Daikon Radish, Micro Greens with Avocado and Pepper Coulis turned out to be shrimp in seafood dressing. The only thing that was micro was the slice of avocado and if the shrimp had been any more baby, they would have been the subject of a Pro-Life campaign. This is what my mother used to prepare in the 1970s if my father unexpected brought home a colleague for dinner – hardly what we expected from an international chef. Fortunately, we had chosen not to go with the wine pairing, so I was spared the Chianti and was well into my glass of Byron Pinot Noir by the time our main course arrived: Roasted Beef Tenderloin and Braised Short Ribs in Yorkshire Crepes, Brussels Sprout Leaves and Bordelaise Sauce.
“Yes! Steak!” cried Josh, and tucked into the coin-sized tenderloin that sat forlornly between two miniscule deep-fried tubes filled with potato and peas. Short ribs? How short could they be? Of their existence there was no sign, nor of the Brussels sprouts, which appeared to have escaped after a short scuffle.

“I topped up your champagne,” said the kind waitress, and indeed we now both had half a glass before us. Just as well, as our calorific content was not going to be supplied by the food, or the bread rolls which would have been better employed down the barrel of a gun.

Warm Chocolate Cake with Liquid Center and Eggnog Ice Cream. Thank goodness! Someone had finally had the good sense to raid the freezer and treat us to something from a catering pack. As I paid the bill, bleeding every one of those $480 that would otherwise be going towards – what? A bed? A plumber? Asthma medication? – I detected movement to starboard. “Lovewly famahly!” breathed the Cuban in brandied fumes, “Lovewly.” My mother stared at him with the expression that has been known to wither supermarket managers, the entire staff and student body of Collingwood Boy's School, and even striking French farmers. The Cuban proved no less susceptible, and for the first time that evening, returned meekly to his table where he seated himself opposite his partner, who continued to gaze in starry-eyed admiration (or maybe the beginnings of an alcoholic coma).

Somewhat deflated ourselves, we took our time in the restrooms (we could at least recoup some of our costs in the unlimited use of functioning plumbing) and made our way to the hotel entrance. A waiter bearing aloft a tray with a silver coffee pot brushed past us. “They won’ releasth my keysth!” came a Cuban accent we had come to know well. A crowd of guests and valet parking attendants gathered around our fellow diner who was holding forth on the subject of keys, Cuba and his dislike of red-haired men, this last directed to the manager, who dismissed the waiter with the coffee after it became apparent that the Cuban would not be availing himself of this courtesy. “You look like Liza Minelli!” screeched the Cuban, to the irritation of the manager and the barely-concealed amusement of the staff.

The taxi driver added a fifty percent mark up to our fare on our way home, obviously basing our income on our point of origination, not our destination, and I was too disconsolate to complain.
“Never mind, Lou,” said my mother as we settled down for another night being serenaded by the refrigerator, “In the morning we’ll write a strong letter to the Ritz Carlton.” And that’s exactly what we did. Over a cup of tea, of course.

Copyright © Louise Godbold

Spiritual Retreat

2007-09-16T10:59:00.001-07:00

Just made my escape from a spiritual retreat. It seemed like a good idea, a weekend in an exquisitely restored Arts and Crafts house set in the foothills of Ojai. Panoramic views and a swimming pool; the womb-like wooden interior of the house and landscaped gardens; what’s not to like?

Well, perhaps the fact that it was a spiritual retreat should have been my first clue. On Sundays I go dance, free-style, at a hippie-dippie gathering full of yogis and New Agers, where I regularly feel a soaring freedom as I launch into pirouettes across the room, not caring at all what kind of a fool I’m making of myself, because nothing, and I say this most sincerely, nothing can compare with what the other folk are up to. There are even moments when the shaking of my body to some compulsive rhythm or a moment of quiet, sitting on the floor, I feel “connected to the Source” (as Jo, the DJ/guru would say), bathed in white light. It was the pursuit of more of that white light that led me to sign up for this retreat, even though I couldn’t really afford it and Josh will complain again about PB&J sandwiches for lunch and I will be shod in flip-flops for another year.

Unfortunately, our first retreat session was right after Friday dinner and I didn’t feel like prancing about, thanks to a very gifted (cute, interesting) chef. I had been assured that this first session would be gentle, but in place of Jo’s customary world music mix, we had live drumming – something I am usually enthusiastic about, but not on a full stomach. I swayed on the spot, waiting for that moment of enlightenment, of other-worldliness, but all I got was repeating pine nut and dill gravy. Maybe tomorrow, I thought, when I’m not so tired, and slipped out to get to the head of the line for the shower.

Despite being engaged in writing a book about my missionary experiences, I had forgotten the full Technicolor horror of communal living. I was sharing a room with 4 other girls and a bathroom with 8. Even though I stole the lead on the bathroom queue, there was nothing I could do about enforced proximity with 4 other people and their nocturnal habits. All night long, I was kept awake by someone tossing and turning (me?) and more trips to the en suite bathroom than seen by an airport restroom. Bang, went the wooden door; clang went the antique metal flush; thomp, thomp, thomp, went the returning weak bladders.

At 6:30 AM, a particularly annoying Hungarian woman took a shower (after two closely timed visits to the bathroom, just to set her intention) and then proceeded to fire up a hairdryer. Realizing I wasn’t about to get any more sleep, I shuffled down to the kitchen to make myself a cup of tea. There I engaged in a conversation with a “body worker” (as in humans, not cars) and a yoga teacher. When asked how I slept, I could only be honest; when asked about the previous night, I couldn’t lie about my disappointment with the music. At this point, the Hungarian woman arrived and put her finger to her lips. Apparently, we were supposed to be observing a vow of silence until 9 AM. “Sod this!” I thought with my reflex refusal to abide by rules that don’t make sense to me (ergo, my current status as backslidden missionary). The other two early risers had sloped off to find more “positive” interactions, and the Hungarian woman and her sidekick smiled and shook their heads sadly as I expostulated about attempts to curtail personal freedoms. Usual story: I find myself in a religious community who are confused and hurt by my refusal to “get with the program.” My objections put a dent in their smiling serenity. Not good when we’re supposed to be cultivating inner calm as per the rituals of whichever religious leader I find myself aligned with at the time.

I started my new book, Misadventures of a Missionary, for a bit of fun. The accusation that I’m “rebellious” is a theme that runs through both this book and the last, and I took to be merely a misunderstanding - I don’t go around tearing things down for the sake of it; I just cannot shift my inner compass to unquestioningly point to the prevailing ideas of how I should think, act, be. If that makes me a rebel, then I guess guilty as charged. I prefer to see myself as Frank Sinatra, singing and pirouetting to “My Way.”

Explaining all this to a kindly roommate, I found myself in tears. I hadn’t realized how deeply I cared about being misunderstood by all the well-intentioned religious people in the past who have shaken their heads sadly over me; how much I wanted to be part of a shared experience of the divine; how much I wanted to be accepted and my inner compass respected rather than to be seen as a heretic. I just want to love God, love people and be loved. Simple really, but somehow I always find myself on the outside.

Realizing that in this state I was not going to be anything but trouble to the 50-minute meditation before breakfast, I snuck back into the kitchen to make more tea. (At least this one British religious ritual remains to me.) Lo and behold, the chef was in residence, and turned out to be someone with a colorful past to equal my own, and cute, did I mention he was cute? And Dutch. Perfect!

While everyone was dancing to more wild drums after breakfast, I packed my bag and left. I could not take another night like the last, and I was already getting far too much attention from fellow-participants who suspected I was mad about something and crazy, which just made me more mad and crazy. It’s the way they look at you – like you’re dangerous, or have something contagious. Lack of credulity, perhaps?

Loss of Faith

2006-12-28T18:47:00.000-08:00

Did this for an online writers' community who unaccountably like to see people reading their work. Shortest route to public humiliation, but I'm nothing if not game.

Saving Prostitutes in Sevilla

2006-12-13T16:01:00.000-08:00

A chapter from a work-in-progress memoir, 'Misadventures of a Missionary.' I apologize for what sounds like a 747 engine in the background... any advice on how to get rid of it would be much appreciated.

Inhabiting the Spectrum

2006-12-07T12:58:00.000-08:00

“Este pinche colina!” shouted a voice over the squealing of tires. Someone was stuck on our hill again. I stretched my neck to peer short-sightedly at the alarm clock: 6:50 AM. The barrio dawn chorus.

I sat up in bed and considered the day ahead: drop off laundry at fluff ‘n' fold; buy gubbings for dinner tonight; write up the interviews I had conducted with workforce development participants; mend my son’s pants; write Christmas cards. The last two I knew to be impossible, but I added them to my list every day in the hope that little elves would come in the night and miraculously next morning there they would be – jeans patched with tiny little elf stitches and Christmas cards correctly addressed and stamped. If you have never received a Christmas card from me, now you know why.

Later that morning, as I was making my way home via the convenience store, my cell phone rang.
“You never call, you never write… ” It was my brother, in town to shoot a commercial but MIA as usual on these fleeting trips to LA. “Lou, how’s your French? How would you say: You can take my life, but you can never take my soul?”
At least this time he wasn’t asking me to explain to the Guatemalan police that he’d been attacked by a gang with machetes.
“Vous pouvez prendre ma vie,” I said, slurping a coffee and reaching into the refrigerated case for shredded cheese, “… mais vous n’aurez jamais mon alme. Kahm-sa-hahm-ni-da.”
“Cum sum humnida?” repeated my brother. How do you spell that?”
“No, sorry, that’s Korean. I was just thanking the store clerk,” I said, balancing my coffee on the roof of my car so I could open the door.
“Vous errez…” tried my brother. “How quickly could you get to Paramount studios? I need you to coach the actress.”
I looked at the shredded cheese on the seat beside me and then down at my sweat pants. I remembered my interview write-ups and all the other tasks I had set myself for the day. “How much will you pay me?”
“A hundred bucks.”
“See you in 20 minutes.”

Exactly twenty minutes later, I pulled into the Paramount main gate, giving directions over the phone to my French friend, Anne-Helene. (I am pretty confident about making myself understood in French, but I could unwittingly ruin a whole advertising campaign if I missed certain nuances. Like the Spanish-language campaign for 'got milk?' which was rendered in translation as, 'are you lactating?' Or the Chevy Nova that had disappointing sales in Latin America until someone pointed out that 'no va' means 'won’t go' in Spanish.) The security guard was a cheery chap, smiling and joking as he looked up my name, all the while giving me sidelong glances, as if trying to figure out whether my glasses and pulled-back hair were the grunge disguise of someone famous. Then he took in my dusty Honda with the cookie crumbs and candy wrappers in the back and obviously decided that the grunge was for real. But he did look twice. I entered the parking lot feeling just a little bit glamorous.

Head up, shoulders back, stomach in, I schooled myself, as I strode down the alleys between stages. Whenever I don’t feel confident about how I’m dressed (every day I have to walk past the BCBG mothers at school) or am threatened with the feeling I don’t belong, I stand up straight and smile. It doesn’t fool anyone of course, but at least I do scruffy social misfit with dignity. It had been a while since I’d been on a studio lot. I couldn’t help feeling a little nostalgic as I walked between the sandy buildings with their huge hangar doors. I spotted a cluster of people drinking coffee and helping themselves to snacks from the craft services table. A white-haired security man hovered over the goodies, shooting me furtive glances. Did I look that much like my brother? Or maybe I really did resemble someone famous? More likely I had forgotten I was wearing my 'proud to be queer' T-shirt again. That and my 'Drug and Alcohol Programs' T-shirt has earned me some strange looks from the elderly couple at the fluff ‘n fold. The occupational hazard of being a social program consultant who actually wears the freebies the client gives her. Thank God I turned down that contract for sexually transmitted diseases.

“Epoch films?” I asked a hirsute gentleman, who was standing with a gaggle of grips. I knew they were grips because a roll of duct tape was hanging from every conceivable part of their bodies. He nodded towards a door that said 'Keep Out!' 'Do Not Enter – Filming In Progress' in large red letters. I pushed the door gingerly, expecting to walk into a daze of lights and the whole crew to start shouting at me. Fortunately, the action was elsewhere and the only thing on this part of the set were cables, camera boxes and a knight in armor. “Lost your horse?” I said, taking in his mournful face. He gave me a disdainful look and shuffled off, clanking. There I go with the sarcasm again! At this rate, I’ll never be rescued from my tower.

Following the golden rules of movie production (don’t walk in front of the camera or trip over the cables) I made my way to an island of 3 tall black canvas chairs clustered around TV monitors. “Vous pouvez prendre ma vie, mais vous n’aurez jamais mon alme!” I declaimed to the back of my brother’s head. He turned around. “Aher,” he explained to the startled faces, “this is my sister.” They continued to stare. “Lou, this is The Director, The Creative Director, The Client…” his eyes opened wider at each title, telegraphing the imperative to behave. “Thanks for helping us out,” said the director, and returned to the monitors.

My brother quickly ushered me behind a black curtain where a damsel in a blue torn dress was being dabbed with powder and having her lips painted by two attendants with matching blond spiky hair. The actress turned her eyes towards me, while keeping her face uplifted for the ministrations. The two blonds fell away, and without smiling, the actress recited the French words in a flat accent.
“You should push your lips forward,” I corrected, “and put the emphasis on ‘jamais.’”
“I studied French for seven years,” she said, looking down her nose in a fashion that was indeed very French. Her attendants took on similarly pained expressions. It didn’t help that in the throes of proper French articulation, my chewing gum had popped out of my mouth and onto the floor.
“And you should make the ‘a’ in ‘alme’ wider” I carried on, undeterred. After all, there was a hundred bucks at stake here.
“There’s an ‘l’ in ‘âme?’” the actress asked, looking from one to the other of her make up artists as if for elucidation. Blond hair bristled in suspicion.
Just then, Anne-Helene arrived and quickly confirmed that yes, indeed ‘âme’ had no ‘l.’ I could have told them that the circumflex accent was actually a sign that a letter had been missed out, and as the spelling in Spanish was ‘alma,’ it was reasonable to believe that at one time the French spelling also had an ‘l,’ so technically I was right, in a historical sort of way, but by this time I had grown bored and decided to head over to where three black leather sofas had been grouped into an impromptu sitting room at the other end of the stage.

The lounge arrangement was to house the so-called ‘creatives’ from the advertising agency, who hang around on set listening to iPods, drinking white wine and generally getting in the way. All dressed in black, it was hard to distinguish them from the sofas. The client was typing furiously on a laptop, but paused long enough to register me as I perched on the sofa arm for a chat. I happened to glance up and caught sight of my brother in a booth overlooking the stage. When our eyes met, he stood up with an alarmed expression on his face, all the while continuing to talk into the phone.

After my chat, I picked my way over cables and between lamps and screens to the iron staircase leading up to the booth.
“I’ve got to go, my sister’s been talking to the client,” said Rob as he hung up the phone. “What’s wrong?” he demanded.
“Wrong?” I asked. “Nothing. I was just telling them how I got out of the film industry because it is so meaningless and the people so shallow and egotistical.”
My brother put his head in his hands, but his groans were drowned out by the cries of the extras, who appeared to be doing their best to storm a bright green backdrop, waving sticks and rolling their eyes. The telephone rang. Rob picked it up and clamped his free hand over his ear: “Sorry? I can’t hear you; the peasants are revolting.”

I decided to resume my ‘meet and greet’ tour of the crew. Three gentlemen stood together, observing the peasants. I surmised they must be art department because they weren’t adorned with rolls of duct tape and didn’t have the whippet hound quiver of production assistants, who stand poised like Pharaoh’s slaves to satisfy the slightest whim of the production elite. (Earlier Rob had seen the director eating a pear. “That looks good,” said Rob, and moments later a PA materialized bearing a polished wooden bowl filled with wax-perfect pears. My brother has come a long way from the days when he used to have to rugby tackle me for the last cookie.)

Meanwhile, Anne-Helene had been taking her duties very seriously. The actress was now bound to a stake on top of a bonfire (no wonder she had been a bit tense earlier – the unruly extras were wielding real fire brands) and Anne-Helene had positioned herself in the actress’ sightline, right next to an impromptu hand-written autocue. I watched several takes, but all this standing around was making my back hurt. Time to reclaim my quotidian life, now that my brother’s crisis had been averted. I said my goodbyes and slipped away, back out into the sunshine, back down the wide walkways, past an awed group of tourists on a studio tour, past office workers with ID badges swinging from their neck, and into the parking lot where two men in suits were having an argument as they climbed into a BMW convertible.

“Bueno,” I was at home and conducting a telephone interview in Spanish with a 56-year old Mexican lady, “and did you want more than four-day week cleaning at the hospital?”
“Pues, no,” she replied, “I’ve had seven children, I’m tired. Four days is enough.” We laughed companionably as I wrapped up the interview. After writing up the interview notes, I picked up the sewing, just so I could do it badly enough that my mother would be obliged to finish the job properly once we got home for Christmas.

All in all, a very good day, I reflected. It was fun to revisit the movie world, but more satisfying to finish the day relating to someone whose daily dramas were about feeding her children. But then everywhere on set I saw baby pictures – inside camera cases, as screen savers – reminding me of my early days in program evaluation when my own screen saver read 'Josh needs to eat.' People really are all the same, it’s just that in the rarified stratosphere of fame and fortune and the razzle-dazzle of movie production it is easy to forget. How could that actress, who received $100,000 for one day’s work relate to the señora on minimum wage? I consider it my very good fortune that I inhabit neither extreme, yet get to rub shoulders with both. Now if I could only harness those little elves, my life would be perfect.

Copyright © 2007 Louise Godbold

We, the Deserving Poor

2006-12-05T14:06:00.000-08:00

Even though at the elite private school I was visiting, today was 'casual Friday,' I knew better. Think Françoise, I told myself, as I clicked through the mothers at Josh’s school and landed on ‘understated professional.’ To create the look, pants, not low slung, denim or any other dubious material, and fastening around the waist without the aid of a safety pin and a gaping view of underwear. Okay, jacket then. Long, copious, double-breasted and therefore unlikely to reveal the substandard trouser fastening. Boots. Winkle pickers, but they lent me a somewhat dangerous air; just how dangerous a certain scone on a low coffee table knew only too well. (My sister arranged an afternoon tea at a posh hotel when I was last in London and was mortified when I managed to spear one of the raisin scones and jiggled it about unwittingly as I kept time to the string quartet.)

Although I have elected by certain life choices to distain the privileges afforded to me by birth (i.e., being white), and although material possessions are a low priority when compared to love, laughter and paying my son’s text messaging bill, I always believed, that should push come to shove, I could muster a suitably bourgeois wardrobe. After all, I did have my mother’s example on how to put myself together, whether it be for an audience with the Queen or a trip to the supermarket (my mother makes no distinction, both require lipstick and pantyhose). What I hadn’t realized, was that 15 years of living in the US and going to the supermarket in sweats had left me woefully deficient in understated professional wear and I couldn’t even produce ‘casual separates’ without bleach stains or B.U.M. (the British equivalent of B.U.T.T.) emblazoned on the front.

An hour later, I had perfected my interview outfit. We are applying to 5 schools, which means 5 open houses and 5 interviews. I wondered how I could accessorize a bright red jacket and black pants to look different 10 times. Perhaps they would think I worked as a parking valet and that this was my uniform? Good excuse, but hardly likely to impress any Admissions Director.

Such was my desire to appear the perfect parent, I arrived at the school half an hour early. After driving up and down the street for a while in a kind of lazy reconnaissance of the neighborhood, I turned into an up-market grocery store. The cashier rang up my bag of oranges: $8.25 – more than she was earning per hour. Poverty is relative, I realized, smiling at the baggers, who were yawning and chatting to each other in Spanish, but they didn’t smile back. I had dressed the part too well; I was just another gabacha.

At the school, it was another story. An elderly security guard ushered me to my parking space, walking backwards and bowing. Did they practice court etiquette here? Would he also spread his jacket on the ground before me? Perhaps the school had received word that the Notre Dame scout would be arriving in a black 1995 Honda civic? If this kind of attention was the result of my carefully chosen wardrobe, Francoise must live a charmed life.

I walked to the admissions office, passing teenagers in jeans and tennis shoes; nothing baggy, frayed or vaguely gang banging – my son would also have to go through a wardrobe upgrade. Waiting alone in the reception area, I leafed through the hefty yearbook: lots of theatre, lots of sports, lots of graduates in jacket and ties – this wardrobe thing was worse than I thought. I peered at all the pictures obsessively, no longer interested in academic standards or extra-curricula activity, but focused purely on apparel. Is this what private school would do to us? At least at the French school I am not expected to have any sense of style, because, after all, I am British. Our French cousins have long given up expecting elegance or good food from their neighbors and are satisfied with being able to rely on us for pop music and waxed coats.

A couple walked nervously to the nest of chairs I was occupying. Parents from the diversity program, I surmised. After my struggles this morning, I recognized the look that strives for Jackie Onassis but stalls at Madeleine Albright. Just then, a slim, blonde arrived, flashing a perfect smile and greeting everyone with confidence. Our wardrobe insecurities did a quick inventory of her green leggings and riding boots, topped with a long green sweater. She looked like the mounted section of Santa’s elves. As I embarked in casual conversation, it did not surprise me to learn that she lived in Beverly Hills. Good skin and expensive highlights didn’t need dress-up clothes. The security guard was probably still prostrate in front of her car.

The Admissions Director was suddenly before us. She escorted our little group around the building, which housed the library and various classrooms. I hung out with the couple and chatted in Spanish. She was from Mexico, he was American. I liked them; they laughed at my jokes. The Admissions Director, on the other hand, did not appear to share my sense of humor. “I’ll have to move to a bigger place,” I said, as we viewed the art projects, which included a 6-foot papier-mâché carrot. “Well, you could put it outside,” said the Admissions Director, with a thin smile. Had I somehow insinuated that the school was not being sensitive to families living in cramped housing? She obviously had me ear-marked as a financial aid candidate. Next time I would wear leggings.

The tour included a well-equipped theatre, which prompted the question: “Do you have many parents in the film industry?” She again gave me a guarded look. “Well, this is Los Angeles, but I always say you won’t see our entertainment industry parents in the National Enquirer.” She swung round with a beaming smile to the Beverly Hills elf:
“They’re all family people.” I had forgotten this was The Valley. Perhaps she now thought I was suggesting the parents were porn stars.

We returned via the elementary school. I hurried to catch up with the Admissions Director and the Beverly Hills matron, desperate to redeem myself.
“I think it’s great when the big kids and the little kids are all on one campus,” I enthused from behind.
“Yes,” agreed the Admissions Director, keeping step with the Beverly Hills woman. “I remember seeing our football coach out on the field with his baby in a harness. It was such a good role model for the boys,” she smiled over at her companion.
“I see that a lot in my neighborhood,” I said, trotting to keep up, happy to have at last found common ground: “All the gang members look so tough and there they are with their little babies, taking such good care of them.” There was a silence. “Of course, I guess you don’t see much of that in Beverly Hills, ha, ha, ha!”
“We have other problems,” said the Beverly Hills blonde, fixing me with a hard stare.
I fell back to ponder this. Could she have possibly known about the time my car caught on fire on Rodeo Drive?

Our walk-through ended back in the admissions office. The Latina and I stood awkwardly as the Admissions Director addressed the Beverly Hills mother standing behind us. “So sorry you couldn’t make an orientation, then you would have had a chance to meet the parents,” who are nothing like this motley crew, was the unspoken end to the sentence. The Lady In Green departed. No regret was expressed about us not being able to make it to the orientation.

I went back to my car wondering if my son stood a chance in hell of getting into this place. I had a feeling we might be tolerated for our ethnic, economic and sartorial diversity, but clearly we would not be donating a new wing to the library. “What can your culture bring to our school?” was one of the questions on the minority program application. What did they expect? That because his father was born in Mexico, my son could teach them ballet folklorico?

I drove away already writing an ironic account of the visit in my head, but the truth of the matter is that it did not sit well, this role of the deserving poor. My own fault. I have never much cared for wealth and privilege, so I should not now be surprised if wealth and privilege do not seem to much care for me.

Copyright © 2006 Louise Godbold

Thank You For The Hand

2006-11-29T15:30:00.000-08:00

…Overhead, overhead
Rushes life in a race
As the clouds
The clouds chase
And we go
And we drop
Like the fruits of the tree
Even we
Even so.
(Anon)

“Can you make oatmeal?” asks Camille. I fear I may be forced to resign from my position as Chief Caretaker for the Day on the spot.
“I can try,” I answer. “How much time have you got?” Ouch! That was almost as tactful as the message I left on the answer machine talking about looking forward to when this is all over.
I navigate the unfamiliar kitchen with its family-style veneer of meals past, the ocean bottom sink-drainer and crunchy floor. However, the contents of the dishwasher are clean and there is a roasting pan and vegetable steamer in the bone-dry dish rack. Signs of life before surgery? Everywhere I look, there is evidence of life interrupted – a suitcase from the recent trip to France, a skirt on the ironing board, laundry beside the machine sorted into a dark and light wash. Then there is evidence of the meteor strike – Steven’s bedding on the sofa, a bloody, gauze stocking-cap nestling with unfolded laundry on a chair, get well cards shuffled with unopened mail.
Camille staggers to the bedroom door. “I’m going to try to sleep now,” she says. Good. More time to figure out how to make oatmeal.

When I arrived this morning, I found Camille lying on a ridiculously cheerful Provencal yellow sheet, wearing chartreuse silk pajama bottoms, gray tank and an orange organza scarf around her head that lent her a jaunty, gypsy look. “Isn’t she the most beautiful person you’ve ever seen after brain surgery?” asked Steven. She glowed under this flattery, but looked to me like a broken doll with the puffy brown bruises around her eyes, chewed up hair and the Frankenstein scar at her hairline.
“I think I’m making progress, little by little, each day?” She looked to Steven for reassurance. I didn’t look at him but suddenly I felt like I was part of a conspiracy; I just couldn’t tell who were the conspirators.

Within half an hour, she is awake and asking for the oatmeal, which to my great gratification she polishes off while I sit beside her on the bed. There is one moment when she dips the wrong end of her spoon in the honey and sucks it, then laughs, realizing she had meant to add the honey to the oatmeal. Apart from that, and believing Bill Clinton is President, I don’t see any other manifestations of the bizarre behavior I had been quite looking forward to. And the Bill Clinton thing is probably just wishful thinking.
She’s tired again and slides down under the naked duvet, resting her head on the bare pillow. That’s why it looks so improvised in here – all the linen is in a pile behind the bedroom door. “Did Steven tell you about the hospital?” she asks. “The intensive care unit?” I shake my head. “The nurses were so horrible!” she says, bursting into tears. I stroke her hand and try to find sufficient vehemence to express my solidarity.
“The bitches!” I manage. “I’m surprised you didn’t bop them on the nose. That’s probably why they sedated you – they were in fear of their life!” She grins through her tears. When she smiles, she looks as impish as her 8-year old son. It’s the freckles, I think, and the way her whole face shines. She looks so tiny under the cover. I’m ready to go finish some business with the nurses at the hospital.

Desperate to be useful, I start folding laundry. My eye catches movement through the front door: It’s Sylvie, one of the mothers from school. She enters full of complaints that Steven won’t respond to her emails, that he’s building a wall around his family, denying us access: “He can’t possibly do it all!” she declares. I settle her with a cup of peach tea and make room in the sticky refrigerator for the soup and fruit she has brought. “I knew he was giving her supermarket soup!” she says as she spies the open carton, offended to her Gallic core. We put her tulips in a blue Tupperware jug since we can’t find any more vases. Earlier, I had made half-hearted attempts to wipe down the kitchen with the grimy dishcloth. Sylvie clicks her tongue as she looks around: “When I come I’m going to clean!” I feel vaguely insulted.
“Well, I wanted to, but there were no gloves…” but she’s already eying the windows and searching under the sink for a bucket. I began to sympathize with Steven. No doubt he would be the first thing to be transported out in the bucket.

After Sylvie leaves, I decide it’s time for lunch, taking my book and salad into the garden. It is very peaceful here, only the clacking of bamboo swaying in the breeze and the occasional bump coming from Camille’s room to remind me to enjoy every last drop of the sunshine and silence. Looking at the bolting rose bush and sprawling plants, I imagine Camille enjoying many peaceful lunches here. At least, I hope she was peaceful. Unlike me, she’s always had an immense capacity for making the best of her life: When I stay at home and do chores, she takes the boys swimming; when I wrap myself in doom and gloom, she does yoga in the sitting room; and when I shuttle between school and my desk, she is to be seen exiting the local coffee shop with a cappuccino. “I haven’t got much work this month,” I said this morning, “so I can spend time with you.”
“And on yourself,” she said, a slight reproach pursing her lips.
“Oh, I went to the beach on Monday, but I didn’t enjoy it. I guess I’m too task oriented.” She made no comment, but I had blundered yet again. The air hung heavy with lost possibilities and my ingratitude.

After lunch, I am suddenly inspired to investigate the laundry situation and gingerly open the interior door to the garage. It is a cavern filled with miscellaneous items, but under power tools and laundry baskets, I find a washing machine. I think I hear something. “Louise!” Camille is calling, a slight edge of panic in her voice. I emerge to see her careening across the living room, now in a green silk shirt that comes down to her knees.
“You need a bell so you don’t have to get out of bed each time you need something.”
“No, it’s good for me to get out of bed… but I think I’m going to pass out.” She collapses onto the bench next to the table. Her eyes light on the gold chain and tiny gold heart that I found among the laundry: “Ah, I’m so pleased you found it!” she says, smiling fondly at the necklace. “It belonged to my cousin who committed suicide at 30.” Thirty? Forty-two? There should be some allotted amount of life that is fairly distributed, like a mother serving cake to her children. Why would you give one child a smaller piece than the other? To build character? To show your ‘Grace’ as you comfort the swindled child? I don’t think so! God seems increasingly to be a fan of reality TV shows: Big Brother meets Survivor, with maybe a bit of Fear Factor thrown in. Camille clutches the heart and reels across the room back to bed.

This time, I stick a shoe in the door when I go into the garage, so that I can hear her call. I begin to sort the wash: boys shorts, definitely; Adrian can’t wear swimming trunks to school again. Camille’s exercise gear I put to one side – she won’t be needing that for a while. It is amazing how dispassionate I can be. I am hoping this is a protective mechanism and not that I am some ghoul who is enjoying the drama, escaping her own petty life immersed in the misery of others. Or worse still that my co-dependant tendencies are on overtime. I don’t really believe that of myself, but I’ve learnt that our motives are never really pure, that we can find all manner of ways to hide from our lives and ourselves, including altruism.
I wrestle with the knob on the washing machine. Come on, I tell myself, You’re an intelligent woman, you can figure this out. Finally, the drum churns, the machine bucks and over the sounds of reluctant metal, I hear Camille call. The light is hurting her eyes. She has appropriated a shawl and sends me in search of pins in the boys’ room. There is a mountain of clothes in the middle of the floor. I had seriously underestimated the laundry problem. After I’ve rigged up the shawl across the high window, I sit beside her on the bed. She explains that she is desperate for sleep, but can only knock out for a few minutes at a time. “My mind, it’s racing, racing,” she says, and draws a finger across her forehead as if to describe the trajectory of her thoughts. The notebook beside her is filled with scratchy writing and asterisks to pin down her fleeting memory. “It’s because they operated on my brain,” she explains, gripping my hand hard. “It’s all messed up.” She thinks that’s why she can’t sleep – that and the medication. I wonder about this desire to sleep, which has become an obsession. The body wanting to heal but sabotaged by the tumor growing deep inside her brain. I want to tell her to come out into the garden, into the sun. Soon you may be sleeping for a very long time.
I sit and hold her hand. I feel a bit stupid, to tell the truth, just sitting there. I close my eyes and try to send a stream of warm, healing light into her body. I feel the energy bubble inside me, but I don’t know if it does her any good. When she turns on her side, I gently extricate my hand and return to the laundry. I used to do that when my son was a baby, sit beside him until he fell asleep and then creep away to get the chores done. Now he’s almost grown, I wish I spent more time just looking at his sleeping face, hearing him breathe. When will I learn to savor, to be peaceful in inaction? Probably always too late.

Steven returns to find me folding clothes. I quickly stuff his underwear under the T-shirts, fearing indelicacy. I realize that it will soon be time to pick up my son and I haven’t even started on The Dinner. I had come up with this grand plan by trying to imagine what my most practical friend would do in this situation. It came to me in a flash; she would prepare a taco bar, with all the fillings nicely laid out, so Steven and the boys could fix themselves tacos. The beauty of the plan is that most of the ingredients can be bought, which only leaves the meat to cook. I put oil in a pan and start chopping garlic. A neighbor arrives with flowers and while Steven busies himself preparing to collect the boys, the neighbor and I enter into a detailed discussion about where exactly he lives. I am on my eighth clove of garlic when the neighbor suddenly seizes the pan, which is now smoking evilly. Steven registers the tableau of me and the neighbor holding the pan and a dishtowel aloft, shakes his head, and disappears out the front door. I shouldn’t have entertained him the other night with the amusing story of my uncle setting the house on fire. He’s probably worried that it’s a family trait.

I leave the neighbor pondering the ground beef, hoping that Steven will find the other ingredients still sitting in the refrigerator (that’s the problem when your most practical friend is from South Texas – her solutions may be culturally inappropriate for a domestically disabled Brit) and hasten to pick up my son from school. Sylvie finds me on the play-yard. “What do you know about Camille’s diagnosis?” she demands. Oh, heck! I fudged the answer earlier, not wanting to say anything if Steven had not made the biopsy results public. It turns out she confronted Steven when he picked up the boys this afternoon. I confirm what she has already heard. “I had to put on my dark glasses,” she says. I can tell she is still crying behind them. “He told me before that the tumor is deep inside the brain. So that’s it, isn’t it? There’s no hope.” I can’t contradict her.
“We can just do what we can to help – that’s all we can do.”
“Oh, you are British, aren’t you!” she snaps and turns away.

The children and parents ebb and flow around me. I am greeted by several people I know but it is as if I am underwater. My mind is replaying the sequence of an exotic coral reef fish darting into the sitting room in a green silk shirt. Among the milling neighbors and smoking oil, she pulls her small body against mine: “I just wanted to thank you before you left.” She breaks away smiling the trademark impish smile: “Thank you for the hand.”

© Copyright 2006 Louise Godbold

Signals

2006-11-29T14:44:00.000-08:00

Flashing in sequence
like a fan
of show girl high kicks
or wood anemones
nodding in the rain

the yellow lights
blink
their ballet
only for me
as I swing across
the intersection

the drivers
oblivious
to the harmony
of
random
synchronicity

Copyright © 2005 Louise Godbold

Healthcare Options

2006-11-29T13:44:00.000-08:00

(Jaunty music and then over, a bright voice) You have reached Healthcare Impedimente, where we don’t just want you to be healthy, we want you to thrive. (End music)

To continue in English, press 1. Para continuar en español, marque el numero nueve, uno, uno. If you are on a rotary phone, please stay on the line and we will transfer you to the gerontology department.

Please listen carefully, as some of our options have changed:
If you are calling for the Metro area, please press 1.
For the Valley and northern areas, please press 2.
For southern and coastal areas, please press 3.
If you don’t know where you live, please press 4 and a mental health professional will assist you.

You have selected the Metro area. If this is correct, please press 1.

(Fruity voice) Welcome to Healthcare Impedimente Metro area. (Takes on a more serious tone) If you think you have a medical or psychiatric emergency, please call 911 or go to the nearest hospital. In fact, you should have done that in the first place. If you would like to speak to someone regarding your emergency medical or psychiatric condition, please press 1 and an advice nurse will come on the line to tell you to call 911 or go to the nearest hospital.

(Bright again) For a refill from a Healthcare Impedimente pharmacy, please press 1.
If you would like to make an appointment, press 2.
To select your primary care physician, press 3.
To obtain lab results, press 4.
For directions and hours of operation, press 5.
For seasonal information, press 6.
If you can’t figure out whether your request is seasonal, please press 7 and our seasonal specialist will assist you.
To repeat, because you can’t possibly remember all these options, press 8.
To return to the previous menu, (with a vocal flourish) press 9.

(Congratulatory) You have selected Healthcare Impedimente Metro appointment center.
To cancel only using our automated service, press 1.
To check an existing appointment using our automated service, press 2.
To cancel and change an appointment using our automated system, press 3.
To make a new appointment, using the automated system, press 4.
To leave a message for your provider, press 5.
To speak to a representative, please press 4 and make an appointment.

(Suddenly casual) Okay, you have chosen to schedule an appointment.
Enter your medical record number followed by the pound key. Your Healthcare Impedimente medical record number can be found next to your address on the front of your Healthcare Impedimente membership card. If you can’t find your medical record number, stay on the line and the mental health professional will assist you just as soon as she’s finished helping the other morons who couldn’t find their address.

You have entered: dot, dot, dot, dash, dash, dash, dot, dot, dot. If this is correct, please press 1. Otherwise, press 2.

(Jaunty music)

I’m sorry, you have entered an incorrect medical record number. Please return to the previous menu and…

Thank you. You entered 11425400. If this is correct, press 1. Otherwise, press 2.

(Generously) Welcome to the automated appointment service sys-tem.
For an appointment today excluding physical exam, press 1.
For a future appointment excluding physical exam, press 2.

Please make a selection.

For an appointment today excluding physical exam, press 1.
For a future appointment excluding physical exam, press 2.

I’m sorry, I still didn’t understand. (With an edge of exasperation) Okay, I’ll transfer you to one of our representatives.

(Jaunty music)

Currently all representatives are busy helping other members. Due to an unusually high call volume of people who actually want a physical exam, your anticipated wait time is: (computer voice) Two. Hours. Twenty. Minutes.

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Copyright © 2006 Louise Godbold

Still Finding Ways To Kill Injuns

2006-11-29T11:02:00.000-08:00

This summer, I went with much anticipation to my first sweat lodge. I was excited because unlike most psuedo-religious fringe activities indulged in by the sun-addled residents of Southern California, this time I would be in the company of a genuine Native American, member of the Oneida tribe and renowned ‘Fancy Dancer,’ Hanna Gilan. I was instructed to bring my sweat dress (my Hawaiian muumuu, but near enough), water, and the commitment not to laugh no matter how weird the white people became so that we would not offend Hanna's well-meaning friend who had invited us.

Let me tell you a little about Hanna. If you can imagine a female basketball player with the physical range of a bendy toy, the energy of a puppy, the face of Pocahontas, and a punk haircut, then you can pretty much picture Hanna. She is kind and wild all at the same time. She will be as likely to launch into a rant, down a bottle of champagne to no apparent effect, and curse like a fishwife, as she is to bring a yoga class to tears with her gentle wisdom. A lady who has lived a lot, won’t tolerate BS, and like a stray solar flare, brings warmth and light in a combustible mix to any universe she happens into. I adore her!

The universe we were happening into that night was a bungalow in a sedate suburb of Pasadena. Our first intimation that we were near the lodge was a young woman wandering around Ophelia-fashion in a long dress and smoking a cigarette. A car pulled up behind us with two gray haired ladies in muumuus - another clue. We assembled in a living room where photos of children graduating and in military uniform competed with tribal artifacts - masks and feathers, an arrow, and many books ranging from Shirley McClain (help!) to the 9 Principles (I didn't have time to find out the 9 principles of what, but you can be pretty sure of the content, none-the-less). The house belonged to an elderly man with surprisingly good teeth and the demeanor of a sprightly janitor. I looked in vain for evidence of his loving wife but found only male hued towels in the bathroom (emerald and claret), although there was toilet paper, so if he's widowed or divorced it's been for a while. He hovered in the background, showing off his good teeth, while we deposited our potluck offerings in the kitchen, paid our dues ($10 each for our entrance into another realm tonight) and took our place in the seats around the living room. I sat very close to Hanna, who sprawled in her seat, legs crossed defiantly. I figured she was already wound up by the Native American artifacts. Any moment now, she's going to reclaim the pipe and make off into the night, I worried.

Our Mistress of Ceremonies was a brick-built woman (who claimed Native American trace elements), with the face of a Scottish sheep farmer, and an amazing resemblance to one of my former teachers, who lived with another elderly lady in the days when female companions were considered exactly that. I expected to be drilled in my times-tables, but instead was given an overview of the evening’s procedures. We went in turn around the room to introduce ourselves. The usual mixture of impressionable women with long hair, pedicures, Valley Girl accents, and a sweetness about them that was just begging to be exploited. We had the two obligatory Northern Europeans (German and Austrian), who of course were taking the whole thing way too seriously, and a couple of Asian girls who had become stuck somewhere between blonde and Hindu but were perhaps hoping to resolve that by transforming themselves into Native Americans. Most were new to the sweat lodge, but very, very keen to experience it. Two hippie-dippy veterans spoke of amazing releases they had experienced in the past and “getting it all out.” Hanna and I must have looked like twin Pierrot clowns at this juncture, eyebrows arching to the ceiling. Then it was Hanna’s turn. “I am Hanna,” she began, and in her mellifluous, woodwind voice recited her credentials, among them convener of sweat lodges for the women of the Oneida and for the youth of North East Indian tribes. The Scottish-ancestored Shaman looked nervous as the other women looked on enthralled. I sensed a mounting spiritual stand off, but the Scottish woman had the good sense to offer Hanna the most honored position – that of the water pourer. Hanna had already explained to me that it was such an important job that only those who could remain humble were offered it. She was charged with “balancing the energy.” Then it was my turn. “I am Louise Godbold and I’m British,” (pause, then Hanna’s whooping laughter) “and I’m already looking for the door!” Despite my promise to Hanna, her paroxysms beside me hardly allowed me to get the words out for my own hysterics. “And if you see me make a slight gesture or change my facial expression, I’m having a big release.” The group laughed politely and then settled down as Hanna and I continued to heave silently on the sofa. I fixed my gaze on a painted mask to control my giggles and didn’t dare look at Hanna.

A few points of protocol later (don’t cross in front of the stones or the lantern because somehow that would harm the children – what children?) and suddenly women were stripping naked and wrapping themselves in towels. Hanna was nowhere to be seen. I managed to disrobe under my muumuu, which doubles as a kind of bathing hut. Out in the backyard, I was greeted by what must be a point of curiosity for the surrounding neighbors. It appeared to be an igloo made of Indian blankets. There was some complicated protocol about walking anti-clockwise around the igloo, stepping on 7 stones, each with a different color to represent a different chakra. There was some procedural point I had missed while studying the bookcase about these stones and rising energy. I didn’t feel anything and then wondered if that was because I was still wearing my sandals. I hastily removed them and hoped there were no penalty points for wearing shoes on hallowed ground. At the lodge door, the Scottish woman (aka my math teacher) did something with eagle feathers and sage smoke, finishing by tapping the feathers on your belly and inviting the ancestors to “accept this sister.” I noticed she had a practiced flick of the wrist that seemed to come in handy when wielding feathers or making what looked like the sign of the cross at her breast. I wondered if I should perfect that as part of my own professional repertoire. Perhaps a flick of the laser pointer when doing a PowerPoint presentation? A flourish of the cell phone when taking calls in public? I remembered to crawl into the lodge and turn left so that I didn’t harm the children, or myself, by falling into the fire pit. Inside, I could just make out what looked like a survival shelter made of bent twigs, hung with dream catchers and lined with black bin liners. Somehow the black bin liners were very incongruous. Skid Row architecture meets Plains Indians. One by one, I watched my sisters’ knees as they were blessed and crawled into the lodge. I found myself sitting at the back between the ashram Asian and the German. People filled up the space in front of me until we were 20 shadows sitting in the dark and cramped space of the only other structure I’ve seen smaller than my bedsit in London. The grinning janitor brought glowing stones on a shovel and deposited them in the pit next to Hanna. “Close the flap!” called the Scottish woman in an imperious voice, and we were plunged into total darkness.

I can’t breathe! I panicked, surrounded by impenetrable blackness, the pressure of bodies and viscous heat. It was so dark it was like I had already fainted. The womb of Mother Earth. If this was the womb, then I was drowning in amniotic fluid. Trying to remember what I had been told, I pressed my hands into the floor, scrabbled to my knees and hit my forehead to the floor. Got to keep my heart higher than my head, I instructed myself, Keep in contact with the ground, the ground remains cool. The piece of sage we had been handed was worse than useless. What I needed was smelling salts. As someone practiced in the art of fainting, this was old familiar territory – only I don’t usually faint packed in among 20 bodies in complete darkness and unable to breathe. By the time they discovered my body I would have truly passed into another realm – permanently! I swallowed the hysteria and clung to the towel rolled up under my forehead as the Scottish woman called upon the spirits of the North and the South, the East and the West, the Red, White, Black and Brown people, (this is hell, this is hell) various strange-sounding deities, Mercury and Uranus (I recognized those), the little people to tickle our toes so we wouldn’t take ourselves too seriously (not much chance of that as my bottom was now high in the air in an attempt to stave off the waves of dizziness), our ancestors, Merlin (Merlin? Whoops, wrong tape, reacted my befuddled brain), and the rest of a long litany which I could only pray would be over soon. I searched my brain for the part of the schedule when they opened the flap again. I seemed to remember there was Part One: prayers for ourselves; Part Two: prayers for others; Part Three: open round (which sounded like something from a game show); and Part Four: blessing. Yoga breathing, I told myself, This is what Navy Seals do in confined spaces. Fill the back of the lungs, deeeeep breath, exhale pulling stomach to the spine. Mercifully, the incantation had stopped and we had started on the round of prayers. “Identify yourself to the universe,” boomed our Mistress of Ceremonies. Hanna was ladling water on the stones for all she was worth, judging by the hissing coming from that corner. I wished she wasn’t quite so punctilious. As I gulped soggy hot breaths from between my knees and tried to ignore the ringing in my ears, my body started squidging about under my dress until my belly slid off my knees and one side of me collapsed onto the blanket. “I am Sitha,” one of the participants informed the universe. “I pray to my ancestors and the spirit of Spiderwoman,” (did she really say Spiderwoman?) “ to allow me come into the fullness of my power.” “Ho!” responded the group, in what seemed an unlikely choice of affirmative. I willed the earth coolness along my side to rise into my body. I wondered if anyone would notice my prayer would be a bit muffled, but figured I didn’t dare pull myself into a seated position. “I am Kelly,” sang one of the Valley Girls, “please help me do well in my massage therapy mid-terms.” “Ho,” responded the group. “Idiot!” I muttered into the floor. It was my turn. I struggled to get my bottom back in the air. “Erm, this is Louise. Please help me to write my book, finally,” I prayed and subsided back onto the blanket. When it came to Hanna’s turn, she launched into the Oneida language. She appeared to be taking it all very seriously, but I noticed some references to the Healing Center at the reservation, which probably meant she was praying that she could get back to a proper sweat lodge as soon as possible. “Open the flap!” commanded our misplaced druid and suddenly the light of the lantern illuminated the glistening bare breasts of a lady to my right. I finally got close to dancing around naked in the moonlight, I mused, as I sucked in the meager amounts of fresh, cool air coming in from the flap. Somehow it didn’t seem worth the accompanying near-death experience.

Our faithful janitor appeared with more glowing stones. One of the lodge participants made a bid for freedom and I was tempted to follow after. Partly being stuck at the back, partly wanting to experience something (however bastardized) that was dear to Hanna, and partly the Empire Spirit held me back. “Close the flap!” Pitch darkness again and Part Two had begun. I resumed my bottom-up position but still experienced the blood rushing away from my head in dizzying waves as I choked on the darkness. “I am Sitha,” (Oh, here we go again!) “I pray for all children around the world.” “This is Helen,” (the Valley Girls had adopted my telephone manner of address for the universe) “I pray for my boyfriend/brother/friend/mother/step-father/cousin-once-removed/gas-station-attendant-near-where-I-live, that they can be delivered of their addiction/intestinal problems and pass their mid-terms.” It all blended into one. Apart from the boyfriend in Cabos, who was there without his girlfriend on his first vacation since joining the Sheriff’s department 4 years ago. Somehow the specificity of it stuck with me, along with the impression that the relationship was not destined to last long. Unless she was the one with glistening breasts, that is. My turn. I prayed something innocuous for my son and that he would get to experience a sweat lodge. Why the heck did I pray that?! Definitely suffering from lack of oxygen to the brain. Not only that, but I was in danger of drowning in my own sweat as rivulets cascaded into my upside down nose. My dress was now sodden, but I didn’t have time to contemplate the aesthetics of the situation as I was still concentrating on deep breathing. There is nothing spiritual about this, my mind raced, It’s purely an endurance test. Hanna’s turn. Thank God, must be near end of Part Two. “I pray that people don’t spend energy on self improvement, but concentrate on self acceptance,” prayed Hanna in Please Take Note English. “Amen! I mean, Ho!” I waved my bottom in agreement, sniffing away the sweat and trying to edge away from the burning flesh either side of me. Swelter. Suffocate. The print on plastic bags floated into my mind: Do not put over head. How ridiculous! Who would put a plastic bag over their head? Let alone seal it and then heat it up! Got to get out of here. My fingers scrabbled at the bottom of the plastic to pare open a hole. Nothing doing. I imagined punching a hole in the wall and only just controlled the impulse as the final “Ho!” signaled the rising of the flap. “Fan!” we gasped and the janitor obliged by plugging it in and sending cold air into the fetid lodge. Immobile and light-headed, I sat upright against the flimsy wall. I could make out Hanna’s silhouette by the entrance. Some of the women were lying down, legs curled. I can’t take this anymore, said my voice in my head, but couldn’t utter the sounds. Before I knew it, more stones arrived and the flap was closed again. I hit the deck. Whatever happened now was purely about survival.

Part Three, I remembered, was about letting it all out. There were moans and whines in anticipation. I suddenly had a premonition of group hysteria tipping my own already barely controllable hysteria into a frenzied outburst; limbs torn asunder in my race for the exit, trampled flesh mashed into the blankets, hot stones ricocheting off the plastic walls and the Scottish woman’s head. The incipient whines mounted into crying, then sobbing, then high-volume gibberish as the Valley Girls explored primal screams, the German discovered her inner child, and others raved: “Need to forgive,” “Self acceptance!” “ Guilt, guilt, guilt!” “Finger painting.” (Huh?) “Maniacal laughter!” prompted my neighbor. “Please don’t!” came my only muffled contribution. Impressionable to the last, the group started laughing like oxygen-deprived hyenas. In rising desperation, I stuck my fingers in my ears and burrowed my forehead deeper into my towel. Slick legs and damp clothing hemmed in my blindness and my lungs struggled to fill with the mixture of heat and sweat and steam. “Now imagine you are 2 feet in front of yourself,” said our guide (not easy, given the dimensions) “and you’re seeing all your beauty and talents.” “I love you!” said a very convincing voice in my ear, until I realized she was talking to a separated version of herself. “Now give away those talents to the universe!” warbled the voice of our chief tormentor. “I give away my poetry,” she started us off. I can only imagine, I thought ruefully. Hopefully, the universe will find some appropriate receptacle for it. “I give away my intelligence, my beauty, my compassion,” chirruped the others in turn. Not much left for me. “I give away my ability to find humor in extreme situations,” I said from between clenched teeth, “and my desire for new experiences!” That one I didn’t want back. Hanna growled in the corner. Whatever she was giving back included whole migrations and enough wackiness to sustain several Old World mental health systems. The ringing in my ears had started a dance with the darkness, swirling in red and black patterns. My heart was jumping against my collarbones. “Open the flap,” Scottie commanded. This time there was no hesitation. “Girl coming through!” I shouted. “Oh stay!” pleaded one of the ninnies. “You can’t leave before the blessing!” remonstrated the High Priestess of the Back Yard. “Sweethearts, I know when I’m about to go,” I responded remarkably lucidly for someone who was nearly tearing her wet rag of a dress in her desperate attempt to climb over bodies and crawl for the flap, “I’ll spare you the drama.” “Thank you!” said one of the Valley Girls, sweetly. “Close the flap!” issued the draconian voice. Our janitor duly sealed the flap as I took my last look at the prone forms steaming gently in the dark interior. I lay back in a deck chair and tried to get oxygen into my beef jerky head. As the leaves of the surrounding trees came into focus, I avowed my preference for ‘the everyday spiritual.’ I also praised the wisdom of the universe that with my low blood pressure I was born Catholic, not Native American. The sound of women’s voices floated from under the pile of blankets: “Spirit of the wild woods.” “ I am.” “Spirit of the rushing wind.” “ I am.” I looked around for agog neighbors, but nothing disturbed the peaceful evening; evidently in Pasadena they are accustomed to chanting igloos and the servant of Hades with his glowing shovels.

I grew chilly in my wet dress and was relieved to find my towel had retained the heat of the lodge. I wrapped it around my shoulders as the last invocation to the ancestors drifted out and bore with it the imperative to “Open the flap.” The lantern light bounced off the janitor’s teeth as he helped slippery, naked women out of the lodge, to then fall spread-eagled on their towels. Some of the larger ladies reminded me of something laid out on a slab in a fish market. Our intrepid ashram Asian went behind the tree and did sun salutations, steam still rising from her head. Hanna boiled in her towel on a bench. Our solicitous janitor was instructed to pour 6 glasses of water and then seal the lodge so that our ancestors could continue to sweat. I could just imagine my father in the spirit world groaning and reminding me this was another reason he had raised me Catholic.

Once dressed and reassembled in the living room, Hanna and I resumed our position on the couch. “What did you think of the heat?” asked the Scottish Shaman slyly. (Hanna had mentioned that she was used to very hot sweats.) “Fine, if you want to tie a plastic bag around your head!” retorted Hanna. “You should really get rid of that plastic. You’re supposed to use skins so that there can be an interaction between earth and sky. I’m sure I’ve lost a few brain cells!” “Different traditions,” came a voice, “Done plenty before,” murmured another. The ashram Asian made some sort of ‘ohm’ hand gesture at her heart. I worried for her equilibrium. “Did you notice how it suddenly started to get hotter in the third round?” asked our hostess, deciding to ignore Hanna. “Yes,” agreed Miss Massage Therapy Mid-term enthusiastically, “We were giving so much out!” My interpretation inclined more to Hanna’s analysis that in fact we were all being slowly asphyxiated.

“It was interesting listening from the outside,” said the janitor, who was still hovering. “It all seemed to be one musical note.” Musical note? I had expected the next sound to be sirens. The janitor suggested we all took a turn at smoking the pipe, which I discovered from the look shot at me by our ceremonial priestess to be what was in the blanket roll beside my feet on the table. She reverently produced a 3-foot long wooden pipe, a shell, various beaded pokers and yet more sage and eagle feathers. I had heard from Hanna the call of the traditionals to return all pipes to the Native Americans (to prevent precisely this type of Native American-flavored Tupperware party) and so watched Hanna’s face for signs of impending trouble. Our presiding priestess packed the pipe with Natural American Spirit tobacco (what else?), stretched her arm to light the bowl and instructed us (with no sense of irony) not to inhale. The pipe was passed from shaky Valley Girl to shaky Valley Girl who each did a very poor impression of a smoker and actually failed to notice when the tobacco ran out. The priestess harrumphed over and with a wrist flick, stamp, and twitch of feathers replenished the tobacco. Hanna disdainfully took her turn. I declined. It was unfortunate that this could be interpreted as a statement of disunity, but frankly after nearly losing consciousness and being kippered in the sweat lodge, I was not about to contract some orally transmitted disease into the bargain.

We were told to remain seated while the pipe was packed away again and it was returned to its buckskin bag without being either appropriated by Hanna, or the subject of a furious tug of war. Relieved, I went to join the throng in the kitchen and ate copious amounts of fruit while Hanna sat morosely on the sofa. She made an abrupt move to leave. “You’ll have to drive,” she said, handing me the keys, “I feel sick.” I hurriedly shook the gargantuan hand of the would-be Shaman and thanked her for an “interesting” experience and waved to the Valley Girls, who waved cheerfully back. “I think I’ve been poisoned,” Hanna moaned in the seat next to me on our way home. “I can think of better ways to lose brain cells… Suffocated in the name of enlightenment!” She leaned out of the car door at the next stop sign: “They sodomized my culture,” she said, and spewed onto the pavement.

Copyright © 2006 Louise Godbold

Stays in Las Vegas

2006-11-28T18:55:00.000-08:00

Las Vegas was all it promised to be: hedonism on tap. My girlfriend and I took full advantage. However, there was a disturbing undercurrent which I really only understood on the second night. The whole town is run like an adult theme park, people shepherded from airport to gaming tables with possible detours to restaurants and shows, but all highly controlled by security personnel. In the nightclub I found a flashlight directed onto my toes. “If you don’t put your shoes back on you’ll have to leave,” came the gravely voice of a man with a curly wire in his ear and the shoulder span of a pterodactyl. “Excuse me, I need your towel!” screeched the bikini-clad young girl guarding the doors from the pool. An attempt to stop theft, or free titillation for the casino guests as women in wet swimwear stumble around slot machines to find the only restrooms in the complex? At night, going up to your room, another curly wire man in the generic Mafiosi suit holds the elevator door for you. The elevator camera records the results of too many banana daiquiris framed by leopard carpet and mirrors. A small security man and a very big dog wonder around to sniff out bombs (Bin Laden’s heard of the Hard Rock?) and simultaneously terrorize the Girls Gone Wild and the liquored-up young men in Fedora and Bermuda shorts who come to watch them. It was like being at a teenage party when the parents don’t leave.

In case you were confused, the primary interest of Peter Morton and the other casino owners is not your enjoyment. He wouldn’t have been able to sell his place for $770 million without keeping an eye on his investment in pool towels. At 6PM the people herders dressed in bikinis and playing-card Bermudas clear the pool area. Later, if you should stray out to enjoy the balmy air under the stars, a security man electronically rigged to People Control will politely guide you back inside to the air conditioned gaming. Waitresses magically appear at your elbow at the crap table, beside the slot machine, in line at the reception desk, while reapplying your lipstick in the restroom: “Can I get you anything to drink?” Rock music fills the space normally reserved for rational thought and budgeting. A white-feathered bra? A cigar? What I thought were table-tennis bats? Thank goodness the casino stores were at hand to reveal what I had been lacking by way of entertainment.

“There is no coffee machine in the room,” I complained to the concierge, clutching my tea bags and UHT milk. What naivety to believe that the Starbucks concession wouldn’t have seen to that. “I can get room service to bring you hot water,” the slicked and groomed young woman told me, eying my tea bags like so much contraband (perhaps the dog wasn’t for bombs, after all),“for a charge.” Seeing as the water in the mini bar cost more than my weekly groceries, I declined.

Extraordinarily, despite the inducement to party the night away (as long as it is within range of the gambling), somehow the engineering department hasn’t read the memo and sends out leaf blowers at 8AM and stations them directly below the guest windows. “Shut up down there!” cried a woman’s voice from a 12th floor window. Empty plastic daiquiri glasses rained onto the concrete. To no effect. Duly programmed, we all appeared an hour later for breakfast and (was it coincidental?) the first heavy metal track and running landing of waitresses in substantial footwear but not much else that signaled the opening of the pool.

“I would just like to let you know that this was the only jarring note in an otherwise satisfactory stay,” I complained to the concierge about the leaf blowers. “It’s mandated hotel procedure,” she explained through her nose in a less-than conciliatory fashion. My friend Hanna fared better when she complained about the lack of the promised cabana. “Don’t offer me something and then don’t give it to me!” she said, leaning her 6’1” frame over the counter. Her face was redder than ever from the sun and the blond tips to her spiky hair looked like they might just be dipped in poison. We suddenly found ourselves with a free dinner. If only Hanna had been negotiating those treaties, it might have been me growing up on a reservation. Or maybe there was a certain respect for her Native American blood in a casino town. They save the fighting for ballot initiatives.

So what did Hanna and I get up to in this Mecca of vice, this playground for those who want to let go, but lack the imagination? There was much laughter while oiling up our suntans and watching music videos on the plasma TV; gentlemen from Santa Barbara who plied us with drinks and taught us how to shoot craps; and even some tipi creeping on the last night. I would give you a full account, but you know what they say, “What happens in Vegas…”

Copyright © 2006 Louise Godbold

My Son Has A Girlfriend

2006-11-28T15:02:00.000-08:00

My son has a girlfriend. Nothing wrong with that, you say. Or you could be like my comadre, who would cross herself and say, Thank goodness he likes women.

The thing is that my son is eleven. He makes fun of Barbie commercials and reacts in disgust should I ever mistakenly buy him anything he considers “for girls.” His commentary on the fair sex usually amounts to “Eurgh!” All perfectly normal, along with mysterious objects that I have to fish out of his pockets when putting things in the wash, and a delight in imaginative stories where Arnold Schwarzenegger unleashes armies on unsuspecting Teletubbies, with all the resulting flying day-glow fur and tangled antennae.

So what, you may ask, would make my darling, perfectly developmentally correct son attractive to a fellow 11-year old, who being female is probably considerably more emotionally mature and not hung up on decapitating Teletubbies? I know he’s tall for his age, has a broad chest from a self-conscious season of nightly push-ups, his father’s smooth olive skin, almond eyes, my dark blond hair, and a certain cachet in his grade based on… based on the kind of quiet confidence that has made him a leader since kindergarten (Josh, as you’re leaving, can I be in charge now?” his schoolmates would ask when I picked him up from school), and I’m ashamed to admit it, probably also based on his cell phone which I bought him in a flush of “Yes, I can give my son what he wants,” followed swiftly by, “$100 of text-messaging!?” “I don’t care if it’s a cool ring tone, it cost me $5!” Whatever the reason, it seems Silver has found a hook upon which to hang her prepubescent fantasy of romantic love.

Silver (firm friend of Chynna and Crystal – as one wag remarked, together they made a place setting) is a gorgeous filly. I choose the word deliberately because she is long-legged, with a mane of long blond hair, and has a quickness and focus that suggests intelligence. She’s also smart enough to greet me enthusiastically every time she sees me. Her mother has the kind of looks that makes fathers miss their child scoring a goal during soccer tournaments if she should walk by the bleachers. If I had breasts like that my life would have been different. Silver’s father occasionally comes to pick her up. Her parents are not together. My amateur psychology divines that Silver wants male attention and so in her hapless, romantic, vulnerability, has picked my son.

– My son who loves computer games, soccer, a good dinner followed by ice cream, laughing with his mates and skipping a shower if he can get away with it. What on earth possesses Silver to believe that my son could possibly have the emotional capacity to respond to her complicated, delicate heart? That he could hold her, heal her, make her whole? But wait a minute, doesn’t that sound familiar? Why do I, at 44, still hold out the hope that I could find a man who would gaze deep into my eyes and not be thinking about either bed, dinner or escaping to be with his friends? Do not most males of my acquaintance like nothing better than computer games, soccer… You take my point? Easy to pity the feeble romanticism of a preteen girl until you realize she is only mirroring the same fantasies we still live with in middle age when we’re old enough to KNOW BETTER!

Personally, I blame Pretty Woman and all the Hollywood fluffy, feel-good, marry to live happily-ever-after movies for encouraging us to inhabit this imaginary world where Josh sees Silver as anything other than an alien life form, and men in limousines pick up hookers for anything other than anonymous sex. “Stop expecting someone to come rescue you!” I wish I could print it in every teen magazine, alongside the make-up tips and “My Best Friend Stole My Boyfriend” stories. If only Julia Roberts would tackle the role of Annie Oakley, she could save generations of teenage girls to come.

Copyright © 2006 Louise Godbold

Hyacinths

2006-11-28T14:58:00.000-08:00

Arranged in pews
bells neatly lacquered
rinsed in old rose
lavender
and faded blond

nodding a scent
of handbag interiors
redolent
of Max Factor
and hairpins

the hyacinths
huddle by the automatic door
sniffing in seniority
over the brazen tulips
and tightly coiled rose.

Copyright © 2005 Louise Godbold

Woman Eating Ice-Cream

2006-11-28T14:34:00.000-08:00

In a corner of the ice-cream parlor
she sits
in self-conscious consumption
one hand resting
awkward on her thigh

Her mouth opens wider
than strictly necessary
the spoon tethered by her lips
as if performing for an invisible
camera
or being monitored
by the drip police

A guilty pleasure
I wonder
noting a spreading stomach,
or the painful loneliness
of those who swallow enjoyment
like a pill
with no company
to wash it down

She has the look
and Jesus sandals
of Catholic lay clergy
hair tight
in a gray ponytail
dressed in a uniform
of faded blue

There go I
but for my hairdresser
and the slight hope
that keeps me
from double scoop sundaes
and nervous acts
of self love
and self loathing
on an empty afternoon

Copyright © 2006 Louise Godbold

Little Bird

2006-11-27T19:29:00.000-08:00

“I am getting better, aren’t I?” she asks repeatedly.
“Yes, yes of course,” I reassure her, taking in the puffy bags under the eyes and the frail body, trying not to cry with her. Camille is out of danger, her tumor is not growing, is unlikely to metastasize, and she should be on the road to recovery. Should be, except that in the weeks, months now, since her surgery her progress has been slow. In the first weeks she sat flapping her arms to a yoga video while I took on the full aerobic “warrior” sequence, until we both collapsed in laughter. She took short walks to the top of the hill where the Chavez Ravine drops away into the dusty tops of palm trees. We went to the beach, where she sat on a sun bed until the October sun slanted low across the ocean. The scar at her hairline is just a pink patch as if she had been reading with her head propped on her hand. But something is wrong. Something defies every empirical reason for hope by the very weight of its presence.
“Do you think you could prepare the salmon?” she asks. I jump up from my computer, suppressing a slight irritation at the chatelaine that comes out in her every now and then. So much for writing my report. Fortunately, one of my more recent culinary adventures (they number about two a year) was poaching salmon. This time I was prepared, once set in motion, sprinkling dill and chopping cucumbers for all I was worth, a blizzard in the kitchen, emptying the dishwasher with my feet, opening cupboards with my nose, closing the refrigerator door with my behind, dazzling myself with my speed and efficiency, until, voila! Poached salmon on a bed of herb greens with a white balsamic vinaigrette. “You should be a chef,” said Camille when I brought it out to her in the garden. Wait until she sees the wrecked kitchen, I thought. That’s how I’ll spend the afternoon of not writing my report.
We sit in the mild sunshine, the leafy bamboo canes clacking against each other with the sounds of a village cricket match. She prods at the scraps of salmon with her fork, both of us interested in the plate, neither of us remotely concerned with eating. Her other hand is clasped to her clavicle, kneading. I know that feeling, that welling, choking feeling that lives right there: It is a sentry that will not permit any color to pass into the heart or any clarity to filter into the brain. It sits right there, pressing down, eliciting great sighs as we try to breathe through it, squeezing up fountains of tears and the wide cat yawn of high-pitched misery.
“It’s normal,” I say, stealing the favorite French expression. “You are probably just processing all the trauma, the fear surrounding your diagnosis. At first you were insulated by shock, but it’s natural that you would have to work through it, cry your way through to the other side.” “It’s probably the meds, it’s such a tricky business getting the right balance.” Or, “You are probably feeling the strain of both you and Steven needing support and being unable to provide it to each other.”
“Thank you,” she says, as I offer each rational explanation, then sighs a big sigh. The sighs continue as I bring order to the kitchen, put on a load of laundry, and pack up my bag. I leave to pick up the boys, her sighs echoing in my ears; my last view is the back of her head in a round chair, burgundy cushions rising to cradle her, a broken little bird.

© Copyright Louise Godbold

The World According To Grandad

2006-11-27T17:19:00.000-08:00

Dear Sis,

I just wanted to share some of the wisdom imparted to me by Grandad today. He asked if I had heard your news. "Yes, she's expecting," I said, hoping that was the news he meant and I hadn't let the cat out of the bag. "She and Richard built up some compost, did some lovemaking and now there's a baby." "Excuse me?" I said, wondering if he thought I didn't have a grasp of the birds and the bees, or if his great age had addled his brain.

"I knew this bloke once, who came to me because he and his wife couldn't have children. He said he and his wife had regular sex (Grandad, talking about sex!!!) but no babies. I told him: "Don't go near her for 3 weeks, then do your business and it's guaranteed to work." It did too! Afterwards, he and his wife wouldn't look me in the eye; thought, "This old boy knows too much." See, being an animal breeder (oh God!), you know about these things."

Well, seeing as your youngest is now 6, I guess Grandad believes you had built up very good compost indeed! I had better be careful. My uterus must be the human equivalent of Miracle Gro™.

While I was still trying to digest Grandad’s views on your fertility, he started on a new tack: "When you're 50 it's all over. Then any looks you might have had are gone and you become, well let us say, obese. People will think any of your ideas are antiquated." Mistakenly believing that Grandad was talking in the abstract and wanting to make a joke, I said: "Well, that means I only have 6 years to go!" But to my horror I realized he was speaking directly to me. "I only say this as your grandfather. If you had a father I'd refer you to him, but he's gone now." I gave my belly a quick check: round, yes, obese, no. And no one's been digging over the compost, so I should be fine.

Of course, I should have realized that no phone call could pass without the lecture and the subtle or not-so-subtle enumeration of Reasons Why I Should Come Back To Britain, which were:

1) Global warming (it was as hot as California in the summer)
2) Good opportunities as evidenced by cousin Clare getting a good managerial position and her husband going to work for the police force
3) Being able to find a house near the post office and shops (does he think LA doesn't have those?)
4) My family loves me (this is the point I always cry, along with his references to Dad and how much he always respected him)

Just when I thought I'd heard everything, Grandad then decided to close on an exhortation: "You know, you've got good genes. All our family is respectable, hard-working, honest, dyslexic..." (Dyslexic? Was he confusing the word with something else? What could it be? Anorexic? Apoplexic?) "...You see, being dyslexic we have original ideas because our brain works differently to other people's." Then I figured it out: Aunty Vicki's doing fundraising for the dyslexia charity - she must have done a very good job in educating him on the cause and maybe overcompensated a bit for the fact that indeed many of our family are lousy spellers and some of us get our words jumbled up, and not just when we're drunk.

So there you have it! The world according to Grandad. At 91 may I be as lucid, healthy, and dyslexic.

Lou

Copyright © 2006 Louise Godbold

Another Day in Paradise

2006-11-25T19:35:00.000-08:00

What will I discover? I wonder, as I am buzzed through the metal gate. Images of drooling patients shuffling around in carpet slippers or deranged men with long hair and a penchant for blondes. I tell myself off firmly. I’ve worked in a mental hospital, complete with restrainers (otherwise known as straitjackets) for patients who would otherwise bite the nose off other patients in the night, and enough feces to make motherhood when it came, a breeze. So what am I frightened of? After all, this is only a private mental health facility. I have already encountered most of the serious lunatics in Los Angeles when I worked on Skid Row or traveled on the buses.
I wander between low, modern buildings with curtains at the windows holding my vase of peach tulips. The grassy pathways and quiet institutionalism remind me of college dormitories during exam time. A groomed woman with a badge around her neck flashes a curious smile in my direction. Time to look collected.
A series of polite signs direct me towards security. I descend carpeted stairs to a sunny desk where a white-haired security guard laboriously copies my name into the visitors’ book. If he has this much trouble with Godbold, I can only imagine what he is going to do with Gabriel de la Broderie. “Camille G?” he asks into the telephone. “She just got out of group,” he says to me. “It’s snack time, so she’ll be over at the cafeteria,” and hands me a blue paper VISITOR sticker. First, he instructs me, I have to relinquish the vase (no glass), and transfer the tulips into my wide-necked water bottle.
“Should I give you my cell phone?” I ask, spying the long list of forbidden items on a sign behind him.
“No, just turn it off.” Fortunately, I have not brought razors, penknives or an AK-47 rifle with me, so I am allowed to proceed. However, should I have any of those items stuffed in my bright orange purse, the benignly smiling guard would be none-the-wiser.
I bound up the stairs with a sense of victory. Official visiting hours are 7-8pm, and I was expecting just to drop off the goodies I brought for Camille at the nursing station and maybe manage a wave hello. Steven said she didn’t want visitors, so I am taking a risk by crashing her snack time. I’ll just leave the gifts and disappear if she doesn’t want to see me, I reason.
The hallway is filled with flower paintings, on a par with the ones I see drying on the line at the preschool – art therapy, no doubt, or possibly some famous modern artist who has progressed from riding bicycles over his paper. The open lounge is deserted apart from an overweight lady in pink, who investigates the coffee table with determination. Ah, one of the patients, I think, until a side door opens and the ‘group’ spills out. “I’m waiting for him,” says the pink lady, and points at an elderly gentleman who is looking around for escape. I suppose I should explain the presence of me and my now-drooping tulips to the gentle, white-haired lady who appears to be the leader of the group, but I hear “Louise!” and Camille is hugging my neck.
“Let’s go outside,” she says, heading for the glass doors to the patio.

The sun burns through my long-sleeve T-shirt, but Camille seems not to notice the heat in her black sweater. She sits with her feet on the bench and sinks her teeth into one of the organic apples I brought. Suddenly, I feel awkward. What am I doing here? Maybe she really doesn’t want visitors. Maybe I have overestimated the depth of our friendship and she sees me as a curious hanger-on, or worse, an interfering busybody. On the day she was admitted she left a tearful message thanking me for looking after the boys. “I love you!” she finished, her voice breaking. I had to sit in the school parking lot with my hand to my chest, trying to calm myself before facing the boys. “She’s just having a feeling. It’s just a feeling; it won’t kill her. She’s okay.” Now her face is turned to mine, glancing up every now and then to read my expression, but there is no sadness, only weariness and resignation in her eyes.
“I always feared I would end up in a psychiatric hospital, but now I’m here, it’s a relief.”
“How so?”
“Because I don’t have to worry about figuring out the meds and I’m not sitting at home staring at all the things that need to get done.”
Everyone is very “sweet,” she continues. The nurse took away her fruit when she first came in, but let her keep her toiletries. “They eat so freaking early!” she exclaims, “Eleven thirty for lunch.” I sympathize. In England ‘elevensies’ are the snack we have at eleven o’clock to keep us going until lunch. But then we are not in England, not even in Europe, and the agriculturally derived customs of our adopted country prevail. I have done my seditious part by supplying her with apples and organic raisins; now we contemplate how to arrange them under the magazine and greeting card so the nurse won’t see them. A man appears at the glass doors, dressed in jeans and a sweater, badge flapping at his chest. “Camille!” He sees us at the table: “Oh, you have a visitor,” and retreats.
“He’s nice!” I say and then we both giggle as we hear the, “And cute!” in my voice. “I think I’m having a turn,” I goof, “You’ll have to admit me right away!” Our laughter dies away and I become awkward again. Sitting in the sun and the silence we could be co-workers hanging on past the end of lunch break to enjoy our last moments of freedom, if not for the 6-foot iron fence that hems the view of a distant downtown and County jail.
“What should I tell the girls?” I say, curling the last vowels in an affectation of an American accent.
“Tell them what you like,” she replies, flatly.
“I mean, about visiting.”
She tells me she would like visitors, an injection of the “outside world.” I ask about the schedule, wondering if there are other opportunities to steal a visit during the day.
“They wake us up at 6:30, breakfast at 7:30, then they take us for a walk.” I cock an eyebrow. “Around the parking lot,” she grins ruefully. At least this is more like the old Camille; she is tired, a little anxious, depressed even, but she has a sense of irony and an edge of defiance that lends her dignity. She might have to be in this place, but she doesn’t have to like it. That’s my girl! “Well, I guess I’d better get back up to find out about the evening schedule,” she says. I glance at my illegally illuminated cell phone: It’s 3:30pm; almost time to put the cows in the barn and go to bed.
She relieves me of all my quarters for the payphone and gives me a letter to mail to her grandmother. The letter was the goal she set for herself in morning group, she says, making a face. I bounce towards the gate, lighter without my gifts, as she slowly makes her way back through the glass doors, booty hidden in the gift bag and clutching a polystyrene cup of chamomile tea.

The gate clangs behind me and I stop to turn over the envelope in my hand. It is covered in spidery handwriting and has no return address. I wonder what her grandmother in the ritzy first district of Paris will make of the contents, if she will be able to imagine this ‘mental health facility’ clinging to a hill among the whitewashed apartment blocks of Chinatown, where a bran muffin is considered health food and the male nurses all look like film stars. I wonder if she too has misgivings about demented roommates and lunatics perched on windowsills. It’s okay, I want to write on the flip side, Tout va bien. Your granddaughter is actively resisting paradise.

© Copyright Louise Godbold